With Labour’s winter fuel allowance ((copied and pasted directly from the UK’s policy), it would mean that NZPower, a policy that would have made a world of difference to electricity users, and would have benefited generators and retailers as well, had they not blindly opposed it is dead in the water. A pity really.
Sounds like some of Sweden’s new citizens have embraced the spirit of community activism and internationalism for which the country is so well know. Oh, wait….
“A Somalian woman in Gothenburg, Sweden, Qamar Cleasson, spies on families in who converted to Christianity and shares the information with Muslims abroad, reports Pamela Geller.
Cleasson joined a Swedish Christian congregation to spy on these families. Somali families associated with the church now feel threatened and some have been forced to go underground. According to local sources speaking to Geller, Swedish police say they “lack resources” and are unable to help the apostate families.”
We didn’t have the infrastructure in place for so many immigrants to come to NZ in the first place.
And now the solution is for national to loan $1billion to councils to try and fix it? It’s not the councils fault that so many people were allowed in NZ, councils were unprepared for it, and now they have to foot the bill.
Doesn’t seem fair to me, wonder if rates will rise in those areas?
Almost everything that National does causes rates to rise and then National will blame the council – unless it’s a right-wing council in which case they won’t say a word. Just look at how they talk about Auckland and who they blame for the cost blow-outs that they caused by their stupid SuperShitty legislation.
Patrick Reynolds – one of the TransportBlog founder – was appointed by Auckland Council to their Customer Focus Committee in June. He’s doing a good job.
Don’t forget:
Auckland Transport has by a long way the largest teams devoted to public transport, cycling, and walking of any public entity in the country.
They are also highly tuned to what the public transport customer is wanting more or less of, due to the near-90% penetration of their HOP card which tracks every trip on every public transport mode.
My snark was not aimed at the work Reynolds is doing, more that despite his appointment AT’s efforts to get public transport users deeply involved in decision-making still look somewhat token when set against a board loaded up with the likes of Cullen, Rebstock, Gilbert…
A Chinese hospital treating sick dissident Liu Xiaobo offered a bleak prognosis on Monday, saying he is seriously ill, as a U.S. attorney who represents Liu accused Beijing of hastening his death by refusing to allow his transfer to a foreign hospital.
Liu, 61, was jailed for 11 years in 2009 for “inciting subversion of state power” after he helped write a petition known as “Charter 08” calling for sweeping political reforms.
Funny how so many in the west can’t see the propaganda that is fed to them on a daily basis.
Here’s but one example.
Remember when Aleppo was being liberated by the Syrian government.
Remember the corporate media ‘s unending commentary about the bad Russians bombing the city to smithereens?
Patrick Cockburn would one of the few western journalists to observe similar destruction has been wreaked on Mosul.
‘Nobody knows how many civilians died in Mosul because many of the bodies are still buried under the rubble in 47 degrees heat. Asked to estimate how many people had been killed in his home district of al-Thawra, Saad Amr said: “we don’t know because houses were often full of an unknown number of displaced people from other parts of the city.”
Some districts are so badly damaged that it is impossible to reach them. We heard that there had been heavy airstrikes on the districts of Zanjily and Sahba and, from a distance, we could see broken roofs with floors hanging down like concrete flaps. But we could not get there in a car because the streets leading to them were choked with broke masonry and burned out cars.”
“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity – much less dissent.”
Oh absolutely, there were numerous incidents of John McCain & CNN’s dearly beloved moderate head choppers shooting people who tried to flee using the open corridors. But muh Russians bombed the last hospital in Aleppo 26 times!
Glad to see we can finally agree that large-scale air strikes on densely-populated areas is not a good way to fight a war, Paul/Ed. It’s a realisation you’ve come to quite late and I expect only because this time the US was involved, but better late than never.
The principle is comparable, the events themselves not so much. For instance, in Mosul the bombardment was carried out in support of a ground attack, while in east Aleppo the bombardment was for a long time carried out in lieu of a ground attack, as the regime didn’t have the numbers to mount one. To that extent it was more of a punishment for opposing the Assad regime than the furthering of any military purpose. Another difference is that the destruction in Mosul was much worse, because it was held by religious fascists fighting to the last man and bullet, so a negotiated conclusion wasn’t possible the way it was in Aleppo. Another difference is the coalition didn’t randomly unload barrels of explosives out the back of a helicopter over Mosul. No doubt there are many other differences. But the principle, yeah pretty comparable.
The principle is broadly comparable, yes. The considerations taken around bombing, “maybe” not so much.
Perhaps you haven’t read the Cockburn piece that comments on the notable absence of bullet holes in walls – indicating a lack of street to street fighting? Who lacked the numbers, or is it the will, to carry out a ground attack again?
Who do you think was opposing the Syrian government in E. Aleppo and launching ordnance into civilian areas of W. Aleppo? The civilians of E. Aleppo who were being held as human shields in much the same manner as civilians in Mosul? Because that’s the implication of your statement that E.Aleppo was simply bombed as a form of punishment.
Care to spell out any meaningful difference between those who sought a Caliphate and who occupied E. Aleppo, and those who sought a Caliphate who occupied Mosul?
And if one set of occupiers can be given safe passage to avoid mounting civilian casualties, then why not the other set ( given that a goodly number had already been allowed passage from Mosul to Palermo)?
Random barrel bombs or ordnance targeting underground bunkers being dropped from helicopters? And how does targeted white phosphorous work?
No need to actually address those questions btw. I fully get that you’re really quite attached to the official narratives flying around the show on Iraq and Syria.
Remember the funnel of those estimates on the population of East Aleppo though? 250,0000 … ahem, 200,000 … ahem 120,000 … ok, so it was actually 60,000 but muh Russian airstrikes! Maybe listening to the London based/Salafi funded ‘Syrian’ Observatory for ‘Human Rights’ wasn’t such a good idea for the UN, who ended up having to backpedal substantially on those bs numbers.
Meanwhile, about 650,000 of Mosul’s prewar population known to have stayed in the city after it was captured by ISIS. Presumably some of them will have escaped in that time, but it sounds like they were every bit as effective as the ‘moderate’ militants in East Aleppo at shooting anyone who tried to flee. So there will undoubtedly have been more people in Mosul by far than even the 250k fake news numbers initially reported for East Aleppo.
Without doubt, it’s the differing treatment from the west which stands out. Where was the outrage at those civilian casualties from CNN? I’ve seen Trump compared to Hitler by American liberals for just about everything except the bombing of Mosul, which had half of liberal American godwinning themselves at the very mention of Vladimir Putin for nigh on a year.
Where was the outrage at those civilian casualties from CNN?
I don’t watch CNN, but I’d be picking they didn’t think the Iraqi government’s attempt to destroy a religious fascist occupation was of a similar nature to the Assad regime’s revenge on people who’d prefer not to live under an absolute monarch. Which would be fair enough, because they are different.
Correctly picking that Syrian civilians would appear to prefer a democratically elected President and an elected parliament to a Monarchy…barreling straight into comment of twisted car crash wreckage. Oh well.
From previous comments and arguments it’s clear you have nothing of worth to say about Syria. An echo of msm memes is about all you have. Maybe if you spoke with some of the Syrian refugees in town, you’d learn a thing or two and stop with that b/s.
Anyway, the turnout in 2014 was 70 odd percent with terrorist controlled areas effectively boycotting the elections. Votes could be cast at those foreign embassies that hadn’t been shut down by host countries.
Couple of things. If the turnout was 70 odd percent in spite of terrorist and foreign based opposition boycotts, and in spite of populations living in terrorist held areas being unable to vote, then what does that say about the supposed ‘civil war’ in Syria?
And if you or I lived in country under siege, would we not tend to vote for the incumbent in multi-candidate elections, even if we disagreed with them politically, given that any further instability would favour those who wanted the entire population subjected to Cromwellian era nonsense?
Or willfully boycott to send a positive roundhead message.
The runner up got 4.3% of the vote btw, and over 30 countries sent observers who judged the election to be fair.
In 2000 he was the only candidate and ~ 8.5 million people voted.
In 2007, it was a referendum to confirm him as president and ~ 11 million people voted.
In 2014 there were 3 candidates and ~ 10 million people voted despite (so we are told) every one wanting him gone.
Doesn’t quite fit the western narrative does it?
An increasing number of people confirming his second term in office in 2007 and only about 10% fewer people than that voting in 2014 despite boycotts, and daily shellings/suicide attacks and occupation of both city districts and swathes of country-side by salafists/headchoppers and millions of refugees.
