En Passant

This was one of the two most popular articles on my blog. Here is a snippet explaining where it came from.

The following was drafted by radical left Marea Socialista (Socialist Tide), a tendency within the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) that Chávez led until his death. The statement–which lists Carlos Carcione, Stalin Pérez Borges, Juan García, Zuleika Matamoros, Gonzalo Gómez and Alexander Marín as coauthors–takes stock of the current situation. It can be read in Spanish at full length on the Aporrea.org website. It was translated into English by Todd Chretien and is reproduced here from Socialist Worker US in a condensed version.

This article is one of the reasons I resigned from Socialist Alternative. I defended it from 30 October until 15 December when I found out, at the National Conference of the organisation, that ‘we bullshitted [about the demo] but got away with it.’ I felt betrayed that the organisation would lie to the working class and to its own members.

Here is a link to the the very popular pre- and post-15 December bullshit article Victoria Police viciously attack student demonstration.

The election of the Abbott government in September 2013 marked the logical conclusion of Labor’s six years of neoliberal reign and handover from one neoliberal government to another.

Here is a snippet from an article re-posted from Red Flag which talks about how to wipe the smile from Abbott’s face.

A clear and decisive victory by our side in defence of Medicare could force the extreme neoliberals currently in government back into their lairs for a while.

Demonstrate in defence of Medicare at Sydney Town Hall 1 pm Saturday 4 January

The increasing demonisation of the enemy within serves a purposes – to tighten State control over working people.  Here is a snippet from this very popular article on the State coming for bikies first.

This re-post of an article from Red Flag comes in at number six on my top ten most read articles for 2013. It is kind of ironic given that one of the reasons I resigned from Socialist Alternative is its de-politicisation, represented by F**k Tony Abbott T-shirts. On the other hand the crackdown on people wearing these T-shirts is much more dangerous.

Capitalism is such a sick system today that it cannot provide free or even adequate health care to all those who need it. Right now our side should be shouting ‘Abbott, get your hands off Medicare’ and organising the fightback. We struck in 1976 to defend Medibank. We can do so again today to defend Medicare.

We socialists are not and cannot be fundamentalists. We are scientific socialists and Marxism is the science of proletarian revolution, not the unthinking repetition of sacred texts.