Near the outset of recorded human history - according to Holy Writ - the following conversation, immediately after the first murder was committed, was heard:
"And the LORD said unto Cain, "Where is Abel thy brother?" And he [Abel] said, "I know not: Am I (emphasis mine) my brother's keeper?" And [H]e[God] said, "What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto [M]e from the ground."
Fast forward to the very end of all things, where, in the Apocalypse, the last book of the New Testament, otherwise known as the Book of Revelation, we read these words of strong appeal: "And they cried with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost [T]hou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?"
Blood, symbolic of the life of its possessor, has ever been a potent metaphor in the Scriptures - though in its plain-as-day, literal meaning it is arguably equally so. Indeed, human life is so sacred, such an inviolable thing, that following 'Noah's Flood' humankind was instructed as follows: "...flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your [life]blood will I require...at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made [H]e man."
Indeed, so wonderful a condescension was the incarnation and self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon Calvary's cross, that the human race saw its redemption accomplished and ultimate salvation assured through the Deity, in the form of the Second Person of the Godhead, willingly consenting to have His blood shed on behalf of it.
Picture that: the Creator willingly offering Himself as a Victim to His creation, accepting death by murder to assure that creature's eternal life...
An awful portrait of a so-called 'God of Love' as some deem such an image? Not at all: rather a portrait of a Personified Love so broad and deep and vast that it was willing to forgo living eternally with its Fellow Godhead (Father and Holy Spirit) if only the object of its love might be saved eternally in God's eternal kingdom. Because nothing less could possibly atone for the sin which that creation had committed. A Love which voluntarily emptied Itself of all its privileges and suffered on behalf of and in that creation's stead - even if it were to cost that Divine One His Own Eternal Life! As the hymn writer has so well put, 'Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all!'
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Bastille Day (2014) Overnight Afterthoughts...
But perhaps the real (war 'and other miscellaneous matters') criminals are not these aforementioned, including said global 'actors' claiming special *papal/religious dispensation, if not outright diplomatic immunity, for their past crimes and disreputable conduct.
*And may I suggest here that not all the (current) pontiff's 'tears', pleadings, and corporately-invoked self-flagellations - however welcome and appropriate and justifiable and even downright commendable - and/or all said Church's amends and penance, whether merely milked for public consumption or actually motivated by heartfelt repentance and true sorrow and contrition for sin, will ever make things right ever again. (Much like Pope John Paul the First's much-publicized 'apology' for the Roman Catholic Church's Dark Ages' abominations (such as the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the St Bartholemew Massacre et al), all historically well-documented if nowadays conveniently omitted from social studies and history textbooks.) I'm referring of course to the legions in their ranks whose lives and hopes have been effectively destroyed and dashed by the glossing over and covering up of heinous evil...the ignoring, sidestepping and wilful ignorance of years, decades, yea - were the real truth made known - doubtless literally centuries, even perhaps (one-and-a-half to two) millennia, of such crimes against humanity.
But onto the real substance of this posting:
No, methinks, vis-a-vis the ofttimes and usually justifiably criticized and moreover roundly condemned recent ex-President of the U S of A, whose much-vaunted 'War on Terror' effectively only 'upped the ante', metaphorically placing into the hands, and, more's to the point, thoughts and minds of each and every last would-be jihadist, terrorist and supposed 'freedom fighter' - this world supposedly has ever known - sufficient excuse, reason, justification and rationale (yea, all of these 'with knobs on'), for 'taking out' as much 'collateral damage' upon Bush Junior's (and Vice-President Dick Cheney's) own, supposedly condoning, nation and society - 'till kingdom come', and well beyond... .
Anyway, in relation to said ex-President Bush - the second - just as if not indeed even more reprehensibly, though seldom suggested except by the likes of the much-maligned investigative reporter/journalist John Pilger, is or rather was the record in office of George W Bush's father, the first George Bush presidency America was subjected to (from 1988 through 1992). Perhaps like me, into your own cranium, is seared for all time the first ever, live, 24-hour TV war, Desert Storm, against Iraq, or, more precisely, challenging the then Iraqi incursion into and attempted annexation of Kuwait. Well, be that as it very well may, it just so happens to set a rather appropriate setting for why I, like Pilger, view Bush Senior's conduct as so deplorable, or even criminal.
Though now - very recently - feted as 'a bit of a (real) lad' for his sky-diving antics ("down thar in Texas with all ma clan", George Junior et al), and indeed internationally (admittedly, including by Yours Truly), as President, for presiding over the justly-celebrated demise/breakup/disintegration and destruction of the former Soviet Union, alongside its string of satellite states, which perhaps like myself you recall 'falling' like dominoes with exponentially-increasing velocity: from Poland's years, to the next nation's months, to the following one's weeks, to the next one's days, to another's mere hours (well, you get the picture).
Anyhow, laying aside the fact, however unpleasant to some and loath they may be to admit it, that the epoch-changing revolution commonly known as 'the fall of the iron curtain' can much more justly be sheeted home to Bush Senior's predecessor ***Ronald Reagan, methinks said President Bush himself has a very serious charge or two to answer, yes, were it possible, at the International Court of Justice, though one day assuredly at the Universal Bar of Divine Justice and Judgment.
***Who, as American President in strategic alignment with Pope Francis' and Pope Benedict's own acclaimed (and decried) predecessor John Paul ****the Second - as well as, of course, the then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev - didn't only preside over but played a decisive role in said epoch-making and altering events.
