On the heels of that woman in Christchurch being told she couldn't change her toddler poolside we have a bloke in Auckland who was stopped videoing his own child on the waterslide for 'privacy reasons'. There can be no one with half a brain who doesn't think all this is absolute nonsense (there is a double spread letters page today and all those I could be bothered to read were in agreement) but people (like me) just saying it is all bollocks achieves nothing. We have to start doing something - like telling the life guard to sod off and just let the cameras roll. Giving some thought as to how you cast your vote at the next election is another wheeze.
Charlie Pederson, the President of Federated Farmers bought a smile to my chops as I read the transcript of his speech in Nelson yesterday. He eloquently verbalises the thinking man's thoughts on the harm the environmentalist zealots are wreaking on this country and the world in general. He decries the religous fervour that environmentalism has become and suggests the politics of the environment have become the succerssor of the politics of greed as the darling of the trendies. Pointing out that modern methods of food production are required to feed an ever increasing world population will be hard to swallow at the tofu bar. The stark reality is that if 16th century methods are used to feed a population of the 21st century some will go hungry and the first to starve will inevitably be the poor. But if you are an idealist of any flavour a little bit of pragmatism is hard to stomach.
Ah, pragmatism and ideology. The headmistress was a political idealist with odious views long before I set foot on the shores of Aotearoa and how things have changed. The pragmatic reality is that if Mr Field were to go, her grip on power would be tenuous at best. So the idealism of the past few weeks celebrating Labour's 90 years of upholding the rights of the downtrodden goes out of the window with her supporting and endorsing the shameful whitewash that is the Ingram report. The deeds of the Minister would appear bad enough to most sensible people but the machiavellian subterfuges that have been engineered to paper it over are, to my mind, a thousand times worse. The terms of reference given to the poor silk were such that he was hamstrung as to his findings. He knew that before he started and there are several not so oblique references to this. Who set down the terms of reference? The political masters. Doing naughty things in politics is bad enough but unfortunately par for the course. The coverups are a factor of hundreds worse. If he were still alive you could ask Richard M. Nixon about that. What will happen from here? One would hope that there would be a Woodward and Bernstein to spring to our rescue but local history would suggest otherwise. Tough it out for a few days/weeks and it will be business as normal. Remember Dyson's drink driving, Helen's signatures, John Tamahere, Benson Dope etc. etc. - the list is endless. Then we have the sedition. The bloke who has gone down for this doesn't appear to be one of the pillars of society on several other fronts but the government has allowed this very rarely used statute to be used to further emphasise to the proles that disagreeing with them or shaking their foundations of power will not be tolerated. Rudman (I really must stop reading him) likens the use of this law to the conduct of the Singapore Government. Singapore is a lot less subtle and a lot better at it and uses the law to support a regime that has very different ideas to our mob. Come next election Labour will again garner in votes like there was no tomorrow.
Why are people so bloody stupid and will they ever learn? This current bunch of politicians are, as a package, morally bankrupt and people stand idly by and applaud.
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