Fueling the rising costs for everyone

Fuel prices are rising throughout the world due to Tr*mp’s war against Iran, and obviously New Zealand’s fuel prices are rising fast, too. A couple days ago, an economist predicted that petrol prices could pass $4 per litre (roughly US$8.81 per US gallon). I think our prices will probably reach that point in maybe a week.

Here's why I say that: Late yesterday afternoon, I used the Gaspy App to look at prices at around 50 petrol stations within a relatively short drive from my house. The cheapest price for 91 was $2.93 per litre (three stations), and the highest price was $3.26 per litre. This evening, the cheapest price was $3.14 per litre (one station), and the highest price was $3.40—that’s around 24 hours later. It will keep rising.

Despite being late to take the situation seriously, the current NZ government is starting to talk about “worst case scenario” solutions. They claim NZ has seven weeks of fuel supply, counting both what’s here and what’s on the way, but experts in the industry estimate it’s actually around five weeks. One specific—and big—problem is that around 47% of NZ’s refined fuel comes from Korea, and they’ve talked about suspending exports, and if they do, this situation could get serious fast.

The government’s first step will be to work with partner countries overseas to try to find alternative sources of fuel, and they’re talking about temporarily relaxing fuel standards (I think, but don’t know, that they mean things like allowing higher levels of Sulfur in diesel). They also are working on a series of escalating restrictions on sales (to prioritise essential users, like emergency services and truckers shipping food to supermarkets) that they could use, if that becomes necessary—along with security guards at petrol stations.

I’m extremely lucky in that I don’t need to drive much or far, so this shouldn’t affect me for a while. Sales restrictions, if they happen, would obviously affect me, too, but, like everyone else, rising prices will increasingly mean I won’t drive anywhere unless I have to.

However, we'll all share the pain of fast-rising fuel prices because EVERYTHING we need to buy will become more expensive, including groceries, which are already at too-high prices—and, of course, farmers need fuel to grow and harvest our food (plus fertiliser may be hard to obtain). We’ve also been warned that because of all the uncertainties, there could be fuel surcharges added to anything delivered directly to us. Could? Make that there will be.

Related to that, I realised recently that this situation could mean that the guy who mows my front lawn may raise his prices. However, he recently cut back to mowing every other week, so even if he raises his prices, I should still be paying less per month than when he was mowing weekly. Like I said, I’m lucky.

No one knows how this will play out, or when the war will end. It certainly doesn’t help that the USA has a government that doesn’t have a clue what it’s doing, and the Republican politicians clearly have no idea whatsoever how to bring their war to an end. So, things right now are serious and getting worse, but they're not yet dire—emphasis on yet.

New Zealand is as vulnerable as any other country, and our own “Coalition of Chaos” government hasn’t exactly been inspiring confidence that they know what to do. Even so, I’m not willing to jump on the panic wagon about all this. First, there’s absolutely nothing I can do about the cause of all this turmoil. All I can do is manage what’s within my control, and I’m definitely doing that.

But, seriously, isn’t it about time we finally got to have some precedented times?!!!

Trendsetting declarations?

This is becoming a trend: Voters in countries in the Commonwealth are rejecting the USA’s titular president and his hard-right authoritarian politics. Will this spread? We can certainly hope so.

This past Saturday, Australians went to the polls in parliamentary elections, and the delivered a resounding defeat to the countries MAGA-aligned conservatives. Just as Canada recently did, the Australian conservative leader also lost his own seat in Parliament. Well done, Australia, well done.

Australia’s re-elected government is under the Australian Labor Party (ALP) headed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (his surname is pronounced “all-ban-EE-zee”). The leader of The Coalition was Peter Dutton who tried to use the US Republicans' culture war antics, along with a bizarre focus on expanding nuclear energy (critics suggested it was to promote uranium mining in Australia, and also to distract from conservatives’ fixation on coal, which is also mined in Australia).

The Albanese government wasn’t overwhelmingly popular late last year, then in January everything changed as the US regime bedded in. In the last couple weeks before the election, it looked like the ALP would be re-elected, but the polls were quite close, and it looked like maybe the best Albanese could hope for was to form a minority government (this happens when no party has an absolute majority in Parliament and is able to form government with the support of minor parties). In the end, the ALP increased its majority.

The conservative Liberal Party (which is in coalition with the largely rural National Party, and together they’re usually called “The Coalition”) was the target because of their rhetoric aping the US regime’s leader, leading to the ALP branding him “DOGE-y Dutton”. He wasn’t the only MAGA-aligned Australian, of course. The AP News article linked to above noted:

Trumpet of Patriots, a minor party inspired by Trump policies with an advertising budget funded by mining magnate Clive Palmer that eclipsed the major parties, attracted only 2% of the vote.

Once again, mining rears its head (many of Australia’s ultra rich are connected to mining). At any rate, it’s always pleasing to see oligarchs waste some of their obscene wealth in a failed campaign to buy an election, much as Elon failed to buy a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat. Seeing the oligarchs fail utterly is always satisfying to the those of us who love and embrace democracy.1

New Zealand’s next general election is next year, and we have two very different minor parties aligned with the US Republican regime: One is led by an octogenarian who apes the Republican leader’s culture war bullshit. His party is introducing a bill to declare there are only two genders, after campaigning in the election to require restaurants, bars, etc., to verify that the gender of patrons using matched the toilets the toilets they planned to use. How, precisely, business were to do that was never stated, leading to mockery about them requiring genital inspections.

The other hard-rightwing minor party is led by a much younger man who wants to implement the same far-right fascistic agenda being advocated by those working behind the scenes of the USA’s current regime, in part because that particular minor party leader was part of an international organisation promoting neoliberal (sometimes call neoconservative) policies, such as, promoting the interests of corporations and the ultra rich, against poor and working people, and in favour of using the power of the state to control behaviour they don’t approve of (though in this case, not religiously based). They also want to privatise pretty much all government functions, in much the same way the USA’s “Doge” is trying to give core US government functions to corporations. That guy is about to become Deputy Prime Minister under the coalition agreement the three parties entered into to form government,

It’s around a year and a half-ish until New Zealand's next General Election, and there’s no way to know what shape politics here or in the US will be in. Will New Zealand join its fellow Commonwealth nations and reject the divisive and negative politics of the USA? No idea at this point, but you can be sure I’ll be talking about it—next year. Right now, I am proud to celebrate with both Australia and Canada.

A mere three years ago

Three years ago today, at 11:59pm, New Zealand went under the first Covid lockdown. Like so many things, it feels like it was far longer ago than that, and also maybe far less time. So much has changed since then, not just the deaths and suffering, but also the rise of a persistent, aggressive negativism: People now seem to delight in being grumpy, contrary, mean-spirited, and judgmental. To paraphrase Dr. Julian Bashir on Star Trek: Deep Space 9, people seem to have resolved to look every gift horse squarely in the mouth, and to look for the cloud around every silver lining.

From those early days of solidarity and goodwill, things degenerated into partisan political fights, with those on the right particularly keen to use the pandemic as a justification for all their bizarre conspiracy theories, no matter how unhinged or detached from the real world, and as reason to oppose everything the centre and left proposed, no matter how rational or common sense it may have been.

We saw this play out in their aggressive behaviour, from bullying workers in supermarkets, or masked customers in any shop, to their illegal occupation of Parliament grounds, other “protest” stunts that put people’s lives at risk, and, especially, in the vile rumours, disgusting personal attacks, and credible death threats they aimed at former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Ardern became their enemy because she dared to try to keep New Zealanders safe and alive in the face of a pandemic that, three years ago today, we knew precious little about.

Psychologists have written about the emotional and psychological toll that the pandemic took on people, made worse by the lack of availability of mental health help, and that’s certainly true. They’ve also commented on the role that social media has played in the rise of the aggressive negativism we see today, and the disinformation and conspiracy theories underlying much of it. That, too, is true. But surely at some level we’re masters of our own ship, and the enemy isn’t those who tried to keep us safe, however imperfectly they sometimes did that, it’s ourselves. As Walt Kelly’s Pogo put in 1971, “We have met the enemy, and he is us” [VIEW].