Seriously. Go and speak to some of the Syrian refugees in town.
I, for one, am a great fan of the way he increased the population of Syria by 3mil from 2000 to 2007, the bulk of which seemed to be eligible voters aged 18 and over.
Well, with winning margins like that, the ones from Hezbollah might. But either way it doesn’t account for the numbers. Much more than 3% are fighting for the various opposition groups.
I think the answer lies in the fact that voting is only held in the Govt controlled areas. Rebel held areas don’t get to vote.
Syrians voted in a parliamentary election in government-held areas of the country on Wednesday in what they called a show of support for President Bashar al-Assad, while his opponents and Western powers denounced the poll as illegitimate.
The election is going ahead independently of a U.N.-led peace process aimed at ending the five-year-long war. Peace talks are due to resume in Geneva on Wednesday as an upsurge in fighting darkens the already bleak outlook for diplomacy.
The government says the vote is being held on time in line with the constitution, a view echoed by its Russian allies. The opposition says the election is meaningless, while Britain and France dismissed it as “flimsy facade” and a “sham”.
5000 people exited E Aleppo. Some of them (like in Homs) did so under threat of death from the Salafists.
That’s 5000 from a population of ..what?…minus the numbers of foreign fighters of course.
Given that forces get concentrated (so more present by percentage of total population in a strategic location like E Aleppo), if we take the figures our media fed us about 200 000 residents being in E Aleppo….what’s that 5000 in percentage terms McFlock? Even if we assume all the women and children and threatened men of that 5000 are a part of the fighting?
Dunno why you’re going on about aleppo in regards to the election vs foreign fighters.
20k people voted against assad in 2007.
Ten years later something like a quarter of a million people are in arms against him. Unless 210k of them are foreigners, it’s a pretty severe drop in the polls.
You’re being a deliberate arse here McFlock. No-one voted “against” Assad in 2007. It was a confirmation referendum. No opposition.
Turnout in 2007 was up some two and a half million from 2000.
In 2014, with some 4 million people having fled the country, and a boycott imposed by Jihadists in areas they controlled plus a war going on and foreign embassies being shut down, turnout in the contested election only dropped by about 400 000 from those 2007 numbers.
Where I come from, a guy who inherited the country from his dad is a king, not a “democratically elected president.” And historically, kings whose rule was absolute got their rule termed “absolute monarchy.” So, yes, Syria is currently an absolute monarchy, albeit one in which the monarch likes to style himself a “democratically-elected president.”
As part of that somewhat comical attempt to style himself a president, Assad holds elections. Which is meaningless – if he wanted, King Salman of Saudi Arabia could hold elections and be assured of an overwhelming majority (after all, opposing him gets you imprisoned and tortured just like it does in Syria). He doesn’t, of course, because he’s up front about being an absolute monarch, a level of honesty way beyond Bashar al Assad. However, even if he were to aspire to Assad levels of dishonesty and hold some elections to declare him president, it wouldn’t make him a “democratically-elected president” any more than it does Assad, or any more than it did Saddam Hussein.
I don’t recall saying it. What gave you that impression? If you’re conflating “Islamists,” ie the majority of Middle East Arabs, with Da’esh, who are religious fascists who tried to set up a caliphate in some parts of Iraq and Syria they conquered. please don’t.
No, I’m saying people whose objective is a theocracy may as well be ISIS if they are prepared to enforce those laws by force. I don’t for a minute think Assad is any good, but secular villain beats Islamist villain for me by a country mile.
So, if we just conflate general Muslim interest in having Islam as the basis of their country’s laws with Da’esh’s attempts to impose a religious fascist dictatorship, then the situations in east Aleppo and Mosul were near enough the same. Why not conflate right-wing political views with fascism and say the National Party might as well be the Nazis, while you’re at it? It makes just as little sense.
That’s a truly astonishing statement. The number of people in the Middle East who are “Islamists,” ie who’d like to see Islam forming the basis of their country’s laws, is huge – in Egypt the military took over again because democratic elections produced an Islamist government. It’s doubtful a genuinely democratic election in Syria or various other Arab countries would have a different result. For you and Cemetery Jones to claim this mass of people are the same as Da’esh is just bizarre.
Oh come on, Ahrar Al-Sham, Jhabat Fatah Al-Sham, Nour Al-Din Al-Zinki etc. were the dominant forces in East Aleppo. They are theocrats, and not a benign kind by any shade. To suggest that these kinds of groups are in any way representative of the general Muslim interest is absurd. They want enforced Sharia, enforced modesty, the traditional role of women (confined or chaperoned) – they are the Islamic version of Margaret Atwood’s Republic of Gilead.
Then there’s the Kurdish factor. If these groups were so benign, how come they attacked the Kurdish zone, forcing them to respond by holding a hostile front for the duration of the campaign? Surely the Kurds of East Aleppo could have made a deal with them if they really were just moderates? And surely they would have desired to do so, if they were just moderates? Bullshit, they are sectarian holy warriors, and just because they’ll execute their enemies in a slightly less histrionic fashion to ISIS makes not one whit of difference if you’re in the next neighbourhood over from their fighters.
Oh come on, Ahrar Al-Sham, Jhabat Fatah Al-Sham, Nour Al-Din Al-Zinki etc. were the dominant forces in East Aleppo.
According to Assad and Putin they were, yes. It’s even possible the claim was accurate, after Assad had spent years besieging Aleppo and killing his less-extreme opponents. The fact that the only people left alive opposing the Assad regime a few years after the start of the uprising were the toughest, most highly-motivated fighters because the regime had successfully killed or driven out all the others, isn’t a point in favour of the Assad regime.
It shows what we’ve long known: much like the Anarchists etc. didn’t flock to Spain in the 30s to fight because Franco was leading a terrible regime or because they had the people of Spain’s best interests at heart, but because they wanted their revolution, so too the foreign fighters who flocked to Syria didn’t come because Assad was a dictator or for love of the Syrian people, but to fight holy war against apostates and khufar.
The reason so many wouldn’t surrender is that they weren’t Syrian, they were foreign fighters. They turned a minor rebellion which would have been over quickly due to its lack of popular support into a bloody slugfest. And for the insurgents that’s fine. The uglier, the better. More propaganda, more radicalisation, more division and indecision on the part of those of us who should have seen that phase of rebellion for what it was.
Without doubt, it’s the differing treatment from the west which stands out.
But..but..Assad, who has no history of ‘bad shit’ being reported from the time of his first Presidential term in 2000/2001 until 2011, bar a HRW report from 2007 riding off the back of unfounded Iraqi government charges from 2004 that he was harbouring jihadists who were entering Iraq from Syria (not Turkey), you really need to remember (we all do) that Assad is bad. Really bad. Devil incarnate bad. Always has been.
Hmmm, I remember Assad as being portrayed as bad right from the time that USA decided to promote ‘Arab Spring’ fuck-ups.. Never heard much about him before USA decided regime change was necessary…
Funny, that.
He was never really thought of as a democratic leader. He was just better than the clusterfuck they were planning next door, stabilising a complex demographic and political state in global hotspot.
As soon as he lost control, he was no longer providing any benefit, geopolitically-speaking.
But nice way to side-step the whole demonisation angle.
Anyway. The US wanted their claws on Syria from 2004 on-wards. (Now, you saying he ‘lost control in 2004?) And Clinton’s emails on the region should be required reading.
So what were Cheney’s objectives that are or were different to Clinton’s?
And like I say (and this is on record) the US wanted rid of the Syrian government from 2004 onwards. In fact, I think there’s a CNN interview with Assad from 2004 where that’s brought up.
And no, Syria’s not a “wonderful place to be” ffs, and no-one has said that it is.
It’s a particularly unwonderful place at the moment because it’s a war zone.
It wasn’t a war zone when he was in control.
It wouldn’t be a war zone if he hadn’t lost control.
But he lost control of very large bits of it. Most of it.
As for cheney vs clinton, that’s empire vs actual democratic ideals having a place in the decision-making. Behind quite a bit of realpolitik, sure, but still in the mix.
Either way, we seem to be in agreement that Assad was thought to be “bad” well before Arab Spring.
You simply haven’t read Clinton’s emails on the matter, have you? She wasn’t in the least interested in democracy. Iran and Israel feature large in her take. Syrian people are irrelevant (not mentioned at all)
Anyway. For every three discreet articles/stories in the msm portraying Assad in anything like the terms we’ve seen this last six years, and that are from the years 2000/2001 through to 2010 (a clear decade), Iand that you link to, ‘ll buy you a hand pulled pint of your choosing.
