The need to start reimagining our systems to face the reality of adaptation in a century of entropy and epochs is greater than ever.
Post growth late stage capitalism demands new ways of being whether we like it or not.
Here are some thoughts.
Case for more Artists:
We need more artists in a post growth late stage capitalism planet rapidly burning. Let’s start investing large sums of money into an Artists Benefit where artists, musicians, writers, poets, dancers, sculptors, carvers, actors are all paid a weekly benefit to produce and make art.
An explosion of art and people paid to produce it would do more for the depression rates, poverty rates, inequality rates and pull us away from the never ending economic growth model fantasy than anything else!
The crisis and emotional damage catastrophic climate change will cause needs art to facilitate and process that socially. Artists have the capacity to creatively transform and that mental skill set needs urgent capacity upgrade to deal with what is coming.
An Artists Benefit would be paid out weekly to enrolled Artists who would have to provide proof of their work with minimums in place that would judge the Art produced.
Artists are as important as Bureaucrats and Academics and they should be paid for that cultural and social importance by the State.
Kiwi Subsidy on Kiwi food:
The lie of neoliberalism is that unregulated markets lead to competitive utopia.
They don’t.
They lead to an elite corporate oligarchy who ensure their dominance via duopoly or monopoly. A plutocratic cartel who amputate monopoly rentals from the economy and call it business.
The brutal strength of the State is required to step in and break up such cartels when they bubble to the top and that’s exactly what the Commerce Commission must demand in its reports on the Supermarket duopoly in NZ.
Countdown and Foodstuffs about to find out what’s in the regulator’s trolley
Countdown and Foodstuffs will find out next week whether they may have to sell off some of their stores or change their businesses to help make way for a new supermarket company.
Price controls on some “essential items” such as fruit and vegetables and cheese, might even be on the table, Consumer NZ chief executive Jon Duffy said.
The Commerce Commission is due to publish its draft market study into the $22 billion groceries industry on Thursday.
Duffy said it was a “no brainer” that the regulator would recommend new mandatory rules that will give more rights to food suppliers in their dealings with supermarkets.
Just like we created Kiwi Bank (and should expand it) to break up an Aussie banking cartel, we should force Countdown and Foodstuffs to sell stores to the Government so the Government can inject actual competition into the super market industry with a strict policy on local producers getting better prices, with staff paid the living wage and customers getting cheaper prices.
So what if the Supermarket duopoly have to share their $22billion annual market with us New Zealanders? Shouldn’t we be feeding us?
Let’s be clear, this isn’t socialism, this is the State forced to repair capitalism once again by intervening in a broken market.
Farmers get ripped off, customers get screwed and staff are run ragged.
All so Australian corporations get to clip the ticket?
Fuck that.
Government should enter into a deal with Iwi to stock a new chain of Government/Iwi Supermarkets that champion local produce at better prices for the consumer and
We need a kiwi subsidy on all local produce to recognize that producers have already used water and created local climate changing gases to create their product and as such consumers have already paid a price just to get the product to their table.
We should feed the 5million here first before boasting about feeding 40million world wide!
Calls to ‘feed the 5 million first’ before exporting NZ food
People are going hungry even though New Zealand produces enough food to feed 40 million – and it’s spurring calls for the country to “feed the five million first”.
Almost 40 percent of New Zealand households experience food insecurity, while 19 percent of children live in households that experience food insecurity.
Poverty researcher Dr Rebekah Graham said while working on her thesis on food insecurity, she interviewed a woman who walked for 90 minutes each day to get a free community meal.
A state owned 3rd supermarket chain would do more for providing a cheaper means of living to all kiwis who have food security issues. It would do more for welfare than any single PM since Savage.
A state owned supermarket chain that radically forced competition on base level cost of living for a vast swathe of New Zealanders would be a legacy worthy of Labour.
We need to be kinder to individuals and crueler to corporations.
More Military:
If we are serious about an Independent Foreign Policy, we have to accept it is going to cost us a lot more.
I believe that the climate crisis means we need a vastly larger military to cope with civil disasters and if we are attempting to distance ourselves from China and America, we need to make a decision to dramatically lift what we spend on the military for purely defensive capacity.
