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Lefter 45 ~ Before you vote for John Key, look at these other turkeys

September 26, 2011 by emweb

I can’t begin to understand why anyone actually likes John Key, I admit it. To me he’s a mealy-mouthed, glad-handing buffoon, utterly entranced by his own completely inexplicable popularity.

He loves being centre stage and in the limelight to the extent he’s been going too far. Case in point: Key said the Pike River families asked him to step in and sort things out for them. The Pike River families, two days later, fessed up that he had actually gone to them. What an ass.

Anyway, if you love Johnny and waste your vote on him, check out what comes with Mr Smiley:

Bill English is Deputy Leader – he’s the enemy Key is keeping even closer. Bill wanted to lead National; he’s the conservative South Island farmer who’s steadily been tightening the reins on fiscal policy as minister of finance.

Do you trust him? I sure as hell don’t.

By the way, it was Julius Caesar who famously said ‘Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer’. I don’t think it’s good advice, considering Caesar’s friends and enemies duly gathered around – and stabbed him to death.

Then there’s Minister for Disaster Gerry Brownlee – he’s been beavering away making a complete cock-up of the reconstruction of Christchurch. He’s another South Islander, but not one enjoying much Mainland love at the moment. His motto on National’s web page is ‘Building better public service’ – to serve who, Gerry?

Simon Power is a hawk, but that’s fitting: he’s Minister of Justice. He’s the one championing retrospective law changes to justify things that have been done unlawfully by the authorities in the past.

Oh, and he’s another South Islander.

Nick Smith comes from a construction business family. He has a PhD in landslides! Rather hilariously, Key chose to make him Minister of the Environment.

OK – He’s from North Canterbury and he’s been in every National government for the past two decades. Memorably, right?

(I have nothing against the South Island, but two thirds of the population lives in the North Island. So why are they running the country?)

Tony Ryall is from the North Island, at least, and he’s ‘building a safer New Zealand’. He’s Minister of Health, State Services and State Owned Enterprises – in other words, with National in power, he’s a prize cutter.

Judith Collins is minister of Police, Corrections and Veterans Affairs. At least she has a degree in law. Collins campaigned on behalf of Vietnam Vets over Agent Orange. Could be worse.

Anne Tolley is Minister of Education – so all you students out there and those working in education should have a lot of faith in her, right? If you can remember her name.

Paula Bennett, gawd, where do I begin? She’s the worst type of ‘made it on the bones of my arse so why can’t you?’ righty. Solo mum, benefit recipient, sympathy for no one. Sounds a bit like Key himself – his mother was a refugee from Nazi Germany yet he pronounces against refugees, and he grew up in a state house but hasn’t time for public schools and state assistance.

At least Bennett is a hard worker. If only she wasn’t, though.

Steven Joyce is another colourless bloke – I admit he is working hard for better broadband, as Labour’s Cunliffe did before him.

Murray McCully is Minister for the Rugby World Cup. You might think this is good.

I think it’s good … for a third world banana republic. For New Zealand, it’s embarrassing. He’s embarrassing. When he’s not pretending to ‘sort out’ Auckland’s transport mess, which is largely the fault of National’s policies anyway, he’s gadding about in the Pacific, being feted by those who get New Zealand aid money and use it to buy new cars.

Tim Grocer is the only truly scary person here, because he’s actually clever. Cleverness harnessed to right wing ideology is always a dangerous thing. Shame – what a waste.

I could go on. But let me conclude: think about what your MP has done for your area, and for your needs, before you vote.

Think about this bunch of no hopers riding on John Key’s coat tails before you vote. Coz you cop the lot.

Category Commentary, Government, Left, New Zealand, Pacific, Politics, Thought | Tags: | 1 Comment
Lefter 41 ~ Labour, get labouring!

July 29, 2011 by emweb

Labour struck a blow by announcing the Capitol Gains Tax, but it has to work hard, and now, to maintain the momentum before the Rugby World Cup takes everyone’s attention.

It’s clear to all that food price rises are making it increasingly difficult for people to manage. It’s clear that Capitol Gains Tax is a good idea. And it’s clear that the government has mismanaged the economy, lined the pockets of the wealthy and mismanaged Christchurch.

So how come people still think National has a plan for the economy? What plan?

