Chris Trotter: The night MMP couldn’t save us from ourselves
Chris has decided to hang up his keyboard. As his final piece we have his permission to republish his post-election Sunday Star-Times article:
“Well, the New Zealand Left has woken up to its very own 9/11.
Last night’s result represents not just a slap in the face for Helen Clark and her Labour-led government, it sets the seal on the political values of a whole generation.
Clark and her colleagues stood for all that was good about the baby-boomer generation: its idealism and its 40-year refusal to bow down to the reactionary values of an uptight, male-dominated society driven by a dangerous determination to discipline and punish. That’s what triumphed last night: the hunger to punish - and a crippling fear of social change.
And, like most things in this world, it’s happened before.
The New Zealand electorate doesn’t often behave selfishly or stupidly. In fact, apart from last night, I can recall only one other occasion when it has done so - 1975.
In every other election I can remember, the New Zealand electorate has demonstrated an acute grasp of what was necessary politically. They didn’t always get it, but that was because of the way the first-past-the-post electoral system worked to frustrate the will of the majority. Had the popular vote been reflected in the composition of its parliaments, New Zealand would have had a very different post-war history.
Even in the 1975 election “Rob’s Mob” did not achieve a majority of the popular vote. Had MMP been in place 33 years ago, Bill Rowling would have continued to be prime minister of New Zealand at the head of a Labour-Social Credit-Values coalition government. Nevertheless, with 47.6% of the popular vote, National came very close in 1975.
Thirty-three years ago the feral nature of Muldoon’s support was discernible everywhere. You could see, as well as sense, the curious social chemistry that was fusing the interests of lanky Young Nats with tousled locks, smart pullovers and slacks, with grizzled old working-class battlers in oil-stained overalls. They wanted no part of Bill Rowling’s “New Society” - in fact it scared them to death.
Thirty-three years on, that same queer chemistry is again in evidence.
You can smell it on the blogosphere, as rank and rangy as a young man’s student flat. You can read it on the pages of the right-wing media: the smug certainties of our genteel suburban fascisti - regurgitated to order by publications long-used to dripping the oleaginous phraseology of “responsible journalism” all over the jagged edges of their readers’ class-advantage.
And it’s been there for all of us to absorb in the polls - though many of us simply refused to believe our fellow citizens could be so dumb - or so mean.
But, we were wrong. They were.
Looking at the result, you realise just how much this country and its people have changed. So much so that, last night not even our proportional system of electoral representation could rescue us from ourselves.
So, what was it in the end? What led a majority of the New Zealand electorate to reject a government that has not only done it no great harm (as National-led governments are historically prone to do), but might even be said to have done it some good? Why did voters reject a prime minister with nine years of hard-won experience in government, for a chap who’s barely spent six years in parliament?
Last night’s result was manufactured out of the besetting sin of the last 150 years of western history - the crisis of masculinity. What, exactly, is a man in a world of corporate and public bureaucracies? A world of tin-pot bosses, impossible schedules, and unrealistic expectations? A world where to show your feelings is to reveal your weakness? A world where girls can do anything, but boys make a virtue out of boorish stupidity? A world where cynicism trumps heroism, and where simple human decency is dismissed as political correctness?
It was these: the men who just couldn’t cope with the idea of being led by an intelligent, idealistic, free-spirited woman; the gutless, witless, passionless creatures of the barbecue-pit and the sports bar (and the feckless females who put up with them); who voted Helen Clark out of office.
John Key - you’re welcome to them.” - Sunday Star-Times
November 11th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
“Chris has decided to hang up his keyboard”
(raised eye brow)
Hard not to draw unkind inferences.
Denial, anger, depression, negotiation and acceptance.
A blank page, A fresh start, A new beginning or at least,
A desperate last move, to change what you can’t control
— Shreyas Ganga
November 11th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Poor Chris, those stupid peasants have let you down.
Do you intend to go into exile as well?
Amongst the reasons I voted to change is the elderly being left to die on waiting lists like cull cattle. My own father nearly losing his sight while waiting for a bloated public system to operate on his cataracts, having to travel from Whangarei to Kaitaia(!!!) to receive a Hernia repair operation and then being refused the operation because an anaesthetist would not treat him.
Will this Government step up and say it is immoral and unacceptable for people to suffer die from preventable causes while on Hospital waiting lists? If not they do not deserve to Govern either, but in the short term we can hope.
November 11th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Bryan, I know you don’t like personal abuse here, but Chris has shown fit, as his final sign-off, to abuse everyone who voted for John Key, in what is a new low even for him. Instead of behaving graciously, Chris shows just how anti-democratic he is, resorting to singing the tired old song of class envy and hatred.
Good riddance, Chris. You lost, and one of the reasons for your loss is this article, showing your shameful contempt for New Zealanders and a lack of faith in democracy. You’re an intellectual hit-and-run coward, and I think the New Zealand media is the better for your absence.
November 11th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Hmm, let Chris be judged by his peers.
Heres Danyl from the Dim-Post
“Trotter perfectly and unwittingly articulates the loathsome attitude that provoked the people of New Zealand to beat his party and his beloved leader like a red-headed step-child; the smug, sickening conviction that they are always right and anyone who disagrees with them is simply evil and stupid; the arrogant air of entitlement that their sense of moral superiority somehow qualifies them to tell the rest of us how we should live our lives, and that if we dare to question them it is only due to some deep psychological flaw (’we hate woman!’).”
“Trotters contempt for the democratic process is disgusting; elections are fine, he feels, so long as they result in parties he likes being elected into power. Any other result is a national catastrophe. It is a catastrophe that this silly, worthless little creature has done more than a hundred ‘biased journalists’ and a thousand National Party press secretaries to bring about.”
I guess the score ends at:
VRWC 1
Trotter 0
November 11th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Tim Ellis
Must say I have enjoyed your well reasoned and very pointed responses.
Thanks
November 11th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
The fact that the Greens results were lower than the polls and that ACTs result was higher than the polls clearly shows that the public aren’t stupid. They realised that a vote for the Greens was a result for more Labour. They also realised that a vote for ACT would increase the chances for National, but have some more centre right policies.
You don’t have to be too bright to understand this. The fact that Chris can’t see this is why he should hang up his keyboard.
November 11th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Chris will be back…after a few months of centre-right government he will rediscover his mojo and pick up the pen. There is a Labour party to rebuild and guide, and protect from their own worst excesses.
Regardless of what he wrote in a fit of political pique, he knows and in fact we all know that the Left’s insistence on running a Nanny State is what finally killed them.
When even the Maori party is arguing it’s time to wean people off intravenous welfarism and blind reliance on the State, it’s pretty clear ideologies have moved on.
November 11th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
This reminds me of the TV3 series, “Everyone hates…”
November 11th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Don’t go chris, i need my every second sunday funnies. who else am i going to laugh at? I’m sure i’ll find something, i wonder what drivel tumeke blogs about?
And one more question, did you hang up your keyboard? or hang yourself with it with your poisonous diatribe against everyday New Zealanders and the democratic proccess by which we get to CHOOSE which government we would like to represent us?
So long, good riddance.
November 11th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Thanks for adding to the debate Chris, even when I didnt agree with what you, or Matthew said, it is always better to have a nay saying voice than a crowd of “ayes”
and bravo for rattling the cages one more time of those who live their lives assuming their view is everyones view, and that all are treated equally when you wrote
“the crisis of masculinity. What, exactly, is a man in a world of corporate and public bureaucracies? A world of tin-pot bosses, impossible schedules, and unrealistic expectations? A world where to show your feelings is to reveal your weakness? A world where girls can do anything, but boys make a virtue out of boorish stupidity? A world where cynicism trumps heroism, and where simple human decency is dismissed as political correctness?
It was these: the men who just couldn’t cope with the idea of being led by an intelligent, idealistic, free-spirited woman; the gutless, witless, passionless creatures of the barbecue-pit and the sports bar (and the feckless females who put up with them); who voted Helen Clark out of office.”
