En Passant

Given my health isn’t one hundred percent, I’ll throw the forum over to you with these thoughts:

Tony Abbott is off overseas to talk to Obama, Cameron and Hollande. No doubt he’ll impress them as much as he has impressed us.

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.

With apologies to Jeffrey Bernard, I am unwell – no, not alcohol but genuine medical issues – and will either not post anything or re-post material from other sites.

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.

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 strength of the protests has surprised the ruling class and their media mouthpieces. They thought their neoliberal project had turned and was turning young people into obedient automatons. The tens of thousands of students and others demonstrating show that the apathy is on the surface but that a spark, like the Budget attacks, can catch fire across the country. Our task as socialists is to fan the flames of resistance and rebellion wherever we can.

Meryl Antica talked recently to an asylum seeker about his life. This is his story.

I am turning this Saturday’s socialist speak out over to a poll of Australian readers.
Is the Abbott government the worst government you have ever experienced? If so why? Is Labor the answer? If not, why not?

That Henderson views the exercise by the downtrodden of their right to be heard as some sort of repression of free speech shows how thoroughly imbued he is with the right of the one percent to dominate all public discourse.

I love it when thieves fall out. The front page of The Australian today (Saturday) has analysed the tax position of Clive Palmer’s companies. They haven’t paid tax for 6 years. I am so looking forward to the Australian’s forensic analysis of the tax position of News Corpse both in Australia and globally. Black kettle […]