I BLAME IT on student politics. This strange, behind-the-scenes revolution, currently unfolding with minimal media coverage, but making undeniable progress, day, by day, by day.
The “left-wing” student politicians of the 1990s, and the people who voted for them, never trusted the majority. The reason for their mistrust was very simple: they all knew that if a majority of the student body ever got interested in the affairs of their associations, then their “progressive” brand of politics was bound to lose. Progressive politics was best conducted out of sight: by working inside, not outside the system; making the necessary connections; and, always, by making sure the dangerous democratic beast remained fast asleep.
Thirty years later, their “long march through the institutions” completed, the modus operandi of these former members of the student political class remains the same. Keep your true intentions hidden. Rely upon bureaucratic instruments rather than democratic mandates. Use the power of your political office to shut down opponents. Suborn the media (easy to do in student politics!) so as to avoid unhelpful scrutiny and political accountability.
The central “principle” of this form of progressive politics is: “you have to be in to win”. All that truly matters is that the “right” people, with the “right” ideas, make it into the “right places”. Only then can good things be made to happen.
The halcyon days of student radicalism of the 1960s and 70s, distinguished by the mass participation of the student body in the great issues of the day – the war in Vietnam, apartheid in South Africa, nuclear disarmament – had, by the end of the 1980s, given way to a desperate attempt to hold on to the “free” tertiary education enjoyed by previous student generations. By the end of the 1990s, however, not even the students’ obvious self-interest in getting rid of tuition fees was sufficient to generate mass protests.
The student associations, however, remained powerful reservoirs of progressive activism. Astoundingly, given what had happened to the trade unions, membership of the student “unions” continued to be compulsory. As tertiary student numbers grew, so, too, did the budgets at the disposal of those who controlled them. Since very few students bothered to participate in student association politics, these well-funded shells constituted a large and valuable prize for that dwindling number of progressives who were still “in to win”.
Unsurprisingly, the small fraction of the student body who were right-wing activists, appealed to their allies in the major right-wing political parties to de-fund these bastions of left-wing power by abolishing compulsory membership. Small wonder that the former student leader, Grant Robertson, fought National’s and Act’s obliging legislation to the bitter end. One of the Labour Party’s great reservoirs of activist recruits (the trade unions being the other) was about to be drained.
That there was no mass resistance to the dissolution of independent student associations (they survive today only by the grace and favour of the university authorities) merely confirmed the belief of the progressives that the majority of students – or any given population – simply could not be relied upon to support progressive political activities. Indeed, the only beneficiaries of any successful attempt to stir-up the majority would be the Right.
The brutal reality, as far as these in-to-win progressives are concerned, is that the majority of men are misogynists; the majority of whites are racists; and the majority of heterosexuals are homophobes. Stir up “ordinary people” and all you are likely to get is the equivalent of Brexit and Trump. Left-wing populism might be good for working-class males – and even some working-class females – but it could very easily end up being hell for everybody else. Best not to mobilise the masses – especially when preventing them from rejecting politically correct ideas is so very difficult. Besides, a mobilised population is the very last thing that the right people, in the right places, with the right ideas would consider helpful.
Not that these in-to-win progressives are about to allow their fear of mobilising the masses to serve as an excuse for inaction. They have, after all, made their way to positions of extraordinary power and influence. In Parliament, the judiciary, the public service, the news media, academia and the arts: all those whom patience has rewarded with institutional power have at their disposal mechanisms which can, if required, compel the compliance of the majority.
Not that compulsion is likely to be necessary. The lessons these progressives learned back in in their student days: keep the student journalists and broadcasters sweet; don’t go out of your way to let people know what you’re up to; make sure the elected offices of the association are packed with your ideologically-sound friends and comrades; and don’t, under any circumstances, irretrievably alienate the people in the University Registry, the true locus of campus power; are all readily adaptable to national politics.
The only problem – and it’s a big one – is that, unlike student politics, national politics has the Left facing well-organised right-wing opponents. Not every news-media outlet can be nobbled. People can be rarked-up by politicians espousing all kinds of reactionary ideas. And, worst of all, the turn-out at general elections can climb as high as 70-80 percent. Progressive student politicians always relied upon between half and three-quarters of eligible student voters not bothering to cast a ballot.
