Greg Milner at the Drum today thinks Labor is stupid for not moving to crush the Greens:
For too long, Labor has tolerated or ignored this threat to its Left-aligned voter base. Long perceived as a beneficiary of the Australian protest vote, the Greens were regarded as a harmless distraction, a repository of the disaffected, basket-weaving, economically illiterate far Left.
“Basket-weaving”, “economically illiterate”. Ah, so it’s that sort of “serious” assessment of the Greens.
Interestingly, Greg is close to identifying the actual issue, if only he’d excluded the words “this threat to” from the first sentence. Then he might grasp precisely why the Greens vote has grown – because an ALP chasing the right cannot effectively represent the contrary views of left-wing voters.
And what does Mr Milner suggest the ALP do? No longer be content with just ignoring the left, he wants it to do the work of the right and actually attack us!
Instead of criticising the Greens’ policy flaws, Labor has entered into a formal policy agreement with them. Instead of attacking the Greens as extreme-left fringe-dwellers…
I’m not sure why he thinks the ALP will grow its support from the left by overtly turning on us and our ideals. By patronisingly telling us we’re “economic illiterates” and mocking us for believing in things like equality. I strongly suspect it would turn the steady exodus from the left of the party to the Greens into an absolute flood.
If there are any lefties in this room, we want your votes but not your opinions. Donate, campaign, and then shut the hell up.
And, anyway, the ALP has tried smearing and sidelining the Greens. It sidelined the Greens on the ETS and that’s how Kevin Rudd managed to lose most of his credibility. It regularly runs dishonest underhanded attacks misrepresenting their policies. And yet their vote continues to grow.
So it’s a difficult issue for the ALP Right. On the one hand, they never liked the lefties in their party anyway, and the more of them who leave, the stronger the right’s control of Labor. On the other, they do want the votes of the lefties. They want lefties convinced that they are the only ones who can defeat the slightly-more-conservatives, and that it’s better being inside a tent that completely ignores them than being exposed without any protection to the ravages of the overt right-wingers. They want tame, obedient, compliant lefties who don’t really expect to be listened to (ie, lefties who’ve spent time in the ALP) – which is why the Greens are such a threat to their power. A Greens-ALP Coalition, in which the lefties are in the Greens, out from the control of the right-wingers, free to advocate for progressive policies in parliament, is probably their worst nightmare.
But it should be something that finally gives the many lefties still left in the ALP a glimmer of hope.
I suspect there are many in the ALP who are cheering the rise of the Greens.
Moved On 
I’m an ALP supporter, but I pretty much agree with your analysis here. The idea that the ALP can win back left-wing voters by attacking the Greens for espousing left-wing principles is truly bizarre.
The Greens have now succeeded in getting ultra-leftists elected to parliament, and thus it is quite logical to point out to voters the danger these vile fools pose to the nation. I am sure that a lot of protest voters will be dismayed that they have been played by reincarnated communists. If the Greens had any decency they would remove these hideous perfidious weeds from their garden.
SB, do you define anyone who believes that we should better fund public health, public education, public transport, funded by a progressive taxation system, as “a communist”?
And are you suggesting that any such people should be prevented from being represented in parliament?
SB voted for the DLP, what would he know?
Anybody left of SB is a ‘vile fool’ thing is I think he needs to look up the word ‘vile’, to me vile are the people who use asylum seekers as political footballs, vile are those who discriminate against people based on their sexuality.
‘Ultra-leftists,’ ha. Seeking equal rights and to improve the health of folks are totally the positions of extremists.
“Labor must take on the Greens. They must take on the Greens, because a strong Greens party will do far more damage to Labor than to the Coalition.”
i think the greens should fight the Labor, the Nationals should challenge the Liberals, the Socialists brawl with Libertarians, then liberals can defend against the sex party, the CEC can sucker punch the Democrats, then the Democrats ambush the communists, the vulcans can fire their proton torpodos at the klingons.
/irrelevant party bickering
Did SB seriously vote for the DLP? I think it’s disgraceful such a right-wing party has a left sounding name. Pity the ‘misleading and deceptive conduct’ provisions of the Trade Practices Act don’t apply.
And despite what some fools always go on about the Greens are not ultra-leftists. Look where they polled well. Quite often in wealthy areas. Shows there are some torries who give a shit about human rights.
He says he did but I’m not sure because most of what he writes is utter, shrill nonsense, Here’s a recent example:
“”The Greens have now succeeded in getting ultra-leftists elected to parliament,”
‘ultra-leftists’ LOL Oh no the sky is falling in, commies in government!
It was the LDP. Sadly the DLP senate preferences in NSW went to Labor’s number 3 candidate. I note however, that history has proved the DLP right on communism. The DLP at least never swallowed the murderous bullshit that the old commos did. The commos sold themselves as idealists when they fully supported the greatest tyranny the world has seen. At best they were idiots, and that really is the point – we really do not need people that stupid in parliament.
we really do not need people that stupid in parliament.
We need more intelligent people like Steve Fielding! /s
“It was the LDP”
My apologies, still it just goes to show that your claim that you’re a centrist is nonsense as is most of what you rant about…
OMG Reds under the bed… Oh no….
