What's what?

"...the working class feels totally alienated by traditional left wing labour political parties who by and large have embraced the neoliberal globalisation project wholeheartedly."

Interesting sentence. Shows how hard it is to pin down left/right politics today, because a great many 'traditional left wing' electorates have fallen to Liberal who are even greater adherents of globalisation. Then there's the fact that whenever I've gone to protests or marches against globalisation (or similar) the crowd is mostly comprised of traditional left wing folk waving placards from left wing parties.

Rather than your assertion that the left has embraced neoliberalism, I believe it's a matter of the left shifting their values from workers rights to human rights. They've become progressive. As far as I can see, Labor and the Greens are the only parties concerned with traditional industry yet they also take an outward view on humanity - more inclusive, less suspicious - and that's where they have crossover with MNCs and globalisation. 

This anger people have talked about above .... in the UK and the US and here.

Its about a lot of things, some correctly identified above, but it MUST also include this voodoo economics theory of low taxing governments stimulate economic growth and therefore wealth "trickles down" to the masses.

Since Reagan and Thatcher the world has seen tax rates plummet and government services wound back and governments' ability to have a positive impact on the economy e.g. job creation eroded. During this time the wealth of punters in the street in major economies has gone backwards while the mega wealthy just get more.

Trickle down economics does not work yet we have the Liberals here wanting to hand over $50 BILLION worth of tax cuts to business over the next 10 years "in the hope (and prayer)" that some jobs are created.

Look at the highest taxing economies in the world and look at how happy the citizens are and look at their education and health schemes and you will see there is a better way than the tripe we get served here!!

"Interesting sentence. Shows how hard it is to pin down left/right politics today, because a great many 'traditional left wing' electorates have fallen to Liberal who are even greater adherents of globalisation. Then there's the fact that whenever I've gone to protests or marches against globalisation (or similar) the crowd is mostly comprised of traditional left wing folk waving placards from left wing parties."

Protests against Globalisation?
When was the last one of those of significance in Aus?

Few rumblings of discontent about the TPP but protests?

I think Aus has been somewhat shielded from the phenomena of USA and EU/UK where middle class has been screwed and workers fcuked up the arse and thus we haven't quite seen this massive disconnect between workers and the traditional parties of the left. But our economy is rapidly heading down that path and there's already a strong sense that greens represent some kind of urban elite that has nothing to do with working people.
This article from Helen Razer kind of sums up the vibe.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/05/12/why-i-wont-vote-for-the-greens/

@freeride76, could you paraphrase that article please, there is enough dreadful writing on here without having to read Helen Razer

FR,

APEC, TPP, few associated marches of discontent, maybe one every six months so, none of them quite Seattle '99 but enough to see who cares about the issues and it sure as fuck isn't the 'traditional working class'. In my more cycnical moments - and hey, I'm having one right now! - I'd say they were the aspirationals who abandoned Labor, fell for every Howard scare campaign, and cheered at every tax cut, and now they form the core of the 'angry workers'.

Point being: they haven't been unrepresented they just backed the wrong horse and now blame others (see also Floyd's recent comments on trickle down economics).

And the Greens being the urban elite? Funny how they're also the only party going hard on fracking on farm land.

Like I said, left and right have never been harder to find.

well her non subsciber intro is spot on about vote compass. it has put me in the green camp for a long time, and I've had a similar reaction to razor's and the inner city ideals.

but there has been big developments in the last year or so, where the greens, and the party many would call right wing, xenophon's have started raising concerns about certain deals while we still just get steely silence from labor.

clinton almost talked about it, pushed kicking and screaming, by bernie. and corbyn is all over it, saying similar things to sanders. but the connected ones in oz don't want to go there. the gravy train still rolls. they're gonna need to do more than a "people first" slogan to convince me, lucky for them malcolm's digging his own grave and they can play coy.

the greens and certain right leaning independents have beat labor at their main game, because as freeride says, oz is way behind in the decline. but change is coming fast, big change, and the connected ones might just have to nail their real colours to the mast

yes stunet is right about your average worker and their choices, but my green friends are pretty reluctant to look at the big picture too when it comes to the realities of howards tax breaks

Bill Shorten was in Darwin yesterday .... not that any of the press seem to be covering it ..... anyway ...

