I've tried to stay away from commenting in detail on Chris Trotter's blog posts. Since he considers himself a heavyweight in NZ journalism, it would seem a detailed and methodical dissection of his opinion pieces a necessary endeavour.
But the more he puts pen to paper and font to screen, the more he simply ends up looking like King of the Muppets. And how does one treat such idiotic posts so seriously? The answer is, one cannot.
It starts with his latest blog title:
>> I have met the enemy, and he is ….. curiously unimpressive
Hold a different opinion and you are the enemy. Meet one sample of enemy and this person is an exact clone of all enemies. Apparently, to Chris, every single right winger in the world has the same shoe size and a single brain cell.
>>Being accosted by complete strangers is one of the occupational hazards of being in the public eye
Unfortunately, if posts continue of this calibre Chris, being accosted may happen more and more. I'm not sure you want to be known as New Zealand's only left wing comedian with one joke - all right wingers are evil. Ha. Ha.
>> You took a hammering this morning”, he told me, with a smugness he was trying hard, but failing, to conceal. I was at a loss for a second or two, but then the penny dropped: he was talking about my posting entitled “A Tawdry Spectacle”.
Yes indeed, a tawdry spectacle did Chris Trotter make of himself with that particular post. Chris continues to gamely defend Winston, but this time he did so by accusing the Greens and Maori party on the Privileges Committee as being traitorous dogs. It seems that the conclusions they reached were wrong, in spite of the evidence, because they differ from the opinion he is prepared to hold.
So, some strong words then ensue - with the Maori party and the Greens effectively being branded as traitorous dogs. A tear is also shed for Nandor and Rod Donald, last of the patriots that could have averted the Greens from reaching the wrong conclusion. Alas, Nandor and Rod are either figuratively or literally dead and buried, so traitorous dogs Greens and Maori remain.
Store that in short term memory for a moment.
>> I couldn’t suppress a rather smug grin of my own, being secretly delighted that the Right had risen to the intended provocation, as I rather expected it would.
What Chris means is that the 60 plus comments on that post pointed out he made a complete muppet of himself, and he has now decided to save face by saying he was only being deliberately provocative. His revised reasoning works like this: punch some-one in the face. When they punch you back, say you were only being deliberately provocative to see if the right are violent thugs. They hit back, point proven. Case Closed.
Muppet.
>> after exchanging a few more words with my interlocutor, I resumed by journey - pondering as I walked along the curiously unimpressive quality of my opposition. What is it about the contemporary New Zealand Right that leaves those of us on the Left so underwhelmed?
There he goes again. Meet one clone, and you've met them all. Oh, the intellectual elite of the left can be so cutting and cruel in their sweeping generalisations. And such irrefutable opinion too. How can anyone come back from this?
Then some blah blah blah where he hands out a compliment to the right and then takes it back. And takes it back a bit more. And a bit more. And then says that all the actions of the right come from Washington DC. Think about it, Washington DC is even on the right side of America.
>> But that’s the way of the Right: forever doing somebody else’s bidding; organising somebody else’s show; doing somebody else’s dirty work.
No Chris, I wrote this myself. Anyway, I thought the left called themselves "the workers"? Or will that point be made in tomorrows post, when it's necessary to attack from a different angle?
>> Genuine patriotism in the this country has always been the preserve of the Left.
Memory recall: Except for the Greens and the Maori Party, unpatriotic traitorous dogs who would turn on their own in a heartbeat, eh Chris? Ya reckon those Greens are really extreme right wingers who infiltrated when Rod Donald passed away? Quick, go rescue Jeanette.
It was this comment that really sums up the immaturity of Chris Trotter's writing. And the sad thing I find is replying to his post by discussing this sort of nonsense brings me down to his level. These are not the words of a serious journalist.
>> It was the Left who rescued New Zealanders from the ravages of the Great Depression. ....
and blah blah blah goes a long list of noted deeds sung in the halls of the Valhalla, under the monument to Vladimir Illich Ulyanov.
After accusing the right of all the evils and failures in the world, including stealing or copying the left's best ideas, (which I thought quite a novel claim) he throws in how undeserved is the money anyone on the right earns:
>> The mini-lectures and supercilious homilies that pour from these right-wing “intellectuals” bespeak a life in which undeserved authority has been made doubly oppressive by unearned wealth
The mini-lectures and supercilious homilies? Chris, that's the perfect byline for your blog posts. And nice segue into the politics of envy. How dare the system support differential wages, and how dare people feel they deserve their wages. Labour will rescue us from this horrible capitalism, wont it Chris?
