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LABOUR DAY SPECIAL: Why celebrate Labour Day?

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unions

Labour Day in New Zealand is meant to celebrate the fight for an 8-hour working day.

That struggle has roots going back to when the first ships arrived in New Zealand with people wanting to begin a new life in the colony.

By that time the industrial revolution was in full swing and the horrors of unregulated working days was being reflected in stunted growth and early death. Child labour was common and the working day was usually 10-16 hours a day for a six-day working week.

Early socialist thinkers like Robert Owen in the UK had popularised the idea of 8-hours work, 8-hours rest and 8-hours play as a basic right in the early 1800s. Karl Marx saw it as of vital importance to the workers’ health, saying in Capital: “By extending the working day, therefore, capitalist production…not only produces a deterioration of human labour power by robbing it of its normal moral and physical conditions of development and activity, but also produces the premature exhaustion and death of this labour power itself.”

One early emigrant on the Ship Duke of Roxburgh in 1839 was a carpenter and joiner by the name of Samuel Duncan Parnell. He had previously worked in a large London joinery establishment with co-workers he described as “a lot of the most red-hot radicals”. At the time in London, 12 or 14-hour days were standard. Reducing working hours was an issue and Parnell refused to join a union established at the time because it wouldn’t make the issue a priority.

The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand Te Ara explains what happened next on Parnell’s voyage to New Zealand:

Among Parnell’s fellow passengers was a shipping agent, George Hunter, who, soon after their arrival, asked Parnell to erect a store for him. ‘I will do my best,’ replied Parnell, ‘but I must make this condition, Mr. Hunter, that on the job the hours shall only be eight for the day.’ Hunter demurred, this was preposterous; but Parnell insisted. ‘There are,’ he argued, ‘twenty-four hours per day given us; eight of these should be for work, eight for sleep, and the remaining eight for recreation and in which for men to do what little things they want for themselves. I am ready to start to-morrow morning at eight o’clock, but it must be on these terms or none at all.’ ‘You know Mr. Parnell,’ Hunter persisted, ‘that in London the bell rang at six o’clock, and if a man was not there ready to turn to he lost a quarter of a day.’ ‘We’re not in London’, replied Parnell. He turned to go but the agent called him back. There were very few tradesmen in the young settlement and Hunter was forced to agree to Parnell’s terms. And so, Parnell wrote later, ‘the first strike for eight hours a-day the world has ever seen, was settled on the spot.’

Other employers tried to impose the traditional long hours, but Parnell met incoming ships, talked to the workmen and enlisted their support. A workers’ meeting in October 1840, held outside German Brown’s (later Barrett’s) Hotel on Lambton Quay, is said to have resolved, on the motion of William Taylor, seconded by Edwin Ticehurst, to work eight hours a day, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., anyone offending to be ducked into the harbour. The eight hour working day thus became established in the Wellington settlement. ‘I arrived here in June, 1841,’ a settler told the Evening Post in 1885, ‘found employment on my landing, and also to my surprise was informed that eight hours was a day’s work, and it has been ever since.’ The last resistance was broken, according to Parnell, when labourers who were building the road along the harbour to the Hutt Valley in 1841 downed tools because they were ordered to work longer hours. They did not resume work until the eight hour day was conceded.

However, there were no unions or laws that could enforce the practice for most workers. Whilst it remained a condition in most trades where labour shortages often prevailed and the building industry it wasn’t able to be extended to other workers in the new colony.

Within a few decades however unions began to be formed and agitation grew immediately for the establishment of a legal workday of eight hours. They became part of an international movement to limit the working day.

Women and children got a ten-hour day in England in 1847. French workers won a 12-hour day following a revolution in February 1848.

The International Workingmen’s Association took up the demand for an eight-hour day at its convention in Geneva in August 1866, declaring “The legal limitation of the working day is a preliminary condition without which all further attempts at improvements and emancipation of the working class must prove abortive, and The Congress proposes eight hours as the legal limit of the working day.”

Te Ara picks up the story:

Agitation for the eight-hour day spread throughout the industrialised world in the 1880s. On 3 May 1886 a workers’ eight-hour strike meeting in Chicago was fired on by police. The following day, at an indignation protest in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, a bomb was thrown, killing and wounding a number of policemen. Although the bomb thrower was never identified, eight anarchist labour activists were arrested, charged and convicted of conspiracy to murder. Four were executed, while one committed suicide in jail.

At an 1889 international labour congress in Paris, 1 May was adopted as a date to both demonstrate for an eight-hour working day and to commemorate the ‘Haymarket martyrs’. Since 1890 the celebration of May Day as the workers’ day has been adopted in a large number of countries. In New Zealand, however, Labour Day is held on the fourth Monday in October.

New Zealand’s October Labour Day also has its origins in the 1880s eight-hour movement. In 1890 the Maritime Council, consisting of the powerful transport and mining unions, called for a ‘labour demonstration day’. The day was to celebrate workers’ trades and to promote the eight-hour day. The date chosen, 28 October 1890, was the first anniversary of the Maritime Council’s foundation. The council itself did not survive the year, being destroyed in the collapse of the 1890 maritime strike. Despite this set-back, the Labour Day demonstrations were a huge success in many parts of the country. Large processions were held in Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington, with the 80-year-old Samuel Parnell leading the Wellington parade.

