Note the complete failure of the groups like the Alliance and RAM to create a viable parliamentary block to the left of the Greens. This suggests that to the degree that any useful leftish reform can be won through parliament, leftists and radicals are happy to let the Greens try to achieve them. Some of us don't mind giving them a 10 minute leg-up every 3 years to have a go at it.

But this does not mean we see a Greens government as the solution to the problems caused by capitalism. I encourage people to work in the Greens if I can't convince them it wouldn't be. Personally I hope Green activists' experience at the parliamentary coalface will eventually convince them to participate in a movement towards an antistate, anticapitalist society. If we're wrong and the Greens somehow "fix capitalism" through parliament, I won't complain, it'd sure cut down my workload. Either way, it's a win-win scenario.

Even if I was a deluded Greens cheerleader, I wouldn't find Moore's article very convincing. For example, linking benefit rates to a fixed percentage of the average wage, is a lot less vague than 'reversing Labour's benefit cuts', which proposes precisely what? Even if benefits were lifted to 1984 levels (adjusted for inflation), would that protect them from further erosion by inflation? The Greens policy whose vagueness John sneered at, explicitly does that.

Also he's plain wrong on a number of points:
"this allows Norman and co to enter negotiations post-election with no ‘bottom-lines"

Actually the Greens have recently announced 12 bottom lines.
www.stuff.co.nz/4721621a23917.html
"protect workers' rights and raise the minimum wage" too vague for you? All political rhetoric has a degree of vagueness, but the Greens has something a lot more specific (albeit limited) to offer people than "get rid of capitalism and replace it with something nice" which is the level of vision most of the revolutionary left works on.

Greens oppose to allowing workers to be imported from other countries, and sent home again when work dries up, like so much leased machinery. Generally countries with overtly authoritarian regimes, which they can be threatened with being returned to at any time if they don't behave. This puts them on par with Peter's?!? Please. Get real. I think you'll find the Greens policies on *permanent* immigration are based on the population this country can sustainably carry, not racism (a la Winston First) or business (a la National/ Labour's skills or cash for entry approach).

As for the suggestion that ties to union bureaucrats makes for a working class party, this is clearly delusional. Labour has such ties. Are they a working class party? Moore and other critics of the Greens "rightward drift" (say it enough times and people will believe it?) find it convenient to forget that it was a private member's bill introduced by Sue Bradford that raised the minimum wage, and dealt a major blow to youth rates. I think Sue would agree that her bill would not have passed without the work of the activists, including many from the Greens, who supported campaigns like SupersizeMyPay, but credit where it's due for effort.

The majority of workers in this country are no longer organized in the traditional union sense. While I support the rebuilding of a fighting union movement (preferably along syndicalist lines, rather than the traditional Stalinism of the CTU old school), workers now organize through a wide range of non-government, non-profit structures as well as unions, eg religious organizations, single-issue campaigns, societies and parties, ideological groupings etc I argue that respectful working relationships with a wide range of such groups is the mark of being integrated with the working class today.

The most common evidence used for the Green's supposed "rightward drift" is the participation of businesspeople. People running their own sole trader/ partnerships small businesses are self-exploiting workers, not capitalists. Most of the organic farmers, natural medicine practitioners etc who run businesses and support the Greens fall into this category. Besides, radical lefties have often participated in popular fronts with people who are traditionally classified as 'right wing'. It is precisely through such non-sectarian work that a non-dogmatic, grassroots revolutionary theory and practice evolves. Not by putting a left-right dividing line down the population and getting one half to shoot the other half (white or not).

Anti-Greens rhetoric like Moore's, Chris Trotter's and those of the Workers Party, and the Alliance, are quite clearly based on the fact they see the Greens as competitors for a 'left-wing' vote they would like to see go elsewhere (ie to them or their favoured party). Sure, be cautious of those in the Greens taking the parliamentary road seriously. Be just as cautious of those attacking the Greens (and just as often groups in the radical and revolutionary movements) "from the left".

Love and Rage
Strypey