Green Party's 'unapologetic, socialist broadcast'

[tangerinedream]

by the same token though, the roots of most of it is pretty socialist / co-operative.

True.

 

[free spirit]

theoretically I ought to be voting green / actively supporting them, and I have tried several times, only to find the local party to be a total shambles.

 

[ymu]

Where am I going with this? Oh yeah, the Greens. I could vote for them maybe even though I don't care that much about the environment.

They're a lot more than the lifestylists nowadays. Drive me nuts, but they have the most leftist platform and have done for a while. Way better than Labour for a couple of elections at least.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

by the same token though, the roots of most of it is pretty socialist / co-operative.

Eh? The Green Party was launched by rich ex-Tories

 

[IC3D]

I don't think anyone involved with Caroline Lucas is remotely RW, I think if its a toss up between joining labour or the greens in an effort to steer either to an electable leftwing party I would choose the Greens, however I only really hear about them from a Brighton perspective.

 

[tangerinedream]

And rightist. No point letting the Tories win control. UKIP is the right 4th party if only they can beat them.

But you make a statement by voting and even if you are defeated, if a party with a broadly left agenda gets a good chunk of the vote, it puts them in a position to state their credibility in future elections. Especially if part of a national trend. If the left get behind ukip, is there not a danger they become seriously credible and become the third party, replace the lib dems and push the Tories and ergo labour further to the right.

 

[tangerinedream]

Eh? The Green Party was launched by rich ex-Tories

But blairs party comes from the battles of the proletairiat to gain rights in the early part of the 20th century. Doesn't make him a revolutionary hero does it? By the same token, the bloke who comes round to my door in local council elections and fights to keep the youth club open and to keep developers off the playing field and is leading a campaign to get a local wood declared common land is surely not a rich ex Tory. If he is, he hides it very well. I presume free spirit referred to the movement as a whole, not just the party.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

But blairs party comes from the battles of the proletairiat to gain rights in the early part of the 20th century. Doesn't make him a revolutionary hero does it? By the same token, the bloke who comes round to my door in local council elections and fights to keep the youth club open and to keep developers off the playing field and is leading a campaign to get a local wood declared common land is surely not a rich ex Tory. If he is, he hides it very well. I presume free spirit referred to the movement as a whole, not just the party.

I don't care I am merely pointing out that free spirit is wrong - the Green's roots are not socialist

 

[free spirit]

Eh? The Green Party was launched by rich ex-Tories

I was replying to a post about the roots of environmentalism, not the green party.

fwiw, the guy who taught me at uni who's probably had the biggest impact on the global move to put the environment and sustainable development further up the political agenda of pretty much anyone in the UK* was a long time Labour councillor who held no truck with the green party.

*not that anyone will have heard of him, but he co-wrote the UN report that launched and explained the concept of sustainable development, and led to the RIO earth summit... though he was then highly critical of the actual summit itself and the outcomes from it.

 

[tangerinedream]

I don't care I am merely pointing out that free spirit is wrong - the Green's roots are not socialist

Nobody claimed they were.

 

[treelover]

Everyone heard with a tinge of Respect, and furious Green Party members. Oh my it's like a trots paradise.

please explain, doesn't look like a room full of Trots, unless you mean they are all naïve and ready to be borged?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I was replying to a post about the roots of environmentalism, not the green party.

Fair enough, I've always hated the enviro-mentalists so have studiously avoided finding owt out about them.

 

[ymu]

If you are advocating an anti-Tory vote for Ukip you need your head examined. IF you are that is.

You want the Tories to win?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

please explain, doesn't look like a room full of Trots, unless you man they are all naïve and ready to be borged?

please explain this is gibberish

 

[treelover]

I refuse to let the jolly green giant sideline the class struggle. Have you ever met greens? They are to a (wo)man the sort of people who would sacrice you to the Corn God but not argue your back in a labour dispute

not here, plenty of decent people..

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

You want the Tories to win?

I would like them to lose however lefties or alternative types or liberals or whatever voting UKIP in Tory strongholds will not help that to happen

 

[ymu]

You realise ukip are no less neo liberal right?

Oh no, I was unaware of that. You are right. Labour or the Tories must win so that everything can stay exactly the same forever and ever.

 

[treelover]

I read it as ymu being in favour of a leftist block vote as a statement to try to put such ideas on the agenda. Yes, the result is quite unappealing but is it worse than the status quo? You've got a lot of young voters who voted lib dem who will never do so again, a lot of fed up traditional labour voters and a lot of people politicised by the cuts/banking crisis who could be reached by a simple coherent straightforward socialist manifesto. Can the left serve up such a thing without turning on itself? The time is now, surely. If not now, when?

did you read my post, Left unity could be that vehicle

oh, and believe it or not, i'm not shilling for them, not even a member, but something has to happen..

 

[Favelado]

Oh no, I was unaware of that. You are right. Labour or the Tories must win so that everything can stay exactly the same forever and ever.

I'm voting Whig.

 

[Corax]

I'd vote UKIP as much as I'd vote BNP.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

I'm voting Whig.