Labour finally has a real shot at winning this election, despite appearances. The only poll I’ve seen looks like it was done in Remuera only and may be insignificant, apart from the fact it was widely quoted in the press, but other polls are coming, so Labour has to sell the message.

For the first time in decades the battle lines are clearly drawn. It should be easy (anyway, easier) for Labour to pick up its support in its traditional base of workers and, increasingly, the unemployed and those disenfranchised by benefit cuts. People must be yearning for representation.

Even the press is steadily ramping up critique of the the way National is handling (or not) things – but I’m still not hearing enough response from Labour.

The Salvation Army has reported an 8% rise in the price of food over a year and a more dramatic rise in people using food banks. It’s calling the current situation ‘the new face of poverty’: a group that is outside the usual pool of beneficiaries – people who have jobs but can’t make headway against low wages and rising expenses.

Remember when National let slip that low wages in New Zealand is an advantage in keeping us ‘competitive’?

The Herald – not exactly a champion of the left – reported (July 27th) that 17% of NZ children go to school without breakfast, sometimes or always, and that 22% of households with children run out of food due to lack of money, and that 10% of households use foodbanks.

Good lord, is this really New Zealand? That should be a scandal. It is a scandal. It should also be reported in the world press. The shame!

Meanwhile, New Zealand’s 150 rich listers enjoyed a 20% increase in wealth. Just to prove their greed, lister and ‘jeweller’ Michael Hill and others on the list whinged that the government should relax restrictions on wealth creation!

If National gets back in, that’s probably what will happen.

Meanwhile Prime Minister John Key slipped three places on the list. What, he’s not making armloads of cash from trading currency? New Zealand’s dollar is rather high …

If people in the poorer sector of New Zealand society can still genuinely believe National, which has largely created this crisis, has the better economic plan, the battle is lost. Here is your constituency, Labour.

We need to see a cohesive plan to challenge this situation, and to get the message across to those who need the hope that a New Zealand government can actually do something worthwhile. And if that’s happening, we actually need to see it happening.

For all of us.

Category Commentary, New Zealand, Pacific, Politics, Thought | Tags: | No Comments
Lefter 37 ~ The Road Ahead

April 24, 2011 by emweb

I appear to have created some disquiet with my last Lefter.

For which I don’t apologise. Sincerely.

But a couple of criticisms deserve addressing. One is that people working in the Labour Party are finding it hard enough, thank you very much, without my criticisms.

The other is that it’s easy to criticise; what alternatives do I offer?

OK, the first one: I have a fundamental problem with any party that has one voice that everyone has to agree with. This is not democratic. It’s what sunk the Alliance Party as Anderton degenerated into He Who Must Be Obeyed, and it’s what led to the Maori Party completely mishandling Hone Harawera when it should have honoured him for the gift he offered (the truth).

Personally, I refuse to hew to any party line I don’t agree with, in life or work. It’s got me into trouble before and that’s OK – it’s a principle worth fighting for.

I don’t think anybody should be expected to go along with a pronouncement made by some figurehead. Members should be able to say: So and so said this, and I don’t agree with it. And we are working together towards a solution we can all believe in.

Coalitions group together different interests. That’s what a coalition is. A party is essentially a coalition of interests that share a similar general principle. They should all be represented as different interests, working towards a common goal. Since Labour no longer has a clear stance or manifesto, the ground keeps shifting anyway. If Labour can’t enunciate what it means, how do you expect anyone to act unified? Yet Labour does. The cracks are appearing, and the wall paper being applied to hide them is not a good look.

In World War Two, it was pretty damn clear that Russia and England and the US didn’t agree on everything. Well, on much at all. But they didn’t demand each be the same to fight Hitler, did they? That would have been ridiculous. The losers, of course, did do this. Nazism had an archaic structure based on feudalistic ‘figurehead knows best’. This can be spectacularly successful, but only for a short time, and it always ends in bloodshed and disaster. It’s the same in business (perhaps without the bloodshed). The Third Reich had a dramatic rise, a dramatic (and revoltingly destructive) impact, but if you look at it from a distance, it was all gone in 12 years,wrecking most of Europe, Asia, the Pacific and North Africa in the process.

However, some business leaders and geographic despots still see fascism as an excellent model, for in that potentially truncated time frame, they can be incredibly powerful. Why would a left wing (albeit increasingly nominally) even begin to look like it’s following the strictures of anything even faintly resembling Nazism?

