On Labor Parties

["Jurriaan Bendien" <J.Bendien@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Gary, you wrote:

I strongly suspect that when the working class becomes politically active,
it will do so through the ALP - at least here in Australia.

What evidence or indications do you have for this, or what is the reasoning
behind it ? It seems to me to be a grotesque sort of argument to make.

You write:

That means for me that a lot of our criticisms of the ALP do not make sense,
to the
working class.

I can understand that, who cares these days for Marxist-Leninist blah-blah,
but why do you think they don't make sense ?

You write:

That does not mean we should not make them, but we should not underestimate
the residual loyalty among workers towards the ALP.

What real evidence is there for this "residual loyalty" apart from votes,
and union support because it gives union leaders a voice in government, a
bargaining tool ? Has anybody actually investigated how working people see
the ALP ?

I think there should be a very careful, critical, thorough and informed (not
dilletante) debate about the meaning of sectarianism and ultraleftism as
such on marxmail one day, starting off with Marx and taking it further up to
the present day.

The reason why from 1985 we opted in New Zealand not to work within the
Labour Party was because the party was totally bureaucratised - it was
impossible to achieve anything politically for a Marxist or a socialist
inside the NZLP except perhaps make speeches or pass lofty resolutions at
branch level which were completely ignored and had nil consequence. If the
council of the NZLP could not actually even prevent the cabinet from doing
what it did from that time (which it tried at times) rank and file members
didn't have a hope in hell of changing anything.

Cheers

Jurriaan





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