New Fisk

New Iraq? Hooded Protest And Masked Statistics

Yeah, right

Former Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel thinks she can one day return to Cabinet.

Yeah, right.

While Ruth Dyson managed to do it, there's a big difference - Dyson's crime wasn't that serious in the great scheme of things, and wasn't related to her job. Dalziel, OTOH, abused the power of her office. She released confidential information on someone dealing with her Ministry, then tried to lie her way out of it. Thinking that she can do that and then come back displays a Christine Rankin-like state of denial.

Replies to replies to replies

In response to Sock Thief's latest offering:

1. I think it is important to note that what Pinker is criticising isn't liberalism - and he doesn't call it that. Sock Thief calls it that. Pinker talks about relativism, social constructivism, science studies, cultural studies, critical theory, postmodernism, and deconstructionism. While these strands of thought are common on the left, particularly in academia, they're not liberalism, and they are not any strand of liberal thought. Unfortunately, due to his conflation of the liberal, authoritarian, and postmodern tendencies on the left, Sock Thief talks as if they are.
2. "Liberals are undemocratic because, rather than respecting other people's views, they see them as dupes suffering from 'false consciousness' or a similar ailment" is not a direct quote from anyone; it's an attempt to elucidate the underlying meaning behind Sock Thief's claims that "liberals believe that anyone with a different opinion is stupid" and that this is illiberal. If this is not what he means - if for example, he does not think that liberals see people as dupes, or as suffering from "false consciousness", or that either undermines democracy in liberal eyes, he is more than welcome to say so.
3. The thrust of my piece is to show that "false consciousness" and deception are not problems for liberals. It is directed at people, like Sock Thief, who think that they are or might be. It is not a theory on how people are influenced (though I think that they can be, and in some cases, are), but a theory on whether such influence matters. And the answer, for liberals, is that it doesn't.

Finally, just to put the issue of "respecting other's views" to rest, I'll clarify something I was aiming at last night:

Liberalism does not mean withholding criticism, judgement, or moral opprobrium. All it means is withholding restraint.

Liberals can think that other people's interests are selfish, that the moral axioms they use to reach their conclusions are reprehensible, and that the facts they use in the process or seek to persuade others with are false, because none of this implies that the decision may be usurped. Autonomy is sacrosanct (subject to Mill's Law), even for stupid, selfish wankers.

Justice prevails - for the moment

British home secretary David Blunkett has lost his appeal aimed at keeping a security detainee in prison. The Special immigration Appeals Committee ordered the man's release after finding that the evidence on which he was held had been exaggerated and was "wholly unreliable"; the government had challenged the ruling. Today, the lord chief justice made the (apparantly obvious) ruling that if a detention is unlawful, then the detainee must be released, and (more importantly), denied the government further appeal.

All things going well, the man will be released later tonight. However, it's not all plain sailing - the government might simply "re-certificate" him, sending him straight back to jail on the same shoddy "evidence". For them even to be considering this shows how far Britian has fallen, and low little they care about justice and human rights these days.

New Fisk

'If I am told to go, I will go.' Spanish soldiers prepare to return to home front

The blue wall of silence

The Police-rape allegations matter because of what they reveal about police culture at the time: an in-group / out-group mentality, a willingness to club together, even lie, to protect members of the group, and active persecution of those who investigate their fellows. Americans call this "the blue wall of silence".

Police spokespeople have stressed that that culture no longer exists in the police, and that "things have changed". Yes, and no. What has changed is the willingness of the police heirarchy to tolerate it; unfortunately some police officers don't seem to be getting the message.

Coalition of the less-willing every day

Spain's rejection of the war in Iraq in favour of actually fighting terrorism seems to be having an effect on the "coalition of the willing". Spain is planning to withdraw its troops, Honduras won't replace theirs, and now even "New Europe" is looking decidedly iffy:

[Polish] President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a key Washington ally, said Thursday he may withdraw troops early from Iraq and that Poland was "misled" about the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Quick! Polish appeasement!

Update: South Korea isn't willing to die for Halliburton either. Like us, they want to build schools, not keep people under the thumb, so they don't want to go anywhere dangerous.

Crooked Timber has an interesting game on Rawls's Second Principle.

Score

Ian Smith, the Immigration Service official responsible for the "lie in unison" memo has been sacked.

Conflating Marx and Mill

Liberals don't have a problem with "false consciousness", and they don't have a problem with denying human nature, so why does Sock Thief think that they do?

The answer is in his constant use of the term "Left/Liberal"; he conflates the two as if they were interchangable, then tars both with the beliefs of the Marxists and postmodernist subsects. But it's not liberals who believe that "false consciousness" undermines democracy, or that the people must be led because they are too stupid to make their own decisions - it is Marxists and authoritarians. Likewise, it is not Mill and Berlin that lead to the gulags and killing fields, but Marx and Rousseau.

Liberalism and fallibility

Sock Thief has replied to my piece on Liberalism, "false consciousness" and deception, but unfortunately has missed the point. It is not Pinker who is the target of my post, but Sock Thief himself - and in particular, his claims linking liberals with the sort of thinking Pinker criticises.

In my post, I took those claims at face value, and (I think) showed that they are not a problem for liberals. Unfortunately, Sock Thief seems to have focused on some superficialities rather than the substance. Just to make this clear, I am not committed to the view that we are all credulous morons or subject to constant mind control. I do however think that we can be fooled, and that sometimes we can be convinced to change our minds, reprioritise our goals, or pursue a course of action that we would otherwise abhor by lying, deceit, or manipulation. This is not because we are stupid; it is because we are fallible. Recognising this fact isn't illiberal - but denying it is irrational, and somewhat curious for someone who talks so much about taking account of our nature.

Not that any of that actually matters - because unwrapped from all its packaging, the key point is this:

Even if people do suffer from "false consciousness" or are subject to propaganda, deceit and manipulation, the fundamental tenent of liberalism - that people are the best judges of their own desires and interests - rules out second-guessing them.

Note the "even if". It's not a problem for liberalism if propaganda works - and it's even less of one if we accept Sock Thief's belief that it doesn't.

Sock Thief also seems to think I need to explain how people arrive at particular political opinions. I don't think so. Liberalism doesn't need a "thick" theory of human psychology and nature; all it needs is the belief that adults have interests, desires and goals and are capable of deciding between them¹ - which is supported by Pinker. How we make decisions is pretty much irrelevant. You can decide which political party to support by prolonged rational deliberation, you can ask the first person you bump into on the street, you can flip a coin for all liberals care - what's important is that it is your decision. Others may think that it's weird, ill-informed, selfish, or grossly mistaken - even that the axioms it is based on are morally reprehensible - but (subject to Mill's Law, of course) they cannot interfere. "Respecting someone's decisions" means noninterference, not approval, and carries no burden of politeness.

This also explains how I can reconcile believing that politics is something that people can reasonably disagree over with calling people wankers: people can reasonably disagree because politics is about what we want and they have different interests and goals - but that doesn't mean I have to approve of those interests or goals.

¹ coupled with a moral argument leading to the conclusion that people are the best judges of their own interests. This could be Naturalistic, grounded for example in the fact that people tend to get upset when second-guessed, it could be Kantian, grounded in the Categorical Imperitive, or it could rely on some other moral scheme.

New Fisk

Iraq: a year of war
Al-Qa'ida Attacks Intensify, But Iraqi Police Say: "Let Them Come"

Interesting questions

Are we being inundated by a tidal wave of terrorists seeking to use New Zealand as a "safe haven"? How could we tell? One way is to ask the following questions:

1. How many applications for residency were denied in the last year on the grounds of sections 7 (1) (e) - 7 (1) (h) of the Immigration Act 1987 (the clauses saying that we can keep people out because we think they're terrorists or merely dangerous)?
2. How many residency permits were revoked in the last year on those grounds (or, in other words, how many people have we kicked out because we think they are terrorists or merely dangerous)?

Curious, I phoned the Minister's office. According to the person I spoke to there, the answers are "none" and "none". Some tidal wave.

CalPundit has moved, becoming a Political Animal...

I'm a little more dubious about the below than Mike is. Because of what has been exposed in the Zaoui case, I am deeply suspicious of the SIS's competence and motives. More importantly, it is abhorrent that any government agency can arbitrarily block someone from citizenship without independent oversight. Shouldn't there be a court involved in the process somewhere?

As for danger, the SIS has said that it is not concerned about domestic terrorism in these cases. If they were, they would already have informed the Minister of their concerns under sections 7 (1) (f) - 7 (1) (h) of the Immigration Act 1987, and requested that he revoke residency on the grounds of "administrative error" (which includes being covered by section 7, and hence not being eligible in the first place). The fact that they haven't done that - prefering instead to blame the Immigration Service - suggests that they don't think there is a danger (or alternatively, don't think their evidence would withstand scrutiny by the courts).

Reading between the lines, I think the worry is more about the damage that could be done to New Zealand's international reputation (and the access of New Zealand citizens to other countries) if people-that-other-people-think-are-terrorists are seen to be travelling on a New Zealand passport. Note that the people don't actually have to be terrorists for such damage to occur; Ahmed Zaoui would almost certainly fall into the same category.

I am however intrigued that the SIS - an organisation which normally refuses to say anything, even to a court - has raised this. You'd almost get the suspicion that they're trying to play politics...

Update: I should also add that it seems unfair to attack the Immigration Service over this; they can hardly be blamed for refusing entry on the grounds that people were dangerous when they (and the SIS) didn't know or think that at the time.

Something just doesn't add up

SIS spy chief Richard Wood has revealed that three people were denied citizenship and passports last year because of security concerns but are still living here as NZ residents! What the fuck?

