The unbearable niceness of being Green
A postscript to my post last Friday on The Greens’ new best friends.
New Zealanders are generally pretty cynical about politicians and Parliamentary politics. In ‘the provinces’, this view seems to be amplified by people’s belief that they are more honest and ‘real world’ than venal Wellington and their actual disconnection from the metropolitan centres of power.
One has to wonder then why the Greens’ honest and principled approach to politics doesn’t get more credit generally and in the provinces in particular.
Consider what Raewyn Saville, the Green candidate for Rotorua in the recent election, has to say in response to the pro-Green comments by Labour MP Steve Chadwick in my post linked above:
Steve and I worked closely during the election, which wasn’t difficult given that we have known each other for such a long time.
I commend the campaign that Steve ran in the Rotorua Electorate as being
intelligent, clean and positive. I would go so far as to say it was her best campaign yet.As a Green Party Candidate I was sorry that she did not seem to have much in the way of environment or energy but I tried to do the environment and energy stuff so at least there was no crossing over each other’s policies.
The swing to the right in our electorate defied all reason. The leftwingers worked harder, were nicer, were more committed, had good policy and good planning. To be outvoted by a bunch of people who had virtually no policy and just spent the whole campaign chanting about their ability to be everybody’s best friends. Funny old workings.
Now isn’t Raewyn nice! Even about the Right and their voters. No really, I mean it. But why don’t her fellow Rotoruans appreciate her and her friend Steve’s efforts?
But, you never know, the way the Greens have carried themselves recently is perhaps beginning to resonate outside the big cities. I’ve already noted the positive comments in from the BoP Times. Then today, the Otago Daily Times says in an editorial titled Bitter Greens:
In view of New Zealanders’ clear preference for an underdog, especially one which might be seen to have been treated poorly, the end result could be a swing in support to the Greens at the next election – particularly from the Labour left which might be almost as disenchanted as Green voters with Labour’s governing pact.
However, the ODT seems to expect think that the Greens being pleasant is on the way out:
The Greens may be down, but they are by no means out. They have seen what happens to nice guys; they will not want to let that happen again. We can expect a harder, tougher edge to their politics, and possibly a bumpy ride for the Government.
Me thinks, nice isn’t the same as ‘not tough’. The small matter of GE comes to mind…
October 27th, 2005 at 12:29 am
Not surprising from the ODT, some on the right are agitating for some sense of grievance amongst both Maori and the Greens against Labour.
It is they, Greens and MP, who can provide an alternative support to Labour instead of United and NZF - each group would give 61 votes.
October 27th, 2005 at 6:23 pm
Corporate media silmultaneoulsy weakens democracy by encouraging people not to care through an unending cynical and derogatory attitude to good intentions in parliament, and only presenting issues through a corporate lens, that is if the issues are lucky enough to be presented! Bah!
More people would vote green for instance if attention was put on the facts that show our connectivity to the environment, that the no argument unregulated free market ideology has only really been in ascendence in Nz for last 15-20 years and for world at large bit over half a century give or take. And it’s given us Wars of unprecendented scale and carnage, destruction of ecosystem that have supported life including ours on the planet for like eva.., different weather patterns, antartic mayby shrinking beyound point of no return, and for the so called lucky ones in advanced societies, the quality of life you’d expect of people’s eating food prepared in laboratories and chained to god knows how many different medications.
But having a dsyfunctional population is easier to suppress and allows for greater profits for the few, make no mistake!
October 28th, 2005 at 12:53 am
Frog-
one of the best-case outcomes to my mind of this election has been precisely that the Greens are no longer tied down by an agreement not to cause a stir on GE issues; the Moratorium ended, and our hands were tied, despite the best efforts of many good campaigners.
Interestingly, the issue of disability rights with regard to GE has been bubbling away in the hinterland; many disability advocate groups have spoken out about the sinister nature of GE-medicine research; the discrimination against disabilities will go all the way back to the womb, with eugenicist policies reminiscent of Hitler’s ethnic cleansing programmes.
Te Papa’s current exhibition, from the Natural History Museum in NY, but sponsored by Merck, Sharp & Dohme, is a vivid example of the kind of spin on GE applications being put out by industry investors. “OOooh, look at the poor little baby with the incurable genetic disease, isn’t it great to see them finding a cure for that”.
Well, no they haven’t found it yet, they’re just investing in vivisection and playing with people’s emotions to get popular suport for the labs that do the experiments. Much of the exhibit refers to American experience as inclusive of the viewer - “us” and “we” statements that surely could have been edited out of material, but create a false sense of congruity between USA and NZ experiences of food safety and GMO uptake.
Wild Greens, and other anarchic organisations (?oxymoron :-D) are watching with interest to see what will happen as the various regulatory bodies attempt to coagulate the Australian and NZ markets into one grouping of Trans-national bodies, ready to put the USA’s FDA regulations in place as de facto standards for the Ausralasian markets. These standards downplay the efficacy of our producers in maintaining Ge-free and GMO-free status in goods produced in NZ.
We can only wait to see if the new Minister for the Environment, David Benson-Pope, is as effete in his understanding of the science around GE as his predecessor, the Hon Marion Hobbs.
October 28th, 2005 at 8:04 am
Katie - Actually you managed a redundancy and an oxymoron in the same phrase. Wild Greens, and other anarchic organisations … VERY impressive
Me, I just don’t like one-way streets.
respectfully
BJ