King Brian

I caught a bit of Close Up last night, with Brian Tamaki (Pastor? Bishop? King?) of Destiny's Church in a bit of a debate with Mark Vrankovich from Cult Watch.

They both had a few good points. Brian was likely correct in that he had turned many people's lives around, put them on a self-respecting track, maybe a track to respecting a lot more than themselves.

The problem is, he's not very humble about it. In fact, he seems to be accepting praise, glory - and now oaths of allegiance. He doesn't seem to see a problem with that, but it is, as Vrankovich points out. The Christian faiths, and every church I know of, actually, are supposed to subordinate their ministers to their God. Focusing the adulation on a specific man and maybe his inheritors is, well... kingmaking.

In this respect, Destiny seems to fail the test of a church.

But is it a cult? It must be said, oaths of allegiance are not uncommon in our society. A quick google turns up a Parliamentary Oath, Oath of Allegiance, the Judicial Oath, the Executive Councillor’s Oath, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary’s Oath, the armed forces oath, the citizenship oath, the local government member’s declaration, the police oath, and the special constable’s oath, all in our legislation.

And what are employment contracts if they are not legally enforceable oaths of allegiance? Employees hand over a lot of their personal values and integrity and promise to serve their company or corporation's interest to the best of their ability. We consider is "professional" to subjugate our person in this way, merging into a body corporate to one singular end.

For business that singular end is profit, and as a society we accept that goal, and expect business to direct their private armies properly within whatever legal restraints are set on them.

The difference with the Destiny Body Corporate, is that we have no idea how King Tamaki might direct his oath-sworn army in relation to society and the law. And "god only knows" what benefit Church members get for their money. He may just be a con man, But given his trend of self-aggrandisement, and the glib and scornful references he makes to democratic society in his sermons, it is sensible to be watchful at the least.

More Bloodshed

Afghanistan and Pakistan suffer further. Of course it's been happening for a while, but I felt it worthy of a brief post, in relation to my earlier post on Iraq.

In Pakistan, it was Orna Guerin from the BBC who fronted for pictures of death and destruction after a bomb blast killed more than 90 people. The bomber "parked his car outside a mosque" apparently, which is interesting to hear - no evidence it was necessarily a suicide bomber. It would have been interesting to know if any notables were killed, but this was apparently a very soft civilian target.

The online account from Reuters said no one has claimed responsibility, but blame immediate fell upon the Taliban. Naturally.

But that makes no sense. Killing your own people, undermining your own support base in a time when therre are foreign forces rampaging through your country? Crazy - but, ah, yes: a story we in the West have become used to hearing.

Just for a quick check, let's go through the other possible suspects:

"Al-Qaeda" - Hmm, these guys usually claim responsibility, with some frown-worthy digital transmission. Motive? The ever-successful plan of taking over the world with an Islamic Jihad, based on the brilliant strategy of blowing up your own people.
Maybe that's why the mighty octopus with arms and cells all across the world has dropped off the radar lately.

Other previously unknown terrorist group: Well, if it's a publicity stunt, they'd do well to put out a press release. Or some statement of their cause. Maybe they've got lazy because the US Department of Defense usually writes them for them. Otherwise they fall into the "Amazingly well-resourced Crazies" Al-Qaeda basket.

Pakistan Military or Intelligence (ISI): Ahh, now we're getting somewhere. Resources? Check. Motive? Pleasing their American funders, check. Justifying military incursion, check. Justifying their internal authority in the struggle with the democratic government, check. Eroding the support base for the "Taliban in Pakistan" (read, anyone who opposes Pakistan's role in the War since 9/11) by vilifying them, check. Maybe there was even a specific leader killed in the blast.
This is entirely in line with the strategy of stalwarts of the War on Terror, such as Indonesian Intelligence, who have a long history of supporting terror in their own country to justify moving their military into disputed regions.

CIA black-ops or NATO/US sponsored mercenaries: yes, it could even have been NZ's own SAS, we don't know. Motive? For all the reasons above. But with the ISI being so compliant, I don't think it would have been necessary. First rule of Colonialism is let the natives do the work where you can.

False-flag Terror group: this is where native mercenaries are paid to act like a terror group. Motive? For all the reasons above. See "First Rule of Colonialism" above, and the entire digital existence of the Amazing Al-Zarqawi and Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Taliban: Or of course, this "Taliban" problem that has popped up in Pakistan, particularly since US troops started redeploying from Iraq. Crazy, crazy, Taliban. See "Al Qaeda", above.

And of course, lets not forget the Kabul shooting.
Interesting that Reuters let the copy read as "a blast", when it was in fact a targeted shooting of UN officials and foreigners. The TV report I saw admitted "this was incredibly unlike the Taliban and daring" but justified by saying it showed how insecure the situation in Kabul is, and it was an attack in the lead up to the presidential run-off.

Maybe, although it shows poor tactics. It is crucial with shootings to know who the victims were, what they were doing. The UN always comes under attack, because occupying armies do not want them and local resistance see them as soft targets who are facilitating the occupation.
Needless to say, the shooting could have been committed by any of the groups above, or their equivalents.

It is worth pointing out that the American commander of the region is now General Stan McChrystal. To have a beer and a laugh with the General, go here. Otherwise, let's end with a quote from Global Research about this little smiler:

McChrystal was a special favorite of Rumsfeld and Cheney because he was in charge of the ‘direct action' forces of the ‘Special Missions Units. ‘Direct Action' operative are the death-squads and torturers and their only engagement with the local population is to terrorize, and not to propagandize. They engage in ‘propaganda of the dead', assassinating local leaders to ‘teach' the locals to obey and submit to the occupation. Obama's appointment of McChrystal as head reflects a grave new military escalation of his Afghanistan war in the face of the advance of the resistance throughout the country.

Ah well. Sorry, sorry... if I manage to keep away from the news, hopefully my next post will be more heartening.

Reading List

I've added a short blog roll, but honestly, I'm not reading too many at the moment - too distracting from other things I should be doing.

That said, if you have the good fortune to stumble across this blog, and the misfortune to be marginalised enough to like it - let me know, and I'll quite happily to add your blog to the list.

What I'm doing here has been very enjoyable, and spurs me to articulate various things I've been pondering... so has served its purpose, so far.

Neo-colonial Iraq still a Mystery

As an event, the two explosions just outside Baghdad's government Green Zone on Monday (NZ time) leaving 155 dead, hundreds more injured, was impossible for global media to ignore.

That does not mean, we have seen, that they know what to say about it.

The TV ONE report had little story to go with its pictures. One shot was from one of those increasingly common, frown-worthy "impromptu" snaps from a cell phone camera, catching the moment of explosion perfectly in frame before the obligatory shaking. In the age of digital media and "social networking waves", we can never be too cynical about where such footage comes from. Not when there is a war being waged.

