When the Tik Tok prime minister thinks we need a bit of Daddy’s tough love, he likes to talk about our attitude. He likes to tell us we’re too negative, too whiny, that we have this culture of NO. We’ve been too ready to say NO, and that’s how our mojo got shrivelled up or some shit.
And yet consider how much of what our Tik Tok — or maybe that should be tick tock, as in time’s nearly up sorry buddy — is a NO-sayer himself. Consider, for example, what his answers are to all these questions. Hint: it’s that same single word and that single word is not YES.
- Do you have anything to say about recognising Palestine beyond indefinitely buying time by saying it’s a matter of when not if ?
- Do you believe there are times when the right to protest might matter more than causing drivers inconvenience?
- Do you have any ideas for injecting fresh life into the economy beyond stadiums and concert events, and concert events and stadiums, and tax breaks for landlords?
- Have you found us a Cook Strait ferry yet?
- Have you grasped that the economy is in a nosedive spiral towards the compost?
- What was the word you found impossible to say in coalition negotiations?
Apropos of nothing, here’s a photo I took last year in Ankara of cellphone towers. Nifty camouflage eh?
