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John Miller :: The People Said No!

By
The Liberal Agenda
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1

People in America and abroad, protesting US government policies in the streets, office occupations, legislators lobbied, police versus protestors – no not the present world-wide uproar over the actions of the new Trump administration, but the picture 50 years ago, during American and World citizen opposition to the US-led Vietnam War.

From the years 1967 to 1972, John Miller photographed many aspects of public opposition to the US-led Vietnam War and the New Zealand government’s participation in it. Street marches, rallies, occupations, teach-ins and anti-war conferences in both Auckland and Wellington involved a wide range of New Zealand society. John began photographing these, as a secondary school then university student and finally as the official photographer for the Auckland University students’ weekly newspaper “Craccum”.

After half a century, a selection of this archive will be shown for the first time at the Pierre Peeters Gallery, in Parnell.

Given all the present world-wide political turmoils now occurring , this is an appropriate time to look back at a previous era of similar civilian pushback against objectionable US government policies and recall the involvement of so many New Zealanders in these endeavours, before these memories become dimmed, with the passing of time.

We are privileged to announce that Niuean born Tigilau Ness, reggae icon and political activist, whose band, Unity Pacific won Best Roots Album at the Tuis last year and in 2009 he was awarded a life time achievement award, will be playing at the Pierre Peeters Gallery for the Opening Celebration of John Miller’s exhibition, Tuesday 28th Feb, 5.30pm onwards.

WHEN: Tuesday 28th Feb, 5.30pm onwards.

WHERE: Pierre Peeters Gallery, 251 Parnell Road, Auckland

Facebook: 

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Thank you comrades for the Mt Albert by-election

By
Joe Carolan
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5

I’m very proud of all our friends and comrades, who dropped everything in the middle of an election campaign to fight for young migrant students who have been terribly exploited.

Elections are where we can gauge where certain ideas stand, but putting ideas into action is paramount.

Although Sanctuary may have exhausted us and disturbed carefully planned rhythms elsewhere, it was one of the most important and spiritual moments so far in the emergent migrant workers solidarity campaign in our City.

On Saturday night, at the People Before Profit rally, I said goodbye to some of my greatest Indian friends. I hope to see them again in September if we defeat this rotten National government.

 

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Political Caption Competition

By
The Daily Blog
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2

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Daily Blog Guerrilla Radio – Faith No More – Easy

By
The Daily Blog
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0

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TDB Top 5 International Stories: Sunday 26th February 2017

By
The Daily Blog
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1

5: Porn Is Teaching Us How to Do Sex

Schools won’t, so sex workers, porn distributors, and erotic artists are stepping up to educate their fans about the basics of sex ed.

Ari Yarwood’s sex education amounted to a brief anatomy lesson, scary words about STIs, and a video about abstinence hosted by Kirk Cameron at—for some reason—a scary haunted carnival.

“I grew up in a rural, conservative area,” Yarwood said. “There were still big gaps in my knowledge base that I needed to fill in as an adult, especially as a queer woman.”

If only Cameron and his clowns could see her now. Today, Ari is editorial director of Oni Press’s new Limerence Press, an imprint dedicated to comics focusing on erotica and sex education. Under her leadership, the company is hard at work on books like Oh Joy Sex Toy, an erotic coloring book by artists Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan, and an erotic story entitled Small Favors by Colleen Coover.

Vice News

4: Fox News Interview With Fake Expert on Sweden Further Baffles Swedes

A man interviewed by Bill O’Reilly of Fox News this week, who was identified in an on-screen caption as a “Swedish Defense and National Security Advisor,” turns out to be entirely unknown in his native country, with no connections to either the nation’s defense or security services.

As the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported on Friday, Nils Bildt, who echoed President Donald Trump’s debunked claim that immigrants from Muslim majority nations had driven a rise in violent crime in Sweden, has no known expertise in national security, and has not lived in his homeland since 1994. Officials at the Swedish Defense Ministry and Foreign Office told the newspaper they have never heard of this “unknown Bildt.”

The Intercept

3: John Dean: The Difference Between Trump & Nixon is Trump Says Publicly What Nixon Said on Wiretap

We compare President Donald Trump’s attitude toward the media to that of President Richard Nixon with Nixon’s former counsel, John Dean. “The big difference is, Trump is doing this right out and challenging the First Amendment, one of our most important because it involves freedom of the press and freedom of speech,” Dean says. “Anything that he doesn’t like, any reporting, he calls being an enemy of the people … It’s just ludicrous. And it’s troublesome that he would try to sway the press by using the bully pulpit of his office to intimidate them.”

Democracy Now

2: Palestinian diaspora holds first global conference

Thousands of Palestinians representing diaspora communities from 50 countries have gathered in the Turkish city of Istanbul to discuss establishing a political structure that will represent them better.

The Palestine Abroad Conference, which was attended by more than 5,000 people on Saturday, is the first of its kind in terms of inclusivity.

Many of the speakers and attendees said they no longer have faith in the Palestinian leadership in the occupied territories because of their failure to deliver tangible outcomes as a result of decades of peace negotiations with Israel.

The conference was held amid a spat between its organisers and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which was formed in 1974 as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

PLO has accused the organisers of trying to undermine and replace it.

Aljazeera

1: Trump’s media war threatens journalists globally, protection group warns

The Trump administration should “act as a champion of press freedom”, a senior member of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Saturday, rather than prosecute a war with mainstream US media that could “send a signal to other countries that it is OK to verbally abuse journalists and undermine their credibility”.

Rob Mahoney, deputy executive director of the CPJ, a nonprofit that promotes press freedom worldwide, told the Guardian Trump’s attacks on the press do not “help our work trying to deal with countries like Turkey, Ethiopia or Venezuela, where you have governments who want to nothing more than to silence and intimidate the press.”

Mahoney also said attempts to favour conservative press outlets and declare the mainstream media the “enemy of the American people” looked like a deliberate effort by the White House to “inoculate itself from criticism”.

The Guardian 

 

 

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The Daily Blog Open Mic – Sunday 26th February 2017

By
The Daily Blog
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2

openmike

 

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

Moderation rules are more lenient for this section, but try and play nicely.

 

 

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GUEST BLOG: Comrade Dave Brownz – Capitalism’s Crisis is Morgan’s Opportunity

By
The Daily Blog
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5


As a Marxist I never thought I would say it, but Gareth Morgan, founder of The Opportunities Party (TOP), is to the left of Labour and the Greens on most things. Not only that, so far, he delivers on his promises, because he can. Morgan is open about trying to rescue falling profits by improving the management of capitalism. Labour and the Greens are much less open about their commitment to putting profits before people because they claim they don’t. They lie and most people know it. That is why Morgan the maverick capitalist is far to the left of Labour and the Greens, who are first and foremost the paid political lackeys of capitalism.

Labour and the populist swamp

Labour is the rotting corpse of the First Labour Government. Labour served a useful purpose for the City of London by herding NZ workers and small farmers away from mass rioting onto the Parliamentary road during the Depression. It convinced the Bank of England that it could run the farm and deliver cheap food to Britain by adopting an economic protectionist stance decades before Muldoon came along with Think Big. The Bank agreed because British finance capital profited.

