Disclaimer:
And though Yours Truly has (reluctantly, last-minute) accepted being issued with such, it is only because the realities of being a home carer for my aging mum necessitate my obtaining supplies at all costs in any number of unforeseen eventualities...
Postscript (January 2, 2022):
Not that she could care less 99% of the time!
Post-postscript:
Apparently my 1,001st (or, less likely, my 1,000th) blogpost (over my eight different blogsites) since I began blogging back in mid-2012.
Like/enjoy it she may well - and perfectly understandably - not...
But, hey, it's called freedom of speech and expression, a thing apparently increasingly in contention in Western society in general, but here in particular as her Government - using the cover of the March 15th massacre (by an unhinged Aussie gunman), and despite strong protests by the Christchurch Muslims whose relatives were killed - proceeds apace with (preparing) generally and roundly criticized and condemned 'hate speech' legislation...
Yep, the woke brigade and cancel culturalists alongside the politically correct wouldn't even know much less respect the sacrifice/s previous generations made - at the cost of their very lives - to secure such freedoms for succeeding generations...
But we better care...if we know what's good for us...for after they've done with the easy stuff, what's the chances even probability they're comin' for us next, or someone near and dear to you...
And of thereby condoning, even promulgating a mindless, moronic, brain-dead conformity to the state more reminiscent of Big Brother's never-ending surveillance and browbeating and emotional/ psychological intimidation (and ultimately physical torture) of Winston Smith et al...
Of labelling, pigeonholing, ostracizing, scapegoating, and eventually condemning via some latter-day tinpot judge, jury and executioner regime whosoever happens - for perfectly genuine and heartfelt reasons of their own - to resist and oppose 'joining the club'...
...having elevated 'the Covid' to the status of a wholly untouchable sacred cow...
It's BS, folks, truly. 'Coz though in our 'new normal' 'flu deaths and the like may well be plummeting - an unexpected and welcome side-effect of the stringent measures being adopted globally (and here in NZ) to combat the coronavirus...
...folks with life-threatening cancer are evidently not getting the urgent attention and treatment they so desperately seek, demand and require, and meanwhile mental health casualties and even fatalities are spiralling out of control, even as it were 'going through the roof', conveniently out-of-sight and out-of-mind to those so adroitly governing the global response to covid...
*As former ACT NZ MP Stephen Franks I believe expressed things (on this or a similar, but not entirely unrelated matter) upon RNZ National's weekday Panel a few days ago...
Postscript:
Or, as fellow Cop26 attendees (Friends of the Earth or Greenpeace) has so aptly put it: "It's twiddling our thumbs and wishing for the best."
And no, I ain't jokin' or jivin', much less trickin'...though the above are arguably treatin' us all like lemmings...
To Be Continued...(when I've caught up with a few of those things in my own life, having wasted so many seemingly on all things covid of recent times)...
*And not a moment too soon...
**Not in those precise words...
Postscript: And evidently the greatest 'witness' to give evidence thereabouts is a longtime Chinese activist who - in great contradistinction to so many - has evidently conclusively confirmed that China's present topdog (& Associates) has indeed - and long since - previously authorized the very sort of thing of which his administration is presently being accused...
*No thanks to the World Health Organisation quite evidently...
Indeed, as former Key Government cabinet minister Christopher Finlayson aptly expressed matters upon RNZ National's esteemed (weekday) Panel the other day...
the present *tidal wave to dis/allow people access to places and events purely upon **said basis does carry rather eerie reminiscences of a rather worrisome moment in 20th century affairs...
*Entirely my own phraseology.
**Ditto (i.e. the carrying and presentation of a 'Covid passport').
Typical conflation as per usual to the nth degree and well beyond - of otherwise doubtless reasonable and rational individuals (making such outlandish claims, that is)...
Or, let's let all the whole wide world celebrate NZ Inc's "wonderful contribution" to climate change 'action' while conveniently ignoring the fact that we just (last year) imported more fossil fuel-derived coal than ever before...
...whilst giving the (virtue-signalling) lead to other nations by not curtailing our carbon-consuming global jet-setting while ostensibly in the very pursuit of that very thing, an objective we've been heard declaring an 'emergency' worthy of our utmost attention and prompt, decisive action...
*Due credit/acknowledgment to Billy Joel and his deeply insightful song 'Honesty', which I've paraphrased more closely in times gone by...
Though it's hard to escape the contrary argument that Trump was taken offguard by what happened in Presidential Election 2020 - anticipating this of course by his casting disrepute and infamy upon that election in the leadup to it - for in his heart of hearts (if he has such!) he really didn't expect anyone else - whoever s/he might be - to be able to beat/best 'im...
...and of course still doesn't believe anyone did!...still not having conceded (and with no intention to ever do so; still trumpeting "that stolen election" disinformation 'fake news' trope)...
the last refuge of a congenitally poor loser
You - in this case she - can bet your - in this instance, her - life that were she to be returned to her Belarussian homeland, she'd have been in rather deep doggy doo-doo, apparently aka Lukashenko's own brother (high up in their Olympics Committee, no less, c/o some good ole-fashioned Trumpesque nepotism at the highest levels)...
Under the rubric of her supposedly problematic mental health (as is all too common in the modern-day Games) she was in line to be given the right unroyal heave-ho and bullied (even if 'only' psychologically) into due submission - if not in fact a whole lot worse...
But the gal was not for being hoodwinked and silenced and dealt to
So all the best for her future prospects elsewhere and a well-earned good riddance to Lukashenko's Belarus...
Yes, it'll doubtless take every single last one of those ten-some years she named till she's indeed able to return there...
But who knows? The peoples' uprising at the outset of 2021 (I believe; or was it a year earlier?) failed to overturn his tyrannical, despotic, Putinesque rule - no doubt with 'friends in (Russian) high places', to be sure...
So how long the longsuffering Belarussians will put up with Russian Czar-apparent Putin's satellite drone running roughshod over all their civil liberties is a moot question indeed...
...though naturally enough they'd generally be only too well aware that if they, the Belarussian mice, clamber for liberty too loud and long, the Russian mogey'll come down hard and fast and with some rather awful finality (upon one and all who dare to challenge its territorial aims and ambitions and assumptions)...
