A Left that has abandoned the working class is a Left that will increasingly be left behind by the culture wars.
What is required is a Left that is, of, by, and for the working class. A Left that engages in industrial and political struggle through its very design to reverse the neoliberal order and to replace it with one more in accord with the principles of social justice and solidarity.
Only such a Left can head the conservative and liberal defenders of the rich and powerful off at the pass as they seek to use working class grievances to further cement and extend the privileges of the rich.
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The working class people of Australia, the people I as a wog grew up, work, live, struggle, and play with are a decent and caring people.
It takes both effort and force of circumstance to make such people hateful and spiteful.
The Left cannot do much about the minions of the privileged who provide the effort, but through hard work, dissidence, and activism it can do something about the force of circumstance.
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About the Author
Mark Beljac teaches at Swinburne University of Technology, is a board member of the New International Bookshop, and is involved with the Industrial Workers of the World, National Tertiary Education Union, National Union of Workers (community) and Friends of the Earth.