Posts by Katharine Moody
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
As an American living here since 1978, I really enjoyed the blog post, Russell and all the comments in the thread.
I just keep thinking back on my shock when Obama, despite his similar 'for the people' campaign rhetoric (which in many ways echoed a lot of the same anti-establishment sentiment of Trump) - did this on getting elected;
From the get-go, Obama appeared to have sold the citizenry a pup in terms of his appointments (Hills included... very odd, that one). For me a politician being true to his/her word post-election is what really matters. Obama in hindsight wasn't the change-agent he won the nomination and then the presidency on. One can kind of understand why the swing states swung, so to speak.
I wouldn't be surprised if Trump declassifies a whole lot of information that he now becomes privy to, if he thinks the people should know about it. That inaugural speech was pretty haunting to my mind - I have an uneasy feeling he might be a Pres that decides to deliver an ugly truth about certain things. He seems to have made a point of painting a very dismal picture of the more recent Washington establishment - I could see him using the office now to prove it to the people.
It seems the truly powerful don't like him one little bit. I'm not sure exactly what I should take away from that, but regardless, I have an uneasy feeling... it's just near impossible to trust in anyone or anything anymore where big picture geopolitical stuff is concerned.
I'm just hoping Helen was right when she referred to us as living in a benign strategic environment. Head down and leave it to the Americans living in America to make their own judgment is going to be my strategy as an ex-pat. Not normally emotional, I did have tears rolling down my face when Lee Greenwood sang God Bless the USA today on a live-feed ... and I wondered whether it was because I believed they really, really are going to need it.
Thanks again Russell - look forward to your next post on "it" i.e,, the phenomenon of whatever the hell it is we are witnessing.
-
Hard News: The Greens' pretty good new…, in reply to mildgreens,
Interesting, didn't know that. Gee, I am so looking forward to NZ being done with Dunne in 2017.
-
Watched Druglawed recently and wondered why we can’t just declassify cannabis as a class B and C drug and bring it under food safety regulations for those that want to develop OTC remedies and/or other product formulations. It’s a herb with medicinal properties, after all. I just keep thinking about Suzanne Aubert and figure surely we can develop various OTC products appropriately formulated for a myriad of uses.
Glue and petrol are likely more potentially harmful with respect to those who migrate toward them as mind altering substances. Treat that sort of abuse as the health problem it is. Trust parents to parent their children appropriately where pot is concerned – and let the State get stuck into the real killer – alcohol.
Real evidence-based drug policy in NZ that doesn’t shout out major alcohol reform – to my mind – isn’t real evidence-based drug policy.
-
Rust belt.
Wikileaks.
Emails.
In-tact glass ceiling. -
Legal Beagle: Voting in an STV election, in reply to Steve Todd,
Yeah, I reckon I helped elect folks I didn't want elected :-). I've lived both in Kapiti and Palmy since STV came in. And yes, this time we'll just ignore the rest.
I'm not sure that's in the 'spirit' of STV, but I tried :-).
-
Legal Beagle: Voting in an STV election, in reply to Tim McKenzie,
Are there any ordinary people who’ve made it this far through the discussion, and want to comment?
Yep, I’m an ordinary voter who read the entire thread. Why did I read it in its entirety?
I’ve never been convinced about the later-no-harm claim of STV but (for some reason) because of it (or of this idea of not wasting any of my vote) I have always felt compelled to rank all candidates in an STV election… yet also felt very uncomfortable about casting my vote in that way.
Why uncomfortable? Because in local body elections, I (in the main) have very little real knowledge about any of the candidates. But I vote, just to record a vote – simply because so few people vote. Hence, I normally have a first preference (i.e., one person I actually want to be elected because I have particular knowledge/familiarity about them), but the rest of the ‘ticket’ I vote in this way:
I rank all those sitting members in last rank order – the longest standing at the bottom ranks (i.e., that’s my give the new people a better chance theory) and for the new folks I rank them youngest first by age (that’s my give the young people a better chance theory).
And what has happened every time with my votes? My first choice usually doesn’t get in and neither do any of my newbies and young persons.
In other words, I have never been able to influence an STV vote.
The ‘old guard’ and the ‘big names/noters’ always win.
Hence, I don’t like STV.
Maybe this year will be different – having read this thread, I’m not going to rank anyone I don’t want to win at all – not even at the bottom rankings.
PS My husband finds STV all too complicated, so he just mimics my rankings - to give my method a better chance :-).
-
Hard News: Hate and guns, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Agree. And then there is a modern day example whereby this commentator suggests the rest of NZ is subsidising Auckland at the moment;
Auckland is increasingly a millstone around New Zealand’s neck: “its economy is inwardly focussed, driven by consumption, real estate and domestic services”; “measured internationally it’s performance is poor – ranked 69 of 85 OECD metros”; and “ it must shift from import to export-led, but is not a centre of export excellence or innovation” (source: The Auckland Council Plan).
Its population growth is increasing the negatives: more spending on infrastructure and government services; more agricultural land for housing; a less attractive living environment for existing residents; more demand for urban water use at the expense of more productive uses; greater population pressure on the environment generally; and an increasing dependence on the rest of New Zealand to subsidise it’s weak export performance – which reduces the living standards of everyone else.
