Dirty politics. Using fake news and trolls to discourage Bernie supporters from voting Clinton. With obvious lessons on things to look out for in our coming campaigns.
The is no such thing as fake news, there is just propaganda. And people who supported h.r.c. and the democrat’s need to get over losing. To live in this world you are creating, just hurts people and their chance to resist.
People will die because of this weakness deomcrats, at least 9 of these spineless flecks are going to vote to over turn health care. You could actually help stop that, rather than buy into utter b.s being peddled.
Here is a link to democrats who are in fear of losing there seats. Take down there names and write them a email.
Good on you Adam. It strikes me the Left are suffering the same bullshit ‘fake news’ paranoia as the Right are. You are correct…. it is all just another form of propaganda.
Hey, adam and garibaldi, we’ve got our own election coming up later this year. The result will either be a fourth term for National, or a Labour/Green led government. Yes, it is essentially a binary.
Your choice is to put your support to a Labour/Green led government (which will involve swallowing dead rats), support a fourth term Nat, or say you think they’re equally bad (which is the same as supporting Nats).
If you want to change the government, it’s a good idea to look at what tactics were used successfully elsewhere, because it’s quite likely they will be used here too. To me, one of the biggest lessons is we’re now at the point in our cycle where it’s time to support the positives in Labour/Greens, rather than picking at and amplifying flaws.
Andre, so your saying that a obvious corrupt two party system, which has been rejected by New Zealand in favor of proportional representation. Is the model you want to work from?
To Quote Mr Pepelo “Interesting…”
The working class people rejected the democrates for a multitude of reason: corruption, being conservative, in bed with the corporations, lying and cheating – not some fantasy about Russia. But sure beat yourself up about false flags, I won’t stand in your way.
Andre, I have never voted National and never will. However if you can’t see the bullshit that the Dems are pushing, and call it for what it is, then you are part of the problem.
I’m saying that for the coming election here, the choice has narrowed to “do you want to change the government, or not?”. And that the current government, having successfully used dirty politics in the past and been shown a new selection of dirty politics techniques to use, will undoubtedly do so to retain power. Inducing lefties to criticise left candidates and share fake news and smears are techniques likely to be re-used here. Even if doesn’t flip voters, it still depresses turnout.
It’s a sad commentary on our local politics that MMP has narrowed to the point that it has effectively become a binary again. But that’s the reality we have to deal with at the moment. If you think there’s a viable alternative, lay it out and explain it. I’ve asked Bill to explain his alternative vision and all I’ve seen are vague incoherent mutterings about “social democracy”. If you’ve got an alternative vision, I’m honestly interested.
When it comes to reforming government, the government has already pulled a bait-and-trash MMP review, so I really doubt there’s any chance of meaningful improvement with the current lot. Whereas Lab/Greens have both been supportive of improving democracy through implementing suggestions from the MMP review, limited as they were. Yet another reason to swallow dead ratsfor the sake of changing the government.
Unless Hone starts looking likely to win TTT AND Mana are polling above 1% (about 1.3% is needed for a second seat), then frankly a vote for Mana is wasted. No matter how moral someone may convince themselves it is. In practical terms Mana have had absolutely zero influence the last 2 years. Although because Hone had a good shot at winning TTT and Mana/IP were polling above 1%, I wouldn’t call it a wasted vote.
Similarly, a vote for TOP is wasted unless TOP are polling above 4%. But even then, TOP have no commitment to changing the government. They just want to slightly change the flavour of whatever government forms. So from the point of view of changing the government, TOP will be a wasted vote.
Hi Andre. Not quite sure what conversation you’re referring to when you write I’ve asked Bill to explain his alternative vision and all I’ve seen are vague incoherent mutterings about “social democracy”.
It’s pretty simple stuff.
Social democracy puts a tighter or shorter leash on capitalism/markets than liberalism does.
In short, social democracy seeks to protect individuals from the more egregious affects of capitalism; to rein it in so that it serves society (ie – social democratic policies would seek equal or fair outcomes across populations).
That sits in stark contrast to liberalism, that promotes the simple notion of an individual having access to equal opportunities in a world dominated by unfettered capitalism.
You really find that too vague or just generally incoherent?
And I should note, social democracy is not my alternative vision – I’m not a social democrat. My vision involves self governance through meaningful or substantive, non-hierarchical democratic institutions being developed and existing at the local or community level – ie, my vision revolves around a fully participatory democracy.
Sorry, that conversation looks to have dropped off my replies tab so I can’t find it easily.
In any case, what I’m interested in is the nuts and bolts of what kind of structures get set up to resolve conflicts over where resource comes from and gets allocated. The how and who of balancing the competing demands of infrastructure, welfare, health, education, conservation and so on.
I can stretch my mind to incremental improvements of what we’ve got now. Things like lowering thresholds for representation in parliament, adjusting tax rates and where they’re spent. I can even get my head around changes as big as introducing a UBI and funding it from new sources, such as carbon taxes and capital gains taxes.
But if you want my support for throwing out a big chunk of what we’ve got now in favour of something completely new, I’m going want a very detailed picture of what it is. Preferably with an established model elsewhere showing how it’s going to work.
Because for all the flaws in the systems we have now, they still work better than just about everything else I can point at. And the models I can think of that I’d like better, mostly Scandinavian states, are really just incremental changes from what we have here and now.
In NZ, just look to anything prior 1984. In the UK, look to pre-Thatcher. IN the US, pre-Reagan.
You want examples of social democratic policies in action today in the English speaking world? Then look at what the SNP does (free tertiary education, more or less free dental care, no prescription charges, no privatisation of the health service etc…ie, a raft of policies putting people first or of putting society before finance).
And that’s achieved by a government that cannot borrow money or raise tax thresh-holds in any meaningful way. It works with in proscribed powers of governance and within the constraints of a formulaic allocation of monies from a Westminster government wedded to liberalism and austerity.
Thinking about social democracy versus liberalism = merely thinking about priorities.
We have come upon a very different age from any that preceded us. We have come upon an age when we do not do business in the way in which we used to do business,—when we do not carry on any of the operations of manufacture, sale, transportation, or communication as men used to carry them on. There is a sense in which in our day the individual has been submerged. In most parts of our country men work, not for themselves, not as partners in the old way in which they used to work, but generally as employees,—in a higher or lower grade,—of great corporations. There was a time when corporations played a very minor part in our business affairs, but now they play the chief part, and most men are the servants of corporations.
You know what happens when you are the servant of a corporation. You have in no instance access to the men who are really determining the policy of the corporation. If the corporation is doing the things that it ought not to do, you really have no voice in the matter and must obey the orders, and you have oftentimes with deep mortification to co-operate in the doing of things which you know are against the public interest. Your individuality is swallowed up in the individuality and purpose of a great organization.
It is true that, while most men are thus submerged in the corporation, a few, a very few, are exalted to a power which as individuals they could never have wielded. Through the great organizations of which they are the heads, a few are enabled to play a part unprecedented by anything in history in the control of the business operations of the country and in the determination of the happiness of great numbers of people.
Yesterday, and ever since history began, men were related to one another as individuals. To be sure there were the family, the Church, and the State, institutions which associated men in certain wide circles of relationship. But in the ordinary concerns of life, in the ordinary work, in the daily round, men dealt freely and directly with one another. To-day, the everyday relationships of men are largely with great impersonal concerns, with organizations, not with other individual men.
Now this is nothing short of a new social age, a new era of human relationships, a new stage-setting for the drama of life.
Very few people I know (actually none that I know of IRL) have fond memories of the Muldoon years. Things like Supplementary Minimum Prices paid to very-well-off farmers, carless days and no weekend petrol, wage-and-price freeze (that was really only a wage freeze) and so on leave a bad taste. I suggest pointing to the specific aspects, such as near-free tertiary education, near-free medical care etc, if you want to get traction in a New Zealand audience.
All of those things can be achieved by increments from where we are now, by supporting and pressuring a sympathetic government. Look at how far Key was able to move things the other way, without scaring the populace.
Meanwhile, we do have people active in politics advocating those kinds of policies, such as Joe Carolan. If those policies are so popular, why don’t they get a bigger vote share?
So no fond memories of being able to afford a house (either for rent or to buy)?
No fond memories of having a secure job – of penal rates – of vastly superior conditions than those endured today…?
No fond memories of going to the shops and actually being able to afford the stuff that was needed…?
No fond memories of actually getting hospital treatment when you needed it and not being required to have health insurance…?
No fond memories of going to university because going to university…?
Nah, you’re right. It was a hell zone of no margarine and no frothy wee flat whites….just like most of the rest of the world in the tasteless 70’s. And margarine and wee frothy flat whites are where it’s at.
Those things are the prize and the goal and the end point of the liberal medicine bottle marked “no gain without pain”. And my, such gains we have!!
Adam, not surprising to find out that many anti-democrats want to sweep the dirt under the carpet, as if the filth perpetrated by the Republicans never took place nor isn’t taking place. I am not a fan of American politics, but I am astonished that a pervert, like Trump can rise to the position of President of the USA.
Hillary crashed Bernie so he couldn’t become Trump’s challenger. If he had manged, the result could have been very different and got people who would have otherwise never thought of voting, come out and do so.
Hillary should not have even been the Democrat nominee.
In conservative America, they talk about Republicans In Name Only (R.I.N.O.’s), who are thought to be too left leaning, or forgotten what a “true conservative” is.
I would say in all honesty, then there must be D.I.N.O.’s too who are too sympathetic to the causes of the Republicans, or who have forgotten what a true socialist is.
That’s interesting. Wouldn’t mind seeing the entire filmed version (their next step apparently). Anyway. Because I suspect most people don’t chase down links, I’m just going to drop the 2 min vid from rehearsals here…
The is no such thing as fake news, there is just propaganda.
What a steaming piece of po-mo bullshit. There’s a clear and significant difference between news agencies presenting actually-occurring events in ways you don’t like, and private interests paying people to flood opponents’ communication channels with made-up stories. Pretending there’s no difference helps only the left’s enemies, who have a lot of money to spend on fake news.
Accusations that Iraqi soldiers were throwing babies from incubators onto the floor to die. Fake news or propaganda?
Last hospital in Aleppo razed (lost count of the number of times that was reported as having happened). Fake news or propaganda?
Last pediatrician in Aleppo killed. Fake news or propaganda?
All of the above were stories that were pushed heavily by all major western news outlets and quite a few western NGOs (eg – Amnesty International or medecins sans frontieres). And all were used by western governments to justify actions or positions they were holding and as a way to sway public opinion or attitudes.
I can’t believe this stuff can be genuinely that hard to figure out.
Scenario 1:
Kuwaitis who’ve fled the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait describe atrocities committed by the invaders, including the accusation that Iraqi soldiers had pulled babies from incubators. News media extensively report the unverifiable accusations as unverifiable accusations and people make up their own minds how much credence they’ll give them.
Scenario 2:
Republican black ops type makes up a story about tens of thousands of fraudulent Clinton votes found in a warehouse and publishes them on his web site, which presents itself as a newspaper site but isn’t one.
Only one of the above is fake news. If people really do struggle to understand the difference, I suggest they hand in their computers as it would better if they steered clear of the web.
Scenario 1. The daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US gave false testimony ie – made up a fucking story – before the US Congress and her entirely false story was corroborated by Amnesty International.
And from the NYT of Dec 16 1990 (one snippet among many that you can find using “google is my advanced friend)
In its last report, Amnesty International said that based on scores of interviews with refugees, it had found a “horrifying picture of widespread arrests, torture under interrogation, summary executions, and mass extrajudicial killings.”
Few informed observers disagree. What is at issue, however, is the number of victims. 250 Executions Confirmed
and
“Kuwait says seizure of hospital equipment caused many deaths”. Reuters News. September 6, 1992.
“Iraq equipment removal killed patients – Kuwait.”. Reuters News. September 6, 1992.
“Kuwaiti says Iraq plundered hospitals”. Associated Press. North Carolina: Charlotte Observer. September 7, 1990. p. A16.
“Official: Hospitalized in Kuwait are left to die”. Associated Press. Chicago Tribune. September 7, 1990. p. 12.
“Persian Gulf crisis – More about the Mideast”. Houston Chronicle. September 7, 1990. p. A18.
“Kuwait Says Iraq Plundered Hospitals”. The San Francisco Chronicle (Associated Press). September 7, 1990. p. A21.
“Released Hostages Tell of Kuwait Terror”. All Things Considered (Transcription of broadcast). National Public Radio. September 7, 1990. Total destruction everywhere, cars wrecked, burned, people thrown out of cars on the street you’re driving down; they just throw people over the street. They’re hitting children with the butts of the guns, taking infants out of incubators and taking the incubators.
And for some strange reason you don’t appear to want to speak to the other two salient instances I brought up. Or are you getting around to them?
I’m going to guess you won’t. And here’s the thing. Labeling some stuff as ‘fake news’ as opposed to propaganda means that propaganda that isn’t liked gets dismissed out of hand and propaganda that’s approved of slips uncritically under the radar. And that’s pernicious.
Personally, I think the distinction is that the incubator story was reported by organisations that could fairly be regarded as at least trying (although maybe lazily and with significant confirmation bias) to report an objective truth, whereas “fake news” systems dispense with any attempt to report the truth. And the distinction between fake news and propaganda is that propaganda is designed with a specific angle and frequently merely exagerrates the truth, whereas fake news is just intended to overload the synapses to produce a null response.
That’s just my personal taxonomy of thumb. It’s all just different flavours of shit.
You telling me that Hill & Knowlton were attempting to report an objective truth?
If anything qualifies as ‘fake news’ it’s that utter fabrication Hill & Knowlton knowingly and cynically compiled and peddled. And given its fake news status, and the fact it was used to impact on opinion around an invasion of Iraq….well, your distinction for what separates ‘fake news’ from propaganda seem to fall over, no?
I agree everything’s shades of shit. But I think my point about the potentially pernicious impact of labeling some stuff as ‘fake news’ and other stuff as propaganda, stands.
No, it was propaganda from hill&knowlton that was probably reported in good faith by AI and the media (with the caveats and attributions milt has raised).
This is a phenomenon distinct from fake news like RT or breitbart or even large swathes of fox news, who flood people with oft-conflicting bullshit simply to overload individuals’ ability to make an informed decision.
The objective of propaganda is to mislead or persuade, whereas the objective of fake news is simply to induce information overload in the public sphere.
Lets cut the fucking crap here McFlock. Propaganda is by definition false. There is no distinction between what you want to call fake news and what you’d rather call propaganda….except, it seems, that propaganda would be practiced by those sources you’d seek to be an apologist for (BBC, AI, CNN etc) and fake news would be practiced by those you seek to discount entirely (RT and other non-western news sources alongside a few right wing western news sources).