Though the in-to-win progressives energetically resisted being educated by their examples, there were student politicians who sought nothing more than to represent the majority of the student body. They weren’t progressive, or, at least, not in the way the Left thought of itself as progressive, but they did know how to talk to ordinary students. More than that, they knew how to make fun of the Left and its obsessions. Student leaders like Paul Gourlie and Graham Watson (who was elected President of the Auckland University Students Association a record four times) understood that democratic politics is about rousing the majority, not preventing it from waking up.
In the much more dangerous world of the twenty-first century these sort of politicians would be branded populists. They would not object. Nothing frightens the in-to-win progressive more than politicians who not only make the people listen to him, but who also listen to the people.
This column is so incredibly true.
Today, NZ is led by the most dedicated and ambitious student politicians from the late 1990s and early 2000s era.
‘Lifers’ in the political system.
I think that pretty much sums up Adern’s ilk rather nicely.
Never told the proletariat that her true intentions were to be a divisive force for social disharmony and hoped we wouldn’t notice.
Jays – They still hope that nobody will notice, which is why this blog, Scoop, Winston Peters et al are vital in their own different ways, in providing the factual public information which the MSM doesn’t.
A concomitant issue, is the absurdity of their extremist centre established at Victoria University under someone who seems an inadequate nincompoop to me, describing itself as a centre ‘of excellence’ with absolutely no supporting evidence.
Quality is measured by performance and by outcome, and the speech police proclaiming their own excellence based on nothing achieved, is “Alice in Wonderland” territory. I’m wondering if their mission statement was written by a Chinese mail order company, but I daresay that the marketing grads who run the place are simply not as clever as they think they are, nor we as stupid.
🙂
Like me @ Snow White, it seems like you’ve had to endure working at that “Centre of Excellence”.
That Centre of Excellence is fast becoming little more than the Wet Dreamers’ property portfolio and they’re not going to wake up until it all goes tits up.
So be it – it’s going to have to happen
Once was Tim. I was under the impression that it was the Extremist Department which had labelled itself a centre of excellence, not the whole of VUW. Universities are ranked internationally anyway, but that sort of word usage is quite common in some Asian countries, and by their agents there.
If, however, it is the extremist centre itself which is claiming “ excellence” for itself, then I maintain that at best, this is sloppy use of the English language as there is nothing to suggest that they are excellent or entitled to make such a claim.
As this is the group set up allegedly to stop hate speech and to monitor yours and my speech, it’s not good enough if they misuse the English language themselves. They also have the potential to be a big nuisance for the SIS, GCSB, and other established spy agencies, if they continue with this sort of questionable performance, and to become yet another time-wasting use of hardworking tax payers’ money.
Yes Snow White simply not as clever as they think they are,nor we as stupid.
That sums it up nicely.
What a load of bollocks. Please tell me how she is trying to be divisive? She try’s to play to the biggest majority. Divisions created by trying to honour the Treaty says more about the true racial attitudes of a number in this country, not her non existent plot. As for vaccine mandates that was seen as the best way forward from a health advice perspective. You can’t blame her for the wack jobs that take advice from la la land types.
You could look at PM Jacinda following overseas and good press while leaving a brokendown lumpenproletariat? at home. That’s divisive if you care about the strugglers. I think that is a major division. And of course there is the historic one since 1984, of the upwardly mobile families of probably sod cutters from olde England or Ireland. Their great grandchildren grandly turning away from the need to support the newly emerging in the poorer paid class so they can fly as has been the desire for many decades. But Labour pollies have flown away already, with memories as short as insects.
Greywarbler Maybe I’m right and maybe I’m wrong, but the ex-disc jockey Prime Minister of New Zealand baking scones for a visiting UK pop star, and then boasting about it, pissed me off as a woman. Should I follow the flock and transgender to blokehood it will still piss me off – but hey – maybe that’s how to get the votes nowadays. Much sexier than child poverty.
Yes Gentle Annie no coverage in glossy magazines looking after hungry children.
She’s turned her back on those that voted for her and now pursues popularity for her sake.