The scale argument (bigger is better) is a typically wrongheaded quantity not quality political argument; and the innovation centre argument is not economically viable – if it depends on Auckland’s size then the national benefits are inadequate to justify the cost.
The tax free wealth gains on Auckland property is a major opportunity lost in terms of national benefit. In a rational world the gains would be taxed to fund important national programs, such as: a rejuvenated regional development program; or a major blitz on the adverse environment consequences of agriculture; or a major program to reduce the vulnerability and decline of the conservation estate; or a major program to develop future jobs and a more effective transition to a more innovative economy. The tax would also partly compensate the Regions for their export based subsidy to Auckland!
As he points out, scale (bigger is better) is typically a wrongheaded policy argument. He's an economist by qualification. Not that I normally agree with them (as they usually cannot frame analyses beyond the orthodox school) but this chap has obviously broken free of that ideological position.
-
Hard News: Hate and guns, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Indeed. My mother, a nurse, was promoted to charge of an ER in San Antonio Texas in the early 50s. She implemented a system whereby people were assessed and treated based on the severity of their injury. It did not go down well at all with the hospital administration. She refused to amend her protocol. The administration got in touch with my dad's bosses in the Air Force - requested that they transfer him out of the state. His bosses didn't want to refuse the hospital administration but neither did they want to lose him as a cryptographer. So they offered him a transfer to a place they figured he and my mom would not accept - Alaska (as an enlisted serviceman they couldn't force him to transfer). They took it in a flash - they couldn't wait to get out of Texas.
Point is, Mom was raised in Canada and Dad in Chicago. The American south, and Texas in particular, was on another planet. In many (but different) ways, it still is. Trying to unite all those widely divergent perspectives within one nation-state is fraught with difficulty. As I said in my first post, the societal problems as I see it, are almost intractable - too big and too complex to comprehend or legislate for. Hence central government becomes more and more authoritarian and less and less effective.
-
Hard News: Hate and guns, in reply to Russell Brown,
how many of these men are there in American, merrily buying arsenals?
Some sociological thoughts/studies on why America stands out in this regard;
And for an interesting analysis of stats, there is this (as linked in the above);
http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2015/07/De-Obfuscating-the-Statistics-of-Mass-Shootings.htmlMy hunch is that the US, as an advanced democracy/economy within a single sovereign state, is too highly populated and the congestion/density of its major urban areas too high. As times goes on people/families become more and more transient - putting down inter-generational roots in a particular geographic area is no longer the norm. Family sizes are smaller - fewer siblings and cousins providing a feeling of belonging and support within the younger generation. The 'melting pot' that was once its strength is now a weakness. I think America is having a wide scale identity crisis - not handling the diversity of its population well at all. And its youth are the most negatively affected by this inter-generational disconnect.
The concept of social capital possibly has a lot to contribute to the analysis of their problems. They might be better off as a number of independent countries, giving more opportunity for the development of unique/differentiated socio-political and cultural belonging/identity. Failing that, such a large, diverse democratic state likely needs an MMP-type electoral system - or some type of electoral reform that breaks down that two-party state apparatus.
-
As an American living in NZ since 1978, I 'look in' to the place of my upbringing, and think that in many ways the problems of US society are incorrigible, unable to be reformed. There is no going back - the issues are too intractable - the social, financial, political/governmental and the legal systems too complex. The place is too big. It is not simply the will of the regulators, but in many ways the will of the people. They're a paranoid, protectionist society and they seem to like it that way. It's a requirement of the military-industrial complex - and most Americans don't yearn to emigrate overseas to escape the violence because they like being part of the most powerful nation on earth - leader of the free world, home of Hollywood, Wall Street, the NFL and all that jazz. They stopped manufacturing cars and shoes and lawnmowers long ago, but warfare and weapons manufacturers remain mainstays of the US economy.
They have become so accustom to dog-eat-dog in the private sector environment (and bear in mind that sector has morphed into providing many of what used to be government services/institutions) that taking dog-eat-dog to all the streets (as opposed to just the ghettos as it was in my time there) is kind of a natural progression. The NRA position on all these mass shootings is that if every American were packing a gun, then that shooter would have been stopped much earlier. I suspect that's where US society will go. It's not pretty and you couldn't pay me to move back there - but that's the only future I can imagine. It's gone too far - just as has the prison system there, just as has the financial system there, just as has the legal and insurance system there - all irretrievable, unreformable.
It's likely why Trump's 'Make America Great Again' slogan has a certain resonance - lots of folks would like to turn the clock back, but not quite far enough back to admit their real history - starting with the massacre of the indigenous peoples in settling that 'Great' nation. Mike Moore's latest documentary hits on a lot of these subjects. He ends on a message of hope, but I don't see it.
When Sandy Hook happened I thought maybe that school community would look at themselves - look at the weapons they all had in their own homes. Make a decision for all parents and teachers to all bring all of their guns to the school playground and pile them up in a heap - and say to the American people .. why do we have all these weapons in our neighbourhood; who are we protecting ourselves against and how can we help them in order to help ourselves. But they didn't.
America and Americans are armed and ready. That's the way of their world. The best thing we can do is do everything we can not to covet their lifestyle and not to mimic their institutions or their society.