****Wonder what ever became of Pope John Paul the First? Hey, silly me, there's an entire book devoted to the subject, isn't there, In God's Name by David Yallop, I believe.
The charge being? Just this: not only the then President's elaborate and all too technically dextrous attempt to extricate himself from the fallout of the first Iraq War (which I will shortly detail), but, just as significantly - and awfully for all concerned - his complicity in, nay apparent authorization of, dreadful war crimes therein. To wit, the massacre of some 200,000 surrendering troops of then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Despite a specific, indeed virtually unanimous(ly carried), United Nations' mandate and thus apparent near-global sanction even, for the American attack upon Hussein's army in Kuwait - to free the Kuwaitis anyhow - Bush later constructed an all too convenient and ingenious argument, cited in Time Magazine, to attempt to excuse the subsequent immediate U.S. force withdrawal, or more particularly their failure to 'take out', i.e. assassinate, the brutal, bloodthirsty Iraqi dictator himself. It being against international law and all that sort of thing to specifically kill the leader of a nation. Hey, perhaps Bush Senior was thinking of his own back? Though evidently it was (and is) quite kosher to dispose of hundreds of thousands of its' people, even when they no longer posed any kind of threat (either internationally or regionally) whatsoever. And thus to - if only by default, but don't you tell me Bush Senior wouldn't have been only too well aware of the potential, even probable consequences of so doing - effectively be complicit in Saddam Hussein's subsequent butchering of the Kurdish population of Iraq, using internationally-outlawed chemical weapons to do so. Yes sirree, the late Saddam Hussein did indeed once not only possess but fully and mercilessly utilize said 'weapons of mass destruction'; that he verily did do.
And so effectively making himself - by his cowardice at a time of great moment when all the world stood behind him as it were - more than somewhat responsible for all the atrocities that followed for Iraqi citizens throughout the decade-plus remainder of the departed tyrant's reign of terror. (The death total of Iraqis exterminated by his regime apparently numbering over one million by all accounts.)
So may all the world's present-day remaining war criminals please come forward - no, not to be honoured and awarded for your callous and coldly calculated inhumanities, but to plead your case before a world of war-weary peoples and citizenry. I dare you to - though somehow I suspect I'm wasting my breath. Perhaps if 'y'all' did so now - voluntarily, before push comes to shove - the eternal verdict later might perhaps stand you in rather better stead. But since true repentance ever involves a whole lot more than fancy footwork, public relations spin, media-condoned 'porkies' and poll-driven hype, methinks we'll all be waiting awhile yet... . Still, I've no doubt whatsoever Who'll eventually have the very last word. And I'm so sorry to have to be the one to break to you the news that after His oh-so-just deliberations and ultimate everlasting Judgment, there will not be any further appeals possible. Probation will be over - for both time and eternity.
No, our Creator's verdict will stand for time and eternity, and the outcome for all who fall foul of that decision will evidently be not too pretty. Hey folk, I didn't write the script. The Lamb of God slain from the very foundation of this world did, but some day - very, very soon in fact - He's returning to this old world, in great glory...no longer meek and mild, but the All-Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, ready to execute Vengeance upon all who've acted unjustly, yes, however 'religious' they may have once claimed to be...
*And may I suggest here that not all the (current) pontiff's 'tears', pleadings, and corporately-invoked self-flagellations - however welcome and appropriate and justifiable and even downright commendable - and/or all said Church's amends and penance, whether merely milked for public consumption or actually motivated by heartfelt repentance and true sorrow and contrition for sin, will ever make things right ever again. (Much like Pope John Paul the First's much-publicized 'apology' for the Roman Catholic Church's Dark Ages' abominations (such as the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the St Bartholemew Massacre et al), all historically well-documented if nowadays conveniently omitted from social studies and history textbooks.) I'm referring of course to the legions in their ranks whose lives and hopes have been effectively destroyed and dashed by the glossing over and covering up of heinous evil...the ignoring, sidestepping and wilful ignorance of years, decades, yea - were the real truth made known - doubtless literally centuries, even perhaps (one-and-a-half to two) millennia, of such crimes against humanity.
But onto the real substance of this posting:
No, methinks, vis-a-vis the ofttimes and usually justifiably criticized and moreover roundly condemned recent ex-President of the U S of A, whose much-vaunted 'War on Terror' effectively only 'upped the ante', metaphorically placing into the hands, and, more's to the point, thoughts and minds of each and every last would-be jihadist, terrorist and supposed 'freedom fighter' - this world supposedly has ever known - sufficient excuse, reason, justification and rationale (yea, all of these 'with knobs on'), for 'taking out' as much 'collateral damage' upon Bush Junior's (and Vice-President Dick Cheney's) own, supposedly condoning, nation and society - 'till kingdom come', and well beyond... .
Anyway, in relation to said ex-President Bush - the second - just as if not indeed even more reprehensibly, though seldom suggested except by the likes of the much-maligned investigative reporter/journalist John Pilger, is or rather was the record in office of George W Bush's father, the first George Bush presidency America was subjected to (from 1988 through 1992). Perhaps like me, into your own cranium, is seared for all time the first ever, live, 24-hour TV war, Desert Storm, against Iraq, or, more precisely, challenging the then Iraqi incursion into and attempted annexation of Kuwait. Well, be that as it very well may, it just so happens to set a rather appropriate setting for why I, like Pilger, view Bush Senior's conduct as so deplorable, or even criminal.
