Sometimes It Is No Bad Thing - As A Character In Peter Jackson's, Francesca Walsh's & Philippa Boyens' Cinematic Interpretation of JRR Tolkien's Classic Lord of the Rings Trilogy Might Have Expressed Matters - To Be On the Wrong Side of Popular Opinion (At Least in One's Own Political Party) And the Right Side of History('s Ultimate Verdict): Yes, Congressionwoman and Congressman Cheney and Kinzinger Might Well Be Dressed Down, Dissed and - Eventually - Dumped by Their Respective Republican Party Renominating Committees, But Who Ultimately Cares?: To Do the Right Thing While the World Frowns Upon You and Looks the Other Way Is What Will Let You Leave A True - Rather Than Another Mere Ditto - Mark Upon the Pages of History...

On the Half-Year Birth Anniversary Of One of America's Greatest Sons of All Time, Martin Luther King Junior, I'll Yet Pay Unexpected Tribute Here to the President Who Recognized His Unparalleled Contribution to U S Society...to the Extent Of 'Forever' After Memorializing His Birth-Date In the (Temporal) Annals of Everyday American Working Life: Yes, There's A - There Are Indeed Many - Perfectly Legitimate, Eminently Reasonable Reason/s Why the 39th President of the United States of America, RONALD WILSON REAGAN, Was So Exceedingly Popular - Among His Fellow Americans Anyway...And It Just Won't Do to Simply Dismiss Them Due to An - Equally Understandable - Sense of Loyalty/Allegiance to His Unfortunate Predecessor, JAMES EARL CARTER, Who, Despite Living An Exemplary Post-Presidential Life In Which He (Has) Excelled As 'Both' An Outstanding Persona, Humanitarian Extraordinaire and Peace-Maker All Wrapped Into One, Nevertheless Had a Rather Fraught Presidential Tenure (Much As a Distant - and Equally Devout Christian - Predecessor, Herbert Hoover, For That Matter, Himself Did)...

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).

Good On Ya, Louisa Wall (For Having the True Courage of Your Convictions, and the Willingness to Go Public With 'Em): Despite a Rather Derogatory (If Non-Abusive, Non-Defamatory, Much Less Nasty) Reference To You in the First Half-Year My 2 Original Blogsites Went On-Line 8-and-a-half to 9 Years Ago, I've Had to COMPLETELY Re-evaluate What I Said Then About You (& William Su'a Sio for that Matter): Though I Might Well Still Happen to Agree With the Aforementioned Upon So-Called 'Moral' Issues, THAT'S ABOUT IT: NO, Despite Never Being Placed In Cabinet - Probably 'Coz You're Simply Just A Little Too Candid & Frank & Forthright On Too Many Topics and Perhaps Not Perceived as Enough of a Team-Player (A Big Deal Naturally in a Sports-Mad Nation Such as Ours) - I'd Wager (Though Again I Have No Real Proof of It) That YOU'RE The REAL Mover & Shaker in This Present Government...And For Me Anyhow THAT'S Saying Something

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!

At LONG Last: A Media Outlet (In This Particular Instance Aotearoa-New Zealand's Own RNZ National) Prepared - As My Own Blogsite Has So Determinedly Maintained Since Its Inception Pretty Well On 9 Years To This Very Day - To Verily 'Bestow[ing] Brickbats and Bouquets With Fear Of And Favour Toward None': Guyon Espinor's 4-Part Series On Sunday Mornings - 'The Red Line' - Dealing With China's Increasingly Problematic Role in World Affairs - Including Here in God's Own/Godzone/NZ INC...

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 

Yes, The Chinese Dragon Is Meanwhile Hissing and Roaring For All To Behold: What A 'Magnificant' If Supremely Menacing Demonstration of Military/People Power The Other Day...With ONLY TOO MEANINGFUL THREATS To Any and All Nay-Sayers & Critics To Dash Their Bodies, Bloodied and Battered, Against China's Great Wall (One of the World's Historic '7 Wonders')...

 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...

Yes - However Endlessly Decried & Defamed The Former National M.P. Has Been - One Cannot But Say, Vis-a-Vis the Increasing Chinese Intrusions and Incursions Into NZ Inc (and the Rest of the Western World For That Matter - Alongside the Little Nation-States of the Pacific; Plus African Nations Near & Far) Over Recent Years, Even Decades...JAMI-LEE ROSS WAS INDEED RIGHT ALL ALONG

Yes, Godzone/God's Own (I.e. Aotearoa-New Zealand) Is Indeed - As the Good Professor (Paul Buchanan) Has Succinctly Stated: "In A Quandary of Its Own Making": Having Quite Literally Made A Rod for Its Own Back...

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!

And the Chinese Dragon - OCTOPUS - Is Meanwhile (While Covid-19 Provides A Useful Cover and Diversion) Extending Its Nefarious Tentacles Across Our Globe In Each & Every Direction...Yes, Even Down Under Into the Land of Oz and Godzone...

Sadly, An Apple (A) Daily Could Not Ultimately Keep the Chinese Dragon Away...

But be aware, peoples, the saints their watch are keeping, and the cry goes up: "How long?" 

Vis-a-Vis Vladimir Putin's Remarks Concerning the USA At His Recent Summit With 'Uncle Joe'(I Mean Sam): Despite Myself And Without Seeking IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM To Justify Or Condone Russia's Present Leadership Much Less Its Reprehensible Record Upon Political Opponents (Such As Alexei Navalny): Methinks the Russian Kettle Is Not Half Wrong In Gamely Suggesting That the American Pot Is Itself Not Entirely Squeaky Clean Either...

Piers Morgan Ain't 'Alf Right ON...No, The Fella's Succinctly Summed Up Our Day & Age, With Knobs On...

And the Chinese Dragon Doesn't Escape/Evade Anyone's Notice Either...As They Brazenly Enter Taiwanese Airspace With An Effective 'Up Yours' & 'Dare Me' Challenge to the Rest of the World: So What're Y'all Gonna Do About It? Good Question. Sadly, Nothing Much; Even, (The)Truth (The Whole Truth) (& Nothing But the Truth) Be Told, STUFF ALL!

Puttin' Putin Upon Notice - And Not Before Time: President Biden Lays Down the Gauntlet (& In No Uncertain, Mealy-Mouthed, Namby-Pamby Fashion)

If Covid-19 Can Make A Government('s) Fortunes, Then, Ipso Facto, It Can Just As Easily Break 'Em: Some Emerging and Ominous Cracks Appearing In The 'Thus Far, Picture Postcard Perfect' Response of New Zealand's Ardern-Led Labour Majority Government To the Coronavirus...

 -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...

If British Labo(u)r is Summarily Trashed/Trounced/Routed in Today's Parliamentary By-Election, It Has Only Itself to Blame/It Cannot Blame Anyone But Itself/It Fully Deserves What(ever) It Has Coming/Everything Coming to It...-It Has Totally Deserted and Alienated Its Traditional Voting Base (Though Newbie Leader Keir Starmer Can Hardly Be Blamed; He's Probably Done the 'Bestist' Anyone In the Party Could've Done In the Circumstances)...

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...

Too Little, Too Late: Though Prime Minister Ardern Appears To At Last Give Speaker Trevor Mallard A Well-Deserved Serve, Following the Remarkably and Admirably Similarly Unsparing Chris Hipkins...Her (Effective In-)Action/s Thereabouts Are Simply Another Instance of 'Too Little, Too Late', While Stealthily and Shrewdly Changing the Narrative New Zealandwide, To Pleasanter Matters of Her Wedding-To-Be...

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]...

"Don't Mention the Genocide": New Zealand Lawmakers Finally Get Around to Debating China's Horrible Little 'Secret'...Of Their Mis/Ill-Treatment of Uighurs (& Others) in One of Its Far-Flung Provinces...

...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...

JFK & FDR - & LBJ Thrown in for Good Measure: The New President Morphs into an Amalgam of and Channels the Spirits of Presidents Past to Reclaim the Office of Mantle-Bearer for the Great Society and the New Deal...Whilst Republicans & Their Lawmakers Tremble in Their Boots Whilst Correctly Perceiving the Chance for Unprecedented Gains in the 2022 Midterms

All Credit to the Key Government's Hobbit-In-Chief (As In Supporter of the New Zealand-Based Making of the Movies), the Honourable Christopher Finlayson, For Having the Guts and the Gumption To Publicly Declare Upon RNZ National's Ever-Esteemed Panel Pre-Anzac Day, His Own Reflections Upon the Untold Story of the Likes of Archibald Baxter and Other (Lesser Known) Pacifist Conscientious Objectors to WW1

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... 

