PO Box 2 Blackball

Hope?

It can feel difficult to keep having opinions in this era where opinions seem to count for little.

The US President is an authoritarian bully without disguising the fact, the genocide in Gaza intensifies, the Europeans arm themselves in a historic repetition of preparation for world war, Netanyahu nominates Trump for the Nobel Peace prize, the Israeli’s build a ‘humanitarian’ city in order to herd Palestinians into a place of final erasure – parody is not a descriptive word anymore. Nor are ‘respect’, ‘diversity’, ‘dysfunction’, ‘trauma’, ‘resilience’, ‘counsel’, ‘safety’, ‘democracy’, ‘peace’ – the list goes on.

As does daily living for us fortunate ones: the birds sing at dawn and begin preparing nests, people complain about the cost of living and rest home fees, have birthdays, the cat seeks warmth, an elderly relative takes a worrying turn for the worse, the rhododendron trees ready for Spring…

And then Francesca Albanese appears like a diva, speaking truth to power, like a William Blake poem and we gasp. The Hague group of countries meet and demand (how sad we are not part of it) that nations and corporations uphold international law, Harvard University tells Trump to get stuffed, LA migrants and supporters keep battling the ICE thugs, the word solidarity appears in discourse amongst academics, lawyers, students, local body representatives, citizens…

Are we finally waking up?

Are we hearing the death rattle of the old colonial order?

July 17, 2025 0

Denouement

As the Gaza genocide reaches its denouement, the horror worsens. Now the starving Palestinians are pushed into a narrow strip of land to the south, where a game of Russian roulette is played as they are picked off when they scavenge for food. Gangs are armed by the IDF to create even more havoc. When the situation becomes equal to that of the death camps the fence which separates the area from the Sinai will be breached and the the remaining population will pour throughthe hole into the desert where presumably, aid organisations will be allowed to tend to a now homeless and stateless population; the fence will be restored and the genocide complete.

Meanwhile a global order without ethical framework watches the event as yet another spectacle. The West, China and Russia continue to trade with Israel, and the Arab nations build super yachts or are subservient to their Western masters. Only the ordinary people express outrage – to no avail – the only hope would be a conscious united working class willing to bring the sorry system down.

The puppeteers trash the puppet stage

Punch and Judy joust with bombs in their teeth

The spies screech with laughter

What a piece of work is man.

June 17, 2025 0

Contradictions

The economic trajectory of the charity is suddenly of interest because of the cuts to human services and a move to dismantle the state and trash its role in the maintaining of what’s left of social democracy.

Charity began as a Christian duty of citizenship, both a material offering from those with plenty to those in need, but also an offer of Christ-like love; something akin to aroha. The church itself, via nuns and monks, gave alms and succour to the poor.

With the advent of capitalism, the very rich gave some of their money to the poor or to support good works done by others for a number of reasons: the limits of private consumption, to continue the concept of Christian charity, to feel good – the poor can be interesting, grateful and sometimes irascible, to flirt with loss, to have control of things at the community level and to avoid revolutionary fervour. The administration became formalised with the creating of charities so that others can add to the coffers of the rich. So you get the Bill Gates Foundation and the like. The state plays ball by giving tax free status to the work of the charity and a tax credit to those who donate.

The NGO charity enters the scene, doing some of the governments work and being paid to do so by the state. This becomes unstable when the entrepreneurial charity spawns profit making companies which donate profit back to the charity, but can also use the model to avoid tax. And then there are multinational charities with a specific expertise setting up and seeking government and sometimes private funds in a variety of countries. A false yet competitive market begins to operate. With charter schools, but also with some health and other initiatives, the relationship with the state provider of similar services becomes tetchy and ideological, for the new right is intent on dismantling the state, with the very rich (with various fancies in mind), wanting to establish and have control of company towns and city states and colonies in outer space or they have the impulse to comfortably bunker down as the planet dissolves.

Diversity becomes a contested model with the private provider arguing that they are filling niche needs. At the same time new right ideologues are rubbishing the diversity established by the ‘woke’ bureaucracy as they administer what’s left of the social democratic state.

On the Left, the anarcho syndicalists are also wishing to radically change the nation state, advocating instead a federalist model, with local control of the commons and the tax take and mutual aid groups providing services. In some ways they mirror the new right but with a different, communist goal in sight.