Of course, we haven't heard much of Iraq, lately - more about Afghanistan and Pakistan, which together form the three active theatres for US troops and their allies encircling Iran - which coincidentally had a very precise "bomb attack" on its border armed forces recently.
Wikipedia is a grossly unreliable source for such events, but I notice the battle of narrative there shifts back and forth between a bomb attack and a suicide attack. The difference, in all such explosions, is significant.

So after months of "relative quiet" where the "Surge" and "Handover" are supposed to have mostly established order, and the focus has been on the colonising army's withdrawal, the press have lost the thread of what story they are supposed to tell.
The TV ONE reporter didn't know who perpetrated the crime, and as usual, who was killed, although government offices were targeted. He didn't know "why". Almost meekly, he used the word "insurgents", just once, but enough to attribute the blame. The word that filled in his report nicely because the story there is so obvious, bedded into the years and years of narrative they've already laid down.
And fially, the tell-tale of a reporter with no clue what to say, we see him walking down a nice Baghdad market street that might have been the Riviera, exclaiming at what a "contradiction" the massive explosion made.

A contradiction? Or rather, is it the consequence of a chain of events, a story, the press has not been following.

So who perpetrated the criminal blast? The simple and plain fact is the media, and we the general public, don't know. As we almost always don't know, but are led to believe otherwise by the story that we have become used to hearing, wrapped around a pile of bodies after a blast. When there is no wrap-around press statement issued - usually from the White House or Pentagon, those authorities that the Western media respects - the news product ends up like last night: Bland, factless almost, and directionless; pointless, no matter how they tried to dress it up.
Which is almost any story from a war zone should be.

It is no lie that the first casualty of war is truth. Stories are crucial, and those with power seize them to their end. And the whole world has been subject to a creeping "Long War" since 9/11.

*

Back to the Baghdad blast, there are still questions that can be raised from it, and the tips of some are observable in this Reuters report.

First, from my observation of the war, the scale of this blast points to high-grade explosives. The Bali bombs, for instance, were very sophisticated military-grade devices, resulting in 200 victims. Detonations of such scale are rare because of skill in the construction and access to resources. Anything over fifty dead, even twenty, raises a flag for me.

Second, the methods were car/van. Iraqi government says two suicide drivers. Other reports say just a car and van.
As above, this is crucial. It does not take a suicidal martyr to make a car or truck bomb. There is substantial evidence from within Iraq that Coalition black ops teams used that very means to intimidate and eliminate local opposition and fuel "ethnic" or tribal tensions, Just as they are operating in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan now. Making the world safer. That is what Black ops does.

Compounding this, over the period of Iraq's recolonisation there have been reports of Iraqi Government forces and "Wolf" militias doing this very same thing, after being trained by American forces. Like any good colonial government, they have learnt that this is an acceptable use of power in a time of strife.

This is where the key question in the story comes in, the one that is nearly always lost in the global media's story, because if you look too close you can find a much clearer motive.
So much has been explained away in Iraq as "ethnic conflict", and "Baath party hold-outs" where that story does not fit - not to mention the Amazing Digital Existence of "Al Qaeda in Iraq's" Al-Zarqawi. It is notable that Iraq expert Robert Fisk absolutely rejects any historical basis to Iraq's supposed Shi-Sunni ethnic conflict.
Nonetheless, for so long when people die, they are designated as Sunni and Shi'ite. Yet that is so often just part of a story - where they scholars? Were they scholars associated by a desire to organise a popular movement? Were they all killed in similar fashion, execution style? Was one a particularly respected local leader?
All stories, questions lost, under the ethnic blanket.

The fact these latest attacks were so close to the government district suggests they were made by a group with access to not only skills and resources, but contacts in (if not part of) the centre of power, as well as some dissatisfaction with some evolving political trend or upcoming decision. None of that suggests "fringe wacky-backy insurgents" to me.

Besides whatever laws are before the occupied nation's parliament, the most significant development I know of is the upcoming withdrawal of US from Baghdad, then from Iraq the next year. The attack may be an early strike by forces looking to assert authority once the country is no longer under direct threat of foreign force. Or, with things so "peaceful" and the American-built walls coming down across the city, it may be an attack designed to "convince" the American forces to stay.

Like good journalists, we'll not prejudge, but wait to see if further attacks occur, and what stories are spun to explain them.

When Mickey was a Wild Thing

A funny report from the Guardian on Maurice Sendak, writer of "Where the Wild Things Are". Seems he was copping some heat over how scary the film will be for kids. He tells them "go to hell".
Wild! Even better though, he goes on to recount the days when Mickey Mouse was a wild thing, and where his wild things came from.

*

A few weeks ago Hilary Mantel won the Booker Prize for her fictional history of Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall.

I picked the book up when I heard it was a fav to win, flicked through it - looked like a good style, one I liked to read, so I was pleased to hear she won.

Then however, came the snipes, about the "genre" of "historical fiction". The Booker is of course notoriously prissy about anything that seems to be a genre outside pure "literary fiction" (whatever that means.); and the authors of genre strike back, and so on, and so on... tiresome.

In this case, I think Mantel went a bit far in sticking up for her "genre", historical fiction.

"In any case, it is no part of a novelist's duty to act as a first-strike force. Her skill lies in imaginative interpretation, not knee-jerk reaction. We have people well capable of processing the present; they're called journalists, and they need to be kept in work."

Whoa... They need to do some work, you mean. The present is embedded in the past and journalists are goldfish when it comes the context of their stories. Novelists can, will, and should roam everywhere.

For me there is art, pure art, which serves no purpose other than for us to enjoy and admire - as Oscar Wilde would have it - the perfect rendering in prose of a family's summer holiday on the Riviera, for instance. It can be written beautifully and weave the reader in among the emotions of the various relationships... but besides a little parcel of "feeling human", it serves no import at all. Gustave Flaubert's Madam Bovary, for instance, was overall, an inconsequential delight.

But then you have Wilde himself, in Portrait of Dorian Gray, who marries art with the examination of something far more significant than simple foibles - personal power. Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels interweaves fantastic story and political satire, and Aldous Huxley takes it to a modern consciousness of propaganda and power in Brave New World. On the other side you have George Orwell, who really wasn't much of an artist, but had a vision of the future, projected from his present and presented it with shocking clarity.

We're still talking about Huxley and Orwell, increasingly so, given the state of globalisation. But where Huxley saw science as the threat, and Orwell state might, that other slippery beggar slipped in between: "economics". Neither quite grasped the threatening beauty of numbers... - and the role of these economics in our present is certainly far beyond the scope of most journalists today.