Telling you now though. All you will find is stuff from 2004 when Iraq was throwing groundless accusations about Syria harbouring some peeps from Sadam’s regime and Jihadists. And then you’ll find a 2007 HRW report that’s probably at best (worst) on a par with what would have been reported on the UK in the 70s and 80s before the Peace Process.
That seriously the best you have for the man who we are to believe is the devil incarnate!?
First link is post protests.
Second one (2002) – is about a visit to Buckingham Palace.
Third one (2003) – the accusations that high ranking Iraqis have taken refuge in Syria and about that providing an excuse for Democratic presidential candidate (Florida Sen. Bob Graham) to openly support war with Syria.
Fourth one (2001) – Dry and somewhat detached analysis on the prospects for reform in Syria under Assad.
Fifth one (2003) – claims that Assad’s a weak leader lacking “killer instinct”, but that nevertheless concedes – The two and a half years that have passed since Bashar’s rise to power in Syria have been relatively calm and stable.
Sixth one (2003) Illegal incursion into Syria by US forces from Iraq.
Seventh one (2001) Blair meets Assad.
So no, not even a stale Speights from “The Crown” on a Sunday afternoon there McFlock.
fair call on the first one,snuck through me google filter.
The second one opens “THE Syrians are unlikely players for the war-on-terror team, especially now that the goalposts have been stretched to take in their neighbour, and fellow Baathist dictatorship, Iraq. Aside from making pots of money smuggling Iraqi oil, Syria has long been fingered as a supporter of terrorists, keeps an annoying boothold in Lebanon and is also believed to store some toxic weaponry of its own.”
I would have thought that was quite a negative portayal.
The third one: immediately after the one-line point about asad being so bad Graham was against him we have the rest of the paragraph:”Already some hawks are pointing to the tantalizing parallels between Saddam’s Iraq and Assad’s Syria. Weapons of mass destruction? Check. Support for terrorism? Check. Repressive domestic intelligence services? Check. The comparisons go further: Both countries were ruled by tyrannical men who are not members of the ethnic majority. (Saddam was a Sunni who ruled over a largely Shiite country, and Assad is an Alawite who rules over a Sunni majority.) To top things off, Syria even has a Baath Party and a Republican Guard. No one expects war anytime soon, but Assad’s stupidity has put the subject on the table.”
So a direct comparison with Saddam Hussein written in early 2003.
And so on – the fourth is dry and detached, but the only reforms it thinks likely is becoming like China, not like Canada. The fifth openly calls his government “a coercive and violent regime”. The sixth opens with the US incursion, but you might read the rest of the article. Again, it’s not charitable. As for the final one, “blair meets assad” is a reasonable description. Although again it describes Syria as ” a country that is a dictatorship with an abysmal human rights record, and which is still engaged in fighting Israel by proxy.”. But you preferred the more sterile phrasing. I guess it’s the only way it could get past your blinkers.
You seriously think those stories are on a par with the demonisation of Assad we’ve been subjected to these past several years?
Y’know, the guy who deliberately and casually slaughters Syrian civilians – by gas and bomb and whatever? The guy who orders hospitals to be bombed? The guy who deliberately starves entire populations? The guy who runs torture prisons housing thousands?
Curious btw. What were your search terms, how many pages down did you have to go to get those links, and why do you consider those sources to be msm? Some are, some (cough) “not so much”.
Anyway.
We know that Syria was a one party, democratic centralist state modeled along USSR lines – not exactly politically free then. (It now has pluralistic elections)
We know that along with Iraq and Libya, they were the last secular countries in the Arab world (all soviet/Arab hybrid governance structures and therefore “the enemy” according to liberal thought)
We know the war with Israel is essentially on-going.
And Syria withdrew its military presence from Lebanon in 2005.
So you wanted articles talking about how he gassed his own people before people in his country were gassed?
Sounds legit.
as for the search terms, I think I bunged a date range on “assad”, although at least one more recent thing slipped though. Not completely reliable, but filters it down to more manageable levels.
I dunno, the Americans were happy to cooperate on those rendition flights when it suited them, and the Brits loved having Assad over for a cuppa. As were the French, whose luxury shopping districts were always happy to see his wife which Bashar was hobnobbing with politicians.
I guess I meant more that I think they actually liked him and maybe even projected their own views rather than seeing him for who he was. In that sense I’m more just rounding it out that they seem to have gone from seeing him as nicer than he was to seeing him as nastier than he is. Which for all I know is how you view him too, I guess.
There were initial hopes amongst doves that he’d tend towards more democratic ideals, if not actually relinquishing power. More Jordan than Saudi Arabia, sort of thing.
The hawks are always happy to use any nasty arsehole who is willing to help them.
But everyone knew what his dad was, and what the type of state he took control of was. Like Egypt or Morocco.
Two wikipedia links and one from the Guardian and nothing about mass detentions, torture prisons, assassination programmes, indiscriminate oppression…
The stuff we’ve been getting these past few years, you’d never pick the guy had been trying to steer reforms through a (presumably) hostile and long established bureaucratic party structure – y’know, the likes of what Gorbachev confronted in the last phase of the USSR – with all it’s cliques and what not vying to promote their own agendas and/or retain the status quo.
Exactly it’s funny how Ed Paul doesn’t apply his own rules to himself, both Mosul and Aleppo are a stain on humanity, end of the day if you have to take a stand re the west for all its negatives vs eds team, the west win every time You sort of wonder why the eds of the world just don’t move to Russia as some of the more extreme of his ilk have, usually as a result of avoiding the law
A country that can afford highly expensive killing machines should also be able to have rescue helicopters and camera drones that search for visible people, and have heat’ sensors wouldn’t work in 47degrees though. But reports come that nothing can be done. It can’t if there is no will to do it.
To Ed,
“Funny how so many in the west can’t see the propaganda that is fed to them on a daily basis.”
Why do you think that anything that has happened in the war torn hell-hole that is Syria or Iraq as funny?
When E. Aleppo was being liberated from terrorists, we had condemnation plastered all over front pages. When the terrorists were given safe passage out of E. Aleppo in order that fewer civilian lives would be lost in the on-going conflict, the west screamed that it was a crime against humanity.
Chris Trotter at Bowelly Road and NRT clarify things nicely for commenters here that are nostalgic for Muldoonism: today’s Nats really are his true heirs.
Yes, just because Muldoon opposed Lange’s reforms, many here seem to see him as a proponent of good Keynesian type egalitarianism. I remember him well, and that is the last way I would describe him. The Clyde Dam legislation is a closer indication of his real nature.
Inner hollowness has cropped up as a term for what drives people to keep gouging away at the earth and each other to get more. I started thinking about getting a better philosophy soon as we are going to have to make a sea change ready or not.
There is a drive to get more to make more profit, accumulate money. And yet this may be thrown up in the air on an expensive wedding, some major event or performance, or put into mining for precious metals, a new rip-off venture perhaps. Or the biggest fireworks in the southern hemisphere, an abomination while people are homeless in NZ and starving that so much money can be spent on a short term spectacle.
Perhaps everyone should go into a retreat once a year and meditate on the amazing world lived in and the amazing creature we are, amongst other amazing creatures and plants, and get the feeling of appreciation of life for itself. Then go out in the boat or the yacht, play with the toys, but look at them as extras not passing amusements for the bored, those with ennui. (Where are you ennui?)
Janis Ian had a song about people who sell out on growing up and venturing and living as an individual learning what you are, making mistakes and feeling lonely and having to find reserves inside oneself, and learning some empathy.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUydOqxhDQg
Those sort of people generally are very warm and practical, and materialism isn’t their principal crutch for life. Our task these days is to find each other, and form networks to help us face the coming hardships. The rest will lock themselves away, Lost on an island separated off like Planet Key?
I’m doing a lot of philosophising. We haven’t done much over the past 30 years and now facing the uncertain future, have to change our way of thinking as it requires us to decide on how we want to live; those who want to stay the same will eventually have to manage for themselves as best they can. There will have to be tight-knit groups who fend off those who want to latch on and use up resources without sufficient input, and there will be those who want to rob and destroy and they will have to be kept at bay. There must be something set aside for the outsiders who are needy, but not all will be able to be helped.