Though now - very recently - feted as 'a bit of a (real) lad' for his sky-diving antics ("down thar in Texas with all ma clan", George Junior et al), and indeed internationally (admittedly, including by Yours Truly), as President, for presiding over the justly-celebrated demise/breakup/disintegration and destruction of the former Soviet Union, alongside its string of satellite states, which perhaps like myself you recall 'falling' like dominoes with exponentially-increasing velocity: from Poland's years, to the next nation's months, to the following one's weeks, to the next one's days, to another's mere hours (well, you get the picture).
Anyhow, laying aside the fact, however unpleasant to some and loath they may be to admit it, that the epoch-changing revolution commonly known as 'the fall of the iron curtain' can much more justly be sheeted home to Bush Senior's predecessor ***Ronald Reagan, methinks said President Bush himself has a very serious charge or two to answer, yes, were it possible, at the International Court of Justice, though one day assuredly at the Universal Bar of Divine Justice and Judgment.
***Who, as American President in strategic alignment with Pope Francis' and Pope Benedict's own acclaimed (and decried) predecessor John Paul ****the Second - as well as, of course, the then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev - didn't only preside over but played a decisive role in said epoch-making and altering events.
****Wonder what ever became of Pope John Paul the First? Hey, silly me, there's an entire book devoted to the subject, isn't there, In God's Name by David Yallop, I believe.
The charge being? Just this: not only the then President's elaborate and all too technically dextrous attempt to extricate himself from the fallout of the first Iraq War (which I will shortly detail), but, just as significantly - and awfully for all concerned - his complicity in, nay apparent authorization of, dreadful war crimes therein. To wit, the massacre of some 200,000 surrendering troops of then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Despite a specific, indeed virtually unanimous(ly carried), United Nations' mandate and thus apparent near-global sanction even, for the American attack upon Hussein's army in Kuwait - to free the Kuwaitis anyhow - Bush later constructed an all too convenient and ingenious argument, cited in Time Magazine, to attempt to excuse the subsequent immediate U.S. force withdrawal, or more particularly their failure to 'take out', i.e. assassinate, the brutal, bloodthirsty Iraqi dictator himself. It being against international law and all that sort of thing to specifically kill the leader of a nation. Hey, perhaps Bush Senior was thinking of his own back? Though evidently it was (and is) quite kosher to dispose of hundreds of thousands of its' people, even when they no longer posed any kind of threat (either internationally or regionally) whatsoever. And thus to - if only by default, but don't you tell me Bush Senior wouldn't have been only too well aware of the potential, even probable consequences of so doing - effectively be complicit in Saddam Hussein's subsequent butchering of the Kurdish population of Iraq, using internationally-outlawed chemical weapons to do so. Yes sirree, the late Saddam Hussein did indeed once not only possess but fully and mercilessly utilize said 'weapons of mass destruction'; that he verily did do.
And so effectively making himself - by his cowardice at a time of great moment when all the world stood behind him as it were - more than somewhat responsible for all the atrocities that followed for Iraqi citizens throughout the decade-plus remainder of the departed tyrant's reign of terror. (The death total of Iraqis exterminated by his regime apparently numbering over one million by all accounts.)
So may all the world's present-day remaining war criminals please come forward - no, not to be honoured and awarded for your callous and coldly calculated inhumanities, but to plead your case before a world of war-weary peoples and citizenry. I dare you to - though somehow I suspect I'm wasting my breath. Perhaps if 'y'all' did so now - voluntarily, before push comes to shove - the eternal verdict later might perhaps stand you in rather better stead. But since true repentance ever involves a whole lot more than fancy footwork, public relations spin, media-condoned 'porkies' and poll-driven hype, methinks we'll all be waiting awhile yet... . Still, I've no doubt whatsoever Who'll eventually have the very last word. And I'm so sorry to have to be the one to break to you the news that after His oh-so-just deliberations and ultimate everlasting Judgment, there will not be any further appeals possible. Probation will be over - for both time and eternity.
No, our Creator's verdict will stand for time and eternity, and the outcome for all who fall foul of that decision will evidently be not too pretty. Hey folk, I didn't write the script. The Lamb of God slain from the very foundation of this world did, but some day - very, very soon in fact - He's returning to this old world, in great glory...no longer meek and mild, but the All-Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, ready to execute Vengeance upon all who've acted unjustly, yes, however 'religious' they may have once claimed to be...
Monday, July 14, 2014
In Memory of Our (Aotearoa-New Zealand's) Rainbow Warrior Patriots, Cut Down in their Prime 28/29 Years Ago Today - by French State-Sponsored Terrorism Issuing - Undoubtedly - From the Very Highest Echelons of Power
May I take the liberty - and for that matter likewise employ in my 'defence' those other twin pillars of French society, equality and fraternity - of, *this Bastille Day (down here in the Antipodes, anyhow), 2014, marking the day by noting the anniversary of two pivotal events in our history (i.e. the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand waters - in 1985 or 1986, I believe; and the decisive and epoch-changing general election of the Fourth Labour Government of David Lange and Roger Douglas et al in 1984). And so of saying as follows:
The present-day witch-hunt of ex-President Nicholas Sarkozy, as has occurred evidently with various of his conservative predecessors (Jacques Chirac among others), as well as Monsieur Strauss-Kahn I believe (from the other side of the political divide), is a great if oh-so-effective smokescreen - deliberately intended or otherwise - from the deeds, increasingly discreditable evidently, of the present occupant of the Elysee Palace. But far more significantly, and troubling, of a former colleague of his, a 14-year, two- term-serving President known as Francois Mitterand to one and all, both in France and elsewhere. For that Monsieur Mitterand committed state-sponsored terrorism and indeed murder in the name of the French Republic seems almost beyond controversy these days.
