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The Australian Microleft And The Battle To Be Right (Abbott Likes This) Anti-Semitism In The Australian Left Boot It Out. Is it left to smoke? Only if you support child labour. .

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Sick of the poor choice between the barely concealed right wing Neo-con media juggernaut on one hand or the unashamedly biased to their viewpoint micro party socialist propaganda kicking around on the other side of the fence we have created RATBAG. The aim of RATBAG is not to sway your thoughts one way or the other, it is to share some though provoking articles that are out there in circulation in the public domain and also to create a bit of space for the publishing original alternative content. We wish to be inclusive of all, so please do feel free to email us your article about what ever is on your mind! Political content is fine but RATBAG is not the organ of any political grouping. Nor will be publish any hate-based articles and the like We suggest you call Howard Sattler.

CONTENTS:

The Australian Microleft And The Battle To Be Right (Abbott Likes This)

Anti-Semitism In The Australian Left Boot It Out.

Is it left to smoke? Only if you support child labour.

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The Australian Microleft And The Battle To Be Right (Abbott Likes This)
The Australian Left is a broad church from the ALP Left factions on one end of the spectrum to organisations like the Spartacus League of Australia still ticking over and spluttering along at the other. With the present state of affairs Tony Abbot as PM, Australia towing asylum seekers back to Indonesian waters to appease a xenophobia the Liberals & Co manufactured and now necessary cuts to disability services, it is timely to have a look at why were in such a mess. Firstly, are we big enough to tackle the Right wing? On the size of the Australian left, there is no set figure. The online based Get Up! which aims to build a more progressive Australia (Progressive being a by-word for Left) claims to have 670,000 members, although all you need to be signed up (perhaps unwittingly) as a member by Get Up! is to sign one of their online petitions. The Greens report a 2013 membership of 9,500. We could be generous and say that 10,000 of the 40,000 ALP members identify as Left. The two largest of the socialist parties in Australia each claim a membership of 700. Well also be generous and say that the grab bag of smaller Left parties have a combined total membership of 1000. So thats a total of 21,100. But that is just political party membership - with some active lefties choosing not be members of a party or group, we need to factor this in. There are a bunch of groups similar to Get Up! , usually these are focused on one sector - Greenpeace for example. To account for active lefties that are not members of political parties lets be generous again and round up the 21,100 to 30,000. By active lefties I mean a person who does more than just votes left once every election Id define active lefties as people who are politically active in between and during elections. Considering the 30,000 figure in regards to the current Australian population of 23,363,148, this means that a tiny 0.128 percent of the Australian population are active lefties.

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Sounds pretty minuscule, but when compared to the biggest political party in Australia, the Liberals (including the Qld LNP) who report up to 50,000 members, its not a daunting prospect to take on the current neo-con regime. Of course, a key flaw with the concept of 30,000 active lefties taking on the neo-con right wing in Australia is that the Australian left is not a united group or without ongoing serial disputes between parties / groups. Andy Flemmings Trot Guide (updated 2012 version) lists 15 Trot (as in Trotsky) socialist groups in Australia, with another 15 or so groups that have petered out existence over the last 15 years. Some of these groups are virtually a few members maintaining a Post Office box and unfurling a banner at protests organised by others. Of the most active of these groups the largest groups are the Socialist Alliance (itself technically a coalition of small socialist parties) and the Socialist Alternative.

Both the Socialist Alliance (SAll) and the Socialist Alternative (Salt) claim to be the biggest socialist grouping in Australia. Whilst they both claim higher memberships of around 700, it is a safe bet and in accordance with what has been communicated here and there to halve this and say that each group has 350 paid up and active members. (Note: The Socialist Alternative is not a political party, describing itself as a "propaganda group" at its current size). Insert the line here Peoples Front of Judea eh! How farcical. Surprisingly though, the two groups have engaged in unity talks, somewhat egotistically entitled Left Unity. Whilst SAlt had around this time had a recent boost with the dwindling Revolutionary Socialist Party of around 30 members agreeing to wind up and have its members join SAlt, the Left Unity consisted of just the two groups - SAll and SAlt.

