> >and there's no 'identity' because the prior forms of working class
identity
> >have proved themselves to be little more than mechanisms of integration
and
> >subordination.
rob wrote:
> Well, I passionately agree with this - but I don't reckon most saw this
in
> such a finely tuned beam - we simply hate all authority more every day.
i'm inclined to agree, but then i'm increasingly thinking that anarchism is becoming the spontaneous form of working class consciousness, alongside nationalism, populism, and a dash of cyber/dot.communism -- all of which have their own problems but not equally, and they do accord with the character of working class reproduction: informalised, casualised, unwaged, conscripted (work-for-the-dole) and the almost total collapse of manufacturing and mining (the 'real' work that peter just mentioned).
just as beazley (head honcho of the Labor Party) announced that the ALP was committing itself to a plebiscite on the republic when it's re-elected, in the same fucking breath he couldn't help himself, he went on about how the ALP would militarise the Aust coastline to stop all those pesky illegal migrants coming here -- no doubt part job creation scheme for northern towns and part something-for-the-One-Nation types in the next election. the populist anti-parliamentarist spin resonated a lot more than the sentimentalised xenophobia. i was kind of surprised, actually, at how much resistance there was to being cast as 'the nation' compared to being cast as 'the people'. i guess beazley is trying to look around for the formula of 'the people's nation' or 'the nation's people'... and i'm not optimistic it won't be the latter, given all the ALP's rubbish about illegals -- but without any kind of redistributive basis or policy, i guess the ALP has little else to fall back on other than racism.
hey, kerry packer paid less tax than i did! that would be a populist slogan (sans nationalism, with class) that the ALP would never touch. more fool them.
"Kerry Packer's company makes $1.25b profit, pays no tax Source: AAP | Published: Monday November 8 9:01:11 AM
Kerry Packer's private investment company Consolidated Press Holdings Ltd (CPH) made a net profit of almost $1.25 billion in 1998/99 and paid no tax, it was reported today."
Angela _________