Some background to our new HC in London

These powerful words appeared in a blog: The lies referred to are those spun by Helen Clark and John Key.

 ....

“All these lies were used to justify the longest ever deployment of New Zealand troops overseas (12 years) by successive Labour and National governments. They sent New Zealanders to risk their lives defending corrupt regimes run by warlords and drug barons. This ended in tragedy for several New Zealand soldiers along with tens of thousands of Afghani civilians and their families – killed by foreign invaders which included New Zealand SAS troops.

We were there because the US wanted us there to help support their plans for economic and military global dominance.

So we share a significant chunk of responsibility for the violence and chaos resulting from the invasion and occupation

Our troops behaved badly from the outset by handing over “suspects” they captured to American forces who tortured and often murdered their captives and despite the supposed bravery of our SAS troops their spineless leader Jerry Mataparae (since appointed governor general and now High Commissioner in London) never had the courage to insist on Geneva Convention treatment for people they handed over to the US.

One New Zealand SAS soldier was quoted as saying “we sort of knew what would happen to the prisoners, Americans being Americans”.

If any New Zealander has blood on their hands from Afghanistan it is Jerry Mateparae.

The revelations in “Hit and Run” must be investigated by our government so New Zealand can make some recompense for the tragedy of our involvement in Afghanistan.

Facing up is the first step.

http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/03/23/helen-clark-and-john-key-share-the-blame-for-the-fiasco-in-afghanistan/

After reading the above you might like to consider the rapid rise and rise of the then Defence Chief Jerry Mataparae,[pictured] he became the boss of the GCSB but resigned after a very short period so that John Key could move his friend and school mate Ian Fletcher in to the role so as to carry out mass surveillance processes against New Zealanders.

Then good old Jerry became Governor General and now he is the High Commissioner in London. Is this simply accidental, or was it planned after the events of the village revenge raids in Afghanistan which have now made the headlines because of the investigative abilities of both Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson. 

We know that when the then Minister of Defence Wayne Mapp phoned the PM to get consent for the raid that General [Mataparae] was present.

The Book Hit and Run states that Mataparae was present in the operations control centre and observed the whole event as it took place…if he knew what actually took place and assisted the SAS and Defence to instigate a cover-up operation, this would or could give him a sure pathway to future employment prospects. By the same token it would give the PM a tool by which to manipulate the Defence Force Chief. 

This of course may not have

been the case, and if it wasn’t, then Jerry Mataparae was simply very lucky indeed. Think about it, he resigns which lets John Key using very ‘unusual’ processes to recruit his buddy Ian Fletcher [pictured] as CGSB chief and becomes Governor General. Was Jerry Mataparae asked / forced to resign from that key position after only a few months.

This is a question worth asking in all seriousness because it leads to other questions.

It is often said, that one lie leads to another lie. I wonder if that was the case. That thought grows stronger when one considers that Key resigned around the same time as Mataparae was appointed as High Commissioner to London.

Maybe it was just a lucky break for good old tough guy Jerry Mataparae boss of the SAS and simply he was innocently moved around by the then PM to suit his strategic goals…who knows but it has a ring to it. If true it has a very disturbing echo to it. It stinks of rewarding unbecoming behaviour, manipulation of the worst kind. I hope it’s not true. Honour is not simply a word, it’s an behaviour.

The Americans once had a President who said, “I’m not a Crook”, the American didn’t believe him and threw him on the scrap heap of history. 

 

PNCC ball carriers stay silent:

Council ball carriers stay silent: More non-news makes the front page…

 Following on from an earlier blog on the subject the PNCC have decided to relook at creating a by-law to remove beggars from its streets…which is a bit weird really when one considers that there are only eight of them.

I noticed that according to the report, none of those with balls spoke on the issue [other than the Mayor who I think has balls]; go to http://wheelerscornernz.blogspot.co.nz/2017/03/whats-difference-between-beggar-and.html to see my earlier comments.

This from Manawatu Standard:

Palmerston North reverts to bylaw proposal to tackle a handful of beggars.

A ban on beggars in Palmerston North is still on the cards, despite the idea's previous rejection.

Palmerston North councillors have decided not to continue with the softly-softly social-work approach to ensuring the city's beggars are looked after.