November 11th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Brave Sir Trotter ran away.
Bravely ran away, away.
When danger rears it’s ugly head
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes Brave Sir Trotter turned about
He gallantly chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat.
Oh bravest of the brave, Sir Trotter.
November 11th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
“Manufacturing consent” was indeed the successful tactic in this election for the Nacts. Ideologies do not ‘move on’ (as in become irrelevant) Mr Wishart they continue to exist in an ongoing dynamic contest with a resolution date unknown which obviously annoys some who want their particular world view to triumph immediately. Not how it works.
I have had to strap on the old “bugger off tories” gunbelt (figurative) and face police lines often enough in my life thanks to Muldoon and Bolger/Shipley. Third time-no worries. I too value democracy and NZ life. Uncle killed at Monte Cassino WWII. Not keen on real Fascists or the wannabe variety.
Is it ok to criticise our fellow voters ‘choice’? Damn yes. Just when you thought rural kiwis had moved on from 4 legged girlfriends we get a result like this. It is indeed partly related to misogyny. In the Far North Helen C was talked about in most vile terms at the very BBQ pits Chris described.
Good riddance to you lot too is my immediate response, but who knows, maybe I will encounter one of you as a new employee and after enquiring as to who you voted for-sack you immediately!
November 11th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Relic, I agree with you that it is ok to criticise the choices of our fellow voters. It’s called freedom of speech, and you should be grateful that your fellow voters have chosen to keep it so free.
And who knows, perhaps one day I shall encounter you as a potential vendor (assuming your business relies on customers), and rather than enquire as to who you voted for I would actually weigh the merits of doing business with your company over the competition. Otherwise it might be considered discrimination on the basis of political preference.
November 11th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Chris, I’m sorry you’re not going to blog, I (mostly) enjoyed your pieces. If you decide you’ll restart, I’m sure you’ll let us all know.
November 11th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
I’m very sad about your decision Chris - I’ve greatly enjoyed following your blog. The anger in your article is palpable, and I share it. I hope you continue to publish your work, but I wouldn’t blame you for leaving the political blogosphere for good. I find the comments above disgusting. Can you commenters above please read some Mill? And try to understand it - don’t just stop when you think he defends your right to personally abuse political commentators like Chris Trotter.
November 11th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I won’t post the letter I wrote to the Dom Post in reply to this column. Others have expressed the meat of my message well enough. However in that forum I am limited to 200 words, and often I get abridged even if I get published.
So I will take the opportunity to put in a few things I didn’t manage to get into the letter…
Funny how the same thing occurring in the USA is hailed as a major progressive leap. The major difference in the two elections is the political leanings of the person in question. Declaring the election of Obama a win but the election of Key a loss simply displays your prejudice. I hail the election of Obama because he is the correct choice for America right now. I voted for Key for the same reason. Not out of hate for Helen, or Unionists, or beneficiaries. But because for all the good things Helen and Labour have done, they have progressed too far down the path of fascism. Key is the correct choice for NZ right now.
November 11th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Tim,
alleged discrimination or whatever the grounds for dismissal, will likely not count. That is the point with the National party proposed ‘no work rights for 90 days’ policy. Even if the HRC prevails in some technical manner, few new workers would have the resources or inclination to tackle such an unjustified sacking anyway. I was just pointing out a possible real world effect.
Scary eh when it is you-“but thats not fair Mr Relic”
Which is why annoying as natural justice may be to some we need to retain forums and processes for all.
November 11th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Sadly it’s hard to disagree with Chris’s decision to withdraw - his last few contributions were useful only for their insight into how the far left think. Far too much of the archaic “class struggle” of a century ago still prevailing in his mind set for him to remain relevant in the 21st century, in my view. And too much of Lenin’s “the end justifies the means” ethics that seem to have characterised Helen’s years in power.
I hope John Key is able to take and secure the centre and hold it for the next 3 terms at least to wean us off the extremes that Labour and the unions have fostered, with their divisive “them and us” political approach, to our great cost in lost opportunities. Seems to me there are very different issues to worry about these days than the old causes to man the barricades.
Just unfortunate that Chris could not depart with at least the veneer of grace that Helen has generally shown so far in public, apart from her bonfire comment.
November 11th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Rod (and anyone else reading who plays this card), can you please explain why the consequences (ends) of our actions (means) so clearly don’t count in the moral evaluation of those actions?
November 11th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
This “card” as you call it, Mike, allows morality to be thrown out the window.
It’s only a question of degree whether it is Stalin purging millions to enable him to implement state collective farming, or the admittedly somewhat lesser applications of this philosophy by Labour of late.
Most of the rest of us would rather sacrifice the ends than deny our values. A nice example is John Key explaining he would have conceded the election if Winston had got back into power rather than do a deal to form a government with him.
Pretty basic ethics, really.
As David Farrar once eloquently put it, Helen appears to think ethics is a nice county in England.
November 11th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Dear Chris
Rather than men who resist egalitarian models of masculinity and the ‘feckless’ women who collude with them, Helen Clark’s demise may better be attributed to the pragmatism of Right Wing women, and inadequate theorising by Left Wing men.
As Zillah Eisenstein has pertinently observed :
Until left-liberals and leftists recognize that New Right politics is fundamentally about the familial and sexual structuring of society, they will remain ineffective in politics and it will be feminists who will have to ‘fight the Right’.
November 11th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Chris has it mostly right….and the people he’s talking about won’t understand what he is saying…..or they would not be among those he is talking about. Like explaining colour to a blind man, they don’t understand what Chris is saying.
No problem.
Where Chris has gone wrong is in saying this out loud. You can quietly express frustration with the lazy, the mislead, the misguided and the simply stupid when talking to people who share what you know. But to point at these people and describe them as they are won’t change anything.
One thing about the willfully ignorant these days is that they are arrogantly ignorant with it. In the US, they would be gay-hating, Bush-backing Christians for more war. Utterly inconsistent and incongruous by any external measure even by their own standards…..but they aren’t concerned with things like making sense or being rational. The facts simply don’t matter. Evidence is irrelevant.
I heard a senior exec in an NZ company today refer to Helen Clark as “a lesbian and cow” when describing to a business contact overseas why people rejected Helen Clark. I was struck by the simple irrelevance of this description - even if true - with respect to anything that actually MATTERS.
many people I know voted against Labour because of the anti-smacking legislation. Never mind that this is not what they think it is and not ONE of them had actually read either the old or the new law. Absolutely fascinating that people would make this issue the one that defines their vote and do so in near-complete ignorance of what the law REALLY says.
But they did. Lazy (never even checked), ignorant (don’t actually know) and arrogant (don’t care that they don’t know) with it.
Chris is wrong in saying out loud what he said. But he isn’t wrong.
November 11th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Relic, having first slagged off rural NZ with the 4 legged girlfriend quip, you then blame the election result on misogyny. Perhaps a little hypocritical?
Anyway, the point I was trying to get across is that not all of us let political matters affect the way we treat other people.
November 11th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
An ill-considered, even ridiculous piece by Trotter (very much the mirror-image of bleating, ‘The end of the US is nigh’ pieces about (Buffett/Volcker-advised!) Obama). How much more center-right can National get? (How much safer do Obama’s hands have to be?) Merkel, Sarkozy, Harper (in Canada) are all very center-right leaders in center-left-leaning countries, and none is a barbarian. There’s little reason to believe that Key won’t be roughly as moderate, but nonetheless usefully energetic as they are.
Moreover, what’s the panic supposed to be about anyway? Trotter is fond of decrying other people as stuck in the FPP past (or whatever it is). Well, when you do a power index analysis of the 2008 election (i.e., analyzing who can be critical to a winning coalition - the sort of thing that matters in and that is illuminating about an MMP House) National has a *lot* of the power in parliament (in the 60% range depending on which index you use), but not as much as Labour had after the 2002 election, when it had fully 70% of negotiating power in parliament as measured by, say, the Banzhaf index. If Trotter weren’t himself stuck in FPP pre-history analyticallly speaking, or horrendously partisan and self-serving, or both, he would see that there’s less of a need to cry ‘MPP couldn’t save us from ourselves’ in 2008 than there was in 2002.
