Dissing The Farmers.

Neale vs The Revolting Farmers: One has to admire the way Capital Government Relations CEO, Neale Jones, covers-off all the bases of the current political zeitgeist. In a masterfully composed tweet, he lambasts the Groundswell protesters as sexists, racists and reactionaries, clinging for dear life to “a purely extractive economic model: pollute, emit, exploit, and let someone else bear the cost.” As if all capitalists don’t fit that description.

THERE’S NO DISPUTING that Neale Jones is very good at what he does. As a public relations practitioner working in Jacinda Ardern’s Wellington, he has an instinctive feel for the lines that will be remembered and re-tweeted enthusiastically by the Ardernian establishment. Jones’ tweet of this morning (22/11/21) offers an excellent example of the CEO of Capital Government Relations’ craft.

Responding to the self-styled “Mother of All Protests” organised by Groundswell, Jones tweeted:

“Aside from the casual racism and sexism, Groundswell represents a reactionary attempt to cling to a purely extractive economic model: pollute, emit, exploit, and let someone else bear the cost.”

One has to admire the way Jones covers-off all the bases of the current political zeitgeist. Right up front there is the reference to the opponent’s “casual” racism and sexism. The use of the word “casual” is instructive in this context.

That all men are sexists, and all White people racists, are core axioms of the Identity Politics that dominates all aspects of official life in the capital city. No Pakeha male operating in this environment would be so foolish (or career limiting) as to deny either his sexism or his racism. Were he to do so he would be denying the systemic character of these entrenched structures of privilege. Instead, he would offer his assurance that he was “working” on his sexism and racism. Not with any real expectation of becoming a better person, you understand, but in hopes of not becoming a worse one.

That’s why the word “casual” is so important. Jones’ charge is that the farmers behind the Groundswell protests are so antediluvian, so Neanderthalic, that they are either unaware of the gender and ethnic privileges they enjoy – enabling them to engage in sexist and racist behaviour quite unconsciously. Or, that the social milieu in which they operate is so saturated with misogyny, homophobia and racism, that they have grown accustomed to voicing their prejudices “casually” – without the slightest fear of reproof.

Having successfully consigned these moral ingrates to the ninth circle of Woke Hell (in an admirably economical seven words) Jones then moves on to the central charge of his tweet. Groundswell, he asserts, represents “a reactionary attempt to cling to a purely extractive economic model: pollute, emit, exploit, and let someone else bear the cost.”

Let’s unpick this statement forensically.

The first thing to note is that it is phrased in the language of classical socialism, as well as the rhetoric of classical environmentalism. The importance of this mix will become clear presently.

The first thing to note, however, is that the farmers organising the Groundswell protests aren’t just sexists and racists, they are “reactionaries”. The choice of epithet is important, because “reactionary” grounds the word’s user in the political landscape of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

According to Wikipedia, a Reactionary “is a person who holds political views that favour a return to the status quo ante, the previous political state of society, which that person believes possessed positive characteristics absent from contemporary society.” Synonyms for reactionary include: archconservative, die-hard, hidebound, traditional and unprogressive.

Historically-speaking, “reactionary” described the politics of the dynastic regimes which did all within their power to extirpate the ideas and institutions spawned by the French Revolution, and then spread across Europe by the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. In the first half of the twentieth century, however, “Reaction” became a catch-all term, applied to those who stood against the forces unleashed by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

So, it is a very heavy word to use in a political conversation. To be a “reactionary” is to set your face not only against the future, but also against the present – making you a very dangerous person (or group of people) indeed.

The danger is lessened, however, when Jones describes these farmer reactionaries as “clinging” to the expectations and practices of the past. Now, who “clings”? Frightened children – to their mother’s skirts. Mountain-climbers – for dear life on a vertiginous cliff-face. Lovers – desperate not to lose the object of their affections. All rather pathetic, all rather desperate. Anybody, or anything, that clings is not strong, or, at least, not in a strong position. In this instance the “cling-ee” is the “purely extractive economic model” which, because the “cling-ers” are reactionaries, must be a thing of the past.

And, just to make sure that Jones’ readers understand how very bad that past was, the elements of the “purely extractive economic model” are spat out like bullets to remind them: “pollute, emit, exploit, and let someone else bear the cost.”

This is the classic formula of old-school environmentalism. Of the Values Party – forerunner of the Greens. Of the many activist conservation movements of the 1970s and 80s, which condemned the “rip-in, rip-out, rip-off” mentality of miners, loggers, fishing companies and, yes, farmers. You’ve got to hand it to Jones, this is a truly masterful evocation. These sexist, racist, cockies aren’t just the backward-looking enemies of social progress, they are, Jones implies, the foes of Mother Earth herself.

If you were commissioned to lay the groundwork for a full-scale assault upon the New Zealand farming sector, launched in the name of Aotearoa “meeting its responsibilities” in the global effort against Climate Change, you could hardly have made a better start. Small wonder that the people organising the Groundswell protests are driving Federated Farmers and Dairy NZ to distraction. With “friends” like these blokes, the farming industry doesn’t really need enemies!

