The left is a broad church. Excuse me if I make a few generalisations here.
The left is represented by the right of the Labor Party at its furthest right, although there are some unions that would argue they represent left values who are to the right of even the right of the Labor Party. let's accept that the Labor Right is about as right as we want the left to be.
At the other extreme is those anarchists who promote radical libertarianism and hard left Marxists who support the old ways of the Chinese Communist Party and Stalin.
I'm not a historian, so I am not here to give an historic perspective of changes int he left movement over time. What I would say is that the left movement generally has become more fractured over time, rather than more homogenous.
This fracturing of the left movement plays into the hands of capitalism and right wing elements within the community, such as banks, mining corporations, other big business, and the Liberal Party.
The Left, not represented by labor or the Greens, needs to represent itself. The true left, that promotes egalitarianism and true democracy - whatever that is - needs to come together with a focused vision of what our aspirations are for humanity and the planet we live on.
Although in Australia Labor does not represent the true left, nonetheless we ought to respect that Labor is starkly contrasted to the rigid, uncompromising and radical views of the Liberal Party. I do not advise people to join the labor party to make it stronger from within. This is a hopeless task. Rather I believe we need to be consistent in our approach to Labor, we need to, at every step, promote the values we embrace and encourage Labor to embrace those same values. What we ought not to do is to undermine Labor to the point where we are simply mimicking the words of the Liberal Party and advantaging the radical right's ambition to dominate the popular political scene. Just because we deride popular culture does not mean that popular culture does not have a place in society. Society IS popular culture. If we consistently remain outside that culture we make ourselves irrelevant and obsolete.
I do not want the true left movement to become irrelevant and obsolete. I want us to grow and strengthen. The way to do that is with a united voice which is collectively promoted within mainstream society. I do not see that happening at the present moment in our history.
The left has often been divided. One of the classic instances of this is when the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks parted ways. This was a time when even Liberal capitalism was left of the aristocratic right of Russian politics. At this time the true left, represented by the Bolsheviks, was united. Life was much simpler then. it wasn't long however before Trotsky became an outcast in his homeland and Stalin had take the reigns of an oppressive regime. Even so, the Russian communist party achieved many great things for the USSR.
The left can achieve great things. But I do not see it doing that. Leftists of the indigenous peoples of Australia promote sovereignty and a two state solution to aboriginal affairs. The Occupy Melbourne movement has endorsed most recently military intervention in Syria. People on this media platform continue to attack the Gillard Government rather than promoting forward visionary policies that we could work to see developed within the political framework we have. Moreover when I have myself promoted proportional representation as a better democratic model I have heard no-one speak in support of this. The only alternative people want to consider is direct democracy, which is a less democratic and more right wing model of democracy as practised int he US.
So long as WE fail to present a cohesive vision for the future we fail ourselves, but most importantly we fail mainstream Australia. Australia, as elsewhere, is crying out for a left dialogue. Where is that dialogue? It is not happening here. It is not happening in the Occupy Movement. it is not happening in the pubs and taverns of Australia. It has stopped happening in our universities.
People now source their information off the net, and the net is driven by right wing interests. We need to promote a dialogue within the community, but how can we do that if we cannot have a cohesive and coherent dialogue amongst ourselves?
The more we discuss, and engage, and robustly exchange ideas, the more we work towards the future of this nation, and the world. When people get hung up on simple shit like how to spell labour, then we have absolutely no hope of achieving anything for the future.