WE DID IT!
I'm doing a Snoopy Happy Dance here at home, after the government today announced they were backing down on their plans to mine our National Parks.
Looks like I'm not going to have to chain myself to the bulldozers after all. Well, not right this minute, anyway.
Thank God there's someone in the National Party who's able to see that they got it really, really wrong - and that it would be political suicide to continue with their plans in the face of such enormous opposition.
Mind you, that person is most definitely not Gerry Brownlee - spinning the announcement madly this evening by saying that this is nothing less than a mandate from the people to go ahead and mine the shit out of the rest of the country instead. Just go ahead and try it, Gerry - and I think in many places you'll find the opposition is just as strong as it was for the Schedule 4 areas.
I emailed Gerry Brownlee, John Key and Kate Wilkinson when this whole thing blew up. This is what I said:I am outraged. How dare you???
Our National Parks and conservation areas are our taonga. They are what makes us special, and unique, and what many of the tourists who spend $9billion a year here come to see. Not for nothing do our many visitors call New Zealand "the most beautiful place in the world".
And you want to dig them up and destroy parts of our precious heritage for ever - in the name of profit - most of which will go to the mining companies? Based on a back-of-the-envelope calculation from a mining industry consultant - and without seeking any advice on the impact of mining on our tourism industry? Unbelievable.
You selfish, small-minded, greedy bastards. Yes I'm angry - I'm downright furious. I'm currently listening to Ms Wilkinson ranting on in parliament. My God. If she's the Minister for Conservation, then God help the environment.
"Surgical mining"? Is that like 'scientific whaling' by any chance? Don't lie to us - some people may be fooled, but the majority are not - and for many of us, me included - this is our line in the sand.
I'm sending you this message from the Forest & Bird website. I joined the organisation yesterday - I've never been a member before - specifically because you are trying to prevent DoC staff from discussing mining with F&B. How pathetic. What are you afraid of? They've revealed nothing that isn't true.
In the space of just a few months you have turned me back into a political activist - after 20 years of relative political inactivity. Good for you. I suspect I am not the only one. I also suspect that the passion you have unleashed in those of us who care about our environmental heritage will be far stronger than the vague feelings of greed you have stirred up in those poor deluded fools who actually believe your lies and spin.
National and ACT - the parties that know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Prepare for a fight, because that's what you're gonna get. We're not going to let you do this.
Back when I wrote that email I didn't know just how much opposition there would actually be. I was hopeful - I knew yer average Kiwi was proud of our beautiful National Parks, and I knew there would be many people who were, like me, outraged at the prospect of parts of them being destroyed for 30 pieces of silver - but I wasn't 100% sure that there'd be enough of an outcry to make them stop.
I knew we had to hit them hard and hit them fast - it's much easier to stop plans like these at an early stage than it is to try and stop them when you've reached the chaining-yourself-to-the-bulldozers stage.
I will be forever grateful to the Green Party, Forest & Bird, Greenpeace and all the other groups who joined forces under the banner of 2precious2mine - and who all utilised the power of the internet, social networking, online organising and online submission-making to get 47,000 signatures on the Greens' anti-mining petition, 40,000 people demonstrating against the proposals in Auckland in May, and 37,552 New Zealanders making submissions, the vast majority of which opposed the government's plans. Now that's people power in action.
I was banking on something I mentioned in my email - I suspected that the passion felt by those who opposed the mining would be much stronger than any vague feelings of greed in those who either didn't care about our environmental heritage, or who believed the government's spin that mining was the only possible solution to our economic woes.
From that perspective, I felt that even if we were in the minority, we'd work until we dropped to make sure the mining didn't happen - and that we'd be able to win through sheer force of will, even if we didn't quite have the numbers.
Turns out I underestimated my fellow Kiwis just a bit - and that a majority were opposed to mining anyway, which is awesome - and that a HUGE number of people felt passionately enough about it to get off their asses and make themselves heard - which is extremely awesome.
I think in retrospect, the tipping point was probably the sheer number of National supporters who were also horrified by their party's plans. (Well, that and John Key's desperate need to retain his Mr Popular image). I don't think Brownlee et al saw that coming at all - although, honestly, if they couldn't see the NIMBY vote coming out in full force in Auckland to protect their beautiful playgrounds in the Coromandel and Great Barrier Island, then they're more stupid than I thought.
I was struck by a conversation I had with a friend of mine who is generally "All National, All The Time". We rarely talk politics these days 'cos we never agree and we'd rather stay friends than fight - so I was completely amazed to be discussing the mining proposals with her and to be hearing her say how outraged she was, and how untrustworthy she feels her party has become, and how she doesn't believe much of anything they say any more - and how if there was an election tomorrow she might not be able to bring herself to vote for them!
Holy hell! For me, that was huge. I have no doubt that National's pollsters were well aware of the backlash from their party faithful, and I'm betting that that had a major influence on their decision to do a 180. It's one thing to stir up anger and protest in a bunch of lefties and greenies who are never going to vote for you anyway - and quite another to offend your own party members to such an extent that they begin contemplating not voting for you any more...
I see two dark clouds on the horizon of this otherwise sunny day of celebration.
The first is that the government is changing the rules so that the Energy and Resources Minister will now be included in decisions regarding access to conservation land. Currently those decisions are made by the Minister for Conservation alone.
The fact that the guy trying to promote mining now gets to influence decisions made by the woman who (in theory at least) is supposed to be standing up for the rights of the environment is a big concern, and one which has not escaped the notice of environmental groups, including ECO (Environment and Conservation Organisations of Aotearoa New Zealand):The Government decision not to take areas from Schedule Four is welcome, but the Government decision to give the Minister of Energy and Resources effective control over mining access to conservation land was a major step backwards, the Environment and Conservation Organisations (ECO) said today.
ECO co-chair Cath Wallace said the decision on schedule 4 protected land is a victory for all those who made submissions, marched and signed petitions against the proposal to open up further conservation land to mining. “The government deserves credit for listening to them.”
“The Government should now listen to those submitters and not include the Minister of Economic Development (Gerry Brownlee) in making decisions on other conservation land.”
