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This is an archived discussion, please do not edit

Proposed split

This article has already grown in size considerably, and I was thinking that it might be a good idea to take the "Political groups on the Left" section and make it into a separate (list-)article.

On another note, the section on the Anti-War Movement reads like a long list of criticisms against that movement, first from the Left and then from the Right. There's not even a single quote or reference in favor of the movement. It seems that the only things being discussed are (1) the history of the movement and (2) why the movement is bad.

- Mihnea Tudoreanu

The recent NPOV dispute

I've archived full discussion from the recently-settled NPOV dispute. A few points from both sides are still open. I'm trying to note those open issues here; sincere apologies if I haven't paraphrased someone correctly, I'm really trying to do this evenhandedly. -- Jmabel 22:45, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Leftism, Pacifism and "War on Terror"

The section "Leftism, Pacifism and 'War on Terror'" seems to be degenerating into a very POV not-quite-rant. I'm busy elsewhere, but someone should take this on with NPOV in mind. -- Jmabel 11:31, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)

  1. Several of us (Pyrop, Lacrimosus, myself, and even lately MathKnight) have suggested that much of this "Leftism, Pacifism and 'War on Terror'" material should be factored out elsewhere. As far as I'm concerned, we can keep it in this article for a while, since it is clearly still being very actively edited, but it's gotten big enough to be a main article of its own; also, some of it can probably be (in Pyrop's words) "refactored into other articles on the anti-'War on Terror' movement". I'd ultimately like to see this end up in a small number of articles elsewhere, with a maybe 3-5 paragraph summary here and some "see also" remarks. Does anyone have other ideas?
  2. There is still the matter of violence at certain European demonstrations against individuals who were visibly Jewish. This was basically MathKnight's issue. It looks real to me (and I'm coming from roughly the other end of the political spectrum). He'll get his documentation together, make additions to the article, and we'll go from there on exactly what it should say. I've left intact below the bulk of the material on this topic (also covered in full in the archived debate). Sincere apologies if I missed anything, feel free to re-add.
  3. There is still the issue (mostly mine, discussed intermittently at archived) of expanding on, and differentiating, leftist attitudes toward Palestinian militant groups such Hamas (or even toward the Palestinian Authority) and attitudes toward al-Qaida.
  4. One point in particular of MathKnight's bears repeating here:
    It might as well be that in manners of registered members - ANSWER is the smallest, but in term of media volume - ANSWER are the biggest. Somehow, ANSWER is the best known anti-war movement, for better and worse. In the orginal "criticism" section that was a quote about that the extreme left becomes more and more prominant on the anti-war movement and media, with opinions that do not represent the support silent majority. However, the silent majority is rarely heard and many sees the anti-war movement in ANSWER's shape. MathKnight 14:28, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  5. I guess I should reiterate at this level: sincere apologies if I missed anything, feel free to re-add.

Jmabel 22:45, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

<end of material salvaged from the recent NPOV debate, archived at Talk:Left-wing politics/Archive2>

Violence against Jews at French anti-war rally

<Now archived at Talk:Left-wing politics/Archive3>

A label defined by other labels

The opening "definition" defines the term in terms of modern pigeonholes with modern labels. No wonder you're all screaming at each other! Fix the definition, and set it into its sequence of historical contexts, with a sequence of connotations. Then start pulling each other's hair! Wetman 21:08, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm confused, Wetman. The recent NPOV debate, which seems to have been solved to everyone's satisfaction, was about the treatment of the topic of the present-day anti-war movement. It didn't touch on definitional issues at all. Or are you referring to something else? -- Jmabel 23:43, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)

Lists of parties: refactor?

The lists of parties are excellent but they are getting really long. I'd like to refactor them to another article and reduce this to a couple of sentences and a see also. If no one objects in the next couple of days, I will do this. -- Jmabel 04:13, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)

If we move the anti-war movement into a seperate article and will had short summary here and then
See main article: Anti-war movement
I think we could keep the list of parties in here. MathKnight 10:10, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If this is just a list of the parties, why then do you call it a list of organizations? - (anon)

I think it started out differently (and started out just U.S., and wasn't very useful). Yes, I'll edit accordingly. -- Jmabel 00:49, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)
I think there is a place also to group who not run for the local parlaiment (i.e. they are not parties). MathKnight 10:45, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Sure, but then again, there's almost no NGOs (e.g. anarchosyndicalist unions) listed there. If they were, they would take away too much space. (anon, they guy above)
The list should cover only the major movements, and not every small faction. MathKnight 12:17, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
In fact, efforts to characterize broad swaths of groups as "left", "right", "liberal", "conservative", etc. have generally been rejected: lists of these usually end up on VfD (and are deleted) if they are stand-alone articles, because inevitably they get mired in impossible controversies of classification. I suspect that there are probably a few things other than political parties that deserve mention, but we are going to need to be careful about this: for example, I'd be very wary of generically calling anti-war groups left-wing, we've already been over that turf. I'd suggest that we should propose possibilities on the talk page and get a sense of what we've got before just putting this in the article. I have one to suggest: the (now-defunct) Students for a Democratic Society in the U.S., probably the most famous New Left group in the 1960s. -- Jmabel 17:08, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

Europe

I find the new section Left-wing_politics#Left_and_anti-war_in_Europe something of a mess (although it has considerable worthwhile content). Since I just had a long go-round on POV with MathKnight, who wrote this new section, I'm probably not the person who should take first shot at editing this. Would someone else please have a pass at it, both from a copy-edit and a POV point of view? I'll lay off it for a few days. One comment: I really think this stretches the meaning of "hate speech" past the breaking point. -- Jmabel 21:38, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)

So far, indeed - there is more representation to criticism over the European left, then of its advocate. More general background and organizations is needed. I'll try to work on it more. MathKnight 10:41, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

But the LibDems should be centre-right. They are righter than Labour, but lefter than Conservatives. LibDems aren't even centre-left.

