Who needs identity politics?

Alas, dear friends, it is late in the night and I’m buggered if I can recall what trail of sorry links lead me to the posts upon which I am to unleash my wrath.

It’s yet another spin-off of the cultural clusterfuck that is Nationhood Speech Der Zweite; specifically, the response by Chris Trotter entitled “The Liberal Left: Who Needs You?” Our special surprise guest is a commenter going by the name of John Pagani, apparently an adviser to The Speechmaker Himself, assuming anyone is honest about their identities on the interwebz these days (she says, writing under a pseudonym).

First things first, there’s the casual dismissal of all and sundry who thought that maybe explicitly modelling a speech after the Don Brash/Orewa mold might not be entirely kosher:

Their reflexive condemnation of anyone who dares to hold Maori politicians to the same standards as Pakeha betrays an arrogant unwillingness to accept the ethical norms of their own society. These people have become the fervent champions of an indigenous culture they can never truly join because, fundamentally, they despise their own.

On the “same standard” bollocks, see my previous post.  Idiot/Savant notes well in the comments,

Be honest, Chris. The word you’re looking for is “self-hating Pakeha”. Or maybe “race-traitor”.

Disclaimer: I am so white it’s ridiculous.  I don’t say I’m “proud to be white” because HOLY CRAP with the instant supremacist associations.  Also, you know, taking pride in the identity of an ethnicity which has categorically dumped on basically every other ethnicity over the past several centuries?  Not so much my thing.

But I am white.  My cultural points of reference are white and Western and English-speaking.  And there’s a big fucking difference between acknowledging that white people have seriously fucked up on the race relations/not committing genocide front and “despising [my] own [culture].”

But I guess it makes it much easier to ignore people’s objections when you can say “oh they just suffer from too much liberal white guilt” – and when you’re happy to forget the fact that we have quite a bit to be guilty about.  Throwing in that whole “too arrogant to accept basic ethics” line is a nice touch, too.

Fuck that, though, I’ve covered it already – point is, Chris Trotter is my least favourite kind of leftie: the one who thinks being a leftie makes him automatically open-minded and understanding of privilege and power dynamics and oppression, but clings happily to the notion that every single bad thing in the world comes down to nothing more than class.

Side note: Trotter responds to I/S’ comment with:

If the cap fits,Comrade …

GET IT, GUYS, HE’S A TOTAL LEFTIE BECAUSE HE CALLS PEOPLE COMRADE, WHY DON’T YOU WORSHIP AT THE FEET OF HIS MARXIST CREDENTIALS.

Anyway, point is:  identity politics.  Ah, yes, those trifling matters that get in the way of real class struggle.  Can’t think why “objects to “identity politics”" is a phrase instantly associated in my mind with white heterosexual males who happen to have a few leftwing ideas, but oh well …

Along with hassling the ZOMG LIBERAL LEFT for having no power or influence “beyond the blogosphere” (whereas Chris totes has influence ’cause they wheel him out to sing The Red Flag on election nights for a laugh) there’s a few nice jabs at we Liberal Lefties:

Those faint-hearted liberals who can’t stand the heat should get out of the kitchen.

…

They have no understanding of, nor empathy for, the hopes and fears of ordinary people.

…

The truth of the matter is, liberal leftists have been preaching to themselves for so long they no longer appreciate how few people give a tinker’s cuss what they say.

And then there’s allegedly-John-Pagani in the comments:

It’s about connecting with things that matter to people and making politics work for people, instead of instructing people in what’s good for them and inventing fabrications about the people the left represents.

And that’s frankly where I get right fucking pissed off.

Because apparently, the Liberal Left just don’t understand ordinary people.  We don’t care about things that matter to people, we just want to instruct them because we’re bossy britches.  Fuck, I’m stunned no one managed to insert a nanny/evil headmistress/other authoritarian-woman-figure-who-kills-our-fun-but-is-not-a-Helen-Clark-reference-AT-ALL into the discourse.

Why is the second “people” in both italics and bold up there?  Because when two guys get in a huddle and start slanging against the Liberal Left and the evil distraction of identity politics, and whinge about how we need to think about ordinary people, I think we can make a few very good guesses as to the kind of people they’re talking about.

And I’ll give you a hint:  it ain’t you or me, assuming you are not a middle class white heterosexual cisgendered currently able bodied male.

Because here’s what matters to me:

It matters to me that I not be passed over for a job or a promotion because I’m a woman who’ll obviously just leave to have babies.

It matters to me that I have the right to be paid the same as a man for doing the same work.

