Hard News: Yes we canny
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__"Heh, that's funny.People said similar things in 1968, and then it actually looked vaguely possible, unlike today.Sadly, despite what you can read on the Socialist Worker (and other) posters, the revolution isn't coming to NZ."__
Yeh poverty, it's hilarious.
You should take the 'funny' line as being on a different topic, given that it was in a different paragraph. FYI I found 'organising one day in ways that may make you feel uncomfortable' amusing given my background as a non-violence organiser, based on theories about making power feel uncomfortable.
I see no timebomb. Timebomb implies that it'll go off at some stage, which would be interesting.
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I reckon most of the people threatening to clear off to Aussie because we pay too much tax are estate agents, salespeople and the odd accountant. All of whom we can easily replace, or do without.
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"FYI I found 'organising one day in ways that may make you feel uncomfortable' amusing given my background as a non-violence organiser, based on theories about making power feel uncomfortable."
Sorry bud didn't mean to come across so heavy. I was alluding to organising in a social way not so much a politically structured way,
but here's to non-violence anyway.Yep, power needs to feel some heat or maybe we simply need some new power. -
I reckon most of the people threatening to clear off to Aussie because we pay too much tax are estate agents, salespeople and the odd accountant. All of whom we can easily replace, or do without.
Lol
I am just watching 60 mins. There is a story about donors because Australian women cant find a decent bloke, they have been shopping in the US for sperm donors.They are after intelligent guys.Wonder if there is a new field of employment here? -
Jeremy Eade:
The “timebombs” of a growing disenfranchised sector of the first world population are real (let alone the brothers and sisters outside our international trading clubs) and while we may be able to hide them in the “invisible’ suburbs for twenty years they just might start organising one day in ways that may make you feel uncomfortable.
I interpret that as more Los Angeles 1992 than Paris 1968.
Rich:
I reckon most of the people threatening to clear off to Aussie because we pay too much tax are estate agents, salespeople and the odd accountant. All of whom we can easily replace, or do without.
You can add monoculturalists to the above list. That particular crowd has done their civic duty for NZ by taking their insularity with them and increasing our collective intelligence. I'd only be worried if they somehow form a paramilitary and do a Bay of Pigs.
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"I interpret that as more Los Angeles 1992 than Paris 1968."
Yeh, that's what I meant . How long does it take to make a ghetto?
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National vs Labour...
Capitalism vs Socialism
Small taxes vs Big expenditure
Business vs Social
Good Promises vs Drab Detail
etc vs etc...but only by a 1% margin
We could have a grand coalition in this country and not notice the difference. It's just a hangover from FPP that we even bother having Labour and National.
I seriously thought, even hoped, that after Bill English National was finished, and it could nicely split into the various interest groups that it targets. So there would be a nice big Farmer's Party, a Business Party (maybe split into big and small business), an urban social conservative party etc. And Labour would do the same, breaking into an actual socialist party, a socially liberal party, one or more immigrant parties, a maori party etc. Then as voters we'd get more choice, a slightly more targeted selection.
But actually it turns out NZers just couldn't give a shit about politics enough for that, and they'd rather just line up behind the old supertribes so they could choose Maccers or Burger King. The competition rages around the most cunning combo design because even a la carte is too hard.
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"I seriously thought, even hoped, that after Bill English National was finished, and it could nicely split into the various interest groups that it targets. So there would be a nice big Farmer's Party, a Business Party (maybe split into big and small business), an urban social conservative party etc. And Labour would do the same, breaking into an actual socialist party, a socially liberal party, one or more immigrant parties, a maori party etc. Then as voters we'd get more choice, a slightly more targeted selection."
Absolutely, we actually need a business party that has a progressive mantra...ya know even after the act party wouldn't dog in Telecom you just start thinking..where is the party of business?The party that deals to stagnation and monopoly.A party who wants better more efficient market relationships....and then where's the collective bargaining party, a party who can help groups negotiate with sensible strength, keeping wages real.