I mean ffs! RT “induces information over-load in the public sphere”??!!
No, it’s not always “false news”. It often takes the form of fake news, but it tries to form a single, coherent, plausible message. E.g. the incubator story reinforced other atrocity stories, some of which probably true, and the true fact of the actual invasion, in order to produce the coherent message of “Iraq = bad war criminals”
It also takes the form of true facts selectively reported in order to reinforce the intended message. The Churchill “gangster” photo with the thompson machine gun was a true depiction that was used by both sides in WW2 to reinforce their respective propaganda messages.
It can also take the form of simple opinion or editorial pieces with no assertion of fact: e.g. “keep calm and carry on” or even just the pictorial leaflets of porn on one side and a corpse on the other. The gist is there.
But “fake news” functions not by individual or even an over-arching message, but by producing an overwhelming number of conflicting messages. Propaganda tries to drive the car in one direction, fake news just tries to overheat the car’s engine until it seizes.
Look at RT’s coverage of the airliner shot down over the ukraine, up to and including obviously faked “satellite photos” of other jets in the area, conflicting statements about the possible antiair systems and their locations, and all sorts of shit about radar tracks. Each theory with its own headline and article, reported as reasonable no matter how outlandish. Just clickbait for morons.
That’s qualitatively different to say the BBC or CNN. They might have their own agenda, but at least it’s a coherent agenda, rather than just noise to drown everything else out.
Sorry McFlock but noise is just one part of propaganda, you and Psycho Milt want to limit propaganda to a fit your agenda.
Propaganda is “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view”
A point of view, includes overload, and putting people off.
I’m all for differing points of view, and think we should have it. Look the media you seem to being holding up is only three organisations, all corporate, and have one interest, profit.
So they do propaganda well. One example is just by omitting news. Standing rock is a good example, then MSNBC and their refusal to do anything positive about Bernie Sanders, instead showing trumps empty podium. They did it for hours. Still propaganda.
I’m glad you getting a handle on what is happening. But don’t think it’s not propaganda, that is the road to a very dangerous tribalism bubble.
Look at RT’s coverage of the airliner shot down over the ukraine, up to and including obviously faked “satellite photos” of other jets in the area, conflicting statements about the possible antiair systems and their locations, and all sorts of shit about radar tracks. Each theory with its own headline and article, reported as reasonable no matter how outlandish. Just clickbait for morons.
I never really took much interest in that particular event, but all you say about it and use as a reason to condemn rt, applies equally to the framework of western coverage of Syria.
And the noise from the BBC, CNN et al is many decibels above anything rt can achieve. It’s like a solo artist playing against an orchestra…and both produce clickbait for morons. (But one obviously produces more readily available clickbait than the other though, aye?)
Alternatively, Adam, you’re redefining what a “view” is to include information overload (aka the complete absence of a view) in order to fit your false equivalence.
You think I’m only just getting a handle on things? I’d feel patronised if you weren’t such a monochromatic tool. Hell, not even monochrome: dot matrix. Thirty years out of date and with a worldview of thousands of unconnected black dots on white paper, no shades of grey.
I never really took much interest in that particular event, but all you say about it and use as a reason to condemn rt, applies equally to the framework of western coverage of Syria.
No, it doesn’t. Nowhere near equally. That’s a false equivalence.
My point was not to be condescending, and for that I apologies.
That said, you need to read what current people are writing about propaganda. It’s not new what you are trying to point forward, people said similar things about Berlusconi and his campaigns. Then a new wave came with the rise of Putin.
So I’m not living in the dark ages, as you wish I was. As I actually read about this quite often. And have for years.
Like I said, the problem trying to spin this to fit an agenda, is the road to tribalism.
“current people”. People with their own agenda? Or just more noise?
My approach isn’t particularly new, again I never claimed it was. What it does do is provide a distinction between two logically different approaches to public information warfare.
Let’s avoid attribution to particular networks or outlets, and just work on the distinction: is “information overload” as an objective fundamentally different from “attempting to persuade or dissuade people about a particular point of view”?
I think they are fundamentally different objectives and are characterised by different tactics.
Let’s avoid attribution to particular networks or outlets, and just work on the distinction: is “information overload” as an objective fundamentally different from “attempting to persuade or dissuade people about a particular point of view”?
So by that definition – that ‘fake news’ is a process of ‘information overload’ – then arguably all of the sports news and the ‘girl shits on Dunedin street’ news and the endless hours of adverts that supposedly impart information, and the Hollywood gossip and the OMG! you’ll never believe what they did, said, happened next…and all of the misleading headlines and vacuous filler on websites and in newspapers and what not… all of that’s fake news.
Meanwhile, any spin (on say) a plane being shot down or on the situation in a war zone would be propaganda. And some of it will be quite slick and professional and some of it amateurish. But none of it ‘fake’ insofar as it’s all trying to sway opinion.
no bill, because although you might think it’s a pointless distraction, some people find sports interesting and want to know about it.
That’s real news, supplied in good faith to people who want it, even if it bores the fuck out of you or I.
Fake news in regards to sports would involve dozens fictional teams, injury reports, scores and fixtures all thrown in alongside maybe the occasional true report of a football match.
How was RT coverage of MH17 being shot down trying to “sway opinion”? What did they want us to believe – that it was a Ukrainian jet, an invented story, a spy plane, a Ukrainian SAM covered up by the US (who saw everything with their 100% radar coverage of the area), or a US “false flag” op? There was no attempt to persuade, just an attempt to overload.
The incubator story was part of an actual propaganda campaign where, even if the actors didn’t necessarily coordinate every piece of their material, the US, Kuwaitis, UK, and Saudis all had the basic message “Iraq bad, committing heinous atrocities, must be stopped or someone else is next”.
As far as I’m aware the reporting around MH17 was “it were the Russians that wot did it” on one side of the coin and “it were Ukrainians that wot did it” on the other.
But like I said previously, I never paid much attention to any of it since I reckoned (rightly or wrongly) that it was going to be an endless blame game of ping-pong.
So I just applied some basic questions around motivation, likelihood and what not, came to a reasonable conclusion and moved on.
Yes, sports are of interest to some. And it’s why I used the word “arguably”. I mean, adverts are important to some (I lived with a person who got annoyed if ads were interrupted by people in a room).
So are we at the point where fake news is taken to be complete smash that no-one is interested in? If so, it’s completely irrelevant and therefore not a problem.
On the other hand, if people are giving some time and energy over to it, then it’s having an impact, and is therefore propaganda.
edit – a thousand made up stories around (say) HC impacts on how people perceive HC. There’s an agenda. Just as there was an agenda when the claim was made that German soldiers were bayoneting Belgium babies during WWI…or that babies were thrown from incubators…or that the queen is a lizard.
A story about a WW 2 plane being found on the moon – well, that’s in the realm of fake news. (An actual headline story from a UK paper back in the day)
RT’s approach was to provide conflicting stories, rather than a coherent “it wasn’t us” message.
So are we at the point where fake news is taken to be complete smash that no-one is interested in? If so, it’s completely irrelevant and therefore not a problem.
It’s noise, that’s the problem. That’s the entire problem. It drowns everything else out, either you create more noise refuting the more plausible stuff or you hope enough people notice that today’s noise is the exact opposite from the noise the same source was throwing out yesterday and will throw out tomorrow. And in the meantime, actual news has to compete for space against utter bullshit.
The goal of fake news is to stop people making an informed or considered decision, at all. The goal of propaganda is to get people to make the decision you want.
Hmm. So the propaganda we’ve been fed for years and years about the middle east is predicated on having us make decisions around stuff in the middle east? And here was me thinking that most people I know just throw their hands in the air and announce how it’s all just “too hard”.
Much the same with regards Yugoslavia from memory. And was much the same with Northern Ireland too (from the perspective of broadcasts in the UK).
Seems all that propaganda was designed to prevent people coming to any kind of informed decision. But that can’t be right according to what you reckon propaganda is and how it differs from ‘fake news’.
Libyan troops filling up on Viagra in order to rape opponents to the government in Tripoli. That one was carried ‘everywhere’ and used to generate backing for a ‘no-fly zone’ in Libya. The story was obviously bullshit and noise that crowded out any sensible discussion on Libya (maybe in the same way that Brietbart stuff is noisy bullshit)….and it had an impact.
According to what you’ve been saying, the Viagra story should rightfully be seen as propaganda and yet the same type of stuff (coming from Brietbart or wherever and focused on the Democrats or whatever instead of Libya) should be considered ‘fake news’ as opposed to propaganda.
And this is straight back to one of my first points about this so-called difference between ‘fake news’ and propaganda. The ‘fake news’ tag gets reserved for specific outlets (lists have been drawn up and circulated by liberal media), meaning that everything those outlets produce becomes tarnished and at risk of instant dismissal regardless of the actual content…leaving the coast clear for ‘our’ propaganda.
And that’s pernicious, very dangerous and a damned good reason to run a propaganda campaign around this notion of ‘fake news’.
According to what you’ve been saying, the Viagra story should rightfully be seen as propaganda […]
Not necessarily.
The viagra story in the context of a campaign towards a coherent message would be propaganda.
The viagra story in the context of it being A) true and b)reported impartially would be news.
The viagra story from the same outlet that releases stories about how Libyan soldiers are all part of an abstinence cult, as well as stories about how no medicines are in Libya, and as well as stories that “Libyan” soldiers are all actors in southern Nevada, as well as stories that Libyan soldiers are all women because Libyan men run away, etc etc etc, that’s fake news. Regardless of outlet and regardless of whether one of those stories happens to be true. It’s just about noise, so nobody on the street decides that they have a strong enough onpinion on the matter to write a letter to the editor or their MP or boycott goods from XYZ.
You say the “fake news” tag is reserved for specific outlets to discredit the news from those outlets. I say specific outlets are fake news sources because their stories are completely unverifiable and usually contradictory, even if some of their stories are true. It’s impossible to verify or place any reliability on anything from those sources because there’s no distinction between opinion, fact and outright fabrication. To the point that even considering almost anything from those sources is a waste of time, you’ll find out the true stories from other sources sooner or later.
The daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US gave false testimony ie – made up a fucking story…
And the news media reported it as a claim, just like they reported Trump claiming that Obama ordered Trump Tower’s phone’s tapped. That isn’t “fake news,” it’s just “news.”
And from the NYT of Dec 16 1990…
Er, yes. The NYT reported Amnesty International’s claims about widespread torture and murder, with the appropriate caveats. And of course, not completely irrelevant to the issue was the fact that widespread torture and murder did actually take place, and wasn’t made up by a party hack to put on his pretend newspaper site.
And for some strange reason you don’t appear to want to speak to the other two salient instances I brought up.
Well, no, because they’re just two more instances of the same thing: news media reporting claims from a war zone that can’t be independently verified, as claims from a war zone that can’t be independently verified, otherwise known as “reporting the news.”
If you can find repeated and egregious instances of reputable news organisations deliberately making up stories and reporting them as news, you’ll have a case. Until then, fake news is something different from regular propaganda.
because they’re just two more instances of the same thing: news media reporting claims from a war zone that can’t be independently verified
Hmm. Except any western journalist from a major outlet could have interviewed Dr Zahar Buttal, Director of the Aleppo Medical Association with regards hospitals in east Aleppo and registered medical practitioners. But then that might have interfered with the ‘official’ narrative…which has been wholly informed by “opposition” voices.
The British government is waging information warfare in Syria by funding media operations for some rebel fighting groups, in the foreign front of what David Cameron has called “the propaganda war” against Islamic State (and the Syrian Government)
The campaign aims to boost the reputation of what the government calls the “moderate armed opposition”, a complex and shifting alliance of armed factions.
Deciding which factions to support is risky for the government because many groups have become increasingly extremist as the five-year civil war grinds on.
Contractors hired by the Foreign Office but overseen by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) produce videos, photos, military reports, radio broadcasts, print products and social media posts branded with the logos of fighting groups, and effectively run a press office for opposition fighters
Bracketed text my expansion for the sake of accuracy 👿
edit. Oops. Forgot to respond to the first part of your reply above. You suggest that media reported the babies and what not as claims. Did you read the list of headlines provided? The word ‘claims’ or ‘alleges’ or any other such like simply doesn’t appear. Kuwaiti says and statement of fact as headline after statement of fact as headline…. 🙄
… any western journalist from a major outlet could have interviewed Dr Zahar Buttal, Director of the Aleppo Medical Association…
Well, they could have, but claims from the government side also can’t be verified, and this particular regime mouthpiece wouldn’t have set foot in east Aleppo at least since the start of the siege, so wouldn’t have any current info to base his claims on. It would be like asking rebel forces for commentary on what was happening in west Aleppo.
Did you read the list of headlines provided? The word ‘claims’ or ‘alleges’ or any other such like simply doesn’t appear.
“Kuwait says” in a headline means the Kuwaiti government is claiming something.
and this particular regime mouthpiece wouldn’t have set foot in east Aleppo at least since the start of the siege, so wouldn’t have any current info to base his claims on.
So the head of the medical association is a “regime mouthpiece”. What you base that allegation on? The fact he’s saying stuff that contradicts what the BBC and others reporting from ooutside of the country have reported as true?
And even if he didn’t set foot in east Aleppo, he does have the list of all existing hospitals and of all registered medical practitioners for Aleppo. And they can be checked.
It would have been an improvement on western reporting had they asked their mates they were embedded with what was going on (Channel 4 ran with Al Zenka for a production that they later removed from their site – linked)
Go to 2min and 45 secs and you’ll see Mahmoud Raslan. Now, if you don’t know who Mahmoud Raslan is, well he was the guy who took the ‘boy in the orange seat’ video that all western outlets ran with and who also gleefully filmed his mates (Al Zenki) beheading a 9 year old Palestinian boy.
How do you think an authority figure got his position of authority under an authoritarian dictatorship, Bill?
I’m sure this particular one had info on all the registered medical practitioners in Aleppo at the time conflict started – how many of the ones in east Aleppo were still around in its later stages is anyone’s guess, as is the number of foreign volunteers. Likewise the hospitals – people in a city under continuous bombardment end up with makeshift hospitals and don’t concern themselves over-much about official documentation.
See…this bullshit you appear to exhibit…of excusing anything and everything western media says or claims, because to not accept what they say would apparently mean taking a side is…fucking tragic.
Nice to see you slipping slightly from the official narrative there though. So now the hospitals may not have been hospitals in the sense claimed and the pediatrician may not have been a pediatrician after all. Jollity.
Just like there’s a difference between propaganda and the more recent phenomenon of fake news, there’s a difference between taking a realistic view of news media organisations and “excusing anything and everything the western media claims.”