Ms Wallace said the process showed that neither Gerry Brownlee nor his Ministry understood the real values of conservation areas and the attachment New Zealanders have to it.
The second dark cloud is the direction in which Gerry is already spinning this:"From my perspective this has been a valuable exercise. I suspect few New Zealanders knew the country had such considerable mineral potential before we undertook this process, and I get a sense that New Zealanders are now much more aware of that potential and how it might contribute to economic growth.
"Essentially the discussion process identified where the minerals industry can and can't go. As many people have pointed out, around 85 per cent of the country is not protected by Schedule 4, and a great deal of that land has mineral potential.
"New Zealanders have given the minerals sector a clear mandate to go and explore that land, and where appropriate, within the constraints of the resource consent process, utilise its mineral resources for everyone's benefit," Mr Brownlee said.
The government has also decided to undertake a significant aeromagnetic survey of non Schedule 4 land in Northland and on the West Coast of the South Island to learn more about which areas have the highest concentrations of valuable minerals.
"I am delighted to announce that the aeromagnetic survey in Northland will be conducted as a partnership between central government and the various agencies of local government in Northland.
"It is our expectation that when that data becomes available there will be an escalation of mineral exploration and extraction in those areas, which will be of benefit to the economies of both regions."
Only a politician could spin an outcry against one thing into a "clear mandate" in favour of something quite similar but not exactly the same.
It was completely obvious to anyone with half a brain that the government never had any intention of mining in the Coromandel or Great Barrier Island - they'd have lost Auckland and therefore the election if they'd pursued that goal - but at the time I figured that these were just a smokescreen.
I figured they'd back down with great fanfare on one or both areas, "Hey look! Aren't we democratic? We listened to the people!" and then go quietly away and mine somewhere else instead while people weren't looking.
Which is essentially what they are planning to do, if Gerry's spin is anything to go by. I thought they'd go away and mine another bit of Schedule 4 land (Paparoa or Stewart Island) so I'm massively pleased that they've also backed away from those plans - but I'm VERY concerned about the "85 per cent of the country [that] is not protected by Schedule 4" which Gerry already has his beady little eyes on.
Northland and the West Coast are definitely at risk now - and I see it as cynical in the extreme to target areas of the country where the population is under-employed and economically vulnerable - and therefore less likely to examine the true economic cost of allowing mining to go ahead in their backyards.
We won the battle today - but we didn't win the war. I don't think we'll ever win the war, to be honest, because there will always be greedy bastards out there anxious to rape and pillage our precious lands, and there will always be greedy shareholders looking to increase their dividends at whatever cost - but we have to keep on fighting - for ever - to protect what's important to us.
To me, that's always been the underlying truth of environmental activism. We fight because it's the right thing to do, not because we know we will always win. We won today, but we return to battle tomorrow.
Useful links
Technorati tags: mining, mining National Parks, Schedule 4, Gerry Brownlee, backdown, Kate Wilkinson, conservation, environment, 100% pure NZ, greenies, Greenpeace, Green Party, Forest & Bird, 2precious2mine, protest, environmental activism, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Government backs down on mining our National Parks
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Iran protests and MJ mashup
Technorati tags: Michael Jackson, Iran protests, They Don't Care About Us, mashup, video, YouTube, protest photos, Iran, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
The trouble with Israel
There's a stunningly awful piece in the Guardian's Comment is Free section today, written by one Elizabeth Wurzel, entitled Standing against a tide of hatred, which includes the remarkable subtitle: It is not Israel's action, but the vitriolic reaction to it that has been disproportionate. There's only one explanation: antisemitism.
Not surprisingly it has received a heck of a lot of comments, one of which I would like to quote in its entirety, because it neatly (and with links) summarises Israel's breaches of international law - and encapsulates exactly why the international community is appalled and outraged by Israel's actions against Gaza.
Thank you PaulLambert - a great comment indeed:
Elizabeth Wurtzel:'The trouble with Israel is the trouble with Jews'.
No, the trouble with Israel is that it's an increasingly aggressive, violent and rogue state that treats the Palestinians abominably. It illegally occupies and colonises their land:
'Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (including East Jerusalem) have been established in breach of international law.'
Ruling of the International Court of Justice, 2004.
It treats the Palestinians in the West Bank as second class citizens in their own country, with a set of laws that resemble aspects of apartheid:
'Israel's settlement enterprise has created two separate systems of rights and privileges, favoring, for the most part, Israeli citizens, at the expense of the over two million Palestinian residents of the West Bank.
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report, December 2008 - page 3.
The privileges accorded to Israelis for movement and access, along with the use of two different sets of laws for each population (Israeli domestic law for Israelis and military orders for Palestinians) constitute the most pronounced elements of this institutionalized discrimination.'
It collectively punishes the Gazan population, over half of whom are children:'The blockade has effectively dismantled the economy and impoverished the population of Gaza. Israel's policy affects the civilian population of Gaza indiscriminately and constitutes a collective punishment against ordinary men, women and children. The measures taken are illegal under international humanitarian law.'
Report by Amnesty International, Care International UK, Cafod, Christian Aid, Medecins du Monde UK, Oxfam, Save the Children UK and Trocaire, March 2008 - page 5.
Its soldiers and settlers regularly beat and kill Palestinians with impunity:'Settler violence is not random criminal activity; in most cases, it is ideology-driven, organized violence, the goal of which is to assert settler dominance over an area. IDF Commander of the Central Command Major General Gadi Shamni, responsible for the West Bank, recently argued that the increase is due to the encouragement [the settlers] receive from the settler leadership, rabbis and [the] public. A root cause of the phenomenon is Israel's settlement activity...
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report, December 2008 - page 2-11.
...The absence of law enforcement against settlers was again raised in 2005 by Advocate Talia Sasson in her report on the construction of unauthorized settlement outposts that was commissioned by the Israeli Prime Minister. Sasson's report makes clear that there is a problem in terms of enforcing the law on Israeli settlers in the West Bank. According to Sasson, IDF soldiers are ignorant of their law enforcement responsibilities in this regard. Moreover, they are not interested in assuming such roles. In the Executive Summary of the opinion, she notes: The attitude towards law breaking settlers is mostly forgiving. The result is a large increase in law violations.'