In the 1890s Labour Day was not an official holiday, although government offices were closed on the day. Richard Seddon’s Liberal government passed a law in 1899 declaring the second Wednesday in October as the Labour Day public holiday. In 1910 this was ‘Mondayised’, with the Labour Day holiday falling on the fourth Monday in October. While a Labour Day holiday had been gained, the union struggle to extend the eight-hour day to all workers continued.

Today, these early struggles are more relevant than ever. In New Zealand there is no legal minimum anymore. “Flexibility” became the watchword for employers in the 1980s and many of the measures that protected workers from being forced to work excessive hours were removed.

The Minimum Wage Act references a 40-hour 5-day week but we no longer have time and a half penal rates for work in excess of 8 hours in law like they still do in the US. Many industries like security operate on a 12-hour day, 6-day week much like we had in the 19th century.

Other workers subsist on zero-hour contracts and remain working far fewer hours than they want and need. Over-work for some and under-work for others remains a feature of capitalist freedom.

The labour movement should take Labour Day back as a day for fighting to regain legal regulation of the work day. Penal rates should be restored for overtime and weekend work in law. Zero-hour contracts should be outlawed. Everyone deserves regular secure rosters and shifts. No employer should be hiring new staff without offering hours available to existing staff. Full-time work should be the preferred option.

A fighting labour movement mobilising workers in their tens of thousands for fundamental changes to the existing order is where Labour Day and May Day came from. If we can regain the fighting spirit we may be able to reclaim the day as well. We would then have something to truly celebrate.

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The Daily Blog Open Mic Friday 23rd October 2015

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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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Tony Veitch fractured his partner’s spine in four places but still thinks he is the “victim”

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*Trigger warning: this post includes discussions around rape and violence against women*

Sports broadcaster Tony Veitch has been the target of “online abuse” and he wants you to feel really sorry for him. After he made a joke during an All Blacks Vs France rugby game about not knowing the difference between a “punch” and a “fist in the face”, he was subject to an online backlash over his ironic comments. A few days ago he updated his public Facebook page with this post in response to the backlash:

tony viech sooo hurtzzzz

Tony paints himself as some kind of unsung hero who has rebuilt his life after surviving what he called a “hideous relationship.” You can lie by omission. What Tony fails to point out in his post is this: In 2005 he beat his then partner Kristin Dunne-Powell so badly that he broke her spine in four places. This was the “hideous relationship” he was referring to. In 2009 he went up against six charges of assault, of which all but one were dropped. He admitted in the court of law to “one charge of injuring his partner with reckless disregard” as Stuff media reported; these were the injuries that resulted in Kristin’s numerous spinal fractures.

I’d like you to take a moment to think about the kind of force which is needed to snap and fracture bone. Marc Otten, a neurosurgeon at Columbia University, said in relation to the force needed to break a  spine, “If you’re talking about somebody with a normal spine, then you’d need tremendous willpower.”  Take some time to think about how hard Tony would have had to kick Kristen repeatedly, in the back, for her spine to give way and splinter.

After beating Kristen he went to bed, leaving her to drag herself around, unable to walk or even reach the phone. When she pleaded with him to call her an ambulance he even refused her this basic help. Before this incident there had already been years of documented sustained abusewhich included Tony violently kicking and punching Kristin. Yet, Tony wants the public to feel sorry for him? He wants to convince you that somehow he is the victim. I responded to his post with these words:

post in response

Tony also negates to tell you he paid almost nothing for his horrific crimes against his partner. He did attempt to buy Kristin’s silence with 100,000 bucks worth of “hush money” and he was ordered by the courts to pay a measly 10,000 fine and got 300 hours of community service. He lost his Friday morning Radio Sport breakfast show after he was convicted but he later regained what he calls his “dream job” and he has continued commentating on sports with a weekly radio spot.

In 2011 Tony even had PM John Key on his show where they talked about which famous women John would have on his “wish list.” Because shooting the breeze’ with a known violent offender who has shown no remorse and done no restorative justice work, about which famous women he has a “crush” on is totally how a prime minister should behave? John Key, one of the most powerful men in Aotearoa, implicitly publicly sanctioned Tony’s abuse against Kristen by appearing on his radio show. But John’s dismal behaviour should surprise no one as he is well known for “minimising” and pardoning gendered violence.

When the heinous acts of the rapist gang known as the “Roast Busters” made international headlines, John said in response to this group of young men who had been violently gang raping young girls then boasting about it on Youtube, “boys will be boys.” Newflash: behaviour like Tony’s and the “Roast Busters” are culturally taught and therefore need to be challenged, unlearned, and the behaviour patterns disrupted. Violent misogynistic behaviour is not just something young boys will eventually grow out of. We raise boys to adhere to rigid, toxic stereotypes of manhood; collectively and culturally we tell boys the way to become men is to sever some of the most powerful and life saving emotions we have as human beings: compassion and empathy.

