Gunpowder Plot or Damp Squib?

On behalf of the organisers:
DEMOCRACY UNDER THREAT
Protest March Victoria Square to Cathedral Square
Wednesday 28 November 12.30. March starts 1.00pm.
Organiser of the Auckland and Wellington marches
John Boscawen will speak.

Thus came the clarion call for more dissent of a polite kind from kiwiblog http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/ on behalf of one John Boscowan ( I might have known where there was a march to be organised, a Cornishman would be in there somewhere).

Meanwhile no one is taking my paranoia that the EFB could be used to pervert election results, so I'll just have to wear the pointy hat.

I opined (there's that word again) that the marches need to get more 'media-savvy' and start to burn effigies of Helen and (now I add, with a rum and Sprite inside me) the odd flag.

Point is the left could give lessons on this kind of thing and the polite display of faint approbrium at the EFB so far exhibited, isn't going to make any headlines.

My quote of the day comes from another kiwiblog poster (gd) who said:

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2007/11/the_law_of_common_sense.html#comment-371517

"IV2 Lee C Pascal I have been posting here an elsewhere for some time now that the concepts of Left and Right are old outdated 20th century ideas.
the 21st century is now about freedom v control.

I call it the Max/ Min concept"

Back to me: But I think there is a crisis in the 'left':

I think that the crisis is a result of the adherence to the 'Third Way' philosophies of Giddens. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Giddens

In particular the recent lack of consultation and open democracy prior to the formulation of the EFB suggests that:

In the age of late and reflexive modernity and post scarcity economy the political science is being transformed. Giddens notes that there is a possibility that "life politics" (the politics of self-actualisation) may become more visible than "emancipatory politics" (the politics of inequality); that new social movements may lead to more social change than political parties; and that the reflexive project of the self and changes in gender and sexual relations may lead the way, via the "democratisation of democracy", to a new era of Habermasian "dialogic democracy" in which differences are settled, and practices ordered, through discourse rather than violence or the commands of authority.[1]

The 'crisis' is that the left started out to go 'centrist' and allow market forces and social change to be administrated side by side, but, the magnetic attraction of capitalism, meant that the social agenda would always be compromised. The result - increasingly doctrinaire and authoritarian laws, to try and rectify the impulses of capitalism.

Back to square one.


Lee C Says: November 23rd, 2007 at 1:32 pm

Frank. spoken well. A Royal Commission of Enquiry should have been the first step, then public consultation then consultation with interested parties (Law Society) HRC and others, then a White Paper then a Draft Bill then a vote, then Select COomittee, then a vote.
I mean it isn’t rocket science, is it?
The fact that Labour have done it [the EFB] the way they have indicates an arrogance of breath-taking proprtions. But, as importantly indicates a strategic ‘void’ in their thinking, where they could have created a situation which would have enshrined them in the history books, and have in fact probably written their own epitaph.

I like to quote myself - it adds polish to my conversation. (Andy Capp said it first)

Finally on the Standard this superb article review was provided by:

"the sprout
Nov 23rd, 2007 at 8:00 pm
as long as National re-employ the Liberals’ strategists Crosby Textor, it’ll be race for sure.
http://www.pjreview.info/issues/docs/13_1/PJR13_1_7_hagerpp197-204.pdf"

This is an engaging account of the power struggle within National and how Brash became the 'nearly' man. It also refers to the powerful message of National Strategy prior to the last election. However it explains how Labour could have developed a strategy to marginalise and destroy the National Party's ability to fight an election. The most interesting thing I thought was that Brash was deposed from the inside of National because insider feared the direction that Brash was taking the party in the light of the EB involvement with the pamphlets.

Does this mean that National insiders sacrificed government for the sake of transparency?
Does it compound the loss that public knowledge of the EFB and Brash's deception probably lost them that valuable seat in Parliament?

If so the EFB must sound cruelly ironic.

I would love to see a similar breakdown of Labour's strategy at the same time.

Shooting from the hip I would suggest it is based around one central message. You can trust Labour to protect you from National.'

I can't wait to see what National's next strategy will be....