You think that the party formed from a merger including the Social Democratic Party is centre right? Among their policy proposals: they support "free education for all" and propose to abolish university tuition fees and set up a system of government grants for university students; they propose a substantial non-means tested increase in pensions; they propose an extra tax band for the highest earners to pay for this, with any surplus revenue being used to cut taxes on the lowest paid; they are in favour of full UK participation in the European Union and an early referendum on joining the euro, which they support; they want to abolish the House of Lords; they opposed participation in the Iraq War. Does that sound like the centre-right? - Nat Krause 17:17, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

But are so called "nordic agar centre" parteis left or right? (unsigned)

It's been over 2 weeks and no one has really either responded to my comments or addressed them in the article, so I am going to feel free to edit. -- Jmabel 22:50, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

OK, I've edited. Nothing very big, outside of removing what I thought was a misuse of the term "hate speech". Please let me know if anyone feels I've gone too far in some direction. -- Jmabel 23:32, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

Refactor

We talked earlier about possibly refactoring most of this discussion of the antiwar movement to another article and merely summarizing in this article. Do we have something like consensus on doing that? -- Jmabel 23:35, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

PLEASE DO NOT ADD ANY MORE VOTES, TAKE THIS UP BELOW 06:05, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC) Yes, refactor

No, don't refactor
(no votes)

Comment
Before any refactoring, we need to see just what else is out there. I suspect there is an article to factor this into. Also, "Anti-war movement" is much to vague, needs to be something like "Post-September 11 anti-war movement", otherwise it could be any war in history. But, MathKnight, glad to see you and I are "on the same page" about this. And I agree with your latest edit (I hadn't removed anything like that, it wasn't there.) -- Jmabel 16:40, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

"Post-September 11 anti-war movement" sounds like a good name, though I prefer some more accesible title. Think of something that people will seach for, when they want to know more about it. A redirect page can compromise between the two.
Here are the articles I found so far on the issue:
The first two are merely listing and reports of protests.
MathKnight 13:52, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC) (BTW: Shana Tova!)

Shana Tova! I don't think we can simply merge into Popular opposition to war on Iraq because some of this predates that considerably, but whatever we do, we should link from there as well as here. -- Jmabel 18:51, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Lacking any apparent objections, I'm going to refactor out to Post-September 11 anti-war movement. I suspect some of this will move around further, I think that's OK. -- Jmabel 04:17, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

I've done this. I've done my best not to bias it at all toward my own politics, if anything I've gone the other way. I think the coverage of the demonstrations in Europe is overly negative, but all of it is solid. It needs to be handled by adding more positive material at Post-September 11 anti-war movement. When that occurs, I will probably move a sentence or two here. -- Jmabel 06:05, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

Hegelians

Hi all, I just had a question about the explanation of rthe origins of the term left and right. I always understood it to come from the the split in the young Hegelians philsoophical movement between 'left Hegelians' (like Marx and Engles) and the right Hegelians. Hegels dialectical theory actually resulted in quite reactionary politics for instance he said that the Autocratic Prussian state was the highest good in modern society and so on. That is why Marx said he wanted to 'turn Hegel on his head' and came up with a more revolutionary conclusion.

Didn't the french parliament seatings come after all of this?

No, the Hegelians were in the early to mid-19th century - the French Assembly was in 1791. Furthermore, that doesn't make any sense - why would Hegelians be called "left" and "right" for "radical" and "conservative" if the terms didn't mean that already? Furthermore, the Young Hegelians were all pretty lefty. People like Feuerbach, and so forth, continued to believe in Hegel's idealism, but turned it to lefty purposes. In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels argue that this is contradictory, and that only materialism is truly revolutionary. But that doesn't make Feuerbach, et al, into conservatives. john k 16:17, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I concur completely with John. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:36, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

US Democratic Party left-wing?

I wouldn't call the US Democratic Partly left-wing. Sure, it's on the left of the Republican Party, but compared to leftist parties in other countries its surely right-wing. I say we should remove it from the list or otherwise add a note to it. --Mixcoatl 20:34, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's the principal center-left party in the United States. I'd say that at this point it's not particularly more right wing, within the context of American politics, than Labour is in Britain, or the Liberals in Canada. At any rate, the problem, I think, is that this article is titled "Left-wing politics." I think the term "Left-wing" connotes somethign more extreme than simply being slightly left of center. In that sense, most Social Democratic parties in Europe probably don't really qualify as "left-wing" in any real sense. john k 21:19, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree that is a problem, but I shudder to think about trying to write a separate article on center-left politics. Other than lists of specific examples (parties and individuals), it's hard to imagine what we would write on such a mushy subject.

In the specific case of the Democratic Party: it is currently a broad center-left coalition; it has been a coalition covering various portions of the spectrum at different points in its history. There are only a few remaining distinctly right-of-center Democrats of any prominence (mostly in the South); much of the leadership is in the center or very moderate left (Bill Clinton, for example); John Kerry is clearly left of center, but not by much; Mario Cuomo certainly left of him, as is Howard Dean (though he wasn't always). Most of the groups that rate senators and congressional representatives count about ten to Kerry's left, all Democrats, probably the best known being Ted Kennedy.

