MANY NEW ZEALANDERS recoiled with shock and disbelief at Tuesday’s (9/11/21) Anti-Government protest outside Parliament. That all manner of crazy stuff could be found on social media was well understood, but to see that online extremism suddenly brought to life on the streets of the capital city was deeply disturbing. That such a frightening combination of ignorance and anger was festering away inside the body politic came as a profound shock to “mainstream” New Zealand.
Who were these people? How could they hold such absurd beliefs? What has gone so wrong with New Zealand’s education system that so many of those emerging from it can no longer distinguish between reality and utterly delusional fantasy? So complete seemed the destruction of the protesters’ critical faculties that it was difficult to look upon the spectacle without experiencing pangs of guilt. These were, after all, fellow Kiwis. How was it possible that they had been allowed to sink so low?
One imagines that many educated English people experienced very similar feelings when they realised that a majority of their fellow citizens had voted to leave the European Union. Or when educated Americans realised with a rising sense of horror that their next President would be Donald Trump. Social layers that had been dismissed, by one of their own, as “a basket of deplorables” could no longer be ignored. The question remained, however: Where had this vast army of the political living dead come from?
The brutally straightforward answer is that they are the people for whom no room could be found on the board game called Neoliberal Capitalism. The people who, 35 years ago, suddenly discovered that the promise of a steady job with good wages and a home of their own to live in, had suddenly and irrevocably been withdrawn. Without the credentials now deemed essential to a minimally respectable existence, the only title they could aspire to was “loser”.
As hundreds-of-thousands of New Zealanders soon discovered, to become a loser was to become invisible. Economically, socially, culturally, politically: their contribution went unnoticed. Nobody cared what they did; what they thought; or how they felt.
That they would always be there, grinding away, was simply assumed. At the check-out counter; behind the wheel of a truck; driving a forklift in a cavernous warehouse; cleaning the toilets and emptying the rubbish bins in a high-rise office block: the people who did these jobs were just the flesh-and-blood cogs whose teeth turned the implacable capitalist machinery. Those who dwelt in the world of the winners may have thanked them politely as they wheeled their shopping trolley away from the check-out counter, but the faces of the losing-class were forgotten long before the winners reached the car-park.
A cruel enough existence, the winners might concede, were anyone bold enough to ask them, but most of them lacked the imagination to understand just how cruel. In the ad-breaks that punctuate the endless reality shows on free-to-air television (themselves carefully crafted exercises in accentuating the personal failings of all but one of the contestants) the world of the winners, in all its plenitude, is constantly on display. The couples who effortlessly purchase a house with the help of a friendly Aussie bank. The magnificent motor vehicles. The holidays in far-off and exotic locations. A world whose inhabitants wouldn’t be caught dead eating KFC, or shopping at Pak N Save – like the losers.
But, if the world of the winners is not for them, then, by the same token, their own world is not for the winners. To be uneducated is not the same as being dumb. The losing-class has its own rules, its own moral code. Heroism is measured by the extent to which the odds that are so outrageously stacked against the losing-class are successfully defied; by how decisively their players emerge victorious from a game so obviously rigged. Freedom means smashing through every obstacle erected to slow the losing-class down. Because no loser ever got very far by following the rules written by the winners.
What, then, did the losers see when Covid-19 arrived upon the scene?
They saw the winners sent home with their laptops and smart-phones. They saw themselves heading out to work every morning, as usual, to do what were once called the “shit jobs” – but were now referred to as “essential occupations”. They wondered about that. If their jobs were “essential”, why weren’t they paid the same sort of wages as the people on “Zoom” meetings, whose jobs clearly were not? They saw a world that kept on working pretty well, even when more than half the workforce was doing nothing more productive than exchanging e-mails. Some members of the Team of Five Million seemed to have a whole lot less to do than others. Something was definitely wrong with this picture.
For the losers without jobs, however, the picture was more confused and worrying. They had learned to live in ways that kept them at a safe distance from the winners and their flinty-faced enforcers. That might mean living in the wop-wops: miles away from the nearest WINZ office; taking under-the-table payments from friends and neighbours; doing stuff that the local cop knew better than to ask about; surviving off-the-grid.
It was harder to remain anonymous and invisible in the big cities. Harder – but not impossible. The trick was to have as little to do with the winners and their rules as possible. The last thing these members of the losing-class needed was the authorities taking an interest in them, personally. As in demanding they come in and get vaccinated against Covid-19 – now.
If one goes looking for reasons not to do something, one will almost certainly find them – especially on the Internet. There were plenty of people, all over the world, who were adamant that the winners were talking nonsense. Really, Covid was no worse than the flu. For some reason, however, the winning class was dead set on smashing its way into the world it had condemned the losers to live in. They were coming for them, hypodermic syringes at the ready. “It’s for your own good!”, they cried. Like the losing-class had never heard that before! “If you don’t get jabbed, we’ll take your job!” Ah, yes, that was a more familiar tune. Where had they heard it before? Of course, that’s right, in the mouths of Nazis and Commies. Well, fuck that!
It is easy to theorise that the reaction of the losing-class here in New Zealand might have been different if this country had experienced the mass deaths common to the rest of the world. But, one only has to think of the United States and the United Kingdom, and the vehemence of their Covid-19 deniers and anti-vaxxers, to realise that not even the grim reality of hundreds-of-thousands of Covid victims is enough to change losing-class minds.
Neoliberal Capitalism destroyed the illusion of a united society and drove millions of human-beings off the Monopoly Board it had made out of Western societies. In “normal” times these two worlds: the one made up of those equipped to play; and the one reserved for those with no hope of participating – let alone winning; had few, if any, points of contact. But Covid has forced these two worlds together and, like matter coming into contact with anti-matter, the reaction is fraught with danger.
Who are these people? These lines from a poem, written by an anonymous unemployed worker in 1932, capture something of the losing-class’s mood:
We shall come, the unemployed,
The disinherited of this earth,
We shall come into your temples
And your marble halls of mirth.
We shall come as you have made us,
Ragged, lousy, pale and gaunt,
You, the House of Have, shall listen
Unto us, the House of Want.
We are measuring the weed-chip gangs
That stretch from coast to coast,
We shall come, us, the rightless,
Us, the God forsaken host.
We shall come in all the madness
Born of hunger, pain and strife,
On our lips the cry for vengeance,
In our souls the lust for life.
We shall swarm, as swarmed the locusts
That on Pharaoh’s kingdom fell,
And sling your politicians
And your damned police to Hell.
The ‘under-class’ has arrived to the party!
This new era of Labour over the last four years and this new Police State is looking like another milestone that Labour has achieved and will have to make an entry in their history book.
Just like another milestone from another era? The other one I’m thinking of is from about 35 or so years ago when they adopted Milton Friedmans Chicago’s School of Economics Laissez-faire Free Market Neoliberal Economics!
I’m starting to see a pattern.
And now NZ is at another crossroad. Do we turn left? Or right? Or do we just plough on straight ahead into the wild blue yonder and cut a track of our own?
Does the current lot of pollys have the intelligence or intellectual grunt to carve out a 30 year plan or strategy or not?
Do they even want to bother doing anything other than been a caretaker government and just sit there and clip the ticket?
Maybe that is all they are, a caretaker government waiting for the next bus to come along?
Covid is a parasitic passenger too. It kills indiscriminately just like inept, incompetent governments that are paralysed with incrementalism. It’s crunch time for the Labour government.
Should I stay or should I go? That is the question Jacinda should be asking herself.
The ‘under-class’ has arrived at the party!
New Zealand moves where the ‘movers and shakers’ of this world urge us to go. Of course, we really could try and chart our own path…..but that’ll rustle big feathers which in turn could soon see us viewed as yet another rogue state…..
Just imagine how much more safer New Zealand would have been over the last 25 years if we had of stuck to the plan and bought those F-16 fighter jets and 4 frigates, and had allowed Singapore to base there pilots and jets in New Zealand.
Y’know instead of focusing on our own National Defence, we have to worry about the defence of China and America throwing Australian nuclear subs at each other which is a national defence strategy that is 20 flying hours away from New Zealand and totally not what is called “national defence.”
If we had of stuck to the plan New Zealand would be the permanent chair of the Pacific Leaders Forum and a permanent bubble with all members thanks to our handling of corona but nah.
Good comment Sam.
Denny, the answer is No. The level of intellect and ability amongst politicians started to wane years ago almost in tandem with neo liberalism. We need a completely new way of governing that takes the self interest out of politicking but also encourages the highest levels of democracy all in a cost effective way. Do you think there is a University in NZ who turns out anyone capable of that? My prediction is that inertia and self interest and the cracks in society are only going to get worse.
It will take the whole thing falling over before anything even begins to change. Many of us thought Ardern was going to do it and are now so burnt by her that we will be wary of trusting anyone else bearing gifts!
Roger Douglas is when the rot set in, in NZ. Ask bert about Roger Douglas. He (RD) was one of theirs, the Labour ushered in Milton Friedmans Chicago’s School of Free Market Laissez-faire Capitalism.
Labour created these monsters. Deliberately. They have come out of the dark to confront their maker!
The only one redistributing wealth and limiting excesses wealth, dragging hundreds of millions out of poverty and ruthlessly crushing corruption is President Xi Jinping.
You explained that very well Mr Trotter. A world most of us live in, seeing the winners stick their nose in the air and look down upon the peasants. Well said. I’ve always thought, and still do, that most younger people in this demographic understand this whole situation as a conspiracy against them.. They are sort of correct, but neo liberal economics is something they have never heard of, totally ignorant of the political forces that make it so. Politics is the most boring thing in the world for young people so they totally ignore it. How can they know what’s actually going down. They don’t, and with the internet screaming out conspiracies that sort of align with some of the things happening in society, it must be the truth, in their eyes.
One irony is they are likely to support ACT because pipsqueak see-more is luring in the disenchanted with his rhetoric about freedom and rights. Little do they know that ACT and their hard-right policies will make it all worse for them. It’s no coincidence that ACT is rising in popularity IMHO.
