To Patiently Explain

We Won!

2006-04-12T10:58:00.000+12:00

Map showing size of today's protests in France

2006-03-29T12:39:00.000+12:00

Photo of the day

2006-03-23T16:58:00.000+12:00

Students at Paris III-Censier university prepare for street protests. The poster translates as “Dialogue according to the government”, and the cop logo is modelled on one of the most famous posters from the 1968 revolt.

The changing face of the anti-CPE movement

2006-03-23T16:07:00.000+12:00

Its hard to believe that only ten days ago, much of the mainstream media were comparing this revolt to 1968. It was labled ‘a middle class revolt’, and some right-wing critics were condemning these students as selfish, in aiming to block a law that they believed would help the deprived youths of the banlieue.
Read more here

Trip to Parliament kept students off demo

2006-03-23T14:51:00.000+12:00

Takapuna Grammar principal Simon Lamb said he made a deal with students that if no-one went to the Radical Youth rally in Auckland then he would take three students to meet with Ruth Dyson and Steve Maharey in Wellington next Monday.

On the one hand, this is obviously fantastic - the principal obviously wouldn’t have been taking his students along unless they’d threatened the walkout.

"While I support students' concerns about youth rates, I can't support students being absent from quality teaching and learning activities."
...
"I suggested that there's a far more effective method of realising positive change and smarter ways of communicating your point of view than striking," he said.

Well, no, there aren’t. Would the French ruling class be shaking in its boots right now if the young workers and students threatened by the CPE had filled out a petition and held a nice polite meeting with the prime minister? Of course bloody not!

Quote of the day

2006-03-22T09:55:00.000+12:00

Make no mistake: what started as an imitation of May '68 looks like being a thousand times more revolutionary. In fact, the current crisis is an exact reversal. In '68, everything was possible in a France where there was full employment, but nothing was permitted. Today, everything is permitted for those with money, a good job, but nothing is possible for the vast majority of our fellow citizens."

- Serge Faubert in France-Soir

Quote of the day

2006-03-21T15:26:00.000+12:00

"This is not truancy...this is activism.... no more youth rates,"
- Auckland protester, quoted by TVNZ

And a close second:

"You try living on youth rates or the minimum wage"
- Maritime Union General Secretary Trevor Hanson, in a press release

Beneath the paving stones, the beach...

2006-03-21T14:02:00.000+12:00

France’s protests continue to grow. The unions have now called a one-day general strike for next Tuesday.

WSWS also has excellent ongoing coverage.

Meanwhile, an amazing protest by high school students in Auckland yesterday over youth pay. As shown by the photo (left), it’s fantastic that they’re making these connections with the French workers and students. Article and video from TVNZ here. (Underneath the photo, where it says ‘Related Video’, click on the last item, ‘Youth pay protest turns riotous’.

As usual, the cops managed to create plenty of trouble, but the discipline and organisation of the students prevented any serious injuries, though one protest marshal was dragged into a nearby building and badly beaten up by cops.

The awesomely useful libcom blog is currently leading its coverage of the French protests with coverage of the Auckland action! (Archived here.)

Revolting students

2006-03-20T13:48:00.000+12:00

What I should have reminded everyone about in that last post was, of course, the amazing mass protests by high school students here in June 2002.

Basically, there had been ongoing limited strikes by teachers over their pay claim. Their union, the PPTA, had adopted what was possibly the worst possible strategy: a ban on 'extracurricular activites' such as sports' coaching, drama and music. This put absolutely no real pressure on the government whilst systematically alienating both students and parents. Indeed, so disastrous was this strategy it's possible it was all quite deliberately aimed at provoking a crisis in order to scare teachers away from taking unofficial actions.

And crisis it was. Tens of thousands of students walked out of their classes, in defiance of teachers and sometimes the police. The PPTA labelled them 'rioters', but the students were amazingly disciplined. In Lower Hutt, where several hundred students converged to protest at a busy intersection, a boy tried to light a cigarette. Immediately the media pounced, hoping to get photos to prove that the kids were really just wagging - but before they could, he was surrounded by large numbers of other students who blocked the photographers and 'suggested' that he put the smoke out.

The protests petered out after a few days, but remain an amazingly inspiring memory, and proof that teenagers with little or no activist experience can show union officials a thing or two about struggle.

Clark: We live in a democracy, kids

2006-03-20T13:34:00.000+12:00

Oh this is priceless!:

Students skip school to rally against rates

Auckland school students say they are going to skip class today to support a rally to back a move to abolish youth pay rates.

School students are being bussed to the rally in downtown Auckland, organised by a group called Radical Youth.

...

Prime Minister Helen Clark said students should be at school, not striking.

Labour has backed Ms Bradford's bill but Miss Clark today told TVNZ she "absolutely" did not support the call today for students to leave school to take part in strikes in support of the bill.

"I have to say that all those students I would think would be breaking their schools disciplinary codes.

"Look, the school holidays aren't that far away and Sue Bradford's bill will still be in the parliamentary system at that point.

"That's when students should be using their own time to make the point about it. We live in a democracy, students are able to express their rights but they also have obligations to their school community and they shouldn't be leaving school for a protest."

...

National education spokesman Bill English said the students should be at school and schools should enforce their usual procedures to punish the students who were truanting.

"The best thing they can to avoid being on $10 an hour for the rest of their life is to stay at school and learn something."

Now, I have one or two political differences with Sue Bradford, but I'm right with her here:

Greens industrial relations spokeswoman Sue Bradford says it is great to see the support for her bill.

She says it is an urgent issue which affects students most, so she is not worried about them missing a bit of school.

She is pleased there are some radical students who are willing to take action, and she says students can sometimes learn more by doing, than by sitting in a classroom.

Income major factor in health, says study

2006-03-20T13:14:00.000+12:00

Income major factor in health, says study

By MARCUS BROGDEN
20 March 2006

No matter how much money is invested in the health sector, research indicates that the wealthier you are the healthier you are likely to be.

A team of Otago University researchers, in its latest study, have quantified the benefit to the health of certain socioeconomic groups, of levelling the discrepancies in income.

And the benefits are simple: reduce inequalities in pay, and you'll reduce inequalities in death rates.

The study – which claims to be the first in the world to quantify the potential benefits – used data from 1.3 million 25-59 year old 1996 census respondents to determine the risk of death for different levels of income.

Researchers concluded overall death rates could be reduced by 2 per cent to 13 per cent, if everyone's income shifted by 10 per cent to 40 per cent towards the average New Zealand income.

". . .you can't escape the fact that narrowing income distributions by taxation and other means should modestly reduce the country's overall death rate and notably reduce inequalities in death rates," associate professor Tony Blakely said.

Even more strikingly, current inequalities in death rates – between rich and poor – should be reduced by 6 per cent to 38 per cent with the same shifts, he said.

"Economists, Treasury and high-level policy-makers can no longer ignore the fact that income redistribution matters for both the overall death rate and inequalities in death rates."

Mr Blakely added although inequalities in health would be reduced by income redistribution, "it is not the panacea."

He has called for interventions at a range of levels – "including those targeting known risk factors such as tobacco and poor nutrition".

The study is published in the latest issue of Social Science and Medicine and is part of the ongoing New Zealand Census-Mortality Study undertaken at Otago University's Wellington School of Medicine & Health Sciences.

In a study released last December, researchers looked at the impact poverty has on New Zealand's child mortality rate, with children from lower income households more likely to die than those from medium or high income households.

The study examined the deaths of about 2250 children who died between 1981 and 1999 for the contribution of causes of death and socio-economic inequalities in child mortality.

Anti-CPE

2006-03-20T10:38:00.000+12:00

Mass protests continue against France's proposed labour laws. The truly excellent UK-based Libertarian Community blog has easily the best English language coverage I've seen. Meanwhile, Wikipedia finally has a limited entry on the events here. Don't get me wrong, I love Wikipedia and waste far too much time on it, but maybe this is a more important topic than, say Star Trek or The Simpsons? Wikipedia's poor coverage is even more surprising given it's excellent coverage of last year's revolt by France's immigrant youth. Please let me know if you find any other useful sources.

Stop the War! March this Saturday

2006-03-17T11:00:00.000+13:00

The US has launched a major new terror campaign against the Iraqi city of Samarra to mark the third anniversary of its invasion.

Anti-war march meets at Midland Park, Lambton Quay at midday on Saturday. More info here.

Demos will also take place in other centres. See here and here.

Read this book

2006-03-15T13:26:00.000+13:00

I read this over the weekend. The first publication from Medialens editors David Edwards and David Cromwell, Guardians of Power is, to paraphrase John Pilger, one of the most important books about journalism and the media ever written.