The genuinely inspired quality of Jones’ tweet is, of course, the way it appears to banish the “purely extractive economic model” to the dark recesses of history. Like the Divine Right of Kings, the ideas of these “reactionary” farmers are relics of a bygone era. The forces of social and economic progress are moving onwards and upwards. Those who refuse to join them in their heroic ascent towards the light, must resign themselves to living in the shadows.

Except, of course, it is all misdirection and disinformation. The “purely extractive economic model”, far from being a relic of the past, is still the driving force behind the entire capitalist system. “[P]ollute, emit, exploit, and let someone else bear the cost.” That isn’t just the disgraceful formula of colonial-era farmers who clear-felled the forests and drained the wetlands, it is the purest contemporary essence of actually existing capitalism the world over.

New Zealand’s farmers are not reactionary throwbacks, yearning for a world that has gone forever, they are stressed-out twenty-first century capitalists, some of whom came to town last Sunday (21/11/21) to remind the very capitalist government of this very capitalist country, that if it intends to go on monetizing her golden eggs, then it should remove its choking regulatory fingers from around the neck of the Golden Rural Goose.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 23 November 2021.

Who Is The Best Judge Of The People’s “Wellbeing”?

Happiness Relocated: The revelation that the model, and her young daughter, whose smiling faces adorned the cover of Grant Robertson's "Wellbeing Budget" had departed New Zealand in search of a better life on Australia's Gold Coast, provided a powerful symbol of the disconnect between the  experts' top-down approach to wellbeing, and the practical judgements of real people, on the ground, about their wellbeing - or the lack of it.

“THE WELLBEING BUDGET.” What a fantastic public relations confection this year’s budgeting exercise has turned out to be! Who could possibly raise a reasonable objection to the idea of gearing all the Government’s revenue-gathering and spending efforts towards securing the “wellbeing” of the New Zealand people?

Not Simon Bridges, that’s for sure. The Opposition’s case seems to rest on the assertion that they thought of it first. That “wellbeing” is just another name for former National Party leader Bill English’s programme of “social investment”.

And that’s a worry. Because the thinking behind both the “Wellbeing Budget”, as well as English’s “social investment” programme, runs counter to the most fundamental tenet of parliamentary democracy. Namely: that before money can be appropriated from the people in the form of taxes, their consent must first be obtained; and that such consent must be renewed annually, on the people’s behalf, by their freely elected representatives.

The entire Westminster System rests on the notion that there can be “no taxation without representation”. For breaching this fundamental principle, King Charles I lost his head, and King George III lost his 13 American colonies.

These grim precedents notwithstanding, the “wellbeing” principle enunciated by the Finance Minister, Grant Robertson, in yesterday’s Budget Speech, involves shifting the responsibility for signing-off on how the people’s money is to be spent from their elected representatives to their supposed servants in the Public Service.

Apparently, the whole notion of Members of Parliament determining and overseeing how the people’s taxes are spent has become woefully outdated. How much more efficient to simply vote money to a collection of government agencies and allow them to spend it as they see fit over the next four or five years. Annual appropriations, voted by the House of Representatives, is such an archaic way of operating what has become a fearsomely complex state machine. Much better to leave matters to the “experts”. They will keep their Minister informed, and s/he will tell Parliament when it’s time to wield its rubber stamp.

“Experts.” Aye, there’s the rub. For at least a century, the notion of government by experts (also known as “technocracy”) has enjoyed a solid following among … well … experts. Indeed, in the years following the First World War, a whole new approach to “manufacturing” the consent of the masses was developed by an arcane combination of journalists, psychologists and political scientists. It was the most accomplished of these manipulators, Edward Bernays, who refined the process into what we today recognise as the profession of “public relations”.

From a democratic perspective, the only true experts are the people themselves. That MPs need their votes to enter the House of Representatives means that, in theory at least, they enter that august institution with a pretty good idea of what a substantial number of voters regard as important and unimportant. It is on the basis of this knowledge that they appropriate money and frame legislation. To further inform and refine their thinking, MPs invite the people to make submissions to parliamentary select committees. At this point in the process, the contributions of experts are welcomed.

Political parties, once again in theory, are supposed to amplify the expression of the people’s needs and wants by organising them into a coherent package of proposed reforms. This is referred to as the party’s “manifesto”. It represents a kind of political contract with the electors, and the parliamentary representatives of the party, or parties, commanding a majority in the House of Representatives are expected to honour their manifesto’s “mandate” by conscientiously fulfilling its promises. The funding of these promises, via the elected government’s annual Budget, is the people’s most effective guarantee for securing their wellbeing democratically.

