Old Age

"Nothing endures but personal qualities." Walt Whitman

I must be getting old. The New Zealand that raised me in the forties and fifties has
disappeared. Gone are the values of honesty and decency that nourished commonsense.
Gone is the sentiment that my fellow man deserved a fair go simply because he was alive. As kids, we used to fight with each other one day, but the next day all was forgotten. Most of us attended church not because we believed in religion but because we understood that the teachings were based upon history and the lessons of history made our society viable.
Murders were almost unheard of in NZ.

Politicians had their numbers in the phone book and you could ring them just to say hello.
They sat in parliament and did nothing remarkable except represent their electorate. New
laws were rare and everybody more or less got on with their neighbours. There was full
employment and nobody starved.

Race relations wasn't a problem and Maori were more of a curiosity than anything sinister. I found their flat noses intriguing compared with my huge snout. Their nostrils were bigger
than mine and they didn't have to breathe so hard during sports. I was awfully jealous of their brown skin because it meant they didn't show the dirt or need to wash so much. I could never understand why I had to wash behind my ears because I never did anything to get them dirty.

My mother was home all the time and I had a clean handkerchief everyday and my socks were always ironed. Primary school was a pleasure because the teachers confirmed what I already knew. I'd been able to read and write for as long as I could remember and reading to the class was a piece of cake. My school lunch consisted of jam and peanut butter sandwiches and an apple or a little red cardboard box of South African raisins. There was a one legged seagull called Harry who loved peanut butter.

I used to remove my shoes and splash through the puddles in hope that the school would send me home before I froze to death in the hot sun. I walked the three miles to school on my own and only got lost when I accidentally diverted to the local wharf to go fishing. Life was a breeze living in a drained swamp called Miramar in Wellington, the Capitol of New Zealand.

At my boys only secondary school, they taught history, geography, science and various types of maths. It was top flight at English and obtained a 98-99% pass rate. I cut my finger in woodwork and decided I didn't want to be a dead carpenter like Jesus Christ. Sports were mandatory unless you had polio or were dead. Girls and sisters were ignored because they didn't fit into a man's world. I had a dentist appointment and missed the compulsory lecture on sex education. I didn't matter because I had the right number of fingers and girls didn't make sense anyway. They were silly enough to wear skirts when trousers were warmer and had deep pockets for marbles. TV didn't exist until 1962.

I left school at fifteen because I obviously knew everything and could easily make my way in the world. I left NZ on the Shaw Saville liner, Northern Star. Lookout world. Here I come.

I toured the world for years and did many things I shouldn't have done. But it was fun. I
returned home and started running pubs, I soon realised that NZ society was not quite as I
remembered. But there was still full employment until the politicians decided that Godzone
had to join the world economy in the mid eighties. The market economy was apparently the answer to everything. Even problems that didn't exist. Almost overnight Kiwi politicians became a money grabbing and stuff you too, breed of people. It was sad to watch. Jobs disappeared and unemployment became fashionable. Drugs were prevalent and the crime rate soared. One or two murders a year turned into about one a week. Prisons expanded and Maori people became 50% of all inmates. The unemployed were accused of being lazy for not applying for jobs that didn't exist.

Now its 2004 and NZ society has gone to the dogs completely. A new breed of politician has emerged. Political half truths and lies have become the norm. Corruption is not unknown and business leaders can't see past the dollar signs. Exploitation of the worker is rife and commonsense and decency has been relegated to the rubbish bin. Statistics are manipulated to make things appear OK But anybody with half a brain can see there's a limited future for the young. It's most depressing for older people to remember when NZ had one of the highest standard of living in the world. Today, NZ is near the bottom of the so called civilised countries. Politicians have decided that elitism is their forte and only they know what's good for Kiwis. Their arrogance has placed them at the top of the list of people not to be trusted. Even used car salesmen are more respected.

To be continued when I get over my euphoria. It's no wonder I drink and smoke.....

"One bad habit destroys a dozen good ones." Napoleon Hill.

