Hard News: The Creepy Party
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So what were you implying exactly?
Implying that if this sort of conspiracist propaganda spreads unchecked and widely enough, then enough scared and angry people could be gullible enough to believe it. The 'Big Lie' theory if I recall correctly.
Are the CC/NZCPR that easy enough to dismiss as fringe lunatics?
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But possibly the Association for Cretinous Tyrants?
As this country's last sufferer of endemic cretinism with hypothyroidism due to iodine deficiency supposedly passed away sometime around the early 60s, only tyrants are likely to cry discimination. Tough for them.
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Are the CC/NZCPR that easy enough to dismiss as fringe lunatics?
I was hoping for a middle ground between "dismiss them" and "claiming they're Nazis". But I accept it's not quite where you were going with it.
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...Wishartian undercurrent of Elders of Zion-esque conspiracism...
I just wanted to make sure that sentence fragment stood out; it's quite beautiful.
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I understand that goitre is making a comeback due to the consumption of "organic" salt with no added iodide. Not sure if cretinism has done so as well - some would argue the victims are already there.
(salt is one of the few food items that is incontrovertibly *inorganic*)
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JLM,
Peter Tashkoff has stepped in also to defend Roy , which, kinda does feel now as if she was bullied.
David Young has some more insights (can't get the hang of that linky thing)
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from JLM's link
Hide's then-executive secretary, the most formidable personal assistant I've ever met, made a point of cautioning me within my first week that she knew that I'd been involved with socialists at university. His self-appointed "security advisor" later informed me, in all seriousness, that he had "checked me out" and that, other than a few minor issues, I was OK to be around the MP.
Man, that's so cult. The first rule of ACT club is....
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It's actually quite amusing. I would think there would be more hard right economic liberals that started off as socialists than not.
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Wasn't Roger Douglas in a left-wing party? Doesn't he still claim to be a socialist in some sense? I'm confused.
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It's actually quite amusing. I would think there would be more hard right economic liberals that started off as socialists than not.
There's nothing unusual there, especially the ones who start their political life as Marxists with a capital M. Even though many become middle-aged neo-cons, their zealotry remains constant. And so too, it seems, their bitter factionalism.
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Wasn't Roger Douglas in a left-wing party? Doesn't he still claim to be a socialist in some sense? I'm confused.
Yes, he claims to be the only true socialist. It's at the beginning of every speech he's given since 1987.
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I guess Marxists and Neocons share a fixation on economics.
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Wasn't Roger Douglas in a left-wing party? Doesn't he still claim to be a socialist in some sense? I'm confused.
Yes, he claims to be the only true socialist. It's at the beginning of every speech he's given since 1987.
You're kidding, right? Or inhabiting some weird, bizarre-o, parallel universe where Craig thinks Goff is the Messiah and the Petroleum Cetacean writes of a world inhabited solely by rainbows and unicorns?
Has he missed the bit where socialists, at least notionally, like paying taxes because they recognise that many things that make a society civilised are most-efficiently provided by the state? To quote Oliver Wendell Holmes, "I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization." -
Actually, I believe Holmes was misquoted. He meant to say "I don't like paying taxes. Because of them I can't afford to buy 'Civilisation.' (TM)"
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That was Paul Holmes, surely.
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Hi
It's good to see there are still a few thinking people in this country that can see through Rodney Hide's BS (Whoops that word might get me fired).
I'd just like to add a few words to this if I may.
Firstly - here is my personal statement that amplifies on the comments the Herald report. It might give you an insight into what's going on right now, although several of you seem not to need it.
It also explains the context of 'The Good' comment that the reporter, Derek Cheng wrote of.
Secondly - Roger Douglas, AFAIK, does not any longer claim to be a socialist. With his Douglas and Anderton parentage he certainly has the background, but those of you that have read his recent Book, 'No Second Class Citizens' [obtainable from his office!] will know that he regards socialism as a noble, but failed, experiment.
This speech is included in the book and spells out his position on socialism.
Roger is just looking for a way out of our current failed system, whether it is Pink or Blue in charge, it is the system that's at fault.
Third comment. I found it funny to see Muldoon get credit for renewable power. Sure, Think Big was his baby. But it's a little bit like Sarah Parker confirming in an affidavit that Rodney Hide lied about how he obtained the defence document, and it being published as 'Aide encouraged to eavesdrop.'
We are all aware, aren't we, that Muldoon and his think big beggared this country. The reforms of the 1980's were only necessary because of the mess he left behind him, and who is the hated man? The one who fixed it. Buckets of irony in that.
Before I get off the Douglas topic I'd be interested to know which Douglas policies we should roll back. None of them have been - ever, by either Labour or National. (Please don't say 'Roll Back all of them!' which seems to be the usual answer I get.)
