I’VE ONLY EVER MET ONE serving agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. As far as most of us lefties knew he was a liberal American academic; friendly, generous, with a fund of interesting stories to tell. Outwardly, at least, the man seemed harmless. It was only when he was driving three of us away from a late-night exercise in radical derring-do that the thought occurred to me that there might be more to this guy than met the eye.
As our wheel-man whisked me and my comrades away from the scene of our “symbolic action” he gave us a piece of extremely good advice.
“The moments after an action such as this”, he said, “are always the most dangerous. Your bloodstream is full of adrenalin and you feel invincible. The truth of the matter, though, is that your judgement is shot. That’s why it’s in the immediate aftermath of high-risk activity that people are most prone to making the sort of stupid mistakes that get them caught. So, I’m just going to drive around for the next half hour or so. Give you guys a chance to decompress: for the adrenalin to work its way out of your system.”
It occurred to me that we were probably listening to the voice of experience. And something told me that the high-risk activities our driver had been involved in were almost certainly a whole lot more hazardous than a bit of symbolic protest action.
A few months later, our American friend was giving a talk about political radicalism and let slip that he had once lectured a roomful of Northern Irish internees: IRA and UDF hard men. That set me thinking. What sort of security clearance would you need to be given access to political prisoners of that ilk? And who would issue it? British Army Intelligence? MI5? MI6? The guy simply had to be a spook.
Thirty-five years later, at an end-of-year party in Auckland, I mentioned my suspicions to a mutual American friend. He gave me a sharp look and grinned. “Well spotted”, was all he said.
Over the years, I’ve become convinced that our American friend’s advice applies with equal force to the after-effects of collective – as well as personal – excitement. Those high-drama, high-risk moments in a nation’s history, when the political adrenalin is coursing through the body politic, are precisely the moments when rushing to any sort of judgement – let alone action – is the worst possible thing politicians, journalists and political activists can do.
John Key’s resignation, for example, was just such a moment of high political drama and risk. People got excited. Adrenalin flowed. Our collective judgement was shot. All sorts of stupid mistakes – and statements – were made, and all sorts of silly stories were published and posted. What the country needed was someone to drive it around for a while and give it a chance to decompress.
Because Bill English is not some sort of Jesuit torturer just aching to draw blood with his newly acquired political instruments. Nor is Paula Bennet a whip-wielding Westie dominatrix in spiked heels and a leopard-skin corset. These two human-beings are nothing more, nor less, than National Party politicians – and by no means the worst of their breed.
And, before you start reeling off all the many and varied sins of this government, it is, perhaps, worth considering how very similar it is to the government which preceded it.
Who was it who pioneered the policy of moving beneficiaries from welfare to work, and kept their children poor? Allowed the public housing stock to rot where it stood rather than build new state houses? Refused to re-empower the trade unions, or rescue public broadcasting? Which party was it that signed the New Zealand-China FTA and set in motion the diplomacy that culminated in the TPPA? Who persecuted Ahmed Zaoui and masterminded nuclear-free New Zealand’s rapprochement with its “very, very, very good friends” the Americans?
The “continuity” represented by Bill English being sworn-in as John Key’s successor extends backwards in time well beyond the 2008 General Election, and will extend forward well beyond any change of government in 2017.
But, if it’s the excitement of dis-continuity you’re after, then for God’s sake try to remember that collective good judgement is generally exercised in inverse proportion to the amount of collective adrenalin coursing through your political system.
So what’s your point? Labour does it too so keep voting the Natz or don’t bother to vote, because politicians are all the same?
No savenz, how about you stop and think before you open your mouth. How about you look at the underlying ideology which has placed us all here. And yes, the labour party has been a stalwart of that set of ideas and beliefs, for the last 35 years or so.
So savenz, rather than look for external solution, or some leader to follow, how about you try doing somthing different, you actually put your brain into gear and find solutions to this ideological merry-go-round we are all tethered to.