November 11th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
@ Steve
As one of the “lazy, the mislead, the misguided and the simply stupid” 66.23% of NZers who did not vote for Labour, do I detect an opposition to democracy?
Like Chris, you are simply trying to manufacture a reason for the change while you avoid the challenging step of looking in the mirror.
Time for you to step back and reflect, my friend.
November 11th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Steve,
just look at your hypocrisy.
Your senior exec said of Helen Clark
and this is “simply irrelevant with respect to anything that actually matters”.
Yet Chris said (among other things)
and his only problem was saying it out loud. I’m not quite sure where the relevance of THIS is to anything that matters,
Never mind that he didn’t actually know whether that was an accurate statement and in fact it was quite obvious he didn’t care that he didn’t know. I think that was your definition of ignorant and arrogant.
To many people who gather around a BBQ, that is pretty much the crux of the matter. We want to feel like we matter. But we were regularly told, in words and in the deeds of the previous Labour government that we didn’t matter. So we did something about it.
Now suddenly it seems to matter to Labour. Pity it was a bit late realising.
November 11th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Matt: “My own father nearly losing his sight while waiting for a bloated public system to operate on his cataracts”.
If only he had a son who could pay for a private procedure.
November 11th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I’m sorry that Chris is not going to blog any longer. I haven’t agreed with everything he’s said, and I dont’ use the kind of hyperbole that he uses, but Iam grateful that he is one left wing voice amongst fairly centre to centre–right MSM.
I do find it dispiriting that there has been so much mysogynistic and homophobic invective directed at Clark. It’s not something I hear among people I know, but it seems to be quite pervasive online & in talk-back radio. I had thought NZ society had generally become more enlightened. Many people overseas that I know, saw Clark as a sign MZ is a forward-thinking and enlightened country, and are sorry to see her voted out.
I have come across several despondent people in the last few days in the places I work, and they generally can’t believe we have a change of government. Some of the most despondent are men. They don’t follow political blogs online or, as far as I know, listen to talk-back radio. But one youngsih man expressed similar ideas to Chris above, though he expressed it in a more subdued and less accusing way. He said he thought the people that voted Labour/Clark out must mostly be older men who don’t like having a woman PM.
I don’t know how true that is, but it does feel like 2 steps forward and (hopefully only) 1 step backwards, before the country moves forward again in relation to attitudes to gender and sexuality.
November 11th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Carol
I don’t see how that can possibly be true. If it were true then Helen Clark would never have been elected in the first place. There would have been more older men around 9 years ago who would have fitted that description than there are today.
I have come to the conclusion that Chris cares little for policy and politics and really only cases about the name of the party. If it’s red and it’s called Labour it’s good and if it’s not it’s evil. Chris leaving the blogsphere is no great loss, I never thought he would cut it because he’s not good at listening to what other people have to say.
November 11th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Chris
Keep on Rockin… love to have you back
November 11th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I have come to the conclusion that Chris cares little for policy and politics and really only cases about the name of the party. If it’s red and it’s called Labour it’s good and if it’s not it’s evil. Chris leaving the blogsphere is no great loss, I never thought he would cut it because he’s not good at listening to what other people have to say.
Yes, yes, yes.
Chris’s blog has been an education to me. All these past years watching him on the Rolston show, etc, etc, I always knew he was my ideological enemy, but I gave him the respect of intellectual, with a differing, wrong headed philosophy: but through this blog his mindless partisanship has been laid bare, time and time again. And an inability, or refusal, to debate any issues raised by him, other than in most trite fashion. And I put that down to the bereft social democrat’s credo he is hamstrung by, and which he wishes to hamstrung me with.
There’s nothing more dangerous than him, and that.
So, Web moderator, we need another Lefty (besides Hooton) in here to debate with - Helen Clark is free, perhaps she might have more stomach for the cut and thrust of debate.
[And the masculine angle taken in this piece is bullshit. Across four cases I currently am battling with a compassionless IRD, of six IRD staff involved, four of them are women, and in every case the ‘manager’ is female. And I have nothing more against the women over the men, they are all equally without heart or sense, and all would destroy you, and you, and you, not for any reason of morality, but simply because they can. Have no doubt the Big State is evil, whether in a frock.)
November 11th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
OT
Omar bin Laden and his wife Zaina Alsabah
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10542391
Larry Williams on Newstalk ZB today was dead against letting this guy come here despite New Zealand being known for its democratic values and a being fair country.
November 11th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
… whether in a frock, or a suit.)
November 11th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Whilst I don’t agree with Mr Trotter’s viewpoint… I absolutely think Chris Trotter is a brilliant writer… I usually trawl this blog and find the comments more entertaining, but I started reading this and read it excitedly till the end…
I have to say it again - what a brilliant writer you are Chris. This policy blog would be boring without you… I would love to see you write for a paper like The Sunday News - it’s the ‘people’s paper’ after all, and a ‘red’ top tabloid… perhaps you could educate the working classes again??? large south auckland readership and all… and Sunday News doesn’t have a political writer…
Can I also say how happy I was to wake up on Sunday morning and get my large moccachino and McDonald’s pancakes (my special sunday ‘fatty’ treat), and found myself so happy and everyone in my neighbourhood happy and… well the Sun seemed to shine a little brighter, and felt a little warmer too!!!
November 11th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Hmm. I won’t particularly miss Chris, and I did feel that his diatribes had reached the point where there was little reason in them, and a lot of rhetoric. They were always well written though (in a literary sense).
For someone who decried the threats of some on the right to disengage if they lost - to leave the country, or to cut back on their working hours, or whatever else - I find it interesting that Chris’ response to a loss is to do exactly that. Next I expect to hear that he is emigrating to Australia (with a left wing govt over there you know), rather than continue to associate with the likes of us who are clearly too stupid to know what is good for us.
November 11th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Not sorry to see you go Chris as your articles had been getting harder and harder to read to the end. Once upon a time I found you articles interesting even if I disagreed with your views. Not sure where you started losing a sense of real world, but I think for me, I noticed it when you wrote in the DomPost that WWI was a class war. (It was nationalism that started it all for goodness sake).
When you defend everything that Labour or the Greens do without questioning, and that included defending Winston Peters lying to us all and Helen knowing more about it than letting on, that’s when you lost your objectivity.
But at least you gave an insight into the leftwing mindset. Come back when you can be a bit more balanced in your opinion pieces as you are the most famous leftie commentator in NZ and balance in the media is good.
I was happy in 1999 as Nats went to far to the right and we needed a direction correction, and I was happy on Saturday night for much the same reason with Labour going too far to the left. If the Nats break their promises and start selling govt assets, they’ll be out come 2011.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I read all sides of the commentariat for insight. After 11 years of female Prime Ministers, a time when the Speaker of the house, the leader of NZ largest company, the leader of the largest government dept and a host of other successful intelligent woman have held leadership roles in New Zealand, Trotter blames misogyny.
Ignore lies, overlooking corruption, taking taxpayer money and a grossly self interested EFA. It was time for a change and the reasons had no connection with misogyny.
If that is the standard of your analysis then hang up the keyboard and spend some time reconnecting with reality. I have found your trite, hysterical analysis and self justification as simply stirring when called out to be worthless. In past years some of it was insightful. Not any more you sad little man.
November 11th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Mark Hubbard
We don’t need another Labour party evangelist put up against Hooton. This left right thing is so antiquated and it’s bollocks. I don’t call Hooton a right winger, he’s a National party evangelist. Trotter is a Labour party evangelist. That’s not even left vs right - that’s major party death match. Hooton is crowing and Trotter has thrown his toys.
The blog needs balance, I agree. But if it’s going to be called ‘policy’ it needs to be more than major party death match on a three year cycle.