So many people would be much better off if they stayed away from social media, at least sometimes, and if they just ignored whatever l'indignation du jour might be—chances are it’s all bullshit, anyway. Most people know all that: Once the restrictions put in place to fight Covid were relaxed, they just got on with life again, and they didn’t keep falling down the social media doom spirals that a tiny but aggressive minority still live within. We all have the same choice choice: To live in the light or dwell in the darkness.

Today, three years after this began in New Zealand, the day has been a beautiful and bright sunny one at my house. I had plenty of starkly ordinary things to do today, and I didn’t have the time—or room—for the negativist zeitgeist. I wish the same for everyone. We all need more light and less darkness.

Ask Arthur 2022, Part 4: Helping Ukraine?

This post is the actual penultimate post in this series, thanks to a question I received after Part 3. The final post in this year’s series will be at the end of this week.

Today’s question is from my long-time friend Sherry, who wrote:

The situation in Ukraine is heavy on my mind. I have no idea how there is never enough money for America, but something like helping Ukraine becomes a global crisis and all of a sudden we have the money to help another country. I can't help thinking what that kind of money would do for the U.S.

I wonder if we will ever get our money back from Russia. We should confiscate the assets we can to help pay for what they have done.

So, my question is… how does the world get Russia out of Ukraine so we can stop funding the war, and so Ukraine can become whole again? I believe in the 10 steps The President of Ukraine laid out...but it seems impossible!

That’s a really good question, and it’s one that comes up in one form or another all the time. I think there are several different aspects to this situation.

The thing that’s probably the most obvious is that there’s only one way to get Russia out of Ukraine without a global, possibly nuclear, war, and that’s funding Ukraine itself. If Western nations can prevent Russia from conquering Ukraine, over time the regime will become so weakened that they will agree to peace terms, or else the Russian dictator “falls out a window”, as so many of his enemies have. Either way, the war will end when Russia has had enough.

There’s no way that Russia will ever pay for its illegal war, and Western governments have (so far) shown very little appetite for penalising big corporations that do business with the Russian regime. The main barrier to cutting Russia off from the global economy is that Europe is still dependant on Russian oil and gas. The European Union is trying to rapidly accelerate their move away from that dependence, but there’s no easy or quick solution, and while it remains, Russia has a source of foreign money to spend on its war, and European nations can’t push too hard without retaliation, as we’ve already seen.

All of which means that the question of cost in a situation like this has to be seen in its larger context, namely, how much higher the cost would be to do nothing—or to do more. The reality is, this isn’t just about saving the Ukrainian people and nation, but about preserving freedom and democracy throughout Europe and beyond. Time was, that sort of statement would have been hyperbole, but now it’s simply the truth.

The Russian dictator is determined to restore the Russian Empire—not merely the Soviet Union, but going back to czarist times. So far, he has relied on installing compliant regimes in former Soviet “republics”. For example, he’s done that in Belarus, which gave him a staging point to use to invade Ukraine when the Ukrainian people had the audacity to depose the Russian regime’s hand-selected despot. It’s obvious now that the Russian dictator really did think that Kyiv would fall in a few days, and the Russians would be able to install an obedient servant to rule what would essentially have been a Russian vassal state. The Russian dictator vastly underestimated the fierce determination of the Ukrainian people and army, and vastly overestimated how good his own army was.

We also know how reliant the dictator is on mercenaries, who are responsible for most of the war crimes, acts of genocide, and brutality—most, but not all. Russia has deliberately targeted civilians in their homes, but they’ve also target hospitals, which itself is a war crime under international law going back the first international convention of 1864. The International Criminal Court and the United Nations have sent war crimes investigators to Ukraine to document Russia’s crimes—and, Russia is obligated by membership in the United Nations to turn over war criminals for prosecution, though no reasonable person could imagine them ever agreeing to do that while the current dictator is in power.

All of that is important to note because it underscores the Russian dictator’s imperial ambitions, ruthlessness, and gleeful brutality. He will never stop with Ukraine: He plans to eventually invade Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and also—at the very least—the rest of the European nations that were formerly controlled by the Soviet Union. However, that would mean a direct attack on NATO nations, which would cause a global war. He’s trying to avoid that by weakening western resolve so countries in the west give up and don’t resist, and then one day, it would be too late to resist.

The Russian dictator’s giddy embrace of war crimes and genocide, along with more routine brutality, is, like his constant threats of nuclear war, intended to frighten the citizens of nations supporting Ukraine. It’s why, as winter loomed, Russian agents sabotaged a natural gas pipeline leading to Germany. This is also why he courts direct support by far-right politicians in countries around the world, people who would be a sort of “fifth column” to help prevent foreign military opposition as he expands his empire.

It’s obviously far cheaper to fund Ukraine than to wage a global war, but it also drains Russian resources which would make a global war less likely, or less likely to succeed, the longer the current conflict continues. In the short term, that does nothing to help the folks in Ukraine or among its supporters, and the Russian dictator is counting on that fact to dissuade the West from supporting Ukraine long term.

So, funding Ukraine is far cheaper than waging a direct war with Russia or doing nothing and waiting for Russia to further expand its empire. However, no matter how important funding Ukraine is, that doesn’t address the heart of your question, about how much good could be done “at home” with money being spent in Ukraine.

I think it’s important to look at why, precisely, the USA never has enough money for its own needs: Pure, bald, crass, selfish politics. The USA could well afford to look after its own and help with problems around the world, but money is always short by design and on purpose.

We all know that the USA’s rightwing doesn’t much like international cooperation: Some factions hate the United Nations, others hate government funded humanitarian aid, and others adore the Russian dictator and his brutal regime. At the same time, other rightwing factions are concerned only with the needs and desires of the ultra-rich and corporations, and the needs or ordinary people are invisible to that faction.

Imagine an alternative reality where the ultra-rich and corporations paid their fair share in taxes—that doesn’t even have to mean higher taxes, just that they pay their existing tax obligations like ordinary people have to. Imagine if all the loopholes that favor the ultra-rich and corporations were closed—not just the ones that let them avoid paying any income tax, but also the ones that let them claim federal welfare payments, too.

Put another way, it’s not that the USA can’t take care of its own AND be an active participant in the world, it’s that the rightwing in the USA won’t allow it, and the electoral system is sufficiently rigged to allow that to continue being the case.

In my opinion, the problem isn’t that there’s a shortage of money, it’s that there’s an excess of greed. It’s not that there’s not enough money available to deal with problems at home and overseas, it’s that there’s not enough humanity among politicians to find ways to solve problems. Fixing that is up to ordinary people, because despite all the nefarious shenanigans of the politicians working to block change, ordinary people in democratic nations are the most powerful force in their countries. They just have to use the power they already have.

Thanks to Sherry for today’s question!

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-21”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.

Previously:

A decade-long inquisition
Ask Arthur 2022, Part 1: Speaking in the House
Ask Arthur 2022, Part 2: Indepen-dunce
Ask Arthur 2022, Part 3: Ranking choices

Waiting and worrying

I haven’t said anything about US politics in ages, for a lot of reasons, but in the background, I’ve been feeling literally sick for quite some time because my homeland may be about to begin a less-than-slow-motion self-evisceration. I’m literally sick of feeling this way about the USA.

On the other hand, I have hope that opinion polls, which have been thoroughly unreliable since at least 2016, will continue their record of being perfectly imperfect, and they’ll be wrong once again. It’s not just that I want Democrats to win, though obviously I do, it’s that I want democracy to survive. If the other guys win, US democracy will need to be booked itself into hospice and palliative care. If the good guys win, there will be a chance that democracy can recover and heal.

But there’s nothing more that anyone can do now. I hope I’ll soon feel better. I hope the majority in the USA—and that its democracy—do, too.

Worth quoting: President Joe Biden

This weekend is the Waitangi Day holiday weekend, and yesterday most politicians were in Waitangi for the observance. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern later posted a message from President Biden on her official Facebook Page. She said:

Just got home from Waitangi to find a letter from President Joe Biden to mark Waitangi Day. Given it was intended for everyone, I thought I’d share it here!

Here is the message she shared:

Dear Prime Minister.

The American people join me in offering warmest regards to the people of New Zealand on the occasion of Waitangi Day on February 6.

