Billionaire Rupert Murdoch's propaganda machine has a penchant for using Green Left Weekly as a metaphor for left-wing opinion.
This was on the sports page of the February 4 issue of its giveaway tabloid mX: “Shane Warne played Statesman last week with his ambitious Where is Australian Cricket At? Volume 1 ... it contained more utopian fantasy than your average issue of Green Left Weekly.”
In the right-wing neoliberal framework of today's political orthodoxy, arguing for putting the collective interest and the environment first is always derided as "utopian fantasy" in the hope that readers swallow the shameless proposition that the billionaires should be able to have their way with the world.
They think people should be “realistic” and banish any thought of challenging their rule. But facts sometimes jolt this smug posture.
After the announcement that, under China's “12th Five-Year Plan for Energy Development”, China would cap its coal consumption at 4 billion tonnes by 2015 because “there’s no market for further development of energy-intensive industry”, there was total panic in Australia's dirty coal industry.
“China makes a frightening energy shift” howled the headline of an article by Australian finances commentator Robert Gottliebsen in the Business Spectator.
Clearly what is good and necessary for the future is "frightening" for the capitalists. Indeed there are not many better illustrations of why capitalism is past its use-by date than the system's reckless failure to deal with the climate change crisis.
So what is “realistic” and what is “fantasy”? The capitalists' belief that they can keep ripping off nature and the people forced to work to make them even richer? Or Green Left Weekly's conviction that this system is ecologically and socially unsustainable?
You can help us “utopian fantasists” keep telling the truth and building the movement for change by contributing to our recently launched $250,000 Fighting Fund.
Direct deposits can also be made to Greenleft, Commonwealth Bank, BSB 062-006, Account No. 00901992. Otherwise, you can send a cheque or money order to PO Box 515, Broadway NSW 2007 or donate on the toll-free line at 1800 634 206 (within Australia).