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One would think that it would be obvious to, for a start, invite all at least all of the still existing Trotskyist groups to participate in Left Unity talks, but this wasnt to be. Considering why the two groups are not united presently, the reasons for this range from interpersonal disputes from yore to complex theoretical points of argument. A commonly voiced dispute is over who is right about the Cuban Revolution. Ive never bothered to take in what it is all about but basically the point , along with other theoretical points of difference are prize pigs and apparently good points to talk about if they are trying to recruit someone.

Looking at these points through the lens of group or even tribal culture, for the SAll and the SAlt (and the other second and third tier smaller socialist groupings in Australia) these points of theoretical dispute form points of group identity. Examining further the hierarchal structure within each group, knowledge about the individual group interpretation points of theoretical difference becomes a hegemonic device, a base for the individuals in power within these groups to retain their power. At this stage Ill repeat an earlier comment: With the present state of affairs Tony Abbot as PM, Australia towing asylum seekers back to Indonesian waters to appease a xenophobia the Liberals & Co manufactured and now necessary cuts to disability services, it is timely to have a look at why were in such a mess. As a former logistics warehouse union delegate during the WorkChoices era, I had at the time absolutely zero interest in a conversation about why Castro is a hero of the workers of the World, or why the Cuban Revolution should have been a rank and file mass movement. Aside from the noble pursuit of intellectual theory, I still have absolutely no interest in a discussion on Cuba. What I am interested in is protecting and improving disability services. Im pissed off that my State government has made 2,000 children homeless under a flawed dob in an unruly
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tenant policy. I hate that State and Commonwealth assets are being sold off so that private enterprise can derive a profit from pretty much everything we need to do. Sure, both the SAll and SAlt, and the grab bag of other micro-trot groupings, will write articles condemning the above points, and a range of other real social issues, but in doing such they are aiming to be populous, to sell their papers and of course recruit new members to their tribe, and in SAll and SAlts case reinforce their rival hegemonies. Both SAll and SAlt hold the starry eyed dream of forming Government in Australia (perhaps more correctly replacing the current system with their version of a socialist state). Which is fine, it is the choice of the individuals concerned. The question is that in the face of the Abbott Government, should the other 28,000 active lefties in Australia leave the Peoples Front Of Judea ardent trot types to their self-serving arguments on political theory and get on with fighting neo-conservatism and the erosion of our social rights and living standard via a grouping that recognises that great debates on e.g. Cuba are in practical terms meaningless in the fight againts real life cuts.

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Anti-Semitism In The Australian Left Boot It Out.

Whilst the Occupy Movement was essentially a protest against Capitalism from a view of outrageous facts that e.g. the richest 85 people in the World have the same wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest the initial success of the Occupy Movement suffered in its open forum approach. Not that there is anything wrong with an open forum approach of course, more so the fact that in being open and expecting everyone to make a thoughtful and responsible contribution the forum was vulnerable to persons who malevolently sought to insert their pre formulated opinions onto the larger agenda. For example, the Occupy Movement in one Australian capital city was split into two non-aligned camps on an almost instantaneous basis. One camp consisted of a range of pre Occupy activist groups and individuals who had been campaigning on issues in real life for a number of years, the other was a collection of conspiracy theorists who wriggled out of the woodwork. The conspiractist group posted non-stop on the Chemtrails, Fluoride, Lizard People, Aliens standard conspiracy fare - and more sinisterly on the conspiracies about who is really running things: post on the Illuminati (containing veiled Anti Semitics) The Rothchilds (supposedly outing one family as major string pullers) and finally when in full flight Z.O.G out-and-out Anti-Semitic rants. Of course, the various Friends of Palestine groups across Australia, in seeking to put a spotlight on the oppression of the Palestinian people had already been in existence for years if not decades. To be clear, I do not define Friends of Palestine as an Anti-Semitic group, accepting on face value that they wish to e.g. promote the cause of Palestinian selfdetermination. Certainly these Friends of Palestine groups themselves are aware that they are glowing lamps that attract anti-semantic creepy crawlies, and the groups seem to manage to fend off the active participation of out and out anti-semantics. Knowing a few Friends of Palestine members via contact on other issue campaigns, I am confident that these individuals are not racist. Whether some have an ardent belief in the evils of American Imperialism etc. - is another matter.
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Despite largely being an American cargo cult, the conspiracists in Australia are also very much believers in American Imperialism and the belief that they know who is really running this American Imperialism. At this point out that the greatest thinker on American Imperialism and the spiritual leader of the Occupy Movement, Noam Chomsky totally discounts all conspiracy theories. Instead he explains American Imperialism as the typically hegemonic process where the most powerful culture virally dominates smaller cultures. Chomsky sums conspiracy theory as meaningless gunk.

