Piers Morgan - Arsehole of the Week

If you're lucky, you wouldn't have heard of a guy called Piers Morgan. He’s a self-absorbed and opinionated hack from England who’s made a career out of making offensive remarks, which he more often than not targets at younger woman of colour.

Morgan, who is well past his prime as a political commentator, has a general theme to his personal attacks, and that is to denigrate any outspoken or successful leaders of popular transformative movements in order to try and close them down.

In fact this is a common trope by active racists all around the world, who attempt to side-track the public discourse by essentially cock-blocking the conversation with their targeted insults or controversial reckons.

Of course one of the most proficient users of this divisive tactic is Piers Morgan, who once again displayed his inherent bigotry yesterday by criticising a star United States athlete called Simone Biles, who withdrew from the women's gymnastics team final at the Tokyo Olympics for mental health reasons.

Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:

Piers Morgan criticises Simone Biles' decision to quit final

Outspoken British commentator Piers Morgan has weighed in on US star athlete Simone Biles' decision to quit the women's team gymnastics final in Tokyo.

Biles made the decision just minutes into the event, later telling reporters that she had been battling mental health issues and "fighting all those demons".

"It's just me in my head," she said. "I have to focus on my mental health and not jeopardise my health and wellbeing.

"We have to protect our body and our mind.

Which is exactly what a top athlete should do to ensure they can continue to perform at their best and excel in their chosen sport. Morgan using the same old ploy to get attention by criticising a young coloured woman just goes to show what a dinosaur he actually is, particularly when it comes to modern training techniques for athletes at the top of their game.

Are ‘mental health issues’ now the go-to excuse for any poor performance in elite sport? What a joke.
Just admit you did badly, made mistakes, and will strive to do better next time.
Kids need strong role models not this nonsense.

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) July 27, 2021

Obviously Simone Biles is doing exactly the right thing and being a good role model for her fans and fellow athletes alike, who shouldn’t be pressured into ignoring their mental health by grey-haired idiots like Piers Morgan. He assuredly is an out-dated egotist who should be ignored wherever possible.

Morgan doubled down, and blamed social media.

"Athletes are now deemed more courageous, inspiring & heroic if they lose or quit then if they win or tough it out, which is ridiculous," he fumed.

"I blame Twitter's virtue-signallers for fuelling this culture of celebrating weakness. The real world doesn't think like that."

Some took him to task for criticising Biles' decision to walk away given the public tantrum that saw him quit British TV show Good Morning Britain earlier this year.

But Morgan batted away critics with a sarcastic response.

Piers Morgan is clearly a bonafide fuckwit! He’s also a complete snowflake when it comes to being confronted for his numerous flaws…and just like most narcissists cannot handle even the slightest amount of criticism in return.

Hello pot, meet kettle. 🙄 pic.twitter.com/zRuvvbNg7s

— Amy Freeman-Britton (@chilpark) July 27, 2021

Sadly for Piers Morgan, this prestigious Arsehole Award is the closest he'll ever get to an Olympic medal. He may therefore like to reflect on his prize and just how much of a political pariah he’s become. Because without some much needed self-awareness, the world may never get a mental health break from the contemptuous old fool known as Piers Morgan, until the day he dies.

NZ should stick to COVID-19 elimination strategy

If there’s one thing we’ve learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s that right-winger’s will always put profits ahead of people’s safety. In fact not a week has gone by since our first lockdowns began without at least one right-wing propagandist arguing that New Zealand's border restrictions must be lifted, usually for purely economic reasons and not a lot else.

However if you take a good look at the evidence, it categorically demonstrates that an elimination strategy is the best and only way to go to safeguard both a countries population and economy. Even if some of our closest trading partners have decided to just give up, the NZ Government would be ill-advised to follow suit and allow the virus to run rampant in gods own.

Take for instance a recent study out of Germany showing that most people who survive Covid-19 are still suffering symptoms even twelve months on from when they first contracted the disease.

Last week, Oxford Academic reported:

Persistent symptoms in adult patients one year after COVID-19: a prospective cohort study

At month 12, only 22.9% of patients were completely free of symptoms and the most frequent symptoms were reduced exercise capacity (56.3%), fatigue (53.1%), dyspnoea (37.5%), concentration problems (39.6%), problems finding words (32.3%), and sleeping problems (26.0%). Females showed significantly more neurocognitive symptoms than males.

There are serious economic implications to this as well, especially when you also consider that many vaccines aren't the silver bullet we first hoped they might be. Even Pfizer's BioNTech vaccine is now showing limited long-term effectiveness against Covid-19 and its variants.