Labour’s archaic structure demands that whatever the leaders says is ‘agreed to’ by everyone else. This is the sham of ‘caucus unity’.

Why pretend? Encourage dissent. Encourage freedom of speech. It’s laudable and it makes you look like a group worth supporting. Goff pronounces things that Labour’s caucus doesn’t always sanction, to the surprise of some, and yet Labour then has to act, in public, as if it’s unified. Since very few have any genuine faith in Phil Goff any more, we all suspect there’s a storm gathering to displace him, to the detriment of the next election and to the country. This turns off voters even more.

So here’s some advice to you, Mr Goff: Stop acting like the know-it-all leader. You are not. Nobody (but you, apparently) thinks you are. Look around. The majority overrules you. It’s time you saw it. Open your eyes. If you really want to become a good leader, marshall a flock instead of ramrodding it into the breech. This is heading for a misfire and you risk losing even your most faithful supporters.

Instead, become a wise leader guiding an unruly flock to a result worth waiting for. We like unruly flocks. We also like Border Collies. We note they are clever. This is New Zealand.

You can gather the supporters who are getting turned off because they don’t agree with you personally by giving their figureheads voices within the party.

And Labour, for god’s sake rewrite your operating procedures!

Look progressive. Act progressive. Be progressive. It’s bloody obvious, if you don’t mind my saying so. As I keep saying, we all want something to believe in.

Meanwhile, The Greens are looking like the displaced lefties’ alternative to Labour by doing just this. The Greens have social policies, they can enunciate their beliefs, and they do seem to embrace different voices within the ranks without acrimonious fallouts and the public spectacles they engender. In a nutshell, their structure is more modern and more flexible.

The Greens would make an eco-friendly New Zealand as a cornerstone of both looking after its people and economic gain. It’s a clear, laudable, achievable and easy-to-understand platform with lots to like.

There’s nothing at all like this coming from Labour. (And if there is, as I’ve said before, why don’t we know about it? The election is just a few months away.)

Ok, second criticism. Here’s how to sort the country out, from an uneducated commentator. I can’t believe Labour, with its specialists, economists, unionists, business leaders etc, can’t make these work or come up with even better solutions – but we have yet to see any real evidence of this. So here you go:

1/ Use Christchurch. It needs rebuilding. New Zealand did it with Napier in 1932, and the whole country got behind it. Rebuilding Christchurch rebuilds New Zealand. It gives us something to believe in, it gives us something to be proud of, it gives us work and sacrifice for a good cause and it internalises the economy to an extent. Plus it’s something that desperately needs doing, and doing properly. Everyone likes a rebirth story. This is ours. Labour should be taking the lead, unlike National’s Minister for Disaster.

2/ Tell everyone right now that you’ll tax the rich more. You’ll lose a few rich voters. You’ll gain back a lot – a lot! – of poorer voters. You want the Maori vote back? You want the working class suburbs back? Announce it.

The rich don’t need tax breaks, and they’re doing sweet fa for the country anyway. Besides, they vote National and worse. Make a stand, nail your colours to the mast and get over it. People out here on the street don’t care one jot for the wealthy you’re trying to placate. Many of the middle classes know they didn’t need that last tax break – they’re looking for direction from the Left and they’re not getting it. They, too, need something to believe in. Their taxes will go up for the good of Christchurch, the economy and the country. Big cheer.

3/ Capital Gains Tax. We all know we need this to rein in house prices. We all know owning three properties is bad for the country and stops people getting into houses, keeping the prices high for speculators. But Labour’s too scared. What, Labour, you’re going to lose voters? What voters? Look at the polls, for goodness sake. Make a stand. It’s easy to convince everyone that a Capitol Gains Tax is needed, because it is clear that it is needed. Have the balls to campaign on it. In the long run, it’s a winner. Take the stand of righteousness.

4/ Point out all the crap National has foisted on us. Many still don’t know. Examples are legion. Go for the jugular. Set an attack dog like Mallard onto it – but this only works if you do the above at the same time. One doesn’t work without the other.

5/ Finally, this has been unsaid until now, so I’ll say it: Patriotism. We want something to believe in, something to brag about when we’re overseas. Like we did when we stood up to America’s nuclear ships. Like when we were the first country in the world to give women the vote. The first with a proper welfare system.

