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Gary: > For me the reality of the Greens was captured by Alan Bradley's post on how > there would be a major split if Leftists turned up in the Greens en masse. > That is an honest remark and from my observation it is a very true one, but > Nick is silent on the meaning of it. > > Lest Nick is tempted to inv9oke Queensland's exceptionality again, I would > suggest the history of the Nuclear Disarmament Party is also relevant here. Well yes the awful antics of the NDP right in 1985, which was bit before my time, are a relevant lesson, and their subsequent trajectory. Jo Vallentine as a later Greens senator actually wasn't too bad, but Garrett's history speaks form itself (curiously his music was pretty crap after 1985 as well come to think of it). But more directly relevant is the expulsion of the DSP from the emerging Greens in 1992, including both Alan and me (I was still pretty new then). What I meant by a united front was not in any near future joining the Greens, but drawing them into joint campaign work and discussions, such as a recent joint forum on indigenous rights Resistance organised in Brisbane with campus Greens that seemed to go very well, and a forum on left electoral alternatives we've got coming up in Melbourne with the Greens candidate for the state seat of Melbourne, which they have a good chance of winning, and Socialist Party councillor Steve Jolly. I did actually comment on Alan's prediction of 'entryism' producing a split (at least on the Green Left list, can't remember if I did here as well), thus: > For anyone suggesting that socialists all immediately join the Greens, > there's two related problems. > > Firstly, whether or not Alan Bradley is correct in predicting that any influx > of organised socialists into the Greens would severely damage that party (due > to a reaction from its right wing), the Greens constitution specifically > disallows members to be members of "another party". I don't think anyone is > game to test whether this means members of a socialist organisation that > doesn't define itself as a party would be unwelcome as members, or expelled > if they discreetly joined in any numbers, as the DSP was en bloc when this > provision was adopted in 1992 (presumably after the DSP offered to give up > its electoral registration, operate more loosely etc). > > After the IST-aligned group here left Socialist Alliance in 2007, these > comrades orientated towards the Greens and apparently handed out for them in > the 2007 federal elections. But in their articles at the time it was unclear > whether any of them had joined the Greens and if so whether they were pushing > the general arguments they were making about the Greens in their press. Their > activity wasn't a bad thing and an advance on their previous position of > voting for the Labor Party ahead of the Greens, but while the comrades > presumably think they are in a united front with the Greens in bourgeois > elections, I'm not sure if many people would have noticed. > > Secondly, any argument that the small socialist groups with their meagre > followings should dissolve themselves into the Greens, for the greater good > of the struggle, comes against the reality that there is very little to the > Greens pretensions of being an activist party, and what there is occurs very > unevenly. The Greens are not a vehicle for organsing public meetings and > conferences or producing media that build campaigns and help the whole left > (as opposed to some impressive media that promotes the Greens), or for > sustaining and promoting class struggle ideas in the unions and other social > movements. Any effort to make them more so would probably need the kind of > struggle with the more right-wing Greens that Alan warns about. > > The Greens policy and general perspectives is probably about as good as a > broad left party with 10 000 members and 10%+ of the vote is going to be at > present, and if we could have either a more clearly activist and left Greens > and/or a 'Green Left' type current (something like that in the UK) that did > some of the work mentioned in the preceding paragraph that the whole party > couldn't do, and could forward its own perspectives without permanent war in > the party, I'd be quite happy. In the meantime I'm not willing to abandon > Socialist Alliance and Green Left (the readership of which until recently was > higher than the Greens website and still rivals it). ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