May Chad's Popular and Long-Serving President (Mohannes Ibrey?) Debby Rest in Some Well-Deserved Peace: And What a Refreshing Thing, To Die While 'Doing the Decent Thing', Unlike So Many Recent Leaders of Western Nations in Particular: Out There Actively Supporting His Troops By His Personal Presence...Against That Scourge and Bane of Modern Humanity, Sissii Internationale...

And Let's Hope that the Chinese Government is Wilfully Misinterpreting/Misrepresenting What (Newbie) Foreign Minister (& Staunch Foreshore and Seabed Opponent) Naiaia Mahuta Said Recently: Her Stance as Conveyed in Her First Major Foreign Policy Speech...

Coz if they ain't, then Aotearoa-New Zealand is itself in mighty big trouble...

Come on back, Winston...all is forgotten and forgiven... 

Meanwhile Putin's Putting the Boot In (to Prominent Dissidents, His Own Citizenry & 'Do-Gooder' Foreign 'Busy-Bodies')...as Alexei Navalny Holds On for Dear Life...and More and More Russians Steadfastly Refuse to Simply Lay Down and Take it...

"Let Justice [Judgment] Run Down Like/As Water/s, And righteousness like/as a mighty stream": We Shall Overcome, we shall overcome, yes, we shall overcome at last...So May Philoneus Floyd (and Family) Sleep Well Tonight

Having Said All That, Joe Biden Is Most Assuredly Biting Off A Whole Lot More Than Our Old World Can Properly Masticate...If He In Any Way, Shape Or Form Happens To Believe He Can Somehow-Or-Other 'Wield [Ye Good 'Ole American] Big Stick' Vis-a-Vis North Korea's Tinpot leader Kim Jong-un, Much Less Russian Czar-Apparent Vladimir Putin - And Come Off Victor: No, For All His Faults - And They Are Quite Literally Legion (As Everyone - Not In Active and Ongoing Denial - Well Knows) - 'The Donald' May Well Go Down, Alongside Another Much-Mocked Republican President, Ronald Wilson Reagan, As (Truly) 'Great'...For *One Reason And One Reason Only: He, Like RR, DIDN'T START WW111

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...

But You Can Bet Your Bottom Buck 'the Donald' Will Be Back...& Bigtime - Most Probably in 2024 - And In All Likelihood Be America's Last (Or Last-But-One, i.e. Penultimate) President Prior to the Long-Awaited Second Coming...

I.E. Exoneration By An 'Earthly Tribunal'...But Sadly for Donald J Trump, NONE OF THAT Will IN ANY WAY Debar Him From Being Eligible To Come Up For Due Inspection and Investigation Before the Divine Tribunal Upon That Great Day of The LORD, And - If Things Don't Go According To (His) Plan (I.e. The Well-Laid Plans of Mice and Men), And He Proves Ineligible For Heavenly Translation (Neither Having Ever Undergone Genuine Biblical Conversion, And Henceforth Walked That Out In His Subsequent Earthly Life) - Experience the Ultimate And Inescapable Impeachment: That Of The One Who Is Truth Incarnate And In Whose Very Presence All Evil and Evildoers Will Not Be Able To Stand A Single Moment...

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...

Too Cute By Half: Some Deft Side-Stepping, Side-Splitting Semantic Dissimulation By Trump Legislative Loyalists and Partisan Troopers Leads to The Inevitable Result...

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'...

As My Good 'Ole Dad Would've Put It: You Pays Your Money and You Takes Your Choice...Or As My Would've Been (Replacement) Dad (Richard Welch) Might've Expressed Things: You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat It Too: Yes, America's Republican Party Has - Inexorably - Made Their (Overall, Collective) Decision...and America and Our World Will - Ultimately - Never Be the Same Again...As Such Leads Inexorably Ever Onwards Towards the Very Last Days of (Pre-Advent) Human History: The End of All Things...But Woe Unto That Man - Or Woman - Who Tries to Second-Guess His/Her Maker and Attempts to Precipitate That Fateful Judgment Day...To His/Her Own Ultimate Destruction...

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...

But While the Watching, Waiting World's Attention Is Distracted In A Sheer Multiplicity of Directions, Is It Possible That Background 'Players' in the Body Politic Are Meanwhile Taking Advantage of Opportune Circumstances To Bring About 'The Great Reset': To Use the Covid-19 Pandemic To Re-Create A New World In Their Own Image (As the Latest, Ever Onto It Issue of 'Tomorrow's World' So Aptly Enquires)? STRANGER THINGS Have Beset The World of Mortal Mankind

Yes, America's Second Ever Roman Catholic President Is Off the Starting Blocks To a (Thus Far) Creditable Beginning...Following An Inauguration Address Which Marked Him Out For Potential Greatness...Whilst in Russia, Ariseth Czar Putin...And Over in Mainland China A World Health Organization Coronavirus Whitewash Is Well Underway...

So Perhaps We Should Not Be Too Hard Upon - Should At the Very Least Be Somewhat Understanding (If Never Acceptant) of the Underlying Motivations of - Those Numerous Republican Party Lawmakers and Cabinet Appointees of Donald J Trump - Ultimately Unwilling to "Stand Back and Stand Aside" (to Quote (Yet Completely Repurpose) Those Now Infamous Words) From Supporting His Demagoguery Two Weeks Ago...And Yet Simultaneously Declare (In No Half-Pie, Uncertain Terms) - As Indeed (THEN) Vice-President Mike Pence Himself EFFECTIVELY & Admirably Did In the Capitol Building (and Federal Legislative Halls of the U S of A) - That It Is A Better Thing By Far To Die, If Circumstances So Require(d)/Demand(ed) It - In Behalf of the Eternal Cause of Liberty and Everlasting Principles of Truth, Than To Cowardly "Stand Back and Stand Aside" (To Again Repurpose Selfsame Words) and Let the Forces of Oppression and Injustice, of Tyranny and Despotism, Bear Undue Sway Over the Land

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/)

Yes, 'Then to side with truth is noble When we share her wretched crust...Though her portion be the scaffold, And upon the throne be wrong': 'Ere [Truth's] cause bring fame and profit, And 'tis prosperous to be just, Then it is the brave man chooses, While the coward stands aside'

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.

Returning To An All But (100%) Certain (Ill) Fate Might Seem Naivete and Gullibility and Credulity In The Extreme...Or Perhaps, In The Case of Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny - As With Dr Martin Luther King Almost 52-Some Years Ago (and, 'Incidentally', His Own Master 2 Millennia Ago) - It's 'Foolhardy Courage' and Unashamed 'Guts': Qualities Too Seldom Seen (But Oh So Desperately Needed) In Today's World

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/)

America Set For A Major Bust-Up On 'Inauguration Day', January 20th, 2021? All Bets Are Off, As It Indeed Appears That Way...But What Irony For/If Such A Doubling Down, Reactionary 'Blow-Back' (To) Effectively Coincide/s With The Birthday and Public Holiday of Martin Luther King, Junior...

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...

Will All The Adults On The Premises Please Stand Up, And 'To Attention' - Yes, That Includes YOU, Ben Carson! - Your Presence and Moreover Action Is Required IMMEDIATELY (If Not Yesterday): Yes, You ALL Know PRECISELY What You Have/Need To Do!

Yes, 'ARTICLE 25' Of America's Venerable Constitution NEEDS TO BE INVOKED - Without A Moment's Delay

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].

The Hour Is Now Indeed Late...And It Is HIGH TIME For All The REAL MEN - And For That Matter, Women (In The Room) - To Separate Themselves From The Boys and Girls...While There's Still Time For Them To 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!

A 'VILE' Specimen Of Humanity (Again, No Guesstimating Whom I'm Referring to) 'Of Fierce and Dark(some) Countenance': Could THIS Be the Long-Prophesied Biblical ANTICHRIST? Maybe - Indeed, I'm Positively Certain - NOT; But One Could Hardly Blame Anyone For So Believing

A One-Time Republican Party 'Grandee' - 1964 Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater, No Less - Once SALIENTLY Predicted That The Then Christian Coalition/One-Time Moral Majority/Religious Right (Of Today) Would Be the Death-Knell of the American Republican Party: Well, He's Quite Right (AS FAR AS HE WENT): But Quite Frankly, They Had NOTHING On Donald J Trump, A One Man Wrecking Ball Who's Gonna Be Responsible For Driving the GOP Down DEEP BELOW Ye Proverbial Gutter...AND THEN SOME!

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.

