"Et tu, Brute?" - Irish Greens Sell Out

Image from Indymedia
The Green Party have decided to enter a coalition gvt. in Ireland dominated by the Pro-Iraq war Fianna Fail party. This has come as a shock too many but as a fulfillment of prophecy for others.

Trevor Sargent, their leader (who has just resigned), condemned our Ploughshares community after we disabled a U.S. Navy plane at Shannon in 2003. This was even a shock for us as 4 days previously he had praised Mary Kelly for doing a similar action. Paul Gogarty undermined dissent around the time the war was breaking out, telling demonstrators over a loudhailer to stop blockading the Dail and to go home. Soon after he drove home in his fuel-guzzling car. Eamonn Ryan was so vague over the past few days that it was obvious he was going to vote for the deal. Ciaron Cuffe is infamous for the fact that he inherited €1.3 million and was so busy wallowing in his cash that he allegedly didn't realise €70,000 was being held in oil company assets.

But mainly I am really disappointed with the Green Chairman John Gormley, who many of us in the anti-war movement knew personally and was a major opponent to the Iraq war and the U.S. military use of Shannon. Maybe he wrestled with his conscience before supporting the deal - but when it comes to fundamental pillars of your own philosophy it should hardly take too much analysis to realise that you are totally and utterly betraying the principled stands you have taken for years and the reasons why people voted for you in the first place.

The leading Green's moral zeitgeist has grabbed them by the throat, punched them in the balls, and led them to the table of Mephistopheles!

But lest we forget, the European Greens have a long history of selling out. The Czech Greens are currently supporting the basing of a radar site for the U.S. proposed ABM missile system in Eastern Europe - while the Poles will probably end up hosting the 10 interceptors themselves. The German Greens supported Schroeder in 2001 when his gvt. decided to join the war against Afghanistan.

Though the four traditional pillars of the Green Party are

1. Nonviolence
2. Ecological Sustainability
3. Grassroots Democracy
4. Social Justice

by joining the pro-market Progressive Democrats and Fianna Failers they have sold out on all counts. Green Party in Ireland is now a misnomer - "Whats in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" (Romeo and Juliet) transformed to the Greens, might ring something like: "What's in a name? That which we call a Green in government would stench just as toxic".

But maybe the best description of what has just happened came be summed up by arguably Shakespeare's most powerful words, spoken by Caesar to Brutus in disbelief at the betrayal by his most loyal of friends: "Et tu, Brute?" (Even you, Brutus?