The only legitimate role for public servants in this process is to advise the elected Government on how best to implement its manifesto promises. The Public Service is not there to substitute its own judgement for that of the people’s – as expressed through the electoral process. Nor is it the business of elected politicians to ask bureaucrats to do the job they were chosen to do. All the “working groups” and “expert committees” in the world cannot relieve the people’s representatives of their sacred duty to – represent the people.

If the wellbeing of the people can only be secured by “experts”, then democracy is a lie.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 31 May 2019.

Journalism In Twenty-First Century New Zealand

The Nature Of The Beast: How should journalism be defined in Twenty-First Century New Zealand?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN to be a journalist in Twenty-First Century New Zealand? Why do thousands of young people every year sign up (and pay for) tertiary courses in journalism and communications studies? It certainly isn’t for the journalist's starting salary. Modern journalism is a high-stress, unrelenting, poorly-paid and (if the trust and confidence surveys are to be believed) almost universally despised profession. Why bother?

 

The oldest and still the most common answer journalists, both real and aspiring, offer to those who ask this question is: “To make a difference.” Ever since the invention of the printing press, people with something to say have seized the opportunity communication technology provides to reach a mass audience. In other words, people become journalists to access the power of the media. Their motivation is political.

 

Most journalists are loath to admit that power and politics have even the slightest bearing on their reasons for joining the profession. They’ll object that their motivations were much more honourable than the crude pursuit of power. Many will insist that they were only interested in sharing information with the public. Some will say they joined to right wrongs and correct abuses. Others will plead simple curiosity – an overwhelming need to know what’s going on.

 

They should not be believed.

 

The first thing that any journalist encounters – no matter whether he or she is in print, radio, television or web journalism – is their new employers’ editorial culture. This will determine practically every aspect of their job. If they’re interested only in gathering and disseminating information, the editorial culture of the newspaper, magazine, radio station or TV network will very soon make it clear which information is to be gathered and disseminated and which is best left alone. If they’re out to slay ogres and dragons they’ll be told which ones are fair game and which ones to leave undisturbed. If they’re simply curious they’ll learn very swiftly that there are institutions and individuals about whom it is positively dangerous to ask too many questions.

 

Every journalist entering the profession, therefore, has a choice. Submit to the culture, or walk away. That so few choose to walk away speaks volumes about the professional temperament of journalists. The thrill of reaching and influencing a mass audience trumps just about every other consideration. As is the case with all mercenaries, money is important to the working journalist – but it isn’t crucial. They do what they do because nothing else comes close. Who cares if the issues being addressed and the editorial line being followed are dictated by somebody else? It’s the journalists’ words, and their images, that make the difference on the ground.

 

If you remain doubtful that journalists are essentially power-seeking politicos with keyboards and/or cameras, just consider the twenty-first century “communications” career-path. In the process of making a master communicator journalism is only the apprenticeship phase. A few years of “churnalism”, of demonstrating that he or she possesses a safe pair of hands, and the apprentice is taken up into the public relations industry.

 

Providing there’s nothing in the journalist’s career suggesting some unwillingness to embrace the culture of their paymasters, the shift to PR work will generally double their income overnight. In this world there’s no place for idealistic self-justifications. Here, the journalist’s talents for effective communication are to be placed unashamedly at the disposal of corporate power – end of story.

 

An alternative path to becoming a well-paid shill for the rich and the powerful is via the offices of Government and Opposition politicians. For ambitious members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, becoming a “spin-doctor” is easily the quickest route to a six-figure salary. It does, however, require a solid grasp of the realities of political reporting: hunt as a pack; share the spoils; and under no circumstances attempt to write your own words or music to the unfolding drama.

 

Above all else, the successful political journalist understands and accepts that democratic politics can only be about the replacement and replenishment of elites. Faces may come and go, but the fundamental story must always be the same. Politicians and journalists who attempt to construct and/or popularise a political narrative substantially at odds with the version provided by “official sources” should anticipate neither a lengthy nor a successful career.

 

This examination of Twenty-First Century New Zealand journalism cannot, however, be concluded without a word or two concerning the glittering exceptions to the profession’s new rules. These are the celebrity journalists – the handful of political editors, presenters, news-readers, talk-back hosts and entertainers who dominate the electronic media and are, thus, the principal shapers of public opinion.

 

Like the actors of Ancient Greece, their role is to demonstrate how little we human-beings control the urges and forces that shape our universe. To explain, in short, the ways of gods to men.

 

In the Twenty-First Century these deities are the great private and public organisations to which most of us offer up our daily labour. Through the celebrity journalists' own carefully constructed masks and most particularly through the heroes and heroines they create, we are invited to participate vicariously in both the comedy and tragedy of the human condition. In their stories we learn to recognise hubris and hamartia, the overweening pride and the fatal flaws, that first raise up and then cast down the dramatis personae of our ruling elites.

 

What they dare not do – on pain of themselves being cast down from the electronic Olympus – is encourage their audience to believe that the greatest story of all; the story yet to be written; is the story ordinary people will one day write for themselves.

 

This posting is exclusive to the Bowalley Road blogsite.