Green Ink, Green Men, Green Lizards
The Green Party is having to face up to the fact that it attracts lunatics. I have many friends who are Green Party members and they are all quite sane (if sometimes a little eccentric), but at least in some parts of the country, the party is providing a political home for people of questionable sanity and even more questionable politics.
What’s worse is that, in some of these cases, these people are securing the party’s nomination to stand for office or speaking to the press in the party’s name.
The issue came to my attention when I got a tip-off from a reader who had seen my piece last week on one Tony Gosling, a “journalist” with some, er, unique ideas, and who occupies a world of spooks and tinfoil hats. Only recently he got into a muddle investigating claims ” that Mossad helped to carry out the July 7th bombings and that no Muslims are to blame”.
No surprises there since the man keeps “an open mind” on the authenticity of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. “Many Jewish people believe the Protocols of Zion to be anti-Jewish hate material.” he tells us. “In fact their authenticity has never been entirely proven nor disproven and if true, they don’t incriminate the Jewish race as a whole. The protocols, if true, are anti Zionist. Zionists are right-wing Jews, some of whom are responsible for the current wave of racism, murder and apartheid in occupied Palestine.”
Now, this would all me mildly interesting at best were it not for the fact that – despite all this – Mr Gosling was selected to stand for the Green Party in Bristol in 2005. And, he appears to be a current electoral candidate for the party. And this is what my correspondent remembered about Gosling:
Green Party Council candidate, Tony Gosling, told The Muslim News he was “personally disgusted” by the books. “No way should kids be indoctrinated in this way. Anyone who says so is branded as homophobic which they are not; it’s the gay mafia in full swing,” he said. (Muslim News, 25 April 2008)
It seems the homophobic Mr Gosling had gotten into bed with an equally homophobic outfit called Bristol Muslim Cultural Society. Unsurprisingly, because one of it’s staff, Farooq Siddique, shares Gosling’s ‘Troofer’ outlook.
And it is of course through the ‘Troofer’ syndrome that the Greens host the nexus between respectable politics and Conspiracy/ZOG stupidity.
Perhaps you’re thinking that every party has its lone nutter. Were that only the case here. But consider Martin Deane, the Green Party’s candidate in Hull in both the recent local elections and the 2005 General Election.
Deane was been very open about his Troofer views. The Hull Green Party website is full of “9/11 issues” in addition to the expected stuff on climate change and that sort of thing, and Deane is the author of an article Was 9/11 the greatest show on earth?, published in the local Hull press. Here’s a taste:
The War on Terror is based on the premise that the 2001 9/11 attacks on New York and Washingotn, which killed nearly 3,000 people were carried out by 19 Islamic fundamentalist men. The official story has been played in such detail throughout our media that we will all know it. But the facts could be – and probably are – radically different.
Having clocked up a few hundred hours now looking at evidence on the internet, while getting bored doing a master’s dissertation, I believe at the very least there is culpable US government complicity in the events of 9/11.
And despite this, he still manages to secure a Green Party nomination as a parliamentary candidate. But wait. Deane is a moderate. Consider his former colleague, Justin Walker:
Justin Walker was a Green Party activist for 15 years. He is also a conspiracy nut. But this isn’t what led him to leave the party. Indeed, the agenda of the Green Party’s 2005 Autumn conference in Lancaster shows that Walker’s presentation on the “9/11 Truth campaign” was part of the official programme. No, what led to a parting of the ways was that the Green Party leadership did not take his asssertions about lizards seriously enough. Here’s a sample:
And before you simply dismiss David Icke (a man who the Green Party’s ‘establishment’ likes to demonise), please consider for a moment that to do so you have to first dismiss the latest scientific evidence concerning cutting edge Quantum Physics along with the collective knowledge and wisdom of the indigenous peoples around the world who have oral traditions going back thousands of years. I also happen to know, having met Cynthia McKinney myself, that she is open minded enough to want to meet with David at some point in the future to discuss his research. Closed minds, my friends, do not get to the truth!
Indeed. But it also appears that you can open you mind so far that your brains fall out.
Cycling and Recycling – it’s all good. That’s why many people, myself included, while shaking my head at some Green ideas, generally regard them as a force for good. Many Green politicians are also very principled supporters of issues I value, like Human Rights and Secularism. So it is a pity that the party’s name and credibility is in danger of being besmirched by the quacks and nutters it seems to be attracting.
I am reassured by senior Green Party members that Gosling’s homophobic and antisemitic statements (particularly those seemingly in the name of the party) will the thoroughly investigated. The Party unequivocally distances itself from his statements. I’m pleased to hear it.
