By Chris Trotter*
Very few New Zealanders will have heard of Rory Stewart. Those with a keen eye for the absurdities of politics may recognise the name as that of the hapless Tory cabinet minister who fronted for David Cameron’s government during the catastrophic British floods of 2015. It was Stewart who, glumly – and hilariously – informed the news media that: “[T]he flood walls are working well. The only problem is that the water is coming over the top.”
Not the sort of line that is easy for anyone, let alone a politician, to live down. Perhaps surprisingly, Stewart did recover from his prize-winning clanger and went on to hold many more ministerial portfolios under Cameron and Teresa May.
Boris Johnson, however, was a force of nature Stewart couldn’t survive – even if he’d wanted to. When the extreme Brexiters forced May to resign, Stewart offered himself as the sane alternative to Johnson. Roundly rejected by his fellow Tories, Stewart was then cast out of the Conservative Party altogether by the unforgiving Johnson.
Fascinating though Stewart’s career may have been, the only reason he is again being talked about is because he has written an unusually effective memoir entitled “Politics on the Edge”, in which he lays bare the dangerous inadequacies of the working model of politics currently in use across the Western world. In a powerful essay for the Guardian newspaper, published over the weekend, Stewart summarises the working assumptions of that model:
“The polling graphs, which had brought Bill Clinton and Tony Blair to victory, looked like bell jars with the votes heaped in the centre, and few at the extremes. This era had left a whole generation of politicians with three assumptions: that liberal global markets were the answer to prosperity; that prosperity would spread democracy; and that the world would be governed by a liberal global order.”
With our own general election less than a month away, it is alarming how much of New Zealand’s politics is still governed by these three assumptions. Certainly, National and Labour, the two major parties, in whom close to two-thirds of the voters place their trust, have yet to demonstrate, in either their political demeanour, or their policy platforms, any convincing evidence that they concur with Stewart’s assessment that since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09 “all this has changed”.
Equally alarming is how closely Stewart’s experiences as a cabinet minister chime with what so many close observers of New Zealand politics have reported about the behaviour of our own executive branch of government. There is an ominous familiarity about Stewart’s reflections on the way contemporary politics is conducted:
“I had discovered how grotesquely unqualified so many of us, including myself, were for the offices we were given ….. It was a culture that prized campaigning over careful governing, opinion polls over detailed policy debates, announcements over implementation.”
That last sentence, in particular, could serve as the epitaph of the Sixth Labour Government.
Stewart’s most frightening observation, however, concerns the reckless excavation of the once proud mound of centre-ground:
“The old bell jar opinion poll, with the votes in the centre, [has] been replaced by a U-shape with the votes at the extremes.”
While New Zealand has yet to experience the extreme polarisation to which the United States has fallen prey, there exists a level of dissatisfaction with the way politics is being conducted that could easily be exploited by a populist politician less benign than Winston Peters and more effective than Brian Tamaki.
That such a figure has not arisen, either here or in the United Kingdom, bears out Stewart’s observations concerning the general level of knowledge and competence possessed by the political classes of most western democracies.
Certainly, it is hard to argue with his general thesis that because there continues to be broad agreement among the political and financial elites about how a twenty-first century society and economy should be run, leaving our ideologically redundant politicians to vie with one another for the coveted title of “person the ordinary voter would most enjoy having a drink with”. Stewart would be the first to concede that, in the political celebrity stakes, Boris Johnson is without peer. What his Guardian essay (not to mention Johnson’s and our own Jacinda Ardern’s careers) makes clear, however, is that celebrity is not enough.
The fascist leader, Benito Mussolini was much admired by middle-class Britons for making the notoriously unreliable Italian trains run on time. What was deemed admirable in the 1920s is making a resurgence in the 2020s. Democracy is entering that extraordinarily dangerous political space where a political ideology becomes inextricably associated with failure.
It is the principal reason for the Russian people’s troubling indifference (some would say contempt) for democratic values. In their minds, the global elites’ promotion of freedom, democracy and neoliberal capitalism coincided with the simultaneous collapse of Russia’s national prestige and their own personal well-being. Vladimir Putin’s popularity is due, to no small degree, to his success in restoring a fair measure of both.
