I was thinking about blogging about that recent Herald Digipoll and then decided against it thinking – what’s the point? Every pundit has advice for David Cunliffe so I don’t need to get in on that action particularly because I don’t even understand the point of polls. (I’m lying, I understand the political point of them). That saying, I don’t think that the poll shows that Labour would get 37.7% if the election were held today. I think it shows that 37.7% are open to voting for Labour because they are and have been dissatisfied with National.
Over at Dimpost Danyl could tell us what this poll means in the context of other polls. David Farrar has provided an explanation. The Daily Blog are still probably having a party as you read this and Imperator Fish is probably be upto his usual mischief. Speaking of Imperator Fish – he tweeted the link to this Herald article written by one Damien Rogers and I read it. And then I got angry. And then I said "well he is from Massey". And then I realized I knew this Damien and didn’t connect the dots and felt bad so I deleted my tweet. I’m sorry I said that. I was angry. But now 6 hours have passed I’ve decided to write about it instead of making personal attacks which is generally not my style and is bad. Bad Lamia! But I was in my defense policy class at the time when I was fighting with 5 Army guys as to why women should be allowed in combat while they were telling me about how they will not reduce standards for women. I was in a bad place at the time.
Apparently the Labour party is “waging war for gender equality and minority rights”. If you want to see the make up of women and minority see QOT’s blog on the numbers. Labour is by no means doing THAT much better than National. So if Labour is waging war (which it is not) then it rightly should. Because women and minorities don’t have anyone else fighting their wars. As The Egonomist pointed out in their podcast a few weeks ago, where would Labour be without women? The answer: nowhere. They would not exist. It would be like saying the Greens are waging war against polluters and they should stop because most people don’t care. They have a constituency and that constituency does care. If the Greens didn’t fight for the environment, Green supporters would be very upset. Women and minorities traditionally support Labour BECAUSE LABOUR SUPPORTS THEM. Sorry I’m yelling. Grrr.
After he attacks the Labour leadership for being so women and minority friendly (I am both so yes, this is personal and yes, I am taking it personally), he then goes on to give advice on the center. I have already blogged about what I think of the so-called center so I wont rehash that.
Here’s the thing. This is exactly the reason why there are less women in positions of leadership in the public service. Because we are made to think that women can only think about their own vaginas and nothing else. Women can’t think about defense policy and economic policy (a guy once told me I can’t believe you said “current account deficit” out loud, do you even know what that means? I do but who cares right?). If a woman wins a seat, it’s because she is a woman and not that the membership voted for her and because she is capable of representing. At least the thought is women can't think about abortion and the economy at the same time. So if she is talking about abortion, she must be sacrificing her economic thought brain cells. In my case it's ethnic affairs (even though I probably understand economics more than ethnic affairs, I'm brown so I must know all there is to know about ethnic affairs.)
There are a lot of discussions around what kind of voters Labour should try to get? Should it be the disenfranchised? The beneficiaries? Women? Minorities? Who? I will be the first one to admit that there are policies that Labour back that are not popular with the generic ‘middle class white male’. Abortion, euthanasia, marriage equality, gender pay gap, paid parental leave are things that maybe white males do not care about. But someone has to think about them. If it is the Labour Party so be it. I fully believe they can do that and fix the economy at the same time. We all know that the Ministry of Women’s Affairs will not be asked to comment on the economy so Treasury can go implement its big boys policies (Yes, I know the Treasury is full of intelligent women) and the country can keep doing the same thing it’s been doing since 1984 and we can all calm down and stop worrying that the womenfolk are taking over.
Once again, I apologise to Damien about my deleted tweet. I have met him (he may not remember me) and he is a nice guy. But respectfully, he is wrong on this.
No comments:
Post a Comment