We see the world’s attitudes to the African immigrants. Already they are receiving the cold shoulder, having had their countries involved in conflict, their homes, water and crops demolished, and unable to follow their customary practices to last through drought. They are mostly men, it is hard for women and children to flee and last through the demanding journeys to a safe harbour with more privation beyond.
Inner hollowness is killing our world. We must try to maintain a soft centre, but still stay firm enough to cope. It is a difficult balance to achieve.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer-
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Better still, this and this, from our good friend Michael Leunig:
There are only two feelings.
Love and fear.
There are only two languages.
Love and fear.
There are only two activities.
Love and fear.
There are only two motives,
two procedures, two frameworks,
two results.
Love and fear.
Love and fear.
Dear God,
We rejoice and give thanks for earthworms,
bees, ladybirds and broody hens;
for humans tending their gardens, talking to animals,
cleaning their homes and singing to themselves;
for rising of the sap, the fragrance of growth,
the invention of the wheelbarrow and the existence of the teapot,
we give thanks. We celebrate and give thanks.
Thanks may we always have good games of ping pong here, words and thought back and forth, feeding the ball to each other and keeping it in the air never falling.
(So poetic eh or something.)
What a little treasure of words. Leunig is special. I once had a ticket to a talk he gave and forgot. So it is good to have his perky words. And the other poem. I think you have talked about WH Auden. His words are from the heart too, and speak to any heart that can at that moment receive them. Wow it’s a long poem but I thought that these two verses are for the time.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
He mentions Linz in his poem.
This might have been what he was referring to:
The astronomer and the witch: How one of history’s great scientists saved his mother from burning at the stake
Johannes Keppler in 1620 did this thing by speaking for her at her trial.
I should have included WH Auden’s last verse to September 1, 1939. TS must be a lighthouse.
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
In Vino
Not lazy at all. You like all of us here have broken through the technology barrier and become slaves tapping at the coalface. It’s not so much the typing, it’s all the new apps and helpful systems that you have to fight off before they take over your life, read your mind before your aware of your thought and reduce you to a sort of avatar of yourself. Interesting thought.
Now I did think that myself, didn’t I?
The neolib Gnashionals proceed with their plan to denature the environment and the communal society of NZ, and the belief in NZs as a special country with great attributes. We are just to be a bunch of mainly poorly-paid or disaffected unemployed living at the whim of overseas business while our natural and previously accumulated wealth is distilled from us leaving the essence of sour grapes for most, and fine wine for the minority.
That is the attitude shown by the latest economic burble coming from the PTB – they are going to erect legal borders and separate areas of NZ into SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES. This name should be noted. (Incidentally this idea was one promoted prior to 1840. I think the new effort indicates the mindset that this government is returning to, bugger advanced enlightenment and respect for an equal democracy.)
And the Local Bodies are apparently willing to go along and so sell us out.
Up till now many of us have had a modicum of fellow feeling of warmth from our local government administering services and promoting the local economy for us, feeling an interest in our community and listening to what we want.
They have sometimes been captured by strong local lobbies particularly from the farming community. But with some effort people have mostly been able to have a say and persevere to a better outcome or to stop unwise projects or plain rorts.
But now LG seems to have drunk the Koolaid and we will have to fight our corner hard if they turn out to adopt this RW bastards idea. Watch this, the RW desire to destroy NZ as a country for people, is never-ending. The people who want to be able to have a happy life being people just living a normal life are not appreciated or wanted. Look at r0bs post today – https://thestandard.org.nz/nat-act-dont-think-poor-people-should-have-kids/
Paula Bennett famous solo mum – ““I can tell you that they are completely fed up with these children continuously being born to completely unfit parents. That’s a step that’s right out there, and I can tell you there is certainly discussion going on around it.””
😕
The RWs don’t want you, or you, or……..?
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Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
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Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
I was initially resistant to the idea often suggested to me that the Government should deliver an arts strategy. The whole point of the arts and creativity is that people should do whatever the hell they want, unbound by the dictates of politicians in Wellington. Peter Jackson, Kiri Te Kanawa, Eleanor ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
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 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of something you use breaking and being difficult or expensive to fix. Proposed legislation could change that. It’s been raining on and off all Sunday afternoon but people are lining up outside a building in a corner of Gribblehirst Park in Sandringham, Auckland. In ...
What does a forever relationship look like when you don’t believe in marriage? And how do you celebrate it? This essay is part of our Sunday Essay series, made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.I’m going to do it, right now. I’m going to say ...
It’s not that long ago Eliza McCartney was seriously wondering if the Paris Olympics would be her pole vaulting swansong. After years of being hounded by injury after injury, the Rio Olympics bronze medallist was still confident she would compete at her second Olympics in Paris in July, unless something ...
FICTION 1 Take Two by Danielle Hawkins (Allen & Unwin, $36.99) There’s commercial fiction, like this book, and then there’s quality fiction, quality writers, quality literature; the forthcoming Auckland Writers Festival is full of quality, and ReadingRoom has two tickets to give away to the following events: Paul Lynch (Dublin ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 26 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...
You can’t have missed the Gallipoli story as the movies, documentaries, essays and books capture what it was like for New Zealand troops in their eight-month campaign on the Peninsula. But this Anzac Day the Auckland War Memorial Museum has published a book that sheds light on a little-known aspect of the ...
The Prime Minister has committed to resuming direct flights to Thailand. But it’s not a promise he will be able to deliver on anytime soon. The post Prime Minister jumps the gun in Thailand appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In the free-for-all between the Australian government and Big Tech boss Elon Musk this week, the government had to be on a winner. Most people would have little sympathy with Musk’s vociferous opposition to ...
Asia Pacific Report Chief Mandla Mandela, a member of the National Assembly of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s grandson, has joined the Freedom Flotilla in istanbul as the ships prepare to sail for Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. Mandela is also the ambassador for the Global Campaign to Return to ...
Pacific Media Watch Journalists who report on environmental issues are encountering growing difficulties in many parts of the world, reports Reporters Without Borders. According to the tally kept by RSF, 200 journalists have been subjected to threats and physical violence, including murder, in the past 10 years because they were ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra BagzhanSadvakassov/Upsplash, CC BY-SA Australia’s inflation rate has fallen for the fifth successive quarter, and it’s now less than half of what it was back in late 2022. ...
ACT's Rural Communities and Veterans spokesman Mark Cameron responds to cancellations and protests of ANZAC Day commemorations in Wellington. He says, "These pitiful attempts to detract from ANZAC Day are not at all indicative of the feelings of mainstream ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918.Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Pōneke based peace activists staged a silent protest at the ANZAC day service to highlight New Zealand’s complicity in war and genocide, and urge the government to take concrete steps to stop the genocide in Palestine. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Magdalena M.E. Bunbury, Postdoctoral Researcher, James Cook University Burial with a horse at the Rákóczifalva site, Hungary (8th century AD).Sándor Hegedűs, Hungarian National Museum, CC BY How do we understand past societies? For centuries, our main sources of information have been ...
Amanda Thompson doesn’t really do Anzac Day. But what she does do is remember the people she knew who had a lifetime to remember stuff they didn’t really want to, because of a war they didn’t ask for. And she does make Anzac biscuits.First published in 2021.All my ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Willis, Postdoctoral Researcher, CSIRO Xavier Boulenger/Shutterstock In the two decades to 2019, global plastic production doubled. By 2040, plastic manufacturing and processing could consume as much as 20% of global oil production and use up 15% of the annual carbon ...
With our collective remembrance, and steadfast belief in our common humanity, we strengthen our hope and resolve to do what we can to foster dialogue and understanding, and to heal divisions in our pursuit of peace. ...
Principal reasons for the opposition is the loss of the public’s democratic right to have “a fair say” and the vital need for a government free from corruption, said Casey Cravens of Dunedin, president of the New Zealand Federation of Freshwater ...
Never mind the scoreboard – in the 2000 Bledisloe Cup decider, the real trans-Tasman battle was won before kickoff.First published in 2016. The dawn of the new millennium was a dark time for the All Blacks. Their final game pre-Y2K was a 22-18 loss to South Africa in the ...
I’m on the wrong side of 40, I never pursued creative work and now my job is killing my soul. Help! Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,May I start with the least original conversation opener you’re likely to hear around the motu at the moment, particularly in Wellington: ...
With Labour’s winter fuel allowance ((copied and pasted directly from the UK’s policy), it would mean that NZPower, a policy that would have made a world of difference to electricity users, and would have benefited generators and retailers as well, had they not blindly opposed it is dead in the water. A pity really.
