Labor labours under weight of principle

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Re: Answering MacCullum on Garrett


Not since Arthur Calwell have we a Labor leader who will put
principle ahead of convenience or political expediency. Calwell
stood under the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1966 and declared loudly
Labor's position on Vietnam and the electorate ignored him. They
voted for Harold Holt and his Liberals.
Since that moment Labor has kowtowed to the ignorance of the
electorate, a state of mind fostered by Sir Frank Packer and his
media cohorts.
When Whitlam began to slowly extricate Australia from Vietnam, the
dye already had been cast and it was deemed safe electorally to make
that move. The war had been lost for many years by then.
Now Rudd has positioned himself in exactly the same immoral position
as he had during the Haneef fiasco, deeming political victory to be
more important than principle.
Only the Socialist Alliance [and in some remote way, the Greens]has
remained true to what we consider to be the only way to act and to
think.
Being in China has not removed me from the shame that Howard [and by
extension, Rudd]has fostered upon my nation. The litany of decisions
catering to the mindset moulded by vested interests rather than to
principle has removed from me any sense of involvement other than to
protest via my vote for the SA. We are not going to win at this
election; nor are we to win within the forseeable future. But we
must display the fact that we do exist and that we of the Left do
retain our taste for principle. We must remain a magnet for those
people who cannot abide a vote for either Rudd or Howard.
The very notion that we vote for our local representative has never
been a part of our political thinking; we prefer the American
presidential bullshit of voting for the leader. Is that democracy?
Once our reps are in, they rarely behave as our reps; they morph
into clones of the leader, just as the Nazis adhered to the Fuhrer
Princip.
Yes, left right left right ... goose stepping to the beat of vested
interests or the whim of some autocrat for whom the electorate is ...
forgotten the moment the vote is cast.