Tuesday 8 March 2022

Conservatives and Revolutionaries: Together At Last!

Peaceful Protest? The inescapable problem for the defenders of the occupation of Parliament Grounds is how to explain the extraordinary violence of the twenty-third day of the protest. They manage it, however, by employing the oldest explanation in politics: the minority responsible for the fires and the violence were in no way representative of the overwhelming majority of the protesters.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED to the conservatives and the revolutionaries of this country? How is it possible that these two groups, separated by ideology, are nevertheless equally persuaded that the occupiers of Parliament Grounds were ordinary, decent New Zealanders engaged in a political protest indistinguishable from a host of similar demonstrations scattered across New Zealand’s recent history?

The most obvious answer is that on both sides of the political spectrum there is a powerful ideological and emotional need to represent the protest as neither threatening nor unusual. Both conservatives and revolutionaries have a common interest in constructing a narrative in which the “innocence” of the protesters, and the “guilt” of the Government, is indisputable.

What could that common interest possibly be?

One possible answer is that the protest offered spectacular proof that “the people” still possessed the power of independent action. As the NZ Herald’s John Roughan put it: “I was proud that a demonstrable minority of New Zealanders have not been persuaded that lockdowns and vaccine mandates are a proportionate response to this virus.” 

That not everyone was willing to follow the science, or put the interests of ordinary New Zealanders ahead of the demands of business lobbyists and pundits convinced they knew more than the experts, was clearly a comfort to Roughan. That the protesters were happy to parade their ontological certainty on Parliament Grounds was even more comforting. The protest might be ignored by the Prime Minister (and all the other party leaders) but it could not be denied.

Roughan’s column is remarkable in many ways – not least by how far its author is willing to diverge from principles usually held dear to the hearts of most conservatives. On how many other occasions, one wonders, has he congratulated the Police for ignoring the expectations of “politicians, media, and the public who think law is something to be strictly enforced at all times”? Mass defiance of the Rule of Law is not the sort of behaviour usually tolerated by conservatives!

Nor is it usual for conservatives to downplay the serious harassment (up to and including physical assault) of innocent citizens going about their lawful business. Roughan refers to the many recorded incidents of Wellingtonians being accosted in the street, by protesters visibly incensed by their attempts to protect themselves from infection, as nothing more than “scoffing at people in masks”. Such minimisation of the actual harm experienced is, sadly, essential if one’s purpose is to maintain the fiction that this was a “peaceful protest”.

It is instructive to compare the description of these same incidents offered by two Marxist revolutionaries, Daphne Whitmore and Don Franks. In an opinion-piece posted on their Redline blog, they say: “There were unpleasant scenes reported of scruffy looking individuals walking on the streets of the city shouting at them for wearing a mask.” 

This description is a definite improvement on Roughan’s “scoffing”. But, although the writers concede that for some the experience was “deeply traumatising”, they also explain how “[m]any more just wandered on, ignoring the rants as you do with anyone who seems a bit unhinged.”

Crucially, they then add: “Those interactions, well away from the parliament lawns were then conflated with the occupation as a whole.” Once again, the purpose is to inoculate the occupation from charges that it was anything other than a “peaceful protest”.

The inescapable problem for both Roughan and Whitmore/Franks is how to explain the extraordinary violence of the twenty-third day of the occupation. They manage it, however, by employing the oldest explanation in politics: the minority responsible for the fires and the violence were in no way representative of the overwhelming majority of the protesters.

Roughan further refines his argument by congratulating the Police Commissioner, Andrew Coster, for the way he dealt with this alien violent element – presenting his final decision to clear Parliament Grounds as a “relief” for all the peaceful protesters, who dutifully packed-up and went home.

Whitmore/Franks are more straightforward. “After 23 days camped outside parliament the End the Mandates protest was stormed by 500 riot police. A few hundred hardcore protesters fought back all day, and around a hundred were arrested.”

It was the Cops wot done it.

At the heart of Roughan’s argument one senses a deep resentment that the views of persons like himself, powerful White conservative males, did not prove decisive in determining the Labour Government’s handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Such men are not used to being ignored. The inconvenient fact that the young, female Prime Minister who declined to accept their advice went on to be re-elected in a landslide victory only rubbed salt in their wounds.