So it was a thoughtless and ignorant, and therefore unfortunate remark from a Booker Prize winner. Certainly an indicator she's not destined for the Nobel Prize some day. Personally there's nothing more off-putting than a writer who does not know what they're talking about; or at least does not couch their opinion more carefully, aware of their own shaky ground.

Wolf Hall slipped down my to buy list.

Much MMP Goodness

Carrying on from yesterday, Mr Bear's Shadow has been on fire, on target - and under fire for hitting the mark so truly - on the early exchanges over MMP and the push for a more diluted democracy.

I spent most of my blog time responding there. Make no bones, I'm about principles - of good capitalism in a democracy of real choice and real freedom - I'm not for any particular party, or mode of politics. I don't do battlelines, but there IS a culture war going on. The important thing is to repeat and reaffirm our shared principles. It's the nxt important step to real change.

And maybe it's just wishful thinking, but are the mainstream media beginning to stir from their post-electoral love-nest with this government?
From Centralising Auckland to Centralising our Health management system (less autonomy, less democracy); throwing our national health insurance ACC, to the global insurance wolves who were up to their collective orifices in the Global Financial Crisis - yeah, remember that? Not just a bubble, but a hole, which has been hastily covered over - resulting in our extraordinarily high Kiwi dollar (there's a blog for a later date).

All these are enough to stir worries for your average Kiwi - there must be questions, and I think they'll start wanting to hear them aired, and some real answers fished from the daily mainstream bunch, otherwise why tune in?
I sense a drag effect, TV3's team, pulling TVONE on maybe a day behind... We'll see. But I think Phil Goff has had some serious air time recently. Our journalists may be conservative, but they have their buttons, and privatisation and MMP are two of them. And hearing Rodney Hide lisping on meekly, "like, he don't do no one no wrong" - that's gotta get on anyone's nerves.

Actually, sorry Rodney, it's not your fault you lisp. I just preferred it when you bellowed, and professed your real goals and values like the old days in opposition; rather than sneaking things in now that you're in government, giving old pals jobs on undemocratic bodies like the Super-City transitional authority, and legislating a user-pays everything, even a building code, for crissakes.

How many people can this government piss off how quickly? Time to start keeping count.

Breakfast with Marie Antoinette

Is there a worse experience in the country than waking up to Paul Henry?

I mean, there you are, in your gown, a bit of toast, turn the TV on - and IT's on the screen.

Pure accident of course. And I know, everyone knows, it's scarcely worth mentioning. But he just happened to be leading a segment that perfectly captured everything that is so odious about him.

He was talking about the referendum on MMP.

John Key of course mumbled something not too loud about holding the referendum pre-election, and so Henry (ex National Party candidate) championed it as the inviolate virtue "keeping his promise to the NZ Public."

Honestly, the only policies I can remember from Key and National was cycleway and super-fast broadband. Everything else was maybes, mumbling and "we'll have that discussion when...".

Henry was interviewing the excellent electoral and constitutional expert Jonathan Boston from Victoria University (my alma mater), which was home to an MMP review working group when the electoral system came up for review in 2000.

I actually sat in on the session where Professor Boston made a submission for improvements that year - the discussion went very much as you'd expect between an expert with a PhD from Oxford and a dozen party politicians who don't know pol-sci from that thing where old people get shaky hands.
It is an indelible failing of our political system that the people voted to represent us have very little understanding of democracy or constitutional power. It makes them very vulnerable to persuasive "common-sense" and "pragmatism" from rich people promising to make us all richer. If we just make them even richer first.

Paul Henry is, of course, both: both wealthy and thinks a constitution is something you need for a good Friday night.

Actually, he gave Professor Boston a fairly good platform to say what he wanted, which was the least we can ask. Boston made it very clear that any problems with MMP can be fixed within MMP. I would add - it is crucial to add - that to see if MMP works, you have to compare and contrast with what it was fixing: that is First Past the Post (FPP). And on the balance, and by the standards set out by the Electoral Reform Commission, it has been a raging success.

At creating a more representative, more legitimate form of democratic government.

Regression to FPP or it's bastard nephew, Supplementary Member (SM), will result in less democracy. In our society, there is an undeniable and necessary conflict between democracy and capitalism. The Big Money in our country just want it even more their way.

That is why National are pushing for it. That is why wealthy lobbyists are building war-chests and PR campaigns for it.

That said, it is likely that there are many people who are not wealthy who have developed frustration with MMP. With the confusion. The threshold. The Maori seats. The number of well-paid MPs.

And I say to them: if you are struggling, in our society, with mortgages and rent, rising energy and phone and food costs, it is very easy to work out what is in your best interest: More democracy.

MMP is good democracy, but it can be made better. SM is less good. FPP is not good at all.

And if you still find it hard to work out what's in your best interest, remember Paul Henry. Because he is NOT a democrat. He is an autocrat - even an aristocrat, our own squealing, honking, wine-sipping Marie Antoinette. He and his pals live on the fat of our land, he pollutes our airwaves and gets paid for it and broadcasts his personal point of view as if only it makes sense.

"Because New Zealanders are stupid," he said this morning, "most of the people out there are stupid." And he believes that, because we go along and vote stupid and make our own lives harder.

2011 is plenty of time to show him who's stupid.

Some Prime News

I was heading out the door when I caught an article on Prime (Sky) News at 5:30, about the "mistreatment" of tigers in Russian circuses.

I missed the name of the reporter, but it was the same toffy Anglo-Irish shrivelled-lemon old tart who I've heard droning over footage from other "barbaric lands", usually war-struck, always morally deficient compared to Western superiority.

I was laughing my arse off. My wife is a critical observer of animal welfare, so didn't see the joke at first. But the woman was narrating: "they looked visibly distressed", "small cages", although the images didn't match in the slightest. They even looked very well cared for and well-fed, although the roving Sky tiger-expert told me otherwise. It was the sort of footage you could only imagine came from an open cheery exchange with the circus owner, then they plastered their fairytale voice-over over the top.

It was a long segment, and only got funnier. Our storyteller goes on to say how the circuses are hugely popular in Russia, but still manages to drag a minority voice to the microphone and translate their words. Classic ethnocentrism - "the Barbarians are over there!" There are plenty of minority voices of sanity being drowned out by stupidity in our own fat Western capitalist backyard.

I've found a link to the corresponding article in Sky's "Animal X-ploitation!" section, but no footage. (I will refrain from ascribing it to the online credited reporter, in case they're not the same, but I will look out for her name next time.) Every time I hear this woman's horrid whining voice, there's always some parody of journalism on screen. It's like a scene from Mallrats: "That bat is on the propaganda wagon again!"