While the Democratic Party may not be at all specifically leftist, certainly the majority of elected officials in the U.S. who are in any sense "on the left" are Democrats. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:18, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)

I just wanted to add that I also do not think the U.S. Democratic party should be listed as leftist. Even though it is true that there are some democrats out there that are leftist, it is mostly on the state government level and to use "U.S. Democratic party" is misleading. At the politicalcompass.org site [1], you can see that John Kerry, although painted as a left liberal, is really still on the economic right, and just slightly more libertarian than Bush. I think it should be removed, or at least reworded. --Howrealisreal 17:18, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I edited slightly. We now say "center-left by American standards, considered centrist or right-wing in most other countries." The only thing I think would be controversial here is "or right-wing". Kerry was, of course, painted a "left liberal" by the Republicans, but is not generally thought of that way by Democrats: certainly he was not the candidate of the left wing of the party, who only reluctantly supported him after he locked up the party's nomination. And Political Compass, a Libertarian site, is not the be-all and end-all. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:44, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)

Left and anti-war in Europe

This was very much not from a neutral point of view, it could be argued even that it presented a quasi-racist veiw as it failed to acknowledge the varriation with in the muslim community and seemed to imply that all Muslims are extremists. I hope that my rewrite is NPOV enough, if not I am happy for it to be tweeked. --JK the unwise 21:59, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The following passage was replaced and its citations essentially thrown away. I am quite uncomfortable with the removal of citations. The material in this passage mostly came from User:MathKnight. He and I had quite a dispute about this material (see Talk:Left-wing politics/Archive2, Talk:Left-wing politics/Archive3) and the now-replaced passage was the compromise we had reached, much less inflamatory than his original text and, I think, reasonably backed up by his cited sources. I'm not going to get into an edit war over this, but for the record this is what JK the unwise replaced, and while it may be appropriate to add what he added, I personally don't think the removed material had any particular POV problems and I can see no grounds at all for removing perfectly good citations. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:21, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

I agree here with Jmable. The relations of left-Muslims-Jews-Islamists are indeed loaded, but form an important part on the agenda of the European left. Me and Jmable worked hard to create a version which will be NPOV as possible and describe the issue and what are the two sides position. As this page version is a brief summary of the full article, I think the current changes are good enough and I don't see any reason to remove parts from it. MathKnight 10:40, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I have rejiged it so as to go with what you say, but I still think that in such a small section as part of a general article on left-wing it is now to loaded towards the position that the relationship between the left and Muslims (religious and ethnic) is a bad one. There are lots of facts about the european-left and the anti-war movement that have still been left out and the thing is allready telling me that the article is too big! JK the unwise 10:48, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I see the problem. This section is only a summary of a larger article discussing the issue. It may be worthy to add some sort of disclaimer or explicit bold rederication to the full article, for which you can contribute and enlength more. MathKnight 12:41, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Orginal Passage

Many European countries have large and growing Muslim minorities. In some groups, such as the British Stop the War Coalition, Muslims have taken leading positions. However, the presence of extremists and alleged Islamists[2], as well as many anti-Israeli slogans, have caused that these anti-war rallies have been seen by some commentators to have been "hijacked" by them to become anti-Israeli, anti-Zionist and anti-Western events. In one case [3], the inflammatory atmosphere led to a serious case of violence against two Jewish teenagers. Aurélie Filipetti, a spokeswoman of the Green Party in Paris, criticized some of her fellow French left-wingers for creating an anti-Israeli atmosphere which encourages antisemitism.[4] (in Hebrew, partially translated at [5]) Other Jewish leftists have also been critical that the European left is tolerant of antisemitism when it comes from the "oppressed world" of the Arabs. [6]

These accusations have generated great controversy, particularly because they come from within the Left itself.

Cut the nonsense away

The article is it stands now is eccelectic, POV, Anglocentric and completly non-encyclopediatic.

1.The anti-war movement is not left per se, during the war on Iraq in many countries humanist, religious, etc. groups joined in rallies. The writers of the article seems to think that anything to the right of the John Birch Society is "left".

2. Lists of socialist, communist parties already exists as separate wikiarticles and the party list in this article is redundant.

The article should be reduced to the core concept, the origins of the usage of the term 'left' in political life, not attempt to impose pseudoanalysis on all sorts of vaguely left movements the world over. 'Left' and 'Right' are relative concepts. What is 'Left-wing' in the U.S. might very well be 'Right-wing' in most other countries. --Soman 22:21, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I would gladly see this whole thing on post-9/11 antiwar movement in this article reduced to a single "See also", now that the long version is elsewhere. MathKnight, it was your material to start with, and I'm sure you remember that was where I was coming from all along. Do you have a strong feeling on this? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:16, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)
Since the entire material is covered in its own article, the anti-war movement can be reduced. I think we described\discussed the issue tht the anti-war movement is composed also from non-leftists groups, but still - foe many left conote to "anti war" so we should mention the anti war movement and describe what the left was to do with it. MathKnight 08:02, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thus it would be motivated, as previously stated, to include a wikilink to the antiwar article. "The left" is an extremly broad concept and "the left" does not act as a composite political unit, but is a name given to diverse political parties, groups and tendencies all around the world. To sum up that with naming one incident in Paris, is not encyclopediatic. --Soman 13:37, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
There is a link to the broader discussion, but since the left - or some important left wing parties - are involved, the issue should be represented in the article on left wing. For example: not all leftists are communists, and still - there is a section discussing left wing and communism. MathKnight 08:29, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
But "the left's" association with the anti-war movement is much more transitory and ephemeral than its interactions with Communism. The former has only existed for the last three or so years; the latter is at least a century and a half old. Lacrimosus 00:06, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The anti-war movement is a contemporary pheonemana though we might also relate to the anti-Vietnam war movement. The current anti-war movement is headed primerly by left-wing movements, and in general - ideas of pacifism and cosmopolitism are more identified with the left. MathKnight 21:16, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Chirac, who opposed the war, is not a leftist. Neither is Vicente Fox of Mexico. The US couldn't muster even the votes of the right-wing governments represented in the Security Council. Opposition has pretty much come from everywhere. On the other hand, Blair, whose domestic policies would be considered far, far left in the US, supports the US.--Lupitaº 21:14, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Please read the article to see which left groups were involved in the anti-war protests. The article clearly states that the anti-war movement is not composed only of leftists but is a mixture of left-wing groups, Islamists and European nationalists. MathKnight 08:44, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
My point is that the right is also anti-war, so associating it with the left is misleading. It is as misleading as stating that men are anti-war without mentioning women.--Lupitaº 14:25, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Well, who is going to delete it? Soman? (The article should be reduced to the core concept). Jmabel? (I would gladly see this whole thing on post-9/11 antiwar movement in this article reduced to a single "See also"). I would but I'm new around here.--Lupitaº 01:00, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)


