In her book, Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging, Jodi Dean sees “[a]ttention to comradeship” as the antidote to tense, conflicted, suspicious, exhausting identity-driven Left politics, especially online. She is particularly critical of the recent focus on allyship: “the term ally appears more to designate a limit, suggesting that you will never be one of us, than it does to enable solidarity.” This is not to deny real differences of privilege: “comrade does not eliminate conflict. It names an aspiration not always fulfilled but one that comrades can be expected to recognize, to strive for. … The determinations of a sexist, racist, capitalist society unavoidably intrude, but comrade names a relation no longer determined by these factors, providing a site from which they can be judged and addressed.” Alliances are, by their nature, temporary alignments of interest. We should look beyond them for something deeper: “an ally with interests of [their] own that temporarily overlap with mine… might later come to be a comrade.” Comradeship goes further: “Comrades are those you can count on. You share enough of a common ideology, enough of a commitment to common principles and goals, to do more than one-off actions. Together you can fight the long fight.”

Anglicare’s annual Jobs Availability Snapshot proves that government propaganda about unemployed people as job snobs or drug addicts is nonsense. There simply aren’t enough jobs to go around, especially for people who lack qualifications or work experience: “It found there were about 100,000 disadvantaged jobseekers in May… while there were only 18,200 low-skilled ‘level 5’ jobs advertised.” That equates to “5.49 people competing for each entry-level job”. Anglicare calls for an end to punitive measures and a shift to government job creation programs. Meanwhile, the Australian Unemployed Workers Union has put forward a constructive proposal to deal with this: a Green Jobs Guarantee, focussed on the needs of regional Australia. Their proposal argues that “linking the objective of full employment via a Job Guarantee to the urgent task of preventing catastrophic global warming is an absolute imperative”, and would target the local needs of regional communities with an investment in training and public employment.

The Sunday Herald Sun doesn’t believe in the right to protest: “Protected by the blanket of democracy, these Extinction Rebellion protesters were simply able to do what they wanted … simply because they think it’s their right to protest. It’s not a right, it’s a privilege, and they abused that, day after day.” The police seem to agree — they have been inflicting extrajudicial punishment on protesters, holding them in custody for hours or days if they don’t sign up to harsh bail restrictions (later thrown out by courts). Scott Ludlam was banned by police from coming within 2.5km of the Sydney Town Hall or attending any XR events anywhere; similar conditions were imposed in Victoria. Every major social advance has been achieved by disruptive protest. Clive Hamilton explains: “XR is just the latest manifestation of the long history of the politics of impatience. It’s a politics that energizes and emboldens a movement’s moderate majority and expands the boundaries of what seems reasonable to demand. … Explaining the inflammatory logic of the Freedom Rides into the Deep South in 1961, Martin Luther King wrote that the aim was to generate ‘such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.'” Protected by the blanket of democracy, MLK was simply able to do what he wanted…

Noting that “going out on strike is all but outlawed in Australia, thanks to some of the most restrictive laws surrounding workplace action in any OECD nation,” Sam Wallman gives a recent example of the Kafkaesque system for taking protected industrial action: “In drafting their application, the [Melbourne Metro] workers and their union [the RTBU] ticked every box, followed every process and procedure, but a court order put a stop to their plan to leave the ticket gates of stations open for one day in August as a bargaining tactic. … The court order went further than just vetoing the tactic: it demanded that the union post notices at every station within twenty-four hours — this happened on a Saturday — in which they formally retracted their plans. The RTBU was also told to take out full-page ads in all the major newspapers the next day to announce that their action wasn’t going ahead. Since getting a full-page ad in every copy of the papers turned out to be an impossible ask, the union was found in breach of the court order. As a result, any industrial action taken would now be unlawful. The union could face millions of dollars in fines and potential deregistration if they continue in the face of the court’s decision. … There is a legal appeal moving slowly through the courts… [T]he potential legal precedent in this case is extremely dangerous and could limit our right to ‘simply stop working’ even further.“

