National: Errors, political capital and democracy

In 2004/5 George W Bush said he had political capital and he was going to spend it. In line with my hypothesis that National is just as blind as Bush was to the serious flaws in both their world view and the policies that extend from it, they appear to be determined to throw away the 3%-4% it would take to see them lose the Beehive in 2011. People who don’t like them should, I suppose, let them get on with that, though the downside is we all have to suffer the consequences of fairly obvious (to anyone but them) error.

Their series of errors in recent weeks (Mt. Albert, Waterview, mishandling of Auckland amalgamation) will take time to bear their bitter electoral fruit, but unless something major happens, that fruit appears to be programmed in.

As for the Auckland 'Super-Colider' being built to merge the existing municipalities into one, the government and the media have tended to characterise opposition as parochial special interests protecting their patch. Thay may well be true in part, but it is far from the whole story. For many people - like me - the problem with the government's plan is the degraded democracy in the intended model for the new city. I'm in favour of amalgamation, but see no reason why the new city can't also be more democratic and more genuinely representative than the the current plan will allow. My own submission to the Royal Commission recommended at least 35 councillors elected from multi-member wards by STV. The overall effect of that would have ensured all significant communities of interest were represented on the one Council.

The intended model offers twenty councillors where there used to be over 100, and 20-30 toothless community boards rendering a democracy gutted of subtance and quarantined. This is a major reduction in democracy - and thus accountability. Even worse, they will be elected by First Past the Post, which hands power to the largest minority. We may - and probably will - see a majority of the Council controlled by people elected by less than 30% of all voters. Hoorah!

I know the National Party is all in favour of a minority having absolute power, but I’m not and nor are many other people. This has nothing to do with parochialism. It’s democracy and representation at its most basic……and National consistently demonstrate they do not like democracy unless it only delivers power to them and their supporters. They are actively hostile to other people being represented. That means, they don’t like us. All of us. Including their own voters.

That the National party collectively have poor judgement is already obvious: Murray McCully, Tony Ryall and Judith Collins are all MPs and cabinet ministers. Little more need be said on that subject. Melissa Lee is just one more in a long series of examples of poor judgement.

At some future date, we may be treated to the bizarre spectacle of National party voters in safe Labour seats like Mana and Mt Albert voting against MMP in National's proposed referendum on the voting system. National's intention in holding the referendum is, again, to strip people they don't like of their votes and deprive them of their representation. National voters in safe labour seats would thus be voting to make their own votes worthless in future.

You have to be a special kind of crazy to hate your own vote. Your view of the world and understanding of democracy with respect to yourself must be seriously dysfunctional. That’s the sort of thing we see from Islamic extremists who vote the Imams into power so there won’t be any more elections. Faith over reason……Kiwi-style. An extreme metaphor, but it captures the sense of it. Yielding up future accountability in an irrational display of faith in those who stand before you today.

It remains to be seem how much political capital the government will have "spent" in the end, but at the rate they are going, doubts will be growing in more minds each day as to whether or not this government deserves any more time on the Treasury Benches than they now have. A government hostile to democracy is, in the end, the enemy of everyone.

(This was originally written as a comment over at the Standard, but I've expanded it and posted it here.)

A long way from Taihape

..and he wasn't throwing gum boots.

"Farewell kiss" may now enter the English language as a euphemism for acts of disgust like this one.

But it's a bit late. Bush will be gone from office in 35 days. Why bother?

Seymour Hersh on US escalation against Iran

Seymour Hersh, author of an article in the New Yorker that I posted about yesterday, talks on Al-Jazeera about the US escalation against Iran.


I was going to add the "stupid people" label, but G W Bush is already among the labels.

"Some Ingenious Argument..."

In speaking to the Israeli Knesset this week, US President George W Bush demonstrated once again how very out of touch he is with reality.

During what was reported as a long speech, Bush implicitly likened Democratic front-runner Barack Obama's commitment to talk to Middle East leaders as being akin to appeasing the Nazis. He went on to say:

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

It doesn't take "some ingenious argument" to see that Bush has made some grievous errors of judgment during his terms as US president. Among them is his tendency to vilify and attack people he doesn't like, with little regard to the evidence of the real level of risk they may represent to the United States or any other country. His claims that pre-invasion Iraq had WMD and links to Al Qaeda were both unfounded. Comparing any of these leaders to Adolf Hitler is bizarre and inaccurate.

Given Bush's primary presumptions about the Syrian and Iranian leaders can be demonstrated to be incorrect, his conclusions based on those presumptions aren't worth serious consideration.

No "ingenious argument" is required. The evidence is all anyone needs to clearly see Bush's many failures for what they are.

US House Defeats War Funding Bill

Voting 149 to 141, the US House of Representatives defeated a bill providing US$169B in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming year.

Bush will get the money in the end, but seeing war funding becoming a political football is a healthy development. The Democrats have typically just rolled over and signed the cheques. It will be interesting to see what happens when the war funding is debated again, closer to the elections later this year.

Three interesting items in this story:

The total funding for Iraq and Afghan wars will be US$800 billion after this bill finally passes.

The Democrat-proposed 0.5% tax on people earning over US$500,000 to fund tertiary education for veterans is opposed by the "support the troops" Republicans as being "bad for small business". In Kiwi terms, any person or business that earns more than $500,000 wouldn't be a "small" one.

The 132 Republicans who voted "present", rather than "Yes" or "No". A tactical ploy? Or an attempt to distance themselves from the war as elections approach? You can almost hear them in September / October: "I did not vote slavishly for every war appropriation!" No. They may have tactically abstained to prevent the majority Democrats in the House from attaching conditions to Bush's war money.

"The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder"

Now there is an eye-catching title if ever there was one.

Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor in the trial of the Manson family in the late 60's, has just today published a book with this title. The best blurb I can find on it anywhere so far is at web site called "freedom4um.com".

I have to admit this is an open-and-shut case for me. I waited through 2002 for Bush to present anything resembling compelling proof of WMD in Iraq. The man never fronted with anything remotely convincing. The best attempt, Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council on February 5th, 2003, was very week tea by any objective measure. The information presented there is now known to have been largely fabricated or greatly exaggerated.

US President G W Bush either lied to justify invading Iraq or was grossly incompetent to the point of criminal negligence in failing to ensure the lives of thousands of people were not wasted through decisions made based on unfounded beliefs.

I haven't read the book, but I'd be surprised if the case wasn't a strong one in law and based on the evidence. I suspect this book won't get much coverage in an America so obviously dominated by powerful interests averse to facing up to reality on any topic or in any area that doesn't make money.

Check it out here