The Herald ran an article headed "Trump firing Yates isn't the big
story. How he did it is"
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11792465
and at the head of the article was embedded the Hosking Rant:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/video.cfm?c_id=1503076&gal_cid=1503076&gallery_id=170862
The "print" article concludes:
"What Trump's statement, viewed broadly, teaches us - or, maybe,
re-teaches us - is that this president sees only two kinds of people
in the world: Loyal friends and disloyal, terrible enemies.
Principled - or occasional - opposition is not part of that equation.
You are either all the way for him or all the way against him. Black
and white. No room for greys.
For those whom he perceives as being against him, Trump is entirely
unafraid of going after them personally. The moment you cross from
supportive of his interests to, well, not, is the moment you die to
him. He will not just burn bridges with those he believes have
betrayed him. He will napalm those bridges.
The Yates firing is yet another example of how Trump is fundamentally
different than the many people he has preceded in the office of
president.
Niceties mean nothing. The world is a tough place. If you don't hit,
you are going to be the one getting hit. And Trump will always make
sure he throws some punches."
______
The Herald of course has papers to sell, and its own commitments to
meet, and one of those is supporting the repulsive Hosking - the third
part of the National trio of "unofficial" supporters who National
knows it can rely on to deliver timely messages in their own way -
provide they can be helped to be visible to their selected audience as
much as possible. Slater has of course blotted his copybook - National
will have backed off their support recently and while he cannot be
expected to do an Eade and make himself invisible for a while, he is
no longer visibly supported either. Farrar is well funded - they have
to work atthe pretence that he is ïndependent", but his well paid work
for National gives him the ability to sometimes pretend that his spin
reflects wider public opinion.
Hoskings said in relation to our country:
"Inter-country relationships work on size and self-interest. America
likes us because we are on their side, and we're next to Australia,
who are also on their side, and also, because when they say jump, we
say "how high?", and that's the size part. We're a tiny irrelevance at
the bottom of the world. Good for a bit of trade, good for a bit of
business, good for when the Americans are building coalitions of the
willing, and we put our name of the list to bolster the numbers. We
were in Oraq, remember, because they asked us, and they asked us to
train the Iraqi's because they cocked it up in the first place, so
that's how things work, which brings us to the hysteria around the
reaction to the Trump immigration slowdown . . "
and he then goes on to atribute political popularity to restricting immigration, and to support Trumps policy.
It is clear that Hosking personally supports the attiude atrtibuted to
Trump :
"Niceties mean nothing. The world is a tough place. If you don't hit,
you are going to be the one getting hit. And Trump will always make
sure he throws some punches."
Hosking admires a similar attitude in National, and as we have seen
English shares some of the attituddes of Trump to immigration from the
middle east . .
What is intersting is that there is no room in the attitude of Hosking
for principle, for basing actions on what is right - not just for the
country long term but the world. It is an "anything goes that works"
type of decision-making. It represents a significant shift from the
principled decision-making of the previous Labour-led governments, and
arguable from other governments such as those of Bolger and Holyoake.
The principled and competent but also pragmatic approach of those
governments did much for New Zealand, although Bolger in particular
missed on economic management, but importantly it used to be the basis
of our foreign affairs policy, which by and large was a bi-partisan
policy, able in most (but not all) cases to be supported by both
National and Labour. With Helen Clarke, competence, principle and
practicality combine to win the admiration of the world in her UN
appointment.
The National government has shown that is has shed all principles but
making money for its own people and friends; it has shown in so many
ways relating to provision of government services that it is
incompetent, but as Hosking demonstrates, it has put its energies,
skills and investment into whatever is needed to stay in power. It has
shed any pretence of seeking bi-partisan agreement on anything. What
is concerning the Republicans, and the right in general around the
world, is not that they object to Trumps aims and prejudices, buthtat
he may be poisoning the well for the future of the "Right" - he is
paying no regard to the long term political future of his party (or
indeed theany sort of future), and some Republicans (and NAtional
here) are concerned that there is nothing they can do to stop voters
being so turned off that they may see a Democtrat as President with
the support of a majority in both houses - and nothing motivates the
right more than the prospect of losing power . . .
Hoskings rant is an endoresement of the shedding of
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)