Or perhaps, like me even as someone vaxxed you find the mandates abhorrent.
To be told unless I double vax my 12 year old daughter she is no long allowed to dance or sit dance exams or attend social clubs. Perhaps I can see how ridiculous it is that my 10 year old daughter can attend those classes and exams.
Excluding young people from sport and social life is something I find abhorrent and will not support.
A govt that openly creates two classes of people is not a government I will support, not only that I will actively oppose them at every turn.
Yes YES YES a million times! I’m double vaxxed but firmly against vaccine mandates and passports.
The state of public debate on vaccine mandates and passports in NZ is beyond atrocious. The media gaslighting of the protests in particular has been horrendous. Without incident, they’re ALL now reviled as dangerous would-be terrorists.
After careful assessment, I decided to be vaxxed but it is different – like all medical decisions – for everyone, especially given the far main risk is to elderly or those with co-mobidities, the vaccines waning effectiveness and limited effect on transmission, as well as lower fatality rate of Delta, and evidence natural immunity lasts longer as it attaches to T-cells.
But the whole construction has been vaccine = perfect and only solution = therefore any coercion, including mandates and passports, is justified. This is false, false, false.
Hold on, there is a whole range of personal decisions (exercise, not drinking, not smoking) that may be good for personal and public health – it doesn’t mean mandating them is justified.
Hold on, there is now effective treatments to Covid-19 and rapid testing is available as alternatives.
Hold on, does a person not being vaccinated weaken the protection that vaccination brings me? (No, it doesn’t).
Hold on, hospital capacity has been a perennial issue this Govt has failed to address, and many other choices impact on this – is it right we demonise unvaccinated of one virus for all this?
Hold on, losing the right to refuse medical treatment, freedom of movement, the right to work, is NOTHING like the tiny inconvenience of wearing a seatbelt or stopping at a red alert.
Hold on, other countries now require boosters to be considered “vaccinated” – can we justify continual mandatory jabs for 40% of people to be able to simply have a job or travel or visit a restaurant? That’s a massive incursion of state power on a potentially never-ending basis (and if the vaccine is so great so as to justify mandates, why are continual boosters needed?).
Hold on, where was the massive concern concern for social obligations from the self-righteous as this Govt accelerated poverty, house prices, inequality, etc?
Hold on, NZ’s vaccination rate is already high by world standards – does creating a two-class society really justify squeezing an extra 5-10% in a free society, or is that just to satisfy Jacinda’s ego to be “world leading” again?
Hold on, in France, that home of the Paris Commune and socialist presidents, there was mass protest against the repugnancy of a two-class citizenship – is this maybe not just a concern of ragtag conspiracy theorists and Libertarians actually?
I’ve not seen any justification coming near addressing these concerns.
Instead of “Hold on” we’ve had “steamroll on!” with an incredibly complaisant mainstream and now side-media moralising an incredible ans hyoocritical self-righteousness as the Goverment fundamentally re-orders our relationship with the state and employers.
Just because something is popular, doesn’t make it right, especially when you engage in the level of unthinking New Zealand has.
Yes, yes, yes and yes.
Very well put.
Here here.
Well said….ditto Cricklewood
Thank you, James. And other supporters.
As usual, Chris Trotter has some very valid insight on the neo-liberal/historical anfgle, but not the whole picture.
However, James the divisions are also being fomented by Facebook taking people down their algorithmic rabid-holes.
Trump-Bannon-Zuckerberg and their divisiveness are evil personified and their hate-speech is spreading through Aotearoa.
Divisiveness of racism against 3 waters.
Divisiveness of mask and vaccine mandates.
Trump flags and MAGA slogans and the ‘mosque massacre was an inside job’ banner in New Zealand during protests.
James, you mentioned that …and evidence natural immunity lasts longer as it attaches to T-cells…
There are some evil and dirty political forces at play that are attaching themselves to the fringes’ T-cells, MAGA caps and Republicans winning in the US by mobilising parents against critical race theory:
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/13/1015483097/an-ugly-truth-how-facebook-enables-hate-and-disinformation
7 years after Nicky Hager’s seminal book on dirty politics, malign Machiavellians are rearing their ugly heads again and spreading hatred and bile.
And who were/are the common denominators from 2014 to 2021?
It comes down to what is the greater good – looking after the individual or the community. Remember that initially vaccines were not going to be mandated. But it’s become apparent from observing hospitalisations vs vaccination rates overseas that vaccinations won’t get high enough under a voluntary system to avoid carnage in the hospitals. So the government’s choice then becomes, do I hurt an individual’s feelings but protect a community? Or do I respect an individual’s feelings and hurt the community? You point out that a 10 year old can do something unvaccinated that a 12 year old can’t and claim that’s ridiculous. That doesn’t make it so. The fact is the vaccine has been deemed safe for 12 year olds, but not for very young children. A line thus needs to be drawn somewhere. And no matter where you draw that line you’re going to find some kids one side of it and some the other.
I feel like – much like the climate debate – people won’t comprehend quite how bad this can be until it affects them. If we do in fact reach a point when the hospitals are stretched and people are dying in significant numbers, then a lot of people will realise a vaccine mandate wasn’t really that big a deal after all.
Very well said Brad Cooke. Sorry to Cricklewood for the 12 yr child, but the line does have to be somewhere. It might as well be based on health.
We’ve had non-stop fear-porn drummed into our ears for months and months. I don’t think people are naive to the seriousness of Covid.
But it’s not winter 2020, and we’re not Italy. We are already highly vaxxed and low density country, by any standards and despite Delta supposedly hitting the at-risk communities in South Auckland in particular, the fatality rate has been very low.
But where is the urgency to get treatments to protect those who are small minority that need hospitalisation or much greater at risk? Where is the emphasis/money on indoor ventiliation and outdoor socialising? Where was the choice of vaccines? Where are the plans, like other countries, for temporary hospitals?
There has been a knee-jerk reaction towards massive coercion that is beyond ridiculous. The “greater good” in NZ is literally the most extreme aim for vaccination rate of any country in the world! Maybe we should aim for zero car deaths and ban driving above 20 km. Maybe we should pre-emptively lock up all anti-vaxxrers on an island – for the greater good!
The ‘greater good’ has been a justification for all manner of horror in the 20th century.
Creating a two class society because middle-class bemoaners are unable to rationally assess and accept the risk and reality of Covid-19 (despite happily ignoring numerous flu, heart disease, poverty, car accident, etc deaths) is not “for the greater good.”
Exceptions James. Perhaps we are not Italy, we are justa tiny nation clinging on to the remnants of moral pragmatism which someone is trying to explain to us as a worthy model.
There is a great line that we should put up on the wall where Savage’s pic would have once been.
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/05/06/other-plans/
This is connected with John Lennon who was a perfect example of this truth, as a modern nutter felt obliged to shoot John dead along with all the great ideas he would have espoused and taken away from his son and wife who loved him dearly, as well as the public.
The thing is excluding children from sports and social life on the basis of vaccination status is not good for the community. In fact it could prove to be very harmful in the longer term.
Its also not making anyone any safer or should we stop them attending school as well?
Cricklewood, my understanding regarding the under twelves re whether to vaccinate, is about the risk ratio of risks Vs benefits. I understand it to largely be that the two negate eachother somewhat. Kiwis 5 to 11 will be able to be vaccinated, but perhaps not until maybe circa Feb 2022. Remember that children are super resilient humans. As long as they are loved, nurtured and protected, they will endure and reach their potential and beyond. It’s the parenting part that’s tricky, having to explain that. Just do your best :). It is what it is
but they can go to kindy and school?
FDA have approved the Pfizer jabs for 5 year olds plus
And Jacinda will approve rollout when given OK by Medsafe
My understanding is a different batch will ordered…MOH cant repurpose existing stocks and measure out kiddies doses
So down to the bottom of the queue
Spot on.
“It has been deemed safe”
That decision has been made in a black box. Without longitudinal studies, under emergency use authorisation, against the advice of many esteemed professionals, disregarding clear disclaimers from the manufacturers. The decision was made in a bureaucratic black box for a political and economic purpose, and none of the mountains of evidence of how the vaccine products do cause harm is being permitted to revise our thinking or strategy in a democratic or scientific manner. Just deny and double down.
Did your parents support subscription for the war effort. Did these young men and women have a choice either their sacrifice or the greater good. What would have been their excuse. Whether you like it or not this is a war against a much cleverer opponent than the despots who wanted and want to rule the world. This virus has bought the whole world to its knees , it has no class system it does not care who it infects all classes are dying it does not discriminate and is made very welcome in both the unwell and the unvaccinated . There is much rhetoric about the vaccination mandate, the mandated are the people who look after your sick and vulnerable and teach your children . Where is the care and protection for the vulnerable second class citizen you seem to care so much about. This is very much the greater good. Unfortunately the illness’s and accidents will always be a part of our modern life and very often can actually be prevented. So what are we to do in the face of war, we throw as much firepower as possible, take no prisoners defeat this virus for the greater good.
Lets not compare Covid to ww1 or ww2.
I disagree re the greater good, excluding 5-10 percent of people from society is a few hundred thousand people long term thats a disaster and avoidable one.
It will be a disaster that lasts far longer and will carry a far greater cost than covid. You can start with the number of people mandates have driven into the arms of fringe groups, perhaps the family career of a disabled spouse who will no longer be able.to be paid for that role. Perhaps the 12 or 13 year old child denied oppurtunity and socialization because their parents dont want to vaxx them… maybe they end up in some pretty rough corners of the internet at a very risky time.
The costs to get maybe 2 or 3 extra percent vaxxed are not a good deal when you consider the long terms costs of societal exclusion.
Fuck wide spread mandates.
Absolutely Cricklewood.
We can’t countenance separatism in NZ to do so means we have sacrificed what we stand for.
It’s much worse than any Springbok tour protest but rather an endorsement of apartheid in NZ.
Good heavens is there any rationale thinking rather than absurd political bias.
