Forgotten Posts from the Past: Obama anti-free speech

When Barack Obama campaigned for the Presidency, one of his policies was to interfere with the media.   Fortunately both the Congress and the Constitution limit that, but take this snippet which shows a different side to the smiling "change you can believe in" mantras. 

"An Obama presidency will promote greater coverage of local issues and better responsiveness by broadcasters to the communities they serve". How?? Will he force radio and TV stations to carry local news more often? How will he punish those broadcasters who fail to serve their communities? Don't communities punish by not watching or listening, making it harder to attract advertisers?

Of course, this hasn't happened, but it shows the philosophical reach he and his campaign had in thinking the Federal Government should get involved in the content of the media.  Be grateful for Congressional gridlock that the President who doesn't appear to think his powers should be limited can't implement his long list of interventionist desires.

Forgotten Posts from the past : 2007 in review

Well, it's about time to review the past year, which for me personally, has been almost entirely abominable. It's confronted me with death, twice, of people I was very close to. However this is not about me, it's about history, politics and what I found interesting.

NZ politics

This was the year the wheels truly came off the Labour machine. The well oiled spin doctoring, and schmoozing of the electorate has worn thin, and the public is truly fed up with Helen Clark and the Labour government. With polling now below when Labour got elected in 1999 (and remember Labour also had 7% from the Alliance to add onto that then), and National now polling at levels unseen since the 1975 crushing victory by Muldoon - and this is with MMP - it looks like John Key and National can sleepwalk to victory. Of course it cannot, Clark cannot be written off yet - the tax cut bribe is yet to come, and Labour can rely on a core 25% of voters who suckle off of the state tit in one mindless way or another. Expect it to get dirtier, Labour has already tried this and failed, several times, for it to stick. The true colours of Michael Cullen, once thought of as the steady hand on the finances, have come home to roost with his vile attack on John Key for being wealthy - the envious claw of the academic who loves political power over self made success. John Key and National have shown themselves as nothing greater than quietly keeping their mouths shut, unable to assert much or believe in anything. Note the opposition to the Electoral Finance Bill was a bit after the event, and after many others agitated against it - National sniffs the winds and goes with them - business as usual then.

Beyond the two main parties, the other parliamentary parties have at best been absent, and worst been shown up for the appeasers of big government that they are. The Greens have been burnt by the Electoral Finance Bill, and the absence of Rod Donald. Looking more and more like a tired cracked record wanting more and more government, they are no longer that interesting, but can't be ruled out. Few would bet the Greens will drop below 5%. NZ First is a thoroughly spent force, Winston Baubles Peters sold out on the Electoral Finance Bill, and his constituency continues to appear in the obituary columns than as new members. Peter Dunne's last minute opposition to the Electoral Finance Bill wont save his party from becoming a one man band, he looks like a Labour Minister, you clearly don't change the government by voting United Future. Finally, where is ACT? and the Maori Party continues its racist blunderings in sympathising with Robert Mugabe and throwing around the word "racist" whenever it doesn't get its own way.

The public thinks in a two party manner again, with the small parties having barely any relevance - except that National will not forget to remind voters than NZ First, United Future and the Greens keep Labour in power.

Footnote:  Yes the Nats won, Labour lost, and the Greens got a small boost.  Winston was wiped out to spend three years out, Peter Dunne lost his last colleague and ACT surprisingly picked up a bit, as did the Maori Party.  Still a lot has happened since. 

Free the Al-Jazeera journalists, but what about Qatar?

There is no doubt that it reprehensible for the Egyptian government to prosecute English language journalists of Al-Jazeera for "terrorism".  The campaign #journalismisnotacrime is quite right in what it calls for. As much as I support the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood autocracy that appeared to have the view that democracy means "one vote once" in its drive to create a theocracy, it does not justify the new regime suppressing free journalism.  The response to criticism should be rebuttal, not to throw people in prison.

However, looking a little bit further behind the campaign some big questions deserve to be asked...

1.  What press freedom does Al Jazeera's owners offer in its home country?  The answer is very little. Reporters Without Borders ranks Qatar as 113th in press freedom globally.  Of course, if you're Al Jazeera journalists who dare to report critically about Qatar, you at best wont last in your job long, at worst you'll end up in prison too.  This is a country where there is a proposed crime to spread "false news".  Qatar itself gets a "not free" ranking by Freedom House, which notes that:

"Al-Jazeera generally does not cover Qatari politics and focuses instead on regional issues."

2. What about journalists arrested in many other countries?  Reporters Without Borders notes that 170 journalists have been imprisoned in over 30 other countries this year.   That includes 32 in China, 28 in the largely ignored Eritrea (the north Korea of Africa), 21 in Iran and 16 in Syria.  Why pick on Egypt?  Is it because, unlike the others, it gets US backing, rather than because journalists per se mater?

