I am not sure how pleasant it is going to be watching
Barack Obama's progress from here on. He has had
a dream run so far, without his policies (such as they
are) being subjected to piercing scrutiny, but nobody
wins the Democratic or Republican nomination for
US President without owing a huge number of favours
and without being hostage to powerful vested interests.
If he really can deliver "change we can believe in," then
good luck to him; but I fear that, if he's elected in
November, his range of policy movement will be sorely
restricted and his inspiring rhetoric will run into a wall
of resistance from those who control the levers of the
American economy. Bill Clinton, when he was
President, is said to have been shocked and frustrated
by how little room for manoeuvre he really had,
notwithstanding his supposed power. The truth is that
US Presidents in themselves generally can't and don't
change much; the amount of media coverage they get is
way out of proportion to their actual significance.
I still think Hillary Clinton would make a better President
at this time; Obama would have been perfect as her
Vice-President and successor. He clearly has outstanding
qualities but I rather think that the Democratic Party has
gotten too carried away by him. Such is the evangelistic
fervour of American politics. He can also thank George
W Bush for his phenomenal rise to the top: just as
Muldoon's extreme interventionism produced a sharp
counter-reaction in New Zealand in 1984, so Bush's
brutal neoconnery has led to a liberal revulsion so
excessive that even a moderate liberal like Clinton has
been swept aside by it.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Well-known fact
“It is a well-known fact that the 'Close the door' button
in most elevators is a totally dysfunctional placebo,
placed there just to give the individuals the impression
that they are somehow participating, contributing to
the speed of the elevator journey—when we push this
button, the door closes in exactly the same time as when
we just pressed the floor button without 'speeding up'
the process by pressing also the 'Close the door' button.
This extreme case of fake participation is an appropriate
metaphor of the participation of individuals in our
'postmodern' political process.”—Slavoj Zˇizˇek, senior
researcher, Institute for Advanced Study in the
Humanities, Essen, Germany
in most elevators is a totally dysfunctional placebo,
placed there just to give the individuals the impression
that they are somehow participating, contributing to
the speed of the elevator journey—when we push this
button, the door closes in exactly the same time as when
we just pressed the floor button without 'speeding up'
the process by pressing also the 'Close the door' button.
This extreme case of fake participation is an appropriate
metaphor of the participation of individuals in our
'postmodern' political process.”—Slavoj Zˇizˇek, senior
researcher, Institute for Advanced Study in the
Humanities, Essen, Germany
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Raised voices
At last the Greens have seen red. The tough talking at
the weekend by co-leaders Jeanette Fitzsimons and
Russel Norman was long overdue, though Norman may
may have gone an epithet too far in calling the
Government’s cold feet on the Emissions Trading
Scheme “disgusting.” As well as castigating both major
parties for their political pusillanimity in the face of
global warming—"Her scathing denunciation of Labour’s
record on climate change and other environmental
matters would take some beating in terms of its savagery
and sarcasm,” wrote John Armstrong in the New Zealand
Herald last week—Fitzsimons also seized the initiative on
the issue of rising food prices, in particular drawing
attention (as other opposition parties have failed to do) to
the fact that we in New Zealand pay far more for our dairy
products than seems fair or justified.
This is good politics, because it puts the Greens on a
broader footing in election year, not just pigeonholed
under E for Environment. With Labour weakening, the
Greens should do very well this year, so long as they’re
more pro-active and less inclined to play the doormat for
the major parties to wipe their (cold) feet on. The country
is crying out for strong leadership on climate change and
its consequences; Fitzsimons is the logical candidate for
the vacant position, but till now her voice has seemed
relatively muted. She has nothing to lose by speaking
truth to power; it is impossible to be too bold in these
matters when the planet is burning.
the weekend by co-leaders Jeanette Fitzsimons and
Russel Norman was long overdue, though Norman may
may have gone an epithet too far in calling the
Government’s cold feet on the Emissions Trading
Scheme “disgusting.” As well as castigating both major
parties for their political pusillanimity in the face of
global warming—"Her scathing denunciation of Labour’s
record on climate change and other environmental
matters would take some beating in terms of its savagery
and sarcasm,” wrote John Armstrong in the New Zealand
Herald last week—Fitzsimons also seized the initiative on
the issue of rising food prices, in particular drawing
attention (as other opposition parties have failed to do) to
the fact that we in New Zealand pay far more for our dairy
products than seems fair or justified.
This is good politics, because it puts the Greens on a
broader footing in election year, not just pigeonholed
under E for Environment. With Labour weakening, the
Greens should do very well this year, so long as they’re
more pro-active and less inclined to play the doormat for
the major parties to wipe their (cold) feet on. The country
is crying out for strong leadership on climate change and
its consequences; Fitzsimons is the logical candidate for
the vacant position, but till now her voice has seemed
relatively muted. She has nothing to lose by speaking
truth to power; it is impossible to be too bold in these
matters when the planet is burning.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Thomas Hardy
June 2 is Thomas Hardy’s birthday. The gloomy old bugger
was born in 1840 and died in 1928 after 60 years of writing
a series of doom-laden novels and hundreds of poems that
give the impression of having been ground out rather than
dreamt up. Yet I loved reading him in my youth: his gloom
called to my gloom as I languished in the melancholia that
seemed, at 20, a suitable response to life’s vicissitudes. At
the morning teatime of my life I was deeply into twilight
and shades of grey.
This year, mainly out of curiosity, but also for something to
read that’s as unlike contemporary New Zealand politics as
I can find, I’ve gone back to Hardy: first, Far From the
Madding Crowd, and now, The Return of the Native. The
pessimism that once seemed romantic, in a subgothic sort
of way, now verges on the absurd; an almost wilful
perversity, you’d think, drove him to such gratuitous
pronouncements as (in The Return of the Native):
The view of life as a thing to be put up with, replacing
that zest for existence which was so intense in early
civilizations, must ultimately enter so thoroughly into
the constitution of the advanced races that its facial
expression will become accepted as a new artistic
departure…a long line of disillusive centuries has
permanently displaced the Hellenic view of life, or
whatever it may be called.
There was so little to be happy about, Hardy further
concluded (in 1878), that physical beauty in men and
women would probably come to be an anachronism.
Cheer us up, why doncha! But the sheer consistency of
Hardy’s philosophy, and his sustained dramatization
of it on the fictional stage of Wessex, compels admiration
and even affection. And although his prose, like his
poetry, almost strangles itself on its own contortions at
times, he tells a great tale. His four greatest novels—Tess,
Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Jude
the Obscure—are stories that will be read again and again
so long as there's an English language. As his best poems
will be, or ought to be, too. His Collected Poems, bought in
1970 for $NZ5.70, remains to this day one of the most
treasured books on my shelves.
Born three years after Queen Victoria came to the British
throne and inaugurated the Victorian age, Hardy lived long
enough to have his pessimism confirmed by the Great War
of 1914–18, thus earning the right to dismiss Christianity
in four withering lines written at Christmas 1924:
"Peace upon earth!" was said. We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We've got as far as poison-gas.
was born in 1840 and died in 1928 after 60 years of writing
a series of doom-laden novels and hundreds of poems that
give the impression of having been ground out rather than
dreamt up. Yet I loved reading him in my youth: his gloom
called to my gloom as I languished in the melancholia that
seemed, at 20, a suitable response to life’s vicissitudes. At
the morning teatime of my life I was deeply into twilight
and shades of grey.
This year, mainly out of curiosity, but also for something to
read that’s as unlike contemporary New Zealand politics as
I can find, I’ve gone back to Hardy: first, Far From the
Madding Crowd, and now, The Return of the Native. The
pessimism that once seemed romantic, in a subgothic sort
of way, now verges on the absurd; an almost wilful
perversity, you’d think, drove him to such gratuitous
pronouncements as (in The Return of the Native):
The view of life as a thing to be put up with, replacing
that zest for existence which was so intense in early
civilizations, must ultimately enter so thoroughly into
the constitution of the advanced races that its facial
expression will become accepted as a new artistic
departure…a long line of disillusive centuries has
permanently displaced the Hellenic view of life, or
whatever it may be called.
There was so little to be happy about, Hardy further
concluded (in 1878), that physical beauty in men and
women would probably come to be an anachronism.
Cheer us up, why doncha! But the sheer consistency of
Hardy’s philosophy, and his sustained dramatization
of it on the fictional stage of Wessex, compels admiration
and even affection. And although his prose, like his
poetry, almost strangles itself on its own contortions at
times, he tells a great tale. His four greatest novels—Tess,
Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Jude
the Obscure—are stories that will be read again and again
so long as there's an English language. As his best poems
will be, or ought to be, too. His Collected Poems, bought in
1970 for $NZ5.70, remains to this day one of the most
treasured books on my shelves.
