Ed Said - Much ado about nothing

 

In 2006, National prime minister Don Brash proclaimed to the Nation: “I feel very safe, if rather sad, in pointing out that Helen Clark’s Labour government is quite simply the most corrupt government in New Zealand history.”

This, among other things, obviously rankled with left-winger Nicky Hager and led to the publication of his book The Hollow Men, basically chronicling the rise and fall of Don Brash largely by his own Party, alliances and dodgy strategies, the identities of the big donors and much, much more. What a wonderful phrase that is ‘and much, much, more’, injecting the promise of even greater dastardly deeds, and juicy deception. It was reported that there has never been a book about New Zealand politics like this before.

This, almost word for word, describes his current book Dirty Politics. Is it a book or simply a compilation of leaked and hacked emails, currently the main conduit of com-munication between computers and cell-phones? With much of it going back prior to the last election is this now really relevant? One might easily see it as smear tactics by the left against the right, and after a week or so of newshounds dissecting it and those involved I believe the general public are get-ting sick of the whole deal and rather just want to hear policy issues from candidates if, in fact, they want to hear anything at all.

How fortuitous that the ‘book’ be released precisely at this time and promised to ‘bring the Government to its knees’. Internet party leader Dotcom also has something to release five days prior to the election which is also expected to ‘bring the Government to its knees’. Well, that takes care of the knees, I guess. However Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater also has a release at that time which, he says, will blow Dotcom out of the water. At 200-plus kilograms I can only imagine what that may look like.

One aspect of politics that has never changed is the strategic ‘leaking’ of information be it valuable or worthless which can all cause a stir if dropped in the right quarters and picked up by the ‘right’ people. Perception then becomes reality.

In 2010 Julian Asange of the website Wikileaks achieved prominence when he published leaked US military and diplomat-ic documents that would ‘rock the world’ and saw him ensconced in the Equadorian embassy in London for years. He was then outdone by Edward Snowden who leaked documents uncovering the existence of numerous global surveillance programs through infiltrating the National Security Agency (NSA). This led to him seeking safety in a frozen Russia. Neither changed history or achieved anything except an uncomfortable change in their living arrangements. Even Shakespeare wrote ‘Much ado about nothing’, seemingly serious issues that ended as comedy.

Fuss of this kind always passes fairly quickly and I suspect this will also be the case here.

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