Trotter Apologises for the Left

Foreward: I don't usually go for "attack" blogging. I have a general belief that consensus is built on well reasoned argument and earnest discussion. Trying to hammer someones beliefs to mirror your own doesn't work and only inspires a more staunch position from your opponent. However, certain comments from other blogs have goaded me into coming off the sidelines. I don't feel good about it but I like the comments, tone and thoughtlessness even less.

I admire Chris Trotter. You only have to read his commentaries in a range of publications nation wide or his blog to understand that he is well educated, a historian and can argue his case really well. And he uses words that are really big. I mean, massive! When I put the words into the online dictionary, you can physically hear the internet groan with the effort of trying to remember what these words mean. So when Chris throws out an article entitled "Oh, for a Well Mannered Left", I take notice.

The essence of his article, if I understood the definitions of some of the heavier words correctly, is that the Right has the ability to be courteous, magnanimous and generous in places because the right has it all already. They are the ones who have the power, the money, the education and the wherewithal. The Left, by and large, is a product of it's history: aggressive, combative, sometimes rude and in your face and generally a great deal more unruly due to the proletariat nature of its uprising (I can use big words too). Chris and I have even debated the nature of this before here and here. Ah, the good times.

But sometimes the Left just pushes it too far.


I've been lucky enough to have been, by sheer coincidence, not among the rubble last Tuesday in Christchurch. The site that I was working on was shut down on the Monday due to concerns about it's stability. When I was in there on the Wednesday just after, the places was a mass of bricks and splintered wood about 2 feet high. I also choose to live on a farmlet just outside Christchurch that is solid, has it's own well and has missed the predication's of the Earthquake that has razed my city and left thousands displaced. For the immediate week afterward, I was working night shifts with Civil Defense shoring up buildings and removing hazards to allow the USAR teams to do their job. It's been rewarding to help with the skills I have available and awful in its scope to see first hand the results of the "Earth Fart". I've enjoyed blogging as a relief from that work but to see the medium twisted in such a way and when people start to use the the situation to further their own agenda, I get pretty steamed.

The Standard has led the way in this.Cactus Kate has called them on it here, Inventory 2  and David Farrar at Kiwiblog has similarly joined the fray. And they're right. Marty G has outdone himself in restraining the impulse to be quietly humanistic however the opportunity has got to him and his fellow commentators to put the boot in with no thought for whats happening on the ground. Normally this is the cry from the left - that the rich bastards in power with the neo-conservative agenda ignore the plight of the average man, woman and child on the street.

A great example of this was Marty's post Shock Doctrine. He can't resist the temptation to politicize the event to spew forth a bunch of assertions, guesses and plain fantasy based on no evidence whatsoever. They are the Ken Ring's of blogging - jumping around, arms waving, scaring people into agreeing with them (bully tactics when you think about it) with no evidence or logic to back it up at all! Christ, even the book from which his post is derived is not exactly known for its rationality, balance and well reasoned argument (MacDoctor takes the book to task in this piece).

Similarly, two days after the quake, the bully boys went to work with a post entitled "Rebuilding" that had no other purpose than to try and slay the bloke who has been gifted the lucky job of overseeing the work at a macro level. Well done, lads! What a way to get behind the guys on the ground. What a way to get behind the country.

And it's not just the Standard bloggers and commentators. The eponymous and unique Greenfly/Village Idiot/robertguyton can't resist a swipe from the sidelines either at Keeping Stock.  His own brand of logic and reason is some of the best examples from the blogosphere as to why the left struggles to hard.

This country was built with egalitarianism as one of its core values. When push came to shove, you could depend on your worst enemy to drop tools and give you a hand when you really needed it! The stories that have come out of the city in the hours and days after the event, the stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things has been amazing. It didn't matter what colour collar you wore. It didn't matter what ideology you follow. We were in the shit and we were just people helping other people. And thats a truer socialism that the gents over at the Standard don't seem to understand.

I am not saying that all are like this. I'm not saying it has been constantly like this. Many over at the Standard have been the most strident in gifting help, support and information. Likewise, some wacky Righties have been upholding their reputations as complete morons. And I do believe that it's right to talk about things like how we are going to respond, rebuild and how to pay for it.

