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Yr Enemies R Stupid | Jul 31, 2008 10:21

Down in the comments for this justifiably angry response from Time magazine's Joe Klein to copping the "self-hating Jew" treatment from some Israeli-aligned neocons, a reader posts a link to Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century, the year 2000 report from The Project for a New American Century.

The report can no longer be obtained from its authors -- that would be a little embarrassing -- but it was cached and captured at the time by the Internet Archive. And it's fascinating.

This is the document that that infamously salivated over the prospect of "a new Pearl Harbour" to alert the US to its destiny; it provided the intellectual justification for the Iraq project. But you'd be mistaken if you thought it dwelt on the threat of twenty-first century terrorism. Terrorists and terrorism are mentioned three times in passing in nearly 80 pages.

The obsessive focus of the authors -- and they're all in there: Wolfowitz, Cambone, Libby, Fred Kagan, William Kristol -- is the projection of influence through military force, essentially to the exclusion of all else. The word "economy" also appears but three times, and as a given element of American global greatness. The only deficit countenanced is the "defense deficit" -- the "tens of billions of dollars" that aren't being spent on big iron since the thawing of the Cold War.

This knuckleheaded approach is all the more remarkable when you consider that the authors are at least as paranoid about China as they are about any Arab state. They even recommend the redeployment of US Navy resources from the Mediterranean and the Gulf to the Pacific, and the establishment of "forward operating bases" around China, holding out the hope that "in time, American and allied power in the region may provide a spur to the process of democratization inside China itself."

The idea that the US federal government might instead drunkenly spend and borrow its way into the control of China's financiers, or that America might lose productive capacity and economic control to its putative enemy; or that commerce and internal pressures might actually drive democratic progress in China more than a kind of fantasy military encirclement? Not there. It goes without saying that these guys didn't see the Euro coming.

This is an unbelievably stupid document. No one ought be surprised that Paul Wolfowitz didn't fare well at the World Bank several years later.

This all rather lends weight to Jonathan Chait's critical new review of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism for The New Republic. Klein holds that the serial fuckups that flowed from The Project for the New American Century were not fuckups at all: disaster was the plan all along.

Chait writes that after the terrorist attacks of 2001, Klein, the author of No Logo, "went through the transition from intellectual guru of the movement against Starbucks to intellectual guru of the movement against the Pentagon, and came away as influential as ever."

The Shock Doctrine, he says, "has a single, uncomplicated explanation for everything that ails us. It identifies the fundamental driving force of the last three decades to be the worldwide spread of free-market absolutism as it was formulated by Milton Friedman and the department of economics at the University of Chicago. The free marketers, Klein argues, understand full well that the public does not support their policies, which she summarizes as 'the elimination of the public sphere, total liberation for corporations and skeletal social spending.' And so they have decided that the free-market program can be implemented only when the public has been disoriented by wars, coups, natural disasters, and the like. The 'shock doctrine' is the conservative plan to implement pro-corporate policies through the imposition and exploitation of mass trauma."

And yet, as he notes, the idea "that crises create fertile terrain for political change, far from being a ghoulish doctrine unique to free-market radicals, is a banal and ideologically universal fact. (Indeed, it began its dubious modern career in the orbit of Marxism, where it was known as 'sharpening the contradictions.') Entrenched interests and public opinion tend to run against sweeping reform, good or bad, during times of peace and prosperity. Liberals could not have enacted the New Deal without the Great Depression. Communist revolutions have generally come about in the wake of wars."

The apparently breathtaking incompetence displayed in nearly every chapter of the Iraq adventure is, Klein holds, part of the disaster capitalism plan: excepting the project's failure to achieve sweeping privatisation and "an Arabic Singapore". (Which has to count as a major failure given that what has happened in Iraq is a monumental series of boondoggles at the expense of American taxpayers. It ought to be the stuff of any genuine neo-liberal economist's nightmares.)

But Chait does overlook the fact that there were indeed people who saw Iraq as the new flat-tax private paradise. And it's not terribly convincing when he gets Dick Cheney down off the hook on the basis that any appreciation in his Halliburton stock is passed on to charity. Cheney, after all, may have had interests beyond the mere matter of his shareholdings.