And so it came to pass that old age has made me realise New Zealand has gone to the dogs in the last few years. Politicians have destroyed a once viable country for egotistical reasons. It's not uncommon for political leaders to break the speed limit travelling to a rugby match in third world style motorcades. Sport is hardly a national emergency but they don't care what the public thinks. They come first and to hell with the people. The people only exist to provide spending money for political whims. Tis little wonder that thinking people shake their heads in bewilderment.

NZ education is at an all-time low. History, geography and social studies are deemed old
fashioned and barely touched upon. As a consequence, kids have little knowledge on which to base the realities of life. Calculators have replaced the times tables and kids can't add up the cost of mathematical ignorance. TV and computer games have replaced health giving sport and childhood obesity will kill more people than smoking and motor accidents ever will. The recreational drug "P" is causing massive problems and the prisons are full of brain dead people. NZ is second only to the USA in the numbers incarcerated and are predicted to double in a few years. The political answer is to build more prisons. But as long as they're not in a neighbourhood near us, we don't give a damn.

Mental hospitals have been closed to save money and police spend a fortune rounding up the unfortunate and returning them to their 'safe houses.' Many are jailed because their
behaviour is regarded as 'criminal.' Violence has risen dramatically and petty crime is not far behind. The politicised police do their best but budget limitations have forced burglaries and the like onto the back burner. If your home is burgled, you can wait days for an investigation.

Political opportunists have decided that Kiwis don't know their ass from their elbow and have introduced social engineering policies designed to change human nature and introduce unthinking compliancy. History tells us this doesn't work but today's politicians can't see past the end of their egotistical noses. As far as they are concerned, what they say, goes. There are 120 politicians and four million Kiwis. Thus, they are the elitist majority and vote their opinion into law regardless of adverse referendums. The unthinking public are at fault to a large extent. Apathy and the, 'it doesn't affect me' attitude, allow big heads to get bigger.

The cost of living has risen to such an extent that it's essential for both partners to work
merely to put bread on the table. Housing and consumer spending on senseless items mean most families spend more than they earn. Credit Cards that will never be repaid keep the retail economy ticking over. Debt has replaced rugby as the national sport and saving for old age is almost impossible.

Employers have had the upper hand for a number of years and many full time jobs are now
part time. Wages haven't kept up with inflation and have actually reduced incomes to below subsistence level. In real terms, wages are a little more than half of what they were twenty years ago.

Those working a few hours a week are not regarded as unemployed because it makes the
numbers look better. It's not unusual for the welfare people to approach employers with a
behind the scene payment to increase part times hours to full time. Thus the experts can say employment is rising. I have a friend who suffered this indignity and was justifiably
disgusted.

The young have a dismal future. Employers don't want intelligent workers and jobs have
been dumbed down to enable low wages. The only real future for the bright is to work
offshore. The talented are leaving NZ in droves and rarely returning. Most manufacturing
plants have moved overseas for the lower wages. This leaves factory workers unemployed and unqualified to do anything else. Perhaps it's little wonder than crime has sky rocketed?

Those in regular employment, similar to the retired, are too scared to rock the boat and speak out when they see injustices perpetrated by politicians. They bury their heads in the sand and refuse to see the writing on the wall, rather than upset their lifestyle. There are none so blind as those who will not see. They are known as the Jackass Mentality and inevitably support government because they haven't the courage to face reality. Thus, this 60% of the population are prime targets for political propaganda.

It's standard procedure that politicians only promote arguments that suit their purpose and all other opinions are regarded as rubbish and ignored. If the hat fits, wear it. Despite thousands of internet articles pointing out the obvious, the authors are officially described as extremists and anti government weirdos who should be jailed. It will be a sad day for humanity when politicians start censoring the internet.

Note the following:

The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands . . . [Propaganda] must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect . . . The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses . . . [Propaganda] does not have multiple shadings; it has a positive and a negative; love or hate, right or wrong, truth or lie, never half this way and half that way . . . But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. . . . The purpose of propaganda is not to provide interesting distraction for blas� young gentlemen, but to convince . . . the masses. But the masses are slow moving, and they always require a certain time before they are ready even to notice a thing, and only after the simplest ideas are repeated thousands of times will the masses finally remember them.
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf