Confronted with a recent and continuing downturn in membership, the youth wing of the neo-Trotskyist Democratic Socialist Perspective appears to have hit upon a brand new (sic) idea to try and reverse the trend (or at least make a few dollars): selling flag-burning kits to University students. Commodification of dissent in the name of Communist dictatorship? “The power is yours” Australia!
Socialists selling flag-burning kits
The Age, (Xavier La Canna) / AAP
February 18, 2006A socialist youth organisation wants university students nationwide to buy their flag-burning kits next week to show their anger at the federal government. The group, Resistance, said the kits, containing an Australian flag, a lighter, a fire-lighting cube and Resistance pamphlets, would be sold at university orientation week for $5 each… The kit was inspired by the removal by police of a deliberately burned Australian flag from the Trocadero Art Space gallery in Footscray, Melbourne, on January 20… Major-General Bill Crews, national president of the Returned & Services League, condemned the kits. Maj-Gen Crews said the flag should not be a vehicle for protest or demonstration and burning the flag should be a criminal offence. “I find it highly offensive. Not just to our members, but to all decent Australians,” he said.
[“Some of [Bill’s] more recent appointments were as Head of the Defence Centre in Brisbane, Chief of Materiel in Army, and Assistant Chief of the Defence Force for Policy and Strategic Guidance. In 1996, he was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia for his Army Service. He retired in 1999 as a Major General from the appointment of Director of the Defence Intelligence Organisation. Soon after leaving the Army, Bill undertook a business opportunities study with Tenix Defence Systems Pty Ltd., the largest Australian-owned high-technology Defence contractor. This study was to facilitate the Company’s diversification into the command support, information management, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance fields.”]
…Trocadero Art Space director Michael Brenner said the artwork removed by police last month was returned to [Azlan McLennan], himself a Resistance member, last week and may be reinstalled at the gallery…