Honestly sweetheart: memo your editor. Fix climate change. Global capitalism. Needless deaths from Imperialist wars. People swamped by rising cost of living. Your own backyard. THEN worry about other countries and the pretty tigers jumping through rings.

Support a market pillar: truth in labelling

Freedom of Information in the marketplace is one of the three keys to a functioning capitalist economy, according to economist Adam Smith, the acknowledged father of capitalism. It informs self-interest, which allows the market to work as well as possible.

Just one tiny part of what we as "consumers in a (supposedly) free market" are entitled to is truth in labelling on our products. This includes country of origin labelling (CoOL) for things like fresh fruit and veges. In an era where out of season grapes or whatever can cross the world - possibly depriving local markets to gain higher profits here in NZ, with all the associated costs to the planet from the use of fuel and emissions - it seems not only just and democratic but common sense that vendors be required to supply country of origin information.

The reason it isn't, of course, is because some importers don't want that information made available, for the very reason it might affect our decision. So our government (National and Labour) keep the shades pulled on us - so much for an "open market".

Send the PM a postcard asking him to fix this.

This is just one tiny example of the topic that I'm going to be exploring over the coming weeks, months. Adam Smith laid out very clear rules for good market performance, and ever since (especially since the 1970s), his philosophy has been exploited, distorted and paid lip service to in ways that would horrify him.

Enlightened self-interest is a delicate mechanism enough. Trying to make decisions on what's in your best interest while companies and corporations are spendng millions to hide and distort information; which our governments allow it to happen; and then justify their non intervention in the name of a "free market"...?

It is an absolute abomination. Not only is it anti-democratic, it is anti-capitalist. It is the thoughtless collaboration of elites, the product of governments thinking about their self-interest, rather than its citizens' self-interest. And guess what the information in the market tells government their self-interest is?

Growth, growth, profit. Lowest common denominator. Make us rich, and everything for everyone will be all right....

Governments are vulnerable. Like the media, they are truly dumb and blind. When they hear this song of wealth, and the people are misinformed, marginalised, or silent, what choice do they have but to go along with it?

This is the story of the world, and a song that has played us like fools here in NZ since 1984. But there is huge potential for change, maybe not this government, but maybe the next election, or the next. We just have to work out what we want... and ask.

Honestly, our system only benefits 20% of the population and is ruining the environment at the same time. Real change, real soon.... it's only a matter of time.

Start by sending Mr Key a postcard.

Death of Self-Interest: The Moment of Doubt

I keep starting a post on the death of ideological self-interest, but I'm in a patch where I'm being exposed to a lot of stimulating ideas on the subject, a subject which is embedded in our social fabric. There are so many ways of coming at it that my writing keeps branching off into new fields, the boundaries of which are heretofore unseen.

So, unable to spiel on about it (probably unreadably) I shall tackle the topic in bite-sized morsels, see where they lead, beginning with the moment of doubt.

Dr Wayne Cartwright is an economist. As in schooled and trained in the 70s, and deeply invested in the "science" of capitalist economics that has dominated the world for the very same period. It was his life's work, what he taught and studied every day. Until, in the late nineties, he encountered a moment of doubt.

He framed this moment as being a catholic priest who no longer believed his own dogma. The comparison is one I have used many times myself, and it is stunningly apt. The Catholic Church emplaced a social order that allowed their monarchs and vassals - who were essentially brutal, robber barons - to rule by the divine right of kings.
The same is the case today. The "science" of our economists is also used to establish a social order, where the divine right of global capital holds the same, undemocratic and ruthless sway over the world that the swords of England's monarchs held over their subjects.

These moments of doubt are crucial. Everyone has them, and they deal with them in different ways. It is often a small thing, that finally ticks over, the last straw. Dr Cartwright's moment was realising in 1997 how grotesquely unsustainable NZ dairying had become in such a short time, and how desperate the industry was to grow further, all because of the precepts laid down by his economics.
Not an especially dramatic insight, you'd think, but in these moments you're on a precipice. You can either dig in, bury your head further - Dr Cartwright had every reason to, he'd committed 40 years to this ideology, it was his livelihood, and there is a massive framework of influence and wealth, of media, ready to support this outlook; or you can face facts, and search for another way.

The well-respected economist, Dr Wayne Cartwright, became a realist. He realised that the science he had been trained in no longer existed. He realised this because he is a scientist. And his economics had been proven wrong.

Economics ceased being a science when it started ignoring results. It became a dogma. It refused to accept consequences, externalising the environment, therefore securing the integrity of its own abstract, fantastical fairytale. And the wealth this ideology garnered for the world's elite and corporate citizens totally eliminated the idea of "consequences" from our vocabulary.

Terrorism? Inexplicable aggression. Climate Change? Cyclical. Disgust with the rich? Envy.

In 1961 we used 30% of the world's sustainable capacity; In 1999, we were using 120%. But there are no problems, only opportunities. No consequences, only challenges.

Except for the poor and out-of-work and dispossessed in society, the marginalised, the growing numbers struggling to meet the rising cost of living. That's just the consequence of their actions.

The current set-up benefits the wealthiest 10% in the world, in our country, very nicely. They don't want us examining the fundamentals underpinning the structures of power. They want us to crawl over each other, chain our intellect, sacrifice our integrity just to be one of them. And many people do.

But there's never enough room at the top. The fairytale will never be real for 80% of the population. And more and more people are facing that moment of doubt, exponentially so as the obvious becomes blindingly obvious. And if an economist can choose the right side - the realist's side - that's reason to hope.

(Dr Cartwright is one of many published in the paper Strong Sustainability for New Zealand)

Dem NZ Books

So, you'd hardly know it, but it's NZ Book Month. This used to be celebrated with a Six Pack competition for short stories, published and sold for $6. However, this marketing and bookseller driven exercise rewarded, with few exceptions, fairly bland fare. Perhaps it was just a victim of the recession, but the Six Pack is dead, at least for this year. And its website has been left dustily forlorn, although as I check now there is some interesting absurdity - a communal story. Neat.

It would be nice to see NZ books given the treatment music and fashion gets. A segment each day on the breakfast and morning shows. The difficulty is, perhaps, how to choose who gets the publicity? It is hard to tell who is deserving. That's why Lloyd Jones' success with Mister Pip was such a relief: there was a book tested and proven on the international stage, without question. Otherwise NZ fiction is a bob of "exciting new" and familiar names and a few relentless self-promoters, in such a small group that the knives might shoot out if the media favours one over another. And as a body, they all fall out of the limelight.