Every Labour Govt since, and there have only been 5 all up, has accommodated to the demands of the dominant fraction of capitalists at the time including the Rogernomes. From the London Bankers to the Wall St. Wankers, Labour has faithfully served finance capital. Even Labour leader David Cunliffe before he was stabbed in the back failed to put up a fight to reject the policies of the 4th Labour Government. He has now gone back to a job serving finance capital. Today Labour has outlived its use-by date which is why it repudiates working class politics for a ‘classless’ middle ground of petty bourgeois greed.

The Greens are a footnote to all this, arriving on the scene when capitalism had already polluted the planet. It advocates a timid utopia where capitalism can be saved by turning it green. More like learning to live with the brown sludge of rotting life. Brown is the colour of populism, fusing bourgeois, petty bourgeois and working classes into one reactionary movement. If there is one classic example of a brown-sludge party in parliament it is the return of Mana to the Maori Party!

Mana/Maori populism is a disaster

Gareth Morgan at the Ratana celebrations attacked the One Nation populism of Winston Peters as no different to Don Brash’s One Nation. But honouring the Treaty so far has just led to the formation of iwi capitalists exploiting iwi workers. So, Gareth Morgan’s Maori namesake, Tuko Morgan, head of the Iwi Leaders’ Forum and now President of the Maori Party, takes the interests of Maori capitalism (beyond fancy underpants) and fuses it with Mana as the voice of working class Maori.

Not hard to see what is happening there, the Brown Table version of ‘trickle down’ where working-class Maori get pissed on. As if Maori as a people can use capitalism to advance the ‘people’ as a whole. This is the begging letter approach to honouring the Treaty which was, and will always be a fraud. Maori identity politics are a petty bourgeois populist/nationalist attempt to become shareholders in a failing NZ Inc., when global capitalism is tottering towards an almighty crash.

Does this mark a shift to the right for Maori? Yes, as Mana has conceded its minority status to the Iwi capitalists Maori Party in all the seats except Te Tai Tokerau which is reserved for Mana. That’s a win for Iwi capitalists over Maori workers. That’s why we say that all arguments that a Labour/Green/Mana/Maori coalition can form a government to get rid of the NACTs are bogged down in the parliamentary swamp. Populist front governments are not progressive rainbow coalitions. They mix red, green and blue into the colour of mud and tie workers hands to the bosses in parliament so they drown in the swamp. No Opportunities for workers here!

Along comes TOP

Along comes the capitalist entrepreneur Gareth Morgan who obviously sees an opportunity to breath life into a dying capitalism. He has learned the lesson that to survive in Aotearoa, let alone the world, capitalism has to be sustainable. He is bright enough to know that we are all doomed by the rip, shit, bust frontier politics of the Keyites. We don’t have the time left to muck about with a political establishment that serves up Pike Rivers, pollution, suicides, poverty, homelessness, and the destruction of nature.

Strategically, to implement his policies, it would be necessary to get rid of capitalism. Maybe Morgan doesn’t believe it yet, so he will have to wake up too. I suspect he already knows that capitalism and human survival are incompatible. If he doesn’t, he will soon find out and it’s up to revolutionaries to rub his nose in it. How to do this? Marxists don’t endorse TOP but we challenge it to turn its program into one that makes impossible demands on capitalism. That can’t happen unless the program activates mass working class demands to expose the limits of capitalism and advance the transition to socialism.

Let’s take the Universal Basic Income as one such a demand. There are left, right and centre arguments for the UBI. The right and centre like because it doesn’t empower workers. Its basic limitation for the left is that the UBI cannot be turned into a ‘transitional demand’ because it is a top-down state policy that does not require workers to self-organise and fight for a living wage. It is no more than a wage subsidy to bosses paid for by workers in the first place. Revolutionaries point out that the only UBI that is worth defending is that which is under workers control so that workers’ committees decide what wage is ‘liveable’, and not the bosses’ state.

As the state sends in the scabs and police to break strikes and occupations to impose their demands, workers will become conscious of the necessity for a workers’ government capable of implementing a democratic socialist plan ending capitalist exploitation and oppression, and empowered to take the revolutionary road to communist society where income equality is defined as: “from each according to their ability, and to each according to their need”. Between the UBI and the living wage is the socialist revolution!

Fabians vs Red Fed

Labour is NOT the mass workers party we need because it no longer identifies with nor acts in the interests of workers and will do deals with capitalist parties (Greens and NZF) to form a popular front government. It is the party of the Union Bureaucracy formed in 1916 to steer the defeated labour movement into the dead end of parliamentary democracy. Its political program was based on Fabian socialism, the British brand of parliamentary socialism that conned workers into thinking that the means of production, distribution and exchange could be nationalised by the capitalist state and the national income distributed ‘fairly’. It owed its origins to that very same state using scabs, police, army and ‘Massey’s Cossacks’ in 1913 to smash the ‘Red Fed’ – the breakaway union movement that rejected compulsory arbitration between Labour and Capital imposed by the Arbitration Court as labour’s ‘leg iron’.

Ever since, Labour has managed capitalism in the belief that the working class and boss class can both get a ‘fair share’ of the national income. The Labour Party became the party of scabs and strike breakers, banning strikes, locking up strikers, imposing military discipline on the labour movement during WW2, and claiming responsibility for the ‘welfare state’ when in reality the boom that made it possible was the result of the massive defeats of labour during the depression and WW2.

Then to prove what had been obvious to revolutionaries for generations, Labour became the party that put profits before people in the 1980 when then end of the post war boom brought a new structural crisis of global capitalism. The unions that had become part of the state arbitration system abandoned any militant actions in the expectation that the Labour Government would deliver labour reforms. They were unprepared for deregulation and the end of economic nationalism. Labour set about delivering a compliant working class to it new imperialist master the US. As a result, workers have never been organised to fight against the capitalist system itself and the gap between rich and poor has widened dramatically. To revive itself in the tradition of the old Red Fed – a fighting, democratic movement – the working class has to break from the Labour Party and build a new, mass workers party based on a socialist program.

We say break from all populist fronts with capitalist parties, and break from the union bureaucracy that serves capitalism by locking workers into labour’s ‘leg iron’. We reject any deals with capitalist parties and fight for the class interests of the working class on the basis of policies that will meet its needs. That calls for a struggle for a Transitional Program that can act as a guide to workers to fight for what we need now all the way to the formation of a Workers Government and a socialist plan.

 

Comrade Dave Brownz is TDB’s guest marxist blogger, because you know, every liberal blog has to have a guest marxist blogger.

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Why Trump Might be Good for Palestine

By
The Nomad
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7

So far, Donald Trump has been a total disaster for Palestine. Even before he took office, the Israeli right’s glee could barely be contained as they rushed to approve over 6,000 new settlement units and retrospectively legalize 16 West Bank outposts built on privately owned Palestinian land. Since taking office, Trump has announced he would freeze $250 million in Palestinian aid, nominated a pro-settlement ambassador to Israel, promised to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and, following his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu last week, declared that America is no longer committed to a two-state solution.

