1974: Kirk Out

August 30, 2019

By AHNZ

Prime Minister, Norman Kirk, ran his body into the ground and died today in New Zealand history; 31 August, 1974.

Every politician is a sociopath, every Government a Mafia racket. Kirk’s short lived Labour 3.0 clothed itself in people-pleasing camouflage like The Ohu Scheme and I Care Year. Behind the scenes Kirk and his people were, like all politicians anywhere, hard at work making themselves and their supporters more powerful. Minister Finlay empowered crime and criminals. Minister Rowling explicitly commended a Centrally Planned economy and attacked ‘rich pricks.’ Minister Rata laundered money via Ngai Tahu using the same old excuse of “this will be the last time we do this” (works every time.) Kirk’s Mafia also expanded the Government’s compulsory insurance scheme, ACC, giving away the benefits to everyone no matter if they contributed or not.

Becoming a Kiwi Al Capone

Thomas Cherry built his own sod bricks and house on 1860s Kaiapoi Island, an early settler. Cherry could not have foreseen that his great-grandson, Norman Kirk, would also cast bricks (concrete) and build his own house in Kaiapoi 80 years later; Then become Kaiapoi’s Mayor and New Zealand’s Prime Minister.

This side of the family (maternal) was actually very wealthy and also very Maori. Norman had lots of Maori cousins, giving rise to the myth he was the same. As well-to-do women often are, Kirk’s mother was attracted to rejecting her heritage for a man of little means but high ideals. Norman Kirk Snr passed those things on to Norm Jr, as well as the poverty of forever being an odd-jobs man going from role to role. The Kirks were all devout Methodists of the Salvation Army sect.

Methodists/Wesleyans were already people who like bright and shiny things; Religion for people with low attention spans. The Salvation Army denomination excelled at showing off with brass bands, uniforms, and militaristic titles like captain, major, lieutenant etc. When the Kirks married there was a great Victimhood Culture tide to surf, as for Uncle Scrim and Hubert Holdaway. The Kirk’s Culture won the 1935 election, their faction did not. The family fell on hard times, doubtless experiencing the same despondency prompting Holdaway to form Riverside. Young Kirk came of age watching his tribe back the wrong horse; Prime Minister Savage’s faction died with the man himself. Norm was 16 then.

It was about now that the devout Salvation Army boy became an apostate. Those who abandon their religion make a cult of culture: Kirk took all that lefty idealistic Social Justice religiosity they raised him on and channelled it into politics. Kirk converted to Statism, Government would be his new church now. Just like Dad, but this time it was going to work. Just like Norm Snr, Norm Jr flittered from job to job but geared his soul to worship at the alter of Big Brother. Like many who are book-smart and self-educated, Kirk mispronounced the words he spoke because the ideas he absorbed came from the page not from interacting with people in reality. Reality didn’t want him but Social Reality was happy to have such a passionate talker with all the right SJW words.

The Man’s Too Big, The Man’s Too Strong

Kirk’s verbiage seldom made a dash of sense but he didn’t need logic because people loved to hear him talk. Hansard records his speeches as balderdash however Kirk’s great personal presence, his enthusiasm and determination for his idealistic Statist Afterlife, bowled the electorate off their feet. Up and up he climbed: Union delegate, Mayor, MP, Party Leader, Opposition Leader, Prime Minister. He was a big loud bully, an overweening blunderbuss. Having established his domination, though, Kirk dialled it down to soft ‘common man’ tones of approachable reasonableness that the people ate up.

‘Holland, Kirk and Muldoon surfed on waves of popularity because of a predilection among New Zealanders for overweening, even bullying leaders, something Helen Clark is instinctively understands. This betrays a flaw in the national psyche because only weak people need strong leaders.” – Gordon McLauchlan

While King Victimhood-Culture-Kirk razzle-dazzled ’em, Labour 3.0 got on with the afore mentioned legal crimes.

Dying With His Jackboots On

Kirk was an excessive chatterbox, always in a hurry, a garrulous and restless man all his days. He “didn’t know how to get easy,” as a friend put it¹. He’s like one of those Marxists you meet on a labouring job who wont shut up all day about politics because he thinks if he does his heart might stop. Kirk didn’t have friends, he had his work. He didn’t have attachments, he had those words which all that background reading in his youth had been for. Kirk drove his body at a reckless pace to suit the demands of his low self-esteem.

His House colleagues told Kirk the diabetic to lay off the coke and booze but he refused. They also covered Kirk’s heart attacks, even keeping it from Prime Minister Walter Nash “least he fuss like an old chook.”² Against medical advice, but typically, Kirk burned the candle at both ends (both legs) by having the varicose veins of both legs treated at the same time. In obvious pain, Kirk had refused to take time off until it was far too late. Grudgingly, he had secretly admitted himself to hospital and promised to take time off to rest and recover his health.

Couldn’t do it: “He rang and reminisced with close colleagues, and his bed was covered with official papers.”³ Reality always wins. Ideals, tribute songs, and social fictions are trumped by the medical facts of human physiology. As if that were not enough, Kirk’s mother had died just as he came to Prime Ministerial power. I would not be surprised to find Kirk had out-sourced his life-long self-care-conscience to her and now she was gone there were no breaks: Kirk drove his body into the wall. At any rate, Kirk’s will to idealism was too strong to be remonstrated with for the good of saving his life or his country. Had he lived longer, he would have driven New Zealand yet harder and faster into the wall than his Ministers, lesser men, ever could.

Legacy

New Zealand failed Kirk. Instead of giving him treatment for his megalomania attachment issues, we kept giving him power until he dropped.

Long after his death, this Incredible Hulk’s dysfunctional wake sent ripples through the New Zealand political climate. Because he was a the great muscled powerhouse of a House Hulk, the opposition had to promote their own Marvel comic book character to rival him. A Juggernaut.

The bullet-headed Juggernaut, of course, was Rob Muldoon. The two heavyweights pounded it out in the House of Representatives over who would dominate and preside over the era of r-selected NZ. In my opinion Muldoon’s path to leader (and so Prime Ministership was paved for him) because he was the counter-weight required for Kirk. Jack Marshall, Muldoon’s old military commander during the war, didn’t have that talent and lost the 1972 election to Kirk. Keith Holyoake probably would have lost to Kirk in 1969 too if the public had gotten to know Kirk faster but by the end of the election they knew him well and next time Kirk did his “Hulk Smash” into the Executive branch. Because Kirk, Muldoon. Because Muldoon, David Lange; This heavyweight political wrestling was like a repeat of the 1890s!

Statist history, of course, has not a bad word to say about Norman Kirk. Everyone’s on message about how great he was, how untouchable he is, only sad he died so soon and what a loss to our blah blah blah. Anarchist History judges Kirk more harshly. So do my opinions. All the facts are there to be cited, yet more references are there to be found. However, try to tell a Statist any of the above and you’ll probably Blue Pill Error Code them! Especially if you do so in an an essay or assignment for a Government School.

—

1 Inquiry – The Late Mr Norman Kirk; NZ On Screen

2 The House; Martin (2004)

3 The Mighty Totara: The life and times of Norman Kirk; Grant (2014); Wikipedia

Image ref. Kirk pretending to rest; Alexander Turnbull Library

Image ref. Holdaway and Pattrick – Flying Brigade; Salvation Army.org.nz (probably related to Hubert Holdaway, different Methodist vintage but same region)

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