Who to vote for?

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Voting involves a moral choice.

In a capitalist economy you either vote with capitalism’s winners or with the losers. With those who have used the system to enrich themselves at the expense of others or those forced to struggle at the margins.

After this election the new government will be dominated by either National or Labour – not the dramatic choice it should be because Labour brought only a tentative, watery policy mix to the election and capitulated on tax before the first vote was cast.

Labour by itself won’t make a significant difference. Ardern has addressed the desperate social situations of child poverty and homelessness with the usual hand wringing rather than policies.

Labour talks values but these are useless without policies to give them meaning.

The best hope for a half-way decent, policy-driven, progressive government comes with a strong Green Party in coalition with Labour.

On every issue the Greens have much more progressive policies than Labour and the hope is they will be able to drag capitalism’s B team to the left and make a significant difference for the majority of New Zealanders. For this reason I will be giving my first-ever party vote to the Greens this election.

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On the other side it’s not possible to make an ethical choice to vote National.

Think of the myriad of issues where the current government has demonstrated contempt, if not thinly disguised hatred, for those struggling in poverty and quiet desperation.

Anyone voting National this election has a personal moral deficit.

31 COMMENTS

  1. “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” – John Quincy Adams – 6th United States president

    • John Minto

      “In a capitalist economy you either vote with capitalism’s winners or with the losers.”

      Correct. But the loosers don’t try do they !

      They think they will get wealthy just by going along with Capitalist Greed. And it works for them – like hell it does. They now can’tbeven afford their own home.

    • Hey Pete.

      The green party tick is our best strategic move. Mana may make more sense on principle as Hone appears to be less wedded to neoliberal fiscal chains and states good approaches to nationalising the banks, BUT at this stage a gamble that the vote will not be effective for this election .

      We need to move the NACT TNC crowd away from the helm or more privatisation will occurr in a scramble to loot everything not tied down over the next 3 years.

      The candidate tick surely must depend on strategically minimising NACT’s chances by not splitting a vote against their candidate.

      Ohariu could have been changed from Dunne earlier if the Greens and Labour had collaborated intelligently instead of spliting Dunne’s opposition.

      The Greens seek party votes and not splitting votes against NACT of their in house puppets.

  2. There are factors in LP that want to go radical. I reckon Jacinda would like to tack left. But there are some that get spooked and want to remain closer to centre.

    The Greens would serve a double purpose – pull LP to the left where they should be and provide a face-saving measure when LP goes there. A bit like ACT, but you know, democratic [as people would have actually voted for the GP].

    Perfect and necessary choice.

  3. Done. Ticked Green in Ohariu last Thursday. But gave my electorate vote to Greg O’Connor. He’s seen plenty of poverty on the beat. Brings a bit of West Coast realism to affluent Ohariu.

  4. Heres another good reason to switch your party vote from Labour to the greens.

    Over the last 3 years Labour has consistantly voted against TPPA in Parliament but in the last 4 weeks ( under the new Adern Administration )it appears Labour has done a complete U turn and is now fully behind TPPA.

    [See RNZ 7.33 am to 8 pm Tue sept 12th Morning report Leaders Interview Jacinda Adern . Jacinda announces to Guyon Eslpiner she is in favour of Free Trade, gobalisation and completing the TPP (with one minor change ).
    Covered by RNZ,utube / face book and free view channel 50 live with 27 min Audio on RNZ and RNZ video archive /Morning Repot.]

    Check audio /video from 16 mins 30 to 18 mins.

    Jacinda to Guyon ” Its an agreement we want to be part of”.
    So now a vote for Labour is a vote for TPPA when 75% of labour /Green voters don’t want a bar of TPPA .Unbelievable .

    This is a massive betrayal by Labour and a huge disappointment to the tens of thousands who marched and opposed this toxic deal, believing Labour would stop it once and for all should they win the election .

    If ever there was a reason to switch back your party vote back from Labour to the Greens this is it.

    Im solidly with Minto on the Greens progressive platform and I just can’t bring myself to vote for a pro tppa Labour .

    Check out the footage , and then spread the word .

  5. The National Party is only able to exist BECAUSE of the moral deficit within it. It could be argued that it is, in fact, made up entirely of moral deficits. That’s why they can act without conscience or remorse or display empathy for their victims and lets not forget their talents for lying. bill english, like jonk-E, can look into the cameras and lie. Right to your face.
    Can it be, that national has created, in us, a monster.
    I’ve just read a piece about mad Marlon Brando while filming ‘The Island of Dr Moreau’ on The Guardian.