And it bulldozes Palestinian homes without warning or compensation:'In the last three and half years, Israel's armed forces have bulldozed or blown up more than 3,000 homes - an average rate of more than two homes a day. This has left tens of thousands of men, women and children homeless or without a livelihood... Often the only warning is the rumbling of the Israeli army's bulldozers and tanks and the inhabitants barely have time to flee as the bulldozers begin to tear down the walls of their homes.'
Report by Amnesty International, May 2004.
This kind of thing has been going on for forty one years now. To say that those who recognise the injustice and brutality inherent in the four decade old Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, and want to work to put a stop it, are somehow anti-semitic, is misguided at best, and completely shameless and dishonest at worst.
Hear! Hear! I absolutely agree PaulLambert - and thank you VERY much for the links to sources which even the most virulent pro-Israeli supporter would be hard-pressed to refute.
Technorati tags: Israel, Palestine, Israeli/Palestinian conflict, war, war crimes, anti-semitism, Zionist, Jew, Jewish, Israeli, Arab, Palestinian, Gaza, illegal occupation, International Court of Justice, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations, UN, collective punishment, children, Amnesty International, Care International, Cafod, Christian Aid, Medecins du Monde, Oxfam, Save the Children, Trocaire, PaulLambert, Paul Lambert, Guardian, Comment is Free, Elizabeth Wurtzel, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Gaza - the oppressed have become the oppressors
Warning: Fairly graphic images. Don't scroll if you don't want to see them.
I'm speechless about what's happening in Gaza. Up until now I haven't known what to say, it's made me so sad and angry. So now I'll say something controversial. Actually, I don't think it's possible to talk about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict without saying something that someone will find controversial, so there you go.
Was it completely naïve of me to hope that the Jewish people who have been through so much torment and hardship, a people who have been so appallingly treated throughout history, that those men, women and children who have made Israel their home might wish to treat others the way they would like to have been treated themselves?
I have Jewish friends who are sickened and appalled by what the State of Israel is doing (and has been doing) in Gaza and the rest of Palestine. I agree with them. They feel that in no way do Israel's attacks on the Palestinian people represent them as members of the international Jewish community.
It seems to me that attacking and killing innocent people - and then going on TV and lying about it - is no way for a "civilised" country to behave. Israel, have you no shame? Have you no heart? No soul?
From The Guardian:9 January 2009: Children make up more than half of Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants, and as such have found themselves in the firing line since Israel began its offensive against Hamas. Using unprecedented force, the Israeli army has launched raid after raid against the tiny, overcrowded territory, with the inevitable consequence that children have figured heavily among the casualty numbers. According to UN figures, more than 250 children have been killed and 1,080 wounded - about a third of the total casualties - since the offensive began on December 27.
I've been looking at pictures online because I wanted to show you what this war really looks like, but there are many I just can't include. They are too terrible. I'm sitting here in tears. I don't think I need to show you a picture of a decapitated child for you to understand that war is hell, and that the innocent are suffering and dying.
Is this child a terrorist?
Is this one?
Was this child a terrorist too?
From The Independent:Rules of engagement: Is Israel in breach of the laws of war?
Critics of the Israeli invasion of Gaza say that the military response has been disproportionate and in breach of international rules of war. According to international agreements based on principles dating back to St Thomas Aquinas and enshrined in the Geneva Conventions, Israel should adhere to rules on:
Proportionality - No more force should be used than is necessary, and casualties should be kept to a minimum. The response should be in proportion to the level of the threat.
Civilians - Should not become victims of the war and have the right to be protected and their safety ensured.
Children - Are not to be treated as combatants; medicines, food and clothing should be allowed through.
Targets - Only military targets should be attacked and indiscriminate bombing is forbidden.
Weapons - White phosphorus should not be used as a weapon of war in civilian areas, but Israel has argued that there is nothing to stop it being used as a smokescreen.
I know there are many who live in Israel who do not agree with what their government is doing to the Palestinian people. I know there are many Jews around the world who think it's wrong. And there are certainly millions of non-Israelis around the world who are condemning Israel's actions in Gaza and elsewhere right now.
But insofar as the Israeli government represents the will of its people, I have to ask the question "why have the oppressed become the oppressors?" Why is it that the Jewish people have, for so many years, caused so much hardship, torment and death to the Palestinian people? Shouldn't simple human empathy and understanding have stopped Israel from behaving that way? Or is it true that - like abused children who grow up to be abusers themselves - the State of Israel just cannot help itself?
You tell me - because right now, that's what I see. I see the Jewish people who have suffered deeply and horribly, turning around and treating the Palestinians in a way that - although not comparable in scale or atrocity to what the Jews suffered during the holocaust - is nonetheless unacceptable, inhumane, cruel, and arguably illegal.
And until the US stops with the unconditional support of all actions Israeli, and until both the Palestinians and Israelis can stop with the fighting and start with the talking, and until the rest of us have the courage to stand up and say what we think - even though we know we'll probably get accused of being anti-Semitic for saying it - I don't know how peace can ever come to that part of the world.
And every day until then more children will die, and more hearts will be hardened against Israel and everything it stands for, and the possibility of peace in the Middle East will move further and further away.
Links
More Links
And a couple more...
January 6 - The Israel RulesBecause Israel came into existence in the shadow of the Holocaust, and because it was immediately attacked by Arab states bent on destroying it, it has become an eternal victim in America's eyes. The historical truths of Israel's creation, above all the fact of Palestinian dispossession, simply cannot compete with the tragic, beautiful myth of an embattled people, the survivors of one of the worst genocides in human history, returning to live in their historic homeland.
The enduring power of this myth is understandable. The idea that history's "ultimate victims," as the late Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said sympathetically called the Jews, created their own state by expelling its native inhabitants, is appalling. It seems almost cosmically wrong: A story this dark should not, cannot, close without a happy ending.