Young men are taught that to be vulnerable is to be weak: all these things are directly associated with the feminine. The word “girl” is often used to humiliate and put down boys and men who act in ways perceived as “weak” or “emotional.” Eve Ensler, noted playwright of The Vagina Monologues and founder of One Billion Rising, said in her moving TedX talk,

“I think the whole world has essentially been brought up not to be a girl. How do we bring up boys? What does it mean to be a boy? To be a boy really means not to be a girl. To be a man means not to be a girl. To be a woman means not to be a girl. To be strong means not to be a girl. To be a leader means not to be a girl. I actually think that being a girl is so powerful that we’ve had to train everyone not to be that.”

Toxic stereotypes of masculinity which tell boys and men they need to always be “tough,” that the only emotion they are allowed to feel  is “anger” with maybe the exception of jealousy, all intersect with violence against women. These entrenched ideologies can’t just be palmed off and minimised as some passing adolescent phase or a one off thing. Men like Tony and the Roast Busters are not some aberration, they are a product of a culture that glorifies male power and dominance, while at the very same time glorifying and sexualing the subservience and submission of women. Aotearoa has the higest rates of intimate partner violence in the developed world; this is not just an epedemic it is deeply cultural.

The Roast Busters, like Tony, got away with their crimes; they were given no long term punishments and no jail time. What kind of message do you think this sends society? Other than the very large, clear sign that as a man you can beat, rape, and even kill women and get away with it. My own father sexually abused me as a child, and just like Tony, and exactly the same as the Roast Busters, he served no time for his crimes either. He was ordered to pay a couple of thousand bucks in compensation for what he did. Money, regardless of the amount, could never ever ease the lasting pain he has caused. My Farther, quite like Tony, has gone on in life, in his case to have another family, continuing to live in relative peace and happiness.

So often men who commit unspeakably violent acts against women’s bodies go unpunished, thanks in part to a biased and sexist “justice” system dominated and controlled by white men. These men serve power; their perspectives and their efforts help the powerful, and not the relatively powerless. The lives of women are meaningless in the court of law.

Tony whinged publicly about the “online harassment” he was experiencing via his Facebookupdate because of his ill informed comments, but I doubt it compares to the “online harassment” that was directed at me and anyone else who called bullshit on Tony’s post that described himself as the victim. If you need any more evidence that sexist and abusive attitudes like Tony’s and the Roast Busters aren’t just some aberration but are in fact widespread, here it is. This is just one of the personal messages I received from a man in response to the post I made on Tony’s update:

still going

And of course men lifted photos from my Facebook page and made personal attacks on my appearancepersonal attacks on appaearance

The day after Tony’s “I am the victim” post, Women’s Refuge tweeted this:

directed at me

This is why I need feminism: because every one of those comments was actually directed at me. AsWomen’s Refuge pointed out what they tweeted was only “a few” of the abusive comments being thrown at me in response to my previously mentioned post. Any other women also who stood up to Tony were also called “crazy” or “loony” time and time again; the word “feminist” was endlessly used as an insult, as if fighting for gender equality is some kind of evil that must be outed:
crazy 3

Tony Veitch did not moderate any of these abusive and often misogynistic comments; he stayed silent and allowed them to remain on his Facebook page until he finally took his post down 24 hours later. Please tell me again how he is a changed man and deserves redemption?  I guess Tony only cares about “harassment” and online abuse when it is happening to him. Notably Netsafe has come out in defense of Tony. Stuff reported yesterday that Netsafe Director, Martin Cocker, had said in support of Tony “[People] just become abusive and angry and try to create a public shaming type event out of it, at which point this crosses over from a positive thing to a negative.” Martin has suggested some people had “stepped over the mark” and some of the reactions were born from a “mob mentality.” Martin was not talking about the violent comments directed at any women who took a stand against Tony, he was talking about the “online harassment” Tony allegedhe was facing.

Where is Netsafe’s defence of Kristin? In Tony’s original post he slagged her off: remember that “hideous relationship” comment? Where is Netsafe’s defense of me and the other women who endured the very public online “mob like” attacks from Tony’s supporters? Spoken word poet and writer Hadassah Grace penned a necessary and powerful political essay entitled, “Who the hell is Tony Veitch” which she posted the day after Tony made his post. In it she takes a stand against violence against women and speaks about the serious trauma Kristin continues to endure because of Tony. For her efforts Hadassah received these online threats:

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And yes, it gets worse and even more violently abusive:

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You want to talk about “online abuse and harassment”?! Try highlighting the threats of violence and rape women who dare have a dissenting opinion in public space have to deal with on the daily. Honestly, fuck Tony Veitch. He has no idea.

In Aotearoa we don’t just give rich white men like Tony a “get out of free jail card” when they beat women over sustained periods of time and break their bones, we celebrate them. We pat them on the back, hand them a beer, watch a bit of rugby with them and say: “Oh well, you only kind of fractured Kristin’s spine and it was a one off, so don’t sweat it bro!”  No wonder Tony thinks he is the “victim” and has done nothing wrong; our society, including John Key and now also the executive director of Netsafe, have collectively reinforced this message. While Tony was busily “rebuilding” his career Kristin’s injuries eventually prevented her from returning to her own job. In Kristin’s 2009 victim impact statement she said,

“Since July 2008, my family and I have been harassed and hunted by some journalists… It feels like there is no end to the spreading of malicious lies, rumors and falsehoods… this has made it difficult for me to regain employment.”

