Stealing – It’s in the Blood [updated]

Suzuki Samurai thinks about theft . . .
Let’s talk about politics – a word coming from the Greek word “Poly” (meaning “many), and “ticks” (meaning small “blood-sucking objects”).
I couldn’t help but laugh when I heard Hone Harawira on the radio yesterday. The “she’ll be right bro” audacity made me laugh only because that it reminded me how far this country has come in terms of expecting political abuse of power & waste.
Apparently it’s now funny to spend money that isn’t yours. In Hone’s case, a jaunt to Paris and a walk on the beach in Hawaii. Come to think of it, the whole press conference reminded me of the late great Billy T James’ skit parodying the “Lands For Bags” TV ad, Billy says, “Where did I get my bag? – I pinched it”! (Insert Maori giggle here)

Hone isn’t as funny as Billy, but. Hone the Maori really did “pinch it.” Sure it was legal –  he wuz entitled, bro!  -- but it’s still theft of other people’s money for what he called “a choice trip.”
Now I’ll give Hone some credit. He admitted that he took what he could, he made no apology for putting his hand in your pocket; he even made a prescient remark that said that most New Zealanders would have said, “good on you” – and sadly he’s probably right on that count.
Leaving aside Hone for a moment…
Even less funny are Rodney Hide, Roger Douglas, Chris Carter, & Bill English. (And various others I’ll leave out because that would take at least a week) These entities all been on the take too. Chris Carter is a member of the collectivist, socialist Labour Party, so we’d expect that kind of ‘damn the working man’ attitude from him anyway. Bill English, has asked us all to tighten our belts during the recession…but Sir Double Dipton doesn’t think he should – does anyone seriously think that he wanted to pay the money back because it was blatantly wrong, or did Mr Twenty-One Percent just do it to save his own hide?
Speaking of Hide, and his “I’m entitled” squealing mate Roger Douglas: These two have campaigned…excuse me…have made a career out of peddling the line that they are “Perk Busters,” “Waste Eliminators,” “Tax-payer Protectors” … Now both these gits are caught with their pants down, becoming the very same bludging, snouts-in the-trough, principle-bereft thieves they always claimed to be fighting against (ha, on our behalf)
For goodness’ sake, Rodney was the guy who helped Dave Henderson fight off the IRD; does anyone see the irony? Rodney is the guy you’d expect to be speaking up to slag off Hone; can anyone hear him bark?
The barking at Hone hasn’t come from his parliamentary colleagues.  It’s come from you lot – as it has to.
Dear reader, if you happen to see Hone in the street, ask him how choice his trip was at the expense of some poor, working, tax-paying Maori who is struggling to feed his whanau; ask him how choice it is that same poor Maori’s EFTPOS card just got declined at the supermarket; ask him how choice it is to say “I don’t give a shit” about the people who have to pick up his tab.
And if you happen to see Bill (and you can refrain from bruising your knuckles on his face), ask him how his belt tightening is going; ask him how his “entitlements” are looking, and think about how much money he’s taken of yours over the years when you are forced to tighten your belt and forgo a Christmas ham or holiday this year.
Ask Roger, if you stumble upon him, whether his “entitlements” should come out of your pocket; if you should be paying for books that you won’t read; and for holidays in London that you don’t get to enjoy.
And finally when you happen upon Rodney Hide, ask him how he can sleep at night knowing that good men like small business owner Ian Mutton killed himself because of being bullied by the IRD, the same IRD that collect tax so Rodney can go to weddings in London with his girlfriend. Ask him if he can face Ian’s poor surviving wife, who knows what it’s like to live without her husband, and their son – their son, who at 13 killed himself six months after his dad did due to the despair at losing his dad. Just bloody ask him what kind of twisted logic makes him the self-appointed doyenne of the working, taxpaying people of New Zealand.
Message for Rodney: you are the worst of the bunch I’ve just mentioned.  The baubles of office and the arrogance of political power have done you in. You have no claim, ever again, to be anything but another political parasite on the back of all of us!
Just another bloody politician – for whom stealing is in the blood.

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UPDATE: Who would have thought it.  Scratch a Racist Party MP, and what do you find?  A racist.  Says Hone HaHa in an email reply to someone involuntarily picking up the tab for his tip:

    “Gee Buddy, do you believe that white man bullshit too do you?
    "White motherfuckers have been raping our lands and ripping us off for centuries and all of a sudden you want me to play along with their puritanical bullshit."

Story, and more eimailery here.  And John Boy’s response?

    “Mr Key said Mr Harawira's language was not ‘appropriate.’ But he was sent a ‘very provocative email and that's what he responded to but I don't think that makes it right.’
    “He will leave the Maori Party to deal with him.”

Now that’s what I call cabinet discipline.