You can read some excerpts here, some reviews here, and several interesting interviews with the authors here.

When the authors started the Media Lens project, many people told them they were crazy to concentrate on the 'liberal media' in the UK, such as the Guardian, Independent and BBC. They're the good guys, the argument went, you should have a go at the Sun and the Telegraph instead.

But the authors point out that those who consider themselves on the left of the political spectrum generally don't have illusions in the Sun or the Telegraph, but often do believe that supposedly 'liberal' publications like the Guardian really do offer an alternative.

Debunking this myth provides a powerful indictment of even the supposedly 'good' media. As the authors noted in a recent interview about the book:

The liberal media tell both sides of the story – kind of. They emphasise the state-corporate version of the truth, particularly in news reporting. This is then ‘balanced’ by commentary that presents superficial or trivial counter-arguments that do not seriously challenge the official view. So, for example, on the issue of Iraqi WMD, the official view – that Iraq was a threat that had to be disarmed, by force of necessary – was countered with a superficial, trivial view – that this may well be true, but any action should be endorsed by the UN. The real counter-argument – that Iraq was clearly not a threat and that any attack on Iraq, with or without UN approval, would be the supreme war crime – the launching of a war of aggression – was almost nowhere to be seen. The result is what Edward Herman describes as “normalising the unthinkable”. The liberal audience – the section of the population that might be expected to be most compassionate, most fiercely opposed to government crimes – was subject to endless liberal propaganda persuading them of the basic reasonableness and respectability of the US-UK government position. This consistently has the effect of pacifying and neutralising the most concerned and motivated section of society - people drawn to progressive, liberal ideas. By contrast, the right-wing press preaches to the converted, people who are happy with the status quo and keen for it not to be challenged.

Another rather well-made point was made in repsonse to the question: "Why do you think the UK media does not behave more like the United States media where dissenting voices are almost totally excluded? Which system do you think is more effective in controlling the domestic population?":

Bush and Blair are both currently in office rather than in jail, so we conclude that both systems must be extremely effective.

With the complete absence of any serious media criticism in NZ and practically every other Western country, the need for two, three, many Medialenses is profound.

Students Invade Paris School in Protest

2006-03-14T12:47:00.000+13:00

Scores of students stormed one of Paris' most elite schools Monday, hurling stones and cinder blocks at riot police in the latest protest against a government plan to reduce France's sky-high unemployment rate among young adults.

About 200 high school and university students swarmed into the College de France to demand that Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin withdraw a measure that makes it easier for companies to fire workers under 26 during the first two years of employment.

Many students holed up inside, and others came back outside to face down officers on the street. Police used tear gas to try to disperse the chanting crowd.

The law, which takes effect next month, offers a measure of flexibility the government hopes will spur employers to hire young people, knowing they will be able to get rid of them if they have to. But critics say it would offer younger workers less job security than older colleagues and undermine France's generous labor protections.

New blog on French protests

2006-03-14T12:46:00.000+13:00

libcom.org /blog - unrest in france
"English language coverage of the young workers’ revolt in France "

Has some good photos too.

France: It's not 1968... Yet

2006-03-14T12:38:00.000+13:00

The French student protests are certainly inspiring. I was going to write a big long entry about it but I see Lenin's Tomb has beaten me to it.

Angry youth
Samir Tris, 22, Tunisian-born, living in Marseilles
I've been looking for a job for five years. It's hell. All my papers are in order, I'm young and hard working if given a chance, but that means nothing here. Sometimes I'll get the odd day's work for Tunisian builders. It's dangerous, it's badly paid and cash in hand - €50 (£34) a day if you're lucky. In the end, last year I went to England and picked strawberries, bent double for hours on end for €1,300 a month, but it was my only hope of keeping myself once I got back to France to carry on walking the streets looking for work.

Marine Payolle, 20, from Herblay, history of art student at the Sorbonne
All I can do is work for my father's business transport business in the holidays. There's no other hope for a job. Because my father has an important job and I'm his daughter, I get my foot in the door. If you're not related to someone, or well-connected, you can forget it in this country. All my friends send out CVs, but what's the point? One sent out 50 and heard nothing back. We have to live at home and save up the money our relatives give us for Christmas and birthday to last us the year. Whenever I can practise my English I do, because I hope to leave and go abroad.

Ibrahima Diop, 25, from Senegal, studying management
It's a nightmare. For three months last year, I printed out and posted off over 200 perfect CVs to companies, listing my experience, details and including a photo. I speak basic English, I'm studying on a good management course, but over 200 applications yielded three interviews. Racism is acute here. When someone sees you're black, that's it. I'm now working two days a week in a food distribution plant and studying two days a week. It's not what I want to be doing but frankly I don't know if I'll ever get the job I want.

Parliament student demo

2006-03-10T10:53:00.000+13:00

A small but fairly militant fees demo outside parliament yesterday. Eyewitness report here and also a good picture on p.2 of this morning's Dominion Post. The Dom article is here (but no photo). Good to see a student bureaucrat actually initiating a demo for once, but the state of the student campaign remains fairly anaemic.

Back to business

2006-03-06T09:20:00.000+13:00

Will return to serious blogging this week sometime. Meanwhile, our friend "Jake" has left another fascinating and insightful post about the purported evils of Islam. Really, "Jake", I'm surprised American mental institutions are so relaxed about letting their secure section patients near the Internet. Any more silliness from you or any other trolls and I'll be erasing you automatically. Just this last time though, for everyone else's amusement, "Jake's" latest is archived here.

Taking sides against racism

2006-03-03T14:36:00.000+13:00

Taking sides against racism
I’ve just about had it. I cannot watch one more episode of the Daily Show, which makes racist jokes about Arabs and Muslims. I am sick and tired of people who see themselves as part of the left writing articles that put a liberal gloss over what is, in essence, a right-wing “clash of civilizations” argument.

And I am fed up with an antiwar movement in the United States that will do nothing to defend Muslims against all the attacks they have faced both domestically and internationally.

An interesting commentary.

Muslim leader criticises note as whitewash

2006-02-28T14:49:00.000+13:00

New Zealand's biggest Islamic organisation has accused the Government of a "whitewash" in dealing with complaints that Muslims are being targeted by security officials at airports.

Full article, from The Press.

Also, see my earlier post, 'Racial profiling in NZ'.

Robert Fisk: Defeat is victory. Death is life.

2006-02-27T14:34:00.000+13:00

Let's expose this whopping lie. We were exposing Saddam's vile regime, especially his use of gas, as long ago as 1983. I was refused a visa to Iraq by Saddam's satraps for exposing their vile tortures at - Abu Ghraib. And what was Donald Rumsfeld doing? Visiting Baghdad, grovelling before Saddam, to whom he did not mention the murders and mass graves, which he knew about, and pleading with the Beast of Baghdad to reopen the US embassy in Iraq.

Robert Fisk's latest article in the Inedpendent. Read it in full here.

Oh...kay....

2006-02-23T12:33:00.000+13:00

Someone called 'Low Jake Advises' has left a particularly strange comment on my previous post. I don't want to increase 'Jake's' traffic, so you can just go and Google him if you really feel the need. Anyway, his message did have a certain rustic charm, of the shoved-under-the-locked-door-of-a-mental-ward variety, so for your amusement it's archived here.

Oh, and someone managed to find their way here by doing a search on 'baby names' (well actually it was 'baby neames'). Strange but true, and probably better than whatever individual arrived here after trying this search.

Oil for the killing machine

2006-02-22T13:18:00.000+13:00

Further to my post earlier today, Medialens had this rather wonderful exchange with Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of news:

Dear Mr Edwards

Thank you for your emails of January 5th.

To deal first with your suggestion that it is factually incorrect to say that an aim of the British and American coalition was to bring democracy and human rights, this was indeed one of the stated aims before and at the start of the Iraq war – and I attach a number of quotes at the bottom of this reply.

This was Boaden’s defence of reporter Paul Wood’s assertion that British and American forces "came to Iraq in the first place to bring democracy and human rights". Boaden supplied no less than 2,700 words filling six pages of A4 paper of quotes from George Bush and Tony Blair to prove her point.

Medialens replied:

Dear Helen

Many thanks. It's an interesting argument. I look forward to the following opening statement on BBC's News At Ten:

‘A recorded message believed to have been made by al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, has surfaced tonight. Bin Laden, whose forces originally attacked the United States on September 11, 2001 to bring freedom and human rights to the Middle East, said...’

