Socialism vs. 2010 election

Posted on July 27, 2010 by @ndy

There are a number of Socialist (meaning: Leninist) battlegrounds at this year’s federal election. Apart from the Senate, in the Whorehouse of Representatives, there’s pitched battles in South Australia (SA) and Tasmania (TAS); two in Queensland (QLD); three in Western Australia (WA); five in Victoria (VIC); and eight in New South Wales (NSW). In other words, of 150 seats, just 20 will feature explicitly ‘socialist’ candidates. With the exception of Swan in WA, all seats are considered safe Labor territory.

Here’s an A –> Z.

Lower House

Adelaide (SA)
Gemma Weedall, a yoof activist for the Socialist Alliance (SA), is waving the red flag in Radelaide in 2010, the seat currently held by Kate Ellis (in 2004 the youngest woman ever elected to the House). Ellis is much bigger on sport than she is on socialism: could this be the key to Weedall’s success?

Blaxland (NSW)
After two unsuccessful attempts, Raul Bassi of SA has been replaced by Richard Phillips of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) for their first crack of the Trotskyist whip in Blaxland — such is the harsh and unforgiving nature of the socialist struggle! But will the SEP be able to unseat “Jason Clare, a Labor Party apparatchik who is being touted as a future minister”? Their first task, presumably, will be to avoid coming last and/or to gain the trust of at least 1% of the electorate.

Brisbane (QLD)
According to SA, “Ewan Saunders is a 3rd generation resident of Ashgrove in the heart of Brisbane and has been a dedicated advocate for social justice since leaving high school in 1999” — this combination of yoof and local knowledge ideal weapons with which to confront the corrupt regime of middle-aged former high skool teacher Arch Bevis. Hey Bevis, leave those kids alone! But will the announcement of ‘$16m for Climate Change Projects and 189 Green Jobs’ on April 21, 2009 placate rising red and green sentiment among the yoof of Pig City? Time will tell.

Calwell (VIC)
Peter Byrne (SEP) takes Frank Gagliotti’s place in the very safe Labor seat of Calwell, the unfortunate Gagliotti having been purged following his failure in 2007 (273 votes). Family First came third last time around, and Byrne (an architect by trade) will have to work very hard to construct a socialist alternative among the suburban homes in outer-northern Melbourne.

Corio (VIC)
Another very safe Labor seat, Sue Bull’s challenge will be to reverse the trend that saw SA lose votes at the 2007 election. Or to put it another way, to gain more than 0.40% of the vote. In 2006, Bull stood for a Senate seat in the Victorian state election: she and her running mate got 0.28% of votes between them. In the ACT Legislative Assembly election of February 21, 1988, Bull was one of three Democratic Socialists asking for the support of the people of Molonglo: 745 (1.0%) put their hands up.

Cunningham (NSW)
Jess Moore wants Cunningham. Sadly, so does Sharon Bird (ALP). Last time, Moore got 706 votes (0.84%) while Bird received 44,835 (53.23%), putting her at a distinct advantage in the battle for the hearts and minds of the people of Cunningham. (In 2004, SA candidate Chris Williams got 310 votes.) Before Bird became The Word in Cunningham, the seat was held by Michael Organ, the first Australian Greens Federal Member (October 19, 2002–October 9, 2004).

Denison (TAS)
Melanie Barnes (SA) has taken over from Susan Austin in the seat of Denison. In 2007, Austin got 494 votes (0.77%); in 2004, Kamala Emanuel got 544 votes (0.85%). Can Barnes break the 1% barrier, or will socialism remain an outlaw ideology in Denison?

Fowler (NSW)
Mike Head enters new territory for the SEP. A very safe Labor seat, Head — one of several NTEU members to attempt to transfer their overflowing brains from the Academy to Parliament — will need to employ all the tricks in his lawyerly brainworker’s bag if he’s to unseat the incumbent.

Fremantle (WA)
Sanna Andrew is SA’s candidate in Fremantle in 2010 — in 2007, Sam Wainwright got 361 votes (0.45%), a slight decrease on 2004, when Ian Jamieson got 350 (0.48%). Happily, Wainwright went on to become SA’s first successful (local) election candidate.

