Greenwash Political Action Party and Urban Grassroots Movement for the Green Party

Friday, September 29, 2006

New anti-nuclear TV ad

As John Howard prepares the way for a backflip to allow Australian uranium to be exported to India - a country that hasn't signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty - the Greens have launched a new TV ad to counter the nuclear push.

You can see the ad at http://www.stopuraniumexport.com/ where you can also help put the ad to air by donating directly online.

The craziness of an ever expanding nuclear industry in an age of terrorism and smaller and smaller weapons seems blooming obvious so help put this great TV advertisement to air by going to http://www.stopuraniumexport.com/

posted by Ben Oquist # 2:19 PM 0 comments

Exclusive Brethren update

Some of you may have seen the latest super silly spray from Crikey’s Christian Kerr having a go at the Greens (and me personally for some unconnected reason) for their campaign to expose the fundamentalist Christian Sect, The Exclusive Brethren. Here is my response and Mr Kerr’s original both published first by www.crikey.com.au. Also, don't forget you can find more about the Brethren at previous post from way back in March here.

Christian Kerr has nailed the Greens. At last he has written something on the money.

He accuses the Greens of ‘campaigning’ against Exclusive Brethren. He pompously declares that he can ‘smell’ it. And that the Greens shouldn’t play ‘purer than pure’.

What on earth is he talking about?

Of course the Greens are campaigning against this homophobic, abusive sect with its secret connections to conservative Governments around the world. Not to do so would be derelict. This is what political parties do - whether it is John Howard against Unions or the Greens tackling global warming.

He then goes on to accuse the Greens of approaching the media about the cult in an attempt to get the media to run stories about them. Heaven forbid that political parties and politicians would approach media outlets about potential stories.

Of course Christian is entitled to spin which ever way he wants, but more often that not, this is associated with his seemingly hysterical reaction to anything Green. This is a shame because undoubtedly Crikey readers would be interested in thoughtful analysis of Green politics, which is so often also missed by the banal knee-jerk criticism of right wing commentators in the mainstream media. But Christian Kerr is binded by his pathological irrational hatred and isn’t capable of decent, informed journalism.

Take the Exclusive Brethren as an example. For Christian’s sake he should talk some Ex-brethren before he writes another word. He is just making himself look super silly. Why on earth would he want to side with this fundamentalist sect with its litany of family break ups, emotional abuse, secret election manipulation and more?
Christian is being blinded by his seemingly fanatical hatred of anything Green.

Even if all the evidence – from Background Briefing, David Marr, Today Tonight, The Age, The Australian, The Mercury and the JJJ Hack program - is that the Brethren is a sinister and destructive outfit playing politics without transparency , Christian just cant see it because the Brethren is attacking the Greens. He is blinded to evils of the Brethren operations by the ‘my enemy’s enemy is by friend’ syndrome.

We all have our biases – mine is pro-environment, supporting self-determination for West Papua, opposing the repressive Chinese regime and anti-Bush and someone who desperately wants to see the Senate wrested from the Coalition in 2007.

Christian Kerr is as much entitled to his biases as anyone else - even if it makes him look like a goose. But when it comes to covering climate change, environment groups or the Greens, let’s not pretend it makes for balanced, fair or accurate political reporting.

FROM CRIKEY - You won’t have Christian Kerr to kick around...

Christian Kerr writes:
Good news for some Crikey readers. I’m going. For a week or so, anyway. But before I go, I’d like to thank Sayed Kashua for writing much of this piece for me. Kashua is the latest bright young Israeli-born Arab controversialist. And last Thursday his column in Haaretz -- "I stand accused", it was called – kicked off like this:
"Hello."

"Yes, dad, what's happening?"

"Listen up, have you been reading the reactions against you?"

"Off and on. Why, what's up?"

"People are cancelling their subscriptions because of you, that's what they're writing there. Be careful, in the end the paper will shut down."

"No. It's not because of me. Gideon Levy, he's the bastard."
Substitute "Charles Richardson" for "Gideon Levy", and you could have a conversation from the Crikey bunker. Could – but wouldn’t. Crikey’s management are bright enough to know that when you stir, you can stir clockwise AND anti-clockwise. In fact, they know that if you’re going to stir properly, you should go in both directions. And that’s exactly what Crikey does.

Some cleverdick over at The Spin Starts Here observed last month:
"Ben Oquist" is just a program on Bob Brown’s computer in Parliament that randomly cuts and pastes Christian Kerr's items into an email and sends it back accusing him of anti-Green bias.

