En Passant

The most impressive one-day rally, even backed by strike action, will not be enough to stop the Liberals. Only a sustained campaign of protests and strikes can do that. But the biggest possible turnouts to the 12 June events, and a big turnout to the union protests called for Melbourne and Sydney (and hopefully other cities) on Sunday 6 July would be important steps, showing that our side is serious about a fight.

The last 30 years have not been a battle between two different political ideologies but a Mafia family dispute over how best to rob the rest of us for the benefit of the whole gang. That is one of the reasons why calls for an election now, especially one solely brought about by parliamentary game playing, are misguided. Replacing one set of neoliberal politicians with another set won’t address the problems or the systemic drivers forcing the parliamentary cretins to manage society in the interests of capital. The mafia dons of Labor are still mafia dons.

We can force the government and Fair Work on to the back foot today if one of the few unions that really fights for its members were to lead strikes against the bosses’ attempts to destroy workers through its Budget and through Fair Work action against workers who have gone on strike. A call to strike to bust the budget and defend striking unionists could inspire workers across Australia. Light the fire. Stop work to stop the bosses’ Budget. Stop work to defeat the attacks on building workers.

The next time someone tells you protests don’t work and lose public support, you have an easy answer. Christopher Pyne has already begun the first small steps to backing down and the student protests have overwhelming public support. To beat the Free Budgeteers we need to increase the passion and the protests and begin organising strikes.

The 2014 Abbott-Hockey Budget has managed to unite millions against the Young Liberals Student Club currently in government. Socialist Alternative has been active in organising the fight against their bosses’ Budget. That is why they are under attack from the likes of Pyne. Who would you believe? Christopher Pyne or Socialist Alterantive?

The demonstrations and meetings against the Budget over the last week are an encouraging sign. Are we witnessing the end of the age of entitlement and the beginning of the age of resistance? We on the left need to be arguing for and helping rank and file workers and others to organise demonstrations and strikes in the fight against the bosses’ Budget.

The anger among workers and others against the Budget is palpable. Waiting 2 years for a new election won’t protect the poor, pensioners, the sick, the disabled, the unemployed and workers. Electing neoliberal Labor certainly won’t.

Strikes can stop Abbott and Hockey now and prevent a possible apocalypse of attacks in a few years. Stop work to stop the bosses’ Budget.

There will be a minority of workers and others who are being forced by the current Budget attacks to understand that if you don’t fight you lose and that striking is the best way to fight. If that is the case then it is our task to talk to that minority and show them by our arguments and activity that our vision for action now and for the future is the way to win the current fight and the ultimate goal, a truly democratic society in which production occurs to satisfy human need.

Stop work to stop the bosses’ Budget.

‘Let them eat cake’ can’t be too far away.

This is the link to my pre-Budget 30 minute interview on Tuesday 13 May with Sharon Firebrace on Razor Sharp. I basically argue this will be a Budget of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. And that is how it has turned out.