Where is the morality?

No preamble from me can do justice to the meticulous morality and teeth of this article, shredding the narrative around Israeli right and impunity, published in the London Review of Books.

Pankaj Mishra: The Shoah after Gaza.

Read, and let your moral compass free.

No, complicit unions, the Covid response regime lives on.

It is sadly amusing how often "news reports" these days so consistently, obliviously, carry the seeds of their own rebuttal.

The Covid response regime has delivered us years of such content, consumed uncritically by most, or shrugged off with disinterest at best. Because the regime taught us all that dissent from the precepts of their response programme was the fast track to vilification and humiliation - and all too easily given the mercilessly neoliberal state of our capitalist economy - a crushing of personal livelihoods, professional reputations and careers.

And the Covid response regime is is still in order. The propagandising, passports, mandates and mask orders are gone. But the ideas and thinking behind those decision remain firmly in place. Not Recanted, retracted, not even examined. Not from a calmer moral more evenly democratic perspective, and not for their effects. The consequences have not been researched or measured. There is no media interest, certainly not in how many were coerced into taking the biotech injection; how many cried in the shower, before or after as their whole being screamed this is wrong - as it was, in myriad ways (to be laid out in a later dedicated post). Even with NZ First's revision of the official inquiry, the base idea is "we did everything well, but can do it better. Because the next pandemic will come."

All of which is a light brush of salience on what remains a momentous topic for our society and future. And that is why it was amusing to read the typical anti-thought hit piece about the new "anti-mandate" teachers, doctors and nurses unions come out. 

All of these incumbent unions, we must remember, are supposed to fight for their members employment rights; and we must remember all immediately stepped aside hands off when their members were ordered to get jabbed or leave. They were not special in this, every "responsible" organisation or official or public figure who wanted to keep their job did the same. A meek comment from the Human Rights Commissioner aside, the uniformity of  this surrender to authority was chilling to behold. For teachers, they were ordered to leave 4 weeks into their last term with their class - no end of year celebrations, no camps, only ritual humiliation for thinking differently about a complex, uncertain scenario of knowns and unknowns that was walled away behind concrete authoritarian watchwords. Mandatory. Effective. Perfectly safe.  

They grudgingly retired the "perfectly" later.

But back to the article, behold the "thinking" evident in these incumbent unions:

[Chris] Abercrombie, the PPTA president, said he understood TPANZ was a group “mostly motivated by their opposition to the Covid vaccine mandates… it does feel like the horse has bolted a little bit [on that issue]... I’m not sure what problem they are trying to solve?”

And then

Paul Goulter (The New Zealand Nurses Organisation)said “the freedom argument doesn’t apply to vaccines... when the choice not to be vaccinated has serious potential repercussions for the wellbeing of others.”

This is exactly the problem teachers, nurses and doctors face, Mr Abercrombie. The thinking has not changed. Goulter's statement is that of a fanatic, not a thinker. And as addressed when the inquiry was formed, Head of NZ Royal Commission of Inquiry Professor Tony Blakely repeats in his February 8 email panui: 

"The unfortunate reality is that there will be another pandemic, and we need to take this opportunity to learn the lessons, both from our own experiences and from those overseas, so that we’re as prepared as possible."

Let's just cut out the discussion of a pandemic as a biological or socially constructed phenomenon, for now, and accept that Professor Blakely is both expert enough in the scientific terms of a pandemic  and socially and professionally connected enough to trust his assertion that yes - another pandemic is coming.  We have learned a "pandemic" may be a great biological threat or small - so more importantly for humanity and society, the more certain risk is that another pandemic response regime is coming. And a good response does not mean "doing everything we did last time, but better". The only way to do better next time is to stop externalising inconvenient consequences from the regime actions and to properly account for the harm and suffering and wrongdoing the Covid response caused. 

Given so many of the local architects of the covid response derangement retain some sort of authority, it's reasonable to think change will be slow in coming. Hence the need for unions interested in protecting their members rights to earn and retain their reputation and dignity in a decaying capitalist economy without having to submit to whatever dubious biotech product a fearful government signs up to, carte blanche, just because it succeeded in crawling through the USA's corrupt and conflicted regulatory environment.

Now we have the Royal Commission of Inquiry; but of course the commission is made up of the same sort of compromised or true believer folk who enabled the regime. that's not conspiracy, it's groupthink: the group is dominated by people who all think the same way. Nonetheless, the public submissions are open, and so everyone dissenting or harmed by the Covid Response regime has their chance for their voice to go on record. At the least. 

Maybe all those doctors and teachers and nurses and other workers who lost their jobs and reputations will get to find out what qualified 11,000 health workers to get 12A exemptions, when people with actual violent reactions to their first shot could not?

I will make my own submission, as there are many questions I'd like to see asked and reflected on. Fundamental questions of the place of doubt and dissent in science; the threshold of interventionism and the obligation to do no harm; the acknowledgment that technology is not science and is not value neutral; the hubris of certainty in your own values and worldview, and the risks of authority to use a socially constructed emergency to dominate and control others. And when authority does coerce and control, the need for that authority to take full responsibility of all consequences: that means going looking and studying the harm done to every one they coerced, not denying and brushing it under the carpet.
Without this absolute responsibility,  unless you believe a person has no more value than being one of a million cattle, the techno-fascism inherent in Goulter's "all must swallow" approach must be opposed.

More on all that as my submission is composed.

Why I'm back and blogging, Bottom-up, not Right-Left

 This blog has remained frozen since 2012. I did some writing for an alternate site 2013-14, before I really dropped out of the blogosphere. 10 years!

