Fantail's Blog

Elections time. And lo, a blog.

2011-11-12T11:26:00.009+13:00

It has been a long absence, but looking at my last two blog posts they have as much relevance now as they did then: the key difference between National and Labour laid out bare, months ago and still holding true. Say what you like about my profligacy, my blog posts age well.

People have to decide whether they are really benefiting from John Key's NZ (many people are - certainly those earning 100s of 1000s). If you have a family income of 100,000 or less, you really need to take a good look at how important a "pretty nice" prime minister is versus real policies that will have a specific and direct impact on your lives. No vague promises about "better for the economy, so better for you..." That always equates to more dosh for the rich. We've been sold that line by various parties for 27 years.

BTW, I don't buy the "oh, this poor government, they've done well with so many disasters this term." Christchurch sums this up.
There's no disaster in Christchurch. It's not that bad. The government doesn't think its too bad. That ruined, joyless city will climb back to its own feet without any help.
How do I know that? Because our government sees no need to put a levy on our country's super rich. That's what you would do if a city, a country, was in dire straits. That is why we have a state. To organise key resources to meet the needs of all in a crisis. But no, more important the rich - again, I mean 100s of 1000s - have their tax cuts.

So yeah, life is pretty bouncy in Aotearoa these last few years, at least for a few - just look at the PM's photo album. He's gonna look back on this time and laugh and smile...
But at election time, the real question is: how are you all feeling?

My browser happened to open to the nzherald.co.nz this morning and unfortunately clicked its way on to a Brian Gaynor column. I know, I should have known better, but I began writing a reply and thought, nah, damn - bloggit. It got me, here, so some good came of it.

The gist was that some individuals cheat welfare off the state so there should be no welfare provided by the state. Such sparkling insight. Such genius. The fact that democracies-are expensive, inefficient and allow room for individual immorality - that's what makes them the opposite of authoritarian - doesn't appear to twinkle in the recesses of complacent, well paid commentators of this ilk.
And how about this gem:

"...one of the features of a welfare state is that it creates powerful interests that will fight to the bitter end for their benefits. This includes voting for political parties that protect their interests."

Face-palm. How out of touch are these oldies? Where's Metlifecare when you need them?
Change "welfare state" to "corporatist state" and you have a far closer model for the current NZ system: since 1984. That there are noisy proponents of "welfarism" is just resistance to the prevailing dogma and ideology: typified by the blithe bankerism of the current government - that if govt expenditure is kept small and private wealth massive and consolidated in the hands of the few, all will be as best as possible for all. Monetary feudalism.

This is not empty rhetoric. The same applies everywhere. The Rugby World Cup was budgeted on a shoestring until the opening day disaster - then the National Government threw fat wads of money at it to save face. I have it from sources that 80 paid and drivered buses were on standby doing nothing for each weekend after. Where's the economic efficiency there?
Same with Christchurch. While Japan's government did its job and spent whatever was necessary to house its people after Fukushima, CERA and EQC had months and months of demolitions and inspections on their books because the government would not fund more hours and work. It was horrendous seeing the heads of these two organisations on TV taking the bullet for National, saying they were doing all they could - and they were - because National didn't want to spend money.
Which, shock horror, is exactly what government is there to do.

National, and ACT even more so, are unable to cope with this basic fact. This is why NZ has been drifting for 3 years. This is why the richer are richer, the poorer are poorer. This is why government policies are ineffective and why issues such as superannuation remain unclear. Key and his cohorts don't like the idea of government governing - except to protect and grow their own personal wealth.

That's why commentators such as Gaynor are relics of a time that no longer exists. They still see things as if welfarism rules our society, when anyone with a decent education, or has tried to kick off their adult lives in the last 27 years, knows we are in a corporatist society: because corporatists like Key back to Lange and Douglas have been in government for the last 27 years.
Clark and Cullen put on a few bandaids but did not change the corporatists agenda, but betrayed those hoping for real change - the misperceived middle class who are in far worse straits than statistics would show. They voted for Key, and the rest is history: tax cuts for the rich, GST for the rest, and a slow bleeding of funds from government services like ACC and Education and inaction on basic cost-of-living so the only solution is to "sell them all off."
Who benefits? Banks. Corporate share-trading institutions.

Yeah. Sounds like Welfarism to me.

State of the Nation 2 - Why privatising public assets will hurt most NZers

2011-01-27T17:36:00.006+13:00

So we've heard John Key's "vision" for New Zealand. Unsurprisingly it is one where the state is further stripped of the vital resources it needs to support a just and healthy society, and selling off public good assets we will need forever is seen somehow as a good business decision. It is, inevitably, a transfer of shared public wealth into a few private pockets.
Tumeke pretty much nails this point.

It's true. The idea of New Zealanders investing in their own infrastructure is not a bad idea; the problem is, in the current laissez faire deregulated environment, the inevitable result is a disaster for the vast majority of New Zealanders - ie, anyone who has to keep an eye on their bank account and actively save for a house retirement, etc...

An example. You know how you have your favourite brand of biscuits? And they're good and they're cheap, and not too unhealthy either. But then the company that makes those biscuits lists on the stockmarket. The biscuits are quite popular, so it's a good buy for investors. They buy shares which earn them more money.
However, these investors can afford MUCH better biscuits, so they don't care about the product. So they get demanding of their biscuit company. The new CEO of BiscuitCo. promises to the market even greater growth in profits next year. To do that, he shrinks the size of the packet.
The next CEO makes the same promise. To achieve it, he raises the price up a bit.
The next CEO has huge boots to fill, but he's up to the challenge. He decides to change the recipe, using cheaper ingredients, and is so popular with the shareholders of the now mammoth BiscuitCorporation that he even sends production offshore to save more.

