As can be reasonably and rightly suspected/surmised, today's offering vis-a-vis New Zealand's popular as Prime Minister (certainly abroad, but also at home) is a tale of two halves...the first (as per my title) scribbled out furiously (both in speed and sentiment) a couple weeks ago (sometime around/after the 1st of August)...the second part penned first thing this morning (or was it after RNZ National's weekend 'Media Watch' programme between 9.05. and 9.35?) ...
Whichever. The point essentially being - as is perhaps obvious - that our evaluation of certain political personages can change from day to day, let alone week to week...if we're deadly honest with ourselves; that is, unless we're amongst that sorry subset of politically partisan paratroopers who maintain a zealous if misguided loyalty - come hell or preferably high tide - to the particular tribe, and accordingly its leadership, we most readily associate with and whose policies we most closely subscribe to.
Sad, in my view anyway, seeing as it tends to mean we readily check our brain cells out and (at least verbally) fight to the death whenever there happens to be some sort of legitimate contention over something or other that personality has said, irrespective of how we might normally regard that selfsame sort of utterance if made by someone else (especially someone we tend to like much less).
But c'est la vie, as they say, or welcome to Realpolitik as per the first half of the 21st Century...
So, for my earlier (more negative) comments first. Perhaps indeed, as the conclusion of my blogpost title suggests, my real beef even then was not with the P.M. herself as such, but rather with her spokespeople, or at least those who so deemed themselves...
So, having started at the end, and rather painstakingly worked myself back to the beginning, and back again - and your own 'good' selves doubtless around the very bend by this time - let me begin at the beginning (which is always a perfectly good idea)...
My remarks then, as per today's, relate to the way certain high-profile kiwi (and Australian) politicoes, as well as Aussie media moguls, personalities and associated grandstanders incorporated...have been rather unsparing in their caustic criticisms of late vis-a-vis our 'celebrity P.M.', Jacinda Ardern...indeed, some would justifiably argue, have even gone way off the deep end...
So without further ado, the following are my comments scribbled three-four weeks back thereabouts:
For her (i.e the Prime Minister) to pretend that it's essentially 'below the belt' for National leader Simon Bridges and MPs to - in this case very softly-softly (and even meekly and mildly), I'd respectfully suggest - accuse the PM of "being a part-time Prime Minister", and thus characterize this comment as itself being inherently sexist (or somehow misogynistic) is so ridiculous in my view as to be patently laughable...
For, first of all, it's reading into those comments what they'd wish he'd said and moreover meant - i.e. that rather than having a well-earned dig at a matter of ongoing and quite legitimate controversy, i.e. Ms Ardern's many and *****varied trips overseas of recent times (and often for fairly extensive periods at that, not only for arguably well-deserved r & r), Bridges et al was/were somehow zeroing in on the PM's well-known status as the first ever national leader - aside from Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto I believe - to have a baby whilst in office...and thus making a backhanded jab at her by so saying...
...whereas there's really no reason to suspect, if anything, he'd have been so politically naive and dopey to do that (and thus cause an instant stink and outrage), though the ease with which casual onlookers could conflate the two seems like it ought to have at least occurred to such a high-profile politico (as Mr Bridges), you'd think...
But back to the P.M. herself, or at least those protesting - methinks much too much - on her behalf: you can hardly use for your political advantage - milk for every last ounce of 'white gold' one can manage to squeeze out, literally to the very cows come home (to be cute about mixing my metaphors) - the fact/status of being the first ever pregnant/birthing kiwi leader (and second globally)...
...talking said 'unique' status up for all its worth...and then get awfully high and mighty, even super-sensitively precious, when that very 'claim to fame' is (however inadvertently) twisted and used against you...
No, Bridges' et al's remarks were quite obviously directed at the P.M.'s 'swanning around the Pacific' while many perceived NZ Inc 'going to hell in a handbasket'...and, as I footnote way below, when despite this frenetic schedule of overseas visitation she apparently couldn't find it in said itinerary to fit in a well-signposted commemoration for what was arguably one of the most important geo-political events of the last century, the beginning of the end of the Second World War...
...when clearly the stakes were infinitely higher than those even of an evil-hearted gunman who went rampant awhile ago causing such senseless carnage and heartache in and around Christchurch's two mosques.
Epilog: Due acknowledgements here to:
*Taken (admittedly quite implicitly and unconsciously even) from the title to that classic song, 'Torn Between Two Lovers', made so justly famous because of its exquisite rendering by that exceptional Australian singing talent Olivia Newton-John, apparently deteriorating these days upon her lifestyle ranch in California...
