Sapphirical Reflections

Fellow travellers, there was much joyous cat dancing in the Sapphire household when Adam Bandt won the seat of Melbourne for the Greens. This can only be a good thing for Australia.

But I do find it quite upsetting that his past as a feisty student activist is now being dredged up and used against him. His enemies have made public some comments he made a whole 15 years ago!

I mean, really! They would never do such a thing to, say, Tony Abbott. It's truly appalling, and so typical of our right-wing dominated media.

Not surprisingly, the site that first published these comments was Vexnews. In a recent article they make the claim that when he was a Marxist at uni Bandt "defended shoplifting on the basis that it was stealing from the enemy (capitalists)".

Of course that could be politically damaging for him, since most voters are stupid and don't understand how capitalism actually works. They would think that what he was endorsing was "morally wrong", or something.

But we on the green left know what's really going on, and that "shoplifting" is actually a victimless "crime" (actually, not even a crime at all). Personally (and politically) I like to see it more as a creative form of micro wealth redistribution. Which is why I continue to practice it often.