I have been reading a dissertation of some sort that is a history of the Labor party in the Leichhardt area. Some leftie luvvie has spent months sitting in pugs interviewing old activists about "the old days" and written hundreds and hundreds of pages about council meetings in the 1970's.
Don't ask me why, but I have read a couple of chapters of it (it's online, but I don't have the link on the laptop). Well, maybe skipped through a couple of chapters.
Several interesting things of note.
To start with, the term "right wing" was applied to any old style unionist that had a trade in a blue collar occupation. That is, men with three fingers on one hand (because they lost two in an industrial accident of some sort). And it was mainly men, since until the early 1970's, the only women at a branch meeting were those serving the tea and biscuits and perhaps someone to take the minutes.
The term "left wing" was applied to the newcomers that were white collar professionals or managers or some sort. ie, the basket weavers.
Amazingly, at one point, 20% of the members of the Labor party in the area in question were teachers. That says a lot about teachers and their political points of view.
I was stunned that crusty old buggers who were probably wharfies and boilermakers and painters and mechanics and so on would be classified as "right wing", and the term should become one of abuse. Weren't they the type of people who founded the party, and what the Labor party is supposed to be all about? The working class?
The left came to hate the right because the right didn't give a bugger about all the pet causes loved by the newly arrived left - the PLO, the whales, the trees, aboriginals etc etc.
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