Instead, elected representatives have again decided to explore a bylaw that bans the practice – despite binning the idea last year.

This comes after mayor Grant Smith last week described some beggars as "holding the city to ransom".

The council's trial with the MASH Trust comes to an end on March 24.

Community services manager Ian Littleworth said the contract had helped some beggars to get off the streets.

"It had been successful in supporting those prepared to be helped.

"But there is a hard core left, who are there for the money."

Smith said just a handful of people continued to cause problems.

He said making sure people's social needs were met was good, but it was time to do more.

"I'm up for another go at it."

Among the reasons the council earlier rejected a bylaw were concerns about the costs of prosecuting, whether stopping people from sitting in a public place was a breach of the Bill of Rights, and whether punitive action was appropriate for people with health and disability problems.

Policy analyst Peter Ridge said council staff had considered last year whether declaring beggars nuisances under a bylaw was the best way of dealing with the problem, and advised that it was not.

"It does not achieve much for council in terms of power. It only gives powers of prosecution for a breach, to gather evidence and file a prosecution with the court, and it does not give powers to arrest."

The Summary Offences Act covered situations where beggars were intimidating people and the police had power to arrest.

Cr Lorna Johnson said she was wary of a bylaw and voted against developing one.

It was a high-risk approach and no silver bullet, she said.

It was a disproportionate response to problems caused by about eight people.

"It's a significant investment of time and money and has no guarantee of success."

The committee recommended against developing a public education programme to discourage people from giving money to beggars.

Cr Gabrielle Bundy-Cooke said she was keen to make progress with a bylaw.

"We know these people, we know how many there are, and we need to be seen as doing something."

Poor old Bruce Watt Photography owner/manager Dave Edmonds must have been deeply disappointed that only two women Councillors had the balls to speak…one made sense [Johnson] while the other [Bundy-Cooke] was more interested in her Hair Salon takings.

It’s going to be fun to see what the Councillors come up with. Will the Beggars be forced to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing, or paint their faces green and white, will a rugby club be authorised to transport beggars to the edge of the city limits and dump them on the side of the road.

The council may of course decide to make each beggar an honouree City Councillor and allow them to use the Councillors bar, now that might keep them off the street.

I’m sure Cr. Bundy-Cooke would be only too willing to give up say 50% of her salary and share it amongst the beggars, that could mean that in a couple of weeks they could get off  benefits and be reclassified as entrepreneurs and receive free grants and maybe even run as Act Party Candidates in the upcoming general elections.

Dave Edmonds may even welcome them into his shop as customers and charge them double the normal price for a print or two.

PS;

It would seem that at long last, someone at the Manawatu Standard has seen the light and has decided to shed some light on this non news item and tell it as it really is. Making mountains out of mole hills is a very idiotic pathway to truth and simply turns readers off. Truth may, just may in the end improve the lot of our sensationalist main stream media.

Check out this: http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/opinion/90402150/does-palmerston-north-actually-have-a-serious-begging-problem

Beggar Businessman is there any difference

More non-news crap

Bruce Watt Photography owner/manager Dave Edmonds said beggars were continuing to put people off coming to shops in The Square.

"The council needs to grow some balls and do something about it."

These stupid sexist words were picked up by our so-called newspaper the Manawatu Standard and splashed across its front page…talk about non-news or false news becoming the norm.

The local council is spending thousands of dollars to debate how to get tough on beggars yet again…oh dear me…the bravery of our Councillor’s is beyond belief. Can you picture beggars fighting back against the absolutely stupid opinions of a bunch of news seeking councillors?

Are Councillors expecting the beggars all 14 of them to hold a rally in the Square? And will the female Councillors ‘grow some balls’ as requested by business man Dave Edmonds?

The Mayor naturally leapt straight into combat mode by adopting a Donald Trump style of ‘I’ve got balls’ to express his rather childlike view on the issue. Is the next step to call beggars ‘Terrorists’, with a capital T, and deport them elsewhere. The Manawatu Standard published this strangely worded paragraph supposedly uttered by the Mayor Grant Smith.

"This small amount of so-called beggars are really holding city residents, businesses and visitors to ransom,"

Have we lost all sense of balance and humanity, this item of non-news suggests that beggars beg to make money…gee whiz what’s new about that. Don’t most businesses to exactly that? How many businesses has the Mayor suggested should be closed down when they rip off the public with shoddy goods or misleading offers to make money?

