Iran simmers

The Times is giving rolling updates, which appear to include continued protests, a counter protest organised by Ahmadinejad, and rumours of a crackdown. Clearly many Tehran residents are not letting this lie, and are not meeting expectations of protests dying down. In circumstances like this either energy dissipates, as nothing changes or there is some key change with backdowns or the seizing of key locales of power (broadcast media, military/police or political headquarters). The regime clearly has decided a partial recount would cut the numbers of protestors, but are those protesting simply wanting freedom?

Could it be that rigging the election ends up being a better result for freedom than letting Mousavi win (as some mild liberalisation and end to sabre rattling would have released much pressure)?

Is Iran blinking?

The BBC is reporting that hundreds of thousands of people are at a rally in Tehran protesting the outcome of the Presidential election, an outcome that is best described as unsafe, but an outcome even if it were legitimate - does not justify the oppressive theocracy that bastardises democracy to service the will of a small group of mullahs, and sustains a brutal and malevolent state.

Shots have been fired, and although all commentators believe that it is highly unlikely that anything will come of the protests, in terms of revolution, it appears that Iranians are giving it their best go. Iran is indeed divided between the traditional, sexist and highly Islamist rural countryside, and the cosmopolitan Tehran, but if Tehran goes so does Iran.

It is notable how many Tehran women are pushing for change, given the sexist rules that apply to what women should wear compared to men.

The poorly educated anti-semitic, economically illiterate buffoon Ahmedinejad continues to make a fool of himself claiming all is well, but in fact this is the best chance Iranians have to unshackle themselves from the grip of this brutal theocracy. Had opposition candidate Mousavi won then it would have been four years of a little less strident Islamism, but Islamism nevertheless. Women, religious minorities and homosexuals wouldn't be getting a better deal, but at best the screws may have eased off.

Time (not a typically reliable source of news to be fair) has given five reasons to question the result, basically:
- Lack of independent supervision of the election (the Interior Ministry supervises it);
- Some polling stations ran out of ballots, and opposition observers were not always given access to polling booths;
- Initial results came only an hour after the polls closed, which is ridiculous in a country with manual counting of paper ballots;
- Results were strangely consistent across regions, previously support for candidates varied across regions significantly. Mousavi didn't even win his own hometown, despite apparent high popularity. Ahmadinejad won in cities, despite previous polling suggesting otherwise;
- The result was a massive increase in the majority for Ahmadinejad, despite the poor state of the economy and past elections which saw far more support for reformist candidates.

So power to those in Iran seeking freedom - as they so proudly announced. Few actions could improve the prospects for peace and freedom in the Middle East and South Asia more than an end to spending 30 years in the dark ages, of a regime that oppresses its own, spreads a doctrine of violence and death of those who don't wish to succumb to surrendering themselves to permanent submission to the decrees of elderly mullahs.

Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph reports on how the internet has brought down barriers between Iranian youth and the rest of the world that the Iranian government is ill equipped to handle. Iran has started trying to block BBC World Service radio broadcasts in Persian. May we cross our fingers in hope that the more the regime tries to turn on the people, the more they turn back and resist.

After all, that will do more for peace than the so-called peace movement ever could.

Are Mt Albert voters that boring?

I would have been pleasantly surprised and astonished had Julian Pistorius won, but the Mt. Albert result was disappointing. However, I guess an electorate that ticked Helen Clark consistently for 28 years was unlikely to be a place of free spirits or individuals who were gagging to have more control of their own lives. So voting Labour is clearly like breathing to most of them.

Most by-elections are interesting, and produce results well out of kilter with a general election. This one didn't. The last proper one was Taranaki-King Country, when ACT came a close second. In Selwyn, the Alliance came a close second. In Mt Albert, the voters could have voted Green to say no to motorways - but didn't. They could have voted National, but admittedly there was no good reason for that. They could have voted Libertarianz, but clearly the idea of being responsible for yourself frightened too many of them.

