Bush's legacy on balance more good than bad

As the Bush Presidency enters its final months, it is worthwhile having a dispassionate look at the record so far. Those on the left, or indeed most people you encounter in many Western countries believe the hype that has been self generated that he has been the worst President in recent history. The war in Iraq is seen as clear evidence of this, as it has been expensive and cost many lives both military and civilian, though the overthrow of one of the Middle East's most tyrannical and militaristic dictatorships (and the murder and destruction it wrecked upon its own people and its neighbours is conveniently glossed over) is almost taken for granted. The failure to completely crush the Taliban is pointed at, meanwhile the fact the Taliban regime WAS overthrown, and that it was the most utterly heartless, lifeless, vile form of Islamist barbarism is also ignored - girls in Kabul can go to school now, people can play music - but Bush's critics prefer to ignore that. They ignore that the war on Iraq resulted in Libya's Colonel Gaddafi "giving up" his own weapons of mass destruction, opening up and engaging with the West, instead of pursuing his long history of backing terrorist and murderers on several continents.

Most importantly, there has not been another terrorist attack on the US since 9/11. That should be a cause of celebration - it's difficult to point to the absence of something and say "see what I have done", but in this case it is important. People are still flying, going about their daily business, albeit with much less convenience than they once did.

Bush critics point at failure to achieve peace in Israel, although the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel points to at least one step forward. The isolation of Hamas in Gaza has worked to prevent the entire Palestinian Authority from becoming an Islamist terrorist base. Meanwhile Israel has knocked out a nuclear facility in Syria, something that the so called "anti-nuclear/peace" movement wont ever give credit for. You see to them, it is no worse for a one-party state or Islamist theocracy to hold nuclear weapons, than for a liberal Western democracy to do so. The very same people also claim to support feminism and human rights, when they treat regimes which in practice reject both as being no worse than the USA or the UK.

However I digress. Other criticisms of the Bush administration are around climate change - a reasonable concern, which has become a fad for armageddon like calls for radical intervention in the forms of taxes, subsidies and regulations in Western liberal democracies, whilst rapidly growing developing countries and oil rich states which per capita are as wealthy as Western democracies are expected to do nothing. Meanwhile the rising price of oil, due to demand and tax/regulatory/planning restrictions on supply (of both crude and refined product) have done more to reduce energy use (and in more efficient ways) than any nonsense about subsidising alternatives.

There is criticism on the economy, with some justification, but the current recession is led by the end of a property/credit boom that started well before Bush, as well as oil prices. More could have been done, certainly government spending has ballooned under Bush where it could have been cut back to ease the pressure on credit through the budget deficit.

Where criticism is valid has been in two areas:

1. The erosion of civil liberties as part of the war on terror, whereby wire tapping and interception is now a routinely used power by law enforcement authorities. The ability to use these powers is insufficiently monitored or limited. In short, law enforcement agencies have asked for powers they long dreamt of, because they believed it necessary to fight the war on terror - these requests have sadly not been sufficiently questioned.

2. The use of torture and rendition. In a state of war, it is difficult to determine the line between detaining suspects who are planning and aiding and abetting the waging of war against your country, and when people should be charged and tried for offences in a civilian court. The current situation is a blurring between those. It is important that those who are detained do face trial, and do have the right to defence. The risk of arresting and detaining the innocent is real, as is the risk that being deterred from doing so results in acts of terrorism being undertaken. The balance has been successful in preventing further terrorist acts, but it is important to be seen to be treating suspects fairly and impartially. Of particular concern has been the use of torture to obtain confessions and intelligence. Its efficacy is actually greater than critics make it out to be - those who face severe discomfort and pain are less capable of constructing consistent lies than spilling the truth. However, it's morally repugnant. It is difficult to spread the values of individual rights and liberty when you engage in practices that are milder versions of those you oppose. Fortunately both McCain and Obama reject it.

Some libertarians will see those last two points as self-evident that Bush is no friend of freedom. I disagree. He is a flawed friend of freedom. I have not mentioned his evangelism deliberately, largely because it has been exagerrated by his critics. As an atheist myself, the use of religion in a political context beyond demanding the simple right to freedom of belief appalls me. However, despite the fears of some he hasn't implemented a theocracy in the USA. His use of some theocratic language has been counterproductive, as it feeds the Islamists to talk of crusades, but despite his strong religious beliefs (and don't forget both Al Gore and John Kerry both claimed similar strong faith) it has not significantly undermined the fundamental secular nature of the USA.

Andrew Roberts in the Daily Telegraph believes that history will judge Bush well. It is frankly too early to say for sure, six months is a very long time in politics (New Zealand had three Prime Ministers in that time in 1990). He says:

"The overthrow and execution of a foul tyrant, Saddam Hussein; the liberation of the Afghan people from the Taliban; the smashing of the terrorist networks of al-Qa'eda in that country and elsewhere and, finally, the protection of the American people from any further atrocities on US soil since 9/11, is a legacy of which to be proud.

While of course every individual death is a tragedy to the bereaved families, these great achievements have been won at a cost in human life a fraction the size of any past world-historical struggle of this magnitude.

The number of American troops killed and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan is equivalent to the losses they endured - for a nation only a little over half the size in the mid-Forties - capturing a single island from the Japanese in the Pacific War."

Iraq has not become Vietnam.

So ask yourself this, what would have been different under Al Gore or John Kerry? 9/11 would still have happened, but would Al Gore have overthrown the Taliban? Who knows. Certainly Saddam Hussein would still be in power in Iraq, does anyone really believe he would have just peacefully gone about oppressing his people and not tried again to wage war? Does anyone believe he wouldn't have tried to find common cause with Islamists (as the nominally secular Syria has done) to continue to wage war against Israel, the West and his neighbours to the south? Does anyone believe that Gaddafi would have surrendered?

Do you think there would have been any difference to global warming had Al Gore signed Kyoto? Remembering that Russia, India, China and the Middle East wouldn't have changed behaviour one iota (yes Russia is part of Kyoto but then you can be when your population is in freefall decline). Think that pouring loads of US taxpayers money (money they have spent themselves on other things) into subsidising biofuels more or electric cars would have made any difference at all? You think that a Presidency that sought approval from the likes of China and Russia to act (through the UN Security Council) would have been a deterrence to further attacks like 9/11? You think Hamas would have stopped shelling Israel had Israel been told to compromise more with it?

Of course, "what ifs" can never be proven - but one thing is sure. Since 9/11 there hasn't been another terrorist attack on US soil. Given the scale and seriousness of that one event, that is worth acknowledging. The only ones who wouldn't acknowledge that are those that cheered it on, like Annette Sykes or Barack Obama's former pastor, or those that cobble together fragments to consider it was all a conspiracy.

The USA couldn't organise a successful assassination against Castro, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi or Ayatollah Khomeini after all.

So when you vote Labour will it include him?

Many of us wont forget Labour list MP Ashraf Choudhary having been quoted as saying that it is ok for gay people to be stoned to death in other countries (not New Zealand) according to the Koran. According to the New Zealand Herald, three years ago:

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"Mr Choudhary was asked: "Are you saying the Koran is wrong to recommend that gays in certain circumstances be stoned to death?" He replied: " No, no. Certainly what the Koran says is correct. "In those societies, not here in New Zealand," he added. "

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It would be worth asking what his view is today. If he wont address it or change it, then you'll find that voting Labour for your party vote endorses Ashraf Choudhary being in Parliament. I might wonder if Rainbow Labour members like having in the Labour caucus an MP who wont condemn the murder of gay people in the likes of Iran and Saudi Arabia?

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Voters deserve clarification from Mr Choudhary - it isn't Islamophobia, it isn't racism, it is whether this man actually believes in what are fundamental values of a liberal Western democracy. If not, Labour should expel him from its list, and if Labour wont, it doesn't deserve a single vote from a gay person or anyone who is appalled by the treatment of gay people in some predominantly Islamic states. Even the Family Party wouldn't be this callous.

A coalition between a murderer and his victims?

South African President Thabo Mbeki, who in his twilight years wont be remembered as much for his lunatic beliefs on HIV, which undoubtedly led indirectly to more deaths in his country as a result, but for his treatment of Robert Mugabe. Appeasement is being a simpering weakling in front of evil, he was never that - he stands side by side Mugabe, shaking his hand and facilitating, funding, supplying power and succuour to the man who has destroyed an economy, murdered and tortured his people and beaten them into starving submission while he and his lackeys enjoy lavish trips to shop and spend their ill gotten booty.