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/16/marlon-brando-monster-sabotaged-my-film-island-of-dr-moreau

    He was nuts. But the truly interesting thing was he drove everybody else crazy too. And I have seen that happen in my industry. All it takes is one nutter in a position of power, usually in the form of a production manager, to throw an entire project sideways. Everybody starts fighting and squabbling and lying to cover their arses when a simple explanation followed by a never mind and a bit of collaberation to fix things up is all that’s required. Honestly? Empathy and co-operation is very, very economical.
    Halfwits that run our political show love the chaos they cause and enjoy the viciousness they can dispence. Those national fuckers have got to go. One way or another. They should hope like fuck they get voted out.
    They’re amoral, narcissistic, egomaniacal and greedy who would be considered mentally unstable lunatics on any other planet. Merely voting them out seems not nearly enough.

    Malcolm Evans here summed it up perfectly.

    https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/09/15/malcolm-evans-the-real-tax-debate/

  6. Todays Morrinsville farmers demonstration purportedly brought to you by the Federated Farmers federation a strong arm of the National party, more dirty politics?

  7. Absolutely agree … if you want to change this rotten/malicious/corrupt govt the Greens must have your party vote. My party vote went to the Greens and my electorate vote in Auckland Central went to Labour – goodbye Nikki Kaye with any luck.

  8. Candidate vote Labour, party vote Greens, same here! The lesser evil, but there is sadly not much else on offer that looks feasible.

    • You know when kids at Kings college in Dorkland started topping themselves, the prime minister at the time Key, set up the PMs task force on suicide I think it was called, it didn’t matter until his son’s school came on the radar to be frank. Young people with anorexia are never ever from the poor in our society. Funding for eating disorders is there because the middle class and/or the upper class hassle governments for funding. Much harder to hassle for funding if your poor.

      I wonder per head of population for eating disorders how much that is in fact, would be interesting to know.

      • … ” Funding for eating disorders is there because the middle class and/or the upper class hassle governments for funding. Much harder to hassle for funding if your poor ” …

        Yep ,… we got one half don’t want to eat and the other half who need to eat ,…. and National veto’s Hones school lunches Bill.

  9. I broadly agree with John’s point here, and will be giving the Greens my party vote, despite being tempted earlier in the election to vote TOP and bring some new ideas into parliament. One point though…

    “With those who have used the system to enrich themselves at the expense of others or those forced to struggle at the margins.”

    One reason I think a lot of people vote for National, even though they don’t actually benefit from National’s policies, is that they want to see themselves as part of the “winners” team. Very few people feel inspired by identifying with the “losers”, and when the left present ourselves as the representatives of the powerless “losers”, I suspect it puts a lot of people off. I also suspect Jacinda has made such an impact because she talks like a “winner”, and frames her discussion of inequality in language of “fairness” or “justice” or “compassion”, not the language of paternalistic charity (someone must do *something* for those poor losers). Just a thought.

    • … ” I also suspect Jacinda has made such an impact because she talks like a “winner”…

      Or , … shes just a bright spark decent sort of sheila who reckons it’d be kinda cool to see a smile on everyone’s dial and that there’s no need for any poor bastard to go without.

      And that’s the Kiwi way.

  10. In the days of FPP voters were forced to compromise and vote for the “lesser of two evils”.
    Today we vote our conscience.
    And it is the politicians who are forced to compromise.
    We feel better, but IS it better?

  11. Can’t see The Greens not getting back into Parliament, I’d love to see them on 4.8% after the dust has settled but I surmise they will hit 7% or so…unfortunately!

  12. Four more sleeps to Saturday – and I still don’t know who gets my wee ticks.

    I know who won’t, though.

    Will it end up as ‘none of the above’? Why encourage the blighters? They’re all more Epimetheus (the Titan god of afterthought and excuses) than Prometheus (the Titan god of forethought and crafty counsel). 🙁

  13. Yes to all you have said here and I too am so very close to a Green/Green vote for all the same reasons.

    But I have a worry: Genghis blanking Donald Peters. If Labour doesn’t get the highest number of votes, Winston will negotiate with National for a couple of months – if he has enough votes to make a National/NZ First Government possible.

    There is nothing more important on my political agenda this Election than to keep Winston Peters out of any role in Government. You know my values, so I don’t need to explain myself. I may have to go with Labour.

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