En Passant

We the people got rid of Abbott. We can get rid of the Liberals’ good cop, Turnbull, too. But we don’t want to see him replaced in 2016 with Bill Shorten as the neoliberal in sheep’s clothing. If we don’t fight we lose. Unite and fight whoever is in charge of the bosses’ neoliberal project.

The union movement is rallying around the sacked workers at Hutchison’s on the wharves in Sydney and Brisbane. We will not be intimidated by Hutchison’s tactics – we’ve seen it all before.

Wednesday is the public sector general strike and the parliamentary vote on the Third Memorandum in Greece. There is a global call for solidarity with Greek workers striking against austerity. 5.30 pm Wednesday in every central square worldwide. Get cracking. Organise.

Alex Callinicos in Socialist Worker UK looks at the challenges facing Greece’s new left government—and the ideas behind its strategy. He concludes that revolutionary socialists should celebrate the new government’s victory and support the progressive measures it takes. But the entire Greek radical left will be judged by how successfully they promote working people’s self-organisation, confidence, and combativity. That is where the power to end austerity lies.

Why is there so little choice in Australian politics? The neoliberalism of all the parties is the surface answer; lack of class struggle the underlying answer.

Abbott’s instability, his thought bubble approach to policy, his climate denialist base within the extreme right of the Liberal Party and the looming economic crisis in Australia all make for a possible tumultuous period of rule for the current leader of the Opposition and his by and large unremarkable front bench if they win, as they will, the next election.

The key will be class struggle. How much longer can Australian workers not fight?

The lack of a real union fight against the Bligh government laid the groundwork for a vicious anti-worker Newman government. The same lack of a union fight against the Gillard government is laying the groundwork for a vicious anti-worker Abbott Government.

The time has come to stand up against the Bobbsey twins of job slashing wage cutting neoliberalism, Labor and the coalition.

As the experience in other countries shows, university staff and students can and have fought back against neoliberalism and the commodification of education. It is a lesson students and staff at Australian universities are going to have to learn if we want to stop the rule of the educational barbarians and the horrific consequences that flow and will flow from their ascendancy.

Here is a link to a draft I wrote on tax reform in Australia: a view from the left. Hit the download button to read it all. (Warning, 40,000 words.) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2076934

The players have the power to stop profits flowing to the AFL.

All they need is the will to do that and win whatever they want from the bosses.

Without labour there are no profits.

It is a lesson all Australian workers could learn.