A Once 'Grand Old Party' Sacrificed Upon the (Sacrilegious) Altar of One Man's Gargantuan Ego: NO GUESSING WHO I'M REFERRING TO, EH

TO BE CONTINUED... 

You [Mike Pence] Are Indeed One of A Noble Line of Indianan REPUBLICANS Who Have Served Your Party and Nation Well...In The Second-Highest Office of the Land

 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...

You Have - ALREADY, Whatever Yet Comes To Pass/Transpires - Passed The Test, Mr Vice-President, I'm (Unexpectedly) Impressed: You Have Indeed, Verily Shown Your True Quality, and Have Kept Your Solemn, Sacred Oath of Office (To the American People and US Constitution) Indeed

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?    

And Now the 'Good News': AT LONG LAST YOU DO HAVE A VERY REAL CHOICE...AS SAMWISE GAMGEE MIGHT HAVE PUT MATTERS, TO SHOW YOUR QUALITY, MR VICE-PRESIDENT...By Simply Saying A(n Ever Respectful) Polite But Firm and Unyielding "NO!" To Your Earthly Boss...Counting/Esteeming, As That Great Man of God, Moses, Once Did, 'The Reproach of Christ More Precious Than the Riches of [This World], Choosing To Suffer With God's People Rather Than Enjoy the Passing Pleasures of Sin'...However Misunderstood - Like Your LORD and Saviour - By Fellow Human Beings...

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.

First the Bad News (Vis-a-Vis American Vice-President Mike Pence's Unenviable 'Choice' Tomorrow in Washington D.C.): Yes, Trump Will Come After Pence Hook, Line and Sinker - Sinking Any Future Presidential Hopes The Latter May Well Have -- Unless He Fulfils His Master's Will TO THE LETTER...But Then That is Arguably What Comes Of Selling Your Soul to the Devil, And At Some Point You Have to Decide, As A Self-Respecting, Committed Christian, TO Whom Your First Loyalty Devolves: Whether To An Earthly Potentate ('Caesar') Or To Your Heavenly LORD: And the Blood of (Innumerable) Christian Martyrs Down Through the Centuries, Even Millennia, Testifies That For Truly Committed Followers of the LORD Jesus Christ It's a Slam Dunk Affair, Not Even One Worthy of a Second Thought...

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...

Once Again, Whether One Subscribes To His Political Agenda Or Otherwise - And Though Socialism In Much of the Present-Day World Is Essentially Bankrupt - Nevertheless Like the Majority of (Typically and Generally Conservative/Right-of-Centre) Americans in Opinion Polling Back in 2015 and 2016 Where He Consistently Topped Trump Et Al As the Most Trustworthy, Integrity-Filled Presidential Candidate Then On Offer - (Personal Namesake, So To Speak) Bernie Sanders Is Once Again RIGHT ON THE MONEY Vis-a-Vis The Present Occupant of the Oval Office:

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.

Speaking of Bowing and Scraping, That Was EXACTLY, PRECISELY What Former Republican Party Presidential Hopeful Mitt Romney EFFECTIVELY DID When He Flew Into Washington D.C. For A Private Audience With Then President-Elect Trump As The Latter (Theoretically) Scouted For A Potential Secretary Of State...A Sad Taking Down Of Someone (As Trump Played Him For A Sucker) Who Had Been The Most Courageous And Given The Most Unashamed Public Rebuke Of 'The Donald' Around The Very Time DJT Was Building Quite Unassailable Momentum To Take The Republican Party's Presidential Nomination...

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...

But What Should Strike Any and Every 'True', Self-Respecting and Constitutionally Literate American - Let Alone Patriotic and Honourable Republican Party Member and Supporter (Like the Brilliant, Long-Serving Time Magazine Columnist George Wills) - As Especially Pitiful and Demeaning, Yea, Even Humiliating and Galling - Is That There Remain Trump Lackeys Aplenty, Only Too Willing To Bow and Scrape and Curtsey and Duly Submit On Bended Knee and Prostrated Obeisance To Virtually Pretty Well Anything and Everything That Donald J Trump Happens To Duly Dish Up...For American Public Consumption/Gullibility...

Just As A Leopard Isn't Exactly Known For Indulging In Ye Proverbial Nip & Tuck, i.e. Changing Its Spots, The Only Thing Ye Typical Bully Understands Is Receiving In Kind: So President Trump's As Per Usual Bully-Boy Tactics Will Get Him Nowhere Faster Than He'd Probably Like - Though What A Beautiful Coup De Grace From Scotland's First Lady, the *Ever Redoubtable Nicola Sturgeon...Duly Denying the Donald Visiting Rights to His (Notorious) Scottish Golf Course...Though To Someone With Such An Almighty Ego and Sense of Entitlement Who Never Feels That The Rules Applicable to Everyone Else Ever Apply to Him, The Fact That He - Whether As American President or Otherwise - Might Be Declined Entrance On the Grounds of Covid-19 (Like Everyone Else) Will Affect Him Pretty Much Like the Proverbial Water Off a **Duck's Back...And Will Simply Go Down As Another Personal Slight That His Super-Sensitive Ego Will Ever After Nurse and Crave Revenge Over...

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]."

(Brexiting) Chaos By Default: The One Who Hesitates Is Almost Always Lost Whereas The One Who Bites the Bullet Is Just as Often Better Off: It'd Have Been Better By Far For the United Kingdom Simply to Have, Post-June 23rd 2016, Unilaterally Crashed Out of the European Union: I Wager The Long-Term Fallout Would've Been Significantly Less...By A Long-Shot...

To Be Continued...sometime-or-other... 

Yes, All It Will Take In Fact Is The Moral Panic Attending/Accompanying An Officially-Declared 'EMERGENCY' To Create the Conditions Necessary To Bring It Into Effect - HOWEVER APPARENTLY WELL-MEANING THE DECEIVED/DELUDED ADHERENTS/PROMULGATORS THEREOF...

Is The Dystopic Orwellian Vision of a Commandeering Big Brother Surveillance State Almost Upon Us? YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT, FOLKS, As A Matter of Fact One Has It Upon Pretty Good Authority That It's Well and Truly - In All But Name (and Official Edict) - Already Arrived...Awaiting Only the Appropriate Time and 'Right' Conditions and Suitably Willing Official Participants (and Compliant Populace) To Bring It Fully Into Effect...

To Be Continued... 

Yes, It's - Finally - TIME For All Real-Deal, True Dinkum Anzacs To Stand Shoulder-to-Shoulder in Telling the C(hinese)C(ommunist)P(arty) We Don't Want and Simply Will Not Abide Their Attempts to Brow-Beat Australasians - Be They Aussies, Kiwis or our South-Pacific Island Neighbours - Into Submission Through Bully-Boy Tactics/Intimidation/Political Infiltration and/or Special Aid Programs and Trade Deals...

No, to paraphrase what Margaret Thatcher once so memorably and powerfully proclaimed...

These peoples ain't for buying.

Notwithstanding My Longstanding Concern At Where Long-Afoot Movements Within the American 'Moral Majority'/'Christian Coalition'/'Religious Right' Have Long Been Heading, Yet For All of That, I Do Hereby Solemnly Declare That Such as the Puritan Pioneers of the United States of America - Much Like Aotearoa-New Zealand's Own Missionary 'Forbears' (Such as Samuel Marsden) - Have Also Long Been Unduly and Unfairly Pilloried/Maligned: A Belated Thanksgiving Tribute to America's Pilgrim Fathers (and Mothers)...

Accused seemingly relentlessly of everything from (participating in) genocide through to religious tyranny to attempting to set up another theocracy in the image and likeness of ancient Israel...

I must protest, especially on the first - by far the most significant and libellous - count...

for my understanding is that their supposed ill-treatment of America's indigenous/native population has been highly exaggerated, if not oftentimes fabricated fullstop... 

And their views on religious liberty were pretty well impeccable, though admittedly and regrettably they, like so many of their (post-Reformation) Protestants, were so often not willing to extend the selfsame religious and even civil liberties to others (of differing Christian denominations as well as non-Christian religions in general) that they were so zealous in championing for themselves...

Yet as one far-seeing much-published Christian author has well stated, those newly emerging from great and deep spiritual darkness do not all at once see/perceive everything in the bright light of the midday sun...

And as (in paraphrase) said another, the Pilgrim father Roger Williams, of the new colony of Rhode Island, also quoted in Ellen Gould White's seminal, epochal & classic The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan (known as Cosmic Conflict), expressed things so very thoughtfully and farsightedly:

We vow before our God to accept and follow all the additional light our gracious God may well see fit to shed upon our path(way) in times to come...