Some years ago another African leader, a socialist of the same political persuasion as Mbeki, saw the murder and tyranny occurring in a neighbouring state. Rivers with bodies in them, a regime running riot over its people. The country was Uganda under Idi Amin. Amin's army had started minor incursions into Tanzania, annexing a small piece of land. Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere didn't simply fight to retain that land, he invaded repelled the Ugandan army from Tanzania and kept going. Within a few months it had taken Entebbe airport and then Kampala. Even with Libyan troops supporting Amin (oh yes Gaddafi has been quite a character), there was only modest resistance. Amin fled to Libya, and Tanzania installed a replacement government. Nyerere overthrew one of Africa's most brutal tyrants. The Organisation of African murders and thieves Unity of course condemned Nyerere's actions, after all most of the leaders of African countries were despotic kleptocrats who suppressed political opposition and pillaged their countries' wealth for shopping trips to Paris and London for themselves and their cronies. Africa was being as exploited by its "liberators" as it had been by the imperial powers.

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Now Nyerere was no angel, his socialist economic policies sent Tanzania backwards from being a food exporter to being an importer, but although somewhat authoritarian he was not a murderer like Mugabe.

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However consider Thabo Mbeki. Zimbabwe's rigged, biased Presidential election was Mugabe beaten by Morgan Tsvangarai. Only by the rigged result did he fail to get a majority. So a run off election is being held, whilst Mugabe's butchering "war heroes" (if you consider a hero someone who bashes babies against tree trunks) torture and kill supporters of the opposition, while the opposition is prohibited from holding election rallies or from getting any coverage on the state monopoly broadcasting services and newspapers. It is an election that is one step away from the Soviet variety in that there IS a second candidate, but supporting such a candidate risks your life.

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The election is an unbelievable farce, Mugabe and his Zanu-PF thugs with the military hand in hand have essentially overridden the Zimbabwean constitution, and are murdering all those in its way. Mbeki doesn't condem the murders, doesn't damn the violence led by Mugabe, he calls for the run-off election to be suspended and for a "unity government" according to the Daily Telegraph.

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It is scandalous and despicable.

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Imagine if there had been a call for a "unity government" in Cambodia between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese backed forces that overthrew it, or between the Nazis and liberals.

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As Ayn Rand once said "In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit."

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Mbeki deserves to be shunned at international fora, he is a cowardly craven fool with blood on his hands, the blood of black Africans, those he purports to support, whilst his pig ignorant blind loyalty to a tyrant keeps that tyrant fed, powered and slaughtering, starving and torturing his own.

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If your neighbour was torturing, abusing and starving his wife and children, had promised to leave if the family agreed he should go, but tortured the kids into being loyal, and kept locking his wife away and abusing her - would you tell the wife that the two of them should stay together and work things out while the kids and her are still being abused?

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That's Mbeki, friend of a murderer, a pathetic pointless man who should resign and stop pouring more disgrace on South Africa - a country that supports tyranny and then lets its citizens torture and murder those who flee from it.

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oh and didn't notice all those protests like there were against apartheid, but I guess black Africans murdering and torturing their own isn't quite as important to some on the left as white Africans is it? No, once the Africans are running their own affairs, time to move on.

Slow blogging

Apologies for having a few days off, quite simply I've been away home for a while and preferred to spend the weekend with my girlfriend, having human company rather than spending more than short periods in front of this infernal thing. I'll be back at full tilt tomorrow though.

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There is much to say about fuel prices, taxes and subsidies, David Davis and 42 days detention without trial, Bush's last trip as President to Europe, the emergence of further new technologies that could replace crude oil with oil generated by bacterium, and the tragic ongoing debacle of Zimbabwe. I am about to fly back to the Middle East. May Lufthansa treat me well (my experience is that it's ok, it's better than airlines from the US, but isn't as good as BA or Air NZ), and I'll have ample time to blog there in the evenings. Not a lot is too interesting about NZ at the moment, except for some reason I've noticed Libertarianz spokespeople appearing in mainstream media more often than in the past - maybe something is happening putting Libz in the top tier of parties outside Parliament.

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The Green left is almost joyful over fuel and food prices, a new armageddon that means we "have to change", amid nonsensical calls to stop building roads and to all return to growing our own food. Meanwhile, spare a moment for those in Zimbabwe - they are about to have a sham election, terrorised into voting Zanu-PF, whilst the beloved ANC run South Africa appeases the blood dripping despot at its gates. South Africa can now join the ranks of China for providing succuour to murderous dictators - but don't expect those who rightfully campaigned against apartheid to campaign against the ANC, you see black Africans murdering other black Africans isn't racist, so it doesn't quite get the left as upset as racist violence. South Africans murdering and attacking the refugees from Zimbabwe, refugees because of Mugabe's filthy violence loving mates in the ANC giving him a continued lifeline of money and fuel - it makes me wonder how much longer African regimes can continue to give cover for this vile dictatorship.

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Oh and I haven't forgot Camp 22. Others have. Amnesty International prefers to focus on Guantanamo Bay, and almost ignores North Korea. You might ask them why, you might ask why the Green Party campaigns about China and Burma, but ignores the far far more murderous and repulsive North Korea. Ignorance is hardly an excuse. So think that this morning when you woke up, tens of thousands of North Koreans were woken at dawn, in prison, men, women and children - to work till dusk, non stop, receiving starvation food rations, being physically and sexually abused. Those women with Chinese fathers having compulsory abortions, as part of North Korea's own eugenics programme against "contamination".

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and if you think I'm exagerrating, read this book and this book and ask yourself whether these prison camps for entire families would still exist if the world united behind a message of abolishing them? Ask yourself why children should be allowed to live in this Orwellian nightmare? Ask yourself why more get agitated about whether you recycle, drive to work or fly on holiday, than the daily murder, torture and hell so many North Koreans go through in gulags - it will tell you what value many put on human life compared to the cult of ecology.

So be grateful for those who fought for our freedom, be grateful for where you are not, and it will give you some perspective.

Ireland offers chance to look at future of EU

The resounding "No" vote for the Lisbon Treaty in the Republic of Ireland is bringing out the very worst in what so many Europeans loathe about the European Union - the complete contempt that those running it have for their opinions.

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Reports of the likes of Gordon Brown, Sarkozy and the EU Commission president all saying that"ratification" will continue, flies in the face of the fundamental point that without all 27 EU member states ratifying it, the Lisbon Treaty is not meant to proceed.

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With the exception of Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, most of the EU political establishment is calling for things to continue as usual, as if Ireland is some small irrelevancy - exactly what so many Irish voters no doubt fear.

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So what IS it that European voters fear? Much has been made of how Ireland has benefited from the EU. It has to some extent, on the one hand for some years Ireland received millions of Euro in subsidies for infrastructure projects as one of the "poor" countries of the 12 of the time, it also had a new open market for its products and services. However, it helped immensely that Ireland cut taxes, especially company tax, and sought to be business friendly. This was not an approach that some EU members (e.g. France, Belgium, Italy) have taken.

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Irish voters may ask "why" the Lisbon treaty is important. Talk about it making the EU more efficient sounds rather peculiar. However more clear is the removal of the national veto for more issues, in other words evolving the EU from an association of 27 more or less equal member states to one of double majorities. It is very clear that Lisbon Treaty advocates have failed to sell the advantages, if any, of the Treaty.

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Opposition to the Lisbon Treaty is sometimes seen to be opposition to the EU, opposition to globalisation by those on the left, and a resurgent old fashioned nationalism by those on the right. At the skindeep level I don't particularly mind this, but I embrace globalisation and find nationalism largely knuckle dragging.

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I like the EU on one level. Let's not forget what it has done. In a generation, countries that were once at war shared open borders, within two generations former Soviet Republics were integrated into a customs union including Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus, Sweden and Germany. The prospect of war among EU member states is unthinkable, which considering the history of Europe is remarkable. A similar union in Latin America or Asia, is difficult to envisage, although Australia and New Zealand (and USA/Canada) could be in such a pairing, albeit both examples would be highly unbalanced.

