Later the ruling class became even more sophisticated at channelling, diverting and destroying social and political opposition. They played hard cop and soft cop repression and bullying where necessary, but cooption tactics could be cheaper and more effective.

One ploy increasingly used by university administrations was to accede to demands for student participation, without relinquishing any real control. Some student activists were bought off by such cooption. 

CAPITALIST COOPTION:

EXTRACT FROM "RESISTANCE" BY JOHN PERCY....

The pressures and inducements are always there in a rich country like Australia. The ruling class can afford to hand out a few sops to trade union leaders to attract them into service in the lower rungs of the establishment. Some even get invited higher. And there's many an opportunity for smart students to climb the ladder-steady stream of establishment flunkies have honed their skills as radicals in their youth. The Paddy McGuinesses and Keith Windshuttles are only the more recent in a long established dishonorable profession.

Jobs are offered in the media, academia, government departments, with the written or unwritten condition of service and loyalty to the ruling class. However, the same dynamic operates within the ALP and the trade union bureaucracy; these become conservatising careers, with the prospect of a comfy seat in parliament as the final reward. Cynical ALP students today are quite open about it, changing the chorus of "Solidarity Forever" to "Solidarity forever, solidarity forever, for the union gives us jobs”!

Some elements of the "New Left", SDS for example, were easily misled in this direction. The organisations vanished.

The capitalists will also attempt to steal or debase our dissident culture and traditions - especially if there's money to be made out of it. As Lenin wrote, the second last capitalist will sell the rope to hang the last.

A small but particularly irritating example that annoys me still are the slogans on T-shirts - in the '60s any wording on T-shirts nearly always expressed a political message, or at least something original or witty. Now the capitalists have conned us into wearing their logos and brands on T-shirts and much else - we strut round carrying free advertising for them, and think it's cool.

At least the huge number of commercial clothing companies cashing in on Che’s image today means that a revolutionary symbol is promoted, even if they're aiming to drain it of its political significance. But it's still up to us to invest that image with its revolutionary meaning, to reclaim it for our side.

"Bread and circuses" was the formula of the Roman emperors for keeping the plebs docile. Substitute beer for bread, and the same formula is applied to students.

A particularly blatant example of a real circus at the University of NSW was “The Wizard," the charlatan Ian Channell. In 1968 Channell set up his "Australian Liberation Front for Action, Love and Freedom", ALF, which ensnared some political people who should have known better. The university administration put him on a wage in 1969 to "entertain" students and try to divert them from political paths.

And although the music of the '60s was also enmeshed in commercialism and soon owned by the capitalists, it wasn't as thoroughly bought off and politically circumscribed as it became in later decades. The '60s protest music was able to contribute to the radicalisation.

Our differences with the "fun crowd" in Resistance expressed in miniature a battle going on in society as a whole. They were willing to hang around our scene while it was popular and followed the lead of the serious socialists while it was cool. But we were aware of the ideological tug-of-war - we were in a race to convince more young people to take their political commitment seriously; the bourgeoisie and those spreading their ideas among young people had to convince them to act as individuals, to put themselves first, to eschew collective considerations and collective solutions. In a relatively wealthy and comfortable country like Australia, some are able partially to escape that conflict by dropping out. Quite a few of our former members - more of the fun crowd than the activists - retired early to Nimbin or similar country retreats.

In essence, this was the tussle at large within the whole counter-culture. As part of the developing radicalisation, the irreverent, satirical Oz magazine had started publishing in Sydney in April 1963, lampooning the pompous and creating numerous scandals. It was edited by Richard Neville, who is still somewhat radical, and Richard Walsh, who became an executive in the Packer empire. The editors were tried for obscenity and sentenced to six months' hard labour in September 1964, artist Martin Sharp receiving four months. They appealed, and the convictions were overturned.

Oz was symptomatic of a certain stage of the radicalisation. It folded in February 1969 - the cause, "inter alia, lack of readers ... It was inevitable that the boom would burst and we would tire of belting the same old targets: God, Queen, and RSL." Yes, they did have limited targets; the capitalist state and imperialism were a bit too hot. The last issue carried an ad for the Third World Bookshop, still "Owned and operated by the Vietnam Action Campaign'.

A deep social and political process was unfolding in Australia in the second half of the '60s. Opposition to war was rising; doubts about capitalism were growing; more and more young people were radicalising. It was a race between the bourgeoisie trying to rein in that process, to confine it within "the right channels", and the socialists trying to convince more young people and build stronger and more lasting organisations from those increased political openings.

Many individuals and organisations, both here and overseas, were part of that conflict. But which individuals can look back with pride and realise they have not betrayed their youthful idealism? And which organisations can proudly trace their origins from that upsurge in the '60s and say they have survived and grown?

https://www.dsp-rsp.org/john-percy/2005-03-01/resistance-a-history-of-the-democratic-socialist-party-and-resistance-1965

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.