A green-red politics ?

Everybody is a green these days, riding the wrong way down one-way streets on their Cameroonian bicycles. Blue-green why not, it's a lovely shade of politics. Hypocrisy may come in many colours.

But is there a deeper connection between environmentalism and politics ? Perhaps we should take a closer look at the Green Party. Its middle-class image does not immediately appeal to old socialists like me. Take an even closer look and you will spot a section of the Party which calls itself the Green Left. It has an analysis which connects capitalism to environmental pollution. An analysis which makes deep sense to those of us who have been opposing the neoliberalism beloved by the three major parties. The drive towards profit maximisation, the domination of international finance capital, and the sheer greed of the mega-rich places our earth in great danger. For the foreseeable future, its the only place we have to live . The earth will survive. The danger is that in time it will become an unfit place for human beings and other complex life forms.

I remain a member of the Labour Party, for the moment, but I have been taking a hard look at the Green Left for some time now.