...for it simply cannot be that having lately emerged from such midnight darkness [as above referred to] that all additional duties and obligations, rights and privileges pertaining to our high estate as Christians can yet have been fully revealed to us...

Yes, Trivializing the (Unwelcome) Messenger Makes Dismissing That Person's Message All the Easier to Do...But Quite Seriously, Folks, Zooming In Time and Again Upon Former New York City Mayor and Trump Bosom-Buddy Rudy Giuliani's Faded (Hair) Dye Did Come Over Somewhat Desperate in the Extreme...(as later noted also by another sibling equally no fan of President Trump)...

And New Zealand media certainly weren't alone, with the following headline from the November 19th (British) Guardian, no less:

'Sweaty Rudy Giuliani suffers hair malfunction in latest bizarre press conference.' 

Need I say/add more?

Hey, It's EASY AS To Engineer the News to Your Own Ends, Especially When You Conveniently Only Present Those 'Facts' Which Just So Happen to Conform to Your Own Personal, Political Agenda...

Which is the best construction I can put upon the presentation - at the head of the hourly news bulletin - of an item midday today (and at 1 p.m.) upon RNZ National, dealing with an interview Yours Truly had listened to after the 7 a.m. News with host Jim Mora and regularly 'appearing' opinion pollster **Em(m)anuel Kalifatelis/Kalifitavis (of Research New Zealand)...

To wit, Radio New Zealand highlighted only one of *three opinion polls recently conducted by Research NZ, the one showing that most NZers would support moving from the present three-year to a four-year term of national government...

...all too conveniently failing to include that another of their latest polls shows kiwis opposing in no uncertain terms the much-touted and endlessly promoted lowering of the voting age from 18 downwards...

...and, wonder of wonders, even youth themselves (the 18-30-year age demographic or the like) majorly opposed doing so (by a margin of 70:28%, apparently)...

Yes, the news always looks a whole lot better and in sync with one's own political preferences when we only mention the bits we like and oh so conveniently sidestep and even positively ignore those we don't...

But, folks, last I heard that's called stacking the deck in one's own favour and/or giving viewers/readers/listeners only half the story...

...though perhaps I'm a little wet behind the ears, naive or gullible, and perhaps that's really what ***said media actually want their devotees to hear...

...i.e. only those so-called 'facts' that just so conveniently happen to suit their agenda...

-and yet they'd have us believe that only the likes of Donald J Trump major in 'fake news'...

*Please forgive me for presently forgetting what the other of those polls was about/over.

**Depending upon which of the various items posted under said gentleman's name express the correct spelling! 

***Unlike Newstalk ZB, incidentally, which upon their 5 p.m. news bulletin included both these polls.

Hey (Dr) *Lara (Greaves), Your Political Biases are Really Showing...Bigtime (As Per Usual)

Coz, sure as heck, had the National Party made a bottom-line, bedrock promise to pretty well end child poverty before one election, and after the following one was still finding its feet thereabouts...

...well, anyone even half familiar with the kiwi political scene knows there'd be all hell to pay by this particular point in time, and the media, political commentators and assorted punditry alike would've not only taken them severely to task (by this point), but would be veritably screaming from the rafters all about broken promises and the like, we'd hear no end of it in fact...

Or was I the only person in God's Own to **hear then Opposition leader Jacinda Ardern declare in no uncertain terms that 'under her watch' not only would great strides be taken in dealing to this scourge of our society, but poverty would be ultimately eradicated/eliminated altogether?

*A lecturer in politics and public policy at Auckland University, appearing this morning on Newshub Nation with fellow commentators and host Simon Shepherd.

**In what to this punter and pleb, anyhow, was a fairly memorable pre-election (2017) television debate and tete-a-tete between her and then Prime Minister Bill English.

"Democracy Is WONDERFUL Until It Doesn't Work for You, and Then You Simply Override It." Hey, 'the Hosk' Ain't Always Wrong...

Read D J Trump and Presidential Election 2020...the UK Brexit referendum result and those who rallied incessantly in sheer defiance thereof, seeking it be annulled and voided...

...and countless third-world regimes, be they tyrannies, oligarchies or 'mere' petty dictatorships...

Or, in this particular instance, China's CCP and its ongoing attempts to bully lil 'ole Hong Kong - and Taiwan for that matter - into submission...

...and to threaten and intimidate any and all who dare to speak out in the defence of these noble small peoples... 

"Deplorable"? Hey, Deplorable IS as Deplorable DOES...And NO, It Ain't Limited To White Middle-Aged Males, or Even 'WASP's (I.e. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) For That Matter...

To Be Continued (in the near foreseeable)...

-including a reference to blind Wellington bus-rider George Taggart, a gentleman with the courage of his convictions and the staunch determination to take a very real personal stand allied to his unwillingness to simply be fobbed off by an uncaring bureaucratic 'machine' (as in its human personnel)... 

Recount Pitfalls Upon All Sides in American Presidential Election...-Yes, Highly Questionable if Not Outright Shonky Tactics Abound Upon Many Fronts in Backwash of America's Most Meaningful Choice in Modern History...

But whose particular version is completely a-okay, and if neither side is 100% squeaky-clean, what are we to make of that, and moreover ultimately do about it?

If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? (As the 'sweet psalmist of Israel' asks in Psalm 11:3 [King James Bible].)

"Blessed Be the Peacemakers, For THEY Shall Be Called the Children of God": And So Credit Ought Be Given to Rick Santorum, For His Helpful Intervention Overnight to Ensure Peace and Stability - and an Accepted, Mutually Agreed Upon Outcome - in This Most Disputed and 'Disputaceous' of American Presidential Elections

As events transpired overnight to tip things increasingly in Joe Biden's favour, how refreshing to hear from an atypically unpartisan Republican standard-bearer, in this case former presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, trying to bring some measure of agreement between the two warring camps by suggesting that all the advance/absentee etcetera ballots be counted, whether in Democratic-tending Arizona or in Trump-leaning Pennsylvania, as well as the likes of Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina etcetera...

Like Biden in *a very real sense - living with a child with a serious congenital condition - perhaps has made him a more reasonable, understanding sort of a person, the kind we and especially America increasingly need in these days of such searing heat rather than elucidating light... 

*Though Joe Biden's situation, almost identical with that of an American relative Gale Burkholder who lost his own wife and child in a car accident in the later 1960s, is quite dissimilar in its specifics from Mr Santorum's, it's the tenor of traumatic grief that seems to resonate similarly in both instances...

Duly Holding Their Noses and Covering Their Faces, A Multitude of Americans Have - Arguably - This Very Day/Night Returned Donald J Trump To Power for a Second Term...aka 'the Brexit Effect' (the Silent Majority, So Fearful of Being Labelled Racists and Xenophobes They're No Longer Prepared to Tell the Pollsters the Truth)...Yet Democratic Challenger Joe Biden Also Still Seems to Have a Path to Victory, And So In All Likelihood This Will Be Fought Hammer and Tongs, Tooth and Nail, All the Way to the (Newly Trump-Friendly) U S Supreme Court...AND THEN WHAT, FOLKS? Yep, My Longstanding and Ever-Increasing 'Worry' of an All-Out (Second) Civil War is Looking More and More a Very Distinct Possibility, Nay Probability...God Help Us All (Especially Americans)!

Thank the LORD Then for Such Spiritually-Saturated Songsters, However 'Secular' and Unreligious - But Certainly Not IRRELIGIOUS - As Jerry Jeff Walker, Composer of the Timeless Classic of New Orleans' Street-and-Cell-Life, MR BOJANGLES...the Breathless Beauty and Ageless Pathos of Which Will Long Outlast This Epitome of Southern American 'Outlaw Culture'

Je Suis NICE (France): What Just Happened in Nice Was NOT VERY NICE...at all

"For When Thy Judgments Are In The Earth, the Inhabitants of the World Will Learn Righteousness"

Overnight a powerful earthquake, with potential tsunami implications - centred in the Aegean Sea - rocks Turkey. Does anyone in their right mind consider this a mere coincidence, just another arbitrary 'freak of nature'? Surely that's not how your average Middle Easterner, anyhow, would, in their heart of hearts, so regard it.

It hardly occurred in a void, rather it follows some highly inflammatory, bordering on genocidal language, in not just Turkey but now apparently throughout the Muslim world - seen especially in the huge protest marches in Pakistan and Bangladesh - against France and its leadership, who have gone out on a courageous limb and denounced in no uncertain terms the Islamist Fascists now vying for supremacy in the Gallic nation.