Sure, you could go on – the list of irrelevant items is effectively infinite. The evidence requested was instances of reputable media organisations deliberately inventing false stories to serve a political purpose – what you’ve provided is examples of media organisations failing to uncover government lies, which is something else entirely.
I’d also add most journalist knew the welfare queen lie and printed it anyway. Many on that list could fall into the same category. Again off the top of my head, without research.
I find it interesting you want to differentiate on propaganda. Maybe you should read what propaganda means. I’d say you a twisting it into to a narrow definition to fit your own narrative, rather than looking at as a whole.
Fake news is a out and out propaganda term, put out there by Muppet’s who want to mislead people.
Lies are not new, getting worked up over the latest propaganda term is also not new. Cutting through the lies and b.s, is difficult – but keeping an open mind and read a lot of different sources can help. Buying into your sides latest fetish, helps no one.
National are poor managers of the economy. Food retailer managers are poor sellers of goods. Going in a Tesco, etc you’d find something worth buying, NZ retail offerings are so contorted and rigged my cash goes elsewhere, its just poor management. Its always been this way, no. eight wire get something that works mentality. Good when your on the frontier but UK ruled the world eith four million people. Its like we keep digging whith a bunch of managers who just know how to did more debt.
Both Westpac and UBS warn growth may have dropped as low as 0.5 per cent in the quarter, which would mark it as the weakest quarter of growth since the start of 2015.
It would also suggest the economy was growing at around the pace of New Zealand’s annual population growth, currently about 2 per cent – a 40 year high.
Meanwhile, Bernard Hickey on Newsroom says that the big Aussie banks are now restricting lending to property developers in NZ, meaning there will likely be a drop in the numbers of new residential properties being built in Auckland.
The Government’s grand plan for a massive boom of apartment and townhouse building to solve Auckland’s housing crisis is quietly being picked apart by banking regulators on both sides of the Tasman.
Apartment and section developers say banks have pulled back from lending to them in recent months and property buyers also face a squeeze on mortgages from the big four Australian-owned banks because banks are hitting limits set by regulators – both in Australia and New Zealand.
Meanwhile, Bernard Hickey on Newsroom says that the big Aussie banks are now restricting lending to property developers in NZ. What does he mean “now” this has been the position since the middle of last year, and the consequence of less credit ? The pace of development dramatically slows both in the creation of development land and the construction of dwellings. This has been happening since the end of last year, so no matter what any govt does without the 4 banks to fund there will be limited construction of houses. But leave it to the market to solve !!! eh
By the time that the media was made aware of this was months after the banks had quietly implemented their policies. Ever wondered why the banks are so compliant with the Reserve Banks restrictions ?? So that they can reduce their risk in the sector. http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/85468366/construction-costs-funding-squeeze-blamed-for-developers-walking-away
ps://blog.bnz.co.nz/2016/11/auckland-property-developers-feel-funding-pinch/
From the Standard and Poor report on New Zealand lending situation:
“With banks reporting a tightening in lending standards for property development, it’s conceivable that new construction will slow, despite the rollout of the Auckland Unitary Plan, applying further upward pressure on house prices.”
Our Reserve Bank will also shortly force banks to put more of their profits aside to assure against riskier lending. That will take higher profit margins. And you just know what that means ….
Auckland has already seen a few developers pull out (eg the St James, Avondale, and Albany ones) even though they had the pre-sales to go. It was simply the Aussie banks saying NO.
I sure don’t want a housing crash, or a credit crunch, or thousands more homeless, or existing rental landlords just creaming it.
But the actions of our Australian-dominated banking system says that is where we are headed. There will be no more “show me the money!”
The 2017 government has an almighty task on its hands. And it’s the biggie: a banking policy problem so big that will test the political independence of the RBA.
As far as I can honestly tell, if they have a plan at all it is a hodge podge mash of various ideas slapped together with a few more houses built here and there at the expense of environmental planning to glue the various bits of this bizarre looking mash together.
Before she gets to talk about JK’s lies, Leilani describes her journey from being a PI-Māori Aucklander, growing up in a Pākehā education system, through learning the Māori and Pacific history of the country and region, to working for MFAT and McCully.
When Leilani and her husband hit hard times, he was driving a bus on minimum wage, and she saw a reality that was different from the brighter future John key was spinning.
Then our landlord gave us notice and we couldn’t find a place to rent. And I had this sense of: My God! Here I am. I’ve got a degree. My husband has a degree. We work hard. We work long hours. We’re trying to do the best by our children. And yet, it feels like we’re going backwards.
All around me I saw the same story. I saw struggle. All around my neighbourhood. My friends and colleagues. And everybody was saying the same thing. So I started to think: John Key has to be telling lies here. Because people are suffering and struggling. And yet he’s telling us, it’s fine. And there’s a big gap between what he’s saying and what I’m seeing.
That’s when I decided to become political and put myself out there and walk the talk.
.Good article and good on Leilani for getting active on the Left. One small point is that many thousands of us knew that Key was lying from day one and it is an indictment on how dumbed down we have become to the ravages of neoliberalism that the rest of NZ still can’t ( or don’t want to) see that.
OK Keyboard warriors. 177 days till the election. Labour want to be in a coalition with NZF and get Green Support. The MOU only lasts till Sept 23rd. Crazy strategy relying on Winston. I marvel at how easily the Left make assumptions of victory in the absence of any evidence. Do you not realise that National have planned the next 177 days carefully and that there will be a multiple carrots on offer. Labour’s best trick is to change leaders after June 23rd. Will it be Jacinda or Grant?
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: As was pointed out below, this was a blatant attempt at diversion (I was somewhat busy today). Banned for 2 weeks. If I have to ban you again for anything similar, it will be until 1 month after the election. ]
Meanwhile, is Judith going to make a last tilt at putting “PM” on her CV before the election, or will she be satisfied spending three years as a caretaker opposition leader after blinglish disappears?
Poor old, Act Party supporter, fisiani, goes on a lot of fishing expeditions, and seems to do very little catching, if any. His comments are meant to show there is conflict between Labour/Green and NZF, to me fisiani is just a sad comic.
If it’s a crazy strategy to be relying on Winston, that’s going to turn out badly for National, given they’ll need Winston to be in coalition with them.
Protesters held a rally in front of Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel’s home Saturday in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood, speaking out against the work by one of his companies that could track airline passengers and other immigrants.
A small group of protesters were calling attention to a company he co-founded called Palantir.
Theil is one of only a few Silicon Valley giants who supported Donald Trump for president.
Former San Francisco City Supervisor Dave Campos says Palantir won a contract to do work for the Immigration and Custom’s Enforcement Agency. “They’ve received this contract, which will essentially create a data system that will allow, that will enable the mass deportation of millions of people,” Campos said.
According to federal government, in 2014 Palantir was awarded a $41.6 million contract to create an ICE investigative case management system.
How much has the NZ government paid out to Palantir for contracts with NZ Defence Force, the SIS and the GCSB? Matt Nippert has resorted to requesting the Ombudman to find the answer, despite the following BS statement:
Open and Transparent Government
New Zealand has a strong history of open and transparent government that is internationally recognised. One of the pillars of open and transparent government is open government data and information.
“The study involved several tests conducted on nine different brands of “smart” meters, also referred to in the industry as “static energy meters.” Researchers also used one electromechanical meter for reference… Experiments went on for six months, with individual tests lasting at least one week, and sometimes several weeks. Test results varied wildly, with some meters reporting errors way above their disclosed range, going from -32% to +582%..”
This old house is going and 17 units will be put in its place. Though that sounds positive the price for each will still be $700,000 so that volume and being on one location still can’t bring them within the reach of young hopefuls. Why can’t this be organised by the government. Low interest mortgages over 15 years or longer within the price range of a hard-working young couple. Come on Bill English take a laxative and get moving.
“It is in such a bad way inside, it was inevitable [it would go],” she said. “It’ll be sad, but it’s served its purpose.”
Yeoman Homes is the building contractor for the Ruakiwi Terraces project. Yeoman declined to name the owner of the property.
Managing director Andrew Yeoman said the homes will be worth around $700,000 each and include three bedrooms, two bathrooms and either a single or double garage.
Yeoman said the current house was investigated to see if it could be relocated, but it was too riddled with borer and rot to be able to be moved successfully.
Some of the materials are going to be recycled, he said.
For Our Own Good? Police officers knocking on New Zealanders’ doors on account of what they might think, or what they have said, is more likely to make the rest of us think we are living in Nazi Germany – not drawing lessons from it. The disharmony such heavy-handed state ...
by Don Franks Details of proposed new hate speech laws have been revealed in a December Cabinet paper obtained by Newsroom. The paper, seeking to “strengthen the protections against hate speech”, would extend existing provisions against incitement and hate speech. It would also move hate speech offences from the Human Rights Act to ...
Listing of articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Apr 11, 2021 through Sat, Apr 17, 2021 Not having had a chance to garner much attention by the time last week's review was published, the last article in that batch - First-Ever Observations From ...
Every year in April, the trees start changing colour, the clocks go back an hour, and the national greenhouse gas figures are released and promptly forgotten. They take fifteen months to prepare, so by the time they come out it’s very easy for commentators to point out that they are ...
While checking my spam folder (before yeeting the contents permanently) I noticed that I’d been sent a bunch of email ‘newsletters’ from the group “Voices for Freedom.” Out of interest I opened one, just in case the contents were worth a post or two – & indeed they were. The ...
Humans are hard-wired to classify, categorise and compare, or in other words, to taxonomize. We may be born tabula rasa but quickly are taught that the world is divided into types of things, subtypes of those and assorted other categories. The operative term is “taught” rather than “realise.” Taxonomies are ...
The Labour Government received plaudits this week for its historic announcement that it will ban the live export of animals by sea. It’s said to be a world first. The decision comes after years of pressure, which increased after last year’s tragedy when the ship Gulf Livestock 1 left New ...
As one does on a Friday evening, I yesterday made a point of heading along to the Dunedin Public Library’s event, Mystery in the Library. This was a panel of local crime-fiction writers, and a follow-up to a similar one in April 2019 (no prizes for guessing why ...
Now is about the time that the Government is getting its Budget Strategy togetherIn the week before the budget – the 2021 one is to be delivered on Thursday 20 May – there is a strange ritual in which all the commentariat and lobbyists (who are not necessarily distinct from ...
Climate Change Minister James Shaw has admitted that the government is not doing enough on climate change: Appearing on Breakfast alongside Greenpeace director and former Green Party leader Russel Norman, the current Greens co-leader was asked: “Are you as Government living up to promise of delivery implicit in those ...
We can all agree that a free press (and free media more generally) are important factors in a well-functioning democracy. But I am beginning to wonder if they provide us with an unalloyed benefit. I am an avid consumer of daily news – whether delivered by the press or by ...
Yes They Can - So Why Don't They? In matters relating to child poverty, homelessness, mental health, climate change and, of course, Covid-19, the answers are right in front of the Government's collective nose - often in the form of reports it has specifically commissioned. Why can’t Jacinda and her ...
Richard Edwards, Janet Hoek, Anaru Waa, George Thomson, Nick Wilson (author details*) We congratulate the NZ Government on its proposed Action Plan for the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 goal. Here we examine the evidence for three key ideas outlined in the plan: permitting tobacco products to be sold in only ...
Punished, But Not Prevented: Though bitterly contested by those firmly convinced that the Christchurch Mosque Shootings represent something more than the crime of a Lone Wolf terrorist, the Royal Commission’s finding that no state agency could have prevented Brenton Tarrant from carrying out his deadly intent – except by chance ...
The Government has announced it intends making sex self-identification possible this year, as a priority. That would mean anyone could change the sex documented on their birth certificate by a simple declaration that they “identify” as the opposite sex. Speak Up For Women have launched a campaign encouraging New Zealanders ...
The travel bubble with Australia has not brought room for others to come into the MIQ system from overseas. Instead, spaces are being decommissioned. Why? The system is leaky. The government cannot afford to let riskier people into those spaces, because the system can’t handle them. My column in Insights ...
A Second Term Labour-led Government in New Zealand,a new Biden-led Administration in the US, a continuance of the Johnson Government in the UK: different approaches to major issues, same global problems – and discontent rising. Some warranted, some unwarranted, but as each emerges from the Covid pandemic, what ...
I will update this post as new information comes to handWhat has happened? Recently the vaccine safety watch dogs in Europe noted reports of unusual types of blood clots in people vaccinated with the AstraZeneca (AZ) COVID-19 vaccine. This prompted investigations across many countries to ascertain what, why, and ...
Alex Ford, University of Portsmouth and Gary Hutchison, Edinburgh Napier UniversityWithin just a few generations, human sperm counts may decline to levels below those considered adequate for fertility. That’s the alarming claim made in epidemiologist Shanna Swan’s new book, “Countdown”, which assembles a raft of evidence to show that ...
Just like last year, this year's General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) will happen virtually instead of in person in Vienna. Contrary to last year, the organizers decided early on to hold their conference online and planned for it accordingly (quite a difference to last year's scramble where they switched ...
Time for a strange rant. A very strange rant. But bear with me, because this is serious business. A True Story, by Lucian of Samosata is not Science-Fiction. What on earth am I talking about? Well, it was one of those Wikipedia rabbit holes. I was reading ...
By Kate Evans for UndarkOne of New Zealand’s most spectacular fossil sites originated 23.2 million years ago. It was formed in a valley dotted with small volcanoes, when rising magma deep below the Earth’s surface came into contact with groundwater. Lava and water don’t mix — they explode. The ...
A Thorn In Their Side: As Chair of the Auckland Regional Council, Mike Lee made sure Auckland’s municipal resources remained in Aucklanders’ hands. Not surprisingly the neoliberal powers-that-be (in both their centre-left and centre-right incarnations) hated this last truly effective standard-bearer for democratic-socialist values and policies.MIKE LEE is the closest ...
It’s always something of a shock to come across a page run by a health-focused business that contains substantial misinformation. This one left me gobsmacked, given the sheer number of statements that are demonstrably untrue. And while a fair bit of the content is prefaced by the statement that it’s ...
Previously (9 February) I wrote about how business consultants Ernst & Young were used to do a hatchet job on the former senior management team at Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB). While this hatchet job was planned in 2019 its gestation was much longer. Its underlying causes involved differences in ...
Flying beneath the radar of guilt Fight or Flight: How Advertising for Air Travel Triggers Moral Disengagement(open access) by Stubenvoll & Neureiter not only takes an interesting approach to decomposing the effects of airline travel advertisements but also helps us to understand the general psychological landscape of our often conflicted ...
Yesterday I got told to “do some research” &, by extension, to think critically. The biologist in me cringed a little when I read it (and not because of the advice about doing research). Biology teachers I know suggested that perhaps everyone should take the NCEA standard that ...
