As part of his PR campaign, K. Rudd proclaimed that he had never been any kind of socialist. Instead, while playing Judas to his leader, he paraded his species of Christianity in an article for The Monthly. Rudd extolled the Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose resistance to Hitler led to his execution in 1945. It is easy to attach yourself to Bonhoeffer when you know you are never going to be put to the tests that he faced. How much easier is it to say, “I oppose Hitler” when you dare not abolish the police-state powers of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.
On the contrary, in 2007, Rudd initiated the expulsion from the ALP of the assistant-secretary of the WA Construction Division, Joe McDonald, because he had called a boss a “f-cking thieving parasite dog”. Instead of waiting for the result of an internal Party investigation, Rudd buckled to a Liberal Party internet campaign by sealing McDonald’s expulsion the day after a court had acquitted him of trespass. Joe’s hanging offence had been to assure reporters that, unlike that “burnt-out dictator” John Howard, “I’ll be back” to organise against “getting robbed by unscrupulous bosses”. Rudd found these words “incendiary”, with no place in “a more modern industrial relations system.” Rudd thus put his electoral prospects above the due process that Bonhoeffer had given his life to defend.
The radical poet Victor Daley exposed the speciousness of Rudd’s moralising style in this swipe at the pontificating of The Sydney Morning Herald:
Write boldly, cut and thrust,
‘Gainst wrong in some unseen land;
Denounce the Blubber Trust
That paralyses Greenland…Be hard on Ancient Rome —
Things dead, or at a distance,
Are safe — but take at home
The line of least resistance.
What has Rudd ever done to show that faith without works is dead? Did he ever join a non-violent protest? Has he put himself in the way of getting arrested in support of a just cause? Even Peter Beattie got nicked during one of the Brisbane Street Marches. Rudd belongs to the would-to-God Brigade: “Would-to-God that I had been born in Germany in 1900, for then I too could have been a martyr.”
Rudd is not the only “tinkling cymbal” in the ministry. Fellow believer Peter Garrett is questing for a principle he cannot betray. A third Christian, Greg Combet, began his campaign against WorkChoices by promising to go to prison. Well, we can’t say he hasn’t ended up among criminal types.
Twas not always thus. For sixty years, Equality, by Christian socialist R. H. Tawney, was the bible of British Labour. Then came the Vicar of Blair. Tawney’s Christianity was as rooted in his commitment to social equality as it was grounded in his character.
When the Labour Party offered him a peerage, he replied: “What have I ever done to harm the Labor Party?”
Seventy years on, the answer to that question would be to have promoted social equality.
Tawney’s name would never be considered for preferment. Instead, he too would be liable to expulsion for his “incendiary” advocacy of social equality, which has no place in “a more modern industrial relations system.”
Warren Buffett:
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html
Just because the days of kids and labourers going down stinking coal mine shafts are over (in the West any way) does not mean that class warfare is not being waged, it is covert and representative democracy has tended to water down any sort of class consciousness that may have existed in the West.
What/who controls the economy, culture and politics? The ruling class, ie. capitalists. It is true that what it means to be “working class” has changed over the years, and there is some potential for members of the working class to gain capital through loans etc..however it is not possible to say that the middle class or small business owners have more influence over the economy, culture or politics than say Rupert Murdoch or major financial institutions.
Also, from the ABS
The share of the economy going to profits has hit the highest level since the ABS started keeping records in 1959, while the share allocated to wages has hit a new 43-year low, today’s National Accounts data has revealed.
The data shows the “profits share” of the economy hit a new record high of 27.8% in trend terms, the greatest share going to profits since the ABS began collecting the data in the September quarter of 1959.
At the same time, the “wages share” of the economy fell to 52.7%
Just because the term “class war” seems cliched and old fashioned does not mean that it does not exist. It is a tragedy that the winning team (Warren Buffett and his friends) can see and wage this war. The losing classes are so over worked; stressed by mortgages and interest rates; distracted by reality TV and plasmas and caught up with celebrity style politics to the point that they pose no real challenge to the system. Workers are playing by the rules of the ruling class and are getting ripped off.
…except possibly Guy Rundle (though I live in hope that even he might cringe at McQueen’s contribution here).
Humphrey “atheism is just another religion” McQueen normally makes Guy look a paragon of common sense.
Although in this instance, it’s entirely unclear what on earth he’s going on about. I think he doesn’t like Kevin Rudd, and something about his religion, but beyond that, sorry, no idea.
I’d never heard of RH Tawney before now, but I bet he would have said his commitment to social equality was rooted in his Christianity, not the other way round.
This is far from the only thing back to front here. Multiple choice question: It would be more effective to
a) join a non-violent protest
b) get arrested in support of a just cause
c) become Prime Minister.
Apparently, according to McQueen, the correct answers are a) and b)
Similarly bizarre is taking a swipe at Greg Combet, seemingly because he succeeded in bringing down WorkChoices without going to prison. WTF?
Finally he equates calling a boss a “f-cking thieving parasite dog” with ‘advocacy of social equality’. WTF?!!
Clearly he doesn’t realise how Cretaceous all his class warfare bullsh!t sounds to modern ears.
Great article!