Here’s a link to the R 101 reference for anyone who needs it.
Yesterday at some point I noticed that some Labour supporters were getting a bit hot under the collar because some ‘narsty’ right wingers had taken the words of one of their heroes and were then throwing those words around the net as a ‘left wing’ endorsement of negotiating a TPPA.
As others besides me have commented in various ‘standard’ threads, given that Helen Clark was and is a proponent of free trade (China, US talks…), what else would have been expected?
Should Helen Clark have said anything on domestic political affairs given her present international role? I don’t know and don’t care. Helen Clark and what she thinks, is or should be, irrelevant.
The problem, it seems to me, is the indulgence in hero worship by some Labour supporters. See, one of the downsides of placing anyone on a pedestal is that the damned things aren’t that stable. Your hero can be knocked over or even ex-appropriated and you’ll wind up painting yourself into a corner while simultaneously tying yourself up in impossible knots…
The whole rushing around trying to suggest that Helen Clark didn’t indicate what Helen Clark indicated reminded me very strongly of the insane and inane protestations that followed Philip Ferguson calling out the racism of Michael Joseph Savage. I was as goggle eyed astonished at that (Site search if you want. I’m not linking.) as I was at yesterdays back-footed nonsense. By all means identify with good ideas or inspiring things. But people, for fuck’s sake, please, kill your idols, will you?
Cutting some slack for the current leader of the Labour Party, I’m wondering what impact the milling devotees of Helen have had on his possible reaction. I’m not saying he should be cut any slack, but there you go – I’m cutting him some slack and laying the shit at the feet of all you worshipers out there.
Andrew Little clarified a leftist parliamentary approach when he apparently said that the TPPA ought to be “approached with considerable caution.” Got that? It’s worth repeating. Approach with considerable caution
Here’s my take. There’s dog-shit on the path. I do not turn around and suggest people approach with caution. Why the fuck would anyone want to approach dogshit in any fashion? So, I turn round and call out to “watch your feet”…ie, avoid the fucking stuff.
Or, there’s dog-shit through the sand where the kids are playing with their buckets and spades. I don’t tell them to dig around with ‘considerable caution’. I call out to “get yourselves away from there, there’s dogshit”.
Y’know, talking out against free trade just isn’t very difficult these days. Everyone’s doing it. Hmm – except those in NZ who would have us elect them as our governing representatives. It appears they’re still all marching in time. Now. Why should that be and what’s that telling us?
Is there any chance that any of that is down to some residual belief, nurtured perhaps by levels of on- going devotion, that one ought not to, and therefore one will not, contradict the current living deity formerly known as Prime Minister Helen Clark?
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