Forging new bonds for the left

[T_i_B]

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/gregor_gall/2007/11/forging_new_bonds.html

After its conference this year, John McDonnell MP declared the old ways of working for progressive causes through Labour were largely over. And on the same day in mid-November, there were four separate national gatherings of socialists in London, testifying to the divided and weakened nature of the left.

If the utility of the old ways of organising is coming to an end, progressive forces need to look to other means of creating leverage and exercising influence. One such means is to establish alliances between producers and the users or consumers of the goods and services they provide.

It has almost become a new orthodoxy under Labour that producers have conservative, even backward, interests and these are in antagonism with those of the larger number of users and consumers whose needs are deemed, in contrast, to be modern and progressive.

But Labour's adherence to implementing neoliberalism has now gone so far that it is becoming clear that the best defence of both producers' and consumers' interests is an alliance between them against government and companies.

[Demeter]

1. We Have A Similar Problem Here

With the DLC co-opting the Democratic Party for a corporate agenda, Progressives and Liberals and anyone who doesn't live on stocks and dividends is out of luck.