I think that a section on the left and the anti-war movement is important, not because the anti-war movement was/is exclusively left-wing (though it was/is lead mostly by lefties) but because the anti-war movement has had a critical effect on the left. In U.K, it has been the final straw for many lefties, who had stayed inside the labour party, causing them to leave. Also it has lead to big internal ruptures inside the labour party (largely across left/right internal divide). Plus it has lead to the setting up of the (currently marginal) new party Respect, who lost labour a seat in a by-election by taking away a chunk of its vote (letting the ‘left possers’ LibDems in). In U.S.A it seems to have lead most of the left to abandon Ralph Nader in order to support Democrats in an 'Anybody but Bush' campaign (fat lot of good that did!). In Spain, the response to the Madrid bombings was an anti-war move to the ‘left’ with the election of a social democrat government. I know that this stuff isn’t in the articles yet perhaps we could get rid of some of the other stuff and put this kind of stuff in? --JK the unwise 13:02, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Parties

Does the Cuban Liberal Union have any detectable number of members? And is it in any meaningful sense on the "left"? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:20, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

"The left"

I edited some mentions of "the left" because it gives the erroneous impression that oposition to certain aspects of the "War on Terror" is based on leftist political persuation. This is contrary to fact since, as is well know, Chirac opposed the invasion of Iraq as did Vicente Fox of Mexico, neither of which identifies or is identified by others with the left. To call Kennedy a "leftist" is sheer political parochialism and ignorance of what this term means to 96% of the world population. --Lupitaº 21:05, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but you ended up effectively saying that the left weren't an important part of the opposition ot the war. I kept some of your edits and reverted other. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:36, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

What I meant to make clear is that while perhaps in the first world the anti-war movement is associated with the left, in the third world this is most definitely not true since not even the right supports the war. The paragraphs in which "left" is used in reference to the world or in a very general sense, I believe are incorrect.

I have noticed a great US-Europe divide in many discussions and I understand that adding a first-third world divide may make things worse. However, I am trying to clean up some articles of what I see as a very acute US/European/first world bias and include terms and definitions from a Latin American perspective. Well, that is my intention. If anybody who reads this cares to take note and help in this task, I am sure the end result will be a better Wikipedia.

Examples of bias: In the introductory paragraph of the Leftism, Pacifism and "War on Terror" section, half of it talks about the US where, from my perpective, there is no left. I find the reference to Kennedy totally impertinent.

Interjecting here:
  1. About half of my father's family were Communists. Those who weren't were typically just about equally "left", they just didn't like Stalin. Where I live in Seattle, I know numerous people -- even in my basically middle-class neighborhood -- whose party affiliation would be either SWP or Freedom Socialist Party. I'm not saying that the left is an important force in current U.S. national politics -- it isn't -- but I would hope we can all agree that, for example, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Howard Zinn, all perfectly good examples of well-known U.S. leftists.
  2. Ted Kennedy is pretty much center-left, even in world terms. He's essentially a social democrat, even if the term is not much used in the U.S. (We don't have a separate article on center-left politics, and, frankly, I don't see how we could: the concept is too blurry, it has to be covered here.) There certainly isn't a government in Europe at the moment that is significantly to his left; in the Americas there is Venezuela, and of course Cuba, but other than those and (maybe) Brazil, what else? The phrase with the Kennedy citations now reads "Elected officials generally identified as being on the U.S. 'left'..." I think the scare quotes represent a reasonable compromise between your view and mine. Kennedy is in there only as a citation. I won't even argue that Kennedy is the best citation we could have, but I can't find an apropos quotation from either Bernie Sanders, Jim McDermott, or Barbara Lee (all of which I looked for) that fit the right time frame. I'd gladly accept the substitution of such a citation if someone can find one; the problem is that there is a 3-day window between the attacks and the congressional vote, and Kennedy was the farthest left elected official from whom I could find a citable quotation in the three-day window. I'm sure someone with access to the texts of the floor debates could come up with a better citation, but I think the Kennedy citation is better than nothing. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:38, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

I stated that there is no left in the US because there isn't a viable socialist party that actually wins elections now and then, as in Latin American democracies. You mention Brazil and Venezuela. Other nations in which socialist parties have won the most recent presidential election are Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. However, even countries in which a right-wing party has won the presidency, for example Mexico and Nicaragua, have socialists acting as governors, senators, etc. The US does not have a left as other democracies do.--Lupitaº 04:36, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC) An anti-war movement forms

it was equally a movement in protest of what were perceived to be assaults on civil liberties and immigrant rights Did the left in Mexico perceive that American tourists would no longer be able to enter without a visa? Of course not. It is clearly a US-centric statement in an article about the left in the world and the anti-war movement in the world. It throws you off.

