A delusion of grandeur: Kevin Rudd in politics

The repudiation of Kevin Rudd in the leadership ballot does not tell us much about the faceless men. What it does tell us is that Labor, from head to toe, emphatically rejects this falsification of history.

Rudd's campaign for the leadership during "the second coming" demonstrates to us that nothing much had changed. Some have asserted that Rudd's behaviour whilst Prime Minister could be explained by mental illness. More likely is that Rudd had a grand conception of his role in Australian politics born of his far too literal interpretation of the mandate given to him in 2007.

The "KEVIN 07" campaign, not to mention his poll numbers, saw Rudd develop a transcendent view of his electoral mandate. It was not the Australian Labor Party that won the 2007 election. It was Kevin Rudd. It was not Kevin Rudd that owed much to Labor. It was Labor that owed Kevin Rudd. That is a complete repudiation of the most basic values and ethos of the labour movement wherever such a movement can be found upon this earth.

Besides, it was not the real Kevin Rudd that people warmed to. The people warmed to the Rudd largely manufactured by advertising agencies.

Rudd's contemptuous attitude toward the Labor Party is best explained by his transcendental interpretation of his role in Australian politics. The leadership challenge demonstrated that, despite his protestations, he is hardly a changed man. The Labor Party, at the behest of the factions, committed a grave sin, of which it needs to absolve itself in the leadership ballot, because he was elected by the people of Australia.

Because Kevin Rudd, for whatever bizarre reason best left to pop cultural theory and marketing to explain, was popular the ALP was obligated to return him to The Lodge. Notice that the same transcendent view of his place in politics still lies at the core of his worldview and of his tilt for the leadership.

What about his related campaign for democracy?

When Stalin was consolidating power in the Soviet Union he did so upon the basis that "deviations," what we in Australia call "factions," needed to be confronted and stamped out. Obviously his stance had little to do with democracy and everything to do with centralising power at the top.

The mere fact that Kevin Rudd was running against the "combined power of the factions" does not necessarily mean that should he have won that democracy would subsequently have reigned. Indeed, Kevin Rudd, partly, when serving as leader concentrated policy making power right at the apex of the parliamentary party on grounds that the factions had too much influence.

On this issue Kevin Rudd, like Stalin before him, has form.

Furthermore, we must be very sceptical when the corporate media wages a campaign against the "faceless men" of the ALP. On the back of a phoney campaign against "faceless men" policy making power within the ALP was taken away from the organisation and handed over to the parliamentary party.

This was done because the parliamentary party is more beholden to corporate power and influence than the organisation. Moreover, the usurpation of power by the parliamentary wing saw the ALP move from being a mass based party to an elite party.