Now, more than ever, we need a fighting left and a strident movement for Palestinian justice. The commission is an attempt to intimidate the left and to make resistance to war, fascism and racism more difficult.
The government’s talk of fairness and tackling inequality is empty noise. Yet in some ways, the budget is ambitious: it is characterised by an ambition to keep Australian capitalism’s winners rich and its losers poor.
One Nation must be fought relentlessly. That has to be the lesson the left and the working-class movement takes from the victory of Hanson’s far-right racist party in the Farrer by-election.
The US military views this continent as little more than an “unsinkable US aircraft carrier”. You get the sense that this is well understood among those running the country, but that the ruling class here has made its bed with the US empire, for better or worse.
Despite the broad-brush painting of increasing prosperity, the Australian working class has been ripped off, while a greater share of the tremendous wealth generated in the domestic economy has been distributed to those at the top.
Australia occupies a peculiar place in the world system. On the one hand, it has always been a component of a larger empire. On the other hand, it is an imperialist state in its own right.
