AUS/left/ thread

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No seriously, ANZUS is the spookiest of foreign policy spooks. It will end when Australia's a radioactive crater from Chinese/Russian/??? nukes.

THAT'S A FUNNY WAY OF WRITING TRUE GLORIOUS PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE REAL KOREA, TONGMU

REMOVE VEGEMITE YOU ARE THE WORST IMPERIALISTS

top kek

good idea but clinton ia just as bad

maybe worse, both the chinese and russians hate her and she's threatening iran again

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Better quality.

>Bryan MacDonald is an >>Irish

Is it just me or is Bill Shorten growing

a) some balls

b) a personality

and

c) some coherent (if pissweak) policies

lately. Not sure how to feel.

Shorten's going through political puberty at the moment, apparently…

ABC has been getting more and more porky and idpol lately. They used to be reasonably middle ground. Any good Australian news alternatives?

He's a Jew.

It actually is the Jews, leftybros.

...

ABC is about as neutral as you're likely to get in a mainstream broadcaster. Unfortunately, we're too small a country to have much in the way of alternative media.

The problem is that when the Libs are in government, Aunty is (justifiably) shit scared of retaliation from the government in the form of funding cuts if they are too critical of those in power. Dismantling the public broadcaster is a sort of ideological touchstone for the Libs and they take any opportunity to advance that agenda when they feel they have enough of an excuse to get away with it, so the ABC has to tread very softly.

Meanwhile, Labor mostly leaves them alone (as government should) so there isn't that sword of Damocles hanging over them with a Labor government.

The result is a subtle lean to the right, because they are fearless when Labor is in power but pretty meek with the Libs even when they are in opposition, because there will always be another hatchet man waiting for chance when the musical chairs of Parliament change again.

As for idpol… Well, it's polarizing, juicy and fashionable. It shits me but I can't really fault them for covering it. ABC talk radio has been especially saturated with it lately though, which is starting to grate.

I just wanna give that little fuck a noogie

ABC has always been top-tier Porky propaganda; read into how they knowingly fabricated a moral outrage as a pretext to the NT intervention.

>redflag.org.au/article/seven-years-how-abc-lateline-sparked-racist-nt-intervention

Also in a supreme case of Whodathunkit? Turns out the Indigenous land that was taken by the govt' for THECHILDRENS was sold on to mining interests about 6 years down the track.

Always remember that ABC and Tony Jones are parasite collaborators.

As for good news, well, your shit outta luck mate. You can read the lefty pubs, like redflag or greenleft, but they are a sleeping pill; The left-liberal rags, like Vice or Newmatilda, can run some half-decent articles but it is obviously steeping in liberal bullshit.

Also:

REMINDER TO ALL AUSFAGS:

Get your slack arses down to your Trades hall this Sunday for the Mayday march.

I'm torn between whether he more closely resembles are monkey or a rodent of some kind.

Guy's a decent orator when he's addressing rallies and shit in person though. If you ever get the chance to see him address a union meeting, I'd recommend it.

Shame he's so intent on sucking porky's dick with "market based mechanisms" like good little piglet though.

In what way is he doing any of these?

Not trying to be a cunt, genuinely curious on how he has "improved"

It's mostly just election campaign shit - but he's finally stopped being so timid with Turnbull now that the polls are starting to turn. Previously he's been pretty soft (I guess because the electorate was still all doe eyed over slippery Mal). Beyond that - winding back the negative gearing gravy train and the carbon policy are both solid as far as they go.

Royal commission into the banking sector is a nice gesture - could be fun if the terms of reference are not too tame/limited (hint: they will be).

Just nice to see him making the Libs look bad for vehemently opposing even the most limp-wristed socdem policies.

Might be reading this wrong, but are you saying that not having a carbon tax/policy is a good thing?

Im actually worried about this. If they end up going soft then whenever we try to call out porkies shills they will say "hurr durr the 2017 royal commission didnt find anything worth while" which will probably be believed by the public and reaffirm their faith in the markets

sorry that sentence was a mess.

