September 02, 2008

Left, but not Left for Deac

Who's world is a The world is yours, the world is yours...
—Nas

I think it’s high time that we gave it a push in the right direction. Or is that the

Sine the 1990s, a major topic of discussion for political junkies has been, left direction?

 

“What the hell happened to the left?” A fair question to be sure, as in the past Okay, fine, bad pun, I know.

two decades, leftist thinking has seemed less and less relevant in the political - So, to all my fellow frustrated lefties out there, fear not. Soon, our time will

climate. come again, and it will be okay to show a little red now and then. It'll be okay
So, what the hell did happen to the left? It all started in the late 80s and to say that industries shouldn’t regulate themselves. It’ll be okay to not want a

early 90s when major political parties of the day all went right-wing, even those __ two, or three, or 89-tiered medical system. It’s okay, you Marxists, Obamaniacs,

that were traditionally leftist. In the UK, Tony Blair led the Labour Party to and Laytonaters. If you stick your guns, the world is yours.

his “third-way socialism,” an ideology that few would consider leftist. Even

Canada’s NDP began moving more and more to the center, and the Liberals, Your friend in high fidelity,

while never leftist by any stretch, started looking like a party that would | Liam Britten
welcome Brian Mulroney into the fold. The US, surprisingly, got Bill Clinton, s
the most left-wing politician they’d have for almost 30 years (which says a lot
about how left-wing the US ever gets).

The political environment of the west has, in my view, remained mostly
unchanged since these times. The parties have more or less remained the same
as they were 20 years ago, and even if those holding the reins of power have
changed, their policies have not. I think you'll be hard-pressed to notice major

. differences between Harper’s Conservatives and Chretien/Martin’s Liberals;
both are free-market zealots who hungrily took increasing amounts of power for
themselves both within government and within their own party. They’ ve both
been oh-so-friendly to Uncle Sam, cut the social and civil services to shreds,
and as for the poor? Well, I think they said something about eating cake.

. Okay, tirades against federal politicians aside, what this means is that those
who are left-of-center have been shut out of federal politics for almost 30 years
(maybe even longer than that; calling Trudeau “leftist” is a stretch, I’1l admit).
While the NDP and the Bloc have had some reasonable showings in the past
decade, they’ve almost been ashamed to wear the bright red colours of the left.
Perhaps it’s a necessity; in a post-Cold War world, where many of our parents
and grandparents lived in fear of “The Red Menace,” the word “leftist” has
come to mean “villain.” Anywhere outside of Quebec, socialism is still treated
with suspicion and hostility, and if a party wants to be outwardly socialist, it
does so at its own peril. ,

But now is a different time from 30 years ago. Now the West is facing
new problems that the invisible hand of the free market is increasingly unable
to solve. What have laissez-faire policies of the last quarter-century done to
improve our failing economies? To solve our social ills, increasing prison
populations, the gap between rich and poor and the plight of Aboriginal
peoples? Better yet, I don’t think there’s a credible expert out there who
won't attribute the plight of the environment to our deregulated, out of control
consumption. The right has not made our world any better, and indeed, decades
of right-wing thinking have put our nation into a nose-dive that we might not
pull out of intact.

I’ve heard it said many times by those with a political bent that the world,
politically, operates much like a metronome. Back and forth the pendulum ticks
and tocks, pointing to the left, then the right, then the left, then the right. For the
past 30 years, however, the pendulum seems to have been stuck to the right; and

 

 

 

 

The students’ union
Book Swap is back and
its online!

Go to wmv douglasstudentsunior.cato sign up; click on the
“book swap” link, and buy and sell your textbooks today.

Please note: To facititate the success of this Book Swap service on-line, and in the effort to pro-
vide “one-stop” shopping for the benefit of ali students, the students’ union will be continuing its
butletin board policy of poster removals which advertise used textbooks for sale.

Don't miss out - go on-line today!

DouGLaAs STUDENTS’ UNION
CANADIAN FEDERATION OF STUDENTS - Loca 18