He spoke about the 1,000,000 foreign workers currently working in this country.

ONE MILLION FOREIGN WORKERS HERE TODAY.

He talked about how Labor will ensure that the 457 visa rules will be strictly enforced to ensure Australian workers are offered these positions first.

I've said this before and its even more relevant today.

The Liberals learnt their Workchoices lesson really really well, why introduce a policy overtly when by stealth and by lies you can go even further and dilute the power of unions even more .... just allow foreign workers to take as many jobs as they can .......

Footnote: I'm sure there are many positions and industries where foreign workers are needed but ONE MILLION in a country as small as ours .... we are being taken as mugs.

whoever wins the next election is in for a hell of a time. this is funny....http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-24/was-deciding-factor-brits-vote-...

Heh, Stu, Alan jones is hard against CSG - he ain't a Greenie. After seeing what's talked about from Brexit, I think we are doing ok, here. Give me Aus any day. Just look at our surf options !
The question is - why are the Greens beating Labor at their own game.

Just read the Helen Razer article...such a misguided li'l diatribe. So the Greens aren't the 'party of revolution'? When exactly did they say they were? She can't point it out and I doubt anyone can, as they've been a third voice (third choice) party since their inception in Oz and I can't recall any platform advocating economic revolution. And so she misidentifies the Greens. She defines who they are, and then rails against them when they don't match her (incorrect) definition.

Editor! We have ourselves a problem...

Upon that, how can any party exist on a platform of economic revolution when the idea is too distatseful for anyone bar the fringe players? Politics goes where the people will it, so no major constituency is ever unrepresented. These 'angry workers' have had their votes in the past. They got their tax cuts, and cheap white goods, and their upward mobility, and they thoroughly revelled in it for a time.

What they didn't realise was the Faustian bargain they unwittingly signed, that being all the other things that came with their trinkets: small government, less worker protection, reduced public spending, privatised utlities, privatised education, privatised health care (final act to come), and now it's all coming home to roost.

And who's fault is it? The left parties who were dragged to the centre by dwindling membership, or the voters who signed up for self interest at the expense of a secure future?

Drumpfe knows what's up:
 

Today's headlines-
The Guardian; "I don't understand the anger"... "Brexit won’t shield Britain from the horror of a disintegrating EU"

AGE; "Fears Brexit vote could send world 'OVER THE EDGE'"..... MAYHEM sweeps across a disunited kingdom"........

Herald sun; "Britain told to get out NOW".....

The Australian; "Win for xenophobia, resentment"...

ABC; "Britain in shock",

Ok...... Ok...... Calm the fuck down, people....... Are the heinkels and dorniers dropping bombs as we speak? Are the Spitfires and Hurricanes at the ready?

Cameron wanted this..... It fucked up in his face...... I don't think any of us are experts on the details of British politics..... I found this article quite interesting;

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/24/david-cameron-resi...

One of the issues in the UK which is relevant also to Australia is what you could call the dis-integration of communities. What I mean is that historically our local communities were economically diverse. The bank manager might have had a nicer house in a better street but the teller lived around the corner as did the blue collar workers. Now of course the merchant banker lives, if we take Sydney as an example, in the prosperous east while the average worker is likely to end up way out west. This has led to a lack of understanding between the various classes most notably between the political classes and the working classes, and by that I mean those on low incomes.....sorry $75,000 a year? Your probably upper middle class even if your father was a brickie.
In the UK this led to false confidence over the referendum. Even that uber-prat Boris appeared shocked at the win. The politicians did not realise that if you are struggling to make a decent life for your family, the in vote only offered more of the same. The out vote raised at least the possibility of change. In the US Trump's method of connecting with these voters has been to be all things to all people, tell them whatever they want to hear since they will remember that and forget that you also said the exact opposite to some other audience. The out campaign did exactly the same in the UK.
In Australia the recent benign economic conditions and the vestigial remains of the fair go have protected those on low incomes from the dire circumstances in the US and UK. How long that can be maintained if Australia experiences a prolonged down turn is hard to say. Not long under a coalition government that's certain and probably not much longer under Labor.

