I have a good friend, who I refer to (not to her face) as a Born-Again Socialist. When questioned, she will tell anyone prepared to listen that she ‘used to vote National’, almost as if she were a recovering alcoholic. More likely, she is trying to tell everyone that she has seen the light. She hated John Key, adores Jacinda and says she doesn’t like the fact that, under Key, ‘the rich got richer and the poor got poorer’. This is just a mantra. She has no idea that this is all due to globalism and western countries selling out their industries and most of their jobs to third-world nations. She maintains that it is all John Key’s fault.
It would not go down well to point out that she is well and truly among those who have got considerably richer over the last few years, nor the fact that many people have got very much richer – from an asset perspective at least – under Jacinda’s government than they ever did under Key. But hey – who needs pesky little things like facts when there is an argument to win?
It got me thinking. People like her have a bit of a guilty conscience about how wealthy they are so they vote Labour (or for the Greens) and hey presto! They have done their bit for the downtrodden. Now they can go and enjoy their luxury cruises, safe in the knowledge that the poor are being looked after by the government, so they don’t need to do anything further.
The trouble is that these people have not recognised something very important. These days neither Labour nor the Greens are doing much to look after those at the bottom of society. They pay lip service, sure, but in the end, building affordable housing, solving child poverty and fixing homelessness are less important than their pet projects like expensive cycle bridges and subsidies on electric vehicles, which benefit only the affluent. Think of Jacinda. She claims the only reason she went into politics was to solve child poverty, and yet, here she is, in a position to actually help children in poverty, but things just get worse and worse under her watch. But when it comes to middle-class welfare, she is there in spades.
Does my friend ever comment on any of this? Of course not. Drive her into a corner and she will justify it all on the basis of climate change. In truth, however, the government is looking after the elite of society, and that is really all that modern-day socialist parties concentrate on nowadays.
And all those elites, of course, are (Born Again) Socialists.
It’s not that different from the CCCP really. Remember how all the people in the highest echelons of the Communist Party in Russia had lovely dachas on beautiful lakes or close to the Black Sea? So much for all animals being equal.
Think about all those wealthy celebrities crying a river of tears over refugees. Did even one of them actually provide housing for any refugees? Of course not. Other people do that. There is no such thing as leading by example in the world of the elite socialist. Ask Lily Allen, Katy Perry or Meghan Markle.
Actually, that is not quite true.
Enter John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols fame. He was always as anti-establishment as it was possible to be, but he still stands by his principles, and if he is anti-establishment, it is for all the right reasons.
Sex Pistols’ frontman Johnny Lydon had some rotten things to say about “wokeness.”
He also blamed academia as well as the media for giving “the space” to “tempestuous spoilt children.”
“These people aren’t really genuinely disenfranchised at all,” said Lydon, 65. “They just view themselves as special. It’s selfishness and in that respect, it’s divisive and can only lead to trouble,” he said.
“Where is this ‘moral majority’ nonsense coming from when they’re basically the ones doing all the wrong for being so bloody judgmental and vicious against anybody that doesn’t go with the current popular opinion?” he asked. “It’s just horribly, horribly tempestuous spoilt children coming out of colleges and universities with s-?-t for brains.”
Here is a real anti-establishment hero. Don’t hold back, Johnny – say what you think.
Addressing calls to tear down Churchill’s statue in London, Lydon dismissed criticism that the wartime prime minister was racist. However, critics point out that the leader once referred to Indians as “the beastliest people in the world next to Germans,” and thought that black people are “[not] as capable or as efficient as white people.”
“This man saved Britain,” Lydon asserted. “Whatever he got up to in South Africa or India beforehand is utterly irrelevant to the major issue in hand.”
If there are any bigger haters in history than today’s cancel culture, Lydon conceded, it’s the Nazis — and Churchill took care of that.
“We are not walking up and down the high street with jackboots and helmets because of that man,” Lydon said. “The Nazis were the biggest race haters of all, ever, in the history of the planet so thank you again, Winston.”
New York Post
So here is what I am taking from all of this. Leading socialists these days live in a world of elitism, but it is among the conservatives that we see genuine concern when the poor are ignored and the middle class get government benefits that they neither need nor want. Think about how many people on this site object to the subsidy for EVs and the Auckland bike bridge, yet I guarantee that there are a fair few biking Aucklanders among us, not to mention a few who could afford an EV… if they chose to.
You and Johnny Rotten have a lot in common. Good on you. Boy, a lot has changed in 40 years.
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