I just had to share this absolutely fantastic effort from Steve Braunias, it is long but it tells it as it is... and over the holidays you should make time to read and consider the irony of our age. Have a happy Christmas and New Year.
Steve Braunias: 2016 - the way we were
New Zealand Herald
Every
single time I shop at my local dairy, the owner asks, "Busy day?"
Sometimes it's a statement, rather than a question: "Busy day." Now and
then there's an exciting variation, and he repeats himself: "Busy day,
busy day."
He says it on Mondays with the same conviction as when he says it
Sundays, when you'd think he'd give it a rest. Some days I'm busy and
sometimes I'm not but he doesn't allow any choice on the matter. It's a
stressful encounter. I stand there with my milk and biscuits and
flyspray, and his statement makes me feel anxious, harried, under
pressure - I should get a move on, put my shoulder to the wheel as
soon as possible, because my life, apparently, is so constantly and
remarkably busy.
The thing is that he says it to all his customers. "Busy day." His
message is indiscriminate and unchanging. "Busy day." Any repeated
chant takes on the appearance of a profound truth. "Busy day."
That's the other thing about this convenience store prophet: he's right.
It's true. We're all busy. We're all flat-out.
We're all go, go, go,
and it's not just the usual petty demands on our time - work, family,
household chores, the internet god. He's talking about our lives as
private citizens in the second decade of our online, post-GFC century.
We're busy coping with it, dealing with it, maybe profiting from it, or
just navigating our way through it, clinging to the various wreckages of
capitalism - mostly, or most profoundly, we're busy worrying.
We're worrying 24/7. We're worrying busy day and busy night, our heads
aching with the central anxiety of what the world's coming to and how
soon it's going to tear itself off its hinges.
Yes, alright, when doesn't it feel like that? The world's long been
going to hell in a hat. But there is a new threat in town. Right now,
this minute, this very second, this Christmas and New Year, as 2016
creaks towards 2017, that reliable old condition of human existence -
fear - has its pulse ratcheted up high as we approach the Age of Trump.
Trump, on his way; Trump, saddling up. We're on the verge of it. We're
waiting to see what's the worst that can happen. We're about to enter a
grave new world. We're on the edge of something that may or may not be
an abyss.
You look to literature or some kind of art to find an expression of
these times and maybe the best example is something written with such a
level of fear and foreboding that the title of it is the date it was
composed: September 1, 1939. WH Auden wrote his famous poem at
the outbreak of World War II. "Defenceless under the night," he writes,
"Our world in stupor lies." Quite.
The poem begins with Auden contemplating the near and terrible future as he sits in one of the dives on Fifty-Second Street.
He meant a Manhattan bar called Dizzy's Club on West Fifty-Second. You
could walk from that location now up Eighth Avenue, turn right into
West Fifty-Seventh, go past Carnegie Hall, keep walking, and all up it
would only take 15 minutes on foot to reach the stupefying command post
of the President-Elect, Trump Tower.
You can mark the spot with the same words that Auden wrote about another crisis at hand: Waves of anger and fear / Circulate over the bright / And darkened lands of the earth, / Obsessing our private lives.
Donald in charge. What's he gonna do? What's gonna happen? The fear of
barbarians at the gate has passed: there is no gate. Trump trashed it,
and his billionaire cabinet o' barbarians are working on the terms and
conditions of 2017. All that's left in this last week of 2016 is to
worry, and maybe there's some kind of value or wan satisfaction to be
had in looking back on the year to inspect the trail of breadcrumbs that
led to Trump's election win.
I interviewed British writer Andrew O'Hagan in March. He was in
Wellington as a guest of the international arts festival. Everywhere he
went, people mistook him for John Key - they have the same beak sticking
out of the same floppy, happy face. But the illusion was shattered as
soon as O'Hagan opened his mouth, because he spoke English, and had
interesting things to say.
Trump, back then, was merely a contender for the Republican nomination.
Already his rallies were cause, as they say, for concern.
I said to O'Hagan that I thought of them as a "lifting up of nastiness".
He said, "Oh God. I fear that you're right. What we're witnessing is a
supernatural communal turn towards something deeply sinister. He summons
everything that's worst about the American character and sells it back
to them as virtue."
