Historical materialism is a way of understanding how societies grow and change, and has been very influential amongst social scientists for a century and a half. Although the theory was invented by Karl Marx, it is nowadays used in modified forms by many non-Marxist anthropologists, archaeologists, economists, and sociologists studying Pacific societies, and has been the theme of famous books like Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel. But can historical materialism really make sense of the Pacific’s past and present, or do societies like Papua New Guinea and Tonga show the limitations of the theory? http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2016/06/can-historical-materialism-explain.html
As I understand it…if I look at where I am today, then I can look at yesterday and the day before to explain how I find myself where I am today. And it will appear inevitable – or deterministic – that I am exactly where I am today.
I could them extrapolate from that and predict where I’ll be tomorrow.
And it’s all nonsense that denies the existence of free will, while dangerously elevating notions of inevitability.
Put another way using a far more simple set of circumstances. If I drop a tumbler, I don’t know for certain whether it will break or not. If after I’ve dropped it and it’s smashed into pieces, I then analyse and ‘backtrack’ all the various broken pieces through time and space, I may can claim it was inevitable – given that I’ve somehow been able to record most of the physics involved in the breaking – that all the pieces would wind up exactly where they are now.
As a claim to knowledge goes, it’s a dangerous illusion. It’s merely a description of what has happened. The truthful, and somewhat banal claim would be that, given this is the situation, then this is the situation…there would be no claim of there being a deterministic past or inevitable future attached to it.
To relate it to human history and anthropology – when we’re looking at all of those yesterdays or other cultures, we’re inevitably looking through the very specific lens of today that we possess. That distorts and shapes our understandings or perceptions.
If you like your PoMoGeo, try David Harvey. He has gone through multiple emplaced examples of structural change. Also Mike Davis – his weird stuff on climate change and its determinisms already past is particularly fresh.
But if you want a real head-stretch, try Amy Allen’s new book that came out a couple of months ago called The End of Progress. She still has those big theoretical engines from Habermas, Honneth and Forst gearing their tractor engines for the haul (i.e. good hard Frankfurt School thinkers defending the idea of progress and of long waves of order and disorder), but dispenses with a progressive reading of history, while retaining the notion of progress as a political imperative. It’s getting to a core of social impulse beyond ‘can things improve’, to ‘must things improve’?
Another day in John Key’s neo-liberal nightmare.
We have become a cruel, greedy, uncaring and selfish nation under his wretched leadership.
Price rises make housing unaffordable for many New Zealanders.
‘Nine of the top ten areas of growth are in Auckland – hardly surprising judging from valuation service QV data which said average Auckland house prices in March were nearly 17 per cent higher than a year ago.
With a price increase of 33.88 per cent Manurewa had the largest growth in the year leading up to June 2016, followed by Pukekohe and Papakura.’
A Friday news dump that shouldn’t be forgotten about by the start of next week:
A contorversial public private partnership (PPP) will be considered for the Dunedin Hospital redevelopment, documents show… When contacted, the ministry said consideration of a PPP was standard practice in hospital redevelopments.
PPPs are opposed by the senior doctors’ union, the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, partly because of how they have performed in the United Kingdom.
ASMS executive director Ian Powell said PPPs had a “track record of failure”…
Mr Powell said it appeared consultants were doing rather well out of the redevelopment.
A consulting firm has been busy at the board for several months writing a “strategic assessment” and a “strategic service plan”.
Former health board member and ASMS spokesman John Chambers said PPPs appeared attractive but made no financial sense…
A person familiar with the process of developing business cases for large projects said the lack of public visibility around the project was unusual…
There were unanswered questions about what would be provided in Dunedin, the role of Southland Hospital, of rural hospitals, and whether more services would be provided in Christchurch.
“Clearly, there’s a plan. Why don’t they tell us what the plan is?”
I’ve quoted quite enough of the article as it is, but do read the original. The Blair quote in the final paragraph of Goodwin’s piece is a truly impenetrable piece of bureaucratic obfuscation. I just re-watched Brazil the other night and the similarity with the Ministry of Information is uncanny.
[You posted the same comment yesterday, Adrian and got a few thoughtful responses. However, cut, paste and repeat is not a formula that is welcome here. Original comments are the go at TS, so either develop the argument or move on. TRP]
Yes that is pretty much what Mike Williams ends up doing most weeks.
In fact the other week K Ryan pretty much ended up debating Hooton and Williams, it was painful to listen to.
RNZ have to get rid of him ASAP, people should email Nine to Noon on RNZ and tell them Williams doesn’t cut it.
Yes well I thought that it is such an important issue to have a decent voice on the Left on Monday mornings RNZ show, and not Mike Williams insipid lackluster position, that you might well allow it to have another go.
As ‘The voice from the Right and the Left’ on RNZ is the only main stream media airing of this type of discourse left, I thought it vital we have someone who actually holds our views, and not Williams who actually endorses English’s social/health spending principles, endorses Serco etc.
Maybe you could run an actual story on this topic, and really get the conversation going?
There’d be no problem if RNZ called it “From the far right and from the extreme far right”. Hang on, that mightn’t work, either, because Williams would still “agree with Matthew”. Fuck, this is a tough one.
The only good thing about having Williams on, is that he is so useless, that he lets Hooton have plenty of time for some real raves, and generally the more Hooton talks, the crazier he starts to sound.
“Britain’s cutting edge, £1 billion warships are breaking down in the Persian Gulf because their engines malfunction in the heat.
Contractors claim the Ministry of Defence did not tell them the 8,000-tonne, Type 45 Destroyer would spend significant amounts of time in warm water, the Daily Mail reported.
The engines of the six vessels have stalled in the middle of the ocean, leaving crews plunged into darkness for hours at a time.”
Pretty big fuck up on both counts. This is why I don’t believe tech is coming to save us. It’s not just tech and how it works theoretically, it’s tech and how it operates in the real world including human systems like defense contracts.
There’s little to no point in arguing with you about it as you’ll hold on to your wrong beliefs rather take on the fact that this isn’t a case of tech failing but of purposeful under-engineering.
Dude, go reread my comment. I already know that it wasn’t a tech fail, that it was a human fail. That was my point.
Which just reinforces that you have no idea what my beliefs are, you haven’t been paying attention, and instead have been projecting your own shit onto my comments like you did just now.
Just taking the first link only (because if you can’t be bothered specifying what you actually mean why should I bother opening the others?).
Incog was asking why medical authorities shouldn’t be trusted (in response to something CV had said). This was in the context of a thread about vaccination.
I gave the following explanation, which is a generalisation of why so many people don’t trust science and that there are valid reasons for that distrust. And that for many people who choose not to vaccinate it’s based on experience. I was describing a social phenomena. How is that me hating technology?
Trust has to be earned. While medical science has done many good things it has also done a lot of damage and isn’t in great shape at the moment in terms of trustworthiness. This is a very large part of the culture of people who choose to not vaccinate. It’s not an ignorant rebellion as some like to frame it, it’s based on real experience of people having their health and lives damaged. Until those people can be part of the conversation and have their concerns worked on there will always be the mistrust and the divide.
draco those cites are not cites for what you said they were cites for and I have followed your links. Obviously if they are your evidence then it is clear that you cannot back up your assertion that weka hates technology. Withdraw and an apology would be in order I think.
“They all come across to me as a hatred of science/technology.”
Yes, that is what I mean by projection. If you can’t demonstrate how my comments are tech-hatred then it is something going on in your own self that is making you think I hate tech.
In the spirit of Matariki and all that offers, I’d like to present the ko. Fashioned from wood and requiring no smelting, importing or energy other than muscular, the ko represents the next step in cultivation technology. The ko is available to anyone with access to a sapling. Well cared for, the ko can last a lifetime and never needs upgrading as it is perfect for the job it does. If your ko breaks from careless use, a new one can be readily made. Manufacture of the ko produces no greenhouse gases, aside from the breath of the ko maker who would be breathing any way, nor is any produced by its destruction. In fact, a redundant ko continues to act as a carbon sink, if placed under the soil. There is no “mark II” ko – the original represents the tool’s ultimate form. That’s appropriate technology for you – difficult to fault and elegant in its simplicity. Mind you, even the ko can be considered redundant when compared with the best cultivator of them all, the daikon seed. But that’s a story for the Japanese New Year.
Then approached the owner of the field, and he showed the digging-party where he wished them to work. The diggers gathered in one corner of the field, and worked diagonally across the planting area. They had a peculiar way of advancing, ko-ing as they went. The ground had previously been prepared by being cleared of all grass and weeds and other growth, and was perfectly clean and bare for the diggers. The Taiporohenui soil did not require much digging, for it was very soft and rich, easily worked.
The ko-men worked across from the corner, gradually extending their front as the field opened out; and all kept time as they worked, moving the handles of the ko to the right and left alternately, as they made the holes for the reception of the seed kumara. They kept time with a choric song while they worked; all the bare backs moved as one man to the rhythm of the ancient chant, the feathers and white aurei adornments of the ko-heads dancing in the sun.
“Ko-ing”
You don’t read that word every day.
Great for those volcanic soils, I imagine, but not so flash in the clay where gypsum is the technology of choice.
JMG has an article which touches on the points you make above and in it there are some real world examples and links.
I could go on. These programs, and many others, were sold to politicians and public with lavish claims about their ability to perform every imaginable military mission. As it turned out, they were well designed to carry out devastating raids on the US Treasury, and that’s about it.
JMG should probably try reading the entire article that he references:
The Navy has an equal embarrassment on its hands right now, the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), another high-tech, high-priced failure. The LCS costs $37 billion a pop
What the article says:
Instead, this $440 million ship can be knocked out of a fight by a single hostile cruise missile.
Of course, even a US super-carrier can be knocked out of the fight by a single hostile cruise missile. That’s what the cruise missile’s designed to do. Our frigates, which are a similar size to the LCS, would also be knocked out of the fight by a single cruise missile strike.
The $37b is the price for all 24 ships.
And the problem isn’t the tech. It’s the profit drive and the corruption that comes with it. JMG actually makes that point but he takes awhile to get around to it and actually seems to miss it himself.
Military procurement should start in the government and end in the government.
“All the most egregious examples of military-procurement failure in recent years have had something in common: they were supposed to be revolutionary new breakthroughs using exciting new technology, and so on drearily through the most overused rhetoric of our age. The cascading failures of the F-35 can be traced straight to that sort of thinking; its designers apparently believed with all their hearts that every innovation must be an improvement, and so came up with a plane that fails in the most innovative ways you care to imagine. The LCS, the SBX, the ECCS, the pixellated camo uniforms, all fell victim to the same trap—their designers were so busy making them revolutionary that they forgot to make them work.”
I’ll highlight the really relevant sentence
“apparently believed with all their hearts that every innovation must be an improvement” – that is the cult of progress… and
“progress has become the enemy of prosperity”
and
“progress, like everything else in the real world, is subject to the law of diminishing returns”
I believe you are still a believer in the role of progress – 🙂
“its designers apparently believed with all their hearts that every innovation must be an improvement”
Two points:
1. Its designers (important words that you missed out) probably weren’t the ones making all the grandiose claims. The people selling the concept were
2. There really isn’t a whole lot of new technology in the F35. Most of it goes back to the 1950/60s. It really is just simple incremental adjustments over time.
“progress has become the enemy of prosperity”
Which is simply a load of bollocks. It’s capitalism that is the enemy of prosperity and always has been throughout recorded history. JMG doesn’t realise that and, apparently, neither do you. JMG is a dedicated capitalist so it’s not surprising that he doesn’t see the damage that capitalism does.
“progress, like everything else in the real world, is subject to the law of diminishing returns”
True, even improved living standards across all of society (my preferred measure of progress) meet such an end but look at how people react to me saying that there should be a maximum income of $100k/year per person and that I think that that may even be far too much.
But that’s not what JMG or you are addressing there. Both of you are addressing technological innovation and solely referring to that as ‘progress’.
How do you see progress without technology? seems to me too many can’t disengage those concepts.
Where is your proof that jmg is a dedicated capitalist – put up or shut up. I’d imagine you are much more entangled in that system and thus supporting it than he is.
2. There really isn’t a whole lot of new technology in the F35. Most of it goes back to the 1950/60s. It really is just simple incremental adjustments over time.
o_0
How can someone as smart as you be as stupid as you?
How much of the F-35 is repairable in a 1960’s equipped hangar? How much of the F-35 is repairable using 1960’s materials and parts?
If you put an airforce pilot from 1960 into the cockpit of the F-35, how far would he be able to fly it?
I’m amazed that they’re even trying that excuse. It’s obviously a case of purposeful under engineering to save costs rather than provide the product as requested.
A warship obviously needs to operate wherever it’s sent.
Bit premature there, Draco – the devil is in as requested. If there weren’t requirements to operate reliably in environmental extremes, then the lowest tender is the one that used lower-rated heat exchangers to cool the engines.
If there isn’t a clause that says, effectively, operate in all theatres then I will be highly surprised. To put it another way, I’d be even more surprised if the spec said operate only in waters around Gt Britain.
So, no, I don’t think that it’s premature. I’m pretty sure that the company that built them a) understood that they were making them less effective b) that they were doing so against generally understood principle and c) that they were doing so to increase profits.
Well, that’s the crux of the dispute between MoD and Rolls Royce: RR say they designed to spec (probably a temperature bracket that’s borderline Gulf/tropical).
If the specifications were average gulf temperatures, for example, they could both be correct if the engines failed on above-average days.
But that will be for negotiations and the courts to decide.
It is difficult for an English firm operating in the gelid wastelands of Cameron’s decaying imperial ruin to imagine sustained external temperatures of 45 degrees for a ship. They probably used an optimistic 25 degrees, with a healthy margin for error.
The Maori Party deserve to be binned for their choice to suck up to National and mana are all ready binned, due to their choice to suck up to KDC. The future is unwritten, as a wise man once said, but I don’t see either of those parties making it back next election. it’s certainly not the LP’s role to resuscitate them.
Yep Labour can’t afford to worry about any other team, not with their very survival at stake and so much to do within the party and the electorate. The activist left is trucking along well so Labour can stick with trying to entice key supporters over. If Labour can do a little better than their fail last time then maybe the can help the left make a difference – time will tell.
And Labour deserve to be binned for all their fuck ups over the years, including the recent ones, which leaves us with the Greens as the only useful and meaningful left wing party. So how about we get everyone to vote for them then? /sarc
Your macho politics are exactly why we have had 3 terms of NACT. MMP is about broadening representation not consolidating it in the hands of the few. It would be a real shame and probably a tragedy if too many Labourites believe that they have to deal with the Greens from pragmatics but still secretly want to be the top dog and have all the power for themselves.
Weka, sharing is where it’s at and Labour have shown they are capable of doing that in Government. 3 elections in a row, Helen Clark shared power with 3 different combinations of partners. The reality is that Labour know they have to share power under MMP. The current arrangement with the Greens is a concrete affirmation of that fact.
Sharing is not macho politics. It’s weird that you would think that it was.
The group with the most power don’t get to define what power sharing is. By definition it has to be defined by the people who are denied access to power. Otherwise it’s just the powerholders holding power.
“Sharing is not macho politics. It’s weird that you would think that it was.”
I didn’t say was. Please don’t manipulate my words to suit your own argument.
Actually, under MMP, the largest party has more power in negotiations, as you’d expect. Generally MMP coalitions reflect the votes received with the largest party getting the largest share. That’s an arrangement the Greens seem happy with.
Macho politics was your phrase, weka. It turns out you used it poorly.
Thanks for proving my point trp. You believe the person with the biggest stick rules. That’s macho politics.
Sharing power is much more than just the biggest dude deciding what they want on their terms. MMP historically in NZ has been about powermongering, including by Labour in the past. It doesn’t have to be that way.
(I didn’t use the phrase poorly, you tried to redefine what sharing is. Just be honest about it).
I don’t disagree with your comments but you and others here seem to view (political) power as some kind of finite entity that can be shared like (as in: cutting up) a cake. I know this is the most common perception.
However, I’d like to offer a different (counter?) view that also leads, almost inevitably, to a different framing.
I see power more as an almost limitless resource rather.
When (political) parties “share” power in reality they combine forces, e.g. seats, people, knowledge & skills, values & opinions, etc., a joining of qualities and strengths, from which increased power is possible. In other words, it is more an additive action than a fractional one.
An MOU is also such an action, which may or may not lead to increased power. In fact, the Opposition also has considerable political power although not as much as the Government.
I’ve cut short this comment, but not because of the AB game starting in a few minutes …
“In other words, it is more an additive action than a fractional one.”
