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.
Julien Blanc of Real Social Dynamics
I do not support no platforming and I don’t support banning. I did not sign the Action Station petition to stop Real Social Dynamics from hosting their event here. In fact I desperately wanted them to come (they have since sadly cancelled their event here). I wanted to meet Julien Blanc and or Jeff Allen. I had so very much I want to say. I think we should have greeted with them open arms.
Of course by arms what I really mean is armed.
For those of you not familiar with Real Social Dynamics let me explain. It’s a group of women hating inadequate men who are making money by telling other men that if you treat women like shit, you will have a better chance of getting lucky.
They are truly abhorrent.
The problem with no platforming and banning is twofold. In the first instance due to technology, even if you take them off the physical stage they still speak online. Their rhetoric will continue and their followers remain hidden in anonymous handles. At least in the flesh they have to front up to the physical reality of people, women and men with questions, people that are standing between them and their audience and asking them to explain their hatred and misogyny. The men who pay to attend these seminars are our men. We should greet them with open arms also.
The second problem I have with banning people from speaking is the issue of who gets to ban whom. Last year some students called for a petition to ban Germaine Greer from speaking at a university. In Turkey twenty seven academics have been rounded up and detained for signing a petition. Last year Family First effectively managed to have a book banned and pulled from the library shelves. I do not support any of these actions as I am all too aware of how lucky we are to live in a country where we have freedom of speech. I am also part of a generation that has fought hard for women’s health not to be cloaked in euphemism. We have fought hard for a va-jay-jay to be called a vagina and, love her or hate her; Germaine Greer was at the forefront of that activism. I’m on a personal mission to reclaim cunt. It featured heavily in the first draft of this blog but I’ve settled on fuckwits and dickheads. They are ultimately more appropriate.
If the seminar had gone ahead, you would have found me painting placards and helping to activate every women I know from a keyboard warrior to a direct action activist. The women of New Zealand are in a position where we can call out this behaviour and exercise our democratic right to protest. I would have also lobbied every female MP from across the political divide to protest alongside us. If they had declined I would want to know why. I would have expected the Minister for Women to be front and centre. If you are half as angry as I am you would have come with me when we take our objections to Real Social Dynamics and show our sons and daughters that we will not continue to accept this kind of shit. What a chance it would be for the men in our media to show their affinity and perhaps put aside their privilege by shutting up.
Imagine if Real Social Dynamics had come here, to New Zealand and we became the first country where the only media they attract are our female journalists. If we shut them off at the border they back down quietly with no fuss. Sure it is a result, but imagine the result if we confront them on our shores? If we slam the door in their face we avoid the chance to cut them off at the knees and in the process, discuss how intolerable their women hating is and that in this country it is unacceptable.
We should have ushered Real Social Dynamics in with a warm welcoming pussy riot.
For those new to protests you could carry signs and chant, you should participate at a level you feel comfortable. As for the women like me who are sick and tired of living in a country where casual everyday sexism proliferates in our media, where domestic abuse is common place and where so many women are treated like a cheap class of domestic labour, let us arm ourselves. Let us pelt them with used tampons, smear them with our menstrual blood and for the many mothers who despair that this is the way our sons still perceive our daughters, perhaps it is time to defrost some placenta.
No matter what we do, Real Social Dynamics already demean us and they hate us. We can’t make it worse but I would like a chance to ask why.
The Iranian born Canadian artist, Soraya Doolbaz, is not your average professional photographer.
Doolbaz specializes in comic photography and her latest high fashion photos of penises dressed up in cute little outfits have had global media coverage including write-ups in Huffington Post (written by Ron Dicker-not kidding!) and Cosmopolitan.
Doolbaz’s latest work, entitled “dick-tators of history and friends”, features, amongst others, ‘Napoleon Boner Parte’ and ‘Donald ‘The D*ck’ Trump’.
Reading through her writing, Doolbaz claims that her aim is to address the imbalance that exists in depiction of sexual imagery in the media.
Doolbaz says: ”In my humble opinion, men have been controlling the content. Most men don’t want to see another guy’s dick. As a result, tits and ass have owned the spot light”.
Ultimately though, Doolbaz says that she wants ”to make people laugh”.
Did I laugh? I smiled here and there but if laughter is what you are really after, then go and see a real comedy at the World Buskers festival.
Doolbaz claims to bring “comfort and confidence around sexuality for men and women”. Really?
This is a bit like arguing that hijabi women would consider unveiling if we engaged them in conversation about emancipation without our clothes on.
Yes, I agree with Doolbaz that some of our mental baggage around sexuality needs to be addressed. However, in an age where modern manifestation of sexual liberty is so often misunderstood by so many, especially young girls, as being equivalent to sexual hyperactivity, or as voluntarily objectification, I don’t think Doolbaz’s project has a place in the conversation. What we need to address is, in fact, lack of confidence around connection and relationships, and the damaging role the porn industry is playing in turning so many men into poor lovers.
But Doolbaz’s work does serve an important, be it hidden, purpose.
The name “Doolbaz” in Farsi literally means ‘d*ck-player’. This is clearly a fake name and a clue that Doolbaz might be playing a joke on the media?
The global coverage that has elevated Doolbaz’s frivolous work to unimaginable heights is a damning indictment of the media and the changing face of on-line journalism.
We are constantly being pulled towards trivial news that consume our time and divert our attention from contents that really matter; contents like the suffering of Palestinians and the starving children in Madaya or closer at home, the TPPA.
And, if you think that cringe-worthy news don’t appear in New Zealand’s media, then consider the endless stories about Max Key or the news of a broken penis which was promoted via twitter by @NZStuff on the same day that the death of 2-year-old Emma-Lita Bourne was reported (Emma-Lita died after getting sick in a cold and damp state home).
Yes, it is true that tantalizing and sensationalized news have always been with us, but what is different now is the new ways on-line clicks can be measured and closely analysed. As a result, journalists are encouraged, and sometimes incentivized, to provide click-bait news that overpromise in their headlines and under-deliver in their content. This trend is dumping down our news and turning away intelligent readers.
The media, of course, would claim that they are just responding to what their audiences are demanding.