Born three years after Queen Victoria came to the British
throne and inaugurated the Victorian age, Hardy lived long
enough to have his pessimism confirmed by the Great War
of 1914–18, thus earning the right to dismiss Christianity
in four withering lines written at Christmas 1924:
"Peace upon earth!" was said. We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We've got as far as poison-gas.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Cut that out
Are we in an election year or what? In the past couple of
days both Helen Clark and John Key have ruthlessly
cracked down on political embarrassments that might
have got out of hand and damaged their electoral chances.
First, when backbencher Kate Wilkinson implied that
National would not support compulsory contributions by
employers to KiwiSaver, Key bluntly said “She got it
wrong.” Had he tried to defend or excuse her in any way,
or fudge the issue, Labour would have partied merrily at
National’s expense. As it is, the Government got only
limited play out of Wilkinson’s slip—though the suspicion
lingers that National has not been straight with the public
about its intentions for KiwiSaver.
Though she’s National’s labour & industrial relations
spokesperson (who knew?), Wilkinson could hardly be
said to be close to Key, or a major player in her party. On
the other side of the House the same can’t be said of
Housing Minister Maryan Street, former Labour Party
president, long-time ally of Clark’s and, in my view, a
potential leader of the party. On Tuesday she robustly
defended the Housing Corporation’s spending of
$65,000 for a two-day conference for 94 staffers at a
so-called luxury lodge in the central North Island. An
examination of the value for money in this case suggests
that the cost and location were defensible—as Russell
Brown points out in his Hard News blog, $250 per head
per night cost for accommodation, meals and conference
facilities is not exactly wildly extravagant, and not even
in the same ballpark as the infamous WINZ retreat under
Christine Rankin in 1999 (when National was in power),
which cost four times as much. Also, despite the bandying
about in the media of the word “luxury,” you will not find
the venue in question, Tongariro Lodge, listed on any
major tourism websites as a “luxury lodge.” The emphasis
is, rather, on the fishing opportunities it affords.
Nonetheless, Clark rose in the House yesterday and cut
Street adrift, forcing the latter to take a much meeker line
and humbly promise that Housing Corporation conference
venues in future would be more “appropriate.” It was an
unlovely but brutally impressive sight, seeing a perfectly
competent senior politician like Street reduced to the status
of a junior being rebuked by her boss. But that’s what Clark
did, and that, it seems, is what you do when you want at
all costs to win an election. You don’t let any kind of
potential embarrassment get legs; otherwise it will run and
run, whipped on by your political enemies and spotlighted
by a media desperate to beat up the differences between
two major parties that are actually getting harder and
harder to tell apart.
days both Helen Clark and John Key have ruthlessly
cracked down on political embarrassments that might
have got out of hand and damaged their electoral chances.
First, when backbencher Kate Wilkinson implied that
National would not support compulsory contributions by
employers to KiwiSaver, Key bluntly said “She got it
wrong.” Had he tried to defend or excuse her in any way,
or fudge the issue, Labour would have partied merrily at
National’s expense. As it is, the Government got only
limited play out of Wilkinson’s slip—though the suspicion
lingers that National has not been straight with the public
about its intentions for KiwiSaver.
Though she’s National’s labour & industrial relations
spokesperson (who knew?), Wilkinson could hardly be
said to be close to Key, or a major player in her party. On
the other side of the House the same can’t be said of
Housing Minister Maryan Street, former Labour Party
president, long-time ally of Clark’s and, in my view, a
potential leader of the party. On Tuesday she robustly
defended the Housing Corporation’s spending of
$65,000 for a two-day conference for 94 staffers at a
so-called luxury lodge in the central North Island. An
examination of the value for money in this case suggests
that the cost and location were defensible—as Russell
Brown points out in his Hard News blog, $250 per head
per night cost for accommodation, meals and conference
facilities is not exactly wildly extravagant, and not even
in the same ballpark as the infamous WINZ retreat under
Christine Rankin in 1999 (when National was in power),
which cost four times as much. Also, despite the bandying
about in the media of the word “luxury,” you will not find
the venue in question, Tongariro Lodge, listed on any
major tourism websites as a “luxury lodge.” The emphasis
is, rather, on the fishing opportunities it affords.