The real problem with shareholders in a deregulated - that is, there are very few laws limiting what corporations can and can not do - is that companies quickly lose sight of who their customer is. They can get huge injections of wealth on the stock market, by cutting the quality of their actual services they're supposed to be providing to the community.

Now, that's okay (kind of) with biscuits. Sad as it is, you can stop buying them, change brand. Phew. But food in general - well you need that. Another safe investment on the sharemarket. Who doesn't feel like a victim when you go to the supermarket and see bread/cheese/meat has gone up again?

And so Mr John Key's brilliant idea is to hand our power companies - again, something we all need - over to shareholders. The shining model is supposed to be Air New Zealand and how prices have fallen for their flights. But excuse me? It may have gotten cheaper Wellington-Christchurch-Auckland, but regional we get repeated engine failures, cancelled flights, less flights. Hamilton to Wellington costs 3-4 times the price from Auckland! We're treated like cattle.
And don't mention the new credit card charges they've introduced just because they are a monopoly and they can. They are not legally bound, not regulated, to treat the consumer with anything like a sense of justice and conscience.

That's why public goods - things everyone needs, like power, food, housing, clothing, communications, transport - need to be regulated, if not in government hands. The law is supposed to codify those morals, for all of us, that's what it's there for: including corporations.

So. We have power companies, who are farcically supposed to be in competition with each other even now. Be warned. At the moment they send people door to door, hoping to sign us up, promise a $50 credit or something. That's their main pitch, trying to get more customers - more "market share".
Well. If the power companies are privatised, even to only 49% as promised, the real issue is not foreign ownership; the companies will forget about you, the customer, and primarily be interested in wooing shareholders. And the best way of doing that is raising prices in every tricky way they can. Just like BiscuitCorp.

It's like I was saying yesterday about the tax system. The government takes far too much tax from the VAST majority of us, and nowhere near enough from a very wealthy few. Because off this, we scrape and gripe and struggle, and learn to distrust, even hate government. But in a democracy, the state is the one institution that is supposed to be there standing up for all of us. We need it well-funded - yes, slow and clunky sometimes, that's what democracy is - but it needs money to make sure we all have a fair go. If you are struggling to save, or get out of debt, or buy a house, or dream of keeping a parent at home with the kids like your parents had, shrinking the wealth and health of our state is actually against your interests:

Think about where most of your money goes. Is it to the government? Or is it to a few food giants? A bank maybe? An oil company. A telco. A power company. Privatisation takes power from the state - from all of us - and gives it to companies who already control where most our daily dollar goes.

Overall, I think the difference between the two party's was well-represented by images we saw of their audiences for Goff and Key's speeches. Goff spoke in a community hall to an audience of all ages, ethnicity, classes. Key spoke to a conference room of black suits; and no, they do not represent the entire business community. Just that very elite end of businesses, that like to pretend that what is good for corporations is good for businesses of all sizes in our country, and everyone.

That is not democracy.

As far as the state of the nation goes, we don't need politicians to tell us. We each need to look at hard at our own lives, and think about where our money goes, how much we've saved, how many hours we're working, how many hours we see our children, whether we can afford children, whether we can afford a house - whether we can ever really see ourselves getting a decent job. And start to question. What is fair? What is just? Things have been like this for more than 25 years. Why hasn't some government done something?

Then, it's fair to start getting mad.

State of the Nation 1 - $5000 tax free a start, but not enough

2011-01-26T11:19:00.008+13:00

I'll defer a "Fantail" state of a nation for another day to clear some of the must with a comment on the latest over at Tumeke on Phil Goff's State of the Nation. Bomber's report was interesting and personal, and strategically on the button. Specifically:

Goff's real trump card is his first $5000 tax free for all NZers. This impacts most on those who are earning the least and will be funded by a new top tax bracket that will be in the high 6 figure area so that professions not considered top tax bracket fodder don't fall foul of it.

The $5,000 tax free may be a trump card, but the difficulty Labour face this year was demonstrated in TV1's coverage of the speech. Their report didn't cover how Labour would pay for it: instead they cut to John Key saying that costly, overseas creditor "pixies (3x)" would pay for the cut - breaking up any the Labour narrative with what amounts to a bald opposition lie.

This is of course unsurprising coming from the national broadcaster, who have spent the last two years treating Key like a neutral political commentator and the vast majority of their stories focussed on taking pokes at the out-of-power opposition party instead of questioning the very in-power government. I remembered my jaw dropping when this soft-soaping started, the very first government policy release coming from the ACT party (appropriately). It was about on "cutting red tape" and passing legislation to allow people to opt out of the building code. (I reckon most of the good people of Christchurch are probably quite happy with about all that annoying bureaucratic tapes and codes stuff bout now). Mark Sainsbury interviewed on this Rodney Hide with all the rigour of a Swedish massage, and very little has changed.

Besides the media living in its own self-reflective balloon of public perception, The Youth Idol element of Key is definitely there - first time voters tend to "rage" against the incumbent government, and many young people know no government other than Clark's. Of course the real rebellion is to vote as Left as possible to try and get our society somewhere back to a reasonable centre again. Largely, that demographic is there for the taking, if they can be motivated. Most are at worst ignorant, if not poor, angry and scared.

Finally, the over 50K cadre should not be ignored. They're not homogeneous, and from my experience, household incomes have to reach 50K just for 2 people to be healthy and debt free - and that's renting, no retirement, no savings. That the tax brackets are marked at 14K, 48K and 70K gives a false impression of what is rich and what it costs to live in our society.
Markedly, it punishes and causes gripes for those struggling under 70K; and it groups all those people earning 70K with those earning millions, as if they have anything in common, in lifestyle or obligation to the community that has supported their success.

