En Passant

So while the reality may be, as I have argued elsewhere, that it makes no difference which Labor leader is selling us the shit sandwich of neoliberalism, in the short term it does. The swing to Labor under the newly recycled Rudd expresses workers’ hopes for a better world. Time, and the reality of capitalism, will destroy that illusion but at the moment many of us appear spell bound by the magician whose tricks give us hope.

It is false hope to be sure but it will take workers time and the experience of Rudd in power for longer than a few weeks second time round to understand that.

Rather than celebrating Obama’s renewed “commitment” to environmental action, we should recognize it for what it is: After five years of doing all he can to promote fossil fuel production, it’s the first, timid, grudging response of the U.S. state to the growing environmental movement against Obama and all that he represents: the economic, political and military priorities of U.S. imperial power.

June 30 may be remembered as another turning point for the Egyptian Revolution argues Sameh Naguib, a leading member of the Revolutionary Socialists in Egypt, in a post translated and published in Socialist Worker US. Opponents of President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood will take to the streets on the one-year anniversary of Morsi’s first day in office to call on him to resign.

Kevin Rudd is again Prime Minister. It is the same policy cart – rule for the rich – just with a different driver. There were no battles over vision, over policy, over the future; just who gave Labor a better chance at the next soon to be held election. Such is Labor’s bankruptcy that the neoliberal approach remains the same.

That bankruptcy is part of Labor’s heart and soul. Its goal is to manage capitalism. This means in the era of permanent global recession but with an Australian economy not yet in recession that Labor’s role is to slowly cut social services, control unions, keep wages in check and continue the shift of wealth from labour to capital. In doing that the ALP lays the groundwork for an Abbott government.

Kevin Rudd is once again leader of the Labor Party writes Mick Armstrong in Socialist Alternative. But the ALP remains an absolute disaster zone. Labor is still likely to face a devastating defeat in the upcoming elections – defeat at the hands of Tony Abbott, one of the most despised Liberal Party leaders ever. If Labor can’t beat a disgusting reactionary like Abbott, whose whole social outlook is completely out of kilter with the mass of workers in Australia, then it should immediately be put out of its misery.

First, Labor should, but won’t, abandon its nearly 40-year infatuation with neoliberalism. It should introduce a serious super profits tax on the mining companies, raise the tax rates on those at the top end back to where they were under Malcolm Fraser and end the concessions on capital gains.

Labor should, but won’t, lift restrictions on union rights to strike, scrap the bosses’ ability to lock out workers at will and peg the minimum wage to a decent share of average earnings.

The grassroots movement that developed through mass protests and civil disobedience hasn’t been defeated. Revolutionary civilian groups continue to run towns and communities attacked or abandoned by the regime. In the face of an increasing dynamic of militarization encouraged by foreign powers trying to shape events in Syria, these organizations are striving to exercise political control over armed groups that are increasingly subject to manipulation from abroad.

The Australian’s anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions propaganda is reaching new heights of the bizarre. The shrillness perhaps suggests the panic reaching into the heart of Zionism as the effectiveness of the campaign grows, built on the obvious fact that Israel is an apartheid state.

Panos Petrou in Socialist Worker US writes that the resistance to austerity and social crisis in Greece has united behind a workers’ occupation of the state TV and radio station ERT after the government – for the first time since Greece was ruled by a military junta – tried to shut down the broadcaster.

We’re for building a fighting union, not a lobby group. A genuine political campaign would centre on industrial action against the budget cuts.