Category: Everything Political

It was a quiet Waitangi Day this year, compared to the last few. Opposition leader John Key continued his successful programme of getting about the place being likable. Fearless Leader Auntie Helen steered clear without earning the nation’s ridicule, presumable because we all remember the nasty reception she’s had in the past.
No-one climbed any trees or threw any mud or anything. How restrained.
There was, of course, this:

For the furriners, that’s National’s Prime Ministerial hopeful John Key on the right, and he’s greeting his alleged would-be assassin Tame Iti, on the left. That terror raids story just gets stranger and stranger as the months go on.

Well, that didn’t really clear anything up, did it?
Which is fine. I think it’s extremely healthy for the US Democratic nomination to be a long-running down-to-the-wire battle between two candidates who represent similar policy sets but very different visions, and (crucially) neither of whom are white guys. Not least because it provides extra impetus for sorting out their ridiculous electoral system, which is still a complete third-world shambles in every way you’d care to think about.
And on the other side of the fence, white guy with extra pro-war. However it shakes out it’ll be a fascinating election, and probably the nastiest election in decades as the Repub strategists go to town on triggering the latent sexism/racism (delete one) of the independent electorate.
(Props to Sonal for liveblogging the day. Hardcore.)

We just aren’t very good at it, are we? Humans, I mean. As Karen put it in comments to the previous post, we “like simple solutions. and simple solutions don’t exist in complex systems.”
Stuff’s “Have your say” on John key’s boot camp proposal is instructive. It is full of just what you’d expect, but nestled among the nonsense is this revealing comment by a “Dave Smith”: “This hippie flower-power Nanny State the Labour and Greens have produced just does not work – We have given it a try for long enough.”
And this from “Amanda”: “the next few years we will start to see the effects of the disrespectful, mouthy, selfish little savages bleating about “rights” that the Labour government has created!”
Labour came into (coalition) government at the end of 1999. That’s eight years of labour governance so far. Is eight years really enough for society to be changed so utterly? Especially following the neo-liberal economic changes pursued in an unbroken chain from 1984 through to the end of 1999? We are still, as a nation, discovering the effect of those changes (which are in some ways perpetuated by the current government).
I have a notion that politics – left and right, conservative and liberal, however you choose to frame it – are not really about different kinds of governance. I think they are about different perceptions of people, and different perceptions of how systems work.
Many rightish ideologies (and particularly the libertarian strain) at their core view people as fully capable of being masters of their own destinies, and somehow immune to context and systemic influence or pressure.
Many leftish ideologies at their core view people as structured by the systems in which they inhabit. Behaviour can be explained, and some would say excused, by systemic pressures. Also, cleverly designed systems can encourage socially beneficial behaviours.
So, the kinds of political views that make sense to you emerge from your understanding of human behaviour.
These are of course very rough sketches. (They’re not even necessarily contradictory views, if you’re willing to interpret them both just so.) In a sense, these are folk-politics that exist in the community in relationship with politics-as-she-is-done in the big house of government. (Lakoff enthusiasts can compare his family-metaphors to the above – I think Lakoff’s right, but I think that his level of explanation is wrong – his metaphors emerge from these ideas.)
Here’s the kick, though: I think they’re unequal. Rightish ideologies are just simpler at their core than leftish ones. More than that: rightish ideologies, at their core, are just wrong. They’re wrong about us and about society and they’re wrong about themselves. They don’t understand what it is to be human. (Libertarianism, I’m pointing at you for the most explicit incidence of this.)
Systems are complex. Change takes time. The picture is always bigger than you think. Leftish ideologies, for all their many flaws and weaknesses, tend to have a much better grasp on that than rightish ones; and that in itself makes them vulnerable.
—
It is left as an exercise for the reader* how my notion above is not undermined by the fact that capitalism, a system founded on profoundly rightish notions of how humans and systems act, works so much more effectively than any form of socialism I’ve heard of.
* i.e. I’m not sure myself

I fear the kids.

A 50-year-old businessman was today charged with the murder of a teenage boy.
Emery was charged over the fatal stabbing of 15-year-old Pihema Clifford Cameron in Southview Place, Manurewa, on Saturday night. The stabbing allegedly occurred during an argument that arose after Pihema was about to tag a fence on a property and was chased. (full article)

The Mayor of Manukau City, which has been the scene of two murders since Friday, says minor offending such as tagging is the starting point for youngsters to go on to commit more serious crimes. Len Brown was commenting after the murders in Manurewa, including one in which a 50-year-old man is alleged to have killed a 15-year-old boy he caught tagging a fence in Southview Place. (full article)

A 50-year-old man charged with the murder of a teenage tagger in Manukau should be allowed to “get away with it”, Christchurch City councillor Barry Corbett says. “If I was on the jury, I would let him get away with it, but that is just me,” Corbett said. “Everyone is feeling sorry for the kid and his family, but if the kid was not tagging, he would still be alive.” (full article)

Violent youth crime is at an all-time high. Young criminals are graduating from petty crime to more serious crime; unexploded time-bombs on a fast-track to Paremoremo. The victims are people like you and me. – John Key’s speech to start the National party’s election campaign*

Looks like a white man lost it when he discovered a tagger. These days you can’t even protect your own property. South Auckland has been tagged into some huge coloured cesspool. With no support from police and others – I guess retreat is the only option.- Guy on the Stormfront (white power) messageboard

Especially the brown kids.

---

* For those who don’t hear the dogwhistle, look at this quote from the same speech: “The staggering discovery of a lost tribe of 6,000 children who are not enrolled at any school.” A lost tribe, huh?
Fearless Leader Auntie Helen also had a lot to say about youth in her big speech, but the fear-pandering was much less obvious.