Now, all of us, every progressive New Zealander, must help Jacinda and her Labour-NZ First-Green Government to do this!
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Ruminations of an Old New Zealander
About Me
- Chris Trotter
- Chris Trotter has spent most of his adult life either engaging in or writing about politics. He was the founding editor of The New Zealand Political Review (1992-2005) and in 2007 authored No Left Turn, a political history of New Zealand. Living in Auckland with his wife and daughter, Chris describes himself as an “Old New Zealander” – i.e. someone who remembers what the country was like before Rogernomics. He has created this blog as an archive for his published work and an outlet for his more elegiac musings. It takes its name from Bowalley Road, which runs past the North Otago farm where he spent the first nine years of his life. Enjoy.
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October
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- Who Is Craig Renney, And What Is He Advising Grant...
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- Strategies Of Right-Wing Resistance: It CAN Happen...
- Unfriendly Capitalism's Bodyguard Of "Expert Lies".
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- Sounds Good Doesn't It?
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- The Maker Of “Men” – Masculinity and its Origins
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- An Expression Of Democratic Interest.
- Talkin' 'Bout A Revolution - Or Not?
- Play It Again, Winston: An Article Written 12 Year...
- The Hallelujah Song.
- "Dear Winston" - An Open Letter To The Leader Of N...
- Adults In The Room?
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- Bryan Gould To Labour: This Is No Time For “Conven...
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21 comments:
What if we keep on being progressive when we are are post growth?
Reddell Hypothesis
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, immigration to New Zealand could be seen
as reflecting a favourable shock to the tradable sector. Opening up new lands to
production, falling transport costs, refrigerated shipping combined to lift the population
capacity of New Zealand while still offering high wages and high rates of return.
By the middle of the 20th century, New Zealand was settled and producing, and
technological change in the key export sectors was no longer as rapid (relative to other
producers). The factor price equalisation justification for strong population growth had
dissipated, yet population growth remained high. Across the OECD, there is some
evidence that rapid population growth in post-war advanced countries was associated with
143
an apparent cost to per capita growth rates.
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/research-policy/wp/2014/14-10
Ethnocentrism is not a White disorder and evidence is emerging that immigrant communities harbour invidious attitude towards Anglo Australians, disparaging their culture and the legitimacy of their central place in national identity. Place your ethnic activist here [ ].
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2010/06/the-misguided-advocates-of-open-borders/
What if there really is a Clash of Civilisations (One in three Rhohingya refugee women is pregnant)?
"Ethnocentrism is not a White disorder and evidence is emerging that immigrant communities harbour invidious attitude towards Anglo Australians, disparaging their culture and the legitimacy of their central place in national identity. Place your ethnic activist here [ ]."
Two Quoque is a fallacy, not an argument.
jh
I agree with you that ethnocentrism is not an exclusively white disorder.
But, whether it was originally desirable or not, New Zealand and most of the nations of the earth are now multi-ethnic in their composition.
In our case, this would continue to be true, even if all immigration was brought to a halt right now!
So, for everyone's sake, we need to distance ourselves as much as possible from our own recidivist, ethnocentric urges and seek to persuade those of other ethnicities, both within our borders and beyond, to do likewise.
My own view is that, compared to many places, New Zealand's not doing a bad job in that regard.
And, no, that doesn't mean that I'm in denial of either the need to cut back on immigration (at least for a period) or of the threat to our sovereignty posed by ethnocentric empires elsewhere.
Very little in life is easy or uncomplicated. We can but try.
All progressive NZs must help and stand by this government. Darth Vader's followers won't give up easily.
If they were only full of hubris it wouldn't be so bad, but they are full of self-satisfaction at having stretched NZ on the rack successfully, and still be thought 'good managers' and 'stable steady hands' by a lot of uncaring people who are hardly even citizens. They are malicious and will attack and criticise no matter what is achieved. And there is so much to do, part repair, part new approaches to fill in gaping holes in governmental duties, expectations and provision, and part to prepare for certain disasters brought about by climate change and the upheavals of sick countries, distorted by excesses of the financial system rorted to the nth degree.
We only have one chance before being overwhelmed by complexity and mistaken
fealty to uber-modern IT and robotic machinery, replacing humans because of other humans love of involved toys, subtlety, symbolism and abstractions.
Thank you, Chris, for expressing the mood of the moment so well in your last two posts. I hope you are still too drunk to write.
Every inch of this is feeling like Huck Finn just defeated the powers of doom.
The five mile high YEEHAH is still there.