In 2014, the Ukrainian democratically elected government was overthrown by revisionist nazi forces built up with the aid of the US, commencing the hot phase in the US’s war on Russia.

2014, There was another Gaza “war”, ‘sparked” by “hostages”: destruction, according to Wikipedia, it was estimated would take 10 years to reconstruct.

Soon after, John Key, that canny leader, read the international winds and with the rejection of his “Change the flag” legacy, he found his interest in PMing waning. 

And Fantailer? Well, I had my energy fully directed into a new teaching career. Phew.

*

So why this blog again, now?

Well, if you browse back over my old posts, I have always been interested in change and what is best for All New Zealanders.

Now we find ourselves in a clear time of crisis, a combination of real and manufactured problems, as the powerful seek to protect themselves at the cost of others, solidify their perch and seize more power. Crises are their time for change. Opportunity. Big risk, big reward. If they can control it. Control the things they fear most - if they can control us.

Hence after banging on for 20 years about “cost of living” being the issue, not “raising incomes”, it is with suspicion and dread that I observed they took the chance to switch the narrative last year. Raising incomes was a never-ending nirvana, always “Achievable” never a solution, always in progress, just out of reach.
Acknowledging a problem, though… cost of living is dramatic. I do not believe this about turn in media narrative is accidental. It aligns with climate crisis, housing crisis, energy crisis. There is a crisis, or will be one. There is a crisis, which will be allowed to happen or made worse. Since the criminal US destruction of Iraq we entered the era of move fast and break things, the age of disruption, where war and tech the ideas they want to control us with hold hands. System change is coming. Most conflict we hear about in the world now is Billionaires, corporations, and the militaries of countries who serve them positioning to take advantage of it, when it drops see how many nations of resources they can catch. They never let a crisis go to waste.

For now, rejuvenating this blog, in some form, is my small, personal stake in my sphere of influence, responding to global change as it drills right down to my country, community, my family and me. My ideas often are expressed as global, but my interest i in New Zealand, it’s place in the new world, and in the local. Local first: that is where resistance, in practical terms, real change - a paradigm shift lies. 

In particular, New Zealand seems to lack a blog that asserts itself intelligently after the roll-over compliance to the Covid response regime and the effort to de facto criminalise dissent against the government of the time. Moreover,  given the covid response and the various moves to build on it by the globalists, we need to dismantle any consideration of ourselves as left and right anyway. Globally and locally, it is clearly Top down v bottom up. Working out where you stand is the key to acting wisely.

That is why I am doing this. Expressing my view of reality to inform others in thinking about theirs. Responsibly. Fearlessly. My intent, to spread the ideas that will break down the mind prisons and thereby systems of oppression that cause conflict and violence and suffering, at home and abroad.

Welcome to the Great War of Ideas.

What that will look like is first… this. Posting this. Then another, the next is about the Covid response regime (yes it lives on). Then likely Zionism and its need to war on Gaza. I am thinking about rebranding, and will refresh the site. But for now I needed to get writing.

There’s so much that could be said.

Earthquakes in Tuatapere Oil Exploration Zone.

Now, it's common knowledge that Fantail is a fan of the environment. Not so much a fanatic for the environment; but we know that unlike money, there are some things in this world that once gone can never be brought back. Christchurch earthquake cost 180+ lives - imagine your son/daughter/parent dead, and times 180. And lording evolutionary triumph over the millions of species of plants and animals on this planet that are subject to our whims is no triumph at all... It is subhuman, but you get to a certain strata of wealth and you look down, and it happens. Picture apes beating their chests at their "amazing" ability to blow up rock or tame miles of trees just to cover the world with banana trees - and their audience, their market, applauds like chimps.

With this thoughts of applauding chimps, the instance of three significant earthquakes all 40km west of Tuatapere caught my eye.

It is unusual, for them to all be centred at the same place. Tremors normally travel, setting off other faults - I know this having been raised in Wellington, one of the most earthquake threatened cities in the world. Geologists know very little about what causes earthquakes - but we know that fracking does. And corporates have tried to keep fracking's effects secret from the public by claiming the techniques used to destroy lives and environments is a trade secret.

What we know is that a lot of these advanced (read desperate) exploration techniques involve seismic testing and exploding faultines (which is what fracking is, in effect). There are reports the Soviets knew oil and gas had little to do with dead dinosaurs and all to do with seismic activity and tectonic plates. Since the USSR was dismantled, this knowledge floated West and has resulted in this century's brave new prospecting ventures. Shame for anyone actually living near this activity.

So Tuatapere is interesting because of the increase in global and local activity. Since the National government came to power in 2008, a large number of oil and gas exploration projects have gone ahead. Wellington is going to be subject to one of these ventures, just out to sea, 2.5km deep, right on the faultline, if our undemocratic government has its way. And Tuatapere? Well  compare with the permits for the Great Southland Basin. Oil exploration permits have already been issued, dead bang in the 40km zone (many of the permit details actually lead to dead links, explained as a consequence of website redesign).

We should be demanding an instant moratorium on any of these new exploration techniques.Christchurch has taught us that NZ can not risk triggering earthquakes, especially under governments that put profits before people. You know the apes that plant the trees will be all too happy to pick the bananas; but we're gonna be left picking up the peels.

Elections time. And lo, a blog.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More Bloodshed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reading List

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

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

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

Neo-colonial Iraq still a Mystery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Mickey was a Wild Thing

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wolf Hall slipped down my to buy list.

Much MMP Goodness

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

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

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

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

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

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