Bryce Edwards covers off the anger that is simmering in the electorate and the fear by elites of where that anger will erupt, but I think he misses a very important part of the spectrum which is open to radicalism.
And that is MANA.
To date the fear is that angry hordes of the disaffected and under educated will elect some type of Trump-esk figure who will take the nation to hell in a hand basket.
Maybe.
But if you look at who is bleeding here, it is young, poor and brown. The middle classes are getting nervous about the inequality and the pundits are scrambling to understand a poverty that is beyond their suburbs.
The furious response at Hone announcing his re-entry into politics suggests the elites fear those who are being hurt most by the housing crisis and growing inequality will rejoin the debate and demand a welfare state that isn’t as cruel and draconian as the current one has become.
Radically demanding a reorganisation of the neoliberal state is what makes the elites nervous, not some old warhorse like Winston making ‘two wongs don’t make a right’ styled 1970s retro-racist jokes.
If the poor and those on benefits re-engaged under a radical MANA brand demanding dignity, that would scare the bejesus out of the elites.
In the last election MANA attempted to gain representation using Kim Dotcom’s cash. The electorate punished Hone for trying to be too clever and screamed sell out, the grim reality of poverty however now howels at the door and those being hurt most by Key’s elitist economy are scrambling for a radical solution to their ever decreasing living standards. If MANA provides that, the elites will be terrified.
Yep, Bomber this could very much be the same scenario as over in the states with the alternative candidate like Sanders or Good forbid Trump…
People are looking for an alternative and they could well find it in Hone. I believe this time he could attract more voters.
We shall see in 2017…
Yup …Mana/Internet and Hone Harawira and Annette Sykes and Laila Harre and John Minto was always regarded as a threat to neoliberalism
…and that includes disgracefully by the Labour Party
Rubbish. No party could ever support Mana with Dotcom involved. As Martyn aptly pointed out “The electorate punished Hone for trying to be too clever and screamed sell out.”
Hone won TTT twice, the last time he did it himself, despite the tory Maori party, Labour or anyone else. Hone needs money, supporters need to fund his campaign like Sander’s supporters did for him, so Hone won’t have to rely on politically toxic individuals or National’s lapdog, the toxic tory Maori party, after all, a vote for the Maori party, is always a vote for National.
Actually Mana did something like 50% better in 2014 with Dot-com than they did by themselves in 2011. The only reason they don’t have two or three parliamentary seats right now is because Hone failed to win TTT; and this was partly because the other parties, with the noable exception of the Greens, asked their supporters to vote for Davis.
Yes. It never fails to surprise me how many people buy the propaganda that it was KDC that killed Mana’s chances last time. It seems propaganda still wins over truth. Maybe people don’t like to contemplate a Labour party that would collaborate with the tories to exclude someone who should be an ally.
It’s not propaganda that Hone teaming up with Dotcom cost him his seat. The Ngapuhi elders I spoke to certainly made that quite clear. Hone knows it and so does Dotcom. That’s why Dotcom apologized and Hone alluded to that in his recent announcement to run again, and is now trying to distance himself from that association.
Mana don’t care what the Ngapuhi elders think. Conservative Maori vote for the Maori Party.
Mana is as much a class based party as it is a Maori party. Mana don’t care what conservatives think. The question is why did Labour team up with conservatives to kick out a class based party?
Shame on Labour
Shame on you Fatty. Obviously you are wrong given that the tory Maori party with National party cabinet club fundraising dinners only won 1 seat out of 7, and I don’t think Hone would appreciate your disrespect of Ngapuhi elders either, he and his family are connected you know.
The question is why did Hone betray his people by teaming up with a politically toxic Dotcom, that no opposition party could support, that saw him loose his seat? Sue Bradford was vindicated wasn’t she?
I know why, do you? Hone said at the time he needed the money. When Mana and the Internet party teamed up, I thought great, Hone is playing John key and the Nats at their own game, but then I saw people weren’t viewing it as that. I like Dotcom, but he was the issue, people viewed the merger with distrust and felt betrayed. Are you so blindly ideologically driven that you cannot accept that people did feel that way?