Tobacco and junk food industries make similar claims. Having developed a harmful consumption habit in their consumers, they claim that their products respond to existing needs.
Doolbaz, who reportedly sold one of her limited edition prints for $10,000 US dollars, is now considered an established artist.
I must confess that I admire Doolbaz’s audacity, and prefer my fellow Iranian women to be bold rather than timid, but whether Doolbaz is a real artist or just a clever prankster remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that the intense interest in her work is a sad commentary on the state of our media and modern Western society in general.
Hidden within the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement is a longstanding conflict between pharmaceutical corporations and health activists over the availability of generic medicines.
For big Pharma the costs of biomedical research, development and product testing must be covered by patent revenues. Subsequent profits enable further development of successful medicines.
For activists across a range of health issues, extensive patent regimes raise medical costs for the poor and generate monopoly rents for big Pharma.
A central battle line here concerns the price and availability of anti-retroviral drugs for those afflicted by HIV/AIDS. On this issue the conflict between health activists and big Pharma is superbly explained in Thomas Owen`s `Patents, Pills and the Press : the rise and fall of the global HIV/AIDS medicines crisis in the news` .
He starts from the 1970s when patent rights were negotiated within the United Nations` World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). A coalition of countries called the `Group of 77` pressed for weaker intellectual property rights and greater allowances for generic medicines. Such democratic pressure was too much for Pfizer and other pharmaceutical corporations.
During the 1980s they sought to relocate patent negotiations within multilateral trade agreements instead of the United Nations. In 1995, when the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was replaced by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) , patent negotiations became incorporated within the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Big Pharma`s long term strategy was to re-frame generic medicines as a criminal menace and pro-generics health initiatives as acts of piracy.
There was no middle ground here, either there would be strong patent protection or no protection at all.
Over the same period HIV/AIDS was becoming a pandemic. In 1990 those with HIV numbered approximately 8 million people worldwide and 5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. Five years later the numbers afflicted were 29 million and 19 million respectively. In 1996 Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) became publicly available. Those with HIV, under the new treatment, could advance their life expectancy by several decades or more (depending on their pre-existing condition and prevailing life expectancy).
Those with HIV without access to treatment could be expected to die within 10 years of contraction, on average (for the final nine months they would be entirely incapacitated). Clearly, inequalities of access to anti-retrovirals meant stark divergences in the quantity and quality of life.
In these circumstances Owen shows how big Pharma`s patent regime was broken down by a transnationally co-ordinated `Access to Medicines ` campaign. The struggle began when the US based Consumer Project on Technology (CP Tech) formed by Ralph Nader and James Love identified the connection between Intellectual Property Rights Agreements (IPRs) and the affordability of HIV/AIDS medicines. They lobbied the US Trade Representative to make generic medicines available and allow their distribution internationally through government licensing agreements. This became part of a worldwide campaign which succeeded in heightening international media interest in the HIV/AIDS medicines and patent protection issue.
Consequently the dominant `piracy` discourse was undermined and pro-generics arguments made headway.
The frontline in the struggle was South Africa ; in 1997 Nelson Mandela`s ANC government passed the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act which allowed the importation of generic medicines in cases of national health emergency. The following year 39 pharmaceutical companies represented by the South African Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PMA) tried to sue the government. This was not a good look; big Pharma versus Nelson Mandela, corporate profit versus poverty stricken Aids victims. In 2001 when the lawsuit went to court major international media coverage allowed the `Access to Medicines ` coalition to mobilise around the patents/generics issue.
In April the PMA unconditionally removed its law suit.
This turn of events raised the possibility that other countries would allow legal access to generics. The legitimacy of such medicines, especially for the treatment of otherwise lethal diseases such as HIV/AIDs was acknowledged by governments, supra-national institutions and private philanthropic organisations. The availability of antiretroviral treatments saved millions of lives.
However, big Pharma was down rather than out.
Owen skilfully analyses how and why they have successfully fought back since the early 2000s. Here I will just mention just a few critical themes.
First, the `Access to Medicines` coalition has been overshadowed by a corporate philanthropic `charity aid` approach which subtly limits the availability of generic medicines while avoiding the issue of patents. This is hardly surprising in the case of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; their huge funds ultimately derive from the monopoly rents accrued by Microsoft, in defiance of US regulators.
Second, intellectual copyright governance has become fragmented, much to the advantage of big Pharma. The backlash against generics is embedded within an array of bilateral `free trade` agreements alongside regional agreements such as the TPPA. These arrangements effectively extend the TRIPS measures which had been developed within the WTO. In the context of the TPPA`s investor versus state tribunals, for example, the distribution of generic medicines could be severely curtailed.
Third, `Access to Medicine` groups now inhabit a fragmented media domain. Social media networking enables activists to coalesce and mobilize in real time just as the mainstream media has contracted as a terrain of struggle, internationally and within influential Western countries.
The incisive analysis contained in this book will be invaluable for health professionals and other activists opposing the strategies of big Pharma, within New Zealand and beyond.
…..To purchase this book at a reduced price contact Thomas Owen towen@aut.ac.nz
The establishment have found some odd bods to become their defenders of free market dogma. Duncan Garner has written a mindless opinion piece on the TPPA saying…
We will still have our Parliament and we still have our sovereignty and Labour needs to grow up. The US apparently had so much to gain from it and now it gains very little after all. There will be protests at this signing in Auckland, it will be the same rent-a-mob boof-heads, there will be aggro and they will claim this is the end as we know it but both Governments, red and blue, have been pushing free trade for close on 30 years. It’s economic orthodoxy and Labour needs to grow a pair, put on their big boy pants and align themselves with the Government on this.
…Josie Pagani has blurted out her support for the TPPA with the sort of undying hatred for anyone more Left wing than herself that has made Phil Quin as effective as a Nazi human rights activist, with in an opinion piece so confused, fellow bloggers on her own site have had to step in and explain how wrong she is…
It’s time for opponents of the TPP to stop the gesture politics and answer some questions – like what is the alternative you propose? Do you really believe we can stay out of the TPP on our own? And do you want to pull out of the agreement after it is signed?
