The snarling social media rage against Metiria’s brave admission that quarter of a century ago she had to be deceptive to a State agency to survive says a lot about NZ as a culture.
I think there are two broad narrative constructs fuelling the viciousness in many comments and official denouncements, one is neoliberal cultural mythology and the other is negative envy.
One of the most important pillars of neoliberal cultural mythology is that if you work hard you can get ahead and that if you are poor you chose to be poor. Rather than being outraged at a punitive welfare system that makes cheating it the only option for survival, neoliberal culture blinkered NZers are screaming at the beneficiary for being so weak they needed help in the first place.
So entrenched is our hatred of the poor and beneficiaries that we can’t contextualise the position Metiria and tens of thousands of others are forced to undergo. We can’t help but hate beneficiaries for reminding us the system fails when we are so focused on celebrating individual success and wealth.
The other broad narrative construct fuelling the viciousness is negative envy. Since our neoliberal revolution, unions have been weakened to such a point that the wage growth strangulation has mutilated working peoples wages. The working poor look at the welfare wage given beneficiaries with envy, this creates anger, resentment and cultural friction.
The mix of racism, sexism and classism in this social media cocktail of spite being served upon Metiria is a grave reminder of how angry sleepy hobbits get when forced to wake and confront the naked lies of their selfish dreams.
As I stated earlier I suspect Metiria’s admission has done her (and by extension the Green’s) a LOT more harm than good. NZers, blinded with selfishness from decades of neoliberalism, love nothing more than punishing beneficiaries. Every time National needs a bump in the polls, they just announce some new bene bashing legislation. But this goes even further than that: she admitted she ripped off the system. Even beneficiaries (that have followed the rules) will feel betrayed by her dishonesty, rather than sympathise.
The welfare system was invented to combats the threat of communism. Those that oppose the welfare system by deception is by definition “communists by stealth.”
So please, Nutrium, continue enlightening the crowds.
I’m not feeling betrayed in the least. Not sure which beneficiaries you’re claiming to speak for, there’ll be bugger all of us who take your position Nitrium so perhaps you’d like to stop pretending to speak for us now, ok?
Don’t get me wrong, I hope I’m 100% incorrect and there is a strong feeling camaraderie among beneficiaries and left-leaning folks. I guess we’ll see in the next poll where Green supporters (and maybe others) stand in this case. Clearly, I’m not as optimistic as many here.
Give them opportunities and you watch monetary policy makers scramble to take advantage of the situation. When the left hand understand what the right hand is jerking. Growth is possible.
Let us wait and see the full frontal attacks in Parliament, when it resumes next Tuesday.
Yes full frontal attacks, as I believe Todd is back!
Yeah , – agree with the other posters… you’re a bit off the mark there Nitrium, …
The way I see it is that this needed to happen ,- as so often these watershed moments need to – to bring this out into the open. The fact is welfare is one of the big cornerstones of the healthy western democracy’s. If a country is failing in that regard , it is simply demonstrating a creeping alien ideology that doesn’t belong , – OR , – that it is displaying symptoms of crumbling from within and that all is not well.
And generally if it is crumbling from within , … it is due to poor economic management.
In New Zealand’s case , it is a symptom of both unfortunately.
The worst of both worlds.
We have an alien ideology that doesn’t belong ( neo liberalism ) and because of that , and because it inherently is designed to create the conditions of enriching the wealthy at the expense of the ( ideally according to neo liberalism ) increasing poor, … we now have so many impoverished.
Neo liberalism has this insidious effect of hijacking legal systems and at the same time stripping wealth from the commons under a very well worked out propaganda system ( usually by buying off media outlets ) which is designed to deflect fault finding away from itself and onto weaker individuals and groups that have no political power.
This process has taken various forms over the century’s, whether it be primitive human blood sacrifices of modern day gutting of a nations wealth.
It is up to us,- to capitalize ( pun intended ) on this recent incredibly bold stand taken by Metiria to support her and the Greens and bring down these oligarchs and their subversive propaganda machine.
Which is all very good sounding , … but if the people do not know who to direct their fury against and if the media does not shine the spotlight on them , then the effort is in vain.
However , because I recognize that fact , I will provide a link ( much to poor Martyns chagrin about repeating myself ) ,… to a site that clearly highlights the who’s who in the subversion of NZ politics and its economy and the why’s of why they did it.
This sort of historical education needs to be constantly brought before the public so it becomes as common knowledge , and although much of it is now recently historic, – is a rich goldmine of understanding for the newly enlightened.
So again , I request of you Martyn to understand why I do it. For our peoples benefit. Thank you.
New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html
@ NITRIUM.
I think your point of view is both correct and correct.
There are some, including me, who will see her as corageous and brave. Others will see her as a lazy cheat who deserves to be banished beyond the castle walls.
