by Kennedy Graham
Co-leader Metiria Tūrei and I were the two Kiwi MPs attending the 3rd Global Greens Congress which concluded last week. Green party colleagues, Pete Davis (International Secretary) and Jackson Wood (Young Greens) attended as well, so there was a respectable turnout of four from NZ. Yes, offsetting occurred.
These are, more or less, five-year events. The 1st Congress, in Canberra in 2001, adopted the Global Greens Charter. The 2nd, in Sao Paulo in ‘08, laid plans for strengthening the global movement. This 3rd, in Dakar, Senegal, continued that process, with a few significant accomplishments.
First off, we created a Greens Parliamentarians Association. With some 340 MPs at national and regional level (and many more at local level), the Green political movement is becoming a force to be reckoned with. The ‘Global Greens Parliamentarian Association’ contrasts with the ‘international’ character of the other, 20th-century, political movements (Socialist International and the conservative movements).
The aim will be to coordinate the goals and actions colleagues with a view to making our work in committees and parliamentary debates more potent. And, also, to ensure a democratic strengthening in all countries which can only work to our advantage. As Green MPs further enter parliaments (and governments) around the world, the present imbalance of membership from Europe should leaven out, as new colleagues are elected elsewhere, especially in Africa and Asia-Pacific. Latin America is reasonably well-represented already.
The Congress also agreed to create a full-time secretariat starting from 2013. It will be a small office to begin with, but plans are being laid for financial and organisational strengthening over the next few years.
Resolutions were passed on a number of topics – preparing for Rio + 20 (the review of the Earth Summit, the global sustainability and climate change conference in Rio in 1992), democracy in Africa, the movements for self-determination in West Papua, the Occupy movement, Climate Change and Energy (moving away from fossil fuels to renewables and campaigning against deforestation), and on the future of the Global Greens.
The 4th Congress is likely to be in Europe, within the next three to five years.
Published in Justice & Democracy | Parliament | Society & Culture by Kennedy Graham on Wed, April 11th, 2012
Tags: Africa, climate change, democracy, global greens, Occupy, rio+20, senegal, west papua
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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[frog: Comment deleted as per below request of author. And, yes, it was offensive, so good call, even. I guess many of us have done things around 03:21 on a Sunday morning, having not been to bed, that we later regret.]
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A Posting while drunk?
But one thing he has correct.
Destiny awaits.
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In 20 years climate will have worsened enough to make “Green” the politically dominant force of the planet. This may not mean so much for the parties.
One issue we will struggle with will be an influx of people more pragmatic and less given to social causes. All political parties will find themselves forced to the sustainability meme with respect to environment.
I am not sure what that will mean overall. Just have to reckon that it will happen.
What this means for this party is ??? We apply sustainability tests to everything and that would push us a bit to the left, because the real world is like that, but a lot of our core is further left than that.
Labour, if it adopts sustainability as a strong policy requirement, will look very much like us in our current form. Will we move away from our strongly leftist roots to be more pragmatic than labour? or dissolve into the larger party? or simply compete in exactly the same space? I am not offering an answer here, just trying on the solution space.
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bjchip:
In my view, ACT has become National’s greatest asset, because the libertarian vote will always be there (though diluted now, because so many of them have voted with their feet to Australia), and National now basically owns the Liberal vote because it owns ACT. In short, with John Banks at the ACT helm, the liberal vote is on National’s leash.
This is where John Banks wants to be because he doesn’t really give a toss about anyone but himself. He’s only too happy to be a well-paid National party poddle, carefully saying the things that economic literates and libertarians want to hear, and all the while knowing that nothing real will come of their cosmetic influence.
———
So where does the Green party stand with Labour, and the total scheme of things? You have to ask yourself, I think, how many career politicians have infiltrated the original movement (and this will always happen over time, I believe)? How much of everything we see is just a carefully composed PR exercise, orchestrated by what are ultimately co-dependent political organisation? Who knows.
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National will face the greatest changes. So much of its philosophy is rooted in the short-sighted approach of trying to govern a country the same way one runs a corporation. A corporation is by definition sociopathic, no country can long survive that sort of governance.
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Maybe so, bjchip. But a true sociopath is more than ruthlessly money-centric – he’s a fake. He will effortlessly pretend to be ‘left’ (or whatever) if it suits his ambitions.
All sides of the game need to be objectively scrutinised. You will find creeps and saints in just about any territory.
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ya, total apologies.
delete post. Temporary insanity, yucky yuck yuck.
Am not a frogblogger or frogwatcher.
However, will point out, if post had sub’ed word ‘deniers’ for expletive curse word, still would have been insanity in tone & having no concept of good ethics in treating other people or approaching issues. bye.
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It was a challenge Even… I found entertainment in creating a haiku to respond, so not a total loss
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Wrt future Green positioning, I think it’s fair to say that Labour has abandoned the working left since the 80s anyway, firstly with a solid lurch to the right (something which still affects it listening to Shearer), and then becoming mired in the identity politics of the late 90s.
I think the Greens are in a unique position actually by, as bjchip states, using sustainability as the policy fulcrum (ideally with a healthy dose of social responsibility implicit), policies and positions from across the left-right spectrum can be adopted as appropriate.
By not anchoring ourselves to the past, we may be able to completely avoid the left v right, bosses v workers 19-20th century rhetoric.
If the GP elects to pander to outdated ideological constructs we become complicit in shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic.
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There’s a big gap between “social responsibility” and “being a left wing party”, and its going to take some effort by the Green party to avoid just becoming a dumping ground for left wingers who have abandoned Labour.