To Be Continued (Shortly)...
Tuesday, July 20th (NZ time)
Though I personally do not and have never subscribed to neoliberal economics aka deregulation c/o Reaganomics/Thatcherism (in the USA/UK) or c/o Ruthanasia/Rogernomics (here in New Zealand) - and so find myself far more aligned politically/economically to that ever economically consistent long-time politician Winston Peters than to his Labour/Green Party detractors who for all their criticisms have long since tended to walk a somewhat different walk from the high-minded talk they seem especially adept in...
Yet I recognize many Americans saw otherwise - however wrong they were! And so, I do not rate Reagan well on the economic equity score, though I realize the stock market rallied strongly under his watch...
But on those global matters of moment Reagan was the man of and for the moment...
presiding over the gradual and ultimately speedy demise of the *Evil Empire (i.e. the Soviet Union/USSR: or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - since split into smithereens and its basic 15 constituent parts). But he was most assuredly not alone, either in temporal or, for that matter, supernatural helpers, in this success - and those who suggest otherwise ascribe to the man far more impact than anyone is warranted and likewise infinitely more credit than he is due...
That all being placed firmly upon the record and all being said, I intend to now summarize why **I consider Reagan overall right up there among America's most 'successful' and significant presidents. But I certainly do not intend to skirt over those elements of the Reagan Administration which earned my ire, and, more importantly, the anger and disgust of multitudes (especially worldwide), and will succinctly come to a close by mentioning two long-term issues which Reagan (and co) either courageously tackled or ultimately - and, arguably, cowardly - failed to deal with; leaving a legacy for his (presidential) successors and succeeding generations (of Americans) - in the former instance, of good or weal; in the latter of evil or woe...
President Ronald Reagan's outstanding achievements and/or personal assets/attributes were, however seemingly 'simple' and uncomplicated, nevertheless, as the wag might express it, eminently profound, forming the basic constituents contributing to my overall positive assessment and favourable evaluation of his presidential (and thus *******political) legacy...
In (necessarily) bullet-point inventory, I consider these (the particular order in which I list them - apart from #1 & #2, which also should have been reversed - not necessarily signifying their relative importance) to have been/consisted of:
#1: his - already acknowledged - pivotal historic role - with lotsa divine assistance I hasten to add! - in the incredible, and incredibly rapid, demise and self-destruction of the USSR and Eastern Bloc...
#2: Not - as so many (including, admittedly, yours truly, at times) expected - ***********pressing the button and ending it all for one and all...
#3: Understanding the American people - incidentally, as a dual American kiwi since birth with parents who moved to God's Own/Godzone 60-some years ago now and growing up with that background as well as numerous grandparental visits and moves here over my childhood years, plus having spent almost three years in the USA myself in the early to mid 1990s (like John Key and David Cunliffe, evidently), and eagerly devouring Times and Newsweeks galore throughout my lifetime, I can claim to know somewhat of which I speak - in a way in which few other Americans presidents before or since have: I'd say, with the notable exceptions of (interestingly, Reagan's own (birth family's) childhood hero) FDR - who had the common touch down to a fine art, and tuned it to perfection as radio finally came into its own; JFK - who symbolized and embodied a new generation's (and my mum's own) hopes and dreams for a new day and age for America and the world; and Abraham Lincoln - who had an intuitive grasp upon both the nation's pulse and yet 'the better angels of [their] nature(s)'; of course, like JFK 100 years on, cruelly gunned down by the assassin's bullet...
...JFK being of course in the view of many the victim of a deep state conspiracy, whereas it has actually been well established that - irrespective of the situation for JFK - Abraham Lincoln most definitely was such indeed. (For more info upon the same, please refer to a 42-pager I did on the run-up to American presidential election 2016, in which I myself expose what I believe to very possibly have been a conspiracy behind that election - but not remotely the one the media has long been suggesting...).
It's entitled 'If It Looks Like a Setup, and It Sounds Like a Setup (etcetera etcetera etcetera),Then...' (Forgive me for temporarily forgetting the precise name of it, it is located upon 'NuffSaid' and was posted upon August 22nd, 2016). Interestingly, in a subsequent discussion of conspiracy theories - when, following Donald Trump's totally unexpected presidential victory the very airwaves and blogosphere were seemingly literally swarming with conspiracy theories - an American couple interviewed by RNZ National's Nine to Noon host, Kathryn Ryan, in January or February 2017, declared that the one conspiracy theory they felt comfortable stating possessed some credibility was that pertaining to President Abraham Lincoln's assassination - the very such theory my own conspiracy theory associated with presidential election 2016 related to - (or had serious 'links' to, in the modern vernacular)...
#4: (Likewise) implicitly understanding the proper role of pretty well any government to be necessarily self-restrained and restricted for the good of all in society - remarkably similar to Margaret Thatcher's own world view - Reagan once famously quipping as to the best thing a government could do consisted of essentially leaving people alone...
#-1: Yet upon the domestic front poverty and inequality burgeoned and rampaged away, the rich got steadily and inordinately far richer, the poor oftentimes had the shirts ripped off their very backs...whilst the military consumed exorbitantly larger shares of the nation's wealth, money which if given in foreign aid throughout the darker recesses of the world would have not only relieved abject poverty all over the globe but, more importantly for a nation whose guiding light has so often sadly been enlightened self-interest, could have, like the unfaithful steward of Jesus' telling parable who was told he'd been found out and was about to be summarily dismissed from his stewardship, whereupon he got his act together and used any remaining largesse in his possession to ensure his long-term survival 'into everlasting habitations', would've given America some real leverage throughout the world and thus protected it from the sort of well-deserved acrimony and hostility that it has long since incurred across the globe...
Yes, though foreign affairs was far and away Reagan's unexpected 'strong suit', this (misguided aforementioned, however unforeseen) global consequence of his policies domestically was not at all the only fundamental weakness or poor judgment call that he and his administration made on the world scene.
#-2/-3/-4: (The) Iran Contra very nearly precipitated Reagan's latter stage impeachment, but more concerning to biblical students such as myself were his - perfectly understandable - rapprochement with the papal state, i.e. the papacy/the Vatican, as he and his administration allied itself with the selfsame - in the person of Pope John Paul the 2nd - in order to rid our world of the scourge of the aforementioned 'Evil Empire'...yet that selfsame rapprochement carrying within it the seeds of the final endtime crisis, the long foretold 'Great Tribulation' so soon to afflict all dwellers upon the Earth...
