Pointing our Whyte rehashed previous arguments is as petty as his own argument – the issue is the poverty denial not his repetition of it. If you think catching him out saying the same thing he said a decade ago is a ‘win’ you need to redefine how you play the game.
Whyte denies poverty exists in NZ because his right wing philosophy demands individual responsibility and ignores hegemonic structures of control in society. He argues that poverty is relative, so if you have a TV and a fridge in NZ, then you aren’t really poor, hence claiming 305 000 children live in poverty is a lie.
He then goes into a ridiculous example of boys paid the same amount of money to arrive at his conclusion with the same disconnected academic approach that made his legalisation of incest such a winner.
The entire thread of his argument is an exercise in sophistry. All Whyte is doing is redefining poverty as ‘absolute’ and because few NZers fall into ‘absolute’ poverty there is no such thing as poverty. This is of course 100% pure grade bullshit. Poverty exists and it is deeply damaging the fabric of NZ society, allowing it to be defined in absolute terms spits in the face of those NZers struggling to make ends meet each week. The focus should be on stamping out Whyte’s damaging ideas, not bitching that he wrote the same argument almost a decade ago.
By focusing on his self-plagerism, we allow his argument to stand.
2 tries at comment..chapta expired both times..and comment vanished..
Martyn
I applaud the NZ Herald for saying they would not have published Jamie Whyte’s article if they had known the plagiarism background. To change the word ‘UK’ for ‘NZ’ in a vacuum of knowing the true situation in NZ is atrocious and discredits anything Jamie Whyte writes.
But the reality is that 3000 people shared his views so those views clearly resonate. To contrast my article mustered a mere 450 shares.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11567240
I take from this there is a huge sympathy for his views that deny we have any ‘real’ poverty.
Did my using the 220,000 children under the 50% poverty line data dent the poverty lobby’s credibility as he says ?
Surely we should not be having this argument at all. There is enough credible evidence from foodbanks and budget services and from official MSD stats that child poverty is a running sore with huge economic and moral costs for us all. I for one am tired having to always prove it.
But let me concede one point: Not all the 220,000 children under the line are experiencing serious material hardship. Some of those 220,000 children will be in families that still have financial resources to use, maybe because they have past savings or have wider family resources. Others may maintain living standards for a while by borrowing from WINZ, family or loan sharks or private charity. Some of the 220,000 will have parents that are only temporarily out of work.
Conversely a significant number who are above the 50% line are actually experiencing damaging hardship. This maybe because for a given income they have very high health costs or rents or loan repayments and other problems.
We need hardship measures as well as income measures of poverty, but income measures are very important in their own right. A family that is only able to feed itself and keep warm in winter because of charity or loans is still a poor family.
My intent was to take the fact of poverty as a given and use the limited words the Herald gives to propose urgent reforms that will clearly materially impact on child poverty. Of course he does not want to debate those. It is easier to nitpick over the measures to salve the conscience of the 3000 who can say to themselves “the poverty lobby has misled us!”
A
Modestn ACT Party Proposal ByJonathan SwiftJamie Whyte(1729)2016 (Happy New Year)For Preventing The Children of Poor People in
Ireland,EnglandNew Zealand From Being a burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to The Public.http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html.
PS Sory about the plagarism
There is a meanness of spirit and a smug superiority of those who “have” evident in the 3000 who support Whytes contentions. Ebenezer syndrome, Scrooges the lot of them. It’s the vicious me firstism of the propertied speculative class who scramble to live in “better school zones”. Who desire more and more for themselves despite it being surplus to any real need.
These people are the norm, this lack of concern the default position. We are a benighted spiritually impoverished nation.
You’re right Nick. We are the norm.
Which is why we win elections.
😉
@PHILLIP URE
Spent hours trying to comment on John Minto’s last blog with same problem, same prob. when tried to contact TDB. Just tried again and seems to be ok???
G.A.P.
Good point – and a remarkable likeness in the photo
my comments have disappeared too?
[Sorting out a few gremlins, Susan. – ScarletMod]
After thirty years, the Right cannot admit that poverty exists in New Zealand. Nor that it has increased since the late 1980s.
To do so would be a tacit admission of failure, and that the whole “trickle down” notion is a fraud.
That is why the Right will argue, like AGW skeptics, that poverty exists.