Similarly, Donald Trump’s enduring political clout arises from his ability to make the degraded white American working-class feel proud again. Democracy is for college kids, sneer the Deplorables, apparently unaware that for a frightening proportion of woke college kids, democracy is also an over-rated political system.
Democracy’s steady retreat across the globe has left the moderate Tory, Stewart, reaching for such NGO panaceas as citizens’ assemblies and grass-roots, self-help initiatives. He is plenty smart enough, however, to know that these are nowhere near enough. What he, and a great many moderate politicians like him, are struggling to come up with is a democracy that works.
It’s not easy. This is how he describes the fork in the road at which he, a cabinet minister still in possession of a working brain and conscience, eventually arrived:
“I found myself struggling to produce policies that were other than either a grey compromise between past ideals and the populist present, or policies of the new right, cloaked in the language of the old centre. I acknowledged that the liberal consensus had failed to support manufacturing, adequately regulate the financial industry or invest appropriately in areas such as the north-east. But I struggled to come up with an alternative that did not echo Jeremy Corbyn’s nostalgia for the borrowing, protectionism and subsidies of the 70s.”
Which, depressingly, is where New Zealanders still in possession of a working brain and conscience find themselves struggling, just 26 days out from the General Election of 2023.
*Chris Trotter has been writing and commenting professionally about New Zealand politics for more than 30 years. He writes a weekly column for interest.co.nz. His work may also be found at http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com.
70 Comments
Mr Stewart’s brilliantly inept explanation of a real problem is hardly unique. Politicians and bureaucrats have been allowed excessive liberty to walk and talk around the subject and/or question. Helen Clark got sick of it too with her “state the bleeding obvious.” Down here in Christchurch we had a (now disappeared) water services manager whose explanation of a water storage pond being polluted was something like - this is the hole in the fence where animals got in.
Stewarts quote was indeed ripe picking for a media long on selling BS and short on in depth examination of facts, without ideological point scoring. Even an idiot could surmise his comment as meaning flood protection was working as planned, but the physical event was beyond planned capacity.
Get back to were democracey is Majority rules and one man one vote. Not the BS MMP wereby a minority can control and implement govt. And a govt dosnt appease a minority over everyone else. Everyone lives to say how well Singapore runs etc. Well they have literally had the same govt since independence and everyone is treated the same. And you follow the law if not suffer the consequences maybe NZ should follow them
I don't think it's the fix that you think it is. The UK still has FPTP, and they have more problems than us. The US still has FPTP, and has some legendarily terrible outcomes.
I'm open to changing the electoral system to something like STV or something similar but going back to FPTP would be a regressive move that would only benefit Labour and National who are both inept. As for Singapore it probably isn't 100% accurate to say they are all treated the same, there is a huge underclass of migrant workers who get treated pretty poorly along with some other marginal social choices made by the government.
Voting in the UK is a depressing proposition - nearly everyone will have exactly zero impact, every election, because they live in a safe seat. Elections are decided in relatively few swing seats.
As you say, the outcomes of single party rule there are easy to see and I don't know why we would want to replicate them.
As stated in the article all western democracies are having problems and no system is perfect but considering only one other western country has MMP (Germany cause a little man with a funny mustache had to much power) as no other western country will touch it. Re Singapore again no country is perfect but I know if I walk down the main street at 4.00 am I an pretty safe how about Queen St?
By no means is it a widespread system, but MMP is used by more than just NZ and Germany. Including, if you must focus just on the 'west', the UK devolved assemblies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation#…
How would reverting to FPTP actually solve any of our current problems though? Crime would likely be the same, it's hardly a unique problem to NZ, Australia has similar issues in Melbourne, San Francisco is magnitudes worse than Auckland, London will be the same. That's just one issue but many other problems we are facing are just as present in FPTP systems.
In a lot of ways we are quite lucky with our system, stuff like an independent electoral body means that gerrymandering is a non-issue which is huge. I would actually say a bigger issue is the MMP threshold which dilutes the ability of people to actually vote for who they want. I can't see how more accurate representation could be worse than going back to having only two options.
