Imperator Fish: John needs this too

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, March 9th, 2016 - 24 comments
Categories: blogs, humour, Media, Satire, social media lolz - Tags:

lockwood

By now you’ll probably have received your voting papers for the flag referendum, and I know that a lot of you won’t be bothering to vote, or will be voting to stick with the current flag.

I have already tried to explain how important this issue is for our retired rugby players. But no-one is more committed to a change of flag than our Prime Minister. Now you might be one of those wreckers and haters who plan to vote against change precisely because John Key is in favour of it. But I’m going to try and make you see how much of a mistake that would be.

I’ve heard just about every objection to the Lockwood flag there is. But none of them convince me that we should stick with the current banner. So what if the proposed new flag is a hideous confusion of colours and symbols? Sure, it’s not perfect, but let’s not pretend that we’ll ever settle on a flag design beloved by everyone. I’m reminded of a saying, which if I recall correctly goes: “perfect is the enemy of the mediocre,” or something like that. If we hold out for something really good, we may miss out on getting something really average. And average is okay, right? Isn’t that exactly what we want from our centrist politicians who don’t stand for anything in particular? We most certainly don’t want a design that is bold and powerful, because that would be too fraught with risk. I’ll tell you who else chose bold and powerful — the Germans in 1933. And we all know how that worked out for them.

The alternative to Lockwood’s starry fern tat is to keep things exactly as they are. And does anyone really want that? We’re not going to have a debate about becoming a republic any time soon, and John Key even brought back Britain’s feudal honours system in order to better reward our business and political elites for all the tireless work they do accumulating money and power for themselves, but can’t we at least change a piece of cloth? If you won’t do it for Richie, will you at least do it for John?

This means a lot to our Prime Minister. It’s the legacy he wants to leave to the country. And what could be fairer than that? Shouldn’t he have something to show for all his efforts? Building a better and stronger economy turned out to be a bit too hard, and poverty and inequality are at record levels. We’re going backwards when it comes to the environment, and there is a housing crisis in our biggest city. People working 40 hours a week on the minimum wage are struggling just to feed their kids and pay the rent. The only growth part of our economy is the food bank sector.

So the flag really is it. It’s all John’s got to hold onto. It’s no wonder he’s investing so much of his political capital into getting the flag changed. He’s done everything he can to screw the scrum, to get his design picked in the first place, and despite all his hard work some people want to deny him even a modest legacy. It’s unbelievable. Why are people so mean?

It’s pretty obvious what’s going on, and why this whole referendum process has turned into a shambles. It’s Labour’s fault. Labour’s to blame for all the hostility against the Lockwood design. Labour’s playing politics, in a way that National isn’t when John Key wears the Lockwood flag on his lapel during official engagements, and when National caucus members stage crisis meetings to discuss strategies for pushing the flag-change message. It was Labour that engineered the Flag Consideration Panel’s utterly underwhelming choices, in order to discredit John Key. We may never know how they did it, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there’s a dossier somewhere in Fraser House of incriminating Flag Consideration Panel Christmas party photos.

When John Key talks about changing the flag he’s being a leader, a visionary, but when the opposition talks about the flag it’s just grubby and shabby politicking. These people will do anything to discredit one of the greatest National Party Prime Ministers we have seen this century.

We may have another chance to change the flag in the future, once the Queen dies and we find ourselves stuck with that buffoon Charles, and we finally decide to rid ourselves of the entire parasitical royal family. Any move towards a republic would inevitably involve a change of flag. But that could be years away. It’s not as if Elizabeth II is an old woman. We can’t afford to let this opportunity pass us by.

So get your voting paper out and put down a big tick for the Lockwood flag. But if you’ve already voted and want to help the cause further, the only option left for you is to commit electoral fraud. Now I’m not saying you should vote twice, or steal someone else’s voting papers, or threaten one of your neighbours with physical violence if they don’t tick the right box, or find some other way to subvert the democratic process. But the stakes are high, enormously high. If John Key doesn’t get this across the line, then he’ll have nothing much to show for his years in power, and that would be a shame, a terrible shame.

Reprinted with permission from Imperator Fish.