Phil Goff was right to point to those 700 multi-millionaires who grabbed another $1000 a week from John Key's tax cuts. That's 36 million from the wealth and health of our public services - gone.

So what's the state of our nation?

Let's see what the PM has to say later today.

Easing Back In

2010-01-15T15:32:00.000+13:00

I've been (wisely) steering away from news and such and been getting more important things done, so there hasn't been too much stimulus for posts here in the New Year.

In general, the world seems to be in the same shit state as usual. The Doomsday clock moved another tick towards midnight, which I'd tend to agree with as the US expands it's Long War of Full Spectrum Global Domination into Yemen, looking more and more like a desperate scramble to pick up as many countries on the RISK board as possible before China and Russia stand up to tell them to SIT the fuck down.

Oh, and hey: anything the US can do...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3203448/NZs-cyber-spies-win-new-powers

Stuff catching up to Australia, weeee, look at us! On top of subjective mandatory blood-testing and DNA sampling, who isn't aspirational now?

Back properly next week.

End of the Beginning

2009-12-18T20:37:00.003+13:00

It's Xmas, which means holidays and a spell away from the computer. Admittedly, not so you'd notice here over the last few weeks... The only thing harder than justifying blogging when you have important, paid work to be doing, is justifying it when you have a mammoth unpaid project to finish so that it hopefully pays off.

That said, the eggs laid in the nest here over the last few months have been very worthwhile. I kicked off the blog at a time when I was feeling optimistic and experimental with my time, and over about 40 posts have managed to stroke the tip of the iceberg on several issues dear to my heart. Looking at my cloud of "labels", media streaks to prominence; rightly followed by USA, UN, economics & environment. I can stand by 100% of what I have written here, which was an important goal I learned after a few edited posts; and more importantly I've worked out what I want to do with the post.

See, posts like the last one, and King Tamaki... that's daily thought stuff. It's minutiae, and that's not really what I'm interested in - popping off what's on the top of my head just to make sure something is up here every day.
I've learned it's not even worth my time to make daily comments on significant events. I certainly have an opinion on the various mistakes in John Key trying to bring the Te tino Rangatiratanga flag into the tent of nationhood; but I'm more interested in its place in the pattern of behaviour that typifies his government.
Likewise for the Brash Gang's report on catching up with Australia. A current event post would focus on the realpolitik of the Right-wing agenda and fight on the details, but it's far more interesting to me to look at it in the context of power relations and the broader thinking that is needed for us - the vast majority of NZ taxpayers - to see that accepting Rightist thinking is keeping us in our own dark hole.

In short, as you might see from my posts, I am more interested in several themes, messages, questions - stories, if you will - and in showing how the little events and "issues" that arise - Brash's 2025 gang, or Hone Key's flag - thread into these stories. More often than not, they make more sense and better reading than the news stories that rise around them on the day.

So that's what I'll be doing in the new year. This blog won't be breaking news stories or fighting on party battlelines. It won't be posting daily. Probably one post a week, and it will be following a narrative. Not planned, but weaving in and out of my reading, research and current events.

For now, it's a holiday. I'm going to relax, kick my heels up and muse over the details. But if you're interested in globalism and internationalism; society and economy; justice and democracy, then I'll meet you back here Jan 12th.

And if you're stumbling across this site, in the meantime, have a read over past posts. See if they take.

Pre-Xmas Price Ridiculousness

2009-11-16T16:32:00.006+13:00

I've been legitimately (but unfortunately) too busy to post the last week, although I've several pages of notes on various topics I want to explore. Too busy polishing my novel and exploring avenues of alternate income, and busy feeling panicked, depressed, annoyed at various things.
Yes, despite the rational-legal, adversarial framework of our society, feelings have legitimacy too.

I was just looking for Xmas presents, and found some gobsmacking prices online. Try Fishpond, for DVDs in particular. The whole of Season 2 Flight of the Conchords on DVD for.... $20?? Sure, that's the price I was waiting for, but they only released 6 weeks ago!
Snapped it up. Then, ever a sucker for paying no shipping, I picked up Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book" for the same price. Neil Gaiman's coming for next year's International Festival of the Arts, so I was happy to tick this off my wish-list. Checking Amazon, I would have got it (inc shipping) for the same price in US dollars.

Crazy, crazy prices. Any others out there? I guess the psychology is they're front-loading our shopping baskets. I bought for myself; but in theory (I know Mothers fall for this), you can keep picking up presents all the way to the 25th, with the price going up as stocks run down and people get more desperate.

Waiting is virtuous; but waiting for Xmas is a trap. When things I've already committed to purchasing hit the right price point - that's the sweet spot.

ADDENDUM: Checking around a bit, it seems these prices are pretty consistent, so my view that the world tends towards madness remains intact. In this vein, it became a day where I took a browse through Neil Gaiman's blog and found his amazing Oracle. Which was kinda neat.

Do No Harm

2009-11-07T17:09:00.005+13:00

Just had to alert to another fine piece of writing at Media Lens.
This quote, in particular:

Compassion, then, is the key concern - where best to direct our efforts in the hope of doing something to relieve suffering in the world. Journalism should be honest and rational, but it should not be indifferent or neutral - it should be biased in the direction of relieving misery. Noam Chomsky has gone so far as to suggest that a life without compassion is meaningless:

“So if you decide not to make use of the opportunities that you have; not to try to live your life in a way which is constructive and helpful, you end up looking back and say: ‘Why did I bother living?’” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zt8svS2w1I)

This position is important because it provides the psychological motivation for challenging vested interests that are keen to reward servility with status, privilege, even power. In the absence of compassion, there is every reason to conform, to toe the line - to perhaps give the appearance of adopting dissenting positions without really rocking the boat. Then journalism is a job like any other - a way of paying the bills. To be sure, Chomsky’s position is an exotic one from the perspective of much mainstream journalism. When asked what he likes about his job as a journalist, Paxman answered:

“It offers you the opportunity to meet all sorts of fascinating people... If you have a curious mind and you like words it’s a wonderful, wonderful occupation.” But the pay is not good, he warned: “The salaries are very poor... There is no job security.” Nevertheless: “It remains a fascinating way to spend your time.”

