Repeat after me – “It’s just a poll, it’s just a poll, and it’s just a poll!”

Ah political polling, the barometer, if you will, of our national mood; the dipstick measuring the public's tolerance for politicians and parties; the rectal thermometer slid, ever so gently, into the backside of New Zealand to see what its political temperature is.

Thus while no poll is exact they can provide a generalised snapshot of the situation and are often a harbinger of changes to come in the political ecosystem.

Poll results can determine the life and death (politically at least) of a politician or party leader, cause a policy shift and, when enacted in the form of an election, change governments.

So building of the back of yesterday’s post about Judith Collins lets dig a little deeper into some of the other results which have come out of the latest round of polling and see what we can find.

And for those who want to know a little more about the polling environment in New Zealand then I refer readers to a post I wrote back on KP entitled Let’s get Statistical! which looked at the political polling situation two years ago and broke down the dynamics of political polling in NZ including who does the polling, the rules for polling and why the margin of error is important.

Also for those who want to see how polling can effect change when the political situation is ripe for it check out my post from early last year when Andrew little was still heading Labour.

Greens and NZ First: circling the drain?

At first glance the polling from the latest One News/Colmar Brunton poll does not look very good for Labours collation partners (with the Greens down 1 to 5% and NZ First down 1 to 4%) and there has been various rumblings about a “one term government” in the comments below the article just to spice up the proceedings.

However since there is nothing riding on those poll results (like an election or a leadership challenge) they are better off as indicators of the public mood at this time, like waves coming up the beach, and not to be taken too seriously. 

The hyperbolic tone of the articles title could just be the editors attempt to spice up what is otherwise a rather dull piece but I think its just a fraction more on the side of media trying to stir things up where there is very little to stir.

That said some context is always good and we know from previous experience that NZ First can sag in the polls only to bounce back up just before an election when Winston takes his mojo medicine show on the road so a post-election poll showing NZ-First at 4% has a lot less impact when Winston is deputy PM (and acting PM while Jacinda is on maternity leave) and NZ First has ensured that for the next two and half years they have their people an policies in government via the coalition agreement.

NZ First has had higher poll numbers to be sure but those are always linked the mercurial Peters so it’s never a good plan to write the party off based on the polls alone. When Winston steps down and Shane Jones (now his successor in all but name despite more than a few in party not comfortable with him) steps up we will have a different ball game (as Jones polling mojo is mostly untested) but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Meanwhile the 5% the Greens got this time round (down 1% from the previous poll in April) is not that big a shift from their 6.3% they got in the election but when you look out across previous elections we see that the electoral decline in vote share over subsequent elections (10.70% in 2014 and 11.6% in 2011) is a come down from the time when Labour was in disarray and ticked off Labourites were swelling the Greens, but looking out over the longer history of the Greens we see that this is the range that the party has normally sat in when being polled.

It’s true that James Shaw’s disastrous handling of the party in the run up to the 2017 election and the rise of Jacinda Ardern hurt the Greens badly by gutting ranks of the Green vote but the reality is that 5% is about where the Greens usually sit on the longer timeline and if Shaw can keep his trap shut and avoid doing anything stupid the party should be able to keep the Green brand above the 5% cut-off come the next election.

National and Labour: Neck and Neck or the Tail Wagging the Dog?

From the same article as provided the stats for NZ First and the Greens there are also the numbers for Labour (no change at 43%) and National (up 1 to 45%) which are really minor shifts in polling but still the articles plays it like things could go anyway with potential coalation partners.

And at the start of the year there was a certain vibe in certain sections of the media (not naming names) that National had won the popular vote and was therefore the rightful party to form a government while Labour, The Greens and NZ First had done some sort of dodgy deal to steal the election (just like people thought Trump had done) by combining votes in some dirty, “disgusting”* and unfair trick to twist things in their favor.

Of course anyone who was subscribing to that theory was ignorant of how MMP politics works, eating too many dogbiscuts and as medical professionals describe it “an idiot!”

I addressed much of this in a post from last year and it was clear that while previous elections had showed Labour wallowing in the 20s and 30s as polling goes that was more of a short term reflection (think the post Helen Clark era comedown from her political neutering of potential challenges to her leadership) rather than some sort of historical norm.

Also Nationals strong polling in 2017 was as much as a product of politics in the John Key era (meaning that the first post Key election for National would probably be able to coast in on the momentum of the massive boost Key gave the party) as well as the fact that with National now the only party of the Right and the partisan dynamics of the NZ political landscape (ie that NZ is more conservative than many believe) there were definite limits to how many would cross the political line.

So the defining factor of NZ politics as we know it under MMP is not the monolithic vote blocks that the two main opposition parties have but the smaller, but crucial, vote shares that parties like NZ First and the Greens can bring to any potential coalition and it’s the ability of those bigger parties to woo those smaller parties to their side that makes the difference.

Thus we have a Labour, NZ First and Green coalition government not because of any inherent skulduggery on the coalitions part any more than the fact that National screwed the pooch (although one of those factors did count to some degree) in the election by driving Winston away via their personal attacks on him and instead the mechanism of MMP did what it was supposed to do and provide a fairer more balanced result than the yes/no/either/or result FPP used to force upon voters.

