understand and you will be free

I've been an avid follower of John Michael Greer for a few years now - he has really helped me see the truth and reality of today and our tomorrows. His latest post is no exception

...May I please be frank? The reason that millions of Americans have had their standard of living hammered for forty years, while the most affluent twenty per cent have become even more affluent, is no mystery. What happened was that corporate interests in this country, aided and abetted by a bipartisan consensus in government and cheered on by the great majority of the salary class, stripped the US economy of living wage jobs by offshoring most of America’s industrial economy, on the one hand, and flooding the domestic job market with millions of legal and illegal immigrants on the other. 

That’s why a family living on one average full-time wage in 1966 could afford a home, a car, three square meals a day, and the other necessities and comforts of an ordinary American lifestyle, while a family with one average full time wage in most US cities today is living on the street. None of that happened by accident; no acts of God were responsible; no inexplicable moral collapse swept over the American wage class and made them incapable of embracing all those imaginary opportunities that salary class pundits like to babble about. That change was brought about, rather, by specific, easily identifiable policies. As a result, all things considered, blaming the American poor for the poverty that has been imposed on them by policies promoted by the affluent is the precise economic equivalent of blaming rape victims for the actions of rapists. 

In both cases, please note, blaming the victim makes a convenient substitute for talking about who’s actually responsible, who benefits from the current state of affairs, and what the real issues are. When that conversation is one that people who have a privileged role in shaping public discourse desperately don’t want to have, blaming the victim is an effective diversionary tactic, and accordingly it gets much use in the US media these days. There are, after all, plenty of things that the people who shape public discourse in today’s America don’t want to talk about. The fact that the policies pushed by those same shapers of opinion have driven millions of American families into poverty and misery isn’t the most unmentionable of these things, as it happens. The most unmentionable of the things that don’t get discussed is the fact that those policies have failed. 

It really is as simple as that. The policies we’re talking about—lavish handouts for corporations and the rich, punitive austerity schemes for the poor, endless wars in the Middle East and elsewhere, malign neglect of domestic infrastructure, and deer-in-the-headlights blank looks or vacuous sound bites in response to climate change and the other consequences of our frankly moronic maltreatment of the biosphere that keeps us all alive—were supposed to bring prosperity to the United States and its allies and stability to the world. They haven’t done that, they won’t do that, and with whatever respect is due to the supporters of Hillary Clinton, four more years of those same policies won’t change that fact. The difficulty here is simply that no one in the political establishment, and precious few in the salary class in general, are willing to recognize that failure, much less learn its obvious lessons or notice the ghastly burdens that those policies have imposed on the majorities who have been forced to carry the costs...

If you want to know what is really going on - read JMG, if you want an idea of how everything is likely to go over the next few years and decades - read JMG. If you are worried about your children's and their children's and their children's future - read JMG. Knowledge is power - the power to make it as good as it can be, the power to protect and nurture, the power to live simply in community sustainable and free. The power to fulfill our destinies. Don't give up your power because you are afraid of the knowledge. Embrace the knowing and the uncertainties, embrace the 'now' and let's work together for the future.

the truth from Russell

This is spinning through social media at the moment and it is brilliant - thanks for being so articulate Russell

spider webs and choices

spider webs, political games - so similar. We have Banks resigning his portfolios and going to court and I have to say that I quite like the photos of him in the dock - bad I know. We have the brownsexscandal in Auckland - the spiders have woven difficult webs around the truth of what has happened there and what the end games of the participants are. Labour are surging up the polls and it has been so good to hear Cunliffe lead - he is really shining and doing well and this bodes well for the left and Mana. We had the simon bridges clown act on Campbell's show - and bridges made a fool of himself by defending the indefensible and fully aligning himself with the exploiters who are and will be fracking and drilling as soon as they can - if we let them that is. I'm afraid we are coming to a crossroads where will have to make some hard choices - choices about who we are and what we believe in. We can't let their drilling plans go ahead - it's as simple as that really. We will have to do what people like this are doing, we will have to set up barricades and lay our bodies on the line a bit. We have done it before during the Tour and we can do it again.

Hattips : The Standard

get lost keylite

I've tried to keep out of the Labour Party infighting because, well I gave up on them long ago, but the news that their leader David Shearer 'forgot' he had over $50,000 in his bank account and 'forgot' to declare it is too much. Idiot/Savant says it so much better than i can

No Right Turn

Shearer clearly knows the rules around bank accounts, because he already declares one (a term deposit with Westpac). So he can't claim ignorance as a defence. If he deliberately tried to deceive the New Zealand public about his assets, then he's morally unfit to be leader of the Labour Party, or an MP for that matter. But even if we accept his excuse, and ascribe it to sheer forgetfulness (something which I think the New Zealand public would find extremely difficult to believe), then he's too incompetent for the job. 