Lis Ku, De Montfort University Since the onset of the pandemic, everyone from newspaper columnists to Twitter users has advanced the now idea that extroverts and introverts are handling the crisis differently. Many claim that introverts adapt to social distancing and isolation better than extroverts, with some even suggesting that ...
A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of this blog post by New Zealand’s “Plan B” group. While initially this group opposed the government’s use of lockdowns to manage covid19 outbreaks in this country, they seem to have since moved on to opposing the rollout of vaccines against ...
Twenty years after it invaded, the US is finally leaving Afghanistan. What's surprising is that it took them so long - its been clear for over a decade that their presence there was pointless and just pissing people off. But imperial pride leads to exactly this sort of stupidity. Their ...
The government has announced that it will ban the export of livestock by sea. Huzzah! A vile, cruel and unconscionable trade will be ended! But there's a catch: the ban won't kick in until 2023, giving farmers two ful years to continue to profit from extreme animal cruelty. But why ...
Today is unexpectedly a Member's Day - the Business Committee granted it early in the year, to make up for time list to government business. First up is a two-hour debate on the budget policy statement, with questions to Ministers, replacing the general debate. Then its the second reading of ...
. . Two stories which appeared almost side-by-side on RNZ’s website. Parent, Miranda Cross, was quoted as saying; “I think the expectations are that we can at least send our kids to school where they will receive an education.” An American parent would probably demand; “I think the expectations are ...
Time for reviewing something a bit different. Move over Tolkien adaptations, hello Japanese splatter movie. Specifically, a certain 2009 movie called Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl. I watched this one a few days ago with some acquaintances, never having seen it before, and not being familiar with the manga ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD An above-average Atlantic hurricane season is likely in 2021, the Colorado State University (CSU) hurricane forecasting team says in its latest seasonal forecast issued April 8. Led by Dr. Phil Klotzbach, with coauthors Dr. Michael Bell and Jhordanne Jones, the CSU ...
How seriously does the Māori Party take issues of corruption and the untoward influence of big money in politics? Not very, based on how it’s handling a political finance scandal in which three large donations were kept hidden from the public. The party is currently making excuses, and largely failing ...
The annual inventory report [PDF] of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions has been released, showing a significant increase in emissions: (Note that this is UNFCCC accounting, not the weird fudged figures the Climate Change Commission is using). Emissions increased by almost 2 million tons in 2019, from 80.6 MT ...
The melody from the classic movie Wizard of Oz echoes as Jacinta Ruru explains what inspired her to attend university, and her ambition to help create a more just society in Aotearoa. Jacinta, who affiliates to Raukawa and Ngāti Ranginui, specialises in the research areas of indigenous peoples and the law. ...
Stuff reports that National is refusing to back the Climate Change Commission's recommendations, which is apparently a Bad Thing: The National Party says it can’t support the Climate Change Commission’s draft plan to cut New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions unless changes are made. If National maintains this position when ...
Driven, accountable, unafraid to test limits and connected to the communities she serves are traits that come to mind when thinking about Dr Anne-Marie Jackson. (Ngāti Whātua, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu o Whangaroa, Ngāti Wai) She specialises in Māori physical education and health research disciplines while incorporating tikanga Māori and Te ...
This is my first post for a while. I have been a bit overwhelmed by other work in the last several weeks, with teaching and other commitments, and the blog has sadly suffered. But I’m still here. This morning, while sitting in a car in the permanent traffic jam through ...
Predatory Morality: Is geopolitical consultant, Paul Buchanan, right? Does the rest of the world truly monitor New Zealand’s miniscule contribution to the international arms trade so closely? Are foreign chancelleries truly so insensitive to their own governments’ complicity in the world’s horrors that they expect all other sovereign states to ...
Anna Källén, Stockholm University and Daniel Strand, Uppsala University A middle-aged white man raises his sword to the skies and roars to the gods. The results of his genetic ancestry test have just arrived in his suburban mailbox. His eyes fill with tears as he learns that he is “0.012% ...
March 2021 The housing crisis right now in New Zealand is one of our biggest contributors to income and wealth inequality. “With the explosive increase in sales and prices, those with houses have their income and/or wealth rapidly increasing, and those who are not on the property ladder are falling ...
Samoans went to the polls on Friday, and delivered a stinging blow to Prime Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi one-party state. Pre-election Malielegaoi's Human Rights Protection Party had controlled 44 of 49 seats in Parliament, while using restrictive standing orders to prevent there from even being a recognised opposition in ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Jennifer Summers, Prof Michael BakerIn this blog we briefly consider a new Report from a European think tank that aims to identify an optimal COVID-19 response strategy. It considers mortality data, GDP impacts, and mobility data and suggests that COVID-19 elimination appears to be superior ...
Something I missed on Friday: the Māori Party has been referred to police over failure to disclose donations over $30,000. Looking at the updated return of large donations, this is about $320,000 donated to them by three donors - John Tamihere, the National Urban Māori Authority, and Aotearoa Te Kahu ...
Stormy Seas: Will Jacinda Ardern's Labour Government stand behind the revolutionary proposals contained in He Puapua – the 20-year plan devised by a government appointed working group to realise the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Aotearoa/New Zealand?“GETTING AHEAD of the story” is one of the most ...
We have not been fans of the Climate Change Commission’s draft report. New Zealand has an Emissions Trading Scheme with a binding cap, and a declining path for net emissions in the covered sector. Measures taken within the covered sector cannot reduce net emissions. NZU not purchased by one sector get ...
For several decades under Labour and National-led governments New Zealand has claimed to have an independent (and sometimes autonomous) foreign policy. This foreign policy independence is said to be gained by having a “principled but pragmatic” approach to international relations: principled when possible, pragmatic when necessary. More recently NZ foreign ...
This video produced in Seattle looks at the gender identity curriculum used in schools in the US. A thin veneer of pseudoscience is being used to indoctrinate children with an ideology based on scientific and medical inaccuracies. ...
For once, I have written my submission on a bill with enough time to spare to both enocurage any of you who wants to make a submission to do so as well, and to give you time to spot the typos in mine.Louisa Wall's Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate ...
A friend found a concerning FB post (see below – this is a public post & so I have not redacted the name) & – as you do – immediately queried it with Southern Cross Life & Health Insurance as well as sending the screenshot to me¹. We both read ...
Judith Collins’ National Party leadership is under more scrutiny, with increased talk in the media of her being replaced by brand new MP Christopher Luxon. For many commentators it’s just a question of “when” rather than “if” Collins is replaced. While others ponder whether Luxon really has what it takes ...
‘Tis the season for unearthing the rarest gems in Tolkien adaptation – which, considering that the fandom has been dominated by Peter Jackson for nigh on two decades, is a positively heart-warming development. It is why I have devoted so much blog space to the obscure and weirdly wonderful ...
Whatever the damage, especially to the British economy, Brexit has done us a service by illustrating the complexity of trade.Brexit is the only example we have of two closely integrated sophisticated economies severing trading ties. The European Union and Britain still do not have tariffs or import quotas between them ...
The Palmerston North City Council has voted for Māori wards: Palmerston North Māori will be guaranteed one or two seats on the city council from 2022, and this time, there is nothing opponents can do about it. The council decided by an 11-5 vote at its monthly meeting this ...
Kids are striking for the climate today, demanding a decent, liveable future. Meanwhile, the National Party, the reliable servant of the farm lobby and other polluting businesses, is calling for action to be delayed: National has written to Climate Change Minister James Shaw calling for him to extend the ...
Today tens of thousands of schoolkids have walked out of school to strike for a future free from climate change. And tens of thousands of older New Zealanders have joined them. Their demands are clear: eliminate fossil fuels, implement 100% renewable energy with a just transition, and support our Pacific ...
The Gods That Failed.We studied the dialecticRead the whole of ‘Capital’So we could follow youSo we could follow youHow we shoutedHow we scrawledPainted slogans on city wallsOn prison wallsProof we had followed youBut, we still didn’t find what we’re looking forAnd we still haven’t found what we’re looking forWhen they ...
Conventional Wisdom? The Republican Right is convinced that to “go woke” is to “go broke”. It simply does not believe sufficient Americans feel strongly enough about social justice to make any kind of boycott remotely effective. Clearly, the Boards of Directors of more and more American corporations disagree. RECENT MOVES by ...
On November 25, 2020 Skeptical Science Inc. became a registered nonprofit organization and on March 17, 2021 our application to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for 501(c)(3) status was approved. In this blog post, we’ll explain why we went down this path and what will come next. Since its ...
Blowing Hot And Cold: Mike Hosking’s bosses should, perhaps, ask themselves what message Newstalk-ZB (and NZME) is sending to the people of New Zealand if Mike Hosking, their self-appointed “People’s Prosecutor”, is accorded bragging rights for “cancelling” the democratically-elected Prime Minister of New Zealand. Especially when said Prime Minister’s only ...
Ali Boyle, University of CambridgeIf you ask people to list the most intelligent animals, they’ll name a few usual suspects. Chimpanzees, dolphins and elephants are often mentioned, as are crows, dogs and occasionally pigs. Horses don’t usually get a look in. So it might come as a surprise that ...
I tēnei tau i Waitangi, I whakahua ake te Tira o Te Mātāwaka o te Pātī Kākāriki i tā rātau aronga matua, ki te waihanga I tētahi Manatū Hauora Māori, mā Māori te kawe, mā Māori ngā whakahaere. Ko tā te tira; Kua rongohia ngā karanga a ngā Tangata Whenua, ...
During Waitangi this year the Green Party’s Te Mātāwaka caucus announced their priority for an independent Māori Health Authority. We have heard the call from Tangata Whenua wanting any authority to be independent, and properly resourced. ...
The Greens welcome $6.6 million from the Government’s $455 million programme to increase access to mental health and addiction services for our Pasifika communities in Auckland and Wellington. ...
The Green Party is putting a Member’s Bill into the ballot today which will be a significant step towards overhauling the Social Security Act by embedding a tikanga Māori framework into the welfare system. ...
The Green Party have reaffirmed their strong commitment to the union movement in Aotearoa New Zealand by renewing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with E Tū. ...
Soon, more kids in Aotearoa will have access to the in-school mental health support that has boosted the resilience of tamariki and whānau in Canterbury. ...
The Green Party supports the open letter released today by a cross-sector coalition calling for the Government to treat all drug use as a health issue, to repeal and replace the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. ...
Small businesses are not only the heart of our economy – they’re also the heart of our communities. They provide important goods and services, as well as great employment opportunities. They know and love their locals. And after a tough year, they need our support! ...
Green Party spokesperson for Pacific Peoples Teanau Tuiono MP, supports the demand from Pasifika communities fighting for climate action as their homelands are more at risk in the Pacific region. ...
The Green Party supports the six demands for climate action put forward by School Strike for Climate NZ, who are striking across the country today. ...
The Ministry of Justice Māori victimisation report, released today, reinforces what we already know about the impact of systemic racism in Aotearoa and that urgent action is needed. ...
Ricardo Menéndez March’s Members Bill to ensure that disabled New Zealanders do not face discrimination for having a disability assist dog was today pulled from the biscuit tin to be debated in Parliament. ...
More than one million people will be better off from today, thanks to our Government’s changes to the minimum wage, main benefits and superannuation. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Government to do more for New Zealanders who continue to miss out, as main benefits are set to rise by less than $8 a week tomorrow, Thursday 1 April (at the start of the financial year). ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today that Australian Foreign Minister Hon Marise Payne will visit Aotearoa New Zealand for the first face-to-face Foreign Ministers’ Consulations since the COVID-19 pandemic began. “Australia is New Zealand’s closest and most important international partner. I’m very pleased to be able to welcome Hon Marise ...
Hundreds more families who were separated by the border closure will be reunited under new border exceptions announced today, Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi said. “The Government closed the border to everyone but New Zealand citizens and residents, in order to keep COVID-19 out, keep our economy open and keep New ...
Hon Nanaia Mahuta, Foreign Minister 8.30am, 19 April 2021 [CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY] Speech to the NZCC Korihi Pō, Korihi Ao E rongo e turia no Matahau Nō Tū te winiwini, Nō Tū te wanawana Tū Hikitia rā, Tū Hapainga mai Ki te Whai Ao, Ki te Ao Mārama Tihei Mauri ...
The Government is supporting a new project with all-wool New Zealand carpet company, Bremworth, which has its sights on developing more sustainable all-wool carpets and rugs, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor announced. The Ministry for Primary Industries is contributing $1.9 million towards Bremworth’s $4.9 million sustainability project through its Sustainable Food ...
New Zealand is providing further support to Timor-Leste following severe flooding and the recent surge in COVID-19 cases, Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. “Our thoughts are with the people of Timor-Leste who have been impacted by the severe flooding and landslides at a time when the country is ...
A ceremony has been held today in Gisborne where the unclaimed medals of 28 (Māori) Battalion C Company soldiers were presented to their families. After the Second World War, returning service personnel needed to apply for their medals and then they would be posted out to them. While most medals ...
New Zealand has today added its voice to the international condemnation of the malicious compromise and exploitation of the SolarWinds Orion platform. The Minister Responsible for the Government Communications Security Bureau, Andrew Little, says that New Zealand's international partners have analysed the compromise of the SolarWinds Orion platform and attributed ...
An expert consenting panel has approved the Queenstown Arterials Project, which will significantly improve transport links and reduce congestion for locals and visitors in the tourism hotspot. Environment Minister David Parker welcomed the approval for the project that will construct, operate and maintain a new urban road around Queenstown’s town ...
Economic and Regional Development Minister Stuart Nash says a landmark deal has been agreed with Amazon for The Lord of the Rings TV series, currently being filmed in New Zealand. Mr Nash says the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) secures multi-year economic and tourism benefits to New Zealand, outside the screen ...
The Government welcomes the findings from a rapid review into the health system response to lead contamination in Waikouaiti’s drinking water supply. Sample results from the town’s drinking-water supply showed intermittent spikes in lead levels above the maximum acceptable value. The source of the contamination is still under investigation by ...
Transport Minister Michael Wood today marked the start of construction on the New Zealand Upgrade Programme’s Papakura to Drury South project on Auckland’s Southern Motorway, which will create hundreds of jobs and support Auckland’s economic recovery. The SH1 Papakura to Drury South project will give more transport choices by providing ...
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā karanga maha o te wa, tēnā koutou, tēna koutou, tēna tātou katoa. Ki ngā mana whenua, ko Ngāi Tahu, ko Waitaha, ko Kāti Māmoe anō nei aku mihi ki a koutou. Nōku te hōnore kia haere mai ki te ...
