Fozz I agree fear is not an organising tool. And SJF I agree all is not gloom and doom. Workers have in the past built fighting organisations in the most horrible circumstances - eg illegality, repression, physical attacks (including shootings), casualisation, depression. We can do so again, but we are I think starting from a very small base. The number of people with ideas like ours - the need for strong unions prepared to fight (in this climate) to defend wages, conditions and jobs is fairly small.

Trotsky did a good analysis of the preparedness of the working class to fight, saying it was not one to one with recession,depression etc, because that is when workers are at their economic weakest and fear stalks the class. It may be in an upswing that confidence returns. And underlying that is the recent history of the workers movement in each country and internationally. In Australia there has been no sense of real struggle since 1983 (apart from some blips like the pilots - failed - and the maritime unions - ultimately failed) so the experience and the reality of successful struggles is not there to draw on.

One of my former comrades used to run a radical Melbourne tour (and he may still do so. Don't know.) Who wrote the Brisbane book? I might know them.

"It may be in an upswing that confidence returns"

Yep - confidence, and anger about how they were treated in the hard times and a desire to win back what was stripped from them.

I hope.

Passy

'Radical Brisbane' was multi-authored, but Raymond Evans (a UQ historian) and Carole Ferrier (UQ feminist academic and Prof. of English) were the editors. Evans contributed about 20 of the essays and, IMO, it's his vivid style that makes the book so readable. (It also helps if, like me, you happen to love the place.)