The Whinger’s Litany

You disagree? You must be red.
A commie, comrade – latte-fed,
except it’s flat white, thanks a lot;
don’t let a coffee spoil the plot.
“Marxist!” spat like it’s a curse,
from a man who’s never read a verse
of Marx, or Mill, or anyone –
just vibes, retweets, and talkback fun.

“Leftard,” “snowflake,” “woke,” “ferals,”
the thesaurus of the viscerals.
No argument, no counter-fact,
just the reflex of the attack –
a mantra chanted, not much thought,
a tribal flag more style than sort.

They’ll rage about the “cultural Marxists,”
while cheering on the actual heiress
who funds their fury, foots their fight,
then vanishes when the cameras’ light
turns to the coal, the gas, the mine –
Gina’s cheque book, all still fine.
Pauline sings for donor gold,
“Fire the Liar” – bought and sold,
while the “elites” they love to blame
sign the invoices, fan the flame.

Ask them what a Marxist is –
they’ll splutter, stall, then still insist:
“You know what I mean,” they’ll say,
and wave the whole thing clean away.
Their whole position, closely pressed,
is a bumper sticker at its best.

But I’m no Marxist, truth be told –
my lineage runs older, bolder:
the prophets’ fury at the wrong,
the Stoic calm, the classical song,
Hafez and Rumi’s turning wheel,
the law that Wiradjuri land can feel.
I am a humanist, plain and whole –
a word too long for a bumper sticker’s soul.

It’s not debate, it’s incantation,
a spell to ward off implication
that maybe – just maybe – they’re the one
who hasn’t checked a source since Sun
Herald headlines, Sky at night,
and Facebook groups that feel like fright.

So call me red, call me whatever –
I’ll still be here, and still be clever,
still testing claims and citing facts,
while you recite your same old tracks:
“Leftard. Commie. Marxist. Woke.”
The mantra of the terminally spoke-
n-for and led, by those who’ve never
faced a thought that shakes them ever.

But mockery, however keen,
is not the whole of what I mean –
beneath the jab, an older thread,
a voice passed down from the long since dead:


My grandmother told it in his voice, not hers –
a story passed down whole, that still stirs:

“I belong to the generation born
at the end of one war – and made, that morn,
on peace’s first day, myself its child.
We’d barely reached the age called grown, called wild,
when the next war came to claim us whole.
I’d vowed no force would bend my soul
to kill my fellow man, to go, to fight –
yet when it came, I took, that night,
the oath of the French Republic, took the gun.
Not because the vow I’d made was done,
but because a humanist knows this much:
peace is not surrender, war’s no crutch.”

When there was peace, he was for peace.
When there was war, he went.

– – –

Bakchos is the founder of Blak and Black, an Australian media and advocacy platform established in 2010. Bakchos writes from the intersecting perspectives of Wiradjuri heritage, Jewish identity, and humanism.

© Bakchos, June 2026

BLAK AND BLACK  |  MEDIA AND ADVOCACY  |  EST. 2010