altogether no surprise at all, when you understand that the Nazis were the most zealous defenders of Nature, before the so-called Grunen emerged in the 1980s.
That is an outstanding and well cited article! I'd be willing to bet if you tried to get that published in the Guardian, they'd turn you down without actually being able to fault your premise or research.
Rob Johnston replies:
Thanks Albion -- in fact the New Statesman turned it down on the basis that the anti-"airmiles" campaign -- that would mean very little food from Africa being available in Britain -- was not the same as a boycott of black farmers!
Thereby entirely missing the whole point of the article, that "unwitting racism" (for which the Police were blamed in the Macpherson Report on the death of Stephen Lawrence) can apply equally to sanctimonious Greens as well.
Having just quit the Green Party national executive, I would agree that the party has some pretty odd policies.
However, this article makes a mistake in leading with agricultural policy as an example of racism. The fact that farmers in the UK are white; and that there are black or brown or yellow farmers elsewhere in the world does not make it racist to pursue a local food policy. The aim is to reduce fuel use - this may be misguided/protectionist/authoritarian or whatever, but it's not racist.
To put it in simple terms, the Green Party would prefer it if you got your potatoes from your neighbour Mr Patel's garden, than from Farmer Giles 300 miles away.
And if half the farms in Britain were bought out by black farmers, Green Party policy wouldn't change.
the anti-"airmiles" campaign -- that would mean very little food from Africa being available in Britain -- was not the same as a boycott of black farmers!
Airmiles? Or food miles? whatever.
The anti-(food)airmiles campaign is irrational, based on sentiment and ignorance. If its effect is to disproportionately disadvantage food produced by black African farmers then you are correct, by the self-righteous lefts own definition of racism, it is racist. Especially so given that everyone who supports it, who is not either ignorant or a moron, has an agenda separate to the environmental concerns it purports to address.
I see what you did there!
You abandoned any pretense at being sensible, just for the sake of attacking the Green Party. Seriously now, I hope this was meant to be ironic.
Obviously the New Statesman has better screening than Samizdata, cause, guess what? They were right, cutting down on 'airmiles' does not mean the same as discriminating against black farmers. In fact, it may mean discriminating against English farmers, just because they are in the wrong part of the country.
Well Oscar, I suggest you go back and read the article. Rob points out that unlike the BNP, where it is actually the objective, racism is just a consequence of Green policy. It will hurt non-whites and Greens frankly do not give a damn. It may not the the objective bit that is the reality because there is actually very little functional difference.
Seriously now, I hope this was meant to be ironic.
Then please point out the factual error for us.
Personally I am a great deal less kind than John in my view of the underpinning motives of the Green Party, but it is not my article and in any case the article is mostly about consequences rather than motives.
They were right, cutting down on 'airmiles' does not mean the same as discriminating against black farmers. In fact, it may mean discriminating against English farmers, just because they are in the wrong part of the country.
Oh, well. That's all right then. I'm sure the black farmers will be pleased. It's nothing personal, fellas. Old Farmer Giles is on his uppers as well. Doesn't that make you feel better?
The genius of "food miles" will bring back all the ailments of malnutrition to the poor.
It would be interesting to see how the EU,for it is an EU policy can balance local food with the production of biofuels.
Well, Perry, you assume that the other position, continuing to import food from abroad, doesn't hurt non-whites. I dare say the Green Party would hold that the continued importation of food from abroad (or rather, with lots of 'food miles') will hurt non-white people more in the long term. You may or may not agree with that, but to suggest they don't give a damn is not true.
If the Greens are not motivated by racism, and consider the effects of their policies to be beneficial to non-white people, then the charge of racism becomes far less realistic. The issue is only confused because by the action of nature the people who live the greatest distance from you are more likely to be of a different 'race'. But that's true in many parts of the world, not just Europe. I'm truly sorry that human migration in the recent historical period hasn't yet fully corrected that.
Perhaps we could make up for it by funding a better transport infastructure in Africa itself so that there is a larger market for their homegrown produce?
