Hey Dippers, Lay Off the Greenies

Whooee! Well friends an' foes, I'm sure I ain't the only booger who's noticed how the Dippers is gettin' desperate an' they're tossin' whatever mud they can find at the ones who they're worried about most -- Lizzie May an' her band o' treehuggin' Greenies. I ain't a hunnert percent sure that it's the Greens who's takin' votes away from the Dips. From what I seen in the 'pinion pools, the Greens is takin' from the Grits. The Dips ain't movin' backwards as fast as the Grits but the Greens is sure as hell surgin' ahead an' that's got Jack's team in attack mode.

One o' the worst things the Dips throw at the Greens is that the GPC is "fiscally conservative". Uh huh. Well, most Canajuns is also fiscally conservative. The Martinette Grit fiscal policies is at least as fiscally conservative as the Conservatives an' over 60% of Canajuns vote fer the Grits an' Cons an' when they do, they're votin' fer fis-cons. Sayin' that Greens is fis-cons is only pointin' out that GPC fiscal policy is in line with mainstream Canajun thinkin'.

To add weight to the intended insult, Dippers is always pointin' out that former GPC leader Jim Harris was, at one time, a Progressive Conservative. True enough. There are a lot of former PC's who went one way or another when Harpoon knocked the P outta PC. Harris didn't wait that long. He left the PC's an' went Green way back in 1985 when he was only 24 years old. Even if it was a giant black mark on his record to have been a Progressive Conservative as a younger man, he's been Green fer the past 22 years.

I seen one boog commenter tryin' t' say Harris was "pres" of the PC's.

If, as that booger sed, he was “pres” of the PC’s, he would have been the youngest pres of any political party I know of. His election to such a high office would have been big news. His subsequent defection would have been bigger news. I can't remember any bigass news like that from back in 85 an' I can find no evidence to backup the claim that he was “pres” of the PC’s.

Another way the Dips are tryin' t' discredit the Greens is by pointin' out that Lizzie May worked for Mulroney. That’s true enough. She did work as a lawyer advising Mulroney’s Environment Minister. It was her first job out of law school. She resigned in protest 20 years ago over Lyin' Brian Mulroney's government’s actions wrt a dam project.

Dippers ain't happy that Lizzie May sez unions need t' take some blame fer Canada's pisspoor showin' on climate change. Too bad. It's true, sez I.

I realize it’s a sacrilege fer Dippers to criticize organized labour so they can't ever admit that unions are at least partly to blame for lack of action on climate change. The enormous power of the CAW in Ontario has kept it’s workers on the assembly lines turning out Lincoln Navigators and spewing pollution into the air. NDP provincial regimes in Sasky and BC are on record with some of the worst environmental actions in recent years and the reason they took those anti-environmental actions was to pander to their union worker base.

Powerful sectors of society bear responsibility for the environmental mess we find ourselves in. Bizness, industry, government and organized labour. The unions have worked hard for their members. That’s their job. They have done so often at the expense of good green management. The environment is not the unions’ prime concern and it has always taken a backseat to job, jobs, jobs.

Individuals also are to blame and nobody needs to look very far to find an individual who refuses to take personal responsibility. Same with unions. Same with politicians. Same with the bankers an’ big biz boys. Same with loyal party flagbearers.

The sooner the NDP stands up to the unions and puts the welfare and health of all Canajuns over the financial security of Nanticoke’s IBEW and Oshawa’s CAW, the sooner they’ll start gettin’ the support of voters again. To a lot of environmentally concerned Canajuns, the Dips look like a 20th century phenomenon gaspin’ fer breath in a polluted 21st century atmosphere.

I ain't any fan o' WalMarket. I figger WalMarket's procurement policies are drivin' Chinese industrial growth an' are a major contributor t' GHG emissions. I've written boog stories supportin' WalMarket workers' right t' organize. I never shop in WalMarket an' I probbly never will.

But...

WalMarket's the biggest bigass retailer in the whole world. They got enormous power. When they do somthin' good fer ol' Mother Earth, it counts. WalMarket's replacin' every incandescent light bulb in their stores an' warehouses with CFB's. They're mountin' a major ad campaign an' they're phasin' out sales of old incandescant bulbs. This green action'll have a bigass effect on GHG emissions. Big bizness can be an ally but the Dips can only see as far as their union-made blinders'll let 'em an' they will never accept capitalism as a force that can be put to good use.

If the CAW ever goes on strike until the Big Three car makers replace all their incandescant lightbulbs, I'll eat a bug on YouTube.

Bizness, big an' small, is what creates jobs an' gets pay cheques out there so's Canajun workin' folks can enjoy the best standard o' livin' most anywhere. Greens are realty-based an' realize we can't save the planet without the support an' co-operation o' bizness. We need bizness an' we can't keep lookin' at bizness like it's the enemy.

Market mechanisms like emissions an' carbon tradin' are essential tools in GHG reduction. Biznesses an' unions need t' work together on solutions to industrial pollution. The NDP needs t' quit with it's out-dated, blinkered views if it don't wanna keep goin' downhill in the 'pinion polls an' at the ballot box. The NDP looks more like yesterday's party than the forward thinkers they looked like in the 60's.

JimBobby