When we stop eating with people. When we start shooting strangers.

Nicky Hager recently published a book, Other People's Wars, in which he demonstrates New Zealand's true war "aid". With stats from the Ministry of Defence, private testimony and other sources, he shows the SAS are not there to reconstruct. Instead they take an active part in the war in Afghanistan. This is known to many left wing activists, but to some it has always had the ring of a conspiracy theory. Now they could be proven wrong.
As Nicky says, very few people know what is actually going on in Afghanistan. All we get is "candy-flossed" media coverage, always showing the New Zealand troops as didactic peace-keepers. Why then do they die "in combat"? We all thought they weren't combating? You see the media does not lie, but it may often hide the truth. Peace-keepers are sometimes described under the term "peace enforcers", this would be a much more accurate representation of their role. NATO is enforcing our defenition of peace, our defintion of society and to our economical or political benefit. This is New Zealand's longest war, yet we have nothing to do there. The war on terror, whatever that is, finished 4 months ago with the death of Osama.
Nicky tells us that the SAS are not just in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have a presence in Oman and Yemen too as well as other regions of the world. We are lied to in this case, but mainly it is because of politicians and a corrupt media system, no longer a watchdog of public interests but a lapdog of private greed.
Here is a Press interview with Nicky about his book.

Politicians also lie to us about the policy that gets passed in parliament, or that which is still on the books. A food bill will go through soon, it is vague and weighs a ton and a half and we wouldn't be wrong to see it as our own food bible. It tells us what we will and will not be able to do, for our health and security. There is the potential that food stalls, sausage sizzles, lemonade stands, community gardens etc., will be closed or restricted to only a few sellers and users. If not it will definetly be covered and wrapped with thick red tape.
In the US people have already been arrested for sharing food, bartering and growing it in their own gardens/manufacturing it. We do not want a law like this to pass,  even especially if it has been created by the WTO.

Last, New Zealanders will soon have to vote in a referendum. Many of us do not know, but we are going to have to vote on our system of vote. According to Metiria Turei, the referendum is being pushed by National because FPP (First past the post) would give it an absolute majority in parliament. ACT is also behind it, even though FPP would destroy its presence in parliament, just like it will destroy the presence of all minor New Zealand parties, possibly even the Greens. A voting system that does not allow a party with 8% of the vote to get in is far from representative.
In the referendum we will be asked whether we want to keep MMP or not. MMP is the current system. It is much more representative as it allows the presence of minor parties. While it could become more representative, even if we decide to keep it it will be reviewed in order to improve it.
Become informed, you will be asked to vote in a month's time. The campaign has been shortened because of the rugby so you should inform yourselves, it is to National's interests to keep you apathetic.
Here are some short youtube vids on the referendum, MMP anf FPP.

These issues and a couple of others were talked about on the Social Justice League, on radio 1 10-12 Fridays.

World Cup Flu.

The World Cup (W/C, cz it's shit) is starting tomorrow, to most of our collective national horror. I'm not sure how many people give a damn, but the hegemony imposed by the media has forced us to believe that this is the only thing that is actually happening! Far from it, New Zealand and half the countries involved in the W/C are involved in a geo-strategic war that has displaced millions and killed a majority of civilians and a minority of freedom fighters- those are my words, not Hone's. I'll be talking about that in my next post.

We don't have to go that far though to see a reality we should have been more aware of, and more considerate of. New Zealand is brewing a 'brown underclass', mainly in suburbs of South Auckland as well as very rural Maori areas. In Dunedin, while industry flees off-shore, the southern suburbs are left increasingly poor as well. I find it very hypocritical that we invest millions into a game and a couple of stadia while we leave more and more people to fight of desperation, frustration and depression on the dole. As the parents have no money, 200,000 kiwi kids live under the poverty line. In other words around 6% of the country.

Instead of investing in better infrastructure, more opportunities, better social services- such as the South D library that has been on the books for a good decade- we waste it on infrastructure that fosters an unnecessary sense of nationalism. In Auckland we've built the Cloud, in Dunedin Forsyth Barr; thus wasting millions of dollars just to give us a fleeting grasp of happiness!

I guess though, as we slowly starve, belief in a [g]od, nation, culture or all is a mild anasthetic. Mild, but flamable. Why should we forget the duty of the state to its people? While we continue our transition from an example of a functioning welfare state to a business sweatshop, our underclasses will increase and grow more unstable by the day.

In the time being I will not support New Zealand, no matter how much I am forced to do so by the profit-driven media bodies around.