She makes me very cross.
PM Ardern is a star like Princess Diana who turned her attention to poor children and drawing attention to the ghastly trade in personnel bombs attempting to get rid of them.
PM Jacinda would endear herself to every real caring human in NZ if she embraced the idea of loving children and supporting parents to shine as parents providing loving and firm guidance and support for their children. Presented as noble people reaching new heights in the development of society for the future they would feel important and rise to the challenge.
We need to develop our abilities and personalities to the full – individuals in co-operative endeavour in a life operating on a human level enjoying life and living simply with lessened ambition for everything except making good balanced lives working and trading for what we need and then having time for enjoyment.
Oh Bob give me a break, you would never like our PM no matter what she did, you are so predictable
Thanks Queeny you may be right.
So Greywarbler a Prime Minister leaving our shores to talk to trading partners and “allies” is designed to be divisive to the local population? I think the division that exists in this country has nothing to do with whether the PM goes offshore for a week or two. Jays essentially says in the alternative tax proposal blog that money should not be given to people who breed too much. There are certainly cases to be made for personal responsibility but I also think that opinion is formed on sweeping generalisations (like all bene’s are on drugs)
Wheel I thought I was clear but it appears that only I understand my point. I will make it again – that there is a hypocrisy in PM Jacinda smiling widely and being feted overseas as the bees knees, while at home the slaves are busy trying to make gold out of straw while Rumpelstiltskin hefts the whip. Quite clear now?
OK, I get your point. I was coming at it from the view of not agreeing with Jays that Ardern is actively trying to be a divisive force as some sort of master plan. Was following health advice and enforcing mandates about the greater good, or was it designed to flush out the Liz Gunn or, ‘pants on fire’, Sue Grey types and alienate them? Whether you agree with mandates or not I don’t agree the primary motive was to create division on behalf of the government. That makes no political sense.
Hallelujah, thank God for Mr Trotter’s incisive commentary – time ‘the great unwashed’ give ourselves a stiff uppercut and start participating in changing our country for the better but also high time for politicians to understand they are there to serve the people rather than the other way around.
Respect.
“I blame it on student politics.”
Maybe it’s time that you, and the other useful idiots, took some of the blame. You, and many others like you, played your part in enabling this by ignoring what was going on and smearing and attacking those who pointed it out
You got what you thought you wanted and now it’s turned its gaze on you you suddenly don’t like it
Well said!
A very interesting column Chris
So where do past student politicians Jarrod Gilbert at UC or earlier that Otago cohort of Ross Blanche, Michael Tull et al fit into this – or are they the sort of counter-progresive populists you are calling for?
What is most intersting and concerning is how in recent decades student politicians now closely align and work with university management.
Mike – We old Otago student politicians – and I mean old – didn’t really think of ourselves as politicians. By and large, we were escapees from what seemed, perhaps wrongly, to be an oppressive education system, who had a natural sort of interest in bigger horizons. I cannot recall disliking any contemporaries from that period, apart from Michael Cullen irritating people, for reasons I don’t know, and another subsequent pedophile graduate from Her Majesty’s prison system, who bribed canteen sitters ( promising free drinks at Wains Hotel) to attend a Young Nats’ AGM, and elect him as President, prelude to his failed career as a National Party politician and he now lives out his days in Perth.
As Overseas News Ed of “ Critic”, a parent told me to keep my head in, as an ex- cop SIS person called Tom Knowles, told him that the SIS monitored , heaven knows how, student newspapers and overseas students organisations, who were actually fairly innocuous; the biggest overt nutters were probably the evangelical Christian groups, and of their members did go on to become an MP, before fading into obscurity, but again was probably basically an ok person. Self-interest was never an issue, I don’t think, and we enjoyed a genuine sort of idealism.
It was later living and working overseas, that I realised how detached New Zealanders then were from the big global issues, many of which are now hellishly worse, as is our ignorance and detachment, unfortunately. But we did have a freedom within the university system to speak out about local issues, and I remember doing so, and did at Vic in the 90’s, but can’t really comment on the righteous myopia of the current tertiary environment. Plunging back into medievalism ain’t gonna work though.
