By Chris Trotter*
There is anger out there in the electorate. At least one Labour candidate has been assaulted, and the home of a Te Pāti Māori candidate has been broken into repeatedly and a politically-inspired threatening letter left behind. Questioned by journalists, the Leader of the Opposition, Christopher Luxon, has confirmed that the National Party is in a heightened state of vigilance. Several examples of what the party believes to be credible threats of violence have been sent to the Police.
The key question in relation to actual or threatened violence on the campaign trail is its prevalence. Are we witnessing no more than a tiny number of anti-vax diehards lashing-out at the mainstream politicians they love to hate? Or, is the anger and frustration more extensive? Are people venting their rage against a system they no longer see as demonstrating any real understanding of, or empathy for, the concerns of the population?
Expressed most forcefully on social media, there is certainly a view abroad in the electorate that if citizens do not adhere to a particular view of the world, then their opinions will be dismissed by the Powers That Be as, at best, worthless, or, at worst, dangerous.
As the election campaign has unfolded, the number of entities challenged in this way has grown to include not only heretical individuals and fringe groups, but also political parties attracting mass support. Act and NZ First have been decried as racist, and even the ideological acceptability of the National Party has been challenged. Given that all the most recent opinion polling indicates that, between them, these parties encompass a majority of the electorate, their characterisation as political deplorables is alarming.
Over the course of the last half-century a curious reversal has taken place. Back in the 1970s a small minority of the population (most of them university students and trade unionists) lamented the fact that their “progressive” views on everything from foreign policy to women’s rights; the environment to Apartheid sport; were rejected by a substantial majority of New Zealanders. Since then, however, the political evolution of the nation has reached a point where the causes of minorities have become the convictions of the majority.
Over the course of the same half-century, the young idealists and activists, who once revelled in their status as the moral and political vanguard of the nation, have moved into positions of authority and influence. In the universities, the public service, the legal profession, the major political parties, and the news media, the heretical rebels of yesterday have become the orthodox mandarins of today. Unfortunately, as they made what Rudi Dutschke, student revolutionary of the 1960s, called “the long march through the institutions”, their conviction that “we”, the enlightened minority, are right, and “they”, the unenlightened majority, are wrong, has congealed into an unassailable truth.
As individuals and groups espousing ideas and causes endorsed by only the tiniest sliver of the population make their pitch for official recognition, they have every reason to anticipate success. The assumption, in nearly every case, is that the minority viewpoints of the present, like the minority viewpoints of the past, stand an equal chance of graduating into majority acceptance. Only their residual wariness of the democratic process, and the crushing power of the majority it embodies, has prevented the key state and private institutions from letting themselves get pushed too far ahead of public opinion.
The best guess as to what made society’s key institutions suddenly feel powerful enough to challenge – and even to overrule – such deeply embedded cultural and political concepts as science and democracy, is the Covid-19 Pandemic. In responding to their global and national crises, the governments of the Western nations rediscovered the ease with which emergencies can be used to “persuade” their populations to accept policies which, in normal circumstances, they would otherwise stoutly resist.
Although speaking of the US experience, investigative journalist Matt Taibbi’s remarks may also mutatis mutandis be applied to New Zealand’s. Assessing the contribution of Dr Anthony Fauci, the USA’s Covid Czar, Taibbi writes:
“Anthony Fauci showed proof-of-concept for the whole authoritarian package. He convinced the monied classes to embrace the idea of lying to the ignorant public for its own good, green-lit powerful mechanical tools for suppressing critics, engendered fevered blame campaigns … Only pandemic truths that eventually became too obvious to ignore prevented this story from having a worse ending. We’d better hope the door closes before the next emergency’s Answer Man tries the same playbook.”
The re-election of Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government not only reassured the progressive mandarins that, eventually, the majority can be relied upon to accept the judgements of the minority, but also, that the majority’s failure to be convinced no longer poses an insurmountable obstacle to progressive policy implementation. With the universities, the public service, the legal profession and the news media on side, a progressive political party can safely advance well ahead of public opinion. And, if they fail, there is always – as the occupation of Parliament grounds by anti-vaccination mandate protesters demonstrated – the Police.
Reassured of its apparent invulnerability, the post-2020 Labour Government threw caution to the winds. On matters pertaining to ethnic and gender politics it created an ideological salient positively begging to be attacked from all sides. Fatally underestimating the ability of social media to challenge the formerly unassailable influence of the mainstream media, Labour soon found itself confronted by a sizeable portion of the public which had not only stopped believing in them, but was also bloody angry with them.
Predictably, Labour’s political enemies moved swiftly to harness the electoral power unleashed by the public’s falling-out-of-love with, first, Jacinda Ardern, and then, after a brief period of hope that her successor might haul Labour back into line with public opinion, Chris Hipkins. By the opening of the 2023 election campaign, the polls were showing that Labour’s 2020 Party Vote of 50.01 percent had nearly halved. And Labour candidates were being assaulted.
True to their instincts, the “enlightened” minority struck back against the “racist” and “transphobic” majority, scolding their electoral representatives – especially Act and NZ First – for daring to align themselves with majority opinion on ethnic and transgender rights.
Nowhere was this elite disdain for populism more vividly displayed than on the weekend current-affairs shows, Newshub Nation and Q+A. The spectacle of two “progressive” young Pakeha journalists hectoring and pouring scorn on the Māori leader of NZ First, Winston Peters, was proof of just how little they understood the electorate they were doing their best to punish by proxy.
It is the news media’s job to elicit information from politicians – not to prosecute them. Peters’ promise to sort out TVNZ should be believed. If he finds himself in a position to carry out his threat, then it will only be because the angry majority has had enough – and voted accordingly.