Nonetheless, Clark rose in the House yesterday and cut
Street adrift, forcing the latter to take a much meeker line
and humbly promise that Housing Corporation conference
venues in future would be more “appropriate.” It was an
unlovely but brutally impressive sight, seeing a perfectly
competent senior politician like Street reduced to the status
of a junior being rebuked by her boss. But that’s what Clark
did, and that, it seems, is what you do when you want at
all costs to win an election. You don’t let any kind of
potential embarrassment get legs; otherwise it will run and
run, whipped on by your political enemies and spotlighted
by a media desperate to beat up the differences between
two major parties that are actually getting harder and
harder to tell apart.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
No-brainer
This just in: Experts are expressing concern about
a likely shortage of National Party policy this winter.
“The National Party policy pool quite often runs dry,”
says policy consultant Nigel Strange, “but most years
they manage to dredge up something that more or
less passes muster. This year I’m afraid they’re
scraping rock bottom.”
National Party policy traditionally relies on a light
drizzle of ideas that, while erratic and often
insufficient to stimulate intelligent life, goes some
way towards filling the yawning crater of caucus,
from which the party usually draws sustenance.
Unfortunately, not one worthwhile idea has landed
on caucus this year, leading to a dramatic drop in
mental activity. Most parts of the caucus have been
without brain for at least three months.
Dr Strange advises voters not to panic, because it is
not clear, he says, that an increase in National Party
policy would in fact make any difference to the
country’s well-being. There is also, he adds, an
element of risk after such a drought: anyone spotting
an original National Party idea should proceed with
caution, as conditions may be extremely slippery.
a likely shortage of National Party policy this winter.
“The National Party policy pool quite often runs dry,”
says policy consultant Nigel Strange, “but most years
they manage to dredge up something that more or
less passes muster. This year I’m afraid they’re
scraping rock bottom.”
National Party policy traditionally relies on a light
drizzle of ideas that, while erratic and often
insufficient to stimulate intelligent life, goes some
way towards filling the yawning crater of caucus,
from which the party usually draws sustenance.
Unfortunately, not one worthwhile idea has landed
on caucus this year, leading to a dramatic drop in
mental activity. Most parts of the caucus have been
without brain for at least three months.
Dr Strange advises voters not to panic, because it is
not clear, he says, that an increase in National Party
policy would in fact make any difference to the
country’s well-being. There is also, he adds, an
element of risk after such a drought: anyone spotting
an original National Party idea should proceed with
caution, as conditions may be extremely slippery.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Beyond the mindset
The 2008 Budget delivered by Finance Minister Michael
Cullen on May 22, and the media coverage since, have
both been remarkable for the striking absence of the
burning issues of our time: global warming and the
exhaustion of the fossil fuels upon which modern society
has relied so heavily. Cullen made only glancing reference
to these issues and their enormous impact on every aspect
of the economy, and then only to say that householders
needed and deserved "relief"—in the form of tax cuts—from
such pressures. It was further evidence, as if we needed
any, of the mindset that pigeonholes "environmental"
issues separately from "economic" ones. They are of course
one and the same, but unless our politicians can get their
heads around that, we're stuck in the same old rut. John Key
is no better: he spoke the other day of balancing economic
and environmental needs, as if the latter were just trees and
water and stuff inimical to the real business of making
money. Only the Green Party stands outside that mindset:
as co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons told Kathryn Ryan on
Radio New Zealand National this morning, the proposed
Emissions Trading Scheme—in all its glorious inadequacy—
is actually a far more significant piece of legislation than
any of the Budgetary measures announced last Thursday.
To deliver a Budget of which the post-oil age is not the
centrepiece is like having a party without the host being
present. And running out of food and drink very fast.
Cullen on May 22, and the media coverage since, have
both been remarkable for the striking absence of the
burning issues of our time: global warming and the
exhaustion of the fossil fuels upon which modern society
has relied so heavily. Cullen made only glancing reference
to these issues and their enormous impact on every aspect
of the economy, and then only to say that householders
needed and deserved "relief"—in the form of tax cuts—from
such pressures. It was further evidence, as if we needed
any, of the mindset that pigeonholes "environmental"
issues separately from "economic" ones. They are of course
one and the same, but unless our politicians can get their
heads around that, we're stuck in the same old rut. John Key
is no better: he spoke the other day of balancing economic
and environmental needs, as if the latter were just trees and
water and stuff inimical to the real business of making
money. Only the Green Party stands outside that mindset:
as co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons told Kathryn Ryan on
Radio New Zealand National this morning, the proposed
Emissions Trading Scheme—in all its glorious inadequacy—
is actually a far more significant piece of legislation than
any of the Budgetary measures announced last Thursday.
To deliver a Budget of which the post-oil age is not the
centrepiece is like having a party without the host being
present. And running out of food and drink very fast.
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