Hey Stu,

Don't blame my aspirational Australians for this mess, its the left's fault ....

FFs..... It's now the "left/right game".......
More good reading...... WTF are governments for?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/24/it-seems-like-a-go...

@blindboy .... that is a telling observation and I would say that equally applies to the senior management levels of the public service, the sort of people that advise Ministers and governments on the impact of proposed policy.

I have seen this firsthand - single professional/no long-term relationship/ no kids/ career men and women in "advisor" positions on large salaries and lifestyles to match advising government from their perspective i.e. no family or personal "struggle' street experience ..... contrasted with periods pre Howard when department heads and senior managers were mostly men and women with families/kids.

but it's way worse than bombs and spitfires sheepdog

it's about the market!!!

don't dare say/do anything that will affect the market, that's the devil's work, hence the right is on the xenophobia bandwagon by way of the front page of the australian

8 years of propping has failed and people are freaking, poker face is slipping

this is combined with blindboys observations, societies are so segregated they cannot even understand each other anymore. the difference in incomes and educations has created very different perspectives, somehow cultural capital is more impotant than ever, with little empathy for those that don't have it, kind of harsh really, as it's a slippery thing to attain

people cannot even consider each other's perspective anymore, or have no will to. which in turn is exacerbated by the social media echo chamber

and poor old boris, it's a case of careful what you wish for

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/a-pyrrhic-victory-boris-...

floyd I think it applies right across the social spectrum and is continuing. I live in an area of medium density on the northern beaches which for the last 40 years has provided affordable housing for those on low incomes as well as containing some very expensive free standing houses and penthouses. Now the majority of those moving in are 35 year old couples with children on good incomes. Prices and rents have soared. Anyone working in aged care, child care, retail etc would now find it impossible to find a suitable property. Already many of those workers are commuting from western Sydney. Your point about senior management in the Public Service is a classic example but it also applies to the legal and medical professions.

Sypkan writes...... "don't dare say/do anything that will affect the market, that's the devil's work, hence the right is on the xenophobia bandwagon by way of the front page of the australian

8 years of propping has failed and people are freaking, poker face is slipping"

Yep..... Well said..... But the left has a hand in this too.... It's across the board....

Dont wanna sound like a broken record, but yet again all roads lead back to Sept 11, 2001....... The whole thing doesn't ad up..... To find an unscathed passport of one of the terrorists at the base of the twin towers......... No plane or footage of a plane at the pentagon..... the following years of neoconic rule..... The declaration of war on an emotion (terror.... terror is a form of fear.... How does one declare war on an emotion?).... The macabre gluttony of 2003 -2007 - pigs at the trough - the promotion of "ski holidays" as in "spend the kids inheritance", the demonization of the unemployed - MY TAXES PAY FOR YOUR DRUGS YOU BLUDGER, the privatisation of security and happiness, The "up with the jones lifestyle", The block, biggest loser, smokers are to blame, being aboriginal is a lifestyle choice, If you don't love Australia, get out, dont worry about Chinas human rights - they got money......,,,,,
Then the first signs appeared....... Derivatives, the first card at the base is pulled... The house starts to wobble..... Banks in the USA collapse, but thats ok, we'll use tax from the people the banks have been ripping off to prop them up.... We'll encourage housing bubbles... We'll loan virtual free cash.... We'll keep the charade going for as long as we can.... The horse is dead.... But flog it.....