*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.
167 Comments
We’d better hope the door closes before the next emergency’s Answer Man tries the same playbook.”
It would be very interesting to see what would happen, if faced with another cold/flu-like outbreak, they again tried to lockdown society and enforce multiple vaccinations.
The Who said it better
This documentary is called 'Died Suddenly'. Most of the public are yet to learn the impact of the vaccines, those who do are angry. Probably best not to watch this just before bed-time.
Total disinformation. Rebuked by several credible sites:
'Died suddenly' posts twist tragedies to push vaccine lies | AP News
‘Died suddenly’: Anti vaxxers twist tragedies to push vaccine lies - NZ Herald
‘Died Suddenly’ Pushes Bogus Depopulation Theory - FactCheck.org
They died suddenly - then the anti-vax trolling started - BBC News
And this today: New Zealand's Covid-19 response saved 20,000 lives - research | RNZ News
You don’t do your case much good by referring to news media as credible sites.
I didn’t check all your sources but the first two links are carrying the same story. Ie the NZ Herald got the story from Associated Press. Virtually all the international news we see in mainstream media comes from the following news agencies; Associated Press, Reuters and AFP (French based) to a lesser extent. It makes it quite easy to control the news we see.
Back to the subject. People will have to do their own research if interested.
Dr John Williams (note he is lecturer/teacher and is a doctor of philosophy rather than a medical GP) is someone who has been noting the excess deaths. He has the you tube channel and comments regularly.
Some other sources.
Well if you don't live in Auckland, you have no right to complain. People felt 'inconvenienced' at having to wear a mask and line up at the supermarket for what - a month outside of Auckland? It was awful here and about 1/3 of the shops here are still empty, but I would do it again if it meant I didn't have to see unnecessary death in the street and people debilitated for life.
The alternative approach, as advocated by some, was to not mandate a vaccine and not take serious preventative measures. Imagine that scenario - people dying from a virus and government saying "we could afford to fund a vaccine but we choose not to do anything - go and take personal responsibility and die quietly". Then there would be riots.
This is exactly the argument that was used by those in power - "you are all gonna die if you dont do what we tell you to do"
It was clearly only partly correct and well overdone - which lots of people understood
and as your comment re Auckland and others - divide and rule was part of the plan
I very much doubt there would be riots in that scenario. Perhaps, if it was a smallpox-like plague...
Regardless of your personal opinion it would still be interesting to see what happens if the situation happens again. Most likely voices such as yours would be less convincing and resistance would be more extreme.
Could be a "boy who cried wolf" scenario.
The authority's slowness to change was quite a concern. Omicron was so obviously a god-send according to the narrative yet lockdowns, vaccinations and restrictions continued.
Mandates or whatever you want to call them. Choice was removed, and I think more than anything else that happened, people whole-heartidly objected that. Oh and look what we've come to learn...most healthy people didnt need a vaccine, nor multiple of them to recover. This was a health/respiratory issue and not-one person came out and said, you should think about getting healthy if you fall into this category to help your chances, but imagine the woke army response to that. I would definitely not do it again, and yes, I lived in Auckland.
Absolutely dumbfounded of the general acceptance from the populous to do as they were told. The world over.
I think many people like myself see it as a wasted 2 years of their life. The Covid response was totally overcooked and turned into a convenient distraction for Labour to 100% focus on and drop everything else. Pretty poor to see the anti-vaxxers still be labelled as nutters, when we look back in 10 years time with all the long term health problems caused by the vax, many people will be forced to change their tune.
Don't hold your breath - there is no sign of the anti-vaxxers changing their tune despite the strong evidence that their stance is bad for their health, why would you think pro-vaxxers would be any different in your hypothetical future?
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/28076…
Maybe once they realise they have undiagnosed heart issues now. https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.230743
We'll see if that eventuates into genuine harm that overrides the benefits of the vaccine. For now, I'm happy in the 'lower mortality' group and don't regret receiving the Covid vaccine, or any of the other dozens of vaccines I've had in my life.
I do acknowledge that the Covid vaccine was marginal at best for children, but for adults I think the benefits were pretty clear and remain so. Especially for the elderly.
Your linked study is partisan bilge and achieves what exactly? I suppose I could give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you did not read it?
"...However, one alternative explanation is that political party affiliation is a proxy for other risk factors (beyond age, which we adjusted for) for excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as rates of underlying medical conditions, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or health insurance coverage,26-29 and these risk factors may be associated with differences in excess mortality by political party, even though we only observed differences in excess mortality after vaccines were available to all adults. ...Because data limitations prevented us from directly adjusting for these factors, their potential influence remains an important question for future research.
...Our study has several limitations. First, there are plausible alternative explanations for the difference in excess death rates by political party affiliation beyond the explanatory role of vaccines discussed herein. Second, our mortality data, although detailed and recent, only included approximately 83.5% of deaths in the US and did not include cause of death.
...Fourth, because we did not have information on individual vaccination status, analyses of the association between vaccination rates and excess deaths relied on county-level vaccination rates. ...It is unknown whether this county-level association persists at the individual level and whether it may be subject to the ecologic fallacy.9 The ecologic fallacy is the incorrect assumption that associations observed at an aggregated level (eg, a county) will be the same at the individual level."
Oh, I read it. There are provisos, as in all Scientific literature - very rare to get a single, knock-out blow when randomised controlled trials are not possible.
Seems pretty intuitive though, right? Dems more likely to be vaccinated than Reps, Reps suddenly start dying a higher rates just when vaccines start flowing into arms. Fits neatly with all the studies on the vaccine showing it reduces disease, or the consequences of disease.