...when the papal power, representing Roman Catholicism, unites in another 'unholy alliance' with Apostate Protestantism (and third world spiritualism) to bring about the crisis of the ages, in which religious intolerance is once again elevated to global dominance and persecution run riot...
Curiously enough on the other hand the Reagan Administration's Central American policy approach helped fuel another wing of said 'Church of Rome', the (in)famous 'Liberation Theology', a 'theology' especially championed by the Jesuit order of Catholics throughout the length and breadth of the Americas, at least 'south of the border'...
The Administration's actions in Central America were especially critiqued for their perceived sanctioning of human rights abuses in Nicaragua and El Salvador in particular - the so-called 'death squads' chief in notoriety amongst these; an 'episode' indeed which at my Dad's funeral service in 2005 I discovered he'd decided to formally and permanently renounce his American citizenship (back in the mid-1980s) and even the one-time conservative firebrand Barry Goldwater, still serving in the US Senate, accused Reagan and co of violating international law whilst engaging in helicopter gunning of folk in those selfsame Central American conflicts...
And yet oddly enough an equally significant 'third strain' of in/actions - constituting 'the road (not) taken' and/or the opportunity (not) seized - might equally be seen as having a major bearing in the ultimate verdict of history upon Reagan and his administration, the two issues being ones which are ever so domestic and ever so American, indeed the twin lenses through which the watching world generally now pretty well sizes up the States: guns and healthcare (from the time Barack Obama arrived in office through the years of his literal presidential successor Donald Trump right on down now to Obama's ideological (and personal) successor, his former Veep-turned-President Joe Biden).
Though - if only through the unfortunate circumstances of his near assassination in 1981 - Reagan's right-hand-man James Brady helped engineer the congressional enactment of the famous 'Brady Bill' gun law, and thus secured the only real at all restrictive gun law in America in arguably its entire history, and thus ensured Reagan's place in U S history as a (if ever so reluctant, carried kicking and screaming so to speak) champion of gun reform, showing unwonted courage in choosing the road less travelled as my well-beloved 'idol' Scott M Peck might have expressed things, or 'seizing the day' as another folk hero of mine, the equally 'late, great' Robin Williams, might have put matters...
if Ronald Wilson Reagan had metaphorically 'bitten the bullet' on another matter he would have secured for himself the long-term endearment of Americans rich and poor, liberal and conservative - individuals admittedly, not well-heeled corporates and interest groups! - for time to come...and made his childhood hero Franklin Delano Roosevelt exceedingly pleased with and even inordinately proud of him for time and immemorial...
Doing something that no Democrat could (easily) get away with - though admittedly Obama ultimately did; by the barest skin of his teeth; and losing almost the entirety of any remaining political capital he still had in the process: achieving health reform and universal healthcare for all Americans as a birthright...
But sadly he was borne down upon - psychologically intimidated (at least, the prospect of the same as his top aides warned him of what might befall him if he pressed ahead with the selfsame) by the American Medical Association, and that, as they say, was all she wrote...
*I'm not arguing here as to whether Ronald Reagan's negative evaluation of the Communist Bloc was a perfect assessment in every respect - though apparently multitudes/the great mass of Eastern Europe anyhow voted with their feet (both en masse on the streets and more importantly in literally physically overturning such regimes) in hearty approval as nation after nation within that one-time impenetrable and impervious Iron Curtain fell like dominoes throughout especially the later 1980s to secede from such oppressive ironclad domination and subjection...
As to whether the United States of America is itself not increasingly becoming the very embodiment of the evil it once so vigorously and thunderously denounced is another matter, and for some biblical commentary thereupon I can only refer you to other blogposts of mine upon both this and my original blogsite, 'Nuff Said: My friendly neighbourhood take upon this, that and especially the other', upon http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/).
But also - and more recently (in the overall scheme of things) - upon three of my newer blogsites, i.e.:
'Can Ye Not Discern the Signs of the Time?' on http://666Babylon666.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)
'I Realize you Might not Happen to Agree, But This is How I See it Anyway' on http://irymn.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)
'Sorry to See Ya Go...It's Nice to Remember' on http://sotoseygitnitore.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)
That'll give ya plenty to occupy the wee small hours...
**Yes, I well recognize I have no especial credentials for engaging in such an (essentially) academic exercise - and those I ***do possess would be passed over as so much piffle and self-serving oneupmanship by most casual observers...
***Such as a minor in Political Studies/Science, major in ****English (in my *****midlife years)...though - to my mind and way of thinking, anyhow - far more significant and personally meaningful was managing to obtain 82 in School Cert(ificate) History - eat yer heart out, ******Ian Dalziel! -
****That course (English) effectively being arguably even more 'political' (as in partisanly so) than PS.
*****'Midlife' meaning halfway plus to my allotted 'threescore and ten' years (as that great man of God, Moses, expressed things in the 90th psalm; or, rather, that 80 years of life included a 10-year bonus upon the standard 70-year human lifetime of most people; that is, if one considers the added 'labour and sorrow' of such a fourscore year lifespan to be anything of a bonus!)...
******An old schoolmate and longtime friend who always claimed to have been unfairly 'pipped at the post' by me back then, managing second in the class at 81 (percent). However, seeing as I didn't feel I'd managed to get enough swatting in prior to that examination, and so staying up way into the wee hours if not the entire night beforehand to not lose my natural advantage (I kid!), but at least to do myself proper credit on a subject where admittedly I seemed to be the teacher's favourite, I swatted a possible question on the precursors and conditions which led to the enacting of FDR's New Deal' programme... and guess what special question was in the day's test...?
*******Reagan was also of course - prior to his second (this time successful) presidential gambit - two-term Governor of California, interestingly succeeded by maverick (and perceived radical) Democrat Jerry Brown, who, incredibly enough, returned to governorship there at the ripe 'ole age of ********77, and proceeded to 'clock up' a succession of subsequent terms establishing him as apparently the undisputed longest-serving governor of any U S state, fullstop.