So NZ Book month has been handed over to "book activists" - probably in a vein much like Yvonne's failed effort on Shortland Street (nice catch by the writers). Lively is giving a good show, though. Personally, I haven't read enough NZ fiction to muse over its strengths and weaknesses. In the spirit, however, I'll wave to a few of those I have.

6. Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones. It deserves its accolades as a strong tale told through a young girl's eyes. First two (short) chapters are a bit stiff, and I'd shift the end to the beginning... but worth anyone's read.

5. Huia Short Stories 7. This is a really dynamic collection of short stories and novel extracts by Maori writers. There's a bit more hope and life to these stories, I feel than in the current "8th" collection. Probably a sign of the times, with society snaking further to the autocratic right.

4. The Method Actors, by Carl Shuker. I admit, I bought this out of curiosity, wondering what sort of tale was worth a prize of $65,000. It was good, full of interesting ideas and factoids and characters as a mostly NZ cast get around in Japan. Not a strong narrative, but enough to draw you through.

3. The Sound of Butterflies, by Rachel King. Okay, so my wife read this, but on my recommendation. She enjoyed it a lot. Sounds like Rachel does her research. I look forward to reading it one day.

2. The Rehearsal, by Eleanor Catton. The current "exciting new thing", I give her props here, cos she might be overseas at the moment. Whoever is judged top of the pops deserves at least a year's publicity. Hopefully my next NZ read.

1. The Halfmen of O, by Maurice Gee. You know how teen fiction is all cool right now? Do yourself a favour, run, don't walk, right past Under the Mountain and pick this puppy up. Then The Priests of Ferris. Then Motherstone.

I've read others (yes, including Katherine Mansfield) but these are the only ones my writerly instincts move me to mention. I NEED to read Janet Frame in her entirety, I know that. I've picked up C.K. Stead, but the time has never been right. Personally, I don't "read NZ fiction" in the same way I don't consider myself "a NZ writer". I'm a writer, and a reader, and I pick up whatever catches my eye.

Bullets for Monday

I've been staring into this monitor all day and my head's a little hurty in the way hard work will do to you. So I'm going to delay my essay on the Death of Ideological Self-interest and shoot some bullets.

First, random: Didn't that video footage of bar-room shoot-out in the US look just like the Wild West? Talk about consequences... I predict copy-cat crimes, just to get on air.

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Sport:
Congrats to the Silver Ferns for their victory in the first Fastnet World Series. You girls are starting to look the goods.
Also big ups to the All Whites for the 0-0 vs Bahrain. Sadly I won't be in Wellington for the return match, so you'll have to win it without me, get us into the Football World Cup for the first time in 27 years.
I am struggling to imagine the beast Rugby Sevens will become over the next 7 years before the 2016 Olympics, but if it's anything like what has happened to the 15s game under professionalism, we NZers better get more used to losing. Losing games, our top players, money, and viewing rights.

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Saw Knocked Up on DVD. Much funnier and smarter and with more heart than I gave it credit for, having been put off the half-toasted turd that was Seth Rogan's "Miri makes a porno".

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Something serious:
I value civil disobedience, dissidence and activism. However, I would like to see more strategy and thought go into the efforts than Greenpeace's latest, grafitti-ing a shipload of palm kernels in Taranaki harbour.

Such actions are a natural consequence of decades of extreme negligence towards the environment, where successive governments have been derelict in their democratic duty to providing justice and allowing an even hearing of all interests in our society. To the point where, sadly, palm kernels are not the front line in our environmental issues. Not while we're talking a token Emissions trading scheme and mining conservation land.

Politically, it can be handy to have extreme acts on fringe issues, since radical groups put into context the policies of less radical advocates, but only with coordination. Maybe Palm Kernels is a soft fight Greenpeace can win, but I'd have thought there were more important targets with less potential blowback.

It just seems a waste of effort.

Cleaning the nest

I look to the right, and I've a host of silly labels there (duh, FT, there is a search option on the page too.). I'll clean that up soon (I suppose there's a way to do that) then start prettying the place up.

There's been some mulling over a shared-nest sitch with a fellow net-scribe, but this is working well enough, for now.

And the prize goes to....

POTUS Obama.

Like (probably) everyone, I was incredulous at his award of the Nobel Prize for Peace. I thought of past winner's (such as Dr El Baradei from the International Atomic Energy Agency, who has done everything that he can to navigate the intense poltical pressure from the West and still speak the truth about the Iranian nuclear project) and I became a little bit outraged.

Because, as we know, Obama has done nothing to further world peace since taking power. He's merely let things silkily slide in direction the powers around him are pulling, towards more conquest and bloodshed in the Middle East and Eurasia.

I pulled my head in though, realising this was a odd step for the Nobel committee. I remembered George Bush was nominated for the same award, oddly, on at lest one occasion... And I think I figured it out.

Meanwhile the TV1 & TV3 news were sounding off on the issue, in a very unusual way.

They were asking questions.

The whole news item was pitched as a question, questioning whether the POTUS Obama was a worthy recipient, and was canvassing this doubt in every way possible with footage from all over the world.

Now, this stood out because, well - the news never asks questions. They have an angle on the story, they take it; then allocate token time for some opposition viewpoint. There, balance. Most often this angle favours the centre of power, where the current NZ government resides. Certainly they never take an angle against the centre of Western power.

Not unless the question has already been raised elsewhere.

So dismiss the NZ news agencies. All their coverage and questioning has not come from within our media establishment. Certainly we can blink and imagine them covering the same story in a very different way, with Obamam lauded as the first black president and bringing US power back to the international community in a spirit of multilateral cooperation.... All bullshit, but it's always bullshit. They are nothing but stories, pulled over the facts on the ground.

So this angle, these questions, have been imported, like all our news, from the centre of the global media establishment. Reuter, AP, the US outlets...

And why then, would the global media take this angle on the leader of the free world, when there is easily a positive, celebratory angle they could have taken? Why is it that "even" US commentators are.... displeased their president has been awarded this honour? Sure, even now he's talking of sending more troops into Afghanistan, rasing the stakes against Iran... but it's all for world peace. It's such a turn, after all this "fresh face" talk to see him so insidiously criticised, undermined with doubts and aspersions... That's what we'e been told. Why doesn't he deserve the award?

It's because it's not an award, the committee are conferring. It's a mantle.

They're not saying "good job". They're saying, "now go do a good job".

They have given Obama a huge yardstick to measure his own actions against, possibly the only honour greater for an American than actually becoming president. What we hear in the media is the wailing and gnashing of teeth as they know - I believe - Obama is a man of honour, being pulled into a foreign policy against his will. He has been allowed his "socialist" healthcare policy so long as he doesn't interfere with the strategic designs of global American power. But now that has been counter-balanced. He will always be thinking, "but - I have an obligation to everyone". He has a history of past winners and a legacy to keep in mind. Not just for the next year; hopefully he is reminded of it in every press article from here to the next election.

