Re: DSP, greens and Greens

[Nick Fredman <nfredman@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Well by saying "maybe mistakes were made ..." I gave Steve a great
free kick didn't I? I don't feel qualified to say much specifically,
being a DSP newby at the time and not having read up on it since.
Which I did at one point re the "infamous" Nuclear Disarmament Party
episode (1984-85), and resolved to my satistaction concerns the DSP's
role in that. How anyone could have ever believed the version peddled
by such an ego-maniacal rock star tosser like Peter Garrett (apart
from a 16 year old Midnight Oil fan like I was in 1985), I don't
know. I last saw Garrett in political mode a couple of years ago on
the telly in a suit at Parliament House, wearing his hat of
Australian Conservation Foundation chair or whatever, praising the
conversion of corporations like BP ("Beyond Petroleum") to ecological
consciousness. Right after luckily the ABC report had Wollongong Uni
greenie academic Sharon Beder blasting this incredibly naive rubbish.
Anyway the main point is that for every single instance of a
socialist group getting involved in anything there's dark tales of
secret agendas, splitting and "entryism" (with this term particularly
used completely incorrectly). It's never the right wing who do the
splitting and wrecking is it? An instance where I had more direct
involvement was East Timor solidarity around 1994-6, when a few
people complained about the alleged machinations of the DSP, they
were answered (in a letter I might have somewhere) in
characteristically blunt terms by that principled old school social
democrat Jose Ramos Horta. He said something like "what are you
talking about? A united front has to be open to everyone who agrees
with the aims, and the DSP does good work. You say through their
campaigning activity they're trying to increase their influence and
recruit people? Your point being ...? That's the whole idea of any
political party, stoopid".
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