In my own modest estimation, however, I feel - ultimately - more 'on the page' with Reagan, who - though most definitely no (wild-eyed) social liberal as was Brown; or dope-smoking (and police-busted) throwback to the radical, promiscuous sixties - apparently was much more sensitive to the likes of solo mother welfare recipients (though partisan political opponents would fail to confess any such things); perhaps one reason why that old reactionary political dinosaur, *********/************Eugene McCarthy no less, threw in his own support behind Reagan in the 1980 presidential election...
********Proving once for all, as that all-time great 20th-century statesman (Sir) Winston Churchill himself most assuredly did, that the mid-seventies is just the right time of life to re-launch one's political career...and then some!
*********Of course the 'peace candidate' back in 1968 and - initially anyhow - in 1972; caught in that timeless snow-bedecked photo op when I believe he announced his decision to quit the **********race...
**********The race, that was, to secure the Democratic nomination for president that year (to go on to face Richard Milhaus Nixon). Nixon eventually secured a massive landslide victory over his ever so honourable Democratic Party opponent, George McGovern, who, as many still recall, decided to ditch his one-time Veep (Vice-presidential) candidate Thomas Eagleton (due to mental health issues), and - less well known - at one time did seriously consider Republican Mark Hatfield as his running mate; the sort of gracious and welcome bipartisan gesture that has long since vacated the American political scene..
***********I refer of course to thus authorizing the start of what would have instantly escalated to WW111, and blown us all away...
But I well realize of course that there but for the grace of God went other (both previous and subsequent) U S presidents, such as - in particular: JFK (the closest some suggest we've ever yet come to global Armageddon; at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and/or the Bay of Pigs 'incident'); Jimmy Carter: when a 'simple' computer error evidently nearly saw Carter activate the nuclear codes; and how could we ever forget Donald J Trump, whose avoidance of an all-out military confrontation with Iran at least - but how many like ************Hillary Clinton warned of the possibility of nuclear war (i.e. with America's long-term superpower adversaries Russia and China; let alone 'lil 'ole North Korea) under his watch? - was *************itself a spectacular miracle of sorts...
************Not that other long-term reactionary, John Pilger, I note; no, he considered Trump a far safer pair of hands at least vis-a-vis seeing off any potential nuclear conflagration that might occur during his (yet future) administration than those of the likes of long-term foreign hawk Hillary Clinton.
Yes, I essentially 'jest' in attributing reactionary 'status' to John Pilger or for that matter Eugene McCarthy, but I do so as a devil's advocate as it were, simply showing the absurdity of such a claim.
*************For a brief (and hopefully witty) reference to such see one of my newest (and most unknown) blogsites, an obituary/tribute to the Goodies' Tim Brooke-Taylor and Aotearoa-New Zealand's one and only John Clarke (Fred Dagg): 'Always Look On the Bright Side of Life...We Don't Know How Lucky We Are'; located on http://goodygoodydaggdrops.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)...
Acknowledgment:
This 'article' was inspired by (and probably otherwise wouldn't have come about) due to a chance interview watched upon (Radio Rhema's) Shine TV (the night of Sunday July 18th?), in which Gary Hoogvliet engaged in an extensive, leisurely chat with Reagan's presidential executive assistant Peggy Grande...
...and, moreover, wouldn't have occurred without the helpful assistance of the much and ever-underrated footnote...(as folk upon RNZ National such as weekday Nine to Noon host Kathryn Ryan were also discussing the other day).
Vis-a-vis the 'Organ Harvesting' of Chinese citizens...
...and having myself occasionally met and chatted to/with members of China's expatriate Falun Gong community over recent years, I'd suggest Ms Wall knows exactly whereof she is talking and raising concerns...
Does she what!
It is simply hard to praise him (and the programme) - and his co-creators and investigators - enough...or, for that matter, RNZ National for having the guts and gumption to actually air such a show - in view of the obvious ill-will of Mainland Chinese authorities in regards to such...
So, for once - and believe you me it's a rare thing for this 'pale, stale, male' whose views upon this, that and the next thing are so out of favour with that station these days to actually do so...
an unreserved, unambiguous, no ifs, buts or maybes even countenanced, plaudit
And meanwhile, where have several high-flying NZ politicians been thereabouts over recent times?
Effectively wining and dining *'the Great One' himself...
Sure, Helen Clark, herself 'sporting' no small pretensions to the position of a fully-fledged governing member of Winston Smith's world, having set things in motion here by ably enacting arguably the world's first trade agreement with Mainland China, has since been joined and putatively surpassed by her immediate prime ministerial successor...
John Key not only making it abundantly clear that he wasn't willing to brook much vocal opposition to his Government's own progressively cosier relationship with the power, but now being effectively 'outed': by his own honest admission, admittedly, as a good personal friend of China's supreme leader...
*No, here I refer not to Donald J Trump's own nomenclature, but that of the present Chinese Premier...
Or are you too among the plethora of naive and gullible simpletons who happen to believe those now seeking to terrorize our universities here are not plants of the CCP?
Tell us another one!
But meanwhile, where is all the due alarm and, in this instance, appropriate 'moral panic' - or, rather, the moral fortitude and fibre - from those 'good folk' here in Aotearoa-New Zealand, anyhow, who are never at a loss and ever to be found whenever it comes to bagging the Aussies and the Yanks for their own apparently never-ending violations of ethics upon the global scene, especially when it comes to issues/matters of spying (etiquette), ill-/mal-/mis-treatment of immigrants and refugees, military incursions and the like seemingly here, there and everywhere?
I.e. the self-righteous Left who are never backward in not coming forward whenever powerful non-Western nations are well and truly in the firing line? Those perennially strident voices ever so eloquent in pointing out every last Western foible and failing and consequently singling out America, Canada, the United Kingdom and the nations of what was once termed 'Western Europe' for criticism and abuse...
...whilst ever looking completely askance and disappearing into the veritable woodwork any time an anti-Western country or jurisdiction evidences gross and glaring human rights abuses and other evils?
Yep, predictably, as per usual, nowhere to be found!
But be aware, peoples, the saints their watch are keeping, and the cry goes up: "How long?"