November 12th, 2008 at 12:09 am
What is it with these guys? It was Labour’s Michael Cullen who said “we won, you lost eat that” or words to that effect. Now we have a more expanded version of Labour’s view of their place in the world at a different moment in time. I.e. they are morally superior and the other guys are inferior. Worse, the electorate is stupid for voting them out and stupid for voting someone else in. This redefinition of democracy goes beyond arrogance.
Labour under Clark/Cullen/Peters/Williams was corrupt/bereft of ideas/negative. Key is fresh, better in tune with any person on the street than Clark and more economically literate than the whole of the Labour front bench combined.
It is too trite to say we won, you lost, eat that. Democracy won and the people will be rewarded.
Bye bye Helen. Bye bye Chris.
November 12th, 2008 at 4:07 am
Chris did once write about the reasons why he missed the Soviet Union, it didn’t include missing the 30 millions killed under Lenin/Stalin and their successors, the cold, dark, heartless stagnating grey tyranny it put people under, with its superstructure of lies which couldn’t be challenged without facing prison or execution.
This same man who would proudly stand up and say he believes in equality of opportunity, opposes racism and sexism pronounces his true bigotry - that against the proletariat he claims to love so much.
“the men who just couldn’t cope with the idea of being led by an intelligent, idealistic, free-spirited woman; the gutless, witless, passionless creatures of the barbecue-pit and the sports bar (and the feckless females who put up with them)”
He boxes men who voted against a Labour/Green government as being sexist - because National doesn’t have intelligent, idealistic and free-spirited women, only the union movement, academia and those on the left. The braindead nihilism of the identity politics fanatic who deems men who oppose the left as sexist and women who are not on the left as being brainless.
It is one step from the drivel Trotter says before you start to claim that having a free open democracy means you get governments against the interests of “the people” because the political parties that “truly represent the people” get voted out because of sexist inferior individuals (he identified who he thinks they are), who need to be re-educated.
Keep the red flag flying Chris, most Labour voters don’t believe in your dictatorship of the proletariat, and if you sober up you might actually get out and meet intelligent, idealistic free-spirited women who aren’t on the political left, and start remembering that there are plenty of gutless, witless and passionless men and feckless women on the left too.
November 12th, 2008 at 7:24 am
Chris, thank you for your thoughtful words both here and elsewhere and at various times
Take no notice of the above rabid writers who obviously have little knowledge of history and the consistent machinations of the moneyed establishment. I am old now and I have seen it several times now. Carry on with your powerful farseeing pen in the knowledge that you are appreciated tremendously by those who have learned to think carefully about society, justice and fairness.
November 12th, 2008 at 7:27 am
Steve: If you (and Trotter) don’t really see the difference between losing an election and a day when terrorist attacks killed over three thousand human beings, I despair. About the level of some Rush Limbaugh style-shock jock who equates critics of Winston Peters to pack rapists and a lynch mob out to get the uppity darkie, but still disappointing from someone I used to have a lot of respect for.
And, Chris, screaming “fascist” at people who have the unmitigated gall to not think like you, reminds me of Rik Mayall’s brilliantly twatty turn in The Young Ones.
I sincerely hope Trotter hasn’t “hung up his keyboard” for good. But a wee rest to get through his grieving, and recharge the creative and intellectual batteries, would do us all some good.
November 12th, 2008 at 7:30 am
It only takes a shift of maybe up to 5-10% of voters to swing an election. So the mysogynistic elements who swung to the right in this election aren’t the majority of National/right voters. Thus the men Trotter is criticising does not need to be more than this 5-10% of voters.
Of course there are plenty of National/Right supporters, who, along with their MPs don’t express their criticism of Labour/Clark in msyogynistic terms. However, those elements do exist in fairly substantial numbers, and have been pretty evident within the campaign against Clark/Labour.
Sexism, homophobia and anti-woman invective is fairly common in the comments on a couple of prominent right wing blogs, and over the last few years such expressions have fanned some of the angst on talk-back radio & campaign heckling. They would never be allowed to remain, and/or exist unchecked in left wing organisations. Yet IMO, the more official face of National/the right, while not using such terms themselves, do not seem to express their distaste for it, benefit from it, and in some ways seem to actively fan its flames.
The National party has supported the above mentioned right wing blogs/blog owners by working in concert with them in some ways, and by National MPs candidates publicly saying they regularly read them, without any criticism of the mysogyny & homophobia threaded throught them.
As long as those sort of elements have a fairly prominent visbility amongst right wing supporters, and remain unchecked by the majority on the right, then the right will be seen as supporting and benefitting from such mysogyny and homophobia.
November 12th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Burt
I second your comment about them being evangelsits, one throwing their toys the other gloating. Sadly they do seem to reflect the state of political analysis in NZ at the moment.
Steve
I agree with alot of what you said and particularly that those Chris is talking about wont see it is they he refers to.
Carol
“I do find it dispiriting that there has been so much mysogynistic and homophobic invective directed at Clark. It’s not something I hear among people I know, but it seems to be quite pervasive online & in talk-back radio. ”
For the last three years I have listened to one of my brothers call her Alan Clark and deride her “certain” lesbian relationship with Heather Simpson, and the certainty that Simpson has really been running the country. I confess to several times suggesting he is an ignorant wanker. For those who think there is no misogyny answer me this;
why has the constant stage whispering about her being a lesbian engaging with Heather Simpson been a strong pillar for judging her efforts/performance as PM? Perhaps because, Mark, no matter how many women you deal with at IRD, there remains in this country, and others, a profound need to judge women on their looks or sexuality rather than their job. I cannot think of a single male PM, most of whom had male close advisors, who has been labelled a homosexual or taken to task constantly over their looks.
It’s long been the case in our country and others that if a woman has strong ideas, opinions, or personality, label her a “lesbian” and it renders actual debate needless.
Even if she’s married, it must be a sham.
Just look at the reaction here when Key was revealled to have left his wife mourning her nephew to go to work on Douglas’ day of resignation, and made a couple of million… he was proclaimed by many here as being a “man” and “taking care of his family”, notwithstanding he would have been entitled to bereavement leave.
As I have said, I will hope that John is all he has been painted to be and all he claims. That would certainly be in the best interests of all of us, given the limited choices available.
As for the claims of facism, jeepers, some of you need to travel a bit, and not 3 star or above.
November 12th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Ha, look at the Left desparately try to denigrate those who supported national by smearing them.
Of course it all falls down when you consider National made Jenny Shipley NZs first woman Prime Minister. Not bad for a bunch of mysoginists eh.
Ridiculous, but hey works for us if you dont want to face the truth.
And heres the truth from John Ansell
“Right wing bloggers did not dump abuse on Clark because she was a woman.
They abused her because she was a liar and a thief.
She was no different in that regard to her partner-in-crime Peters. Ethics, to those two, is a county in England.
She stole the last election, and tried to steal this one.
She presided over the most corrupt government in New Zealand history, and corrupted a generation of Kiwis with bribes we could ill afford.
She corrupted the police force, ensuring they would only prosecute those who she did not approve of.
She vowed to take us into the attic of the OECD, and despite the best economic weather of our lifetimes, consigned us to the basement.
She blew a golden opportunity to grow our nation’s cake, instead cutting it up until it was all gone.
While pretending to the world to be an eco-warrior, she presided over more carbon emission than Bush’s America, then set up a ruinous trading scheme that will cost her own voters 22,000 jobs a year.
She promised to cut violent crime. It went up.
She spent billions on health, and cured very little (preferring to let sick people die on state waiting lists than let them have their surgery in private hospitals).
She did nothing to lift education standards.
Nothing to staunch the bleeding of our best and brightest overseas.
She achieved gains for prostitutes, gay people and non-smokers - and good on her for that.
But how anyone can judge her a competent prime minister continues to baffle me.
Any CEO who achieved that kind of result, with those kinds of appointees, would have been sacked years ago.
Helen Clark was skilled in the dark arts of politics and bullying, nothing more.
John Key will be a breath of fresh air, and so will Phil Goff.”
ouch
November 12th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Well I have to say that Mr Trotters comments here and elsewhere are nothing short of very startling . They are also very indicative of a real problem for left/socialist groups.