So Larry one MMP is one person one vote. Strange as all the signs I see want only Mt party vote not my actual vote. Apparantly the party knows best who to put into govt rather than me. With the true one person one vote system which we don't have. I vote for the person that says what they are going to do. If they don't then next time they don't get my vote. Please explain how that is a dictatorship. Sounds like democracy to me
Churchill, House of Commons in 1947:
[I]t has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, and that public opinion expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters.
Rory Stewart is not seeing the outcomes he would like ( ".. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair .. victory " , presumably followed by Rory Stewart victory .. ) therefore he concludes that the system is somehow broken. I think he is a clever man - but this is simply loser's talk.
Agreed. Representative democracy will always be flawed.
a) We have a MMP threshold that is too high - this stops innovation
b) Government has no goal or objective (it should be in a constitution). e.g. to provide a fair and equitable NZ that seeks to improve wellbeing per captia and the distribution of that wellbeing, & that the wellbeing is an economic+social+environmental measure (i.e. not just financial).
c) Thus, political parties carve out their own niche & objectives and pander to their funders and vote base.
d) We don't get to vote issue by issue (or see a detailed wellbeing analysis on each issue) so have to suffer through whichever party is in power implementing some absurd policies, especially those that don't improve net wellbeing per capita.
No goal? The goal is growth. Same goal as a nasty infection. Which is why as living standards drop and instability rises, the political class, who all sing the same song sheet, look at each other and agree the solution is more growth.
No understanding of the problem means no understanding of the solution.
I agree with the analysis, but not with the conclusion as it relates to NZ. The parties in NZ that yearn for a return to some 'nirvana' of the past (National and ACT) are those on the right, not the left.
Even Winston, the elder statesman of NZ politics, is not a Bernie Sanders or a Jeremy Corbyn. That was Jim Anderton and he really has no current equivalent.
Labour is nostalgic in the fond belief that the civil service way back - and academia et al - was less self absorbed, and with focus on public good.
Which they are no longer.
Interesting article - so what you're saying is they (Labour) want to go back to the public service days of Gliding On? Don't think so.
'Back in the day' we had a Ministry of Works - it was huge - and it largely served as NZ's trades polytechnic of its time. Same for the government owned radio stations - they were the training grounds for the private sector. And nurses were trained within hospital settings.
You are right - the world has changed and with a lot of the new/improved management of resources, comes the need for scientists and other tertiary educated professionals working within government. And the polytechnics have replaced on-the-job trades training.
Where government (and universities) went wrong, to my mind, was the 'birth' of public administration/policy analyst type degrees. No specialist subject knowledge, aside from governance. Same is true for 'business administration/commerce' degrees and public/media relations.
Don't disagree with the article at all - many of our current government servants have (unwittingly in many cases) taken on jobs that are 'make work' schemes. Same is true in local government. And the thing that really astounds me is that they all claim to be run off their feet. The Lange/Douglas administration made the mistake of adopting 'managerialism' in terms of departmental governance - they split the policy and operations sides of the business of governing - and operations became the (very) poor cousin. Nuts, really. No wonder we are where we are.
Civil servants no longer wear walk shorts and or cardies. Can look quite flash.
But it's still "Gliding On".
Check out " Utopia " on Netflix.
HR 'process' is the new NZR make work. Don't dare suggest a productive shortcut.
Pleased to see you get the article.
Yes, I fully agree about people trained in generic process, if that's the right word. But no subject knowledge.
But it's not Gliding On in that, (and your example of dress/attire is a good one) government service has become corporatised.
One thing I loved in going from government servant to academic was that I could throw out the suits and wear what the students wore :-).
I'd come from a long career in the private sector before doing a 5-year stint in government - just the number of times I was required to move office and/or building during that 5-year stint was unbelievable waste. I don't think I can recall a time when some kind of office/floor refits weren't going on! As I said, make work.
Quite funny as in the weeks before I took on that job, I even got a call about what office I'd like on the floor that my head office staff were housed on :-). The caller suggested I come in and view the choices. I laughed and said I was too busy to do that, and said, just give me any office, I'll be happy! It was all very flash - and I got a view of the Beehive. What an excellent name for that building :-).
Do check out the "Utopia" programme. It's Gliding On, forty years on.
There is the view that the large corps are the same as the civil service. There are quite bizarre processes in both. Which you have described for the service.
