Wheelers Corner Special: Steve Elers Palmerston Norths own Donald Trump

Wheeler's Corner Special: June 2020.
Racism and its condemnation to-day:

This is a copy of a letter I wrote to the Manawatu Standard:

Editor;
"Palmerston North has its very own Donald Trump! or even wee Boris Johnson

Yes it is now clear after his latest rant was published in Saturdays Manawatu Standard… and his name is Steve Elers a so-called lecturer from Massey University…

In yet another stupid opinion piece he claims that the hundred's of thousands [millions world wide] of protesters are nothing more than looters and thief's, because he viewed [a Fox news] film showing looting etc taking place in a city in the USA.

By doing so he gives credence the typical trump style bull-shit of Donald Trump and Fox News crap that dominates US news media, for the uneducated white poor.
"From the comfort of my home I saw groups of individuals smashing windows, burning buildings and stealing products of all kinds, ranging from shoes to jewellery – all in the name of fighting systemic racism, of course”. Elers wrote sarcastically in his opinion rant. He never mentioned the reason for the massive US wide protests and missed the important fact that protesters have and did attempt to stop the looters from looting etc.

He goes on to suggest that the protesters should simply get educated and vote!

In the US and especially in the Racist South state governments do everything in their power to stop blacks, and people of colour and others from voting, they rig the election system to ensure that black votes don’t count, or that black lives don’t matter. He fails to point out that the protesters consist of thousands if not hundreds of thousands whom are white Americans, who are educated. I would suggest that the Manawatu Standard find a new Opinion writer, one who shows some balance and does not simply push the white racist line, pumped out daily by Trumps child like tweets.[letter ends]



Of course Wee Donald has a wee mate in the UK, Boris Johnson, a friend sent me a reference proving that Johnson like Trump is truly racist, he may be fractionally more intelligent, because I think Johnson can read! open this and have a read about a few of the recorded utterances of wee Boris J:
https://www.indy100.com/article/boris-johnson-uk-is-not-racist-quotes-black-lives-matter-protests-9557051

After reading that, you may like to wonder where to fit wee Steve Elers into the mix? And that fair enough, most countries have racist's in some shape or form, they come in all shades of colour and social positions, they are in politics and also abound in most levels of society even our universities.

And I too have had to adjust my own behavour in regard to racism, My Dad came from Bristol and just a little while ago I visited Bristol and myself and my daughter Lisa located the place where he lived. I never realised that Bristol was built on the back of the slave trade so it came as no surprise that the people of Bristol pulled down the statue of the most wealthy villain who made his fortune shipping thousands upon thousands of black Africans to America and the West Indies, and tossed into the sea.

I remember well, the shocked look on my Dads face, when I brought home a young Maori woman to meet him and my Mom who was sweet and accepted her fully] This was when I was about 15 or sixteen...well our relationship was by teenage standards short lived...his [my father's] racism was built in...

But after joining the military a year or two later, and serving with hundreds of wonderful Maori servicemen both in NZ and Malaysia my inbuilt racism died a natural death, thank God and today I support the Black Lives Matter movement fully.

And I hope you do too!

One last comment: The British slave trader statue in London being removed in London...even the British are waking up...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-52977088 

Have a good weekend and stay safe....

Wheelers Corner yet another read, be kind and stay well.

Learning from past failures, is it possible, can it be done in this day and age...my answer is yes have a read and see if you agree?

This is the way forward, it replaces capitalism by replacing the failed capitalism model [s] that has failed over and over again, it also replaces the Communist version of socialism that has equally failed to create a democratic system... lets stop trying to fix the unfixable and instead create a way of life that involves all communities and all work places... Socialism does not mean the state takes over, it means that democracy becomes truly operational... call it whatever. Read it with an open mind.

This is from an American writer, which proves that times are changing in this day and age: I hope you are all keeping well in these trying times, especially if you are around my age. kind regards and stay well. 


https://truthout.org/articles/will-climate-change-provoke-a-widespread-revival-of-socialism/

wheeler's corner 9th April 2020 America Vs Aotearoa NZ for stupity.

Henry A. Giroux wrote a wonderful piece on neoliberal’s connection to the pandemic facing America and its handling of it. Using his words and adding my comments I hope to link ANZ [Aotearoa New Zealand] to the various points he makes: Those words in italics are his words.

“The current coronavirus pandemic is more than a medical crisis, it is also a political and ideological crisis. It is a crisis deeply rooted in years of neglect by neoliberal governments that denied the importance of public health and the public good while de-funding the institutions that made them possible. At the same time, this crisis cannot be separated from the crisis of massive inequalities in wealth, income and power. Nor can it be separated from a crisis of democratic values, education and environmental destruction".It is impossible not to agree to that paragraph.  

