mostly edge, mostly no point

There is a startling tendency for self-described “Maoists” to follow the deranged and revisionist line of Abimael “Chairman Gonzalo” Guzman. This tendency, while declaring itself “anti-revisionist”, is ironically itself a revisionist line. This is no more evident than in the hero-worship of Guzman himself. Hero-worship and the uplifting of individuals about the wider movement is contrary to basic Marxist and Communist values. The masses advance Global Communism, not individuals, least of all the baby-killer Guzman.

To the uninformed, I will begin by giving some context.

Below is a comprehensive list of progressive victories by the Australian Labor Party since the year 2000:

To the uninformed, “Reignite Democracy Australia” is a conservative anti-vax and anti-lockdown conspiracy theorist organisation posing as a political advocacy group. Their leader, Monica Smit, has all the markings of a conservative populist: from the constant references to The Constitution to the way she centers herself in everything the organization does. But what, pray tell, does RDA want? They want the government to pretend that COVID-19 doesn’t exist, pretty much.

This is going to be a tough ride.

Bruce Pascoe’s 2014 piece Dark Emu puts forth a compelling argument for Australia to reconsider its precolonial history. It provides primary and secondary sources to back the claim that Indigenous Australians were not uniformly “hunter gatherers”, and instead had diverse and complex societies. Overall, it is an interesting read, and poses important questions about Australian pre-colonial history.

Dark Emu Exposed, however, it the opposite, in more ways than one. It attempts to “disprove” Dark Emu with what can only be described as intellectually dishonest claims: most of which rest on Bruce Pascoe being “politically motivated” (as if the only motivation to challenge historical misconceptions is “politics”, or that Dark Emu Exposed is any less “political”). The ultimate thesis of this site is, in all honesty, a reinforcement than pre-colonial Indigenous society was uniformly a “stone age hunter gatherer” society, and it only follows then that therefore they were savages and inferior to the superior and intellectual European tradition.

Look at this image. “Hospo Voice Plus Membership”. Does this sound like you're joining a union, or signing up for some internet streaming service? Words cannot describe how wrong this is.

“Hospo Voice” is a project of the United Worker's Union and at one point did, in fact, have good organizers, and was fairly militant. Now look at it. It has “membership tiers” and is structured like an internet streaming service. Pay $79 a month and we'll help you deal with a dodgy boss, but unless you have that Golden Platinum Plus membership the most we can do is offer you some comforting words.

This is probably going to be a big one. In this piece, I'm going to talk about:

• A critique of Bob Hawke,
• A critique of Jack Lang,
• A critique of Kevin Rudd and Labor optimism,
• Why you can't trust reformists!

There's gonna be some scrolling in this one.

This is a hastily written follow-up to yesterday's opinion piece You Don't Build A Movement By Making Youtube Videos, Son. In the absence of comments, I will assume that article was perfect in every way, and in my hubris will create something even worse, with Misfits puns. The section on Riley Grace Roshong was, in hindsight, much angrier than it needed to be, and I also forgot to complain about the big man himself (Density).

Also, I should probably go into that “eat the rich” d i s c o u r s e in more detail, just to provide context, or something. Like, it's such a benign thing to start d i s c o u r s e over.

Like some unholy beast, I rise, if only to complain about the internet for two hours and then die again.

The time has come, my friends, to sook about weird internet people. Into the fray!

The man who would be known as Vaush (source: Vaush/YouTube)

Darrian Traynor/Getty Images