And we’re off

We’re embarking on the next phase of the great adventure – this time in Europe. Over the next few weeks we’ll be bringing you our reports and thoughts on developments there.

In the months since Come the Revolution was launched in Australia Alex has spoken to hundreds of people in bookshops from Brisbane to Bowral, to audiences at State Parliament and the National Library, the Murwillumbah Services Club and the Katoomba Family pub, the Sydney and Townsville Writers’ Festivals and a dozen other venues.

I’ve been more than happy to tag along, because it’s been a great way for us both to re-engage with political life. By political life I don’t mean the lies, banalities, evasions and distortions that dominate so much of public discourse – I mean the questioning and discussion that goes on among thinking citizens.

Everywhere we’ve gone we’ve found great concern about the state of the world and the way it’s reported in mainstream media. Recurrent questions have included: how did Rupert Murdoch get like that; what will happen to journalism in the age of digitised communications; and what is the future for the labour movement? And everywhere we’ve found a growing readiness, across a wide political spectrum, to take seriously the view that pillaging the earth and its peoples for private profit has reached a point where it endangers the lives of future generations and the planet itself.

A shift is taking place, slowly but inexorably, in the thinking of significant numbers of people. If that’s the case in Australia, which has so far been cushioned from the worst effects of the GFC, what are they thinking in Europe?

We’re aiming to find out, and hope you’ll join in the exchange by commenting on our posts. Watch this space!

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