Monthly Archive for April, 2005

Politicised

Published
by
Christiaan
on 30 April, 2005
in Aotearoa New Zealand and Imperialism
. 0 Comments

To keep the wheels rolling while I attempt to balance work and other “commitments” with this blog I’ve decided to start posting some writing I did back when I became politicised in the early days, which got me wondering how I did become politicised…

With an apolitical upbringing, and although I do remember holding some pretty strong political views throughout high school, I hadn’t paid attention to all that much besides getting into trouble and girls up until this point.

It was shortly before the 1999 general election, I had just finished a highly readable book, Eating Safely in a Toxic World, by Sue Kedgley, and I was about to vote for the first time in an election. I had narrowed my choices down to the Greens or ACT. With a toss of the coin and luck on my side I made the right decision. When the Greens’ won a bunch of seats that year, including one for Nandor Tanczos, a South African Hungarian Rastafarian Kiwi, it spurred me on to go find out what was happening locally and see if they wanted any help. With a new found optimism in politics I was soon writing too many letters to the editor of the local rag and began writing and publishing the local Green Party newsletter, GreenGauge, and a new but short-lived Central Province newsletter, GreenVine.

It wasn’t long before I was being trained up to take over from local member Angie Denby as Executive Networker for the Central Province; it was a rewarding experience being on the Green Party Executive. Somewhere around this point I stood in elections for my local city council, not long after which my parents kicked me out of the country, buying me a one-way ticket to London (well two actually, I missed my first flight). With Green Party ties still strong and unwavering optimism in parliamentary politics I stood for parliament in the 2002 general election while in London, campaigning for expat votes and participating in my first debate since I was about 12, with Ken Shirley, Tim Barnett and other politicians. It was easier than I thought it would be; many in the audience appreciated what they said was refreshing honesty in the face of seasoned politicians. I like to think I helped Mike Ward get into parliament, although I think I forgot to vote myself!

The world changed quite a bit around this time, with the what goes around comes around attacks on the U.S.

I experienced my first (powerless) mass demonstration, against the invasion of Iraq, which partly culminated in me writing why I’m off to Iraq on on 1 January 2003.

The Anti-American dance

Published
by
Christiaan
on 2 April, 2005
in Imperialism
. 0 Comments

Apparently banned by the Norwegian government this catchy tune by Gatas Parlament begins with a news clip stating that the Kill Him Now campaign, “a non-religious movement collecting money for a bounty on Bush’s head,” has raised enough money to hire a hitman. Heh. It spills out from there into a scathing polemic of U.S. imperialism, moving on to challenge listeners to get up and dance the Anti-American Dance, burn the U.S. flag, and burn down the U.S. embassy in honour of St. Hans. Well… got my head nodding. You can watch an english subtitled version over at ifilm.com.

Paul Robinson, of The Spectator, analyses the latest bogeyman of the power-elite, terrorism, and concludes, “Far from being more dangerous, the world is safer now than ever before; and far from being an ever-growing problem, terrorism has been in sharp decline for over a decade.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is charging that U.S. Army documents obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act show that the mistreatment of detainees in Iraq was much more widespread than the government has admitted, including sworn statements that soldiers were told in August 2003 to ”take the detainee(s) out back and beat the fuck out of them.” Surprise surprise. Matt Welch, of Reason magazine, explains why we’ll never see the second round of Abu Ghraib photos.

Robin Cook explains why why American neocons are out for Kofi Annan’s blood, and Khaled Amayreh writes from Ramallah about the burgeoning rate of pogrom-like attacks by messianic Israeli terrorists on defenseless Palestinian villagers throughout the West Bank.