But it worries me that his statements were made back in April and no one noticed or did anything about it. It worries me that his website – with links to neo-nazi and antisemitic conspiracy theories – has been up for years. Did no one vet this man before selecting him to stand for the party?
And what of the other two? Well, a newsletter by the so-called 9/11 Truth Campaign in 2006 notes:
Martin Deane, UK Green Party Candidate for Hull at the last general election, has been actively campaigning in his area and trying, as has Justin Walker, to get a UK resolution to support the US Green Party’s call for a new investigation into 9/11. Several more senior green party members are now aware of the issues. The last vote on a resolution failed to pass by 2 votes.
What? By only two votes? So there is a slim majority of sanity in the party. But a very slim one.
I’m actually quite shocked.
Comments
| 29 October 2008, 1:02 pm |
“I have always disagreed with the anti-science strand in the party”
I almost joined a few years ago, but this was the sticking point for me too. That, and their bizarre opposition to Park & Rides.
| 29 October 2008, 1:10 pm |
Where you are going wrong is giving the party as a whole the benefit of the doubt. They are fundamentally anti-people.
Greens and environmentalists are not the same.
| 29 October 2008, 1:19 pm |
I have many friends who are Green Party members and they are all quite sane (if sometimes a little eccentric),
I’ve absolutely no Green Party members or supporters in my entourage, and indeed don’t want any, thank-you very much.
When they’re not all nuts, they’re troofers, flakes and islamo-huggers.
There was a Green Party activist in California that spent two whole years sitting in a sequoia tree…for the sake of the enviroment.
She was like a huge nesting hen.
Where are those lightening strikes when you really need one, eh?
| 29 October 2008, 1:21 pm |
I’m actually quite shocked.
I’m not. They’re a religious party, populated by kooks.
| 29 October 2008, 1:29 pm |
I’m afraid that in my area (Lambeth) they had a 911 troofer meeting with nutcase David Shayler.
I too would like to vote Green– but I fear they are indeed riddled with crazy conspiracists (plus I like GM foods and nuclear power).
| 29 October 2008, 1:29 pm |
I’m afraid that in my area (Lambeth) they had a 911 troofer meeting with nutcase David Shayler.
I too would like to vote Green– but I fear they are indeed riddled with crazy conspiracists (plus I like GM foods and nuclear power).
| 29 October 2008, 1:32 pm |
good scoop Brett, I featured Mr. Gosling recently, you have to watch out when they start talking about the “anti-Christ”, etc, if you scan his main page, half way down you’ll see:
“1. Eugenicist Prince Philip ordered the assassination of Princess Diana – ten years retrospective film
2. The 7/7 London bombs were planted by God-haters MI6 & the Israeli Army
3. 911 was an Inside Job and Cheney/Brezinski plan another attack on the West
4. Dr. David Kelly was murdered for exposing a war crime conspiracy”
Nuff said?
| 29 October 2008, 1:33 pm |
The protocols, if true, are anti Zionist
It was the Protocols and other Russian anti-Semitism which created Zionism in the first place.
…it also appears that you can open you mind so far that your brains fall out.
Amen to that!
Having clocked up a few hundred hours now looking at evidence on the internet
Ah, the internet. An infallible source.
By only two votes?
How many members are there? Three?
| 29 October 2008, 1:41 pm |
The ‘Protocols’ are a plagiarised forgery, and have been exposed as such for many years (1920’s I think). A good reference is Norman Cohn’s “Warrant for Genocide”, which brings all the evidence together quite nicely. Anybody who believes this nonsense is an idiot.
| 29 October 2008, 1:47 pm |
Come on JP, then the Greens you know are not the Greens I associated with in Woy Woy in the 1980s and 90s. A very nice bunch of people not at all tree huggers and nutters eating only mung beans and poo. I suspect most of them have now joined the Australian Labour Party as politics became a 2-party game towards the end of the 90s, and into now.
| 29 October 2008, 1:50 pm |
please consider for a moment that to do so you have to first dismiss the latest scientific evidence concerning cutting edge Quantum Physics along with the collective knowledge and wisdom of the indigenous peoples around the world who have oral traditions going back thousands of years.
Schroedinger’s Lizard?
The 7/7 London bombs were planted by God-haters MI6 & the Israeli Army
How long before he’s the BPA candidate for Bristol?
| 29 October 2008, 2:01 pm |
“And despite this, he still manages to secure a Green Part nomination as a parliamentary candidate.”
| 29 October 2008, 2:04 pm |
The Greens are a mixed bunch of folk. The ones I have met in the UK seem generally okay, concerned liberal types with fondness for muesli and natural yoghurt. (Muesli I can’t stand, whatever its damned health benefits, although natural yoghurt is pleasant enough and rather good for you too.)