Less subsidy's for residential property pork = good
possibly effective anti-pollution policy = good

Yeah, it really depends on how serious they are and I guess how much money the banks slip them under the table to keep the RC to a tickle. I HOPE it at least matches the farcical trade union RC that Abbott held. But the banking sector here is so filthy and corrupt even compared to the US and Europe, I have a huge hard on for anything that might hurt them. Going to be quizzing my local Labor candidate about when they're selected (even though they have no chance of winning in this fucking classcucked seat) and pressure my old man to bring it up at branch meetings whenever possible.

I want to believe.

Non-Australian here. What carbon policies are on the table? There are two ways of dealing with carbon:
1. Setting a strict physical limit and allow trading of pollution rights
2. Taxing pollution.

The outcome of the second method is less clear. There is also a particularly bad version of the taxing idea, that is when the state announces a specific plan to start low and gradually raise the tax. This can have the counter-intuitive effect of a stronger pollution increase in the short term.

The ALPs old policy was a flat tax that transitioned over a few years to an internationally integrated trading scheme. They weren't in office long enough to see it through the transition.

New policy is more or less the same (minus the initial tax phase). Trading scheme, some exceptions, a few new things here and there like the "climate trigger" for forestry. Also they have set some "ambitious" new emission reduction targets.

Deets: mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-27/labor-reveals-climate-plan-for-twin-emissions-trading-schemes/7362980

Some highlights:

Did I suck your cock nicely sir? I think I need to deep throat for longer next time. Watch my teeth sir? Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Thank you, sir.

Don't honestly have problem with this, especially since we won't be building any cars here anyway by then. May discourage finance a bit (not bad IMO) and people who can buy new cars outright can afford to pay a bit more anyway.

Le market-based mechanism maymay

Understand that this is only good compared to the current Liberal government's policy which is a hilariously transparent way to give big business all the money back that mean old Labor took away from them with the tax last time.

I wish we still had some old Trot entryists in the ALP. As it is, Canberra must reek of rancid ham whenever Parliament is sitting.

no problem man

I bet yours is bad, but I bet mine is worse. My seat got stuck with this psycho enlightened bitch in pic related. For fucks sake just look at her with Tony ans Bronwyn laughing at us mere paupers.

Oh well, now we have a slightly less hard-right candidate and with Sophie's gaff over hospital spending recently hopefully she has no chance coming back in

Bloody hell, I'm really hoping with the Overton window of the US shifting to the left and the possible victory of Corbyn, we start to see some old guard relics come out of the woodwork. And hopefully not some limp wristed cowards like Albanese or Plibersek

entitled not enlightened

shut up im tired

I thought the overton window was moving to the right in the us, but it may well be moving to the extremes in both directions

Oh fuck, Sophie Mirabella ends up on Q&A from time to time and sets off my gag reflex something fierce. The very essence of a Liberal sow.

I get the pleasure of having picrelated Glorious Justice Minister Michael "This isn't a police state, I swear" Keenan as my local member.

Someone tried to fire bomb his office a few years back when he was opposition immigration spokesman. Just a shame he wasn't inside at the time.

So what do you guys think about Liberals desperate attack to try and win this election?
I know in Sydney i'm seeing a lot of sentiment against them, and i'm really hoping we can beat them back this time and actually save Australia, this is seriouslly a really bad time for our country, with Chinas Aggression, Submarine Production, the Barrier Reef, silencing of minority parties and similar things happening we need to try and make a stand. lets use Turnbull's strat to keep himself in power to take him out.

This is a point i've always tried to point out when people say ABC is "left wing", it's only "left" in comparison to the rest of Australias Liberal dicksucking MSM, in reality, if you actually follow the ABC, you will see they have a bias towards the Liberals as well.

You can see this most clearly on radio national interviews, where interviews with Lib politicians will always be these softball affairs that basically let the Libs grandstand with no real challenge, then if a Labor or Greens politician is on, suddenly the interview will be outrageously aggressive.

You also have right wing groups like the Australian Business Council being interviewed for fucking everything, Environmental policy, instead of getting the CSIRO, lets interview the Australian Business Council!!!

The Drum as well is also completely dominated by the IPA, especially the TV show.

I remember there was a site that looked at ABC bias. They found that libs politicans had more minutes to speak than the rest of the parties combined and also the IPA completely dominated think tank guest content, with the Menzies institute following up.