January 6 - The Gaza BloodbathIf Israel wants to prevent Hamas from "obtaining legitimacy," then the real objective of the invasion is to either severely undermine or topple the regime. All the talk about the qassam rockets and the so-called "Hamas infrastructure", (the new phrase that is supposed to indicate a threat to Israeli security) is merely a diversion.
What really worries Israel is the prospect that Obama will "sit down with his enemies" - as he promised during the presidential campaign - and conduct talks with Hamas. That would put the ball in Israel's court and force them to make concessions. But Israel does not want to make concessions. They would rather start a war and change the facts on the ground so they can head-off any attempt by Obama to restart peace process.
January 7 - What Kind of Security Will This Barbarism Bring Israel? Israel's disregard for innocent human life is not motivated only by a desire to forestall the political consequences - especially during an electoral campaign - of Israeli military casualties. It is also a clear indicator of the contempt that Israel has for Palestinian life in general.
The cold, hungry, tired, desperate, and terrified men, women and children that Israel is now sweeping away by the dozen in balls of fire and showers of shrapnel are the very same people that it had already reduced to what one UN official months ago warned was "a subhuman existence," the deliberate product of the siege that Israel has imposed on Gaza for over three years, beginning in 2005, before the election of Hamas.
They are the same people whose political and human rights Israel has been stifling since the occupation of 1967 - twenty years before the creation of Hamas. They are the same people who were ethnically cleansed from their land in 1948 because, as non-Jews, they were inconveniently cluttering up the land that European Zionists wanted to turn into a Jewish state, no matter what the land's actual population had to say about it.
Technorati tags: Gaza, war, Israel, Palestine, Palestinians, Hamas, Jew, Jewish, Israeli, war crimes, terrorist, anti-semitism, innocent children, UN school, YouTube, photos, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Changing one's political affiliation
Seeing as I haven't said a word yet about the upcoming general election here in New Zealand, I suppose I really should - seeing as it's now exactly a week away.
I know who I'm voting for - I always know who I'm voting for. I don't really understand how anyone can be undecided - but then that's because politics is intrinsically a part of me, and something that I cannot separate from who I am. I know most people don't give politics that level of importance in their lives, which is why I suppose they are sometimes able to switch from voting "left" to voting "right" or vice versa - something that I can't imagine doing.
Having said that, I do understand how you might change party affiliation if your party undergoes a transformation so drastic that you feel it no longer represents your beliefs and ideals.
An example for me would be Old Labour vs New Labour in the UK.
For all the years I was living in the UK and old enough to vote, I voted Labour. They were my party, the party that most closely reflected my views. I was proud to vote for them, although I was never on the winning side. Like many ex-Poms, I eventually became utterly demoralised by 17 years of Thatcher destroying what (at that time) was still my country. God I hated that woman.
I was travelling in the US when Thatcher was ousted as leader of the Conservative Party. It was Thanksgiving Day, and we certainly gave serious thanks that day!
A year and a half later I was travelling in New Zealand as the 1992 general election took place back in the UK, and did not vote, but I felt sure (as did most other people) that it was Labour's turn again at last, and that John Major's Conservative party would not prevail. Except that the unthinkable happened. Labour lost, the Conservatives won, and no-one could believe what had just happened.
I vividly remember sitting on the deck of Abracadabra, the 2-person yacht I was preparing to crew to New Caledonia. I was reviewing the election results in the international edition of The Daily Telegraph, practically weeping with frustration at Labour's inability to win the race. It was the day that Old Labour died, and it was also the day that I "resigned" from being English: "If the British people are so bloody stupid that they vote that lot in again, then they deserve everything they get, and I shall no longer consider myself to be English. That's it - I quit."
Fast-forward 5 years to May 1997. I had by that time become a (very proud) New Zealander, but I still watched every minute of the UK election on TV, having taken the day off work just so I could follow the results as they unfolded. It was such an amazing day. All the baddies lost their seats, all the goodies won theirs, and Tony Blair led a triumphant New Labour into power with the most seats the party's ever held. Awesome!
The honeymoon, however, was short. Maybe a year? Maybe 18 months? I don't really remember how long it was until I saw the cracks beginning to show, but I do know that I increasingly began to feel (albeit from a distance) that Blair's policies, and those of New Labour, no longer matched my political beliefs in the way that Old Labour had.
The final straw for me was Blair's friendship with Bush and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The day that 8 million of us around the world marched against the upcoming war, I remember knowing in my heart that neither Blair nor Bush gave a shit about what we thought, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that they would invade Iraq, and that nothing we could do or say would stop them.
Had I bothered to vote in the UK elections that followed the 1997 triumph, I would not have voted Labour. They had become too right-wing. They had left me. I would have chosen instead to vote for the Liberal Democrats, the only major UK party which opposed the war on Iraq.
But I'm a Kiwi now - have been for 16 years - and so I vote in New Zealand elections. I sometimes miss the energy and commitment of the British people when it comes to politics. It's not nearly as intense here, and for someone who cut her teeth on the never-ending political debates in the local British pub (and everywhere else), I find the laid-back Kiwi attitude to politics a trifle lacklustre at times. What I do appreciate, though, is MMP.
With MMP (Mixed Member Proportional representation), you get two votes - a party vote and an electorate vote.
The national percentage of party votes that each party gets will determine the number of Parliamentary seats they are given (out of a total of 120 seats). Any party that receives at least 5% of the national party vote is guaranteed at least 6 seats in Parliament. If your party gets less than 5% of the party vote, you don't get any seats at all - unless at least one of your representatives wins in an electorate.
With your electorate vote you vote for a local MP. The outcome of the electorate vote is decided using the First Past the Post (FPP) method - whoever wins the most votes in an electorate wins the seat.
When I first came to New Zealand we were using the traditional FPP method of electing our Parliament, so in my first NZ election in 1993 I voted Labour. National won the election (but only just). Damn!
The 1996 election was the first in which we had MMP, and so my options were somewhat broader. The beauty of MMP is that smaller parties are infinitely more likely to get seats in Parliament than they are under FPP - because you only have to reach 5% of the total party vote.