24 comments on “Imperator Fish: John needs this too ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. happynz 1
    9 March 2016 at 11:45 am

    This not only involves John Key. Think of the Speaker. How will the selectively deaf Carter deal with a Key tanty during question time? Oh yeah, he won’t. Never mind.

  2. Herodotus 2
    9 March 2016 at 11:56 am

    why not a white flag ?
    resinates world wide, universal understanding of what a white flag represents easy to manufacture. Also a great base to start for a new National anthem and aligns with support of the All White’s . Thou could be construed in parts of the world in a adverse way.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-fWDrZSiZs
    Or as an opposite proposition How about a solid Black Flag to go with the all blacks and would have greater acceptance world wide and like the white easy to manufacture.

  3. ianmac 3
    9 March 2016 at 11:59 am

    The post is a good example of straight unambiguous writing telling us how it is and why we should vote for dear John Key’s design. Some might have thought it was satire but they would be so wrong. I will sort out my family today. Tick for John”s flag or find somewhere else to live.

  4. Peter Watt 4
    9 March 2016 at 12:48 pm

    My wife’s vote cancelled mine, but at least we each voted. I remarked the same wouldn’t happen in the general election next year. She agreed. It is becoming nine years, already in the 8th, of famine and neglect of not only the needy, but all those somewhere below the benchmark of Middle class.

  5. Ad 5
    9 March 2016 at 12:57 pm

    The left needs the Union Jack version to stay.

    It needs to drape over our dead with natty little wreaths, because the ANZACs fought a glorious war and formed our nation nigh over a century ago. Also drapes quite nicely over the Boer Wars. Also the Land Wars. Reminds us all of who won and who lost, and what we all did it for: the Great Union, Jack.

    It needs the Union Jack version to stay because our greatest action hero of all time is James Bond, and in Skyfall at the end it’s just him doing his best Caspar David Friedrich impression on top of Whitehall with the Union Jack fluttering proudly everywhere reminding the loyal left about Empire. The left have always needed heroes, and I can see why Imperator Fish needs James. The left need their dad.

    It needs the Union Jack version because Downton Abbey. We need lace, upstairs-downstairs tension, class distinctions, and inherited real estate. The left and the right adores teacups, lace, and primogeniture. Maggie Smith is in reality already Queen, so keep the Union Jack version because we just prefer giving over our entire imaginative reflex to British class values, better known as the Union Jack version of life itself. The left need their mum.

    It needs the Union Jack to revive the Savage Club of Wanganui. Where else can we can do skits in blackface, and have another good old laugh recalling the cenotaph near the river celebrating those Maori defending the town from those Other Maori with those Other Flags? Little celebrations can now break out about how we got to install white rule over millions of acres of Maori land. Run that up the flagpole, and keep that flag right as it is. Rule Brittania.

    It needs to put the Union Jack version on bumper stickers, protest about its impending loss, raise it in our schoolyards, lament lost patriotism, and we need to get our children to be taught civics and sing, sing, Sing to our Great Lost British Heritage something about God and Defence. We are still a Better Britain, and we can’t lose our last great symbol of that grand pastoral utopia that goes to Wakefield and back. God Save the Queen.

    It needs to keep the Union Jack because epaulettes. Men in military dress with swords! Swords! Bowing a little. Practicing a curtsey beforehand. Ladies with dresses, people getting awards, cucumber sandwiches on the lawn, your name published in the paper like the Lamb’s Book Of Life and reward for propping up those Polynesian-and-Maori-friendly organisations like the Judiciary, Olympic bowls, Lions Clubs and The Countrywomen’s Institute. Rewards transferred by Britain, and her monarch, under that flag, that glorious shard of British white truth. We don’t need any kind of our own model for anything at all. Epaulettes, my friend, epaulettes.

    Finally, at the end of my life, after standing in silence for 100 Queen’s Messages, the best lefties will get a letter that confirms their life has been worth something, because that letter comes from Mrs Union Jack herself, because only she can validate us, particularly validating our Prime Minister who knows he needs to be kept in his place as that little colonial oik, frame that letter, pass it around our many descendants, and keep it on top of our old flag, that old ragged rag, over the left’s coffin.

