Why the Green Party is shit

[TruXta]

Whatever did happen to Hari anyways?

 

[butchersapron]

Whatever did happen to Hari anyways?

We got him.

 

[sihhi]

But if you don't say it, how am I supposed to know? There's always been a section of the left which is resolutely un-green and thinks that unchecked industrialisation is the way to raise the standards of living of working people, though I thought their numbers had declined of late.

This is nonsense incidentally, I don't know a single leftist now who is in favour of unchecked industrialisation - most want, in some fashion or other, a socially-planned economy.

Are you sure you're not attacking Khrushchev by mistake?

 

[TruXta]

We got him.

He's in your basement?

 

[chilango]

Anyway. I'm off out for a walk with my baby shortly, so I'll stop teasing and put you out of your misery Meltingpot.

I do "care about environmental issues". My record of activism (and academic research fwiw) in this area is proven. Anyone paying attention to my posts here over the years would know that. Even stuff I've posted in the last few days should be enough of an indicator. I won't be boorish enough to whip out my Eco-warrior CV. However its worth noting in passing that my short stint in the Green Party was the LEAST of my contributions.

....but it's important to note that aside from showing your assumptions to be misguided at best, I don't consider that these credentials are important in this debate. People don't have to earn the right to criticise the Green Party.

Hope that helps.

 

[butchersapron]

He's in your basement?

You wanted to let him go. Someone had to step up.

 

[Firky]

Hari's better than most journalists out there.

Hahahaha. Did you write that before or after he had to hand back his Orwell trophy?

(I swear posts are vanishing)

 

[TruXta]

You wanted to let him go. Someone had to step up.

I blame the drugs.

 

[sihhi]

Essentially the Greens in Britain are deluded moralist do-gooders.

It is disaster-ism (but stay capitalist) analysis wrapped in new language

Added together, these different footprints add up to our total ecological impact – and it mustn’t be bigger than the planet we live on. Today, though, the scale of economic activity has taken us dangerously beyond what the planet can bear if it is to continue to support flourishing human and other life, and population growth only makes things worse.

It is also a charter for bureaucratism.

Carbon quotas would work like this

Each year a carbon budget would be set for the UK. The budget would define the total amount of carbon dioxide that can legally be emitted, and thus the total number of carbon quota units available.

This budget would be successively reduced each year in line with targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. About half the carbon quotas would be distributed, free of charge, to all the adults in the country. Each person would have a ‘carbon account’ and would receive the same number of carbon units.

Parents would receive a lower allocation on behalf of their children.

The rest of the carbon units would be sold by the Government to companies and other organisations.

Whenever you buy fossil fuels (or airline or train tickets) your carbon account card would be debited. You would have to pay in carbon units as well as in pounds and pence. If you buy other goods or services that involve carbon emissions in their manufacture or delivery, then the units the manufacturer has used will be reflected in the price.

You will be able to sell excess carbon units, or buy extra units if you need to, at a wide range of outlets, like petrol stations or from energy companies.

As poorer people use less carbon, carbon quotas would redistribute wealth significantly.

 

[TruXta]

I do think the proper left needs a better and clearer environmental politics, but that's surely for another thread.

 

[sihhi]

Who wants this kind of world:

Various private companies endlessly bickering over the carbon units of baby food in plastic jars or the tungsten in MRI machines - probably all in the High Court, concealing their carbon content and evading responsibilities in a hundred ways - ready for a New Class of civil servants to oversee all this stuff?

 

[SpineyNorman]

I'm perfectly aware of the dangers of environmental destruction Meltingpot. But sensible people, me included, approach environmental questions from the perspective of 'we need to protect the environment because we need it in good health to live decent lives and a healthy environment is a necessary condition for a just and equitable society.'

There are some in the Green Party who look at it the other way around so you get (this is another caricature but there's still something to it) 'there are too many people and if we allow it to continue the Bolivian arse wasp will be wiped out - let's gas the proles.'

It's about what the primary motive of your politics is - for me it's the best possible life for ordinary people, and the environment is one part of that. For some it's about preserving wildlife and if people need to die to do it so be it. And if you don't believe this thinking exist check out the video I posted upthread.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Oh, and LOL

This thread is basically one long diatribe against the Greens without a single word anywhere about what they stand for and why. It's as though Urban is completely blind to these issues.

Spiney, you told me on a different thread that I should try some critical thinking. Well, here's one for you; if sea levels rise worldwide as they're predicted to do because of global warming (assuming you're not a climate change denier?) then who's going to suffer most? Answer; the class which disproportionately lives in the world's low-lying areas - i.e. the working class.

I get that a lot of people here don't like the way Green politicians and councillors are behaving, but the answer to that is not to pretend that we don't face massive environmental problems (of which global warming is only one) or that the many committed Green activists throughout the country (of which I used to be one) are doing it purely because they care about the sodding Bolivian arse wasp.