It matters to me that gay men and women can have their relationships recognised by the state just like every two-in-three-chance-of-divorce hetero couple.

It matters to me that people of colour not get pulled over by the cops because brown people shouldn’t be driving expensive cars, or are obviously on drugs because they’re brown, or not be played by white people in movies about their lives.

It matters to me that people with disabilities can travel on aeroplanes, and get into buildings, and pass exams at school (look out for that incredibly-expletive-filled-post tomorrow!) and go shopping without worrying some bastard’s going to throw them out for having a hearing dog.

It matters to me that trans people shouldn’t have to worry about being murdered because someone else feels they have the right to judge what defines a man or a woman.

It matters to me that people should be able to practise their faith without fear of persecution, and that people not-of-faith should be able to say so without harassment.

But fuck all that! That’s just identity politics!  That’s just me assuming that the way people identify, the way society wants to identify them, the assumptions others feel free to make about you because of your identity or assumed identity, might actually affect people!  It might actually rate a bit higher on their List Of Things That Pissed Me Off Today:

1. Harassed on bus by guy who wouldn’t leave me alone.
2. First question asked at job interview: “Do you have kids?”
3. Threatened with sexual violence by blog commenter.
4. Still alienated from means of production.

Come on, guys, the big important thing is obviously class struggle!  We can’t possibly let the things that affect women and people of colour and people with disabilities and trans people and people who ignore the gender binary and people whose identities are not the default white het cis male – who, in fact, by being not-white-het-cis-males, actually have the audacity to have identities – get in the way of the greater good!

And if we have to throw Maori under the bus to achieve our [white het cis male] worker’s utopia, then so be it.

To borrow a line from the bikers’ rally at Parliament, I can only ask, though: who’s next?

Other reading:  No Right Turn, Lew at Kiwipolitico.

Minor breakouts of major gripes

I’d long ago realised that part of the reason I post cussy rants about things that seem like just small issues, not a huge deal, isn’t there something more important to worry about – is because those “small issues” just tap into much bigger problems.

Today, two such small issues reared their annoying heads.

The continuing saga of Oh Noes The Brown Man Said A Mean Word broke out on Red Alert, with Hon Trevor insert-duck-to-water-metaphor-here Mallard chipping in to the debate:

If a Pakeha used the term brown mofos it would be racist.  That standard should apply both ways.

Which actually hits several big Pisses Me Right The Fuck Off buttons.  But to summarise:  using the argument of “the same standard” is so close to “one law for all” they couldn’t legally marry in all 50 states of the US.  It’s “special rights”, it’s “level playing field”, and it’s bullshit.

There isn’t a fucking level playing field when one group of people has been historically shat on by another from orbit.  There isn’t a tabula rasa of race relations where such lovely “can’t we all just be equals and ignore skin colour and historical disenfranchisement and oh we tried to destroy your language and culture” ideas can be writ large.

There is a basic reason why a person of Maori descent can refer to “white motherfuckers stealing our land” which does not hold true for a person of European descent saying “brown motherfuckers stealing our car”.  That reason is privilege.  Learn you some.

Second small issue:  in the continuing if-they-wrote-this-for-TV-no-one-would-believe-it tale of Doug Schmuck and some possibly-dodgy legislative drafting, one quote nicely put its thumb directly on my White Middle Class Bastards Who Just Love Law And Order Until It Applies To Them button.

The 15-year fight for the Opua boat ramp had taken “a hell of a lot of time” and cost Mr Schmuck close to $200,000. “A few objectors can run the costs up so high that it makes things like the Resource Management Act untenable,” he said.

Ah, yes.  You can always spot a WMCBWJLL&OUIATT, by the way they seem completely oblivious of the fact that the law still counts even when it might stop them from doing something they want to do.

The classic example is provided every time there’s a Police crackdown on speeding, possibly by, oh the horrors, using hidden speed cameras.  Now, you might think “well if people don’t want to get speeding tickets they could try not speeding”, but such thoughts do not pass through the brains of White Middle-Class Bastards. No no no, this is just a revenue gathering exercise.

It’s not like their own speeding could cause accidents or cost people their lives or anything.  We all know that speed only kills when it’s those bloody Asian homestay students whose rich daddies send them thirty grand a month to buy Ferraris and meth with, obviously.  The laws of physics are very specific on this.

The other classic, of course, is the killing of Pihema Cameron – where the Your Sensible Is Not Like Our Earth Sensible Sentencing Trust decided that actually, that whole “tough punishment for violent crims is the way to save society” line didn’t so much count when the stabber was a rich white guy and the victim was [insert stereotype about Maori teenage boys here].

And so we have (oh Gods it makes me giggle every time) Doug Schmuck.  Who has been nearly bankrupted, dear readers, by busybodies and that bane of the WMCB, the Resource Management Act.  All because he built a private fucking boat ramp on a fucking public reserve.

It’s almost like some people expect Good Hardworking [White Male] Businessmen to obey the law or something.  Don’t they understand the law is for the little people?

No no no no no, Minister

Ministers reading picture books to schoolteachers.

Ministers blaming horrific youth unemployment on ‘some of them are only looking for paper runs‘.

Ministers deciding that league tables may be useless for schools but are perfect for hospitals.

And Ministers declaring that anyone challenging one of our last true monopolies is a Red under the bed out to destroy our freedoms.

If someone wants to wake me when we get to 2011, I’ll be inside a big bottle of gin.

NZ has unresolved race issues! OMG WHO KNEW?

Soooooooooo Hone Harawira.  Here’s a Stuff link which vaguely outlines the situation for any non-Kiwi readers, as I can’t imagine there’s a New Zealander with access to the Internet who hasn’t heard about this.

First recommendation: rocky’s two excellent posts at The Standard on the wider foreshore/seabed issue, and ta, rocky, for the link to NZ History Online’s map showing Maori land loss to the present day.  That was a nice sobering hit for a Wednesday evening.

First thought: gee, I wonder if that’s the kind of thing a person, whose ethnic group remains at the bottom of the socio-economic heap, and whose language is apparently so terrifying to the ear that non-Maori will just die if they’re forced to find the mute button hear it, might just be a little pissed off about?  (And see Zetetic’s comment below – of course not!  Nothing to be angry about here!  Just a little diversion from that thing Harawira was totally unapologetic about!)

Second recommendation: the sprout’s post, also at The Standard, on why no, Harawira didn’t actually advocate violence and why yes, this is all just a bunch of privileged white wankers* summoning the spectre of Scary Brown People Who Will Climb In The Windows Of Other New Zealanders At Night**.

Third recommendation: Play bingo with any discussion of this story against the classic Wite-Magik Attax.  It may help, but probably not.

And now, my own little bugbear.

Quickhit: QoT <3 NRT 4 eva

After a crappy day full of news about the exciting new ways National/Act are fucking up my country, it’s nice to know there’s a blogger out there who will actually bother to check out the proportion of Parliament’s time spent in urgency this term vs. last term.

Have a fun Labour Weekend, people.

December 12, 2015: Russia invades Georgia, Security Council member “relaxed about it”

Via Imperator Fish, because let’s face it, I have steadfastly avoided all coverage of That Nice Mr Key’s overseas circus act, it seems that New Zealand is in the running for a seat on the UN Security Council.

This is not objectively a bad thing; NZ has already served on the Security Council three times, we’re hardly a country to back out of lending a hand in international situations, hell, we still cling to the geographic accident that made us technically the first country to declare war on Germany in ‘39.

The problem is summed up nicely by Scott at IF:

Having a seat at the big table sounds fine, so long as there’s no international crisis at the time putting pressure on us to lean one way or the other.

Key likes to be all things to all people.  He doesn’t so much express opinions as give people the answers he thinks they want to hear.  That might be all well and good when we’re talking to President “Son of Jor-El” Obama, but what happens when it’s President “Prime Minister” Kills-Siberian-Tigers-With-His-Bare-Hands Putin on the other end of the line?  When we’ve put ourselves out on the international stage and simply cannot keep everyone happy – when any decision is going to produce a whacking amount of public, media-attracting ammunition for the Greens/Labour/the Maori Party,* and backing away, saying “Well I’m relaxed about it, they can meet with me, I mean my Chief of Staff, I mean I haven’t seen any proof and anyway I was on a plane, they’re just scaremongering” is simply not an option?

We’ll be looking back on having our leader reading the Top Ten on Letterman with fucking fondness and nostalgia, that’s what’s going to happen.

*I mean, just the basic “sending our boys to die” vs. “letting [group] be slaughtered” is a bitch to juggle.

A loss to Parliament

As Idiot/Savant puts it, and a loss to the entire fucking country, too.  You’re going to be really sorely missed, Sue B.

Sue’s maiden speech from way back in the days of 1999 is here.

I am here on a mission. Unemployed people and beneficiaries have had enough of being treated like dirt, taking the blame for every problem in society. Previous Governments have institutionalised another form of apartheid in Departments like WINZ, where a culture of contempt underlines dealings with socalled customers as well as with hard pressed frontline staff.

