Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, July 13th, 2010 - 122 comments
Categories: accountability, activism, Conservation, john key, national, spin -
Tags: murray mccully, Pete Bethune
New Zealand hero Pete Bethune isn’t one for mincing his words – now that he’s free to speak them. He’s described the New Zealand Government as a “fat little lapdog” to Japan, eager to roll over and submit to the bullying of any power, no matter how unprincipled its actions, just as long as there’s a promise of a bone somewhere down the track. Bethune also said “I remain disgusted with the way Murray McCully has treated us from day one” in reference to McCully’s initial statements after the Shonan Maru II’s attack on the Ady Gil that implied people who protest deserve everything they get (attempted murder included) and that acts of attempted murder against New Zealand citizens and NZ flagged vessels were no responsibility of the NZ government.
If you’ve been following this story at all, there’s really nothing controversial in Bethune’s summary of the New Zealand Government’s performance. It has been an unmitigated, irresponsible, slovenly disgrace.
Which is why John Key has attempted to spin his way out of the mess. After all when the truth is against you, spin is the last resort in a country where you can’t just lock-up your detractors. So Key has described Bethune as “darnright ungrateful” (which our media have kindly re-interpreted as “downright ungrateful”), saying very carefully that NZ’s Japanese embassy staff have done everything they could for Bethune. I’m sure it’s true that embassy staff did what they could, but it’s not the point.
The point was, and where Bethune’s disgust is aimed, is not anything to do with the embassy staff. It’s to do with both the utterly spineless way the NZ Government has sought to appease Japan with pro-whaling proposals, and the manner in which Key and Co had abandoned one of its own citizens, a citizen risking his life to stand-up for a principle against powerful financial interests and turned a blind eye to the completely bogus nature of the Japanese arrest.
Key knows his Government’s actions were an indefensible disgrace, which is why he’s so desperate to switch and bait with the “darnright ungrateful” meme.
And really, what should Bethune be grateful to the NZ government for! Being attacked and slandered by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, for being sold out in favour of corporate trade interests, or should he be grateful for being abandoned to false imprisonment for trying to hold an attempted murderer to account?
Good on you Pete for speaking the unvarnished truth - you’re one of the few people in this country at the moment who commands airtime and has the balls to speak the truth. The current Government’s cowardice a disgrace to the proud history of New Zealanders who have risked life and limb to protest against injustice (anti nukes, women’s suffrage and anti apartheid no name just a few), and allowing an imperial power like Japan to roam the oceans doing whatever it likes is just plain dangerous.
Time the lapdogs were sent for a run.
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>>we are getting a certain type of person in the ruling classes who have forgotten what they came from
I suspect you may be correct. I also know many aren’t intelligent, empathetic, or connected with New Zealanders. How can that be changed, do you think?
I don’t think Key falls into that definition.
A loan? It depends on the quality of your proposal, Sir
I think Roosevelt said it best .
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat
Pete – joking about the loan – but thanks for the intro though!
How do you change people? – god i dont know – i thought i did – but it gets worse as time goes by (exacerbated by me growing older and grumpier).
I think M J Savage or someone said once “mean streets breed even meaner people” – just having economic interventions and economically driven interventions is a bit like balancing a chequebook for a group of drug addicts.
I believe in a distribution of wealth – not by giving what isnt earned or deserved – but by making opportunity available. Pete – it isnt fair and equitable at the moment. Society needs a safety net for those who arent able to aspire for a lot of reasons … the quality of a nation often rests on how it treats its less able i think.
Great Wealth (seems) to generate a distance – a marie antoinette syndrome … “let them eat cake” and as we know – she lost her head over that miscalculation. Goodness and kindness have to have some place in government and beauracracy.
Honestly Pete – i think that a series of targetted pre-advertised non political referenda would help for a start, on key issues – then social and fiscal policy could be drafted around that. Im a political babe in the woods – i just know that things arent right at present – and we are chasing the next big “hit” like a problem gambler without any clear strategy.