Big boots to fill. I have no doubt he's facing his own little "imposter syndrome", but I think the committee made an excellent choice.

Newsflash: Media "speechless" at distrust

I do mean to come back to Dr Wayne Cartwright's talk on strong sustainability - it'll find it's time. But my day started with a brief segment on tV3's "Sunrise" programme with Oliver Driver and co and a couple of media mavens discussing a poll of "only 750" who said they hated/distrusted the media.

Driver blamed the focus on selling and rating, and the celebrity focus. Some tried to blame "us" for not understanding how hard it was for them to put together the news, while "only a poll of 750" was scoffed at several times. Like they ever headcount any other poll that makes a story.

And despite all the noise and talking over each other, they were actually at a loss to explain it. Speechless. And, almost contemptuously dismissive of their low standing. Like they knew better.

Fortunately for them, Media Lens also put out a story today, and it answers their exact question. Why the media are so utterly unworthy of our trust.

A quote: (emphasis mine)

Last month, Milton Coleman, senior editor at The Washington Post, sent a memo to staff on the issue of use of “individual accounts on online social networks, when used for reporting and for personal use”. The memo warned staff to "remember that Washington Post journalists are always Washington Post journalists". It added:

"All Washington Post journalists relinquish some of the personal privileges of private citizens... Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything—including photographs or video—that could be perceived as reflecting political, racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility. This same caution should be used when joining, following or friending any person or organization online.”

These rules echo BBC editorial guidelines. In 2005, we asked the BBC's World Affairs correspondent, Paul Reynolds, if he thought George Bush hoped to create a genuine democracy in Iraq. Reynolds replied:

"I cannot get into a direct argument about his policies myself! Sorry." (Email to Media Lens, September 5, 2005)

Reynolds explained to one of our readers:

"You are asking for my opinion about the war in Iraq yet BBC correspondents are not allowed to have opinions!" (Forwarded to Media Lens, October 22, 2005)

As these comments suggest, media guidelines require that journalists relinquish, not just "personal privileges", but also moral responsibility.

Journalists are not free to declare their “bias” even in abhorring mass murder, war crimes and climate chaos, if doing so "could be used to tarnish" their employers' "journalistic credibility". The problem is that the people with the power to do the tarnishing are overwhelmingly of the right - big business and political centres of power dominated by big business.

In reality, the demand for ’balance’ means that journalists can say pretty much what they like in favouring powerful interests, but they will be severely castigated for losing ‘balance’ when they criticise the wrong people. Thus we find that it is not ‘biased’ to suggest that Britain and America are committed to spreading democracy around the world, but it +is+ ‘biased’ to suggest that they are responsible for crimes in the Third World. In short, the demand for ‘balance’ is a weapon of thought control - it is a way of policing and enforcing bias in media performance.

The full article is pitched perfectly. The issue is there are actually three sides to any story. The interests of power; those with interests oppostie to those in power; and the status quo. Most media tries to place itself in this "objective" status quo place, without acknowledging that the status quo is already firmly weighted towards those in power, and get dragged along with it. In our extremist capitalist society, that is inexorably in favour of the wealthy, towards the "Right".

The obeisance to power was shown only yesterday, with the change of pseudoephadrine to a Class B drug, doubling the cost to those who use it for colds and flu, just because some criminals use it. Just because Paul Holmes' daughter got on P, and the upper class got frightened. The whole pitch from the media was "good, strong government". No opposition voice of note.

Roll back a year, and if the Labour government had tried this there'd be huge cries of "nanny state".

The most painful example of the blind media bias is of course in the Middle East. Look at the status quo there:

If the Palestinians do nothing? They lose their land to Jewish settlements.
If they attack? They get massacred, persecuted, and still lose their land. Oh, and their persecutor cries "victim".
If they go along with the "US peace process"? Well they can't agree to anything because Israel won't define its borders in line with UN resolutions - after more than 40 years. (bet Iran wishes it had that sort of deadline).
And hey, what would happen if the supposed "cycle of hate" ended; what if the Palestinians and Muslims said, "you know? this isn't worth it. Lets make it one country. We'll live in Israel. You call it it that. We call it Palestine. We'll be a peace-loving democracy sharing the same land holy to us both. No problem."
Well, that's not possible, of course. Not because normal people in both countries don't want peace. But because Isreal is a jewish state. That's a theocracy - not a democracy. The government of Israel has been committed to a Jewish state across the holy state since inception, and if they let whoever they want live in Israel, they'd be an ethnic Muslim state within years.

The Israel/Palestine situation is a very simple story of power and injustice, but you wouldn't know it by the way the media fret and follow the narrative spooled out from the US.

And they wonder why we don't trust them.

Outrageous Fortune shows its legs

After a day in workshops and seminars yesterday, today I played catch-up with a million tiny things and one big thing, leaving a little time for the blog.

First: Final of Season 5(?) of Outrageous Fortune last night. Gone is the best thing on TV on a cliffhanger ending, which has forever changed Dave Dobbyn's song "Wouldn't You Rather Be? (In Love")" from conjuring a cartoon Wal Footrot swinging around a lamppost to an extended sequence of humour, reeling through chaos, unravelling in horror.

Best moment since the death of Aurora in Season 3, and makes the next Season look promising. The "long snooze" of Season Four is a distant memory.

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Second, I read a couple of interesting tidbits in the NZ Herald while I was getting a coffee. The Careers section had an article on feeling a fraud at work (no link on its site yet). Called it "Impostor syndrome". Suffered by 70% of the workforce, they estimate. Because they don't "value themselves and their success" enough. Like labelling this epidemic makes it understood.

I already thought most people suffered from this. You can tell just by a look at the shoddy performance of our media versus their status for an example. You have to have an ego like Paul Henry's to cope with with the guilt of the vast gulf between what they produce and what they receive.

This feeling of fraud is complex and is worthy of far more attention than some self-help guru's dismissal. It points to a huge fracture between who we are and the way we work. Part of it is feeling they are given a reward they did not earn or deserve, or boots they are not big enough to fill. Most corporations love throwing young talent in the deep end. They're cheap, skilled, can be bought of with what seems (to them) huge raises and perks and prestige, and they have to really buy into the corporate message to succeed. Or sink, or get out... at which point there's always another young Candide willing to try their skills.

Two things can happen. Either you get sucked in, thrive, and this corporate identity infests you like mould. OR as most people do, they form a shell. This shell personality - role - allows them to interact with the organisation, perform disagreeable tasks, reach amoral agreements. They're disconnected from it, because they have to put their values aside, their needs and wants. Their humanity. And just do the job, whether it's building bombs, or drafting copy.

