Beyond its utility for raising awareness for issues of importance, raising money through the AEC or destabilising establishment actors, Electioneering serves no utility to Nationalists. The electioneering game, in-fact it is often the opposite. There has been a shared story in recent and long-standing history which does not receive great justice for newcomers to the patriotic cause but is absolutely crucial in good decision-making for people and organisations.
The political parties as they stand, Liberal, Labour, Nationals have all to some extent or another mastered the ‘art’ of seduction when it comes to utilising radicals that often fall outside of their electoral base and idealism. You will find well-meaning patriots convinced that they can ‘make a difference’ within the internal mechanism of party politics of one of these parties, or even one of their satellite parties such as One Nation. Such is the same for marxist-cosmopolitans who think they can make a difference inside of The Labour party or perhaps the Greens.
“You can change the party if you grind really hard for it, letterboxing, building numbers in a branch, attending functions and debates.” This is the summary line of these parties, and of course the innocent true-believer only wanting to advance their idealism believes it. They will invest many months or perhaps even years into working hard for these parties and are under the illusion that they are building their profile or influence within the organisation to affect meaningful change. The key issue is, you are only affecting meaningful change within the spectrum of permissible debate. You might hear the gallant stories of Young Liberals pushing against Homosexual marriage or Economic asylum seekers – these are items of debate that are permissible to the electoral system as their outcome has little to no meaningful impact to the trajectory of the country.
The same might be said for the young trotsykite who thought they put a dent into the Labour party by getting them to endorse more renewables. Did they not see, that this very hot and ‘important’ topic has no meaningful impact upon the reign of international finance capital? did he not see that all of the primary capitalists have already bought all of the stocks and shares of ‘renewable’ energy companies. Both the young patriot and the young trotsykite think that they have actually accomplished something, all the while devoting endless hours of energy and perhaps money to advance the interests of these political parties that only betray and do not serve the interest of the radical.
When the radical awakens to these facts he is already in ‘too deep.’ If he were to open his mouth, exclaim what he truly believes and make a concerted effort to affect the party mechanism to embolden his idealism he will be extinguished, kicked out of the party, a new pariah and a new story for Sky News or Buzzfeed. He knows this too, and is now faced with the fact he has invested years and years into this political party and cannot open his mouth for fear of wasting his time. So he continues, to ‘play the game’ and only argue in areas of ‘permissible debate’ which of course is set by these parties, their media allies and the international power-brokers.
This brief story I hope paints the picture of the great curse that is electioneerism. It’s not theoretical either, this has happened to many, many people over many decades. In the 1960s it was the patriot young men who charged the gates of the Liberal party to drive out ‘the wets’ (anti-vietnam war agitators) and who after a few years found themselves completely assimilated to the party line. These fellows did have great success in influencing, perhaps even ‘taking over the party’, the same is said for the Liberal takeover of ‘The Uglies’ in the 1970s. Although they might have naughty opinions over the dinner table in top secrecy these groups of people who invested endless hours of time and energy into a political party would never in their right mind ‘risk it all’ to advocate their honest principles and worldview. They still need fat cat sponsors don’t they?
“You don’t take over a party, the party takes over you”
It’s all well-and-good to criticise electioneering, but what about solutions – what should these well-minded patriots be doing with their time and energy to advance their cause. The patriotic movement must be propped up on the back of men of good character, men with resources and men of high idealism. The ANA model is such that we organise for the pooling of resources, the aid and assistance in career development, the cultivation of family life and collaboration in business endeavours. We aim to be the assembly line of those time-honoured men who have influence and resources in industry, who are able to extract resources from the industrial machine like pirate raiders and use it to build our community. Seeing to the vertical-integration of our resources and a minimised dependency upon external elements for survival.
The cultivation of these men provides the groundwork for effectual activist work and maintaining meaningful power in the community. What members of the ANA decide to do next? all options are on the table. One item that is non-negotiable is the first fundamental hurdle-stone of cultivating a cadre of capable Australian men.
M. Grant
ANA Governor