The only clarity in these puzzling times is to peer with a Marxist eye at the relations of production and to see who owns and/or controls the means of production. If the charter school is owned and run by a co-operative of parents, teachers, students and support workers, leaving the state to provide funding and to monitor overall standards, well and good. If not, forget it. Same with everything else.

This new model could replace the charity model which is increasingly fraught with contradiction.

May 15, 2025 0

Alarum Bells

I seem to remember some years back, ACT leader, David Seymour Dancing with the Stars, which was not a pretty sight. Now he seems to be venturing into the stand up comic business, in which he has greater ability. The routine is that of a pompous little prat who can’t organise a school lunch programme trying to change our constitution and transform the regulatory routine against all advice. From a perfectly sensible framework of local food for local kids made by local providers he is now having to bring in packed lunches from Aussie. Perhaps he’d like to import a tiriti relationship as well? Mmmm.The sight of our David as Deputy Primie Minister is sure to have the audience in stitches.

More generally ACT ministers are proving a disaster, from a Minister for Children with a personal grudge dismembering social service provision, to a Minister of Workplace relations who won’t meet with the unions, to a culturally illiterate Minister of the Arts – this from a party which preached good management.

Like all neo-liberals (I think we have to call them neo neo-liberals by now) they are brain dead zombies chanting slogans, Unfortunately they seem to have led National into the same abyss of idiocy.

And then catching by accident, Winston Peters’ address to the nation, I was reminded of the words of the 20th century philosopher and analyst of fascism, Hannah Arendt: The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.

The Palestinian Solidarity movement, very concerned and ashamed by Foreign Minister, Peters’refusal to make a stand against the genocide in Gaza, were protesting outside the venue where theNZ First faithful had come to listen to their leader’s State of the Nation address. Winston has of course recently been to Washington and met with some of the Trump cabal and being the opportunist that he has always been, has immediately picked up on their jargon. The people outside were ‘ignorant, left wing fascists’, ‘long haired bludgers who have never done a day’s work’, ‘Communists’, ‘anti democratic’, ‘woke’, ‘Marxist whingers, encouraged by the media’.

They don’t know what they’re talking about. He’s had meetings with the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Indonesia and the President of Turkey and he knows the reality of geopolitics (the Palestinian Authority are collaborators with Israel, Egypt is held over a barrel economically by the US, the President of Turkey is a dictator and Indonesia is a fragile democracy, committing significant human rights abuses in West Papua and cracking down on religious minorities, women, and sexually diverse people). Not a great bunch to take your cue from.

As Winston had trouble with his articulation – he is getting on – there were echoes of Trump. When some protests erupted from the hall, he led cries of ‘shame’, and ‘get them out’. In terms of foreign policy, he has decided there are big changes happening and we should keep our own counsel, not speak out, prepare for what is happening strategically and seize the opportunities to sell our country. Ethically then, he is a barrow boy.

Later in the speech, other than the traditional NZ First’s appeal to the provinces and the need forresource extraction, development and local democracy versus Wellington bureaucrats, he was big on getting rid of diversity, equity and inclusion policies, anti-trans, anti sex education, and in an appeal to the anti-vax people, anti fluoridation, Environmentally, we make no difference anyway, so why be idealistic and wear a hair shirt.

The Labour Party and the unions are both full of university-educated woke people who have never been workers so don’t know what it’s like and have betrayed their roots. Richard Seddon was the man and we need to return to our settler realities and be one people (he forgot to say that a greatdeal of Maori land was alienated under Seddon). He didn’t say the phrase, but it will come, Make New Zealand Great Again, which would be a more emphatic way of saying, NZ First.

The problem is that Winston Peters fits Hannah Arendt’s definition of the ideal subject of totalitarianrule, perfectly. As do his followers. There is no differentiation between fact and fiction, or truth and falsehood.

So, in this coalition, we have one partner who brings the chaos of neo liberal economics and the desire to capture the state for the purposes of the rich, the other who is appealing to populism in its current form, a form which , led by Trump, is very ugly indeed. Both tendencies are essentially undemocratic and potentially totalitarian. Winston is too lazy to be evil, David is too stupid to be a big-time influencer, but together, and with a confused centre-right partner they could nudge NZ down a path of half-arsed fascism.