That shell is called professionalism.

And if you needed proof that having a big job doesn't mean you're grown up-

Rob Fyfe, head of Air New Zealand featured on the business pages complaining about the politics of climate change. Speaking to a "Green skies" conference in Hong Kong, he got to grandstand about how all his company wanted was to clean up his act, and it was just politicians and agencies such as those of the UN, that were paralysing the process.

The best view you could take on his speech was that he was merely a confused child holding his ears wanting parents to stop arguing. Of course we all want equitable, quick action. Problem is, some arguments need to be had. And at the moment the key argument the globalising political economy is facing is no longer whether climate change is happening, it's what to do about it. It's "Weak Sustainability" - placebo measures meant to placate the public but allow the extremist policies of BUA (Business As Usual) to continue - versus "Strong Sustainability" - rethinking the economy's relationship with the sociosphere and biosphere, and taking the greatest possible action to redress the harm in the current structures of our economies that has allowed the current crisis to develop.

More on that tomorrow.

Hail the Storm

It's really wild outside. So much for spring. Even wilder in Sydney right now, as the Rugby League press desultorily hail the Melbourne Storm, NRL champions, who have been in the Grand Final of New South Wales' game for four years running and taken it twice.
Time to implement the "El Broncos Solution": introduce another Victorian team, split their support base.

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The Black Caps have made the final of the Champions Trophy in South Africa. A huge improvement from their last international tournament, the Twenty/20 World Cup, where they talked big then only beat minnows. Here they have under-promised and over-performed. Good luck to them against Australia tomorrow. Get Ponting for less than 50, and I think they'll take it.

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The Tua fight on Saturday was of course the weekend's biggest sporting news. The Former Number One Heavy-weight Contender in the World blew out Shane Cameron's lights 7 seconds into the second round.

It was a lesson in class. And it was a reminder that those with class don't always succeed. After his defeat to Lennox Lewis, David Tua "fell in with a bad crowd" and hasn't been able to carry on to his potential. The impression of peace and self-belief he has shown in the weeks leading up were very impressive. Maybe he can still do it. Like Rocky Balboa, I think he's "got a bit still in there."

The Boxing Ring is one of the many "widely admired" sports and pursuits I care less than nothing for, but Tua's story still gives us a good look at a man.

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That puts me in mind of the book I am reading, "The Winner's Bible", by NZ psychologist Dr Kerry Spackman. My god, he sets out a convincing template for improving yourself. There came a point in the book where I thought, "The types of people who will read this and seek him out, he is going to make some already powerful people very dangerous."

The next page, however, he gave a short lucid commentary of the harm of the excesses of power - specifically of the excesses of capitalism, since we live in a globalising capitalist economy - both to ourselves and the people around us. It was nice to see, albeit a bit "lite" and tentative, with the balance of the book playing quite overtly towards the target market of those hungering for business and sporting success.

But that's not Spackman. A key to "winning" for him is balance and moderation. That really needs to be emphasised more in our society, which is growing ever more extremist in the search for "growth" and profits.

Faith in "The Cult" Wavering

After the first episode of TV2's "The Cult", it's fair to say I was not hanging out for the second. So I quickly ceded Thursday night viewing rights to the Las Vegas season of "Top Chef". Which, was digestible. Just waiting for the development of "Smell-o-Vision" or "Taste-tv" for these reality cooking shows to really take off.

So The Cult was "taped" (yes, I still say that), and I saw it yesterday. I never watched "Lost" - I don't like the petrie dish approach to setting - and this "group of strangers vs cultists in the wild" story seems to be just as alienating. The introduction of flashbacks to develop character is no substitute for interaction that is meaningful in a context we the viewers can instinctively understand. There is no clear reason for the leadership of "Michael" among the Rescuers. The "cultists" are portrayed as independent and intelligent to help us connect to them - but that conflicts directly with the situation they've got themselves into. In fact, the whole show revolves around the facile acceptance of a string of events and plot points that do very little to involve the viewer at all.

I googled for some "reviews" of the Cult and found the pre-show hype and self-promotion:
Herald; Stuff; Throng. All very typical stuff for a show where the money's been blown, mistakes made and they're desperate to get whatever return they can eke out.

The Listener hit the first ep where it hurt - on the contrived, desperate plot.

Most interesting is the writer's blog of Peter Cox, because it explains what they were aiming for - what would have made the show work.

"If we're going to invest any time with the members of the Cult, they can't be idiots, brainwashed zombies or acting too illogically. Like most cult members, Ryan is a smart guy, so Edward has to be strong and convincing: not just to the characters, but also the audience. Ultimately, you want people to wonder: hell, maybe Edward is actually right all along... "

Dude - you called the show The Cult. You started with some fancy "Two Gardens" eye-surgery, threats and locked gates, then bodies; the cultists can't leave at all, don't seem free and are a little afraid of their leader, and there are chases right from the start. You load up baggage against the Cult, and against that you place only the charisma of its leader, Edward. If the viewer's supposed to have some "faith" in the cult, that's a huge ask. Actually, a tragic mistake.

Far more dangerous is the open-doored cult. The reasonable cult. Where nothing appears to be wrong. Families walk in, see their loved ones, then bang their heads against the wall trying to get them to see the truth - then have to walk away, doubting their own conviction. That would sow huge divisions in the "Liberators". This would reinforce the message that the "outside world is dangerous", however they label the cult. We can then sedately follow Ryan's experience in the Cult, wondering if/when something might go wrong...

Instead, there are no great mysteries to inveigle our interest, because it has been signalled too clearly that the cult is "bad", or at least "bad enough". There's no journey to follow; just a collection of answers. Mystery "bounty hunter"? Meh. Girl with strange eye in a bath-tub? Bleh. The show relies on the viewer's fascination with the tropes of the sci-fi genre, but they don't even execute them well, and there's nothing for anyone not into sci-fi to hang on to. It is too cut up with oddities, poor music, poor editing, boring lighting, muddled themes, and 70s direction that even "Lost" fans would be lost, pushed back to the role of numb observer, all curiosity diluted to the fascination of watching a car tipping on a cliff edge.

We know it's a car. We know it's going to fall. That is all.

An Eye on Media Lens

I'm taking it easy today, because one of the great sources of research and media analysis has made yet another incisive, accurate contribution.

Media Lens is the unpaid labour of freedom and love of several excellent British Media commentators, aimed at holding the distorted narrative of the commercial press to account, offering some perspective. Today they deliver a wonderful piece on the propaganda campaign against Iran. Their clinical common-sense compared to the lyrical rabble-rousing of the "Guardian" writers (supposedly a lefty, liberal press) is an astonishment and a delight.

