On Friday 31^st February I spoke at Brisbane Free University Election Eve Special: Politics, participation and the democratic process below is an edited version of the notes I based my talk on (which may diverge from what I actually said.)

• Disillusionment with ‘politics’ (mainstream/capital-parliamentary etc.) is a good thing, especially as part of disillusionment with society as a whole. It clears the ground for something else.
• Attempts to get people to reengage in politics is a bad thing.
  1. Explanations of our condition based on the virtues or vices of  politicians are mystifications

This is based on the an understanding that:

• In a capitalist society politics is subordinated to the reproduction of capitalism as a society
• In capitalism there exist conflict and antagonisms that contain the possibility of an other type of society. This is my point of orientation

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Here in part 3 of our #livingthedream election special Rob reflects on the experience of Qld Uncut and the lessons that can be learnt for social struggles for dignity and emancipation whoever wins the upcoming election.

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(Image taken from Qld Uncut Facebook Page)

First track from http://rokumusic.com

In part two of Stranger Choices we look at the concepts of anti-politics and depoliticisation and how they might help us understand the elections in Queensland. We examine the role law and order plays, the populism of the Palmer United Party and the contradictions, the promise and the problems of a very exceptional Greens candidate Jonathan Sri.

You can listen to this episode of Living the Dream here or

The articles discussed in this podcast are

Anti-politics: Elephant in the room

Policing Newman’s Crisis: Law And Order, Hegemony And The State

Here is part one of a three part ( hopefully) series about the Queensland Election. In this episode Dave and Jon talk about elections and their role in capitalism, the limitation of Left understandings of the Newman government, the link between the global crisis and debt and privatisation in Queensland and more! And we did all of this on our lunchbreak in a noisy café! Sound quality gets better in the 2nd half….

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These are the previous blog entries we talked about:

You’ve Got To Be Jo(h)king: History, The Left And Queensland

Will We Be Kicking Out Campbell Newman In Two Years?

Wolfgang Streeck How Will Capitalism End?

Workers’ Audit

Debt in the Banana Republic

This is part 1 of an attempt to examine the nature and history of “really existing socialism” and the impact this has on attempting to imagine and enact emancipatory politics today. Here I deal with how the very real violence of the party-states is used to ideologically mask the violence of the liberal order.

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