You do get some oddballs in the Greens though, including some crashing misanthropic bores.
| 29 October 2008, 2:06 pm |
I was looking for stuff about the 1930s depression the other day and came across a “Christian” website that blamed it all on the Jews. It seems Jews are to blame for absolutely everything, from the current credit crunch to black gun crime in the USA. They don’t half get around.
These groups/parties with a real message often seem to be hijacked by loonies or those with other agendas. I recall CND in the 60s, I gave up because round our way it was full of far left sorts who were only interested in protesting about the Vietnam war and damning US evils generally.
| 29 October 2008, 2:10 pm |
I’m shocked that John P. has an entourage.
| 29 October 2008, 2:11 pm |
I know a Green councillor (in a London borough) who is both a practicing Christian and the very voice of sanity and reason, unlike any of these loons here. But, then again, the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”.
Still, I’d never vote for them (not that they would conceivably choose to contest an election where I live in any case)
| 29 October 2008, 2:16 pm |
I’ve crossed swords – kind of – with Mr Gosling in the past (”media prossie” was how he described me; my total earnings from the media – EVER – are a wopping thirty pounds and eighty eight pence from the BBC, which I didn’t get until after he called me that).
He’s a nutcase – Jorg Haider hadn’t been dead for a day when he was suggesting it was the work of Mossad. Suggesting is all these people do – cut and paste a few news stories that mention Israel or Iran and give a nod and a wink.
Having said that, I don’t think it’s that bad that the US Green Party wants a new investigation into 9/11. I’d have one, too. Anything to shut these fuckers up once and for all. Though, of course, they wouldn’t be happy unless the investigation was conducted by David Ray Griffin, Alex Jones and Richard Gage.
Cynthia McKinney – the Green Party nom for President – is a kook too. The US Government killed 5000 people during Hurricane Katrina, appparently. (I’ve had a phone conversation with a guy who believes Katrina was the work of the the government.)
| 29 October 2008, 2:17 pm |
Well written article but with some grammatical errors. Go through it one more time for the errors.
| 29 October 2008, 2:26 pm |
I voted Green as my London-wide Assembly vote in the Mayoral election. There wasn’t a space on the form to specify whether you wanted a looney troofer Green or a sensible recycling one, but they ended up with 2 seats so maybe they got one of each.
| 29 October 2008, 2:39 pm |
my total earnings from the media – EVER – are a wopping thirty pounds and eighty eight pence from the BBC, which I didn’t get until after he called me that).
You’ve been done – that’s what Jonathon Woss earns every 3 seconds.
Darren Johnson always seems allright whenever I talk to him. I was a member of the green party for about a year until I was chucked out for telling a woman to get lost (or something very near) when she objected to me smoking – perhaps I should rejoin?
| 29 October 2008, 2:52 pm |
Martin Deane is currently editor of the “International Magazine of the Green Party of England and Wales.”
| 29 October 2008, 2:56 pm |
Park & Ride
– An excellent name for a bordello!
| 29 October 2008, 2:57 pm |
David Icke, I have just learned, is a former Green Party national speaker!
| 29 October 2008, 3:05 pm |
Jews are to blame for absolutely everything, from the current credit crunch to black gun crime in the USA
No that’s MI6!……geddit?
| 29 October 2008, 3:06 pm |
He was the face of the Green Party in the 80s, as well as being a former BBC sports presenter and goalkeeper for Coventry City. I think he once said something along the lines of having realised that he was clearly blessed with extraordinary powers because of how effortlessly he’d risen to the top of any occupation he was in, whether it was politics, lower league football or reading out snooker results on television.
| 29 October 2008, 3:12 pm |
The Greens in Government (In Ireland), typically, they blame the Unions…about sums it up.
| 29 October 2008, 3:14 pm |
Isn’t David Icke responsible for the phrase ‘bat-shit crazy’? As in, “Did you see that David Icke on the telly the other day? He’s bat-shit crazy.”
| 29 October 2008, 3:15 pm |
Brett, I can assure you that the Green Party has more nutters in it than your average fruitcake.
You might think they are relatively harmless cranks but mention something like Veganism or my fave food, foie gras, and it all comes out.
Like vicious.
