Thursday, August 26, 2010



Worse than the Blitzkrieg

Roger Douglas is considered the acme of contempt for democracy. Back in the 80's, he and his NeoLiberal clique inflicted a revolution on New Zealanders against our will. Douglas knew that his policies would not be accepted if implemented in a democratic fashion, and so he sought to bypass democracy, ramming his demented market Darwinist vision through under urgency, in accordance with his (self-named) "Blitzkrieg principles". As a result, Parliament spent a large amount of time sitting under urgency - 454 hours out of 1606, or 28.3%, during the 1987 - 1990 term (figures obtained from the Parliamentary Library).

As I noted the other day, as of July, the House had spent 37.6% of its time under urgency - almost a third more than the worst days of Douglas. That's right: National is worse than the blitzkrieg.

Correction: Douglas did not name his approach the "Blitzkrieg principles".