Sanctimonious tall poppy cutter.

Written By: - Date published: 3:38 pm, February 7th, 2009 - 32 comments
Categories: helen clark, Media, scoundrels - Tags: ,

Curiously young image of a cutter of tall poppies

Sanctimonious cutter of tall poppies (when younger)

There is no doubt that the Granny crew were hurt when their own ‘poll’ showed that people considered Helen Clark was the greatest living kiwi. It says a lot about the mean-spirited attitudes at the Herald that they didn’t consider that politicians were possibilities for the greatest living Kiwi. You get the impression that they’d prefer that politicians were just there as objects to provide copy – like Britney Spears. However politicians affect a lot of people. The competent ones affect everyone for better or worse.

John Roughan has written an article about the result of that poll – Clark good but not great. It is pretty classic because of its revealing side issues and assumptions.

For instance John Roughan tries to pass this ‘poll’ result off as a concerted campaign inside Labour. John doesn’t know that and doesn’t have any evidence to back it up – otherwise I suspect he’d have referred to it. It is just a classic bit of misdirection speculation of the type favored by National’s advisors. That is where I suspect it came from because I didn’t see any particular effort to stack or spoof this poll.

The alternative is that people who were grateful for Helen’s efforts over the last decade actually expressed their opinion. It is just that the congregations and emotionally troubled manchildren of the right didn’t interfere as much as they usually do. In my view the sooner these online polls are dead the happier I’ll feel. They are useless for doing anything except providing cheap copy for the lazy in the mainstream media.

John also tries to say that Helen in his opinion cannot be ‘great’ because she isn’t ‘spiritual’. What the hell? Where does this jerk-off think he is? Iran or some other theocracy. At least it does sound like John’s own words rather than the boring Crosby/Textor li(n)es.

I have absolutely no idea about what Helen’s spiritual inclinations are and I’ve been working with her in her electorate for close to 20 years. I also have no time for vacuous spiritual issues of the affluent (including my friends) when there are kids that purely secular things can help. What I have is respect for the type of faith that allows long-term problems to be tackled.

What Helen is mainly concerned about was the legacy of 25 years of economic mismanagement prior to 1999 that dropped people and their children on to the scrapheap of lack of opportunity and left them there. These are the type of people that the womans refuges see all of the time in their ambulance at the bottom of the cliff role. The people trapped with little hope and fragile connections to the rest of society. They acted as a drag on society in many ways from the straight fiscal costs to the crime that they participate in. They were last ones taken on when work arrived, and first off when hard times happen. That is what Helen focused on.

They didn’t need (or want) the massive rupturing changes in society that we’d seen for decades. They needed stability. It shows in the cautious way that Helen worked on strengthening the economy and social structures. She succeeded in bringing most of them back into the economy. On the way through, that helped the rest of us.Similarly she looked past the current to try to reduce the type of boom and bust cycle that a causes a small economy like ours to produce and artificial underclass and started correcting them.

To do this and to plan on taking at least 3 terms to start it required a deep act of faith by all in the Labour and other parties. That is what Helen did – she inspired faith inside the Labour party that this was achievable and that we should do it.

Personally I have a complete inability to have any kind of faith (and therefore no spiritual dimension). So I went along on the basis of doing the least amount of harm to the society within which I live. However I do observe the effects of faith in others around me. I started dividing them up a long time ago into two types.

The ones that use their faith as their core and then reach out to generate projects that help others. I call this the “people of faith”. Characteristically it is really hard to get into a conversation about spirituality with them. They live the life and in doing so inspire others.

The other type of faithful are the “sanctimonious” who use that ability of having faith to build a tight little world around themselves with which they can use to judge others by. Just like the attitudes in this spoof ad for Halo.

A game for the sanctimonious

After reading tens of thousands of comments by members of this curious sanctimonious belief system on this blog and others not to mention the social contacts with them over the years, I’ve come to some conclusions about the dislike and active hatred of the some of them towards Helen. The main things that they don’t like about Helen is that she is female, can’t be bothered greasing up the sanctimonious, and challenges their perceptions about reality because she is effective.

