I don’t even know what to say anymore.
With 60% of our newsrooms now female, the lens of woke identity seems to be all that matters.
Today’s latest example however takes that lens of woke identity and has instead manufactured our first ‘Purity of Identity’ journalism.
I’ve argued and have used example after example of how the woke newsrooms covered Carmel Sepuloni’s rise as Deputy.
I’ve noted how every single one of them glossed over her appalling record as Minister for Welfare to instead sing praises of her win from purely an identity perspective.
Read The Spinoff, Stuffs and NZ Heralds review of her appointment and it’s all identity politics soaked ‘you go girl’ feminism that champions her being the first Pacific Island Deputy.
There is no reflection whatsoever on her time as Minister presiding over the very weak and vulnerable that those woke newsrooms profess to care about, because when we do that, the gloss strips away very quickly.
Now let me be clear, I love our Pacific Community, and they should celebrate a Pacific Island appointee after the decades and decades of loyalty they’ve shown the Labour Party, but by only viewing her appointment through the middle class identity politics lens, The Spinoff, Stuff and NZ Herald have miss the real story an do their readers a terrible disservice.
For the woke, diversity and representation are the only currency, meritocracy is a heteronormative white male privilege and nothing matters more than identity.
Which is deeply problematic because a critical analysis of Carmel Sepuloni’s time as Social Welfare Minister highlights how shallow The Spinoff, Stuff and NZ Heralds ‘journalism’ is.
The Minister refused to implement any single one of the 42 key recommendations from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group…
Govt yet to fully implement a single key WEAG recommendation nearly three years on: new research
None of the 42 key recommendations of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) have been fully implemented almost three years after the report release, with 22 minimally or partially implemented, new research by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has found.
….The Minister threw 4000 disabled beneficiaries off welfare…
Govt sanctions sick jobseekers for failing to prepare for work
The Labour Government has cut the benefits of around 4000 sick, injured of disabled jobseekers in the last five years because they weren’t preparing to return to work fast enough.
…and most appallingly, the Minister gutlessly acquiesced to State Services to remove the Children’s Commissioner from overseeing Oranga Tamariki which will see vulnerable children in State care made even more vulnerable.
Carmel Sepuloni is a Labour Party Social Welfare Minister, in her time she has implemented no recommendations to make life easier for beneficiaries, she has thrown 4000 disabled beneficiaries off welfare and she has made the life of vulnerable children in state care far more dangerous, and yet as far as the female journalists at Spinoff, Stuff and NZ Herald are concerned none of that matters because hashtag feminism, hashtag diversity.
This is an appalling state of journalism, but the latest example of it manages to take the lens of woke identity to a whole new threshold, “Purity of Identity”
In this new profile by Stuff…
The rapid ascent of Carmel Sepuloni, our first Pasifika deputy prime minister
…not only are Carmel’s lack of progress on Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendations, sanctioning 4000 beneficiaries and making vulnerable children in State care less protected never acknowledged, her identity is now sponged clean of any history that could be used as a negative stereotype.
I wasn’t going to bring this up previously, because the previous articles had focused on cheerleading Carmel’s identity while eclipsing her actual record as Welfare Minister, but seeing as the latest article by Stuff focuses so strongly on her family as Identity, then the “Purity of Identity” journalism on display here is even more disingenuous.
How is it in a column that is so focused on her family that Stuff completely miss this out…
Mother of Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni admits $100K benefit fraud
The mother of Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni and her partner have admitted 23 benefit fraud charges totalling nearly $100,000.
Beverley Anne Sepuloni and partner Michael Charles Rangi entered guilty pleas to the charges, committed over more than a decade until last year, when they appeared before Judge Allan Roberts in the New Plymouth District Court today.
…Stuff miss it out because “Purity of Identity” journalism demands that not only do you put Identity above all, you expunge that Identity of any stereotype that can be used negatively against the person being profiled.
So Carmel’s mother being bashed by MSD for their bullshit relationship Fraud trap is completely ignored by the woke as that could be construed as a negative stereotype when it reality it actually gives real insight into Carmel’s reluctance to do anything meaningful on welfare reform!
Firstly, Carmel’s mother should never have been humiliated by this prosecution in the first place because it is spiteful and malicious to use relationships as a welfare trap to make money off beneficiaries.
It is obscene!
Secondly, it reeks of a MSD hit job. What better way to undermine a new welfare Minister than busting their mum for fraud?
Thirdly, many critics of Carmel point to her Mum getting set up for Fraud as a reason she has been so hands off on dumping the relationship fraud trap MSD rely on to make money off.
But none of that is even discussed by Stuff.
To hide Carmel’s poor results as Minister to cheerlead for her identity is one thing, but to censor parts of her history as to not trigger offence which actually provide enormous insight into why Welfare reform has been so stubbornly slow is not Journalism, it’s a Wellington Mommy Blogger vegan knitting circle using wool donated by transitioning sheep.
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Sepuloni to replace Chippie? Labour running out of bodies to throw in the meatgrinder?
