I’m all white, Jack

One of the world’s great men passed away last week and he can be proud that he made a difference. I would venture to say that any of us who can go to our graves knowing we have made a difference (for the good that is), then we should be able to rest in peace.

Nelson Mandella is a man who has been celebrated in many different ways during his life and he will no doubt also be celebrated in many more ways in the future. He was a man who showed how it is possible to forgive even some of the most heinous of crimes. His humanity should be an example to all of us.

However (and didn’t you just know I’d have one of them lurking somewhere?) I have to say something about the appalling hypocrisy of the New Zealand Government in regards to Mandella’s funeral and what he stood for in general.

Madiba would probably not be impressed with me getting stuck into these guys over this, but I am a less evolved person than him and I haven’t yet learned to be as forgiving.

I cringe at the make-up of the ‘New Zealand delegation’ that has been ‘chosen’ to attend the funeral in South Africa. Let me dissect it (and them) one by one.

First of all we have little Jianqi. Well I have to grudgingly concede that this greedy little money grubber is the Prime Minister and as such he has ONE qualification for attending. I am however extremely uneasy about the fact that he has managed another of his famous brain-fades regarding where he stood in 1981.

I can tell you where he stood in 1981; in a corner somewhere counting out his money and plotting how he could get even more of the stuff for as little effort as possible. As for his views regarding the Springbok tour, I think I can safely say that he didn’t give it a moment’s though and if he had he would have backed the stance of the Muldoon Government and said that sport and politics don’t mix which was of course the right-wing platitude du jour at the time. If it were otherwise he would be proudly (or in his case, boastfully) proclaiming it from the hilltops for all to hear.

However, be that as it may; he is the leader and should go. I could add that he might want to consider not coming back, but that would be mean. To the South Africans, that is.

Next batter up to the plate is James Brendan Bolger, a former Prime Minister and eternal rider of gravy trains. This pillock was a member of that Muldoon Government in 1981 so he helped facilitate that tour by his lack of vocal opposition to it. I am also worried that his presence might lead to further embarrassment for us all when he attempts to adopt a South African accent for the tour.

Then there is Don McKinnon – he of the permanently upstanding hair and surprised look. Don was also a member of the Muldoon Government in 1981 and he has also been a leech on the public purse ever since riding every gravy train that has come to town. This genius caused something of a stir (and an embarrassment to all good Kiwis) when he proclaimed that economic development and free trade are more important than democracy. Mind you that was at a CHOGM meeting (Chaps Hanging Out on Government Money). I KNOW Nelson Mandella would not have shared that sentiment and would have shuddered at the very thought that money was more important than freedom, but then that is the manifesto of Jianqi isn’t it?

Pita Sharples is going of course and I guess he does have the cred that he opposed the tour, although I think it is fair to say he has long since traded away most of his principles to be a part of the Jianqi Government. This leaves him as a poor candidate and probably a token one since he is the only non-white member of the delegation. He really has developed into an “Uncle Tom’ or a ‘Benedict Arnold’; or perhaps a Faustian clone selling his soul to the devil for a little time holding awe corner of the reins of power. Mandella stood up for moral principles and was prepared to die for them. This wooss wouldn’t know a moral principle if it bit him on the nono.

And speaking of token members; David Cunliffe without the ‘t’ has only been chosen because even Jianqi knows that the leader of the opposition is usually expected to attend such events. He probably has the pedigree for this event and he opposed the tour.

So looking at the delegation it stands out like the proverbial ‘dog’s nuts’ that it is with one solitary exception comprised of old white guys, only one of whom actually stood for what Mandella did and one token Maori who has spent the last two parliamentary terms selling out his people so he could rub shoulders with the latest batch of power brokers.

I don’t necessarily think John Minto should have gone at the nation’s expense although he would have been a better choice than Don McKinnon or Jim Bolger, but I would have thought at least somebody with good Human Rights creds should have been included. It might not have been a bad idea to include a woman as well.