“we really do not need people that stupid in parliament.”
Tuckey has gone.. Fielding is going, it seems that the stupid are slowly being removed. Boswell and Bronwyn Bishop are still there, what a shame.
Are you claiming that Adam Bandt is stupid? That Bob Brown is stupid?
Just the other day you claimed that Fielding would not be a wrecker without good reason, ie you highlighted your own stupidity.
Lee Rhiannon, apart from her ethical issues in the NSW parliament, is IMHO definitely stupid. Why else would anyone join the SPA soon after the Soviets sent the tanks int Czechoslvakia? And it looks to me like Bandt saw early that support of the Greens was would advance his Trotskyite cause. In fact he liked the company so much he bought into it.
On the other hand Bob Brown is our best politician, and as a man of integrity he will likely become more isolated by the scum now rising in the Green pond. Sensible people do not mistake toxic algal blooms for healthy resurgence.
As I pointed out SB, your defence of Fielding the other day reinforces the fact that you have no credibility, you’re wasting key strokes, you’re full of shit… You call intelligent people stupid.
Having said that it is rather entertaining, it’s fun watching wingnuts demonstrate their idiocy to the world.
BTW SB, what about all the right wingers (like you) who claim that Vietnam was justified (Alexander Downer does to this day, he’s of the…….right!)? You know, if you’re going to bring up ancient history, bugger that, recent history – the waste of life in Iraq and Afghanistan.. The ‘left’ ie the Greens oppose this, the right, ALP and Libs support these ridiculous wars of choice, this utter waste of life and money.
Support of an ideology doesn’t mean support of every iteration of that ideology. Besides, Abbott is a Catholic- and is *still* a Catholic, whereas Rhiannon is not longer a communist.
Rob J, Downer is right on this. The left so weakened the commitment of the west that the communists won the Vietnam war. The consequence is that the South Vietnamese have suffered 35 years (and counting) of tyrannical rule. I have yet to hear any pang of regret from those stupid hypocrites who now glory in the fact that they demonstrated against the war. They ignore the hideous outcome they wrought upon the Vietnamese people and pretend that they have no responsibility for it.
The decrepit racist turd Whitlam wouldn’t even take in the refugees he created, preferring to leave them to drown at sea or suffer the depredations of the leftists who seized power. There are few lower lifeforms on the planet than those anti-war protesters. It is a rotten shame that they did not have to endure the brutal regime they inflicted on the Vietnamese people.
35 years of poverty misery and death – I guess being a leftist means never having to say you are sorry.
“Rob J, Downer is right on this.”
LOL – Yeah, wise move the invasion of Vietnam and the resultant waste of life (50 000 US, a million Vietnamese, how cavalier you are with the lives of others). What is it with the right and their love of war and violence?
SB, why the fuck are you posting here? You should join up and go and fight the good fight.. Oh that’s right, you’re a chickenhawk, a coward, a stupid one at that!
Carpet bombing, chemical defoliation, napalm, sticking to kids, you’re one SICK idiot SB.
Mai Lai
Pull yourself together RobJ, instead of just pulling yourself. What is with all of this ranting and blathering? After all the left had its way in the end. The result was that a million or so Vietnamese were selectively slaughtered by the brutal leftist regime that is still in power. You should be proud.
“What is with all of this ranting and blathering? ”
That’s what you’re doing, I’m just taking the piss out of you and pointing out that you’re a wingnut and a coward. 🙂
Keep it up, like I say it’s fun to watch a defender of Steve Fielding (LOL) make an utter twat of himself.
gee, i wonder who armed and trained the viet minh?
I find it amusing that you consider all leftists supporters of the Viet Minh and the soviets -and all the rest- when I imagine you’ll find many of us are no more fond of communist totalitarianism than we are of the religious or right-wing kind.
But stupidity- like hypocrisy -seems to be a feature of the Right.
This is a really just a simple point about the Vietnam anti-war demonstrators not taking responsibility for their actions. They wanted the war to end, and they got that. The Vietnamese got 35 years of hell. Congratulations.
@Splatterbottom:
I agree with you. Because I’m Vietnamese Australian, my father fought in the war and went to reeducation camp (death camp) and eventually escaped. One of his friends ended up there and wasn’t released until 2000 (he lives in the US now).
Yes the anti-war protesters have a lot to be ashamed about.
They pretend that they were ‘anti-racists’ but they weren’t.
Many opposed the drafting of their fellow country men, THAT was the main motivator.
I read an essay that had me thinking:
“They [White folks] must be committed to either picking up arms for other people (and only firing when the people tell them so), dying for other people, or just getting out of the way. In short, they must be willing to do what the people most affected and marginalized by a situation tell them to do.”
In truth those that opposed the war didn’t value the lives of those that their country was defending – the South Vietnamese.
Did they forget that there were 3 times more South Vietnamese soldiers defending their country and that without military weapon and aid they would be left to die?!
The problem is the North weren’t out for peace. They started the war and they also broke international law by breaking the Peace Paris Accords.