I would frame "compassion" more as "do no harm" - acknowledging that true self-interest is unknowable because we can only follow the rail of consequences so far in our tiny human brains - as is proven in matters as diverse as high school shootings and the current environmental upheaval. We should always aim to tread lightly, and provide resilient criticism when someone does start throwing their power around.

Budding journalists, take heed.

The Land Looking after The Land

2009-11-06T14:43:00.005+13:00

"The Earth regulates itself." So goes one of the stories reeled out by those advocating NOT acting on global warming and environmental degradation. You know, because it can look after itself.

And it's a fair point. In clean green NZ, it's easy to think, looking across the green fields of the Waikato, the Marlborough vineyards, or interchanging between padded cells in one of our big cities, that all is well. That it is impossible for our little pocket of existence, even multiplied 8 billion times, could have such an effect on a mass that is 75% water anyway.

And again, it's a fair point. Or would be - if we hadn't had 60 years of Post-war industrial development, gas and chemicals masticating the planet.

It's not our personal consumption that has caused this crisis. It is the engines of industry.

One example I like to use is in Australia where they're suffering a water crisis. Now, we know the planet is warming, and we know it's only going to get worse. So there are big billboards! all over Melbourne -everyone is doing their bit having short showers, hand watering plants every second day, not leaving taps running, turning off public fountains... complaining of course, but chipping in.
Unfortunately, the private water consumption of 26 million Australians only accounts for 10% of water use. Industry takes up most of the rest, including irrigating arid, otherwise unfarmable lands.
And, like here, they want more water.

It's the same with every industry, because our economies have been geared to growth, growth growth. We've been ramping them up and up and up, drawing on huge banks of investment and credit... Yes, credit - that thing banks just make up out of thin air to "create wealth", an endless snowball of funding so industry can keep digging, and making and selling; and when that product is made obsolete three years later, they make and sell again.

Unfortunately that credit does not come out of nowhere. It is value being extracted from labour, and from the earth. Basically it's like the credit crunch - we've been drawing too much too fast from the earth's resources, and now we can't pay it back fast enough to stop the whole system collapsing.

And after spending their inheritance, we'll leave future generations to clean up our mess.

Now we have a UN report that provides an answer. It is very positive, saying we don't have to go back to personal gardens to make all our climate/economy crunches so much better:

War against hunger, global warming can be won on farmlands –
Improvements in cropland and grazing land management as well as the restoration of organic soils and degraded lands are the most significant technical measures to lessen the impact of climate change.

Nearly, 90 per cent of this potential will come from capturing carbon in the soil before it escapes into the atmosphere, according to the report, "Food Security and Agricultural Mitigation in Developing Countries: Options for Capturing Synergies."

Now, I know there are a class of people that take some perverse pleasure in insisting that chemically augmented crops are "just as good if not preferable" to organic; but I hope they're not also convinced "the earth regulates itself". Because this report clearly, but tactfully states that yes, the Earth has a great organic potential to regulate carbon itself - but we've been poisoning it on a hyper-industrial scale for 60 years.

The chemical seeds and fertilisers corporations will not be happy with this solution. So expect it to be buried, like emissions, like renewable energy, electric cars, etc, etc. Chances are this report will lie around like the other 40 years of reports warning this very situation would happen.

Unless, maybe - we tell our governments to do something different.

We've poisoned the Earth's lungs and soiled its air. Some say we didn't know any better, fine - it's not about guilt. Just use our enormous creativity and wealth - and democracy - to fix the damn thing up.

A Portrait of How Far We're Right

2009-11-05T14:05:00.011+13:00

Tipping my hat to a couple of great "Left-wing" sites. I use the inverted commas, because "lefty" is thrown around like that means these commentators want a command economy and everyone doled out the same few cents from a bulging public purse. I've never read anything from either The Standard or Tumeke that suggests this is the case.

If they, like many of us, are pulling "left", it is because the "centre" of an intelligent, responsible government presiding over a mixed economy, was abandoned by our government 25 years ago. In 1984, the 4th Labour government (which was not "left" at all) decided the best course of action for managing the complications of a modern economy was to not manage it at all. This government and its successors have progressively sacrificed the principle that they are there to act on our collective behalf, in favour of the idea that as long as there is more money in the economy ("growth") that is an inviolate good, and makes life better for everyone.

This transfer of power away from Democracy towards Capital - the wealthy, at the expense of everyone else - was prescribed from 1972, in Samuel Huntingdon's "Crisis of Democracy", and it has been in process ever since.

The real effect of these "free market" principles have been to open society to the law of the jungle. It is feudal; it is like the wild west. But instead the power isn't with those with the army or the bigger gun. It's the bigger chequebook. Money is power. Literally you can tell where you stand in a capital-dominant society like ours, by comparing your bank-balance with that of whatever individual/organisation you're up against.

Democracy is supposed to be the balance for this. But because government accepts profit and growth as some lower common denominator that is good for everyone, they do not intervene with "red tape and regulations" - you know, safeguards. All that annoying stuff that the last Labour government started putting back in place, and National is cutting away. Or "streamlining", making "efficiency gains", or whatever crap the media swallows and spits out on our screens.

Hey - democracy is slow. It is inefficient. It is costly. But it is cheaper to combine our money and empower our government to act on housing, food, communications, energy, water, clothes, insurance - keeping the cost of living down - than it is for us as individuals to throw our cents around in a market dominated by corporate millions.
Without democracy, the only real "law" of the market is that the individual/corporation with the bigger chequebook always gets his way. As Tumeke reminds us.