If you don't like the way the Green party is carrying on, there's a simple answer; start your own. There used to be a group called SERA (the Socialist Environmental Research Association) of which the late Robin Cook was a leading member, but I don't know if they're still going.

Also, accusing the Green movement of anti-semitism is a bit rich to put it mildly when some of the movement's leading lights and prophets (such as Paul Ehrlich) are and have been Jewish;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism_and_environmentalism

 

[SpineyNorman]

Essentially the Greens in Britain are deluded moralist do-gooders.

It is disaster-ism (but stay capitalist) analysis wrapped in new language



It is also a charter for bureaucratism.

Great stuff - I was hoping you'd turn up on this thread

 

[Meltingpot]

I'm perfectly aware of the dangers of environmental destruction Meltingpot. But sensible people, me included, approach environmental questions from the perspective of 'we need to protect the environment because we need it in good health to live decent lives and a healthy environment is a necessary condition for a just and equitable society.'

There are some in the Green Party who look at it the other way around so you get (this is another caricature but there's still something to it) 'there are too many people and if we allow it to continue the Bolivian arse wasp will be wiped out - let's gas the proles.'

It's about what the primary motive of your politics is - for me it's the best possible life for ordinary people, and the environment is one part of that. For some it's about preserving wildlife and if people need to die to do it so be it. And if you don't believe this thinking exist check out the video I posted upthread.

You're right; those are two different strands of Green opinion and I've come across them both, although in my admittedly brief experience most if not all people who actually get involved in Green politics do care about the lives of ordinary people. However, both are so far away from where we are right now that the schism is irrelevant in practice.

We're increasingly getting the worst of both worlds. Standards of living for ordinary people in the UK and elsewhere are getting worse and worse (I never thought when I was younger that we'd see food banks in the UK, for example), and such jobs as exist are becoming grimmer and increasingly precarious, and the environment is deteriorating savagely, not least the marine environment. I read recently for example that there's an island of discarded plastic somewhere at sea which is the size of Texas.

It's not an either-or; we need to address both sides of this. TBH I fear it's already too late and we may be screwed whatever we do, not least because we're facing the prospect of calamitous resource scarcity without any idea as how to cope with it (peak oil alone is a much bigger threat than most people seem to realise), but we'll never know unless we make the effort.

 

[Meltingpot]

This is nonsense incidentally, I don't know a single leftist now who is in favour of unchecked industrialisation - most want, in some fashion or other, a socially-planned economy.

If that's true I'm glad to hear it. Back when I was campaigning for the Ecology Party (as it then was), I was told there were local Labour Party members who voted for us although they kept it quiet from their other constituency party members.

 

[sihhi]

You're right; those are two different strands of Green opinion and I've come across them both, although in my admittedly brief experience most if not all people who actually get involved in Green politics do care about the lives of ordinary people. However, both are so far away from where we are right now that the schism is irrelevant in practice.

How is it irrelevant? Brighton's Green Council cares more about the environment - being a green ecological council - than it does about imposing a £4,000 pa pay cut and mass flexibilisation on its own council workers. That's where this thread started from.

 

[sihhi]

If that's true I'm glad to hear it. Back when I was campaigning for the Ecology Party (as it then was), I was told there were local Labour Party members who voted for us although they kept it quiet from their other constituency party members.

What is the relevance of this second-hand anecdote from the pre-1985 era?

 

[Meltingpot]

Wow.

Do you stand by this?

Pretty much, yes, to be honest.

That Hari thread really fired me up, and I was in high dudgeon there. I know it would look better if I said I was embarrassed for that post as I'm usually a lot less confrontational than that, but I have to admit I was laughing reading it again (I've never called Urbs "self-righteous fuckers" before ). Guess that's my funeral on here, but still.

 

[sihhi]

In 1984 the Ecology party was all out in support of the NUM, when the general mood was supportive of the miners.

By 1988, the Green Party had effectively christened the defeat of the NUM as a success since non-coal energy production had less CO2 than the inefficient mines that were closed down under MacGregor in 1985-1986.

In fact in an article in the New Statesmen some three years after the defeat of the miners claimed it was necessary to defeat the miners in the interests of a safe renewable energy and the need to meet the EEC's planned reductions in CO2 emissions. In order to understand this surprising u-turn we need only run through the other energy options to see why.

http://www.dialecticalbutterflies.c...rgy-a-extinction&option=com_content&Itemid=53

 

[Meltingpot]

In 1984 the Ecology party was all out in support of the NUM, when the general mood was supportive of the miners.

By 1988, the Green Party had effectively christened the defeat of the NUM as a success since non-coal energy production had less CO2 than the inefficient mines that were closed down under MacGregor in 1985-1986.

http://www.dialecticalbutterflies.com/index.php?view=article&id=53:energy-a-extinction&option=com_content&Itemid=53

Coal's a difficult issue for Greens, not least because there's as yet no satisfactory way of cleaning the emissions from coal-fired power stations. If you think that's a cop out I can only agree with you.