“The question is why did Hone betray his people by teaming up with a politically toxic Dotcom”
I’ve told you numerous times on here that Hone didn’t make the choice. It was the party members.
This is common knowledge. Please stop spreading lies about Hone and what he did.
With Hone’s support. That’s why Sue Bradford left wasn’t it?
I’m not spreading lies about Hone and what he did.
correct.
“PARTLY” because the other parties…??? Is that an admission that you are aware that Hone teaming up with Dotcom did hurt his campaign then?
The tory Maori party with it’s National party cabinet club fundraising dinners said they were going after ALL the Maori seats. Labour made it no secret that they were going after all of them too. Labour won 6 out of 7 seats. There were no deals in play and as I have said before NO party could support Mana with the involvement of Dotcom, who is at war with the National government. It amazes me how some people are completely blind to the political ramifications and the public’s perception of this. Dotcom is a political hot potatoe, and it was due to that, that Hone lost his seat.
Will repeat: Help Hone. Hone needs money, supporters need to fund his campaign like Sander’s supporters did for him, so Hone won’t have to rely on politically toxic individuals or National’s lapdog, the toxic tory Maori party, after all, a vote for the Maori party, is always a vote for National.
KDC was only an excuse for the general election in 2014, and it’s a tedious one.
In 2011 Labour ran against Mana in the by-election, and then later in the year in 2011. At no stage did Labour show a willingness to work with Mana, or to even tolerate them.
In next year’s election Labour will most likely attempt to eliminate Mana again. So we’ll have had 4 elections in Te Tai Tokerau, all of which Labour have tried to kill off Mana, and you can only use the KDC excuse for one.
Do you know how hard John Key and David Farrar were laughing when Labour killed of Mana in 2014? They pissed themselves.
Especially since they understand the benefit of having “adjunct parties” – ACT and UF that provide “free” seats without cutting into National’s party vote percentage. By making the IMP party votes (1.42%) become wasted votes they effectively gifted 50% of those votes to National – giving National a seat for free from IMP voters.IMP voters have every right to be pissed off with Labour for gifting half of their votes to National.
Yes, Farrar and Key would’ve pissed themselves.
When will Labour actually get to grips with the ins and outs of MMP? It is riddled with holes and anomalies that an astute strategist needs to understand backwards – or just give away hard-earned votes to the people that do.
Dotcom was political suicide. Maori can be a lot more conservative than you think. How could any party do a deal with Mana with Dotcom in the mix?
True – far better to gift a seat to National.
Yep, Hone did that alright when he teamed up with Dotcom.
No party could ever support Mana with Dotcom involved. As Martyn aptly pointed out “The electorate punished Hone for trying to be too clever and screamed sell out.”
“No party could ever support Mana with Dotcom involved”
If by ‘support’ you mean not joining up with the most reactionary parties in NZ, then yes they could – the Greens pretty much supported Mana by not joining the anti-Mana coalition of National/ACT/NZ First/Maori Party/Labour.
A party that is interested in policies instead of image and perception would have ‘supported’ Mana.
Notice how you always talk about KDC when you talk about Mana? Well, I prefer to talk about policy and I thought the left did too? I thought it was only Key supporters who voted on image and personalities?
I talk about KDC as the reason Hone lost his seat. That’s what this discussion and argument has been about, that’s why. You are too ideologically blinded to see reality. The Greens didn’t openly support Mana Internet. The Greens started stupidly talking it up how they could work with National!!! It was a crazy, weird election and there was no way that the powers that be would have ever allowed Dotcom to coat tail his way into parliament. Do you forget that the National government is at war with Dotcom, he’s facing an unjust extradition so key can hand him over to America who want to make an example out of him, and he was also involved in John Banks fraud court case. If you think that’s not politically toxic then you are indeed blind. NO PARTY could have supported Mana with Dotcom’s involvement and you are being politically naive if you think image and perception don’t count, sure polices matter, but politics is all about image and perception. That’s how no vision John Key and his National government of corruption have gotten away with their crimes against this country and people.