In 1996 I voted Labour/Labour, which was somewhat of a bummer because National won the majority of the party votes and the odious Richard Prebble from ACT won my local seat of Wellington Central.
*sigh* I had been voting since 1983 and I had yet to vote for the winning party.
In 1999 I changed my vote. The Green Party had been formed in 1995, and at last here was a party with which I was in agreement virtually 100% of the time. Wow. This was a unique experience, as even with Old Labour back in the UK there had been occasions where my party and I disagreed.
I voted Green/Labour in 1999, in the hope that my Green party vote would help the Greens get to 5%, with my Labour electoral vote hopefully defeating Mr Prebble in Wellington Central. At last - after so many years of not getting to vote for a winner - both my votes came up trumps!
We got rid of Prebble in Welli Central, and after a nail-biting couple of weeks while the special votes were counted, it was announced that the Greens had reached 5.16% - and our co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons had also won her electorate seat in the Coromandel. Hooray!
I've voted that way ever since. I know that my electorate vote would not prevail if I voted Green in Welli Central - although we are the Greenest electorate in the country (I think we got 19% of the party vote last time) - so I vote Labour in order to help keep the National guy out - but I am very proud indeed to vote Green with my party vote. We're looking OK in the polls at the moment - we're on 7.5%, so I hope that either stays constant or increases in the next week. We shall see.
I don't imagine I will change my party affiliation again. When I left Labour in the UK it was because the party as a whole had moved further right than I was comfortable with, and I could no longer support them. Had there been MMP in the UK I would have chosen to vote Green, but with FPP they didn't stand a chance, so, had I remained in the UK, I would have voted Lib Dem as a reasonable alternative.
When I switched from Labour to Green in NZ, it was once again because the brand-new Green Party represented my strong left-wing views better than Labour did - and with MMP I knew my vote had a chance of making a difference.
I remember once sitting in a pub in England debating politics with a group of friends. I was probably around 20 years old at the time. An older guy somehow became involved in our discussion, and very condescendingly told me that "Everyone's left-wing when they're young and idealistic. When you're older and wiser you'll move to the right - just like everyone else does. You'll see sense in time."
I indignantly told him that I was left-wing then, and that I would remain left-wing all my life, because, to me, the policies, ideals and beliefs of the political Left are the only ones that make sense. They are the policies, ideals and beliefs that I share, and about which I care very deeply. I told him I "saw sense" then, and I would "see sense" all my life - and that I would always view life through the eyes of a left-wing idealist.
If you're reading this, Mr-condescending-right-wing-non-idealist older-dude - see? I was right (or perhaps that should be left). On the two occasions I have changed parties it's been either because my party left me (by moving right), or because a better alternative presented itself. Left-wing is where I belong, and left-wing is where I'll stay. Hooray!
If you're not entirely sure who to vote for in the upcoming New Zealand election, perhaps you'd like to try the Pundit Election Quiz. It's modelled on the award-winning US version, and is a very quick and easy way of determining which party most represents your views. Choose which issues you most care about, respond to a series of statements, and find out which party is best for you and why.
I'll give you three guesses which party came closest to matching mine...
Don't forget to vote!
Technorati tags: New Zealand election, Green Party, Greens, Labour, UK election, Old Labour, New Labour, Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher, George Bush, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Richard Prebble, Wellington Central, MMP, FPP, vote, party, electorate, New Zealand politics, Pundit, Election Quiz, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Two of the most moving campaign ads you're likely to see this year
I need add no words to these two amazingly powerful and moving campaign ads from this year's election. Just watch. Hankies at the ready.
I was raped. And then I got pregnant. Sarah Palin believes that the Government should be able to force me to carry the pregnancy to term.
Sarah Palin believes that the Government should make that choice, not me.
Governor Palin, I didn't have a choice about being raped. But I should have a choice about this.
This ad was made by WAMP - Women Against McCain Palin. On their website they say:
This November, female victims of rape and incest are in jeopardy of losing their rights. Join our movement and pay to have these ads run on TV in a swing state.
There is no better way to make a difference in this election than to choose the ads that run in swing states. Please select your ad, swing state, and package. SaysMe.tv will run your ad on TV and brand it with your name at the end with: PAID FOR BY {YOUR NAME}.
Endorse what you believe in and say what YOU want on TV.
If you're interested in paying for this ad to appear on TV in a swing state, go here. For more information on Sarah Palin's plans to outlaw abortion even for girls and women who are victims of rape and incest, go here.
ERIK SCHEI: My name is Eric Schei. Three years ago I was an Army Sergeant in Iraq and I was shot in the head by a sniper. The doctors said I wouldn't survive. But I am still here and I am getting better.
I want to thank Tom Udall for getting more funding for treatment of brain trauma for veterans. For me, that means everything.
Thank you.
TOM UDALL: I'm Tom Udall and I'm humbled to approve this message.
Press release from Tom Udall:
October 16, 2008
Albuquerque, N.M. - The Udall campaign today released a powerful new television ad, in which Army Sergeant Erik Schei testifies to Tom Udall's leadership in Washington in standing up for our troops and veterans.
In 2005, Specialist Erik Schei was shot in the head by a sniper in Iraq. The doctors put his chance of survival at zero. With the right treatment, Sergeant Schei was able to not only live, but can now communicate with others.
"HUMBLED" - Released October 16, 2008
SCRIPT and FACTS
ERIK SCHEI: My name is Erik Schei. Three years ago I was an Army Sergeant in Iraq and I was shot in the head by a sniper. The doctors said I wouldn’t survive. But I am still here and I am getting better.
FACT: From the Associated Press, January 22, 2008: In October 2005, Erik was a 21-year-old Army sergeant serving in Mosul, Iraq, as a machine-gunner with the Army's 94th Engineer Battalion. A sniper's bullet pierced the right side of his helmet and passed through both frontal lobes of his brain.
"They gave him zero chance of survival," Erik's father, Gordon Schei, said. "They said if he did survive, he would be a vegetable. They wanted us to pull the plug on him. But we dug deep.