It isn’t the fact that Roughan and his ilk represent a minority that galls them (the ruling-class and its explainers will always be a minority) it is that they have been required to share the fate of the minorities which, when power was in conservative hands, they were happy to ignore. The person they blame for this insupportable state of affairs is Jacinda Ardern:

“Once the grounds were cleared, the Prime Minister addressed the nation. She was not conciliatory. She said the violence had vindicated her refusal to engage with the protest for three weeks. She said the occupation would not define us.”

Roughan’s final paragraph is telling:

“As Prime Minister in a pandemic, she ultimately decides just about everything we can do. She can decide to shut shops, close schools, cancel events, keep us confined to home. She even decides what is best for our health. But she doesn’t get to decide what defines us. Not all of us.”

Seldom has a conservative writer provided his readers with such a clear view of his politics – nor one so chilling.

The clue to Whitmore’s and Franks’ uncompromising position on this issue is contained in this paragraph:

“Ostensibly pro working class groups painted the occupation as entirely negative and ‘reactionary’, with zero recognition of the social and economic deprivation which had driven many protesters to participate. Significant sections of End the Mandate protesters included trades people and health professionals who had lost their jobs. That is what drove them to arrive at parliament with their families, demanding audience with the government.”

What neither writer attempts to explain, however, is why so many other working-class New Zealanders – Māori and Pasifika working-class New Zealanders in particular – who are also the victims of “social and economic deprivation”, fought Covid by organising collective action and mutual support. These were the “essential workers” who stayed at their posts throughout the lockdowns because, if they hadn’t, thousands of their fellow citizens would have died.

The protesters on Parliament Grounds did not “lose their jobs” – they gave them up because they refused to accept the social obligation of vaccination, and then, selfishly, refused to accept the consequences of that refusal.

Had the “Freedom Village” been erected in the name of social justice, by workers determined to build a better world. Had the protesters not blocked city streets, assaulted passers-by, and prevented schools, universities, businesses and courts from functioning. Had they not swung nooses and issued death threats. Then their brutal suppression by 500 police officers would, indeed, have been shameful.

But, the hard, cold truth of the matter is that this protest was a manifestation of narcissistic, sociopathic, passive-aggressive and violent behaviour unequalled in New Zealand political history. It was a gathering of the deluded and the deranged. The only freedom sought was the freedom to ignore the obligations attached to being fully human. And that is pretty much the definition of “reactionary”.

No matter how hard Daphne Whitmore and Don Franks might wish it otherwise, a revolution by proxy just isn’t possible.


This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 8 March 2022.

28 comments:

Odysseus said...

International human rights law expressly states that no one must be disadvantaged for declining a medical intervention (UN Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights). Justice Cooke found the mandates violated the Bill of Rights in respect of the Police and Defence Force; now other groups including Education staff are taking similar cases. Both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated can spread COVID. The government has refused to set an end date for the mandates (or the other draconian regulations it has passed), or set out the criteria for lifting them. Many people have lost their jobs and have been turned into second class citizens - Ardern acknowledged this would be the outcome when she announced the mandates last October.

I visited the protest on the first Sunday. The people I saw and met were New Zealanders from all walks of life, mainly working class, with a high proportion of Maori. This was borne out by the Curia poll run by The Platform. Almost half of them were Labour-Greens voters. The government's failure to engage with these people was shameful. Instead the government and its bought and paid for media set out to demonize them.

It seems towards the end the protest, which had been offering free food, shelter and a sense of community, may have attracted some people with other intentions, especially from the socially housed gang element that has for the past two years made large parts of the city unsafe at night. Who knows? In the aftermath the only clusters of remaining protestors I have seen have been largely working class Maori from out of town.

The effort to rewrite history in the government's favour obviously continues however.

John Drinnan said...

FaIt enough. But I struggle to understand Chris Trotter being chilled by the idea that the State does not control everything Strangely for Roughan it seems to define what it means to be human.
. Rough said. As Prime Minister in a pandemic, she ultimately decides just about everything we can do. She can decide to shut shops, close schools, cancel events, keep us confined to home. She even decides what is best for our health. But she doesn’t get to decide what defines us. Not all of us.”