New Zealand is one of our closest friends and partners. The unbreakable bond we share was established when the first U.S. Consul to New Zealand was on hand to witness the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on February 6, 1840. We have since partnered together to build the multilateral framework that benefits our nations as well as the global population.

I look forward to strengthening the U.S.-New Zealand relationship and cooperating to overcome the greatest challenges of our time...

I have fond memories of my trip to your country in 2016 when New Zealand’s legendary reputation for friendliness and hospitality was on full display. I wish you and all New Zealanders well on this Waitangi Day.

Sincerely

Joseph R Biden

The meme accompanying this post was created by Democrats Abroad, an official group of the USA’s Democratic Party to, among other things, inform and organise US citizens who support the Democratic Party and live overseas. The group shared it to their Facebook Page. The meme contains an excerpt from a speech delivered on February 4 (USA time), “Remarks by President Biden on America’s Place in the World”. His message to New Zealand is a concrete example of what he was talking about.

The elipsis at the end of third paragraph of President Biden's message may indicate some of what he said was redacted for some reason, and, if so, it could mean there are areas where New Zealand will still chart an independent course—because there are, and it will. The point is, the two countries will work together again on mutual goals again, and that's a good thing.

Ask Arthur 2020, Part 2: Same as it never was

Over the years, I’ve been asked a lot of questions about all sorts of things—politics, religion, even my own philosophies, among many other things. Today’s question is no different.

Today’s question is from Roger Green:

This is actually a question that came up in a Bible study this morning. The assumption is that people want to get back to the way they were before COVID (and George Floyd and 2020 generally).

What processes are most likely NOT to go back to what had been the norm? And related, how do you think people have changed by 2020? Kinder, greedier, more or less tolerant?

I think the answer to that is really, “depends on where you’re talking about,” because, as with fighting the pandemic itself, everything depends on where one lives. For that matter, the problems of the year that seemed the biggest also depended on where one lives.

First, the pandemic. I think there will be some lasting changes in all developed countries. Chief among them, there will be more people working from home, at least part of the time, but probably more than that. It will mean more corporations downsizing their real estate, which, in turn, could mean large vacant office buildings in major cities. Because of that, the hospitality trade in business areas will suffer dramatically, which will mean going out for lunch or after-work drinks workmates may become less common.

People will desperately want to get back to what they had, so I expect there will be problems with compliance with things like physical distancing and wearing masks. I say that in part because I’ve seen a notable drop in people using New Zealand’s Covid Tracer App. Obviously my personal observations aren’t evidence, but they at least suggests that some people in New Zealand have already become complacent—the very reason the government launched its “Make Summer Unstoppable” campaign.

While everyone want to get back to “normal”, we have no way of knowing if that will even be possible. We don’t know if people are infectious after getting the vaccine, or how long their protection lasts, so we can’t be sure it’ll ever be safe to go back to what we had before. The only way to make that more likely is for people to get vaccinated and to continue wearing masks and physically distance until we have better answers about immunity for, and transmission by, vaccinated people.

A huge amount of kindness shown during the worst of the pandemic, most of it unheralded. In New Zealand, kindness was a cornerstone of the government’s response because they needed us to do our part, not just to get through lockdown, but also to help ensure that others did, too. It worked. However, I’m not convinced that kindness is a natural state for humans in normal times, so I think that most of us will probably go back to being cantankerous and unforgiving when the crisis does eventually end. I hope I’m wrong about that.

In the USA, much of the turmoil and stress was stuff caused—usually directly, sometimes indirectly—by the soon to be ex-occupant of the White House and his disastrous mishandling of the pandemic. Having a real president and vice president in office, pursuing perfectly rational policies and upholding the rule of law will go a long way toward turning down the flame under the societal pot. I certainly don’t expect any of the issues—like Black Lives Matter, for example—to be solved in the next four years, however, we at least know that none of them will get worse like they did in the previous four. That alone should allow a bit of a return to “normal” for society generally—the caveat being that patience is not infinite, and the new administration will need to take action to make things better because simply not making them worse is no progress at all, not really.

Similarly, the new US administration will need to act on climate change, which even with action will continue to disrupt societies with more (and more frequent) severe storms and wider, more destructive events like wildfires. But there can be other natural events, like the eruption of New Zealand’s Whakaari/White Island, something that happened only a year ago, in December 2019, mere weeks before Covid emerged. All of those sorts of things—weather related and non weather related events—are by definition unpredictable. We can only hope that things will be better in 2021 than they were this year, and if they are, that, too, will help restore a sense of normality.

People throughout the developed world have been changed by 2020, and some of that may be permanent or, at least, long-lived. The deep and bitter political division in the USA, for example, won’t vanish any time soon (it built up over decades, after all), but it might get better if nature doesn’t get too dramatic and political progress is made.

As a sign of hope, I offer New Zealand: Faced with many of the same challenges as the USA—the global pandemic, systemic racism, a large income divide and poverty, etc., New Zealand voters saw they had a strong, capable, competent government that was trying to unite, not divide, the country and they re-elected their government in an historic landslide. That’s what good government can result in. So, if the new administration gets the pandemic under control, if it makes progress on finally dealing with simmering unresolved social and political issues, there is hope for a return to more normal times.

All of which puts aside questions about “what ‘normal’ are people expecting to return to”. What people perceive as “normal” isn’t necessarily desirable, and it may not even be real. I’m thinking especially of the folks who are convinced that there were no racial problems until “troublemakers” started rioting. And there are still people who believe the fantasy version of 1950s America is something to aspire to. None of those viewpoints are based on reality, and if that’s what the “normal” people want, they will be hugely disappointed.

Thanks to Roger for today’s question, my rather in adequate answer notwithstanding.

It’s not too late to ask a question: Simply leave a comment on this post (anonymous comments are allowed). Or, you can email me your question (and you can even tell me to keep your name secret, although, why not pick a nom de question?). You can also ask questions on the AmeriNZ Facebook page, though keep in mind that all Facebook Pages are public, just like this blog. You can also send me a private message through the AmeriNZ Facebook Page.

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-20”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, ”Ask Arthur”.

Previously:

Sure, why not ask again? – The first post in this year’s series.
Ask Arthur 2020, Part 1: An untold story

Honest Government Ad

The video above is part of a series of satirical “Honest Government Ads” by Australian outfit, The Juice Media. The “ads” are all brutal—and on point. They’re also full of “naughty words” (they put out what they call “PG Versions” of their ad videos, which includes a “PG Version” of this ad, too).

I wonder how many gullible people have been “fooled” by these videos and think they’re really from “the government”. After all, this is the era of low-information people without critical thinking skills, people who take pride in their ignorance and their hair-trigger outrage responses. Still, I’ve always believed that breaking through the dull haze of complacency is a good thing, and maybe a few of those sorts of people might even be compelled to try to “debunk” the video, thereby finding out that they have, in fact, been fooled: By the very politicians and media outlets they once screamed in defense of.

Many years ago, I saw a documentary that included an interview with actor Tom Fitzpatrick who said something I’ve never forgotten; Laughing is something we do when we’re surprised by the truth. That’s precisely why so many of us laugh at these videos: These days it’s surprising to see any presentation of truth, and satire and comedy seem to be among the few places where truth is still presented.

When it all ends

It seems obvious that the existence Hong Kong has known is about to end. Whether it’s a brutal crackdown by Hong Kong police or invasion by China, either way the movement demanding democracy will be crushed. It’s not a question of if, but when.

A couple days ago, I posted this on my personal Facebook:

I don't know how many of my FB friends are following what's happening in Hong Kong, but I've said from the beginning that China will inevitably intervene to put down the protests. I think that time is approaching rapidly—mere days, maybe even hours.

When the suppression begins, it will most likely end Hong Kong's special relationship, and China will fully incorporate the city into China. When it does, no country, including the USA, will be able to do anything to stop them. Maybe this is the reason China has waited so long to intervene? To wait until the protests became so "bad" that they had "no choice"? We all know that a lot of countries will buy that excuse, not the least because they want to.

In any case, it seems obvious to me that the people of Hong Kong will soon lose all democratic rights, especially the ones they're exercising so exuberantly at the moment, like free speech and the right to protest. The question is merely how soon will that happen?