"We're people of faith, and we brought him home, and today he communicates with people. He laughs, he's standing - not on his own, but with help. He's doing so many things."
Erik uses a wheelchair and lives with his parents and 7-year-old sister in the Rio Rancho home his parents helped him purchase in August. The family moved from Taos to be closer to the VA hospital.
He is constantly impressing his parents, friends and therapists with the improvements he is making. He now speaks one or two words at a time. Often, "annoying" is one of them, speaking of his sister, said Christine Schei, laughing. He has a computer attached to his wheelchair, which often speaks for him. He activates it with his head.
"We're also teaching him to feed himself, which takes a lot of effort," Christine Schei said. "His brain just seems to have forgotten which muscles to use."
There are some things, however, that his brain has not forgotten how to do. "He knows how to read, which was a shock to all of us," she said. "They held up cards and he mouthed the words. A lot of times, it's a whisper. It's not real loud. We have to push him sometimes, 'Erik louder, try harder.' He has been our miracle child. We have great expectations, and hopefully by the end of next year, he can walk in a walker even if it's just two or three steps."
Erik has occupational and physical therapists come to the house three times a week, and a speech therapist comes twice a week. His mother also drives him to speech therapy three times a week.
"My hope is for him to be able to live independently, to be able to take care of himself and not be dependent on anyone else," Gordon Schei said. "He's always going to need some kind of help. Right now, he needs 24-hour care, but nobody thought he would get as far as he is right now, so there's no sense in thinking he won't get further."
ERIK SCHEI: I want to thank Tom Udall for getting more funding for treatment of brain trauma for veterans. For me that means everything.
FACT: As a member of the Appropriations Committee, Congressman Tom Udall pushed for and voted in support of the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act of 2007 which became Public Law 110-28. It included $600 million in funding for post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries. Additionally, Congressman Udall has consistently voted in support of increasing funding for veteran's health care and served for eight years as a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.
TOM UDALL: I'm Tom Udall and I am humbled to approve this message.
FACT: It is a moral imperative to provide our veterans with the care they need and opportunities they deserve when they get home. Tom Udall's father, Stewart, served as a waist gunner in the Army Air Corps during World War II. This instilled in him the moral responsibility we have to the honorable men and women who serve our nation in uniform. During to his time in Congress, including eight years serving on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Tom Udall has worked hard on behalf of our veterans. He is humbled to have the support of Erik Schei and honored to have been endorsed by the VFW-PAC which represents 2.2 million veterans.
Technorati tags: campaign ad, choice about this, women's right to choose, pro-choice, anti-abortion, pro-life, abortion, WAMP, Women Against McCain Palin, rape, incest, Sarah Palin, Palin, humbled, humbled ad, Erik Schei, Iraq, brain trauma, veterans, Tom Udall, New Mexico, Democrat, Senate, US politics, Presidential election, video, YouTube, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.
Monday, October 06, 2008
POW! Rolling Stone goes after McCain
Well it's about time someone questioned the McCain tactic of "I'm a war hero! Don't you dare question me about anything" (whether or not the anything has any connection with POW! being beside the point).
Personally I fail to see why being a POW! should give one an automatic "in" to the Presidency - nor do I see any reason why a person's POW! experience would be useful to, or indeed bear any relationship to, the role of President of the US of A. But then I'm just a hippy peacenik, so hey, what do I know?
So why don't we ask a few people who do know - a bunch of people that Rolling Stone has been talking to for their 10-page exposé on John McCain - Make-Believe Maverick - ooooh he's gonna be pretty mad about this article, I can tell you that! And when John McCain gets angry... well, let's see shall we...?
This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.
"John has made a pact with the devil," says Lincoln Chafee, the former GOP senator, who has been appalled at his one-time colleague's readiness to sacrifice principle for power. Chafee and McCain were the only Republicans to vote against the Bush tax cuts. They locked arms in opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And they worked together in the "Gang of 14," which blocked some of Bush's worst judges from the federal bench.
"On all three — sadly, sadly, sadly — McCain has flip-flopped," Chafee says. And forget all the "Country First" sloganeering, he adds. "McCain is putting himself first. He's putting himself first in blinking neon lights."
It's all there - how this son and grandson of 4-star navy admirals used his family connections to get into Annapolis with a less than impressive school record, the planes he crashed in training (and how he pulled strings to keep his wings, as well as get preferential treatment wherever he went).
The real story of his time in the Hanoi Hilton and what his fellow POWs really thought of him, his appalling treatment of his first wife Carol, crippled in a car accident when he was in Vietnam and no longer beautiful enough to keep him interested when he came home, his affair with and rapid marriage to Cindy the beer heiress before the ink was even dry on his divorce papers.
His use of family connections (and Cindy's money) to get himself into politics, his unfortunate membership of the Keating Five, and how, in politics, he started as he meant to go on...
McCain voted to confirm Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. In 1993, he was the keynote speaker at a fundraiser for a group that sponsored an anti-gay-rights ballot initiative in Oregon. His anti-government fervor was renewed in the Gingrich revolution of 1994, when he called for abolishing the departments of Education and Energy. The following year, he championed a sweeping measure that would have imposed a blanket moratorium on any increase of government oversight.
...the creation of the "Straight Talk Express' following the Keating Five revelations and Cindy's embarrasing (and criminal) descent into Vicodin and Percocet addiction. The development of his natural inclination towards deregulation, which sowed the seeds of the current economic crisis on Wall Street:
Indeed, if the current financial crisis has a villain, it is Phil Gramm, who remains close to McCain. As chair of the Senate Banking Committee in the late 1990s, Gramm ushered in — with McCain's fervent support — a massive wave of deregulation for insurance companies and brokerage houses and banks, the aftershocks of which are just now being felt in Wall Street's catastrophic collapse. McCain, who has admitted that "the issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," relies on Gramm to guide him.
...McCain's legendary temper, including the "C-word" incident with Cindy in 1992:
At least three of McCain's GOP colleagues have gone on record to say that they consider him temperamentally unsuited to be commander in chief. Smith, the former senator from New Hampshire, has said that McCain's "temper would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him." Sen. Domenici of New Mexico has said he doesn't "want this guy anywhere near a trigger." And Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi weighed in that "the thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded."