Yeah, fatherland, mother earth. Duh. They both have the same roots in rural romanticism, the mythical forest, the spiritual bond between man and land. They aren't similar. They're different emanations of the same philosophy.
Here in Blighty, the early organic movement was lousy with British Union of Fascists wallahs. And so on.
Different rhetoric in some respects, same thing. Man as noble farmer, bonded with the Earth. Plough the fields and scatter while listening to Wagner and contemplating Hegel. Welcome to the New Order. Etc.
Control.
That's what the whole "movement" is all about--- nothing less than having the power to tell everyone what to do, how to do it, what is permitted, what is forbidden.
So many people here, for or against, keep looking for motives, consequences, reasons, justifications, arguments for, arguments against.
Is it intentionally racist? Is it accidentally racist in effect? Is it logical? Is it self-contradictory? Will the results be for the better? Or make things worse?
When will everyone finally realize none of this matters at all?
That the whole point is gaining control. Nothing else matters.
It's not about the environment, or pollution, or fair this or fair that, economics or trade policy.
It's always been, and always will be, about who has the power.
And the one who can say "You can't do it that way. This is what you must do..." That's who has the power to controll your life.
Does it really matter whether they are red or green?
If you turn from looking at the consequences of Green Party policies to their motivation, they still won't come out smelling of roses. Surely, they are just another bunch of PC progressives following Frankfurt school Marxism and hell bent on the destruction of Western civilization?
Perhaps we could make up for it by funding a better transport infastructure in Africa itself so that there is a larger market for their homegrown produce?
Who is "we"? As I said, I am rather less kind than John and regard you greens as in no way materially different either practically or morally to the BNP, so if YOU want to fund "infrastructure" in Africa, go right ahead and give your money to some corrupt African government.
All *I* want to do is have people like you stay the fuck out of the way whilst I trade with whoever I damn well please (such as African or bloody Martian farmers if that is what I want). Markets will lift the world out of poverty in spite of control freaks like you. The 'Green Movement' is yet another reason I am not a pacifist.
veryretired: Does it really matter whether they are red or green?
Not a damn. Red, Green or Blackshirt. Same control obsessed psychos who need to be opposed by whatever means necessary.
Red, Green or Blackshirt.
So the communists are red. The old-school autocrats are white. The environmentalists are green. The facists are black. What colour are libertarians?
The Greens are different to the BNP,the Greens have power,they are driving EU environmental policy,they have you paranoid about which bin to use.The BNP can only dream about power like that.
What colour are libertarians?
Whatever colour they want to be. Such is the nature of libertarians.
I checked the references for the first three points, and the people who acclaimed this research might be interested in what they actually say:
*Forbid the purchase of corner shops by migrants; stop people from the inner cities moving to the countryside
MG205 - "Migration policies should not discriminate directly on grounds of race, colour, religion, political belief, disability, sex or sexual orientation." It's a section about making migration easier. MG 208 - "The interests of both prospective migrants and the recipient area or community must be recognised and, hence, the appropriate resolution of a particular situation (unless covered above) must depend on negotiation between the parties affected." It is wilfully misleading to suggest these policies give the right to rural communities to refuse outsiders. As for the BNP comparison, are you really suggesting that the BNP agreeing with any of the priorities MG 400-405? (Including an amnesty for all illegal immigrants here for more than five years and letting all family members of British residents come to the UK with no restrictions).
As for 'Grant British citizenship only to children born here', NY 513-514 say:
"This legislation will ensure that British nationality is automatically received by:
a)All children born in the UK.
b)All children born overseas of British nationals normally resident in the UK.
c)All children of British nationals with no other nationality at birth.
NY514 British nationality will also be automatically available prior to their 18th birthday to all children of British nationals born overseas but now normally resident in the UK. Evidence of such residence would be required."
I didn't check further, since you are already 0 for 3 in your critique of Green Party policy, but I imagine the rest is much the same. Reading through their policies, there are any number of wildly unrealistic, reactionary and poorly thought through policies - why not try them rather than doing a lying-with-footnotes smear that they are like fascists?