The inevitable repression will likely come soon, possibly this weekend, with more protests planned. The Chinese army has been training riot suppression techniques all month, and video of some of their training included signs partly in English, probably for the world’s newsmedia. They’ve also been photographed training with a giant—2 and a half metre—electrified “devil fork” crowd control weapon. They mean business.

In her Washington Post column, Anne Applebaum writes, “Hong Kong and Russia protesters fight for democracy. The West should listen and learn.”. Yes, it should. But it won’t—least of all the supposedly democratic Western countries that have lost their way.

Also writing in the Post, Keith B. Richburg, a journalism professor at the University of Hong Kong, tells us why “The Hong Kong protests are the inevitable effect of an impossible system”, and how the “one country, two systems” idea was never going to work. In other words, this day was inevitable.

But at least the current occupant of the White House offered words of wisdom: , "I hope nobody gets hurt, I hope nobody gets killed," he said. Yippee. So comforting.

Meanwhile, a boycott of Disney’s new live-action remake of Mulan is being urged after its star expressed her support for Hong Kong police. Action movie star, Jackie Chan, who was born in Hong Kong, has also drawn criticism for his backing of China. That’s show the Chinese government! As if.

This cannot end well. The only thing holding the Chinese back is that they realised that this could look like a repeat of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, where the Chinese Government put down protests demanding change. Back then, protesters had a 10 metre tall statue, Goddess of Democracy a statue that was strongly reminiscent of the USA’s Statue of Liberty. Now, protesters are using American flags.

The reality is that there’s not a lot the world can do to stop China’s inevitable crackdown and repression. The world certainly can’t intervene militarily, but it could at least make clear whose side it’s on. Just as the “one country, two systems” was always going to fail, its collapse may provide a blueprint for China’s invasion and subjugation of Taiwan. The only thing that might make them hold their fire—literally—is if the world makes it unmistakable that doing so would have severe consequences. But the head of the USA’s government can’t be bothered to speak up in defence of democracy and freedom—perhaps because he doesn’t value them?—so the message China is receiving is that they just have to make their excuses for invading defensible by milquetoast Western politicians. That was the whole point of all the military training, and their signs in English, and—allegedly—various other tactics like—allegedly—infiltrating the protest movement to instigate violence to help give China a pretext for invasion.

When it all ends, Hong King will be under China’s authoritarian rule. And the world could be one day closer to what may end up being a war with China. Who would be there to stand up for our freedom and democracy? As unstable as the world and its political leaders are at the moment, would any of us survive?

We know how this chapter will end. But we don’t yet know how the story will end. It’s up to us to write it, and so far we’ve been pretty illiterate.

Delivering mistakes

The USA is poised to withdraw from an international treaty that could make life more difficult for citizens who live overseas temporarily or permanently. This could affect a great many things, including voting by overseas US citizens, but the reason behind the change seems to be about money—and mistakes.

The (US) National Association of Counties (stylised as NACo) reported on its blog yesterday that the USA is about to withdraw from the United Nations’ Universal Postal Union (UPU). The UPU is a 142-year-old treaty, which the UPU describes this way:

With its 192 member countries, the UPU is the primary forum for cooperation between postal sector players. It helps to ensure a truly universal network of up-to-date products and services.

In this way, the organization fulfils an advisory, mediating and liaison role, and provides technical assistance where needed. It sets the rules for international mail exchanges and makes recommendations to stimulate growth in mail, parcel and financial services volumes and improve quality of service for customers.

Back on October 18, 2018, the White House announced (copy and paste this link to get to the White House Press Statement: http://bit.ly/33znhi6) that it was withdrawing from the UPU. That process is due to be completed on October 19, 2019—just a few short months before the 2020 presidential primary voting is due to begin.

According to estimates by the Federal Voting Assistance Programme (FVAP), and shared by NACo in the link above, there are approximately a million active duty service members and three million other US citizens living in 170 countries that are eligible to vote in federal elections, and all of them will rely, at least in part, on postal delivery. No one knows how the US withdrawal from the UPU will affect those voters.

We could find out soon. There are some state and local elections in November of this year, and some ballots will be sent out in September. That means that the withdrawal from the UPU will happen right in the middle of the 2019 voting programme, and no one knows what that will mean for returning ballots on time this year. Tt may out to be a test for what could happen in 2020.

It’s tempting for some to think that this is part of a plan to deny the vote to US citizens living overseas, but while that’s without basis, it’s definitely understandable. As everyone knows, the USA has long been notorious for its efforts to make voting harder, whether through gerrymandering districts, actively suppressing the votes of minorities or supporters of the other political party, or refusing to allow former prison inmates to vote—the list is practically endless. However, not only is there no evidence suggesting vote suppression is the reason for this, the evidence suggest that it’s merely a consequence.

First, there’s no solid data on how overseas US citizens vote. That means there’s no way of knowing which party would be most affected by the change, so targeting overseas voters could be self-defeating for the current regime, particularly since no one knows if it will affect voters at all. Second, and regardless of party preference, there just aren’t enough overseas votes to sway a statewide election, like for US Senator or US President in a state, and that means overseas voters are highly unlikely to influence what candidate gets a state’s Electoral College Votes (the only total that actually matters). That said, those votes might, at least theoretically, help determine small elections, like for US Representative. Maybe.

The real issue is that withdrawal from the UPU is that it will affect far more than just voting: Potentially, all letters, cards, small packages, etc., sent through postal services could be affected, with higher costs and potential delays. Even NACo, which is interested in the move because counties are usually responsible for sending out and receiving elections material, noted that the current regime “cited concerns over terminal due rates as the primary reason for the withdrawal and hopes to establish self-declared rates for small packages to ensure American businesses remain competitive in the e-commerce marketplace.” In other words, it’s all about money. It’s not hard to imagine the leader of the current regime calling the UPU arrangements “very unfair”. Probably in a Tweet. Well, maybe if he understood it.

The best and most likely explanation, then, is that this is all about money, as such things usually are. It seems unlikely that withdrawal from the UPU will accomplish what the current regime thinks it will, of course, which, of course, isn’t unusual for them. Based on the evidence, I think the move is absolutely ideological, but only because it’s all about money for corporations. It’s also probably about the current regime’s general, ordinary incompetence.

I’m certainly open to evidence that I’m wrong—about the regime’s motives or even its incompetence. But absent that, this seems to be one of those times that the simplest explanation is the best.

US citizens living overseas could, potentially, have a harder time voting, yes. But they also could have a harder time sending a birthday card to Great Aunt Agnes, or a Christmas present to their parents. And this could result in higher costs for e-commerce companies, including ones shipping TO the USA. Time will tell if these are a problems or not, but, for now, there’s no evidence that the regime is intending to make life harder for US citizens living overseas, even though it could very well do so. The really sad part of all of this, though, is that saying the current regime doesn’t appear to be trying to make people’s lives harder intentionally is unusually high praise of them.

The photo at the top of this post is from a 2016 Instagram Post that I also shared in a blog post called, “I Voted, 2016 edition”. It’s my own photo. And my hand, for that matter.

Is Boris bad enough?

Last night (NZ time), Alexander Boris de Pfeffel (Boris) Johnson, age 55, was chosen to be the new leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, and so, will become that country’s next Prime Minister. A mere 0.24% of people in the United Kingdom decided he should get the job. Critics often call Boris the UK’s equivalent of the current occupant of the USA’s White House because of his frequent lying and buffoonery, but unlike his American counterpart, Boris is quite smart and a career politician. With the fate of the entire UK in the balance, is he as dangerous as everyone supposes?

Boris is certainly capable of becoming a demagogue if he wants to, and some are suggesting he wants to on one issue alone, the one he’s constantly lied about: Brexit. He vowed that the UK will leave the European Union by October 31, “do or die, come what may”. That could mean a so-called “no deal Brexit” in which the UK crashes out of the EU with nothing in place to deal with the resulting economic and political chaos in the UK, not the least because it may spur pro-EU Scotland to vote for independence form the UK, and Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon suggested as much today in a series of Tweets.

