similar to how the vocal minority in the US feel about the Libertarian party. The big what if….

What if we had a viable alternative, what if what if…what if…

Well lets explore that “possibility” of the greens becoming a “real alternatice”…or for the hell of it, them forming government.

With no ministers coming through that have ample experience in ministerial portfolios, with no policies that seem viable in the next 10-15 years on a range of issues such as the economy, health, education…dare i say it the environment….with no real alternatives that dont put the average tax rate at 50%….

1 term government never to be seen again. the problem is they have all these ideas with no idea how to fund them. they look like they have it all together, but when you realise someone has to pay for it, and those someones are the ones electing you…well you get the drift.

the greens are a massive what if…im prepared to give them a shot though if they can be economically viable in government.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Meski on the policy point. The Greens as a national party have very little in terms of an actual plan for when they get into power. Their policies are for the most part very ideological, basic and uncosted. Unlike the Tassie Greens, the NSW and ACT Greens are a rabble, and this has been painfully obvious in the most recent ACT election where the Greens got enough seats to be offered Ministry positions in the ACT Legislative Assembly. Did they take the offer and grasp the chance to be true leaders for change? No. They skulked off and preferred to stay on the cross-benches, “moulding and shaping” policy from the sidelines.

I was so disgusted (as I now live in the ACT) that I seriously considered resigning my membership. Their extreme-left stance on the reform of criminal law in the ACT in relation to the offence of murder, and their general silence about the roo cull, are pushing me closer and closer to that point. The NSW Greens are equally as useless, preferring to have a cry about lefty issues while staying quiet on the stuff that matters, the stuff that will have people voting for them, like interest rates, the transport system, housing prices, corruption in planning etc.

What stops me resigning? The Tassie Greens. Christine Milne and Bob Brown are pragmatic, logical and restrained. They bother to engage those who don’t agree with them calmly and they stick to the facts. They’ve influenced the Tassie Greens MPs in that state to adopt a similar approach, with great success. Now, if only they could kick start the rest of the party nation-wide and we might have something to go on. Get some candidates who wash, have a law or medical degree, don’t constantly address the media with shrill outrage on the issues where no-one is in any doubt where the Greens stand, consult outside the Socialist Alliance, and who ‘normal’ people (who are desperate to vote for them) can identify with.

Start behaving like a real alternative, not just ‘alternative’, and people will flock to you.

However, I think there was a lot of truth in what I said. Not definitive truth, I’m not that vain. It’s just that the two major parties have become so much of a mirror image of each other it’s difficult to know where one begins and the other one ends.

The Nationals are the brontosauruses of the evolutionary political scale, socialism for the farmers. Yet look at their ability to screw the Liberals. It’s sickening. Anyway, working on the assumption it’s only a matter of time before Labor/Liberal form one party, I have to ask myself who will be next on the agenda? Morally it has to be The Greens. Perhaps Malcolm Turnbull chose the time and the wrong party for his bit of dalliance in politics. He could have done all right by joining The Greens.

Their page on the economy makes for interesting reading. What do you think?

h t t p : / / greens.org.au/node/770

Loons:
h t t p : / / greens.org.au/node/787
(that’s an opinion)

However, at the beginning of the twenty-first century we see something unparalleled in history. We know not only the sort of people who live in the nearest city, we know what sort of people inhabit the ends of the earth. We know the world’s ability to support more people is at best fragile, at worst self-eliminating. The world is inhabited either by slum dwellers, or, as in most of Africa people living in arid deserts, corrugated iron shacks and petrol drums.

Whereas we in the West have so much money we can actually have the time to consider what sort of a life-style is best for us. Many people in the industrialized west have trouble coming to terms with the poverty which co-exists with our own wealth. These people tend to be overly concerned with abstractions like religion and helping those people less fortunate-as if that was possible. (The population time-bomb has become the sorcerer’s apprentice of the twenty-first century).

Political parties-with one exception- in Australia have not progressed with the speed of technology, nor have they fully understood the degree with which people are less concerned with economics and more concerned with quality of life. The glaring, and latest signs of moribund political thinking of these relics from a past era is the complete inability to deal with the future and with the issues of Carbon Emissions.