However - some pertinant comments.
1. Although I think his comments are stupid, I defend his right to make them.
2. Under the proposed labour party law that was pushed by Yates - ie “the hate speech law” - Trotter would be facing a criminal charge. Chris could well do to ponder this not so minor detail.
3. It is important that people can express their true feelings - it does a lot for the rest of society. We saw after the Brash Orewa speech (when he threw off the PC shackles (that had stopped any questioning of things maori )that a majority of the country felt the same way but had been brow beaten into keeping quite. Free open speech opens many pressure release valves.
4. If Mr Trotter had his way, only card carrying labour (and green) members could vote - shades of the old communist countries.
5. There are reports of people ringing lifeline and 111 on election night in a panic because they really thought their benefit was going to be cut in half. Besides the fact that they must be stupid or dimwitted - someone(s) had to convince them of this expectation.
The comments after this election - as well as the EFA - have bought to the surface something that I really didnt think existed in NZ - and that is the belief by the likes of Trotter of ideas that are staright out of the old european communist parties. You know, “we know whats good for you, what you should think, what you should do with your money, etc.” I would be surprised now to hear things like “And wee think that your children should become wardens of the state at the age of 5 to be educated in the way we think they should “.
Im as sure as hell that Rudd and Obama dont think like this (both of them being of the left/socialist)
Although I utterly disagree with what Trotter says, Its best out in the open. Theres no benefit in keeping it under the hat - thats what happened with Rogers back in 1983 - dishonest, cheating, and its has - and is still - costing this country millions.
What I really do hope is that as an apparent intellectual that he doesnt really believe what he says!. Otherwise I might be tempted to repeat the recent comments by Watson about intellegence in Africa - except replaceing Africa with the word Socialists (Watson said that we would all like to think that we are all created equal, but that the evidence from Africa was that this ideal wasnt true)
November 12th, 2008 at 8:24 am
[Sigh]. Yes and all that misinformation too. I get sick of responding to the misinformation point-by-point as above. Crime went down, NZ does very well on international standards of educational achievement, more police, a lot of work on school curriculum…. Crime went down, while the media fanned fear of violent crime in public places, by its sensationalist reporting. (The National win also owes a lot to the support they got over the last through years from the MSM, especially the Herald - not surprising then that the place where Labour really lost out was the failure to vote by it’s base in Auckland).
Domestic violence continues to be a problem that Clark’s government attempted to address, while opponents spread misinformation about such campaigns - I hope the present government does something to improve the situation, but their policies seem aimed more at public violence rather than really getting getting to grips with domestic violence - bad parents and violent partners always seem to be someone else.
Interesting item on Al Jazeera on our elections last week. They predicted a win for the right, but didn’t accept the criticism of the numbers leaving NZ. They pretty much put it down to the problem of a smaller country alongside a bigger country in the current global economy, as with Ireland next to England - similar kind of dynamic.
Shipley was an attempt to counter the swing to Clark, which didn’t work for that long before reverting to the male dominance within National. There are some competent right wing women politicans, and some very good liberal ones (Rich, Waring, and probably Kaye in the future). But when they get criticised by the left, it’s not for their looks, gender or sexuality, it’s solely directed at their policies and political actions. And such women remain a minority - kind of right wing gender exceptionalism, that will support a very good, but isolated woman politician within a male-dominated structure, while doing little for women more generally.
The Clark government improved the financial circumstances for working people in terms of more equitable pay and working circumstances, while also stimulating a very positive business environment, as recognised by international assessments.
Clark’s skill was in managing relationships with other parties - in fact, rather than bullying it required skills in listening and negotiating. key does seem to have some skills in that direction. It remains to be seen how good he will be on that. And after criticising some of Clark’s arrangements, he appears to be following Clark’s lead in building his own “five-headed monster.”
The whole “lies and corruption” invective went hand-in-hand with the mysogynistic and homophobic smears, though not necessarily from the same people. ie not all people who got into the lies & corruption line used mysogyny, but they worked together on a wider scale.
and as for the old line of smears using anti-communist invective….. I’ve written about it before here & get sick of repeating myself, but still the tired old anti-communist misinformation keeps getting repeated and directed at Chris and by extension the left in general.
November 12th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Banned. You perhaps should read this article on “Wired” to understand why you are not welcome here:
“That said, your blog will still draw the Net’s lowest form of life: The insult commenter. Pour your heart out in a post, and some anonymous troll named r0rschach or foohack is sure to scribble beneath it, “Lame. Why don’t you just suck McCain’s ass.” That’s why Calacanis has retreated to a private mailing list. He can talk to his fans directly, without having to suffer idiotic retorts from anonymous Jason-haters.” - Wired Magazine
Bryan Spondre Blog Producer
November 12th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Everything Carol just said.
November 12th, 2008 at 9:46 am
What a hateful, intemperate column from Chris Trotter on Sunday. Hypocritical too. His response to the 2008 election result reminded me of how in 2005 he criticised the look of hate on the faces of National supporters as they realised late on the evening of September 17 that they had lost that election.
November 12th, 2008 at 10:13 am
OK, lets put foward the reasoning of one new centre right voter, myself. None of the above applies- I voted National simply because Helen Clark failed to meet her stated aim of significantly lifting NZ’s ranking in the OECD. She failed, over 9 years to do that.
9 years is enough to signal achievent in this most important goal that allows (like it or not) everything else to happen at a relatively better level, including first world environmental stewardship, sustainable social welfare, healthcare, and quality education.
Simple really, and what a pity for the left it was for none of the simplistic paranoid twisted reasons listed above- I’m also sure I’m not the only one who voted this way. My aquaintences and myself dont attend boorish barbeques, we discuss rationally, with genuine concern, the future options for our children growing up in this country.
November 12th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Okay… so this wasn’t Trotsky’s best work. The 9/11 comment was silly, on the same daft plane as the gang-rang hyperbole. But he was emotional - dispirited, despairing, disconsolate - and pressing newspaper deadlines don’t always allow us to think through what we’re saying.
Though I don’t concur with much of the above thesis, nor do I read this as “Trotter hates the workers”. One of Chris’s best qualities as a man - and worst as a prognosticator - is his enduring faith in the proletariat - the cloth caps, the workers, the producers of wealth. Unfortunately for Chris, the average Aotearovian workers’ class/environmental consciousness is not as advanced as he’d like it to be - witness Rob’s Mob, the Kiwi bloke’s support for the Springbok tour… their saliva-flecked raving about the dykocracy, Nanny State, lightbulbs, showerheads etc.
Sadly, our working class can be just as short-sighted, avaricious and crassly materialistic as their “betters”. Flat screen tellies, four burner barbecues and a Sky sub keep them pretty much in line. If Chris spent more time in the ‘burbs, less time listening to National Radio, he’d understand this.
That said, I’m not going to condemn a man for his idealism - or for his overly emotive reaction to disappointment. Ideas matter to Chris. So do people. So does the prospect of a better, fairer, more just New Zealand.
Hardly hanging offences.
As for tossing away the keyboard in a fit of pique, I think you’ll find that Chris is horribly over-committed on the work front (I see Hooters has chucked in his column as well). Chris has his regular three columns - SST, Dompost and the Independent - and, as I understand things, he’s halfway through a novel.
And then there’s his pending Mayoral campaign. Lots to do.
PS. I look forward to the left-wing media’s grilling of Bronagh Key over the coming months. “Do you like sex, Bronagh?”
November 12th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Oops… “Gang-rape hyperbole”
November 12th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Carol
Chris paints with a pretty broad brush. Not really a stretch to believe that his comments referred to anyone who didn’t vote left. Trying to dance about the pin-head and suggest that he really meant only the voters who swung is nonsense. He is articulate enough to have said that if he meant it.
Yes there are those that hate Helen. They are more than willing to use the word lesbian to be derogatory. Some of them post to blogs. You must, however, be blind if you have not seen equally nasty posts in the Standard. Many have cast Key as wanting to throw people out in the street and dance on their graves. Nastiness (as others have said) is not the prerogative of the Right, it is present is good numbers everywhere.