…and let’s not forget the Vichy NZ Herald editorial that demands we fall to our knees and thank our new Corporate Overlords for their dominion of us…
it should not be too much to ask that those philosophically opposed to free trade respect the views of those who disagree with them, and let this country host the occasion with dignity and pride.
…what each of these mindless free market cheerleading zombies do not understand is what this bloody TPPA is actually about. It’s not free trade, it’s forced trade. It’s a geopolitical leash used by America to position against China’s influence in the Pacific. How do we know this? Bloody Obama said exactly that in his own State of the Nation address 6 days ago for Christ’s sake…
Obama emphasized that, although it involves many other nations, under the TPP “China doesn’t set the rules in that region, we do.”
…let’s look at that again…
“China doesn’t set the rules in that region, we do.”
This. Is. Not. About. Free. Trade. It. Is. About. Sovereignty. The TPPA effectively creates an upper house to our very own Parliament under which the Corporate Overlords of America get to challenge our own house on the domestic legislation we pass!
To watch such jingoistic pro American fluff replace real debate by the likes of the Herald, Garner and Pagani is a sad indictment on how intellectually blunt our media have become.
TDB will live stream the debate at the Auckland Town Hall on the 26th January and TDB will be on the front line of the protest action on the 4th of February.
We can not. Must not allow our own democratic sovereignty to be ripped from us for 30 pieces of silver and 3 magic beans Key and Groser have managed to get after trading all our cows at market.
Comrades, in 2016, TDB will continue to bring you unique content that no other blog in NZ can provide. On top of the best progressive bloggers and widest diversity of any other blog we are…
Proud to be live streaming the TPPA Town Hall meeting on the 26th of January at 7pm where Political Leaders will have to respond directly to Professor Jane Kelsey and Lori Wallach.
Proud to be live streaming the first Table Talk of 2016 on February 9th at 7.30pm.
Proud to be live streaming a public seminar on the dangers of sudden climate change and methane on 14th February and why the recent Cop21 conference was such a sell out.
AND we are close to announcing a brand new live streamed current affairs show to go up against Story and Seven Sharp weeknights.
We have LOTS planned for 2016, and I think they could be serious new additions to challenge the narrative of a right wing dominated media, but we can only do it with your help.
If you are in a position to contribute – please do so here.
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Two hundred workers at AFFCO, the New Zealand meat company owned by the anti-union Talley family, have been locked out since June last year for resisting the company’s brutal push to replace negotiated collective agreements with individual contracts. Talleys/AFFCO is also punishing union members and workplace representatives with suspensions and dismissals. SEND A MESSAGE TO TALLEYS/AFFCO!
Throughout 2015, the New Zealand Meat Workers Union (NZMWU) attempted to negotiate an agreement with AFFCO to replace the collective agreement negotiated only after a lengthy lockout in 2012. Last June AFFCO began pressuring employees on seasonal layoff to give up their union-negotiated pay and conditions by insisting that employees could only continue working at the company on individual employment contracts. Two hundred workers at the company’s plant in Wairoa refused to do so and have been locked out of their jobs ever since. The New Zealand Employment Court has determined that, by compelling the workers to sign individual contracts and undermining the union, AFFCO has acted illegally, but the court-ordered mediation process has been unable to deliver a solution owing to the company’s fundamental refusal to negotiate. AFFCO stepped up its anti-union aggression in the week beginning December 14, when three workers at the Talleys plant in Rangiuru were suspended for wearing union shirts to and from work. On December 23, two Rangiuru workplace union leaders were dismissed on bogus breach of health and safety charges after going to work before their normal shift time to talk with union members in need of support. AFFCO/Talleys are trying to destroy collective bargaining and union representation with a lockout, dismissals and intimidation, even dictating to employees what they can wear to and from work. CLICK HERE to tell Talleys to end the Wairoa lockout, reinstate the workplace union leaders, fully respect trade union rights and engage in good faith negotiations for a collective agreement! |

The lifting of sanctions on Iran on Saturday marks a new era in bilateral relations between Tehran and Washington, one of the country’s vice-presidents has said, adding that further rapprochement is contingent on how the US goes about fulfilling its commitments under last summer’s nuclear accord.
In an interview with the Guardian, Masoumeh Ebtekar warned against what she said were new attempts in the region to create a sense of “Iranophobia”, though she did not single out by name Tehran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia.
The Guardian
When talk turns to global warming, most of the attention is on rising temperatures on land and the impacts already being seen like historic droughts and melting ice sheets.
But to truly understand the remarkable ways in which human emissions are altering Earth’s climate system, scientists need to find out what is going in the world’s oceans. That was difficult until the past decade, when better technology like that of Argo, a network of 3,200 robotic floats, allowed them to get temperature and salinity data across the globe at depths of 6,500 feet below the sea surface.
The results have been a revelation.
Now, researchers have published one of the most detailed pictures yet of how much heat is going into the oceans.
Scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Princeton University, and Penn State University found that half the global ocean heat content since 1865 has occurred in the past two decades. And contrary to an early study that found the deep oceans were barely being touched by global warming, the researchers found as much as 35 percent of that was being taken up below 2,300 feet.
Vice News
New evidence has surfaced in the case of Jérôme Kerviel, a French trader accused of having cost the French banking giant Société Générale nearly 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) in one of history’s biggest trading scandals, and convicted of fraud in 2010.
The massive loss resulted in 2008 from trades made by Kerviel that the bank described as “rogue” and unauthorized. Kerviel insists that his bosses were aware of his trades, and that they share responsibility.
French news outlets 20 Minutes and Médiapart have now leaked a secret recording of a lead prosecutor on the case that appears to discredit the bank’s assertions that Kerviel was acting alone.
The timing of the leak is ideal for Kerviel, who appeared Monday before the Court of Revision in a bid to overturn his conviction. In France, you can only ask for a case to be reviewed if new evidence casts doubts on the guilt of a convict.
Leaving the hearing today, Kerviel told reporters who had gathered outside the court that he was “disgusted with the content of the recording,” and that he was “ashamed for the justice system.”
Vice News
About 14 million people in Southern Africa are facing hunger because of last year’s poor harvest, caused by the El Nino weather pattern, the World Food Programme says.
In a statement released on Monday, the WFP, which is the UN’s food-assistance branch, gave warning that the number of people without enough food is likely to rise further in 2016, as the drought worsens throughout the region.
“Worst affected in the region by last year’s poor rains are Malawi (2.8 million people facing hunger), Madagascar (nearly 1.9 million people) and Zimbabwe (1.5 million) where last year’s harvest was reduced by half compared to the previous year because of massive crop failure,” the WFP statement said.
Aljazeera
RNZ
Comrade Dave Brownz is a NZ socialist blogger asking hard questions of global capitalism.
THE THIRD TERM in Opposition is always the most dangerous. It’s the time when sticking to one’s principles is hardest, and when the blandishments of “professionals” promising easy victories are at their most persuasive. The prospect of another three years in opposition: of feeling powerless and useless; looms ahead of Opposition MPs like a prison sentence. They’ll do anything to escape. To win.
In 2016 Labour is in its third term of opposition, and it’s easy to imagine how desperately its caucus is looking for a way out. The party is heading into its hundredth year without a charismatic leader, shorn of just about all of the policies it campaigned on in the 2011 and 2014 elections; and as close to broke as any major party should ever be. What Labour needs is reinvigoration – reinvention even. Otherwise it risks being rejected by the electorate as too old and too irrelevant to make a difference. Yesterday’s party, filled with yesterday’s politicians.
Labour’s been here before – most recently in 1998. That, too, was the middle year of a National-led government’s third term, but it’s there that the similarities end. The government of Jenny Shipley was a government of rebels and turncoats and it was deeply unpopular. It was also a government made up of politicians elected under a radically new and different electoral system – MMP.
The Bolger-led National Government’s opponents had split their votes between three parties: Labour, NZ First and the Alliance; and most of them expected a government composed of all three. Winston Peters confounded those expectations by throwing in his lot with Bolger – a decision which inflicted near-fatal damage on his party. NZ First’s generosity notwithstanding, however, by December of 1997 Shipley had rolled Bolger and split Peter’s parliamentary ranks in two.
The Shipley Government never took. Lacking democratic legitimacy it was widely regarded as a political “dead man walking” towards the 1999 electoral gallows. It’s only hope of survival was the bitter enmity between Labour and the left-wing Alliance, led by Jim Anderton. If these two parties were to contest the 1999 election as rivals, and the Left presented to the voters as hopelessly divided, then there was a chance – a very slim chance – that National could come through the middle.
Would Labour risk it? Could Helen Clark beat Anderton’s Alliance into a poor third and win power in its own right? There were those in Labour’s caucus who believed it could, but following the Alliance’s surprisingly strong showing in the Taranaki-King Country by-election of May 1998 (Labour polled 17.53 percent to the Alliance’s 15.46 percent) Helen Clark opted to accept the olive branch offered by Anderton and publically announced Labour’s readiness to form a loose coalition government with the Alliance following the 1999 general election.
The rest, as they say, is history.
In 2016, is the Labour leader, Andrew Little, also faced with Clark’s 1998 predicament? Is he, too, confronted with the prospect of a National Party Government only too willing to repeat its propaganda victory of 2014, when the Labour/Green/NZ First/Mana opposition (not-to-mention Kim Dotcom) were successfully portrayed as a ship of fools, with everyone rowing in opposite directions? And, if so, does he really have any other option except to follow Clark’s 1998 example and announce Labour’s readiness to form a coalition government with the Greens in 2017?
That is certainly the option progressive New Zealanders are hoping Labour will take. Their not unreasonable assumption being that a coalition with the Greens will anchor Labour firmly on the Centre-Left, and decisively weaken the right-wing faction of Labour’s caucus. There are, however, a number of problems with this analysis.
First and foremost is the undeniable fact of the Prime Minister’s – and his government’s – still astonishing levels of popularity. John Key is no Jenny Shipley, and his government certainly isn’t cobbled together from rebels and turncoats. Far from being a “dead man walking”, Key’s government shows every sign of robust political health and is more than ready to make a successful bid for a fourth term. It’s a level of confidence that’s likely to keep National’s election war-chest full-to-overflowing (and Labour’s empty). It also serves as a warning to the all-important news media that, as things now stand, changing sides would not be a good idea.
In this gloomy context, the recent statements from Grant Robertson make bright and sunshiny sense. With his eyes not on 1998, but 1983, Robertson is readying the Labour Party for another bid to win the backing of big business. Like Roger Douglas before him, he is inviting his party to become, once again, New Zealand’s great political facilitator. Last time it was the Free Market Revolution of 1984-93 that Labour facilitated. This time it will be what the one-percenter luminaries gathering for the World Economic Forum at Davos are calling “The Fourth Industrial Revolution”.
It’s an extraordinarily clever move on Robertson’s part. The NZ Herald’s “Mood of the Boardroom” revealed that, while appreciated as a canny election-winner, Key is not regarded as the political and economic innovator New Zealand so desperately needs. With his radically innovative and politically transgressive “Future of Work” policy package, Robertson should be able to pass the hat around New Zealand’s major enterprises with every hope of collecting more than polite refusals.
Nor will he be alone. The Greens’ James Shaw is perfectly placed to act as Robertson’s seconder in the nation’s boardrooms. With his assurances that the Greens, too, are committed to developing a whole new political and economic paradigm – one equal to the enormous challenges of the 21st Century – the business community’s fears about the Greens can be sufficiently allayed to make the announcement, at Labour’s 100th annual conference, of a Red-Green Alliance something big business can welcome – rather than condemn.
Will it be enough to defeat the Third Term Blues? Possibly. But it will certainly be enough to render Labour electorally competitive in ways the New Zealand electorate has not seen for 18 – maybe even 33 – years.
West Papua has been under a brutal occupation by Indonesia for over fifty years. This article tries to explain why this is, and why so few people know about it. In order to understand why, we must understand the lies of the media, and of our educational system. I claim both of these institutions have actively justified the crimes of Indonesia in the following two ways: One, the media have downplayed our own crimes and the crimes of our ‘ally’ states, and do not consider them to be acts of terrorism, even though they are by definition. Two, the educational system tells the lie that our foreign policy was guided by humanitarian values in East Timor, this is not true, and lies told about the past prevent people from understanding the present situation in West Papua. I start by trying to understand the true aims of the most powerful nations, those that are called the “West” that includes: America, Britain, a good part of Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. A good place to begin would be with the world’s most powerful nation.