Do you seriously think that these disenfranchised people didn’t exist before covid consider the Tamaki’s et.al. The problem is now that these people are empowered daily by the main right wing media, fake news and unfortunately social media. Also mostly normal educated people are believing absolute rubbish, see Simon Wilson’s piece in the NZ Herald 12 November. At the end of the day do you want to be treated, nursed or have your children taught by such people?. These people you talk about not being able to care for a disabled spouse and social problems of children etc. do you seriously think these people SHOULD be responsible for such people when they will be dicing with illness and death on a daily basis. So what is your answer, is it fuck mandates until they actually affect me and my family in any way or in a democratic society let the few control the masses, is this what you call the greater good. Lastly yes it is a war whether you agree or not and its much bigger than any of the world wars and it ain’t over yet.
exactly. Simplistic analysis of winners and losers class. Plenty of essential workers who will be the ones on the front line when it hits the hospitals. Our nurses and doctors etc; the lines are much more complex. Within Maoridom most those who have been the leaders for so long recognise the risks Covid poses and are urging their people to get vaccinated. Meanwhile Mr Tamaki and Sue Grey et al continue to manipulate peoples fears for their own financial gain
I could agree, except:
a) this is literally not a war;
b) even if it was, the vaccine would be a bullet proof vest that only stops bullets (transmission) in a limited way and its efficacy declines substantially after a few months.
Why isn’t it a war? There is literally no existential threat. Serious yes and difficult times, but every nation has continued to function. It has not brought nations to their knees – except perhaps insofar as lockdowns cause untold economic, social, and mental damage.
Why do you insist on such hyperbole?
World War 2 had roughly civilian deaths as 2.16% of world population. Poland, for example, had 20% of its pre-war population die.
Covid? It’s killed 0.065% of the world population died. It also leaves about 99.99% of people to recover and has around 80% of its victims over 75 years old and with co-mobidities. That’s not great fighting stats for an army…
We also have a number of other ‘weapons’ – including treatment. The ‘reaction’ in this war also splits the country into different classes of citizens. So actually, the better analogy for mandates is internment camps for Japanese, second-class citizens who list their rights to protect the “safety” of the nation. Is that what you want to replicate?
People put forward analogy after analogy and they all fall down. Why? Because it simply doesn’t add up – its just an emotional, fear-driven kneejerk reaction.
Bullet “proof” vests only offer limited protection, however most would agree that if there’s a possibility of getting shot, it is almost always better to be wearing one on than not.
Get vaccinated if you haven’t already, it may save your life.
I agree, Richard.
However, we’re not talking about generally whether vaccines are a good thing. Generally they are and I’m happy to promote them, although they’re not as effective as people think and there can be some negative side effects (like any medication), including for people with existing health conditions.
Brown rice is also good. Aerobic exercise is good. Logging off social media after 9 pm is good. Not smoking or driving over the speed limit is good.
But what we’re talking about is an already highly vaxxed country, which is imposing huge, divisive, and coercive measures. Losing jobs, unable to travel, protestors arrested, banned from restaurants. This is the stuff of the Soviet Union!
These are not small things like wearing glasses at work or smoking outdoors only. It’s people’s livelihoods, freedoms, and ultimately the conception of an equal citizenship that underpins democracy.
Frankly I’d agree some of the protestors are a bit nutty – but it doesn’t mean they’re wrong about this.
Just the same as we can strongly defend the human rights of a rapist without endorsing their behaviour, we can stand against ridiculous state overreach and divison without agreeing with the views of every person not vaccinated.
Personally I’m happy as long as I can wander down Main Street with a Glock on my hip & my AR cradled lovingly in my arms…. Oh wait, I can’t! What about my rights & freedoms, wah!
Sometimes public health & safety does trump rights & freedoms, it is a balancing act, it is tricky & it part of living in a caring society. The government certainly doesn’t always get it right, especially with all the competing interests applying pressure from every direction. The next couple of months are going to get messy and I suspect a number of people will regret decisions they have made. So far, on this issue the government isn’t doing too badly.
Vaccination mandates are for the protection of the unvaccinated and they will have to own the consequences of their decisions, not society at large. If they truly believe they are safer not vaccinated, then they should smile & be happy, knowing society respects their right to choose, but they still won’t be allowed to wander down Main Street with an AR15. A free society has limits.
so what you are saying is that we should conscientious objectors to prison for cowardice, or even shoot them? Cause that was done then. Just sayin.
emotive false strawman comparisons are rarely convincing sabine
ditto here.
What happens after the politicians and police get slung to ‘hell’ ? How will society evolve?
Generally that never happens, if the security services tire of locking up or slaughtering the rabble & will no longer fire on their fellow citizens, if new politicians replace the old ones, the security services simply remain, the State & the new leaders still need protecting from “counter-revolutionaries” & the mindless mob.
New winners take the podium, to them the spoils of victory. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Sorry losers, you’ve just been fooled again.
Yeah,The Who “We won’t get fooled again”. Top song
we hopefully get some that are better?
Winners?
Pfft!
Y’all will never skipper a victorious America’s cup yacht.
$1
$2
$3
Four
Y’all, pay, fuck, all.
Winners make money for prostitutes and cocaine.
Winners stand for never be creative.
You are the quiet ones, besides the proudest ones.
You ain’t the brightest ones. You are frightened ones.
You know of winning ways, dressed like strip club mangers.
So hurry up before some Dr sue tells the internet on us
Chris
Are these the same kind of people who gave the middle finger to the Democrats and voted for Trump?
That was the working class that gave the Democrats (Hilary Clinton especially) the middle finger…what had they (the Democrats) done for the working class in the last 20 years…answer=nothing!
absolutely because the neoliberals of the administrative state(yup power rests with the functionaries not the pollies,) it extends to both sides of the house, 35 yrs of lies and broken promises have taken their toll but trump and boris creatures of the current system are not the answer, it’s just more lies and broken promises both failed to deliver anything and never will.
scared yet? lol, vote Labour. 2023
Irrespective of what system of social governance is in place, the poor have always been poor. To blame neoliberal capitalism for the poor is blinkered thinking and without reference to human kinds other forms of social governance. Be that tribal or hierarchical caste or feudal or dictatorial or hunter gatherers or one of the many socialist/marxist governance systems. Each and all had their poor.
Yes, over throw neoliberalism and capitalism. Will that solve the problem of the poor? No for human kind has an ingrained trait (hard wired) of looking after oneself before anyone else. Be you rich or poor. How to break this human trait? Be interesting to hear from the various proponents of differing governance system what will work best. But more importantly how to hold that governance system when the human kind trait of self preservation and “combat” is so strong.
Worth a read;
https://hbr.org/1998/07/how-hardwired-is-human-behavior
“You can take the person out of the Stone Age, not the Stone Age out of the person.”
Yes there will always be some Poor, but Neoliberalism actively ‘promotes’ winner/loser attitudes, and pushes “greed is good”. Not conducive to good outcomes is it ? The obscene inequalities nowadays are exhibit one.
Wow, an article from 1998!
Sorry but evolutionary psychology is mostly shit, heavily informed by prejudice and social norms of our times.
Same shit happened when monkeys were studied in the 50’s – shock horror, researchers found that there was a rigid social hierarchy with males at the top and females at the bottom, lots of fighting etc. Basically a mirror of the 50’s rigid social structures. Modern studies show a very varied range of behaviours with as much cooperation as competition, matriarchal and patriarchal monkey troops with widely divergent behaviours etc. Basically the opposite of the 50’s views.
Yes humans have human nature but we as a society want to interpret it in ways that suit the politics of our times. Studies show that even DNA is re-written by our environment and some social experiences (e.g. social abuse/deprivation in childhood, extreme stress). Modern psychology says that Nature versus Nurture is wrong – it’s Nature and Nurture, and you can’t really unpick them and say that one causes the other because they interact all the time.
Age shall not weary the truths. From ancient Greeks to Darwin, Einstain and a myriad of others in between. Scoff all you like.
I totally disagree that in modern times society has changed and embrased new character traits. Those traits such as cooperation and collectivism are dependent upon the common good. If no common good, humans revert back to stone age traits.
Your qoute – “Modern psychology says that Nature versus Nurture is wrong – it’s Nature and Nurture, and you can’t really unpick them and say that one causes the other because they interact all the time.”
True, they cant be unpicked as they are never joind or entwined. Never throughout the ages (and certainly not in modern times) are the mixed and match.
You can nuture all you want but when there are no gains to be had from nuture, nature takes over.
Basically the protersters see no gain from the “nuture” provided so revert back to nature. No different in any form of societal governance. Once the value of nuture is not recognised (as in the states covid response), nature reverts.
Gerrit, funny as I read NF comment as you can uptick either. As I see now it is unpick not uptick. The thing is, whilst they are not mutually exclusive, nature and nurture, they do perform a type a synergistic dance if you like. It is simply astonishing what some individuals can overcome in the most trying of circumstances. When we join “forces” to accomplish a “greater good”, synergy once again “magics up” to triump in the face of the harshest adversity. There will always be casualties. There will always be pain. Soon enough though, the sun will shine again
Agree. The question is which of the possible systems is the less harmful. For me it is definitelly not socialist/marxist governance. To divide people to winners and loosers based on their finances reflects only one dimension of life. I do not say that it is not an important dimension but does not totally define quality of life and character.
Capitalism determines winners and losers in the financial context.
Socialism-Marxism not the same thing.
You’re probably thinking of Nationalist Fascism and, or Nazism? This is when government of a Authoritarian type state dictates to the populace what they are and will be defined as or else, orf with your head!
Poor or rich is not the problem …the extreme and widening gap is. UBI & Citizens-As-Shareholders is an answer. UBI gives everyone an equal floor & makes everyone a socialist. CAS gives everyone a ladder to wealth and makes everyone a Capitalist. Socialism & Capitalism can co-exist in a more integrated way. Socialised Capitalism/Human-Centric Capitalism.