They’ve pulled out the big guns today. Christine Milne has fired back. I’m still standing. As I said yesterday, I’ve been around politics long enough to know a campaign when I see it. I’m happy to dish it out the Greens – and happy to take it. But they shouldn’t play purer than pure about their own activities.

Just take dekko at this Bob Brown media release from June that’s up on their site:
Today Tonight and the Exclusive Brethren

Channel Seven's Today Tonight program will soon feature a story on the Exclusive Brethren, which is likely to appear on Monday's program...

Gee. And how did they know that? A little bird told them? And they wouldn’t’ve been sicking journos onto the Brethren – let alone pushing Seven to actually put their report to air ASAP – would they?

There’s another release that talks about how the nasty Howard Government "attack on Wilderness Society threatens democracy". Haven’t the Greens threatened democracy – the freedom to choose your own religion, no matter how batty it may be – with their proposal for a Senate Star Chamber inquiry into the Exclusive Brethren?

They’re a political party. They shouldn’t posture as the saviours of the world. Blindly swallowing the spin of the Greens is as foolish as accepting the precepts of the Brethren.

Stephen Mayne always says Crikey is like Las Vegas. We love to host a fight. I look forward to getting back in the ring for the next round.

posted by Ben Oquist # 1:11 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

It's The Sun What Did It

Many of us could feel that we were near a tipping point on the politics of climate change. Now here is the proof.

Murdoch's The Sun newspaper in Britain has admitted it got it wrong on climate change in the past.

The paper is urging its readers to "Go Green" with the front page of the paper featuring a Map of the UK sinking under rising sea waters.

This is the paper that famously declared 'Its The Sun What Did It' after Tony Blair was elected. Perhaps they want to avoid having to say the same if sea levels do rise 6-7 meters.

How long before The Australian newspaper catches up and changes from its hysterical anti-Green stance.

posted by Ben Oquist # 4:49 PM 0 comments

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Greens stunning Queensland result as Family First flops

Despite predictions from many, the Greens have achieved a stunning result in the Queensland state poll.

With little media coverage and a supposedly buoyed Family First coming to steal the show, the Greens have dramatically improved on their result from last time.

Well in to tonight’s count and the Greens are on 8%. This is double what The Australian newspaper’s Newspoll had the party on in their latest poll (4%) and 4 times what the poll had the Greens on (2%) earlier in the campaign.

In the seat of Mount Coot-tha the Greens vote is over 21% an in Brisbane 19%.

The Greens vote is up almost 20% on their result at the February 2004 state election when the party secured 6.7%

Meanwhile Family First has polled less than 2%. This is a very weak result in what should be their best state. Some will argue it is because they stood in less seats, the reality of course is that the number of seats a party stands in is a measure of that party’s strength.

The journalist mistake of the campaign must surely go to The Australian newspaper’s Sean Parnell who said ahead of today’s election “Other minor parties, including Family First, and independents have benefited from the demise of the Greens…”

Wrong on so many counts.

posted by Ben Oquist # 9:18 PM 4 comments

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Coal gets desperate

The NSW Minerals Council has come up with this ridiculous advertisement.

Have a look at it here (download as pdf) or see this link at the Minerals council website.

Do they really think this type of thing fools anyone?

posted by Ben Oquist # 6:09 PM 1 comments

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Beautiful Wind

Listen to this beautiful interview to hear why wind farms are lovely.

Alex Sloane on 666 Canberra ABC interviews Gordon Proven from Proven Energy in the UK.

Click here to hear the interview. It takes a while to download.

posted by Ben Oquist # 3:49 PM 0 comments

The Australian's disgraceful climate change coverage continues

I think we need a competition to discern The Australian newspaper's most shameful contribution to the climate change debate.

The most recent disgrace was the weekend's front page headline "Science tempers fears on climate change" referring to the now well leaked IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) draft report. While the Australian describes their obtaining of the report as an "exclusive", the report has been doing the rounds here and o/s for a while.

While everyone else on the planet sees the report as evidence that global warming is worse than thought (a minimum of a 3 degree increase, up from a previously predicted minimum of 2 degrees) only The Australian could butcher the IPCC findings to call that a 'tempering' of fears on climate change.

But remember this is the paper whose senior writer recently said of Australia - "the country has become a world leader in combating climate change"

John Quiggin has a critique which is spot on.

posted by Ben Oquist # 11:12 AM 0 comments