If anyone knows what it feels like to be “harassed” and about the work it takes to “rebuild” your life after massive trauma, it is Kristin. Hadassah Grace writes,

[Kristen] has had to have years of physical therapy and counseling for PTSD. Muscles in her back have permanently atrophied, causing disfigurement. She has ongoing triggers and panic attacks. She has been hospitalized for nervous breakdowns as a result of PTSD.

On the other hand Tony who put his partner in a wheel chair, will not face any life-long consequences for his appalling behaviour, on the contrary; he gets a secure job which puts him in the top earning bracket in Aotearoa – that 10,000 dollar fine he paid is mere pocket change to him.  He has hundreds of thousands of supporters and dudebro cheerleaders who are prepared to defend him via social media till their last, abusive breath. After his “poor me” post Tony gained at least another 2,000 “likes” on his Facebook page. Despite what Tony apparently believes, compared to Kristin and the one billion women and girls who are survivors of rape and violence on this earth, he has not had to “rebuild” shit.

You can read Hadassah Grace’s full “Who the hell is Tony Veich” piece in full here.

 

 

If you liked my words you can follow me on twitter, this is also a cross-post from Chloe King’s own blog site Posse. which you can check out here.

 

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GUEST BLOG: Comrade Dave Brownz – Economic Crash Ahead

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Will the coming meltdown of China mean the end of global capitalism? Let’s have a brief look at this question. The links at the end point to further reading for those with an interest in the subject.

It’s pretty common knowledge that the so-called Global Financial Crisis (GFC) was not some isolated crisis but a symptom of something fundamentally wrong with the global capitalist economy. In fact, if it were not for China’s rapid growth the GFC would have turned into a long recession.  Now China is finally slowing down but who can say by how much?  It is still a long way from a meltdown but it opens the door to a slump or a crash in the near future. The big question today is whether or not the global economy can recover from another big crash.

Economists on the Marxist Left, Neo-Classical Right and Keynesian Centre can all see a slump ahead but they disagree on the causes and the solutions. The Neo-classicals blame state interference preventing the market self-correcting by means of depression. “Socialism for the Rich” (QE, or printing money) after the GFC only postponed the inevitable deflation and depression ahead. Keynesians complain that the QE trillions went to Wall St instead of Main Street whereas policies like Sanders and Corbyn’s plans for “peoples’ QE” would avert another depression. Marxists argue that QE cannot stop a depression but for different reasons than the Neo-classicals. The Neo-classicals want to unleash a depression to smack working class wages down to slave levels, and eliminate the ‘social wage’ while Marxists argue that workers should refuse to pay for the capitalist crisis, rise up and overthrow the rotten system that only survives at the expense of the lives of working people.

To put this debate in perspective we need to take a deeper look at the history of capitalism. Crises are not new. Capitalism has a history of regular crises punctuating long upturns and downturns. They are akin to the economy breathing in and out.  As the economy expands it reaches a point where it cannot grow without depressions that cut costs and increase productivity. Each depression cleared the road for a new expansion. Thus the crises of the 19th century fuelled a process of national capitalism which drove industrial revolution ahead. But by the turn of the 20th century national markets became fetters on growth and the more advanced economies began to colonise the backward countries to extract their wealth. By exporting capital to the colonies the ‘imperialist’ countries took advantage of cheap labour and raw materials. Crises were now less like regular breathing and more like the gasps of a dying animal. The downturns were driven by monopolies backed by powerful nation states to wage trade wars and World Wars to defeat and plunder their rivals and fuel an upturn.

Capitalism in the 20th century as a global system was no longer progressive. Instead of developing the economy by increasing labour productivity it was destroying wealth in depressions and wars. The capitalists were no longer entrepreneurs but parasites living off monopoly profits that were squandered on wars and speculation. The world economy virtually stagnated between 1914 and 1945. Far from Keynesian economics stimulating a post-war boom, the boom was possible only as the result of such massive destruction of the wealth by depressions and wars.  Despite the price paid for the post-war boom it didn’t last long and crisis set in again in the 1960s.

While capitalism staggered from crises to wars in the 20th century the Soviet Union and then China demonstrated that there was an another way of organising society where economic development did not need to destroy wealth. They proved that by getting rid of the capitalists and planning the economy they could grow much more rapidly than capitalism. The superiority of planning over the market forced world capital to impose economic quarantines and a Cold War that ultimately forced Russia and China to return to the global capitalist market.

Here the story gets more interesting. The return of Russia and China to the capitalist world economy did not rescue it by opening up Eurasia to Western plunder. It proved that even the dreaded ‘communist’ regimes could retain their economic independence and resist Western domination. The ‘communist’ elite could convert itself into a new capitalist class and manage the switch to the market without becoming re-colonised by foreign powers. The result is that since 2000 both Russia and China have become rising imperialist powers that are now the main rivals to the US imperialist bloc.

