The sincerest form of flattery
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- Date published:
12:14 pm, September 7th, 2008 - 78 comments
Categories: humour, national -
Tags: billboards
The Greens billboards have shown how it’s done – striking and simple without being dishonest or simplistic. Maybe National could imitate them:
Maybe not.
78 comments on “The sincerest form of flattery ”
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It really needs a fat CEO. Or a polluting farmer. Or Roger Douglas.
ah, roger douglas would be good.. but i just love the expression on his face.
Has their ever been a more racist party than the Green party???
Can you imagine if National had a billboard of a overweight unemployed Maori from south Auckland who beats up his wife, and they had the headline “Vote for Me” Party Vote Labour”
The hypocritical nature of the left is repulsive.
Still Labour supporters will lap it up.
What HAVE they been smoking this time? Doubtless a bad batch of dak. My advice is to stay off the hydroponic.
Its unbelievable how one party can hate one race so much, as I said in my previous post, if national had of done this using a blanet sterotype of a Maori, there would be outrage.
So what the Greens are suggesting is that your average National supporter is a rich old white man and I’m guessing they are suggesting that this is a bad thing.
Why you guys are trying to get votes by using hate, I would never know.
Brett I can’t tell if you’re being serious but you do know that this image has been mocked up as a joke, right? It’s not a real advertisement.
Yep, its been mocked up as a joke, and the Greens will blast it out on their web page, saying “Its only a joke, its not a ad”
Kind of like what Faux News does, all the time, when they want to blast the democrats, they tell ya something is a joke, but they keep playing it and playing it.
When satire is good its great, like the brilliant Jon Stewart, but when its bad its more cringe worthy than working for David Brent.
Here’s the Green billboards
http://www.greens.org.nz/election08
Can you please tell me which one you think is racist??
Some of us are sick of the rich old white men thinking they own the place. That’s not hate.
How did you get my photograph you unsavoury sods? The last green thing we had on the estate hung from a tree.
*Yep, its been mocked up as a joke, and the Greens will blast it out on their web page, saying “Its only a joke, its not a ad’*
But it has nothing to do with the Greens. This blog is The Standard, which although well leftie isn’t part of any political party.
How about a picture of Mr. Burns.
You may be sick of some old white man thinking they own the place? Which is strange since we have a high percentage of woman in power?
Some of us are sick of politicians on the left telling us how to think, what to eat and drink, and what to say, and are also sick of the blame game.
I agree with Brett. The left should try running a campaign that doesn’t involve smear and scare tactics. At least kiwiblog doesn’t resort to these sorts of blatant hate posts.
This blog is a joke. The bloggers here actually think they’re going to convince everyone with their left national-hating spin. But anyone with any sort of intelligence can see through it.
The posters on the standard are just further ostracising themselves from any mainstream or common-held individuals by blogging posts such as the one above. But in a way, I should actually give the standard the thanks it deserves. Because of these hate posts and the constant complaining, indidviduals are put off the left much faster than Helen and Winston could ever do themselves.
I’m left wing in many ways. But The Standard honestly gives the left a bad name by running these vile and one-sided acttacks on anyone who does not agree with them and blocking anyone who dares to disagree with the comments they made.
Thank god for free speech.
I like to know who donates to this blog?
The greens billboards are very manipulative.
Any party or company that uses children in their advertising (that isnt directly related to a child’s product) I would be very wary of.
[please don’t comment when you’re stoned. a) we use question marks to end questions ‘i would like to know’ is a statement of your desires, not a question b) no-one donates any money to this blog, no-one gets any money for writing on it. SP]
*You may be sick of some old white man thinking they own the place? Which is strange since we have a high percentage of woman in power?*
Sure we have some women in some key positions. But they’ve never had the kind of power as the old white boys. Of course women have always had their own kind of power, which is probably the one you are most afraid of.
*Some of us are sick of politicians on the left telling us how to think, what to eat and drink, and what to say, and are also sick of the blame game.*
That’s fine. Get political and get out there and do something about what you want changed then. Although I can’t recall the legislation that makes me eat or think in certain ways.
