Random Comments/Questions about League

Everybody should read her wiki. She is the greatest example you'll find of how little 'democracy' matters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacinda_Ardern

She is a nothing who was placed into power instead of earning it by merit. Her aunt got her placed into power and she lost every election she contested until her last when they purposely gave her a guaranteed labour seat.

She's a literal communist:

Hence why the communist media glorifies her like Obama.

In early 2008, Ardern was elected as the president of the International Union of Socialist Youth. From here on out she gets pushed high up in her party despite losing every election:

Ahead of the 2008 election, Ardern was ranked 20th on Labour's party list. This was a very high placement for someone who was not already a sitting MP, and virtually assured her of a seat in Parliament. Accordingly, Ardern returned from London to campaign full-time.[28] She also became Labour's candidate for the safe National electorate of Waikato. Ardern was unsuccessful in the electorate vote, but her high placement on Labour's party list allowed her to enter Parliament as a list MP.[29] Upon election, she became the youngest sitting MP in Parliament, succeeding fellow Labour MP Darren Hughes, and remained the youngest MP until the election of Gareth Hughes on 11 February 2010.[30]

Ardern, with Phil Goff and Carol Beaumont, at an anti-mining march on 1 May 2010 Opposition leader Phil Goff promoted Ardern to the front bench, naming her Labour's spokesperson for Youth Affairs and as associate spokesperson for Justice (Youth Affairs).[31]

She made regular appearances on TVNZ's Breakfast programme as part of the "Young Guns" feature, in which she appeared alongside National MP (and future National leader) Simon Bridges.[32]

Ardern contested the seat of Auckland Central for Labour in the 2011 general election, standing against incumbent National MP Nikki Kaye for National and Greens candidate Denise Roche. Despite targeting Green voters to vote strategically for her, she lost to Kaye by 717 votes. However, she returned to Parliament via the party list, on which she was ranked 13th.[33] Ardern maintained an office within the electorate while she was a list MP based in Auckland Central.[34]

After Goff resigned from the Party leadership following his defeat at the 2011 election, Ardern supported David Shearer over David Cunliffe. She was elevated to the fourth-ranking position in the Shadow Cabinet on 19 December 2011, becoming a spokesperson for social development under new leader David Shearer.[31]

Ardern stood again in Auckland Central at the 2014 general election. She again finished second though increased her own vote and reduced Kaye's majority from 717 to 600.[35] Ranked 5th on Labour's list Ardern was still returned to Parliament where she became Shadow spokesperson for Justice, Children, Small Business, and Arts & Culture under new leader Andrew Little.[36]

Ardern put forward her name for the Labour nomination for the Mount Albert by-election to be held in February 2017[37] following the resignation of David Shearer on 8 December 2016. When nominations for the Labour Party closed on 12 January 2017, Ardern was the only nominee and was selected unopposed. On 21 January, Ardern participated in the 2017 Women's March, a worldwide protest in opposition to Donald Trump, the newly inaugurated president of the United States.[38] She was confirmed as Labour's candidate at a meeting on 22 January.[39][40] Ardern won a landslide victory, gaining 77 per cent of votes cast in the preliminary results.

The labour leader and deputy then both resigned in the same year so that she could be given the top job. She then proceeded to lose the national election but gained leadership over the nation through a coalition scam: Preliminary results from the general election indicated that Labour received 35.79 per cent of the vote to National's 46.03 per cent. After special votes were counted, Labour increased its vote share to 36.89 while National dropped back to 44.45. Labour gained 14 seats, increasing its parliamentary representation to 46 seats. This was the best result for the party since losing power in 2008.[62][63] After the election, Ardern and deputy leader Kelvin Davis negotiated with the Greens and New Zealand First parties about forming a coalition, as the rival National Party lacked sufficient seats to govern alone. Under the country's mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system, New Zealand First held the balance of power and was, therefore, able to choose the party that would lead a coalition government

 

Good post. Had a chuckle. By memory you even designed a fantastic logo. Wouldn't mind seeing it again for old's time's sake if you have it handy??

 

Two points want to make in response

Getting in on the list vs an electorate seat is not necessarily a knock on an MP. If she was favoured and fast tracked by Labour Party leadership then it turned out to be fantastic succession planning.

Second point, and this something have wanted to articulate for a long time, communism is not an evil concept such that everyone associated with it is to be condemned.

Communism has been portrayed as a pejorative word by the Western world in a massive propaganda program so that it wouldn't spread here and threaten the traditional factor of production resource holders.

Communism is fundamentally flawed no doubt and I won't dispute that. But it was introduced with genuine benevolent intentions. However its over reliance on central planning instead of market forces to allocate resources leads to the opportunity for incompetence, avarice, bias, and poor processes to compromise that planning process which in turns leads to lack of food in stores, lack of staples, a poor standard of living and other documented disadvantages.

 

It's to be condemned. You're talking about socialism, which is flawed as you said, and belief in it shows a total lack of understanding of how the world works, which is why most of its followers are naive young women who just follow what 'sounds nice' and their cognition ends there. As far as I'm concerned the line between socialism and communism ends at censorship and 'hate speech' which would make 100% of modern day socialists communists. There's no economic basis for such a policy, it's just about control.

 

I will have a think for a bit. You raise valid points.

 

How do you feel toolman about the distinction between communism as Karl Marx intended it and how it was disastrously implemented?
I think in my heart I think there is some defence of Marx’s concept even though to your point it was about giving workers control and not capital owners.

Thoughts?

 

Good post. I like this point in particular.
"The manifesto values output solely on the basis of the labour put into it and not the value of it to the end consumers. It's such a critical fuck up that no one older than 6 years old should take it seriously."

Karl Marx used to value products in terms of the bread it would cost to feed a worker to produce that product. If I recall correctly. It was all a bit odd.

I guess the essence of my objection to pejorative descriptions of it is that I felt that the Vietnam war and McCarthyism were OTT and based on a fear that if communism became a legitimate political option available to voters in the western world it would lead to a loss of power of the hidden power brokers of the western world.