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6:00 am, March 21st, 2022 - 45 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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https://twitter.com/TRyanGregory/status/1504433347631755268?cxt=HHwWiMC9nZWK6eApAAAA
As we rise to the news of the PM reviewing mandate, vaccine passes and the traffic light system, it's important to remember what we are actually dealing with, something that can't be wished away or put aside for the next political issue.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1502034441010569221.html
Pretty weird to see the PM referring solely to an upcoming IPCC report for the Parliamentary occupation.
It's Ardern's modus operandi to shut down or constrain reviews of anything that occurs on her watch: the Christchurch Massacre commission was remarkably narrow. Whereas things that are 'in the past' like abuse in care gets an incoherent and endless Royal Commission leading nowhere.
I wold have thought that something that was so offensive that the PM wouldn't even meet and actively shamed to make sure no other elected member would either, when they came by their hundreds to see her right at her place of work, was worth a bit more investigation. Wellington Council has a strong interest, as does the Speaker and Parliamentary Services, as does the DPMC security evaluation team, as does the SIS, as does the people of Wellington, as do we all.
We've gone from 'rivers of filth' and 'deep anti-semitism' to a tidy little report on prior Police planning decisions.
Clean, Labour, real clean.
Don't expect to see any mention of a bunch of fools ( one of whom died in Peka Peka of Covid afterwards) in any Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports.
You don't want a "tidy little report" but you want an investigation, a review?
What of? The whole shebang? Why? We saw what happened, we know what happened? Do you want it to go to the TMO to tell us all over again?
It should cover, at a minimum:
– Whole intelligence community warnings of what was being planned, and how the security apparatus reacted. Examination of how they were funded.
– What if anything could have been done better to decrease threat
– Parliamentary security arrangements, and Parliamentary recovery
– Some interviews with the protesters about force proportionality
– Wellington Council service impact
– How to react better next time: not hard to imagine protesters getting a few clues on how to be more effective.
I would rather concentrate on following up the funding means behind this enormous protest, if this ability to derive income to fund an illegal occupation was able to be investigated and therefore stopped …..we will be forearmed. We need to have a family tree of links between the orgs present and the people present and the funding flows.
Rather than force proportionate stuff, I think those of us who watched saw huge numbers of missiles thrown at the Police who just moved steadily in. The investigation of the links between this violent resistance and the steady Counterspin propaganda would be interesting. Also to see if riot police should be on hand at future large protests, were the police best equipped?
What part was played by having a headless entity, who do people talk to……it seemed to be a tactic that paralysed the usual means of dealing with protest groups.
Actually having written all this, I think the choice to have the low key investigation is the better idea. This was a relatively small group of malcontents whose voice was larger than its real influence. We need to ask about how they were policed and if this could be improved.
Out of this low key investigation we may get ideas for looking at other needs
I must say I'm so heartened to note how every one has now found how much they hate war.
So perhaps now we can pay attention to the victims of the Yemen war, and the deliberate starvation of Afghan children, the ongoing genocide in western Papua and the continued bombing of pensioners and children in eastern Ukraine?
Seeing as how we hate war and all.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2203/S00039/omg-war-is-kind-of-horrible.htm
What are people currently doing with their time if they are not growing sprouts on the kitchen bench ? People CHOOSE to spend their time in different ways. Of course you can try and ENCOURAGE them to take up hobby gardening but given the pressures of modern life they are still likely to prefer buying a finished product at a local shop that might not be more expensive. Cities have encouraged specialisation in activity for a reason. It generally is more efficient to focus on behaviour that you are good at than a range of activities that you might not be so great at.
[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.]
When I put water and seeds in a jar, and then the next day as I await some water boiling for a cup of tea, I change the sprout water… I often wish that I had a degree in sprout making. And many more hours for the water change.
Links you've not read, opinions that make no sense, on subjects you know nothing about. Supreme effort.
Remarkable things – sprouts in a jar. One tablespoon of seeds gives several cups of tasty, crunchy, nutritious sprouts in just a few days. Cheap and easy – what's not to like?
I'm not sure the anthropologists would agree with you entirely. Although it's true that specialist tailors, shoemakers, flint-knappers appeared very early (actually before cities as we understand them), this isn't the only thing they did. And sometimes it was a seasonal activity, after which they switched to something else.
Speculating here, but it seems to me that very narrow and permanent specialisation is probably the result of coercion of some sort. Most likely arising from the ability of some people to dominate others and command how their labour should be directed – like the contemporary employer-employee relationship.
To describe it as 'efficient' is therefore to take the perspective of the person who is in command and seeks to extract surpluses. For the person doing the work it may be unfulfilling and alienating, therefore inefficient in that sense.
I think if you can get people to engage in hobby farming more power to you. However it is unlikely to solve any climate problems as it is never going to have a significant impact on food production as it goes against some basic economic principles as I have pointed out. You would have more of an impact if you looked at how you could make mass produced food production more climate friendly than trying to massively increase local home grown produce.