Actually that’s much close to my own ideas and I like how you have phrased that. The fractional aspect is just the MMP MP split. But the power is exactly those things you talk about, people, knowledge/skills, diversity of values and ethics, opinions etc. and the powersharing comes from intention, willingness, self-awareness etc. I would add that relationships are the key to increasing diversity and thus making it both more stable/resilient and more productive/potent. Which is why it is such a shame that MMP has been driven by macho politics for so long, it’s obvious in the relationships that nothing meaningful has been built long term (and this is reflected in our current situation re CC).
I also agree that MoU is part of that and that it has its own value irrespective of how much or little MP power it engenders. I love that you have brought all this up, because to me this is the thing that is bringing much relief to so many with the MoU, even if we’re not naming it. It’s the fact that Labour and the Greens working together gives them another kind of power beyond the mere machinations at the level of macho politics and who has the most sticks/MPs. Which is why I hope that Labour will do the right thing by the Mp.
Suggest you read Michael basset in the nbr today TRP, you may also after this have a similar opinion of labour future to that of mana and Maori party in regard to labour failing to learn the lessons of their own history with respect to thier lurch to the left
As trip says manas gone and I can’t see them coming back.
Its up to the Maori party to win their seats ,they made their own bed , but it is an option for Labour/Green /Maori . I’d much prefer that to any government with the dinosaur nzf party.
While I understand the Maori parties policy of always trying to be in the tent, being in the tent with the nats has cost them .
I have no idea what state the party is in, but I can’t see any good reason why Harawira can’t stand in Te Tai Tokerau again.
yes, it’s up the the Mp to win their seats, but if Labour go hard after them, what chance of having the kind of cooperation between L and the Mp that engenders a stable, potent left wing govt?
I guess there is a difference in “going hard” and making sure that Maori have the option of coming back to labour . I would say standing Tamiti Coffee was leaving the door open for mp win last election.
I think I took from the original link the idea that Labour might decide to go hard after all the Māori seats again and thus bring down the Mp. Which would be stupid IMO because it doesn’t get them any more MPs (not sure what happens with the overhang from the Mp), and if it doesn’t work they’ve made another enemy. I don’t think they, or the left, can afford that even if I thought it was a valid strategy. Which I don’t. We should be looking at Mp policy and whether they can support a LW govt.
I prefer to say, Mana have been sin binned from the process because the status quoians didn’t like the rough play in opposing the system itself. That which cannot be controlled must be eliminated.
Funny though all the Mana Movement people I know are still out there, as before, fighting for equality and dignity and an end to unnecessary suffering. Kia kaha to them!
+1 that. I think too many people miss the ‘movement’ bit, and as with perceptions of the Greens, they don’t recognise that politics are being done differently.
Manas the only party that had a chance of awakening a reasonable proportion of the missing million , so i hope they make a comeback , I just think that those newbies they got voting last election are unlikely to get exited again after the last dissapiontment .
“We are stupid and rather venal bastards who, for personal gain, have worked to make you complicit in the willful destruction of everything our civilisation stands on. Look!”
That would be the underlying gist of the headlines that we’ll never see.
Sadly it is basic human nature that is the problem and only a few realise it has to be controlled if we are to progress. The “I’m [relatively] ok .. f… you mate” attitude to be found in almost everybody left or right thinking.
Nah. There are many facets to ‘basic human nature’. It’s up to us what facets we encourage. Our current socio/economic/political set ups don’t exactly encourage the best in us. We really do get ahead at present if we’re willing to rub the fucking ground.
Indeed.
Why is Labour still in support of deep sea oil drilling?
There are no votes in it.
There are no jobs in it.
And they could use Winnie’s continued support for deep sea oil drilling in Northland to beat him around the head with, to get him to separate off from the, drill it, mine it, frack it, burn it, Nact coalition of climate vandals.
Which would be essential if Labour are to ever head a majority coalition government.
It looks like scary times are ahead of us. It seems robots are learning how to make decisions on their own and it has been recommended that all robots in the future, whatever their jobs are, are fitted with a kill switch. Who would have thought that science fiction writers would be bringing it all to life with robots now being able to out wit their creators. Also, if killer switches are to be made they have to be kept isolated from the robot so he can’t have fore knowledge of what it is meant for.
Big business may see the irony of all this with culling of staff and using robots on killing chains and automotive factories. Fun times ahead.
Unqualified multi-millionaire Clinton Foundation donor given position on State Department nuclear weapons advisory board
Newly released State Department emails help reveal how a major Clinton Foundation donor was placed on a sensitive government intelligence advisory board even though he had no obvious experience in the field, a decision that appeared to baffle the department’s professional staff.
The emails further reveal how, after inquiries from ABC News, the Clinton staff sought to “protect the name” of the Secretary, “stall” the ABC News reporter and ultimately accept the resignation of the donor just two days later.
Copies of dozens of internal emails were provided to ABC News by the conservative political group Citizens United, which obtained them under the Freedom of Information Act after more the two years of litigation with the government.
A prolific fundraiser for Democratic candidates and contributor to the Clinton Foundation, who later traveled with Bill Clinton on a trip to Africa, Rajiv K. Fernando’s only known qualification for a seat on the International Security Advisory Board (ISAB) was his technological know-how. The Chicago securities trader, who specialized in electronic investing, sat alongside an august collection of nuclear scientists, former cabinet secretaries and members of Congress to advise Hillary Clinton on the use of tactical nuclear weapons and on other crucial arms control issues.
“We had no idea who he was,” one board member told ABC News.
Are the Green Party in denial about climate change?
In my comment here, on the Green Party co-leader James Shaw’s keynote speech to the Green Party conference, I included my transcription of this paragraph.
@35:08 minutes
“I want to give New Zealanders a better vision of the future, it’s a future where on your weekends away you will go to sleep at night safely knowing that the same beach you are enjoying now will still be there for future generations unthreatened by rising seas….” James Shaw
Which was commented on by greywarshark, and Robert Guyton here and here, remarking that this comment by the Green Party leader seemed to be out of touch with the reality.
“Am I getting unreasonably anxious at this report on James Shaw’s speech in Jenny’s comment….
….Surely if this quote or paraphrasing is correct, he is looking to something real that is now just a wish.”
greywarshark
The tenor of Grey’s and Robert’s criticism was summed up in the concluding comment by weka.
“Seas are going to rise, but we still have a chance to mitigate the worst of CC. Do we want subsequent generations to live in contant panic? Or do we want them to be able to respond to the changes in their environment knowing that we are all doing everything we can, and that we chose to avert the worst of teh disaster.” weka
Which in my opinion is an accurate summation of the action that is called for.
1/ From mentioning a vision in which sea levels do not rise. Does the Green Leader go on to promote or suggest any course of acton that may possibly “mitigate the worst of CC”?
2/ Does the Green Party leadership, go on to outline a course of action that hopefully will prevent future generations living in “constant panic”?
3/ Does the Green Party leadership outline a course of action in which future generations will “be able to respond to the changes in their environment”?
4/ Is the Green Party calling on us to do “everything we can”, or that we “chose to”, to avert the worst of this disaster?
My conclusion given here, is that the answer to all four questions is no. (Well not at their conference anyway).
Robert Guyton concludes his comment on this portion of James Shaw’s speech with this comment;
“Hard, cold facts are suitable for certain occasions but not all. Walking up to some vulnerable soul in the street and telling them the “truth” could be a bit harsh if it leaves them a puddle of despair. I’m keen to have a closer look now, at James’ speech. I’ll report back 🙂 Robert Guyton
I would like to ask Robert, now that he has had a chance to have a closer look at James speech, and possibly Meteria Turei’s as well, that now might might be a good time to give us your report back.
Robert in your opinion, does the Green Party fulfil any of the 4 points raised by weka?
Robert in your opinion is the Green Party in denial about climate change?
It’s worse with the Greens – they know better than most about the severity of climate change, but have decided to tone all of that down in public in order to chase power.
Colonial Viper – it would be rude of me to re-title you, Colonial Griper, so I’ll resist the temptation, but Ad is correct in what he says to you. Mind you, I’m all ears and they are pricked in anticipation of your suggested alternative to voting Green, with “potential to address climate change” as the deciding factor. I would like you to explain how ‘toning it down in public’ is a reason not to vote for them, if that’s in fact what you’ve decided, and whether you believe that a political party is the best vehicle for broadcasting the climate situation and responses to it? Personally, I don’t.
Cheers.
Colonial Viper.
You don’t care who I vote for? Hmmm…I thought you might be interested in linking readers opinions with their voting choices. I know I like to do that as it provides insight. No matter.
You said, quite correctly, that “they” are toning down the truth that they know inside”, but went on to give your opinion about why they have done that. Your view seems jaded; you use words like “vain attempt” (do you think they will fail?) and “power and respectability” (you’ve spoken to these MPs? They say they are seeking “power and respectability”?). I think you assume too, too much. Also, you sound dismissive and superior, somehow. Do you despise the Green MPs? I know these questions/challenges are not going to endear me to you, and I suspect we hold very similar views about things, it’s just that I’m feeling feisty today, following an evening of dosie-doeing at a local barn dance. The Waves of Tory does that to ya.
“I just said that they were toning down the truth that they know inside, in a vain attempt to reach for power and respectability from the status quo.”
That’s one way to look at it. Another way is that all the people on the climate change bandwagon now, who didn’t vote for the GP all those years when they were being radical, are hypocrites for criticising the Greens now for being pragmatic because it’s our only hope.
Weka – well put. This reaction is not unexpected and I imagine the Green MPs have considered long and hard, how to manage the phenomenon you describe. Kindly, would be my bet. I don’t think we’ll see the Greens saying, f-you guys, I’m going home.
True. Which is why I find CV’s perspective that the Greens are just another bunch of powermongers says more about him than anything. It is sad though, because it comes across as yet another unnecessary fight on the left when we are running out of time.
In the lead up to the election the attackers of the greens and labour should be ignored.
If the get elected ( the labour/greens) , then is the time to publicly dismantle their actions and debate their failings. in my most humble opinion
Meh, your rationale is that the Greens are justified in watering down their positions because they need more votes. That’s chasing power at the expense of their principles, clear and simple.
That’s one way to look at it. Another way is that all the people on the climate change bandwagon now, who didn’t vote for the GP all those years when they were being radical, are hypocrites for criticising the Greens now for being pragmatic because it’s our only hope.
I’ve seen you use this sad excuse a few times now.
That is, because old timers didn’t vote for the Values Party in the 70s, the successor Green Party is now (somehow) justified 40 years later in going soft around the middle and chasing the establishment, pretend and extend vote.
BTW the Greens aren’t any kind of “hope”, other than perhaps providing a slightly better version of pretend and extend which might give us an extra decade of relative niceness compared to more right wing parties.
Play whatever game you want CV, it’s pretty clear what I’m talking about. If you truly believe that the only useful politics the Greens ever had was in the 70s, what were you doing in the Labour party all that time? Rhetorical question.
it’s not the specific policies of the 1970s Values Party, its the fact that back then they stood tall and uncompromising in what they believed in despite the ridicule of most of the rest of the nation.
That stands in stark contrast to the modern Greens.
” If you truly believe that the only useful politics the Greens ever had was in the 70s, what were you doing in the Labour party all that time?”
“it’s not the specific policies of the 1970s Values Party, its the fact that back then they stood tall and uncompromising in what they believed in despite the ridicule of most of the rest of the nation.”
I can certainly see why you personally would value that so highly. And fair enough. That doesn’t mean what they’ve done since is wrong. It’s easily arguable that what they have achieved in the intervening decades, including getting climate change on the agenda, is a result of them deciding not to stay on the fringe but to work within the mainstream. There’s nothing wrong with working in the mainstream, in fact we should be greatful to the people who can and will do that because it comes at a significant personal costs. We need good people there as much as we need the radicals on the fringe.
Which takes me back to my original point. My understanding is that you have become aware of peak oil and cc in more recent years (5 or 6?), and have have formed your ideas about them in that time. But prior to that time, all the time the Greens (not Values) were in parliament and lefties like you wouldn’t vote for them, you were diminishing our chances of having a more radical Green voice in parliament. Because they knew what was coming before we did, and that lack of support then is why we have the GP we do today. If they wanted to have parliamentary power they needed votes. NZ fucked that up big time. To then turn around and criticise them for not being radical enough now is hypocrisy, doubly so because you still don’t support or vote for the only party in parliament that is leading the way on cc.
” If you truly believe that the only useful politics the Greens ever had was in the 70s, what were you doing in the Labour party all that time?”
Uh what? I was not in Labour at that time.
I’m not talking about the 70s. Which I’m pretty sure you know.
Colonial Viper – a political party, Green or otherwise, is just a piece in the game that is ‘the future’, as I’m sure you know. I expect also that you are ‘playing’ with the other pieces available to you; friends and family, networks and community, local government and NLGO’s like Transition Towns or whatever has sprung up in your area – a widely-cast net catches the most fish. A political party has a highly restrictive zone to operate in – if the don’t play well, they have little or no influence at all. You don’t trust the Green Party MPs, staff and particularly their strategists, to play their hand to the best advantage of us all, which is how I believe the operate, and denigrate them accordingly. I’m not certain why you believe you have the inside running on the Green Party’s strategy and motivations, but recognise that you believe you are ‘lifting the ‘team’ higher; how, I’ve not yet fathomed, but will pay attention till I do – perhaps you could help with a brief description of what your ‘play’ is – I’m am interested to know. I make my judgement of the Greens based on what I’ve experienced personally with it and the people who have driven it over the past decades; weighing their other actions and positions, particularly where their work intersects with my own in the field of ecology. I’ve found that the depth of understanding exhibited by Green MPs in particular, is strikingly in advance of that of other politicians, including around climate change, and have never seen signs of them carelessly casting that position aside for the sake of votes – strategic retreats, yes, but no ‘selling out’ where it really counts – at the philosophical and ethical base. It may be that the Greens should sound the trumpets of war over the issue, but I’m willing to think that they’ve thought long and hard about how to bring the most relief to the illness climate change represents.
Ah, and that’s where you and I have common ground, pretty much. I don’t believe they’ll do nothing – I think they’ll do all they can and that’s all we can hope for from any player.
Cv article in nbr today debunking sea levels rising by anything near what models predict. the gist been the models themselves are flawed vs empirical data. If you have access be interested on your view as wil get a response without abuse.These conflicting scientific views does make getting to a conclusion on climate change difficult,
The ice over Greenland and over Antarctica is in places between 3km and 4km deep. That’s a lot of water.
An iceless, warm water Earth will see sea levels rise between 70m and 100m.
Losing the Greenland ice sheet alone will raise sea levels by 5m or more. Dunedin and Christchurch are over as habitable cities in such a scenario.
We have currently seen only about 1/2 of the temp increase due to today’s level of CO2 emissions thanks to the thermal inertia of the system. (Think about a pot of water on the electric stove – the stove top gets hot but the water in the pot stays cool, for a while at least. You measure the temperature of the water but nothing much seems to happen. You can turn off the stove top, but the temperature of the water will keep going up due to the delay).
Taking current warming experienced as being about 1.1 deg C, Global Dimming temporarily hiding another 1 deg C to 1.5 deg C, and roughly another 1.1 deg C of warming to occur regardless of what we do today, I can comfortably say that we are going to experience no less than about 3.2 deg C warming in total.
That’s the 21st century min temp increase.
And that means most of the Greenland ice, amongst others, will destabilise and melt – over time.
So whether it is this century or next century, we will see multi-metre sea level rise.
My best bet is 10m sea level rise by 2100, and 5 deg C to 10 deg C increase. We already have the first 3 to 3.5 deg C of that done and in the bag.
thanks Cv while you logic makes sense ( albeit level of sea rise is a value judgement)
These guys Willem de Lange, MSc DPhil, is a senior lecturer at the University of Waikato. Bryan Leyland MSc, FIEE(retired), FIMechE, FIPENZ argue the models predicting temperature rises are flawed, They argue that the Royal Society of New Zealand’s recent study on sea level rise claims that, in the next 100 years, sea levels will surely rise by 0.3m and 1m is possible ( let alone your 10m) is flawed on the basis claim does not stand up to close examination.
First, the rise in sea level and New Zealand coast has been about 0.14m over the past 100 years, with no sign of a recent increase in the rate.
They argue is no solid evidence to indicate this steady rate will increase rapidly in the future. They believe that the Royal Society’s claims are based on flawed climate models that predicted, by now, temperatures would be 0.5° higher than they really are and increasing faster and faster.They further point out there is no solid evidence to indicate this steady rate will increase rapidly in the future.
The essence of thier article is when dubious data were fed into Royal Society sea level models, they predicted rapidly increasing sea level rise.
They further argue indirectly by quoting Russian climate model that assumes CO2 makes only a small contribution to global warming that these models more matches recent temperatures and Perhaps these model it is right.
