TweedleClark and TweedleKey

TweedleClark and TweedleKey

Frankly, I can’t really spot any real differences between their political platforms. Their most significant agreement is in their contempt for the people. Nothing has exemplified this more than their grim determination to ignore the groundswell of public condemnation of their joint support for the Sue Bradford bill that has criminalized normal parents.

Worst of all has been their public commitment to ignoring the result of the forthcoming referendums on the twin issues of parental responsibility for discipline and on investigating the real causes of child abuse.

Given that at least 75% of the people have made it clear that they opposed the repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act, it is very likely that these referendums will be massively approved by the people.

With the “leaders” of the two major parties absolutely united in their determination to trample over the only bit of true democracy available to the people of New Zealand, what can the response of the people be other than withering contempt for the pair of them, for their sycophantic parties, and for all their dismal works in and out of “parliament”?

US Election – what exactly is “democratic” about it?

US Election – what exactly is “democratic” about it?

Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama come across as talented, intelligent, energetic, and good people. I do not doubt that they are all capable of running the top administrative and executive job in the United States of America. But voting on people is *not* what democracy is about.

Certainly, a procedure in which a popularity contest is “won” by whoever gets the most “votes” is technically “democratic”. But the technique of voting “democratically” is *not* what democracy is truly about.

True, real, democracy is *policies*, not *people*. By all means let us elect our administrators by democratic techniques, but that is merely one very limited aspect of democratic governance. Only when the people govern themselves can democratic governance be recognised to exist. A society is fully, 100% democratic only when all the rules by which its members wish to live have been ratified by those same members applying the basic techniques of democracy to all of those rules.

The US presidential election has nothing to do with democratic governance; it is only a limited exercise of a democratic technique with the sole objective of determining which candidate is the most “popular”. Real democracy will have to wait until the United States constitution is re-written by the people for the people and controlled only by the people.

Letter to Paul Swain MP.

Hello Paul,

When I visit the parliament buildings I am not impressed by the airport-style system in the entrance that is used to scan all members of the public before they are allowed to enter. To me that just demonstrates contempt for the people, and it leads me to ask these questions:

1] Since when has it been in operation?

2] Who ordered this to be set up?

3] What event caused this measure to be deemed necessary?

Thank you for attention.

Sincerely,

Dominic Baron.

If and when I get any answers I'll post them here.

Democracy and Censorship cannot co-exist

Democracy and Censorship cannot co-exist

It is impossible to reconcile with democracy, whose intrinsic nature it is to be open and transparent, the view that there are some things that cannot and must not be known by the members of a society that claims to be a democracy. That thought has been in my mind for a number of weeks as I try to find out if some sort of censorship of international news items is in operation here in New Zealand.

The basis for my concern arose like this. Because Spanish is my first language I like reading some on-line Spanish newspapers. One in particular that I regularly read is the highly respected Barcelona daily called “La Vanguardia”. I was browsing through the Monday, 4th February 2008, edition, when this item caught my attention:

http://www.lavanguardia.es/lv24h/20080204/53432988886.html

It reported the tragic case in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, of a 15 year old boy allegedly shooting dead his parents and two younger brothers. Here’s a US web-site that reports and comments on that event:

http://www.dreamindemon.com/2008/02/03/nick-browning-has-one-hell-of-a-tantrum-kills-4/

“How sad”, I thought, and almost immediately this event reminded me of the David Bain case. I looked through the “Stuff” pages online, fully expecting this news to be covered here too. Not a mention. I took a look at other online NZ newspapers. Nothing. Several Australian and UK newspapers carried this news. Various international press agencies reported it. I monitored the NZ press over the next few days and found nothing. Because the tragedy resembled the Bain one I had fully expected this story to find some resonance in our NZ media. There was none.

Puzzled by this silence I then contacted the “Media Watch” team on Radio NZ National. Their program, on air just after the 9 am news on the “Sunday” show that is hosted by Chris Laidlaw , regularly analyses and comments on how the media do their job. Coincidentally, on Sunday 10th February they dwelt at length on the increasing extent to which the NZ media are being muzzled by a steady stream of injunctions issued by the “contempt-happy” judiciary. I thought, therefore, that they would hasten to take up my suggestion that they look into this as possibly being a case of blanket censorship over the David Bain case.

No response. So I gently chided the presenters, Colin Peacock & Cushla Managh, to at least acknowledge my email. Cushla Managh obliged, but said absolutely nothing about the issue I had raised. Silence again. The most recent thing I’ve done about this was to send a note to Chris Laidlaw, giving him the background and asking if he has an explanation. So far, no response.

What can one make of this?

1. That the news item was trivial and I’m making a fuss about nothing?
2. Or that there is in fact some blanket censorship in operation about which all news itself censored?

I have no answers and no one answers my questions. At least I can put up a blog about it and see if anyone notices!