As it stands, if you think a labour government is going to be any different, you are deluded. All labour is going to do, is the same, maybe with a smile, and pretended it’s better. But it will be the same, I for one am sick of changing the packaging, just to get the same God dam awful ideology wreaking society.
Well Adam, what is your solution – give up???? Shoot yourself? Vote National because they are the same as Labour?
Seriously what’s your plan – whine at blogs – if you bothered to look at what Labour have been doing and who is leaving the party, you might realise that they are actually transforming.
But even if you do hate Labour, who will you vote for? And if it is the Greens (they are in coalition now with Labour), if it is The Maori Party then Fuck You being a Natz partner supporter, and if it is Mana then who’s better for them to support, Labour/Greens or National?
Labour actually set up the welfare State, so how you can think they are as bad as the Natz is beyond me.
But worse, people like you put so much energy into stabbing Labour rather than National who have fucked up this country for 8 years. Then you wonder why Natz keep getting in, and worse the same people then whine about how the Nu Zilland Sheeple keep voting Natz back. Maybe because the missing million read blogs like Trotter and thought why bother voting at all?
I don’t waste energy stabbing labour, they do it to themselves. And anyone else who offers an alternative. Then they have supporters like you to abuse anyone who dears to point out the base ideologically problems within that beast, and then spleen at them. So thanks for the usual diatribe of dualism, from narrow minded types like you.
You think after 8 years of the Troy scum in power you lot might actually listen to us, but no lets do the same old thing that did not work then, and will not work now. T.I.N.A!
As for the personal abuse, thanks. What a guy, what a way to win an argument. Yes I’ve voted for the Maori party in my electorate, better than having to listen to the racist crap from labour party people like you. It gets tired. Why should Maori vote for you lot, when your racist little response is not unusual. By the way, you better get you head sorted because a left wing collation does not happen without Maori.
But you know what really made me go *sigh* with you response savenz. The utter lack of understanding of ideology. You talk that labour set up the welfare state, and yes it did, but if you got any of those men and women in the room with the current crop, they would call them Tory scum and traitors to the idea of of the labour movement. They understood, what you don’t and that is pretty dam obvious, that liberalism is a beast, which will grind down working people until nothing is left.
But sure go on attack me personally, attack anyone who disagrees with you on a personal level to justify your utter lack of understanding that many want. Change, which is progressive, fundamental and long standing. Not some change of chairs, to this or that political master just so they can manager it better for the corporate elects.
So bugger off with you labour has changed, it’s a mantra that was tired 8 years ago, very few people are buying the lie.
Since you believe in The Maori party who got just 1.32% of the votes last time – that says it all. If you believe in Maori, but don’t want to support Labour, at least have the good sense to vote Mana who actually have an alternate ideology if you could be bothered to vote for it.
Pretty cheeky to rant out about “God dam awful ideology wreaking society” when your vote for the Maori Party that directly props that ideology up and there were alternatives last election.
A vote for the supporter parties of National, The Maori Party, ACT and United Future are actually worse than National voters. At least National voters are clear what they believe in rather than voting for parties that can be bought for the best deal.
Think of that when you see the latest statistics on poverty and asset sales. When another 29 people die in a mine and the government does not care. Worse still promise their families before an election to get their bodies out, but then renege on it.
Thanks for you paternalistic racism savenz, not like I have not seen it before.
Assumptions make you look like a right ass, don’t they savenz. The last election, I supported my local MP who lost his seat to the sceaming labour party and it’s commitment to neo-liberalism. Now I wonder who that could be…
You sir, are a assumption making tosser who should get a grip. Labour are scum who have the foot on the neck of working people in this country, until you actually wake up and realize they are the same as national, and don’t give a rats ass for you and yours —- then you might, just might, have an original thought.
Because at the moment you ravings are just that, ravings of the loony lefty, clueless, and out of touch with reality.