Universal basic income, Finland stoped the temporary experiment with UBI in 2018, German Parliament concluded that it is unrealizable in 2013 (decrease in the motivation to work, complete restructuring of taxation, insurance, pensions – expensive, vast increase of immigration, growth of shadow economy, rise of taxes – rise of prices of everyday products, they prefered personalized social help), people in Switzetland voted 77% against in 2016. After my experience with socialism I will always prefer human centric capitalism and democracy with strong emphasis on local level democracy and more of direct democracy.
But I cannot agree that those who go to KFC, do shopping in Pack and Save (we do), work for low wages, cannot afford this and that are losers.
Neoliberal policy was designed to return the prosperity pie back from the many to the few. It worked as increasing inequality shows. Fewer and fewer people owning more and more of the world’s wealth. What’s not to like about that direction! Otherwise you are right, Neoliberalism did not create the poor, the poor have always been around. Neoliberalism simply expands this sector of society, as this policy was designed to do. Again, another trend waiting for us all. Capitalism wasn’t supposed to be like this, we are told, but alas….
Was the Wellington gathering peaceful? If so, it was a peaceful gathering, if not peaceful…then that’s a problem…Kiwis have always had an anti-authority streak in them…for example, the 1930s street riots, 1981 Springbok tour protests…what has happened is the Government/Main stream media failed to hide the deep unrest – feeling that many Kiwis have over the lockdowns…
I’m not so sure
When 1000 nurses and 65 doctors are anti vax, when schools will close down because teachers will not bend to the mandate, when well educated people with good jobs are willing to relinquish them because of the mandate, I don’t think you can characterise all these people as sad losers.
Just as in the US well paid and educated people also supported Trump.
It’s the pervasive, insidious insertion of low grade American culture via Youtube etc that I worry about.
First we had Hollywood with its violent revenge porn movies, now we have draining the swamp, Qanon type bullshit, which nevertheless has an intoxicating attraction
It will be interesting to see the response of those anti vax when te-virus gets right into small town NZ. Not just the odd case, but lots and lots. It’s coming. We here in NZ have been spared 99% of the effects the rest of the world have, and still are suffering, because we had taken the Elimination approach and it was fully supported.
Not now. After a slow relaxing of restrictions, it will be let it rip. Controlling te-virus is a myth that nobody has achieved.
Nailed it, Taupo,,Otorahonga, Stratford I’ve been everywhere man.
thiers a big told you so comeing te virus doesnt care who you are or what class but the point about essential workers is fare there not safe at home there not enjoying family time there is a massive inequality in terms of health and safety and there not being paid know where near enough for the danger their in WE WANT VIRUS EQUALITY WE WANT THE SAME LEVEL OF SAFTEY AND REWARD AS THOSE WORKING FROM HOME
There are ignorant and misguided people in all spheres, even among the educated. This is known. Check out the skepticsguide.com
Very astute and illuminating.
I would reiterate that distinct classes of people were not created by the measures the government has had to take with covid. They were already there. As Chris has pointed out they were created or exacerbated by neoliberal economics.
The “children of Roger and Ruth” has been used to describe the losers also–and that should perhaps include the politicians who have known nothing other than that toxic dog eat dog monetarist system.
Many New Zealanders are political illiterates and that is a problem, particularly when the central labour organisation is essentially a managerialist lobby group within the neo liberal state rather than a class left fighting organisation. The other problem is the very large NZ petit bourgeoisie who epitomise selfish individualism and attention seeking.
A What Might Have Been list to keep the losers onside and even cheer them up:
–A Govt that
• paid COVID wage subsidies to workers directly via IRD
• paid a Basic Income of several hundred dollars to all citizens for the duration of the pandemic paid via IRD
• Free Wifi services and devices installed for all households to overcome the Digital divide particularly for children’s education
• Fare free public transport
• GST off fruit and vegetables and basic foodstuffs
• widely advertised all assistance available to working class families such as payments while stood down for COVID related matters and tests
Apart from a few glorious weeks in 2020 when the PM put public health before private profit, the Labour Caucus of ideological halfwits thought it could handle the virus with market forces! Oh well, we obviously are in for a massive Delta Summer largely due to the legacy of a rotten political takeover in 1984.
As ever you are on to it Tiger Mountain with realistic measures to practically improve the lives of the majority in NZ. We are ruled by those too stupid to listen and learn. The managerial classes!
+100 (again)
“The other problem is the very large NZ petit bourgeoisie who epitomise selfish individualism and attention seeking”
Unfortunately many of those, them there ‘petit bourgeoisie’ are members of the senior and muddle management managerialist ranks of the public service whose uber ambition and career aspirations trump what it is serving a public is intended to do. (Often all you need do is check out some of their LinkedIn profiles and where they’ve come from)
Gawd strewth! Some of them appear to have had imagination bypass surgery too – so much so that a lot of the managerialist shite gets recycled.
I was wondering when ‘Kaizen’ would get a second run (or maybe it’s a 3rd run). Grant Robertson just let rip with it in today’s 1pm media munch.
Rather than get depressed about it though, better to let it all just play out. There’s really no way to convince some people who think they’re hot shits that they should possibly consider the fact that they might really only be cold, stale, unimaginative farts.
Eloquently put…“There’s really no way to convince some people who think they’re hot shits that they should possibly consider the fact that they might really only be cold, stale, unimaginative farts”…
And you are right about the cross overs in the ranks of public servants with entrepreneurial aspirations. Paid by taxpayers, they make life hell for working class people at WINZ/MSD, ACC, Kāinga Ora and Immigration, they dream of being sacked and rehired as a consultant on a higher rate…designer furniture, classic artwork in the office…
Kaizen–know a bit about that having worked in NZ car industry during “Nissan Way” team working/company song days.
Yep, well @ TG, sorry to have been so un-pc and base, but often the only way.
Those Depts/Muntries you mention are definitely among the worst, although there are others (NZTA, Krekshuns etc. as examples.). And don’t ever think as INZ as a separate entity (nor the Labour Inspectorant) from the Munstry for Everything.
It has failures in everything it touches – from radio frequency interferance to shitty steel to mediation services.
If ever there was something that needed dismantling, that would be the first place to start. It’s failures began almost the minute it was created and I’m really surprised the past two gummints haven’t actually noticed its record of failures – let alone things like morale amongst its worker-bees, staff turnover, productivity, and meeting all those neo-lib type measurements and indicators that the 80’s reforms introduced.
Same page TM. Thanks for your elaboration.
If only the Labour party were realy a left wing party instead of national lite were we had strong unions instead of yes sir no sir three bags full sir.
Woke alert at RNZ. “Pregnant People”. Midwives are delivering babies from people now not woman.
We now have pregnant people not pregnant woman because apparently men can now get pregnant in woke wonderland thinking. No wonder we have so many people who don’t trust the government, science or news anymore! Even Julie Ann Genter says ‘pregnant woman’!
On another woke advisory carbon note, the woke are so busy creating a dysfunction world led by individualists to distract from predatory capitalism that the government failed to notice or do anything about the 20% of carbon emissions from buildings in NZ. My guess is that they inadvertently increased this, with their gold rush of demolitions of existing buildings.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sponsored-stories/nz-failure-to-green-buildings/WDO4NFU5PN4DGWHJUIAB6QNI3U/
Advisors and woke seem to ignore 52% of emissions in NZ which is seldom mentioned that are not caused by agriculture, to concentrate on the shit fight of agricultural emissions which is 48% …
If you even believe these statistics are correct, which with for every professional qualified person in NZ, there are 100 know it alls, worrying about their woke pronouns, ‘pregnant people’ in media and She/he/her/him, taking up air space.
No wonder our science levels are dropping so low!!!
Borrowed my mates car and RNZ was on this morning, a nice lady with an Irish accent spoke a pidgin blend of English and Maori, she interviewed a nice English NZ vineyard owner who was employing an also nice French woman to train plough horses.
Next it was mentioned that there is a big art auction soon and some things may sell for millions.
Who exactly is RNZ using our taxpayer money to cater for?
It appears RNZ are slowly disappearing up their own
Yep, a nice Irish woman also bought stuff for $1 and now seems to be ‘stuffing’ it up too.
In news censorship these days many links mysteriously disappear. The other day a family from ‘war torn’ somewhere had their poor dad die of Covid in gruesome sounding circumstances in West Auckland.
“The woman says from the outset the sick family relied on advice from a fragmented Covid-19 health response that allegedly never gave her father a directive to go to hospital, instead offering throat lozenges and paracetamol as treatment.”
OK, there is good news and bad news for migrants and others in NZ. The good news you can come to NZ and get free health care and social welfare pretty easily, the bad news is that the New NZ neoliberal health system is full of people who are not qualified and offering throat lozenges and paracetamol over the phone as you die. (If you can get through to numbers that often don’t work or overloaded in NZ now).
More on media censorship… the immigration barrister who got convicted of tax evasion for not filing tax return for 16 years… all disappeared.
News and justice and name suppression, has to be run along woke lines now!
If you are white and apologise and are a lawyer you are presumed guilty https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/300408994/couple-who-travelled-to-wnaka-in-lockdown-charged-with-failing-to-comply-with-health-order, if you are not white and lawyer and actually convicted, that news disappears.
New Zealand race based justice and media coverage!
Protesting is the modern feel-good thing to do. When isn’t a protest happening somewhere in the world? When we agree with the cause, we applaud it. When we disagree, we dismiss the gathered crowd. One person’s anti-vaxxer is another person’s climate strike schoolchild.
Fair call Caspar. For me, any protest action needs to have cohesion of purpose with a righteous stance to change behaviours impinging a very large swathes of people / communities. Protests need to stand / march / hikoi for the betterment of society as a whole. Jmho
A 10 month operation targeting the importation, sale and supply of cocaine and associated money laundering activities has seen 50 kilograms of cocaine seized in New Zealand and overseas.
“Five of the Christchurch-based Colombian nationals arrested were working as contractors on farms in Canterbury”.
When you work out the costs of all the rogue activity sidelining from lazy immigration in NZ, maybe NZ is better off training NZ youth and expecting their employers to pay locals properly.
