tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19639811.post-1136259845747280482006-01-02T22:44:00.000-05:002006-01-02T22:44:00.000-05:00Hi Dave,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for posting the other side of the story. I think your rebuttal does a good job of telling the other side on some points, like the matter of the resignation of so many Green directors -- Dobbin claims half the directors resigned due to conflicts with Harris; the rebuttal claims that only some resignations were due to conflicts and the rest gave other reasons such as health, work, etc. <BR/><BR/>(The bit I posted about, that the Sierra Club gave the NDP a better "report card" on the environment than the Green Party, is acknowledged as true in the rebuttal -- the NDP got an "A", and the Green Party got an "A-".)<BR/><BR/>I want to be clear that it's in no way my intention to "kick down the Greens". The rest of Dobbin's piece was a bit confrontational, and I'm sorry about that. But I know that NDP voters care about what's happening on the left of Canada's political landscape. Even if Dobbin's details and his rhetoric are under debate -- and thank you again for posting the link to the "other side" -- there's still the issue of his general point, that the Greens have become more socially right-wing than many voters are aware of.<BR/><BR/>If this were the only article I'd seen that worried about Harris moving the Greens to the right, I wouldn't have mentioned it. But I've read and heard other people saying the same thing over the past couple of years. Here are some more articles:<BR/><BR/>"Greens' Harris accused of taking party rightward" -- CTV, Dec. 11th 2005<BR/><A HREF="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/mini/CTVNews/20051208/elxn_greens_051211?s_name=election2006&no_ads=" REL="nofollow">Link</A><BR/><BR/>"Canada's Greens move to the right" -- People's Weekly World, Jun 2004<BR/><A HREF="http://www.pww.org/article/view/5414/1/221/" REL="nofollow">Link</A><BR/><BR/>Even Joan Russow, former leader of the Green Party, is concerned that the party's moved to the right. She wrote an article for the Windsor Star, published Dec. 9, 2005, called "Green Party of Canada Abandons Principles."<BR/><A HREF="http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/editorial/story.html?id=b76d2c90-f80b-47da-9042-e487d4cdb363&p=1" REL="nofollow">Link</A><BR/><BR/>So, it's not just Dobbin who's worried that the Greens' social policies have drifted to the right. People across Canada have raised the issue and are concerned.<BR/><BR/>Let me repeat, in no way do I want to "kick down" the Greens. Kingston Greens are good, committed people who are doing a lot of work to get the environmental issue out there.<BR/><BR/>While I don't want to kick down or attack the Greens, I <I>do</I> want Kingston voters to know that the NDP are at least as strong on the environment as Greens, and to know what the Canadian Greens stand for.<BR/><BR/>Speaking of which, a lot of Dobbin's article was based on the absence of a 2006 Green platform. The Greens have now got their 2006 platform out, and I'll update the post to reflect that.<BR/><BR/>Thanks again for taking the time to make a comment on the blog.<BR/><BR/>-NatalkaNatalkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17904243446473763995noreply@blogger.com