If you really want to get upset about billboards go here:
http://national.h.ac.nz/
Is it green social policy to feature happy children on their billboards when they form a government that is responsible for the massive increase in child abuse and infanticide statistics? Bloody airy fairy sods are nothing more than useless hypocrites!
The Labour Party would be my first and only guess Brett.
Explains the large percentage of Union and Labour staff positing day to day on here. Try some transparency and openess posters of the standard (which you readily attack National over not having) and actually show your own agenda. Or your real names might be nice. Congratulations to those who are open enough to freely admit their own personal name and stand up for their own views without having to hide behind some log-in name.
It seems that site, has been hijacked by Labour supporters, or I’m guessing its a Labour site.
brett. what the hell are you talking about?
clearly my picture is a humourous (not hateful) play on the stereotypical old conservative base of National – it’s his class, not his race.
It’s still offensive Steve to those individuals who fit under that particular stereotype. What would happen if a right-winger were to do the exact same parody with a low class maori beer-drinking worker in the picture and a title that said ‘party vote labour’.
I’m sure everyone would be up in arms screaming foul about how offensive that individual was being. It’s all a matter of perception.
That picture had nothing to do about the guy’s class, you picked an old WHITE rich guy.
It was stereotypical.
Leave the humor to people who are funny.
Satire offends all sorts of people, that’s part of its job. It’s not like it’s an actual billboard. Remember this:
http://www.national.org.nz/PreviewEcard.aspx?ECard=IwiKiwi
*same parody with a low class maori beer-drinking worker in the picture and a title that said ‘party vote labour’*
And what would be the point of that billboard parody?
The Green camapign looks awesome this time 10% of the vote is looking achievable
I was on a Greeen party stall yesterday and had unbelievably good feedback and visitors.
Only two people mentioned section 59 as a concern which was a surprise.
Labour who were next door had moderate interest and visitors whilst the National guy packed up and went home about ten o clock through lack of interest.
Uhm, I’m not stoned, and heres is a question, if anyone donated money to this blog would you except it?
[how could they donate money to the blog? it has no legal personality, no bank account. SP]
[lprent: Just at present the only person who donates money to the site is me (and I’m the only person or entity that ever has). That is likely to be the way that it stays. We don’t even have advertising. If the financial demands get too high, then I’d consider it. But I think we’d be more likely to just move to cheaper servers. It means that we can do things unencumbered by the need to consult anyone – including other writers on the site. ]
Now, none of you elitists are allowed to point that out.
Brett – I think that’s supposed to be accept. You’re in a delerium seek medical attention. Now.
elitest here – but how are we supposed to know what he means?
of course it is stereotypical, brett, that’s how satire works. But it’s clearly overblown – it mocks National voters as not ordinary Kiwis but part of a rich elite… but at the same time we all know that actual national voters don’t usually look like Rowley Birken QC (he’s a character on the fast show – the character is an over the top and hilarious play on the old drunk upper class toff)… it’s the fact that any sane person knows i’m not really saying all national voters are old drunks that makes it funny.. it wouldn’t be funny if it were hateful but it’s clearly not.. if you don’t think it’s funny you’re more than welcome to fuck off and make your own funny billboards on your site, maybe someone will see them some day.
sarah, it’s generally not funny when the person does the mocking is in a more powerful social position – so rich, mostly pakeha national saying ‘all labour voters are poor drunk maori’ isn’t funny, it’s just the powerful kicking those at the bottom again.
Typical response I would expect from someone from the left.
Steve: Who are you to say whats funny and whats your not? Thats a bit pretentious isnt it?
[you’re saying what’s funny and what’s not too – your view is just opposite to mine.. but i assume it’s only me that’s being pretentious. SP]
Typical or stereotypical, Brett?
edit: What are you doing here Brett apart from saying what’s funny and what’s not?
“sarah, it’s not funny when the person (who) does the mocking is in a more powerful social position – so rich, mostly pakeha national saying ‘all labour voters are poor drunk maori’ isn’t funny, it’s just the powerful kicking those at the bottom again.”
No double standards on this site ……. more along quietly now – and after such a reasonable first paragraph too.
It would be quite easy to donate money to this blog, just go up to Steve, slip a 50 Dollar note in his Karl Marx book, tell him to keep up the good work and to keep bashing big bad John Key who has the audacity to have nice house, which I’m sure he didn’t earn himself through hard work.
