En Passant

Unlike John Faulkner, don’t waste your time on the Labor Party, a moribund organisation of time servers and careerists bowing down at the altar of profit.

Instead check out Socialist Alternative and consider becoming part of a growing movement of revolutionaries in Australia to help build the fightbacks needed today and ultimately to challenge the dictatorship of capital.

The alternative to a neoliberal ALP is not a return to a Whitlamite ‘nirvana’. First, it wasn’t a nirvana. Workers were still exploited, making all the wealth the bosses expropriated.

Second there can be no return to the halcyon days of the late 60s and early 70s because the system has aged, profit rates now are much lower than then and the long recession can only be overcome by massive economic crisis or revolution.

The first alternative is a return to the militancy of the late 60s and early 70s. Then the task is to build a fighting alternative, a revolutionary socialist organisation committed to a society based on democracy and satisfying human need.

If you want a new and democratic society where people come before profit, if you think we need a revolution of the mass of workers to win that, then you should consider joining Socialist Alternative. Unlike Labor and its puppy dog left, we welcome refugees; we don’t demonise them, imprison them indefinitely in concentration camps, or deport them to possible death, torture or imprisonment.

The real base of working class power is not in parliament or the council chamber. It is in the workplaces—not just the factories but also the offices, in unions. And it is on the streets, in the kind of movements that can put politicians of any hue under real pressure.

It is the working class that has the potential to change the world. Their power is the key to overthrowing capitalism, liberating humankind and saving our world for future generations. As part of that we always stand and fight now alongside all those who struggle for a better world. Workers deserve more than Labour can offer.

Capitalism is a system built on the blood of its soldiers, indigenous people, refugees and workers. Only overthrowing this system of death can bring peace and safety to the world.

Surely now that the complete degeneration of Labor as a party of social democracy has become clear to almost everyone else in Australia, those good people in the left of the ALP should be rethinking their approach. They should re-evaluate both their commitment to reformism and look again at the alternative, revolutionary socialism. It is to suggest they leave the ALP and join the revolutionary left or at least work closely with us.

That way we can fight together for immediate reforms, for refugees, for equal love, for better wages and conditions, in defence of jobs, for better government services together, without the left in the ALP being shackled to the reactionaries. And with the ultimate goal in mind – socialism, a democratic society where production is organised to satisfy human need.

This debate has erupted because the Greens do not accept every single neoliberal policy Labor puts forward as part of the ALP’s agenda to shift more of the wealth we create to the rich and powerful.

Labor has been spectacularly successful in achieving that, but because of the pressure of declining profit rates globally, the ALP’s ruling class masters want more, and more, and more…

The one sided class war continues in Australia and the Labor Party leadership and governments are on the, to date, successful bosses’ side. It is time for our side to fight back.

Labor’s Parliamentary Left is so wedded to the Labor Party that it will remain the apologist for and provide the cover to Labor Party reaction. It is as much the enemy of liberation and progress as the right wing.

Our task must be to build a Socialist Alternative to enable workers to challenge the rule of capital.

What’s with all these former conservative politicians back in the limelight? Is there some sort of voodoo conference on bringing these political corpses back to life?

New South Wales Community Services Minister Linda Burney has rejected a proposal to allow same sex couples in the state to adopt children. This is despite the fact that a majority of a parliamentary committee examining the issue recommended such a move go ahead in the best interests of children. The Minister said that ‘the Government is not [...]