[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.]
I AM suggesting solutions to tackling climate change. Focus on the big not the small. I am pointing out why it is better than focusing on the small.
[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.]
Leo Molloy's idea to get rid of undesirables in the city is to spray them with water.
He must share ideas with Trevor Mallard as that worked well in Wellington on the protestors.
Auckland Mayoral candidate Leo Molloy's 'inhumane' plan for 'undesirables' in Auckland CBD – NZ Herald
As an ex bankrupt that cost taxpayers/ird circa $450,000 (and DB about the same),what makes him think he has what it takes to be mayor of NZ's…. biggest city?
And a person who was frequently an asshole to his staff. He was certainly not a stranger to the Employment Tribunal when I worked there many years ago.
also this…and lots more…
[unlinked quote deleted]
I deleted your quote because it didn't have a link. If you can copy and paste a paragraph you can copy and past a URL.
Further, given we're talking potentially defamatory comments that put the site owners at risk, it's even more important that you post a link so we can see who is saying what and in what context.
At some point I will start banning people for this shit, especially repeat offenders. It's been said ad nauseum: if you copy and past you have to link, every time.
Who gets to define "undesirables"? Might someone take a firehose into the Northern Club and sluice it clean of years of accreted privilege?
This is where the Government needs to be putting education resourcing – not on tweaking the curriculum to include NZ history and digital literacy.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/the-education-hub-report-exposes-crisis-in-literacy-in-aotearoa/5I3FPLAP64J22J3U4C6CD6NTX4/?c_id=1&objectid=12512233&ref=rss
The Education Ministry (from whom the Government are taking advice) simply will not admit there is a problem with the whole 'balanced literacy' approach – which is still being taught in Teacher training as the default method. Despite decades of evidence that it simply does not work for a significant minority of children.
If you cannot read – or are functionally illiterate (that is, you can read your name, and a few words, but can't decode and comprehend a basic sentence) then you are set up to fail in the schooling system, and in most jobs.
This is a problem (kids not learning to read through the 'balanced learning' approach) which affects all socio-economic groups in NZ. However, the rich can contract out of under-performing public schools – either by using private schools, or supplementing with tutors. Poor families don't have those alternatives.
Certainly isn't new
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/84820782/twothirds-of-prisoners-cant-do-everyday-literacy-tasks
Couple this with deafness. Then you have the perfect chicken/egg situation. Then add non diagnosis/remedying of such easy to fix health problems as glue ear and the insertion of grommets…….
https://www.audiology.org.nz/news/could-a-hearing-check-help-prisoners-reintegrate-into-society/
Agreed
to which I would add
and life in general'
And to add the point I have been banging on about vis a vis the protesters and some of the anti vaxxers, it won't enable you to be aware of when people are trying to scam you of money or your commonsense.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/russia-ukraine-war-mariupol-residents-forcibly-taken-across-border-to-russia/7W7NGNLXOWXDDXUT7BD55WHMIA/
The taking of documents prevents any of them getting out of Russia and also intimidates them from speaking out.
Misidentification of Victims under International Criminal Law: An Attempted Offence?
https://academic.oup.com/jicj/article/15/2/291/3611533
Russia is identifying itself as an international criminal.
Russia firing of thermobaric rockets
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/russia-ukraine-war-mariupol-residents-forcibly-taken-across-border-to-russia/7W7NGNLXOWXDDXUT7BD55WHMIA/
Splitters eliminated:
Most of the parties affected were small, but one of them, the Opposition Platform for Life, has 44 seats in the 450-seat Ukrainian parliament.
The political move comes as Zelenskiy aims to further assert his influence over the country’s media sphere. On Sunday, the Ukrainian leader signed a decree that aims to unite all national TV channels into one platform, citing the importance of a “unified information policy” under martial law.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/20/ukraine-suspends-11-political-parties-with-links-to-russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_Platform_%E2%80%94_For_Life
Yeah, been wondering when that was going to happen. It is a pretty routine part of the martial law provisions in any country (including NZ). It will be interesting to see what the position of their equivalent of a wartime Ministry of Information will be. Stupid and single message as the Russians (I believe that the only journo they have at the front is Chinese). Or something different.
The initial shock has been handled. Now the Ukrainians are settling into a long painful conflict posture. The front-line cities have already been bled and blasted. The enemy has been mostly halted and bled out of an ability to advance. A quarter of the Ukrainian population has been displaced.
The room for negotiation is now going to narrow from the Ukrainian side.
Two whole hours since I posted it & still nobody drawing an analogy to Hitler 1934. But yeah, a temporary situation due to martial law. He could try a bit of overt reassurance to help the paranoid do a bit of reframing, perhaps:
"Look, I know these 11 parties are a bunch of real cool dudes (& dudesses) but we need strength in unity at present. Think of it as a temporary suspension of democracy until peace breaks out, okay?"
