Socialist Equality Party

James Cogan, 40, the SEP’s national organiser, is standing in Grayndler, an inner-western electorate with large concentrations of students, urban professionals and immigrants. Cogan, who has written extensively for the WSWS on the US-led occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, will challenge Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese, a long-time Labor faction boss.

James Cogan spells out socialist policies at Sydney candidates’ forum

James Cogan made the contrast between the SEP and every other party crystal clear at a candidates’ debate at Marrickville Town Hall last night. Five candidates—from the SEP, Labor, Greens, Democrats and Socialist Alliance—spoke at the forum, organised by the local newspaper, the Inner West Courier. About 200 people heard each candidate speak for five minutes and then asked questions of the panel for more than an hour.

Cogan began his opening remarks by explaining that the SEP “is the Australian section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the world Trotskyist movement. It is the only party that represents the independent interests of the working class.” He continued: “This election takes place under conditions of the greatest global economic crisis since the Depression and two decades of military violence spearheaded by the United States. Hanging over it is the stench of the anti-democratic political coup carried out within the Labor Party. Kevin Rudd was ousted to refashion a far more right-wing Labor government that will implement, under Julia Gillard, the demands of the mining giants and financial markets for a shift from stimulus spending to austerity.”

James Cogan speaks about Trotskyism on Sydney community radio

James Cogan conducted an extended interview this Tuesday morning on Radio Skid Row (88.9 FM), a community station broadcasting to the municipalities of Leichhardt, Marrickville and the City of Sydney.

Cogan spoke with the station’s morning show host Jack Frost on a wide range of topics. He explained the context of the election, occurring amid the greatest failure of global capitalism since the 1930s, and the backroom coup that installed Julia Gillard as prime minister, at the behest of the mining companies and corporate elite. He drew out the connection between Gillard’s selection and the demands of Washington, including for an unconditional Australian commitment to the war in Afghanistan.

Video: James Cogan answers community questions on the environment

17 August 2010

James Cogan provided video answers to questions on the environment by a local organisation, Climate Action Newtown.

Climate Action Newtown asked for candidate responses to three questions on their parties’ positions on a carbon price, new coal fired power stations and a transition plan to 100 percent renewable energy. The answers have been posted to YouTube and are listed on climateactionnewtown.org/.

SEP candidate speaks on the Afghan war

The following is the text of the speech delivered by Socialist Equality Party candidate James Cogan to a public meeting on August 5 in his electorate of Grayndler in inner-western Sydney. Cogan, the SEP’s national organiser, concentrated on the issues of militarism and the neo-colonial US-led war in Afghanistan. The meeting was also addressed by Nick Beams, SEP national secretary and candidate for the senate in New South Wales.

The audience was a microcosm of the working class in the inner-west of Sydney: young workers employed on casual rates in the fast food and manufacturing industries; students from the University of Sydney and University of New South Wales; teachers and other professionals; and older workers who have become deeply disaffected from the Labor Party.

The speeches by Cogan and Beams were followed by more than an hour of lively discussion between the candidates and the audience. Questions were raised on the fate of the 1917 Russian Revolution, why the SEP did not carry out protest actions to gain media attention and whether the working class could be won to socialism.

Afghanistan casualty rate highest of war

By James Cogan
26 July 2010 

Eight months after the Obama administration announced a “surge” of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to crush the Taliban-led insurgency, the rate of US and allied casualties has soared to the highest level of the nearly nine-year war and is beginning to match the bloodiest stages of the occupation of Iraq.