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Jeremy, I'm not sure if my jadedness came through clearly enough. We 'need' every kind of ice cream, but we've got vanilla with nuts and vanilla with fruits filling 80% of the shelf space. Which either means we really like vanilla, or we're too lazy to choose anything else. I'm leaning towards the latter, that real choice is simply an expensive boutique decision of little relevance. I'll still eat Big Bikkies dipped in extra chocolate sauce one day, and nutty caramel the next, but I'm beginning to not see any point in trying to expand anyone else's palette.
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Yeh Ben, stop being jaded.
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I'll still eat Big Bikkies dipped in extra chocolate sauce one day, and nutty caramel the next, but I'm beginning to not see any point in trying to expand anyone else's palette.
When mixed proportionality meets mixed metaphorizing. (Try to say that aloud five times in a row).
It seems to me that the situation you lament is endemic to Western countries, even those that don't have a strict two-party FPP system. And I'm not sure that the alternative, in parliamentary democracy at least, is necessarily productive. When I was a lad in the old country we had two leading parties, the Christian Democrats and the Communists. Both hovered around the thirties and the latter would often lag the former by just a handful of percentage points (it once overtook, in the early eighties) but in a strictly proportional system the party of revolution could never get enough votes or allies to govern. So - contrary to the popular belief of those who simply look at how often the governments were dissolved and reformed - Italy got a fifty year diet of stable Tory rule.
You certainly had very different flavours back then, I would say uranium and mint, but what's the point of liking mint when you can never get your tongue around the ice-cream? And having to content oneself with looking through the display glass became harder and harder to do. Finally a group of judges came and bulldozed the ice-cream shop. So for another ten years we got all the wonderful flavours in the universe, with no fewer than three communist parties and two fascist parties and the Trozkists as well as two larger parties, one of which was bent on keeping its boss solvent and out of jail, while the other tried to build a modern, progressive Labour party via the cunning plan of enlisting all the former Christian Democrats and social conservatives that were still at large. So I'm not sure the abundance of choice served us that well.
Having said all that, I would quibble with the 1% gap between Labour and National that you suggest. I think at times the difference has been quite marked. Not as marked as I would have liked, but while some inequalities have been inexcusably entrenched, I think that a lot of people in what is broadly the right side of the spectrum have had their lives improved, and that NZ would be a rather different place if National had governed for the last nine years.
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Oh, yes I forgot. Yay fruit..Booo nuts.
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Oh, yes I forgot. Yay fruit..Booo nuts.
Look, this isn't student politics or fantasy government. To the extent that the politics of a country is influenced by its elected legislators, these are things that make a material difference in people's lives and in the character of our communities.
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So I'm not sure the abundance of choice served us that well.
Yup, if the Italians really wanted a blend of vanilla, fruit and nuts then a bunch of judges saying they have to have mint one year, and then hokey pokey the next is going to cause strife, for sure.
I'm not saying NZers are wrong for their narrow palette choice. It shows they know what they like, however much it bores the crap out of me. All I'm saying is it's hard for me to really get into discussing the differences.
Having said all that, I would quibble with the 1% gap between Labour and National that you suggest.
Quantifying the range of choice is difficult since it's not clear that the range it fits within is actually finite. If I move a foot to the left is that 1%? It is if there's 100 feet that I could move between, but if it's a thousand miles then that movement is unnoticeable. If the range is infinite, then any movement which is itself not infinite at all is proportionally a zero move.
I won't even attempt to define the range of choice we have in politics, my observation is only confined by the parties that actually managed to get any representation at all. You can see pretty clearly that if the Green Party or the Act Party actually managed to win an election outright, that the way they do things would be radically different, and within that (still quite small) range, the difference between Labour and National does seem to me to be about 1%. Set across the range of political systems in the world today, it's even less than that.
So when you say that NZ would be a very different place if National had governed, I suggest that only a NZer would even notice the difference.
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Look, this isn't student politics or fantasy government.
Just as well!
