Labour/Green electricity policy ‘Communist’ like Obama is ‘Socialist’

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Screen Shot 2013-04-20 at 7.38.18 PMYou can hear the shock and the spluttering rage at the audacity of the Labour/Green electricity policy. The mainstream media can’t comprehend the idea that the neoliberal free market bullshit that has robbed NZ citizens while empowering big business is being so openly challenged.

News rooms around the country stacked high with 20something graduates who have no idea what the word ideology means are scrambling and the old crony guard voices of the establishment at ZB are screaming blue murder.

Yes, that’s right Leighton Smith. Using the same failed neoliberal model for electricity, power prices went up under Labour. That’s why they’re changing it!

Shock. Horror. You know the NZ right wing and business community are terrified about policy when they call it ‘Communism’. It’s the same type of scaremongering tactic used by Tea Party fanatics and mad Republicans when trying to attack Obama’s watered down medicare package by calling it ‘socialism’.

In this case it’s Steven Joyce ridiculously leading the reds under the bed charge.

Allowing us to use the Pharmac model in the electricity market to create one buyer for the benefits of NZers is not bloody Communism and to use such pathetic language shows how immature the Governments response really is.

Steven Joyce wouldn’t know Communism if Karl Marx rose from the dead, fixed Novopay and bit him on the arse.

And what’s wrong with an idea being ‘Communist’? I note China, Key’s favorite new trading comrades are Communist, so perhaps Stevie can climb down off his free market high horse?

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I don’t give a damn that big business electricity won’t make the obscene profits they’ve been gouging from NZers, I care about the 270 000 kids living in poverty. A saving of $300 a year for them is the difference between having heating at winter, or not having it.

The fear in the eyes of the right as they start to comprehend how far left the Opposition are leaning is delightful but we must appreciate that those who have gained so much from neoliberalism will fight tooth and nail to hold onto their privilege.

Despite the spectacular failure of free market dogma with the 2007-08 financial market collapse, despite Milton Friedman’s ‘self-regulating market’ nonsense melting down, despite us all now being Keynesian, National refuse to budge from their neoliberal consensus because they can’t operate outside of that intellectual paradigm.

Labour and the Greens are going to come in for sustained hateful attacks, now is the time to rally around our Political Parties and leaders and support them.

Ever since the Labour/Green announcement on electricity reforms, I’ve started dreaming in colour again.

Let’s spell out to the right that a real change is brewing because after being told by John Key for 6 years what Government can’t do, voters are going to be hungry to hear what Government can do for them.

Let’s start taking our country back.

15 COMMENTS

  1. Yes, absolutely, I do agree. It’s time to stand united as the Left – and I’m glad Greens/Labour are doing this. Yes, we have differences, and I prefer the Greens progressive power prices policy, but this is small while we have a National government to contend with. Note that NZ First does not support the policy. The problem is with NZ First’s policy of only buying back the power shares (even though I like that), the power companies will still be able to charge high fees like they have been. Go Figure Winnie.

    On your note about communism – the same applies to the word socialism – I hear right-wingers and red-knecks running it down all the time and they have no idea what it actually means and that there are many perspectives of it. That’s why they support National/Act of course. Better education about types of government and economic polices at high school might open people up to these notions – it did for me (as I had to do sociology in my high school).

  2. Well put. MSM have really shown the lack of generational depth this week. Actually made me unfollow lots of them. Slackers!

  3. The right wing parasites who live off the workers in this country would really have something to worry about if Labour or the Greens actually stood for socialism. Because their policy would be to renationalise stolen state assets without compensation and put them under the democratic management and control of elected boards of the workers, whose pay would not exceed twice that of the average worker and be subject to immediate sacking if they broke with the mandates of their electors.

    The parasite class would have difficulty finding any country labelled ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ to blame for their expropriation simply because none such country has succeeded in this goal, yet.

    • Instead the just nationalise profits, even those of companies that were never owned by the state in the first place.

      I love this policy. It allows me to paint the opposition as the South Pacific Zany-PF. No panic at all.

  4. “Milton Friedman’s ‘self-regulating market’ nonsense melting down”

    Ahhh, but there’s the rub. They didn’t actually let that happen (i.e. let the the market self-regulate), because they suddenly went all neo-Keynesian on our collective arses by bailing out every bankrupt corporate and finance company under the sun with unprecedented deficit spending (exactly NOT what Milton would have wanted, but EXACTLY what Keynes would have prescribed). Our central planners have absolutely no clue what to do in the face of turmoil, so end up switching policy like we switch underwear. The prescription for the failed Milton Friedman neo-liberal dogma is the equally destructive neo-Keynesian dogma. You’ll see.