Which is one major reason why New Zealand's own inimitable leader of the day, the now deceased David Lange, was such an ultimate disappointment. Though initially vocal about said event (Rainbow Warrior bombing), out of - perfectly understandable, but nevertheless - fear of the possible consequences, he let his criticisms be rather muted, and failed to pursue Mitterand and his Socialist Government all the way to the International Court of Justice/Criminal Court and press appropriate charges: i.e. against interference by a foreign power in the domestic affairs of God's Own, which interference moreover resulted in the tragic killing of a freelance photographer whose only crime was to be associated with the RW.
But don't expect Monsieur Mitterand to anytime soon, let alone ever be pursued by the French, much less the international, wheels of justice. Admittedly they turn rather slowly, but, more to the point, those who'd be indicted, were things to really operate as they should, would doubtless include among their number a number of previous American presidents and Roman pontiffs, and, as we all know, in this world and in this life such will doubtless escape justice. (Though citizen arrests have been attempted upon both the previous Pope and the then-serving ex-British Prime Minister - whether as war criminals or just plain 'ole international outlaws - while the world awaits 'with bated breath' the moment when Blair's buddy 'Dubya' may also receive such just desserts. But I'm advised to inform you you oughtn't lose any needed shuteye holding out.)
*Crediting National Radio's guest panellist John Bishop, upon their prestigious weekday Panel today, of reminding me of the fact.
The present-day witch-hunt of ex-President Nicholas Sarkozy, as has occurred evidently with various of his conservative predecessors (Jacques Chirac among others), as well as Monsieur Strauss-Kahn I believe (from the other side of the political divide), is a great if oh-so-effective smokescreen - deliberately intended or otherwise - from the deeds, increasingly discreditable evidently, of the present occupant of the Elysee Palace. But far more significantly, and troubling, of a former colleague of his, a 14-year, two- term-serving President known as Francois Mitterand to one and all, both in France and elsewhere. For that Monsieur Mitterand committed state-sponsored terrorism and indeed murder in the name of the French Republic seems almost beyond controversy these days.
Which is one major reason why New Zealand's own inimitable leader of the day, the now deceased David Lange, was such an ultimate disappointment. Though initially vocal about said event (Rainbow Warrior bombing), out of - perfectly understandable, but nevertheless - fear of the possible consequences, he let his criticisms be rather muted, and failed to pursue Mitterand and his Socialist Government all the way to the International Court of Justice/Criminal Court and press appropriate charges: i.e. against interference by a foreign power in the domestic affairs of God's Own, which interference moreover resulted in the tragic killing of a freelance photographer whose only crime was to be associated with the RW.
But don't expect Monsieur Mitterand to anytime soon, let alone ever be pursued by the French, much less the international, wheels of justice. Admittedly they turn rather slowly, but, more to the point, those who'd be indicted, were things to really operate as they should, would doubtless include among their number a number of previous American presidents and Roman pontiffs, and, as we all know, in this world and in this life such will doubtless escape justice. (Though citizen arrests have been attempted upon both the previous Pope and the then-serving ex-British Prime Minister - whether as war criminals or just plain 'ole international outlaws - while the world awaits 'with bated breath' the moment when Blair's buddy 'Dubya' may also receive such just desserts. But I'm advised to inform you you oughtn't lose any needed shuteye holding out.)
*Crediting National Radio's guest panellist John Bishop, upon their prestigious weekday Panel today, of reminding me of the fact.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Violent Crime #3: So whence cometh evil - originally?
And what, pray tell me, did a youth worker in Henderson, Auckland make of things? Appearing on Seven Sharp the very evening of the horrific tragedy, he honestly couldn't articulate - nor to his credit did he facilely (and ultimately futilely) attempt - any explanation. True, he neither sought to highlight nor downplay the role of such contributing factors to the whole sorry scenario as inequality and poor socio-economic status, even woefully deficient parental guidance and nurture - including 'whanau' - but neither did he even remotely suggest that such 'acceptably' explicated things. How could they?.
No folks, 'in the final analysis' there really ain't any - such - 'reason', or rather defense. He, and all arguably 'goody-two-shoes' fellow-travellers - however genuine and often very well-intentioned or otherwise - simply have no answers. For such a miserable God-forsaken act of savage thuggery. Just like that involving the tragically named Blessie only a couple weeks earlier. No, there simply is none.
No, sin, as Ellen White put it so very eloquently, has no essential cause or justifying motive. It is a rogue principle in God's Universe, giving rise to untold misery and destruction; and itself arising in the distant corridors of time itself, in the secret counsels of the Arch-Fiend himself, the Chief Rebel - Lucifer. Who, somehow, some day, in the veritable sawdust of history, caught a rather bewitchingly endearing glimpse of his own ego; and the Universe was never, ever, the same again. It was 'all over' from then on in, yes, downhill all the way.
And as we all know - except those of us wilfully blinded by 'the god of this age' - our human race eventually became the collateral damage, as Satan or the devil - as he soon became - ever upped the ante in his unrelenting, aeon-spanning campaign against Central Headquarters, against, yea, the Very Creator Himself. A now 'purely' malevolent being seeking to take out as many as he could along the way; wishing nothing less than to inflict as much psycho-emotional damage upon a Creator whose motives were only love-actuated and whose actions were ever compassionate, gracious and merciful - yet also perfectly just, fair and reasonable - towards any and all the beings He had created.
This being of evil incarnate, before whom all others upon the pages of history fade into utter insignificance - except perhaps those he most successfully utilized such as Adolf Hitler - has played out a type of universal Russian roulette, his own nefarious endgame upon Planet Earth, for well-nigh 6,000-some years - whatever the evolution-brainwashed multitudes may like to think. But one day - very, very soon folks: hold onto your seats - it's coming to a neighbourhood right near you, and a whole lot sooner than you'd care to think - or have probably banked upon. And then - but not till then - all will finally be made right.
Lucifer, the devil, Satan, ye old serpent, that Great Dragon, will simply be no more. He will vanish - 'vamoose' - like the proverbial puff of smoke, and time, as we presently know it, will be no more. All will be engulfed and embraced in Eternity, a new dimension of time of which we presently have no conception. And then one rhythm of harmony, one heartbeat of Love, will pulse through the length and breadth of the Universe, and on into all the outlying recesses and hidden pockets thereof.
Love will be everywhere acknowledged as rightfully occupying the Throne of the Universe, and sin and suffering will be no more. And no excuse nor reason for the one-time eruption of the virus of sin will be admitted of. Yea, every voice of rationalization and self-justification will be forever silenced.
And the entire Universe will be at peace. 'And they will all live happily ever after'. Yes indeed.
No folks, 'in the final analysis' there really ain't any - such - 'reason', or rather defense. He, and all arguably 'goody-two-shoes' fellow-travellers - however genuine and often very well-intentioned or otherwise - simply have no answers. For such a miserable God-forsaken act of savage thuggery. Just like that involving the tragically named Blessie only a couple weeks earlier. No, there simply is none.
No, sin, as Ellen White put it so very eloquently, has no essential cause or justifying motive. It is a rogue principle in God's Universe, giving rise to untold misery and destruction; and itself arising in the distant corridors of time itself, in the secret counsels of the Arch-Fiend himself, the Chief Rebel - Lucifer. Who, somehow, some day, in the veritable sawdust of history, caught a rather bewitchingly endearing glimpse of his own ego; and the Universe was never, ever, the same again. It was 'all over' from then on in, yes, downhill all the way.
And as we all know - except those of us wilfully blinded by 'the god of this age' - our human race eventually became the collateral damage, as Satan or the devil - as he soon became - ever upped the ante in his unrelenting, aeon-spanning campaign against Central Headquarters, against, yea, the Very Creator Himself. A now 'purely' malevolent being seeking to take out as many as he could along the way; wishing nothing less than to inflict as much psycho-emotional damage upon a Creator whose motives were only love-actuated and whose actions were ever compassionate, gracious and merciful - yet also perfectly just, fair and reasonable - towards any and all the beings He had created.
This being of evil incarnate, before whom all others upon the pages of history fade into utter insignificance - except perhaps those he most successfully utilized such as Adolf Hitler - has played out a type of universal Russian roulette, his own nefarious endgame upon Planet Earth, for well-nigh 6,000-some years - whatever the evolution-brainwashed multitudes may like to think. But one day - very, very soon folks: hold onto your seats - it's coming to a neighbourhood right near you, and a whole lot sooner than you'd care to think - or have probably banked upon. And then - but not till then - all will finally be made right.
Lucifer, the devil, Satan, ye old serpent, that Great Dragon, will simply be no more. He will vanish - 'vamoose' - like the proverbial puff of smoke, and time, as we presently know it, will be no more. All will be engulfed and embraced in Eternity, a new dimension of time of which we presently have no conception. And then one rhythm of harmony, one heartbeat of Love, will pulse through the length and breadth of the Universe, and on into all the outlying recesses and hidden pockets thereof.
Love will be everywhere acknowledged as rightfully occupying the Throne of the Universe, and sin and suffering will be no more. And no excuse nor reason for the one-time eruption of the virus of sin will be admitted of. Yea, every voice of rationalization and self-justification will be forever silenced.
And the entire Universe will be at peace. 'And they will all live happily ever after'. Yes indeed.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Violent Crime in NZ today: Concluding Remarks: Is it really all the Left Apologists-in-Chiefs' fault?; and, if not, whence cometh such sheer evil in the first place?
Nothing is ever as easy as it looks, everything takes - a whole lot - longer than you expect, and the one unerring rule of life - and any really useful commentary thereupon - is that life is difficult. Fullstop. As the famed and noted psychoanalyst H Scott Peck, among many others - such as Murphy of Murphy's Law (and its many subsequent addendums) - has expressed matters, this is the reality folks. End of this story, and every other.
Surely a rather flippant way to conclude my previous piece upon violent, heinous thuggery and senseless, gratuitous violence in present-day New Zealand? Indeed. But perhaps that's the very point I'm seeking, however circuitously (i.e. in a roundabout manner) and even unconsciously, intuitively, to make. The sheer inanity, or, as the noted Jewish author and attendee at Adolf Eichmann's infamous trial in Israel, Hannah Arendt, put it, 'banality of evil'. For, as one other noted commentator, the much-written Ellen Gould White, herself stated: 'It is impossible to explain the origin of sin so as to give a [satisfactory] reason for its existence.'
In other words, to find some actual explanation for evil is to essentially excuse and thus justify it. To provide extenuating reasons for its initial and continued existence in this world; and moreover, in the hearts and lives of each and every one of us. For, as the noted radio host Jim Mora asked as it were rhetorically when discussing the matter of evil - as if in how to isolate it, as in a test tube, and define it - in conversation a number of years ago with the noted investigative journalist John Pilger, is there not a 'line' of good and evil running through the heart of every person?
Sadly Mr Pilger took umbrage and sought to speedily end the discussion, or at least his own part therein, perhaps suggesting Mr Mora had touched on a sore point and was driving the actual truth home a little bit closer than Pilger was comfortable with. For it seemed only all too evident that the latter much preferred - as ideologically-driven political partisans are ever wont to do, no disrespect for or devaluation of John Pilger's noted contribution to the political debate over the decades intended - thereby to split, as his bete noire George W Bush was himself at that very moment being accused by Mr Pilger of doing, the entire world into a comic book style goodies versus baddies paradigm. Which admittedly ever makes more exciting, 'sexy' and sensational copy, and moreover serves to justify ourselves in taking up the cudgels to fight the good fight for a new world order based upon our own idiosyncratic values. Yet in its basic infidelity to the true human condition and our own at times somewhat inglorious parts in the particular worlds we inhabit, it is as glibly superficial as it is essentially false.
However upon the recent story of Arun Kumar in particular not all left-wing commentators are equal. And so I take my metaphorical hat off and make a due inward curtsy to long-time 'from the Left' spokesman Chris Trotter, who upon yet another of the celebrated National Radio Panel discussions yesterday gave the best overall appraisal of the situation I have yet to hear. Making not an iota of excuse or justification for the appalling event which transpired in Auckland last week, Mr Trotter laid any and all blame home with the offender/s, though he, like many of us, felt the police were themselves found missing in inaction. Citing the former well-known New York City Mayor (and one-time Republican Presidential hopeful) Rudolph Guilliani, Trotter mentioned how, in Guilliani's approach of getting tough upon minor crime and/or signs of decay and disrepair in inner-city neighbourhoods in particular, before these eventually and inevitably mushroomed, spiralling out of control and skyrocketing into worse and even more worsening manifestations, such heinous acts were well and truly nipped in the bud. (And though Trotter didn't mention this specifically, the rapid and steep 'down surge' in especially violent crime ever since that approach was adopted has been a sheer marvel to behold. And clearly a proof if one were needed of its unmitigated, unimpeachable success.)
As Mr Trotter pointed out, petty crime must have consequences just as night follows day, but if it doesn't, what people expect to get away with will only go from bad to worse, and understandably so. As other, more regular commentators on tough love and the like have well said, bad behaviour must be treated as such and given due repercussions, or the situation will only go from bad to worse to downright awful; in no time flat. Shades of the repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act - i.e. the anti-smacking legislation - anyone? Duh.
So it was indeed refreshing to see a man of deep and well-earned left-wing credentials, who many, such as myself, consider unequivocally and incontrovertibly and uncontestably Aotearoa-New Zealand's most incisive socialist thinker, saying exactly the kind of stuff 'the rest of us believe'. Not as so many politicians of the left might do, simply to gain political traction when they belatedly realize they're well and truly on a political hiding to nothing and have nothing left to lose, but, wonder of wonders, because he simply sees sense and has an understanding of human nature and how it actually works. A pity that folk like himself, and, on the other side of the ideological 'equation', the likes of the notable and equally unrivalled talkback host Leighton Smith, aren't the ones leading our political parties and democracy. For then we'd no doubt have not only a healthier political debate, but perhaps occasionally achieve some useful things in the political sphere. But no, I won't lie asleep waiting.
To be concluded - following some needed shut-eye...the conclusion that really will be the conclusion!
Surely a rather flippant way to conclude my previous piece upon violent, heinous thuggery and senseless, gratuitous violence in present-day New Zealand? Indeed. But perhaps that's the very point I'm seeking, however circuitously (i.e. in a roundabout manner) and even unconsciously, intuitively, to make. The sheer inanity, or, as the noted Jewish author and attendee at Adolf Eichmann's infamous trial in Israel, Hannah Arendt, put it, 'banality of evil'. For, as one other noted commentator, the much-written Ellen Gould White, herself stated: 'It is impossible to explain the origin of sin so as to give a [satisfactory] reason for its existence.'
In other words, to find some actual explanation for evil is to essentially excuse and thus justify it. To provide extenuating reasons for its initial and continued existence in this world; and moreover, in the hearts and lives of each and every one of us. For, as the noted radio host Jim Mora asked as it were rhetorically when discussing the matter of evil - as if in how to isolate it, as in a test tube, and define it - in conversation a number of years ago with the noted investigative journalist John Pilger, is there not a 'line' of good and evil running through the heart of every person?