Theresa May, the soon-to-be ex-Prime Minister, tried to get a deal through Parliament three times and failed three times. A large bloc of Conservative Party (Tory) MPs oppose a no-deal Brexit, and would not support Boris going the no-deal route. In addition, the Tories have a tiny majority in the House of Commons, and will end up with just two votes to spare if, as expected, the Remain-supporting Liberal Democrats pick up two seats in upcoming by-elections.

To get around this problem, Boris is supposedly thinking about proroguing Parliament, that is, briefly suspending it so he can do as he wishes without risking Parliament voting against him. This is widely considered unconstitutional, it’s obviously anti-democratic, and it would be a bad faith move. Would he risk it? Or would he decide to go to an early election it the hope of winning a mandate?

Bets are being taken on both outcomes.

The whole process of Boris’s elevation has been anti-democratic. 159,320 members of the Conservative Party—the pro-Brexit party, of course—were the only ones who could vote. That works out to about 0.24% of he population of the UK who got to choose the next Prime Minister. The Conservative Party’s demographics don’t come close to being representative of the UK: The Conservative Party is 71% male, the highest proportion of any party in the UK. Its members’ average age is 57, the oldest of any political party. So, a small number of people who are more male, older, and concentrated in southern and southeast England, determined who the Prime Minister would be for the entire United Kingdom.

Conservative Party membership went back up in recent years, after a long period of decline, suggesting the party is attracting hardline conservatives, especially nativist/anti-immigration/racist folks. The party had lost about a third of its members after ex-PM David Cameron pushed through marriage equality in 2013, and that further suggests the party has moved more hard right than it was, which would make it more conservative than the general population.

Yet Tories alone, totally unrepresentative of the UK, were the only ones who got to elevate Boris.

In most Westminster-style systems, the party caucus chooses the replacement for a party leader, which also means the prime minister if they're leading government. Ordinarily, it's because the party leader has been rolled, but this is the second time in a row that the Tory Leader/PM has resigned and then been replaced. The normal procedure gives at least a theoretical possibility that the government will fall and fresh elections will be called so that the people can have a voice. In this case, older, white, richer conservative men decided for the entire country, and a Tory MP who defies the will of the party membership would be very, very foolish, and almost certainly committing political suicide.

I should add that I don't have an issue with a party in Opposition consulting its members—NZ Labour did that twice, though the membership only got a share of the total weighting, not the final say. Labour were the Opposition at the time, and who their Leader was didn't matter to government—obviously, because neither party leader chose in this way became NZ Prime Minister.

Still, it's possible that the chaos that will result when ego meets political reality will spark fresh elections called in a few weeks or a couple months. Boris believes in himself more than anything, apparently, he’d want to go for a mandate form the people. But with the Liberal Democrats winning all over the place on a pledge to hold a new referendum, he shouldn't count on holding his razor-thin majority. Whatever happened in the even of a new election, at least the people would get the voice they have been denied.

Is Boris as dangerous as everyone supposes? Potentially, absolutely, however, absolutely nothing is certain. He may try to play games by proroguing Parliament, he may call fresh elections, or for all we know he might get so frustrated by not getting his way that he just storms off.

The fate of the entire UK is in the balance.

History of us

Friday, June 28 (Saturday NZ time) is the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion that launched the modern LGBT+ liberation movement. Like all events in recent history, not everything we “know” is necessarily true, and for a very good reason: When historical events happen we seldom know it at the time, so we can’t be expected to record every detail.

The video above from The New York Times talks about the history of the Stonewall Rebellion correcting some myths, rebutting others, and, ultimately, arriving at the obvious reality: There’s a lot we’ll never know for sure, but what we do know about the events that night is based on several sources—just like long term history.

The video also correctly points out that the first gay rights organisation in the world, The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee (German: Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, WhK), was founded by Magnus Hirschfeld in May, 1897, in Berlin. The Nazis burned its library and shut it down in 1933.

What the video doesn’t say is that the oldest gay rights organisation in the USA, The Society for Human Rights, was founded in Chicago in 1924 by Henry Gerber, who learned about Hirschfeld’s work while serving in the occupying forces at the end of World War I. It only lasted a few months, ending after several of its members, including Gerber, were arrested.

The Mattachine Society was founded by Harry Hay in 1950. That was the movement that was the first gay activists group.

And all of that was before Stonewall—whatever that really was all about.

The video below looks at Stonewall through the eyes of LGBT+ seniors, and some of that they said directly contradicts what the first video said. Does that matter? I don’t think so, not really. Oral history is always fraught, of course, because people’s memories are imperfect.

When historical events happen we seldom know it at the time. But we can always remember the spirit—and how far we’ve come—and that’s what this week is all about.

Nothing has changed

A little over a month since the world decided to fight back against the brutality of the tiny country of Brunei’s plans to execute gay people for having sex, the country has backed down by announcing a “moratorium” on the death penalty for gay people and those convicted of “adultery”. So, hurray, right? It’s a victory, right? No. Absolutely nothing whatsoever has changed and the world needs to increase pressure, not ease up.

It’s always a good thing when a country’s government decides against murdering its LGBT+ people. No country can be considered civilised or part of the family of nations if it murders its own LGBT+ citizens simply for being fully human people, as Brunei planned to do. The “laws” or “reasons” Brunei claimed were justifications for planning to murder them were never acceptable, and they sort of got that message.

But only a week or so after the country ‘s ruler faced a boycott of his super luxury hotels, one of his officials told the world not to worry about the plans to murder LGBT+ people—no, he said, the world had it all wrong! It wasn’t really about murdering LGBT+ people, no! It was more about “prevention than punishment”. Apparently their laws don’t prevent government officials spouting utter bullshit.

Every autocratic regime knows that penalties mean absolutely nothing without enforcement: The victims of oppression must be so terrified that they won’t ever do whatever the regime doesn’t want them to do (or they’ll do what the regime demands, as the case may be), or they’ll leave the country. If such regimes don’t punish people for disobeying their dictates on one thing, people will get the idea they have free will on everything, and that can never be tolerated.

Such laws also invite corruption. A person could be “accused” of something the regime doesn’t like, even though it’s not true, and be forced to pay bribes to get out of trouble. An LGBT+ person—even if they fully comply with the brutal laws in that country—would always be open to blackmail and to violence from fanatics who take it upon themselves to do the regime’s enforcement.

So, having a “moratorium” will change absolutely nothing in the daily lives of most LGBT+ people who will have to remain deeply hidden, always on guard and on the watch, always subject to violence from fanatics, and always faking every tiny detail of their identity so as to avoid having their genuine selves discovered.

The fact that Brunei issued a “moratorium” (re-issued is probably more technically correct, since enforcement has been deferred for years) suggests that they felt the world’s pressure. With their backs freshly patted, the regime will wait until the world’s attention goes away, and then, instead of announcing it, they’ll just quietly lift the moratorium when the world isn’t watching. They’ll probably go farther and conduct the first executions in secret, too.

Brunei is not a place that respects individual rights and personal liberty, and having a “moratorium” on murdering its LGBT+ people doesn’t change that fact. The world needs to keep pushing until they finally act like responsible adults and repeal the law altogether.

There will be handwringers who will say that keeping up the pressure will cause them to become more brutal, but that’s inevitable, anyway. Neither will patting them on the back for not murdering their LGBT+ people make them any nicer to them—it will not make the regime treat them like human beings. Things will remain horrible for LGBT+ people in Brunei, but the world could help make things better, but only if it keeps the pressure on.

Clearly the world’s pressure—and the boycotts—were having an effect on the regime. The world needs to increase pressure, not ease up. But, I’m not expecting much. Last month I thought the response, especially from New Zealand, was far too weak. I’m not expecting anything better now.

The world should prove me wrong. That’s be a welcome change.

Dumping unkindness

We humans are good at a great many things, including a great many that aren’t objectively “good”. For example, people seem to need to dump on other people about everything from the TV shows they like (or don’t like) to the choices they make in food, politics, and even charity. We’ve seen that in abundance lately in response to the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It hasn’t been our finest moment, even when critics have a point.

To oversimplify the criticism, the Left has been saying that the money pledged to rebuild the cathedral would have been better spent on any of the numerous problems facing the planet, from climate change, to abject poverty, to disease, to species extinction, to, well, anything, really. That view, while sincere, is also hopelessly naïve, both to reality and to what is even possible.