Labour spells success…
F a i l u r e
what has she achived as a minister? there’s your answer
Gdgarin. That’s not the point. If Carmel Sepuloni was made chief surgeon at Auckland Hospital or prima ballerina with Wellington Ballet, patently unsuitable for both jobs, these people would celebrate just because a Pacifica female got the job, and they would scream racism at critics.
Fancy flying on a plane with a pilot who doesn’t know how to fly? This woman’s failure to do her job properly doesn’t bother anybody except Bradbury and numerous reputable organisations. She may damage at the same rate as a plane flying twice yearly into Mt Erebus but that doesn’t matter, because after all she is a Tongan and she is a woman and she scored a top job.
Sepuloni as Social Welfare Minister and Kelvin Davis as equally useless Minister for Children makes one wonder if they were appointed by a sociopath. Trevor Mallard escaping any sort of reprimand for his abusive behaviour at the Parliamentary protest is part of the same chilling dynamic, but in this insane woke world, nothing matters except the optics.
Nothing. She literally achieved nothing more then run to rubberstamp anything that the Labour Party puts in front of her. That is why she was hired, because she is part Tongan and because she so well does as she is told. No difference between her and Paula Bennet. The two ‘diversity’ picks of the purple uni party.
“wool donated by transitioning sheep”
OK Martyn, so if Carmel Sepuloni had treated beneficiaries to a “lolly scramble”, would you be OK about her being deputy PM?
Yeas if the 42 recommendations had been activated into law yes.
If they had my diabetes t1 friend would not have had to break up his relationship.
He would be now in a damn sight better mental health space and I sure as hell would have nopt had to spend multiple 10S of thousands going on to possibly 100s of thousands dollars along with the refusal to give decent benefit increases.
Pope Punctilious 11. No. Because she’s abolished the Commissioner for Children. How do we tell the kids that the government abolished their commissioner ? How can children understand that some sort of back-room committee from a fairly questionable government department now ‘ represents’ them? How realistic is it to expect one government department to monitor another better than an independent commissioner could or would ? Who is it more important to protect, vulnerable children or the institution which is meant to be protecting them ? What conceivable harm would result from keeping the Commissioner for Children and to whom? If Sepuloni doesn’t think that children are worth prioritising, is it realistic to think she places any sort of premium upon adults ? If she doesn’t listen to expert advice as a Minster, seems to me that she should be demoted, not elevated.
Using meritocracy would establish a better standard for promotion. But what kind of background and what achievement in what area would the various political parties look for. At present – identity, appearance, fluency in speech and thought, suitability of appeal to a particular community. Nothing there though about commitment and success to core needs of the community in both a practical and kind fashion. These two seem to be intertwined in getting good results for the people most requiring their attention.
Perhaps we need more disabled people like Theodore Roosevelt polio-recovered, blind persons like Helen Keller, etc. Outstanding and wide in their abilities and determination to overcome problems for themselves and wishing good for others as well. I think our politicians and their familiars, (sorry for rudeness to those who don’t deserve it) need to have had harder lives with help to rise, and then return the favour.
Was Teddy Roosevelt the president in a wheelchair?
He was diagnosed with poliomyelitis and underwent years of therapy,…Roosevelt remained paralyzed from the waist down and relied on a wheelchair and leg braces for mobility, which he took efforts to conceal in public.
Paralytic illness of Franklin D. Roosevelt – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Paralytic_illness_of_Fra…
Seven fascinating facts you probably didn’t know about Helen Keller
She was the first person with deafblindness to earn a college degree. …
She was great friends with Mark Twain. …
She worked the vaudeville circuit. …
She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. …
She was extremely political. …
She fell in love and almost eloped.
More items…
perkins.org https://www.perkins.org › seven-fascinating
Excellent Post @ MB.
I’m seeing far too many indicators that change is afoot by any means fair or foul. But to them, foul is more fun.
Bad things are afoot and there’s not a day that goes by where I can’t see markers to the fact that greater forces are trying to destabilise our politics.
But what can you tell the masses? That the sky’s falling? Are we being gaslighted by an elite hyper-rich group of sadistic and narcissistic sociopaths? Our politicians are barely human. They’re dishonest, they’re greedy and they know just how tremendous they are because it’s what they tell themselves they are while they tell us, in one form or another, that we’re not worthy so shut up and take your medicine. I remember seeing the evil glitter in judith collin’s piggy eyes. The same can be said for ruth richardson and paula bennet. Muldoon had it, jonky definitely had it, as did don brash, roger douglas and derek quigly. They couldn’t care at all for humanity or humanness. They enjoyed the psychopathy of what they might label as their cunning brilliance which was nothing more than an evil trick played on the unsuspecting.
I’m being serious when I beg for outside intervention to unearth, then show, just how deeply, dangerously, subjugated we’ve become which makes us sitting ducks for conquest in these heady times.
Our politicians are not acting in our best interests, that’s plain to see. When children and vulnerable adults within our society are being deliberately targeted, then who’s in control? What’s really going on?
There are now nine multi billionaires and yet we have kids in financial and emotional poverty and homelessness in adults. We definitely know something’s wrong but what is it? Who is it? It’s not me or anyone I know so what the fuck’s going on with the likes of sepuloni?