Which country has now forthrightly declared it is no longer prepared to bear with a long-time 'softly, softly' approach to the existence of terrorists in its midst, wreaking 'merry havoc' with *the innocent on every side, a nation no longer resiling from its longstanding commitment to freedom of speech and expression, but, in the wake of the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and republishing of those 'inflammatory' cartoons, laying down the gauntlet to those who have used the liberties which are every Frenchman and woman's very birthright to challenge these very values under the disguise of supposed religious intolerance and persecution.

Yet what we are seeing not only in South Asia and Turkey in particular but in France itself are sympathizers with such intolerant - Islamist, note, not Muslim - fascists: yes, let's, like France's President Macron, who's at long last recovered his mojo, as folk might put it here down under, call it for what it actually is - under the protection of France's long-established and deeply-cherished **liberties, seeking to subvert and overturn those selfsame liberties by disingenuously conflating them with the very intolerance that is their own especial trademark! 

I'm afraid that sticking your finger up and in the face of Western Europe's proud (post-Protestant Reformation) heritage of civil and religious liberty is one that - ultimately, eventually - even the Almighty will one day soon(er than many think or realize) call time on, declaring verily

Enough is Enough! It's all over, folks, and I'm returning to claim My own...

*/********But sadly, it is the innocent who tend to suffer, not the despotic leaders such as Turkey's Erdogan. Yet does that mean that God actually approves such innocents suffering unjustly? Hardly; He has ***denounced as an abomination that very thing throughout His (Older Testament) word, including especially in the 'Torah' (****first five books of Moses) and in the Book of Proverbs in particular.

Rather, as the American university-based 'defender of the faith' (once delivered unto the saints) - whose name I've somehow forgotten - well put it - ******by sheer coincidence this very day, after I'd long since begun, and even almost completed, this very blogpost - in the oft-noted and (*******quite understandably) denounced Older Testamental genocides wherein entire peoples, including every last man, woman and child, were declared due for complete and utter extermination (by God to His people), these peoples' children did indeed perish through no special fault of their own, as a result of (unavoidably) sharing in the consequences accruing to their parents, who had by such time (often long since) surpassed the moral boundaries God has set for human beings, indulging in child sacrifice among other abominations...

**One of its revolutionary triad of 'liberty, equality, fraternity'.

***In scriptures such as Exodus 23:7 and Proverbs 6:17 in particular.

****For those like myself who cannot believe it wasn't Israel's *****great deliverer (Moses) who penned the timeless classic of the well-known Book of Job (about which I've long been preparing 'a layman's guide', if it ever gets written).

*****But of course it was Yahweh/the LORD Almighty Who through Moses - and angelic agencies - really, truly delivered the Israelites from their Egyptian captors/oppressors/slavemasters, an event of historical moment ever after known as 'the Exodus'. 

******But to 'true believers' nothing, no, nothing is sheer, mere 'coincidence'; sovereign divine Providence overrules all. Which of course doesn't mean that accidents don't happen, or - even more importantly - that it is ever somehow God's rather perverse will for the innocent to suffer and/or die.

Entire volumes/tomes have been written on this very subject, but suffice to say the general consensus of Christian authors upon the same seem in unanimity in agreeing that what God is oftentimes (throughout sacred scripture) declared as causing...is rather, just as often, something He happens to allow...and, again, suffice to say that here is a world, nay, a universe, of difference between the two...

*******From an initial, if ultimately superficial, secular human perspective. 

********Which is why I heartily concur with (New Zealand's) Family First spokesperson Bob McCoskrey's summation of his own opposition (anyhow) to the recent (almost exactly) 2:1 approval of euthanasia ('assisted dying') in our general election-concurrent referendum. The problem with euthanasia is the same as that with capital punishment, you simply cannot ensure that even one innocent person will not suffer as a consequence. And for myself as for Bob, one mistake is too many.

Je Suis France - One of the Remaining Bastions of Western Liberty and Values: The Wreckers and Haters Might Well Severely Test Your Nerve, Resolve and Even Mettle, But In the End and One Day Soon, the Truth and All Those Aligned With It Will Triumph Gloriously...and All Evildoers and Purveyors of Hatred and Discord, of Bloodthirsty Bestiality and Brutality, Will be Put Down For Good/El Permanente/Finito!

Affliction will not rise up the second time...

No indeed, but mercifully for them (and everyone else) they'll be put out of existence altogether. 

Anti-Semitic IS As Anti-Semitic DOES: Though This Deadly Scourge Is Growing Unabated and Virtually Unchallenged Throughout the Length and Breadth of Our Present-Day World, Good On British Labo(u)r for Finally calling "Time Out!'" Upon This Insidious Scourge of Our Day and Age...and thus and so, though I once liked and even championed the man, former Labo(u) Leader Jeremy Corbyn Simply Had to Not Only Go (from Party Leadership, as he indeed did following Labo(u)r's Crushing Election Loss)...But Go Into the Back-blocks, the Sin-Bin Itself...

But Donald Trump Simply Cannot Help Himself...Moving from Narcissistic Self-Obsession and Envy of Covid-19 Stealing His Limelight/'Glory' the One Moment - as Former President Obama So Aptly Put Matters the Other Day...to Messin' Around in North Africa's Business and Veritably Stirring Up a Potential Hornet's Nest in/by His Typically Thoughtless and Ill-Advised Intervention Vis-a-vis the Proposed Massive Ethiopian Dam (as it Necessarily Affects the Respective Water Rights of Three Great, Populous Nations in the Region: Egypt, Sudan and Of Course Ethiopia)...Yes, One Cannot Deny that 'The Donald' Has Form, But Verily 'Fools [Still] Rush In Where Angels Fear to Tread'...

Yes, better to remain silent and be thought a fool, as the wise man Solomon once put it, than to open your mouth and remove all (shade of) doubt... 

but hey, if all else fails on the domestic front, why not take things globally and open up another major regional war, and as an in/direct consequence  contribute therewith to the big W111 to boot?

[In Breaking News] History in the Making, Moving Doomsday Clock Inexorably Nearer to Deepest, Darkest Midnight: With Amy Coney Barrett Just Being Confirmed As New U S Supreme Court Appointee...

Jesuit He May Well Be, But Hats Off (for Once) to France's Emmanuel Macron...for, Alongside his Prime Minister, 'Showing his Quality' in Standing Up UNEQUIVOCALLY, AND IN NO UNCERTAIN, HALFHEARTED, NAMBY-PAMBY, WISHY-WASHY MANNER WHATSOEVER...to the Islamist Fascists Currently Running Amuck and Amok in France (and Throughout 'Western' Europe of Recent Times)...Terrorizing the (Global) Population with their Gruesome and Barbaric Beheading of a Schoolteacher with the 'Gall', the Guts and the Gumption - Not to Mention the Gonads - To ACTUALLY Discuss the Republishing of the 'Notorious' Cartoon that Incited the Horrible Charlie Hebdo Massacre...Affirming and Attesting That the Noble and Civilized Gallic Nation Will Indeed Stand Tall and Proud in Defence of the Judaeo-(Protestant) Christian Values of Free Speech (That Have Made the Likes of France, the United Kingdom Et Al Truly Great, and for Which Multitudes of Westerners Have Self-Sacrificially Given their Very Lives Over the Past Century Especially)...

Speaking of 'Clear and Obvious', In Your Face Bias, It's Hard to Go Beyond RNZ National's 'Max' On Their Weekday 'World Watch' Just the Other Day...

And apologies, for a start, as I scribbled the following thoughts a little while prior to the last American presidential debate three days ago, but time rapidly ran out, and naturally I didn't want to miss a moment - though admittedly I did end up missing the first two-three minutes (thankfully, only of introductories and preliminaries, evidently, as the moderator was still speaking and giving debate guidelines when I tuned in).

So in what specifically does my said 'beef' with selfsame 'Max' consist?

Well, immediately following - if memory serves me aright, not always a 'done deal', I'll readily admit! - a report upon the very latest permutations of the approval/confirmation process around President Trump's latest Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, 'Max' expounded upon how the final presidential debate (shortly thereafter to be held/aired live around the globe) would consist of *six essential 'talking points'...

Well, after 'Max' duly cited what was then the overnight (NZtime) breaking news from the U S of A of the (seemingly unstoppable) confirmation of said Supreme Court nominee Barrett the following Monday (presumably U S time, i.e. tomorrow 'kiwi' time) - said development indeed constituting, I have little doubt (nor apparently do many/most commentators thereabouts), one of the most momentous (religio-political-cultural) and defining moments in modern American history, especially vis-a-vis their seemingly endless 'culture wars'...