Seldom has a conservative writer provided his readers with such a clear view of his politics – nor one so chilling.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

I've been asking conservatives for some time now why they make such an issue of cancel culture when they obviously cancel people themselves, and why they blag on about violence from BLM and antifa – neither of which exist in New Zealand to any great extent – when we haven't had a peep from them about the violence of the Parliament protesters. Not one effing word. Absolute silence. And why they are suddenly championing working-class heroes/unemployed people when previously they haven't given a shit about people becoming unemployed – just the vagaries of the market place right? The Conservative mind is meant to be rigid – but by golly they can weasel themselves out of all sorts of things when they need to. :)

I saw the reaction at the Wainuiomata marae to the protesters trying to establish a base there. I worked in Wainui for 20 or so years and I recognised a few of the faces – although at my age I can't always put a name to them. :) They were actual working class people not made up ones.

AB said...

Thank you Chris for your fantastic demolition of Roughan - has is a toxic voice who has been undeservedly platformed by the Herald for decades.

David George said...


I'm sure we all have friends and family that were at, or supported, the protest.
The conservatives I know are, as you would expect, not fans of the protestors so perhaps you're reading too much into a handful of comments. Left and right leaning liberals (in the correct meaning of the word), libertarians and anti-globalists and anti GM/big pharma types seem to be the backbone of the anti-mandate movement.

Chris "a manifestation of narcissistic, sociopathic, passive-aggressive and violent behaviour unequalled in New Zealand political history"

Here's a little exercise, replace the anti-mandate protestors with the 1951 waterside strikers. The same things were said and done about them: holding the country to ransom, selfish, implementation of a state of emergency with draconian powers, riot police and so on. There was even a bridge (Huntly) blown up by union terrorists. Perhaps a little perspective is in order.

I don't think the (so called) revolutionaries and conservatives will find common cause if that's what you're worried about; they're just fundamentally different types. The liberals and conservatives are far more likely to reject the divisive identarian, neo tribalist, authoritarian agenda being pursued by this government. That will be the big issue next election IMHO. Covid will fade into the background and there will be a much needed examination of who we are, what we stand for and where we are going.

Here's a great wee essay on that:

"What has changed is not the barbarians of the world, but that we gave up on the justice of our cause.

It’s true that the so-called neoliberals, those who spent their formative years, two or three or four decades ago, in seminar rooms at New England colleges, got many things wrong. They were arrogant; they had their blind spots; and now everyone on the left and the right hates them. It’s easy to. What we forget is that they got one thing very, very right, which is that there are things that are far worse than American hegemony. The new right, the identitarian left—they never say what comes after the old order, because they can’t think that far ahead, or they don’t care to. They’re just happy to watch it all burn.

Vladimir Putin knows how much daylight there is between hard geopolitical reality and American rhetoric. But we prefer to hew to the old platitudes. They make us think that we can rewind or undo or make things better if we just say the right things. It is time to imagine what our president seems incapable of: a new order, jungle-like, shot through with the fevers and hatreds of the world as it had always been before. Uncivilization."

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-dawn-of-uncivilization?s=r

greywarbler said...

Someone has been exercised to write in Wikipedia about the bible verse -On Matthew 7: 16 - In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men
gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

The previous verse* warned against false prophets, and in this one Jesus tells his followers how to identify them. He does so by beginning a new metaphor, wholly separate from the wolves and sheep one of the previous verse.

The new metaphor turns to botany. It specifically refers to grapes and figs, which were both common crops in the region. Thornbushes and thistles also flourished in the region, and were a constant problem to farmers.[1][2] Jesus states that one will be able to identify false prophets by their fruits. False prophets will not produce good fruits. Fruits, which are a common metaphor in both the Old and New Testaments, represent the outward manifestation of a person's faith, thus their behaviour and their works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_7:16


It basically says that one can tell a lot about a person by observing what they do, and also what they say (particularly what they say they will do, what they did, and is there a between the statement and delivery? Can that gap be excused and understood? Is that person or group coherent and trustworthy).

