For fellow Socialists/Social Democrats in the world

[Peter the Lefty]

This is a bizarre topic, but for those of my left-of-center comrades who are also upset as I am to see so many of the world's democratic socialist/social democratic parties become right-wing neoliberal, pro-austerity parties, please share your opinions on what each of them need to do, or what has to happen to them if they are to return to their roots, or if they they're hopeless.  Below, I have a list of the parties with social democratic inclinations who have become neoliberal as of late along with my thoughts on them.  Let me know if I forgot any.

UK Labour Party: Needs to loose the Blairites, which will be a long, drawn-out process.  Since they appear to have embraced austerity, they'll need a major revolt at the next party conference against the leadership's policies.  It also needs more people like Jon Cruddas in the shadow cabinet, in higher positions, and it needs to scrap the Blairites in the Shadow Cabinet, starting with Liam Byrne and Caroline Flint, then Steven Twigg, the Eagle twins, Tessa Jowell, and most of the rest of the older ones leaving, being replaced, hopefully, by people like Jon Cruddas, Stella Creasy (who didn't/doesn't support the New Labour project, I hear), Lisa Nandy, Rushanara Ali, etc., and later, more authentic left-wingers like John Cryer, Jeremy Corbyn, etc.  It'll need another term in opposition, frankly, and will need a new, reinvigorated leadership with true left-wing values.  Hopefully, Stella Creasy will be the next leader.  And it can't let that Blairite Rachel Reeves get anywhere!  I realize it's unlikely.

Germany SPD: An even bigger change than Labour would need.  The SPD must reconnect with its true social democratic values, and commit to reversing the Agenda 2010 laws, and raising the taxes on the wealthy to the 53% rate that existed before Schroder cut them, possibly even higher.  And this is impossible with the SPD as it currently is.  So, most of the Seeheimer Kreis and Netwerk Berlin factions will have to leave and start a new, centrist party that could become the CDU's new natural coalition partner.  Then, the faction of die Linke that came from the SPD could rejoin it.  Everyone wins!  Except die Linke, but they've been on the verge of splitting for a while.  But overall, all of this is about as likely to happen as Texas is to legalize gay marriage.

Italian PD: Must split.  Not like it's not waiting to happen anyway.  The centrists/liberals can leave and start a new party, and the PD might wanna merge with SEL, to be honest.  

PASOK: Forget it.  They're hopeless.  SYRIZA is the new main left-wing Greek party.  

Irish Labour Party: I'm tempted to say that it's hopeless, but who knows.  Maybe they'll have a huge leadership shake-up, but I'm guessing they'll be surpassed as the main left-wing party at the next election by Sinn Fein.  They'll be consighned to the dustbin of history.  Since the party's grassroots didn't rise up at the last conference over the policies they're pursuing in government, I doubt they ever will.  So, goodbye Labour, you will be drubbed at the next election, and quite deservedly, too.

PSOE: Needs completely new leadership from people who had no role in the last government.  Which is unlikely at this point.  So, if there is to be a true, non-communist party of the left in Spain, it will probably  have to be formed by the Indignados movement.  

Portuguese Socialist Party: Dunno.  They'll need to totally renounce the last government and remove the crooks who participated in it from positions of importance.  

Australian Labor Party: They'll have to loose the 2013 election to Tony Abbot by a landslide so that all of the major right-wingers in the party who will be angling for the leadership (like Wayne Swan) don't get a chance.  They'll need a leader from the real left, not the phony left.  I'm hoping for Tanya Pliserbek.  

New Zealand Labour Party: I've heard news that Shearer might get the knife soon.  If so, they ought to have a true social democrat replace him.  I'm for David Cunliffe.  

I'm sure there are a few I forgot.  And yeah, my signature reflects a lot of this.  What do you guys think?

[Peter the Lefty]

I see you've given up completely on the U.S. Democratic Party. 

Oh no.  The U.S. Democrats never were social democratic by any stretch of the imagination.  With the US, I'm pondering if it'll be possible to start a new, social democratic party.  But that's fodder for a thread of its own.

[Peter the Lefty]

Any comment on NDP, or, as most people, you are reserving your judgement for later?

Well, I'd like to see Mulcair focus on income enequality more, but he's just started, so idk.  I hope he actually agrees to taxing the rich, because I'm still a having trouble comprehending his statement that it would put off potentiall voters (it's not like the rich would vote NDP anyway).  With Nash as Finance critic, I hope she kicks his ass over it.  Frankly, though, it isn't the federal NDP I'm upset with.  I should've put this up there, but it's really the Nova Scotia that I'm upset with, because they're governing like small-c conservatives at this point.  I hope there's a grassroots uprising at the next convention there.  They need a total change in leadership. 

[Peter the Lefty]

UK Labour Party: Needs to loose the Blairites, which will be a long, drawn-out process.  Since they appear to have embraced austerity, they'll need a major revolt at the next party conference against the leadership's policies.

Because that sort of behavior ended so very well when it was tried in the past (and on more than one occasion as well), right?

Anyways, the leadership doesn't support the government's economic policies; the furthest its gone in that general direction has been to say that they won't be able to reverse everything this government has done, which is obviously true (though when that was said, it was said in a rather less than entirely clear way).

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Labour's voters quite clearly don't.

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I'm not entirely sure what a 'Blairite' even is these days, but Reeves certainly isn't one of them. She's a fairly traditional Labour right-winger, of the sort that often end up as Leeds MPs.

Ed Balls has said that he can't guarantee that any cut will be reversed, and that he'd keep the wage freeze on public sector workers.  And frankly, Labour can't call itself socialist or social democratic if it's going to follow that course.  So yes, there needs to be a conference in which the members force the party's leadership to follow their ideology.  And yes, it's bad to have the party look inwards at a time like this, but it's the only way for it to reconnect with the values that once defined it.  And Reeves is part of the Blairite "Progress" group, isn't she?  Anyway, perhaps Blairite was the wrong word.  She's right-wing, talks too much about "fiscal credibility" (while subscribing to the Tory definition of credibility, which is cuts), and therefore, she must be stopped. 

[Peter the Lefty]

Wait wait wait, you think it's is preferable to have Tony Abbott in power on the off chance that the ALP ends up being lead by someone from the left left faction, therefore ensuring that even Tony Abbott could conceivably be re-elected?

"Lesser-evil" politics is rarely a good thing, but when the debate involves Tony “…Jesus didn’t say yes to everyone. I mean Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it is not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.” Abbott.

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Oh, and three more quotes:

"Mr Speaker, we have a bizarre double standard; a bizarre double standard in this country where some-one who kills a pregnant woman’s baby is guilty of murder, but a woman who aborts an unborn baby is simply exercising choice."

” I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak”

"I think it would be impossible to have a good general education without at least some serious familiarity with the Bible and with the teachings of Christianity."

Didn't realize Plibersek was that left-wing.  Can you point to some of her positions that are really radical?  And I wouldn't rather have Tony Abbot in charge than Julia Gillard, but it's not like a Coalition victory isn't almost inevitable at this point.  I just mean for the ALP to revitalize itself and get back to being an actual social democratic party again, it'll need at least a term in opposition.  And about those quotes...umm....I live in the US, so I'm sorta vaccinated against fear of that stuff (I'm from the state that used to have Rick Santorum as a Senator, fyi).  I mean, I'm a left-winger through and through both economically and socially, but I'm just sort of used to hearing Republicans say things like that.  So the things that Tony Abbot says that would make most people cringe makes me just roll my eyes and groan.