Transport Minister Michael Wood today marked the completion of upgrades to State Highway 20B which will give Aucklanders quick electric bus trips to and from the airport. The State Highway 20B Early Improvements project has added new lanes in each direction between Pukaki Creek Bridge and SH20 for buses and ...
The Government is putting in place a review of the work being done on animal welfare and safety in the greyhound racing industry, Grant Robertson announced today. “While Greyhound Racing NZ has reported some progress in implementing the recommendations of the Hansen Report, recent incidents show the industry still has ...
The infringement fee for using a mobile phone while driving will increase from $80 to $150 from 30 April 2021 to encourage safer driving, Transport Minister Michael Wood announced today. Michael Wood said too many people are still picking up the phone while driving. “Police issued over 40,000 infringement notices ...
Pacific people in New Zealand will be better supported with new mental health and addiction services rolling out across the Auckland and Wellington regions, says Aupito William Sio. “One size does not fit all when it comes to supporting the mental wellbeing of our Pacific peoples. We need a by ...
New measures are being proposed to accelerate progress towards becoming a smokefree nation by 2025, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced. “Smoking or exposure to second-hand smoke kills around 12 people a day in New Zealand. Recent data tells us New Zealand’s smoking rates continue to decrease, but ...
More children will be able to access mental wellbeing support with the Government expansion of Mana Ake services to five new District Health Board areas, Health Minister Andrew Little says. The Health Minister made the announcement while visiting Homai School in Counties Manukau alongside Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Associate ...
The Government’s COVID-19 response has meant a record number of people moved off a Benefit and into employment in the March Quarter, with 32,880 moving into work in the first three months of 2021. “More people moved into work last quarter than any time since the Ministry of Social Development ...
A stocktake undertaken by France and New Zealand shows significant global progress under the Christchurch Call towards its goal to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. The findings of the report released today reinforce the importance of a multi-stakeholder approach, with countries, companies and civil society working together to ...
Racing Minister Grant Robertson has announced he is appointing Elizabeth Dawson (Liz) as the Chair of the interim TAB NZ Board. Liz Dawson is an existing Board Director of the interim TAB NZ Board and Chair of the TAB NZ Board Selection Panel and will continue in her role as ...
The Government has announced that the export of livestock by sea will cease following a transition period of up to two years, said Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. “At the heart of our decision is upholding New Zealand’s reputation for high standards of animal welfare. We must stay ahead of the ...
WORKSHOP ON LETHAL AUTONOMOUS WEAPONS SYSTEMS Wednesday 14 April 2021 MINISTER FOR DISARMAMENT AND ARMS CONTROL OPENING REMARKS Good morning, I am so pleased to be able to join you for part of this workshop, which I’m confident will help us along the path to developing New Zealand’s national policy on ...
For the first time, all 18 prisons in New Zealand will be invited to participate in an inter-prison kapa haka competition, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. The 2021 Hōkai Rangi Whakataetae Kapa Haka will see groups prepare and perform kapa haka for experienced judges who visit each prison and ...
The Government has introduced the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill, designed to boost New Zealand's ability to respond to a wider range of terrorist activities. The Bill strengthens New Zealand’s counter-terrorism legislation and ensures that the right legislative tools are available to intervene early and prevent harm. “This is the Government’s first ...
Coal boiler replacements at a further ten schools, saving an estimated 7,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next ten years Fossil fuel boiler replacements at Southern Institute of Technology and Taranaki DHB, saving nearly 14,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next ten years Projects to achieve a total ...
Attorney-General David Parker today announced the appointment of Cassie Nicholson as Chief Parliamentary Counsel for a term of five years. The Chief Parliamentary Counsel is the principal advisor and Chief Executive of the Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO). She is responsible for ensuring PCO, which drafts most of New Zealand’s legislation, provides ...
Every part of Government will need to take urgent action to bring down emissions, the Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw said today in response to the recent rise in New Zealand’s greenhouse emissions. The latest annual inventory of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions shows that both gross and net ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister David Clark says Aotearoa New Zealand has become the first country in the world to introduce a law that requires the financial sector to disclose the impacts of climate change on their business and explain how they will manage climate-related risks and opportunities. The Financial ...
Exceptional employment practices in the primary industries have been celebrated at the Good Employer Awards, held this evening at Parliament. “Tonight’s awards provided the opportunity to celebrate and thank those employers in the food and fibres sector who have gone beyond business-as-usual in creating productive, safe, supportive, and healthy work ...
Applications are now invited from all councils for a slice of government funding aimed at improving tourism infrastructure, especially in areas under pressure given the size of their rating bases. Tourism Minister Stuart Nash has already signalled that five South Island regions will be given priority to reflect that jobs ...
Tēnā koutou e ngā maata waka Tenā koutou te hau kāinga ngā iwi o Te Whanganui ā TaraTēnā koutou i runga i te kaupapa o te Rā. No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa. It is a pleasure to be here tonight. Thank you Graeme (Peters, ENA Chief ...
The Construction Skills Action Plan has delivered early on its overall target of supporting an additional 4,000 people into construction-related education and employment, says Minister for Building and Construction Poto Williams. Since the Plan was launched in 2018, more than 9,300 people have taken up education or employment opportunities in ...
An innovative new Youth Justice residence designed in partnership with Māori will provide prevention, healing, and rehabilitation services for both young people and their whānau, Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis announced today. Whakatakapokai is located in South Auckland and will provide care and support for up to 15 rangatahi remanded or ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today expressed New Zealand’s sorrow at the death of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. “Our thoughts are with Her Majesty The Queen at this profoundly sad time. On behalf of the New Zealand people and the Government, I would like to express ...
We, the Home Affairs, Interior, Security and Immigration Ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States of America (the ‘Five Countries’) met via video conference on 7/8 April 2021, just over a year after the outbreak of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Guided by our shared ...
Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Carmel Sepuloni has today announced the opening of the first round of Ngā Puninga Toi ā-Ahurea me ngā Kaupapa Cultural Installations and Events. “Creating jobs and helping the arts sector rebuild and recover continues to be a key part of the Government’s COVID-19 response,” Carmel ...
Interim legislation that is already proving to keep people safer from drugs will be made permanent, Health Minister Andrew Little says. Research by Victoria University, on behalf of the Ministry of Health, shows that the Government’s decision in December to make it legal for drug-checking services to operate at festivals ...
Public consultation launched on ways to improve behaviour and reduce damage Tighter rules proposed for either camping vehicles or camping locations Increased penalties proposed, such as $1,000 fines or vehicle confiscation Rental companies may be required to collect fines from campers who hire vehicles Public feedback is sought on proposals ...
The Government is continuing to support Air New Zealand while aviation markets stabilise and the world moves towards more normal border operations. The Crown loan facility made available to Air New Zealand in March 2020 has been extended to a debt facility of up to $1.5 billion (an additional $600 ...
On a day that has seen a successful start to the re-opening of the border between New Zealand and Australia, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is hosting a briefing on Cabinet's discussions. ...
Police Minister Poto Williams has once again stated that the Iwi Community Panels are a success because the 'referrals resulted in a 22.5 percent reduction in harm caused by reoffending'; what she is failing to mention is that almost 75 percent ...
New Zealanders can explore how wellbeing has changed over time in a new interactive tool, Stats NZ said today. The wellbeing time series explorer allows people to compare selected wellbeing data from the 2014, 2016, and 2018 general social surveys (GSS). ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Megan Munsie, Deputy Director – Centre for Stem Cell Systems and Head of Engagements, Ethics & Policy Program, Stem Cells Australia, The University of Melbourne The recent announcement that scientists have made human-monkey embryos and cultured them in the lab for two ...
Brain-controlled devices could give people with disabilities or severe injuries new access to the world. But it could also be used to enhance humans, create super soldiers or even transcend the human body entirely. Mirjam Guesgen looks at how far we are willing to go and New Zealand’s role in ...
The proposed Death Approved Information Sharing Agreement is now open for public consultation. Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages Jeff Montgomery says the agreement is designed to make things a little easier for families when someone ...
Australia Week: What happens when you get two trans-Tasman soap immortals together in the same room? We found out in 2016.To mark the opening of the trans-Tasman bubble, The Spinoff is casting an eye across the ditch all week – read our Australia Week content here. It could be a vision ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta has delivered a significant speech on New Zealand-China relations, saying China must act in ways consistent with its role as a growing power New Zealand must not put all its eggs in one basket when it comes to trade, Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta has ...
BusinessNZ has welcomed the announcement of increased border exceptions to allow family reunification for some migrant workers in NZ. The exceptions will be for the families of health care workers and of a small number of high-skilled workers in ...
Fiame Naomi Mata’afa is the eight term MP and first-term party leader who just gave Sāmoa’s sleeping democracy the kick it needed, writes Sapeer Mayron of the Samoa Observer.Not for the first time in recent years, the world is abuzz with the news coming out of Sāmoa. But this time, ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta got a slice of action on the international front at the weekend, but not with an announcement as vituperative as Andrew Little’s rebuke of the Russians. Mahuta’s task was much more in line with the PM’s fondness for improving the wellbeing of anybody whose wellbeing ...
Every weekday morning, a group of Auckland city commuters fight to claim one of 10 free car parks. How long can this ‘secret oasis’ last?“Do not write this story.” Her eyes flare, her lips thin. Her warning gets sterner. “You’re ruining their lives,” she says. “Don’t drag ‘The Eye of ...
While the trans-Tasman bubble is "a significant day" for New Zealanders, any moves to open the borders to other countries will need to be be based on hard evidence, Jacinda Ardern says. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris O’Neill, Research fellow, Monash University COVID-19 lockdowns were a huge disruption for Australian universities. With students unable to come to campus, many universities turned to “online proctoring solutions” to monitor students during exam time. Many of these systems rely on automated ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Blair Williams, Research Fellow, Global Institute for Women’s Leadership (GIWL), Australian National University It feels like every day brings more harrowing claims of harassment, bullying and abuse of women in our community. In the space of just two months, we have seen ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato Very recently in the Bay of Bengal a naval exercise took place involving India, France, Japan and Australia. While it received little or no coverage in New Zealand, it nonetheless represented a foreign policy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Director, Health Program, Grattan Institute Australia’s aged-care system is in a state of a disaster. The aged care royal commission’s final report, released last month, is just the latest in a decades-long string of depressing reports and inquiries exposing horrific ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University They’re one of the most damaging environmental forces on Earth. They’ve colonised pretty much every ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlyn Forster, PhD Candidate, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney People may think of comics and science as worlds apart, but they have been cross-pollinating each other in more than ways than one. Many classic comic book characters are ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Gahan, Professor of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, The University of Melbourne The Australian government has abandoned its ambitious targets to have the adult population vaccinated by the end of October. It has, in fact, abandoned having any target. We ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Prescott, Lecturer, School of Humanities and Creative Arts, Flinders University With the release of the first-world-war film Gallipoli in 1981, director Peter Weir could finally shrug off the nickname he had laboured under since making his first films: “Peter Weird”. Idiosyncratic ...
Emergency housing has been described as dangerous and terrifying for some, with families mixed in with gang members and many places rife with crime and intimidation. ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for April 19, bringing you the latest news live from Auckland International Airport. Get in touch at stewart@thespinoff.co.nzTo mark the opening of the trans-Tasman bubble, The Spinoff is casting an eye across the ditch all week – read our Australia Week content here. 7.50am: ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Risks and benefits loom as trans-Tasman bubble opens, government signs big deal with Amazon, and cabinet paper produced on hate speech law change proposals.New Zealand is more open today than it has been at any time in the past twelve ...
Emergency housing has been described as dangerous and terrifying for some, with families mixed in with gang members and many places rife with crime and intimidation. ...
Business & Investing: A new survey of manufacturing sees production and orders soaring, Plus two NZ energy shares close higher despite index linked sell-off ...
Passengers could share their first rides with strangers in Auckland this month, as part of the company’s global strategy to reduce cars on the road. ...
The two-year phaseout of the export of livestock by sea, announced by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor last week, could mean over 200,000 animals will be shipped overseas before the cruel trade is ended. TVNZ’s ‘Sunday’ programme last night ...
You are more likely to be hit by lightning than suffer a blood clot after a Covid vaccine, but consequences can be dire for those who do. Vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris explains. COMMENT: Recently the vaccine safety watch dogs in Europe noted reports of unusual types of blood clots in people vaccinated ...
The one about a tough loner from Quebec who comes to New Zealand and writes a crime novel that screens tonight on TV2 Where I grew up, there were two ways to make big money: farming pigs for the corporate machine or running drugs over the border for the gangs. ...
Newly-crowned national mountain bike champion Sammie Maxwell only knew how to go fast. But slowing down and putting her health first has helped her back to top speed. Sammie Maxwell felt confused as she stood on top of the podium at this year's mountain bike national championships. She hadn't won because ...
'We're from the Government, we're here to help' might well be the message from the holders of Kris Faafoi's new $50m of taxpayer money as they start to dispense it to the nation's media. Stephen Parker examines the implications of the PIJF. Later this year, when reading daily news, you ...
We live in post-normal times: A time which means nothing will ever be normal again, writes Peter O'Connor of the University of Auckland. The world order has stumbled under the devastating global impact of Covid-19, resulting in the most serious assault to the economic, public health and social order of ...
Encouraging Chinese consumers to buy products on easy credit was sensationally popular, until it wasn't. Benjamin Liu and Xin Chen of the University of Auckland explain the troubles facing Jack Ma's Ant Group. China has been leading the world in the exponential growth of e-commerce. Rising from this massive and highly competitive ...
From today, travelling between New Zealand and Australia becomes a little bit easier. Here’s everything you need to know about the new trans-Tasman bubble.To mark the opening of the trans-Tasman bubble, The Spinoff is casting an eye across the ditch all week – read our Australia Week content here. What’s this ...
The premature dismissal of compensation for a woman wrongly convicted and sentenced to a year of home detention is morally rotten and practically misguided, writes Andrew Geddis.In her magnificent reporting on things New Zealander’s usually don’t like to think about, Stuff’s Kirsty Johnston has told some pretty sad stories. Families ...
The Dawn Raids of the 1970s carry a shameful legacy to this day - and those who haven't forgotten want an apology Nearly 50 years after the police started a crackdown on Pasifika people in Auckland, people are opening up about their experiences of the Dawn Raids for the first time. ...
“The Government’s proposed Hate Speech Laws mean someone could spend longer in jail for having an unpopular opinion than assaulting a child, male assaults female, participating in a riot and common assault," says ACT Leader David Seymour. ...
New Zealand's demi-official poet laureate Victor Billot composes an ode to a public figure every Sunday. Today: Prince PhilipThe artist formerly known as Prince He is fallen, just short of one hundred. An antique connection sundered with an old and vanished world over which the Union ...