What most Americans apparently don’t know is that Notre Dame is owned by the French state, not the Catholic Church. That matters because the riches of the Catholic Church won’t be, and can’t be expected to be, used to rebuild the cathedral. So, that particular criticism is a non-starter.

The bigger and more relevant point is about French billionaires tripping all over themselves to donate to the rebuild. The suggestion that these billionaires could donate instead to make the world a better place is silly: When has the 1% ever cared about the needs of those at the bottom of society? When have they ever done anything to fix the problems of social and economic inequality? This matters because, sure, they could donate to fix social problems, but the record shows they never will.

That means that the bigger issue is, where they hell were they when they were needed before? “The billionaires’ donations will turn Notre Dame into a monument to hypocrisy”, according to Aditya Chakrabortty in The Guardian. He points out the numerous failures and self-interest of the richest of the rich, adding: “Keepers of the building had begged for more money, but neither the belt-tightening French government nor the wealthy grumbling about higher taxes gave enough.” And that is, of course, only the beginning of their sins (not generally reported is that French megarich donors can get a 60% rebate on their donations, which means French taxpayers could end up paying most of the “donation”.

So, criticism of French billionaires is fair, absolutely, as are demands that they seek no tax advantages for donating to the rebuild. After all, if they’re serious about the need to rebuild, and about the cultural significance of the cathedral, then donating to make the rebuild happen should be all the benefit they require.

However, much of the social media noise seems to be targeted at small donors—ordinary people—choosing to donate to the rebuild effort. Attacking them is pathetic. If people want to donate to the rebuild, that’s no one’s business but their own: Our opinion doesn’t matter in the least. Sure, I’m not donating to the rebuild, and yes, I don’t think ordinary people should, either, but, if they want to donate, they should go for it: It is their choice.

The thing I keep coming back to is how much the criticism is a failure of imagination, as if everything in life is nothing but a zero-sum game. We can rebuild Notre Dame AND solve the world’s problems. It’s not a lack of money that’s the problem, it’s a lack of imagination, and of resolve.

In my opinion, it’s obvious that the rich should be paying their fair share in taxes (for a change), which is also the only way to get them to spend any money on fixing the world’s problems. Ordinary people, who have far fewer choices about what charity they can spend their money on, should be free to spend their money on what they feel is important without any tut-tutting by those who are oh, so much more moral than the rest if us.

The world’s problems sometimes seem unsolvable. We actually may be able to agree about how many of them are more important than rebuilding Notre Dame, despite its historic and cultural significance to Western civilisation. But that does not mean that rebuilding the cathedral isn’t important, nor does it justify dumping on ordinary people who choose to make that rebuild one of their personal priorities. To each their own!

Instead of always dumping on others and tearing them down, maybe we should instead advocate for what we think is important. If our views and arguments are persuasive, others will agree with us. That’s the way it works in the real world. If we don’t like how others choose to allocate their donations, we need to shut up. We may be right, our criticism may have a good point, but we’ll never convince people of that by being a jerk about it.

We need to relax. Make our case, sure, but let people be. No matter how passionate we may feel, the fate of the world will not hinge on whether everyone else does as we think they should—and, by the may, people may not. Again, the best word is a simple one: Relax.

Related

"Native American activists: The fire at Notre Dame is devastating. So is the destruction of our sacred lands." – Vox
"Black churches in Louisiana see $1.3 million surge in donations after fire at Notre Dame Cathedral" – Vox
"Grieving for Notre Dame" – The Nation

They should have done better

This is another test: Will the world stand up and take a strong stand for basic human rights and individual freedom, or will it look the other way? Brunei is in the process of testing that question, and the results so far are decidedly mixed. The world should have done better.

The graphic at left is from the Facebook Page of Rainbow Labour, the LGBT+ branch of the New Zealand Labour Party, the party leading the current NZ Government coalition. When I saw their graphic, I was overwhelmingly underwhelmed. The country “expresses its concern”! Wow! Brunei must be very scared!

The headline in the graphic was a reference to the official press release from the Deputy Prime Minister (who was acting Prime Minister at the time, with the Prime Minister herself on a trip to China), Winston Peters (he’s also Foreign Minister). Headlined, “New Zealand concerned at Brunei’s implementation of Sharia law”, the press release is very brief, so here it is in full:

Acting Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has expressed concern at the Government of Brunei Darussalam’s intention to fully implement Sharia law.

“It is seriously regrettable that Brunei’s decision contravenes a number of international norms on human rights,” said Mr Peters.

“New Zealand opposes any kind of discrimination, including on the basis of sexual orientation. We are also deeply concerned at the use of punishments that are cruel, inhuman or degrading.

“New Zealand is a long-standing opponent of the use of the death penalty in all cases and in all circumstances,” Mr Peters said.

That was underwhelming, too. Brunei, already frightened by the NZ Government expressing its “concern”, will be quaking in its boots to hear implementing their law is “seriously regrettable”! This is a pathetic response from Peters and the New Zealand Government, and also from Rainbow Labour, who have taken on the role of cheerleader for the government when they should have been pushing and demanding better. In this case, they would have done better to wait for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s response.

Asked about Brunei’s law while she was in China, the Prime Minister responded:

New Zealand has always stood against the death penalty, in all its forms, for any reason; New Zealand has also stood firmly in favour of the right of our rainbow community to live their lives, freely, openly and without fear for their safety. Obviously, those two issues combined, that is significant for New Zealanders and something we stand opposed to.

Clearly “we stand opposed” to the brutal newly-enforced laws is stronger than saying it’s merely a “concern” and “seriously regrettable”. It’s better, but far from perfect—it’s barely even “good”.

There has been condemnation around the world, as CNN reported, and some of it has been stronger than New Zealand’s. One of the strongest condemnations came from George Clooney who urged a boycott of the luxury hotels owned by the autocratic ruler of Brunei. He said in part:

Brunei is a Monarchy and certainly any boycott would have little effect on changing these laws. But are we really going to help pay for these human rights violations? Are we really going to help fund the murder of innocent citizens? I've learned over years of dealing with murderous regimes that you can't shame them. But you can shame the banks, the financiers and the institutions that do business with them and choose to look the other way.

And that right there is the heart of the issue: There’s nothing the world can do to change the brutally inhuman laws. The country didn’t care in the least when the world protested their passing “sharia law” five years ago, and the hotel boycott back then changed nothing. So, there’s no reason to think that the hotel boycott will change anything now that the laws are in force.

It may, at first, seem odd that the world has so very little leverage against such a tiny country, and that’s probably because that’s not actually the case. As New Zealand Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman put it in a Tweet, “I will be raising it with the ministers involved (trade and foreign affairs). We buy crude oil and sell dairy to Brunei so should consider our leverage there as well as diplomatically to express our outrage.” And in that Tweet, she actually revealed precisely why governmental reactions are so weak: Oil and money.

Brunei is the fourth-largest producer of oil in Southeast Asia, and the world’s ninth-largest exporter of liquid natural gas (LNG). New Zealand is the country’s fifth-largest export market. The country imports most things, including around 60% of its food, and while the vast majority of that comes from ASEAN countries, other countries, including New Zealand, do sell to them.

Countries supplying petroleum and gas are always treated with great deference in world affairs, and tiny Brunei is no different. In addition to that, New Zealand has many challenging trade issues, such as dealing with an unstable and unpredictable US government that threatens continued exports to the USA, having issues with China, and also dealing with the general fluctuation in prices for agricultural products. New Zealand is caught in an economic vise. Other countries aren’t much different, and either depend too much on buying the country’s petroleum products or on selling them stuff, so they’re reluctant to push too hard. The countries that could push have little or no economic leverage to do so.

And yet, as Frederick Douglass put it, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” If there is any pressure that can be put on the tiny country, it ought to be done, even though Brunei may totally ignore it. That doesn't change the imperative. As Douglass also said in that speech:

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

The victims of the Brunei regime can never advocate for themselves. That makes it even more important that the world draws a firm line around behaviour that is utterly unacceptable in the family of nations—to keep the cancer of brutal inhumanity from spreading. While it may not help the immediate victims now, and maybe not even in the near future, standing up forcefully and with determination to brutality and inhumanity is the very least that is required of nations.