I d refer you to Oswald Mosley in 1940 rather than Hitler in 1934 after all they are in a hot war.
It looks like a week of rained out, or rain impacted games, to conclude the One Day cricket World Cup.
South Africa (4 wins) only need only one rained out or drawn (not completed game) of their last 3 games to qualify. So look certainties.
That leaves Windies (3 and possible 5 wins), India and England (each 2 and possible 4 wins) to contemplate which has the best venue and weather forecast combination.
At least the long range forecast for the semi-finals and final looks good.
I'm tired of this weka.
With odd comments and people just out right ignoring reality, it's tiresome.
We have a problem and whilst most of us want to make it better we can not.
No I'm not saying it's hopeless. BUT!
The military, the US military are doing more damage in a day, than what any of us could cause in a life time. Yemen, Ukraine, Iraq, and almost half of Africa are in conflict.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-currently-at-war
Until we stop the war machine, we are not stopping this, and anything we do, is all but pointless.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-military-planet-earths-greatest-enemy-abby-martin/279768/
[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.]
Ok, so stop the war machine is your suggestion. How? (Not a challenge, a genuine appeal for ideas.)
If you were saying "I don't know what to do", I'd have left your comment under the post. But you're not, you're actually saying nothing can be done. I said I won't have denialism under those posts. Not because you are wrong (although I think you are), but because what you bring to the conversation inhibits change. And we simply cannot afford this now.
If you cannot see how Just Transition increases our chances of ending war, I think you truly have some blinders on. I'm sorry for that, I see it very differently.
I'm calling bullshit on that. No I am not saying nothing can be done. I'm saying what needs to be done.
The US military has had all sorts of exclusion from international debates on this topic. The last Glasgow forum was a classic example – not one measure against the worlds biggest carbon burner. Not bloody one! And the US won't even come to the table if the military is talked about.
And you say I'm the one with blinkers on.
The quickest and most effective change we can instigate, is to stop the burning of carbon from a out of control military.
Awesome thoughts!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/02/10/army-military-green-climate-strategy/
A puff piece supporting the war machine
Sheesh dude anything better?
And next time if you going to link something, can it be so I can read it full screen rather than having to scroll through a million adds?
Chill, dude, change the settings on your device or your browser (no, it’s not those bushy bits above your eyes). Did you count them all – you must scroll really fast?
Didn’t like the message, did you, because it doesn’t fit neatly into your narrative?
No wonder your comment got moved to OM.
No I did not like the message from the post, as I'm not a militarist, who jerks off on war.
Ok, I took the "all but pointless' but to mean nothing can be done. But if you mean that there's not point in working on other aspects of the long emergency until we address the Russian war on Ukraine, you still didn't say what can be done right not.
Yep, everyone has their reckons. I'm much more interested in what can be done, right now.
Solutions in the long emergency by necessity come in multiple, interlocking dynamics. So yes, that war is a driver of both climate change and climate precarity is important, and there are lots of things there that need to be addressed.
But if we put other things aside, in NZ, and don't work on climate change apart from addressing war, another five years go by and we're still all driving round in cars and happy with our imported food and lifestyles supported by highly polluting industries.
Sorry, but this is exactly the thinking that causes climate catastrophe in the first place. We have to address all the things, the interlocking things, not pick out the biggest and say oh let's do that and ignore the others. That's like saying NZ shouldn't bother about our emissions and we should focus on the US or China instead, as if all the small countries combined don't have serious GHG emissions problems.
It's not that you think stopping war is important, it's that you came into a post about action, slagged everyone off as if you know best, and then proceeded to tell us what we should be doing. You can think and act that way, you just can't do it under a post that is trying to create alternatives to that approach.
You what now? I was talking about the worlds largest carbon burner, the US military.
So the US military is not in any international agreements to limit it consumption, is that not a problem right now? Are you happy to let them role on being the massive problem they are, and not even talk about it? So if we fix all you say, and the US military keeps doing what it's doing, we are screwed.
I agree we need to be doing a lot of things, but not holding the US military to account is a very serious mistake. Abby Martin and others have put out a lot of information out on this – see my original link. Have you even looked at the data?
For me stopping war is secondary, stopping the exploding militarism, and expansion of US military – with it's Africa adventure at the forefront of most peoples minds, is what I want stopped right now. That is where the problem lies, not so directly in war, but in the war machine.
I'm not upset by being moved off your post, your post, your way. I forgot you don't like the hyperbolized rhetoric I'm prone to – on your posts, and for that I apologise. I'll stick to open mic.
The truth will out but they got what they wanted I suppose
Miranda Devine. I wondered where she got to. A great Aussie export.
A US military think-tank features in-depth strategic analysis here: https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-march-20
What sanctions did we place on the United States and its henchmen following the destruction of Iraq, Libya, and Yemen?
[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.]