It is not reasonable to suggest those that wanted Helen out because of “lies and corruption” and those that simply smeared “lesbian” were in some way collaborating just because they were both against Helen. They are not colluding because they have the same goal. That is generating a conspiracy theory.
Yes overall crime went down. But the only broad statistic that went down between 1996 and 2005 was dishonesty crime, which made up 65% of statistics in 1996. Drug and violence both went up, the others up or steady. Report (PDF format) is here.
Carol I’m not trying to say you’re all wrong. I can accept that Labour has done some good and smart things. You must accept that Labour has also done some silly and negative things if you are as smart as I think you are. I am certain that National will do some silly and negative things, but I believe that they will also do some smart and good things. It’s all about balance.
I voted against Labour because that balance was lost. The EFA was a huge lurch in a negative direction and too much for me. They set about controlling what I could do. Then the double standards on Winston and several other things I know you don’t agree with me on. Too much. Enough. Stop. And there was only one way to stop it, since Labour wasn’t listening anywhere else.
November 12th, 2008 at 11:20 am
There were a huge number of worthy reasons to get rid of Labour/Greens, namely, every intrusion they kept on making into the life of the individual, but if there had been nothing else, then the EFA would be enough to see the end of any rotten government with the audacity to bring in such curbs to free speech, and, note Mr Key and Mr Hooton, any government which doesn’t rescind that piece of fascism will be swept away also. As it should be.
November 12th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Chris, I hear the Nats have a neutron bomb that they’re gonna drop on Goff.
Do you really think Goff can be trusted? Didn’t he change his opinion once? maybe even twice?
If the Nats indulge in this sort of craziness as Labour did they will be a one term government. This is the nonsense that led to kiwis kicking Helen and her mob out.
Labour diverged from sensible politics and paid the price.
November 12th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
rouppe
It seems the new brooms in Labour have finally woken up to the damage the EFA has done to Labour.
Electoral Finance Act needs review: Goff
Pity they Labour party had such strong support from their apologists simply because it was a Labour idea. If Labour party supporters had been a bit more objective and told Labour what they really thought rather than nod in agreement with the party line….
I guess being objective is too much to ask from rambling partisan hacks in either camp.
November 12th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I don’t think we can pin this on misogyny at all, any more than we can say the last 9 years of Helen Clark being PM is a result of misandry. The whole finger pointing and name calling being espoused is just childish. To use misogyny as an excuse for the failures of the last term for Labour might make some on the left feel better (and somehow superior) but I see it as a failure for those people to be magnanimous in defeat. At least Helen rose above it, perhaps you could take your cue from her.
November 12th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Trotter’s retirement should have been a cause for congratulations on a career of left-wing journalism - from all sides. Sadly, as this last bitter piece shows, journalistic integrity has been set aside for ranting about perceived evils of the centre right.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
It must be kind of depressing to have such a dislike for such a large part of the population; how can the socialist impulse survive those feelings? where is the happy motivation for socialism or even modest social democracy if you don’t like so many people?
I appreciate some of the comments you make which go to things which get said a lot out in the right wing blogs by various people ranting, but out there in the real world there are a ton of people who do not follow politics that closely and don’t get so caught up in it - and they voted to the right.
There were many reasons but maybe one is that they liked John Key, personality of the leader has some bearing on the vote after all. And what I see in John Key in interviews is someone who does not (referencing what you say above) come across as cynical, who is more inclined towards human decency over political ideology, who shows a bit of weakness, fesses up to mistakes, gives an interview with John Campbell the day after he won and still shows the emotion of it in a way that some would not - he has a kind of looseness to him from being part of a younger generation, the generation that gave us the metrosexual. He is not boorish, or else he would never have married young and prospered professionally and personally. He seems to be the opposite of the people you say voted him in…so why would they vote for him if that were true?
November 12th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Boo hoo Chris boo hoo
November 12th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Well, there we have it; Mr Trotter’s diatribe is quite the insight into the dysfunction mind of our communist compatriots; these are people that consider Pol Pot a moderate and FDR a reactionary.
Their 9 year effort to “smash the state” and impose a worker/peasant collective upon New Zealand has failed. Taking from the overburdened in order to give to the undeserving has been their central policy for the last decade, perhaps they never figured out that the overburdened would object.
Remember that we need to maintain our vigilance so that these lunatics, who’ve sacrificed New Zealand’s national interests on the pyre of international communism are never in a position of authority over us again.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Thank god you are gone. This is better than watching Clark or Peters concede.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Chris poor Chris
Baby boomers felt cheated big time in having to support the the next generation and the one after that.
Baby boomers who are mature and astute voters fed up by being told what to do and watching their hard earned tax dollars being synphoned into user pay bullshit.
Sorry Chris but you socialists have had it good for too long
November 12th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
And so Chris Trotter passes by
Leaving his views there to lie
Steaming
In the road
November 12th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Trotter has thrown his toys out of the cot and is heading to North Korea.
O dear, how sad , nevermind.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
As a political epitaph, ‘they did no great harm’ might run in a monarchy, but the truth of the last handfull of Labour governments is that they did no damned good, and in a democracy you have to do rather better than that.
Chris’s inexplicable love for a party so completely at odds with it’s founding principles perhaps explains why he has no enthusiasm for what should be a very enjoyable time for a left-wing commentator.
Obama and the world are sweeping left, but John Key is at least nominally committed to a quixotic pursuit of the failed monetarist policies that have just made George Bush the most loathed president in US history.
I’m sooo glad to be out of New Zealand.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
There are some good ones here, but JohnBT - very droll.
I hope Trotter reads all these - but I doubt that his “I know whats best for all you bums” thoughts will be changed
November 13th, 2008 at 8:15 am
stuart munro
If you’re not prepared to live here and work for this country, you’re not really qualified to make any sort of comment. You have no skin in the game.
And just because Barak Obama is a move left from George Bush does not mean that he is left of John Key.
Neither has played their hand enough to make that call. All we do know id that Osama bin Laden is still USA’s - And Obama’s - number one target, while NZ is thinking about an asylum application from his son.
If Obama is so left then why doesn’t Omar bin Laden seek asylum there. I don’t want him. The only reason he’s applying is because we were stupid enough to let Zaoui stay.
November 13th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Thank you Chris Trotter!! a brilliant analysis and I completely agree as do many people who could not believe this election result. How could the majority be so dumb or so mean indeed. This is the government we deserve, and I don’t know how to bear the next 3 years.
November 13th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Rouppe
Can you tell us why you do not want Omar bin Laden and his wife Zaina Alsabah to seek asylum here?
November 14th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Chris Trotter
I took a deep breath and started to read this opinion piece you wrote.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/vote08/4760830a28480.html
Wow, well done.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
burt
agreed
November 14th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Brian
Because the risk is too great.
Can you explain to me why the country of his birth (Saudi Arabia) which is supposed to be one of the most progressive in the region is not a safe place for him?
November 14th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Chris Trotter
I also read the stuff column. At first I thought that there had been an editorial mistake.
Not for a moment do I expect you let go your core values. But if you can at last see that the crab is not standing on all the other crabs to put them down, then that is truly an experience worth long reflection.
November 15th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
rouppe
Al-Qaida HAS operatives in Saudi Arabia unlike New Zealand that is the reason
November 15th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Good ol’ Chris — forever peering over his (National) neighbour’s fence, bitter and resentful about the (material) success that has eluded him in life, with the none-too-subtle reminder about his own abject breadline existence. He just oozes envy and anger.
Dude, the country did not want a coterie of radical feminist socialists, who did their utmost to usurp the Constitutional process of consultation and consensus, by foisting the EFA on us. They set out to — cynically — entrench themselves in power and ended up losing it.
Sure hope the ladies know how to hunt, fish and trap, because these drongos are out in the political wilderness for a very very, long time. Yes Sirree, a veeeeery long time.