Well,,,, people are tired of the neverending war..... They dont even ackowledge we are at war anymore.... The refugees escaping the bombs are now the problem... It's easier to blame them than blame one self for running with the bulls over the past 15 years.....
If the UK, Australia, USA was to pull out of the middle east, you'd be amazed what a difference it would make within 12 months to the psyche of these nations.... It'd be like lancing a boil

Meanwhile in banker's land

there it is, all in one article

causes, effects and (too late) solution

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2016/jun/24/divided-br...

Interesting article Sypkan. Mentions the media class and their role in all this bollocks at least. Worth considering that The Guardian in the UK aren't on the Corbyn cheer-squad at all. And if they aren't, you can imagine where Murdoch's Sun and the Daily Mail sit. Both Brexiteer rags of course.

Good to see Orwell's The Lion and The Unicorn get a guernsey. Prescient bloke. Someone previously posted on here somewhere about this yonks ago. Probably Shatnerd.

Its subtitle by the way: Socialism and the English Genius.

Now let's see Boris and the Brexit brigade really dismantle the State and Austerity the fuck out of their fellow Brexit 'constituents'.

English regions with the biggest votes for 'Leave' are also the most economically dependent on the EU:

UK residents type into Google "What is the EU?" after the poll closes (from Google Search):

Stu's graph is interesting..... Perhaps all the demographics should've been posted...... Below is a link to the full article....... Seen lots of media covering the "anger" of "younger voters".... As you can see below, the young vote was extremely low..... Apathetic, perhaps...... If the 18 to 28s had've put their phones down for a minute, the result may have been different..

http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2016/06/24/brexit-demographic-divide-eu-refer...

The New Yorker cover nailed it.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/cover-story-2016-07-04

spent the day listening to ABC news radio with analysis from all comers.

interesting but armageddon seems a way off .

More like have a cup of tea, calm your tits and carry on.

sheepy, that link is paywalled. heard that majority of younger voters wanted to stay as did northern Ireland and Scotland .... already talk in northern Ireland and Scotland of separating from England and staying with the EU. The younger vote also interesting, perhaps proving politics is all about looking after oldies ......... interesting article in The Age by Jessica Irvine explaining why Labor's policy on negative gearing is the best thing for young voters since Whitlam's university policy .......

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/ignore-the-scare-campaign-labors-housin...

but will young voters support Labor or will they swallow this jobs and growth with a $50 billion price tag bullshit.

Australia's top economists are also saying cut negative gearing and not corporate taxes .......

http://www.theage.com.au/business/the-economy/scope-businessday-economic...

Don't expect any of that to be on the front pages of the Murdoch papers !

England may rise or fall.

But you can be certain that the vested interests that are pushing the world towards complete economic integration will have their feet on its neck in order to ensure that it fails as a warning to any nations that may wish to follow.

PS Sheepy , would you call 1 million people mass immigration ?

Interesting to see how the Brexit Tories step on their own necks? Or rather stomp all over their fellow Brexit 'constituents'. Who are these 'vested interests' again?

Even you can't possibly believe that the pollies run the show Turkey ?

So these 'vested interests' are pulling the Brexit Tory's and Ukipper's strings? As well as the Remain Tory's?

What end of the string is, say, Trump? Puller or pulled?

Who are 'they' again?

Where's Corbyn and Sanders in all this?

No doubt 'they' are pulling the LNPs strings here too by the look of it, hey?

Labor? Greens?

Liberal Democrats? Rise up? Liberty Alliance? Hanson?

How's that old John Stuart Mill quote go?

“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”

As far as the UK referendum went you could substitute 'Brexiteers' for 'conservatives' and 'stupid people' with 'wilfully ignorant, uneducated racists' in that quote, I reckon. Opinion?

i would have voted Brexit and I'm not wilfully ignorant or rascist, so no, I'd say that's entirely incorrect.

And you don't think there is anyone pulling the LNP's strings ?

If you read the guardian you would think Putin was pulling the strings. "The most effective propagandists of the “European ideal” have not been the far right, but an insufferably patrician class for whom metropolitan London is the United Kingdom. Its leading members see themselves as liberal, enlightened, cultivated tribunes of the 21st century zeitgeist, even “cool”.

