I’d rather not be accountable, thanks…

What a surprise – Condoleeza Rice has confirmed that she wouldn’t run for Vice President with McCain:

“I have always said that the one thing that I have not seen myself doing is running for elected office,” Rice said at a news conference. “I didn’t even run for high school president. It’s sort of not in my genes.”

Read: I’m happy to make the decisions, but I’m sure as hell not happy to be held electorally accountable for them…

I think it’s a joke

Did anyone else think that maybe Howard Morrison was taking the piss when he suggested that Owen Glenn offered $1million to stand for Parliament as an independent?

I get the impression that a number of people are the butt of a joke, but maybe not.

The false dichotomy of environmentalism…

Peter at Not PC has made the claim (or rather, repeated George Reisman’s claim) that environmentalists are just recycled communists and fascists with a greenwash. Specifically:

The “extremists” among you openly call for the death of 1 to 6.4 billion human beings. The “moderates” among you openly call for the forced reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of 90 percent within a few decades, which would serve to reduce energy use almost to the same extent.

We are presented with the argument that it’s either survival through unrestrained capitalism, or the death of our species and our civilisation through ‘environmentalism’. Either we survive, or we knock ourselves of for the good of the planet.

This argument is a cop-out, because it presents the issues that we face today as a blatant false dichotomy.

There are a very small few individuals who believe that the world would be better off with a smaller population of humans, but it is disingenuous to represent those views as part of the broader environmentalist movement and then demand that the rest of us distance ourselves from them. The vast majority of us [environmentalists] do not advocate a culling of human populations and we most certainly do not condone those views. To tar us all with the same brush, and then claim that the onus is on us to prove that we are not genocidal maniacs is reprehensible.

The second claim, that the reduction of our environmental impact will inherently lead to the destruction of all that is good and holy in human civilisation is blatantly false. The exact opposite is true. If we continue on our current path of consumption and waste, the human civilisation that we obviously hold so dear is unsustainable. Our consumption of resources is well beyond what is available to us in the long term. All that environmentalism demands is restraint, and a true evaluation of our needs and wants as individuals.

Capitalism has acted, particularly in the latter half of last century, to change our role in society and democracy from citizen to consumer. We are living in the age of the Thing. We confuse our want of things for needs, the result of billions of dollars worth of advertising, PR and an unholy alliance between our businesses and our political systems.

There is of course no problem in consuming things, but when we consume beyond what we really need to profligate excess, and simply discard what we no long feel we want, there will be consequences. Climate Change is but one consequence to our culture of consumption; a long term effect that in my view will have less of dire effect on the ability of our species to survive than our destruction of habitats across the globe, aquatic and terrestrial. The survival of our species is inherently dependent on the survival of our ecosystems. On a basic level we require oxygen from the oceans and our forests, but more subtley, the ability of life to withstand perturbations, catastrophes and disasters is dependent on how diverse and robust our ecosystems are. We are not helping ourselves by ripping it up, filling it with shit or introducing invasive species.

To claim that reducing our consumption (and as a consequence our carbon dioxide emissions) will drastically reduce the quality of life of Americans (and by association the western world) is utterly false when we consider that the quality of life of the consumer is padded with excess and waste. Our quality of life will not be harmed if we walked or cycled or bused to work or school 2 or 3 days a week. Our quality of life will not be harmed if we did not eat meat 2 or 3 days a week. Our quality of life will not be harmed if we chose not to use plastic bags to carry our shopping. Our quality of life will not be harmed if we chose to switch to renewable energy sources. Our quality of life will not be harmed if we chose to use a more fuel efficient vehicle rather than the obscene and frankly selfish vehicles that some of us think we ‘need’. Our quality of life is likely to be increased – we would save money, we would live healthier lives and would begin to appreciate our resources.

Consider this small fact:

If all American households used their clothes dryers for only half of the year, enough energy would be saved to turn off an entire nuclear power plant. Carbon emissions would be reduced by 3.3%, simply by hanging washing on a line for only half of the year. Currently 60 million Americans who belong to home owner’s associations are not allowed to use washing lines because they are unsightly and unsafe, despite over $90 million worth of damage occuring annually from drying machine fires.

Granted, It will take a lot more than just using the clothes line to decrease the impact of mass consumption, but it is possible to do it without decreasing our quality of life. All it requires is a change of mindset and a breaking of habits, thinking about where our products are coming from, how they got to us and whether or not we want them or need them. It will require turning our backs on being selfish and questioning whether or not the way that we are acting is harmful to other people (through slave labour and exploitation) or to our planet. It will require a change in our business models – a shift from short term profiteering to long term viability. In the long run, the ability of our civilisation to survive is dependent on our need to wake up from the opiate of things and realise where that path is taking us. I don’t hold out much hope. It is easier to accept the soma of convenience, excess and consumption than accept the hard truths about the consequences. Waste in the landfills; heads in the sands.

I find Reisman’s final quote the most ironic, steeped as it is in hypocrisy:

Accept moral responsibility for the ideas you propound and stop standing in the service of mass destruction and death.

Consider which economic system has caused the most mass destruction and death

A Cullen Convert?

Those who deride the New Zealand Government’s practice of growing large surpluses instead of introducing tax cuts often blame it for the ‘exodus’ of workers to Australia. Well, it seems that the new Australian Labor Government is looking at adopting very similar practices over the ditch, at about the same time our own Labour Government finally bows to the pressure and promises tax cuts here. The irony of timing is certainly rich.There’s almost a zen like coalescence of language:

.

“Mr Swan will not renege on Labor’s election promise to deliver $31 billion in tax cuts, with the next year’s instalment expected to cost $7.1 billion. However, his comments signal there is unlikely to be any further tax reduction, at least until the Government is satisfied that the threat from inflation has passed.”

and

…His [Cullen's] four conditions that tax cuts must meet are: no borrowing to pay for them; no cuts to services; that they will not exacerbate inflationary pressures; that they will not lead to greater inequality in society.

It’s pleasing to see other countries following suit on Cullen’s fiscal approach. As much as others harp on about it, we wouldn’t be in the (relatively) safe seat today if it weren’t for that fiscal discipline.

Who need’s statistics when you’ve got ignorance to guide you?

Talk about scoring an own goal. Just when you thought there might be some rational debate about crime rates about to begin, Annette King, who’s normally really onto it, has to come out with this doozy:She said the hot summer and full moon were to blame for the recent “unusual events” that had created mad January in south Auckland.

Annette, despite what you may have read in the Herald, residents of Manukau City are not actually werewolves. There are a lot of Maori and Pacific Islanders, but the last I heard they didn’t transform into quasi-mortal ghouls on a lunar cycle. What was I saying about the liberal left having a good message, but sounding like total morons in the delivery? Case. In. Point.We are in desperate need of rational discussion about crime in this country. That doesn’t just go for crime rates, but also the causes of crime and the need to address ways of dealing with criminals. At the moment the entire discourse of crime and crime prevention is the exact opposite. It is not helped either, by John Key’s populist but visionless comments on youth crime, which serve only to increase the hype and fervour around crime. The last thing we need is hypeOf course, the New Zealand Herald is nothing but. There isn’t an iota of rationality in those esteemed pages, except for the odd opinion piece form Colin James, John Armstrong, or Tapu Misa, but judging from the standard of argument, not to mention spelling and grammar, in ‘Your Views’, they’re just pitching to the crowds, I guess.

If Middle New Zealand stopped baying for blood and tax cuts long enough they would realise that homicide numbers haven’t actually increased over the last 5-10 years. Yes, there have been an unusual number this month but even that is not out of the ordinary. The same thing happened in 2005, and the Herald had the same shrill chicken little response. Are we that stupid to fall for the hysteria again? Granted, blaming it on the full moon isn’t very smart, but neither is jumping to the conclusion that we’re turning into a country of knife-wielding maniacs.

Yes, we do have increases in violent youth crime in some areas (particularly South Auckland), and our rate of violent child abuse requires immediate action; both need addressing, but specifically by new ideas. A knee jerk reaction which includes harsher sentencing is not going to bring those rates down. Sure, it makes us feel better, it satisfies our thirst for base vengeance, but in the long run its only going to make the problem worse. Are we surprised that prisoners reoffend? You take someone convicted of an anti-social act, you lock them up with other anti socials in an anti-social environment, and then release them back into the community and expect them not to d0 it again?

In their second term, the Labour government introduced harsher sentencing for violent criminals in response to public calls for a ‘victim-focussed’ justice system. This sounds like a crazy idea, but the way that criminals are treated, especially once they have been imprisoned, should have nothing whatsoever to do with the desires of the victim. If you allow vengeance to infiltrate a justice system, if you allow the need for revenge to dominate how you treat criminals, then you’re just going to end up with more victims; that criminal is going to do the same thing once they get out because we spend our time harping on about how evil they are, rather than trying to fix the problem.

That’s not to say that the victims of crime are not absolutely central to administering justice, criminals need to be made keenly aware of the impacts of their crime, how much misery and hurt and pain they have wrought in their selfish and violent acts – but the treatment of criminals once they have been convicted has nothing to do with the victims. It is our job to deal with criminals in a way that, in the end, reduces the likelihood of their reoffending. That should be the prime objective of the correction system. It shouldn’t be based on anger, or revenge or indignation. It should be based on getting crime rates down, recidivist and non. Sadly, organisations like the Sensible Sentencing Trust seem not to worry about that, and focus more on criminals as ongoing targets of vilification. Its an understandably human response, but it’s all gut, and no head.

It is encouraging to see some moves by the government looking at the causes of crime, specifically social and economic factors. But these things are complex – they are imbedded in economic and social conditions, in drug and alcohol abuse, cultural attitudes towards things like domestic violence. They are they are tied to opportunities, especially economic; and believe it or not most importantly they are tied to personal responsibility, despite the dirtiness of those words to us on the left. People must be made aware that they ultimately decide how they act, and that no crime is committed is made without a conscious choice for which they are ultimately accountable, no matter how desperate their situation. People are not born evil. Evil acts arise partly from circumstances, and ultimately a person’s choice to commit them.

Despite the media frenzy and the folk wisdom and the ‘common sense’, despite the rhetoric from Labour and National, we do not have all the answers. We’re certainly less likely to find them in our current state, baying for blood and boot camps.

Please don’t stop the Music

Today’s story about plastic bags in the Herald really got me fuming. It is simply unfathomable that 100 BILLION plastic bags are used in the United States every year. It is simply disgusting that less than 1% of these are recycled. It gets even more depressing when you learn that over 12 million barrels of oil are used to produce those bags. Before you can say that that’s just a symptom of the grotesque profligacy of the Land of the Free, it’s not that much better here, with an estimated use of over 1.4 billion bags every year.The problem with plastic bags, other than their quite obvious environmental implications, is that their use is entirely without cost or consequence to the uber-consumers that we have become. They’re free in almost every establishment in this country, except Pak’N'Save; they are not regulated, or taxed. They are a just used and turfed and it means nothing.

What made me most angry, though, was the silver tongue of complacency of Paul curtis, of the Packaging Council of New Zealand:

“Taking a bag may fast be becoming the crime of the century but what would we do without them?”

I’ll tell you what we’d bloody do: we would take a serious look at the consequences of our actions and use an alternative. The “Make a Difference” campaign of Foodstuffs and Progressive Enterprises has all but failed. Tellers can not be relied upon to gently remind us no to use plastic bags; I have to literally restrain the teller at my local from putting my things into a bag. Moreover, consumers cannot generally be trusted to make a less convenient choice when the more convenient choice is consequence free; the market simply doesn’t work that way. Either vendors need to start charging their customers for plastic bags, and pass the impact of the bags onto consumers, or the industry needs to be regulated and taxed to discourage plastic bag use. Instead, Curtis lulls us into a false sense of security by assuring us that being quietly reminded not to use plastic bags will solve the problem; that thinking twice is better than paying the price.

Anyway, since nothing is likely to happen in this country about this issue, here are my own experiences and tips on plastic bag use:BUY ALTERNATIVES: Cloth and recycled plastic bags, both of which are eminently reuseable, are cheap and reliable. I have had mine for over 6 years and they still work perfectly.

PLAN AHEAD: Make a habit to sit down and make a shopping list, and get your cloth bags out of the pantry or cupboard when you do. Not only will you start to get into the habit of taking them, but you will probably save money: people who use and stick to shopping lists generally spend less money at the supermarket.

DON’T PACK YOUR VEGES OR FRUIT IN PLASTIC: Do you REALLY need to pack each different type of vegetable into a plastic bag? Think about it: 10 types of fruit and veges means ten extra bags – as many again as you would get for your total grocery trip.

BE PREPARED: Keep a cloth bag in your car for small unplanned trips to the supermarket – that was the real killer for me.

REFUSE PLASTIC: If you are asked whether or not you want a plastic bag (which you probably won’t be, but hey), just say no. It’s actually very easy, and it’s one less plastic bag that will end up in the rubbish.