Then I said, "I was reprimanding writers over drinks last night about
them being too sanguine about Trump, and finding him 'amusing'. I told
them off to a standstill. I said that Trump was a juggernaut, a train
gathering momentum, and that assuming he would gain the nomination, and
goes up against Clinton, he has a very real chance of winning and that
they ought not be so complacent or so 'amused'."
He said, "I'm with you on that. I think it is a juggernaut. Nobody ever
went poor underestimating the taste of the American public. They could
really go for this guy. He appeals directly to something vengeful and
self-loathing in the American character. They look at that guy and see a
reflection of something very essential to themselves. That is a
frightening energy. And it could get out of control. It already is out
of control."
What we're witnessing is a
supernatural communal turn towards something deeply sinister. He summons
everything that's worst about the American character and sells it back
to them as virtue.
Out of control; and now, in control. How bad is it going to be? What are we about to live through? Time
magazine's Person of the Year invokes the living subject of Auden's
great poem - Hitler - but surely his madness is not so epic, not so ...
mad.
Maybe the worst of it is going to be contained, as much as his reckless
contribution to super-sized global heating can be contained, likewise
his apparent determination to accelerate the capitalist impulse in
America and further widen the canyon between rich and poor. As Gore
Vidal once put it, in an essay on tax, "We [America] do not waste our
billions weakening the moral fibre of the American yeoman by building
him roads and schools or by giving him medical care and decent housing.
We [prefer] that public money not to go to the people but to big
business. The result is a unique society in which we have free
enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich."
Bad enough, but if Trump is preoccupied with rewarding American winners
and punishing American losers ("You're fired!") then that's America's
problem. Not our problem. None of our business, as Alan Duff wrote in
the Herald about the tragedy at Aleppo.
The problem that makes it our business is Trump's relationship with the
wider world. Foreign policy, Pax Americana, the empire strikes back, all
that sort of thing. Even there maybe his danger is limited. Tempting to
see Trump as Putin's bitch, his sheer incompetence haplessly conspiring
to Make Russia Great Again.
It seems more likely, though, that Trump will do the world harm. "I'm
gonna blow the hell out of Isis!" Cool, all good, please do. But how?
Where? At what cost, at what consequence? I was talking with a senior
National MP recently about Trump. He said watching the election result
in Parliament was like attending a funeral. And then he buried his head
in his hands, and said: "God help us all." Rogue One, starring Trump. Run for your lives. This is not a
drill. This is, potentially, a state of emergency. I watched Trump's
election win on TV and felt afraid, felt that these were the beginning
of end times. My thoughts were for my family's safety. Panic in the
streets of Te Atatu: I rushed up to the dairy to replenish the household
survival kit. I bought a 20-roll packet of toilet paper and a dozen
bottles of drinking water. Pale, shaky, fear ringing in my ears like a
bell, I approached the counter, and was told: "Busy day."
"Yes," I said. "Busy day. Very, very busy day! Exceptionally busy day."
Busy year: a week later I was cowering under a hotel table in Wellington
at midnight during the earthquake. Strange to experience something that
actually really is earth-shattering.
I was on the eighth floor and the hotel swayed and banged and it was
terrifying and I assumed it would result in death, a great crashing from
above, everything falling loose in a downward stampede. Certainly it
made it difficult to sleep.
Strange, too, to feel a connection with a hermit who lives in the bush;
Tess McClure at Radio New Zealand conducted an amazing interview with an
honest to God hermit, Pete of Kaikoura, who described what the
earthquake felt like in his hut in the ferns: "Can you imagine the
noise? It was like being inside the Big Bang. It was like the universe
was exploding, almost like there was nobody there to hear it - it was so
enormous and chaotic it was like there was nobody left to be afraid. It
was just totally consuming. And the smell of the earth, that was
extraordinary. The earth splitting."
The earth splitting. He was somewhat closer to the seismic revolt than I
was in my room on Cuba St in downtown Wellington. But there it was, a
connection; what he went through and I went through, what everyone who
felt it went through, was an intimation of world's end. And the urge,
too, to be with others was the same. Continued below.