On Friday, Newshub reported:

COVID-19: Pfizer reveals immunity waning from vaccine, developing new booster

Pfizer chief scientific officer Mikael Dolsten said the recently reported dip in the vaccine's effectiveness in Israel was mostly due to infections in people who had been vaccinated in January or February. The country's health ministry said vaccine effectiveness in preventing both infection and symptomatic disease fell to 64 percent in June.

"The Pfizer vaccine is highly active against the Delta variant," Dolsten said in an interview. But after six months, he said, "there likely is the risk of reinfection as antibodies, as predicted, wane."

Despite the evidence clearly showing that an elimination strategy is an appropriate response to this deadly pandemic, many right wing hacks are continuing to bleat on about opening up our borders.

One in particular long-time Labour critic called Heather du Plessis-Allan even believes that keeping Covid-19 out of New Zealand will all end in tears.

On Thursday, Newstalk ZB reported:

Govt keeping the borders shut will end in tears

I think it’s becoming more and more obvious that we are drawing ever closer to some sort of crunch point with a worker shortage in this country.  

ASB this week warned that labour turnover has surged in the last three months, suggesting bosses are just desperately poaching staff off each other.

...

I think it’s also becoming more and more obvious that Covid isn’t the only reason workers can’t get in.

As immigration lawyer Alastair McClymont said to Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning, this is deliberate. The government is cutting off the foreign worker supply to try to force up wages.

It’s not going to work; it’s going to end in tears.

Despite what this doom merchant is saying, an end to our low-waged economy is actually a good thing. Heather du Plessis-Allan then goes on to provide an example from 1964, whereby Mexicans were apparently stopped from working in the US, but wages stayed the same.

There's little relevance to the current situation here and now in New Zealand, especially because wages have seen significant growth over the last twelve months while the country has been keeping Covid-19 out through a successful elimination program.

Of course Newstalk ZB aren't the only ones arguing for an opening up of our borders. Tracey Martin over at Stuff also draws a strange parallel to try and bolster the Open Our Borders movement; this time between Muldoon’s megalomania, Rogernomics and the current Covid-19 economic situation.

Yesterday, Stuff reported:

Covid-19: We need a plan to open Fortress NZ

When, a few years later, the Muldoon Government was swept out of power and along with it some of its extreme interventionist measures like wage, price and interest rate controls, we went from one of the world’s most closed economies, to one of the most open.

There were of course many problems with both Muldoon’s and David Lange’s economic management, particularly when Roger Douglas' economic mismanagement pushed wages down by causing mass unemployment, which rose from 3.6% to 11%. But, like du Plessis-Allan's argument, this has little relevance to the current situation.

We have become fearful of the world beyond our borders and most of us would rather things stayed the way they are for the foreseeable future.

I’m not sure that a valid fear of dying from Covid-19 is something to argue against. Personally I would rather things did stay the same meaning no community spread of Covid-19 in New Zealand. I would also prefer that other countries also got their response to the deadly virus right as well, but that’s not what’s happening.

As the world starts to open up, New Zealand is both blessed, but perhaps also blinkered, by our phenomenal success keeping Covid out.

Actually, much of the world is going back into lockdown as the Delta variant causes a third wave. Some countries that predominantly have right wing government's are however opening up their economies, despite them not having the virus under control. Thankfully this isn't a strategy that New Zealand should or needs to follow.

But the Government has not responded in kind; we have seen few signs of fresh thinking about the challenges that we are going to face us as an economy, or of a roadmap for navigating a world where Covid, and its variants, will be around for the foreseeable future.

Except the NZ economy under lockdown has been doing pretty well really. This has a lot to do with the Government acting quickly to protect people’s jobs. It also has a bit to do with our export driven economy being able to quickly adjust to meet the needs of countries still struggling under the pandemic. We can also trade amongst ourselves without much fear of catching Covid-19, which is a pretty big bonus if you ask me.

‘We must live with the virus’ is the catch phrase the right wing protagonists often use to try and convince the public and politicians to open up our borders. However what this really means is that people should simply accept their friends and family members dying, or becoming seriously unwell, from a virus that has claimed over four million lives worldwide so far.

With a mortality rate estimated at 3.4% and only 22.9% of victims fully recovering, the consequences to both a countries workforce and economy clearly outweigh any short-term financial benefits certain sectors might see from lowering our guard against Covid-19.

In fact if you think the skills shortage is bad now, just wait to see what happens in places like England, where the Tories have done exactly what du Plessis-Allan and other right-wing idiots have been advocating for here in New Zealand.

Perhaps, instead of complaining about no longer having cheap labor or being able to fly off on holiday every month, the elimination strategy neigh-sayers might like to contribute some new ideas on how New Zealand best lives without the virus, by keeping our borders closed and therefore our population safe. Because without a healthy workforce, there simply isn't going to be an economy worth arguing about.

Who is advising the National party?

Traditionally, the National led government and their propagandists have blamed the Labour party for any problems it’s faced over the last nine years. Obviously they’re just passing the buck... but their brain-dead supporters seem to love it.

However heading into this election that excuse hasn't washed as well, so we’re seeing National try a new type of obfuscation. Instead of simply passing the buck or not being available for comment on tricky issues, they’re claiming complete ignorance.

On Friday, Newshub reported:

Govt admits it had 'no idea' of emergency housing costs 

Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett has admitted "in hindsight" the Government's response to the housing crisis has been too slow.

At current spending rates, $50 million of taxpayer money will go to motel owners and other emergency housing providers in just a year.

"We had no idea how much it was going to cost," Ms Bennett told The AM Show on Friday morning.

"We had no idea it would ever be this big. No Government had ever picked up the bill for this. No Government has ever funded emergency housing."

National are also pretending that they aren’t really in power. This seems like a strange position to take being that journalists have been reporting otherwise for the last nine years.

The problem for National is that they’ve failed on so many social issues it’s not funny. Bill English is now appearing foolish by trying to come up with remedies to the problems their policies, in most cases, have caused.

It’s no secret that Crosby/Textor was advising John Key during many of National's major scandals over his tenure. But who is advising the National party now? Could it be this guy?

Lions rugby fans harass young girls

It’s unfortunate when sports fans live up to their stereotypical selves and give rugby a bad name. It makes enjoying sport so much harder for the rest of us when drunken idiots are out and about actively wrecking events for other people.

Yesterday, Stuff reported:

Teen girls sexually harassed by rugby fans

HighJinx's next performance has been cancelled after its teenage members were sexually harassed by rugby fans in Auckland.

A young all-female dance group were sexually harassed by rugby fans before the weekend's Lions clash against the All Blacks.

HighJinx troupe director Carlene Newall de Jesus said her performers – girls aged between 13 and 16 – were subjected to lewd comments while performing before the test series opener at Eden Park on June 24.

Grown men asked the performers to give lap dances during the girls' 90-minute performance outside Kingsland train station, she said.

One 13-year-old girl was asked how much it was "to get a handjob", she said.

Rugby supporters also asked the girls to spread their legs wider during the performance.

Maybe it's time to segregate male rugby fans away from the general public? We could have male rugby fan only areas and transport services to ensure they didn’t ruin events for other people.

The troupe, a youth company specialising in aerial and acrobatic circus, had been invited to perform by the Kingsland Business Society as part of fan entertainment.

HighJinx were set to perform again this Saturday before the test series decider at Eden Park.

However, de Jesus received an email on Wednesday from the Kingsland Business Society stating due to health and safety regulations the performance would be cancelled.

De Jesus, who first wrote about the incident in a column for The Spinoff, said that no specific health and safety regulations were cited.

"The biggest risk for the girls is the things people are saying and not the fact that they're balancing on heads."

I guess the Kingsland Business Society couldn’t well say that the barrage of sexual innuendo by rugby fans meant the second performance couldn’t go ahead. After all that would make the game and it’s supporters look bad.

What about the young girls feelings though? They’ve been verbally abused and then had their event cancelled. In effect the Kingsland Business Society is punishing the victims in this situation.

Most of the harassment came from men wearing Lions garb, she said.

Perhaps we should have male only facilities and events for visiting British louts then? We could charge them more for everything and then donate the profits to organisations like HELP.

Kingsland Business Society chairman Steve Gillett said he was unaware of the incident and said the society's manager Christine Foley was in charge of the entertainment.

Foley was unable to be reached for comment.

I bet she wasn’t. Obviously the Kingsland Business Society was aware of the harassment and that’s why they cancelled the event. They simply wouldn’t have wanted any further bad press concerning such an important game.

Strangely the Police didn’t issue a statement about the fans misconduct at the Lions vs All Blacks Auckland match like they usually do. Perhaps they too don’t want to make rugby supporters feel bad. It would be good if they at least talked to the rugby fans who made lewd comments to underage girls.

I guess when sporting events are the only thing the National party has to keep it afloat in the polls, you can bet your bottom dollar that any bad press surrounding these showcase events is going to be quashed. I wonder what happened to not mixing sport with politics though?