Given that, like Bush and Blair, bin Laden has indeed claimed these goals in speeches, do you see any inherent problem with broadcasting this comment? If so, what?

Best wishes
David Edwards

Boaden then replied:

Dear Mr Edwards

We have on numerous occasions sought to elucidate the motivation of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. We have also on innumerable occasions examined the role, reasoning and the outcomes of US and UK actions in Iraq. The range of our reporting and programmes enables audiences to make up their own minds about the issue, just as you have done.

Yours sincerely
Helen Boaden
Director, BBC News

Medialens continues:

Again Boaden misses the point. It is fine to report claims of benevolent intent - it is something else to report those claims as obvious fact. Whereas the BBC would never dream of delivering bin Laden’s claims this way, it is second nature with regard to Bush and Blair. Thus, the BBC’s Washington correspondent, Matt Frei, said in 2003:

"There's no doubt that the desire to bring good, to bring American values to the rest of the world, and especially now to the Middle East... is now increasingly tied up with military power."
(Frei, BBC1, Panorama, April 13, 2003)

Imagine Frei saying: ‘There's no doubt that the desire to bring good, to bring al Qaeda’s values to the rest of the world, and especially to the Middle East, is now increasingly tied up with military power.’

In April 2003, Nicholas Witchell declared of the rapid fall of Baghdad to US forces:

"It is absolutely, without a doubt, a vindication of the strategy."
(Witchell, BBC1, 18:00 News, April 9, 2003)

Imagine Witchell saying of Saddam Hussein’s rapid drive into Kuwait:

‘It is absolutely, without a doubt, a vindication of the strategy.’

In October 2004, Ben Brown said:

"The people of southern Iraq know they have their freedom."
(Brown, BBC1, 22:00 News, October 20, 2004)

The list goes on...

World famous in NZ

2006-02-22T12:37:00.000+13:00

Random Contributionz has directed readers to my blog.

Thanks Mellie!

What's wrong with Hawke's Bay Today?

2006-02-22T12:23:00.000+13:00

When I was doing research for my very first post on this blog last November, which was about 'political correctness', I did a Google News search on the term. Amongst the dozens of hits, few were as weird and deeply offensive (not to mention reactionary) as an editorial in Hawke's Bay Today:

The British doctor/writer Theodore Dalrymple described PC as "communist propaganda writ small".

"In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity.

"To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. If you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."

This seems to be something of a recurring theme at the paper - Marxist conspiracies and communist-feminazis and whatlike.

Now they've weighed in on the Danish cartoons/South Park controversy. In an editorial yesterday, Louios Pierard writes:

In New Zealand, a TV channel says it will press ahead with plans to air a cartoon comedy that depicts a menstruating Virgin Mary in the series South Park. But unlike the mullahs, who whip the faithful into a violent frenzy, the Catholic bishops politely suggest, in an open letter, that congregations boycott TV3 (the sister channel to C4 owned by CanWest) and its advertisers.

The coincidence is significant; the contrast salutary.

Not only does it illustrate the capacity in the civilised world for objection with restraint (that is, without threatening to slay anyone who causes offence) but it draws attention to the hypocrisy of those who insult people on the basis of their ability to return the offence.

Publishing the cartoons in Denmark - where there is a growing, and aggressively proselytising Muslim population - was a brave, if foolhardy, action that in its predictable effects awoke a nervous realisation of the scale of Islamic political and cultural influence. And it did prove a point, of sorts, about tolerance and the freedom of speech. Repeating the trick in New Zealand, however, was little more than self-indulgence.

'Mullahs who whip the faithful into a violent frenzy.' This is classic Clash of Civilisations stuff. What's worse, it comes not from some sleazy TVNZ tabloid news show, but the supposedly 'respectable' print media.

Medialens

2006-02-22T11:56:00.000+13:00

In case you haven't done it yet, check out the truly excellent Medialens site. Medialens is two blokes, David Edwards and David Cromwell, based in the UK, who publish regular articles on the media. You can sign up for these on the homepage. But it's not just a one-way conversation, because one of the best things about Medialens is that it encourages its readers to submit critical letters to journalists, and reprints these letters and journalists' responses to them.

And members of the corporate media often don't like criticism. After a thoughtful, intelligent critique of her writing, the Financial Times' environment editor, Fiona Harvey, responded:

You're pathetic. You haven't actually read any of my articles, just searched them for some keywords. Why don't you actually read the pieces and then you might have something sensible to say? Fiona

Harvey wrote again on the same day:

And now your idiot friends are spamming me. Who are you?

This sort of response from people who aren't used to being criticised is quite common. The editors always maintain impeccable politeness, objectivity and fairness in the face of often vicious personal attacks by the corporate media.

Medialens played a crucial role in forcing the Guardian to back down after it ran a deliberately misquoted interview smearing Noam Chomsky.

The two Davids have just released a book, Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media. You can read excerpts and reviews here. Essentially a 'best of' collection of their media alerts, Guardians of Power, with chapter headings like 'The Mass Media – Neutral, Honest, Psychopathic' is not your average media textbook.

Wellington Public Library has a copy on order. If you've got a library card, you can place a reserve on it here.

"Trade unionism goes punk" - NBR on Unite

2006-02-20T11:41:00.000+13:00

Quite decent article in the current NBR, looking at Unite's prospects:

Trade unionism goes punk

Also check out Supersizemypay.com

The delights of Empire

2006-02-16T10:12:00.000+13:00

I’ve never really thought there was any great mystery about the behaviour of the Americans in Iraq. Quite simply, human beings do not like torturing and murdering other human beings. In order to coerce them into doing so, the ‘enemy’ must be dehumanised. Whether it was the evil, fanatical Japanese of the Second World War, those pesky natives fighting for independence in the 1950s, or mad Mohammedan terrorists today, the enemy must be portrayed as sub-human.

I also think it’s important to remember the propaganda that Americans, particularly the armed forces (many of whom, incredibly, have access only to Fox ‘news’) have been tricked into believing there was some link between Iraq and the September 11 attacks, providing a classic Pearl Harbour-style revenge mentality.

More of the new Abu Ghraib images are here.

Update

2006-02-16T09:26:00.000+13:00

Thanks to Islamophobia Watch for picking up my post on Aysser Aljanabi (currently on their front page but also permanently in the NZ section).

Mentis Fugit has an interesting post on the subject:

This is what's known in the trade, I am told, as a "beat-up". It's a non-story. The one overwhelming feeling I get from this article is that nobody who is actually involved thinks this sufficiently important to warrant press attention. The paper went to anyone they thought they could get a rise out of, and nobody bit. To get even a tepid response they had to go to a body, the Old Girls Association, which had absolutely no role in the process.

"Given what's going on internationally I can understand some people's reaction."

2006-02-15T12:21:00.000+13:00

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... the Dom Post manages another nice bit of Islamophobia. It all centres around Aysser Aljanabi, (left) a young Muslim woman who has just been made head girl of St Mary’s College, a Wellington Catholic high school.

Aysser was chosen by popular vote among pupils and after discussion between staff and the principal.

Just listen to the implied little sneers:

"Given what's going on internationally I can understand some people's reaction”

says Catholic Education Office chief executive Pat Lynch.

The ‘other,’ the ‘foreign,’ the ‘different.’ What exactly is the point? What relevance does it have to ‘what’s going on internationally’? Are they afraid that she’ll strap explosives to herself and detonate them on the school bus? Perhaps she might try and threaten Western cultural hegemony by wearing a headscarf. Then again, she might say something critical about Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, which means of course that she’s a dangerous, revisionist anti-Semite doesn’t it?

How dare one of ‘them’ want to ‘run’ one of ‘our’ schools. Better safe than sorry, as Ann Coulter puts it:

"Post-9/11 our philosophy should be: Raghead talks tough? Raghead faces consequences."

The story has been widely picked up overseas, including the right-wing Washington Times, Australia’s Catholic News, and the Malaysia Sun.

Iran: the next war

2006-02-10T14:54:00.000+13:00

Bush and Blair are gearing up for it, and they are preparing us, too - just as they did before attacking Iraq. But where is the threat?

John Pilger's latest column in the New Statesman.

Mark Steel: It's no joke if you're on the receiving end

2006-02-09T16:36:00.000+13:00

For example, although I come from Kent, I feel little compulsion to be Kentish. But if Canterbury was flattened by the most powerful armed force for harbouring weapons that turned out not to exist - and an army occupied the place and nicked the cathedral - and a heavily armed state bulldozed the West Bank of Maidstone - and anyone from Dartford to Margate was viewed with suspicion and hundreds were held in camps without trial - and the whole of the West screamed that Kent wasn't democratic but then we held an election and they screamed "No you're not allowed to vote for them, that proves you're all terrorists" - I'd be down with my brothers in the Folkestone ghetto, singing folk songs about the green fields of Swanley and kneeling five times a day to sip Shepherd Neames and pay homage to Wat Tyler.

