Amy Brooke: What has happened to us?

What has happened to us?

Our successive National and Labour governments, typically and condescendingly ignoring the country’s wishes, as expressed in a series of referenda, are largely to blame, and they  must answer.

The case for direct democracy, as advanced in our 1OO Days campaign, is now supported in two great Australian reviews of  “The 100 Days – Claiming Back New Zealand – what has gone wrong and how we can control our politicians”.

 Scroll down for Quadrant and The Spectator  reviews!*

Ask post-World War II European immigrants, far more informed about history than most New Zealanders, what they think of this country today. They came in hope to join us. And their response is pretty much a uniform one…that we have squandered so much of what we had going for us. One such typically thoughtful and well-informed commentary can be found at the end of this article. **

It is arguably National and Labour governments and their recent coalitions which have brought us to this sorry pass. It has also been assisted by the thoroughly politicised, deliberately propagandised and dumbed-down education system of these past five decades which has successfully produced what Karl Popper’s mentor, Otago University Emeritus Professor Dr Margaret Dalziel, described as ”decent, well-meaning, muddleheaded and uncritical New Zealanders” – let alone those ignorant teachers, who, she pointed out, know no more than their pupils when supposedly teaching them English. Today’s usual “names” who tell us what a great education system we have are part of the problem. They simply don’t know what they’re talking about.

Complicit in this failure to safeguard our democracy has been our mainstream media, too many of whom are inevitable products of this same mis-education system, often also woefully ignorant, but strongly opiniated, having long been persuaded to abandon the objectivity and fair-mindedness’ once regarded as essential in good journalism. The media itself is now largely so politicized and far Left when visiting issues of the day that informed conservatism is ridiculed – and family values undermined – by arrogant “celebrity” commentators, themselves often markedly crude in print and speech.

Having lost control of our own country, we are now passed back and forth between political oligarchies with more in common with one another in their trade-offs and self-serving deals than in their relationships with real New Zealanders.

Australia’s Quadrant has now supplied (below) a review of “The 100 Days – Claiming back New Zealand – what has gone wrong and how we can control our politicians” – written by the brilliant Western Australian writer, poet, and analyst, Dr Hal Colebatch. This is followed by a link to a current Spectatorreview of an excellent book by Professor David Flint and Jai Martinkovits –“Give Us Back Our Country”, acknowledging its inspiration to our 100 Days.

 Quadrant magazine is the leading intellectual journal of ideas, literature, poetry and historical and political debate published in Australia.

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