Analysis by Bryce Edwards Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. The Labour Government received plaudits this week for its historic announcement that it will ban the live export of animals by sea. It’s said to be a world first. The decision comes after years of pressure, which increased after last year’s ...
The House: Calls to force witnesses to child abuse to speak, reforming adoption law for same-sex couples, and better protections for religious freedoms have been made by petitions to Parliament. ...
Creamerie is a new dystopian comedy about three New Zealand women and the last man on earth. Its co-creator and co-star, Perlina Lau, explains how they made a show about the aftermath of a deadly pandemic, during a pandemic.In 2018, when we sat around a dining table spitballing ideas about ...
James Borrowdale bids farewell to a summer of cricket with his oblivious baby daughter.Made possible thanks to the support of Creative New ZealandOriginal illustrations by Sophie Watson If cricket, at least in its longer forms, can lay claim to something approaching artistic meaning – that is, for its actions to ...
Sebastian Contreras Rodriguez was an architect in Chile, but after moving to New Zealand he started working as a housekeeper. Federico Magrin speaks to him about architecture being a service for the poor, and the differences between Chile and New Zealand. Sebastian joins me after a tiresome and proving day at ...
University of Otago researchers examine 2000-3000-year-old skulls to uncover why Pacific communities of that era intentionally pulled their teeth Ritual tooth ablation, the intentional removal of teeth, is a highly visible form of body modification that can signal group identity and mark certain life events, such as marriage. In our ...
Why are ice core samples and marine algae important for understanding our climate in the future? Dr Holly Winton, a geochemist with the Antarctic Research Centre at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, explains in this short video.Winton is working on a Rutherford Foundation-funded project analysing ...
New Zealand’s favourite autumnal fruit meets a fancy-sounding but super-simple French dessert. The result? Delicious. There is only so much you can do with the fruit that drops (non-stop) from 17 feijoa trees. We’ve had ripe fruit peppering our lawn now for over two weeks. So far I’ve used them to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Hancock, School visitor, Australian National University Andrew Sharp Peacock, for so long “the coming man” of Australian politics, has died in the United States aged 82. Born in 1939, he was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne, acquired a law degree at ...
“ A Ministry of Health graph drawn by a graphic designer with no data to inform it is the perfect metaphor for this Government, all spin and no substance,” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “Like most things with this government, they present ...
OWell, well, well. New Zealand its expressing its indignation about something the Russians may or may not have been doing. But this expression of the nation’s indignation comes not from Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta but from Andrew Little, our Minister of … No, not Health on this occasion. Nor ...
"He pulled down the straps of her tank top with his teeth and bit her neck..Afterwards, she pretended it didn’t happen": a short story by Auckland writer Leanne RadojkovichA teenager riding an e-scooter shot across the intersection towards Patsy, she stepped aside, the front wheel took the ...
Critic's Chair: Guy Somerset watches and listens to two wonderful series on YouTube and Spotify featuring great raconteurs and wits broadcast from their homes during the long UK lockdown This week, the UK started off along the second stage of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s “cautious but irreversible” roadmap to the ...
What happens when the world’s rarest gull sets up camp in earthquake-damaged buildings in central Christchurch? Frank Film investigates. Christchurch’s population of endangered tarāpuka/black-billed gulls may have a new home. The Christchurch City Council is hoping to fashion a new site for the gulls in what was once part of ...
WATCH: In the heart-wrenching final episode of the Pure As video series, Silver Ferns shooter Maia Wilson reveals the on-court highs and off-court lows she's been through. Maia Wilson's young life has already been an emotional rollercoaster. While her netball career soars to new heights every time she takes the court, away ...
LISTEN: Is 2021 the year the Tactix finally get to lift netball's ANZ Premiership trophy? with the ANZ Premiership starting this weekend, how will the absence of Silver Fern captain Amerliaranne Ekenasio affect the two-time champions Central Pulse? What impact will Australian international Caitlin Bassett have for the Waikato Bay of ...
After a marathon year of droughts and water restrictions, Auckland finally has a goal to reduce its water consumption Water, water everywhere, and most certainly in the news. After a massive public information campaign last year, Aucklanders managed to knock 100 million litres a day off the city’s water consumption. ...
A new initiative is taking on food insecurity and food wastage by encouraging diners to take uneaten food home. And, as chefs taking part of the scheme explain, what you do with those leftovers needn’t be limited to a quick blat in the microwave. It’s hard to know just how much ...
With the council in disarray, former Wellington mayor Justin Lester sat down with The Spinoff to share his thoughts on what’s gone wrong, and what needs to happen from here. Justin Lester is running again. When we meet at the Civic Square cafe Nikau, the former Wellington mayor is breaking in a ...
After months of lockdown, pubs in England were allowed to reopen this week, with outdoor seating only. New Zealander George Fenwick headed out to see how Londoners were welcoming the return of a cornerstone of British social life.Trying to explain what life has been like in the UK for the ...
Dirty politics. Using fake news and trolls to discourage Bernie supporters from voting Clinton. With obvious lessons on things to look out for in our coming campaigns.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-fake-news-russia_us_58c34d97e4b0ed71826cdb36?63g&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
The is no such thing as fake news, there is just propaganda. And people who supported h.r.c. and the democrat’s need to get over losing. To live in this world you are creating, just hurts people and their chance to resist.
People will die because of this weakness deomcrats, at least 9 of these spineless flecks are going to vote to over turn health care. You could actually help stop that, rather than buy into utter b.s being peddled.
Here is a link to democrats who are in fear of losing there seats. Take down there names and write them a email.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/several-democrats-facing-2018-re-election-states-trump-carried/
Good on you Adam. It strikes me the Left are suffering the same bullshit ‘fake news’ paranoia as the Right are. You are correct…. it is all just another form of propaganda.
Hey, adam and garibaldi, we’ve got our own election coming up later this year. The result will either be a fourth term for National, or a Labour/Green led government. Yes, it is essentially a binary.
Your choice is to put your support to a Labour/Green led government (which will involve swallowing dead rats), support a fourth term Nat, or say you think they’re equally bad (which is the same as supporting Nats).
If you want to change the government, it’s a good idea to look at what tactics were used successfully elsewhere, because it’s quite likely they will be used here too. To me, one of the biggest lessons is we’re now at the point in our cycle where it’s time to support the positives in Labour/Greens, rather than picking at and amplifying flaws.
Andre, so your saying that a obvious corrupt two party system, which has been rejected by New Zealand in favor of proportional representation. Is the model you want to work from?
To Quote Mr Pepelo “Interesting…”
The working class people rejected the democrates for a multitude of reason: corruption, being conservative, in bed with the corporations, lying and cheating – not some fantasy about Russia. But sure beat yourself up about false flags, I won’t stand in your way.
Andre, I have never voted National and never will. However if you can’t see the bullshit that the Dems are pushing, and call it for what it is, then you are part of the problem.
I’m saying that for the coming election here, the choice has narrowed to “do you want to change the government, or not?”. And that the current government, having successfully used dirty politics in the past and been shown a new selection of dirty politics techniques to use, will undoubtedly do so to retain power. Inducing lefties to criticise left candidates and share fake news and smears are techniques likely to be re-used here. Even if doesn’t flip voters, it still depresses turnout.
It’s a sad commentary on our local politics that MMP has narrowed to the point that it has effectively become a binary again. But that’s the reality we have to deal with at the moment. If you think there’s a viable alternative, lay it out and explain it. I’ve asked Bill to explain his alternative vision and all I’ve seen are vague incoherent mutterings about “social democracy”. If you’ve got an alternative vision, I’m honestly interested.
When it comes to reforming government, the government has already pulled a bait-and-trash MMP review, so I really doubt there’s any chance of meaningful improvement with the current lot. Whereas Lab/Greens have both been supportive of improving democracy through implementing suggestions from the MMP review, limited as they were. Yet another reason to swallow dead ratsfor the sake of changing the government.
Unless Hone starts looking likely to win TTT AND Mana are polling above 1% (about 1.3% is needed for a second seat), then frankly a vote for Mana is wasted. No matter how moral someone may convince themselves it is. In practical terms Mana have had absolutely zero influence the last 2 years. Although because Hone had a good shot at winning TTT and Mana/IP were polling above 1%, I wouldn’t call it a wasted vote.
Similarly, a vote for TOP is wasted unless TOP are polling above 4%. But even then, TOP have no commitment to changing the government. They just want to slightly change the flavour of whatever government forms. So from the point of view of changing the government, TOP will be a wasted vote.
Hi Andre. Not quite sure what conversation you’re referring to when you write I’ve asked Bill to explain his alternative vision and all I’ve seen are vague incoherent mutterings about “social democracy”.
It’s pretty simple stuff.
Social democracy puts a tighter or shorter leash on capitalism/markets than liberalism does.
In short, social democracy seeks to protect individuals from the more egregious affects of capitalism; to rein it in so that it serves society (ie – social democratic policies would seek equal or fair outcomes across populations).
That sits in stark contrast to liberalism, that promotes the simple notion of an individual having access to equal opportunities in a world dominated by unfettered capitalism.
You really find that too vague or just generally incoherent?
And I should note, social democracy is not my alternative vision – I’m not a social democrat. My vision involves self governance through meaningful or substantive, non-hierarchical democratic institutions being developed and existing at the local or community level – ie, my vision revolves around a fully participatory democracy.
Sorry, that conversation looks to have dropped off my replies tab so I can’t find it easily.
In any case, what I’m interested in is the nuts and bolts of what kind of structures get set up to resolve conflicts over where resource comes from and gets allocated. The how and who of balancing the competing demands of infrastructure, welfare, health, education, conservation and so on.
I can stretch my mind to incremental improvements of what we’ve got now. Things like lowering thresholds for representation in parliament, adjusting tax rates and where they’re spent. I can even get my head around changes as big as introducing a UBI and funding it from new sources, such as carbon taxes and capital gains taxes.
But if you want my support for throwing out a big chunk of what we’ve got now in favour of something completely new, I’m going want a very detailed picture of what it is. Preferably with an established model elsewhere showing how it’s going to work.
Because for all the flaws in the systems we have now, they still work better than just about everything else I can point at. And the models I can think of that I’d like better, mostly Scandinavian states, are really just incremental changes from what we have here and now.
There isn’t anything new about Social Democracy.
In NZ, just look to anything prior 1984. In the UK, look to pre-Thatcher. IN the US, pre-Reagan.
You want examples of social democratic policies in action today in the English speaking world? Then look at what the SNP does (free tertiary education, more or less free dental care, no prescription charges, no privatisation of the health service etc…ie, a raft of policies putting people first or of putting society before finance).
And that’s achieved by a government that cannot borrow money or raise tax thresh-holds in any meaningful way. It works with in proscribed powers of governance and within the constraints of a formulaic allocation of monies from a Westminster government wedded to liberalism and austerity.
Thinking about social democracy versus liberalism = merely thinking about priorities.
We have come upon a very different age from any that preceded us. We have come upon an age when we do not do business in the way in which we used to do business,—when we do not carry on any of the operations of manufacture, sale, transportation, or communication as men used to carry them on. There is a sense in which in our day the individual has been submerged. In most parts of our country men work, not for themselves, not as partners in the old way in which they used to work, but generally as employees,—in a higher or lower grade,—of great corporations. There was a time when corporations played a very minor part in our business affairs, but now they play the chief part, and most men are the servants of corporations.
You know what happens when you are the servant of a corporation. You have in no instance access to the men who are really determining the policy of the corporation. If the corporation is doing the things that it ought not to do, you really have no voice in the matter and must obey the orders, and you have oftentimes with deep mortification to co-operate in the doing of things which you know are against the public interest. Your individuality is swallowed up in the individuality and purpose of a great organization.
It is true that, while most men are thus submerged in the corporation, a few, a very few, are exalted to a power which as individuals they could never have wielded. Through the great organizations of which they are the heads, a few are enabled to play a part unprecedented by anything in history in the control of the business operations of the country and in the determination of the happiness of great numbers of people.
Yesterday, and ever since history began, men were related to one another as individuals. To be sure there were the family, the Church, and the State, institutions which associated men in certain wide circles of relationship. But in the ordinary concerns of life, in the ordinary work, in the daily round, men dealt freely and directly with one another. To-day, the everyday relationships of men are largely with great impersonal concerns, with organizations, not with other individual men.
Now this is nothing short of a new social age, a new era of human relationships, a new stage-setting for the drama of life.
WOODROW WILSON 1913.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14811/14811-h/14811-h.htm#V
Very few people I know (actually none that I know of IRL) have fond memories of the Muldoon years. Things like Supplementary Minimum Prices paid to very-well-off farmers, carless days and no weekend petrol, wage-and-price freeze (that was really only a wage freeze) and so on leave a bad taste. I suggest pointing to the specific aspects, such as near-free tertiary education, near-free medical care etc, if you want to get traction in a New Zealand audience.
All of those things can be achieved by increments from where we are now, by supporting and pressuring a sympathetic government. Look at how far Key was able to move things the other way, without scaring the populace.
Meanwhile, we do have people active in politics advocating those kinds of policies, such as Joe Carolan. If those policies are so popular, why don’t they get a bigger vote share?
So no fond memories of being able to afford a house (either for rent or to buy)?
No fond memories of having a secure job – of penal rates – of vastly superior conditions than those endured today…?
No fond memories of going to the shops and actually being able to afford the stuff that was needed…?
No fond memories of actually getting hospital treatment when you needed it and not being required to have health insurance…?
No fond memories of going to university because going to university…?
Nah, you’re right. It was a hell zone of no margarine and no frothy wee flat whites….just like most of the rest of the world in the tasteless 70’s. And margarine and wee frothy flat whites are where it’s at.
Those things are the prize and the goal and the end point of the liberal medicine bottle marked “no gain without pain”. And my, such gains we have!!
Adam, not surprising to find out that many anti-democrats want to sweep the dirt under the carpet, as if the filth perpetrated by the Republicans never took place nor isn’t taking place. I am not a fan of American politics, but I am astonished that a pervert, like Trump can rise to the position of President of the USA.
I am not surprised that Trump became President.
Hillary crashed Bernie so he couldn’t become Trump’s challenger. If he had manged, the result could have been very different and got people who would have otherwise never thought of voting, come out and do so.
Hillary should not have even been the Democrat nominee.
In conservative America, they talk about Republicans In Name Only (R.I.N.O.’s), who are thought to be too left leaning, or forgotten what a “true conservative” is.
I would say in all honesty, then there must be D.I.N.O.’s too who are too sympathetic to the causes of the Republicans, or who have forgotten what a true socialist is.