Whiggery championed mercantile, trading, internationalist interests at the expense of establishment landed and clerical interests. It was pretty much New Labour. I'd like it, not sure you would.

 

[ymu]

But you make a statement by voting and even if you are defeated, if a party with a broadly left agenda gets a good chunk of the vote, it puts them in a position to state their credibility in future elections. Especially if part of a national trend. If the left get behind ukip, is there not a danger they become seriously credible and become the third party, replace the lib dems and push the Tories and ergo labour further to the right.

I want to put the shits up all of them. I have no idea how many 4th parties could win, but the protest vote is fucking huge. If it was all directed tactically to saying: "we're fed up with all of you, now fuck off" then maybe we would have some power.

And the sooner the better, for those of you that think Labour has it in them to become a credible left vote. If you think they are capable of reform, there's no point giving them your vote and then asking nicely.

 

[treelover]

Silas Loom

Ah, a Blairite returner...

 

[where to]

Oh no, I was unaware of that. You are right. Labour or the Tories must win so that everything can stay exactly the same forever and ever.

Vote purple neoliberal to stop blue and red neoliberalism then?

 

[two sheds]

Not sure whether it's still part of their policy - this is from oo 20 years ago - but I always liked the greens' idea for Community Ground Rent instead of paying rent to private landlords.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Ah, a Blairite returner...

Why do you assume that? There are thousands of us, all paid by Lord Sainsbury to spread the word on message boards.

 

[ymu]

I'm voting Whig.

They were pushed out by the newly emergent Left party. Do we have one of them handy? Cos it took Labour 30 years to their first government and they only held power for 20 years of the last century and I was kind of hoping for something a bit better in my lifetime.

Selfish, I know.

 

[free spirit]

Fair enough, I've always hated the enviro-mentalists so have studiously avoided finding owt out about them.

thing is, there are serious environmentalists who really understand the subject and have well thought through rational ideas on both the nature of the problems, and how they can best be solved, then there are idealist hippies who mean well, but have a tendency to go off on tangents and end up without a particularly coherent analysis of the situation, and with ideas to solve things that just put people off and won't work, and then there's the malthusian doom mongers, some of whom have obviously spent a lot of time studying aspects of the subject, but then got impatient / didn't get taught the bits about the solutions that are available to us, and the..........

I must have spent at least as much time arguing the toss with those on here who probably would claim to be environmentalists as I have with climate sceptics and the like, as IMO the doom mongering is a self fulfilling prophecy as nobody is going to take any notice of them anyway if they've no solution to offer to the problems we're facing.

 

[two sheds]

Community Ground Rent now called Land Value Taxation:

LD100 In UK law the sovereign owns all land. Over time, the right to occupy and use, which was gained by feudal service to the sovereign, then through payment of rent to the Crown, has been transmuted to payment of a one-off lump sum. It thus appears that the free-holder has ownership of land in perpetuity, with apparent control over use or non-use, and the right to retain or sell at will. Since everyone needs access to land for homes and work, this system of tenure has historically contributed to extremes of poverty and wealth.
LD101 Ownership of land brings unearned benefits deriving both from nature and from the activities of the community, as improvements in infrastructure and technology. This is most apparent in towns and cities where population levels, transport facilities, etc. and/or quality of life bring high demand for goods, services and homes.
LD102 Ownership of land brings unearned benefit if the value of goods and services produced on that land exceeds the amount required for labour and capital to make its present use viable.
LD103 The ability of land-owners to set their own price for access to job opportunities or amenities means that much, if not all, the value of any new services or technical improvement created by the community is siphoned off as unearned benefit to the land owner.
LD104 Changes in land-use, through such factors as the granting by the community of planning permission to build, or the development of the surrounding area by the activities of the community, frequently increase land value, perhaps by as much as 100 times. Such increases create unearned benefit in the form of windfall profits for land owners, either by exploiting the land themselves in the new ways that have become possible, or by selling at enhanced prices. The possibility of such windfall gains encourages speculators to buy up land and hold it, often unused or under-used and of little or no benefit to the community.

from Green Party policies http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ld

although I'm not sure whether it's actually instead of rents to private landlords - you'd hope so.

 

[tangerinedream]

did you read my post, Left unity could be that vehicle

oh, and believe it or not, i'm not shilling for them, not even a member, but something has to happen..

I like the stuff about no narrow partisan lines or experienced campaigners dominating. I went to one SWP meeting when I was about 17 before I knew any better - i cant remember why i went - atracted by some poster about supporting socialsim i suppose but Jesus Christ, never a fucking gain. I was made to feel like an idiot by weird people twice my age jabbering at me about why I didn't support or know about issues that I'd never heard of, belittling me instead of explaining. It felt like some kind of weird initiation ceremony to cult or something and I wasn't especially naive about politics at 17. I could certainly hold my own with anyone I knew in the real world but this was like a sub strata of existence I'd never encountered. It left me thinking, if this is how they treat someone broadly sympathetic to the causes they championed then how the fuck will they ever appeal to anyone other than themselves. It wasn't especially the politics, it was the basic approach to communication. I've heard similar stories from loads of people. Whether or not there is anything in that movement electorally, I dunno, but that statement about the meeting rings true.