Gellibrand (VIC)
SA’s Ben Courtice has another go at Gellibrand, this time confronting the SEP’s Tania Baptist, who stood on the SEP’s Senate ticket in Victoria in 2007. In 2007, Courtice received 1,334 votes (1.59%); in 2004, Linda Waldron got 508 (0.64%). Health Minister Nicola Roxon is the siting Member, and has described deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop’s recent commentary on Prime Minister Julia Gillard as “catty”. All three candidates are God-less.

Grayndler (NSW)
Pip Hinman (SA) once again confronts the SEP, on this occasion in the person of James Cogan, the SEP’s national organiser. In 2007, Hinman (1,394 votes / 1.66%) faced down the SEP’s Patrick O’Connor (328 votes / 0.39%). In 2004, SA’s Sue Johnson got 1,010 votes (1.34%). Anthony Albanese holds down the top spot in Grayndler, and is a member of the Socialist Left faction of the ALP. Note that Cogan was a candidate for Chifley in 2007. He got 1,069 votes.

Griffith (QLD)
Hamish Chitts is challenging Kevin Rudd for the seat of Griffith. Having sold his soul to the devil of secular politics, and then been dumped as PM, Xtian Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em Rudd would be devastated should Chitts, the bus-driving former soldier, steal away his seat too. (In 2007, SA, from which the RSP split in 2008, stood Jim McIlroy (293 votes // 0.35%) while in 2004 it stood Lynda Hansen (580 votes / 0.72%).)

Kingsford-Smith (NSW)
“This fight is first and foremost a political struggle against the Gillard government” reckons our hero. But the SEP’s Zac Hambides has his work cut out for him in Kingsford-Smith, following on comrade Alex Safari’s 1,096 votes (1.26%) in 2007. Otherwise, it looks certain that the the Minister for Shit-eating Grins, Uranium Mining, Wood-chipping & The Yartz will be returned in triumph to Canberra.

Lalor (VIC)
Gillard out! Gillard out! Hear the people scream, hear the people shout! Socialism is the alternative! Van Rudd for Lalor! (Note that the odds, as well as the repressive and ideological state apparatus, strongly favour Gillard over Rudd.)

Newcastle (NSW)
Zane Alcorn (SA) contested local council elections in Newcastle in 2008, but stood for the seat of Wills in Victoria in 2007. On neither occasion was he very successful. This time his rhyming skillz are being tested by Noel Holt — the SEP’s candidate for Newcastle in 2007.

Parramatta (NSW)
In the final Lower House battle for socialist supremacy, the SEP’s Chris Gordon will be pitting his mathematics against SA’s Duncan Roden’s yoof; neither are likely to trouble Labor’s Julie Owens. (In 2007, SA’s Rachel Evans got 1,015 votes (1.19%), while the SEP’s Chris Gordon got 261 (0.31%).) [Sportsbet]

Perth (WA)
Alex Bainbridge is SA’s man in Perth. (He was SA’s man in Denison in 2002.) Chris Latham was SA’s man in 2007 (464 votes / 0.59%) while Nikki Ulasowski got 984 votes (1.34%) in 2004. [Sportsbet]

Reid (NSW)
The SEP’s Carolyn Kennett is challenging John Lowe in Reid (the former home of Laurie Ferguson), the first occasion upon which the International Committee of the Fourth International has been able to use Lowe in this manner (that I’m aware of). [Sportsbet]

Swan (WA)
“In Western Australia, Joe Lopez, a 45-year-old hospital worker, will stand in Swan, the same seat he contested in 2007.” Last time, Lopez got 157 votes — 68 more than LaRouche follower Norman Gay, and just 86 votes less than the LDP candidate. [Sportsbet]

Wills (VIC)
Trent Hawkins (SA) wants the people of Wills to elevate him to Parliament, taking over this Herculean task from Zane Alcorn (624 votes / 0.72%) in 2007 — who in turn displaced David Glanz (867 votes / 1.06%) in 2004 (Glanz is a member of Solidarity). Trent Hawkins for Wills! is on Facebook.