Henry A. Giroux went on to write:

“The corona-virus pandemic is deeply interconnected with the politicization of the natural order through its destructive assaults waged by neoliberal globalization on the ecosystem. In addition, it cannot be disconnected from the spectacle of racism, ultra-nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and bigotry that has dominated the national zeitgeist as a means of promoting shared fears rather than shared responsibilities.

COMMENT: You can naturally have your own opinion regarding the political aspects of the above paragraph, but the question for me is: Do those words have meaning for us in ANZ, yes I think so, We entered into the mad world of neoliberalism madness with the Clark Douglas Labour Government followed by the National led governments. Remember the Nats even attempted to sell off our public hospitals. Just imagine if that had have happened...

“The plague has as one of its roots a politics of de-politicization, which makes clear that education is a central feature of politics and it always plays a central role — whether in a visible or a veiled way — in any ideological project. For instance, it has been a central pedagogical principle of neoliberalism that individual responsibility is the only way to address social problems, and consequently, there is no need to address broader systemic issues, hold power accountable or embrace matters of collective responsibility. As a politics of containment, neoliberalism privatizes and individualizes social problems, i.e., wash your hands as a way to contain the pandemic. In doing so, cultural critics Bram Ieven and Jan Overwijk argue, “it seeks to contain any real democratic politics; that is to say, a politics based on collective solidarity and equality [because] democratic politics is a threat to the market.”

COMMENT: In ANZ, we were pounded with the basics of Neo-liberalism because both polical parties and the odd smaller ones joined in the mad rush to join or follow the world in this huge step backward. Labour, National, Act, New Zealand First and to some extent the then Maori Party folded without a fight. Put simply ANZ lost its left voice and in many respects and has yet to regain this balancing social lever. And we are paying the massive price today! In ANZ we could order a nation wide lock-down but it would appear the US can not or will not for political reasons. So maybe Trump without relising it caused ANZ to reconsider its blind following of the US.

“Under such circumstances, the social sphere and its interconnections become an object of either financial exploitation or utter disdain, or both. What is lost in this depoliticizing discourse of neoliberalism and made clear in the current pandemic is that our lives are indeed interconnected for better or worse. 
There is a certain irony here in that the current White House call for the public to abide by social distancing mirrors not only a medically safe practice to slow down the spread of the virus, it also occupies a long-standing neoliberal ideological space that disdains social connections and democratic values while promoting death-dealing forms of social atomization. 

Here is where the medical crisis runs head on into a long-standing political crisis. This is also the space where politics has become a tool of neoliberalism as the economy and powers of government relentlessly attack and erode the common good and democracy itself. Irony turns into moral and political irresponsibility as Trump pushes social distancing while also indicating he will relax social distancing guidelines, against the advice of public health experts, in order to reboot the economy. 

COMMENT: Here in ANZ the financial exploitation was obvious over the Douglas / Richardson era, by the selling of our banks to Australian own banks, and the take over almost totally our daily media outlets, we are of course paying the price today with the closing down of our various media outlets particularly the magazines for example the Listener, metro etc. How long will it be before the banks consider departure, your guess is as good as mine

“In a time of crisis, capitalism reveals itself as a dis-imagination machine whose underlying message is that the market provides the only forms of agency left. In this context, political, economic and social forces become the new workstations incessantly pushing the flight from any vestige of social, ethical and political responsibility, parading as the new common sense. Politics becomes a war machine running overtime to habituate people to the abyss of power while undermining any sense of dissent, resistance and social justice. Of course, this is the wider context of neoliberalism in which the corona-virus pandemic operates.
The financial crisis of 2008 made visible the plague of neoliberalism that has for over 40 years ravaged the public good and imposed misery and suffering upon the poor and others considered excess, waste or dangerous. With its merging of brutal austerity policies, financialization of the economy, the concentration of power in few hands, and the language of racial and social cleansing, neoliberalism has morphed into a form of fascist politics. The new political formation is characterized by a distinctive and all-embracing politics of disposability, a massive gutting of the social state, and support for pedagogical apparatuses of spectacularized violence, fear-mongering and state terror.

COMMENT: The first real signs of this in ANZ was when the Nat’s cut benefits and while Labour has restored some of them, their moves were both weak and half-hearted. Only in recent weeks have they actually stepped up and introduced meaningful change, because of the virus and the lock down. Austerity was not a word readily accepted here in ANZ by the mass population thank God, but the business world under Key loved it.  What ANZ did during this period was to basicly wreck the housing market and charge our students for their higher education.