The Labor Party, The Liberal Party and the National Parties are revealed as being the bar-room wheelers and dealers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These parties reveal themselves as being totally unable to form philosophies, or tangible actions for the future. The bulk of our parliamentarians of today are the tragedy of democracy. (Think Stephen Fielding)

There is, however, one Party called The Greens. The people in this party stand for ideals and ideas of the future. They are not on the take. They use logic where the other parties hand out money to-wait for it: the churches, that quaint anachronism of the Dark Ages and its hatred of logic.

The Greens are criticized for being too left wing and too idealistic, and, of course, for being too naïve.

If is it naïve and idealistic to think of better ways to run our country, to think for the common good, to care for the environment, then I, for one, think The Greens are the only game in town.

[1] Newscorp, Fairfax, etc

2] see [1

Could be that it’s a useful stick to make the greens change their policies to something more useful. Compared to doing that, being a mere green party member has low influence.

EVAN and others above, I heartily agree with all you’ve said. In fact you’ve lightened my mood. I just hope there’s enough of us who feel this way to bring about change. I want a double dissolution, as I think it’s the only way we’ll get the opportunity to have a competent and committed Senate - more Greens I hope - and get rid of Stephen Fielding! Bring it on I say! Kevin Rudd has until August to precipitate a DD! Fingers crossed!

I think you’re both near what I consider the crux of the Greens appeal, and something that is often left unsaid, but should not be. The environment and keeping it working are at the forefront of Greens ideals. The idea that economic issues and prosperity and the environment are at loggerheads is simplistic at best, self defeating at worst. We all live in the environment, there is nothing out side of it. It supports everything we do; food, water and air at the forefront of this. The idea that we can ignore it in favour of economic development is to our peril. The Greens do the best job of lining these 2 competing ideals up. Classic triple bottom line accounting.

I think it does Greens supporters a disservice to suggest theirs are bourgeois ideals; the flippant illconsidered of the idle rich. Theirs is the most equitable and self sacrifising of the remaining party positions. Perhaps being the 3rd force gives them the freedom to pursue this properly. It’s going to be terrific when they sideline the Libs in the Senate after a DD election next year.

Well, im not going to pretend they dont represent what is important for you. If those issues are sacrosanct for you then yes they are not just the third party, but the only party.

For me the problem is more ideological, I trace back through history at what has been the main driver of human progression…and

…to me human progression has been the progression of economics. Many of the things that are important to you in your list, are only important to others/general society(i wont say you) because they have the time/inclination and most importantly money to effectively ignore what has been the plight of survival. In plain language, we are rich so we focus on other things.

Why did Kevin Rudd win the last election?, Everyone in Aus was relatively well off. He seemingly had a mandate to change australia, for the greener/fairer…what changed… GFC, now he dosnt have the political or economic capital to put through an effective climate change legislation. and thats with a weak opposition.

If the greens make the basis of there policies economic progression…I will vote for them. They get that right, I dont care what they do with the environment/education(your above list).

For me its about how, and how much of my money a government uses. The rest is all audibles. If the country is doing well, we will drift onto other important issues such as climate change/poverty ect ect. Get that right, and you get your social welfare/lefty type issues in vogue.

..again thats just me.

I’m now at the point where I’m trying to figure out if I should just embrace a carbon-intensive lifestyle and drive all I want, eat meat and dairy, buy 3 ply perfumed bleached toilet paper, wear baby seal fur, eat Maccas and KFC, and generally allow myself all the things I currently don’t. What’s the point in trying to reduce your impact on the planet when it’s all going to hell anyway?

But then a little ray of hope always pops up….what if….what if someone who can do something actually does something? Sigh…better go plant some more vegies and check out the bus timetable.

Have you ever contemplated Nihilism?

Have you ever contemplated Football?

Have you ever contemplated Revolution?

Some deluded soul suggested that Kevin Rudd should grow some balls. Dream on. As soon as a politician gets elected he spends the next three years dreaming of ways to get re-elected. And you don’t get re-elected by putting big polluting companies’ noses out of joint.

To every single politician of any political party in Oz (members of the Greens and Nick Xenophon excluded) I hope you all die the sort of death normally accessible only to the desperately poorest members of the lowest caste in Mumbai. Slowly.