Archive for the ‘About’ Category

I’d also like to take this opporunity…

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

… to draw attention to my opinions on my ‘About Me‘ page.

My primary concern is that the world becomes a more Just, Equitable and Sustainable place. The best way to do this, I feel, is through the political process, and in particular through the work of Green parties.

My concern in politics is that we achieve what we set out to do, whether that be short term goals like contesting elections, mid term goals like drawing up election strategy, or long-term goals like drawing up and implementing policy. We should try not to get bogged down in internal disputes and take level-headed, fair and non-partisan approaches to any problems we meet. Also, we should avoid pissing people off (unneccesarily).

Diplomacy to me, is acting to solve disputes, with restraint, and without flying off the handle. Often times, the political disputes I’ve seen have tended to be on arcane internal matters (because the policy matters are less contentious when we generally share a common philosophical basis). A lot of energy, therefore, often goes into disputes, instead of into more constructive pursuits like, say, winning elections. Hence, I aspire to be Green and Diplomatic (with the ‘(a)’ signifying that I don’t want to be the only one, and the ‘?’ signifying, that it’s really up to other people to make that judgement).

Je suis retourné

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

As referred to in my post on my less political blog, here, I’m going to try to put the political part of my brain to blog-work once a week.

I will try very hard not to talk about expenses or the credit crunch as they are bloody boring. I may stick to internal politics and the BNP (nice and salacious) and my more recent interest in combating institutionalised anti-semitism (from my longtime-ex-Christian atheist perspective, if that matters) but, yeah, we’ll see how that goes. Anyway I am trying to make a once-a-week commitment, and Thursdays seem as good a day as any (no plagiarism intended, Mr Thursday Briefing).

In the mean time (well, until September anyway), I will be writing my Masters’ dissertation on Civic and Ethnic Nationalism in the National Library of Scotland (with no free WiFi to distract me).

Also, since I think it’s good to put up posts with pictures, here’s one to start:

From the National Museum of Scotland‘s room on emigration from Scotland:

We've Got Jobs in Canada, We Don't Want The Dole

Ballot papers and (a bit on) my Green identity (and love of parentheses)

Monday, August 11th, 2008

The ballot papers for the Green Party leadership and executive are not yet on my door mat, however this is as good a time as any to nail my (Green) colours to the mast.

I’m coming from this as a Green Socialist who isn’t happy with the sort of factionalism that erupts when people put their egos ahead of the ends they seek to achieve. So I try to be diplomatic, considered, and intellectually honest (but I may as well start with a post that could be taken as undiplomatic, though it is considered and honest).

The primary criteria I’ve been using when looking at candidates is not just how much I agree or disagree with their opinions and approaches, but how they would contribute to a vision of the Green Party I would like to see. Who knows, I may make some terrible mistakes with this ballot paper, but at least I can be reassured that if the terrible mistakes I vote for happen, that the same mistake was voted for by a majority of my (mostly) enlightened Party, or if I vote for a mistake that doesn’t happen, then at least we’ll all be safe… (thank you, democracy)

In some cases, I would vote for the person I have the most (and most pleasant) experience of. While this isn’t entirely fair to the other candidates, it is, at least, reliable. And hopefully the same challengers will run again next year, and outline how they would have done things differently.

The details for who has been nominated for these roles are here: Leadership and Executive elections

Now, barring any scandals or upsets at hustings, here are my voting intentions for both contested posts and those where I know exactly the way I’ll vote whoever stands:

Leader: Caroline Lucas MEP (2nd preference: Reopen Nominations)

Deputy Leader: Cllr Adrian Ramsay

Other executive posts:

Chair: Jim Killock

Finance Co-ordinator: Khalid Hussenbux / Joe Hulm (job-share)

Internal Communications Co-ordinator: Natalie Bennett (who has been idiotically, despite reasonable attempts at constitutional amendments, denied a vote at GPEx for the past two years)

Equality and Diversity Co-ordinator: Shahrar Ali