I guess it comes down to the collective view of science which argues in favour of climate change, I also note your reasoning on delay in system and then the affects become exponential, but I do suggest at this point the level of change, how much is man made and wether we can or the cost of doing anything about it is still open for debate
Hansen is quite clear that paleoclimatology, i.e. looking at climate records going back millions of years, has provided a fair degree of certainty.
Bottom line is that the models that have been used by the IPCC and others are almost definitely wrong, but those guys you quote think that they are wrong one way, and Hansen and others think they are wrong the other way.
I don’t know how old you are or where you live, but I’ve made sure that I am living in a place which will stay high and dry for over 50 years even within a worst case sea level rise scenario.
Just remember, an ice free world indicates a 70-100m sea level rise, and this has happened before in the natural history of the world.
Others like him are equally entrenched. Time spent defending and explaining is time that could be better spent lifting your own team higher. ‘sup to you, of course. ‘snot my job to tell you what to do 🙂
Live on a hill CV so all good. Contrary to feedback not sure where I am at on climate change. What i would like to see is more synthesis of various competing arguments and studies on climate change as you appear to get one view or the other For the layman it can be difficult to judge and simply reaching a view on political lines as many seem to do here does not really help, This is why I raised this article and sort your feedback as I new I would get one with out the usual BS , and thus you have lifted the team higher 😀
A pleasure to discuss with you Red Delusion, and thank you. Also worth checking where your services go through. Pipes, wires, pumping stations and exchanges your street relies upon may reside in or go through lower more easily waterlogged areas.
So the NBR is continuing to promote climate change denial. Hope that means all their rich readers go and buy low lying properties off the less well off, so that it’s those wealthy climate change deniers who get flooded in the not so distant future. Sadly thats probably not the way it will work out.
If you are too green to support the Green Party you’re going to have a difficult time voting or otherwise participating in an election. They are as strong and as green as you are going to get anywhere in the world.
I’m always confused by this kind of politics – where someone else offers you a set menu and you contort your personal position away from what you really believe to conform to an option that someone else has picked for you.
Hello, Jenny.
You seem to be asking if the solution to the problem of climate change can be found by parsing the words from the speeches of a politician (or two).
I say no to that.
If you were asking my to choose which political party in New Zealand is most likely to have MPs who have a realistic grasp of what climate change is about and what might result from it, then I’d choose the Green Party, and that’s by a significant margin. I have had face to face discussions with Kennedy Graham, Metiria Turei, Russel Norman, Nandor Tanzcos, Rod Donald, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Gareth Hughes and many of the other Green MPs, past and present, so I’m basing my opinion on more than just what I read in their speeches. That means that I can answer your question, “…is the Green Party in denial about climate change?” with certainty, by saying,emphatically, no, it is not. Weka’s “4 points” are, apologies here, weka, not an especially useful vehicle for thinking about this issue, in my view. For example, the question that asks: “Does the Green Party leadership, go on to outline a course of action that hopefully will prevent future generations living in “constant panic”?” is nebulous and not pointed enough to illicit a real-world answer, in my view. Asking questions is essential, but the right ones can difficult to compose.
I wonder, Jenny, what you are doing today, aside from posting here? I’ve been doing what I do every day; making real-world preparations for the future by doing things that would fit comfortably into The ArchDruid’s “Green Wizard” guide to useful pursuits 🙂 Fortunately, communicating online is one of those things:-)
I wonder, Jenny, what you are doing today, aside from posting here? Robert Guyton
Hi Robert, haven’t you learnt to play the ball not the player.
As far as I know I have as much right to post here as you. As to what I am doing today. I shouldn’t have to justify myself.
Not that it is any of your business. But I actually at home because I am unwell. And please don’t let me burden the readers with the gory details.
But, for all you know I could be as incapacitated as Professor Hawking, so please don’t use this line of attack again. (On anyone).
But I have to thank you.
Your efforts to avoid giving a straight answer have made me so angry that I am getting up and going out, and doing all those things, that just like you say, I should be doing.
Hopefully when I come back and have I calmed down. I will be able to give you a more fuller reply.
Jenny – you misread the tone of my comment and I’m sorry for that – it was not a negative criticism of you or what you might or might not be doing. I learned long ago not to play the man (or woman) unless there’s entertainment to be had by doing so. I’m not above gently ribbing.
As for your getting angry, I’ll put that down to your feeling unwell and hope you recover fully, soon. Your decision to get up and do all those things sounds like a good one and when you have regained your equilibrium, please do write back. I hope you’ll see that I was neither attacking you, nor doing anything other than giving my best-considered answers.
“Weka’s “4 points” are, apologies here, weka, not an especially useful vehicle for thinking about this issue, in my view.”
Hi Robert, they’re not my points, they’re Jenny’s. She is misrepresenting things (not for the first time). She obviously has a lot of passion about climate change but I find her approach confusing and unhelpful. I can’t make much sense of her original comment up thread, because she is mixing up so many different people’s views and arguments.
I did this deliberately to show that even by your own standards the New Zealand Green Party are denying, (if that is not too strong a word)** the reality of climate change. (Unlike CV or RG, I do not try to guess or impute any motive for this denial.)
The following is your original quote, and my break down of it. This time I have removed the numbers, which I admit may have been a bit of clumsy device to use to make my point.
“Seas are going to rise, but we still have a chance to mitigate the worst of CC. Do we want subsequent generations to live in contant panic? Or do we want them to be able to respond to the changes in their environment knowing that we are all doing everything we can, and that we chose to avert the worst of teh disaster.”
weka
Does the Green Leader go on to promote or suggest any course of acton that may possibly “mitigate the worst of CC”?
Does the Green Party leadership, go on to outline a course of action that hopefully will prevent future generations living in “constant panic”?
Does the Green Party leadership outline a course of action in which future generations will “be able to respond to the changes in their environment”?
Is the Green Party calling on us to do “everything we can”, or that we “chose to”, to avert the worst of this disaster?
I had directed these question to Robert Guyton because he had written that maybe the reason the Green Party play down climate change is so as to not frighten the man in the street.
Also Robert had promised to have a closer look at James speech and report back.
“Hard, cold facts are suitable for certain occasions but not all. Walking up to some vulnerable soul in the street and telling them the “truth” could be a bit harsh if it leaves them a puddle of despair. I’m keen to have a closer look now, at James’ speech. I’ll report back” 🙂
Robert Guyton
Personally I had thought that James Shaw’s speech was inspiring and uplifting, even though it contained no concrete Green Party proposals on climate change. I made allowances for this, in that I believed at the time of reading and listening to James speech, that he was holding back so as to not preempt the next day’s advertised June 5 Launch of the Green Party’s Centrepiece Environmental Campaign by Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei.
I had expected a lot from the Centrepiece Launch because I remember James Shaw at the beginning of his tenure as Green Party co-leader promising that he would be making climate change the centrepiece of the Green Party’s campaigns.
I wrote on the Sunday Morning that I was really looking forward to that day’s Green Party Centre Piece launch, and I was.
Unfortunately I was terribly disappointed. The Launch of the Green Party’s Centrepiece Environmental Campaign was a rehash of the Green Party’s “Clean Rivers Campaign” with which the Green Party have fought the last two elections, relabelled as the “Swimmable Rivers Campaign”.
Now don’t get me wrong, I think that the terrible condition of our rivers needs to be addressed, but I don’t think that this should be used as an excuse to ignore climate change.
In Meteria Turei’s Launch of the Green Party’s Centrepiece Environmental Campaign, she made only the briefest possible mention of the two words “climate change”, which Meteria spoke in an aside from her main address. The two words climate change were tacked on the end of a short list of things that Meteria said the government was neglecting. And that was it. That was the only mention, of the biggest environmental catastrophe of all time.
Frankly speaking I thing that this was a disgrace and an insult to all those working and campaigning against climate change both here and overseas.
**Personally I do not think that the New Zealand Green Party are climate change deniers in the usual way this term is used and implied, I prefer the more accurate term Climate Change ignorers. A policy which I think we can all agree the New Zealand Green Party leadership have been actively pursuing for several years now. (If ignoring something can be considered something that is active, rather than passive.)
They’re not my words in the end though, you’ve taken them out of their context. They’re just words that you used and incorrectly attributed to me so that Robert (and possibly others) thought your questions were mine. Can you please be more careful in future?
We disagree about the role of the Green Party so I’ll leave it at that.
You are avoiding the issue.
Weka those are your own words.
You were commenting on a thread about James Shaw statement that in the future we will be able to visit a beach where the sea level won’t rise.
What can we make of this?
That the Green Party starting with their co-leader James Shaw are playing a game of sticking their fingers in their ears and going La-la-la-la-la?
James Shaw drew a word picture where everyone drives electric cars and all freight goes by rail, and sea level rise doesn’t happen, and said, “this is not science fiction.” But James Shaw did not forward one single political demand on how we get from the present, where climate change and sea level rise is a real world phenomenon, to his imagined world, where it isn’t.
Nothing about opposing deep sea oil drilling.
Nothing about insisting that the new coal mine projects in the pipeline in this country be scrapped.
Nothing about switching the $11 billion put aside for new motorways to public transport.
No mention of the Government using fraudulent carbon credits to cheat the ETS
No call to oppose the extension of the life of the coal fired Huntly power station.
No call to withdraw the government’s subsidies to Solid Energy and the oil companies.
No mention of what to do about climate refugees from our neighbouring Pacific countries directly threatened by climate change.
No ‘real world’ policy on climate change at all, zip, zero, nada.
What about Meteria Turei’s “Green Party Centrepiece Environmental Campaign Launch”, the following day, which was even worse. Turei mentioned the two words “climate change”, only once and in an aside from her main speech, and only then, in a recitation of a list of other things.
Ignoring climate change, the Green Party Centrepiece Environmental Campaign launch. Announced that the Green Party’s intention is to make “Swimmable Rivers” the centrepiece campaign of the Green Party.
(Which is a repackaging of the Green Party’s “Clean Rivers” campaign with which the Green Party have fought the last two elections with).
“Swimmable Rivers” while a nice ideal, won’t make a jot of difference if the rest of the biosphere is degraded by climate change, algae blooms, deoxidation as warm water holds less oxygen. And not directly related to rivers, the acidification of the oceans, will undo all the work to make rivers nice enough to swim in. And I might mention here that if climate change is not seriously addressed, having somewhere nice to swim may be the least of our problems.
So, what about the greatest environmental disaster of all time?
Have the Green Party given up on combating climate change?
Has climate change been put in the too hard basket by the Green Party?
How come, not one single policy mention, or announced initiative.
Not one single political demand.
Don’t the Green Party know that the Great Barrier Reef is dying, don’t they know the Arctic is losing its ice cover? is the Green Party not aware that the record breaking flood disasters around the globe that are inundating river side communities, and eroding river banks are due to warmer air holding more moisture, or that record forest fires, are due to the drying out of once temperate zones?
I don’t believe that the Green Party could be so ignorant.
So we are left with the question; is the Green Party too frightened of the government and the powerful fossil fuel lobby to demand action on climate change?
I ask you weka, what the hell is going on?
When even by your own standards the Green Party fall well short of the four ideas you raised in your concluding comment to the thread on James Shaw’s statement on climate change contained in his keynote speech.
Weka will you not face up to my comment on the apparent Green Party sell out on climate change? Instead of choosing to indulge in pedantic dancing around on the head of the pin, why not address the issue?
So weka;
Is it your opinion weka that this is not a sell out?
Do you think weka that the Green Party leadership will be launching campaigning initiatives on the issue of climate change at some future conference?
“We disagree about the role of the Green Party so I’ll leave it at that.” weka
Typical. This is just the sort of cowardly avoidance to face up to the issues that I am talking about.
Weka can’t you even try to defend your Party’s direction? Is it to scary to face up to climate change, and what it means for the environment?
Is the Green Party are named after the wrong colour?
Are the Green Party too gutless to take on the fossil fuel lobby?
Should the Green Party be renamed the Yellow Party for their intransigence over refusing to take climate change seriously?
If the Green Party had any courage or moral compass climate change should be their “Centrepiece Campaign” because everything flows from that. (literally).
Why the Green Party “Swimmable Rivers”, “Centrepiece Campaign” which marginalises and ignores debate on climate change is completely idiotic and cowardly.
While the Green Party are making plans to recreate their bucolic youth swimming in picturesque waterways. Climate change is stalking the world’s rivers threatening to turn them into deadly torrents at the slightest notice.
So how do the Green Party intend to achieve their swimmable rivers?
Mandating the building of bigger and better sewerage and waste water treatment plants?, the replanting of riverbanks?
Don’t they know that just this sort of riverside infrastructure is extremely vulnerable to being swept away in the next muddy torrent?
The Green Party have the chance to act on climate change.
The newly signed MoU between the Greens and Labour both parties gave a commitment to support each other’s private members bills.
The Green Party need to start putting up private members bills to raise the national debate on climate change and nudge the Labour Party away from their support for business as usual.
First up should be a private members bill to scrap the ETS which on the current ballance of power in the house may even have a chance of passing if Labour supported it.
Next up should be a private members bill calling for the end of deep sea oil drilling challenging Labour to support it.
And probably one of the biggest bugbears of the climate change movement a bill to repeal the legislation in the RMA which prohibits climate change being taken into account as grounds for rejecting new fossil fuel projects.
These things can be done right now.
But they won’t.
Because the Green Party “Centrepiece Environmental Campaign” is swimmable rivers.
Cowardly, weak, fluffy. And with years of make work in Select committees and planning hearings which even if the Green Party get all the improvements they seek will be washed away in the next climate change fuelled mega flood.
I see, thanks, weka. Glitches aside, a progressive approach to this is the way forward. Let’s see what we’ve got, not what’s weighing-down the naysayers.
This manufacturing of consent and the media knowing what not to talk about, could also go some way to explain the Green Party’s self censorship over climate change.
Was WWI really the first time public opinion was mechanized towards war? I would agree if he said it was the first time it had been mechanized within a modern democracy. But kings had been doing it with priests from Egypt’s first kingdom.
I do get his point about cigarette marketing within Hollywood. Very clever.
But his claims that propaganda is now the most powerful now than it has ever been is a ridiculous reach. His talk works best for the 1970s and 1980s, when the era of television reigned supreme. No longer.
An entire nation has been convinced that short term selfishness is the way that a small elite clique should rule the country, and somehow you believe that propaganda isn’t as powerful as ever, that propaganda only effects earlier, simpler, less smart people.
Bernays understood human nature better than most of us, I daresay. And better than the intellectual Left in general.
And he formulated his best work BEFORE the age of television.
No, Dr Miller’s argument was that this current era is the most propaganda-saturated era. I was arguing with Miller, not Bernays particularly.
I also think that short term selfishness is just an historic human tendency.
Modern advertising seeks to influence across competing product ranges. Whereas monarchies have employed religions more powerfully and towards more singular ends than modern advertising ever could.
I would argue though that the fracturing of the media landscape over the last decade has fractured the ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’ argument/paranoia that we heard from Neil Postman, when tv and MTV and music manufacturers reigned supreme. No one sings the national anthem at the movies anymore.
The propaganda of the day isn’t aimed at the masses.
It is aimed at the comfortable middle classes – who think they are the guardians of commonsense and right thinking in society – and the elite, the people who make up the backbone of the status quo establishment.
As for the fracturing of the media landscape. That has made it harder to communicate a single cohesive propaganda narrative. But that in of itself has nothing to do with how saturated our living space is with propaganda.
Finally, you have to understand that the western style of propaganda focusses on the propaganda of omission. Omitting crucial voices on subjects like climate change, poverty, war, economics, homelessness.
Once you wonder why certain critical facts never get mentioned, or why certain experts are never interviewed, you wake up to how pervasive this propaganda is.
The first problem there is making one category, ‘propaganda’, stretch too far. It doesn’t allow Miller to focus on anything helpfully. All classes get targeted. We just feel most closely the messaging directed towards the class we are in. Which again, just confuses one era with a mere human tendency.
I’d also have to disagree though with his idea that propaganda is principally driven by retail corporations and a few smart evil guys. Far better to consider the whole empire of ideas and how they are reified and amplified across MSM and digital media, across religions, across parties, across state rulers, across kinds of military, across NGOs including unions – now that would be a useful theory for our moment. He’s swinging for the easy hits.
Just to focus on one realm; political parties: since Obama 2008 we have already seen the left have far greater tools within the digital ream than in the MSM. Within the political realm alone the digital contest of ideas, largely free from advertising or taint present or absent, is spectacular in its rise. So what he’s missing is the free will present even within the most message-filled modes.
Witness two: relentless adopters New Zealand. Whaleoil and Kiwiblog and The Standard could well be some great vast conspiracy in which all speech is really just predetermined Marxist/Calvinist propaganda, but in reality the multitude is showing more power within these modes. Especially now, we can trust the multitude to make their voice clear.
