Listen to people so as to improve mass work

Written by: Nick G. on 13 February 2025

(Original image from Milwaukee Independent)

In December 2022, the United States Study Centre of the University of Sydney released the results of a survey of Australian attitudes towards the “US-Australia Alliance”.

The survey identified 30% of respondents as “full supporters” with no concerns about what the “alliance’ means; 33% are described as “reserved supporters” with concerns about Australian independence and sovereignty; 23% are described as “sceptics” who are not convinced that the Alliance, in its current form, is necessarily benefiting Australia’s security and would like to see significant change; and 8% are described as “opponents”.

Kym Bergmann, editor of the online Asia Pacific Defence Reporter could perhaps be placed in that second category. Bergmann is a journalist with a commitment to the military and has an unquestionable belief in the US as Australia’s “most important security partner”.  He has held senior positions in several companies, including military contractors Blohm+Voss, Thales, Celsius and Saab. His online journal is a daily compendium of which government has given which arms manufacturer which contract, together with news of the latest in military technologies.

Bergmann has a weekly podcast in which he editorialises on the absurdity of the AUKUS arrangements and the secrecy and stupidity of the Department of Defence.

In his most recent podcast, he criticises Trump’s proposed “ethnic cleansing of 2 million Palestinians”, and Netanyahu’s rejection of a “two-state solution” and determination to cleanse not just Gaza, but also the West Bank, of Palestinians.

He doesn’t mince words when criticising Trump and Netanyahu, but says “You can’t hear anything this strong from the Australian government because for them it represents the absolute worst of two worlds: the risk of offending the Americans and the risk of offending the Israelis.”

He reviews our massively expanded military ties with the US and the money we are giving them hand over fist for what he says are a “couple of second-hand clunkers” in the form of  Virginia-class submarines, and says that if any country in the world is in a position to express mild discontent with America, it is Australia. But all we get, from the Government and the Opposition, is “vague motherhood sort of stuff.”

He says that there are other countries out there beside the US and asks what must they think of us?

He is scathing of our politicians who “still cower in terror rather than say anything that could be interpreted as criticism.”

“What must they (other countries) think of our ongoing craven forelock tugging” he asks.

“From Copenhagen, Ottowa, Panama City, we must look like the most abject, pathetic bootlickers they have ever seen.”

So here we have a person, deeply embedded in and committed to the military, to military industry and to military culture who nevertheless has major concerns about the loss of Australian independence and sovereignty and who clearly wants Australia to have a capacity for independent decision-making in matters of foreign policy.

People like Bergmann are all around us.

They are a complex of attitudes and values. Their ideas are unlikely to be 100% progressive or 100% backward.

In our workplaces, communities and families, our understanding of the massline requires us to listen to those around us, avoid immediate judgemental attitudes but carry out investigation that allows us to make appropriate categorisation of the people based on the relative balance between progressive and backward elements in their outlook.

Those categories could follow the pattern of those in the US Study Centre.

From that investigation and subsequent understanding of the categories that people in our workplace, community group or family fall into, we can improve our mass work with a view to raising the ideological level of the people concerned.

This means having the confidence to reject passivity, and the understanding to reject acting like a bull in a china shop. Not everyone will respond to our mass work with a sudden light globe moment. Ideological development takes time and is different for different people depending on their starting point.

For example, in relation to those categories of people in the US Study Centre survey, we could aim to isolate the full supporters by challenging their faith in the “alliance” and then try to shift those who can be shifted into the category of reserved supporters; within the latter group, make more of an issue of independence and sovereignty so that some change from being supporters of the Alliance to sceptics; and turn the doubts and misgivings of the sceptics into conscious opposition to imperialist domination and control.

Investigation and study of our workplaces, communities and families is a Marxist-Leninist approach that counters the danger of left-blocism where people are only comfortable in the presence of others who share their advanced views. It allows us to move within the people like a fish through water.

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