Category: Everything Political

Election ’11: Something you can do

In our MMP electoral system, every vote matters.

Social psychology tells us that the biggest influence on our behaviour is the behaviour of people we know.

Our day-to-day social groups usually share our opinions on political matters, but Facebook (and, to a lesser extent, other social media tools) connects many of us to people beyond this.

So here’s a simple thing you can do before the election: announce on social media how you’re going to vote. Perhaps also say why if you can sum it up in a sentence. No big song and dance required, no need to engage in arguments if people reply. Just speak up.

It will count.

D&D for MMP

On Saturday I helped out for a few hours at the D&D for MMP fundraiser, in which some very game folks embarked on a 24-hour D&D marathon to fundraise for the Campaign for MMP.

MMP, for those outside of NZ, is our current proportional electoral system, which is coming under the eye of a national referendum. I think it’s likely to romp comfortably home, but complacency is not a good idea when there are some well-funded opposing forces with an interest in decreasing the fairness of our democracy.

My role was to sit down with my friend Ben and run the social media for 4 hours, 4pm to 8pm – a live update stream, Twitter, Facebook, and the blog. We had a good ol’ time, and reviewing the 24 hours it is clear our stint was, er, the least reverent.

(I can’t access the livestream right now to find it but I recall being particularly pleased by a comment speculating that the monstrous Owlbear was created after an owl and a bear sat down for a cup of tea in Epsom.)

The event raised about $2000 which is very nice for a grassroots campaign to have. It also seemed to get some nice profile-raising media out of the event – hopefully that translates into a few more dollars and votes.

It was a fun time, and nice to contribute to the bigger picture for a change, something that’s been very hard to do while having adventures in nappyland.

Occupy Wall Street

(Sitting here in New Zealand, I am obviously well-placed to Give Advice to the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Here on my blog I address an audience of as many as TEN different people, and I’m sure the weight of these multitudes will carry this message to the people who need it most. You’re welcome, freedom.)

OWS does not have a list of policy and process demands (yet) and it houses enormous diversity. This movement, says the media and political establishment, is incoherent and without focus.

But the OWS protestors do have a clear single focus; an overarching unified goal of which they share pursuit. The goal is this: getting the powerful to admit there is a fundamental problem with the economy.

This should be the core message of the protests. Every time a camera gets turned on someone at OWS, we should hear this demand. (I’m sure someone has said these words, somewhere, but I haven’t seen it and that means it isn’t high enough profile.)

The protesters all know there is a fundamental problem. They say to the camera: “We are here because our society is broken”. But I haven’t heard anyone say “and we demand that the bankers, the politicians, the media pundits, admit this!”

If this was the message, then perhaps the TV cameras would spend a little less time asking protesters what policy changes they want, and a little more time confronting bankers and politicians with the realities of the system they have created.

(OWS is changing the discourse anyway.)

Quick Shots

I miss being able to blog about things in the world. Writing here helps me process and understand things. My comprehension of reality has reduced while I’ve been busy. Anyway, to spare you lengthy tortured posts, here’s some quick thoughts.

Shipwreck: A ship on a reef leaking oil, and the election just changed again. Our PM is under pressure from the media for a change, and he’s not coping. Key has been protected from tough questions his entire premiership for this reason – he can’t handle the pressure while keeping his smiling “nice Mr Keys” persona going. It won’t cause a huge desertion of the National party by voters, but expect Key’s preferred PM #s to drop and the Greens to continue to gather up votes.

OvalBall: I’ve never seen our country like this. The Rugby World Cup really has become a national celebration (even as the promised economic benefits fail to appear, SURPRISE). When we roadtripped up to Hastings and back a few weeks ago, the whole route was lined with festive signs. All Blacks flags in so many windows, flying from so many cars. And so many other flags! And every little town dressing up in global-village finery for the visiting rugby teams. A genuine spirit of love for the game, huge applause for the little-guy teams when they play well. It’s quite a wonderful atmosphere. I’m genuinely delighted. (Of course, if the All Blacks lose to Australia this weekend, there’ll be… well, not riots. But it will be rough. And hard to avoid even if you care not one tiny fig about rugby.)

Occupy: Yes yes, the Occupy Wall St movement has a vast overrepresentation of university-educated hipsters, and elides differences between middle class and working class, and hasn’t articulated unifying principles, and harbours madness on its fringes. It is important to note all of these things. But for heaven’s sake, don’t mistake these concerns for justifications not to celebrate the appearance of a genuine grass-roots societal justice movement that is driving the conversation in the US. (The US being the society whose abject brokenness all other Western societies are striving so hard to match.) There isn’t a completely different movement that does a better job waiting in the wings. This is the shot we get. Wish it well.

