Despondency
There was a sick feeling following the election result. An empty, hollow, bleak dawning of realisation that all was for naught. No-one feels like blogging in these circumstances. Still in shock.
I suspect many on the left - especially those in Mana and to a slightly lesser extent, Labour - feel the same. Immediate contemplation of a move to Australia. Maybe come back in three years.
National blitzed in and John smug-arse cunty Key was on the radio that night saying National had "won the argument" on asset sales and that he was looking forward to putting his feet up on holiday in Hawaii - what a prick. Isn't it great to be in the top 1% of the top 1%.
The campaign was both the longest (the PM had announced the date at the beginning of the year), but paradoxically also the shortest (as everything was on hold until after the Rugby World Cup leaving only four weeks). The Nats being honest about their intentions to privatise didn't put people off either as Labour were promising their own poisoned apple of raising the retirement age. This drove many to support third parties, but not in numbers that would threaten a re-election of a National government that had cruised through their term with the assistance of a compliant media.
Record low turn-out means that the elderly make up a higher proportion of the vote and that means a more conservative outcome. So National were at a record high and NZ First had a record come-back.
And so we face the global depression with no economic answers. National's traditional, reactive, inclination to sell everything to their own upper-middle class constituents (and foreigners) on the one hand and treat the underclass with punitive, punishing measures as if being poor was a crime on the other hand is not an answer to our economic problems - they will exacerbate them. The Nat's idea of job creation is to lower wages and force the unemployed beneficiaries into taking them. This is no way to go about solving a growing gap with Australia they say they want to close.
I had a discussion with the Labour MP for Mt Albert, David Shearer, on Mr Bradbury's 'Citizen A' show last year and compared the current recession to the depression of the 1930s: a crash followed by a series of recessions where the governments keep pumping the system to keep credit going, but each time the effect is weaker and things plateau and then go into a long decline. I said that following the 1930s scenario as it applies to NZ, the Nats will be returned in 2011 (just as the conservative Reform-United coalition was in 1932) because the electorate will stick with the conservatives in time of strife, but they had no answers (just as National has none now) and it will only be at the next election when it becomes apparent that the Tory's have only protected the interests of their niche and never had any solutions - and then Labour will become government again - which will be in 2014. It seems a long way off.
posted by Tim Selwyn @ 9:43 am
11 comments
11 Comments:
"John smug-arse cunty Key" ... ROTFLMFAO !!!
Yup, its an awful, awful; feeling being surrounded by right wing morons, and not just any old morons, a very special kind of moron, a moron descended from a once reasonably intelligent and thoughtful species. I remember years - and YEARS - ago writing to a penpal in Singapore ( I was 11 ) and telling him how proud I was to be a kiwi because we " looked after each other" and had a great social welfare system ( my parents both worked hard, one a shift worker).
Now I think I would write saying how ashamed I am of my fellow kiwis, how all they do is shop in malls, watch shit tv and swallow party political spin like it's hot chocolate.
I feel a new Flight Of The Conchords Travel Poster coming on ... " New Zealand , It's a Cuntry "
"Immediate contemplation of a move to Australia. Maybe come back in three years." .....exact same contemplation!
When did we Kiwis begin to simply roll over and take shit? I think maybe the late 80s! When did we stop learning from history and past mistakes?
I find it amusing too the number of people I've met that think the master of the universe is a good bloke - right up until the time they're made redundant and can no longer live for today, and they realise they've been living on credit, 'aspiration' and hope but have nothing tangible.
And what of the myth people hold that an investment banker by definition is necessarily a good economist.
Greed, bigotry and self-interest is alive and well in NZ, and I'd suggest more so than in many parts of Australia. Admitedly there are pockets of it where refugees and others are treated appallingly but they've not only overtaken us in matters economic and fiscal over the past couple of decades.
While Labour needs a kick up the arse (as Australian Labor has come to realise a while ago), so does a large proportion of the NZ electorate. So too the NZ ms Media.
I feel the same way Tim, but life goes on. We can't look to politicians for the answers anyway. They simply don't have them. The few that do have some good ideas are shut down by the compliant media. So it's up to us to look after each other, the planet, and our fragile little democracy in the pacific that many take for granted. As you said governments usually get re-elected by default during times of hardship. We have been lumped with a global recession, wars and earthquakes and to finish it off we won the RWC. The perfect storm of disaster and distractions which saw 1/3 of voters supporting our smug-arse PM, 1/3 opposed and 1/3 too apathetic to bother voting at all. "sigh"
Yes the nation has spoken and they are quite happy to be owned by foreigners, work for low wages and have a large number of children living in poverty.They also don't mind handing over the keys to the asylum to the psychopaths. Never mind it will give me something to rage about and give the left a fine mess to clean up when the non voters realize how much in the crap the right wing neo-liberals have got us into.
Disengaged voters-assholes when Syrian and Egyptian corpses are piling up, mid East locals trying to get the very rights kiwi shitheads ignore.
