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Politicians from nearly all parties in New Zealand (the world for that matter) fall into a number of obvious traps which render their efforts, though often well intended, worthless.
Two of these are overcomplication and oversimplification.
An example of oversimplification is the "Buy New Zealand" campaign. This is an oversimplification because it neither fully addresses the causes of problems, nor does it suggest any viable solutions. It merely presents the public with an annoyingly catchy slogan which insults their intelligence by failing to present the whole story (implying they wouldnīt understand it?). And alienating them yet further from feeling inclined to involve themselves in national issues by downplaying their immediate concerns (such as struggling to survive from payday to payday), leaving them thinking "why should I concern myself with politics when the politicians just tell me to buy more expensive clothes (New Zealand Made) while I can barely afford my clothes as it is, as if I`M responsible for the countries economic problems just because Iīm poor! Well fuck the politicians, Iīll buy where itīs cheapest". It is perfectly understandable that many people may feel this way.
Examples of overcomplication can be regularly seen in almost any situation where you have a number of politicians/corporate representatives/public figures etc conversing with one another in any medium. Whether itīs in Parliament buildings, on radio/television, in newspapers or on the internet, overcomplication achieves the goal of communicating little more to the public (and shockingly to politicians themselves!) than the idea "politics is complicated, you wouldnīt understand it". This is of course the perfectly convenient "popular misunderstanding" which corporate directors are quite happy with, because it enables them to go about their business without people knowing or understanding what that business is.
Overcomplication achieves this goal via a number or mechanisms. One of the most important is the use of "pompous" language (see reading on language). This kind of "word abuse" is the most insidious of all because it goes about almost unconsciously. Those involved from the inside are not even aware that they are helping to create terminology to describe apparent connections between relationships and systems which themselves developed out of an excessive tendency to label common sense occurrences as being examples of this or the other complex economic interrelationship. The result is a bungled web of "apparent" relationships, which (in reality) only bares relevance to, and supports the existence of its own "virtual" world.
For example, to what physical/biological occurrences (like say, a women failing to raise her 2 children healthily on a single income) do the terms "level playing field", "economic buoyancy", "GDP", "inflation" or "interest rates" bear direct relevance? Nothing of course. So why use them? "Ahh" but you say "they do indeed have relevance to such things, not directly but rather through a series of complex interrelationships which nobody quite fully understands".
To which I would reply "Well I can show you a hundred things which DO in fact bear DIRECT relationships to such problems which ARE in fact quite easy to understand. Very simple things like the fact that her children are alienated through competitive education and watch a lot of television which, through clever "child marketing" has them craving all sorts of sugary drinks and junk foods (to relieve the horror of school) which, greatly deteriorating their health and emptying their pocket money, makes their mothers job that much more difficult."
Well why not lets just talk about that
interrelationship for a start? (something anyone can come to grips with), instead of fluffing about with all that elaborate "GDP" nonsense which, if any of us were completely honest with themselves, would have to admit is quite sincerely a collection of hypothetical corporate fart, only leading us round in circles of bogus theory, and doing nothing to even begin addressing the real issues.
There is also the danger that by complicating the issues we can comfortably distance ourselves from the human nightmare of what is truly happening. It is much easier, for instance, to admit that we have a serious inflation problem, than it is to admit that the nations children are suffering mental illness and depression to an alarming degree.
These are important questions which must be asked. We must determine if we actually help ourselves to understand or improve our situation by using complicated terms to describe economic conditions. Or is this terminology simply suggestive of magnificent and mysterious forces which cannot be changed or altered, but rather must be strategically manipulated or at worst, endured! Are we not perhaps unnecessarily confusing the issues? Getting ourselves into a bit of an inferiority complex? This is what common sense would seem to suggest.
Perhaps we could ask ourselves, "what is the minimum number of words which we could use to completely describe our economic situation". For we must realize that if democracy is to work, then it is imperative that the largest section of the population understands the issues to the highest possible degree. Therefore we must be ruthless with our language and ensure that we find efficient ways of communicating ideas, efficient in that they are both easily understood and successfully describe all "real" phenomenon.
