If your only recent source of information about the Greens was media releases coming from acting leader Adam Bandt’s office, you could be forgiven for thinking the party was suddenly moving to the left.

Peter Garrett, the 1980s rock star in a band noted for its anti-nuclear, anti-mining, anti-military stance, is living proof that parliamentarism will never serve the campaigns for social, environmental and economic justice.

A revolution is needed in order to overcome the evils that capitalist society is subject to. But that doesn’t mean that nothing can be improved in the meantime. Quite the contrary: struggles for improvements – reforms – can be successful to one degree or another, depending on many different factors.

[The following article was written in response to an article by Kelik Ismunanto, a leader of Papernas (National Liberation Unity Party) titled “Indonesia: Tracing a path towards parliament” that was published in the December 3 issue of Green Left Weekly.

San Francisco, October 31 – In the final days of the US presidential election campaign, Republican candidate John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin have repeatedly charged that Democrat candidate Barack Obama is a “socialist”. While this assertion is ridiculous, it does bring the issue of socialism into the mainstream of US political discourse.

Telling the truth or fostering false hopes

Kieran Latty (Letters, DA #3) claims there are two problems with my article “NSW Labor’s electricity privatisation plans” in DA #2.

When the Socialist Alliance was proposed by the Democratic Socialist Party (now the Democratic Socialist Perspective) in 2001, it was intended as a step forward for left unity.

The SA national website states, in part: “The Socialist Alliance was formed on February 17, 2001, by eight socialist groups and parties that saw an urgent need for greater left unity in Australia”.