Winston right on racist party

It must be election year, because Winston Peters has woken up. And when Winston wakes up, he always begins by playing to his core audience. That doesn't mean he isn't right.

Of course the Maori Party is separatist: separate justice, planning and welfare systems have been core platforms for the Maori Party since its inception. Of course the Maori Party is racist: special political favours doled out by race is and always will be core policy for the Racist Party.

To call the Maori Party separatist is simply to state the obvious: they've been playing the race card since day one, and everyone knows it even if they're too timid to say it.

Mr Peters ... said accused the protesters of marching in support of arrested Tuhoe activist Tame Iti only "because he is brown."

"We once marched against apartheid, now they are marching for it."

It's true, isn't it. And the mainstream parties have no answer to it. When Winston is right -- even if it's only a bid to attract attention -- he can sometimes be right on the money.

UPDATE: Helen Clark insists this morning that the Maori Party is concerned not with apartheid -- as that would entail keeping one race down rather than giving special favour on the basis of race -- and not with race, but with "ethnicity." As I've said before, "ethnicity" is simply an anti-concept used as a euphemism for race:

ETHNICITY: The elevating of one’s racial identity and associated cultural traditions to a position of supreme importance – a racist version of collectivism, under-pinned by post-modernism in philosophy, and still very fashionable in academia...

Defining oneself by one’s race and tradition -- things about which one has no control over -- is utterly incompatible with defining oneself by one’s conscious choices, and deriving pride in one's own achievements rather than just those of one's ancestors -- which is the essence of individualism.

The antidote to the poison race-baiting, race war and all this irrelevant attention paid to the colour of a person's skin is individualism: to judge a person by the actual choices they make, not by who they 'chose' as their grandparents.