I will just cite one name: Larry O’Nutter (O’Hara).
| 29 October 2008, 3:18 pm |
Come on now lets all go outside and hug a tree and see if we can get rid of this negative energy.
| 29 October 2008, 3:22 pm |
I have a confession to make. I always preferred David Icke to David Vine when the snooker was on.
| 29 October 2008, 3:32 pm |
Yeah, unlike Camus or (more importantly and more admirably) Karol Wojtyla, David Icke wasn’t the best example of a philosophical goalie
| 29 October 2008, 4:06 pm |
Come on JP, then the Greens you know are not the Greens I associated with in Woy Woy in the 1980s and 90s
Green politics is a form of religion, but since I already have a religion…
I’m shocked that John P. has an entourage.
Why would you be shocked?
I’m plucky, perky and vivacious.
People liken me to Sandra Dee!
| 29 October 2008, 4:13 pm |
Brett: David Icke, I have just learned, is a former Green Party national speaker!
Ever heard of “don’t write an article about anything without knowing at least as much about the subject as 95% of the people reading it”? No? Nothing new there.
| 29 October 2008, 4:19 pm |
There was a right wing element to the precursor of the Green Party, the Ecology Party. They were anti-immigration with a racist tinge – “blood and soil” types. And no doubt distrustful of “cosmopolitan” people (and I’m not referring to women who read the magazine).
The Green Party don’t seem a very serious outfit in the UK and no doubt the fact that they have candidates who believe the July bombings were the work of Mossad has something to do with it.
Did David Icke get a knock on the head in goal? Could explain a lot.
| 29 October 2008, 4:22 pm |
Did David Icke get a knock on the head in goal? Could explain a lot.
I read that as a typo, and presumed it was a “psychiatric hospital” and not just any bog-standard “gaol” you were writing about.
| 29 October 2008, 4:25 pm |
Well done to Google for providing adlinks to both 9/11 “truthers”‘ websites, Obama, Muslim personals, and “synagogues, kosher food & more!” on this article.
| 29 October 2008, 4:28 pm |
There was a right wing element to the precursor of the Green Party, the Ecology Party.
i don’t intend to link to them again but the Libertarian National Socialist Green party site always gives me a few sick laughs.
| 29 October 2008, 4:54 pm |
Sandra Dee! Talk about out of the memory vault! John P., you
are dating yourself–you don’t really expect 3/4ths of those posting here to remember or even know who she was, do you? You have injudiciously outed yourself as a just another geezer like me (either that or you’re a film buff with a good memory for vapid movies.)
| 29 October 2008, 5:44 pm |
John P., you
are dating yourself–you don’t really expect 3/4ths of those posting here to remember or even know who she was, do you? You have injudiciously outed yourself as a just another geezer like me (either that or you’re a film buff with a good memory for vapid movies.)
A geezer.
| 29 October 2008, 5:53 pm |
Actually virgil it’s a totally valid pop reference. They just covered SNF at the Electric Proms…
Back to the plot. I suppose it’s hard within the Truth/Green movement to spot the difference between plain-ol’ loonies and those who actually need help. Embarrassing. That whole Natalie Bracht story disturbed me, her use of the word “counterparts” to describe the secret conspirators that were after her is very telling if you ask me. A simple word with a new and weird meaning, dream-like. Sort of thing that only the mad come up with.
Then again, Szasz and all that, is a diagnosis of mental illness ever more than a political decision? There’s a concept that you’re alright believing whatever you want as long as you don’t have “problems with living”. My inexpert opinion is that David Icke seems mental, but obviously has finally found a supportive network of people who will pay him. Natalie seems to almost have done the same.
| 29 October 2008, 9:51 pm |
This is pretty sad stuff. Sure, there are some nut jobs in the Green Party like any party. I like to think that there’s probably less than in other parties. The central party doesn’t choose the parliamentary candidates, though. And if you didn’t know David Icke was as a speaker for the Green Party (back when there were about 8), well…
| 29 October 2008, 10:07 pm |
“And if you didn’t know David Icke was as a speaker for the Green Party (back when there were about 8), well…”
Well what? I’m dying to hear how it’s releavnt.
| 29 October 2008, 10:18 pm |
Pretty much all politics has some elements of religion in it JP, yes even that of the Right. :-)
| 29 October 2008, 10:27 pm |
Derek Wall, former “principal male speaker” of the party, has opposed the 9/11 nutters…
…and also stood up for Cynthia McKinney, a 9/11 nutter, when presented with a video where she claims the US government killed 5,000 people during the Katrina disaster:
I certainly backing Cynthia, good on ecology, peace and socialism as far as I am concerned, looks like she is the victim of smears….have listened to her speak she sounds sound to me, so I am happy to put this down as an out of context comment…’keep the oil in the soil’ and plenty of other stuff from her and Rosa mark them as powerfull candidates.
It’s a Bedlam in our time, the Green Party!
| 29 October 2008, 11:23 pm |
The Greens, like the current left are infected with Jew haters, anti Americans, and anti Science activists, they are nasty and stupid.