Sadly Mr Pilger took umbrage and sought to speedily end the discussion, or at least his own part therein, perhaps suggesting Mr Mora had touched on a sore point and was driving the actual truth home a little bit closer than Pilger was comfortable with. For it seemed only all too evident that the latter much preferred - as ideologically-driven political partisans are ever wont to do, no disrespect for or devaluation of John Pilger's noted contribution to the political debate over the decades intended - thereby to split, as his bete noire George W Bush was himself at that very moment being accused by Mr Pilger of doing, the entire world into a comic book style goodies versus baddies paradigm. Which admittedly ever makes more exciting, 'sexy' and sensational copy, and moreover serves to justify ourselves in taking up the cudgels to fight the good fight for a new world order based upon our own idiosyncratic values. Yet in its basic infidelity to the true human condition and our own at times somewhat inglorious parts in the particular worlds we inhabit, it is as glibly superficial as it is essentially false.
However upon the recent story of Arun Kumar in particular not all left-wing commentators are equal. And so I take my metaphorical hat off and make a due inward curtsy to long-time 'from the Left' spokesman Chris Trotter, who upon yet another of the celebrated National Radio Panel discussions yesterday gave the best overall appraisal of the situation I have yet to hear. Making not an iota of excuse or justification for the appalling event which transpired in Auckland last week, Mr Trotter laid any and all blame home with the offender/s, though he, like many of us, felt the police were themselves found missing in inaction. Citing the former well-known New York City Mayor (and one-time Republican Presidential hopeful) Rudolph Guilliani, Trotter mentioned how, in Guilliani's approach of getting tough upon minor crime and/or signs of decay and disrepair in inner-city neighbourhoods in particular, before these eventually and inevitably mushroomed, spiralling out of control and skyrocketing into worse and even more worsening manifestations, such heinous acts were well and truly nipped in the bud. (And though Trotter didn't mention this specifically, the rapid and steep 'down surge' in especially violent crime ever since that approach was adopted has been a sheer marvel to behold. And clearly a proof if one were needed of its unmitigated, unimpeachable success.)
As Mr Trotter pointed out, petty crime must have consequences just as night follows day, but if it doesn't, what people expect to get away with will only go from bad to worse, and understandably so. As other, more regular commentators on tough love and the like have well said, bad behaviour must be treated as such and given due repercussions, or the situation will only go from bad to worse to downright awful; in no time flat. Shades of the repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act - i.e. the anti-smacking legislation - anyone? Duh.
So it was indeed refreshing to see a man of deep and well-earned left-wing credentials, who many, such as myself, consider unequivocally and incontrovertibly and uncontestably Aotearoa-New Zealand's most incisive socialist thinker, saying exactly the kind of stuff 'the rest of us believe'. Not as so many politicians of the left might do, simply to gain political traction when they belatedly realize they're well and truly on a political hiding to nothing and have nothing left to lose, but, wonder of wonders, because he simply sees sense and has an understanding of human nature and how it actually works. A pity that folk like himself, and, on the other side of the ideological 'equation', the likes of the notable and equally unrivalled talkback host Leighton Smith, aren't the ones leading our political parties and democracy. For then we'd no doubt have not only a healthier political debate, but perhaps occasionally achieve some useful things in the political sphere. But no, I won't lie asleep waiting.
To be concluded - following some needed shut-eye...the conclusion that really will be the conclusion!
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Violent Crime in God's Own, 2014: The Modern-day Left: Missing in Inaction
In the aftermath of the brutal slayings of two overseas-born kiwis - Blessie and Mr Kumar (as they're 'known' to me, anyhow) - a couple thoughts have occurred to me...
Some would (be *fain to) - but they hardly can, they clearly can't in such circumstances (yes, admittedly, only 'alleged', supposedly, at present), yea, how could they? - defend, to the very hilt; to their **dying breath even, such savage thuggery/brutal and callous savagery and misanthropy. There is in a very real sense nothing left to say about it, is there, only the involuntary sucking in of one's breath as one contemplates - yet again - the gratuitous, almost flippant, snuffing out of another innocent life in what was once quite rightly known as God's Own (land).
Now let's clear up something at the outset. This writer is certainly not advocating - never has advocated and doubtless never will advocate - the arming of (say) dairy owners to help prevent such tragedies occurring, as both Mike Hosking and John Campbell, however fleetingly at the introduction to their shows last night, reported that some, somewhere (presumably in the vicinity or amidst the kith and kin of said victims), had themselves suggested in the initial predictable fallout from said incidents.
But what I also won't be doing is finding even a skerrick of fault with any who do in fact advocate such a drastic response to things. For who around has any other conceivable answer to the situation, I mean, really? No, really?
So what then of those who, also quite predictably even before the cursor's 'ink' has dried upon this post, automatically get their a into g into response to the above idea, and spout off to one and all about how hell would first have to freeze over before this once peaceful land succumbed to such incivility? That is, of allowing its bedevilled, threatened citizenry to have the selfsame rights and privileges as their 'enemies' (for want of a more appropriate term). It's difficult for them, I fully realize, for the 'do gooder liberals' as they're often referred to, to even countenance such a thought, of allowing this fair nation to succumb to the 'American disease' (as it's often regarded, if not stated as such).