But definitely not our Racist Relations Commissioner who is another lacking any suitable qualifications for the trip or her job for that matter.

And just to make matters worse; the Huffington Post has picked up on Jianqi’s brain-fade as well. Oh the shame of it all!

Year of the living dead

There have been a few deaths this year. I know this happens every year, but in 2013 we have experienced some rather unusual deaths.

The first of these was North Shore MP Madly Barry. She apparently died last week – or at least I have to conclude that she and some of her colleagues did because last week her beloved leader announced Government ‘support’ for the Auckland City rail loop.

Auckland head boy Lenda Hand Brown is thrilled to bits with this apparent u-turn although I believe it is more of a u-bend; i.e. it is full of shit. Closer examination of the announcement reveals that little is likely to happen before about 2020, which the more quick witted among the population, (that’s a small group including thee and me and bugger all else), have realised is outside their current term of office. Thus they are making promises somebody else will be expected to keep which is always a dodgy proposition.

Of course amid all this excitement nobody has noticed the demise of Ms Barry and her un-named colleagues. I have to assume that Madly has gone to that great compost bin in the sky because as soon as she was elected to Parliament she told everybody who would listen, and a lot of people who were trying desperately to block out her droning rhetoric, that there would be a CBD rail link before a second harbour crossing "over our dead bodies".

Just whose dead bodies apart from her own was unclear at the time, but obviously the North Shore MP herself is no more because she told us back in 2011 what would happen if that was the case. We believe her because in the Reader’s Digest poll to find the most trusted New Zealanders of 2013 we voted Madly in at number 51, which might not sound very good, but it was high enough to make her our most trusted politician. How about that for an oxymoron? Although perhaps the real morons here are the voters (again).

However I tuned in to Parliament after the announcement and I swear I saw the deceased MP for North Shore smirking away in the background and she looked alive enough to me. Either she has come back to haunt Jianqi for killing her off with his announcement or she has looked more closely at the announcement than the pussies of the press who have all breathlessly reported the whole thing as if it is really going to happen. You see we have three types of dead in New Zealand; the dead, the undead and the brain dead. Madly Barry is one of the former two, but so far I cannot confirm which.

But Ms Barry is not the only death we have had in public orifice this year. Maori Party co-leader Pita (Principle) Sharples has also apparently died just this very week. You won’t find this reported in the paper yet because the Maori Party are trying to keep it quiet until they figure out how to blame Hone for it.

In the meantime the news has been leaked in a careless press release about a leadership vote to be held in a fortnight’s time. This can only mean one thing; Mr Sharples is dead. He must be because he told us only a few months ago he would lead the party until he died. Therefore the fact that he is now being replaced can only mean he has shuffled of his mortal coil.

And here’s the scary part. I swear I’ve seen Sharples this week as well. So has he also joined the ranks of the living dead? This is becoming more unsettling by the day. There are already rumours that the corpse of United Featureless is roaming the corridors of the Beehive and I have also heard about an attempt to reACTivate another dead party.

These creatures were all scary enough in life, without malevolent forces re-animating them for eternity. Forget the economy; we need to deal with this imminent threat without delay.

To that end I have been doing some research on zombies and it seems that most ‘experts’ believe the best way to deal with a zombie is with a swift shot to the head. Their theory is that the brain is the only living thing they have. And here is where we have a BIG problem dear readers. We are dealing with politicians FFS. Where on earth are we going to find a brain among them?

Another ‘expert’ suggests removing their heads. Once again I have never seen a politician yet who can’t operate without using their head, so I guess that is not going to work either.

The most ridiculous method I came across was to nail them back into their grave beds with a steak. I ask you how the hell can you nail someone to anything with a slab of meat? (Hush your dirty mouths) I would have thought you would want something sharp like a spear or a dagger for that.

