from the morgue

My fellow say what now?

(Man, busy. So I'll just propagate this instead of saying anything new. Picked up on GMSkarka's LJ, but it's all over.)

In this 13-second clip, McCain calls Americans his "fellow prisoners".

To be fair, however, he is very very old.

(It don't mean anything, of course - but don't pretend the US media wouldn't be all over Obama if he made a slip of this magnitude. They might yet come after McCain for this one.)

More DomPost WTF

Today the Dominion Post, our capital city's newspaper of record, features as its below-the-fold front page article the demented rantings of the online reactionary lunatics. (Not so prominent online, thankfully. The comments themselves are here, and they're just as stupid as you might expect.)

Anyone who reads comments anywhere online will know these people - emboldened by anonymity, aggrieved by a world too complex for them, they seize the opportunity to decry political correctness and to call for a return to barbarism. They're everywhere, sadly, but they are also a vanishingly small percentage of the total population.

They have been mercilessly lampooned for a long time, even by such outlets as the Private Eye, which for all its many virtues is hardly up with the play in the internet age. There is an addictive website devoted to ridiculing the more idiotic bletherings of this disgruntled rump. And yet, there they are, reported as front page news. As if they matter; as if they're worth listening to.

Another fine journalistic decision by the DomPost. You know, I bet if you google for five minutes you can find people online calling for Obama to be lynched - that can be your front page story tomorrow!

Green Billboards 2008

I just want to give some recognition to the best design work of the NZ election campaign thus far, and it has come from an unexpected source - the Green party. The Greens don't have a history of excellence in the visual design stakes, and their hoardings for the last election were (IMHO) pretty damn ugly:

The whole series of 2005 billboards is visible here.

This year, they have put some serious resource into the billboard campaign - either that, or they've stumbled across an exceptional designer willing to work for cheap. Everything about their '08 boards is on point. Check out this one, which was the first one I saw:

It's perfect stuff - the composition of the image is great, the broad horizon speaks to the Green's themes, even the demeanour of the model is well-placed. The simple, simple, simple message is genius. And I love the typeface of the key message (although I would have preferred the "vote for" typeface to match). Best of all, it works on the big scale - it looks fine on the screen, but enormous on the side of a building it really throws weight.

It's great to see. Billboard design has symbolic importance for this election, thanks to the role played in the 2005 election by the highly contentious (and very well-designed) "iwi/kiwi billboards". Sure enough, googling up the images for this post has turned up much interest and praise, some of which is summarised here at FrogBlog. Labour partisans The Standard even fear these billboards are too slick!

I think this is a significant step up in game that the Greens need to make if they want to make it happen this election. They have clearly decided internally to campaign on the "vote for your children" line, which seems like a risky choice to me but executed this well they might pull it off. I'm impressed with these billboards, and their new leader Russel Norman is giving a good account of himself (even though he seems to be hated in the house?). You go, Greenies.

Steven Price on the "Terror Raids"

I spent last night thinking and reading about the "terror raids" of last October. First I attended a public meeting on the subject organised by the October 15 Solidarity crew, with Media Law Journal blogger Steven Price speaking on the contempt of court case surrounding the raids.

It was interesting stuff, and Steven (as ever, I'm advised) was a great and interesting speaker. The case he talked about, currently before the courts, concerns the publication of excerpts from a leaked affidavit by the Domionion Post and other related outlets.

It alleges that the editor of the Dominion Post (Tim Pankhurst) and colleagues prejudiced the right to a fair trial of the October 15 defendants. Price thinks the case is likely to succeed, and he outlined several reasons why:

• The newspaper article was highly sensational and ran at a time of high public interest


• The article cherry-picked the most sensational parts of the affidavit and did not represent its overall contents well.


• The affidavit was itself a cherry pick of evidence by the police, who meant to use it to convince a Judge to allow search warrants; so the article was a cherry-pick of a cherry-pick.


• The newspaper's decision not to identify who was speaking in published quotations had the effect of encouraging the public to attribute the inflammatory statements to all the defendants, even if these views were not shared


• The affidavit was suppressed and would never make it to trial, so the evidence presented would never be encountered by jurors and could not be addressed and contested in a trial context

Steven thought last night that the likely outcome was a guilty verdict that would see Pankhurst & co. fined for their act of publication. That would be an outcome I wholeheartedly support. In this I part ways from the sage commenter on NZ affairs Russell Brown, who recently said "If Pankhurst and his employer are not successful in their defence, it would worry me if the court were to apply a very harsh penalty." I personally think a very harsh penalty is entirely in order. It isn't, to my mind, the fact of publication that makes Pankhurst et al. so deserving of punishment - it's the manner of that publication. It would have been entirely possible to run the leaked affidavit in a less sensational and prejudicial way, tempering the most dramatic material with contextual information and generally trying to avoid the leap to conclusion. It would still have been a leak, it would still have been a suppression breach, and it would still have been a bad decision in my opinion, but there I think Russell's point about the public's "right to know" stands up. If that "right to know" is being fed highly biased and prejudicial material that is in turn sensationalised, then that is a distant bridge too far, and Pankhurst and the others involved should bear the consequences.

Steven continued, however, with something I hadn't seen coming but that is obvious in hindsight: should the contempt case be found against the DomPost (as he thinks is likely to happen), he believes the Judges hearing the "terror raids" cases will be hard pressed to deny a request for a stay of prosecution. In other words, the DomPost's eagerness to show that the arrestees were worthy of being arrested may directly result in them getting off the charges.

There was much more to the evening's discussion, including a memorable aside about whether the Prime Minister's words about "napalm blasts" meant she herself was in contempt... In any case, I read all the material I could track down on the case that evening, and to my mind the best account still comes from Nicky Hager (no surprises there). The two relevant quotes in this post are all the refresher you need.

Anyway. This story is developing, as they say.

Muslim With Excalibur

I was delighted to discover this week that someone has been messing with symbols in a way that seems unprecedented to me. Over in the UK, writer Paul Cornell (best known for his work on the new Doctor Who TV series) has been writing a superhero comic for Marvel based on venerable character Captain Britain. Like his earlier series Wisdom, which was one of the few comics I allowed myself money to buy in 2005, he is using it as a chance to explore ideas of Britishness in the 21st century. Who are these Britons, anyway?

He has attracted controversy for including in his ranks, as the reader viewpoint character, a young muslim woman, Faiza, complete with traditional attire. The controversy hasn't come from an outcry - rather, from occasions when the comics media has gone all inappropriate (making 'terrorist' jokes is just the start of it). By and large, everyone's been quite happy with Faiza, and it helps that the series as a whole is well-conceived and well-crafted fun.

In an issue released a month ago, young Faiza moves from initiate to full-blooded hero when she pulls Excalibur from a stone, being judged worthy to do so. (Yes, I know it was a different sword in the stone in the legend, so does Cornell, just roll with it.) This is both an obvious move and an audacious one. The King Arthur legend is the only mythology that is claimed by Britain, and over which they feel ownership. And with British identity very much under contest at present - witness endless tabloid headlines about those Muslims changing the way we British people live - it's a bold political statement as well, about what being British means today.

Here are the panels in question:

Anyway, there's plenty more that could be said about this but I'll spare you because I need to get in to the office now.

The issue also includes the shocking death of another character, a shapeshifting alien who assumes the form of John Lennon most of the time because he likes it, and who is executed for mocking his fascistic captors. That's very British, right there, not being executed for steely defiance, but rather for doggedly taking the piss. I think Britishness is in good hands with Cornell.

Further reading: Cornell's blog where he takes reader comments on the issue in question.

Waste Minimisation Bill enters law

About two years ago, I tried out that small group action thing I'd been talking about. Three friends and I got together and decided we were going to do something - we chose to make a submission on the Waste Minimisation Bill that was then in committee.

In February 2007, we fronted up before select committee to speak to our submission. I wrote about the experience here.