In addition to an Occupy Movement cancered with conspiracy theorists seeking to insert their Root Cause of the Worlds troubles = Z.O.G views into the Left (for example, the conspiractist Occupy (Capital City) Facebook is still to this day years after Occupy continually spewing out conspiracy posts, with a post just made that the Commonwealth of Australia is a United States owned Corporation) a range of non-Trotskyist micro parties have emerged post Occupy. Particularly worth note of these is The WikiLeaks Party. Primarily a vehicle to try to have Assange elected to the Australian Senate and hence then granted diplomatic immunity, a selection of alternative thinkers some expressly Left in the traditional term, others more Libertarian (think Ron Paul, the US congressman) joined the WikiLeaks Party. Whilst the Party lost many members during-and-post the spectacularly wrong-footed preference anyone ahead of the Greens, our rivals preference arrangement, the Party is still stumbling along, and had just committed another serious blunder in meeting with the Syrian Dictator / Anti American Imperialism Hero Assad.
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Look! its true Actual pic from eyewitness! Page 8

Whether WikiLeaks party actually supports Assad Well, given the short yet tumultuous history of the party Who really knows. A bigger problem is that the anti-Semitic / US imperialist conspiracy types will see the WikiLeaks flirtation with the Assad regime as an in road to promote their covert racism and baseless theories to the broader left and the general community via e.g. online forums. More blatant than vague mentionings of a secret group not naming names running the World - Just saying - is the out and out anti-Semitism that is let slip when conspiracists think they are chewing over current affairs with likeminded people. Whilst these comments may not contain out and out offensive terms the brainless repeating of brainless anti-Semitic clichs that would not be out of place at a Nazi garden party.

Heres another pic my mate took... Its for real!

So with the conspiracists that have - particularly post Occupy - melded with some areas of the Australian Left not out-and-out condemning anti-Semitism, and in many cases alluding to some Elders of Zion brand conspiracy theory (which is, after all the great grandfather of all conspiracy theories) being the root cause of all of the Worlds ills What the hell is the Australian Left doing in not booting these racist anti-Semitic assholes back under the bridges ad rocks they crawled under? It is time for the Australian Left to draw a line in the sand and to tell the conspiracists to either dennounce anti-Semitism outright or to in no uncertain terms fuck off and die.

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Is it left to smoke? Only if you support child labour.

