What do you stand for? That's what we've been asked by this government in the flag debate but I can't help but think it's a rhetorical question to which they don't want a real answer. What they're looking for is contrived unity and what Noam Chomsky termed 'manufactured consent'.
Helping to fabricate consent, Santa's helpers like Mike Hosking continue to tell the nation what to think as a replacement for real journalism - where we all get to be big boys and girls and decide things for ourselves.
A work colleague berated me for my threat to destroy my voting paper saying that by doing so I would be disrespecting the whole feminist pantheon who fought to allow me a democratic right to participate. If this were truly democratic, and not a facsimile of the real thing she might have a point.
A democratic referendum would have asked whether or not we wanted to change the flag before asking which one we prefer. This derriere about face way of doing things makes perfect sense in creating buy in and leaning on public opinion and no sense at all if you want a genuine answer. It's the kind of corralling you'd expect from a big corporate pretending to co:construct a new logo with its employees.
The push from the PM and every National MP wearing their scouts' honour silver fern badges for every press release or interview begins to be wearying and worrying. Someone ought to pull them all aside (Hosking included) and say; 'Basta already. We get it. Tone it down a notch.' What is being created is a brand name for Team NZ but few are asking who is in that team or what we want to project to the world.