And with those thoughts in mid we can dismiss the idea that this is some sort of neck and neck situation (even if we discount that an election is still two years away) as it’s the coalition dynamics that count as neither NZ First or the Greens are likely to swing to National any time soon (see my posts on The Temptation of James Shaw and We are all Socialists now Comrade for further details why not).

Also the dog still wags the tail it’s just less of a pure breed mutt and more a MMP flavored “mixed breed”**.

So what can the current polls tell us?

The barometer analogy (along with the other two) I used at the start of this post works best as we don’t look at our barometer to see what’s going to happen next month or next year. We look at our barometer to see what’s going on now or in 12 to 24 hours from now and while political polls do have slightly longer time frames but the effect is essentially the same: a short term forecast which is generally accurate but subject to local factors and conditions.

Current political polling is probably most noticeable for what has been described as a lack of “budget bounce”*** and Simon Bridges leadership remaining open to contest, which is how most commentators have described it but other than that it will only be when we add the data from multiple polls up or when the afore mentioned election, leadership challenge or policy furor is pending can a particular poll be the hinge on which politics turns.

Why the budget did not “bounce” and Bridges job as leader remains up for challenge are the subjects of my other recent posts but in short one poll result is just one poll result so take a breath and repeat after me “it’s just a poll” as the slightly hyperbolic/hysterical tone of the original articles headline is not quite on par with these beauties.

*-As one national party higher up I spoke to around that time described it

**-for those who can’t bring themselves to say mongrel

***- ie not polling increase for the government after it releases its budget rather than this Budget Bounce (a purveyor of bouncy castles etc)

Here comes Judith!

Of all the antics which came out of parliament last week it seems that the winner on the Opposition side of things is Judith “I stab from the front” Collins.

It was not retarded antics of Paula Bennet, Gerry Brownlee, Trevor Mallard, Phil Twyford or Clarke Gayford which seems to have made hay but loveable and cuddly Judith.

The latest polling from Reid Research has the MP for Papakura appearing in the polls at 3.7% for preferred leader.

Collins appears to have made sweet filthy lucre off her time in the house while the rest ended up looking like a bunch of spoiled kids squabbling over the toys.

Not that Judith is the most adult of the MPs in parliament but at least she had the decency to avoid the histrionics of Bennet and stay on target while the many others in National found themselves reverting to their default setting of rumour-mongering, cat calls and the slimy shift from “holding the government to account” to Dirty politics Part II as they continue struggling to adjust to life in opposition and cant seem to land a decent blow on a government which is slowly starting to come down off its silver lined cloud and deal with the reality of actually fixing whats wrong in NZ.

“So what”, I hear you say “Jacinda reigns supreme as our beloved Warrior Queen at 40% so who cares?”

I know one person who will be caring about those poll results: Simon Bridges.

Bridges remains at 9% and has struggled to get traction as Opposition leader since he took over what is commonly known as the most difficult job in politics. This is not entirely his fault given the antics of his minions BUT his bold face and claims to be playing fair have not done much damage to the Government so it’s not hard to assume that the National Brain Trust (specially the more conservative elements*) will be looking round and counting the days on Bridges expiry date.

In some ways it’s a shame really because Bridges (and his play fair approach) remains the best bet to hold the Coalition government to account as it begins to falter on the big issues and in the wake of its lackluster budget. 

Collins has picked up some polling on Bridges weak leadership and because Labour is beginning to appear to have won the war but lost the peace as it looks like it does not really have the political will to do what needs to be done and instead will do just enough to keep the dissent from boiling up in the populace (which is typical Labour).

Still this could be the beginning of National playing the game that Labour previously played – that being the Leadership Shuffle.

Collins of Course remains poker faced about this and stating in the media she is "very happy doing what I'm doing and I'm very supportive of our leader Simon Bridges" but Bridges would do well to get some of the same type of stab-proof clothing that Bill English started wearing when he took over from John Key.

At least with Judith, Simon will see her coming.

*-Ah who am I kidding, that's all of them.

Am I suffering the post budget blues?

What’s this feeling that’s been afflicting me in the week since the budget was announced? A strange unease tinged with nervousness and just a hint of apprehension.

Maybe it’s just me as the general tone form the media has been themed around the message of “Boring but good” noting that Grant Robertson cancelled the previous National governments proposed tax cuts and used the savings to pump up education and health (both areas that were needing it).

And the ongoing response of the Coalition government to its budget and it policy prescriptions overall still hinges on the valid argument that National had nine years to fix these problems but did not and in fact made them worse by focusing on the mantra of “surplus” at the cost of everything else.

Simon Bridges and Co can moan all they want but that inescapable fact has now been exposed and areas of NZ which have desperately needed more and better funding are finally getting it under the Coalition and its first budget. In a budget with no really obvious poke points National has had to suck it up and look for minor points to score while a bit more sand slips out from the foundation under Bridges and the free-market zealots start muttering Judith Collins name like they are summoning some demonic spirit*

Of course it’s not all been rainbows, sunshine and lollipops the budget has had its detractors outside of an opposition still smarting from the shock of being in opposition with teachers not happy at having to wait several years for funds the feel they need now and things like 100 million for the Americas cup and NZ Firsts extremely dubious tax breaks for horse racing but these are really minor quibbles and while I don’t like them they are neither individually or collectively enough to give me that feeling in my guts that something is not right.

It’s not even the fact that things like the government reneging on its promise to make doctors visits cheaper by 10 dollars or making Kiwibuild homes open to anyone (ie not having a means test for what is in effect state housing) while the housing hernia simmers sinister like in the background like a cancerous growth ripe to explode.

Perhaps the unease is that after nine years in the political wilderness and campaigning on being an alternative to National and starting out with comments about capitalism being a “blatant failure” this budget has been little more than another National budget with Robertson using the extra funds from the tax cuts to fuel the increased spending rather than presenting a budget which actually wants to address the issues facing NZ.

And if we dig deeper its Labour shackling itself with those bloody Budget Responsibility Rules which seems to be a big part of the unease I am feeling.

But I hear you say, if they don’t then they will just be another tax and spend government or simply blowing all those surpluses that National worked so hard to achieve (even if it was at the cost of most of this countries well being – but hey the balance sheet looked good didn’t it?) and you’d be right Skippy, you would be right.

It’s not that BRR are intrinsically wrong but the context of Labour (and lets not even start to say that either the Greens of NZ First know anything about how to run a budget) but that in sticking to those rules Labour is in effect playing Nationals game albeit in a lite form.

And when needed changes to tax reform in NZ (my personal opinion is for the increasing corporate tax rate or taxing the rich into oblivion in a time of acute inequality or even just making a genuine attempt to ween Kiwis off housing speculation by bringing down the housing market to realistic levels) are being poo pooed in advance by Labour in favor of some tinkering to the tax code it’s clear that this budget was not real about economics or money it was about politics.

This budget was in part a means of keeping the coalition on an even keel (an understandable necessity in a fully-fledged MMP govt) but also about keeping the “market” and the “business community” on side because if anyone will be planning and funding the counter revolution against a government which wanted capitalism to have a “friendly face” it will be them who will have the whip in their hands and National at their beck and call.

There have been claims that Robertson is holding back some funds for the 2020 election and that may be true but then it’s just another lolly scramble and just Labour playing the political game rather than rewriting the rules to fix what is wrong with NZ.

I still can’t place my finger on it but I think something happened with this budget and without knowing it we (or more correctly this government) turned a corner and many of the signs ahead show a government paying lip service to fixing the disease that afflicts NZ while secretly keeping it alive.

Ardern and Robertson are playing a dangerous game here as once the idealism of the election cools and more and more promises get broken or this government holds too close to the last governments economic line then we may actually get the dreaded post-election slump kicking in.

For now that has not happened, yet, but making the argument that the solution to the radical strides to the right made in the 1980s can only be fixed by cautious baby steps back to the middle is simply saying capitalism has failed NZ but that the market can’t be tamed and the government using the cancelled tax cuts as a political smoke screen for an agenda which is less about fixing the future and more about political preservation (specifically Labours) because if those tax cuts had not been there to cancel it’s hard to image what good news this year’s budget would have delivered and even still I wonder if this year’s budget is really enough to offset 30 years of neglect.

And speaking of babies, am I just suffering the political equivalent of post-natal depression? Will it pass in time or will the depression and doubt linger?

*-Perhaps they are.

Waiting for the Punchline: Donald Trump as the world’s greatest performance artist

This post comes out of the regular email chain between me and some friends which mostly revolve around US politics and Donald Trump*.

I recently figured out why I have been enjoying the Donald Trump presidency so much.

It is, in part the random unpredictability of the man himself BUT on a larger level it is because Trump is now operating at the level only a few avant-garde performance artists have managed to reach.

Just as avant-garde art pushes the boundaries of what we consider normal or acceptable so too does it often cross over the invisible lines that societies try to place around “art” to keep it from distorting, disturbing or just plain offending the cultural sensibilities that it is critiquing.

In fact avant-garde art and its artists often consciously seek to challenge norms and limits and do so with any and all tools at their disposal and it’s not unusual for the artist to not only be or become the art but for the “art” itself to also be not recognized as art.

An upside down urinal on a wall: its art.

The artist own excrement canned and sold to the public as “100% pure artist’s shit”: its art with a capital “A” baby!

Being crucified to the back of a VW beetle: Art, arT, Aert!

Attempting a coup of Japan and killing yourself when it fails: Screw you and your bourgeois values its art!

And in this light it’s easy to see Donald Trumps avant-garde sensibilities at work in his great performance art project that he has called “Donald Trump: President of the United States”.

Don’t believe me? I’m not alone in this conclusion and it’s a damn sight easier to classify Trump and his art as commentary on the US politics, society and its economy than desperately attempting to apply standard political, sociological or even economic logic to the man and his actions when he can change his mind and views in a single tweet or lurch off in some random direction in his behavior.

Just as grade B actor and “artist” Shia LeBouf can try** to comment on President Trump with his “art pieces” so too can Trump turn his whole presidency into a spectacular piece of art which is bigger, better and larger than ever before.

You want to challenge the unfair system of the US economy; Trump has you covered. Vapid US celebrities as bastions of wisdom and possible candidates for political office; he has you there as well. Worried about the sickly and anemic US democracy; the answer is… wait for it… Donald Trump.

No matter where you turn Trump and his amazing art has shone the light on many of the ills in our society, you might not like it, you might even hate it but that’s not the point of the cutting edge of the avant-garde my little moppet.

If you want something safe, clean and neat, go subscribe to Netflix, watch Mike Hosking read from his cue cards or even (dare I say it?*3) check out the Spinoff*4.

In this light it’s easy to see why an artist such as Kanye West loves Trump because its takes one to know one and West is definitely one.

The Donald Trump presidency is the political equivalent of having unprotected sex with a stranger you just met. Its the ultimate frisson; that mix of pleasure and danger, just rolling around, all caught up in the passion of the moment, knowing you should play safe but doing it bareback anyway.

Its the lower lizard brain running its long wet tongue down the cheek of the higher consciousness and the convulsive shudder that it engenders in both parties.

So where will this immense artist and his stupendous performance art end up?

That’s the joke, we just don’t know and neither does he.

Trump has invited us to be part of his Art but so far we have timidly watched from the side lines or been too shocked or “offended” to respond which in some ways is understandable as Trump has harnessed the powers of the Theatre of the Absurd to such a degree that most people are unable to comprehend what it is he is doing.

And if we won’t join him in his art we are then just along for the ride, whether we like it or not, hoping, waiting and wondering when this end and what will come of it. Strapped to the hood of the Trumpmobile (like Zoe Bell in Deathproof), screaming wildly as the speed sucks the air out of our lungs and we flail in terror as the madman behind the wheel does his thing.

But if you want an idea of what Trumps plan is you need only look at the fate of another golden haired person oblivious to the danger of dancing on the edge; The Fool from the Tarot.

And that is the punchline, that is the final, possibly killing, joke that we have played on ourselves as we desperately try to rationalize what we are seeing as our higher brain screams "what is he doing?" in near incoherence while the primordial mind beneath, unfazed by our desperate attempts to impose rationality on the irrational, simply waits for punchline.

Vootie!

*-with only occasional twists into other topics or flame wars

**-and fail spectacularly with both his he will not divide us and Flag Project piece

*3-inner voice says “dare, dare!”

*4-just kidding guys, love your stuff. Specially as you are now taking over mainstream political news coverage in NZ

What is the threat to New Zealand so secret that the Squirrels don't want you to know about it? The answer may shock you!

File this under REDACTED

I originally wrote this in early 2018 but placed it in the dead end file when other things came up and it did not seem like enough for a post BUT after speaking to a certain third party on the matter last week (thank you D) I have decided to “reactive” it.

Don’t you just hate reading through a document released under the OIA (official Information Act) when sections of it have been removed?

For example how about the recent report from REDACTED which talks about the REDACTED REDACTED to New Zealand but won’t tell what one of those REDACTED is.

Yes for those people who took the time to visit the NZSIS website after the change of government last year would have found a copy of the Briefing to the Incoming Minister (BIM) for the NZSIS and GCSB on file for their perusal.

And if you have ever read a BIM you will know that each government department will use its BIM to paint itself and its situation in the best possible light while minimising any issues that may have arose in the last 12 months.

BIMs highlight the who and what of each department and promote the various areas and programs that are being undertaken and its common for every Tom, Dick and Harriet department head to try and cram in as much “good news” as possible into their allotted word limit that a reader could be forgiven for thinking that it’s was all plain sailing for the public service with nary a cloud on the horizon.

Of course that would be wrong.

BIMs can be useful documents for new ministers to read as they try to get their heads around whatever portfolio (or portfolios) they now handle and a good BIM will contain just enough information for the minister to understand the situation and feel like they know what’s going on but not enough so that they know everything or don’t need to rely on their various advisors, secretaries or departmental heads for advice and instruction (such is the bureaucratic arts) as they go about their duties as minister.

Of course a good BIM will also be tailored to the ministers intellectual capabilities and I have heard of more than one (and read a few as well) BIMs that had been “simplified” due to the minister “not reading so good” or because in one instance because the minister was REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED.

However the BIM for the incoming Minister for the GCSB and NZSIS (Andrew Little) is not a case of Little “not reading so good” and more a case of REDACTED.

So as I browsed my way through the document, noting the odd redaction of information here and there, and knowing that once we got to the juicy details later on I could expect whole pages of blank spaces, I was somewhat surprised when there on page 8 in the introductory section called New Zealand’s Threatscape* there was a strange redaction in the second sentence which read as follows:

It outlines four core national security threat areas (cyber, violent extremism, REDACTED and espionage) which together provide an overview of New Zealand’s threatscape.

Thus, according to our intelligence services there are four core threats to New Zealand but the public are only allowed to know three of them.

The three known areas (cyber, violent extremism and espionage) are pretty common in security documentation and I have been seen at least two of them (violent extremism and espionage) cropping up in the reports to parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee over the years while the third (cyber which relates to cyber weapons and cyber-espionage etc) has been a known and growing concern for some time now with the creation of CERT NZ (New Zealand’s Computer Emergency Response Team) and the GCSBs own CORTEX program being formed to deal with this area of risk in the digital age.

But that still leaves the fourth area, what could it be? What kind of threat to NZ would need to be REDACTED from a BIM so that the public does not know?

So I scoured the rest of the BIM and all the other documentation on the NZSIS and GSCBs websites but to no avail**.

I did however find the following:

·         The 2017 BIM to the minister did list a section called “regional stability in the South Pacific” in the same areas as the other three areas were outlined but this area was completely REDACTED except for the title.

·         The 2017 Annual report for the GCSB which came out after the election notes three areas in its section titled “strategic operating environment” on page 15 which are “Cyber Security, Foreign Interference and Violent Extremism”.

·         The 2017 Annual report for the NZSIS which also came out after the election notes two areas in its section titled the same as above and those are “Violent Extremism and Espionage and Foreign Interference Activity”

This means that the 2017 BIM to Andrew Little listed four threat areas as part of the threatscape to NZ BUT both the end of year GCSB and NZSIS reports (both public documents) list only three and two threat areas respectively.

This leaves us with a few questions:

·         Is regional stability in the South Pacific the missing fourth area of threat to NZ?

·         If it is why is the title redacted in the text of the BIM but the actual title itself remains in the BIM with just the content REDACTED? (just an error?)

·         If regional stability in the South Pacific is the fourth threat why would this need to be kept secret? (as it does not show up in their public end of year reports)

·         If it’s not the fourth threat then why was it included in the threatscape section AND what is the fourth threat?

Thus we are left with a few more questions which boil down to one of the following:

·         Stability in the south pacific is one of the threat areas important to New Zealand’s security services (possible but seems unlikely in and of itself).

·         There was an error in the redactions on page 8 of the original BIM (I’m not believing that just yet).

·         There is another threat to New Zealand which the government does not want the public to know about (this is where my money is because - hey its ME!).

So what is the secret fourth threat to New Zealand? A threat so terrifying that it had to be REDACTED out of a report to the Minister before it could be released to the public.

It could be that regional stability in the South pacific is the fourth area but I am guessing that with all the REDACTED its more than just a case of our Pacific neighbors being a threat, could it have something to do with the recent surge of Chinese soft power in the region?

But because its REDACTED we are free to speculate on what it actually is because at this point if China is the big secret threat to NZ its probably not wise to advertise this publicly when the secret threat is also our major trading partner***. Perhaps its time to diversify.

So in lieu of actually knowing what it is lets take a few wild guesses.

In no particular order the possible secret threats to New Zealand that I can come up with are: Aliens walking among us (see the movie They Live), a (not so) secret Chinese conspiracy to take over New Zealand (no, it can’t be that because the Chinese infiltration of the National party is already well known), a secret cabal of bankers working together to steal all our money, an  super intelligent AI takeover, invasion by the mole people, a penguin army invading from Antarctica or even Great Cuthulu finally awakening from his slumber?

However after some time and consideration I managed to figure out the answer to this mysterious fourth threat to New Zealand and its clearly REDACTED  REDACTED REDACTED.

Readers can add their own theories in the comments.

*-this seems to be one of the new buzz words in intel circles these days

**-although it is possible that I did miss something
***-Given how China has been behaving as of late its might be time to start thinking about the value of doing bulk business with a non democratic, human rights abusing police state - #justsaying.

A day’s pay on the wild side: Iran, Trump and 4D Chess

So Trump, with the urging and most certainly the gleeful support of Israel, has pulled out of the 2015 deal with Iran to suspend its nuclear program for the lifting of US sanctions in what has been described by his detractors as stupidity and praised by his supporters as another example of Trumps 4-dimensional chess game.

And as someone who used to get paid to pay attention to what was happening in Iran I am of two minds about this, less than unexpected, move from the US.

On one hand it was known right from the start that Trump and many Republicans were not down with the deal brokered under Obama and that it was always up for review if Trump got elected.

On the other hand Europe, Iran and the rest of the parties to the deal want the deal to continue and may very well keep the deal in place and allow the US to throw its toys out of the crib while keeping things going just sans the US.

On the third hand Israel has long sought* to protect its nuclear advantage (yes the have nuclear weapons) and were never going to be cool with anything which took the pressure of its primary enemy in the Middle East: Iran.

On the fourth hand Iran, or more correctly the average person in Iran, will definitely suffer if the financial restraints are put back on and the moderates now in power will possibly have their position weakened which could lead to a new government taking over but if anyone (including Israel) thinks this will lead to a collapse of the Iranian state then they have a rude surprise awaiting them.

And for those happily celebrating the pending reunification of the Korean peninsula they might want to take a moment to reflect on the capriciousness of the US under Trump as it’s clear that just because a deal is made does not mean it’s done.

However the real issue here is not one of ideology or politics per se but one of simply the US and Israel (both nations with nuclear arsenals) not wanting any hostile nations to get such weapons themselves which from a strategic view makes sense but ignores the fact that that both Iran and even more North Korea have the means to develop and make nuclear weapons and in the case of North Korea have already done so.

Can the nuclear genie be put back in the bottle? The answer is yes but the only nations I can think of off the top of my head to willingly give up their nuclear weapons (or research) programs are Apartheid era South Africa, Libya and South Korea (who did so under guarantees that the US would place it under its own nuclear umbrella) and of the three only South Korea has come out better for it.

Of course a nation can dismantle the buildings and shut down the research facilities but the requisite knowledge will remain and in the case of Iran there is the potential that this move will provoke them to starting up their research programmes again while in the case of North Korea it’s would do little to assuage any fears that once they get rid of their own nuclear weapons they would not be subject to US military power with little or no ability to hit back.

However in the case of North Korea the jury remains out as the North has talked the talk many times without walking the walk and its history of using such tactics to stall and get concessions is known standard practice.

But to be fair this move by Trump is not going to reassure the North that any deal they do make will be honoured and the fate of the Libyan dictator Momar Gadhafi (whose body was found in a ditch) will certainly be on their minds.

Also if Iran starts up its nuclear programme expect Saudi Arabia to consider doing the same as there is little way it will want to lose in an arms race with its peer competitor in the region.

So instead of actually creating security this move may actually have the effect of worsening the security situation by driving Iran back to its research programme (possibly even clandestinely if the EU and others can’t compensate for the US slapping the sanctions back on), which in turn will place more pressure on the Saudis to consider doing the same.

Meanwhile a potential Korean peace deal could be jeopardized or even worse scuppered by the concern that the US will act in bad faith (but again I will believe the sincerity of the North Koreans when I see it) and leave the situation back to the old, tense and trigger happy status quo but with the one possible opportunity for a genuine breakthrough on one of the most intractable conflicts in the world today being thrown away for no real gain.

And while I said to a friend yesterday that I enjoyed watching Trump as he careens around like a political pinball from situation to situation with no clear rational except the most limited of short term ideological goals even I have my doubts about his game plan beyond his next Happy-meal and have the feeling that the only logic Trump operates under is that of pure power and bluff (read: bullying) rather than any reverse Machiavellian zen master.

Even Israel is going to find it hard to rationalise things outside of any short term tactical gains (but then that has always been Israel’s problem) given that it remains an enemy in the minds of many in the Middle East and its nukes have yet to solve any of its security issues except at the most extreme level. So if Iran starts up its nuclear programme again this is not going to make Israel any more secure (good job Bibi!**)

So is Trump playing some meta game with the world and we are just not smart enough to figure it out?

The answer lies in the most basic of Trumpisims, “Make America Great Again” and Trumps career as a real-estate tycoon.

Despite all the odds (even his own) Trump got elected President of the United States and similarly he worked his way up from wealthy heir with a silver spoon in his mouth to real-estate mogul and then reality TV star in a manner which has all the hall marks of a gambler and opportunist and not some master strategist with a diabolical scheme to fool us all.

Trump is doing what he is doing because, in his mind, he believes that his projection of power will return America to its previous status as the undisputed power in the world but while much of the US politics of old was pure bullying or coercion backed by the immense military and economic power that the US had the US today is much weaker and increasingly out of step with the rest of the world and previous US foreign policy was much more coherent while today US foreign policy is whatever Trump tweets that morning.

So maybe not 4D chess but perhaps 4D checkers, played in the dark, with your feet while under attack from an outraged Orangatang.

Note: the title refers to a lyric from the Motley Crue song Wildside

*-including bombing other nations nuclear research facilities while actively making their own nukes

**-Netayahu’s nickname

Plumbing the Depths Part III: It's the end of history (as we know it)

So it’s time for part three in this series of posts which a) explores and unpacks my nihilistic views of politics and people and b) highlights that these ideas are not just my own but formed and shared by others as well.

In part one I looked at the obvious failure of western civilization in general which boiled down to the fact that our elites were not doing their jobs but rather sitting round and getting obscenely rich.

Part two explored the breakdown in the consensual reality (that of Western Civilizations superiority under the guise of modernism and scientific/military dominance) which those elites had built up over the last 500 years, but especially in the wake of World War Two, and charted the rise of post truth movements and ideas.

And to really get the feel of this post it’s advised to read the two previous posts as I will be building on the foundations laid in those posts for this post without any further reference here.

In part three we pass under the golden arches that heralded the coming of the brave new world we are now entering as Western Civilization grapples with the horrid reality of Late Stage Capitalism, the trumping* of rationality by emotion in politics, public discourse and the media and endless Mobius strip of pop culture references that modern culture, art and entertainment has become by exploring the various discourses which identified and heralded our new and toxic age.

However before we strap on the googles and dive in headfirst into the toxic future some disclosure is required.

First, it’s important to note that unlike the previous posts where we were dealing with past events, ideas or theories which were comfortably backed up and proven by time, history or just general common sense, the realm we will be entering today discussed mostly the future from the vantage point of 1990s America and terms and topics like post-modernism, late stage capitalism and the end of history are just as nebulous to pin down today, or remain up for debate, as they were then so click on the links but keep your own critical facilities in gear.

Second, the state of things today, with the screaming obviousness of environmental decline, political decay and economic collapse, began to emerge from the ideological hangover of the 80's in the 1990's but was then shouted down by the monolithic stranglehold of a pre-internet mainstream media (run by those elites mentioned previously) which then wielded near absolute control of what we saw, read and heard so the themes discussed below are not always new, despite seeming so, but instead are part of a narrative stretching back at least 30 years (and longer for environmentalism) which has only come into their own as the factors described in the previous posts began to be felt.

So, take a deep breath and let’s plunge in shall we.

I was in my last years of high school when the Berlin wall came down and like many other young guys my age I had grown up under the shadow of the nuclear assault (the concept of the world being destroyed by nuclear bombs not the thrash metal band from New York), the apocalyptic imagery of the Mad Max movies and dual narratives of the Cold War (Capitalistic good vrs Communist bad) which had all merged into a rather doom struck narrative for a young man in his late teens.

The 80s had been a time of Reagan excess, bloated military build-ups, pastel colors, big shoulders, the films of John Hughes and Michael J Fox and corporate ascendancy under the then mantra of “trickle-down economics” (now identified as the criminal Ponzi scheme known as Neo-Liberalism) which had officially ended with Black Monday in 1987 but in reality is still with us today (as we shall see below).

And with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in late 1989 and the subsequent end of Communism, and the breakup of the USSR, the US had finally become the dominant nation, economic system and ideology in the world.

Cue the 1990s which saw me alternating between vagrancy (read hitchhiking, rock climbing and unemployment), the military and university study while wearing ripped denim, listening to Grunge, House music or Drum N Bass and reaching for the lasers many Friday and Saturday nights. It was an exciting time (as it is for anyone starting to explore their life) and in the beginning I spent little time doing anything but getting the most fun out of it.

But outside of my own life big changes were afoot as the world reacted to the end of the bi-polar system under the US and USSR by hoping for peace but settling for coming to grips with a uni-polar world under a smugly triumphant US, which was not as easy as it sounded when the United States, under Bush Senior, celebrated by launching the First Gulf War and then sat back while places like the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Somalia (along with others) slid into chaos, anarchy and mass bloodshed as ethnicity and tribalism trumped nationalism and political debate.

Academically one of the big ideas of this period was that of Post-Modernism which seemed less an academic discipline and more a strange merging of US pop culture, globalist ideas and art theory all wrapped together as some sort of critique of rising corporate dominance with lashing of Jazz music and episodes of the Simpsons thrown in for contextual analysis.

Covering postmodern ideas and concepts here is not possible but the basic ideas was that the society we (“we” being the West) were living in had exited the modernist phase of history, which started with the Age of Reason in the 17^th Century (think the rise of science, rationality, nation states etc) somewhere around the 1970s when corporate powers and globalization began to rise.

Driving this along were the ideas and theories of thinkers like Michael Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Neil Postman, the novels of Don Delio (whose novel White Noise would probably not get published today), William. S. Burroughs and (shudder!) Douglas Coupland and supported by a veritable army of postmodern scholars and academics; all hungrily mining this supposedly fresh new vein of critical thought like the crazed prospectors they were.

Defining this new approach were the collapse of the difference between high and low art and culture, the commercialization and commodification of all art and ideas and the ability of modernist elements like technology, economics and certain aspects of civilization (as we shall see below) to cross cultural boundaries without any major difference. Add in a large dollop of the afore mentioned corporate criticism (often focusing on niche areas like the hostility to the community that corporate architecture usually radiated) and you had an irresistible mix for young minds eager to learn (or be indoctrinated).

As an undergrad Pol Sci student in this heady time I was like the veritable stereotype of the willing revolutionary, ready to pull down the walls of white male authority figures with glee; spout all manner of PC dogma and attend whatever protests were going on no matter the cause but as I was living a double life as student radical on one hand and defender of the powers that be (as a soldier) on the other I often found myself torn between to competing and non-reconcilable poles.

To be honest the economic reforms of the 1980s under Labour (and continued into the 90s by National) and the First Gulf War had seriously damaged my faith in rational hegemony of the US and the NZ nation states to a large degree but it was not until I started reading what many of its postmodern detractors were saying that I really started to openly question the system that would willingly make slaves of us all just so a rare few could have more money than they would ever need or use.

But academia is never without countervailing views (and people willing to make a buck of them) and while many of us were getting high on the idea of revolution for revolutions sake books like The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukayama and the Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington were setting out some different takes on what was happening.

In The End of History and the Last Man, Fukayama argued that with the end of communism human civilization had reached its apex, politically, culturally and economically (under liberal democracy and capitalism) and that, in short, the best system had won so we could all just stop trying to make a better society as the best possible one had arrived.

Fukuyama’s argument that history** had ended was absolute and total and in the 90s it was hard to refute seeing that the US had won the cold war and US economic dominance still existed as US corporations and military bases sprawled across the globe.

I am of course, paraphrasing the books argument, for sake of space but that was it in essence. The fact that it had happened under US hegemony was, per se, coincidental but still “yaaay, yaaay, USA!!!”

At the time the book was a slap in the face to a fervid young rebel like myself; here was this ivory tower academic (I was, of course, ignoring the fact that I was also in the ivory tower) daring to announce the ultimate victory of the very things we were trying to pull down and to make matters worse saying that these systems and structures were the very best that human civilisation could produce so we had better just shut up and take it.

So like any zealot struggling with something that was threatening to break open my carefully constructed reality and expose its foundation of dogma I blocked the book and its message out for many years until events forced me to reconsider my well-manicured views.

But I am getting ahead of myself because if Fukuyama was leading the cheering squad for the US victory in the Cold War then Samuel Huntington, in Clash of Civilizations, was sounding a more cautious note.

Huntington was in agreement with Fukuyama that the conflict of ideologies (Capitalism vs Communism) was indeed over and that US affairs, as they stood in the mid-90s, was at an apex (of sorts) but that just because the war of ideology was over did not mean that war itself was over or that the US would remain dominant forever. And if ideology had been behind many of the conflicts of the 19^th and 20^th centuries then culture was going to be behind the coming conflicts in the 21^st.

The criticism of the book at the time was immense and while some of it was valid others had the tone of someone upset at the spoiling their PC party (be that of the Fukuyama kind OR that of the “smash the system” kind) and again, like the little zealot that I then was, I stuck my fingers in my intellectual ears and chanted “Hey ho hey ho, western cultures gotta go!” until I felt better.

But valid criticisms of the book included that it was too rigid and simplistic and that it ignored the dynamism of other civilisations to adapt and change and while it minimised the levelling influence of globalisation (then less pronounced in the pre internet age) the essential core of the argument that there were fundamental aspects of all civilisations that, in a globalised world, could/would bring those civilisations into conflict remains highly valid as things like Islamic radicalism, the coming clash between China and the US, Brexit and yes even Trump have shown.

So the thrust of the big arguments in the early 90s often boiled down to choosing to celebrate the victory of capitalism (with democracy begrudgingly attached) over all other systems of thought (religion included) or prepare for the coming race war between the democratic west and the rest of the planet who want all our groovy stuff and will fight tooth and nail to get it.

Adding to this intellectual squeeze was a spicy side dish of postmodern self-loathing, because neither Fukayama nor Huntington was actually refuting capitalism (nor its toxic side effects), as the average postmodern critique of the capitalistic system was more rooted in that of art criticism (ie that of an observer and not a participant) than proposing actual solutions to the problems it attacked.

This left the average person interested in such matters trapped between two sides of the same system (Capitalism) and with a slow stream of commodified culture dripping on to their heads and sloshing around their feet for sad effect.

Of course if one wanted “real” radical discourse one could become a Marxist (and some did) although for all the value they provided to the debate they might as well have been the Marx Brothers or sign up for the ideologically pure, but politically impotent, environmental movement (and you only need to look at the Greens today to see where that ended).

However the friction between the positions of Fukuyama and Huntington was partially bridged in 1999 with Thomas Freidman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree which posited the now infamous Golden Arches theory of Conflict Prevention which stated that countries with MacDonald’s did not go to war*3.

The core of the argument Freidman was making was to highlight the tension between the desire of people all over the world to have the access to the fruits of modernisation (cell phones, the internet etc) but also retain their own culture and identities. The book really does not resolve the tension brought about by Fukuyama and Huntington but in highlighting that globalisation was its own dynamic and not just an adjunct of the ideology or economics allowed people to escape the binary opposition argument they had been trapped in and open the space up for discussion in a way which post modernism had not been able to do.

Of course I am paraphrasing again but the book was an attempt to find a middle position between the last man and the civilisation clash by highlighting how the dynamic of globalisation is a new system that was not just relying on past paradigms alone.

Also emerging in 1999s was Naomi Klein’s seminal work No Logo which came from a different angle than Freidman but was in effect doing the same thing by wrestling the argument away from a triumphant Capitalism and towards the toxic waste which such a system was producing.

Thus the 1990s was not only a time when Neo-Liberal agenda was ascendant but also where the seeds of its demise were sown as while the position of Fukuyama seems almost quaint (if not also nauseating) today it seemed inevitable then and its only with time that the hypothesis of Huntington seems to have come closer to being true while Fukuyama’s seems to be a product of its time.

However Fukuyama may have had the last laugh as despite all the criticism today Liberal democracy with a well-regulated form of market capitalism attendant (and not the other way around as the economists would have you believe) still remains the greatest vehicle people have to live the best life possible and hold at bay the predatory creature known as Neo-Feudalism or deranged ideological throwbacks like China.

By the end of the 90s I had graduated university and was trying to figure out what to do with my life but my views of the world and my will to be a radical had evolved somewhat, no matter how appealing the Fight Club lifestyle seemed, and I was now aware that outside of my safe little group of islands was a great big world which I was about to get on a plane and go see for myself.

So with all that in mind let’s explore the blasted hellscape that awaits us in a world riven by environmental degradation, ruled by despots under Neo-Feudalism and where your passport won’t note a country or nation you belong to but what brands you support in part four (coming sooner not later).

Vootie!

*-pun fully intended? You bet it is! In fact I have used it a few times before so why stop a good thing.

**-this did not mean things would stop happening but these were “events” inside the gander narrative that had built to the conclusion of democracy and capitalism being proved the best the best systems in the world.

*3-Infamous because it was almost immediately proved wrong.