Well, if you are right and there is a lively, true contest of ideas out there in the media market place representing the independent voice of the masses, then we won’t be have any problems with our democracy reflecting the true aspirations, attitudes and concerns of Kiwis.
I think that’s bunk of course, and that our democracy is not just sick, but further sickening, but that’s just me.
The first problem there is making one category, ‘propaganda’, stretch too far. It doesn’t allow Miller to focus on anything helpfully.
Well if the Left in NZ is more clever than this guy then we shouldn’t have too much trouble getting our desired messaging across to more voters eh.
It’s not just the left.
It’s a tribute to the communicative skills of both Sanders and Trump that they have got so far, so fast, with stuff-all corporate funding and stuff-all MSM relationships, and the MSM working double time against them. They simply have excellent political skills.
(Indeed so does Warren. And Peters taking Northland out of nowhere!)
That’s the real confusion here. We presume because the left have been out of power for so long, that there’s some great conspiracy of inevitability. Human agency is real; is, I think, more powerful than ever, and that is especially the case in politics.
I only focussed on political propaganda and political agency because this is what we generally discuss here.
But, as I pointed out, by mashing together political and commercial propaganda, he misses out vast other fields of communicative influence. All you have done in trying to separate out ‘political operations’ from ‘propaganda operations’ is admit that the sweeping term ‘propaganda’ doesn’t hold any analytical clarity for us.
If he was really having a crack at how ideas form and get amplified and change behavior across the military, across religions, across MSM, across digital realms, across kinds of state, across NGOs and unions, now there would be a useful theory. He doesn’t, so isn’t useful.
Sorry mate, this guy has studied American media and propaganda for decades including how elections are stolen; I can learn and integrate more useful from him on this topic.
BTW I believe Chris Hedges, the veteran foreign correspondent, would agree with him more than he would with you.
His issue about the growing dependency of MSM reporters upon state institutions for stories is fair. They are definitely vulnerable. But if ever I get worried that there are no more ‘Goodnight, and Good Luck’ stories, I just flick to Rachel Maddow and Mr Oliver.
I would also agree with the self-ceonsorship point, but particularly about the security state within China and the US. The violence and humiliation to the big whistleblowers over the last decade is quite some policing.
But I own a full set of National Geographics going back from 1933 to the 1970s. Call me a nerd. Now there you see the growth of industrial propaganda mechanizing through World War Two, accelerating with the growth of the state, but also watching their interests shear away from each other in the 1970s. One might argue in response simply that “propaganda” is simply more subtle and hence more pervasive. I think we have to honour the power of the patterns of the past
I hate his idea that the “window slammed shut” in the 1980s. That is so foolish. The melancholic left fools itself into defeat. There are now always multiple competing empires. In fact especially now. Need I say it, if propaganda really worked, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump would never have got off the ground. This guy is a pale imitation of Chomsky’s more original Manufacturing Consent, when the causal links were nice and clear.
I have to say Ad that would have to be a record for condemning someone, what a single 28 minute interview?
But the point is, just in case you missed it, that propaganda works best when people deny it is even happening. Or put it onto the other, I see you went for both arguments.
Interesting that you reached for Trump and Sanders, good point all politicians use propaganda. I’d say Trump is rather good at it. His use of the medium, and shifting the debate – has been masterful, love him or hate him.
Look on here the last few days, and me bemoaning about talking points – which are a instrument of propaganda. Te Reo Putake, has run with clinton talking points for weeks – or in layman’s terms, the propaganda set out by the clinton campaigner. He is entitled too, that is what this site was set up for. But it is still propaganda.
I think you want propaganda wrapped up as something that happens elsewhere, and don’t want to admit your thoughts are not your own. It is horrific position position to be in, it happens to us all in the 21st century.
You are making ‘propaganda’ to be simply: ‘the stuff I disagree with you on’. That’s just a categorical confusion.
Your talking point about talking points isn’t very helpful. People reify overseas opinions all the time. Calling that propaganda is just silly. Far better to tease out and name the intersecting influences into actual real powers.
If you look back on this site over two months about the number of posts supporting Sanders versus those supporting Clinton, Sanders does pretty well. Very well: count them up.
Propaganda is too often used as a term by leftie conspiracy theorists to suggest that there is an all-knowing, all-present, Sauron-like ether of influence that determines the world. Which, for socialists who have been out of power since the 1980s, probably feels about right.
But that’s just a sad confusion of political history with theory.
There were a few who tried that in the late 1980s, particularly Fredereic Jamieson’s Postmodernism, or: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. That didn’t even survive the Bushes for relevancy.
It is at times quite depressing reading what you write Ad. Your blanket given up – crosses over to, we should give up and accept it. Nothing will change, maybe a little, is deeply troubling.
In the 21 century right, power resides in the hands of a few at the expense of the many.
Are you so naive as to think that people in power don’t us every trick they have to hold onto that power?
I don’t care who had how many posts sanders or clinton, it has to do with the angles and approaches people take on those post. That those angles and approaches have been governed by propaganda. If the propaganda is good then these framing is what was laid out from those camps. If not, then they were not talked about.
I’m getting the feeling you don’t like the word propaganda. It is a word to cover the simple and complex idea that – someone is using a message to promote a certain point of view.
So in politics, we deal in propaganda all the time, advertising, public relations, lobbying, education, books, video games, web page developers. All these people are propagandist. People get offended when called out that is what they do. Sneaky feeling you many be one of them?
But what was truly sad was when you reached for the third crotch of people who don’t want to accept that propaganda exist in their society, and call everyone who says it does a conspiracy theorist. A very weak position, makes you sound like you did not watch the video. Because…
Bloody nora. Next you will say there are no ideologies? No theological differences? That it is wrong to offend people? And that conspiracies do not happen. That juts playing into the hands of power, to weaken working people even more.
I know it’s a bit like the stages of grief learning that you are be manipulated at a sociological level. Good news, after the denial stage, it gets easier. More good news, knowing that is what is happening, you can take steps to acknowledge when you become influenced by propaganda.
But his claims that propaganda is now the most powerful now than it has ever been is a ridiculous reach.
You’re talking out your arse.
Propaganda exists in video games, novels, advertising and politics. And probably other places that I haven’t thought about.
And it is more powerful. A huge amount of research has gone into it over the last 100 odd years since Bernays started it. I mentioned video games and that’s because modern video games are designed to draw you in and keep you there, to keep you paying to play. I’ve got a pet on my World of Warcraft characters that can be ‘charged up’ in either red or blue if I buy a particular type of drink that comes in, you guessed it, red and blue.
I’ve read quite a bit about how games and advertising manipulate, there really is no other word, people into doing things that they haven’t really thought about.
‘Income inequality declined abruptly in 2013 after President Obama and Congress negotiated an increase in taxes on the wealthiest Americans, according to new federal data.’
I hope for it too Weka but not with a pin-prick but by government building houses, a slow process which should help all but the extremely foolish to survive.
On the other hand it is questionable if the industry can cope and really mass production of pre-fabs/basic housing units is the only way to get on top of the problem, but can you imagine the current or future govt doing that … I cannot more is the pity.
Plenty of ways to get affordable housing in NZ, but people don’t want to talk about them because they see home ownership as primarily an investment. IMO, that’s why we can’t resolve the current situation.
Long term stabilization for me please in the overheated parts of the country, and government policies to to reinvigorate the provinces so they catch up up bit so the country isn’t devided by house price.
Agora 9
10 June 2016 at 10:16 am
Further to your comment about NZ and its large debt … matched by individuals I believe.
Kim Hill talking to an economist writer from the UK who pointed out that people today accept large credit card debts as part of life. Whereas my aim was to treat mine as a monthly account as many folk had in the ‘old days’ and for the past few years I have managed this.
Banking is a great business to be in … even a crash will have them coming out smelling of roses is recent US/UK experience is anything to go by.
A new technique turns climate-warming carbon emissions to stone. In a test program in Iceland, more than 95 percent of the carbon dioxide injected into basaltic lava rocks mineralized into solid rock within two years. This surprisingly fast transformation quarantined the CO2 from the atmosphere and could ultimately help offset society’s greenhouse gas emissions, scientists report in the June 10 Science.
I’ve spent the afternoon listening to the soundtrack of Hamilton. Which is about US founding father Alexander Hamilton. It’s really entertaining for history and politics nerds like myself.
‘EU Referendum: Massive swing to Brexit – with just 12 days to go
Exclusive: polling carried out for ‘The Independent’ shows that 55 per cent of UK voters intend to vote for Britain to leave the EU in the 23 June referendum.’
Cameron’s already announced he will step down as prime minister before the 2020 election, although he still intends to run as an MP. I think a vote to leave the EU will trigger his departure from No 10, or even a very tight vote to remain.
Quite interested in Winnie’s advice to Britain that they’d be better off voting for Brexit, foregoing the small European ‘family’ market with all its limitations and restrictive rules and looking to the wider international market ( including New Zealand). Dunno much about it but does that make sense?
New Zealand is again having to reconcile conflicting pressures from its military and its trade interests. Should we join Pillar Two of AUKUS and risk compromising our markets in China? For a century after New Zealand was founded in 1840, its external security arrangements and external economics arrangements were aligned. ...
The ‘50 Shades of Green’ farmers’ protest in 2019 was heavy on climate change denial, but five years on, scepticism and criticism about the idea that pine forests can save us is growing across the board. File photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate ...
This morning the sky was bright.The birds, in their usual joyous bliss. Nature doesn’t seem to feel the heat of what might angst humans.Their calls are clear and beautiful.Just some random thoughts:MāoriPaul Goldsmith has announced his government will roll back the judiciary’s rulings on Māori Customary Marine Title, which recognises ...
In 2003, the Court of Appeal delivered its decision in Ngati Apa v Attorney-General, ruling that Māori customary title over the foreshore and seabed had not been universally extinguished, and that the Māori Land Court could determine claims and confirm title if the facts supported it. This kicked off the ...
Earlier this week at Parliament, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the fine words, apologies and “we hear you” messages will soon ring ...
TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Carereport released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced$802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
Andy Christiansen, one half of the experimental rock-pop duo TRiPS, shares the tunes inspiring the band’s perfect weekend and new release. “Good speakers, good food, good music, no distractions”: that’s all you need to enjoy the psychedelic stylings of TRiPS, a new band formed by Fly My Pretties’ Barnaby Weir ...
Celebrating our quadrennial opportunity to become experts in a bunch of sports we never normally watch.The games of the XXXIII Olympiad are upon us. Paris will host this year’s showcase of sporting and athletic prowess, which means some late-night and early-morning viewing for us in Aotearoa.But what sports ...
The photograph is striking and beautiful, but also disturbing – a reminder that my love for John was often entangled in shame.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.In the spring of 1980, in Dunedin, shortly before his death, someone took a photograph ...
Get to know Babushka, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Babu’s humans, Jo and Isabel, for their support. Dog name: Babushka (Babu for short) Age: 2Breed: Border Collie X poodleIf rescued, ...
Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.SPECIAL REPORT:By Netani Rika in Majuro Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused ...
Christopher Luxon has joined with Australia and Canada's leaders in voicing support for US President Joe Biden's ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The 2022 election brought the “teal wave” into parliament. The next election will test whether teals, who occupy what were Liberal seats, and other independents can maintain their momentum. Joining us on the Podcast ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide Pixavri/Shutterstock A major Federal Court class action has been dismissed this week after Justice Michael Lee ruled there was not enough evidence to prove the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Plaintiff Kelvin ...
In The Week in Politics: politicians have to decide what to do about child abuse, Health NZ is booked in for major surgery and Darleen Tana returns. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University Mainstream media are surprisingly muted at the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led for the first time by a woman – specifically a woman of colour, Vice President Kamala ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bennett, PhD Student, Associate Research Fellow, Deakin University Last week, a drone delivery company called Wing (owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet) started operating in Melbourne. Some 250,000 residents in parts of the city’s eastern suburbs can now order food from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Foo, Lecturer, Physiotherapy, Monash University pikselstock/Shutterstock In the next 40 years in Australia, it’s predicted the number of Australians aged 65 and over will more than double, while the number of people aged 85 and over will more than triple. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Grant, Research Associate, Power Institute for Arts and Visual Culture, University of Sydney Jonas Åkerström’s 1790 work, Session of the Accademia dell’Arcadia on August 17 1788.Nationalmuseum/Cecilia Heisser Ever wondered whether you’d have a better chance at winning an Olympic gold ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Jones, Program Lead, Food Governance, George Institute for Global Health wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock On Thursday, Australian and New Zealand food ministers at state, federal and national levels met to thrash out what’s next for health star ratings on packaged foods. Now, after ...
The Abuse in Care report found many Pacific survivors lost their connections to their culture and language, resulting in trauma that has been carried from generation to generation. ...
In the regulatory review, ECC intends to suggest that ERO focus on curriculum delivery reviews rather than the Ministry, because it’s not efficient or effective to have two agencies with radically different approaches climbing over each other. ...
Te Rūnanga Nui o Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori invites the current government to work in partnership with them to develop a pathway forward, including the development of a parallel pathway and meaningful policy and strategy for Kura Kaupapa Māori ...
If you haven’t started watching yet, Tara Ward begs you to reconsider. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. In the world of New Zealand reality television, we have many gems in our crown. There’s the delicious second season of the Celebrity Treasure ...
A new poem by Fiona Kidman. The clothes of the dead I did not keep my mother’s furry red beret for long nor the stringy scarves that adorned the necks of my aunts, although I have kept tag ends of gold, the rings and trinkets they wore, the brooches no ...
The government’s announcement that it will re-open the foreshore and seabed controversy by changing the rules on recognising centuries-old Māori customary title for a third time goes against the rule of law and New Zealand values,” Mr Tipa says. ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $25) Roarrrr! Perkins’ brilliant, award-winning, Marian-Keyes anointed, darkly funny, long ...
The 2004 Act vested ownership of the foreshore and seabed in the Crown, extinguishing any Māori claims to ownership and causing widespread outrage and protests among Māori communities. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of Technology Getty Images Despite the connection between institutional harm and gang membership made clear in this week’s mammoth royal commission abuse-in care report, the government seems unlikely to soften its “get tough on ...
From Lewis Clareburt in the swimming to the start of the rowing – the first seven days of Paris 2024 promise to be big for New Zealand. There are few events that bring the country together quite like an Olympic Games. Nothing quite matches the excitement of getting up in ...
Groundbreaking local science just showed up in the most surprising of places: the season finale of The Kardashians. In the season five finale of The Kardashians last night, several members of the family gathered together in one of their signature empty, cream-coloured rooms to hear test results that had been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level. Washington has engaged in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Elizabeth Eades, Rheumatologist, Monash University Lupus is an inflammatory autoimmune illness, where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself. Lupus can affect virtually any part of the body, although it most commonly affects the skin, joints and kidneys. The symptoms ...
A law firm that specialises in working with survivors of abuse in State care is disappointed that the Government fails to recognise that its boot camps can be directly compared to previous boot camps from the 1990s and 2000s. ...
Dying is a natural part of life, like updating your Wof or seeing your hairdresser, but without the word-of-mouth recs that help guarantee a good service. What if we changed that? Dying Reviews received by The Spinoff have had the names of organisations redacted while Hospice NZ collects further data. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland Mike Lewinski/Flickr, CC BY On any clear night, if you gaze skywards long enough, chances are you’ll see a meteor streaking through the sky. Some nights, however, are better than others. At ...
Despite having no bars or other designated spaces for lesbians, Auckland boasts a small but mighty lesbian museum. So how did it get here? The past 18 months has brought increasing hostility towards the queer community across Aotearoa. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s anti-trans rally in Tamaki Makaurau last March led to a ...
Poneke Antifascist Coalition has invited Wellingtonians to stand in solidarity with the Kanak people at 12pm today outside the French Embassy in Wellington. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow, Strategic Studies, Griffith University Drones are the signature technology of the Ukraine war. A few miniature aircraft designs were used in the war’s early days, but an incredible array of drones have now evolved. There are different types, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Slee, Associate Professor, Clinical Academic Neurologist, Flinders University Francisco Gonzelez/Unsplash Migraine is many things, but one thing it’s not is “just a headache”. “Migraine” comes from the Greek word “hemicrania”, referring to the common experience of migraine being predominantly ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee White, Senior Lecturer and Horizon Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Australia was slow to introduce minimum building standards for energy efficiency. The Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) only came into force in 2003. Older homes ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Sherwood, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney The past century of human-induced warming has increased rainfall variability over 75% of the Earth’s land area – particularly over Australia, Europe and eastern North America, new research shows. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Heynen, Program Coordinator, Sustainable Energy, The University of Queensland A temporary stadium in the Champ-de-Mars, ParisEkaterina Pokrovsky/Shutterstock As Paris prepares to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the sustainability of the event is coming under scrutiny. The organisers have promoted ...