But to lash out when there are people's bodies not yet cold, to bark from the soapbox when people are trying to get a handle on the situation, to lacerate the leaders when no one has had a chance to give it a go yet - well, thats just cold. And disrespectful. And Chris is right to apologise on your behalf.

Chris ends his piece with the following:

"I can’t help thinking that the revolution would come a lot sooner if the Left set about achieving its own radical objectives with its conservative opponents’ infinitely better manners."

 I can't help but agree. If you've gotta problem with that boys, get down here, I'll put a shovel and a hammer in your hands and we'll have a yak about it.


Update: Now they've mad the Whale mad too. 

Where is Annette?

I just commented over at Chris Trotter's blog Bowalley Road about a post on Grant Robertson when the question rose: Where is Annette King?

Granted that they probably want to keep the focus on Phil at the moment however Robertson taking Goff to task over the Nationhood speech lead me to ask where  is the communication between Goff and his caucus. I would have thought Annette, being the capable communicator (the EFB aside) would be busy doing the deputy's job and calling the indians around the fire for a pow wow.

Yet we haven't seen Annette at all over the past fiew months.

What is Labour's deputy doing?

A bad job, some might surmise, after the Robertson affair.

ETS Far Removed.

Is anyone else feeling slightly removed from the ETS debate?

If you go to Kiwiblog there are comments, accusations and epithets flying from one corner to another. But once again, this war seems to be fought over ideological grounds rather than the minutiae of the the bill itself.

The general public have heard what the media chooses to spout at us - mainly the potential cost to the taxpayer over 40 years - and except for Brian Rudman here, there seems to be precious little analysis and forthright, plain english explanations. I've had a look here and there and think I've at least got the gist of whats happening. Everyone should have the gist! Everyone should be Gistified!

With the background of the Maori Party deal sending up smoke in all directions, the real issue is obscured. What are we, as a nation., doing to help the environment?

Few people would say that doing nothing is the way to go. Most people have accepted that we need to change our lives in order to secure the future health of this planet - or at least join in the saving for political expediency. So if there is such little understanding out there, why not take a break from urgently ramming through this bill and explain to Kiwis what it is we are doing. Given the magnitude of the issue I think it would be good to have this better explained now rather than some complaining about it later.

So while all the whirlwind of rhetoric goes on around me in the beltway over maori and whatever else, I still feel removed from the biggest environmental decision our country has made in the last 100 years.

And I think there is something wrong with that.

Labour's Leadership Crisis

The Labour caucus is still having trouble with deciding how to deal with this new government.

David Farrar over at Kiwiblog posts how inane the opposition's attacks are regarding the Governments planned fibre roll out strategy to better serve our broadband infrastructure. As was posted on Kiwiblog a wee while ago, they were having a little trouble deciding a)how to attack JK et al and b) how to be an effective opposition. This proves once again that they still have issues (aside from rampant socialism that is :-)).

In the past, all oppositions did just that: the opposite - sometimes whether they agreed with a policy or not. Now, with JK at the helm and a more open and results (rather than politics) orientated government that is bi-partisan in it's approach, the traditional rules no longer apply. As exhibited with Clare Curran's approach to s92a, there is a glimmer of hope. Unfortunately, you still have A King and P Goff at the helm who authorise these "attacks" because they know nothing else. Thats how they have been taught. In politics when you resort to blatant untruths, such as we have here, you can tell that the party is failing to get any traction. They tried this in the election campaign (remember Mike Williams' little side trip) and the strategy didn't work then and, in the face of a disciplined government, it won't work now. This is another great example of where leadership is being tested for Labour and is failing. Bring on the likes of Shane Jones who is far more credible, focused and able to adapt while bring the likes of Jacinda Adern up with him. While not being a Labour supporter, New Zealand still needs a credible opposition for things to function well. I hope Phil Goff can get past his own hubris, see this problem for what it is and act upon it or, god forbid, he may end up having to be moved involuntarily.