Are you saying nothing has changed significantly since Helen Clark was in power? I hope so, because nothing has changed significantly since Helen lark was in power. It’s still the global money-lenders and corporations game of ‘trade deals’, land speculation, and conversion of fossil fuels into life-threatening pollution -broadly described as looting and polluting- with opportunists gaming the system for their own short-term benefit.
And those in control will keep doing what they do until they can’t.
party pooper…
Excellent blog Chris. Thanks.
Reading TDB the day after Key’s resignation, you’d could have been forgiven for thinking it was the product of a mental institution.
I wondered who Chris was writing this for. It must have been you, Andrew.
Key knew weeks ago that he was toast.
The tide is turning, so sit and wait for the election and wave goodbye to all your buddies, as NZ First takes the election as the king maker because NZ First is the real deal and the others will need them to form a coalition.
Bull shit.
Driving around and cooling off is precisely what’s dragged us down into this fucking awful mess.
And having ones head fucked with by an American spook is no qualification given how meddlesome and disastrous U$A foreign policy is. ( You can still crunch over the bones of Buddhist Cambodians in the killing fields. )
You just wrote logical fallacy shit @ Chris Trotter and it saddens me to say so.
Fuck softly-softly. Big Gristles Bennet, the Cruel Miester and her upstairs Gimp, the double dipping dipton dribbler are more dangerous and disastrous than all the NZ gangs combined.
They should both be multi tasking as I write. That is, running while screaming.
Chris, I note you use the contemptuous diminutive “leftie”. (See greenie – hippie).
Should we infer that you are no longer left wing and have “put away childish things”.
Silly imputation. I consider myself a ‘Leftie’. Slangy and affectionate if anything, just as cowboy films have Goodies and Baddies.
Some seem to have a grudge against Chris, and invent slurs that are not there.
If you’re insinuating that I, specifically, am ‘ slurring ‘ Chris Trotter you’re wrong. ( If you’re not, then I’m just paranoid thank God. ) I intend for there being no fucking doubt that I’m being insulting and / or aggressive if it comes to that.
I’ve been to many dismally pallid, limp wristed, walk A bouts pretending to be protests and I always leave them feeling frustrated and limp penis’d. It’s like going to a church fete, buying nothing and there’s no fucking sausage sizzle either.
If one’s to protest then fucking protest! Get your blood up for Gods sake! No one should ever want to cause physical injury to another but if physical injury occurs? Then push met shove and just look at how the National/Neo Liberalists/ Uber Riche are shoving us around like special needs kitty kittens.
My reply was to Chris McMahon. (But it’s cool to be paranoid, as long as you are paranoid enough..)
I’m sure you’ve met more than one CIA agent, Chris. You just didn’t spot him. As for Key’s departure. No one with his ego exits before times up. What about the Knighthood? Is he a Rothschild…stayed at Balmoral…remember David Icke’s comments on HM…what about Pizzagate and is his softporn artistic daughter involved…is he involved…let’s ask Fiona Barrett. When the s… hits the fan, as truth will out…will Bill English and his crew have managed to attain a decent oxygenated height above the swamp? Are all our governments irrespective of name all controlled by the same hidden hand? Look around – poverty, unemployment, cancer statistics, etc. Do you think all this is because the people are stupid or is it all by design? Cause and effect. We don’t need any more adrenalin coursing through the political system we need to give it an enema and send it on its way.
Social engineering is what it’s called.
But the free trade deal that Labour was setting up between minnow countries was not the chain around our necks that the TPPA became.
You mean the free trade deal with that “minnow” China?
You people need to get a grip on reality. You’re never going to be satisfied because democratically elected governments reflect the view of the average person, and most of you people are a tiny fringe which probably don’t even have the support of 1%.
As you know very well, the original TPPA did not include China. It was between smaller states of relatively equal power and with quite different trading strengths. In the event NZ’s preternaturally stupid negotiators determined their best hope of sinecures lay in licking America’s bottom, while Australia stitched up the better trade deal independently with Japan.
However popular the Key government may have been, it is an objective failure.