Business as usual with the likes of John Key will always suffer by comparison. So I’d expect to see a lot of the tall-poppy brigade out over the next few years. John Roughan is classically sanctimonious because he is trying to judge Helen by his narrow minded standards rather than looking at what she was trying to achieve. That’d involve him getting too close a dose of reality for comfort.

32 comments on “Sanctimonious tall poppy cutter. ”

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  1. higherstandard 1
    7 February 2009 at 3:53 pm

    mEH ……. as the herald website says “polls don’t claim to be scientific and reflect the opinions of only those internet users who have chosen to participate.”

    Clark came out on top with 3163 votes out of a possible 12655 good on her as Key said at the time …….

    “She has been front and centre stage in the public eye for the last decade. She is well thought of as a New Zealand Prime Minister.’

    and as Clark herself said

    “I guess it’s quite a hard ask asking who is the greatest living New Zealander – Sir Ed’s gone and undoubtedly would have won any such poll conducted in his time.’

    Roughan’s article is an opinion piece nothing more nothing less that you’re upset enough to write a piece on it and call him a sanctimonious tall poppy cutter says as much about you and your biases as it does about him.

  2. The Sprout 2
    7 February 2009 at 3:56 pm

    It’s taken the Herald a while to come up with a line to attack the result that isn’t premised on “all our online polls are shit anyway”.

    Roughan’s attempt really just attests to how out of touch with New Zealanders he and his editors really are. I would have expected a more sophisticated effort considering how deeply embrassing to the National Herald the result actually is.

  3. higherstandard 3
    7 February 2009 at 4:14 pm

    It’s taken the Herald a while to come up with a line to attack the result that isn’t premised on “all our online polls are shit anyway’.

    Eh what line is that then ?

  4. lprent 4
    7 February 2009 at 4:23 pm

    hs: The line is that everyone is happily pulling together behind the “great weeder”. The whole country is happy to be screwed over provide that it done nicely…

    I’m afraid that this dreck is the current li(n)e from the Granny. Bit sickening really…

    Anyway off to enjoy the heat

  5. Felix 5
    7 February 2009 at 4:41 pm

    I don’t think anyone should find it controversial that Helen remains a very popular figure in NZ (outside of the nutosphere of course).

    There’s a comment I’ve heard quite a bit since the election from people who usually vote Labour but voted National this time, and it goes along the lines of “I still have a lot of time for Helen but she’s been there too long”.

    captcha: sipps experiment. Which is exactly what I’m about to conduct.

  6. Peter Burns 6
    7 February 2009 at 5:21 pm

    Felix ” outside of the nutosphere of course” Helen Clark is very unpopular with Union meat workers that I know. Infact, I can’t find a person alive in the real world that has a good word to say about the rather strange woman.

  7. Kerry 7
    7 February 2009 at 5:27 pm

    The guy is a typical right wing arse wipe who hopefully looks at his own life as sees hes aint nothing but a tin pot editor and will never have the skill or respect that Helen Clark has.

    I suggest contacting Johns bosses and getting him on a Journalism course because its obvious he knows nothing about it.

  8. higherstandard 8
    7 February 2009 at 5:32 pm

    “The guy is a typical right wing arse wipe”

    Could you please describe a “typical right wing arse wipe” ……. how about a “typical left wing arse wipe”

    Anyway as Lynn said off to enjoy the rest of day ….. mmmm love that global warming.

  9. Felix 9
    7 February 2009 at 5:57 pm

    Dad, you are the living embodiment of the nutosphere, as you well know.

  10. Pascal's bookie 10
    7 February 2009 at 6:22 pm

    “typical right wing arse wipe’

    hs meet mirror.

  11. rjs131 11
    7 February 2009 at 6:57 pm

    “typical left wing arse wipe’

    PB meet mirror

  12. higherstandard 12
    7 February 2009 at 6:58 pm

    PB

    Did you think of that all by yourself …….. good boy well done your mum must be very proud.

  13. Pascal's bookie 13
    7 February 2009 at 8:03 pm

    rjs131, Predictable, but I never claim to be otherwise. I tend not to comment that people are arseholes, I focus more on the ‘stupid’, ‘non sensical’, and ‘illogical’. Which accounts for why I spend so much time in conversation with hs.