A night of karaoke and community in a pub that feels like a memory. You’d barely even notice it, unless you knew to look. Tucked away behind a liquor store on busy Constable Street is the capital’s last great pub. Newtown Sports Bar is an emblem of the pub culture ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor in Marine Geology, University of Canterbury Louise Corcoran/Getty Images The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney defotoberg/Shutterstock Migrant worker exploitation is entrenched in workplaces across Australia. Tragically, a deep fear of immigration consequences means most unlawful employer conduct goes unreported. On Wednesday, however, the government officially launched a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vaughan Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Health and Physical Education, University of Tasmania Paris is about to host its third summer Olympics. While we don’t yet know what the legacy of this year’s games will be, let’s take the opportunity to reflect on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Griffith University In the wake of the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, there were calls from bothsides of US politics, as well as internationally, to reduce the brutal, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keith Rathbone, Senior Lecturer, Modern European History and Sports History, Macquarie University Two high-profile assaults on Australians in Paris have raised concerns about security ahead of the Olympic Games. On Saturday evening, a young woman was allegedly sexually assaulted by a ...
Dying is inevitable and, so it seems, is it costing a lot, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.The cost of dying ...
The government took Joyce Harris's first baby and sent her off to a girls' home. Half a century on - and out of oceans of hurt - it asked her to be a mother figure. ...
It’s the deadliest fictional town in the country, but which death has been the most bonkers? Alex Casey looks back at 10 seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries to find out. Warning: The following ranking story contains famous New Zealand actors appearing to be dead (not alive). The Spinoff has been ...
Water cremation is the biggest thing to happen to the death industry in the last 100 years. Alex Casey meets the people trying to bring it to Aotearoa. Through a set of mirrored doors down the industrial end of Christchurch’s St Asaph Street, death is getting a new lease on ...
If sprinter Zoe Hobbs lines up in the 100m final in Paris this year, her Olympic campaign will have been a success. Even if she doesn’t climb the podium, her presence will be as good as gold. But if Dame Lisa Carrington comes fourth, the country will record it as ...
Historical materialism is a way of understanding how societies grow and change, and has been very influential amongst social scientists for a century and a half. Although the theory was invented by Karl Marx, it is nowadays used in modified forms by many non-Marxist anthropologists, archaeologists, economists, and sociologists studying Pacific societies, and has been the theme of famous books like Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel. But can historical materialism really make sense of the Pacific’s past and present, or do societies like Papua New Guinea and Tonga show the limitations of the theory? http://readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2016/06/can-historical-materialism-explain.html
Thanks for the link, great article. Now I’ve got another blog to add to the reading list.
As I understand it…if I look at where I am today, then I can look at yesterday and the day before to explain how I find myself where I am today. And it will appear inevitable – or deterministic – that I am exactly where I am today.
I could them extrapolate from that and predict where I’ll be tomorrow.
And it’s all nonsense that denies the existence of free will, while dangerously elevating notions of inevitability.
Put another way using a far more simple set of circumstances. If I drop a tumbler, I don’t know for certain whether it will break or not. If after I’ve dropped it and it’s smashed into pieces, I then analyse and ‘backtrack’ all the various broken pieces through time and space, I may can claim it was inevitable – given that I’ve somehow been able to record most of the physics involved in the breaking – that all the pieces would wind up exactly where they are now.
As a claim to knowledge goes, it’s a dangerous illusion. It’s merely a description of what has happened. The truthful, and somewhat banal claim would be that, given this is the situation, then this is the situation…there would be no claim of there being a deterministic past or inevitable future attached to it.
To relate it to human history and anthropology – when we’re looking at all of those yesterdays or other cultures, we’re inevitably looking through the very specific lens of today that we possess. That distorts and shapes our understandings or perceptions.
If you like your PoMoGeo, try David Harvey. He has gone through multiple emplaced examples of structural change. Also Mike Davis – his weird stuff on climate change and its determinisms already past is particularly fresh.
But if you want a real head-stretch, try Amy Allen’s new book that came out a couple of months ago called The End of Progress. She still has those big theoretical engines from Habermas, Honneth and Forst gearing their tractor engines for the haul (i.e. good hard Frankfurt School thinkers defending the idea of progress and of long waves of order and disorder), but dispenses with a progressive reading of history, while retaining the notion of progress as a political imperative. It’s getting to a core of social impulse beyond ‘can things improve’, to ‘must things improve’?
Another day in John Key’s neo-liberal nightmare.
We have become a cruel, greedy, uncaring and selfish nation under his wretched leadership.
The many volunteers at Te Peua Marae shows the best of our country.
Paula Bennett shows us the worst of our country.
Paula Bennett declined to be interviewed. She has never accepted an interview yet from Checkpoint on the issue.
Another day in John Key’s neo-liberal nightmare.
We have become a cruel, greedy, uncaring and selfish nation under his wretched leadership.
Price rises make housing unaffordable for many New Zealanders.
‘Nine of the top ten areas of growth are in Auckland – hardly surprising judging from valuation service QV data which said average Auckland house prices in March were nearly 17 per cent higher than a year ago.
With a price increase of 33.88 per cent Manurewa had the largest growth in the year leading up to June 2016, followed by Pukekohe and Papakura.’
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/home-property/80880636/aucklands-upandcoming-suburbs
A Friday news dump that shouldn’t be forgotten about by the start of next week:
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/386473/partnership-rebuild-suggested
I’ve quoted quite enough of the article as it is, but do read the original. The Blair quote in the final paragraph of Goodwin’s piece is a truly impenetrable piece of bureaucratic obfuscation. I just re-watched Brazil the other night and the similarity with the Ministry of Information is uncanny.
Mike Williams- Voice from the Left?
[You posted the same comment yesterday, Adrian and got a few thoughtful responses. However, cut, paste and repeat is not a formula that is welcome here. Original comments are the go at TS, so either develop the argument or move on. TRP]
“I agree with Matthew…….”
Yes that is pretty much what Mike Williams ends up doing most weeks.
In fact the other week K Ryan pretty much ended up debating Hooton and Williams, it was painful to listen to.
RNZ have to get rid of him ASAP, people should email Nine to Noon on RNZ and tell them Williams doesn’t cut it.
Yes well I thought that it is such an important issue to have a decent voice on the Left on Monday mornings RNZ show, and not Mike Williams insipid lackluster position, that you might well allow it to have another go.
As ‘The voice from the Right and the Left’ on RNZ is the only main stream media airing of this type of discourse left, I thought it vital we have someone who actually holds our views, and not Williams who actually endorses English’s social/health spending principles, endorses Serco etc.
Maybe you could run an actual story on this topic, and really get the conversation going?
There’d be no problem if RNZ called it “From the far right and from the extreme far right”. Hang on, that mightn’t work, either, because Williams would still “agree with Matthew”. Fuck, this is a tough one.
Yeh, maybe you should suggest it to them, it’s quite catchy.
An apt description of Hooton, too, given he seemed to approve of Nicky Hager getting chopped up, literally that is.
The only good thing about having Williams on, is that he is so useless, that he lets Hooton have plenty of time for some real raves, and generally the more Hooton talks, the crazier he starts to sound.
“Britain’s cutting edge, £1 billion warships are breaking down in the Persian Gulf because their engines malfunction in the heat.
Contractors claim the Ministry of Defence did not tell them the 8,000-tonne, Type 45 Destroyer would spend significant amounts of time in warm water, the Daily Mail reported.
The engines of the six vessels have stalled in the middle of the ocean, leaving crews plunged into darkness for hours at a time.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/british-warships-breaking-down-because-the-water-is-too-warm-2016-6?r=US&IR=T&IR=T
It’s about making a profit. Making things that don’t work properly and often collecting maintenance contracts or additional work on the way.
But why bother to make something work especially in the defence industry, once you have the sale and the money, you don’t seem to have to worry!
These vessels aren’t going to like climate change then are they.
Pretty big fuck up on both counts. This is why I don’t believe tech is coming to save us. It’s not just tech and how it works theoretically, it’s tech and how it operates in the real world including human systems like defense contracts.
And that’s why I don’t take anything you say on tech seriously – you obviously haven’t got a clue as to what you’re talking about.
Well made argument there Draco 🙄
There’s little to no point in arguing with you about it as you’ll hold on to your wrong beliefs rather take on the fact that this isn’t a case of tech failing but of purposeful under-engineering.
Dude, go reread my comment. I already know that it wasn’t a tech fail, that it was a human fail. That was my point.
Which just reinforces that you have no idea what my beliefs are, you haven’t been paying attention, and instead have been projecting your own shit onto my comments like you did just now.
I’m not projecting anything onto you. Just responding to your hatred of technology.
As opposed to your reverence of it?
It just is. No reverence, no holding it up as a saviour. Just acceptance that it’s a tool that we can use to our benefit.
“I’m not projecting anything onto you. Just responding to your hatred of technology.”
Lol, you just did it again. Go on then, cite 3 examples that tell you I hate technology.
Ok
http://thestandard.org.nz/vaccines-do-cause-autism-shock/#comment-1182844
http://thestandard.org.nz/vaccines-do-cause-autism-shock/#comment-1183141
http://thestandard.org.nz/vaccines-do-cause-autism-shock/#comment-1183135
http://thestandard.org.nz/vaccines-do-cause-autism-shock/#comment-1182849
http://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-10062016/#comment-1186950
Just taking the first link only (because if you can’t be bothered specifying what you actually mean why should I bother opening the others?).
Incog was asking why medical authorities shouldn’t be trusted (in response to something CV had said). This was in the context of a thread about vaccination.
I gave the following explanation, which is a generalisation of why so many people don’t trust science and that there are valid reasons for that distrust. And that for many people who choose not to vaccinate it’s based on experience. I was describing a social phenomena. How is that me hating technology?
Trust has to be earned. While medical science has done many good things it has also done a lot of damage and isn’t in great shape at the moment in terms of trustworthiness. This is a very large part of the culture of people who choose to not vaccinate. It’s not an ignorant rebellion as some like to frame it, it’s based on real experience of people having their health and lives damaged. Until those people can be part of the conversation and have their concerns worked on there will always be the mistrust and the divide.
draco those cites are not cites for what you said they were cites for and I have followed your links. Obviously if they are your evidence then it is clear that you cannot back up your assertion that weka hates technology. Withdraw and an apology would be in order I think.
They all come across to me as a hatred of science/technology.
Fair enough and I’m sure you’d agree that others may interpret them differently.
Hatred is a very strong word – could be a possible projection.
“They all come across to me as a hatred of science/technology.”
Yes, that is what I mean by projection. If you can’t demonstrate how my comments are tech-hatred then it is something going on in your own self that is making you think I hate tech.
Not a case of tech failing?
Of course it is a case of tech failing. Technology does not exist independently of humans.
Chimps with twigs, sea otters with rocks.
Technology, right there.
Yes you are correct. A goat track across the Khyber Pass is technology, technically speaking.
So I will rephrase to industrial technology.
In the spirit of Matariki and all that offers, I’d like to present the ko. Fashioned from wood and requiring no smelting, importing or energy other than muscular, the ko represents the next step in cultivation technology. The ko is available to anyone with access to a sapling. Well cared for, the ko can last a lifetime and never needs upgrading as it is perfect for the job it does. If your ko breaks from careless use, a new one can be readily made. Manufacture of the ko produces no greenhouse gases, aside from the breath of the ko maker who would be breathing any way, nor is any produced by its destruction. In fact, a redundant ko continues to act as a carbon sink, if placed under the soil. There is no “mark II” ko – the original represents the tool’s ultimate form. That’s appropriate technology for you – difficult to fault and elegant in its simplicity. Mind you, even the ko can be considered redundant when compared with the best cultivator of them all, the daikon seed. But that’s a story for the Japanese New Year.
Visuals,
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/etexts/Gov10_10Rail/Gov10_10Rail021a.jpg
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/etexts/CowYest/CowYest_185a.jpg
This is interesting,
Then approached the owner of the field, and he showed the digging-party where he wished them to work. The diggers gathered in one corner of the field, and worked diagonally across the planting area. They had a peculiar way of advancing, ko-ing as they went. The ground had previously been prepared by being cleared of all grass and weeds and other growth, and was perfectly clean and bare for the diggers. The Taiporohenui soil did not require much digging, for it was very soft and rich, easily worked.
The ko-men worked across from the corner, gradually extending their front as the field opened out; and all kept time as they worked, moving the handles of the ko to the right and left alternately, as they made the holes for the reception of the seed kumara. They kept time with a choric song while they worked; all the bare backs moved as one man to the rhythm of the ancient chant, the feathers and white aurei adornments of the ko-heads dancing in the sun.
“Ko-ing”
You don’t read that word every day.
Great for those volcanic soils, I imagine, but not so flash in the clay where gypsum is the technology of choice.
JMG has an article which touches on the points you make above and in it there are some real world examples and links.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.nz/2016/06/they-died-of-progress.html
cheers marty.
JMG should probably try reading the entire article that he references:
What the article says:
Of course, even a US super-carrier can be knocked out of the fight by a single hostile cruise missile. That’s what the cruise missile’s designed to do. Our frigates, which are a similar size to the LCS, would also be knocked out of the fight by a single cruise missile strike.
The $37b is the price for all 24 ships.
And the problem isn’t the tech. It’s the profit drive and the corruption that comes with it. JMG actually makes that point but he takes awhile to get around to it and actually seems to miss it himself.
Military procurement should start in the government and end in the government.
I’m not sure you understand the points he was making to be honest.
Well, if that’s so why don’t you explain the point you think he was making?
“All the most egregious examples of military-procurement failure in recent years have had something in common: they were supposed to be revolutionary new breakthroughs using exciting new technology, and so on drearily through the most overused rhetoric of our age. The cascading failures of the F-35 can be traced straight to that sort of thinking; its designers apparently believed with all their hearts that every innovation must be an improvement, and so came up with a plane that fails in the most innovative ways you care to imagine. The LCS, the SBX, the ECCS, the pixellated camo uniforms, all fell victim to the same trap—their designers were so busy making them revolutionary that they forgot to make them work.”
I’ll highlight the really relevant sentence
“apparently believed with all their hearts that every innovation must be an improvement” – that is the cult of progress… and
“progress has become the enemy of prosperity”
and
“progress, like everything else in the real world, is subject to the law of diminishing returns”
I believe you are still a believer in the role of progress – 🙂
Two points:
1. Its designers (important words that you missed out) probably weren’t the ones making all the grandiose claims. The people selling the concept were
2. There really isn’t a whole lot of new technology in the F35. Most of it goes back to the 1950/60s. It really is just simple incremental adjustments over time.
Which is simply a load of bollocks. It’s capitalism that is the enemy of prosperity and always has been throughout recorded history. JMG doesn’t realise that and, apparently, neither do you. JMG is a dedicated capitalist so it’s not surprising that he doesn’t see the damage that capitalism does.
True, even improved living standards across all of society (my preferred measure of progress) meet such an end but look at how people react to me saying that there should be a maximum income of $100k/year per person and that I think that that may even be far too much.
But that’s not what JMG or you are addressing there. Both of you are addressing technological innovation and solely referring to that as ‘progress’.
How do you see progress without technology? seems to me too many can’t disengage those concepts.
Where is your proof that jmg is a dedicated capitalist – put up or shut up. I’d imagine you are much more entangled in that system and thus supporting it than he is.
o_0
How can someone as smart as you be as stupid as you?
How much of the F-35 is repairable in a 1960’s equipped hangar? How much of the F-35 is repairable using 1960’s materials and parts?
If you put an airforce pilot from 1960 into the cockpit of the F-35, how far would he be able to fly it?
Is it true that a modern Oak Ridge supercomputer is basically the same as an abacus, with a series of incremental improvements thrown in over time?
I’m amazed that they’re even trying that excuse. It’s obviously a case of purposeful under engineering to save costs rather than provide the product as requested.
A warship obviously needs to operate wherever it’s sent.
Bit premature there, Draco – the devil is in as requested. If there weren’t requirements to operate reliably in environmental extremes, then the lowest tender is the one that used lower-rated heat exchangers to cool the engines.
Produce to spec, not what you think they need.
If there isn’t a clause that says, effectively, operate in all theatres then I will be highly surprised. To put it another way, I’d be even more surprised if the spec said operate only in waters around Gt Britain.
So, no, I don’t think that it’s premature. I’m pretty sure that the company that built them a) understood that they were making them less effective b) that they were doing so against generally understood principle and c) that they were doing so to increase profits.
Well, that’s the crux of the dispute between MoD and Rolls Royce: RR say they designed to spec (probably a temperature bracket that’s borderline Gulf/tropical).
If the specifications were average gulf temperatures, for example, they could both be correct if the engines failed on above-average days.
