Theres this thing going on at the moment where one 500 year old Kauri tree in Titirangi somewhere is being battled over by the Conservative environmentalists and the Liberal progressives, or Greenies and Developers, and it is my considered opinion that they will win the battle, saving this old soldier, but they aren't doing themselves any good as far as the war is concerned.
And it seems to me is this is kinda what it comes down to. Not only are they at war, the Greens, but the greatest mistake they have made is not stating this in it's entirety and that entirety likely is the re-greening of New Zealand, that as much as is humanly possible of the land of New Zealand is forested and that the smallest amount possible be set aside for humans to survive within and about this land doing what land does.
For without this defined victory, this place to go to as an actual real idea people can believe in and share, then all strategies to acheive this unspoken victory cannot serve anything except the disjointed ideals of the people fighting the battles.
The thing is that if this goes to Parliament, which at this moment seems to be the case, then it's obvious the tree will remain standing simply because the Liberal progressives who are now in power are fighting a war and they will easily forgo one soldiers sacrifice at their hands for the public display of benevolence they can be seen to make... and make it look like a grand gesture in accordance with the beliefs of those seeking to save the tree... this is tactics to win the war and not a strategy to win a battle.
The Greens however will see it as a victory to keep one of their soldiers still standing but it is and will be a hollow victory at best because if they were indeed knowing they were fighting a war and that this was merely a battle they'd acually be better served going the way of Martyrdom, losing the tree in a gushing of great moral anguish which, if played well, could result in a ground swell of understanding for their overall cause.
But they don't see it like that. They only see themselves as a cause celebre where the winning of medals for bravery might one day vanquish this obviously evil foe but it's empty because there is no stated cause and only celebre.
Image if you will that the Greens made consessions. That they used this felling of one single tree to set precedents. That they knew it was a hopeless mission, as in the soldier making the mission must die, and so made it count for as much as that single life possibly could.
Let's say that the timber from the tree must be made into lumber and that the lumber must be made into artworks to hang on the walls of the children's section in libraries and be reminders to us all of the sacrifice each and every tree makes to our well being. But as well that for the age of the tree to be felled that as many seedlings are planted to replace it, that 100 5 year old trees be planted for every 500 year old tree taken down.
Because this is what the Greens are actually up against. They who they fight for each single tree are already looking at other forests. They are at war and each battle serves battles yet to come which they realise too are often lost as soon as they become battles because the intention at the beginning for most of any objective is for it to be won by covert action.
Meanwhile the Greens seem only like a rag tag bunch of Che Guevara's looking for the medals to be won and the t-shirts to be worn which is really sad because the real Che knew it was a war.
The Greens need to read the Art of War and see that strategies are developed to suit tactics which are there to win a war and not get lost, as they do, in using strategy to define tactics which might in some way allow them to declare, at some stage, that it may actually be a war.
Battles make heroes but survivors win wars.
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