Now, a year and a half later, the bill has passed into law. It has changed a bit from its earlier form, and you'd have to be a bit of an optimistic reader to find any evidence of our specific submission contributing to the changes, but I feel a kind of ownership nonetheless. This bill coming into law is an important step towards getting this country to sort out its relationship with waste and recycling.

The passing of the Waste bill has mostly gone without comment - largely due to the passing of the Emissions Trading Scheme the same day. The Greens put out a press release but that's about it - you can read that here.

Anyway, its nice to be able to draw a line under that action. Key lessons:
(1) lawmaking takes a long time
(2) NZ's system of government is genuinely open to participation from everyone - we have enormous power to influence things, if we only spare the time and energy and interest to use it.

Nice one.

My Petition

This records the presentation of my petition to Parliament: the Petition of Morgan Davie and 86 others requesting that the House of Representatives urge the Government to sign and ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance as quickly as possible. (I blogged about this petition previously.)

You might wonder, how could I possibly squeeze in the time to organise a petition while preparing for a wedding, studying, working, and blogging far far too much?

The answer, of course, is I didn't. I heartily endorse the message of this petition, and I was pleased to put my name to it, receive correspondence, and otherwise be the front-person, but it is not even remotely mine. This petition is entirely the hard work of doughty freedoms-fighter Idiot/Savant of No Right Turn.

It will be some time before the select committee reports back on the petition, but whenever that should happen, you'll hear about it here as well as at NRT.

[edit: hello, NRT readers. Yes, I am the beard of idiot/savant. Or, perhaps, the Groucho Marx nose-moustache-and-glasses.]

RNC Protest (2)

My earlier post about protests at the RNC included this photograph:

Over at Making Light, they found a reverse of the same shot:

This illustrated a guest post about the protests that is well worth a read - particularly for the reminders of the propensity for law enforcement agencies to insert informers and agents provocateur into protest groups. (NZers will be well-acquainted with recent embarrassments to an energy company where protest-group infliltrators were exposed; ML links also to this photograph, which suggests dirty pool - and down in comments you see the suspicion of infiltration was later confirmed.

It all just makes a messy story messier. I doubt you need police agents to get Black Bloc vandalism - Occam's Razor would suggest "young men + testosterone" is a better route to that outcome. And I furthermore am convinced that many in the Black Bloc are very thoughtful and insightful people, who would disagree with me vehemently when I say much of what they do is strategically disastrous. Add in the points made by commenters to the previous post, and it is clear there are no simple answers here.

Luckily I'm just a blog, so I don't need to do "answers", I can just claim that my entire purpose is to make you think, or at least, to entertain you. And to that end, here (courtesy again the Knifeman) is Rage Against The Machine putting on a show a capella after being refused permission to play at the RNC protests...

RNC Protest

I hate this photo. I hate that this photo continues to be the media's face of protest, nearly a decade after the Battle in Seattle. I hate that these black bloc anarchists fail to see that their tiny, worthless vandalism effectively neuters the voices of thousands upon thousands of others.

The MSNBC headline: GOP delegates attacked by protesters. It was "a violent counterpoint to an otherwise peaceful anti-war march", but you don't hear any more about the peaceful stuff.

There's a double-blind here, in fact. While the media covers the violence and transgressions of a tiny minority of protesters (see also CNN coverage, Fox News), the peaceful masses are pushed down the page and easily dismissed as a non-story; and deeper still, the efforts of the St Paul police and the FBI to stifle protest with a series of unlawful raids and arrests of protestors goes mostly unexplored, buried in the tenth paragraph of the stories above and told from the police POV.

Glenn Greenwald, always essential reading, has been on this story since the start (in one of the raided houses, proof of FBI involvement; the story develops with a range of photos and video.) While excoriating big media for burying this story, he draws a comparison with China - everyone was ready to look darkly upon the suppression of protest in China, but no-one has much to say about the exact same thing taking place in the US.

This is what corrupt state oppression looks like. This isn't hypothesising some future dystopia - this is living in one right now, where the biggest and most powerful democracy on the planet can criminalise its citizens as it pleases to stifle dissent during a political campaign. The bleak future has happened, is happening, right now.

Perhaps the stories of those raids resonate with me because down here the trial of the arrestees from New Zealand's own "terror raids" is quietly moving along, to general apathy. Does anyone take those ominous warnings of terrorseriously any more? I would like to think not, but sadly I think that would be too optimistic.

US Politics: Still Weird

As a citizen of the rest of the world, man, I gotta say, that Obama guy you got in your election race can sure deliver a hell of a speech. The acceptance speech at the Denver convention? That is a thing of beauty. Almost enough to make us rest-of-worlders start to hope.

(Any of my fellow rest-of-worlders who haven't encountered the speech yet, you can find video and transcript here - this thing is seriously worth your time.)

And this is, what, the third? fourth? incredible speech by Obama during this campaign, speeches for the ages that will be studied in schools for decades or longer. And the speeches aren't just wind-up toy messages, they are the product of the man and his campaign. This is the guy the Dems want you to vote for.

And on the other side of the ballot paper? John McCain, who is basically a missile in a rumpled suit, and who managed to snatch the media eye away from Obama the only way he could, with a completely frikkin' insane nomination decision for his VP. I mean, Sarah Palin? This is his counterpoint? Its such a wacked-out move that it doesn't even make sense on its own terms. Is she meant to grab the Clinton voters? Seriously, you figure a fundy Christian anti-abortion hardliner is going to win over disgruntled feminists?

Then again, this is the US, and up is usually down over there. Political engagement there has advanced further from rationality than in any other first-world nation (though most of the others are racing to catch up, it must be noted). Just hold it in your head for a moment - the truly insane thing is that in the US, a country economically wounded, deeply corrupted and compromised, locked in a tortuous unwinnable war, in this country there will be an election between Barack Obama and John McCain - conjure up the images in your mind, these two men, and all that they represent - there will be an election between these two men, and John McCain has a good chance of winning.

It doesn't make the slightest lick of sense, but I'll tell you this: it makes for one hell of an interesting show.

Olympics Not Politics

[Starting to get back into the groove of life. There may be blog.]

This one I got wrong: "There is a moral dimension to the Olympics, and I expect it to come to the fore in Beijing. It won't be the first time there's been a memorable protest under the five rings."

There was barely a murmur of political protest from the athletes during this Olympiad. I am still surprised, given the massive conflicts that raged over the torch run, and the widespread awareness and popularity of the Tibet cause if nothing else. It was as if everyone who turned up just wanted to do their sporty and enjoy the atmosphere in the Olympic village! (Cue the usual run of media stories about how everyone is shagging everyone else in athlete-town.) Where, I ask, was their political consciousness?

In retrospect it isn't so surprising. It is absolutely clear that China put on a wonderful Games, and the athletes were entirely caught up in it, with helpful people everywhere and a massive enthusiasm from the locals to show off their country to the world and win many, many medals. It was a brilliant games to watch, as well - any games that gives you both a Michael Phelps and a Usain Bolt is one to be cherished. Like so many other people, I don't really give a toss about 99% of the Olympic sports at any other time, but the festival nature of the Olympics and the sheer global commitment to excellence gets me every time.

So I can understand any athlete with a political mission letting it slide in the face of this excellent welcome. For an athlete at this level, the politics can only ever be distantly second to the sport, and its easy to see that distant second fading away into obscurity. So it turned out to be a happy games, despite the occasional sour note that reverberated with deeply unpleasant power - the lip-synch little girl for one. Media in the UK didn't shy away from hinting at China's political failings, but also never went beyond insinuation. Everyone walked away exhilirated and smiling, and in fact there is something deeply encouraging in the embrace of the Chinese by the world when so often they are vilified or even feared in other countries.