A good commentary from Mark Steel in today's Independent. Full text here.

But it isn't just The Sun denouncing Muslims for "threatening free speech". Almost everyone regarded as vaguely clever has appeared somewhere to confirm that free speech, however unpalatable, is the foundation of etc etc. I expect the Shipping Forecast has gone "Biscay, five rising to eight, a gale that, while I may not like it, I would die for its right to blow. Easterly."
But a debate about free speech is meaningless unless it relates to the society in which things are being spoken. When Goebbels commissioned cartoons of grotesque paedophile Jews, he was exercising free speech. So if you approach the matter as an abstract debating point, we should defend his right to do so. But that's obviously mad. Similarly, it wouldn't have helped much to advise Jews to draw their own cartoons of grotesque paedophile Nazis, saying "Then we'll all be laughing at each other, so isn't that lovely."

Those charming tasers...

2006-02-09T14:58:00.000+13:00

She was rushing her son to school. She was eight months pregnant. And she was about to get a speeding ticket she didn't think she deserved. So when a Seattle
police officer presented the ticket to Malaika Brooks, she refused to sign it. In the ensuing confrontation, she suffered burns from a police Taser, an electric stun device that delivers 50,000 volts.

'Taser News Watch' is a useful site compiling news stories (mostly from the US) about the misuse of this 'non-lethal alternative'. As the site notes:

Supporters of the Taser, a so-called non-lethal weapon used by police, will tell you that it's better for someone to be hit with a Taser than with a bullet. But are officers using Tasers only in situations where they would have otherwise used a gun? Would police have really shot the dad at Chuck E. Cheese accused of sneaking veggies from the salad bar? Would they really have shot the 68 year old woman they were trying to arrest for honking her horn? And are Tasers really non-lethal?

Cops get US torture weapon

2006-02-09T14:45:00.000+13:00

Horrifying news today that some NZ police will get to trial the US torture weapons known as tasers. These devices "fire a 6.4-metre-long copper wire which has barbed prongs at the tip. The prongs contain the charge, which lasts five seconds and can penetrate five centimetres of clothing." The charge causes absolutely excruciating pain to the victim.

Supposedly to be used only in situations where police would otherwise have to use lethal force (i.e. shoot someone), in reality of course these devices are used in a vast number of situations where it is far from clear whether the police were in any real danger - or indeed, any danger at all.

Amnesty International reports that over a hundred people have now died in the US and Canada as a result of these weapons. "there is widespread abuse of TASERs that, in some cases, constitutes ill-treatment and torture" notes the report.

Superintendent Tony McLeod claimed that he "knew of no evidence" to support Amnesty's claims, a fairly dubious statement given the widespread availability of this information.

The project coordinator of the Non Lethal Weapons Research Project at Bradford University, Neil Davison, is quoted as warning that "while the guns are meant to reduce the chances of serious injury to a suspect, they are open to mis-use and can lead to increased police violence."

Those damned cartoons...

2006-02-09T13:00:00.000+13:00

Well, so far Mr. Pankhurst has failed to take my advice and resign, though he has issued a somewhat guarded apology for the offence caused - whilst refusing to rule out printing similarly offensive material in the future.

An interesting commentary in this week's Independent by David Beatson here.

Meanwhile, some more excellent analysis from the WSWS:

The publication of the anti-Muslim cartoons has been largely portrayed in the US and European press as an effort by a serious newspaper, Jyllands-Posten of southern Denmark, to explore whether pressure from Islamic fundamentalists was causing self-censorship by cartoonists, who were unwilling to risk retaliation for portraying the Prophet Muhammad in a negative light. Most coverage in the United States has suggested that the newspaper was shocked that the publication of the cartoons created such a furious reaction.

There is reason to believe, however, that Jyllands-Posten deliberately sought to provoke Muslim anger to fuel a nativist backlash in Denmark. The newspaper is linked politically to the anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party, which is opposed to a multi-cultural approach to the growing immigrant population in Denmark and has declared that it is impossible to assimilate Muslims into Danish society. The newspaper played a major role in the election victory of the current prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Attempts to present the issue as one of secularism vs. religious fundamentalism are no more persuasive, because they obscure the fact that the popular reaction in Muslim countries is rooted not in a centuries-old conflict of rival cultures or systems of religious belief, but in much more recent - indeed contemporary - conditions of imperialist oppression.

As a column in the Long Island-based newspaper Newsday admitted, “The deep offense many Muslims have taken to the cartoons is about present-day politics as much as theology.”

Let us pose a question to the crusaders for press freedom. Suppose, on Martin Luther King Day last month, a daily newspaper in Birmingham, Alabama had published a derogatory and racist cartoon of the murdered civil rights leader - something that could only serve to legitimize the revival of racial stereotyping and repression.

Suppose further, that this provocative cartoon resulted in angry and even violent protest demonstrations, and that, in “solidarity,” major daily newspapers in the United States proclaimed it their duty to defend “press freedom” by reprinting the overtly racist cartoon on their front pages? What would be the reaction of those who are today lining up behind the right-wing provocateurs in the name of “press freedom”?

...

The systematic mobilization of liberal sections of the press and political establishment behind the anti-Muslim campaign, on the bogus grounds of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and secularism, is an effort to broaden the social base of support for military intervention against the peoples of the Middle East, particularly Iran and Syria.

To justify such aggression, whether it takes the form of air strikes, full-scale invasion, or even the use of nuclear weapons - which cannot be ruled out - it is necessary to demonize not only a particular political leader or regime, but the entire population of the region. This, not the defense of freedom and democracy, is the essential function of the government and media campaign around the anti-Muslim cartoons.

Another interesting article looks at the Munich Security Conference:

For more than four decades, the conference has provided an annual forum for high-ranking military officers, cabinet members, politicians, military experts and journalists to discuss military and geo-strategic questions. The conference is dominated by delegates from NATO member-countries, but guests from other countries are also invited.

...

Their closing of ranks recalls the year 1900, when rival great powers united to suppress the Boxer Rebellion in China. The influence of the British Empire had already peaked, and Britain was being pressed from all sides. Russia, Japan and Germany advanced into China in order to secure their own share of control over this enormous territory. However, in response to a national movement that arose to repel colonial subjugation, the competing imperialists did not hesitate in joining forces to drown the resistance in blood.

It is within this context that one must consider the publication of caricatures of Muhammad by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, subsequently reprinted by newspapers in other European countries. The publication of this material is nothing less than a deliberate provocation aimed at creating the ideological basis for a new imperialist offensive against Iran and other Muslim countries.

After the claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were revealed to be blatant lies and the US-led introduction of “democracy” into the Middle East exposed as crude propaganda, a new military offensive is being planned in the name of the “clash of cultures.”

The right-wing Jyllands-Posten has a record of agitation against immigrants and has been instrumental in the political advance of the xenophobic Danish People’s Party. It played a large role in the election victory of the right-wing head of government, Fogh Rasmussen.

The newspaper deliberately published the caricatures in order to provoke a violent response. Reviling the prophet Muhammad is regarded as an offence by millions of Muslims all over the world and it was clear that such a provocation would meet with considerable opposition.

The demonstrations, including acts of violence, are now being used by the media, including a number of left-liberal newspapers, as proof of the intolerance of Islam and the incompatibility of Western and Islamic cultures. In the name of “freedom of speech,” the same media outlets that unreservedly supported the Iraq war and all of the associated attacks on fundamental democratic rights are now banging the war drum against Iran.

A comment in the Süddeutsche Zeitung makes clear that this propaganda assisted in the closing of ranks between imperialist powers in Munich. “Islamic anger,” the üddeutsche Zeitung wrote, “led to a demonstrative solidarising of the Western world, which quite rightly feels itself to be under attack. The Munich Security Conference offered the most obvious evidence of this new harmony. The transatlantic security network is busy not just with itself, but is confronted with a new threat and has adjusted its sights.... The threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism has accelerated the trend to a new unanimity.”