For the large corps and the service both, they don't have to be productive, they survive by taking control of their environments. And pay big attention to that bit. I would toss in academia to that analysis.
What then occurs is a turn to leftist politics to distort institutions and create new ones for a never-ending list of elite causes.
IMO once anyone uses leftist and far right the credibility of their reporting is lessened.
Aside from that what is the real culprit? I read the article as literally highlighting one of the ills of capitalism that is now pervasive in our modern thinking. Capitalism and therefore society places it's highest value on monetary wealth hence the term 'elite' predominantly used in reference to the financially successful (no matter the means used). The predominant narrative of capitalism is "rags to riches", upward mobility, climbing the property ladder, getting rich - these all imply that the goal is to make it as an elite. The fact that public service is just as captured by the narrative doesn't turn it into leftist and rightist semantics.
I'm not sure about the whole "assaults on Western civilisation". Wouldn't it be more apparent that as we progress in knowledge, as we become more educated, we then become more aware of the imbalances that have developed in society? Would it not also mean that we've also developed a conscience over the means of much of our development? It's the elites in various institutions that then use this to create more division, to influence the blame game amongst the masses to cement their positions as part of their competition amongst each other. I remember not long after the GFC many "elite" making public statements that they needed to reign in the imbalances otherwise the pitchforks were coming for them. They placated the masses while they continued with the same practices. Elites get afraid, do whatever they can to mislead and distract the masses, as they have no intention of overthrowing the system. It works too well in their favour.
I enjoy listening to Rory on The Rest is Politics podcast. The level of discussion is light years ahead of anything in NZ media. However he is an Old Etonian a school that has produced 35% of Britains prime ministers. The problem with many western governments is that they lack socioeconomic diversity at the upper level. Therefore they don’t understand what it means to be state educated, have no inherited wealth and have to work for a salary.
https://amp.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/aug/28/elitism-in-britai…
I think, all of western politics has been reduced different version of how to save neo-liberalism (only maybe the Maori Party partially escape the ideology). The right's ideas are to "try" or promise to reset us to 20-30 years ago where it appeared to be working and the left want to slowly transition towards "global" economic fascism or corporatism* as required (anyone need this explained?).
We can't go back because we have already financialised everting and borrowed against it. Fascism obviously is unwanted and will also fail as weak politicians will not be able to stand up to big business.
I don't know what the solution is for NZ (what would actually want if we were to come to realise neo-liberalism is a dead end, IDK) but maybe we could give these "dictators" who keep winning their elections a bit more credit.
*Edit
Sorry need to be more specific there. I mean the economic side of fascism or top-down corporatism. Examples of this only supermarkets being allowed to open during Lockdowns (they were given the right to be the corporate for food retail), our building supplies industry failing to supply gib yet being protected from competition. Labour centralised (or are in the process of) control of our polytechnics and water effectively trying to create a "corporate groups"* to control them.
Since I mistakenly brought it up: You could argue there is not another way to do lockdowns but I think Labour made the fascist choice a few more times than necessary during lock down. If you had to assign the phrase "team of 5 million" to an ideology what would it be?
*using the corporatism sense of the word
The closing of butchers and green grocers in lockdown was illogical. Instead of popping into my local (and excellent) Tuakau butcher, where it is rare to have more than two customers in the shop at the same time, I had to queue with a crowd of people to get into the Pukekohe Countdown. It handed more customers to the duopoly, undermined small businesses and increased the risk of disease transmission. I wonder if there was any lobbying from supermarkets to implement this as a solution. Off topic but your post triggered me!
I don't think despair over Labour's decisions is off topic for a CT column and it expands on what I was trying discuss. I am arguing that corporatism at least partially explain this.
Labour needed their lockdown but could not implement without cooperation. They did not trust all the retailers to implement everything properly so they went to the "corporate" and came up with a plan to it together. The "corporate" was effectively just the supermarkets so they said don't worry just let only us open and we will make sure your pandemic measures are implemented. It's the state and corporate acting as one. (If you did not get those vibes from the one or two press releases they had on the topic you might not follow this)
Another example was the Herald promoting the 90% target before government did. We are not sure exactly how this worked but the corporate press and government were almost inseparable during this period.
And, yes Countdown butchery sections are horrible.
