Raus aus Afghanistan

The Green Party of England & Wales calls for immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan. Its German sister party has a different position, about 180 degrees away.

Indeed, on this issue, we are closer to the Left Party of Germany. Let’s see what happens in their General Election on September 27.
The former German Green leader, Joshcka Fischer, is now a consultant for the US led Gas pipeline, NABUCCO, which could take up gas from Northern Iraq.
There are many shades of Green, it seems.

I think it would be wrong to be tribal and excuse fundamental ideological differences. If we did, what would be so different about us?
Afghanistan has become very controversial in Germany since a Bundeswehr colonel ordered a bombing mission, leading to a 100 casualties.

Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times of London had this to say about the Left and Greens over the differing positions over Afghanistan.

“… Die Linke.. the Left have certainly won the poster battle on the streets of Berlin. There are red “Linke” posters everywhere – the most striking of which demands “Raus aus Afghanistan” – a call for immediate German withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In theory, this should be a vote winner. The polls suggest that some 60% of Germans agree with the left’s call to get out of Afghanistan. The main parties are beginning to respond to this mood. Walter Steinmeier, the foreign secretary and the leader of the SPD, has talked of “laying the foundations for a withdrawal” – but has stopped short of setting a date certain.

Interestingly….. the polls also suggest that Green voters are the only party where a majority are in favour of the Afghan mission.
What a reversal, that is – for a party that has its roots in the anti-capitalist, anti-American left…………… the stance may not do the party much good in the elections. The latest polls suggest that they are down in fifth – below the anti-war, anti-capitalist Left.”

September 18, 2009 9:09am in Germany

Greens say scrap VAT for small businesses

The South East’s Euro-MP Caroline Lucas has told small businesses only the Greens have the policies to help them through the current recession.

Unveiling the party’s package of measures to help small business ahead of next month’s European and County Council elections, Dr Lucas pledged to scrap VAT and merge National Insurance and Income Tax to reduce bureaucracy.

She said small businesses faced increasing pressure from anti-competitive practises, late payments and complex regulation.

“Yet it is not small businesses that cause the most pollution, waste the most resources and exploit their workers.

“They serve largely local markets and strengthen local economies and communities. They provide many jobs, are centres of creativity and innovation, and lead in the emerging green economy, providing organic food and services like insulation or community transport.

“Many are cooperatives or community enterprises. Small business goes with the grain of the green ethos – building a local and increasingly self-reliant economy means building up small business.

“The Green Party would introduce a framework of policy to give preferential support to local and smaller businesses and counteract the excessive power of global corporations. Most significantly we would reform the tax system by replacing the Unified Business Rate with a land tax paid to local rather than central government, and by banding corporation tax so that small businesses pay lower rates than larger businesses.”

Dr Lucas unveiled a number of specific policies to help small businesses flourish under the current recession.

She said the Greens would:

* Reduce bureaucracy by scrapping VAT

* Simplify PAYE by merging National Insurance with Income Tax

* Support local community banks tasked with supporting small local enterprises

* Introduce legislation to outlaw late payment

G20 protests: police behaviour “disproportionate and provocative”

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2009-04-02-g20.html

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MEP has described the tactics used by the Metropolitan Police at yesterday’s G20 protests as “disproportionate and provocative.”

Throughout today, reports had been coming in from Greens who had been involved in the protest.

One party member involved said she had “returned shaken and appalled at the policing tactics employed at the G20 protests.”

Like many others, she described the way lines of police officers had kept groups of peaceful demonstrators “penned-in” for hours without access to water or toilets. She said:

“It is only thanks to my NUJ press pass that I managed to (eventually) escape the terrifying crush imposed by aggressive police. By that point I had spent at least two hours rammed in with other peaceful rotesters, bursting for the loo and battling against a resurgence of a phobia of being trapped in tight crowds.”

Another Green Party member involved in the demonstration said: “In thirty-one years of active participation in peaceful street demonstrations I have NEVER before been close to the threat of being trapped by police.”