Is it left to smoke? As in left, I mean in the-everything-that-you-do-is-political way. On face value, yes, it would appear that smoking but only those pouch tobacco self-rolled cigarettes is quite associated with the Left. Why would this be? An obvious counter point would be to ask If smoking pouch tobacco self-rolled cigarettes is cool with the left, why is it not cool to whip out a 50 pack of Winne Bronze at a rally, light one up, enjoy that refreshing flavour and share them out to a grateful mob of 49 new friends. The immediate answer would be that Winnie Bronze are a manufactured product, manufactured by a heartless machine run by a third world wage slave in some huge factory owned by some evil multinational Big Tobacco corporation that is bulldozing hectare after hectare of virgin rainforest, with the Big Tobacco CEOs laughing as baby orang-utans are caught up in the caterpillar tread. Aaaand To my point: where the fuck do you think the tobacco sold in those cling wrap plastic pouches comes from? Do you think that the hard-to-get not-sold-at-EVERY-Coles-or-Woolworths pouch tobacco comes is some fair-trade rainforest-friendly love-in tropical island libertarian socialist living in harmony with the land fucking utopia? No there is no Small Tobacco. Pouch tobacco of course packaged in the same huge factory owned by the same evil multinational Big Tobacco Corporation that is bulldozing the same hectare after hectare of virgin rainforest. I admit that there may be a different machine and a group of different third world wage slaves making the shit up for you. Next pro pouch tobacco argument But but, it is less processed than cigarettes. Sure, it may be less chopped up than the smaller pieces of tobacco leaf found in machine rolled cigarettes, but really, do you trust the Big Tobacco Corporations that much? Perhaps you should After all, they do say that they care very much about your smoking pleasure. No, not really, they only give a shit about profits like all fucked up corporations. Basically the only difference between the machine rolled tobacco that the Left loathes and the hand rolled tobacco that the Left loves is the fact that it is called some bullshit made up more deliberately authentic sounding ye olde name, that it is filterless (unless you splash out extra cash for a bag of filters!) - and that you actually gotta roll up the shit yourself! So here it is what you are really doing when you assert your objection to machine made products mann On the human front - In many poorer countries where food is already in
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short supply, Big Tobacco Companies encourage local farmers to grow tobacco instead of food. Sometimes this results in even less food being available for the community. Tobacco plants take more nutrients from the soil than these food crops. They also need lots of pesticides and fertilisers to keep them free from diseases. These chemicals can affect the health of the farmers and their families. Tobacco is an industry that is riddled with child labour. It is impossible to know the exact number of children working in tobacco in numerous countries around the globe. In Malawi, child labourers usually work as part of a tenant family. Estate owners transport families from their home villages to work on estates. They are forced by economic necessity to work with their families in the tobacco fields, risking their health, safety, and future. They are subjected to hazardous manual labour, physical strain, dangerous environments, and long hours. The children are charged with strenuous tasks such as clearing the land, building tobacco drying sheds, weeding and plucking tobacco. Many of these tasks put them in unsafe situations. When they cut and bundle the tobacco leaves they are put at risk of absorbing pesticides and nicotine from the tobacco leaves through their skin. Some are given the task of applying pesticide chemicals with their bare hands. That is just for example. Research the human cost of your smoking yourself. And now a snap shot of the environmental impact Approximately 5 million hectares (600 million trees) of forest are destroyed each year to provide trees to dry tobacco. This is the same size of 3.6 million Aussie Rules Football fields. Litter caused by cigarette butts is a significant problem in Australia. Nearly 7 billion cigarette butts are not disposed of properly in Australia each year. Nearly 7% of bushfires in Australia, which are responsible for 14 deaths each year, are caused by carelessly discarded burning cigarette butts. When it rains, cigarette butts lying in our streets and gutters are washed in to our harbours, beaches and rivers. The chemicals in these butts and the butts themselves impact on our water quality and can be deadly to our marine life. So with all this said - what way could a conscious Leftie enjoy rolling up a nice bunch of rainforest after paying $25 of post-tax income for the pleasure? For my Left comrades that have read this far, please accept that I write this as a sinner (my choice is to drink only) which certainly has its evils where you arent drinking organic homebrew made from locally sourced ingredients, but in consuming tobacco that is not illegal Australian grown chop chop you are by default supporting child labour and rainforest clearing. Footnote: There is no escape - The Australian grown chop chop will still kill you of cancer my friends.
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MALAWIAN TOBACCO WORKER < 2009

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