The banishers are, of course, defiantly stupid, ignorant and institutionally brain-tinkered and the only way to defeat them is to draw them out with the Truth and Honesty, identify them then ignore them. They won’t know how to react to Metiria’s truthfulness. They didn’t know how to react to jenny shipley’s DIShonesty when she clamped down on benificaries in the 1990’s. Dob in your neighbour ? Remember those days. That fat idiot thought it a great idea to encourage neighbours to peer over each others fences for dope growing and into peoples bedrooms for a lover over staying. And I can tell you, if I discovered my lovers looked like shipley, after a hefty evening of brain injury in a bottle they wouldn’t stay fucking long I can tell you, so no worries there mate. ( Yep. I know. Sounds misogynistic. But I love women, in all permutations so yeah/nah. Yea, I know. Sounds like a racist who says they have black friends, however….etc. But yeah/nah. )
It’s my view that we should applaude Metiria’s ‘ confessions’ and offer to watch her back for the coming shit slinging’s.
What’s that saying about ” Those of you’s without sin? Let you’s cast the first stone” .
Your wrong Nitrium being a solo mother, I say good on her. I follow the rules, because winz are terrifying. I am even thinking of voting greens. The person I loath is Bennett, god forbid any other beneficiary should get the priviliges she got, but it is fine for her. We desperately need a change of govt.
Everyone with any social conscious whatsoever loathes Bennett.
I wonder if New Zealanders approve of punishing beneficiaries built and maintained with a system designed by the same people who kill civilians with drone strikes.
That is why Bennett is keeping her gob shut. Nats see admission as a sign of weakness and sadly, social media and in fact mainstream media jump at the chance to attack the weak.
Why have the media not jumped on Bennett as Bennett’s recall of her time slaying the benefit as being not “deliberately” misleading WINZ? Has Bennett threatened to sue?
Bert, do you have evidence of welfare fraud by Bennett? When you do, you can bang on about it. Bennett’s careful parsing of her words, obviously got everybodys BS detector on high alert. But unless you have evidence, you have nothing.
And yet with that attitude that you display , … you would be the ineffective law enforcement officer.
Do you not realize, or do you deny , – that often the law enforcement officer starts out with a collection of often loosely associated facts that hint of discrepancies and… point not only to a motive, …. but to key persons and a possible web of joint interests that may share that motive.
And when once hypothetically established,… that web is broadened to lesser players down the pyramid… to include its foot soldiers, and its paid enforcers and their associates.
Timetables, habituation’s, relationships, statements of beliefs,…written clues , incidents, … these and much much more ar all taken into account and are variously accepted or discarded…
This is how law enforcement catches the heads of organized crime rings, from the Mafia to international pedophile rings,… and often the latter reaches right up into governmental positions and other organizations , – such as has happened with the Papacy and his inferiors recently.
This is how it starts out and this is how its done.
By starting on information supplied , a premise , a possible motive.
It is sad in this country that it is often not until the criminal activity reaches a point that it is barely able to hide its activity’s anymore that the media feel safe enough to pick up on it. And because of ‘public interest’ ,… gives impetus to legal pursuit.
In a healthy , and law abiding society this should not exist. it should not have to be questioned that our political leaders have been indulging in corrupt activity. There should be no need to establish the kinds of skills needed by the law enforcement officer to have to scrutinize our public servants.
The fact that we now have to,… demonstrates that all is not well in New Zealand. That we have, in fact , … slid from the once recognized country of low corruption indices to one in line with the corruption of overseas country’s ,… country’s that we once took a pride in ourselves that we were not similar to.
What are the loosely based facts? Be careful, i don’t want you to be sued.
All we have is dodgy sounding answers from Paula.
Benefit fraud, David?
Or using the welfare system to her benefit, and then pulling up the ladder behind her after she succeeeded? There are examples.
Oh David, I always choose my words wisely, just as Paula has. David, David, David, where did I use the words ” welfare fraud”, your words not mine.
Freedom of speech and democracy allows me to voice my opinion and concerns and unless your my mother I suggest attacking those that care.
However I do concur that I have nothing but a certain blogger out there does. If I had to choose based on scrutiny between the blogger and Bennett, it is no choice.
Bennett has history, oh by the way David, here is the evidence…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7482635/Bennett-won-t-rule-out-releasing-beneficiary-details
Our PM, Bill English, ripped off the system, claiming the home he owns in Wellington was not his place of residence. Once outed by others, he repaid the money. Did Christine Rankin fulminate over his behaviour? Did the Taxpayers Union demand he be prosecuted? Double standards abound. Meteria outed herself.
The rule of law is essential but it brings to those who make laws the responsibility to be fair and just. Slavery was lawful, so was apartheid. Neither were fair nor just. During the waterfront strike in NZ the National Party government created a law forbidding people from providing food to the strikers. In each of these examples people suffered. The law was broken, change resulted.
