Friday, February 17, 2006

Trevor Loundon for Vice-President

It is rare for this blog to pay any attention to the main political parties - except to criticise them. Internal politics of parties don't interest me that much. However, I'm going to make an exception today and endorse Trevor Loundon for Vice-President of Act.

Who is Tervor Loundon? He runs the most amusing New Zealand blog, possibly the most amusing political blog ever, called New Zeal. Basically he's a cross between McCarthy and a stalker.

Which doesn't sound that funny, but he doesn't have any power, it's just him desperately trying to point out the Red Menace of Jim Anderton to the world.

The highlight is the way he breathlessly lists all the red activities people have participated in without explaining why any of them were bad. Rona Bailey, the high priestess of New Zealand communism was involved in the following scandalous activities in her life-time:

  • "Back in NZ, Rona Bailey became active in the campaign for equal pay for women. Before this successful campaign, women were paid less than men in the public service. Rona bailey was president of the "Public Service Association's" womens committee and used her position to promote the cause. The communists found it easy to gain support for this campaign."
  • "In 1966 she was one of several Communist Party members who were listed as contributing 5 Pounds towards the 2000 needed for Committee On Vietnam leaflets. This literature "exposed" US atrocities in Vietnam, and was timed for release just before the 1966 general election."
  • She protested arpartheid: "Not content with a behind the scenes role, Rona Bailey marched in the huge demonstrations that brought central Wellington to a stand still. In the infamous, Street march, 67 year old Bailey was batoned by police and had to be hospitalised."
Oh My God! Someone who supported equal pay, was against the war in Vietnam and apartheid. How foolishly we have relaxed, not realising such dangerous people were in our midst.

In other profiles he'll go into great detail of solidarity work with the Phillipines and Chile. I'm glad someone is protecting us from those who oppose Marcos and Pinochet.

So I'm endorsing him as vice-president of ACT, because he's a nutcase, and I'd love it if they became a fringe party.

I'm also disgusted with the Greens Russell Norman for engaging with him. He red-baited Russell Norman, and Russell Norman said "yes I have been a communist, but I left them because Marxism is bad." This showed a remarkable lack of solidarity, and a strong degree of stupidity. Of course Trevor Loundon isn't satisfied, and is still going on about it.

There are two acceptable answer to the question 'Are you now or have you ever been?': 'Yes' or 'fuck off I'm not telling you'.

10 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:46 pm

    sp, Loudon, not Loundon.

    From what I can gauge Trevor has every chance of winning the ACT Vice Presidency, even without your endorsement.

    His record of keeping tabs on the history of the NZ left may seem strange to some, but it can be very useful for accountability/transparency purposes and is without comparison in its comprehensiveness.

    If you don't like to read that sort of thing why do you visit his blog?

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  2. Anonymous2:20 pm

    Can I second him!

    I've enjoyed what I've read so far. I quite like Locke personally and find he was one of the most principalled people in parliament. I have come to appreciate his long-term commitment to social justice after Trevor fleshed it out so well - with the odd hysterical interlude. Similarly I hadn't known Rona Bailey, but was impressed by the amount of work she'd done. Keep it up Trev!

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  3. Anonymous2:31 pm

    They already are a fringe party - 2 MPs and less than 2000 members. Considering they were one of NZs largest parties only a few years ago its sad times for ACT.

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  4. Anonymous2:39 pm

    Kate, I fully expected you to say "sad times for the Alliance" (or whatever Anderton's calling himself these days) with that description.

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  5. Fascinating. The guy has a link to 'Discover the Network', which is a crazy map put together by Michael Horowitz and some of his mates in the United States, linking just about everyone from Saddam Hussein to the British Liberal Democrats into an enormous Islamomarxistrotskypinkolesboticist
    conspiracy against Western civilisation. The parrallels between this sort of stuff and classical anti-Semitic conspiracy theories a la the Protocols of the Elders are quite striking.

    Act must be going down the tubes if a guy like this is able to mount a serious challenge for a leading position in the party. Then again, these kind of redneck conspiracy theorist blokes were always lurking behind the suits of the party, even in the 90s...there's a very old tradition of this sort of thought in provincial NZ...very telling that the guy appears to be a pro-US palaecon (ie isolationaist), not a pro-US neocon like (say) Dennis Dutton.

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  6. Graham Watson - I adore reading that sort of thing - I think it's hilarious. I'm glad to know that he can win without my endorsement - because I really don't think it'll help.

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  7. Anonymous8:51 pm

    Someone commented on Trevor’s blog: “But then I don't associate with extremists like Alan Stang who you obviously spoke of with some fondness.”

    I didn’t see where he had referred to Stang and I don’t know whether Trev is a fan of him or not, but Stang is certainly an extremist of the Conspiracist persuasion - he thinks George W Bush is a Communist world government traitor!

    Stang was a member of the John Birch Society – a virulently anti-communist (and anti-semitic) far right Christian movement founded in 1958 by Robert Welch, a close personal friend of Stang who had been brought up as a fundamentalist Baptist. The Birchers spread the word through publishing books and running youth camps. The Society unravelled in 2000 but Stang is still in full rant:

    http://www.etherzone.com/2005/stang030405.shtml

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  8. Anonymous10:48 pm

    From what I understand Trevor is Rodneys guy! On the Rodney hide side of the party. Fantastic - with crazies like this they are doomed.

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  9. Anonymous10:09 am

    I'll join you in endorcing Trevor, is there some ACT confrence where they are going to have the election? because we need a delegation of people outside; "We, the representitives of the New Zealand communist movmement, are here to show our support for Trevor Loudon as vice president of ACT" yes, there are much more important things to do, but it would be fun.

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  10. Anonymous9:59 pm

    "less than 2000 members"

    You might want to try doubling that to be a little closer to the true figure

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