What your constant diatribe against Hone and MANA and Dotcom always misses Words is that they doubled their 2011 result. If Labour and NZ First hadn’t teamed up with Simon Lusk and National in TTT, Hone and Laila would be in Parliament.
MANA-Internet lost because the entire mainstream media attacked them and every ally on the left deserted them. If you don’t like true left wing politics that’s fine, but don’t rewrite the history a few of us lived.
Personally I don’t believe a liar like Lusk. The entire media were attacking Cunliffe and Labour too, and I am not trying to rewrite history.
correct.
I don’t use of the term ‘elites’: they are not elite; they are manipulators, exploiters, liars and opportunists.
And since they have near-total control of the media they will have no difficulty crushing any movement geared to dislodging them, using the normal methods of failure to report, character assassination, scare tactics etc.
What WILL bring about change will be the collapse of the global economic system, which is now underway.
US 10 year T bonds 1.36%, the lowest yield ever.
100% but strangely the ONE WORLD ORDER website call their leaders “Elitists”
Maybe we need to integrate elite into another word also?
“corrupt elite”
AFEWKNOWTHETRUTH … your reference to the “elites” …
“I don’t use of the term ‘elites’: they are not elite; they are manipulators, exploiters, liars and opportunists.”
In other words the scum of the earth! A foul blight on anything decent.
Agree with the rest of your post.
I’m with Hone and the Mana Movement 🙂
in terms of parliamentary politics Mana will be the only party standing for election unequivocally on behalf of the exploited, oppressed and alienated
the small NZ marxist left to this day spends more time critiquing and attacking each other than getting its hands dirty in the actual class struggle (with honourable exceptions for a handful of tireless individual comrades), so Mana will likely be the standard bearer for class focused fightback in the 2017 general election period
if all the CEOs stayed home for a week no one would much notice, if all the full time workers, precarious workers, students, carers and retired withdrew their labour for a week the place would come to a grinding halt; the broad mass of the people have the real power when they organise to exercise it as in France, could Mana 2.0 be another spark?
The exploited, oppressed and alienated includes everyone who uses cannabis. Unless Mana is fully committed to legalizing it, they will continue to be part of the problem and will get nowhere.
The electorate punished Hone for trying to be too clever and screamed sell out
A tad simplistic I think. No, the “elites” and political establishment left and right didn’t want the discomfort of Harawira, Harre and possibly Sykes and Minto in their hallowed House. The way that team would have exposed hypocrisy across the political spectrum in the House would have been much too uncomfortable for all. So they formed and informal alliance to shut Hone out (helped, it has to be said, by some wobbles on cannabis reform, Georgina Beyer’s intemperate outbursts, Pam Corkery’s intransigence and the Nat spinmeisters squelching the Moment of Truth).
The elites, the establishment, the current order have been and will continue to be paranoid about MANA. Get the Greens to keep focusing on principles and not politics and things could get interesting.
Happy to donate to the Mana cause – bringing some heart back into New Zealand.
100% with you Kim Dandy.
As a senior NZer, there has been no time that I can remember, when we ordinary Kiwis have needed a leader and party such as Hone and the Mana Movement to represent us, as we do now!
http://www.illuminatiworld.org/
The left in NZ mock National voters for ignoring policy and voting on personality. However, I cannot help but think that the NZ left have been ignoring policy.
Mana’s policies at the last election are what Labour’s should be. It’s hardly that radical, more like Labour’s roots.
We have MMP, so let’s use it.
http://web.archive.org/web/20150113214236/http://mana.net.nz/policy/policy-housing/
Do you realize that Lab/Greens have pretty much the same polices as Mana? In fact, I would say that Labour/ Greens/NZFirst and Mana are on the same page in many respects.
As someone who helped write those MANA policies – you are wrong. MANA’s policies are not reflected in the Greens or Labour policies.