We must essentially, learn to use language as a scientist does, factually and carefully.
Overcomplication and oversimplification are however the greatest friends of the corporate propagandist, and for this reason a politician with a certain skill in communicating the idea that our economic woes are extremely complicated or decidedly simple (yet unsolvable), will find corporate support and corporate media coverage laying out red carpet from all imaginable directions.
As I personally am under no obligation to serve the propagandist, I will now endeavor to describe the problems as they are in reality, without diverging to superfluous babble or introducing unnecessary distractions.
There are essentially two major relationships which keep the people in New Zealand; underpaid, overworked, unhealthy, ignorant, corporate dependant and unhappy. They are.
1. Previous governments have sold sufficient land and industry to Trans National Corporations (TNCīs) that New Zealand citizens no longer play much of a part in the running of the country (telecommunications/forestry for instance). This also means that because these companies are continuously making local profit (NZ dollar) and overseas profit from selling New Zealand produce, they are increasingly able to purchase more and more local industry, until ultimately EVERYTHING will be corporate owned. If this course continues, the country will essentially become a large overseas owned factory which produces products like food, timber and wool for overseas markets, with the local population resigned to the positions of factory workers, cleaners and tourist hosts.
These corporations have naturally set up "public relations" divisions in order to ensure continued good business, and because they own (or sponsor) so much of the local media they are able to exert propaganda with much success. The public will now willingly destroy their health with sugar, msg, processed foods and vegetable oil consumption (products which make good corporate profit) because they have been duped into believing these things are harmless. They watch on their TV about how great fluoride toothpaste is, or how polyunsaturated vegetable oils will lower their risk of heart attack (see links), and after a while cease even to question the validity of such suppositions.
Politicians are under extreme pressure to find money to pay for public sector services such as education or health (as an increasingly lower percentage of the dollar remains in public hands - where it can be easily taxed). The corporations leave so little money for the public "trough", that politicians will in desperation resort to either; A. selling off public property (politicians themselves being somewhat under the spell "privatization is a good thing"), or B. borrowing from overseas institutions (world bank, IMF etc). The eventual result is to send the country deep into debt and into the future position of having to sell still more of those remaining assets in order to meet debt interest repayments.
All of this horrific cycle ultimately leads to a situation where government no longer exists, or to a much diminished degree (having sold itself), and the people are governed and manipulated by an unelected corporate oligarchy.
2. The second relationship is that which exists between New Zealand and countries which are poorer still. Such as China, for example, which per head of population, is very much poorer than New Zealand.
There are literally millions of people in China who will willingly work for 20 cents/day. Corporations (being quick to seek out a buck!) have long ago hit on the idea of shifting their factories to countries such as China, where they can exploit the workers in "sweat factories" to produce goods at mere fractions of the costs which would be required in other countries. These corporations then export products (at the cost of great environmental damage from shipping) to western countries for profits which will enable yet more factories to be built, more useless goods to be produced, and consequently more damage to be caused to the environment.
So import companies are better able to compete with local industry, thus forcing them out of existence.
The price is paid for by; the Chinese (who do the work but only see an insignificant fraction of the rewards), the environment (which is polluted by the unnecessary, energy inefficient and ecologically devastating shipping of goods which could just as easily be locally produced, or in the case of junk like Nintendo game machines, better not produced at all!), and the local skilled workforce pays the price of no longer having work, leaving them the option of living a miserable existence on welfare, or resorting to sweeping the floors for corporations.
So in view of the above you may imagine that a "Buy Local" campaign would be a great idea.
It is however essentially a bad idea because it is only addressing the more "resultant half" of the problem while failing to address the more "causal half". It is like asking people to more furiously throw buckets of water into the swimming pool, instead of suggesting that they offer help with fixing the leak!
Because the greater section of the New Zealand population is already working flat out just trying to survive from one week to the next (a situation which developed out of bad government and too much corporate power), it is ENTIRELY UNREASONABLE to expect underpaid people (who have to budget in order to manage feeding their children) to buy their cloths from an expensive locally supplied store, as opposed to a cheap import chainstore like Hallensteins, while both stores are on the very same street. People will not willingly go against the primary motivation of having to look after themselves and their loved ones, particularly at a time when it is literally a question of survival.