Pete the hermit has lived in the bush above the Kaikoura coast for over
30 years, but the earthquake had him hoof it into town: "I found it
difficult in the first three or four days just to be on my own ... I
normally love being up here and it has to be a serious excuse to go down
to the village. But it was really necessary that I be around people."
Maybe about 100 guests at my hotel spent the night in the lobby.
Aftershocks had them gasping and trembling, and unwilling to face it
alone. It was touching and actually kind of beautiful to witness. One of
New Zealand's foundation myths is the belief that we rally around our
neighbours in times of trouble, that we lend a hand, and here it was in
action, the kindness of strangers, people offering comfort and practical
help to those in need. A lot of people were freaked out. Some ran for
it, literally, into the streets; some got in their car and got out of
Dodge; most stayed put, and a truth was revealed - people want to be
looked after.
Two old ducks in matching nighties were among those too afraid to go
back to their rooms. Heroically, with determined jaw and steady nerve, I
offered to walk upstairs despite the aftershocks and get things from
their room that they might need - medication, clothes, toothpaste. But
some other hero had acted quicker. I was quite annoyed about that.
Can
you imagine the noise? It was like being inside the Big Bang. It was
like the universe was exploding, almost like there was nobody there to
hear it - it was so enormous and chaotic it was like there was nobody
left to be afraid.
Pete, the hermit of Kaikoura
The earthquake was the most shocking event in New Zealand life in 2016
and the scenes in that hotel played out like a kind of dress rehearsal
or vision of how things might be in the event of an even more serious
crisis. People will panic. People will act fast to save their own skins.
People will be on hand to restore order and provide support.
I look to football for moral guidance and have long been stirred by the
story of the Manchester United air disaster in 1958, when 23 passengers
including eight players were killed in a failed take-off at Munich
airport; one of the survivors, goalkeeper Harry Gregg, emerged from the
smoking wreckage and called out for help: "C'mon lads, where are you?"
They came running. Many passengers were rescued.
I am describing natural disasters and instances of trauma because of the
Age of Trump. The theme is crisis. There is already the sense of things
falling apart in the decent society of New Zealand - child poverty,
homelessness.
When the earthquake tipped Wellington and the top of the South Island
out of bed, and into the streets - from my hotel room I watched the
headlights of cars shining on top of Mt Victoria, heading for higher
ground - another strange connection was made. To be evacuated is to be
made, or at least feel, homeless. Who knew when they'd be able to
return, and if there was anything left standing to return to? The
immediate hours after the earthquake were dominated by that one ugly
little word with its vowels sticking out everywhere: tsunami.
It was an interesting night. The aftershocks swayed the hotel from side
to side like a palm tree in a breeze. Now and then I returned under the
table in my room to cower. I looked at the convoy headed for Mt
Victoria, I said no to an interview request from an Israeli TV news
channel, I imagined the sea being sucked out and then returning,
tsunamically. I stepped out on to Cuba St and wondered about the fate of
the homeless guy I'd seen earlier that night trying to earn a few coins
in the doorway of a shop by playing drums on a couple of cardboard
boxes.
An earthquake might be the worst time to be homeless but there is no
best time to be homeless. We were taught this lesson throughout the
year. Homelessness, and child poverty, became the central ills of New
Zealand life in 2016, although the Government will not allow talk of a
housing "crisis".
John Key and broadcaster Mike Hosking acted out a comedy masterpiece in a
Newstalk ZB interview this year when they got stuck into the big
subjects.
Hosking: "Now this child poverty report today, do you believe that there
is anything in there? Do you think there are 41,000 homeless people
living in this country?"
Key: "No."
Hosking: "Right, neither do I. [Metiria] Turei was on the programme this
morning saying that people who are sleeping on their cousin's couch are
homeless."
Key: "But they are not homeless."
Hosking: "I agree."
Key: " They are not homeless."
Hosking: "What we have here as a country is 3.5 per cent growth maybe
heading towards four, and one of the most prosperous successful
economies on God's earth at the moment."
Key: "And some of these issues [of homelessness] are driven by the fact
that kids are living in very poor family conditions where there might be
drugs in the household."
Back in the real world, I remember an afternoon this year on the lower
slopes of the Seddon Memorial. I was interviewing a man about a guy who
had chosen to be become homeless; he had family and friends, but he was
disturbed, and ended his days sleeping in an old military concrete
bunker built into rock just above Tamaki Drive.
It was a sad story. It didn't have any relation to the wider issue of
homelessness. No one and nothing was to blame. The man who I was
interviewing had spoken to him not long before he died; we sat on the
grass and looked out over the shining Waitemata. And then he pointed to a
carpark on a promontory on Tamaki Drive, a horseshoe-shaped space for
motorists to stop and get in some fishing on the tide.
He said, "That'll be full tonight with people sleeping in their cars. Every night. Been that way most of the year."
Displaced people. The unhomed, in cars and on couches, on the wrong side
of the canyon that separates rich and poor, in the place we are all
desire, in pretty, sunny Auckland, that city of accidental millionaires -
the homeowners of suburbia, who woke up this year to find they were
sitting on a goldmine.
I'm one of them, just another schnook who bought a house in the suburbs
that rapidly doubled its value. I'm alright Jack. I'm sorted. I could
sell up and join the rest of the Auckland exodus, swanning around
mortgage-free in the quiet provinces or further afield - I ran into a
couple this year who'd sold up in Papakura and were running a night
market food stall on Rarotonga. They seemed pretty happy. I didn't see
any sign they were worrying 24/7, although the concept of the Age of
Trump was never far away, even in the lagoony paradise of the Cook
Islands. It was there, talked about at dinner, around the pool, a
subject that hovered somewhere beyond the reef.
At least we're all about to have a break from worrying about it.
Christmas and the New Year in summertime. Family fun in the sun. We can
forget the wretched Donald, and put our heads in the sea.
We can cheer up. It might never happen. Or we can take hope, and look to
another work of art to find an expression of these times: the YouTube
video of Patti Smith at the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, singing
Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, 1,588,686 views and
counting, the world gathering around this campfire hymn written in an
earlier time when the planet was teetering on the edge of disaster.
"I started crying almost immediately," wrote the best music writer in the world today, Amanda Petrusich, in the New Yorker.
"The entire performance felt like a fierce and instantaneous corrective
to times like these - a reiteration of the deep, overwhelming, and
practical utility of art to combat pain."
She summarised the song, with its images of the apocalypse: "Who hasn't,
in a moment of true desperation or fear, surveyed our world and found
only ugliness?" Through tears, she found the song's purpose, as surely
as Patti Smith did in her transcendent performance: "Dylan seems to be
encouraging his listeners to shore each other up, to acknowledge the
darkness and to bear it." Hard rain, coming, in 2017.
Whenever a leading political figure tells you he is
departing the scene for family reasons you know he or she is telling a porkie…sometimes
it’s a hell of a big porkie or just a wee porkie but a porkie it is. He or she
uses the family excuse because they don’t want you to know the true reasons.
Now our Prime Minister has just resigned from being PM.
There is nothing heroic or brave about doing that, although most PM’s wait
until they lose an election.
But that is not in the character history of John Key. The
history modus operandi of John Key has always been, to target whatever you want,
then go out and get [buy] it…by fair means or fowl and then move on to the next challenge.
The evidence is there for anyone to see: Have a look at his
track record:
Looking at the History of John Key in relation to his
financial abilities here are some facts and figures regarding his major
employer Merrill Lynch and their general performance…
Key's first job
was in 1982, as an auditor at McCulloch Menzies, and he then moved to be a
project manager at Christchurch-based clothing manufacturer Lane Walker Rudkin for
two years.
Key began working
as a foreign exchange dealer at Elders Finance in Wellington, and rose to the
position of head foreign exchange trader two years later, then moved to
Auckland-based Bankers Trust in 1988.
In 1995, he
joined Merrill Lynch as head of Asian foreign exchange in Singapore.
That same year he was promoted to Merrill's global head of foreign exchange,
based in London,
where he may have earned around US$2.25 million a year including bonuses, which
is about NZ$5 million at 2001 exchange rates.
In 2001, he
headed back to New Zealand to fulfill a long held ambition to stand for
Parliament and become Prime Minister.