The goals of Western foreign policy
The goal of American foreign policy following the events of world war two was expressed by George Kennan, a policy adviser. He said that “We have 50 percent of the worlds wealth, but only 6.3 percent of the worlds population. In this situation, our real job in the coming period. . .is to maintain this position of disparity. To do so, we have to dispense with all sentimentality. . .we should cease thinking about human rights, the raising of living standards and democratisation.”[1] In order to “maintain this disparity”, it was recognized that the poor nations (that is, those in Latin America, Africa and Asia) would need to have “a political and economic climate conducive to private investment”, so that the US can have “access to vital raw materials”.[2]
The Council on Foreign Relations is the most powerful think tank in the world, it’s had an important role in planning America’s foreign policy and its membership has included Presidents, Secretaries of State, CIA directors, rich people, professors and media commentators. There are two good books written about the history of the council by Laurence Shoup and William Minter. The first one, called ‘Imperial Brain Trust’ shows how the Council shaped policy on South East Asia during world war two until the mid 1970’s. By as early as 1943 it was seen by the council that South East Asia, and in particular the Indonesian archipelago (which includes West Papua) was a “cheap source of vital materials”, such as tin and rubber, and that “placing the political and economic control in hands likely to be friendly to the United States” was essential.[3]
Indonesia was part of this group of poor nations who according to the US state department records, which in a report from an ambassador to president Johnson in the 1960’s said that “the avowed Indonesian objective is to stand on their own feet in developing their economy, free from foreign, especially Western, influence.”, while being unified under president Sukarno who characterized the West as “representative of neo-colonialism and imperialism” and will ensure that the economy is designed in a way so that “It is probable that foreign private ownership will disappear and may be succeeded by some form of production-profit-sharing contract arrangements to be applied to all foreign investment”.[4]
Well, there were some people that were opposed to organizing the world in the way that open up the poor nations to foreign investors. Those people happened to be the large majority of the world’s population. This was recognized by the US state department. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in private conversation with his brother Alan, the director of the CIA, deplored the Communist “ability to get control of mass movements,”
“Something we have no capacity to duplicate.”
“The poor people are the ones they appeal to and they have always wanted to plunder the rich.”[5] A few years earlier, John Foster Dulles stated in a cabinet meeting that “We are confronted by an unfortunate fact. Most of the countries of the world do not share our view that Communist control of any government anywhere is in itself a danger and a threat.”[6] So this presented two problems which a large effort was put into solving. The first problem was the majority of the world not sharing the values that the rich should plunder the poor instead of the poor plundering the rich, and the second was the rational view from third world peasants that the Russian and Chinese threat was not as large as it had been exaggerated to be.
It’s of great interest to find out how these problems were solved, at least partially. In Indonesia it was solved with Nazi style bloodbaths against the left. In the rich nations these problems were understood and solved near the end of world war one, which I will now give some background on.
The Usefulness of Propaganda
The use of fear ideology to achieve political goals is as old as political theory itself. In Aristotle’s Politics, he came up with the view that “States are preserved when their destroyers are at a distance, and sometimes also because they are near, for fear of them makes the government keep in hand the state. Wherefore the ruler who has a care of the state should invent terrors, and bring distant dangers near, in order that the citizens may be on their guard, and, like sentinels in their night-watch, never relax their attention.”[7] That was the understanding of the usefulness of propaganda and in particular fear ideology in classical Greece and since then it’s become much more sophisticated.
The use of propaganda became an essential part of liberal democratic societies during the end of world war one. There were some intellectuals who studied this phenomenon of ‘propaganda’, as they called it, and came to some conclusions. One was Harold Lasswell, a leading political scientist. In a short essay he said that “conventions have arisen which favor the ventilation of opinions and the taking of votes. Most of that which formerly could be done by violence and intimidation must now be done by argument and persuasion.”[8] In other words, as the general population won rights against the use of state violence, the state could no longer resort to the use of violence to control the population. So it was seen as necessary to resort to the use of propaganda instead to control the minds of the population, as Lasswell put it.
The basic theory behind this, which Harold Lasswell wrote, was that “The public has not reigned with benignity and restraint. The good life is not in the mighty rushing wind of public sentiment. It is no organic secretion of the horde, but the tedious achievement of the few.” Thus, it was necessary once finding the “good life”, that the role of the propagandist, was to “make up the public mind to accept it.”[9] This was a common view, similar theories were given by other intellectuals during the time, including Edward Bernays and Walter Lippman. I should say that the word ‘propagandist’ is longer in use for propaganda reasons. According to Edward Bernays it was replaced by ‘public relations’ after world war two, because propaganda got negative connotations from the Nazi’s.
Following world war one there were two liberal intellectuals that made a common observation. One was the aforementioned Harold Lasswell, the other was Bertrand Russell. Both made the observation that within any country the educational system is going to present a favorable picture of the world towards its own state and the allies of that state simply because of the natural psychological predispositions of those living in the same society.[10] Bertrand Russell thought then that a solution to this would be for the educational system to “enable people to acquire knowledge and form sound judgments of themselves.” Harold Lasswell had the opposite solution. He said that the propagandist should exploit and increase these irrational biases and the self-deception of the educated class. As he put it, he could count on “a battalion of honest professors to rewrite history”, while the “propagandist is content to accept aid from his allies”, that he should busily “multiply the evidence of the responsibility of the enemy.”[11] Bertrand Russell’s ideas weren’t that popular among elites having just come out of prison, but Harold Lasswell’s would become the essential element of democratic governance, now global in scale.