Upper House

Socialists belonging to SA are standing for the Senate in NSW, VIC, QLD, SA and WA; socialists belonging to the SEP are standing for the Senate in NSW and VIC. Otherwise, the Communist Alliance is running for the NSW Senate; the Socialist Party (SP) ran a candidate in the seat of Melbourne in 2007 (but don’t appear to be standing anyone this time around) and finally — fingers crossed — Ron Poulsen will once again be standing in the NSW seat of Watson on behalf of the Communist League.

Revolutionary Socialist Party : RSP federal election campaign: No racism! No war! For a working people’s government! | Socialist Alliance : Introducing the Socialist Alliance candidates for 2010! | Socialist Equality Party : Socialist Equality Party announces its 2010 election candidates.

See also : Socialism vs. 2007 Federal Election (November 22, 2007).

Bonus Anarchy!

JOSEPH Toscano, doctor, chief anarchist at the Anarchist Media Institute and impassioned letter-writer to newspapers, is not enrolled to vote and has never voted, but that won’t stop him contesting the federal election. Again. Dr Toscano has stood as a Senate candidate at every election since 1990 and also tried the 2009 Higgins byelection. Dr Toscano says a ”quirk in the Australian constitution” allows him to stand, so that’s democracy. Call him persistent, he’s standing as an ”Independent Radical Candidate” with Jenny Wharfe and Andrew Sadauskas. What’s radical is their policy to abolish Parliament and replace it with a federation of community and workplace councils where wealth is used for the ”common good”. Other policies are voluntary euthanasia, same-sex marriage, a people’s bank, a ”resources rent tax” of 30 per cent. Naturally, Dr Toscano wants to abolish compulsory voting. Not that he can vote for himself to get elected and abolish compulsory voting.

Posted in State / Politics, Trot Guide | Tagged | 10 Comments

slackbastard ~versus~ The University of Adelaide

Posted on July 27, 2010 by @ndy

My blog is apparently being blocked by the Adelaide University web filtering system due to its “Militancy and Extremism”.

Meanies.

Posted in !nataS, Media, Student movement | 11 Comments

Fortress Australia : Stop the Boats!

Posted on July 26, 2010 by @ndy

“And so with the facts on the table and these uniting principles as our guide we move forward. We move forward to an effective, sustainable, long-term solution: To stop the boats not at our shoreline but before they even leave those far away ports…” Julia Gillard said.

“My pledge to the Australian people is to end the waste, to pay back the debt, to stop the new taxes and to stop the boats” Tony Abbott said.

“Reject an alien government, don’t recognise their laws. It’s time to close the floodgates, it’s time to shut the door. Repatriate, ship ’em out, send the bastards back. If they don’t fucking like it, it’ll be in body bags” sang Scott McGuinness.

Posted in Death, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

David Barker ~versus~ Mooselems

Posted on July 25, 2010 by @ndy

DUMPED Liberal candidate David Barker doesn’t know why he has been disendorsed despite making controversial anti-Muslim comments.

Posted in !nataS, State / Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

A wambulance for Call the Paramedics

Posted on July 25, 2010 by @ndy

LOL.

From the Department of But-Some-of-My-Best-Friends-are-Black-Jewish-Lesbians-with-Disabilities:

The fella with the white power unicorn tattoo on his arse is called Mike Beer. Mike plays in a band called Call the Paramedics, who like to play with boneheads in Atlantic City. Sadly for Mike, his band, and their boneheaded fans, not everybody appreciates either their sense of humour or their choice of friends, and so their latest tour has been cut rather short.

Controversial concert canceled after threats, Blair Ames, The Frederick News-Post, July 21, 2010.

One People’s Project writes:

Memo to Call the Paramedics: when you hang out with Nazis, the last thing you want to do is thank us for the publicity. Because we have a funny way of saying “You’re welcome”! The band was supposed to play the North Star Bar tonight, but the club just put this announcement on their site that the show isn’t happening. That means the band has lost a total of five shows, with only a gig in Virginia Beach and another late August again in Philly. The club is citing a request from law enforcement for the shutdown, and that is REAL curious to us. Add the fact that newspaper articles are being written about those Nazi connections, and we have ourselves a band officially being called out by more than just some local antifa – and that is a bad thing for them! Again, you’re welcome. Let us know if you want more publicity! We will keep you posted on further developments.