3.  Why is international attention paid to Al Jazeera journalists working for Al Jazeera English, but not when those who work for Al Jazeera Arabic are arrested?  Doesn't this feed the concern of the Anglo-centric bias of so much of the mainstream media?  Few of the journalists imprisoned in other countries work predominantly in English.  Why should that matter?  

4.  How do people working for broadcasters, owned by dictatorships that intervene in other countries, expect to be treated in those countries?  I don't doubt that many journalists who work for Al-Jazeera are professional in their outlook, and wouldn't want to act as mouthpieces for their owners, but when your employer's owners are directly funding and arming the authoritarian opposition (and former government) in a country, and you're in the country reporting on it, don't you think it raises some issues about independence?

Iraq, Iran and what now

The dominant discourse as of late about Iraq has been the opportunity for those who opposed the Western intervention in Iraq to gloat, to repeat the largely vacuous claims that the war was "illegal" (when it was legally authorised by the governments concerned and to grant any legal status to the psychopathic Saddam Hussein regime is to abrogate any notion of needing law at all) and to blame the recent ISIS successes on Tony Blair and GW Bush.

The grain of truth in that is important, but it is not the key point at this stage

It is true that whilst the West was very capable, with aplomb even, in overthrowing the Hussein regime, and indeed few think that was bad in itself (although Saddam Hussein's chief sycophant George Galloway thinks so, but he has since gone on to lick the blood stained boots of Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin), but was woeful in establishing a new order and constitutional framework on Iraq.  It was completely morally correct to overthrow the regime, which itself broke international law across many fields (international aggression, use and development of weapons of mass destruction and human rights) and was egregiously evil.   However, to expend over US$1 trillion in taxpayers' money and thousands of Western soldiers lives and not have an effective plan for a peaceful future (except for the relatively successful Kurdish region, which had spent over a decade effectively protected by a UNSC endorsed No Fly Zone), was grossly negligent.

It is for that, that Bush, Blair and the supporting leadership of those administrations deserve to be damned.

Let's be clear, had the bulk of Iraqis been imbued with the belief that all other Iraqis, regardless of what sect of Islam they followed (if any) or their background, deserved to live their lives in peace, then it would have been easy.

Britain matters to Germany

One of the reasons given as to why many in continental Europe do not understand the British lack of enthusiasm for the European Union is that no other country in the EU was bound by being the victor in World War Two.  The war, and being on the right side, was and remains a common cause of pride and identity for the UK.  Not for the UK is there a smidgeon of guilt over what happened in World War Two.  

Compare that to Germany, which has spent the post-war period being reminded that it was the land that started two wars in the 20th century and committed the world's first modern industrial level form of genocide.  Whereas other states on the continent were either allied to the Nazis, neutral towards them or defeated by them.  Unlike Britain, the idea that the EEC and then the EU would ensure that these countries would never fight each other again, is powerful and is fed, in part, by a sense of national guilt that their ancestors either didn't do enough for peace, or were themselves cheering on the militarism that consumed the continent.  The UK can firmly be sure that it didn't start the war, it wasn't neutral and it wasn't defeated, even if geography helped that (Ireland remained neutral, as it was solipsistically focused on its own bloody independence, rather than seeing the evil on the continent).   

Don't underestimate the different psychological effect that Britain takes for granted, in having its war veterans appear on D-Day, telling their stories, with pride and heroism.  Feeding the nationalist pride of just victory, is not something that happens on the continent.  At best some resistance fighters, at worst those who fought for fascism, genocide and totalitarianism, denies the strength of identity based on such history, refocusing pride on more benign identity points, such as language, older history and post-war culture, and the EU as the antidote to the guilt.

It understandably, is never discussed.  Indeed, the new EU Member States that once lay under the jackboot of the USSR have similar issues, with so many in those countries who were a part of systems that oppressed their fellow citizens.

So when Angela Merkel yesterday said "What would have become of Europe if the British people had not found the strength to put their existence at risk in order to save Europe?" it was a welcome sign that, despite the arrogance and smug self-satisfaction of the EU, some in continental Europe will say what is known - Europe today would not be free if it had not had the UK (and the USA) to fight against Nazism and keep Stalin behind an iron curtain.

There is no need to be repeatedly grateful for winning the war, after all most of those alive across Europe bear no responsibility or guilt for what their ancestors did.  I didn't win the war or do anything to help, so I shouldn't claim any esteem from what happened.  

However, it would do well for others in Europe to note the differences in history, and the reasons why the UK does feel confident about its own national sovereignty, history and ability to avoid declaring war on its neighbours.