Well, this is what happened when Labour capitulated to the ABCs: kill all remaining innovation in the party as if that was what went wrong in 2014.
Search for the petition to stop the merger between Bayer and Monsanto. Please sign it today.
Sounds like some of Sweden’s new citizens have embraced the spirit of community activism and internationalism for which the country is so well know. Oh, wait….
“A Somalian woman in Gothenburg, Sweden, Qamar Cleasson, spies on families in who converted to Christianity and shares the information with Muslims abroad, reports Pamela Geller.
Cleasson joined a Swedish Christian congregation to spy on these families. Somali families associated with the church now feel threatened and some have been forced to go underground. According to local sources speaking to Geller, Swedish police say they “lack resources” and are unable to help the apostate families.”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/07/sweden-muslima-infiltrates-church-to-spy-on-report-converts-to-christianity
We didn’t have the infrastructure in place for so many immigrants to come to NZ in the first place.
And now the solution is for national to loan $1billion to councils to try and fix it? It’s not the councils fault that so many people were allowed in NZ, councils were unprepared for it, and now they have to foot the bill.
Doesn’t seem fair to me, wonder if rates will rise in those areas?
Almost everything that National does causes rates to rise and then National will blame the council – unless it’s a right-wing council in which case they won’t say a word. Just look at how they talk about Auckland and who they blame for the cost blow-outs that they caused by their stupid SuperShitty legislation.
Holy fuck. A blinding flash of actual good sense from Dallas, Texas. Put some actual public transport users on the board of the transit authority.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/07/10/dallas-puts-transit-riders-transit-board-whoa/
A brief scan of Auckland Transport’s board doesn’t look like a similar outbreak is coming here anytime soon.
https://at.govt.nz/about-us/our-role-organisation/board-of-directors/
Patrick Reynolds – one of the TransportBlog founder – was appointed by Auckland Council to their Customer Focus Committee in June. He’s doing a good job.
I hate to feel like I’m dumping on good news, but isn’t that a bit damning with faint praise?
Yes lol. They should have PT experts all over local government.
Nope. He’s doing a good job.
Don’t forget:
Auckland Transport has by a long way the largest teams devoted to public transport, cycling, and walking of any public entity in the country.
They are also highly tuned to what the public transport customer is wanting more or less of, due to the near-90% penetration of their HOP card which tracks every trip on every public transport mode.
My snark was not aimed at the work Reynolds is doing, more that despite his appointment AT’s efforts to get public transport users deeply involved in decision-making still look somewhat token when set against a board loaded up with the likes of Cullen, Rebstock, Gilbert…
Honour Board.
Protesting for democracy. Jailed.
Hard to get, and easy to lose, or misuse.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-idUSKBN19V0Q4
A Chinese hospital treating sick dissident Liu Xiaobo offered a bleak prognosis on Monday, saying he is seriously ill, as a U.S. attorney who represents Liu accused Beijing of hastening his death by refusing to allow his transfer to a foreign hospital.
Liu, 61, was jailed for 11 years in 2009 for “inciting subversion of state power” after he helped write a petition known as “Charter 08” calling for sweeping political reforms.
Funny how so many in the west can’t see the propaganda that is fed to them on a daily basis.
Here’s but one example.
Remember when Aleppo was being liberated by the Syrian government.
Remember the corporate media ‘s unending commentary about the bad Russians bombing the city to smithereens?
Patrick Cockburn would one of the few western journalists to observe similar destruction has been wreaked on Mosul.
‘Nobody knows how many civilians died in Mosul because many of the bodies are still buried under the rubble in 47 degrees heat. Asked to estimate how many people had been killed in his home district of al-Thawra, Saad Amr said: “we don’t know because houses were often full of an unknown number of displaced people from other parts of the city.”
Some districts are so badly damaged that it is impossible to reach them. We heard that there had been heavy airstrikes on the districts of Zanjily and Sahba and, from a distance, we could see broken roofs with floors hanging down like concrete flaps. But we could not get there in a car because the streets leading to them were choked with broke masonry and burned out cars.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-baghdadi-mosul-air-strikes-civilians-killed-us-a7836261.html
As Gore Vidal said…
“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity – much less dissent.”
Oh absolutely, there were numerous incidents of John McCain & CNN’s dearly beloved moderate head choppers shooting people who tried to flee using the open corridors. But muh Russians bombed the last hospital in Aleppo 26 times!
Glad to see we can finally agree that large-scale air strikes on densely-populated areas is not a good way to fight a war, Paul/Ed. It’s a realisation you’ve come to quite late and I expect only because this time the US was involved, but better late than never.
Is that a suggestion that bombing carried out on E. Aleppo was somehow comparable to what has just happened in Mosul?
The principle is comparable, the events themselves not so much. For instance, in Mosul the bombardment was carried out in support of a ground attack, while in east Aleppo the bombardment was for a long time carried out in lieu of a ground attack, as the regime didn’t have the numbers to mount one. To that extent it was more of a punishment for opposing the Assad regime than the furthering of any military purpose. Another difference is that the destruction in Mosul was much worse, because it was held by religious fascists fighting to the last man and bullet, so a negotiated conclusion wasn’t possible the way it was in Aleppo. Another difference is the coalition didn’t randomly unload barrels of explosives out the back of a helicopter over Mosul. No doubt there are many other differences. But the principle, yeah pretty comparable.
The principle is broadly comparable, yes. The considerations taken around bombing, “maybe” not so much.
Perhaps you haven’t read the Cockburn piece that comments on the notable absence of bullet holes in walls – indicating a lack of street to street fighting? Who lacked the numbers, or is it the will, to carry out a ground attack again?
Who do you think was opposing the Syrian government in E. Aleppo and launching ordnance into civilian areas of W. Aleppo? The civilians of E. Aleppo who were being held as human shields in much the same manner as civilians in Mosul? Because that’s the implication of your statement that E.Aleppo was simply bombed as a form of punishment.
Care to spell out any meaningful difference between those who sought a Caliphate and who occupied E. Aleppo, and those who sought a Caliphate who occupied Mosul?
And if one set of occupiers can be given safe passage to avoid mounting civilian casualties, then why not the other set ( given that a goodly number had already been allowed passage from Mosul to Palermo)?
Random barrel bombs or ordnance targeting underground bunkers being dropped from helicopters? And how does targeted white phosphorous work?
No need to actually address those questions btw. I fully get that you’re really quite attached to the official narratives flying around the show on Iraq and Syria.
Remember the funnel of those estimates on the population of East Aleppo though? 250,0000 … ahem, 200,000 … ahem 120,000 … ok, so it was actually 60,000 but muh Russian airstrikes! Maybe listening to the London based/Salafi funded ‘Syrian’ Observatory for ‘Human Rights’ wasn’t such a good idea for the UN, who ended up having to backpedal substantially on those bs numbers.
Meanwhile, about 650,000 of Mosul’s prewar population known to have stayed in the city after it was captured by ISIS. Presumably some of them will have escaped in that time, but it sounds like they were every bit as effective as the ‘moderate’ militants in East Aleppo at shooting anyone who tried to flee. So there will undoubtedly have been more people in Mosul by far than even the 250k fake news numbers initially reported for East Aleppo.
Without doubt, it’s the differing treatment from the west which stands out. Where was the outrage at those civilian casualties from CNN? I’ve seen Trump compared to Hitler by American liberals for just about everything except the bombing of Mosul, which had half of liberal American godwinning themselves at the very mention of Vladimir Putin for nigh on a year.
Where was the outrage at those civilian casualties from CNN?
I don’t watch CNN, but I’d be picking they didn’t think the Iraqi government’s attempt to destroy a religious fascist occupation was of a similar nature to the Assad regime’s revenge on people who’d prefer not to live under an absolute monarch. Which would be fair enough, because they are different.
Correctly picking that Syrian civilians would appear to prefer a democratically elected President and an elected parliament to a Monarchy…barreling straight into comment of twisted car crash wreckage. Oh well.
Democratically elected?
Twice.
lol 99/97% each time, too.
And yet it seems that more than 3% of Syria counter-votes with a bullet.
But are the people using those bullets a majority?
No McFlock. Neither 99 nor 97%.
From previous comments and arguments it’s clear you have nothing of worth to say about Syria. An echo of msm memes is about all you have. Maybe if you spoke with some of the Syrian refugees in town, you’d learn a thing or two and stop with that b/s.