Meanwhile, we're supposed to believe the anecdotes and vaguely suggestive studies that the vaccine is killing everyone, despite this not showing up in hard data? I don't get why people are tying themselves up in knots on a fairly simple issue.
I don't get why people are tying themselves up in knots on a fairly simple issue.
Hard data becomes soft when you look at
1./it requires someone to manually log the likes of a CARM report
2./ stats worldwide are unreliable due to the method of record e.g people who died with covid being categorised of dying OF covid.
Then you look at the likes of ACC claims which have been recorded with different diagnoses for the same thing making OIA responses less credible. There are a lot more people out there effected by the vaccination mandates. Most have been disbelieved, blocked for a time from accessing parts of society, friendships and families ruined by judgementalism thanks to the huge unavoidable media frenzy from the Labour government. This is why people make a big deal of it. Many lives have been changed forever.
I don't mean the vaccine mandate - that's a very fair discussion. I'm not convinced the evidence was strong enough to justify the restrictions placed on the unvaccinated and in general I support individual choice unless there's an overwhelming social benefit, which probably isn't the case this time. There's good arguments to be made that the later lockdowns were overkill and net-harmful.
But people are still arguing that the vaccine is more dangerous than the disease? Despite the excess mortality peaks inevitably lining up with the peaks of Covid infections, and then dropping back to baseline after the wave has passed? I don't get it, unless it's all driven by a desire to be proven 'right'? Is it the anger at society's response lashing out at the Science instead?
You used to be able to have quite an interesting debate on these topics, showing a different perspective but sometimes challenging my thought. Now you just seem to be angry. What happened?
The timely excess mortality data keeps rolling in in the USA and Europe, showing huge spikes from covid waves and mere ripples since. There are plenty of criticisms to be made of the covid response, but the theory that the vaccine is dangerous should be dropped unless dramatic new data arrives. It is disconcerting how many are taken in by these lies.
A week or so back i read an article on a scientific report which discussed the effects of the common cold and flu on people who had caught COVID. It was very interesting.
If people had not been vacinated, the common cold and flu effects wee significantly worse after having had COVID. If you had been vacinated, the effects were still worse, just less so, depending on how many vacinations you had had. In simple terms, COVID is nasty and I suspect all it's effects are yet to be identified. One way of looking at it, it appears to mess with your immune response.
Your referenced study is by its own admission subject to inaccuracies, lacks generalizability & has likely just found some relatively minor inflammation. All the authors words by the way, not mine - copied below for your reference, since I don't believe you have actually read the thing, just found a headline to support your position.
"even though vaccinated patients in this study showed elevated myocardial FDG uptake on PET/CT up to 180 days after vaccination, this could result from relatively minor inflammation and may not represent severe myocardial abnormalities"
"There are several limitations of this study. First, this is retrospective study from a single hospital and thus our findings may lack generalizability. Second, we did not prepare participants to obviate myocardial glucose uptake and excluded participants who had fasted for less than 12-hours and potentially lead physiological uptake and affect the result, although it showed statistically significant. Third, myocardial FDG uptake in scans that are not specifically performed for the assessment of cardiac inflammation and influenced by many factors (age, sex, insulin resistance, diet, etc.) is subject to inaccuracies."
Don't gaslight. I vividly recall the vast majority of people happily choosing to wear a mask in the days before an indoor mask mandate existed. I objected to having to participate in a government scanning system that enabled the tracking of our footsteps, even to the level of what religious services we attended (before even that was prohibited entirely). It was a violation of civil liberties, and I'd happily take a free and private society where people can make their own choices about risk, over a safe but emphatically unfree and Orwellian society.
Seriously? The average age of a covid death is 84 and has at least 3 co-morbidities. Nobody was dying in the street. All that was needed was to lockdown the rest homes and hospitals that contained the extreme elderly, and everyone else could have just got on with life. The vaccine did not prevent transmission so it did nothing to slow or stop the pandemic. For everyone under 50 it was a complete waste of time, and all that happened is that otherwise healthy people now have heart damage from it.
Correct it should have been given to everyone over the age of 60 and especially in rest homes, the rest of un need not bother. Didn't get the vax and extremely glad I didn't take it, never even got Covid or if I did there were no symptoms, total waste of billions of dollars.
Auckland's last 2 lockdowns were completely OTT and were politically motivated to appease a significant caucus minority. The city had a vaxxed rate of 95%, higher than any other region and yet we were locked in our bubbles while other areas struggled to get over 75%. Many businesses went under and our local shopping centre has never recovered.
The govt maintained their elimination strategy as it won them the 2020 election. The strategy was doomed to failure as soon as the virus got into the underworld as there was no way they could control it. And yet they persisted with it for political gain.
They were far too slow to adapt testing, MIQ isolation and vaccination strategies to the mutating virus. This was also politically motivated. RAT tests were unreliable (we know best since we've eliminated it once before), until they weren't, and were requisitioned from private businesses. MIQ was still in place even whilst NZ had a higher Covid rate than many other countries. The MIQ lottery was a cruel farce.
The phases, stages and traffic light systems were bureaucratic inventions that served no purpose. They were design around an ongoing persistent virus threat and didn't reflect the nature of the virus mutating into more benign forms.
As for the mobile alarms and 1pm Covid updates, these were mass auto-response conditioning tactics that Kim Jong Un would be proud of. Aderns lectures from the podium of truth also descended into a good cop, bad cop farce. Here's the good news :- x% tested, y% vaxxed, etc. Now over to Dr Bloomfield for the bad news....
Hoping the next government open a full and independent Royal Commission of inquiry into the response.