Of course, people are persuaded by the idea of tax savings, tax cuts, yada yada. And you know what? Fair enough. The vast majority of people are being taxed too much, from the money they need to support themselves. It's power they need to save and expend how they choose. A real choice society.
But less tax for them does not need to come at the cost of a responsive, well-funded democracy. Because the way our economy is structured, there is a small cluster of individuals and corporations that are being taxed nowhere near enough.

I've crapped on enough for one day, but here's the Standard's post. It talks about how John Key, the prime minister of our democracy, is being spat on by the money in our society, cheer-led by Rodney Hide, Roger Douglas, Act and their corporate backers.
I wouldn't say John Key is weak, so much as he is vulnerable. He is vulnerable because he relies entirely on his support staff for political advice. He doesn't know anything about democracy, or why a cabinet room is not the same is a board room. Why we are not "NZ Inc". He comes from a banking background, so many eminently "logical" ideas about manipulating numbers for profit make sense to him without any conception of the consequences of exactly the same policy of say, oh, the last 25 years. It's be no surprise if he's suffering from impostor syndrome.

And this government is full of both crowds - the Bennetts, Tolleys, Wilkinsons, Brownlees - like those little plastic cows whose heads nod when you tap them, their knees buckle when you press the right button. They have no clue, except what will get them fed and watered and praised.
Then there're the ideologues: English, Williamson, Ryall & co, who have been sitting on the opposition benches so long, talking to themselves and their same rich friends, they don't realise the rules of the last decade don't apply any more. Their ideology, their free market has been proven broken. 2008's Financial Crisis was not just a cough - it was a heart attack, and the system has been thrust up on life-support, shuffling around until those with all their wealth and prestige invested in it can restructure so when the global economy collapses, they're not under it.
NZ's ostrich approach to Copenhagen and emissions just shows how far our government is stuck in the 90s. There is an ever-growing realisation that, uh, yeah- the Club of Rome was right: there are limits to growth. If Lord Stern of Benford says "We might all have to go vegan to save the planet", there's no point saying "he's trying to ruin our economy!" More sensibly, take that as a measure of how much ground we have to make up with other measures or some brilliant new-fandangled technology. Because man-made or cyclical, global warming is still gonna get us.

I'm reminded of the Portrait of Dorian Gray. It's like this extreme right ideology was painted for Roger Douglas in 1984, gorgeous, perfect; handed over to Ruth Richardson in the Nineties, where the painting picked up some strong vain lines and ghastly knowing eyes; under Michael Cullen it matured, remained superior, silvered, with the first signs of decay...
Of course none of these governments uncovered the portrait to look on it, less they lose its power.

So now Key and English are carrying it around, cheered on by National party triumphalism, maybe actually believing they're full of fresh, invigorating ideas. While under the cover, the painting - their ideology - has sickened and wrinkled into some jaundiced old ghoul.
There are signs around the world, mostly beneath the government level, that this has been noticed. It remains to be seen whether NZ opens its eyes, or continues to suffer under the beast riding its back.

More of this Balance needed in reporting on Israel

2009-11-02T08:38:00.006+13:00

The Sunday broadcast on TV One last night was a rare gem.

It was regarding the demolition and evictions of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem. East Jerusalem belongs to Palestine by the UN Mandate of 1948. However, upon declaring their statehood that year, Israel used the war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria to invade and occupy East Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories, consolidating their hold in the following war with these states in 1967.

It is worth mentioning that UN Secretary General Ban has recently reaffirmed that East Jerusalem should be the capital of a Palestinian state.
Repeated resolutions have been made by the UN to return this territory, but Israel claims the land as spoils of war, even though the Palestinians have never been at war with Israel; and Israel has revived historical claims to the land, even though they accepted the boundaries of the UN mandate when establishing their nation in the first place.

The Sunday story pretty much speaks for itself. Israeli courts and interests rule Palestinian land. So if a court decides that a sector of East Jerusalem has always been under Israeli rule, woe betide the Palestinian family living there. Also, the fertile Palestinian population is not able to acquire building permits for everything from houses to schools to water bores; unlike Israelis.

The beauty of the Sunday piece by Ian Sinclair is that it is small, the hard facts are indisputable, and it sums up the hopeless oppression of the Palestinians without the violence and emotive clouding issue of Palestinian "terrorist tactics". If the Palestinians build their houses without permits, they break the law and they're destroyed; if they do nothing, Israeli settlements take their land.

You can decide what you like about the "legality" of the eviction. Truly to have your home taken from you by a police raid at 5am should resonate with most Kiwis, who love their family home. New Zealand also has its own history of land being taken, so we should be able to look on the situation with wiser eyes.

In my view, it has long been clear that Israel is an oppressive apartheid state. The Palestinians have no recourse to justice in the state governing them.
The Israeli government's attitude is a clear parallel to the mid-colonial government of NZ, particularly from 1873 to 1909, where it was deemed Maori were dying out and so land confiscations were legitimised and accelerated on that basis. This was legalised internally by the colonial courts, and carried out by force. Resistance was a crime.

As I have said previously, a fully integrated state like Aotearoa New Zealand would be the best answer, but impossible while Israel is committed to being a dedicated Jewish state - which is their right - so long as they accept the reality that won't cover the entire territory they'd like. Because of the UN resolutions the answer in Israel would seem a fairly simple case of "give it back", but the fact they have such power and domination over the Palestinians means they have not had to accept that reality.

