Category: politics

Why Adam John Holland is the Only Sensible Choice For Auckland Mayor

auckland

Adam Holland is the only one of the 18 Auckland mayoral candidates whose candidacy doesn’t have some kind of gross defect. If the mayoral campaigns were embryos, most of them would be terminated by the mother after the doctor made clear that there was no chance of viable offspring. Holland stands out from this rabble in a number of ways.

The first is that he is the only one interested in using his position as mayor to enrich Auckland, instead of just enriching himself. Holland has promised to “donate every last penny of my salary to various charities as suggested to me by the people of Auckland“. Considering that the salary of the Auckland mayor is NZD250,000+, this represents a considerable sum of money that charities need.

Coupled to this is the likelihood that the mayor would make it fashionable to donate salary money to charity, which is what this ever more unequal society needs. Considering how shallow and trend-conscious Aucklanders are, magnanimity on the order of Holland’s gesture might be worth tens of millions to the various charities of New Zealand.

Many politicians are fanatically devoted to an ideology and are happy to destroy everything in their path in order to force that ideology upon everyone else. Holland is the opposite of this – his suspension of judgment is so strong that he doesn’t know if he is representing Not A Party or Legalise Cannabis Auckland. Perhaps it is both, or even neither.

Holland is the only candidate with genuine philosopher-king credentials. He says “I won’t do a single thing as mayor just as I haven’t done a single thing for the past seven years of my retirement. Decisions shall be left up to the people, not an elected official in a farcical ‘democratic’ ceremony.”

Here Holland is referencing Book VIII of Plato’s Republic, in particular the passage that covers the five forms of government. For those who have not read The Republic, the belief of Plato was that government begins as an aristocracy and degrades over time, passing through the less perfect stages of timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and eventually tyranny.

The astute listener would interpret Holland’s words here as a warning to us about the further deterioration of our society, especially in this age of greed. Once democracy degrades further, it becomes tyranny. It’s possible to read Holland’s words here as a warning against the darker side of human nature, one that has almost surfaced thanks to the short sighted mismanagement of the Key Government.

Auckland is fortunate to have such an extraordinarily educated individual run for mayor.

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If the above is somehow not convincing enough, consider the state of the field that Holland is running against. Each candidate was offered a free shot of publicity here, and all of them bar Holland disqualified themselves with their responses.

Mario Alupis – professional wrestler. Attached photo suggests a large number of serious knocks to the head. Can’t be trusted to remember what he’s doing.

Aileen Austin – probably too old to survive the term as mayor. Also, Auckland would never vote for a hippie – this isn’t Nelson, dear.

Penny Bright – “Crooked” Penny Bright is running for mayor to distract the public from her impending imprisonment for dodging her rates bill. Auckland doesn’t need a mayor that shifts their debts onto the public.

Patrick Brown – Couldn’t be bothered supplying a photo. Also a communist.

Tricia Cheel – Another old hippie. Will split Aileen Austin’s votes and vice-versa, meaning that a vote for either is a waste.

Victoria Crone – has claimed to “bring 20 years’ experience running major New Zealand companies to the Auckland mayoralty.” What this means is that Auckland will be sold to the Chinese and everyone working in Auckland will be paid $5 per hour.

Phil Goff – no good unless he has Helen Clark telling him what to do.

David Hay – yet another old hippie, Hay is a former Green and thus probably a communist.

Alezix Heneti – serial failure. Eccentric name sure-fire sign of a rampant narcissist.

Stan Martin – couldn’t get it together enough to supply a photo, clearly not up to being mayor.

Bin Thanh Nguyen – couldn’t get it together enough to supply a photo, clearly not up to being mayor. Almost literally nothing is even known about this guy.

Phil O’Connor – Bible-thumper. Hates women. Vote for this guy and you can kiss goodbye to being allowed to buy alcohol on Sundays in Auckland.

John Palino – American, thus disqualified on the ground that we need a Kiwi to be the mayor of our biggest city.

Tyrone Raumati – couldn’t get it together enough to supply a photo or to respond to social media advances, clearly not up to being mayor.

Chloe Swarbrick – probably the next most sensible choice apart from Holland, wants to use the mayoralty as a platform to reshape the world in her image though and therefore cannot be trusted.

Mark Thomas – a plastic candidate in the John Key/Aldo Miccio mold. Soulless.