The Bible is full of tips on how to be a good person and wise along with less Christian exhortations and debacles in the Old Testament. The fact that the religious fail to match up to their own exhortations must be recognised as human, but also that desire to rise above that and find a better way, is something religion expresses which we need to cling to. It seems easy for we humans to slide below animals and misuse our cleverness to create mischief or worse.

* Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Matthew 7:15 - Wikipedia

Mark Craig said...

Very accurate and succinct sir.Well played that man.

Brendan McNeill said...

Chris

I am unable to read John Roughan’s article, and I don’t know if he would describe himself as a conservative. However, unlike the middle class Marxists who now control the official ‘narrative’ in New Zealand, being a conservative is not an ideological position. A conservative is someone who seeks to hold fast to that which is good, true and proven to be workable, while embracing change that will build upon that tradition. This is an important distinction, and one that appears to be lost on the political Marxist, because they assume, incorrectly, that everyone views the world as they do, through the lens of oppressed and oppressor. That everyone is engaged in their ideological struggle on one side or the other. That is simply not the case.

I support the protest movement, not because everyone involved is a perfect human being, or that everyone’s behaviour is supportable. I support the protest movement, because it is the duty of everyone to push back against State sponsored tyranny, either by direct action or civil disobedience. Individual human rights matter, and in a liberal democracy the threshold for their abrogation is unavoidably high. The idea that the State can insist you must be inoculated with a trial vaccinate in order to protect someone else under the threat of penury is extreme and unprecedented.

Now that the true numbers of those dying because of Covid-19 rather than simply with Covid-19 have been made available, the virus has proved to be strikingly similar to the Flu, with a similar demographic at risk, namely the elderly and those with co-morbitities. Furthermore, the average age of death from covid-19 in western countries is OLDER than the average age of death in each location respectively. You are more likely to die of old age than from Covid-19. Think about that for a moment. We are accustomed to 500+ mainly elderly people dying every year from the Flu in New Zealand. We have accepted it as normal. The wildly inaccurate and fearful predictions of the data modellers, the politicians and the mainstream media have have proved to be demonstrably false.

Therefore the threshold for the abrogation of individual rights because of Covid-19 has not been met.

/snip

discussion around the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine.

/snip

Consequently I am obligated by conscience to oppose the mandates. They are tyrannical, and harmful in their execution and their impact, and with 95% of Kiwi’s vaccinated, they provide no substantive community benefit. I am not seeking a revolution, rather a restoration of our civil liberties, the right to employment and to support ones family. The right to determine for oneself what medication or medical procedures are appropriate; the right to bodily autonomy.

The revolutionaries are in the Beehive.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"The main rule within international human rights law is that vaccination, like any other medical intervention, must be based on the recipient’s free and informed consent. This rule is, however, not absolute. In Solomakhin v Ukraine, the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) held that mandatory vaccination interferes with a person’s right to integrity protected under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Nevertheless, the Court concluded such interference may be justified if considered a ‘necessity to control the spreading of infectious diseases’ (para 36)."

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"I'm sure we all have friends and family that were at, or supported, the protest."
Er....No. I don't have a single one – what an unfounded assumption.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"Here's a little exercise, replace the anti-mandate protestors with the 1951 waterside strikers. The same things were said and done about them: holding the country to ransom, selfish, implementation of a state of emergency with draconian powers, riot police and so on. There was even a bridge (Huntly) blown up by union terrorists. Perhaps a little perspective is in order."

FFS– That's drawing a long bow even for you Dave.


"Arguing that New Zealand’s vital export trade was under threat, the National government declared a state of emergency on 21 February. The following day Prime Minister Holland warned that New Zealand was ‘at war’. On the 27th, troops were sent onto the Auckland and Wellington wharves to load and unload ships. Draconian emergency regulations imposed rigid censorship, gave police sweeping powers of search and arrest and made it an offence for citizens to assist strikers – even giving food to their children was outlawed."



Tell me, what part of this did we see at Parliament grounds the other day?