Curled up in that too was an unfortunate tendency that indicated that the government was actually quite partial to having the population under their control. In other words, we know, we say, you do. Amply evidenced by the ridiculous minutiae that unfolded. For instance not being able to have a pee inside at a neighbourhood barbecue. Hipkin’s pathetic restrictions on the Auckland border leading up to Christmas which the police in the end said, go find someone else to do the impossible. That thrust and motivation was I suggest a very disturbing element that emerged out of that Labour government.
I darno Zachary. What I Iearnt is that in the face of a pretty pathetic virus and media overload, Kiwis rolled over and lay prone to get their belly scratched. Instead they left themselves open to be violated. And violated they were. Most seemed to love it. A disgusting and shocking display of utter gutlessness. Thats what I wont forget.
Actually, a virus tends to become less deadly and more transmissible, over time. The Government actions bought us that time, and our death-rate is therefore permanently lower.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_death_rates_by_country
Look as us vs other first-world countries like the US, and Britain.
Most of us happily curtailed our activities for the greater good - yet many small-minded self-serving folk now see it as a curtailment of their 'rights'.
Interestingly, that cohort are on the wrong track re other existential issues - they tend to cling to 'growth' which requires ever-more-strident denial of all repercussions, as time goes on.
Sad to watch, really. Pathetic, comes to mind...
Pathetic was the irrational fear instilled by our national leaders to enrich themselves and US Pharmaceuticals, and drive ourselves to paupers. For that is what it did. That is what we have become. By not taking the hard road we wrecked our health system. We sacked thousands of willing health workers. Willing teachers. We suffer the consequences now. We are a poorer nation, that does not have the resources now to change our culture to being more respectful of our natural world. Who cares about how PDK when you have to fight to feed your family? We were a rich country that could afford to care. Now we are much poorer and much sicker.
Yep. I think I am one of the people who actively ignored people like PDK all the way through the so-called pandemic. I assumed that it was just overblown hype. Got a mask exemption (which anyone could get), continued to travel, didn't participate in the lockdown, still went to the office during lockdown, flew on planes, and went to the supermarket without wearing masks, avoided vaccination.....and nothing happened. There was lots of finger-pointing and a lot of self-righteous people who figured they had some sort of authority to tell me what to do...but the reality was that they had none, and that included security guards, police, customs agents, the lot. They had no authority and I happily told them so and went about my business. Nothing happened, I didn't get sick, I didn't die, and neither did anyone around me. I believe it was quite frightening how easily people were conned by the information being spread about how dangerous this was. The reality was that the pandemic revealed that our politicians are actually thick and have no clues in a crisis. The reason that they did what they did is that they were simply scared that they would be wrong, and so they copied what everyone else was doing instead of thinking it through. They were actually afraid the their jobs, not the people they supposedly serve.
Yeah. Me. I ignored it, and I was right. As a result, I don't have all the problems that you seem to now have. I kept calm and carried on. Many others did also. It was the right thing to do if you consider the facts as they are today (and many many people suspected that would be the case). Many others including our leaders panicked, made the wrong choices, and now we have all the bad outcomes that come from poor decision making. At the time you and your ilk were proclaiming the sky would fall in, everyone would die. You were wrong. YOU.
But the government's strategy to deal with the mutations of the virus didn't adapt over 2 years. The initial lockdowns were justified when the virus was in its most toxic stages, but were completely OTT after two years with the Delta and Omicron mutations being far less risky.
You seen to be omitting the fact that our health system was running at capacity. Any additional burden brought about by a large Omicron peak would have have crippled our healthcare system. The point was to slow the transmission to keep the public system operational, it was never only about trying to reduce direct viral harm.
If this was the intention, then timing the outbreak with peak vaccination would have been the sensible policy (assuming that the vaccine did reduce hospitalisations) but instead the Govt delayed it by months so that everyone's antibodies had worn off by the time they let it rip. At the time of the second lockdown and vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, 90% of the population had been vaccinated. So they then got to spend 4-5 months hiding in their homes with their unable to be used antibodies waning.
Much of that running-down was in the Woodhouse era - let's ensure that goes in the history books...
Along with Bradford scr--ing the Electricity infrastructure.
Alle same - small-minded short-sighted corner-cutting to suit an elite who think they can bypass everyone else. Then the tumbrels.....
"running-down was in the Woodhouse era". According to you pdk. At least under Woodhouse you'd get seen at A&E within 4 hours. Not so much these days. Just as a query, Hipkins asked Luxon in one of the debates whether he thought the $200m extra Labour had spent on health was a waste of money. Luxon should have said it was. After all, under Labour, every single outcome is worse in health (and pretty much every other portfolio) since 2017. Spend hundreds of millions and make the health system way, way worse. How can anyone in their right mind vote for a party that did that?
On Bradford and electricity reforms, again, according to you. What exactly did Bradford do that screwed the electricity infrastructure?
Much comment on here at the time warning of the consequences of the pandemic come lockdowns, social & financial pressures and disruption. That those elements would give rise to public anger had already been well demonstrated during the Canterbury EQ sequences, the administration of EQC, Sth Response & other insurers which to a considerable number of claimants were punitive and plain unfair. The problem for Labour though is that the pandemic was nationwide but in particular Auckland, the nation’s vital centre, suffered & hurt far more than any other region. Seems to be what were once seen as protest votes are now anger votes as the columnist here describes.
Most folk are cognitively curtailed:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2015/04/programmed-to-ignore/
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/88-robert-sapolsky
https://res.cloudinary.com/rampi/image/upload/v1695301863/merz-et-al-20…
We can understand how they didn't understand Cassandra. The problem now is that the thing which is mass-desired - economic growth - is moving inexorably into the rear-view mirror. No political leader has an appropriate narrative - although you'd think Labour would be more empathetic and less bewildered than National, and that the Greens and maybe Top are closer to where we have to go than the others.