“What is most interesting and concerning is how in recent decades student politicians now closely align and work with university management.”
It IS (interesting and concerning). In my experience it’s because they now have mortgages to pay and lifestyles to preserve, and quite often because they’ve got nagging family members expecting more and more needless shit, and even if and when they get it, they’ll probably not be satisfied.
Great piece Chris, I’d argue, whatever the original intent this is progressive politics in name only as it inevitably leads to a purity spiral, elite self-entitlement and a disconnect from working class issues.
We have a new elite cultural ideology pushing out the previous (see Wesley Yang – successor ideology), that has reintroduced a coercive religious architecture. Identity ideology as a morality play of good and evil with intrinsic sin or sanctification which advances by divide and conquer.
The benefits from intersectional politics overwhelmingly accrue to well-heeled believers regardless of their identity markers. You can have all the intersectional victim points in the world but if you are poor, or worse openly blaspheme against doctrine then you will see no tangible difference to material well being or life opportunities.
The inevitable backlash is economic populism but how those energies will be channelled or disrupted is a cause for concern.
Agree Tui. Current crop are just useful idiots in the capitalist system.
@Fantail agreed and combination crony capitalism with the end product of laissez-faire capitalism.
Sometimes I agree with you wholeheartedly Chris; Sometimes I disagree gust as much. This time the former.
In my very low level experience in political parties what I was struck by was how there was never anyone in there with the intention of furthering or preserving democracy. Political activists get involved in order to use the democratic institutions to advance their own priorities, not the priorities of anyone else.
Also what your article points out that we all should think about is that the credentials that are relevant to becoming a politician are about an obsession with controlling other people . Not any particular skill or ability or intelligence except for the gift of the gab which can be learned.
D J S
Another good reason to have term limits for those in parliament. We need people who have experienced life (be that in any occupation) to be the peoples representatives. Representatives that can identify with the needs and wants of their electorate. Our representatives to have an understanding and first hand knowledge of what is going on in their electorate.
Oh and a good clean out of the university academics. More accountability from the students tutors to turn out balanced citizens, not political automatons. Teach life skills not wokeness.
Ok, so who wants to be in politics then? Hand up please. See folks, and there is the problem.
Just Cabbage. The problem is that there are no processes available for calling shonky politicians to account. Voting them out achieves nothing. By then they have usually feathered their own nests, and lined up their next jobs as estate agents and Uber drivers, or if they appear really dubious, plum overseas postings like Trevor Mallard. That’s a basic flaw in the democratic system. It could be overcome, but the persons who could implement change are those least likely to benefit from it, the dodgy pollies, so the problem remains.
There are probably lots of people who could make valuable contributions to make a better, fairer society for everyone. However the way party politics is structured, by the time they have waded through the sewers, avoided the gatekeepers, glad-handed & back-handed, kissed babies & backsides to get to any position of power, they are unlikely to be the person they once were, having made too many compromises to get into that elevated position. Personally it’s something I’ve considered in the past, but realistically it isn’t a game I want to play, I don’t like the limelight, preferring the shadows.
Absolutely right R S.
The political parties weed out anyone with integrity at the outset. If you are not prepared to compromise your ideals to fit the party line; or come over as with enough appeal that you might become a rival to the incumbent leadership you might as well go home. Only drones are allowed.
Hence democracy is destroyed by political parties at the outset. They should be outlaw’d and people should vote for independent representatives in electorates where they live so that they are personally known to a large proportion of the electorate, and have no issues to concern them but the issues of their electorate and the country. As it is the future fortunes of the party dominates the agenda .
D J S
Yep Kraut, those who really care and just want to do good are crucified and either driven out in the first term or pushed back into powerless exile on the very back benches or worse, managed out like Louisa Wall.
You have plenty to say SK. So take it further and you will be sure to be in if it is so hard being a pollie and people are resiling from it.. What a finr lot of upstanding people we have sacrificing themselves to be busy bees.
GW
Yes plenty, as much as you, if not less. We should team up and form the PTS (PlentyToSay) Party, you and me…and countryboy.
Being politically progressive in the 21st century is so mainstream and corporatised, everyone is doing it!
