En Passant

It’s not that hard to understand why republicanism is at a low ebb writes Corey Oakley in Red Flag. Once long ago the banner of republicanism was raised by rebellious democrats, heroes of popular power and enemies of the establishment. Today the “republican movement” is a plaything of a section of a political elite that is despised and discredited in the eyes of most of the population.

During Obama’s trip, writes Ashley Smith in Socialist Worker US, you’ll read a lot about something you may not have heard much about: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP is a trade agreement-and-much-more–the economic component to U.S. imperialism’s response to China, meant to draw together other Asian countries in a U.S.-led economic bloc that excludes China. As much as aircraft carriers and military bases, the TPP is a weapon of U.S. imperialism.

This is powerful investigative reporting from the ABC’s Four Corners on the Manus ‘solution’. Watch this 45 minutes of sheer hell about what our Governments do to asylum seekers. Here is the link to the Four Corners report.

Let’s be clear here. Australia’s budget deficit is around ten percent of GDP, a very modest amount compared to other developed countries, and half of it a consequence of Abbott government decisions. Australia is a low tax and a low spending country. If we moved to the average tax rate of OECD countries we’d raise about an extra $100 billion a year. It is time not just to chant tax the rich but to mobilise around it as part of a wider push for socially progressive policies on jobs, the environment, indigenous Australians, asylum seekers, gays and lesbians, public health, public education, public transport, disability, pensions, child care and the like.

Those demanding “modernisation” of the Australian Labor Party want a party like the Democrats in the United States writes Rick Kuhn in Red Flag. Shorten’s reforms reinforce the long term trend towards such a party, in which union officials have minimal influence but union funds are gratefully received, and party leaders don’t need to spend much time justifying their actions when they sink the boot into workers.

The situation for LGBTq people in Uganda is critical: they can be subjected to discrimination, harassment, blackmail, eviction, physical attacks and even, in some cases, murder.

The bosses have grown fat on our labour. It is time we put them on a diet with a 30 hour week and retirement on the average wage at 60. Maybe they’d have to cut back on their Grange a bit. Or god forbid pay a little more tax, which for many would be the totally new experience of actually paying tax.

ANZAC Day, the supposed symbol and celebration of the ‘nation’ denies this most obvious truth – Australian society was founded on the genocide of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders and that genocide continues today. Let’s unite and fight to stop the brutal war against Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders now.

I shall walk to the beach
With the sun before me
And an old man beside me
Past yesterday’s coffee shops
And tawdry trees of better days
Where young women in bikinis
Spark memories of waves and riding
Where sand clasps the toes
Screaming do not go
And salt invades the nose
Weighing heavy as the sea invites us in
It’s almost ‘where you bin?’

Here is the link to my 30 minute interview with Sharon Firebrace on Razor Sharp on Tuesday 22 April. We discuss the forthcoming austerity Budget, fake crises and also refugees.