Who: loved Matt Smith’s performance this season of Doctor Who, but my enthusiasm for the show as a whole is at a very low ebb. Moffat as showrunner has lost me completely. His big villains are a complete failure of storytelling craft, and the more you try to forgive that, the more holes show up elsewhere. I stand by my earlier call: Torchwood season 4 > Doctor Who season 6.

Fear

Young left-wing supporters of multiculturalism were gunned down in Norway because of fear.

Before this: an attack on members of the Unitarian Church in Knoxville. Attempted murder of Gabrielle Giffords.

Fear creates violence. But fear is a powerful political tool.

My comment after Knoxville:

It seems to me that this is the inevitable result of a media environment in which it is okay to joke about assassinating a liberal candidate for the presidency, in which an extreme bigot is called kind and decent by the President and venerated in the media after his death, where a high-profile media figure explicitly identifies liberals as internal enemies, where countless slurs and attacks on left-wing views are broadcast and repeated daily.
There is a huge media machine working feverishly to create hatred towards liberals. How then can this violence really be any kind of surprise?

But there is no responsibility taken. (Edit to add: More.)

Power and Periods

Those who are at the top of unequal power structures always develop a mythology to rationalise the inequality. Kings were Kings because of Divine Right, etc etc.

In the modern world of business-oriented hypercapitalism, the mythology is that of productivity. You will be rewarded in accordance with your productivity – what you contribute determines your compensation.

This is a mythology. Who determines productivity? By what metric? What opportunities are given to display productivity? What else is going on in an employment relationship besides productive labour?

Alasdair Thompson has been mocked and chastised for saying a small portion of women’s lower pay is because of menstruation-related sick days. The mockery shouldn’t obscure the fact that this has revealed how the mythology is maintained. Women across all employment are paid less; therefore, they must be less productive; therefore, reasons for their lesser productivity must be found.

Thompson should be given the boot, but more urgently, his ideology – shared in toto with our current government – should be exposed to sunlight and revealed as the mirage it is. Because even after everyone agrees that, no, menstruation does not limit productivity – well, the ideology will remain in place. It was never founded on facts, and it will shift to new ground. It isn’t menstruation, then. Well, it must be because women are more emotional and not hard-nosed enough to pursue their economic self-interest. I just invented that now.

Rationalisations are easy. Shifting an ideology is bloody hard. This is an opportunity.

Blackout

I am angry.

Last night under urgency Parliament got a new law about internet and copyright almost all the way through. Three things about this make me angry:

(1) The law specifies that if you are accused of downloading illegally, you are presumed guilty (more info)

(2) The law gives government the power to punish a person by removing access to the internet entirely

(3) A controversial law such as this should not be put through under Parliamentary urgency.

More info about the bill is here.

This is a shameful episode in NZ politics. Bad law, and indefensible process. You cannot legislate morality, and you cannot legislate to fix technological failure.

Both major parties voted for this law. Only the Greens opposed (with two independent MPs). Remember that at election time.

Freedom Theatre founder killed

Horrible: one of the founders of Palestine’s Freedom Theatre has been killed in Jenin, in the West Bank.

Juliano Mer Khamis, an Israeli of Arab and Jewish parentage, was shot dead by masked gunmen in Jenin. (NOTE: before you make an assumption, this almost certainly was nothing to do with Israel, and indeed a member of Hamas has apparently been arrested).

The Freedom Theatre is a great initiative, building peace through creative expression (and, crucially, giving young people something to pour energy into that isn’t the intifada). When Cal and I visited Palestine in 2004 we visited the Al Rowwad Theatre Society in Aida camp, which was affiliated with the Freedom Theatre. It was a very humble environment, but everyone we met was committed to using performance and creativity as building blocks to a greater peace. As a result of that visit I’ve been on the main Freedom Theatre mailing list for years, and in January got their announcement of their new show, an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.

Needless to say, this is a terrible event. From this distance I don’t expect to ever know or understand how it came to happen. It is clear however that the path to peace, difficult enough already, has just been made more challenging.

Mother Jones has a good article, covering Khamis’ acting and filmmaking as well.

Māori are confused

Duncan Garner on TV3’s morning news show Firstline just now: “Māori are confused. You’ve got Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples saying this is good legislation… and on the other hand you’ve got the last of the activist Māori saying we don’t want this.” (Starts at 4’41 into the clip, although he says “Māori are confused” at other times as well.)

Y’know, it’s good that Pākehā don’t get confused when John Key and Phil Goff say different things, or the country really would be in a pickle!

On reptiles and taking action

Stephen Judd has commented a few times here in reference to his decision to get involved in an NZ political party. His experiences have been interesting and extremely encouraging. This may not be as much the case internationally, but in NZ at least access to political decisionmaking is there for the taking.

Now he has blogged about it, and there’s a lengthy digression involving secret lizardpeople.


Go read.