Doesn’t that say it all, about the right? I have made this point before: there are fundamental differences between left and right, and it’s not just about the money. Actually, maybe it is just about the money:
People of the right tend to be more scared of other people and obsessed with their own security, more into punishment of those who threaten it, and generally their ethics are questionable, since money is the primary motivator with personal greed overriding morals pretty consistently.
Am I mad? No.
Our very own Prime Minister is a righty of the first order. He cannot understand why people get upset when the distinction, for him, is so clear: money trumps everything.
John Key told TV3 that he sees no reason to stand down ACT Party MP John Banks in the midst of a political donations scandal, if the information Mr Banks has given him is ‘accurate’. Forget ‘correct’, ‘ethical’, ‘honest’ or any words like that.
The Most Dishonourable John Banks accepted $50,000 in ‘anonymous’ donations from Kim Dotcom, contentious millionaire founder of the MegaUpload website. Accept he knew all too well where the money came from. Dotcom made his millions selling other people’s stuff, basically, and the US is trying to extradite him for his most rewarding endeavours.
But Dotcom had friends here. Well, he thought he did. They were fair weather friends, into the money and the parties, the fireworks and the helicopter rides, but not into being seen propping up (or being propped up by) someone in trouble with the law. Oh, no.
Banks gave Dotcom the cold shoulder once he was in prison, and now The Big Man has spat the dummy all the way out and dobbed Banks in for receiving. Banks is still pretending he doesn’t know where it came from, but there’s a lot of evidence, and it’s building up all the time, that Banks has been cynical, grasping and disingenuous in the extreme.
None of which should surprise anybody, least of all those fools in Epsom and Remuera who voted for him. They got exactly what they wanted.
Which all rather begs the question: who else was on Dotcom’s overly large and flabby teat? I can hardly wait to find out. The paper shredders will be busy.
Labour Party MP Trevor Mallard also claims Banks knowingly accepted a $15,000 donation from Sky City, also listed as anonymous, but I suspect this practise is typical and widespread. But Key says it’s not about morals or ethics, but the law, telling TV3 “He wasn’t a member of Parliament, he wasn’t a member of the Crown, he wasn’t Auckland mayor.”
No, he was just corrupt and malodorous, but that’s more than acceptable to the current government, since Key pretty much put Banks there in the first place with his infamous Tea Party.
Key: “There’s nothing wrong with people lobbying, people lobby all the time.”
Right.
Meanwhile, is Labour reinventing itself as a humanist party? One of principle, honesty, integrity and social conscience? Maybe it’s starting to, and it should be, since the Greens are steadily taking over the traditional territory of the left.
It’s about time Labour rid itself of old school socialism and all its baggage anyway. Reforge an identity with the unions and, best of all, Labour should differentiate itself more clearly from this vulgar and avaricious New Zealand conservatism, which is taking pains to excoriate itself in the public conscience as never before.
Right?