How would we go about defending the realm of NZ and all our economic exclusive zone?
Currently we spend 1.5% of GDP on our entire military, to defend the full realm of NZ and pursue an independent foreign policy, I argue we need to push that up to 3%.
Note – NZ should only build up its military to defend our full territory (NZ islands, EEZ, Ross Dependency, Tokelau, Cook Islands and Niue). Any upgrade of our military is for purely defensive purposes, not for military adventure or invasions.
We can’t pull away from America and China and pretend there is no cost to being Independent.
With the climate crisis looming, we need that debate now.
We also have the geopolitics of it.
With China’s attempt at building a forward military base that could cut America off…
A Chinese politics specialist has called the deal between the Solomon Islands and China a “game-changer” saying New Zealand could be cut-off US military support.
…the real danger here is the Chinese Fishing Militia that will use it as a base to raid deep into fisheries.
We need to protect our fisheries.
I maintain we must have an independent foreign policy and that our stance must be friend to all, enemy to none, but we will urgently need to protect what is ours and acknowledge how the climate crisis will demand more civil emergency infrastructure and assets.
We need a complete review of our defence force and massive increase in spending.
Reimagining a new public service socialism:
Short term the Government has to be focused on deflationary spending, mid term economically we need radical climate change adaptation, long term they need to start navigating a post growth economy.
The best way to push those values is via the Public Service Culture and processes.
For essential state service workers like teachers, like police, like Drs, like nurses, like ambulance and Firefighter services, we can match the rising inflation in wages, but the focus needs to be on expanding capacity, expanding State responsibility and expanding quality of work experience.
It is insane that our Ambulance Service is privatised, and the State should nationalise it immediately. As first responders, their obligations and responsibilities will only climb as society continues to rock from the shockwaves of Covid.
Professional Firefighters must be expanded to acknowledge the danger we are under from climate change and fire seasons.
Rather than compete with inflationary wage rises, focus on better conditions. 11 weeks paid holiday each year, 4 day weeks plus housing projects where subsidised rentals are available for houses.
We also need to start bonding Teachers, Drs and nurses with free education in exchange for bonded work around NZ.
We shouldn’t be looking to slash public servants, we need more!
ACT want to amputate 5 Ministry’s while Luxon is promising to slash 14 000 jobs!
That is ideological vandalism, that’s not an actual plan!
Covid showed us the need for a strong State with capacity to step in and with the climate crisis here, we will continue to need a strong State with capacity!
The Right’s never ending march to amputate and slice down the State is so that the people don’t get used to a well functioning public service and so will politically agree to starve it of funds via tax cuts.
Global free market capitalism is dead, hyper regionalism is here. We need a bigger State with actual capacity rather than the threadbare barely regulated joke that it currently is.
We shouldn’t agree to cutting public services, we should fund their capacity and infrastructure rebuild while making the working conditions for those there a better quality!
Where should we get that money? Windfall taxes on the corporations and banks!
We need better conditions for those workers and the values of working 4 day weeks, extra holidays and housing solutions are aimed at making better working conditions as opposed to never ending inflationary wage pressures.
We need a sustainable bureaucracy rather than 7 figure technocrats who see their own fiefdoms and glass palaces as the measure of public policy achievements.
The creation of a Ministry of Green Works is essential for this.
Post-Growth Global Warming Fortress Aotearoa:
While Muldoon’s repugnant use of identity politics to divide a nation over rugby will always mark him as an authoritarian thug willing to plunge the nation into the social trauma of mass civil disobedience, he was ahead of the curve with Think Big.
His economic nationalism was ahead of its time, triggered by stagflation and geopolitical shockwaves, it parallels the same threats we face now.
Why shouldn’t we have our own basic pharmaceutical industry?
Engineering industry.
Industrial industry.
The supply side shocks caused by Covid and war are not going away, and they are being compounded by catastrophic climate change.
The arguments pushed forward by Muldoon for Think Big infrastructure resonate more importantly now than ever before.
Radical adaptation and communal community resourcing alongside a Big State approach to lynchpin infrastructure for basic self-reliance as an Island country facing enormous economic shockwaves is the only means to build the muscle mass to respond to the ever intensifying external disruption of late stage capitalism.
The need to increase military spending to 3% alongside the new costs for this infrastructure must be funded via new taxes aimed at corporations and banks.
A financial transaction tax and windfall profit tax would take the yoke of taxation off working people and place it upon the shoulders of the wealthy.
National and ACT see mass immigration as a means to create fake growth at a time when we should be focused on de-growth.
Climate Crisis is here and adaptation is now.
We need to start rethinking Isolationism as a strength and Think Big as Economic Sovereignty.
The geopolitical shock waves are only getting more intense.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice going into this pandemic and 2020 election – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media.
How about more free thinkers? Those not so willing to push status quo propaganda.
Agree Off white. I dont know about you but I’m tired of the shills polishing that turd over and over again thinking things will change by promoting the same ole same ole by the same ole.
We need to move away from the status quo, political system & ‘thinking’ or should I say, tinkering. We should move to a local governance, grassroots representative system like governance by referendum and have 120 regional local MPs. Get rid of list MP’s.
The local constituency retain powers and authority and the reps are there to advocate for their issues in parliament.
Denny P (****) Absolutely get rid of list MP’s. The people need to chose, insofar as we can.
@Off white
Extraordinary idea and so revolutionary. We haven’t had free thinkers for yonks now. They’d need protection services 24/7 now in these so thoroughly thought controlled times so it would be costly.
I knew a NZ ‘composer’ who said he wouldn’t compose one note unless he was paid by Creative NZ or on a residency. His music was simply awful. It took him half a year to compose seven ghastly minutes.
We live in a mass culture. Anything that appeals to a mass of folk world wide gets publicity and payment.
Technology is the art of out time and the technocrats of social engineering and their acolytes are well rewarded. The idea of ‘the arts’ and the history of the arts not only in Europe but in classic and older cultures were usually connected to prevailing religious and tribal beliefs.
Peter Brook, the English stage director in his book ‘The Empty Space’ discusses the then new cathedral at Coventry, ” …so there is a new building,fine ideas, beautiful glass work – only the ritual is threadbare. The new place cries out for a new ceremony, but of course it is the new ceremony that should have come first.”
The problem is not funding for arts. The outpouring of true creative expression will arrive out of a renewal or fresh understanding of the mystery of life and it’s meaning. This will need free thinking indeed.
Indeed! or the managerialist’s ideology.
I agree with @Martyn – we need more public servants, but I’ve always differentiated between the worker bees that there ain’t enough of (and those that are are being paid shit), and the generally overpaid Muddle/Senior managers whose only purpose often is to act as ‘line managers’. Unfortunately the latter are usually the ones that interact with their Munster, and they’re schooled in the arts of deception, the language of the managerialist ideology, Ministerial capture – part of which is the ability to convince the cistern and its disciples that they’re indispensible.
Helen Clark was correct when she said our public service lacks ‘capacity’. It lack capacity in numbers at the worker bee coal face, and it lacks imagination and an ability to think freely, to deviate from the managerialist ideology, and to deviate when the facts change (in that space, going forward)
I’m waiting to see what happens with ACC – i.e. will there be improvement with case management.
Can you give some examples we can cogitate on? So we can be free of old and tired ideas that we have become inured to. It is surprising what new things come to mind after putting ideas forward for a while, like the new words that arise in my brain. I hope free thinking by me will come up with something more than a bigger vocabulary though. So give us a few things you have noted recently for instance.
Some of the old, tired ideas are not necessarily bad. Some definitely are.
For example – can you imagine if rather than closing down Post Offices and any sort of presence in various communities (both rural and urban) – effectively outsourcing in tha name of cost cutting, they’d have been converted in to ‘all of gummint’ access points. Both central and local gummint.
They could have provided an MSD, IRD, MoBIE, Council, Voting, online all-of gummint portal, banking, transport ticketing, Health, Career advice, Scam advice, Electoral Role, CAB, Legal Advice, etc. etc. etc
Opportunity lost.
And the fuckwits that are responsible for it all will just move on to the next gig in all their comfyness.
Old and tired really refers to the neoliberal ones that have wiped our memory banks. Definitely there is room for the phoenix to rise from our comparatively young, vital days of self-belief and self-provision, with Sun Tzu wisdom as to which deviation to take for change.
Yep @ Grey. I was just adopting the latest fad of being a contrarian to show how clever I am. It’s not only that I’ve been watching too much Damien Christie on the Working Group, but I was once part of the Civil Service and I’m feeling soooo guilty for my sins in following the imagination bypass orthodoxy.
Btw, I bet he’s a cunt to be married to,
But I have a few ‘new’ ideas as well. Such as to do with rail: heavy rail/light rail and the idea of tram trains. Perfik for parts of Auckers and even the Bay of P Plenty, and even Dunners and ChCh..
Try this from Russell Brand via YouTube.
It’s an interesting piece considering one might think ” What the hell’s matt hancock eating animal testicles on a reality TV show got to do with our politics. Well, watch on and you’ll find out.
” As Matt Hancock is “interrogated in I’m A Celebrity”, Pfizer and Moderna announce they are launching clinical trials to track vaccine-associated heart problems such as Myocarditis – a topic that’s been censored for months. Was Covid the real reality show? ”
Go on. It’s only 20 minutes.
https://youtu.be/LE_MLJpv71k
Countryboy, mate, is it just me or has your stance on the jab changed? I seem to recall you being very mandatey not too long ago. I’m just a dumb lives matter, does my own research, sceptical of msm govt pharma type so what would I know.
ow by free thinkers I assume you actually mean people who think like you.
The government should use the Fonterra model. Fonterra is required by law to provide a percentage of its raw milk to smaller competitors at collection price. Likewise the supermarket distribution centers should also service small supermarkets
GST removed immediately from essential non processed food and essential personal items.
All supermarkets required to offer completely unbranded products in bulk.
+1 to more artists and artists benefit – they do this in Europe in places like the Netherlands.
In terms of subsidising food, trigger warning quote is sexist!
“GIVE A MAN A FISH AND HE WILL EAT dinner that night, but teach a man to fish and he will be able to feed himself forever.”
I am more spend the time and resources on teaching people how to have small gardens – just growing herbs and spinach is easy and at least can be a start for people to have affordable fresh food. The Labeen government wasted their time in NZ, they could have been incredible but instead told everyone how useless and racist they were, just like John Key and made poverty and helplessness and private subsidies so much worse.
snz the netherlands has vast warehouses full of unsold subsidised ‘art’
I take it the fortress walls will be to keep the citizens inside the gate? If not, they’ll all be hotfooting it abroad as the tax required to fund this boondoggle would be so punitive no one, perhaps not even the artists would want to hang around
I think that the taxes should largely be spent on conservation of animals birds etc and have environmental tourism to see how well we are doing. And that means that you Yeti will get your share as we search to ensure your type doesn’t go extinct.
Good points Yeti.
There won’t be any taxes collected?
I’m thinking about supermarkets as big food malls. Any small shopkeeper who has tried to operate near a supermarket will probably feel that they are in ‘rain-shadow’ area. The foot traffic is good but it doesn’t often pause at their premises, they get it all at the supermarket.
So to get a licence! for an overseas-based or initiated supermarket to operate (over a certain medium size), they must let part of their premises at a low rental to some local individual shopkeepers with necessary water and power supply, to enable diversity, let local suppliers sell local stuff, even to sell the same stuff and (undersell the supermarket on a short-term basis). As the supermarket has the money to cover so much of the available commercial area, and push up rentals, this would give NZ micro business a more level playing field.
If we don’t cling to the Crown like a drunk monkey we’ll become a shooting gallery for Zionists.
Drunk monkey? Makes me think of recently mentioned Carl Hiaasen and his 2013 book Bad Monkey. A great piece of nonsense that takes you out of yourself, with some low quality dealing and bad language scattered throughout it.
***biker art***
telling it like it is since ages ago
‘the arts’ have always been a job creation scheme fo the middle classes otherwise unemployable offspring…
as soon as you call something a ‘sector’ ‘hub’ or industry it becomes a business so all claims tospercial status fall.
when the govt subsidises my ‘hobbies’ I’ll consider funding the arts.
gagarin You leave the field wide open – what are your hobbies? You write interesting and mostly informative comments so current news, political history, some of them? You may be worth funding as a mentor, for instance.
boring old man hobbies largely involving plastic, toxic chemicals and hairy sticks.
WORD
30 years in Grey Lynn living, eating and drinking with musicians, painters, writers, dancers, skaters, gays, lesbians and transgenders and all I have to show for it is one big huge ‘meh’
‘job creation scheme for the middle classes otherwise unemployable offspring’
all that wealth and leisure makes your kids genetic expression regress
what is written on the brow
can only be washed off
by the sweat of the brow
We need to remember this familiar progression or regression. I think it applies to NZ as a whole as far as direction goes. Some bits off google.
On the third generation slide –
One of the biggest dilemmas that affluent families face is the so-called third generation curse, which states that the majority of families will lose both their wealth and their business by the time it reaches the third generation.
Ivan Hernandez Discusses the Third Generation Curse with …
omniawealth.com · https://omniawealth.com › ivan-hern
(Forbes suggests invest in real estate – hah hah – hollow laugh.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/your-money/wealth-100-year-family.html
A Sociologist with interesting thoughts – could they be a mind/NZ societal breakthrough?
.Dennis Jaffe, a sociologist by training, has spent years trying to figure out the answer to a pressing question: what makes a hundred-year family?…
But Dr. Jaffe said his research kept bringing him back to one central point: 100-year families are better at communicating than other families.
He has been sharing his research in a series of papers that will culminate next year in a book, “Borrowed From My Grandchildren: The Evolution of Stewardship in 100-Year Families” (Wiley).
..How They Stay Together:
It was family members — not the business — that these 100-year families focused on first. That investment, Dr. Jaffe’s research showed, has paid dividends.
“They made the choice to invest in the family,” Dr. Jaffe said. “They’ve seen that the quality of the people in the family and who they are is going to determine if the family succeeds in the future. The business decisions are important, but they’re really derived from the quality of the family.”
…what these families did was not dissimilar from what affluent, education-focused parents do … that will give their children an edge. But in the case of the families he studies, they have the added benefit of a coterie of advisers to insure the children understand finance, business and family governance.
What Staying United Entails:
Family first sounds like a cliché, but Dr. Jaffe said his research found that second and third generations in successful families with wealth focused on including people in business and the family decisions. It goes hand in hand with the need for mutual respect and engagement from family members who may not live close to one another.
“The decision in the second, third generations to create a great family involves transparency, respect and engagement,” he said. “It flows from the fact that because we’re wealthy we want to invest in some sense of us as a family. It’s not ‘we all have money, let’s pat ourselves on the back and enjoy it.’”
Why They Do It:
It’s not about the money — they’d have plenty of it without the family business. It’s about their legacy, and all that entails. It’s continuing what their relatives created and expanding and adapting it as the years go on.
“To keep this entity together, they have to develop a respectful, positive, useful way of working together,” he said. “They have to collaborate because there’s going to be conflict and stress.”
I think what this guy has found and sets out, is our way forward. The right attitude and developing a good cohesive people-based with respect and commitment. We haven’t 100 years, our planet and our social systems have gone to pot and our minds are full of fantasies off the internet, tv – very pervasive. Films not so much but buying them on DVD means access to them similar to TV.
Alternatively talking with other thinking people, like here, putting ideas forward, repeating good outcomes showing what can be done and appreciating what’s good and acknowledging the bad, minimising faults in society and ourselves, gives a greater chance for a real civil,working, community meeting human needs and enabling our best outcomes…
Gagarin. Good point. One only has to look at the universities like for instance Otago University where individuals’ research topics have to be approved by the VC, not just the HOD, but the blooming VC, which must be massively dispiriting for creative people, and original thinkers, and persons with ideas which they’re not sure where they’ll be leading to, and perhaps will never know.
Look at the increasing number of undertakings and activities which now have to considered within the framework of the TOW. Look at the seeming Neanderthals running the government’s extremist speech unit at Victoria University advising the politicians about what they think it’s ok to say and what isn’t, and MP Marama’s pleadings for usage of the cunt. Look at the comic book list of spy clues issued by the SIS as suspect, including, incredibly, braided hair – placing the traditional corn dollies of Kent,UK, and of medieval China into an undeserving sinister light, and all these because of the stupidity of fools with rules.
Look at Van Gogh and Monet and Colin McCahon and imagine them playing around with colour and light and shapes under the auspices of some damn government department. Imagine a civil servant instructing a Michael d’Angelo that he got the proportions of his Pieta all all wrong and no more cash coming his way, or an artist accused of cultural appropriation if she uses a curled-up fern leaf as a motif.
Imagine the Last Night if the Proms produced under a set of government requirements. Imagine anything creative being produced according to government requirements and go leap into the sea and swim better and further and faster than Hinemoa ever managed to.
“when the govt subsidises my hobbies…” yes bring back the night schools for adult training and community togetherness.
Windfall taxes are a great idea but are not a ‘bankable’ source of revenue as not every year in an economic cycle produces windfall profits. The financial transaction tax is a geater prority and the rate can be increased when there is a windfall.
Muldoons think big was a bit out of whack with some of the rates of return on projects but that sort of investment leads to lots of local companies building scale and secondary start up companies. NZ already has an agriculture pharmecuetical cluster and universities and medical schools with unfunded product development. An astutely deployed $2billion could easily develop a startup human pharma industry. The companies given the grants/investmet would have to be locked long term to the NZ economy so they couldnt be exited to overseas buyers and moved off shore.
National Act NZ First and Labour and Greens are all pro immigration parties. National and Act for cheap workers. Labour so they dont have to train expensive doctors and nurses. Greens so the can feel warm and fuzzy by importing third world granny medical cases. However one of the no brainers about NZs climate change commitments is not to increase Auckland population from 1.5million to 2.8million. And not to increase the whole population to 18million a figure being bandied about recently.
And not to increase the number of tourists that just demand more low end tourist visa waitresses and migration. Lets be smarter and above all….Think of the emmissions!
“when the govt subsidises my hobbies…” yes bring back the night schools for adult training and community togetherness.
Windfall taxes are a great idea but are not a ‘bankable’ source of revenue as not every year in an economic cycle produces windfall profits. The financial transaction tax is a geater prority and the rate can be increased when there is a windfall.
Muldoons think big was a bit out of whack with some of the rates of return on projects but that sort of investment leads to lots of local companies building scale and secondary start up companies. NZ already has an agriculture pharmecuetical cluster and universities and medical schools with unfunded product development. An astutely deployed $2billion could easily develop a startup human pharma industry. The companies given the grants/investmet would have to be locked long term to the NZ economy so they couldnt be exited to overseas buyers and moved off shore.
National Act NZ First and Labour and Greens are all pro immigration parties. National and Act for cheap workers. Labour so they dont have to train expensive doctors and nurses. Greens so the can feel warm and fuzzy by importing third world granny medical cases. However one of the no brainers about NZs climate change commitments is not to increase Auckland population from 1.5million to 2.8million. And not to increase the whole population to 18million a figure being bandied about recently.
And not to increase the number of tourists that just demand more low end tourist visa waitresses and migration. Lets be smarter and above all….Think of the emmissions!
Joseph. Yes, Grey Warbler has previously written eloquently about the importance of community togetherness, and she/ it/ he/ them/ they were/was right, as are you/ tu/thou/.