The reaction of the main parties has been predictable. On the left, Green MP Keith Locke has stated bluntly that "the SIS can't be trusted to get it right." This is certainly believable judging by their handling of Ahmed Zaoui, however he goes on to suggest that

"Presumably the three people referred to by the SIS Director yesterday as a 'security risk' are well-settled and law-abiding residents, otherwise their permits would have been revoked,"

I think this is probably crediting the immigration department with a bit too much competence.

Progressive spokesman, Matt Robson has suggested that the SIS relies on hearsay evidence, denies people natural justice and consider themselves above the law. There is certainly a faint whiff of Zaoui about this but I think its a bit soon to be accusing them of that (maybe that will come later). I'm not sure that anyone actually cares what Matt Robson thinks (which is a shame) because his party's support is currently smaller than a freedom air fare. I suppose its important to issue press releases to remind everyone that his party still exists.

Meanwhile, on the right, Winston Peters took the opportunity to take a swipe at immigration generally, more constructively, National and ACT have assumed the SIS is correct and pointed out the obvious inconsistency... if the three are too dangerous to have citizenship then surely they're too dangerous to have residency?... wouldn't you think?

Apparently not... according to the Government, Immigration Minister Paul Swain

"the SIS had not asked for their permanent residency to be revoked, the SIS was approached when they first applied for permanent residency and did not object. However, it became aware later of security concerns which is when it recommended they be declined for citizenship and consequently for New Zealand passports."

This is all fine and dandy but it doesn't answer National and ACT's valid concerns. If these people are a threat then they should be out of here on the next plane...(and checked thoroughly for box cutters before boarding) and if Swain isn't making this up, what the hell were the SIS thinking?

I'm not sure who or what to believe here. I've toyed with the idea that the pressure to do this could have come from Australia or elsewhere. Conspiracies aside, it doesn't look good...it means that one of either immigration or the SIS have yet again been exposed as a bunch of complete fuck ups.

Liberalism, "false consciousness" and deception

As people who pay attention to the sidebar will notice, I've been slowly working my way through Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate. "Slowly", because I keep getting distracted (current distraction: Constitutional and Administrative Law in New Zealand, by Philip A. Joseph). Yesterday, I got up to a part which I thought was worthy of comment.

As part of his preamble to discussing cognition and perception, Pinker slags off relativists (a catch-all term covering "proponents of social constructivism, science studies, cultural studies, critical theory, postmodernism, and deconstructionism") as having

a penny-pinching theory of psychology in which the mind has no mechanisms designed to grasp reality; all it can do is passively download words, images, and stereotypes from the surrounding culture

He then continues:

Skepticism about the soundness of people's mental faculties also determines whether one should respect ordinary people's tastes and opinions (even those we don't much like) or treat people as dupes of an insidious commercial culture. According to relativist doctrines like "false consciousness," "inauthentic preferences," and "interiorized authority," people may be mistaken about their own desires. If so, it would undermine the assumptions behind democracy, which gives ultimate authority to the preferences of the majority of a population, and the assumptions behind market economies, which treat people as the best judges of how they should allocate their own resources. Perhaps not coincidentally, it elevates the scholars and artists who analyze the use of language and images in society, because only they can unmask the ways in which such media mislead and corrupt.

Why is this worthy of comment? Because its used by bloggers - in particular by our own local "[critic] of Left/Liberal thought from a Darwinian perspective" - to underpin statements such as "liberals believe that anyone with a different opinion is stupid". Or, to put it another way, "liberals are undemocratic because, rather than respecting other people's views, they see them as dupes suffering from 'false consciousness' or a similar ailment"¹.

The obvious counter is to point out that political issues are - almost by definition - issues that people can reasonably disagree over. People have different interests, and politics is what we use to reconcile them (or not, as the case may be). So ACT aren't stupid, they're just wankers, with extremely egocentric interests.

However, this still leaves us with a problem, in that there are cases where people clearly are stupid or dupes. Propaganda works. Advertising works. People buy things because they see them on TV, and believe things if they hear them often enough. This sometimes causes them to act contrary to their own expressed desires. One example of this is the support of Americans for policies that favour the rich (on the grounds that some 40% of them believe they are in the top 5% of income earners, and a far greater percentage believe they will be rich one day - a belief which is unsupported by any analysis of US social mobility). A second is the 70% of Americans who believed that Saddam Hussein was personally involved with the events of September 11th, and the 44% who believed that most of the hijackers were Iraqi² (in fact he had nothing to do with it, and none of the hijackers were Iraqi; most came from Saudi Arabia - a US ally).

So how can we reconcile these awkward facts with a liberal respect for autonomy? I think that rather than focusing on "false consciousness" (people not knowing their own desires or interests), the answer has to focus on deceit and manipulation. The problem is not that we are not the best judges of their own interests - the problem is that politicians and advertisers lie to us. They lie to convince us that a particular course of action serves our interests when really it does not ("invading iraq will make us safer from terrorism"; "tax cuts for the rich will benefit you"), and they lie to convince us to adjust the priorities of our competing interests ("we must sacrifice freedom for security", "you need a new holiday"). And of course they exploit authority to lend their lies more weight ("the president said it, so it must be true").

To the extent that the media/cultural studies crowd that Pinker criticises and Sock Thief rails against expose these lies, they are doing us all a service.

But hasn't this simply recast the problem of "false consciousness" as one of stupidity? I don't think so. Plenty of otherwise smart people get fooled too. It's a matter of the sophistication of manipulation techniques and the flaws in our nature they exploit, not of individual stupidity (though that may help). You don't have to be stupid to be fooled - just human³.

What does all of this mean for liberals? I don't see any conflict between accepting our nature and respecting autonomy. Serious liberals respect the right of people to make stupid decisions, and a stupid decision based on someone else's lie is no different from one based on endogenous delusion. Hell, we respect the decisions of people who believe in god, and that's no different from people who believe Bush.

As for lies undermining democracy, the liberal solution is clear: make it more difficult for the liars. Universal public education focused on building better bullshit detectors, combined with a strong, independent and free press⁴ are two ways of doing this. And I think they're solutions that most of those who denouce liberals would agree with.

¹ I'll leave aside the obvious equivocation of liberals with the particular clade of the left infected by Rousseau.

² The different numbers are because the polls were taken at different times.

³ You can deny this, of course - but that either ignores the facts or gets you dangerously close to a Libertarian theory of Free Will, in which agency is absolutely unconstrained by past choice or environmental factors (or even by who you are and what you want). Readers of Pinker won't want to do either.

⁴ Or maybe simply suspicious. I think that there's an interesting link to be made between the relative support for the war in the US and UK with their respective levels of press credulity and submission...

Foreshore and seabed: the way forward

Roger Kerr, on the BfM wire, suggests that the government should let the cases progress through the courts, then forcibly acquire (and compensate) from anyone who wins.

At the moment, I'm inclining towards that sort of position, but I'd modify it in 3 ways:

• Give the Maori land Court options. At the moment, all they can hand out is fee simple title. Legislating to recognise usage rights and allowing the court to determine their scope and extent will allow a more precise recognition of customary rights and reduce the likelihood of land ending up in fee simple.
• Modify the RMA to extend the powers of the government and local authorities to create esplanade reserves. Currently, they can forcibly acquire a reserve strip from land adjacent to the foreshore or a river whenever a large parcel of land is subdivided. This needs to be extended to enable acquisition of foreshore, and to allow acquisition when land is sold. They would still have to pay for it, but it would allow us to bring privately owned foreshore (including that held by Auckland millionaires) back into public ownership.
• Negotiate in good faith first, and look at quid pro quos (such as aquaculture licenses), rather than using the hammer of forcible acquistion. The immediate focus should on gaining a right of recreational access; outright ownership is not necessarily required for this.

Of course, this means the whole thing will be tied up in the courts, and that projects on disputed foreshore may be delayed by injunction until the cases are settled, but that is the price of justice.

(Lest anyone misunderstand: I think the government's proposal is fine if it can gain the acceptance of Maori - it's their rights which are primarily affected. But if the government can't get consent for its scheme, then they should leave it to the courts. And there's no reason why the two systems can't stand side by side, with the courts as the ultimate fallback for iwi who think the government will not recognise their rights).

Brash says no tax cuts for the rich

But he's still promising to cut corporate taxes, which amounts to the same thing - and as companies pay most of the tax, will result in cuts to public services.

The rest of the proposal simply mirrors Labour's policy of reducing taxes on those at the bottom of the heap - making the tax system more progressive, in other words. And to the extent that this marks a move towards the center and away from National's previous far-right policies, it is a good thing - a National party emasculated by the requirement to appeal to the majority (rather than simply pandering to the rich) will do far less damage to the country than one which tries to restart the Rogernomics revolution.

Update: Predictably, ACT isn't too happy with this departure from Rogernomic purity.

Update 2: United Future meanwhile is calling it a "tax policy U-turn, and is suspicious of whether they would stick with it if in government. I think that's an issue which has to be considered: can National - a party which has historicly existed to serve the interests of the rich - be trusted not to say one thing then do the opposite if elected? If Bill English was still in charge, possibly - he was a centrist and had expressed doubts about the dogma over tax cuts for the wealthy. But with an ideological fanatic like Brash in charge? I don't think so.

Glee

Remember Telecom's "convoy" ads - the ones with an annoying country-western hit from the 70's, offering 25% off to people who "join the convoy back to Telecom"? Well, they messed up, and the promotion is available to existing telecom customers. Which means we can all call them and get 25% off, as well as some measure of revenge against them for being gouging monopolist bastards.

Call 1-2-3, to get your revenge on Telecom!

Grow the fuck up the both of you

Having started flinging muck about, Don Brash is now annoyed that he's getting some back, and wants the media to stay out of his private life. Perhaps he should have thought of that before trying to make an issue out of other people's?

Unfortunately, Brash's comments were not a one-off - they're part of a wider campaign by the right to personalise things and politicise religious belief. The first is merely childish (on about the same level as kids calling each other "poo-face"), the second a calculated attempt to undermine tolerance and set New Zealanders against one another. Which is, of course, exactly what Brash has tried to do on race.

New Zealand has a long-standing tradition of ignoring politician's private lives because it's a) irrelevant and b) debases politics and distracts politicians from doing their jobs (Exhibit A: Monica Lewinsky). Brash should be ashamed of himself for violating this, and Helen should be ashamed of herself for responding. Both of them should grow the fuck up and get on with their job, rather than wasting time slagging each other off in this fashion.

Hit of the day

Which whiskey does dalziel drink?

(Though I suspect they're asking about a TV character, rather than our former Minister of Immigration)

New Fisk

The West was warned. Now it is paying the price of the 'war on terror'

Helpful link

Whoever it was who was looking for the Waitangi Tribunal's report on the government's foreshore & seabed proposals: the short version can be found here.

Iraq: was it worth it?

It's been a year since the US invaded Iraq. In that year, the official justification for the war has changed almost daily, from WMD to "overthrowing a tyrant" to "building a democracy" to "fighting terrorism". None of those reasons has been convincing. Enthusiastic supporters of the US position have also sought to justify the war on utilitarian grounds, claiming that anything is better than Saddam or that Iraqis are better off without him. My answer has always been to ask "yeah, but is it five thousand dead civilians better?" After a year, and seeing that five grow to a ten, I think it's time to ask the question again. Can the advocates of the occupation seriously claim that the progress that has been made since the war justifies the human cost? I don't think so.

Sure, Saddam is gone, but the occupation has simply taken his place, moving into his palaces and his prisons. Iraqis can now run their own newspapers (and there has been an enormous explosion of them) - but are still forbidden to criticise the government. Those who disobey are no longer fed into plastic shredders - but are still taken in the middle of the night at gunpoint, beaten and tortured, or simply murdered by private death-squads. Organised state oppression has been replaced by occupier or private oppression. The new boss is looking much like the old boss.

Iraq now has an interim constitution, but the chances of its promises of freedom and human rights actually being implemented are looking remote. Neither the IGC or the CPA actually want elections - too much danger of the people making the "wrong" decision - and so they have colluded to prevent them. So when "sovereignty" (of the sort where the occupier still calls all the shots) is transferred on June 30th, it will be to an unelected council, rather than to a democratically elected body. Is this really what people meant when they said that we would bring democracy to Iraq?

Iraqis' standard of living has plummeted since the war. Little has been done to restore basic services such as electricity and water. Lawlessness is rampant. 70% of the population are still unemployed, and the dismantling of the distribution system established under the oil-for-food program threatens them with starvation. Women's rights - which were guaranteed by the secular former regime - are being undermined by the IGC, and in any case legal rights mean nothing when you cannot leave the house without an armed escort.

Looking back, the Iraq war has not lived up to any of its promises. It has not removed tyranny, only replaced it with a new face. It has failed to bring democracy or a better life to Iraqis. All it has done is replace one despotic tyrannical regime with another that is mildly better in some ways, and much worse in others. Overall, I do think Iraqis are better off, in that now they have a chance to build something better - but it's hardly an inspiring achievement or enormous qualitative change. If we buy into the utilitarian thinking (and I don't), then I don't see anything here to get excited about. It wasn't worth it. The answer to the question "is this ten thousand dead civilians better" has to be a resounding "no".

The voters have spoken: it was Al-Qaeda.

New Fisk

One year on - war without end

Moral black hole watch

The revelations from the Britons freed from Guantanamo are just getting more disturbing. We are now hearing that - contrary to the Blair government's public condemnation of the camp - British officials from the Foreign Office and MI5 were involved in Guantanamo from the beginning. Worse, they may have been complicit in torture, both at Guantanamo and at the US detention facility in Khandahar. The moral black hole seems to have swallowed the British security services as well.

The full interview is here.

New Fisk

Iraqi civilians targeted for 'collaborating' with the US

I thought we had a long-standing constitutional convention against the government openly criticising the judiciary?

If Helen Clark has a problem with this decision, then she should direct the appropriate ministry to appeal. She should not be undermining judicial independence by slagging off the judge.

Community education: it's the market, stupid

Polytechs are running bullshit courses to get community education funding. Why am I not surprised?

Yes, a crackdown is needed (though ideally not one that undermines the sterling work institutions are doing with community computer education). At the same time, the government needs to address the underlying problems of systematic underfunding and the free market model of tertiary education. Successive governments have underfunded tertiary education for years. At the same time, they've encouraged providers to compete against one another for students and funding. This system incentivises exactly the sort of behaviour people are complaining about - and those who play along by creating myriad new qualifications so they have something to sell to everyone clean up over those who do not.

As a result, we have certificates in call-center operations and courses where stupid young girls pay three grand (and the institution collects far more in EFTS funding) to play at being a model. This is not stuff that deserves state funding. Neither do singing along with the radio and "twilight golf" - though at least these are far cheaper for the end-user.

New Fisk

Iraqi recruits put in the firing line while Americans retreat to safety of barracks

Not just a legal black hole

One the the five Britons freed from Guantanamo reports that he was beaten in US custody. It seems Guantanamo isn't just a legal black hole, but also a moral one.

Interesting

That's the only way to describe the Greens' proposals on an inquiry into the Treaty.

Rather than a top-down investigation, they are proposing a grassroots discussion, with interested parties gathering together to debate, argue, and hopefully reach some agreement on what they want. The government would assist by providing facilitators (if necessary) and background information on our history and current constitutional workings. The findings of each group would be compiled into an overall "Report to the Nation" on what we actually think.

It's participatory democracy in its best sense, a giant national conversation on how we want to run our country. It also focuses on the key problem, as pointed out by Michael King when he suggested a Royal Commission (and echoed by Chris Trotter in the Dominion-Post this morning, in pointing out the flaws in such a process) - a widespread feeling among pakeha of not being consulted. Regional "study circles" (as they're called in Sweden) would allow everyone (well, eveyrone who cared enough to participate) to truly "have their say".

Can it work? Well, it seems to in Sweden. Will the government do it? That, I think is the tricky bit. Like a referendum, this is something beyond the government's control - in fact, it's even worse from their point of view because of the open-ended nature of the inquiry. People left to make up their own minds might not reach the desired conclusions - and in fact, may go wandering off on a complete tangent. But that's democracy for you, and if we take seriously its premise the people know what's best for them (and even if they don't, are entitled to make the mistake), then this is the sort of process we need to follow.

Of course, if the Greens want to be truly mischevious, they could do it anyway regardless of what the government decides. Even if the government settles on a traditional Royal Commision structure, they could promote "study circles" with the aim of encouraging wider public participation and as many submissions as possible - which would be a worthwhile goal in itself.

"Worst case scenarios"

National is saying that the government's attempt to find an amicable and final solution to the foreshore and seabed issue has allowed a "worst-case scenario" to come to pass, with the Maori Land Court allowing a large foreshore case to proceed.

I think it's a telling sign of National's commitment to "equality" and "one law for all" that they regard Maori exercising their due-process rights - rights which are absolutely fundamental to any conception of justice - as a "worst case scenario".

They're also trying to play this up as a sign of imminent Maori ownership of the foreshore, with the implication that the government must act now in order to stop it. This is simply not the case. The court has decided to allow preliminary hearings; the actual case is quite some time away, and appeals will no doubt drag things out for a couple of years. There is no rush, and we still have plenty of time to work out a solution. National is simply trying to drum up hysteria and panic by misleading the public - which is what they've been doing all along.

Playing with money

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the right about the Reserve Bank's request for the power to intervene in the currency market. The standard dogma seems to be "it's against mainstream economic thinking" (which is why so many other countries - including our major trading partners Australia and Japan - do it), and "it won't work". Actually, I'm quite partial to the second argument - we are a small economic player, and just don't have the money to play this sort of game. On the other hand, by simply saying that we might, we've achieved what we wanted anyway. It makes for an excellent bluffing strategy, and our hysterical business press only enhances its efficacy.

Antipodean Journal also has an interesting analysis of this as a fundamental move away from the autism of Rogernomics...

Gay marriage hits the courts

The California Supreme Court has told San Francisco to stop marrying gays, while it makes its mind up about legality. This is, of course, exactly what the mayor of San Francisco wanted. By blatantly ignoring the law, he has forced a review of its constitutionality - which he hopes will come out against discrimination.

New Fisk

The life and unexplained death of a Palestinian militant

NZPols launches a stinging attack on Don Brash, calling his attitude to a royal commission arrogant, simpleminded and disgraceful...

Discouraging the unemployed

The GSV Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival (yes, he is Cultured) talks about his experiences with WINZ - specificly, being sent on a pointless course which will verifiably impede, rather than improve, his chances of getting a job:

This seems to be a reasonable thing to do to the young and the stupid who are still languishing on the benefit after three months - they probably need the help. But straight away? Can the transitionally unemployed be given the benefit of the doubt for four to six weeks? Isn't it a bit of a waste of time to send people who are between seasonal work and looking for the full time thing back to redo their CV yet again?

It is - but the purpose isn't to help people get a job, it's to discourage people from exercising their entitlements. Seen in this light, it all makes perfect sense.

Unfortunately, this attitude from WINZ interferes seriously with delivering assistance to people in need. By way of example, someone I know helped out in Red Cross Manawatu's warehouse, unpacking donations for people who had lost everything in the recent floods. Unfortunately, it's not moving very fast, because in order to get anything you have to talk to WINZ, and people would rather eat their own entrails (without Watties tomato sauce!) before doing that.

I missed it

Spam turned ten last week, and I missed it. Has it really been that long?

I remember reading Canter & Siegel's Green Card message back in the dim, dark ages, when I was studying physics. At the time, I read news with tin, downloaded files using Gopher, and experimented with getting around the department's limits on web-usage using the browser built into EMACS. God, how things have changed.

Nearly 6000 children waiting for social workers

I can't decide if this is a bad thing because these kids are at risk and nothing is being done...or if its good because CYFS are such a bunch of fuck ups that they're are better off without them.

Thoughts on history

The latest edition of Upton-on-line compares the teaching of history in France and New Zealand - and the result is unfavourable. French schoolchildren receive a solid grounding in their (idealised, sanitised, propagandised) national story; in New Zealand, it is left almost entirely to chance. To take a personal example, I managed to exit high school knowing almost nothing about New Zealand history. Sure, there'd been museum visits in primary school to look at the waka (and Canterbury museum's famous blue whale skeleton), dribs and drabs here and there on various patches, but no consistent program and certainly no focus - and so very little of it stuck (the exception being the part of the fifth-form curriculum dealing with "New Zealand's Search for Security 1945 - 1985"). Part of the problem was of course that my high school generally decided to skip New Zealand history in favour of European (e.g. "Tudor and Stuart England", complete with Blackadder videos).

One of the reasons for this is probably because New Zealand history is a) short, and b) fairly boring. Maori settlement, five hundred years of low-tech existence, Captain Cook, European settlement and the Treaty, then (once Maori had conveniently disappeared from the narrative, exiled to the back blocks after their land had been seized) the smooth progression of a socially innovative liberal democracy. No serious local wars (though Maori I think would beg to differ), no bloody revolutions (the closest we get is the Springbok Tour), and no crazed absolutists making their dog an MP and having everyone's heads cut off (Muldoon didn't even come close). Compare this to Romans, Egyptians, the French Revolution and the American Civil War, and its no wonder people ignore it.

(Of course, that's also the wonder of New Zealand: boring history is safe history. "Interesting times" may make for a cracking good story and some funny anecdotes in retrospect, but they're kindof tough on the people involved at the time).

Unfortunately, this ignorance costs us. We're seeing part of that cost at the moment, in our current attitudes to the Treaty: because there's no general awareness among pakeha of what went on in the past, there's no sense of the reality of Maori grievances, and a perception of Treaty claims as being about "handouts for Maori" rather than righting past wrongs. Better teaching of New Zealand history will help to change this.

But as Upton points out, it's not just about colonial history. In order to properly understand where our country has come from, we need to understand both major strands - Maori and European. This means serious time devoted to the culture we imported from Europe (and specifically Britain) - he has a good list of the essentials in his article (interestingly, great chunks of this were covered in my high school, so I guess it wasn't all bad).

People should know their own history, and its practically criminal that its been so neglected in our schools. Understanding the past is vital to understanding the present - and to working out what we want to become in the future.

Free at last

The four Britons freed from Guantanamo, then arrested on their arrival in the UK, have been released. They are unlikely to face charges in the UK, as any evidence collected by the Americans is inadmissable.

Good news for them, at least - but we mustn't forget that the US continues to hold another 595-odd prisoners without charge or trial. Some may very well be terrorists - but they have also included taxi drivers, langauge students, and people who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Without any legal process to distinguish them, a gross injustice is being perpetuated.

Facts wih that

KiwiPundit thinks I've missed some important facts from my post about Republican intimidation of the media. I think he's missed an even more important one - namely that the organisations in questions ("527 organisations", such as MoveOn.org) are subject to different rules from political parties. They are allowed to accept large donations, and spend them on ads, provided they don't explicitly collude with any candidate. According to advice from the FEC, what they are doing is entirely legal.

More importantly, even if the FEC changes its mind, the law only binds the 527 organisations, not TV stations. The RNC targetting media outlets is simply an exercise in intimidation.

Apparantly, there are people who think that Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials is blasphemous and "fit for the bonfire". The Archbishop of Canterbury begs to differ. In fact, he quite liked it...

New Fisk

Iraq constitution sealed at last, and immediately come the warnings of an upsurge in violence

Inquiries, part II

United Future has published its proposed terms of reference for an inquiry into the Treaty and constitutional issues. Read them here.

First thoughts: this is rather broad, and covers a mix of high-level meta issues and low-level minutiae - everything from a written constitution, republicanism and the Treaty to what our national day should be. Because these questions are so interdependent, and because there are multiple consistent sets of answers, it is probably best to deal with them in two seperate, sequential inquiries - the first into the Treaty, its role and its principles, and the second into republicanism, a written constitution, and justiciability. Seperate, because these really are two completely different areas of inquiry; sequential, because the Treaty is the foundation of our current constitution - our answers to other constitutional questions are going to be strongly influenced by our views on its role and principles. Waitangi day and the Maori seats are very much subsidiary questions rather than fundamental ones, and probably shouldn't be mixed in with the main process (too much of a distraction, for a start).

Anyway, there's some good blog fodder there. Maybe I'll do some posts about the individual questions... that is, if someone else doesn't beat me to it...

Hope for United Future?

Normally I don't have much time for United Future - but at the moment they actually seem to be operating as a proper center party, rather than a bunch of wacko Christian fundamentalists.

Guess that country

It's election time. The ruling party warns media outlets that they will be complicit in illegal activity if they run ads criticising the government, and hints darkly at licensing problems or legal action. A scene from Singapore, Hong Kong, or Malaysia? Nope - it's the good old USA...

Inquiries

The idea of a royal commission to investigate the Treaty and define exactly what those "Treaty principles" are seems to have caught on, with most parties coming out in support (to be fair, everyone has suggested it at some time in the past, but now they all seem to be agreeing all at once). The only holdout is National, who have labelled it a "smokescreen" and a "diversionary tactic" which would "resolve nothing".

To the contrary - the whole idea of a royal commission is to resolve these fundamental constitutional issues. And while it may not reach a conclusion, even the act of investigation is likely to shed some light on the subject. At a minimum, by allowing people to have a say and vent a bit of steam a formal inquiry would likely significantly reduce the tension surrounding the Treaty and race relations. And that is precisely why National doesn't like the idea. Despite all their talk of "debate", they're not actually interested in informing the public or building consensus - their plan has always been to stoke racial tension to get votes.

Update: David Slack has emailed me to point out another perspective: that of Tariana Turia, who points out that we already have such a commission of inquiry in the Waitangi Tribunal:

"The Waitangi Tribunal is charged by legislation with determining the meaning and effect of the Treaty as embodied in the two texts, and deciding issues raised by the differences between them.

"In considering claims, it must decide if the Crown breached the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

"Over almost 30 years, the Waitangi Tribunal has made extensive findings on the intent of the original signatories, and how their aspirations in 1840 can be realised in today's circumstances... It has made extensive comments on the principles of the Treaty.

Which is pretty much what we're after. Unfortunately, as Turia points out, pakeha generally don't pay much attention to the Tribunal (except, perhaps, to complain about it), and as a result these findings have been ignored.

New Fisk

Insurers pay out 90 years after the 20th century's first genocide

Milford Gondola

The Gondola from Queenstown to Milford Sound has already caused a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Forest & Bird and the Federated Mountain Clubs are outraged, scandalised, shocked, stunned... and I think you get the picture.

Meanwhile ACT's Gerry Eckhoff is obviously lining up for a photo op on the Gondola's opening day although he must have written this press release before he saw ACT's latest poll rating. At the rate they're going he'll be too much of a has been to warrant an invite

Southland District Mayor Frana Cardo has been sounding increasingly shrill and has suggested that Milford will degenerate into Las Vegas or Disney... that is perhaps going a little bit far. But given that her community will be largely cut out of the goldmine that is Milford and probably stands to lose pot loads of dosh on her watch, the self interest is understandable.

Even more laughably, Skyline Gondola's Director grant Hensman attempted to brownwash the issue by declaring that

"We want everyone to have a totally good experience. It's about Mauri, (Maori for life force), we want people to feel the life force of this area, to really experience it."

I mean really, what a load of horse shit.

So people on both sides of the debate have tried to peddle some pretty amazing crap on the public already and there will be more to come as the gondola has to pass the obstacle course of DOC's concessions process, the Resource Management Act and no doubt the environment court. On top of that, a government that is behind in the polls and not too far from the next election might not be able to resist the temptation to get involved and shore up its support.

There are some serious misconceptions out there too. Perhaps its time to introduce some facts to the debate. Its been suggested that very few people would actually see the gondola. DOC hasn't been generous enough to give statistics on the Greenstone-Caples track, however according to DOC's figures The track up to Key Summit (a popular short walk near the proposed Milford Road terminus) gets 15,500 - 17500 walkers a year, and 10,000-11000 of them go on to do the Routeburn Track. A significant proportion of these people will use the Greenstone-Caples track and would possibly end up getting up close and personal with a pylon or a gondola full of waving tourists. It may be a "wind swept tussocky shithole" (to quote NZPundit ) but it's a popular wind swept tussocky shithole.

Similarly its been suggested (to paraphrase Kiwi Blog) that the project would significantly reduce the amount of large bus traffic along Milford Road and the environmental damage this causes and would allow far more people to see Milford without the normal increase in traffic congestion.

Well, yes and no. The congestion at Milford is not just about the sheer numbers of people it's the fact that they are all trying to catch boats at the same time at Milford Sound.

Congestion will be removed from Te Anau to the gondola terminus but it will remain congested from there to Milford including the Homer Tunnel, which they would surely have to upgrade if numbers continued to increase. It would do nothing to solve any congestion in Milford itself. No one is really worried about environmental effects from the buses, as far as I know its all about numbers.

So what about the environmental effects of the gondola? Well firstly its worth pointing out that we aren't exactly short of tussock and beech forest especially in that area. The damage will be pretty localised. The land that is cleared during construction will regrow in time, and the tourists will even be able to wave at deer or see genuine introduced weeds as they glide over the cleared areas.

The most important environmental issue is sewage. They'll need to come up with some method of dealing with the sewage from all these visitors unless of course they're going to make them hang on until they get to Milford.

The other big problem is that at the moment the area is pristine and when Skyline and Ngai Tahu have finished, it won't be. That is a simple fact. The gondola and more likely the road they'll need to service it will spoil people's views. Sure they've said they'll paint the towers and gondola cars green. Unfortunately a green painted metal tower just looks like a green painted metal tower and not at all like a tree! Besides the things that will really draw someone's gaze are the movement and the sun reflecting off the gondola windows.

Even more intangible than the gondola spoiling the view is the effect it will have on people's recreation experience. People go to that area to get away from it all and to experience nature. If they come face to face with a Gondola or two full of waving Japanese tourists or even some wires and a pretty green metal tower, then that recreational experience is changed. Plain and simple. Maybe people can go somewhere else...maybe not...the important question is, should they have to?

I'm going to put a few other questions to our readers, and I don't pretend to have the answers to all of them.

1. Why should New Zealanders sacrifice their enjoyment of the outdoors and be displaced from their favourite areas for the benefit of wealthy foreign tourists?
2. How much development is acceptable in a national park?
3. How much is too much development?
4. When Milford Sound gets too congested should other areas of Fiordland be developed to remove the pressure?

I look forward to your comments.

This is familiar...

The British have been operating their own version of Guantanamo in Belmarsh prison for the past two years. Foreign nationals accused of links to terrorist organisations are held there, kept in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day, completely isolated from the outside world. The legal mechanism for doing so is strikingly familiar - they are not criminal suspects, but immigration detainees. They are outside the jurisdiction of ordinary courts, have no right to trial by jury, or even any right to hear the charges or evidence against them. Standards of evidence are lower, and allow evidence extracted under torture.

Despite having stacked the deck in their favour, however, the British government still has one fundamental problem: their "Special Immigration Appeals Commission" isn't tame enough. Yesterday it ordered the immediate release of one of the detainees on the grounds that the evidence against him was "wholly unreliable and should not have been used to justify detention". It found that the charges against him had been consistently exaggerated and that security service witnesses had been deliberately misleading.

It's a mark of how destructive this form of detention is of the rule of law that the British government ignored the ruling, instead continuing to hold the man until they had found a tame judge to grant an injunction preventing his release (needless to say, detainess do not get to appeal to a higher court - but that's how a stacked deck works, isn't it?) Having argued all along that their stacked deck can deliver justice, they move immediately to overturn it when it does.

There are obvious parallels here with the Zaoui case - but I'd like to think that our government will at least play by the rules and obey the rulings of its own courts, rather than shifting the goal posts if they lose.

New Fisk

'It's the same old Iraq, just a tiny bit worse than it was last month'

Enduring freedom

Human Rights Watch has issued a report on abuses by US forces in Afghanistan. The report accuses US forces of operating outside the rule of law, looting, using indiscriminate and excessive force, reckless disregard for civillian lives, arbitrary and indefinate detention, and mistreatment of detainees verging on torture.

Long-time readers will also remember that two suspicious deaths in US custody have been ruled homicides; since then, nothing has been done, no investigation seems to have been conducted, and no charges have been filed. The US army, it seems, does not care how its soldiers behave.

This simply is not good enough. The US claim to be the good guys; it is well past time they started acting like it.

This is a bit rich

According to this Stuff article, Gerry Brownlee is criticising the government for opening the way to new Treaty claims.

It ought to be obvious to all that every criticism the Waitangi Tribunal makes of the government's plans, applies with bells on to National's policy. The National party's plan is simply to legislate crown ownership - and I can't think of any clearer example of a flagrant Treaty-breach than a racially-based expropriation and denial of due process.

Parliamentary sovereignty

Michael Cullen is rejecting the Waitangi Tribunal's report on the basis that it implictly ignores Parliamentary sovereignty, which is guaranteed by article one of the Treaty.

Well, yes... and no. Parliament is sovereign; it can pass whatever laws it wants. That does not mean that every law is a good idea, or (more importantly, from the Tribunal's perspective) in accordance with the Treaty.

To point out the obvious, Parliament was sovereign when it passed land confiscation laws in the 1860's. It had every legal right to pass those laws. But they were clearly in violation of articles two and three, and there is now widespread acceptance that they were wrong.

And to point out the equally obvious, the Waitangi Tribunal is not a court, and its judgements are not binding. That does not mean they should be ignored. The Tribunal's report should make the government pause and reconsider whether it is doing the right thing. If it gets this wrong, it will haunt us for the next twenty years.

Thanks, Don

Now that Don Brash has made racism respectable, the National Front is crawling out from under its rock and hoping to cash in. Thanks, Don!

Though if its any consolation, it'll be National's votes they'll be stealing.

Do you want to reduce inequality or not?

Shock! Horror! Racial privilege! WINZ gives its caseworkers greater incentives for placing Maori than pakeha! How can this possibly be equal?

Look at the respective unemployment rates. 10% for Maori, 8.8% for pacific peoples, and 3.2% for pakeha. How can that possibly be equal?

The government has a policy goal of reducing this inequality and targetting Maori and Polynesian unemployment. It translates this goal into action on the frontline by writing it directly into the KPIs of relevant staff. Interestingly, it also targets youth and disabled unemployment, and directs its staff in exactly the same way - but people don't seem to have any problem with that.

I can't help but feel that those crying "privilege" here want to pretend the whole problem doesn't exist. Perhaps the question we should be asking them is "do you think that higher Maori unemployment is a bad thing, and what, if anything, do you think the government should do about it?"

The ICC has made a difference

The British army refused to go to war against Iraq until they were assured of the war's legality and that they wouldn't face trial for war crimes.

Of course, the British government redrafted their legal advice to remove any troubling questions, but it still marks a sea change in military thinking. Once upon a time, the military's obediance to the state was unquestioned, and the idea that law applied in wartime merely academic.

I guess the ICC has made a difference.

Salem Pax is OK.

Raising the stakes

A couple of weeks ago I argued that there was nothing for pakeha to be be afraid of in the government's foreshore and seabed proposals. I was planning to do a followup on the flip side of this - that there are good reasons for Maori to be afraid - chiefly, that the proposals abrogate due process and makes any rights recognised subject to the arbitrary whim of Parliament in a way that they weren't before. But I never got round to it, and now the Waitangi Tribunal has beaten me to it, panning the government for inconsistency, eliminating due process, and failing to properly consult. The Tribunal won't release its report until Monday (which will ensure that I have blog-fodder for next week), but it apparently reccommends that the government step back and allow matters to progress through the courts.

Whether that is possible at this stage remains to be seen, but it certainly raises the stakes. The Waitangi Tribunal is not a court, and its judgements are not binding - but that does not mean that they can simply be ignored (as National would like to pretend). Ignoring the judgement will foster the impression among Maori that the Treaty is a one-way street - cited by the government as legitimising sovereignty, but ignored whenever adhering to it would be inconvenient or politically costly. And they'd be right. Meanwhile, National will no doubt be doing their best to whip up fear and hysteria over Maori owning the entire coastline and preventing us from giving ourselves skin cancer - which isn't going to help matters.

I've said it before: any real solution to the foreshore has to be acceptable to the vast majority of New Zealanders, including the vast majority of Maori - otherwise it will simply fester and be relitigated whenever there is a change of government. This is too important to fuck up. It's to National's discredit that they continue to play politics with the issue, rather than trying to work together to find a solution acceptable to all.

As for what that solution will be: I'm not sure. The government's proposals aren't bad, and are perfectly acceptable if Maori sign up to them. But if the government cannot get a consensus on that, it is probably best to let it proceed through the courts. That would be consistent, and it would be treating Maori as equal under the law (something Don Brash is keen on - except, it seems, when it might be to their advantage). The Court of Appeal decision suggested the barriers to fee simple title would be high and that exclusive title would be granted only rarely. If that turns out to be true, then following due process is unlikely to significantly interfere with the customary right of all New Zealanders to go to the beach - or at least, not any more than existing millionaire owners already do.

"Justice cannot be upheld through recourse to methods which abandon its principles"

The only person convicted of involvement in the 911 attacks has won a retrial. Why? Because the US had refused to allow the German intelligence services to share possibly exculpatory evidence.

The September 11th attacks were terrible, but that does not mean that we should throw justice out the window when punishing those responsible. Suspected terrorists deserve the same legal protections as everyone else. Fundamental to this is the right to a fair trial, to review the evidence against them, and question their accusers. Compromising on these rights results not in justice, but in judicial lynching - it is literally destroying western civilisation in order to save it.

A fundamentally stupid idea

Sticking a 13km carnival ride through a national park.

The reason we have national parks is to set aside unspoilt areas of wilderness for the enjoyment of all. And I can't think of much more destructive of people's wilderness experience than being able to see a line of tour buses and a gondola no matter where they go.

Another blow for Blair

Hans Blix says the iraq war was illegal.

So, how long can Blair hang on? Will his own party roll him, or will people take to the streets?

Lifestyle diseases

Why do we fund "lifestyle diseases", such as those caused by smoking, eating McDonalds, or failing to exercise? Surely these are an individual's responsability; they know the risks and should pay the price?

There are two problems with this. Firstly, risk may be poorly understood. Half the population can't do percentages, so we can hardly expect them to behave like actuaries (something economists persistently fail to understand). And secondly, these choices are sufficiently widespread and accepted that interfering with them would be grossly intrusive and destructive of people's pursuit of the good. We don't ban Big Macs, or cigarettes, or alcohol or sunbathing because too many people enjoy them and they are perceived as being a part of a normal, everyday life - and we continue to fund their long-term health effects for the same reason.

What we do do is prevention. Inform people of the risks, and encourage them to act appropriately. Hence "slip, slop, slap", "make it click", "every cigarette is doing you damage", "press play", "had enough?" etc. And sometimes, we draw a little from the "personal responsability" ethic by taxing things (both helping to recoup health costs and discouraging behaviour). Interestingly, some of the very advocates of personal responsability in health oppose these programs. Which shows how much they care about people making informed choices...

"Let the fuckers die"

That's the reaction of one of NZPundit's commentators to the statistics on Maori death rates (scroll down and look for "wibblefish"):

If it's bad lifestyle choices then let the fuckers die. Likewise for culture - you choose to live a culture that kills you my sympathy is nil. Helps there - ask for it or die quietly somewhere your corpse won't stink up the place.

If it's genetic then for the long-term good of NZ let the fuckers die early. Darwinist processes will take care of it - eventually.

The irony of course is that we happily fund all of those things for pakeha. Lifestyle choices? Try smoking, heart disease and drink-driving. Genetics? Here it becomes trickier because we're talking about near-invisible predispositions which interact with lifestyle in interesting ways rather than obvious genetic disease - but I think an excellent example is melanoma. Pakeha have a genetic predisposition towards this (something that is literally a matter of the colour of their skin), yet we are happy to throw money at both prevention and treatment for people who are still stupid enough to lie about in the sun all day (or unlucky enough to catch that high-energy photon while getting off the bus). And of course we happily treat those who have a family history of a particular disease. No doubt wibblefish would draw on his seeming axiom of personal responsability to say that we shouldn't, but then his position boils down to "you're all fuckers, and you should all die". Charming.

The reason we have a public health system in this country is to insulate people from risk so that they are free to pursue their vision of the good. Or, in english, to ensure that being born poor, catching meningitis, being hit by a truck, breathing Christchurch's air, or having a genetic predisposition towards heart disease or skin cancer does not prevent you from living a normal life. We do this because of our egalitarian vision - we want all New Zealanders, regardless of race or wealth, to have a "fair go".

Two big consequences for the "race debate" are:

• People with greater need require greater funding. To the extent that we abstract away from individuals to funding per capita (as we do with DHBs), we need to take this into account in a statistical fashion. So, if statistically speaking Maori have greater need, then it makes sense to adjust funding for the racial makeup of the area. Interestingly, we do this for age - both the old and the young have statistically greater health needs - and nobody objects.
• If we want the services to be effective, they need to be accessible to all. Studies have repeatedly shown that government services have not always been accessible to Maori - which is why government departments started sprouting bilingual letterhead in the 80's and 90's. The 2003 New Zealand Census-Mortality Study made specific mention of barriers to Maori accessing the health system. If we want the health system to be effective, and for Maori to get a fair go, then those barriers need to be reduced.

Denying either of these means denying Maori the same opportunities enjoyed by other New Zealanders. Maori health funding is not a matter of "privilege" - it's a matter of ensuring the same basic equality of opportunity that everbody else enjoys.

Where is Salem?

There's a very worrying message on Salem Pax's blog:

salam i was trying to call your phones all the day long, i hope u didnt die in the karbala explosions

I'm coming back to baghdad next week
:: raed 1:05 AM [+] ::

Salem was in Karbala last week, blogging about Ashura.

Helen's speech

...is here.

It certainly makes clear what is at stake. This isn't just about race and the Treaty; it's not just about economic policies. It's about two competing visions of society - one inclusive, where everyone gets to participate and share the benefits, and one exlusive, geared to service the rich and privileged at the expense of everyone else.

I don't know about you, but I know which one I would rather live in.

Typical

The right's response to research showing that poor Maori health statistics are a matter of race as well as socio-economic status? It's "lying with statistics", of course. Add in a hefty dose of blaming the victim, implying that its simply a political put-up, and alleging that the primary researcher doesn't like smoking (somehow the epistemic link here escapes me...) and you have the standard response to inconvenient facts: they're lies, told by evil liberals! The paucity of this response should be obvious.

The fact is that in the case of health at least, race is need. And all the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the right over the failure of the world to conform to their ideology is not going to change that one iota.

Latest outbreak of equality

Oregon.

New Fisk

All this talk of civil war, and now this carnage. Coincidence?

Ahmed Zaoui update

It seems to be going all Zaoui's way in the courts - today his lawyers won the right to question the Inspector-General of Intelligence about bias, and to access some of his documents and correspondence.

Unfortunately, Zaoui is still in jail, and will be until either the Inspector-General completes his review, or an appropriate Minister withdraws the security risk certificate. I'm actually surprised that the latter hasn't happened already - Dalziel's sacking has provided the government with an opportunity to back away gracefully. Surely they can't still believe the SIS's "evidence"...?

Also, for the voyeurs, the infamous home video is now online at freezaoui.org.nz.

Dr Michael King on Kim Hill

If you didn't see Face to Face tonight, you missed out. Kim Hill interviewed Dr Michael King (author of the Penguin History of New Zealand, among other things) - and unlike her interviews with politicians (which are by their nature hostile - the interviewees don't want to inform so much as spam their talking points), this one was actually informative.

Something Dr King suggested was a royal commission on the role of the Treaty, which would explore and define those elusive treaty principles referred to in legislation. This is a fantastic idea! It would allow everyone to have a say, which can only be healthy in a democracy. I wonder how long it will take for the government (or United Future) to steal the idea and start pushing it?

If this isn't need, then I don't know what is

The latest New Zealand Census-Mortality Study shows that Maori die younger than pakeha, even after controlling for socioeconomic status. Using high-income pakeha as the baseline,

[i]t found death rates among low-income Europeans were 1.6 times higher, high-income Maori were 2.25 times higher, and low-income Maori were 3.5 times higher.

There's further data in the 2003 study, which shows that while pakeha death rates and life-expectencies have improved steadily over the last twenty years, Maori death-rates have not. This is in contrast to the dramatic improvements in Maori life-expectency during the 50's, 60's and 70's (the 2003 study is not controlled for socioeconomic status, and therefore draws the obvious conclusion that a key way of reducing health inequalities is reducing social ones. The 2004 study suggests that this won't be as effective as we would like).

This is need, and it is real. And it will not, as Brash suggests, be solved simply by funding ethnically-blind programs for specific diseases alone. What it requires is:

• research funding to find out why this occurs
• racially-targetted prevention programs for common and identified causes (the current anti-smoking program is a good example)
• increased general funding to the extent that specific causes cannot be identified or targetted

By ruling out any form of "race-based" or targetted funding, Brash is condeming Maori to die an early death. This is not "equality" - it is neglect, pure and simple.

Is anyone else revelling in the irony of this? ACT, who never saw a free trade deal they didn't like, and who have consistently opposed attempts to link trade and human rights, are objecting to the government's plans to negotiate a trade deal with China - because China is "a single party Communist state that suppresses dissension and persecutes those who oppose the central regime"...

Kicking a dead horse

The UN's historical review of weapons inspections in Iraq will apparantly say that Iraq had no significant WMD after 1994, and point out that US criticism of prewar inspections was baseless.

But then, we knew that already, didn't we?

Indicting Blair

A group of British lawyers have presented a petition to the International Criminal Court demanding that Tony Blair and several of his cabinet ministers be indicted for war crimes over the decision to invade Iraq.

Bush may be beyond the ICC's jurisdiction, but Blair is well within its reach. Of course, the ICC has an out - crimes must be investigated by local courts first - but the British government is in no hurry to put itself on trial, and it is difficult to see what Blair could be charged with ("waging an illegal war of aggression" is not a crime in British law as far as I am aware). Which makes the ICC the right forum for this. And as one of the lawyers points out, trying to dodge the issue will undermine the court's credability:

"What is the point of having an international court if... it will only look at banana republics or African states or countries that have greater vulnerability than the leaders of the west - which can operate above and beyond the rule of law?"

The ICC was founded to provide fair and impartial justice over international offences such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. It's time it started doing its job. It should accept the petition, start an investigation, and if necessary, put Blair on trial.

Goals and time-limits II

The Prime Minister in question time today:

The rate at which we have budgeted for the processing of claims, the negotiations, the Waitangi Tribunal procedures have us on a track where we believe the historical claims could be completed in 10 to 15 years.

and later:

I am sure the member will appreciate that there is a great difference between setting a time frame and setting a final date beyond which nothing will be considered.

This isn't a "policy u-turn"; it's a reminder that we're making progress and will, given goodwill on both sides, eventually resolve this problem.

George Monbiot suggests that it is time for Britons to take to the streets to get rid of Blair...

Interesting

How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement.

Ngai Tahu

NZPundit has beaten me to the Listener's article on Ngai Tahu, focussing on their self-expressed conservatism. The bit that I'd like to point out is this:

"Once you get to the end of the rainbow and you get your pot of gold, what do you do? You get a life. You become like everyone else. The thing about the settlement of the claim is that it makes you like every other New Zealander. You don't have any moral high ground. You're equivalent to everyone else. So you get a life and you get on with it."

That's one vision of where the Treaty process can lead to, and it's a good vision. It does not necessarily mean an end to programs targetting Maori - that is a matter of need, and it may take some time for the need to fade away. But by making the gesture of recompense and restoring (some of) their economic base, Maori will be able to control their own destiny, and have the resources to help themselves.

Goals and time-limits

In an opinion piece in today's Herald, Steve Maharey made a throwaway remark that

it is perhaps time to set a date when all grievances must be settled so we can all move on.

Predictably, this has led to headlines such as "Maharey wants to start treaty clock ticking", suggesting that it is "another potential policy u-turn". That really depends on whether Maharey is talking about setting a goal or a time limit.

Having a goal for settling Treaty claims is a good idea, in the sense that it may motivate the process and give people some idea of how much progress has been made. Having a time-limit, of the "all claims must be filed by next tuesday, and anyone who is late misses out" variety (as promoted by ACT) would be grossly unjust. It's simply an attempt to use procedural rules to limit claims and thereby avoid righting past wrongs.

Justice sometimes takes time. Of course we should attempt to do things as quickly as possible - "justice delayed is justice denied" - but we shouldn't rush the process at the expense of justice, which is what the opposition seems keen on.

Unfortunately, there are problems with both goals and time-limits. Both ignore the fact that the Treaty still binds both parties, and that therefore new claims could still arise (for example, if improperly handled, the seabed and foreshore issue is likely to end up in front of the Waitangi Tribunal). And speeding up the process will necessarily require commiting greater financial resources, rather than allowing us to spread the spending over time - which may lead to even greater resentment from pakeha over "more spending for Maori".

I hope that Maharey is only talking about setting a goal. But that should become clear in question-time over the next few days.

(As for the opinion piece in general, Maharey should probably read the responses to David Goodheart's "Discomfort of strangers" before taking it too much to heart...)

Tui'ed

(Poll here)

The whole world stops for the Oscars...

...which is a serious pain if you're looking for real news.

Gay marriage spreads...

...to New York. Congratulations to the newlyweds.

A question

If you die while watching the crucifixion scene in The Passion, do you go to heaven?

That's a relief

Oxblog's tally of US senators shows that the Hate Amendment is dead on arrival...

It's nice to see the Democrats showing some spine for once - and to see that not all Republicans are Bible-thumping Dominionist Theocrats...

More on Gun

Why did the British government drop charges against Katharine Gun? Because she was going to turn the tables on them, put the entire war on trial, and expose the depth of uncertainty about not just the legality, but also the neccessity, of the war among top civil servants.

Crooked Timber has an interesting alternative take...

The UN bugging scandal: we're a part of it

There's mention in this story that Hans Blix was bugged, and that

each time he entered Iraq, his phone was targeted and recorded and the transcripts were then made available to the United States, Australia, Canada, the UK and also New Zealand

For people who don't understand why we're on that list, it's because we are involved in a little thing called ECHELON, where we help the US, UK and Australia listen in on international phone calls (and possibly domestic traffic, helping the spies get around government limits on domestic espionage) in a network of mutual back-scratching. And now it's led us to spy on our friends.

Why are we doing this again? Why are we helping the unilateralists undermine the multilateral institutions we depend on? How exactly is this in our interests? Are our secret services even working for us, or are they taking their orders from London and Washington?

I'm expecting fireworks in the House next week as Keith Locke tries to get to the bottom of this, and it looks as if the opening salvo has already been fired...

Amusing

Don Brash has joined the stream of eminent politicians with blogs.

A cartoon is worth a thousand words

(Stolen from Daily Kos)

School silliness

NZPundit asks if Don Brash is due an apology after raising the silliness of Marlborough Girls College in banning some necklaces but not others? Certainly not. Like most of Brash's examples, this is nothing to do with the government. The policy is set by the local board of trustees, who seem to be following the trend of school boards in being rather silly over uniform issues. The Human Rights Commission often investigates these issues, but has consistently found a wide authority on behalf of schools to decide on dress and uniform; generally if parents can forbid it, then so can a school. I'd like them to find differently in this case, because the policy is discriminatory and because I think such policies are a crock of shit, but I don't hold much hope.

Meanwhile, if you want to do something about it, you can always email them to express your disapproval.

Reminders of Fast-Food Nation

Cleaner dies after accident at freezing works.

It seems that New Zealand freezing works, like American ones, don't shut their machinery down when the cleaners are going through. As a result, they're just accidents waiting to happen.

A victory, of sorts

British home secretary David Blunkett is dropping his plans to lower the standard of proof in terrorism cases, claiming he was "bulldozed" by human rights groups. However, he's still trying to force through secret trials and government vetting of lawyers. Obviously he wasn't bulldozed enough...

Reports

The Ombudsman's report into the "lie in unision" scandal is out, and it's not good. The decision to withhold information was "contrary to law", and those responsible "failed... to display the professionalism and diligence required of public servants". But the Ombudsman was unable to find sufficient reliable evidence to express an opinion on whether there was a conspiracy to deceive him.

I guess a few people at the Immigration Service wil be following their former Minister into the cold...

More on courts and public opinion

Look, I know that there is only so far a court or government can go in swimming against the tide of public opinion, but assuming from the outset that it cannot be done means that it will not be done. Unfortunately, in the case of human and civil rights, promises of jam tomorrow are simply not good enough.

A retraction, and more criticism

NZPols is right - I misrepresented her yesterday by attributing to her views that belonged to the author of the article she was talking about, and I apologise. That said, now that she's actively defending them, I can slag her off anyway, and I stand by my criticisms. The key problem with the argument that

courts pushing these issues before society is ready will result in a majority backlash which will hurt minorities even more

is that is never time for change. There is always a backlash when people stand up and demand their rights. That doesn't mean we should deny their claims because "it's not time yet" or "the majority will never go along with it". Doing that simply legitimises and perpetuates continuing oppression. Worse, it undermines the ability of the courts to act as a neutral arbiter, and thereby encourages defection from the social game.

Sometimes the state has to force people to respect the rights of others. It's that simple. If the state cannot or will not do that, there's no point in having one, and we might as well all get guns and start killing one another.

(As for why this is about utilitarianism, just look at the language - NZPols is explicitly counting hedons, comparing current and pessimistic future states, with the result that the "best" mechanism to ensure that minorities are not oppressed is, apparantly, to continue oppressing them. I say "pessimistic" because other possible future states are discounted - in particular, future states where the government acts to enforce a court-ordered end to oppression (as happened notably with Brown vs Board of Education - President Eisenhower sent in federal troops to ensure the court order was respected). And of course, it takes no account of what people actually want - I think that the scenes in San Francisco show that plenty of people prefer uncertain freedom with the possibility of a future backlash to continuing oppression any day of the week. It may not be best for them in the end, but that choice is ultimately theirs to make - a principle that utilitarianism simply gives no recognition to).

The right complains when people accuse them of racism...

...but think its perfectly acceptable to call Maori "cheeky darkies".

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Report: Slavery alive and well in Florida

This is not a uniquely American phenomenon - there's a growing problem worldwide of "human trafficking", exploiting (often illegal) immigrants into debt slavery, or simply forcing them to work at gunpoint for little pay (which is then extracted through a company store - one of the documented cases from Florida). Most of it occurs in eastern europe and south-east asia, though there's also a worrying trend in Israel. It is interesting to note, however, that out of all western nations, it is the US which seems to have the biggest problem (though whether this is due to the relentless drive for profit in hypercapitalist US society, or simply that slavers in Britain, France etc are better hidden is unclear).

People wanting more info on human trafficking, both in the US and worldwide, should hit a library and check out National Geographic's September 2003 article on "modern slavery". There's an online teaser here, but its incomplete.

Antipodean Journal has a good post about what the government should have done over the foreshore and seabed.

I'm beginning to agree with him - certainly the court case was blown out of all proportion and caused a great deal of panic. Parts of our beaches are already in private hands, and nobody cared about it. Again, I have to question what the actual problem is - whether it is one of scale - too much beach becoming private - or one of who the owners would be (and specifically, that they would be brown, rather than rich and white).

In any case, now that the government (and political parties of all stripes) have promised action, it's probably too late to just back away and leave it all up to the courts. The thing is that the government's proposal of recognising specific cutomary usage rights is probably the best way of reconciling Maori common law property rights with the rights of existing property owners and the customary right of all New Zealanders to go to the beach. Certainly it's better than the outright expropriation proposed by National, which will simply create a problem for future generations. Unfortunately, they've completely failed to sell it - National can still stir racial disharmony by saying that the government is giving the beaches away to Maori, when they're doing nothing of the sort.

Foreshore and seabed: who's keeping who off the beach?

A Nelson man is suing a local yacht club for breaking the terms of its lease with the government and preventing public access to the foreshore...

I await with bated breath the screams of anguish from right-wing politicians about this threat to the New Zealand way of life.

Katharine Gun walks free!

For people who didn't know, she's the GCHQ translator who blew the whistle on British spying at the UN in the lead-up to the war (information has since come to light about how this was used to scupper a last-minute peace deal). She was being charged under the Official Secrets Act. Interestingly, rather than simply drop the charges, the prosecution entered no evidence, so she got an official verdict of "not guilty".

