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Nov. 5th, 2008 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labellementeuseEverything I have suffered in this series of election debates (featuring: John Key insisting that his party stands for "safe streets and better education" - really, because you know, Labour's policies of unsafe streets have been a big concern for me personally; also, Helen Clark wearing pink, which is an absolutely TERRIBLE colour on her and whoever picked it out should be shot; I'm sorry to bring up clothing but it was just not a good choice) Anyway it was all worth it for this exchange:
YOUNG CHILD: [parent-scripted dialogue about smoking displays in dairies]
HELEN: [policy]
SAINSBURY: Have you ever smoked?
HELEN: Well, of course I did, when I was a teenager like everyone else, and thank goodness I never got addicted. [policy, policy]
SAINSBURY: John?
JOHN: [policy, policy] My mum smoked and I begged... [Note: I kind of want to know whether he was going to say begged her to stop, or begged for one]
SAINSBURY: And did you smoke?
JOHN: No, as a matter of fact, I never did.
SAINSBURY: And while we're on the topic, ever do anything else?
JOHN: No, no, I - [laughs] I never inhaled!
HELEN: [jovially] You know, this comes up periodically in these kinds of debates [which I just noticed is a nicely subtle way of reminding everyone that she's got a shitload of political experience] and I remember saying to Paul in one of these things, I said, Paul, you and I were both university students in the sixties!
EVERYONE: LOL!
I don't know why this is so amusing to me, but.
While I'm on it I may as well talk about policy: I think both Helen and John dropped the ball on the gangs question (actually, it was a quite anti-John boot-camp question.) They were both very quick to talk about cracking down on gangs and blah blah blah (although I do think H was using language of "troubled young people" and "our kids" where J was using language of "human timebombs" and, well, I know which language I prefer, is all) but overall what they were saying is basically meaningless. "Cracking down on gangs"? What does that mean? Does it mean "We will target kids in the poorest areas of town who feel alienated from their families and trapped in cyclical poverty and we will ensure extensive afterschool programmes are available, we will try to make them feel involved and connected to their community and we will give them a voice, we will address domestic violence" or does it mean "We will ban bandanas"? And unfortunately I think they both basically meant "we will ban bandanas." And that doesn't cut it. Most telling phrase?
JOHN: [policy about bootcamps, policy about youth offenders, etc] And lastly: rehabilitation.
Uh-huh.
Thing I did like: I really enjoy how Helen keeps hitting the "equality of opportunity" notes. It's so Rawls. I like it.
I thought that both of them pussied out on the religion question (Helen at least could be specific about saying she was agnostic; wtf is up with John "my mother was Jewish but I went to Sunday School" - um what? we all know your father was dead, so why, exactly, were you at Sunday school?), but Helen had a very strong and kind of emotionally inspiring answer to the question "what moves you politically." I think to talk about Obama and Mandela, to deliberately evoke social change, change in racism, is quite beautiful. (She also mentioned Passchendaele. I probably find this less moving than some people. But I think it's interesting to see in terms of political speech because it didn't feel rehearsed to me, although it probably was, of course.)
I thought Mark Sainsbury's question about political advantages and religion was a bit interesting - do we really think that it would have been a political advantage for either of them to say that they were (for example) good Christians? I think it would have been actively bad for them. Thoughts?
To be fair, I have to say I did find Key's answer to the question "Would you ever change your minds about each other?" quite nice. Saying that he felt that their disagreement was borne out of passion about New Zealand and about the future and saying that what we do on Saturday really matters - yeah, I like that, I want to hear that from my politicians.
YOUNG CHILD: [parent-scripted dialogue about smoking displays in dairies]
HELEN: [policy]
SAINSBURY: Have you ever smoked?
HELEN: Well, of course I did, when I was a teenager like everyone else, and thank goodness I never got addicted. [policy, policy]
SAINSBURY: John?
JOHN: [policy, policy] My mum smoked and I begged... [Note: I kind of want to know whether he was going to say begged her to stop, or begged for one]
SAINSBURY: And did you smoke?