This, then, was China's coming out party into the 21st century world with a new social prominence to match its economic and political prominence. The Beijing Olympiad shows, unnervingly, just how functional a massive oppressive state can be when it marries itself to global capital. This is a model of the future; unlike Soviet Russia, whose communism was probably destined to collapse in upon itself sooner rather than later, China shows no cracks and I can fully believe it will be standing strong with this exact model of state management in a century's time, or longer. It has embraced the systems in the rest of the world that don't care about human rights, and in so doing has immunised itself from those systems that do care. It has had its coming out party, and it won't be going inside again.

NRT Human Rights Petition

In December 2006, the United Nations adopted a major new human rights treaty aimed at preventing and punishing enforced disappearance.

New Zealand didn't sign it.

You can help change this.

NZ political blogger Idiot/Savant of No Right Turn has launched a short, sharp campaign to petition the government to sign.

Unsurprisingly, given my affection for Amnesty International as a favoured charity, I support this goal wholeheartedly. I would really appreciate it if you download a copy of the petition, walk it around your workplace and get folk to sign it.

If you've never felt entirely up to speed on political disappearance and "the disappeared", there's a good overview on wikipedia. The list of places with well-known incidents includes Iran, Nazi Germany, Chechnya and Northern Ireland. It is a practice that undermines the most basic aspects of being human, let alone its terrible consequences for freedom and human rights. I believe the government should become a signatory to this new treaty.

I/S has set up a page for the campaign with further information.

Politics and Media, Kiwi Style

More from the amusing circus that is NZ politics and media: front page of the newspaper of our capital city, The Dominion Post, is this article by Phil Kitchin. Key quote:

Contacted for comment yesterday, Winston Peters said: "Phil, I told you I'm not talking to a lying wanker like you. See you." He then hung up.

Foreign types might ask, who is Winston Peters? He is our nation's Foreign Minister. He is the dude we send to meet the dignitaries. He shakes the hand of your President or Prime Minister, he is that guy, and that is how he rolls here. Ooh yeah.

New Zealand is very proud.

Knoxville

Many Wellingtonians will now have heard that friends-of-this-blog Dave and Urs were at the Knoxville, Tennessee church that was attacked by a man with a gun a few days ago.

The man wrote a letter claiming that he was attacking the church because liberals and gays were destroying the country. While there is certainly more to the story, it is clear that the rhetoric of the right-wing media provided him with a structure and a rationale for his attack.

It seems to me that this is the inevitable result of a media environment in which it is okay to joke about assassinating a liberal candidate for the presidency, in which an extreme bigot is called kind and decent by the President and venerated in the media after his death, where a high-profile media figure explicitly identifies liberals as internal enemies, where countless slurs and attacks on left-wing views are broadcast and repeated daily.

There is a huge media machine working feverishly to create hatred towards liberals. How then can this violence really be any kind of surprise?

Dave, Urs, much love.

Always Been At War With Orewa

Further to the discussion about the film of The Hollow Men, which of course was sparked by former National leader Don Brash's controversial speech in Orewa in 2004 (it has its own Wikipedia page):

I watched the late news on TV3 tonight. I don't do this often, so maybe what I noticed is all old news to you, but it caught me by surprise. In the links, the chirpy attractive newsreader blithely described the Orewa speech as "Don Brash's racist rant" and "an attack on Maori".

Now, I wasn't in the country at the time, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't how it was portrayed back then. It caused a massive surge in the polls for Brash and National, putting them right in the electoral game with one decisive play of the race card. It was so mainstream that the government even adopted some of the framing. It definitely was not racist - nor was it an attack on Maori. It was just common sense!

But at some point since 2004, everything changed. Now Orewa is so obviously a racist rant and an attack on Maori that a newsreader used those words in the most casual, unblinking tone. I wonder - is this the liberal media conspiracy, caught on camera at last? Or what?

Those Stroppy Maoris

Its Maori Language Week again, and as always its a pleasure to see our second (of three) official language get some time in the sun. Dutiful shout-out to Maori TV, which continues to pump out great homespun programming on a ridiculously tiny budget, and has become both part of the furniture and a respected and appreciated channel even for us Pakeha. Nice one.

Student mag Salient has run its traditional issue almost entirely in Maori (next week, like every year, will be a dozen letters abusing the editors for this) and it includes a little gem of an interview with the Maori Party's bovver boy in Parliament, Hone Harawira. (Quote sanitised so it isn't blocked by the autofilters at some folks' workplaces.)

It's different here. The reason why it's different here is that there's not an indigenous person in the world as stroppy as your f===in Maori. Dare anybody try and ignore us mate. You know what it's like aye? Anybody blink badly in your... f===in pound them... when I was marching aye we just wouldn't stand for it. I've been to Hawaii... they're a lovely people the Hawaiian people. I see them accept things that we wouldn't stand for over here aye. I say, '...F=== me! If anybody tried that to me at home I'd f===in drop him...'

Also this week, Google is adding Maori to its display languages, alongside such other native tongues as "Klingon" and "Elmer Fudd". I just tried to change my preferences in honour of the week but it isn't live yet. Neato.

(And maybe next year I'll even try to learn some reo. That'd be good.)

Scientists of Gore, Stand Up!

Latane's dynamic social impact theory + Moscovici's work on minority influence + the internet = support for the NZ Climate Science Coalition.

They just published their rebuff to the Royal Society of NZ's statement that climate change exists. My favourite bit:

...the [Royal Society] committee is unrepresentative: five members are from Wellington and two from Hamilton...

Because it just ain't proper science unless Balclutha is at the table!

(NZCSC discussed much better at Hot Topic.)

Cameron: "Its PC gone mad"

The UK papers and the rightysphere are all talking about David Cameron's big speech in which he says we need to stop making excuses for fat people and poor people and criminals and recognise that they have made choices to be the way they are.

"We as a society have been far too sensitive. In order to avoid injury to people's feelings, in order to avoid appearing judgemental, we have failed to say what needs to be said. We have seen a decades-long erosion of responsibility, of social virtue, of self-discipline, respect for others, deferring gratification instead of instant gratification.

"Instead we prefer moral neutrality, a refusal to make judgments about what is good and bad behaviour, right and wrong behaviour. Bad. Good. Right. Wrong. These are words that our political system and our public sector scarcely dare use any more."

There's so much packed into these short paragraphs that its quite impressive. Its a very well-crafted speech that repackages all the talkback shibboleths as if they were something statesmanlike. I could write for ages about the way these ideas are packaged so shrewdly - note the sleight of hand in this next excerpt that equates "risk of obesity" to "risk of poverty" as if these were equivalent.

Refusing to use these words - right and wrong - means a denial of personal responsibility and the concept of a moral choice.

We talk about people being 'at risk of obesity' instead of talking about people who eat too much and take too little exercise. We talk about people being at risk of poverty, or social exclusion: it's as if these things - obesity, alcohol abuse, drug addiction - are purely external events like a plague or bad weather.

Of course, circumstances - where you are born, your neighbourhood, your school, and the choices your parents make - have a huge impact. But social problems are often the consequence of the choices that people make.

The biggest problem with this emphasis on individual choice and individual responsibility is simply this - it doesn't get you anywhere. If we conceive of social problems through a lens of personal choice, then right out of the gate we're drastically limiting our ability as a society to respond to them. Instead of interrogating circumstances and environment and contributing factors, we focus on choice, and the incentives and disincentives that act on it.

And this even though we know full well that choices are made in ways far from the rational. To pretend otherwise is to deny what it is to be human. If we focus on social change in terms of choice we are doubly hampered, firstly because we are limiting our range of responses to "provide incentives" and "provide disincentives"; and secondly because the incentives and disincentives we can provide are profoundly weak. Our choices, when they are the product of reflection and weighing up of incentives and disincentives, will pay little attention to external impositions by the state. Far more important are influences from friends, neighbours, parents - the people you live among whose opinions will affect you each and every day. To believe that ASBOs have had any impact on the behaviour of your typical disaffected yoof goes so far beyond wishful thinking it lands in the realm of ritualised sympathetic magic. (Failed magic, I might add.)