Resentment at curtailment may be the epitaph of our species; weren't sapient enough to solve the dilemma which was completely of our own making.
On one hand, I agree. On the other hand, it also felt like some form of performative theatre from Winston, intended to get at least some of his supporters baying for blood and fired up - the aim being to lock in the vote of those who want to see journalists taken to task (somewhat deservedly), who are pissed off with the current milieu and so on.
Edit: I note Marama Davidson has come to the same conclusion - that this was a deliberate performance from Winston to rile up his voter base.
Actually there is.
Males dominated because they did the grunt work. That has increasingly been untrue, thanks to fossil energy (she can drive a digger as well as he can; it's the digger that does the work).
Take fossil energy away, and finance collapses (no growth, no activity). Take finance away, and you've lost access to fossil energy. Do that, and you're back to local labour being a major factor. Democracy at national level is probably gone (can't maintain the complexity).
And that will be male-dominated - biology trumps woke every time. Meaning all the equality progressions of recent decades, may well reverse.
Clear thinking - so few have been taught how to...
Lol PDK. Early anthropologists studied tribes and looked at the colourful males prancing about with feathers and spears and having wars etc. It was the thing to study
They ignored the women because all they did was look after the pigs. It took the anthropologists a long time to realise that the pigs were the actual core of the society structure.
That sounds like cope by a woman.
The reason women have not, and do not matter in history as recorded is because women form a social glue in communities based on relationships and connections. For most of history, until very recently, they were unable to control fertility and were more or less collectively tasked as a group to all matters around children, family, church and community. They form the organic bed of the society.
Men take care of everything else. I feel silly even having to say this obvious truth, but men can easily fall in line to complete tasks collectively and under direction in a way women simply can not. I can have a complex task, say moving house or building a fence and three guys can know exactly what to do together without saying more than a few words. Same reason you can put thousands of men together and have them fight on mass.
Biology and nature has set this course, regardless of the delusions of the modern world.
"I feel silly even having to say this obvious truth, but men can easily fall in line to complete tasks collectively and under direction in a way women simply can not."
I ran multinational 24/7 manufacturing operations for decades. The multi-ethnic workforce gender was ~50/50. There are some strengths and weaknesses in both ( eg. women more quality conscious) however I never had any genuine problem with women's teamwork & performance.
If you do it might be the way they're asked...
As you acknowledge, women's birth control is going to change the future.
The political prominence of women is always an aberration of decadent societies. Women became prominent in ancient rome during the late republic and early empire, during the decadent periods of the islamic caliphates (Umayyads in Spain, Abbasid and Fatimid dynasties) as well as decadent periods during the Tang, Song and Qing dynasties in China.
It fades away soon enough.
The excessive number of graduates produced means we have people looking for something to do in the public service. (broadly defined)
Process trumps useful. Promotion of their own caste. Creation of complication for us, to retain their own positions is priority. Meanwhile as Mr Trotter outlines, speaking down to us little people.
Some truth in that. Trades went out of favour, and going to Uni was encouraged.
Reminds me of West Africa, the only ones that got a higher education was the Chief's sons etc. They went to university, and got degrees. But no training for trades etc , available. Hence rundown broken infrastructure, with no-one able to fix, despite many young people with nothing to do except hassle tourists.
Yes indeed. A defining feature of third world countries is a mass of unemployed university graduates.
Often bought and paid for us, organised by our own well meaning but daft graduate caste.
Edit: just occured to me, does the self replicating elites thing have virus features?
Agreed, but I would also suggest that it is a little shallow. People are becoming increasingly angry because they are being ignored, and shut out of decision making, and ultimately living standards are being driven down. Political elites are making the political elite class bigger to silence their most outspoken critics while the masses miss out.
Consider this; One the colonial powers had ensured that power and control was firmly ensconced in European hands, that had little interest in the consequences of subsequent policies. But disposessing Maori of land, ensuring the working classes were limited in their opportunities to develop real wealth and therefore influence all have consequences. In a democracy if Governments were to realise and ensure that everyone who participates in an economy, especially the workers, in sharing the wealth that is generated, then the current anger might just have been avoided. Instead we see policies in place where wealth and control is reserved for a minority while living standards are perpetually in decline. The consequences of that should be clear to anyone; "Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men...."
Concerned a little about the misogynistic bent that has taken off in this stream.
Les Miserables is about the French Revolution, but what it was about and what led to it is all happening again as arrogant elites appear to believe they are immune to the consequences of their decisions. Consequences then were spelt 'Guillotine"! This is not just about scarcity of resources PDK, but about elites living fat while others suffer.
I spat my coffee out. Trying to equate the 4th Estate in France, 1789 with NZ in 2023 is beyond a joke. France was bankrupt and people were physically starving.
Having said that could we do a Robespierre on any member of the XXXX caucus? Robertson in his bath tub AKA Jean Paul Marat? Bit extreme...
The pathway is essentially the same. Don't you think France went through a process of decline before the people became angry enough to act? The era is essentially irrelevant. What is happening over all is very relevant. People are getting increasingly angry - why?
The evidence is clear for those who would see. No one is so blind as those who refuse to see.
Peters will get nothing done. You can’t even have a convo with him about anything or he just loses his shit. The health professionals he talked about who lost their jobs during COVOD must be the “tiniest sliver” of the population that Trotter says we should be ignoring.
Let's check out what's happened in the last few years.