Why did the British government back away from prosecution? No-one is certain, but the most likely explanation is that they didn't like what would come out at trial - specifically, legal advice to the government from their Attorney General on the legality of the war. Alternatively, the government thought that a jury would never convict. Either way, it's a stunning victory, and it also shows that the British government has one hell of a guilty conscience in this area.

Amendments

In response to my comment that an amendment to ban gay marriage would be the first time the US constitution has been amended to limit, rather than expand, human rights, KiwiPundit says:

The constitution has been amended to limit rights before: the eleventh amendment (limitation on lawsuits against states), the sixteenth amendment (income tax enablement), the eighteenth amendment (prohibition) and the twenty-second amendment (cannot elect the same president more than twice), all limit rights of citizens in various ways.

Piffle. Most of that is minor constitutional deck-chair rearranging, and none of it is about human rights. The closest is Prohibition, but it's nowhere near as fundamental or significant as what is being proposed. And the fact remains that an amendment to prevent gay marriage flies in the face of the great progressive trend in the US constitution, from the original Bill of Rights (which was a landmark for the world to follow), through the thirteenth (abolition of slavery), fourteenth (equal protection), fifteenth (no denying the vote on the basis of race), and nineteenth (women's suffrage) amendments.

But, if people want to be anal-retentive, please consider my original post amended to "specificly limit, rather than expand...".

(And sadly, I'm nowhere near as sanguine as KiwiPundit about the likelihood of this amendment failing. Pre-Bush, I would have agreed with him, but with the way the whole tone of America has changed during his presidency, I can no longer be so sure)

Why does it matter what we call it?

Much is being made of Trevor Mallard's to-ing and fro-ing over whether the foreshore will be public domain or in crown ownership. I don't think it matters. The core of the "public domain" concept is open access for all, and a restriction on the government's ability to sell (whether outright prevention or simply requiring an Act of Parliament and the public scrutiny it would involve). But as we can see from the Foreshore And Seabed Endowment Revesting Act 1991, this is already the case for all foreshore actually in crown ownership. In other words, the argument here is not about substance, but about what to call it. "Crown ownership" is highly symbolic, both to some Maori, and to the "one nation" traditionalists in National; "public domain" gets points for making it clear that the foreshore is set aside for public enjoyment. But really, what does it matter what we call it, provided we can all go to the beach?

KiwiPundit has come around on Ahmed Zaoui. But will he be gettting a t-shirt?

I think the Zaoui case is a potent reminder of the perils of secret evidence. As long as the SIS could hide behind secrecy, people gave them the benefit of the doubt. Now that they have been forced to publicise their "evidence", people can see that it does not stack up, and would not provide a basis for a conviction in a court of law. This is why we must resist secret evidence - because it's a licence for injustice.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - except for them

Bush has come out in support of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. If passed, it would be the first time the US constitution has been amended to limit, rather than expand, human rights. It's a potent symbol of America's decline, and a turning point on the road from shining beacon of freedom to oppressive theocracy. What happened to the nation which once proclaimed "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for all?

Meanwhile, NZPols is suggesting that the courts should be driven by public opinion, rather than the law, in making their decisions. On utilitarian grounds, of course. One wonders where this would have left the cause of (for example) Civil Rights in America... would they still have segregated schools because the public "just wasn't ready for it"?

In New Zealand, of course, we don't have US-style judicial review of laws. But NZPols points out that judges following public opinion would probably have ruled differently on the foreshore and seabed issue - which would have been a Good Thing because it would have avoided a divisive debate. Which I think perfectly illustrates my problem with the idea - that it makes people's access to due process and equal protection under the law subject to the whims of the majority. What is being suggested here is a return to the bad old days of partial justice, where minorities or socially powerless groups were unable to enforce their legal rights - not because they didn't have access to the courts, but because the facts of the case were less relevant than the relative status of plantiff and defendant.

(It is also a perfect example of one of the knockdown arguments against utilitarianism: that it legitimises the systematic oppression of unpopular minorities if everyone is "better off" (under whichever criteria you use) that way. Whether the oppressed are "better off", or why they should suffer for the benefit of others is somehow considered to be beside the point.)

Interpreting the law is a slippery business, but I'd far prefer that judges kept public opinion out of it, thankyouverymuch.

"Privilege"

Today I was listening to Don Brash being interviewed on BfM, and when asked to give an example of a Maori "special privilege", he trotted out Ngai Tahu scholarships. For those unfamiliar with his talking points, he used the same story in the Herald the other day, so I'll quote it from there:

I got a very good email yesterday, for example, from a guy who is a student at Otago University flatting with four other friends.

He said: "I have predominantly European ancestry but some Ngai Tahu ancestry. One of the other four people in the flat also has some Maori ancestry". He said: "By chance the two of us come from the wealthiest families in the flat. The other three are pure European". But, he said, "We both have special scholarships to assist Maori". He said: "My European flatmates are angry and resent that fact that they are scrimping and are having difficulty getting by whereas we from quite affluent families get these scholarships".

What's wrong with this story? Simply the fact that these scholarships have nothing to do with the government. They are funded entirely out of Ngai Tahu's own pocket. But why should Don Brash let that get in the way of stirring up racial disharmony?

Schools backdown

So Trevor Mallard has backed away from his policy of school consolidations, and announced that there will be no more school reviews for five years. Piffle. While there's a lot to be said for preparing for the upcoming demographic downturn, and for spending money on teachers rather than buildings, the fact is that it pisses people off and uses up political capital. And at the moment, there are far better battles to fight.

Delivering real progress

Obviously I'm pissed off with the government over a lot of things at the moment: Ahmed Zaoui, tightening of immigration rules (and forcibly deporting people in need), the "jobs jolt" and its return to mean-spirited beneficiary bashing of the 90's, various bits of legislation that erode civil liberties, and having a bar of the police's demand to be allowed to kill people in secret. But one thing I can't fault them on is their record on social issues. We now have legal recognition of de-facto relationships and of gay parents, a families commission with a more inclusive definiton of "family" than "mom, dad, and 2.5 kids", and a civil unions bill on the way. But more importantly, they're raising the minimum wage again. This is the fourth time Labour has done this, and in the process they've increased the wages of bottom income earners by almost 30%, from $7/hr in 2000 to $9/hr soon. Labour has at least delivered real progess in that area.

And the best bit? Every time the right has warned of armageddon if they're forced to pay people a little bit more, and every time it has completely failed to eventuate. Suck on that, BRT!

Forcing people to acknowledge the rights of others

Propaganda News Network characterises gay marriages in San Francisco as:

homosexual Californians forcing everyone in that state, whether they like it or not, to legally recognize their relationship

Yes, that's exactly what it is - exactly the same, in fact, as Afro-Americans forcing everyone in the US, whether they liked it or not, to legally recognize them as full and equal citizens; or as women forcing everyone in the US, whether they liked it or not, to legally recognize their right to vote. This is a straight-out civil rights issue, and there are often people who reject all progress on these fronts because they feel threatened by others posessing the same rights they have. It's sad to see that PNN is one of them - but somehow not entirely unexpected.

Not a "poor person's bank"

Jim Anderton's famous "people's bank", set up to provide wider access to banking services for people on lower incomes, is denying home loans to low-earners - who are then being welcomed at mainstream banks.

The problem it seems is that they are not counting benefits as income for the purposes of working out how much you can borrow. But every other bank is perfectly happy to. As a result, the very people they were established to serve are being forced to look elsewhere.

Now, there are other banking services besides loans. Being able to just get an account that doesn't rape you for fees is important. But being able to get a mortgage, own your own home, and build your own equity is vastly more important to the dreams of most New Zealanders. That KiwiBank is failing to help in this area when its competitors are is a basic failure in its mission.

For once, Rodney Hide is right - the whole rationale of the bank is in tatters. It was set up to help the poor; it's not doing it properly. Time to put a bit of stick about?

The dam bursts

Last week the mayor of San Francisco (in what was either a principled stance or a cyncial grab for votes, depending on your political POV) directed his county clerks to start issuing marriage licenses to gays. Since then, people have been flocking to California and queuing around the block to get one. Over three thousand licenses have been issued so far, spawning court cases in California and elsewhere as newlyweds sue to have their marriages recognised (and fundamentalists sue to try and stuff the genie back into the bottle). And now they're issuing licenses in New Mexico, and probably soon in Chicago as well.

It's like watching a dam burst in slow motion. Freedom is breaking out all over the place, and it's beautiful.

"Technical reasons"

Following the UN's lead, US Viceroy Jerry Bremer has declared that there will be no elections in Iraq before 2005 for "technical reasons". Among the "technical reasons" cited were:

[Iraq] has no law governing political parties, it has no voters' list, it has not had a credible reliable census in almost 20 years, there are no constituent boundaries to decide where elections would take place

Why doesn't Iraq have those things? Because the US occupation government has assigned them a low priority and consistently dragged its feet. They've had plenty of time to do a census and compile an electoral roll, for example - but they've decided not to. Work on electoral boundries and the exact structure of any future Iraqi government has taken a back seat to working out how to loot Iraq's assets and sell them to foreign multinationals. The chief "technical reason" is that the US doesn't want an elected Iraqi government, because it will make decisions they don't like.

That the UN is going along with this charade is shameful. Iraq deserves a government run by and for Iraqis, not a bunch of foreign appointees. The UN should be putting its experience of nation-building at their service, so that they can organise a constitution and elections, rather than providing cover for the American failure in this area. Why the urgency? Because this is their one chance to get it right. Iraqis will not wait until 2005 for the Americans to give them their freedom; if they can't get it by the ballot box, they will take it by the gun.