    • Ah Nitrium wrong body.
      Keynes didnt advocate paying bosses to sit on their arses.
      He advocated state spending on paid employment – even Egyptian pyramids – to put wages into circulation so that demand would encourage bosses to get off their arses.
      State bailouts of banks is no more than the state taxing workers directly to save capitalism from collapse.
      But your right by accident, correct Keynesian policies – such as those pioneered by Bill Sutch in NZ in the 1930s – still won’t restore growth unless bosses can cut their costs to restore profits. That’s the point of austerity, driving down wages to create cheap labour.
      Because this all depends on workers agreeing to be screwed at both ends it can explode in the bosses faces.
      The fuse is burning.

  5. And what’s wrong with an idea being ‘Communist’?

    Nothing wrong with something being communist. In fact, i’d say that that would make slightly more right. NZPower isn’t communist.

    I note China, Key’s favorite new trading comrades are Communist,

    China is not, and never has been, communist. Why else do you think that the capitalists love the place so much? It’s exactly the type of society that they want – top down dictatorial.

    …but we must appreciate that those who have gained so much from neoliberalism will fight tooth and nail to hold onto their privilege.

    Of course they will and we have to be ready to point out all the failures that neo-liberalism brought about. Especially the massive increase in poverty.

  6. The heart of communism is the phrase: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

    Not a bad way to live (patriarchal language aside) and is in fact how 99% of most organisations operate internally. The reason it breaks down in modern society is because of scale. As the population increased and populations moved from small towns to cities it became impossible to maintain networks of trust between citizens. Because of this, anonymous parasites have been able to not only personally thrive, but have caused society to change so that people and organisations are rewarded if they act selfishly.

  7. Power to the people, right on! NZ has been seduced ( fxxxxxd) by corporate Interests for too long and we are told we have to sell our grandma (taonga) because we need to upgrade our schools? Australia has an informed Public broadcasting service which is commercial free, far more intelligent, informed, and at a sensible time slot in the early evening. We are so putting up with poor and dodgy Government, cow towing to big business. Fletchers, Downers, Mainzeal, Hardies, SKY Casino and SKY TV, Transport Truck lobby (motorways 15 billion), Fonterra, Building Sector (trust us to build non leaky buikdings) PIKE RIVER (trust us to self manage the risks), The Banks are rorting NZ, Insurance Companies (Christchurch! ), TVNZ has turned to trash. Ever wondered why new Banks Buildings and Supermarkets are popping up around Wellington. Bunnings, Mitre10, Placemakers, seem to be doing ok. Our farm sector is beholding to the banks that only want to see the farmers heavily in debt and the housing bubble in Auckland . Great for business. Some serious thinking to be done folks. You can’t fool us all the time. Good Work BB.

  8. The duo (Joyce and Key) that are as funny as a fart – ESPECIALLY given the recent GCSB/SIS/security ‘kerfuffle’: They’d both be NZ’s greatest security risk – especially KEY.
    I.e. Given his agenda, his history and buznuss contex, his dutiful arse-sucking to the U.S. (in the hope of citizenship) – he’s ekshly China’s frikken dream come true.
    A bit like the South American “roaring success” of a tour, the Chinese can’t beleive their luck!
    Jesus H Christ!
    If Jim Henson was starting out today, he’d be modelling The Muppets on John Key(s) and Steven Jooooooooyce.

  9. People in high office who profit from looting will always defend looting.

    O’bomber, otherwise known as president War-is-peace, broke every pledge he made on the election trail within 6 months of gaining office.

    All politicians are liars. Most of them are compulsive liars.

  10. Leighton Smith was supporting the policy against the preferences of his listeners the day after it came out. He said it was worth a try.

  11. The only time the right wing support “communism” is when it comes to using taxes to pay for their pet projects like charter schools, roads of insignificance and bailouts of corporates etc – as they say, privatise profits and socialise losses.

  12. Communism is just the same as mafia rule. Corporations love communism, because you have obedient slaves to work in your factories. Look at the capitalist industrialists who backed the bolsheviks / soviets and the supposed “right wing” national socialist Nazis.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sah_Xni-gtg

    Capitalists love left wing ideology. It sells particularly well when the average ability of citizens to do math is lowered. Capitalism leads to communism as Marx predicted.

    P.S. Both are atheist world views.

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