With a Health Minister who liked walkies and an army of Ok Karen narcs, New Zealand weathered our second week in lockdown. Here are the winners & losers of Week 2 under Pandemic Lockdown…
WINNERS:
JACINDA: Her cool, calm leadership of going hard and going early has been such a decisive move, it is seeing our infection curve not only flatten, but start to fall. We can be safe in the knowledge that it was her boldness that has put us in a position where we could actually come out of this far better than most of our fellow countries. Boss moves with Boss attitude. If we honestly don’t re-elect her as Prime Minister for all that she’s done, we are a nation of dicks.
SIMON BRIDGES: In the online death scramble trying to establish a ‘But-what-about’ narrative to shift focus off David Clark’s recreational biking habits, Labour supporters managed to remind everyone that Simon Bridges was politically relevant by screaming his weekly commute from Tauranga to Wellington was evidence that Bridges himself was half man-half walking bubonic plague, and as such was 10 000 times worse than David Clark (not that David did anything wrong).
Reminding everyone that Simon is overseeing the Police State that is now NZ, Labour activists managed to give him oxygen when the nation is hanging on every word by the Prime Minister and studiously ignoring anything Simon Bridges is doing or saying.
Could the Left please stop giving Simon political relevance.
LOSERS:
Ok Karen Narks: In the land of the wrong white crowd, we like our fascism casual. We prefer to burn books over a backyard BBQ with beers rather than goose-steps and uniforms. This new narc line dobbing in those who are breaching the rules is the exact sort of passive aggressive suburban authoritarianism that ZB listeners, Listener readers and TVNZ viewers love. A nation of petty ‘Ok Karens’ weaponised with smug self righteousness.
Left Wing policy responses to neoliberalism shitting itself & having a seizure on world markets: At no time in the 34 year neoliberal experiment of NZ has the argument for Unionism and the rejection of free market values been more obvious than during this pandemic! This is the time for true leadership for the Union cause, a time to denounce the failed market dynamics that have left so much of our public service dysfunctional and underfunded and demand full Unionism for every worker during the coping phase and rebuild phase of this pandemic so that they are protected AND respected with conditions as essential as the roles they now perform.
So what has the CTU done? It’s set up an Ok Karen narc line for bad bosses and promised they won’t forget those bad bosses.
How revolutionary.
It’s like the CTU sell ship insurance, lifeboats and lifejackets while on the Titanic and after hitting the iceberg seem to have no idea what to do next.
“Happy Pandemic! And may the odds be ever in your favor”
Death Cult Capitalists: Watching neoliberal devotees panic that this pandemic threatens their free market dogma is bringing out their blood lust of desperation to sacrifice the sick on their altar to Milton Friedman.
Hooton’s revolting Herald column, Gareth Morgan’s gruesome Morning Report interview and Hosking’s ghoulish Herald column last week all scream at the Government that 30 000 dead is fine as long as their sacred neoliberal economy is allowed to live.
They are Vichy-Chamberlain cowards who demand Jacinda should surrender to the virus so that their death Cult capitalism can continue.
No one in NZ (other than Damien Grant) is crying out for Ayn Rand, Chicago School of Economics, or Adam Smith’s ungloved invisible hand, the frightened masses are begging the State to save them from this plague and that is what is terrifying neoliberal acolytes like Hooton, Hosking and Morgan. It’s not ‘Socialism by stealth’ if the country is crying out for it.
David Clark: Had difficulty understanding that as the Minister of Health, the rules applied to him. Not sure what exactly was difficult to comprehend about that to be honest.
Bauer Media: The madness of allowing so much of our media to be owned by overseas interests is coming home to bite. Who would have thought selling vast chunks of NZ media to a foreign German company could end badly?
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TDB Team 2020.
Two points. One)This government will never dismantle the neoliberal model. It doesn’t have the balls.
Two) If Bridges says he has to go to Wellington a couple of times a week because his home internet only works 50 percent of the time – he’s lying.