“All of this points to a disdain for any notion of the social that expands the meaning and possibilities of the common good, including the crucial sphere of public health, and the broader notion of what political philosopher Michael Sandel calls living together in a community, which requires solidarity and sacrifices to treat people with compassion, humanity and dignity. Central to this notion of the common good, argues scholar Shai Lavi, is a mass movement willing to bring together struggles for emancipation, economic justice and political community established on the basis of human equality.

COMMENT: 

The above simply proves that having the so-called market running our education and public health system is in my view not for us, I feel really sorry for our university students with their massive loans etc. My education [highier] was free of that massive restriction, in real terms it was free,

 

"The brutality of the pandemic of neoliberalism was evident in Trump’s call on March 24, 2020, to “reopen the economy,” by Easter. At that time, he wanted to move the U.S. quickly toward ending cautious measures such as social distancing and letting the virus run its course. Trump’s initial rationale for such an action restated a right-wing argument that “the cure is worse than the disease.” After being told that 2.2 million people could die as a result of reopening the economy too early, Trump said the White House would keep in place its social distancing rules at least through April.
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has stated that social distancing is the most important tool for containing the virus, yet Trump still refuses to issue a national stay-at-home order, especially at a time when seven states do not have one. At a press conference on April 4, Trump had stated that things will get a lot worse with many more deaths. Yet, soon afterward, he reiterated that he would like to see the country open again. Such actions display a shocking level of moral turpitude, making clear that Trump is more concerned about his reelection, commerce and the stock market than the ensuing death toll. As reporters from The Washington Post point out, “Trump has long viewed the stock market as a barometer for his own reelection hopes.”
The not-so-hidden and terrifying message is that political opportunism, the drive for profits and the embrace of a cruel neoliberal ideology are being embraced by the Trump administration without apology. Trump appears to take pleasure in belittling experts and expertise and only follows the advice of public health officials in the midst of the most dire warnings. He treats the pandemic as a partisan battle, disparages governors desperately calling for supplies, and refuses to implement a coordinated national federal approach to addressing the crisis.
Without hard evidence or scientific proof, Trump endorses specific drugs as treatments, falsely claims the U.S. is “close to a vaccine” and often relies on the advice of right-wing pundits who push conspiracy theories. When it comes to the choice of saving lives or the economy, Trump appears more concerned about the fate of Wall Street. What is more, his often confused and contradictory public remarks are filled with hyperbole and falsehoods and serve to mislead the American public while potentially causing unimaginable misery along with the possibility that “Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, maybe millions would get sick and die.” In this instance, sheer incompetence coupled with an aversion to experts and scientific evidence rise to the status of being a public danger and a catastrophic crisis.
The financial crisis of 2008 made visible the plague of neoliberalism that has for over 40 years ravaged the public good.
In light of the ongoing spread of deaths, infections, and hospital shortages and public health catastrophe, experts have called for long-term planning, strategies, increased testing, and coordination between the federal government and the states. Many governors have complained that the government’s lack of a federal plan has created something akin to the “Wild West” — a “system beset by shortages, inefficiencies and disorder.”

COMMENT: While ANZ is lucky not a have a Donald Trump for our leader, it is also correct that we do have a few strange politicians who act at times like the egotistical Donald Trump, but thank heavens their sway is rather minor, well most of the time. They in general terms around but not at this stage dangerous, lets hope it stays that way. The coming election could be a telling point.

"The urgency of demands are amplified by the fact that the White House and leadership at multiple levels failed to provide any sense of urgency and immediacy in the early stage of the looming crisis. A report by The Washington Post stated that it took Trump 70 days from first being notified about the grave implications of the coronavirus to treat it “not as a distant threat or harmless flu strain well under control, but as a lethal force that had outflanked America’s defenses and was poised to kill tens of thousands of citizens.”
Of course, the many people who are and will die as a result of this reckless policy will be those traditionally viewed as disposable under the reign of neoliberalism. These include the elderly, the destitute, poor people of color, undocumented immigrants and people with disabilities — not to mention the front-line medical workers who lack the equipment they need to be safe as they treat the elderly, sick and dangerously ill.

Comment

There is more at work here than a hardened depravity of an ill-informed, petty celebrity politician who is causing havoc and needless human suffering in a time of crisis. Trump has always had a penchant for thoughtlessness and self-absorption, and takes delight in humiliating others. Citing Stephen Greenblatt in a different context, his words perfectly fit Trump for whom “There is no deep secret about his cynicism, cruelty and treacherousness, no glimpse of anything redeemable in him, and no reason to believe that he could ever govern the country effectively.”
Trump’s crudeness, mendacity, disregard for science, and arbitrary rule had led him to disregard previous warnings from experts about the possibility of a looming pandemic. This willful form of ignorance and sheer effrontery was on display in his earlier refusal and colossal failure to mobilize the power of the federal government to provide widespread testing and masks while simultaneously ensuring that hospitals and medical staff had enough beds, masks, ventilators and other personal protective equipment for treating people infected with the virus.
Trump has a penchant for turning politics into a form of theater and entertainment into a form of cruelty.

