Support Access Alliance presentation at Parliament
On September 4 the Access Alliance (of which DPA is a member organisation) will gather at Parliament to present Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni with a giant-sized version of a booklet full of stories from the disability community.
These are stories about access barriers which an Accessibility Act could help to remove. We are calling on Minister Sepuloni to listen to our stories and to prioritise accessibility legislation within this Parliamentary term.
The alliance has been working hard to make sure that your stories and your support for an Accessibility Act are reaching the decision-makers in Parliament. For over a year campaigners from the disability community have been busy meeting with their MPs, sharing their stories, and explaining why we need an accessibility law at the heart of a more inclusive Aotearoa. Others have been meeting with Ministers and starting to figure out how the Access Alliance can work together with our elected representatives to co-design this new law.
The presentation on September 4 is a chance to celebrate the progress we’ve made to date, but also a call for our Minister for Disability Issues to tell us how she will ensure that this law is prioritised within this term of Government.
Accessibility Legislation would ensure everyone benefits from an accessible NZ – it would be great to have lots of people at Parliament to show just how important we believe this is.
When: Tuesday 4 September, arrive at 11am – finished by 12pm
Where: Outdoors on Parliament Lawn, by the Seddon Statue – enter from Molesworth St
The event will be NZSL interpreted and the spot where we are gathering is wheelchair-accessible. Please email Áine Kelly-Costello at akelly-costello@blindfoundation.org.nz if you will be driving and need a Mobility carpark as Parliament Security have advised that these are limited.
Even if you can’t be there on the day, please click here to add your name to the booklet to support prioritising accessibility legislation. The same form will also ask you to RSVP if you can make it.
The presentation will be streamed live on the Access Matters Facebook page from 11:30am.
Every now and then, Don of the Deadbrains slips up and accidentally dishes out advice worth acting on. In one of his recent sprays of shitter-twitter he said “Study the late Joseph McCarthy”. You should. You really should, in order to understand who and what is the new McCarthy and the new McCarthyism. This Politico piece summarises it.
Interesting indeed. So the link, Roy Cohn: “he died from AIDS as a man who denied to the end that he was gay”. Populism being the cultural relevance, that tertiary part of the political terrain that the binary left/right frame can’t explain.
From the viewpoint of trying to work towards a more inclusive accepting society, it always bothers me that Cohn’s sexuality and public denial of it always takes a prominent place in pieces about Cohn. Yet it’s crucial to the understanding the power of othering, understanding Cohn’s use of othering, and I’ll guess his fear of it being applied to him.
Rachel Stewart continued.
“Anything to say @BeefLambNZ about feedlots, and how we’ve suddenly turned into America? You knew. Why didn’t everybody else?“
And Jonathan Maze added.
“Unbelievable, I had no idea this awful kind of “farming” was happening in NZ..”
Retail brand is Wakanui Beef – this is the About page:
Wakanui:
Grass-fed and Grain-finished Beef
The Wakanui story begins on pristine, New Zealand pastures and ends on your plate with unrivalled succulence, flavour and melt-in-the-mouth texture.
After grazing free range on lush, green pastures for 18 months, only the best cattle are hand selected to be grain finished for approximately 75 days at Five Star Beef, under wide Wakanui skies, refreshed by breezes straight off the Pacific Ocean.
With a crystal clear artesian water supply and Mid Canterbury grown GMO-free wheat, barley and maize silage, this unique combination of nature and nurture creates truly premium beef.
Aged for a minimum of 21 days, Wakanui’s unparallelled flavour, distinctive marbling and fine texture will delight your palate.
What’s more, we’ve mastered the ability to deliver this mouth watering beef consistently all year round.
The marketing and reality seem slightly divorced from each other, maybe?
Stockists to avoid (or not) I’ve made a copy in case some businesses unexpectedly disappear – especially the restaurants: http://www.wakanuibeef.co.nz/stockists
What do the cows say? Bet no one has even asked them:
“If you knew that the whole raison d’etre of your existence was to be barbecued by James, rate your happiness on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is ‘delirious with joy’ and 1 is ‘a bit miffed'”.
Last night I searched for an audio link to put up here of the Federated Farmers reply to the accusation of bad farming but RNZ only had the one about SAFE.
I put up the link to the page which had an onsite link but thought it interesting that this large and important body (Fed Farmers) wasn’did not have full audio coverage.
This is very much a knee jerk reaction, these cattle are having their needs met, warm and dry, not knee deep in mud, correct nutrition adequate vitamins and minerals as opposed to grass fed animals, not being fed toxic members of the cabbage family.
Worm free without having to be drenched.
Effluent collected and composted not leeching into aquifers.
What will be next horses in stables dogs in kennels.
Are you conditioned by looking after others in confined conditions? Perhaps it has blunted your sensivities Psych Nurse. These animals would be safe and happy in a fenced paddock, no need to keep them confined and standing disconsolately waiting for something to eat besides mud porridge, with dainty blades of grass occasionally.
Peter Dunne on MPs pay: set it at the start of a parliamentary term, to remain at that level until the next term. Damn good idea. He told the AM show that the current level is about right. Retired, he can afford to be honest about that…
Retired from the position of leader of a party with a caucus of one, with a significantly enhanced pay package from that “leadership” position.
But yeah, he’s right. Set what it’s going to be pre-election and fix it for the term. Preferably also tie it to a measure of pay relevant to the population as a whole, such as some multiple of the 25th percentile income.
Govt will be revising the way the remuneration authority does its thing apparently, so your suggestion may get taken up. I agree it ought to be related to some kind of indicator of the average income (agnostic on how to do that).
True. Entitlements are residue of empire & patriarchy, best eliminated. Can’t expect women to take a political stand on this. Too subtle. Female politicians probably enjoy the perks of office as much as males.
I was hoping to flush out a bunch of female deniers to liven up the day. Reckon it’ll work? If I’d just framed it as a privileged institutional thing, people would get bored to death.
That women haven’t been targeting the residual patriarchy for removal. Last time I pointed that out onsite here it was in relation to the judiciary & got total denial in response (mostly via evasion of the point).
Anyone who has spent most of their life watching the progressive trend toward liberation of the human spirit in general, and the feminist project as in integral part of that, is keenly aware of the part of the establishment that has yet to be rectified.
So I’ve spent years expecting feminists to get the job done. Don’t get complacent due to perception of victory when it’s mostly done. If they can see the glass ceiling, how come they can’t see the most entrenched parts of the patriarchy??
Have enjoyed all your contributions so far, Dennis, but it does appear to me that this time you picked out only feminist MPs when criticising a fault applying to all MPs.
Seems to me a perception thing, In Vino. Media reports of women pointing out the glass ceiling effect have been a continual stream in recent years, and I haven’t noticed any of those interviewed ask for male help to rectify the problem.
Their confidence that the feminist project can succeed via the solidarity of women is not misplaced, imo. Sharing that confidence, I’ve wondered why they don’t also target other manifestations of the residual patriarchy. Of course men ought to help co-create the equity required.
No. Just my way of alerting all to the prolonged perpetuation of the ancient privilege system integral to democracy. It was good to see feminism breach the ramparts back in the day, but I kinda get the impression that there’s a `job done’ syndrome at play. Delusion, not reality.
Oh for goodness sake! You show no understanding of the breadth and depth of feminist thought, politics and activism.
If they can see the glass ceiling, how come they can’t see the most entrenched parts of the patriarchy??
Citations needed of such a reduction of the state of feminism to be in the least bit credible. Who is this “they”? You write as if feminists are a collective, hive mind focusing on one symptom of patriarchy. That may be true of liberal/capitalist feminists as favoured by the mainstream, corporate media.
But feminism is wide ranging. There have been many theorists, like bell hooks, Sheila Rowbottham, and many more who examined the deep-rooted and all-pervasive nature of patriarchy.
And many activists have been informed by their work – in campaigning against sexual and domestic violence (very successful from setting up refuges and putting the issue on the agenda), to feminists working within unions for low paid and precarious workers, to the African American women who first coined the term “intersectionality” to explain the complex nature of their oppression, to women working to change the nature of western political and other institutions.
Back to the point: lack of feminist political action to eliminate the entrenched privilege-based residual patriarchy. Why this lack? The problem will persist until the solution is applied…
I’m not into being distracted from the point I’m making – it’s too important to allow that. Others may find such digressions informative, I understand that. Just not me.
Back to the point: lack of feminist political action to eliminate the entrenched privilege-based residual patriarchy. Why this lack? The problem will persist until the solution is applied…
The only point you’re making is one disparaging liberal feminists for being liberal feminists in a liberal environment, while denying that any other strand of feminism exists.
You’re saying that the politics of MPs, who obviously accept the political environment they operate within to varying degrees, are the only possible or imaginable politics people can have.
It’s you who says it is lacking. That doesn’t make it so. If you’ve got your head in the sand, and only take the surface of corporate media as your main source, I can’t help you.
For a start: there’s Sue Bradford who has been fighting patriarchy and capitalism from within many campaigns for decades.
There’s Elizabeth Warren – famous for “she persisted” as a feminist rallying cry- and go read Ad’s post on her today.
There’s Metiria Turei who go crucified by our mainstream media, and those from within the entrenched capitalist-patriarchal system.
If you can’t help with the enormous task of tackling patriarchy, throwing stones from the shadows does nothing to shed light on the situation.
I’m helping by specifying the entrenched part of the problem, in the hope that the governmental review of the MPs remuneration body will not allow it to persist.
Everything else you mention here is irrelevant to that. Privilege-based perks must be eliminated. MPs have no valid basis for retaining them.
So mps travelling around the country on parliamentary business shouldn’t have travel costs provided, and the fact those travel costs are still provided is the fault of feminist inaction?
They get so much money they can fund their travel costs & still be wealthy. It would incentivise them to restrict travel to only that which is necessary. Same as the rest of us.
So you are saying that “the women” – cause feminism – should refuse the perks the men have enjoyed ever since, cause feminism?
Really?
So you are saying your wife should get paid less then her male counterpart cause feminism?
How about you write a concerned letter to all the men, – current and retired – that enjoy benefits that they are entitled to for nothing more then sitting in parliament getting done fuck all – Bill English, Peter Fucking Dunne, The Hologram Syemor, No Bridges Simon, Nick Smith, Shane Jones, etc – to rescind their perks for the better of the country and while you are at it, ask them to forgo pay increases until every worker in NZ is at the very least on a minimum wage.
Do not ask the women to forgo what men take for granted.
No, I’m not saying any of that. I’m advocating for the removal of the privilege-based part of parliamentary democracy. The status quo provides those perks due to tradition, which derives from the patriarchy. It ought to be a job like any other. Do you really believe parliamentarians are a caste above us?
Dear, they are a caste above us.
As are the overpaid bobbleheads in the media – print, radio, TV.
The overpaid cops, the overpaid lawyers, overpaid Winz workers, ACC Case workers etc etc etc. In short anyone who can affect your life without a care and a thought. .
Even the white people in this country are in a caste above brown people.
Men are in a caste above women and children.
To repeat:
It is not the womens job to clean up after men, it is not the womens job to refuse a perk, a pay, a benefit that men would never refuse just to satisfy your need for purity.
It is the womens job to look after themselves, create happiness and a fulfilled life after their own desires, not bound by obsolete ideas of yesteryears or the needs of lazy men.
True. So all those women in parliament who do, how do you feel about their reluctance to admit that they are colluding with paternalism by not opposing the privileges granted them by the residual patriarchy?
I’m not blaming them for enjoying the baubles of office. They’re being pragmatic in accepting what the system provides. However, along with current enjoyment of the perks, why not organise collectively to eliminate them?
Parliamentary representation ought to be a job like any other. I don’t see any merit in continuance of a privilege ranking system. Other hierarchies have been eliminated in the past 20 or 30 years (corporations, mostly). Time for that to happen in governance.
Dude, I’m concerned that you are creating a debate out of gender. Something I won’t buy into.
If you want to talk about MP’s collectively, then am happy to engage. But I’m not into gender division in this instance because it totally misses the point and is not needed.