It will be quite easy.
I don’t think Steve has figured out, if ya going write something on a blog on the internet, your going to get people who disagree with you.
[brett, pretty used to people disagreeing with me by now, thanks, many of them in a more sophisticated manner than this. Obviously, someone giving me money is different from giving The Standard money. But I would not seek any such money and if someone did want to donate to The Standard I would suggest they give the money to a different Leftwing political cause instead – I have more than enough money for my needs, The Standard doesn’t need any money, apart from price of the server space, which Lynn pays out of his own unimpoverished pocket. SP]
[lprent: Oh it isn’t that unimproverished. I have a lawsuit and building site to fund. Some dickhead in the previous national government thought it’d be a good idea to deregulate the building industry.
Some idiots in the C&R (aka local National party in drag) did so without getting good building checks done on buildings like mine. Consequently the Auckland City Council (currently C&R dominated)has been spending considerable time in the high court. Our case come up in March. For the last two years I’ve been forking out money in massive interest payments. Fortunately this happens to be the cheapest entertainment around – all I had to do was give up smoking to pay for it. ]
Felix:
Im taking the south park point of view, not the lefist point of view, my main complaint is you cant say, you cant make fun of one sector and say you cant make fun of another, that is bigoted and that is what this site is doing.
And if you spend all day drinking and typing inane things on other people’s blogs?
Brett Dale:
I lol’d. You are doing an excellent job at satire there yourself. You are a hilarious parody of your stereotypical RWNJ.
Brett please put those thoughts into a sentence so they may be addressed.
Brett, do you consider the Monty Python skit “upper class twit of the year” racist and sexist?
Is The Simpsons racist and sexist because Monty Burns is a white male?
Were the IWI/KIWI billboards racist?
How about the Mcain campaign calling Obama ‘presumptuous’?
What if it was ‘uppity’ instead, would that be racist?
How about Dykeocracy? Is that sexist? Or nanny state? Does that offend you?
I’m only asking because you seem to take this stuff seriously, and those examples after the Monty Burns aren’t satire so I’m genuinely interested in your thoughts.
It’s not so much that people disagree with you Brett, it’s that no-one can follow what you are on about.
weka: it’s about getting on the piss and letting it all out as far as I can follow.
*How about Dykeocracy? Is that sexist? *
That’d be homophobic or heterosexist 😉
Weka, true enough, if the targets of that jibe were always lesbian eh.
Excellent!!!!
Surly your not comparing the great Monty Burns of the simpsons to thestandard?
The Simpsons is funny because it has a go at everybody, at all sterotypes, not just one.
PB, ae some people seem to think that calling a het woman a dyke is the worst thing you can say. Still seems pretty homophobic to me.
Hey Brett, give it a rest man. The picture here wasn’t from the Green Party. It was a mock up by SP. You didn’t think it was funny, fair enough. You make a good point that SP wouldn’t dare use a picture of an obese Maori voter as typical of labour-voting, because that would be considered racist. You could have also made the point that the picture above could well have been party vote labour, with a picture of crusty old George Hawkins, Harry Duynhoven, Michael Cullen, Mark Burton, etc etc.
When it comes to crusty old white guys, there are far more in Labour’s caucus than there are in any other political party. Equally, SP knows that when it comes to diversity National has a lot more to choose from, with candidates who are actually going to make it into Parliament, than what Labour’s got. In reality the real National Party vote billboard would have young and talented people like Nikki Kaye, Melissa Lee, Sam Lotu-Iiga, Simon Bridges, Hekia Parata, etc etc. Even John Key is a generation younger than Helen Clark.
I think the Standard is entitled to post anonymously. Call them out individually when their authors are being partisan, sure. It works much more effectively than trying to rail against the whole machine. There’s plenty of argument you can come up with on such a poor effort as this from SP. This was an attempt at humour. Some people found it funny. You didn’t. That’s life. But if you’re going to argue against it, use the arguments rather than attacking the whole site.
The captcha is “so Aldershot”. Maybe I’ve been hanging around this place too long, but this is the second time I’ve seen the word “Aldershot” in a Standard captcha. It is still only the second time I’ve ever seen the word “aldershot”. Anybody know, without resorting to a dictionary or google, what an Aldershot is?