The outrageous lockdown, the wholesale destruction of the NZ economy, billions for maoris but no one else, the tourism industry in ruins, the airline industry finally managing to make a dollar - albeit by gouging its customers, the roads are a potholed mess, spiking interest rates, tanking house prices, kiwis leaving for Aussie, the oil and farming industries being victimised, fuel taxes impoverishing kiwis, 15,000 more civil servants - but worse service, destruction of legal gun owners weapons while criminals run amok with them, colossal national debt, crime out of control, criminals and murderers out on bail, landlords infuriated by loss of mortgage interest deduction, the gender bs, inflation and cost of living, new bike lanes but no new roads, Auckland traffic jams, gangs ruling the roost and so on.
I'm not in the least surprised people are angry.
If only National was in charge?
https://www.1news.co.nz/2020/03/19/national-call-for-border-closure-for…
Good article
the majority given to Labour certainly went to their heads and they still seems surprised at the backlash
well they have a few years in the wilderness to come to terms with why
part of the reason here:
https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/alex-holland-labour-s-spending?
the other part here:
https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/alex-holland-race-based-division
To be given an unprecedented opportunity to effect meaningful change - without having to worry about minor party coalition partners sticking their oar in - and then to piss it up against the wall is unforgivable IMO. Doubly so when you have the cheek to claim that you'll get the job done this time around if you can be given another chance. An electoral spanking and an enforced opportunity for soul-searching is rightfully deserved for this reason alone ... everybody has to learn their lesson from time to time. I wish there was a better opposition to vote for of course, but 'it is what it is'.
Yes, imagine if they'd used their enormous opportunity to make the country better for everyone, instead of a few groups of special identity victims. Sadly Labour will now realise that the minority groups that they favour do not have enough votes to keep them in power, and that alienating the majority was a stupid move.
Replace 'minority groups' with 'elites'. otherwise which of the chosen minority groups has really benefitted? Are ordinary Maori better off - has their average health, education and wealth improved significantly? Are their fewer families waiting for social housing? No children in Motels? Fewer homeless? The recently reported immigrants living 30 to a house - was it even worse pre-Labour? The reason Labour has lost my vote is because of its failure to look after its own - the ordinary working Kiwi and their family. Don't promise 100,000 houses at 10,000 per year and then build 1,700 over six years. Without that promise and the promise to be kind I probably would still be voting Labour because I'm sure National will not be bringing in the promised land.
Yeah, they have completely lost it. They used to be about fairness in the workplace, supporting workers, and providing housing and healthcare for all. Now they just make rich people richer, ruin the public services, and offer to build blokes new dunnies if they wear dresses. Amazing how they have lost their way.
Winston and James’s interviews couldn’t have been more contrasting. When asked simple questions about costings of one of his policies Winston’s MO is to go on the attack and insult the interviewer suggesting some type of conspiracy against him. When James didn’t have an answer to a question from Jack he simply said he didn’t know. Pathetic and amateur hour by Winston.
Tame didn't ask James any simple questions about his non existent claimed BA from VUW, his resume at PWC or an explanation of how he achieved his UK masters without a prior undergrad qualification
more on James Shaw’s alleged degrees | Waikanae Watch
James Shaw’s ex boss: “justifiable public interest” to probe your MSc degree – IanWishart.com
Even saying that you have a MSc degree from Bath is pushing the envelope somewhat as Bath is a "business university" university not a "science" one
But an interesting position that he could do a masters without holding an undergraduate degree - I would imagine doing a masters in real science without undergraduate training would be very challenging for most people
Down the rabbit hole of distraction - courtesy of Plunket and that Platform hate show I see.
Winston was pathetic on Q&A. Shaw light years ahead because he actually tried to answer.
Winston just avoided and distracted and tried to divert by attack. Just awful stuff..
A coalition with Peters will be a s##show.
Did you see Winston on the Newshub "current affairs" show? He totally defeated Rebecca, who was constantly interrupting and being argumentative. At one point she told Winston that he had threatened to fight David Seymour, and Winston just laughed her off, telling her that she didn't understand humour. He also explained clearly that he wants to bury Co-governance, and not bury Maori - he even had to remind Rebecca that he himself is Maori!
His MP that made that comment clarified that he wasnt talking about burying co-governance rather the "maori-elite" so yes he was directly saying he wanted to bury Maori. Go and watch the Q and A interview and watch Winston try and squirm out of the hole he dug himself when Jack challenge him on it.
If Labour did their job properly as a proper ‘Labour’ party - look after all working people better - we would be a much happier nation. Sure, with wealth or land taxes there would be a few disgruntled wealthier people, but they would be Ok in the end.
Labour has become beholden to both ‘the centre’ and minority interests. They have totally lost their purpose and identity. In no man’s land
Well said, that man.
You put in one short post, what the media have befuddledly not been able to work out.
As a Labour insider said the other day: 'They've lost the plot'.
The joke is that so have National - the future opening up before us is NOT one of EVs and recycling - nor of 'economic growth' - of any hue. Just who is relevant in that scenario, is the question the media should be asking. But aren't. So we nave a plethora of self-justifying narratives - many partly or wholly false. And an ever-lesser ability to discern truth from hogwash - particularly in the media and in academia.
Expect polarisation as a precursor to chaos.
EVs are here already, and here to stay. Even Ferrari and Lamborghini have EVs. Do we really need to give people money to bribe them into buying an EV? I don't think so. Most people are buying them now anyway due to their reduced running costs, and nearly every manufacturer has at least a couple of EV models for sale.
People have bought EV's because of the govt. discount. My wife's got one, not because she's a greenie, but because I got about $9k off the price and she hates going to the gas station. And now owners are being gouged for plugging in at stations.
