Oh wait, he won’t win, phew (or will he?)

Anyways. Good Luck Lee if you get the nod.

Cuba has one choice, dump their unelected leader and join the 1st world where everybody is equal. There is no way the West should appease any of the Castros or legitimise their regime. Surely you’ve got something rattling up there in your head?

So “the West” has three choices:

1) Assist them to get there with aid and development programmes, including the provision below market rates of environmentally friendly energy technology to develop their economies without polluting us all to hell with coal.

2) The Cuba solution – impose economic sanctions and try to starve them into submission.

3) Nuke ‘em.

Which would you prefer bwakile?

So stop the bullshit (oops, you actually have anyway- you have outed youself as someone who doesn’t give a stuff about the environment, and who illogically for politically pragmatic purposes denies the scientific evidence in favour of “theory” (ie fantasy) expoused by cranks who have no qualifications in either quantum physics or climate science whatsoever)!

I’ll save that line for sometime in nov 2011, when the Green party polls 4.5%.

Ever seen her in action, hectoring the audience, kelsey? That may go down well with the Northern Asian constituency, who are conditioned to that from the politics of Korea and China.

But it won’t go down well with Pakeha, Pasifika, and Southern Asian Mt Albert residents, who prefer a much more consultative and inclusive approach.

Bwahaha, haha, haha!

The Nats have agreed to a few minor concessions to the Greens re energy efficiency.

But on the big picture environmental issues the Nats are nowhere to be seen. They still have no plan to address climate change, or peal oil, and they are still encouraging industrial dairying to pollute our streams and rivers and permitting Solid Energy to mine coal, which is as environmentally destructive as you get, willy nilly.

So much for the Nats “stripping [the Greens] environmental credentials away”!

Melissa Lee will be a very suitable Nat candidate that has a real chance of winning.

Maybe its because Russ still hangs with Commies and leads a party that is socialist to the core?

“Well, hey, Stephen Franks was a socialist activist if you go back that far. And someone tells me that the ACT’s arch-bigot Garrett was once a member of the Socialist Unity Party (although I haven’t verified that one).”

Difference is….Franks and Garrett are no longer on the left hand side of the spectrum….Russell certainly is.If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck its most likely its a….?

Is Russell the “socialist you get when you are not really having a socialist”….is he

Well, hey, Stephen Franks was a socialist activist if you go back that far. And someone tells me that the ACT’s arch-bigot Garrett was once a member of the Socialist Unity Party (although I haven’t verified that one).

But the point is, people move on and learn from their experiences. Don’t assume today’s Russel is the same idealistically socialist Russel from 20 years ago. When we’re young, we all tend to see things in black and white, but as we get older, we tend to better acknowledge the experience of others.

You are not going to persuade Russel to be a raging free-market capitalist either, but I can assure you he is not the marxist demon you make him out to be.

As for Jeanette, well, I would have loved her to stand in Mt Albert too. But she has devoted 13 years of her life to Parliamentary politics, and has decided it is time to move on. She is in her 60s, and obviously wants to do other productive things for environmental sustainability and social justice outside Parliament before she becomes to old to do that.

Good on her for that decision. No one personality should be indispensable to a political party. Jeanette’s decision is good in that regard. How many other political leaders have departed voluntarily, rather than been sacked or resigned knowing they would be sacked after a poor performance in an election?

It has been said that there were a large number of personal votes for Helen. I would have thought that the old-time Labour voters, of whom there would be quite a few in Mt Albert, wouldn’t want to transfer their vote to a young-ish Australian socialist Green. Maybe if it was Jeanette, but not Norman. Melissa Lee would be more far representative of the electorate and I think she would do quite well.

Labour should not contest Mt Albert, but that could never happen in Helen’s old seat.