I recall a similar side-by-side analysis comparing HRH Prince Charles Environmental views with those of the Nazis (the real kraut ones in the '30s).
I read a Green Manifesto in '95 and it was so full of terrible ideas it was compelling. Since then I have appreciated enormously quite what a risk to the world these deeply evil people are. Islam is merely grit in the vaseline. Greens are truly dangerous because everyone thinks them "nice".
They are terrifyingly dangerous for the reasons Ron points out. This is the real fight. Forget the commies and the muzzies.
You may have noticed reports that offshore windfarms screw-up UK air defence radar. Ask a Green true-believer what they think about that. They're pacifists. I bet they love it. Well, sort of pacifists, they'll sling ya in chokey for all manner of eco-crimes.
Mr Johnston. That's a brilliant article. It's one I would have loved to have written but I just can't. I get angry and sweary and start effing and blinding because to me these people are just a total anathema to my beliefs. even the commies thought they were building greater material wealth. No, I've had enough, I just can't stick them. I really, seriously, can't stick them.
They are going to make the lights go out all over Europe. Now, who were the last buggers to achieve that?
Greens are evil. Simple as. On the basis of complete irrationality they want to take us to a pre-industrial state. Oh, there's some opportunists (Gore) and some useful idiots (Dave "Windy Miller" Cameron) and whatnot but hell, I've had gutful of this shite.
"The interests of both prospective migrants and the recipient area or community must be recognised and, hence, the appropriate resolution of a particular situation (unless covered above) must depend on negotiation between the parties affected."It is wilfully misleading to suggest these policies give the right to rural communities to refuse outsiders.
How do you figure that? All the 'affected party' (say the next door neighbour of someone who want to sell their house to a 'townie' or 'darkie') has to do is say 'no' in the 'negotiations' and so much for the right of two people to trade property.
why not try them rather than doing a lying-with-footnotes smear that they are like fascists?
Because Greens are like fascists in some ways (but frankly I am less concerned about where in the taxonomy of collectivist control freakishness they are best categorised). They allow a fiction of private property but only so long as you use it in a manner approved by political directives.
Greens despise social interaction (i.e. markets) with all those emergent consequences because people make 'wrong' decisions and Greens are obsessed with rules based political interaction controlling everything. You are free to conduct whatever behaviour is vetted by political processes (this is called making things "more democratic" because everyone gets a violence backed say via the mediated political system in what people are allowed to do). It is all about control.
Whatever colour they want to be. Such is the nature of libertarians.
I should have seen that coming.
Ah well, now to dream of technicolour libertarians...
Perhaps we could make up for it by funding a better transport infastructure in Africa itself so that there is a larger market for their homegrown produce?
Perhaps we could buy whatever they're selling that we want, at a mutually-agreeable price, and the sellers can build whatever they want with the money received, and we'll all invite greens and other fascists to go and piss up a rope and wrap it around their necks if they have a problem with it.
By the way, since we have some apparent greens in this thread...
I've got about six inches (and counting) of fresh global warming on my front lawn and driveway. Would one of you fascist bastards mind shoveling it so that my dog can figure out where to squat and the FedEx driver can make it to my front door to deliver imported air-freight stuff without going ass over teakettle on the ice?
Thanx.
So the Greens are against unsustainable immigration into Britain?
They'll get my vote if that's the case.
Mola mola,
You are so wrong. You are a policeman and therefore a fascist imposing the patriachal social order. You import goods? Well, that makes you evil, clearly. You know every time you buy something from outside of Colorado the Goddess has to personally strangle a lovely little bunny rabbit don't you? She doesn't want to but you make her do it. You do you know.