But that will be for negotiations and the courts to decide.
It is difficult for an English firm operating in the gelid wastelands of Cameron’s decaying imperial ruin to imagine sustained external temperatures of 45 degrees for a ship. They probably used an optimistic 25 degrees, with a healthy margin for error.
Rolls Royce engines are british designed and made and they are fine all around the world, at all altitudes.
But apparently not all temperatures at sea level.
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11654367
The first few paragraphs are typical trevett rubbish. But she makes some good points further down .
Here’s hoping that Labour’s cooperative politics can extend to the Mp and Mana too.
The Maori Party deserve to be binned for their choice to suck up to National and mana are all ready binned, due to their choice to suck up to KDC. The future is unwritten, as a wise man once said, but I don’t see either of those parties making it back next election. it’s certainly not the LP’s role to resuscitate them.
Yep Labour can’t afford to worry about any other team, not with their very survival at stake and so much to do within the party and the electorate. The activist left is trucking along well so Labour can stick with trying to entice key supporters over. If Labour can do a little better than their fail last time then maybe the can help the left make a difference – time will tell.
And Labour deserve to be binned for all their fuck ups over the years, including the recent ones, which leaves us with the Greens as the only useful and meaningful left wing party. So how about we get everyone to vote for them then? /sarc
Your macho politics are exactly why we have had 3 terms of NACT. MMP is about broadening representation not consolidating it in the hands of the few. It would be a real shame and probably a tragedy if too many Labourites believe that they have to deal with the Greens from pragmatics but still secretly want to be the top dog and have all the power for themselves.
Sharing power makes for better society.
just remember weka the true attitude on show that Labour has towards potential coalition partners.
Weka, sharing is where it’s at and Labour have shown they are capable of doing that in Government. 3 elections in a row, Helen Clark shared power with 3 different combinations of partners. The reality is that Labour know they have to share power under MMP. The current arrangement with the Greens is a concrete affirmation of that fact.
Sharing is not macho politics. It’s weird that you would think that it was.
The group with the most power don’t get to define what power sharing is. By definition it has to be defined by the people who are denied access to power. Otherwise it’s just the powerholders holding power.
“Sharing is not macho politics. It’s weird that you would think that it was.”
I didn’t say was. Please don’t manipulate my words to suit your own argument.
Do the people who don’t have power understand what the first rule of power is?
I would suggest obviously not, because otherwise they would have the power.
Not sure what you mean there CV. Lots of different kinds of power.
I’m referring to the kind you were talking about when you referred to the group “with the most power”.
And also the kind of power you were talking about when you said that others are being “denied” that power.
hmm, ok I understand what you are getting at now, but not this bit,
“Do the people who don’t have power understand what the first rule of power is?”
What’s the first rule of power?
Power is never freely given, it has to be taken.
So you think that people that have power taken from them don’t understand the first rule of power?
? your comment is a non sequitor to my comment
Power is not taken from another party, it’s “taken”, as in “assumed”. If you’d like some, take some. Those who haven’t got any, haven’t taken any.
Yet 🙂
Robert Guyton 😀 😀 😀
Actually, under MMP, the largest party has more power in negotiations, as you’d expect. Generally MMP coalitions reflect the votes received with the largest party getting the largest share. That’s an arrangement the Greens seem happy with.
Macho politics was your phrase, weka. It turns out you used it poorly.
Thanks for proving my point trp. You believe the person with the biggest stick rules. That’s macho politics.
Sharing power is much more than just the biggest dude deciding what they want on their terms. MMP historically in NZ has been about powermongering, including by Labour in the past. It doesn’t have to be that way.
(I didn’t use the phrase poorly, you tried to redefine what sharing is. Just be honest about it).
Hey gorgeous!
The biggest stick holder does rule. Might is right. Doesn’t mean you can’t have power though. You have to take what you need.
The ‘best man’ rules.
“The biggest stick holder does rule.”
Doesn’t have to though. There is no technical reason that prevents Labour from sharing power.
Arthur decided to defeat the Might is Right tyrants of the day, by assembling a gang of armed men, the Knights of the Round Table … oh, hang on …
Truckies seem to have a lot.
Arthur was still operating within a domination paradigm. Probably didn’t have a lot of choice. Labour do though. Most of us do now.
Hi weka,
I don’t disagree with your comments but you and others here seem to view (political) power as some kind of finite entity that can be shared like (as in: cutting up) a cake. I know this is the most common perception.
However, I’d like to offer a different (counter?) view that also leads, almost inevitably, to a different framing.
I see power more as an almost limitless resource rather.
When (political) parties “share” power in reality they combine forces, e.g. seats, people, knowledge & skills, values & opinions, etc., a joining of qualities and strengths, from which increased power is possible. In other words, it is more an additive action than a fractional one.
An MOU is also such an action, which may or may not lead to increased power. In fact, the Opposition also has considerable political power although not as much as the Government.
I’ve cut short this comment, but not because of the AB game starting in a few minutes …
“In other words, it is more an additive action than a fractional one.”
Actually that’s much close to my own ideas and I like how you have phrased that. The fractional aspect is just the MMP MP split. But the power is exactly those things you talk about, people, knowledge/skills, diversity of values and ethics, opinions etc. and the powersharing comes from intention, willingness, self-awareness etc. I would add that relationships are the key to increasing diversity and thus making it both more stable/resilient and more productive/potent. Which is why it is such a shame that MMP has been driven by macho politics for so long, it’s obvious in the relationships that nothing meaningful has been built long term (and this is reflected in our current situation re CC).
I also agree that MoU is part of that and that it has its own value irrespective of how much or little MP power it engenders. I love that you have brought all this up, because to me this is the thing that is bringing much relief to so many with the MoU, even if we’re not naming it. It’s the fact that Labour and the Greens working together gives them another kind of power beyond the mere machinations at the level of macho politics and who has the most sticks/MPs. Which is why I hope that Labour will do the right thing by the Mp.
Suggest you read Michael basset in the nbr today TRP, you may also after this have a similar opinion of labour future to that of mana and Maori party in regard to labour failing to learn the lessons of their own history with respect to thier lurch to the left
Labour started solidly left. Hijacked by Rogernomes, it ‘lurched’ to the right. Basset was among those ghastly Rogernomes.
I am waiting for Labour to gracefully glide back to the original leftist glory.
Red Delusion – you are an amusing diversionist who uses tired old clichés to justify the indefensible.
RD Nobody would bother reading anything by Basset, petulant and spiteful since Lange told him to p*ss off.
As trip says manas gone and I can’t see them coming back.
Its up to the Maori party to win their seats ,they made their own bed , but it is an option for Labour/Green /Maori . I’d much prefer that to any government with the dinosaur nzf party.
While I understand the Maori parties policy of always trying to be in the tent, being in the tent with the nats has cost them .
I have no idea what state the party is in, but I can’t see any good reason why Harawira can’t stand in Te Tai Tokerau again.
yes, it’s up the the Mp to win their seats, but if Labour go hard after them, what chance of having the kind of cooperation between L and the Mp that engenders a stable, potent left wing govt?
I guess there is a difference in “going hard” and making sure that Maori have the option of coming back to labour . I would say standing Tamiti Coffee was leaving the door open for mp win last election.
I think I took from the original link the idea that Labour might decide to go hard after all the Māori seats again and thus bring down the Mp. Which would be stupid IMO because it doesn’t get them any more MPs (not sure what happens with the overhang from the Mp), and if it doesn’t work they’ve made another enemy. I don’t think they, or the left, can afford that even if I thought it was a valid strategy. Which I don’t. We should be looking at Mp policy and whether they can support a LW govt.
Even flow baby, if it fits, feels right, it is mean’t to be.
I love a happy ending, or should I say – a beautiful beginning.
ooh, a Saturday spambot. The AI convo is further down the page if you are interested.
[Threw it into perm bot ban land ;-)] – Bill
I prefer to say, Mana have been sin binned from the process because the status quoians didn’t like the rough play in opposing the system itself. That which cannot be controlled must be eliminated.
Funny though all the Mana Movement people I know are still out there, as before, fighting for equality and dignity and an end to unnecessary suffering. Kia kaha to them!
+1 that. I think too many people miss the ‘movement’ bit, and as with perceptions of the Greens, they don’t recognise that politics are being done differently.
Manas the only party that had a chance of awakening a reasonable proportion of the missing million , so i hope they make a comeback , I just think that those newbies they got voting last election are unlikely to get exited again after the last dissapiontment .
What the media aren’t doing.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/36293-the-mainstream-media-s-climate-malpractice
Major flooding events in just the last two Weeks
https://www.facebook.com/133975496644625/photos/a.144234262285415.22345.133975496644625/1101738993201599/?type=3&theater
They missed one.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-09/mounting-tasmanian-damage-bill-feared-as-floodwaters-subside/7494504
The questions being asked why did the states hydro company go ahead with cloud seeding.
https://www.rt.com/news/346127-tasmania-flooding-cloud-seeding/
“We are stupid and rather venal bastards who, for personal gain, have worked to make you complicit in the willful destruction of everything our civilisation stands on. Look!”
That would be the underlying gist of the headlines that we’ll never see.
Sadly it is basic human nature that is the problem and only a few realise it has to be controlled if we are to progress. The “I’m [relatively] ok .. f… you mate” attitude to be found in almost everybody left or right thinking.
Nah. There are many facets to ‘basic human nature’. It’s up to us what facets we encourage. Our current socio/economic/political set ups don’t exactly encourage the best in us. We really do get ahead at present if we’re willing to rub the fucking ground.
Easy enough to open our eyes and walk away.
Has Labour gotten around to opposing offshore drilling yet? If not, will Republicans showing more sense than that finally shame them into it?
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/06/10/3786902/seismic-testing-opposition-gets-bipartisan/
Indeed.
Why is Labour still in support of deep sea oil drilling?
There are no votes in it.
There are no jobs in it.
And they could use Winnie’s continued support for deep sea oil drilling in Northland to beat him around the head with, to get him to separate off from the, drill it, mine it, frack it, burn it, Nact coalition of climate vandals.
Which would be essential if Labour are to ever head a majority coalition government.
John Key ought to have a plant named after him. A sewerage treatment plant.
Or maybe Raflesia Jonsky an extravagant parasite that smells rotten and attracts flies.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00hm598
how about amnesiac forget-me lots
It looks like scary times are ahead of us. It seems robots are learning how to make decisions on their own and it has been recommended that all robots in the future, whatever their jobs are, are fitted with a kill switch. Who would have thought that science fiction writers would be bringing it all to life with robots now being able to out wit their creators. Also, if killer switches are to be made they have to be kept isolated from the robot so he can’t have fore knowledge of what it is meant for.
Big business may see the irony of all this with culling of staff and using robots on killing chains and automotive factories. Fun times ahead.
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/science/features/press-the-big-red-button-computer-experts-want-kill-switch-to-stop-robots-from-going-rogue-847619
Hard to use a kill switch on a robot if it has charged it’s external metal frame with 1,000V.
Also if these robots are networked, one local AI learning what the kill switch does can tell all other AI around the world within a second.
Fans of Battlestar Galactica amongst others know where all of this is going.
Unqualified multi-millionaire Clinton Foundation donor given position on State Department nuclear weapons advisory board
Hi Mr Sanders still want the job.
Yours the democrat party
Are the Green Party in denial about climate change?
In my comment here, on the Green Party co-leader James Shaw’s keynote speech to the Green Party conference, I included my transcription of this paragraph.
Which was commented on by greywarshark, and Robert Guyton here and here, remarking that this comment by the Green Party leader seemed to be out of touch with the reality.
The tenor of Grey’s and Robert’s criticism was summed up in the concluding comment by weka.
Which in my opinion is an accurate summation of the action that is called for.
1/ From mentioning a vision in which sea levels do not rise. Does the Green Leader go on to promote or suggest any course of acton that may possibly “mitigate the worst of CC”?
2/ Does the Green Party leadership, go on to outline a course of action that hopefully will prevent future generations living in “constant panic”?
3/ Does the Green Party leadership outline a course of action in which future generations will “be able to respond to the changes in their environment”?
4/ Is the Green Party calling on us to do “everything we can”, or that we “chose to”, to avert the worst of this disaster?
My conclusion given here, is that the answer to all four questions is no. (Well not at their conference anyway).
Robert Guyton concludes his comment on this portion of James Shaw’s speech with this comment;
I would like to ask Robert, now that he has had a chance to have a closer look at James speech, and possibly Meteria Turei’s as well, that now might might be a good time to give us your report back.
Robert in your opinion, does the Green Party fulfil any of the 4 points raised by weka?
Robert in your opinion is the Green Party in denial about climate change?
It’s worse with the Greens – they know better than most about the severity of climate change, but have decided to tone all of that down in public in order to chase power.
Colonial Viper – it would be rude of me to re-title you, Colonial Griper, so I’ll resist the temptation, but Ad is correct in what he says to you. Mind you, I’m all ears and they are pricked in anticipation of your suggested alternative to voting Green, with “potential to address climate change” as the deciding factor. I would like you to explain how ‘toning it down in public’ is a reason not to vote for them, if that’s in fact what you’ve decided, and whether you believe that a political party is the best vehicle for broadcasting the climate situation and responses to it? Personally, I don’t.
Cheers.
Vote for whoever you like, I don’t care, I didn’t say not to vote for them did I?
I just said that they were toning down the truth that they know inside, in a vain attempt to reach for power and respectability from the status quo.
Colonial Viper.
You don’t care who I vote for? Hmmm…I thought you might be interested in linking readers opinions with their voting choices. I know I like to do that as it provides insight. No matter.
You said, quite correctly, that “they” are toning down the truth that they know inside”, but went on to give your opinion about why they have done that. Your view seems jaded; you use words like “vain attempt” (do you think they will fail?) and “power and respectability” (you’ve spoken to these MPs? They say they are seeking “power and respectability”?). I think you assume too, too much. Also, you sound dismissive and superior, somehow. Do you despise the Green MPs? I know these questions/challenges are not going to endear me to you, and I suspect we hold very similar views about things, it’s just that I’m feeling feisty today, following an evening of dosie-doeing at a local barn dance. The Waves of Tory does that to ya.
Seriously, vote for whoever you want, I’m not interested in who you vote for, it’s totally your call.
“I just said that they were toning down the truth that they know inside, in a vain attempt to reach for power and respectability from the status quo.”
That’s one way to look at it. Another way is that all the people on the climate change bandwagon now, who didn’t vote for the GP all those years when they were being radical, are hypocrites for criticising the Greens now for being pragmatic because it’s our only hope.
Weka – well put. This reaction is not unexpected and I imagine the Green MPs have considered long and hard, how to manage the phenomenon you describe. Kindly, would be my bet. I don’t think we’ll see the Greens saying, f-you guys, I’m going home.
True. Which is why I find CV’s perspective that the Greens are just another bunch of powermongers says more about him than anything. It is sad though, because it comes across as yet another unnecessary fight on the left when we are running out of time.
In the lead up to the election the attackers of the greens and labour should be ignored.
If the get elected ( the labour/greens) , then is the time to publicly dismantle their actions and debate their failings. in my most humble opinion
very good b, and thanks for the reminder. I’ll call people out when they mislead, but ignoring the rest is probably a good strategy.
An excellent strategy.
Meh, your rationale is that the Greens are justified in watering down their positions because they need more votes. That’s chasing power at the expense of their principles, clear and simple.
I’ve seen you use this sad excuse a few times now.
That is, because old timers didn’t vote for the Values Party in the 70s, the successor Green Party is now (somehow) justified 40 years later in going soft around the middle and chasing the establishment, pretend and extend vote.
BTW the Greens aren’t any kind of “hope”, other than perhaps providing a slightly better version of pretend and extend which might give us an extra decade of relative niceness compared to more right wing parties.
Lol, nice side step but as you know I was referring up you.
Geeezus what are you talking about, I couldn’t vote in the 1970s
Play whatever game you want CV, it’s pretty clear what I’m talking about. If you truly believe that the only useful politics the Greens ever had was in the 70s, what were you doing in the Labour party all that time? Rhetorical question.
it’s not the specific policies of the 1970s Values Party, its the fact that back then they stood tall and uncompromising in what they believed in despite the ridicule of most of the rest of the nation.
That stands in stark contrast to the modern Greens.
” If you truly believe that the only useful politics the Greens ever had was in the 70s, what were you doing in the Labour party all that time?”
Uh what? I was not in Labour at that time.
“it’s not the specific policies of the 1970s Values Party, its the fact that back then they stood tall and uncompromising in what they believed in despite the ridicule of most of the rest of the nation.”