Bullshit. And I’m not here to build up any sort of capital. Sexism is your subjective impression – nothing to do with me. Collusion exists and operates tacitly. It will continue to operate until folks become aware of it. To solve this problem, one must first point it out. Shooting the messenger is just another form of denial.
Not just that. The whole point of operating as a social catalyst is to energise consciousness-raising towards the collaborative solving of the target problem. Whatever rhetorical devices are used in the process, the trick is to get the process happening. Human nature to get distracted onto the personalities involved, but eventually people realise it’s better to play the ball than the man.
When everyone does so, the game of politics deepens into collective problem-solving. Some players may remain frivolous (distracted by irrelevancies) but group psychodynamics gell most of them into a task force. Can take years, but someone has to do it (to actualise the progressive agenda, actions replacing words).
Thanks for ignoring decades and of collective and widespread feminist effort, and, on the basis of no real research, coming here to tell feminists what we have been doing wrong.
Lol sure – you thought you were in control but your ‘authority’ is in your own head – on here you have what you say. And you said it didn’t you? Collusion is your term and your issue – look in the mirror fella.
I have no control or authority on this issue, Marty. I’m puzzled as to why you think I do. Those two things are elements of the privilege-based part of parliamentary democracy that I’m advocating the removal of!
The collusion problem is tacit. All who support the status quo have that collusion operating in the unconscious part of their psyche. To solve the problem, first they must be made aware of it.
Okay I’ll leave it. I think the way you raised this issue was inflammatory and provocative – I felt sad and let down by you for doing that. Just so unnecessary to raise any issue by offending groups of people especially groups marginalisd by the system you get advantage from just by being male – it actually nuliffies any point being made. Surprised that you seem surprised by this – you have strong experience – probably made it worse imo.
I understand. People react on a feelings basis to the written word and sometimes the reactions baffle me but I realise that different generational perspectives drive this stuff. Plus the personal histories of other commentators creating a subjective stance too.
Dennis
You may be partly right but once you underrate the effort that women have put in to improve their position then the irritation grows.
It has been a hard slog and that should not be forgotten even if more could have been done at some stage or another. It’s better to remember there are plenty of other issues that are waiting.
Ok, In Vino, why not consider how you would feel if, after supporting women’s liberation your entire adult life, someone called you a misogynist. Why would you decide it appropriate to allow them to get away with misrepresenting you??
Dennis
I know just how to answer that one and drop myself in it.
You are talking about women and who can understand them, you just have to love them.
And of course there is a unisex fit to that argument; turn it round and it applies to men. There just has to be a limit to the foibles and faults that each gender will put up with, so there will be further opportunities to write another chapter of Arms and the Woman.
I don’t know all the past history, Dennis. It just seems to me that you provoked all this by singling out feminists at the start, when your question should have applied to all beneficiaries or bludgers or whatever we like to call them – regarding parliamentary perks.
Consider: the active substance in 1080 is produced by some plants as a natural defence against grazing animals, and breaks down in soil due to a variety of naturally occurring organisms.
Consider also: my property and neighbouring properties are heavily affected by kauri dieback, yet 1080 has not been used in the area within the past several decades, if ever.
Isnt most 1080 distributed in ‘bait traps’ , and only a few areas is it spread by airdrops by helicopter ?
How does it affect roots when its not spread over the forest floor. of course possums are responsible for their own tree diebacks
Dunno what the breakdown is between bait traps and aerial dropping, or if the different application methods have different effects on the forest floor.
But my folks’ farm has a decent-size bush block with kauri and no evidence of die-back, and there’s been plenty of 1080 poison in bait stations around that bush block over the last three decades.
So that’s two points of anecdata, my place with lots of dieback and no 1080, and my folks with lots of 1080 and no dieback.
Hey, maybe 1080 is actually a good prophylactic for kauri against dieback, so we should just chuck tons of it around willy-nilly all through kauri forests to protect the kauri. /sarc
1080 mimics the poisons produced by some plant species, it is deadly to animals, and birds are less affected, though their low body mass means they die anyway.
Strictly speaking phytophthora is not a fungus. Its cell walls are made of different materials than fungus cell walls. It’s possibly called a water mould because on a macro scale it looks and acts like a fungus.
Fungal disease is a fair description of its effects, and gives some idea of what treatment might be required. It is likely susceptible to heavy metal poisoning of the sort created by Bordeaux mixture, though that is a temporary solution, and silver compounds are vastly more mycotoxic. More promising long term solutions lie in competitive or inoculating fungal treatments.
As I understand it, the treatment being trialled to try to slow* the disease (and I’ve applied to the kauri at my place) is borrowed from the avocado industry for managing their phytophtora problems. I’m not aware of it being used for fungal problems, but that’s way outside my expertise, so my lack of awareness doesn’t mean anything. The treatment is injecting a phosphite solution into the trunk using spring-loaded syringes.
* It’s not a cure. At best using this treatment will buy time until an actual cure is found.
The concentration of 1080 in each pellet has reduced over recent decades and so has the amount of pellets per hectare. So I think we would have seen an obvious problem much earlier if there was a link.
Also like Andre says, there are going to be quite a few areas with dieback that have never been anywhere near 1080. In the scheme of things I think it is only used on something like 2% of DOC land.
Flag-worshipping, saluting, camouflage gear on the sidelines, jets flying over the stadium: Why don’t sports organizations just ban these goons altogether?
“The dire prospect that opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana republic where the army will have more and more importance in Americans’ lives… [D]emocracy is the special condition – a condition we will be called upon to defend in the coming years. That will be enormously difficult because the combination of the corporation, the military, and the complete investiture of the flag with mass spectator sports has set up a pre-fascistic atmosphere in America already.”
What would they do without Bread and Circuses. it worked since the times of the Roman. Also i find it funny that those that have never served, have managed to dodge the draft not once but several times are often the loudest patriots.
The last refuge of the scoundrel is patriotism.
And also the machine needs to recruit its Kanonenfutter, how else to feed the bank accounts if no one wants to do the dying?
Very true, Sabine. I note that we are following this dishonorable practice in N.Z.—one Willie Apiata was featured visiting the All Blacks’ dressing rooms during the last RWC.
“His character, Cassius “Cash” Green, a low-level telemarketer, learns that, in order to succeed at work, he has to put on a white voice. This does not mean a nasal affectation, along the lines of that corny old nerdy-voice stereotype that mid-level black comedians do. It means putting into your voice an embrace of the ease that white privilege brings. It means sounding as if you’re entitled to the good life. It means feeling calm way down in your soul. It means never having to be afraid someone will call the police on you just because you’re breathing.”
This seems awesome – What do current resident dunner commenters think? As a mosgiel/dunners boy I love strong community iniatives from the south. I hope this is all that.
“After almost five years of planning, work is set to start soon on Dunedin’s first co-housing project.
Run by Urban Cohousing Otepoti Ltd, it will provide more than 60 residents with shared spaces and 22 units.”
‘The South African government has begun the process of seizing land from white farmers.
Local newspaper City Press reports two game farms in the northern province of Limpopo are the first to be targeted for unilateral seizure after negotiations with the owners to purchase the properties stalled.’
Can’t see how this will end up anyway different to Zimbabwe
“A businessman who liquidated his company after being fined almost $430,000 for exploitation has become personally liable for the $120,000 outstanding.
The Employment Relations Authority joined Jujhar Singh to his previous company, Binde Enterprises, after a Labour Inspectorate investigation found the company owed 75 workers on a vegetable farm in the Bombay Hills nearly $210,000 in wages.”
They’re finally cracking down after years of doing SFA (even when they get evidence and witnesses handed to them on a plate).
I’d suggest Jujhar Singh spend a little more time at the temple reacquainting himself with a few values.
It’s good to see a more victims prepared to come forward in the knowledge that something might actually be done.
A friend took a trip and commented that the organisers said to stand near the buffet table while there was a pre-eats welcome or the food would be gone before getting to the table. This was the case, and it brought to mind how those
very fast and thorough clearers made their money. It could be imagined that they grabbed all they could from some industry they controlled.
The aristos said let them eat cake; the nouveau riche think, what the heck I’ll take all I want and if others miss out, hard luck.
If I was the existing leader of a ruling political party and I didn’t have the primary support of 35 out of 83 of my followers, then I’d be very concerned. This ballot reconfirmed his leadership- it wasn’t a new ballot with new contenders. One of the contenders was the incumbent. Turnbull did declare the leadership vacant but 42% preferring another candidate is a sign of a large internal dissatisfaction. 58% of his party MPs supported him. Less than 6 out of ten.
Then the loser doesn’t pledge his loyalty having lost- he resigns from cabinet, rather than work with Turnbull, or was it to avoid the risk of sacking by a wrathful Turnbull?
My take is that Turnbull is spooked by current polling. The other dork thought it was a good time to strike but got proved wrong. Labour will win an Oz election held in both short & medium term, eh? So the dork will wait & strike again when Turnbull gets defeated. Is there a better contender who could defeat the dork?
Even the Greens in Australia have serious infighting that would be unthinkable for the Greens in NZ.
The point is, all politics in Australia is highly personal, where its me me me.
Im just surprised some here get caught up in all the hype and what it means when they should see it all in context.
Yes Dutton is doing exactly what his mentor Abbott did; skive off to the back bench and engage in a guerrilla war with Turnbull.
No-one is happy with the state of Australian politics at the moment; in the past decade all three of the major parties have sustained damage over illegal immigration and climate change. It’s taken a rough toll on everyone, even the Greens have taken a few dents.
Business leaders are pretty pissed off with the lack of clear policy, and overhearing two conversations this afternoon (if either can be considered representative) many ordinary voters are discomforted by the lack of any credible visible leadership.
And after their last performance in power, no-one here should crowing about the prospect of the ALP forming a government … the underlying tensions have not gone away.
No many thought not having the support of your caucus colleges was an issue here during the cunners comedy hour I think Cunliffe would have been estatic with those percentages
Not many thought not having the support of your caucus colleges was an issue here during the cunners comedy hour I think Cunliffe would have been estatic with those percentages
Fifty years ago Russia and their Warsaw Pact allies put a stop to the Prague Spring reforms that included giving citizens the opportunity of self determination, free travel, ending censorship of the press, and political surveillance by the secret police.
A crude and ignorant bully, this blustering ex-copper was firmly put in his place one day by fellow Panelist Gordon Campbell. Sadly, few others have been brave enough to take him on….
Dismal Panel Guests is a compilation of the worst guests to appear on RNZ National’s light chat show over the last thirteen or so years. It is compiled by Hector Stoop for Daisycutter Sports, Inc.
Not a bad idea (for starters)
Maybe bring them back when senior management / CEOs actually start performing (or not), instead of running Ministries and Departments like their own little feifdoms.
Can anyone think of a Ministry or Department that’s actually been run well over the past decade?
Most public servants work in spite of their senior management masters rather than because of them.
In the Newshub story on this in tonight’s news, Hipkins was asked if he thought departmental CEO salaries were okay. His reply: “They’re being paid what they’re being paid.” Such brilliance sets an extremely high bar for other government ministers to measure up to, let alone the poor CEOs. The rocket science industry will be dead keen to recruit him asap.
Dennis, I think you should be careful about using rocket scientists as a benchmark for brilliance. What happens if we are inflicted with the presence of a rocket scientist who is clearly stupid?
The default exemplar for “clever” used to be “brain surgeon”. But then Dr Ben Carson came along. He was one of the dimmest of the dim bulbs that ran, or more accurately sleepwalked, for the 2016 Republican nomination. He was allegedly, you may remember, a brain surgeon.
Hipkins might be fucking up bigtime, but if Ben Carson is any yardstick, he probably would be good enough to be a brain surgeon, if not a rocket scientist.
I think Peter Sellers actually played that part quite straight.
When I see people from Trump’s cabinet of grotesques on the television occasionally, Dr. Strangelove appears by comparison comfortingly sane and rational.
Jenny, that report is written by the notorious Danny Gold, who files stories from Jerusalem about “contested” neighborhoods. He is dodgy, and if you were smart, you would have nothing to do with his work.