Inverse modelling (gender bendering ) suggests that the messaging not the genitalia was the fail.
http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2017/march/trump-clinton-debates-gender-reversal.html
That’s interesting. Wouldn’t mind seeing the entire filmed version (their next step apparently). Anyway. Because I suspect most people don’t chase down links, I’m just going to drop the 2 min vid from rehearsals here…
The is no such thing as fake news, there is just propaganda.
What a steaming piece of po-mo bullshit. There’s a clear and significant difference between news agencies presenting actually-occurring events in ways you don’t like, and private interests paying people to flood opponents’ communication channels with made-up stories. Pretending there’s no difference helps only the left’s enemies, who have a lot of money to spend on fake news.
Accusations that Iraqi soldiers were throwing babies from incubators onto the floor to die. Fake news or propaganda?
Last hospital in Aleppo razed (lost count of the number of times that was reported as having happened). Fake news or propaganda?
Last pediatrician in Aleppo killed. Fake news or propaganda?
All of the above were stories that were pushed heavily by all major western news outlets and quite a few western NGOs (eg – Amnesty International or medecins sans frontieres). And all were used by western governments to justify actions or positions they were holding and as a way to sway public opinion or attitudes.
I can’t believe this stuff can be genuinely that hard to figure out.
Scenario 1:
Kuwaitis who’ve fled the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait describe atrocities committed by the invaders, including the accusation that Iraqi soldiers had pulled babies from incubators. News media extensively report the unverifiable accusations as unverifiable accusations and people make up their own minds how much credence they’ll give them.
Scenario 2:
Republican black ops type makes up a story about tens of thousands of fraudulent Clinton votes found in a warehouse and publishes them on his web site, which presents itself as a newspaper site but isn’t one.
Only one of the above is fake news. If people really do struggle to understand the difference, I suggest they hand in their computers as it would better if they steered clear of the web.
Scenario 1. The daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US gave false testimony ie – made up a fucking story – before the US Congress and her entirely false story was corroborated by Amnesty International.
And from the NYT of Dec 16 1990 (one snippet among many that you can find using “google is my advanced friend)
In its last report, Amnesty International said that based on scores of interviews with refugees, it had found a “horrifying picture of widespread arrests, torture under interrogation, summary executions, and mass extrajudicial killings.”
Few informed observers disagree. What is at issue, however, is the number of victims. 250 Executions Confirmed
and
“Kuwait says seizure of hospital equipment caused many deaths”. Reuters News. September 6, 1992.
“Iraq equipment removal killed patients – Kuwait.”. Reuters News. September 6, 1992.
“Kuwaiti says Iraq plundered hospitals”. Associated Press. North Carolina: Charlotte Observer. September 7, 1990. p. A16.
“Official: Hospitalized in Kuwait are left to die”. Associated Press. Chicago Tribune. September 7, 1990. p. 12.
“Persian Gulf crisis – More about the Mideast”. Houston Chronicle. September 7, 1990. p. A18.
“Kuwait Says Iraq Plundered Hospitals”. The San Francisco Chronicle (Associated Press). September 7, 1990. p. A21.
“Released Hostages Tell of Kuwait Terror”. All Things Considered (Transcription of broadcast). National Public Radio. September 7, 1990. Total destruction everywhere, cars wrecked, burned, people thrown out of cars on the street you’re driving down; they just throw people over the street. They’re hitting children with the butts of the guns, taking infants out of incubators and taking the incubators.
And for some strange reason you don’t appear to want to speak to the other two salient instances I brought up. Or are you getting around to them?
I’m going to guess you won’t. And here’s the thing. Labeling some stuff as ‘fake news’ as opposed to propaganda means that propaganda that isn’t liked gets dismissed out of hand and propaganda that’s approved of slips uncritically under the radar. And that’s pernicious.
Personally, I think the distinction is that the incubator story was reported by organisations that could fairly be regarded as at least trying (although maybe lazily and with significant confirmation bias) to report an objective truth, whereas “fake news” systems dispense with any attempt to report the truth. And the distinction between fake news and propaganda is that propaganda is designed with a specific angle and frequently merely exagerrates the truth, whereas fake news is just intended to overload the synapses to produce a null response.
That’s just my personal taxonomy of thumb. It’s all just different flavours of shit.
You telling me that Hill & Knowlton were attempting to report an objective truth?
If anything qualifies as ‘fake news’ it’s that utter fabrication Hill & Knowlton knowingly and cynically compiled and peddled. And given its fake news status, and the fact it was used to impact on opinion around an invasion of Iraq….well, your distinction for what separates ‘fake news’ from propaganda seem to fall over, no?
I agree everything’s shades of shit. But I think my point about the potentially pernicious impact of labeling some stuff as ‘fake news’ and other stuff as propaganda, stands.
No, it was propaganda from hill&knowlton that was probably reported in good faith by AI and the media (with the caveats and attributions milt has raised).
This is a phenomenon distinct from fake news like RT or breitbart or even large swathes of fox news, who flood people with oft-conflicting bullshit simply to overload individuals’ ability to make an informed decision.
The objective of propaganda is to mislead or persuade, whereas the objective of fake news is simply to induce information overload in the public sphere.
Lets cut the fucking crap here McFlock. Propaganda is by definition false. There is no distinction between what you want to call fake news and what you’d rather call propaganda….except, it seems, that propaganda would be practiced by those sources you’d seek to be an apologist for (BBC, AI, CNN etc) and fake news would be practiced by those you seek to discount entirely (RT and other non-western news sources alongside a few right wing western news sources).
I mean ffs! RT “induces information over-load in the public sphere”??!!
No, it’s not always “false news”. It often takes the form of fake news, but it tries to form a single, coherent, plausible message. E.g. the incubator story reinforced other atrocity stories, some of which probably true, and the true fact of the actual invasion, in order to produce the coherent message of “Iraq = bad war criminals”
It also takes the form of true facts selectively reported in order to reinforce the intended message. The Churchill “gangster” photo with the thompson machine gun was a true depiction that was used by both sides in WW2 to reinforce their respective propaganda messages.
It can also take the form of simple opinion or editorial pieces with no assertion of fact: e.g. “keep calm and carry on” or even just the pictorial leaflets of porn on one side and a corpse on the other. The gist is there.
But “fake news” functions not by individual or even an over-arching message, but by producing an overwhelming number of conflicting messages. Propaganda tries to drive the car in one direction, fake news just tries to overheat the car’s engine until it seizes.
Look at RT’s coverage of the airliner shot down over the ukraine, up to and including obviously faked “satellite photos” of other jets in the area, conflicting statements about the possible antiair systems and their locations, and all sorts of shit about radar tracks. Each theory with its own headline and article, reported as reasonable no matter how outlandish. Just clickbait for morons.
That’s qualitatively different to say the BBC or CNN. They might have their own agenda, but at least it’s a coherent agenda, rather than just noise to drown everything else out.
Sorry McFlock but noise is just one part of propaganda, you and Psycho Milt want to limit propaganda to a fit your agenda.
Propaganda is “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view”
A point of view, includes overload, and putting people off.
I’m all for differing points of view, and think we should have it. Look the media you seem to being holding up is only three organisations, all corporate, and have one interest, profit.
So they do propaganda well. One example is just by omitting news. Standing rock is a good example, then MSNBC and their refusal to do anything positive about Bernie Sanders, instead showing trumps empty podium. They did it for hours. Still propaganda.
I’m glad you getting a handle on what is happening. But don’t think it’s not propaganda, that is the road to a very dangerous tribalism bubble.
Look at RT’s coverage of the airliner shot down over the ukraine, up to and including obviously faked “satellite photos” of other jets in the area, conflicting statements about the possible antiair systems and their locations, and all sorts of shit about radar tracks. Each theory with its own headline and article, reported as reasonable no matter how outlandish. Just clickbait for morons.
I never really took much interest in that particular event, but all you say about it and use as a reason to condemn rt, applies equally to the framework of western coverage of Syria.
And the noise from the BBC, CNN et al is many decibels above anything rt can achieve. It’s like a solo artist playing against an orchestra…and both produce clickbait for morons. (But one obviously produces more readily available clickbait than the other though, aye?)
Alternatively, Adam, you’re redefining what a “view” is to include information overload (aka the complete absence of a view) in order to fit your false equivalence.
You think I’m only just getting a handle on things? I’d feel patronised if you weren’t such a monochromatic tool. Hell, not even monochrome: dot matrix. Thirty years out of date and with a worldview of thousands of unconnected black dots on white paper, no shades of grey.
No, it doesn’t. Nowhere near equally. That’s a false equivalence.
My point was not to be condescending, and for that I apologies.
That said, you need to read what current people are writing about propaganda. It’s not new what you are trying to point forward, people said similar things about Berlusconi and his campaigns. Then a new wave came with the rise of Putin.
So I’m not living in the dark ages, as you wish I was. As I actually read about this quite often. And have for years.
Like I said, the problem trying to spin this to fit an agenda, is the road to tribalism.
“current people”. People with their own agenda? Or just more noise?
My approach isn’t particularly new, again I never claimed it was. What it does do is provide a distinction between two logically different approaches to public information warfare.
Let’s avoid attribution to particular networks or outlets, and just work on the distinction: is “information overload” as an objective fundamentally different from “attempting to persuade or dissuade people about a particular point of view”?
I think they are fundamentally different objectives and are characterised by different tactics.
I’m just like a word which actually has a use, and we can use it. That is not that useful when you can not get an agenda out of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSj21WzQpos
But if you want just one word that envelopes two different things, then how do you refer to just one of those things?
Let’s avoid attribution to particular networks or outlets, and just work on the distinction: is “information overload” as an objective fundamentally different from “attempting to persuade or dissuade people about a particular point of view”?
So by that definition – that ‘fake news’ is a process of ‘information overload’ – then arguably all of the sports news and the ‘girl shits on Dunedin street’ news and the endless hours of adverts that supposedly impart information, and the Hollywood gossip and the OMG! you’ll never believe what they did, said, happened next…and all of the misleading headlines and vacuous filler on websites and in newspapers and what not… all of that’s fake news.
Meanwhile, any spin (on say) a plane being shot down or on the situation in a war zone would be propaganda. And some of it will be quite slick and professional and some of it amateurish. But none of it ‘fake’ insofar as it’s all trying to sway opinion.
no bill, because although you might think it’s a pointless distraction, some people find sports interesting and want to know about it.
That’s real news, supplied in good faith to people who want it, even if it bores the fuck out of you or I.
Fake news in regards to sports would involve dozens fictional teams, injury reports, scores and fixtures all thrown in alongside maybe the occasional true report of a football match.
How was RT coverage of MH17 being shot down trying to “sway opinion”? What did they want us to believe – that it was a Ukrainian jet, an invented story, a spy plane, a Ukrainian SAM covered up by the US (who saw everything with their 100% radar coverage of the area), or a US “false flag” op? There was no attempt to persuade, just an attempt to overload.
The incubator story was part of an actual propaganda campaign where, even if the actors didn’t necessarily coordinate every piece of their material, the US, Kuwaitis, UK, and Saudis all had the basic message “Iraq bad, committing heinous atrocities, must be stopped or someone else is next”.
As far as I’m aware the reporting around MH17 was “it were the Russians that wot did it” on one side of the coin and “it were Ukrainians that wot did it” on the other.
But like I said previously, I never paid much attention to any of it since I reckoned (rightly or wrongly) that it was going to be an endless blame game of ping-pong.
So I just applied some basic questions around motivation, likelihood and what not, came to a reasonable conclusion and moved on.
Yes, sports are of interest to some. And it’s why I used the word “arguably”. I mean, adverts are important to some (I lived with a person who got annoyed if ads were interrupted by people in a room).
So are we at the point where fake news is taken to be complete smash that no-one is interested in? If so, it’s completely irrelevant and therefore not a problem.
On the other hand, if people are giving some time and energy over to it, then it’s having an impact, and is therefore propaganda.
edit – a thousand made up stories around (say) HC impacts on how people perceive HC. There’s an agenda. Just as there was an agenda when the claim was made that German soldiers were bayoneting Belgium babies during WWI…or that babies were thrown from incubators…or that the queen is a lizard.
A story about a WW 2 plane being found on the moon – well, that’s in the realm of fake news. (An actual headline story from a UK paper back in the day)
RT’s approach was to provide conflicting stories, rather than a coherent “it wasn’t us” message.
It’s noise, that’s the problem. That’s the entire problem. It drowns everything else out, either you create more noise refuting the more plausible stuff or you hope enough people notice that today’s noise is the exact opposite from the noise the same source was throwing out yesterday and will throw out tomorrow. And in the meantime, actual news has to compete for space against utter bullshit.
The goal of fake news is to stop people making an informed or considered decision, at all. The goal of propaganda is to get people to make the decision you want.
Hmm. So the propaganda we’ve been fed for years and years about the middle east is predicated on having us make decisions around stuff in the middle east? And here was me thinking that most people I know just throw their hands in the air and announce how it’s all just “too hard”.
Much the same with regards Yugoslavia from memory. And was much the same with Northern Ireland too (from the perspective of broadcasts in the UK).
Seems all that propaganda was designed to prevent people coming to any kind of informed decision. But that can’t be right according to what you reckon propaganda is and how it differs from ‘fake news’.
Libyan troops filling up on Viagra in order to rape opponents to the government in Tripoli. That one was carried ‘everywhere’ and used to generate backing for a ‘no-fly zone’ in Libya. The story was obviously bullshit and noise that crowded out any sensible discussion on Libya (maybe in the same way that Brietbart stuff is noisy bullshit)….and it had an impact.
According to what you’ve been saying, the Viagra story should rightfully be seen as propaganda and yet the same type of stuff (coming from Brietbart or wherever and focused on the Democrats or whatever instead of Libya) should be considered ‘fake news’ as opposed to propaganda.
And this is straight back to one of my first points about this so-called difference between ‘fake news’ and propaganda. The ‘fake news’ tag gets reserved for specific outlets (lists have been drawn up and circulated by liberal media), meaning that everything those outlets produce becomes tarnished and at risk of instant dismissal regardless of the actual content…leaving the coast clear for ‘our’ propaganda.
And that’s pernicious, very dangerous and a damned good reason to run a propaganda campaign around this notion of ‘fake news’.
Not necessarily.
The viagra story in the context of a campaign towards a coherent message would be propaganda.
The viagra story in the context of it being A) true and b)reported impartially would be news.
The viagra story from the same outlet that releases stories about how Libyan soldiers are all part of an abstinence cult, as well as stories about how no medicines are in Libya, and as well as stories that “Libyan” soldiers are all actors in southern Nevada, as well as stories that Libyan soldiers are all women because Libyan men run away, etc etc etc, that’s fake news. Regardless of outlet and regardless of whether one of those stories happens to be true. It’s just about noise, so nobody on the street decides that they have a strong enough onpinion on the matter to write a letter to the editor or their MP or boycott goods from XYZ.