 

[sihhi]

Pretty much, yes, to be honest.

Why? Hari is not honest - he fabricated quotes and exchanges in at least thirteen articles.
He only switched to become anti-war when it came crashing down against the West in the form of a generalised civilian non-cooperation and a multi-origin insurgency.
This characterisation is a mile off: "A guy who's at least honest about the mistake he made in supporting the Iraq war?"

 

[Meltingpot]

Why? Hari is not honest - he fabricated quotes and exchanges in at least thirteen articles.
He only switched to become anti-war when it came crashing down against the West in the form of a generalised civilian non-cooperation and a multi-origin insurgency.
This characterisation is a mile off: "A guy who's at least honest about the mistake he made in supporting the Iraq war?"

Here's what he said three years later. This does look to me like someone regretting a past misjudgement;

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-should-have-been-clear-all-along-470638.html

 

[sihhi]

Here's what he said three years later. This does look to me like someone regretting a past misjudgement;

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-should-have-been-clear-all-along-470638.html

It's someone trying to curry favour with his public critics, acknowledging he has been schooled by them:

"The evidence should have been clear to me all along: the Bush administration would produce disaster. Who would have thought that they would unleash widespread torture, with over 10,000 people disappearing without trial into Iraq's secret prisons? Anybody who followed the record of the very same people - from Rumsfeld to Negroponte - in Central America in the 1980s, actually. Who would have thought they would use chemical weapons in a civilian city, Fallujah? Anybody who looked up Bush's stance on chemical weapons treaties or Rumsfeld's record of flogging them to tyrants."

It also suggests

1. that had the motives been pure with a liberal administration the occupation would not have been warped.

2. that most Iraqis supported military assault on the country, and hence were incapable of seeing things for themselves:

"I, like most Iraqis, failed to see that the Bush administration's warped motives would lead to a warped occupation."

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Why? Hari is not honest - he fabricated quotes and exchanges in at least thirteen articles.
He only switched to become anti-war when it came crashing down against the West in the form of a generalised civilian non-cooperation and a multi-origin insurgency.
This characterisation is a mile off: "A guy who's at least honest about the mistake he made in supporting the Iraq war?"

Meltingpot hangs out with racists on Phora though don't forget - his political and personal judgements are fucked

 

[frogwoman]

Pretty much, yes, to be honest.

That Hari thread really fired me up, and I was in high dudgeon there. I know it would look better if I said I was embarrassed for that post as I'm usually a lot less confrontational than that, but I have to admit I was laughing reading it again (I've never called Urbs "self-righteous fuckers" before ). Guess that's my funeral on here, but still.

You think everything is your funeral on here and you've never been banned.

 

[SpineyNorman]

You're right; those are two different strands of Green opinion and I've come across them both, although in my admittedly brief experience most if not all people who actually get involved in Green politics do care about the lives of ordinary people. However, both are so far away from where we are right now that the schism is irrelevant in practice.

We're increasingly getting the worst of both worlds. Standards of living for ordinary people in the UK and elsewhere are getting worse and worse (I never thought when I was younger that we'd see food banks in the UK, for example), and such jobs as exist are becoming grimmer and increasingly precarious, and the environment is deteriorating savagely, not least the marine environment. I read recently for example that there's an island of discarded plastic somewhere at sea which is the size of Texas.

It's not an either-or; we need to address both sides of this. TBH I fear it's already too late and we may be screwed whatever we do, not least because we're facing the prospect of calamitous resource scarcity without any idea as how to cope with it (peak oil alone is a much bigger threat than most people seem to realise), but we'll never know unless we make the effort.

I know. But the stuff in the middle para is inevitable under capitalism and since the greens are wedded to that system they won't and can't do anything about the worst of both worlds other than perpetuate it whilst painting on a green gloss.

This thread is about why the Green Party is shit, not why people who care about the environment are shit - if it was about the latter I'd be calling myself shit.

 

[redsquirrel]

Where the hell did anyone write off environmental issues meltingpot? That post is a disgrace and a smear.

Typical of MPs liberal stupidity though.

For me "environmental issues" are immensely important but they only worthwhile (not really that right word but I guess people know what I mean) when viewed through a class based analysis.

 

[classicdish]

I read a book once about the role of environmentalists and conservationists in the NSDAP, it was dead good but I can't remember what it was called - I'll try and dig it out later.

What has this got to do with the Green Party being shit or otherwise?

 

[SpineyNorman]

What has this got to do with the Green Party being shit or otherwise?

Nothing really, just sort of followed on from the Icke antisemitism stuff as an interesting aside. Plus guilt by association is perfectly valid.