tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920488656220463337.post7020229023190236519..comments2024-02-07T19:30:21.880+11:00Comments on Left Focus: Debating ‘Red’ and ‘Green’ politics – Have your SayVaughann722http://www.blogger.com/profile/11604027151490275320noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920488656220463337.post-20182355087127100482011-01-09T11:33:50.844+11:002011-01-09T11:33:50.844+11:00Labor has moved so centralist that it is really ju...Labor has moved so centralist that it is really just anti liberal rather than having it's own identity. The Greens seem to be just a radical communist nutjob party who pretend to be about the environment but are really about crushing family values, morality and promoting marxist ideals at the expence of the Australian way.Fed up leftist.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920488656220463337.post-7199214234115286592010-11-15T18:43:10.175+11:002010-11-15T18:43:10.175+11:00Obviously taking their cue from the Greens Bans an...Obviously taking their cue from the Greens Bans and BLF might be a good start (but it will be the unions that stand in the way as much as yuppie Greens) and more generally a conception of the ‘environment’ based the fact that humans live and work in cities – in which occupational health and safety was front and centre might be a good place to start thinking about what a working class environmentalism looks like.<br /> Finally there was the obscure disaster of the collapse of the USSR, with neoliberal ideas in the ascendant the collapse was used to try and finally nail the coffin shut on the whole idea that there could be(or should be) any alternative to markets. With the ALP bleeding votes to the Greens (who I would call Left) the rather arcane response of the media this week has been to label the Greens ‘ecological marxists’. If only. The question here is the old one about the role of the state. It’s not like the ALP, even if it wins the most votes, or the Greens, whose electoral performance is improving as people seek for an alternative, are able to ‘represent’ the views of the majority of Australians, even if they wanted too since the interest of big business, as articulated via the media, are part of the ideological ‘commonsense’ of government. ... PART 2<br />Where do we start? First up the decline of class politics is the decline of class identities and of a left politics organised around the notion, a use of the discourse of class as an organising method. I’m not sure we can recover it in that form. On the other hand what hasn’t changed in terms of class is the fact that the other side is winning – there has been a massive distribution of wealth upwards, of longer hours and falling real pay, increasing rates of debt etc. In the recent crisis there was a classic ‘privatisation of the profits (in a rising market) and ‘socialisation of the losses’-after the crash. It seems to me that we need a new discourse about the social surplus – about who produces it and where it goes – about the fact taxpayers money was used to bail out banks and now “we” are going to have to pay it back, about the fact that a budget surplus is our money they haven’t spent, about how we should have some say in how that comes about. I like the idea of the commons very much too and, in similar vein, think that our cause might be advanced if more people thought of natural resources as belonging to the people(not to coal companies) who need to ensure that the limited asset is well spent before it runs out.Shane Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920488656220463337.post-16089622790938242252010-11-15T18:40:13.340+11:002010-11-15T18:40:13.340+11:00PART ONE
This is a long and rambling piece but I ...PART ONE<br /><br />This is a long and rambling piece but I wanted to put my 2c worth in. I don’t intend this to be nuanced but to broaden the focus a little. <br />The ALP and Politics of Class – reads to me like some of the right-wing Labourites in my region (Central QLD). As if the Greens are somehow responsible for the decline of class politics because they are anti working class. Like all stories there’s a grain of truth in them but really the decline of class is the outcome of several factors. <br /><br />The end of the old working class suburbs meant the end of forms of social solidarity on which traditional discourses about class made sense – that’s not the Greens fault (even if the inner-city is their stronghold). The Greens, drawing on the broader environment movement, maintained an anti neoliberal stance which was (and maybe still is) the real social division around which politics is organised – those who opposed neoliberalism and those that did not. <br /><br />While the Greens did this the ALP introduced economic rationalism via the Accord – not only in the interests of managing capital better but also undermining years of shopfloor networks which were the basis of effective resistance. This led to an exodus of ALP members, mostly into inactivity, and a decline in unionism generally, furthered by things like the deregisteration of the BLF, who were the high point of working class environmentalism. <br /><br />This completed a process which had been going on for decades of the professionalisation of political parties – most evident in ALP ranks who after all claim to represent workers moreso than the other mob. Combet’s call for a return to traditional labour values (putting my cynicism aside for a second) begs the question about how the Party had lost them (and who exactly – my partner is an old style ALP left rank and filer motivated equity, social justice and compassion – she doesn’t need to return tho those values – and sees no way that the rank and file in the ALP can make that happen. I think Combet sees the ALP as bleeding votes to the Left and seeking to rally the Rank and File to one more round of handing out on election day and passing meaningless motions at meetings, in other words treating the rank and file in the same way that the bosses do. I see there’s yet another internal inquiry which will be ignored as surely as any series of ‘consultations’ that we are subject to that doesn’t give the results that we are looking for. It’s all the fault of those leaks remember. <br /><br />The right and left in the ALP don’t represent principled differences over policy but a mechanism for distributing the available spoils. I don’t expect they will move to the Left (except verbally of course) as long as Greens preference the ALP (and they should) then the ALP can count on them to re-funnel preferences back in.<br /><br />All these things are both cause and effect of the decline of social movements and especially of unionism. The Greens reflect some of this of course but the idea that the Greens don’t care about low paid cleaners and Labourites do when the latter have the ability to actually do something about it – institutionally that the Greens do not is a cheap shot. In my part of the world – coal country – the stereotype of the worker as anti-environment is very clear (and largely unskilled blue collar workers earn double my academic salary). <br /><br />It is not my intention to attack the ALP – the Greens aren’t perfect either but at their best they are ‘old labour plus trees’ and present the possibility of an alternative to unfettered capitalism and neoliberalism. They lack strong links to the unions – though these are getting better – and it’s not clear how a sustainable transition might work. In my part of the world the CFMEU has to protect its members in coal mining who are earning $150000 a year in an industry that is not sustainable and that is having global impacts.<br /><br />....PART 2Shane Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6920488656220463337.post-59717777730612422592010-11-14T20:14:30.975+11:002010-11-14T20:14:30.975+11:00Over 200 hits already today but no comments... - I...Over 200 hits already today but no comments... - If you're sympathetic and have an opinion it would be good to hear from you. (ie: pls comment) :-)Tristan Ewinsnoreply@blogger.com