Some New Zealanders lament the lack of patriotism we show, and that’s because we’re ashamed of what we have done to our own country, and of the fact we let wankers like John Key, Gerry Brownlee, Bill English and even Rodney Hide walk all over us. We deserve this shame. We’ve been stupid patsies.

It’s time for a change, because these figureheads are not good New Zealanders. They’re obsessed with money and personal power and they don’t care about the general population except as a cash cow.

It’s time to displace this regime. Prove them wrong.

That’s my two cents worth. It’s hardly rocket science, and plenty of people have said it before me, so I honestly don’t get why Labour is still faffing about.

And if you don’t like commenting and want to talk to me personally, email my alias: [email protected] (no, it’s not my real name).

Category Commentary, Government, Left, New Zealand, Pacific, Politics, Thought | Tags: Maori | No Comments
Lefter 36 ~ here we go, here we go, here we go …

April 13, 2011 by emweb

Here we go to nowhere.

I wrote it months ago, and I feel I must write it again: If Goff was a clever man, he would have set up a succession plan and enacted it. Instead he’s continued with his delusion that he’s Prime Minister material, and unfortunately the party has gone along with this. At least in public – it’s quite possible that the angry pronouncements from first Chris Carter, then from Damian O’Connor are the tip of an iceberg. (It’s ironic that Carter would have been part of O’Connor’s ‘gaggle of gays’.)

And that’s just two men who succumbed to rage after getting their noses out of joint. There are many Labour incumbents who are much better at keeping their heads down. Having had lots of practice.

Much more troubling is that one of Labour’s top financial advisors announced Labour was in trouble, and also laying the problem at Goff’s door.

This, if nothing else, should have galvanised the party but instead, it seems to have made the internal blocs into even more isolated silos struggling to maintain their nebulous positions in a Labour Party that, to all intents and purposes, is dissolving into an amorphous blob.

But this stupidity has continued for so long, Labour has pretty much guaranteed that a party that has reneged on every single promise it has made can nevertheless easily coast back into power. (Yes, that’s National.) Labour had a platform in February, but let it go …. ensuring that from now, National literally needs do nothing to stay in power. It doesn’t need policies, it doesn’t need to make progress, and it doesn’t need to stop cutting benefits while pumping money into financial disasters, even despite the fact some are clearly of its own making.

Because financial disasters are presided over by New Zealanders National does understand. Rich white people.

For it’s plain to see: National will put money after money, but keep cutting it for the poor and workers while making their lives harder in every way possible: instant dismissals, tougher sick leave and growing constraints on opportunity and education.

The stupidity of all this is mind boggling. It’s what you’d expect from a Third World country – but hey, that’s what we’re rapidly becoming. It’s so obvious that New Zealand is failing that our Finance Minister is even touting NZ’s low wages as if it’s a good point; a feature that’s making us competitive. This is ignoring the fact National promised to solve the wage gap (now 30%) with Australia.

Hah.

There is more than one stupidity at work, of course. While Goff flounders from one unseemly crisis to the next, looking ever more ineffectual, the New Zealand public still thinks Key is doing a good job. This is stupid because he patently is not. Yet just because he shows up on TV every five minutes, grinning his imbecilic grin and mangling his way through even the most innocuous of sentences, the New Zealand public still thinks he’s a good guy.

Good Lord!

Either way, I have no faith in either of them. I never had any in Key, but I did hope Goff had some vision. He clearly, by this juncture, does not. He also appears to listen to, then enact, only the most execrable advice.

Meanwhile, his party faffs about, lacking the cohesion to do anything, lacking the gumption to put an alternative forward, and now having left it far too late anyway.

This is a gift – to National, which does not need gifts.

Now National can literally forget Labour while it concentrates on the dissolution of the Maori Party and Act, thinking this will lead to National having a clear majority after the next election.

Meanwhile, Labour presides over its own shabby and unseemly public decline.

Fellow citizens, when National gets its second term, you will see what damage an unfettered National Party can really do.

For believe me, National has evil plans for you aplenty.

Meanwhile, we simply don’t have a left wing party.

Category Commentary, Government, Left, New Zealand, Pacific, Politics, Thought | Tags: | 1 Comment
Lefter 35 ~ cuts that hurt

March 3, 2011 by emweb

Was anyone else embarrassed when John Key went on international TV asking for donations for the Christchurch quake? New Zealand is still one of the wealthier countries in the world, despite National’s mismanagement. We should not need any help. (Michelle A’Court raised this issue at a Grey Lynn Locally Left this week – good point.)