Instead our government allows so many visas (165,000 next year) to drive down labour in areas like farming and construction and aged care and hospitality, and now there is so many illegal businesses on the side, supplying drugs to locals, taking up police and justice resources, pushing socially poor outcomes in communities, and pushing hundreds of thousands of money laundered around NZ, driving up costs.
From NZ police.
“A 10 month operation targeting the importation, sale and supply of cocaine and associated money laundering activities has seen 50 kilograms of cocaine seized in New Zealand and overseas.
While Operation Mist has been running for the last 10 months we believe the group have been operating in New Zealand for about two years.
Yesterday eight people, including six Colombian nationals and one Argentinian national, were arrested following six search warrants in Canterbury. Another person was arrested following three search warrants in Auckland.
In total, more than 60 charges have been filed relating to cocaine importation and supply, participating in an organised criminal group, and money laundering.
The two people arrested yesterday have appeared in the Christchurch District Court, and the remainder are appearing today.
Further arrests are expected.
The joint investigation has involved nearly 70 New Zealand Police and New Zealand Customs Service staff from several workgroups including the South Island Customs Investigation Team, National Organised Crime Group, Asset Recovery Unit and High-Tech Crime Group, supported by Police and Customs international liaison networks.
Teams worked alongside international partners United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Colombian National Police, Spanish Customs Service and the Cook Island Customs Service.
Operation Mist has delivered a massive blow to an organised crime syndicate operating in Christchurch and overseas, who are considered to be one of the significant suppliers of cocaine into New Zealand.
Based on wastewater data we believe this group was supplying the majority of cocaine into New Zealand.
The investigation is unique as it has linked the importation of cocaine from South America and Spain into New Zealand, as well as money laundering offences in the United States of America.
Five of the Christchurch-based Colombian nationals arrested were working as contractors on farms in Canterbury.
There is nothing to suggest the farm owners and managers had any knowledge of this operation and we thank them for their cooperation with Police as the search warrants were executed.
Over the last two years a total of 50 kilograms of cocaine has been seized at international ports or at New Zealand’s border.
It will be alleged that this group has money laundered at least $600,000.
In the termination phase, we seized approximately $300,000 in cash, 3 ounces of cocaine and a number of cryptocurrency wallets, one of which contains $70,000.
The investigation continues and we expect more assets.”
The idea of a “labour shortage” coming out of the primary sector is absolute bunkum. If have to getting irrationally irritated at times, when at times one hears this stuff together with a lazy and distateful blanket insult that New Zealand people are “lazy” or something. Gotta sort this on one huh saveNZ?
what rural ‘labour shortage’ actually means is not enough dirt cheap indentured servants…pay decent wages give decent conditions problem over..of course this means the managers of agri-businasses can only holday in fiji once a year—quelle dommage
When you hear about drugs and sex trafficking it sounds like NZ’s immigration policy. You target anybody to come, make them work for little to no money and get them and everyone around them into drugs. Then you make a fortune and start paying off and corrupting politicians, media, IRD, justice and police and pay to laundering your image into respectability.
You can have one hell of a Xmas party with a ton of confiscated cocaine
Lol!
No wonder the migrants workers work so hard and long! A quick snort and NZ migrants have the highest productivity in the world! Also have the highest drug profits, growing use and growing poverty here, win win for immigration policy NZ>
Deport these people immediately. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. We owe them nothing. This is our country.
Not anymore RosieLee… it’s escape from New York, no criminal gets out of NZ, alive! Even if they want to, like Samsudeen, NZ woke will not let them leave. Think of the millions he generated into the system, even had to have two armed SIS agents following him. 7 knifings, all the health care, cultural, rehabilitation, housing, jail, justice, lawyers…
Once the NZ government Ponzi debt collapses, then the 100 people who own 50% of the world, can put in a bid, they are probably already own a little chunk of NZ already.
I often agree with you Chris, but your understanding of the EU and the many entirely justified reasons for voting to leave, just illustrates your extreme ignorance on these matters. Please read ‘The Road to Somewhere’ by David Goodhart, or any of the clear arguments of Philip Cunliffe, Wolfgang Streeck and others. Bill Mitchell and Thomas Fazi have clearly exposed the EU as entirely neoliberal and undemocratic – characteristics which are firmly set in treaties that are almost impossible to change. ‘Ruling the Void’ by Peter Mair was scathing about the EU long before the Brexit referendum. Post the referendum Perry Anderson has written (three articles in The London Review of Books) absolutely demolishing the EU. With your supposed love for the wisdom of the crowd, your patronising attitude to the ‘undeducatec’ Brexit voter puts you in a different light. Perhaps we should all need to take a special exam to gain the right to vote!
You have not read the article carefully, Wilfrid. I was merely describing – not endorsing – the reaction of educated English persons to the Brexit vote.
I quite agree with you about the coherent arguments to be made in favour of quitting the EU as currently constituted.
sorry chris but that’s just bollocks as the uk are finding out as we speak and and poland will if they follow the oligarchical theocracy route to it’s conclusion…
just 1 thing…food standards something NZ is in dire need of
What exactly is the UK finding out gagarin?
Can you explain why you apparently think the UK needs governmental oversight from Brussels?
oh letzzzzzz see, driver shortages, euthanising livestock, increased shit levels in water, multiple product/raw material shortages, rich complaining of nanny shortage…of course none of that has anything to do with brexit…
1975 Maori Land march followed by the Foreshore and Seabed march a trifle bigger than the five thousand mish mash who marched the other day for multiple reasons. Add to this the recent farmers (many on stolen Maori land with perpetual leases) march who chucked in a couple of anti Maori placards, but lets face it many of our farmers have always been a tad racist cause they work so hard (as if they are the only ones) but hey they are our biggest contributors to GDP and to nitrate emissions. And whenever there is an environmental flood or drought who are the first ones to put their hands out for our government dosh and they obligingly provide.
You are referring to what I have been calling “the spawn of Rogernomics” for many years
1975 Maori Land march followed by the Foreshore and Seabed march a trifle bigger than the five thousand mish mash who marched the other day for multiple reasons. Add to this the recent farmers (many on stolen Maori land with perpetual leases) march who chucked in a couple of anti Maori placards, but lets face it many of our farmers have always been a tad racist cause they work so hard (as if they are the only ones). But hey they are our biggest contributors to GDP and to nitrate emissions. And whenever there is an environmental flood or drought who are the first ones to put their hands out for our government dosh and they obligingly provide.
You left out the bit about the conscious “dumbing down of society” which no one says any more since there is pre-Neo Liberal past to benchmark against anymore.
As one of those sitting at home with a laptop and Zoom meetings during lockdown it occurred to me that the only jobs that actually matter are food production/ distribution and healthcare. Everything else is kind of fluff – most of us in the middle class are doing jobs that don’t matter. We have jobs for the sake of having a job but most of it is ‘bullshit jobs’ – David Graeber.
I recently raised this in conversation with my colleagues – pointing out that we sat at home for months on end doing jack and everything was fine – we are mostly doing work that is unnecessary and pointless. Suffice to say it didn’t go down well.
The one thing I noticed about Trump when he was campaigning to be president was his far left economic rhetoric. He appealed directly to working class voters on low wages – “I see what’s going on for you people” and made threats against corporate interests. At one rally he stated – I love the uneducated they are my people.
Of course, once elected he didn’t do anything to directly help the working class but he understood their anger and disappointment.
Brexit on the other hand was a time warp back to feudal England with a mob of panting serfs dying to prostrate themselves at the feet of an upper class toff promising to protect them from the terrible and oppressive enemies across the channel. A trading agreement that had apparently forced the UK government to underfund all of it’s public institutions for 10 years and maintain the lowest wages in Europe.
US Civil Rights poem:
I may be poor,
But I am Somebody.
I may be young,
But I am Somebody.
I may be on welfare,
But I am Somebody.
I may be uneducated,
But I am Somebody ….
Well put Peter. “Make work” schemes are often anathema to committed neo libs and managerialists except for their own positions! Meanwhile the descendants of those in the provinces and manufacturing industries “disestablished” in the 80s and 90s remain largely discarded, untrained, and living lesser lives than they could and should.
Also how essential is the service sector? Do we collectively really need that 5000th long black of our life?
I get it all. The school bus driver who will not tolerate being told he/she must be jabbed chucks their job in. No way are they going to be told what to do. And be told it’s for their own good. And be threatened with the social and economic isolation consequent of that.
Who relished telling others what to do on their buses. For their own good. With threats of isolation.
These people you allude to will be the ones that die. Take it from someone that knows and not Facebook or the Interweb…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/the-90-project-hawkes-bay-nurse-on-paris-frontlines-has-warning-for-regions-unvaccinated/6GABNAJYBLWZBZDNBAH37KVNVM/
Yeah you could be a little bit right in what you wrote @ ChrisTrotter but me thinks there’s also a lot of selfish individuals who were at that protest who thought they could stick it to the man because they have been overlooked in life, never got the promotion or job they thought they deserved, failed relationships, no one ever listens to me, but now they will won’t they! The sort of people who would gladly rip the wings of a butterfly for shits and giggles!
Yeah mate, quite a few of that lot there by the looks, given they armed themselves with tennis balls.
Or the working class as they were once known. “Labour” seriously needs a name change.
Here is an interesting article on the political tactic of scapegoating, albeit written about Trump its got some good historical notes which point to this tactic being used more than once by the current government to shift focus, currently by blaming non vaxers:
https://theconversation.com/the-dirty-politics-of-scapegoating-and-why-victims-are-always-the-harmless-easy-targets-66963
“ It is part of the nature of scapegoating, as the late French theorist of mythology René Girard argued, that the target is not chosen because it is in any way responsible for society’s woes. If the target does happen to be at all responsible, that is an accident. The scapegoat is instead chosen because it is easy to victimise without fear of retaliation.”
“ The name “scapegoat” comes from the the Book of Leviticus. In the story it tells, all the sins of Israel are put on the head of a goat, which is then ritualistically driven out. Needless to say, the goat is not really guilty of the sins.”
Sounds familiar eh.
Never mind the social consequences of attacking your own citizens.
