Searching for Tao

Comments

Annie Kim

2009-05-05 20:17:06 UTC

Interesting article. Just out of curiousity, has the Green Party ever considered changing their name? I feel as though my perception of the Green Party is severely outdated and much has probably changed in their political platform over the last 10 years. But when I hear "Green Party" my mind automatically goes to Hippie, pot smoking, left wing, and environmentalists. Certainly not "Moderate" but maybe they have become more moderate over the years. Had you not run I probably would have continued to disregard them based on my past perceptions associated with the name.

Daniel

2009-05-05 21:38:57 UTC

You might be surprised to hear how often that comes up, so we have a prepared response :-)

"Green" is more than just a party name, it's become a brand, and one with international affiliation. Green parties around the world, share more than a common name, but collectively we share a the common goals of democratic involvement and conforming everything we do to a process more in line with nature. That means that we use "free" market and/or socialist methodologies wherever appropriate.

If we were to change our name, you're right, we'd more easily shake off the idea that we're a one-issue party, but we'd lose the whole purpose of being what we are: a party that tries to do the Right thing, not the ideologically left or right one.

There's probably an offical line on this kind of thing, but this is what I've got :-)

Lara

2009-05-06 17:04:56 UTC

Does the BC Green party differ much politically from the federal Green party? Are they officially connected to each other like the NDP are provincially and federally?

My understanding of the Green party (federally at least) is that it is not a left-wing party in the slightest, at least in the fiscal sense (but that they are progressive on social issues such as gay marriage, etc.) Economically they actually strike me as much more right-leaning.

Daniel

2009-05-06 20:00:26 UTC

I think that for legal reasons, all provincial parties can't be officially connected to the federal ones -- but to be honest, I'm not a lawyer so I don't really know. I can tell you that the Greens in BC follow the same ideological path as Greens around the world, especially the federal party and we also party together :-)

As for the "Greens are not a left-wing party in the sightest" bit, that's exactly what I instructed to tell people when I was an NDP canvasser but it's not true at all. Like I said above, we use socialist principles when they're most effective and capitalist ones for the same reason. Our "core values" however share a lot of points with the NDP both socially and ecomically. We agree that health care should be free to everyone, but that we should see health as something that happens before you get sick. We see education as an investment and understand that for every $1 that goes into the system, $7 will come back out. We see homelessness and gang violence as a result of drug prohibition, and want to decriminalise addition while offering services to get people off the drugs and into healthy lives.

We're pretty socialist -- but with a line of thinking that doing the Right thing by people is better for everyone economically.

Lara

2009-05-08 16:27:35 UTC

I find your capitalization of "Right" a bit creepy for some reason.

Daniel

2009-05-08 19:27:29 UTC

Heh. Yeah that bugs a few people. Cat tells me that it's Victorian apparently.

Lara

2009-05-09 00:56:52 UTC

I think it's because it reminds me of the capitalization of "God" by religious people. Not so much the word "God" itself but when they capitalize "Him" and "His", etc.

I'm not entirely sure why it brings that to mind.