A studied, deliberate insult to all Muslims

2006-02-07T12:44:00.000+13:00

Discussing the Islamophobic ideas of Bernard Lewis in Le Monde Diplomatique last August, Alain Gresh makes an ironic summary Lewis’s viewpoint:

Put simply, they [i.e. Muslims] don’t like us, not because of what we do, but because they reject our love of freedom and because they have been on the losing side for 200 years. Why did Nasser nationalise the Suez Canal Company in 1956? Out of Muslim hatred of the West. What caused the fall of the Shah of Iran and the revolution of 1979? Muslim hatred of the West. Why do the Palestinians constantly rise up against the occupation of their lands? Hatred of the West. Iraqi resistance? Hatred of the West. The conflicts in Kosovo and Bosnia? Muslims’ refusal to be ruled by infidels. It’s all obvious. And it explains why they hold democracy in such contempt.

How dare they preach about tolerance
In an extraordinarily hypocritical front page article, the Dominion Post led off its Saturday coverage of the Danish cartoons, “Cartoons ‘test of Islamic tolerance’”:

Dominion Post editor Tim Pankhurst said the newspaper's decision to publish the controversial images was in the interests of press freedom.
"It's important for our readers to see what the fuss is about and to make up their own minds. Ours is a secular society based on Western ideals of tolerance and open debate, even if that may occasionally offend.
"We do not wish to be deliberately provocative but neither should we allow ourselves to be intimidated.
...
"In its pure form Islam is a religion based on peace and tolerance. This is a test of that tolerance."

That’s nice Mr. Pankhurst. The Dom’s other two articles from Saturday are here and here.
So nice to hear the corporate media cares about freedom of expression. Remember this?:

It’s a cartoon by the NZ Herald’s former cartoonist Malcolm Evans, who was sacked in 2003 after producing a series of cartoons highly critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. The cartoons are archived here. Apparently it’s okay to gratuitously insult Islam, but not okay to criticise the West’s allies.

Meanwhile, check out this reactionary drivel from right-wing cartoonist Tom Scott:

NZ cartoonist says Muslims need a sense of humour
A renowned New Zealand cartoonist has stepped into the controversy surrounding the publishing of Muslim caricatures in newspapers around the globe.
...
"(They) clearly have god on their side so they don't need cartoonists as well," he added.

It’s not often that I’m inclined to quote from the Tory press, however, just this once, The Sunday Times gets it about right. (Well, apart from the bit about Falluja anyway.):

To imply that some great issue of censorship is raised by the Danish cartoons is nonsense. They were offensive and inflammatory. The best policy would have been to apologise and shut up. For Danish journalists to demand “Europe-wide solidarity” in the cause of free speech and to deride those who are offended as “fundamentalists . . . who have a problem with the entire western world” comes close to racial provocation. We do not go about punching people in the face to test their commitment to non-violence. To be a European should not involve initiation by religious insult.

Many people seem surprised that a multicultural crunch should have come over religion rather than race. Most incoming migrants from the Muslim world are in search of work and security. They have accepted racial discrimination and cultural subordination as the price of admission. Most Europeans, however surreptitiously, regard that subordination as reasonable.

What Muslims did not expect was that admission also required them to tolerate the ridicule of their faith and guilt by association with its wildest and most violent followers in the Middle East. Islam is an ancient and dignified religion. Like Christianity its teaching can be variously interpreted and used for bloodthirsty ends, but in itself Islam has purity and simplicity. Part of that purity lies in its abstraction and part of that abstraction is an aversion to icons.

The Danes must have known that a depiction of Allah as human or the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist would outrage Muslims. It is plain dumb to claim such blasphemy as just a joke concordant with the western way of life. Better claim it as intentionally savage, since that was how it was bound to seem. To adapt Shakespeare, what to a Christian “is but a choleric word”, to a Muslim is flat blasphemy."

...

It is clearly hard for westerners to comprehend the dismay these gestures cause Muslims. The question is not whether Muslims should or should not “grow up” or respect freedom of speech. It is whether we truly want to share a world in peace with those who have values and religious beliefs different from our own. The demand by foreign journalists that British newspapers compound their offence shows that moral arrogance is as alive in the editing rooms of northern Europe as in the streets of Falluja. That causing religious offence should be regarded a sign of western machismo is obscene.

I could hardly put it better myself, so I won’t try to, except to note that if the Times had been living in Falluja lately they might feel a bit differently.

WSWS also has an interesting analysis:

The decision [to reprint the cartoons] has nothing to do with freedom of the press or the defense of secularism. Such claims make a mockery of these democratic principles. The promulgation of such bigoted filth is, rather, bound up with a shift by the European ruling elites to line up more squarely behind the neo-colonial interventions of US imperialism in the Middle East and Central Asia. It is no accident that it occurs in the midst of the ongoing slaughter in Iraq, new threats against the Palestinian masses, and the preparations to launch sanctions, and eventual military aggression, against Iran.

It is, moreover, a continuation and escalation of a deliberate policy in Europe, spearheaded by the political right and aided and abetted by the nominal “left” parties, to demonize the growing Muslim population, isolate it, and use it as a scapegoat for the growing social misery affecting broad layers of the working class.

...

One does not have to uphold Islam, or any other religion, to sympathize with the indignation of Muslims around the world who have expressed their outrage at the racist drawings flung in their face by media outlets that claim to be defending Western secularist values against the dark hordes from the East.

The Government meanwhile seems to have only been spurred into making any kind of response once NZ’s dairy exports to the Middle East were threatened. Foreign Minister Winston Peters, well-known for his principled opposition to racism and racial stereotyping of all kinds, noted that:

“It is hard enough to conduct your foreign affairs as a small country without New Zealand enterprises deciding to insult people, such as the whole Arab world.”

Tim Pankhurst’s last act as editor of the Dominion Post should be to apologise for this act of deliberate insult and provocation, then resign.

Some thoughtful commentary from Rolled-Up Trousers: Those blasted cartoons

Finally a thanks to Islamophobia Watch for picking up my article and adding a NZ section to their site!

National Radio's political correctness debate: Transcript available

2006-01-20T15:25:00.000+13:00

A transcript from National Radio's interesting panel discussion on January 2 is now available here.

"He was tied with his arms and legs behind his head... They started beating him with batons"

2006-01-10T15:56:00.000+13:00

The cops are on the defensive as it becomes increasingly obvious who started the Tauranga 'riot'.

Police tied man up, beat him, says partygoer
Stacey Trevino, whose 21st birthday was the reason for the party at a Welcome Bay hall, said police "came out two batons apiece and started going for it". She alleged officers used particular force against a 27-year-old man who appeared in court yesterday in relation to the attack on the police officer. Ms Trevino said she was standing in the hall entrance when four or five officers brought the man into the hall. "He was tied with his arms and legs behind his head. They started beating him with batons."
She claimed the officers closed the doors to the main part of the hall and continued beating the man while she and others banged on the doors.

Local chief thug Detective Senior Sergeant Greg Turner enthusiastically supported the police rampage:

"Yes, we did use batons, we did use pepper spray," he said.
"I'm confident the police acted with the utmost professionalism and restraint in very difficult circumstances and I'm very comfortable with our actions."

When the corporate media even considers allowing criticisms of the cops into its pages, you know there's something going on.

Tauranga 'riot' - behind the headlines

2006-01-09T10:51:00.000+13:00

Look behind the headlines at the small print. From the NZ Herald:

Mr Turner said batons and pepper spray had been used on the crowd but only as a last resort. However, party-goers said the force was excessive. William Roberts, who was asked to act in a security capacity at the double-21st birthday party, said he was surprised at the attitude of some police. "Everyone was happy until the cops turned up. "It all started when a kid got hit to the ground. All I saw was the guy get pushed to the ground, or hit to the ground. "His mates, cousins, uncles and aunties all came in and said, 'You can't do that'. Things just got real heated." The police appeared to be showing their muscle, Mr Roberts said.
[...]
Dasha Van Silfhout, 18, said her boyfriend went to the police station to lay a complaint about being pepper-sprayed, only to be arrested while at the station.

From the Dominion Post:

All available police in the area – about 35 officers – were called. But even with the numbers, it took about 30 minutes to control the crowd.
Some witnesses have accused police of making the situation worse with heavy-handed use of batons, dogs and pepper spray.
Neighbour Daryl Harlan said the party had been fine till people from outside the area arrived.
Partygoer Manaaki Kahotea, 17, said people were "amped up" after a fight broke out and got worse when police arrived. The policewoman was hit by a big man wielding something metallic that looked like a beer keg.
"It was like she went to sleep. She just dropped."
He thought police were too aggressive. "They were smashing people for no reason. If we would not go away they would grab those black batons and smack you in the legs or chest."

It's interesting, given that the media usually reports police statements as though they were uncontested facts, that these claims by eyewitnesses are even being reported. It will be interesting to see how much of the truth actually seeps out in coming days.