Shearer is a total failure and will, if given the chance, lead the once great Labour Party to another dismal failure at the next election. He is not a left politician he is a keylite and he is a liability to true left thinking people. All of the tribal labour people need to wake up and seek another political party to support. I don't expect they will choose The Mana Party because, well it is too indigenous for them and their privilege but at least they should go with the Greens who for all of their faults at least are honest. This disclosure from shearer about his non-disclosure is the final nail in his coffin I hope.

misleading is not unfair

I don't miss many of the misinformations they put out about Hone Harawira and the Mana Party, even though I don't have a TV or read the paper - i check the news on the net and that is pretty similar but better because you can often go to the source and read differing views, if you want to. and sometimes a story pops up that you can't remember and before you know it, you know it. That is the case about this story where TV1 presented an item which said that Hone had “racked up a $35,000 travel bill... that’s almost $4000 more than the Māori Party’s total travel bill”. They didn't mention that the Māori Party received money from more than one source and when added together, made their statement 'misleading'.

The BSA have ruled that the item was misleading

ODT

we consider that viewers would have been left with the impression that the figures reported constituted total travel expenditure for the period specified, and not just expenditure administered by one agency,'' 

The misleading item created a negative attitude towards Hone for some, and reinforced and validated others who already held those views - and for some supporters, it may have created doubt. The misleading item was designed to discredit Hone and to reduce his mana. It has ended up doing the opposite of course. The second part of the judgement is disconcerting - it relates to whether the TV item was 'unfair'.


Now in view of the fact that the BSA has said that the item was misleading I expected that the item would also be ruled unfair simply because it was misleading. But I was wrong. Unfair is breached when an item strays into 'abusively personal territory', it is not based on whether it was misleading or not. So this misleading item was deemed not unfair and the additional rationale seems strange to me too,

The BSA said that because he was a high profile and often controversial politician, "he should expect to face robust criticism, especially with regard to the expenditure of public money''.

Is airing a misleading item robust criticism, especially in regard to expenditure of public money? I would say no! How can it be when the item was misleading - by definition it was not fair.

Maybe it is the definition of fairness that needs to be changed. We have an election coming up and that is why we need to be especially careful in exposing their dirty tricks.


Hone and Mana are working hard and there is lots going on and this is the quiet before the storm and oh what a memory Mana will create - from us, to the generations to come.


Kim at He Hōaka has written some awesome posts about Mana and other interesting areas.


and another favorite blog at the moment The Archdruid Report - I just love the way John writes and what he writes about - he absolutley gets it and can explain it so that you just want to read more.

going to a happy place

Hone said he would resign from parliment and force a by-election and he has. That is integrity and bodes well for the Mana Party. They have the numbers and all the naysayers and poo-pooers are wrong - the support is there. It's time to get off the fence and get involved - here is the membership form - come and be a part of history.

For the record i think Hone will win big in the by-election because he is back to what he does best - talking and connecting with people. He will really shine in this campaign and as he does, his enemies will get more and more desperate - expect some real slime to come out - all to no avail though. Hone represents the people and they know it. 

Labour's Kelvin Davis will come a long way second and whatever his vote, his team will talk it up as some victory - probably because of the close win over the maori party candidate. Yes they will split the opposition to Hone vote and cancel each other out. I would have prefered labour to not stand a candidate for similar reasons to Eddie's excellent post on The Standard. 

The maori party must be really concerned and they have good reason - they have had so many chances to listen but they stubbornly refuse to conceed, that is now set in play and their fate is sealed.They also have something else very serious for them to consider - their big friend mr key is starting to hit some very soft sand and he has a lot more to get through before the election. Brash will irritate him and ACT will start polling and labour will get some hits in. His thin persona will crack as the brand is eroded piece by piece - we have already seen how vacuous he is in this excerpt from a BBC interview  - watch it and cringe (thanks irishbill and danyl). As things get tougher for mr key he will lose interest in his mates in the maori party - ACT will give him the numbers and the maori party will feel like a liability, a distraction, another irritant. 

Especially as in their desperation to show their independence, they will oppose him, and argue with him and not vote with the right team - after all he's given them - bloody cheek, let them save themselves I've got bigger problems to worry about. Another aspect of key is that he is a short timer - a wheeler dealer - not interested in going for a second term especially if the going gets really tough and his nice guy image takes a bashing - which it will as they introduce more and more pain and suffering for those who need support and protection, those who are disadvantaged in our society. The next leader of the gnats might not be so fussed on the maori party.


Can the left stop the right getting back in - maybe, but not with labour the way it is and not with goff there. Imagine this scenario - 

Hone announces a new political party that will focus on social justice and the disadvantaged in society. Values such as protecting the environment and equality are also there as well as a belief in maori self determination. Labour leader Phil Goff issues a statement welcoming this new political initiative that aligns with his party's beliefs and whilst he recognises that there are differences he fully supports and looks forward to his team working with the Mana Party team to fight the injustices and inequality initiated by the current national coalition government.

 Oh wouldn't that have been great, wouldn't that have shown courage and leadership - goff would have gone up in the polls and peoples estimation but no - we did not see that fictional scenario and that is why I only say maybe. I believe labour are going to get decimated this election and the Mana and the Greens will hold the balance of power and temper the worst excesses of the right coalition. Act will be there with the residue of the maori party and Winston will be nipping at their heels, back in the house.