Nonetheless, it does seem that Klein is a fenced in by ideology as the neocons: although she's hardly that kind of monster -- as Chait notes, she actually goes to the places she conjures, determines real problems and sees them for herself. But she may have committed the fatal mistake of believing her enemies are far cleverer than they really are.

PS: This week's Media7, featuring NBR's Nevil Gibson, Bridget Saunders and Laila Harre discussing the merit and meaning of the annual NBR Rich List is online now. You can view it via TVNZ ondemand, as Windows Media clips, on the podcast, and on our YouTube channel.

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Not actually satire | Jul 30, 2008 12:47

Audrey Young rounds out her latest blog post with a copy of a quite extraordinary text: the NZPA transcript of last Friday's press conference with Winston Peters. Had it been written by John Clarke for television, we would have hailed it as a work of droll satirical genius. As a record of real life it's … something else.

It begins thus:

Reporter [Q]: What did you use the Spencer Trust (ST) for?
Peters [A]: I've just given you the total answer to that.
Q: What was the reason for the ST?
A: I've just told you if you want to know that ring up the ST. I have no involvement in that trust.
Q: But you solicited the money for the trust.
A: Again that is a false allegation.
Q: So who solicited the money Mr Peters?
A : With great respect I'm asking you to deal with the allegations that you've made that are on the table now and I'm happy to answer those
Q: I am dealing with them
A: But please don't come on a fishing expedition without any evidence to what you're saying. I don't intend to answer any of those allegations.

And ends like this:

Q: But the existence of the trust, you've known about it for some time?
A: The existence yes, but as to its details, who they are, what there purpose is, that is not within my purview, please ask them.
Q: So how long have you known about it?
A: How long have you known about the alphabet

This feast of farce extended yesterday to John Key declaring in the House that he, as Prime Minister, would have been asking the hard questions of Winston Peters -- and then failing to ask Winston Peters any questions at all, despite having the opportunity to do so. National's tactic all along has been to gamely look over Peters' shoulder and jab its finger at Helen Clark (the Herald's ever-helpful editorial column joined in today too). Clark, clearly, isn't about to go burrowing around in another political party's finances, especially when it might put her government at risk in an election year. Presumably, she has a threshold: I'm just not sure National has anything like the nerve to push her towards it.

The Standard has a useful graph on the measure the business lobby never mentions: the historically low (since the early 1990s, anyway) proportion of GDP composed of wages and salaries in New Zealand in comparison to other economies. In the past few years, that ratio has almost returned to what it was in 1990.

Spare Room has a new political blog: The Outlaw Pages. It reads quite well.

The LA Times looks at the first teaser trailer for Oliver Stone's "W,".

And, because it's just that kind of year: one wonders how long the Exclusive Brethren's "elect vessel" will be able to pop across the Tasman for a visit if the writ being filed against the sect in an Australian court today -- alleging kidnapping, money laundering, immigration fraud in New Zealand and bribery of police and members of the judiciary in India -- proves to have merit. Has Stephen Joyce's timing been a bit poor? And is Winston Peters looking forward to finding out?

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Part of nearly all our lives | Jul 29, 2008 09:51

I don't have time this morning to go too deeply through The Internet in New Zealand 2007: Final Report, which is our section of the World Internet Project. The final report was largely foreshadowed by a draft published late last year, but it's a very accessible snapshot of where we're at online. You should make some time to look at it.

For me, the strongest message from the study is that the internet is not niche. It is part of nearly all our lives. Rich people use and value the internet more than poor people, city people more than country people, and "Asians" use and value it more than anyone -- but there is no group for whom it is not a factor, apart from the very elderly.

Sixty per cent of us have bought things online. In the three main centres, nearly 80% of people who use the internet have broadband at home; a majority of those in the two lowest income groups do too (although I'd think you'd be seeing some distortion from students there). Maori and Pasifika people surveyed tended to believe the internet strengthened their languages About two thirds of twentysomethings and Asians regard the internet as an "important" source of information. Rural internet service remains a problem.