So all in all a bit of a yawn. The majority of Mt. Albert voters preferred Clark's vote bribe for the motorway, than stopping it at all (Greens) in favour of a railway, or private property rights (Libertarianz). They didn't want a voice in the current government (National or ACT) either.

So can anything be concluded? Are most voters just inert, and repeat what they always do? Labour is a comfort blanket and they can't bring themselves to go more radically for the state, or less?

Do the majority in Mt Albert fear not having the warm embrace of the state housing, teaching and funding them? Has Helen Clark convinced them of how generous the state is giving them so much, and how incompetent they would be choosing schools, health care and housing, and how horrible people are if she isn't there to regulate them?

Why do people vote Labour?

In fact why did many vote National? Melissa Lee was hardly a star, but do many vote National because it isn't Labour? Or do all of them support the government?
Same with ACT, presumably those voters supported the government and John Boscawen personally.

So Mt Albert has got what it asked for before - except David Shearer is more talented and interesting than Helen Clark.

So are the 35 who voted Libertarianz the only people in Mt Albert who believe in protecting their property rights?

Vote Pistorius to make Clark squirm

Well Mt Albert voters it should be simple.

You either like handing more of your life over to politicians or not.

The polls are saying the majority of you trust the Labour Party to spend your money and tell you what to do when they want you to, I think it is time for you to political catamites in the words of Jim Bolger in relation to the pollsters.

For those who believe in less government, the choice of Julian Pistorius, your Libertarianz candidate, could not be more stark.

Melissa Lee has demonstrated that the National Party is supremely competent in choosing someone who doesn't have the nouse to prepare and research what she is to talk about. She really doesn't have a chance of winning, and what if she did - she is already an MP - she can already "work for the people of Mt Albert". All you would be doing is filling in a bit more of her time. She would be a wasted vote, although many of you are tempted to vote for her just because the polls say she is one most likely to topple David Shearer. However, is she really any better that you'd positively endorse her?

John Boscawen wont win, so any vote for him is a vote to send a message. What a message to send though. The message being that for you less government means allowing bylaws to ban gang patches, and to support a mega-city. If you think National needs a message, then what does ACT need? Boscawen is already there, a vote for him will achieve nothing in terms of sending a message.

Want less government? Well it isn't with them.

Of course many will be looking to tick David Shearer - damned if I know why. He is the successor to Helen Clark, but obviously you wont be getting the Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition, as she has been for the last 16 years. Beyond writings on mercenaries, he is simply another Labour party member who thinks that your life would be better if you just trusted the government more to deliver services that it wants a monopoly on. Inspiring? Well maybe if you want a lazy life on a low income as a beneficiary, but beyond that? No. Oh and if you think voting Labour somehow protects the private property rights of those in the way of a motorway, it demonstrates stupidity on a grand scale. Labour wasn't going to protect anyone's private property rights, it was going to burrow under them using a billion dollars worth of other people's money.

However, if you think politics is about using taxpayers' money to bribe voters, then I guess you fit well into the Labour mould - but don't complain when the Nats do it too!

Russel Norman? Well he is against the motorway, but then again he is against you driving at all. He think you are forced to drive, don't like using your car at all, and he wants to pillage money from you to give alternatives he thinks are cool - like trains (you see he doesn't want you paying for something you use). Seriously - don't encourage him, unless you really do feel a bit of a retard who needs nanny to look after you.

So why vote Julian Pistorius?

There are negative reasons against voting for others.

1. Don't over inflate the influence of your vote - it is one of tens of thousands, it is counted like the others, it is not counting what's in your head, just the number of heads with that view. This is a chance to choose positively what you want - not to surrender to the best of the worst.
2. It wont change the government to vote Labour, Green or ACT, it wont rock the boat at all.
3. Whoever is elected wont stop the motorway going through or the Public Works Act being used, but only one candidate will say the issue isn't about whether or not to build the motorway (as it remains a fundamentally good idea to everyone except the Greens who think road transport is a sin), but the respect or otherwise of property rights- Julian Pistorius.
4. Three candidates are already MPs - you gain nothing by adding the ticket Mt Albert to them.