You say the “fake news” tag is reserved for specific outlets to discredit the news from those outlets. I say specific outlets are fake news sources because their stories are completely unverifiable and usually contradictory, even if some of their stories are true. It’s impossible to verify or place any reliability on anything from those sources because there’s no distinction between opinion, fact and outright fabrication. To the point that even considering almost anything from those sources is a waste of time, you’ll find out the true stories from other sources sooner or later.
The daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US gave false testimony ie – made up a fucking story…
And the news media reported it as a claim, just like they reported Trump claiming that Obama ordered Trump Tower’s phone’s tapped. That isn’t “fake news,” it’s just “news.”
And from the NYT of Dec 16 1990…
Er, yes. The NYT reported Amnesty International’s claims about widespread torture and murder, with the appropriate caveats. And of course, not completely irrelevant to the issue was the fact that widespread torture and murder did actually take place, and wasn’t made up by a party hack to put on his pretend newspaper site.
And for some strange reason you don’t appear to want to speak to the other two salient instances I brought up.
Well, no, because they’re just two more instances of the same thing: news media reporting claims from a war zone that can’t be independently verified, as claims from a war zone that can’t be independently verified, otherwise known as “reporting the news.”
If you can find repeated and egregious instances of reputable news organisations deliberately making up stories and reporting them as news, you’ll have a case. Until then, fake news is something different from regular propaganda.
because they’re just two more instances of the same thing: news media reporting claims from a war zone that can’t be independently verified
Hmm. Except any western journalist from a major outlet could have interviewed Dr Zahar Buttal, Director of the Aleppo Medical Association with regards hospitals in east Aleppo and registered medical practitioners. But then that might have interfered with the ‘official’ narrative…which has been wholly informed by “opposition” voices.
Which is not surprising in light of How Britain funds the ‘propaganda war’ against Isis (and the Syrian government) in Syria
Bracketed text my expansion for the sake of accuracy 👿
edit. Oops. Forgot to respond to the first part of your reply above. You suggest that media reported the babies and what not as claims. Did you read the list of headlines provided? The word ‘claims’ or ‘alleges’ or any other such like simply doesn’t appear. Kuwaiti says and statement of fact as headline after statement of fact as headline…. 🙄
… any western journalist from a major outlet could have interviewed Dr Zahar Buttal, Director of the Aleppo Medical Association…
Well, they could have, but claims from the government side also can’t be verified, and this particular regime mouthpiece wouldn’t have set foot in east Aleppo at least since the start of the siege, so wouldn’t have any current info to base his claims on. It would be like asking rebel forces for commentary on what was happening in west Aleppo.
Did you read the list of headlines provided? The word ‘claims’ or ‘alleges’ or any other such like simply doesn’t appear.
“Kuwait says” in a headline means the Kuwaiti government is claiming something.
and this particular regime mouthpiece wouldn’t have set foot in east Aleppo at least since the start of the siege, so wouldn’t have any current info to base his claims on.
So the head of the medical association is a “regime mouthpiece”. What you base that allegation on? The fact he’s saying stuff that contradicts what the BBC and others reporting from ooutside of the country have reported as true?
And even if he didn’t set foot in east Aleppo, he does have the list of all existing hospitals and of all registered medical practitioners for Aleppo. And they can be checked.
It would have been an improvement on western reporting had they asked their mates they were embedded with what was going on (Channel 4 ran with Al Zenka for a production that they later removed from their site – linked)
Go to 2min and 45 secs and you’ll see Mahmoud Raslan. Now, if you don’t know who Mahmoud Raslan is, well he was the guy who took the ‘boy in the orange seat’ video that all western outlets ran with and who also gleefully filmed his mates (Al Zenki) beheading a 9 year old Palestinian boy.
How do you think an authority figure got his position of authority under an authoritarian dictatorship, Bill?
I’m sure this particular one had info on all the registered medical practitioners in Aleppo at the time conflict started – how many of the ones in east Aleppo were still around in its later stages is anyone’s guess, as is the number of foreign volunteers. Likewise the hospitals – people in a city under continuous bombardment end up with makeshift hospitals and don’t concern themselves over-much about official documentation.
See…this bullshit you appear to exhibit…of excusing anything and everything western media says or claims, because to not accept what they say would apparently mean taking a side is…fucking tragic.
Nice to see you slipping slightly from the official narrative there though. So now the hospitals may not have been hospitals in the sense claimed and the pediatrician may not have been a pediatrician after all. Jollity.
Just like there’s a difference between propaganda and the more recent phenomenon of fake news, there’s a difference between taking a realistic view of news media organisations and “excusing anything and everything the western media claims.”
So the New York Times never published anything on “WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION”
Brian Williams: “The helicopter I was riding in got hit with an RPG.”
“No sailors were harmed by Fukushima radiation.”
“Eating cholesterol in foods causes heart disease.” (sugar is the real enemy)
“The Dreyfus Affair”
Vietnam’s “Gulf of Tonkin”
Ronald Reagan and the ‘welfare queen’
The Greeks are lazy and don’t pay tax. (or other racist b.s they printed)
Sheesh Psycho Milt that is just off the top of my head, I’m sure with a bit of digging I could come up with hundreds more.
The media lie all the time, it sells papers and helps make profits. You seem to be under the illusion that they are good. Is that the case?
Sure, you could go on – the list of irrelevant items is effectively infinite. The evidence requested was instances of reputable media organisations deliberately inventing false stories to serve a political purpose – what you’ve provided is examples of media organisations failing to uncover government lies, which is something else entirely.
That why Brian Williams was near the top of the list.
I’d also add most journalist knew the welfare queen lie and printed it anyway. Many on that list could fall into the same category. Again off the top of my head, without research.
I find it interesting you want to differentiate on propaganda. Maybe you should read what propaganda means. I’d say you a twisting it into to a narrow definition to fit your own narrative, rather than looking at as a whole.
Reagan’s campaign rhetoric reported as fact, really?.
So how do you know the term joe90?
MSM article on bigoted campaign rhetoric.
So the English language is leaving you now Pscho Milt? Do you understand the definition of the word propaganda?
I know Wikipedia, but the first sentence is telling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
Fake news is a out and out propaganda term, put out there by Muppet’s who want to mislead people.
Lies are not new, getting worked up over the latest propaganda term is also not new. Cutting through the lies and b.s, is difficult – but keeping an open mind and read a lot of different sources can help. Buying into your sides latest fetish, helps no one.
Pie on Trump’s first 50 days.
Good to see a new media player in election year.
Jennings has found his feet – http://newsroom.co.nz/
Again with countdown selling not free range eggs.
http://newsroom.co.nz/2017/03/12/8521/millions-of-caged-eggs-sold-as-free-range-in-nz-supermarkets
If you read the article it’s obvious that blame should be be on Palace Poultry, the supplier, not Countdown.
Just joining the dots – the last time this happened was at countdown.
Countdown are a good Aussie company, who are good at passing the buck. So just calling it like I see it.
In all honesty the whole free range market is untrustworthy.
It really does feel like that.
I’m fast coming to the conclusion that being an ethical consumer, will not change anything. It’s just another lie.
National are poor managers of the economy. Food retailer managers are poor sellers of goods. Going in a Tesco, etc you’d find something worth buying, NZ retail offerings are so contorted and rigged my cash goes elsewhere, its just poor management. Its always been this way, no. eight wire get something that works mentality. Good when your on the frontier but UK ruled the world eith four million people. Its like we keep digging whith a bunch of managers who just know how to did more debt.
Well depending on the fluidity of yr ethics, it could be argued that shopping at a supermarket is unethical.
You know Britain gave that bastard Pinochet protection. The guy who killed people for their art.
https://bitchmedia.org/article/material-acts/chilean-embroiderers-record-memory-stitch-stitch?
Hamish Rutherford on Stuff warns that NZ’s economy looks like it might be cooling.
Meanwhile, Bernard Hickey on Newsroom says that the big Aussie banks are now restricting lending to property developers in NZ, meaning there will likely be a drop in the numbers of new residential properties being built in Auckland.
Nationals disaster ecomonics and unchecked tax haven property speculation seems to be running out of steam.
JK’s no fool his timings impeccable.
Meanwhile, Bernard Hickey on Newsroom says that the big Aussie banks are now restricting lending to property developers in NZ. What does he mean “now” this has been the position since the middle of last year, and the consequence of less credit ? The pace of development dramatically slows both in the creation of development land and the construction of dwellings. This has been happening since the end of last year, so no matter what any govt does without the 4 banks to fund there will be limited construction of houses. But leave it to the market to solve !!! eh
By the time that the media was made aware of this was months after the banks had quietly implemented their policies. Ever wondered why the banks are so compliant with the Reserve Banks restrictions ?? So that they can reduce their risk in the sector.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/85468366/construction-costs-funding-squeeze-blamed-for-developers-walking-away
ps://blog.bnz.co.nz/2016/11/auckland-property-developers-feel-funding-pinch/
From the Standard and Poor report on New Zealand lending situation:
“With banks reporting a tightening in lending standards for property development, it’s conceivable that new construction will slow, despite the rollout of the Auckland Unitary Plan, applying further upward pressure on house prices.”
Our Reserve Bank will also shortly force banks to put more of their profits aside to assure against riskier lending. That will take higher profit margins. And you just know what that means ….
Auckland has already seen a few developers pull out (eg the St James, Avondale, and Albany ones) even though they had the pre-sales to go. It was simply the Aussie banks saying NO.
I sure don’t want a housing crash, or a credit crunch, or thousands more homeless, or existing rental landlords just creaming it.
But the actions of our Australian-dominated banking system says that is where we are headed. There will be no more “show me the money!”
The 2017 government has an almighty task on its hands. And it’s the biggie: a banking policy problem so big that will test the political independence of the RBA.
Grand plan?
What grand plan?
As far as I can honestly tell, if they have a plan at all it is a hodge podge mash of various ideas slapped together with a few more houses built here and there at the expense of environmental planning to glue the various bits of this bizarre looking mash together.
On e-tangata, an interview with the Green Party candidate for New Lynn:
“Leilani Tamu: Was John Key lying to us?”
Before she gets to talk about JK’s lies, Leilani describes her journey from being a PI-Māori Aucklander, growing up in a Pākehā education system, through learning the Māori and Pacific history of the country and region, to working for MFAT and McCully.
When Leilani and her husband hit hard times, he was driving a bus on minimum wage, and she saw a reality that was different from the brighter future John key was spinning.
Great read Carolyn_nth, thanks for the link.
.Good article and good on Leilani for getting active on the Left. One small point is that many thousands of us knew that Key was lying from day one and it is an indictment on how dumbed down we have become to the ravages of neoliberalism that the rest of NZ still can’t ( or don’t want to) see that.
Shonkey proved himself to be morally corrupt, but a good snake-oil salesman, all for the love of money.
OK Keyboard warriors. 177 days till the election. Labour want to be in a coalition with NZF and get Green Support. The MOU only lasts till Sept 23rd. Crazy strategy relying on Winston. I marvel at how easily the Left make assumptions of victory in the absence of any evidence. Do you not realise that National have planned the next 177 days carefully and that there will be a multiple carrots on offer. Labour’s best trick is to change leaders after June 23rd. Will it be Jacinda or Grant?
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: As was pointed out below, this was a blatant attempt at diversion (I was somewhat busy today). Banned for 2 weeks. If I have to ban you again for anything similar, it will be until 1 month after the election. ]
Meanwhile, is Judith going to make a last tilt at putting “PM” on her CV before the election, or will she be satisfied spending three years as a caretaker opposition leader after blinglish disappears?
I often hear Winston making statements supportive of the Government and how he could easily go into a coalition with National. Yeah right.
You’re in deep do-doo.
If you trust Winston then i have a bridge to sell you.
why not offer ten bridges ,
They’ve already done that and I’m sure that Northland are still wondering if they’re going to get them.
How’s the fishing going today Fizzy? Nice day for it?
Poor old, Act Party supporter, fisiani, goes on a lot of fishing expeditions, and seems to do very little catching, if any. His comments are meant to show there is conflict between Labour/Green and NZF, to me fisiani is just a sad comic.
If it’s a crazy strategy to be relying on Winston, that’s going to turn out badly for National, given they’ll need Winston to be in coalition with them.
@fizzy 8
Blatant attempt to derail, without reference to the post topic.
http://abc7news.com/politics/protesters-target-paypal-co-founder-peter-thiel-over-immigration/1797479/
How much has the NZ government paid out to Palantir for contracts with NZ Defence Force, the SIS and the GCSB? Matt Nippert has resorted to requesting the Ombudman to find the answer, despite the following BS statement:
https://www.ict.govt.nz/programmes-and-initiatives/open-and-transparent-government/
Also have a read of Felis Marwick’s opinion piece.
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/opinion/felix-marwick-no-sunlight-no-disinfectant-political-machinations-remain-behind-the-veil/
Completely off topic, but I saw this today… I wonder how many kiwis are affected by this… I know a few people who have had ‘weird’ power bills
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/hardware/millions-of-smart-meters-may-over-inflate-readings-by-up-to-600-percent/
“The study involved several tests conducted on nine different brands of “smart” meters, also referred to in the industry as “static energy meters.” Researchers also used one electromechanical meter for reference… Experiments went on for six months, with individual tests lasting at least one week, and sometimes several weeks. Test results varied wildly, with some meters reporting errors way above their disclosed range, going from -32% to +582%..”
It’s pretty thoroughly dealt with here http://www.ea.govt.nz/operations/retail/metering/
Don’t forget that the old ferranti style meters can misread too. They can slow – but they also can last 100 years
This old house is going and 17 units will be put in its place. Though that sounds positive the price for each will still be $700,000 so that volume and being on one location still can’t bring them within the reach of young hopefuls. Why can’t this be organised by the government. Low interest mortgages over 15 years or longer within the price range of a hard-working young couple. Come on Bill English take a laxative and get moving.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/90306690/Hamilton-1920s-home-to-be-demolished-to-make-way-for-17-new-houses
“It is in such a bad way inside, it was inevitable [it would go],” she said. “It’ll be sad, but it’s served its purpose.”
Yeoman Homes is the building contractor for the Ruakiwi Terraces project. Yeoman declined to name the owner of the property.
Managing director Andrew Yeoman said the homes will be worth around $700,000 each and include three bedrooms, two bathrooms and either a single or double garage.
Yeoman said the current house was investigated to see if it could be relocated, but it was too riddled with borer and rot to be able to be moved successfully.
Some of the materials are going to be recycled, he said.