    You’ll note that hs response is standard form for him. That sort of stuff is all that he contributes. That’s ok, but he’s boring at it.

    The irony is that he chooses to claim my ideas are not my own, choosing a rather cliched post of mine to do so. Fair enough. But of the two of us one is known to be a plagiarist. And it’s not me.

  14. illuminatedtiger 14
    7 February 2009 at 8:46 pm

    Whereas we can almost certainly say the right were stacking the text polls during the election debates.

  15. Phil Sage (sagenz) 15
    7 February 2009 at 11:45 pm

    “The alternative is that people who were grateful for Helen?s efforts over the last decade actually expressed their opinion. It is just that the congregations and emotionally troubled manchildren of the right didn?t interfere as much as they usually do. ”

    So the labour children of the left won that particular round. Getting 3000 votes online is indicative of nothing. Carry on children….

    I read that list and realised how sparse it was apart from sportspeople. That says something about what New Zealand has become

    Your two types of faith is more interesting. I agree with it but extend it beyond formal religion and well into Greens and the like. Clark falls firmly into the sanctimonious. Being female has got nothing to do with attitudes towards her. Many of us on the conservative right have unstinting admiration for Thatcher. I would name her as the greatest living Brit having taken that country from socialist disaster to the longest boom in British history. No doubt you will disagree. Name one better. It is that patronising politically correct bullshit of blaming everything on racist or misogynist attitudes that sticks in the craw.

    Key made his pot and has obviously decided to live the faith. I do not know or care about his formal religious views but he seems utterly at ease with himself and able to provide leadership by example. Point to examples of Key sanctimony. He has lived a Kiwi aspiration. humble beginnings, global success and a return to public service in his own country.

  16. jbc 16
    8 February 2009 at 12:17 am

    Slow news day?

    These online polls, which we know to be rubbish whether we agree with them or nowt, are usually ignored by all but the dumbest of the dumb. Occasionally, when they support whatever meme the poller wanted to push, we are subjected to the ramblings of a two-a-penny columnist on the “8 out of 10 kiwis prefer castration instead of home detention” poll result – as if it meant something.

    Now we have an otherwise unknown columnist in an undistinguished rag commenting that the unscientific poll did not turn out the way he liked.

    And that’s worthy of comment?

    Christ! I occasionally look at these polls and wonder whether anyone is dumb enough to play the resulting ‘ball’.

    Look the other way! Look the other way!

    [briefly: looking for signs of the VRWC (or VLWC) in these polls and the resulting discussions requires you to lower yourself down to a level where the results are considered worthy of debate]

  17. Jum 17
    8 February 2009 at 12:29 am

    Phil Sage
    The righties and the religious hate women being leaders. They hate the work Clark and co did to bring New Zealanders to a more equitable level stopping the moneytraders and other general parasites sucking on the blood of our future (I’m just watching Dracula which seems apt somehow when discussing Key and Farrar). The righties hated NZers being able to write their own employment contracts. They wanted NZers pushed back down, weakened, unemployed and desperate.

    It’s strange that when nations are moving towards equality and equity, a financial disaster always happens, quite by accident, of course. Now the righties seek to damage the strength of our workers once more.

    Key made a pile of money by manipulation and destructive behaviour. There is nothing remotely praiseworthy about him. He’s just a front for the business roundtable. People who become rich in an honest way by working hard and not destroying others in order to do so are admirable. Key is not.

  18. higherstandard 18
    8 February 2009 at 8:54 am

    PB

    I think it’s rather amusing that you portray a typical right wing arsewipe as someone who

    Believes in a public health and education system and gives time freely for community, education and sports boards……. it’s almost as silly as Eve’s comments about pakeha NZers……. perhaps if you would like to focus on the stupid non-sensical and illogical you should conduct a long conversation with yourself.

    Edit

    Jum I have just read your little vent, I’m not sure if you’re trying to take the piss.

    But it is rather odd that despite this blogs claims that it is above the kind of behaviour it detests at other sites it has become it’s own little hateful sewer.

  19. the sprout 19
    8 February 2009 at 9:25 am

    christ hs, do you have any life at all?
    sad sad man.