What they really are is a bourgeoisie with insatiable consumerist tastes and ancient instincts of their own superiority. In their house paper, the Guardian, they have gloated, day after day, at those who would even consider the EU profoundly undemocratic, a source of social injustice and a virulent extremism known as “neoliberalism”."

https://newmatilda.com/2016/06/26/a-blow-for-democracy-john-pilger-on-wh...

So for Brexit, why did so many millions of Brits not register and vote. I believe about 33 million voted.
Why did the leader of the opposition, a major party, not give a recommendation for its followers. Most of the Euros want the Brits to get out quickly, they must be pissed. A chance to sell our milk and not compete with a subsidied market.

Because they thought they had the Remain vote in the bag? Have read a few bleakly funny anecdotes from punters who thought the UK should Remain yet voted Leave to "make the vote closer". I'm guessing they thought it was gonna be a runaway and they wanted to keep the bastards honest.

The joke's on, who?

Austerity was not just imposed by the Tories but by the European Central Bank and the whole other undemocratic apparatus of Brussels.

A vote remain was just a vote for the Status Quo and a helluva lot of people just said "fcuk that noise".
A Leave vote at least gives a glimmer of hope for people who are being completely arse fcuked. It may turn out to be false hope but it's better than voting for a status quo that has been demonstrated to be fcuked.

The dangerous disconnect though between working class concerns and experiences and those elites governing them who think they are nothing but a racist rabble continues and is the real problem. Because it opens the door up for populist demagogues.

Would seem to be the case. The disaffected only had only lever to pull and they yanked that fucker hard.

Only they didn't all of a sudden wake up outside the neoliberal system, and they didn't all of a sudden escape market powers. They just shifted their country further to the right, deeper within the Tory's paws, and removed all the market advantages the EU gave them.

Crazy but it's true.

Interesting article, Foily. Always is with Pilger. Old school fourth estater now pleading the fifth. Speaking truth to power. Interesting comments below the article too.

I posted on here a coupla things before regarding Brexit/Remain. Glib perhaps but that is my wont.

"This is a very complicated case, comrades. You know, a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-you's."

"It became necessary to destroy the world in order to save it. Either way, it's the little people who always cop it the hardest."

I remember again somewhere on here Blowie giving his own political prescriptions for what ails Australia which got a thumbs up from Tony Barber amongst others. Which is all well and good. I asked these fellas directly how this translates in the Australian 'realpolitik' world, with an election coming up. With compulsory voting, what is the strategy? Does anyone match your views? Who's closest? Or who's furthest? The 'nuclear' option!

Or is it the informal option? In Brexit/Remain terms, this would've been not bothering to vote at all.

(Never got an answer of any sort by the way. Twice! Now thrice, I guess)

I made another glib remark about the Brexit voters above that Blowie didn't really seem to think through. Put another way, not all Remain voters were neo-liberal cheer-leaders etc.

More effective to be inside the tent or outside...or is just pissing on the tent and hoping it'll all fall down the go? Or rather it's a case of not giving a shit, 'cos we'll get a new better tent just for us. All of us? Whatevers. I'm sure these blokes will get us a sick one. Where we going, man?

The 'realpolitik' fact though is that a lot of the Brexit voters, Pilger's people that have spoken, are going to be hammered by the Brexit Tories. The uber-right pro Austerity/ pro dismantling of the State Tories.

This kind of pain is necessary to then facilitate real change somewhere, some time in the future?

Is this why the LNP should get voted in here? Let's get some real pain happening across the board?

Easy to agitate for when it isn't you that will cop it the hardest. Or rather when you can't envisage it being you that will cop it.

Vote LNP. Viva the revolution??

Yes but let's be honest the EU was no savior to the working people of the UK nor offering any succor from austerity , quite the opposite. They are driving the austerity bus.
At least now working people have got rid of one slave driver.
We'll see what happens to the Tory agenda.
I expect working class anger to now be directed at it.