Oh..and…http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/newzealand
and I wonder who Key left behind who, like him, is also profiting from “his” debt : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ6SQK0b1Yst
We have so much cleaning up and clearing out so let’s forget about the adrenalin and enema let’s go for the guillotine.
And P.S. Chris. Why are the headquarters of the CIA located UNDERNEATH LAKE GENEVA? Some things are just not human, I have heard.
” Nor is Paula Bennet a whip-wielding Westie dominatrix in spiked heels and a leopard-skin corset.”
No she’s not. She just does a bloody good impression of one in her bid to come across as the female equivalent of a JonKey, ‘average bloke’, ‘non-PC’ type concerned primarily about popularity, career and her ambition.
That’s why she’s the best person to help lead the nats into oblivion next year.
It was kind of your American caregiver to drive you around until you’d bragged, laughed, boasted your collective ways to sobriety.
However, was anything actually brewing on the streets? Were there others wanting to lair it up? Was there enough frisson to cause spontaneous ignition?
Or was there a slow-burning, sullen decisiveness that said, ‘The time is now. Enough is enough.’
The first is the sort of yahoo football hooligan event. The second is the lethal one and it runs on cortisol/long haul – not the quick fizz of adrenaline. Think the long hate of the Irish – from the 1640s and before – or the tenacity of the Scots from 1320. Post international football, England losing to Germany, it is not.
Perhaps your man told you that, too?
We are being set up by Golman Sachs as Jonkey has invited all ex godman Sachs employees he knew while at Merryll lynch here onto treasury 12 yrs ago and they are slowly undermining our economy to turn us into another Greece don’t you see this?
Just look at what treasury are saying and ridiculously doing, with people like Paula Rebstock and her German husband who all sat on the board tethering our demise so Country boy is exactly right here!!!!
Chris please report this as a Nactional scandal who in treasury from foreign corporations have been brought into our NZ treasury as advisors and board members please.
Racketeering as big as the mob we have now here so we will soon become another failed state like Greece.
Personally, I’m not convinced that the CIA are the go-to guys on political change. They fought their corner adequately during the cold war, but they’ve been less successful since. Their South American adventures have come back to haunt them, and they carried most of the can for the incontinent greed of the Bush administration’s corporate masters.
But as for his advice – enthusiasm is indeed rich stuff. Heady, dangerous, and infectious. Caution and negativity will not build a popular movement however, though it may serve as some kind of palliative for the Left manque.
“Who was it who pioneered the policy of moving beneficiaries from welfare to work, and kept their children poor?”
Yes, indeed, those who care can study what is behind it:
http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/designated-doctors-used-by-work-and-income-some-also-used-by-acc-the-truth-about-them/
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/designated-doctors-used-by-winz-msd-the-truth-about-them-post-upd-18-10-2016.pdf
http://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/medical-and-work-capability-assessments-based-on-the-controversial-bio-psycho-social-model/
Also containing useful info:
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/msd-and-dr-david-bratt-present-misleading-evidence-claiming-worklessness-causes-poor-health/
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/msd-dr-bratt-present-misleading-evidence-on-worklessness-and-health-publ-post-19-09-16.pdf
WORKING FOR NEW ZEALAND’: A Background Paper on Recent and Proposed Welfare Reforms in New Zealand, Louise Humpage, Public Policy Group, University of Auckland, March 2007
http://www.artsfaculty.auckland.ac.nz/images/cms/files/LHumpage/Humpage%20Welfare%20forum%20background%20paper%20Mar%2007.pdf
‘ESCAPING THE WELFARE MESS?’, Susan St John and Keith Rankin, Working Paper Nr 267, Revised December 2009:
http://www.cpag.org.nz/assets/WelfareMessrevised09.pdf
New Labour in the UK engaged in beneficiary bashing and driving even sick and disabled off benefits, Labour here tried to follow them in their footsteps. The Nats here only used the opportunity to take it a little further, and to tie up with where they left off in the late 1990s.
Comments are closed.