Anyway, the turnout in 2014 was 70 odd percent with terrorist controlled areas effectively boycotting the elections. Votes could be cast at those foreign embassies that hadn’t been shut down by host countries.
Couple of things. If the turnout was 70 odd percent in spite of terrorist and foreign based opposition boycotts, and in spite of populations living in terrorist held areas being unable to vote, then what does that say about the supposed ‘civil war’ in Syria?
And if you or I lived in country under siege, would we not tend to vote for the incumbent in multi-candidate elections, even if we disagreed with them politically, given that any further instability would favour those who wanted the entire population subjected to Cromwellian era nonsense?
Or willfully boycott to send a positive roundhead message.
The runner up got 4.3% of the vote btw, and over 30 countries sent observers who judged the election to be fair.
2000: 99.7%
2007:99.86%
2014: 88.7%
You can believe those results, millions wouldn’t.
In 2000 he was the only candidate and ~ 8.5 million people voted.
In 2007, it was a referendum to confirm him as president and ~ 11 million people voted.
In 2014 there were 3 candidates and ~ 10 million people voted despite (so we are told) every one wanting him gone.
Doesn’t quite fit the western narrative does it?
An increasing number of people confirming his second term in office in 2007 and only about 10% fewer people than that voting in 2014 despite boycotts, and daily shellings/suicide attacks and occupation of both city districts and swathes of country-side by salafists/headchoppers and millions of refugees.
Seriously. Go and speak to some of the Syrian refugees in town.
How does it not fit the narrative?
I, for one, am a great fan of the way he increased the population of Syria by 3mil from 2000 to 2007, the bulk of which seemed to be eligible voters aged 18 and over.
Foreign fighters don’t typically vote in elections for the country they’re being paid to invade.
Well, with winning margins like that, the ones from Hezbollah might. But either way it doesn’t account for the numbers. Much more than 3% are fighting for the various opposition groups.
I think the answer lies in the fact that voting is only held in the Govt controlled areas. Rebel held areas don’t get to vote.
my bold
5000 people exited E Aleppo. Some of them (like in Homs) did so under threat of death from the Salafists.
That’s 5000 from a population of ..what?…minus the numbers of foreign fighters of course.
Given that forces get concentrated (so more present by percentage of total population in a strategic location like E Aleppo), if we take the figures our media fed us about 200 000 residents being in E Aleppo….what’s that 5000 in percentage terms McFlock? Even if we assume all the women and children and threatened men of that 5000 are a part of the fighting?
“Much more than 3%” as you claim?
Hmm. Not really.
Dunno why you’re going on about aleppo in regards to the election vs foreign fighters.
20k people voted against assad in 2007.
Ten years later something like a quarter of a million people are in arms against him. Unless 210k of them are foreigners, it’s a pretty severe drop in the polls.
You’re being a deliberate arse here McFlock. No-one voted “against” Assad in 2007. It was a confirmation referendum. No opposition.
Turnout in 2007 was up some two and a half million from 2000.
In 2014, with some 4 million people having fled the country, and a boycott imposed by Jihadists in areas they controlled plus a war going on and foreign embassies being shut down, turnout in the contested election only dropped by about 400 000 from those 2007 numbers.
Anyway. That offer above stands.
2007 election
Choice Votes %
For 11,199,445 99.82
Against 19,653 0.18
Invalid/blank votes 253,059 –
Total 11,472,157 100
And the number of votes actually increased between 2007 and 2014. Even though the turnout percentage dropped by a quarter.
Where I come from, a guy who inherited the country from his dad is a king, not a “democratically elected president.” And historically, kings whose rule was absolute got their rule termed “absolute monarchy.” So, yes, Syria is currently an absolute monarchy, albeit one in which the monarch likes to style himself a “democratically-elected president.”
As part of that somewhat comical attempt to style himself a president, Assad holds elections. Which is meaningless – if he wanted, King Salman of Saudi Arabia could hold elections and be assured of an overwhelming majority (after all, opposing him gets you imprisoned and tortured just like it does in Syria). He doesn’t, of course, because he’s up front about being an absolute monarch, a level of honesty way beyond Bashar al Assad. However, even if he were to aspire to Assad levels of dishonesty and hold some elections to declare him president, it wouldn’t make him a “democratically-elected president” any more than it does Assad, or any more than it did Saddam Hussein.
Wait, you’re saying that the majority of the fighters in East Aleppo weren’t Islamists?
I don’t recall saying it. What gave you that impression? If you’re conflating “Islamists,” ie the majority of Middle East Arabs, with Da’esh, who are religious fascists who tried to set up a caliphate in some parts of Iraq and Syria they conquered. please don’t.
No, I’m saying people whose objective is a theocracy may as well be ISIS if they are prepared to enforce those laws by force. I don’t for a minute think Assad is any good, but secular villain beats Islamist villain for me by a country mile.
So, if we just conflate general Muslim interest in having Islam as the basis of their country’s laws with Da’esh’s attempts to impose a religious fascist dictatorship, then the situations in east Aleppo and Mosul were near enough the same. Why not conflate right-wing political views with fascism and say the National Party might as well be the Nazis, while you’re at it? It makes just as little sense.
Same people PM. No “conflation” required.
That’s a truly astonishing statement. The number of people in the Middle East who are “Islamists,” ie who’d like to see Islam forming the basis of their country’s laws, is huge – in Egypt the military took over again because democratic elections produced an Islamist government. It’s doubtful a genuinely democratic election in Syria or various other Arab countries would have a different result. For you and Cemetery Jones to claim this mass of people are the same as Da’esh is just bizarre.
Oh come on, Ahrar Al-Sham, Jhabat Fatah Al-Sham, Nour Al-Din Al-Zinki etc. were the dominant forces in East Aleppo. They are theocrats, and not a benign kind by any shade. To suggest that these kinds of groups are in any way representative of the general Muslim interest is absurd. They want enforced Sharia, enforced modesty, the traditional role of women (confined or chaperoned) – they are the Islamic version of Margaret Atwood’s Republic of Gilead.
Then there’s the Kurdish factor. If these groups were so benign, how come they attacked the Kurdish zone, forcing them to respond by holding a hostile front for the duration of the campaign? Surely the Kurds of East Aleppo could have made a deal with them if they really were just moderates? And surely they would have desired to do so, if they were just moderates? Bullshit, they are sectarian holy warriors, and just because they’ll execute their enemies in a slightly less histrionic fashion to ISIS makes not one whit of difference if you’re in the next neighbourhood over from their fighters.
Oh come on, Ahrar Al-Sham, Jhabat Fatah Al-Sham, Nour Al-Din Al-Zinki etc. were the dominant forces in East Aleppo.
According to Assad and Putin they were, yes. It’s even possible the claim was accurate, after Assad had spent years besieging Aleppo and killing his less-extreme opponents. The fact that the only people left alive opposing the Assad regime a few years after the start of the uprising were the toughest, most highly-motivated fighters because the regime had successfully killed or driven out all the others, isn’t a point in favour of the Assad regime.
It shows what we’ve long known: much like the Anarchists etc. didn’t flock to Spain in the 30s to fight because Franco was leading a terrible regime or because they had the people of Spain’s best interests at heart, but because they wanted their revolution, so too the foreign fighters who flocked to Syria didn’t come because Assad was a dictator or for love of the Syrian people, but to fight holy war against apostates and khufar.
The reason so many wouldn’t surrender is that they weren’t Syrian, they were foreign fighters. They turned a minor rebellion which would have been over quickly due to its lack of popular support into a bloody slugfest. And for the insurgents that’s fine. The uglier, the better. More propaganda, more radicalisation, more division and indecision on the part of those of us who should have seen that phase of rebellion for what it was.
Without doubt, it’s the differing treatment from the west which stands out.
But..but..Assad, who has no history of ‘bad shit’ being reported from the time of his first Presidential term in 2000/2001 until 2011, bar a HRW report from 2007 riding off the back of unfounded Iraqi government charges from 2004 that he was harbouring jihadists who were entering Iraq from Syria (not Turkey), you really need to remember (we all do) that Assad is bad. Really bad. Devil incarnate bad. Always has been.
Hmmm, I remember Assad as being portrayed as bad right from the time that USA decided to promote ‘Arab Spring’ fuck-ups.. Never heard much about him before USA decided regime change was necessary…
Funny, that.
Seriously?
He was never really thought of as a democratic leader. He was just better than the clusterfuck they were planning next door, stabilising a complex demographic and political state in global hotspot.