Everyone’s trying to find money to send to Christchurch. How far do you think NZ$6,800,000 or more would go to help the Christchurch quake disaster? A fair way, I hazard to guess. A good drop in the massive bucket required.

Oh, but wait – that’s the amount the National government just blew on 34 luxury, exclusive BMWs we don’t, in any conscience and for any reason, need.

But wait – Key is a ‘money expert’, right? This is why people feel safe with him at the helm, merrily squandering the nation’s revenue to please his cronies. This must have been a very wise business decision … yeah, right. Finger on the pulse Mr Key said: “I can’t take responsibility for a contract that was entered into by the previous Labour Government, that wasn’t bought to my attention or to my ministers attention”.

Key said “Internal Affairs did understand sensitivities about spending but felt they got a good deal.”

Demonstrably.

Do you feel sick? You should.

Meanwhile, it looks like this government is borrowing $1.5 billion a year to pay for the tax cuts that it put in place a few months ago.

Tax cuts for the rich.

Christchurch’s citizens can get $50 flights out to other NZ centres, and some arrive with just a few clothes. The Canterbury rich, meanwhile, are probably buggering off to Hawaii instead, thanks to their tax breaks. Tax that a prudent government would be collecting for … you know, acts of God and that. Like the Christchurch quake.

Stuff reported that a Treasury spokesman said new tax forecasts had yet to be finalised; “However, the loss of revenue could be in the order of $5 billion over the next four years,” he said.

This is mind bogglingly stupid by anyone’s reasoning.

Meanwhile, Key is trying to spread the responsibility, instead of making the hard choice of deleting those ill-advised tax cuts. He is considering involving other political parties in decisions about Christchurch as well as locals and the city council.

The decision should be: get rid of this farcical government!

His excuse is “I don’t think this is a political event, I think it’s actually a national event and we need to reflect that.”

I reflect that a prudent government would have had a surplus and wouldn’t need to go cap in hand to the world like Haiti (understandably) had to.

The richest New Zealanders have had three rounds of income tax cuts in two years. Meanwhile, the minimum wage got an insultingly tiny boost, welfare cuts are hurting, preschool care has been cut, and we’re all paying more for food, services (OK, everything) with the GST hike.

And we wonder why people in Christchurch are looting.

Category Commentary, Government, Left, New Zealand, Pacific, Politics, Thought | Tags: | 1 Comment
Lefter 34 ~ Where’s the plan?

March 1, 2011 by emweb

The New Zealand left is crying out for a left wing party. A ‘NZ left wing’ might (however sadly) be a minority that’s no longer deemed worth courting, but the fact is, so-called ‘ordinary New Zealanders’ (who you might also characterise as ‘swing voters’) are crying out for a simple message they can believe in. A stance that’s easy to understand.

They’re getting nothing like this fromNational, although even the most myopic must be starting to perceive the harm Key’s party is doing to poorer New Zealanders.

Labour so far presents nothing like a clear statement either, though. If anything, at the moment it’s ‘National Lite’. National calls the shots, Labour reacts. Weakly. This is how Labour lost the last election, too.

And that should hurt. It hurts me.

Do I need to remind everyone that Labour was originally a left wing party that sought to protect and nurture workers in a world-beating, then much emulated, welfare state?

That New Zealand emerged from The Great Depression and then World War Two with considerable wealth and enviable lifestyles for the masses … thanks to Labour?

Does anyone think that’s what Labour is capable of now? Or even anything like it?

No. Actually, as I keep saying, we’re not even sure where Labour stands in the scheme of New Zealand things except as opposition to National.

This is not satisfactory. Not even remotely.

This is what I want – and I’m sure this is shared by many:

A plan to pull New Zealand out of recession, which could/should be linked to the next, which is —

A plan to rebuild Christchurch that’s good for Canterbury.

(And what’s good for Canterbury is good for New Zealand.)

A clear raft of policies to protect our vulnerable that doesn’t further alienate the middle class – in other words, working New Zealanders need to be able to buy in to it.

That’s much easier tan it sounds – you just make it patriotic

Doesn’t everyone want that?