Would it be less emotive to use the phase "top down corporatism". (Just ignore that authoritarian corporatism is a pretty good description of Fascism.)
If you were to look up the definition for "Corporate groups" you would find that things other than companies can be collectivised into organised corporates such a trade unions (they tried to forcibly create unions without popular support). You can see them appoint corporates or deal with them pretty excursively throughout their latest term in government.
Another example is banks implementing environmental standards for agricultural lending. Their profits are being left alone and people and farmers are now under additional coercion to conform.
Co-governance could be considered creating a Maori corporate. The 3waters boards defiantly would be corporates. Though I think it's a stretch to say this comes from corporatism.
I think we are closer to "everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state" than we were 3 years ago.
Great article, very pertinent.
What we really need, is a government and political system that is based on meritocracy, not ideology and/or popularity. We need to vote in people from government or business who have had real success in their respective areas. And we need to do it with a long term mindset, have long term focussed institutions, particularly in areas like infrastructure and housing.
That's not going to be accomplished with the system we have in place now.
Spitballing democratic reforms:
- We vote for an authority who appoints the government ministers and PM. The authority can change ministerial positions as they need, act as a balance to the executive branch doing stupid stuff
- The authorities job would be to promote people into ministerial positions from experts in the field, not based on popularity/fame/dog whistling. They also promote/hire the top levels of government institutions, not allow the minister to decide who it is.
- The authority should base all of its decisions of who leads on that persons ability to lead and ability to deliver. There should be no discussion of their political views etc. For instance, a doctor that lead a high performing ER team, who then went on to lead a high performing DHB would be a great candidate for health minister. A business leader who created various successful businesses, would be a great candidate for Economic Development portfolios.
- For the top jobs, the authority should look at who are the best statespeople and who would be the best face to lead the country forward. Also look at their communication and people skills, as well as negotiation/conflict resolution etc.
- The executive branch, including ministers, have the power to set policy that is worked through with a cabinet of all differing perspectives. They should also have the ability to debate anyone without any idea of political ideology or restrictive supply agreements etc. Policy is created via recommendations (tax reports/productivity reports/infrastructure reports) that are created by independent bodies as a to-do list for the politicians.
- Performance of ministers and the executive are reviewed every year. If they fall below par for long periods of time without good reason, the person is replaced.
- The authority members themselves can be replaced, given the agreement of the PM and the Governor General. 3 institutions each watching each other, keeping checks and balances.
Surely a political system based on meritocracy is the answer going forward?
The utter disconnect is astonishing for these political types. These factors were self evident to me growing up in a deindustrialised suburban sprawl, not sure how anyone else didn't see it. I remember thinking how nonsense most of our economics lessons were, the untested assumptions of the progress to service economics, or the untested assumptions of the end of history, taught as the GFC kicked off.
The real answer for the contempt of 'democracy' isn't dislike of democracy. It is that democracy is fake. You don't get any choice on the policies presented, the candidates who are picked to represent the establishment parties, if your concern set isn't in the media, tough luck. The issues discussed, the problems at hand are decided by private money power and media, rather than what ordinary people are concerned about. Who picked Luxon? Who picked Jacinda (despite the caucus voting for Robertson multiple times to be rebuked by the Unions), Why is the election focused on tax and crime rather than housing and immigration, the two biggest factors of our current economic crisis.
The boomer truth regime on figures like Putin is ridiculous. I literally don't care if other people prefer a dictator or an emperor or an autocrat. Russia has deep ideological and historic reasons to be skeptical of democracy, including the looting of Russia by little hat wearing Oligarchs during the 90s.
There was a study in 2014 that effectively concluded the US was a plutocracy ruled by money power where ordinary people almost never got what they wanted. How is that different from New Zealand?
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/articl…
"I literally don't care if other people prefer a dictator or an emperor or an autocrat"
People can prefer what they like, as long as doesn't affect their neighbour. Older Russians are nostalgic for the soviet era, because the current mob have looted the country and left them with 3rd world living standards. Russian propaganda has taught them this is the decadent wests fault. Younger Russians have seen the west and know their govt is full of it, many having voted with their feet.
There's a sliding scale of how bad conditions can get for the average Joe, depending on system of governance. Democracy is the best system by a long stretch, but it only works if the average citizen hasn't been trained to be an idiot, which is the case in the US and increasingly so in other democracies.
