This recession will split NZ into two very definable ‘Zealands’ and no where is that divide best represented culturally than the new paywalled VIVA.
You would wonder at the wisdom of launching a paywalled culture section for rich wankers at the birth of a recession but by doing so, they’ve inadvertently highlighted a naked economic truth of the coming recession, those with property equity and those who don’t or who have nothing.
Wealthy Asian-NZers and their upper middle class Pakeha mates vs the rest of us economically and culturally.
This recession will once again expose the bleeding gums of our inequality while the wealthy continue to play in a broken city. Capitalist hospitality will morph into the elitism that can afford it, for them there will always be oysters and bubbles for lunch while food bank demand explodes.
This recession will erect gated communities like paywalled content for the prevue of those who can afford that escapism.
It’s arrival is a harbinger of a divided culture in a time of intense dislocation.
It is an important ingredient for revolution.
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When the bottom 50% of NZers own just 2% of the wealth and people go hungry, homeless and mental, in a land of plenty, it should indeed be a situation ripe for revolution.
BUT…we lack class leadership, a fighting central labour organisation needs to be urgently restored, and the small group of marxists need to bury their sectarianism and reform one united Aotearoa NZ Communist Party.
The only ones leading by example at the moment are iwi organisations who fronted up with practical assistance during COVID 2020/21.
Parliament is just one element, community organising and direct action is what is needed.
“food bank demands explode”
Food banks are part of the problem in that they suppress revolutionary action. Churches have a vested interest in maintaining inequality because of the wealth they have accumulated and any group with an interest in social justice should close their food banks immediately as their charity work helps to perpetuate the control by welfare that capitalism requires.
The first real sign of a revolution that could force change on the social structures of our society will be mass organized food raids. What is needed are 50 to 100 people entering a supermarket, filling up their trolleys and leaving en-mass without paying. Then we might see change.
Exactly, and occupy empty residential and commercial property.
Peter you say that ” Churches have a vested interest in maintaining inequality because of the wealth they have accumulated and any group with an interest in social justice should close their food banks immediately as their charity work helps to perpetuate the control by welfare that capitalism requires.”
I am involved with my church to send Christmas food parcels to needy families.
It is an incredible thing to see people selflessly donating and this year we will deliver over 27,000 boxes to support more than 140,000 individuals.
You want to change the way we are governed by mass theft from shops. This would tear down society not make it better.
No government has the resources to end poverty.
WE must each be the change we wish to see.
It’s an education system that suppressed the Humanities and thus empathy
Food banks stop people starving while they wait for your revolution.
yea, I sea starving people everywhere in NZ….
Wait, so suddenly Pakeha working class are needed after 5 years of deliberate Labour Party neglect in Identity grounds?
Fine, lively, incisive comment from you Martyn filling us in on media trends, and though it does feel like a punch to the jaw, now at least we have been warned.
“Wealthy Asian-NZers and their upper middle class Pakeha mates vs the rest of us economically and culturally.”
Agree.
A lot of people don’t realise that the Asian drive for success and wealth is racially driven, whether we are talking of the PRC or on an individual level, to catch up with, or even get one up over the white man. Asians have very recent memories of grinding poverty, who they blame on the ‘gwai los’, and former western invasions and exploitation of China. Listen to the statements of the PRC leadership – a lot of it is about ‘restoring’ China to its former imperial greatness, after having fallen behind technologically and economically due to what they see as the Western incursions of the 19th and 20th centuries. Same goes for other Asian countries like India, Indonesia etc, but perhaps to a lesser extent.
I don’t know what to think any more.
On one hand I had some shocking revelations lately, when I realized that some of my East Asian and South Asian acquaintances harbored Supremacist beliefs, despite their modest demeanor.
But on the other hand, this inter-ethic tension and hatred on both sides is getting scary.
I feel like something like this happened in the 1930’s, when inflation hit Germany and Germans were starving.
I’m not sure if the views are ‘supremacist’ as such – perhaps more an acute sense of cultural and civilizational inferiority in front of Westerners due to being previously invaded and colonised by the West. Feelings of inferiority, or narratives of national humiliation are a much stronger motivation and driver for economic, technological, and military success, than ‘supremacism’.
These feelings afflict of course not only Asians, but most non-Western people around the globe. The media would have many believe that there is widespread international concern over the actions of China. But these concerns are mainly confined to the West and Japan. The fact is almost all developing countries in Africa and Asia are consistently siding with China against Western interests. Muslim countries overwhelmingly support China in spite of China’s oppression of Uighur Muslims. The desire to stick it to the West undergirds this. Another example of this sort of sentiment playing out is of course the West’s surprise when most African and Asian countries either directly countenanced or remained neutral on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
I’m not saying the above is necessarily a bad thing – they are simply observations. If people have a drive for success, it tends to more productive, wealthier nations as a whole.
Socialists also.
*fake socialists
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