Big powerful Auckland council run by a celebrity?

The Sunday Star Times suggests this.

However, Aucklanders should say thanks but NO thanks, if what they want is lower rates and for local infrastructure to be provided on the basis of need, user pays and economic efficiency.

A big powerful council will want to get into every aspect of policy.

A celebrity Mayor would find it difficult to resist what they tend to be addicted to - attention and applause. Thousands would run to the Mayor wanting help and the drug of big government - OPM - Other People's Money. After all, what celebrity wants to be Mayor and simply say "no. You should try to convince people to pay voluntarily".

The next battle for Auckland should be about resisting a supercouncil. The Labour government inspired Royal Commission should be ignored. The key issue is what is the role of local government.

That is a debate the Royal Commission never was asked to enter into, because Labour's belief is "whatever the local community empowers it to do" - which of course simply means "whatever councillors want".

THAT ladies and gentleman is the problem of Auckland local government - it has become the hobby horse of far too many power hungry petty fascists, tempered by good natured people who seek good governance. These battles shouldn't happen - local government, if it is to exist, should be confined to "public goods". National could do worse than introduce a new Local Government Bill, that gives councils 3 years to divest themselves of activities that are not "public goods". That same period should include a prohibition on ANY rates increases over that time.

Rodney Hide is Minister of Local Government, you would think top of his agenda would be abolishing the power of general competence - the power that currently gives councils the power to do whatsoever they like, as long as it is ratified as part of the Long Term Council Community Plan. Abolishing this would do more for Auckland governance than any behemoth sized council.

Spineless Cameron on Wilders

David Cameron can lamblast the downfall of society, with the latest news of a 13yo boy fathering a child of a 15yo girl - par for the course of the chav underculture in Britain - because he's a Tory toff and the sons and daughters of the privileged never get pregnant, at least not in The Sun. It's an easy target, who is offended by damning teenagers?

So the testicular capacity of the Conservatives when it comes to Islamists is a little different. The Tories sat on the fence, far more interested in attracting Muslim votes than being principled. George Osborne questioned the wisdom of it, in terms of attracting publicity, but he wouldn't talk of freedom of speech.

The Tories aren't any more interested in this than Labour.

The trial of Duch

Notwithstanding Zimbabwe's horror, it is cold comfort to recall the regime that almost certainly represented the zenith of the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism.

The one regime that ran the steamroller over society, not caring the bones it broke in the process, to make all as one. It eliminated money, as an instrument of capitalism. It executed all those who were educated, it worshipped the illiterate manual labouring peasant, and damned those who had other skills, languages or abilities. It was the ultimate regime of backwardness, it was anti-technology, anti-trade, anti-foreign and anti-capitalist. Mass manual labour was meant to bring happiness, 1975 was designated Year Zero, and around 2 million people died of famine or executions.

It was Democratic Kampuchea, now again Cambodia - run by the Khmer Rouge. Many on the left cheered its victory, including Keith Locke, who undoubtedly ignored the hazy reports from the Khmer Rouge controlled parts of the country of brutal oppression. Images that can be seen in China Pictorial weekly propaganda magazines of the age - peasants disturbingly subdued all dressed identically, with images of Saloth Sar (Pol Pot). Even the vile linguist Noam Chomsky, who evades like a weasel the fact he claimed reports of massacres and brutality in Democratic Kampuchea were CIA propaganda.

Ironically, the communist regime of Vietnam overthrew the Khmer Rouge, because of border incursions, the particular nationalist brutality of the Khmer Rouge against the Vietnamese, and knowledge of the horror that had damned its neighbour.

I need not tell the story of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The film "The Killing Fields" tells part of it. The book by Haing Ngor "Surviving the Killing Fields" tells you far more about the brutality, inhumanity and bloody minded sadism of the regime.