And, best of all, the graph for online gaming by age is a U-curve. It drops off until the over-70s kick in -- 18% of them play online games at least weekly, and the 80+ crowd is even more up for it. (Yes, I know, they're not playing the same games as teenage boys are -- but the notion of a great-granny deathmatch in Half Life 2 is quite appealing.)

I spoke to Eloise Gibson at the Herald for her story, about the finding that 10% of us have a blog -- that's 400,000 blog nutters and the highest incidence for any country in the survey -- and made the point that not all blogs are the same. Kids with MSN Spaces blogs are telling their mates abut their lives, not working on the definitive critique of Helen Clark. It should also be noted that Asians bring up the average -- they blog at five times the rate (31%) of Pakeha. I'd love to have known what platforms they blog on, and in what languages.

And also, last week for Public Address Radio, I interviewed Jeff Cole, the California-based director of the World Internet Project. He was a great subject. The 15-minute interview is available, with transcript, over in Public Address Radio.

Should you be moved to comment, I'd be obliged if you discussed it here, along with the report itself. And if Alan Bell or anyone else at AUT, which directed the survey, wanted to come here and discuss it, that would be good too.

--

Also, allow me to recommend Gordon Campbell's Winners and Losers In The Winston Peters saga for a take on Peters' present troubles that isn't running around in circles. He also reviews yesterday's Prime Ministerial presser.

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Wild is the Weekend | Jul 28, 2008 09:35

We experienced no real storm damage around our way on Saturday, although there was always something intense and ominous in the roiling air outside. The forecasts had predicted a deepening of the weather from the north, through till midnight, but it became clear that the storm had peaked around dusk.

It seemed a perfect day not to leave the property, so I didn't. I had recovering to do anyway, after a few birthday drinks (and eats: I am emphatic about feeding people) gave way, as usual, to a cast of happy idiots bullshitting to each out until the deck until the patio heater died; and then to an adventure out to The Turnaround, because I still love to dance when it's late sometimes. It was a long and thoroughly good night spent with friends.

So I sat around after a good sleep the next day reading part two of the Herald's exclusive investigation Why Is John Key So Freaking Amazing?, which actually proved to be so turgid I had to give up and take to looking out the window.

As luck would have it, my old friend Richard Simpson was in town with the Christchurch-based Airways Corporation team that picked up a couple of Computerworld Excellence Awards on the Friday night, so he came around on Saturday and we set eyes on each other for the first time in 27 years. He's still a really nice guy, and we'll stay in touch.

Later on, after lamb and lentil stew, we watched an Alastair Cooke documentary I'd downloaded -- I hadn't appreciated what a rake he'd been as a younger man -- then Weeds, before settling in for … well, the worst All Black performance I'd witnessed in a long, long time. It was inept.

The fact that the New Zealand team could play so poorly and yet be leading with 25 minutes to play -- and later be denied the lead again when the officials inexplicably failed to award a penalty try -- doesn't speak all that well of the Australian team either. The Australians certainly exploited the All Black weaknesses well, and had a vastly better loose forward trio.

Mind you, our coaches brought on a loose forward who should never play for the All Blacks again. As Paul Waite put it over at Haka:

Sione Lauaki. Ah, bless his cotton socks. His endless muppetry during the time he bumbled about on the pitch was an embarrassment to the Black Jersey, and his turn-overs cost his team any chance it might have had of regaining momentum. At times it was so bad I wanted to avert my eyes, but the horror show kept drawing them back. I was at once fascinated and appalled to watch him pick up the ball from the back of a dominant scrum, and then rumble his massive behemoth form up the side of it only to encounter halfback Burgess coming at him and ... be driven backwards. Not only does Lauaki not know how to hold the ball securely, and not only does he fail to read the game, or make tackles, or know what his team-mates are doing - he doesn't even know how to be heavy!

Then of course there was the 'try' Elsom scored. Good on Rocky, he had a fine game. But a speedy slicer and dicer of defences he is not. Of course when faced by a player looking as large, dynamic and vital as a terracotta warrior, he does appear to be bloody quick and nimble. The replays which showed Lauaki's half-hearted jog, vaguely in the direction of Elsom, or at least where he had been half an hour before, brought tears to my eyes.

