En Passant

Australia’s SBS News led off with the Germanwings story for 15 minutes when it happened.

Nothing so far tonight on the same channel about US ally and repressive authoritarian dictatorship Saudi Arabia bombing a refugee camp in Yemen and killing 40 civilians and injuring 250. Oh hang on. Thirty minutes in there was a one minute report in which the Yemeni President blamed the Houthi rebels for hiding in the camp and brining the bombing on themselves.

Some deaths are more important than others. Why?

Given the widespread opposition to the 2014 Budget, the one percent have drawn an important lesson from that debacle – consult with the intended victims before launching attacks on poor people and workers. That is what the tax discussion paper is about. This Damascene conversion to talking to people begs the question – is a tax shit sandwich no longer a shit sandwich if it has consultation sprinkles on top? To ask the question is to answer it. The solution to the tax and budgetary dilemmas seems pretty clear. Tax the rich.

My own view is that for the refugee movement in Australia to defend asylum seekers and to defeat the rotten, cruel, inhuman and rights abusing policies of both the Liberals and Labor we need to begin to have a discussion about civil disobedience as the next step in our campaign to free the refugees from Australia’s concentration camps here and offshore and from the hellholes in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Instead of a tax on bank accounts, how about a super profits tax on the most profitable banks in the world. Price control their offerings too.

‘The positives for me about joining Solidarity are that I have rejoined a socialist group, and am part of the struggle with others to win a new world. It is democratic and open, full of intelligent, active and, in Canberra branch anyway, young people involved in various campaigns and building them and building their understanding of the world including by working with others in the struggles of the day as best we can but also through our own education. It is such a joy to go along to branch meetings and hear the discussions and debates, all in a comradely and welcoming fashion.

For readers who may not know, two weeks ago I joined Solidarity, a small socialist organisation in Australia. The first step in explaining my decision is to explain who Solidarity are. Their ‘About Us’ section on the Solidarity Online website set out below does this well.

This is the link to my 35 minute radio interview with Sharon Firebrace on Razor Sharp on Monday 23 March. Among other things we discuss the backpedalling of this sneaky government, the genocide of driving Aboriginal people from their lands, a double dissolution and strikes and demonstrations to drive Abbott and co out and shift Labor to the left. And much much more.

If only the 24 women murdered by their partners or former partners in Australia so far this year had died in a plane crash we might hear about them and have some debate about how to address this systemic issue.

Abbott may be on the ropes, but we need more strikes, protests and grassroots resistance to fight the Liberals’ agenda and finish him off write the Solidarity editors.

Meriki Onus, protest organiser from the youth group Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance, spoke to Solidarity about the need to resist these community closures and the broader agenda of assimilation.