Yet what stake have the young (apart from priveleged young nats) got? Student loans, mcjobs, hi unemployment, peak oil, a hectic but empty virtual digital life plus the usual other generational impositions and prejudices.
Regardless, what about online voting for the young? A worry too, imagine it-siri says “vote now and get a free double down around the corner”. And monitors your vote under the search and surveillance Act. Grrrr.
Anyway good news for those that give one is MMP is likely to hang on and all the occupy issues are still around to beat ShonKey about the gourd with.
So what's your answer Tim?
How are you going to pay for all the public services promised by parties like Mana promised? When every other Western country in the world is now finding it impossible to live as they did before.
Australia is doing well - but its digging up all its stuff in the ground and selling to China.
You guys won't even contemplate investigating the seabed for oil - which could have the chance of making us as rich as Norway.
You don't want to sell assets. Fair enough. But equally we need to stop this endless borrowing from foreign sources.
So where does the money come from? Yeah - tax the rich,(yes they are selfish pricks, but you can't legislate against that). But what's to stop them buggering off and taking their money if you do that?
The left needs to come up with realistic, sensible solutions. They did not. Thus they got wasted at the polls and deservedly so.
I'm relieved that enough people didn't swallow Labour's party political spin (which was even worse than National's).
cunty-key ! Hahahahahah .... Dear Sweet Jesus , let me get my breath .... Hahahahahahhaahahahah ! You guys , all of you are brilliant ! All is not lost when I read such passionate and irreverant stuff . Well bloody done ! ' Mike ' , you make good points . Let me answer for Tim . It's not how we get the money to run shit on ... It's where the fuck the money's going ! And where the fuck it's gone historically ? That's a couple of very , very interesting questions if I do say so myself .
There were some very complex issues raised in this election and I was very pleased about that. I think it is very hard for people who are busy and/or have a disinclination toward politics to engage with in-depth issues.
Initially I was angry/frustrated about the turnout and then realized that the people who didn't vote made a choice in doing so. It was like a soft vote for the status quo. I'll bet that many, far from being unmotivated were quite considered in their non vote: may have refrained out of a feeling that they didn't understand the issues enough and decoded to leave it to those who have more understanding.
I firmly believe NZers have made a mistake with regard to voting National's policies, though. I believe that they did so because right wing policies 'sound' so confident and positive. ALL left wing parties failed to promote their policies as the positive and the best way forward for NZ policies that they are enough to get people to realize that the 'right' way forward was wrong. Greens did well because they DID achieve a positive message, yet STILL the majority of NZers voted right because the positivity and import of applying left wing policies at this time were not clearly made plain to them.
For example; more tax sounds dreadful, yet a capital gains tax is merely a way of directing money investment into productive spheres (rather than a sphere which raises prices and makes production/business increasingly unviable) A financial transaction tax acts in the same way.
You can give the top earners more tax breaks, you can cut welfare completely, you can demand people go out and get jobs that aren't there, yet this will not address the problems we face: Money is not going into productive ventures because large proportions of it are going into unproductive activities; namely gambling.
People are scared and see 'right wing people' as 'knowing their stuff' with regard to business and financial affairs. If time was taken to view the world condition and causes of it however, one realizes that 'normal business practice' is DYSFUNCTIONAL and FAILING. NZers have chosen to listen to the very ideologies that are causing the things we wish to avoid.
We need to somehow get NZers to understand these issues for the next election. Perhaps there are things we can do until that time to minimize the damage that right wing policies will do. Informing the general population of the positive effects left wing policies create and sending the message out to stop believing in the idiots who have got us into this mess are messages that need to be conveyed and we will have plenty of people voting in the next election and there will be a huge swing to the left ...Lets face it, we only needed 3-4 out of every hundred voters more to vote left and we would now have a brilliant government that REALLY would be addressing the problems...not just SAYING they are and carrying on the exact same course that we've witnessed other countries follow that has lead them to the train wreck that they've experienced from doing so.
In short, I agree with what I suspect countryboy is implying
I think a sizeable chunk of it was spent on keeping kanye west out of the country, lest he deflower annabel faye;
a lot went on the stargate up north too;
and then there's those subterranean hideouts, they're not cheap, neither's time travel, you need quality sunglasses to deflect the burn, and a lot of cash in old denominations, steely dan t-shirts, vintage cars & planes etc
U kiwis are a dumb arse bunch of hicks eh? My grandma says Key must be good as he has such a luvly smile. The joke is now on Muldoon for saying every time a kiwi leaves for OZ he makes both countries smarter. Wouldn't be true anymore, apart from no one in their right mind would move to NZ anymore. I will tell you what make OZ good, it is strong wages which means everyone gets a fair share. not like your stupid trickle down theory. When the bucket if full in NZ all they do is get another bucket. You kiwis won't even get a drop of the 1% 's piss. They are too greedy to even piss on you and you have been programmed like the good dogs you are you salvate when they tell you to give them more as they still don't have enough to spare on trickling down on you.
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