Read the rest of the sentence. What it says is "in the U.S. and other countries whose governments enacted legislation analogous to the PATRIOT Act it was equally a movement in protest of what were perceived to be assaults on civil liberties and immigrant rights". Please don't take a sentence fragment and twist its meaning by removing context. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:48, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

Exactly, "the US and other countries" clearly means "the US and other first world countries". That is the bias that bothers me.--Lupitaº 04:36, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, it means what it says: The U.S. and other countries that passed similar legislation. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:51, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

Most prominent in this loose coalition were leftists I would say, most prominent was Chirac, a rightist.

Again, a sentence fragment whose meaning has been twisted. The sentence reads, "Most prominent in this loose coalition were leftists; pacifists and others with longtime associations with global peace movements; and Arabs and Muslims, including, but by no means limited to, Islamists." As for Chirac, I don't remember him opposing the invasion of Afghanistan at all. I believe he actively supported it, and disagreed with the U.S. only over the later Iraq campaign. Can you give a citation for this claim? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:48, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
I happen to have run across a citation for Chirac supporting the Afghanistan invasion, while looking for something else: [7] Not a great citation, but enough that I'm sure I didn't misremember. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:16, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

The anti-war movement obviously refers to Iraq. There was no anti-Afganistan-invasion-movement worth mentioning. I don't think Afganistan should even be mentioned in a section about the anti-war movement. But my point is, the whole setion should be deleted. Even if you conceded all my points, I still couldn't fix the section. It simply doesn't belong there. If you don't state clearly that you don't want it deleted, I will delete it and see what happens.--Lupitaº 04:36, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am perfectly glad, and have been all along, to see this section totally removed from this article. When we spun out the fuller version of this, I wanted to delete this shortened version from here. However, if it stays, I remain concerned what it says, and you and I obviously disagree about that.
As for your "obviously": Once again, you seem to be reading sentences out of context. Look at the context of this passage (italics added for emphasis):
"There was division within the left as to the invasion of Afghanistan. Nonetheless, an international anti-war movement began to arise; in the U.S. and other countries whose governments enacted legislation analogous to the PATRIOT Act, it was equally a movement in protest of what were perceived to be assaults on civil liberties and immigrant rights."
"Most prominent in this loose coalition were..."
This is specifically about the protest movement at the time of the Afghanistan invasion (and was more exclusively so in earlier versions, because someone has now inserted "and Iraq" in the next sentence). You say there was no anti-Afganistan-invasion-movement worth mentioning. Don't know where you were. I was in London at the time. 50,000 of us were in Trafalgar Square, that's usually considered a large enough protest to be worth mentioning. I can't say for sure how large rallies were elsewhere at the time, but these links are suggestive: [8], [9]. Here's a statement of protest by a Canadian Senator on October 26, 2001.[10]. It would take a lot of time to really document the level of protest activity at that time, and it was certainly not nearly as much as later over Iraq, but it is much more relevant to the topic of the Left, becuase opposition was narrower and the Left had a more prominent role. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:16, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

How about the link you suggested? That way maybe that message at the top of the article, the one that says that the neutrality of the article is disputed, will be taken off. As to our disagreements, I do not dispute that what you say reflects the US, its definitions and political culture, just that the Latin American left, and indeed the right, has another take on this issue. JK the unwise also sees some value in the section. Perhaps a new article on the anti-war movement with a section for each part of the world? --Lupitaº 02:49, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  1. Sorry, which link? I may be being dense here, but I have no idea what you are referring to.
  2. I'd love to see this get out of NPOV dispute.
  3. I think that most of what the article says is of much wider significance than the U.S. left. In the year after 9/11 I spent less than three months in the U.S. -- I was mostly in the UK and in Romania, and more briefly in Spain and France. It may not be accurate for Latin America; I know a good deal about Latin American politics, but not particularly about Latin American views on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
  4. There already are quite a few articles more specifically on the anti-war movement, which is why I think we could stand to lose most of this here. Probably the most relevant articles are Post-September 11 anti-war movement and Popular opposition to war on Iraq; I would hope any others are linked from there. Certainly material about Latin America would be welcome at either of those; I'm sure it's under-covered, the focus is primarily on U.S. and Europe, secondarily on the Muslim world. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:23, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps the whole anti-war section does not belong in this article. Its bias is in the assumption that, at a world level, opposition to the war has something to do with leftist politics, when it is much much more. --Lupitaº 23:41, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think there should be some thing on the anti-war movement see my comment at end of cut the nonsence away. --JK the unwise 10:53, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
JK, do you think it should be (as it is now) rather specific to the roughly 2 years beginning in autumn 2001, or (as I do) that it would be more useful to look back at least to the Vietnam War and Cold War eras (esp. opposition to nuclear testing and proliferation), and possibly even to the Oxford movement in the 1930s? I still really don't think this article is the place for detailed focus on reaction to particular events. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:35, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
I see your point. Perhaps a major rethink is in order. The Post-September 11 anti-war movement page seems to me to be a mess, specifically it does not really deal with the relation between the left and the anti war movement. Perhaps we could get rid of the link with that page and add a link to a page exclusively about the left's relation to the anti-war movement (current and historical (as far back as possible)) and just have a summary of that page on this, the Left-wing politics, page? Plus while in the wildly ambitious mode - I think we should try and look at all the anti-war pages to look for repeated info and how best to link them. (Maybe a anti-war Wikiproject? or perhaps just create a category box linking them all?)--JK the unwise 12:52, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC) (finding it 'ard 2 keep track of all wot's goin on in this discusion)
Have started to so this on my user page.--JK the unwise 14:31, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Canada

The list for Canada looks a little ridiculous. Knowing (for example) that the New Democratic Party is a leftist party, it does not take the reader a long time to work out that the Alberta New Democratic Party is also leftist, and once that is done we certainly don't need to have the party listed for each province. I know they are technically separate parties, but that discussion can be left to another article. The whole thing gives Canada a party listing ten times as long as any other country.