I can certainly see why you personally would value that so highly. And fair enough. That doesn’t mean what they’ve done since is wrong. It’s easily arguable that what they have achieved in the intervening decades, including getting climate change on the agenda, is a result of them deciding not to stay on the fringe but to work within the mainstream. There’s nothing wrong with working in the mainstream, in fact we should be greatful to the people who can and will do that because it comes at a significant personal costs. We need good people there as much as we need the radicals on the fringe.
Which takes me back to my original point. My understanding is that you have become aware of peak oil and cc in more recent years (5 or 6?), and have have formed your ideas about them in that time. But prior to that time, all the time the Greens (not Values) were in parliament and lefties like you wouldn’t vote for them, you were diminishing our chances of having a more radical Green voice in parliament. Because they knew what was coming before we did, and that lack of support then is why we have the GP we do today. If they wanted to have parliamentary power they needed votes. NZ fucked that up big time. To then turn around and criticise them for not being radical enough now is hypocrisy, doubly so because you still don’t support or vote for the only party in parliament that is leading the way on cc.
” If you truly believe that the only useful politics the Greens ever had was in the 70s, what were you doing in the Labour party all that time?”
Uh what? I was not in Labour at that time.
I’m not talking about the 70s. Which I’m pretty sure you know.
Colonial Viper – a political party, Green or otherwise, is just a piece in the game that is ‘the future’, as I’m sure you know. I expect also that you are ‘playing’ with the other pieces available to you; friends and family, networks and community, local government and NLGO’s like Transition Towns or whatever has sprung up in your area – a widely-cast net catches the most fish. A political party has a highly restrictive zone to operate in – if the don’t play well, they have little or no influence at all. You don’t trust the Green Party MPs, staff and particularly their strategists, to play their hand to the best advantage of us all, which is how I believe the operate, and denigrate them accordingly. I’m not certain why you believe you have the inside running on the Green Party’s strategy and motivations, but recognise that you believe you are ‘lifting the ‘team’ higher; how, I’ve not yet fathomed, but will pay attention till I do – perhaps you could help with a brief description of what your ‘play’ is – I’m am interested to know. I make my judgement of the Greens based on what I’ve experienced personally with it and the people who have driven it over the past decades; weighing their other actions and positions, particularly where their work intersects with my own in the field of ecology. I’ve found that the depth of understanding exhibited by Green MPs in particular, is strikingly in advance of that of other politicians, including around climate change, and have never seen signs of them carelessly casting that position aside for the sake of votes – strategic retreats, yes, but no ‘selling out’ where it really counts – at the philosophical and ethical base. It may be that the Greens should sound the trumpets of war over the issue, but I’m willing to think that they’ve thought long and hard about how to bring the most relief to the illness climate change represents.
I’m happy to vote for nice people but I’m not going to pretend that they are going to do a thing to change the world
Ah, and that’s where you and I have common ground, pretty much. I don’t believe they’ll do nothing – I think they’ll do all they can and that’s all we can hope for from any player.
nope need more, much more, or its all over within 25 years.
Cv article in nbr today debunking sea levels rising by anything near what models predict. the gist been the models themselves are flawed vs empirical data. If you have access be interested on your view as wil get a response without abuse.These conflicting scientific views does make getting to a conclusion on climate change difficult,
I’m taking it you’re going to be first in line to buy on the Sydney beachfront.
Where you really will have the Infinity Pool. On the beach.
Red Delusion:
The ice over Greenland and over Antarctica is in places between 3km and 4km deep. That’s a lot of water.
An iceless, warm water Earth will see sea levels rise between 70m and 100m.
Losing the Greenland ice sheet alone will raise sea levels by 5m or more. Dunedin and Christchurch are over as habitable cities in such a scenario.
We have currently seen only about 1/2 of the temp increase due to today’s level of CO2 emissions thanks to the thermal inertia of the system. (Think about a pot of water on the electric stove – the stove top gets hot but the water in the pot stays cool, for a while at least. You measure the temperature of the water but nothing much seems to happen. You can turn off the stove top, but the temperature of the water will keep going up due to the delay).
Taking current warming experienced as being about 1.1 deg C, Global Dimming temporarily hiding another 1 deg C to 1.5 deg C, and roughly another 1.1 deg C of warming to occur regardless of what we do today, I can comfortably say that we are going to experience no less than about 3.2 deg C warming in total.
That’s the 21st century min temp increase.
And that means most of the Greenland ice, amongst others, will destabilise and melt – over time.
So whether it is this century or next century, we will see multi-metre sea level rise.
My best bet is 10m sea level rise by 2100, and 5 deg C to 10 deg C increase. We already have the first 3 to 3.5 deg C of that done and in the bag.
thanks Cv while you logic makes sense ( albeit level of sea rise is a value judgement)
These guys Willem de Lange, MSc DPhil, is a senior lecturer at the University of Waikato. Bryan Leyland MSc, FIEE(retired), FIMechE, FIPENZ argue the models predicting temperature rises are flawed, They argue that the Royal Society of New Zealand’s recent study on sea level rise claims that, in the next 100 years, sea levels will surely rise by 0.3m and 1m is possible ( let alone your 10m) is flawed on the basis claim does not stand up to close examination.
First, the rise in sea level and New Zealand coast has been about 0.14m over the past 100 years, with no sign of a recent increase in the rate.
They argue is no solid evidence to indicate this steady rate will increase rapidly in the future. They believe that the Royal Society’s claims are based on flawed climate models that predicted, by now, temperatures would be 0.5° higher than they really are and increasing faster and faster.They further point out there is no solid evidence to indicate this steady rate will increase rapidly in the future.
The essence of thier article is when dubious data were fed into Royal Society sea level models, they predicted rapidly increasing sea level rise.
They further argue indirectly by quoting Russian climate model that assumes CO2 makes only a small contribution to global warming that these models more matches recent temperatures and Perhaps these model it is right.
I guess it comes down to the collective view of science which argues in favour of climate change, I also note your reasoning on delay in system and then the affects become exponential, but I do suggest at this point the level of change, how much is man made and wether we can or the cost of doing anything about it is still open for debate
Hansen is quite clear that paleoclimatology, i.e. looking at climate records going back millions of years, has provided a fair degree of certainty.
Bottom line is that the models that have been used by the IPCC and others are almost definitely wrong, but those guys you quote think that they are wrong one way, and Hansen and others think they are wrong the other way.
I don’t know how old you are or where you live, but I’ve made sure that I am living in a place which will stay high and dry for over 50 years even within a worst case sea level rise scenario.
Just remember, an ice free world indicates a 70-100m sea level rise, and this has happened before in the natural history of the world.
Do you reckon you’ve convinced him?
He’s not for convincing, imo.
I’d say you’re right, but I’m not necessarily talking just to him…
Others like him are equally entrenched. Time spent defending and explaining is time that could be better spent lifting your own team higher. ‘sup to you, of course. ‘snot my job to tell you what to do 🙂
Cheer. But I do believe that I am lifting the ‘team’ higher 😀
Live on a hill CV so all good. Contrary to feedback not sure where I am at on climate change. What i would like to see is more synthesis of various competing arguments and studies on climate change as you appear to get one view or the other For the layman it can be difficult to judge and simply reaching a view on political lines as many seem to do here does not really help, This is why I raised this article and sort your feedback as I new I would get one with out the usual BS , and thus you have lifted the team higher 😀
A pleasure to discuss with you Red Delusion, and thank you. Also worth checking where your services go through. Pipes, wires, pumping stations and exchanges your street relies upon may reside in or go through lower more easily waterlogged areas.
Red delusion. Not interested.
So the NBR is continuing to promote climate change denial. Hope that means all their rich readers go and buy low lying properties off the less well off, so that it’s those wealthy climate change deniers who get flooded in the not so distant future. Sadly thats probably not the way it will work out.
Not sure where you are on climate change, Red delusion?
As before, not interested.
If you are too green to support the Green Party you’re going to have a difficult time voting or otherwise participating in an election. They are as strong and as green as you are going to get anywhere in the world.
I’m always confused by this kind of politics – where someone else offers you a set menu and you contort your personal position away from what you really believe to conform to an option that someone else has picked for you.
Hello, Jenny.
You seem to be asking if the solution to the problem of climate change can be found by parsing the words from the speeches of a politician (or two).
I say no to that.
If you were asking my to choose which political party in New Zealand is most likely to have MPs who have a realistic grasp of what climate change is about and what might result from it, then I’d choose the Green Party, and that’s by a significant margin. I have had face to face discussions with Kennedy Graham, Metiria Turei, Russel Norman, Nandor Tanzcos, Rod Donald, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Gareth Hughes and many of the other Green MPs, past and present, so I’m basing my opinion on more than just what I read in their speeches. That means that I can answer your question, “…is the Green Party in denial about climate change?” with certainty, by saying,emphatically, no, it is not. Weka’s “4 points” are, apologies here, weka, not an especially useful vehicle for thinking about this issue, in my view. For example, the question that asks: “Does the Green Party leadership, go on to outline a course of action that hopefully will prevent future generations living in “constant panic”?” is nebulous and not pointed enough to illicit a real-world answer, in my view. Asking questions is essential, but the right ones can difficult to compose.
I wonder, Jenny, what you are doing today, aside from posting here? I’ve been doing what I do every day; making real-world preparations for the future by doing things that would fit comfortably into The ArchDruid’s “Green Wizard” guide to useful pursuits 🙂 Fortunately, communicating online is one of those things:-)
Hi Robert, haven’t you learnt to play the ball not the player.
As far as I know I have as much right to post here as you. As to what I am doing today. I shouldn’t have to justify myself.
Not that it is any of your business. But I actually at home because I am unwell. And please don’t let me burden the readers with the gory details.
But, for all you know I could be as incapacitated as Professor Hawking, so please don’t use this line of attack again. (On anyone).
But I have to thank you.
Your efforts to avoid giving a straight answer have made me so angry that I am getting up and going out, and doing all those things, that just like you say, I should be doing.
Hopefully when I come back and have I calmed down. I will be able to give you a more fuller reply.
Cheers Jenny
Jenny – you misread the tone of my comment and I’m sorry for that – it was not a negative criticism of you or what you might or might not be doing. I learned long ago not to play the man (or woman) unless there’s entertainment to be had by doing so. I’m not above gently ribbing.
As for your getting angry, I’ll put that down to your feeling unwell and hope you recover fully, soon. Your decision to get up and do all those things sounds like a good one and when you have regained your equilibrium, please do write back. I hope you’ll see that I was neither attacking you, nor doing anything other than giving my best-considered answers.
“Weka’s “4 points” are, apologies here, weka, not an especially useful vehicle for thinking about this issue, in my view.”
Hi Robert, they’re not my points, they’re Jenny’s. She is misrepresenting things (not for the first time). She obviously has a lot of passion about climate change but I find her approach confusing and unhelpful. I can’t make much sense of her original comment up thread, because she is mixing up so many different people’s views and arguments.
Hi weka please pardon me for using your words.
I did this deliberately to show that even by your own standards the New Zealand Green Party are denying, (if that is not too strong a word)** the reality of climate change. (Unlike CV or RG, I do not try to guess or impute any motive for this denial.)
The following is your original quote, and my break down of it. This time I have removed the numbers, which I admit may have been a bit of clumsy device to use to make my point.
“Seas are going to rise, but we still have a chance to mitigate the worst of CC. Do we want subsequent generations to live in contant panic? Or do we want them to be able to respond to the changes in their environment knowing that we are all doing everything we can, and that we chose to avert the worst of teh disaster.”
weka
http://thestandard.org.nz/our-plan-to-change-the-government/#comment-1183965
Does the Green Leader go on to promote or suggest any course of acton that may possibly “mitigate the worst of CC”?
Does the Green Party leadership, go on to outline a course of action that hopefully will prevent future generations living in “constant panic”?
Does the Green Party leadership outline a course of action in which future generations will “be able to respond to the changes in their environment”?
Is the Green Party calling on us to do “everything we can”, or that we “chose to”, to avert the worst of this disaster?
I had directed these question to Robert Guyton because he had written that maybe the reason the Green Party play down climate change is so as to not frighten the man in the street.
Also Robert had promised to have a closer look at James speech and report back.
“Hard, cold facts are suitable for certain occasions but not all. Walking up to some vulnerable soul in the street and telling them the “truth” could be a bit harsh if it leaves them a puddle of despair. I’m keen to have a closer look now, at James’ speech. I’ll report back” 🙂
Robert Guyton
Personally I had thought that James Shaw’s speech was inspiring and uplifting, even though it contained no concrete Green Party proposals on climate change. I made allowances for this, in that I believed at the time of reading and listening to James speech, that he was holding back so as to not preempt the next day’s advertised June 5 Launch of the Green Party’s Centrepiece Environmental Campaign by Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei.
I had expected a lot from the Centrepiece Launch because I remember James Shaw at the beginning of his tenure as Green Party co-leader promising that he would be making climate change the centrepiece of the Green Party’s campaigns.
I wrote on the Sunday Morning that I was really looking forward to that day’s Green Party Centre Piece launch, and I was.
Unfortunately I was terribly disappointed. The Launch of the Green Party’s Centrepiece Environmental Campaign was a rehash of the Green Party’s “Clean Rivers Campaign” with which the Green Party have fought the last two elections, relabelled as the “Swimmable Rivers Campaign”.
Now don’t get me wrong, I think that the terrible condition of our rivers needs to be addressed, but I don’t think that this should be used as an excuse to ignore climate change.
In Meteria Turei’s Launch of the Green Party’s Centrepiece Environmental Campaign, she made only the briefest possible mention of the two words “climate change”, which Meteria spoke in an aside from her main address. The two words climate change were tacked on the end of a short list of things that Meteria said the government was neglecting. And that was it. That was the only mention, of the biggest environmental catastrophe of all time.
Frankly speaking I thing that this was a disgrace and an insult to all those working and campaigning against climate change both here and overseas.
**Personally I do not think that the New Zealand Green Party are climate change deniers in the usual way this term is used and implied, I prefer the more accurate term Climate Change ignorers. A policy which I think we can all agree the New Zealand Green Party leadership have been actively pursuing for several years now. (If ignoring something can be considered something that is active, rather than passive.)
“Hi weka please pardon me for using your words.”
They’re not my words in the end though, you’ve taken them out of their context. They’re just words that you used and incorrectly attributed to me so that Robert (and possibly others) thought your questions were mine. Can you please be more careful in future?
We disagree about the role of the Green Party so I’ll leave it at that.
You are avoiding the issue.
Weka those are your own words.
You were commenting on a thread about James Shaw statement that in the future we will be able to visit a beach where the sea level won’t rise.
What can we make of this?
That the Green Party starting with their co-leader James Shaw are playing a game of sticking their fingers in their ears and going La-la-la-la-la?
James Shaw drew a word picture where everyone drives electric cars and all freight goes by rail, and sea level rise doesn’t happen, and said, “this is not science fiction.” But James Shaw did not forward one single political demand on how we get from the present, where climate change and sea level rise is a real world phenomenon, to his imagined world, where it isn’t.
Nothing about opposing deep sea oil drilling.
Nothing about insisting that the new coal mine projects in the pipeline in this country be scrapped.
Nothing about switching the $11 billion put aside for new motorways to public transport.
No mention of the Government using fraudulent carbon credits to cheat the ETS
No call to oppose the extension of the life of the coal fired Huntly power station.
No call to withdraw the government’s subsidies to Solid Energy and the oil companies.
No mention of what to do about climate refugees from our neighbouring Pacific countries directly threatened by climate change.
No ‘real world’ policy on climate change at all, zip, zero, nada.
What about Meteria Turei’s “Green Party Centrepiece Environmental Campaign Launch”, the following day, which was even worse. Turei mentioned the two words “climate change”, only once and in an aside from her main speech, and only then, in a recitation of a list of other things.
Ignoring climate change, the Green Party Centrepiece Environmental Campaign launch. Announced that the Green Party’s intention is to make “Swimmable Rivers” the centrepiece campaign of the Green Party.
(Which is a repackaging of the Green Party’s “Clean Rivers” campaign with which the Green Party have fought the last two elections with).
“Swimmable Rivers” while a nice ideal, won’t make a jot of difference if the rest of the biosphere is degraded by climate change, algae blooms, deoxidation as warm water holds less oxygen. And not directly related to rivers, the acidification of the oceans, will undo all the work to make rivers nice enough to swim in. And I might mention here that if climate change is not seriously addressed, having somewhere nice to swim may be the least of our problems.
So, what about the greatest environmental disaster of all time?
Have the Green Party given up on combating climate change?
Has climate change been put in the too hard basket by the Green Party?
How come, not one single policy mention, or announced initiative.
Not one single political demand.
Don’t the Green Party know that the Great Barrier Reef is dying, don’t they know the Arctic is losing its ice cover? is the Green Party not aware that the record breaking flood disasters around the globe that are inundating river side communities, and eroding river banks are due to warmer air holding more moisture, or that record forest fires, are due to the drying out of once temperate zones?