I am here to do everything I can to turn this around. We need immediate relief of poverty in this country, including a radical overhaul of WINZ and the whole benefit system, and a commitment to progressive increases in the minimum wage. The compulsory work for dole scheme known as ‘Community Wage Community Work’ can and should end tomorrow. We should look at restoring the universal family benefit, acknowledging the needs and rights of those who have the courage to bring children into the world in an overwhelmingly child-hating society.

We should also start seriously researching the implications and possibilities of some form of Universal Basic Income which has the potential to replace the whole shattered and inadequate apparatus of the old welfare state.

It’s time that we put the blame for overdependency on the State directly where it lies – on those who use unemployment and inadequate income support systems as tools of deliberate economic strategies. And we should also examine why dependency is OK for some, and not for others.

In honour of this kickass woman,* get your posts in for the next Down Under Feminists’ Carnival!

Next time on Ideologically Impure:  how angry will QoT get over attempts to drag her country kicking and screaming back into the Dark Ages an FPP electoral system?  How many times will QoT headdesk over That Nice Mr Key being on Letterman? Will QoT explode with joy when Dexter season 3 finally premieres 4 October?  Will any of these questions actually get answered?  Tune in, same feminist time, same cussword-filled channel!

ETA: More on Sue Bradford at The Hand Mirror and Kiwipolitico.

*Seriously, lauredhel, tigtog, here’s a right contender for Hoyden of the Week.  Anyone who had to worry about getting her trespass notice from the grounds of Parliament revoked so she could start work as an MP is a hoyden worthy of recognition in my book.

A few points

1.  To Larry Baldock, my sincere thanks for furnishing Granny Herald with a photo that makes anything I might write about your lust for child-punishing redundant.

2.  To the 88%-of-54% who voted “no”, many of whom thought they were just being practical, and fair, and don’t want “good parents” punished, I invite you to consider that people like Larry Baldock don’t actually care what you thought, because all they wanted, and all you’ve actually done is given them more credibility when they say “oh, and not just light smacks, but rulers and wooden spoons too.”*

3.  Finally, to anyone who thinks a referendum based on such a loaded question actually means anything, I can do no better than leave you with Sir Humphrey:

Any no-voters reading this?  Please feel free to preface your comments with a single incident of a parent being “criminalized” for a “light smack” or GTFO.

*What next?  People with intellectual disabilites?  Oh, but only when they’re endangering themselves and you can’t reason with them and it’s just transitory (which would seem logically inconsistent with having any disciplinary effect anyway) and sometimes you just get frustrated and lash out but that doesn’t make you a bad person EXCEPT IT DOES.

Abortion is not your punchline, DPF

As spotted by Eddie at The Standard, DPF has a breathtakingly satirical edge-of-your-seat parody press release up – stating that the Green Party’s real plan for reducing emissions is forced abortion of two out of three pregnancies.

Fuck you, DPF.

It’s a shit post and a shit analogy and one hell of a dogwhistle.  And on the one hand, it’s so fucking juvenile it should hardly be worth drawing attention to (except as an example of why Kiwiblog is a fucking sewer).

On the other there are aspects of this that fucking infuriate me.

Brief thought: “Labour did it too”

One of the reasons we haven’t colonized Mars yet is almost certainly the tendency of both sides of the political spectrum in NZ to scream “WELL HE DID IT TOO, TEACHER!!!” whenever their folk are in trouble.

The current “Bill English getting paid to live at home with his wife and children” rort is a classic example.

Apparently leftwing bloggers have No Right [Turn?] to think this is a fucking disgrace, because oooh, well, Labour did totes the same things when they were in Government, and at least it’s in the open, so, um, National should totes get cookies for going along with something organised and promoted by the Greens and which really only occurred because of the UK MPs’ expense scandal.

You know what?  If Labour Ministers also got paid to live in their own homes, that’s also a fucking disgrace.  But that’s a smokescreen for the actual issue, which is tragically bigger than being-paid-to-live-in-your-own-home: that the people who are doing it are the ones who are cutting funding to physical therapy for children with disabilities.  The people who are doing it are cutting ACE classes because they’re “hobby courses”.  The people who are doing it are preaching the same old tighten-your-belts, bootstraps-bootstraps-bootstraps bullshit they always do and helping themselves to the lolly jar at the same time.

This is revolting no matter who’s doing it.  It’s the added cherry of hypocrisy that pushes this shit sundae to the top of the class.