Max mentioned what was indeed a much-discussed 'talking point' in itself over the expected confirmation, i.e whether - as Joe Biden's Vice-Presidential candidate Camilla Harris had herself been pointedly asked by the moderator of the Pence vs Harris 'Veep' debate a couple weeks earlier, and had conspicuously declined to say - Biden (and Harris) would themselves (if elected), subsequent to and as a (politically partisan) response to the now seemingly inevitable confirmation of Barrett upon the US Supreme Court, stack the deck, i.e. appoint a whole lot more justices to counterbalance the now (putative) 6:3 conservative: liberal ratio/majority upon the Nation's Highest Bench...

Then Max mentioned that Democratic Party nominee Biden is also now facing new allegations of his own, regarding an "unproven/unsubstantiated" email allegedly proving he acted corruptly in regards to his son Hunter (which might well ring a bell or several for those folk familiar with a major news item from a couple years ago, relating to Hunter's involvement in the Ukraine during Biden's Vice-Presidency under Barack Obama)...

Max then made the rather unbelievable remark: "But this doesn't yet seem to be adversely affecting Biden's presidential bid/gambit, as his (reasonably substantial) poll lead over Trump hasn't yet taken a tumble and is holding up"...

But how could it possibly do so (i.e. negatively affect JB's and DJT's respective poll numbers/ratings) when patently anti-Trump and anti-Republican social media giants Facebook and Twitter have thus far banned the aforementioned seriously damaging Biden allegations from even seeing 'webtime'?

But then Max put his personal biases readily on display for one and all to see (and be duly appalled) when he then attempted to move seamlessly from an account of a **new greatly restrictive abortion law in Poland to the totally unrelated matter of the (apparent) conviction/imprisonment of members of Italy's formerly 'insurgent' Golden Dawn Movement. 

And in what contentious way did he do so?

By simply inserting this rather pejorative 'filler'/linking paraphrase: "And now for some better/brighter news." 

Not a big deal or a 'biggie', I hear you intone... -except that journalism was never (meant to be) about one's own subjective interpretation of news events, but simply a proper reportage thereof...

...for readers and viewers to make up their own minds (and hearts)... 

*If recollection serves me correctly, (four/five of these being) Covid-19, racism/civil unrest, climate change, the economy/unemployment, issues/questions of (personal) character -if not in that particular order...

**Which is seemingly pretty much the very conservative approach once so adhered to in many jurisdictions, including America and New Zealand, that abortion should remain illegal except in cases of rape, incest or threat to the life of the woman.

***A perfectly justifiable and appropriate phrase, mind you, for insertion/inclusion in my seventh blogsite, 

'Always Look On the Bright Side of Life...We Don't Know How Lucky We Are'

accessible c/o http://goodygoodydaggdrops.com/ 

(in memory of the comedic greats, The Goodies' Timothy Brooke-Taylor and Fred Dagg/John Clarke).

So 'the Right' are Peddlers of So-Called (and indeed it often so proves!) 'Fake News' ? So are you telling me (and one and all) that the Supposed 'Left' Are All that Much Better, Aren't in Fact 'Just' a Bunch of Goody-Goody Two-Shoes? Hey, You Must Be Kiddin'!

Before the Debate:

Some thoughts prior to the *second ('proper') presidential debate...

(Vis-a-vis Decisive Events Even Now Taking Place in the United States of America.) 

But this much let me put 'on the record' for now...

Joe Biden is certainly not 'out of the woods' as yet, he still has some serious answering to do about the 'alleged' corruption (as per supposedly 'questionable' emails recently discovered vis-a-vis his own dealings with his son Hunter Biden and Ukrainian officials etcetera)...

And the 'fact' that these have thus far failed to dent his huge opinion poll lead over Presidential Trump are neither here nor there, really...

How the heck could they have done so, the anti-Trump social media brigade have it in for 'im (i.e. Trump), and have demonstrably failed to report these newfound and incredibly damaging allegations to the American people!

*Third if one counts/includes the twin town hall meetings simultaneously hosted last week in which each of the two major party candidates appeared in separate(d) venues. 

After the Debate:

Hard to say precisely who won the debate, but certainly the two candidates again determined its course - by refusing to exercise proper self-discipline and, for instance, giving Covid-19 the lion's share of their discussion/s; utilizing the extra minutes (or parts thereof) allotted each one for certain specified purposes only to relitigate earlier controversies and insert irrelevant but salacious details requiring further repartee and rejoinder by the other in the time remaining; and by thus effectively refusing to follow the letter of the law laid down by the moderator, though argument could well be made that they - oftentimes - followed the spirit thereof.

However, I feel Joe Biden, despite less than adequate responses in some of the more important areas - his healthcare plans (in relation to ongoing attempts to roll back Obamacare); the employment prospects of oil industry workers across the USA, not to mention those laid off through the coronavirus; and especially his own track record vis-a-vis the 'lock 'em up' mentality towards petty drug crime and the like which characterized the 1980s and 1990s in America, and the resultant incarceration of multitudes of consequently 'criminal' black Americans...

...rectified this 'shortfall' (so to speak) by his consistently statesmanlike reaction to Trump per se: effectively treating him with the obvious disdain and contempt his childish approach to interpersonal relations ever warrants by regally dismissing it with a giggle and a smirk, whilst pursuing the moral high ground of a dignified direct tete-a-tete with the 'average voter', appealing to her/his native intelligence and innate decency, ultimately judging the two candidates upon their clear and obvious track record and character/ moral rectitude...

simply trusting Americans to thereby know which one of the two was indeed truly worthy of their trust. A rhetorical plea to them - and implicit faith in their good sense and decency - to come to the only sensible conclusion possible: i.e. that the rascal and buffoon must go, and go asap, and the true gentleman and leader be installed... 

A real pity, then, that Joe Biden himself doesn't pass the 'smell test', which even a cursory glance at his track record will readily show...

In Christlike Act, the Queen of England Exercises the Royal Prerogative of Mercy...THAT'S What True Leadership Is Really All About, Yet 'Hardly Ever Heard'...

"The[This] Message is for the Greens as well: 'RULE FROM THE CROSS-BENCHES' " So declared on-again, off-again politician cum political pundit/commentator Tau Henare immediately following the weekend's Labour landslide...

Henare thus succinctly stated a view I have long held, as much vis-a-vis any 'minor' political party as the Green Party as such, simply because once they're drawn into the ambit of the 'major' parties via a coalition and/or other special governing arrangement they're the very first to suffer any subsequent fallout from disillusioned voters once the Government of the Day loses its status of flavour of the month...

...voters for some reason or other seemingly reserving their harshest criticism and retribution for those parties (and individuals) seen as propping up a particular government...

Which for the Greens obviously works in the interests of their major partner, Labour, since they ever serve as a convenient 'fall guy' for unpopular Government decisions, the 'good guy:bad guy' sort of arrangement so easy for sports-obsessed kiwis to be taken in by, an effective poisoned chalice.

So yes, such an arrangement is most definitely in the interests of the Labour Party, and hence they might *under normal circumstances promote such, as the insightful and ever so reasonable Newstalk ZB host Miles Davis asked (of such a political scenario) the other night: "Is Labour [just] using the Greens as extra currency [for future contingencies], to blame if things go pear-shaped?"

And hence the sound wisdom behind those such as (former Green MPs) Sue Bradford and Catherine Delahunty, both of whom have been interviewed in this regards in the days and weeks immediately following the election, in their cautioning and advising the Greens (and Green Party members) in resisting the natural urge to eagerly grasp for what that denizen of MMP politics, the Right Honourable Winston Peters, deemed the (alluring but deceptive) 'baubles of office'...

...baubles he himself, it cannot be denied and ought not be forgotten, has in practice not been all that 'un-enamoured' of!

And of course the major parties themselves are not exactly uneducated in the practice of using such minor players in the Machiavellian art of thus deflecting criticism of themselves before the voters by attempting to pin any blame accruing to their particular administrations onto these small stumbling stones in the successful prosecution of their political designs...

...as if to say, 'There [we might well have come] but for the [obstruction] of these [minor irritants]...

Some such as the ever-opinionated and outspoken, never shy to declare the emperor (or Empress) of kiwiville has no kit, Mike Hoskings, have argued both ways...suggesting that the very and indeed one and only reason any party like the Greens is - or at least ought to be - in politics in the first instance is that of actually achieving tangible, concrete, legislative results...

...so that everything is measured in terms of their actually being 'in the tent' throwing their weight around (like NZ First is no stranger to) or advancing their agenda (somehow-or-other), in actual 'rungs on the board' as it were...