So pleased that you did Martyn, I didn’t say they were the exact same policies Both Lab/Greens want to tackle housing, homelessness, poverty etc, so I thought they were all on the same page because that’s what I thought Mana wanted too.
Wrong.
What the elites fear is that those same people move en masse into one of the mainstream parties, (you know which one) and force that party’s ultimate focus to the Left. And, frankly the elites that fear it most might well be on the Left rather than the Right. At present the Right is having difficulty believing that the good times are ever going to end for them and have little fear of either the moderate or the extreme Left. On the other hand, what the “Elite” Left fear is that decisions made by radicals will stuff up whatever chance exists of change coming sooner rather than later.
An abrupt jack-up shift ala Jeremy Corbyn (by seizing the reigns by flooding the party prior to a decisive vote) scares the horses and is easily countered by the Right. On the other hand, a ghetto-ization of those who dream of radical change into a party like Mana marginalizes support just as it dilutes the total Left vote. (Mana is most unlikely to crack 5% and would have to rely on the Labour-Green alliance watering down their criticisms of the Act Gerrymander and doing a deal to shoe-horn Hone, or someone else, into a constituency seat to help Mana out. Yeah, that’s going to happen). The only effective way for those who hope for a more radical change to governmental policy is to join the principal party of the Left and then win the argument on the best way forward for the country. Not by coup, not by trick, just by shoe-leather, tongue-flap and grey-matter.
Any other way, in my view, is just a bullshit pipe-dream. Anything that does not involve the cogency and persuasiveness of your arguments does not deserve to win.
Alternatively, if the swelling inarticulate anger you imply made the country ungovernable, who wins? Change is certainly needed and sooner rather than later, so if I were John Minto, Sue Bradford, Laila Harre, Annette Sykes or Hone Harawira, I would be applying now to join Labour or the Greens.
Seriously.
I agree with your point about radicalising Labour – shifting that party from their current neoliberal / third way position to the left would be a major win for the left.
However, I disagree about your view of the capabilities of Mana. We have MMP and therefore Hone only needs to take Te Tai Tokerau. Comparisons with Corbyn are useful, but not so much for strategy because we have very different options compared to the Left in the UK. Labour should gift this seat to Mana in the same way that National gift Epsom to ACT.
Diluting the Left into a few parties is not a problem under MMP, instead, it is useful. I support radicals who get involved with Labour and try to shift them back to their roots, but if Labour continues with their light-blue policies, like they did in 2014, then the radicals should vote for Mana on election day.
What absolute tosh ! Starting a retort with “Wrong” as the entry point sort of gives away your rather over inflated opinion of yourself!
1. As someone else has pointed out, and you have totally missed – Hone can get back in to Parliament without 5% as long as he wins TTT, which is highly bloody likely.
2. ‘The principal party of the left’ – if you’re referring to Labour here, you’ve surely got to be taking the piss ! A party that refuses to exit the US corporate’s investor deal (TPPA) is hardly left wing – it’s not even ‘progressive’ !
3. ‘The principle party of centrist middle of the road neo liberalism’ would have been a far more apt description.
4. How and why would the masses move en masse to a party that is commonly accepted as “National Lite” when that party did nothing to motivate the masses in 2014 and has done even less ever since? They’d hardly want to reward such abject mediocrity with their support – and why on earth would Labour’s neo lib caucus ‘move left’ any way? They haven’t done that for any one and anything before !
Mana for the people has my vote
Who are you voting for Nick?
The Corbyn strength came from the unions mobilising the masses to get out and vote against the EU technocratic governance that ignored the workers who now suffer?
Do you want this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyePCRkq620
The only thing that will scare them is cold, hard steel… sticks and stones… PS, it’s “Trump-ESQUE”, Bomber.
I predict a 19th century style dictator like Dr Francia will rise…
Cool. I would expect this righteous anger to be reflected in the polls. What was Mana’s recent poll results again ?
Is this where the phrase ‘flawed mainstream landline polls’ gets trotted out again?
And how did IMP rate against ACT at the last election?
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