**Richard Welch, the man who served as a great father figure and role model to myself and my younger sister especially, following our parents' divorce during our pre-teens way back when, was the first person I ever heard this painful truism from...
***The word coined by Karl Marx and later political philosopher Hegel in their interpretation of historical 'progressions' from one particular mode of society to another, such as feudalism to capitalism to communism (or suchlike - please don't quote me on the specifics these days...though now I think about it, I did only recently manage to stumble across the essay in which I enunciated this particular concept, so perhaps I ought to defer to the same in the not too distant.)
****Which admittedly is contrary to my own sense of offence (as cited in a blogpost just the other day) vis-a-vis Parliament's Speaker and Andrew Little's comment effectively slurring - certain unspecified - previous Act NZ members of Parliament as fascist... Simply proving once again how difficult it is at times to be 100% consistent upon such matters, there - legitimately - being all manner of minor and not-so-minor nuances upon various subjects which require lateral thinking and the like...
...or perhaps that's just my own especial(ly creative) way of wheedling myself out of a not too comfy spot of seeming hypocrisy or at the least gross inconsistency!
*****Including one in particular she didn't take, i.e. the - well-publicized long in advance - DD Commemorations in Europe for the 75th anniversary of those epochal 20th Century events...about which non-attendance I find myself once again uncomfortably agreeing with Mike Hosking about...
Part Two: To Be Continued Tomorrow (or the day or two after!)
Just to say (as I'd meant to on Sunday)...
You've really got to hand it to Jacinda - yes, here we're all on first name terms with our current leader - Ardern, Aotearoa-New Zealand's Prime Minister: once again she has struck precisely the right note, and made exactly the right response, to the ganging-up of various Aussie blowhards against her.
As with National leader Simon Bridges' own comment (as above) about Ardern being a part-time leader, she ever so adroitly but naturally - I for one don't believe it's a deliberate, Machiavellian-style political tactic, but rather emanating from the nobility of her character; though if I ever discovered it were (the former), yes, it'd completely reverse this punter's view of her, that's for sure - deflected/ parried aside any 're-active' response, indeed steering well clear of the usual manufactured outrage culture response seeming to enshroud and envelop and tighten the stranglehold upon - even arguably putting the finishing touches upon - what many see as a (Western) culture in its final death-throes, like ancient Rome approaching its ultimate demise in the late 400s/500s a.d. (or whenever it was)...
Whichever. The point essentially being - as is perhaps obvious - that our evaluation of certain political personages can change from day to day, let alone week to week...if we're deadly honest with ourselves; that is, unless we're amongst that sorry subset of politically partisan paratroopers who maintain a zealous if misguided loyalty - come hell or preferably high tide - to the particular tribe, and accordingly its leadership, we most readily associate with and whose policies we most closely subscribe to.
Sad, in my view anyway, seeing as it tends to mean we readily check our brain cells out and (at least verbally) fight to the death whenever there happens to be some sort of legitimate contention over something or other that personality has said, irrespective of how we might normally regard that selfsame sort of utterance if made by someone else (especially someone we tend to like much less).
But c'est la vie, as they say, or welcome to Realpolitik as per the first half of the 21st Century...
So, for my earlier (more negative) comments first. Perhaps indeed, as the conclusion of my blogpost title suggests, my real beef even then was not with the P.M. herself as such, but rather with her spokespeople, or at least those who so deemed themselves...
So, having started at the end, and rather painstakingly worked myself back to the beginning, and back again - and your own 'good' selves doubtless around the very bend by this time - let me begin at the beginning (which is always a perfectly good idea)...
My remarks then, as per today's, relate to the way certain high-profile kiwi (and Australian) politicoes, as well as Aussie media moguls, personalities and associated grandstanders incorporated...have been rather unsparing in their caustic criticisms of late vis-a-vis our 'celebrity P.M.', Jacinda Ardern...indeed, some would justifiably argue, have even gone way off the deep end...
So without further ado, the following are my comments scribbled three-four weeks back thereabouts:
For her (i.e the Prime Minister) to pretend that it's essentially 'below the belt' for National leader Simon Bridges and MPs to - in this case very softly-softly (and even meekly and mildly), I'd respectfully suggest - accuse the PM of "being a part-time Prime Minister", and thus characterize this comment as itself being inherently sexist (or somehow misogynistic) is so ridiculous in my view as to be patently laughable...