Just look at the latest tv adds, Steinlager, dove soap spring to mind.
Don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I watch them while drinking my tepid milky milo.
The corporates are doing it and encouraging it because intersectionist policies suit global capitalism.
@Fantail, yes a zealously narrow focus on equity gives rise to virtue theatre which is ideal for performative progressivism while doing zero to address genuine inequality.
A good example is the Human Rights Campaign rainbow-washing corporations which have no business being associated with human rights
https://www.hrc.org/resources/best-places-to-work-for-lgbtq-equality-2022
One highlight, Amazon, with appalling and coercive working conditions, unusually high attrition levels due to injury and active union busting. The list also has a number of weapons manufacturers. As a member of the LGBT community (statement of identity cringe) I’m supposed to feel warm and fuzzy about them.
Without being a political expert I agree with Chis’s descriptions of the Universities and the politicians that are born from them. You can see the influence and cancel culture that to me became noticeable with certain unfashionable politicians, Don Brash being one of them. He being cancelled from campus. However these new minds who have their own agenda’s have either not been exorcised of the neoliberal thought processes, or the wellington bureaucracy who influence these politicians didn’t go to the same universities. One thing is for sure. You can have all the new progressive ideas you like, but without the real life experience required, implementing these ideas in a coherent and practical way will fail as this government is finding out.
What you’re describing is straight out of Saul Alinsk’s Rules for Radicals: Dress like ‘The Man’ and wriggle your way into the bureaucracy and from that base recruit more of your kind to disseminate your evil ideology.
I went through uni in the early 70’s and what you describe in student unions was exactly how it worked in ours: The students doing STEM subjects, like me, worked their backsides off with 40 hrs of lectures a week and about 20 more writing up labs, projects, tutorials and revision. They simply had no time for student politics. This left it wide open to the dilettantes in the arts faculty to run it, most of which had nice cars and rich parents (I was a welfare kid). The father of our Marxist union President was a stock broker LOL.
Very similar experience Andrew.
Most of them forgot about their left leaning politics on leaving University and joined the ranks of the high paid.For many of them it was just a game that they grew out of.
Well, those were very shallow social climbers, weren’t they, Bob?
The sort of Lefties that Righties love to believe in.
Real Lefties stay Left, Bob. They are not shallow social climbers.
Agree
Socialism has always been an aristocratic phenomenon. Elites who feel guilty about their eliteness and who want the power of being the ones who know what’s best for everyone else
So true Freda.
They really think they know better than everyone else.
Heh. Read this from California historian Victor Davis Hanson:
If our liberal political elites lived in crime-ridden Stockton, San Bernardino, or Modesto, had two children in the Los Angeles City public schools, commuted daily on the 99 from Delano to Visalia, flew weekly commercial out of LAX, tried to buy a California home on their salaries as public officials, rode BART to Oakland each evening home, or depended on a business supplying the state with lumber, gas or oil, food, transportation, or construction—the stuff of life—then they might fathom how assuaging their left-wing guilt in the abstract destroyed the lives of those they never see and never wish to see.
So, in a word, California’s debacle was the work of the self-absorbed.
Yep – pencil, in place on California, kiwi kids growing Mangere and Morewa, going to school hungry, coming home to Mum who is getting the crap beaten out of her by Dad, going to sleep cold then starting it all again the next day and then ask yourself do we really need Rainbow road crossings? Do we really need bike lanes at $2000/mm and do we really need to spend $330,000 on the opening of Transmission Gulley. It’s about priorities and unfortunately “we”, the little people, the silent majority, don’t seem to register as a priority anymore.
Do really need to spend $400,000 on a piece of art for our central bank?
neo-victorians…same censorious finger wagging, taboos and social no-nos abound….all we have done in over 100yrs is refocus societies bigotry on new targets….it’s just holier than thou horseshit, we laugh at victorian moral uptightness but our society is no different we just get bent out of shape by different ‘triggers’..and just like the victorian version the current version stems from the unintelligent self serving and selfish bourgeoise who seek to enforce their code on us all.
gagarin You are right say 80:20. I think you have been thinking, and going a little deeper than average, and finding relevant stuff down there. Thanks.