While we are here, who says the Marijuana Party is leftist? They are a one-issue party, and their allies include libertarians 9arguably very right wing) and their opponents include most of the other left wing parties. DJ Clayworth 01:07, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See Talk:Right-wing_politics#Libertarians_are_right_wing. Sam_Spade (talk · contribs) 01:17, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

RevolutionaryLeft

Someone recently added the link RevolutionaryLeft with the description "The largest leftist debating board." I have no idea if the description is accurate. It is definitely hard left (and it is multilingual, which is cool). Someone might want to take a look and see if they can characterize it better for the article. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:24, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

It seems to be have been launched by che-lives who discribe themselves as 'a leftist Internet project dedicated to the memory of the communist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara', so I would guess that they are supporters of Cuban 'communism', thou they also seem to have anarcist links.Do you think it should be a link?--JK the unwise 17:15, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I think that someone reading this article might be looking for something like that. I think it would be a far more appropriate inclusion if it were well described. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:06, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Current NPOV status

Just read through every thing on talk page and can't find any accusations of current serious NPOV problems. There are compaints that the page is Anglo-centric (with which I agree) but this dosn't seem to be a nutrality problem as such. So I am removing the ugly NPOV tag. Even if I am wroung I hope that we can clarify what is still disputed.--JK the unwise 14:03, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Nattering Nabob

Recent addition of link to blog: The Nattering Nabob. Is this really any more important than a thousand other blogs? I'm inclined to delete, but thought I'd check for consensus first. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:41, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Please kill it. Down with blog spam. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 23:46, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)
I'll take that as sufficient & do so. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:06, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

Liberalism? only in the US!

Please, consider removing that ignorant reference to liberalism, which is in fact opposit to the "left-wing politics". The word "liberal" as referring to "leftist" is just a one-country anomaly. That link should be replaced with a note sating the above. Niqueco 00:26, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Historically, liberalism was usually considered to be "on the left" in the 19th century, when it opposed traditional conservatism, although there were certainly always forces to the left of it. I'm so sick of Europeans trying to claim that American usage of this term is a "one-country anomaly" and such like. It's a lot more complicated than that. john k 00:49, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Even today, what with New Labour's retreat, the Liberals are arguably the left-most party in England (if not in Scotland). Still, I would certainly agree that since circa 1850, in many countries liberals are not part of the left. This possibly deserves further discussion in the article, but certainly not elimination. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:56, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)
It should be mentioned, but never as it is mentioned now. It would be interesting to track the origins of the source of this confussion, perhaps it has something to do with avoiding a communist interpretation (something much feared in the US). Anything with the words left or social would be associated with communism. In any case this confussion should be stated, but this article shouldn't be linking to the Liberalism article as if it where part of the left. Niqueco 04:46, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

From June 1848, I suppose one could argue that French liberals were not on the left. But I think the question remains open. Certainly they would have still been seen as being the left in the German states, or in Russia (where certainly the Kadets, a liberal party, were on the left all the way up to 1917). In Britain, too, the Liberals were the principal party of the left until the First World War. To simply make a blanket statement that liberalism "is the opposite of left-wing politics" is simply not true. Conservatism is, quite clearly, the opposite of left-wing politics, and it is only the triumph of liberalism throughout Europe that has made that word a synonym for right wing economic policies. While I would agree that we need to nuance this out a little bit, it's simply wrong to say that liberalism can't be a phenomenon of the left - in various forms, liberalism has been specifically a phenomenon associated with the left, and the article in its present form does not deny that - it says that the left is associated with "certain strains of liberalism." Surely this would fit, in their very different ways, the liberal opposition in France in the 1820s, the Progressives in 1860s Prussia, Lloyd George's Liberal Party and the People's Budget, the Kadets in Russia before World War I, and so forth - numerous liberal parties with no connection to the United States. john k 06:11, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

An additional point - "the left" simply cannot be made identical with "socialism." The term was devised for the French Legislative Assembly of 1791, and referred to various radical Republican types. For most of these, their economic policies were determinedly liberal, although some of them were forced to adopt anti-market positions in the stress of the war. At any rate, the 1840s is the very earliest when "the left" and "socialists" begin to converge, and, to be honest, this doesn't really obtain until the end of the nineteenth century or so, with the major growth of socialist parties in Europe. Before that, the political spectrum was much narrower, and generally confined to a kind of contest of liberals vs. conservatives, with liberals quite clearly "on the left", at least as far as the public political debate went. john k 06:14, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

IMO the mistake here is confusing the word's origin with the word's meaning. Going back to 1791 to find out what do we understand now as "left" is not right. The word "left" has had an evolution. If you go back to the early revolution stage you could even say Lafayette was a "jacobin". Niqueco 20:08, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