Rather than hatred brewing here in Palestine over the new President, the tone is mainly one of indifference. For most locals, foreign leaders come and go and what they say or don’t say, do or don’t do about Palestine makes little difference to their lives, which continue to worsen under what is now 50 years of occupation. Strangely, though, some Palestinians see cause for hope in a Trump Presidency. This might seem counter-intuitive, but there are some real, albeit highly cynical, reasons for believing this optimistic minority might be onto something. Here are three things to think about:

1) Trump might have finally killed the two-state solution. For decades now, the framework for all international peace efforts in Israel/Palestine has been the two-state solution. It was an imperfect, although perhaps workable, solution to begin with, but as time has passed, the expansion of Israeli settlements, the stubborn refusal of Israel to further implement the Oslo Accords and, let’s be honest here, the mess that the Palestinian Authority has made of its limited level of self-governance have consigned the two-state solution to the graveyard of well-intentioned ideas. Yet it continues to dominate the discourse, making it more of a hindrance than a help. Advancing the two-state solution has allowed world leaders’ (including Israel’s and arguably Palestine’s too) to engage in a charade of attempting to resolve the situation without achieving anything at all. I wouldn’t dare guess what Trump had in his mind when he vocalized his indifference to the two-state solution. But, regardless of his motivations, if his statement does lead to the final extinguishing of this idea, it will remove a big blockage to peace and stimulate new thinking on what a sustainable solution for the Holy Land might look like.

2) Trump’s America can’t pretend to be an honest broker. A fundamental flaw in peace negotiations has been America’s central role. I am not in the camp of those who believe that America’s self-servience mean it should never have a brokerage role to play in international relations. But, when it comes to Israel/Palestine, the United States is the least objective country on the planet. As Noam Chomsky put it “Negotiations organized by the USA… makes about as much sense as if Iran was called upon to mediate the Shia/Sunni conflict in Iraq.” Trump, though, might be the first President to openly acknowledge his Israel-bias or, at the very least, pull down the very thing curtain of rhetoric that has allowed previous White Houses to maintain an objective pretence. This may make it easier for America to step (or be pushed) aside to let someone else take the lead. As a friend of mine from Ramallah put it, “In many ways, we prefer a man like Trump. With him, at least we know where we stand.”

3) Trump-induced chaos might be preferable to the gridlocked status quo. Chaos has been the key word to describe the Presidency so far. We’ve seen it play out in numerous domestic issues already and it’s the same in the Middle East. In the cauldron that is Israeli and Palestinian politics, international diplomacy is a huge steadying influence. In both Ramallah and Jerusalem, political leaders have one eye to the nods or head-shakes of the international community, especially the Americans, for every move they make. At the present moment, though, no-one knows what Trump is thinking (neither do American diplomats I’ve spoken to). Is Trump actually giving Netanyahu carte blanche on settlement expansion or does he fear that every time he picks up the phone it will be Donald Trump telling him he’s changed his mind? Do American diplomats start construction on a new embassy or do they renew the lease on the existing one? Does Mahmoud Abbas have a line to the US embassy or will he be shunned as a terrorist? It’s early days in the Trump Presidency, of course, but as many commentators are saying, confusion and uncertainty might well be President Trump’s modus operandi. Such chaos could create a gridlock of its own or, worse, create a downward spiral of turbulence that leads only to further violence (likely to be exacerbated by similar confusion elsewhere in the region). But, for many Palestinians, these risks might be preferable to the inertia of the status quo. As another friend of mine put it, “Obama loved to act tough with Netanyahu, but what did he achieve? Hilary loves to negotiate. But, we are tired of endless talk while settlements are built and our children sit in Israeli jails. With Trump, we know he hates us from the start, but he is also crazy. Maybe a bit of craziness from the Americans is exactly what we need.”

 

The Nomad is a NZer who works overseas and blogs here anonymously as his host government is not exactly a big fan of free speech.

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Hey, Shamubeel! – Why Are You Rewriting Our History?

By
Chris Trotter
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27

HOW DO YOUNG NEW ZEALANDERS view their country’s recent past? In the 33 years since the Fourth Labour Government unleashed “Rogernomics” on an unsuspecting New Zealand, how have the “Children of the Revolution” been encouraged to characterise the society it replaced?

These are important questions. No revolutionary regime can afford to tolerate the notion that life before the revolution may actually have been happier, fairer and more prosperous than what came after. This Orwellian impulse to re-write the past is all the more important when massive change is imposed from above, rather than demanded from below.

It is, therefore, hardly surprising that the wholesale rewriting of New Zealand’s recent history began almost immediately after Labour’s electoral victory of 14 July 1984. Before describing this process, however, it is necessary to say a little bit about Labour’s win.

In First-Past-The-Post terms it was an emphatic result. Labour emerged from the election with a majority of 17 seats. Had the MMP electoral system been in place, however, Labour (with just 43 percent of the popular vote) could only have governed with the support of Bob Jones’ New Zealand Party. The latter, with 12 percent of the vote, was an eclectic mixture of right-wing libertarianism and free-market economics.

Labour did well in 1984, but not as well as its numbers in the House might suggest. That New Zealanders wanted change is undeniable (the turnout of registered voters, at 93.7 percent, was the highest in New Zealand history). Exactly what sort of change they were looking for is much less clear.

As far as the revolutionaries were concerned, however, the people’s mandate could not have been clearer. First, the New Zealand economy had to be immediately and aggressively deregulated. Second, the possibility of a single, dominant politician holding the entire country in thrall, as Rob Muldoon had done since 1975, had to be eliminated. Third, the cultural and moral assumptions of the so-called “RSA Generation” had to be challenged and, if found wanting, superseded.

Most New Zealanders would have gone along with this “To Do” list. They were, after all, well into the third year of a comprehensive wage and price freeze. New Zealand’s economy was horribly distorted by arbitrary government regulation, agricultural subsidies, protective tariffs and a host of inefficient, heavily indebted and consistently unprofitable state-owned industries.

Many New Zealanders under the age of 30 felt equally aggrieved by the deeply-entrenched social conservatism of their elders. The events of three years earlier, when the Springbok Rugby Team, representing South Africa’s appallingly racist regime, had been afforded massive state protection from equally massive public protest, had fundamentally undermined the moral authority of the RSA Generation. The desire to free-up New Zealand society was every bit as strong as the desire to de-regulate its economy.

What the Labour Government had no mandate for, however, was the systematic destruction of the broadly egalitarian and generously redistributive society which had grown out of the First Labour Government’s economic and social reforms of the 1930s and 40s.

Many Kiwis would have conceded that, in recent years, the New Zealand “family home” had not been very well maintained, and that it could certainly benefit from a good spring-cleaning. There might also be an argument for knocking out a few walls; letting in a lot more light; installing a new kitchen and bathroom – maybe adding a deck. But bringing in the wrecking-crew: selling-off the family’s most valuable possessions; and reducing the much-loved family home to a pile of firewood? Neither the Labour Government, nor its Treasury and Business Roundtable advisers, had the New Zealand people’s permission to do anything remotely like that.

All the more important, therefore, that the revolutionaries convince succeeding generations that the old family home had been a horrible place, full of deeply creepy people, with rubbish piled up in corners, a leaky roof and rotting floorboards. So decrepit was it, they insisted, that the only sensible thing to do was to knock the whole place down and start over.

It’s a story they have never stopped telling.

An interesting example of this ongoing re-presentation of New Zealand’s past may be found on the Spinoff website. Shamubeel Eaqub, the site’s hip young economist du jour, was commissioned by the Spinoff to front “The New Economy”, a “pop-up section which takes a critical look at the issues and challenges facing the New Zealand economy”, sponsored by Kiwibank.

In the second episode of the series: “Hey Shamubeel! – How Did We Get Here?”, the 36-year-old economist rehearses all the old tales about how hopeless New Zealand was before the Rogernomics revolution.

“We were all about protectionism, and all about trying to re-create manufacturing and economic activity within New Zealand ….. That culminated in Robert Muldoon pursuing the ‘Think Big’ projects …. The reforms of the 1980s were like an atom bomb going off. The entire way of living in New Zealand changed, and we went from driving shit cars to good cars. We went from having a couple of TV channels to having many channels. And when the smoke cleared we found an economy that was more diverse, stronger and more flexible. ”

It is fascinating to note Eaqub’s choice of automobiles and television channels as emblematic of New Zealand’s improved way of life. Apparently, all that the country needed was a never-ending supply of Japanese used cars and “57 Channels (And nothin’ On)”

Given that Eaqub was only 3 years old when Roger Douglas dropped his “atom bomb”, it would be a little unfair to expect him to remember just what went with those “couple of TV channels”.

He’d have no recall, for example, of the hundreds of talented journalists, presenters, camera-persons, set-designers, actors, writers, directors and producers who staffed the state-owned regional television news and production hubs located in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. Nor could he be expected to have noted the extraordinary cultural lift which these “creatives” gave to those communities.

Because the NZBC was long gone before Eaqub was old enough to notice, he couldn’t have appreciated the superb quality of New Zealand’s “pre-revolutionary” TV schedule. Kiwis watched the best programmes the world had to offer, most of them purchased at bargain-basement prices, because there was only one buyer of overseas produced shows. (As an economist, Eaqub would recognise this happy condition as monopsony.)

“Linear television” had a lot more going for it in the 1960s and 70s than The Project and a schedule packed with excruciatingly bad reality-television shows. And all it cost the owner of the household TV set was $30.00 per year!

It’s not Eaqub’s fault. None of us can be expected to know what we do not know – especially when so many people are working so hard to prevent us from remembering and/or discovering what it is that we do not know.

The overcrowded concrete monstrosity that passes for New Zealand’s family home in 2017 has been stripped of everything likely to trigger either memories or questions about the house we used to live in. That our old home might actually have been warmer, more comfortable and less alienating than the place we live in now is an idea that is getting harder and harder to conceptualise. Everybody knows (because everybody is forever being told) that our current, neoliberal, home is superbly constructed, fantastically appointed and guaranteed to stand forever.

But, hey, Shamubeel, can you tell us: is this really as good as it gets?

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Red Landslide swallow Greens – Mt Albert by-election 2017: Winners & Losers & General Election Ramifications

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
28

It has been a remarkable and historic landslide for Labour.

At a mere 39% of the electorate it is one of the lowest by-election turn outs on record and with a 77% win of the vote, it’s one of the highest wins for a Politician.

Such warping of the stats was due to National not showing. The threat at the beginning of this campaign that Genter could split votes once TOP entered seemed to have scared the bejesus out of the Greens (why they chose to stand is still not clear at all) and they tempered down their campaigning and have limped home with a % barely better than what they achieved nationally at the ballot box in 2014.

Some have suggested that gaining just over 10% of the vote was evidence of a win.

Bullshit.

If you need to define success as getting a tiny bit above where you were 3 years ago, I’d hate to see failure.

This result has huge ramifications for the election.

Let’s look at the last 3 by-elections and consider this win by Labour in comparison:

Mt Roskill by-election 2016

Total votes: 17,476

Winning margin: Labour Candidate Michael Wood won with a 6,852 majority

Northland by-election 2015

Total votes: 29,548

Winning margin: NZ First Leader Winston Peters won with a 4,441 majority

Christchurch East by-election 2013

Total votes: 13,726

Winning margin: Labour Party Candidate Poto Williams won with a 4,837 majority.

 

Compare those three with the Mt Albert by-election

 

Mt Albert by-election 2017 

Total votes: 12,971

Winning margin: 8,511

 

WINNERS:

Labour Party: This victory is even larger than their one in Mt Roskill, Labour gain a real sense of momentum towards the election and most importantly it gives Labour real muscle in their relationship with the poor old Greens who have had a dreadful night. It also allowed Labour to test out their new electorate machines with robocalling telephone programmes aimed at specific voters they think they can win over.

Jacinda: Finally her star rises. She has real pulling power as a retail politician and people recognise her as the next generation, a voting bloc Labour are desperate to attract. This win in Helen Clark’s historic seat has all the symbolism of the next Leader of the Labour Party about it.

TOP: A very small win to them tonight, they have managed to get just under the 5% threshold in this by-election, so their reason for existence remains. But they have to up their profile to be competitive come September.

National: By stepping back and allowing the opposition to squabble, Bill English showed he is a far more shrewd tactician than Key was.

 

LOSERS:

Green Party:They should never have stood. The fear that they would split the vote didn’t eventuate, but something far worse for the party has occurred, they look a hell of a lot weaker than anyone suspected they would.

Perhaps it was getting spooked by the entrance of the TOP candidate, but the Greens went from feeling like they had a shot in this electorate back in December of last year to hiding in the corner least their performance rob Jacinda of her coronation.

Genter has limped home and the result suggests that the Greens have stalled, not knowing what to do or how to do it. They should be looking at a reorganisation of their list to bring new blood and candidates into the party (as I suggested here in their top 20 candidate party list rankings) so that they can appeal to the under 30 electorate who aren’t voting.

God knows what they were thinking by running in Mt Albert. It hasn’t won any converts and the Greens look  a lot less organised than they did before going into it.

It was dumb decision. They were damned if they did well and they were damned if they did poorly – it was far smarter to have not run at all.

Auckland Central: Jacinda’s extraordinary leap over to Mt Albert and just dumping Central Auckland because she couldn’t bear losing to Nikki Kaye for a third time in a  row means no one of any real profile will stand for Labour in Central Auckland. Labour could have stood a moderately priced bottle of Chardonnay in Mt Albert and it would’ve won, but having Jacinda take her star power away from Auckland Central has cost Labour winning Auckland Central altogether. Money is on Nikki Kaye romping home there for National in September.

Annette King: The fiercely territorial old guard of Labour will not like seeing the rise of this Auckland based whipper snapper. Kids these days, bah humbug. Why isn’t Coro Street on every night anymore? Etc etc etc. King holds the Deputy as part of the internal peace deals to the right wing of the Party, so Little would only look at promoting Ardern after the election and only if they succeed in forming a Government.

RAMMIFICATIONS FOR 2017 GENERAL ELECTION: 

The weakness of the Greens for one of their star candidates will mean they will have real problems with Labour come the election.

National historically drops 4 points 7 months before the last 2 elections, so they are looking at around 40%-42% on Election Day while NZ First always poll 4% or 5% higher, putting them in a position to actually replace the Greens as third largest party.

This very weak showing in the Mt Albert by-election will firmly place the Greens as the 3rd wheel in a NZ First Labour Government.

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Bill English blames Gaia for Auckland Housing Crisis

By
Martyn Bradbury
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23

I don’t know if they’re going to buy this Bill

 

It’s almost unbelievable that after 9 years in Office, Bill English is still struggling to find scapegoats for his Government’s total inaction on the Housing Crisis.