Aldershot is town in UK with an large British Army camp
Brett is a member of the PC police.
Maybe a post-lobotomy patient should have used in the piss take instead? Not very sensitive, but much nearer the mark given the unbearable dribble emanating from those of a right wing bent in the comments above.
On the matter of the Green billboards, pretty good. Could easily have slipped into mash potato smaltz, but haven’t.
weka, sorry for being unclear. Im certainly not saying that it’s not homophobic, it most certainly is. It’s also sexist though yeah?
I sort of understood the term to be based around the idea that political, or any other sort of power, is inherently masculine.
Therefore where any women have any power they must be ‘faux women’;therefore ‘Lesbians’; therefore ‘Dykeocracy’. So both homophobic on it’s face, and sexist at heart. It’s a twofer!
Brett.
Nope, I’m comparing the stereotype in this post to Monty Burns, because it’s the same stereotype.
How about those IWI/KIWI billboards?
How about a picture of Mr. Burns.
Now that’s a good idea – but better for last election, not this one.
Looking at National’s energy, environment, and climate change policies, what about the Huntly power station, or a giant open-cast coal mine?
(Captcha = abrogated bases. They belonged to us, but we’re giving them away…)
Personally I thought those billboards were not that amusing, I guess some people who like low brow humor thought they were funny.
I thought the reaction to them was the funniest thing about them.
Well done oob, I’ve learned something new without having to google it. That’s pretty rare nowadays.
I didn’t think they were funny either. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that they were meant to be . I do think they were effective though.
There’s got to be a worser way:
http://i36.tinypic.com/ngoapg.jpg
(the bad grammar intentional, in line with other right-wing billboards)
” you cant make fun of one sector and say you cant make fun of another”
This is the heart of it, and the coronary comes when you are talking about power relationships.
Godwin alert!
It’s one thing to make Nazi jokes along the lines of Harry Enfield’s ‘Not too Camp’ jibes, or sing songs about the number of gonads various reich officials could claim possession of.
Joking about how many Jews can fit in a VW? Not so funny.
Hey, PB, just watched upper class twit of the year – thanks for that, I like a laugh of a Sunday afternoon.
“How about a picture of Mr. Burns.”
I take a better photo than Brendon does and I own a nuclear power plant.
Last election the local nats billboard actually DID have a picture of Mr Burns plastered over it.
Happen anywhere else?
Chris – was it Peter, Brendon or Monty Burns?
Steve Pierson said: The Greens billboards have shown how it’s done – striking and simple without being dishonest or simplistic. Maybe National could imitate them:
Nope, they won’t get it together Steve, Thay can’t even get the grammar correct.
I’d say maximise the Party vote for the Greens. That’s the best way to give the big finger to those with a far-right agenda who back National and their hidden agenda.
Given the policies, the Nats would have to be swallowing dead rats for the next 3 years to get Green support!
When it comes to crusty old white guys, there are far more in Labour’s caucus than there are in any other political party.
Ahh, wrong.
Equally, SP knows that when it comes to diversity National has a lot more to choose from, with candidates who are actually going to make it into Parliament, than what Labour’s got.
Wrong again. You’re usually more accurate than this Tim.
Steve money was donated to your blog by Labour who paid for your server hosting am I not correct!!
[lprent: Wrong (as usual).
The Labour party has never paid for anything to do with this blog. A kind organization donated some server space to the NZLP. Needless to say the NZLP had absolutely no idea what to do with this. So they gave control of it to some activists to provide facilities for other left activists. When the standard was falling over due to lack of bandwidth, access to the servers was offered and accepted.
So the NZLP has never paid anything to maintain this site. The server space you’re referring to was paid for by the donor. Of course that idiot Whale is incapable of understanding subtleties like that, just as I suspect you are.
Rather than let the NZLP put up with undeserved flak from the bottom feeders around the blogs, after 3 weeks, I moved the site to my home server. Shortly thereafter put it in the linux server that it now resides in, and steadily increased my payments to keep the resource levels up.
