The State of the NZ Political Blogosphere

The Press has just published an article summarising the political blog climate here in New Zealand. The article includes commentary from both Russell Brown (Left) and David Farrar (Right) but focused, I felt, more on the Left-wing blogs out there. Of course, this has whipped the “Kiwiblog Right”, dubbed due to their natural habitat lurking in prominent right-wing blogs, into a frenzy as they appear to interpret this as an attack to their legitimacy and beliefs.

The article makes a point that the left, relative to the very vocal right, is under-represented in New Zealand blogs. Perhaps another voice is what we need! It’s good to see them talking about No Right Turn who I regard as one of the unsung heros of the Blogosphere. Very little mudslinging and personal attacks, just gets on with his high quality analysis and political commentary. Unfortunately, due to the amount of abuse he received in his comments he has had to disable discussion on his posts.

In stark contrast to N.R.T, I have read a lot of rubbish being spewed from some blogs. Clint Heine, who the article represents as having ties to the ACT Party, has reposted his disgusting little picture on the front page of his blog, proving what was written in The Press piece about the juvenile crap spewed from that side of the fence. His masterly summation and rebuttal consisted of “The Press are a bunch of wankers” and accused the author of trying to stir up the cesspit that consist of a lot of “right” NZ blogs (no link due to some heavy NSFW content on his page). Not to mention that any discussion that involves Whale Oil, bless him, is likely to get out of hand fairly quickly.

The left have their share of puerile nonsense as well with frequent bad behavior in the comments of other peoples blogs – but with free speech one of the most valued rights in the political world, bans on commenting are few and far between. However, shitting in threads is not allowed!

I like David Farrar and what he writes in Kiwiblog. I believe he is a part of the “Grown-up Right”. Although I take issue with the imbeciles he attracts in his comments section. A lot of bloggers have pointed out that the scum he lets reside on his blog reflects very badly on him and he is frequently accused of “dogwhistling“. However, it is always amusing to read the comments related to any story that he posts and see how the commenters can blame anything on Labour (or Liarbore), Clark (or Klark), or their “lickspittle, pinko supporters” and their “communist” or “socialist” ways (used interchangeably). It really is like playing political Madlibs or perhaps Buzzword Bingo!

Although I’m only a part time politics follower and blogosphere small-fry, I hope to weigh in on a few issues in the future.