On The Opportunistic, Would-Be Hijacking Of The Yellow-Jackets By Neoliberals

A thought that's been gestating in my head these past few days about the Yellow Jackets "political moment", is how ... I guess you could say that "populism" looks like *very* different things to different people.

And, more specifically, how any genuine upswelling of ordinary-people political sentiment which is not *vigorously* (self) branded, will find itself seemingly inevitably co-opted by people far-removed from the context in question. Often in *direct contradiction* of anything actually being advocated/agitated for by the relevant Movement.

If "populism" is "the politics of opportunism" - then it is both the mass-collaborative art [a 'flash mob' we might have said, ten years ago .. if those are still a thing] of seizing an opportunity, creating an opportunity in order to be heard *en masse* where you'd previously been ignored as individuals ...

... but it is *also*, apparently, a politics beset and bedevilled by "opportunists" seeking to coast or I suppose to "surf" [and then, with regrettable commonality, to "serf"] the 'wave' of the onrushing tide of the Body Politik to their own advancement.

Now, if all of that seems a bit abstract ... allow me to proffer an example.

The below-linked screencap is from a young American conservative commentator by the name of Charlie Kirk. If you haven't heard of him, or of the organization he represents - "Turning Point USA" - then I do apologize most deeply for (dis)abusing you via this introduction.

Suffice to say, he's of that peculiar flavour of American who has concluded that anything he doesn't like is literally "Socialism".

And, correspondingly, with the certitude of one only possessed of hammer-(and sickle) shaped glasses, that anything he *does* like is therefore inherently "anti-socialist".

Now, we shall leave aside for the moment the fact that Kirk appears to have - whether inadvertently, or intentionally - confused a bunch of *English* protesters chanting something about Trump ... for Frenchmen (a situation of ethno-political confusion, given that that flare-point captured on the video referred to, was a #Brexit demonstration, which *both sides* should find endlessly egregious!).

The key element that has defined the Yellow Jacket protests has been what it is opposed *to*. The Neoliberal technocratic-elitism which Macron is the emblematic standard bearer for, these days. And not least because he was literally elected, and then hailed, as "the antidote" or "the barrier" [but apparently, really rather more of "the speed-bump"] to "populism", to "democracy" which might produce "the wrong outcomes" ...

Perhaps French politics might be viewed like a steam-engine. Either the building pressure when there is fire under the body-politik - either it gets dissipated as hot-air through 'safe' release valves, or it builds up until the mighty 'locomotive of history' [to reference me some Marx] begins to chug inexorably, ineffably forwards. Or the whole thing explodes, which is always fun.

But to return to the reasoning behind this potential naescent "revolutionary moment" (yes, I'm wildly over-egging things there. How else to varnish?) - Kirk has seized, no doubt, upon the fuel-tax and upon the fact that France is relatively to the left of America on economic matters ... and decided, based on these limited two data-points that this therefore means it's a "squeezed middle" uprising against "SOCIALISM!!! (tm)".

Yet it is, in point of fact, the exact opposite.

As many people have, by now, pointed out, the fuel-tax hike proposed by Macron is not exactly a "socialist" policy. Indeed - it is a fundamentally *neoliberal* one. Which seeks to continue the long and woefully disappointing legacy of neoliberal-right political figures attempting to 'pass the buck' for internalizing the externalities which have produced runaway climate change ... from those *actually largely responsible for it* in various parts of the private (and, yes, to be fair, public) sectors of the corporate-driven world , to ordinary consumers and citizens. Which often, not at all coincidentally, entails a shift in the burden of paying for the 'cleanup efforts' from some of those *more* able to pay, in globe-spanning firms ... to some of those *least* able to pay, in those same firms' lowest-paying jobs or on the unemployment bread-line. And which, again entirely uncoincidentally, means a shift from those who have a disproportionately *loud* voice in the polises and the politics (psephological or *actually-influential*) of the world , to those who have the disproportionately *unheard* whispers upon its margins.

Further, despite France being - by any objective measure - a country that has spent much of its history to the "left" of America on matters economic ... the protesters thronging the streets of that former country are *not* demanding the Great Dismantlement of the French welfare state, or of the 'Continental Capitalist' economic model. Indeed, quite the opposite.

It's *Macron* who's been doing that - with all of his utterly ridiculous rhetoric about 'running France like a tech-industry "start-up"', et cetera.

The general trajectory amongst the "grassroots" of French politics, meanwhile, has been to push *back against* that, and do the demanding of the *reinstatement* of those state-directed protections which Macron and his wealthy associates have been attempting to strip away.

Indeed, phrased in these terms then , if we are to talk about the overall tax-situation of France ... it isn't just that Macron has been attempting to impose this significant tax-hike upon ordinary French citoyens. It's that he's doing this immediately after having *slashed* the taxes of the most wealthy, and of large firms.

That is to say, he's simply once again *shifted* the burden on to those who are *less able* or even *least able* to afford it, from those who could better do so - both socially and economically.

It's also, on a side note, why I'm appalled every time I see the Washington Post attempt to frame the Yellow Jackets' demands for the rollback of the diesel tax-hike as illogical and self-defeating on grounds that - again, in the WaPo "Voice of the Resistance" 's view - it'll necessitate spending-cuts in welfare and other areas of state spending in the economy (which, to WaPo's credit, it acknowledges are services the Yellow Jackets are *also* pretty keen on).

Because not only are said curtailments of service and of state *already happening anyway*, in order to pay for (in part) the *previous* rounds of fundamentally regressive tax-cuts and to directly facilitate Macron's odiously pro-business, pro-Eurozone agenda ... but instead of attempting to pretend the choice is simply between "fuel tax plus services [that're disintegrating *anyway*]" or "remove fuel-tax but also remove services" - the reality is there really *is* an alternative, "another way" (that of *restoring* the revenue-streams from other areas which Macron has slashed). However rhetorically inconvenient it might be for Macron's various technocratic-elitist backers across both the political and the media worlds.

But I digress.

The point here, is that it is a very curious form of "socialism" indeed which seeks to put the screws on ordinary people at the bottom of the heap in order to support the finance-sector, and private enterprise from both one's own country and more especially, from abroad. Admittedly, it *might* be viewed as an adequate encapsulation of many of the problems of the present-day People's Republic of China ... but despite the previous popularity of Maoism in, say, 1968 France, I do not think that one can conceivably refer to Macron as a Maoist, still much less as a Post-Maoist with Deng-ist Characteristics.

Yet leaving aside the litany of actual French people boldly proclaiming it ... I suppose we might be being a bit too harsh on poor old Charlie for apparently being unable to perceive that the Yellow Jacket movement is, in point of fact, a sustained assault *on* the technocratic-neoliberal Western "order".

You see, Kirk and his beliefs cannot even really *see* this aforementioned "technocratic-neoliberal" edifice ... for the exact same reason that, to quote messers Gaiman & Pratchett, "people in Trafalgar Square can't see England". (And having referenced that most excellent work of apocalyptic fiction, Good Omens, I should also perhaps note the French protester who boldly proclaimed that while Macron was busy talking about "the end of the world" [in reference to the admittedly pressing issue of global climate change] , the Yellow Jackets themselves were speaking of - and fretting over - "the end of the month", i.e. how to get by and survive to then, on a month-by-month and week-by-week basis].

He's also pathologically, categorically unable to acknowledge the idea that ... accepting for a moment that the French political-economic system falls under the rubric of "socialism" [it doesn't .. not really .. but for Charlie, we'll humour him, just this once ...] ... people might actually *voluntarily choose* to live under a "socialist" system - or even, more especially, *having* lived under such a system previously, that they might *voluntarily choose* to do so *again* if and when it starts being undermined and eroded around them.

A similar phenomenon can be observed when Neo-Neo people and other defenders of a certain sort of potentially partially post-modern Liberal Triumphalism , are completely unable and unwilling to accept the idea that reasonably large numbers of Russians might want to go back to the Soviet system, having seen just how bad things went under Yeltsin etc.

So it's no wonder, I suppose, that he insists that people wanting to move - relatively speaking - back *towards* the economic left, and *run screaming for the hills* [well, for the barricades, really - France is bold like that] from more-monetarist-more-problems Financier's Neoliberalism .... that these people are somehow attempting to overturn "socialism".

Although I nevertheless find it highly amusing that he's *also* chosen to label this as an attack on "Cultural Marxism".

Not simply because, as I've capaciously argued elsewhere, there really is no such thing [there are another set of trends observable in a number of societies that *do* somewhat correlate to what some people mean by "Cultural Marxism" .. it's just that these almost invariably turn out to *actually* be "Cultural Capitalism" and/or "Cultural Liberalism" - with these actual-antagonists employing the age-old distractionary tactic of "HEY LOOK OVER THERE AT THAT OTHER THING!" in order to neutralize and defuse the potential for dissent against them in the broader populace].

Rather, it's because if you get right down to it .. if ever there *were* such a thing as "Cultural Marxism", I am *pretty sure* that Article One, Paragraph One of its charter and its depiction would be groups of ordinary people getting together with torches and cobblestones and other implements and carrying out some sort of *seriously unruly* and not-easily-dispersible mass-protest in the streets against their overly-capitalist political would-be masters who've been putting the screws on the 'common man' overly more than usual, lately.

Or, phrased another way ... particularly because this is literally how Marxist theory kinda operates (i.e. crises of capitalism, in escalating magnitude and severity, until eventually somebodies either tear the whole thing down or alternatively introduce a "reformist" (or "Bismarckian" if it goes further/more principled in ambit/intent) policy-suite designed to ameliorate the situation in some lasting, significant manner) ...

Charlie Kirk has somehow managed to identify a broadly pro-"socialist" [in his sense of the term] "Cultural Marxist" [in the *proper* sense of the term .. i.e. the one you'll almost never hear used] movement ...

... as being the exact opposite of this all the way down.

One last thing:

This tweet and line of reasoning is also why you can tell that Charlie Kirk and his ilk are not in any way, shape, or form "populists" or otherwise on the side of The People.

Because it shows that when you get right down to it - they do not want an *empowered* people, a critically engaged citizenry.

Instead, they just want - at worst - to replace one set of out-of-touch, technocratic-neoliberal elites with another.

Remember that, at all times.

The word for that, I believe, is "Opportunism".

When It Comes To Huawei, Corporate Media Think "National Interest" Is The Dividend China Gets For Owning Us

It's pretty interesting watching the reactions in the media to the GCSB disallowing Spark from using Huawei tech in the 5G network upgrade.

Spark et co appear to be pushing the "not allowing us to use the lowest-cost [and most national security-risk entailing] gear cuts into our profit margins. SO WE ARE GOING TO PASS THE NOT-SAVINGS DIRECTLY ON TO CONSUMERS! NICE JOB MAKING NETWORK ACCESS MORE SECURE AND EXPENSIVE FOR USERS, GOVERNMENT!"

That's .... probably to be expected. Although it's rather unfortunate that there's no acknowledgement of the potential desirability of having a network that's *not* a bought-and-paid-for playground for PRC malfeasance , as a worth-while trade-off for the aforementioned slight increases in outfitting price.

Of greater interest was the revelation that New Zealand has historically been rather circumspect about PRC-produced materials - and that this was only really reversed under the John Key-led National Government. It probably shouldn't be any form of surprise; and it's possible that one could argue that it was only in the late 2000s/early 2010s that Huawei managed to get to a point of offering the hardware in question to markets such as New Zealand.

But even so, it is both amusing and very much "playing to type" that Key apparently put such emphasis upon attempting to get NZ providers to start integrating Huawei tech into national infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the newspaper commentariat are hand-wringing about how all of this might affect ongoing trade with the PRC.

And while yes, to be fair, the PRC remains a significant market for New Zealand ... the plain reality is that there's something unwholesome about the unseemly prioritization of nominal trade-flows over apparently everything else.

"Oh, a New Zealand professor's had her home and office broken into and her car sabotaged, quite likely by PRC agents ... WELL HOW *DARE* SAID PROFESSOR CONTRIBUTE TO A POTENTIAL SLOWING OF TRADE BY BEING AN EXPERT IN HER FIELD WITH A BREAK-INTO-ABLE OFFICE AND A CAR THAT MIGHT CRASH IF YOU MESS WITH THE TIRES"

"Look, never mind that there's a straight up statutory duty for the GCSB to report and advise on *exactly this kind of proposed network improvement* effort. How DARE they do it when we've got negotiators over in Beijing RIGHT NOW attempting to lobby for an upgrade to the Free Trade Deal we've got with the PRC ??? MADNESS!!!"

And so on and so forth.

Now, all of this would be bad enough ... but it's not like our economic interactions with the PRC have ever really been a "two-way street".

After all, it wasn't so long ago that we were significantly penalized for putting proper scrutiny on Chinese steel imports to New Zealand - this, after it turned out that their certification as to quality and safety (done in the PRC) had turned out to be fundamentally fraudulent, leading to construction projects having to be re-done and railway tracks warping under use leading to at least one derailment.

Far be it for me to dare to suggest that a few large corporations operating in NZ, or a former Prime Minister with a key background in international finance ... might be more keen on earning interest than the national interest ... but it really does seem like many of those advocating and agitating for or on behalf of the PRC in these situations are operating on a fundamentally different set of priorities as compared to the rest of us.

Either "McWorld" ... or "McWorld with Chinese Characteristics".  

Why The Democrats Actually Lost The Midterms

Controversial Opinion: The Democrats actually kinda *lost* yesterday's US Midterms.

Confused? Consider this - it is not simply that the "Blue Wave" failed to seriously materialize in the tsunami force some had anticipated.

While picking up a reasonable number of Congressional seats is, indeed, a positive for them ... not being able to shift the balance of power in the Senate means that most of the hilarious hijinks and scandal-seeking shenanigans some of the more breathless anti-Trump types have been clamouring for are ... unlikely, at best. And that is before one considers the potentiality for the Republicans to actually have *increased* their holdings in the Senate.

But looking more closely at some of the newly minted Democratic representatives to have entered Congress as a result of this Election, it becomes clearly apparent that something has changed - something has shifted.

The "Party of Clinton", the "Party of the Establishment"/DNC types are increasingly being harried from their 'leftward' flank.

The trend which reached its first high-water-mark in recent years with the insurgent candidacy of Sanders two years ago during the Presidential Primaries ... and more recently which has seen all manner of kitchen-sinkery thrown at Tulsi Gabbard lest she *dare* become something of a 'spiritual successor' (with better foreign policy) to Sanders heading into 2020 ... has continued with a number of the Democrats who've won, as it were, often two elections -

that of their own internal selection battles against more 'established' or 'establishment-favoured' candidates; and then the 'external' ones against Republicans in the actual contests themselves.

What does this mean?

Even despite the somewhat cosmetic victory of the Democrats in Congress - and I say "cosmetic" because when one looks at the facts, it becomes plain that on many issues and in many measures over the past two years, there have been sufficient Republican representatives etc. prepared to vote with the Democrats (and, to be sure/fair, occasionally vice-versa) to mean that there has not been any sudden "capturing" of the balance of momentum not previously held there ..

Even *despite* this 'colour-victory' there, the plain reality is that the Democratic Party has found itself struggling to make serious inroads fighting its way "rightwards" into the Republicans, and/or successfully "marginalizing" Trump.

Indeed, one can compellingly argue that Trump's increasingly 'interventionist' striding into the Mid-Terms has had the *exact opposite* effect to what one would have predicted if he were anywhere near as unpopular as any array of media opinion-pieces, Democratic "strategists", and even polling would appear to suggest.

Meanwhile, it shall be very interesting indeed to see what takes place on the party's Leftward flank.

Regrettably, one potential and very strikingly plausible pathway 'forwards' (that is, in reality, no such thing) - is much like the 'gabions' utilized in coastal defences where shorelines are suffering from erosion.

These are large steel cages loaded up with rocks - which dissipate the force of the waves coming into them up into the crevices and gaps, without allowing the actual coastal terrain behind to be seriously buffeted or broken down to be worn away and transported.

How this would manifest, then, in the Democratic Party, would be the slow and steady co-option of these 'insurgent' Democrats - until they, too, are part-and-parcel of the well-worn DNC machine.

An early example of this was, in fact, the unfortunate fate of Sanders - reduced, in some ways, to a mannequin in exchange for minimal policy-concessions of the DNC's national platform.

A more recent instance, that of the recent social-media darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - who despite being a prototypical poster-child for *exactly* this kind of "ouster the Establishment moribund : empower the rampancy of the margins" mentality ... has evidently started to find herself under similar pressure in recent months since successfully winning her Democratic Primary. You can see this, particularly, in her dramatic and strident shifts of rhetoric on Israel and related matters - to "toe the party line", lest she find herself cut off at the knees.

[Tulsi Gabbard, by contrast, has previously suffered quite some attacks from what is nominally supposed to be "her own side" for resolutely failing to be similarly compromised]

So that is *one* likely occurrence: the DNC doing what it always does ... and proving that "assimilation" is the most successful pathway of destruction, of what would otherwise be 'radical' or 'insurgent' elements. Along with 'annihilation' - or attempts of that nature - against any who will not yield. And 'marginalization' of the remaining few who still stand, even if it means 'standing alone'.

While waiting, I suppose, for the youthful 'idealists' and 'enthusicrats' who have propelled such candidacies to get disillusioned and disenfranchised and stop bothering or caring - or "grow up" onto the next generation of craven and unprincipled 'party hacks' and 'apparatchiks'.

Another, potentially more 'hopeful' development, would be the genuine growth of an 'alternate' caucus - either within the Democrats, or perhaps more 'cleanly', both inside-and-outside (i.e. much more mamentable to 'independents' and 'third/fourth' tickets') , to foster and propel a more overtly 'left wing' .. and, for that matter, rational foreign policy, grouping.

Such a thing was talked about during and after the Sanders candidacy, of course. But I am unsure how seriously taken such an idea still is. It seems that the "threat of Trump" has caused an abandonment of such potential sensibility - of multipartisanship, one might perhaps say - in the face of the "usurper of Clintonism".

A third, parallel development that *is* actually gaining steam (much to my amusement) is some sort of 'hybrid' 'third ticket' which brings together allegedly "moderate" republicans with the Democrats of the establishment and righter-wing of the party, in order to, I suppose, try and act as a 'spoiler' ticket against the Republicans should they run Trump again in 2020 .. but which actually professes to be pushing for a more 'bipartisan' set of "solutions".

The Neo-Neo Consensus spreading its wings and shedding its bi-tonal camouflage, one might perhaps say. The party of Bloomberg and Kasich.

If these two latter developments were to happen "in parallel" to each other - as appears increasingly likely to be at least somewhat the case - then it could very well start to sound the death-knell in meaningful terms of the modern Democratic Party.

Some might be scared by this.

But in all honesty .. while I am no great fan of 'accelerationism' for exactly the same reasons that Marx himself was wont to oppose it (the sheer level of human cost and human casualties required in pursuit of this much-mystified "ideological purity" of ultimate outcome) ... it is increasingly difficult to see how continuing to support the "establishment" which wishes to see American politics - and therefore, politics across much of the Anglosphere and the World Over , run as an effective "one party state" (with, as a certain Tanzanian political figure once remarked - the characteristic extravagance of daring to have two parties at once with which to do it), is actually a thing worth supporting, still much less "preserving".

Bring on the "destruction". Bring on the "transcension".

Just please, keep it far, far away from here at let us get on with our own domestic political 're-alignment' in peace.

On National's Yet-Unsinking Poll Numbers

Thinking about the National Party's recent woes - there's a funny sort of ... I guess you'd say "symmetry" to a lot of happenings politics; and not simply in the sense that they occur "the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce".

Up until last week, their biggest problem - and the single most important thing that was likely to lose them the 2020 Election - was the fact they didn't have any viable coalition partners. And would therefore spend the next two years either hoping against hope to somehow *increase* their share of the vote to pretty much unprecedented above-50% levels on Election Night, or that ACT would inexplicably undergo an act of meiosis in its Caucus.

Neither were especially likely, for any number of reasons.

Yet as of Monday a week ago, an implosion-process began which could very easily have stood up alongside ACT from ~2009-2011, the Conservative Party in 2015, or United Future at a number of occasions broadly commensurate with "times post-2002 when it's had more than one MP".

Yet this has not - thus far, anyway ... it's still relatively early days - seemingly eventuated.

And while it might seem *entirely* premature to suspect so, a mere thirteen days after the first sign of an actual explosion ... in a curious manner perhaps not unakin to a fire being unable to properly ignite and engulf due to an altogether too densely packed bundle of kindling, the very fact that National is so presently bereft of 'friends', may mean that no large-scale double-digits tumbling in the polls will yet eventuate.

Much of the reason for this, is because there is simply nobody else on the (centre) right of NZ politics whom the average Nat supporter will yet consider switching over to. It's always possible (even perhaps likely) that "swing voters" in the middle will continue bleeding away from Blue to Red, to Labour's net advantage; and perhaps some modest few (with much, likely in their property portfolios, to be modest about) will attempt to re-invigorate ACT.

It is, of course, vaguely possible that should the sparks from last week's incipient explosion manage to migrate into the ship's magazine, that the ensuing larger-scale and ongoing detonations may somewhat 'force' the issue, and render it unavoidable that an array of more numerically significant Nat support gets "blown away" and/or attempts to strike out upon their very own Raft of the Medusa (so-named, not just due to the rather famous painting, but also due to the probability of one Judith Collins - either in person or merely in spirit - being upon its black-tinged sails (that's another classical metaphor - in this case, in the direction of Theseus)).

But barring a sudden endeavour in political necromancy vis a vis the Conservative Party, or the much-talked about (perhaps with a sense of yearning) putative possibility of somebody managing to 'poach'/'re-direct' a few sitting Nat MPs to set up a 'right of centre' party (naming perhaps not coincidental given the previous effort to bear it ..) to assist in 'gaming' MMP ... there is literally nowhere else for anybody who wants to vote against a Labour-led Government to go.

Therefore, as I said - in a curious way, National's circumstances are "symmetrical". Or perhaps we might say that they are a "mirror image", now (hence why things are now the other way around).

The very same insurmountable problem that had them almost certainly consigned to Opposition for the foreseeable future as of up to two weeks ago .. has now, somewhat paradoxically, become the main thing keeping them even *vaguely* in contention for Government (by polling figures alone), for much of the last two weeks.

That is not, of course, to say that I view the former set of circumstances as "tragedy".

But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that what we are witnessing now is, nevertheless, "farce".

On TVNZ Thinking It Was "Diwali" Last Weekend

So over the weekend, I happened to see ads wishing a "Happy Diwali" on two TVNZ channels. Now, before anything else is said - I do wish to acknowledge that this is pretty cool, and that it's a mark of how far things've come for a Hindu festival (and religious observance) to be marked by the New Zealand state broadcaster. So thanks for that.

BUT - here's the problem. Diwali isn't for another two weeks (November 7 this year). The weekend just gone was basically the days after Dussehra, so to label it Diwali is ... odd.

Now, to be sure - this *was* about the time Diwali was last year (I know this, because Diwali was also the date that NZF announced it was going with Labour rather than National - so I made the predictable political observation about "victory for light over evil"); however, I don't think that the difficulties inherent in affixing Lunar timekeeping to the regular old Gregorian calendar is what's lead to what's happened here.

Instead, I suspect there's another culprit.

Namely, Auckland Council's decision to hold its "Diwali" festival last weekend.

Which, to be sure, I have *some* positive feelings about. After all, it puts Indian culture and the Indian community quite literally front stage here in Auckland. And can be thought of as helping to 'build bridges' (while also, this year, assisting in 'burning Bridges' due to his having to use the event to apologize for National's sentiments about the Indian community) with the rest of the city.

But to hold Diwali immediately after Dussehra is ... odd, to say the least. It would be akin to holding Christmas in early November immediately after Halloween. Or, if memory serves, in that case in previous years wherein the Council attempted to hold Diwali *right in the middle* of NavRatri, where it was compared to attempting to put Easter Monday before Good Friday (see? We *can* make lunar calendars work for secular event planning here in NZ!) .

Now, I am given to understand the position put forward by the Council is that it makes it a great deal easier getting performance troupes and suchlike if they hold Diwali as and when they do - i.e. not when *we* do, so to speak.

And to a certain point, I have some sympathy for that argument.

But the trouble with this is that by continuing to refer to the resultant festivity as "Diwali", it (mis-)leads to people presuming that it actually *is* Diwali.

So you get somebody at TVNZ endeavouring to engage in a nice gesture (which, again, I *do* think is a pretty cool intent here - and should be lauded, up to a point), on grounds that they've heard that Auckland City Council is holding a "Diwali" event, and therefore without doing the proper research, they just kinda assume ... and 'get onboard' by wishing us all a "Happy Diwali" two weeks early across multiple channels.

Once again - I am not writing this to be ungrateful. *At all*.

It's excellent that TVNZ has chosen to broadcast "Happy Diwali" ads on a number of its channels.

I just feel it prudent to, along with the thanks, make motion of a gentle correction about the date.

After all. "Acknowledgement" is great.

But "Authenticity" - that is important, too.

  

On Jamie-Lee Ross' Present Arcing Trajectory Over The Bridges' Nest

There are several things that need to be said on the most recent development with everybody's favourite Botanical bete-noir.

First up, despite what various people have said on twitter etc - it is rather unlikely that the Police have taken Jami-Lee Ross in to a mental health facility off their own bat.

The Police *don't* have the arbitrary ability to just abduct/detain people under the Mental Health Act.

What they *do* have is i) the ability to take you in for an assessment under s109 if you look like you're mentally disordered in a public place (i.e. if you're walking around naked in a supermarket with no memory of how you got there or something *then* they can act on the own initiative);

And, ii) under s41, the ability to assist a DAO (who's supposed to be a mental health professional per s93) who's acting under s38, in getting somebody who's reasonably suspected of being unwell in for an assessment etc.

The second situation is more likely what's happened here.

Particularly given the National Party statement that, and I quote : "Over the past several weeks the National Party has taken seriously the mental health concerns raised by Mr Ross and the medical professionals he has been involved with. That has included seeking advice from medical professionals and involving Police wherever necessary to ensure support is made available to Mr Ross."

We'll leave aside my incredible lack of shock (given the overt proximity of both Paula Bennett and Judith Collins to the tip of the spear on this one) that the National Party appears to be flagrantly violating Ross's privacy in order to achieve a short-term political pantomime-victory. 

Under s38(1), *anybody* can contact a DAO about somebody they think is experiencing mental disorder to get the ball rolling. Although like I say - that just *initiates* the process by which the DAO attempts to work out if they need to take things further, and whether they might need police assistance getting you (urgently) assessed by another professional (this tends to involve a proper psych), either where you are or at a hospital, etc.

So, am I saying that some "concerned citizen" in the National Party Caucus called up the local DAO and managed to convince them to get Ross brought into a facility for an assessment, with the ostensible goal of gagging him for the next wee-while while the party re-organizes itself in the resultant breathing room thus created?

Not necessarily - although that would certainly explain why National's own statement pointedly (dare I say it - perhaps 'gloatingly') notes they've enlisted "medical professionals" and "involv[ed] Police wherever necessary to ensure support is made available to Mr Ross."

It's also possible that a concerned "friend" (or even friend, sans scare-quotes) or family member might have pulled the pin on it; or even a general member of the public.

Although it does have to be said - what counts as "mentally disordered", even in the realms of professional psychiatry and such (and *especially* in the context of politics, which is frequently Alice in Wonderland in terms of its overall sensibility as an environment and conditioning influence upon its dramatis personae), is often a pretty subjective standard.

And while I *can* see how somebody might try to label Ross's conduct over the past few days as clear signs of mental disorder (indeed, Paula Bennett has done exactly this - admittedly, from a non-specialist perspective, and with a rather obvious less-than-pure motivation to do so); I can also very much see how it is behavior that fits well within the confines of 'erratic', but understandable (and, importantly - not "irrational") responses to finding yourself in a *pretty tight spot* politically.

There is a very serious risk inherent in attempting to 'pathologize' political dissent - as anybody who's read a bit about Soviet psychiatry knows. And I suppose it could be argued that the protection in s4(a) against being designated 'mentally disordered' on the basis of one's "political, religious, or cultural beliefs [...] only" may perhaps not extend far enough if it does not also implicitly protect "standing in the public sphere, metaphorically dousing yourself and your boss in the gasoline of scandal, before casually lighting a match" as an effective act of political conviction.

(I must also confess, that one of my secondary thoughts upon reading National's statement - specifically the bit about their "involving Police wherever necessary to ensure support is made available to Mr Ross" - was that I, and no doubt a number of others, should presumably be very, very glad that no other NZ MPs or political parties had previously thought to weaponize 'police-assisted "hospitalization for (alleged) mental disorder"' as an effective tool to silence internal-gone-external dissent. Particularly over the last, say, four and a half years or so that I've been writing here for TDB)

Yet there is potentially a lot we don't know about what's happened with Mr Ross's situation over the past 24 hours, and it would be perhaps unwise to speculate as to whether there might be other, less 'overtly' political flashpoints which may not even (directly) involve the National Party which could have instead lead to this unfortunate situation.

Not least because, if there actually *is* a genuine medical reason for his finding himself sans phone and in hospital, then he deserves appropriate privacy with which to begin to recuperate and rebuild.

It can be a scary as hell thing to find yourself under the tender ministrations of a hospital psych (a situation I have some .. empathy for - long story), regardless of whether one is or is not "mentally disordered" at the time.

I therefore wish him all the best. Not because he has done more damage to National inside three days than the entire Opposition managed throughout a full three Parliamentary terms ... but because right now - he's either unnecessarily hospitalized, and therefore the victim of a grave injustice indeed (even to type this possibility underscores the surreal feeling of events!); or because he may actually be grappling with demons far more profound than anything he might have encountered in the depths of the Beehive.

One Indian Worth More Than Bridges' & Ross' Brainpower Combined

"Two Chinese would be more valuable than two Indians" - The National Party.

Now while, to be sure, it is possible that this may have been meant as a direct comment on how National's two Indian MPs are seen within the party as individuals ... I think given the surrounding context of the conversation that it is quite clear the National Party does not see the Indian communities within New Zealand in a particularly positive light.

At best, they seem to look upon representation as a 'bidding war' between different demographics - who can contribute how much cash to the campaign war-chest; rather than who'd make the best Representatives in the House (not, of course, that National MPs appear to be allowed to do much thinking for themselves, so maybe individual quality is a moot value for them) - or, for that matter, how to bring a broader swathe of New Zealand's voices into their Caucus tent.

From my observations over the years, the Indian 'community' (and it is fundamentally fallacious to monolithicize it into a single unit) has always been livelily split in any number of different directions when it comes to NZ politics. I've seen - and often known personally - Indian candidates for every party presently in our Parliament. And witnessed the significant community backing and support that many of them have attracted.

I therefore think it entirely uncontroversial to assert that NZ's Indian communities are probably some of the most politically active and politically diverse of any of the predominantly migrant demographics here.

Now, I am not so well acquainted with the Chinese community here. And at the risk of running from arms-length or camera-lense pre-conceptions, it has generally seemed to me that - with some outliers - they've mostly clustered around National, ACT, and with some support for Labour.

I mention this not to disparage the Chinese community. We are all, after all, entitled to our own democratic choices - and in any case, as I have said, it would be entirely unfair upon those persons in said community who *don't* vote for National or ACT to tarnish them with the same brush applied to those who do.

But rather - as a matter of political strategy, it seems most curious for National's er .. "brains trust", to effectively be prioritizing a community they *already* have significant investiture in (and, it appears, literal investment *from*), over another which is very much a 'battleground' between a number of political parties and most especially with Labour.

That is, presuming that National's outright priority of Chinese candidacies and outreach over those toward the Indian communities of New Zealand, has much to do with votes ... and not some other motivations entirely.

I wouldn't know about that, though. Perhaps we'll be hearing about it in next week's tape...