Pablo's critique of the NZ Left keeps throwing up core problems involved with this love affair, even as he pines for its return to power. Take the Left blogs, for example. Red Alert, The Daily Blog and The Standard love playing censor to the free thoughts of their commenters. This isn't about weeding out trollers or spammers, but silencing divergent voices.
Pablo wasn't even allowed to comment on Chris Trotter's reply to Pablo's post. He had to republish it on his own site. Giovanni Tiso's comment was also refused permission for publication. Here it is:
"I must vehemently protest you drawing Gramsci into this. Firstly, the sentence you quote means the exact opposite of how you're presenting it. ‘Sono pessimista per l’intelligenza, ottimista per la volontà’ comes from one of the prison letters. As he explains it, it means that he has taken to be utterly pessimistic and bleak in his analysis of any given situation, in order to muster the strongest possible will to change it. And by change Gramsci always meant radical change. He hated reformists. To suggest otherwise is deeply offensive to his memory, seeing as his refusal to compromise and soften his stance is what led directly to his imprisonment and ultimately to his death.
There is very little doubt in my mind – as there could be in anyone who had read his work – that Gramsci would have nothing but contempt for the contemporary New Zealand political class. To suggest otherwise is frankly bizarre."
There, that wasn't so bad now, was it? It wasn't offensive or worthy of censure, surely? How many other valid but improper thoughts have been thrown down the memory tube for the greater good of the collective?
Divergent voices are not welcome with the true NZ Left. They have no need for outside influences. They already know everything. There is no dialogue in their dialectic.
And still they wonder why the voting public won't trust them. The old man always said that the Labour Party are experts of rationalising defeat, because they've had so much practice at it. Some things never change. They just die out.