Far more reasonable would be to help empower people to understand and support a political alternative which would enable locally made products to be cheaper than imports (via taxation). This option also suggests, that politics could indeed potentially be in a position of power, as opposed to resigning itself to the somewhat weak and pitiful condition of being able only to offer untaken advice against the powerful laughing face of the market forces.
The unreasonable argument, "it will be better for everyone in the long run if each individual makes a small sacrifice (at a time when theyīre already in a bad way)" will result only in disgust and lack of respect towards politicians, and an increasing cynicism towards politics in general. It will certainly provoke the mocking reaction "If you politicians are so damned clever, why canīt you produce a cheaper pair of shoes than the corporations can?". Although this reaction may be ignorant, it would be most foolish not to anticipate it considering a largely uneducated public.
"Buy Local" campaigns also insinuate that people are responsible for economic problems simply from buying the cheapest products, which is ridiculous. It is akin to causing a room full of mice to become starving by limiting their food supply, providing them with the option of growing their own grain (giving them seeds), and then - without even telling them how to grow the seeds (if mice could grow seeds)- blaming the mice for eating the seeds directly!
It simply will not work.
While I was living (if you could call it that!) in Wellington in 1996, - training to manage a Dick Smith Electronics store (junk electronic imports chainstore), earning something like 8 dollars/hour (though curiously not being fully paid for all the overtime which was expected of me) and almost managing to feed myself (without too many chemicals), pay my rent and keep my health intact drinking fluoridated (industrial waste product) local water -, when I needed a new shirt, tie or pair of shoes for work, I went to Hallensteins! And there wasnīt a single insulting "kiwi triangle" which could have convinced me to do otherwise, or made me feel guilty for my action. If I were in the same situation now, I would be forced to do the same thing (or Iīd just turn up to work in a radiohead T shirt and get the sack!)
So what is the solution you may ask?
Itīs simple, very simple in fact.
1. Educate the people to be aware of the REAL situation (not the illusion of complexity), something like what I have written above. Distribute pamphlets, emails, do TV adds, pay people like me (youīll find em if you look, but most likely NOT in corporate sponsored universities!) to go round the country giving talks on these issues. Start rallying up support with rock bands and young people.
2. When you have a high degree of backing, put in the political moves to eliminate:
A. Unnecessary imports by companies which run sweat shops.
B. Corporate ownership of industry which could be locally owned and managed.
C. Overseas debt, by collectively refusing interest payments and by going international in revealing the ludicrousness of even the concept of international debt.
TNCīs could be banished by making life so completely miserable for them via taxes (if the people were behind the taxes the corporations couldnīt refuse!). And many could be driven out of business as the population began to discover how crappy and damaging their products actually were (coca cola, nintendo, sky TV etc).
Pollution and import taxes could ensure that only essential products were imported, and that import companies like the Warehouse could no longer compete with local industry.
There are many things which could be done, but none of them will be able to come into play until a general increase in public understanding (thus public support for radical change) has been reached. This means that the key action at this time must be, by whatever possible means, to get the public thinking! Thinking far deeper than simply that they have to buy "New Zealand Made".
ALL the issues must be THOROUGHLY understood in depth for significant progress to come about. Including understanding for instance; how conventional authoritarian education quashes the inquisitive and creative spirit of children (leaving them vulnerable to corporate marketing, and later preparing them to be well behaved slaves), how pharmaceutical corporations, dentists, sugar and food processing companies and doctors exist together in a self supporting cycle of making people ill, how the fluoridation of water supplies provides both a means of industrial toxic waste disposal while keeping people unhealthy (and possibly lowering their intelligence!), how stirring up Maori grievance issues (politically distinguishing and segregating people according to colour) provides a tidy little distraction which ensures the people will fight against one another and create a racial issue as opposed to unraveling the real class warfare which is going on! (ie corporations vs the workers) and the list goes on and on and on and on...
Weīve got a lot of educating to do. Letīs get started!
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