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The opening up of borders to trade, investment and movement of people among EU member states is unprecedented on any other continent. It is more liberal than CER between Australia and NZ, especially between Schengen countries. It has undoubtedly contributed to the growth in wealth, diversity and prosperity for member states. However, you could argue the European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA) which today still exists, incorporating Norway, Iceland and Switzerland (none of which are EU members), could have delivered this liberalism.

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Beyond free trade an argument can be made for the EU harmonising some basic laws of business and creating a customs union. Common approaches to contract law, company law, conflicts of law, land law, personal property law and commercial law can make some sense. Mutual recognition of all sorts of basic licences like driving licences, vehicle roadworthiness and the like makes sense too. Finally, a customs union - so that the EU negotiates as a whole for trade access, also has great advantages. Whether something enters in Sofia, Shannon or Stockholm, it should move freely throughout the EU.

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As a project for liberalisation of trade in goods and services, it has done wonders. It has forced member states to open up transport, telecommunications, broadcasting, energy and postal markets. However, the EU has become far more than this, it has sought to become another layer of government, bureaucracy and rule-making.

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The ugliness of the Common Agricultural Policy is perhaps one of the most well known examples of this. The CAP sucks the biggest part of the EU's budget from net contributors such as Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, to prop up inefficient farmers in France, Finland, Belgium and the like, it also pays some farmers to not produce, it uses the customs union to ban imports of some commodities from some countries, impose quotas on others (like dairy products from NZ) and tariffs on yet others, then it subsidises inefficient farmers to dump their goods on world markets. On top of that it isn't ever fair across the EU, as the 12 newest member states only get subsidies at one-third the level of the others, so undoubtedly the most impoverish farmers in the EU, the Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Slovak and Baltic ones don't get anywhere near the support of France's inefficient farmers. This monstrosity in itself should give pause for thought about the EU, but it is only part of it.

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The EU also treats all member state Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) as common EU ocean space for fishing, all very well if it weren't for the overfishing subsidised and protected by the EU - one reason why major fishing nations Norway and Iceland have resisted EU membership. It imposes a requirement for a MINIMUM level of fuel tax for all member states - tough if you don't want one. It pursues projects of absurdity, such as the horrendously expensive Galileo satellite navigation system, a competitor for GPS and Glonass (Russia's version), except GPS and Glonass are free for users. It is costing EU taxpayers 3.4 billion euros, but the EU doesn't really care - it just sucks the money from member states.

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You see it is spending 116 billion Euro in the current (soon to be ended) financial year. Shared among 497 million people that is 233 Euro per man/woman and child. Yes, those in Bulgaria are unlikely to have contributed as much as those from Luxembourg, but you can see the cost per family of the EU - and that doesn't include the compliance costs of business, or the cost to taxpayers for their bureaucracies to service the EU.

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You see the EU is a synthesis of liberalisation and collectivisation. It has at once been a project of opening up the economies of member states to each other, and at the same time somewhat closing them to the outside world, whilst building up a new top layer of government, over central and local (and provincial) governments. Socialists in Europe have seen the EU become a repositary for funding regional development, in the form of massive infrastructure projects, cultural projects and others that no libertarian would see as a fit reason for the EU. Some have sought the EU having powers to interfere with tax powers of member states, to avoid the inconvenience of competing with the likes of Slovakia, which has a flat rate of income tax.

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This tension has built within in a kind of arrogance in Brussels, that it represents what people in 27 member states want (and after all its expansion surely shows how great the EU is, doesn't it?), it is what is GOOD for them, and the attitude so many politicians have had to the Irish vote is telling indeed. It has on the one hand the kind of big power dismissive attitude that Ireland is small and shouldn't hold up the "great project", the same attitude that those people would accuse of the USA. Since none of the other member states have been willing to hold referenda on the Lisbon Treaty, it speaks volumes of the fear the EU holds for them politically with the public.

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So while the Euroskeptics who want to throw away the EU are wrong, so are the EU adventurers who see the project as being an ever greater integration - one which is wholly unnecessary and not advantageous to Europeans. The EU should be a project of liberalisation, open up economies and markets, and letting nation states compete freely, and look outwards. Member states should be free to shrink their governments as they wish, and cut taxes, and cut regulations as they see fit - not be required to regulate because Brussels says so. Some in the east believed this is what it was - a chance to be part of a market larger than the USA (and to be fair, some money to build infrastructure wracked by decades of Soviet imperialism). Some in the west, such as France, see it as a way of cauterising liberalisation by forcing all member states to operate according to similar rules.

So it is time to have a debate - an open and honest one. Not one characterised by the EU aristocracy sighing and bemoaning critics as being narrow minded nationalists or ignorant, but also not one of shouting and EU bashing, justified though some may be. It is one about the role of the state, and what that means for the EU members. It will challenge the conservative right and the statist left to think differently - it offers the EU the chance to have the dynamism of the USA, and set its people free to develop, grow and embrace. As the EU observes Russia grow on the back of oil, the Middle East and Asia grow as economic powerhouses in their own rights, and the USA, despite current setbacks, continuing to be the world's economic superpower for the next decade or so, it might wonder whether its people can hold their own, or whether it should tie itself up in more and more little knots, called for by special interests, who see their main job being seeking favours paid for by other Europeans. Let any dabbling with socialism be a national project, than an EU member state can engage in at its peril - not one that strangles so many countries that spent over 40 years fighting to be unshackled from statist control.

Still want to sacrifice wealth for climate change policy?

Having recently returned from the United Arab Emirates, I have a few observations:

• In the UAE everyone drives, big cars, even short distances because daytime temperatures get between 35 and 43 degrees. That means they use a lot of petrol, per capita, adding the air conditioning that is almost ubiquitous. You see it's highly subsidised there because the country is doing quite well thanks to record oil prices. There is very little public transport.
  
• Buildings are almost all air conditioned, which in that heat isn't cheap. Except all of the electricity is generated from that subsidised oil.
• Water is produced from desalination, the most energy intensive way, and per capita water consumption in the UAE is one of the highest in the world.
  
• New Zealand's per capita GDP is around US$30,000 p.a. UAE's is over US$42,000. Even on a PPP (Purchasing power parity) basis NZ is at US$27,000 and UAE at least US$37,000.
  

The UAE is not doing a jot about reducing CO2 emissions. Indeed, it is making an enormous profit from those who DO emit, it is subsidising its own population burning fuel, and is an economy fueled on emitting CO2.

Now I'm not picking on the UAE, it is just one example - of a so-called "developing country" far wealthier on a per head of population basis that New Zealand. Yet so many New Zealand politicians would rather it lead the way, whilst the likes of the UAE is expected to do nothing. You see, even if you accept that there should be "action on climate change", why are there a fair number of countries that are considered to be "developing" yet have lower per capita GDP than NZ? (Bahrain, Brunei, Kuwait, Qatar,Singapore and Taiwan are others)

Still feel like engaging in austerity measures to save the planet, when many countries basking in oil wealth are doing the exact opposite?

Like you needed another reason to not fly Ryanair

Snobby elitist post...

According to ABTN "Ryanair has fitted 15 Dublin-based aircraft with technology to allow in-flight calls and text messages, with trials to start at the end of July.

By the end of the next fiscal year it wants to extend this to 50 aircraft, and across its fleet within a year and half."

So besides virtually no service groundside, no service in the air, stripping planes to the bare minimum with fixed seats, no windowshades, now you would have to put up with gobby tourists waffling on about how "I'm on the plane" or with the incessant "beep beep .......... beep beep" text messaging notification sound. Though given Michael O'Leary said “The charge you pay will be the international roaming charges" and Ryanair customers are tighter than Mbeki and Mugabe, it might be not that bad.

I say you, because I wont fly Ryanair. With Gold Elite Air NZ status I can fly in the back on short European flights with Star Alliance airlines, use business class checkin, have lounge access and business class baggage, and be with an airline that does provide some sort of service on the ground. Beyond that BA isn't half bad, sometimes has good deals in Club Europe (business class) and I am halfway to being Gold Qantas so I can do the same with OneWorld as I can with Star Alliance. Now I'm not saying flights around Europe in economy class are great, they are not that comfortable, have almost always bad food (though free drinks are appreciatd) are often late and uninspiring - but they are step beyond Ryanair's truly cattle class (and many of the people you travel with are too!). However, if you are willing to travel as freight then you'll pay - and it's the same with flying third (economy) class UK-NZ, especially without a stopover.