A sensible debate on 'political correctness'

2006-01-02T13:47:00.000+13:00

8.30 am on one of the biggest public holidays - obviously the ideal time to have a serious debate about this important issue.

But it's well worth listening to - some serious and thoughtful discussion for a change. Go to the link below:

http://radionz.co.nz/nr/programmes/summerreport/20060102

and click on '0831 Panel'

Disgusting

2005-12-15T12:12:00.000+13:00

These posters have appeared in several railway stations around Johnsonville and Khandallah. Given the small number it's most likely the work of one foul individual rather the claimed group or groups. The incident has also been widely reported in Australian media, including The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Adelaide Advertiser.

Echoing John Howard's drivel that the Sydney riots were 'un-Australian', Don Brash has labelled the 'group' allegedly behind the posters 'anti-Kiwi'. Brash's effluvium is worth quoting in full:

“There is no place in New Zealand for these kinds of threatening, inflammatory actions. National condemns any calls for violence or racial intolerance,” says Dr Brash.
“The idea that some people cannot have the same depth of feeling for this country because of the colour of their skin or their ethnic background is bigoted nonsense.
“We are all New Zealanders and we all love this country.”
Dr Brash described the group behind the poster campaign as “a small, fascist underbelly, hell-bent on causing division and destroying New Zealand’s egalitarian ethos. They are thugs and bigots”.
“Only with the inclusion of all people, from all walks of life and all racial backgrounds, all being treated equally as New Zealanders, will New Zealand prosper as a successful nation in the modern world.”

One hardly knows where to begin with this reeking pile of hypocrisy from the National Party leader. It is the same as Howard's 'respectable racism' - Don Brash, the gentleman racist, politely makes the arguments in Orewa - that Maori should no longer get 'special privileges', that 'welfarism' must end etc. etc., then turns around and has the temerity to express surprise when the scum who put up these posters put Brash's ideas into practice.

It couldn't happen here...

2005-12-14T09:41:00.000+13:00

could it, because we know how terrible and racist those Aussies are, whereas nothing like that ever happens here?

David Marr on 'shock-jock' Alan Jones' sickening incitements.

And the WSWS has a couple of good articles:

As Australian media covers up Howard's role Racial violence continues in Sydney

Government and media provocations spark racist violence on Sydney beaches

Men, airlines, children and unaccompanied journalists

2005-12-05T15:20:00.000+13:00

Air New Zealand and Qantas’ recent announcement that they will not seat unaccompanied children next to men (Numerous other airlines have similar policies) has had pretty much the expected response from those determined to fearlessly protect ‘us’ from the horrors of ‘political correctness’.

Firstly though, ask yourself why the complainant, Mark Worsley, waited a year before making the complaint - and then did so through National’s ‘Political Correctness Eradicator’ Wayne Mapp. Was he really that traumatised that it took him that long to get over it? Why not go straight to the Human Rights Commission instead of giving it to a Tory MP to kick around?

Former All Black and Dancing With the Stars winner Norm Hewitt, has called for a boycott of the airlines in a sort of modern-day Montgomery bus boycott:

"I think we've really got to stand up. It's about time men stood up and said: 'This is just crap.' We've got to start pushing back this PC world we're living in."

Michael Laws, meanwhile, thinks it’s the ‘final blow’ for men:

One of the great triumphs of this post-modern age has been feminism. It has been a speedy victory. From that first bra-burning on a California campus, to the PC capitulation, it has taken less than four decades. While we males were ogling those forbidden fruits, women were turning our own appetites and anatomy against us.
Within two decades they were dominating education and academia, within three the political selection process. Now they have effected my gender's denouement - banning us from any contact with children that are not our own.

A typical editorial in the Bay of Plenty Times opined that the whole thing was part of a ‘“PC-gone-mad” approach’.

(Oh by the way, check out this - apparently NZ is part of Australia...)

I’ll get back to the policy itself later. What’s interested me has been the predictable wave of hysteria about ‘PC gone mad’.

Now, here for example is a rather interesting comment by psychologist Nigel Latta:

"It's insane. It's political correctness and cautiousness gone mad."
Mr Latta said the policy was sending an "awful" message to society that "all men are pariahs". He said some women and children were also sexual offenders, "so we can't even sit them next to other children. We must sit them by themselves in a wee pen so nobody can get near them".
Mr Latta agreed studies of sexual offenders showed somewhere between 70 and 90 per cent were male but the airlines' policy would not help protect children.
"In 15 years of working with thousands of sexual offenders I've never treated or heard of a man who sexually offended against a child on a plane."
Mr Latta also suspected the airlines' policy would contravene human rights legislation against discriminating on the basis of gender.

Nigel Latta has dealt with a number of high profile criminal cases and has appeared frequently on tabloid news programmes such as the late Holmes show. His 2003 book dealing with those cases, Into the Darklands, was heavily pushed by the media to promote all sorts of reactionary ideas. In one TV interview, Latta commented that he would never allow teenage boys to baby-sit his kids, because they’d probably molest them.

So, is it all males we should worry about, or just adolescent ones, as Latta seems to believe?

In terms of the policy itself, I don’t have any firm opinion really. It does seem a bit over-cautious, to say the least. But that’s not really the point. Where are all the media headlines about continuing discrimination against women? Are the corporate media really so ignorant that they believe all men are now utterly subservient to women as the result of some vast politically correct conspiracy? When did you last see a news report about the unfair burden of unpaid housework and childcare faced by women, the grossly disproportionate number of women who suffer sexual discrimination in jobs and education, or how women still make up the overwhelming majority of victims of domestic violence and sexual attacks?

Before you harp on about this airline ‘discrimination’, why not take a look at some rather more serious cases.

"A news revolution has begun"

2005-12-05T11:40:00.000+13:00

A very interesing article by John Pilger about the role of bloggers in exposing the US military's use of the banned chemical weapon white phosphorus in Fallujah last year.

Racial profiling in NZ

2005-11-25T15:08:00.000+13:00

This week's complaints by NZ Muslims concerning racial profiling at airports aren't the first example of this repulsive practice. Back in 2001, Consumer magazine reported aviation security boss Mark Everitt's announcement that 'passenger profiling' (read racial profiling) may become standard practice:

'I have a great deal of sympathy for the people who call me asking, "why are we taking knitting needles off little old ladies?" What I want to do is establish a regime of passenger profiling, identify the ten people out of 400 on a 747 who could be the risk on that plane.'

Basically, 'racial profiling' means that law enforcement agencies can target and even arrest people without any specific suspicions based solely on their ethnicity. So, for example, police in the United States could stop and question Blacks who were in a prosperous white neighbourhood solely because they looked 'out of place'. This 'profiling' simply legitimates police racism while further stigmatising the targeted groups.

For example, in mid-October 2001, New York police arrested three Pakistani men simply for being 'too close' to the World Trade Center site:

The men had been hired to clean the outside of the Chase Manhattan Bank, which was covered in debris from the September 11 disaster.
The men arrived at the site with their work clothes, equipment and scaffolding. Showing their true colors, New York police arrested the men and confiscated all of their equipment - despite the fact that the men had a legitimate reason for being at the site.

Racial profiling? Just Say No!

What planet is Ross Wilson on?

2005-11-24T16:24:00.000+13:00

The Council of Trade Unions says gloomy talk by businesses will only hasten economic hard times.
CTU president Ross Wilson says business leaders have talked the economy down before and it is ordinary New Zealanders who suffer.
Mr Wilson says the World Bank recently praised New Zealand for the second year in a row as the best place in the world to do business, and there's no need to create a hard landing needlessly.
(Radio NZ)

What planet are you on, Mr Wilson?

Bush wanted to bomb al-Jazeera

2005-11-24T14:13:00.000+13:00

How's this for a bit of neocon insanity?

President Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a "Top Secret" No 10 memo reveals.
But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash.

No shit?

My opinion of al-Jazeera is now even higher than before. Any media outlet that gets bombed twice (Kabul and Baghdad) by the Bush regime deserves support. For me, the most interesting aspect of al-Jazeera is not its balanced coverage of the Iraq war and al-Qaeda, but its outspoken criticism of dictatorial regimes in the Middle East, in particular Saudi Arabia, in stark contrast to the fawning and often state-controlled media in the region.

If you get a chance, check out the rather good 2004 documentary Control Room set in al-Jazeera's Qatar headquarters during the 2003 Iraq invasion. There is a particularly moving scene at the end where the Americans bomb al-Jazeera's Baghdad office in retaliation for its sometimes-critical coverage, killing al-Jazeera's correspondent there.

