Trotting out the hate

Chris Trotter's blistering hate-mongering in his latest Sunday Star-Times column is really Them and Us material dredged up from the frothing dark well of hard left class antagonism, paranoia, fear - and above all a typically negative reaction to the bleak desperation besetting the staunch supporters of Labour. Trotter's hyperbolic rhetoric was chained to the 1950s and smacked of cloth-cap unionism at its most bankrupt. Driving back swing voters based on tribal taunts just does not cut it in the 21st century.

People thinking of moving their vote from Labour to National, Trotter says, should ask themselves:
"Is this the company I want to keep?"
He lists three basic component groups of National's core vote and characterises them in the most crude and often misleading terms I have seen in a mainstream publication. Trotter was cut and pasting the last 50 years of The Spark/Worker's Voice polemicism to use on some recent issues and thus made a series of - at times - preposterous assertions. Here's a taste:

THE COCKIES: Backbone of the nation; earners of our overseas funds; selfish; insular; and possessed of an indefatigable sense of moral superiority over everyone whose front door looks out upon a street instead of a paddock.

The arguments over the release of an anti-rabbit virus, the "fart" tax reversal and maintaining their normal property rights to exclude the public from their land are painted - flimsily - as selfish and detract from the one solid point he does actually make regarding river pollution and water rights.

THE RICH: Creators of wealth; makers of jobs; robbers of rights; bastardisers of culture; selfish; arrogant; and possessed of an indefatigable sense of moral superiority over everyone whose income is less than $100,000 per annum.

The most confusing statement was the "bastardisation of culture". Wealthy people sponsor opera and classical music and all manner of arts - they are far too numerous to list. By contrast then, poor people create honest/real culture? Like hip-hop and American-styled street gangs? And as for television, most dreadful programme formulae are geared for the poor. Naturally, the decisions are made by wealthy people, but so are most decisions where large organisations are involved and the top people are paid more than the bottom - but they also make some decent decisions as well. Maybe he was meaning the advertising industry? When he speaks of "The people who care nothing for the cultural wealth of our nation being fairly distributed." does he means he cannot afford to pay for tickets to the symphony, perhaps? He fails to articulate his point or give even one example of what on Earth he is talking about.

And as for his gripe at landlords "who pocketed the accommodation supplement (kindly supplied by their political representatives) even as their tenants' children went cold and hungry" - if the supplement was for accomodation then surely the person supplying the accomodation would end up receiving at least the majority of it. It wasn't a food supplement or a heating supplement, it was a rental supplement. The notion that the accomodation supplement was a direct gift to the landlords is unconvincing. Not having the supplement would have meant them going cold and hungry, but in Trotter's book it's all gravy for the capital class. Having rented in Auckland since the early 90s the rental market - in my opinion - is not influenced by the accomodation supplement. He does not mention the massive gap that has opened up with the sweetheart deal of the State House tenants under Labour and the relatively impoverished private renters.

THE REACTIONARIES: Defenders of the faith; upholders of decent family values; sadistic; bigoted; deranged hankerers after a world that - thankfully - has long since passed away.

On this constituent element of the Tories I concur. It is that conservatism that makes them Tories. But once again Trotter is still in the undertow of his ideology: "The people who think prisons are the solution to the problems that fill them," he mentions - without mentioning that under Labour's nine years several new prisons have been constructed at massively blown-out expense and muster numbers have swelled.

Trotter begs the question: what then of Labour? Disturbingly similar attitudes I think you'll find. In his style, let's have a shot:

Don't ever forget who the Nats Labourites are

THE COCKIES THE SUBURBANITES: Backbone of the nation; earners borrowers of our overseas funds debts; selfish; insular smug; and possessed of an indefatigable sense of moral superiority over everyone whose front door looks out upon a street McDonalds instead of a paddock vegan wholefoods co-op.

THE RICH THE POOR: Creators of wealth (for others!); makers doers of jobs; robbers of rights tax; bastardisers of culture; selfish; arrogant ignorant; and possessed of an indefatigable sense of moral superiority over everyone whose income is less more than $100,000 per annum.

THE REACTIONARIES Defenders of the faith; upholders of decent family socialist values; sadistic; bigoted; deranged hankerers after a world that - thankfully - has long since passed away.

That list is just as polarisingly thoughtless as Trotter's.

Like his Labour comrades, Trotter is a realist about power and tends to the negative as a natural posture. Trotter has long thought that anything goes when you're on the side of the angels. He stands, however on the side of a bunch of rank hypocrites. They forever bemoan the benefit cuts of Richardson/Shipley but have never restored them. They have never dropped the unjust age limit of 25 on student allowances. They gave State House tenants a free ride but have let beneficiaries in the private sector face increasing hardship. They passed laws to enable landlords to use private govt. information against tenants. They have kept Maori as only an optional item in the curriculum. They have confiscated Maori property. They let Anderton loose with the Crown chequebook which he used for his wealthy mates. They have remained stagnant or run against many interests of the working class during their near decade-long tenure, and acted to line the nest of corporations (like the Australian Toll group and Fay & Richwhite) through mis-management.

Trotter says at least they are not Tories. Well, they come far too close for many Labour voters. At some stage those people less ideologically inclined will vote for the actual Tories instead of what they see as an imitation.