Tag: satire

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2017 rewind: Unity: a poem inspired by Martyn Bradbury

I’m still proud of this one, even if it did ruffle some feathers among people who can’t read a disclaimer properly. Once again for the folks at the back: I didn’t write this. Martyn Bradbury wrote every word; I merely assembled them into a more pleasing form.

And then he wonders why no one talks to him at parties.

For context, because everything on the internet passes like tears in the rain: the 23-year-old woman Martyn took such offence at was Lara Wharepapa-Bridger, who was targeted by a lot of horrible abuse after calling out ~the Mad Butcher~ for obnoxious behaviour.

Originally published 30 January 2017

After a weekend of checking Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury’s latest diatribes – against women’s marches, Green Party voters, liberals, cyclists, the Labour Party, tourists, millennials, Nazi punchers, identity politics and Guy Williams – for personal attacks against myself or my union comrades, I decided this whimsical thought-experiment-slash-poem, assembled over an idle evening or two, deserved to see the light of day. It amused me to make it; I hope it amuses people who have been abused by New Zealand’s greatest leftwing blogger to read it.

Presented with no apologies; these were Martyn Bradbury’s own words, even if some of them have since been unceremoniously deleted.

“Unity”

or

“#ifthisishowthelefttreatallieshowwilltheytreatyou?”

having to put up with the puerile ravings of a hypocrite
is a tad tedious.

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Last night Giovanni Tiso and Russel Brown launched a twitter attack
a tsunami of abuse by the Emerald Stormtroopers and aesthetic left of Labour

If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
God these people are clowns.

The Left is its own worst enemy
the Left hates itself
the Left looks for traitors
the Left will simply bicker

It’s not the message of the Left
it’s the deeply flawed messengers the Left keep hiring
as self important as Giovanni Tiso
as alienating as the PSA Wellington comms team
mixed with the tediously smug insight of Simon Wilson

Maybe it’s living in Wellington,
undeservingly smug
absolutely positively passive aggressive.

maybe it’s living with a Green Party staff member,
those Green Party staffers who love to cyber bully
Hipsters with ambition and top knots
as sociable as a militant vegan in a battery cage chicken café

THIS IS SATIRE – NO NEED TO PROSECUTE – THIS IS SATIRE – NO NEED TO PROSECUTE

The EPMU doesn’t storm the barricades, they knock politely
so tinder dry that they make the PSA look like a clown college.
they wonder why the CTU can’t create more solidarity

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This is why you can’t trust Labour and the Greens
the total lack of political vision
too frightened to anger the PSA
the battle of the teeth
the naked ambition of Julie Anne Genter
a recipe for friction and disunity.

THIS IS SATIRE – NO NEED TO PROSECUTE – THIS IS SATIRE – NO NEED TO PROSECUTE

If only Kim had heeded my advice
personal ambition and ego politics always trump what’s best for NZ.

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Twitter can be rough
a boutique shop down a tiny alleyway
for Militant Free Bleeders and Beard Glitter aficionados
screams of ‘hate monger’ if someone gets the wrong pronoun
fucking worthless as a political measurement tool

outside the tiny little alienating echo chamber
the impenetrable little echo chamber
the Emerald Stormtroopers
are itching to start a schism of religious proportions.

just accept some people are simply mean
there’s a block button for a reason

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Russell Brown called The Spinoff the future of journalism
the supposed saviour of journalism
glitter bearded hipsters and middle class Blue Green wankers
new gatekeepers, policing language, identity and self interest for millennials
Their standard
about as high as your average beauty blog
Cash for copy
with all the charm of a modern day witch hunt
more like the youth wing of the Property Council than a social justice movement
like a little of Wellington in Auckland. Ugh.

And then there are the Millennials.
the first user pays generation
Me first cultural norms mixed with narcissistic social media
Without an idealogical compass
they are all going to the Greens

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a 23 year old crying on social media
some interchange she had with a rich white bloke
inside a snobbery winery
that’s front page fucking news?

I’m not allowed to have an opinion on the feels of a 23 year old woman
A 23 year old Millennial performing a classic over share moment
crying on social media

but if I was allowed an opinion

fake news at its most divisive
bullshit social media pile ons
liberals in social media bubbles
pointless alienating self-aggrandisement.
petty in comparison
alienating to everyone outside their echo chamber.
who actually cares beyond Twitter

one week of screaming racist
Longer than it took God to make the Universe folks.

a 23 year old woman who cried on social media
the feels of the preciously middle class
classic run-of-the-mill-middle-class-emotional-millenial-over-share

we gots us a girl in bubble wrap folks

Upset and tearful?
Over that?
Upset and tearful?
I’d imagine the children of Aleppo were upset and tearful.

let’s take her at her word
she was in fact upset and tearful

But again
I’m not allowed to have an opinion

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urban males
made to feel guilty for having a penis inside the Labour or the Greens.
this fragile ego
the perception that their privilege has been eroded
a frightened male sub culture that has to be gently coaxed
You can’t get shit done if you don’t have white males on board.