You are utterly complicit in the rape of Gaia so that you can have a house and a car and a PC (and no, your use of Linux, doesn't get you off on that one). You must only use public transport and that only when absolutely necessary like when you have to have your aura read. You must only consume locally sourced produce within season. Yes, that Floridian OJ you had with breakfast is taking Gaia up the Gary. I don't care if you bought it by the sweat of your brow enforcing the fascistic tyranny of capitalism on the Flower Children and frankly I don't care if Floridian Orange growers all go bust (because they're killing the planet too). You must only consume fresh, local, organic, regional produce. Going hungry because of that? Well you should have thought about that before you bought a car because you, yes YOU, driving that unsustainable vehicle is what has caused the climate chaos that means there is nothing to harvest in Colorado in February. At the least you should have adapted to the filth-nest you've created for all life-forms and planted a popsicle tree in October.
If you lived in the correct manner, like the First Peoples, in a teepee then Gaia would be kind and the trees of the great eco-state of Colorada (we can't be having that paternalistic "o" ending because it is an afront to the Goddess) would be heaving with fruits and nuts right now.
As it is there is only organic, Fairtrade granola, and it's supporters who are, of course, all fruits, nuts and flakes which is fitting.
/insanity
Hell, I went to school with an eco-nut. She didn't wash her clothes or herself. She might have improved the water quality of the river Tyne very, very slightly but she did nothing for her fellow pupils quality of environment. The Dame Judi was unbelievably. Helping tench at the cost of stench!
Jacob,
Define "unsustainable". The Greens define a sustainable business, for example, rather differently than I do. I regard a business that clicks along without subsidy as "sustainable". They disagree and drag out some effing voodoo eco-babble. In what way is wind-power sustainable when it costs at least twice what nuclear does. At least twice. Why do they hate nuclear? Well, why? Is it 'cos they associate it all with Hiroshima and therefore the Great Satan, USA? Is it because none of them have the slightest bloody idea how it works? Well what is it?
As regular readers know I have a background in physics. Greens always diss that. Ignorance=Strength.
"Migration policies should not discriminate directly on grounds of race, colour, religion, political belief, disability, sex or sexual orientation."
I love that "directly".
As regular readers know I have a background in physics. Greens always diss that.
Define 'background in physics'. Is it A level? That lets me in. As it happens one of the strongest anti-nuclear campaigners I have met had a degree in nuclear engineering.
Mr donpaskini is reading the vague generalisations contained in the Green Party Manifesto "peace, love, harmony, equality, free energy" etc etc and ignoring the ACTUAL firm policies.
The BNP also says it is not racist and wants "peace, love & understanding."
Green Party MG207 says explicitly that local communities have the right to reject incomers on grounds of public safety. MG204 forbids migration that would adversely affect indigenous communities.
On nationality:
NY515 British nationality will not be automatically available to children of British nationals settled elsewhere, unless the country of birth did not provide them with a nationality or they move to the UK to reside before their 18th birthday.
i.e. No automatic citizenship for children of British nationals born overseas.
Get your facts right donpaskini!!
BSc (Physics), MSc (Astrophysics), PhD (Astrophysics) (abandoned)
Yeah, I got an A-level too.
Oh, Ian, here was clearly a twat.
The UK Green Party is much like the SNP in the 1950s - a host of disparate people with really only one thing in common, compounded in the case of the Greens by a profound inability to agree on what that is. There are probably as many flavours of green thinking as there are of libertarian. Some green thinkers would fit quite happily into a libertarian society.
The article though hides some dubious fast footwork. From previous discussion threads it appears that most people here accept the concept of Home Owner Associations, that can set local rules and regulations. The general position also seems to be against anti-discriminatory legislation.
Putting these together would create the sort of situation where a local community could do exactly what is being decried by the author of the post and most commenters - preventing someone moving in because they don't 'fit'.
Assuming you mean the twat was my colleague, your bald statement Greens always diss that. doesn't stand up.
If it is directed at me, then your academic training hasn't stood you well in the conduct of an argument
You'd expect their policies to be broadly similar.
BNP = National Socialist.
Greens = International Socialist.
I don't want anything to do with either flavour.