JOHN: No, as a matter of fact, I never did.
SAINSBURY: And while we're on the topic, ever do anything else?
JOHN: No, no, I - [laughs] I never inhaled!
HELEN: [jovially] You know, this comes up periodically in these kinds of debates [which I just noticed is a nicely subtle way of reminding everyone that she's got a shitload of political experience] and I remember saying to Paul in one of these things, I said, Paul, you and I were both university students in the sixties!
EVERYONE: LOL!
I don't know why this is so amusing to me, but.
While I'm on it I may as well talk about policy: I think both Helen and John dropped the ball on the gangs question (actually, it was a quite anti-John boot-camp question.) They were both very quick to talk about cracking down on gangs and blah blah blah (although I do think H was using language of "troubled young people" and "our kids" where J was using language of "human timebombs" and, well, I know which language I prefer, is all) but overall what they were saying is basically meaningless. "Cracking down on gangs"? What does that mean? Does it mean "We will target kids in the poorest areas of town who feel alienated from their families and trapped in cyclical poverty and we will ensure extensive afterschool programmes are available, we will try to make them feel involved and connected to their community and we will give them a voice, we will address domestic violence" or does it mean "We will ban bandanas"? And unfortunately I think they both basically meant "we will ban bandanas." And that doesn't cut it. Most telling phrase?
JOHN: [policy about bootcamps, policy about youth offenders, etc] And lastly: rehabilitation.
Uh-huh.
Thing I did like: I really enjoy how Helen keeps hitting the "equality of opportunity" notes. It's so Rawls. I like it.
I thought that both of them pussied out on the religion question (Helen at least could be specific about saying she was agnostic; wtf is up with John "my mother was Jewish but I went to Sunday School" - um what? we all know your father was dead, so why, exactly, were you at Sunday school?), but Helen had a very strong and kind of emotionally inspiring answer to the question "what moves you politically." I think to talk about Obama and Mandela, to deliberately evoke social change, change in racism, is quite beautiful. (She also mentioned Passchendaele. I probably find this less moving than some people. But I think it's interesting to see in terms of political speech because it didn't feel rehearsed to me, although it probably was, of course.)
I thought Mark Sainsbury's question about political advantages and religion was a bit interesting - do we really think that it would have been a political advantage for either of them to say that they were (for example) good Christians? I think it would have been actively bad for them. Thoughts?
To be fair, I have to say I did find Key's answer to the question "Would you ever change your minds about each other?" quite nice. Saying that he felt that their disagreement was borne out of passion about New Zealand and about the future and saying that what we do on Saturday really matters - yeah, I like that, I want to hear that from my politicians.
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 08:51 am (UTC)(1) it creates a criminal offence specific to one district. This isn't entirely unheard of (there are drinking bans in certain places, for instance) but it is rare; and
(2) there are a couple of hinky things going on in it; for instance, certain tattoos are captured by the legislation, so if you're displaying your (gang) tattoo in a "specified place" - basically a public place designated to be a specified place for the purpose of this Bill by a bylaw made by the Wanganui District Council - you could be arrested and fined on the spot; and
(3) the Council gets to decide what constitutes "gang insignia"; and
(4) the Council apparently doesn't think this is going to magically solve the gang problem in Wanganui, but do consider that having the statutory power to stop people wearing patches in public will help to make gangs seem less powerful.
You're right, of course, that this kind of approach has a very limited value and doesn't do a damned thing to stop people from joining in the first place or get people out of the cycle once they're in it. I'm curious to see if it will pass and, if it does, how it will operate in practice (and whether it'll get rolled out anywhere else).
On religion, yeah, I do think a public statement along the lines of "my faith informs my public policy positions and decisions" would be very heavily criticised if it came from the leader of a secular party in New Zealand. I don't think we generally like the idea that the personal beliefs and values of our politicians should provide the basis for law, although of course it often provides part of the reasoning. I find it fascinating that, for example, abortion is such a hot-button issue in the States, so incredibly divisive, when here even though people do feel very passionate about it privately we don't make it an election issue.