...achieving outcomes, going forward.

Collating a couple of comments i just posted on FB into a tumblr-worthy post

It’s unfortunate that, as with most things Israel/Palestine, the hurf blurf of people hard on either side has lead the debate. Not to mention the way the Labor party has been using this to play the Greens off a break. I mean, you can hardly blame them, but there’s a lot more to all of this than just debate about the BDS.

I’m actually enjoying watching this play out as a proxy debate between Labor left and the Greens over the whole basis of what they do. Especially because, as i understand it, one of the driving points behind the Greens is that they practice a different kind of politics. A politics that, among other things, is all for this kind of symbolic action and is quite specifically against being too “realist” about “oh we can’t change xyz so we won’t bother.” I think it also goes to stuff like the feminist notion that the personal is political and as such the idea of Marrickville supporting the BDS deliberately pits the philosophy of the Greens against the combined philosophy of Labor, LNP, and much of the media - that politics is actually Politics and should be left to the professionals.

Not so much enjoying the way it brings out the partisanship in individuals but i guess that’s inevitable.

A comment i just posted at Drag0nista’s blog.

A much greater proportion of the Greens’ voter base is disaffected Labor supporters rather than disaffected Liberal or “swinging” voters and i think Doug Evans makes a good point about late Green voters actually being reluctant former Labor voters. To me the best explanation for the largest body of Greens support is that it’s essentially the left faction(s) of the Labor party angling for more leverage over left/progressive governments. Until recently, internal Labor solidarity, along with the slogan of “the [non-Labor left whatever] will never hold government in their own right,” kept the left in check no matter how often the right won the battles. Now there is a viable alternative for the Left that allows them to disagree and debate the right more openly and probably achieve more of their goals, or so they imagine at least .

See the “keep Carmel” and “keep Verity” campaigns in the NSW state seats of Marrickville and Balmain. To me that’s mainly about arguing to keep those individuals as members of the Left of Labor within the Labor caucus, advocating for progressive ideas and keeping the Labor-right in check i.e. “throw out Labor, but keep these two.” I believe those seats have a higher proportion of politically engaged voters than average, voters who understand that their vote works on a number of levels and is not just about deciding between Labor or coalition government.

Drag0nista and others seem to be falling into what is a false assumption that a party is either a major party that has a hope of governing on its own right or it’s just a party for protest votes that isn’t a threat. While i don’t assume that Labor will never again govern in their own right (ATM, federally, that’s only the case if they win 72-75 seats, a pretty small window in a parliament of 150,) i do think there is a significant enough of a threat from the Greens in that politically engaged left-within-the-left types will be thinking much harder about whether it’s tactically better to be represented by a left wing member of Labor pissing inside a tent or member of the Greens pissing outside.

A case study: Adam Bant would’ve won Melbourne off the votes of unhappy Labor left types and so now it’s about showing how effective he can be in representing their interests. Note that “representing their interests” and “getting government decisions they approve of” are two different things for a body of activists used to fighting the good fight within the ALP but frequently losing to people who, in their minds, would give away their own mother if it meant winning another election. The more he votes in the parliament and openly advocates along “left-within-the-left” lines, the more his engaged voter base will prefer hearing their views represented rather than feeling alienated by seeing their representative sprouting the talking points of Labor-right (or even worse, the ideologically hollow Labor-machine,) and the better his chance of holding onto the seat and the Greens being able to boast of having a role to play in the lower house(s).