...and how all these elements of McCain's life experiences, character and temperament come together to create a man who should be kept far, far away from the Presidency:
The myth of John McCain hinges on two transformations — from pampered flyboy to selfless patriot, and from Keating crony to incorruptible reformer — that simply never happened. But there is one serious conversion that has taken root in McCain: his transformation from a cautious realist on foreign policy into a reckless cheerleader of neoconservatism.
"He's going to be Bush on steroids," says Johns, the retired brigadier general who has known McCain since their days at the National War College. "His hawkish views now are very dangerous. He puts military at the top of foreign policy rather than diplomacy, just like George Bush does. He and other neoconservatives are dedicated to converting the world to democracy and free markets, and they want to do it through the barrel of a gun."
...his role in the lies that led to the Iraq war (and how he's since changed his tune on how difficult the war was going to be):
In September 2002, McCain assured Americans that the war would be "fairly easy" with an "overwhelming victory in a very short period of time." On the eve of the invasion, Hardball host Chris Matthews asked McCain, "Are you one of those who holds up an optimistic view of the postwar scene? Do you believe that the people of Iraq, or at least a large number of them, will treat us as liberators?"
McCain was emphatic: "Absolutely. Absolutely."
Today, however, McCain insists that he predicted a protracted struggle from the outset. "The American people were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach," he said in August 2006, "which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking."
...and finally, the now legendary McCain 'flip-flps':
"They're drinking the Kool-Aid that somehow I have changed positions on the issues," he said of his critics at the end of August. The following month, when challenged on The View, McCain again defied those who accuse him of flip-flopping. "What specific area have I quote 'changed'?" he demanded. "Nobody can name it."
In fact, his own statements show that he has been on both sides of a host of vital issues: the Bush tax cuts, the estate tax, waterboarding, hunting down terrorists in Pakistan, kicking Russia out of the G-8, a surge of troops into Afghanistan, the GI Bill, storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, teaching intelligent design, fully funding No Child Left Behind, offshore drilling, his own immigration policy and withdrawal timelines for Iraq.
Ouch! And POW!
Well worth reading. I hope it will reach some people who are still under the misconception that McCain would make a decent President. The evidence (in all directions) shows otherwise.
"I'm sure John McCain loves his country," says Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar under Bush. "But loving your country and lying to the American people are apparently not inconsistent in his view."
Tags: John McCain, McCain, Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone article, Make-Believe Maverick, maverick, Keating Five, temper, POW, Vietnam, Cindy McCain, flip-flops, Straight Talk Express, deregulation, neocon, Iraq war, lies, lying, liar, US Presidential election, US politics.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Palin and Armageddon
Very interesting piece in Huffpo today - Palin's Apocalypse:
Does Sarah Palin believe in the Anti-Christ? Does she believe true Christians will be whisked up to heaven sometime in the near future? Does she expect Jesus to come back to earth in our lifetime and battle the armies of Satan? Which nations would participate in the Battle of Armageddon, and whose side would they be on? These questions seem far out, but they're not. They cut to the core of Palin's perspectives on who holds power in our world, on humanity's future, and on foreign affairs.
Sorry I can't get the video to scale down properly here, so best to go and watch it at Huffington post, or at the American News Project, who made it. It's well worth a watch.
Technorati tags: Sarah Palin, palin, Huffington Post, apocalypse, Armageddon, end times, rapture, Anti-Christ, Israel, fundamentalist, Christian, Assemblies of God, Pentecostal, Alaska, refuge state, religion, politics, belief, American News Project, Harry Hanbury, US election, YouTube, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
McCain vs YouTube, The Daily Show on Georgia, and Baracky II
Three videos you really ought to watch...
Firstly a grassroots-produced video on McCain and his best buddy Bush - hattip to kossak cartwrightdale - this is brilliantly done!
Next up is John Stewart on the Daily Show, looking at the situation in Georgia, during which we are privileged to share in a stunning piece of hypocritical nonsense from McCain when he pontificates that "In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations".
Good grief. I think he forgot the caveat (unless you're America). Maybe he just thinks it goes without saying...
And finally, for a bit of a larf (actually, it's bloody good!), here's BARACKY II:
Technorati tags: John McCain, McCain, YouTube, McCain vs YouTube, cartwrightdale, video, grassroots video, Daily Kos, John Stewart, Daily Show, Georgia, Russia, war, hypocrisy, Baracky II, Barack Obama, Barack, Obama, President, WebWeaver's World, webweaver.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Why Obama should not pick Clinton as VP
The suggestion has been around for ages - a dream ticket for some, a nightmare for others.
An Obama/Clinton ticket.
Recently I've been getting a wee bit worried that Obama might actually be considering it - and idea which absolutely horrifies me, because I think it will seriously damage his chances of beating McCain in November.
This is why:
Obama has run on the message of "change". This is a fundamental element of his campaign and of his presidency. Clinton, in contrast, has run on the "experience" ticket, and has even gone so far as to say that she believes that she and McCain both have a lifetime of experience which they will bring to the WH whereas Obama has "a speech he gave in 2002".
Clinton is a classic example of old-guard Washington, the very thing which Obama has been campaigning against so strongly. Having her on the ticket would undercut his message of change.
Obama has campaigned strongly to remove the influence of lobbyists in Washington. He refuses to take money from lobbyists - to the extent of returning their money to them if they contribute to his campaign. Clinton, on the other hand, has accepted plenty of money from lobbyists and has said she will continue to do so as they "represent real Americans".
Having Clinton (and her lobbyists) on the ticket would seriously undermine Obama's anti-lobbying message.
Whether a deliberate part of her campaign strategy, or simply mis-speaking by Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and her surrogates such as Geraldine Ferraro; the perception is certainly there amongst many people (both African Americans and whites alike) that her campaign has played the race card on more than one occasion.