And so comes his final insult:
>> As my old mate, the late, great Bruce Jesson used to say: National might just rise to the challenge of governing in the interests of capitalists; but only Labour knows how to govern in the interests of Capitalism. Now, what would truly impress me, would be to discover just one right-wing New Zealander who actually understands what that means.
Ah yes, aside from the snide comments about differential wages, Labour, bastion of the left have long understood that capitalism is indeed for the workers, and capitalism in the hands of workers will only come when the capitalists are destroyed and workers around the world can unite and take control of the means of production, as capitalist workers would obviously do.
I suspect I know exactly why Chris is making these bold claims, but a fine and serious debate would be pointless though.
The rhetoric Trotter employs, his habit of setting the scene where he will define the left in heroic terms, abuse facts thick and fast, and then define the right in some hopeless two dimensional cardboard cutout parody of evil or ineptitude (preferably both). This will be delivered via supercilious homily which, having made all manner of personal attacks he will then be outraged should his emotive posturing be called to account, which by necessity comes as a personal attack.
It leaves me with no energy for anything but to acknowledge his divine position in NZ journalism.
Chris Trotter, I acknowledge you as the Muppet King.
Related Link: Chris Trotter meets all the enemies
But the more he puts pen to paper and font to screen, the more he simply ends up looking like King of the Muppets. And how does one treat such idiotic posts so seriously? The answer is, one cannot.
It starts with his latest blog title:
>> I have met the enemy, and he is ….. curiously unimpressive
Hold a different opinion and you are the enemy. Meet one sample of enemy and this person is an exact clone of all enemies. Apparently, to Chris, every single right winger in the world has the same shoe size and a single brain cell.
>>Being accosted by complete strangers is one of the occupational hazards of being in the public eye
Unfortunately, if posts continue of this calibre Chris, being accosted may happen more and more. I'm not sure you want to be known as New Zealand's only left wing comedian with one joke - all right wingers are evil. Ha. Ha.
>> You took a hammering this morning”, he told me, with a smugness he was trying hard, but failing, to conceal. I was at a loss for a second or two, but then the penny dropped: he was talking about my posting entitled “A Tawdry Spectacle”.
Yes indeed, a tawdry spectacle did Chris Trotter make of himself with that particular post. Chris continues to gamely defend Winston, but this time he did so by accusing the Greens and Maori party on the Privileges Committee as being traitorous dogs. It seems that the conclusions they reached were wrong, in spite of the evidence, because they differ from the opinion he is prepared to hold.
So, some strong words then ensue - with the Maori party and the Greens effectively being branded as traitorous dogs. A tear is also shed for Nandor and Rod Donald, last of the patriots that could have averted the Greens from reaching the wrong conclusion. Alas, Nandor and Rod are either figuratively or literally dead and buried, so traitorous dogs Greens and Maori remain.
Store that in short term memory for a moment.
>> I couldn’t suppress a rather smug grin of my own, being secretly delighted that the Right had risen to the intended provocation, as I rather expected it would.
What Chris means is that the 60 plus comments on that post pointed out he made a complete muppet of himself, and he has now decided to save face by saying he was only being deliberately provocative. His revised reasoning works like this: punch some-one in the face. When they punch you back, say you were only being deliberately provocative to see if the right are violent thugs. They hit back, point proven. Case Closed.
Muppet.
>> after exchanging a few more words with my interlocutor, I resumed by journey - pondering as I walked along the curiously unimpressive quality of my opposition. What is it about the contemporary New Zealand Right that leaves those of us on the Left so underwhelmed?
There he goes again. Meet one clone, and you've met them all. Oh, the intellectual elite of the left can be so cutting and cruel in their sweeping generalisations. And such irrefutable opinion too. How can anyone come back from this?
Then some blah blah blah where he hands out a compliment to the right and then takes it back. And takes it back a bit more. And a bit more. And then says that all the actions of the right come from Washington DC. Think about it, Washington DC is even on the right side of America.
>> But that’s the way of the Right: forever doing somebody else’s bidding; organising somebody else’s show; doing somebody else’s dirty work.