Cameron likely made this speech to put his "hug a hoodie" comments behind him and to make a pass at populist intolerance while Labour support has collapsed too much to benefit. It will certainly give him a big bump in his popularity, and it is entirely in step with the overall project of the right. And it's a shame. This is basically a retreat from the complexity of the real world into a deeply naive social science. These unhelpful ideas are already virulent enough without being dignified with this kind of high-profile promotion.

(I feel I should note, in case of misunderstanding - yes, personal choice plays a role in behaviour, and yes, incentives and disincentives can affect personal behaviour. My point is, that is an incredibly narrow understanding of the complexities of why a person, or a society, behave the way they do.)

Drinking Liberally: Nicky Hager

Went along to Drinking Liberally on Thursday night, a packed house (including a couple of MPs) for NZ's great investigative journalist Nicky Hager. Cal and I were both pretty under the weather so we didn't stick around afterwards, but it was good to hear him talk.

Hager talked for a while about how he is frustrated by people who say the public is apathetic about politics, saying his experience is that people everywhere, at all levels of society, are interested and have opinions that go beyond pure self-interest. He blames the political process for making people feel excluded and helpless. Crosby-Textor, the "evil agency" employed by National to help with their campaign, were paradigmatic examples of this. They are carefully structuring National's campaign to shut down anything that is interesting, so people experience the substance of politics as boring and have to focus on personality. The strict insistence on repeating the same statements over and over is rendering the political conversation empty, and that is the cause of perceived public apathy

He spoke mostly about the National opposition and its many sins, because it was a liberal crowd, but made a point of Labour's failures and wrongdoing as well - he identified Labour's years of shutting down debate, and (most damningly) its failure to build up a credible liberal community in New Zealand. It held on to power too closely and as a result, now that the wind is coming out of its sails, there's no support ready to come to its aid.

He made a bunch of other interesting points (noting how fundamentally right-wing NZ is was one of them that struck home to me), but reserved most of his ire for the media, whose reactive press-release driven mode of operation clearly drives him to distraction. While careful not to attack them too overtly ("I have to work in that world", he said) it was clear that he places huge accountability on the news media for the sad state of political conversation here (and presumably overseas as well). Why, he asked, had no media representative asked John Key if he was employing Crosby Textor? It had been a major issue for his predecessor in the role - and yet not one Kiwi journalist fronted up to Key and asked him if he was taking a different course.

That is why Nicky Hager is so valuable. He's a legend, in my book. Kudos.

(I'm going to see the movie of his revelatory book on the last National campaign, The Hollow Men, in the film fest. Should be fun. Really should read the book, seeing as I've seen Hager talk about it, seen the play of the book, and will shortly see the film of the book...)

Side note: it does puzzle me why the DomPost, among other papers, happily publish ridiculous letters to the editor like today's asking for Hager to be prosecuted for being in possession of leaked emails. Surely the capital city newspaper doesn't think reporting on leaked documents is a crime? Why, then, do they allow such attacks to get into print at all? It surprises me.

John Key and "Explaining Is Losing"

DomPost man in the Beehive Vernon Small: As National leader John Key is fond of saying: Explaining is losing.

I find myself forced to question this - does he really say that? Google sure don't find any instances. Gerry Brownless said it in the house a year ago, but that's about it. So does Vernon Small really testify that Key says this when off-mike? That's a hell of a bean to throw, if so, because it comes from the arch-demon himself:

"Explaining is losing." This is the only direct quote I've lifted from the book, because it is key, absolutely critical. If your guy has to explain anything - his policies, his past, anything - then your guy is playing a losing game. Voters in general don't want to be burdened with policy details and candidates certainly don't want to get mired in personal explanations. Just forget explaining anything -- anything at all -- and move on. It'll work. You'll be amazed.
- from a summary of 'Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George Bush Presidential'

Speaking of election advice and strategy, Nicky Hager's continued that unfamiliar "journalism" thing with a report on how John Key and the National core have enlisted extensive multi-year support from despised election dirty-tricks experts Crosby, Stills & Textor. As usual with Hager's stuff, his story is then picked up and covered mostly in terms of "who does that Nicky Hager think he is" and "how is he getting all this information" rather than actually paying attention to what he's dug up. But that's the way things are done now, sad to say.

(Hager is a special guest at this Thursday's Drinking Liberally in Wellington. I'm gonna be there.)

Those Dastardly White Men!

Left-wing politics lost the working man the moment it started caring about women and minorities.

In talk about Obama/Hillary I've seen the above claim a few times, never spelled out, but sitting there under the text. And I have to confess, it has a certain explanatory appeal.

But I am not a history expert, and I am suspicious of this claim that seems to imply that prejudice is endemic among working-class white men. I don't think that's true.

So, people who read this blog. Is that claim in italics nonsense? Or is there enough truth in there that it is of some value?

(Dastardly is a tremendously good word. I want to use it more often but the opportunity rarely presents itself.)

Those Darn Extremists!

The Sunday Star-Times continues its delicate balance of being 95% useless and 5% exceptional, this time with a followup to the Thompson & Clark (TCIL) spying-on-protesters revelations of a few months back. (You may recall the glee with which I greeted the news that Gavin Clark had been outplayed at his own game by a complete novice.)

This article discusses one of the outputs of TCIL, a monthly report on activist comings and going named "National Extremism". Of course, it's just a compilation of public domain knowledge about environmental activists and the like. The example given in the article is hilariously indicative:

One item, for example, says "bio-diesel bus carrying the Be the Change Climate Rescue Tour arrives in Palmerston North fronted by environmental activist and Auckland Save Happy Valley member Jo McVeagh". The tour, sponsored by Greenpeace, Oxfam and Forest and Bird, "aims to encourage individual New Zealanders throughout the country to make a personal contribution to combating climate change". This "intelligence", for which Maf had been paying $1000 per monthly report, was taken straight from a "Be the Change" press release. Thompson and Clark's contribution was a comment about the bus's bio-diesel a by-product of meat production "not [being] the smartest of choices for someone like McVeagh who wants to take the moral high ground" (presumably a reference to her assumed vegetarian beliefs).

As ridiculous as this all is, it would be a mistake to dismiss it. The spin the article takes is "look at your tax dollars being wasted", and it is indeed an example of this, but that's a sideshow to the real concerns here. What this report shows is the exercise of (capitalist) power to demonise those who are campaigning for a system that values something other than money.

Look at the title of the report for an example: environmental activists are, by definition, "extremists", and the word "National" suggests how the interests of the coal industry (for example) are conflated with the good of the nation.

It would be unwise to assume that all the customers of this report endorse its aggressive framing of activist elements; I'm sure many, if not most, take it with a generous helping of salt. Nevertheless, they find enough value in it to purchase it, and that framing of 'national extremism' pervades the surrounding discourse. (For example, AgResearch and Genesis Energy, as mentioned in the article, put enough stock in TCIL to parrot their prepared lines to the media when questioned over the report.) In a wider context, the TCIL 'national extremist' frame is reflected in whole Urewera 8 'terrorist cell debacle.

In short, the problem is this: Those in power see those who question their actions as dangerous, not just to the powerful institutions themselves, but to the nation as a whole.

Luckily, New Zealand is small and heavily interconnected. It is hard to effectively demonise an Other when everyone is only a couple degrees of separation apart. The TCIL report reveals part of the hidden discourse of power but also shows how vulnerable it is to ridicule. Heck, our Powerful aren't even that Powerful. While this problematic tendency has real and horrible consequences (again, look at the Urewera arrestees for an example), I suspect it is not strong enough to truly become widespread in the assumptions of those in positions of power. Other, larger, countries cannot be so confident.

In any case, TCIL are to be condemned, and their reports and the ludicrous framing they perpetuate must be held up for the nonsense they are. These frames don't just misrepresent their subjects, they pervert the discussion of vital public issues and thereby the functioning of democracy itself. Thompson and Clark are buffoons, but they are buffoons who must be held publicly accountable for the consequences of their foolishness.