Sobering statement from the herald on socialism when it goes wrong and the money runs out
“Venezuela was once among Latin America’s most prosperous nations, holding the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but a recent fall in oil prices accompanied by corruption and mismanagement under two decades of socialist rule have left the economy in a historic economic and political crisis.”
OK Ed … I spent much of the first six months of this year working alongside some colleagues from Colombia. (A really interesting and deeply underrated Latin nation.). Their response to anything to do with Venezuela was quite different from the torpor you affect.
Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Albania, Cuba, and now Venezuela … there is always an excuse for the humiliating, catastrophic failure. ‘It wasn’t proper communism’, ‘ the leaders were corrupt’, ‘ the reactionary pigs sabotaged us’, ‘the capitalist running dogs …’ and on and on.
Always the same bloodless denial of anything wrong with the fundamental idea of unconstrained marxism.
Colombia has it’s own problems. If you imagine I’m ignorant of them, then you were not with me at the plant I was at last year, pock-marked by rebel bullets and guarded by armed platoons 24 hrs per day. But there is way more to the country than drug lords, death squads and gross inequality. Like most developing nations it’s changing for the better, and while it’s patchy and messy as always … it’s not the place it was even a decade ago.
Unlike Venezuela which from the conversations I had with one man, whose home is not too far from the border, what’s happening is not pretty. Yes I’m sure black propaganda exists; but not in a vacuum. When you hear first hand stories from people affected it’s not so easy to dismiss them with ‘zzzz’s.
Great, RedLogix. You seem to be a serious and astute judge of the situation.
I do disagree, though, with your statement: “I’m sure black propaganda exists; but not in a vacuum.” As we have seen with the baseless, fantastical attacks against Jeremy Corbyn, black propaganda is often a tissue of lies, with no link to reality.
If Corbyn got his hand on the levers of power in the Uk for 20 years it to would mirror Venezuela. Note the herald just sums up the impact of socialist and Marxist economics and societies over the last 100 years History tells you that as does redlogix highlights May I suggest your additional reading is just to find something to deny the obvious and support your fragile beliefs in a totally discredited ideaology
Tough my friend, i suggest you need to read more widely and far more critically You appear to read only what satisfies an extremely lop sided view of reality
I disagree Bewildered. Corbyn is not a marxist revolutionary; in a historic context he’s pretty much a middle of the road post-war leftie. While the Overton window shunted right-wards during the 80’s and 90’s, Corbyn wedged firmly in his rather moderate 70’s political space.
Fair enough maybe Venezuela is a stretch but 1970s Britain was not to flash, it led to the rise of Thatcher that managed to turn the uk fortunes around
‘The United States was the first country to recognize the independence of the nascent republic, sending the U.S. Navy to prevent Colombia from retaking the territory during the first days of the new Republic. In exchange for its role in defending the Republic, and for constructing the canal, the U.S. was granted a perpetual lease on the land around the canal, known as the Panama Canal Zone, which was later returned to Panama under the terms of the Torrijos–Carter Treaties.’-wiki
As I said before, you’re an idiot. The Herald is the LAST publication anyone with an I.Q. above room temperature, never mind a conscience, would trust. It’s been delinquent for many generations….
Published in 1942, John Gunther’s Inside Latin America described Venezuela fifteen years into the oil boom. Because of the obstructionism and feudal social systems of the landed classes, the land-owners had refused to modernise production methods, preferring cheap and plentiful labour, and when the poor fled the countryside to work in and around the oil-fields, domestic production collapsed.
Consequently, Caracas had the highest cost of living in the world with food prices typically 20-30 times higher than in the US because most food, along with almost every other sort of goods, was imported, heavily taxed, and levied with tariffs to prop up the local agricultural sector.
And despite the astronomical oil revenues earned by the ruling classes since the twenties, Venezuela at the time had no industrial base.
That scenario is indeed typical of almost all Latin American countries in the post-war era, extremes of inequality, ossified hierarchies and entrenched oligarchs. Often propped up by a malign dominance of US interest in the region. All this is understood.
But does anyone try to justify the horrors of Stalinist Russia by pointing to the feudal backwardness of Czarist Russia?
RedLogix, there is no comparison between Stalinist Russia and democratic Venezuela. For any person to suggest there was a comparison would put that person into the realm of such intellectual luminaries and conspiracy theorists as Leighton Smith and Alex Jones.
Comparison’s are never exact; yet certain patterns do emerge. Venezuela is probably a good example of what happens when entrenched inequality outstays the capacity of the dispossessed to tolerate it, and the reaction instead of evolving incrementally, kicks over the existing order with poor regard to what does and does not work.
Whether revolutions are triggered by force or ballot box isn’t really germane to the outcome. The historic context is different so I don’t imagine Venezuela will descend into the nightmare of the gulags, although the risk isn’t non-zero. The fact is the country we’re talking about has not seen it’s ‘democratic socialist revolution’ usher in a new era of prosperity and contentment.
What will most likely happen is that after a period of turmoil lasting perhaps a decade or so, and if they manage to retain some form of democratic accountability , they’ll move toward more moderate political settings.
The Venezuelan government is democratic. It’s been under sustained assault from Colombia and the United States, aided and abetted by the implacable Venezuelan extreme right wing oligarchies, for almost two decades now. There was a coup against the democratic government in 2002; it was reversed after massive civil protests made it impossible for the U.S. backed plotters to operate.
Venezuela does not operate death squads; the Colombian government did and probably still does. There is no way whatsoever that you could suggest the possibility of democratic Venezuela “descending into the nightmare of the gulags.” I’m interested, by the way, that you did not choose a more relevant example for political repression—like the United States gulag of torture and disappearance sites, starting in occupied Cuba and extending all round the globe.
It’s consistent with what I heard first hand from a person living close to the story. It’s not credible or helpful to persist in denying basic facts on the ground … the plain matter is the country is in a deep crisis.
Certainly there will be external regional players, hostile to what is happening. No quibble. But the left does itself no justice when it forever blames everyone and everything else for it’s repeated failures.
I hesitate to link to anything because I just know you’ll reflexively dismiss anything and everything as ‘black propaganda’
I do not do that “reflexively.” That suggests something automatic and mindless, as opposed to arriving at a conclusion from having studied the matter seriously. You use “reflexively” like Jim Mora uses the word “virtuous”—as a denigration and belittlement.
Contrary to your attempt to render my viewpoint into something cartoonish and easily dismissed, I do not pretend that the Venezuelan government is a paragon of virtue, or even moderately well run. From the time of Chavez, the government has made some terrible decisions, choosing to grandstand with stunts such as supplying free fuel to the poor in certain parts of the United States in order to show up the Bush administration. I am also very angry at their loutish attacks on “bourgeois” culture, including Venezuela’s world-renowned El Sistema. Such actions are similar to Castro’s monstrous attacks on Cuba’s world renowned architects in the 1960s for no other reason than they were “bourgeios.”
So your suggestion that I “reflexively dismiss anything and everything as ‘black propaganda'” is baseless, as well as insulting.
It’s not credible or helpful to persist in denying basic facts on the ground … the plain matter is the country is in a deep crisis.
Indeed it is. You’re stating the obvious, and implying that I do not recognize that fact.
Certainly there will be external regional players…
That’s an anodyne and determinedly benign spin on the bloody insurrection that is being openly aided and abetted by the United States and its most brutal accomplice, Colombia.
It’s instructive to contrast your condemnation of democratic Venezuela with your positive, optimistic tone towards its internationally condemned terrorist neighbour, which you insist is “Like most developing nations …. changing for the better, and while it’s patchy and messy as always … it’s not the place it was even a decade ago.” (in 19.1.2.1.1)
I don’t think even silly old Sir Geoffrey Palmer, that dupe of Alvaro Uribe, would be so dishonest as to describe South America’s most repressive state in those terms.
In one of the clearest clues yet about Washington’s latest meddling in the politics of Latin America, CIA director Mike Pompeo said he was “hopeful that there can be a transition in Venezuela and we the CIA is doing its best to understand the dynamic there”
Defaulted on debt, and reset currency to petro-commodity, hinged to a crypto-blockchain. Sounds good. Hope the Green Investment Bank are following how to do all this. Could Turkey be next? They are taking up crypto-fast, and have recovered all their gold reserves back from the US, earlier this year…
Asia Argento seems to be in serious trouble now,
but let’s bear in mind that she has also done some very good things.
I, and many others, have criticized the #MeToo divas for “forgetting” to speak out in support of the heroic Palestinian girl Ahed Tamimi. But some of those women have indeed spoken out. One of them was Asia Argento….
Shite critisim from you morrissy would be a badge of honour for most people and confirmation they are probably on the write track, hence your feedback on Venezuela is appreciated 😊
Good evening Newshub can you see it we are talking about reforming our justice system and what do you not the gangs start playing up is this hard for some person’s who are against our justice reforms. Who’s view on maori is that we are savages they are out there and it’s not very hard for these red neck to pull off this attempted interference of our justice systems reforms.
And now Duncan you are blowing up the whole issue you are just being played with. The WHOLE of Papatuanuku is watching our Justice systems reforms there is a documentary crew from America filming this all the under privilege native people are watching Aoteraroa why because maori are not the only tangata whenua to be pushed into hardship locked up dieing on the streets and treated as second class people .
Who Australia America Canada Hawaii and there are many other nation’s who’s native cultures are in dire straight’s . So Aoteraroa will lead the Papatuanuku once again to the correct path of treating native people all people the same as the majority European cultures. Did you see that reality Duncan the other topic’s we have lead the world with Wahine vote Nuclear Free many more .
Ka kite ano P.S look like Loyd is trimming down
The Am Show The giant squid we caught one when I was fishing it was huge we no more about the Marama than Tangaroa’s beautiful creatures that’s a fact.
The government is being fiscally responsible in freezing mp pay’s and the high payed public servants this goverment is not going to —– on the mokopunas future’s buy loading them with Dept throwing them in jail or poisoning there enviroment .
Ka kite ano P.S got to go and work my favorite charity
The sandflys have been swarming with there actor’s since I exposed there bad behavior at the hospital .
You see its quite easy to read there body langue as I am looking for these people all the time I know that when ever I go out they are inplay how if a person walks past you they will scan you to see if you are a threat or not if they don’t look at me they no me need I say more and if you flip them the bird to a stranger they will give it back 10 fold .
I have been reading there body language since gisborne man started his personal vendetta 18 years ago I last seen him with Richard Prebble in the computa repair shop last year
One day I was walking past a group of sandfly’s contracted actors how do I spot them well they were talking about Ngati Porou historical issues and what do I know we are in Te Arawa whenua they should be talking about Te Arawa issues I can not even find many books on Ngati Porou Book’s in the Rotorua library.
When I walked back past this group I spoke loud enough so they could hear I said they were muppets with no morels you should have seen they duck for cover muppet puppets .
And to day they get one of there contracted lairs in Kamart to try a play with my daugther how do I not this person is a contracted liar because I know its history and I know that the sandfly shine there shiny badge and will let people off charges give them thosands of dollars get them jobs they do what ever it takes to get ——-on Eco Maori and its all false .
They don’t care just so long as the shut up that savage Eco Maori who’s action are letting every body know how flawed the New Zealand Justice is Ana to kai .
Back up your contracted lies come and arrested me and I will preform Rua Moko in the court house all over your lies and watch your ass burn on the hot coals of the court house Ka kite ano p.s the positive thing to Eco Maori is they are leaving a lot people alone because they are busy playing marball’s with them selves trying to frame Me
Good Evening The Crowd Goes Wild James & Mulls I did not realize that the NRL are having Wahine tangata whenua League team ka pai .
James you got that accent down to a T.
Yes Tiger I ignored my elder’s who were letting me know about the aches and pain’s one get’s when you get long in the tooth.
Mulls I thought you were going to kiss the shield.