The Global American Empire did literally everything short of kinetic violence to mess with Russia. The 2004 colour revolution, the 2014 Maiden, the sanctions, the original forcing of the Black Sea Fleet out of Sevastapol etc. The Russians were more or less forced to use kinetic force to maintain their place. It isn't out of propaganda that Russia invaded Ukraine, it is realpolitik and the fear of encirclement. It is as if the Chinese were garrisoning troops in Mexico and threatening to host Nuclear Weapons there.
You didn't even engage with my criticism on the democracy thing, you just repeated the boomer truth regime point that old people who watch TV hear on TVNZ. The average citizen has no say, we just get blanketed in drivel.
"The Russians were more or less forced to use kinetic force to maintain their place." Bollocks! Putin has been very clear about his reasons for his unprovoked invasion. He considers Ukraine Russian property. People living in Ukraine would rather die than be a vassal province of a mafia state.
If you believe you'd prefer living under a "dictator or an emperor or an autocrat." is preferable to democracy, even if flawed, I'd suggest try it first?
I'm not a bot or shill poster for GAE, so I don't particularly care. Ukraine is naturally in the sphere of influence of Russia, the GAE regime is going to be defeated in Ukraine. Victory in Ukraine isn't going to happen, but defeat will be an enormous victory for everyone who wants a new world not ruled by the American Regime.
The Ukrainian state is run by a cabal of evil people who are systematically looting the country, forcibly conscripting its people and running a cultural/economic/social revolution. The Zelensky regime outlawed all other parties, is not going to hold any elections while the war is on and is only held up by US foreign policy forcing all its vassals to keep Ukraine alive. They have effectively banned the main orthodox church there in favour of a local spinoff while persecuting its priests and parishioners.
It is an evil puppet regime of the United States at the direction of awful Neocons like Victoria Nuland and Anne Applebaum.
Not everything is about the USA, and a Russian victory is a defeat for everyone who isn't an utter nihilist. They offer the world nothing but gangsterism and a hunger for empire. Literally nothing except 'well we're not the USA'.
Ukraine is an independent nation that was invaded. They decided they didn't want to be part of Russia.
Who gets to decide who is 'naturally' in the sphere of Russia? Putin, presumably? Should the Baltics, Hungary, Poland, all roll over and accept the 'natural' order of things? Believe it or not, the people who actually live in those countries don't want to be part of a Russian empire - so they seek help where they can.
LOL. "banned the main orthodox church" Would this be the same "main church" run by a ex KGB operative that blesses bombs to be dropped on civilians with holy water?https://www.euronews.com/2023/02/06/patriarch-kirill-worked-for-the-kgb…
"The Ukrainian state is run by a cabal of evil people who are systematically looting the country" Good luck to them getting rid of the influence of Russian thievery, cronyism, and generally corrupt and destabilising behavior.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100076/volodymyr-zelensky-s-approv….
The state of Ukraine is under existential threat . Of course elections have been suspended. At least Ukraine does have democratic elections, although that's not fundamentally an issue for you.
https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/looking-back-at-dela…
I've worked for intelligence agencies before too as have thousands of others even in NZ, I wrote software for them. Big fucking deal. It is still extremely oppressive and destroying all your social fabric, all the organic communities of your society to keep the Russians in a mutual meatgrinder is morally repugnant.
Russia has slowly lost its Oligarchs, Putin was originally put into power by the Oligarchs but bit by bit, they are falling away and fleeing to Israel.
The reason I attack the election matter is the political decision making is nonsensical. Having literal 'Not one step back' policies of executing fleeing soldiers (which they do impose) and the refusal to just concede defeat, give up the ethnic Russian territory and go forward. They are losing thousands of men per day, which is just unsustainable. The whole idea of total war with no view of the political objectives of both sides, where this war is propagandized in purely moral terms rather than real political terms is delusional. It has resulted in these hundreds of thousands of deaths.
In my view, it can always get worse. The core principles guiding western capitalist exponential growthism are anti physical reality. There has to be a massive change to the way human society is run and the clueless fools that run it. In western society I see a tiny slither of hope for change. Unfortunately murdering scum like Putin gaining more influence means all that's left to do is count the days till total collapse.
