radiofree.asia

Category: Opinion

  • Government’s unlawful care home policies led to needless suffering and excess deaths

    The High Court issued a damning judgement on the government’s handling of coronavirus (Covid-19) in care homes on 27 April 2022. It concluded that decisions made by disgraced former minister Matt Hancock and Public Health England (PHE) were both irrational and unlawful.

    Hancock often seems to be defensive of his role as health secretary during the pandemic. He’s arguably proud even, in his claims of acting with honesty and integrity, doing everything he could to save lives and putting a “protective ring” around care homes. But for all his assertions of his own performance, when you even scratch the surface of the evidence, his performance was disastrous.

    Hancock’s guidance

    Policies issued in March and April 2020 failed to take into account the risk of asymptomatic transmission to care home residents. This occurs when a person shows no symptoms of the disease but can still infect others around them.

    The government policies and guidance issued for care home staff in March 2020 did not protect residents from infection. In fact, they did the opposite. The judgement shows that at the time, guidance said carers did not need personal protective equipment (PPE):

    if neither the worker nor the individual receiving care had symptoms.

    However, this was a requirement for healthcare staff working in other health settings. Testing, isolation, or use of PPE was not required, even for new residents.

    There was no guidance given on restricting the amount of visitors or contractors. Agency staff were actively encouraged to work in more than one home. This would increase the chance of an asymptomatic carer spreading the virus between sites.

    Statements

    Hancock was health secretary at the time of the crisis. He had overall responsibility for the NHS, social care policy and PHE. When asked about the court’s judgement, he told ITN News:

    I wish that the knowledge about asymptomatic transmission had been…I’d known it earlier because then we have better outcomes.

    Maybe they were hoping nobody would read the judgement? How can they claim to be unaware, given the sheer extent of uncontested evidence in the report?

    So, either the evidence is false or their claims of ignorance are.

    The issue isn’t that asymptomatic transmission was “known” as a scientific fact. It’s rather that it was known to be happening and was therefore a risk. It was noted by SAGE as early as January. The study published in March suggested up to half of all transmissions were asymptomatic. Yet, the guidance issued to care homes in April made no mention of this risk.

    The lawyer and writer David Allen made the following point about Hancock’s statement:

    The switch midway through that sentence is interesting – he seems to go from wanting to say that knowledge about asymptomatic transmission had not been known earlier to carefully stating that he personally did not know.

    Uncle Reg

    A policy requiring testing for all patients transferred from hospital to care homes was introduced on 15 Apr 2020. Tragically, for many thousands of elderly people, this was too little and far too late.

    There were 25,615 excess deaths of care home residents in England and Wales during the first wave of the pandemic. If it helps to visualise that, the London 02 arena has a maximum capacity of 20,000.

    My uncle was one of them.

    He died on 20 April 2020, in a care home, of coronavirus, alone. His name was Reg Griffiths – or to give him his official title, major R. Griffiths MBE TD. He worked as a civil servant, rising through the ranks to a senior position. He did his national service and then joined the territorial army in his spare time. Awarded an MBE and Territorial Decoration, a more loyal servant of the state you could not get. Yet, when he was at his most vulnerable, that state he had served so faithfully all his life utterly failed him.

    Judicial review

    Dr Cathy Gardiner and Fay Harris fought to challenge the government’s handling of the crisis by judicial review. This is a court process where judges decide if a public body has acted lawfully. Gardiner’s father was Michael Gibson. He died in a care home on 3 April 2020. The death certificate stated probable coronavirus as he was not tested. Harris’s father, Donald Harris, a former Royal Marine died of coronavirus on 1 May 2020.

    Gardiner wrote about her father’s passing on her Crowd Justice webpage, saying that she:

    could not hold his hand and give him a smile near the end.

    I am extremely angry that an ill-thought out policy has caused me, and thousands of others, so much anguish. I knew that losing my father would be tough, losing him in these circumstances is truly devastating.

    The evidence submitted for the judgement is extensive and thorough. The report lists events from 31 December 2019 through to 1 May 2020. It shows what happened each day and what information was available. It references many academic papers, study results, and articles. There are extracts from meeting minutes, reports, and papers from the three groups of experts providing scientific advice to the government. These were: the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) and the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG).

    As early as 28 January, minutes from a SAGE meeting stated:

    there is limited evidence of asymptomatic transmission, but early indications imply some is occurring.

    SAGE minutes on 4 February recorded:

    Asymptomatic transmission cannot be ruled out and transmission from mildly symptomatic individuals is likely.

    The results of a study on 8 March stated:

    Strong and effective countermeasures should be implemented to prevent or mitigate asymptomatic transmission during the incubation period in populations at high risk.

    Given this scale of evidence, the decision to release untested patients to care homes is staggering. It was not even considered as a risk to care home residents. The government placed the most vulnerable population at the highest risk. This was at a time when the government advised the general public not to meet in groups, to wear masks, and to socially distance.

    PHE and cronyism

    BBC News reported Hancock’s spokesperson went on to release a further statement noting that the case:

    comprehensively clears ministers of any wrongdoing and finds Mr Hancock acted reasonably on all counts. The court also found that Public Health England failed to tell ministers what they knew about asymptomatic transmission.

    Hancock’s attempt to blame PHE for not telling him about asymptomatic transmission is utterly ridiculous. PHE was an executive agency of the Department for Health and Social Care and reported to him. It seems a cynical ploy to make a now disbanded department take the flack for his own shocking response to the coronavirus crisis. In August 2020, Hancock announced that he was scrapping PHE. He was replacing it with a new agency, the National Institute for Health Protection. There was widespread criticism of the move at the time as reported in the Guardian. The British Medical Journal reported that:

    …healthcare leaders said that the agency [PHE], which formed in 2013, was being scapegoated by ministers who were ultimately responsible for the country’s response to covid-19.

    In the same article Chaand Nagpaul of the British Medical Association (BMA) said:

    We must absolutely not allow PHE and its staff to shoulder the blame for wider failings and government decisions.

    It did seem a very peculiar move to abolish a public health body in the middle of a pandemic. In keeping with the Tory penchant for cronyism, Hancock handed control of the new agency to his friend Dido Harding. Consequently, there was an outcry over the appointment as reported by the Mirror. Harding’s husband, Tory MP John Penrose, was paradoxically Johnson’s “anti-corruption champion” at the time. Penrose sits on the advisory board of 1828, a right-wing think tank that calls for the replacement of the NHS with an insurance system.

    Subsequently, in February 2022, the Good Law Project reported Hancock was found to have acted unlawfully (again) in his appointment of Harding. The Mirror reported a spokesman for Hancock saying:

    the claim brought by Good Law Project fails in its entirety.

    Is it me, or is there a pattern emerging here? 

    A public inquiry versus preparedness

    The government dithered and delayed before finally consenting to a public inquiry into their mishandling of the pandemic. The public hearings are due to start in 2023. Quite some dithering and delaying, that.

    The website states the inquiry is:

    set up to examine the UK’s preparedness and response to the Covid-19 pandemic and to learn lessons for the future.

    To examine preparedness they may want to consider a 2020 report from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIFPA). Entitled How fit were public services for coronavirus?, it reveals the shocking state of adult social care (care homes). The report analyses the level of resilience and preparedness in public services leading up to the 2020 pandemic. As shown in the graphics, the picture for care homes looks particularly bleak. Adult social care received the lowest fitness rating in all areas. Notably, it ranked performance of care homes going into the crisis as “much worse than in 2010″:

    Care homes fitness rating

    This is a direct consequence of years of Tory neglect and under-investment.

    No consequence

    Unfortunately, a public inquiry can’t determine criminal or civil liability. So nobody will be held accountable for the unlawful decisions that led to this unqualified disaster.

    Hancock said he had thrown a “protective ring” around care homes. In reality, his decisions contributed towards a pile of corpses too big to fit inside a stadium.

    Jason Coppel, the lawyer who brought the judicial review, said the failure to protect the care home population represented:

    one of the most egregious and devastating policy failures in the modern era

    In my opinion, Hancock’s a criminal and a liability whatever the toothless inquiry decides.

    Losing my uncle to coronavirus was awful – made all the worse because none of his family were able to be with him in his final days. It didn’t have to be this way, but for the incompetence and inability of a Tory weasel promoted far beyond his capabilities. 

    My condolences to all who’ve lost loved ones.

    Featured image via Good Morning Britain – YouTube

    By Andrew Melhuish

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • University journalism courses need to teach about cultural safety before students enter the workforce

    ANALYSIS: By T.J. Thomson, Queensland University of Technology; Julie McLaughlin, Queensland University of Technology, and Leah King-Smith, Queensland University of Technology

    Content warning: this article contains mentions of racial discrimination against First Nations people.

    The ABC recently apologised to staff for racism and cultural insensitivity in its newsrooms. This came after Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse ABC staff told an internal group they felt unwelcome in their workplace, their ideas were not being listened to and they received online abuse from the public.

    Unfortunately these issues are not unique to the ABC and exist at other media outlets and newsrooms.

    We also know media organisations can produce content that is racist or hostile towards First Nations people. Decades of research show, with few exceptions, many mainstream Australian media organisations have unfairly reported on First Nations Peoples over the years, and continue to do so.

    This reporting has included racist cartoons, prejudiced stereotypes, questions of cultural identity and portrayals of First Nations people as either violent or victimised.

    Racist and inappropriate portrayals of First Nations people can also make newsrooms and other media outlets unsafe places to work for Indigenous journalists, as well as influencing how First Nations issues are covered and thought about.

    But it doesn’t have to be this way. Australians working in media can improve their cultural competency during their university education. This way, they can enter and contribute to workplaces prepared to ethically and respectfully interact with and report on stories outside their own cultures.

    However, our new study shows many Australian universities with journalism programmes have significant work to do in including cultural safety in their curricula.

    Australia needs cultural safety in its newsrooms
    Journalists can help shape national conversations and can influence audiences’ attitudes through how they choose to report. That’s why it’s critical for these journalists to be culturally safe in how they communicate about communities and individuals outside their own culture.

    Cultural safety aims to create a space where “there is no assault, challenge or denial of” Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s identities and experiences.

    It is built through non-Indigenous people deeply listening to First Nations perspectives. It means sharing power and resources in a way that supports Indigenous self determination and empowerment. It also requires non-Indigenous people address unconscious biases, racism and discrimination in and outside the workplace.

    First Nations groups and high-level institutions have been calling for more expertise and training in this area for decades.

    The 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report called for journalism education to consider

    in consultation with media industry and media unions, the creation of specific units of study dedicated to Aboriginal affairs and the reporting thereof.

    The National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples notes Australian news outlets too often spread “myths and ill-informed or false stereotypes about Australia’s First Peoples, which in turn influence public opinion in unfavourable ways.”

    This racism creates

    a debilitating individual impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, devaluing their cultural pride and identity and having adverse impacts on their physical and mental health.

    In 2009 The National Indigenous Higher Education Network recommended universities “systematically embed Indigenous perspectives in curriculum”.

    In 2011, Universities Australia issued an expectation that “all graduates of Australian universities will have the knowledge and skills necessary to interact in a culturally competent way with Indigenous communities”.

    Our study
    In our study, we reviewed in 2021 more than 100 media/journalism assessments from a sample of more than 10 percent of Australian universities with journalism programmes. We found only one had an explicit focus on an Indigenous topic. Our interviews with 17 journalism students revealed how absent or minimal their education on Indigenous affairs has been.

    In the words of a second-year university student:

    There is definitely more that should be done because stories and issues concerning Indigenous people is, like, such a big topic. And it would be very useful for people becoming journalists to understand their role in communication and storytelling and the influence their words have on the public perception of Indigenous peoples as well.

    The students we interviewed largely expressed desire for more training on Indigenous affairs in Australia. They stated this would help them achieve confidence in reporting on First Nations Peoples in respectful and culturally safe ways.

    The students also thought their universities could integrate Indigenous content and perspectives in a more sustained and concentrated way. “It can’t just be that one week we talk about racism,” according to a third-year university student. More education on Indigenous affairs would also benefit First Nations students. One Indigenous participant from our study stated:

    Even just having some more Indigenous journalists come through, you can talk to them, find out what it’s really like for them being like a black sheep, essentially, from a very white-dominated industry. I think that there’s a need to be able to put more perspectives and Indigenous knowledges in education in there.

    Journalism training needs to include cultural safety
    A possible solution could be increasing First Nations journalists in Australian newsrooms. However, the burnout rate for these journalists is high due to toxic workplace conditions. This contributes to the low proportion of Indigenous journalists in Australia.

    Universities need to provide their staff and students with time and resources to thoughtfully consider how to work with and report on First Nations Peoples. This would allow for a more culturally safe way of working. This could also provide a safer space for Indigenous people wanting to pursue a role in journalism. It could hopefully address the burnout of these journalists when they join the media workforce.

    The integrity of our media system and the way our nation engages with Indigenous affairs depend on it.The Conversation

    Dr T.J. Thomson, senior lecturer in visual communication & Media, Queensland University of Technology; Julie McLaughlin, senior lecturer, Queensland University of Technology, and Leah King-Smith, lecturer and academic lead (Indigenous) in learning and teaching in the School of Creative Practice, Queensland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Getting Down With the Sickness: Patriotism Is Loving Your Stockholm Syndrome

    There is no way around it. Nation states and their institutions behave like predatory cults that demand your subservience to them in order to get basic needs met that should be free, like access to food, water, and land. They have created a scheme where we owe other people from birth to live on land that was stolen. We are instructed on how to live by people that operate in a hierarchical power structure that runs like a mafia style good ole boy club, where the doctrine is do it our way or else. To all the people snagged into these schemes elements of their lives become beholden to beliefs of the cult. This is done with purpose to maintain the structure of lies needed to keep people subservient and those at the top dictate the set point for normality for all.

    Those fully indoctrinated on the inside of cults are largely unable to see the programming of the cult. It just is, and other cultures and ways of being seem weird; including the idea of living free without parasitic leadership. Once sucked in and normality is set for them by the cult they become dogmatic and blind, unable to think or behave outside the parameters the cult has set for them. It only takes a generation or two after a dominator class has taken control before the descendants forget that it was an imperial cult from the start. Stockholm syndrome turns into an actual pandemic of mental dysfunction referred to by the nation state cults as patriotism, religious cults it’s called faith, technological materialist cults it’s called science and progress, and family cults it’s called loyalty.

    Cult members think their thoughts are their own and their traditions are innate, when in reality their parents, teachers, clergy, politicians, media, and peers have been feeding them cult propaganda since birth. An ego then forms around one’s role in the cult hierarchy making it more difficult to see themselves or others outside the manufactured reality their cult has meticulously crafted for them.

    And so it is on the fourth of July some are given a respite from their indentured labor to celebrate liberty when we’ve never been free in this cult. It’s as Orwellian as it gets. Notice how they have entirely defined what freedom is and is not, and there is no public conversation on the topic, rather our freedom is assumed in the corporate news media and we’re told it’s only under threat from outsiders and somehow not being infringed at all by the people who have assumed control of all the land.

    A system where they make up the money then demand you give them what they have invented so that you can have access to what they have stolen. That’s nothing but a straight up con to make people work for the powers that be. They plot to steal years of your life away to serve the labor industry needed for their cult to maintain power in childish games of rapaciously chasing after world domination with other competing cults.

    Cult societies cannot be reformed. Rather they can only be made irrelevant by seeing past the lies they have sold. We live with those lies in our own hearts because it’s almost all most of us know. Seeing past these artificial boundaries set for us by the cult is the only way to come to greater understanding of our true situation, and to begin working cooperatively to gain actual independence by us as a people on a direct community level sans involvement from cults. It’s only by assessing and meeting our own local needs while also working with other nearby independent communities in cooperation can we eventually build a collective independence to break away from entrenched cult power. Then maybe one day humanity can celebrate a true independence day when the spell of the centralized hierarchical cult has worn off and our vision clears once again.

    And remember, patriotism in reality is nothing but getting down with the sickness of Stockholm syndrome, I’ll let Richard Cheese sing me out:

    The post Getting Down With the Sickness: Patriotism Is Loving Your Stockholm Syndrome first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Imagination: Finding the End of the World as Capitalists Know It!

    It’s truly amazing that the capitalists see the end of the world — human species, I suppose — way before they can imagine the end of capitalism. You know, that perfect system of slavery then, slavery now, and even more draconian slavery for the future. That sort is not based on whips, 15 hours a day toiling, not run by the masters of the Anglo Saxon variety raping and starving. The new-new slavery is capitalism on a digital bender. Food, water, activities, housing (not a house, but housing in the very generic term such as tents or mini-sheds), where one can live, jobs, the like. All will be dictated, and you and I will own nothing!

    If the mRNA vax dance has its way, more and more dead bodies, warped minds, sterilized wombs, dropping sperm counts, and zygotes from hell might end humanity, and, well, capitalism will live on in the metaverse, in the global computer. That old eugenics drama — corona bioweapons — but masked up with the Fauci’s and the Gates and those presidents and dictators following the jab jab lies will do it by death through 2 billion jabs.

    It’s amazing the lies fed us, and amazing how incredibly stupid we are as a collective. As if this SARS-CoV2 wasn’t/isn’t a fix, isn’t a messed with and serialized and gain of function facilitated “virus.” As if all those true ways to stop viral loads building up in the mucous cavities, in the lungs, in the cells are suddenly treated like snake oil. Imagine that, all the naturopathy and preventative potients, all thrown out the window. How can you get your pudding if you don’t eat your media meat (propaganda)?

    Daily, it is me meeting people who have zero idea about world history or about the USA, and I am not just talking about Ukraine and that part of the neighborhood. We are talking about our own neck of the woods, lands stolen by the white man, man. So much mind bleaching occurs in k12. And in higher education!

    Native Land.

    I hear people talking to me about the visitors here, the vacationers, who just have that entitled disease of myopia. “Yeah, I talk to my customers that not all is rosy here on the coast, that there are homeless people big time. They say, ‘What homeless people? I don’t see any.’ They say that while looking out the window at the bay where several men are hanging out smoking and just chilling. Homeless men. These tourists are looking right through them.”

    That’s the issue, no, seeing right through or just not noticing what’s around us. Out of sight, well, this time, In Plain Sight, Out of Mind. What did the original people of Mexico see when those ships entered the tidal shore? Nothing? Because ships were not of their culture, their natural order of things.

    (Why did Herman Cortez burn his ships when he invaded Mexico?)

    Then, another friend in Vancouver, WA, with his Handy Man service, and business is booming, as in mold and mildew mitigation and tear outs, he’s struggling to pay the taxman, to get all his bills and receipts in order. He’ll never have good credit score (sic) to buy a home. You know, AmeriKa, giving missiles and bombs and guns to Ukraine with, well, you get it, no real accounting, receipts, etc. All those things on the dark web, black market, gone. So, my friend will have taxes to pay, and fines, double taxes, penalties, late fees to pay, and weathering admonishments, threats. He finds it difficult to get young men and women to sign on for $20 an hour for all the work he undertakes. So he resorts to hiring, well, some of those very same people mentioned above: the homeless.

    Many are carless because of the fact they have had their driver’s licenses revoked for unpaid bills — child support, court fines, etc. There are almost 10 million in the USA with driver’s license revocation because of unpaid fines, or unpaid child support. Not because of driving under the influence of whatever.

    Debt-related driving restrictions make everyday life impossible. Currently, more than half of U.S. states still suspend, revoke or refuse to renew driver’s licenses for unpaid traffic, toll, misdemeanor and felony fines and fees. The result: millions of people are struggling to survive with debt-related driving restrictions.