Hey there poser
You look pretty stupid to me
Hey there poser
All dressed like a wanna-be
Hey there poser
Creeping towards the door
Hey there poser
I wish you were a beer!

Locally, neo-Nazi impresario Gareth Sansom appears to have packed up shop with ‘White Noise Productions’, or at least ended the pretence of being a non-fascist promoter, declaring that WNP is “a strictly not-for-profit initiative aimed only at promoting the cause of White Australian Nationalism” (neo-Nazism). The bands WNP now ‘promotes’ are the openly neo-Nazi Death’s Head, Fortress, Ravenous and Spear Of Longinus, and the moar closeted Adamus Exul, Gospel of the Horns, Lustration, Sanguinary Misanthropia, Shackles [see below], Shrapnel, Urgrund and Vomitor. Sansom was interviewed in December last year by fellow neo-Nazi Taigen Gould — whose own political loyalties are evident in his email address: [email protected].

[NB. Matty of the band Shackles has stated (June 2012) that his band split in 2009, prior to WNP becoming openly neo-Nazi. That is, while Shackles was promoted by WNP, at the time the band had no knowledge of WNP’s political base or subsequent evolution into an unashamedly neo-Nazi propaganda unit.]

Currently, Sansom/WNP is promoting the 2010 Ian Stuart Donaldson gig (September 25), neo-Nazi distro ‘9 Percent Productions’, the ‘Eureka Youth League’ (Australia First’s attempt to reconstruct a ‘yoof’ wing under the guidance of the positively non-youthful Brendan Gidley), and of course Blood & Honour and the Southern Cross Hammerskins.

Posted in Anti-fascism, Music | Tagged , , , , , | 14 Comments

Labour exploitation? No, it’s Asians taking Aussie jobs (and strawberries)

Posted on July 24, 2010 by @ndy

Frances Simmons and Brynn O’Brien work at the Anti-Slavery Project at the University of Technology Sydney, a specialist legal service for trafficked and exploited people.

Referring to an upcoming episode of Today Tonight, they reckon it’s troubling that abuse of migrant workers is called ”reverse racism” (Asians taking Aussie jobs? No, it’s labour exploitation, Frances Simmons and Brynn O’Brien, The Age, July 22, 2010).

I reckon it’s “good ratings”, based upon a “lowest common denominator” approach, one capitalising upon “widespread anxiety” on the part of “White Australia” that “we are in danger of being swamped by Asians”.

Note that, despite PM Gillard’s protestations to the contrary, slavery has a proud history in Australia, and its rejection — or rather, the forcible ejection of its brown-skinned beneficiaries — helped form the foundations of the Australian state.

In September 2008, in her speech to The National Press Club titled ‘Introducing Australia’s New Workplace Relations System’ Gillard, also took the opportunity to burn her black armband, declaring in her opening remarks that:

The signature values of nations are often defined by the circumstances of their birth… And for us there’s one value above all others that we identify with as truly our own. It’s the value that emerged out of the circumstances of Federation, which coincided with the industrial turbulence of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. That value is fairness. Or as we like to put it: ‘the fair go’.

Which is all rather odd, especially given that — as angry White men across the country know — one of the first Acts of Federal Parliament was the Immigration Restriction Act 1901. This Act (together with the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901) formed the legal cornerstone of the White Australia policy; the Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904 — which in Labor Party mythology has ensured a ‘fair go’ for ‘working families’ for the bulk of the country’s history — was only assented to by Edward VII in 1904. Further, while 100 years ago the Gub’mint couldn’t get rid of the Pacific Islanders quick enough, they now wanna import them — albeit if only for a coupla years.