I don’t believe that the Green Party could be so ignorant.
So we are left with the question; is the Green Party too frightened of the government and the powerful fossil fuel lobby to demand action on climate change?
I ask you weka, what the hell is going on?
When even by your own standards the Green Party fall well short of the four ideas you raised in your concluding comment to the thread on James Shaw’s statement on climate change contained in his keynote speech.
Weka will you not face up to my comment on the apparent Green Party sell out on climate change? Instead of choosing to indulge in pedantic dancing around on the head of the pin, why not address the issue?
So weka;
Is it your opinion weka that this is not a sell out?
Do you think weka that the Green Party leadership will be launching campaigning initiatives on the issue of climate change at some future conference?
Typical. This is just the sort of cowardly avoidance to face up to the issues that I am talking about.
Weka can’t you even try to defend your Party’s direction? Is it to scary to face up to climate change, and what it means for the environment?
Is the Green Party are named after the wrong colour?
Are the Green Party too gutless to take on the fossil fuel lobby?
Should the Green Party be renamed the Yellow Party for their intransigence over refusing to take climate change seriously?
If the Green Party had any courage or moral compass climate change should be their “Centrepiece Campaign” because everything flows from that. (literally).
Why the Green Party “Swimmable Rivers”, “Centrepiece Campaign” which marginalises and ignores debate on climate change is completely idiotic and cowardly.
Warmer air holds more moisture….
While the Green Party are making plans to recreate their bucolic youth swimming in picturesque waterways. Climate change is stalking the world’s rivers threatening to turn them into deadly torrents at the slightest notice.
Warmer air holds more moisture….
So how do the Green Party intend to achieve their swimmable rivers?
Mandating the building of bigger and better sewerage and waste water treatment plants?, the replanting of riverbanks?
Don’t they know that just this sort of riverside infrastructure is extremely vulnerable to being swept away in the next muddy torrent?
The Green Party have the chance to act on climate change.
The newly signed MoU between the Greens and Labour both parties gave a commitment to support each other’s private members bills.
The Green Party need to start putting up private members bills to raise the national debate on climate change and nudge the Labour Party away from their support for business as usual.
First up should be a private members bill to scrap the ETS which on the current ballance of power in the house may even have a chance of passing if Labour supported it.
Next up should be a private members bill calling for the end of deep sea oil drilling challenging Labour to support it.
And probably one of the biggest bugbears of the climate change movement a bill to repeal the legislation in the RMA which prohibits climate change being taken into account as grounds for rejecting new fossil fuel projects.
These things can be done right now.
But they won’t.
Because the Green Party “Centrepiece Environmental Campaign” is swimmable rivers.
Cowardly, weak, fluffy. And with years of make work in Select committees and planning hearings which even if the Green Party get all the improvements they seek will be washed away in the next climate change fuelled mega flood.
“Robert in your opinion, does the Green Party fulfil any of the 4 points raised by weka?”
What 4 points did I raise? Link please.
I see, thanks, weka. Glitches aside, a progressive approach to this is the way forward. Let’s see what we’ve got, not what’s weighing-down the naysayers.
Completely in agreement there Robert.
Wonderful interview with Dr. Mark Crispin Miller.
Thanks for this. Scary. Abby Martin excellent as ever.
This manufacturing of consent and the media knowing what not to talk about, could also go some way to explain the Green Party’s self censorship over climate change.
Just saying.
Was WWI really the first time public opinion was mechanized towards war? I would agree if he said it was the first time it had been mechanized within a modern democracy. But kings had been doing it with priests from Egypt’s first kingdom.
I do get his point about cigarette marketing within Hollywood. Very clever.
But his claims that propaganda is now the most powerful now than it has ever been is a ridiculous reach. His talk works best for the 1970s and 1980s, when the era of television reigned supreme. No longer.
I really don’t get you.
An entire nation has been convinced that short term selfishness is the way that a small elite clique should rule the country, and somehow you believe that propaganda isn’t as powerful as ever, that propaganda only effects earlier, simpler, less smart people.
Bernays understood human nature better than most of us, I daresay. And better than the intellectual Left in general.
And he formulated his best work BEFORE the age of television.
No, Dr Miller’s argument was that this current era is the most propaganda-saturated era. I was arguing with Miller, not Bernays particularly.
I also think that short term selfishness is just an historic human tendency.
Modern advertising seeks to influence across competing product ranges. Whereas monarchies have employed religions more powerfully and towards more singular ends than modern advertising ever could.
I would argue though that the fracturing of the media landscape over the last decade has fractured the ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’ argument/paranoia that we heard from Neil Postman, when tv and MTV and music manufacturers reigned supreme. No one sings the national anthem at the movies anymore.
You still don’t get it.
The propaganda of the day isn’t aimed at the masses.
It is aimed at the comfortable middle classes – who think they are the guardians of commonsense and right thinking in society – and the elite, the people who make up the backbone of the status quo establishment.
As for the fracturing of the media landscape. That has made it harder to communicate a single cohesive propaganda narrative. But that in of itself has nothing to do with how saturated our living space is with propaganda.
Finally, you have to understand that the western style of propaganda focusses on the propaganda of omission. Omitting crucial voices on subjects like climate change, poverty, war, economics, homelessness.
Once you wonder why certain critical facts never get mentioned, or why certain experts are never interviewed, you wake up to how pervasive this propaganda is.
The first problem there is making one category, ‘propaganda’, stretch too far. It doesn’t allow Miller to focus on anything helpfully. All classes get targeted. We just feel most closely the messaging directed towards the class we are in. Which again, just confuses one era with a mere human tendency.
I’d also have to disagree though with his idea that propaganda is principally driven by retail corporations and a few smart evil guys. Far better to consider the whole empire of ideas and how they are reified and amplified across MSM and digital media, across religions, across parties, across state rulers, across kinds of military, across NGOs including unions – now that would be a useful theory for our moment. He’s swinging for the easy hits.
Just to focus on one realm; political parties: since Obama 2008 we have already seen the left have far greater tools within the digital ream than in the MSM. Within the political realm alone the digital contest of ideas, largely free from advertising or taint present or absent, is spectacular in its rise. So what he’s missing is the free will present even within the most message-filled modes.
Witness two: relentless adopters New Zealand. Whaleoil and Kiwiblog and The Standard could well be some great vast conspiracy in which all speech is really just predetermined Marxist/Calvinist propaganda, but in reality the multitude is showing more power within these modes. Especially now, we can trust the multitude to make their voice clear.
Well, if you are right and there is a lively, true contest of ideas out there in the media market place representing the independent voice of the masses, then we won’t be have any problems with our democracy reflecting the true aspirations, attitudes and concerns of Kiwis.
I think that’s bunk of course, and that our democracy is not just sick, but further sickening, but that’s just me.
Well if the Left in NZ is more clever than this guy then we shouldn’t have too much trouble getting our desired messaging across to more voters eh.
It’s not just the left.
It’s a tribute to the communicative skills of both Sanders and Trump that they have got so far, so fast, with stuff-all corporate funding and stuff-all MSM relationships, and the MSM working double time against them. They simply have excellent political skills.
(Indeed so does Warren. And Peters taking Northland out of nowhere!)
That’s the real confusion here. We presume because the left have been out of power for so long, that there’s some great conspiracy of inevitability. Human agency is real; is, I think, more powerful than ever, and that is especially the case in politics.
That’s fine Ad; my idea of political operations and propaganda operations is not quite the same as yours.
I only focussed on political propaganda and political agency because this is what we generally discuss here.
But, as I pointed out, by mashing together political and commercial propaganda, he misses out vast other fields of communicative influence. All you have done in trying to separate out ‘political operations’ from ‘propaganda operations’ is admit that the sweeping term ‘propaganda’ doesn’t hold any analytical clarity for us.
If he was really having a crack at how ideas form and get amplified and change behavior across the military, across religions, across MSM, across digital realms, across kinds of state, across NGOs and unions, now there would be a useful theory. He doesn’t, so isn’t useful.
Sorry mate, this guy has studied American media and propaganda for decades including how elections are stolen; I can learn and integrate more useful from him on this topic.
BTW I believe Chris Hedges, the veteran foreign correspondent, would agree with him more than he would with you.
CV I’ve run out of reply tabs but I’ll have a look at that next interview tomorrow.
Part two to draw out the debate
His issue about the growing dependency of MSM reporters upon state institutions for stories is fair. They are definitely vulnerable. But if ever I get worried that there are no more ‘Goodnight, and Good Luck’ stories, I just flick to Rachel Maddow and Mr Oliver.
I would also agree with the self-ceonsorship point, but particularly about the security state within China and the US. The violence and humiliation to the big whistleblowers over the last decade is quite some policing.
But I own a full set of National Geographics going back from 1933 to the 1970s. Call me a nerd. Now there you see the growth of industrial propaganda mechanizing through World War Two, accelerating with the growth of the state, but also watching their interests shear away from each other in the 1970s. One might argue in response simply that “propaganda” is simply more subtle and hence more pervasive. I think we have to honour the power of the patterns of the past
I hate his idea that the “window slammed shut” in the 1980s. That is so foolish. The melancholic left fools itself into defeat. There are now always multiple competing empires. In fact especially now. Need I say it, if propaganda really worked, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump would never have got off the ground. This guy is a pale imitation of Chomsky’s more original Manufacturing Consent, when the causal links were nice and clear.
I have to say Ad that would have to be a record for condemning someone, what a single 28 minute interview?
But the point is, just in case you missed it, that propaganda works best when people deny it is even happening. Or put it onto the other, I see you went for both arguments.
Interesting that you reached for Trump and Sanders, good point all politicians use propaganda. I’d say Trump is rather good at it. His use of the medium, and shifting the debate – has been masterful, love him or hate him.
Look on here the last few days, and me bemoaning about talking points – which are a instrument of propaganda. Te Reo Putake, has run with clinton talking points for weeks – or in layman’s terms, the propaganda set out by the clinton campaigner. He is entitled too, that is what this site was set up for. But it is still propaganda.
I think you want propaganda wrapped up as something that happens elsewhere, and don’t want to admit your thoughts are not your own. It is horrific position position to be in, it happens to us all in the 21st century.
You are making ‘propaganda’ to be simply: ‘the stuff I disagree with you on’. That’s just a categorical confusion.
Your talking point about talking points isn’t very helpful. People reify overseas opinions all the time. Calling that propaganda is just silly. Far better to tease out and name the intersecting influences into actual real powers.
If you look back on this site over two months about the number of posts supporting Sanders versus those supporting Clinton, Sanders does pretty well. Very well: count them up.
Propaganda is too often used as a term by leftie conspiracy theorists to suggest that there is an all-knowing, all-present, Sauron-like ether of influence that determines the world. Which, for socialists who have been out of power since the 1980s, probably feels about right.
But that’s just a sad confusion of political history with theory.
There were a few who tried that in the late 1980s, particularly Fredereic Jamieson’s Postmodernism, or: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. That didn’t even survive the Bushes for relevancy.
It is at times quite depressing reading what you write Ad. Your blanket given up – crosses over to, we should give up and accept it. Nothing will change, maybe a little, is deeply troubling.
In the 21 century right, power resides in the hands of a few at the expense of the many.
Are you so naive as to think that people in power don’t us every trick they have to hold onto that power?
I don’t care who had how many posts sanders or clinton, it has to do with the angles and approaches people take on those post. That those angles and approaches have been governed by propaganda. If the propaganda is good then these framing is what was laid out from those camps. If not, then they were not talked about.
I’m getting the feeling you don’t like the word propaganda. It is a word to cover the simple and complex idea that – someone is using a message to promote a certain point of view.
So in politics, we deal in propaganda all the time, advertising, public relations, lobbying, education, books, video games, web page developers. All these people are propagandist. People get offended when called out that is what they do. Sneaky feeling you many be one of them?
But what was truly sad was when you reached for the third crotch of people who don’t want to accept that propaganda exist in their society, and call everyone who says it does a conspiracy theorist. A very weak position, makes you sound like you did not watch the video. Because…
Bloody nora. Next you will say there are no ideologies? No theological differences? That it is wrong to offend people? And that conspiracies do not happen. That juts playing into the hands of power, to weaken working people even more.
I know it’s a bit like the stages of grief learning that you are be manipulated at a sociological level. Good news, after the denial stage, it gets easier. More good news, knowing that is what is happening, you can take steps to acknowledge when you become influenced by propaganda.
You’re talking out your arse.
Propaganda exists in video games, novels, advertising and politics. And probably other places that I haven’t thought about.
And it is more powerful. A huge amount of research has gone into it over the last 100 odd years since Bernays started it. I mentioned video games and that’s because modern video games are designed to draw you in and keep you there, to keep you paying to play. I’ve got a pet on my World of Warcraft characters that can be ‘charged up’ in either red or blue if I buy a particular type of drink that comes in, you guessed it, red and blue.
I’ve read quite a bit about how games and advertising manipulate, there really is no other word, people into doing things that they haven’t really thought about.
Agree with manipulate. Definitely.
But that’s not the same as propaganda, unless we’re going to get lost in an arcane definitional argument.
propaganda
manipulate
Public opinion is a manufactured product.
‘Income inequality declined abruptly in 2013 after President Obama and Congress negotiated an increase in taxes on the wealthiest Americans, according to new federal data.’
Too easy – they also have a CGT …. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/09/obama-really-did-sock-it-to-the-rich-bad/
Is it too Left Melancholic of me to want a real estate correction?
We all want a real estate correction 😈
Is it too centrist of me to not want one, as well?
sorry, I was being a bit sarcastic. I don’t think a correction is going to be enough, so I was meaning something else 🙂
I hope for it too Weka but not with a pin-prick but by government building houses, a slow process which should help all but the extremely foolish to survive.
On the other hand it is questionable if the industry can cope and really mass production of pre-fabs/basic housing units is the only way to get on top of the problem, but can you imagine the current or future govt doing that … I cannot more is the pity.
Plenty of ways to get affordable housing in NZ, but people don’t want to talk about them because they see home ownership as primarily an investment. IMO, that’s why we can’t resolve the current situation.
Long term stabilization for me please in the overheated parts of the country, and government policies to to reinvigorate the provinces so they catch up up bit so the country isn’t devided by house price.
Agora 9
10 June 2016 at 10:16 am
Further to your comment about NZ and its large debt … matched by individuals I believe.
Kim Hill talking to an economist writer from the UK who pointed out that people today accept large credit card debts as part of life. Whereas my aim was to treat mine as a monthly account as many folk had in the ‘old days’ and for the past few years I have managed this.
Banking is a great business to be in … even a crash will have them coming out smelling of roses is recent US/UK experience is anything to go by.
Hmm…..
A new technique turns climate-warming carbon emissions to stone. In a test program in Iceland, more than 95 percent of the carbon dioxide injected into basaltic lava rocks mineralized into solid rock within two years. This surprisingly fast transformation quarantined the CO2 from the atmosphere and could ultimately help offset society’s greenhouse gas emissions, scientists report in the June 10 Science.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/volcanic-rocks-help-turn-carbon-emissions-stone-%E2%80%94-and-fast
An interesting and useful result but difficult to implement in real life on a real life thermal plant etc
I’ve spent the afternoon listening to the soundtrack of Hamilton. Which is about US founding father Alexander Hamilton. It’s really entertaining for history and politics nerds like myself.
‘EU Referendum: Massive swing to Brexit – with just 12 days to go
Exclusive: polling carried out for ‘The Independent’ shows that 55 per cent of UK voters intend to vote for Britain to leave the EU in the 23 June referendum.’
Worth watching this story…..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3635851/Shock-10-point-lead-Brexit-just-13-days-sends-David-Cameron-Remain-campaign-panic-mode.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-poll-brexit-leave-campaign-10-point-lead-remain-boris-johnson-nigel-farage-david-a7075131.html
Should Cameron resign as PM if he loses?
Boris would be a pig in muck.
Cameron’s already announced he will step down as prime minister before the 2020 election, although he still intends to run as an MP. I think a vote to leave the EU will trigger his departure from No 10, or even a very tight vote to remain.
Quite interested in Winnie’s advice to Britain that they’d be better off voting for Brexit, foregoing the small European ‘family’ market with all its limitations and restrictive rules and looking to the wider international market ( including New Zealand). Dunno much about it but does that make sense?
It’ll be a big blow to the finance industry and also to environmental regulations and labour rights. On the whole, I think it’s a bad idea.
Ad-Cameron also had some issue with pigs- Sounds similar but I don’t think it was ‘muck’.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/80968534/tributes-flow-for-last-28th-maori-battalion-vet-charlie-patera-who-died
Respect the last 28th Maori Battalion soldier passes.
end of an era. Condolences and happy travels Sir.
Modeling financial instability with energy