And if it’s too early, even ghoulish, to talk about what Labour would do with Canterbury to help it rise above this devastating ‘act of God’, can’t Labour at least hint that it’s working on it, for goodness sake?

Simple, really.

Category Commentary, Government, Left, New Zealand, Pacific, Politics, Thought | Tags: | No Comments
Lefter 32 ~ The Right, Honourable MP Harawira

January 20, 2011 by emweb

The right honourable Hone Harawira (‘right’ as in ‘correct’, and honourable above and beyond the call, unlike most New Zealand politicians) was 100% right, telling the truth in the Sunday Star Times (January 17th 2011). I agreed with every single word of ‘Crunch time for Maori grumbles’, and I read it with the hope that the Māori Party would take notice.

And the Māori Party did take notice – completely in the wrong way. Instead of taking what Harawira wrote as a perceptive tract written in good faith, the party took umbrage. Instead of accepting a clear manifesto to improve things, the Māori Party had a hissyfit – albeit one cloaked in ‘due process’, legal advice and its constitution, which seems to have been copy-and-pasted from the Pakeha parties.

So congratulations to the The Māori Party – you have become what you set out to counterbalance. A kow-towing minor party that suppresses dissent in its own party and constituency and which lets emotion rule politics in that time-honoured, petty Kiwi way that also infests our business class while the major parties rule. Key – and worse, Brownlee and co – must be capering with glee. In fact, Key has already been on the radio. Crowing, essentially.

Shame on you, Sharples and Turia, for supporting this ‘disciplinary’ motion. You are stifling dissent just like National and Act – and Labour’s the same, for that matter. In these parties, MPs are supposed to toe the party line whether they agree or not, voting with the majority.

What rubbish! I completely disagree with any structure that insists on obedience against personal better judgement and/or beliefs.

Why? Take it to its extreme, and you get the ‘I was just following orders’ excuse.

Which served the Nazis so well.

I’ve said it before and no doubt I will say it again – the Māori Party made a pact with the devil when it went into league with National. It’s losing its way. As Harawira wrote, between 2005-08 the Māori Party voted 30% with National and 70% against. In the period 2008-10, the Māori Party voted 60% with National and 40% against.

What does that tell you?

It’s quite possible the same criticisms would have come to have been levelled if the Māori Party had gone into league with Labour – and I would have been as critical. But the Māori Party and Labour would clearly have been a more natural fit, despite the stupid Foreshore and Seabed legislation.

But pettiness and small-minded stupidity ruled this out, too. (Probably, to be fair, this was on both sides.)

Even so, I am gobsmacked that Pita Sharples has descended to this level. I used to respect him.

Good on you, honourable Mr Harawira. You enjoy strong support in your own electorate and you totally deserve it. If you go out on your own, I hope you continue to enjoy strong support – but this is all helping in the dissolution of current Māori aims.

Shame!

Harawira has exposed his colleagues for what they have become, to the detriment of New Zealand.

Lackeys.

Category Commentary, Government, Left, New Zealand, Pacific, Politics, Thought | Tags: Maori | 3 Comments
Lefter 30 ~ Truth and Deconciliation

December 13, 2010 by emweb

Nelson Mandela did an incredibly brave thing in South Africa, launching the Truth and Reconciliation process after taking power.

The theory was that people would fess up to what they had done, giving the victims and their families some closure.

It’s hard to imagine how that worked: “Sorry, I beat your dad to death in a prison cell.”

The incredible part was that this was supposed to lead to some kind of reconciliation.

The very prospect that the truth – often incredibly unsavoury in that South African context – could be revealed and then lead, after some process, to any kind of reconciliation is quite an ask.

The idea seems worthy of a Jesus, Buddha, or a Ghandhi. Or Mandela.

Actually, it seems superhuman, if not inhuman – the most direct human responses to finding out what tragedy really happened to your family tends to be, immediately anyway, a thirst for vengeance.

Similar impulses – to confess – have been felt by soldiers. I have heard tearful former Dutch soldiers confessing their atrocities in Indonesia back when it first wanted independence from the Netherlands, and recently Israeli soldier veterans have testified against Israeli army abuses they have witnessed, or even taken part in.

The urge for retribution at learning such truths is such a powerful and obvious impulse that here in New Zealand, we are suitably awed by Christchurch woman Emma Woods.