As for “the industrial turbulence of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries”…

There’s a side current here which is rarely looked at but which is also quite fascinating. That’s the working class literature of the nineteenth century. They didn’t read Adam Smith and Wilhelm von Humboldt, but they’re saying the same things. Read journals put out by the people called the “factory girls of Lowell,” young women in the factories, mechanics, and other working people who were running their own newspapers. It’s the same kind of critique. There was a real battle fought by working people in England and the U.S. to defend themselves against what they called the degradation and oppression and violence of the industrial capitalist system, which was not only dehumanizing them but was even radically reducing their intellectual level. So, you go back to the mid-nineteenth century and these so-called “factory girls,” young girls working in the Lowell [Massachusetts] mills, were reading serious contemporary literature. They recognized that the point of the system was to turn them into tools who would be manipulated, degraded, kicked around, and so on. And they fought against it bitterly for a long period. That’s the history of the rise of capitalism.

See also : Leave Tim Noonan alone! (July 21, 2010) | Reverse racism?msicar esreveR (February 21, 2010) | Reverse Racism on Today Tonight (February 18, 2010) | F___ Off I’m On Today Tonight! Or: Reverse racism. (February 16, 2010) | How to Make Trouble… // The Dole Army (November 6, 2009) | Justin Sheridan in Canberra (September 22, 2009) | Justin Sheridan : Australian of the Year (September 15, 2009).

Bonus Foley!

Posted in !nataS, State / Politics, Television | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

It’s like 1977 again, apparently

Posted on July 24, 2010 by @ndy

‘Anarchy is a la mode. It’s like 1977 again’ write Mark Davis and Jacqueline Maley in The Sydney Moaning Herald (July 23, 2010), all ’cause one of them stylish Anarchist crashes PM’s policy party (AAP, July 23, 2010). “His youthful good looks have not gone un-noticed by the ladies at The Pulse’s Sydney bunker”, the fucking rotter.

‘Pretty trippy stuff eh.’

Posted in !nataS, Anarchism, Media, Student movement | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Green is the Colour of Money

Posted on July 23, 2010 by @ndy
Posted in !nataS, Cats, Death, Media, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Leave a comment

Racist leaflets not ours: Australia First

Posted on July 22, 2010 by @ndy

White nationalist political party Australia First has denied authorship of a ‘racist’ election leaflet.

Racist leaflets not ours: Australia First
ABC
July 24, 2010

A minor party that opposes immigration says leaflets which breach electoral rules are being distributed in Western Sydney to discredit its candidates…

The leaflet features an image taken from the library generated by US-based Tom Metzger’s neo-Nazi group ‘White Aryan Resistance’. The collection has been in circulation for decades, and until a few years ago was featured locally on former Australia First member Martin Fletcher’s site ‘Downunder Newslinks’ (Martin has since jumped ship for AF’s rivals in the ‘Australian Protectionist Party’).

AF is standing two candidates at the election: Tony Pettitt in Greenway and Mick Saunders in Lindsay. Nominations for the poll close at midday on Thursday, July 29, so it remains possible that the party and APP may stand other candidates in other electorates. Otherwise, the party is busy organising for the Sydney Forum in September, at which Canadian Holocaust denialist Paul Fromm has been announced as the conference’s special guest speaker.

In other news, former Australia First Party staffer and co-founder Denis McCormack, introduced as an Independent Immigration Researcher (in which capacity he took part in ‘Australia Deliberates: Muslims and Non-Muslims in Australia’ in September 2007), was a guest on MTR this evening, a member of a panel (including Adam Bandt) discussing refugee and immigration issues.

See also : Outrage over anti-immigration leaflet (January 22, 2010) | Do YOU Want Frankston To Become Like Dandenong? (August 22, 2009).

Posted in Anti-fascism, State / Politics | Tagged | 3 Comments

AWU removes “The Abbott Family”… video

Posted on July 22, 2010 by @ndy

It’s probably just a glitch in The Matrix, but reading the latest ad-ition to Ben Pobjie’s Election 2010 coverage, I noticed that the embedded YouTube version had gone missing. So too, apparently, the version on the AWU website. adnewsaust (“Australia’s top selling advertising, marketing and media magazine”) still got it but:

Oh wait.

“The YouTube video was deleted this afternoon.”

Posted in Media, State / Politics | Tagged , | 1 Comment