It was fortunate that he did
because Merrill Lynch went into free-fall:
In 2002, Merrill
Lynch settled for a fine of $100 million for publishing misleading
research. As part of the agreement with the New York attorney general and other
state securities regulators, Merrill Lynch agreed to increase research
disclosure and work to decouple research from investment banking. A well-known
analyst at Merrill Lynch named Henry
Blodget wrote in company e-mails in which Blodget gave assessments about
stocks which conflicted with what was publicly published by Merrill.
In 2003, he was
charged with civil securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission. He settled without admitting or denying the allegations and was
subsequently barred from the securities industry for life. He paid a $2 million
fine and $2 million disgorgement. The CEO at that time, David Komansky,
said, "I want...to publicly apologize to our clients, our
shareholders, and our employees," for the company falling short of its
professional standards in research.
In 2004
convictions of Merrill executives marked the only instance in the Enron investigation
where the government criminally charged any officials from the banks and
securities firms that allegedly helped the energy giant execute its accounting
fraud. The case revolved around a 1999 transaction involving Merrill,
Enron and the sale of some electricity-producing barges off the coast of
Nigeria.
The charges
surrounded the 1999 sale of an interest in Nigerian energy
barges by an Enron entity to Merrill Lynch was a sham that allowed Enron to
illegally book about $12 million in pretax profit, when in fact there was
no real sale and no real profit. Four former Merrill top executives and two
former midlevel Enron officials faced conspiracy and fraud charges.
Merrill cut its
own deal, firing bankers and agreeing to the outside oversight of its
structured-finance transactions. It also settled civil fraud charges brought by
the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, without admitting or denying
fault.
In 2002 Merrill
Lynch settled for 10 million civil penalties as a result of improper activities
that took place out of the firm's Fort Lee New Jersey office. Three financial
advisors, and a fourth who was involved to a lesser degree, placed 12,457
trades for a client Millennium Partners in at least 521 mutual funds and 63
mutual fund sub-accounts of at least 40 variable annuities.
Millennium made
profits in over half of the funds and fund sub-accounts. In those funds where
Millennium made profits, its gains totaled about $60 million. Merrill
Lynch failed to reasonably supervise these financial advisers, whose market
timing siphoned short-term profits out of mutual funds and harmed long-term
investors.
Other controversies
with Key as PM were:
During the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, Key was a
proponent of Hosni Mubarak's government, citing his support of Israel and refusing
to call for his resignation. When asked if Mubarak should step down, he said
"no".
In 2011, Key was
caught up in a controversy over the purchase of government limousines which he
denied knowledge of initially but later reports surfaced his office was aware.
He was accused of being dishonest and eventually apologised, calling the deal
sloppy.
In October 2011,
Key made a statement where he claimed Standard and Poor's had said at a meeting
in the prior month that "if there was a change of Government, that
downgrade would be much more likely", this claim was contradicted by
S&P after Key's credibility had been called into question.
Listing his
latest set of fibs for example the Dirty Politics raid on Kim Dotcom and raid
on Nicky Hagar's home, his pony tail pulling etc. His close connection to Cameron
Slater, Jason Ede, etc. simply proves the point that Key will use anything to
win.
The one thing he
[Key] cannot stand is to lose: Hence his resignation…
I’ve no doubt
that he has something lined up…a job or a money making scheme or whatever…we
should know the answer around August 2017… if not sooner if some journalist
does a bit of investigative journalism rather than sitting in front of his
computer pumping out PR crap…
Labour
needed a big win, they had that last night. Goff’s winning margin was 56%, Wood
has managed an astounding 67%. Watch the mainstream media now write
the win off as predictable and meaningless.
Michael Wood’s win proves that Labour’s core message of
infrastructure investment; affordable housing and empathy have more going for
it than National’s vacant aspiration. http://www.electionresults.govt.nz/by2016/
Here is what TDB wrote on the massive win:
“It
means that beyond the narrative that we are in the encore performance of a Rock
Star economy; many ordinary NZers are hurting and needing change.
The
National Party candidate’s nasty politics didn’t work and a constant stream of
gaffs against Indian students didn’t help.
Labour
needed a big win, they have that tonight. Goff’s winning margin was 56%, Wood
has managed an astounding 67%. Watch the mainstream media now write
the win off as predictable and meaningless.
How
will we as citizens understand this win without Toby Manhire, Clare Trivet,
Tracey Watkins, Rodney Hide, Matthew Hooton, Fran O’Sullivan, Michelle Boag,
Patrick Gower, the Herald Editorial, Paul Henry and Mike Hosking down playing
the victory?
Some
of the Twitter Petty pundits will spout that because NZ First and Greens
weren’t running that the win is meaningless – bullshit! It shows in stark
contrast that electoral deals work. This is what the Opposition need to do in a
number of electorates because when it is done properly, we beat National!
These
electorate deals allow the voice of change to be heard.
The
mainstream media were attacking Little’s leadership all week because they
believed the by election might have gone the way their polls do, this landslide
win undermines their view so expect a tiny story in tomorrow’s news and nothing
more.
So John Key lost really big in Northland in the by-election
when Winston Peters kick his arse and took the seat off National…Key in his
usual style wrote that off as simply a blip on the political scheme of things:
Conformation of the trend against National showed itself in
the Mt Roskill by-election and the absolute rubbish published by the New
Zealand Herald when they suggested that the by-election was too close to call.
By Sunday morning Stuff was busy publishing the National Party PR losing line:
“National
campaign manager Steven Joyce said the race had gone as he expected.
"Obviously
[Parmar] would have liked to get a better result... but the odds [were] pretty much stacked against her.
"I
think for us it was a good hit out
for the team. I think they campaigned well. It was just that it was always going to be very hard to
get our voters to turn out when they knew that we in all likelihood
wouldn't win the by-election."
Prime
Minister John Key said Parmar had "fought
a hard campaign" that focused on the issues that matter.
"By-elections are always tough,
especially when the seat has been held by your opponent's party for some
time."
The latest in thing is to claim that since the Greens and
Labour have signed a deal to work together; the parties are now moving toward
the ‘Left’.
This is utter crap, the Greens have drifted further
toward the middle ground and Labour hasn’t really moved at all other than to
get rid of Phil Goff that great lover of the TPPA and neoliberal politics. This
from TDB explains it well:
“Look
at Labour policy and look at Green Policy. Nothing they are suggesting is
actually that much more different than the current political status quo. The
Greens have moved so far to the centre on the environment that the dairy
industry is exempt from any real changes for at least 5 years. Labour doesn’t
have any real difference in neoliberal welfare either. Homes for first time
buyers is about as ‘radical’ as Labour gets.
These
right wing media pundits who keep claiming that Labour+Greens are somehow too
left wing wouldn’t know a Left wing position if Zombie Marx rose from the grave
and bit them!
If
anything Labour+Greens are still far too centrist to generate any excitement in
the missing million voters. That’s why Gareth Morgan might suggest welfare and
environment policy that is far more radical than what’s being offered by the
Greens or Labour.
Another
false narrative being woven by the mainstream media is that it’s all over for
Andrew Little. This is media nonsense.
Duncan Garner that failed and now dumped TV3 political whiz
kid wrote the following the day before the Mount Roskill by-election:
OPINION: It
has been a dreadful end to the year
for Andrew Little.
He desperately
needs a fillip on Saturday of a strong win for Labour in the
Mt Roskill by-election. Should that not happen his year goes from bad to much,
much worse?
Lose on Saturday and Labour goes from chaos
to a full-blown crisis.
Poor old unwanted
Duncan Garner will now have to eat his own words…like the Herald his
predictions have been proven absolutely wrong.
Have a look at the numbers:
WOOD, Michael
LAB
11170
PARMAR, Parmjeet
NAT
4652
NAUHRIA, Roshan
PEO
709
LEITCH, Andrew
NZDSC
125
STRONGE, Brandon
ALCP
79
GOODE, Richard
NAP
40
SCHUSTER, Tua
IND
32
Candidate Informals:
50
TOTAL:
16,857
This shows you how clearly Wood thrashed or trashed Parmar;
he took 67% of the vote, after getting that news I imagine that John Key asked
his son Max for a hug or two, or went out to the nearest coffee bar to find a
pony tail to pull…
It’s too early to suggest that next year’s election will be
a Labour coalition or a National coalition victory …but it is certainly a wide open
election, but anything is possible, Key could resign and go live in Hawaii.