COMMENT

Trumps dumbness is now world known, so I will not expand on it, as he proves it each day in the White House. Fact checkers have proven thousands of his lies, but it seems Americans in general don't want to know. 

"Ed Pilkington and Tom McCarthy report in The Guardian that Trump not only downplayed the threat the virus posed after the World Health Organization confirmed that there were 282 confirmed cases in several countries on January 20, his actions were “mired in chaos and confusion.” Rather than act quickly to avert a national health disaster, Trump let six weeks go by before his administration took seriously the severity of the threat and the need for mass testing. Pilkington quotes Jeremy Konyndyk, who led the U.S. government’s response in 2013-2017 to a number of international disasters. He stated: “We are witnessing in the United States one of the greatest failures of basic governance and basic leadership in modern times.”

COMMENT: The period 2013 to 2016 was also period of confusion in the ANZ political world too, but some how we stayed clear of idiotic weird or dramatic behaviour, other than the failure to change the flag and Key's hair pulling exercises with young women.

Trump has a penchant for turning politics into a form of theater and entertainment into a form of cruelty. In a shocking display of pettiness, he publicly told Vice President Mike Pence not to answer the calls of those governors who are not “appreciative” of his efforts to deal with the pandemic. This includes Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, both of whom have made desperate pleas for critically needed supplies.
Moreover, as part of an ongoing effort to shift blame away from himself, Trump has attacked and attempted to humiliate reporters who asked him critical questions, and went so far as to claim that “hospitals had squandered or done worse with masks and were ‘hoarding’ ventilators, and that states were requesting equipment despite not needing them.” He went so far as to suggest that much-needed masks were “going out the back door.” It is hard to overlook this type of weaponized cruelty, especially given the moving pleas by medical professionals appearing on social media begging for masks, gowns, ventilators and other crucial protective and lifesaving equipment. There is more at work here than the politics of denial and solipsism on the part of Trump; there is also what Robert Jay Lifton calls “malignant normality,” which I interpret as behavior that revels in violence and is fueled by what appears to be an immense pleasure in engaging in acts of cruelty. We have seen echoes of such cruelty in other eras with consequences that resulted in the death of millions, such as in the lynching of Blacks in the United States and acts of genocide in Nazi Germany.
Trump’s obsession with wealth and ratings, and his limitless self-regard define him not only as an inept leader but also as a dangerous fraud. For instance, in the midst of the rapidly rising death toll in the United States, Trump boasted at one of his press media appearances “about the [high] ratings for the White House’s coronavirus task force briefings.” This is a form of political theater and pandemic pedagogy that weaponizes a rising death toll in the service of entertainment. Trump’s incompetence bears tragic results in that hospitals are overcrowded, medical personnel lacking adequate protective equipment are dying, and the governors of hardest-hit states such as New York appear to be in a running feud with Trump, who is more at ease in insulting governors who have criticized him for his lack of leadership than in supplying them with much-needed medical equipment.
Trump and his administration are not alone in pushing a necropolitics that celebrates capital over human needs, greed over compassion, exploitation over justice and fear over shared responsibilities.
Trump and his administration are not alone in pushing a necropolitics that celebrates death over life, capital over human needs, greed over compassion, exploitation over justice and fear over shared responsibilities. How else to explain the chorus of Trump supporters in the media, corporate board rooms and the White House arguing for rationing life-saving care on the basis of age and disability in order to prevent imposing drastic strains on the nation’s hospitals and the U.S. economy? How else to explain that long before this pandemic crisis, as Naomi Klein points out, the apostles of neoliberalism have attempted to underfund services, such as “state-funded health care, clean water, good public schools, safe workplaces, pensions, and other programs to care for the elderly and disadvantaged.”
At the same time, a war has been waged by predatory capitalism on “the very idea of the public sphere and the public good.” One consequence is that “the publicly owned bones of society — roads, bridges, levees and water systems — are going to slip into a state of such disrepair that it takes little to push them beyond the breaking point. When you massively cut taxes so that you don’t have money to spend on much of anything besides the police and the military, this is what happens.”
What is being revealed in the current pandemic crisis is the underlying plague of neoliberalism that has dominated the global economy for the last 40 years, though increasingly brandished as a badge of honor by fascist politicians, such as Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and others. Ruling-class corruption is also readily visible in a bailout package which, as Rob Urie observes, amounts to “Bailouts for the Rich, the Virus for the Rest of Us.” He writes:

In an economy where the richest 1% takes all the gains while the poor and working class haven’t seen a raise in four decades, it is the rich who will reap the benefits while workers get sick and die. It is finance capitalism that is being bailed out when it should have suffocated under its own weight in 2009.