Kassandra Vee [$]: “We find pleasure and compensation in even the most banal endeavors, because we have to survive everyday life in this capitalist hellscape… But there is a serious danger in confusing these survival mechanisms for desirable horizons of possibility. Let’s start recognizing the truth: Hating your job is smart, and it’s the right relationship to work. Finding pleasure and happiness at our jobs is a way to make ourselves able to show up at work the next day, not a reflection of work’s intrinsic moral value. … What if we tried to conceptualize a struggle whose central goal was reducing the amount of work, both in the process of struggle itself and in the world we want to build? … How much can we steal, eat, pilfer, and destroy? How much time can we take back for ourselves? … Why not build a politics around material reality—that we hate our jobs, that our productivity is destroying the planet—instead of around some magical idealistic notion about the dignity of our labors. Fuck that. Your job sucks, and so does mine.” (I don’t entirely agree with all of Vee’s conclusions, but it is a challenging essay and well worth subscribing for.)

In the Tribune, Olivia Humphreys tells the story of the Cairo Forces Parliament of 1943, a mock parliament of British soldiers debating post-war reconstruction. It was “run ‘along pukka parliamentary lines’. There was a speaker who was ‘versed in all the rules and regulations’, and at each meeting a bill would be debated and voted on. Anyone who attended was considered an mp and could vote on the bill. Around 150 troops turned up to the first meeting.” Initially the events ran with the approval of the military authorities, but as time went on the troops began to propose socialist policies. A bill to nationalise the banks was carried, and the mover, mock chancellor Leo Abse, described the army’s reaction: “‘That night I nationalised the bank; but in the morning I was arrested … I was taken under escort to Suez and kept in custody to await the arrival of a boat which was to take me to a hot and arid island in the Persian Gulf where I was to be quarantined.’ In the days that followed, several other leading members of the left-wing parties were posted abroad without warning.” (Leo Abse went on to be a Labour MP for almost 30 years.)

Seeking to justify his union-busting, Orwellian-titled Ensuring Integrity Bill, Scott Morrison claims, “These are the same bans that apply to company directors who break the law.” Anthony Forsyth, professor of workplace law at RMIT, says that is a blatant falsehood; the legislation “would allow court-ordered disqualification to be sought against a union official on much wider grounds than those available for company directors. An employer could seek to have an official removed because they have been involved in a technical breach of the protected industrial action rules under the Fair Work Act, but a union could not seek disqualification of a company director who had breached the same legislation by, for instance, presiding over the underpayment of workers. Disqualification could also be sought because a union official had breached the proposed ‘fit and proper person’ test. There is no fit and proper test for company directors…”

The Raise the Rate campaign has been pushing for a $75-a-week increase in the rate of Newstart, and has persuaded a broad range of people and organisations — from Sally McManus to John Howard; from ACOSS to the Business Council. But a new report from KPMG suggests $75 is not enough — Newstart should be raised to 50% of the minimum wage, which equates to a raise of over $90 per week. The KPMG bean counters argued in a submission to a Senate inquiry: “There is an optimal level for Newstart which involves balancing meeting material and psychological needs and providing incentives for work. That balance is not being met. An inadequate Newstart tears at our inclusive social contract, given our society does not guarantee work and thus should ensure that there is an adequate living standard for those that cannot obtain work.”

Luke Beck explains how Christian Porter’s so-called Religious Freedom Bill weaponises religious bigotry: “Most of the bill is a standard anti-discrimination law that protects people against being discriminated against on the basis of their religion, or lack thereof. To that extent, the bill operates as an uncontroversial protective shield. But the government has added in extra provisions that operate as a sword, allowing people to inflict harm on others. One of those swords is section 41, which establishes a right to make statements of belief. This right overrides all eight state and territory anti-discrimination laws and all of the existing federal anti-discrimination laws, including the Race Discrimination Act and the Sex Discrimination Act. … Strangely, the bill doesn’t give everyone the same sized sword. Religious people are given a bigger sword than non-religious people. The bill says only statements of belief on the topic of religion are covered for non-religious people. But for religious people, statements of belief on any topic whatsoever are covered.” Beck suggests the bias might be enough to render the bill unconstitutional, but that would still require a victim of religious bigotry (perhaps, to borrow one of Beck’s examples, a patient whose doctor tells them their disability is God’s punishment for their sin) to fight a case all the way to the High Court, against both the bigot’s and the Government’s legal teams.