The Daily Blog Open Mic – 24th May 2024

By
The Daily Blog
-
8
160

Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.

The Editor doesn’t moderate this blog,  3 volunteers do, they are very lenient to provide you a free speech space but if it’s just deranged abuse or putting words in bloggers mouths to have a pointless argument, we don’t bother publishing.

All in all, TDB gives punters a very, very, very wide space to comment in but we won’t bother with out right lies or gleeful malice. We leave that to the Herald comment section.

EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist abuse, homophobic abuse, racist abuse, anti-muslim abuse, transphobic abuse, 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.

- Sponsor Promotion -

8 COMMENTS

  1. The headline read “Former Shortland Street actor Will Alexander goes on hunger strike over NZ government’s complicity in Gaza genocide”. It came to my attention through a number of on-line sources including Scoop, The Daily Blog and RNZ. Though not given prominence, the story should not be ignored.
    I don’t take any interest in Shortland Street and I did not know Will Alexander. I confess to some surprise that an actor in “soap opera” should feel so strongly about a moral issue and choose to make such a major personal sacrifice, perhaps the ultimate sacrifice, but my surprise reflects no credit on me. My scant knowledge of the Bible should have told me that it was not the teachers of religion or the professors of moral philosophy who hearkened to the call of the Christ, but those who might have been least expected to do so, from tax collectors to fisherfolk.
    Before considering the implications of Alexander’s decision, I note that there are a few things which I accept as givens in this situation.
    The first “given” is that the State of Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and a second is that New Zealand government is complicit in the genocide. Alexander addressed both those issues in his statement announcing the hunger strike (which is reproduced below). I would add that the New Zealand government’s complicity is cowardly. Cowardly, because it is a spineless response to pressure from the United States of America which is Israel’s main supplier of war material, funding and political support, and also because the New Zealand government is trying to cover its tracks, preparing in advance a defence that it did not really support the genocide, that it had “called for a ceasefire”, and was “appalled” by the massive number of civilian casualties. A critical examinations shows all of these government claims are misleading, disingenuous or plain false. The reality is, as Will Alexander points out, that the Realm of New Zealand has sent military personnel to assist in the genocide and is moving into a closer political and military partnership with the genocidal power of the United States.
    My third “given” is that the majority of New Zealanders are genuinely appalled by the genocide, and do not want to be any part of it. My reasons for believing that are anecdotal, but still solid. I am not aware of any published survey data, which I think speaks for itself. If there was significant public support for the genocide we would have been told all about it.
    The Gaza genocide has opened up a fault line between the people of Aotearoa and the political establishment of the New Zealand state. One consequence of the gap between the public and politicians is that the public has been seized with a sense of impotence. They no longer trust that they can have influence within the political system. This marks a crisis of democracy. The public do not feel able to reason with the politicians, pressure them, or use moral suasion as a means to an end. One common response to the problem is avoidance. Surveys show that an increasing number of New Zealanders actively avoid reading or hearing “the news” while many question the reality of anything that is reported to be happening outside their immediate social environment. When the world beyond is presented to people as uniformly awful, and when they are provided with no constructive ways of dealing with its problems, denial of reality is a natural response. These are signs of a social psychosis which is becoming widespread within the populations of western liberal democracies. But while denial is a natural and common response, perhaps the predominant one, some people will continue to seek more effective ways to address these problems, which also means ways that have more extreme consequences for themselves or others. Will Alexander’s hunger strike is one example of that.
    Coupled with the avoidance phenomenon (which should not be confused with apathy) is the idea that New Zealand’s involvement in the Israeli and Palestinian conflict is an anomaly which can and should be kept separate from New Zealand domestic politics. However that is not the case. The anomaly is New Zealand’s self image of a caring society and an independent nation that promotes its humanitarian ideals on the international stage. That image derives from a popular culture shared by Maori and Pakeha, but only in rare and exceptional circumstances has it been true of the state itself, or of social forces which normally control the state. The normal for New Zealand is what we have now, an overtly colonialist regime that callously pursues the interests of colonialism at home and abroad. While it is normally possible to maintain a distinction between domestic and foreign policy, Will Alexander’s hunger strike changes that picture, by pitting the life of one of our own against the power of the New Zealand state in the context of that state’s complicity in the Gaza genocide. It is no longer just about what is happening in Gaza. It becomes about what is happening here, what kind of people we are, and what kind of state we have to live under.
    So let us dispassionately consider the hunger strike as a tactic of popular opposition to political regimes which have lost all moral sense.
    Among the questions to be asked are “Do hunger strikes work?” and irrespective of whether they work, “Are they the right thing to do?”.
    We can say with some confidence that hunger strikes usually do not have any immediate effect upon the powers-that-be. Governments rarely if ever yield to the demands of hunger strikers. In this respect Will Alexander makes three entirely reasonable demands of the New Zealand government which are that it
    – Withdraw NZ troops from the Red Sea.
    – Stop NZ company Rakon from supplying components for weapons used by Israel.
    – Resume and then double humanitarian funding for UNRWA.
    The government could accept those demands, and it should accept them but if it was truly open to accepting them those demands would not have been necessary in the first place. It is a reasonable assumption that a government which is prepared to engage in genocide will be deaf to the moral suasion of a hunger strike. It will let Will Alexander die, just as it has condoned and assisted in the killing of over 35,000 innocents in Gaza. In modern times there have been hundreds of cases of governments faced with hunger strikes all over the world and in most cases the governments rejoice at the deaths of those they see as implacable political opponents.
    However there is a longer term consideration. During the Vietnam war, people in New Zealand and other western democracies went on hunger strike or burned themselves to death in protest against the killings in Vietnam. Western governments, including the New Zealand government, were visibly unmoved. The bombs kept falling, the napalm and the white phosphorus kept raining down and helpless villagers like those at My Lai continued to be massacred. But in the end, the military forces of the western democracies were forced to give up the mass killing and to return to their own lands. While the hunger strikers and the self-immolators had been ignored by governments, eventually their cause had been won. Even though the state had refused to listen to them, God Almighty had heard their blood crying up from the ground. Is this a sufficient ground on which to say that hunger strikes might work? That is a metaphysical question that I cannot easily answer.
    Regardless of whether it “works” or not, is a hunger strike the right thing to do? To a pragmatist, if a tactic does not work then by definition it is not a right tactic, but those who go on hunger strike with a serious intent are not pragmatists. They are idealists, and to an idealist the right thing to do is the right thing to do, even if it is doomed and futile. That means that we need to consider the hunger strike from the idealist’s point of view. The argument in favour of the hunger strike is that it is the ultimate self-sacrifice, a non-violent way of trying to bring an end to a great and intolerable evil. Among the arguments against are that it is moral coercion or even moral blackmail and involves a form of violence against the self. It is easy to dispose of the first of these arguments. If those who claim that the hunger strike is “moral blackmail” are themselves adopting a position that is morally reprehensible, such as supporting genocide, then their claim is disingenuous. They are really saying that it is disgraceful that the blood of their victims should be allowed to cry up from the ground and that we should all remain decently silent while they go about their horrific work.
    I have more sympathy for the alternative argument that the hunger strike, particularly a hunger strike to the point of death, is violence against the self. One could respond that by such an act of extreme self-denial one shows an alternative to the spirit of blind selfishness which drives the present government of the Realm of New Zealand, and to that extent the hunger strike is justified. But that is also a deeply metaphysical argument. A more common sense response is that Christopher Luxon, Winston Peters, David Seymour and Judith Collins are the problem here. Not Will Alexander. That is why I wrote elsewhere “I would have preferred a campaign of civil disobedience to a hunger strike. I would even have preferred an insurrection…”.
    Will Alexander has presumably decided on a hunger strike because it is something that he can do on his own, as a way of discharging his personal sense of moral responsibility. Can one man by an act of self-sacrifice redeem a nation from its sin? Theologically, Christopher Luxon might agree that is possible, but Luxon has already taken upon himself the role of Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of the matter and insisting that he has done everything he can to avert the death of a righteous man. If it comes to that it will be an indictment not just upon Luxon, Peters, Seymour and Collins but upon all of us. To avoid such an outcome we need to find more assertive and collective ways of combating a government which has embarked on a campaign of international genocide in defiance of the feelings of the majority of its people.
    We should not ignore the enormity of the problem posed by the New Zealand state, which extends far beyond Luxon, Peters, Seymour and Collins. Even if New Zealand is a democracy (which is highly contestable) democracies have shown that they are capable of doing great evil. The question of whether a state such as Israel or the Realm of New Zealand is a “democracy” is irrelevant in the face of crimes such as genocide. It is rather like suggesting that we should show leniency to a mass murderer because he comes from a good home. Instead we should be questioning what that home really looks like. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether Israel, the United States or New Zealand are democracies, degenerate democracies, or not in the least democratic. These are states that willfully engage in genocide.

    Below I provide a copy of the announcement of Will Alexander’s hunger strike:

    Former Shortland Street actor Will Alexander goes on hunger strike over NZ government’s complicity in Gaza genocide

    When an Israeli tank hit 6-year old Hind’s car, she witnessed her family die in front of her. She managed to call the Red Crescent, which sent an ambulance. The Israeli forces then attacked the ambulance, killing everyone inside. Hind, the little Palestinian girl, was found dead two weeks later in the car surrounded by the decomposing bodies of her family members.

    Hind was one of over 14,000 Palestinian children killed by Israel so far, not including those still buried under the rubble.

    This story has moved Will Alexander, a former Shortland Street actor, to take action. At yesterday’s Christchurch rally in support of Palestine, he started his hunger strike and vowed to continue until the government stops supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

    “I can no longer stand by while my own government is complicit in an on-going genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. Innocent children are being killed in the thousands. Israel has violated international law for decades with full impunity granted by Western governments like New Zealand.”

    Will has three demands for the NZ government:

    – Withdraw NZ troops from the Red Sea.
    – Stop NZ company Rakon from supplying components for weapons used by Israel.
    – Resume and then double humanitarian funding for UNRWA.

    New Zealand troops have been deployed to the Red Sea to support its ally, the United States of America, in bombing Yemen for disrupting commercial shipments linked to Israel.

    “It doesn’t matter whether our troops are cleaning latrines or pressing the button. Their presence there means that New Zealand is actively supporting the bombing of Yemen just to keep weapons flowing into Israel” said Alexander.

    “Rakon is a multinational company with headquarters in Auckland that manufactures components used in bombs and missiles that are ultimately killing Palestinian children. It is a disgrace and something I think all New Zealanders would be against if they knew about it” said Alexander.

    “Israel has rained down some of the most advanced weaponry on 2.3 million captive civilians for 7 long months. And not only is New Zealand supporting Israel in doing this, but we have also suspended humanitarian funding to UNRWA despite a famine caused by Israel’s months long siege on Gaza. We shouldn’t be pausing funding – we should be doubling it”, said Alexander.

    NZ suspended funding to UNRWA in January when Israel made baseless allegations against the agency. Most donor countries have resumed funding since an independent report for the UN found no evidence for Israel’s allegations. UNRWA is one of the largest humanitarian organisations supporting Palestine through the Israel occupation. UNRWA also provides education and health care to Palestinian refugees in multiple countries in the Middle East.

    Famine is one of the weapons of genocide being used against the Palestinian people by Israel. Only UNRWA has the skills, the capacity and the personnel to deliver the massive humanitarian aid needed for 2.3 million Palestinians across Gaza – funding other groups will not be effective in ending the famine.

    “Christopher Luxon is choosing to send support for more bombs while freezing aid for starving Palestinians. It’s a disgrace”, said Alexander.

    Israel is standing trial at the International Court of Justice, which found it is “plausible” that Israel has committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention. Under the Genocide Convention, to which New Zealand is a signatory, New Zealand has an obligation to prevent genocide.

    Will Alexander is part of the Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

  4. I steer clear usually of science fiction, and prefer not to read about pie in the sky stuff. But the PTB say F..k u u’ll get it served up to you anyway.
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/517691/nz-companies-could-benefit-from-us-military-space-strategy-documents-show

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/517668/war-in-space-us-space-force-looks-to-tie-in-allies-including-new-zealand

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/517453/new-zealand-quietly-added-to-us-military-trade-law
    The US has included New Zealand under a military trade law that exists to “support [the] national security objectives of the United States” – without the New Zealand government’s involvement.
    Congress amended the law to add New Zealand to the US National Technology and Industrial Base (NTIB) 18 months ago.
    The NTIB aims to ensure the “technological superiority of the US Armed Forces” and counter “growing threats”, by boosting the United States’ military-industrial ties with close allies.
    The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the US Congress acted on its own initiative.
    “The New Zealand government was not involved in the process of New Zealand’s inclusion in the NTIB,” the ministry said.
    But top spy and defence officials told the US State Department a few weeks ago that “New Zealand was pleased to be included… in recognition of our close strategic partnership”, an OIA briefing showed…

    (That’s why they call it Us and not UsA! Now we know who we serve – till the end of (our) time. Bob Dylan’s words, fab link enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fyGWM2maTA )

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/517370/government-to-continue-with-aukus-talks-despite-china-s-warning
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/515850/winston-peters-comments-about-former-australian-minister-unstatesmanlike-labour
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/515826/winston-peters-receives-legal-letter-from-bob-carr-after-defamation-threat

  5. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/crime/beach-haven-murder-trial-teens-14-and-17-both-guilty-of-joshuah-tasis-stabbing-death/TOI5QC33KVABTAOQUWGDASGT7A/
    Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in ..3.. newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.

    24 May 024
    …A 17-year-old and 14-year-old accused of inflicting a co-ordinated, frenzied stabbing attack on a stranger after a minor traffic accident in a North Shore, Auckland suburb have both been found guilty of murder…
    The duo, who continue to have interim name suppression, were arrested in March last year after Joshuah Tasi, 28, bled to death next to his crashed silver van on Beach Haven Rd.

    Moments earlier, Tasi had honked at the duo’s BMW and called the older defendant a “dickhead” as he drove around them at an intersection they had been blocking, a witness testified shortly after the trial began last week.
    The older defendant then allegedly sped to catch up with Tasi and cut in front of him – resulting in the minor crash, which caused Tasi’s bumper to fall off.

    “They acted in unison,” Crown prosecutor Brett Tantrum said during his closing address, explaining that both defendants took off their shirts and got out of the BMW before approaching both front doors of Tasi’s vehicle – giving him no means of escape….

    These boys do not deserve to have their names kept secret. And their parents should be on trial too for not ensuring that their mad children know when to stop, before they commit actions bad, and foul. Parents need to take responsibility, and should be given every opportunity to learn how to bring up their children well.

    We would have better politicians, more thoughtful and worthy of their job, and less crime also from the pollies often secret efforts, and from the citizens’ too often well published.

Comments are closed.