I’ve found myself writing a lot more about New Zealand politics and the National Party than I perhaps intended when I started this blog.
Sorry. There are bigger issues.
New Zealand’s National Government is not exactly a difficult target – the worrying thing is that it’s pursuing a clearly right-wing agenda and most people seem either blithely ignorant of it (or at least of its long-term ramifications) or just non-caring to the point of stupidity.
Viva typical New Zealanders and their general greed, then.
Probably the National Party is best left to the well-informed office of The Standard and Kiwipolitico.
But I must confess I glance at these but I don’t spend a lot of time reading through the postings.
Why not? Well, I already know my own politics. And I don’t need to be fed Labour’s party line, or the line of the generically Marxist-influenced. In my opinion, Marx had his place — but that was long ago. We’ve moved on. A long way on.
My personal politics revolve around self determination. In other words, I like to determine my own beliefs.
At least, I like to believe that I determine my own beliefs. So I’m not about to tow a party line just because it’s the party line. I’d rather come to my own conclusions, thanks. If I disagree with what you’re saying, I’m not going to support you. And hopefully, I will tell you I disagree.
So whereas I will assist Labour to get into power if I can, as it’s clearly better than National being in power, I don’t feel Labour is the ideal party for New Zealand.
Why not? I believe something similar to what the Maori proverb that says, roughly, ‘go into the future walking backwards so you can see the past’.
I just won’t be walking backwards. But I, too, believe the past is much more significant than most New Zealanders deign to register.
Labour has, in the past, made some really dumb mistakes I never agreed with:
Rogernomics … I could never forgive that.
I think it was wrong to the point of childish stupidity for Labour to alienate the Greens and the Maori Party.
(That said, it’s equally questionable that the Greens and the Maori Party are still carrying grudges. As are some in Labour.)
I think it was really dumb to let National set the agenda in the last two elections. It was so painfully obvious – if I could see it, why couldn’t Labour’s advisors? And what were they being paid? And are they still working for the Labour Party?
And there are many other past issues.
And for now, I think it’s really extra specially dumb, actually, that Labour isn’t grooming its next generation of leaders.
Many of these issues come, in my opinion, from suicidally detrimental small-mindedness.
What do I believe in, then? People co-operating for the common good, and not always putting themselves first. New Zealand creating a place in the world as a beacon of civilisation, no matter how far flung it is geographically. (Lange laid some groundwork for this with our anti-nuclear stance.)
And New Zealand as a beacon of egalitarianism and ingenuity. And independence from international political coercion. And independence from international business coercion (granted, this often amounts to the same thing).
None of this can happen under a right-wing government.
And for my own political position … more on that later.