You may not care about the people Putin has/is killing with his artificially generated crisis. A pseudo mystical motivation for restoring a Russian empire no one wants, or needs. The planet is in a dire enough state as it is, without attributing any further justification for butchery. It was really depressing the day the little egomaniac set his dogs loose. The war has shifted the worlds tiny attention span away from where it needs to be, much to the joy of the MIC.
I find many of your comments well articulated, but I can't agree with your position on Ukraine. Ukraine has a right to forge its own future and identity. "Ethnic Russian territory" is an artificial construct of historical Kremlin policy. Ukraine's problems have largely been an overhang from the soviet era. Russia needs to grow up, not grow out! If closer relations with Russia was a desirable prospect they wouldn't need to bash neighbours into submission to achieve international friendship. The only state that has remained under Russian control is Belarus and that was only achieved with yet more Kremlin thuggery.
"On July 14, 1944, 51,000 people, mostly Russians, could move to Crimea. They were provided with empty Crimean Tatar homes."
It was literally under the Russian Empire from what 1700 onwards? It was split into its current territory in ~1951 to purposefully make it half ethnic Russian and half ethnic Ukrainian. The Cossacks were the mounted warriors on the pay of the Russian state from what, 1500 onwards, constantly engaged in wars with the Ottomans and Southern Russian islamic states for 300+ years?
The 'ukraine' as an independent state is just a splinter state remnant of the Soviet Collapse in 1990.
Russian ethnic cleansing of Ukrainian identity is well under way!
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukrainian-children-fall-behind-wit….
You must consume different media to me? I've heard Holodomor mentioned relatively often.
https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/video/90-years-after-holodomor…
Good post blobbles. Solutions not gripes.
On the point of meritocracy, however, this has been missing for some time now. The education system is almost completely rotten from the inside-out & it's here that we see that the deliberate collapse of merit has been around for at least 30 years, probably longer. The dumbing down of our children over that time has lead to what we see in politics today - utter incompetence, and on a grand scale I might add. Our universities have been selling their fake narratives to our gullible children, who have been buying them up by the truck [debt] load.
The setting up of the single parent family has also been a disaster. Encouraged by poor law & the fanatical side of the ultra-feminism types, large swathes of our children grow up never knowing what having a functional father & mother-type family is like. Controlling the social[ist] narrative is imperative for their agendas where they say 'black is white' & 'wrong is right' every single night on your tv screen, no matter what channel you're watching.
Sigh.
The setting up of the single parent family has also been a disaster. Encouraged by poor law & the fanatical side of the ultra-feminism types, large swathes of our children grow up never knowing what having a functional father & mother-type family is like.
This sounds like someone preferring to follow a prejudiced narrative. The origin of single family welfare was born in an era of "functional" father & mother type family. Widows needed support as did those whose husbands up and left, and those who were victims of domestic violence. It was a time when most women did not earn incomes. The reason it has escalated would be more the fault of society than law. The more we've focused on a perverse form of economics, the less we're valuing family, the less we're learning relational abilities. Our history of power structures within relationships (family, education, work) only adds to this. There are many who have grown up in two parent homes who for various reasons have ended up as single parents themselves trying to do their best. There is a lack of wholistic support for many single parents which contributes to the ongoing challenge.
“I had discovered how grotesquely unqualified so many of us, including myself, were for the offices we were given…..
I think this is one of the most revealing observations from the text. Certainly true of NZ politics. Who is to blame and what is the solution? I think that until we as a society at large replace the neoliberal greed urge which has held sway for 40 years with a sense of respect for people, property and especially the natural world where the economy serves these general principles we are doomed as a civilisation. Maybe from the oncoming destruction of the world economy we can salvage some vestige of being civil to each other and the planet. I would hate to be a young person growing up in the current world.
As I approach my 7th decade my perspective is that every generation eventually recalls their first ~20 years as "the good years" despite how tough in comparison to later life they actually were. Something about the mind over time closing off the hard years & building resilience.
Young people can find it confronting if I suggest that they will eventually think "these are the good old days"
https://youtu.be/3MeVzVnKa4Q?si=3IyQ5cAgzvPjzCOx
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