The reason we don’t have “Progressive” Greens

Over at Shakesville they have an article on the increasing trend of objectification of women for “green” causes¹. Thanks to the work of some of our very talented and practically inexhaustible Green women, I find it really hard to imagine the idea of a green movement that isn’t something of a safe space, and that’s something all of us (men and women) should be thankful for.

However, the USA is showing us how we very easily could have gone down an “enviropop” path had we been willing to strip out the truly progressive part of our message- that the limited availability of resources dictates immediate progress towards social equality. In the USA, however, that philosophy doesn’t appear to have caught on, and instead the Green movement has widened faster but is making slower progress- encapsulating more reluctant greens on their own terms has opened up the floodgates not only to misogyny, but also a weakening of the environmental message in the name of “prosperity”- or rather, not-quite-as unsustainable growth.

While I’m all for a broad tent, and I don’t think you have to be progressive or leftist to be an environmentalist or a supporter of aggressive action on climate change, I think that this sort of behaviour within Green movements actively damages them by compromising the integrity of the whole. Not being a progressive or a leftist is not the same thing as being a misogynist, and letting new people into our tent shouldn’t mean objectifying some of the people who are already behind us.

 

Thank you Simon Upton

Thank you Simon Upton for a trip down memory lane, and a reminder of where my green roots came from. Simon Upton wrote a moving article about his recently deceased father, musing whether self-professed greens had a monopoly on green values, or whether there should be a place for representatives of the older generation on the billboards he admires. “Without even having heard of sustainable development, he lived on the basis that his choices should not foreclose those of his children’s generation. Doing that required prudence, thrift and a measure of self-denial. It seems a world removed from the debt-fuelled consumerism of our times”, he writes of his 87 year old father.

I think you would find, Simon, that many many greens were influenced by such examples of good living by our older family members. This one anyway owes a huge debt to her Auntie, too singular to ever need a qualifying name – she’s “plain Auntie”, my sister famously told a visitor. She and my parents were all products of the depression, and my parents were also frugal by necessity, but it was Auntie who best expressed that passion for frugality and making a game out of making do. I remember laughing at her in my callow youth for washing and reusing the gladwrap from round the supermarket celery. We were equally amused, embarrassed and excited by the steady stream of second hand clothes that she picked up for us kids, and later, our kids, from the op shops in Newtown decades before op-shopping became chic.

 

Nader’s humourous soliloquy

I love it when a politician doesn’t take himself/herself too seriously. Ralph Nader, who is not the Green Party candidate in the US this time around, delivers a very humourous soliloquy. It does reflect how it used to be around here, before MMP. When a minor party candidate couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Thank god things have changed here!

 

Build your own billboard

With billboard season upon us, the internet is giving us th opportunity to culture jam our favourite party’s billboards. Needless to say I was ecstatic to be sent a link to this site this morning. After a couple of fizzers, I am proud of my new National Party Billboard:

Please take a moment and vote for my billboard. It is #117 on the site and then you can surf all the other hillarious send ups!

 

The Billboards are coming!

The first wave of billboards is out. This is by far my favourite, so far:

There are a couple more. Frog has a quick post and a link to the main party site and full size images. I am totally thrilled with these billboards. Bring ‘em on, I say!