In 1988, when I lived in Toronto, I spent about six months working for Greenpeace on a fundraising and awareness campaign around the Great Lakes. It was a pretty easy sell; Toronto sits on Lake Ontario and everyone knew it was massively polluted. Convincing the tony residents of that city to shell out a few bucks to the greenies wasn't difficult.
Sadly, I was mostly at odds with those I worked with, particularly around an election campaign that was underway at that time. It was focussed on the proposed Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States. Greenpeace, and the small numbers of people who made up the Green Party at that time, were massively opposed to free trade; I was 100 per cent for it and still am today. I used to chide them that they were simply scared Canada couldn't compete with the Americans while I believed strongly in the Canadian ability to produce and sell goods to a market 10 times larger than our own.
As Canadians - and maybe even an American or two might know - the Conservative party won that election, free trade came into being and 20 years later Canada's economy is robust and, with the exception of a few instances, the free trade agreement has worked pretty well.
What I learned from that experience is that the Greens, who were often wrong even about environmental issues, should absolutely shut the fuck up when it comes to any other political issues.
This was borne out this week in Vancouver where a star Green party member revealed that during 9/11 he pumped his fist in the air when he learned the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York and his joy grew as a second plane ploughed into the WTC and news followed about the attack on the Pentagon. No doubt the only glitch to his day was when the hijackers of Flight 93 were overtaken by the heroic passengers who gave up their own lives to ensure their descent to Earth and subsequent fiery death didn't take anyone else along with them.
Furthermore, said Kevin Potvin, the 2005 bombings in the London Tube were "not cowardly, despicable and unspeakable acts; they were acts of war...(they - meaning islamic terrorists) are defending themselves from cultural genocide."
Rarely in my life have I read a more despicable, false and asinine comment then Potvin managed to come up with. There is no cultural genocide being practised against the Muslim community; quite the opposite, islamists are exporting a virulent, vicious and hateful brand of religion that is bent on committing cultural genocide against anyone who disagrees with them, including their fellow Muslims.
Furthermore, the British have bent their asses so far over backwards to accommodate Islam that one can almost see the Queen donning a burka if asked. They have removed the Holocaust from their school textbooks for fear of upsetting muslims and just this week, the British Union of Journalists, of which Potvin should be a member, voted to boycott Israel because radical palestinian islamist terrorists kidnapped and may have killed a BBC journalist. (George Orwell may be long dead but his descendants in the British press seem intent on fulfilling his prophecies.)
Anyway, Potvin proves what I have long known: that the hot air emanating from the environmentalist movement is far more dangerous than greenhouse gases. Canadians should not only be wary of Green Party environmental policies but should reject everything about that party not related to the environment. Oh, and since the Liberals recently swung a deal with the Greens to not run against them in a federal byelection in return for God only knows what concessions down the road, we should equally reject that party which has been reduced from one that used to run the country to one that probably couldn't even run a lawnmower (push variety, of course).
Lastly, I'm now shopping for a hybrid vehicle. I still believe in being kind to the environment and I also want to ensure even less of the money that I spend might somehow find itself headed for the arab world. But, hey, Potvin would merely call me a racist bastard and cheer if a hijacked plane lands on my house.
I really do wonder what this world is coming to and I don't like the picture my mind paints when I think about it - the Green Party and the green of Islam are not compatible with the rest of the world's colours, it seems.
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12 comments:
It seems symptomatic for the Left to form an umbrella that takes in all kinds of disparate groups and ideas.People who might support the Green movement for all the right reasons find themselves swept up in a hate movement against the west, against America, pro Islam, pro human rights and god knows what other garbage. The radical left works as a shit magnet, drawing all disgruntled groups and ideologies that preach rebellion against the status quo. Many years ago when I was considering joining Amnesty International, I was appalled at their support of Mao's wife. I thought to myself, couldn't they find a better and more worthy cause? The Green movement seems to have been overtaken by the moonbats.
In 1988, when I lived in Toronto . . . the small numbers of people who made up the Green Party at that time, were massively opposed to free trade
The current position reiterated as recently as April 19 (http://shorterlink.com/?P4Z40N ): We are proposing to give notice to pull out in order to negotiate the removal of Chapter 11 from NAFTA. By ignoring the final NAFTA Tribunal ruling, the United States has effectively undermined the treaty.
Rarely in my life have I read a more despicable, false and asinine comment then Potvin managed to come up with.
Elizabeth May and the GPC felt the same way: "However, his views are antithetical to Green Party values. We have irreconcilable differences. I will not sign his nomination papers and he will not be a Green Party candidate." (http://shorterlink.com/?1R0S9U )
Well said, lex. As a former journalist, I used to be quite supportive of PEN until they, too, began incessantly hammering at western countries while frequently or completely ignoring the crackdowns on journalistic freedoms in non-democratic countries.
no offence, mrgreen: while it's good that Ms May has stepped in, you and I both know that the Green Party is inundated with far-left ideology and that the sentiments expressed by Potvin are probably shared by more than just a couple of his fellow party members.
The free trade agreement is not perfect but I, personally, want to see more open trade, not less, especially with other democracies or emerging democracies. We need to stick together in this very uncertain world.
The Green Party in the States is the same way; some of Ralph Nader's political ads and position statements in the 2004 election cycle were flat out disgusting. Not to mention poorly conceived and incredibly naive.
Part of the problem these days, is that people are not asking anyone any hard questions; if it won't fit in a 30 second sound byte, no one wants to hear it.
All manner of interesting people in the Green party... thanks for pointing me to your interesting blog, southfield
sorry, that last comment was from me.
Thank you for your comment truepeers. Always nice to have someone I've not "met" before post a comment.