Wayne Young – basically a complete bum who would have been euthanised in a less tolerant society.

Many, many people have been saying that these reasons make Adam John Holland the sensible choice for Auckland mayor on 09 OCT.

Is It Once Again Time to Boycott South African Sports Teams?

norugbywithracists

There has been little discussion about the news that the South African team for the Black Caps’ tour of Africa will be chosen on the basis of race, and not merit. For the first time since the early 1980s, New Zealand finds itself faced with a team that leaves out its best players for being the wrong skin colour.

CricInfo reports that “The two-match series is the first South Africa play since last month’s announcement that CSA will impose selection criteria relating to the number of players of colour in all national teams in accordance with a memorandum of understanding signed with the country’s sports ministry.”

In April this year, the South African Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula banned Cricket South Africa from hosting international tournaments for one year because of being too slow to reach transformation targets.

The ‘memorandum of understanding’ signed by Cricket South Africa could also be understood as a surrender document.

It sounds unbelievable, but the South African Government has decreed that a maximum of 40% of the South African players can be white. In practice, that means four players in the national cricket side can be white.

This raises the possibility that the injuries said to have been sustained by AB de Villiers and Morne Morkel are a ruse to distract from the fact that some white players have been forced out of the South African team to play the first Test, starting Saturday, by the quota.

South Africa coach Russell Domingo says that “if someone says Hashim Amla or JP Duminy or Dane Piedt is playing because of the colour of their skin, they are smoking something.” He neglects to mention Temba Bavuma, who, as a specialist batsman with a first-class batting average of 38, probably does not deserve a place in the national side.

If the South African cricket team is chosen on the basis of race, and not on merit, it has no business on the international stage.

Probably it’s too early to yet make a judgment, because we don’t yet know if the quota is an honest attempt at transforming a sporting scene that gives undue advantage to white people, or if it’s simply a crude attempt to disadvantage a racial enemy.

For my part, I’ll probably just be happy to see Kane Williamson facing up to Dale Steyn for a few weeks.

– DAN MCGLASHAN

The Auckland Housing Crisis is Because New Zealand is a Pack of Whores

dorkland

Every day, someone is pointing a finger at someone else to blame them for the unaffordability of New Zealand housing. Many fingers are pointing in many directions: at John Key, at Chinese investors, at developers, at Auckland Councils, at greedy speculators and at the world economy.

What the media isn’t willing to admit is that the housing crisis is a natural consequence of the culture of New Zealanders. What we have to accept is that we’re not actually a very nice people.

This country was essentially founded by the sort of person who sells other people’s land out from under their feet, and the sort of person who buys the land anyway. Some parts of Wellington were ‘sold’ by people who didn’t even live there. We’re still like this – when we sell a house, we don’t give a fuck who is moving into our old neighbourhood, as long as they bring the cash.

Our current record immigration levels are also a natural consequence of our culture. The land-owners are in power, so if we open the floodgates to everyone demand for housing will increase, which means the value of the land-owners’ assets increase, which means they can sell them for the highest price.

We’re a pack of whores in this country. Let’s just accept it so that we can make sense of what’s happening.

Nowhere is the short-sighted, greed-crazed mentality that defines the New Zealander of 2016 more evident than in Auckland. The “Auckland housing crisis” (as it is dubbed by the Auckland-based media) is an outgrowth of that same mentality that South Islanders refer to when they say that Auckland has no soul.

Because it doesn’t. It’s just a bunch of whores trying to get rich at each other’s expense. Auckland is like Los Angeles: a superficial, shallow plasticland of hustlers, grifters and straight out bullshitters. No-one there trusts anyone else, and neither should they. Pull out a bunch of cash in either city, though, and you can have someone sucking your dick within seconds.

New Zealanders are whores because we treat each other like whores.

We don’t build decent houses because that costs more money, so we let our kids get asthma instead.

We don’t have a capital gains tax because that would inhibit our ability to get rich from property speculation, so we have empty houses owned by foreigners while our young people live in cars.

We close down rape crisis centres and slash mental health funding because we’d rather have tax cuts.

If we take an honest look at our own culture, we have to accept that there is no real housing crisis in Auckland – it’s merely another great chance for some of us to get rich at the expense of other New Zealanders. If we are honest we have to accept that we want it that way because it gives us profitable avenues through which we can exploit our countrymen.