Re: Forwarded from Ben Reid

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Ben wrote:

> So don't you ficking tell me the DSP caused its own proscription from the
> Greens: I still feel the knives my back. Three years later the same
> incompentents helped elect a National party government in Queensland, so
> perhaps they did the DSP a favour!

Refreshing to read the truth! Mind you I was attacked in a column in Green
Left Weekly for being attached to throwing scuttle butt at the Greens in
Qld, when I insisted amid DSP silence that the Greens had been instrumental
in the election of a reactionary government!

The problem posed by Hutton and the ex-anarchists is a very deep one here
in Qld. They represent the greatest single barrier to the Greens uniting
with the Left and also in breaking out of their 5% ceiling. Mind you Hutton
himself came very close to being elected to State Parliament but since then
his electoral appeal has faded - praises be!  But the cretinism and the
opportunism and the red-baiting nature of the Green leadership is of
mammoth proportions.  The result in Cunningham will have strengthened their
hand.

What is more, Bob Brown - the Greens leader - is I think close to
Hutton.  The current tendency, especially among the Greens, is to almost
worship Brown.  Indeed as he is the only political leader with a scrap of
decency and integrity it is easy to understand why many around him have
fallen into a state close to idolatry.  But put not your faith in princes,
and Brown has done little or nothing to solve the Hutton problem in Qld -
indeed he has made it worse with his "Trees First" line before the last
federal election.  He is reported as defending this turn by saying that it
was trees that had gotten him elected to parliament.

I know he has raised other issues, but within the context of Qld politics
he helped Hutton fight off those in the Greens who wanted to raise social
issues. The anti-social issues folk were of course grouped around Hutton
and his ever charming partner Libby Connor, who as Ben might recall led the
charge against the DSP.


So what is to be done in Qld?  Well we need to build a decent United Front
and above all we must not chase uncritically after Hutton & co.  We need to
speak the truth to them and that is why Ben's post was so important.  In
the past, as I have said, the DSP tended to bite their tongues and not take
on Hutton & co in the name of the greater good of Left Unity.  But that
policy has not worked.

regards

Gary


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