November 15th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Ohhhh, the pic of Chris Trotter makes him look soooooo cute — especially with the Hitlerian moustache. And, surprise, surprise: his execrable musings are entitrely congruent with ‘The Man’, himself. Both must be from the same toxic gene pool.
November 16th, 2008 at 2:44 am
Settle down, Chris: November the 9th has come and gone, so no point bemoaning the fact that both aunty and nanna were tipped out of the “sewing circle” on the same night and told not to return.
Look, a lot of us empathise with you regarding the unsettling predicament that confronts you now. Not easy to wake up in the morning not knowing how to brush your teeth; what to wear; what to have for breakfast; how to tie up your shoe laces etc, etc. I’m happy to send over my “feckless” missus from the U.K., to your dank and dimly-lit basement flat to help you get through the first few months, so you can gradually regenerate your sense of confidence and self-sufficiency that’s been rendered dormant over the last 9 years. (I didn’t realise you had your own keyboard to hang up, I was of the understanding that you “trotted” over to the local library to use their one for free).
November 16th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Hard to take this guy seriously when he drives a 1974 Austin Allegro (auto), with a tan vinyl roof and an upturned wire coat hanger as the aerial.
November 17th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Wow, good on you Chris. I am stunned that a year ago I had respect for your intellect and ability to debate in a rational manner. What a fall from grace in recent months, your true personality and beliefs have become readily apparent in the increasing vitriol in your commentary. I feel like someone who has left a bar after a few too many and woken with horror beside someone in the reality of the morning light.
I am one of the “cloth cap” brigade it appears Chris feels he speaks for. I was born in the “shadow of the shipyard” in Belfast, as working class as it is possible to be, my core beliefs are strongly socialist. I have voted Labour for 30 years. I applauded loudly when Clark was first elected, yet I voted National National last week, why? It is because the stench of desperation has driven me away from the Labour party in it’s current manifestation. A party of the people has become a party of liars and cheats who will do anything to maintain control and power. Power at any cost is an ugly thing to behold. (Winston was another example of this) I became sick of being told what to do, sick of being ignored even when 80%+ people disagreed, sick of petty politics for the sake of winning, never mind what was obviously the right thing to do.
As for the obviously highly intelligent and articulate feminist movement on here, get over yourselves. Go and join H1 and H2 and take a few months off and think about what you are saying. None of this is about your sexuality. It is about doing the right thing and Labour have not done the right thing for a number of years now. From here on I am ignoring the front name of political parties, it is irrelevant what they are called or how they are supposed to “lean”. I just want to hear common sense coming out of their mouths, good decisions being made and for once have politicians who do what they say they will. Labour need to spend the next couple of years looking hard at themselves and then move back to there core values. The Greens should do the same thing straight after they get rid of Sue Bradford. If she becomes Co-leader after Fitzsimons goes the Green Party support will plummet. That is not a mysoginist point of view. She is a moron and a liability to any organisation. If she was male, bisexual, black, orange, disabled or even a visitor from the planet Pluto she would still be these things.
November 17th, 2008 at 10:22 am
All I see in the commentary is typical myopia from bloggers both left and right. Chris has delivered a message we all want to ignore because it does not fit with our conventional wisdom….that there is a crisis in masculinity caused by the modern workplace relations. I manage people who regularly want to punish one another for percieved non performance, and who dont want to appear weak to one another. Often this is an impossible call but they all display a heroic attitude in the face of impossible demands that fly in the face of common sense.
How this translates politically for left or right is immaterial, the symptom exists. Had Mr Hooten delivered this message I suspect you would all have cheered and got in behind. I too would have applauded. Nobody has a monopoly on truth and wisdom. If you dont want to see the cliff approaching that is your concern.
November 17th, 2008 at 11:23 am
The message Chris delivered was exactly what he intended. It was an irrational monologue coloured by his blind hate for anything that doesn’t fit with his view of “the way things should be” . In other words, he despises democracy, literally. As an employer and citizen I was firmly in Labours camp until the previous election, when I was undecided due their perfidy and dishonesty re the Pledge card et al. This last election, due to to all of the above, plus their complete hypocracy in the Electoral FInance Act, and yet recognising the great good that they have done, i I voted Nat both ticks. You see, I value democracy and government honesty/transparency far above any other baggatelle. It’s the core to human rights, freedom and my values as a citizen. But CHris hates me and the rest of NZ because he thinks I/we changed ships. Well, news for you Chris… hate all you like, but NOBODY changed ships; the ship is democracy itself.
Chris Trotter,You’re not on THE ship that is democracy. You hate it. You horrible little hateful control freak of a man.
November 17th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Please, please — Everyone: can we all just lay-off piling our disquiet on to Mr. Trotter. No fun being a single, portly middle-aged man living at home with his mother; where his evening meal consists wholly of eating straight out of a budget-branded can of bake beans (with a plastic spoon), that he’s warmed up over a candle flame.
A little compassion and understanding — as to how he’s come to be this way — would be appreciated.
Let’s just all stand back and let Mr. Trotter re-group. “I’m with you all the way, Christopher!”.
November 17th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Chris at the end of a long campaign when a REAL EDUCATED SKILLED EPMU member(ME) voted for Mr Key and tossed the burden of clarks RULE a educated prof permanant student away for ever , i would go for Mr Key A WORKER not clark a wanker( spinster/lesbian, peter d( WHO), love Key wealth , it show he can make a buck, FOR NZ,
November 17th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Helen, H2, Peters, Tizard and Chris Trotter: Good riddance to the lot of them
November 18th, 2008 at 10:37 am
kiwicockers you are up way past the bedtime of a four year old.
November 19th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Brian @ November 15th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Precisely.
And if they are such a threat to Omar, then allowing him here you are also inviting Al-Qaida here to pursue the man. And then upon finding what a fertile ground it is to stay and continue their destructive work.
They were quite prepared to travel to the United States and build a network of fanatics that ultimately resulted in 9/11. Why on earth would you be so stupid as to give them a reason to look here.
Would you invite Ria Gardiner (mother of Jhia Te Tua) to live in your home knowing the company she kept and attention she drew from rival gangs? Would you be 100% confident that a car would never pull up outside your house and start shooting?
That is what you are proposing with Omar. Have him sit in our living room so people who hate him can come by and start shooting. No.
December 11th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
glad to hear the end of you trotter plotter
February 18th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
O Lord, it’s hard to fly with just my left wing…so long Chris, it’s been…interesting. Why did we abandon Helen’s mob? Lemme see: inability to manage the economy, or help business make the progress they need to; minority Government pandering to the like sof Locke and his flaky chums in the Green Party (a misnomer if ever there was one) or simply hearing someone make more sense than the “granny knows best” supercilious arrogance of the socialist left.
perhaps the reasons are more numerous and comples than that. I for one got sick of the same-old same-old from Hel’s mob and the prospect of three more terms made me sick. It was change or bail for me, and the departure would NOT have been to Oz.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
O and has anyone told Trotter et al that most regular Kiwis - you know the ones who aren’t on a benny and pay a heap of taxes while trying to raise their families the right way - are utterly sick of the old socialist cant and drivel, as much as National has worked out that the Gordon gekko line doesn’t fit any more?
WE want that third way but it will NOT be delivered by Big Gay Hel and or the history teacher because they suffered a personality virus after the election and refused to play, leaving Phil “I think 12 year old girls should be able to root around” Goff {yes, remember when he came out with that doozy?] to carry the can.
Nice one Helen, nice one Michael. I shudder to think what state this country would be in if you people were still the Government. I am sure you’d have a nice line in excuses and blameshifting to make it look like the crunch was all the fault of those evil nasty capitalists…
February 18th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
o hell, I just read kaya’s bit above. I could not have expressed it better msyelf.
Slainte!
March 2nd, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Oh Chris I shall miss you greatly.
Pearls before swine.
The arrogance of the ignorant wins again just when we need your insight most.
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Feature Article for submission - please post if you feel it relevant.