As soon as he lost control, he was no longer providing any benefit, geopolitically-speaking.
He didn’t and hasn’t lost control.
But nice way to side-step the whole demonisation angle.
Anyway. The US wanted their claws on Syria from 2004 on-wards. (Now, you saying he ‘lost control in 2004?) And Clinton’s emails on the region should be required reading.
I think you’ll find clinton had different policy objectives from cheney. Especially after 2010/11, when Assad lost control.
But of course he hasn’t lost control, Syria is a wonderful place to be, with pastoral hillsides echoing the calls of 7.62mm birds… /sarc
So what were Cheney’s objectives that are or were different to Clinton’s?
And like I say (and this is on record) the US wanted rid of the Syrian government from 2004 onwards. In fact, I think there’s a CNN interview with Assad from 2004 where that’s brought up.
And no, Syria’s not a “wonderful place to be” ffs, and no-one has said that it is.
It’s a particularly unwonderful place at the moment because it’s a war zone.
It wasn’t a war zone when he was in control.
It wouldn’t be a war zone if he hadn’t lost control.
But he lost control of very large bits of it. Most of it.
As for cheney vs clinton, that’s empire vs actual democratic ideals having a place in the decision-making. Behind quite a bit of realpolitik, sure, but still in the mix.
Either way, we seem to be in agreement that Assad was thought to be “bad” well before Arab Spring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_4kDZiiYOc&ab_channel=AdultSwim
You simply haven’t read Clinton’s emails on the matter, have you? She wasn’t in the least interested in democracy. Iran and Israel feature large in her take. Syrian people are irrelevant (not mentioned at all)
Anyway. For every three discreet articles/stories in the msm portraying Assad in anything like the terms we’ve seen this last six years, and that are from the years 2000/2001 through to 2010 (a clear decade), Iand that you link to, ‘ll buy you a hand pulled pint of your choosing.
Telling you now though. All you will find is stuff from 2004 when Iraq was throwing groundless accusations about Syria harbouring some peeps from Sadam’s regime and Jihadists. And then you’ll find a 2007 HRW report that’s probably at best (worst) on a par with what would have been reported on the UK in the 70s and 80s before the Peace Process.
I don’t think I’ve bothered to ever read clinton’s emails on any matter. Some of the podesta ones I think.
anyway: PBS
The economist
Slate
Washington Institute
Middle East Forum
the New Yorker
the Guardian.
That enough for a speights?
That seriously the best you have for the man who we are to believe is the devil incarnate!?
First link is post protests.
Second one (2002) – is about a visit to Buckingham Palace.
Third one (2003) – the accusations that high ranking Iraqis have taken refuge in Syria and about that providing an excuse for Democratic presidential candidate (Florida Sen. Bob Graham) to openly support war with Syria.
Fourth one (2001) – Dry and somewhat detached analysis on the prospects for reform in Syria under Assad.
Fifth one (2003) – claims that Assad’s a weak leader lacking “killer instinct”, but that nevertheless concedes – The two and a half years that have passed since Bashar’s rise to power in Syria have been relatively calm and stable.
Sixth one (2003) Illegal incursion into Syria by US forces from Iraq.
Seventh one (2001) Blair meets Assad.
So no, not even a stale Speights from “The Crown” on a Sunday afternoon there McFlock.
fair call on the first one,snuck through me google filter.
The second one opens “THE Syrians are unlikely players for the war-on-terror team, especially now that the goalposts have been stretched to take in their neighbour, and fellow Baathist dictatorship, Iraq. Aside from making pots of money smuggling Iraqi oil, Syria has long been fingered as a supporter of terrorists, keeps an annoying boothold in Lebanon and is also believed to store some toxic weaponry of its own.”
I would have thought that was quite a negative portayal.
The third one: immediately after the one-line point about asad being so bad Graham was against him we have the rest of the paragraph:”Already some hawks are pointing to the tantalizing parallels between Saddam’s Iraq and Assad’s Syria. Weapons of mass destruction? Check. Support for terrorism? Check. Repressive domestic intelligence services? Check. The comparisons go further: Both countries were ruled by tyrannical men who are not members of the ethnic majority. (Saddam was a Sunni who ruled over a largely Shiite country, and Assad is an Alawite who rules over a Sunni majority.) To top things off, Syria even has a Baath Party and a Republican Guard. No one expects war anytime soon, but Assad’s stupidity has put the subject on the table.”
So a direct comparison with Saddam Hussein written in early 2003.
And so on – the fourth is dry and detached, but the only reforms it thinks likely is becoming like China, not like Canada. The fifth openly calls his government “a coercive and violent regime”. The sixth opens with the US incursion, but you might read the rest of the article. Again, it’s not charitable. As for the final one, “blair meets assad” is a reasonable description. Although again it describes Syria as ” a country that is a dictatorship with an abysmal human rights record, and which is still engaged in fighting Israel by proxy.”. But you preferred the more sterile phrasing. I guess it’s the only way it could get past your blinkers.
You seriously think those stories are on a par with the demonisation of Assad we’ve been subjected to these past several years?
Y’know, the guy who deliberately and casually slaughters Syrian civilians – by gas and bomb and whatever? The guy who orders hospitals to be bombed? The guy who deliberately starves entire populations? The guy who runs torture prisons housing thousands?
Curious btw. What were your search terms, how many pages down did you have to go to get those links, and why do you consider those sources to be msm? Some are, some (cough) “not so much”.
Anyway.
We know that Syria was a one party, democratic centralist state modeled along USSR lines – not exactly politically free then. (It now has pluralistic elections)
We know that along with Iraq and Libya, they were the last secular countries in the Arab world (all soviet/Arab hybrid governance structures and therefore “the enemy” according to liberal thought)
We know the war with Israel is essentially on-going.
And Syria withdrew its military presence from Lebanon in 2005.
So you wanted articles talking about how he gassed his own people before people in his country were gassed?
Sounds legit.
as for the search terms, I think I bunged a date range on “assad”, although at least one more recent thing slipped though. Not completely reliable, but filters it down to more manageable levels.
I dunno, the Americans were happy to cooperate on those rendition flights when it suited them, and the Brits loved having Assad over for a cuppa. As were the French, whose luxury shopping districts were always happy to see his wife which Bashar was hobnobbing with politicians.
How does that address my comment about him being useful only as long as he was in control of the country?
I guess I meant more that I think they actually liked him and maybe even projected their own views rather than seeing him for who he was. In that sense I’m more just rounding it out that they seem to have gone from seeing him as nicer than he was to seeing him as nastier than he is. Which for all I know is how you view him too, I guess.
“Like” has nothing to do with it.
There were initial hopes amongst doves that he’d tend towards more democratic ideals, if not actually relinquishing power. More Jordan than Saudi Arabia, sort of thing.
The hawks are always happy to use any nasty arsehole who is willing to help them.
But everyone knew what his dad was, and what the type of state he took control of was. Like Egypt or Morocco.
Arse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_Spring
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_Declaration
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/may/28/syria.ianblack
Really?
Two wikipedia links and one from the Guardian and nothing about mass detentions, torture prisons, assassination programmes, indiscriminate oppression…
The stuff we’ve been getting these past few years, you’d never pick the guy had been trying to steer reforms through a (presumably) hostile and long established bureaucratic party structure – y’know, the likes of what Gorbachev confronted in the last phase of the USSR – with all it’s cliques and what not vying to promote their own agendas and/or retain the status quo.
Exactly it’s funny how Ed Paul doesn’t apply his own rules to himself, both Mosul and Aleppo are a stain on humanity, end of the day if you have to take a stand re the west for all its negatives vs eds team, the west win every time You sort of wonder why the eds of the world just don’t move to Russia as some of the more extreme of his ilk have, usually as a result of avoiding the law
Yous should read Patrick Cockburn and educate yourself.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-baghdadi-mosul-air-strikes-civilians-killed-us-a7836261.html
We do read Patrick Cockburn,, Paul/Ed, we just don’t mis-use his work for specious arguments from authority as you’re wont to do.
I honestly believe the propaganda is fraying. Badly.
A country that can afford highly expensive killing machines should also be able to have rescue helicopters and camera drones that search for visible people, and have heat’ sensors wouldn’t work in 47degrees though. But reports come that nothing can be done. It can’t if there is no will to do it.
To Ed,
“Funny how so many in the west can’t see the propaganda that is fed to them on a daily basis.”
