The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > General Discussion > Is Labor doing enough in the leadup to the next election?

Is Labor doing enough in the leadup to the next election?

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. Page 3
  5. 4
  6. All
We live in an era of fear and greed where incumbent governments prosper - no matter how badly they perform.

That old saying about governments losing government rather than oppositions winning is highly relevant next year.

Bracks being returned is a good example of the above. So too Howard in the last election.

Should we see a change of leadership in the Labor Party it will need to be at the very beginning of next year at the latest - or over the next few weeks before Christmas.

Howard will run at the next election but I sense he will do this only to retire soon after (if they win). He understands that this announcement alone will be critical to perceptions of his government. Costello is not out of the picture as some like to think.

Beazley needs to go and go now for a cleaner transfer of power. But because he lacks the political acumen to understand his own fallibilities it looks unlikely that he will jump or be pushed. While I doubt that Rudd has the cut-throat skills required to overthrow Beazley he will happily let others do it.

I say watch the state premiers, they may finally see winning government at a federal level as important to the national interest – instead of their own political careers.

I live in hope, that’s all we have.
Posted by Rainier, Tuesday, 28 November 2006 11:56:00 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Rainier I think many people who voted in Victoria were shocked to hear Ted Baillieu promise to slash public service jobs.

All Victorians know people who were broken by the Kennett retrenchments and who now look forward to a far less comfortable old age than they would have if they had been able to retire at 55 when their often modest superannuation kicked in.

yes there are fat cat in the system, but the people retrenched would be the lowly clerks, technicians.

Bracks won the election with that promise from Ted.
Posted by billie, Tuesday, 28 November 2006 5:35:59 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Thanks for that insight Billie,

And I totally agree. Bracks should have won by promising these hard workers some real benefits and reparation from that which was cruelly taken from them by evil incarnated Kennett.

A lot of my good mates are those same technicians and clerks you speak of. Like me they would have had to double their super contributions ten years ago to realise a comfortable retirement.

I think the other reason Victorians didn’t vote for Ted Baillieu was because of his lousy Elvis impersonations. The bourgeoisie never understood working class cultures.
Posted by Rainier, Tuesday, 28 November 2006 7:10:22 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Ranier

Sorry, but you need to understand that Bracks didn’t make such promises because he courts and defends the exact same constituency as Kennett – the bourgeoisie. So does the whole Labor Party – State and Federal, it doesn’t matter who leads them.

Give up your hopes and illusions about the ALP, they do not represent working people, no matter how much they attempt to maintain the charade.

Consider the fact that during the election campaign, Ford announced the destruction of 640 jobs before Christmas. Did you hear a word of condemnation from the ALP? Apparently the State Government and the Unions knew it was coming long before the workers did. And what was their messsage to workers? - just accept it as the inevitable result of globilsation and market forces. Where is the defence of jobs and living standards for the working class? No-where to be found.

The ALP cannot be revived or reformed, it is a bourgeois party whose members have betrayed the working class time and time again. Essentially their role has been to channel discontented working class people back into the safety of the capitalist parliamentary system, containing and diffusing any potential revolutionary mobilization of the masses.
Posted by tao, Tuesday, 28 November 2006 8:19:27 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tao,

Nothing there I would disagree with bro and you are right to correct me for not being clearer in my assertions.

Years ago when I was a lad you could put "working class" and "Labor party" together in once sentence without raising eyebrows. It was common sense and how things were. A natural symbiosis of working class ethics mobilised through a party that was a political animal to behold.

It no longer exists.

But what does exist is the groundswell of discontentment with the Labor party. Surely this means something? The Labor party is riding on the back of the union inspired campaigns. Surely this means something?

Yes they sold us out in just about every state but if we do not believe in a resurrection of working class political credentials we might as well just give up now.

I'm not a member of the Labor party, but I’m a unionist as are many union people.

The labor party WAS the birth child of workers liberation movements –and they often forget this - I know that young Laborites believe that they (Labor party) gave rise to workers rights. They did not.

Bill Shorten pants is a good example of how the party has created a professional ruling class within its own ranks. They know the rhetoric and how to spin it.

One need only count the incestuous family dynasties in the party, both in state and federal.

But they are all we have this side of 2007 comrade.
Posted by Rainier, Tuesday, 28 November 2006 9:25:24 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Ranier,

The unions are complicit and also cannot be revived. They simply function as part of bourgeois management, helping to minimize working class resistance.

Take for example, the “Fill the G” rally, concert, protest, whatever they are calling it. What a ridiculous situation! They are using union fees to hire the MCG from Melbourne’s bourgeoisie (the Melbourne Cricket Club), where they will do nothing but tell us to vote for Beazley at the next election. They are taking legitimate working class hostility to Howard’s IR Laws, containing it within the MCG instead of taking it to the streets, and channeling it into a vote for the ALP who have a history of betraying workers. I even heard it advertised on the radio – “gates open at 7am, entry is free” as if it is some sort of party being bestowed upon us by the unions – yet it is the workers who pay for it through their union fees. Aaaaaargh! Workers will be giving up a day’s pay for this rubbish. My partner, a teacher, is pissed off because the Union has already notified the Administration of who will be stopping work so the school can make other arrangements to minimize the disruption! How useless.

Workers need another perspective, other than the faint hope that a Labor Government will make things a little less bad, and the unions are not going to provide it. As I said before, workers need to build their own party to advance their own interests – and its aim must be to overthrow capitalism.
Posted by tao, Tuesday, 28 November 2006 10:53:33 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. Page 3
  5. 4
  6. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy