Posts by Euan Mason
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Couldn't agree more. We need to resume a democratic tradition in Canterbury. I've had it with King Gerry and his cohorts treating us like children.
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Sadly we’re probably looking down the barrel of a fourth term for Key. Andrew Little is a nice guy but he isn’t resonating with the public. This public is insensitive to serious misbehaviour by the Nats so long as JK gets out there and dissembles wildly. People don’t get what’s not in it for them to retain a right wing government with serious democracy deficit disorder, and nobody is highlighting the downsides effectively. They are comfortable with John Key’s public face no matter what, and Key now has a media stacked to the gunnels with his cheerleaders. JK could rip a kitten apart on prime time TV and Hosking and Henry would proclaim it was the kitten’s fault and that, besides, the last Labour government crucified an innocent hamster. Hosking preaches mindless platitudes to over 500,000 viewers each night, and they swallow it because it’s what they wish to hear.
Maybe I’m having a bad Friday…
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Thanks for this excellent review. It must be shared widely.
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Re: Hiatus
There was a similar hiatus in surface temperature increases in the middle of the 20th century, then look what happened.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_hiatus#/media/File:Warming_since_1880_yearly.jpg
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The biggest difference between neoliberals and old-fashioned laissez faire capitalists is that neoliberals hold no illusions that competition is a natural human condition. They know that people, if left to their own devices, are likely to trust each other and cooperate. For them, trust, cooperation and collaboration lead to inefficiencies and market failure, and the prime role of government is to force people to compete like rabid dogs.
They also tend to believe that taxation is bad, because it represents a high level of social cooperation that will lead to a poorer country. They live in a world where Scandinavia doesn't exist.
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Democracy is as much about consultation & participation as it is about voting. Hence the failed “democracies” where voting has been established but after that it’s corrupt business and authority as usual.
The demise of real consultation and a sense that most citizens’ opinions no longer matter loom as a crisis in New Zealand. They accompany a widening gap between rich and poor. Declining participation in elections is merely one symptom of a more serious malaise.
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Hard News: About Campbell Live, in reply to Alfie,
Lose CL and it’s the Henry/Hoskings “All hail the great leader!” show.
I used sing and play guitar in restaurants, and from time to time I'd bring out at a rather realistic monkey puppet called, "Buckminster". One evening when Buckminster was doing his thing I heard a woman exclaim, "Hey look! A monkey! Is it real, honey, is it real? It's real isn't it?". To which her husband answered, "Jeez, I hope not because look where he has his hand!".
I think of Buckminster when I see Hosking on Seven Sharp speaking of, or to the Prime Minister.
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Why anyone would want to watch Mike Hosking's love affair with John Key is beyond me.
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Envirologue: The Agony of Vanuatu and…, in reply to Samuel Buckman,
Um..what the hell does this mean?
It also seeks to have the warming effect of methane – one of New Zealand’s most voluminous pollutants – redefined so as to lessen our total emissions.
Surely that is something that is determined with science, not by the UN?
Science, schmience. The interests of National voters are at stake here. Why should we let physics stand in our way?
:)
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Envirologue: The Agony of Vanuatu and…, in reply to Martin Connelly,
But if NZ just vanished it would not make one iota's difference to what happens next - climate wise.
Any small group of people anywhere could say this, and yet we all contribute to the problem. Per capita we in NZ contribute far more than most. This is a shameful excuse for doing nothing.