Posts by Craig Ranapia
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James Doleman wrote:
Unless of course they are Prime Minister and the question is "there is possibly a tsunami heading for the west coast, should we evacuate"?*sigh* James, if the civil defence infrastructure is so FUBAR that local media need to ring the Prime Minister's office to confirm a tsunami alert... well, I'm more or less ready to die, all things considered. :)
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stever wrote:
One of the things that needs very subtle handling is showing new researchers (typically PhD students) that they are truly in an environment where they are safe to have ideas, talk to people about them, modify them, discard them if they turn out to be bad ideas that don't work etc.Well, yes, and I hope debate over those ideas is framed at a slightly more thoughtful pitch than, "well, you would say that you lying whore of special interests - go peddle your secret agenda somewhere else." And, sadly, distasteful as that kind of politics is - it works, and I don't know how to change that.
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So far everything I have heard Key say is basically what Labour have been saying and doing for years
Quick, someone hit that weasel word on the head with a stick! 'Basically', Yanis? Perhaps you could point me to a policy or manifesto statement - no 'hidden agenda' balls, please - where the National Party has ever suggested abolishing 'social welfare'? I guess National and Labour are 'basically' the same on industrial relations, because neither party is proposing legalising child labour, slavery or using bullwhips to increase productivity. :)
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David quoted:
[Clark]'s been so across everything we now expect that in a leader - but why? I think Key will redefine the role - and we may find that refreshing. Wouldn't it be nice to have a leader that wasn't in control of everything?The short answer: Yes it would, but it would also be nice if we didn't crucify political leaders for not having a perfectly crafted, focus group-ready soundbite on demand. I don't necessarily think it's a flaw for someone to respond to a question with "I don't know" or even (shock! horror!) "You know, I thought I knew and I was wrong." It's all very well to "absorb the minutiae" of any subject (or think you do) and be able to rattle off bullet points at a presser, but a little intellectual modesty - and good grace when you get things wrong - is a mark of leadership too. Very smart people aren't immune from holding really dumb opinions and saying stupid things.
And while we're working up wish lists: If John Key ever feels the need to issue an apology, could he avoid the 'I've very sorry you're offended' passive-agressive mode?
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Having worked for several Ministers in a UK Government Department, I can attest that there is no correlation between business success and governmental competence.
I guess it would be a little graceless - depending on your political orientation - to enter the current and previous Mayors of Auckland as prosecution exhibits A & B? :)
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David Slack wrote:
But this was the equivalent of a new boss declaring that he believes in profits, reward for effort, and career opportunities for the staff. It's reassuring to know the new boss has good intentions, but does it give us any sense of what's going to happen to the business in the next year?Fair question, but while we're using the business analogy there's also (__quack!__) siginificant downsides to musing about the 'future direction' of your organisation in speech notes - especially when that involves laying off people who may not consider that (__quack! quack!__) a less than entirely constructive way to initiate dialogue. :)
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Kent:
Well, that's an argument but I don't think it's a good idea to reduce complex and highly contentious matters of political philosophy to bumper stickers. Just ask Francis Fukuyama whose rather dense 1989 essay The End of History?, and the 1992 book based on it, ended up in some very strange places in pop political discourse. (And much the same thing has happened to Samuel P. Huntington's equally complex and contentious theory of 'The Clash of Civilizations' has been all to easily reduced, and I'd argue distorted, into politically useful soundbites.)
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Kent Parker wrote:
, in the age of MMP, a leader, rather than being policy and ideology focused (like Brash) is better to simply be a good manager (like Clark).Well, up to a point. I think the semantic problem there is that 'ideology' has a pretty innocuous definition ("a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture b : a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture c : the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program" - Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary), but comes with some pretty ugly connotations. You know how political cant works: I have principles and values, you have an 'ideology'. I have policies, you have an 'agenda' - preferably a hidden one. I have supporters, you are 'beholden to special interests". Quack quack quack, as our host might say. :)
It's pure semantic flummery of anyone in politics - let alone Parliament - to pretend they don't have an ideology, in the proper sense of the word. At least, I hope so because Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four O'Brien expresses what with terrifying clarity what may well happen when politics becomes nothing more than pure 'management' :-
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake…We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. power exercised for its own sake, the object of power is power.
Interesting to compare this is Orwell's 1946 essay/reivew of James Burnham's __The Managerial Revolution
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manakura wrote:
It really is a bit churlish to accuse Key of dissembling at this early stage. A bit like rubbishing a recently released political tome without reading wouldn't you agree Craig?No, I posed some some legitimate (but entirely debatable, of course) questions about the book - which I freely admitted I haven't read - based on his previous form and own public statements. Now I expressed scpeticism about the (as Kathryn Ryan) "thesis" nature of the book, and if I was selectively quoting the book to prove a thesis of my how, I'd be a damn sight more than 'churlish'. Outright hypocritical would be closer to the mark; and I'd like to think that whatever by character flaws are (and they're legion) two-faced hackery isn't among them.
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ed:
Oh, come on... It's probably not just you - but I guess no matter who you are in political life, you better grow a thick enough skin to realise there's going to be people for whom you're damned if you, damned if you don't, and in the wrong regardless.
simon g.:
Well, I'd like to know too. But not in his first public speech less than 24 hours after becoming leader. I also think all party leaders - especially when their tenure is only measurable in hours not years - have to be very careful that their personal musings, or off the cuff opinions, don't end up being reported as policy. There is a lot of very serious, and contentious, policy work that needs to be done over the next two years; but it must not be seen (internally or externally) as driven by press release and speech notes from the leader's office. It's not only bad politics, but it seldom - if ever - leads to good public policy.
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