Right-wing bloggers made much of the "peaceful" march by Sir Richard Taylor’s technicians. But to describe a column of people who headed into downtown Wellington with the intention of intimidating – and quite possibly invading – an Actors Equity meeting as "peaceful" is disingenuous. Nor was I the only one to find the querulous, passive-aggressive video harassment of Simon Whipp, Frances Walsh and Robyn Malcolm as they attempted to return to their hotel from Wellington’s Matterhorn Restaurant late on the night of 20 October, deeply, deeply creepy.
This is what happens when the news media is permitted to use its enormous power to whip up public antagonism against a designated "enemy". That it ended in death-threats against Whipp and Walsh, and the verbal intimidation and harassment of the other Equity representatives was entirely predictable.
We were struck by the rich irony of Chris Trotter complaining about intimidation and harassment. Where were his complaints about "harassment" when Joe Carolan (who has commented on the other Trotter ost we blogged about) and John Minto picketed TVNZ demanding the sacking of Paul Henry, a worker? Where were his complaints of "intimidation" when unionists stormed Sky City earlier in the year at the National Party conference. Where were his complaints of "deeply, deeply creepy" behaviour when Kees Keizer infiltrated the National Party conference before the 2008 election, secretly recorded private conversations and then leaked them to the media? And where were his complaints when 'Megaphone Len' Richards assaulted a protester outside the 2007 Labour Party conference?
The simple answer to that is that there were no complaints from Chris Trotter, and that's the rich irony of his blog-post yesterday. The likes of Trotter and others on the hard left will doubtless argue that the examples referred to above are legitimate means of protest by the working man against the filthy capitalists.
Intimidation, harassment, and deeply, deeply creepy behaviour is the same, regardless of who it is perpetrated by. The unions have got used to having things their own way, and to dictating the rules of engagement. If The Hobbit dispute has shown us one thing, it is that the old-style bully-boy tactics of the trade unions can be rendered ineffective when the bullied party fights back.
5 comments:
meh; the rights for workers has always been a hard fight and will alway be so.... how many died for the eight-hour day etc etc?
This 'bully-boy' shite is just emotional tugging on your part Invention. Are workers expected to smile and wave hoping for a wage increase that matches inflation?
It's David and Goliath.
all workers have is their labour, which obviously is all the capitalist want... thus battle lines are drawn. To the barracades!
xx
your other imaginary friend.
In almost the same vein, what is the difference between a "strike" and a "lockout"?
David
Chris Trotter is a rumbunctious old curmudgeon who is trapped in the late 19th century where true poverty, exploitive employers, exploited employees (slavery had only recently been abolished), and the utopia of communism as still a dream were all an integral part of the capitilism of the time.
Although chinks of enlightenment sometimes intrude on his grumpy ramblings he still believes that the tenets of "Animal Farm" will solve all the worlds social problems and the excesses that "The Hogs" will visit on the less fortunate in his utopian society will be fully deserved as they continue to question their political masters and of course collateral damage, albeit fatal, to some of the citizens must be accepted as a fair price of progress to the empowerment of the proletariat.
The excesses that came from Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Chuacescu(sic), Kim, Ho Chi Min et el were minor aberrations on the golden paved road to a socialist utopia, eggs must be broken to make an omelet.
His antiquated rubbish is to often only useful to wrap other rotting garbage in to keep the wheelybin clean.
Putting it bluntly, Trotter is a pompous twat who thinks his utterances are gods wisdom.
And he masacres the "Red Flag "whenever he sings it. The fool is tone deaf and doesn't realise it.
It reminds me of a Murray Ball cartoon parodying a similar double-standard with moral evaluations of domestic violence:
A frumpy couple are standing off against each other in two frames. In the first frame the husband is pointing and talking angrily; the caption reads "emotional, verbal and physical violence".
In the next frame the roles are reversed: the wife is angrily pointing and talking to the husband, and the caption reads "Communication".
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