However, most of all, a vote for Julian Pistorius will positively send a message in favour of private property rights, in favour of tax cuts, in favour of much much less local government and for less government generally. It will be an assertion of your individual rights and for those in the way of a motorway, your property rights. It would really piss off the narrow minded infotainment merchants at TVNZ who think politics should be about personalities and image, rather than policies and principles, but most of all it would shock the bejesus out of Labour, National, ACT and the Greens.

You see, suddenly it isn't about populism, it isn't about vote bribing and it isn't about worshipping gaia - it is about the smallest minority in the world, those who achieve everything, who create and who invent - the human individual.

Vote Pistorius in Mt Albert tomorrow - do it for you, but also do it knowing - as it said at the beginning of this campaign - that nothing will be more worthwhile that imagining the look on Helen Clark's face and the words from her mouth if she learnt that Libertarianz won "her seat", or even came second.

Why did the BNP do well?

Well for starters it didn't do as well as has been made out. It gained less votes than the last election, partly because turnout was down. So it inspired less people to vote for it. However, some are wondering if it represents a real underlying racism in the UK among some, or if it is just an ignorant protest vote, or if the BNP actually does say what some working class young white men want to hear. The truth is a mix of all of the above.

The explicitly racist part is only a small part of the picture, otherwise it would campaign like the erstwhile National Front, which still comes out from time to time spouting openly racist policies. They never got the National Front far in the past, so the BNP has been more clever. An ignorant protest vote? Perhaps, but then protest votes can go a lot of places - the key is the BNP is made up of people who are like its voters - poorly educated, white working class, who believe the world ignores them.

It is a constituency the Labour Party believes it is entitled to. BNP voters almost all wouldn't vote Conservative - it can't relate to a party seen as upper class, involving businesspeople, the university educated, speaking received pronunciation who send their children to private schools, drive nice cars, live in the South East and use the word chav as an insult. The Liberal Democrats are invisible to them, as are the Greens, besides neither party appeals to young men whose primary pastimes involve drinking, football, cars and women.

However in that respect, Labour isn't much different either. The party formerly consisting of men who did hard manual labour, who were in unions, who barely knew what a university was and who waxed lyrically in parochial accents has changed into one that looks more and more like a group of university graduates, who never had a "real job", who espouse what is known as "political correctness" to censure the young working class male from making inappropriate jokes or comments, and who positively gush whenever minorities get elected. Minorities being those Labour embrace, women, people of Afro-Caribbean or Indian sub-continent descent or who are of non Judeo-Christian religions.

Is it any wonder the average barely educated young male thinks the Labour party ignores him? Quite simply because it does. So the BNP rhetoric about immigrants taking "their jobs" makes sense to them, because few bother arguing the merits of immigration, and most young working class men don't think of the reverse - them emigrating, for where would men who have rudimentary literacy in only English go in Europe to work?

Furthermore, the BNP has socialist policies on virtually all other issues. Opposing privatisation, supporting renationalising the railways, supporting tight regulations of business, opposing free trade and investment across borders, opposing EU membership, embracing the NHS and public services and wanting to crackdown on tax loopholes. None of this would have looked out of place in Michael Foot's Labour Party, but in Gordon Brown's it is half-hearted and almost embarrasing to have candidates who espouse many of these views.

On top of that, the BNP takes a hardline on one of the issues that working class young men face more than most - crime. It supports the death penalty and harsh penalties for child molestors, with hard labour for other criminals. It supports taking a draconian approach to drug traffickers (with a tinge of "well it isn't our people bringing this stuff into the country"). Few working class folk would disagree with these sentiments.