-As witnessed in the vaccination rollout debacle on the streets of our main city, Auckland, yesterday evening, as shown upon the 6p.m. News Bulletin of Newshub TV3...
In what can only be deemed the bitterest irony, by eschewing Jeremy Corbyn's radical economic plans and by simultaneously dining out at the altar of political correctness/identity politics/cancel culture/virtue-signalling/post-nationalism - and all the rest of the horrid socially 'progressive' agenda - it has jettisoned any remaining commonality it once so proudly shared with its traditional, heartland, working-class base...
...evidently having learnt next-to-nothing from its absolute thumping in the December 2019 General Election.
As Rod/Rob Little, (Aotearoa-New Zealand's) Newstalk ZB U K correspondent (on the Mike Hosking Show) so aptly expressed things this very morning, the Labo(u)r Party's working-class heartland base in the industrial north didn't really mind/object all that much - the very converse in fact! - to socialist-style economics (my terms, not Mr Little's), but what they do find all too difficult to stomach - and will doubtless give full vent to in today's parliamentary by-election there - is the party's extreme social liberalism (again, my own phraseology/summation of the gist of Little's comments).
Not altogether that different from yours truly, who, though never a voter for, much less a supporter, let alone a paid-up party member of any left-wing party here in New Zealand - though the local Social Credit party official here did (at his own expense; and ever so briefly) make me a member of the party not long after my own unsuccessful attempt at political office as an independent in our 2008 General Election - came to see as much in relation to New Zealand's own Labour Party awhile ago now...
...especially whilst hearing noted political scholar/author/pundit/friend and party colleague of my long- (16 years)deceased Dad, one-time New Labour/Alliance Party political activist/co-founder and regular blogger/editorial writer Chris Trotter at a public meeting in our hometown DCC Public Library:
Trotter chronicled in fascinating and meticulous detail how literally hundreds of thousands of active, generally evangelical members of Aotearoa-New Zealand's own Labour Party left/abandoned /deserted/forsook the party in mega-droves in the early-to-mid-nineteen eighties as social reforms such as the landmark Homosexual Law Reform Bill promulgated and pushed relentlessly by 'social progressives' passed into law here - against the petitioned opposition of 700,000-some signatories...
Much in the same vein as yours truly, who, while never an actual Labour voter as such, ever had strong political sympathies in that particular direction (and even more to the left, embracing both the then Values Party and the Social Credit Political League)...
...being - actually very much like Social Credit - pretty well ever decisively left-of-centre on economic matters whilst strongly right-of-centre upon 'social issues', whereas Labour - especially following the forced retirement of thrice-losing Bill (Wallace) Rowling and his replacement by the charismatic, Norman Kirk-like (and similarly to Kirk, socially conservative and globe-bestriding) David Lange - adopted pretty well hook, line *and especially sinker a right-wing Thatcherite/Reaganomics economic deregulation regime whilst actively embracing social causes promoted by the professional 'chic' set...
*I jive in those italicized words, I simply couldn't resist the unavoidable emphasis...
P.S. Hopefully Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) lot itself gets spanked by Alex Salmond's renegade/breakaway rump/faction, deservedly so in light of the way she has apparently and to my mind and that of many others (especially 'Scotlanders') trashed the well-and-justly earned reputation of the party's former (?and founding?) leader...and moreover, to merely satisfy/gratify political ambitions - while quite possibly fully knowing the allegations against him were so much mere flim-flam, flotsam and jetsam; but well realizing the penchant of today's mainstream media to swallow wholesale any and every allegation and accusation, however tenuous, against **middle-aged white males, to placate Feminazis Incorporated...
**'Pale, stale males' as some wags have termed us...
But sorry, folks - especially you natural justice-denying Greens (a sorry remnant of a once proud party): hugging someone not only doesn't constitute rape, it don't even remotely approach sexual assault...
...unless, that is, you're living in George Orwell's 1984, a very scary place in which, as the Good Book itself so aptly puts things, good is now evil, and evil good, black is white and white is black etc etc etc...
But the Holy Bible also therein pronounces a curse upon those partaking of such self-delusion, declaring
Woe unto thee who [do such]...
...And Act New Zealand especially covers itself with 'glory' in its prosecution of such...
as indeed even do the other four speakers (Labour's Foreign Minister, Nanaia Mahuta, National's one-time leader Todd Muller, the Greens' Gohriz Ghahraman, and the Maori Party's co-leader, what'shername...
And though I'd been privately disparaging, even excoriating both major parties and their seemingly softly-softly, don't rattle the feathers approach, agreeing with that taken by Act, the Greens, and the Maori Party ...that the on-the-ground reality of genocide (in Xinjiang Province) ought to be specifically named and shamed...
...I'll concede after hearing Mahuta speak that no, until such a charge of genocide is *actually conclusively proven and established, it is the better part of valour (my description) to hold one's fire/keep one's powder dry, but that yes, such a serious possibility *most definitely necessitates due investigation...
*But, of course, unless you've been living in ye proverbial cave over recent times, you'll well realize that the chances of China's CCP authorities allowing United Nations investigators in to determine such is about as likely as their doing so vis-a-vis the origin of Covid-19, which itself is **about as probable as any or all the folk claiming to have set foot upon the moon admitting publicly to not actually having done so...
**Though of course yours truly doesn't for even a split-second countenance that ***far-out conspiracy scenario, I'm simply employing it in our discussion to make a point...
***For no other reason than the simple one that if indeed that epochal event had not taken place, you tell me how you'd keep 180,000 or so NASA scientists and the like collectively shut up for half a century, with not one of them ever breaking ranks to spill the beans, and that despite there doubtlessly being lucrative pecuniary rewards in so doing...
Admittedly it often does seem to require being out of office to hear such personal revelations, though of course people change over time, and that obviously even includes politicians, however difficult that might be for many to really believe...
Coz if they ain't, then Aotearoa-New Zealand is itself in mighty big trouble...
Come on back, Winston...all is forgotten and forgiven...
No mean achievement for such a voluble and volatile, unstable, erratic and irrational, unpredictable character.
No, truly!
