Posts by Joe Wylie
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to Russell Brown,
It is entirely possible to move left towards the centre, put it that way. It's what National did in 2008 when it swallowed the Superannuation Fund, paid parental leave, Kiwisaver, interest-free student loans, etc as the reality of winning the election. We do sometimes lose sight of the fact that Labour dragged the centre leftwards through being in government.
You could add the Clark's Government's remedial work on the health system, where nurses, for example, were able to repay their student loans, something they'd found close to impossible under Shipley. But that's been eroded since Key was elected. On the other hand National appear to have learned from the foreshore and seabed debacle, and can appear even more "progressive" in a strictly left-right sense in their dealings with Maori elites than Labour ever did.
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Polity: Meet the middle, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
Being a centrist is about marketing as much as anything else. Don Brash is the most radical, ideological party-leader we've ever had in New Zealand (with the arguable exception of Hone Harawira) yet he branded himself as 'mainstream' and came incredibly close to winning a general election.
The kindest assessment of Brash would be that he might have been marginally aware of how he was being "rebranded", but it's doubtful if he understood the implications. The moment in the leaders' debate where Clark challenged him to clearly state whether or not she was "mainstream" gave the impression of someone struggling to remember the lines he'd been fed, rather than any kind of sentient strategist. This was the guy who let John Ansell impersonate him on Kiwiblog, ffs.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Graeber has things to say on this.
Mightily impressed with Graeber's The Utopia of Rules. He's a bit like John Pilger, in that he's irrefutably insightful with most of his big-picture analyses, while seeming a little naively indulgent of some of his apparent fellow-travelers. For example, Crimethinc Collective, "probably the most inspiring young anarchist propagandists operating in the Situationist tradition today" can appear as a bunch of sterile and privileged lifestylers to someone whose understanding of the Situationists lies outside of academia.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Mike, the psycho
I thought Steve Braunias's having him hide under Key's house was pretty good.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to ,
Ah, but… who would then clean John Key’s toilet?.
The exclusive bretheran?
Aren't they forbidden to share common drains with ordinary mortals? Whatever, I have a horrible feeling that there's a hardcore of Blue devotees out there for whom the experience would be akin to Catholics taking the waters at Lourdes.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to chris,
However it was under National that the Colombo Plan was implemented:
Schemes of student assistance, begun in the 1950s, brought young Asian students to New Zealand. In particular the Colombo Plan attracted Malaysians, Thais and Indonesians. A few married New Zealanders and settled. By 1971 there were almost 3,000 Malaysians in the country.
Because of the Malaysian Government's active discrimination against those of its own citizens who weren't ethnic Malays, the majority of Malaysians who came to NZ under the Colombo Plan were ethnic Malaysian Chinese, as they were denied the chance of higher education at home. In 1970 this already active discrimination was enshrined in Malaysian law.
When Labour party fawners like Rob Salmond begin discussing pulling the centre back towards the left
Salmond appears more than happy to let John Key define the centre.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Shortly before the move to Sydenham Anderton appeared in a photo in the Herald with a newly installed industrial robot at his Auckland engineering works. The thing was being used to weld supermarket trolleys. Anderton admitted to a certain angst about its effect on jobs, while explaining that circumstances compelled businesses like his to automate. As a businessman he's probably been more successful than most of his free market opponents.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Roll up, roll up! Scoff a dancing turd or down a dead rat! If 'e can, Canterbury can't. ..
Heh!
BTW Anderton's dumped Alliance colleagues aren't without effective political skills. It was a group drawn from these disaffected that mounted the legal challenge that brought about Bob Parker's first significant setback as Mayor, with the humiliating defeat of his move to jack City Housing rentals up by 25%, -
Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to Kumara Republic,
A big part of Helen Clark's victory in 1999 was when she buried the hatchet with Jim Anderton, who had quit Labour a decade earlier in disgust.
Anderton goes way back with Clark, and behind the scenes was likely never really estranged from her politically. The strong network ties he'd built over time with Labour figures such as Clark's academic mentor, the late Professor Bob Chapman, proved way more enduring than his commitment to his later Southern allies and Alliance followers, who found themselves summarily dumped on his return to his "roots". There were plenty who found voting for Anderton's Chch mayoralty campaign against the godawful Bob Parker akin to swallowing a dead rat.
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Polity: In defence of the centre, in reply to grant,
Clearly even the exponents of the most extreme viewpoints like to be thought of as centrist.
Calling Mr. Oswald with the swastika tattoo
There is a vacancy waiting in the English voodoo...