En Passant

Many (including socialists and those opposed to socialism) see Cuban society as a model for socialism. But a look at its history presents different conclusions, argues Mark Gillespie in socialist magazine Solidarity. Written six years ago Mark outlines the development of state capitalism in Cuba. Another article I will post in the days to come will outline the ongoing shift in Cuba from state capitalism to market capitalism.

The Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, has once again shamed himself and disgraced his office with unsubstantiated, ill-considered and offensive claims about refugees says the Refugee Action Coalition Sydney.

The Turnbull Government has earned world-wide condemnation again for its treatment of children in detention, this time refugee children and women on Nauru. The Guardian’s leaked reports show a scale of abuse far worse than Don Dale. John Passant reports in Independent Australia.

I thought I would include some of my unpublished Canberra Times’ letters to show the degeneration of the newspaper from the Fyshwick Pravda (always an overstated claim by hyperventilating conservative politicians) to a liberal’s version of The Australian.  Of course it is not just the refusal to publish my letters. That is but a symptom of a greater disease – both the narrowing down of opinion in the paper  and a stampede to the right reflected in its conversion to tabloid form and much tabloid content, or  regurgitated Age and Sydney Morning Herald articles.

Muslims are not the cause of growing inequality, falling real wages and the increasing precarity of employment. Neither are priests, or refugees, or Aborigines, or Asians, or blacks. [Fill in your favourite target for bigotry here.] This means that, as Jeremy Corbyn, the next Prime Minister of the UK has done and is doing, the task of the left is to explain that it is the economic system which produces these outcomes. We can and must offer hope of a better world to those who in the absence of any left wing alternative might be tempted by the siren song of racism or Islamophobia or violence.

In an article written in Nation before the Olympics began, Nation columnist Dave Zirin points out that there is another side to the story of the all-refugee team at the Rio Olympics. It was re-published in Socialist Worker US. ‘We all have heard the phrases “greenwashing” when a company or government hostile to environmental issues puts up a phony front to win undeserved public support. I don’t know if “refugee-washing” is a word but maybe it should be.’

My latest in Independent Australia. The super profits of the Big Four banks continue to impact on the rest of the economy and Malcolm Turnbull’s solution of ordering them to appear before the Economics Committee is not likely to make them give up those profits.

Pauline Hanson with Australia’s most well known Nazi.