Although of course it is by no means certain, by no means 'a done deal', that - as I've myself pointed out in a couple of blogposts upon both this and my other, original blogsite, i.e.
http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or.com/)
- that Donald J Trump won't be back in fairly/relatively 'short order', i.e. in 2024, regain the presidency, and following that highly contentious development, whilst president - like Putin, for life? This particular punter certainly wouldn't put it past Trump and his horde of highly partisan zealots! - either **deliberately or inadvertently 'contribute' to a situation/geo-political environment whereby that very scenario occurs , that is, WW111...
...though methinks (as I ever and always have) that it'd rather be a case of a 'limited nuclear war' based in and around the Middle East, in particular the nation-states of Israel and Iran...
*Though to give President Reagan due credit, he had nothing upon Donald J Trump..
**As I've also suggested in blogposts past, there has ever been a worrying trend among some 'neo-cons' of the fundamentalist Christian variety to seek to 'anticipate' and/or pre-empt certain biblical prophecies, and thus and so to seek to effectively be the catalyst for their ultimate occurrence: a rather scary, sobering prospect indeed, and one that one can hardly put beyond the sort of folk whom Trump has chosen to surround himself and his administration with.
***In a similar vein, none other than that ****'reactionary' ****'alt-right' ****'neo-con', John Pilger himself, prior to Presidential Election 2016 suggested that a Trump presidency might well in fact be a 'safer bet' for the world than a Hillary Clinton presidency...
...in view of her own well-known history of war-mongering vis-a-vis Russia and the like...
****Of course I jest, to the nth degree and beyond...
Yes, the 'judgments of God' are abroad in the land, and I for one do not regard the diabolical wintry weather now engulfing large swathes of America from Texas through New York state - following the legal exoneration of President Trump by both branches of the U S legislature - as mere coincidence...
...but maybe I'm just a superstitious fellow...
You have to give it to Trump loyalists and assorted partisan fanatics, they'll try absolutely anything if not everything to *avoid and evade the obvious and clear-cut, plain as day facts upon any matter...
...to avoid and evade, through technical finesse and a side-stepping routine far more worthy of some fancy dance-floor manoeuvre, the conviction by a two-thirds Senate majority in Trump's (second/re-) impeachment trial, securing of which would of course effectively debar him from a future presidential run.
Manoeuvres far more 'worthy' (or rather, befitting) of a previous president, none other than Bill (William Jefferson) Clinton, in his own technical, hair-splitting **self-defence, as he declared - at the risk of perjury, which many actually believe he did in fact commit -
"No, I did not have sexual relations with that woman!"
*Much like income tax, which is why Trump's well-known, notorious antics vis-a-vis the same are just ditto...
**He was required to give testimony under oath, if I remember rightly, and if anyone would be able to be completely, 100% congizant of all that that involved/entailed and understood the full implications thereof, it would have to be Clinton, as, after all, I believe he like Barack Obama was previously a constitutional lawyer.
Postscript:
This was all coming to a speedy climax as I prepared this for e-print, and has of course now been rapidly superseded by an official (non-legal, mind you) 'verdict' of exoneration by selfsame Senate, but it's important enough for me nevertheless to get the preceding observations down 'on the record'...
But there were voices - aplenty - in the U S Republican Party itself - in open and active dissent from its Trump-centric outlook over recent days, weeks, months and years...
...but of course these have all been effectively ignored and marginalized and demonized...
see, for instance, the shameful treatment of Louisiana's Bill Cassidy, North Carolina's Richard Burr et al...
A tome or two would hardly suffice to even begin to cover off such shameful if only all too predictable *'developments', however it's nevertheless 'pleasing' to see the **sort of 'folks' whose voices have been raised in (unavoidably) impotent protest against the same...
The likes of the long-time and well-respected conservative Time columnist George Wills. One-time prospective Republican presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as former California Governor Arnold Scwarzeneeger. Ten former Defence Chiefs of whom five (half), as appointees of Republican presidents, would doubtless have (usually) been Republican Party members/ 'subscribers'...
Numerous others utterly unknown to me (as of course are all the preceding and following, but as in not being names one generally hears of in the media), nonetheless - from online posts and U-Tube videos let me at least name - and anything but shame! - one Chris Vance, evidently a former chair(man) of the ***(one-time great) Washington state Republican Party, and these days a political independent. For now suffice for me to refer to a (January 21, 2021) 'Special to the (Seattle) Times' by Mr Vance, entitled 'Principle over Power: Let's form a new Republican Party' (accessed c/o www.seattletimes.com after I 'googled' 'Republican Party Senator(s) Dissent' etcetera.
Alongside this may I also highly recommend a brilliant (extended) opinion piece by Anne Applebaum, contributer to The Atlantic, whose 'The Collaborators: History Will Judge the Complicit: Why Have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?'
Excellent stuff, indeed...and sorely, desperately needed in this ever-so-fraught day and age of petty partisan politics...
...and no - although I know it's not the done thing to speak ill of the dead - and I wish him well for his day of reckoning before the Almighty - I for one do not consider that the late talkback show host Rush Limbaugh added one iota to the American (let alone global) political conversation...
*Of course these movements are anything but progress in the classical understanding thereof, rather a reactionary retreat into 'neanderthalism' and 'medievalry'...
**Including if only 'in spirit' one-time Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, to whom I have referred recently (and probably awhile ago on a couple occasions also)...and, obviously, one-time presidential nominee Mitt Romney...
...and, of course, the two former (President) 'Bushes' (though Yours Truly is not exactly the greatest fan of either, one cannot but help respecting and even admiring their willingness to 'go on the record' as not supporting, as in voting for, Donald J Trump at one or other or both of Presidential elections 2016 and 2020. especially in view of the dire public denunciations and excoriations which they would most assuredly have known they would subsequently and consequently be liable to experience, and indeed did verily undergo...
***I'm thinking here of the long-time Washington state Senator (****whose name temporarily eludes me) who (the ultimately ill-fated, Richard Milhaus Nixon-trounced) 1972 Democratic Party hopeful George McGovern evidently had seriously considered placing upon his own presidential ticket...
****I believe it's Mark Hatfield, who had the gonads to stand up to President Bush Senior, as indeed did the oft-derided Barry Goldwater to President Ronald Reagan, no less...