KCC, indeed! Scapegoating is synonymous with Gaslighting, aka the behaviour of Narcissists (Greek mythology I believe). There are many “among” us 🙂
The warmer weather is stirring the creative mind, Chris. I often wonder why people are like they are, what underlies their assumptions and beliefs, influences their decisions and actions. I’m no closer to knowing really. No, I’m not a retired detective, practising shrink or work in advertising. Humanity has always been a broad church of course. Nothing new there. But you’re spot on: four decades of neoliberal capitalism has exacerbated inequality. We might not be quite like the US or the UK but there are plenty here – the uneducated losing class as you put it -who are simply pissed off. Distrustful of science. Disrespectful of evidence. Contemptuous of government and big business. No faith in democracy. And angry that they haven’t got a (larger) slice of the cake. Add that to recent mass migration, identity politics and a post-truth world fuelled by vested interests and a rampant social media – and chuck in the existential threats of a global pandemic and global warming + the imperative to find an alternative energy + likely inflation – and we have the possibility of a real fuck fest.
Yip Bozo. Gotta do the pain unfortunately, before the paradigm can shift. Sux, but we gotta break first to rebuild 🙁
The ‘loser’ tag, the latest of a never ending roll out of sweet sounding names afforded to those protesting the many governmental measures instituted since the advent of Covid 19. Measures now spearheaded by the vaccine roll out. The loser tag does have a place here though in that the prospect of losing one’s likelihood is very, very, very real…thus it is this, and the mandates that are splitting that once vital, little team of five million, that is most likely the key driver to this recent protest.
And if our media were worth a dime, we would see that mandate driven protests are occurring all over the world.
How ironic huh, a government that touted for the majority of this Covid crisis, the need to stick together – we are in this together – we are the team of five million…..now enacting, without prejudice, divisive actions. Not even that sustenance supplier from Mangatainoka could make that up!
Totally agree how ironic.
Here to govern for all New Zealanders?
Now repeat and regurgitate!
Totally agree how ironic.
Here to govern for all New Zealanders?
And regurgitate…
Gosh how silly.
And here we go again with the how silly comnent.
Bert, my evil side enjoys reading your retorts! However, honestly, please try to ignore them. They’ll vapid off to other blogs for attention, or be ignored if they continue. Narcissists can’t handle being ignored, but they always move on when they are 🙂
True Sinic but hey, they make it oh so easy.
Here to govern for all New Zealanders – even those who don’t believe there is a pandemic.
Here to govern for all New Zealanders – even those who believe if there is a bit of a flu type thing going around it’s not serious.
Here to govern for all New Zealanders – even those who believe if there is a problematic virus about, the vaccines developed for it are the devil’s work.
Here to govern for all New Zealanders – even those who believed that from the outset when it was known there was a virus about, the government should have butted out and done nothing special.
But there’s nothing new about the Great Unwashed getting jumpy.
And for good reason as history will attest to.
“The peasants are revolting?” So what? Let’s give them a war or two to take their mind off their emotions. Make a few bob while we’re at it aye Kaiser? And look at little Adolf? My? How you’ve shot up like a funny little weed?
I think it’s bloody awesome that people take to the streets and make a fuss. Good on them, I say.
Our worthless yet expensive politicians deserve to get a nice big rough up. Serves the useless Scunthorpes right. And who cares, really, what it’s about?
( I personally think it’s the devious machinations of natzo influencers stirring shit up. You seen judy’s face lately? That’s the face of a loser Chucky. )
CB, I do hope you have written a book, I would sincerely look forward to reading it! Your a wonderful comedian (thanks) 🙂
Yeah I’m still waiting. Acerbic wit coupled with razor sharp and to the point political observations. A devastating but humorous commentary on 36 years of political / neo liberal lies. It would be a smash hit.
Absolutely capital !
Book should be – jottings of brainfarts that just came to mind as I pursued a philosophical line of thought about our predicament in the 21st century where
art has been strangled by artifice, but no-one sees or knows the difference.
@CT. Excellent Chris. Bullseye.
The poem is powerful, and -prescient. How the left-wing could override the work of the Fabians, the Webbs etc shows that there must have been a constant diet of hubris as social conditions improved, full of empty calories.
There is a look at the background to this:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26214339
and from Google
Which mechanism was set up by Sydney Webb & Beartrice?
In this last effort, Sidney and Beatrice employed the tactic that became known as “permeation,” that is, attempting to push through Fabian policies or parts of policies by converting persons of power and influence irrespective of their political affiliations. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sidney-and-Beatrice-Webb
How can we understand and direct our selves from being part of an inchoate mass without sociology.?
Sociology is concerned with the study of human social behavior and the influence of society upon this behavior. More specifically, sociologists examine the behavior of individuals as members of social networks and groups such as the family, the work group, organizations, communities, and societies.
http://socanth.msu.montana.edu/soc.html – Sociology Program Overview.
It seems that it is still being taught in USA though to what effect for social good, can that be measured there?
Example in Stratford:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/455542/all-of-stratford-should-be-considered-a-location-of-interest-after-positive-covid-19-cases-taranaki-dhb
Yaranaki District Health Board medical officer of health Dr Jonathan Jarman says the group of Covid-19 cases in Stratford were very reluctant to get tested and have not been using the tracer app.
not using the app may mean wrong side of the digital divide but refusing a test is just plain stupidity
As I understand it they did take the test after one of them got real sick–too late numpties.
GG, one in hospital now. Dunno details as such but I have been learning lately that lots of our kiwis really don’t understand why they can’t just use their traditional medicines to deal with covid. I’ve been told it has been an arduous and often unsuccessful task to try to educate in this regard. Some are using the “you need pakeha medicine to fight pakeha diseases”. I was taken aback as I didn’t know that this was still a thing in AO/NZ. Yet, it is
“If their jobs were “essential”, why weren’t they paid the same sort of wages as the people on “Zoom” meetings, whose jobs clearly were not? ”
A gem there, Chris.
Well written but a bit abstract. NZ is one place in the world arena where corruption and nepotism isn’t too bad. So you can in fact, hustle a good living and lifestyle of your choice. Death and sickness is coming for the 1 percenters and that is just the way it is.
Literally yesterday we found out Oranga Tamariki was advertising with a Labour candidate.
Nothing to see here, most transparent government ever.
lol – in your snarling haste to make your point you got the wrong agency
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
New International Version
————–
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
————–
And this is the standard. How many of us can accept it, let alone live by it?… I cant and have to constantly remind myself of it.
It is no easy task.
Lol sorry Kainga Ora.
Wrong shitshow.
That’s the trouble when trying to communicate in another language.
Even Maori are not all familiar with their own language. To take impractical steps of changing the names of our basic working systems provided from tax-funded government used by everyone is a mistake.
Virtue signalling. We want Maori to continue as a language expressing tikanga, for sure. But we want a reliable set of organisations doing public and private work that supports the country. Transport Authority hasimmediate recognition but Waka Kotahi, those are unfamiliar words and should be incorporated into the traditional name that all know.
We can do without Orange Tamariki. And does Kainga Ora mean food for everyone or what?
Thanks Greywarbler, yes only 4 percent are fluent in te Reo and those who aren’t include me and most kiwis including most Maori.
Naming government departments in Maori other than virtue signaling thus just becomes another obfuscation to the general public who don’t even know what the department even does.
It’s a way of lowering accountability to taxpayers.
Here’s another one:
https://democracyproject.nz/2021/11/13/bryce-edwards-the-government-lobbying-revolving-door-just-keeps-on-turning/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bryce-edwards-the-government-lobbying-revolving-door-just-keeps-on-turning
“ The CEO of Capital Government Relations, Neale Jones, was once Chief of Staff for former Labour leader Andrew Little. He then worked as Chief of Staff under new leader Jacinda Ardern, but moved to become a lobbyist when she became PM. Jones continues to dine out on his status – his social media publicity photo is a selfie with Jacinda Ardern, and he makes mention of his connections to Ardern in his media commentary and pitches to corporate clients, to indicate his closeness to power and decision-makers.
Of course, this would be illegal in other countries. ”
“ The most extreme example was Jacinda Ardern hiring lobbyist GJ Thompson to run her Beehive operations and help set up the Government. The only supposed protection was that Thompson was to “put on hold” his lobbying job while working for the PM. He was free to return straight from his role of Chief of Staff to run his lobbying company, having been responsible for appointing Beehive staff. The glaring conflicts of interest and problems for transparency and probity would render this arrangement illegal in comparable democracies, but they were essentially ignored.”
Our government is awash with nepotism.
But look! Stuff says anyone can make it in NZ, anyone can get a house (sarc)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/homed/housing-affordability/300450308/what-housing-crisis-young-taup-brothers-save-deposit-for-first-home-while-working-for-minimum-wages-at-pakn-save
Stuff continues to pump out propaganda for “progressive” neoliberalism.
Chris Trotter asks “Who were these people? How could they hold such absurd beliefs? What has gone so wrong with New Zealand’s education system that so many of those emerging from it can no longer distinguish between reality and utterly delusional fantasy?”
Well they are our fellow kiwis, that are daily gaslighted by the mainstream media and schools that don’t teach proper nutrition. So then they eat at all the hugely advertised KFC type fast “fast food” joints and get lowered resistance to viruses and loweredr brain power to think. The education system and doctors keep mum about sugar dangers. “These people” will thus always keep the virus endemic so that the the rich will suffer as well. “These people” are thus all of us Chris and the marches should be focussed not at our equally gaslit parliament but at the uncaring, corporate, profit-driven systems of junk food and drink. Another awful result are the illicit drugs. Oh if only we were as healthy as in 1932 and the WW2 years (rationed sugar) as your quoted 1932 poet’s very erudite well educated poem suggests! Chris, let your next offering be: “Coca Cola is NOT the real thing.” George Orwell would if he lived today.
“Who were these people?” They are people raised by their parents. parents who have seen true anguish and hardship.
1915-1945: 30 years, two world wars people had to get their heads and lives around.