A monument to capitalisms failure

As the Grenfell Tower tragedy fades from international headlines, the burnt out building remains as a terrible monument to capitalisms failure.

Arconic, the company that sells the insulation panels that caused the rapid spread of the Grenfell Tower fire has blamed the failure of their product on the “inconsistency of building codes across the world.”

This is a patently absurd excuse, being that they could have ensured their product wasn’t being installed in a dangerous way, wherever in the world it was being sold.

Last Saturday, Reuters reported:

REFILE-Arconic knowingly supplied flammable panels for use in tower -emails

Six emails sent by and to an Arconic Inc sales manager raise questions about why the company supplied combustible cladding to a distributor for use at Grenfell Tower, despite publicly warning such panels were a fire risk for tall buildings.

The emails, dating from 2014 and seen by Reuters, were between Deborah French, Arconic's UK sales manager, and executives at the contractors involved in the bidding process for the refurbishment contract at Grenfell Tower in London, where 79 people died in a blaze last week.

When asked about the emails, Arconic said in a statement that it had known the panels would be used at Grenfell Tower but that it was not its role to decide what was or was not compliant with local building regulations.

The fact that Arconic knew that their product was flammable while selling it for use on high-rise buildings shows that they placed their profit margin above people’s safety. They knew how dangerous their product was but took advantage of the UK’s lack of proper building regulations to make a killing.

80 people, including a five-year-old boy, have now been confirmed dead. However we likely won’t know the exact death toll until the end of the year.

On Wednesday, the Guardian reported:

Grenfell Tower death toll may not be known until end of year – police

Scotland Yard has warned it could take until the end of the year or longer to be sure how many people died in the Grenfell Tower disaster, as police raised the number of people presumed dead to 80.

Police warned that the death toll could rise further and said there were 23 flats in the tower where they had not been able to trace anyone alive.

The detective leading the criminal investigation added it had identified 60 firms involved in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, up from 12 last week, and that number is expected to grow.

The briefing came amid continued claims that the real death toll is far higher than the official count, which now stands at 80 dead.

Many more would have died were it not for the actions of police, ambulance and fire service personnel who attended the disaster.

You would think that Theresa May’s government would reward emergency service’s for their hard work and heroic actions. However that’s unfortunately not the case.

Today, the Independent reported:

Public sector pay cap: Conservative MPs cheer after blocking Labour bid to raise emergency service salaries

Jeremy Corbyn cited the Grenfell Tower disaster and recent terrorist attacks while praising the emergency services and calling for more funds.

But Conservative MPs took to social media to cast doubt on the intent and timing of the amendment.

Mid-Norfolk MP George Freeman said colleagues were cheering "Labour's failed attempt to bring down a serious Government signalling new thinking".

The pawns of capitalism ensuring that the rich become richer at poor people’s expense and lives is clearly not a new way of thinking. It's a very old and outdated way of thinking that must change.

With the bastard tory government in England cutting funds to essential services while ensuring dangerous products continue to be sold and installed throughout the UK, we can expect more tragedies like the Grenfell Tower disaster to occur. Under the failure of the capitalist system, it’s really only a matter of time.

MI5 failed to stop Manchester bomber

Today, Stuff reported:

Missed chances to catch Manchester bomber Salman Abedi will be investigated the Home Secretary said as it was claimed that US officials warned MI5 that he was planning an attack.

As the security services faced growing questions over the failure to prevent Abedi from killing 22 people in the Manchester Arena, Amber Rudd said that whether there were "signals" that were not picked up on would be examined.

Despite the terror threat being reduced from critical to severe on Saturday, she confirmed that members of Abedi's terror network could still be at large.

She spoke after claims that the FBI had told MI5 earlier this year that Abedi was part of a north African terror cell based in Manchester looking to launch an attack.

Why didn’t MI5 act on the intelligence? They could have prevented this terrible attack.

US federal agents had been monitoring Abedi since last year and had passed on information from Libya and from intercepting his communications, it was said.

"Following this US tip-off, Abedi and other members of the gang were scrutinised by MI5. It was thought at the time that Abedi was planning to assassinate a political figure.

MI5 thought Abedi was going to assassinate a political figure, but just let him gather the items he needed to make a bomb anyway? Unbelievable!

I wonder who Abedi’s political target was or if he actually had one. Perhaps MI5’s failure to properly act on intel to stop Abedi was because of who they thought his target was?

"But nothing came of this investigation and, tragically, he slipped down the pecking order of targets," a source told The Mail on Sunday.

Abedi was also reported to authorities by residents at least five times in five years.

Reported five times to authorities and they did nothing! It appears that Theresa May's police funding cuts did in deed put Manchester and national security at risk.

Clearly English authorities could have acted on intelligence and therefore prevented the deaths of 22 innocent people. Why they didn’t should be the topic of a thorough inquiry.

Katie Hopkins - Asshole of the Week

It's truly heart breaking to see the terrible images coming out of Manchester at the moment. Not only have 22 innocent people, some of them children, been killed in a senseless attack...the inevitable backlash by hate groups has targeted more innocent people just because they're Muslim.

You’ve really got to wonder therefore why the Islamic State terror group who claimed responsibility for the bombing would target a concert? The only thing they’ve ensured is further justification for Middle Eastern wars and perhaps the re-election of warmonger Theresa May.

In such times it’s important to keep a level head and not increase racial or religious tensions. Don't tell that to England’s PM though.  She's very busy at the moment gaining support for a more hard-line approach and is undoubtedly not interested in finding peaceful solutions to Middle Eastern conflicts, which are in fact the root cause of terrorism.

Unfortunately English television personality Katie Hopkins also didn’t get the memo.

Yesterday, the guardian reported:

Katie Hopkins reported to police after 'final solution' Manchester attack tweet

Complaints made to Metropolitan police amid widespread condemation following newspaper columnist’s now-deleted tweet

The newspaper columnist Katie Hopkins became the subject of a police review after the Manchester bombing on Monday, as questions were raised about the limits the press can go to when reporting the fallout from terrorist attacks.

Hopkins, who is employed by the Mail Online and LBC, was reported to the Metropolitan police for a tweet in which she called for a “final solution” as part of a longer anti-Muslim tirade.

The columnist quickly deleted the tweet, directed at the This Morning host Phillip Schofield, and posted an edited version after receiving widespread condemnation for repeating the Nazi term for the Holocaust.

The original tweet read: 

Even if Hopkins knows nothing of Nazism - which I doubt - her "final solution" can only mean ethnic cleansing pic.twitter.com/U7SDYh4e8q

— Nick Cohen (@NickCohen4) May 23, 2017

Katie Hopkins clearly doesn't have the level headedness an unbiased public figure requires. She has tried to incite hate against an ethnic group when most Muslims in England feel just as aggrieved by the cowardly attack as any other Englander.

Clearly political rhetoric and further violence is not the solution to the terrorism problem. Dialogue and peaceful negotiation, putting a halt to weapon supplies and political stability in the Middle East is the only way western countries like England will ever see an end to these horrible bombings.

Ugly old trolls like Katie Hopkins who actively incite racial hatred are a part of the terrorism problem. How many more innocent people are going to be beaten or killed because of idiots in places of power inciting violence? That's why Hopkins is this week's Asshole Award winner. This despicable hate merchant should be fired immediately.

Hey Kids: Voting's Fun!

This reporter's unique way of getting "the kids" politically engaged is swearing at them.

Strong & Unstable

In this video, UK News reporter Jonathan Pie rips the tories to shreds:

Was Scotland's referendum rigged?

Things haven't gone well in Scotland after their historic referendum to choose whether they became independent from Britain or not.

As it turns out, an apparent majority of 55.3% chose to stay with mother England.

However, there has been a growing disquiet about the referendum and whether or not it was run properly.

Today, Time magazine reported:

They should know

Scotland’s historic election on independence did not meet international standards for constitutional referendums, the head of a Russian voting rights organization has said, with procedures that left the result subject to rigging and vote-tampering.

Here's a few of the video's that have surfaced, which allegedly show vote rigging:

Not looking too good there Scotland. Perhaps you might need to hold this very expensive referendum again, but this time with a bit more oversight and processes to ensure that this type of vote rigging doesn't occur again.

H/T Seemorerocks

Inequality: Why are the rich getting richer?

Loose lips sink ships

In the budget debates (PDF) last Month, Bill English announced:

The Government will invest $158 million over four years to attract more visitors to New Zealand, particularly high-spending visitors. This includes funding to attract high-end visitors from emerging markets and funding to attract international business events to New Zealand.

Today, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment released a document relating to statistics on tourism (PDF) for New Zealand. It shows there's been zero growth in international visitors over the last year and that domestic tourism is in decline. There's also been a 2% decline of how much each visitor is spending.

Being that there's a 13% decline of international visitors from the UK, it's my guess that John Keys' statement re David Beckham has caused some serious harm to our tourism industry.

Exactly how much the Prime Ministers stupidity has cost us may never be known... But it’s likely that calling a well-liked football legend "thick" has a multi-million dollar price tag attached to it.

Unfortunately most Kiwis weren't aware of just how huge the backlash against Key was, especially in Britain. But one thing is clear... Throwing more taxpayer dollars at a problem Key has caused is obviously not the answer.

Lockwood leech

Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:

Labour's foreign affairs spokesman Phil Goff said New Zealand taxpayers should not have to fork out $7500 a week to pay for alternative premises for the High Commissioner while the official residence remains empty.

"Foreign Affairs has just been savagely restructured, with staff being made redundant and allowances slashed to save money.

"There will need to be very good reasons why $390,000 a year is being spent on alternative High Commission accommodation. That sum would cover the annual salaries of more than five Ministry staff."

Imagine how many children could be fed at school for $390,000 per year.

Mr Goff has called on Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully to say why the money is being spent.

Perhaps I can answer that question; the exorbitant amount of money being spent on Lockwwod Smith's accomodation is because he's in the old boys club.

Meanwhile back in New Zealand government policy continues to cause poverty to increase. Clearly social responsibility is a foreign concept to National, with John Key claiming the government cannot afford to ensure poor kids have enough to eat at the same time $7500 taxpayers dollars are being spent each week on rent for one of his mates.

While many thousands of children don't have enough sustenance to reach their full potential and the elderly are freezing because they cannot afford to heat their homes properly, all Lockwood leech has to do is smooze with other elitists. The very high and mighty commissioner gets to drink the finest wine and eat the best foods public money can buy while New Zealand becomes even more unequal and impoverished.

Let's hope that the next government will ensure such gluttony by public officials doesn’t continue to deprive the poor of the basic necessities of life.

Arctic in London

When will Thatcherism truly die?

Yesterday, an article by Maria Golovnina was reported by Stuff:

Only about 200 people turned up for a "party" in central London to celebrate the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as a mass protest predicted by some failed to materialise.

Except the party in central London was far larger than Golovnina is reporting... The number of vehement critics of the “Iron Lady” who braved cold conditions to attend celebrations in Trafalgar Square was at least ten times that amount, with The Guardian reporting:

About 3,000 people gathered in the rain in Trafalgar Square on Saturday night to "celebrate" the demise of Margaret Thatcher. A few people chanted obscenities and at least two bottles were thrown at police, with the call of "Maggie Maggie Maggie, dead dead dead" ringing out intermittently.

Here's a video that confirms thousands of people attended:

Of course this hasn't stopped the right wing propagandist Cameron Slater regurgitating Golovnina's inaccurate article, also claiming that:

She really has had the last laugh, even in death she has defeated the pinkos.

Saying that Thatcher "has had the last laugh" is akin to rejoicing in the harm she has and continues to cause Great Britain... It's about as funny as Paula Bennett thinking child poverty is a laughing matter.

With decreased production, growing inequality, high unemployment and one of the worst poverty rates in Europe, it's pretty self-evident that even with the iron lady's demise, Thatcherism lives on. Those damning social indicators make me wonder why, with it totally failing in Great Britain, are we making the same mistakes here in New Zealand?

Thatcher's libertarianism caused untold social damage that adversely affected millions of British people, and no amount of disinformation from idiots like Slater and Golovnina is going to change that fact. There is no doubt that Britain is the worse for wear after Thatchers administration, which makes me wonder if Thatcherism, both there and abroad, will ever truly die?

Margaret Thatcher made me a Socialist

Academies and Lies

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

Today, the NZ Herald reported:

Israel always claims that it only "responds" to Palestinian violence, so the following time-line leading up to the present onslaught is essential to understanding that there was no need for this ghastly escalation, which was certainly premeditated. The November 14 assassination of Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari occurred just as a shaky ceasefire had begun to establish itself.

This is the second time that Israel has mounted a major Gaza offensive when about to hold an election, the first being the occasion of Operation Cast Lead. Before the assassination, the New York Times reported the shooting dead by Israeli forces of a mentally handicapped Palestinian man in Gaza.

On November 8 the Israeli Army invaded the Gaza Strip. Eight tanks, escorting four bulldozers (routinely used to destroy crops on Palestinian farms in both Gaza and the West Bank), invaded Abassan village shooting 13-year-old Ahmed Younis Khader Abu Daqqa, killing him as he played football with his friends. Later that day, the Palestinian Resistance blew up a tunnel along the Gaza-Israel frontier, injuring one Israeli soldier.

November 10: An anti-tank missile fired by the Palestinian Resistance wounded four Israeli soldiers driving a jeep along the Israel-Gaza boundary. This was not a civilian target but a legitimate occasion for armed resistance and Palestinians have a right to self-defence. Israeli artillery shelled a soccer field, killing two children. Later, an Israeli tank shelled mourners at a funeral, killing two more people and wounding more than two dozen others.

November 11: One Palestinian was killed and dozens wounded in fresh Israeli attacks. Israel's Transportation Minister, Yisrael Katz, called on his Government to cut off water, food, electricity and fuel supplies to Gaza's population.

November 12: The Palestinians offered to renew the ceasefire if Israel would end its attacks.

November 14: Israel assassinated Ahmed Jabari. At least eight others died in the air strike, two of them children.

It's good to see these undeniable facts written down in black and white. Of course Israeli politicians and their propaganda machine are doing their best to refute them, but it's clearly an unjustifiable war that needs to end. One of the main ways Israel is trying to justify their war against the Palestinians is to say Hamas started it. This is clearly not the case, just as it's not true that Israel is only targeting army personnel.

Israel has in fact breached many international laws by violating the negotiated ceasefire, bombing refugee camps and killing innocent civilians. So far 130 Palestinians have been killed with another 920 injured. Many of these include woman and children. Israel has conducted over 1,450 rocket and airstrikes on Palestinian targets within the last week. Approximately five Israelis have died in retaliatory rocket strikes during the conflict so far.

Some commentators have proposed that the escalation to the war is because of the upcoming elections in Israel, but that's only part of the equation. Last year, Palestine was trying to gain full statehood and recognition from the United Nations. This was bitterly opposed by the United States and Israel, who have managed to stymie the application through political bullying.

Palestine has now revised their bid and is requesting recognition only as an observer state, something that is still being bitterly opposed by Israel and its backers. Last year, Israel made a number of threats concerning the United Nations giving Palestine full statehood, and those threats are now being acted upon.

What makes this all the more disgusting is that Israel, after giving assurances towards peace, was admitted to the United Nations in 1949. By accepting the position, Israel confirmed that it would give protection and free access to the Holy Places, heed calls for the return of refugees, allow free access to Jerusalem and demilitarize. Israel has failed to uphold any of these conditions.

Therefore Israel is in breach of its agreement with the United Nations and in my opinion should be removed from its position in that organization. It won't of course, because the United Nations no longer operates in the worlds best interests, it operates in the best interests of a controlling few.

The main problem here is the veto powers on that assembly held by the five permanent members of its most powerful body, the Security Council. China, France, Russia, the U.K., and the U.S. have all failed to intervene properly in the conflict, with many of these countries increasing the likelihood of war by providing arms and munitions to Israel, thus ensuring there is an unfair fight against an isolated Palestine.

The lack of political will is most sickening, with politicians only playing lip service to saving lives. Not only is Israel's war on Palestine wrong and against any sense of moral ethics... It's also against international laws, laws that the United Nations should not allow Israel to continually ignore in their unjust and terrible war on Palestine.

Thou shalt not kill

It's very sad to see an escalation in the conflict between Israel and Palestine recently. After many years of skirmishes and retaliatory strikes, Israel has decided to attack the Palestinians in what appears to be all out war designed to dispossess people who've already lost most of their territory because of unjustifiable wars. The Palestinians are defiant but clearly demoralized, with many years of sanctions and repression weakening the very fabric of their society.

Yesterday, the Guardian reported:

The latest round of hostilities between Israel and Hamas (Black cloud of death hangs once more over Gaza and Israel, 16 November) once again points to the futility of tacit ceasefires that are not shored up by a serious international initiative to resolve the underlying Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would enable both peoples to exercise their self-determination, free of oppression or threat. It is also a timely reminder to a victorious President Obama that, as his second term begins, he can no longer fiddle while this vital part of the world burns and the hatred, including towards the US and the West, escalates. Yet no new peace initiative can be launched without a definitive ceasefire, so that has to be the immediate priority.

The potential for this conflict to escalate even further is there, with the Israelis calling up 30,000 reservists and amassing troops and tanks near the Gaza border. Despite a warning from Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, Israeli rocket and airstrikes have continued unabated, entirely dwarfing the retaliatory strikes coming from Palestine for the assassination of Hamas military leader Ahmed al-Jabari.

In fact the potential catastrophic consequences to allowing this conflict to continue are there, with the United States and Britain supporting Israel and Russia and China somewhat supporting the Palestinians, which makes the fact that there's no diplomatic solution on the horizon and the potential for other countries to get drawn into the dispute very concerning indeed.

Most people won't even remember what this conflict is about, and perhaps the Israelis are also somewhat ignorant to the real causes. It's not just about the Israelis wanting more land to expand into... The roots of this conflict go back to the end of the Second World War when countries were divided up. It also goes back to religious disagreement and the control of Jerusalem.

After WW2, the Allies incorrectly divided many countries up, including Palestine to create Israel to give the Jewish people somewhere to go and rebuild. In 1948 the UN recognized the nation of Israel, which then undertook a number of wars beginning with the Catastrophe in the same year, which was the beginning to the War of Independence, then there was the Six Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, which led to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

During this time, Israel continued to implement unfair policy that dispossessed many Arabs from their ancestral lands. The resentments caused from this is the main thing driving the Israeli Palestinian conflict, but it's not the only factor involved.

The Zionists base many of their territorial demands on an incorrect interpretation of the Bible concerning the kingdoms of David and Solomon. The Zionists are taking scriptures solely concerned with a person’s spiritual growth and applying them literally to the world around them. The religious fervour this has caused is why the conflict has continued for over half a century.

Make no mistake, the recent increased conflict between Israel and Palestine isn't about any justifiable retaliatory strike by the Israelis, it's about them wanting to exterminate the Palestinians off the face of the earth. The level of hatred, brainwashing and blind obedience to that cause and support from other countries might just ensure they achieved their most inglorious goal, which would be recorded in history as one of mankind's most vial occurrences indeed. The genocide of the Palestinians would be on par with how the Germans treated the Jewish people during the Second World War, for which there are no excuses.

I'm not in any way anti-Semitic in this criticism of what is driving the Israel and Palestinian conflict btw. However I disagree strongly with the way Israel and a minority group within it is going about achieving territorial expansion at the expense of the Palestinians.

There is a peaceful solution that needs to be acted upon, and only time will tell if an international intervention by the United Nations to remove weapon supplies from both sides would put a halt to the conflict. Who knows how many lives might be saved if the United States and Britain removed their support from Israel, and proposed sanctions on the aggressor nation?

In my opinion, a way forward also needs to be found in terms of addressing the underlying religious differences and the initial incorrect dividing up of Palestine. If these problems are not addressed, the conflict between Israel and Palestine will continue indefinitely.

Unlawful to arrest Assange in Ecuador's embassy

Yesterday, The Guardian reported:

At a press conference on Wednesday, Patiño released details of a letter he said was delivered through a British embassy official in Quito, the capital of the South American country.

The letter said: "You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the embassy."

It added: "We need to reiterate that we consider the continued use of the diplomatic premises in this way incompatible with the Vienna convention and unsustainable and we have made clear the serious implications that this has for our diplomatic relations."

The Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, actually states that the Secretary of State can only remove a foreign states land rights with consideration to public safety, to national security or to town and country planning. It would be far fetched indeed to argue that Assange was a threat to any of these things.

Under that act, they cannot enter and arrest people in Foreign Embassy's without the consent of the Secretary of State, and that consent must adhere to international law. The British simply do not have the lawful right to undertake what they've threatened to do. But the real kicker is this:

In the event of the severance of consular relations between two States:

(a) the receiving State shall, even in case of armed conflict, respect and protect the consular premises, together with the property of the consular post and the consular archives;

[...]

“The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the consular premises against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the consular post or impairment of its dignity.”

That means if the UK decides to sever relations with Ecuador, remove it's land rights as a sovereign nation and effectively close the embassy, Ecuador has the right to choose another state to represent and look after their embassy. It would still be unlawful for the British to enter the premises and arrest Assange, because he is not a threat to public safety.

The act does however talk about priority search provisions, but these are specific to Northern Ireland and have no bearing on this unprecedented case.

Likewise the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (PDF) simply talks about cooperation between states and how Embassy's should generally function. Nowhere does it confer power to Britain to invade another countries embassy, even in times of war:

The States Parties to the present Convention, affirming that the rules of customary international law should continue to govern questions not expressly regulated by the provisions of the present Convention, have agreed as follows: The establishment of diplomatic relations between States, and of permanent diplomatic missions, takes place by mutual consent.

In my opinion this means the British are not allowed to undertake any action at the Ecuadorian embassy without their prior consent, and if they move to close the embassy by removing its land rights, they still need the permission of the foreign state that Ecuador appoints to look after their embassy.

The British would be causing a serious indignity to Ecuador if they did storm the place, and not only breach their own laws, but international law as well. This would destroy good relations, and could be viewed as an act of war, which puts into perspective just how stupid the threats were to begin with.