Pacific Prosperity Conference

2005-11-22T17:08:00.000+13:00

I was listening to Morning Report today just before I went to work. They were discussing the ‘Pacific Prosperity Conference’ curently being held in Manukau, where one of the topics was an attempt to explain the poor position of Pacific peoples within NZ society.

The Pacific People's Economic Participation Report was also released at the conference. Published by the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, it starkly highlights the reality of inequality, discrimination and poverty faced by many Pacific people’s here.

Quoting Statistics New Zealand, the report shows the average weekly income from all sources for Pacific peoples is $412, compared with $471 for Maori and $637 for Europeans. Furthermore, unemployment rates for Pacific peoples were significantly higher than the national average, they are over-represented in less secure, low-skilled and unskilled occupations, and under-represented in more highly-skilled and/or secure jobs.

Unfortunately though, no realistic attempt has been made to explain this inequality:

The report found discrimination against Pacific people in terms of wages and said while its effect was strong and statistically significant, the causes were not clear.
(NZ Herald)

Worse, the report attempts to place some of the blame for this gap on the ‘work characteristics of Pacific employees,’ without clearly elaborating on what these alleged deficiencies might be.

It is hardly surprising that a Government Ministry is unwilling to confront the real causes of Pacific inequality. In the post-war era as the NZ economy boomed, tens of thousands of Pacific Islanders were ‘imported’ here with the express purpose of filling the lower paid, manual and insecure occupations and blue-collar manufacturing positions. When the economy entered a prolonged series of crises in the 1970s, these Pacific labour migrants were viciously scapegoated in the notorious ‘Dawn Raids’ and racist National Party election adverts.

Even today, the term ‘overstayer’ remains a racist code-word in the media for ‘Pacific Islander’, regardless of the fact that most ‘overstayers’ are in fact young (and white) British, North American and South Africans on working holiday visas.

Pacific peoples remain amongst the poorest in NZ because it suits the ‘business community’ to have a section of the workforce that can be isolated and scapegoated. Its problems can then be blamed on ‘cultural differences’, ‘poor parenting’ and ‘different attitudes’. By dividing workers along ethnic lines, employers can weaken workplace organisation and force down wages. On a larger scale, if working people as a whole are divided, if sections of the workforce (like Pacific peoples, Asians and Maori) can be scapegoated for the economic crisis, then governments can more easily push through ‘business-friendly’ policies that cut wages and social services.

Unfortunately, the ‘Pacific Prosperity Conference’ has provided no answers to these problems.

Wellington's "giant tripod"

2005-11-18T16:02:00.000+13:00

I go past this thing every day on the bus to and from work. Okay, I'm probably a Philistine and all that, but wasn't there something better the Wellington City Council could spend $300,000 on?

So, I thought I'd start a list here and invite my readers to add some further suggestions in the comments box:

Replacing, or at least tidying up some of the city's dilapidated trolley buses
Soup kitchens
Rehab for Mark Blumsky
(the best suggestions will be added here)

ACT Bird Flu stupidity

2005-11-18T15:45:00.000+13:00

In a press release today, ACT's Heather Roy attacks Government plans to commandeer cool stores to store corpses in the event of a Bird Flu outbreak. Apparently, this is just going to be terribly awkward for the businesses concerned:

Primary producers rely on clean, safe cool stores for transporting meat, fruit and vegetables. Even to suggest that they would be confiscated for storing bird flu casualties is de-stabilising to the sector.
Imagine how long it would take after an outbreak to convince our trading partners that these stores were free of infection.

Um, yeah, and think of all the people who might, you know, like, die. Now that's going to be even more inconvenient for the old business community.

Tax cuts for the rich!

2005-11-18T13:05:00.000+13:00

In a highly original, brilliant and well thought-out idea that no one has ever suggested before, the Treasury has told the Government it should cut tax rates for the rich and corporations. Just in case you missed it, the logic of the argument goes like this: If you give rich people more money, it will encourage them to work harder and earn even more money. They will spend more of this money, and the extra wealth will thus ‘trickle down’ to the poor. At the same time, because the poor are shiftless and paid too generously anyway, they must have their incomes reduced (through driving down wages and benefit cuts, along with higher personal taxes). Cutting the incomes of the poor will therefore motivate them to work harder.

Rich bastard... sorry, sorry, I mean respected expert Geoff Nightingale, Ernst & Young’s tax director, thinks that tax cuts would be a really neat idea too, and is pleased that Treasury is providing “independent” (sic) advice to Government.

You know, I’d have a bit more respect for these people if they just came out and said, ‘We’re rich and greedy, and we’d like to take some more money off the poor,’ rather than carping on about tax cuts being ‘international best practice’ or whatever.

Since 1984, we’ve been promised that the neoliberal agenda would produce long-term gains for all after a brief period of pain, instead what we’ve got is capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich. New Zealand has almost the worst inequality statistics in the OECD.

For the past few years, a modest economic recovery has given Labour some room to manoeuvre, but with a recession looming, it may just decide to take on Treasury’s advice in a year or so.

Iraq: US used banned chemical weapon

2005-11-09T12:11:00.000+13:00

Check out this Italian documentary (click on the English version to download the video. Warning: contains disturbing scenes.)

Meanwhile, in today's Guardian, George Monbiot discusses the media's censorship of the appalling Iraqi death toll, in particular the shameful attempt to discredit the Lancet's report showing a death toll of over 100,000.

Doug Ireland on France

2005-11-09T11:57:00.000+13:00

Sarkozy (left) only poured verbal kerosene on the flames, dismissing the ghetto youth in the most insulting and racist terms and calling for a policy of repression. "Sarko" made headlines with his declarations that he would "karcherise" the ghettos of "la racaille" - words the U.S. press, with glaring inadequacy, has translated to mean "clean" the ghettos of "scum." But these two words have an infinitely harsher and insulting flavor in French. "Karcher" is the well-known brand name of a system of cleaning surfaces by super-high-pressure sand-blasting or water-blasting that very violently peels away the outer skin of encrusted dirt - like pigeon-shit - even at the risk of damaging what's underneath. To apply this term to young human beings and proffer it as a strategy is a verbally fascist insult and, as a policy proposed by an Interior Minister, is about as close as one can get to hollering "ethnic cleansing" without actually saying so. It implies raw police power and force used very aggressively, with little regard for human rights. I wonder how many Anglo-American correspondents get the inflammatory, terribly vicious flavor of the word in French? The translation of "karcherise" by "clean" just misses completely the provocative, incendiary violence of what Sarko was really saying. And "racaille" is infinitely more pejorative than "scum" to French-speakers - it has the flavor of characterizing an entire group of people as subhuman, inherently evil and criminal, worthless, and is, in other words, one of the most serious and dehumanizing insults one could launch at the rebellious ghetto youth. Kerosene, indeed.

Australian "terror" raids fuel anti-Islamic hysteria

2005-11-08T13:15:00.000+13:00

Listen to the headlines:

Raids foil terrorist attack: police chiefs (ABC News Online)
Australia foils terror attack plot, arrests 15 (NBR-NZ)
'Large-scale terror attack' foiled (News.com.au)
Australia foils major attack (Reuters)
Australia arrests 15, 'halts imminent terror attack' (Bangkok Post)
Terror attack 'foiled by raids' (Sydney Morning Herald)

etc., etc.

But... read just a little more of the articles, and it soon becomes obvious that no ‘plan’ actually existed. As the SMH admits:

"Our investigation does not identify a specific object or item or location at this point in time," Mr Moroney said.

"They're not charged with any covert conduct - in other words they're not charged with engaging in the planning or preparation of any terrorist offence, they're simply charged with membership offences."

Meanwhile The Australian reported:

Mr Stary said none of his clients had been charged in relation to the planning of any attack.

Note that very carefully: They are not charged with any covert conduct ... they're not charged with engaging in the planning or preparation of any terrorist offence, they're simply charged with membership offences. In other words, despite the media, police and politicians’ claims, these raids are simply about rounding up people who allegedly belong to organisations which the Australian Government, based (supposedly) on ASIO ‘intelligence’, claims may possibly be thinking about carrying out terrorist attacks. Even if they’re right (remember ‘Children Overboard’, remember the WMD’s?) the arrested people are charged merely with belonging to an organisation which the Government claims is 'planning' an as-yet unknown attack.

These raids have nothing to do with 'protecting' ordinary people from 'terrorism' - they are about demonising Muslims and Arabs as mindless terrorists in order to generate support for even more repressive government legislation that will be used against anti-war activists, the left and trade unionists.

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité?