The joke on the Neo-classicals is that the former ‘communist’ states have proven they are able to switch to state monopoly capitalism and apply a centralised Keynesian economics to moderate the anarchic effects of the global market. This is not good enough for the ideologues who preach ‘more-market’. They demand an end to corruption, regulation of markets, currency manipulation, off-book debts, fake statistics, cyber war, one-party dictatorship, etc., knowing that this would subordinate Chinese state monopoly capitalism to US state monopoly capitalism.

Meanwhile the Keynesians are seething with envy because this state monopoly regime is what they want in the US and EU to end financial speculation and invest capital into the real economy. As Michael Roberts argues, the end of the post-war boom has already taught us that a Corbyn-type ‘peoples QE’ or more correctly the ‘multiplier’, will not make capitalists switch from parasitic speculation to invest in production unless they are sure of making a profit.  More money chasing fewer goods leads to “stagflation”. If more proof is wanted, Japan has stagnated for most of the post war period as a result of such policies.

What is this ‘root cause’ behind the China slowdown? How best to explain this? For Michael Roberts neither the Neo-Classical or Keynesian approach can explain the rise and fall of China. “The Marxist model of rising productivity through investment and innovation to replace labour and the accompanying contradiction with the dominant law of value in the world economy provides the best explanation of where China has come from and where it is going.” (Roberts, China: A Weird Beast).

On the Marxist model, China’s real GDP depends on production of value by its working class. But this is subject to exploiting labour sufficiently to make a profit. When workers resist, profits fall, production slows down or stagnates, and excess money that leaves production enters speculation in existing commodities causing price inflation and money devaluation. So while crises begin with falling profits they usually blow up when asset bubbles burst.

Rather than printing money that leads to stagflation, the capitalist solution to the crisis must be depression –the devaluing of existing capital, machines, raw materials and wages, to the point where investment in production is profitable again. But depression comes up against the resistance of the workers that produce the raw materials in China’s trading partners including NZ, as well as Chinese workers producing finished products.  The more-market solution is a declaration of open class war inside China and in all its trading partners. The Marxist response is to say “bring it on” to workers in all these countries. The workers united will never be defeated!

Meanwhile, the growing antagonism between Russia/China bloc and the US bloc sparked by trade and finance sanctions on Russia has escalated the rivalry between the blocs and ramped up economic and military confrontations. Russia may spark the crash by defaulting on its debt to its Western creditors before a China meltdown can happen. The proxy wars in Ukraine and Syria may blow up into regional wars. Whatever the timing of such events, there is nothing that can prevent the China slowdown becoming a meltdown sooner or later. Whenever it happens a new global crash will pose the question: is this the last crash before human extinction?

https://livingmarxism.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/why-are-russia-and-china-imperialist-powers-and-not-capitalist-semi-colonies/

http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2015/09/is-china-meltdown-end-of-capitalism_16.html

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2015/10/18/debt-demand-and-depression/

https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2015/09/17/china-a-weird-beast/

 

Comrade Dave Brownz is a NZ socialist blogger asking hard questions of global capitalism. 

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Unite Union welcomes Coroners findings in Charanpreet Dhawliwal death

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Unite Union welcomes Coroners findings in Charanpreet Dhawliwal death.

 

Unite Union welcomes the recommendations made by Coroner Ryan that an Approved Codes of Practice needs to developed to improve worker safety in the security industry. The implementation of a universal standard will make a meaningful improvement to worker safety. 

 

Tom Buckley, Unite Union Assistant Secretary, says “It is incredibly sad that it took the death of a young worker to see serious consideration to improve standards in the industry.”

 

Unite Union represents over 200 security guards and Tom Buckley says “Mr Dhawliwal’s employer, CNE Security Ltd’s, behaviour is a recurring problem in the industry. There is a race to bottom of safety and employments standards led by the competition to provide the cheapest service. This comes at a high cost for workers who are ultimately paying the price.”

 

“The recommendations made by Coroner Ryan will be welcomed by workers in the industry. We often receive complaints from workers who are concerned that they are working in isolated areas or dangerous situations areas without proper training or adequate equipment.”

 

“It is not acceptable that worker safety can have a price-tag – safety needs to be a non-negotiable”

 

Unite Union is prepared to work with Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Worksafe NZ and industry stakeholders to develop and implement the recommendation made  

 

The recommendations made by the Coroner, if adopted, will stop security companies compromising worker safety to win business. 

 

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TheDailyBlog.nz Top 5 News Headlines Thursday 22nd October 2015

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5: Netanyahu Criticized for Claim Palestinian Mufti Inspired Holocaust

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing criticism for saying the Palestinian grand mufti of Jerusalem was the one who inspired Adolf Hitler to exterminate European Jews. Netanyahu described a supposed meeting between the mufti and Hitler in November 1941, when Hitler “didn’t want to exterminate the Jews … he wanted to expel the Jew,” but the mufti encouraged Hitler to “burn them” instead. The claim that the mufti inspired the Nazi genocide of European Jews is a fringe theory rejected by most historians. The Nazis’ “Final Solution” was already underway when the meeting took place.

Democracy Now!

4: 

Environment report depressing – Opposition

The first such report in eight years showed mixed results on the five environmental areas it looked at: air, atmosphere and climate, fresh water, land and marine.

Air quality has improved since 2006 and overfishing, seabed trawling and bycatch of protected species has reduced.

But there has been a decline in water quality and a 42 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions between 1990 and 2013.

It also found damage to land from more intensive dairy farming was a significant problem.

Radio NZ

3: 

Hungarian journalist sacked for kicking refugees plans to sue one of them

A camera operator for a Hungarian nationalist television channel who was filmed kicking and tripping refugees has said she plans to sue one of them and Facebook.

Petra László apologised last month, saying “something snapped in me” when she kicked two refugee children and tripped up a man carrying a child at the border area of Röszke.

However, in an interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestia, she has said she plans to take legal action against Facebook for allegedly refusing to remove threatening groups on the site and deleting groups that supported her.

The Guardian 

2: 

THE ASSASSINATION COMPLEX

From his first days as commander in chief, the drone has been President Barack Obama’s weapon of choice, used by the military and the CIA to hunt down and kill the people his administration has deemed — through secretive processes, without indictment or trial — worthy of execution. There has been intense focus on the technology of remote killing, but that often serves as a surrogate for what should be a broader examination of the state’s power over life and death.

The Intercept 

1: 

CIA Director John Brennan emails

Today, 21 October 2015 and over the coming days WikiLeaks is releasing documents from one of CIA chief John Brennan’s non-government email accounts. Brennan used the account occasionally for several intelligence related projects.

John Brennan became the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in March 2013, replacing General David Petraeus who was forced to step down after becoming embroiled in a classified information mishandling scandal. Brennan was made Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism on the commencement of the Obama presidency in 2009–a position he held until taking up his role as CIA chief.

According to the CIA Brennan previously worked for the agency for a 25 year stretch, from 1980 to 2005.

Brennan went private in 2005-2008, founding an intelligence and analysis firm The Analysis Corp (TAC). In 2008 Brennan became a donor to Obama. The same year TAC, led by Brennan, became a security advisor to the Obama campaign and later that year to the Obama-Biden Transition Project. It is during this period many of the Obama administration’s key strategic policies to China, Iran and “Af-Pak” were formulated. When Obama and Biden entered into power, Brennan was lifted up on high, resulting in his subsequent high-level national security appointments.

If you have similar official documents that have not been published yet, send them to WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks

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Why Winston Peters is the Kiwi Bernie Sanders

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Not so long ago, national headlines were made by Attorney General Chris Finlayson’s ribald and offhand comment that Winston Peters was the New Zealand iteration of one Donald J. Trump – the man presently leading the Republican field in the U.S. Presidential Primaries.

I had to hand it to one of my Party comrades who came up with the rip-snorting riposte: “So what, you think he’s going to demolish everyone else in the next election, then?” … but my own ardently leftist instincts for once decided to eschew witty repartee in favour of making a somewhat bold pronouncement in return.

Winston Peters is the Kiwi Bernie Sanders.

Consider the similarities: they’re both physically aging figures who yet manage to move with the levity and rhetorical grace of youth. They run things around Establishment and big-money opponents who’re often men and women closer to being half their age. They represent the fight-back and strike-back of a democratic and state-lead economic politics of the sort commonly practiced throughout the Western World for much of the latter half of the 20th Century (before we ditched it all and traded in our functioning social state for the hill of magic beans wrapped up in a Pandora’s Package promised by Neoliberalist reform).

They stands for the ordinary, common man – his hopes, his dreams, his aspirations. They resolutely oppose what Sanders terms “Wall St Bankers”, and what Winston derisively refers to as “Financial Derivatives Trading Wide-Boys” – in Winston’s case, the one in particular who’s presently propping up New Zealand’s government almost single-handed … one Hauraki interview at a time.

They’re also wildly – perhaps surprisingly – charismatic, and capable of energizing audiences young and old to stand up, be counted, and vocally denounce the old economic order which holds us all down.

Perhaps due to this, into the bargain, they’re often eschewed, ignored, and ridiculed by more Establishment-oriented media and broadcast figures.

But there are some differences, too.

Despite Winston’s enduring popularity (some would say arguable political “sainthood”), he presently commands less than ten percent of the popular vote – impressive, but hardly the stuff of single-handedly remaking our political discourse. And regardless of Sanders’ sudden surge in appeal, it seems still *FAR* too early to tell whether he’ll be able to have anything like as much impact upon his own nation’s upcoming shape of government as Winston seems almost certainly assured to be able to exert here in New Zealand.

Further, whereas Winston is shamelessly rather “old-school” in some of his attitudes (albeit often for liberally-defensible reasons … which is often what I find myself seeking to explain), Sanders is a dyed-in-the-wool uber-liberal: a man whose Civil Rights record spans more than half a century, encompassing a time when Winston was serving a government which famously advocated for the necessary separation of politics and sport.

This last point is often where people start quibbling with my Peters-Sanders analogy. They draw attention to the allegedly yawning gulf between Sanders’ liberal embodiment, and Winston’s “‘mere’ appeal” to liberals.

And to be fair, it’s a counter-point I have some time for. I still recall being the only man in a bar not yelling abuse at the screen when Winston spoke against passing Equality of Marriage without a Referendum back in 2013 (although it helped that he was quoting me in his speech; and that having first articulated the Party’s position on the issue way back in 2012 with a Policy Remit to that year’s Convention, it was effectively *my* position that he was representing – I’ll explain all of that in a future post some other time). I somehow can’t imagine Sanders doing that – his commitment is to economic democracy without necessarily *all* the trappings of democratizing social policy as well.

But then I read a most interesting article on Wednesday morning about how Sanders’ was starting to broaden his appeal out to encompass conservative (and, indeed, Conservative) segments of the electorate as well as and in addition to his more natural and traditional liberal constituency.

Alternet quotes Sanders: “Sanders has been extraordinarily clear about the kind of shift he’d like to effect: Republicans “divide people on gay marriage. They divide people on abortion. They divide people on immigration. And what my job is, and it’s not just in blue states. . . [is] to bring working people together around an economic agenda that works. People are sick and tired of establishment politics; they are sick and tired of a politics in which candidates continue to represent the rich and the powerful.”

That’s powerful stuff.

And it’s also (with the obvious exception of the immigration bit) what New Zealand First rhetoric under Winston is all about: uniting people, rather than segmenting them, behind a rational, somewhat radical anti-neoliberalist and NATIONALIST economic agenda.

It’s why we *have* Referendum positions on issues like equality of marriage or the legalization of marijuana in the first place. Because while we recognize the merits of doing either, a lot of New Zealanders don’t necessarily agree (rightly or wrongly) – thus creating space for (distracting) debate … whether we like it or not.

Meanwhile, parties like National get to use spurious logic and diversionary tactics to advance fallacious causes like the Flag-referendum in order to take our eyes off the prize and our attention away from serious issues like the signing of the TPPA and the ongoing deterioration of our economy. It’s hard to demand meaningful change as a polis unless we’re united, rather than disparate and tearing ourselves apart over other issues.

So this, I think, is the great shining strength of New Zealand First – that we’re able to bring people together from a whole raft and diversity of differing backgrounds, social positions and even political standpoints to fight for the *same overarching economic vision*. Where Labour seems to be set to continue imploding and The Greens appear to be pre-occupied slowly inching into upper middle class and businessman segments of the electorate … New Zealand First alone has a genuine movement that’s capable of reaching Kiwis from minimum wage urban factory and shop workers out to neglected farmers and other struggling out in the Regions, and quite literally from Cape Reinga in Northland, to Invercargill in the depths of the South.

And that’s something special – not least because it gains for the Opposition the ability to actually hew into National’s support and win over people – voters – from across the Aisle. We don’t get to change the Government if we’re merely trading votes amongst ourselves, here in the nominal Left and Center … and that’s exactly what the Alternet article talked about the Sanders Campaign starting to do with marked success.

So too, with another important idea the piece talks about: that of waking up and energizing voters to the idea that “their economic distress was something for which voting could make a difference.

Whether it’s because we’ve been denied economic good governance for so long (it’s been nearly a decade since the Great Financial Crisis began – and more than thirty years since the onset of Neoliberalism here in ’84) – or just because Key’s political managers and spin-doctors are doing such a good job at presenting both the government and the economic decline it presides over as “inevitable” … I genuinely believe that a fundamental reason why large numbers of Kiwis utterly fail to turn up at the Polls year after year and election after election, is simply because they’ve stopped believing not just that their vote counts – but, more insidiously, that their vote is actually able to meaningfully *do* anything regardless of which Party it goes to, to create and effect change.

The explanation in answer to the question of why the “Missing Million” is yet to materialize in polling booths, in other words, is that they can’t meaningfully connect many of the policies of other parties being promoted to an improvement in their own circumstance … or they simply don’t trust those whom they’re being enticed to vote for to actually deliver meaningful change.

Where Winston and Sanders are different, however, is they appear to have a unique ability to connect voters with their vision – to bring complex economic truths down to simple, easy-to-understand kernels that make real improvements in our lives and our Nation seem to be a genuinely graspable reality rather than a chartable abstraction.

That’s powerful. That’s important.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is – beyond the obvious surface-level exterior similarities in political persona and packaging … beyond even the core, fundamental coterminities between their policies and politics … the core overarching symmetry between Winston and Bernie (apart from the fact they’re both first-name brands) is their ability to connect with people (even from outside their ‘natural/home/core constituencies’), to energize people, and to make the real change we so desperately need seem possible.

That’s why, as something like half my friendslist start frantically online banner-waving for Bernie all across social media and the internet (perhaps as part of some sort of cargo-cult mentality of desperation that doing so will help bring about a similar ‘moment of hope’ here) … I’ll keep pushing my Winston-Bernie comparison to any who’ll hear.

Because, as Winston says (and Bernie would no doubt like to): “Help is on its way!”

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The farce of ACT + Greens offering NZ citizens debt to get out of Australian detention camps

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ACT and the Greens want to offer NZ citizens publicly funded Legal Aid to get out of Australian detention camps.