What is being revealed in this looming pandemic is an unabashed resurgence of fascist politics with its history of grotesque inequalities, disposability, unadulterated cruelty and regressive policies. The latter neoliberal rudiments have a long legacy in the United States and have returned with revenge under the Trump administration. Neoliberal fascism signals a resurgence of a terror that bears an eerie echo to the racial cleansing and embrace of eugenics that marked the purification policies of the Hitler regime and made the concentration camp the endpoint of fascism. This was also policy designed to reboot the economy in a time of crisis.
The other plague, among many, is the rise of right-wing cultural apparatuses, such as Fox News and Breitbart Media. This is a plague of willful ignorance and state-sanctioned civic illiteracy.
We live at a time of multiple plagues that fuel the current coronavirus epidemic that is engulfing the globe inflicting economic misery, suffering and death as they move through societies with the speed of a deadly tornado. These include the plague of ecological destruction, the degradation of civic culture, the possibility of a nuclear war, and the normalization of a brutal culture of cruelty. Moreover, the plague of neoliberalism has waged a full-scale attack on the welfare state. In doing so, it has underfunded and weakened those institutions such as education and the public health sector. In addition, it has removed the vast majority of Americans from the power relations and modes of governance that would enable them to deal critically and intelligently with natural disasters, pandemics, and a slew of planetary crises which cannot be addressed by the market. In the midst of this pandemic, the poison of ruling-class power is at the center of the current political, ideological, and medical crisis. Frank Rich gets it right in arguing:

… the pandemic has revealed in particularly stark terms that the extreme economic inequalities unmasked by the 2008 economic collapse remain unaddressed. There’s a titanic dynamic playing out now in real time. Celebrities and the wealthy are first in line for the lifeboats of coronavirus tests. Rupert Murdoch and his family protect their own health while profiting from a news empire that downplayed and outright disputed the threat of coronavirus…. As the virus spreads from its current epicenters through the country the grotesque discrepancy between the elites and the have-nots is going to make Parasite look as benign as an episode of Modern Family.

