En Passant

As to your name change to Broadspectrum, asylum seekers and refugees are not some bacteria infecting the body politic. That is a label more appropriately applied to the xenophobic and racist Liberal and Labor Parties. Asylum seekers are human beings who need our compassion, not incarceration and brutalisation.

Let me add my voice to the growing chorus against the pink ball.

After Tony Abbott’s Margaret Thatcher memorial lecture to the Europeans on how to better abuse asylum seekers, and the wonderful response he got from the thoroughly reactionary UKIP and its leader, Nigel Farage, words are beyond me. This cartoon captures it perfectly.

The inaction of world leaders in the face of looming climate disaster stands in stark contrast to the determination of activists, write Michael Ware and Ragina Johnson in Socialist Worker US. Among other things they say: ‘There’s lots of reasons to doubt the resolve of world leaders – the recent failure of preparatory talks in Bonn, the lack of ambition or action by powerful governments in the past and, of course, the dismal record of previous COPs to accomplish anything meaningful. Whatever agreement is struck in Paris, it won’t do nearly enough.’ To read the whole article click here.

With news that Tony Abbott has offered himself to the international talk circuit as one of the world’s greatest minds (minuses, surely) for only US$40,000, or about A$55,000, I think I will put my hand up for some gigs at half that price. But hurry, places are filling fast. Book John now.

The ruling class won’t crush right wing extremists because it thinks it may need these fascists and racists in the future to control a resurgent working class or to help them impose massive cuts on working class living standards. In the interim the racists and fascists help keep alive and reinforce the top down racism of Labor and Liberal governments and divide workers along race and other lines at the expense of uniting on class lines. We should have no illusions in governments and understand why they don’t smash right wing terrorists but rather turn a blind eye to them. It is up to ordinary workers, unionists, the left and others to build the mass campaign and movement needed to destroy the fascists and their useful idiot fellow travellers before they can become a mass movement themselves.

Here is a very revealing video parody of the Basics card. Strong language warning. Click on the link to the video. Basically fu@#ed card

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says he’s keen on transparency but shields the rich from transparency on tax, shrouds our gulags in secrecy about atrocities in detention and tells us zip about his tax haven investments. Not good enough, says former Assistant Commissioner of Taxation John Passant in Independent Australia.

I was going to write about Joe Hockey leaving Parliament but I don’t won’t to speak ill of the brain dead.

Me in Independent Australia on Turnbull, tax, and protecting the rich from transparency.