Here's the funny thing, why is Chris Berg or Tim Wilson on The Drum TV show and writing articles for the website every second day, yet I've never, ever seen a Socialist academic ever write on The Drum or appear on ABC television?

Tim Wilson is clearly hiding his commie power level, but just look at that, he has to hide his Socialist views to get on the Drum, while the IPA and whatever far-right think tank is allowed to shit up all over the place on the ABC.

Anyone who says the ABC is bias left is a fucking idiot.

Sorry, this should be Tim Dunlop

abc.net.au/news/tim-dunlop/29672

"FUCKING ABC LEFTIES" = Leigh Sales asks Malcom Turnbull a coherent policy question he doesn't want to answer sometimes and Sarah Ferguson was mean to Joe Hockey once.

Also they occasionally run stories about gay or transgender people. FUCKING COMMIES.

Tim Dunlop is somewhat based though.

The best ABC presenter is Phillip Adams on Radio National Late Night Live.

abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/

This is probably the most far-left ABC will ever go. It's borderline outright Socialist.

Ya don't say

The Senate voting reform bill will (to get rid of micro-parties as competition), the LNP's plan to remove any sort of sensible media restriction (to sure up support from Murdoch) and the ABCC (scaring small-business owners with thieving unions) show how desperate the LNP are to win this one.
Thankfully people are beginning to see through Turnbull's sliminess. People I know who liked him when he got in are strting to say "he's no better than Abbott". The ALP has an even better chance thanks to the Liberal Party tearing its self apart - there's some really gross in-fighting between neoliberals and conservatives in NSW and it seems like the Abbotts and Abetzs would rather control the party than win as a neoliberal party.
Looks hopeful that July will bring us a slightly less shit government.

Love Phillip, listen to LNL at least once a week. And yeah, he talks all the time about being in the CPA in the 50s/60s

But w/r/t actual non-election issues which are ruining the country, we need major change. As this guy points out, the ALP is barely a step above the LNP in climate change. The Greens may have lost their support base of middle-class liberals given their dirty dealings with the Coalition in the Senate. They definitely won't be able to count on 10 Senate seats ever again.
The only way there will ever be good policy come out of any party is if people make enough noise, like you said. But it might take another generation before people realise that that's what's needed, not just voting.
I'm in Melbourne and when I went to protests against uni fee deregulation last year actual uni students were saying "But fees won't go up if there's deregulation" and "They're a private company they deserve to charge what they want". Most people just don't seem to care.

Yeah Australia seems to be very politically apathetic right now, it's kinda sad.
I don't think we have time for another generation though, Sydney's probably going to flood if we keep up at this rate.

Are we all excited for our very first federal government budget from Scott "Definitely not a fascist" Morrison?

Looks like an absolute ripper
On 2GB Morrison said: "There's not a lot of room to move" because raising GST is so unpopular, then "You can't pay for something with nothing". So they'll be returning to a stable and well-funded government by:
Revolution soon pls

Tbh, i'm honestly kinda hopeful for the budget, they said they'd crackdown on multinationals too, which is a good thing.

I wouldn't get too excited.

when the liberals "crack down" on multinational tax evasion, they mean they'll send polite invitations to a few corporate reps to attend a committee hearing. Whoever bothers to show up will sit awkwardly in a room with a few senators for a few hours then everybody goes home, nothing changes and the government declares victory.

But hey, my boyfriend who doesn't really need a tax cut will get a tax cut.

Tony was at least entertaining.

Agreed. Labor/Greens has a much much better record of hitting tax evaders than Liberals - and considering how neoliberal Labor is, it doesn't speak well in favour of the Libs.

The party that didn't institute a mining tax during the boom will never bite the corporate hand that feeds them.

What's with the DirectX flag? Does it mean something other than Microsoft tech?

True, but he also brought out this wave of idpol in the country that allowed Tumblrettes to pretend to have some modicum of political knowledge simply by saying "fuck homophobe/misogynist/etc. Tony"

It's not that I disagree, Tony was genuinely a cunt, but the point is now the Liberals can appear moderate by saying "at least we don't advocate legislated fag bashing" and gain popular support from people who would have otherwise voted Labor/Greens on this issue.

