Well, agree or not, and I mostly do, I just want to say how nice it is to see Geoff make a reasoned argument for a change on frogblog; one that doesn’t resort to making factual claims about people’s motivations where where only the loosest of circumstantial evidence exists. This allows a proper debate to occur on the real information presented, of which Geoff often has a lot. So thanks for that Geoff.

I find it extraordinary that knowing what they know, the leaders of the Green Party of Aotearoa decided to line up with “the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union” in supporting a highly biassed, and arguably false version of the political crisis in Iran.

Of course Keith didn’t claim there was vote fraud at the time, just called for an impartial investigation. Was that the position of the US et al? I thought they were taking a harder line, which would mean Keith hadn’t fell totally in line.

Its ironic though, because it was only the next day that jh started posting to ask why Keith didn’t immediately support the protesters. Could it be that Keith was trying to wait and see, knowing the history Geoff presents and wanting more info? I’ll guess that the violence a week or so later was one straw too far for Keith, who then felt he had to speak regardless of what the truth might be regarding the election itself.

A final observation is that since Keith gets it in the neck no matter what he does, you can understand why he might take little notice of either side

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How urban can Houston become?
Big changes to our development code loom, but some worry flooding, parking and other problems will follow

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6502059.html

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But its efforts in that direction are largely ineffectual.

You mean that the investigative reporters of the Newspapers that supported the opposition got to look into the balloting issue?

oops.

I take your meaning about press here not being controlled by government but not being by any means free. However, that is not the same as the Iranian press actually having the freedom to investigate and challenge the state apparatus… as the press (as you point out) could do here. In one condition there are two opposing forces that are to some extent equally matched, or would be if the government had concentrated on sticking to the truth, and in the other the imbalance favors the government.

Which government do I trust? None of them. So I prefer the media to be the whip hand if someone must, but I don’t disagree that they DO hold A whip in the USA. The financial sector has a bigger one.

The media no longer “mediates”. It has become not just a player, not just the fourth estate, but the dominant political force in western democracy. It dictates to politicians, and it dictates the political process…

needs to be reconciled with this better… I am not sure I understand your point here.

…to become nothing more than propaganda instruments of the regime?

Do you reckon that the Greens might have done so because they believed the reports that were coming out of Iran on every internet channel that was open to the Iranians and because we have a long experience with governments lying to us and we have also seen, recently, the government of the USA suffering with election fraud and contested elections? There is a LOT to keep in mind Geoff.

You are focusing on one aspect, and there is a fair amount of truth in what you say about the media, but there are some alternative explanations to “the leaders of the Green Party of Aotearoa decided to line up with “the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union”

We may be thinking of other examples to yours. Who DO you trust?

Note that in spite of the media being manipulated about Iraq, many Americans from the left knew that nothing was going to be found. The information was there. It was just not in the more popular press. Not in the headlines. You actually had to READ the New York Times or the LA Times, the stories were on page 5 and never in the headlines, but they were there.

BJ

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BJ “the news media in IRAN is completely locked down and controlled by the state?”

The situation is not that simple. There is more state regulation of the press in Iran than in New Zealand, but there is also a much broader range of political expression in Iran than is the case in New Zealand.

In New Zealand control of political expression is exercised by the foreign duopoly which has legal possession of virtually all the nation’s mass media. APN and Fairfax claim to exercise their almost absolute media power fairly, with propriety and in the national interest, and the state has learnt that far from being able to control the media, it must, in certain circumstances, learn to submit. Effectively, the state and the political classes in New Zealand have become entirely dependent upon the mass media organisation, and so the question of state control of the media simply does not arise. The real issue in New Zealand media control of the state, not state control of the media.

The situation in Iran is quite different. The ownership of the media is very fragmented. There are literally dozens of newspapers in Tehran alone, and all newspapers tend to have their own political line. Leaving aside the role of the state, the Iranian media is in a very healthy state. There is no western society that could even come close to the diversity and vibrance of the Iranian print media. But the state’s political power derives largely from social structures (populist, religious, and para-military) which are independent of the media. Consequently the Iranian state feels that it can exert some level of control over the media. And for ideological reasons it believes that it should exercise some control. But its efforts in that direction are largely ineffectual. There is simply no comparison with the highly effective forms of control over the media content which apply in more evolved free market states in the west.

In Britain, the preeminent broadcaster functions as an instrument of British foreign policy, at least with respect to Iran. The beeb’s Iranian activities are funded directly by the Foreign Office. Hence the BBC does not act as a news gathering and dissemination organisation per se. Its brief is to advance British foreign policy, and since British foreign policy is directly hostile to the existence of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the BBC’s coverage is inevitably biassed and lacking in objectivity.