Paul and I and others from our little rugby mailing list will be attending the return match together this weekend at Eden Park. It had better be a bloody improvement.

On Sunday, the Star Times carried yet another manipulative ad in favour of "Parents assaulted: with bogus smacking convictions"

Three of the five cases listed this time certainly don't speak of "good" parenting: a father alleged to have hit his five year-old daughter in the head (he acknowledged "pushing" her to "get her in a hurry for school"); a father, while driving, alleged by a member of the public to have punched his 12 year-old daughter several times as she sat in the passenger seat (he said he only "shoved her on the upper arm"); a grandfather who tipped a child out of a beanbag to "get him moving".

Another case -- that of a stepfather interviewed (but never charged) after a complaint from his stepdaughter's natural father -- misstates the law, which specifically provides for children to be restrained for their own and others' safety; and the last is an access dispute, not involving the police, of the kind which was happening long before the repeal of Section 59.

Most notably, none of these involve "smacking". Even in the unreliable, minimising language Family First employs in its ads, it's all adults knocking kids around in one way or another. You might argue that these people need some help as parents, but it's you cannot seriously claim it to be "good" parenting -- or that it's no one else's business when kids get knocked around.

After hearing Rob O'Neill talk about it on Finlay Macdonald's Radio Live show, I read up on the DNS exploit now in the wild, checked my connection and was relieved to see Vodafone had applied the patch. You might also wish to check your status here.

Later, we all went to see The Dark Knight, which explored the classic question of whether Batman is a hero or just another urban pathology. The starring role, of course, was that of the villain. I had thought the posthumous-Oscar-for-Heath-Ledger movement was just sentiment. Now, I think it might well be deserved.

PS: During Friday night's shenanigans I popped into the lounge (where the sensible people were sitting by the fire) and was quickly able to determine that The Jacquie Jaquie Brown Diaries works -- it really works! I watched the whole thing again the next day, just to be sure, and yes, it pulled off a kind of comedy that could have failed horribly. I'm a fan already.

PPS: We have an interesting panel lined up to discuss the relevance of NBR's Rich List on Media7 tomorrow: NBR editor Nevil Gibson, Laila Harre, and Bridget Saunders. We have a group of students coming down for the afternoon recording (about 2pm, I think), but I can probably squeeze in a couple of PA punters, so drop me a line if you'd like to come.

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Foreign Affairs | Jul 25, 2008 10:10

Having readily conceded that there are others more skilled than me at the popular parlour game "how many slush funds does Winston Peters have?", I cast my eye further, and it lit upon Barack Obama in Berlin. I watched the highlights of his speech to 200,000 Berliners and was moved.

You might look at the text and decide it is a string of platitudes. Perhaps you're right: but it's a better class of platitude than we've had in a while.

The irony, as Fred Kaplan pointed out on Slate, is that the US political commentariat has supposedly been perched on the edge of its seat waiting for the inexperienced senator to utter a foreign policy gaffe since his tour began -- while his veteran opponent has committed a series of blunders that might make you wonder if he could find the Middle East on a map. Seriously: the "Iraq-Pakistan border"?

Polls nationally and in key states largely favour Obama, but we must bear in mind that John Kerry was polling very well four years ago, and still managed to lose to a chump. But even though they voted twice for the chump, it is still hard to credit that Americans could elect a candidate as manifestly inadequate as McCain. Not when the generational shift in party allegiances is bedding in, and when even Republican voters are despairing of their country's direction.

And why not, when Ford Motors announced a loss of $US8.7 billion? And that's not an annual loss -- it's the loss in the last quarter.

Pew has a table showing where economic confidence has most grievously collapsed in the past year (Britain and the US) and where it has notably held up (China).

Also on Slate, a helpful annotated Venn diagram of Bush White House scandals, from torture to wiretapping, which finds Alberto Gonzales in the middle of everything.

And finally, two tunes on Hype Machine: a strange and wistful version of 'Guns of Brixton' by Calexico, and Amanda Blank guests on a Diplo remix of Santogold's I'm a Lady with lyrics borrowed from LL Cool J.

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