We can look back at history and see that from 1917 onwards, that a cold war ideology adopted by the West exaggerated the threat of communism towards the rest of the world, which was used as a pretext for every single post world war two US intervention up until 1990. After 1990 there needed to be new justifications invented, so two big ones that replaced the fear of communism were “terrorism”, and “humanitarian intervention”
My focus here will mainly be on how New Zealand international relations scholars remember East Timor, and exposing that particular lie. I should note that there has been some very good academic scholarship on it, and I don’t think the university is 100 percent subservient to state power. There are exceptions. I will also comment on how the New Zealand government financed state terrorism in West Papua, though I have read little on the scholarship of the topic of terrorism so I will limit to criticizing the media and the governments perception of terrorism here. I do not claim these scholars are insincere, rather for the most part I agree with Harold Lasswell’s proposition that they are self-deceptive but “honest professors rewriting history”. I don’t know how to give evidence for this, but that’s what I think.
The Media’s subservient role in reporting crimes of Indonesia
The CIA had wanted president Sukarno removed from power ever since he held the Bandung conference in 1955, where third world nations got together to strategise on how to make their economies independent from either the Western powers or the Communist powers. Over time the West had built up ties with the right wing Indonesian military and finally got their chance in 1965. General Suharto came to power in a bloody coup, with the CIA giving him a list of roughly 5000 people to kill, but he went a lot further and killed at least half a million. The CIA described it as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century, and compared it to the worst crimes of the Nazi’s, Stalin and Mao.[12]
After Suharto seized power the multinational corporations came in to divide up Indonesia. The Freeport- McMoRan company got their hands on the world’s most profitable copper and gold mine located in West Papua. One of the board of directors on the Freeport McMoRan company is the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who along with President Gerald Ford, had given permission to Suharto for him to invade East Timor.[13]
The reaction to these mass slaughters from Western leaders and the capitalist media was one of great enthusiasm. Time magazine called it “The West’s Best News in Asia”. A headline in US News and World Report read: “Indonesia: Hope. . . where was once none”. A New York Times columnist James Reston celebrated ‘A gleam of light in Asia’. The Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt said approvingly that “With 500,000 to a million communist sympathizers knocked off, I think it’s safe to assume reorientation has taken place”.[14] The New Zealand media reaction has been studied recently. Before he was removed from power, President Sukarno had pursued a policy of aggression trying to unify the Indonesian Archipelago, annexing West Papua in 1962. He also pursued a ‘confrontation’ with Malaysia, which New Zealand sent troops to help defend the pro Western Malaysia and the foreign investors.
The reaction to this from the New Zealand media, according to a recent MA thesis written by Andrew Lim, was that “Sukarno was seen as another dictator like Hitler or Mussolini, whose fraternization with the Communists only damned him.”[15] But after Suharto removed Sukarno from power, media coverage of the Suharto coup was scant, with little discussion of the coup attempt, the mass killings, or the rise of the New Order. However the Otago Daily Times welcomed the Army’s takeover as the end of the “troublesome” President Sukarno’s political career. With a subsequent editorial stating that Suharto’s political ascension as the beginning of a new era in New Zealand-Indonesian relations.[16]
If one compares the indignation expressed at the enemies crimes compared to the crimes of an ally, you will find the capitalist media have overwhelmingly, at any reasonable comparison, always expressed more indignation for the enemy’s crimes while either ignoring or glorifying the crimes of ally’s or themselves. But those that write history portray the exact opposite image, that the media are cantankerous in their opposition to power and that the universities are training left-wing radicals. An Australian academic economist H. W Arndt wrote in 1979, during the peak of atrocities in East Timor, that the Australian media was blanketed with “virulent anti-Indonesian propaganda”, with “extreme left academics” in the universities who “even before 1975 [The invasion date of East Timor], were unsympathetic towards Indonesia under the present regime.”[17]
When Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky documented US media coverage of East Timor during the period in the late 1970’s, media press coverage dropped to zero in 1978 as atrocities increased and western arms were shipped to General Suharto. While in Cambodia, there were comparable killings happening at the same time by a regime opposed to western elite interests, the Khmer Rouge. This received a large press coverage, furious indignation from the western media with some denouncing Pol Pot as ‘another Hitler’, as well as fabrications exaggerating the numbers killed.[18] I won’t go into detail, but that’s a very short account of an otherwise voluminous study given in their various books about it.
During an important massacre in East Timor in 1991, where 270 people were killed including one New Zealander, it was witnessed and recorded by Western Journalists, so the event got reported around the world in the Western media. But one New Zealand journalist David Robie (now a professor of journalism at AUT) was offered a ‘kill fee’ for a story he wrote about it, which was suppressed from the Dominion post at the time.[19] I don’t want to exaggerate that this normally happens, it is an extremely rare form of censorship. According to a study of Australia media coverage of the 1991 Dili massacre by Geoffry C Gunn, Not one word from the capitalist media reported the fact that Australia had been supplying Indonesia with arms and training. [20]
NZ’s history with East Timor
East Timor was invaded by Indonesia in 1975. The invasion had been given the green light by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his president Gerald Ford, who asked Suharto not to carry out the invasion until they had flown back to America, so that they could be distanced from the crimes.
New Zealand, along with other major Western powers, supported the invasion of East Timor right up until a few days before the West intervened to stop atrocities. According to a CIA desk officer Philip Liechty in an interview with the journalist John Pilger, “we sent the Indonesian Generals everything that you need to fight a major war against somebody who doesn’t have any guns…they got it direct, straight to East Timor. Without US military support, the Indonesians might not have been able to pull it off.”[21] New Zealand itself, gave military support to Indonesia throughout the whole occupation, including training pilots for skyhawk’s (planes used for bombing and napalm).[22] We also gave diplomatic support, abstaining from initiatives put forth at the UN by Algeria, Cuba, Guyana, Serria Leone and Trinidad Tobago which ‘strongly deplored’ the actions of Indonesia.[23] Then after a visit to East Timor from a New Zealand diplomat during the atrocities in 1976, our policy from then on until 1999 that the situation was ‘irreversible’.
Over this period, international activism grew against the occupation. The Western powers supported the atrocities right up until the last minute, when outrage from the Australian population put pressure on the government, and probably the social cost for western powers of supporting the occupation became too high. A US senior official responded by saying “We have don’t have a dog running in the East Timor race, but we have a very big dog running down there called Australia and we have to support it.” [24] Thus an international peace keeping force was set up to intervene in Indonesia, with President Bill Clinton adding a small contingent to this force, just enough to let Indonesia know that these orders came from Washington. Indonesia backed off without a fight. That’s the very short history of East Timor during that period, now let’s look at how these international relations scholars handle it.
