What are green values?

Politicians on the right have claimed something of a monopoly on "values". Family values, war on drugs, various new code words for bigotry – yet it's not as if no one else has any values. They also appropriate the language of religion, and claim to be "Christian" – yet being truthful plays little consideration in achieving their goals. Depending who is counting, the 8th or 9th commandment prohibits lying. Perhaps it's a non-core commandment?

It's not as if the green movement has no values: a sustainable lifestyle, social justice, caring for the planet: these sound mighty like values to me.

Contrast this with politics of the other side which uses values as a fig leaf for corporate interests. Al Gore, in an insightful article titled "Reason usurped by blissful ignorance", tells of one of his earlier campaigns, where he followed precise advice from his pollsters, and achieved exactly the result they predicted, to an accuracy of 0.5%. "Values" are often used as a tool to manipulate opinion, a strategy which is very hard to counter by organizations which are not "business-friendly".

Let's dig a bit deeper into exactly what this "values" stuff is all about.

"Family values" is a coded message, hinting that "other people" have lifestyle choices of which the majority disapprove. The fact that most people do not lead idealized lives, with a single life-partner spouse and 2 and a third children (or whatever the average is supposed to be), of course does not stop the message from having resonance. The "other" picked on is usually some minority that can't fight back – certainly not anyone who represents swing voters in a marginal electorate.

More significant is what it's not about.

The most important "value" most mainstream politicians have is getting re-elected. In a spin-doctored world, that means access to a big pot of money to pay for the sort of advice and campaign that Gore experienced – as he put it, the "consent of the governed" was becoming a commodity to be purchased by the highest bidder – and big pots of money have strings attached.

This all goes some way towards showing why these sort of bogus "values" get paraded as distractors from the real issues. Opinion is manipulated towards the short-term interests of the moneyed. In Australia, this has meant that alternative energy has been extremely low on the government agenda at both state and federal levels, because coal (and to a lesser extent oil) is so big in this country. Compare that with New Zealand, where renewable energy accounted for 74% of energy use in the December 2006 quarter.

Instead of addressing the issue of climate change boldly, and as early as possible, we have seen procrastination – procrastination which the ruling coalition is trying to sell as economic prudence. What would have been "economic prudence" would have been early expenditure on R&D into alternative energy when the problem first surfaced. Instead, as recently as 2004, the Renewable Energy Development Initiative (REDI) was announced, with $100-million to be spent over 7 years. In that same year, the federal government spent more than that amount on advertising. That's more money spent in federal government advertising in one year than the amount budgeted over 7 years for developing renewable energy technology. Going back to Al Gore, you can see where the priorities are – spinning opinion the government's way, rather than addressing the real problem. Worse: they used our money to do it.

How do we fight the problem of special interests controlling the discourse?

A discussion group like this is a small contribution. If you know you are being manipulated, it is less likely to be effective.

So spread the word.

Saving the planet, living sustainably, social justice: these are all values. Let's talk about them here – and wherever else you can start a conversation. It's not as if we can talk about them in the commercial media.

Sorry if the paragraph breaks look odd: this is a Google feature, not something I did.