Muzzlehatch: eat the Greens, but keep left
Muzzlehatch has stepped out of the shadows with this party political broadcast. There's been a good, if occasionally foul-mouthed debate (and Richard Taylor hasn't even gotten involved yet!) about Skyler's endorsement of the Greens, and I'm sure Muzzlehatch's musings will also give cause for concern amd acclamation from various quarters. Muzzlehatch writes:
MAPS has put the pressure on his two silent partners in this blog to nail their colours to the mast over the upcoming election, having also offered a bribe of a bottle of fejoa-flavoured vodka this evening if we ‘front-up’. There’s really no choice, then.
I have only today registered to vote, so it’s suddenly become serious, and I am still of that vast camp of ‘swinging voters’ who is not quite sure which box I will tick. For the last month I’ve wavered between Labour, Maori and the Residents Action Movement. I met a young organiser of RAM in the smoking room of Fordes Bar on Symonds St (MAPS spends a lot of his time there, getting drunk) a few weeks back, and he seemed articulate and inspired, and the RAM manifesto has some good things going for it, who knows, they may well grow into a real force in NZ politics. On the other hand, they could be part of the ‘dreamer left’ who imagine everyone living in the land of milk and honey with no idea where it’s going to come from...here’s their policy, painfully packaged as ‘the ten commandments’:
Remove GST tax from all our food
$2,000 'baby bonus' to every mum
Offer first-home buyers a 3% interest state loan
Lift minimum wage to $15 per hour
Free lunches in schools serving poor areas
Free tertiary education plus a student living allowance
Free and frequent public transport in our main cities
Offer cheap solar panels to homeowners
Restore to workers their free right to strike
Enshrine the Treaty of Waitangi in a new constitution to guarantee the mutual rights of Maori and non-Maori
Sound a bit too gimmicky? Their website doesn’t offer any comprehensive overview of how society will function under RAM to provide these things, and that’s what I’m basically looking for, a comprehensive manifesto that answers important questions. Who would be taxed by RAM? How much? What percentage of profit can shareholders suck out of a business? What happens to companies/small businesses that can’t afford to pay $15 per hour so fire 20% of their staff? That sort of information should be available somewhere.
I can’t bring myself to vote for the Greens, having actually worked in the building trade most of my life (yes, I'm that real-life worker academics like MAPS like to theorise about). The Greens' militantly anti-industrial ideology I find difficult to swallow - it seems when there's a choice between livelihoods and helping protect some part of nature the question is not even up for discussion, because the Greens unreservedly come down on the side of the butterfly, the fish or the fungi. This failure to engage in thoughtful conversation is annoying, because peoples' livelihoods and their right to work in their a chosen industry are very serious matters that deserves proper consideration. When the Greens grow up I will look at them seriously. What about the Maori Party? Well, I was thinking about it, but if they can’t say before the election whether they will go left or right after the election, I can’t vote for them.
What about Labour? Well, I do have a certain fondness for Helen, she has a certain integrity, and has done some good things. I like the fact this Prime Minister personally favours the arts over sports: for a brief moment last night on the leaders debate between Helen and John Key, when they were asked what ‘moved them’ it appeared like all John was going to come up with was ‘an All Blacks victory’ before he remembered meeting the mother of a three year old baby that had died, which he realised would be a more effective anecdote. Anyway, Helen's artiness, along with her stance on various social issues (gay union, abortion etc) means that there is every chance I will vote Labour on the day.
National, ACT, United Future and NZ First are out, anyway, because I support the rights of the underprivileged over business interests. (Even if he had better policies, I just couldn’t bring myself to tick a vote for Winston Peters. ) When it comes down to the day, I will be ticking either Labour or RAM: hopefully I’ll have made up my mind before I go into the booth.
posted by maps at 11/06/2008 04:10:00 pm
11 Comments:
I thought you were going to vote for the Maori party Muzzle...? Too scared they will go with National.
Well, then I hope you vote for Labour and not waste your party vote on RAM. They are good but you will be throwing your vote away and by proxy you will give one more vote to the right.
fuck.
as a pisshead you may be interested in watching the Wgtn Central candidate for the Workers Party arguing that GST should come off beer:
http://workersparty.org.nz/2008/11/05/gst-job-losses-and-work-place-occupation/
PS It's a video clip
It doesn't matter about throwing away votes - people should vote as they feel right - that is whatever they support.
I am relatively indifferent as I have seen so many Nat and Lab governments etc none of them are particularly good.
The only honest man to enter Parliament was Guy Fawkes.
And it really makes little difference who is in power.
Unless Hitler is standing I suppose...
I'm not a great Green supporter (see my comment on the previous post) - I do eat vegetables but I love meat also....
I love tigers and Mongolia...
And I like farting a lot and having showers.
richard, an old proverb:
when the water rises, the insects drown.
when the water recedes, the insects eat the fish.
PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON.
SEND IT AROUND THE INTERNET.
WRITE IT OUT AND POS T IT TO THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE.
WRITE IT ON A WALL.
THIS MESSAGE IS IMPORTANT.
GOD WANTS YOU - YES, YOU! - TO PASS THIS MESSAGE ON.
IF YOU DON'T PASS IT ON, HE WILL PUNISH YOU.
THIS MESSAGE IS SO IMPORTANT THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD MAY DEPEND UPON IT!!!!!!
Obama’s hospital baby pictures: Where are they?
1. Is it just me, or are Obama’s baby pictures, especially possible Obama hospital baby pictures, nowhere to be seen, not
even on the web?
2. Most families, when a new baby is born—especially if the baby is born in a hospital—like to take pictures of the baby with his mother at the hospital.
3. But as I understand it, there are NO Obama baby pictures to be found anywhere, especially there are no pictures of Obama with his mother in a Hawaii hospital.
4. Obama’s grandfather on his mother’s side: I find it difficult to believe that Obama’s maternal grandfather—the grandfather was living in Hawaii and helped raise Obama— did not take pictures of his new grandson, if Obama indeed was born in a Hawaii hospital.
5. My point is this: If the Electoral College and Congress
order Obama to present his Hawaii birth hospital record, I wonder if Obama can produce them, because there may not exist.
6. If Obama is unable to produce his Hawaii hospital record, will this be more dramatic evidence that Obama has been LYING to the American people about his background all these years?
What a load of paranoid crap about Obama!
It is indeed curious that human males, unlike chimpanzees, do tend to bring the meat back home.
Sarah Palin has the skills to travel alone or with male hunters to get the kill. But as a mother of many children she is now probably thankful that ancient females made the meat move back to the campsite. Symbolic culture has not mutated it has only been reinforced—business as usual.
Quentin Dukes
s the previous Republican administration under George W. Bush passes into history, just a few short years since 9/11, America has elected a man who may well be a Taqqiya-breathing Muslim, posing as a Christian. Under the cloak of darkness, clouds have been gathering in the Middle East. How will an America under Obama respond to the growing tensions gravitating around Israel?
“I WILL STAND WITH THE MUSLIMS SHOULD THE POLITICAL WINDS SHIFT IN AN UGLY DIRECTION,” (BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA)
Debka reports that troops are gathering on the borders of Israel:
Lebanese sources and eye witnesses report Syrian tanks, artillery and commando units have taken up battle positions in four villages around Hasbaya opposite Mt. Hermon and northern Israel.
According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, Syrian tanks and artillery units continued to move into their new positions Sunday and Monday, Nov. 2-3, so completing their deployment the full length of the Syrian-Lebanese border. Elements of the Syrian 10th, 12th and 14th Divisions and the 3rd Army - withdrawn last week from the 600-km long Syrian-Iraq border - are now poised opposite Israeli positions holding the disputed Shebaa Farms enclave on Mt. Hermon.
Military sources say that whereas opposite the northeastern Tripoli region, Syrian forces are strung out in small clusters of 2 to 3 tanks one or more kilometers apart, their tank units are massed tightly opposite Mt. Hermon and northern Israel.
There are other differences: Heavy Syrian armor is positioned well back from the front-line infantry and commando troops in the north, whereas tanks, artillery and special forces are deployed right up to the border opposite South Lebanon and Israel. <…>
…the Syrians are taking advantage of the Bush administration’s silence to argue that Damascus has the same right as Washington to carry out cross-border attacks against “terrorist targets” i.e. in Lebanon and Israel. Damascus is winding the tensions up to a pitch where some military action against a US Middle East target or ally in Lebanon or Israel is becoming hard to avoid.
Of course, Israel’s Leftist leaders are employing the dynamic policy of inaction:
Senior IDF officers and some Western military sources are perplexed by the Israeli government’s failure to pursue deterrent action against the Syrian tanks poised in battle array on its border. Instead, the outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert is busy trying to reviving indirect talks with Syria before he quits, while defense minister Ehud Barak and Kadima leader Tzipi Livni appear unconcerned.
Troops amassing on the borders of Israel. Check this out:
(Luke 20:21) 20 “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, (AE) then recognize that its desolation (AF) has come near. 21 Then those in Judea must flee (AG) to the mountains! (AH) Those inside the city [h] must leave it, and those who are in the country must not enter it, 22 because these are days of vengeance (AI) to fulfill all the things that are written. 23 Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days, (AJ) for there will be great distress in the land [i] and wrath against this people. 24 They will fall by the edge of the sword (AK) and be led captive into all the nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles (AL) [j] until the times of the Gentiles (AM) are fulfilled.
Very Interesting and very nice post awesome keep sharing.
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