You would have thought after yesterdays joke announcement that National have redefined swimming standards by lowering them that they would pause in embarrassment, but no, they’ve doubled down just like Donald Trump would and today came out and blamed Auckland’s Housing Crisis on environmentalism…

Prime Minister Bill English blames environment for high cost of housing

The high cost of housing “hanging over” young families is a result of the efforts to protect the environment in Auckland and other big cities, Prime Minister Bill English says.

Regulations dictating how furniture should be laid out in yet-to-be-built buildings and how plants should be positioned on sections needed to be axed, the Prime Minister said today.

English used his keynote speech to his party’s Bluegreens forum – which is National’s advisory group on environmental issues – to point the finger at environmental concerns as a major driver of house prices.

Un-fucking-believable.

That’s right folks, it’s not the property bubble that National have nurtured to keep the middle classes voting for them.

It’s not the flood gate opening of our 70 000+ immigration numbers.

It’s not the exploitative and sometimes fake student/work visa that sees 250 000 enter the country.

It’s not that our taxation system is geared towards exploitation.

It’s not our neoliberal ownership laws that allow any over seas resident to purchase our land.

It’s not that National are addicted to this fake economic model and can’t stop it.

Oh no.

It’s environmentalism.

They are just lying to our faces now.

They’ve spent so long bullying beneficiaries and the poor with this bullshit pretending it to be sound reasoned policy that when they try the same garbage on the educated middle classes they use the same condescending tone.

Middle Class Folk will accept 220 000 kids in poverty, 41 000 homeless and tones of other negative social stats if their property valuations keep rising, but not even over inflated paper millions will calm the fury of the middle classes if you are condescending to them.

National are in trouble here and they don’t recognise it yet.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

What to look for in todays Mt Albert by election

By
The Daily Blog
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0

The dullest by-election in NZ history has come to an end and it’s voting time.

For such a none event there are huge ramifications for the September General Election.

The most interesting areas to keep close focus on will be the turn out in the individual suburbs of the electorate.

Grey Lynn

Kingsland

Morningside

Mt Albert

Mt Eden

Newton

Point Chevalier

Sandringham

Western Springs

Westmere

Based on past elections:

  • Greens would want big turn out in  Kingsland, Grey Lynn, Western Springs
  • Labour would want big turn out in Sandringham, Morningside, Mt Albert, Mt Eden
  • And National voters are strongest in Newton, Point Chev, Western Springs, Westmere and Mt Albert.

We will be covering the results live on TDB from 7pm and do a snap analysis of who the winners and losers are and what it might mean for the 2017 General Election in September.

 

 

 

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

National’s ‘swimmable’ rivers policy is another ‘alternative facts’ moment and why we can’t allow it

By
Martyn Bradbury
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17

 

This joke redefinition of ‘swimmable’ so that National can pretend to have 90% of our rivers and lakes ‘swimmable’ by 2040 is dangerous.

Firstly, it sends the clear signal that National have no intention whatsoever to force their corporate farming mates to halt dairy intensification.

Secondly, it sends an even more dangerous message to us as New Zealanders that this Government can just lie directly to our faces under the belief that we will accept it.

The Government redefinition of ‘swimmable’ as water that doesn’t directly burn your eyes, ears or lips and will only make 1 in 20 sick is a farce and it says the Government thinks we are idiots...

Ninety percent of rivers and lakes swimmable.

What part of that doesn’t sound good? None of it until you realise what the Government considers “swimmable”.

In the Government’s National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2014, for a body of water (be it a river or lake) to get an ‘A’ rating, it has to have rates of E. Coli (the bacteria that gives us campylobacter), less than or equal to, 260cfu/100mL, 95 per cent of the time. It used to be 99 per cent A reading above 260cfu/100mL means there is certain risk to human health.

This doesn’t seem to phase the Government though. Why let public health get in the way of achieving? As far as it is concerned, a few tests above that level (up to 5 per cent), and that river or lake is still an ‘A’. Yes, a river that makes 1 in 20 sick, gets an ‘A’. Sound ridiculous? It gets worse.

The Ministry of Health’s 1992 Provisional Microbiological Water Quality Guidelines for Recreational and Shellfish-Gathering Waters in New Zealand suggests that water with less than 235cfu/100mL is optimum, with anything higher best avoided. How is 260cfu/100mL suddenly ok? What’s changed? Are we all of sudden better at dealing with E. Coli? Furthermore, compare the Government’s new standards to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) guideline standard of 40cfu/100mL of water (at this limit the WHO considers water to have no observable adverse effect on human health) and the limit of 260cfu/100mL looks ludicrous. I’d love to ask the WHO its thoughts on us swimming in water with 260cfu/100mL, let alone the equivalent of a ‘B’ rating of water with 540cfu/100mL.

…right, so the Government have just renamed cow shit in water as ‘candyfloss’. Next they’ll eliminate all murder by redefining it as involuntary death and children in poverty will now be called ‘Future Jobseekers’.

We have suddenly sat up and noticed this alternative fact masquerading as truth because we all love fresh pure water and can see that pure water in our minds eye. We don’t however notice the lie when it’s being used to damage people we don’t see in such simplistic terms as fresh water.

Take the farce of National’s welfare reforms. Throwing beneficiaries off welfare and then hailing the lower stats as successful social policy is as much an alternative fact as dirty water now being called fresh water.

Take National’s Charter School experiment. It’s simply code for finding a way to cut teacher costs, it’s got bugger all to do with the welfare and education of our children.

Take the CYFs reforms – this is about throwing kids into the first family CYFs can find to cut costs.

Take the private prisons – they’ve been put forward as a way to save costs, yet the cost to the Government continues to spiral upwards as more and more NZers are locked up in prison.

Each of these right wing experiments are a manipulation of the facts to continue draconian and cost cutting social policies, but most ignore and shrug because it’s aimed at criminals, vulnerable children, poor children, Maori, Pacific Islanders, working poor and beneficiaries.

Pure rivers however we can all jump up and down about because being the easily led hobbits that we is, this image…

…carries more political weight in the anti-intellectual public toilet of popular opinion than brown, hungry and/or hurt people.

So let’s use the clean rivers juxtaposition as our rallying point, let’s hammer this image repeatedly to get through to the masses, but let’s not pretend that our inability to recognise the same political deceit used on weaker members of our society means their plight is any less pressing than cleaning up our rivers.

 

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Trumpwatch: “… then they came for the LGBT”

By
Frank Macskasy
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27

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Context:Discrimination

By  2015, the situation of transgender students using toilets in US schools became a major contentious social issue. States such as Kentucky, Florida, Minnesota, Mississippi , Nevada, North Carolina, and Texas attempted to pass legislation that would have “legally required schools to ensure that children follow anatomical conventions when using gender-segregated school facilities: that children who were born boys but identify as girls use the boys’ restroom, and vice versa“, as The Atlantic pointed out in July 2015.

The original version of the “Kentucky Student Privacy Act” would have  allowed students to sue “offenders” (transgendered students using toilets assigned to opposite gendered students) in a  state court for  “damages” up to US$2,500 each.

In April last year, North Carolina passed legislation that removed protection of LGBT from discrimination based on sexual orientation and a requirement that, in public buildings and schools, transgendered people use bathrooms corresponding to their genetic gender at birth.

There was a public outcry against what was perceived as unjust discrimination against transgender students.