Ka kite ano P.S my challenges to obtain my birth right continues meanest kayaking I have ever seen
Postmodernism has long been looked upon as an indecipherable ideology and a source of amusement. In 1996 Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University, had a hoax article published in ‘Social Text’ an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. In ‘Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Anew study in Nature Sustainability incorporates the damages that climate change does to healthy ecosystems into standard climate-economics models. The key finding in the study by Bernardo Bastien-Olvera and Frances Moore from the University of California at Davis: The models have been underestimating the ...
In a recent interview with RNZ (14th of January), NZ Council of Civil Liberties Chair Thomas Beagle, in response to Simon Bridges condemnation of the post-Trump Twitter purge of local far Right and other accounts, said the following: “Cos the thing about freedom of expression is that it’s not just ...
Let’s be clear: if Trump is not politically killed off once and for all, he will become a MAGA Dracula, rising from the dead to haunt US politics for years to come and giving inspiration to his wretched family of grifters and thousands of deplorables well into the next decade. ...
Since its demise as an imperial power, and especially its deindustrialisation under Thatcher, the UK's primary economic engine has been its role as a money laundry, using its network of overseas territories as tax havens to enable rich people around the world to steal from the societies they live in. ...
Last month OMV quit the Great South Basin and surrendered its offshore exploration permits outside of Taranaki. This month, Australian-owned Beach Energy has done the same: Beach Energy Resources New Zealand has decided to abandon all of its oil and gas exploration permits off the South Island coast, including ...
The new Northland case has been linked to the South African strain of Covid-19, one of a number of new, more contagious Covid variants. Here’s how they emerge and why. Let’s start with the basics. The genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for Covid-19 is a strand of RNA ...
MARVIN HUBBARD, US citizen by birth, New Zealand citizen by choice, Quaker and left-wing activist, has been broadcasting his show, "Community or Chaos", on Otago Access Radio for the best part of 30 years. On 24 November last year, I spoke with him about the outcome of the 2020 General ...
This is a guest blog post by Daniel Tamberg, Potsdam, co-founder and director of SCIARA GmbH. The non-profit organisation SCIARA is developing and operating a flexible software platform for scientific simulation games that allows thousands of players to explore, design and understand possible climate futures together. Decision-makers in politics, business, ...
Yesterday's Gone: Cold shivers are running up and down the spines of conservatives everywhere. Donald Trump may have gone, but all the signs point to there being something much more momentous in the wind-shift than a simple return to the status quo ante. A change is gonna come. ONE COULD ...
Is it possible to live and let live in the post-Trump era? The online campaign to vilify Christopher Liddell, ex-White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to Trump, makes for an interesting case study. Liddell is a New Zealander whose illustrious career in corporate America once earned him plaudits ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 17, 2021 through Sat, Jan 23, 2021Editor's Choice12 new books explore fresh approaches to act on climate changeAuthors explore scientific, economic, and political avenues for climate action ...
This discussion is from a Twitter thread by Martin Kulldorff on 20 December 2020. He is a Professor at Harvard Medical School specialising in disease surveillance methods, infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety. His Twitter handle is @MartinKulldorff #1 Public health is about all health outcomes, not just a single ...
The Treasury forecasts suggest the economy is doing better than expected after the Covid Shock. John Kenneth Galbraith was wont to say that economic forecasting was designed to make astrology look good. Unfair, but it raises the question of the purpose of economic forecasts. Certainly the public may treat them ...
Q: Will the COVID-19 vaccines prevent the transmission of the coronavirus and bring about community immunity (aka herd immunity)? A: Jury not in yet but vaccines do not have to be perfect to thwart the spread of infection. While vaccines induce protection against illness, they do not always stop actual ...
Joe Biden seems to be everything that Donald Trump was not – decent, straightforward, considerate of others, mindful of his responsibilities – but none of that means that he has an easy path ahead of him. The pandemic still rages, American standing in the world is grievously low, and the ...
Keana VirmaniFrom healthcare robots to data privacy, to sea level rise and Antarctica under the ice: in the four years since its establishment, the Aotearoa New Zealand Science Journalism Fund has supported over 30 projects.Rebecca Priestley, receiving the PM Science Communication Prize (Photo by Mark Tantrum) Associate Professor ...
Nothing more from me today - I'm off to Wellington, to participate in the city's annual roleplaying convention (which has also eaten my time for the whole week, limiting blogging despite there being interesting things happening). Normal bloggage will resume Tuesday. ...
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weaponscame into force today, making the development, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal in international law. Every nuclear-armed state is now a criminal regime. The corporations and scientists who design, build and maintain their illegal weapons are now ...
"Come The Revolution!" The key objective of Bernard Hickey’s revolutionary solution to the housing crisis is a 50 percent reduction in the price of the average family home. This will be achieved by the introduction of Capital Gains, Land, and Wealth taxes, and by the opening up of currently RMA-protected ...
by Daphna Whitmore Twitter and Facebook shutting down Trump’s accounts after his supporters stormed Capitol Hill is old news now but the debates continue over whether the actions against Trump are a good thing or not. Those in favour of banning Trump say Twitter and Facebook are private companies and ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Democrats now control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for the first time in a decade, albeit with razor thin Congressional majorities. The last time, in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), House Democrats passed a carbon cap and trade bill, but it died ...
Session thirty-three was highly abbreviated, via having to move house in a short space of time. Oh well. The party decided to ignore the tree-monster and continue the attack on the Giant Troll. Tarsin – flying on a giant summoned bat – dumped some high-grade oil over the ...
Last night I stayed up till 3am just to see then-President Donald Trump leave the White House, get on a plane, and fly off to Florida, hopefully never to return. And when I woke up this morning, America was different. Not perfect, because it never was. Probably not even good, ...
Watching today’s inauguration of Joe Biden as the United States’ 46th president, there’s not a lot in common with the inauguration of Donald Trump just four destructive years ago. Where Trump warned of carnage, Biden dared to hope for unity and decency. But the one place they converge is that ...
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
Work begins today at Wainuiomata High School to ensure buildings and teaching spaces are fit for purpose, Education Minister Chris Hipkins says. The Minister joined principal Janette Melrose and board chair Lynda Koia to kick off demolition for the project, which is worth close to $40 million, as the site ...
A skilled and experienced group of people have been named as the newly established Oranga Tamariki Ministerial Advisory Board by Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis today. The Board will provide independent advice and assurance to the Minister for Children across three key areas of Oranga Tamariki: relationships with families, whānau, and ...
The green light for New Zealand’s first COVID-19 vaccine could be granted in just over a week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today. “We’re making swift progress towards vaccinating New Zealanders against the virus, but we’re also absolutely committed to ensuring the vaccines are safe and effective,” Jacinda Ardern said. ...
The Minister for ACC is pleased to announce the appointment of three new members to join the Board of ACC on 1 February 2021. “All three bring diverse skills and experience to provide strong governance oversight to lead the direction of ACC” said Hon Carmel Sepuloni. Bella Takiari-Brame from Hamilton ...
The Government is investing $9 million to upgrade a significant community facility in Invercargill, creating economic stimulus and jobs, Infrastructure Minister Grant Robertson and Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirikatene have announced. The grant for Waihōpai Rūnaka Inc to make improvements to Murihiku Marae comes from the $3 billion set ...
[Opening comments, welcome and thank you to Auckland University etc] It is a great pleasure to be here this afternoon to celebrate such an historic occasion - the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This is a moment many feared would never come, but ...
The Government is providing $3 million in one-off seed funding to help disabled people around New Zealand stay connected and access support in their communities, Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni announced today. The funding will allow disability service providers to develop digital and community-based solutions over the next two ...
Border workers in quarantine facilities will be offered voluntary daily COVID-19 saliva tests in addition to their regular weekly testing, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. This additional option will be rolled out at the Jet Park Quarantine facility in Auckland starting on Monday 25 January, and then to ...
The next steps in the Government’s ambitious firearms reform programme to include a three-month buy-back have been announced by Police Minister Poto Williams today. “The last buy-back and amnesty was unprecedented for New Zealand and was successful in collecting 60,297 firearms, modifying a further 5,630 firearms, and collecting 299,837 prohibited ...
Upscaling work already underway to restore two iconic ecosystems will deliver jobs and a lasting legacy, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. “The Jobs for Nature programme provides $1.25 billion over four years to offer employment opportunities for people whose livelihoods have been impacted by the COVID-19 recession. “Two new projects ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kris Gledhill, Professor of Law, Auckland University of Technology As we know, getting into New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult. There are practicalities, such as high airfare and managed isolation costs. And there are legal requirements, including pre-flight testing, mandatory ...
New Zealand faces the risk of a generation being locked out of the housing market unless land is freed up and more houses built, National Party leader Judith Collins says. ...
On Sunday, Stuff published a months-long investigation by Alison Mau detailing allegations of harassment and exploitation within the local music industry.The piece, ‘Music industry professionals demand change after speaking out about its dark side’, includes allegations of inappropriate behaviour and abuse of power by male artists, international acts and executives; ...
“The Government is all at sea on timelines for Australia and New Zealand’s respective vaccine roll-outs, with the worst news coming from the mouth of Pfizer Australia CEO Anne Harris,” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “Yesterday, under increasing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Higgins, Senior Research Fellow, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised the US would demonstrate “global leadership on refugees”. Once elected, he pledged to vastly increase refugee resettlement in the US. If history is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Baumann, Casual Academic, School of Social Sciences & Psychology, Western Sydney University Among the many hard truths exposed by COVID-19 is the huge disparity between the world’s rich and poor. As economies went into freefall, the world’s billionaires increased their already ...
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Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for January 27, keeping you up to date with the latest local and international news. Reach me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nzOur members make The Spinoff happen! Every dollar contributed directly funds our editorial team – click here to learn more about how you can support us ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato New Zealand has a strong history of protecting and promoting human rights at home and internationally, and prides itself on being an outspoken critic and global leader in this area. So, when the most ...
Good morning and welcome to the Bulletin. In today’s edition: Collins outlines the plan forward for National, no spread of Covid spotted yet in Northland, and students return for climate protest.In front of a Rotary Club at the Ellerslie Racecourse in Auckland, National leader Judith Collins yesterday set out her ...
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A Covid reset will force costly and inflexible cities to take a hard look at their planning systems, or people will vote with their feet. Broken urban planning systems make for misery even in the best of times. If land use and housing regulations prevent metropolitan areas from growing up or out as ...
When an Auckland school classroom went up in flames in December last year, exploding asbestos over neighbouring houses, five separate government agencies were involved. Yet stressed residents dealing with the aftermath on their homes say the response felt chaotic and uncoordinated; even local MPs who got involved couldn't get the information they wanted. Hundreds of thousands of ...
The pandemic has accelerated the trend of doing our banking online instead of in person. This rapid digital embrace has, in turn, sped up the closure of many smaller bank branches. But, as Mark Jennings writes, there are new branches springing up with a different look and purpose. Auckland’s Wynyard ...
Corrina Gage has represented New Zealand in a trio of water sports. But it's her love for waka ama - and the opportunities it gives paddlers from 5 to 85 - that keeps her racing and coaching around the world. Lake Karāpiro is quiet and still now. But last week, it was all noise ...
Telling a Rotary Club audience that housing is a serious problem and they should care deeply about it landed flat but took some daring from the National leader, writes Justin Giovannetti.Judith Collins’ level of control over the National Party is still a question best answered by a shrug.Elevated to her ...
A gang turf war gripped the South Auckland suburb in late 2020, forcing schools to lock down and armed police to patrol the streets. Community leaders are now warning the cycle of violent retribution could continue in 2021, unless radical interventions are made.The violent altercations that loomed large in Ōtara ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Véronique Duché, A.R. Chisholm Professor of French, University of Melbourne In this series, writers pay tribute to fictional detectives on the page and on screen. When I first heard that Rowan Atkinson was to put on Maigret’s velvet-collared overcoat, I wondered ...
Auckland writer Olivia Hayfield* explains how she resurrected 16th-century playwright Christopher Marlowe to star in her new novel, Sister to Sister. Olivia Hayfield is a pen name. Real name: Sue Copsey. When I’m planning my modern retellings of historical tales, I read widely on the characters and see who leaps out at ...
The Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine could be approved as early as next week, Marc Daalder reports Medsafe will be asked to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine against Covid-19 on February 2, the Government has announced. The Medicines Assessment Advisory Committee (MAAC) is an independent panel that provides advice on some medicine approvals in ...
COMMENT:By Bryan Kramer, PNG’s Minister of Police who has defended Commissioner Manning’s appointment today in The National My last article, announcing that I intend to make a submission to the National Executive Council (NEC) to amend the Public Service regulation to no longer require the Commissioner of Police to ...
The Point of Order Trough Monitor was triggered today by the announcement of a $9 million handout for Southlanders – sorry, some Southlanders. The news came from the office of Grant Robertson who, as Minister of Finance, prefers to invest public money rather than give it away – especially when ...
Few people outside of her campaign team gave Chlöe Swarbrick any chance of winning in Auckland Central this year – but the Green Party MP was too busy to listen. Here’s how they turned the electorate green.First published November 12, 2020.Three Ticks Chlöe is part of Frame, a series of short ...
Interactions between parents and healthcare providers could have a big impact on the wellbeing of our children, according to new research. The way parents and healthcare providers interact has lasting implications for children’s health, new research has found – and that includes immunisation uptake.Released today, the report is based on research ...
The Opposition starts the political year calling for emergency, temporary legislation to free up house building National leader Judith Collins has set five priorities for her party over the next three years - but excluded climate change, education and Crown-Māori relations. Giving her first 'state of the nation' speech as party ...
One of the biggest challenges facing the Ardern government is in public health. New Zealand may have escaped the pressures heaped on other health systems by the Covid-19 pandemic but its health service has had its problems, not least those exposed in the first report from Heather Simpson and her ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Véronique Duché, A.R. Chisholm Professor of French, University of Melbourne In this series, writers pay tribute to fictional detectives on the page and on screen. When I first heard that Rowan Atkinson was to put on Maigret’s velvet-collared overcoat, I wondered ...
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Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for January 26, keeping you up to date with the latest local and international news. Reach me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nzOur Members make The Spinoff happen! Every dollar contributed directly funds our editorial team – click here to learn more about how you can support us ...
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Call to action – disabled need basic access!!
https://www.accessalliance.org.nz/add_your_name_to_support_our_stories
Support Access Alliance presentation at Parliament
On September 4 the Access Alliance (of which DPA is a member organisation) will gather at Parliament to present Minister for Disability Issues Carmel Sepuloni with a giant-sized version of a booklet full of stories from the disability community.
These are stories about access barriers which an Accessibility Act could help to remove. We are calling on Minister Sepuloni to listen to our stories and to prioritise accessibility legislation within this Parliamentary term.
The alliance has been working hard to make sure that your stories and your support for an Accessibility Act are reaching the decision-makers in Parliament. For over a year campaigners from the disability community have been busy meeting with their MPs, sharing their stories, and explaining why we need an accessibility law at the heart of a more inclusive Aotearoa. Others have been meeting with Ministers and starting to figure out how the Access Alliance can work together with our elected representatives to co-design this new law.
The presentation on September 4 is a chance to celebrate the progress we’ve made to date, but also a call for our Minister for Disability Issues to tell us how she will ensure that this law is prioritised within this term of Government.
Accessibility Legislation would ensure everyone benefits from an accessible NZ – it would be great to have lots of people at Parliament to show just how important we believe this is.
When: Tuesday 4 September, arrive at 11am – finished by 12pm
Where: Outdoors on Parliament Lawn, by the Seddon Statue – enter from Molesworth St
The event will be NZSL interpreted and the spot where we are gathering is wheelchair-accessible. Please email Áine Kelly-Costello at akelly-costello@blindfoundation.org.nz if you will be driving and need a Mobility carpark as Parliament Security have advised that these are limited.
Even if you can’t be there on the day, please click here to add your name to the booklet to support prioritising accessibility legislation. The same form will also ask you to RSVP if you can make it.
The presentation will be streamed live on the Access Matters Facebook page from 11:30am.
Let me guess, Garth McVicar didn’t get an invite to Andrew Little’s justice reform summit…
Of course not. He is perhaps the most disgusting person in the country….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/noelle-mccarthy-swallowed-vomit-for-15.html
Every now and then, Don of the Deadbrains slips up and accidentally dishes out advice worth acting on. In one of his recent sprays of shitter-twitter he said “Study the late Joseph McCarthy”. You should. You really should, in order to understand who and what is the new McCarthy and the new McCarthyism. This Politico piece summarises it.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/19/trump-mcarthyism-joe-mccarthy-219373
Interesting indeed. So the link, Roy Cohn: “he died from AIDS as a man who denied to the end that he was gay”. Populism being the cultural relevance, that tertiary part of the political terrain that the binary left/right frame can’t explain.
From the viewpoint of trying to work towards a more inclusive accepting society, it always bothers me that Cohn’s sexuality and public denial of it always takes a prominent place in pieces about Cohn. Yet it’s crucial to the understanding the power of othering, understanding Cohn’s use of othering, and I’ll guess his fear of it being applied to him.
Feedlots.
It’s a conversation New Zealand needs to have.
How much cruelty do we accept as a society?
Is profit our country ‘s only priority?
Checkpoint highlighted the issue.
Rachel Stewart continued.
“Anything to say @BeefLambNZ about feedlots, and how we’ve suddenly turned into America? You knew. Why didn’t everybody else?“
And Jonathan Maze added.
“Unbelievable, I had no idea this awful kind of “farming” was happening in NZ..”
Don’t panic, go organic.
Retail brand is Wakanui Beef – this is the About page:
The marketing and reality seem slightly divorced from each other, maybe?
Stockists to avoid (or not) I’ve made a copy in case some businesses unexpectedly disappear – especially the restaurants:
http://www.wakanuibeef.co.nz/stockists
Meh – I grow my own beef anyway – it taste better and my cows have a happy life right up to the end.
So you say.
What do the cows say? Bet no one has even asked them:
“If you knew that the whole raison d’etre of your existence was to be barbecued by James, rate your happiness on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is ‘delirious with joy’ and 1 is ‘a bit miffed'”.
They dont think beyond the current day.
Your views are classic anthropomorphism
What about Montaigne and his cat?
At least he was basing the question on direct observational evidence.
Yes good point. There’s nothing to suggest that the cows think they are farming James
Exclusive covert video from one of James’ barbecues where one of the cows weighs in on that very topic.
is it better to exist and be barbecued, or to never exist at all?
Wow! That reminds me of being in love…
Have you written or emailed all the stockists of this meat yet? Or are you all mouth and no trousers.
Marty – should I refer you to 3.2.1 on yesterday’s Daily Report? If you are addressing Ed, he did it there, with another list further down.
All good. Ed says he cares but he wants others to do the work. Shows he doesn’t care at all.
Funny, they never covered this on Country Calendar…
All the animals live happy ever after on Country Calendar… not even a stock truck in sight
Last night I searched for an audio link to put up here of the Federated Farmers reply to the accusation of bad farming but RNZ only had the one about SAFE.
I put up the link to the page which had an onsite link but thought it interesting that this large and important body (Fed Farmers) wasn’did not have full audio coverage.
This is very much a knee jerk reaction, these cattle are having their needs met, warm and dry, not knee deep in mud, correct nutrition adequate vitamins and minerals as opposed to grass fed animals, not being fed toxic members of the cabbage family.
Worm free without having to be drenched.
Effluent collected and composted not leeching into aquifers.
What will be next horses in stables dogs in kennels.
Of course
Are you conditioned by looking after others in confined conditions? Perhaps it has blunted your sensivities Psych Nurse. These animals would be safe and happy in a fenced paddock, no need to keep them confined and standing disconsolately waiting for something to eat besides mud porridge, with dainty blades of grass occasionally.
Peter Dunne on MPs pay: set it at the start of a parliamentary term, to remain at that level until the next term. Damn good idea. He told the AM show that the current level is about right. Retired, he can afford to be honest about that…
Retired from the position of leader of a party with a caucus of one, with a significantly enhanced pay package from that “leadership” position.
But yeah, he’s right. Set what it’s going to be pre-election and fix it for the term. Preferably also tie it to a measure of pay relevant to the population as a whole, such as some multiple of the 25th percentile income.
Govt will be revising the way the remuneration authority does its thing apparently, so your suggestion may get taken up. I agree it ought to be related to some kind of indicator of the average income (agnostic on how to do that).
What we pay [them] is what they get.
But it’s not quite that simple, is it?
https://www.parliament.nz/en/mps-and-electorates/pay-and-entitlements/
True. Entitlements are residue of empire & patriarchy, best eliminated. Can’t expect women to take a political stand on this. Too subtle. Female politicians probably enjoy the perks of office as much as males.
Can’t expect women to take a political stand on this. Too subtle.
I think your misogyny is hanging out again.
I was hoping to flush out a bunch of female deniers to liven up the day. Reckon it’ll work? If I’d just framed it as a privileged institutional thing, people would get bored to death.
Oh, “female deniers”. What are they denying again?
Chocolate.
That women haven’t been targeting the residual patriarchy for removal. Last time I pointed that out onsite here it was in relation to the judiciary & got total denial in response (mostly via evasion of the point).
women haven’t been targeting the residual patriarchy for removal.
Oh my god, you mean that the men get the goodies and not the women?
Incredible though it may seem, I mean what I say. I don’t mind if that seems so old-fashioned that it contravenes postmodern conformity.
I really don’t know what you think you are saying. It looks to me like you just put a dig in against women because women.
And i have no idea what might mean by “postmodern conformity”?
Anyone who has spent most of their life watching the progressive trend toward liberation of the human spirit in general, and the feminist project as in integral part of that, is keenly aware of the part of the establishment that has yet to be rectified.
So I’ve spent years expecting feminists to get the job done. Don’t get complacent due to perception of victory when it’s mostly done. If they can see the glass ceiling, how come they can’t see the most entrenched parts of the patriarchy??
Right, so men got the perks for a long time before women got access to them so it is up to women to get rid of them. As i said:
It looks to me like you just put a dig in against women because women.
Your words betray your mindset dennis. Not cool your misogyny, not cool at all. You should have a long look in the mirror imo.
Have enjoyed all your contributions so far, Dennis, but it does appear to me that this time you picked out only feminist MPs when criticising a fault applying to all MPs.
Dennis I don’t think feminists or any females want to see through the glass ceiling the most entrenched parts of the patriarchy.
Actually.
Seems to me a perception thing, In Vino. Media reports of women pointing out the glass ceiling effect have been a continual stream in recent years, and I haven’t noticed any of those interviewed ask for male help to rectify the problem.
Their confidence that the feminist project can succeed via the solidarity of women is not misplaced, imo. Sharing that confidence, I’ve wondered why they don’t also target other manifestations of the residual patriarchy. Of course men ought to help co-create the equity required.
Any reason you could think of that ‘female’ polititians should enjoy the perks of the office less then that the ‘males’?
No. Just my way of alerting all to the prolonged perpetuation of the ancient privilege system integral to democracy. It was good to see feminism breach the ramparts back in the day, but I kinda get the impression that there’s a `job done’ syndrome at play. Delusion, not reality.
Oh for goodness sake! You show no understanding of the breadth and depth of feminist thought, politics and activism.
If they can see the glass ceiling, how come they can’t see the most entrenched parts of the patriarchy??
Citations needed of such a reduction of the state of feminism to be in the least bit credible. Who is this “they”? You write as if feminists are a collective, hive mind focusing on one symptom of patriarchy. That may be true of liberal/capitalist feminists as favoured by the mainstream, corporate media.
But feminism is wide ranging. There have been many theorists, like bell hooks, Sheila Rowbottham, and many more who examined the deep-rooted and all-pervasive nature of patriarchy.
And many activists have been informed by their work – in campaigning against sexual and domestic violence (very successful from setting up refuges and putting the issue on the agenda), to feminists working within unions for low paid and precarious workers, to the African American women who first coined the term “intersectionality” to explain the complex nature of their oppression, to women working to change the nature of western political and other institutions.