To the extent that the politics of a country is influenced by its elected legislators, these are things that make a material difference in people's lives and in the character of our communities.
To the extent that it's influenced by my opinion on the matter, it makes no material difference whatsoever. As for the difference effected by even a radical change in government, like I said before, you'd have to be a kiwi to even notice. And it would most likely be the material differences that already existed and community wide changes in the character that caused the political change, not the other way around. The surfer doesn't control the wave, they just ride it, and look good or bad depending on their skill.
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Ben, let me.
Green is obviously organic and the sugar is sourced from their sugar beet & the milk is from feral goats (no added flavour - organic or otherwise)
Act would be the over full export varieties from tip top (prior to its closure) that are printed in foriegn languages with strange tastes to our palet.
Kiwi - is relabled damaged or expired goods contracted to be bought by a family with diabeties.
NZ First - has been at the bottom of the freezer for the past 10 years & is now frozen in place. No-one can remeber if it was supposed to have chewy balls in it or not, but it has now. Obviously the freezer need to be defrosted & cleaned out.
United Future - is the child that missed out or dropped theirs on the ground and throws a paddie.
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So when you say that NZ would be a very different place if National had governed, I suggest that only a NZer would even notice the difference.
And I suggest that that the differences between the two main parties with regard to public assets, public spending, the funding of schools, workers rights, taxation and social reform have been marked compared to what goes on in other Western democracies. If you'd rather we adopted one of the other 'political systems in the world today', I'm not against the notion, but I'd be interested to hear which one.
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And I suggest that that the differences between the two main parties with regard to public assets, public spending, the funding of schools, workers rights, taxation and social reform have been marked compared to what goes on in other Western democracies.
Doesn't seem that marked to me. Almost every asset, public expenditure, reform and tax stays in place from one government to the next. The proportions change a bit. Once, a long time ago, we had an asset fire sale, which actually seemed like a good idea to both parties, both then, and now.
Since we are a very small Western Democracy with a proportionally large public sector, a change in government will have more an effect than a much larger nation with an enormous private sector. But because a lot of change happened doesn't mean that the difference between the choices was big. It's just that the pissly differences magnify a lot. That magnification actually necessitates that the differences be small.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking our system. I think it's good that it doesn't change much, a sign of stability, which is a sign of general contentment. I'm just commenting on our perfectly normal tendency to magnify the enormity of minuscule changes in our lives, to feel that we are choosing between a vast range of things when in reality we are not. The very fact you chose to limit the discussion to Western Democracies is symptomatic of that - as if that was the only choice. Of course it is not. If you were only to take away the word 'Western' from that limitation then the farcically small difference I'm talking about would be thrown into relief, let alone if you actually allowed the concept of a different form of government.
All I'm jaded about is talking about it. To me it seems that the country is in good enough hands, no matter what government is in. Most of the decisions made in Government are not made by the 120 odd actors who take their roles in the soap that we love to talk about. Most of the radical changes that actually happen in society don't have their origins in government at all, they are the result of ideas created by teams of experts and the actions of millions of people. I am not advocating any other form of government. Indeed, if you understand me at all, you'll realize I'm saying such advocation is mostly pointless anyway. I'd be kidding myself if I thought I was even able to influence you, despite having spent some time engaging you one to one, much less any of the dozen or so people that might actually read what I'm saying, or any of the thousands who would glance at it without even reading. I rate the most likely effect would be that everyone who agrees with me will continue to do so, and those who disagree will quite possibly feel even stronger disagreement afterwards, since the tone of what I'm saying seems negative.
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All I'm jaded about is talking about it.
Maybe that's because you've made six posts on the topic?
Isn't the obvious solution to stop talking about it? ;)
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Kyle, I haven't talked about the minutiae of NZ politics anywhere in there, which is what the 'it' referred to. And I'm not going to. But I will stop talking about stopping talking about it, right about.....now.
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But I will stop talking about stopping talking about it, right about.....now.
Nice to know you are out and about though Ben.
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