    License suspensions are the primary way debt-related driving restrictions occur in the United States. However, many states restrict registrations, or other administrative automobile requirements, as a counterproductive means of coercing debt payments for unpaid parking, tolls and other court fines and fees. (Source)

    Check out the site,

    As I repeat incessantly — this is just one of a million things about capitalism that demonstrates the system is not for or about The People, We the People. This is just one of a million absurdities in our system. And there is always a gravy train for endless systems of oppression and bureaucracies and middle men and women. The entire systems of pain and double-pain in the USA is about debt, managing people’s pain, laying on shame and setting forth endless struggle to make it (pay for) in capitalism. So it makes sense in a sadistic way to take away the only viable thing — a car — for these people to get to work to pay these fines or child support.

    We know the fines are highway robbery, from the point of origin, to the add-ons and the endless late fees and penalties and handling fees.

    Best to listen to Michael Parenti to understand this ugly ugly system, that for many, will never die. Imagine, capitalism will never die! Over the human species dead body.

    Here: “If value is to be extracted from the labour of the many, to go into the pockets of the few, this system has to be maintained. The conditions of hegemony must constantly be refortified. And that’s something that no one IBM or General Motors could do for itself… to put it simply the function of the capitalist state is to sustain the capitalist order. And it must consciously be doing that.” Michael John Parenti is a political scientist who was raised by an Italian-American working class family in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City. He received an M.A. from Brown University and a Ph.D. in political science from Yale University.

    Here, just the essence of it all, capitalism:

    And then, my real profession, in the old days, was journalism. I’ve heard all of my life that journalists are not real, that all of it is yellow journalism, that even the earnest work of a young reporter in a small town is smeared with the Yellow in Yellow Journalism. Bullshit!

    This is, of course, a lie, a broad brush stroke lie. Not that journalists are somehow immune from the reality of American Exceptionalism and the Lie after Lie of what this country is and was about. Yes, Mom, Flag and Apple Pie.

    Yet, that is not so true, that regular ethical journalists want to lie or damage or invent fake news. When I was learning the craft of journalism, we had a code of ethics. We worked hard as college newspaper reporters and editors to get the news of the campus, publicizing some amazing students and programs and departments, and to get the bead on the city, in this case, Tucson. The neighborhood, the people, the police beat, all the unique things that newspapers can do to publicize the goings on. Yes, school boards and city councils and all the college, in this case, University of Arizona, things that make a university like this one a mini-town, we tried to cover fairly.

    We were not after smear campaigns. We were not attempting to do hit pieces on people. We had a code of ethics. Really:

    Preamble

    Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough. An ethical journalist acts with integrity.

    The Society declares these four principles as the foundation of ethical journalism and encourages their use in its practice by all people in all media.

    Seek Truth and
    Report It

    Ethical journalism should be accurate and fair. Journalists should be honest and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.

    Journalists should:

    Minimize Harm

    Ethical journalism treats sources, subjects, colleagues and members of the public as human beings deserving of respect.

    Journalists should:

    Act Independently

    The highest and primary obligation of ethical journalism is to serve the public.

    Journalists should:

    Be Accountable and Transparent

    Ethical journalism means taking responsibility for one’s work and explaining one’s decisions to the public.

    Journalists should:

    “The SPJ Code of Ethics is a statement of abiding principles supported by explanations and position papers that address changing journalistic practices. It is not a set of rules, rather a guide that encourages all who engage in journalism to take responsibility for the information they provide, regardless of medium. The code should be read as a whole; individual principles should not be taken out of context. It is not, nor can it be under the First Amendment, legally enforceable.”

    For an expanded explanation, please follow this link.

    Now, I know of so many other professions with codes of ethics, but so many have few ethics, or the profession is based on unethical foundations. Even as new reporters, we understood power, that is, the powers that are, and that powers that shouldn’t be. The headlines and stories about malfeasance or wrong doing, those could literally kill people. We knew the value of sources, and in our small town journalism work — we worked on a lab paper in Tombstone, Arizona, of all places — we had a duty to the people in that town. Did we want to break stories? Of course. Did we want to uncover wrong doing, or some sensational story? Yep. But our goal was simple news reporting and news writing. We had so many beats, and each beat had it’s own culture — arts, music, sports, entertainment, city, state, police, business, etc. But as students who were paid through student association money and who did not have direct oversight from the journalism department; we took our jobs seriously. We went to conferences, we did internships, we met with all sorts of people to understand the needs and wants of the small town, the big town, etc. We had advertising, and we were a big part of the community’s lifeblood: where communities get their news and information.

    We could break a story about the football coach’s unethical practice of pocketing unused travel (airline) vouchers, and we could see how much cost overruns the new engineering building was entailing. Each one of those controversial pieces we spent hours and weeks attempting to get right and not do unnecessary harm. We would report on interesting members of the community, on people who had unusual stories. The newspaper was a source of cultural connection. We strived for accuracy.

    We highlighted authors, authors, orators, movers and shakers, community enterprises, members of the community who were unique.

    We covered crime and punishment, codes and planning, and took many beads on the life of people, organizations and the community.

    Yet, even back in 1977, we knew how some newspapers were bending too close to the leanings and yearnings of big business, or at the owners’s whims. We were concerned about newpapers dying, concerned about editorial decisions that hurt our code of ethics listed above. We believed in newspaper ombudsmen, and we always wanted to learn what other newspapers and what other parts of the country were doing to enhance the community.

    Indeed, that was the goal of newspapers, and while everything is bastardized in capitalism and media, and while we knew the CIA infilitrated newspapers decades earlier, and we know that now, newspapers are in most cases, skeletons, and many cities and towns have no newspapers, we still took our roles seriously. We knew that on-line / WWW publications would eat at the soul of newsprint dailies and weeklies. We knew that once lively newspapers or magazines would get bought up by large and mid-sized media groups. Then decimated and sold.

    In the end, we still wanted to know. We wanted fairness and accuracy in journalism. We did want to do the stories that few were doing.

    Just listen to these three folk. It shows you the robust work of thinkers. In my other professions –education, planning and social work — we do have that level of scrutiny, and self-examination. But here, the journalists look really hard at themselves. I do not find this hard look into my other professions as robust and penetrating.

    Virtually nobody trusts what they read any more. The United States ranks dead last among 46 nations surveyed in confidence in the press. Only 29% of Americans say they broadly believe what they read, see or hear in mainstream media. And more than three quarters of the public think that big outlets knowingly publish fake news.

    The term “fake news” first came into common usage around the contentious 2016 election, where both the Trump and Clinton campaigns attempted to weaponize the term against their opponents. Clinton claimed that Trump was being buoyed by false information put out by Eastern European bloggers and shared on sites like Facebook, while Trump shot back at her, claiming the likes of Clinton-supporting networks CNN and MSNBC were themselves fake news.

    But joining MintPress Senior Staff Writer Alan MacLeod today are two guests who know that fake news and false information have a long history in America. Dr. Nolan Higdon is an author and university lecturer of history and media studies at California State University East Bay. Meanwhile, Mickey Huff is professor of social science, history and journalism at Diablo Valley College in California and the director of the critical media literacy organization Project Censored.

    But, now, with the Brave New World of up being down, Nazi being Jewish President, Lies as Truth, I am both disgusted and not surprised at how terrible the propaganda is and how lock step those who follow the lies of society and government have infected so-called traditional journalism. Yes, still, in the local rags, we get news, we get entertainment, but when it comes to the stories of a lifetime — Weapons of No Mass Destruction, World Trade Center 9/11, War for Oil, Cocaine for Contras, all of it — newspapers fail. Local newspapers do not have the guts to question everything.

    That failure in journalism is tied to consumerism, capitalism, collective delusion, Stockholm Syndrome Writ Large, Collective Trauma, Agnotology, and the Comic Book Ideology of the common people and the leaders in the USA/UK/Klanda/EU.

    The first casualty of capitalism is truth. Capitalism of course relies on deception, thieving, extirpation, extinction, survival of the fittest, divide and conquor, racism, classism, poisoning mind/body/soul/soil. So we lead back to the above, to Michael Parenti. Listen to him.

    The young people of the world are not all going to hell in a hand-basket. Really. Amazing journalists blazing trails. This is just one most recent example of attacking truth, the messenger:

    “Independent Donetsk-based journalist Alina Lipp of Germany speaks to Max Blumenthal about being prosecuted by the German state for violating new speech codes through her reporting in the breakaway Donetsk Republic. As the only German reporter on the ground in Donetsk, Lipp has exposed Ukrainian forces shelling civilians, attacking a maternity ward, mining harbors, and bombing a granary filled with corn for export. She faces three years in prison if she returns to her home country.”

    Newspapers being printed in printing press.
      
    To finish this off, an HBO special, Endangered, just out, to put more arrows in our quiver,

    Journalism can be a dangerous business. Forty-two journalists and media workers have been killed around the world in 2022 alone, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Those threats to press freedom have intensified in the U.S. and abroad, which is the subject of “Endangered,” a new documentary on HBO Max.

    “If you take away people’s access to information, you wind up with uninformed, manipulable voters,” says Ronan Farrow, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist and the film’s executive producer. “You wind up with greater flexibility for repressive leaders to do that kind of repression.”

    A perfect documentary? Nah, come on. But, the reality is that most journalists looking at pollution in countries, at coup d’etats, at the injustices of despots and capitalists, at the scarring of earth and cultures, and getting into places where armed power and uneven justice prevail, they are NOT FAKE journalists. Yet, I have leftist friends who have zero idea what it is to be one, to be on the ground and to be just regular good people looking to expose wrong doing and injustice. Not FAKE journalists that Trump-Pervert announced decades ago. Remember that unholy racist?

    President Donald Trump in Greenville, North Carolina, on July 17, 2019.

    Trump has repeatedly disparaged a group of black and Latino men wrongly accused of assaulting a white female jogger in Central Park in 1989.

    Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam and Korey Wise were all boys when they were convicted of raping Trisha Meili. They were then found innocent of the crime after convicted murder Matias Reyes in 2002 confessed to raping Meili, which was confirmed by DNA evidence. The city awarded the men $41 million in 2014, a decade after some of the men initially sued the city for how it handled the case.

    In 1989, Trump, then a popular business mogul, spent $85,000 worth of ads published in The New York Times, The Daily News, The New York Post and New York Newsday in which he lamented crime in the city and claimed there was no more “law and order.”

    ‘They admitted their guilt’: 30 years of Trump’s comments about the Central Park Five

    Trump claimed the city was being “ruled by the law of the streets, as roving bands of wild criminals roam our neighborhoods, dispensing their own vicious brand of twisted hatred on whomever they encounter.”

    Trump said he hated “these muggers and murderers.”

    He has refused to back down, again calling them “muggers” on Twitter in 2013 and labeling the $41 million “a disgrace.”

    Around a month before the 2016 election, Trump stood by his opinion that the five men were guilty even though they have since been exonerated of the crime.

    Nothing coming out of Trump’s mouth is truth, and he libels and he is now part of the war criminal league, along with Biden, Obama, Bush a and b, Clinton, Carter, et al.

    Soleimani assassination feature photo

    BAGHDAD — The recent assassination of Iran’s most popular and well-known general, Qassem Soleimani, has stoked fears that a new war pitting the U.S. and its allies against Iran could soon become a devastating and deadly reality. The airstrike that killed Soleimani, conducted by the U.S. in Baghdad, was conducted without the authorization or even prior notification of the U.S. Congress and without the approval of Iraq’s government or military, making the attack flagrantly illegal on multiple levels. The attack also killed Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was an advisor to Soleimani.

    The assassination of an Iraqi military commander who holds an official position is considered aggression on Iraq … and the liquidation of leading Iraqi figures or those from a brotherly country on Iraqi soil is a massive breach of sovereignty,” Iraq’s Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said of the attack, adding that the assassination was “a dangerous escalation that will light the fuse of a destructive war in Iraq, the region, and the world.”

    Notably, the assassination of Soleimani comes just a few months after an alleged Israeli attempt to kill the Iranian general failed and amid a well-documented and decades-long push by U.S. neoconservatives and Israeli officials for a U.S.-led war with Iran.

    While the illegality of the assassination has been noted by many since news of the attack first spread, less attention has been given to the oddities of the Trump administration’s official reasoning and justification for the attack that has brought with it renewed tension to the Middle East. Per administration officials, the attack was aimed at “deterring future Iranian attack plans” as well as a response to a rocket attack at the K1 military base near Kirkuk, Iraq on December 27. That attack killed one U.S. military contractor and lightly wounded several U.S. soldiers and Iraqi military personnel. (source)

    The post Imagination: Finding the End of the World as Capitalists Know It! first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Nick Rockel: Why are there no rightwing comedians?

    COMMENTARY: By Nick Rockel

    You’re watching mainstream media and you hear someone articulate a clearly thought through leftwing position with the pros and cons sensibly explained, are you?

    A) Watching the news

    B ) Watching current affairs

    C) Watching a comedian

    D) Tripping balls

    The answer is of course “C”, we would also accept “D” as an answer, but A & B are clearly nonsense.

    There are no leftwing voices in mainstream media, but that’s OK we’ve got comedy, and there is certainly no such thing as a right wing comedian. Rightwingers get the newsroom and we get satire.

    So why are there no rightwing comedians? Certainly a lot of comedy is about punching up, mocking those with power and/or wealth. You don’t get a lot of comedians rocking up and saying “LOL let’s have some tax cuts and cut public services” — that is what Tories are for.

    There are no leftwing voices in mainstream media
    There are no leftwing voices in mainstream media, but that’s OK we’ve got comedy. Image: The Daily Read

    The jester is there to mock the king and the nobility, not the peasants.

    Maybe it’s why people on the right seem to like politicians such as Boris Johnson or John Key who can have a bit of a laugh at themselves, even if to many they appear to be quite absurd caricatures of themselves.

    Starvation rations
    It would explain the appetite for David Seymour’s gurning and twerking like a court jester for popularity, unbeknown to the audience that his first policy would be starvation rations for the peasants and extra helpings for the well to do — hurrah!

    Chris Bishop looks to be the next off that production line, in the mould of rightwing politicians who because they can crack a joke think they are the next John Key. The “if he can do it anyone can, hold my beer” school of politics.

    On the other hand can you imagine Nicola Willis attempting humour? No, when she is the “mother of the nation” it will be more austerity, less gruel, and absolutely no laughter. If you ever see her smiling don’t smile back, don’t wave, just run!

    So we on the left get comedians and on the right they get people like bank economists, or what might be better referred to as bank lobbyists. When you listen to the ANZ economist on the news you can be sure he has the interests of the bank at heart. Boy Wonder Brad Olsen isn’t there just to amuse us with his uncannily inaccurate crystal ball readings of doom and despair.

    Like the health spokesperson for a tobacco company, these lobbyists may be aware of the impacts of their products on peoples lives but rest assured they are there to represent the interests of shareholders, not customers.

    You do get comedians that are not overtly leftwing nor “politically correct”, the likes of Bill Burr, Doug Stanhope, or Jim Jefferies. Very funny comedians who while not advocating the move to the socialist utopia we all yearn for aren’t exactly riffing Ayn Rand either. Politics isn’t a big part of their spiel but they are certainly not conservatives.

    To be clear in terms of comedians I’m not only talking “left” in terms of political parties they might support but also being liberal, you really aren’t going to see a lot of comedians mocking pro-choice people for example. Which is a shame as the anti-abortion crowd must be pretty much the most humourless bunch on the planet — and they could really do with a laugh.

    Some exceptions
    As with any poorly thought through proposition there are some exceptions. I have been known to watch Top Gear without wanting to hit Jeremy Clarkson — I even read some of his books and laughed. It has been a long time since my last confession.

    Speaking of which, I also read both of Paul Henry’s books. The biography was a good read; quite adorable with the way he talked about his mother. Then he wrote another book with his political views on things and I wanted to punch him in the throat — not figuratively.

    Paul Henry
    I also read both of Paul Henry’s books. The biography was a good read… Then he wrote another book with his political views on things and I wanted to punch him in the throat — not figuratively. Image: The Daily Read

    Occasionally you might think you hear a leftwing voice but it turns out it’s just someone reporting the news without bias, their opinion, or including a vox pop with the one disgruntled person they could find.

    For example some on the right might describe a journalist like John Campbell as leftwing but really it’s simply that he listens and speaks without an agenda, and that seems unusual by comparison.

    In a similar way there are few rightwing musicians, I’m guessing the fact Donald Trump was closely aligned with Kid Rock wasn’t due to a long love of hillbilly trailer rap, more to do with what was available to him, but that is probably a different post.

    Through the Bush and Trump years many people relied on comedians, people like Jon Stewart, to satirise the absurdity of the leader of the free world being a bozo and also discuss positive alternatives. They get us through rough times by mocking those motivated by greed, personal advancement, and appealing to stupid people.

    Through the Bush and Trump years many people relied on comedians
    Through the Bush and Trump years many people relied on comedians, people like Jon Stewart, to satirize the absurdity of the leader of the free world being a bozo and also discuss positive alternatives. Image: The Daily Read

    My favourite comedian is Frankie Boyle, following the tradition of the previous generation of people like Bill Hicks or George Carlin with his observations, but darker, much much darker.

    Caring about humans
    Russell Howard captures things so humanly, which fundamentally (hat tip to you know who) is what a leftwing view on the world is to me — caring about other human beings. Save me your “but rightwing people care about other human beings too”, look who you vote for, it doesn’t add up.

    I can’t find a decent version on YouTube any more but Stewart Lee’s piece “coming over here”  pointing out the absurdity of those who supported Brexit may well be one of the greatest comedy routines ever recorded.

    Certainly here in Aotearoa when a National or ACT MP appear on 7 Days they are going into the lion’s den whereas Labour or Green politicians are greeted every much with a “you’re one of us” vibe. So pretty much the reverse of everything in the media that isn’t comedy.

    Our comedians make rightwing nutters look ridiculous, just ask Leo Molloy. In fact if you’re talking to Leo some sound advice might be “don’t be yourself, especially when taking to comedians”. There is a limit to all publicity being good publicity, be a lot less “Leo”.

    We have our own traditions, McPhail and Gadsby — who could forget the former impersonating Muldoon? The genius of people like Tom Scott and Steve Braunias.

    In my opinion the finest local comedic work at present is David Slack’s regular column on Kia Kaha Primary. The way it captures the essence of New Zealand through its characters, observations and humour is in the tradition of John Clarke — and I can’t think of higher praise than that!

    If you want to understand a complex issue based on the facts and some thoughtful analysis forget the news — I recommend White Man Behind a Desk.

    Playing on prejudices
    Right wing comedians, such as they are, seem to want to point fun at those on the bottom or resort to playing on prejudices, for example the ghastly local cartoonist Al Nisbet.
    Maybe a cartoon of ‎text that says “‎FREE SCHOOL FOOD IS GREAT! EASES OUR POVERTY, AND PUTS SOMETHING IN YOU KIDS’ BELLIES! T 3 NN Mung 1959 ه‎”‎

    Cartoon: Al Nisbet
    Cartoon: Al Nisbet

    A cartoonist or a satirist should through their humour explore a deeper truth; the best of it should make us laugh at ourselves. What truth is being explored by the cartoonist here? That racism is alive and well within him and his audience?

    So there is the odd rightwing comedian, but I’m sure if you’ve read this far you would agree that finding one that is actually funny is another matter. Perhaps the proposition should be that “there are no FUNNY rightwing comedians”?

    The sad reality, or perhaps the silver lining, is the worse the rightwing politicians the better the comedy. With the likes of the weaselly Simeon Brown or she “casts no shadow” Brooke van Velden coming through comedy should be in good stead for years to come.

    As for Christopher Luxon sometimes it is hard to know where the reality ends and the comedy begins. He falls short of the greats of comedic material like Judith Collins and Simon Bridges but there should be much for comedians to work with if they can find anything of substance. It is difficult to poke holes in jelly.

    We need comedians, you’re not going to get someone on the news say:

    “Under National more people would have died of covid”, or

    “They will set race relations in this country back decades”, or

    “The poor will suffer greatly in return for a little middle class tax relief.”