No matter how hard your heart, you have to admire a woman who can spend any time whatsoever with the person she saw kill her son with an out-of-control car. It’s incredibly brave and I can’t begin to claim I would, or could, emulate this.

But boy, do I admire her. If even just ten per cent of humans were like Emma, I’m sure our past would not be so riven by conflict.

But I fear the percentage is under one per cent. Oh wait, Christians believe in forgiveness? Yeah, right.

The Wikileaks phenomenon is something else again. As it turns out (and really, we have been aware of this for a long time), there is much hidden as a matter of course by so-called ‘liberal, enlightened and democratic’ states. Concealed from you and me in the name of so-called ‘public interest’, making it pretty damn clear that we don’t actually live in states democratic enough to let the public make reasonable choices. How can we, with so much wool pulled over our eyes?

But that’s the intention. If we knew what they really did, we wouldn’t so vapidly vote them in.

And it’s clear they don’t trust us.

Which further begs the question – how can we vote a decent government in? They obviously don’t trust us with any real information. They don’t trust us to handle the information. For good reason – the information proves they are amoral and corrupt. We obviously are allowed to know very little about our governments, and/or their actual machinations.

For example, and admitting this is piddling by comparison to revelations from other countries, it has been revealed that New Zealand’s secret services renewed full contacts with US intelligence counterparts last year.

You may be forgiven for the reaction ‘so what?’.

Yet this was facile fact was deemed too sensitive for us to know – even Hilary Clinton was advised not to mention it.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the leaks also revealed our prime minister is a big fan of the US. Personally – he has been too careful to allow this (until this embarrassment) fact out into the public domain in case he get tarred with the ‘bend over and let ’em in’ Don Brash brush.

To my mind, Key isn’t that US-centric – he’s just a big fan of any established power and money and would fawn all over them alike.

Oh, that is ‘the Don Brash brush’?

On TVNZ, Key said “Going out there and saying we’ve resumed that level of exchange of information would then invite a whole lot of other questions which we are not in a position to answer.”

Which sounds like a clear invitation, to me. What questions and what answers, John?

This fawning excuse for a government has reaffirmed strong ties with a country which is so habitually and historically secretive, it is baying for the blood of a man who worked to reveal colossally and historically widespread lies and deceptions perpetrated by that government.

Even in the US, where the death penalty still exists in many places, they don’t kill people for burst condoms. Do they? (Perhaps Assange should be suing Durex?)

But Americans have plenty of other reasons, both real and imagined, like a global bunch of ignorant yokels – a Tea Party lynch mob is whipping itself into a frenzy.

Historically? Yes. Here’s just one instance: “Declassified CIA files have revealed that US intelligence officials went to great lengths to protect a Ukrainian fascist leader and suspected Nazi collaborator from prosecution after the Second World War and used him to stir up trouble inside the Soviet Union from an office in New York.”

This disgusts me profoundly. And I’m not defending the Soviet Union here – I certainly thing the Soviets were worse than the Americans. But I am still revolted by so much that “The land of the free …” actually stands for.

Behind the scenes, anyway.

So, I ask you: how are we supposed to reconcile to the fact, plain and simple, that John Key’s government does not trust us?

I am dissuaded from doing so.

I am deconciled.

Put that in lights. Merry Christmas.

Category Commentary, Government, Left, New Zealand, Pacific, Politics, Religion, Thought | Tags: | No Comments
Lefter #26 ~ The Cook Islands

May 14, 2010 by emweb

Post colonial, or colonial post?

Atutaki is a picture-perfect, beautiful atoll not far from Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. It’s part of the Cook Islands Group. The Cook Islands became a British ‘protectorate’ in 1888, at chiefly request out of fear of an armed French takeover (which had happened already to Tahiti) and this was accepted, but in 1900, Britain transferred administrative control to New Zealand.

In 1965, Cooks Islands’ residents chose self-government ‘in free association with New Zealand’.

But what does this mean?

The Cook Islands’ comprises fifteen islands spread over a considerable area of the South Pacific ocean. Somewhat oddly, since it’s not the closest of South Pacific islands to New Zealand, most Cook Islanders speak ‘Cook Islands’ Maori’, a language that sounds a lot like Maori, and in fact the two languages are mutually intelligible. They also speak excellent English.

Most of the Cook Islands are low coral atolls – a couple are either very sparsely inhabited or not inhabited at all – but Rarotonga in the Southern Group is a large, volcanic island and it’s the main administrative centre. It also has by far the largest amount of Cook Islands-based Cook Islanders on it: about 14-15,000.