Darren Johnson AM commented today: “A number of activists have already fed-in similar experiences and I agree that this is completely inappropriate policing tactics. While they need to act swiftly to tackle any violence it is wrong and totally counter-productive to treat the vast majority of wholly peaceful protestors in this way.”

This morning Jenny Jones AM, who had acted as an official observer with the police but who was denied the opportunity to go and observe where she wanted to, was promised a full opportunity to question the Metropolitan Police about their tactics.

Meanwhile Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MEP was receiving reports from people who had been at the Climate Camp, including the following allegations against the police:

* That no warning was given to the camp that they were about to be contained – so, for example, families with babies and children were not given the opportunity to leave.
* That when the police attacked the camp to take away the sound system and move people on, no warning was given and nobody was given the opportunity to leave of their own accord.
* That when the police entered the camp a second time, people were sitting down with their hands in the air being very passive – but the police dragged, kicked, punched and hit people with shields to move them away from the area and disperse them.

At around 2 o’clock this afternoon (Thursday) an armed police unit reportedly raided a convergence centre on Earl’s Street. The officers, who did not have a search warrant, claimed they were acting under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Caroline Lucas commented: “There seems to be a good deal of evidence that the police used tactics that were inappropriate.

“The law on preventing a breach of the peace should not be used as an excuse to deny people a right to demonstrate in a peaceful and law-abiding manner. And it definitely shouldn’t be used as an excuse for mass detention of demonstrators who, in many cases, just wanted to go home.”

She concluded: “I think the police should provide evidence of the basis on which they are apparently using anti-terrorism legislation to act against peaceful legitimate protesters.”

Leading the way to oblivion

 On Saturday, I joined several thousand people on the climate change march from outside the US embassy to parliament square.

It was a good humoured affair in spite of the seriousness of the issue, timed to coincide with re talks in Potsdam. The media found other things to focus on that day – football, Greek riots and Xmas shopping statistics.
What they missed was a curious political phenomenon.

Two leaders were present at re rally. One came across well, projecting her voice.
She was on familiar territory – this was after all a core party issue. Caroline Lucas, the green party’s recently elected leader, had relaunched the party with the Green New Deal. This mini manifesto was a populist document, more palatable to the media, is still the best roadmap out there – though it is not clear how it sits with the real party manifesto.
Easy to understand, it is meant to allow GP activists to engage with re public on serous issues.
and show the Party has a plan for jobs and the wider economy.

It can be criticized for trying to save existing capitalism and its backdrop of Roosevelt and Churchill quotes from an imperial era. Pre-Lehman Brothers it seemed very radical early September. Now as even Cameron acknowledges, the world has changed.
Whatever its merits, the eager beavers expecting a media blitz with a New Green party will be chastened by the damp squib of a campaign since September.
It seems the media feel the environment can be discarded as we worry about the Great Recession 1.
The Greens face an uphill task to be heard in 2009. No change there, then.

The real story on Saturday was about the other leader.
Nick Clegg had sent out a clarion call to LIb Dem activists to turn out in large numbers
After a week of build up in the Independent, this was to be his bid for leadership of the green movement – at least the so-called Middle England voters. In a way, one could say he was suggesting there was no need to vote Green, when the Lib-Dems (a more ‘serious’ party!) was available. Reminiscent of the Ken vs anonymous Green Party mayoral candidate charade earlier this year.

What a fiasco for Clegg.

In a sea of green, there was hardly a yellow banner or badge to be seen.
The Lib Dems snubbed Clegg and the grassroots probably now realize they have elected the wrong leader. He has moved the party to the right in one of the worst political blunders this decade. His timing was atrocious.
In reality, the cult of the leader might have been appropriate for the anodyne politics in the era of the credit boom. Politics was bunched up in the Right, though we called it the centre-ground. The only differentiation was presentation and ‘personality’.
The electorate is now polarizing – to Left and Right. Times are tough.
The last thing they want is another Blairite chief executive, focusing on marginal seats and searching for the holy grail of the Centre.
The world has indeed changed.
Will the courtiers to all leaders understand that fact quickly enough?

Farid Bakht