1991-2021: 30 years, 6 Rugby World Cups not won.
Sugar Blues
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For the song, see Sugar Blues (song).
First edition
(publ. Chilton Book Company)
Sugar Blues is a book by William Dufty that was released in 1975 and has become a dietary classic. According to the publishers, over 1.6 million copies have been printed.[1]
Dufty uses the narrative form to delve into the history of sugar and history of medicine. He mentions whistle blowers, such as Semmelweiss, to remind readers of the discontinuities in standard science.
He also delves into the history of Cuba, history of slavery, history of tobacco and tobacco curing to present the sociology of sugar.
The status of sugar, as a product of refining, was compared to drugs:
Heroin is nothing but a chemical. They take the juice of the poppy and they refine it into opium and then they refine it to morphine and finally to heroin. Sugar is nothing but a chemical. They take the juice of the cane or the beet and then refine it to molasses and then they refine it to brown sugar and finally to strange white crystals. (page 22)
Later, the euphemism, “made from natural ingredients”, is cited as equally applicable to heroin and sugar. (page 148)
Contents
1 Contents
2 Mentions
3 See also
4 References
5 External links
Contents
The book has 14 chapters, 78 references, five pages of notes, and a 10-page index. The book reviews the history of the world from the point of view of sugar, sounding the alarm of its deleterious and debilitating effects. The chapters are:
It is necessary to be personal
Gloria Swanson alerted Dufty to sugar’s threat to health.
The Mark of Cane
“Benjamin Delessert found a way to prepare the lowly Babylonian beet into a new kind of sugar loaf at Plessy in 1812. Napoleon awarded him the Legion of Honour. Napoleon ordered sugar beets planted everywhere in France, an imperial factory was established for refining, scholarships were granted to schools for sugar beet crafts; 500 licences were created for sugar refineries. By the very next year, Napoleon had achieved the herculean feat of producing eight million pounds of sugar from homegrown beets. When Napoleonic armies set out for Moscow, their sugar rations were insured. Like the Moors before them, they were turned back while traveling north. The mighty French army, in the unaccustomed climate, had met their match and more, including the armies of a backward people who had not yet accustomed themselves to sugar in their tea.” (page 38)
How We Got Here from There
“Arab and Jewish physicians used sugar carefully in minuscule amounts, adding it to their prescriptions with great care. It was a brain boggler. It could cause the human body and brain to run the gamut in no time at all from exhaustion to hallucination.” (page 46) Maurice Mességué led Dufty through his garden of healing herbs. (pages 56–9)
In Sugar We Trust
Linus Pauling and Thomas Szasz are cited on the threat to mental well-being.
Blame it on the Bees
Diabetes mellitus suffering increased as sugar usage grew. Nyoiti Sakurazawa found the cure in traditional Japanese eating, and in 1971 research confirmed that a diet high in carbohydrates, ironically, improved human capacity to moderate blood sugar level.[2]
From the Nipple to the Needle
Describes diabetic hypoglycemia with a reference to Men in White (1934 film) and gives a narrative of “George’s” insulin dependency.
Of Cabbages and Kings
Thomas Willis warned of scurvy from sugar and James Lind suggested a cure.
How to Complicate Simplicity
The Engelberg machine debilitates the potential nutrition from grains.
Dead Dogs and Englishmen
Why sugar calories are empty calories.
Codes of Honesty
Harvey Wiley made the mistake of mentioning saccharin to Theodore Roosevelt.
What the Specialists Say
Peptic ulcers were discussed on the David Susskind Show, but not John Yudkin’s theory.
Reach for a Lucky instead of a Sweet?
Usually sugar in the mouth and on the enamel of teeth is said to feed bacteria that can cause dental caries. Experimenters[3] have shown that sugar acts inside the enamel as well, constricting flows in the dentin. This metabolic effect of sugar in the diet inhibits preservation of enamel by supply from tooth pulp, through dentin, to enamel.
Kicking
The sugar-laced diet is a form of substance abuse and must be dealt with as an addiction. Recommendations are given for both individuals and families. “In kicking sugar, the most helpful extra hint I can give you is the one that worked for me. Kick red meat at the same time…Meat (which is masculine yang) sets up a powerful yen in your system to be balanced with its opposite – something very sweet and feminine and yin, like fruit and sugar.” (page 209)
Soup to Nuts
As an antidote to Fannie Farmer’s cookbooks, Dufty offered an introduction to the use of tamari, pressed salad, buckwheat, sprouting, free-range eggs, garlic, tahini, brown rice, dried fruit, umeboshi, compote, root vegetables, crepes, walnuts, and chestnuts.
Mentions
Dufty’s wife, Gloria Swanson, traveled the United States to promote the book in 1975.
A student of depression avoidance included Sugar Blues as one of its “books which treat either primarily or in particular chapters the role of nutritional and dietary factors in the promotion of mental well-being and prevention of disorder…on the role of diet in particular disorders…functional hypoglycemia (Duffy [sic] 1975).”[4]
John Lennon’s personal assistant Frederic Seaman described Lennon’s diet in the book The Last Days of John Lennon (1991). When Seaman started in the job, Dufty’s book loomed large:[5]
Punctuating his speech with slight hand gestures, he then launched into a passionate lecture on the dangers of sugar and told me to keep an eye out for a book entitled Sugar Blues at Better Nature, the local health food store where I would buy most of his food. He extolled the book by Gloria Swanson’s former [sic] husband William Duffy [sic], because it exposed sugar as a “poison”. He asserted that he did not want Sean to become a “sugar junkie”, like so many other American kids who grew up to be overweight, pimply teenagers.
A food science educator listed Sugar Blues as a sample text to stimulate critical thinking necessary to become a food scientist:
Processed foods, artificial ingredients, chemicals in our foods, and unnatural foods have long been the target of books, [six are listed, including “Sugar Blues”, by William Dufty, 1975] but there seems to be limited understanding of food science…A critical reading of one or more of these sources or alternatives is recommended to see if there is what we can learn as we practice our profession and how to respond to criticism that we may receive.[6]
A practitioner of integrative medicine, Tris Trethart MD, was interviewed by the medical journal Integrative Medicine and he explained:[7]
Early in my premedical training, I read a book called Sugar Blues by William Dufty, and the information in that book actually changed by thought belief system and patterns of eating so drastically that it, essentially, changed my life…The drastic improvements in my health changed my attitudes towards the way I was living at the time…
Censorship analyst Heather Hendershot and historian Mark Pendergrast have criticized the book for comparing sugar to drugs and suggesting its role in a variety of illnesses including bubonic plague.[8][9]
The extreme range of maladies Dufty assigns to sugar has been used to make the indictment appear absurd:[10]
Sugar Blues stands out more than any other work before or since in terms of its far-reaching and farfetched attempts to vilify sugar: the author (William Dufty) depicted sugar quite literally as a scourge to humanity. Dufty implicated sucrose as being a contributor to a variety of what are often termed mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, addiction, and alcoholism. Dufty argued that what was perceived as witchcraft several hundred years ago may in fact have been due to a madness brought on by eating sugar. Additionally, a case was made by Dufty for sugar being a possible cause of the bubonic plague…tuberculosis, suicide, epilepsy, crime, divorce, baldness, impotency, varicose veins, and of course cancer…Further, in this same treatise some of the more common charges against sugar were described including of course hypoglycemia…hyperactivity, vitamin deficiencies…obesity, heart disease, tooth decay, ulcers, and diabetes mellitus.
Interesting Brian. Thanks for the book review
Good time to open the border, allow another 165,000 visas, and relax MIQ in NZ… Sarcasm.
Neoliberalism has ensured that DHB’s are now full of managers, health care staff, but not doctors it seems.
“A feverish 3-year-old boy coughing and having trouble breathing waited 11 hours overnight to see a doctor in Tauranga Hospital’s emergency department, his father says.
John Mills said the long wait meant he had to sleep in the car with his daughter while wife Rozeli Da Silva Mills waited with their son Dwayne John (DJ) inside the hospital.
DJ was not separated from others or given a Covid test despite his symptoms.
The Katikati family drove to Tauranga Hospital about 11pm last Tuesday night after DJ became sick. A nurse saw DJ about 6am and monitored his condition but it wasn’t until 10am that a doctor saw him and diagnosed him with croup, Mills said.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/dad-fears-tauranga-hospital-understaffed-after-11hr-wait-in-emergency-department-with-sick-son/ZDTJDBQJAUECZV4TKUYBIJAHWU/
Never mind, more important to keep the woke wonderland, billionaire jets and exploitation of NZ visas going strong!
Apparently criminals are more important to labeen immigration than doctors during the pandemic.
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/politics/residency-limbo-emails-reveal-pleas-of-rural-gp-while-convicted-criminals-granted-stay/
Doctor excluded from one-off residence visa says govt change ‘makes no sense’
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/454310/doctor-excluded-from-one-off-residence-visa-says-govt-change-makes-no-sense
People when you allow the woke and neoliberals everywhere running policy and decisions and your government security is compromised by foreign interests in key areas, nothing makes sense anymore!
Here’s a giggle for you all. An intercepted communique.
“Jacinda. Your handlers have told me you are having a bit of a problem with ushering in the new version of my old Rogernomics plan. Which today is known as ‘Green Wash’n’ Capitalism. Let me know if you need help, because it’s just a newer version of Rogernomics. You might have heard of it? Call me. I’ll be happy to hear from you, Roger Douglas.”
Chris Trotter says: “MUST READ: Behold, The Losing-class”. We are all the losing class is the c and obese and pre-dibeticorrect way to look at things. Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Blues. President and billionaire pre-diabetic and pre divorce and etc Trump, is right alongside the homeless thousands in being victim and loser …. a high IQ and gold coated soon to be corpse even. Poor poor poor guy.
Sugar Blues
Ella Fitzgerald
Have you heard these blues
That i’m gonna sing to you
When you hear them they will thrill you
Through and through
There the sweetest blues you ever heard
Now listen and dont say a word
Chours
Sugar blues
Everybodies singin the sugar blues
The whole towns ringing
My lovin man sweet as can be
But the doggone fools
Turned sour on me
I’m so unhappy
Feel so unhappy
I could lay me down a die
You could say what you choose
But i’m all confused
I got the sweet, sweet sugar blues
More sugar
I’ve got the sugar blues
Sugar blues
Every singing the sugar blues
My lovin man sweet as can be
But the doggone fools
Turned sour on me
I’m so unhappy
Feel so unhappy
I could lay me down a die
You could say what you choose
But i’m all confused
I got the sweet, sweet sugar blues
More sugar
I’ve got the sugar blues
Yea!
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Donny Hathaway / Richard V. (ric) Powell
Sugar Blues lyrics © Wb Music Corp., Kuumba Music
Sugar Blues – Ella Fitzgerald – Lyrics.com
https://www.lyrics.com › lyric › Sugar+Blues
Sugar Blues Lyrics by Ella Fitzgerald from the The Early Years, Pt. 2 album – including son
Mark Levin’s smash bestseller, American Marxism, the Marxist basis of critical race theory CRT
crt is extremely important to understand because of how dehumanizing and destructive it is, particularly to children. Karl Marx saw people not as individuals made in the imago Dei — the Judeo-Christian conception of human beings made in the image of God — but as groups to be shoved into opposing categories pitted against one another as foes. Marx did this according to class and economics, i.e., the Proletariat vs. the bourgeoisie, whereas Marxist critical race theorists do this according to race, i.e., white vs. black or some other ethnic-based construct. One group is the oppressor and the other the oppressed; your category defines you. Rather than aspiring to the color-blind world that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned, where individuals are judged by the content of their character, people are foremost viewed by the color of their skin.
It is a terribly dehumanizing way to view people.
Levin quotes Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, who was very close to the Rev. King: “Today, too many ‘remedies’ — such as Critical Race Theory, the increasingly fashionable post-Marxist/post-modernist approach that analyzes society as institutional group power structures rather than on spiritual or one-to-one human level — are taking us in the wrong direction: separating even school children into explicit racial groups, and emphasizing differences instead of similarities.” Walker stressed: “The roots of CRT are planted in entirely different intellectual soil. It begins with ‘blocs’ (with each person assigned to an identity or economic bloc, as in Marxism).”
The Wikipedia entry for CRT says nothing like this. It makes no mention of Marxism, other than the “Freudo-Marxism” reference thus far surviving in the box at the bottom.
And so, for the typical 21st century Googler landing at Wikipedia to learn of Marxist elements in CRT, they’ll find effectively none. For the left, that’s perfect for demonizing conservatives — and parents — who object to CRT’s Marxist influences. Those people can be derided as followers and fabricators of “myths,” and as “white supremacists.”
This is what we’re up against. Big Tech has become the left’s new Ministry of Truth. As it does, the left controls not only the media narrative but the very meanings of terms.
“CELEBRITY” IS A MISUSED WORD
Like Peter Finch – the anchorman for a television station,in the movie “Network” – Judie Bailey – TV ONE, New Zealand, anchorwoman – experiences not a breakdown, but a sudden epiphany – a revelation.
That night she loses the smile, renounces her role as the mother of the nation “Because The Product I put my lovely face to is really junk! Enough is enough!”
She puts on the simple chaste burkha and soon the rabid-improvident-incestuous-selfish-wasteful media self-serving house of cards collapses.
Without her brand of sweet complacency, to support them – the more harmful elements of bad consumerism, in our food and drink {sugar and fat -no vitamins etc} and movies {violence and murder} wilt and die. It’s like the good old days again.
Oprah Winfrey and Doctor Phil (America’s motherand father) copy Judie and embrace common sense also.
Both Judie and Oprah now both wear the burkha! And with Dr Phil they pray six times a day – for forgiveness. It’s true!
Soon we are all healthy and slim again.
Hospitals and jails empty and our obese nations no longer need to wage war, on the skinny peoples of the world, for ever more oil, for ever larger cars, to carry around our ever fatter bodies.
All our new monetary savings and brotherly love and zealous cooperation means we can now eliminate hunger and global warming and Aids.
Yeah right!
http://www.bestpoet.com
POEM : GEORGE W BUSH by bestpoet.com
George W Bush hit on these ‘ere master plans,
He’d get all them pesky ayrabs and such,
On Mcdonald’s and other depleted mucks;
They’d fall right into his oil and blood stained hands.
So the super-clean teams, zealots and preachers,
Of the American media engines of rule, our teachers,
Arrived in them there ayrab badlands
But ohmigosh them towel and burka heads were so healthy! –
How to turn ayrabs into fast-food fat compliant fools – be stealthy?
It had worked in Beijing and Sydney (mirrors and smoke);
New Zealand was a pushover already hooked on coke,
Battered greasy fish and fat soaked chips,
That ends up on hearts, cheeks, tummies and hips,
Kiwis suspect our muesli, beads and sandals folk-
Who just plot to keep us well is all – some hope!
But them pesky arabs had no westies and such denizens
Or talkback radio – unless you count them muezzins
And praying six times a day; all holy public prayer drill;
No poor-white trailer-trash or Oprah or Doctor Phil,
And people being made mad by their unholy splits
In the extended family, like us poor stupid gits;
Lord, unlike us they only shot their guns to the heavens,
In praise of the continual joinings and happy weddin’s
And ceremonies and song and dance –
You could see that here, real men, still rule-
Not some jumped up, mixed up, poof fool-
Broadcasting his or her slimy family-splitting drool.
Ayrab religion is a total mix of God and Politics,
Which are lead by men – not secret-agenda drips;
Unlike us who individualise which weakens the common-good
And lets the advertising ayatollas of Madison Ave and Hollywood,
Have us hooked on their ‘happy meals for families’,
Who’re gonna hyper-split-up their family trees.
Well before old George W could have it all,
There came this poet both lean and tall:
“Make my day you mummy’s boy!
Junk like yours means we’ll be passing hard ’sinkers’,
Not the soft ‘floaters’ that make porridge munchers pinker;
Your weapons of mass digestion will give folk pain
And pollute more than your spent-uranium insane
new bugs will be outa control,
Killer-food tsunamis like no other toll!”
George W now parks your car at Fallujah Mall,
And that muesli eatin’ poet is president is all.
OUR ‘ORGANIC PRINCE OF WALES’ IS OUR PATRON,
NEW ORDER PRINCES GO TO HELL!
And our young, may find hope here, stop suiciding, and do real protest instead of the ‘entertainment only allowed ‘ TRUE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS ‘ that the New Order demands of everyone, so as to save its BIG-LABEL-ADVERTISERS, FROM LOSS OF PROFITS, FOR THEIR JUNK CONSUMERISM, FOLLOWED BY THEIR JUNK NOSTRUMS AND REMEDIES, PRIVATE JAILS AND PRIVATE POLICE ,
(SOME ARE RECRUITED FROM THE ALREADY CONVICTED !)
ALL THIS WE DO FOR THE MEMORY OF DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES,
POISONED ROYAL CONSUMER OF THE ANOREXIC-BULIMIAC NEW ORDER.
The Anorexic- bulimiac tries to control everyone, and is in turn controlled, by whom ?
My answer: the media psychologists and the victim’s own junk fooded metabolism
The food is the physiology (you are what you eat)
The entertainment is the physiology (you are what you see)
The physiology is the function, the function is the forum and the forum becomes the State
A sick physiology becomes therefore a sick State,- the Anorexic-Bulimiac sick State
This sick State uses the icon of the distressed victim, as a ‘good’, we should all look up to
and much time, energy, capital, and resources especially media are expended in the folly,
until all the resources point or join like spokes to the sick hub of a doomed wheel.
Good posts Brian. Did you manage to get it all out? 🙂
Brian John Evans
You have been saving it up. Interesting stuff and great rant. To get to the point quickly, how do ordinary citizens wanting to have agency and advocacy in their lives, act? Do they draw up plans locally and treat with central government to get what iis needed, ensuring that the needs and wants are balanced and consider all aspects? I’ve been reading about WW1 and it seems that 100 years later we have not achieved to match our education. Do you think we should be educated in practical politics? Youngsters at the age of 10 running small things with assistance, appreciating how to do things themselves, how individuals can acquire personal skills. No-one made to feel useless, a dropout. Getting down to the personal after having a rant at the USA Bush maye what will give us most return for our efforts for change and improvement.
160 comments. Maori have no obligation to NZ. Many others have been disadvantaged by the upper class’s big move for their own freedom (84). Then there is the anti-democratic anti-rational American plutocratic media mills weaponizing all dissatisfactions for their (laugh out loud) causes.
I read your article with interest and you seem to have a romanticised notion that these protestors are a phenomenon of the “losing-class” as you put it. New Zealand’s equivalent of some naive Trump supporter stereotype. Trump was carried to power by the grubby disenfranchised masses.. snap! – that must be what is happening here! Initially I thought you were pretending that for effect, but the punch line never came.
Of course those with fewer resources have suffered badly and are rightly upset – that much I agree with you.
But had I been in that city I would have been at that protest and I am neither poor nor poorly educated And there are many in my relatively well off suburb who would have done the same.
On Auckland’s motorways this weekend were New Zealanders from across the spectrum.
It isn’t necessary to have a certain level of wealth or education to be disgusted and concerned at what this government is trying to do to our country. And we are all losers because of this – its just that some of us do not realise it yet.
What divides this country right now is not wealth, but our mainstream media. There are those who sit glued to Jacinda’s daily pronouncements, and those who have long since realised there are better things to do with our time and more healthy options then bathing in the constant fearmongering and propaganda.
Of course if you only watch mainstream media (and their counter-parts in other countries) then all of this will be news to you.
So you will need to go back to the drawing board and try to find another explanation for these protests.
While you are at it you may want to broaden your sources of information about Covid-19 beyond Jacinda’s “single source of truth”. There are many highly respected scientists and doctors all over the world that we in the loser class like to listen to. Perhaps you will learn some interesting things if you listen to them too.
Comments are closed.