Not to mention that some models are grossly overpriced and owners are in for a shock at trade-in time. Buying an overpriced, depreciating asset on HP...that's a financial killer.
Tesla is the number one car seller in the world now. Are Labour providing subsidies to the entire planet? EVs and particularly Tesla's are being bought because they are great cars, cheap to run, and people realise that this is the way the world is going with ICE car bans coming into effect, ICE car driving charges (see London ULEZ) and car manufacturers phasing out production of ICE vehicles.
Its the Govt subsidies that are keeping the price of EVs high - like every subsidy, they just get factored in to the RRP of the vehicles being sold. If the sweet spot is $50k for an average newe vehicle purchase, then the RRP will be $58k with an $8k subsidy.
Rubbish. Tesla has sold (or manufactured 1.4 million cars since 2009). Toyota manufactured 10.5 million cars last year. Toyota made more cars last year than Tesla has made in 14 years combined. Tesla is tiny compared to the mainstream car companies and is likely to remain that way. They have a huge capital value, which does not reflect their future prospects, but that is another matter.
The Swedish wealth tax prompted large outflows of capital and the expatriation of well‐known business people, such as the founder of Ikea, Ingvar Kamprad. The magnitude of these outflows was a major motivation for the repeal of the wealth tax in 2007.
It was the same story with the French wealth tax, which was imposed in 1982 and repealed in 2017. Over the years, a parade of French businesspeople and celebrities left the country to avoid the tax — many going to Belgium, which is also a high‐tax country but has no wealth tax. The government estimated in 2017 that “some 10,000 people with 35 billion euros worth of assets left in the past 15 years” for tax reasons. French economist Eric Pichet estimated that the outflows were much larger.
As the wealthy moved abroad, the government lost revenues from a range of other taxes they would have paid. While the wealth tax raised about 3.5 billion euros a year, the government lost 7 billion euros a year from reductions in other taxes.
I can believe it all quite easily. Have you not been paying attention to the growing political polarization and anger?https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300972557/watch-david-seymour…
Do you believe it when National complains?
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2310/S00011/violence-and-intimidation…
I don't believe it until there is a photograph or video.
Heckling is part of politics and I am also a radicalised, polarized voter myself. I was a coordinator for the protest in feb 2022.
But the Left feels comfortable lying about victimisation and not providing proof since they believe themselves the 'morally good' party and see no problem with lying or destroying their enemies for their 'immorality'. Come back with proof.
Politicians are caught between the aspirations of two conflicting generations who want different things. Boomers want to protect the status quo, Millennials want to build a better society.
So far boomers are winning. As you saw both parties took the tax pledge on housing even before their the campaigns had launched. However with ever passing year the boomers will grow less numerous which makes this a when and not an if question.
I think it's better to waste a vote trying to get a party that you think would improve NZ across the line, than waste it on a party you know will get over the line and continue to make NZ a worse place to live in the future (I think that applies to all current parties in parliament, but for different reasons).
A lot of people are very angry. And its not just those that suffered from their decision to not take the vax. There are a lot of people who were forced to take it, who now regret it. Those that were prevented from seeing their loved ones who were dying, or from attending their funerals. Those that were prevented from accessing healthcare during the lockdown who suffered in immense pain. Those that lived on their own who were forced into complete social isolation and whose mental health suffered as a result. Those that realise now that Labour sold them a pack of lies, like "2 weeks to slow the curve" that turned into 2 months of the world's strictest lockdown, destroying people's businesses. Not to mention the 5 month lockdown of Auckland at a point in time when 90% of the population was vaccinated (ditto for the implementation of the vaccine pass).
I'm still waiting for the 80,000 people to die from Covid like Jacinda told us would happen. Labour drummed up irrational fear, used it to implement tyranny, and then the ringleader absconded before she was forced to take any accountability for it. I'm angry. My friends are angry. My family are angry. My family's friends are angry. My hairdressers are angry. Pretty much everyone I know in my circle is voting ACT this election.
I'm still waiting for the 80,000 people to die from Covid like Jacinda told us would happen.
That was if there was no lockdowns, and it was before there was a vaccine. Then there was lockdowns, and a vaccine.
Pretty much everyone I know in my circle is voting ACT this election.
David Seymour took the vaccine, and does not regret it.
So like Sweden then? Who also didnt have anwhere near 80,000 deaths despite double our population and no lockdown or vaccine. Lies are lies, no matter how much you try to justify them afterwards and convince yourself they were true. The vast majority of people who died, died WITH covid not from it, and where going to die anyway - they were extremely old or very sick.
Winston does a great job of revealing his emptiness when he is allowed to speak. I just didn't need to hear Jack Tame's voice so often. Ask a question just once - viewers are not dumb; they can hear it being evaded.
I wasted my time watching - at the end of it I learned Mr Tame will not be voting NZF. I would rather learn what NZF plan to do with immigration; house-building, financing tertiary education, carbon emissions, etc or at least learn what they consider the basis of their political philosophy.
Yes, been a bit disappointed with Jacks interviewing style these elections. In my opinion he has often talked over and hurried the people he has been interviewing on to the next topic on his agenda. While I'm in no way making excuses for Winston's tendency to monopolize the 'space' when been interviewed, on this occasion I kinda thought Jack was the one who was out of line....
Might I suggest going to NZF's web site and reading about their policies?
I have. There's precious little there.
And, as we know full well, Dear Winston is quite happy to make up policy on the hoof as and when it suites him.
When landing an eel, it is well known that a firm grip on its neck is required. Tame knew this too. He's wasn't going to let the slippery sod go as most interviewers have done.
As I say - if you haven't been to NZF's web site and examined its "policies", then you've got no idea just how empty and devoid thought NZF actually is. An empty shell. Nothing more.