  20. higherstandard 20
    8 February 2009 at 9:26 am

    Sprout

    “christ hs, do you have any life at all?”

    Yes how about you ?

  21. yukity 21
    8 February 2009 at 10:09 am

    Yawn, lyn you really need to get out more. quite a lot more.

  22. Pascal's bookie 22
    8 February 2009 at 10:26 am

    “Believes in a public health and education system and gives time freely for community, education and sports boards .”

    You can do all that and still be an arsewipe hs. The argument you are attempting to make is known as a non sequitur, a formal error of logic. I think you are a good example of an arsewipe not because of the things you do in your offline life, (things that may be made of awesome, but are both unknowable and not relevant), but because of the things that you say here, as ‘higherstandard’. Those things are just as much a part of you as other things.

    The ‘higherstandard’ things are the only ones that I know for a fact are true about you though. I know that you tell lies (please don’t deny this, you remember when you lied about rOb saying things that he didn’t say and then produced that lame non apology?) and that you plagiarise in your comments. Given that, I’m not sure how much weight to give to your claims about what you get up to off line. That’s not my fault by the way. It’s yours, because of the lies and the plagiarism.

    I know that it smarts that I pinged you for plagiarism, and lying on occasion, but it’s easy fixed. Just stop doing it. It’s not hateful to have these things pointed out to you when you get on your high horse mate.

    Find any thread on this site that compares in sewage to the one at KB about Helen Clark’s possible UN job, or the one about that beneficiary involved in a fracas in court.

  23. yukity 23
    8 February 2009 at 10:28 am

    pascal, this site is pure bitter bile, not sewerage so i agree.

  24. higherstandard 24
    8 February 2009 at 11:57 am

    PB

    there there… I see you now have resorted to name calling but have removed the right wing tag.

    I also did not realise this was a peer reviewed journal I though it was a mere blog… it’s often far easier and quicker to copy and paste from another author who supports your view rather than retype …. I will give myself a smack on the hand for not putting in the quotation marks upon occasion.

    If you so keen to stalk me on line perhaps you should arrange that we get a room somewhere – and Yes I have plagiarised that line from someone as well (Sod or Barnsley Bill I think)

  25. Pascal's bookie 25
    8 February 2009 at 1:24 pm

    I see you now have resorted to name calling but have removed the right wing tag.

    I didn’t think it was the ‘right wing’ part that was in dispute. Sorry.

    Perhaps you thought that “Believes in a public health and education system and gives time freely for community, education and sports boards .’ means you can’t be right wing.

    I thought you said that to defend against being called an arsewipe. In any case there is nothing particularly non rightwing about the above quote, in the New Zealand context. Unless you only describe the right wing as anyone so far on the fringe that they barely register in polls, let alone make it into parliament.

    “I also did not realise this was a peer reviewed journal I though it was a mere blog

    So? That’s no defence.

    Plagiarism is plagiarism, doesn’t matter where you do it. Peer review just means you are more likely to be caught out.

    It’s about character hs, which brings us back the arsewipe subject. The fact that you don’t consider it wrong to steal other people’s work, or don’t care, as long as you do so pseudonymously and in a place where you might not get caught, is evidence old son. Not mitigation

    it’s often far easier and quicker to copy and paste from another author who supports your view rather than retype

    Laziness is no excuse either. And it’s not about the retyping. Feel free to cut and paste. Just acknowledge the author. That’s the important part.

    . I will give myself a smack on the hand for not putting in the quotation marks upon occasion.

    You are not the victim hs. I’m not persecuting you.

    If you so keen to stalk me on line perhaps you should arrange that we get a room somewhere – and Yes I have plagiarised that line from someone as well

    Not tonight in any case. But nice attempt at deflection. We both know that your plagiarism wasn’t a few words or even a line, it was whole paragraphs of professionally written work.

    QED.

    Nice day though.

  26. Jum 26
    8 February 2009 at 6:43 pm

    higherstandard
    February 8, 2009 at 8:54 am

    Everything I posted (apart from leaving the Dracula bite out) is accurate in my personal opinion.

    I am allowed one in this so far democracy.