Propaganda terms in foreign policy doublespeak
In the political discourse of politicians, the media and academic scholarship, you have to decode various terminology before understanding what it actually means. Key terminology always has two different meanings. One of the meanings has a propaganda function, while the other meaning has a technical function.
One is the concept of ‘stability’. The propaganda meaning of stability means something like ‘law-abiding society without any violent internal conflict’. The technical meaning of stability is more along the lines of the following: ‘Anything that New Zealand and the West in general does in foreign policy.’ There’s a corollary from this definition, which is that: ‘A poor country that obeys the western powers is also by definition contributing to stability.’ This follows since a third world country obeying the rich nation’s means it’s obeying a policy which contributes to stability.
For example, the establishment journal ‘The New Zealand International Review’ recently had an issue on New Zealand and the ASEAN region, in which a scholar Paul Sinclair claims that “New Zealand’s defense relationship with ASEAN has its genesis in the history of our commitment to the security and stability of South East Asia”.[25] He gives two examples, East Timor in which the New Zealand government supported a genocide of 200,000 people from 1975-1999, and Cambodia, in which New Zealand gave diplomatic support of the genocidal Khmer Rouge from 1978-1990.[26] But Paul Sinclair doesn’t focus on these phases of New Zealand history, instead choosing to ignore that part and focusing only on aid we gave to Cambodia in the 1990’s and the intervention in East Timor which stopped the atrocities.
An Auckland University political scientist Stephen Hoadley commentating on New Zealand’s stance it took on East Timor in a book called ‘South East Asia and New Zealand’, that “New Zealand idealism with regard to self-determination of colonized peoples was tempered by ‘realist’ concerns about regional instability, outside meddling, and incapacity for self-governance.”[27] Now, Indonesia carried out a policy of aggression towards East Timor, so this might seem like it contributes to instability of the region. But it doesn’t, since East Timor was another colony trying to creating a sort of nationalist social democracy it was opposed to stability, and since Suharto obeyed the interests of the west, he is by definition contributing to stability by invading the country. One may also comment on the use of the term “outside meddlers”. Suharto is not seen as an outside meddler in his aggression, again, by the principle that the Western powers own the world and he was their servant.
When Suharto invaded East Timor, the New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs said that “stability in the Indonesia archipelago would most likely be assured if Portuguese Timor was integrated into Indonesia”[28] An Australian position referred to in a Ministry of Foreign Affairs briefing paper was stated as “supporting self-determination while maintaining stability in the region,” then honestly adding “with an additional interest in maintaining an equitable share of the substantial oil deposits in the north-west shelf.”[29]
Another concept is that of the ‘national interest’. Its propaganda term is something like: “the interests of the general population”. The technical use of the term ‘national interest’ is “whatever the elite interests of that country want.” So for example, in a poll 9% of New Zealander’s accepted their government’s contention that integration of East Timor was irreversible. But this was never considered to be the national interest.[30] What was considered to be the national interest was the near opposite, and was stated in a briefing paper by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “The crux of the problem of East Timor is to reconcile New Zealand’s opposition to the incorporation of East Timor by force, the subsequent human rights violations and repugnance at the sometimes brutal methods of the Indonesian army with the very considerable national interest in maintaining good relations with Indonesia…”[31]
Also in a poll, more than 75% of Australians supported the right of West Papuan’s to self-determination, even if it meant independence from Indonesia. Prime Minister John Howard replied by saying that it is in “Australia’s interests that we keep a unified Indonesia”.[32] It seems like a contradiction but it isn’t, since “Australia” means the elites within the country, and not the population.
How East Timor is remembered by International Relations Scholars.
According to Professor Hoadley, and Auckland University political scientist writing on the history of New Zealand’s foreign policy in East Timor “New Zealand can claim its policies are untainted by commercial interest. Its initiatives sprang from a desire to be a good international citizen and contribute to a UN effort; they were motivated also by humanitarianism and justice, and spurred by domestic public opinion. If there was self- interest amongst this idealism, it lay in an enlightened perception of common security…” Similarly, the textbooks that are prescribed in school portray it as a “humanitarian intervention” from the west. But the evidence shows that the Western powers. There is only one thing correct about Hoadley’s statement and that is that yes, it was spurred by domestic public opinion.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument, that a humanitarian intervention does not require noble intent. Then by this assumption the East Timor intervention was humanitarian, as it stopped the killings and was welcomed by the Timorese population. But if we were to ask whether the New Zealand government was in principle in favor of this kind of humanitarian intervention, then we could try to find out how they reacted to other cases of humanitarian interventions. Like for example, the Vietnam invasion of Cambodia in 1978, which stopped the Khmer Rouge atrocities, and was welcomed by the population.
The major western power, the US, allied with China and Thailand decided to go from denouncing the Khmer Rouge to supporting it as a punishment of Vietnam’s intervention, by the “my enemy of my enemy is my friend” principle. According to the former national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski “I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help the D.K. [Khmer Rouge government-in-exile of Democratic Kampuchea]. The question was how to help the Cambodian people. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him, but China could.” New Zealand was part of this alliance with the US, China, and Thailand, and gave key diplomatic support to Pol Pot. When asked by the media why New Zealand was supporting Pol Pot at the UN, the Foreign Minister Brian Talboys replied that “that the approval of the DK’s credentials was mainly an expression of disapproval by ASEAN, New Zealand and the others involved, of Vietnam’s actions.” According to the historian writing on the topic, this was “a fine point of diplomacy that was doubtless lost on those appalled by the genocidal nature of the Khmer Rouge while in power.”[33]
Later on when Pol Pot’s forces were repackaged with other ASEAN allies, Talboys commended the policies of the ASEAN grouping, which had showed itself to be ‘a constructive force and positive force for regional peace and stability’. The Khmer Rouge’s Vice President Khieu Samphan sent a telegram to the Minister of Foreign Affairs thanking us for our “unswerving support given by New Zealand to our struggle for national liberation, survival and independence is of vital importance.”[34] So, in my view this whole argument of “humanitarian intervention” by Stephen Hoadley and a good part of academic opinion has no evidence to back it up.
