“You know, I hope nevertheless to die at my post, in a street-battle or in a hard-labour prison”, wrote Rosa Luxemburg to a comrade in 1917. This was not rhetorical flourish or hyperbole: Luxemburg gave everything she had to the fight for socialism. Including, in the end, her life.
There are many things that make Victorian Socialists stand out: our unique anti-capitalist politics; our army of dedicated volunteers; our refusal to do dodgy preference deals; our rejection of the limits of parliamentary politics; and our focus on grassroots movements as a means of changing the world. But one policy in particular makes other candidates recoil in horror—the pledge our candidates take to accept only an average wage if elected.
American liberals denouncing those raging against injustice for resorting to violence have frequently summoned the legacy of civil rights movement leader Martin Luther King Jr to help make their case. King, so we’re told, would never condone rioting, looting or any other disorderly form of protest. Some even went so far as to call out King’s son, Martin Luther King III, after he referenced his father’s classic description of riots as “the language of the unheard”.
In the first week of November, Australia’s biggest mining conference, the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC), was held in Melbourne. IMARC was a chance for thousands of greedy mining magnates and their accomplices to rub shoulders, schmooze and scheme about the most efficient and technologically advanced ways to continue the exploitation of our planet’s natural resources.