Also the USA has chosen to support Israel's flouting of UN resolutions and international law, and every tragedy, death and disaster for the last 40+ years has flowed from this. Any perception of the US as being "committed to the peace process" must be seen in this context. They could fix things, easily; but they're choosing to accommodate the Israeli tactics, which appears to be to delay and appropriate as much land as possible, with the goal of annexing the entire territory with the Palestinians ghettoised into the Gaza strip or fled into Egypt or Jordan.

Certainly the views of Michael Kuttner, a Kiwi turned Israeli citizen, encapsulate this agenda. Again, the beauty of this report was that it was small, and yet it managed to capture the essence of all that is wrong in Israel.
Kuttner is a member of a group "Kiwis for Balanced Media Reporting on Israel", and it has to be said we need more of his sort of balance aired. The holier-than-thou air of "this IS our land, who cares how we claim it" and his bald assertion they'll wait as long as they have to claim the entire territory for Israel is a real reflection of the logic behind the Israeli government's strategy and their fanatical support base, know as "Zionism". They believe their millennia old quest for a nation-state did not end at 1948, even though they accepted the UN Mandate. They don't feel bound by that, because they don't feel bound by any law, much less international law, in claiming what they believe God promised them.

Of course this view is never broadcast by the Israeli government. In fact, in classic power-politics style, they project this agenda on to the Palestinians., and the various resistance/terror groups. Actually, after what they've suffered for 60+ years, I'm fairly sure any true Palestinian government and its people would be pretty relieved just to get their fair share. They deserve a representative state that can deliver them justice.

Possibly the best moment in the Sunday report came when Sinclair asked Kuttner if it might make more sense to have integrated communities.
"Oh they like living with their own people," he said, projecting his perfect apartheid racism, "It's only natural..."

We do need more balance in reporting on Israel. Let's hear less of Mark Regev and way more of these bigots speaking for themselves in their own words. Because these are the ideas that infest the Israeli state, government and courts, the unseen poison in this country and why it is intolerable for even average Palestinians who hardly want a war. We only see the poison's results, when someone goes mad with injustice, a truck or a bulldozer, or blows themselves up. Written off, as just another terrorist.

King Brian

2009-10-30T09:26:00.006+13:00

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

2009-10-29T12:33:00.010+13:00

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

2009-10-27T16:26:00.003+13:00

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

2009-10-27T13:54:00.008+13:00

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

2009-10-25T12:02:00.007+13:00

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

2009-10-22T20:16:00.005+13:00

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

2009-10-21T21:19:00.007+13:00

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

2009-10-20T21:53:00.004+13:00

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

2009-10-17T19:21:00.002+13:00

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

2009-10-16T14:10:00.009+13:00

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

2009-10-14T17:09:00.002+13:00

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 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

2009-10-12T16:19:00.004+13:00

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.

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.

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".

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

2009-10-11T12:30:00.002+13:00

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....

2009-10-11T12:24:00.002+13:00

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

2009-10-09T16:54:00.007+13:00

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

2009-10-07T21:04:00.005+13:00

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.

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

2009-10-05T18:27:00.004+13:00

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.

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.

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.

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

2009-10-04T15:44:00.009+13:00

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

2009-10-02T10:37:00.006+13:00

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!

2009-10-01T12:59:00.007+13:00

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.

Mists of Truth and Narrative and Power

2009-09-29T16:45:00.003+13:00

The Standard points to our greatest dislike of the blogging scene, and the media in general. In changing his position just because it is National delivering the policy on the Electoral Finance Act, David Farrar of Kiwiblog is showing his adherence to battlelines, to a party over principles. To power.

This can be seen across the blogosphere now that National are in power, with hypocritical crowing from Right-wing bloggers - Cactus Kate, Roarprawn - knowing that they personally benefit from the big business mentality of the National-Act - screw democracy, screw any ambition other than money-making - and they screw up their own avowed principles (such as Roarprawn's "hate on political corruption"). This is sad. And you won't see it here, because no NZ party is really moving in a direction Fantail would like to see. The parties don't understand the question our country is facing - because we haven't asked it of them properly.

What is that question, you ask? It's a good question. It's simple, but obscure. I'll tell ya later. And you won't hear the media asking it, not on our behalf because they lack the self-awarness and clarity to see how they hinder democracy, instead of aiding it. They are arbiters and gatekeepers, like the three monkeys. Deaf. Dumb. Blind.

As with John Key's follow-up performance after Letterman. I can't find a mainstream report on it, but apparently he walked out on Iranian president Ahmedinajad's speech to the UN - following the coat-tails of the uS and UK, like a good pup.

This is a worrying sign. He personally could benefit greatly from listening to the leaders of countries 20 times our size, facing threats that make "Oh, KiwiRail is losing money" look absolutely infantile. His political pedigree isn't impressive, but the answer is not to play "follow the leader". Stay in your seat. Listen. Learn. That's what you're there for. Ask questions. Think for yourself - don't just follow the cool kids around.

I wonder what he thought of the Swiss leader's comments regarding the G20 elite, who met alongside the General Assembly in Pittsburgh. That is, the biggest national economies in the world, and those who are too strategically important to ignore and aren't upstarts that the US wants to bomb back into their place. We're never going to make either hit list, so we should listen to Switzerland's concern that the UN, much less the General Assembly (the most democratic body in the world) is being made ever more redundant by these swaggering elites.

It would be nice if we could stop the rot hang on to some principles - show some real ambition - rather than always spreading our legs for the money.

Link to UN General Debate

Not Happy, John: Pt. 2

2009-09-27T16:08:00.007+13:00

In the little reading I've managed over a busy weekend, I note that the ineffable business reporter Fran O'Sullivan echoes our feelings entirely on the Letterman mistake.

Unfortuately, Mr Key then comes out the next day and says New Zealand should have a seat on the UN Security Council.

Really? Seriously? Is anyone there still taking him seriously?