Incidentally, on vaccinations again:
“In ethics, there’s this idea that you can do things as long as you don’t harm other people,” says bioethics professor Matthew Liao, director of the Center for Bioethics at New York University. “[W]hen you don’t get vaccinated, you’re putting people in danger.”

Hall notes that in the 1905 case Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the US Supreme Court upheld the states’ authority to mandate vaccinations (in this case, for smallpox) for this very reason. The court noted in its opinion:

“The liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States does not import an absolute right in each person to be at all times, and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint, nor is it an element in such liberty that one person, or a minority of persons residing in any community and enjoying the benefits of its local government, should have power to dominate the majority when supported in their action by the authority of the State.”

Guerilla Surgeon said...

I find it interesting that those people who have been railing against BLM as ultraviolent when it has been proven that in fact there is very little violence at BLM demonstrations and much of that has been caused by white people trying to stir up trouble, are now insisting that it's only a small group of protesters that were violent at Parliament grounds. The cognitive dissonance must be great.

Tom Hunter said...

... or put the interests of ordinary New Zealanders ahead of the demands of business lobbyists
You do know that Pfizer and company have a lobbyist budget in the US that would put any NZ business interests to shame. But then you agree with Pfizer's demands, especially they be given an out for liability. This from a pharma company that had paid several billion dollars in such liability lawsuits in recent years.

Mass defiance of the Rule of Law is not the sort of behaviour usually tolerated by conservatives!
True, but we lost that argument against the Left years ago so have decided to play by the new rules of the game established by protests at Ihumātao, Shelly Bay and now Ti Ti Marae.

Nor is it usual for conservatives to downplay the serious harassment (up to and including physical assault) of innocent citizens going about their lawful business.
Again. We lost that argument and found ourselves subjected to "righteous" abuse by the people you favour, in the name of "social justice". As a mate of mine standing in the crowd at the Springbok-Waikato game, who found himself flattened by the rush of protestors later said, "I thought they were into non-violence?"

These were the “essential workers” who stayed at their posts throughout the lockdowns because, if they hadn’t, thousands of their fellow citizens would have died.
This reminds me of Trudeau's paens to the working class truckers who'd kept "our shelves stocked" - right up until he needed to smash them and so started calling them Nazis, racists, xenophobes and all the rest of the usual grab bag of modern Leftist insults, just because they refused to comply with new demands on top of the ones they'd already complied with.

..the views of persons like himself, powerful White conservative males, did not prove decisive in determining the Labour Government’s handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
I'm not aware of the political stance of Bloomfield, Baker and company (although being an Otago University member I'd bet Baker is quite Left), but they don't strike me as being onboard with your political and ideological desires, but even if not "conservative" they were and remain powerful White males who got their way, along with a bunch of others in Labour and the Greens. As you well know, the lack of the tag "conservative" will not save them in the future.

Basically this entire column is just the usual Rules for thee but not for me stance of the Left, backed in this case by "The Science" - which BTW is changing fast, much faster than the science itself, in nations where governments are staring down the barrel of falling polls. You already got enraged when PM Ardern pulled the same stunt WRT Lockdown L4 for Delta because her government was losing Auckland fast. Watch for her to do it again soon on mandates, irrespective of the numbers of cases, hospitalisations or deaths.

The Barron said...

There is something unevolved about contributors that think finding someone working class, or someone who is Maori, in a group of people means class or indigenous analysis is somehow negated. It reminds me of the Trump speeches where a few African Americans are placed behind the podium, while he spouts diatribe that will impact negatively on the sector.

The idea that Maori do not have diverse views is disturbing. The idea that working people, waged or unwaged, are not divergent is bizarre. What we are talking about is small minorities of both sectors. Even more so if we take away the cultish followers of the Apostle Brian (yes, I know it sounds like a Monty Python first draft).

The reality is there are significant mental health issues amongst the former occupiers, and others whose social dislocation should be a concern to everyone. The inability to understand best evidence decisions will not go away. The view that they have the right to cause medical harm to others, will not go away. The view that they can demand the undermining of democratic institutions, will not go away. The view that actions should not have repercussions, will not go away. The view that the self is more important than the vulnerable will not go away.