Back to the point: lack of feminist political action to eliminate the entrenched privilege-based residual patriarchy. Why this lack? The problem will persist until the solution is applied…
Maybe you could begin by differentiating between different feminist schools of thought. (Liberal, anarcho etc)
Would you say that there has been no political action to eliminate privilege based residual patriarchy by men?
And if you wouldn’t say that, then why say it in relation to women? Do you honestly believe that the sum total of feminism is liberal feminism?
I’m not into being distracted from the point I’m making – it’s too important to allow that. Others may find such digressions informative, I understand that. Just not me.
Read and learn – just some of the ways women have organised to change the system, since way back – and still get largely ignored by the MSM.
https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/the-uprising-of-women-in-red-states-is-just-beginning.html
You haven’t got a point to get distracted from. And you haven’t even tried to establish one.
Does that mean you haven’t read 5 & 5.1.1??
You just said:
Back to the point: lack of feminist political action to eliminate the entrenched privilege-based residual patriarchy. Why this lack? The problem will persist until the solution is applied…
The only point you’re making is one disparaging liberal feminists for being liberal feminists in a liberal environment, while denying that any other strand of feminism exists.
You’re saying that the politics of MPs, who obviously accept the political environment they operate within to varying degrees, are the only possible or imaginable politics people can have.
No, Bill. Those assertions of yours are your ways of applying your personal spin to what I wrote. Nothing to do with me.
It’s you who says it is lacking. That doesn’t make it so. If you’ve got your head in the sand, and only take the surface of corporate media as your main source, I can’t help you.
For a start: there’s Sue Bradford who has been fighting patriarchy and capitalism from within many campaigns for decades.
There’s Elizabeth Warren – famous for “she persisted” as a feminist rallying cry- and go read Ad’s post on her today.
There’s Metiria Turei who go crucified by our mainstream media, and those from within the entrenched capitalist-patriarchal system.
If you can’t help with the enormous task of tackling patriarchy, throwing stones from the shadows does nothing to shed light on the situation.
I’m helping by specifying the entrenched part of the problem, in the hope that the governmental review of the MPs remuneration body will not allow it to persist.
Everything else you mention here is irrelevant to that. Privilege-based perks must be eliminated. MPs have no valid basis for retaining them.
So mps travelling around the country on parliamentary business shouldn’t have travel costs provided, and the fact those travel costs are still provided is the fault of feminist inaction?
They get so much money they can fund their travel costs & still be wealthy. It would incentivise them to restrict travel to only that which is necessary. Same as the rest of us.
I get my travel paid for when I have to travel for work. I even get meals reimbursed.
I guess I’m just another tool of the patriarchy
Gosh, who would have known? Hope it doesn’t cause a personality crisis or switch of identity politics… 😁
What you’re arguing for is that rural MPs should be paid less than the MP for wellington central, who can walk everywhere or take the cable car.
So you are saying that “the women” – cause feminism – should refuse the perks the men have enjoyed ever since, cause feminism?
Really?
So you are saying your wife should get paid less then her male counterpart cause feminism?
How about you write a concerned letter to all the men, – current and retired – that enjoy benefits that they are entitled to for nothing more then sitting in parliament getting done fuck all – Bill English, Peter Fucking Dunne, The Hologram Syemor, No Bridges Simon, Nick Smith, Shane Jones, etc – to rescind their perks for the better of the country and while you are at it, ask them to forgo pay increases until every worker in NZ is at the very least on a minimum wage.
Do not ask the women to forgo what men take for granted.
No, I’m not saying any of that. I’m advocating for the removal of the privilege-based part of parliamentary democracy. The status quo provides those perks due to tradition, which derives from the patriarchy. It ought to be a job like any other. Do you really believe parliamentarians are a caste above us?
Dear, they are a caste above us.
As are the overpaid bobbleheads in the media – print, radio, TV.
The overpaid cops, the overpaid lawyers, overpaid Winz workers, ACC Case workers etc etc etc. In short anyone who can affect your life without a care and a thought. .
Even the white people in this country are in a caste above brown people.
Men are in a caste above women and children.
To repeat:
It is not the womens job to clean up after men, it is not the womens job to refuse a perk, a pay, a benefit that men would never refuse just to satisfy your need for purity.
It is the womens job to look after themselves, create happiness and a fulfilled life after their own desires, not bound by obsolete ideas of yesteryears or the needs of lazy men.
I think i am starting to get your point:
1. Power and privilege today has its roots in power and privilege in the fast
2. Patriarchy is an aspect of past power and privilege
3. Feminists, them fight the patriarchy so it is their job to fight to get rid of MP perks.
I guess then that the only solution, if we are to make progress on anything, is to get the whole of the left to identify as feminist.
Wtf Dennis?
I’d say there are two types of people, those who take advantage of any and all perks, and those that don’t.
True. So all those women in parliament who do, how do you feel about their reluctance to admit that they are colluding with paternalism by not opposing the privileges granted them by the residual patriarchy?
I’m not blaming them for enjoying the baubles of office. They’re being pragmatic in accepting what the system provides. However, along with current enjoyment of the perks, why not organise collectively to eliminate them?
Parliamentary representation ought to be a job like any other. I don’t see any merit in continuance of a privilege ranking system. Other hierarchies have been eliminated in the past 20 or 30 years (corporations, mostly). Time for that to happen in governance.
Dude, I’m concerned that you are creating a debate out of gender. Something I won’t buy into.
If you want to talk about MP’s collectively, then am happy to engage. But I’m not into gender division in this instance because it totally misses the point and is not needed.
You’re acting like some belittling Victorian man who blames everyone else for your mistakes. Unpleasant.
Bro, are you implying that men are incapable of changing the system?
Way to piss off everyone.
I would say that ‘feminists’ have enough work tackling gender inequality.
I expect feminist-supporting men to collaborate in eliminating the entrenched privilege system. The gender red herring doesn’t apply.
Colluding? Wtf – you are losing all the commenter capital youve built up. Just another old pale sexist wanker. Go away.
Bullshit. And I’m not here to build up any sort of capital. Sexism is your subjective impression – nothing to do with me. Collusion exists and operates tacitly. It will continue to operate until folks become aware of it. To solve this problem, one must first point it out. Shooting the messenger is just another form of denial.
Dennis, you made it very clear that you were just looking for attention….
“I was hoping to flush out a bunch of female deniers to liven up the day. Reckon it’ll work?”
Not just that. The whole point of operating as a social catalyst is to energise consciousness-raising towards the collaborative solving of the target problem. Whatever rhetorical devices are used in the process, the trick is to get the process happening. Human nature to get distracted onto the personalities involved, but eventually people realise it’s better to play the ball than the man.
When everyone does so, the game of politics deepens into collective problem-solving. Some players may remain frivolous (distracted by irrelevancies) but group psychodynamics gell most of them into a task force. Can take years, but someone has to do it (to actualise the progressive agenda, actions replacing words).
Whatever. You really need to stop digging.
Thanks for ignoring decades and of collective and widespread feminist effort, and, on the basis of no real research, coming here to tell feminists what we have been doing wrong.
We are SOOOO grateful.
Lol sure – you thought you were in control but your ‘authority’ is in your own head – on here you have what you say. And you said it didn’t you? Collusion is your term and your issue – look in the mirror fella.
I have no control or authority on this issue, Marty. I’m puzzled as to why you think I do. Those two things are elements of the privilege-based part of parliamentary democracy that I’m advocating the removal of!
The collusion problem is tacit. All who support the status quo have that collusion operating in the unconscious part of their psyche. To solve the problem, first they must be made aware of it.
Okay I’ll leave it. I think the way you raised this issue was inflammatory and provocative – I felt sad and let down by you for doing that. Just so unnecessary to raise any issue by offending groups of people especially groups marginalisd by the system you get advantage from just by being male – it actually nuliffies any point being made. Surprised that you seem surprised by this – you have strong experience – probably made it worse imo.
I understand. People react on a feelings basis to the written word and sometimes the reactions baffle me but I realise that different generational perspectives drive this stuff. Plus the personal histories of other commentators creating a subjective stance too.
Nah ya don’t get to hide behind your generation status. A misogynist is a misogynist in any generation.
So you come here to call people inaccurate names, eh? You get off on that delusional behaviour?
Careful, Dennis. Such punctilious nit-picking and persistence set my troll-alert bells ringing.
Dennis
You may be partly right but once you underrate the effort that women have put in to improve their position then the irritation grows.
It has been a hard slog and that should not be forgotten even if more could have been done at some stage or another. It’s better to remember there are plenty of other issues that are waiting.
Ok, In Vino, why not consider how you would feel if, after supporting women’s liberation your entire adult life, someone called you a misogynist. Why would you decide it appropriate to allow them to get away with misrepresenting you??
Dennis
I know just how to answer that one and drop myself in it.
You are talking about women and who can understand them, you just have to love them.
And of course there is a unisex fit to that argument; turn it round and it applies to men. There just has to be a limit to the foibles and faults that each gender will put up with, so there will be further opportunities to write another chapter of Arms and the Woman.
While looking up the term this essay showed up so I’ll put it up to keep restive fighters occupied.
(http://www.bopsecrets.org/PS/women.htm
I don’t know all the past history, Dennis. It just seems to me that you provoked all this by singling out feminists at the start, when your question should have applied to all beneficiaries or bludgers or whatever we like to call them – regarding parliamentary perks.
Made synthetic cannabis legal in NZ ?
Dunne’s greatest achievement ?
Revolution and the Third World: Exploring the Radical Ideas of Anti-Imperialist Economist Samir Amin
1080 I am guessing there may be a link with Kauri Dieback and 1080 IMHO ?
1080 may be damaging the kauri roots which opens up a site for phytopthora to enter the tree via the feeder roots ?
You got any evidence beyond your guessing?
Consider: the active substance in 1080 is produced by some plants as a natural defence against grazing animals, and breaks down in soil due to a variety of naturally occurring organisms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_fluoroacetate
Consider also: my property and neighbouring properties are heavily affected by kauri dieback, yet 1080 has not been used in the area within the past several decades, if ever.
Isnt most 1080 distributed in ‘bait traps’ , and only a few areas is it spread by airdrops by helicopter ?
How does it affect roots when its not spread over the forest floor. of course possums are responsible for their own tree diebacks
Dunno what the breakdown is between bait traps and aerial dropping, or if the different application methods have different effects on the forest floor.
But my folks’ farm has a decent-size bush block with kauri and no evidence of die-back, and there’s been plenty of 1080 poison in bait stations around that bush block over the last three decades.
So that’s two points of anecdata, my place with lots of dieback and no 1080, and my folks with lots of 1080 and no dieback.
Hey, maybe 1080 is actually a good prophylactic for kauri against dieback, so we should just chuck tons of it around willy-nilly all through kauri forests to protect the kauri. /sarc
Probably not.
1080 mimics the poisons produced by some plant species, it is deadly to animals, and birds are less affected, though their low body mass means they die anyway.
Kauri dieback is a fungal disease, as was the cabbage tree dieoff. https://www.kauridieback.co.nz/science-and-research/understanding-the-disease/
It could create imbalances in soil fauna – but there are other causes as or more likely.
Strictly speaking phytophthora is not a fungus. Its cell walls are made of different materials than fungus cell walls. It’s possibly called a water mould because on a macro scale it looks and acts like a fungus.
Fungal disease is a fair description of its effects, and gives some idea of what treatment might be required. It is likely susceptible to heavy metal poisoning of the sort created by Bordeaux mixture, though that is a temporary solution, and silver compounds are vastly more mycotoxic. More promising long term solutions lie in competitive or inoculating fungal treatments.
As I understand it, the treatment being trialled to try to slow* the disease (and I’ve applied to the kauri at my place) is borrowed from the avocado industry for managing their phytophtora problems. I’m not aware of it being used for fungal problems, but that’s way outside my expertise, so my lack of awareness doesn’t mean anything. The treatment is injecting a phosphite solution into the trunk using spring-loaded syringes.
* It’s not a cure. At best using this treatment will buy time until an actual cure is found.
No shit Einstein ?
