I read Danyl's blog this afternoon and was somewhat distressed. I left a snippy comment. The fifty five million people who left comments later all disagreed with me (people read Danyl's blog, as opposed to this one... Hi Richard! Hi Mum!).
Apparently my comment was nasty, but then I don't think it is nice to talk about voters this way:
Mad props to all those Green Party supporters in Ohariu (all 2229 of you!) who gave your electorate votes to the Green candidate, ensuring that Green Party arch-nemesis Peter Dunne could return to Parliament with a majority of only 1170 votes over Labour candidate Charles Chauvel.
Congratulations to Simon Bridges, new National MP for Tauranga who helped rid Parliament Winston Peters and ensured that the eighty eight thousand assholes who voted for Peters simply wasted their votes.
It just isn't.
It reminded me of an article that Julian Barnes wrote about going to watch a very important chess game, and how all the chess geeks used really violent, sexua and offensive language to describe the various players, the strategies they used and their careers. They all thought they were right, they develop hatreds and allegiances, they forgot that opinions are like arseholes. Political bloggers also seem to be an intensely inward breed, whose tone can be pretty strong stuff and yet are highly offended at the strong stuff of others.
Listening to people who are into politics can be similar to what happens when you tell people you are a teacher. They spend quite a lot of time telling you how it is.
How is it? F**ked if I know, but I know it's pretty messy and there really isn't ever going to be a clean solution to all the problems of the classroom. I potter along doing my best, holding my stupid political outsider opinions and voting how I feel. I don't vote based on what the insiders think I should do strategically, and outside certain electorates I don't think that's what most people do - the 88,000 arseholes, the 2229 fools and the other 220,000 of us. Shame.
My other reflection on this blog's brief foray into things loosely connected to politics is that it can be quite hard to make a point if you use Winston Peters as an example. My point was the media have had undue influence here and overseas with some candidates which may not have been entirely fair. Danyl left a long comment on my blog about this but it went on a bit and didn't seem related to my point. I think he was trying to prove something. The other side point in my post was that even if you don't like someone it's not fair to deny their followers representation. Hey, if 88,000 people want Winston, good luck to them.
But frankly I have no interest in Winston Peters' political career (although he did have the best cheeky grin in politics... probably in the world). I couldn't give a jot about the elaborate ins and outs of the finances of his party many moons ago. He's gone. Next time I will use a different example, and try and make my point a bit better.
Postscript: I reread a few things and I've decided that Danyl's post was bitter and self righteous, and rather, well ... nasty. Maybe the comments section was satirical too. Anyway, scratch the apology.
9 comments:
They got Trotsky with an ice-pick.
Don't retreat to Mexico.
Thanks for the tip. I was thinking of Tahiti.
Hey, why not make Elainor put rubbish in a Danyl too?
1. It's a cast-iron law of blogging that the nastier and more self-righteous you are the more popular you become.
2. We will have to agree to disagree about Peters.
3. I didn't know teachers got the 'let me tell you about your job' speech when they introduced themselves. Obviously this doesn't happen to computational biologists but its almost inevitable that when Maggie tells people she is a political journalist the conversation spirals down into a fight about whether or not the media are biased.
It is not very nice to name your rubbish bin after Richard. He is a lovely man, who I find very kind and helpful.
Thank you 'theblovelist'. JY has been mean to me for a long time - ever since I started calling my blue plastic safety razor
John-Paul.
By the way, are you 'theb love list' or 'the blovelist'?
BTW - (having reread your post) I didn't actually think you were really 'getting nasty' (nor was I attempting to talk dirty), it was just a feeble attempt at a joke, the big gag being that comparing me to Chris Trotter really WAS the ultimate insult.
I'm sorry that John-Paul stooped so low. Hey, Daryl, why do you never talk to me?
I see you and Daryl becoming like Batman and Robin.
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