All virus modelling show, that if it were not for the decisions made by government, it would be working class and Maori that would have had disproportionally death rates. Indeed, Pasifika are currently bearing the brunt of this outbreak. When it peaks in the provinces, it will be disproportionally Maori. It has always been disproportionally disabled people. The fact that the death rates have been modest by world standards is because we have taken measures recommended by the experts.

What the former occupiers are not is representative of any group of New Zealanders.

David George said...

"History is changing, fast. Stabilities are fracturing; intellectual borders are shifting. New movements have emerged, impelled by hidden emotional currents, impelled in turn by forces economic, technological, environmental. But history, I’ve learned, isn’t just something that happens out there. The upheavals it causes are psychic, as well. I had read about this with respect to people in the past, but now I find that I am living it. But that is the thing about history: we always think of it as happening to others, until it comes for us."

https://unherd.com/2022/03/escaping-american-tribalism/

DS said...

Here's a little exercise, replace the anti-mandate protestors with the 1951 waterside strikers. The same things were said and done about them: holding the country to ransom, selfish, implementation of a state of emergency with draconian powers, riot police and so on. There was even a bridge (Huntly) blown up by union terrorists. Perhaps a little perspective is in order.

The victims of the Waterfront Lockout (not Strike, mate) weren't running around outside Sid Holland's office with nooses and death threats. They weren't encamped in the middle of our capital city, closing roads and businesses, violating basic sanitation, harassing innocent pedestrians, and they certainly weren't acting as the vectors of a deadly disease. All the Waterfront Workers wanted was a pay increase. All the Wellington protestors wanted was their right to spread death and ignore the rights of others. Your efforts to conflate the two situation are nonsense.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"Now that the true numbers of those dying because of Covid-19 rather than simply with Covid-19 have been made available, the virus has proved to be strikingly similar to the Flu"

Utter nonsense. Many of those supposedly dying "with" Covid have had their conditions exacerbated by the – disease leading to death where it might not have happened.
Not to mention Brendan that you have very little conscience about people losing their jobs when capitalist decide they need to get rid of them. The right to employment? You don't really believe in it.
God help us, I find myself despising these antivax people with a ferocity I never knew I had.

Interesting observation Barron. I was once accused of racism on this site by suggesting that you can't treat Maori as a monolithic bloc – not only that but that they were different to Pakeha.

John Hurley said...

Both conservatives and revolutionaries have a common interest in constructing a narrative in which the “innocence” of the protesters, and the “guilt” of the Government, is indisputable.

What was behind Brexit and Trump? All the evidence points to values yet they are claiming that it was social media and misinformation. Spoonley (who must be close to 100 interviews) even goes so far as to claim "we don't have long form journalism". That in relation to a questioner re Auckland being segregated. Of course we only hear positive positions on immigration.
It just takes a political entrepreneur like Donald Trump or Nigel Farage but they are up against the vested interests who have the money, the skills, the contacts etc, etc.

As Gluckman says "we've seen what happens overseas"

Aotearoa New Zealand is generally regarded as a country with a high level of social cohesion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_9UOLq8bfg&t=24s

David George said...

Thanks DS, despite your somewhat hyperbolic assessment there are some significant similarities in the anti collectivist direction of the two protests . Your "not a strike but a lockout" sounds awfully similar to Chris's "The protesters on Parliament Grounds did not “lose their jobs” – they gave them up"

The "Team of Three Million" (or whatever it was then) had recently endured a world war, the Korean war had just begun and the people in Europe, the destination for our food, were still going hungry. There was lingering, and newly reinforced, fear and a powerful will to unity among the people as a consequence. The ingredients for hatred towards the waterside workers were in place: traitors and wreckers were putting themselves above the national interest, all they had to do was submit. Their children were ostracised at school and the government ultimately came down hard on them and their supporters.

Sure there was violence, destruction and death threats, the fliers printed up by the wharfies were full of threats and hate directed at the government, the police and the "scabs" - strike breakers.

It's a classic "us" (the collective) against "them" and despite the vast differences it's still the same dispute with the same response, the cultivation of hate towards the outgroup (rivers of filth?) and an authoritarian conclusion.

Don Franks said...