For Dave Edmonds to suggest that beggars are keeping thousands of eager customers out of his business is simply rubbish…it’s the prices he charges that decides his customer ratio. These days photos are taken with I phones not expensive overpriced cameras.

Read these words by our strange Mr Edmonds to the Manawatu Standard who was foolish enough to publish them without comment:

Edmonds said a bylaw making it an offence to beg was needed.

"Some people say it's about human rights and you can't do that, but the police are not interested unless it's a criminal act."

He said all the social workers had done was "talk to them, get them a feed, and then they come back. It's a lifestyle choice".

If that’s a life style choice, is it not equally true that Edmonds remaining in a business that is in great decline not also a life style choice?

It would seem that Edmonds wants tax or rate payers support to allow him to make outrages’ [in some cases] profits as a part of his life style [business] choice.

His statement about the police not acting because begging is not a criminal offence is correct, and of course the police can’t arrest business owners / operators that over-charge or add huge mark-ups on the goods they sell to an often unsuspecting public. That would be interfering in the ‘market place’ and that is not allowed unless your business is begging. 

Edmonds is very childlike regarding police behaviour.

The Edmonds style of individual in the business community are a dime a dozen, they want the public to pay the enforcement costs while they make their profit, a sort of a socialise the costs while maximizing and privatising individuals profit…there is nothing new in that typical behaviour.

In fact when you think about it, it’s what beggars do because they too live in a market driven world where dog eats dog and damn the rest.

The Palmerston City Council along with other councils needs to approach the beggar problem [if it actually exists] with the human aspects in mind, rather than a Donald Trump tweet style approach.

After all the council supported the building of the Plaza complex which led directly to the decline of public availability to a tiny declining photographic business that is being hugely affected by new technology and a piss poor location these days.  

Reference: http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/90230893/hard-core-of-beggars-holding-city-to-ransom

Here is a long but very insightful feedback on this subject from a W/C guest blogger:

 

Peter,

 

I read all of the piece. I agree it’s a pretty bad state of affairs when people see it as an imperative to sit on the side of streets begging. I wonder about their backgrounds and how many of them are really in genuine heed. I admit there will be some, but I believe a fair majority will be in the category of cadging a few dollars to support a drug habit or something. You are right in your view that retail businesses are a refined form of beggars, not that they would ever class themselves as such. For me, totally reliant on my pension I am not really in a position where I can afford hand outs to anyone. most times when I venture out on the streets, I do so armed only with my trusty Super Gold Card to get me from A to B by bus. I very rarely have cash in my pocket, and rely on a debit card or credit card for shop purchases.  So much for the earlier offence of ‘having no visible means of support’.

 

That makes it awkward to help anyone out, who is begging on the street. Beggars as you suggest do come in many forms. As an Internet user I find we are constantly urged to give a dollar to this or that supposedly worthy cause. I belonged to a local branch of a political support group. At a recent meeting we had the hard word put on our small group by the deputy leader, that because it is election year we should be making every endeavour to help the party by way of donations to their cause. I thought about it for a time before interrogating Google to look at the salaries applicable to that particular party, only to find the total salary bill for the members alone was in excess of $2 million, that did not include the support staff of the party who also share in the beneficence of the Public Purse. I took it upon myself to write to the person in question and air my view that the majority of people forming the committee were pensioners who found difficulty in making ends meet and not really in any position to donate anything. To help him with his dilemma, I suggested his party institute a form of tithing of all its members to raise the funding they thought they required, worse than that I even suggested the tithing could be on a sliding scale according to the salaries of the people in question with leader’s and deputy leader’s, tithes proportionately more than the ordinary members and support staff. That was close on a month ago! I can truly say my letterbox has seen absolutely NO evidence of any vehement argument expressing an opposing view. When you consider the salary for an ordinary back bencher is approaching a quarter million dollars you begin to get an appreciation of the riches to be gained by this group of professional beggars who infest the corridors of power. When you see a fool like Kreyp sitting on a salary of somewhere in the vicinity of $400,000, which will no doubt be transferred to his incompetent successor you begin to get some idea of the scale of largesse being dished out to the entire bunch of incompetents who without their reliance on the public purse could find themselves sitting on road sides begging for public support, albeit on a greatly reduced scale.

 

In contrast to increasing the Retirement Age for the population. It would be entirely appropriate for us, the hoi polloi, to look to imposing a compulsory retirement age on the useless time servers in the parliament. This could be set at five years maximum after which they would become compulsorily stood down, with no chance of re-election ever, to make way for some other useless seat warmer. A regular rotation of them, with the addition of compulsory production  and publication of curricula vitae, open to effective scrutiny in every case. We, the Mug Voters would have an opportunity to see just what we might be getting before we cast our votes.

 

Is it any wonder that in excess of a million of us refuse to exercise our democratic rights to choose our parliamentary ‘leaders’ from the out and out dross presenting themselves as candidates? Instead  of it being a case of being too lazy to get out and vote, I believe it to be more of a protest at the numbers of complete incompetents with no other qualification than a well exercised ‘Gift of the Gab’, presuming they have the necessary qualifications to be our representatives, in government.

 

Peter G

A look at our past history

Peter Grove a contributor at times to Wheelers Corner Blog wrote this in response to the latest W/C newsletter, [see below] and it I believe is a serious item, covering our past shameful history of colonial rule both here and in Australia. It is very informative and well worth the read.  

Peter,

It’s good to see that you’re back. My ancestry is all Pongonalian. My Great Great Grandfather Grandfather was transported to Tasmania in the early 1800’s. His crime was one of supposedly forging Bank of

England printer’s dies. Not as it appears he ever printed any. He was an engraver and die sinker. Whatever that was. It seems he had engraved the dies used in the printing processes of the time, in the pattern of Bank of England notes of the day. It seems he had the in his possession while making his way along a street in Birmingham when he was caught with them in his possession. The reasons for him creating the plates are completely obscure. A cousin of mine, now deceased and prone to fanciful stories about his family history, insisted he was no traitor, but was, in fact, a loyalist, supposedly in the thrall of Oliver Cromwell, who history would have us believe was instrumental in leading a revolution in Britain for some reason or other.  Cousin’s story, was that the dies would be used to create scads of counterfeit notes with which to flood the French monetary system rendering it virtually worthless, relegating France to its former status of a second rate nation.  I have just checked out Oliver Cromwell and found the whole story more than fanciful, but more a story of a twisted imagination. The story about the forged dies began somewhere in the very late 1700’s. My old bloke was arraigned at the Warwick Assizes early in the nineteenth century, found guilty and sentenced to transportation to Tasmania for the term of his natural, He is recorded as having landed at Port Phillip Bay, Australia on the ship, Calcutta on October 9 1803. Here is the twist. Cromwell was active during his political life which ended with his death in 1658. That puts the lie to my cousin’s story. No way could my old bloke have been involved with Cromwell who had died some 143 years earlier! My interest in that era of my family history was only superficial, and I never thought to research the historical facts as I have just done!

That was all a bit of background to my family history. The point of me writing to you is your comments regarding early Pongonalian attempts in this country to relegate the Maori inhabitants to the role of servants. Through the years I have watched the attempts to deny Maori full equality in this country. I just wonder if they had been given full equality, just how much they would have enjoyed it. The Crown is simply not a benign institution, but is really a remote entity demanding certain behaviours of its citizens. We who have grown up with the existing situation have learned to accept it and just get on with our lives. For how long have our Governments been subservient to the ‘Old Dart’ conscripting our young men to military service to fight other countries’ wars? In recent years there has been a slight shift in our loyalties to the point where we are now in the thrall of the greatest warmonger the world has ever known. America. The subservience displayed by Kreyp to the Yanks, throughout the years has been little else than out and out treason. New Zealand is a Sovereign Nation quite willing and able to make its own way in the world given intelligent loyal Government. How long will it be before the fools at the top decide they should throw their lot in with China? Economically we are seeing greater intrusion by Chinese Nationals day by day. How much have ‘they’ contributed to the disgraceful Housing crises in

Auckland? The same may be said for the surreptitious take over of much of our pristine remote and not so remote back country by American interests. How can it possibly be that our former place in the world as one of the richest, best, countries in that world,been allowed to decline to the dire state it finds itself now?

Peter G.