(see also No Right Turn on this)

(and also Mundens)

Act Party: Mostly Just Sad

The changeover of all Parliamentary offices so waste is sorted at peoples' desks (into recyclable and non-recyclable) has met heavy resistance from, you guessed it, our party of personal responsibility, ACT New Zealand.

ACT office staff are in full revolt after being told by parliamentary bosses that they must take part because it is Government policy.

ACT leader Rodney Hide said it was an example of the "nanny state gone barking mad"...

In a show of defiance, some ACT staff have turned their recycling cubes into pen holders and are ignoring the instruction to sort their waste.

Full story, with dramatic photo of ACT leader Rodney Hide not recycling some paper

I guess in this case ACT figure that personal freedom trumps personal responsibility, right? Because that makes hella sense.

And they're pushing the NZ political return of Roger Douglas to solve our economic ills, blithely ignoring that the man's radical free market reforms in the 80s did incalculable damage to the country from which it's only now starting to recover... See also Gordon Campbell's excellent review of 'Working With Lange', Michael Bassett's book on the Lange years that paints the Rogernome as a misunderstood genius held back by selfish fools... Michael Bassett is not much loved by me and this review just gives more confirmation that he's vile and self-deluded, and we can apparently add 'virulently misogynist' to the list as well.

It's all so very, very sad.

Obama

I used to think that there were no differences of substance between the Right and Left of U.S. politics, per Nader and John Ralston Saul. The election of Bush Jr. showed me that I was wrong.

Obama's secured the Democratic party candidacy. Good. It is nice to see that the most powerful democracy in the world won't spend nearly a quarter-century with presidents alternating from two dinner tables - twenty years is quite long enough.

Obama will be working with Elizabeth Edwards on healthcare. Good. Healthcare is a huge mess in the U.S., concerns about healthcare cross partisan lines like no other issue. Obama's weakness on healthcare also sent many voters to Clinton, who was stronger on this issue (e.g. ).

The election will be messy and nasty. The Republican strategists were ready to go mean on Clinton - they've been building ammo on her for years. Obama is much trickier, a relative naif with little dirt in his backstory, and what dirt there is has been played out in the dem primary. They're left with all the dogwhistle stuff - he's black, his name's Hussein, he's a secret muslim. There will be a lot of this crazy insinuation coming through until the election hits - witness this astonishing Fox News characterisation of a standard-issue fist bump as a terrorist fist jab.

The election should be a walk for Obama. It won't be, though, because the U.S. is not a sane environment and its political culture has been thoroughly debased. Nevertheless, I eagerly anticipate the first president of the U.S. who's not a white dude. He can't be any worse than the current office holder.

Roll on the new era.

Israel announces willingness to bomb Iran

Israel warns it will attack Iran:

"If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective," Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz told the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. "Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable."

Me, Feb 2006:

The strategy is not to actually start another war - there is no resource to invade and conquer Iran, and Iran's not in a position to move outside its borders - but to create a diplomatic situation that will allow Israel to conduct a bombing campaign on Iran without censure from the rest of the world.

Israel is champing at the bit to do this, and they know there's not a thing Iran can do to stop them or retaliate against them. But the diplomatic costs would be huge, still. A bit more fearmongering around Iran is necessary before this option really becomes viable.

Drinking Liberally 2

The second Drinking Liberally in Wellington happened last night. Michael Cullen, Finance Minister, came to talk on the back of his electoral-fighting budget - he spoke well about his background and the principles of social democracy, then took a bunch of questions which challenged him on his claims to being a Keynesian and asked about the Treaty resolution process, among other things. Before and after Cullen was mingling, and I was pleased to see a fair few faces there who were also at the one before, even though once again I couldn't stick around much past 7pm.

It all felt a lot more sure of itself this time, it seemed that the mingling and conversation which was so hesitant at the first one was pretty engaged this time out. All as it should be - the concept is a perfect fit for a small capital city with a strong liberal base and plenty of bars... It was promising, and I'll be along again, hopefully to get some solid chatter time in for a change.

Our Public Discourse

This profile of a persistent tagger generated over 100 comments. The first 100 break down into the following general response types:

• Serious punishment (imprisonment, deportation or direct violent retribution)


• Other punishment (cutting off benefit, etc.)


• Insulting the tagger with no other comment (waster, moron, loser, etc.)


• Looking for a positive way of working with him

Merging the "other punishment" category with the "insults" category (to represent negative affect without any specific demand for serious punishment) gives this distribution:

On Wednesday, briefly

Wednesday gave me much to post about but I didn't post about it because Thursday was a dog of a day, by which I mean, it was very busy, in the way that dogs are busy, with their sniffy noses and waggedy tails and the bounding.

Briefly then:

I went to Drinking Liberally - the debut get-together of liberal-type people to drink and chat and network and so on. I found it to be full of potential, even if most people there were clearly devoid of the right social script to go to. Anyway, mundens has the overview, go check his account for more. Fortnightly on Thursdays from now on, worth a look if you're that way inclined.

And I went to the 48 Hr Film Fest heat to see the premiere of our Jenni's Angels film, Borkhard Hates You Too. It was fun. And VISUALLY AWESOME. Again, mundens has the scoop.

And I did other stuff that was busy but not blog-interesting, so I'll spare you.

Food Prices and NZ Politics

There's a global food shortage right now. A bunch of reasons, many of which were discussed here in a Nov 07 Guardian article - according to a UN statement at that time, the shortage is due to oil price increases, demand for biofuels, weather effects and increased demand from India and China.

It's an election year in New Zealand, and there's definitely a mood for change - a fourth 3-year term with Labour leading the government has never been likely. The food shortage here is being framed as a domestic issue as much, if not more, than a global one - Labour is failing to keep the price of cheese to an acceptable level!

What I want to know, and have been unable to discern, is how the specific NZ situation relates to the global situation. Does our government bear some responsibility for the food price increases here? If so, what aspects, and how do they interact with the global environment?

I'm genuinely asking, because I genuinely don't know and this seems pretty important to me. Maybe there has been media discussion of this very topic - but if so, I haven't seen it.

Rob Gilchrist: Respect, That Man

The headlines should read "Arrogant Private Eye Outspied By Novice."

More genius journalism from Nicky Hager, whose reputation and wide net of sources continue to do him proud. The Private Investigation firm Thompson and Clark Investigations (TCIL) is rightly in the firing line for again trying to recruit a spy in activist circles (I wrote about the last instance of this too). It seems likely Solid Energy is again involved, against direct instruction from the government, so there's going to be some chaos out of this.

The best bit is how it went down. Rob Gilchrist, a Christchurch guy with some links into these groups, was approached by Gavin Clark and a pitch was made for him to start spying for TCIL. Gilchrist played along, set up a second meet, and brought along a tape recorder. He then recorded Clark's recruitment attempts on three separate occasions, feeding the info to Hager who broke the story on Sunday.

Ordinary guy Rob Gilchrist outplayed professional PI Gavin Clark at his own game. That fills me with glee.

Clark, as quoted in Hager's article, trying to butter up Gilchrist and ending up chumping himself:

I can see exactly where you're coming from, and I think it's good you've got social values; you know, things that keep things in check. But sometimes people's ideas are so extreme that, you know, I don't know if the world could sustain a population of all vegans. We'd be overpopulated.

Oh, my, I'm laughing again. What a buffoon. If it wasn't a reprehensible action by a determined resident of the ethical sewer, sourced in the large-scale villainy of Solid Energy's reactionary culture, and continuing despite every possible ordinary restraint, then the hilarity wouldn't taste so damn bitter.

Richmastery vs the Donkey

"Why is it... some people buy 20 properties a year and others only buy 1?"

