Mikk,

Which Julia will you be voting for?

<<Which Julia will you be voting for?>>

Who said was voting for Julia?
Who said I was voting?

http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionJ2#secj22

This article reads like an undergraduate rant.
But then, as David Burchell pointed out so aptly http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/student-politicians-running-for-pm/story-e6frgd0x-1225902743487
our politics are really the sad reflection of the university campus days that so many of our career politicians (and their 'faceless men') earn their first political stripes.

If only playing in the sandpit wasn't so expensive for you and I!
Australia, in terms of both individuals and corporations, sorely needs tax relief, we surely have one of the more inefficiently governed societies on the planet.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/corporate-tax-burden-spurs-call-for-action/story-e6frg6nf-1225800970317

I am opposed to Abbott and his conservative social and economic views. But that is because I am opposed to conservative social and economic views, which is why I am also opposed to Labor. The ALP rules in the interests of capital. It does so sometimes moderated through the agency of trade union bureaucrats, but often against their wishes.

I think the alternative is to build a party committed to a socialist society of democracy and production organised to satisfy human need. The degeneration of the ALP into a party of the right confirms the critique of social democracy that revolutionaries make and means for me not building a more radical version of the ALP but a party that wants to tear down capitalism. I'd say to those still in the ALP or still with hope in a new social democracy to at least consider the alternative - revolutionary socialism - and to join with us in the struggles of the day - for same sex marriage, against the ABCC and jailing Ark Tribe, against the NT invasion, against the war in Afghanistan and so on.

Tristan tries to argue there is a contradiction between the ALP and the Liberals. But there is a real continuity too. In part that continuity is because of the acceptance of neoliberalism as the answer to all the problems of the world. Hawke and Keating laid the groundwork for Howard who laid the groundwork for Rudd who in turn has left a fertile field for reaction in Abbott or Gillard.

My blog makes these points in various articles, including a recent one called Labor's death agonies. http://enpassant.com.au/?p=785

John;

re: your comments - Howard paving the way for Rudd etc. As much as I would have liked to have seen deeper reform, Rudd did try and revive something akin to traditional social democracy as against neo-liberalism - which he condemned widely, including his essays in The Monthly. The NBN as a public project; stimulus payments to our poorest; partial rolling back of Workchoices; and finally attempting to take the miners on in the first place...

I understand there were critical failures elsewhere: failure to abolish the ABCC or restore rights to pattern bargaining; failure to compromise with the Greens to put a price on carbon one way or the other...

But in many ways Labor was trying to stem the tide; and tentatively challenge what had become 'the neo-liberal paradigm' - including the efforts of past Labor governments. And being a party that needs to form a majority, this is difficult stuff; carefully and strategically challenging the prevalant neo-liberal ideology - which let's face even a lot of ordinary workers have been conditioned to support.

So - it's a complex situation - but keeping the Liberals out of power still counts - for all the reasons I raise in the article...

sincerely,

Tristan

Tristan,

Is your photograph a true depiction? It has two eyes??