I don’t need to go into how the function of the western media has been subverted by the Iraq war, and now standard, practice of “embedding” reporters with the western military, or how the whole relationship between the people, the media, and the state has changed in western society. The media no longer “mediates”. It has become not just a player, not just the fourth estate, but the dominant political force in western democracy. It dictates to politicians, and it dictates the political process, because the masses themselves (aside from perhaps 2% of the population) are not active political participants.

That is not the case in Iran, where, as recent events demonstrate, there is still mass involvement in politics, still a highly diverse range of print media, and where neither the state nor the media organisations on their own can control the political discourse.

Do I “blame the Greens” for this the degradation of the state and private media in the west to the point where they have surrendered the role of news gathering, analysis, and dissemination to become nothing more than propaganda instruments of the regime? Of course I don’t.

But I would have liked to see a little more circumspection from the Greens before they decided to line up with “the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union” by sticking their oar into the political process in Iran. They should not have rushed to judgement on the validity of the Iranian election and the death of Neda Soltani on the basis of what the BBC was saying.

Most of the Green Party leaders can remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident which was headlines in all our newspapers, which never happened, and whcih became the pretext for war with Vietnam. They can remember the My Lai massacre, which New Zealand newspapers only admitted to a year after the event, when further concealment became impossible. They can certainly remember the “weapons of mass destruction”, which never existed, and which provided the pretext for war with Iraq. They can remember the “Jessica Lynch” story which was contrived to demonise Iraqi medical professionals who had acted in accordance with the highest professional and humanitarian ethics.

I find it extraordinary that knowing what they know, the leaders of the Green Party of Aotearoa decided to line up with “the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union” in supporting a highly biassed, and arguably false version of the political crisis in Iran.

For that I do blame them.

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Sapient; Well I’ve long been thinking about a ‘Waitangi 2 ‘ Document we yet may write – things have changed so drastically, even in my short life; Though certainly i’ve drastically upgraded the local History Lessons since returning…
Don’t overlook Micheal King – a writer Graham Nilling gave me when I arrived, thenn the contemporary tales ‘Cork of War’ by Ray Grover.
The Treaty to me – is not something I’d even like to see thoroughly ratified, as I feel it perpetuares a separatism that is not me certainly.
I grew up alongside the son of a chief, as a euro, I already know the friends and family – we are inseperable….documents that don’t recognise this, go,imo, in the wrong direction. ie against the social flow (associated beakdowns, crackdowns and just general downs)

Didn’t mention the League Teams I’m entering into the Britons League. Some dam fine recruits in high security there!!!
honestly
Mark

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Mark,
Am reading a book at the moment entitled “Healing our History – The Challenge of the Treaty of Waitangi” as part of one of my papers. Im not so much in-synch with the whole romantic humanitatrian and neo-catholic perceptions of human rights and such but it is a highly interesting read and I would recommend it. Lots of references to Mason Durie too ive noticed.

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So; I contact my iwi friend and we form the ten best Musical Acts out of our jails – ship ‘em to LA as Business Ventures.
They be hangin and bangin hehe
Come back rich or not at all – and they be damn greatfull to get back to
peacefull little old New Aotearoa!

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Mark,
Yup, it shoudint all be about punishment. Cost and benifit, cost and benefit .

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Sapient; Indeed i’ve seen this (what may be seen as) lenient approach work with young offenders – it is indeed the quality of reform that determines the chooser
Cheers Mark

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Usually, everyone is happy about his exuberant largesse. But Glenn’s excursions into political donations, consisting of large gifts to the Labour Party and then New Zealand First, showed him politicians can be all too happy to bite the hand that feeds, chew on it, spit it out and complain about the taste.

Thus Glenn has become the off-stage star of the biggest political drama of the year, one that threatens to destroy Winston Peters’ political career, and at the same time fatally damage Labour’s election prospects. Until now he has communicated with the Parliamentary privileges committee via two letters, but on Tuesday the words will be made in the flesh. Glenn is expected to stand up and directly contradict Peters’ claim of having had no prior knowledge of the $100,000 donation Glenn made towards New Zealand First’s legal bills. It should be an interesting day.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/616249

and what about the fund raising dinners at Jade Terrace restaurant in Manukau where $200,000 could be raised but Labour would lump it all together so they “couldn’t say who gave what”?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10582518

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Toad (taking the flack for metiria who has to tone down her anti pakeha rhetoric) says:

“Just when we seemed to be working towards a political consensus on the foreshore and seabed, out crawls Winston Peters from his self-imposed political exile:”

“just when the political parties are working towards a consensus”……
, the rest of the country is probably aghast. Act is all for private ownership knowing that poor Maori will have a price when offered enough by rich developers. The haters and wreckers enjoy hitting the white population around the head with the treaty while ignoring its extreme demands and impracticality (injustice).

“How do you construct a different world view when the mass majority of Maori activists I know have less than a quarter Maori in them and when I know so many Europeans who value the beach for, its shellfish, for its contact with nature and for their love of New Zealand being the way it is.”

Correct. Both Tariana Turie’s and margaret Mutu’s had parents born overseas and the others?

“Of course “they” are arguing about title. That is because title to the foreshore and seabed, or at least the right of hapū to go to Court to establish whether they have title to the foreshore and seabed, is what was extinguished by the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This is about property rights – pure and simple.”

Isn’t it the Green Party that wants us to honour the treaty as it stood in 1840 (when Maori were the overwhelming majority , prior to colonisation ) Ie the Maori version which quarantees tino rangitratanaga over rohe (as in it’s ours we can do what we like where we like when we like!). Did not Maori live where food sources were prevalent and access to the oceans was easy?

A FORESHORE PRIMER

Prepared by Te Hau Tikanga – The Maori Law Commission.

This Primer canvasses some of the questions being raised in the current debate about the foreshore and seabed. It is based upon common concerns expressed by Maori over a course of Crown action that has already been labelled a new confiscation and which raises serious constitutional issues about the true nature of the Treaty relationship.

* Is this debate a new issue?

No. Ever since 1840 Iwi and Hapu have claimed that the foreshore and seabed fall within the exercise of tino rangatiratanga because they are both part of the whenua. However the Crown has assumed that it has absolute ownership of it and there have been numerous Maori protests and court cases through the years.

So it’s a Treaty issue then?

It is clearly covered as a Treaty right in Article Two which acknowledges that Iwi and Hapu have “exclusive and undisturbed possession” of lands etc.

However the Treaty merely reaffirmed a right and authority which Maori had exercised for centuries before 1840.

* Why has the debate become so prominent only recently?

The Court of Appeal decided on June 26 that the eight Iwi in Marlborough could have their claim to their stretch of foreshore and seabed heard in the Maori Land Court.

* Was the case decided as a Treaty issue?

No. The Court considered the matter as a common law issue because English and colonial law had long ago decided that “aboriginal” or “customary rights and title” continued after the Crown had established a colony.

The Court decided that it was the job of the Maori Land Court to define what they were.

* Are these common law “customary rights and title” the same as those claimed by Iwi before 1840?

No. There are similarities but the major difference is that the extent and nature of the common law version is actually defined by the Crown which has also assumed a right to extinguish or remove them.

What may be called the tipuna or Maori law version was defined by Maori – thus for example only Nga Puhi could define their rights and title and certainly no other Iwi had any right to extinguish them.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0307/S00029.htm

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Guess Winston couldn’t resist the chance to exploit the racist underbelly of society by trotting out the sambo argument.

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Shopping availability for seven days a week is doubtlessly convenient – but at what cost?

I don’t think that the cost is all that high; contrary to what some would have you believe, many of the people who work on Sundays are not full-timers and are instead students who work a couple of shifts a week.

In terms of the endless pursuit of useless things, well, it is a matter for debate – I don’t think that Sunday (or weekend trading for that matter) has caused this endless pursuit of useless things mindset in the population, it is part of a desire in humanity itself to “keep up with the Joneses”

Isn’t this in many ways related to the perceived necessity of the two income family?

Perceived necessity? It is a pretty real necessity for most modern families to have two incomes; paying off the typical mortgage these days consumes one income, and the family still need to eat, keep warm and do other things. I would suggest that it probably costs far more to run a household today than it would have in past times, and I am even only factoring in more basic things.

I guess they need to have Sunday as a shopping day

Have you not heard of late night Friday? The other thing is that large scale retailers are open later on weeknights and have been for many years – the days of everything shutting at 5pm are long gone, thank goodness.

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According to the Happy Planet Index NZ is ranked 102, Ausralia 103. Costa Rica is No. 1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/04/costa-rica-happy-planet-index

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>I would have a problem if we didn’t have Sunday trading;

Isn’t this in many ways related to the perceived necessity of the two income family? There are now comparatively few of us available to shop during the so-called business hours of Monday through Friday. And since many families try to use Saturday as a sports and recreation day, I guess they need to have Sunday as a shopping day.

Shopping availability for seven days a week is doubtlessly convenient – but at what cost? It is a mere enhancement of our ‘endless pursuit of useless things’. Just as we individually need a time for sleep and rest so too, it could be argued, we as a society need a time to refrain from shopping Perhaps Sunday may one day once again become the Day for Window Shopping, the day in which money is ‘kept in the pocket’.

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If he is visible in the night sky and can be seen using a prison issue telescope Shunda, and given that Gerrit okays the plan, you might get your wish!

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“Further more, if you found that research showed that prisoners who studied astronomy, especially those undertaking real-time study of the stars did especially well, due to the insights experienced through their exposure to a natural macro-system like outer space ”

That sounds interesting Mc fly, let them know there is a bigger world out there and change their world view.
I like it.
You could tell them about Jesus too greenfly

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gerrit – so your heart is not entirely hardened. You’ll allow (kind of you) prisoners to engage in ‘book learnin’ while they are on the inside,
to improve their live so that the chance of reoffending is nill.

If you were to learn that eating fresh organic vegetables and fruit increased the prisoners ability to learn, further improving their lives so that the chance of reoffending is nill, would you ‘allow’ it?
(Clue: It does)
Further more, if you found that research showed that prisoners who studied astronomy, especially those undertaking real-time study of the stars did especially well, due to the insights experienced through their exposure to a natural macro-system like outer space, would you ‘allow’ nighttime classes to be held, if practical?
All of these suggestions, like to one I made originally, are intended to help ‘reform’ the prisoner so that he/she can re-enter society better able to function safely, constructively and well and avoid re-imprisonment.

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I have been criticised for asking whether there is a link between the Green Party stand on Iran, and the fact that co-Leader Russell Norman is currently on a US State Department funded trip to Washington DC.

I critcised Geoff for claiming that such a link existed, not for asking. Eventually he agreed that he shouldn’t do this, I assume as he had absolutely no evidence suggesting it was true. This all just happened this weekend, but I guess its not a version of events that Geoff finds convenient, so we get this spin instead.

While there is obviously no simple, direct or crude link,

I’m glad Geoff thinks this is obvious now. I couldn’t get him to say that earlier when he was claiming it as fact.

even the most cursory observation of Green Party politics indicates that the party is moving towards a rapprochement with the United States and Britain on the international scene,

That’s obvious to everyone, right?

just as has been the case with the European Green parties, for example by giving implicit support to the presence of New Zealand troops in Afghanistan whom Green MP Keith Locke describes as “doing a good job”.

Well that should clinch it for anyone that the Greens are selling out their policy in Afghanistan, unless of course you don’t cherry pick the quote like Geoff did. Keith said here http://www.greens.org.nz/node/20975:

“It is good the Government is not rushing into any decision to send our Special Forces back to Afghanistan,” said Mr Locke.

“The Green Party recognises that our peacekeepers in Bamian province are doing a good job, and are respected by the local Hazara people.

“By contrast the United States and British-led war effort seems to have de-stabilised much of the south of the country and helped the Taliban recruit more fighters.”

Obviously a born again imperialist.

The Green Party statement explicitly on Iran states that at the outset that the Green position is consistent with that of the “United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union”.

I guess Geoff’s lesson here is that you can’t be truly anti-imperialist unless you disagree with everything ever said by the US et al.

This is not unexpected. The Green Party could never hope to find a stable political niche within the regime while it remained loyal to its anti-imperialist origins. But they will only be politically successful within the overall context of a failing system.

For all Geoff’s protesting about what others say, he has as much issue sticking to basic facts as anyone I’ve seen. I don’t know if he has a particular axe to grind with the Green Party, or if he is just generally loose with conjecture, though I suspect the latter.

Anyone wanting further insight to Geoff’s methods, have a look at our other on going joyful conversation here: http://blog.greens.org.nz/2009/06/27/general-debate-june-27-2009/#comment-82652

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greenfly,

No no TV no DVD, UNLESS those priviledges have been earned.

Schooling and education for prisoners enables them to rehabilitate themselves.

See us from the “lock them up and throw away the key” brigade are not totally without empathy and compassion!

But prisoners have to take on the personal responsibilty to improve their live so that the chance of reoffending is nill.

Hence education but no “on demand” TV or DVD’s nor dreamy star light scenarios. Thiose are for when they are released to a life that fits in with societies laws.

Next silly question

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