Make no mistake, Andrew Little, for all his conciliatory words on Q+A two weeks ago about supporting Phil and Annette, is just the bloke to enact change when needed and be prepared to step on toes if he thinks it is in the best interests of his party. He is cognizant of the fact that to achieve a result for your point of view, a conciliatory approach works a lot better than an adversarial one. You only need to look at his style of leadership in the EPMU for that. Many employers have a great respect for Andrew and give him credence where the likes of the old guard such as Ken Douglas, would never have achieved his levels of success for his people.

The whole Labour movement needs to smarten up in this new era. It's spokespeople are still living in the wrong century - or at least their politics are.

One just needs to go to Chris Trotters lament of the demise of that era to realise that they are still beholden to the past rather than to the future.

The Labour Party is in a crisis, no matter how much they deny it. The current leadership just can't get a grip on the reasons why people changed their vote in such numbers and why the National Party retains such support post election. People want results - no matter who initially thought up the idea. National is delivering this. Labour is still stuck in the mindset that if it isn't our idea then it isn't an idea at all.

Phil Goff should remember Plato's Repuplic - that in the absence of any leadership at all, a new leader will emerge - whether he wills it or not.

Hat Tip: DPF, Kiwiblog

The New Worker

I have just finished reading Chris Trotters new op-ed piece at his blog site Bowalley Rd in which he gives voice to his opinion of Andrew Little, the new Labour Party President, the Labour Party's current situation and also yearns for the old days when the Labour Party was full of passionate debate united by a common thread of a socialist path for New Zealand.

Since I started The Home Office, I've been investing a lot of time in reading more of the leftist blogs such as Bowalley Rd, The Standard (always a staple), Socialist Aoteroa and the Workers Party.

What has come to mind has been that the militisicm of old, that stereotypical waterfront worker staring the police down on the waterfront in 1951, that kind of violent say-with-my-fists-what-my-mouth-can't passion seems to have gone. Sure, there are traces of it here and there. And the "about" tabs of some of these blogs seem to be transposed directly from Marx's Communist Manifesto. But even Chris seems to lament that core stereotype of the New Zealand worker.

What defines a new Zealand worker as we grow older as as a nation?

We are in a world full of Gen - Y's (Gen Y Neos, they tell me now) where the Ipod is king, consumerism is rampant and communication is on a scale never seen before. In fact my 14 yr old niece's cellphone appears to be hardwired to her fingers, she doesn't need to look to string a text message together and she can even converse in a somewhat meaningful way while she does it! We are moving to a more knowledge based economy that means more and more people are moving from the factory floor or the waterfront to the air conditioned office and the computer keyboard. There seems little room for the old stereotype of the militant socialist - or even the vociferous one at that. Chris Trotter comments himself on the fact that the Labour Party, with it's roots deep in the workers heart, now numbers perhaps 2000-odd paid up members. Where have the old days gone? Why are there not more people struggling to rise from the grip of the imperialist fist?

Perhaps the question should be: Is the socialist movement in New Zealand keeping pace with the changes in society? Who is "The New Worker"?

There will, I hope, always be a Left and Right - two opposing opinions on how the state of affairs should be run. Democracy requires this so that consensus is reached and the will of the people is acceded to. There is no doubt, if recent polls are to be believed, that the Left is in a state of tatters while the Right is in the ascendancy. This is reasonable I guess given the fact we have had a significant shift in thinking as evidenced in the result of the last election.

However, sometimes I wonder about the relevance that the socialist side has to todays world and is that movement answering the question above: Is the socialist movement in New Zealand keeping pace with the changes in society? Who is "The New Worker"?

I think Andrew Little has an idea who that new worker is? Chris bemoans the fact that he is respected by the people he represents and the people he purports to battle. I would have thought that this was a good thing; consensus being the way forward and all that democratic type of stuff.

I apologise in advance if I malign anyone with the stereotype of "the worker" painted above or indeed their views and opinions. However I think it valid to point out that while such an able bloke as Phil Goff languishes at the bottom of the polls, perhaps some stereotypes the old left may have need to be broken and the needs of the New Worker identified.