In regards to Britain, I don't think that austerity analysis stands up. And I'd love to share your belief and expectation that working class anger will now be directed at Boris and his gang. Have you got the inside word on Murdoch's health? Viagra overdose in the offing?

If Corbyn gets rolled and the 'third way' gang get the Labour reins again, when will this happen? When will anything that is poor-sod-related? Well, anything remotely positive. And if he doesn't, or something remarkable eventually happens, what's gonna be left to salvage in England?

My Scottish passport in the post, yet?

"I expect working class anger to now be directed at it."

Wouldn't hold my breathe. You know, it's not like they haven't had opportunities to kick the Tories before - every three years, right? And yet they've held power longer than any other party since 1900.

I've read many times that the political elites have disconnected with the working class.

Oh really..? I think it's the other way around; there are few traditional working class, particularly young working class, that agitate politically. Look who attends the marches, look who writes the words, look who's involved in politics at a grassroots level.

Like I said yesterday, it sure as fuck isn't the working class. So the 'urban elites' shouldn't have to apologise for anything just 'cos their old comrades have gone missing.

The reason Brexit got over the line was because it was a 'yay or 'nay' vote. No gray. No nuance. Just tick the box on the right...then back down the pub for an endless rerun of 'Nil By Mouth'.

God help Australia if we destroy our education system to the extent of the US and UK.

Just another pre-election thought bubble? Nothing to worry about? File under: never, ever (next to 'privatizing Medicare')? Sub-set: Labor scare campaigns.

http://m.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/malcolm-turnbulls-ed...

Stunts, don't conflate the UK working class and their supposed political apathy with the experience here. We don't have classes here remember?

British working class culture, in all its manifestations, even in its degraded and dis-enfranchised current state (though ask Scotland and Ulster about that) is still stronger than it ever was here. Mainly because it's at least acknowledged it exists.

We like to pretend, or are 'directed' to pretend, it doesn't.

Stu, FR, don't forget that the Brits just had an election and voted in Cameron with a majority. So I'm not sure about 'working class anger'. I think Stu, you maybe right, many thought it was clear Remain and just didn't register and vote. A no brainer … well lets see. Another point to note is that the government may reject the referendum and if they slowly pull out, may be able to reverse it. I think thats why the Euros want them to start now and not delay. They are worried what might happen if its a slow exit.

Reject the referendum? You reckon? Cameron just fell on his sword pledging to honor the result.

"God help Australia if we destroy our education system to the extent of the US and UK."

Ya kidding right? "Jobs and Growth"......... The intellectual level of political discussion in Australia in about as low as it gets..... It reflects how educated we are as a whole..... We are one of the most dumb arse nations on the planet..... We elect onion eaters, and "conservative atheists" who condone same sex marriage.... Oh hang on, we only JUST voted her in, with the help of Oakshot and Windsor..... We now back a union hack and a former banker......
Sorry stu..... But Australia is fucked....

Last general election Scotland had the highest % turn-out nationally and the highest % turn-out in the entire UK since 1997 (the end of 18 years of Tory govt.)

The SNP won 56 out of 59 seats.

Scotland voted Remain (as did Ulster).

Wonder what will happen in the (very) near future?

The disconnect is between the ruling classes and the poor. It's that old " Let them eat cake" thing. They just don't get what it is like to live in poverty and how desperate people become when faced with it. I think it was freeride who nailed it back there about people having nothing to lose. The in vote, like a vote for Clinton in the US, is a vote for more of the same. An out vote, or a vote for Trump, guarantees change and that can be a source of hope.
The other factor in this is that as globalisation increases and capital can move freely, then labour will have to move freely as well. The existing global differentials in wages are not sustainable. To resist this is to lose jobs to lower wage countries. This is the fundamental cause of the rise in poverty in first world countries. Australia has been largely shielded from this by the resources boom and the fact that its location, and lack of collective empathy for those in dire circumstances, have enabled it to cherry pick the immigrants and refugees best suited to the local economy. I wouldn't bet that this continues much longer.