I quit

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

^Do you have any greens in Australia?

Yes. 1 seat out of 150 or so in the lower house. 9/76 in the upper house.

I vote for them every election, we have preferential voting so it's not a wasted vote.

[Phoenix]

We have a green party as well. Still small but seem to be gaining in numbers each year. I don't see them ever becoming a majority party here but they offer good balance to opposing parties.

[Walkie]

^Do you have any greens in Australia?

Reading this out-of-context in "recent posts"", I half-expected a response like "Nah, mate, we only eat mealy grubs here" 

ofc, we have them in britain too, where folk are increasingly concerned about envirpnmental issues.  Interesting development. I rather doubt that Politics is gonna save the Earth, but maybe the Earth can resue politics? I mean , it should be flaming obvious that Capitalism and Environment are two diametrically opposed forces and that the world is no longer big enough for both. Both the Greens and and the Left (what's left of it) are excruciatingly slow catching on, but the Greens have certainly edged somewhat left of the mainstream, and the Left is taking on more and more Green issues.  A very wishy-washy response to, probably,  the biggest crisis the human race has ever faced, but  i find  a teeny bit of hope in it.

ooh! We might be goong  to hell in a green handcart. That would make a change.

[odeon]

We've got a bunch of them here and they're all mental. Out of their tiny little minds.

[renaeden]

I vote for the Greens here too.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

We've got a bunch of them here and they're all mental. Out of their tiny little minds.

It's not that the green agenda is mental, it just seems like (sometimes) people with nutty agendas that lack any sort of relevance to most of us will gravitate towards the greens in search of a platform.

The same thing happened with the Nuclear Disarmament Party in Australia. It was started by the lead singer of a rock band back in the 80s, but as soon as they started getting a few votes and a bit of publicity.... every weird corner of the political spectrum gravitated towards them. The founder of the party actually ended up quitting his own party as they were ignoring the agenda that it was created for.

[odeon]

We've got a bunch of them here and they're all mental. Out of their tiny little minds.

It's not that the green agenda is mental, it just seems like (sometimes) people with nutty agendas that lack any sort of relevance to most of us will gravitate towards the greens in search of a platform.

The same thing happened with the Nuclear Disarmament Party in Australia. It was started by the lead singer of a rock band back in the 80s, but as soon as they started getting a few votes and a bit of publicity.... every weird corner of the political spectrum gravitated towards them. The founder of the party actually ended up quitting his own party as they were ignoring the agenda that it was created for.

Our greens are rarely in contact with reality, which is why they're a tiny minority, attracting only like-minded nutters.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

I was only looking for a decent,  authoritative , definiton of neoliberalism 

I saw a good definition just now:

Neoliberalism is a project to restore power to the upper echelons of society.

If you think about all the elements of neoliberalism, that is really what it is all about. Taking assets and services out of public hands and into the hands of private capital. Dismantle the ability of labour to organize and collectively bargain. Yada yada yada. Propaganda, oppression dressed up as freedom and individual rights, creating rifts in society so that we are too busy fighting each other to recognize the common enemy.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

This is Monbiot, absolutely brilliantly explained and described as always.

[odeon]

Neoliberalism is a project to restore power to the upper echelons of society.

Restore? They lost it at some point?

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Neoliberalism is a project to restore power to the upper echelons of society.

Restore? They lost it at some point?

They never fully lost it, of course.

But for a while there the wealthy were actually paying taxes, paying people a living wage, providing benefits, negotiating with the labour movement (unions) for mutual benefit, providing jobs in the countries in which they did business and not indulging in a "race to the bottom" that involved sending manufacturing and service jobs offshore wherever feasible, stuff like that.

Neoliberalism has been the process of rolling all of that back.





I wonder how Al would feel about his "goodbye and fuck you guys thread" being turned into a soapbox for progressives?

[odeon]

The trickle down idea always felt weird to me.

[FourAceDeal]

Why do you still allow racists and mysoginists to post their bile on this board?  They're only here to cause trouble.  They don't add any value to this place.

I was hoping things had changed.

[Pyraxis]

So much of the internet is filtered into special interest echo chambers already, why go out of the way to make another one?

[FourAceDeal]

Racism and sexism aren't point of views.  They're attacks.  Someone has convinced you that this hate speech is free speech.  It's not.  Words and actions have consequences when you're an adult.