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*My easy penchant* for being disparaging of the Australian Labor Party seems to have turned into a passionate hobby. The way the Laborites try to rewrite the party's history and selectively focus on a smattering of reforms irritates me no end. Sure it is a social democratic party; supposedly it sponsors and protects the welfare state; it apparently is open to progressive ideas and individuals and should be the home for many a caring soul or trade unionist...yardderder yardderder. Been there. Done that. Been in and out of the ALP a few times. Worked closely with some notable Labor Party parliamentarians over the decades. The ALP and I go way way back... Today's apologists for Labor who wax on nostalgically about Gough Whitlam's 1071 days in office* argue that Labor's genotype for social reform still exists, all we need do is bare with it and be patient. What this wistfulness misses is that in the past 40 years, history and capitalism has had its way with the ALP and the 'window' that Whitlam exploited no longer exists. Today, what's required of Labor is not to distract the populace with a promise to reform their lifestyles, but to remake capitalism more keenly than the Tories. It's Tweedle 'balance sheet' Dee or Tweedle 'balance sheet' Dum. CARTOON IMAGE: Evolution of Australian Democracy: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nRiCrd17QuM/UkB4LPdmbEI/AAAAAAAAGzw/An58zEmn9dQ/s1600/Punch20130924+.jpg This shift was brutally engineered in the period 1981 to 1983 as the trade union and ALP alliance girded itself in what later became the Prices and Incomes Accord.By dint of promissory notes and bullying, the great bulk of the country's left -- including the then Communist Party -- was sentenced to rank corporatism at the behest of the Hawke/Keating government as the whole trade union movement was held hostage to restructuring of the Australian economy at the behest of the Big End of town. 'Reform' ceased to be about 'us' and became all about 'them'. In one foul swoop Labor carried Australian capitalism to a happier for-profit place than even Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan could dream of. And Labor did this with the complicity of most of the rest of us. Being anti-Accord guaranteed you pariah status.You'd be thrown out of meetings. Accused of being Santamaria** stooges. In one instance one guy tried to kick me down the Newcastle trades hall steps because wouldn't sign up to the package. The bullying was relentless because* the Hawke government was the Accord.* The 'reforms' -- the ones supposedly for our benefit -- failed to materialise or last.The self imposed trade union quiescence was accompanied by a collapse in union membership across the country. Nay sayers like the airline pilots or the Builders Labourers Federation were savaged by cops and courts. Any outbreak -- such as the 1985 Queensland SEQEB dispute --was keenly isolated. The years leading into and during the Hawke/Keating government saw the ALP consciously remake itself from a party of 'reform' into one of restructuring. Democracy in the party was squashed in sync with an undermining of membership control in the trade unions. The whole kit and kaboodle of what's oft referred to as 'struggle' was keenly steered to the right. The lefts who'd so keenly signed on to the shift were held hostage to its route. Indeed, the heartland politics of Labor -- the platform folk seek to be sentimental about even today-- were dumped or diluted by the new dialogue of neoliberalism. While the ALP has always been keenly pragmatic, Australia's 'New Labor' simply chose to march to a different corporate drum while hoping that its lefts would remain complicit in the trajectory. Of course they were. They remained true believer loyal. >From uranium mining to East Timor to the 1991 Gulf War to smashing recalcitrant trade unions , the Laborist consensus marched relentlessly rightward despite the occasional bone thrown our way. CARTOON IMAGE: Heroes of Bi-Partisanship http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HWhqyvaCFLQ/VNwqSN-nGDI/AAAAAAAAICs/CYglxgx94yA/s1600/20150212detention.jpg All the party had to do was be less right wing than the Tories; more considerate than they...and seemingly accessible and less arrogant. Sound familiar? I'm not talking about the 21st century folks; I'm going back 25 years. That's when the gangrene really set in. Today's party is merely the Accord's zombie. So please don't come at me with pathetic hopes that the good ole days can return. They died long ago and you are engaging in necrophilia. CARTOON IMAGE: The ALP Maze: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w7yn5UjV_MM/VEY3rDpguaI/AAAAAAAAHuU/rr9XVcHA0Ns/s1600/20141021Whitlam.jpg * Gough Whitlam , Labor prime minister 1972-1975 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gough_Whitlam ** B.A. Santamaria Right Wing ideologue and anti communist who split the ALP in 1954 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._A._Santamaria _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