The other plague, among many, is the rise of right-wing cultural apparatuses, such as Fox News and Breitbart Media in which truth is treated with scorn, science viewed as a hindrance and critical thought is maligned as “fake news.” This is a plague of willful ignorance and state-sanctioned civic illiteracy.
Under such circumstances, language at the highest levels of power and among powerful conservative cultural apparatuses operate in the service of denial, lies and violence. These media relentlessly push conspiracy theories such as the claim that the pandemic is a product of the “deep state” designed to prevent Trump from being reelected; a hoax created by the Democratic Party; or a virus that is no less dangerous than the common flu. They have also relentlessly insisted that all social problems are a matter of individual responsibility so as to depoliticize the public while making them indifferent to the neofascist claim that the government has no responsibility to care for its citizens or that society should not be organized around mutual respect, care, social rights and economic equality.
The current crisis is part of an age defined by a pedagogical catastrophe of indifference and a flight from any viable sense of moral responsibility. This is an age marked by a contempt for weakness, as well as rampant racism, the elevation of emotion over reason, the collapse of civic culture, and an obsession with wealth and self-interest. Under such circumstances, we are in the midst of not simply a political crisis, but also an educational crisis in which matters of power, governance, knowledge and a disdain for truth and evidence have wreaked havoc on the truth and endangered both millions of people and the planet itself. This is a politics fueled by a disimagination machine whose political and cultural workstations make the truth, justice, ethics, and most of all, bodies, disappear into the abyss of authoritarianism.
For the plague to end, it is crucial to address the ideologies of neoliberal fascism that prevent people from translating private troubles into broader systemic issues and to fight pedagogically in order to convince the public to move beyond the culture of privatization and atomization that propels a consumer society and reinforces a politics of single issues detached from broader considerations. This political crisis can only be grasped as a crisis of the social totality, one in which a range of “democratic ills form the specifically political strand of a general crisis that is engulfing our social order in its entirety.” We live in a moment in which it is becoming more credible to acknowledge that capitalism and democracy are not the same thing, and that the endpoint of capitalism is not only massive inequality and human suffering but a brutal machinery of death in which humanity is one step closer to the edge of extinction. This suggests that crises can have multiple outcomes resulting in a surge of authoritarianism and repression, on the one hand; or on the other, a resurgence of resistance movements at numerous levels willing to fight for a more just and equitable society, one that rejects what Brad Evans has called an age of multiple exclusions, mass terror, increasing expulsions and the hollowing out of the social state.
Crises can have multiple outcomes resulting in a resurgence of resistance movements at numerous levels willing to fight for a more just and equitable society.
The coronavirus pandemic has pulled back the curtain to reveal the power of a brutal neoliberalism — and its global financial markets — in all of its cruelty. This is a system that has not only eroded the democratic ideals of equality and popular sovereignty, but has also created a political and economic context in which the looming pandemic puts a severe strain on medical workers and hospitals that lack ventilators and other essential equipment to treat patients and limit the number of deaths caused by the virus. This points to a moment in the current historical conjuncture in which the space between the passing of one period and the beginning of a new age offers the possibility for the social and political imagination to set in motion a global movement for radical democracy.
The current viral pandemic cannot be discussed outside of the crisis of politics and education. What is needed is a new vocabulary to comprehend the current pandemic crisis. Such a language must provide a sustained critique of neoliberal fascism with its discourses of exclusion, exploitation and racial purity. Such a discourse should also address the underlying causes of poverty, class domination, environmental destruction and a resurgent racism not as a call for reform, but as a project of radical reconstruction aimed at the creation of a new political and economic social order. In the words of Amartya Sen, we need “to think big about society.” In spite of the overwhelming nature of the current crisis, there is a need to think beyond being isolated, overwhelmed and powerless.
There is no doubt that the COVID-19 crisis will test the limits of democracy worldwide.
As we have seen in a number of countries, such as Hungary, Egypt, the Philippines, Thailand and Israel, the pandemic crisis creates extraordinary circumstances for restricting civil liberties, free speech and human rights while intensifying the possibilities of an emerging authoritarianism. There is no doubt that the COVID-19 crisis will test the limits of democracy worldwide.
At the same time, the magnitude of the crisis offers new possibilities in which people can begin to rethink what kind of society, world and future they want to inhabit. What we do not want to do is to go back to a system that equates democracy and capitalism. We must move beyond modifying the system, because the current crisis has deeper political and economic roots and demands a complete restructuring of society. David Harvey is right in arguing that “The fundamental problems are actually so deep right now that there is no way that we are going to go anywhere without a very strong anti-capitalist movement.”
As the pandemic crisis recedes, we will have to choose between a society that addresses human needs or one in which a survival-of-the-fittest ethos becomes the only organizing principle of society. It is time for new visions, public transcripts and pedagogical narratives to emerge about the meaning of politics, solidarity, mass resistance and democracy itself.
We still have the opportunity to reimagine a world in which the future does not mimic the predatory neoliberal present. This should be a world that brings together the struggles for justice, emancipation and social equality. More urgent than ever is the need to struggle for a world that imagines and acts on the utopian promises of a just and democratic socialist society. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, matters of criticism, understanding and resistance are elevated into a matter of life or death. Resistance is a dire necessity.

COMMENT

I have no comments on the last few paragraphs of Henry A. Giroux words, other than to suggest we are not out of the woods yet, climate change still has its deniers among us. We also have the marketeers who believe that the market can look after society needs. Where you fit into the mix is for you or others to decide. 

Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. His most recent books include: Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education (Haymarket 2014), The Violence of Organized Forgetting (City Lights 2014), Dangerous Thinking in the Age of the New Authoritarianism (Routledge, 2015), America’s Addiction to Terrorism (Monthly Review Press, 2016), America at War with Itself (City Lights, 2017), The Public in Peril (Routledge, 2018) and American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism (City Lights, 2018) and The Terror of the Unforeseen (LARB Books, 2019). Giroux is also a member of Truthout’s Board of Directors.

Wheeler's corner 6th April 2020.

Wheeler's Corner Special

6th April 2020

These 24 billionaires, executives, and right-wing pundits are urging a premature rollback of social distancing, risking millions of American lives.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/02/even-during-pandemic-plutocrats-prioritize-profits-over-people?cd-origin=rss&utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Weekly%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Weekly%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email

After clicking on the above and having a quick read, I am led to wonder just what is happening, this bunch of Trumps mates seem hell bent on killing millions if need be in the name of the US economy.

Even after a quick read I was shocked to comprehend the amount of input this bunch has into the mind set of a guy like Trump. It's really hard to comprehend that this psychopathic idiot is in charge of a nation the size of the US. His last mad act is to [via the US Navy] to sack a ships captain for protecting his crew after a number of them died from the virus. Will doctors be punished for saving the life of patients next?