That’s not really much of an offer unless the Legal Aid is actually free. What most NZers don’t know is that Legal Aid is now treated as a loan and if you don’t pay the loan back the penalty rate is a staggering 8%!

The perverse impact of changing the law in 2013 means the working poor can either choose pleading guilty or pleading innocent with the possibility of debt slavery hanging over them so the incentive is to simply plead guilty rather than rack up massive debt.

How is that a justice system? The working poor have to enslave themselves in debt to just have an attempt at justice.  To qualify for Legal Aid to be free would require that you earn less than the minimum wage.

Most NZers have no idea this is the case or that the law has been changed because like the NZ citizens in detention camps, NZers have been conditioned not to care or think about those charged with crimes. So if we are going to support these NZ citizens being detained in Australian detention camps with free legal aid, let’s re-look at the incentives the Government have built into Legal Aid for every other NZer.

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GUEST BLOG: Judith Tizard – Cover-Up or Contempt over AECT?

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The present AECT trustees need to front up to Aucklanders now.  Their plan to hold their AGM 22 hours before the present postal election closes is either a cover-up or it shows contempt for Aucklanders.

The Auckland Energy Consumer Trust (AECT) has advertised their Annual General Meeting, to account for their stewardship of public assets, at 7pm on Thursday 29 October 2015.  The postal election for the Trust closes at 5pm on Friday 30 October; 22 hours later.

They need to explain why they plan to hold their AGM so late that no one will be able to question them over their handling of $2.1 billion of public property. Are they covering up a catastrophe or is it just a deeply cynical move to stop anyone asking questions before the election?

C&R candidates; 4 of who are existing Trustees, have been told yesterday by the Returning Officers to take down their hoardings. They appear to be trying to bribe voters with our own money which would be “a Corrupt or Illegal Practice ” if this election was being held under the Electoral Act 1993,

It is hard enough for people to vote in this postal election as local and suburban post boxes have been removed all over Auckland but no one will be able to respond to whatever news the AECT appears not to want us to know, because the poll closes 22 hours after their AGM begins.

I think that this is either an attempt to cover-up bad news or it shows complete contempt for democracy and they refuse to front-up to the people of Auckland, Manukau and the northern part of Papakura, who are the real owners of this community asset built up by the former Auckland Electric Power Board.

People across the old Auckland City, Manukau City and Papakura District have already begun voting in the postal ballot so the present Trustees need to account for their bizarre and cynical AGM timing along with their shonky election signs.

I urge Aucklanders to vote for the 5 City Vision candidates who promise public accountability and ownership along with working for lower power prices and dividend for Aucklanders into the future. “We need to Future-Proof the network to ensure an affordable sustainable system.

 

Judith Tizard is a former Minister for Auckland and a City Vision candidate for the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust election

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Campaign Launch to Highlight Dolphin By-catch

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A new campaign is being launched at 2pm on Sunday 1 November at the Onehunga pedestrian overbridge, near Onehunga Port, to highlight the by-catch risk to New Zealand’s endangered Māui and Hector’s dolphins.

Māui and Hector’s dolphins are the world’s smallest, rarest and “loveliest” marine dolphins, say campaign organisers from the conservation group Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders.

However, scientists suggest at least three Māui dolphins are caught every year in New Zealand’s inshore fishing effort. 2010-11 figures estimated only 55 Māui dolphins remain, and the population cannot sustain a single human induced death in 10-23 years if the species is to survive. 95% of Māui and Hector’s dolphin deaths have been caused by gill net entrapment, where the cause of death is known, according to Department of Conservation figures.  

“Clearly this type of fishing and the dolphins’ survival is incompatible” says Māui and Hector’s Dolphin Defenders Chair, Christine Rose. ‘This campaign reminds New Zealanders to think of the dolphins when they buy inshore fish species. Only when recreational and commercial gillnets are removed from the dolphins’ habitat will they be safe from extinction”.

“The campaign is also a reminder against complacency. After the last Māui dolphin net entrapment, the Minister of Conservation of the time, Nick Smith, now Minister for the Environment, promised to increase fisheries observer coverage to 100% in the core Māui habitat over four years, to clarify and quantify dolphin deaths. At last update almost two years in, only 11%, or 54 of 475 fishing days had observer coverage.”

“This campaign calls on the Government to honour its commitment to 100% observer coverage in core Māui habitat, and reminds the New Zealand public of their role in either saving Māui and Hector’s dolphins, or supporting their extinction.”

The campaign launch takes place near Onehunga Port, landing point for much of the fish caught in Māui habitat. The public are invited to attend and to bring painted dolphins. By-catch information will be released as part of graphic new campaign collateral.  

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Like Mike – John Key vs John Oliver

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How not to be an arsehole – I Hope You Die In A Boating Accident Ft. Coco’s Cantina

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On this weeks episode of the worlds most popular podcast we sit down with Renee and Damaris Coulter, owners of Coco’s Cantina.

We talk about the highs and lows of hospitality, the horrors of Howick and how amazing Manawa Ora was. Dan had one too many beers and had to drink some green tea to calm down.

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Malcolm Evans – Herbal viagra

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TDB Political Caption Competition

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The Daily Blog Open Mic Thursday 22nd October 2015

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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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