For, first of all, it's reading into those comments what they'd wish he'd said and moreover meant - i.e. that rather than having a well-earned dig at a matter of ongoing and quite legitimate controversy, i.e. Ms Ardern's many and *****varied trips overseas of recent times (and often for fairly extensive periods at that, not only for arguably well-deserved r & r), Bridges et al was/were somehow zeroing in on the PM's well-known status as the first ever national leader - aside from Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto I believe - to have a baby whilst in office...and thus making a backhanded jab at her by so saying...
...whereas there's really no reason to suspect, if anything, he'd have been so politically naive and dopey to do that (and thus cause an instant stink and outrage), though the ease with which casual onlookers could conflate the two seems like it ought to have at least occurred to such a high-profile politico (as Mr Bridges), you'd think...
But back to the P.M. herself, or at least those protesting - methinks much too much - on her behalf: you can hardly use for your political advantage - milk for every last ounce of 'white gold' one can manage to squeeze out, literally to the very cows come home (to be cute about mixing my metaphors) - the fact/status of being the first ever pregnant/birthing kiwi leader (and second globally)...
...talking said 'unique' status up for all its worth...and then get awfully high and mighty, even super-sensitively precious, when that very 'claim to fame' is (however inadvertently) twisted and used against you...
No, Bridges' et al's remarks were quite obviously directed at the P.M.'s 'swanning around the Pacific' while many perceived NZ Inc 'going to hell in a handbasket'...and, as I footnote way below, when despite this frenetic schedule of overseas visitation she apparently couldn't find it in said itinerary to fit in a well-signposted commemoration for what was arguably one of the most important geo-political events of the last century, the beginning of the end of the Second World War...
...when clearly the stakes were infinitely higher than those even of an evil-hearted gunman who went rampant awhile ago causing such senseless carnage and heartache in and around Christchurch's two mosques.
Epilog: Due acknowledgements here to:
*Taken (admittedly quite implicitly and unconsciously even) from the title to that classic song, 'Torn Between Two Lovers', made so justly famous because of its exquisite rendering by that exceptional Australian singing talent Olivia Newton-John, apparently deteriorating these days upon her lifestyle ranch in California...
**Richard Welch, the man who served as a great father figure and role model to myself and my younger sister especially, following our parents' divorce during our pre-teens way back when, was the first person I ever heard this painful truism from...
***The word coined by Karl Marx and later political philosopher Hegel in their interpretation of historical 'progressions' from one particular mode of society to another, such as feudalism to capitalism to communism (or suchlike - please don't quote me on the specifics these days...though now I think about it, I did only recently manage to stumble across the essay in which I enunciated this particular concept, so perhaps I ought to defer to the same in the not too distant.)
****Which admittedly is contrary to my own sense of offence (as cited in a blogpost just the other day) vis-a-vis Parliament's Speaker and Andrew Little's comment effectively slurring - certain unspecified - previous Act NZ members of Parliament as fascist... Simply proving once again how difficult it is at times to be 100% consistent upon such matters, there - legitimately - being all manner of minor and not-so-minor nuances upon various subjects which require lateral thinking and the like...
...or perhaps that's just my own especial(ly creative) way of wheedling myself out of a not too comfy spot of seeming hypocrisy or at the least gross inconsistency!
*****Including one in particular she didn't take, i.e. the - well-publicized long in advance - DD Commemorations in Europe for the 75th anniversary of those epochal 20th Century events...about which non-attendance I find myself once again uncomfortably agreeing with Mike Hosking about...
Part Two: To Be Continued Tomorrow (or the day or two after!)
Just to say (as I'd meant to on Sunday)...
You've really got to hand it to Jacinda - yes, here we're all on first name terms with our current leader - Ardern, Aotearoa-New Zealand's Prime Minister: once again she has struck precisely the right note, and made exactly the right response, to the ganging-up of various Aussie blowhards against her.
As with National leader Simon Bridges' own comment (as above) about Ardern being a part-time leader, she ever so adroitly but naturally - I for one don't believe it's a deliberate, Machiavellian-style political tactic, but rather emanating from the nobility of her character; though if I ever discovered it were (the former), yes, it'd completely reverse this punter's view of her, that's for sure - deflected/ parried aside any 're-active' response, indeed steering well clear of the usual manufactured outrage culture response seeming to enshroud and envelop and tighten the stranglehold upon - even arguably putting the finishing touches upon - what many see as a (Western) culture in its final death-throes, like ancient Rome approaching its ultimate demise in the late 400s/500s a.d. (or whenever it was)...
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