Companies such as PayPal, Deutsche Bank, and others  cancelled investment in the state; singer Bruce Springsteen cancelled a rock concert; and dozens of planned  conventions were withdrawn,  in protest. One hundred and thirty other companies signed a letter to North Carolina’s  lawmakers demanding they  repeal the anti-transgender law.

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Then: Obama

Last year, in a follow-up to an earlier 2014 directive, former President Obama, responded to  discrimination against  transgendered students in federally-funded schools.

Then-Attorney General, Loretta Lynch was unequivocal in condemning transphobia;

“There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex. ”

The directive – in the form of a letter from the Departments of Justice and Education – was sent  to all Federally-funded schools. It stated, in part;

“A school may provide separate facilities on the basis of sex, but must allow transgender students access to such facilities consistent with their gender identity.

A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so.

As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”

In issuing a new directive not to engage in transphobic policies, Obama said;

“What happened and what continues to happen is you have transgender kids in schools. And they get bullied. And they get ostracized. And it’s tough for them.

My best interpretation of what our laws and our obligations are is that we should try to accommodate these kids so that they are not in a vulnerable situation.

We should deal with this issue the same way we would want it dealt with if it was our child and that is to try to create an environment of some dignity and kindness for these kids. ”

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Then: Trump

During last year’s presidential election campaign, Trump appeared to side firmly with the LGBT community.

In June, he tweeted;

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twitter-trump-thank-you-to-the-lgbt-community

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In October, at a rally in Colorado, he borrowed a LGBT flag from a supporter in the crowd, and waved it on-stage;

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GREELEY, CO - OCTOBER 30: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds a rainbow flag given to him by supporter Max Nowak during a campaign rally at the Bank of Colorado Arena on the campus of University of Northern Colorado October 30, 2016 in Greeley, Colorado. With less than nine days until Americans go to the polls, Trump is campaigning in Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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And  in November, two activists from the so-called LGBTrump group wrote glowingly of Trump’s pro-LGBT credentials.

Joseph R. Murray II said;

“ There are no signs that the LGBT community will be in the crosshairs of a Trump administration. In fact that evidence is just the opposite.  

In the 1980s & 1990s Trump donated heavily to charities that focused on the AIDS outbreak. When he floated a third party presidential run in 1999 he went on record saying he would consider adding sexual orientation to the Civil Rights Act. Trump is also believed to be the first private club owner in Palm Beach — in this case Mar-a-Lago — to admit a gay couple. This is not the resume of an LGBT foe.

[…]

… Trump, thus, was telling evangelicals he was with them on the issue of life — our most fundamental right — but was not willing to do battle over civil marriage. This was the surest signal to the LGBT community that Trump was not a foe, but a friend.”

And Christopher R. Barron echoed his fellow Trumpista’s sentiments;

“ Donald Trump’s announcement on “60 Minutes” Sunday night, that he supports marriage equality, shocked almost as many on the left as his stunning victory at the polls last week. If they would have been paying attention, however, neither of these events would have come as a surprise.

Despite the left’s attempts to demonize Donald Trump as a homophobe during the campaign, the truth was and is that Donald Trump is unquestionably, the Republican Party’s most pro-gay presidential nominee in history. ”

Trump’s vice-President, Mike Pence, however was less supportive of the LGBT community;

Pence’s LGBT record doesn’t get much better either. On his website in 2000 he suggested that money used to support those with HIV should be directed to organisations “which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.” That’s right ladies and gentlemen, Pence supports gay conversion therapy.

(Pence’s  comments were confirmed by Snopes.com.)

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Now: Trump

On 22 February, the Trump Administration announced  to Federally-funded schools that Obama’s instructions banning transphobic policies was to be rescinded;

By the time he left office, Barack Obama had taken several steps to support transgender people, moves that “thrilled” advocates and outraged social conservatives still stinging from a same-sex marriage loss before the Supreme Court. But the tide is now heading in a new direction, and the Trump Administration on Wednesday took what LGBT rights groups view as a big step back, one they are describing as “bullying” transgender kids.

In a joint action, the departments of Justice and Education rescinded instructions that schools nationwide must respect the gender identities of transgender students, allowing them access to bathrooms and other facilities or single-sex programs that align with their sense of self. “The prior guidance documents did not contain sufficient legal analysis or explain how the interpretation was consistent with the language of Title IX,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement Wednesday. ” The Department of Education and the Department of Justice therefore have withdrawn the guidance.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a  Republican who has expressed conservative positions on various issues;

  • Voted against re-authorising the Violence Against Women Act that would have extended VAWA’s protections to lesbians, gays, immigrants, and Native Americans,
  • Voted  against marriage equality,
  • Voted against adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes,

Sessions has earned a 20% approval-rating from the ACLU, on his anti-civil rights voting record; 7% by the NAACP, revealing his anti-affirmative-action stance, and  0% by the Human Rights Campaign, for displaying an openly anti-gay-rights stance on issues.

This is the reactionary homophobe appointed by a supposedly  “LGBT-friendly Trump” as America’s Attorney General.

In a surprising development, fellow conservative Republican; businesswoman; Charter Schools proponent, and Trump appointee as the new Secretary for Education, Betsy DeVos, opposed rescinding Federal protection for transgendered students. She was over-ruled by self-declared “LGBT-friendly Trump”;

But Ms. DeVos initially resisted signing off and told Mr. Trump that she was uncomfortable because of the potential harm that rescinding the protections could cause transgender students, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge of the internal discussions.

Mr. Sessions, who has opposed expanding gay, lesbian and transgender rights, pushed Ms. DeVos to relent. After getting nowhere, he took his objections to the White House because he could not go forward without her consent. Mr. Trump sided with his attorney general, the Republicans said, and told Ms. DeVos in a meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he wanted her to drop her opposition. And Ms. DeVos, faced with the alternative of resigning or defying the president, agreed to go along.

Ms. DeVos’s unease was evident in a strongly worded statement she released on Wednesday night, in which she said she considered it a “moral obligation” for every school in America to protect all students from discrimination, bullying and harassment.

White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, denied there was a split between DeVos, Trump, and Sessions, but a ‘tweet‘ from her suggested otherwise;

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twitter-devos-lgbt-students-23-february-2017

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In revoking Obama’s order to  “allow transgender students access to such facilities consistent with their gender identity“, Trump has made life more difficult for transgendered young people. His decision to allow Jeff Sessions to impose his moralistic agenda to deny transgendered students to be in a safe environment to use bathroom facilities, puts extra stresses on people who are already facing a difficult time in their lives.

When a segment of American society yearns for a quasi-mythical, mind-numbingly simpler time of “mom, dad, and the kids”;

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1950s_family__gabe_wiggins_

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– they are craving an era  inimical to anyone who was not white, heterosexual, and patriarchal. That is the vision that Trump is buying into by refusing to respect the rights of LGBT Americans.

Far from his committment to the LGBT community to “fight for them”, as he tweeted on 14 June 2016, Trump is complicit in turning his back on  transgendered students.

Muslims, Mexicans, LGBT – Trump (and his groupies in the White House) is sectioning-of American society.

Who is next?

