Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.
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EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist language, homophobic language, racist language, anti-muslim hate, transphobic language, Chemtrails, 9/11 truthers, Qanon lunacy, climate deniers, anti-fluoride fanatics, anti-vaxxer lunatics, 5G conspiracy theories, the virus is a bioweapon, some weird bullshit about the UN taking over the world and ANYONE that links to fucking infowar.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018860052/carlos-dada-freedom-of-the-press-under-el-salvador-authoritarianism
El Salvador’s controversial president Nayib Bukele recently announced plans to seek re-election in 2024, despite a constitutional ban on doing so.
Elected in 2019, the former publicist has sky-high approval ratings, but Dada says Bukele now controls all arms of the state and has incarcerated more than 50,000 people in the last four months, accusing them of links with gangs, despite not having any proof.
He was seen as representing a fresh start after establishing his own party Nuevas Ideas (New Ideas), after being expelled from the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).
The FMLA and Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) had dominated politics for over 20 years, presiding over violence and mass emigration. The FMLA had long been at war with the US-backed El Salvadorian government, with an estimated 75,000 civilians killed during the 1980s, before the end of one of Latin America’s worst civil wars.
Have we even got a strongman? A popular adept politician yes. What choices have we got in this coming year apart from what we see before us? Will one of the Parties produce another surprise pollie to steal our hearts and purses if we can afford them?
Kiwirail looking good. Take note of the figures and revised systems and Above Rail and Below Rail. Take no note of the word fail in the heading – it’s one of those neolib accounting economic low fences like what equestrians put down for horses to pick their way over.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/475812/kiwirail-fails-to-meet-forecast-earnings-posts-133-point-9m-surplus
…The state owned enterprise reported an underlying surplus of $133.9 million for the year ended June, which the chair, David McLean, called creditable.
“Achieving that surplus, which is committed to future core capital reinvestment, is a step along the way to KiwiRail’s above rail business becoming self-sustaining.”…
The result excluded depreciation, interest, and various one off costs, reflecting the state owned enterprise’s new funding structure, which leaves it responsible for “above rail” costs such as train operations, with the government backed National Land Transport Fund (NLTF) and track-user charges responsible for “below rail” costs such as the track network.
The surplus compared with an underlying profit of $63m the previous year under the previous finance structure.
Freight revenue rose $22m to $449.7m, with increases in bulk freight traffic.
However, the result was hit by costs of mechanical problems affecting the Cook Strait ferries, which forced the chartering of another vessel, and the lack of tourist train income, which was interrupted by the pandemic….
“We are seeing a growing customer appetite to use rail and an increased focus on driving a commercial outcome for our Above Rail business.”
“KiwiRail has continued to deliver on its capital reinvestment programme and is steadily moving towards achieving its revitalisation programme for New Zealand and our customers while building resilience in the Below Rail network,” he said [Peter Reidy, CE].
Capital expenditure for the year was a record $1.1 billion, including the upgrade of the Auckland and Wellington commuter networks, the Northland line to take heavier trains, new rolling stock, and facilities in Christchurch and in Dunedin.
“The government is investing heavily in rail, recognising its benefits to the country in providing an efficient, low-carbon form of freight and passenger transport, and the progress we are making in delivering on that investment is steady,” Reidy said.
This year’s budget allocated $661.5m for rail infrastructure, including new low emission locomotives scheduled to start arriving in 2024.
KiwiRail is also getting two new hybrid-electric inter-island ferries and terminals in Wellington and Picton.
There is a gap in this line-up. Or a hole in the bucket, dear Liza or something. But why act in a precautionary manner, it might never come to anything in the period of the manager’s employment.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/475814/health-nz-urges-vigilance-after-wheels-hurtle-off-school-mobile-dental-clinics
RNZ was sent the alert separate from Health New Zealand, which put it out internally two days ago…
The alert has only gone out now, though the first time a wheel flew off was at 90km/h on a highway near in Cromwell in 2017, and the second on Tauranga’s main Cameron Rd in 2020.
In that case the wheel flew over a car and smashed into a building. No one was hurt in either case
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018860057/prof-daniel-pick-the-fascinating-history-of-thought-control
Brainwashing interesting –
“He wants to say there were many different ways that people responded in his society to living under communism – you can’t have a sort of blanket explanation.
“Some people were smitten by communism, or as he puts it, took this imaginary drug – he calls it the Murti-Bing pill. They swallow this pill where they become total converts to communism.
“But others have much more ambiguous attitudes – they negotiate, accommodate and compromise. And often he describes people who keep their private thoughts intact, very secret, and go through a kind of paying lip service to communism to sort of, in a way, accepting the regime because they have no choice, but where their public actions and performances are disjoined from their inner worlds.
“Everyone kind of lives in this theatre of politics where they appear to be compliant, but really harbouring their own secret doubts. And he thinks that this creates a society where people are constantly second guessing what other people believe, because you cannot take statements at face value, but you wouldn’t call people out because it’s too dangerous.”
Brainwashing implies inculcating people with new ideas and new ways of thinking. Pick believes this is highly doable when people are put through trauma.
“Our hold on sanity and reason and thinking is fragile and precarious at the best of times. We all know that we can be driven into crazy states, people get into states of road rage, just driving down the road, where they lose their balance and equilibrium.
“If you put people in terrifying conditions, if you torture people physically or mentally if you give them no access to other information, and so on, damage is done. We’re all you know, people are resilient to varying degrees in, in these situations. And of course, you can have whole communities that are held captive.”
During the Cold War period, there were various kinds of experiments involving sensory deprivation or overload, with noise, with silence, with terror, with drugs, with playing on people’s guilt and shame, and forcing people into humiliating situations.