Don McLean’s song – Food on the Table and Love in my Heart seems to say what the post is putting forward. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkJ98kQuC9A
Don McLean – Love in My Heart (1988)
.Food on the table and love in the heart
And a real good woman and a couple of kids
And a dog that thinks I’m smart
I got a big old mortgage on a little old house
And car that’ll sometimes start
But there’s food on the table and love in the heart…
Oh, the roof is leaking but I care not
Gather those buckets pans and pots
Carry ’em throw ’em in the sink a lot
I turn the heat up higher
I don’t have much that didn’t come free
Bills eat up my salary
But I can still hang goodies on a Christmas tree
And sing by crackling fire…
Well I don’t have money but I sure ain’t poor
Many a rich man still wants more
Sooner or later he buys the store
And he still ain’t satisfied
It never took much to make me smile
A new pair of jeans to keep in style
And a little bit of loving every once in a while
To stroke my foolish pride…
Writer: Michael Brewer
http://www.songlyrics.com/don-mclean/love-in-my-heart-live-lyrics/
” Where should we get that money? Windfall taxes on the corporations and banks ”
Half the population cannot afford to access dental care which is a health and wellbeing issue.
Mary has several decayed teeth causing her pain and being unable to sleep, she is on a sickness benefit and cannot afford dental care, she does not meet our criteria for care, so we decline her.
“Hemi needs to get his tooth taken out, it is causing severe headaches, he has had to take time off work, again we can’t help him and we decline his request for care.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018866880/nearly-half-of-nzers-cannot-afford-dental-care-new-report
How carefully I’ve shaped you in the solitude of days
How peaceful is my mind entwined in cord around my fingers
How sweet the days I’ve marked in knots I’ve tenderly caressed
So many times I’ve touched you, reached you, teased you
Now fingering these veins of hemp
Their hair upon my skin
And how gently, quickly you will sleep
Slip into my collection with its bristles, coils, intentions
Yet your words will be unfaithful before I set you free
Slip as life is bound to slip from this entropy disorder
Then tied and laid upon the floor in perfect symmetry
‘Til the frayed edge of your lips on mine
Positioned, placed at ease once more
‘Til this restlessness returns I turn and turn and turn again
You remind me of how fascinating the skill of tying knots is – they can be ornamental, they can be life-savers just by twisting a certain way. Did you write the above Frank C?
song by Living Color called ‘Hemp’
but I think TS Elliot penned it originally
For every 100 artists there are one or two worthy
The artist is the lapdog of the government
Headlok. No, the artist is not the lapdog of the government. The voices of truth come from the poets, and increasingly rarely from the politicians.
Hedlok So, you’ve been listening to the Philistine New Zealand Arts Council have you ? Shakespeare was a lap dog of the government was he ? James Baxter ? Fleur Adcock? Matthew Arnold ? Hone Tuwhare? Do you really think that any of the WW1 poets were government lapdogs ? I don’t. Whose government was Guernica painted for do you think ?
as far as shakespeare goes he was constantly sucking up to the tudors..re-the kings plays.
As Bob Dylan says You’ve got to serve somebody:.
You may be an ambassador
To England or France
You may like to gamble
You might like to dance…
You have to serve somebody!
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Yes indeed, you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well it may be the Devil
Or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Might be a rock-n-roll addict
Prancing on the stage
Money, drugs at your command
Women in a cage
You may be a businessman
Or some high degree thief
They may call you: ‘doctor’
Or they may call you: ‘chief’
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody..
Robert Dylan
lyrics bob dylan Gotta serve somebody
An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.
Charles Bukowski
Every week or so MB rolls out his philosophy of “Fortress Aotearoa”. I appreciate that this concept appeals to certain left wing thinkers, but in my opinion it is a grossly outdated concept that may have been relevant (just) in the 1950’s but certainly not now in an inter-connected 21st century.
I would like to address the idea of increasing military spending to 3% of GDP but at the same time being neutral with no military partnerships or alliances. I would like to preface that I agree that NZ needs to increase military spending to 2% of GDP which is the NATO target and also what Australia is currently spending. This is something that urgently needs to be addressed by the NZ Government as we are no longer in a benign security environment.
Even at 3% of GDP NZ could not afford to procure equipment such as fifth generation fighter jets like the F35. The only way for NZ to have an all round capable defence force is interoperability especially with our nearest neighbour and our only formal military ally, Australia. For example NZ could make a proportional financial contribution to Australia for a squadron of F35’s some of which could be based in NZ. New Zealand could then focus upon making worthwhile contributions in areas where we have expertise such as maritime patrol.