Should we return to:
- A subsidized farming sector producing mountains of product no one wanted?
- Tarriff barriers to ensure we can all pay more for goods?
- Taking cars apart in Japan so we can reassemble them in NZ for make-work jobs?
- Tax rates at 66%
- the list goes on....Back on topic. In November last year I was asked by Board members of the ACT party to back off and give them a chance to rehabilitate Hide via the top line of the decision tree document in my personal statement. (It wasn't phrased quite so nicely)
It is clear that rather than doing so the ACT board simply put the whole thing behind them (RED Box), taking the action that I expected of them, which was to do nothing and hope all the problems had gone away.
The ACT Board is still doing nothing. I regard Rodney Hide as the biggest liability the ACT party has ever had to deal with and I intend not to rest until somehow or another, he is removed.
Rodney Hide delendus est.
Wish me luck.
Peter Tashkoff
tashkop@yahoo.com -
Wish me luck.
Why? I for one like the ACT party broken the way it is.
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Should we return to:
- A subsidized farming sector producing mountains of product no one wanted?Europe has that. In fact every other country in the world has that, pretty much. Are they all stupid?
- Tarriff barriers to ensure we can all pay more for goods?
And so that we keep people in work. Again, most countries still have those. What they appear to lack is enough sad-arses who think that paying five dollars less for a skivvy at the Warehouse is worth somebody else's job.
- Taking cars apart in Japan so we can reassemble them in NZ for make-work jobs?
- Tax rates at 66%
- the list goes on....Yeah, why not. I'll take any and all of those things. Mix them up as you wish. It's true that we didn't reverse a lot of those measures - some of them were simply too destructive, how do you even begin rebuilding a manufacturing sector via the reintroduction of tariffs? - others were successfully bedded in from an ideological standpoint, but it's also true that the world hasn't followed us down that particular path. And Douglas and his acolytes can't have it both ways. The reforms had terrible results, by all measurable economic standards, and opened up a huge gap between us and, amongst others, Australia, as well as making NZ a far less equitable society with marked internal disparities. The standard defense against that argument is that the reforms didn't go far enough. That's bollocks, they should have worked at least partways. Where's our productivity? Where's our innovation? We're still an agricultural producer, as we were under Mouldoon. We employ a reasonably high number of people by Western standards, but in low-wages, low-producivity jobs. It's all that neoliberalism can offer.
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Hi Gio
If you are really interested in answers to the questions that you raise, you could make a good start by getting hold of Heidi Bale <heidi.bale@parliament.govt.nz> and asking her for a copy of Roger's book.
On the other hand, if you just looking for an argument. No thanks. that kind of nonsense is the reason I usually stay off blogs.
Rodney Hide delendus est.
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asking her for a copy of Roger's book.
Believe it or not, I have read No Second Class Citizens. (It's the one that comes with Boscawen's inaugural speech at the end, right?) And as I recall in the first speech Douglas starts, as he always does, by claiming he's the only true socialist.
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Muldoon and his think big beggared this country. The reforms of the 1980's were only necessary because of the mess he left behind him, and who is the hated man?
Not so sure about they were the only way to fix the mess.
And I would say Muldoon and Douglas attract the same amount of opprobrium. -
Check the link to that speech in my post Gio. I don't believe that he claims he is the only true socialist, what he says is that socialism just doesn't work to achieve the [noble] aims it sets out to achieve.
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Even though some of the stuff that went on under Muldoon was dumb, and I totally disagree with the social conservatism, ordinary people were better off in those days.
One could earn a decent living, land was cheap and hence house prices and rents were low, basics were cheaper and jobs were secure.
The 80s 'reforms' led to a massive transfer of wealth from the ordinary people to rich asset owners.
There are alternatives to capitalism, and they don't involve disassembling and rebuilding cars.
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what he says is that socialism just doesn't work to achieve the [noble] aims it sets out to achieve.
Whereas his policies do, making him the only true socialist.
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Should we return to:
- A subsidized farming sector producing mountains of product no one wanted?Europe has that. In fact every other country in the world has that, pretty much. Are they all stupid?
Yes, they are. And self-interested, profligate, etc.
More than 40% of the EU's budget is spent on farming and fishing subsidies. The biggest single recipient is the corporate sugar giant Tate & Lyle, which pocketed 134,000,000 euros in 2007. Last year, more than 1200 CAP beneficiaries got more than a million euros each.
The resulting over-production is eventually dumped with developing economies, badly damaging their own small producers. Ditto for the massive subsidies the US pours into its own corporate farming sector. It's an outrage.
And don't even get me started on the obscenity of fishing subsidies.
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