The natural political situation:
I've come to the conclusion that the people who really run New Zealand are the media, schools, tertiary institutes, and Hollywood, etc - that is, the opinion makers and culture movers. Our politicians are really just political appointees that the media effectively installs for us.
The media can, and does, make and break whatever politician they want via their power to give exposure, or not, and their power to frame politicians (via the all-power post-edit) in whichever way they want. Let's face it - they run the show. As long as most people receive their information passively, as they do, the media will basically own their assumptions.
As I like to say, if the world of politics is a supermarket then the people we recognize as politicians are just the checkout girls, taking the public's [media manufactured] orders.
An excellent example of how our politicians are, and must be, puppets of public opinion can be seen with the ACT party. It went from 1% to 10% in just a couple of years. But how? In part the rise was driven by disillusioned National party voters who had nowhere else to go, but also I believe it was because the leader of the ACT party, David Seymour, became a clear 'sell out'...
Seymour never touches anything that might upset the media, and he never goes to controversial realities that his select voter-base does not want to hear. An example is in the way his party talks about treating mental sickness yet never, ever, talks about what causes it in the first place, which is overwhelmingly child abuse and infantile damage (which has been well understood for decades). He keeps his mouth shut because he knows no one wants to hear it. He sells out, basically...
But this doesn't mean that Seymour is a bad guy. He simply accepts that his job is to represent public opinion - not drive it. That's honourable enough, though it does mean our politicians are an empty force for change in themselves.
Really, politicians are just representatives that we insist on humiliating, because unlike a union rep' who can openly say "well guys, I don't agree with this position myself but it's your call and my job is to do your bidding - as I will"...we instead insist that our politicians pretend to agree with us, even when they don't...
That's a painful job, and it explains why our representatives tend to be shallow people. They have to play a game with themselves to compete. They have to pretend to themselves to agree with what they don't, to pull off "authenticity". That's our fault, not theirs, as we make such ridiculous demands on them.
So what should a political force look like, if it wants to have a real impact on public opinion?
I say forget parliamentary politics and go straight for public opinion. Compete with the self-appointed media for their throne. Change the minds that change the politicians.
What I'm thinking of is a political "party" that focuses directly on influencing public awareness: An intermediate organisation that stands between a good think-tank and an advertising body for public education.
To the end of achieving mass-public education, think-tanks are typically impotent. Their vanilla and over-academic communication style renders them meaningless except for a small few, which is heart-breaking when they so often do such good work. There needs to be a mid-ground. A political retailer for good policy.
The organisation I'm thinking of should recommend policy positions based on research and reason, and then crowdsource marketing campaigns to promote their arguments. People will be much happier to donate when they can see exactly what their money is going to.
-Muriel Newman had excellent success with this approach a few years back with Maori privilege issues, and we should learn from her example.
The organisation should maturely yet bluntly criticise political parties, and make public recommendations on who to vote for and what to vote for, based on good policy. It should not be inauthentically polite. People and organisations should win the reputations they deserve.
It should work on developing soundbites to get people alerted to the basic messages, because no-one's listening until they are first provoked. It needs to be clever more than 'intellectual'.
Note, the cellphone is a powerful tool today. People are getting used to using QR-codes which can work as an excellent extension for any public flyer, or billboard. Video material should be prioritised when appropriate. The QR-code allows people to look further immediately at the point where interest has been provoked (and not yet lost).
Flyers, flags, posters, billboards, Facebook backgrounds, online media shows, etc, can all serve to continuously thrust public awareness of the organisation out there, which allows the organisation to become a 'somebody' and in spite of mainstream media discretion.
An old saying is, if you're not copping flack then you're not on the target. An organisation like what I'm describing would get massive flack and exactly because it would be on target. If you're a threat then be ready to be abused. Don't be afraid of the media attacking you. If you're doing your job right then they certainly will.
So for those who want to see change for the better, and wish to do something real about gross public ignorance, and can see the impotence of parliamentary politics, then I suggest moving in this direction.
You could become more powerful than any other third party, by targeting the public mind directly.
And yes, it would have to be a voluntary organisation - with crowdsourcing campaigns. If you want money and an official political career then that's fair enough, but it's best that you join an establishment party to that end. That's not what I'm talking about with this idea.
Any thoughts?
-Andrew Atkin
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