Winston enters the crowded Cancel Culture backlash market & Vance’s latest column

1. Well IMHO, Winston must be backed by the oil industry or he is so very badly informed. His anti Electric vehicle argument is non-sense.
   I agree EV’s are not the solution. Public transport, railways to move most freight, stop pointless international tourism airplane travel and definitely stop the eco-terrorist cruise industry.
   BUT if we are to continue with our crazy lifestyle, EV’s are infinitely better than I.C.E (internal combustion) engines. And driverless EV’s are 10 fold better than humans driving cars and leaving them parked up for 96+% of the time. That technology exists today, is 10x safer than humans, but corrupt politicians are paid to STOP it from being introduced.
   Recycling old batteries is about 95% reusable and improving each year. How much of an ICE is recyclable?
   Poor African kids mining Lithium; give me a break, look at the wars, crimes, environmental terrorism of the oil industry. And let’s not talk about the jewelry industry, the Industrial food industry, Military industrial complex, etc etc etc
   Price difference; Simply look at the FULL ownership costs over three-five years or longer. n.b. Million mile ‘batteries and EV engines’.
   It’s difficult to make a man (especially a long time politician type) understand an argument, when his job depends on him NOT understanding it.

   • 100% Kevin great comment thank you!

   • Can we knock off the “lithium bad ” stories begining to sound as out of touch as Winnie, there is a solution it just means the money stops going to the usual criminal cabal so is untenible. Vote dinasoars out.
     https://happyeconews.com/2019/10/05/earth-power-hemp-batteries-better-than-lithium-and-graphene/

   • The fact their best minister Tracey Martin resigned because of the ” boys only club” says it all. Yes Winnie was the handbrake for bad policy but he was also the handbrake for good policy. Nothing good will come from NZ First returning to parliament, just as nothing good has come from having more ACT ministers.

     • And what’s worse is that with Winnie comes that retail politician Shane with an ego that’s larger than a Trump.
       He also claims to be the best orator on the planet including in Te Reo. (I thought that was a Kiwi Indian Air New Zealand pilot who’ll probably have to fly the bugger round Aotearoa from time to time).
       When I heard the pair of them, I wondered if they were back on the bottle.
       They’ve obviously decided Trumpism pays off and is the way to go.

       • “(I thought that was a Kiwi Indian Air New Zealand pilot who’ll probably have to fly the bugger round Aotearoa from time to time).”

         BRILLIANT!

2. If Winnie was 10 years younger and didn’t go with the Blairite in the first chance he might have had half a chance here. Listening to Hosking this morning he sounded a bit like Biden – the placement of words within a sentence getting harder as time moves by

3. Winston may or may not be back, but, unfortunately so is Jones. His appearance on RNZ this morning vivdly reinforced just what an odious, supercilious prick he really is.

   • One of the best bits from Jones this morning was when he said, “The future is where our greatness will be found.” It was like he was all by himself, on some remote hill way up north looking out on the ocean, in a world of his own, loving the sound of his own voice.

     “The days are gone in my view,” he said,” where we all fall breathlessly at the feet of this sort of shrill language…” without recognising that listeners would’ve been in the mode of, “The days are gone in our view where we all fall breathlessly at the feet of this sort of bullshit poseur language.”

   • I heard the interview as well and your words are well choosen .
     Just as we were enjoying not hearing Trump we now have to put up with 2 years of the crap this party spouts out until they are eliminated for ever I hope

4. Thanks for writing about Emezi Martyn.

   Transgender activists want to cancel debate and require that everyone adheres to the dogma trans women are real women. If you don’t you are labeled trans phobic and a bigot. And cancelled as Dunedin and Christchurch library did ie cancelled a feminist group who wanted to hold a public meeting about proposed changes to legislation allowing gender self ID. The basis of the libraries cancelling the event seemed to be a small number of letters. The libraries claimed that it would be unsafe for the Trans community holding the event.
   In Christchurch the meeting was held elsewhere and some trans activists attended debate was vigorous but civil.

5. “Twitter outrage is woke righteousness porn for the middle classes.”
   A nice turn of phrase Martyn.

6. NZ First could come back (God knows there is nobody to vote for, unless Mana also comes back!) but will they work out that their biggest mistake, was Shane Jones, of me, myself and I?

   Shane after betraying Labour, then Natz, now onto NZ First to continue to pleasure himself at the tax payers expense.

   While Winny might have some historical Mana (even if you don’t agree with him) Shane Jones losing Northland and never far from the next scandal is a huge turn off. And of course people like that repel, other genuine candidates within the party as well as voters.

   Get rid of Shane Jones and NZ First could get 5%+ and be back in business – at present Natz are counting on ACT to suck up the anti foreign corruption votes hence their huge gain in popularity from the 1% they used to be on, (that the Natz lost over the $100k Chinese donations for MP seats scandal)…

   Now that Labour and Greens are sucking up foreign donations and selling off so much NZ land and assets and giving anybody NZ residence in particular if they are rich (James Cameron, the locals just won’t work, get my peasants in the fields) would even make the Natz blush…. it could be an interesting and surprising election. I’m tentatively predicting Natz could be back in a very tight election, unless someone gives the Greens and Labour a wake up call, with what is going on in Auckland, with Dome Valley, higher council rates, Labours war on landlords and property- the fabled houses that nobody can buy anymore because construction is now a land and rich lister ponzi, and constant sell offs.

   I hate the Natz, but like with Rogernomics, Labour and Greens have sold out NZ and sometimes it is more of a betrayal by someone who you used to respect. Tony Blair was extremely popular too, but then lost the plot ….. NZ is like the UK, nobody wants to choose between ‘the third way’ and massive financial change aka Corbyn – they wanted something in the middle between Blair and Corbyn. The sweet spot. Natz is far right these days, but has excellent marketing that Labour has zero idea of. Labour and Greens even reach anybody real with all that spin… totally encapsulated by business. Mostly exploiters posing as entrepreneurs.

   Oh and Granny Herald bleating about how there are not enough migrants to work… again the Ponzi shows migrants on work on temporary essential work visas and study visas are higher than ever before, even post Covid . AKA those here on those temp permits are not actually helping the skills and productivity and houses and transport situation in NZ (mapped for a decade) but seem instead to somehow be hindering the skills and houses and transport situation and hindering NZ productivity. Possibly because work and student visas are a ponzi and not real in terms of any added value (the opposite, taking up another house and student place.) Another new migrant at a restaurant or on construction, has achieved nothing in NZ shown by the statistics for a decade. Things have declined in those sectors!

   Immigration policy for New Zealand post-Covid
   https://croakingcassandra.com/2021/06/18/immigration-policy-for-new-zealand-post-covid/

7. If I’ve got this right, then what you’re saying, is that the “woke” as such, have disappeared back up their arses so successfully, that they have been transformed into the storm troopers of neo colonialism? So to speak.. ? My experiences of this affliction would push me toward agreeance with you as to just how self defeating this vanity is..

8. The woke cancel culture is dangerous. It’s an infringement on basic rights.

   The spectre of Winston Peters has reared its head once more, playing to the already converted. IMO he has done his dash and had his chance to make a difference in politics, other than the Gold Card, when in coalition with Helen Clark’s government, what are NZ First’s (led by WP) great achievements? I can’t find any.

   Unfortunately, Tracey Martin the best MP NZ First had has gone, retiring from the Party. She seemed to take her job seriously and I think she did her best for NZ. Perhaps she was intimidated by the conservative males in the party. Who knows?

   As for repeating the same over stated stale boring mantra, that he and the party are the handbrake on government, who or what is the handbrake on Winston Peters? We want policies, policies and policies, something WP is short on. Instead we get ear bashed time and time again, by ridiculous personal attacks on sitting MPs and parties from all sides of the House, as well as spouting off about whatever the topic of the day is. This achieves absolutely nothing, other than to give WP the platform to vent his personal opinions. And let’s not forget, a return of NZ First to Parliament will undoubtedly also see the return of Shane Jones!

   • If they had chosen Tracey over Shane, NZ First would still be in business. Are they really that stupid they can’t see how hated he is? I feel bad for the other members of NZ First who took their roles seriously and were a lot more popular, then got side lined! With Shane around, this party really lost it’s way, and funny enough into the scrutiny of the SFO. what timing!

9. Firstly when we grew up we didn’t have cell phones or tweet, we spoke to people face to face and looked them in the eye. Nowadays far too many people hide behind keyboards and blurt out a whole lot of nasty verbal diarrhea. Also while people might be getting pulled up and told they can’t say what they have said and why, we are still seeing very bad behaviour and a moral decline in peoples actions and how badly and disrespectful they are to others. We still see and hear a lot of racism and discrimination in our country. We are also see a lack of care and compassion for people in bad and sad situations through no fault of there own. We see people with no respect for themselves or others and many couldn’t care a less about our beautiful country and the environment we live in. In fact many just care about themselves and money.
   Many NZers are fucken rude and have no manners, I see it on our roads in our shops and out in our communities. If people want to be nasty, judgmental and selfish that is there choice but be mindful this may all come back and bite you in the bum and don’t cry wolf when it does.

   • “Many NZers are fucken rude and have no manners…”

     Michelle, look to your own behaviour, before you criticise others. Pot: meet kettle.

     • You are becoming a creepy cyberstalker.

     • Whether CiP is male or female, is none of your damned business!
       Let alone yours to take a stab at and try to expose.
       Show some civility, some iota of decent ‘Net behaviour, mate.

     • It takes one to know one d ass stirrer.

10. “..where Vance’s analysis falls down is in her assertion that the woke purge will be progress.”

    I read her piece, and rather wished I hadn’t. She’s wrong about much of what she claims.

    An expanded definition of”racism” has helped nobody, and looks to me as if it’s driving much of the cancel culture.

    I’m a boomer, born very soon after the war. And I’m an old Lefty, involved with liberal causes since my teens. We understood what racism is: it’s what governments do by way of structural and legislative arrangements. It isn’t what people think and say: to expand the definition in that direction has resulted in the unintended consequence, I’d argue, of the cancel culture.

    Some people are afraid to say anything, for fear of being pilloried. But it doesn’t in any way stop them thinking – and saying in private – the very things which would get them cancelled on so-called “social” media. Cancel culture risks reinforcing the very views it wishes to change.

    I’m reminded of claims that the conflict in Northern Ireland is sectarian. It isn’t. It’s political. It tends to be loyalists who make the sectarianism claim; it suits their agenda, because there’s no solution to it. People will believe what they want to, and such beliefs are resistant to change.

    On the other hand, a political problem admits of a political solution. Unfortunately, that political solution is one the loyalists don’t want and fiercely resist.

    And intolerance is intolerance, no matter what Vance asserts. There is nothing whatever that is kind and thoughtful about any of it. That applies most especially to the government. Ardern ought to follow her own advice.

    It isn’t the fault of us pakeha that we were born here: but willy-nilly, that makes us NZers. Skin colour is an extrinsic characteristic only, signifying nothing. Screaming at pakeha for their skin colour is a fruitless exercise; equating it with white supremacy and racism – and that barking notion “privilege” – is wildly inaccurate and egregiously offensive.

    How white is white, in any event? As white as I am? Very white: I’m of Irish descent. Or as white as my partner? Who’s definitely not as white as I am, but still considered to be a white European.

    It has apparently escaped the notice of the likes of Gahrahman and other anti-white screechers that, by their own definition, they’re committing the sin of racism. You couldn’t make this shit up, could you?

    Vance also refers to the increasing use of te reo, including this country’s name. What’s the point of it, exactly? If the intention is to revitalise the language, it’s a waste of time. It won’t help. No amount of pepperpotting the language into English will save it. Nor will a rise in bilingual and second-language speakers. The immutable rules of all languages apply: te reo needs native speakers if it is to survive and thrive. That’s the job of Maori, whose language it is. The rest of us cannot help, no matter how supportive we may be. We’ll know that revitalisation has been successful when cohorts of children of Maori descent turn up at school as 5 year olds, unable to speak English. That’s what the language needs. Anything short of that is failure.

    And yes: in the early days, te reo use was suppressed in schools: that was what Maori elders at the time wanted. Yes, children were beaten for speaking te reo in school. In those days, children were beaten for everything they did wrong at school. See this:
    https://sites.google.com/site/treaty4dummies/home/maori-forbidden-at-school

    The elders expected that the language would still be used at home. And there’s no reason why it couldn’t have been. That’s how the Irish had kept their language alive during British colonisation. Many NZers nowadays speak their native language, along with English. There was nothing stopping Maori doing the same.

    I’d add that as a young adult in the 70s, I learned te reo to passable fluency. And I was taught by a native speaker.

    As for using the name “Aotearoa”: that’s a piece of revisionism if ever I heard one. The indigenes had no name for NZ when the first Europeans arrived. Look at the te reo version of the Treaty: you’ll see that the term used is Nu (or Niu) Tirani. Here’s an exposé of the bollocks inherent in this story:
    https://i.stuff.co.nz/blogs/opinion/205670/i-Aotearoa-a-European-hoax-i

    Let’s not abandon “NZ” in favour of a construct.