He talks about New Zealand's anti-nuclear credentials, but that just seems to be another thing he is "trading on". Using our reputation to get the seat, but what then? Given the emphasis on nuclear proliferation at this Assembly (note, NOT disarmament, as was initially reported), it is a legitimate concern that a New Zealand Security Council vote would belong to the USA - a world power that is very focused on removing the Islamic Republic of Iran's legal right to nuclear power, by any means necessary.

("But, Fantail," I hear, "Iran's a bad guy?" That is a fair question. But to be addressed another time, perhaps.)

There is a precedent to this National Government trading like this - earlier this year we declined to continue our VERY proud record on the UN Human Rights Council in order to give USA a chance at gaining a nomination.

So, it's a two-edged sword. We're a small country. Our reputation, our principles are all we really have. If we did secure a Security Council seat, we would have a strong platform to act on democratic principles in defence of international law, to prevent another illegal war in the Middle East - it would be something to be proud of.

But we don't want the damn seat if it'll be used to terrorise another country in our name.

Not Happy, John

2009-09-26T15:22:00.007+12:00

Prime Minister John Key debased himself and the country on the Late Show with David Letterman yesterday.

"Somebody" apparently, is calling this humiliation a "coup" which means that some of his Public Relations lackeys have written a press release and the media has swallowed it whole.

And I say this, of course, because 90% of the news we read/see/hear, is press releases. Which is 99.9% true, but on the whole... a topic for another time.

So back to John Key. Prime Minister. And now, trivial amusement.

The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd goes on Rove McManus's show in his own country, and that is a huge gesture. It is heart-warming that he steps out of his comfort zone, remains, dignified, squirms when having to tackle the obligatory question of homosexuality (Rudd is quite a devout Christian)... but there's a latitude, because is the PM exposing himself to his own nation with a respectful host who is invested in the country under discussion - Australia.

Mr John Key, however, with David Letterman... There is no affection. There is no relationship or investment with his audience. It is 100% ass-lickery, playing the jester for the benefit of a off-humour dweeb and his ignorant audience who couldn't care less about New Zealand, but it makes them feel special and powerful to have some hick travel from across the world and perform in their off-Broadway court. It was practically medieval. If they'd been eating, the crowd would have thrown bones just to watch our Prime Minister fight the dogs for the right to eat them off the floor.

For tourism, they say. Huge, HUGE coup! Well, I hope so. There's not much worse for a prostitute than when the client won't pay up afterward. Cos that's what it was. Whoring. Selling his status as our leader, the pinnacle any NZer can hope to achieve, in the hope of a few bucks.

Or necrophilia, cos hoping for tourism from the US - that's a dead horse. At the rate their dollar's bombing, well have dollar parity by the end of the year, and the recession (or the next one that is a micro-blip away, if you want to be pedantic) will keep Americans at home, holidaying at home.

Ultimately, I don't blame John - he looked as nervous as hell. I think, somewhere inside, he knew it was the wrong thing, doing his folksy campaign-trail thing on the international stage. I hope he reflects on this and realises a country's culture and democratic history -its prestige - goes far deeper than some some marketing line or gag image.

I blame those soulless suit-advisors around him, and hope he fires every one of them.

The Cult: Verdict pending

2009-09-26T15:03:00.004+12:00

Been a bit distracted trying to read as many of the addresses of the world leaders at the UN as I can. Might come up with a summary piece later.

In the meantime, I'll say I saw the new NZ drama "The Cult" on Thursday night. It has good bones. The story has been swiftly established, with a group of loved ones and family members assembling somewhere in Northland to try and rescue their sons/daughters/whatever from the "Two Gardens" cult commune. Either side has been given appearance of Goodies and Baddies,with plenty of room for intrigue and betrayal within each group. At this point, interaction between the groups looks like it will be difficult, or an evolving point of conflict - ie, there are fences and guns keeping the cultists in, the families out.

Also, lead writers are Peter Cox and David Brechin-Smith, who did wonderfully with the Insiders Guides to Happiness and Love.

That said, the first episode was a bit of a shambles. This is not uncommon with TV and literature. There is some throat clearing as bits of exposition are choked down and the story gets to where the writers want it. There was a real clash between the fast cuts and music (Very like insider's guide) of the outside world and the serenity of the bush and cult, and I don't think it worked. And some of the editing was... well, you really didn't know what was going on when there were guns and shots and bodies, but nothing serious seems to have happened except one guy who seemed to know too much disappeared.

Confused? My point exactly.

The next episode will clear up which way this is heading. By the third, I'll know whether I'm watching any more or not.

Lullaby of the Fuzzy-headed Book-Huggers

2009-09-24T15:53:00.008+12:00

The Standard flags the keen appraisal of former Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimmons about the real cost and beneficiaries behind National's Emission Trading Scheme. It tallies up to $2 Billion a year in corporate welfare.
The more corporations pollute in the pursuit of their profits, the more we the people pay.

And for those keeping score of who's who as beneficiaries of our taxes: that's,
community education, poor solo mums, retirement fund = bad!
well-to-do MPs, rich polluting companies = good!

Those who warn about climate change and environmental damage are often labelled warm-fuzzies, or tree-huggers, or whatever - but I'm not. I'm a hard-arsed realist. I'm realistic, that money will always be there to be made; people will live and die, societies crumble and reform. But our world, our wildlife - our inheritance and legacy - once lost, that can't be brought back by a fancy fiddling of numbers and a pass around of the hat. That's just reality.

And people like me have been around for ages. For forty years, we've been talking about the environment and limits to growth, ever since the Club of Rome. And every time, Money talks back. And it says. "There are no limits - so long as government doesn't place any limits. We can grow forever. We'll get cleaner, promise - new technology will lead the way!"

It is a sweet lullaby: our fresh-faced economists are taught it in chapter 1 so they can set their impressionable minds at ease and they can get on with the important business of being trained to succeed within the established political and economic order.