I would have a decent amount of respect for the Greens if they stuck to environmental issues. I don't always agree with their stances but I appreciate and often admire their tenacity. And, there is no question that they have raised awareness and spurred the public to act on some very serious environmental issues.
As noted in my original post, however, when they stray away from environmental issues, they immediately fall into the far-left moonbat syndrome that is extremely dangerous, in my opinion, to freedom and democracy and I want no part of it.
Disclaimer: I am a Green.
I was very disgusted with Kevin Potvin's comments as well. To lump the Greens all together is flat out wrong. There are many former PCs in the party, such as myself.
Getting out of NAFTA makes sense though. Think about softwood first. Secondly, the US is using NAFTA and the WTO to go after our fresh water reserves, claiming that they are a commodity and they government cannot put anything like a tariff or export ban on them.
The Green position is also to give our 6 month notice to RE-NEGOTIATE NAFTA. A free trade agreement itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, assuming it's done right.
You do know that 2/3s of our oil MUST go to the USA under NAFTA? This is based on a historical number (which you'll have to excuse me as I forget it right off the top of my head), so if our current production drops, we could eventually have to sell it all to the USA even if Canada has a shortage.
It's a bad deal for Canada.
Christopher: thank you for your honesty.
IMO, we should be selling as much oil to the US as they need in order to lessen their reliance on oil from non-democratic countries such as the arab nations and Venezuela. Canada, I believe, has the second largest reserves of oil on the planet and should sell it to our friends, which includes the US.
As for water, man, get used to it. The US is 10 times as populace as Canada and about 100 times as powerful. You want to retain our sovereignty? Don't hide your head in the sand and pretend we can make the US go away. We need to work with them or in 50 or 100 years they'll just up and take it if they want, as they could do tomorrow.
Like it or not, Canada is in a symbiotic relationship with the Americans. It's to our advantage to work with them not against them, no matter what the Greens might believe would be the case in a perfect world.
Right now, Christopher, the world isn't about NAFTA, it's about the very survival of the democratic way of life and it's the US that stands between us and a very dim future, indeed.
Also, our economy is doing quite nicely and, again, don't forget, the US could bankrupt us tomorrow if it so desired.
So we should sell all our oil to the US in crude form, then have to buy it all back after it's been refined? I would dare say that's bad business sense. And we have to export it to them regardless of if there is a shortage here? Would you give up your car for a month because of this? So that an American can drive his/her SUV in the suburbs?
I'll touch on sovereignty then water. The US wouldn't dare invade Canada. As a member of the Commonwealth, that puts them at war with India and Britain by default. We have a huge border that would be geographically impossible to defend. The destruction of our infrastructure kills 1/4 of their oil supply which comes from us. Not to mention China would love to get one up on the US at any point it could.
Our relationship is not symbiotic. We receive very little in return. They continue to subsidize their crops, which they contend makes our Wheat Board and the stumpage fee for soft wood illegal. As a country that exports mostly natural resources, their dependence on us is higher. They need us to run their industry. We can ship our products to the EU, China or India for the same value.
As for water, it's within our borders, there is already massive water problems in Alberta around the cities and look at what could happen if the same thing that's happening in Australia happens here. If the Prairies turn into a dust bowl again, I'm sure you'd be fighting to keep our water too.
The US couldn't bankrupt us. They're barely staying afloat with a $3 Trillion deficit. They are being held afloat by Chinese bonds because China stands to loose a lot from a sudden economic collapse in the US.
The US is not a beacon of democracy. They have two political parties that are the same and do everything in their power to keep new voices out. A place like Germany or New Zealand where they have a mixed member democracy is more democratic than either them or us in Canada. The US isn't the giant saving the world. The US is the giant that gets what it wants and makes excuses for its actions later.
I'm not anti American by the way, I'm anti US government. I know many nice Americans who think their country is broken politically as well.
Chris, you've just touched on every reason, pretty much, why I am at odds with the Greens and those like them.
1) The US is far more free than the Germans and New Zealanders. Proportional representation is a joke that leads to endless minority governments where fringe (read radical left and right parties) have way too much power. You probably like it because that's the only way Greens get power.
2) Freedom is about living free; not pandering to every PC cause out there. It's so ironic that parties like the NDP and Greens claim to support women's rights and democracy but then bitch about the US actually moving against governments that allow women to be treated as slaves, that stifle political dissent, kill their opponents, crackdown on literature, Web sites, etc. and generally act as murderous, dictatorial pigs.
3) The US and Canada have had a close relationship for decades and the economic ties between the two nations are among the strongest and most important in the world. If we're not refining our own oil, that's our fault, not the Americans. They're not preventing us from building refineries; in all likelihood, it's the "environmentalists" who'd rather truck the shit across the border twice - to be refined and then back when it is refined - rather than sensibly doing it here and thereby saving our roads and waterways from extra usage.
4) You think Britain and India would defend Canada if the US invaded? Hardly. Why would the Indians care? And, what, exactly would Britain do?
5) There are problems with the US system and they have been exascerbated by eight years of a particularly bad administration. But, I'd still trust the Americans a million times more than the Germans any day. If it weren't for America, those of us whose families survived WWII would be speaking German and I wouldn't be here at all.
I welcome your comments but spare me the rhetoric about the horrible
American government and the glorious Germans and New Zealanders. History tells us it's quite the opposite as far as the Germans are concerned and New Zealand makes Canada look like an important world nation. I'm sure the New Zealanders are very nice people but they're hardly in a position to protect and promote democracy (which they don't do anyway). I know they're avid environmentalists with their nuclear-free zones and beautiful scenery but the world is in deep crap and I'm not looking to Helen Clarke to bail us out, that is for sure.
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