    “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie…”

    I read her first novel. She’s a brilliant writer. I agree with the thrust of her essay, even if I don’t agree with absolutely everything she says. More power to her!

    With regard to the re-emergence of Winston Peters: had Labour told him, both about the He Puapua report and about the extent to which it intended to implement its recommendations, he’d still be in parliament. As it was, NZ First campaigned with one electoral hand tied behind its back, so to speak. Had Peters known about He Puapua, we the voters would’ve known about it. It would have been a centrepiece of the election campaign. And it was not. None of us knew anything about it until this year. And there’d have been opposition: at the very least, Ardern would have been forced to countermand it, if Labour wanted to be re-elected. Most of us can recognise the white-anting of democracy when we see it.

    • Sit down lady. Boomer spent all there gains on trash.

    • My experience echoes yours totally. I am glad Winstone is back. After 30 years of Labour voting, I have somewhere to vote again potentially.

      Winstone is intelligent and always amusing and whist he may not have achieved a lot. He does two things which we have been sorely missing:
      1. Calls a spade a spade and get up in the governments face about what they re up to (Even his coalition partners at times)
      2. Stops coalition parties from more extreme moves. Contrast the difference in this Labour Govt with the term proceeding. Sometimes Winstone in partnership is a bit hamstringing but more times than not, I have thought to myself – Love him or hate him, he keeps them honest.

    • Well said D’Esterre, well said.
      The lack of seriously critical thought in those youinger than you and I is a very dangerous situation.
      I see NZ (if not the world) primed and ready for a maniacal despotic populist leader much as happened globally in the 1930s.
      Dogma is dogma.
      Whether it comes from scurrilous politicians or academics, it is still dogma.
      Fre the mind!

      • This from the lot just standing around doing fuck all watching the harbour Bridge and spaghetti Junction being built or not being built. We haven’t gotten to this point pretending that racial differences don’t exist. We have gotten to this point pretending that they can not coexist.

    • You understand what racism is but have you experienced it and have you had to live with it ? Nah! and have you called it out when you saw and heard it or have you just sat back. Unless you have walked in someones shoes you do not know what it is like. As for your comments about our language you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. Just cause I swear you are trying to tarnish me and minimize my contributions. Yet when I speak I speak from my life experiences and that of my many extended whanau many who don’t have a voice. You speak for yourself and your world view one that is based on one culture.

11. I would hope both party leaders say they refuse to work with Winston . He did no favours for Labour after he got them into power. It was 3 wasted years for Labour and now they lost the momentum and are struggling to put their policies into action

    • Doing nothing in NZ seems more popular than ideological change. So Winny helped make Labour popular and clearly did Labour a lot of favours in the polls. People don’t generally like more taxes and lower incomes as change, funny enough! NZ First would have stayed popular if they had not started selling out on their key policies and got Shane Jones involved. That is why NZ First lost all seats.

      Obviously for decades now the mass immigration experiment has been going strongly in NZ, with the chickens coming home to roost with low wages, poverty, zero investment in skills, housing shortages and a pathetic media full of entitlement stories “get my visa faster”. And Beijing looks like in control of a lot of NZ assets and profiting up a storm while taking from communities (water) and turning NZ into a dump (cow toilets, dome valley), which the Greens and Labour can’t blame on the Natz.

      • Well, much of that signing everything over to China happened under the Nats, – on steroids. ..Just that the change of govt failed to change course, or even to slow much of it down. Mostly they kept on with BAU. And some, they trumped up themselves.

        Eg, The new govt did end the gifting of our homes to foreign/ OS landlords. And, we no longer have their spy-trainer in our govt. And again, we no longer send troops to China for training (I think that was Brownlee – can search up the link if necessary.) There were some more, tentative measures, as well.

        But the rush to give them our land and our water continued. Turbo charged.

        • You are being too generous there, Kheala. Labour and NZ First both campaigned against the Free Trade Agreements and then signed them.

          Greens at least had some integrity there, which is why I previously gave them some slack, but they have become unbearable in their hypocrisy and indifference on the environment this term!

          David Parker should be in ACT and is a huge Rogernom. He is cut from the same cloth as Phil Goff who is destroying and selling off Auckland assets as we speak.