Fortunately tomorrow I'm flying BA back, and not in fourth, third or second class.

When left is right and down is up - the bizarre world of Sue Kedgley

Sue Kedgley reporting on the food conference she attended says "They argued that the main cause of the crisis was that food production in much of the developing world has been decimated by three decades of globalization and free trade liberalization policies. Previously self sufficient countries had been unable to compete with heavily subsidized, cheap European and American food and so small self sufficient agriculturalsectors collapsed in country after country, leaving developing countries dependent on imports and food aid."

Ok - now read that again. "three decades of globalization and free trade liberalization policies" (sic, what's those AmericaniZations Sue?)? Huh, might have missed that one while the EU Common Agricultural Policy was subsidising domestic production and exports and shutting out imports, the US doing a less protectionist version, Japan doing even worse on rice, and South Korea, EEA zone members all doing anything BUT free trade liberalisation and in most cases resisting efforts at the WTO to encourage multilateral agricultural trade liberalisation.

Then she goes on "New Zealand is seen, thanks to our flag waving for free trade liberalization policies, as ‘an enemy of the third world’ and a slave of America and Europe." which she didn't correct, because she thinks it is true too. If only Europe and the USA were slaves for free trade liberalisation in Agriculture.

Seriously, Sue is either:
1. Stupid.
2. Manipulatively lying or
3. Mentally deranged.

You cannot say something is what it isn't without being one of those. So which one is it?

Perhaps the simplest mistake the Greens make on transport

There are so many, but best seen in this post condemning Labour spending on motorways (which in these two particular cases, I actually agree with the Greens on, because they are well over the top from what is needed):

"they are about to spend $2 billion on a short motorway tunnel in Auckland, and $1 billion on a new motorway in Wellington. Neither of these will be needed in an oil-scarce world, but better public transport and rail will"

Does anyone truly believe that with a history of around eighty years of ever increasing private mobility with the private car, that a change in fuel will see people wanting to plan most of their trips around schedules, waiting, sharing vehicles with others? Public transport will always have a role, for those who can't afford a park, who are travelling on busy corridors where large numbers of people start and finish at similar destinations, and it can offer a speed advantage because it has a good corridor. It works for those without cars. However, it wont replace most trips - it never will.

The idea that more roads or road improvements wont be needed when oil isn't the primary source of motive fuel for road vehicles, is banal. They may be an interruption, a short period of transition if, and it is a big if, the future is not oil - but something else (I wont guess, since so many want to guess and get the government to pick winners). However, people LIKE cars, people LIKE driving, they love the freedom it brings. In busy cities, alternatives make sense because space is precious, putting up the cost of parking and creating congestion (or in the right cities putting up the price for roads) -but that is it. Those alternatives make sense in certain circumstances and at certain times.

Collective transport is chosen as second best, by almost everyone.

One simple question to ask every single National Party candidate

Do you support voluntary student union membership?

Of course they could all publicly indicate what they DO think.

Of course any don't say they will fully support free choice of students to belong or not belong to a student union, don't deserve the vote of freedom loving people. In fact if they prevaricate, just say "fuck off you fascist, I may as well vote Labour".

Of course if they all support it like David Farrar does, then there MIGHT be one step forward for freedom if the Nats win.

State Highway 1 at Mana

Ok, very minority interest item here, but given the Dom Post reported on it.

The high occupancy vehicle lanes through Mana should be converted into standard clearways. Two full lanes in the direction of peak flow. Short high occupancy vehicle lanes are ridiculous.

Meanwhile, congestion at Paremata/Mana continues to be relieved by the upgrade from Paremata to Plimmerton that cost $25 million, instead of what politicians were advocating - Transmission Gully at over $1 billion. See they know so well how to spend your money.

So United Future joins the tax cut game

As a party polling at the same level as Libertarianz, Peter Dunne has to be thinking whether he risks being a one man band after the next election. Don't forget that is exactly what he was after the 1996 election (when none of the Labour and National MPs who defected to what was then United held onto their seats), and the 1999 election when Libertarianz party vote beat United in a number of seats. He doesn't want to go back to that.

So United Future has launched its tax policy, which David Farrar describes. On the face of it he is offering a step forward. Three tax rates, of 10, 20 and 30%. It's far more radical than Labour, and I think more radical than NATIONAL would consider. After all it gets rid of the 39% tax rate, something National has been too scared to talk about because it doesn't have the courage or intellectual robustness to fight it (even though it opposed it in the first place). Give him credit, he has announced a comprehensive policy. ACT has announced half a policy (get rid of 39% and have a tax free threshold), National none.

However, for that you might ask Peter Dunne a few questions:

1. You're the Minister of Revenue. You have kept the current government in power for two terms, indeed you are PART of it. If you have such a radical approach to tax, why haven't you withdrawn providing confidence and supply and helped initiate an early election? (of course the Greens would probably step in). Do you like having it both ways or is the only policy that matters the completely wasteful Families Commission?
2. Would you achieve this with spending cuts? If so, where, given you are responsible for creating an obvious bureaucracy to abolish.
3. Given you're meant to be a party in the centre, should we expect you'll only back National if it implements a version of you're moderately worthwhile tax cuts? If not, why not?

Most importantly, a vote for United Future in 2002 and 2005 proved to be a vote for keeping Labour in power. In 2002 many opponents to Labour voted United Future to give Labour an alternative coalition partner to the Greens. In 2005, half of those voters returned to National because it had a chance of winning.

In 2008, you might wonder why anyone who wants a change of government would bother casting a party vote for a party that has helped kept Helen Clark in power for two out of her three terms, and whose most well known achievement has been creating a useless bureaucracy. The people of Ohariu-Belmont might also ask what he has done for them. I certainly don't know.

Zimbabwe now partly a military junta

The Daily Telegraph disturbingly reports that the Joint Operations Command (JOC) committee that looks after national security in Zimbabwe appears to be dominating government in the country - given its suspension of work by overseas aid agencies. The Telegraph claims:

"They ensured Mr Mugabe did not step down after his defeat in the presidential election's first round in March and are now masterminding a campaign of terror to suppress the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and guarantee victory for Mr Mugabe in the June 27 run-off.

The most powerful figures on the JOC are Gen Constantine Chiwenga, the overall military chief; Augustine Chihuri, the national police commissioner, and Gen Paradzai Zimondi, the commander of the prison service."

They are all beneficiaries of Mugabe's confiscation of farms, and his kleptocratic rule. Make no mistake of it, this is not a positive move. It appears Mugabe is useful to them, but he also needs them at least as much as they need him. Apparently the generals convinced him to not concede after the first round.

Tiseke Kasambala, a Zimbabwe specialist at Human Rights Watch, said there was an "increasing militarisation of the state". "The evidence points to an increasing role by the army in state affairs," she said. "The army is no longer just in barracks, waiting to protect the country. The army is out there, taking a role in the day-to-day government of the country."

Make no mistake about it, this is a symbiotic relationship of oppression. The generals get some moral authority from Mugabe, who rallies some support and gets the respect of his felching submissive lickspittle Thabo Mbeki and others. He needs them to maintain power and protect him. However it does not bode well for the upcoming election run off. Assuming the generals and Mugabe seize power from that, the world can look closer at South Africa - which has the greatest influence over the regime. Nevertheless, even a bullet in Mugabe, as proposed by Silent Running, and previously by myself, may not be sufficient now.

Meanwhile, Christopher Hitchens has an insightful article on Slate which describes why Thabo Mbeki fawns to Mugabe. It is linked to Mugabe's disdain for Nelson Mandela, the Maoist connections of Mugabe vs the Soviet connections of the ANC, and African politics more generally. Worth a read.

Maori Party worships at the Obama altar

Tariana Turia has said:

"Obama’s message for change is the same message that the Maori Party carries, and his hope for a brighter future is a message we embrace as well"

Except:

1. He doesn't lead the "African-American Party" but a non-ethnically defined party;
2. He is not a Senator of an ethnically defined constituency (which is not to deny that seriously gerrymandered constituencies exist in the USA, as they do);
3. He hasn't, as far as I know, sought to change the US Federal Government to set aside Congress seats on the basis of ethnicity.

Pita Sharples does say "His success is an inspiration to the Maori Party, and to all people of colour seeking to change the way politics is conducted all over the world".