I've not been tempted to their website since I already agree with you about Winston. I'd have to hear something interesting to get me to the NZF website when there are at least five or six political parties that are more likely to interest me. My grumble was with the interview. One issue that interested me was mention of changing prisons to try to stop them being as they are now a university teaching crime and recruiting for gangs.
Act lost my vote when they jumped on the three strike bandwagon; I'd thought the ACT philosophy was for govt to get out of the way so why pay judges generously and then tell them how to do their job. Separate prisons for gang members is an interesting and new policy but Jack Tame just kept hammering questions about costs of building prisons without asking why the policy was needed; had it been tried elsewhere; what was the evidence that prisons convert young stupid kids into gang members etc. Given the many costs of crime and the cost of incarceration the cost of building more prisons is irrelevant. Mr Tame used it to show off his toughness not to elucidate a policy.
My thoughts exactly. Tame thinks he is the big man on campus with his interviewing style which goes nowhere and ends up frustrating both the viewer and interviewee. Ok Winston is a bullshiter, we know that already. But most people wanted to hear what he had to say at least. Instead we end up with a mexican standoff wasting everyone's time with nothing to show for it.
Trust in the media has declined substantially in last 3 years.
Approximately 90% of journalists in NZ are left leaning
The NZ Labour government supported NZ’s media by allocating $55 million to the Public Interest Journalism Fund. It was made up of $10 million in 2020/21, $25 million in 2021/22 and $20 million in 2022/23.
It is not rocket science to understand why the media is in for a big shake up.
Journalists are now worried about losing their jobs and it is not surprising to see such mud-raking by Q&A journalists who have got into the habit of asking questions, interrupting the answers & repeating the questions.
Media generally do not apply this technique to left leaning parties. Seems so unfair.
Winston Peters was treated terribly by Q&A & was made a scapegoat.
The irony of all this is that Labour voters will vote strategically for NZF & will probably be enough to get NZF back in parliament but probably not as Kingmaker.
To get trust back in the media heads should roll at TVNZ & more right leaning journalists need to be employed to get balance closer to 50%.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/the-cuts-and-trust-of-nz-media
https://mch.govt.nz/media-sector-support/journalism-fund
I find it interesting that the ‘progressives’ are the recipients of the anger from the majority rather than the elites who are the authors of the current increase in poverty and cost of living crisis. Ironically the elites have the means to alleviate much of that poverty but the 2 major party’s have ruled out touching that wealth to appease their real masters.
What load of socialist bollocks. Why would people work hard, or take risks so they can give their money to the government? Governments are the worst investors on the planet.
Such left-wing policies would empty the country of the wealthy, they're very mobile. It's all been done before, in the 1980's when kiwis were being gouged for taxes. The Premier of QLD sent the message out that the wealthy were welcome...and they went.
"Alleviating" poverty is impossible. Many poor simply don't have the skills or the motivation to manage money...how do you stop teenagers breeding, how do you stop young people doing crime and ruining their lives, how do you stop poor people having 5 kids, how do you stop people making bad financial decisions like purchasing motor vehicles and household goods on HP?
We are encouraged to lead fulfilling, productive lives...but if you employ people, create wealth, take risks, start a business and become wealthy, we are then told this is bad and and must be discouraged with punitive taxes.
"Alleviating" poverty is impossible. Many poor simply don't have the skills or the motivation to manage money...how do you stop teenagers breeding, how do you stop young people doing crime and ruining their lives, how do you stop poor people having 5 kids, how do you stop people making bad financial decisions like purchasing motor vehicles and household goods on HP?
How? Simple, amend the education curriculum. Include at least some education around financial literacy as clearly there is a gap to be filled by parents who may not be so financially literate themselves, potentially include this in maths as many kids may resonate more with it if they can see the real-world link. Continue increasing more practical learning for kinesthetic learners who don't fit the academic model, and for those involved in crime. Link in with police to have these kids involved in a boot-camp-like programme before school where they have to exercise and learn to work together and support each other. This was trialed in Nelson a few years ago and was a resounding success for those involved as it helped them learn to support their peers instead of take from them, to value exercise for better wellbeing and to navigate group tasks.
What I find fascinating is the bifurcation in society between critical thinkers and the rest. Personally, I never questioned the FDA or WHO before Covid. I never questioned the pharmaceutical industry despite being part of it. Regarding the media, I remember lamenting the loss of Campbell live a few years ago, but being back in NZ for a while I see the MSM evening news has really become a total joke. It’s just partisan infotainment with a petulant childlike intellect setting. What happened in the last 40 years? When I was a kid my parents enjoyed the krypton factor and mastermind. Meanwhile here in NZ there’s a genuine grass roots critical thinking uprising happening in real time. Reality Check Radio are conducting heavy hitting interviews with globally renowned critical thinkers. I recently read “The War on Informed Consent…” by Jeremy Hammond, and then “The vaccine Friendly Plan” by Paul Thomas. Hammond was recently interviewed on RCR which was very cool. I think there’s truth in Trotters explanation, but I’m going to offer an alternative and more contraversial explanation . Is it possible, I wonder, that the dumbing down of society, and preponderance of woke social justice warriors who all seem to have personality disorders is somehow related? Could it be related to subclinical brain damage caused by the neurotoxicity of vaccine preservatives and adjuvants like thimerosal aluminium oxides, and to fluoride in water? We know that autism spectrum disorder rates have shot up from 1/several thousand in the 80s to 1/36 among 8 year old children according to the CDC. Maybe for the sake of the country we need to rethink optimising the IQ of the nation. Maybe instead of a department for every minority group we need refocus of neurological wellbeing.
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