Lest we so happen to prove ourselves the ecclesiastical actors depicted in Jesus' own classic and beloved Parable of the Good Samaritan - the rabbi and the Levite - who were in all likelihood steered away from 'doing the right thing' by the man beaten by robbers on the Road to Jericho, stripped naked and left to die...
...due to one thing and one thing only: the all-too-human survival instinct...
'Disclaimer'/Acknowledgment: An insight I had after the insurrection upon America's capital two weeks ago, one I was 'gratified' to see was also one which the late great Dr Martin Luther King Junior also shared...
...as revealed in his sermonette upon the selfsame in the lovely little tome Strength to Love.
And please also refer to related (January 19th) blogposts upon this selfsame subject upon my original blogsite:
http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)
Due credit to the great hymnist, James Russell Lowell, whose 'Once to Every Man and Nation' has long been a special source of personal inspiration, as it evidently also was to one of my lifetime mentors, Dr Martin Luther King, Junior...
...and whose 'immortal' lyrics are every bit as relevant today as they were in the fraught Dark Ages about which he doubtlessly wrote.
Accordingly please refer to my related blogpost - the second of three (dated January the 19th) - upon my original blogsite, that is:
http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)
Yes, what a shameful 'tribute' to the legacy of the man Americans now - ?disingenuously? - constantly champion as the Inaugurator of the post-Civil Rights Era of Desegregation...
by and from insurrectionists who are by-and-large white supremacists and the like...
But and if it isn't, then I understand that impeachment - for which the present occupant of the White House has proven himself abundantly, even superlatively qualified - should be invoked...as indeed is presently being verily proposed...
...my understanding being that though the process needs be begun now, it can be continued after a president no longer occupies the Oval Office...
...and if *successfully 'enacted', will permanently debar the one so impeached from any further designs upon 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue...
*And/or being removed c/o the aforesaid Article 25 of the US Constitution will [do so].
Of what precisely do I talk? Of dealing to the great one atop Capitol Hill, before it's forever too late...and so, yes, there remains a duty, however unpleasant and problematic it may well not only appear but actually be, for the Vice-President to undertake...
But then, as the old song says, 'He' never promised us a rose-garden...did he.
Incredibly or ironically for yours truly, yesterday, January 7th (NZ time) - the day Americans will remember for long to come, the day when their democracy came closer to subversion than since the British tea-party of 1812 (or so) and/or the depths of the Civil War in the early 1860s - was generally January the 6th, US time...
the birthday of my long since deceased Grandma, Elvera Burkholder; my mother's mother was indeed born upon this day back in 1900, living almost till her 95th birth-anniversary...
I almost forgot to mention - the very reason in fact I've included reference to 'Elvera': simply thus: her name is the Spanish for the truth. And thus and so, January 6th is now etched for time and memorial as
A day of truth and righteousness, indeed, for the United States of America, one that will go down for the history books if America yet emerges successfully and essentially unscathed from its grasp/tentacles...
Once to every man and nation Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, For the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, Offering each the bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever 'Twixt that darkness and that light.
Then to side with truth is noble When we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, And 'tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, While the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue Of the faith they had denied.
Thus the incisive James Russell Lowell waxes lyrically and unforgettably in the first two stanzas of his timeless hymn 'Once to Every Man and Nation'.
As I cannot help myself from adding,
Nuff Said!
Postscript: Actually, though, I'm probably putting things the wrong way around. I.e. if we think Donald J Trump is bad, well, in view of biblical prophecy vis-a-vis the very final days of (present-day) human history, quite frankly 'we ain't seen nothing yet'!
Completely (self-)contradictory? I'm afraid so. But then they say that life is much more complicated than we sometimes imagine, and the truth is indeed oftentimes far, far stranger than fiction!
Or perhaps both things are true simultaneously, and *Trump himself will be the agent provocateur in the not too distant future, who, through pressure from American Protestants in particular, will authorize/ enact/provide the presidential imprimatur to the long-prophesied national Sunday laws which will in turn, ultimately, allow mobs **'of violent and angry ****men' to, at the very last - on a certain well-specified day and time - wreak death and destruction upon any who steadfastly refuse to conform to such a state edict that directly and explicitly contradicts divine law.
*Though it's equally conceivable that say a genuinely evangelical president such as for instance Mike Pence - provided over the next 13 days he keeps his powder dry so to speak and doesn't effectively blot his copybook with voters (of whatever stripe) - is the one who will authorize all the immediately foregoing...
**Said mini-phrase probably (subconsciously) borrowed from that seminal work ***of Andrew Lloyd Webber/Timothy Rice, 'Jesus Christ Superstar': the songs of which - both tunes and lyrics - are powerful and 'unreal', notwithstanding the equally strong and consistent and at times none-too-subtle unbiblical and even anti-biblical and Christ-dishonouring undercurrent throughout said rock opera and its medley of classical hits...
***Rice and Webber were evidently preeminently responsible for the musical component thereof, at least.
****No doubt mainly the male of the species, but 'human beings' will then be hardly a fit epithet for such, as they will be humanity transformed into demons.
Perhaps I'm (understandably) somewhat biased, having met and been deeply impressed by a couple of relatives (on my mother's side) from the 'Hoosier State' back in 2008 - as the lead-up to the pivotal presidential election of the USA's first ever black American president was then being eagerly watched by a waiting world...
...folk who were salt of the earth, true dinkum (Brethren) Christians...
Anyhow, though some/many may well disagree - especially those not happening to share my Christian faith - I count those folk as including not only Mike Pence but George Herbert Bush's Veep, Dan Quayle, and Bob Dole's own Vice-Presidential Nominee, David Kemp..
the latter, anyhow, being - to my way of thinking (and living) - a sterling example of compassionate conservatism as George W Bush regrettably proved not to be...
TO BE CONTINUED...
How so - i.e. how can I be so sure of your fidelity to principle when the rubber finally met the road earlier today? Since the Houses of Congress are still awaiting recall again, very shortly, later this evening (U S time) to indeed certify the decision of the Electoral College state-by-state and nationally? And hence, since said certification, prevented from occurring earlier today (NZ time) and now awaiting said recall to finally occur later today, could well see you then reverse course and not move to doing what you to all appearance were attempting to do earlier today when 'unforeseen circumstances' intervened to prevent you?