We all are I'm sure aware that his promise that it [the virus] would all be over by Easter has been put on the back burner...thank God our PM has more leadership skills in her big toe than Trump has in his head. Trump has put the battle against virus on a war footing, but we must never forget that the US has not won a war since the 2nd WW, This next reference proves how money rules:

https://truthout.org/articles/the-billionaires-putting-their-wealth-above-public-health-amid-the-pandemic/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=98cb6aac-8ef8-4e0e-b80e-24a1d1f92ef6

Sure we've got our own crazy bubble headed Mike Hosking but he has no real punch or importance and would run and hide at any threat to his safety.  [Seen here with his last protector and fan John Key] his only protector now days is his wife

We were among the first to go into a lock-down state [stage four] which appears to be working at this point in time, and while I felt we should have moved quicker, it amazing what hindsight can do, we can each have our opinion about that., but it would appear according to the experts that we took the right steps at the right time...

This compares the behaviour of various countries around the world:

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120731509/coronavirus-how-hard-how-early-the-numbers-behind-new-zealands-quick-lockdown?cid=edm:stuff:dailyheadlines&bid=1266404873

This was the best example I could find showing the overall picture. Its funny in some respects that left wing countries seem to have put their people first, where as the full blown capitalist monsters have failed to do so. Some of the comments are most revealing!! and in general most supportive of the governments actions.

Please continue to follow the lock down rules and help protect humanity. I wish you well as you seek a new future for not only NZ but all humanity.

Yep, many of us would've wanted our borders closed when we first heard about it, it didn't happen.

Yep, many of us would've wanted our borders closed when we first heard about it, it didn't happen.

When you think of the pressure from all businesses and the opposition to stay open, the government in my opinion has done a fanastic job.

Remember all the varsities wanting ltheir students to continue to come in, tourism wanting their turnover?  

This has been one big juggling act, trying to get all the balls to fall into place (well I imagine it has been).  

I feel safe, safer than I would be living in any other country.  As long as everyone plays by the rules, we will get through this.

Thank you again to all of you who are keeping us safe, nothing but praise. 

Stay inside, stay local, be kind, check on your neighbours.  Kia kaha NZ.

When you think of the pressure from all businesses and the opposition to stay open, the government in my opinion has done a fanastic job.

Remember all the varsities wanting ltheir students to continue to come in, tourism wanting their turnover?  

This has been one big juggling act, trying to get all the balls to fall into place (well I imagine it has been).  

I feel safe, safer than I would be living in any other country.  As long as everyone plays by the rules, we will get through this.

Thank you again to all of you who are keeping us safe, nothing but praise. 

Stay inside, stay local, be kind, check on your neighbours.  Kia kaha NZ.

ohmygoodness

Yep, many of us would've wanted our borders closed when we first heard about it, it didn't happen.

When you think of the pressure from all businesses and the opposition to stay open, the government in my opinion has done a fanastic job.

Remember all the varsities wanting ltheir students to continue to come in, tourism wanting their turnover?  

This has been one big juggling act, trying to get all the balls to fall into place (well I imagine it has been).  

I feel safe, safer than I would be living in any other country.  As long as everyone plays by the rules, we will get through this.

Thank you again to all of you who are keeping us safe, nothing but praise. 

Stay inside, stay local, be kind, check on your neighbours.  Kia kaha NZ

wheeler's corner 2nd April 2020

WHEELER'S CORNER 2^nd April 2020.

 I have not produced a Wheeler's Corner for sometime, because I’ve been like thousands of Kiwi’s been locked away. But while reading a bit of stuff on the web...I came across these comments on a Common Dreams item. It concerned the problem of paying benefits to low income workers and pensioners and ex-vets. [in the USA]. Each of the paragraphs below are quotes from US residents

"While we’re on the subject of statistics, my initial analysis shows two Anglophone countries in deep doo-doo (UK & USA) while the others look relatively sound, so far. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Australia and Canada having full confidence New Zealand, my dream paradise, will manage everything with the usual intelligence and compassion, or kiwi panache).

"People north of the northern North American border look like they’re in much better hands than the people south of it, according to the numbers I follow. (Except for Alaskans, of course.)

"The US Model is a great con. What they are doing is giving money to Corporations while claiming this will ensure the companies retain staff. The Corporations will keep the money and lay off the staff anyways because all other revenues drop. They do not need those workers to get that Government cheese so why would they retain them?

"The aid has to be bottom up. The Neo-liberal model of making the rich richer and claiming it trickles down is a 40 year old swindle which has not worked and which will be even worse in this crisis.

"Not only that, these checks/direct deposits should have gone out 2-3 weeks ago. All this foot-dragging (both sides of the aisle), is simply because they don’t want to have to do it again. People needed this first check weeks ago to meet their bills by April 1. Mr Moneybags Mnuchin is now saying it’s a one-time payment. Yet Trump, in all his wisdom, is now saying he wants to restore the full corporate tax deduction for meals. What planet is this man living on?

"The federal government already has all of the information it needs… Likely more than 15 million Social Security recipients who currently don’t file tax returns and aren’t otherwise required to do so would have to file if Treasury doesn’t use its authority to get those people payments automatically.