No Chris, I wrote this myself. Anyway, I thought the left called themselves "the workers"? Or will that point be made in tomorrows post, when it's necessary to attack from a different angle?
>> Genuine patriotism in the this country has always been the preserve of the Left.
Memory recall: Except for the Greens and the Maori Party, unpatriotic traitorous dogs who would turn on their own in a heartbeat, eh Chris? Ya reckon those Greens are really extreme right wingers who infiltrated when Rod Donald passed away? Quick, go rescue Jeanette.
It was this comment that really sums up the immaturity of Chris Trotter's writing. And the sad thing I find is replying to his post by discussing this sort of nonsense brings me down to his level. These are not the words of a serious journalist.
>> It was the Left who rescued New Zealanders from the ravages of the Great Depression. ....
and blah blah blah goes a long list of noted deeds sung in the halls of the Valhalla, under the monument to Vladimir Illich Ulyanov.
After accusing the right of all the evils and failures in the world, including stealing or copying the left's best ideas, (which I thought quite a novel claim) he throws in how undeserved is the money anyone on the right earns:
>> The mini-lectures and supercilious homilies that pour from these right-wing “intellectuals” bespeak a life in which undeserved authority has been made doubly oppressive by unearned wealth
The mini-lectures and supercilious homilies? Chris, that's the perfect byline for your blog posts. And nice segue into the politics of envy. How dare the system support differential wages, and how dare people feel they deserve their wages. Labour will rescue us from this horrible capitalism, wont it Chris?
And so comes his final insult:
>> As my old mate, the late, great Bruce Jesson used to say: National might just rise to the challenge of governing in the interests of capitalists; but only Labour knows how to govern in the interests of Capitalism. Now, what would truly impress me, would be to discover just one right-wing New Zealander who actually understands what that means.
Ah yes, aside from the snide comments about differential wages, Labour, bastion of the left have long understood that capitalism is indeed for the workers, and capitalism in the hands of workers will only come when the capitalists are destroyed and workers around the world can unite and take control of the means of production, as capitalist workers would obviously do.
I suspect I know exactly why Chris is making these bold claims, but a fine and serious debate would be pointless though.
The rhetoric Trotter employs, his habit of setting the scene where he will define the left in heroic terms, abuse facts thick and fast, and then define the right in some hopeless two dimensional cardboard cutout parody of evil or ineptitude (preferably both). This will be delivered via supercilious homily which, having made all manner of personal attacks he will then be outraged should his emotive posturing be called to account, which by necessity comes as a personal attack.
It leaves me with no energy for anything but to acknowledge his divine position in NZ journalism.
Chris Trotter, I acknowledge you as the Muppet King.
Related Link: Chris Trotter meets all the enemies
I love this:
ReplyDelete"But that’s the way of the Right: forever doing somebody else’s bidding; organising somebody else’s show; doing somebody else’s dirty work."
And those union thugs and academics spouting Marxist claptrap aren't doing communism's dirty work, of course.
Trotter isn't a journalist--he's a blinkered ideologue with access to a keyboard.
I used to think Chris had decent ideals, I just didn't agree with how he and his cohorts wanted to go about getting to the end-points of those goals. But he truly (and sadly) has become a Helen Clark sycophant this election go-round.
ReplyDeleteI think I understand.
ReplyDeleteChris Trotter really believes his opponents are evil.
Here is his latest comment: "It leaves us feeling vaguely depressed at the low cultural level to which New Zealand has sunk over the past 25 years, and wishing that we had more worthy, and yes, more impressive opponents."
He's spent so much time building up this truly evil caricature of his "enemy" in his mind and in his writing, that he is really disappointed that the reality is nothing like his imagination.
More "impressive opponents" would justify the vileness he attributes to us. Instead, he's left feeling vaguely unsettled by it all.
Too one should be too set in their mind or hasty, remember that there was that post on the EU legalising paedophilia on here barely a week ago.
ReplyDeleteMy sense is that we are all guilty of making blanket assumptions and that we will too quickly type those we think we don't agree with. Everyone does it. And often what we come up with when we look at it is something quite different.
I agree Fergus. We all do it. To varying degrees.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't make it right, and those in positions of influence need to be called upon it.
And Mr Trotter is fairly OTT from time to time.