Why I'm IN

writing, as always, in a personal capacity! The story starts when I joined the Green Party a long time ago. I remember watching Caroline Lucas' speech at Glastonbury talking about what a difference Green MEPs make. Derek Wall came up and told me to join the Green Party and I said I've already joined. I made some compromises and followed the party line much of the time. I later found out I didn't have to be so cautious of having my own opinion. I first put my name on a motion to conference about 5 years in (against implementing local government cuts, it was amended by Darren Johnson and Green Councillors) and it took me a while to really throw my weight around. Now I am on policy committee and very high up in JfJfP so it's come full circle. On most things I try and adhere to the party line because it's just a lot easier to make changes by convincing people in the party to come around to my view. In turn I listen to others and are moved by what they come up with. It's my job on policy committee to make sure members have an equal say, including on this issue. When I first stood as a general election candidate I was asked all sorts of questions including about the EU referendum which had not been announced yet. Rather than state my party's opinion, and then my own, I responded that yes we want a referendum but unlike David Cameron the reforms we want from Europe are very different. That was my 10 seconds of fame, at Mill Hill residents association, but the truth can not be summed up in 10 seconds. My favorite hustings was actually MMK school, where the kids politely got a lot out of me and who could lie to or betray those sweet kids. But my favorite thing about all this is feeling I am making a difference, that my work is key to the democracy of the party. In some way my endless trawling through positions the Greens have taken on Europe means that whatever position we take collectively is the preferred one based on evidence from millions of conversations. In 2014, the year before the General election, I helped hold London Green Party's seat in the European Parliament. We also gained a seat in the South West of England. As far as I was concerned I did not really care who the candidate was or what they did in Europe. For Barnet Green Party it was a chance to do something and we actually ended up getting more votes accross Barnet for the Council, than in Barnet for re-electing our Euro seat. At the time you could call me Euroskeptic, not really in the "out" camp, I despise Nigel Farage's UKIP, as an anti-facist, but undecided or not taking a position. I do not think the EU is a top concern to voters like the NHS, affordable housing, or migration. What swung it for me was my trip to help elect German Green Party MEPs in 2014. I spent every day for the week that I toured with the German Green Youth and a French Green Youth, and spent every night campaigning. We had a few campaigns which we interchanged in the different towns we toured: -Asylum and Frontex -TTIP and GMO's -Democracy, Solidarity, Europe! -For people to vote for Terri for all these reasons and more (many had already voted) -Anti-facism opposing the extreme right wing parties. and finally -Same-sex hand-holding and the International Day Against Homophobia, followed by a trip to a gay bar Having a gorgeous dinner which I cooked myself from local ingredients at Effi's home, Effi asked how we could counteract UKIP in the UK and why the UK want to leave Europe. We talked about other things and German state politics, which the Greens were involved in a Green-Black coalition in the area. I learned so much during that trip about our shared European identity. I saw how our allies the pirate party campaigned to legalise weed (a personal stance more liberal than Barnet Green Party's) I have spoken to old members who remember the many years the Green Party opposed EU membership, and new members inspired by the "seeing green" and "young greens" leadership. In summary I like my new European identity much better than my old undemocratic British citizenship, if you could even call it citizenship. I would not go as far as to say I love it. But a vote to stay in Europe can make another Europe Possible; -one with an alternative trade mandate that learns from the mistakes of the Common Agricultural Policy and provides better environmental regs than being the 51st state of America would. -Solidarity. A union where I (we) could be part of something with my (our) peers from the Federation of Young European Greens after last year's climate mobilisation, we'll be mobilising at the COP22 in Marakesh next year. -Living in a democracy with free and fair elections, working with other democracies on citizens' initiatives such as re-thinking the prohibition of Cannabis. David Cameron says giving prisoners the vote makes him physically sick. Physically sick. -A so-called Brexit is what the rightwing newspapers have been campaigning for for all my life. Dictators such as Murdoch, Putin, and their far-right allies would be very happy with a "leave" vote. Even a narrow majority would give them a chance to further destabilise our institutions, our democracy, and return to nationalism and their very scary views on race and identity. The real scare tactics are coming from the far-right and always have been, to sow distrust with our neighbours, to make make neighbours hate each other, with stories about muslims and disabled people. I don't associate myself with everyone on this side of the debate, and I respect my 20% of Green friends who take the other position, but if there's one thing we learned from the Scottish Indy referendum, it's that if we play this right it can unite us as a party and lead to a surge in interest amongst a population turned-off politics before. Please head over to the website "another europe is possible" and give us your email address and postcode. We'll be in touch! Ben Samuel - Proud campaigner, Former General Election 2015 candidate for Hendon ________________________________ P.S. We've got a debate scheduled at Middlesex University, organised by Poppy 7pm March 21st. On the panel we have representatives from both sides of the debate. For more info contact Poppy or look on Barnet Green Party facebook. I won't be there because I have an other meeting, with London Green Party. However here are my views on the EU and the real reason I will be voting in the #EUref.