    Why does that last one always sound like a much happier ending than it is?

    So it’s all up to the comedians the satirists and the cartoonists — I’m sure they’ve got this!

    Or maybe Tim Minchin was right after all.

    Nick Rockel is a “Westie Leftie with five children, two dogs, and a wonderful wife”. He is the publisher of The Daily Read where this article was first published. It is republished here with the author’s permission.

  • Sick and tired of the sickness – some media try to downplay the pandemic

    By Hayden Donnell, RNZ Mediawatch producer

    Covid has now killed around 1700 people in New Zealand, but much of our news reporting and commentary has focused on how we’re moving on from the pandemic. Why is there such a mismatch between that media coverage, and the reality of a virus that’s inflicting more suffering and death than ever before?

    On her show last week, Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan made a momentous announcement in an almost blithe, off-hand manner.

    “The pandemic’s over for all intents and purposes but we’re still having to deal with this nonsense. Isn’t that ultimately why we’re feeling miserable because we all want a break? If I was in government what I’d do right now is ‘green setting guys, go for your life, party party, whatever’. Just for the mental break of it.”

    The announcement that the pandemic is over would have been news to the families of the eight people reported to have died with covid-19 in New Zealand that day.

    But du Plessis-Allan is far from an outlier in wanting to place a still raging pandemic in the rearview mirror.

    Recently a senior Stuff executive sent staff a memo telling them their audience is “over covid” and has “actively moved on from covid content”.

    It implored them to find cracker non-covid stories on topics including cons, crime, and safety, the cost of living, NZ culture, and stuff everyone is talking about.

    Much wider group
    Stuff’s audience is part of a much wider group that’s actively moving on from covid.

    National leader Christopher Luxon just returned from a whirlwind overseas tour with the news that most people he met were no longer even talking about covid.

    “It’s interesting to me I’ve just come back from Singapore, Ireland, and the UK. In most of those places we didn’t have a single covid conversation. In places like Ireland there’s no mask wearing at all.”

    Luxon is right. Many places around the world have dropped their covid restrictions.

    But even if we’re determined to ignore it, covid has remained stubbornly real, and is continuing to cause equally real harm.

    In the United States, hospitalisations and reinfections are rising with the increasing prevalence of the BA.5 strain of omicron.

    In the UK, about 13,000 hospital beds are currently occupied by covid patients. Hospitals are dealing with staff absences, exhaustion, persistent backlogs and problems discharging patients, and the UK government is considering bringing back restrictions if the situation gets any worse.

    Same story as here
    If that all sounds familiar, it’s because pretty much the exact same story is playing out here.

    Association of General Surgeons president Rowan French delivered some dire news to RNZ’s Morning Report about hospitals’ current troubles with scheduling elective surgeries.

    “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it,” he said. “We don’t say that lightly but I think it is the worst we’ve ever seen it, particularly with respect to our ability to treat our patients’ elective conditions.”

    French said those issues were exacerbated by a wave of covid-19 and winter flu.

    Covid patients were taking up a lot of the beds that would normally be used by people recovering from surgery, and he couldn’t see an end in sight to the crisis.

    There’s a jarring mismatch between that kind of interview and the concurrent harping about the need to move on from covid.

    That’s producing cognitive dissonance, not just in the public, but among media commentators, some of whom are now bobbling between berating our minimal remaining efforts to mitigate covid-19 and lamenting the damage being caused by the uncontrolled spread of the virus.

    Mental oscillations
    In some cases, these mental oscillations can take place in mere hours.

    On the morning of July 6, Newstalk ZB Wellington host Nick Mills had harsh words for the epidemiologists urging caution over covid.

    “Michael Baker, let us get on with our lives. You go back to your lab. Do some intelligent work. Get paid truckloads of money doing it, and live in an extremely flash house. But for me, I don’t want to hear from you anymore. I want to get on with my life and our life.”

    On du Plessis-Allan’s panel show The Huddle later that day, he had a different message about the severity of the latest wave.

    “I’m absolutely terrified because it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” he said. “If we have to go back [to a red setting] – and it will all be based on hospitals gonna have to be overcrowded — these numbers are terrifying.”

    Maybe if Nick Mills had listened more closely to Professor Michael Baker, his research on BA.5 wouldn’t have come as such a nasty surprise.

    To be fair to these hosts, their contradictory approaches to covid are pretty relatable.

    Sick of the sickness
    Even without any hard data to hand, it’s safe to say many people are sick of the sickness, and some are prepared to live in a state of suspended disbelief to act like that’s the case.

    But covid isn’t over, and now many leading experts are saying it may never be.

    Last week The Project commissioned a poll which showed 38 percent of people agree with those experts. They believe covid is here for good.

    Afterward presenter Kanoa Lloyd quizzed epidemiologist Dr Tony Blakely about whether those respondents were right.

    “It’s possible,” he said. “It’s rolling on. Remember influenza in 1918, we still get influenza every year. This is a coronavirus. It could keep coming up every year.”

    Dr Blakely is among a number of epidemiologists and healthcare workers who have gone to the media lately to deliver the message that there is still a pandemic on.

    On last weekend’s episode of Newshub Nation, the aforementioned Professor Michael Baker compared covid to the “inconvenient truth” of climate change — a global threat that demands real change and ongoing action to mitigate.

    Common sense safety
    He went on to link covid precautions to another common sense safety measure.

    “If you go out when you have this infection and infect your friends and family, you are going to be killing some people — just like drinking and driving,” he said.

    At The Spinoff, microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles stuck with the driving metaphor, imploring people to make popping on a mask as natural as clicking in your seatbelt.

    This recent flurry of cautious messaging stands in stark contrast to much of the media coverage over the last few months.

    Despite the fact 10 to 20 people per day have been dying of covid-19, that is had a muted response outside of the pro-forma coverage of the Ministry of Health’s 1pm press releases.

    When covid-19 has been covered, the death toll has usually been superseded in the news by complaints from businesses about the few restrictions that remain.

    Maybe that’s not such a surprise. News organisations have a powerful commercial incentive to give their customers what they want, and as Stuff’s executive said, audiences have moved on.

    Like drunk party guest
    But, like a drunk party guest at 3am, coronavirus does not care that you’re tired of it and you want it to leave.

    A month ago, Newsroom’s Marc Daalder made that point in a prescient piece headlined “Covid isn’t over, it’s just getting started“.

    He said the media needed to adjust from covering covid as a crisis to seeing it as an ongoing concern like the road toll or crime.

    “It’s no longer temporary. It’s here to stay with us. And I don’t think that journalists have really figured out how to cover it as a daily issue, just like we cover all of the other daily issues that are really problematic,” he said.

    “In some respects, it’s a bit bigger because it has a much more serious burden in terms of deaths and hospitalisations and long covid than something like the road toll, but just because it’s not a temporary crisis anymore, doesn’t mean that we should be ignoring it.”

    Daalder said reporters could reorientate their coverage, writing more human interest stories on issues like the impact of long covid, and looking forward at how the virus and the fight against it will evolve.

    “I think we are poorly served by media coverage, after the peak of the first omicron wave, in which there was no looking forward to what’s going to be happening in the short term or the long term.

    Omicron peaked … and then?
    “There was just this all this focus on what would happen when omicron peaked, and then it did, and, and nothing filled the void after that. And so I think it’s quite natural for people to assume that covid is over.”

    Journalists could also apply more pressure to the government over the continuing levels of preventable suffering and death being caused by cmicron’s spread, Daalder said.

    He has advocated for the return of the alert level system, which he believes was much more simple and comprehensible than the traffic light system implemented late last year.

    “There’s not really very much accountability journalism that looks at holding the government accountable for essentially abandoning vulnerable people to the whims of the virus,” he said.

    “You have this sort of very strange juxtaposition in the [parliamentary] press gallery where the covid minister will be asked by one person: ‘Are you concerned about BA.5? It’s starting to spread in New Zealand. Should we be increasing our restrictions?’

    “And then in the next breath, the question is ‘Why aren’t we in green? When will we ever get to green?’.

    Better balancing
    “I’m not sure that either of those get to the heart of the present issue, which is that the current settings aren’t aren’t even aligned with a non-BA.5 world.”

    Daalder said news organisations should find ways to balance their commercial incentives and the public interest role of journalism when it comes to important, but not always clickable, stories like covid or climate change.

    “There’s an extent to which you should follow what audiences want. And you shouldn’t necessarily be trying to force something down their throats that they don’t want.

    “But with something like covid, where it’s such a huge, important thing that’s happening, and that’s going to keep happening, regardless of whether you write about it or not.

    “I think that’s where you know that that mission of journalism to tell the truth really comes in and overrides maybe some of the audience imperatives.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Climate rivalry between secretive autocracy and corrupted democracy

    COMMENTARY: By Megan Darby, editor of Climate Home News

    When it comes to the world’s two biggest emitters, we are caught between a secretive autocracy and an oversharing corrupted democracy.

    Most media attention is focused on the latter. The United States this week raised hopes of a compromise climate spending bill and quashed it again before you could say “Joe Manchin is a bad-faith actor”.

    Having somebody to blame does not make it any easier to address a system rigged in favour of fossil fuel interests.

    At Climate Home, we bypassed that news cycle (come back to us when you’ve achieved something, America!) and took a longer look at the former.

    Because the fact that so little climate journalism comes out of China at a certain point becomes newsworthy in itself. And once Chloé Farand started asking around, we knew this story’s time had come.

    It has never been easy for journalists and civil society to operate in Xi Jinping’s China. As he looks to secure a third term as president over the coming months, it is harder than ever.

    Beijing’s zero-covid policy is, most sources said, no longer just about public health, but a tool of control at a politically sensitive time. Conferences are cancelled indefinitely and travel restricted. Officials up and down the hierarchy are afraid to speak to the media.

    Out of six China-based climate reporters who spoke to Climate Home for the article, four had left or were preparing to leave the country.

    This is a problem. Not just for the international community, which has an interest in holding China to account for its emissions performance, but for China. In the vacuum, misinformation and Sinophobia flourish.

    From the slivers of news that do emerge, we can see that Chinese experts have much to teach the rest of the world. Ok, so they might want to keep their advantage in mass producing solar panels, but when it comes to smart deployment policy, they have every incentive to share tips.

    Perhaps they could give US climate campaigners, who are in despair right now, some fresh ideas.

  • Cosmology: Humanly Irrelevant

    James Webb’s First Deep Field is galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

    We have seen the startling images provided by the $10 billion James Webb telescope, images relentlessly hyped as an incredible scientific breakthrough by those involved in the research–but of no conceivable relevance or benefit to humanity as a whole. I would venture to say that, in a moral-humanistic sense, a single photo of a starving child (say, in Yemen) has more value than all the thousands of photos this “exciting” project will produce. Why? Because, as a species we are most benevolent and life-sustaining when we recognize universal human rights and needs–and respond, via sympathetic identification, accordingly.

    Virtually all astrophysicists are now ebullient about the astounding possibilities for new discoveries made possible by the telescope. Some talk of discovering new “habitable exoplanets”–conveniently evading that reducing fossil fuel over-consumption and banning nuclear weapons, among other real priorities, might make the Earth more livable once more (besides slowing down species-extinction). (Not to mention the incredible unlikelihood–and utter pointlessness–of developing space vehicles capable of traveling close to the speed-of-light, 186,000 miles per second.)

    Other NASA scientists are avowedly religious–and not in the abstract, pantheistic, Spinozan way that Einstein was. With the prospect of seeing back to the “beginning” of the universe some 14 billion years ago, they pathetically cling to the notion of a “Creator” (“Let there be light!”). No matter that the primitive folklore of the Book of Genesis is chock-full of contradictions and absurdities, all presided over by a remarkably cruel, wily, authoritarian-patriarchal “God” (merely a projection of the crude, violent, superstitious culture of the Hebrews 2000 years ago). Such scientists pathetically compartmentalize their belief in the Bible–with all its cruelties, violence, and fabrications–as a matter of “faith” (a domain of belief, in their rationale, quite separable from scientific validation).

    The foremost benefit astronomy has contributed to human enlightenment has been the validation of Galileo’s heliocentric model of the solar system. The notion of a single, finite (and flat?) world, in which Man is given dominion over all “creatures” and is directly punished or rewarded by an all-observing God, was replaced by the reality of a solar system, as well as myriad distant stars, in which humans merely inhabited the revolving “third planet from the Sun.” (The Catholic Church, well aware of the dangers of such science, threatened Galileo, burned Giordano Bruno, and only reluctantly accepted heliocentrism in the mid-19th century.) At that time (ca. 1859), Darwin’s well-substantiated theories should have delivered the death-blow to religion. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees “freedom of religion,” and presumably scientists were reluctant to forcefully challenge the harmful and absurd doctrines of religions which continue to thrive today (with fundamentalist, biblical literalism even on the rise in recent decades!).

    A young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula, Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

    One embarrassment to these religiously minded astrophysicists is that the “Big Bang” theory–one moment of “Creation” of an infinitely expanding universe–has been recently challenged by variations of the “Big Crunch” theory: with expansion eventually limited by certain laws of physics, the universe will begin to contract over endless billions of years, imploding back to its origins. This expansion-contraction cycle will continue to repeat itself, adinfinitum.

    Meanwhile, Homo sapiens, a kind of hominoid primate which eventually evolved from the earliest mammals (of 70 million y.a.), is obviously entirely adapted to its terrestrial habitat. Breathing its atmosphere, walking bipedally and using its hands to make tools, and ecologically co-inhabiting with myriad other plant and animal species which are mutually interdependent for survival. With industrial-produced emission-byproducts now threatening ever-escalating species extinctions, droughts, crop failures and massive famines, the astrophysicists’ single-minded fascination with incredibly remote galaxy systems–of no possible relevance to the inhabitants of Earth–verges on the obsessively delusional.

    The post Cosmology: Humanly Irrelevant first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • A political prisoner is being punished for speaking out. Could you be next?

    A political prisoner, locked inside the private G4S prison HMP/YOI Parc in Bridgend, South Wales, is facing fresh repression for speaking out to the press about his treatment. Toby Shone is now banned from speaking to his loved ones, as well as his solidarity group, after the prison’s security team removed a number of contacts from his list of permitted phone numbers. This is just one of a series of actions that the state has taken to try to make Toby’s life hell and break his revolutionary and anti-capitalist spirit.

    Brighton Anarchist Black Cross reported:

    This together with interference with his post and emails is an attempt to hold him incommunicado in the jail.

    He was formally notified of this decision…with the following reasons given: giving interviews over the phone, giving detailed information about staff at the prison which has then been published online, and hate speech against some prison staff.

    Treated like a terrorist

    Toby has been imprisoned since October 2021. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) initially tried to prosecute him under terrorism-related charges. The original allegations were that the 325 website – of which Shone was accused of being the editor, and which published reports of direct action – contained material that would be useful to terrorists, and that the site fundraised for terrorist activities. As The Canary reported in May 2022, the terrorism case against Toby fell apart and he was found not guilty of any charges relating to terrorism.

    It will come as little surprise to the radical left in the UK that the state has attempted to throw about the term ‘terrorism’ willy-nilly, much as it has the words ‘domestic extremist’. They are terms that, since 9/11, have been used to generate fear among the public, and to create distrust in anyone who seeks a solution to the capitalist mess we live in. If the state had successfully managed to label Toby as a terrorist, it would have also ensured that he received little sympathy from the wider UK population.

    But the CPS’s terrorism prosecution fell apart, and Toby was imprisoned under a relatively minor drugs-related conviction. However, this hasn’t prevented the state and its corporate servants from treating Toby as if he is guilty of terrorism. In May 2022, Toby’s lawyers went to court to prevent the police’s Counter-Terrorism Division from obtaining a Serious Crime Prevention Order (SCPO) against him. Toby said that the SCPO would have put him under “de facto house arrest”. It would have enabled the state to put most of his movements and communication under surveillance once he was released from prison.

    Extreme conditions

    Even though the state failed in imposing the SCPO against him, it is still doing its utmost to repress him by other means. The probation service now wants to impose harsh, restrictive licence conditions on him when he is released. Toby spoke out to The Canary about this fresh repression, which he said is “much more far-reaching than the SCPO”. He said that he wasn’t aware yet of the full extent of the proposed licence restrictions, but they include:

    No contact with anybody from the movement deemed extremists…this could be anyone; give them access to all internet available devices; no ‘preaching’; all my social relationships monitored; having to reside at an AP [approved premises or bail hostel] for an extended period of time…

    Toby said that the fact that the term ‘preaching’ is being used shows that he is being treated in the same category as religious ‘extremists’. He continued:

    Literally in the probation OASIS report I am quantified as low risk. But the fact that I’m political, and have political opinions, qualifies me as high risk. So they’re saying I’m an extremist, basically. They’re referring to information that they hold against me, which they’re not divulging, or haven’t divulged yet. 

    It could be any of us

    Toby continued:

    It seems like I’ve been designated a threat to national security on the basis that I’m an anarchist. And if they’re able to justify these anti-terrorist, anti-extremist licence restrictions – in my case which is based on information that they [said they] hold against me, but which culminated in a not guilty verdict – then they can apply it to anyone from the radical left or the anarchists that were arrested on a demo, or any kind of direct action, and apply these draconian licence conditions to them, through being able to label them as an extremist or a terrorist.

    This became especially apt after a raft of new laws were passed through parliament. In June 2022, the full Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act finally came into force. Because of the new legislation, we are likely to see far more of these crackdowns on those who protest against government policies, or who take direct action against the corporate destruction of our Earth. And if the government manages to pass its provisions for Serious Disruption Prevention Orders in the Public Order Bill then conditions such as the ones Toby is facing could be used against people who’ve committed no criminal offence.

    In 2021, the government passed the highly dangerous Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) Act, also known as the ‘Spycops Bill’, which has legalised all activity of undercover police officers, at a time when undercover police are supposedly being investigated for abusing women.

    This comes off the back of revelations in 2020, when we found out that the government had issued teachers with a guide to extremist groups as part of their Prevent strategy. Among the groups listed was Extinction Rebellion. This begs two questions: If a dogmatically pacifist group like XR is considered such a threat, then what must the state think of those who are doing more than blocking junctions with a bright-pink boat? And what measures are they taking, both overtly through these new laws and covertly through undercover intelligence, to try to shut them up permanently?

    It would be foolish to believe that Toby Shone is an exception, and that his imprisonment and subsequent repression won’t happen to the rest of us. If you’re deemed a nuisance to the state or to corporate interests, you might well be next.

    Featured image via PXHere

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Post-Courier: The incompetency of PNG’s Electoral Commission must stop

    EDITORIAL: The PNG Post-Courier

    The headline of this editorial, we believe, expresses what every eligible voter, business house and candidate in the nation’s capital feels towards the Electoral Commission of PNG.

    To make a decision like this, the deferral of polling, at the very last minute on the day when this important event is to take place is absurd. it’s costly and creates an impression that our electoral process is dysfunctional in the eyes our citizens and the international community.

    The explanation by the Election Manager for NCD (National Capital District), Kila Ralai, citing interference from candidates and their scrutineers on the deferral is very weak and doesn’t hold water.

    He was quoted as saying: “Unfortunately in that process there was interference, by the candidates and the scrutineers who came to over-rule the administration of the electoral process, that has prolonged the election operations.”

    However, he goes on further and says: “We need to maintain our integrity, we need to maintain that integrity and the efficient process of the elections, so that we can deliver the elections to our voters.

    “It is not good that we will push when the systems are not in place when the process is not prepared, we need to have all these before we conduct elections for NCD.”

    Our question is: So what systems are not in place and whose job is it to prepare so that the integrity of the election is maintained?

    The excuse made for the initial deferral from July 4-6 and now from 6th to maybe 8th of July is completely unacceptable.

    And we endorse the sentiments of NCD Governor Powes Parkop and many other candidates who said: “Securing counting venues and preparing polling officials, ballot boxes and ballot papers are basic outcomes that the Chief Electoral Commissioner and his staff should have sorted out well before the 4th or 6th of July.

    “These are basic issues they ought to have templates and be experts in these areas by now.

    This basic failure shows the highest level of incompetency and someone should be brought to account for this level of incompetency which is bordering on stupidity.”

    This basic failure shows poor level of leadership, poor planning and total incompetency on the part of Chief Electoral Commissioner and his officers.

    They ought to hang their heads in shame!

    For our capital city to be continuously subjected to such basic problems is totally unacceptable! It reflects badly on the Electoral Commission, our capital city and our country.

    The Electoral Commission had four years and then a number of weeks due to deferral of the Issue of Writs and then two more days and they are still unprepared.

    PNG Post-Courier. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • You refuse to wear a condom and yet you won’t march for abortion rights

    “It’s good to see that there’s men here today”, a woman shouts over the microphone. “But there’s not enough of you! We need men to be allies in this struggle.”

    We are in a hundreds-strong crowd, demonstrating for abortion rights. We’re marching in solidarity with every person around the world who is being denied access to abortion, whether it be in the US, Poland, El Salvador or Nicaragua – all countries that have passed stricter abortion laws since the 1990s.

    Before coming to the demonstration, I sent messages to friends, asking them if they would join. Some cis male friends said they would come, and then didn’t show up. Others just flat-out said that they weren’t going to bother. If you’re a man and you can’t be bothered to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with your comrades to fight for their right to abortion, then you are, quite frankly, complicit in the patriarchy that you’re claiming to try to dismantle.

    Refusing to wear condoms

    The woman on the microphone continues. She shouts out exactly what I have been thinking since Roe vs. Wade was overturned:

    “So many men refuse to wear condoms! And then they don’t even come to an abortion rally!”

    If, like me, you have sex with cis men, then I can guarantee that you’ve come across at least one guy who refuses to wear a condom. And I am certain that you’ll have met a few more who ‘forget’ to put one on, trying their luck until you insist that condoms are, actually, a necessity. They might guilt-trip you, complaining that sex just doesn’t feel as good with a condom. These men are seemingly oblivious to the small matter of spreading STIs, not to mention the possibility of getting someone pregnant. But don’t worry – they will, they say, pull out just in time. 

    We’ve all been born into a patriarchal world that has indoctrinated us into believing that we need to prioritise the needs of cis men, and that we need to perform sexually for said men. So we might let them get away with not using a condom, even if we know nothing about their sexual history.

    If you are someone who refuses or ‘forgets’ to wear a condom, you may also be someone who doesn’t want a baby right now, either. Likely, you would be horrified by the news of your impending offspring. And yet you can’t be bothered to come to a demonstration for abortion rights. Shame on you.

    Birth control and patriarchy

    Tied in with all this is the wider issue of birth control, which is inherently patriarchal in the way it is developed and rolled out. People with wombs can get pregnant roughly once a year. Yet a cis man could, theoretically, impregnate hundreds of people per year (if he were to find enough people who actually wanted to have sex with him, of course). Despite this, the responsibility for birth control mostly lands on people with wombs, with a range of options for us, whether it be the pill, the coil, hormonal injections or implants. Other than a condom or a vasectomy, there’s no contraception on the market that forces people with penises to take responsibility and face the fact that pregnancy, does, in fact, begin with sperm. The pharmaceutical industry is, of course, a cog in the patriarchal, capitalist wheel that we live in, so it is perhaps unsurprising that it puts the burden of not getting pregnant squarely on the shoulders of people with wombs.

    Contraceptives for people with penises haven’t been successfully developed, and while there has been talk of a ‘male’ contraceptive pill coming onto the market, it is not going to happen in the near future. Meanwhile, trials for rolling out a ‘male’ hormone injection were shelved because of the side effects – including depression and acne – that the trial subjects experienced. Meanwhile, the contraceptive pill for people who can get pregnant comes with all sorts of physical and mental side effects, too – whether it be long-term depression, or blood clots, or an increased risk of cancer – which we are expected to just grit their teeth and deal with. The sexist hypocrisy of this is astounding.

    We will take back our rights

    In the UK, we are watching developments in the US closely, and we’re right to be apprehensive. After all, politicians like Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is against abortion even for victims of rape, wield considerable power. We should remind ourselves that it was only a couple of years ago, in 2019, when almost 100 Westminster MPs voted against making abortion legal in the north of Ireland.

    The male politicians who are instrumental in making terrifying decisions to keep abortion illegal, are, more likely than not, the men who refuse to wear condoms – men who put their pleasure before anything else. It is unlikely that these men care about the ‘life’ of a foetus. Rather, they thrive on controlling all of us who have a womb. They don’t want to see us free, and the ultimate way to keep us in chains is to take away our autonomy over our own bodies. 

    But women, non-binary people and trans men – everyone with a body affected by these laws – are clear: if you take away our right to abortion, we won’t just obediently ask for it back. We will fight, and we will take back our rights.

    Featured image via Eliza Egret

     

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • ‘Vote wisely – not with cargo cult mentality’ PNG election eve warning

    By Theckla Gunga of Inside PNG

    Papua New Guineans, your future is in your hands, vote wisely.

    As the campaign trail wound up its last hours at the weekend, voters were being urged to keep their future in mind when choosing and voting this election starting tomorrow.

    Alvin Gia Huk, an independent candidate, and runner up in the 2017 National General Elections for the Mendi-Munihu Open seat in Southern Highlands Province is encouraging voters to not repeat the mistakes made in the past when electing people who didn’t have their interest at heart.

    He said voters needed to make wiser decisions for long term benefits for their children, the district and the province as a whole.

    Inside PNG
    INSIDE PNG

    “Don’t follow money and materials today and spend the next five years being neglected of your basic right to services. You have the power to change your course in the next week, to receive what is rightfully yours and have a better quality of life,” he said.

    Among other policies, he said a change in voters’ attitudes was what he had been promoting and encouraging throughout the campaign period.

    “I have been educating voters since last elections to not vote with a cargo cult mentality or based on family lines, tribal ties and vote for quality”.

    He admits it has been a challenge breaking the cargo cult mentality but he sees some progress from the previous elections.

    Voters have become more educated and aware of what they deserve and what qualities they want in their leaders.

    PNG women candidates campaign to bust open all-male Parliament
    PNG women candidates campaign to bust open all-male Parliament
    Video: Stefan Armbruster reporting for SBS News

    The PNG elections run from July 4 to 22.

    Asia Pacific Report’s coverage of the PNG general election is being boosted by partnerships with media groups such as the independent Inside PNG, The National, PNG Post-Courier and RNZ Pacific. 

     

     

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Liberal Racism Rears Its Ugly Head (Again)

    Using phrases like “American Taliban” or invoking the term “sharia law” to attack the ruling of Christians on the court is all the rage after the recent Roe v. Wade decision. Once again, we have people—primarily liberal white people—engaging in racist, Islamophobic tropes. Muslim activists, scholars, and researchers have repeatedly pointed out this racism and Islamophobia for years, apparently to no avail. This needs to stop.

    Islam isn’t the problem. It’s Christianity. The six judges who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade aren’t Muslim. They’re Christian. All are Catholic, although Neil Gorsuch is a Catholic turned Episcopalian. The oppression in America is home-grown Christianity. It’s as American as apple pie.

    Christian conservatives and fundamentalists champion the anti-abortion movement in the United States. Stop demonizing Muslims and making them the boogeyman. They are not props to be used as scapegoats for American problems. The United States has shown itself quite often throughout history it can be an extraordinarily regressive country all on its own.

    Associate professor Nazia Kazi at Stockton University points out it “reflects this assumption that Muslim women are uniquely oppressed and that American or western women are remarkably liberated.” She continued, “From both the American common sense public imagination, right on up to the seats of power, there’s this impulse to externalize that which actually is endemic to the US itself.”

    Drop the ignorant, racist dog whistle and confront the real culprit: American Christianity. Stop denigrating Muslims by outsourcing American problems.

    The post Liberal Racism Rears Its Ugly Head (Again) first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Gavin Ellis: Heavy work ahead on Aotearoa NZ’s Public Media Bill

    ANALYSIS: By Gavin Ellis

    The Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill — introduced to Parliament this week — will have a long journey before it is fit for purpose.

    The Bill gives effect to the government’s plan to replace TVNZ and RNZ with a new entity designed for the digital age, but the legislation as it stands does little more than cement the two public broadcasters together.

    On first reading (mine, not Parliament’s), it looks like a legislative instrument to give effect to the merger, but its stated intent and functions are much wider. This is supposed to be the legal foundation upon which a new age of public media is to be built.

    The general policy statement accompanying the Bill says: “This Bill seeks to strengthen the delivery of public media services by establishing a new public media entity.” It may achieve the latter, but it falls far short of guaranteeing its objective.

    The Bill falls short on many fronts: Matters that should be covered are omitted, others are dealt with in obtuse ways, boilerplate clauses are employed in place of purposeful creativity, and ironclad protection of the public interest is absent.

    The Bill’s shortcomings are too numerous to set out all of them, but a few key failings give a sense of how much work must be done on the proposed law through its committee stages.

    The Bill states the new organisation will be a Crown entity but does not stipulate the category under which it must fall. We need to go to Schedule 2 Part 1 to find that Schedule 2 of the Crown Entities Act is to be amended to make Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media an autonomous Crown entity.

    Why the change?
    Both TVNZ and RNZ are currently Crown companies. Why the change?

    Was it because autonomous Crown entities “must have regard to government policy when directed by the responsible Minister”? While the new public media organisation will be protected against ministerial interference on matters relating content and news gathering, there are many ways to skin the cat.

    Why was the new entity not designated an Independent Crown Entity which is “generally independent of government policy”?

    The Bill states that, in accordance with provisions of the Crown Entities Act, the Minister of Broadcasting and Media will appoint the board of the new entity, but the new Bill stipulates at least two of those directors will be nominated by the Minister for Māori Development.

    As things stand, that means Willie Jackson will appoint the entire board because he holds both portfolios. The proposed legislation does not anticipate that aggregation of power.

    Ministers are writ large across the Bill. There is oversight of the new entity by no fewer than three, possibly four. Aside from the Minister of Broadcasting and Media, the finance minister has direct powers over financial issues and the Māori development minister has Te Tiriti oversight.

    The Crown Entities Act provides for the broadcasting minister to appoint a monitor to act as his eyes and ears over the new entity. The Ministry for Culture and Heritage has been working behind the scenes to gear itself to take on that role – and an even wider role across all media if its current strategy framework draft is anything to go by. So, it is possible that its minister (currently Carmel Sepuloni) will also have a look-in.

    Independence absolutely vital
    I do not think that augers well for the independence that is absolutely vital if the new body is to gain and retain public trust and confidence.

    Yes, the Bill does carry over the provisions in existing legislation that tells ministers to keep their hands off editorial matters. However, there are too many other mechanisms by which politicians can influence the direction of the new organisation.

    There is a charter that should provide its own protections, given that the relevant minister’s actions must be consistent with it. However, the charter in the Bill consists largely of boilerplate generalities that are less aspirational than the existing RNZ charter.

    It is in marked contrast to the BBC Charter, which is erudite, explicit, and carries more direct obligations.

    Submissions on the Bill will, no doubt, focus on the charter and it may yet go through iterations that improve it. One necessary improvement relates to the digital environment that made all of this reorganisation necessary. Although there is passing reference to online services, the tenor of the Bill is rooted in the present, not the future.

    The entity’s principal purpose is “broadcasting”. That would be fine if the term was defined in broad enough terms. However, it talks of “transmitting” and “reception by the New Zealand public by means of receiving apparatus”. That hardly conjures up pictures of very smart interactive devices and a community for whom one-way linear transmission is antiquated.

    The charter does state that one of its principles is “innovating and taking creative risks” but that looks tame alongside the BBC Charter’s clause on technology that states it “must promote technological innovation, and maintain a leading role in research and development”.

    Technologically aspirational requirements
    I would have thought that, in order to set the stage for a future-oriented organisation built for the digital age, the Bill just might contain some technologically aspirational requirements.

    It is not the only element of the new organisation that is absent from the proposed legislation.

    Aside from a pressing need to provide far more robust independent governance, the Bill’s most glaring omissions relate to finance and internal structures.

    The Bill contains an explicit requirement that RNZ’s commercial-free services will continue, and where a charge is applied to new services on first broadcast it will later be free. There is no reference in the Bill, however, to TVNZ’s current commercial status, nor to annual appropriations from government.

    It takes a careful reading of the Bill’s schedules and amendments to those in other acts to determine whether the current practice of channelling RNZ’s funding through NZ on Air will continue. Reading between the lines it appears that a more direct funding stream is being contemplated, with some form of coordination with other bodies such as NZ on Air and Te Māngai Pāho.

    The Bill itself makes no direct reference to future requirements for TVNZ to pay a dividend but a tick in a column in the Bill’s schedule suggests the new entity will not contribute to the Treasury coffers.

    Beyond that, the finances of the new entity are a deep void. The new organisation faces real challenges in reconciling public funding and commercial revenue. It must also determine the division of expenditure associated with programming to meet the expectations created by both sources.

    No legislative guidance
    However, there is no legislative guidance on how these challenges should be met. There is total silence on commercial expectations, and on the mechanisms by which any continuity of government funding will be calculated or guaranteed. The Cabinet papers released to date suggest funding matters will be dealt with through the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. So why is that not explicit in the Bill?

    Internal structures — which must address the cultural and funding process differences between commercial and non-commercial broadcasting — are apparently entirely in the hands of the Establishment board as there is nothing in the Bill that mandates the unique internal structure that will be needed to satisfy both imperatives. Does Parliament have no view, for example, on whether news and current affairs should be structurally separated from a commercial enterprise, say as a separate subsidiary with its own statutory independence?

    Why is there no requirement to follow the Irish precedent whereby the state broadcaster RTÉ must adhere to a Fair Trading Policy that complies with EU rules on State aid? That policy requires RTÉ “to trade in a manner which ensures that public funds are not used to subsidise RTÉ’s commercial activities…[and] that ensures that RTÉ’s commercial activities are compatible with its public service objects.”

    These questions, and more, will be raised during the Bill’s select committee hearings. My fear is that the timetable set out for the legislation — it must be passed and in force by the end of the year — will truncate the process to the point where the necessarily exhaustive examination of its provisions will not take place.

    Last week I set 12 labours for the new Minister of Broadcasting and Media. This Bill, as it currently stands, will make Willie Jackson’s tasks even more Herculean.

    Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a website called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

  • Gavin Ellis: An open letter to the incoming media minister

    OPEN LETTER: By Gavin Ellis to the new Minister of Broadcasting and Media Willie Jackson

    Dear Minister,

    Congratulations on assuming the Broadcasting and Media role.

    The announcement of your new portfolio put me in mind of Hercules as King Eurystheus told him there were a dozen small jobs he would like done.

    Like Hercules, you will find that the tasks ahead are challenging. Some will seem insurmountable. Yet, the underlying message of that particular piece of Greek mythology is that nothing is impossible.

    I would hesitate to suggest that success will lead to immortality, but you will certainly make an enduring name for yourself if you are able to ensure that New Zealand’s media ecosystem is fit for purpose.

    In order for that to happen you must undertake, if I may be so bold, the Twelve Labours of Willie Jackson.

    Here are the tasks you should address:

    1. The new public media entity — ensure it is an entirely new approach to a digital future and not merely a TVNZ/RNZ merger, and enshrine independent governance.
    2. Media content review – act as the coordinator for a project to determine how we should address harmful media content, which spans a multitude of issues and ministries.
    3. Social media platforms — make them pay for plundering our media and our audiences, and make them accountable for content.
    4. Public Interest Journalism Fund – restore public confidence in the fund (by removing requirements seen as linked to government policy) and continue to fund the scheme.
    5. Regulatory structures – facilitate the replacement of the Media Council and the Broadcasting Standards Authority by a single, demonstrably independent, body.
    6. Private sector survival — investigate alternative mechanisms that replace declining revenue, and incentivise plurality.
    7. Māori media — Have a stern talk with yourself, as the Minister for Māori Development, to finally bring something concrete out of the Māori Media Sector Shift that has already been three years in the making.
    8. Ethnic media — recognise and support media that directly address often hard to reach communities.
    9. Media law — review statutes that were predicated on media structures and methodologies that have long been superseded.
    10. Media training — resurrect the Journalism Training Organisation with a mandate to devise curricula standards and assess their implementation by tertiary institutions.
    11. Policy balance – work to ensure that the legitimate Te Tiriti initiatives being pursued by the Labour Government do not inadvertently ignore the broader needs of the media sector and its audiences (plural).
    12. Technology watch — set up a monitoring group to alert government to technological changes (in areas such as artificial intelligence) that will affect media production, impact and oversight.

    I realise that it is no more than 18 months to the next election and, even if you expect another term in government, you will need to prioritise.

    Three broad rubrics
    The tasks fall under three broad rubrics that are inter-related: Media sustainability, media governance, and social cohesion. Admittedly, they involve some activities that currently sit outside your portfolio but there is a crying need for a coordinator. That can, and should, be you.

    The most pressing task is the New Public Media Entity, which both Television New Zealand and RNZ openly call “the merger”. You have inherited a project in the second of its three phases, and I am sure the easiest approach would be to leave it to take its (predetermined) course.

    That would be both a lost opportunity and, I respectfully suggest, an abrogation of your responsibility to oversee the establishment of an organisation that is truly fit for purpose.

    Your predecessor, Kris Faafoi, is admirably well-meaning and I have no doubt the initiative started under his watch had sound core purposes. However, he tended to lead from behind and the outcomes to date suggest the results will be less than the sum of their parts.

    There is a golden opportunity to establish an entirely new organisation, born for a digital future that can accommodate but not be led by its legacy technologies and cultures. Its impact on the overall media landscape will be so significant that it must have a unique multi-tiered independent governance structure to insulate it from government control and to contain its own power.

    I see neither of these imperatives in any of the material that has so far entered the public domain and I fear the introduction of draft legislation in the next week or two will confirm my misgivings on both fronts. My hope is that you will intervene to ensure the final form of the bill addresses both opportunities and threats, and your discussions with the Establishment Board gives it the courage to think a significant distance beyond the square.

    The Content Review, led by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, also demands your attention. While extremely useful work has already been undertaken on harmful content in various forms of media, there is a real need for strong coordination with your portfolio. My fear is that mainstream media could suffer because, when it comes to policing content, they are low hanging fruit. The real danger with harmful content lies with digital platforms.

    Absence of strong government direction
    Those social media platforms also demand your attention in other ways. The absence of strong government direction (the antithesis of what is evident in Australia and the European Union) has allowed them to apply a cynical cherry-picking approach to compensating New Zealand media for the material they appropriate.

    Unless they are forced to act responsibly, they will continue to serve only their own pecuniary interests and to minimise their responsibilities for content. You have an opportunity to align New Zealand internationally.

    Your predecessor performed a real service to media and the public in setting up the Public Interest Journalism Fund. I have to declare an interest here: I have been involved in evaluating applications for PIJF on behalf of NZ on Air. That involvement has allowed me to witness at first hand the determination to pursue journalism that is squarely in the public interest and to see successful applications for projects that hold government — and other forms of power — to account.

    Blackened the name
    However, oppositions forces (both political and more malign) have blackened the name of the fund. It has been characterised as a bribe that has muted criticism of the Labour government.

    It may be a hard ask, given that you represent the very people accused of doing the bribing, but you need to restore the fund’s reputation…and commit to its continuation.

