NZ Labour abandoning men
It is interesting to follow the evolution of the New Zealand Labour Party, from its originally fractured beginnings in the early 1900s, through a long period as one of New Zealand’s two main political parties, and now its descent toward being one of the participants in our fractured left wing of politics.
From the days when women ran the home and men were the breadwinners, the Labour Party was a man’s party, a worker’s party, born out of revolution and brutal suppression.
Workers began to organise, demand better working conditions, and rebel to have their demands recognised. Massey’s Cossacks (tough young farmers) were recruited as special constables to both protect and work the Wellington wharves which became the centre of a nationwide uprising; their brutal maintenance of law and order left a generation of bitterness, but also a much stronger, united political left.
The West Coast town of Blackball is often credited with being the birth place of the party, but in reality Labour was born out of a decade of frustration and upheaval around the time of the Great War.
It was an amalgamation of the fractured left in 1916 that finally established a nascent and credible left wing; that’s not to say New Zealand hadn’t been socially designed – it had – but this was a time when men demanded that they be recognised for their contribution to our developing country.
Skip forward almost a century to present day politics and we’ve come full circle, with a factional disorganised left, leaving men once again socially vulnerable.
Recently, in the post, I’m too sexy to be a man, we discussed David Cunliffe’s apology for being a man, and we watched the following day as he spoke with a feminist arrogance suggesting that men were a stain on the landscape of his political vision.
We watched as he spoke with the brutality of a dictator who would wipe those that offended his eye from existing in his envisaged wonderland, and as he promised to turn the Prime Minister’s office into a cross-portfolio headquarters to achieve just that.
This is not the Labour party that we have known – a Labour Party that can lay claim to many of the outstanding historical social developments achieved during its tenure. This is not the Labour Party that has defended the wellbeing of our workers – a Labour Party whose strength came off the backs of determined men who fought for and won the right to a decent income and reasonable working conditions.
If the Labour Party has had one great failing, it’s the propensity for the party to be high-jacked, and it has been once again. This time by ideological feminists, who have scant regard for the wellbeing of men – excepting those who are compliant conformists and willing enforcers.
I do sleep at night, but only because I hold fast to the belief that Cunliffe would never be Prime Minister, and that the left could never win this election. That Labour’s recent decent in our political polls represents the informed voter punishing Labour for its new direction.
However, if the regrettable happens, then I would certainly fear for the wellbeing of those men, that fall into the hands of Cunliffe’s Cossacks.
Of course the real problem with David Cunliffe being prime minister, is that we’ll have to apologise for being New Zealanders.
Comment by Downunder — Sun 6th July 2014 @ 1:17 pm
Your comment of “….I do sleep at night, but only because I hold fast to the belief that Cunliffe would never be Prime Minister, and that the left could never win this election……”….I wouldn’t be sure about that….Cunliffe isn’t naive or stupid…..And the reason why I say this …President Obama won because he appeal and purposely targeted American women to vote for him….
Comment by john dutchie — Sun 6th July 2014 @ 1:28 pm
Prime Minister John Key said Mr Cunliffe’s comments were insulting to New Zealand men.
Mr Key said he was not sorry for being a man, saying “It’s a pretty silly comment from David Cunliffe”.
“The problem isn’t being a man, the problem is if you’re an abusive man. I think it’s a bit insulting to imply that all men are abusive.
“A small group are, and they need to change their behaviour and be held to account.”
Mr Key questioned whether the Labour leader was sincere about the statement.
“Is he going to go down to the local rugby club and get up and say ‘I’m sorry for being a man’? I don’t think so.”
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sun 6th July 2014 @ 1:40 pm
MurrayBacon (#3): Yes, but John Key also said other things in that speech, as I commented on previously and quote again as follows:
Comment by Man X Norton — Sun 6th July 2014 @ 2:40 pm
Dear Man X Norton, one example of what you are saying – Mother’s partner parental leave, which the mother may give to the father or her same sex partner…
I am beginning to see Kim Dot Com as a safe pair of hands…….. talk about desperate to be able to vote for somebody, anybody…
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sun 6th July 2014 @ 3:03 pm
Labour, National, Greens etc, … who gives a rats ass what a particular brand of narcissitic circus clown thinks ?!?
Well obviously alot of the dim-witted dumbed down servile population.
It is ALL tribalistic politics of division – its what has enabled politicians and their masters to get away with what they have for so long. Keep real people like us banging away at each other while they carry on business as usual.
Stop thinking in terms of “political parties” and realise that “Government” is actually a *corporation that occasionally rotates its board and chairperson. There may be compartmentalized factions within Government (parties) just as there are in any organsation, but when it comes down to it there is NO change in policy overall under the change of administration, the overall theme keeps ticking along with a few cosmetic changes on the face of things to keep the gullible under the illusion that their voting actually altered something somewhere.
“Yaaaah, Blue team won, I’m so glad I voted Blue team, now I get to eat the Blue team turd-burgers for several more years, not like if that Red team had won, how would we have endured having to eat Red team sh!t-sandwiches instead?!?”
* -No it really is – it is just a corporation and so are all its subsidiaries like the NZ Police LTD and The Ministry of Justice LTD etc.
Comment by Depleted — Sat 12th July 2014 @ 10:51 am
Depleted (#7): That’s a rather jaundiced view. Democracy does allow some measure of public accountability. The politicians can fool some of the people some of the time but not always.
However, I agree with you as far as gender policies go; no party has shown any real respect for men or understanding of the serious sexism they are being harmed by, or indeed the dire consequences for society of this harm. Colin Craig’s party may come closest to any such wisdom but unfortunately it comes with much that isn’t wise. And I noticed that his party’s candidate Steve Taylor who purports to support the men’s movement, issued a press release in support of the Glenn Inquiry’s male-bashing report. Anything to garner public favour huh?
Comment by Man X Norton — Sat 12th July 2014 @ 11:25 am
Nah, not jaundiced, … realistic. Democracy may allow for some public accountability but we don’t have a democratic system, we have some kind of corporate-socialistic system with an overlay of oligarchy and the illusion of democracy.
Public opinion is so dramatically skewed by the state-sanctioned media we have (just like other western countries) the same agendas being pushed via politicians are being pushed via the media that the public (who are unthinking brain-dead cattle for the most part) then soak up like the plugged in little sponges they have been conditioned to be.
The politicians don’t need to fool “some of the people some of the time …” when most of the people have been conditioned not to give a rats a$$ about anything more than rugby and whatever garbage they can cram in their mouths, then the politicians and their masters have already won.
No? … example; there was more publicity and more of a public outcry a year or so ago about some retarded obesity creating burger being removed from a certain fast-food outlets *cough* “menu”, than there was about the ENTIRE stazi-esk Food-Bill that the vermiculated scum in pinstripe suits were trying to ram thru’ as legislation on behalf of agendered NGO’s and food oriented corporations.
Comment by Depleted — Sat 12th July 2014 @ 3:32 pm
Thomas Jefferson said that a long time ago.
Comment by Downunder — Sat 12th July 2014 @ 6:06 pm
Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Paine, et al, were individuals of incredible foresight and it is a deplorable shame that much they tried to counter in advance (with the instigation of the U.S. Constitution), and all that they feared would happen in time, … has come to pass.
Comment by Depleted — Sat 12th July 2014 @ 7:55 pm
Downunder; heres a Jefferson quote I was trying to remember earlier regarding bankers and financial influence.
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
~Thomas Jefferson
Andrew Jackson was another old timer that interesting to read around – was profoundly opposed to banks and incorporations.
Comment by Depleted — Sat 12th July 2014 @ 11:01 pm