“The problem is TransFair can’t limit the usage of ‘Fairly Traded.’ They can & rightfully do frown upon...” 
“Just for your information “Fairly Traded” and “Fairly Traded Certified” are two different things....” 
“Bevans, I think you need this plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/pl ugins/time-machine/ It lets you do hourly.” “First off, I love you and your plugin, it’s been a huge time saver. I’m using it on 5 blogs now! 
I have two...” 
“you don’t have a clue unless you’ve went through it or know some one who has.My daughter was 7 of age when she...” Damn. BoingBoing had a story about the Left Behind video game, all but implying that the game had been released. No such luck. It still sounds as awful as it did in March, but they’re still promising a release date of late 2006.
What a let down. But there is an interesting fear piece on an anti-religious right website. It doesn’t say much about the game, other than intimating that it’s the role of the player to convert or kill non-Christians (including Catholics and those wussy mainstream Christians).
Of course, when pressed, the author of the article kinda mumbles about it being a Left Behind game, so of course there’s going to be bigotry, etc. Which is funny, because the original BoingBoing story made the bigotry sound like the most interesting portion of the game. It’s easy to see how the National Post can make those silly mistakes.
So what should we be looking for in the next leader of the Green Party? I would argue that we should be aiming for someone who can appeal to as broad a segment of Canadian society as possible. We can use Elizabeth May as a touchstone for this. The other candidates in the race are being pretty quiet right now, so we can’t comment on them. But their time will come.
When we’re considering Ms. May, we’ll use the posts by Darrell, and Martin as an itty bitty focus group. They’re both from Ottawa, middle class, male, young. They vote. Neither of them are environmentalists, but they recycle, turn the lights off, and do all the stuff that you’re supposed to do when you’re responsible. But most importantly, these are the people that we want to attract to the Green Party: they’re average, they’re mainstream, and they’re willing to vote Green.
Darrell contacted me out of the blue to vent about Elizabeth May‘s latest blog post. She does a pretty good job at summing up the very generous tax incentives given to the folks strip mining the Athabasca Tar Sands out in Alberta, and then outlines the Green Party solution.
Here’s Darrell’s email1:
But I just can’t listen to Elizabeth May anymore. I know, I should probably post something publicly instead of annoying you with my thoughts but I really don’t care enough about her anymore to warrant trying to reason with her or her brother.
I read through her latest blog post/rant about the tar sands and it just makes me want to ignore her. Right off the bat she starts off confrontational and using her favourite word it seems, “crime”. Then we have her go through her laundry list of who-done-it as she points the finger every which way. Yeah, she might have a point but after a few paragraphs of it I strongly considered not reading any further. I figured this was just a rant about who’s messed things up with no real talk of what she would do. Finally she gets to the pay off of the Green Party plan but after all the numbers and such she threw at me during the rant all of a sudden the plan actually doesn’t look that good. I don’t know enough about the details but when you spend so much time listing what’s wrong and throwing all these figures at me it seems odd that you can sum up your plan in a couple sentences all of which seem to focus entirely on “let’s save the environment”. A noble goal don’t get me wrong but I’d like a bit more details on the plan and how it will work for the community and the environment.2
Then we have her last line, “Anything else is a crime.” All of a sudden I feel so shut out. It just seems so all encompassing that any question of this plan or possible other ideas I might think of has me siding with the “criminals”. It’s not even “anything less” is a crime, it’s anything else. So her word is the law and that’s the end of it. You know, it kinda reminds me of someone… someone who seemingly refuses to listen to those who have different opinions… someone who has labelled himself the “decider”… I think his name is “Bush” or something (hey, if they can compare Bush to Hitler then I can compare her to Bush).
Maybe it’s just me but this is exactly the type of person I don’t want leading the Green Party. I haven’t heard too much about David Chernu…whatever, but from what I read on his website so far he seems like a better choice for me. Why I’m telling you this I don’t know.
From the content of Darrell and Martin’s postings, we see a pattern:
The next leader of the Green Party must reach out beyond the traditional demographic of the Green Party. We can’t keep preaching to our own, then whine and cry when we don’t get included in the TV debates. We can’t keep talking like activists and then wonder why people think we don’t understand other issues. In essence, it’s time to grow up, and join the big leagues.
One of the great things about blogs is that anyone can post to them. Which means there’s a lot of crap out there: stuff that’s just links, reposting, and short on content.
Today I received a post from Pete. Pete’s a fellow Ottawa-ian who has a very interesting and idea rich blog. It’s a little heavier going that my usual reading, but it’s certainly a change from Gizmodo. The
There’s a big difference between being an activist and being a politician. An activist can say what they want, when they want. As long as their donors don’t yank the funding, they’re good to go. A politician walks a much finer line: they have to attract more voters than any other politician.
Which is precisely why I disagree with Elizabeth May‘s brother when he says
I find it odd that telling the truth is “Bush bashing”. Is criticism of Hitler, “Hitler bashing”? … The sooner we speak the truth the better. Funny it turns some off.
The “truth” that Mr. May is talking about is Elizabeth May’s allegation that Governer Jeb Bush threw the 2000 US presidential election in Dubya’s favour (which is plausible, but that’s neither here nor there). But truth doesn’t matter here. What matters is perception.
Dissing Bush does a bunch of things:
A potential leader for the Green Party shouldn’t fall into any of those traps. The original complaint of Bush bashing came from Darrell, who is pretty much the target vote for the Green Party: he’s a mainstream guy who is concerned enough about the environment that he recycles, and minimizes his energy consumption, but is also concerned about other issues like health care, the economy, and all of the stuff that the Green Party doesn’t usually play to. He’s interested enough in the Green Party to follow them during elections, and look into the platform. He is exactly the kind of voter the Green Party should not be alienating with off-the-cuff remarks.1
The Green Party tries to make a big deal about how we’re somehow different. That we don’t treat politics in the same partisan manner as other parties. David Chernushenko is a great example of that: he doesn’t sneer, instead he makes his point in the positive, saying “We need X, Y, and Z”; not “Those nasty Foobars! They’re stopping X, Y, and Z.” That won him a lot of support during the last election. During every All Candidates Debate, he won over lots of voters precisely by taking the high road.
Looking at it more pragmatically, think about what would happen if the leader of the Green Party said “Due to the terrible energy policies of the past, and the current Conservative government, we aren’t going to get the childcare deal we need, which is stronger legislation to ensure that working parents have more flexible work hours and on the job day cares”. In our era of soundbites, that solution would be dropped, in favour of “Due to the Conservative government, we aren’t going to get the childcare we need”. Which misses the point entirely.
The Green Party can’t afford to alienate any portion of the population, especially not folks like Darrell. I’ve never seen Elizabeth May speak, nor have I read any of her writing other than her blog, so I don’t know if this is her normal state. I hope that she is only this frank when speaking candidly, and that she puts on a more pragmatic face when she’s in public.
