En Passant

I wrote an article about Abbott back in August 2012. Recent events seem to confirm my analysis. Here is a snippet. The bosses will welcome an Abbott victory. Buffoons can make good leaders for them, as Ronald Reagan and George W Bush showed in the US context. But 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 leader of the Opposition and his by and large unremarkable front bench if they win, as they will, the next election.

Ben Hillier has written an excellent and informative article on West Papua in the latest Red Flag. He says for example: The number of dead has mounted during Indonesia’s 50-year occupation. Sydney University researchers John Wing and Peter King estimate that at least 100,000 have been killed. Exiled independence leader Benny Wenda claims that the number is half a million. They are victims of what has been called slow-burn genocide.

It’s a lockout, a sit in, a picket writes Jerome Small in Red Flag. It’s a rolling conversation. It’s woodsmoke, and chairs that fall apart. It’s the most ordinary thing that could happen, on an ordinary street, in an industrial suburb, in any city you care to name. In an ordinary, everyday way, it has paralysed the Australian operations of one of the biggest corporations on the planet.

It’s a lesson that I never get tired of learning. When workers stop working, it’s the most powerful thing on Earth.

The lockout, sit in and picket continues at International Flavours and Fragrances, 310 Frankston-Dandenong Road, Dandenong South. See Red Flag and the National Union of Workers facebook page for updates.

Mick Armstrong writing in Red Flag (before news of the coalition with the anti-austerity but racist ANEL party):

In and of itself, SYRIZA’s electoral victory won’t be sufficient to reverse the austerity measures. SYRIZA will face ongoing opposition and sabotage from every section of the Greek and European establishment: the bankers, the media moguls, the heads of the public service, the judges, the police chiefs and the army generals.

SYRIZA will only be able to implement its program in the face of this concerted opposition by mobilising its working class supporters in determined and ongoing struggle on the streets and in the workplaces.

I think Abbott knows that politically he is a dead man walking and has decided to release his inner reactionary. That may well explain the enquiry into workplace relations (code for bringing back the highly unpopular vote losing Work Choices) which at least most of the ruling class want. But knighthhoods, and one for Philistine Phil? Seriously? No sensible member of the Australian ruling class sees that as in any way desirable or defensible and it destroys the ‘we are all in this Budget fixing together’ lie they are trying to promulgate. This latest blunder, one of such magnitude, shows how isolated from and toxic to the public Abbott is and may see him soon rolled. How much longer can the Liberals hang on to and with this buffoon? How much longer will the ruling class put up with their idiot? Not much longer I suspect.

From Socialist Alliance, and Socialist Alliance Councillor Sue Bolton. And this from Emerson Li, Socialist Alternative member. ‘Making history! Invasion Day protest takes over Australia Day parade!’ Invasion Day marchers in Canberra  

Why this exceptionalism from the West for the brutal regime in Saudi Arabia? Why this fawning over a bloodthirsty and medieval dictator? Oil. Oil prices. Arms sales. Petrodollars. And despite its support for terrorism the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia is one of the strongest supporters of the US. They have common enemies, like Iran. Saudi Arabia provides ‘stability’ in the region. In other words the dictatorship keeps or helps keep the pro-US status quo. That is why flags are flying at half mast around the world, including here in Australia, for this butcher.

  Van T Rudd 2015.

The aim of this paper is to provide readers with an insight into Marx’s methods as a first step to understanding income tax more generally but with specific reference to Australia’s income tax system. I do this by introducing readers to the ideas about the totality that is capitalism, appearance and form, and the dialectic in Marx’s hands. This will involve looking at income tax as part of the bigger pi…cture of capitalism, and understanding that all things are related and changes in one produce changes in all. Appearances can be deceptive and we need to delve below the surface to understand the reality or essence of income and, hence, of income tax. Dialectics is the study of change. By developing an understanding of the processes of contradiction and change in society, the totality, we can then start to understand income tax and its role in our current society more deeply. To do that, we need to understand the ways of thinking and approaches that Marx and others have employed. Only then, armed with the tools we have discovered, can we begin the process of cleaning the muck of ages from the windows into the soul of tax and move from the world of appearance to the essence of tax.