$6.6b spent on wage subsidies!
In the People’s Republic o Aotearoa: 1,073,129 workers out of work 914,931 employees and 158,198 sole traders have received $1.25 billion of payments on 6 April, taking the total paid out to $6.6 billion. This represents 41% of the New Zealand workforce. In total, 305,363 applications from businesses, the self-employed and sole traders have been approved. Add 315,000 beneficiaries and you’ll have an army!
This is an opportunity that shouldnt be missed!
Corporates are holding out, threatening to sack a 30% to 40% of the workforce for more bailout money.
Workers should see this as leverage and tell them to go fuck themselves!
Apparently one person attended a wading in Bluff with the virus and 80 + left with it and counting. Thats a pretty efficient virus.
An antibody test seems to have been produced in the US already. This can be used without risk and cheaply so we will soon know if the thing has been around for longer than is assumed. But at this stage it looks like we might have rounded it up in time to contain it. With a little help from The Tasman sea and the Pacific ocean.
If we manage to wipe it out here we may be the only country in the world that does so. Theres’ no chance that America or Britain will do more than slow it down a bit. In most countries it will have it’s way.
That will mean that if we are to capitalise on what we are doing now we all have to remain isolated indefinitely or at least until a vaccine is developed. I understand they have not managed to do that for SARS yet. Even air freight will arrive soon enough from departure that it could contain or carry it.
If we Finnish up with the only vulnerable population in the world that might not be an unmixed blessing.
D J S
So the CTU is pathetic in losing opportunities to fight for workers’ causes, but when did a politically active worker rely on union bureaucrats to lead the fight? You’ve got Mike Treen as an exception and he’s a good agitator but it is rank and file workers together who will make change.
You’re still on about ‘narcs’ when your critics have pointed out community action against spoilers is a good thing if we’re going into combat against the virus. You need to learn your own lesson from TDB otherwise you’ll be like David Clark and forget the bigger picture.
“Listen mate the only people we hate more than the Romans are the fuckin Judean Peoples Front “
Could the Left please stop giving Simon political relevance.
Similar calls were made when one mr donald said he wanted to run for president. So he was treated mostly as a joke for a time.
How’d that work out then.
Also, it is not “the left” who are giving him oxygen, the words of his “panel of experts” (a balance of 3/4 Nats politicos) are broadcast as gospel by the media. He’s empowered by the wealthiest and most powerful corporates around. The potential dangers of what is happening, for the future of Aotearoa, should not be ignored.
I’ve written to David Clark twice with serious concerns. Responses from his office only. First a standard letter and recently 2 letters from 2 different office staff a week apart, both thanking me for raising my concerns. No letter addressed my concerns. Clark and his office set-up seem to have lost the plot.
Jenny Salesa is an able politician and Associate Minister of Health. She has a background in the health sector whose jobs include working as project manager in the Ministry of Health. Obviously she is familiar with health officials which is the reason why Jacinda feels she still needs Clark. In the US she worked in Michigan for the National Vaccine Advisory Centre and later as a health specialist in the Early Childhood Investment Corporation. She appears to be eminently suitable for the role of Minister of Health. What do youall think?
Another comment which justifies Bomber’s great admiration for Jacinda, our leader. An analysis of A/NZs record fighting covid-19 compared with 5 other countries with similar populations, showed WE CAME OUT TOP IN EVERY CATEGORY.
It’s a piece in Newsroom written by Marc Daadler. He tracks the times the countries stepped up with policies to prevent the spread of the virus. We were ahead with each measure. Then he compared how effective the countries were in terms of sickness and death. We surpassed all others.
I do not understand why MSM is not spreading this around when everyone needs to cheer up.
29 new cases today (Thursday). We are actually crushing this. Nice work everybody. Let’s hope we can keep this up.
Aaaand finally we are getting proper quarantine for returning citizens. About time FFS.
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