It’s nice when a country says it stands opposed to such brutal laws, and it should be unnecessary to say that a nation has “concerns” about brutality and inhumanity. Obviously, it’s always “seriously regrettable” when any country violates international law and fundamental human rights. But that doesn't actually do anything.

The world deserves better, but history shows it’s highly improbable it will get anything better. As always happens when stories like this pop up, it will probably disappear in a day or two, and it will remain forgotten right up until the country stones a gay person to death for the first time. Then countries around the world will again express their concern and say it is seriously regrettable. And nothing will happen, nothing will change.

Oil and money triumph over fundamental human rights every time. And that’s why I’m so overwhelmingly underwhelmed by that graphic and the New Zealand government’s response it refers to. After all we’ve been through recently, we would have expected better. They should have done better.

Related
"Amnesty slams Brunei’s new ‘vicious’ Islamic criminal laws" – Associated Press
UN’s “Bachelet urges Brunei to stop entry into force of ‘draconian’ new penal code” – Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
“UN slams 'inhuman' Brunei stoning laws” – Al Jazeera

Political Notebook: International edition

These days it seems like there are too many political events happening too fast for anyone to keep up with. One thing is no sooner reported before another pops up. When one is following political events in several countries, things get even more complicated. This post is the start of one solution for me.

When I began these Political Notebook posts, I saw them as a way to talk about subjects that would never get a post of their own. But these days there’s too much to keep up with, things that ordinarily would get posts of their own, so these Notebook posts have taken on new duties—and more frequency.

Jacinda superstar

The world has learned something over the past couple weeks that many of us here already knew: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is pretty awesome. Sure, she’d been feted before, like last September. Which I mentioned in “New Zealand’s very good week (https://amerinz.blogspot.com/2018/09/new-zealands-very-good-week.html).

Now, of course, the world has taken note of the calm, rational, compassionate, strong, caring, and stunningly admirable leadership shown by the Prime Minister after the terrorist attacks in Christchurch. Bryce Edwards, a politics lecturer at Victoria University in Wellington, does a Political Roundup column in the NZ Herald. I frequently disagree with his conclusions, but this time he seemed genuinely taken with the “International fascination with Jacinda Ardern”.

There’s been some grassroots reaction to her, too. I heard there was a petition for Jacinda to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, which actually seems a pretty reasonable thing to happen. I don’t know how serious that is. However, there’s definitely a petition on Change.org: “Speaker Pelosi: invite New Zealand’s Prime Minister here to America to address Congress”. I have no idea whether anything like that could or would happen, but I’d love to see it happen, not only because Congresscritters need to hear what she has to say, and also for the entertainment value that would come from the inevitable Twitter Tantrum that a certain someone would be sure to descend into.

Meanwhile, this past Friday the Prime Minister spoke at the National Remembrance Service. Newshub reported: “'The nation that discovers the cure': Jacinda Ardern's anti-racism speech sparks standing ovation”, and it was pretty awesome (the transcript of the speech is at the link). But, then, by now we pretty much expect her to say just the right thing, don’t we?

Random notes

A couple other pieces caught my attention this week, too:

“Trump Warned Us He Would Be a Terrible President” because he did, really, didn’t he?

“Associated Press offers new guidance to media on 'racially charged' vs 'racist'". This is motivated, at least in part, by the racist motivations of the Christchurch terrorist and some newsmedia’s reluctance to call it that. Meanwhile, a debate has broken out over whether the newsmedia should mention the Christchurch terrorist by name (he should not be referred to by name). Radio New Zealand’s CEO and Editor in Chief published a shallow defence of their plan to sometimes name the terrorist in their news coverage: “Explaining RNZ’s mosque shootings coverage – and why we’re naming the accused”. I couldn’t possibly disagree with him more, and I found his excuses self-serving and a bit arrogant. Your mileage may vary.

Time to start next week's page in the Notebook.

Work to do

The chart above from Statista shows the percentage of women in the lower house of various countries’ national legislatures. Ranking 75th in the world, the USA has a very long way to go to achieve better gender equity among lawmakers.

The reason for the chart is, of course, that in his “State of the Union” speech, the current occupant of the White House mentioned the record number of women elected to the US Congress in 2018 (and Statista has a chart about that, too, of course). While that was, indeed, very good news, what he neglected to mention is that at 23.7% female, the US House of Representatives is still less than 25% female and that 87% of the women serving in the US House this term are Democrats (the US Senate is slightly better: It’s 25% female, of which “only” two-thirds are Democrats).

The data comes from the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and represents information provided by countries by December 1, 2018, which is why some numbers are slightly off form current data. fair’s fair, and here’s how the countries I typically write about compare to the USA, listed according to their rank from the IPU:

19. New Zealand: 38.8% female (New Zealand has no upper house of Parliament).
38. United Kingdom: 32.2% in the House of Commons, 26.3% in the House of Lords.
51. Australia: 28.7% in the House of Representatives, 40.8% in the Senate.
59. Canada: 26.9% in the House of Commons, 46.7% in the Senate.

The point of all these numbers isn’t to demonstrate how well New Zealand is doing compared to all the other countries I write about—that’s just a nice bonus. The reality is that New Zealand could and should be doing much better. It was the first country to give women the right to vote, after all. The point is that these percentages give us a common-ground way of comparing countries to each other.

Still, it’s interesting that in all but the UK, the upper house has better gender balance than does their lower house. Personally, I think the problem with the UK’s upper house is that it’s an anachronism, bound tightly to the class system that it both represents and perpetuates. Still, that’s no excuse, really.

There are some—invariably on the Right—who dismiss the importance of gender equity in representative government, the whole “the best person should win” thing. In a perfect world, that would be true, but in our societies, with endemic sexism and governmental structures designed by and for men, it was difficult for women to even put themselves forward, much less be elected.

Times and attitudes are changing, as the large wave of (mostly Democratic) women elected to the US House last year shows. There may yet come a time in which the gender of a candidate for any office—including US president—won’t matter, but we’re not there yet. Some countries are doing better: New Zealand has had three female Prime Ministers, the UK two, and Australia one. So far. Change is possible. But there are profound problems facing all the countries I’ve mentioned, and too often they seem intractable.

With so many problems festering, maybe it’s time to try something very different. I think that we should should elect more women and more younger people. It certainly couldn’t make things any worse, and it just might fix everything.

The infographic above is from Statista

Happiness matters

The Facebook Video above is from the World Economic Forum, and it's about the very different approach toward governing that the current New Zealand Government is taking. Instead of just measuring traditional economic indicators alone, the government is also looking at other indicators of wellbeing. Because happiness matters, and so does well-being, and kindness and compassion go a long way to improving the quality of life of the nation.

When I shared this video on my personal Facebook, I said:

Our Prime Minister has a different approach to government, a view that goes beyond any single election cycle. This could be the antidote to the rise of far-right authoritarianism in Western democracies—if it gets enough time to get off the ground before our next election. You can’t instantly turn a bus around, after all.

And that's the important thing: Rightwing authoritarianism is on the rise, and part of the reason is that people are frustrated with the way things are going and are looking for easy solutions. That's not a majority anywhere, but it's enough to win elections, especially when the Centre and Left are divided. New Zealand's approach is a nation's equivalent of business' “Triple Bottom Line”, a time-tested concept that has value for entire countries.

The catch is that some of the indicators will take years to improve, longer than can be done in any one election cycle (which is three years for New Zealand). If Labour is returned to government in 2020, the new approach can become well-established. And this is what I'm hoping. Indeed, it's what many of us are hoping for, because happiness does matter.

What 2019 may bring

These two videos from The Economist list what the editors think will be the biggest stories of 2019. Predictions are always interesting when, as in this case, the source is reputable. So, it’s not whether the predictions prove to be right or wrong, it’s The Economist’s take that’s interesting. But they definitely won’t be right about everything.

The first part, above, includes glowing, breathless predictions about driverless cars. I think they’ll be flat out wrong about the predictions. Elected officials are always cautious about unleashing new technology like this, something that can kill people, and the people who elect them won’t be clambering for them to act faster. Indeed, I think it will take years before the technology establishes a good enough safety record—probably at least 10% less dangerous than human-driven cars—before they’ll start to be accepted by politicians. Besides, there’s zero evidence that people actually want driverless cars, even though transport companies obviously do.