Because to admit it, the next question must logically follow: what to do about it.
The neo liberals believe we are all better off since the 1970’s. They even believe their own BS, however it depends who is telling the story?
“If someone has a fridge and a TV they are not poor? ” re-quoted from Jamie Whyte.
I watched Nigel Latta’s expose “The new haves and have-nots’ https://www.tvnz.co.nz/ondemand/nigel-latta/nigel-latta-the-new-haves-and-have-nots/29-07-2014 and even the rich believe that the trickle-down Keynesian/ACT/ neo-liberal (Douglas/Prebble/Banks/Brash/Hyde/Seymour/Whyte) bullshit belief system is utter shite. This is echoed here: https://youtu.be/0AnC8yMph78 “Inside Child Poverty”.
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Scrawled on the side of a refuse bin were the chilling graffiti “Eat the rich”. Jamie Whyte needs to go back to Britain, claim political asylum and re-hash his poverty speech again, before he becomes the main course on the “Eat the rich” Kiwi menu. Define working poor?
If you have a heart and a brain, does that make you a human? It does when it involves compassion and caring for your fellow Kiwi human beings. Did I mention – why don’t you fuck off back to Britain and take your neo-con bullshit with you?
Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.~Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973), My Several Worlds [1954].
The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
~Samuel Johnson, Boswell: Life of Johnson
The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.~John E. E. Dalberg, Lord Acton, The History of Freedom in Antiquity, [1877].
“…the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped. ” ~ Last Speech of Hubert H. Humphrey
“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” ~ Mahatma Ghandi
“Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members — the last, the least, the littlest.”
~Cardinal Roger Mahony, In a 1998 letter, Creating a Culture of Life
The greatness of America is in how it treats its weakest members: the elderly, the infirm, the handicapped, the underprivileged, the unborn. ~Bill Federer
“A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying,”
~Pope John Paul II
http://askville.amazon.com/measure-civilization-treats-weakest-members-accurate-quote/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=4718239
As for Whyte’s self-plagiarism – the fact he re-used a ten year old piece he’d written previously, and simply changed a few key identifiers, speaks volumes about his view on poverty.
If he is to re-cycle or quote himself, it should be made crystal-clear that is what he is doing, and explain why.
It implies that he is not so much interested in looking at the facts and data, as simply re-stating his prejudices. His use of two boys (10-year-olds “Jimmy” and “Timmy”) who are inter-changeable between Britain and New Zealand, implies that his examples are made up fantasies, plucked from his imagination, and little else.
The phrase “same shit, different day” applies to his views precisely.
Great comments as always Frank!
+1
Look… the man is an idiot.
And very hard not to burst out giggling at his total disconnect with the reality of so many struggling people and this ridiculous fools attempts at being the defender of neo liberal fallacy…only those with a lot to lose would nod their heads in agreement to him.
And they are not the majority , by the way.
Most of us would actually LIKE to earn a realistic LIVING WAGE and not this bullshit minimum wage thing that pays 1980’s wages in the year 2016 – as well as some say via collective bargaining power over just how far unscrupulous employers can try on things like zero hour contracts , minimum safety standards etc etc….
There’s a reason why this man is not the leader of Act any more – and his latest article is one of them.
Do you all remember ‘choices’ ,’flexibility ‘ and ‘freedom ‘- the catchphrases from the neo liberals in the mid 1980’s?…
Well , – translated from the neo liberals code it means :
More ‘ flexibility ‘ in letting workers go without penalty , more choices on whether they have to pay sick leave , holiday pay , and parenting leave , and more ‘ freedom ‘ to use the law to drive down wages to beyond a realistic living wage .
And this Whyte idiot is the sort of fool who writes garbage like he does as a fringe apologist for the neo liberal ideology.
Laughable he is – but it is serious that there are actually people in our society who really believe in this tripe.
How to become better at smelling bullshit.
http://boingboing.net/2016/01/06/how-to-become-better-at-smelli.html
jamie whyte desperately wants to get a seat on the politicians gravy train. $-six figures plus entitlements. Sweet. Better yet? Once there, he might be able to hurt helpless, innocent people for shits and giggles.
Someone should chip the fucker and tie him to a tree.
Definitely mad.
If he was a dog we’d just shoot him.
So why make a distinction?
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