Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Bourgeois Parliamentary Democracy
& The Liberals Who Love It

According to liberal theory, elections are the means by which “the people”, having heard and considered the policies of the various parties and their leaders, get to make their decision on the next government and its program. This mythology of “popular sovereignty” had already suffered a body blow with the June 23-24 political coup that deposed the elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, before he had completed even his first term in office. Now it is being further undermined by the election campaign itself.

The most significant event of the campaign’s opening days has been, not the announcement by the major parties of their policies and program, much less the clash of ideas and argument, but the wave of boredom, revulsion and, in some cases, outright anger that has greeted the endless series of empty slogans trotted out by the party leaders.

Launching the federal election campaign last Saturday, Prime Minister Julia Gillard used the phrase “moving forward” at least 39 times in a press conference lasting 31 minutes.

Questioned about her repeated use of the mantra in a television interview on Monday, Gillard could only respond with another series of hackneyed phrases, declaring that “moving forward” expressed her optimism about the future and reflected her view that the best days of Australia lay in front of it, not behind.
All cliché, all the time.

From the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI).

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