liberation

Identity politics vs class politics - 1: Introduction

Phil Goff has recently challenged issues that are at the core of socially liberal politics in New Zealand. The Labour Party leader has been asserting a more class-oriented and leftwing version of politics, effectively seeking to shift Labour away from a core part of its project of the last three decade: liberal identity politics. The meaningfulness and authenticity of this shift can be questioned, but the intrinsic tilt to the left cannot. While the conventional media and blogosphere interpretation of Labour’s new direction is to label it as either ‘social conservative’ or ‘rightwing’, Goff’s repositioning is in fact nothing of the sort. It is actually a newfound expression of relatively leftwing positions on important issues. What’s more, the controversy over the speech has sparked an important and long overdue debate within the New Zealand left about what it means to be leftwing in 2009, and what the way forward is for those interested in fighting for a more equal and just society. It has made the left confront questions of how concepts such as ‘social liberalism’, ‘political correctness’, ‘post-materialism’, and ‘identity politics’ fit into the leftwing project, if indeed they do at all. Yet, much of this significant debate occurs in an incredibly murky and confused manner, mainly due to an inability to conceptualise the different elements at play. So, in an attempt to contribute to this discussion, this blog post introduces a whole series of posts discussing these issues. The series attempts to reframe the debate and the terms of the debate in a way that is hopefully useful. It argues that to understand what’s going on in the Labour Party, what Goff has recently pushed for, and indeed what’s happened to the Green Party, is not a case of social liberalism versus social conservatism; nor is it left versus right; but instead it’s liberalism versus leftism – or simply: identity politics versus class politics. [Read more below]

[party membership] 16: Depoliticisation in society

A general depoliticisation process is underway in New Zealand society, whereby people are uninterested in taking part in any political process, or even joining non-parliamentary political groups. This has clearly reduced the supply of party membership. [Read more below]

[Third parties] 12: The decline of NZ societal organisations

New Zealand society is increasingly made up of atomised individuals who are disinclined to participate in public life and politics, and when they actually do participate, they do so more as individuals than as members of groups. Third parties from business groups, to trade unions, through to the Freemasons and the Countrywomen’s Institute – as well as environmental and socialist groups – have been in significant decline. This blog post details the decline of such societal organisations in NZ. [Read more below]

Hot Country Singer Has Message for the Troops

The Dixie Chicks finally have some competition from another political country singer. Sandy Belle is 'a buxom lass with big hair and small shorts', and her Message for the Troops is a well crafted song that getting lots of views on Youtube. The lyrics are pretty funny. They start off innocently enough: "This here song is goin' out to my men in the service/ Y'all been away so long that it's startin' to make me nervous." Which is nice - however it quickly descends into extreme sexual innuendo, climaxing with the full-on lines: "Home of the brave, let's misbehave/ We'll be gettin' freaky like in Abu Ghraib." Of course it's a parody. Sandy Belle is a comedian with New York group The Dregs. There are multiple versions of the song about. This less-viewed one is actually probably better. But if you want to see a 'real' patriotic country song about Iraq, check out Bumper of My SUV. It's all further evidence of the power of 'new politics' on the web.

Is 'Live Earth' a global disaster? Or just a harmless 24-hour smugfest?

It's the new pattern of 'New Politics': don't bother with politics, political parties, programmes and elections etc - just organise a big media feel-good gig and get celebrity endorsements for your cause. So despite the conspicous failures of past smugfests like Make Poverty History and Live 8, Al Gore wants to lecture us all by getting pop stars to perform environment concerts on seven continues over 24 hours. As if there's anyone alive who isn't already aware of the situation? It's rammed down our throats everywhere. But Live Earth reminds us that political pop is not dead but is in a dire state where, as I've posted before, there are Too many protest singers, not enough protest songs. [Read more below]

Chris Trotter: Withdraw the anti-smacking bill

Anti-smacking advocates in New Zealand have adopted an elite, lobbying-style of politics that has effectively killed any chance of successfully changing society's orientation to smacking kids. To this effect, Chris Trotter has written a very interesting opinion piece in the Sunday-Star Times arguing that the 'anti-smacking' private members bill should not be rammed through Parliament in the context of such widespread opposition in society. [The article does not currently appear to be online.] Trotter says that when something like 80% of New Zealanders oppose the bill, it's bad politics and bad law to push legislation through just because you have assembled a slight parliamentary majority in favour.

Trotter is probably right. The proponents of the bill have failed to convince New Zealanders. This is because the Greens and their allies never really attempted to focus their campaigns on ordinary people. Instead they have taken an elite political approach that epitomises modern activist politics - that of lobbying those in power rather than the public. Trotter suggests that previous agents of social change were about more participatory and democratic means: 'the anti-Vietnam War movement, the anti-apartheid movement, the anti-nuclear movement and gay-rights movement. As their names suggest, they were all exercises in mass democratic action - and took years.'

NZ politics now takes place in an elite way, in which single-issue campaigns are increasingly carried out in a disengaged way from society. It's a hierarchical and anti-democratic way of trying to push for social change. As Trotter, reminds proponents of the bill, 'You cannot legislate people into virtue... they can only be persuaded. And you have not persuaded them.' Of course, there are always exceptions - where there is an overwhelming and urgent case for a government to act against majority wishes to protect the rights of some citizens, but I don't believe this case falls anywhere near that.

The anti-Establishment power of online video

Perhaps it's a bit mean, and maybe a bit anti-political, but I'm loving how 'new politics' can be a force for laughing at establishment politicians. The most recent hot political video on Youtube is the one of Hillary Clinton singing the US national anthem off-key not aware her microphone is on. It's been viewed over 1m times, compared to her official video blog which hardly rates in terms of views. You can read more on this and other such videos in this short article.

Bono's project RED succeeds and fails

It is being reported that Bono's corporate 'radical' RED project - previously reported on here - has been been somewhat of a failure for the poor, even if it's been a huge success for the re-branding of the corporates involved. So far the 52m pound marketing campaign has only netted 9m pounds for the third world.

Ethical consumption

The idea that ethical shopping is 'going to save the world' just gets more and more popular. The Economist magazine has just run a good feature on this issue, arguing, correctly in my opinion, that 'transforming the planet requires duller disciplines, like politics'. The Economist's actual political solutions might not fit with mine - as they're narrowly based on the ballot box and trade deals - but their general point that 'no amount of fairtrade coffee will elimate poverty, and all the organic asparagus in the world will not save the planet' is basically true.

Second, the article argues, interestingly, that many of the commonly trusted methods of ethnical shopping can actually be counterproductive. For instance, organic farming requires significantly more land and resources than that produced by intensive high-tech farming, the Fairtrade system encourages overproduction and only a tiny percentage of the markup goes to the farmer, and the most significant aspect of foodmiles is not where in the world a product comes from but how you get to the supermarket to purchase it.