Tanuki, I'm afraid you're not keeping up with the times (and apparently didn't read the post). The greens in some places are international socialists. Since they became isolationist and protectionist, they can only be described as being on the national, or in-one-state side today. Very few Trotskyites (Trotskyites trend right these days).
There is, to be fair to my brother and sister in law (in a month), a couple of marked differences between the two. Firstly, the BNP have the shockingly nutso belief that they should get rid of the inland revenue and replace it with massive tarrifs, giving the revenue accountants guns and making them man the border. Sometimes it sounds as if this is intended in part to punish the revenue employees.
Secondly, the BNP believe in having a lot of well paid guys in the military, with lots of neat stuff. Green's defense policy revolves instead around town twinning and pen pal schemes. Seriously. Please, look it up. Funniest shit ever.
While there is much in their platform that would endear them to any thoughtful Nazi, the greens platform on violence is a serious problem for those trying to label them blackshirts. I don't know Hitler's policy views regarding town twinning (although I suspect he was in favour, since he liked a lot of that sort of municipal ceremony and symbolism), but I do feel confident that he would not have considered for a moment allowing it to replace even a portion of his military as a tool of foreign policy.
ian, wtf?
Anybody who is totally against nuclear technology and has studied the subject is quite obviously a twat.
While there is much in their platform that would endear them to any thoughtful Nazi, the greens platform on violence is a serious problem for those trying to label them blackshirts.
Then I think you are mistaking the wig for the lawyer. The hallmark of any totalitarianism is not what it does (stomp on this group rather than that group, sing the Internationale or the Horst Wessel Lied) but how total its control is. Both see pervasive control of several action as the norm and whilst both would allow nominal ownership of the means of production (which makes them economically more fascist that Marxist), everything 'private' is subject to political control. And if you think a 'Green' Britain would be 'softer' than a BNP Britain, I would suspect non-compliance would be treated in exactly the same way by both. A BNP Britain might be more threatening to Britain's neighbours but I doubt there would be a whole lot of difference for people within the Sceptic Isles themselves.
Execellent article. I would like to add 1) There are Greens in Germany that own up to their Nazi-roots, e.g. one of the leading Green thinkers, Carl Amery, claims in his 1992 book 'Hitler as Predecessor', published in German only, that the Nazi leader was the first true environmentalist. 2) the foundation of the German Green Party was laid by former Nazis (Gruhl et al.) which were only later excluded. I joined the Green party in the 1980s only to fight the Nazis in the party.
Fred Hansen, Melbourne Australia
Nick M:
Greens are truly dangerous because everyone thinks them "nice".
Precisely so. I am actually horrified at the reactions I get whenever I try to argue against any part of the modern environmentalist creed in any company except libertarian sites like this one and a few exceptionally open-minded and non-judgmental personal friends. What horrifies me the most is the fact that as soon as people detect a negative attitude towards some environmentalist fad or popular misconception, they immediately get an extremely negative moral view of you.
More and more environmentalist beliefs are becoming a part of those modern dogmas that, regardless of whether true or not, are simply not supposed to be questioned in polite society, and if someone does question them, one is morally required to react with contempt and indignation and engage in character assassination rather than addressing the stated argument. On top of it all, there is the omnipresent conviction in the general population that environmentalist beliefs are a product of pure and unadulterated science, so that regardless of how much zealotry and close-mindedness one displays in defending and promoting them, one can never be accused of irrationalism.
Oh Ivan, I know!
Any criticism or indeed even questioning of Green Dogma means a great many people think you personally drown cute little Polar Bear cubs.
You are so wrong. You are a policeman and therefore a fascist imposing the patriachal social order.
I thought I was a socialist tool forcing pc-ness on people. Or is that during odd months?
You know every time you buy something from outside of Colorado the Goddess has to personally strangle a lovely little bunny rabbit don't you? She doesn't want to but you make her do it. You do you know.
That would be the first time I've ever successfully made a woman do anything. How do I make the Goddess bring me the bunny when she's done with it? It's been a long night and I'm hungry.
If you lived in the correct manner, like the First Peoples, in a teepee then Gaia would be kind and the trees of the great eco-state of Colorada (we can't be having that paternalistic "o" ending because it is an afront to the Goddess) would be heaving with fruits and nuts right now.
They already are. It's tourist season.
Any criticism or indeed even questioning of Green Dogma means a great many people think you personally drown cute little Polar Bear cubs.
I should try that sometime. Especially since I've got this white wine and sour cream sauce recipe to try and the Goddess Gaia hasn't brought me that fluffy little bunny that she choked.
The Greens don't think the "working classes" should be able to afford to travel abroad as they should be staying in the UK to support their brothers in the various dumps along the UK coast that claim to be "holiday destinations."
Is this where I remind people that the NAZIs had deep links to the "back to nature" movement of the late 19th century/early 20th century Germany?
This articles is definitely in the running for hatchet job of the year.
If you want some facts in some sort of sensible context, you might like to know that the same Green Party today passed two important motions at its spring conference:
1. Opposing the making of asylum-seekers destitute, as the government is now doing to somewhere between 200,000-500,000 in the UK.
2. Opposing any attempt to send failed asylum-seeking children back to their original states before the age of 18.
Both motions were produced after extensive consultation with groups representing refugees and asylum-seekers - including that discussion that you talked about as "led by a white woman" - who happens to be our London mayoral candidate, indicating that the issue was regarded as an important one.
Perhaps you have missed the main point of the article, Natalie. It is that the consequences of Green policies are the same as the BNP, not that they overtly want the same things as the BNP.
However my opinion is that the Green world view is just as dystopian as the BNP one.
So, by your reckoning, Anita Roddick was a bit of a Nazi then...
Sorry, not buying it.
So, by your reckoning, Anita Roddick was a bit of a Nazi then...
No, but pretty much as bad when you decode the language. It really doesn't matter what colour the armbands are, both the Greens and BNP want a far more politically controlled Britain. You look in the mirror and see a good guy fighting for the planet. I look at a Green and I see a force addicted control freak pathologically incapable of leaving other people alone to live their lives. Every political Green is like that because the entire world view is based on pervasive collectivist coercion.
Sorry, not buying it.
But you're not our target market. We are 'outing you', not trying to sell you anything.
Nice that Natalie Bennett was paying so much attention at the Green Party Conference.
The discussion group on "Issues faced women from ethnic minority communities" was NOT chaired by the Green Party candidate for Mayor of London. It was chaired by ... Natalie Bennett.
Also, the Green Party's proposal to be nice to asylum-seekers will be pretty damn meaningless when all that "unnecessary" air and lorry travel come to an end!
It's interesting that the modern political green movement started in Germany with much of the same language used by national socialism. See 'Ecology' and the Modernization of Fascism in the German Ultra-right by Janet Biehl at
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/janet.html
Mike H.
(Sorry about the terribly vulgar URL !)
2. Opposing any attempt to send failed asylum-seeking children back to their original states before the age of 18.
It seems to me Natalie that this motion could be compared to that most humanitarian of gestures practiced on convicts sentenced to the death penalty. If you are sick don't worry the state will nurse you back to health and then execute you. After all it would it would be most inhumane to execute a sick or dieing person.
Just a quick rebuttal. It's environmentally better, from GP policy, to buy from a black farmer in say Morrocco than to buy from a white farmer in, say, Australia.
However you may be hard pressed to find all that many black farmers in Morocco, Jeff.
Quelle surprise, Rob also writes for Spiked, the right-wing libertarian successor to those crazies in Living Marxism. No wonder he's writing such swivel-eyed paranoid nonsense about the Green Party.
The Green Party has nothing in common with the BNP, we despise fascism. This is just a lazy smear. Speculating that the Greens have a "canteen culture" akin to that in the Police is breathtakingly ill-informed. Have you ever actually met a Green Party member?
The comments saying that we're evil and dangerous made me smirk. Next you'll be saying that Caroline Lucas is the Anti-Christ. You lot all need to grow up.