A favourite from today's article:

"The lunacy of the current propaganda campaign against Iran is bad enough. The fact that it comes so soon after the lies on Iraq - every last one of them now exposed for all to see - makes it far worse. But it is taken to an altogether different level by the fact that the last set of concocted threats has resulted in the devastation of an entire country, with over one million killed and four million made refugees (they are still out there, although not for the mainstream media). The icing on this malevolent cake is that there is next to no reference to these horrors in the latest media propaganda campaign. There is no sense that journalists recognise the consequences of what they helped make happen in Iraq. There is no sense that they feel even a tiny tug of horror at the prospect of repeating the same catastrophe in Iran.

As Noam Chomsky has observed, it is not that they want to cause harm; they simply step on Third World people the way they might step on ants."

It sums quite succinctly the problem with the Western media, and with its NZ followers. Whatever your political persuasion, or interest in politics and news, Media Lens are a must read, just to put your own point of view into context.

A good friend in the business news in Britain read their book, "Newspeak in the 21st Century" and it totally levelled his respect for even the "liberal" media. In fact, he said he preferred Fox news now, because at least they wear their prejudices on their sleeve.

The end result is, of course, we in the West base our opinions on a fraction of the facts, distorted and represented as the full story. Repeated over, and over, and over...

What we need, in NZ at least, is a real current affairs programme. Not the magazine investigations of 20/20, or the increasingly tabloid Close-Up and Campbell Live. After the banal and misinformative "daily snapshot" of the 6pm news they should have an hour where the real continuing stories can be explored. If the facts were properly canvassed and revised and reiterated and followed every day, there'd be a lot less controversy over Palestine. Iran. Environmental matters. Maybe even the economy.

C'mon. We're a civilised country, right? First World? Who's scared of a little real information? It is crucial, for both capitalism and democracy. Who's scared of change?

Well, as always, the people who are already very happy with the status quo.

Advertising - fuck, yeah!

I watched the Fair Go ad awards last night. Verdict: less cringe-worthy than usual. The Primary school competition entries were better than the Secondary schools'. Had to put up with the usual gushing over how creative this parasitic industry is. Particularly from some Colmar Brunton advertising honcho dribbling on how about ads represent our country, and another triple-chinned going on how advertising was good because it helped competition. It helped people make choices.

Uh-huh. Really.

I think the competition remark was aimed at the NZ telecoms industry in particular, and as far as duopoly-busting goes, a few weeks of pitch-perfect advertising with Rhys Darby has had an immediate impact. At least in raising 2 Degrees profile. But that is because the demand was already there as the gouging Vodafone and Telecom turned us into a country of texters. We'll see if 2 Degrees lasts the distance against the heavy-weight money. We saw what happened with Kiwi Air etc, in that other big monopolistic industry.

Ultimately, advertising is only as good as your pockets are deep, because the established players don't just run a "launch campaign". They are there, everywhere, everyday, insinuating into the lives and identities of their target market from age 0.

Advertising is at best neutral in terms of its contribution to competition (putting it mildly) because it benefits the status quo of these corporate market leaders. Also, it forces the newcomers to a market to leverage themselves into the same world of grotesque mummery, possibly compromise values of independence, integrity and honesty doing deals just to raise the funds, much less participate in the "image" war with their competitors.

Furthermore, it corrupts at least one of Adam Smith's three key principles to an effective capitalist free market: there must be true and information in the marketplace for the individual to make a decision on their enlightened self-interest.

Remember Ribena, anyone, and their vitamin C content? Found out by... no, not government agencies, or watchdogs - school children. The penalty for one of the world largest food groups, the largest economic entities in the world? Oh yeah - 200 grand. And an apology. And a slap on the wrist.

Oh, a few bad apples, I hear you say. Well, we don't know. Because there is no one checking the information they put in the marketplace. Not the state. Not the UN. Not the media. Ever notice how few reports there are about companies and corporations on the news? Not a conspiracy, mind -the risk of getting sued just isn't worth any investigation. Not when there're so many press-releases filling their inboxes every day. Much easier to just package them. Call them "news".

Moreover, there is scarcely a penalty when a corporation is caught, and certainly no actual living person held responsible. That's the cool thing about being a corporation. You are taxed at less than the top tax rate; you have the same rights under law as any living breathing person, and you live forever. Accumulating money - power - over all that time, paying for advertising, lawyers, lobbyists... Heck, who needs a vote?

Rhys Darby's role in the 2 Degrees ad campaign was perfectly targeted. It even had the competition scared. A group of wealthy notaries - shareholders of Vodafone and Telecom, no doubt - scrambled to muster a "Drop the Rate, Mate," campaign, ostensibly to influence a drop in the dupolists' calling charges. It hasn't really been heard of since. No surprise, cos it was just PR dressing for a few phone calls and board meetings their real "mates" will have, colluding to combat 2 Degrees. (Shouldn't they just stick to farming, or banking, or whatever?)
Another day in the office.

Look at 2 Degrees though. Rhys Darby, beloved comedian, received money in compensation for promoting something he neither knows nor cares about. 2 Degrees hadn't even launched yet. The teleco bosses got his number off someone who knew his mother. The ad was a hit. Acceptable. No acrimony.

Roll back a month or so, and we have Keisha Castle-Hughes, beloved actress, promoting environmental awareness - something she does know about, and does care about - for no money. Displaying an astounding lack of self-awareness, she was told to "stick to acting" by our Prime Minister, former merchant banker John Key. Cue the laugh-track from the money-huggers, the power-groupies and the elite. Although the PM eventually saw reason and apologised for his gaffe.... why was Keisha such a threat?

So, there's the state of our civilisation. That's the legacy of "advertising" in a nutshell. If a celebrity sells themselves to read some funny ad-man lines - that's acceptable. If they're not paid, they're not selling anything - they're deemed untrustworthy, they've stepped out of line.
Of course to be sure of this thesis, we'd have to get Rhys and Keisha to switch places. What if he had advocated signing on to the 40% reduction in carbo emissions? Would John Key have come down so hard on him? Would Keisha have been "selling out" if she did a Whale Rider for 2 Degrees?

Either way you look at it, there is something very disturbing about what behaviour, what messages we will accept from who in our media-manufactured world. Advertising, marketing and public relations are principally to blame. What they do is corrupt one of the essential pillars of our market society: information.
Not only that, but we are conditioned to accepting certain modes of transmission of information as feeling more acceptable, more true, more trustworthy than others - even though if you step back and look at the facts you can see which story has more weight.

But how often do we - step back, I mean? How far do we have to step back to see the walls that are built because we believe in them?

This is the society our media and advertising standards are making. This is the society we have.