The election can’t come soon enough.

March 25, 2025 0

New Year thoughts

It’s a confusing time politically. Outrage has proved useless as the millions walking the streets in protest against the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank are ignored. Freedom of speech is curtailed in Western democracies. Surveillance increases. The shift towards a proto fascism gains traction. Feudal rentier billionaires gain authority and control. The digital world becomes ever more invasive and controlling and AI seriously begins to colonise communication. A new wave of imperialism surges and the Left is disordered ideologically and practically as the New Year brings a cascade of donation requests. A free Palestine becomes a romance as the genocide continues to be funded and abetted. A further slow genocide takes place for Cuba. Air power including drones which simply destroys infrastructure becomes the modus operandi of political thuggery. The climate crisis reaches a tipping point. In the States the economic basis of political advocacy organisations is threatened by a change to tax law. The small beacon of hope, Rojava, where a socialist, anarcho syndicalist state structure based on the liberation of all identities, is seriously threated by Turkey and Iran. Despite a lurch to the right and a return to the neo liberal model we are so far, sufficiently distanced, to potter along half decently but will be drawn into the mess in our usual self-effacing way. The assassination of a health insurance CEO resonated widely as a moment of justice, sending a whole caste scurrying for security and protection.

Are we in fact in a situation somewhat similar to pre revolutionary Russia, where the occasional act of domestic terrorism revealed the realities of the terror of the system, even while it intensified that reality? What must we insist on? For a beginning, innocence is not an option. Organisations that depend on charity are overly vulnerable. Truth telling is necessary and the hard dialogues must be held. What are we aiming for? What world is possible? What has to be given up? What about ‘the workers’? What is ‘the people’? What collaborations are rejected? Do we need to stop being polite? How do we protect our organisations? Where is the rhythm? What is the antithesis? Is there a counter hegemony? And of course, What is to be done?

January 12, 2025 0

Crisis

As Trump assembles a team of fascists and we know a new McCarthyism will take place, the Left are left gob-smacked by the realisation of the depth of the rout, mutterings of equity and justice from the academy increaingly marginalised, shivering from the realisation of who voted for him – even Afro American, Latino, Middle Eastern people, women… Our beliefs can become platitudes and a testing time lies ahead. Are we capable of resisting the terror? Do we have the structures?

It will be horrific for Palestinians as the genocide and Nakbar proceeds. Cuba is also in the firing line bigtime. As is Iran. Expressions of moral outrage will no longer be enough. Is there a generation of disenchanted youth who will eat the beast from within? In some ways the soccer riots in Europea against Israeli fans bring hope. When the violence penetrates to the centre, the establishment may lilsten. They will shout and condemn but when property is threatened, they sometimes listen, despite themesleves.

And what of the UN? Salvageable? And the climate crisis? And BRICS as an alternative global order? Difficult times requiring political organisation of a resolute kind. Webinars and left wing branding will not bring down the Empire. Nor long-winded legal machinations. Nor performative gesturing adding to the spectacle.

This is a fight for life.

November 16, 2024 0

The World

With the absolute clarity of the current period of genocide in Northern Gaza, the absolute clarity of Israeli intent on cleansing the West Bank and Gaza of Palestinians whether by death or expulsion and the world’s refusal to intervene, any pretence of there being a moral global order disappears. We are left with the fact that we have reached a new stage in the decline of the Western colonial project and need to acknowledge that nation-state gangs have taken over. This must be accompanied by a further realisation that warring gangs are unlikely to solve any of the pressing issues and that we are left with opportunism and narcissism and that the spectacle which bemuses will become increasing manipulative and psychotic.

But what do we do? – as a residential cruise ship for millionaires named The World (but without any refugees on board) enters Wellington Harbour?

October 27, 2024 0

The exotic trees of Kōtuku

Having finished well enough the repair and upgrade of the old Jack’s Mill School near Moana and now beginning the operation of a School for Social Change in Te Wai Pounamu on the site, we have a remaining substantial problem: what to do with three large exotic trees that were planted some time ago, quite possibly as acts of commemoration, trees which have not been managed and which now shade the buildings. In the event of a hurricane type event they might fall and destroy the heritage infrastructure and meanwhile they discard large amounts of tree litter that block guttering, rubbish the lawn and occasionally branches fall which would be dangerous to anyone walking underneath.

As we struggle with this problem, the trees, for me, begin to be symbolic. They are exotic plantation trees planted individually in a domestic setting so it was a dumb thing to do (that is lacking in foresight). In their native setting the discipline of the collective plantation would have kept them from overspreading and protected them in a wind event. In the temperate and wet West Coast climate they have grown quickly and hugely.

Given that this is a heritage site and because momentarily, on a sunny day, they can be attractive and impressive, some think they are part of the heritage and should therefore be retained.

DOC who own the site but who have devolved the management to the community, dither, have no money for maintenance, but intermittently pay for a conversation report in order to cover their arses.

The community doesn’t have any money for the task and cutting down trees is not sexy for funders.

I have consulted local tree fellers but generally they cut down trees in paddocks for firewood and after expressing confidence in their ability to deal with these trees in a straightforward manner, they have second thoughts and wander away. As well, they generally don’t have the range of insurance cover necessary. A Christchurch arborist who could dismantle the trees in the city manner, needs $30,000 to do so.

To provide amusement DOC reports that there’s a person, presumably hunting around for a thesis topic or a consultant touting for work, who wants to apply for funding to write a heritage landscape report on the site, which, if completed would mystify the situation further and generally piss off the community, for she would be getting paid and the community involved are volunteers. And where does she come from and who is she? We’ve got a core group running the workshop programme, we’ve got the local school involved in resurrecting the landscape and the community, more generally, are having a dialogue with these lefties who now run the site and who have done a good job so far and apart from their dodgy politics, seem okay as people. The local hapu are beginning to use the place as well and now toot on their way home and recently invited me to attend a wananga on traditional embalming during which I offered my ageing body as a stand in corpse. And finally, both sides of the Gloriavale saga have popped in. So, what’s with this consultant?

It’s not hard to see this whole situation as a parable for the wider world where the problem of coloniarity (a word which embodies both the act of colonisation, past and present, but also the mindset that goes with it and the wider resonances) – is here symbolised by the overbearing trees.

October 13, 2024 0

7 out of 50,000

Visiting Invercargill we joined the local Palestinian Support Network as they protested in the local supermarkets against the selling of Israel sourced products, in particular Obela hummus. They were good people and it was a privilege to join them. But when we went home to family only the eleven year old was interested. You what? You went into a supermarket and took stuff off the shelves without permission? They didn’t try and stop you? He took some convincing. Palestinian protestors become in fact a different species. So that the puzzle of the other 49993 local people who are witnessing a live-streamed genocide without protest becomes slightly less puzzling – and I’m not being critical of Invercargill here – it is the same everywhere. For some, protest is foreign, as is the issue. Some are scared off by visa requirements. There’s the danger of getting known in a smallish city. Some will have registered the ineffectiveness of the moral outrage protest. After all 100 million people protesting the Iraq invasion had no effect. How many have protested this genocide with no response from the Empire?

As the international protest turns more to the boycott, it does take it into the tetchier and more serious territory of economic interests. Quite simply, if Israel was denied weapons and fuel, the war would stop.. The Israeli economy could be crippled by an economic embargo such as is placed on Cuba, and its identity undermined by education, cultural and sporting boycotts. If weapons were no longer manufactured because workers, supported by unions, were no longer willing to make them, wars would stop. But it’s not seriously happening. And if it started to, there would be a crunch point which would be very volatile indeed.

It all becomes self interested in a way. The group were pleased with their action and they should be. There is always the energy that results from performance, plus the video on facebook, the comments of passers by, the moral reward from having participated. We exist. It is no different from any performance. So, the performances compete for position in the performance cacophony which is the modern political scene.

So, change is incremental. I do wonder whether the constant simple non-judgemental questioning of the uncommitted would be useful? Do you know what’s happening? How do you feel about it? Why aren’t you with us? A bit of a door knocking campaign, a collation of the answers into a theatre piece. Trying to puzzle the complex web behind it all.

September 9, 2024 0

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