Yes, I think a little perspective is in order. I recall, as a nice little middle class child, overhearing one of my fathers friends tell an anecdote, the punch line being "...and you know, it actually turned out that this chap was a wharfie! He made no secret of it!" To which all the company oohed and aahed and shuddered. The locked out '51 workers and sympathy strikers were regarded in their day and long afterwards as a sub human menace. They closed businesses, threatened commerce and distributed scurrilous illegal leaflets depicting their enemies as rats and worse. They were widely seen as spreading the frightening and deadly disease of communism. Now that time has done it's work it can be more widely accepted that the wharfies were fellow human beings battling as best they could to secure what they saw as their own legitimate interests.

Shane McDowall said...

Brendan McNeil : If we listened to conservatives we would all still be living in caves. New Zealand would still be performing botched hangings. Male school students would still be tortured by cane-wielding sadistic creeps.

Conservatives have fought hand tooth and nail to prevent every reform that has made Western civilisation not just different to other civilisations, but measurably superior.

About twenty years after every social reform, conservatives suffer from collective amnesia and act as if they always supported reforms, such as votes for women.

Social liberals did not vote for the Nazi Party. Hitler's bedrock support was from socially conservative petty bourgeois.

People's political views are usually a reflection on their personalities. Conservatives tend to be arrogant, selfish, and judgemental.

Ruth Richardson and Richard Prebble are living proof.

greywarbler said...

Strong medicine but though giving a nasty taste, is what is needed in regular small doses for best effect.
But, the hard, cold truth of the matter is that this protest was a manifestation of narcissistic, sociopathic, passive-aggressive and violent behaviour unequalled in New Zealand political history. It was a gathering of the deluded and the deranged. The only freedom sought was the freedom to ignore the obligations attached to being fully human. And that is pretty much the definition of “reactionary”.

It was useful in one way - it brought the decayed matter lurking NZ decent society from murky depths to the surface where it could be seen clearly. It is evidence that our democracy is probably polluted beyond recovery. However if NZs who cared about our country and having goodwill to each other, jobe, houses and livable wages could get together and set up a Trust and Charity with the object of making NZ Godzone Again with a practical morality, and achievable enjoyable lifestyle then we could get somewhere. But people need to accept hard work to make it successful and reliable leadership, and leaders have to accept ideas from all with discussion, and systems of precedent. So that everything is not being constantly haphazardly tried because its new to someone and they want their idea to go forward.

Anonymous said...

'Time after time mankind is driven against the rocks of the horrid reality of a fallen creation. And time after time mankind must learn the hard lessons of history-the lessons that for some dangerous and awful reason we can’t seem to keep in our collective memory'
— Hilaire Belloc

As a regular observer in this blog I can find no noticeable memories displaying any learned lessons. All I have noticed are a collective of worn out platitudes dampening the pockets of fellow travelers.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"As a regular observer in this blog I can find no noticeable memories displaying any learned lessons. All I have noticed are a collective of worn out platitudes dampening the pockets of fellow travelers."

To be fair, there are also vague incomprehensible statements.

David George said...

Shane: "Conservatives have fought hand tooth and nail to prevent every reform"

You're partly correct but they've also fought some mad ideas that would make everything far worse. That's what conservatives are for.
Things go can go catastrophically wrong when people in power don't know what their doing, know nothing about history but think they've a genius idea to reform everything.
He Puapua - the maddest idea ever put forward by a democratic country in the history of humanity - for example.

Chesterton's fence:
"There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”


sumsuch said...

Can't correct you Chris on this analysis. Versus, Martyn's 'sad day for democracy' shit. Clear them off. Anti-reason and anti-democracy. The significant point was dissatisfaction, that the 84 'meritocracy' didn't allow to be expressed. But not as bad as Yankland.

If there was a genuine social democratic movement in the land still we could dissipate this dissatisfaction.

David Stone said...

Very well said Brendon
D J S

sumsuch said...

Has Brendan McNeill ever came to the left of his people in America who will probably overthrow democracy there soon?

What is your opinion Brendan on what is going on there?

Was God for the powerful , mate?

Doesn't matter to me, I know you lot too well for you to have any credit.