Labor the New Liberal?

[Bruce Long]

With due respect to Mr Leigh's expertise, I think it might go a different way.

[owheelj]

I really like Andrew Leigh. I think he's one of the few current politicians I'd actually feel happy voting for - (not a best of bad choices, but a genuine good choice).

I recall this article, also from Globe Mail, and conveniently linked at the end of yours, which I find compelling.

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature...shrinking/320/

[Bruce Long]

Yes. Leigh is sharp. However he advocates liberalism that caters to minority groups and different interests and Labor does not look like taking much notice of anyone but the ACL and pandering to large religious institutions for the establishment of chaplaincy programs etc - and they certainly aren't bothering with us. i.e. It doesn't look like going this way at all, but that the party will end up a lot more like an American commercial poll-purchaser and/or neo-tory British style. Intelligent recommendations to the contrary notwithstanding. The mandate to something like an Aristotelian-style social order seems to remain strong for some (with a few later enhancements.)

It also strikes me that democracy is very vulnerable to highly motivated interest groups with numbers (naturally) and that De Tocqueville's principle of the tyranny of the majority coupled with theocratic imperatives is how we got where we are in the first place: an overly liberal tolerance for religious nonsense delivers a hoodwinked populus with no respect for or understanding of science and a small elite cadre of power brokers who treat everyone like grain fed cattle.

[Seamus]

I began to lose the faith as a member of the ALP when the Labor/Liberal dichotomy ceased to be a class war. I first noticed it under Hawke,as he began to demolish the Public Service Union. Keating continued. I left the party after they elected that thug Latham leader and he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.


There is no longer an effective political left in Australia.Robert Menzies would probably consider today's Labor party too conservative. Today both Labor and Liberals consider Malcolm Fraser a dangerous radical.

[the_gelf]

My description of Australian politics is 50 shades of beige.

But I think it's more like 2.

[Bolero]

Indeed.

Seamus, you have the...er, right of it.

Is there a possibility that the Greens could become more of a force to seriously challenge for the left vote?

[c2105026]

The greens are happy with the fact that they/we are what ALP was 35 yrs ago. Thing is the top one 1% is unfortunately winning out in that we bottom 99%ers are continuously being fed hegemony via the media. Basically when Hawke decided to go vote whoring in the 1980s that was it for the left in australia. In retaliation the Right went even more conservative. Since the 1990s has just been a game of cat and mouse.

[Darwinsbulldog]

Democracy sucks-it is just better than fascism or communism.

[Seamus]

The greens are happy with the fact that they/we are what ALP was 35 yrs ago

Yup,bourgeois center right.Appealing to the now-complacent geriatric hippies and other dills who once though Peter I'm-a-cop-out-cunt Garret was deep.

[c2105026]

That is an interesting comment; I'd say Greens out of all major/semi major parties would be the most progressive (in a social sense). Greens advocate separation of church and state, permitting gay marriage, aboriginal land rights, environmental awareness and social equity; I don't see how this is centre right? I would have thought ALP today is centre right.