Another major weakness of a neutral NZ even with significantly increased military expenditure, is where would NZ source the necessary weaponry from as it is doubtful that in those circumstances whether the US, UK or others would in fact even sell NZ the necessary equipment to defend the country even if we had the funds and the will to do so.
The only answer even more so for small countries like NZ is collective security. As a trading nation at the bottom of the world it is critical that NZ works closely with allies, partners and friends, especially Australia. It is worth noting the position of the Albanese Government to China which is now taking a much more balanced, less bellicose position than Morrison and Dutton’s unnecessary sabre rattling. Most of us want a positive, mutually beneficial relationship with China but we have to clear where the red lines are, and that we have will and the capabilities to back up our words with actions if necessary.
I appreciate that some of my fellow commenter’s on the TDB may accuse me of being a US/Australian stooge, however I strongly believe that I am dealing in the world of realpolitik and that it would be crazy to go it alone. No country is an island, even one at the bottom of the world especially when it comes to economics, security, and climate change mitigation.
Well said Chris.
Fortress New Zealand is ridiculously naive.
My 2 cents, as someone who has managed to spend 40 years in the field of music without applying for a cent of support from artistic funding bodies.
The problem with funding art and music is determining who qualifies for funding.
Consider music (similar considerations apply to visual and other performance arts):
Popular music- What is the artistic rationale behind funding popular musical genres? Why fund what is essentially constant regurgitation and repackaging of centuries old musical language into 3 minute radio friendly packages? Surely popular music, almost by definition, is commercial i.e. a saleable commodity? Why should it even require subsidy? Why should established performers still attract (as some do) funding?
When a musical genre is less popular, obscure or pushes established boundaries how do we establish its merit? or the merit of its producers? is it worth funding? who gets to arbitrate?
Artistic aesthetics and merit are thorny issues, everyone believes they can pronounce on it. Witness some of the earlier comments in this thread, often driven, I surmise, by some sort of resentment rather than by reason.
To be totally fair and to avoid having to make judgements on merits, funding should either be universal – available to anybody who claims to be an artist/musician – or there should be no funding available at at all, let all stand or fall on their popularity or ability to attract personal support.
I believe in a limited universal support for artists, support with strict time limits. It both fosters art itself and establishment of artistic reputations and careers and it avoids long term abuse by both those of little talent and rorting by artists who already have claim to be popular or who are in fields that shouldn’t even require financial support.
Richard C When all the jobs are taken up by poorer people from other countries, or those trying to avoid being friend when outside in the day, or clever machines made by the technocrat-oriented, than playing any sort of music will be a positive job, both calming, diverting anger and despair etc and using our higher faculties that we have for understanding our world and ourselves. When we finally achieve that outside technocracy the upset humans will need some high-end practice to concentrate on probably in the arts. Buskers’R’Us!
I’m generally in favour of nationalisation for industry but music approved by a govt commitee is a non starter…name just 1 successful east german rock band….
the rolling stones, the pistols, anyone you can care to name really would not have got arts funding.
Yes gagarin I agree.
Klaus Renft East German rock band formed in 1958 cancelled by the East German authorities in 1975 reunited in 1990.
They were told by the East German administration that they didn’t exist so cancel culture goes back sometime only to be resurrected recently by the Left.
In my opinion their music is very conservative when compared with the likes of The Sex Pistols.
They were never successful on the International stage.
the fact I was getting at was the pistols etc would never get a govt grant in NZ,,,,for a whole raft of reasons. ‘approved art'(apart from soviet sculpture and architecture–it’s a tast thing) is dead art.
Maybe just give artists a living wage – let them be like the token hippies in the 1960s paid to come up with original ideas. eg
https://bigthink.com/the-present/1960s-counterculture-created-silicon-valley/
(Here is something on inflation and perhaps relevant now.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/1970s-great-inflation.asp)
psychedelics inspired cavemen onto greater things than just survival of the fittest
its started with some nice scribbles of an aurochs on a cave wall
todays name artists are selected for agreeability by the state
Forward Thinking. And our artists and creators and original thinkers are too important too be subjected to state control, or to government word police, or to selective ethnicity requirements. Dunno what the answer is, but it is not
effete parliamentarians and their dodgy overpaid minions.