Now I take great pleasure in terminating idiots like you who even mention the topic here. I consider that it shows a considerable level of stupidity bearing in mind the number of times I’ve explained this. I’m tired of it so I *love* making examples of people who mention it in my presence – I like helping people achieve martyrdom.
Banned for ummm 2 months to contemplate . E-mail me after the election to get removed from the blacklist. I’m putting you there because you do not ban yourself, and put too many messages into the moderation queue.]
Monty burns. Definitely.
I think I have a photo somewhere.
It wasn’t an airbrushed photo of him trying to look twenty years younger? Just like Miss Clark does every election.
[lprent: You’re looking to me like a troll. Lift your Standard or leave. So far I haven’t seen anything useful in any of your comments. ]
Rob,
Even I know you’re not correct.
This has been canvassed (and recanvassed) so many times that the facts have passed into our collective mind (except, apparently, yours).
“At least kiwiblog doesn?t resort to these sorts of blatant hate posts.”
Bahahahahahahahaha
Rob. Before I joined the collective, the Standard was hosted on server space that Labour had been donated and passed on to us for a total of 7 days.
The Standard had outgrown our previous server, the Labour offer was accepted, perhaps unwisely, but they decided The Standard needed bigger space to grow into than Labour had given anyway and moved on to our current server, which Lynn pays for. There was no money from Labour for the cost of the server at any point.
Yup, there was 7 days on a server, server space worth approximately bugger all a year (what’s 7/365ths of bugger all?)
[lprent: The NZLP didn’t even pay for that space for 21 days. It was a donation to them. So as usual he is dead wrong – and now banned.]
Christopher Nimmo:
I remember one between Hamilton and Raglan with Burns pasted over Brash. The resemblance was striking.
Thought The Standard’s readers might also like this one.
Pretty weak, actually, I thought the Greens were above gutter politics.
Does anyone here really think that is going to happen under a centre right Government?
Brett Dale: Are you getting the sense that you protest too much, yet?
L
Surely it should read
Does anyone here really think that there is going to be a centre right Government?
Just seen this – disgusting and hypocritical. You just love to take the piss out of white middle class older men don’t you.
No doubt somebody above has already suggested doing the fat-arsed lazy dole-bludger, probably maori or islander in south auckland, who has a cuzzy in the courts or jail. Stereotypes ay SP? gotta love ’em. And my god how you seem to love stereotypes – well only certain ones. of course. otherwise it is racist. isn’t it.
the biggest letdown of the current state of the left
I love that old guy from the fast show…fantastic. His entire response to life was that ‘…I was drunk at the time.’ Gosh if the tories were half as appealing, Id be half inclined to vote for them!
oh alexandra, just a joke was it?. ha ha ha. sounds familiar.
Lets not forget the IWI – KIWI billboards. The above is hardly aimed at creating the same social division that the Nats attempted to do in 2005. Whether something is racist surely depends on who is telling the story. Most of the members of the Greens and indeed on this site, have old white men as fathers, grandfathers and so on. Too me it depicts the same tired men, (with the exception of key) with the same tired agenda.
you have a point in the first couple of sentences. and that is precisely what I was getting at – it gets applied in reverse and the blinkers go on. its just that the abuse aimed at men, white men, white middle class men today grates heavily. call me a new-age menimist.
anyway, you said above “Most of the members of the Greens and indeed on this site, have old white men as fathers, grandfathers and so on. Too me it depicts the same tired men, (with the exception of key) with the same tired agenda.”
If you think then, alexandra, that NZ today is that bad then you may have a point in calling them tired and impliedly useless. But if, like me, you consider NZ society to be a society that is almost certainly one of the fairest and wealthiest that has ever existed, one of the easiest ever in which to get a roof over your head and food in you belly, one of the easiest in which to break out of your ‘caste’, one of the easiest to get educated, get a job, do nothing, do whatever your heart desires, then you had better start thanking those “tired men” because according to so much of the left today those “tired men” have been responsible for creating the society we have today.
Sure there is always room for improvement. But they are responsible, as even you seem to acknowledge in your own post, and so should not only be critically evaluated for their shortcomings but also thanked for the great things this society has achieved.
(and of course the NZ women and things the labour movt has wrought, but this is specifically about the so-called “tired men”. they actually aint that bad, and look at what they have achieved.)