Unfortunately folks it would seem that for the present we are unable to rid the country of these hideous cannibalistic apparitions – at least not until around October next year. I have heard that a tick in the right place on a ballot paper can sometimes work and if that doesn’t work then I am reminded of an old rhyme; Remember, remember the fifth of November.

   

Half-baked Pita, anyone?

I saw a posting today on Facebook that said “Dear Maori Party - what's the point of sitting at the table when John Key has sold the table?” It was a link to a short blog piece by Bomber Bradbury.

And Bomber is right on the money here. The carefully orchestrated displays of mock annoyance by Tariana Toofeeble and Pita Metacarpals were never anything more than a PR arranged mock grumpy face.

Tough guy talk was sprinkled about how they would have to ‘review their arrangements’ with the Natzis but their first mistake was to allow Jianqi to call the shots and decide when and where they would meet. This resulted in them sitting about like the new boy at school while teacher eventually got around to seeing them in his own good time.

They weren’t in a good position to bargain from the outset considering the money lobby’s darling doesn’t need their vote in Parliament as long as Peter Dung still loves him.

Add to this the fact the odd couple are very fond of the mana they think is rubbing off on them by being so close to Jianqi, and the fact Metacarpals doesn’t seem to be able to string two words together coherently these days and you knew it was always going to be a win for the Natzis.

Of course Little and Somewhat Larger came out grinning like imbeciles and saying how they had reached an agreement. This was true of course because they had agreed to agree with Jianqi. I don’t suppose anybody ever said an agreement had to be beneficial to both parties, but those of us with a mind for fair play always live in hope.

And while we are on the subject of fair play; what about the interests of the Maori Party’s constituency? Clearly the party leaders are not concerned about the issues their people have raised about the water which Jianqi says nobody owns. I would love it if nobody owned the water, but clearly somebody does otherwise farmers wouldn’t be required to pay for water rights to take water from rural streams and rivers. No matter how they try to dress that up with nonsense about administrative costs etc, people are still paying money for water. If those charging the money do not own the water then we could all quite simply tell them to get stuffed without risking prosecution. We are not able to do this, therefore it must follow that somebody owns this wet stuff.

However this is rather unfortunately being cast as simply a Maori issue. I believe it is far bigger than that and the numbers of people opposed to the State Asset Sale of the Century are surely testimony to that. Rather fortuitously a Maori group has come up with a fairly decent challenge to the process, but they have been seriously undermined by the performance of Toofeeble and Metacarpal who have not only let down their own people on this occasion.

I have always felt the Maori Party was a dodgy concept from the start. A political party based upon one single ethnic group can easily become self-obsessed and pose a major impediment to racial harmony. This particular party seems to have suffered from that fatal malaise so many Maori groups have suffered from over the years; poor leadership. Having said that New Zealand has hardly been blessed with a great lot of real leaders over the years in general.

Pakeha have had to shoulder the blame for nearly every gripe or woe that hinders the progress of Maori for nearly180 years. While it is true Pakeha did some very shitty things ‘back in the day’ and some of the flotsam and jetsam of Pakeha society have continued to act in a bigoted way towards Maori. It is grossly unfair and inaccurate to blame Pakeha for everything.

A lot has been said about how the settlers ‘tricked’ Maori out of land and many other things, but it is important to remember there were misunderstanding on both sides. To each race the other was a complete mystery and neither had any understanding of the other’s culture.

I don’t think it is a huge leap to lay some of the blame for how 1840 worked out at the feet of Maori leadership at the time. Clearly I wasn’t there – no, really I am NOT that old; but it is possible they let their people down by (a) Not being united (Remember the old adage – United we stand; divided we fall) and (b) because some of their leaders liked the bright shiny objects they were being offered by the glib talking Pakeha.

I dunno about you, but it looks a little like déjà vu to me; and I ain’t talking about the album by Crosby Stills, Nash & Young despite that haunting refrain in the title track, “We have all been here before”