About 75,000 Cook Islanders live elsewhere, most of them here – Cook Islanders have NZ passports. So apart from plundering their able workforce, New Zealand’s primary responsibility to the Cooks seems to be as a tourist destination and aid recipient.

And we’re supposed to defend the Cook Islands on request.

Rarotonga is bizarre in that it’s a big, hot, tropical, exotic-looking, island populated by people speaking great English. NZ institutions like banks work, and look, just as they do here. Indeed the currency is NZ with some additional, and distinctive, denominations and coins.

There are two public buses on Rarotonga and they just circle the island in different directions. I kid you not, they are actually signed ‘Clockwise’ and ‘Anticlockwise’ just in case you get confused.

It’s also weird in that there are abandoned and semi-collapsed buildings all over the place. Some tumble-down houses are actually still occupied by people who appear to be living in abject poverty (accept that delicious food grows pretty much unbidden, and all over the place). But you also see gracious and even grandiose homes that somehow look, somewhat unfortunately, like plantation owners’ homes – although I have no idea of their actual provenance.

There are other jarring sights – the massive Ministry of Justice, recently completed, is a lavish building that looks entirely out of place in the little (and main) town of Avarua on Rarotonga. It looks even more ridiculous when you find the prison – its fenced with four strands of barbed wire a nine-year-old could get through and indeed, someone told me the prisoners go home on weekends anyway, as the guards like to have the weekends off! (I don’t know if this is true.)

So why the massive, lavish new Ministry of Justice, exactly?

Take a short flight to Aitutaki (population about 2000) and you realise that the paradise that is Rarotonga was just an introduction, although Aututaki is very touristy and resorty. But Aututaki got hit badly by a powerful cyclone earlier in 2010, with gusts of up to 100 knots flattening buildings and trees.

In April, National MP Murray McCully flew to the Cooks ostensibly to inspect Aitutaki. New Zealand had pledged $5.5 million in cyclone recovery aid which was slow to be deployed. The visit coincided with a joint ministerial forum that was supposed to bring the Cooks government and NZ’s closer – the Cooks have been increasingly independent in foreign policy over the last decade or so. However, this forum was postponed or cancelled – for reasons unclear – just before the visit.

Meanwhile, Aitutaki mayor Tai Herman was being criticised in the CI News for releasing ‘aid’ money to people to work on their houses. Great, accept these people were friends and family of Herman’s (or potential voters) whose houses had either not been damaged, or were only lightly damaged, while badly damaged houses were sitting untouched.

Cook Islands officials expressed concern that the aid should be distributed to those who need it, but McCully stated he wasn’t there to meddle in Cook Islands’ politics.

So why was he there? Was his trip funded by part of that aid? How much did it cost?

It can easily look as if the Cooks has been treated as personal fiefdom by proxy for some NZ officials, who don’t seem to take any sort of hand with the Cooks’ notoriously troublesome governance – there have been scandals and crises galore over the last three or four decades, under the watch of several NZ governments in succession, including, of course, Labour.

After his visit to the stricken atoll, McCully was reported in the Cook Islands News as having enjoyed his visit. He said had been to the Cooks several times before. He said “We hope that you feel fortunate to be New Zealand citizens”!

He concluded an article in the Cook Islands News (April 9th, page 7) “This is a fantastic place – I say that officially and unofficially. Unofficially it is spoken for by my frequent personal visits which will only become more frequent as the ungrateful public of New Zealand tire of my services at some future point. I just want to say it’s great to be here.”

Well, better to get the government to pay for your holidays under the guise of official business, hey Murray? As it’s easy to imagine that February is simply too hot for visits – tourists avoid the Cooks in February. April is much nicer.

The Cook Islands are absolutely gorgeous, despite the fatuously cliché ‘Pacific’ resorts that have parasitically invested the nicest beaches.

The Cooks Islanders seem unfailingly polite and knowledgeable. The food is incredible, the swimming is unbelievable … But New Zealand’s official attitude to the Cooks makes me really uncomfortable. I can’t fathom it.

I fear New Zealand is doing Cook Islanders a disservice.

But I may be wrong.

Category Commentary, Left, New Zealand, Pacific, Politics, Thought | Tags: | No Comments

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