En Passant

I have a suggestion for Labor. Abandon neoliberalism. Adopt a radical program like that which Chavez put forward. Tax the rich to improve the lives of the 2.2 million Australians in poverty and fix up the 17% gender gap. Use this money to negotiate a treaty with Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.

That of course would just be the opening salvos of a radical program to fundamentally challenge the rule of capital.  It would involve nationalising the banks, mining companies and the other big battalions of capital and massively increase spending on public health, education, transport and social payments and develop a real program to address climate change.

That of course would just be the opening salvos of a radical program to fundamentally challenge the rule of capital.  It would involve nationalising the banks, mining companies, and other big battalions of capital and massively increase spending on public health, education, transport and social payments and develop a real program to address climate change.

Under Labor’s ‘Fair’ Work laws workers can be jailed or fined for taking industrial action. Australia is still a rich person’s country.

An injury to one is an injury to all. Concerted and wide spread industrial action can smash Labor’s anti-worker ‘Fair’ Work Act and its restrictions on the right to strike.

Solidarity forever.

If Grocon wins it will be a setback for all workers. That’s why it is important for building workers to fight back in the way that has the greatest chance of success – striking and shutting down the building industry and cutting off the flow of massive profits to bludgers like Grollo and his ilk, and in doing that calling on other workers to join them to bury Labor’s anti-worker Fair Work Act.

Abbott’s instability, his thought bubble approach to policy, his climate denialist base within the extreme right of the Liberal Party and the looming economic crisis in Australia all make for a possible tumultuous period of rule for the current leader of the Opposition and his by and large unremarkable front bench if they win, as they will, the next election.

The key will be class struggle. How much longer can Australian workers not fight?

Tom O’Lincoln has just republished his wonderful book Years of Rage: Social Conflict in the Fraser Era. This is a Monet of a book in which the daub of detail creates a canvas of class conflict, stretching from Kerr’s coup through the 7 years of the Fraser Governments to the election of the Hawke Labor Government in 1983.

The way to fight Abbott is to strike against Gillard Labor and its rotten anti-working class policies.

If you were serious about representing ordinary working Australians and not big business, Julia Gillard, you’d join the Coles’ picket line at 6 am on Friday morning and mobilise the ALP and its members in Melbourne to be there to support these ordinary working Australians in their just fight against two greedy and very tough companies.

You could get a lift and an ear-bashing from Trades Hall at 6 am with Socialist Alternative.

See you on the picket line, Prime Minister.

It’s well past time we gave Abbott and The Australian the class war they say is going on. It’s well past time we gave Gillard and the bosses she rules for real class war. Class struggle is the only way to win back some of the wealth the bosses have been stealing from us and putting a more equal and just Australia back on the agenda.

The nurses’ actions, the Portuguese general strike and the Egyptian revolution won’t rate too much of a mention in the news in Australia. It’ll all be Slipper, Slipper, Slipper. This Parliamentary cretinism is a side show to the class struggle. Victory to the Egyptian revolution. Victory to Portuguese workers. Victory to Victorian nurses.

Nationalise QANTAS under workers’ control to win real wage increases and secure jobs. Tax the rich to pay for it.