Many thanks
Scott Ewing
Israel and Gaza on a Summer Mind
I think I can safely credit Israeli foreign policy with ruining my summer. If you’re the empathic type - it’s hard to go to the beach and swim in the sun while, several thousand miles beneath your feet, people are being killed en masse by people who should know better about how not to treat people - based on their own historical experience.
Israel violated a ceasefire and launched a sustained assault on Gaza last Boxing Day while many of us were on our bach couches, sailing our boats, and favoring a stretched stomach.
1,400 people died from planes, tanks, bombs, missiles, and small arms.
You can reread that last line again if you need to.
These are events. And they happened.
At the time, if any of us looked at the daily newspaper about the events then our own vague take-home from reading would be that the events were a religious squabble, fueled by some Islamic splinter group hell bent on global dominance.
As in the past, the events would be explained to you minus any historical context and the conflict timeline would begin with some random act of Palestinian aggression – such as kidnapping a couple of soldiers or some loose use of ordinance. This aggression would be treated as discrete - almost as if it came from out of nowhere, unprovoked and unconnected to anything that had gone before.
If you had read your newspaper at the time of the events, then you might have glanced at an advertisement from a group encouraging you to think of any media outlet that criticizes Israeli foreign policy as ‘unbalanced’ - before you flipped to the sports section to load up on info to exchange with your friends over a beer at today’s bar-bee.
If, at the time, you were only watching the news on TV then there’s every chance that you could have missed the events completely, as the state and standards of local television news broadcasting have never been worse.
If you were watching news coming from England and America on the internet, then you would have understood (even perhaps agreed with) the wisdom of bombing densely populated urban areas in response to such acts of aggression.
If, however, you were watching news coming from other parts of the world on the internet - then you would have noticed something else entirely.
You would have noticed news footage of chemical weapons being used on suburbs, cell phone videos of human body parts scattered along city streets as bombs fell, interviews with physicians discussing bizarre never-before-seen war wounds, and dead kids. Lots and lots of pictures of dead kids.
Had you read some of the endless commentary and analysis available, you would have discovered that Israel was founded as a “Jewish state” in 1948 through the ethnic cleansing of Palestine’s non-Jewish majority Arab population.
You would have also learned that Israel has been maintained in existence only through Western support and constant use of violence to prevent the surviving indigenous population from exercising political rights within the country, or returning from forced exile.
At this point, you may have even begun to suspect that your choice of news outlet determines your own opinion of the events.
Assuming, of course, that you give a damn. If you were raised by racists, then these events probably won’t bother you. Feel free to flip on to the next article - we probably don’t have much to say to each other anyway.
But if you weren’t raised by racists and if you were following the events on the internet - then you would have seen global outrage over these events on a far wider scale than previously seen (even when Israel bombed Lebanon in 2006).
What also emerged were new levels of dialogue regarding Israel’s behavior on the world.
For instance: In the many comments sections of the blogosphere, I witnessed the age old charge of anti Semitism shot down in flames and exposed as a red-herring act of misdirection as it seems that most Semitic people speak Arabic.
In reading these spirited arguments and debates, I came to understand how geographically localized and racist perspectives can wither and die in the crushing grip of global human common sense - when the excuses used to justify such murderous behavior, are picked apart and disassembled by wider groups.
I also noticed an intense and ineffective propaganda effort designed to help me blame Islam for this bloodbath.
I don’t really think that religion is very central to this dispute.
I think it has more to do with ‘who gets to live where’. About who owns and distributes the resources. About who drinks the rivers.
Instead of being a behavioral motivator, Islam is more an unfortunate flag of solidarity against continuous western territorial encroachment and political dominance in the South West Asian region. But try telling that to someone who knows only what they are shown on FOX, CNN, and the BBC.
Places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and most of Eastern Europe all suffer greatly from western meddling and interference.
The root cause of the conflict between the Zionists and the Palestinians is as follows.
Israel is expanding and has done so since it was established by force as a nation state more than 60 years ago.
Palestinian House Demolitions + Israeli Settler Colonies = Israeli Border Expansion.
The unfortunate concentration of ownership of commercial news media outlets and the self censorship of the people within those organizations means that consumers of western press are more likely to believe that Hamas & Islam are directly to blame for the conflict.
Thanks to the lack of historical context provided, shooting rockets at Israel is not widely understood as a potential downstream effect of occupation and abuse of dominance.
Israel’s “war” was not about rockets.
They served the same role in its narrative as the non-existent weapons of mass destruction did as the pretext for the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq (and I’m still waiting to be carefully led through a clear explanation for that one).
Gaza does not exist and act in isolation. Israel never stopped occupying Gaza even though it recently made a show of doing so. This is because Israel thoroughly controls the borders of Gaza through force – turning the area into one giant open air concentration camp. If you don’t believe me, then try reaching Gaza by boat. See how far you get.
This border control severely limits the flow of life giving resources to the people living there. And those people exist with the daily choice dealt to them by an Israeli foreign policy of “let us take your land and your life or we’ll shoot you”. Try to imagine how you and members of your family would react when faced with such impossible options.
And in the case of this recent and sustained attack on Gaza, Israel has once again demonstrated that it possesses the power and the lack of moral restraint necessary to commit atrocities against a population of destitute refugees it has caged and starved.
The dehumanization and demonization of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims has escalated to the point where Israel can bomb their homes, places of worship, schools, universities, factories, fishing boats, police stations - in short everything that sustains civilized and orderly life - and claim it is conducting a war against terrorism.
In the absence of any political and moral legitimacy (beyond that which it affords itself in a froth of self righteous fury) the only arguments it has left are bullets and DIME bombs.
Heavily armed and left to its own devices, Israel will certainly keep trying - as it has for sixty years - to massacre Palestinians into submission.
It is not widely known that there are very vocal and active Israelis that are furious at the actions of their government, just as there are Americans that are furious at US policies.
Personally, I restrict my disgust to the Israeli government for the same reason I’ve never held America and Americans all liable for the foreign policies of the Bush administration.
Israel’s recent achievement in Gaza has been to make South Africa’s apartheid leaders look wise, restrained and humane by comparison.
One of the factors that helped bring an end to the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa was international pressure for economic, sporting and cultural boycotts. Israel is starting to feel similar pressure from world opinion, and its true nature as a failed and brutal colonial project has been laid bare with its genocide upon Gaza (and yes, killing 1,400 people with military weapons is indeed genocide – don’t try and tell me that it isn’t).
It is time that Israeli and American foreign policy makers rejoin the international community - instead of cynically pretending that they represent it.
These events in Gaza will also likely be seen as the turning point when Israeli propaganda lost its power to mystify, silence and intimidate as it has for so long. Even the Nazi Holocaust, long deployed by Zionists to silence Israel’s critics, is becoming a liability - now that once unimaginable behavioral comparisons are now routinely heard.
If Hitler were alive today (and maybe living somewhere near Bogota) he would probably be smirking beneath that stupid-looking little grey moustache of his.
I’d rather not care about this. I have better things to do with my time than research racism and murder. Better things to do than fielding playground-type abuse and threats from aggressive and poorly informed Israeli supremacists (many of which seem to be suffering from an unrealistic kind of hubris).
But, if genocidal behavior like the events in Gaza and Ossetia becomes normalized – then none of us are safe. And everything New Zealand soldiers fought and were killed for in the past was for nothing.
If my country was being overrun and bombed by some oppressive force bent on occupation, then I would sure as hell want someone else on the other side of the world to give a damn. Just like we did with Kuwait in the early nineties, remember?
Israel is expanding - and has done so ever since it forced itself on the region in 1948.
This is the root cause of the conflict.
Many in the west are unable or unwilling to consider this slow Israeli border expansion as a possible factor in the Palestinian rocket attacks.
If the democratically elected Hamas is to recognize Israel as a precondition for peace - then which Israel is it supposed to recognize? 1967 Israel? 1982 Israel? 2009 Israel?
Can someone point me in the direction of a map with fixed borders? Thanks - and have a great winter.