But this is not only an artlce about how the term is used in 2005. This is an article about a concept with a 215-year history, and should not have a strong present-day bias. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:52, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)
Right, but this also not an article about how this term was used in some point in the French revolution. It's an article about what this term has represented in the XIX and XX centuries, and about what this term represents now. And about its accepted worlwide meaning, not a one-country deformation of it. Niqueco 15:24, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have pointed out that you are completely wrong in stating that considering liberalism to be on the left is not "a one country deformation" of anything - it is a standard, accepted meaning, which continues to have some meaning today in at least the US, Canada, and the UK, where parties that self-describe as "Liberal" are considered to be more or less on the left (although not terribly so, in any of these cases - and many Democrats would probably call themselves conservative, but whatever), and which was historically true at some point in most other countries. This is an article about left-wing politics as a concept (and liberalism is about liberalism as a concept), which means describing its history and its meaning over the years. Throughout much of the 19th century, Liberalism was seen to be on the left. It is still seen to be on the left in some places. To note at the beginning that liberalism is associated with the left "especially in the United States" seems to me to actually be going too far - liberalism has been associated with the left in numerous contexts over the last two centuries. You have ignored all of my arguments and are trying to claim that I am merely saying that liberalism can be described as being on the left because it was during the French Revolution. But this isn't what I said at all - I pointed to numerous, numerous examples of liberal parties that were considered to be on the left. The French Revolution point was to point out that the left was not seen as identical to socialism until the twentieth century or so - nothing to do with Lafayette. Thiers and Barrot were both classic liberals, but the parties they led during the July Monarchy were considered to be "on the left." The basic fact is that left and right have no meaning except in a comparative context. Whatever the political spectrum in a country, there will usually be a "left" and a "right." If socialism isn't a major part of that country's political system, then some sort of liberal party will often be on the left, and often was in the 19th century. At any rate, if you're going to keep arguing, you could at least stop pretending that this argument is about the United States. Whatever else I may have done, I think I've fairly convincingly showed that liberalism has been associated with the left in countries other than the US. Or shall I once again bring up the People's Budget, the Kadets, the liberal opposition to Bismarck in the 1860s, the party of movement in restoration France... john k 16:04, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Michaelm appears to have ignored all of the above and removed it anyway. I'm too busy for this right now, but I think his recent edit is entirely detrimental. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:40, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

Watermellons

I think it might be of interest to comment on the post Soviet incorporation of large elements of former communists in Eastern Europe as well as the West into Green parties. Comments, thoughts, ideas .......... TDC 21:45, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

Good idea, considering the transformation of a number of former Communist Parties in Eastern Europe, particularly the social democratic parties of Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, etc., their relative electoral success, and the contrast with the unreconstructed Communist Parties further east in the former Soviet Union. 172 22:14, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Yes, this information should definitely be put somewhere . . . I'm just slightly concerned about having the page dominated by discussion about Greens, when they're not categorically and definitively left-wing in all instances. Lacrimosus 22:17, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Marijuana Party

In what sense is the Marijuana Party of Canada on the left? I thought they were a single-issue party. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:41, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

Just had a look at the website [11] and though they define themselves as a single issule party they allso say stuff like this "The Marijuana Party begins with the goal of legalizing marijuana, and has the potential to develop policies to legalize a revolution." [12]. One gets the impresion they are vagely anarchist. They also claim to have no written constatution or democratic structure(?!). Hard to call, the revolution quote could be taken to mean cultural revolution as apose to pollitical revo. My call is they are lefties, though my intuition is that if we asked them they would deny that they can be catergorised in such fasion.--JK the unwise 09:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I made the mistake of removing it before reading the Talk page. There is a character, User:Michaelm, who is running around making changes willy-nilly to see if any of them will stick. He doesn't research, and he doesn't provide evidence. In the past, he has tried to describe the Marijuana Party of Canada as being social democratic, even though there is no indication that they are. As far as being leftist, I don't think that the case is strong. Their platform is based almost exclusively around marijuana issues: legalization, hemp, medical marijuana. Their website even says: "For now, the Marijuana Party is effectively a single issue protest party." Either they are choosing to focus only on those issues in order to avoid alienating potential supporters on the right or left, or their attention spans are too short to think about bigger issues. Either way, I don't think that classifying them as leftist or rightist is useful. They are pro-pot, and other characterizations would divert attention from what the party is really about. Kevintoronto 17:08, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Liberal Party of Colombia

Does anyone here really consider the Partido Liberal to be "leftist?" They are just barely to the left of the Conservative Party. (User:Descendall 30 March 2005)

Post-Left Politics

I know this doesn't seem to be in common with the Left, but shouldn't there be a reference to Post-Left Politics? --Jazz Remington 23:56, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • What exactly do you propose to add? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:46, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)
I wrote Post-left anarchy, I'm sure that could be condensed and added somewhere if it's appropriate. To be frank, though, I think it's kind of obscure to the general reader or anyone who isn't an active anarchist. Interesting as a contrast, though. --Tothebarricades 03:25, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

I add that Cuba Liberal Union doesn't liberal in english terms. Liberal in latin term means libertarian in english terms, them is unnaceptable that Cuba Liberal Union had been added with a Communist Party of Cuba, I demand to delete cuba liberal union of lefist parties. Thanks. Another thing, my english is very bad, sorry.

Hitler was a leftist!

