LEFT IS RIGHT? GREEN IS BLUE?

LEFT IS RIGHT? GREEN IS BLUE?

3 October 2013

Two articles examining the state of the left in Australian politics have recently been published, one shortly before the recent federal election and one immediately after.

The election was held on Saturday 7 September 2013 and Jeff Sparrow’s article, “The Day After the Night Before”, was published on Sunday 8 September in Overland online.

Tad Tietze’s article, “A Change in the Order of Things – the Fate of the Greens”, was published in the print edition of Overland, Issue 212 Spring 2013.

Tietze examines the state of the Greens and their role in the alliance which allowed the ALP Gillard government to govern with the assistance of a few other independents who became major players in the 3-year government.

He analyses the parts they played in a left agenda – left of the ALP – in providing a home for many voters disillusioned by the ALP’s massive swing to the right on issues such as the asylum seekers, and how their participation in a very unpopular government may have helped many people alter their support and seek alternative homes for their political beliefs.

It seems as if this problem affected the Greens’ support with the loss of support in some states, but strangely saw an increase in support in Victoria which seems to have bucked the national trend.

The Greens have one basic problem – they are trying to be too much like the 2 or 3 mainstream parties – for instance when Lee Rhiannon supported the Palestinians because she rightly sees Israel as being an apartheid state oppressing the people whose land they have stolen – and having been in the NSW state parliament when all hell broke out because of Marrickville Council’s support of the BDS movement which Rhiannon supported – when she entered federal parliament as a senator she was made to “toe the party line” and not show partisan support for Palestine as against Israel. WTF!!!

As for Sparrow and the left and looking forward and not backward, the left pathetically is not out there making the case for the major issues of the day being loudly in the public arena – where is the left’s response to the dictatorial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which promises –secretively – to destroy the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the Internet and much else besides – and these are only the dribs and drabs which have been leaked for people to just get an inkling of the goings-on behind closed doors by 12 countries – so far – with more to be added as and when required.

Australia and New Zealand are 2 of the 12 countries, but you wouldn’t know anything about this from our “left” groups. Fortunately, one of the left organisations in Australia is an offshoot of a US based radical socialist group which has a newspaper regularly sent to people in Australia, and their latest edition has a large article on the TPP.

Also in this edition of the paper is a large supportive article for Private Chelsea Manning (previously Private Bradley Manning) There should be major rallying events for Manning in Australia when supporters in the US ask for international support – and what do we get in Australia from the wimpy left? Nothing to record and no publicity to advise!

In the UK, left leaning people, frustrated by the left groups’ stagnation in their abilities to challenge the policies of government and opposition regarding urgent austerity measures, organised nationally and created the People’s Assembly to have meetings and branches around the country and to demonstrate where politicians were assembling to formulate their attacks on their citizens and grind the 99 percent even lower so that the 1 percent could continue making capital at the further expense of the unemployed workers.

The new Australian government, post 7 September 2013, will be attempting to do similarly to Australian workers what the UK government is doing, and, unless there are mass protest movements, they will of course succeed.

We should all be on the streets every week, protesting at the secrecy of the Trans-Pacific Partnerships’ unknown but leaked items which are going to affect us all in ways undreamt of by the unsuspecting citizens.

If we want to make any progress as leftists we also need to ensure that the Greens come out of their “conservative” closet and show they really are an organisation of the left, and for them to stop being scared of what the reactions of the major parties will be to their new-found activism.

One of the issues of the day, and the excuses government are using to wage their wars in the middle east, packs of lies as they all are, is the Israel/Palestine story which hasn’t gone away, despite the US and Israel doing their best to prove that the Palestinians are not capable of finding anyone to do their negotiating. It really is time for the left to concentrate on outing the lies and to get on with political education of people out there who need this information to be able to make informed decisions and understand what they are arguing about.

Where are the organisers of yesteryear to organise and teach new cohorts, why are there no fighters shouting from the rooftops? Have we lost the will to protest?

Sparrow says we must not be pessimistic, but look forward, but we need the current generations to be there to educate the next generations before all is lost – irrevocably!