Dirty Linen
Greetings and Salutations to my commenter!
Your illtemper is causing you some confusion (or is that the other way round?) It certainly does nothing for your spelling (“Nowing”, when you possibly meant “Knowing”)
Firstly, if no one else is reading this why are you wasting your precious energy on it? I have no need of knowing your name, this is a named personal blog but if you feel the need of anonymity to help vent your spleen, hide away old chap. You notice, of course, that I do not censor you.
Secondly, is there not some form of contradiction in your assertion of the GP’s quality of internal democracy and your suggestion that I indulge in some ‘sex & travel’ because you don’t like what I have to say?
Thirdly, I am at the forefront of the serious work going on in the party regarding NAMA, having organised two seminars on the subject and taken an active part in the effort to have it debated at the highest levels of the Party.
But I have seen nothing from the parliamentary party in terms of this work. I have seen meek acceptance of the NAMA principles and framework; I have seen vacillation in face of critiques and, shamefully, I have encountered resistance when trying to have the matter brought for discussion to a Convention.
Fourthly, politics is work that needs to be seen to be done as well as actually done. Not attending that C’mtee meeting looked appalling and missed an opportunity to publicly contribute to the debate (if we had something worthwhile to add).
Fifthly, I made no reference to any article in my post. If your veiled reference is to the article wherein the GP-PP are described as ‘fools’, then your political antennae need retuning if you think that such criticism by the senior political correspondent of a national daily broadsheet is ‘nothing’ and ‘insubstantial’.
Sixthly, the dirt on the ‘linen’ of the Green Party has been put there by a leadership that has
1) abandoned many core principles since taking ‘soup’ or rather ‘office;
2) been outmaneuvered and patronised by FF at every turn;
3) lost voter support and membership wholesale;
4) failed to deliver a single substantive ‘Green’ achievement in 2 years.
It has proved necessary to wash it in public because the PP and HQ resisted bringing the matter of NAMA before the membership, despite the public bleatings about being ‘a membership led party’.
BTW, does seniority confer some form of authority in your ‘Weltanschaung’. Certainly, 20 years in the Greens has done nothing for your command of the English language. The liberal abuse of epithets and sexual slurs and poor spelling do not make a good advertisement for the party. It is, also, a poor advertisement for the quality of your arguments that you need to attack my character.
I look forward to the opportunity to giving you plenty of direct input at our convention, whether or not you have the courage to step out from behind your mask of anonymity.
Excellent riposte Arthur; I know how hard you have been working in the Social and Economics Formum on the NAMA situation looking for alternatives and clarification, for anyone who will listen.
There are always several sides to viewing an immoveable sculpture, and perhaps our friend could move to different vantage points and see the view from the the si de of thosse who have been working for the good of the Green Principles, only to be thwarted by what appears to be the fearful.
I have in mind some huge Henry Moore or Claudel, which demand that we move round andlook at all of the angles and points, and not accept blindly the elephant’s tusk as a indicator of the whole animal – and one needs to be present, and eyes wide open.
Criticism by a senior political correspondent is nothing new. Criticism within the party is nothing new. However criticising your own party publicly and consistently is a shameful easy option. Ours is a most democratic party and there are many channels to express frustration and change policy (unlike others), But you choose to make yourself look the hero by easy sniping. Pretentious verbiage and intellectual masturbation over a typo say a lot about your character.
If you feel that this is a personal attack, then it is, because there are many decent honest members who work their butts off for the party to deserve such self-serving disloyalty.
In essence, you suggest:
1) abandoned many core principles since taking ‘soup’ or rather ‘office;
Politics involves compromise. Our membership voted for a deal that was not fantastic in any way shape or form, but nor was it advertised as fantastic.
2) been outmaneuvered and patronised by FF at every turn;
Do you know this as a fact? Have you asked anyone about what wasn’t published in the media?
3) lost voter support and membership wholesale;
Membership has increased. Voter support has fallen during the worst recession in recent history. It also fell after the 1989 general election.
What have you done to increase votes? You were non-existent on the doors in Tallaght.
4) failed to deliver a single substantive ‘Green’ achievement in 2 years.
There is a huge list of medium achievements and at least two biggies from a planning and environmental perspective. There is more to come, should we get what we are looking for in the PfG review.
Having said all this, the party has issues and problems that need to be addressed. But you show no inclination to take a constructive approach, notwithstanding your work in the Social and Economics Forum (although you could have invited a more diverse-viewed group of economists).
And Lucille, to subtly suggest that those who may be in the parliamentary party or on the NEC or NC or a staff member are unprincipled is equally unfair.
Let democracy speak. Let the members decide on what is principled or unprincipled. Moral superiority is a flawed concept in politics.
1) Core principles abandoned – Tara motorway, EU scepticism (esp in the face of the weakest treaty ever), rendition flights, education cuts (“special needs” especially)
2) It would be hard for me to read things that haven’t been published but, for sure, we will know that we are doing the job right when we are getting the same kind of abuse from FF that Labour and the PD’s got when they were in coalition. As for being outmaneuvered, how in blazes can anyone go into coalition and not demand the junior Finance seat and not take a seat on the Joint Finance C’mtee? “Outmaneuvered”? – more like “not out of bed”.
3) Membership, I am told, is down, by sources I trust. I have not seen anything in public/writing. And blaming poor performance on outside factors is the weakest of all excuses. But may I ask why do you think the Green voters abandoned us when we were not the creators of the mess and did so proportionately more than FF lost their voters?
As for your personal attack on my campaign, you for sure weren’t anywhere near my campaign so what do you know about it? Once again you are spouting from a position of ignorance.
4) There is not a huge list of Green achievements – there are some things that any party with a greenwash astroturf attitude would have put in. The average voter doesn’t see what we have been doing. ‘Two biggies’ possibly refer to changes in planning legislation and a rejection of the incinerator.
Given that neither may happen if the Govt falls, it is also true that 90% of the planning change could have been achieved by changing one word in the old act and we could not get that one amendment driven through. But what the hell is point in changing the planning laws when either nothing is going to get built in this economy for another 10 years or the NAMA legislation will put pressure on for more lax development enforcement.
It is hilarious to be criticised for unbalanced panel selections when this famously member-led organisation has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to debate the matter at all. It is also a touch hard to be constructive when only insiders and those the leadership likes get asked for input. It still has not been revealed who was on the ‘reference group’ that was asked about the situation. No one on the EcSoc group was involved.
So, let democracy speak. The ‘moral superiority’ of the Green cause was why I joined and I thank you for your declaration that you think it is a ‘flaw’. That and your personal attacks and still inconsistent sentence construction reassure me that I am on the right track.
Lastly, stopping FF and its shoddy cronies driving this State over a financial cliff that will hamstring us for a generation and will transfer an enormous amount of wealth from the citizen to the capital owning elements here and abroad IS the most constructive thing that the Greens can do right now. And if that has to be done despite a navel-gazing preoccupied deckchair-rearranging leadership, then so be it.