Similar to Malcolm's plebiscite – lets the Liberals avoid being too unpopular without burning too much capital.

Someone redpill me on LNP instability. Is it genuinely splitting along Tony/Malcolm lines or is it just journos trying to make a quick buck / Tony "sniping" from the rear?

Sources would be appreciated.

The best thing about Tony being out is that I don't have to hear "Fuck Tone Abet" constantly.

ATO's Project Do It already ensured the most important aussie pork chops won't get burned.

What do you guys think of the budget, outside of being obviously incredibly porky?

Also im curious, what political party do you guys support?

The audacity of this porky

Used to vote Green, but they've been pushing rightward again and again since Bob Brown's retirement. Most of the old watermelons are gone and they've been too quick to suck the LNPs dick lately.

Probably just going to "throw my vote away" with SAll or CPA this year (with preferences eventually going to Labor because we don't have a 2 party system, honest!) you

kek i love this, we don't get enough old fashioned red-baiting in this country. And against Porky-Lite ALP no less! I hope they do more of it because it won't have anywhere near the same kind of effect as during the cold war era.

The more of this shit the libs spew, the more holes appear in the laughable narrative of Australia as some kind of "class-less society" the establishment still tries to push.

I generally pick minor bougie parties as being the "least bad"… Muir in Victoria and Lazarus in Queensland have been pretty solid. Sex Party have been pretty damned good in the Victorian parliament and have made real changes: the exclusion zone around abortion centres to allow women unmolested access to them is pretty fucking great. The Socialist Party are easily the best statist radical left-wing party though but I am unaware if they're running anyone in my state (QLD).

Do do australian Holla Forums's really not participate with the SAlties?

Socialism conference should be good, I can't make it, but Marxism is Melbourne was great.

People would have said the same thing about America before Black Lives Matter. If you think that capitalism is inherently contradictory you should believe that change is possible. That's one of the foundations of revolutionary socialism.

I know it doesn't mean much, but I'm genuinely impressed with Shortens budget reply

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It seems your new here, Holla Forums isnt very fond of idpol

Socialist Alternative in Australia are a very different organization to Socialist Alternative in America. Much closer to the ISO in America, who are not particularly idpol.

SocAlt in Australia aren't idpol in the slightest

Seems like ur new too m8.

They are cancer and kill off everything they touch. You can work with Alliance, you can work with the Socialist Party, SAlt only care about taking things over and turning them into soapboxes for their shitty little irrelevant groupsicle.

I'd disagree with that, in part. They tend to use idpol for their own ends- infiltrating and adopting pro-queer, pro-women, pro-Indigenous, pro-student memes, basically whatever idpol thing is dominant at any point in time they'll say they're for it. They're more like a religious cult than a political organisation on the whole, though.

No, m8. We've had plenty of /aus/ threads about which parties are best to vote for and it was concluded that out of all our choices SAlt is by far the most idpol and classcucked.

Go join Alliance, or fuck even the CPA is better

SAlt doesn't run in election. How fucking little do u know?

I never said they did you autistic fuck

I said ditch SAlt for the other two

In what ways are SA idpol?

Yeah we don't have the numbers to register as a party so we can't run candidates in elections, even in Victoria where our base is m8.

I'll be sending my preferences to Muir after SAll because I like the narrative of a working class guy being able to stand in a (supposedly) representative institution and do well. It helps kill the whole idea we need professional politicians I think.

Fix your site cripplewheels.

I was ready to hate Muir when he was elected (Motoring Enthusiasts wtf) but I'll be damned if it isn't refreshing to have a real working class, non-career polly voice in the senate. I hope Vic does the right thing and puts him back in under his own steam.

Even been warming up to Jacqui Lambie. She's a bit of a nut and I rarely 100% agree with her, but she makes the major parties squirm and Clive Palmer was so buttmad when she left PUP that I can't hate her.

I loved when she split from PUP and palmers party went to Shit. Her voice though, annoys the hell out of me. Wouldn't mind seeing her in again however, just so there's less libs/labor senators.

What ever happened to the Wikileaks party? are they still around at all?

Looks like they just went inactive and were deregistered mid last year.

Were they any good? There was barely anything on their economic policy in their mission statement.

