So Custard - youre a unionist, but that's certainly not the same thing as an ALP member. Behaving like a bogan thug on a picket line is one thing, but all that makes you is a "useful idiot" as far as the ALP's concerned. You don't actually have any input into ALP policy and processes.

You may call yourself a "true believer", but that is a term normally reserved for actual ALP members, rather than the rank-and-file union members upon whom they depend.

I've been a member, I've spent many, many days dealing with the crap that comes with elections, walking around in the rain handing out how to vote propaganda, filling in for members at sausage sizzles while the 'member' I was supporting turned up 8 hours late (leaving me cooking the whole time).

Let's just say I'm an "ex-member" at present (due to the idiotic factional f-ups in Qld Labor, seeing the idiocy that left the heads of electoral offices in jail kind of aggravated me, these people have no hope in the real world). Thug/Mug/Bogan, it's all good, I have an arrest sheet longer than I am and no convictions, that kinda says something, no?

I also have an IQ that puts me in the top 1% of the population (I keep that one to myself, dunno - kind of seems like I'm a dud person to give that to).

Why has nobody answered my question?

WHY ARE WE DESPERATELY SEEKING TO REFILL THE STOCKING RUDD EMPTIED?

Anyone noticed the EXTREME dip in residential clearances in Brisbane (for example)?

Does noone here know that while the Great Depression started in the USA, it was coming back under control. Then dropped like a stone due to a clusterf**&^K in Europe (actually Austria)? Anyone here see what is happening in Europe at the present time?

I do adore the way the average person fails to look behind the curtain to see why things are happening... Didn't someone once say that history has a habit of repeating itself?

Dunno, don' ask me I'm just a bogan thug mate...;)

PS I prefer the Unions, I think I have more hope of reaching a decent spot through the 'old' route. As Rudd found out last week, the ALP doesn't have a lot of power in its own right does it:D

Sorry Pelican, just noted your post - yeah, stirring is good

But as for the loony/green left, let's just say my mother told me that when I have nothin' good to say to say nothin'... 'Nough said really.

But I am always amused when people regard the unions as being in the center, depends on your point of view of course.

I remember seeing the life-size poster of Chairman Mao in the local AMIEU Office, now those boys weren't playing games when they called everybody 'Comrade'. Yet according to the 'factions' that union, and others, are on the right... Always has had me kind of confused really:P

Who EXACTLY are they to the right of? Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov? If so, it couldn't be by much.

If that means they are to the right of the ratbags that publish news on recycled paper and the other clowns, then I suppose that is a necessary evil. I mean, Stalin was a centrist, and they are probably closer to Marx than him...

But no, I personally resent the slide to the right, led by the stacked branches, with over-educated, under-experienced clowns who wouldn't know a shop floor if they happened to fall over it. People like Rudd (was Latham ever in a union?), who from memory only ever was in a 'student union' (p1ss up tyros) aren't Unionists. Gillard is , it shows in her understanding of what the actual supporters want and/or care about.

I welcome the current situation, the ability to stack branches is one thing, the ability to win a knock-down, drag-out fight is another. The sooner the Unions reclaim the ALP the better I'll like it, then it is only for the 'actual' unionists to reclaim the unions. Big tip, I share your opinion about the VW vans, may they all burst into flames...

Does that mean that they are National Socialists not International Socialists.