Cat Hill, Chipping Barnet: A New Hope

I had the pleasure of an over-night visit Hertfordshire and North London's premier eco-protest, meeting Morgan the dedicated eco-warrior, and a number of local and squatting residents.  I did not get much sleep.  The police came out to see what was going on too, called twice that day by the security guard of the property developer. So far, newts have lost their homes, and the dreams of future generations literally crushed.  The former Middlesex University Cat Hill Campus offers real personal growth, excitement, and connection with people and the environment.  London's Green Belt is very much under threat and I would encourage readers to start similar campaigns to save the trees locally.  

We at Cat Hill Protest camp urge the Government to seriously read all the regulations they plan to cut, in case we lose something that we love.  And what is money, growth, and dividends ultimately but a piece of paper?

10 Evil Tactics Hunger Games

I just finished reading the first and third Hunger Games Books.  My thoughts.

Hunger Games: Ten Tactics of Cameron's Class Warriors, and how to fight back!

1. Revisionism
 "The mayor steps up to the podium and begins to read. It's the same story every year... as our reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games."

2. Violence
 "Of course, people keel over from starvation all the time, but I can’t imagine the Peacekeepers murdering a simpleminded child."

3.  Game-makers
"Sadly, rules are rules"

4. Divide and rule

 "They're holding hands. I want them dead!"

5.  Fear (to block out hope)

6. Cue Cards

7. Surveillance
"Being in the woods is rejuvenating.
...unloading our thoughts while we filled our game bags. This was the doorway to both sustenance and sanity. And we were each other's key."

8. Genetic modification
and nuclear

9. The mass media

10.  Elected dictatorship

Spoiling the fun of it and rude words on the ballot paper

A few thoughts on adult content and sex as a public good 

A lot has been said about the negative effects of Porn.  But a friend's dissertation says that the concept of prostitution is not as black & white as the law makes out.

The law says that sex is a transaction and money is a transaction and the two should not go together.  But why is it so often the woman selling and the man buying?

An other friend in the conversation, who was attempting to defend the "Policies for a Sustainable Society", or PSS, pointed out that research he has read shows that outcomes for male sex workers… sorry, prostitutes, have better outcomes than female ones.  This I think shows a fundamental split in feminism.  The question for all "good" men to think about is can patriarchy still be an issue in an all-male scenario?  And how can we men use our position of privilege to work for the common good, rather than smash it?

Misfits is a show on Channel 4 where in previous episodes one of the characters has the power to buy and sell powers at a handshake.  The first episode of the new 5th series of Misfits illustrates this transaction perfectly with 2 sex scenes.  The first is a woman begging a man to have sex with him so he can cure her of some unfortunate superpower.  She explains that he has the power to **** other people's powers out of them.  The happy ending is when he has sex with a male friend to cure him of a power that makes him the devil's agent on Earth.

How does this match with our core principles?

Back to my first friend who did this for her degree:  We live in a market society.  We are increasingly mediating all our transactions with money, with disastrous consequences.  We in the Green Party invite people to think about resisting this by stopping certain public goods from being sold off.  Be this our basic needs of food (allotments) and water (hydraulic fissure cracking), a bit of spending money no questions asked, a free World-class health service that is the biggest employer in Europe, and our sex as a public good.  As long as it's consensual, it should be allowed, dare I say encouraged.  There was an interesting art project involving a guy losing his virginity in the paper today.  These things are non-negotiable and should never be for sale.