Why do you think that anything that has happened in the war torn hell-hole that is Syria or Iraq as funny?
a) that is not what he said was funny.
b) he obviously meant ‘funny peculiar’. not ‘funny ha-ha.’
Please try to put in a little more thought.
To In Vino,
Then, perhaps Ed can express himself more clearly! There is nothing wrong with my thought processes mate!
And there was nothing wrong with his. Sort out your own pedantry first.
HAha to that Johan
When E. Aleppo was being liberated from terrorists, we had condemnation plastered all over front pages. When the terrorists were given safe passage out of E. Aleppo in order that fewer civilian lives would be lost in the on-going conflict, the west screamed that it was a crime against humanity.
Bearing all of that and more in mind…
Patrick Cockburn on Mosul.
edit. seems I should have read previous comments. Oh well.
Forget it Bill, no one here wants to admit NZ’s role in all this killing of civilians with a ordinance which Satan Himself would be proud of.
A good concise article on Dem prospects for next year’s Senate elections.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/red-state-senate-democrats-havent-drawn-strong-opponents-yet/
Chris Trotter at Bowelly Road and NRT clarify things nicely for commenters here that are nostalgic for Muldoonism: today’s Nats really are his true heirs.
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2017/07/nationals-new-muldoonism.html
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2017/07/damning-dam.html
Yes, just because Muldoon opposed Lange’s reforms, many here seem to see him as a proponent of good Keynesian type egalitarianism. I remember him well, and that is the last way I would describe him. The Clyde Dam legislation is a closer indication of his real nature.
But enough about us…
Probably work for the daily review pic.
Or, perhaps this one.
Inner hollowness has cropped up as a term for what drives people to keep gouging away at the earth and each other to get more. I started thinking about getting a better philosophy soon as we are going to have to make a sea change ready or not.
There is a drive to get more to make more profit, accumulate money. And yet this may be thrown up in the air on an expensive wedding, some major event or performance, or put into mining for precious metals, a new rip-off venture perhaps. Or the biggest fireworks in the southern hemisphere, an abomination while people are homeless in NZ and starving that so much money can be spent on a short term spectacle.
Perhaps everyone should go into a retreat once a year and meditate on the amazing world lived in and the amazing creature we are, amongst other amazing creatures and plants, and get the feeling of appreciation of life for itself. Then go out in the boat or the yacht, play with the toys, but look at them as extras not passing amusements for the bored, those with ennui. (Where are you ennui?)
Janis Ian had a song about people who sell out on growing up and venturing and living as an individual learning what you are, making mistakes and feeling lonely and having to find reserves inside oneself, and learning some empathy.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUydOqxhDQg
Those sort of people generally are very warm and practical, and materialism isn’t their principal crutch for life. Our task these days is to find each other, and form networks to help us face the coming hardships. The rest will lock themselves away, Lost on an island separated off like Planet Key?
I’m doing a lot of philosophising. We haven’t done much over the past 30 years and now facing the uncertain future, have to change our way of thinking as it requires us to decide on how we want to live; those who want to stay the same will eventually have to manage for themselves as best they can. There will have to be tight-knit groups who fend off those who want to latch on and use up resources without sufficient input, and there will be those who want to rob and destroy and they will have to be kept at bay. There must be something set aside for the outsiders who are needy, but not all will be able to be helped.
We see the world’s attitudes to the African immigrants. Already they are receiving the cold shoulder, having had their countries involved in conflict, their homes, water and crops demolished, and unable to follow their customary practices to last through drought. They are mostly men, it is hard for women and children to flee and last through the demanding journeys to a safe harbour with more privation beyond.
Inner hollowness is killing our world. We must try to maintain a soft centre, but still stay firm enough to cope. It is a difficult balance to achieve.
Cheer up, Grey, with some Eliot.
The Hollow Men
Mistah Kurtz-he dead
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer-
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Oops! Not as cheerful as hoped – perhaps some Leunig!
God bless this tiny little boat
And me who travels in it.
It stays afloat for years and years
And sinks within a minute.
And so the soul in which we sail,
Unknown by years of thinking,
Is deeply felt and understood
The minute that it’s sinking.
Better still, this and this, from our good friend Michael Leunig:
There are only two feelings.
Love and fear.
There are only two languages.
Love and fear.
There are only two activities.
Love and fear.
There are only two motives,
two procedures, two frameworks,
two results.
Love and fear.
Love and fear.
Dear God,
We rejoice and give thanks for earthworms,
bees, ladybirds and broody hens;
for humans tending their gardens, talking to animals,
cleaning their homes and singing to themselves;
for rising of the sap, the fragrance of growth,
the invention of the wheelbarrow and the existence of the teapot,
we give thanks. We celebrate and give thanks.
Amen.
I hope you were able to paste most of that, Robert. Good reading, but if you typed it all out, you have undermined my confidence.
Well written Grey, well written indeed, thoughtful words that ring true. I really appreciate your outlook and wisdom thank you for sharing.
Thanks may we always have good games of ping pong here, words and thought back and forth, feeding the ball to each other and keeping it in the air never falling.
(So poetic eh or something.)
Good buzz Grey 😀
What a little treasure of words. Leunig is special. I once had a ticket to a talk he gave and forgot. So it is good to have his perky words. And the other poem. I think you have talked about WH Auden. His words are from the heart too, and speak to any heart that can at that moment receive them. Wow it’s a long poem but I thought that these two verses are for the time.
http://www.poemdujour.com/Sept1.1939.html
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
by W.H. Auden
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
He mentions Linz in his poem.
This might have been what he was referring to:
The astronomer and the witch: How one of history’s great scientists saved his mother from burning at the stake
Johannes Keppler in 1620 did this thing by speaking for her at her trial.
The dramatic story of how Johannes Kepler saved his own mother from being burned as a witch is told in full in a new book by Professor Ulinka Rublack, which reveals the devastating human consequences of Early Modern Europe’s witch-trial culture.
http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/astronomer-and-witch-how-one-history%E2%80%99s-great-scientists-saved-his-mother-burning-stake-see-more-http
I should have included WH Auden’s last verse to September 1, 1939. TS must be a lighthouse.
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
Fabulous!
+1 (From a lazy keyboarder.)
In Vino
Not lazy at all. You like all of us here have broken through the technology barrier and become slaves tapping at the coalface. It’s not so much the typing, it’s all the new apps and helpful systems that you have to fight off before they take over your life, read your mind before your aware of your thought and reduce you to a sort of avatar of yourself. Interesting thought.
Now I did think that myself, didn’t I?
The neolib Gnashionals proceed with their plan to denature the environment and the communal society of NZ, and the belief in NZs as a special country with great attributes. We are just to be a bunch of mainly poorly-paid or disaffected unemployed living at the whim of overseas business while our natural and previously accumulated wealth is distilled from us leaving the essence of sour grapes for most, and fine wine for the minority.
That is the attitude shown by the latest economic burble coming from the PTB – they are going to erect legal borders and separate areas of NZ into SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES. This name should be noted. (Incidentally this idea was one promoted prior to 1840. I think the new effort indicates the mindset that this government is returning to, bugger advanced enlightenment and respect for an equal democracy.)
And the Local Bodies are apparently willing to go along and so sell us out.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201850921/lgnz-supports-special-economic-zones
economy
8:25 am today Thursday 13 July 2017
LGNZ supports special economic zones
From Morning Report, 8:25 am today\
Listen duration 4′ :03″
The idea of special economic zones which could suspend rules for the environment, overseas investment and possibly immigration is getting strong support from local councils.
Up till now many of us have had a modicum of fellow feeling of warmth from our local government administering services and promoting the local economy for us, feeling an interest in our community and listening to what we want.
They have sometimes been captured by strong local lobbies particularly from the farming community. But with some effort people have mostly been able to have a say and persevere to a better outcome or to stop unwise projects or plain rorts.
But now LG seems to have drunk the Koolaid and we will have to fight our corner hard if they turn out to adopt this RW bastards idea. Watch this, the RW desire to destroy NZ as a country for people, is never-ending. The people who want to be able to have a happy life being people just living a normal life are not appreciated or wanted. Look at r0bs post today – https://thestandard.org.nz/nat-act-dont-think-poor-people-should-have-kids/
Paula Bennett famous solo mum –
““I can tell you that they are completely fed up with these children continuously being born to completely unfit parents. That’s a step that’s right out there, and I can tell you there is certainly discussion going on around it.””
😕
The RWs don’t want you, or you, or……..?