“Mate. We don’t know how lucky we are”
New Zealand comedian John Clarke (Fred Dagg)
Perhaps nary a truer word has been spoken about Aotearoa/New Zealand. We have few of the major problems afflicting many countries overseas – corruption, large scale environmental damage (don’t get me wrong here – I’ve got plenty to say about our environment and how we manage it), human rights abuses, threats to democracy and many more. We don’t have a repressive regime that jumps at every chance to clamp down on its citizens like North Korea, China, Russia and others do. Nor is this country broken like the United States, where in many respects the country is just about ungovernable. Nor are we societally broken like the United Kingdom where the once vaunted National Health System is dangerously overloaded, with an education system whose schools are literally crumbling concrete, and where 2 million households in debt on their energy bills.
But we can be better. A lot better.
Neoliberal market economic reform was painted as some kind of great leap forward, where the market and its structures would become competitive, the economy would grow and everyone would have vastly improved incomes. The reality is that we were sold a trojan horse that once inside New Zealand, then proceeded to infect every social and economic aspect of our lives. Every O.E.C.D. statistic that we were once at or near the top of in terms of education, health, social welfare and equality has gone downhill since 1984. Most of our state assets have been sold or partially sold to overseas interests who have gutted them and moved along.
And we’ve enabled it by continuing the definition of insanity:
Repeating tried and demonstrated failures, but still expecting different results each time.
This blog is where I will post my musings as a frustrated New Zealander who knows his country is not living up to its full potential. There is a future for this country and there is a way to achieve it. Changes will need to be made, but it’s well known that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results each time.
Are you willing to join me in helping effect that change?
Leftist Kiwi Writes 