Cheers
Susie
Jacinda Ardern is going to be a wonderful PM and there is much to celebrate. However politics is a rough business and she will come under constant attack not just from a very large opposition but also from the oppositions conduits in the media. It has started already and can only ramp up. We need to oppose this with as much energy as we supported the change.
The MSM have to be taken to task and challenged at every occasion when publishing lies and smear under the guise of "opinion" pieces.
Clayton's win, gifted by Winston, not by the majority will of the people. Sold out lots of baubles, in contrast, Bill English showed guts and kudos by drawing a line in the sand and telling Mr Seven Percent, no, you demand too much. Good on him. A PM without a true mandate and a govt that sold its soul for power. Winston's speech was priceless and silly, and he looked not to be a believer in it at all. So when it all falls apart, I hope Winston is proud of the 'legacy' he wanted. Not sure where the capitalist stuff came in, he sure did not campaign on that. lol. Democracy not, no matter what the MMP apologists say! But power at any price, I guess! I bet it turns out to be a short-term marriage though. Like every other time. Bill was wise to let the losers have him.
"Bill English showed guts and kudos by drawing a line in the sand and telling Mr Seven Percent, no, you demand too much"
You were there then? You lucky Bugger, I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall at those discussions./Sarc in case it's needed.
Perhaps Anonymous's seething anger at the election result under MMP is understandable.. especially if you march in time with the one percenters.
After all, the economy was doing so well wasn't it, even if the beggars in every town and city, the people who cannot access health treatment in a timely manner, the emerging elitism in a mad education system, and the armies of the despairing not doing so well, speak of a different reality.
Alan
Anonymous of 21 October at 01:53 - thank you helping to demonstrate Chris' point for him. Barely a day after a new government out comes a right wing poodle with all the odorous pre-prepared lines that are going to be sprayed around by National's incontinent attack dogs for the next three years. Lovely.
Perhaps Anonymous's seething anger at the election result under MMP is understandable.. especially if you march in time with the one percenters.
After all, the economy was doing so well wasn't it, even if the beggars in every town and city, the people who cannot access health treatment in a timely manner, the emerging elitism in a mad education system, and the armies of the despairing not doing so well, speak of a different reality.
Alan
Oh dear, Anonymous, you are bewy, bewy cwoss, aren't you! Do you really not understand MMP, or are you choosing not to because it didn't work the way you wanted it to this time?
@Anonymous
Your comments are just typical of the nonsense "opinions" that are coming from National supporters. Everyone knows Bill was waiting waiting waiting to be anointed, but that didn't happen. At least Bill had the smarts to acknowledge and accept the decision that MMP delivered. I can appreciate there is disappointment for those that didn't vote for Labour, NZ First or the Greens, but the result is democracy under our MMP system and there are no apologies required.
Get used to it or campaign for something different.
On The Nation this morning satisfying to see our new leader talk with heart felt compassion for those left behind in now what is being sensed as an abject failure of a market driven economy the neo liberal capitalist model that has garnered the well to heal a multitude of wealth at the expense and deprivation of the many.
Hope again is in the air for those left behind and our new and vibrant Prime Minister, looks with determined vigour to carry out her duties with a compassion that was sorely lacking in our previous neo liberal market economy driven government.
Seeing there aren't supposed to be any Anonymous here and there is, how about if we can't get rid of all, can we only have ones that promote good ideas and not the sour old rubbish like -
'Democracy not, no matter what the MMP apologists say! But power at any price, I guess! I bet it turns out to be a short-term marriage though. Like every other time. Bill was wise to let the losers have him.'
It just sounds like someone who lost $2 and found 20 cents, and feels sour about the world. Go and snarl somewhere else; sneer at Winston's speech; just be an ignorant but opinionated commenter with the usual suspect birds- of-prey.
Forgive me for repeating myself, but I think it's time to again trot out those lines from "Julius Caesar":
"There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures."
The Greens are now starting to get angry over Taxcinda's agreement with Winnie and Shane Jones to leave the Kermadecs sanctuary as be.
Fume and boil amongst the Greens.
Documents have not been signed.
Who will prevail?, not the Greens I am told.
Blind Side.
" heart felt compassion for those left behind "
Bugger the heartfelt compassion. What's needed is some heartfelt action. I'm still reserving (dammit AutoCorrect) judgement on that. As someone said – well actually me – in the Guardian comments, "never mind if she lives up to Helen Clark's reputation let's see if she can live up to Mickey Savage's."
How the system works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyfIrDhRKPw
Victor, that verse is the crux. Equally right in one light as it is wrong in another (whilist also dismissing Shaw and Tolstoy's disdain for Shakespeare). Wrong and right in the sense of us wriggling for the light of 'success'.
From one, for better or worse, in the 'shallows'.
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