As was discussed in the Friday December 19 2008 ‘From the Smoke Pit’ post there is a need to address the environmental left and the affects they are having on working class unity. In Alberta the economic crisis has almost totally silenced these forces of the so called ’No New Approvals’ movement. It has exposed their policies as untenable in the face of job loss and economic hardship for energy sector workers.
In an expanding economy these opportunist elements of the petty bourgeoisie gain a foothold within organized labour infecting it with middleclass theories. Within an economic crisis these elements become more exposed having to adapt to growing working class mobilizations. We begin our discussion…
The following began as part of an ongoing polemic between the editor of the Yahoo Group, Revolutionary Politics Progressive Bulletin Board (RevPol) and Focus On Socialism (FOS) contributor and assistant editor William O’Casey. FOS is the political journal of Canadians for Peace and Socialism under the editorship of CPS Chair Don Currie.
However, to fully respond the scope of the discussion needed to be broadened and deal with the more general question of the leading role of working class within the context of global warming. This question leads in turn to the underlying basis of the divide – idealism versus materialism.
RevPol/FOS Polemic Background
The polemic sharpened following the publication of FOS “The ‘Left’ Bamboozled Again!” editorial, in FOS Election Bulletin #3. RevPol took exception to what he deemed FOS’s “false antagonisms” and retreating from the “status quo”. FOS disagrees with a call to “No New Approvals”[1] and shutting down oil sands development, which is very much in fashion within the environmental left.
The full content of the RevPol’s comments can be found on the RevPol bulletin board entitled “Focus on Socialism - Election Bulletin #3 - September 15, 2008” (Message # 2463) or in the Appendix at the end of this document.
When this article was first cast it was under the flawed assumption by the author that the positions put forward by RevPol where based in a divergence in the approach to the question, and that the underlying theories were due, in part, to honest and misguided attitudes towards workers. It was further believed, within that context, that an open and frank exchange of views would lead to greater unity and discourse, within the course of the discussion, to find correct strategies and tactics in the fight for energy sector workers jobs in the face of calls to shutdown the oils sands in Alberta.
However since the last posting to the RevPol bulletin board entitled “An Exchange on Environmentalism” (Message # 2604) and a subsequent posting (Message #2605) by the editor of a RevPol supporter, Mike Sawyer, which expressed a deep seated hostility and anger towards workers more befitting of a southern Gentleman than a rational leftist, all assumptions of an “honest” exchange were destroyed. It illustrated in very plain language the positions held by many environmentalists towards workers. This could not go unchallenged.
The RevPol Editor also asserted that he is part of “The Eco-Socialist Movement” and self described “Deep Red” upon doing some initial research it was evident that the basis of these hostilities is rooted in an historical battle between ideologies of the working classes and those of the ruling classes and their petty bourgeois beneficiaries. In this light an urgent recasting was called for. The basis of the RevPol Editor’s assertions and remarks and the philosophy of the movement are contained within Ecosocialist Network 2nd Ecosocialist Manifesto.
These theories advocated by the ecosocialist trend have demanded a more thorough analysis of this new tendency, and the dangerous strains of “Deep Ecology”. These trends are emerging within “left” and which symptoms of this troubling variant are gaining a foothold within the environmental left with influence inside organized labour.
The original casting of this document was further flawed by dealing solely with the petty bourgeois content of RevPol’s language and sensibilities. It dealt with those questions in a reactionary manner, not treating them within the larger and more serious trend of Ecosocialism, the principal source of RevPol’s assertions. Such an approach abandoned the working class and its revolutionary content. This left the real content of the environmental arguments hidden never revealing the origin of such ideology. This in itself denies the role of the working class who will be the primary victims of any eventual climate change on the scale predicted by the new environmental soothsayers.
Through this process it was necessary to trace the origins of this ‘new’ trend and address many of the arguments advanced by adherents of this, in essence, anti-working class ideology. While in the midst of this it became apparent very early on that this philosophy infects and, to a great extent, dominates much of the content of within the environmental left. This leads honest environmental activists into all sorts of incorrect anti-labour policies and in the end winds up supporting the very industrial concerns they are trying to convince to change their practices. In the extreme it morphs into a bizarre advocacy of shutting down industry and in the course – worker’s jobs. These are not false antagonism as RevPol claims that FOS is instigating, but real antagonisms that exist between working class reality and middleclass illusions.
[1] No New Approvals is an environmental movement centred on the call to curtail, halt expansion or a complete shutdown of Alberta’s oil sands development. Its principle advocates are the Council of Canadians, Sierra Club of Canada, Green Peace, Stop Tarsands Operations Permanently (STOP), among others.
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