Here’s an interesting link to an explainer of just how easy it is to no longer be in control of your own mind.
‘Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies’
“A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. Logical fallacies are like tricks or illusions of thought, and they’re often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people. Don’t be fooled! This website has been designed to help you identify and call out dodgy logic wherever it may raise its ugly, incoherent head. Rollover the icons above and click for examples. If you see someone committing a fallacy, link them to it e.g. ” yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
We need bold and aggressive help to come in and lift the lid on the rats nest. If we don’t request that, or at least try something new and intelligent that can’t be spun back around on us, like groundswell, ag action or the occupation of parliament’s lawns, then my fear is we’re going to lose our AO/NZ to foreign power/money. Sepuloni suggests they’re already at work.
What about starting a checklist of required attributes in a politician or administrator. Then if a certain number of a particular priority are ticked that results in a star rating which could be extended with a plus or minus. So someone could be top, but 5star minus (eg a weak spot of not approving, under education, schools to use a quiet room for violent or distracted pupils, or teachers). These occasions to be noted in an official book and signed by the principal or deputy.
Let’s figure out what we want and what is reasonable to expect. Do we want all politicians to have some qualification of practical experience of something viable and not just be some influential so and so’s s’ord’. There may come a time when some parliament clerk appeals to the assembly with ‘Is there a Plumber in the House?’ We should be ready.
Looking at Nick Smith’s replacement in Nelson – qualifications sound more suitable for a diplomatic position:
Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from Brown University in USA.
Senior Research Specialist at Princeton Uni.
Concurrent roles in research, consulting, and teaching for IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank with focus – on improving public sector performance.
(He is still connected to the USA hegemony of guidance of governments – called gentle persuasion or do it our way or else – unspecified which outcome.)
Now remote work as part of teaching faculty at the Leadership Academy for Development at Stanford University.
He’s aspirational for Nelson ..a National government that will deliver for people.
(If they are going to start a DeliverBnB no need – present courier services fine for me.)
He says rising costs, fuelled by “wasteful” government spending, are hitting families hard, and with interest rates being hiked to keep a lid on inflation, he added that those with mortgages are facing increased repayments in the hundreds of dollars a week.
Another one word-perfect off Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Modern Times’ production line of middle-management jokers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwahG1s4dqI
If after six years a sitting MP has not put forward a bill – and that can be something that would benefit their constituency, then they must retire. It would weed the out the useless eaters, the fence sitters, the lazy ones that are there for the ride and good food out very quickly.
compare and contrast with georgina bayer in terms of effectiveness yes I know minister and mp are different but at least bayer made the effort for her electors
Don’t you find it ironic that you’ve been calling for a revolution for decades but then when there actually is one, you find you’re the target, white man?
LOL
Yes, grimly funny isn’t it.
It’s not a revolution, merely a distraction to keep the peasants occupied.
No Comment. Yes. Divide and rule is very much the essence of identity politics
and it has been working quite well so far. PM Ardern’s espousal of a two-tier society was disquieting, but government may be back-tracking on that, dunno.
identity politics mmm ga does this mean the right will drop their identity politics moral panic around drag queens????
Wrote to that woman once, explained the situation I found myself in and the reply was a regurgitation of every failed attempt I had made to get help or assistance from the govt as if that was helping me. Thoughts of disgust cross my mind everytime I see her face.
A little secret, (nearly 100%) Minister’s do not reply to letters they just sign them out.
Someone at MSD drafted the reply and it was sent to the Minister to sign.
I challenge you to name one better Minister of MSD since 1975.
A real increase in benefits, and the change from the miserly CPI increase each year on top of that (why that was not one of the recommendations is beyond me – because there was a real decrease in benefit value each year via the CPI assessment).
And the significant increase in outside earnings before abatement to $160.
Weak field, but perspective.
soc not to mention the msd clawbacks of bennies rises…which LINO was well aware of…a headline figure is not cash in the hand.
Yep, NZ Labour Caucus has continued the “war on the poor” begun by Roger Douglas and extended by NZ Natzos through the 90s inclusive of Ruth Richardson’s MOAB, and Helen Clark’s ‘Jobs Jolt’ in the early 00s.
It seems such sadistic pleasure for the MPs to deal to the underclass originally created by Rogernomics and the mass 1980s/90s sackings in Forestry, Works, Local Bodies, Manufacturing, Post and Telecommunications, Maritime, Rail, and clothing and textiles.
No significant retraining undertaken in South Auckland or the Hutt or the East Coast just a handover of public wealth to the bludging petit bourgeoisie and corporates.
Yeah, she got her appointment by being quiescent and the right identity. Defending Labour’s horrible under-performance for the neediest. A good Labour politician. They were always more about supposed ‘realpolitik’ (Trotter’s ‘art of the possible’) than anything.
Not one of the recommendations? Astounding, and surprising, despite our knowledge of Labour’s bare-faced hypocrisy. And I’m expected to vote for another Labour-led govt? I’d like to throw a little gunpowder into the fire.