Blathering on Politics 1

So, I'm politically a left-winger, but not too far left, and not as far left as I used to be; I'm just not conservative, religious, or for privatization of public assets for the benefit of the few. And we had an election last Saturday, and though expected, New Zealand went right. We have a prime-minister-to-be who used to be a money trader. And don't we already know a big portion of the world's woes just now were created by his peers?

I'm not feeling optimistic nor hopefully, and see the change in the country's reign as a change for the sake of change. Heck, we really don't know what this guy is thinking of doing, except all the stuff he's not going to change from the current Labour policies. Sure, I was getting tired of Aunty Helen thinking she was outside the normal good-taste, good-manners rules of the society, and her government started to stick its fingers into too many trivial things in our private lives; she started to have this seriously strained grin on her face when she was mad as heck, probably obliging her expensive spin doctors' advice, but she did keep us out of Iraq until reconstruction started, and the economy boomed in the last decade. Our new guy loves to liken himself to THE President Elect. Crikey. For one thing, our guy has a perpetual SEG on his face. And he doesn't just flip-flop, he doesn't know stuff.

But a more learned woman over the ditch summarized more intelligently how I feel. Here's Jill Singer's article in the Herald Sun, an Australian paper. "Ruch" is how Aussies think Kiwis pronounce the word "rich", and it's not far off. Kiwis something think Sydney-siders say "reeeech", and sometimes that's not far off, either. I cringed, and am glad someone else noticed it, too, the way his kids were paraded possibly against their wills onto the stage - such a different relationship to the two little girls, and others, on stage; Jill's expression is so apt.

And those who switched sides, yes, they did get bored. And Labour supporters didn't turn up because for months and months the media harped on how Aunty Helen was going to loose.

I look to the east with great envy. (Yeah, you're east of me.)