Stir up “ordinary people” and all you are likely to get is the equivalent of Brexit and Trump.
That opinion of the “lumpen proletariat” is exactly why they distrust the professional middle class aka the 10 percent. We can all see that pretty much every politician in our Parliament comes from the PMC. Which reflects the scenario across the “democratic West”. The masses have no reason to align nor trust either major party, to them populism is not a dirty word, it means an opportunity to be represented and respected. That of course rarely happens but hell, its a possibility as opposed to an impossibility.
A most intriguing insight! I was probably at Otago the same time, or perhaps a little earlier, as Chris (the 60s), but myself pretty much an apolitical beast, vaguely aware of some peers who did something at the Student Union. The main benefit of the Union to myself, that I was actually aware of, in those care-free days, was access to the University ski hut in winter weekends. VietNam was, for many/most, a distant hypothesis; marchers were a minority.
Surely, one enormous differentiating factor from then to now is the fact of student debt; or, in my case, the lack of debt. Being debt-free allowed a certain sense of freedom. It seems unfair that, of my generation, we were supported to go to university, and get well qualified, while our children had to take on debt, +/- parental help. A degree of guilt apropos applies to the more reflective of my generation, and requires some assuagement through responding to University appeals.
Absolutely spot on Chris except what we have now is divisive student politics enacted by dishonest politicans all bound together in the inexorable machine that is global capitalism. Money going around in ever smaller and smaller circles. Division creates marketing opportunities and new money streams while politically, it allows for greater control.
In this new paradigm, we should do away with most universities as they will mostly only teach people PR and Comms (We dont want people who can think for themselves) and apart from a few necessary scientists, we dont want experts in anything (Treasury anyone?) as long as we can appoint Comm degree wielding apparatchiks who will flog propaganda and established narrative to justify increased state over reach and authoritarianism.
And lest you think the right is immune to this problem, think again. They too have learnt the lessons of how easy it is to control the majority and they are even more inured in global capitalism.
Welcome to the future, the future is now.
I just can’t get on board with the anti woke hysteria that pervades an element of the commentariat including the otherwise brilliant CT. To me it feels like a blind spot – society has moved on – we have progressed. It’s not some hidden conspiracy – a woke, liberal PM has been elected twice – that says more about the electorate then decietful woke inculcators at the heart of government.
Yes – you can always get 40% of the vote beiing socially conservative and reactionary but I’ve yet to see center right ppopulist delivery anything of economic value to their accolites. Where Trump and Johnson afe taking as examples.
Historically it is progressives, liberals and lefties that bring about significant social or economic change. That’s just a fact.
‘Society has moved on’. ‘Progressed’ ? I think the argument is that woke inculcators at the heart of government might be able to fool that electorate into believing that the ‘change’ they are bringing about is for their wider benefit, whereas, as the covid psyop proves, the opposite is true.
You’re referring to all those successful implementations of socialism, right?
OR THE INSTANCES OF AN ACTUAL FREE CAPITALIST MARKET EXISTING ANYWHERE ANDREW
the problem with socialism is that nationalists want all the credit.
Peter B When the movement to woke has bedded in, then they will be the ‘socially conservative and reactionary’, when it’s 66% woke and the rest hurt, angry and confused. Have you thought of that; then my and others reaction to them won’t be just an aberration but a desperate movement to try to retain the vestiges of a thoughtful society devoted to the welfare of all.
Ardern only won in 2017 because of Winston’s helping hand, and won in 2020 on the strength of her government’s handling of covid. The entire He Puapua agenda was kept hidden from the public, and she therefore has no popular mandate for this policy. Neither did LINO campaign on hate speech laws or on most of the other woke policies they espouse, but it’s plain they’re determined to impose them.
NZ has “moved on”? Yes, at least in part because of capture of most of our institutions by woke ideologues. It’s primarily a top-down phenomenon.
“Historically it is progressives, liberals and lefties that bring about significant social or economic change.”
Roger Douglas (may he burn in hell) and Margaret Thatcher (probably already burning) might disagree with this sweeping generalization. But it’s a trivial statement – the important question is whether changes in policy are based on careful consideration of unbiased evidence, or on emotion and ideology. Woke policy is almost by definition based on the latter.
Yep, when privileged student politicians gain power … in so many respects, the antithesis of the traditional Left … inherently elitist, authoritarian & anti-democratic … contemptuous of working people (esp if they happen to be in some way ‘majoritarian’ – like european ethnicity – or happen to be male) … arrogant, narcissistic & self-entitled (confirmed by several recent published pieces of research in Psychology: the core Woke tend heavily towards Dark Triad personality traits) … generally emanating from comfortable middle to upper-middle backgrounds (often the recipients of inheritance or significant parental financial help), certainly university-educated & currently highly prosperous – hence utterly divorced from cold hard reality & the complexities of life … beneath all the ostentatious moral posturing & self-righteous Rik-like denunciations & cancellations, they continue to doggedly pursue self-interest / personal wealth / power … and so naturally this crude, deeply distorted ‘Good’ vs ‘Evil’ demographic identitarianism becomes their only claim to anything even remotely resembling “left-wing”, “progressive” or “altruistic” politics. These people are essentially frauds and they will systematically scapegoat whole swathes of the working & lower-middle classes, ironically creating new forms of social *in*justice on a significant scale.
swordfish Great summary.
Thanks for this swordfish. I now have an explanation for visiting family members (from across the ditch) as to why we are governed by useless idiots.
Thanks swordfish for an accurate description of the current Labour Government and their supporters.
Not to mention the failed National Govts…
Gosh Bob that’s nasty, but given you are a National supporter I would expect nothing less. However, you are inaccurate as always.
Are you still in Australia Shona or were you deported here under the 501 scheme? It would explain things.
Great piece.
Good idea. Of course I sheet it home to Helen Clark’s govt and the 84 Labour Party altogether. Don’t trust the people. The activists that run everything instead of the Labour members. Which is to say, focus groups.
Three quarters of student association members don’t vote? From memory, when I did my big student journalist story in Invercargill less than 10 students voted. Why a scammer captured the association the previous year.
So that dynamic reinforced the anti-democratic Labour Party.
New Zealand is doomed because of university trained politicians….The universities are the problem and a culture of being trained as an overhead…….none of them have ever done a decent days work in their lives…..how many tradesmen do we have in parliament..I’m not sure…not many , if any….high school , university , job in government department , member of parliament…….if only life was that simple…instead of having political party’s we should have representation from the likes of tradesmen from construction , truck drivers from transport , lawyers to do lawyering , accountants to do long division stuff , nurses and doctors from health , not managers…some scientists , and of course farmers from all types of crops , meat , fruit….no race based gravy train….just a balanced representation of society trying to make a fair go of it…
it’s good point rob, if they are keen on ‘diversity’ lets have a bit more of it in the beehive, couple of plumbers a road worker and a nurse for a start….hell let’s impose a ‘real person’ quota like the gender quota..it shouldn’t be hard to find a lesbian mechanic in NZ.
They do that in Rotary – diversity in occupation to keep the group balanced in outlook don’t they?
You can hardly find a mechanic at all now. They call them ‘Technicians’, and they stuff up your engine.
meh – lets get an AI in to do the job – a vote on the frameworks and the weightings and then set it off.
Trust is a funny thing, remember the Clintons? Well they’re not dead yet and they have also spawned. As some commentators unkindly remark, academia is not what it used to be.
Where a country that has a ‘Taylor Swift’ University degree and brings the kind of pernicious and putative instruments of pure gouge such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Signed by Clinton) so kindly brings us it’s culture whether we like it or not via this 5eyes apparatus, the law looks right whilst the tech looks left, and vice versa.
The Law does not have the ears to hear the science, unless it is bundled down into feasible bites as evidence. Science completely ignores the law. all laws except the laws of the dollar. we the people are glamourised by the science, so blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night! Social science attempts to bridge the gap by taking into account all the influences on our psyche, collective and individual, and is drowned out by a baying chorus of deniers with posh accents and fake pearls.
academia is exactly what it always was a home for ‘fashion victims’ from eugenics to maoism it’s always been home to ‘dedicated followers of fashion’ and that’s all.