There's an ad in the 'entertainment' section of Wellington freebie the Capital Times this week: "How to profit from property!" It's advertising an upcoming seminar and, cod-socialist that I am, every word in the advertisement makes my hackles rise.

"NZs Largest Propety Success Program to Property Climbers!"
"Learn the secrets ONLY 6% of investors know that gives them success where many others fail!"
"You will never win the race of wealth riding on a donkey!"

The seminar is from a "Richmastery", a property investment services company based out of Auckland. Their website promises a long and costly process of induction into their secret techniques, culminating in the slightly spooky inner circle:

STEP 8. Presidential Inner Circle The Presidential Inner Circle is a unique and exclusive opportunity that is strictly limited to fifty serious members worldwide who will experience a range of privileges, access and discovery that is unattainable outside of this selected private group. This group is about Fun, Discovery, Learning and Access at the Highest levels.

They even have their own website: http://www.presidentialinnercircle.com/. There are some great photos of last weekend's "Ferrari and Porsche day".

Anyway. I don't have any grand purpose here other than saying "Look at that!" and pointing. If it reminds you of Amway or Landmark or even Scientology, that's no mistake, this is just another iteration of the same tried and tested techniques for sucking people in. And I surely don't have to remind anyone in NZ of the havoc wreaked socially by the rise in investment property.

"Imagine how much faster your personal wealth accumulation could be with this information!"

Bah, humbug. I'm going to catch the bus to work now.

So I'm Flying

I'm going to the UK in August. 24 hours in a flying tin can for me (each way). And yet. I worry about climate change. I esteem George Monbiot, who says not flying is the single most significant thing one can do to help avert climate change. My moral heuristic is Kant's categorical imperative: do as you would have everyone do. I even co-ordinate a teaching programme about the gap between attitudes and behaviour in the environmental context.

All this, and I fly to the UK.

I'm going over for the wedding of one of my oldest and closest friends. If there is ever a reason to travel the world, surely this would be it? But on the other hand, I know my friend would understand if I didn't go. If our friendship means anything, it is respect for one anothers' principles. Besides, I have a lot of very close friends all around the world. There will always be events of significance out there.

But there are flights going all the time. What's one seat on one flight going to do? It's not like they'd cancel the flight if I wasn't on it, right? But any decision anyone makes has social consequences. If I didn't go, then that would contribute to social perception of air travel. Me not going might nudge a few other people closer to thinking, yeah, if I'm serious about climate change I'm not going to make that sort of trip. And if they made similar decisions, so it would spread further. Me going has the opposite effect - someone whose conscience is nagging them, like mine did me, can think "well morgue always talks about climate change but he flew around the world just the same". And maybe that will hold them back.

The big problem in climate change is corporate and government activity, individual carbon output is just a sideshow and worrying about it is useless. But corporate and government activity happens in the social matrix. All the stuff about social influence above applies here as well. The big powers will only change when there's a mass of public sentiment demanding it, and if I believe that then isn't it incumbent on me to be part of the demanding public?

Well, just buy come carbon offset and consider yourself in balance. Maybe. I'm suspicious of carbon offset schemes because of the time lag - they promise to pay back your carbon output in the future, but the problem is worsening now and timescales for change are short.

So am I a hypocrite? Yeah, I think I am. And there's not much I can do about that except acknowledge it. So bear it in mind whenever I talk about this stuff - I'm just an ordinary hypocrite like everyone else. And I'm sure looking forward to the UK.

The Debased Electorate

Glenn Greenwald (18 March) on Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" address:

The entire premise of Barack Obama's candidacy is... that Americans are not only able, but eager, to participate in a more elevated and reasoned political discourse... But in Obama's faith in the average American voter lies one of the greatest weaknesses of his campaign. His faith in the ability and willingness of Americans to rise above manipulative political tactics seems drastically to understate both the efficacy of such tactics and the deafening amplification they receive from our establishment press.

The Times of London (21 March):

Polls show Barack Obama damaged by link to Reverend Jeremiah Wright
Barack Obama has been significantly damaged by the controversy over his pastor’s inflammatory remarks and the issue has become a serious threat to his presidential ambitions, polls suggest.
The surveys released yesterday point to an erosion of Mr Obama’s support among independents, a bloc that has previously backed him in overwhelming numbers, and particular alienation among white, working-class voters who will be critical to the general election in November.
They appear disturbed by the Illinois senator’s refusal to disown the Rev Jeremiah Wright in a keynote speech he delivered on Tuesday...

Olympics and Politics?

Kiwi equestrian gold-medal winner Mark Todd's comments that if he went to Beijing he'd make some kind of protest against China's abhorrent actions in Tibet are a sign of an undercurrent of concern that athletes around the world must be feeling.

It would be wrong to take Todd's comments as too much of a sign - he's an atypical case, an older athlete making an unexpected comeback at the twilight of his career and already with some gold in his closet - surely he has less to lose from official censure than the vast majority of young competitors. Additionally, it's plain from the article that his comments were dug out by an enterprising reporter, rather than something Todd had intended to say. Still, Todd knows about the media and knew what he was doing. And the questions he answered will keep coming, everywhere around the world.

The current violence in Tibet, where an absence of free information flow is apparently concealing brutal state repression and perhaps the murder of citizens, is already casting a shadow over the games. For us in the West, Tibet is China's greatest PR disaster, and the Olympics its greatest PR coup. The appeal to draw these two storylines together will prove irresistible to the world media.

China has already put pressure on governments to ask their athletes to sign a pledge not to speak about politics at the game. A number of athletes have spoken out saying they don't intend to engage with politics at all. But that's only to be expected; it would be an athlete with poor survival instincts, or a special case like Todd, who announces now their intent to cause a stir in Beijing.

There is a moral dimension to the Olympics, and I expect it to come to the fore in Beijing. It won't be the first time there's been a memorable protest under the five rings.

Dem nomination update

Padraig O'Bama

Hillary calls herself "the mutant candidate." As in, the X-Men.

From The Morgue: Being Informed, So You Don't Want To Be.

Just horrible

Two Palestinian gunmen have opened fire in a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem, killing at least eight people and wounding 20.

A school? I have no words.

Climate Change Skeptics: hee hee!

Back in November 2k6, I wrote my "Now we have won" post saying that the public landscape of ideas has changed, and that the Iraq war is now seen as an endless failure, and anthropogenic climate change is accepted as happening. (There were some stoushy comments that led to a followup "No, seriously!" post.)

That post was when i thought we'd hit tipping point. Some might say I was too early or too late, but it seems impossible to deny that we've tipped somewhere along the line.

The example that got me today was featured in the DomPost, sourced from the Washington Post - an article about climate change sceptics that gives them all the credibility of the Keystone Kops:

While the IPCC enlisted several hundred scientists from more than 100 countries to work over five years to produce its series of reports, the NIPCC document is the work of 23 authors from 15 nations, some of them not scientists.

or even:

Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, said he was not surprised that roughly 500 participants had gathered at the meeting. "I'm sure that the flat Earth society had a few final meetings before they broke up."

This article simply wouldn't have been printable a couple years ago. Thank heavens we're over that nonsense.

(The DomPost version takes note of the fact that some of NZ's own Clown Skeptics, Vincent Gray among them, made the pilgrimage.)

What We Are Worth (per Monbiot)

This one's been sitting in my bookmarks for a while, waiting for me to get around to blogging it. It's worth waiting for. It isn't often I read something that really shakes me, and this more than fit the bill.

Back on 19 feb, George Monbiot wrote about how costs are balanced in environmental accounting. His starting point was the crucial Stern Report, a document that joined with the IPCC findings to finally tip the balance on whether action is needed to stem climate change:

Sir Nicholas Stern... showed that stopping runaway climate change would cost less than failing to prevent it. But... few people bothered to find out how he had achieved this result. It took me a while, but by the time I reached the end [of his report] I was horrified.