Thats my twopence worth.
Life isn’t fair or equitable.
Rather than seek such an unattainable utopia, I feel we should focus on a safety net, and giving everyone a reasonable opportunity to better their lives. If forced redistribution of wealth achieved utopia, we would have done it, but it doesn’t. Some people squander time, money and resources. It matters not if they are rich, poor or somewhere in the middle.
I don’t subscribe to the idea that great wealth creates a distance. A distance can happen for any number of reasons, and it’s usually to do with how engaged one is with their community. For example, many people who are on the dole are distanced from society because they are not engaged in the lives of others on a daily basis.
I would like to see more emphasis on civics in education. I think everything starts with engagement and a sense of belonging. I also think rights should be coupled to responsibilities.
Things may not be right – they never are – but they could be a lot worse. We do many things well enough.
My two cents.
“I feel we should focus on a safety net, and giving everyone a reasonable opportunity to better their lives. If forced redistribution of wealth achieved utopia, we would have done it, but it doesn’t”
Things were different back then but 1960′s NZ seems like utopia when you compare it to today. I respect you being a self made man and all but that also gives you the responsibility of making sure that those same opportunities are there for future generations and thats where some people need to be forced to redistribute (its an ugly term, i know).
The rate this country is going I think mine will be the last generation that will have even the slightest hint of equal opportunity. My thanks for the reasonably subsidised university education, I have a good job and I hope one day I can contribute to someone elses education as much as you have.
With all due respect to this idea of ‘redistribution’…important though it is, it’s only important within certain parameters of understanding… very narrow and merely contemporary parameters of understanding at that.
Linking back to here, the point might be that GDP drops through the cellar floor and the severe market contraction sees the market disappear up its own arse…while we; people…. and all teh irrelevancy that we are, wind up being…well, better off.
No redistribution necessary. Just smash the market place…or render it obsolete.
Pete, although I agree with many of your points with regards to this: “If forced redistribution of wealth achieved utopia, we would have done it, but it doesn’t.” consider for a moment –
1) This redistribution is currently happening, and has been happening seriously in NZ for about 25 years.
2) The direction of this redistribution is not from the wealthy to the less wealthy.
3) One reason we have not implemented a forced redistribution from the wealthy to the less wealthy is that the wealthy hold the levers of power and (naturally) are not in favour of such a strategy.
Pete – i think my post needs to be read more carefully. Among many things too numerous to mention … i didnt talk about a re-distribution of wealth – i carefully used the term distribution for instance.
I have to be honest and admit that i dont actually follow much of the line of your reasoning in your post Pete – but i will re-read later on and see what happens!
I dont think what i suggest is an unattainable utopia …. i just dont see that its ever been tried out properly.
Great Wealth and distance – i think the disadvantaged are very engaged with their community – a lot of the middle class who arguably form the ‘economic engine’ of this country are not only engaged with their community – but are fast becoming the new “poor”. Its not evident – but if you worked for a trading bank and looked at the credit card bills you might change your mind.
The real unattainable utopia Pete – is the new rightwing, freemarket promise of shangri la that the high priests of economic freedom promised – the scripture of this faith is found in the credit cards and credit positions of average Kiwi households. The Baal many bowed down to – is now the god exacting many peoples very life blood. It is a house of cards waiting to tumble.
Loota is right in his post … my belief is that for currency (of any sort) to have value – it must circulate and bring its benefit on a broad basis. Prosperity in degrees at all levels of society has an effect that is wholly positive and requires a change in mindset.
China will face this – and i predict that it will lead to civil unrest and instability.
The unfortunate thing is any safety net isnt for the lowest rung of society any more … its up round the middle class region – much like an elderly man having to hoist his trousers up to cope with a thinning and wizening figure and waistline. And that middle class line includes people on reasonable incomes – with kids.
