En Passant

Turnbull Government intervention could save the Whyalla steel works and the Queensland Nickel plant in Townsville. By occupying the plants workers could put nationalisation on the agenda.

The sacked Queensland Nickel workers could consider occupying the plant and demand Palmer pay them all out of his own wealth until money starts flowing again from refining nickel.

It is time for students, staff and the public to reclaim our Universities from the snake oil sales men and women of neoliberalism. Occupy our Universities. Close them down to win a new era in higher education.

Is there an alternative to Labor’s guided Schumpeterianism and the Liberals’ overt ‘let the market forces rip’ destruction of jobs and capital?

The Transport Workers Union has given a hint of an alternative. It has threatened strikes against QANTAS and its attempts to sack 5000 staff.

The real message from the SPC decision is that the Liberal Government wants capital to launch attacks on jobs, wages and conditions now to restore declining profit rates and to set the scene for an escalation of rhetoric and attacks when unemployment worsens, as it will in the coming months. A good response, rather than hitting their heads against a brick wall, would be for SPC workers to occupy the plant and begin producing canned fruit for free for poor people.

To stop the planned plant closures and defend jobs, to start the journey to a better world, reclaiming the spirit of 1973 at Broadmeadows and translating that into occupying the Ford car plants today offers not only a way forward but the only way forward.

We have occupied the Agora area as a symbolic place for assembly, as it represents not only the heart of the university (which these cuts threaten to rip out) but also a public space for the discussion of ideas and debate which we value so highly.

Students voted to occupy the campus with a number of students volunteering to stay overnight and indefinitely until Open Day. The collective also demanded the rejection of the proposed cuts, for the university to enter into negotiations with the NTEU in good faith, a shift in focus on saving money to saving jobs and for a redistribution of executive pay to save other jobs at the university.

Having socialists involved in the struggles of the day, socialists with an understanding of the tasks necessary to win a better world here and now and into the future and coalescing around common ideas about socialism and democracy is an important part of the ultimate success of the liberationist project.

Whatever happens from this point, Occupy has already changed the reference points of U.S. politics. No longer can the hateful, corporate-funded Tea Party claim to speak for the disgruntled majority. Working people are finding their own political voice–and they’ll no longer keep silent.

That’s why it’s so important that everyone who supports the Occupy movement get actively involved–and build the fightback.