Change what and how, into what? Robert Mugabe changed the way politics was done in Zimbabwe, from whites only racist democracy to non-racist tyranny. Bokassa changed politics in the Central African Republic by declaring it an Empire, spending 40% of the country's GDP on his coronation where he dressed like Napoleon, and ended up shooting at schoolchildren who protested because they couldn't afford the compulsory French style school uniforms he specified.

"People of colour" are hardly the only bearers of tyranny, but they are not necessarily torchbearers of freedom and prosperity. Besides, who doesn't have colour? I know the Maori Party is leftwing, but it is quite something to endorse Obama. I presume it is not just because of his skin colour, although the implication of the press release is predominantly that.

You can't beat the sick inducing fawning of Hone Harawira though "He’s African-American, he has the appeal of Martin Luther King, the backing of the Kennedy clan, the rapturous support of millions of Black Americans". Yes we know he is African-American, but he is a minnow compared to Martin Luther King and having the backing of the untouchable super wealthy family that raised money to fund terrorism in Northern Ireland is hardly a virtue.

Harawira continues:

"and his oratory continues to soar above the cynical point-scoring of candidates whose rhetoric has exhausted and alienated Americans. In a country torn by division, and wearied by an unwanted war, Barack Obama is fresh, enthusiastic, optimistic, and positive. He has already broken barriers and challenged conventions. He has excited people wherever he has gone, and engaged millions in politics for the first time in their lives. I only wish i could meet the man and say "I love you Mr Obama"" OK I added the last bit. His rhetoric is exhausting, and Pamela Anderson has excited people wherever she has gone.

Come on Hone, go over and campaign for him, loudly and actively - the end result will benefit New Zealand, the USA and the world. Especially since Obama's policy on trade in agriculture is contrary to New Zealand's (except Sue Kedgley's).

Obama has it, now can we look past his colour?

Yes it is historic that an African-American has a major party nomination, particularly given that it was only in his lifetime that African-Americans were subject to racist state oppression. That was a blemish against the USA that has since been well and truly cleaned up. This IS important, but that is all.

However, while international media coverage shows saturation interest in that (partly of course because the US Presidency is so important globally), it is time to start the real debate - which is what does Barack Obama stand for?

I have blogged before about this. Once people get over Obamamania, once the "yes he's black isn't that great" hype has slipped into the background, the substance behind the hype needs to be looked at.

I believe he may be the most leftwing major party nominee since George McGovern.

Americans will have a stark choice, not that John McCain is faultless, but Obama needs real scrutiny. I'm afraid the word "change" without more of the "what and how and for what ends" isn't going to wash. He is already is a supporter of billions of dollars of agricultural subsidy pork that McCain opposed. He is already a supporter of "cut and run" from Iraq, leaving it to murdering Islamists. Let's have a real debate, and look past his groupies.

Vile "ancient virtues"

The Briefing Room is the blog of Investigate Magazine, the magazine that would prefer digging up dirt about Helen Clark's sexuality than investigating the real truth behind the Urewera 17, or the scaremongering nonsense politics of Jeanette Fitzsimons, or the promoters of violence within the Maori Party is - no. It has a Christian bent, and my attention was brought to this post - digging up the old vacuous claim that atheism isn't enough, and the reason why reason evading dictators kill millions.

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It has a point. It is why I am an objectivist. Nobody can credibly claim atheism is a comprehensive philosophy, it simply is the denial of the supernatural. The post is full of absolute nonsense, implying that atheists are devoid of morality, and that somehow Nietzsche and hedonism are the alternative to ghost worshipping. The truth is that there are umpteen ideologies that have nothing to do with ghost worshipping, much like there are umpteen that include ghost worshipping. It is tired and ludicrous to claim atheists share one set of views, anymore than damning all religions for all the trouble in the world.

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However, the post continues saying "The ancient virtues of poverty, chastity, and obedience are universally despised".

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I'm so disgusted beyond words. Poverty is a virtue. The same repulsive ideology propagated by Mother Theresa of Calcutta, who received succour from the murderous Duvalier's in Haiti and the Hoxha atheist communist dictatorship in Albania. The suffering of the poor is glorious, the sick sadistic life-destroying face of Christianity. Sacrificing people to poverty as a virtue. Of course nobody who actually IS in true poverty believes that.

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Chastity is the least offensive. At least it is a choice if you wish to deny sexuality from your life. However a virtue? A virtue to deny from your life the pleasure of touching and enjoying touch from someone you feel intimately close with? The implication that it is filthy and disgusting, like your body, like the "original sin" that conceives children. The ideology that sex is tolerated only to breed within marriage, but the most virtuous are priests and nuns - and we all know the universally virtuous record they all have.

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Obedience is a virtue? Yes just blindly follow what others tell you do. "I was only following orders" says the concentration camp commandante, says the Khmer Rouge cadre, says the Red Guard, says the inquisitor in the Middle Ages, says the slave owner, says the husband whose wife swore to "love honour and obey", says the Police who hounded Alan Turing to suicide by enforcing the hideous criminal laws on homosexuality.

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This post continues thinking Christianity is "the great Faith that set Europe free from the superstitious fear of pagan deities, that converted Rome and Byzantium, that today brings hope and joy to millions in Asia and Africa". What were the Dark Ages but a time of superstitious fear? In fact what is most of Western history before the Enlightenment and the rebirth of reason? It was superstition, fear, murder and destruction.

Anderton is right

No I haven't gone mad, Jim's learnt something.

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He once would have been a part of the lunatic left, now he's damning the Green Party's silly call for Fonterra to charge people less than the international market price for milk according to the NZ Herald.

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Check this quote "It might make the handwringing Greens feel good to say this sort of banal statement but what are they really asking for?" ..."The only sustainable way to price goods is by international markets. Anything less and you are on a slippery and unsustainable slope."

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Bloody hell. How can you disagree with that? That was Jim Anderton, the man who fought Rogernomics, who set up the New Labour Party and the Alliance.

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Then he says "The only sustainable and sensible way to help Kiwi households meet their food bills is to grow the economy and provide better pay, more jobs and tax relief such as Working for Families."

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Besides Working for Families (which isn't tax relief, it's middle class welfare), he's right again, a growing economy and tax relief is the best way to help Kiwi households. We'd disagree on the government's role in that obviously, but it shows how distant the Greens are from mainstream politics and reason.

UN Secretary General demands free trade in food

According to the NZ Herald UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon has come out at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation conference on the right side of the argument about world trade in food.

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He has argued forcefully for:

- An end to export restrictions (so that producers can sell freely to willing buyers, incentivising them to produce more);

- An end to import tariffs and restrictions on food imports (so that consumers in importing countries do not have their prices inflated by protectionism);

- An end to subsidies for biofuels, so that agricultural production for food isn't disadvantaged relative to biofuels;

- Eliminations of taxes that discriminate against farming.

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It's not everything (subsidies for agriculture should go too), but it would go a long way towards easing the problems in world food trade. Even solidly leftwing Brazilian President Lula da Silva has called for the end to agricultural subsidies he said the world would not be facing the food crisis "if developing countries had been stimulated in a free-market context". "The solution - Lula went on - is not protectionism which would slow down demand. The solution is to increase food supply, open up markets and wipe out subsidies in order to meet increasing demand. And for this a radical change in ways of thinking and acting is required".

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He's quite right.

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Far better than the ravings of Sue Kedgley who has gone to argue the opposite at the same conference. Will the mainstream NZ media question her as to why she went to an international conference to argue for policies that hurt the NZ economy and which developing country governments oppose? What credibility does this raving lunatic have?

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Meanwhile Mugabe has gone to spread lies, and has been snubbed by the Italian government and the US (but will NZ do it?). Iranian President and homophobic Islamist nutcase Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has used the FAO meeting to say Israel will disappear and claimed some conspiracy on food and oil prices. I continue to wonder if Jim Anderton, leading the NZ delegation and Sue Kedgley will speak out against these two tyrants.

Maori Party wants more welfare

It's supporting taxpayers funding both sides in the Child Poverty Inaction Group case.

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Pita Sharples has the audacity to say "Of course, I believe every taxpayer in this land would prefer that this case hadn’t needed to come to court, to involve the international experts and the expenses that no doubt the Crown will incur in presenting their defence". Indeed, had the taxpayer not funded the socialist CPAG, it wouldn't. Furthermore if Working for Families is abolished (as Lindsay Mitchell rightfully advocates) and the proceeds used to cut taxes, then there wouldn't be any case, and then there would be no discrimination - except of course the tax system.

