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.

Iwi fights Brazilian oil.

This is the second issue that has been hidden enough: Te Whanau a Apanui in the East Coast are protesting against the inspection of oil on their shore by the Brazilian oil-company Petrobras. Down in Dunedin on Wednesday, there was a protest 'celebrating' the first Birthday of the BP oil-spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We can probably all still remember the images of the platform on fire, the pipe gushing out this brown gulch and the beaches slowly getting covered in black. We can probably still remember the animals filthy with oil too. We do not want this to happen here too do we? This is what the iwi is protesting. At least someone is!
Just off Otago another oil company is inspecting oil too, with the permission to build two wells. The one off Dunedin closer than the deepwater horizon platform was from the US coast.

The Government claims that opening up the oil market in New Zealand- allegedly on one of the biggest oil fields in the world- will be beneficial for the economy. They are not taking into account the millions we will be losing in tourism, or the livelihoods of so many who depend on fishing. These fishers will instead have to work long shifts far from home around carcinogenics on minimum wage. This isn't improving the economy for the many, but for the few. The government has shares invested but we will be the ones doing the voluntary cleanups when the rig explodes. Petrobras, just for your information, is amongst the most unsafe companies in the business and even though New Zealand is earthquake prone and the waters rougher and deeper, they will not be using any new and advanced technology. A disaster seems likely and we are the ones paying for it. I personally don't want to see my taxes go to the death of a dozen yound men and women who have no chance of a better job and I certainly do not want to go out onto the beaches that I can see from my window to clean up a mess I did not want and did not create.

Te Whanau a Apanui isn't too big an iwi, but Greenpeace is backing them and the protesters are facing fines that hit the five digit mark, or jail. For peacefully opposing something they disagree with. 600 people protested up north, around 20 here but we need more. Petrobras is already fearing a public backlash, what are we waiting for? This isn't only protecting the environment, it is for Maori rights and to the benefit of us all.