En Passant

The point isn’t to bury our arguments, but to learn how to make them while operating in political arenas that aren’t just our own if we want to win people to more radical politics. Revolutionary socialists have a long and rich tradition of building united fronts, which seems more real now that 3 million people were in the streets.

We must do a better job at facilitating debate, discussion and argument so that we talk about how to build the kind of movement we want. But endless social media critiques with no commitment to diving into that struggle for the kind of movement we want is not a serious approach.

There are literally millions of people in this country who are now questioning everything. We need to open up our organizations, planning meetings, marches and much more to them. We need to read together, learn together, be in the streets together and stand up to this assault together.

First they came for Aboriginal people
And I did not speak out
Because I was not Aboriginal

In Independent Australia (IA) I discuss the political and economic conditions underlying the rise of “Hansonism”.

Protesters filled the streets of Paris on the eve of the United Nations Cop21 climate change summit–despite president Francois Hollande’s best attempts to keep them away writes Dave Sewell in Socialist Worker UK from Paris.

I have read a few letter in newspapers recently drawing reactionary conclusions from the terrorist attacks in France. These include one which said if there were a terrorist attack in Australia it would be the fault of all we bleeding hearts. Here is my response to this drivel.

This is the youtube link to my 10 November interview with Sharon Firebrace on Razor Sharp. We discuss tax, including the GST, poverty and inequality, and the need to fight against neoliberalism and austerity.

The real extremists sit in Canberra and in the board rooms across the country. It is not Karen who invaded Iraq, or Afghanistan. It is not Karen who is bombing Syria. It is not Karen killing black men and women in custody. It is not Karen driving Aboriginal people off their land to open it up for big mining companies. It is not Karen killing women in relationships or doing very little about it. It is not Karen increasing inequality and poverty in Australia. It is not Karen attacking Medicare. It is not Karen attacking penalty rates and wages. It is not Karen who is stopping equal love. It is not Karen locking up and abusing thousands of innocent people on Manus Island and Nauru.

Just as changing Liberal leaders won’t change the fundamentals, neither will dumping Shorten for a fake leftie like Albanese or Plibersek, or promoting a smooth right-winger like Tony Burke.

There is a message for activists and socialists in the fall of Abbott. It wasn’t Labor who defeated him. It certainly wasn’t Shorten. It was those Aboriginal, education, refugee, Medicare, feminist and other activists, the gay community and their supporters, the teachers, nurses, public servants, wharfies, building workers etc etc etc actually fighting against Abbott and his rotten policies and sending a message to the wider community about Abbott’s rotten policies and the fact you could reject them and resist them.

It is the same message we need to develop in fighting Turnbull’s neoliberalism and that of whoever is leading Labor at the next election. On to the streets to fight for equal love, against the closure of remote communities, against climate change, to free the refugees, for women’s liberation and so on. Close down our workplaces to defend jobs and wages.

Many of my readers will be hoping for a Jeremy Corbyn in Australia to move the Labor Party here to the left. There is no Corbyn in the Parliamentary Labor Party. The Labor left, such as it is, is thoroughly imbued with the logic of neoliberalism. In the main it is a tribal allegiance rather than an ideological ferment of ideas to challenge capitalism. You never hear the S word from these very models of a modern major general of capital. None of the possible contenders for Corbyn down under have the same track record as Corbyn in opposing austerity or fighting against social and political injustice. Indeed people like Albanese and Plibersek have been Ministers in Labor governments that have implemented neoliberal policies and attacked public services and workers’ rights and conditions. They are part of the very problem Corbyn is fighting against.

Germany will on current estimates take 800,000 refugees this year. Germany and Australia are comparable rich countries. Germany has not quite four times Australia’s population. So why aren’t we talking about Australia taking 200,000 refugees this year? We used to take that if not more migrants. We could do it easily.