West Papua and the ideology of Terrorism
West Papua was annexed by Sukarno before he was thrown out of power by Suharto. Suharto set up an “Act of free choice” in 1969, but the West Papuan’s call it “An act of no choice”. 1025 Papuan’s were rounded up and told to vote for integration with Indonesia or be killed. Since then at least 100,000 Papuan’s have been killed, along with other various acts of violence that were similar to those in East Timor. After East Timor gained independence and everything was back to normal, the Western powers started to re-establish military support. In a visit to a university in Jakarta, Helen Clark somehow held a straight face while praising Indonesia as a “peaceful and tolerant nation”.[35] One could wonder what the reaction would be if she said the same about ISIS.
I haven’t read much literature on terrorism, so I’m going to stick to the principles given by the government, which I will accept. I’m going to talk a little bit about the Terrorism Suppression Act and how I think it relates to West Papua, since that’s the main fear ideology that’s been used since the end of the cold war.
Terrorism is defined in this act as “the purpose of advancing an ideological, political, or religious cause”, and with the several intentions, including “to induce terror in a civilian population”, where “terror” is has several outcomes, including “the death of, or other serious bodily injury to, 1 or more persons”. Between 2009-2014 New Zealand spent $6.3 million financing Indonesian ‘community policemen’, but they were really “killing teams” in West Papua, which beat up Papuan’s and threatened to bury them alive. We also educated a captain at one of our universities in ‘security studies’, so he could go back to West Papua and torture more effectively. To their credit, the capitalist media reported this.[36]
By the principles of the Terrorism Suppression Act and Clark and Key governments, this is a typical example of financing terrorism. But you won’t find anyone in the capitalist media saying this obvious truth, or even being able to think about this truth. The definition of terrorism is one that is only ever applied to the enemy.
How can West Papua gain Independence?
One way would be for the media to focus on the crimes of our own leaders, instead of focusing on the crimes of other nations while ignoring our own crimes. Another way would be to tell the important and critical parts of history on East Timor and how our government supported the atrocities, and that they were only forced to intervene from public pressure, not on humanitarian values. Both the media and academia largely fail at these roles. If we are to prevent the crimes of terrorism in West Papua, and in other places from happening again we must also punish our leaders in accordance with the law, otherwise they will play the same game they did with East Timor and do it all over again. These would be key steps towards having a civilized foreign policy in general.
[1]P101 The New Rulers of the World: John Pilger.
[2] NSC 5432/1, 1954
[3]P255 Imperial Brain Trust: Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter.
[4] Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968 Volume XXVI, Indonesia; Malaysia-Singapore; Philippines, Document 121.
[5]Eisenhower to Harriman, quoted in Richard H. Immerman, Diplomatic History (Summer 1990). John Foster Dulles, Telephone Call to Allen Dulles, June 19, 1958, “Minutes of telephone conversations of John Foster Dulles and Christian Herter,” Eisenhower Library, Abilene KA.
[6]P124 Killing Hope: William Blum
[7]P209 Politics: Aristotle
[8]The Theory of Political Propaganda, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Aug., 1927), pp. 627-631
[9]P4-5 Propaganda Technique in the World War: Harold Lasswell
[10]P53-54 Propaganda Technique in the World War: Harold Lasswell. For Bertrand Russells observation see P21 of Free Thought and Official Propaganda
[11]P54 Propaganda Technique in the World War: Harold Lasswell
[12]P71 Indonesia 1965 -The Coup that backfired
[13]P62 Negligent Neighbour; New Zealand’s Complicity in the invasion and occupation of East Timor: Marie Leadbeater
[14]P35 The New Rulers of the World: John Pilger
[15]P113 The Kiwi and the Garuda: New Zealand and Sukarno’s Indonesia, 1945-1966: Andrew Lim
[16]P114 Ibid
[17]December 1979 Timor: Vendetta against Indonesia, Quadrant
[18]The full record is documented in The Political Economy of Human Rights, volume 1 and volume 2.
[19] P229 Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific: David Robie
[20]P175 A Critical View of Western Journalism and Scholarship on East Timor: Geoffrey C. Gunn
[21]P63 Negligent Neighbour; New Zealand’s Complicity in the invasion and occupation of East Timor: Marie Leadbeater
[22]P127 ibid
[23]P64 ibid
[24]P195 The Independence of East Timor: Multi-Dimensional Perspectives-Occupation, Resistance, and International Political Activism: Clinton Fernandes
[25]2015 volume 4 New Zealand International Review New Zealand’s Defence Relationship with ASEAN: Paul Sinclair
[26]P265 Manufacturing Consent: Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky reference a study carried out by the Finnish government.
[27]P127 South East Asia and New Zealand; A History of Regional and Bilateral Relations: Edited by Anthony Smith
[28]P65 Negligent Neighbour; New Zealand’s Complicity in the invasion and occupation of East Timor: Marie Leadbeater
[29]P28 ibid
[30]P130 South East Asia and New Zealand; A History of Regional and Bilateral Relations: Edited by Anthony Smith
[31]P127 ibid
[32]Reluctant Indonesians; Australia, Indonesia and the future of West Papua: Clinton Fernandes
[33]1999 volume 2, The Devil You Know The New Zealand Journal of History: Anthony Smith
[34]P111 South East Asia and New Zealand; A History of Regional and Bilateral Relations: Edited by Anthony Smith
[35]19 July 2007 PM Clark lauds RI’s move to democracy: The Jakarta Post
[36] Jan 25 Kiwis accused of providing ‘aid that kills’ New Zealand Herald
Douglas Renwick is an anarchist and an undergraduate student at Victoria University studying mathematics and philosophy. He spends half of his life reading voraciously about politics. His interests in politics include the history and political economy of corporate propaganda, western imperialism, and intellectual history. As well as this he is critical of neoclassical economics and neoliberlism in general. He can be contacted at renwicdoug@myvuw.ac.nz