    • cogito 5.1
      9 March 2016 at 1:45 pm

      @Ad

      Mate, you really need to get down to Specsavers. You might see things a bit more clearly after that….. including that the alternative looks like the remains of someone’s fish and chips.

      • Ad 5.1.1
        9 March 2016 at 1:48 pm

        Mate, anyone ever tries to get you to open a book, punch them for me.

        Otherwise you might learn something.

        • cogito 5.1.1.1
          9 March 2016 at 1:54 pm

          So here we go, insults. You got any more? Keep them coming, go on…. Next one?

          • Ad 5.1.1.1.1
            9 March 2016 at 2:33 pm

            “You really need to go down to Specsavers. You might see things a bit more clearly after that”

            You clearly wanted to step in, then couldn’t take what you dished out.

            • cogito 5.1.1.1.1.1
              9 March 2016 at 2:45 pm

              You’ve lost it mate, you really have.

              • Ad …
                9 March 2016 at 2:57 pm

                Offer up a point, go for your life.

                • cogito …
                  9 March 2016 at 3:11 pm

                  Your potted history… You wouldn’t even get through School C (or NCEA) with that load of pathetic drivel.

                • ianmac …
                  9 March 2016 at 4:04 pm

                  Very simply I do not think the alternative fern flag is very good. Fussy. Cluttered.
                  So without a better choice, stick to the current one until in 3-4 years we do it properly with a good design and without the political twists.

        • Gabby 5.1.1.2
          9 March 2016 at 3:36 pm

          Ad because bitter.

    • You_Fool 5.2
      9 March 2016 at 3:23 pm

      D- not funny nor interesting and suffers from comparison to Imperator Fish’s article. Also doesn’t really flow nor seem based in reality unlike the original, which at least can pass as plausible.

      Please try harder next time

  6. Magisterium 6
    9 March 2016 at 1:13 pm

    I find the Lockwood design uninspiring and the flag-selection process an absolute clusterfuck. But I dearly want to be rid of the Union Jack.

  7. Des 7
    9 March 2016 at 1:23 pm

    Why not start a new trend with a 2 sided flag. Keep the old flag on one side and a large NZ symbol (such as fern or kiwi or koru) on the other side.

    • pat 7.1
      9 March 2016 at 1:49 pm

      lol….and why not…they say politics is the art of compromise

      but then the flag choice is supposed to be apolitical….hmmmm

    • cogito 7.2
      9 March 2016 at 1:50 pm

      Why not retain the existing flag for formal/state occasions, and have an alternative fern design for sports competitions…?

      Oh, wait, don’t people fly the All Blacks silver fern anyway at sporting events..!?!?

      No need to change then, eh…

    • framu 7.3
      9 March 2016 at 3:11 pm

      the belich book on NZ history had a great bit where the maori chiefs kept unwittingly winding up the brits by changing their flag choice on a daily basis

      they saw no need to just have one and thought the three on offer were all good

  8. cogito 8
    9 March 2016 at 3:56 pm

    One of Key’s little helpers… How many more are out there…

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/298496/flag-voting-paper-theft-investigated

    “Alleged flag voting paper theft investigated
    The Electoral Commission is investigating claims an Auckland man stole hundreds of flag voting papers and voted in favour of the new design”.

  9. swordfish 9
    9 March 2016 at 5:07 pm

    Ha, ha. Goes right to the heart of what’s so irritating about the self-righteous finger-wagging of various outraged journos, editors and social media types over recent weeks.

    The idea that those of us voting to retain the current ensign despite a long term (if low priority) desire to move to something new are somehow Traitors to the Cause. That a general preference for change means we should just automatically vote for any old dross, no matter how unsightly, embarrassing or mediocre, as long as it’s new.

    Can only come from people who have zero design sense (or are happy to disable that design sense in order to shill for our esteemed PM).

  10. Richard@Down South 10
    9 March 2016 at 7:45 pm

    Why is Labour to blame? I didn’t like the process of selection, I didnt like ANY of the 4 options chosen by committee, and I didn’t like Red Peak… I decided that for myself…

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