Monbiot identifies problems with the way Stern measures the costs of climate change. All kinds of destruction, disruption, displacement and death are turned into a money figure: they are considered as "a reduction in consumption” equivalent to $30 per tonne of carbon.

Suddenly, as Monbiot observes, you are able to weigh up the cost of environmental destruction and human life as entries on a balance sheet. Sure enough, the UK govt's argument to expand Heathrow airport follows this precedent. As Monbiot summarises:

The government claims that building a third runway will reduce delays, on average, by three minutes. This saving is costed at €38-49 per passenger per hour. The price is a function of the average net wages of travellers: the more you earn, the more the delays are deemed to cost you, even if you are on holiday.

This is the sort of logic that sits behind much public decisionmaking. On the one hand, Stern conscientiously evaluates human misery and death as a component of 'reduction in consumption'; on the other hand, a City Executive whose plane is delayed is deemed to have its own social cost.

I should say, I don't have a problem with the methodology in principle. Unlike Monbiot, weighing up human life in dollar terms doesn't shock me; health funders and automobile manufacturers have to do the same thing all the time. What shocks me is the way in which these prices are set. The most cautious figures are used to call the devastation of our planetary ecosystem a 'reduction in consumption' - but somehow the most generous assessments are given to the cost to society of an exec stuck waiting for his plane another hour. And perhaps that's enough to sink this methodology. The translation of non-monetary values into financial ones will always be so tentative and subjective and responsive to the biases of those performing the translation that the most hideous results are inevitable. And on this basis, the decisions are made that determine whether our planet is trapped into a horrible future. (Or for a Dubtown parallel - the decision to press ahead on the Wellington Bypass surely owed a lot to exactly this kind of accounting.)

Go read the article. Monbiot is always incredible, and this is a superb example of his writing at its pithy, excellent best. I was lucky enough to see him talking at the G8 in July '05, and he's going to be videocasting a talk to Wellington this Saturday morning for Writers and Readers Week. Perhaps my favourite Monbiot article of all time is Fallen Fruit, about why apples in the UK aren't as nice as they used to be. (That one was even better with the photos.)

Gaza: Something You Can Do

I haven't been blogging much on the middle east lately, but I've been following the news threads as solidly as ever. The latest violence in Gaza is worrying. Only a week ago it was a peaceful protest against an economic blockade; now there's been escalation and invasion, and civilians are dying. This is all the more concerning because it is out of step with what ordinary Israelis want, according to this Haaretz account that says most Israelis support ceasefire talks with Hamas.

If this concerns you as well, here's something you can do right now: sign the Avaaz petition.

Out of all the organisations I've seen trying to turn online presence into real-world influence, Avaaz is easily the strongest and most successful. They essential work through online word-of-mouth, like this, to push very targetted issue-specific petitions. Their first big one was to the 2007 G8 about global warming, and since then they've kept an eye on numerous human rights and climate change issues. They do good work and are the best channel I'm aware of for turning your concern at your computer screen into something that key decisionmakers will actually see.

At the petition page you can see how many have signed, as the bar creeps toward their target. The petition will be delivered to the Israeli government and to Hamas to call for an immediate ceasefire. It's something.

About That Tagging Thing

So the election season has rolled on, with the first big electoral policy initiative out of the incumbent Labour govt being war on taggers.

Obviously this is an image-correction maneuver by Clark. The electorate are sick of tagging, so it is valuable to be seen to be doing something. But a lot of people have missed that the new law is really intended for adult offenders; youth who tag are going to be dealt with exactly the same way (see the FAQ at the bottom of the press release for more).

The big impact on the kids is going to be restrictions on the sale of spray cans to teens. Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of such a restriction, it just doesn't sound very effective in the face of an army of disenfranchised 13-year-olds with marker pens, older cousins and nothing to do with their time. Still, the FAQ has an answer to that:

It has been suggested that spray paint taggers will all start scratching glass or using marker pens. However, tagging has its own internal boundaries and ‘culture’. As spray paint is the chosen tool of this ‘culture’ it is expected that the movement to other types of graffiti implement will be small and we would expect to see an overall reduction in graffiti.

Overall it doesn't seem to me like much change is possible from this legislation. It's certainly not an important social problem. (Don't get me started on that Broken Windows nonsense. And no, tagging is not a gateway crime. The taggers of today don't become the home invaders of tomorrow.) No doubt some policy wonk has worked hard on it, but ultimately it just amounts to a flag in the ground saying Labour is not surrendering middle NZ without a fight.

Anyway. I've had a few interesting conversations about this recently. Tagging as an activity has always sat uneasily with me. Full-fledged graf art, I have a lot of love for that. Witty and weird little slogans scrawled in public places are a bonus in our urban landscape. Tagging, the runty little sideshow of graffiti, has never won me over. It isn't the act itself that bugs me, but the thoughtless aesthetic placement of so much tagging. I mean, tagging some suburban garage? Tagging the side of a white suburban house? This doltish placement has always annoyed me. But the aesthetics of graffiti and tagging are subjective. Does graffiti add value or subtract value to an environment? Well, that depends on the graffiti, the environment, and the person. It's an impossible equation.

It gets even curlier when you start talking about rights. Do suburban house owners have the right to a crisp, clean garage? Really? What are such property rights built on? Aren't all such rights dependent on having a fair society which values all its members? Where does value even come from in our society? Do we have the right to clean walls?

I'm very wary of romanticising wall-scrawling. There's some incredible stuff that happens through words and art on our streets - does anyone know what the "Gayskins" tag that turned up all over town late last year means? - but also there's a bunch of selfish people who lack any empathy for those who have to cope with their actions.

End result, I guess: Labour's big public stand is pandering to the talkback masses and that doesn't make me happy. (Let's not forget that this comes on the heels of a boy being murdered for tagging and the disgraceful way in which many elected leaders responded.) But if teens end up having trouble buying spray cans by themselves, well, that's not going to cause me to lose any sleep over damaged civil rights.

Keith Ng has a good piece on the War on Taggers over at Public Address

Bringing It On!

Chris Sims has swapped out face-kicking for high-kicking because it's Bring It On Week over at the ISB! If you, like me, have some sneaking (or not-so-sneaking) affection for the best race-relations cheerleader movie ever*, then get on over there for the stick-figure action and way more cheer-puns than you ever want to see.

But this is a blog with pretensions to social relevance, and that means my contribution to Bring It On week is obliged to harsh your high. Check it: one of these things is not like the other:

* No, Revenge of the Cheerleaders doesn't count, no matter how many full-frontal Hoff shots it contains.

Castro Quits

Well, how about that.

He's been sitting in the top job almost 50 years. Smart money was on him staying there until he died, I would have thought. Guess not.

Random association: watched the Fog of War doco the other day, about Robert McNamara. The Cuban Missile Crisis was discussed, and McNamara told an anecdote about sitting down with Castro and hearing that there were already nuclear missiles in Cuba, and that Castro had asked Khruschev to launch them at the US, knowing full well that Cuba would be destroyed as a result. McNamara's eyes boggled as he told this story. He said Castro explained himself only by saying, "If it had been you in my position, you would have done exactly the same."

Anyone reading this been to Cuba? Impressions?

Chocolate Blonde

I'm one of the many, many people who've pretty much abandoned TV to get my fix straight off the Digital Video Disc. Side effect: when I am in front of the box, the advertisements are even harder to ignore than normal.

This might be why it's taken me until now to notice that in Cadbury's chocolate world, all the happy brown-skinned people are actually white people. See for yourself. All that platinum white-boy hair.

And now that I've noticed, it bugs me. They don't make 'em like they used to, that's for sure...

( Also bugging me is this Aussie advertising disguised as a teaching resource.)

Feb 10: Anon vs Lron (2)

There have been a bunch of wicked pix up from the various protests (gasmask hello kitty girl is apparently already a meme) but my favourite is this, from Manchester - actual creepy-alien looking Scientologist guy filming the protest.

Also, Edinburgers can see what they missed on South Bridge here.

