Elections, "democractic" process a farce

Vanguard October 2013 p. 3
Jack D.

Recently we have seen the ‘smoke and mirrors’, the clowns, story-tellers and ‘court jesters’ in one of the regular circuses our capitalist ruling class hold every three years or so. It’s called “an election”.

This one was to allegedly “democratically choose a new national government by popular vote”.

Nothing changes

But what is this alleged choice? Is it a choice between this system of government and that? Is it a choice that can bring about any fundamental change? No, of course it’s not, nothing changes but the bums on the seats in Bullshit Castle. .

The only choice given is to opt for or against several groups who will continue to serve the same ruling class as always. Some groups of parliamentary politicians are more subservient to the ruling class than are others. Effectively we have the choice between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb or, if you count the Nationals, tweedle-dumber.

There are a few very minor small parties and independents who cannot act on their own as they haven’t the numbers. Their influence wavers from one election to another depending on how close to each other the two major groups are in numbers of seats held. They are very close in policies, identical in whom they serve.

Effectively, there has only been one election in Australia where a government was voted IN. That was the first one in 1901. Since then, people have essentially only voted OUT those they have become disillusioned with. That is true of the election just gone as well.

Increasing oppression

What changes with this imaginary ‘democratic’ process? The only change is the likely degree of severity of oppression the people will face under the administration of one group or another. We saw the events of the Howard years, the attacks on workers, their organisations (Unions) and their right to organise, and their right to take action over safety and other matters on the job. We saw privatisation of all manner of things, Telstra being one of the most notable.

Under the “Phoney Tony” regime he is soon to legislate against people from the general community in support of workers. We will soon be subject to large fines and even gaol for supporting workers being badly treated by their bosses.

In Queensland at state level, we saw a very similar process of privatisation under the ALP government of Anna Bligh, she implemented very similar actions to that of the conservatives in the days of Kennett of Victoria, and she paralleled to some extent the Howard regime.

If we go back a few years, we see that the ALP brought out the Australian Army against the striking coal miners in 1949 and the Air Force against the striking pilots in the 1980’s.

We also saw Rudd back down under pressure from the mining lobby when he wanted to implement a measly 40% tax on the massive windfall super-profits of the mining industry.

There are a multitude of examples of oppression of workers by the parliamentary parties acting on behalf of big business.

Dictatorship the reality

This voting lark is just that, a bit of malarkey, a bit of bullshit to con people into imagining they have a say. It is big business who dictates the terms. It is big business, especially the multinationals that own and control this parliamentary process in Australia. We live under the heel of the dictatorship of big business. They will toss out this pretence of democratic processes of parliament and rule by direct force the moment it suits them to do so. We who are old enough saw that in the 1949 miners’ strike when the ALP used the army against the miners.

We live in a class structured society, a capitalist class owned and driven society. Threaten the rulers a bit seriously in the slightest way at all and there are the police, the courts, the gaols, the army, the air force and the navy… all of these have been used against workers in the past and are certain to be used again to protect the minority capitalist ruling class in the future.

Just watch ‘Phoney Tony’ Abbott sharpen all these tools of oppression of workers in the coming few months and years.

Democracy for whom?

As always, democracy is a question of democracy for whom? It can only be democracy for working class people or democracy for the capitalist class. Democracy for both at the same time is impossible.

Till now, and now more than ever, we will experience that dictatorship of big business. Democracy for workers is a myth. It is up to us as true Australian workers, regardless of country of origin, to organise and fight to further our collective interests and to aim for us, the working people and our allies, to become the ruling class sometime in the foreseeable future.