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You see for some reason (if I was in NZ, but it applies also in the UK), when I earn an extra dollar I lose 39c of it, but when most people do, they lose only 15c or 19.5c, some lose 33c. It's quite discriminatory, and I don't impose any greater cost on taxpayers, I don't live an unhealthy lifestyle, I don't have children, I don't interact with the criminal justice system, I don't own share in any businesses that receive subsidies. Yet I would pay a lot more than those who DO have a lot of children, who are beneficiaries, who interact with the criminal justice system (or whose kids do), and who live unhealthy lifestyles, and depend on others to pay for their housing.

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That's discriminatory.

Subsidised music swapping, youtube, gaming

Don't have high speed internet access? You fool - you are being made to pay grants to help subsidise the business of those supplying it.

You could just like books, but tough because the government wont make other people pay for those. You might like foreign films, but again, tough. You might like painting, but no, the state wont pay for that. This is a special bribe.

It's just another part of the advance auction of stolen goods. Your taxes being taken to pay for something Labour thinks you'll like. Well many of you will. Grants to broadband providers will make it a bit cheaper for you to download music for your ipod, watch youtube, listen to internet radio, download porn videos, engage in internet gaming. Yes of course it also will enable some businesses, but cheaper broadband benefits all such users - except it's only cheaper to the user. The taxpayer is screwed, and David Cuntliffe gets the credit, for his great plan to spend your money.

See he produces nothing. He didn't invent the internet, use his own money to set up a business to supply it, he just advocated to take more of your money and spend it on this little bribe. He says "his model provides better value for taxpayers, encourages more service providers into the market and drives competition.” Of course taxpayers never had a say did they David? You couldn't convince them to fund it voluntarily could you? Wasn't your money to spend was it?

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Oh and of course, National promises even more.

Libertarianz principled on NOT spending your money

The law prevents political parties from spending their own money on broadcasting advertising, and forces you to pay for them to do so, that's whether or not you agree with any of them. The Electoral Commission has released how it will be spending your money to advertise political parties most of you probably wouldn't have given a cent to. The results are here.

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Libertarianz is refusing this year to take the money, on principle. It believes that you shouldn't be forced to pay for it to advertise to you, at all. However, clearly every other political party is content with its hand in your bank account taking your money to make ads for you to hear or watch, without your consent.

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Of course that leaves it at a disadvantage compared with all other political parties, but then again it was at a disadvantage anyway. You see Labour and National both get just over $3.2 million to spend on advertising to you. How democratic is that? How fair is that? Why should the two dominant parties both get substantial amounts of money to advertise to you?

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While I fundamentally oppose taxpayer funding of political party advertising, I happen to agree with Idiot Savant at No Right Turn that if the parties are not going to get equal funding, those that get less funding should at least be legally allowed to spend their own money up to the amount Labour and National have got. Why not? Why shouldn't at the very least, ACT, the Greens, Libertarianz, Maori Party or Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party spend as much of their own money as they like, up to the $3.1 million?

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Why are Labour and National so special? Where are the MMP advocates pushing for breaking this duopoly? Perhaps they fear ACT could raise the money more readily than parties on the left, though I'm not so sure - the Greens are good at fundraising. National says it is fair, well they would wouldn't they? Happily protecting the state enforced duopoly on broadcasting.

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So if you object to being forced to pay for political parties campaigning for your vote, only one party qualified for funding and refused to spend your money - Libertarianz.

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You should be able to choose whether you fund a political party - forcing you to do so is undemocratic and nothing to do with political freedom.

The blood spilt at Tiananmen

19 years ago it was, and I was 19 years old when it happened. I wrote much about it a couple of years ago, and that is all still valid.

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I visited the very place myself, and paused for a moment to remember. I was, after all, a university student at the time, and it could have been me gunned down, or arrested, for arguing for free speech. China has moved on in many ways since then, but it still keeps a tight rein on free speech. It has incorporated Hong Kong, a beautiful vibrant world city of trade, freedom, commerce and culture - look there China, spread what Hong Kong has to all of China. Look at Taiwan, it has much the same and thrives.

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So today spare a moment to remember the last moment some Chinese people stood up for the simple right of freedom of expression, when China looked like it might make the step of separating party and state - an essential prerequisite to fight corruption and establish rule of law. It's not anti-China, it's as pro-China as one can be - it believes the Chinese people can make choices to rule their own lives and express themselves, without fear of saying as they wish, and without fear of what they may say. Go on China, the USA and Japan can do it, South Korea can do it, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan can do it. The only people who should be afraid are those who fear criticism and cannot respond creditably. Even people in Hong Kong can march against what happened in Tiananmen Square.

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Meanwhile, China Radio International (the successor to Radio Beijing) wont be repeating this broadcast today. This was what was said, before freedom was snuffed out in the Chinese state media:

"Please remember June the Third, 1989. The most tragic event happened in the Chinese Capital, Beijing. Thousands of people, most of them innocent civilians, were killed by fully-armed soldiers when they forced their way into city. Among the killed are our colleagues at Radio Beijing. The soldiers were riding on armored vehicles and used machine guns against thousands of local residents and students who tried to block their way. When the army conveys made the breakthrough, soldiers continued to spray their bullets indiscriminately at crowds in the street. Eyewitnesses saysome armored vehicles even crushed foot soldiers who hesitated in front ofthe resisting civilians. [The] Radio Beijing English Department deeply mourns those who died in the tragic incident and appeals to all its listeners to join our protest for the gross violation of human rights and the most barbarous suppression of the people.”

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China seems more open to debate nowadays, so I call you to go here, to China Radio International's website and ask why it doesn't discuss the events of 3 June 1989. Do so politely, there is a form in the bottom right hand corner. Sadly I expect it will go into this sort of denial, but go on - someone will be reading it.

CPAG - how chardonnay socialists fight poverty

It should be no surprise that I find the so called "Child Poverty Action Group" disgusting. The one thing it doesn't do is take action against child poverty, it doesn't spend a dollar on helping kids in poor families. No. It lobbies the state to take more money off of others by force.

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You see it doesn't actually want to alleviate child poverty directly. It says "The core objectives of the Child Poverty Action Group are: To promote better policies for children and young people; To promote awareness of the causes and consequences of child poverty"

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This is how it achieves its goals "CPAG publishes reports, makes submissions and conducts small-scale research projects to achieve its goals." Yep, don't look for breakfast kids, don't hope that CPAG might get you a new mattress, CPAG is "publishing a report" instead.

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Pricks. Not getting their clean little academic hands dirty actually helping people, they lobby for socialists answers - high minimum wages, compulsory taxpayer funded health and education and higher welfare benefits. You see they don't really care that people who are poor breeding isn't a good idea, they want you to pay for that. They don't promote birth control, they promote more welfare, other families and those wise enough to not breed paying for those who do. They milk stories of poverty, feeding off it for their agenda and doing absolutely fuck all themselves. Of those listed on the website, most will certainly be earning above average wages.

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According to the NZ Herald the court case they are taking claiming Labour's middle class welfare Working for Families is "discriminatory" because it doesn't spend even more compulsorily taken money to give welfare beneficiaries something for nothing. Think how much the court case is costing CPAG, and the state - think how that could have been spent on poverty, and you'll see how much CPAG really gives a damn. It's mainly costing you according to the NZ Herald:

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"Both sides of the legal argument are being financed by taxpayers - the action group's case through the Office of Human Rights Proceedings and the Government's defence through the Crown Law Office."

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Nice, so you - the taxpayers (oh it's the cost of civilisation) are forced to pay for a pack of socialists lobbying to make you pay more welfare benefits, and you're also forced to pay to defend against it. Too hard for CPAG to pay for advertising to run a charity to actually help the poor of course, they couldn't screw people who actually plan their lives, look after their own kids.

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It is one thing to give a damn about poverty and do something about it actively, like the Salvation Army actually does (regardless of any judgment of its religious agenda), but another to claim you are undertaking "action on poverty" and doing nothing but lobbying to make others pay money to help people through the state.

and that's not even dealing with the issue of welfarism as raised by No Minister. Theodore Dalrymple in his excellent book "Life at the Bottom" describes graphically the world view and culture of the "underclass" that traps so many in poverty, violence and an existence of spiritual depravation. By spirit I don't mean religion, but sense of life - sense of being and esteem. His book makes for sobering reading as someone who HAS been directly on the frontline of poverty. Comparing England's welfare state to Africa "nothing I saw... ever had the same devastating effect on the human personality as the undiscriminating welfare state. I never saw the loss of dignity, the self-centeredness, the spiritual and emotional vacuity, or the sheer ignorance of how to live that I see daily in England".

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CPAG offers nothing to combat that, but to feed it - make it worse, to perpetuate the culture of "not my fault, not my responsibility" and "it's my right" to something by making others pay for it. It is morally bankrupt in deed and philosophy.

Just one more chance

to keep Jeanette Fitzsimons out of Cabinet and away from implementing eco-faith based initiatives. She's long been the nice warm fuzzy face of the party, and although she means well, it is an enormous relief she hasn't had the reigns of power. I wont miss her for one moment.

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Given the Green Party belief that leadership should be shared by sex, it means fascist Sue Kedgley, racist Metiria Turei or serious fruitloop Catherine Delahunty (if the Green vote holds ups in the polls) will be the replacement. None will be as warm and fuzzy as Fitzsimons who was polite enough to keep quiet in debates (better to be thought of as foolish than prove it).

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However Jeanette isn't that warm and fuzzy, she has spread fear, irrationality and ignorance as part of her career. You only need look back at the history of her press releases,which goes back ten years. Furthermore she manufactures her own version of what others say or advocate. The mainstream media have let her get away with it for far too long.

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She has long opposed world trade, not getting her non-business like brain around the concept of comparative advantage. After all, she'd argue why ship aluminium from New Zealand to the USA to make into planes flown in New Zealand. She worships at the altar of rail, pouring other people's money down this obsession. Selectively quoting a report to say rail looks better than road, yet ignoring the parts of the report that say the marginal environmental costs of road and rail freight are similar. However, it is too easy for me to rip to shreds this complete nonsense, better to focus on the rest of the evidence.

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She's been substantially responsible for spreading the unscientific scaremongering about genetic engineering, calling it "anti-environment and anti-health", with no objective evidence to prove it. In fact much of the 2002 election campaign was based on fear spread by her and her colleagues that GE hadn't been proved safe, much like electricity, flying, fire and the wheel (all of which have killed thousands of course). In 1999 she proclaimed it was the last christmas to enjoy "potatoes you can trust", what nonsense. She said free trade with the USA would allow irradiated food into the country, because anything with the word "radiation" is bad. In fact I lost count of the bizarre GE press releases by her.

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She spreads the anti-nuclear scaremongering as well, opposing a shipment of nuclear fuel to Japan, saying it could be used for making bombs, which a power company is unlikely to be interested in. Yet she has not yet ever protested outside the Iranian embassy in Wellington against its failure to be fully transparent with the IAEA. Nuclear bad, though she hasn't told the Japanese or the French how their economies and environments will be destroyed by nuclear power, maybe because they haven't been.

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She treats the country as if land is owned by everyone, not property owners - she has little concept of property rights at all.

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She has supported wholeheartedly the confiscation of Telecom's property rights on grounds of "promoting competition", but completely opposed splitting the then dominant government electricity company ECNZ, because apparently it's ok for the government to control three-quarters of the country's electricity market.

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She claimed the Wellington Inner City Bypass would see heritage buildings destroyed (it didn't) and people would be forced from their homes (no private property was destroyed), and that a community was "fighting for its survival". Of course the community still exists and congestion has been eased.

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She makes the bizarre assertion that US foreign policy is a "programme of bombing the poor of the developing world in order to feed its oil habit". As if the US seeks to target poor civilians, and has attacked more than one major oil producer. Slanderous nonsense. She says "War is a violation of the UN Charter, unless a country is a proven aggressor" apparently Iran, Kuwait and their own Kurds and marsh Arabs didn't count for Jeanette.

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She digs the filthy dregs of lies further by saying Don Brash's call for the state to be racially neutral is some sort of sexist racist plot "Like the Victorian imperialists he’s emulating, Dr Brash’s vanilla vision is of a patriarchal, middle-class society where all women bake scones, all men are bankers – and the only brown faces are products of the tanning clinic". So vile. There being nothing about Brash which is sexist, there being nothing about decrying people of different careers and nothing about removing other races from society. She further said "National would deny what will soon be a quarter of our children the chance to grow up understanding and celebrating their own heritage". When did Don Brash or National say it would ban Maori culture, or engage in neo-Nazi policies? Doesn't matter, smear smear smear. She then said "he essentially wants Maori to be brown Pakeha", more utter lies. This illiberal identity politics based liar.

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She said "Ms Fitzsimons said Te Puni Kokiri, Te Mangai Paho and other Maori agencies set for the chopping block under National had done wonderful work in emboldening and supporting Maori New Zealanders" Yes, though mainly those working for them, Jeanette loves bureaucracies and spending taxpayers' money, because you see, that is about "support".

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She might get credit for sort of living the Green lifestyle to some extent, with an eco-friendly house, and she is into biking and public transport (although I don't think she always gets the train to and from Wellington). She has supported legalising possession of cannabis by adults for personal use, but has shown no interest in people being accountable for their health costs. However, overwhelmingly her political career has been one of simpering scaremongering, predominantly about GE, more recently spreading utter lies about what was once National party policy on having colourblind government, and perpetuating the nuclear"bad" nonsense, along with cheerleading on unilateral action on "climate change", with a dash of exagerrated anti-Americanism thrown in.

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If she was just silly, like she is on most issues, she could be laughed away. However she's not, she's a deliberate distorter and scaremongerer. She has led a fight against science and reason that, to its credit, Labour has partially resisted. It is like a dangerous dogmatic religion against genetic engineering, and that is her legacy. Meanwhile, her campaign against Don Brash, which was a vile distortion of what he DID say and what WAS his policy was the sort of filthy fictional politicking that she accused the Nats and Brethrens of applying to the Greens.

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Whichever party is dominant after the next election, let's hope the Greens are not part of that government. Labour almost certainly would need the Greens, National shouldn't - it should ignore the Greens, and it is about time the media turned its eyes on Jeanette Fitzsimons and what she really is about.

So what's Queen's Birthday about then?

No we all know it's not her real birthday, that's 21 April. It's meant to be the date of her coronation (and it is this year, 2 June).

Yet it isn't a public holiday in the UK. Ah the colonies.

Are Anderton and Kedgley going to protest against Mugabe?

Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton and Green MP Sue Kedgley are both attending the UN Food Summit in Rome, as is Zimbabwe President and murdering dictator Robert Mugabe.

Will Jim and Sue speak up against Mugabe? Will they decry his attendance, like Australia is doing so, as hypocritical given his policies alone are responsible for turning Zimbabwe from a food exporting to a starving net importing country?

Or will they play the typical NZ foreign affairs game of not wanting to offend anyone.

A boycott would be nice, but I doubt Jim and Sue would boycott a trip to Rome during its summer.

Iranian President, advocate of eradicating Israel, nuclear enthusiast and homophobe, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is attending too. However, Sue and Jim wont speak out against a great trading partner, even if it executes teenagers for having sex.

So we'll see, see the great party of principle that champions human rights,sitting at a table with two of the most egregious violators of human rights today. Bet you wont hear a peep from New Zealand - vile, disgusting appeasers of murdering lying scum.

Greens support European Common Agricultural Policy?

A bizarre new ideology is being pushed by the Greens - it's called variously "food democracy" or "food sovereignty" or "food security".

Sue Kedgley has spoken about this, with a combination of hysteria and banality that sends the mind boggling. Take a few quotes:

"food commodity markets have become a magnet for speculators and traders fleeing Wall street. Commodity speculators are pouring billions of dollars into commodities and grain futures –betting on the future of grain. They don’t actually buy or sell a physical commodity, like rice or wheat, but bet on its price movements. As food has been turned into a distant tradable commodity, a form of capital, to be traded and speculated upon, grain prices have soared, putting food stocks further out of poor peoples reach. "

So it's new that food is a tradable (sic) commodity. Not only that she thinks futures are a "bet" over nothing, when they are trading a contract to trade a commodity. A stupid neo-leftwing misinterpretation of what all those "rich folk" do, like the notion that share trading is about nothing at all -when it is about owning businesses.

She goes on with the typical "big bad corporation" vs "poor little country" nonsense saying "So we have an extraordinary situation where agribusiness giants like Cargills and Monsanto are making record profits while countries like the Philippines and Bangladesh can not afford to buy the rice they need because prices are so high. " Well Sue, countries don't buy food, people do. Both the Philippines and Bangladesh have suffered due to price controls and trade restrictions by their own governments. You might note that the trade in rice is particularly heavily distorted because countries like India ban exports, and others like Japan virtually ban imports, restricting very efficient producers like Vietnam and Thailand from being able to increase production to meet global demand.

but Sue doesn't support free trade.

She loses the plot completely here "This brings me to another major underlying cause of the present crisis -- the so-called trade liberalisation agenda or theology that global institutions like the World Bank and the IMF –and of course our government --have been pursuing for decades, and forcing on developing countries." Why is this a cause of the crisis Sue, since trade liberalisation in agriculture has yet to seriously occur? Well...

"Free trade is based on the premise that food should be grown and produced wherever in the world it can be produced more cheaply. If another country can grow something more efficiently we will no longer grow it here because it is inefficient. " No Sue, is it based on the premise that producers and consumers should be free to choose what they sell and buy according to mutual voluntary interaction.

Then she really loses it "The WTO enforces this through global trade rules that require countries to open up their agricultural markets to global competition and forbid them from protecting them from cheap imports, as this is seen to distort or interfere with the mysterious workings of the free market". Well in case you didn't notice Sue, open trade in agriculture doesn't exist. The EU, Japan, USA and some developing countries are against it - so how are you blaming something that doesn't exist? What do you think the current round is all about? Complete nonsense, it's no wonder you find the free market mysterious, since you can't even identify when it doesn't exist.

"No one has ever been able to explain to me why the leading flag wavers for free trade, Europe and American, are allowed to continue to heavily subsidise their own farmers, while preventing other developing countries from subsidising their own" Um Sue, they are not the leading flag wavers for free trade, New Zealand and Australia are. There is no free trade in agriculture, and developing countries continue to subsidise and protect their own agriculture too. However, you're either stupid or making it up by now.

"The result is that dozens of developing countries that were once self sufficient have become huge importers of food, and now find themselves at the mercy of a global market and skyrocketing food prices." Well dozens is an exagerration, but the fault is not free trade Sue. It doesn't exist in agriculture you imbecile.

Then she quotes the Minister of one of the biggest offenders of all "The French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier commented recently, that food is not simply a matter of trade and food cannot be left to the laws of the market alone, neither to financial speculators. “The answer to food insecurity is not brutal liberalisation of trade, but the development of agriculture all over the world and not only where it is profitable to produce it.”

Excuse me? So Sue Kedgley effectively supports the view of a man who defends European agricultural policies that shut out producers from NZ and developing countries from European markets, that subsidise European producers to NOT produce (hiking up prices), that subsidise European food producers and exports undermining producers in other countries. The Common Agricultural Policy is economic and environmental vandalism, but Kedgley is too stupidly attached to statist collectivist ideology to know better. She is effectively siding with the enemies of New Zealand farmers. Thanks Sue!

Then she starts being a bit creative with the facts "Many countries are now giving top priority to food security, increasing agricultural productivity and self sufficiency. The Philippines, which has been rationing rice, has announced its intention to move from being one of the worlds biggest importers of rice to being self sufficient within five years. " Actually Sue, it is not one of the best places for growing rice given its geography, but the high price is making it more economic. Much land is government held and is being set free, and very poor infrastructure (mainly roads - those evil roads) has been a reason for poor production.

Now it's make up facts time "Many countries are openly flouting WTO rules and are putting controls over food prices, exports and imports, introducing agricultural subsidies and creating food reserves –none of which is permitted under WTO. " She doesn't say what countries, and it is an out and out lie, since agriculture is not part of most countries commitments to the WTO. She ignores that price controls do nothing to encourage production or attract more imports. She's far too stupid to know that interfering with trade does far more to reduce supplies and increase prices than not doing so.

So she argues for a "national food security strategy", something she admits Jim Anderton says is loopy. Her Maoist type solution includes "We want all primary school children to be taught how to grow, harvest and prepare food. We want to grow edible trees in every school in New Zealand, and on parks and reserves as well. " See she'd rather your kids grew tomatoes than traded them, and she wants edible trees (!) growing in public places, and we can watch the fruits being plundered as soon as they emerge.

"We want to encourage a much greater uptake of fair trade food, so that when we buy imported food we know that we are supporting, not undermining, their local farmers." Or paying more for the same product, so we can buy less of other food. Why should there be "fair trade food" when prices are getting so high? Oh no, she can't link the two can she?

"We want to encourage a similar turning away from industrial, petroleum dependent food towards local food production. " In other words, LESS food production. That'll do wonders for prices then.

Sue Kedgley is dangerous. Dangerously stupid. She supports the obscene system of subsidies, protectionism and trade barriers that has exacerbated food production in developing countries, but more importantly has undermined the New Zealand economy for decades. She doesn't give a damn that this damages the economy, she thinks we can be self sufficient like North Korea. She advocates moving from efficient mass produced food to quaint locally produced high price, low production food. Nice for some, but it means some will starve, as there will be LESS food. She'll want price controls then, and that means there is even LESS incentive to produce.

The economic illiteracy is scary, this is from the same party that would rather Fonterra sell cheese, butter and milk well below market price than let farmers profit from the best dairy prices in ages. This foolishly forgets that if domestic prices were controlled, there would be shortages because what farmers would sell domestically if they could get more money exporting?

Food sovereignty, democracy, security, whatever term you wish, is a shroud for protectionism and statism. It is the notion that people don't know what is best for themselves, that the decisions of millions and millions of people aren't right, the idea that people should pay a lot more or less for something than what others are prepared to pay, or taxpayers should be forced to pay for production or consumption. It is the wishful thinking of arrogant planners who can't stand that the results of those millions of decisions means things aren't perfect for everyone, so think their little brains can change something and make it better.

High food prices are partly the fault of the biofuel fetish, driven by many environmentalists. That should end, at least in the sense that government subsidies or incentives should end for it. A bigger problem is how the subsidies and protectionism of the EU has stifled production elsewhere, how trade restrictions hinder production and the ability of farmers to benefit from high prices and respond to them, and the ability of consumers to source the best prices available.

Given Sue Kedgley doesn't understand futures trading, and doesn't even realise that trade in agricultural commodities doesn't come close to open and free trade, you can't expect much intelligence to come from her on these matters. In fact the nonsense she is spouting simply makes things worse.

Greens sit on the fence

According to the NZ Herald the Greens are now proudly saying they'll sit on the fence as to which party to back after the election until it sees National policy.

That in itself should tell you how pointless a vote for National is - if the Greens can't even be frightened by it now. Russel Norman harks back a good 27 years to give Labour kudos in saying "Labour had shown leadership in keeping nuclear ships and Springbok rugby teams out of New Zealand in what had been brave moves." What leadership is that Russel? Oh that's right the leadership of distancing New Zealand from the Western alliance against the tyranny and human rights abuses of the USSR, on grounds of total scaremongering. Yes and the Springbok tour, a bit long ago now wasn't it? Labour also set up New Zealand's embassy in Harare after Mugabe's thugs had committed genocide in Matabeleland, but after all he was a Black African Marxist, that made him ok.

Norman said "the parties seems to share a philosophy that beneficiaries and children "must suffer" whereas the Greens wanted benefits and minimum wages raised." That's right. Only the state can make life for poor children better, not the people who took the urge to reproduce themselves. The Greens want more state welfare, that's clear.

To give the Greens credit, they do believe in something. They are the high church for the religion of environmentalism, and all of the faith (rather than evidence) based beliefs attached to it. They advocate shutting down alternative points of view. They promote state constitutional racism. They want more government and more taxes, and believe the state is the answer, believe they can change what's bad and their interventions will make it good. They think people should be penalised for too much success and rewarded the bigger they fail to look after themselves or their kids.

The Greens are the true party of the left in New Zealand. The Green moniker is simply the latest empirical "justification" for large scale state intervention. Green means big government, unless, of course, you are talking about narcotics, and certain civil liberties.