A good example that compares sex with health and presents prostitution as a trigger for a revolution is Victor Hugo's great work Les Miserables.  Fantine sells her hair, her teeth, before finally renting out her vagina.

See this, and understand what we stand for, and why everyone in Britain might wake up and vote Green on May 22nd 2014, and if Green Party does not appear on the ballot, write a rude word on the ballot paper.  Feminist.

Something more interesting than politics

Let's face it, X factor is way more interesting and popular than politics, and I think I know why.  Music can create emotional messages that are much nicer than what you get from moaning with your mates about forests or nuclear weapons.

So I'm very musical and I've created some impressive works while I was in education which are all freely available online.  In fact my official photo comes from a music video I made on the day of action against airport expansion in 2007.

Music has given me confidence to perform and therefore speak well in public as a politician.  I'm sure that whilst my attention span has lapsed due to an onslaught of blogs and email messages, I still have the capacity to perform a 40-minute sonata for solo piano.  It's great training for the body too, to have some "can you feel it" blasting out of my Jane Fonda record while I'm attempting my abdominal excercises.  Music is really vital in Barnet Council's budget cuts, with the foundations re-forming especially to save the Arts Depot from privatisation.

I would really like to start a band.

A big part of my life is my religion, where music plays a big role in Synagogue or at the Friday night dinner table where everyone is singing together.  At the Willesden Green Wassail I heard a Jewish quote from the African lady who is campaigning to save the community centre she built only a year ago. "How good and how pleasant it is, brethren (and sisters) sitting together as one."  Quite literally in the case of Sara and Jonathan's wedding party.  Or visionary, as in the case of the anniversary protest in which Deborah Fink and comerades blasted out spoof christmas carols "On the first day of christmas (Benjamin) Netanyahu gave me... five settlement rings".

Therefore piano, guitar, choir, drama, and other music lessons has given me a discipline I can apply to many aspects of my work.  A sense of discipline and focus that the chemical science practice I learned in university failed to help me with.

It's your party

Photo by Rustam, Media co-ordinator at YoungGreenParty
I just got home from the big social event of the London Young Greens, who didn't exist 2 years ago but now have one elected officer, a skeleton consitution, 2 email lists, a facebook page, a group. I could go on, but I'll plug some of the people there who signed my nomination form for the selection ballot:

Teresa, who says I don't look left-leaning,

Andy, with the Clash - London Calling t-shirt, who it seems signed up my politically left-leaning friend in Barnet to the cause at a conference last year in the Friends' meeting house.
http://twitter.com/#!/Andy_Hewett/status/28894932743757824

It's been a long time since I've seen Jeannine. It's all about Jeannine, as I said about 5 years ago at the Peace Picnic: Before I even joined the Green Party. So glad she has just joined...

Matthew, a member in London from Nottingham, who went to my school and says so did the head of Liberty (who I might add, are hiring an experienced media campaigner at the moment).

Matt, who says he's breaking out of the Green bubble, told me I should speak to someone called Rob Smith I think, who's also into transport issues. Also we discussed nuclear energy, having just had a mailing on the subject.

I didn't have time to pester Farid but hope he'll forgive me. Likewise, theres no point pestering Gayle who I encouraged to come, from Manchester, because I think the rule is they have to be London members. I agree with Rustam who says that the rules should be laxer for new members wishing to take a stand.
And then there's Lee, who considers himself in an ethnic minority surrounded by "Southern Faries".

The flipside of the Priory Arms near Stockwell is that we had only 2 in attendance from the North - Elliot sent his apologies, and I counted 2 new members at any one time. Mind, I'm kind of glad underage people weren't present what with all the kissing, alcohol, smoking, body-doodling, and general banter going on.

(Last but not least Helen)

I will hand-deliver the spair signatures the day before the deadline on my way to work in North London.

I don't think there'll be a chance to vote for my selection at conference, though this might be a good idea.

I've resolved to be more polite in the way I pester people.