The predictions in the rest of the first part is are less problematic, though I’m far less optimistic about global progress on LGBT+ human and civil rights in a word with expanding fascism. I hope they’re right, of course.

Part two, below, has similar predictions that will have varied results. The use of augmented reality itself won’t suddenly take off, however, I do think research into it will progress, since the usefulness of it is probably obvious when the technology gets far enough advanced. But that won’t happen in 2019, even if progress does.

The bits about Japan were particularly interesting. The upcoming Rugby World Cup has been news here in New Zealand ever since it was announced Japan had would be hosting the Cup, and not all of that news was good. For example, it was announced that the New Zealand All Blacks will be required to cover up their tattoos to cater to Japanese culture (apparently, they associate tattoos with organised crime syndicates). Since then, some relaxation of the requirements were announced, which is good: LOTS of rugby players from many countries have tattoos, and forcing them to cover up their tattoos is a bit over the top.

As outsiders, their look at US politics was good. The USA is so deeply divided politically, and the current regime controlling the White House is so unpredictable that anyone who declares they know for sure what will happen in 2020 is delusional.

The look at Europe was also good. The spread of far right and fascist politics in Europe poses a grave threat not just to the world economy, but also to world peace. An unstable Europe has caused two world wars, and if fascism continues to rise in Europe, another could be unavoidable.

The first video was released on December 27, and I thought the second part would be released on or before December 31, so I planned on posting the two together when both were posted. Unfortunately, it turned out that Part 2 was released on January 2, a time when I was too busy celebrating the holidays to check out YouTube videos. I finally checked last night, and Part 2 had been posted. Oh well, at least I didn’t count on them to meet my quota for 2018.

Predictions are always interesting, and whether The Economist’s predictions prove to be right or wrong, their take is still interesting. But they definitely won’t be right about everything.

And neither will any of us.

Ask Arthur 2018, Part 7: About current gay issues

This year’s “Ask Arthur” series is ending, so yesterday I issued a last minute invitation for questions. Roger Green obliged with two different, but very topical questions. This is now the penultimate post, and tomorrow will be the final in this year’s series.

So, Roger first asked:

Is there an anti-gay backlash in New Zealand (and Australia, since you seem to keep track) as there is in Germany?

Not in New Zealand, no. Not yet, anyway. We have a problem with far too many fundamentalist religionists (mostly Christian, but other religions, too), but there aren’t any real issues for them to fight about here: Gay couples can get married and that means they can adopt (not that it happens all that much, mainly due to a shortage of kids available for adoption). Aside from that, the human and civil rights of gay people have been protected for decades, and they are legally equal in every way. Social/religious conservatives may not like gay people very much, and some try to discriminate from time to time, but they don’t get away from it. And no one is leading the call against gay people—or trans* people, either. Maybe that’s just not the Kiwi way.

Australia, however, is another matter.

They have long had a problem with extreme conservative “Christians” who are also politically active. Their current Prime Minister (this week…) is Scott Morrison, who is an extreme conservative religionist (Pentecostal/Ass. of God). He claims to not like people using the Bible as a “policy manual”, but he’s decided to pander to radical-right anti-LGBTI “Christians” by championing the “religious freedom” scam in which rightwing “Christians” use their religion as an excuse for discriminating against—even persecuting—LGBT+ people.

And yet, the pandering so far has been just that—or, all sizzle and no sausage. As one writer for Sydney’s Star Observer recently observed, somewhat sarcastically, 2018 was “the year gay kids came into existence for the religious right”. Nevertheless, the fact that the views of religious extremists can be taken seriously and as legitimate could become a problem for Australia.

Australia has had a problem with nationalist politicians, New Zealand less so, and in both countries the main object has been Asians. Australia has endured politicians who were overtly anti-Muslim, New Zealand MUCH less so. That matters because the far right in Europe and the USA have focused on their anti-Islamic bigotry.

What is especially interesting is that most of the far right in Western Europe, and even the faction in the USA that adores the current occupant of the White House, is not anti-LGBT+ as such, but has even used their support for LGBT+ people as a reason people should join them, because they’re “protecting” LGBT+ people from the “violence of Islam”. Indeed, gay people are often leaders in the new European far-right.

In the Netherlands, openly gay Pim Fortuyn crusaded against Islamic immigration, and the current far right leader in that country, Geert Wilders, has often used pro-gay rhetoric in his anti-Islam campaign.

The situation with Germany is unique (so far), but the country that unleashed violent fascism and genocide on the world ought to be far more careful about embracing far-right politics. The article that Roger linked to pointed out that the far-right “Alternative for Germany” party is co-led by a lesbian, Alice Weidel, as if that mattered. At all. It doesn’t. She is a far-right extremist first and foremost, and being lesbian does not excuse or change that fact.

What those European examples show is the how the far-right can exploit the fear of violent homophobia from fundamentalist Muslims as a way to recruit people who would otherwise never pay any attention to the far right. It seems to me that this is a real danger, because once in power the far-right will always—always—turn on LGBT+ people, without exception.

To be clear—ALL fundamentalist religion poses an existential threat to freedom, liberty, and democracy, and fundamentalist Islam is no different. But that’s no excuse to try and use LGBT+ people as a way to advance an inherently racist agenda. If they want to do that, leave LGBT+ out of it.

Roger next asked:

And since it was linked in the previous article, Is it time to drop the ‘LGBT’ From ‘LGBTQ’?

When I read the headline, I did an eyeroll. When I read it, not so much. I do think the “Q” thing is a bit silly, personally, but I think his point is a good one. The thing that conservative politicians have successfully exploited is a reaction to “Identity Politics”, that is, people who put their identity, and political needs associated with it, ahead of everyone else and their needs. That’s been gleefully exaggerated by the Right, but their rhetoric is based on truth, and that’s what gives it power and currency.

This relates to the previous question because in the USA in particular, rightwing politicians have used and stoked the backlash to “Identity Politics” to attack and defeat the Left. They also use it to fuel their opposition to protecting the human and civil rights of LGBT+ people.

This is a subject in itself, but I’ve been increasingly concerned about how “Identity Politics” has replaced “Movement Politics”, and how oversensitive some people have become about their identity, sometimes stalling or even reversing progress. I see this all the time in LGBT+ communities that get so bogged down in catering to every initial in the collective name that they forget what it is they’re supposed to be working on.

There are far too many people these days who are part of “The Bubble Wrap Generation”, needing to be encased in layers of protection to keep them from feeling hurt or even challenged by anyone. Real life isn’t like that and—as the rightwing likes to say, “real life doesn’t care about your feelings.” That slogan works because it’s true.

It seems to me that what LGBT+ (or whatever) people need to do is to find a way to celebrate uniqueness—Identity—without making it the sole focus. When I was an activist, the various identities now represented by a letter in our collective name didn’t necessarily like each other—and sometimes they were quite hostile to other letters. But we found ways to forge alliances on specific issues at specific times, and we’d leave each other in peace the rest of the time. It worked, and all the progress of the 1980s and into the 1990s was built on that pragmatic solution.

So, I agree that the focus on adding ever more letters to the string is making us weaker overall (and one of the many posts I’ve abandoned in recent years was about that subject). Where I differ with the author is that I don’t think that assigning a single letter—Q—to describe us is going to fix anything whatsoever.

What bothers me about that is not that we’re not united, it’s that we’re allowing our differences to stand in the way of progress, and that we’re allowing outsiders—Left and Right—to exploit those differences in order to divide us further, from each other and from the Centre and Left in general, thereby creating room for the far-right in particular to advance its agenda. It’s part of what helped the current regime get into power, but overcoming those divisions might help expel it.

Thanks to Roger for these questions!

Tomorrow is the final post in this year’s Ask Arthur series.

All posts in this series are tagged “AAA-18”. All previous posts from every “Ask Arthur” series are tagged, appropriately enough, "Ask Arthur”.

Previously:

Let the 2018 asking begin – The first post in this year’s series.
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 1: Perfect place
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 2: Living where?
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 3: About religious stuff
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 4: About what I like
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 5: About conversion therapy
Ask Arthur 2018, Part 6: About blogging stuff