NOPE. I am NOT going to cooperate. I am low income but this is a golden opportunity to join in solidarity in the uprising with strikers of every stripe and I am engaging in creative direct action in helping to feed some neighbors.

Enough IS enough!

Quote ends:

I wish you well and hope that you and your family and friends are managing well during these difficult times, you are too many to name individually, but I wish you all well and I hope that this mess is repaired shortly and that our leaders [whatever party] may not develop into the mess that is the United states...not all Americans are idiots, as the first paragraph proves. Its good to know we are a model of commonsense. I can hope that we Kiwis show as much sense when this is over to the issue of climate change and all that that entails. Lastly let me end with a little humour  we need a laugh these days!

 

A Speech for the working class of the world.and Milson Combined Church gets a new rev. Wheelers Courner 08 10th March 2020

Below is Bernie Sanders latest speech:

Starting with his support speakers. Its about an hour long.

For years and years we have been forced to listen to political speeches from nothing more than drones of the world Capitalist systems tell us all to trust them, as they feathered their own nests...The the Roger Douglas types, even hair puller John Key never told the truth as he spun his web of lies.

But Bernie Sanders understands history, and sure while our political history here in NZ is not the same as that of the United States.

The outcome for the workers has been the same...we've had our ups and downs, but since Roger Douglas each change has brought a backward step in the area of equality and wage payments.

We've sold off much of our educational systems and introduced student loans that have put huge pressures of our students and their futures.
And we fight American for ever wars. 

I plead with you to take the time to watch and listen to Bernie and to particularly observe the behaviour of the crowd...and look at the make up of the crowd, the mix of young and old, male and female, and remember no one was paid to come to hear Bernie...  



https://www.facebook.com/berniesanders/videos/2567987626645609/UzpfSTEwMDAwNjcxMTE5NzQxODpWSzoyNTE5MjIyMzgxNTE1NzEx/?multi_permalinks=2519615111476438%2C2519222381515711%2C2511188168985799%2C2517545278350088%2C2517498491688100&notif_id=1583349374414460&notif_t=group_activity

Now I'm aware of the joke that Donald Trump has become, and we should not be supprised after all his entertainment power lay in his use of the words "You are Fired!', of course anyone stating those words to an employee is really conceding their utter failure as an employor...Most employers try their utmost to ensure that their employees succeed rather than fail...but alas not the POUSA...he keeps sacking everyone around him...they come and go at a rate never seen before...

Rev Andy Hickman.

Now on Sunday I was a part of hundreds of people who came together to welcome the installation of the Rev Andy Hickman as a minister at the 'Milson Combined Church', it was a service of pure delight.
It was truly a wonderful service that welcomed and embraced Andy into the welcome arms of a living church in a community that cares... This was the opposite of the words "You are Fired" instead the words "You are embraced" came to mind...and on a personnel bases I can think of no one more worthy of embracing...Andy is the direct opposite to Donald Trump... for he cares and proves it by his actions day in and day out within the community in which he lives. The Milson Combined Church has made a great sellection as did Andy in applying for the position.

These couple of pictures proves without doubt that Trump has created a new measure of success in the US, telling someone they are fired is the heroic thing to do...

The grey haired gentleman's comments says it all...

Any way have a good week and be kind to all around you,
and lets work toward beating the latest bug that is affecting good people around the world, and lets not pretend that it doesn't exist...

Feel free to replace the grey haired gentleman's words 'Trump Supporters' with words of your own choosing for example Roger Douglas, Bill English, Simon Bridges, mad Boris, etc, etc. 

Politics is Primal Wheelers Corner 07 28th Feb 2020

 

Phyllis Eckhaus wrote these wonderful and honest words and its hard not to agree with them.

"Adult life is a more-or-less-conscious battle with existential dread. There are so many haunting precipitous terrors before us—from climate change to war to superbugs to the fact that we’re all gonna die. Perhaps Trump’s “me and mine first” crude rude embrace of power and prejudice offers talismanic comfort to his followers.

Politics is about power…and only the most privileged can afford to ignore the looming terror of navigating the world with neither power nor protection, of being at the mercy of ruthless others".

click on https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/02/25/politics-primal 
to read a brilliant item on the subject of how the powerful control the world we live in these days:

Lastly I've added this on Trumps latest attack on the media:
 https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/26/taking-page-his-dictator-friends-around-world-sanders-hits-trump-over-nyt-libel?cd-origin=rss&utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email

After reading the above I hope that you will understand that the need to stand collectively is more vital than ever before. We all need to to connect with those of a like mind and then to together embrace the possibility of creating effective community actions or behaviours that can lead to change, real change for both individuals and society at large...