The original post implicitly asks 'who speaks for the left', then offers some rather dodgy reasons for it not being the Greens. Maybe so, but its also not 'the left' as represented by the argument of the poster, that speaks. What speaks is absence. The absence of people and the absence within the left.

I find Strypey's arguments to be much more persuasive, with a better grasp of the historical and current situation. But since it doesnt focus on absences, I'll add my bit also.

It will be very interesting to see how the original poster deals with the relationship between the Maori Party and 'the left'. Surely the Maori party, with its potentially large mass vote, and its significant connection to many workers and marginalised people, is where 'the left' should be concerned, and theorising, more than over those terrible but limited in numbers networking Greens.

Or are the Greens considered much more threatening ideologically, as representing the dreaded triangles or even quadrangles, that supposedly threaten the unity of correct left thought? Arguments based on unities and simplistic binaries sound very patriarchal to me. I think the Greens have a reputation for promoting womens' empowerment, and women are the workers most represented in the core forms of labour, these being reproductive and caring work. The exploitation of womens' labour is currently worsening relative to men, so as a man I am very aware that analyses that talk only about the left, and not about concurrent patriarchal exploitation, are more the problem than the solution.

Perhaps these absent guests at the table are the actual point of the post. The post seems to promote the isolation of the left, (in its own metaphor, the left as portrayed has already taken both of Morpheus' manipulative pills), far more than it makes a convincing case for any 'Green dilution' of the left.

cheers
Steve L