...though some might rightly suggest the Green Party's ever softly-softly, tread carefully and create no (or few) ripples approach to governance has hardly served its own interests well, and that for a very long time...indeed, i've always felt they've been taken for a ride by the likes of Helen Clark & Co over the years, such politicoes well knowing the Greens simply had nowhere else to go...

...or, to use less flattering words, 'played for suckers' by their supposed political bedfellows...

And so, though I've never been a Green Party voter, or even supporter - except over the Clark Government's approach to Corngate and ending the moratorium on genetically-modified/engineered organisms - I've ever felt some degree of sympathy on their behalf for ever having their self-respect undermined on an ongoing and regular basis...

...yet others would - and do - rightly claim they are the authors of their own misfortune by refusing point blank to ever go into coalition (discussions/conversations even) with the National Party...

...otherwise they could have ever upended Winston and NZ First on a regular basis over many election cycles, making themselves the coalition makers or breakers...

Yes, they've been honourable and noble - to a veritable fault - yet gained nothing thereby; ever acted the idealist and the dreamer (of better things), but with their heads held firmly in the clouds have signally failed to achieve practical results 'on the ground', for which their own supporters would surely argue New Zealanders themselves have been the losers...

Yet there is an answer to such dilemmas, and that is, to adopt Tau Henare's catchy phrase, worthy of the language of the Good Book itself (about the Messianic Age to Come wherein the Christ will indeed one day soon 

rule/reign in the midst of His enemies)

for the Greens to rule from the cross-benches, thus achieving 'the best of both worlds': i.e. being able to effectively and authentically distance themselves from the ongoing faults, failings and other foibles - not to mention outright outrageous disasters and devastations small and great wrought - of the major party they're naturally aligned to, and so protect their voter base, but moreover even extend this base by managing to successfully 'prosecute' the particular principles and policies/measures they heartily believe in, effectively putting these up for general cross-parliamentary debate by and voting on of all other parties in the chamber (of Parliament)...

...and occasionally, if only occasionally - but progressively, by-and-by - getting some of these accepted by and embraced/supported by others in Parliament, thus getting increasing community 'buy-in' for their agenda...which, in the longer run if not in the shorter term, might well help increase voter buy-in also... 

So no, Mr Hosking et al, for the Green Party to achieve power at all costs, to sell their soul for the baubles of office, thus gaining and exercising tangible political power whilst in the process selling out their essential agenda and principles, and likewise merely achieving a few minor rungs on the ladder of real legislative change, is most definitely not in the Greens' interests, long-term or otherwise...

...that is, if being in the political game is really about tangible change and progression of a positive agenda, and not just about the cynical manipulation of the levers of power by small self-interested cliques and elites, something it would seem other political 'players' know all too much about...

*However this election (result and background) is far from normal, and since it is now apparent that a sizable number of National Party voters crossed over to prevent the Green Party exercising any let alone a major role in Labour's governance, Labour itself is only too well aware of this situation, and hence realizes such cross-over voters would readily feel betrayed if too many concessions let alone levers of power were given the Greens, and so feels unable to offer such this time around...

...though even the small favours which look set to be dished out may ultimately prove too high a price for the Green Party to pay for their formal support of a Labour Government...

But anyhow Labour now can govern on its lonesome, and so has no absolute need of such political cannon fodder, which otherwise could prove only too useful for getting out of any (periodic) jam...

Post-Election Reflections and Ruminations: Afterthoughts Upon Aotearoa-New Zealand's First (& Hopefully Last) 'Covid' Election

This will take the form of a number of bullet-points, to get my ideas 'on the rung' before they become hopelessly outdated...

*Quite apart from my (conservatively assessed) electorate seat (number) predictions upon the election's eve, which were so close to most opinion poll results as to be rather lame and to my mind tiresomely predictable, what I did in particular get way off/out - probably like most other observers, however, truth be told - was my very strong sense/conviction that however (1)incredibly well the Labour Party in particular did in the bigger cities (and somewhat lesser so in the larger provincial towns and small cities), they'd be absolutely wiped out in the rural districts, to the extent that National and Act would garner 60 and 15/20 % respectively and Labour and the Greens but 20% between them, Labour's share but 15% ...

But as we all now well know, my predictions - like those of the commentariat generally - were way off the mark, even 'missing' the extent of Labour's landslide victory altogether, though truth be told many earlier assessments held strongly to this very possibility (if not likelihood)...

*As to thy other 'raw data' aspects of the result, I'll leave that for the time being, except to note 'how [verily] the mighty have fallen', from 'the Right Honourable' (2)Winston Peters through to (one-time Earthquake Recovery Minister) Gerry Brownlee through to longstanding Nelson M.P. (and ofttimes Conservation/Environment Minister) Nick Smith...

*The graciousness of (some) such longstanding MPs going personally to their winning opponents' victory parties, whilst 

*In the minutes preceding the Prime Minister's 'Acceptance Speech' we also witnessed the extremely ungracious speech of Labour's (3)deputy leader Kelvin Davis...

...itself exceeded, were that possible, in overbearingness (and sheer insufferability) anyhow, by Tova O'Brien's all too typical determination to make the messenger become the message, the journo with bad attitude in spades, and only too willing to display the same, however hilariously ridiculous...

...whilst her Newshub Nation colleague Paddy Gower gave us side-splitting hysterics as per usual with his ape-like physical antics and prowess as the countdown went quite literally down-to-the-very-wire in the Maori electorate of Waiariki, and ultimately (naturally, pending specials) was won by the Maori Party.

*But due kudos - with knobs on - to the outstandingly and relentlessly positive Chloe Swarbruck, who wrested the highly contested and contestable seat of Auckland Central with the sort of door-to-door campaigning that would've made Yours Truly proud back during his own run in 2008...

(1) Yet - and admittedly I've hardly had the time or leisure to thus far dissect the myriad details of electoral results at large - why, when Labour was handily winning rural electorates of such a blue hue as Rangitata, they only gained 48-49% of votes overall, is utterly beyond me...as it seemed to me, prior to the election admittedly, that were they to be thrashed in ruraldom, garnering only 15-20% of the votes there (as outlined above), yet with their 40 percent-some in provincial New Zealand, and their 60%-some in the larger cities, they'd easily gain 50% plus...

...so, when on election night they bested National so convincingly in rural NZ, it seemed to me they ought to be obtaining 55-60% of votes overall, so something's awry somewhere surely...

(2) No sooner was the ouster of Peters and his (longstanding phoenix-from-the-ashes) party officially confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt than the vultures immediately started circling, sensing blood aplenty in his particular vicinity, and thus and so we had the unholy and unedifying scenario not even a day on of shadowy journalistic paparazzi stalking him and his partner as they tried in vain to elude their erstwhile pursuers; generous recompense no doubt for someone who - love 'im or loathe 'im - has unquestionably given more personal service (at least quantitatively-speaking), baubles of office notwithstanding, to NZ Inc over a lifetime political career than any other politician over the past half-century...

(3) Someone whose removal (for this and other reasons) was vigorously and vociferously opposed on Sunday's Newshub Nation by former (NZ First/Mauri/National) M.P. and now professional political  commentator Tau Henare, Henare urging Labour's Maori caucus to rebel if Davis' removal was actioned.    

Postscript:

It seems to me anyway, someone incidentally 'for the record' who's twice voted their way (and twice been strongly tempted to), that New Zealand First made two fundamental errors going into this election: failing to highlight the unpopular policies they effectively blocked; and likewise failing to highlight their many and various successful 'runs on the board'...

...instead as it so transpired flailing about in last-minute, last-ditch efforts to distance themselves from and severely criticize the Government that they more than any other party played such a significant role in shaping, whether ultimately for good or ill...

... a thing that was simply too far a stretch for your average voter to fall for and not see through...

They'd have stood a far greater chance of at least crossing the MMP threshold and returning to Parliament, where, like the Green Party, - if not an actual part (and parcel) of the new Labour Government - they could at least and indeed have 'rule[d] from the cross-benches' (since their centrist philosophy has ever been far more appealing to the average kiwi than that of the Greens)...

Yes, they could and should have highlighted the 'stuff' Labour promoted/wished to achieve, which they prevented, such as

*Repealing the Three Strikes and You're Out' law;

*the Capital Gains Tax

etcetera (I simply can't remember any others at present, but I know there are aplenty)...whilst 

highlighting all the policy successes they helped bring about, 

whatever those were (and indeed there were a number, but I'm afraid my memory has failed again, and I must go and attend to the rest of my life, and ipso pronto!)

To Be Continued (somewhere awhile down the line)...