Every five, ten years, the same conversation; every time, the same song is sung. Money Talks, and Government fails us, because industry are given no incentive to do anything different. If they paid for their pollution, that would be a good economic incentive to actually start researching and implementing that fabled new technology.

So, ultimately, who are the fluff-headed book-huggers? And who are the realists?

You know, the winged fantails used to be EVERYWHERE when I was a kid. 20 years on.... not so much. I find that sad. Fantails, gone. National Parks, dug up. Water - well, it's already scarce in Australia. That matters to me - enough that I'd like to see some of the considerable wealth of our small country - dollars are literally power in this respect - invested in protecting these things; in ambitions other than making more money that the wider community never benefits from.

And I reckon, maybe there are more of realists like me than the Money in this country is counting on. I reckon that unless they get the facts on the ground right, National might leave a door open. It only takes a small swing... Their reign might be shorter than they think.

When Character Counted

2009-09-23T11:16:00.004+12:00

I recently finished watching the entire series of Blakes 7 on DVD. I'm not going to link it, this is the internet, you can google it just as easily.

It is British, "science fiction", and ran for four years from the late 70s. The show's creator, Terry Nation (Of "Doctor Who's "Daleks" fame) described the show as "Dirty Dozen in Space". It suffers from the lack of budget and technology we expect these days, but for character and dialogue and story, it surpasses anything that has been seen in the genre since. And in saying this I respectfully include Joss Whedon's Firefly & Serenity, which are the best of the rest. Occasionally those shows still smelt of the corn-cheese factory, but were loveable nonetheless.

But too loveable. You could see from the writing of Firefly's pilot that Captain Malcolm Reynolds was supposed to be a tough as nails SOB who cared only for himself, his ship, and his crew - and often his dialogue reflected that. But his actions were of the eponymous hero - like Roj Blake from Blakes 7. They would only hurt the deserving, eve though their actions caused many undeserving might get caught in the crossfire.

Unlike Mal, though, Blake had a calculating and rational offsider Ker Avon, who would cut to the chase. If innocents died anyway, any bother or moral torment over how they died was pointless and costly - the thing that mattered was winning. Time after time Avon sacrificed innocents for his greater good - for which Blake always provided a hazy moral compass... right till the end.

Paul Darrow, who played Avon, gives an excellent interview on the final disk of Season 4, where the show was culled. He says of a Blakes 7 revival, "Serenity - it has already been done." But he is too modest. In a time where so much TV wastes production values on banal scripts filled with exposition and bland scenes written as radio with pictures, not even the limitations of 70s sci-fi can depose Blakes as a pinnacle in television drama.

Other great TV dramas:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Mad Men
The Sopranos
The Insiders Guide to Happiness (& Love) (NZ)
Secret Life of Us (AUS)
Outrageous Fortune (NZ)

Moving in...

2009-09-21T12:31:00.000+12:00

Not so much a mission statement, as a starter post to see if I have the time and commitment to keep this up. Does blogging provide an outlet for thoughts and furies, or rile them up worse? We'll see. Hopefully it'll be at least a li'l entertaining in the meantime.

Capitulations and Commiserations

2009-09-20T17:34:00.007+12:00

The All Blacks' 33-6 victory over the Wallabies was an interesting affair; but not as interesting as all the hot air that escaped afterwards.

Spiro Zavos notes on the Roar that the crowd leaving the stadium were surprisingly muted, and actually that's how I felt watching it. I saw a lot of toil and endeavour from the All Blacks - and an improvement, with the error count down, a good loose trio and, at last, CORY JANE on the field. But Nonu's try was a relief, and Rokocoko's just a little mouthwash after swallowing an awful home season where we'd have much rather seen this performance in the first game than the last.

It was only once I read my first NZ-based news item that I realised that I had apparently been watching a game of majesty and excellence from the All Blacks.

Indeed, it was a story repeated throughout the press here, and I was reminded yet again that many of these papers and writers RELY on our love of rugby to cash their paychecks. The after match reports are always so uncritical of obvious game-turning decision by referees these days, of the blindness to offside, forward passes, and the reporting of penalty counts are a thing of the past... It's not in the media's interest to get too down on their cash-cow.

And so, this win has been blown out of all proportions. You want to see a real NZ-AUS thrashing? Try 43-6 in the wet at Athletic Park in 1996. Saturday's All Blacks were strong, but the Wallabies limp - as they have always been when they are favoured in the professional era. Other than the "John Eales" era of influence, 1998-2002, the Wallabies struggle after posting a big win because it places expectations on them. They then kick and fight like underdogs, occasionally dragging the bigger dog down - South Africa this year. That was the damage they caused at the 2003 World Cup, and it will be their biggest threat at the next.

In the performances of Cory Jane and Adam Thomson, the All Black coaches have, I hope, learned a small lesson in picking the best players. But I doubt it, because Rokocoko was still there for no good reason, and their every comment and decision smacks of pride and "we know best". This earned them a serve this week in the media, which sold papers at Steve Hansen's expense, but now the press are leading the up-tick in our rugby zeitgeist.

There's money to be made from our rugby smiles. There should be some research into how many homes buy Sky just so they can watch our national game.

In other sport:
A tear for the Wellington Phoenix having to settle for a draw after a late goal by the North Queensland Fury in the A-League.

Sighs for the Silver Ferns, who again let the Australian netballers run out leads before hauling them back in - to lose by 1.

Shake of the head for the Wellington Lions, who lost to Waikato, and can barely score a try this year. It seems they were just way ahead of the pack in 08; all the other teams have caught up.

A yawn for the Black Cap Cricketers who are still overpaid, over-exposed and under-perform, despite a warm-up win against India.