Last night I hit the sack thinking how the NZ Herald will likely drag it's heels to publish the Talbot Poll results and perhaps fall back to campaigning hard against Green Party females and freaking out about the peril of hypothetical left bloc taxes.
I had seen TVNZ 1 News cover the Waitangi Tribunal ruling on Māori Wards too, and told Vicki I would publish on that topic first thing this morning and then - I fell asleep.
When I woke up, it was just before 5am when the Herald publish it's overnight articles - and sure enough there was nothing about the Talbot poll nor the Waitangi Tribunal as the clock struck 5am.
These two omissions danced in my mind as I fed Monty who rubbed himself around my ankles - and I recalled Mike's Minute where he rants at us how the Greens are basket cases - as I slowly pushed the plunger down and the dark coffee swirled.
I'm on antibiotics and pain killers and frequent mouth washes right now so my morning routines are getting longer...with hearing aids, contact lenses, reading glasses, popping pills ...but still I managed to post some content and read around how Simeon Brown had delivered an ultimatum to Councils on the 4 April 2024 - where he called Maori representation "divisive" unless local communities singled them out and basically had a vote about these brown fellas.
The tyranny of the settler state majority is one thing - but a wafer thin threshold of 5% rednecks - would trigger a binding referendum on whether Maori representation was okay - if Simeon Brown had his way using the 2023 election as his beating stick to unilaterally side step his Treaty obligations.
I had watched Simeon Brown with a certain measure of mockery and dislike for sometime - and the lyric "They say the greatest coward can hurt the most ferociously" defined for me - what I feared about him should he ever one day come to prominence and be unleashed upon our society.
That dynamic when you say - the worst possible thing imaginable will one day come true ...and then it happens.
Judith Collins had promoted him for knowing how to "play this game" and despite me realising that there was something pointing back at me about myself when I dislike someone - I also saw this person as a coward who was emboldened by the group around him.
Many years ago, I had not yet seen the broader invisible hand on Simeon's shoulder - the player moving political chess figures around - was the Atlas Network - manifest in New Zealand through the Taxpayers Union and the NZ Initiative.
This was economic power confronting what stood in its way on a national and local level as it attempted to nullify the Treaty and the defences we rely upon in the media had either been captured ( as in the case of the omissions in the Herald ) or was weakened and stripped of it's proverbial teeth.
The goal was to bring in direct foreign investment to develop and profit from resources - to strip away what makes us Aotearoa - and to convert us into a kind of Hawaii.
Te puke - no Hawaii bro.
Side stepping the voice of Maori, pushing down their language, taking out Treaty clauses, steam rolling over the Tribunal, dismantling it - are all part of the real assimilation vision, not articulated clearly in the 2040 vision by Christopher Luxon.
Holiday homes for the rich, global, something American and puppet of giant transnational corporations.
Luxon was just a chess piece as was Willis and Simeon in this ongoing neoliberal project. Doubling down, spluttering, repeating talking points, pretending to not know, evading hard questions, avoiding accountability - and working incredibly hard and doing an exceptional job - when it was a really a giant shit sandwich.
The real player was in the shadows, out of the limelight - directing the game - and embedded all around National Ministers like Simeon - the pawn with the big finger of blame and loud ferocious courage as long as his gang of bullies were behind him.
So it was in that context - that I read Thomas the Turd Polisher's response to the Talbot poll. Labour in the lead over National should have been a headline in any fair democracy with a free press.
This was a poll that had been frequently and regularly included in reports until two months ago when the political fortunes of National took a dive.
A poll that the Daily Blog revealed had placed Thomas' beloved right wing government back into oblivion in just six months.
OMG six years of tearing at Jacinda ( taxinda ) and everything kind and inclusive - only to be swallowed up and rejected in six short months.
Predictably Thomas responded by avoiding the reality and deflecting to the topic of Labour and tax.
In a mind numbing long wander into hypotheticals Thomas essentially said Labour love to talk about tax ( OMG who is writing about it ? ) and will likely go with a Capital Gains tax despite the base demanding a Wealth Tax.
The deflection spoke volumes about what is wrong with parts of the fourth estate.
Meanwhile over at the Post Janet Wilson had caught onto the promise of State Asset sales which form the basis of privatisations - where public responsibilities are transferred into private hands - and net profit is the measure of success - not the wellbeing of citizens.
We've been experiencing a blitzkrieg and are under a Neoliberal attack as media falls over and we are still here standing - seeing the reality in 60 frames per second slow motion.
It would not be right to sign off before mentioning how the Talbot poll puts National on only 33% versus the Atlas Network Taxpayers Union Curia Poll ( taken at the same time ) that put National on 37.3%. That gap of 4.3% is curious given both polling companies claim to be adhering to standards.
The gap has closed up and now the tax cuts are the bribe and bait the Atlas Network will be hoping returns the polls to a more comfortable state for vested interests moving those chess players around.
Those of us who do not want to see the environment destroyed, the fish and the birds and forests smoked, the sky filled with coal fumes and petrol forever - and the Treaty trampled on and relegated to a legal nullity instead of our founding document...can take heart that these neoliberal dictators shall not pass the next election at this rate.
Kia kaha !!!!
Tomorrow is now.
Saturday Morning Coffee
Morena
G
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