The Long Walk Back

 

Someone, it may have been Will Rogers, once said of California that it was as if the United States had tilted, and all the country’s nuts slid into the Golden State.

I felt that way when I watched Parliament this week. It was as if the floor of the House had tilted, and all the nutters were deposited in its northeast corner.

They are all there—The Greens and Te Pati Māori—all Tā Moko and broad-brim hats, nestled in their little enclave, clinging smugly and righteously together.

Occasionally, one of them will venture out in a quixotic endeavour to harry the hoards. However, as Julie Anne Genter found this week, the long walk back can be costly and humiliating.

Of course, Genter’s embarrassment is just the latest among the greenery. There is also the bullying allegation against Genter, the shoplifting of Ghahraman, the exploitation allegations surrounding Darleen Tana and that ridiculous attempt by the Greens to oust their leader, James Shaw, last year—too white, too old, too male, too sensible.

Too bad he’s gone.

Add to that list of tribulations their behaviour of a couple of weeks ago when they turned up in the House en-mass wearing Shemagh Tacticals Desert Scarfs, presumably in support of Palestinians in Gaza. Not a good look on you, James, but you were at least saved, by conveniently being overseas, of the disgrace of looking like a dickhead.

Then, on Tuesday of this week, all the women of the Green Party turned up in matching green frocks and ill-fitting frocks, too. They looked like a contingent from Gloriavale. What was that all about?

Te Pati Māori say some outrageous things and they love to provoke. But co-leader Rawiri Waititi usually does it with quiet humour and good grace, and the party usually sticks to its core values.

So, what are they doing over there on the road to nowhere in the northeast corner?

If I had a message for Waititi, it would be to get out of there before it is too late. Allow your magnificent Tā Moko to shine, brother. Nothing good ever comes from playing with the nuts.

And my message to the Green Party is simple: If you want to save the planet, you have to first get on it.

 

The Idiocy of ISIS

I am an idiot.

For the life of me, I cannot understand what ISIS is up to. Yes, I understand they want an independent Islamic state; yes, I understand they want to spread their perverted style of Islam to dominate the world; and, yes, I know they want to goad America into a ground war, despite not even wining the one they are in at the moment.

But how they expect to do that by killing innocent civilians as they did today in Spain and previously Britain, France and Germany is way beyond me. How is that going to help their cause—if they have a cause, at all?

ISIS is of course not the first to deal in chaos. But they are the first to be so chaotic about it. Prior the World War One, Anarchists spread terror throughout Europe. Their weapon of death was the bomb, not white vans, and they were pretty indiscriminate about where they placed those bombs. I am not condoning them or their actions, but at least they had a cause, a belief: self-governed societies based on voluntary societies. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but nor does the Green Party or Stephen Kearney coaching The Warriors, so I guess I am just an idiot.

But what does ISIS stand for? What am I missing? Do they have any objective, other than those professed above? An even earlier group of terrorists, Nizari Ismailis, also known as Assassins, were killers for hire so there was a monetary rationale. They were also driven by a very clever ploy by their leader, The Old Man of the Mountain, who drugged them up, sent them to brothel, brought them back and then convinced them that what they had just witnessed was the Afterlife. Of course, they couldn’t wait to get back there.

Is that what drives ISIS fighters and suicide soldiers?

Given their terrifying modus operandi includes rape at will, I doubt such an afterlife has the same attraction.

So, I am still none the wiser at why ISIS does what it does. But in writing about it I have at least arrived at one conclusion: I may not, after all, be the idiot here.

What the Dickens is the Green Party up to?

Tony Hancock was a brilliant, if flawed, comedian. In his personal life and in the eponymous character he portrayed, he was constantly trying to improve himself. For example, in a TV episode of Hancock, written for him by the gifted Alan Galton and Ray Simpson, he decides to improve his mind by reading the classics. He gets as far as the first line of Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. That’s enough for Tony. He throws away the book, complaining that if he (Dickens) couldn’t make up his mind, why should he (Hancock) bother?

I thought of that line this week when I was watching the Green Party leadership debacle. Like many of you I was going to call on Metiria Turei to resign, and in my case use Fryday to do it. Then she did, so that Fryday went out the door. But then something else occurred to me and that is where Hancock’s complaint came to mind. Turei resigned as co-leader of the Green Party. Why did the party need two leaders—couldn’t they make up their mind?

Of course, they could.

The reason they had two leaders, it seems to me, is they wanted to portray the right gender and race balance: male and female, Maori and Pakeha. Now they wind up with just a middle-aged white male—that must be particularly galling for The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. But they are stuck with it and him, until the election at least.

But what about the principle of two leaders (for whatever reason)? How do you feel about it? Me? I feel it condescending, particularly if it is for the reason stated above. I can understand a rugby team having two captains—one to control the forwards and a second to handle the backs. But a political party? Was Metiria there to control the Maoris and James Shaw the Pakehas? Of course not. Was it to pander to the Maori and the Pakeha votes? Possibly. But that doesn’t make a lot of sense, either—other parties do that much better. In fact, some specialise in it. So, we return to the core rationale for co-leadership—portrayal balance. Well, if that’s what they want. But, it all seems a bit silly to me. Then again, so does their party.

In closing, I am reminded of a quote of another favourite author, Oscar Wilde: "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness." The Green Party lost one, because Metiria was careless. Ultimately that may lead to the party’s misfortune and perhaps even the loss of the other.