Great wealth does cause a distance Pete – and playing the cosmic chess game of government down in Wellington in airconditioned offices or jetsetting around the globe causes a distance. But for the average joe and josephine in a modest home, kids needing shoes, car needs servicing, odour of cheap cooking oil permeating the kitchen – power bills through the roof … its a long way removed from the Mandarins that govern them and also judge them.
Keys comments only add further to his ‘historical’ resume of lies, deciepts, half truths and blatent deceptions since his entry into public life. He clearly has no concept of history or how it will judge him.
And yes – life isnt fair or equitable – but thats what Government is there for. It is almost an obscenity when the very rich and powerful – some of whom became so because they may have been in the right place at the right time – not through being any smarter etc …. make such statements (that is not directed at you Pete) – as if the rest of the populace are somehow lacking the goods to make it to the extent of themselves.
“what ho my lord” to quote edmund blackadder …. the archetypal disdainful self seeking aristocrat!
If the New Zealand and Australian governments actually did what they are in fact, legally permitted to do, under the IWC Whaling Moratorium – by seizing vessels that are in breach*, then Pete Bethune and Sea Shepherd would not have to act.
*Vessels whose [whalemeat] cargo ultimately ends up for non-scientific purposes.
Japan cannot afford to threaten a trade war, as it will ultimately lose. Over 80% of its trading is with countries opposed to whaling, whereas only a much smaller percentage of our (and Australia’s) trade is with Japan – however fall out from a trade war is always mutually harmful. Having said that we should not be indulging Japan’s lunatic neo-fascist fringe by continuing with the policy of “appeasemeat“.
It’s true : New Zealand is a “fat little lap dog” sniffing around the feet of the economic giant Japan. We are a willing vassal state to the US-Japan economic, military security alliance. Some weeks ago I saw a photo in the Dom Post of 4 Warships exercising together : 2 were Japanese, 1 was US and the 4th? an NZ Frigate! If another World war breaks out Kiwis may well be fighting shoulder to shoulder with Japanese and US allies!! But as respected allies we should be in a much more stronger position to be the tail that wags the dog! We must and should call the Japanese to account for the criminal sinking of the Ady Gil and their treaty breaking violations of the protected Antarctic by commercial whaling.
Nowadays people look down on real people of principle and action, that’s a measure of our corruption to comfort and money, Peter Bethune is a real hero, that so many disagree shows our subservient mind set is deeply ingrained. we are already occupied by foreign powers mainly financial, How much of this country do Kiwis still own? We also sucked on the Privatization, Corporatization rubbish that’s come from the failed state of the US. We have plenty of pollys here ready to continue selling us out.
NZ should join Sea Shepherd and make it plain any Whalers down here are not welcome.
John Key is a marketing dream, but a very dangerous man he will continue to sell us out until this country is nothing more than outpost of asia and Us interests. Is that want you want?
Thinking of belief in standards and pride among people for their high levels of achievement and standards, I am just reading an old book about the Hungarian uprising against the Russion invaders by James Michener. The group of young men, mostly, who took on the Russians came together spontaneously fired by the ideal of their country and its lack of freedom and fairness under this foreign invasion. I have just read how they defended also attacked Russian tanks using petrol b…..s. Won’t use the word, it might be picked up by those keeping a watching brief over our technological correspondence. Bravely the Hungarian boys got close enough to the tanks to drop the items into the only vulnerable points. They were fired on by their own Russian-paid guards as well as tanks.. I’m reading on in fascination.
A lot of NZ people can’t think beyond the contents of the sunday magazines, the latest clothes, cars, technological devices, decor, holidays, gardens, titillating story of celebrity, self-survival eco-living, money juggling, and the latest story spiced with pleasurable disdain about the underclass, for superiority and a touch of the grotesque.
Also shouldn’t forget, the tipple to be promoted along with the fine food and not forgetting the personal appearance industry, cosmetics and hair and pouting models on display. A little about the creative world and what fine minds are trying to achieve in abstract form.