Yabby
We are all smart-arsed backseat drivers, and that is the right of the electorate in a democracy. What are you? Just another smart-arsed backseat driver or is that tag only reserved for whom you disagree.

My position is simple as you already know - I am not a socialist and believe in the capitalist system but not in it's unfettered form. For it to work in the best interests of the collective (that word again) it has to be tempered with some regulation so that it does not serve a small section of the community at the expense of the others. To that end a social democracy seems to work best despite the constant tweaking favouring the unfettered end of the spectrum in recent years. Unfortunately neither the ALP or the Coalition show much gumption in reversing the trend.

I would love to believe in socialism in its purest form - it sounds great but it doesn't work. The fact is human nature gets in the way and corruption and vested interests will always compete with what we would like things to be - the ideology.

You are just miffed because I don't agree with your unfettered free trade and economic globalisation perspective. :P

*or is that tag only reserved for whom you disagree.*

Yup :)

*I would love to believe in socialism in its purest form - it sounds great but it doesn't work*

Ah that greatest of human conflicts, between emotion and reason,
between what we feel and what we think. It shows in your writing
and I can actually relate to it.

So that was my point really, that our present system is not twaddle,
but the best that we have and its realistic.

They say that life experiences build character. Its perhaps because
I've been really stony broke before, that I always focus on how
the bills will eventually be paid, when people come along with
new "you beaut" schemes.

My other point is that capitalism does not have to be about forever
more, as many claim. I know plenty of people who have done ok, but
see money as nothing but a means to an end, not an end in itself.
I personally actually have very modest spending habits, because I
enjoy the simple life. That does not mean that I don't understand
it to be the one system which lets human innovation flourish and which
lets us live our lives with freedoms that no other system could
match. That is why I support it.

I have lost mates, well online mates, here and in an ACTU thread about workers rights.
Because as a unionist some think I should be socialist.
Well as a child yes,even communist, but it was a dream.
I am capitalist, best we have, one day as yabby says we may find something better not yet.
Unions, trade business are not evil self interest drives them.
yabby this thread is about a lie or knowing bugger all about the subject.
Nothing could give an informed man or woman the idea Rudd fell to a leftist plot.
Your concerns at WA sharing it wealth with us as well as overseas investors bought Rudd down.
Back seat drivers? this thread exposed some who crawl into the boot close their eyes then drive, on your side of the fence too

Pelican & Belly,

You are both members of the Unions - leave your prejudged ideals of what the loony-left is and is not (I mean the Reds, the Green-Left etc.)... For the future of the collective, the left has to be remade - not the province merely of loons and students, the left from here on encompasses what the Unions want.

We don't care about the false-boundaries protected by the factions.
WE ARE THE ALP, not the stacked to the eyeballs 'inner-City' seats, the Cambodian/Lebanese branches, or anybody else, WE (the WORKERS) are the ALP, the ones who stand on the picket lines, the ones who fight the scabs (always have been) we've simply been ignored too often. That is why so many Union Members (ie. ALP BASE TYPE WORKERS) backed Hanson & One Nation (you didn't even want our preferences, mugs).

Yeah, we are bogans, thugs, rednecks boofheads, xenophobic pr1cks, etc. We like our Country like it used to be, not full of entire suburbs like Cabrammatta, La Kemba, etc. We don't want that, we really don't care whether the Navy sinks every boat it encounters (and let the survivors provide a benefit the sharks who are being decimated by the shark-fin fishing boats). You and the rest might not like it, we really don't care, we vote and are entitled to our opinions. What we want is to be "REPRESENTED" by OUR PARTY, not sold out by it.

We don't like latte sipping "intellectuals" (particularly when we are smarter than them), but don't feel bad, collectively speaking, we really don't like many people at all. We aren't in the center however, or we wouldn't pay Union dues would we? We wouldn't support fellow unionists and pay the price, both physically and legally. Without us, the ALP CANNOT EXIST, that is why the Caucus is set up the way it is, those who bore the ALP out of the AWU ensured from the outset that we could no longer be ignored. Guess what? Time to pay the piper.

Oh dear, there must be prunes in that custard for the bad tummy effect to have shot that lot out.

I didn't realise there were any 'ordinary' members left in the ALP, so I am shocked to read of a 'true believer' on OLO.

I always thought there were only union officials and political 'advisors' keen for a job that made up the less than 10,000 members of the national ALP.

There you go, an endangered species has just been found and identified on OLO!

Amazing. Maybe Tim Winton can write a book on it?

Jack Thompson can shoot a film about it... and we can apply to the UN for a grant to keep it alive.

But if this is a genuine outburst of adoration for Queen Julia, for I am sure anyone subscribing to Custard's worldview would only be a monarchist, then what does it mean to those of us who are not 'bogans' as described so 'eloquently' above?

Perhaps a small nuclear strike here might not be so bad after all?

But who should it hit?

Without the excessive salaries of the 'latte' set there will be no one to buy the workers wares, and without the workers there will by no one to cream the excessive salaries from... we are united as never before.... seems prunes and custard will have to keep getting on together for a long time yet.

Can I feel a Bellyache coming on too?

Tell us what you really think Custard. As opposed to your pre-judged ideas. For someone despising intellectuals you share a similar superiority complex.

Don't know why you think I am a unionist, I merely pointed out that the unions had nothing to do with the leadership spill, they were the last in the pecking order to be canvassed. I see unions as an interest group the same as any other, there are some good honest people in unions as well as the politicised careerist who has lost their way.

Howes stated on one news report his support for Gillard came about because of a fear of the re-introduction of Work Choices, believing she has a better chance than Rudd of winning and an Abbott win would be to the detriment of workers.

Well Julia must be listening she is re-thinking the Big Australia policy although I suspect for different reasons than what you have put forward. These are the sorts of issues that could be put to referendum.

(What is it about the correlation between latte sipping and intellectualism. Those poor latte drinkers really need a union, they are often maligned and tagged as insignificant and ineffectual despite many of them probably being plain hard working and decent people. What about beer drinking intellectuals - I suppose they are okay.)