SAlt are rubbish Cliffites but they are sadly the strongest communist party propaganda group in Aus; if you want to throw in with that mob just be aware of their cult like tactics and rubbish political line, it'll rot your brain.

anybody watching Q&A tonight?

Fuck Kelly O'Dwyer trying to defend a top-end tax cut to a minimum wage earner in the audience. The condescending bitch doesn't even care - she knows he doesn't matter.

Rage building comr8s

I stopped watching Q&A after Smart Tony was raped by Ass Tony tbhfam

NSW Greens has a strong Communist movement within, since most of them came from the now-defunct CPA. That's why their power level is higher than that of other States and Territories; most other Greens were united parties of anti nuclear + environmentalists. Unfortunately the Greens are also idpol - though it can be regenerated with a Corbyn-esque leader.

Fuck 'em, comrade. Vote for your local closet communist instead on a holiday - i.e. if you're in NSW talk to your Greens rep and see if you can draw them out into a Marxist discussion. If so, they're worth voting for imo.

How are SAlt idpol?? I say this as a disgruntled ex member - they are very strongly opposed to it and it gets them hate from the rest of the left

I don't think Salt should be 'ditched', as they still sometimes publish actual socialist articles, and put news on their pages about unions etc, but they are definitely idpol. They sometimes prefer to side with the idea of 'islamaphobia' being the main reason why capitalism is bad for us over anything else, and it's easy to see people getting sick of their defence of all things Islam.

I think it's better to counter these arguments though, and I've seen people talking more and more about how stupid idpol is on their facebook these days. Don't ditch them unless they are completely a lost cause.

Exciting to see the reaction to this this morning. Lots of people JUST realised what trickle-down economics means and how transparent the latest budget was

Where? I have literally never seen this in the internal culture of the organisation or their publications. They don't defend Islam, they defend muslims, who are one of the capitalists main victims of racism at the moment, mostly to justify imperialism.

They published a few months ago an article titled something along the lines of "it's not anti-islam it's racism" where they said Islam is a race and if you don't like it you dislike "brown people" and are a fascist.

Maybe they publish different stuff around the country.

Anyone see Q&A the other night? Interesting stuff about taxing the poor vs rich. Might try to find some video.

I read that and they were saying that "HURR WAT RACE IS ISLAM", which is the argument of literal nazis like UPF, is bullshit. They argued that, within the core of islamophobia is the racialisation and essentialisation of muslims. You're purposely misrepresenting what theyre saying

There were people in the replies that called it out for being bullshit, and there were others who called those people fascists.

SA can argue that far right groups are being anti Islam for racist reasons, but what they can't do is lump everyone in on the same level and hope it sticks. A lot of ordinary Australians don't like Islam, and it's stupid to do worse than ignore them but call them racist.

The fact that you put it down as HURR DURR shit shows you might be a bit out of touch. Islam isn't a race and disliking a religion shouldn't make you a racist in the eyes of a socialist group.

I can see where you're both coming from.

On one hand, it's obvious that "Muslim" is usually used in Australia as a synonym for "Arab". It's rather unlikely that right-wing Australians are too concerned about Malaysian or Indonesian Muslims.

On the other hand, just because the word "Muslim" is often used as a dog whistle for "Arab", it doesn't automatically make it racist to talk shit about Islam or Mohammad (Muslamic Gommunism be Upon Us).

Disliking a religion is not the same thing as disliking the people that follow it. Islam is, of course, not a race, but whether or not anyone wants to admit it, there IS a strong racial aspect to fear of Muslims. It's basically code word for "Arab" to a certain degree.

Well I find that really simplistic, and it's a silly way to talk about an issue by conflating people who are either unhappy with immigration, or Islam, with racists straight off the bat.

Except when SA says it, and labels anti Islamists as racists. If it's about race, don't even mention Islam. If it's an anti Islam rally, perhaps try to put forward an point of view that means people can be anti Islam and YES, still be socialist, but not based on race.

There is also a difference between not tolerating religion and tolerating theocracy.

one is racist and one isn't? One is allowable and one is fascist?

Or perhaps they may be different emotive words, but both ideas should be open to criticism without being labeled as anything other than a socialist.