World and New Zealand politics and economies.

Shared covert and open processes and forces at work.

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When I wrote the long page on the economy in 1998, I was just starting to find my way into Rogernomics, as well as web-page construction. Now it is October 2001.

No work has been done on that page since Labour came into power in late 1999.

Labour has made huge changes to the New Zealand economy since then, most of which I agree with, but some of which I very strongly disagree with.

I have also discovered other writers, and through them, little reported political and economic processes that have a bearing on the world and on New Zealand.

This page and at least some of its offshoots will be devoted to these writers and their work. I also note that what they have sometimes written is right in line with the deductions I had made by myself - but did not have the courage or self-belief to shout out. That has changed now that I have discovered Noam Chomsky and John Pilger, amongst others.

The first point I want to make is that, as Chomsky has written in explicit detail, many governments, especially the Administration of the USA (often in disobedience of the decisions of Congress), have acted repeatedly to favour the rich and influential people and companies of their country, and to disadvantage poor people, the general populace. They have acted in ways that neuter democracy, and although they usually decry totalitarianism, what they install as government and adminstration is often totalitarianism under another name. But New Zealand had this from 1984 until 1999.

CHANGE

A bit over a month ago, the terrible attacks by terrorists on the World Trade Centre in New York, and on the Pentagon, took place.

An American friend (e-mail pen-pal) was extremely upset ( I mean EXTREMELY upset ) by these events, and when I said - "Get over it; yes it's bad but there's nothing you can do to fix it." - then added as an unthinking afterthought (it just popped out really) "Well, what do you expect - the US has had it coming to it for a long time"; that REALLY put the cat among the pigeons. We don't correspond any more, but I got to thinking about why I had made that semi-automatic response.

I've come to the conclusion that I was quite right, and the developing pages here illustrate why; a chain or web of events that illustrate the unprincipled greed and bullying of the USA; and make it clear that it is no wonder that reactions occur.

Not that the terrorists were right - but unsurprising - except to those people to whom a life of intense unprincipled competitiveness and greed is the norm; and who are blind or blind and unfeeling about the harm their global actions do.

The fact that the so-called "World Trade Centre" was the first prime target of the terrorists is more than symbolic. It is a fact of the current global political and economic events that the USA is working unceasingly to gain control of all the world's assets and markets - even, as Vandana Shiva has written ( here, ) such basics as the village market all through India for vegetable oil and for cereal.

That someone in the USA had the effrontery to name a building in such as way as to highlight this endeavour; that they were prepared to loudly trumpet that they thought they could control world trade from this building (and by inference grow fat on it at the very real expense of other peoples in the process), was asking for it, in my opinion. When you realise all the things that accompany the effort, as my pages and links below will illustrate more and more, the growing resentment and bitterness around the world, it becomes quite unsurprising that the attacks took place.

Even in the USA, people of note are saying this too. Read this from Hawaii here.


CAUTION

If you exclude political activists, the powerful and in-the-know individuals, and a few people who think about these things and take the time to look further; MOST people don't really know or care about what follows in these pages.

Many or perhaps most, are too busy in the day-to-day activities of making a living, raising a family; if they are teenagers or in their 20's they are probably skipping gaily along through life without much care for anything except where the next meal or the next lay can be found.

Many will not think much about the quality of the news that crosses their daily conscious. The TV presenters must have it right - after all they give out the "news" every day? The same with the newspapers. And of course they report everything, don't they - all sides? (NOT). And there is no alternative news source.

Others focus their energies on the arts, on their business, on the environment, on sport, on photography - you name it. If they live in a "democracy" it is likely they take it for granted that democracy is alive and well in their country and maybe presume that nothing they can do will improve anything - or, more likely, that if they stick their necks out and say anything untoward (ie critical of the establishment) they will become "marked" by the secret police and eventually their head will be knocked off.

On yet another plane, some people are intensely patriotic and will not tolerate anything said or done against their country. It doesn't matter if the words are true or false. Ant criticism is BAD.   If their friends are critical they are BAD.
In my experience of the English-speaking world, USA citizens tend to display this extreme patriotism rather a lot. If you come to NZ, you will find most people couldn't give a hoot. It seems that Australians fall somewhere in the middle.
In the case of non-English speaking people, it seems to me that Indonesians and mainland Chinese (in particular) tend to display un-thinking and extreme patriotism.

The point of this section?

If you are extremely patriotic, if you also live in a rich and powerful nation, if you believe that all is well with democracy, and if you don't like criticism of your country 's acts and government - back out of here. Browse some place else. These pages are not for you. You may find them too much to take and injurious to your health.

I have no wish to offend you, but I will not be deterred.

Much safer and less unsetting to get back to the TV and soak up the latest soap programme.

And you won't have to put up with the discomfort of having to think.


Here are some links to go on with until I get this site better organised.

http://monkeyfist.com/ChomskyArchive

http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/chomreplieskos.htm

http://www.nybooks.com/authors/867

http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/

http://www.hal-pc.org/~clyndes

http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/depts/sml/journal/indexv11/Chomsky.htm

http://www.zmag.org/zmag/ztopic.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_2000/lecture5.stm

http://starbulletin.com/2001/10/18/news/story3.html

http://www2.prestel.co.uk/littleton/jp_noamc.htm

http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Globalism/george.htm

http://www.igc.apc.org/dissent/archive/summer97/george.html

http://www.publiceye.org/economy/economy.html

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