05 9th March 2017 

1. I have returned to the land of the long white cloud after a trip to London and Paris lasting about a month. And I have to admit that some of my prejudices were confirmed while others were shot to hell. Let’s take for example the British habit of tie wearing. Some so-called British and mixed raced brits like Scottish/British Irish/British etc. have taken the tie wearing habit to the extreme; I’d not be surprised to learn that they even wear a tie with their PJ’s. Well sitting outside a coffee bar in London’s Piccadilly Circus area in the middle of a working day you could hardly see a tie…ties don’t seem to go with skinny black jeans and hoodies or tee shirts. Of course scarfs and beanies and big wool furry style hats take one’s mind off neck ties. I got the impression that tie wearing was not unlike the out of fashion facial tattoo of Maori tradition. Ties for some are I think traditional throwbacks and even status symbols of days long past. You know the educated and upper-class [so-called] wear ties while the working class don’t… Well it would seem that a new class of modern day Brit has arisen…and it no longer includes the University or military tie as an indicator of an intelligent history, this new fashion attachment is Japanese or Chinese made bits of electronic creation or inventions costing a large chunk of one’s income these days. The fashion symbol that now fills the London scene is the ‘I Pad’. Almost every person appears to own one, and no matter what they are actuating doing it always includes talking into or texting into these new wonder tools of modern man. People can be seen walking the Street talking out loud into their I pads, I’m sure some were not really talking to anyone other than themselves… and if that’s the case…what’s to become of us, if we can’t stroll down the Street without needing to create the impression of importance by talking to ourselves. My Fathers birth place was Bristol England and I can always remember him boasting about the Clifton Suspension Bridge because it was the first and largest suspension style bridge in the world. He was correct it certainly was a sight worth seeing. My four day stay in Bristol was a highlight event, my daughter who now lives in London and I travelled to Bristol by train and booked into a Hotel close to the station. We discovered the location where my Father was born, back then it had been a rather large stable complex that serviced the coach route of the day. My Grandfather was a stable-hand come horse trainer. My daughter and I were taking pictures of the location when the now owner of unit number three invited us in. The stable had been reconstructed into three units each one having a value of 1.7 million pounds. I realise now what a massive step it must have been for my Grandfather and Grandmother and their large family took, when accepting the offer of his employer to immigrate to New Zealand to set up a breeding stud for horses in the Hutt Valley. Bristol is about the size of Wellington and the pace of life there was much more sedate than that of London…but the ‘I’ pad still dominated the Street scene. Bristol is also a whiter community than London where it seems that all the accents seem to be something other than British. Politically London was very diverse in both what was being talked about on the Street and what was being covered in the media. The utter contempt for the Tony Blair style politician was obvious; they saw him as a war criminal awaiting trial…they saw him as a back stabbing liar because of his behaviour during the Iraq invasion and the Weapons of mass destruction period of lies by both the US and the UK…but most of all they appeared to hate his big headed attempt to appear intellectual and the way he and others consider themselves above the law. It is ironic how today many British consider those seeking employment in the UK as unwanted refugees and possible terrorists, when the UK itself has spilled its thousands, if not millions out into the wider world because of its massive local and regional failure to provide meaningful work and employment to its own citizens. Just imagine what would happen if one time British peoples were forced to return home to the UK? How would the British government handle it? We can’t blame the people themselves who were driven or forced out of their own country as convicts and unwanted servant class people by a society driven by class and wealth regulation that ruled the masses. We should never forget that these status and class driven people who offered to treat Maori people as English servant class citizenship…and were shocked when Maori themselves accepted a partnership deal rather than a servant / master situation. Even today some in NZ still fail to accept the hypocrisy aspect of British colonialism. Many of the younger people living in London today understand the hypocrisy of the past. Hence their strong stand against the idiotic ranting of the Donald Trump stupidity regarding race bigotry and hatred. They seem to know and recognise bullshit when they see it. My trip to London and Paris was worth it, because it proved to me that the feelings and needs of the ordinary working people are very similar, getting paid a living wage, this year ‘No Hours Contracts’ grew by another million in the UK. There are now 3 to 4 million people on NH Contracts’ in the UK. NZ has now made NHC’s legal… I’m still analysing my findings and will report on various aspects over the next few weeks.