The by-election is important but not as important as the General Election and the Party Vote - that is where the the power is wrestled. Join Mana and let's get the power back for the people.

the worse he calls it the better it is

It is generally acknowledged now that the labour leader phil goff has poor political radar or nous or as Idiot/Savant puts it, "Phil Goff has no virtù." I am sure goff disagrees but it is pretty obvious after the continued and consistent mistakes he has made, anyway we should consider carefully what Phil says because the opposite is likely to be true. Phil is saying this

NZH

He doubted Mr Harawira's party would have as much of an impact as Mr Harawira believed. "Will [Maori voters] go for an extreme option - Hone Harawira and the people he's got around him? "It's not my impression Maori will go for an extreme option."

Extreme - that is the joke of it all - policies that pander to a mythical middle, based on the latest polling, that play lip service to the disadvantaged are extreme not the Mana Party's kaupapa. That is a wonderful endorsement from goff really - the worse he calls it, the better it is.

Meanwhile Brash has taken offence at being called racist by Hone

"I find that grossly offensive. I think being called racist is almost the worst kind of insult," Dr Brash said. "To me a racist is someone who wants to discriminate against particular people. Well, my concern is that the Maori Party actually wants to create a privileged group of New Zealanders.

The Mana Party Don, not the maori party

I want all New Zealanders to have exactly the same rights under the law. He [Hone] wants to give a preference to Maori."

We are going to hear that one quite a bit. It dismisses the indigenous rights of maori, it ignores the Treaty of Waitangi, it disappears the statistics around maori which shows the truth not the 'privilege' and it is based on self interest, cowardness and racism. There are no 'same rights' Don - didn't you check out the latest replacement to the foreshore and seabed act? No equality there - the rights of maori are lessor than private owners. But this battle is not over facts but rather over ideologies and the cycloptic brash knows it all already.

political hoodlum - quaint praise

I agree with Hone's assessment that maori MP's within big parties are used - "They are trotted out to do a speech, and then kicked out of the room when the decisions are made." That is the political reality.We have seen this many times as Metiria Turei the Greens co-leader confirms,

"I have seen that played out in Labour and in National where the Maori voice is ignored or subsumed. You saw that in Labour with the foreshore and seabed legislation," she said. "We have seen that with National consistently, particularly with the way Georgina te Heuheu has been treated ... she is one of their senior MPs but is not treated like a senior MP."

Of course the defenders defend

Labour's transport, infrastructure and associate Maori affairs spokesman Shane Jones labelling him a "political hoodlum".

That is a compliement but Jones won't get that. Labour's Maori Affairs and Treaty of Waitangi spokesman Parekura Horomia, in his roundabout way, confirms Hone's words too

When asked if he thought he was being ignored because he was a Maori MP in a largely Pakeha party, Horomia replied: "When you are a minority and you have been doing this like I have for 30-plus odd years, you soon learn and know very well when you are getting nought ... you have to be tough enough to understand that is the environment you are working in and make sure you make the best shot to ensure you utilise the leverage.

It is an issue and the major parties pretend it isn't an issue - but the people know because it is obvious. What to do about it? I'd like to see more fractionation of the big dinosuar parties so that we have more parties representing more interests. Then, after elections, they can coalease into groupings based upon their overriding philosophies. We must not be afraid of small parties - they are the future and they can work together, even though there have been failures in the past and the relentless propaganda from the dinosuar parties is negative towards such ideas.

brownlee drops the pill

I not a great fan of labour's but i'll give them their due, when due - trevor mallard teaches steven joyce a lesson in politics and this video is worth watching to see gerry brownlee's face. He stuffed up. He is under pressure. He wants to mine our national parks. Well it's time to put the blowtorch on mr brownlee.



Pity about the insults to Massey - they certainly don't deserve that.

Hat tip The Standard

i am speaking about me speaking about me

I always worry when a politician speaks in the third person, even when they are just trying to make a point. It seems like a disconnect to me, a slight glimpse into the inner.

Pita Sharples was under a bit of fire about the 3 strikes legislation. This is ACT's big one, before they bow out ungraciously. News that as Associate Minister of Corrections, Pita Sharples was not consulted about the amendments to the three strikes policy released in January, gave labour a stick to deliver a few blows. From NZ Herald

"Labour's corrections spokesman, Clayton Cosgrove, said he found it astounding."

"Labour MP Shane Jones also questioned Dr Sharples over being "sidelined"."

All well and good. I quite liked the fact that sharples had not been consulted - it gave him an arm-length to fend off any association. But then we got an attack from sharples back to labour. From Scoop

"... Sharples says Labour is clumsy in opposition and suprisingly unclear about how multiple Ministerial roles work."

and then the line that bugged me so much.

" “In that capacity I have a very close relationship with Dr Sharples as Associate Minister of Corrections and with Dr Sharples the Co-leader of the Maori Party,” he said."

This type of response, generated by jones very 'smart and knowledgeable slight on mana, is a worry. Jones knows what works and what doesn't - the maori party needs to hone their defenses.

going up, going down

This video is amazing. Be careful if you get motion sickness.



has goff created enough escape velocity to leave the key gravity well or does his booster not have enough boost?