Phnom Penh was evacuated of virtually all residents, except for some belonging to the regime, and for a prison set up there. Tuol Sleng was set up as S-21, an interrogation centre and prison. Few left alive. 17,000 went through it, the numbers who survived are no more than 20. The man who led S-21 was Duch. He is a mass murderer and sadist. He forced prisoners to torture each other. He demanded confessions that prisoners worked for the CIA or KGB, and would torture until they said so - if they didn't, they would be killed. If they did, they would be left to die of their horrible injuries. He took photos of them all before they were tortured and executed. Tuol Sleng today is a museum of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, with the eery photos of those who were murdered there covering the walls.

Duch converted to Christianity in the 1990s and has begged forgiveness, but so few of his victims are alive to even offer it. Cambodia finds it difficult to confront its past, with all too many of those in power today having had some role in "Democratic Kampuchea". So it is pleasing regardless to read in the Times that he is about to go on trial. Never, ever should the perpetrators of sadistic tyranny feel they can get away with it, plead forgiveness and all will be well. Cambodia lost nearly 1 in 3 of its citizens because of the Khmer Rouge.

As a footnote, Malcolm Caldwell, a Scottish academic and Marxist, thought the world of the Khmer Rouge. He wrote glowingly of the peasant revolution, and loved it so much, he went there to see it for himself. The Khmer Rouge murdered him on that trip, following days when he was awe inspired by what he saw. Such poetic justice.

Zimbabwe's new government in crisis already

Zimbabwe's secret police have already arrested an MDC MP designated to be Deputy Agriculture Minister for "treason" according to The Times. Roy Bennett, who had his coffee plantation stolen from him by Zanu PF thugs in 2003, was about to fly to South Africa to spend the weekend with his wife. He fled Zimbabwe following accusations he was plotting to assassinate Robert Mugabe, and returned to be an MP again after the power sharing government had been set up.

Zanu-PF has shared nothing but titles. Tonight the BBC, banned in Zimbabwe, had to meet Morgan Tsvangarai in a "safe house" to conduct an interview with him.

Zimbabwe needs a true revolution, and wont be on the path to justice, prosperity and freedom until the Marxist Zanu-PF gangsters are defeated, arrested, tried and imprisoned.

Too often today many think that it is impossible to judge, to say good or evil. However in Zimbabwe Zanu-PF is dripping with evil, from the blood of those murdered, the property of those robbed, those bullied, tortured, imprisoned and the sheer pillage of a country by gangsters - and the destruction of its infrastructure, and the health of its people.

The only justice today could come if the country was invaded, the Zanu PF bandits were rounded up and incarcerated for their crimes. One wish for 2009 is the death of Robert Gabriel Mugabe.

FOOTNOTE: However if you can't kill the bastard, at least laugh at him. Hugo Rifkind brilliantly satirises Robert Mugabe's diary in "My Week" in the Times. My favourite is:

"I call up Tsvangirai to suggest that, if he isn’t keen on massacres, how about a land grab? Just to show he’s one of the team now.
Tsvangirai says there won’t be any land grabs either, because a new day has dawned for Zimbabwe. To illustrate this, he says, he will today be arriving at the Chikurubi maximum security prison in Harare. “But of course you will!” I say, delighted. “For this is where I have designated your new offices and sleeping quarters!”
Tsvangirai adds that, after a couple of hours, he will also be leaving the Chikurubi maximum-security prison in Harare. “Oh,” I say. "

Fitna - see it here.

Fitna - the Dutch film by MP Geert Wilders. Warning this film contains graphic images. The film considers Islamism to be abhorrent to modern liberal democracies, and considers it as malignant as Nazism and Communism.

The House of Lords saw it last night. This film is the excuse given by the British government, supported by the so called Liberal Democrats, to ban Geert Wilders from promoting it in the UK - because he was branded an "extremist" and "peddling hate". Of course he was peddling hate - hatred of Islamism, not Muslims.

PART ONE



PART TWO



Maybe Muslims who are offended by this film might spend time focusing on attacking those who they say are damaging their religion, they might wage war against those they know who incite violence and hatred - and stop wondering why the rest of the world is scared when a segment of Islam so openly seeks to wage war on us all.