2005-11-08T12:39:00.000+13:00

LIBERTÉ? French Muslims banned from wearing headscarves in school.
ÉGALITÉ? France's non-whites twice as likely to be unemployed.
FRATERNITÉ? French government admits integration policies have failed.
RÉALITÉ: Riots erupt for eleventh night.

(From The Independent, which has another interesting article here.)

WSWS also has some interesting articles:
After 11 days of clashes between youth and police French government and opposition back intensified repression
Eyewitness to Paris riots charges police with deliberate provocation
France: widening anti-police riots provoke government crisis

Also, check out this photo gallery.

John Simpson on French unrest

2005-11-08T09:22:00.000+13:00

The BBC's John ('I liberated Kabul') Simpson thinks it's starting to look like 1968:

Only if a much wider swathe of French society gets involved on their side will the situation become truly pre-revolutionary, in the way that the crowds of 1968 were.

As usual, the comments below the article are far more interesting and informed than the article itself.

Also check out this page of links.

Australia's "terrorist" warning

2005-11-07T11:21:00.000+13:00

I mean, where do you start, right?

If there really was a "terrorist threat" - if Howard somehow knew that "terrorists" were going to blow up the Sydney Harbour Bridge for instance, do you think he would try and stop it? Me neither. After all, the September 11 attacks turned Bush overnight from a lame-duck who only got to be president through vote-rigging in Florida, and who was, to put it politely, not all that bright, into a guy portrayed by the corporate media as a cross between Lincoln and Caesar. Worse still, it turned the necons' dreams into terrifying reality in Afghanistan and Iraq. Likewise, it would be hard to imagine anything that would be politically better for John Howard than a major terrorist attack on Australian soil, allowing him to push through even more draconian laws to curtail free speech and attack unions and the left.

Now, let's just say that he did want to stop the attacks (assuming that he really did have serious information warning they were about to happen - which he didn’t...) Now then, I’m sure that you, like me, can just imagine all those ASIO spooks and Australian Federal Police officers sitting in their offices, all kitted up ready to go and save the country from crazed Islamic militants, and of course they’re all sitting there, desperately waiting for the word “the” to be changed to “a”, because obviously, it’s completely impossible at the moment, there just aren’t any laws allowing the police or anyone else to do anything to stop an imminent terrorist attack which they have full details about.

Yeah, right. Of course they do. There’s more than enough repressive legislation on the books already that give the forces of law and order the power to do pretty much whatever they want. The new “terrorism” legislation, along with the new anti-union laws, will be used to further stigmatise and scapegoat Arabs and Muslims, and repress the political left, unions and progressive social organisations under the cover of “fighting terrorism”. Howard’s ridiculous fantasies about “imminent attacks,” Labor’s craven support and the media’s uncritical reportage mark a new low point.

And you thought “Children Overboard” was bad.

La Haine

2005-11-07T10:24:00.000+13:00

All of this will be familiar to anyone who has seen La Haine ('Hate'), Mathieu Kassovitz's brilliant 1995 film, the plot of which is eerily similar to the current revolt. It follows three friends (Vincent Cassel, Said Taghmaoui and Hubert Kounde) on a run-down Paris housing estate in the 24 hours after a riot precipitated by the brutal police beating of another young man. The reality of life in these modern ghettoes is vividly portrayed. Reportedly, then-prime minister Alain Juppe made his cabinet ministers watch the film. Unfortunately they don't appear to have done anything to act on the problems it highlights.

Throughout La Haine, what appears at first to simply be a silly joke is told: A man falls off the top of a skyscraper. As he falls past each level of the building, he keeps saying to himself, "So far so good, so far so good." At the film's dramatic conclusion, a voiceover tells us that it is society that is hurtling towards the ground, constantly telling itslef, "So far so good, so far so good."

France's rulers had plenty of warning.

Update 11.11.05: Mathieu Kassovitz has put this statement on his website concerning the unrest

Why France burns

2005-11-07T09:23:00.000+13:00

A surprisingly good article on the origins of France's revolt here. Are we seeing the beginnings of another 1968?

More soon. Meanwhile Wikipedia has a good regularly updated report including these useful blogs:

Clichy-sous-bois riots: youth accuse the police
Bellum civile ou Civil War in Paris, par Francis Moury
Zero tolerance in Clichy-sous-bois
November 4 : an eyewitness account
Paris Rioting : A Digest of Francophone Blogs
Eyewitness account by Antoine Germa

Eradicating political correctness?

2005-11-03T15:18:00.000+13:00

At last, someone who’ll dare to take on all those feminazis. At last, a voice for the big corporations in Parliament. At last... oh f**k it, just read on...

As you may have heard, National Party leader Don Brash has appointed Wayne Mapp to the new role of “Political Correctness Eradicator”.

Unfortunately, while Dr Mapp was railing against the advocacy role of the Human Rights Commission, and describing it as a "bastion of political correctness", his party's disability spokesman was insisting that the Government adopt a commission report into public transport access.

Labour’s pathetic response included this press release. Helen Clark has also made it clear that Georgina Beyer’s Human Rights (Gender Identity) Amendment Bill, which would provide some legal protection for transgendered people, is “history”.

Beyer seemed to be about the only politician with anything remotely positive to say in the “debate”.

The only serious attempt to counter this bullshit came from the Gay NZ Website, which also managed a nice bit of humour, as did these guys and this anonymous post from the indyMedia NZ site.

Some of the commentary has reached the level of near-hysteria:

Economic Marxism might be dead and discredited in all but a few loony pockets of resistance, but in its cultural form it has taken the world by storm. This week's pre-emptive piggy-bank ban by two UK banks, for fear of offending Muslims, was a classic example.

(See below for more on the "banning piggy-banks" story).

One contributor to the Stuff website’s “Your Say” had this to say:

“The eradication of the insanity of "political correctness," as is proposed by the National Party, is long overdue. A similar process was carried out in Germany at the end of the war. However, in that instance, the process had the more accurate title of "denazification".

Incredible. A woman who dares to ask to be treated equally, a Maori who objects to racism, a same-sex couple who want the same rights as straight partners, a woman who’d rather not be known as a chairman - all of these terrible threats are, it seems, on a par with the most odious regime of mass murderers in human history!

There is a very basic misunderstanding about political correctness. Essentially, the current hysteria is part of the right-wing backlash against the gains made by the progressive movements of the 1960s and ’70s. “Political Correctness” (a term, it would seem, that was first strongly endorsed by George Bush Snr at a speech at the University of Michigan in 1991) has been relentlessly pushed as an idea by the ruling class, conservatives and the corporate media. It’s part of a strategy that presents conservative, patriotic, red-blooded, meat-eating heterosexuals as an embattled minority, terrified of saying anything that might offend anyone who is gay, disabled, Black, etc.

Its basic assumption is that there is some kind of large and well-organised “movement” by the “PC Brigade” to enforce “politically correct” language and ideas.

But “political correctness” is not an attempt by the Left to impose its agenda, but a fundamentally empty and meaningless term of abuse heavily promoted by the Right as a way for them to close down discussion on just about any progressive issue and provide a blanket smear against anyone attempting to raise legitimate questions about the rights of women, gays and lesbians or any other minority group.

As one person put it:

...it is routinely hijacked by the ‘Daily Mail’ brigade as being negative, as in:” [insert anything, e.g., children not being allowed to bully each other at school, women not being patronized in the workplace, black people not having to conform to a type]...is political correctness gone mad”.

Of course, many people quite rightly feel that it’s a good idea to use language that doesn’t deliberately offend minorities or avoids being gender specific (for instance, saying bartender instead of barman, or humanity rather than mankind). However the media has deliberately created a sense of hysteria, highlighting every possible instance of people daring to use this language and often making making up entirely fictitious “PC horror stories”.

One of the best-known stories - that a London borough council was going to ban black rubbish bags because it might offend Black people - was made up by the Sun newspaper.

In the last couple of weeks, several stories appeared in the NZ media alleging that British banks had banned piggy-banks from their branches in case they offended Muslims. The only problem was that they weren’t actually true, as the Australian ABC’s excellent MediaWatch website showed - but of course simply being untrue was not enough to stop the usual shrill cries from the right about “Political Correctness Gone Mad”.

First the politically correct police in schools banned Christmas carols because they might offend Muslims. Now in London the zealots are banning the use of piggy-banks.

wrote one reader in the Brisbane Courier Mail.

All of this aims to divert the majority of people from the real cause of their problems. It tries to make us believe that the worst thing happening to us is someone trying to “force” their non-sexist, non-racist ideas on us - while National and Labour force their own narrow economic fundamentalist agenda down our throats.