    You may feel those tasks will be more than sufficient to keep you occupied for the rest of the current term, but you cannot ignore the other Labours of Willie Jackson. I suggest you coalesce them into a single project: Futureproofing New Zealand Media. It could provide the blueprint for your next term as Minister of Communication and Media.

    It may also embrace the idea of my long-advocated Bretton Woods #2 and bring together the many elements that make up our media and their audiences to map a collective future. That would make this old man very happy.

    I wish you well with your new portfolio. You bring to the role many years of media experience. Complete these 12 labours and, like Hercules, you will be a hero.

    Dr Gavin Ellis ONZM MA PhD

    Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a website called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The suffocating blanket of heteronormativity

    Look around you. Men and women couple up on TV shows like Love Island for millions of viewers. The latest Hello Fresh ad shows Mum cooking dinner for her husband and two children. You see a friend’s baby and coo “oh, he’ll break a lot of girls’ hearts when he’s older!” because even toddlers cannot escape the expectations of heteronormativity.

    Heteronormativity is defined as: “the privileged and normalized view of heterosexuality.” It is a social and cultural expectation of straightness and gender conformity.

    The term describes a system that harms queer people because firstly, it assumes we do not exist and seocndly, it demands that we suffocate part of our identity to engage with the world around us.

    Not cool – especially when you consider that more than 650,000 Australian adults consider themselves to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or an alternative sexual minority orientation.

    This marginalisation is internalised by queer people. Through the news and media that dominate my screen, the people in my life, and the values I was taught from a young age, I learnt to see myself as straight. Anything other than being straight and cisgender (identifying as the gender you were assigned at birth) was ‘wrong’. 

    For some queer people, this results in a state of ‘unknowing.’ What do I mean? Well, I think of it as a state of mind or being that many queer people may find themselves in. When you are bombarded by heteronormativity at every turn, you may repress your identity to the point that you cannot see yourself as a queer person. 

    I also must point out how this affects the mental health of LGBTQ+ people. In an Australian study conducted last year, “LGBTI people aged 18 and over were over eighteen times more likely to have considered attempting suicide in the previous 12 months.” 

    This is not because of any ‘inherent difference’, rather it might be seen as a consequence of living within a heteronormative, cisnormative society.

    Through conversations I had with other queer people – across generations and identities–I see the sharp edges and suffocating walls of heteronormativity. Here, we make known the state of ‘unknowing’. 

    I reached out to Robin Ladwig, an academic at the University of Canberra doing transdisciplinary research concerning gender and queer studies. Reflecting on heteronormativity, they said: “It means the limited freedom to express my whole self and the consistent evaluation of the possible risk of being discriminated against, stigmatised, or excluded. This is a shared experience with a lot of my transgender and gender diverse research participants.” 

    Robin Ladwig

    Robin Ladwig is a PhD Candidate at the University of Canberra. 

    They also spoke about the pressure this puts on LGBTQ+ people: “It increases the invisibility of gender and sexual diversity” and “..reinforces the social expectations of relationship status.”

    Bi- or pansexual people who “appear” to be in heterosexual relationships are assumed straight. 

    Robin continues: “A gender diverse person might get assigned the opposite gender to their partner, as this seems to be the only logical consequence based on heteronormativity.” Aromantic and asexual people are “pressured” to conform to the expectation that they should desire sex or to be in a relationship. 

    Robin’s words identify some of the ways queer people are asked to erase parts of themselves. I see how this invisibility may lead to the state of ‘unknowing’.  

    Megan Munro is a disabled and queer artist, who produced the Queer Variety Show in Canberra earlier this year. We spoke over Facebook, writing paragraphs back and forth as we shared our experiences with heteronormativity. 

    Megan recalls going to gay clubs once they’d turned 18, but says, “I went as a straight person.” They told me: “If you don’t know it’s a possibility […] you don’t know it could be you.” 

    This small statement spoke to me. In it, Megan captures an essence of ‘unknowing’.

    Even in queer spaces, a queer person who doesn’t know they are queer is denied connection to identity, and denied a space to explore that identity. 

    Megan also describes an afternoon they spent at a friend’s house: “I know now that she spent the entire time hitting on me… but I was so blind to it, I didn’t realise.” This prompts me to reflect on similar experiences; the intense friendship I had with one girl during my last year of school, the first time I went to a club at 18 and danced with a girl. 

    I remember the suffocating panic I felt then, because the lines between ‘unknowing’ and ‘knowing’ were beginning to blur. I had no words to describe these interactions, because I called myself straight. I was not allowed to know myself as queer.

    I asked Megan if they felt a sense of loss for the years that heteronormativity distorted their sense of self. They tell me: “I don’t think I missed out, and never did, really. I wouldn’t have some of the great friends in my life, had I come out early. Plus, the 80s and 90s were very homophobic still, it would’ve been harder in some ways.”

    Heteronormativity and cisnormativity (the assumption that everyone identifies as the gender they were assigned at birth) attempted to erase queerness from the narrative. Megan is in their 50s now, and non-binary. Being trans, they observe, wasn’t really spoken about in the ‘mainstream’ until about ten years ago. 

    Megan Munro as Sparklemuffin, ACT Finalist in the upcoming Mx Burlesque Australia competition. Photo credit: Nathan J. Lester.

    Megan Munro as Sparklemuffin, ACT Finalist in the upcoming Mx Burlesque Australia competition. Photo credit: Nathan J. Lester.

    While explicit homophobia and transphobia are very real dangers, Megan mentions how more subtle instances of heterosexism and cissexism can be just as harmful. We speak about how heteronormativity flattens out perceptions of ongoing oppression of queer communities. 

    Beyond queer people being suspended in a state of unknowing, broader communities do not see your lived experiences once you do know. They may not be able to identify the heteronormative structures that privilege them.

    When Megan came out for the first time in their 30s, they facilitated a Stepping Out program, “for women questioning their sexuality”. Through that they heard many stories from women who grew up under the suffocating blanket of heteronormativity. They often didn’t know they were interested in women until a lightbulb moment sparked something too bright to ignore. 

    Despite our differences in age and identity, I see how the weight of heteronormativity impacted myself, Megan, and the women they worked with in the Stepping Out program. I don’t remember clear lightbulb moments; there were small moments that poked at the edges of my unknowing, but never enough to completely disrupt it. 

    I then reached out to my friend, Imogen, a graphic designer and visual artist based in Meanjin/Brisbane who is a couple of years younger than me. She reflects: “When I was younger [I] just assumed heterosexuality was normal and the only other option was being gay.” 

    Imogen: “Took ages for me to realise that I could be attracted to multiple genders, and having some kind of awareness or visibility around bisexuality then would have helped me to realise that a lot sooner, but I had just never heard of it.”

    Here, Imogen touches on how ‘unknowing’ is not always ignorance of your own feelings. Unknowing is not the absence of knowledge, it may also be a suspension and negotiation. We recognise that something is different, but are unable or unwilling to name the difference. 

    Heteronormativity depends on placing people in precise boxes, on strict binaries and identities. Bisexuality (the capacity for romantic or sexual attraction to more than one gender) blurs these boundaries, so even knowing that straight is not the only option left Imogen feeling untethered for a time. 

    Queer people may feel adrift in a state of unknowing and knowing. The expectation that I was straight meant I was constantly reaching for ways to affirm this projection. Falling in love with boys and repressing my own identity felt like learned behaviours, and became muscle memory. 

    To lift the blanket, stretch your closeted limbs, and let yourself see whatever you want to see is not something we are all in the position to do. Imogen and I know how lucky we are in this. 

    My conversations with Megan and Imogen revealed to me the state of unknowing as one way that heteronormativity impacts the lives of queer people. Examining this unknowing has allowed me to identify the contours and boundaries of heteronormativity, as a structure that has shaped much of our lives. 

    Heteronormativity and cisnormativity leave queer people tightly wound, perhaps convinced of our perceived ‘straightness’ or gender because the world held up a mirror and told us what to see. 

    This is why representation in media that combats heteronormativity is so important. TV shows like Heartstopper, which I wrote about here, are entering the mainstream. My hope is that this representation will help end the state of ‘unknowing’, because young queer people are finally seeing their true selves reflected back at them.

    • Feature image is a stock photo. Jacob Lund/Shutterstock. 

    The post The suffocating blanket of heteronormativity appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • 5 things I wish people knew about domestic abuse

    Watching the Depp vs. Heard trial play out was truly horrifying. Yes, we know misogyny is an issue in society and yes, we know that there are many misunderstandings about domestic abuse. But, no one could have guessed it would have gone so badly for Amber Heard. These are five things I wish people understood about domestic abuse before siding with Johnny Depp.

    1. Perpetrators of domestic abuse are people we know and like

    1 in 4 women are abused by a partner or family member, usually a man. Abusers are amongst us; they are people we know. They are not big, built, angry guys with shaved heads, scars, and tattoos: they’re just as likely to be good-looking, sweet-talking men in suits.

    Most abusers are charmers – that’s how they get victims into a relationship with them in the first place. They use these very same manipulation tactics to fool everyone around them: friends, family, social workers, juries, and in the case of celebrities cases, apparently also millions of the public. Charm, good looks and a ‘nice guy’ persona are certainly advantages for an abuser – who would ever believe they are abusive behind closed doors?

    2. Victims of domestic abuse fight back

    Most victims of domestic abuse are not passive. Surviving in an abusive relationship takes strength and resilience; living in constant fear takes its toll. Victims often act out of fear or resentment; they may physically fight back, yell, or carry out small acts of revenge. This is known as resistive violence.

    We would applaud a woman who hit an unknown man who attempted to rape her, but when it’s her partner, apparently fighting back makes you ‘just as bad’ as the abuser.

    3. Claiming victimhood is a common perpetrator tactic

    Abusers often use the courts to continue their power and control after separation. This is often when we see the abuser claiming to be the victim – the very common DARVO tactic. They Deny the abuse, Attack the person accusing them (often discrediting them by talking about their mental health), and then Reverse Victim and Offender, making themselves the victim.

    Often, abusers will wind up their partner, pushing all the right buttons, to provoke them to react so that they can then use this as evidence to claim the victim is the abuser.

    4. Domestic abuse is about power and control

    In domestic abuse, one person has power and control over the other. Often, the abuser has societal advantages over the other partner. This typically takes the form of a male partner having male privilege over a woman, but factors such as age and wealth can also be important, as with Johnny and Amber.

    The domestic abuse perpetrator controls every part of a victim’s life using fear and intimidation. They will isolate their victim as much as possible, by cutting them off from friends and family, for example. They will also use emotional abuse and gaslighting to destroy their self-esteem and ability to see things clearly. Abusers are full of entitlement, and expect their partner to prioritise them and their needs over the victim’s own or anyone else’s. When we understand this, we can more easily see when someone’s actions are intended to control, or if they are just reactions to being abused.

    5. Perpetrators are misogynists

    Research into the beliefs and behaviours of male abusers has shown that more often than not, they have a strong belief in traditional gender norms. They believe that women should cook, clean, look after kids, be caring, and look after their man. They believe that men should be strong and in control, and that they should be providers. Often, it is when this expectation is challenged or goes unmet that they use abuse to get things back to how they want them.

    Usually, abusers are sexist and see women as weaker and less important than men; they are misogynists. Any man that uses terms like “idiot cow”, “withering cunt”, “worthless hooker”, “slippery whore” or “waste of a cum guzzler” (Depp’s words) to describe women is clearly a misogynist.

    The impact on survivors

    It may seem that the Depp vs. Heard case is not worth worrying about; after all, they are high-profile celebrities many miles away. However, the level of attention the case has received, with social media rife with the bashing and ridiculing of Amber, there is no question that it will impact survivors here who have seen friends, family and colleagues back Johnny and claim that Amber is a liar.

    Women have already been pulling out of cases due to the fear of going through what Amber did. Not only that, this case has also emboldened abusive men. We have already seen that alleged abuser Marilyn Manson has started his own defamation case against Evan Rachel Wood (Manson is also the godfather of Depp’s daughter, funnily enough).

    It won’t just be famous men who have a renewed confidence in the fact that the system always sides with men, we’ll see this play out in courts across the country.

    Featured image via screenshot/YouTube – Law&Crime Network

    By Annie Stevens

  • Geoffrey Miller: Tale of two summits – why Jacinda Ardern said no to the Commonwealth, but yes to NATO

    ANALYSIS: By Geoffrey Miller of The Democracy Project

    Jacinda Ardern’s decision to attend the upcoming North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Spain — but to skip the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda — symbolises the changes she is making to New Zealand foreign policy.

    The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) starts today in Kigali, while the NATO summit will be held in Madrid next week.

    However, Jacinda Ardern is only attending the NATO summit. She is sending her Foreign Minister, Nanaia Mahuta, to attend the Commonwealth meeting in her place.

    Ardern is hardly alone with her decision to stay away from CHOGM — so far, only 35 of 54 Commonwealth leaders have sent an RSVP. New Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will be among the absentees — deputy Prime Minister (and defence minister) Richard Marles will go instead.

    This is despite the fact that this year’s CHOGM is being held during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee year and just over a month before the Commonwealth Games — the grouping’s sporting flagship.

    The summit will also be the first CHOGM since 2018, the first CHOGM in Africa since 2007 and the first to be hosted by a “new” Commonwealth member — Rwanda was never a British colony, but voluntarily joined the Commonwealth in 2009.

    Indeed, Rwanda’s hosting of the summit this year is not without controversy. Freedom House, a US-based think tank, calls the country ‘not free’, with a ranking of just 22 points out of 100 — placing it firmly in the bottom third of its global rankings, two places ahead of Russia.

    ‘Pervasive intimidation, torture’
    Freedom House says the Rwandan regime — led by authoritarian President Paul Kagame — undertakes ‘pervasive surveillance, intimidation, torture, and renditions or suspected assassinations of exiled dissidents.’

    This year’s CHOGM also threatens to be overshadowed by a UK plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda. Prince Charles, who reportedly called the deal ‘appalling’, will be representing the Queen at the summit in Kigali.

    Despite these two red flags, prominent human rights organisations are not calling for a boycott of the event. Rather, they want Commonwealth leaders to draw attention to the problems. Human Rights Watch, for instance, has asked leaders to voice their “grave concern to the [Rwandan] government on its human rights record”.

    And, in reference to the UK-Rwanda asylum-seeker deal, Amnesty International wants Commonwealth members to ‘seize the opportunity in Kigali to denounce this inhumane arrangement’.

    Jacinda Ardern’s no-show at CHOGM is probably driven partly by domestic political considerations and timing. This Friday’s inaugural “Matariki” public holiday, which marks the Māori New Year, was a key election campaign pledge by Ardern’s Labour Party in 2020 — and the Prime Minister is scheduled to attend a pre-dawn ceremony on the day.

    Outside of the Commonwealth Games, the Commonwealth has a low profile — but it has a lot going for it. Few intergovernmental organisations can rival it for size — with the Commonwealth’s collective population reaching 2.6 billion, only the likes of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and the United Nations (UN) represent more people.

    Strength in representing small states
    Moreover, the Commonwealth has a particular strength in representing small states, especially island ones — 25 of the 54 members are classified as Small Island Developing States. This means the Commonwealth can be a particularly useful forum for discussing climate change and environmental issues.

    The results have included initiatives such as the Commonwealth Litter Programme, which has made real differences to countries such as Vanuatu in fighting plastic pollution.

    The Commonwealth is more than just a talking shop, but the disparate nature of its membership is a major challenge. The Commonwealth includes wealthy, democratic countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK — but also poor, authoritarian ones such as Cameroon, Rwanda and Uganda.

    In between, there are also some rich authoritarian members (such as Brunei) and less well-off democracies (such as India)

    Of course, there is still great value in an organisation that brings opposing sides together for a robust exchange of views — the new geopolitical faultline between the Global South and North over Ukraine is a case in point. While Western countries — including New Zealand — have provided strong support to Ukraine, most non-Western countries have not followed suit.

    It would do Jacinda Ardern good to listen to the rationale that countries such as South Africa and Mozambique might have for not falling in line with the Western position. Countries perhaps learn best when they are not just surrounded by their like-minded friends.

    However, in the new Cold War, ideology is back with a vengeance — and many countries are drifting away from pragmatic, inclusive groupings towards more ideologically-driven ones.

    Countering Chinese influence
    For Australia, this means countering Chinese influence with the reinvigorated “Quad” arrangement (with India, Japan and the US) and AUKUS (with the United Kingdom and the United States); for New Zealand, the Pacific Islands Forum and bilateral meetings with Australia and the United States have taken on greater significance.

    All of this explains why Jacinda Ardern has accepted an invitation to attend NATO’s Madrid Summit next week. Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s Secretary General, has recently been at pains to highlight the invitation to the bloc’s “Asia-Pacific partners” – Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

    The reason is obvious – on Thursday, Stoltenberg specifically mentioned China as one of the priorities for the meeting, which will set out a new “Strategic Concept” — effectively a blueprint for the future of NATO.

    And while NATO’s main focus will remain on security in Europe, last year’s summit in Brussels — held well before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — was noteworthy for making China its main priority.

    The summit’s communique made NATO’s position crystal-clear: “China’s stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to Alliance security”.

    Jacinda Ardern’s invitation to attend the NATO’s 2022 Madrid Summit will also be something of a reward for aligning New Zealand’s foreign policy more closely with NATO — and the West generally — over the past few months.

    After all, Ardern has overhauled New Zealand’s foreign policy by introducing sanctions against Russia and sending military equipment and weapons to Ukraine — and by making a symbolic contribution of New Zealand troops to Europe to assist with the war effort.

    Security ‘not for free’
    But as Stoltenberg likes to say, security “does not come for free” — and the meeting will undoubtedly also serve as an opportunity to put pressure on New Zealand to provide even more assistance. The NATO Secretary-General recently pointed out that there have been “seven consecutive years of rising defence investment across Europe and Canada”.

    New Zealand’s military spending shows a remarkably similar trajectory, with spending now at the 1.5% of GDP level– up from 1.1% in 2015, although still well below NATO’s target of 2%.

    Like Jacinda Ardern, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will also be a guest of honour at the NATO summit. Anthony Albanese is also travelling to Madrid — and Zelensky has already invited the Australian PM to visit Kyiv.

    If he accepts, Albanese would be following in the footsteps of many other NATO country leaders who have travelled to Ukraine in recent weeks, including the UK’s Boris Johnson, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz.

    And given the focus on Western unity and solidarity in recent months, there is every chance Jacinda Ardern would travel together with Anthony Albanese on any European side-trip to Ukraine — on a joint ANZAC solidarity mission.

    Ardern is backing NATO over CHOGM.

    She might be choosing Kyiv over Kigali.

    Geoffrey Miller is an international analyst and writes on current New Zealand foreign policy and related geopolitical issues for Victoria University of Wellington’s Democracy Project. He has lived in Germany and the Middle East and is a learner of Arabic and Russian. This article is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Market God + Private Profits = Public Loss

    All people need food, shelter and health care. In an alleged democracy, none of them need the religion of market forces governing their ability to get them. Nor do those of us temporarily comfortable while enjoying the benefits that come to a minority which does well with capitalism (as it did with slavery) but now face a choking atmosphere that no individual status or identity as glorified house negroes of slavery days will protect us since the house itself, our planet, is under deadly attack.

    Brutal abuse of logic, savage assaults on morality, perverted molestations of reason; do those describe Russian military behavior in the Ukraine or western political-media market practice? Incredibly booming profits in the death industry accompany the world tour of a Ukrainian political hustler for NATO as he is treated as an international hero for escaping his country on a world go-fund-me trip to raise more weapons to assure more murder of his people with a potential bonus of hosting a late night TV show in America while the bodies are being counted.

    The incredible reporting (?) of the Russian defense of its borders has it being depicted as an ugly rape of neighbors led by a comic book madman supposedly bent on building an empire by defending his nation from an imperial monster failing desperately by the day and threatening to destroy the world in a frenzy of trying to maintain its criminal domination of the market god religion. This while its own nation shows signs of crumbling with citizens lashing out at one another and losing faith in all aspects of what passes for leadership but reduced to blaming special villains and identity groups while pursuing decency and freedom for other and often the same villains and identity groups. The one most dangerous and unjust group, the incredibly rich who own and operate what passes for a democracy under thought control, are only just beginning to get the attention they have always deserved.

    Low election day turnouts are an American tradition but worse than ever as divisions forced on a public taught to identify as anything but a democratic majority – while paying lip service to something called “our” democracy, which amounts to slaves claiming “our” plantation – while foreign slaughter is accompanied by homeland mass murders that reduce citizens to more fear, sorrow and anger directed at everything but the systemic breakdown and focused by media on scapegoats.

    Class society is composed of all of us but we are hardly all members of the same class in a market-dominated capitalism in which rulers separate us by everything but class. Do we have testicles or vaginas? We are all human beings. Lighter skin or darker skin? We are all human beings.  But when a tiny minority among us are rich and everyone else ranges from fairly comfortable to relatively comfortable to uncomfortable to suffering severe discomfort to being ground to pulp by marketism, that defines class society, which is absolutely necessary under the market forces controlled by the rich and their servants in government, industry and media.

    American dollar democracy finds 8% of us being millionaires, multi-millionaires, billionaires, and multi billionaires. The 92% majority, of course, control everything democratically. That is the definable truth if you believe deep nose-picking is a way of performing self lobotomy or that the tooth fairy is really a gay dentist. Sadly, a minority of us, including all too many voters, might as well be stuck in such a mental trap. But a growing majority sense that something is terribly wrong and that real change is necessary for humanity and not just one or another identity group’s survival is causing greater desire than ever for substantial change in the way we organize our society. Unfortunately, that desire is still under the control of the profit-making industries of division, violence, ignorance and more division.

    It is possible to believe that a billionaire and a pauper are equal when shopping at the market, if one is among the nose picking tooth fairy faith. The rest of us must see the numbers which do not lie and get worse every day when it comes to what is called economic inequality. While that is the foundation of marketism which affords massive estates and riches so vast it takes several banks to hold them, hundreds of thousands of humans, whether possessing testicles, vaginas, or both, light skin, dark skin, or both, heterosexual, homosexual or both, do not have shelter, publicly beg for food and forage through garbage for clothing. This while millions of residents in a so-called democracy have no health care and more than a million die of a virus which is believed by some to have been created by one or another villainous force but hardly due to the capitalist market system which demands money for most of what is needed for survival while essentially telling those without enough money they can drop dead.

    While formally educated and mentally deranged manipulators of policy are using Ukraine to affect murdering Russians and using Taiwan to encourage murder of Chinese, common sense and near universal desires for global peace are impossible to find in the mass murder market dominated and controlled by minorities at growing danger to the overwhelming majority of earth’s inhabitants. The socially diseased imperial beast calling itself a force for global peace and democracy has become a raving monster desperately in need of a truly democratic force of the American people to take control before the rest of the world, led by China, Russia and the many nations fed up with a disintegrating economic, social and political environment, have to exercise control, democratic or otherwise.

    Peace is impossible while life is controlled by minority profiteers whose control of information is as menacing as its weapons making. The world outside the USA is growing restive, fed up, and beginning to tell us to bug off, as at the recent farce of an alleged meeting of Latin American countries formerly under our total domination showed. Nato countries reduced to suffering for obeying American orders to sanction Russia are being to think about banding together to sanction The USA. There has never been a greater time for real democracy in America but it won’t come about by making war on one another, which will only make the imperial situation worse. Our identity is as human beings, not sub-categories of humans with no need for food, clothing and shelter but only separate-but-allegedly-equal status slaves to a market god, and our fate is in coming together and acting as such. We need to do that in greater numbers and more quickly than ever.

    The post Market God + Private Profits = Public Loss first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Rwanda plan shows the UK only cares about white refugees

    Despite human rights concerns, it looks like flights to send refugees to Rwanda are set to go ahead. There’s been much discussion, including here at The Canary, about the legality of the plans – and as is so often the case with the courts, just because something is legal, it doesn’t mean that it’s also morally correct.

    Opposition to the Rwanda scheme has, rightly, focused on the lives it will ruin. Human rights charities, activists, and campaigners have spoken up. And it’s difficult to get away from one thing: this is about race.

    Let’s take a look at the ethnicities of the people who might be on the flight. The BBC reported on 13 June that, after legal challenges, a list of an estimated 37 people has been whittled down to 11. The report says that the charity Care4Calais suspects that the legal action:

    leaves 11 people still set to fly on Tuesday, including four Iranians, two Iraqis, two Albanians and one Syrian.

    That number at the time of publication is now seven. However, what is clear is that the treatment of Black and brown refugees is very different to that of white refugees.

    Comparison

    Half a glance at the UK’s response to Ukrainian refugees tells us a lot. First off, let’s get the obvious out of the way. The conflict in Ukraine has been horrific. There have been possible war crimes, millions of displaced Ukrainians, and the usual war profiteering. Ukrainians need full solidarity from the rest of the international community.

    The thing is, though, all kinds of support has been rushing forward. And it’s happened in a way that is very different to how the UK normally treats refugees.

    Economically, culturally, and socially, Ukraine has received the kind of support that must leave refugees from other countries in disbelief.

    The UK has excluded some Russian banks from its financial system. The European Union has banned all imports of oil from Russia that arrive by sea. The US has made it harder for Russia to repay its international loans. These economic sanctions punish Russia and make it difficult for Russia to function.

    Cultural support can be difficult to pin down, but this is not so for Ukrainian refugees. People have been putting up the Ukrainian flag in their windows. In fact, the Ukrainian flag has popped up at food stalls, in schools, all over the place. People want to show their solidarity with Ukraine, and it’s effective.

    Just this month, the Welsh men’s football team beat Ukraine to reach the World Cup. Wales’ manager Robert Page said before the game that he knew:

    most of the world want Ukraine to get through.

    Ukraine won Eurovision, and this was seen as a sign of international solidarity. As The Canary’s Eliza Egret said at the time, this flew in the face of the fact that in 2018 Israel won, and then later hosted, Eurovision. There was no such solidarity for Palestinians then – but there was solidarity for apartheid Israel.

    People have even opened up their homes to Ukrainian refugees. It’s undeniably a generous thing to do.

    Limits

    But that generosity has a limit, apparently. How many times has the government sponsored such a generous scheme for people from Yemen? Syria? Iraq? Afghanistan? I’ll save you the trouble of checking: none. None of the information from the Home Office or from charities challenging the deportation flights to Rwanda has mentioned any Ukrainian refugees. The deportation to Rwanda is for people who arrive in the UK outside of sanctioned means. Of course, that wouldn’t be Ukrainians, because the government has made sure to provide them with the structure they need to arrive in the UK safely.

    Meanwhile, Black and brown refugees are at risk of being sent to Rwanda because of white supremacy. And no, white supremacy isn’t just white people running around in Ku Klux Klan hoods and burning crosses. It’s also when existing structures make the survival of white people easier. That survival often comes at the cost of others.

    Wherever a refugee comes from – whether it’s Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, or Afghanistan – they should have safety and support. The support for Ukrainian refugees has happened in a wholehearted way. Where’s that heart for everybody else?

    It’s almost as though people in the UK don’t value and respect the lives of Black and brown people. They merely tolerate us. They don’t value us as human beings; they see us as cockroaches to keep out of the way. Ukrainian people are considered as a whole – their culture, their traditions, their communities. Black and brown people don’t get that luxury. This is because white people only consider fellow white people to have inalienable rights.

    Most refugees coming to the UK face the prospect of drowning in the English Channel or, now, being shipped off to Rwanda.

    It’s an absolute disgrace that the UK clearly has the willingness to support and house refugees – but only if they’re white.

    Featured image via Unsplash/Karollyne Hubert

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • JCB’s racist hypocrisy allows it to continue tearing down homes in Palestine

    In March 2022, British bulldozer company JCB announced that it was suspending its business in Russia. It said that it had “paused all operations, including the export of machines and spare parts” to the country.

    Now, you might think that JCB deserves congratulations for taking a stance against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, JCB’s boycott of Russia only highlights the company’s racist hypocrisy even whilst it shows this apparent empathy.

    Ethnic cleansing

    You see, for many years, campaigners have been asking JCB to do exactly the same thing for the people of Palestine, and stop supplying Israel with JCB bulldozers.

    Every year, Israeli occupation forces demolish hundreds of Palestinian homes and workplaces in the West Bank. On a daily basis, families have to gather up all of their life’s belongings and then watch as their house is torn apart by bulldozers. Children are left homeless and traumatised, having witnessed the Israeli forces’ brutality at such a vulnerable age.

    The demolition of Palestinian property is illegal under international law. But Israel’s ally governments around the world sit back and, for the most part, say nothing. The Israeli state assumes that it is untouchable in its quest to ethnically cleanse the West Bank of Palestinian people. And so it brazenly continues to bulldoze home after home, year after year.

    Making hundreds homeless in 2021

    Of course, in order to bulldoze homes, Israel needs bulldozers. One of its main suppliers is JCB. Of the major international companies supplying bulldozer or crane equipment to the Israeli occupation effort, JCB rates as one of the most complicit in Israeli war crimes.

    For the past four years, my research cooperative – Shoal Collective – has been gathering photographic evidence of every West Bank demolition in which JCB machines have been involved. Our latest statistics show that JCB backhoe loaders destroyed at least 214 structures, including 87 homes, in the West Bank in 2021. This is higher than the figure from the previous year.

    In 2021, demolitions using JCB machines directly affected 2,333 Palestinian people, and made at least 330 people homeless. JCB bulldozers tore down the homes of at least 170 children. The machines displaced more people, and made more children homeless, than in 2020.

    On top of this, JCB machines destroyed almost 4,000 trees in the West Bank in 2021.

    Digging up bodies

    In Palestine, even the dead aren’t safe from displacement. While doing our research, we found video and photographic evidence of JCB machines exhuming graves at the al-Yusufiya cemetery in Jerusalem. In late 2021, Israeli authorities, with help from Israeli forces, dug up Palestinian graves to make way for a biblically themed national park.

    At the time, footage of Palestinian mother Ola Nababta circulated on social media – she was crying as soldiers tore her from her son’s grave. A JCB backhoe loader dug up the cemetery behind her. We found evidence of JCB machines digging up the cemetery on 5 September and 26 October 2021.

    Racist hypocrisy

    Now, imagine the worldwide outrage if journalists had filmed Russian forces using JCB machines to dig up Ukrainian graves. The whole world would have demanded that the British company was held accountable. However, as we’ve seen time and time again, Palestinian lives are not deemed worthy of empathy.

    If we take a quick look at who owns JCB, it’s unsurprising that its business decisions stink of hypocrisy. JCB is a private UK company. Its owners are the affluent Bamford family, who feature on the Sunday Times Rich List with a net worth of £4.32bn. The Bamfords have donated millions to the Conservatives. Anthony Bamford is a Conservative life peer and sits under his title in the House of Lords.

    It is in keeping with their affluent Tory friends that the Bamfords cry their crocodile tears for the white people of Ukraine while trampling over the lives of brown Palestinians.

    Arrogance

    Moreover, it shows an arrogance on JCB’s part that despite international criticism, it continues to supply equipment to Israel. On 12 November 2021, the National Contact Point (NCP), a UK government body, found that JCB was in breach of its human rights responsibilities. The ruling followed a case that Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights brought to the NCP.

    On top of this, in November 2021, Amnesty International published a report giving examples of JCB demolitions in Palestine. The NGO stated that:

    JCB’s sole agent in Israel has contracts for the maintenance of JCB’s equipment with Israel’s Ministry of Defence, including for the type of bulldozer known to have been used in the extensive and ongoing demolition of Palestinian properties and the construction and expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land which are illegal under international law.

    Amnesty was finally stating what Palestinian activists and international grassroots campaigners have been arguing for years. However, even a report from the world’s most renowned human rights NGO seems to have made no difference to JCB’s stance.

    So, it’s down to all of us to hold JCB to account. It must answer for every child that its bulldozers make homeless and for every village whose water supply its machines destroy. Our empathy needs to extend to everyone facing the brunt of western imperialism, not just those that our government deems worthy.

    Featured image of a demolition in the South Hebron Hills, August 2021, via BT’selem / screenshot, resized to 770 x 403 px.

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • BJP wins Rajya Sabha poll cliffhangers

    Congress edged out in Haryana, Sena candidate loses to Maharashtra BJP

    This post was originally published on The Asian Age | Home.

  • John Minto: Exposing Israel’s horrific record in targeted killing of journalists

    COMMENTARY: By John Minto

    A detailed study of the killing of journalists released this week by Countercurrents shows that Israel leads the world in this grimmest of statistics:

    Apartheid Israel tops the ranking by “average number of journalists killed per 10 million of population per year” that yields the following order:

    Occupied Palestine, over 6.164; Syria, 4.733; Afghanistan, 2.563; Israel-Palestine, over 2.190; Somalia, 1.751; Yemen, 1.278; Iraq, 0.897; Mexico, 0.750; Colombia, 0.366; Philippines, 0.283; Pakistan, 0.152; World, 0.084; India, 0.027.

    On a per capita basis, the killing of journalists by Apartheid Israel in Occupied Palestine leads the world, and is 73.4 times greater than for the world as a whole. In contrast, India scores 3.1 times lower than the world. The present data shows that Apartheid Israel leads the world by far for killing journalists.

    Israel has a long sordid history of targeting and murdering journalists reporting on its war crimes against the Palestinian people and last month’s killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh should be seen as part of this pattern.

    Shireen’s killing hit the headlines because she had such a high profile across the Arab world and was an American citizen.

    The New Zealand government waited a week before issuing an insipid tweet calling for an independent investigation into Shireen’s killing.

    The US has also been embarrassed into claiming it is “deeply upset” about the killing — usually the US looks the other way, giving impunity to its racist, apartheid proxy in Palestine.

    Journalists in US speak up
    But journalists in the US are speaking up — even mainstream journalists are beginning to speak out. CNN, for example, has conducted its own probe into the killing and in part concluded:

    “From the strike marks on the tree it appears that the shots, one of which hit Shireen, came from down the street from the direction of the IDF troops. The relatively tight grouping of the rounds indicate Shireen was intentionally targeted with aimed shots and not the victim of random or stray fire”

    Other journalists are also trying to hold the US to account for the impunity it gives to Israeli war crimes:

    During a Summit of the Americas event last night in Los Angeles, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was questioned by journalist Abby Martin about the killing of Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

    “Secretary Blinken, what about Shireen Abu Akleh?,” asked Martin. “She was murdered by Israeli forces. CNN just agreed to this. These are our two greatest allies in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

    “They have murdered American journalists and there have been absolutely no repercussions . . . you’re sitting up here talking about the freedom of press and democracy. The United States is denying sovereignty to tens of millions of people around the world with draconian sanctions for electing leaders that you do not like.

    “Why is there no accountability for Israel or Saudi Arabia for murdering journalists?”

    “I deplore the loss of Shireen,” Blinken responded. “She was a remarkable journalist, an American citizen…We are looking for an independent, credible investigation. When that investigation happens, we will follow the facts, wherever they lead. It’s as straightforward as that.”

    Deafening silence on Assange
    Meanwhile, there has been a deafening silence from most journalists about the plight of Julian Assange who has been persecuted by the US and its allies for exposing the truth behind the US pursuit of endless wars around the globe.

    Exposing Israel’s horrific record in the targeted killing of journalists is journalism at its best. Silence about the fate of Julian Assange is journalism at its worst.

    John Minto is a political activist and commentator, and spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa. This article was first published by The Daily Blog and is republished with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Tory’s problem isn’t with ‘left-wing activist lawyers’ – it’s with the law itself

    Campaigners, charities, and a union will face the government in the High Court today. Their mission? An injunction to stop the Tory government sending refugees who arrived in the UK to Rwanda.

    They will argue that the plan, devised by home secretary Priti Patel, and backed by prime minister Boris Johnson is unlawful as well as entirely brutal.

    The Tory line, predictably, is that ‘leftie’ lawyers are interfering with a legitimate process. But the truth is, Patel and Johnson’s problem isn’t with lawyers – it’s with the rule of law itself.

    Leftie lawyers

    Patel herself previously claimed that those who oppose her plans are leftie lawyers. But this has become a default line for many on the refugee-bashing right:

    The basic argument reads like a far-right conspiracy theory: lawyers – those who represent refugees, for example – are some sort of crypto-socialist activists undermining Tory schemes, which of course are in the country’s best interest.

    The Law Gazette recently took issue with an outlandish claim by Johnson when he said:

    When you look at Labour, you see a party that voted consistently against tougher sentences for serious sexual violent offenders. The Labour opposition has consistently taken the side of, I’m afraid, left wing criminal justice lawyers against, I believe, the interests of the public.

    Classic right wing drivel, wherein it is the Conservatives (yes, the austerity people) defending the public’s interests against lefties.

    And bear in mind the deportations are opposed by the United Nations among others.

    Bold?

    The bizarre logic of the anti-refugee camp was captured in the Daily Mail recently. Where else?

    In that right wing fantasy land, the government should be applauded. The likes of Patel and Johnson are deporting refugees to a dictatorship to help them. This is a “bold, imaginative scheme” to combat the “vile” trafficking trade which brings people across the Channel to England.

    Lawyers, meanwhile, seeks “to impose their political ideology — even against the will of the British public — through the ruthless exploitation of our ramshackle legal system”, or so writes the Daily Mail:

    These ideologues care nothing for our national interests, only for the triumph of their dogma and the humiliation of the elected government.

    Culture War

    The truth is the Tories will try to fight every battle as part of the culture war. And the Rwanda scandal is no different. They want to frame any opposition to their plans as a left-wing conspiracy carried out to the detriment of the country.

    The ‘activist lawyer’ trope was also wheeled out when the Tories were legislating on behalf of British war criminals, which culminated in the Overseas Operations Bill. That legislation aimed to protect veterans of past (and future) wars from criminal investigations by victims of British foreign policy.

    Theresa May even wheeled it out in 2016, for example, at the Tory party conference in a bid to appear patriotic:

    We will never again — in any future conflict — let those activist left wing human rights lawyers harangue and harass the bravest of the brave, the men and women of our armed forces.

    Remaking the world

    The Tories are doing what any government would do with a large majority: remaking the world in their own image. The assault on desperate refugees is precisely in keeping with that. And to justify it they’ve made up an enemy. In this, and other cases, that enemy is a largely fantasised ‘activist left-wing lawyer’.

    But the truth is the Tories’ real enemy is the rule of law itself.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/UK Prime Minister, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under Open Government Licence.

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Why ‘Heartstopper’ means so much to queer viewers

    Netflix’s adaptation of Heartstopper has been confirmed for two more seasons and we–queer people–are thrilled about it. Originally a webcomic written and illustrated by Alice Oseman, the Netflix series currently has a critic rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. 

    We follow a group of queer British teens as they learn to navigate life, love, and friendship. The romance between two of these teens–Nick and Charlie–is the driving force behind the series. But, where the Netflix series deviates from the original webcomic is in its wider focus on each supporting character. Tao, Elle, Darcy, Tara and Isaac (I’m sensing an aro-ace storyline for Season 2! Editor’s note: Asexual, for those who aren’t familiar with the lingo) all feel like meaningful characters in the story. 

    As someone who works in a bookstore, I witness the latest bookish trends come and go all the time. When Netflix’s adaptation of Heartstopper hit our computer screens, I watched as what felt like hundreds of queer people ran into store to buy the books. I haven’t gone a day since its release without either a) breaking someone’s heart and telling them we are sold out or b) squealing that yes! We finally have more stock, right this way!

    As a queer person, each time I see a queer teen with a pride pin on their school bag bumble into the store, their eyes darting around until they spot the Heartstopper displays, my heart leaps. Sometimes they’re shy and nervous, other times they run in and slam their books down on the counter with glee. I vividly remember one girl who gasped and turned to me to say, “There’s so many!” and I saw my own bewildered joy mirrored in her eyes. 

    So, what is it about Heartstopper that means so much to us as queer viewers? 

    Well, one of my close friends, Luke, is slowly working his way through all the classic teen TV shows–we’re talking hits like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Vampire Diaries and Glee. I’ve come to expect late night messages from him saying: “Guess what, another queer character was killed off and/or their story was used as trauma porn?!” He is genuinely shocked when a queer character doesn’t die, or when they have complex storylines.

    We aren’t used to seeing coming-of-age narratives that feature a spectrum of queer identities and experiences. We are not used to seeing queer characters survive for the duration of a show, but we are very familiar with seeing queer pain and trauma play out on screen.

    Even TV shows like Glee, which featured some queer characters, those characters came of age through a very particular linear ‘coming out’ narrative that suggests identity “can be revealed in a single moment of truth”. 

    Journalist Gary Nunn recently wrote an article along this theme; he speaks of the “ambiguous grief” queer people may feel while watching Heartstopper. When I approached him for further thoughts, he reflected that “we wish this had been our story, and we never envisaged a day someone would tell it”. 

    Gary went on to tell me that it “stings” to realise that we, as queer people, have been taught not to “..expect […] a happy ending” for ourselves. This struck a chord with me. We are shaped by the media we consume, and the coming-of-age narratives that raised me also told me that my queerness is deviant and must be dismissed. 

    I did not go into Heartstopper with the trepidation or fear that part of me does not belong.

    When I talk with my queer friends about Heartstopper, we always come back to the same two words when we attempt to describe it; “safe” and “warm.”

    The over-representation of coming out narratives in popular media has been repeatedly interrogated by queer academics, and rightly so. However, Rowan Ellis, a queer author and public speaker, has said that the unapologetic sentimentality and fantasy of Heartstopper gives viewers “a sense of permission to romanticise a queer childhood”. 

    I connect so deeply with this show and the webcomic because I don’t have to translate a heteronormative coming-of-age narrative to fit my own experiences. My ability to relate to and escape into media has always been dependent on my ability to suppress my identity.  

    I am a white, cis-gender, able-bodied woman, so I imagine that I do not feel this as intensely as queer people of colour, trans folk and disabled people do. It’s not that I cannot relate to the straight characters on screen. But my queerness is the part of myself that I chipped away so I could enjoy movies or TV shows that simply did not acknowledge queerness, or handled it poorly. 

    In Episode 3 of Heartstopper, Nick sees Darcy and Tara kiss at a birthday party. The music swells, rainbow lighting strobes, and confetti rains down. Each time myself and my friend Erin watch this scene, we tell ourselves that, “This time, this time, we will not cry.” But we always do. 

    Tara and Darcy. Picture: Netflix/Rob Youngson.

    Tara and Darcy at the party. Picture: Netflix/Rob Youngson.

    It feels almost indulgent, after seeing such limited positive sapphic representation, to have two girls kissing on screen in a moment of undeniable joy. The sentimental awe that spreads across Nick’s face in this moment, the over-the-top imagery, Darcy and Tara’s grins, all harmonise in such a way that celebrates queerness.

    At the beginning of this same episode, Nick is sitting alone in his room and staring at the results of the ‘Am I Gay?’ quiz he just took on his laptop. We all take different quizzes, we all get different results and respond uniquely to those results. But any queer person with internet access would likely tell you they felt that moment deep in their blood and marrow. To see this moment represented in a coming-of-age narrative was validating, even though it’s been many years since I took one of those quizzes. 

    The catharsis of seeing Nick’s journey over the course of the show isn’t as escapist as the party scene, but it’s equally as valuable. Rowan Ellis, again, says, “We have this great sense that coming out doesn’t have to be this definitive one time certainty.” In a coming-of-age narrative, it is crucial that queer kids understand that their queerness does not have to be finite or fixed.

    Each time I rewatch Heartstopper, I feel like I come of age again and again. I learn from Nick, Charlie and their friends, the varied ways I can take up space as a queer person, the ways I can inhabit my queer body.

    Something as simple as seeing a group of young queer teens eat lunch together at school changed how I perceived my queerness. It simply ‘is’. 

    The gang at the arcade. Picture: Netflix

    The gang at the arcade. Picture: Netflix

    That we also have a host of other queer characters with their own backstories and relationships to one another is probably my favourite thing about the show. Seeing a piece of media affirm that queerness is not a monolith, that there are many identities and ways to be queer, was cathartic for me.

    Heartstopper is not the be-all and end-all of queer teen media; it feels like a new beginning. It does not claim to encompass every queer experience and every queer identity. But this coming-of-age story has given me more hope for the future of queer teen television than I ever thought possible.

     

    • Feature image at top: Heartstopper, Season 1, Episode 8. Nick and Charlie at the beach. Photo: Netflix 

    The post Why ‘Heartstopper’ means so much to queer viewers appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • It’s Showtime in Ukraine!

    Let our bleeding proxy negotiate a settlement, NOW.

    Since early January, the corporate media have been proving their loyalty and their usefulness to the US foreign policy establishment. With faultless show-business efficiency, they manufactured an international political superstar, at least in Europe and the English speaking world. Vladimir Zelensky appeared on media screens, seemingly everywhere, including a turn on the 2022 Grammy Awards extravaganza.

    Sad but resolute Ukrainian refugees became fodder for a blend of news and entertainment that firmly established, in our hearts and minds, who were the Good Guys and who were the Evil Monsters.

    And we were encouraged to see that, sooner or later, the Ukrainian Good Guys were going to prevail over the brutal Russian fiends.

    But lately there have been some tiny cracks in the wall of totalitarian perception management. And now ….

    It’s time. It’s time to recognize the reality. It’s time for our bleeding proxy-warrior Ukraine to negotiate with Russia, in good faith, before it loses everything.

    Right off the bat, many readers will exclaim, “You can’t negotiate with Russia! The Russians are guilty of unprovoked and unjustified aggression.”

    Unprovoked and unjustified. Like an ancient Greek theatrical chorus, the corporate media have repeated that line until, now, it’s stuck permanently in our synapses. An ear worm, like a catchy melody.

    I’d ask those media-addled opponents of diplomacy to imagine, just for a moment, a hypothetical situation: First, make sure you have a complete grasp of the drama’s exposition, the entire, contrived, set of circumstances which the President of Russia was facing on February 24, 2022.

    Remember that the clever script writers of the US foreign policy elite had employed their best calculated, cold-blooded cunning to devise the perfect diplomatic double-bind for the drama’s Russian villain. (And, of course, they had choreographed their NATO dance line, to give their “diplomacy” the illusion of legitimacy.)

    Now, ask yourself whether any American President, facing a comparable dramatic conflict, would have acted differently?

    Or pretend, for a moment, that Winston Churchill, hero of numerous epic films, is, through the magic of your imagination, the President of the Russian Federation. Do you have any doubt that Churchill would have stoutly refused to bow down and appease the US/NATO leadership arrayed against him?

    Azov Battalion fighters with Nazi flag (WikiCommons)

    A second consideration, on the subject of Russia’s trustworthiness as a negotiating partner: The Western powers and their media mouthpieces have contemptuously dismissed Russia’s stated goal of de-Nazifying Ukraine. Western propaganda would have us believe that there is no serious neo-Nazi, ultra-nationalist threat whatsoever in Ukraine.

    To the contrary, a little research reveals that the threat is very real. I’m talking about ferocious, far-right fanatics, who are heavily armed, highly trained, strongly motivated and fiercely disciplined. Their electoral base is small, but that doesn’t matter. In the media-fiction of Ukrainian democracy, with oligarchs pulling many of the strings, the ability to mobilize real-life violence is a powerful tool.

    And we should remember that the US and NATO have been deeply involved in arming and training these forces, since 2014, making them an even more formidable part of Ukraine’s governing power structure. This arming and training took place off-stage, to be played out for an audience only when the time was right — when Russian tanks crossed the Belarus-Ukraine border, and the well-rehearsed Ukrainian military was unleashed, causing awesome, real-world damage and death.

    Not every Ukrainian soldier is a neo-Nazi or a hard-right ethnic cleanser. But I believe it’s fair to say that those elements are the spine of the Ukrainian military. Without them, I doubt that the media-touted under-dog’s esprit de corps would be nearly as robust.

    Let’s do an exercise in make-believe. Take the insurgents who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. As a theatrical event, the staging was a mess. It barely deserved to be called a riot. But that mob of actors was not lacking in motivation. Or raw talent. They clearly believed that their dramatic enactment was real. We in the audience were mesmerized and then relieved, when the play came to a sputtering end.

    Now, picture the actors in that mob again. The Justice Department estimates their number to have been between 2,000 and 2,500. In your mind’s eye, multiply them by twenty-five (40,000 to 50,000).

    Now, arm them. Train them hard. Organize them into squads, platoons, companies, battalions and brigades. Enforce strict discipline. Motivate them with a continued sense of ethnic superiority.

    This little exercise of the dramatist’s imagination, “based upon” our home-grown January 6, should give you some idea of the ultra-right’s strength and influence within the Ukraine power structure.1

    The Russians are very serious about confronting Nazis and ethnic supremacists in that country which sits right on their border. In Vladimir Putin’s February 21st speech to the Russian people, he was not using Ukrainian neo-Nazis as a flimsy pretext in a cheap melodrama.

    The people of Ukraine don’t need any more media spot-lighting. Their plight doesn’t need more daily dramatizing presented as “news.” Ukrainian civilians need a permanent cease-fire. So let the talks begin. And please, remember: We are in no position to judge the sincerity of Russian negotiators, in potential talks, aimed at a peaceful settlement of this bloody conflict. In the fog of war, you never know what might happen until the diplomatic actors take the stage and begin their dialogue. The old cliche applies: You never know until you try.

    The real blockage to peace talks is a triumphalist and misguided NATO and its Godfather in Washington. The US and NATO are going for broke. They are demanding that Ukraine fight on, bleeding and dying, until the US, NATO and their proxy achieve a decisive victory over Russian forces.

    Furthermore, if Zelensky and his foreign policy team decide to negotiate, before they lose even more territory, they risk the wrath of the neo-Nazi, ultra-nationalists who permeate their military and police forces. They will not survive without the Godfather’s protection.

    (See this article in the Kyiv Post, about veteran Ukrainian Donbas fighters confronting Zelensky, warning him, in 2019, NOT to seek peace in the Donbas. This dramatic verbal clash occurred just after his landslide election victory, playing the rôle of “peace candidate.”)

    It’s time. It’s time for President Biden to assume the rôle of statesman. His NATO minions cannot object if Biden tells the government and the people of Ukraine that more billions of dollars worth of weapons will not secure a final battlefield victory over the Russians. Ukraine’s railroads, which are the means of delivering those weapons to frontline fighters, have been severely damaged by Russian air and missile strikes. And the less effective means of transport, heavy trucks, face the obstacle of damaged roads and many destroyed bridges. And finally, as the war grinds on in the Donbas theatre, Ukraine will have fewer and fewer seasoned soldiers to operate the new, more complicated weapons.

    Unless Biden steps in, Ukrainians face, at best, a long, bloody stalemate, which Russia is better prepared to endure. (So far, Russia’s leaders have not called for a nation-wide, general mobilization.) Total victory for Ukraine is a cruel pipe-dream.

    Biden must come clean with Americans and Ukrainians. The two real geopolitical combatants in this war are Russia and the United States. Ukraine is the USA’s tragic, foolish proxy — our poorly prepared understudy. That’s not stage blood we’re seeing on MSNB-CNN. Ukrainians are bleeding and dying while Biden & Co. prolong the agony in a vicious quest to punish and weaken Russia.

    That is no way to ensure future peace. Talk. Now.

    1. From a report on hard right activity in Ukraine since 2014, from FreedomHouse.org:

      … [C]urrent polling data indicates that the far right has no real chance of being elected in the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections in 2019. Similarly, despite the fact that several of these groups have real life combat experience, paramilitary structures, and even access to arms, they are not ready or able to challenge the state.
      Extremist groups are, however, aggressively trying to impose their agenda on Ukrainian society, including by using force against those with opposite political and cultural views. They are a real physical threat to left-wing, feminist, liberal, and LGBT activists, human rights defenders, as well as ethnic and religious minorities.
      In the last few months, extremist groups have become increasingly active. The most disturbing element of their recent show of force is that so far it has gone fully unpunished by the authorities. Their activities challenge the legitimacy of the state, undermine its democratic institutions, and discredit the country’s law enforcement agencies.

      Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights.

    The post It’s Showtime in Ukraine! first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Squelching dissent on both sides of the Atlantic

    The current repression of dissent in Germany is startlingly similar to that in North America. In 2019 as the virus started to spread, the government ordered drastic measures against it. Several distinguished doctors and professors, including an MD who was a former member of parliament, asked the government for evidence and explanations justifying these measures. When they were ignored, they called a rally and gave speeches again asking the government for answers. The government ignored this too, but their press launched a smear campaign labeling these people as unscientific and incompetent. When several current members of parliament spoke out against the mandates, they were defamed and isolated.

    The government forced the mandates through, and as the effects of these turned out to be more damaging than the virus, large-scale protests broke out. Politicians warned of the danger to our democracy from right-wing fanatics whom they claimed had taken over the protests. To defend democracy by disrupting the rallies, groups of Antifa tried to drown out speakers by shouting, “Halt die Fresse!” – “Shut your mouth!” Of course, the real danger to democracy comes from trying to silence or exclude anyone, right or left.

    Establishment media refused to publish reports of severe side effects from the vaccines. A government statistician who gave evidence that the mandates and vaccines were ineffective and harmful was removed from duty, as were police officers who took part in peaceful rallies. Professors who spoke at demonstrations were shunned by their colleagues and passed over for promotion. Doctors who certified that their patients didn’t need to wear masks were suspended from practice. Some careers were destroyed, many damaged.

    People were stunned by the savagery of the response to their demand for more public input into virus policies. They discussed possible reasons for the government’s attack. Conspiracy theories began to circulate, some of them quite wild.

    The government broadened its attack. The press was full of interviews with psychiatrists discussing the dangerous psycho-pathology of conspiracy theorists. Wherever vaguely possible, parallels were drawn to Nazi Germany. Aged Holocaust victims were interviewed about their trauma caused by such people. One victim, though, Vera Sharav, made a video saying the government was behaving like the Nazis, but her statement was ignored by the mainstream and appeared only in the alternative media.

    Rationality disappeared from public discourse. A seething polarization began to spread. The government recognized a growing threat of losing its hold on the people.

    It cut back on testing. The “pandemic” faded. Russia invaded the Ukraine. A new enemy replaced the “killer virus” as a focus for fear.

    The government’s campaign of forced lockdowns, masks, vaccines, and repression has unnecessarily and massively damaged millions of people, far more than what the virus has done. But on the positive side it has also turned millions of people against the government, a prerequisite for real change. The next step is ours.

    The post Squelching dissent on both sides of the Atlantic first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Guns Fly Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

    Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. Guns don’t kill people; crazy people kill people. Guns don’t kill people; transsexual leftist illegal aliens kill people. Guns don’t kill people; not enough guns kill people. Guns don’t kill people; too many doors kill people.

    Or maybe try this one for a while: The only thing that stops a crazy guy with a gun is a less crazy guy with a gun.

    “We need to drastically change our approach to mental health. There are always so many warning signs. Almost all of these disfigured minds share the same profile,” said Trump to the NRA throng shortly after the Uvaldo murders. “And clearly we need to make it far easier to confine the violent and mentally deranged into mental institutions,” he added.

    Yeah, that’s the ticket; crazy people without guns on the inside, sane people with 400 million guns on the outside.

    So, what is that commonly shared profile of the disfigured mind? What are some of the many warning signs? How about starting with this: It’s a male (98%). It’s a young male (66% of school shooters are less than 18 years old). With that knowledge, if you’re trying to spot likely school shooters, you can pretty much eliminate females and men with grey hair. That leaves just about all males below the age of about 22 as potential mass-murderers. But it still presents a large search base; what if you added this to the profile: It’s a male who has acquired, or is attempting to acquire an assault weapon. Wouldn’t that shrink the threat pool appreciably? And if you wished to widen the scope to include mass-murder threats to the community at large, you could simply expand the age range to include the grey hairs (Stephan Paddock was 64).

    To borrow from an old political slogan, “It’s the guns, stupid!” What bigger or more meaningful warning sign could there be? Assault weapons are designed to assault (kill) a large number of human beings in a short amount of time. What’s the likely mind-set of a person (regardless of age) who is fascinated with that potential? Are they healthy and well adjusted? If you purchase a car (like a BMW M8) that can travel 150 mph, you are surely fascinated with the prospect of traveling at unlawful speeds. If you purchase a gun that can kill 58 people in 10 minutes, you are surely fascinated with the prospect of having the power to kill a lot of people in a very short time. Doesn’t the mere desire to possess such a weapon already indicate that you probably shouldn’t have one? Could there be a clearer warning sign that a “disfigured mind” is on the prowl?

    “Harden the schools,” seems to be this episode’s NRA backed deflectional talking point. On cue, Texas Senator Ted Cruz suggested eliminating all school doors except one, replacing all window panes with bullet proof glass, and installing metal detectors with armed surveillance at each school’s one remaining door. So, picture it, every academic school, high school, junior high school, middle school, elementary school, and pre-school in the U.S. overhauled and hardened accordingly. Now picture a thousand high school kids lined up every morning (rain or shine) with belts, coins, phones, etc. removed (like at the airport) waiting patiently to enter the one and only door to pass through a metal detector. Can you also picture that “disfigured mind” inside his car in the school parking lot, armed with an assault rifle and a handgun, viewing that line? Or, can you imagine all the students now inside, and a gunman (or more than one) breeching security at the only door and then barricading (and perhaps guarding) it from the inside? How many lives could be taken while the local police force desperately seeks entrance through bullet proof glass and that one barricaded door? Just a few? More than a few? Does it even matter how many?

    How about football, baseball, soccer games, etc.? Will they now take place inside the safely hardened schools? And will our schools just be first in line for the great hardening? Will other institutions be incrementally added as we play whack-a-mole with the “disfigured minds” that are just sane enough to seek out the weak spots?

    It’s such a crazy, stupid, and idiotic proposal for even Ted Cruz to make. How can he, the NRA, or rational congress members make it with a straight face – millions or billions of dollars spent to futilely “harden” schools rather than addressing the real issue? “It’s the guns, stupid!” It’s the endless proliferation of assault weapons and handguns. Addressing anything other than that is pretense of action, and it doesn’t matter how many prayers or moments of silence are offered up with it.

    “Confine the violent and mentally deranged into mental institutions,” the former president suggested. Perhaps we already have. Perhaps we are in it! Doesn’t our country now resemble a mental institution – one whose inmates have taken over the asylum? Loosen the laws; harden the schools; put more guns on the street; lock up the crazy people. Do the Trump’s, the Abbot’s, or the Cruz’s sound like our healthy therapists, or do they sound like us, the deranged inmates? We are there, on the inside with them. Aren’t we now living-out that famous definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? After every shooting we’re shocked and demoralized, offering up and accepting the same platitudes while fervently demanding change. Then we elect another Cruz, or another Abbot, or another Greene, or another whoever with the same affiliations, the same ties to the arms community. Nothing will change until we stop doing the same thing over and over again.

    He’s taken a lot of flak. Pete Arredondo, the chief of police for the Uvaldo School District has received a lot of scrutiny and a lot of blame for decisions made as the Uvaldo School shooting unfolded. In retrospect, it seems clear that his judgment was questionable. It seems clear that he didn’t follow current advised protocol. Here’s the thing, though: Arredondo was acting in real time as events unfolded. He may have responded poorly, but he didn’t know ahead of time the repercussions of his response. Governor Abbot, on the other hand, knew what the repercussions would be when he championed and signed into law the many bills that either eased or eliminated gun restrictions in Texas. He knew in advance that his actions would result in more gun related deaths for children and adults. He knew that blood and brain tissue would be splattered on school floors and neighborhood sidewalks. It was a conscious and deliberate decision; more deaths in schools and on the streets were deemed a tolerable trade-off to maintain political power. Unlike Pete Arredondo, Governor Abbot knew exactly what the repercussions would be, and he did it anyway. And here’s the other thing: we voted for Governor Abbot and others like him. We knew exactly what the repercussions would be, and we did anyway. We’ve done it over and over again, all across the nation.

    Is the one who pulls the trigger crazier, guiltier, or more murderous than one who knowingly puts the gun in his hands? When our former president says that the shooter “will be eternally damned to burn in the fires of Hell,” will he and all of us who knowingly put the gun in a shooter’s hands be damned to burn in Hell with him? Does Hell have that much room?

    It’s not just the mentally deranged shooters, and it’s not just the mentally deranged politicians, and it’s not just the mentally deranged arms merchants. It’s also us, the mentally deranged public. We’re all guilty because we make it happen. It couldn’t happen without the consent of us, the wishfully sane people. We like our guns and the feeling they give us. We’ve bought into the hype that the purveyors put out and we won’t let it go. We like the feeling of power, the feeling of safety, the feeling of purpose that our guns provide. We like that feeling so much that we’re willing to allow the death and mutilation of our neighbor’s children just to feel it again. It’s us; we are the murderers, over and over again. We have met the murderers and they are us.

    Nothing meaningful will change, until we change meaningfully.

    The post Guns Fly Over the Cuckoo’s Nest first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Let’s remember all victims of Israeli apartheid, not just the prominent ones

    You probably heard about the Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) murdered on 11 May. She was killed by a bullet to the head. But you may not have heard about the lesser-known journalist Ghofran Warasnah, who the IOF also killed on 1 June. They shot her in the chest, and reports state that the Israeli occupation prevented paramedics from getting to her for twenty minutes.

    The IOF targeted Shireen’s funeral, sparking some rare international outrage about Israel’s callous brutality. However, when they also attacked Ghofran’s funeral procession, there was no outcry in the mainstream media.

    It is unsurprising that the IOF stated that Ghofran was carrying a knife. The occupation thinks nothing of saying that the people it murders were armed or carrying out some sort of attack, without providing evidence. The Israeli state makes up truths as it goes along. And its ally countries are all too willing to let it get away with it. Ghofran is a perfect example of this.

    Ghofran’s brother Mohammed said of Israel’s claims:

    They try to downplay their crimes [with these claims] to save their reputation to the outside world.

    Ghofran was on her way to work as a news journalist at Dream Radio in Hebron. Her employer Talab Jaabari said:

    Ghofran had applied for a job as a news presenter at our radio two weeks ago.

    Jaabari continued:

    She went through some qualification tests and was hired and today [Wednesday] was her first day of work. We were waiting for her to be the first to go on air as our new voice, but instead we received the news of her killing.

    Ghofran’s brother told Middle East Eye that she had prepared her first news report for the radio station. The subject of the report, ironically, was Shireen’s murder.

    Let’s remember all victims of Israeli apartheid

    Shireen’s murder made headlines around the world for a few reasons: firstly, because she was a prominent journalist for a mainstream media outlet. She had worked for Al Jazeera for 25 years. Secondly, she was not just a Palestinian citizen – she was also an American citizen.

    Although the international mainstream media extensively covered her murder, Shireen’s reputation didn’t prevent them from reporting with bias. Outlets like the BBC stated that Shireen’s coffin was “jostled” and that “Israeli police and Palestinians clashed”. This played down the fact that Israeli forces attacked her funeral.

    This kind of reporting is, of course, deliberate. And it’s something that the BBC and others have been doing for decades. Biased journalism serves the Israeli state very well: the occupier doesn’t ever have to answer for its crimes.

    Ghofran, on the other hand, didn’t have the international credibility for governments or media outlets to deem her a journalist worthy of mourning. There were no big news headlines for her.

    She is just one of four people who the occupation murdered within 24 hours of each other. Bilal Kabaha was also murdered on 1 June. According to Middle East Eye, Israeli snipers were positioned on rooftops while the occupation carried out a punitive demolition of a house. Bilal was one of many who turned up to resist the raid on his village. Israeli forces also delayed an ambulance from getting to him.

    Meanwhile, on 2 June the IOF murdered Ayman Muhaisen in Dheisheh Refugee Camp. Dheisheh camp is constantly raided by the IOF. His murder leaves three children – aged one, three and five – without a father.

    Hours later, the IOF murdered 16-year-old Odeh Sadaqa close to the apartheid wall. He was shot in the back, and the bullet went through his heart and exited through his chest.

    Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) released a statement after Odeh’s murder. The organisation said:

    Under international law, intentional lethal force is only justified in circumstances where a direct threat to life or of serious injury is present. However, investigations and evidence collected by DCIP regularly suggest that Israeli forces use lethal force against Palestinian children in circumstances that may amount to extrajudicial or wilful killings.

    Odeh is the 14th Palestinian child shot and killed by Israeli forces in 2022, according to documentation collected by DCIP.

    DCIP continued:

    2021 was the deadliest year for Palestinian children since 2014. Israeli forces and armed civilians killed 78 Palestinian children, according to evidence collected by DCIP.

    And let’s remember all the prisoners, too

    While we mourn all our Palestinian comrades murdered in cold blood, we must also remember those who are locked up in Israeli prisons. Addameer, the prisoner support and human rights association in Palestine, states that there are currently 4650 political prisoners, including 170 child prisoners.

    Of the 4650 prisoners is 40-year-old father Khalil Awawdeh, who is in critical condition after 96 days of hunger strike. Another prisoner on hunger strike, Ra’ed Rayan, has refused food for 61 days. Israeli forces are refusing hospital treatment for both prisoners.

    Meanwhile, Israel is detaining some 490 Palestinian people pre-trial. And the majority of them are continuing a boycott of the judicial system. Since January, they have been taking part in civil disobedience by organising sit-ins in prison yards.

    We need to shout out loud as we mourn for Ghofran and everyone else the IOF has murdered. And we also need to amplify the voices of those on hunger strike in the prisons. Generations after us will look back and ask us what we did to prevent Israeli apartheid. It’s on all of us to see through the propaganda and see Israel for what it really is: a murderous apartheid state. And it’s on all of us to act to stop it from killing more Palestinian people.

    Featured image of Ghofran Warasnah via Wafa news agency

    By Eliza Egret

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Yamin Kogoya: Fatal disconnect between Jakarta and West Papua worsens settler-colonial occupation

    COMMENTARY: By Yamin Kogoya

    A flurry of peaceful rallies and protests erupted in West Papua and Indonesia on Friday, June 3.

    Papuan People’s Petition (PRP), the National Committee for West Papua (Komite Nasional Papua Barat-KNPB) and civil society groups and youth from West Papua marched in protest of Jakarta’s plan to create more provinces.

    Thousands of protesters marched through the major cities and towns in each of West Papua’s seven regions, including Jayapura, Wamena, Paniai, Sorong, Timika/Mimika, Yahukimo, Lanny Jaya, Nabire, and Merauke.

    As part of the massive demonstration, protests were organised in Indonesia’s major cities of West Java, Central Jakarta, Jogjakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya, and Bali.

    Demonstrators said Papuans wanted an independence referendum, not new provinces or special autonomy.

    According to Markus Haluk, one of the key coordinators of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), almost all Papuans took to the streets to show Jakarta and those who want to wipe out the Papuan people that they do not need special autonomy or new provinces.

    Above is a text image that captures the spirit of the demonstrators. A young man is shown being beaten on the head and blood running down his face during a demonstration in Jayapura city of Papua on Friday.

    The text urges Indonesia’s president Jokowi to be tagged on social media networks and calls for solidarity action.

    Numerous protesters were arrested and beaten by Indonesian police during the demonstration.

    Security forces brutalised demonstrators in the cities of Sorong, Jayapura, Yahukimo, Merauke, and elsewhere where demonstrations were held.

    An elderly mother is seen been beaten on the head during the demonstration in Sorong. Tweet: West Papua Sun

    People who are beaten and arrested are treated inhumanely and are not followed up with proper care, nor justice, in one of Asia-Pacific’s most heavily militarised areas.

    Among those injured in Sorong, these people have been named Aves Susim (25), Sriyani Wanene (30), Mama Rita Tenau (50), Betty Kosamah (22), Agus Edoway (25), Kamat (27), Subi Taplo (23), Amanda Yumte (23), Jack Asmuru (20), and Sonya Korain (22).

    Root of the protests in the 1960s
    The protests and rallies are not merely random riots, or protests against government corruption or even pay raises. The campaign is part of decades-old protests that have been carried out against what the Papuans consider to be an Indonesian invasion since the 1960s.

    The Indonesian government claims West Papua’s fate was sealed with Indonesia after a United Nations-organised 1969 referendum, known as the Pepera or Act of Free Choice, something Papuans consider a sham and an Act of No Choice.

    In spite of Indonesia’s claim, the Indonesian invasion of West Papua began in 1963, long before the so-called Act of Free Choice in 1969.

    It was well documented that the 1025 Papuan elders who voted for Indonesian occupancy in 1969 were handpicked at gunpoint.

    In the six years between 1963 and 1969, Indonesian security forces tortured and beat these elders into submission before the vote in 1969 began.

    Friday’s protesters were not merely protesting against Jakarta’s draconian policy of drawing yet another arbitrary line through Papuan ancestral territory, but also against Indonesia’s illegal occupation.

    The Papuans accuse Jakarta of imposing laws, policies, and programmes that affect Papuans living in West Papua, while it is illegally occupying the territory.

    Papuans will protest indefinitely until the root cause is addressed. On the other hand, the Indonesian government seems to care little about what the Papuans actually want or think.

    Markus Haluk said Indonesia did not view Papuans as human beings equal to that of Indonesians, and this mades them believe that what Papuans want and think, or how Jakarta’s policy may affect Papuans, had no value.

    Jakarta, he continued, will do whatever it wants, however, it wishes, and whenever it wishes in regard to West Papua.
    In light of this sharp perceptual contrast, the relationship between Papuans and the Indonesian government has almost reached a dead end.

    Fatal disconnect
    The Lowy Institute, Australia’s leading think-tank, published an article entitled What is at stake with new provinces in West Papua? on 28 April 2022 that identifies some of the most critical terminology regarding this dead-end protracted conflict — one of which is “fatal disconnect”.

    The conclusion of the article stated, “On a general level, this means that there is a fatal disconnect between how the Indonesian government view their treatment of the region, and how the people actually affected by such treatment see the arrangement.”

    It is this fatal disconnect that has brought these two states — Papua and Indonesia — to a point of no return. Two states are engaged in a relationship that has been disconnected since the very beginning, which has led to so many fatalities.

    The author of the article, Eduard Lazarus, a Jakarta-based journalist and editor covering media and social movements, wrote:

    That so many indigenous West Papuans expressed their disdain against renewing the Special Autonomy status … is a sign that something has gone horribly wrong.

    The tragedy of this irreconcilable relationship is that Jakarta does not reflect on its actions and is willfully ignorant of how its rhetoric and behaviour in dealing with West Papua has caused such human tragedy and devastation spanning generations.

    The way that Jakarta’s leaders talk about their “rescue” plans for West Papua displays this fatal disconnect.

    Indonesian Vice-President’s plans for West Papua

    Indonesia’s Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin
    Indonesia’s Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin. Image: File

    KOMPAS.com reported on June 2 that Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin had asked Indonesian security forces to use a “humanist approach” in Papua rather than violence.

    Ma’ruf expressed this view also in a virtual speech made at the Declaration of Papua Peace event organised by the Papuan Indigenous Peoples Institute on June 6.

    In a press release, Ma’ruf said he had instructed the combined military and police officials to use a humanist approach, prioritise dialogical efforts, and refrain from violence.

    Ma’ruf believes that conducive security conditions are essential to Papua’s development, and that the government aims to promote peace and unity in Papua through various policies and regulations.

    The Papua Special Autonomy Law, he continued, regulates the transfer of power from provinces to regencies and cities, as well as increasing the percentage of Papua Special Autonomy Funds transferred to 2.25 percent of the National General Allocation Fund.

    Additionally, according to the Vice-President, the government is drafting a presidential regulation regarding a Papuan Development Acceleration Master Plan (RIPPP) and establishing the Papuan Special Autonomy Development Acceleration Steering Agency (BP3OKP) directly headed by Ma’ruf himself.

    He also underscored the importance of a collaboration between all parties, including indigenous Papuans. Ma’ruf believes that Papua’s development will speed up soon since the traditional leaders and all members of the Indigenous Papuan Council are willing to work together and actively participate in building the Land of Papua.

    Indonesia’s new military commander

    General Andika Perkasa
    General Andika Perkasa. Image: File

    Recently, Indonesia’s newly appointed Commander of Armed Forces, General Andika Perkasa, proposed a novel, humanistic approach to handling political conflict in West Papua.

    Instead of removing armed combatants with gunfire, he has vowed to use “territorial development operations” to resolve the conflict. In these operations, personnel will conduct medical, educational, and infrastructure-building missions to establish a rapport with Papuan communities in an effort to steer them away from the independence movement.

    In order to accomplish Perkasa’s plans, the military will have to station a large number of troops in West Papua in addition to the troops currently present.

    When listening to these two countries’ top leaders, they appear full of optimism in the words and new plans they describe.

    But the reality behind these words is something else entirely. There is, as concluded by Eduard Lazarus, a fatal disconnect between West Papuan and Jakarta’s policymakers, but Jakarta is unable to recognise it.

    Jakarta seems to suffer from cognitive dissonance or cognitive disconnect when dealing with West Papua — a lack of harmony between its heart, words, and actions.

    Cognitive dissonance is, by definition, a behavioural dysfunction with inconsistency in which the personal beliefs held, what has been said, and what has been done contradict each other.

    Yunus Wonda
    Vice-chair of Papuan People’s Representative Council Yunus Wonda. Image: File

    This contradiction, according to Yunus Wonda, deputy chair of the Papuan People’s Representative Council, occurs when the government changes the law and modifies and amends it as they see fit.

    What is written, what is practised, and what is in the heart do not match. Papuans suffer greatly because of this, according to Yunus Wonda.

    Mismanagement of a fatalistic nature
    Jakarta continues to mismanage West Papua with fatalistic inconsistent policies, which, according to the article, “might already have soured” to an irreparable degree.

    The humanist approach now appears to be another code in Indonesia’s gift package, delivered to the Papuans as a Trojan horse.

    The words of Indonesia’s Vice-President and the head of its Armed Forces are like a band aid with a different colour trying to cover an old wound that has barely healed.

    According to Wonda, the creation of new provinces is like trying to put the smoke out while the fire is still burning.

    Jakarta had already tried to bandage those old wounds with the so-called “Special Autonomy” 20 years ago. The Autonomy gift was granted not out of goodwill, but out of fear of Papuan demands for independence.

    However, Jakarta ended up making a big mess of it.

    The same rhetoric is also seen here in the statement of the Vice-President. Even though the semantic choices and construction themselves seem so appealing, this language does not translate into reality in the field.

    This is the problem — something has gone very wrong, and Jakarta isn’t willing to find out what it is. Instead, it keeps imposing its will on West Papua.

    Jakarta keeps preaching the gospel of development, prosperity, peace, and security but does not ask what Papuans want.

    The 2001 Special Autonomy Law was supposed to allow Papuans to have greater power over their fate, which included 79 articles designed to protect their land and culture.

    Furthermore, under this law, one important institution, the Papuan People’s Assembly (Majelis Rakyat Papua-MRP), together with provincial governments and the Papuan People’s Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Papua-DPRP), was given the authority to deal with matters that are most important to them, such as land, population control, cultural identity, and symbols.

    Section B of the introduction part of the Special Autonomy law contains the following significant provisions:

    That the Papua community is God’s creation and is a part of a civilised people, who hold high human rights, religious values, democracy, law and cultural values in the adat (customary) law community and who have the right to fairly enjoy the results of development.

    Three weeks after these words were written into law, popular independence leader Theys H. Eluay was killed by Indonesian special forces (Kopassus). Ryamizard Ryacudu, then-army chief-of-staff, who in 2014 became Jokowi’s first Defence Minister, later called the killers “heroes” (Tempo.co, August 19, 2003).

    In 2003, the Megawati Soekarnoputri government divided the province into two, violating a provision of the Special Autonomy Law, which was based on the idea that Papua remains a single territory. As prescribed by law, any division would need to be approved by the Papuan provincial legislature and MRP.

    Over the 20 years since the Autonomy gift was granted, Jakarta has violated and undermined any legal and political framework it agreed to or established to engage with Papuans.

    Governor Lukas Enembe
    Governor Lukas Enembe … not enough resources to run the five new provinces being created in West Papua. Image: West Papua Today

    Papuan Indigenous leaders reject Jakarta’s band aid
    On May 27, Governor Lukas Enembe of the settler province of Papua, told Reuters there were not enough resources to run new provinces and that Papuans were not properly consulted.

    As the governor, direct representative of the central government, Enembe was not even consulted about the creation of new provinces.

    Yunus Wonda and Timotius Murid, two Indigenous Papuan leaders entrusted to safeguard the Papuan people and their culture and customary land under two important institutions — the Papuan People’s Assembly (Majelis Rakyat Papua-MRP) and People’s Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Papua-DPRP) — were not consulted about the plans.

    Making matters worse, Jakarta stripped them of any powers they had under the previous autonomous status, which set the precedent for Jakarta to amend the previous autonomous status law in 2021.

    This amendment enables Jakarta to create new provinces.

    The aspirations and wishes of the Papuan people were supposed to be channelled through these two institutions and the provincial government, but Jakarta promptly shut down all avenues that would enable Papuans to have their voices heard.

    Governor Enembe faces constant threats, terrorism
    Governor Enembe has also been terrorised and intimidated by unknown parties over the past couple of years. He said, “I am an elected governor of Indonesia, but I am facing these constant threats and terror. What about my people? They are not safe.”

    This is an existential war between the state of Papua and the state of Indonesia. We need to ask not only what is at stake with the new provinces in West Papua, but also, what is at stake in West Papua under Indonesia’s settler-colonial rule?

    Four critical existential issues facing West Papua
    There are four main components of Papuan culture at stake in West Papua under Indonesia’s settler-colonial rule:

    1. Papuan humans
    2. Papuan languages
    3. Papuan oral cultural knowledge system
    4. Papuan ancestral land and ecology

    Papua’s identity was supposed to be protected by the Special Autonomy Law 2001.

    However, Jakarta has shown no interest or intention in protecting these four existential components. Indonesia continues to amend, create, and pass laws to create more settler-colonial provincial spaces that threaten Papuans.

    The end goal isn’t to provide welfare to Papuans or protect them, but to create settlers’ colonial areas so that new settlers — whether it be soldiers, criminal thugs, opportunists, poor improvised Indonesian immigrants, or colonial administrators — can fill those new spaces.

    Jakarta is, unfortunately, turning these newly created spaces into new battlegrounds between clans, tribes, highlanders, coastal people, Papua province, West Papua province, families, and friends, as well as between Papuans and immigrants.

    Media outlets in Indonesia are manipulating public opinion by portraying one leader as a proponent of Jakarta’s plan and the other as its opponent, further fuelling tension between leaders in Papua.

    Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.