En Passant

These are the speaking notes I wrote for a talk at a conference on the G20 and tackling tax avoidance organised by Political Economy students at Sydney Uni, Action Aid and Green Left Weekly. They bear some vague resemblance to what I said in the 20 minutes I had. I finish off with: The protests against the parasites of the G20 in November in Brisbane should be one focus. Tax the rich is a slogan we can take to those protests. Real tax change won’t come from the politicians of the one percent. It has to come from us mobilising along with the mass of people for such change as part of a wider campaigns for equity and justice economically and politically. Fighting for tax justice can be and has to be part of that national and international struggle.

This is the link to my 30 minute interview on Razor Sharp with Sharon Firebrace on 28 October. We discuss Gough Whitlam, the forthcoming election in Victoria, the need to fight back plus more.

The aim of this paper is to give readers examining emerging economies from an accounting, marketing, finance, legal or similar background an introduction to the Asian Development Model.

The Illawarra Mercury on opponents of the higher education reforms and Pyne’s supposed back down.

John Passant, of protest group UOW Uncut, said the concessions were a temporary measure designed to persuade undecided senators.

She had broken ribs, bleeding on the lungs and was in excruciating pain. Locked up for days without proper medical attention over $1000 in unpaid fines – at just 22 years of age, my granddaughter died in her cell as a result of her injuries. She begged for help.

Justice for Julieka. Sign the petition here.

Glenn Greenwald: Canada learns you don’t get to run around for years wallowing in war glory, invading and bombing others, without the risk of having violence brought back to you. Read the full article re-posted in the Stop the War Coalition here.

If Labor hacks like Albanese were serious about reclaiming Whitlam’s legacy they’d abolish university fees and loans, make universal health care a reality, abolish the gender pay gap, oppose the war in Iraq, legalise same sex marriage and take visionary action to address climate change. They’d welcome refugees, stop the Northern Territory Intervention and basics card, announce a royal commission into deaths in custody and begin negotiations with Aboriginal peoples to recognise sovereignty and pay the rent. They’d abolish restrictions on unions and the right to trike. That is just for starters.

The crocodile tears from these Labor Party hypocrites is cover for their neoliberalism. In honouring Whitlam they dishonour the reforms working people forced Gough to introduce.

It’s rare for the left to receive gifts from the establishment writes Daniel Lopez in Red Flag.

Yet the leak of Professor Barry Spurr’s private email conversations is a gift if ever there was one. And we can happily predict that this gift will keep on giving.

This is the link to my 30 minute Razor Sharp interview with Sharon Firebrace on Monday 21 October. We discuss the Liberals on the nose, Labor as the default, the East-West tunnel, ICAC, the corporatisation of democracy and much much more.

The alternative to a neoliberal ALP is not a return to a Whitlamite ‘nirvana’. First, it wasn’t a nirvana. Workers were still exploited, making all the wealth the bosses expropriated.

Second there can be no return to the halcyon days of the late 60s and early 70s because the system has aged, profit rates now are much lower than then and the long recession can only be overcome by massive economic crisis or revolution.

The first alternative is a return to the militancy of the late 60s and early 70s. Then the task is to build a fighting alternative, a revolutionary socialist organisation committed to a society based on democracy and satisfying human need.