“Diversity is no foundation for a nation. A little diversity is an interesting and diverting thing; we all enjoy an ethnic restaurant. Variety is the spice of life. But a spice is not a staple; it is not the bread and butter of daily life. One cannot live on nutmeg alone.”

The meaning of his metaphor being – Western/European culture is the staple, everyone else’s culture is just a spice. “Our” food is normal – “your” food is “ethnic”.

He relishes in creating “isms” – “Treatyism” and “Tribalism” – and claiming these are philosophies his opponents uphold, but the examples he points to are not the result of ideological preferences, but compromises and practical steps taken by Maori as a reaction to the refusal of the dominant culture to give up power.

Round is attacking people for grudgingly taking what little is on offer and claiming that what they are being given is what they want.

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or find other examples here

http://blog.greens.org.nz/?s=delahunty

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This disastrous policy is of course perfectly aligned with the ‘post-modern’ philosophy which is now fashionable in the universities. Post-modernism ~ a stupid name if ever there was one ~ claims to have made a complete break with the rational philosophies the West has followed since the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century (if not earlier), with their beliefs in objective truth and universal standards. That approach enabled us to look down on other cultures and beliefs as inferior to ours, and that was just so judgmental and unkind. Post-modernism believes that there is no objective truth ~ rather, there are truths. This is true for me ~ but something else is true for you. One is no better than the other. We are therefore unable to say that our culture is better than another’s.”?

http://www.nzcpr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=24137

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http://www.themonthly.com.au/climate-series-quarry-vision-guy-pearse-c oal-and-climate-change-peter-mares-1527

Guy Pearse has done some good work on the subject and come up with the term ‘Quarry Vision’.

conversation with ABC Radio National’s Peter Mares, Guy Pearse discusses the ideas that form the basis for his recent Quarterly Essay, Quarry Vision – Coal, Climate Change and the End of the Resources Boom. ‘Quarry vision’ is the belief that Australia’s greatest asset is its mineral and energy resources, coal above all. How has this distorted our national politics and stymied action on climate change?

Quarry vision, he argues, is a trap and a blind faith we can no longer afford.

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http://www.alternet.org/story/142958/why_%22economic_freedom%22_is_jus t_another_way_of_saying_%22headed_for_a_cliff%22

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“It is time to do some profound thinking about the future shape of our democracy. There are high-minded dimwits about who have a wonderful vision of a future Aotearoa/New Zealand as a collection of tribes ~ ‘Ngati Maori, Ngati Pakeha, Ngati Pasifika, Ngati Asia’, doubtless even Ngati Muslim. I firmly believe that the establishment of such tribalism here would be an unutterably disastrous undoing of New Zealand. A nation is a group of people who believe that more unites them than divides them; that, despite the inevitable differences between them, they are nevertheless at base one people. The preoccupation of all nation-builders is to establish that common identity. Tribalism does the opposite. It divides the world into members of ones own tribe, and strangers outside. Tribalism is the enemy of nationhood.”
http://www.nzcpr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=24137

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National is in coalition with Act, but that has a lot to do with Sue Bradford types wanting nothing to do with National.

I’m strongly a “Sue Bradford” type member of the Greens, but I could support a National government that offered a much more aggressive stance on climate change just because the problem is so urgent. We Greens are a complicated lot, and your amateur analysis tells us more about your political opinions than it does about the party as a whole. Especially given that you don’t seem to get that this post is not even a comparison of Nick Smith vs the Greens, it’s a comparison of Nick Smith (before election) vs Nick Smith (after election).

He needs to be consistent with his own marketing before we’d even need to blow our own horns to say he’s not doing enough, which is a sign of how short he’s fallen of any meaningful environmental or (’small g’) green policy.

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but the greens didn’t get a lot of votes (support) last election as the public don’t understand the marriage between the environment and “social justice”. Instead they see a rabbit married to a magpie so you don’t have to be taken too seriously. I for one don’t believe many of you are any more pro environment than the next person, so that your “social justice” goals are pursued even though they are unpopular and make the public scoff. The problem is that your position on “social justice” is at odds with most people in the community as we are perceived to be at a different end of the pendulums swing.

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“National is in coalition with Act, but that has a lot to do with Sue Bradford types wanting nothing to do with National.”

looking at all the environmental legislation that the National party has repealed since they got into power, I suspect the lack of co-operation between National and the Greens has as much to do with National wanting nothing to do with Jeanette Fitzsimons types.

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