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oh come on Comrade
it’s the election year for Christ’s sake!
If we want progressive change
put aside the righteous anger
Rather than flinch and react angrily
understand where the anger is coming from
take less personal insult from righteous anger

you sanctimonious little arsehole.

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The vast rightwing conspiracy: REVEALED

Readers, I have earth-shattering received information which will blow the lid of one of the greatest scandals of our time.

An internal WhaleOil document, exclusively created by released to Boots Theory, show the innermost workings of a corrupt, depraved, unmitigated, cryptofascist conspiracy to control our media, our government, our daily lives and even our rare Pepes.

Nicky Hager ain’t got shit on this.

I’ve uploaded the documentation at full resolution so it can be available to all in the event of my sudden disappearance.

Click to view the full, horrific truth.
Click to view the full, horrific truth.

Now, this may at face value appear to be a really obvious two-minute job with the SmartArt functions in Microsoft Word and some Google image searches. The kind of “evidence” which shouldn’t even seem compelling to the people who really, really want to believe it’s true. Don’t worry, loyal Booters: I’m suspicious too.

But it’s so important to unveil the terrible depths that the rightwing will sink to – the secret Bitcoin payments, the hidden overseas blind look-through trust fund trusts, the pineapple on the pizza – that I am willing to pay hundreds, nay thousands of dollars to an elite super hacker who can’t even spell the names of my targets correctly and thinks screenshots of a Notepad file counts as “documentation”.

I’m doing it for you. I’m doing it for our country. And above all, I’m doing it for myself.

witness me

With absolutely no apologies nor credit to Cameron Slater or his self-important creep of a conman, Ben Rachinger.

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A reader asks: how do I tell my pushy colonial parents “no”?

With apologies to Captain Awkward.

Dear Boots Theory,

I’m a young, go-getting nation state. I like doing things my way, for my reasons. But my parents just don’t understand that I’m not their baby any more. I’ve moved out, I’ve stopped borrowing their car, I formally declared myself a dominion back in 1907 so they understood I wasn’t happy being treated as “one of the colonies”.

I even live as far away from them as physically possible, but they haven’t taken the hint!

And now, right as I’m celebrating a big anniversary – the centenary of the event which really drove home how much I need to stand on my own two feet and not jump straight into every doomed project my Dad signs up for – it’s all come to a head.

One of my uncles is visiting – I was expected to let him crash at my place even though he’s got more than enough cash to stay at a hotel – and he’s laying the full guilt-trip on me, saying that I haaaaaaave to commit to an armed conflict on foreign soil because it’s a faaaaaaamily event and it won’t be the saaaaaaame if I’m not there. He’s even invoking my cousins, who I’m a lot closer to, because they expect me to be there.

How do I tell him – and my folks – that it’s just not fair to lay this kind of guilt-trip on me, and it actually makes me want to risk the lives of my soldiers in a complex colonialist intervention which is ultimately doomed to fail in its stated goal of Middle Eastern peace even less?

Yours,

Not Your Goddamned Lickspittle Any More, Britain

Dear Not Your Lickspittle,

A lot of people invest huge amounts of their identity in their family – or at least, a picture-perfect version of “family” which demands everyone play their proper role and nobody dispel the illusion that Everything Is Just Fine. This allows them to believe that everything they do has everyone’s approval and everyone agrees with them.

When you challenge those ideas, you’re going to get a lot of resistance because deep down they know that their old Empire is basically a shell. You’d think a logical nation-state would realise this and find new ways to leverage power in a modern world, but many will just keep clinging to their nostalgia for the Good Old Days and get pretty mean to anyone who threatens them.

The thing is, your parents aren’t going to change. They haven’t acknowledged any of the really clear steps you’ve taken to assert your independence. It doesn’t sound like you’re ready to completely cut them out of your life – and that’s okay, that can be a drastic step for a lot of people – but unfortunately this just means you’re going to have to be the adult and keep asserting your independence.

With your uncle being a guest in your home you’re going to feel a lot of obligation not to “be rude”. But you can politely re-emphasise your boundaries and make it plain that it’s not a topic for discussion. “Actually, uncle, I haven’t decided if I’m going to send troops to combat ISIL yet, and I’ll need to think about that in my own time. I would appreciate you not putting pressure on me about it. Hey, let’s watch some cricket.”

Your family won’t like that answer. You’ll get some pushback. They’ll probably try to recruit your cousins to nag you about it. Just keep repeating “I have to make that decision for myself and I’m not going to discuss it with you.”

It will probably get awkward. But you’re an independent nation state, and they’re choosing to ignore that. This means they are the ones who’ve made it awkward, by trying to guilt-trip you into joining an armed conflict to fulfil their imperialist desires.

They’re the ones who feel insecure about acknowledging that their actions aren’t fully supported by the rest of the world. Only they can learn, and grow, and come to terms with the fact that everyone else has started to realise that Western powers getting involved in Middle Eastern conflicts generally only leads to worse Middle Eastern conflicts, and it’s perfectly rational not to rush into that kind of situation.

Maybe they will, or maybe one day you’ll reach the end of your tether and become a republic. But only time can tell.

Commenters – have you had to deal with overbearing colonial powers? What are your favourite methods for shutting that kind of passive-aggressive bullying down?