I have a feeling Natz don’t like honesty. They find it threatening, because they wallow in the depths of filthy corruption and lies, which feeds their rotten core!
Hearing the truth spoken particularly by another politician, throws a very bright spotlight on the Natz, perhaps prompting some investigative questions being asked of their own, one of which we already know has had his grubby fingers fiddling state funds, with also the possibility of maybe another Natz MP being questioned about a previous life, relying on a state income.
… ” The mix of racism, sexism and classism in this social media cocktail of spite being served upon Metiria is a grave reminder of how angry sleepy hobbits get when forced to wake and confront the naked lies of their selfish dreams ” …
Indeed,… certain vicious ideologues were hard at work to transform this society before 1984, won their coup de’tat and have fine tuned it ever since. But take heart , this herd phenomena is quite common and not unique to Kiwis.
It has happened the world over in various guises since time began.
And the answer is to root out these key individuals…sometimes this process comes in the form of a peacefully elected new government that takes society in a new direction,… other times it occurs because of a violent revolution.
Hopefully it comes in the shape of the former, but when it does, it will be a case of far too long overdue justice. But the important thing is not to blame the people too harshly for what was, in fact , a very clever propaganda program designed against them in the first place.
A similar thing happened in the 1930’s in Germany with subversives like the Thule society.
New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html
One of the worst outcomes of thirty years of neoliberal ideology is the erosion of empathy and compassion in otherwise caring human beings. “There but for the grace of god go I” has been replaced with “If you are poor or needy it’s your own fault.” As if misfortune only happens to those who deserve it. So it is effectively divide and conquer. The braying in the comments sections on Stuff offers a disturbing view of a deeply divided society.
And a very ignorant one of who’s been playing them like a fiddle for the last 3 decades…
And somehow Mike Hosking is allowed to reiterate the fallacious “If you are poor or needy it’s your own fault” message on a near daily basis on both radio and TV.
… ” Metiria Turei’s courageous confession says this. The playing ground has never been level. If you haven’t had to lie to The Man, perhaps you were lucky enough that an ancestor did the lying for you ” …
– Raybon Kan.
Brilliant.
Where there is no justice how can one admit crime? That is the danger of a lawless government.
I go further, Weatherman. Where a law in manifestly unjust (eg, apartheid, homophobic, etc), it is our DUTY to resist it by whatever means available to us (preferably non-violent).
the laws against beneficiaries are like those against gays pre-1986; unjust, repressive, and full of bigotry.
#resist!
So long as you don’t use gay people or gay rights to attack other minority groups. Alan Turing: never forget.
The state still uses people sexuality against them if it feels it can get away with it, too; would you like me to post some examples?
If Metiria had a sudden issue with her conscience over what she had done, she could have walked into WINZ and quietly explained to them what had happened, and arranged a repayment plan. But she didn’t do that did she? She used it as a platform for some truly horrible political grandstanding, especially given the timing. The fact that any of the benefits that we as a society provide for our members are privileges, and not some specious “rights”, seems to be lost on her entirely.
Hello Mark Bergham
I was very impressed with your writing. The way you avoided her Baby. really impressed me.
Have you given birth to a baby ? Ever cared for one day and night ?
You also avoided the “horrible political ” fact that Billions more $Dollars are stolen via unpaid taxes by people who sound off against mothers struggling to make ends meet.
I think we should flog your tax avoiding friends Mark. And give your monies to struggling mothers.
In the meantime, you could arrange meetings with your countless tax avoiders and put them on a plan to pay back their ill gotten gains.
Bye Bye
Yes she fiddled the system to her advantage
She should have been a little more clever like Apple or Google and had some off shore entity to make it sort of semi-legal
My thoughts too Rob. Why go after billions when you can go after the little person(thousands). That sort of behaviour is the behaviour of a bully( National). The fear for National is that they in turn would be bullied by Apple and Google. So National will be the lesser and therefore have control and be the bully. Barclay took it that step further, lied but fortunately someone said”no more”!
First line. Exactly.
The accusations that she did it for political reasons must be maddening… how well planned….
Unless she has a Delorean? Is that what Tim Bowtied journalist guy has because at some point in the future he went into the past, ran over himself and gave himself a head injury.
First line. Exactly.
The accusations that she did it for political reasons must be maddening… how well planned! She knew she was gonna by to run for the Greens too bye then, I am sure….
Unless she has a Delorean? Is that what Tim Bowtied journalist guy has because at some point in the future he went into the past, ran over himself and gave himself a head injury.
First line. Exactly.
The accusations that she did it for political reasons must be maddening… how well planned!
Unless she has a Delorean? Is that what Tim Bowtied journalist guy has because at some point in the future he went into the past, ran over himself and gave himself a head injury.
I don’t care who it is. I don’t like fraud nor corruption whether the perpetrators are rich or poor, black, brown, white.
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