But Irrespective of Whether Our Prime Minister (Jacinda Ardern) Is Gifted the Nobel Peace Prize for Her Handling of the Christchurch Mosque Shootings and Her Adept Handling of Covid-19...She Ought to Receive the Nobel Peace Prize In/For Diplomacy...For, In Responding to a Really Tricky Question from Si and Phil (on the Newstalk ZB Afternoon Show), Saying (As to One Quality Which She Would Use to Describe Morning Show Host - and National Party Cheerleader Extraordinaire - Mike Hosking): ASSERTIVENESS!!! Nuff Said, Folks, Milady's Forbearance Evidently Knows No Bounds...

'Thank God' the Wellington-Based New Zealand National Library Has At Last Seen Sense...and Abandoned its Philistinian Plan to Cull 60/70,000-Odd Books of Historical Moment From Its Archives

 Apparently, only for the moment, i.e. until after our general election is done and dusted, over and out...

So here's hoping...-and congratulations Christopher Finlayson and Helen Clark, for your written/verbal representations thereabouts, whatever our differing political/ideological perspectives on all manner of issues, at last we see eye-to-eye upon this one wee matter...

and our Western cultural/literary heritage is actually really no itsy-bitsy thing, no indeed...

The Obsession With ANYTHING & EVERYTHING Which Happens to 'Go Viral' and/or Otherwise Incur Much Web Traffic...Reveals More than Perhaps Anything Else Not Only How Shallow and Superficial But Just How Very Sick Western Society Has Now Become...Showing How Mere Numbers (as in Quantity) Now Ever Trumps Quality...By Which Measure Adolf Hitler Was Of Course a Runaway Success as He Most Certainly Had Pretty Well the Entire German Populace of His Day Eating Off His Lap and Lapping Up Almost Everything He Spouted Off...and, By Clear and Obvious Contrast, Jesus Christ Ended His Earthly Life To All Appearances an Abject Loser On Almost All Conceivable Fronts...

Yet I know which of these two I'd like to be backing, or rather have backing me, on Judgment Day... 

Returning to the Nobel Peace Prize, As I Attempted to Post Last Friday Eve/First Thing Saturday Morning (The Sabbath Notwithstanding), In Cognizance of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' (As Some Literary Wag Expressed Things), A Joint Prize To Both Aotearoa-New Zealand's Own Jacinda Ardern and Sweden's Greta Thunberg Seems Most Likely (And Perhaps the Delay in Announcing This Has Been Because They Now Well Realize That Inserting the Same in the Midst of Our General Election Countdown Might Not Happen to Go Down All That Well With Everyone Concerned)

& Speaking of 'Screwing the Scrum'...What A Complete and Utter, But El Typical, Bureaucratic Shemozzle: Vis-a-Vis the (NZ General Election) Voting Paper Stuff-Ups

(Three) Necessary Disclaimers:

Firstly, yes I well realize Aotearoa-New Zealand is certainly not alone in this, that verily there are much bigger fish in the global ocean presently undergoing some very deep frying, sizzling and charcoaling...

Secondly, I've personally ever loathed and detested New Zealand's traditional religion, its longstanding household god rugby...

Thirdly, I've ever disliked and found quite cringeworthy and almost vulgar the associated verb (and all its like) so commonly employed in describing the procreative act...

Yet, all those caveats notwithstanding...

What a typical bureaucratic shemozzle...i.e. the inexplicable, unaccountable - unless for innate, underlying (anti-certain off-the-wall (in particular) parties) political biases - omission of party lists and names from voter packs (apparently across the country)...

...alongside various other such glaring omissions emerging out of the woodwork over recent days and weeks as nationwide radio networks (RNZ National in particular) have been reporting...

To Be Continued (before I run myself right ragged and further down, down, down...)  

No, We Ain't 'Screwing the Scrum', Really We're Not...Vis-a-Vis New Zealand's 'End-of-Life'/'Assisted Dying'/Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide Referendum: Or When Orwellian 'NEWSPEAK' (aka Eric Blair's '1984') Gets Taken to a Whole New Level...

Though this isn't written to re-litigate the euthanasia debate, happening to listen in for a few minutes this morning (to RNZ National's weekly 'Media Watch') to a conversation upon such referenda between reporter Hayden Vennall and Auckland University politics lecturer Lara Greaves... 

I couldn't help myself from - far from even reading between the lines as such - hearing a less than tacit, a veritable explicit admission by said political expert...

...that the actual wording of the question (for the 'end of life choice' referendum) - doubtless as for any and every other such referendum - is all-important...(i.e. in determining peoples' responses)...

Which wouldn't raise an eyebrow - even Judith's, I assume/presume - except for this (fact): the pro-Smacking Ban folk (who'd succeeded a little while previously in seeing Sue Bradford's infamous repeal of Section 91 of the Crimes Act enacted into law - otherwise known as the anti-smacking law of 2007/2008), whether before, during and/or after the debate upon that well-remembered referendum back in P.M. John Key's early years, stressed the selfsame point. 

Which was why selfsame 'experts' were subsequently able to explain away the resounding defeat for Ms Bradford's (Labour Government-endorsed) smacking ban (already passed into law in the dying days of the Helen Clark-led Government)...i.e. as a badly-worded question, which, and oh how very, incredibly - if predictably and typically - condescending and patronizing of them, they claimed had confused the voters thereupon, that the voters had misunderstood that question...

...the clear and obvious implication being, if they really had understood it aright, they'd have voted accordingly, i.e. against the (referendum) proposition to overturn the legislation banning smacking. A triple negative being hard to digest/comprehend at the best of times, I'm suggesting selfsame experts really, truly believed the voters would actually maintain the recently-legislated ban on smacking. Clear as mud?

Or so they self-delusionally tried to convince themselves... 

Anyhow, the new National Government never carried out/put into legal effect the clear (87%:13%) referendum edict (of the voters), leaving intact the (smacking ban) status quo (which, to be fair, they themselves had taken over the line under (now, Sir) John Key's (pre-Prime Ministership) very fleet-footed, conciliatory, and (political masterstroke) leadership when the then 'anti-smacking bill' was struggling to get over the line).

Just as Nelson M.P. (Dr) Nick Smith et al rather endlessly banged on about in parliamentary select committee debates late last and early this year on the same (i.e. end-of-life) referendum question, pointing out the vast difference between calling the upcoming-and-now-present referendum on ending one's life by every conceivable euphemism imaginable...anything and everything, in other words, except calling it what it most patently is: assisting people to commit suicide.

Another case of conveniently 'screwing the scrum' when(ever) it so happens to suit your particular (side of the) argument? You tell me, but, as I often say about this, that and especially the other (particular matter under discussion),

*/**If it looks like a ............, if it sounds like a ............, and if it talks like a ............, hey, folks, -no, it ain't rocket science- it usually is ............ 

*You fill in the missing word; though admittedly I simply can't recall it this mo, I believe there are any number of alternative possibilities which would well suffice...

**Alternatively, you might also find my similarly-(en)titled 42-pager in the run-up to the 2016 American Presidential Election - posted on my original blogsite, i.e.

http://nuffsaid:consideryourself-frombothsidesnow.blogspot.co.nz/ (or .com/)

on August 22nd, 2016 - 

worth a read/looking at, and not just for this reason...

It's entitled

Yes, They Really Suppose They've Got Us All Fooled: or, If It Looks Like A Set-Up, & It Walks Like a Set-Up, & It Talks Like a Set-Up...Hey Folks - "Wise Up" (& Fast!) - Perhaps It Really Is A Con Job - or, alternatively: The 2016 American Presidential Election A Real Jack-Up? Why, Yes Indeed, And In More Ways Than Might Appear; From Its Very Inception, Moreover; And With Bill Clinton Himself Holding the Trump Card

But Perhaps 'the Donald' Et Al Might Well Share That Particular Trophy With the Singer-Songwriter Gunned Down 40 Years Ago Today (i.e. John Lennon) Who Gifted Our World With the Gracious and, I Dare Say, Almost Inspired Song IMAGINE...A Song Which has Inspired the Generations to Reach Up and Beyond the Dictates of Petty Bickering and Beastly Bloodshed to Hope for a Better World Beyond...

Though, in all too typical contradiction to *what I've just written, that particular goal will never be possible of accomplishment without the good and gracious interposition and intervention of One Whose purposes of goodness towards His human creation will continue forever...

*For, as those familiar with Imagine well recollect, Lennon (fervently) expresses his desire/wish to achieve world peace and harmony without the Good Lord...

...a 'dream' which I respectfully suggest is simply not possible of fulfilment and so will ultimately fail...