More than ever, German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemöller’s statement  rings truer and truer every day…

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daily-news

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References

The Atlantic: The K-12 Binary

The Guardian: Leading businesses take stand against states’ new anti-LGBT laws

The Advocate:  Here’s All the Business N.C. Has Lost Because of Anti-LGBT Bill

Time: United States Department of Education – Office for Civil Rights – Questions and Answers on Title IX and Single-Sex Elementary and Secondary Classes and Extracurricular Activities

Reuters: Obama says transgender bathroom directive based on law

The Guardian: Obama orders public schools to allow transgender students access to restrooms

Twitter: Trump – Thank you to the LGBT Community

The Independent: Donald Trump’s running mate thought HIV funding could be better spent on gay conversion therapy – time to put the rainbow flag down

The Hill: Memo to the LGBT community – Donald Trump is not your enemy

Fox News: Donald Trump will be a friend, an ally and an advocate for the LGBT community

Snopes.com: Shock Treatment

Time: President Trump Just Rolled Back Guidelines That Protected Transgender Students

Wikipedia: Jeff Sessions

On The Issues: Jeff Sessions on Civil Rights

Wikipedia: Betsy DeVos

New York Times: Trump Rescinds Rules on Bathrooms for Transgender Students

The Guardian: Trump administration revokes transgender students’ bathroom protections

Twitter: Betsy DeVos

Other bloggers

The Daily Blog: Family Fist exploiting transphobia for political moralistic point scoring is far more destructive than transgender toilet use

The Spinoff: Four things you can do when hate groups like Family First attack children

Previous related blogposts

Black Ops from the SIS and FBI?

The seductiveness of Trumpism

The Rise of Great Leader Trump

The Sweet’n’Sour Deliciousness of Irony: Russia accused of meddling in US Election

Trump escalates, Putin congratulates

Trumpwatch: Voter fraud, Presidential delusions, and Fox News

Trumpwatch: Muslims, mandates, and moral courage

Trumpwatch: The Drum(pf)s of War

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TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Incitement and provocation

By
Leslie Bravery
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7

While issuing statements affirming the unacceptability of Israeli settlement expansion, it has become fashionable for governments and UN institutions to also condemn what they describe as Palestinian ‘incitement’. It is as if the Palestinian people’s reaction to the everyday horrors of life under foreign military Occupation should be seen as somehow commensurate with the brutalities inflicted by the Occupying power, Israel. One dictionary definition describes incitement as “something that incites or provokes”. The online Merriam Webster Dictionary gives an example of the use of the term ‘incite’ as follows: “The news incited widespread fear and paranoia.” Well the daily experience for Palestinians, both within Israel and the territories beyond, is certainly fearsome and Israel intends it to be so – as a matter of policy. Yehuda Shaul, co-founder of the whistle-blowing group of Israeli soldiers, Breaking the Silence, writing in the Guardian earlier this month revealed the malevolence of Israel’s intentions towards the Palestinian people. He described his personal experience of the Israeli Army’s role in enforcing Zionist rule:

“Day and night, we would go into the Casbah, the Old City of Hebron. Entirely at random, rather than on the basis of any intelligence, the officer or sergeant would pick a house. We woke up a family at two in the morning, fully armed, and searched the house – for no reason. We then started knocking on the doors of houses and shops to make noise, in the middle of the night. We ran to the other side of the Old City, entered another house – and this continued for eight hours, until the end of our shift. This has been the protocol: 24 hours a day, seven days a week, since the start of the second intifada in September 2000. The sole purpose was to intimidate the Palestinian population through what we called “creating a sense of persecution”. Because this is what you have to do, when you want to maintain control over millions of people with no rights, and with no endgame in sight. The only way to do it is to induce constant fear, and as soon as this fear becomes routine, ramp it up more, to no end.”

Imagine how Israelis might react to having their homes invaded and their families terrorised. Shaul tells us that this behaviour:

“. . . was carried out in the interest of bolstering occupation, not ending it. These are not the policies implemented by people who desire to live peacefully alongside millions of Palestinians in the West Bank, but rather by those seeking to control them forever.”

Terrorism – “the deliberate attack on innocent civilians.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the following about terrorism:

“Terrorism is defined neither by the identity of its perpetrators nor by the cause they espouse. Rather, it is defined by the nature of the act. Terrorism is the deliberate attack on innocent civilians.”

Israel strives daily to provoke Palestinian Resistance fighters into launching missiles into southern Israel. On 6 February 2017, Israeli air strikes, as well as shelling from Israeli tanks, hit Northern Gaza, following the launching of a missile by Palestinian Resistance. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the last rocket fired at Israel from Gaza was in mid-January this year. Actually, the last Palestinian ceasefire violation was on 24 January. This year alone (up to and including 15 February) there have been at least 182 Israeli Gaza ceasefire violations, while there have been just two by the Palestinian Resistance. In the same period, there have been at least 68 Israeli Navy attacks on Palestinian fishing vessels off the Gaza shore, including two hijackings.

On 20 January, the Israeli Army opened fire on protesters in a Gaza City neighbourhood. There have been six Israeli Army incursions onto Gaza farmland this year already, with Israeli forces opening fire and bulldozing crops. Israeli Army positions behind the Green Line have, this year, opened fire on Gaza farmers on at least 84 occasions. Israeli air strikes have also targeted Palestinian farmers there. Israeli Army attacks and ceasefire violations have left ten people in Gaza wounded, including a five-year-old child.

Operation Protective Edge, 2014

All this pales into insignificance compared with Israel’s periodic, no-holds-barred blitzes on the blockaded Gaza Strip. On 21 November 2012, a unilateral ceasefire declared by Israel came into effect. Later the same day, Palestinian Resistance groups announced that they would abide by that ceasefire. Since then, the record has shown that Israel does its best to incite Palestinian retaliation from the blockaded Gaza Strip. A study of events in May 2014, leading up to the execution of Operation Protective Edge, shows deliberate Israeli violence, clearly designed to provoke a Palestinian response. That same month, for nine days, no Palestinian missiles were fired. The carnage in the Gaza Strip began with serious escalations in June 2014 but it is essential to consider the record of violence that occurred before that when nine days of hope for ceasefire were squandered by Israel. The Israeli blitz killed over 2,200 Palestinians, including 722 so-called militants and over 500 children. Seventy Israelis (64 of whom were soldiers) also died. Thousands of Palestinians were wounded in Israeli air strikes and shelling, with over 18,000 homes destroyed. Large areas of Gaza became wasteland. Had Israel used the nine days of Palestinian ceasefire to reinforce the suspension of violence, none of this would have happened. But for Israel, one-sided news of Palestinian missile launches is an invaluable diversion from world attention to the Zionist state’s brutal Occupation of the West Bank and illegal settlement expansion. Israel’s Prime Minister has another revealing definition of terrorism: “Terrorism is the deliberate and systematic, murder, maiming and menacing of the innocent to inspire fear for political ends.”

Israeli Gaza air strike destroys poultry farm – photo and video.

Poultry farmer Khalid Al-Haya was distraught after an Israeli air strike on his farm on 6 February. A missile strike from an F-16 fighter jet, ruined 80% of his farm, killing hundreds of chickens and leaving a seven-metre-deep crater. Four families had earned their living from the farm and they are having to bear the cost of the air strike, estimated to be between US$60,000 and US$70,000. The entire agricultural area had also been subjected to shelling in over 15 separate attacks.