There seems to be a much confusion about what leftism actually is. According to the conventional wisdom of the day, Hitler was overwhelmingly socialist, although not at all extreme as a socialist. The claim that Hitler was "rightist" falsely connects his radical nationalism with unrelated liberitarian capitalism. Readers need to be informed of this so as to clear up and prevent further misunderstandings. In my argument I refer to this article:

http://jonjayray.netfirms.com/hitler.html

Here's one quote which might inspire some thoughts, but there's much more to it in the whole article: ""That does however raise the question of WHY such thinking is seen as "Rightist" today. And the answer to THAT goes back to the nature of Leftism! The political content of Leftism varies greatly from time to time. The sudden about-turn of the Left on antisemitism in recent times is vivid proof of that. And what the political content of Leftism is depends on the Zeitgeist -- the conventional wisdom of the day. Leftists take whatever is commonly believed and push it to extremes in order to draw attention to themselves as being the good guys -- the courageous champions of popular causes. So when the superiority of certain races was commonly accepted, Leftists were champions of racism. So when eugenics was commonly accepted as wise, Leftists were champions of eugenics -- etc. In recent times they have come to see more righteousness to be had from championing the Palestinian Arabs than from championing the Jews so we have seen their rapid transition from excoriating antisemitism to becoming "Antizionist". "" --ScandinavianMale

  • Ah, well. There is no denying that there are a few people—perhaps as many as two or three percent of serious scholars—who hold this opinion. And in the articles on Nazism (and even more so on Fascism) we give it the brief mention it deserves. Writing it often on talk pages doesn't change the fact that it is a small minority view. By the way, I would argue that the "sudden about-turn of the Left on antisemitism" is an almost complete myth. There have always been a few antisemites on the left (and certainly in the last half century in the Arab left), and there are some today. Anti-Zionists, or at least people very skeptical about the present Israeli government? Sure, including in the Jewish left. In my view, the conflation of these is little more than a rhetorical trick. One would be hard-pressed to name a prominent leftist leader who has adopted an overt anti-semitic position... unless, of course one holds such odd beliefs as that Hitler was a Leftist. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:20, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

The Labour Party (UK)

Someone keeps removing the following entry under UK: "British Labour Party (although many would dispute that the modern Labour party belongs to this category)". This seems to me to be one of several legitimate wordings that could be here; the total removal from the list of what has, for a century or so, been the major UK party of the left just because its leader of the moment is a centrist, seems to me totally wrongheaded. However, so far, I am the only person who has been restoring it, and the anonymous individual deleting it refuses to come to the talk page and engage in dialogue, despite suggestions in my edit summaries to do so. I am about to restore one last time. Adter that, I personally will not restore again for at least five days, but hope that someone else will, to make it clear that I am not alone in this. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:52, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I didn't notice it was the same person reediting it. I know that historicaly the Labour party has been left-wing, however it has recently participated in a practise which is almost exclusively associated with the right, that is "privitisation" (or as they so lovingly call modenisation). Tony Blair oversaw the constituency primaries so that only "new labour" candidates would win the primary, effectively purging most of the former old labour socialist members from the party cuacus. So my argument isn't because their leader is a rightist, it is because their leader has turned the organization to the right. Many of his fiscal policies closely reselmble those of Margaret Thatcher (in some cases there is merely different wording to revitilize similair legislation). Now there are a few exceptions, a few "old labour" MPs still around, but they are a very weak force in the party, and don't even have enough votes to take down the government with the help of the opposition.--69.212.173.64 03:02, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

"Now there are a few exceptions, a few "old labour" MPs still around, but they are a very weak force in the party" Err, what? Where have you been the last few days? Labour's newly-slashed majority has just handed the balance of power in Parliament to some avowedly socialist Old Labour MPs, who if they were all to rebel at once could easily defeat the government (and can be expected to use their power to throw out key Blairite legislation, or to remove Blair himself, in the coming months). It's also worth remembering that the vast majority of the party's membership continue to hold, for the most part, some pretty left-wing views, and while the leadership's position may be well to the right of the membership (tolerated as long as it's brought them massive electoral success), it would be wrong to characterise this shift as the permanent departure of the Labour Party from the left. Your statements about privatisation are misleading. There have been privatisations since '97 (notably the air traffic control fiasco), but Labour's attitude towards privatisation has been more about accepting Margaret Thatcher's efforts in this department as a fait accompli (partly because after she'd finished with the country, there wasn't much left to sell off!). This is a rightward lurch to be sure, but not to the extent you make out. Private finance initiative and all the rest of it certainly displays more of a commitment to the market these days, but still, compare the Labour government with, for example, the US Democratic Party who appear to have made it onto this list, and many of their policies can be considered very left-wing in comparison. (Note that I am in no way a fan of New Labour and am not seeking to defend them). Finally, I can't help but notice some of your terminology: "Tony Blair oversaw the constituency primaries so that only "new labour" candidates would win the primary" Primaries? Caucus? Which country are you in? And anyway, the effect of last Thursday's election has been to get rid of dozens of loyal New Labour MPs because of their support for such things as the war in Iraq, leaving a greater concentration of hardcore left-wing rebels in the Parliamentary Labour Party. No, I don't think we should be removing Labour from this list just yet. — Trilobite (Talk) 00:34, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

The important thing is left/right are only useful as comparative descriptors anyway. Describing the Tories as "right" and Labour as "Left" is simply a convinient way to analyse the UK political spectrum; any concerns as to the accuracy of the characterisation should be adressed in the text, rather than through wholesale removal (it's also a question of construal: there are many people (particularly Tory supporters) who consider the Labour Party to be left-wing - their views should be taken into account). Slac speak up! 02:54, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

If any party were to be excluded from the list, there'd be a better case for excluding the Lib Dems (the party which described Labour's minimum wage rises as "dangerous"), especially since the Lib Dems continue to deny strongly that there are in any way left of Labour. e.g. Asked if he thought the party was now seen as left of Labour, Mr Davey said: "No, because we're not." ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4535829.stm ) 217.44.206.138 19:35, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Too long on groups

I don't know which section to add this comment to, so I will add it here. The article on what is left-wing politics is too long on the various groups and their associations, and it does not adequately address how each of these fits into the overall picture of left-wing politics. The result is just a confusing mess. I would rewrite much of it if I had the patience. The other problem is that the article does not sufficiently explain the philosophical underpinnings and the fundamental principles of left-wing politics. (anon 17 May 2005)

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