Amazingly, the BNP is kinder, wiser and more sensitive to the real threats, but the BBC say the BNP are fascists, and the BBC never gets any judgement calls wrong. Look at the current state of global arming in the UK.
| 30 October 2008, 12:00 am |
The BNP are fascists and are more infested with antisemites and lunatics!
| 30 October 2008, 1:38 am |
The Greens, like the current left are infected with Jew haters, anti Americans, and anti Science activists, they are nasty and stupid.Amazingly, the BNP is kinder, wiser and more sensitive to the real threats
LOL – another BNP keyboard propagandist rears his head. Save your breath – the BNP is packed to the rafters with Jew haters, is equally as anti-American as the Greens, and shares its sub-moronic “Trooferism” mentality.
Indeed, the BNP even invented its own 7/7 Troofer conspiracy, with a [conveniently] anonymous police officer revealing how Mi5 were part of a top secret cover-up to conceal the arrest of another group of bombers the night before 7/7. just before they could flood the Tube network by exploding a bomb in a tunnel under the Thames (very Andy McNab). Conveniently, the party’s website claimed that the terrorists were “disappeared” by the spooks, and the story ignored by a lickspittle mainstream press (doubtless due to the fact that it’s a pile of steaming shite rather than any hastily-issued D-Notices).
You won’t find the story on the revamped BNP website – doubtless it was removed as part of the party’s “kinder, wiser and more sensitive” re-fit. Thankfully, Web archive kept a copy.
| 30 October 2008, 9:36 am |
Blimey, so in that case I voted for a party of nasty, stupid Jew haters and anti Americans, who are less kind and wise than the BNP. And I’d do it again. I ought to be locked up.
| 30 October 2008, 11:15 am |
The point is that the Green Party’s ideology, such as it is, is based on such a nebulous load of tosh that it can go this way and that, back and forth. Derek Wall’s alleged ’socialist’ Green ideas are mixed with stuff about ‘Italism’ and Zen.
As for the BNP, as we say, politely, round here: fuck off cunt!
| 30 October 2008, 11:48 am |
“Come on now lets all go outside and hug a tree and see if we can get rid of this negative energy.”
What??? Why should we want to kill trees??? :~))
| 30 October 2008, 12:49 pm |
According to the Social Credit website (funny money theory, long anti-semitic history), the Greens have done their best to marginalise and discredit their theories within the party. So there’s a precedent there for the Greens to act against anti-semites. Mind you, the Soc Creds are an easy target.
| 30 October 2008, 5:50 pm |
Who had the better sense of reality?
Greens who warned that decades of over production would result in the over valuation of assets and therefore financial meltdown, or the political donors and voters of other parties who thought the good times would never end.
If you can’t pay your mortgage, you can’t say you weren’t warned!
| 30 October 2008, 9:32 pm |
This really doesn’t reflect the Green Party I’ve been a member of for the past 8 years. There may well be a few members with unpleasant beliefs, as in any party, but the vast majority of Green Party members are staunchly anti-homophobic and anti-racist. It sounds like there are a couple of cases here that the executive need to follow up on as a matter of urgency and take any disciplinary actions they feel appropriate.
There are a small number of 9/11 conspiracy people in the Greens (as I think there are in other parties), but at each stage so far the majority at conference has headed them off.
Brett, I suspect the point Gordon was making is that it is hardly a secret or revelatory news that David Icke was a national speaker for the Greens back in the late 80s and early 90s. It did the party a lot of damage that it took a while to recover from. There’s a useful history on wikipedia
| 4 November 2008, 6:06 pm |
“Brett, I suspect the point Gordon was making is that it is hardly a secret or revelatory news that David Icke was a national speaker for the Greens back in the late 80s and early 90s. It did the party a lot of damage that it took a while to recover from. “
And yet his legacy lives on in Gosling and co ;-)
| 28 April 2009, 9:08 am |
I notice that, yet again, the psychiatrically-challenged Andrew Coates is posting abuse about me of a personal nature, as he has done repeatedly for years. Tell you what, Mr Coates, why don’t I just post somewhere public the raving correspondence where you urged me to stalk an innocent party for allegedly stealing a union banner? Or your disgusting sexist and abusive attacks on local SWP members that I found embarrassing to read? Alternatively, just take your medication. As for 9/11–interested parties should visit http://www.911cultwatch.org
I used to be in the Australian Green Party – we did great BBQs. I left as I have always disagreed with the anti-science strand in the party, that became strong in the 1990s. I was the lone guy saying – “Nuclear power is not so bad you know…and Australia is practically made of uranium..”