Aside from the obvious irony that Obama is part African-American and that Clinton would be running alongside him as VP having been perceived as using the race card against him, I'm concerned that this might have a negative impact on some people who would otherwise vote for Obama. Put simply, I feel that some people who were offended by her perceived racism would be less likely to vote for Obama if Clinton were on the ticket, than if she were not.
This campaign has been undeniably negative in parts, with Clinton in particular having said a whole lot of negative things about Obama. I can see the Republicans using this as a major part of their strategy in the run-up to the General Election. I believe they would pull up every negative comment Clinton has made, and use it relentlessly against an Obama/Clinton ticket in the fall. I can see it now!
Obama is not a Muslim "as far as I know..."; Clinton and McCain offer a lifetime of experience blah blah (they'll have that one up on an endless loop!); the whole "Obama can't win the white vote" spin; denouncing and rejecting Farrakhan (because simply doing one of the other just isn't enough for Hillary); not to mention harping on about Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, the "bitter" comment and much, much more.
I think it would be incredibly destructive for Obama to pick Clinton for VP after all the negativity she has thrown at him. I think it hands the Republicans their main anti-Democratic advertising on a plate, and brings no benefits to Obama in this regard.
Clinton came into this race with huge negatives. In a Harris Interactive poll in March 2007, 50% of voting-age adults said that they would not vote for her. In March 2008 a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll put her negatives at 48 percent - the highest in that poll since March 2001. Just 37 percent had a positive view of Clinton, whereas Obama's approval rating had remained virtually unchanged at 49 percent. Only 32 percent of Americans gave him a negative approval rating in this poll.
The early negatives are not necessarily Clinton's fault - years of vitriolic attacks on her by the Republicans ever since Bill first arrived in the White House have taken their toll - but certainly the more recent ones appear to be as a direct result of her negative attacks on Obama.
My fear, should she be selected to run as VP, is that a number of apathetic and/or disaffected Republicans would be motivated to come out and vote against her. I believe there's a large sub-group of Republicans who aren't that keen on McCain, but who really, really dislike Clinton. If she were on the ticket, I believe these people would come out for the pleasure of voting against her, whereas if she were not on the ticket, they wouldn't bother voting.
I also think there's another group of Republicans whom Obama would lose if he had Clinton on the ticket with him. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence to show that some Republicans will be voting Democratic this year because they're sick of Bush (and see McCain as continuing Bush's legacy) AND they have been inspired by Obama and specifically Obama to cross over and vote for him. If Clinton's part of the deal, I think we'd see a lot less of them coming over to vote for Obama. I just think that having to vote for Clinton as well would be too much of a stretch for some of them, given the history of Republican dislike for the Clintons.
And finally... the Iraq war. In a May 8-12 poll, 62% of Americans polled felt that war on Iraq was the wrong thing for the US to do, and 70% wanted to either withdraw now, or set a timetable for withdrawal.
There's a very big difference between Obama and Clinton on the war on Iraq. Clinton voted for the war (without reading the NIE Report) - and has since refused to apologise for that vote. She voted for Kyl-Lieberman. She threatened to "obliterate Iran" if they launched an attack on Israel (conveniently ignoring the fact that Iran has no nuclear weapons and Israel has a whole bunch, even if they won't admit to having them).
Obama, on the other hand (as Clinton loves to remind us), has a speech he gave in 2002. Here it is (re-created by Obama supporters):
Obama has opposed the war on Iraq from the beginning. He has continually spoken out against it, even at a time when it was extremely unpopular to do so.
This position against the Iraq war puts him in a very strong position against McCain in November, particularly in the light of McCain's comments about staying for 100 years (or more) in Iraq and his "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" song. The war is extremely unpopular. Most Americans want out, and now believe the US should never have been there in the first place.
With Clinton on the ticket with Obama, this strong point of difference between Democrats and Republicans is drastically blurred, and would severely limit Obama's ability to fight McCain on the issue of the war against Iraq - or the Republicans' continued threats against Iran.
I'm terribly concerned that Obama - being the uniter that he is - will include Clinton on his ticket as VP, aiming to show how much they have in common against a common enemy, etc etc blah blah blah. I'm hugely worried about the impact this would have on the voting in November.
I'm bloody angry at the fact that it feels to me as though those Clinton supporters (encouraged by Clinton) who threatened to hold their breath until they got their way might get their way and in the process destroy the Democrats' ability to win in November.
I'm bloody angry at Clinton for having spent the past 6 months attacking Obama instead of attacking McCain. I'm very worried right now that this is finally having an impact on Obama's numbers, and that somehow Clinton will either snatch the nomination from under his nose, or that she will continue to attack him until November, rendering him incapable of beating McCain.
And I'm now very worried that, because he's such a good guy who wants to work together with everyone and build bridges, he'll take that to its logical conclusion and pick Hillary as VP. And then they'll both lose.
I'm praying he proves me wrong.
Useful links:
- Clinton: McCain Has More Experience Than Obama
- Obama Returns Lobbyists’ Donations
- Clinton Gets Most Lobbyist Money, McCain Most Help
- Sen. Clinton slammed for taking $400K from lobbyists
- Clinton makes case for wide appeal
- For Bill Clinton, Echoes of Jackson in Obama Win
- Ferraro’s Obama Remarks Become Talk of Campaign
- Obama Not Muslim 'As Far As I Know,' Clinton Says
- Clinton Says She and McCain Offer Experience, Obama Offers Speeches
- Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on 'White Voters' Is Fiction
- Denouncing and rejecting Farrakhan
- A Blacklash?
- Fifty Percent of U.S. Adults Would Not Vote for Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Candidate for President
- Poll: Clinton's negatives reach new high
- Quinnipiac University Poll. May 8-12, 2008
- Floor Speech of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on S.J. Res. 45, A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq
- Iraq Resolution
- Clinton Tries New Approach on Iraq Vote
- Clinton's Statement on Kyl-Lieberman
- Obama: Clinton's 'obliterate' Iran statement too much like Bush
- McCain: 'I Don't Think Americans Are Concerned' If We Stay In Iraq For '10,000 Years'
- Unplugged McCain sings 'bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran'
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