Its not that I do not get what Key is trying to do.
He lived in Singapore for a long time, as I have done. Key admits the city state made a big impression upon him. It made a big impression on me too.
Key wants to do to New Zealand what Lee Kuan Yew did to Singapore. Key’s problem is he has nowhere near the political acumen of Lew Kuan Yew.
Key wants NZ to be a bustling and busy multicultural venue for global trade. He is just too politically stunted and economically illiterate to achieve that objective.
Lee Kuan Yew was a firm Conservative who knew what to do in order to grow a thriving safe, united and prosperous community in Singapore. Key is a weak Progressive and he has no clue.
Lee Kuan Yew was a man of iron. John Key is a man of smoke and mirrors.
Underneath all of the superficial reasons for the change of flag, what Key wants so desperately is for NZ to be like Singapore. He wants the new flag to act as a marker. His heritage.
John Key wants to be the man who did for NZ what Lee Kuan Yew did for Singapore, and he wants to change the flag to mark NZ’s new direction as a successful global trading nation. He wants to change the flag to mark John Key’s transformational time in New Zealand politics.
Except Key never understood what made Singapore great. He never understood what made Lee Kuan Yew great. He’ll probably go to his grave never understanding.
His attempt to change NZ is doomed to failure for Key is too shallow politically to ever latch on to what really has to happen in NZ to make it a prosperous civil and united society like Singapore. In fact he has done so much that has driven that objective further away, and he’ll never understand the mistakes that have lead to this outcome.
That readers is why I want him gone. Key just does not get it, and he never will.
TrueblueNZ 
You been drinking the cool aid red
You give him too much credit
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I’m with you on this one Mr Blobby – Key knows exactly what he is doing. The one thing Keynes isn’t is naive.
Like the Fabian society’s emblem, he is a wolf in sheeps clothing .
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I have never had any time for Key. I discussed him with a couple of ex ministers when he was elected and they were not confident he would be anything more than a typical Nat prime minister. I was hopeful but they were so right.
Key has proven to be a huge fake and a very damaging one at that.
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Read Don Brash’s autobiography – he had exactly the same goal. But he set out three steps to achieve it — three steps that Key could have done anytime!
1. End unions. At least it seems Abbott is finally doing this in OZ.
2. End Labour & Green parties.
3. Transfer all spending & taxing authority to a “Fiscal Council” away from parliament.
Members of the Fiscal Council serve for 5 years and appoint their own successors.
That’s all it would take. It’s pretty hard to have Welfare, or KiwiSaver, or Natl Super, or state healthcare, or state education, or KiwiRail, or stupid pointless rebuilds, flag programs, Wellington, roading junkets etc when there’s no money and no ability to raise any
Parliament could meet once every 2-3 years (as in many US states) to deal with social and civil matters, like I guess euthanasia, or sheep exports, and the rest of the government would run just fine, and much much more cheaply!
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Well, what I am trying to say here is that Key has not achieved his objective of a successful global trading nation. The country is heavily in debt and the economy is only kept afloat by massive overseas investment in the housing market and or immigration.
Key’s real economic management is abysmal compared to Lee Kuan Yew’s. He won’t cut taxes to any significant degree. He won’t cut govt spending.
He’s apparently too thick to understand that NZ cannot really compete in global markets when 1) the country carries the burden of high taxes and high govt expenditure and high debt, and 2) productivity is comparatively very low.
Thirdly, he doesn’t seem to understand the impact of regulations. As if the situation was not bad enough when he took office, they’ve been teaming down since then, as bad or possibly even worse than when Helen Clark was in power.
He doesn’t seem to understand that govt cannot just go on day after day after day after day legislating new regulations that punish and strangle business and make NZ more uncompetitive globally.
So that’s what I mean by not getting it. Instead he fucks around with bullshit like SSM and new flags and multi-culturalism (vomit) and so much crap like that when he should be firing thousands of public servants, cutting taxes, cutting govt expenditure and most of all recalling environmental regulations strangling business and investment.
He won’t do any of this.
WTF is wrong with the clown?
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Red – understand what you’re getting at but where I differ is that he knows exactly what he is doing. You don’t get to the head of global forex at Merrill Lynch by being stupid. You get there by being a cut throat, intelligent bastard who will sell his mum to get what he wants.
As such, there is no way he “doesn’t get it” or that he is “naive “. He has had such a huge lead for so long yet has done nothing with it except implament a bunch of Marxist policies. That leads me to the uncomfortable (for many) conclusion he is a Manchurian candidate selling us into one world global serfdom.
Nothing else explains it.
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Well, I am yet to be convinced. Key’s rhetoric is not that of an intelligent man (IMHO).
Take some of his words in the flag change video for example. He speaks twice of “incredibly brave men and women” while his posture and speech patterns project massive insincerity. Can you imagine Winston Churchill speaking in such worthless clichéd terms?
My impression is the guy is just thick with perhaps some ability in persuading equally shallow thinkers to agree with him, but I’d be surprised if he had any kind of IQ much above average.
Meaning he’d be struggling to keep up with the level of deceit required. If he is doing as you suggest at all, I’d be more inclined to believe it was because he was being used.
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No Red, he is not thick. He is too smooth an operator for that. I have watched him in action and he is very calculating, very deliberate and very confident. Look at the ponytail gate scenario, that is sign of overconfidence and arrogance stepping over the mark. He is ear marked for greater things globally and that is why he is no reformer in the sense we want him to be. He is a progressive reformer.
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“WTF is wrong with the clown?”
The clown occupies a position far above his pay grade, surviving courtesy of an incompetent media, a population which has been dumbed-down and easily propagandized and a political climate which rewards inertia and apathy.
He’s merely a mirror, a knee-jerk echo.
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Yea, and Lee protected his country from being taken by China.
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“That leads me to the uncomfortable (for many) conclusion he is a Manchurian candidate selling us into one world global serfdom.”
Yes! Exactly.
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