By contrast, what does Labour offer? A welcoming welfare state for all, which is noticeably enjoyed by migrants in increasing numbers. Strategies and job titles for state employees to advance ethnic minority access to taxpayer funded housing, health and education all sound like "foreigners are using our facilities and taxes to benefit from our system". Given education stats show the poorest performing demographic being poor working class white boys, is it any wonder that their families feel neglected. The scale of immigration to some communities particular in the North, and East Midlands has seen the ghettoisation of ethnic minority communities, which has frightened those of other groups. While the BNP likes to make a hyperbole of it, there is some truth to comments that a few youth of non-European minorities feel free to intimidate others knowing full well that accusations of racism are rarely believed in that direction.

Now I'm not providing enormous sympathy for the uneducated young white male underclass, whose own ignorance and lack of aspiration is largely to blame for their poverty. Their resentment is partially their own lack of self esteem projected onto blaming others for their status in life.

However, as Philip Johnston states in the Daily Telegraph "for years now they have been considered an embarrassment, a low-achieving, boorish, poorly educated affront to the sensibilities of the "progressive" elite that preached the virtues of multi-culturalism, promoted mass immigration and makes up much of the political establishment, including the modern Labour Party." In other words Labour would rather talk about the poor than talk to them, especially if they are young white men. Such men who are not worldly, whose primary interest is their own lot and who don't know why they should give a damn about people of different ethnic groups, who Labour openly courts. This has only been exacerbated by the rise of Islamist terrorism and the apparent flagrant way that some Islamists can promote violence in the UK, whilst being able to benefit from the generous welfare state.

"Rightly or wrongly, this group of voters believes that the people who suffer most discrimination in modern Britain are "white people". This is the response of 77 per cent of BNP supporters; but it is also the view of 40 per cent of voters overall. They don't like the way that Muslim extremists appear to sound off with impunity while anyone defending their country's heritage and traditions is denounced by the progressives as a fringe loony. Hence the BNP's heavy reliance on wartime imagery to appeal to this nostalgic sense of a lost past."

So in essence, you take a bunch of disenchanted young white men, who witness an ever straining socialist health, education and housing system, enjoyed extensively by immigrants, a barely shrouded embarrassment among Labour activists for the culture and concerns of the underclass, an ongoing cultural cringe in the UK about what it means to be British and what the values of British society are about, whilst Islamists happily preach their own vision of the future damning what most people think British society IS about. Poorly educated white men who think the world owes them a living, a socialist housing, health, education and welfare system that is open for anyone in the EU and any new migrant to enjoy, a fear of expressing a British socio-political cultural identity whilst no such fear from those from outside Britain, including those who wish to destroy some of the bedrocks of the British system. Add a lot of socialist economics and social policies, and you have the BNP - it is a lot of old Labour, with some carefully shrouded proud nationalism.

The only difference with old Labour is that the BNP is socialism for one skin colour only. Traditionally, that end of British politics has been filled by barely competent inadequates, it has only been with Nick Griffin corralling his barely literate troops of racists (after all, who participates in the BNP if it isn't to let off some racist steam) to talk of racism working the other way, to talk of immigration straining public services and talk anti-capitalism, that has given it some credibility. Griffin is careful to oppose racism publicly, and to treat insults as water off a duck's back - knowing that the best way to respond to mainstream media baiting is to look tired at it.

As long as he leads, the BNP can maintain this veneer of credibility among a small minority of voters, but as long as Labour continues to treat what are its core supporters with barely shrouded contempt, it wont get them back. Indeed it created the dependency culture that its former supporters want to deny those of others races, it create the myth that for the working classes to progress, they needed Nanny State to advance, it also created the drive for "equality of outcomes" that have bizarrely resulted in bureaucracies and councils focusing on groups other than poor white males.

In short, the BNP did well because it exploits a culture of statism and dependency that the left have long promoted - blaming the failures of the system on immigration. The problem is not that, the problem is the system itself - and Labour will never ever tackle that.