This is my inaugural #blogjune rant. You have been warned.

Tonight I visited my parents for my Dad’s 71st birthday. By the end of the evening it had become a rant against the state of Australian politics, capitalism, corporations, and university job cuts. Here’s the abbreviated version.

I have always been a lefty, and think I am becoming more bolshie the older I get. My parents, on the other hand, I see as somewhere around the centre, perhaps verging toward the conservative side of the spectrum. I know for a short period they went to Liberal Party meetings and am fairly sure they weren’t leftist plotters hoping to bring it down from the inside, but I try not to hold it against them.

What I do know is we are close to united in our opposition to the current Abbott/Truss government. The government have been dishonest with the Australian people and are now embarking on an ideological path which involves stripping rights and support away from welfare recipients, low income earners, the young and the unemployed. They are attempting to fix the budget without effective taxation reform, want to get people to pay for healthcare by charging everyone a co-payment which will not go toward healthcare, are saddling university students (particularly those with discontinuous careers, like women who have children and PhD students) with rapidly accumulating compound debt, are stripping support for the young, underemployed and unemployed, and are letting the ballooning wealth of high income earners, large corporations and multi-nationals continue unchecked.

The result will be, among other things, the creation of a social and economic underclass, increased societal stratification, and an increase in homelessness. But at least it will be warmer sleeping on the streets, as climate change is not only not being tackeld, it is off the agenda. As for asylum seekers, they are off the continent altogether, victimised by policies which are morally and ethically moribund.

On the latter Labour are no better. Their asylum seeker policies are equally inhumane and indefensible. The current opposition leader is ineffectual and unconvincing, and as an alternative to the government they are my preference only in the sense that incompetence is preferable to a party (the LNP ) which I see as a real threat to the values and structures I believe are vital to a progressive modern society, like equitable access to health, education and a clean environment.

As for the Greens, yes I live in Bandt country, and they have a preferable asylum seeker policy; but they have suffered partly due to their lack of ability to influence policy, and partly due to some poor politicking around issues like the ETS. They are, in short, occasionally a valuable voice of dissent but mostly irrelevant in the broader scheme of things.

To sum up, Australian politics is a desolate, hopeless wasteland punctuated only by a few dying trees and the occasional decomposing carcass of the ideals of a few recently elected members.

But wait, it’s worse than you think. The problem is not just politicians, politics and government. We cannot fix this by voting out one party for another, or bringing a minor party up into a position of power, or by protesting in the street against the budget. Underpinning our current predicament is capitalism and the power of corporations. The 24 hour marketing cycle is more insidious, intrusive and dangerous than the 24 hour news cycle. Society is being driven to a point where status and worth is so inextricably linked to goods, property and personal wealth people are willing to accept sweatshops in exchange for cheap goods, homelessness in exchange for lower taxes, and reduced welfare benefits in exchange for higher mining profits and cheaper electricity. A society where remuneration is not based on benefit to society, but on the amount someone can earn (or save) for their employer. Where the power-brokers in our society work for shareholders, not for communities.

Like it or not, that is why the LNP were voted in, and that’s why voting them out for a joker from a different pack won’t make a bit of difference unless we change the game. Not even close. We need a radical revision of what it is to be a successful society, and what it is to be successful within a society. We need to tear down existing structures and processes, and either start again, or leave them behind in pieces.

Our current predicament makes me angry and depressed in equal measure. Sometimes I want to start a revolution. Other times, I just want to sit back in the hope the whole thing falls apart. But I’ve never wanted what we have now. Not even in my darkest, most nihilistic moments have I wanted what we have now.