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There is no gap between ““social responsibility” and “being a left wing party”” when the “key to social responsibility is the just distribution of social and natural resources, both locally and globally”. http://www.greens.org.nz/charter
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Not true, Soltka.
Left wing does not equate to ‘just distribution’ given that it covers the entire spectrum from anarchism to Stalinism; the common theme of the Left is probably better described as egalitarianism, on a spectrum from self actualised to compelled.
Therefore, what is ‘just’ is in the eye of the beholder or more appropriately, in the hand of whomever holds the levers of power.
One could be a classic Burke conservative and still support ‘just distribution’ based on the principle that economics should be subordinate to social ethics.
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Yes Gregor, and right wing does not ‘equate’ to “free market” either in the broadest sense. But, right here right now, it is neo-liberalism that is munting the environment through a winner takes all limitlessness. The antithesis to this is to set limits and distribute resources so as to meet everyone’s needs over some peoples greeds. Ecological Wisdom, the understanding that “unlimited material growth is impossible”, necessitates the rejection of the politics of limitlessness in favour of limited and just distribution. For the first time in history we ALL need a left wing politics for our survival.
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The thing that gets to me is that even the adherence to equal rights and fair play that we come to as a result of our understanding that it is the only sustainable path to take, is perceived as being “further left” than labours support of the working class.
Are they not far enough left to be realistically considered a “labour” party? My perception is that this is true, but it begs the question of what things we will hold up as differentiating us from them.
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@soltka
I can’t agree with your premise that right leaning ideology is responsible for screwing up the environmnent. By that logic, North Korea, China and the old Soviet Union would have been paragons of environmental sustainability. Plainly this is not the case.
Short sightedness screws up the ecosystem.
Greed screws up the ecosystem
Laziness screws up the ecosystem.
People screw things up. Politics is just an excuse.
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Gregor, i said “a left wing politics” not “any” left wing politics, but i think you know that, so i’ll leave it there.
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soltka – I didn’t misread you; I fundamentally don’t agree with your assertion.
I think the complete annulment of the left v right discussion is what we need for our survival.
In the final analysis, left vs right is all just hot air and ideological posturing.
It’s the epitome of ‘fiddling while Rome burns’; a waste of valuable time and effort which could be spent on finding concrete solutions to existing problems.
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BJ, the Greens are perceived as being left of Labour because Green policy is fairly consistently to the left of Labour policy. At the last election Labour took a big jump to the left and campaigned on an increase in the minimum wage, a tax free threshold, and a capital gains tax – all well established Green policies. Now, the new Labour leadership can’t even tell us whether these policies are still on the table, and are lining up for a personality pageant as they rush for the centre ground that is opening up as Shonkey Inc. reveal their right wing agenda.
The Greens can best differentiate themselves from this by continuing the emphasise their policy consistency and environmental credibility. The Green Party is the left wing of New Zealand politics, the only way to change this is to change the policies. Just sitting there saying “we don’t want to be seen as left wing” will not change the facts of the matter.
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@solkta
All that means is the Green party have got an incorrect definition of “social responsibility”. Because if the Green Party believe that “social responsibility” means some socialist or communist ideal of there being some central authority that decides who gets what, then that vision is clearly wrong, so wrong as to be stupid. So far out that perhaps the Green Party should rename itself to “the deep red party”.
We all know what “social responsibility” means if you strip the ideological bullshit away, its about doing the things necessary to be cognizant of the needs of society’s disadvantaged, and to try to eliminate or reduce the impact upon those disadvantaged.
Although the left might think that an increase in the minimum wage is a good lefty idea, it is far from it; it is just good idea period. I would in fact argue that an increase in the minimum wage is a policy that any decent businessman should support. The crap ones wouldn’t of course, and they would support a tax free threshold for the same reasons they would fight an increase in minimum wage. Because its a crap idea. That’s not an ideological stance; its just looking at a proposal without ideological preconceptions.
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dbuckley – well put Sir!
For the record, I don’t think the GP have an incorrect definition of SR at all. I think the charter is quite clear, hence my previous comments around ‘just distribution’ vs ‘equal distribution’.
It’s clear however that some both within and without the GP have taken it to read as an explicitly statist, hard left manifesto (something of course which they are entirely free to do) but it doesn’t change the fact that the charter carefully avoids left vs right language and in my view, focuses on a human scale interactions and solutions (personal responsibility, devolved decision making, non violence) rather than any bureaucratic panacea.
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But both of those terms are ideologically charged.
Ignoring the more communist second statement, “just” implies both a measure that determines “justfullness”, and should the determination be made that there is a degree of unjustfullness, then a “corrective measure” to make society more “just”.
The gap between corrective measures to fix unjustfullness and full socialist control is paper thin. Even labour’s (and the Greens) wish to introduce CGT is little more than an ideologically driven thinly veiled targeted wealth redistribution mechanism.
This isn’t “social responsibility” – this is changing society to fit some ideal of “just”. That is ideology. Whereas applying that ideology is one possible way of ensuring the goal of being socially responsible is met, it is far, far more than is necessary.
Which takes me right back to the statement that There’s a big gap between “social responsibility” and “being a left wing party”.
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@dcuckley
‘Just’ is certainly in the eye of the beholder.
However, I firmly believe ‘just’ is a better philosophical approach than ‘equal’, because it applies more nuanced measures (i.e. ‘just’ can easily be applied as a reward concept for ‘effort’) than just an arbitrary leveling.
‘Just’ certainly applies a societal value measurement inasmuch as it does not ascribe an allocation of resources merely for existence (beyond what is and should be supplied for the necessities of life), but encourages allocation on the basis of value ascribed to that persons role and what they contribute toward the improvement of our society – whether than be caregiver, artist or CEO.
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