    As long as righties continue to badmouth Helen Clark I will continue to remind them what they have engineered through misinformation and media – a greedy, selfish, bunch of autocratic avenging angels hellbent on reducing NZ once again to a debt-ridden place of negativity with a class/money elite doing their damnedest to create another unemployment armageddon.

    How droll Higher Standard; I don’t do ‘take the piss’ as you so inelegantly phrased it. I think you are unworthy of your blog name ‘sir’.

    What I do is write with intelligent observation and a general knowledge of human nature. There will always be those without empathy, needing to control, needing to own – they are always on the right. Things have not changed no matter what pretty boy they found (they failed there as well) with the pretty family (that was a clever move, but certainly an obvious cynical political move to all but the near dead (or the undead)); the right want to change this country into a grasping, giant black hole of consumerism and then present it to their shareholders/controllers/pimps/Daleks overseas. Back to the future.

    Douglas ran such a ‘successful’ campaign to sell us off overseas in the 80s and turn us into a third world country that Richardson thought she’d help out. We know now that both of them were/are Act members and their moneymen and supporters were of the right. We also know that Douglas is advising Key and co.

    Higher Standard and Pascal’s Bookie – if you’re going to get a room, make sure it’s not ‘The Lost Room’. 10.30 Prime Saturday 3 part.

  27. higherstandard 27
    8 February 2009 at 8:36 pm

    Jum

    I’m still not sure if you’re taking the piss ….. but perhaps the most sound comment in relation to your views that those who vote National/conservative are all woman hating fiends were the comments by Phil who pointed out that Margaret Thatcher was somewhat towards the right and was viewed with a similar sentiment by her supporters as Clarks supporters view her.

    I doubt many of Thatchers supporters would see themselves as righties …… you could add to that list Richardson and Shipley locally as well I suppose.

    But quite right your are allowed your opinion.

  28. Phil Sage (sagenz) 28
    8 February 2009 at 10:52 pm

    hs Jum is just trying to ignore inconvenient facts. Not really worth engaging with tbh but thanks for repeatedly pointing it out to him. It will be worth reading lprent defend against that comment. There is a fascinating exchange between reid and lew over at Kiwipolitico about the origins of feminism being the communists trying to break the power of the family and make people beholden to the state.

  29. Tigger 29
    9 February 2009 at 11:37 am

    Two words – sore losers.

    You lost one lousy online poll. So what? Get over it! The right won the election. Yes, as a result hell has come to Earth and death rains from the sky but the right won the election!

    You righties should spend more time giving your leader elocution and dance lessons and less time crying about some tiny little poll.

  30. Sarah 30
    9 February 2009 at 11:47 am

    Lynn, stick to moderating the site. Your writing style is atrocious.

    The most clever writers are those who can make a reader come to an intended judgment and/or point, without actually stating the same judgment bluntly in words. The author allows his or her readers to actively participate in coming to the intended judgment or opinion.

    This piece however lacks any of the same subtleties. Another Farrar-like piece of prose.

    [lprent: I am blunt and about as subtle as a sledge hammer. You tend to get like that when you come from a family of production managers. Live with it or improve the site by leaving.]

  31. Scribe 31
    9 February 2009 at 5:06 pm

    The main things that they don’t like about Helen is that she is female, can’t be bothered greasing up the sanctimonious, and challenges their perceptions about reality because she is effective.

    What nonsense! You obviously never saw Helen at a religious gathering, then. After all, they’re the “sanctimonious”, aren’t they? She couldn’t get enough of school openings and church festivals, especially in an election year.

    She sucked up to them as much as any other group — believers make up 50%+ still in this country. And most of them vote.

    The stuff on her gender is absurd too.

    [lprent: i suspect that you are confusing two concepts. Pious or having faith is not sanctimonious. Most people at religious meetings are not sanctimonious, as they actually believe the precepts of their religion.

    Most major religions usually have injunctions about the faithful not being sanctimonious, usually in the form of treating people as you’d like to be treated if the circumstances were the other way around. The sanctimonious look down on other people for (X) reason. But why am I lecturing you on this – you should know it….

    Perhaps you should read a definition of the various meanings of sanctimonious.]

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