Where did you study microbiology, you are FOS ?
What are you full of Ngungukai?
The concentration of 1080 in each pellet has reduced over recent decades and so has the amount of pellets per hectare. So I think we would have seen an obvious problem much earlier if there was a link.
Also like Andre says, there are going to be quite a few areas with dieback that have never been anywhere near 1080. In the scheme of things I think it is only used on something like 2% of DOC land.
Flag-worshipping, saluting, camouflage gear on the sidelines, jets flying over the stadium: Why don’t sports organizations just ban these goons altogether?
“The dire prospect that opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana republic where the army will have more and more importance in Americans’ lives… [D]emocracy is the special condition – a condition we will be called upon to defend in the coming years. That will be enormously difficult because the combination of the corporation, the military, and the complete investiture of the flag with mass spectator sports has set up a pre-fascistic atmosphere in America already.”
—-Norman Mailer, 2003
http://inthesetimes.com/article/21393/sports-military-patriotism-corporate-war-baseball-football-hockey
Bread and Circus.
What would they do without Bread and Circuses. it worked since the times of the Roman. Also i find it funny that those that have never served, have managed to dodge the draft not once but several times are often the loudest patriots.
The last refuge of the scoundrel is patriotism.
And also the machine needs to recruit its Kanonenfutter, how else to feed the bank accounts if no one wants to do the dying?
Very true, Sabine. I note that we are following this dishonorable practice in N.Z.—one Willie Apiata was featured visiting the All Blacks’ dressing rooms during the last RWC.
Gotta admit though f16 jets flying low and in formation is pretty cool
Sounds good.
“His character, Cassius “Cash” Green, a low-level telemarketer, learns that, in order to succeed at work, he has to put on a white voice. This does not mean a nasal affectation, along the lines of that corny old nerdy-voice stereotype that mid-level black comedians do. It means putting into your voice an embrace of the ease that white privilege brings. It means sounding as if you’re entitled to the good life. It means feeling calm way down in your soul. It means never having to be afraid someone will call the police on you just because you’re breathing.”
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/aug/19/sorry-to-bother-you-is-this-the-most-anti-capitalist-film-ever
This seems awesome – What do current resident dunner commenters think? As a mosgiel/dunners boy I love strong community iniatives from the south. I hope this is all that.
“After almost five years of planning, work is set to start soon on Dunedin’s first co-housing project.
Run by Urban Cohousing Otepoti Ltd, it will provide more than 60 residents with shared spaces and 22 units.”
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/survey-precedes-co-housing-project
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12110366
‘The South African government has begun the process of seizing land from white farmers.
Local newspaper City Press reports two game farms in the northern province of Limpopo are the first to be targeted for unilateral seizure after negotiations with the owners to purchase the properties stalled.’
Can’t see how this will end up anyway different to Zimbabwe
White refugees turning up with their feet broken with iron bars yet? Still a long way short of Mugabe.
I’m pretty sure its not a race any country wants to win
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/young-boy-forced-to-watch-mums-repeated-violent-sexual-assault-in-south-africa-farm-attack/news-story/09785cd0d06c221eab6b6c6115057a7a
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5534449/South-Africas-white-farmers-likely-killed-police.html
Hundreds of years of oppression do not lend themselves to good or stable governance.
Only a sick mind and heartless soul would view as such But hey freedom of speech and at least you show your true colours
Good. These scum need cleaned out.
“A businessman who liquidated his company after being fined almost $430,000 for exploitation has become personally liable for the $120,000 outstanding.
The Employment Relations Authority joined Jujhar Singh to his previous company, Binde Enterprises, after a Labour Inspectorate investigation found the company owed 75 workers on a vegetable farm in the Bombay Hills nearly $210,000 in wages.”
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/106432489/businessman-who-exploited-migrant-workers-must-pay-120k-after-liquidation
agree!
They’re finally cracking down after years of doing SFA (even when they get evidence and witnesses handed to them on a plate).
I’d suggest Jujhar Singh spend a little more time at the temple reacquainting himself with a few values.
It’s good to see a more victims prepared to come forward in the knowledge that something might actually be done.
A friend took a trip and commented that the organisers said to stand near the buffet table while there was a pre-eats welcome or the food would be gone before getting to the table. This was the case, and it brought to mind how those
very fast and thorough clearers made their money. It could be imagined that they grabbed all they could from some industry they controlled.
The aristos said let them eat cake; the nouveau riche think, what the heck I’ll take all I want and if others miss out, hard luck.
Yayyyyyyy!!!!!
Dutton has resigned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not even close: “Malcolm Turnbull wins the leadership – 48 to 35”
Really ???
Yes Turnbull won the leadership – AND Dutton has resigned from Cabinet.
Mr Dutton has now resigned as Home Affairs and Immigration Minister after losing the challenge and will move to the backbench.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/364564/malcolm-turnbull-wins-leadership-challenge
His resignation as Immigration Minister is well worth celebrating.
You really have lost the plot today, DF – in more ways than one.
Nope, I’m right on track! Job needs doing. People flying off the handle in all directions ain’t my problem. 😁
Very astute DF
The media love the hype but its a reasonable victory for Turnbull. So theres internal dissatisfaction…its Australia… thats nothing new.
If I was the existing leader of a ruling political party and I didn’t have the primary support of 35 out of 83 of my followers, then I’d be very concerned. This ballot reconfirmed his leadership- it wasn’t a new ballot with new contenders. One of the contenders was the incumbent. Turnbull did declare the leadership vacant but 42% preferring another candidate is a sign of a large internal dissatisfaction. 58% of his party MPs supported him. Less than 6 out of ten.
Then the loser doesn’t pledge his loyalty having lost- he resigns from cabinet, rather than work with Turnbull, or was it to avoid the risk of sacking by a wrathful Turnbull?
Neither looks good after this stoush.
My take is that Turnbull is spooked by current polling. The other dork thought it was a good time to strike but got proved wrong. Labour will win an Oz election held in both short & medium term, eh? So the dork will wait & strike again when Turnbull gets defeated. Is there a better contender who could defeat the dork?
Even the Greens in Australia have serious infighting that would be unthinkable for the Greens in NZ.
The point is, all politics in Australia is highly personal, where its me me me.
Im just surprised some here get caught up in all the hype and what it means when they should see it all in context.
Yes Dutton is doing exactly what his mentor Abbott did; skive off to the back bench and engage in a guerrilla war with Turnbull.
No-one is happy with the state of Australian politics at the moment; in the past decade all three of the major parties have sustained damage over illegal immigration and climate change. It’s taken a rough toll on everyone, even the Greens have taken a few dents.
Business leaders are pretty pissed off with the lack of clear policy, and overhearing two conversations this afternoon (if either can be considered representative) many ordinary voters are discomforted by the lack of any credible visible leadership.
And after their last performance in power, no-one here should crowing about the prospect of the ALP forming a government … the underlying tensions have not gone away.
No many thought not having the support of your caucus colleges was an issue here during the cunners comedy hour I think Cunliffe would have been estatic with those percentages
Not many thought not having the support of your caucus colleges was an issue here during the cunners comedy hour I think Cunliffe would have been estatic with those percentages
Turnbull’s only chance now is to damn the torpedoes and deal resolutely with his caucus rebels.
Fifty years ago Russia and their Warsaw Pact allies put a stop to the Prague Spring reforms that included giving citizens the opportunity of self determination, free travel, ending censorship of the press, and political surveillance by the secret police.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DlEHJdkXcAAb9ZF.jpg
In case you haven’t thought about Donald Trump for a few hours just a runthrough of an old Philomena Cunk cover on it.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4vuUfnTEkg
Dismal Panel Guests
No. 1: GRAHAM BELL
A crude and ignorant bully, this blustering ex-copper was firmly put in his place one day by fellow Panelist Gordon Campbell. Sadly, few others have been brave enough to take him on….
Possibly the best compendium of Bell-esqueries ever made….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWCGxYVc9sI
Dismal Panel Guests is a compilation of the worst guests to appear on RNZ National’s light chat show over the last thirteen or so years. It is compiled by Hector Stoop for Daisycutter Sports, Inc.
Please include Stephen Franks
He most certainly is in the series, Ed. I might include the threatening email he sent me as well.
Oops….posted on yesterday’s OM in error.
I’d be interested to hear what others think:
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/364586/public-service-performance-bonuses-scrapped
Not a bad idea (for starters)
Maybe bring them back when senior management / CEOs actually start performing (or not), instead of running Ministries and Departments like their own little feifdoms.
Can anyone think of a Ministry or Department that’s actually been run well over the past decade?
Most public servants work in spite of their senior management masters rather than because of them.
In the Newshub story on this in tonight’s news, Hipkins was asked if he thought departmental CEO salaries were okay. His reply: “They’re being paid what they’re being paid.” Such brilliance sets an extremely high bar for other government ministers to measure up to, let alone the poor CEOs. The rocket science industry will be dead keen to recruit him asap.
Dennis, I think you should be careful about using rocket scientists as a benchmark for brilliance. What happens if we are inflicted with the presence of a rocket scientist who is clearly stupid?
The default exemplar for “clever” used to be “brain surgeon”. But then Dr Ben Carson came along. He was one of the dimmest of the dim bulbs that ran, or more accurately sleepwalked, for the 2016 Republican nomination. He was allegedly, you may remember, a brain surgeon.
Hipkins might be fucking up bigtime, but if Ben Carson is any yardstick, he probably would be good enough to be a brain surgeon, if not a rocket scientist.
🙂 Hypothetical, stupid rocket scientists, but did bring to mind the brilliant portrayal of Werner Von Braun by Peter Sellers in Dr Strangelove!
I think Peter Sellers actually played that part quite straight.
When I see people from Trump’s cabinet of grotesques on the television occasionally, Dr. Strangelove appears by comparison comfortingly sane and rational.
Is your government killing you?
We have an app for that
Jenny, that report is written by the notorious Danny Gold, who files stories from Jerusalem about “contested” neighborhoods. He is dodgy, and if you were smart, you would have nothing to do with his work.
Sobering statement from the herald on socialism when it goes wrong and the money runs out
“Venezuela was once among Latin America’s most prosperous nations, holding the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but a recent fall in oil prices accompanied by corruption and mismanagement under two decades of socialist rule have left the economy in a historic economic and political crisis.”
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
A lot of z Ed dear but still not as many Zs as the zero on the Venezuelan Currency Now go have a chicken sandwich and chill
OK Ed … I spent much of the first six months of this year working alongside some colleagues from Colombia. (A really interesting and deeply underrated Latin nation.). Their response to anything to do with Venezuela was quite different from the torpor you affect.
Soviet Russia, Maoist China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Albania, Cuba, and now Venezuela … there is always an excuse for the humiliating, catastrophic failure. ‘It wasn’t proper communism’, ‘ the leaders were corrupt’, ‘ the reactionary pigs sabotaged us’, ‘the capitalist running dogs …’ and on and on.
Always the same bloodless denial of anything wrong with the fundamental idea of unconstrained marxism.
Did any of your Colombian “colleagues” support the death squads employed by Senor Uribe? What’s that? All of them did?
Colombia has it’s own problems. If you imagine I’m ignorant of them, then you were not with me at the plant I was at last year, pock-marked by rebel bullets and guarded by armed platoons 24 hrs per day. But there is way more to the country than drug lords, death squads and gross inequality. Like most developing nations it’s changing for the better, and while it’s patchy and messy as always … it’s not the place it was even a decade ago.
Unlike Venezuela which from the conversations I had with one man, whose home is not too far from the border, what’s happening is not pretty. Yes I’m sure black propaganda exists; but not in a vacuum. When you hear first hand stories from people affected it’s not so easy to dismiss them with ‘zzzz’s.
Great, RedLogix. You seem to be a serious and astute judge of the situation.
I do disagree, though, with your statement: “I’m sure black propaganda exists; but not in a vacuum.” As we have seen with the baseless, fantastical attacks against Jeremy Corbyn, black propaganda is often a tissue of lies, with no link to reality.