Feb 10: Anon vs Lron

One of the more fascinating things going on webwards right now is the Anonymous vs. Scientology war. In a nutshell: anonymous hacker network wages PR and tech war on Church of Scientology. Their infoclearinghouse is at Xenu.net, you're one-stop shop for creepy truths about scientology.

The opening salvo was a massive denial-of-service attack on Scientology servers (where you overload them with fake traffic so they can't handle legit traffic), and the next big moment was today, Feb 10, a global day of in-person action outside Scientology offices.

Project Chanology has the scoop. Very small demos happened at Christchurch and Auckland, according to this page; other parts of the world are still waiting for the designated time to arrive as I write.

This is fascinating on lots of levels. One of them that appeals to me is how the Anonymous collective is perhaps the only organisation really capable of attacking Scientology. The Church of Scientology has some scary-smart people running its operations, and they are very skilled at making end-runs around legal systems and outmaneuvering attacks that come through normal channels. Some countries have had successes but it's just plain hard to go for the throat - the Church of Scientology people have a long track record of very intimidating responses to unfriendly coverage by journalists, in particular.

Anonymous, however, isn't reachable by any of the means the CoS can usually deploy. It isn't a real organisation; it really is just a really big network of anonymous geek dudes. And that's anonymous to each other as well - there are no real identities in play here. It is a group with no hierarchy, no structure, no social links, no membership. It is almost an anti-group.

The flipside of this, of course, is that Anonymous is so loose and amorphous that it's hard for it to turn itself to real action. The Feb 10 demos are a case in point. In less than 24 hours it'll be apparent whether Anon is a real force or just a worthy attempt; either way, there are big signs of the future to be read in what happens.

I hope Anon pulls it off, though I doubt they'll manage much. Scientology is very, very screwed up and anything that starts hammering away at that is fine by me. (Also, Tom Cruise is gay, and his attempts to change his orientation led him to Scientology where he has convinced himself he is in fact straight. Doesn't that explain pretty much everything about that guy?)

EDIT: pics are up from Sydney

EDIT 2: Account of London demo. Five hundred people? Whitechapel's discussion thread is all worth a look actually.

US Primary Nonsense

More election WTF from the land of the free:

"Frankly, in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."
- Mitt Romney, bowing out of the race for the Republican nomination because mumble mumble Terrorists! mumble mumble.

Also, courtesy other moose: Fairness and balance in US media is secured as Karl Rove joins Fox News. Hallelujah.

After Waitangi Day

It was a quiet Waitangi Day this year, compared to the last few. Opposition leader John Key continued his successful programme of getting about the place being likable. Fearless Leader Auntie Helen steered clear without earning the nation's ridicule, presumable because we all remember the nasty reception she's had in the past.

No-one climbed any trees or threw any mud or anything. How restrained.

There was, of course, this:

For the furriners, that's National's Prime Ministerial hopeful John Key on the right, and he's greeting his alleged would-be assassin Tame Iti, on the left. That terror raids story just gets stranger and stranger as the months go on.

After Super Duper Tuesday

Well, that didn't really clear anything up, did it?

Which is fine. I think it's extremely healthy for the US Democratic nomination to be a long-running down-to-the-wire battle between two candidates who represent similar policy sets but very different visions, and (crucially) neither of whom are white guys. Not least because it provides extra impetus for sorting out their ridiculous electoral system, which is still a complete third-world shambles in every way you'd care to think about.

And on the other side of the fence, white guy with extra pro-war. However it shakes out it'll be a fascinating election, and probably the nastiest election in decades as the Repub strategists go to town on triggering the latent sexism/racism (delete one) of the independent electorate.

(Props to Sonal for liveblogging the day. Hardcore.)

Big Picture Thinking

We just aren't very good at it, are we? Humans, I mean. As Karen put it in comments to the previous post, we "like simple solutions. and simple solutions don't exist in complex systems."

Stuff's "Have your say" on John key's boot camp proposal is instructive. It is full of just what you'd expect, but nestled among the nonsense is this revealing comment by a "Dave Smith": "This hippie flower-power Nanny State the Labour and Greens have produced just does not work - We have given it a try for long enough."

And this from "Amanda": "the next few years we will start to see the effects of the disrespectful, mouthy, selfish little savages bleating about "rights" that the Labour government has created!"

Labour came into (coalition) government at the end of 1999. That's eight years of labour governance so far. Is eight years really enough for society to be changed so utterly? Especially following the neo-liberal economic changes pursued in an unbroken chain from 1984 through to the end of 1999? We are still, as a nation, discovering the effect of those changes (which are in some ways perpetuated by the current government).

I have a notion that politics - left and right, conservative and liberal, however you choose to frame it - are not really about different kinds of governance. I think they are about different perceptions of people, and different perceptions of how systems work.

Many rightish ideologies (and particularly the libertarian strain) at their core view people as fully capable of being masters of their own destinies, and somehow immune to context and systemic influence or pressure.

Many leftish ideologies at their core view people as structured by the systems in which they inhabit. Behaviour can be explained, and some would say excused, by systemic pressures. Also, cleverly designed systems can encourage socially beneficial behaviours.

So, the kinds of political views that make sense to you emerge from your understanding of human behaviour.

These are of course very rough sketches. (They're not even necessarily contradictory views, if you're willing to interpret them both just so.) In a sense, these are folk-politics that exist in the community in relationship with politics-as-she-is-done in the big house of government. (Lakoff enthusiasts can compare his family-metaphors to the above - I think Lakoff's right, but I think that his level of explanation is wrong - his metaphors emerge from these ideas.)

Here's the kick, though: I think they're unequal. Rightish ideologies are just simpler at their core than leftish ones. More than that: rightish ideologies, at their core, are just wrong. They're wrong about us and about society and they're wrong about themselves. They don't understand what it is to be human. (Libertarianism, I'm pointing at you for the most explicit incidence of this.)

Systems are complex. Change takes time. The picture is always bigger than you think. Leftish ideologies, for all their many flaws and weaknesses, tend to have a much better grasp on that than rightish ones; and that in itself makes them vulnerable.

---

It is left as an exercise for the reader* how my notion above is not undermined by the fact that capitalism, a system founded on profoundly rightish notions of how humans and systems act, works so much more effectively than any form of socialism I've heard of.

* i.e. I'm not sure myself

Tagging Is Evil

I fear the kids.

A 50-year-old businessman was today charged with the murder of a teenage boy. Emery was charged over the fatal stabbing of 15-year-old Pihema Clifford Cameron in Southview Place, Manurewa, on Saturday night. The stabbing allegedly occurred during an argument that arose after Pihema was about to tag a fence on a property and was chased. (full article)

The Mayor of Manukau City, which has been the scene of two murders since Friday, says minor offending such as tagging is the starting point for youngsters to go on to commit more serious crimes. Len Brown was commenting after the murders in Manurewa, including one in which a 50-year-old man is alleged to have killed a 15-year-old boy he caught tagging a fence in Southview Place. (full article)

A 50-year-old man charged with the murder of a teenage tagger in Manukau should be allowed to "get away with it", Christchurch City councillor Barry Corbett says. "If I was on the jury, I would let him get away with it, but that is just me," Corbett said. "Everyone is feeling sorry for the kid and his family, but if the kid was not tagging, he would still be alive." (full article)

Violent youth crime is at an all-time high. Young criminals are graduating from petty crime to more serious crime; unexploded time-bombs on a fast-track to Paremoremo. The victims are people like you and me. - John Key's speech to start the National party's election campaign*

Looks like a white man lost it when he discovered a tagger. These days you can't even protect your own property. South Auckland has been tagged into some huge coloured cesspool. With no support from police and others - I guess retreat is the only option.- Guy on the Stormfront (white power) messageboard

Especially the brown kids.

Fearless Leader Auntie Helen also had a lot to say about youth in her big speech, but the fear-pandering was much less obvious.