          There have been more NZ assets sold with Overseas approval in the last 2 terms than Natz – likewise the temp permits bringing in migrant workers in massive numbers (hundreds of thousands per year) was actually more on steroids under COL. Nobody actually knew about the migrant numbers, because our paid for media just print what the advertorials tell them and keep braying for more of the same. When the statistics keep showing low productivity, worsening poverty, high property prices with low wages, that’s a sign of an economy propped up by an immigration Ponzi and our woeful statistics are pathetic, aka immigration is not how many people go in and out of a country, but how many residencies and citizenships are granted and analysing what happens next. AKA a family can get NZ residence and then never or barely work here, while owning a mansion, retiring here and giving their children and families and employees visas into NZ.

          Sadly the brainwashing and destruction from the inside out has also infected the unions in NZ. Nowhere is anybody acknowledging that business want migrants on low wages because the Rogernomics approach meant that NZ productive workers are forced overseas for better wages and replaced by cheaper, less productive, pliable migrants who never whistleblow on all the scams that will eventually destroy the NZ economy and reputation (aka removing steel in construction, using poor quality materials to save money, trying and trying and TRYING to build houses, but somehow for 2 decades and hundreds of thousands of construction migrant visas, they still can’t get any houses working and those built, fall apart quickly).

          That is not because of migrants, but because of the Rogernomics system that is creating Ponzi’s from mass immigration and visas being granted here and not focusing on the quality of applicants and checking up on their performance and following each applicant for a decade to work out are they actually helping NZ as a whole, or just helping exploiter employers who can’t retain normal employees and too lazy to grow their industry with training and organised local recruitment.

          My vote would be for Mana if they come back, probably why all the lefties got together to get rid of them and mount a Natz inspired dirty politics campaign.

          • My vote would be for Mana

            We really do need a true ‘Left’ party or a true environment party, – one that would cut through all the crap – one that cared for Aotearoa the land itself, first and foremost, and the people who live here now, regardless of their ‘identity’ or whatever.

            One that addressed inequality and the environment, sustainability and climate change, etc – in real terms, not the artificially created “carbon trading schemes” – one that could think outside the established boxes and valued the land itself and the people rather than bowing down to the mythical GDP profit gods.

    • Trevor Sennitt: “He did no favours for Labour after he got them into power. It was 3 wasted years for Labour…”

      He saved us the voters from Labour’s worst ideological excesses. I’ll bet a penny to a five-pound note that that’s why Labour made sure he didn’t find out about He Puapua. They could recognise an election-loser when they saw one.

      Now they have absolute power, and they’re using it to implement He Puapua’s recommendations, regardless of what the rest of us think.

      And they’re full steam ahead with the climate change stuff: it’s being forced on us willy-nilly. No thought at all, apparently, for Newtonian consequences.

      Our best hope is that NZ First – with or without Peters – manages to win enough votes to return to the next parliament.

12. I found Vance’s latest offering dripped with the arrogance of the liberal elite. She described all the reasons so many people were uncomfortable, then concluded, the change would be good for us and then her last line or two seemed to say that its clearly what most New Zealanders want.

    So Andrea, who are most New Zealanders? By 2023, white NZ average age will be 41 and they’ll represent about 2/3rs of the vote so without any consideration of where Asian, PI and Maori will vote, this doesnt sound like an easy win to me.

    Next her article, doesnt even mention the need for our government to build consensus to convince us this is good for the country. So – lots of people are unhappy but its the right thing to do so we should all just accept it or die quietly in a hole.

    When did NZ become this place where consensus and appealing to our sense of fair play and a united future is not even considered as a way forward?

13. Winston’s bloody crippling hangover from last election just won’t go away. 2023 will be the nail in NZ first’s coffin. As Bomber has pointed out numerous times in his blogs, 2023 will be a massive demographic shift in voting age. Young people want change, not tired old shit stirrers with no solutions clipping the pensioner’s ticket.
    I’m not wasting one more vote on him or the greens.
    I’m voting TOP, the party with new and GOOD ideas.

14. The old white race male baby boomers, from the right Du Fresne to the left D’Esterre face a younger generation embracing a bi-cultural nation with a multi-cultural society.

    In the USA, a white race Christian identity nation baby boomer generation GOP could not handle an American born man with a black father and white mother as POTUS. And seeks to reassert Christian dominionism of by and for their European colonialist in the new world kind in perpetuity via voter suppression.

    This poetry speaks for them

    Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    Democracy will survive their going, it might, finally at last, even flourish.

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