If Corbyn got his hand on the levers of power in the Uk for 20 years it to would mirror Venezuela. Note the herald just sums up the impact of socialist and Marxist economics and societies over the last 100 years History tells you that as does redlogix highlights May I suggest your additional reading is just to find something to deny the obvious and support your fragile beliefs in a totally discredited ideaology
As I suspected, you are ignorant, and defiant in your ignorance. Don’t suggest anything about my reading; you haven’t a clue.
Tough my friend, i suggest you need to read more widely and far more critically You appear to read only what satisfies an extremely lop sided view of reality
I disagree Bewildered. Corbyn is not a marxist revolutionary; in a historic context he’s pretty much a middle of the road post-war leftie. While the Overton window shunted right-wards during the 80’s and 90’s, Corbyn wedged firmly in his rather moderate 70’s political space.
Fair enough maybe Venezuela is a stretch but 1970s Britain was not to flash, it led to the rise of Thatcher that managed to turn the uk fortunes around
‘The United States was the first country to recognize the independence of the nascent republic, sending the U.S. Navy to prevent Colombia from retaking the territory during the first days of the new Republic. In exchange for its role in defending the Republic, and for constructing the canal, the U.S. was granted a perpetual lease on the land around the canal, known as the Panama Canal Zone, which was later returned to Panama under the terms of the Torrijos–Carter Treaties.’-wiki
and Torrijos was killed of course.
Thanks for that, my friend!
Idiot. You need to actually do some serious reading, and stop rehashing black propaganda.
Na I think the herald sums it up quite nicely
As I said before, you’re an idiot. The Herald is the LAST publication anyone with an I.Q. above room temperature, never mind a conscience, would trust. It’s been delinquent for many generations….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/01/four-days-before-kristallnacht-herald.html
Historic my arse.
Published in 1942, John Gunther’s Inside Latin America described Venezuela fifteen years into the oil boom. Because of the obstructionism and feudal social systems of the landed classes, the land-owners had refused to modernise production methods, preferring cheap and plentiful labour, and when the poor fled the countryside to work in and around the oil-fields, domestic production collapsed.
Consequently, Caracas had the highest cost of living in the world with food prices typically 20-30 times higher than in the US because most food, along with almost every other sort of goods, was imported, heavily taxed, and levied with tariffs to prop up the local agricultural sector.
And despite the astronomical oil revenues earned by the ruling classes since the twenties, Venezuela at the time had no industrial base.
https://screenshots.firefox.com/TsknNr9tzpzIDYDy/trove.nla.gov.au
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/1860766?zoomLevel=1
Don’t waste any more time addressing him, Joe. You’re attempting to argue in good faith; that troll is not.
Thanks for those excellent links.
That scenario is indeed typical of almost all Latin American countries in the post-war era, extremes of inequality, ossified hierarchies and entrenched oligarchs. Often propped up by a malign dominance of US interest in the region. All this is understood.
But does anyone try to justify the horrors of Stalinist Russia by pointing to the feudal backwardness of Czarist Russia?
RedLogix, there is no comparison between Stalinist Russia and democratic Venezuela. For any person to suggest there was a comparison would put that person into the realm of such intellectual luminaries and conspiracy theorists as Leighton Smith and Alex Jones.
Comparison’s are never exact; yet certain patterns do emerge. Venezuela is probably a good example of what happens when entrenched inequality outstays the capacity of the dispossessed to tolerate it, and the reaction instead of evolving incrementally, kicks over the existing order with poor regard to what does and does not work.
Whether revolutions are triggered by force or ballot box isn’t really germane to the outcome. The historic context is different so I don’t imagine Venezuela will descend into the nightmare of the gulags, although the risk isn’t non-zero. The fact is the country we’re talking about has not seen it’s ‘democratic socialist revolution’ usher in a new era of prosperity and contentment.
What will most likely happen is that after a period of turmoil lasting perhaps a decade or so, and if they manage to retain some form of democratic accountability , they’ll move toward more moderate political settings.
The Venezuelan government is democratic. It’s been under sustained assault from Colombia and the United States, aided and abetted by the implacable Venezuelan extreme right wing oligarchies, for almost two decades now. There was a coup against the democratic government in 2002; it was reversed after massive civil protests made it impossible for the U.S. backed plotters to operate.
Venezuela does not operate death squads; the Colombian government did and probably still does. There is no way whatsoever that you could suggest the possibility of democratic Venezuela “descending into the nightmare of the gulags.” I’m interested, by the way, that you did not choose a more relevant example for political repression—like the United States gulag of torture and disappearance sites, starting in occupied Cuba and extending all round the globe.
They did, and more recently, the Operación de Liberación del Pueblo has been accused of doing Maduro’s dirty work.
https://www.hrw.org/legacy/wr2k2/americas10.html
https://warisboring.com/cops-in-skull-masks-carry-out-state-terror-in-venezuela/
I hesitate to link to anything because I just know you’ll reflexively dismiss anything and everything as ‘black propaganda’ … but here goes:
https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/country/venezuela.html
It’s consistent with what I heard first hand from a person living close to the story. It’s not credible or helpful to persist in denying basic facts on the ground … the plain matter is the country is in a deep crisis.
Certainly there will be external regional players, hostile to what is happening. No quibble. But the left does itself no justice when it forever blames everyone and everything else for it’s repeated failures.
I hesitate to link to anything because I just know you’ll reflexively dismiss anything and everything as ‘black propaganda’
I do not do that “reflexively.” That suggests something automatic and mindless, as opposed to arriving at a conclusion from having studied the matter seriously. You use “reflexively” like Jim Mora uses the word “virtuous”—as a denigration and belittlement.
Contrary to your attempt to render my viewpoint into something cartoonish and easily dismissed, I do not pretend that the Venezuelan government is a paragon of virtue, or even moderately well run. From the time of Chavez, the government has made some terrible decisions, choosing to grandstand with stunts such as supplying free fuel to the poor in certain parts of the United States in order to show up the Bush administration. I am also very angry at their loutish attacks on “bourgeois” culture, including Venezuela’s world-renowned El Sistema. Such actions are similar to Castro’s monstrous attacks on Cuba’s world renowned architects in the 1960s for no other reason than they were “bourgeios.”
So your suggestion that I “reflexively dismiss anything and everything as ‘black propaganda'” is baseless, as well as insulting.
It’s not credible or helpful to persist in denying basic facts on the ground … the plain matter is the country is in a deep crisis.
Indeed it is. You’re stating the obvious, and implying that I do not recognize that fact.
Certainly there will be external regional players…
That’s an anodyne and determinedly benign spin on the bloody insurrection that is being openly aided and abetted by the United States and its most brutal accomplice, Colombia.
It’s instructive to contrast your condemnation of democratic Venezuela with your positive, optimistic tone towards its internationally condemned terrorist neighbour, which you insist is “Like most developing nations …. changing for the better, and while it’s patchy and messy as always … it’s not the place it was even a decade ago.” (in 19.1.2.1.1)
I don’t think even silly old Sir Geoffrey Palmer, that dupe of Alvaro Uribe, would be so dishonest as to describe South America’s most repressive state in those terms.
You make a number of fair points there and I accept them in good faith.
My point is simple, the left has a terrible record at successful socialist revolutions. And it’s not always someone else’s fault.
Fair comment, my friend!
In one of the clearest clues yet about Washington’s latest meddling in the politics of Latin America, CIA director Mike Pompeo said he was “hopeful that there can be a transition in Venezuela and we the CIA is doing its best to understand the dynamic there”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cia-venezuela-crisis-government-mike-pompeo-helping-install-new-remarks-a7859771.html
Consider the sanctions as part and parcel of the ‘war’ against V…
Defaulted on debt, and reset currency to petro-commodity, hinged to a crypto-blockchain. Sounds good. Hope the Green Investment Bank are following how to do all this. Could Turkey be next? They are taking up crypto-fast, and have recovered all their gold reserves back from the US, earlier this year…
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-19/venezuela-chaos-after-maduro-announces-massive-95-devaluation-new-fx-rate-tied
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-20/lira-collapses-turks-are-piling-cryptocurrency
https://www.globalresearch.ca/gold-leaving-us-vaults-signs-of-upcoming-currency-war-and-armed-conflict-turkey-repatriates-its-gold/5651111
Asia Argento seems to be in serious trouble now,
but let’s bear in mind that she has also done some very good things.
I, and many others, have criticized the #MeToo divas for “forgetting” to speak out in support of the heroic Palestinian girl Ahed Tamimi. But some of those women have indeed spoken out. One of them was Asia Argento….
https://twitter.com/asiaargento/status/949772023865233408?lang=en
Shite critisim from you morrissy would be a badge of honour for most people and confirmation they are probably on the write track, hence your feedback on Venezuela is appreciated 😊
You’re an idiot. Go and call a talkback station—that’s your level.
Good evening Newshub can you see it we are talking about reforming our justice system and what do you not the gangs start playing up is this hard for some person’s who are against our justice reforms. Who’s view on maori is that we are savages they are out there and it’s not very hard for these red neck to pull off this attempted interference of our justice systems reforms.
And now Duncan you are blowing up the whole issue you are just being played with. The WHOLE of Papatuanuku is watching our Justice systems reforms there is a documentary crew from America filming this all the under privilege native people are watching Aoteraroa why because maori are not the only tangata whenua to be pushed into hardship locked up dieing on the streets and treated as second class people .
Who Australia America Canada Hawaii and there are many other nation’s who’s native cultures are in dire straight’s . So Aoteraroa will lead the Papatuanuku once again to the correct path of treating native people all people the same as the majority European cultures. Did you see that reality Duncan the other topic’s we have lead the world with Wahine vote Nuclear Free many more .
Ka kite ano P.S look like Loyd is trimming down
The Am Show The giant squid we caught one when I was fishing it was huge we no more about the Marama than Tangaroa’s beautiful creatures that’s a fact.
The government is being fiscally responsible in freezing mp pay’s and the high payed public servants this goverment is not going to —– on the mokopunas future’s buy loading them with Dept throwing them in jail or poisoning there enviroment .
Ka kite ano P.S got to go and work my favorite charity
The sandflys have been swarming with there actor’s since I exposed there bad behavior at the hospital .
You see its quite easy to read there body langue as I am looking for these people all the time I know that when ever I go out they are inplay how if a person walks past you they will scan you to see if you are a threat or not if they don’t look at me they no me need I say more and if you flip them the bird to a stranger they will give it back 10 fold .
I have been reading there body language since gisborne man started his personal vendetta 18 years ago I last seen him with Richard Prebble in the computa repair shop last year
One day I was walking past a group of sandfly’s contracted actors how do I spot them well they were talking about Ngati Porou historical issues and what do I know we are in Te Arawa whenua they should be talking about Te Arawa issues I can not even find many books on Ngati Porou Book’s in the Rotorua library.
When I walked back past this group I spoke loud enough so they could hear I said they were muppets with no morels you should have seen they duck for cover muppet puppets .
And to day they get one of there contracted lairs in Kamart to try a play with my daugther how do I not this person is a contracted liar because I know its history and I know that the sandfly shine there shiny badge and will let people off charges give them thosands of dollars get them jobs they do what ever it takes to get ——-on Eco Maori and its all false .
They don’t care just so long as the shut up that savage Eco Maori who’s action are letting every body know how flawed the New Zealand Justice is Ana to kai .
Back up your contracted lies come and arrested me and I will preform Rua Moko in the court house all over your lies and watch your ass burn on the hot coals of the court house Ka kite ano p.s the positive thing to Eco Maori is they are leaving a lot people alone because they are busy playing marball’s with them selves trying to frame Me
Eco Maori send’s condolence’s to Gregg Boyded Family he was a cool Kiwi and will be missed
Good Evening The Crowd Goes Wild James & Mulls I did not realize that the NRL are having Wahine tangata whenua League team ka pai .
James you got that accent down to a T.
Yes Tiger I ignored my elder’s who were letting me know about the aches and pain’s one get’s when you get long in the tooth.
Mulls I thought you were going to kiss the shield.
Ka kite ano P.S my challenges to obtain my birth right continues meanest kayaking I have ever seen