Awaiting the next Israeli Gaza blitz

While Gaza makes attempts at recovery, the terrorised population must live with the ever-present fear that the next Israeli blitz could come at any time. That may be even sooner than some people might expect, Israeli Construction and Housing Minister Yoav Galant says, “I believe we should be prepared by spring”. Education Minister Naftali Bennett reckons “the next round of war is approaching” and Avigdor Lieberman declares that, until the people of Gaza submit completely, “we’re not stopping”. An article by Gideon Levy on 12 February in Haaretz suggests that exhausted Gaza, far from being provoked, has already capitulated. He writes:

“. . . but none of the warmongers are listening. Gaza for them is an opportunity to advance their careers, to get the forces moving and to conceptualise a war against an enemy that is nothing but an army of hooligans, nothing but an assault on the powerless. Gaza would bring the warmongers back into the headlines, back into their glory, the return of the good old days of combat jackets. Otherwise, there would be no reason to embark on another attack on Gaza.

“The deterioration could be quick. Just another few declarations of war, another few disproportionate responses by the Israel Defence Forces for every cap gun or kite fired from Gaza and we’re there. Israel also pushed for the wars in Gaza in 2008 and 2014 more than Gaza did. Before you can say “cigars and champagne”, the IDF is in Gaza.

“And there is no one to yell “stop”, no one to say that those who don’t want war in Gaza should open it rather than destroy it a third, fourth and fifth time. But saying so requires courage, which is the quality most lacking among our masters of war . . .”

Checkpoints

As a form of population control and intimidation, Israel’s checkpoint system is particularly humiliating and inhumane. One thing is certain, checkpoints are nothing to do with ‘security’. A report in January this year described how Israeli soldiers actually sleep at checkpoints while Palestinians wait fruitlessly outside the turnstiles. The soldiers sleep securely – while the Palestinian people, denied every vestige of security, wait on – and on. How would Israelis react to being forced to wait at checkpoints while an invader’s population travelled without hindrance around them?

Torture

Haaretz recently published an article describing the methods Shin Bet interrogators use to torture prisoners, including children. As well as physical violence directed at the most sensitive parts of the body, victims are handcuffed and shackled and placed in excruciating positions. Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups welcome the report, saying that it confirms what they have been trying, for years, to bring to public attention. Besides sleep deprivation, other devices used by Israeli torturers include threats against other family members. The aim is to secure ‘confessions’ at any cost to the victims. Once they have caved in, the prisoners are required to sign incriminating documents written in Hebrew, which most of them don’t understand. In its annual report last year, Amnesty International also found that Israeli forces and Shin Bet personnel had “tortured and otherwise ill-treated” Palestinian detainees, including children. Defence for Children International-Palestine told Al Jazeera that the group’s research had shown that almost two-thirds of Palestinian children taken prisoner in the Occupied West Bank had suffered physical violence at the hands of the Israeli military.

An article by Ben White explains that:

“Torture and ill-treatment are so rife, human rights campaigners say, that convictions of Palestinians for “security offences” are fundamentally unreliable, not least because the abuse is part of a wider lack of due process. According to one study, as many as 91 per cent of Palestinian detainees interrogated by the Shin Bet in the Occupied West Bank are held incommunicado for either part or all of their interrogation. Stroumsa [Rachel Stroumsa, the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI)] says this practice is “an enabling element for torture”. In the military court system, which has a 99 per cent conviction rate, Palestinians can be held for 60 days without access to a lawyer – compared with the United States, where the average length of interrogations producing false confessions is 16 hours.”

Ben White’s Al Jazeera article draws attention to Amnesty International’s annual report last year, which also found that captive Palestinian children had been treated with the utmost violence. The article notes that “In November 2015, a video of the interrogation of 13-year-old Ahmad Manasra sparked outrage”, with Israel also appearing before the United Nations Committee Against Torture last May concerning “coerced evidence” being used in courts.

Imagine the anguish Israelis would feel if it were their children who were suffering abuse at the hands of an armed foreign military Occupation. The Zionist regime’s military understand very well how the young victims of their calculated violence and abuse may feel towards them. Provocation and incitement are necessary components of Israel’s programme of population control for military Occupation.

Denying the Palestinian right of return

“Above all, let me reiterate, the refugee problem was caused by attacks by Jewish forces on Arab villages and towns and by the inhabitants’ fear of such attacks, compounded by expulsions, atrocities, and rumours of atrocities – and by the crucial Israeli Cabinet decision in June 1948 to bar a refugee return”. – Israeli historian, Benny Morris.

[See Revisiting the Palestinian Exodus of 1948, pp. 37-59 in The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 by EL Rogan and A Schlaim (eds.), Cambridge University Press. 2001.]

Settlements for Jews – refugee camps for Palestinians

Palestinians, persecuted in ‘refugee’ camps that can offer no refuge, see little hope of relief. There is, in the Aida UN refugee camp, for example, what residents describe as an ‘almost permanent’ Israeli Army presence. The refugee camp is home to an estimated 5,500 Palestinians. Muhammad Abu Srour, a volunteer at the Aida Youth Centre, says the Israeli military uses tear gas “every day”, noting also the Army’s use of floodlights in the camp: “Lights reach inside people’s homes at night – it feels like it’s daytime You feel like they are sitting with you in your home. It’s not just fear, you feel uncomfortable, like someone is watching you.” The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports regularly on Israel’s human rights abuses carried out against refugees. An UNRWA spokesman, Chris Gunness, says that the agency was worried about the increase in the Israeli Army’s use of live ammunition in and around Palestinian refugee camps. Gunness reported that ammunition fired by Israeli troops had hit even an UNRWA school, as well as an office, “on numerous occasions.”

Resistance

The Palestinian people have the same rights as everyone else to self-determination and to resist belligerent military Occupation by every means. UN Resolution 1514 affirms that “the subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights and is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations”. Adopted in 1964, the Resolution is entitled Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. UN Resolution 2625 calls on the UN membership to support colonised people or people under Occupation in their struggle for freedom. UN Resolution 3246 spelled it out clearly in 1974, confirming “the legitimacy of the peoples’ struggle for liberation from colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle”.

In case anyone had forgotten this human right, UN Resolution 3743 again spelled out “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, particularly armed struggle” and “strongly condemned all governments” that did not recognise “the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people”. Zionist propaganda attempts to divert attention from this inalienable right by calling Palestinian outrage and resistance – ‘incitement’. The Israeli military Occupation of Palestine, with its brutal suppression of civil liberty, is state terrorism, the whole purpose of which is the realisation of an ideologically-inspired territorial ambition.

No hope for justice while Zionism rules

With the fiftieth anniversary of the Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza and the Syrian Golan heights looming this year, it is high time to take stock. These longest military Occupations in modern history are a terrible blood-soaked reminder of the failure of the international community to stand up in defence of international law and human rights. The author of the notorious Balfour Declaration of 1917, Arthur Balfour, declared, “The weak point of our position is of course that in the case of Palestine we deliberately and rightly decline to accept the principle of self-determination” and in a reply to Lord Curzon, shamelessly admitted that “in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country.” This unchanging mindset drives the unconditional support for Israel that powerful world leaders apparently hold dearer than the provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

Israeli Professor of History, Ilan Pappe, has observed:

“Jewish settlers and native Palestinians share a land and will do so also in the future. The best way to fight anti-Semitism today is to turn this land into a free democratic state that is based as much as possible on just and equitable economic, social and political principles.”

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