For that very reason: the fact that at that time,when all hell was breaking loose all around you, you steadfastly determined to follow through, come hell or high water, upon your solemnly undertaken oath of office (to ever uphold the U S Constitution throughout your sojourn in the Oval Office)...
...whilst a mob of 'wild and angry men' (as the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar might have expressed it) were virtually baying for your blood, or if not blood, seeking to enter the premises of the House to stop you fulfilling your constitutional duty before the American people...
Yes, this particular punter sees your oath (of undying fealty and allegiance) as 'already fulfilled', as Aragorn in the Philippa Boyens/Fran Walsh/Peter Jacksonesque cinematic interpretation of J R R Tolkien's classic 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy declared to the 'Undying King Under the Mountain' after he and his kind came to the rescue when the White City of Gondor was being mercilessly besieged by Sauron's orc legions and the Corsairs et al...
You can now leave the White House - whatever is yet to transpire - with a (semblance of a) clear conscience; you may have lost your/the greatest (!!!) earthly benefactor, but as the Lord Jesus so solemnly declared:
What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, yet loses his own soul?
No, in that coming life/world, the last will indeed be first, and the (supposed) first will (themselves) be last...
i.e. shut out of God's eternal kingdom - left out 'in the [utter] outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth',
a day in which the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men - alongside every bondman and every free man,
will hid[e] themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains...
...saying to the mountains and rocks,
Fall on us, and hide us from the face of [H]im that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb...
For the great [D]ay of [H]is wrath [has] come; and who shall be able to stand?
Yes, Vice-President Pence, you have one and only one chance, a single opportunity left, one you will doubtless never have again, to show your true quality to one and all - not only to Mr Trump - a golden opportunity moreover, if admittedly simultaneously somewhat of a poisoned chalice...
An opportunity to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, a skerrick of a suspicion even, that you are not just one more political partisan among too many to number, but rather a truly principled politician - clear and obvious oxymoron notwithstanding. For as that great hymn writer James Russell Lowell so eloquently expresses matters,
Once to every man and nation Comes the moment to decide,
...
And the choice goes by forever, 'Twixt that darkness and that light.
Or as another famous wag so aptly expressed matters, I came to the forking of the road, and I chose the road less travelled, and that has made all the difference...
Show your bipartisan quality, Mr Vice-President...
the choice will not come again...
...but you can save yourself being an historical footnote in an infamous chapter in American history.
Yes, although 'everybody knows' that Trump would neither accept let alone understand the fact that Veep Pence has only one conceivable option available to him tomorrow, i.e. to duly certify the duly certified result of the recent presidential election in a joint session of America's Houses of Congress, with himself presiding as Head of the Senate, (more usually as such in a deadlock-breaking capacity)...
...it's more than likely that Mike Pence, having long since sold his soul to the devil, as the ever incisive and perceptive Newstalk ZB talkback host Tim Roxborough */**so adeptly portrayed matters this afternoon, will ever after be a victim of his own fatal and fateful compromise, unable like the hapless biblical Samson to ever after buy it back...
*Roxborough conceded to his American 'correspondent' whilst communicating vis-a-vis today's fraught Georgian senatorial run-off elections this afternoon, that it appears likely that Pence will indeed be constrained to act in a constitutional manner, thereby placing his own seal of approval, his imprimatur as it were upon the already duly decided presidential election result, but that in so doing he will inevitably raise the ire, the hackles of his extremely thin-skinned boss...
...but having already sold his soul to the devil [way back when] Roxborough added he therefore simply didn't have much time for Pence...
**Actually most of the expressions and ideas expressed herein were pretty well my own, not Roxborough's, though his own thoughts certainly served to spur mine along...
What Donald J Trump is now well-known to have shamefully and shamelessly indulged in the other day...in his hour-long recorded phone conversation with Georgia's Secretary of State Kippenberger...is way worse than anything any previous American president,*much less Richard Milhaus Nixon, is ever known to have attempted...
Yes, doubtless the most impeachable offence in the history of the Union, and overshadowing by a country mile anything and everything previously known as occurring under any of his predecessors' tenures...
*As (either) Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein of Woodward and Bernstein Watergate fame himself has publicly declared.
Yet one would have to suppose that someone of Romney's longstanding political acumen knew that this was precisely, exactly what Trump was doing/had in mind, and as my brother I believe suggested, felt it nevertheless his duty to his fellow Americans to offer himself for service whether (seen to be) taken for a fool or otherwise, and arguably that is a noble thing, being willing to be thought a fool despite intending only the very best by his fellow Americans...
...i.e. to serve them in an honourable and noble, self-sacrificing way, the diametrical opposite of the way the present incumbent has ever publicly conducted himself whether inside or outside the Oval Office...
Postscript (March 18th, 2021): Post 'the Ides of March'...
*Although - long since - Sturgeon's favourability ratings have plummeted for me, not only in regards to her petty disrespect publicly displayed towards British PM Boris Johnson upon his visit to her esteemed land awhile ago, immediately post-General Election 2019 if I remember aright - and also vis-a-vis her self-serving grandstanding physical gestures/gesticulations towards the defeated (UK) Liberal leader in Scotland in that selfsame election as the results were confirmed...
...and her principled but in my view wrong approach to Brexit, i.e. if and when Scotland votes for independence, then hoping to get Scotland exiting the United Kingdom as it simultaneously joins the European Union...
but moreover and way more importantly (my strongly pro-Brexit views notwithstanding) to and for me...
...her apparently despicable conduct behind the scenes towards her predecessor, the one-time First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond...
Such conduct, however increasingly commonplace these days - throughout the Western world and especially here in God's Own and across the Ditch in the land of Oz (as those championing and would-be leaders of the Me Too Movement get into high dudgeon), is - if Salmond's accusations (vis-a-vis Sturgeon's attempts to besmirch and sully his well-earned reputation) are indeed true and correct...
...highly reprehensible and worthy of political impeachment and even imprisonment for a lengthy term.
Yes, dreams are free, as we live in an era where, as Mike Hosking agreed with Newstalk ZB's British correspondent Rob/Rod Little the other day (March 16th):
"Today you can say pretty much whatever you want/make as extreme a statement as you wish...provided you're on the right side of the [particular] equation [concerned]."