And I readily concede that is a wholly valid concern, one that I also share, as in fact no doubt many other much more notable and respected kiwis do. Such as the likes of Gary McCormick, for example, who on today's regular National Radio Panel discussion signalled his own disquiet with the U.S. situation, and his consequent sympathy for the reality that President Obama, with all the power and authority apparently at his ready disposal, likewise can apparently do little about the matter himself. Yet also revealed his utter contempt for the present New Zealand status quo, which allows such atrocities - albeit on a far smaller scale it cannot but be admitted - to likewise occur with sickening and all-so-predictable regularity. Offering his own, no doubt merely tentative, solution of some graded system, like that now applied to driver licenses, whereby folk transgressing such legal and more importantly moral and ethical principles, accumulate 'points' which, upon reaching a certain level, send them directly to jail, without passing go or collecting a cent - let alone $200.
Some who know me well may be more than somewhat surprised, even appalled that I may now be classifiable among the 'redneck' element of society. So what caused me to come to this pass, you - or rather they - may well ask? And remember, I'm certainly not personally promoting such measures, only tolerating or rather 'entertaining', if for the briefest of moments, their possibility or rather plausibility. Essentially in response to those who would likewise automatically dismiss them out of hand. But perhaps it'd be more apt to say I simply see their eventual inevitability, as opposed to being at all inwardly supportive of such.
Perhaps the name Lois Dear means something to you. Her brutal, utterly unprovoked murder - back in 2006 I believe - changed everything for me. Indeed if it weren't for my lack of organization though certainly not motivation, I'd have long since - indeed I did once personally contact Norm Withers in Christchurch thereabouts - helped create a citizens-initiated petition in preparation for a citizens-initiated referendum on the matter.
For one 'simple' reason, and one alone. Lois Dear could well have been my own beloved Mum, brutally disposed of by some callous individual, whether stoked up on drugs or otherwise. By simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, despite likewise being someone who has spent her own life going about doing good and helping one and all as she ever has.
Yes, Mrs Dear was the means I believe the One Above used to unseal the springs of heartfelt sympathy, nay empathy, sealed up deep within me, for all those others like Mrs Dear whose lives have been wretchedly and miserably and mercilessly cut short - in Aotearoa-New Zealand, for starters. For, trite and well-worn as the saying may well be, there but for the grace of God could well have been my own dear Mum. And she too shares the name Lois - or rather Louise - the name also of my first childhood sweetheart (at the tender age of eight to nine, just after my parents split up).
*Gladly/willingly, for those unfamiliar with 'Olden' English.
**Certainly no pun remotely intended.
Some would (be *fain to) - but they hardly can, they clearly can't in such circumstances (yes, admittedly, only 'alleged', supposedly, at present), yea, how could they? - defend, to the very hilt; to their **dying breath even, such savage thuggery/brutal and callous savagery and misanthropy. There is in a very real sense nothing left to say about it, is there, only the involuntary sucking in of one's breath as one contemplates - yet again - the gratuitous, almost flippant, snuffing out of another innocent life in what was once quite rightly known as God's Own (land).
Now let's clear up something at the outset. This writer is certainly not advocating - never has advocated and doubtless never will advocate - the arming of (say) dairy owners to help prevent such tragedies occurring, as both Mike Hosking and John Campbell, however fleetingly at the introduction to their shows last night, reported that some, somewhere (presumably in the vicinity or amidst the kith and kin of said victims), had themselves suggested in the initial predictable fallout from said incidents.
But what I also won't be doing is finding even a skerrick of fault with any who do in fact advocate such a drastic response to things. For who around has any other conceivable answer to the situation, I mean, really? No, really?
So what then of those who, also quite predictably even before the cursor's 'ink' has dried upon this post, automatically get their a into g into response to the above idea, and spout off to one and all about how hell would first have to freeze over before this once peaceful land succumbed to such incivility? That is, of allowing its bedevilled, threatened citizenry to have the selfsame rights and privileges as their 'enemies' (for want of a more appropriate term). It's difficult for them, I fully realize, for the 'do gooder liberals' as they're often referred to, to even countenance such a thought, of allowing this fair nation to succumb to the 'American disease' (as it's often regarded, if not stated as such).
And I readily concede that is a wholly valid concern, one that I also share, as in fact no doubt many other much more notable and respected kiwis do. Such as the likes of Gary McCormick, for example, who on today's regular National Radio Panel discussion signalled his own disquiet with the U.S. situation, and his consequent sympathy for the reality that President Obama, with all the power and authority apparently at his ready disposal, likewise can apparently do little about the matter himself. Yet also revealed his utter contempt for the present New Zealand status quo, which allows such atrocities - albeit on a far smaller scale it cannot but be admitted - to likewise occur with sickening and all-so-predictable regularity. Offering his own, no doubt merely tentative, solution of some graded system, like that now applied to driver licenses, whereby folk transgressing such legal and more importantly moral and ethical principles, accumulate 'points' which, upon reaching a certain level, send them directly to jail, without passing go or collecting a cent - let alone $200.
Some who know me well may be more than somewhat surprised, even appalled that I may now be classifiable among the 'redneck' element of society. So what caused me to come to this pass, you - or rather they - may well ask? And remember, I'm certainly not personally promoting such measures, only tolerating or rather 'entertaining', if for the briefest of moments, their possibility or rather plausibility. Essentially in response to those who would likewise automatically dismiss them out of hand. But perhaps it'd be more apt to say I simply see their eventual inevitability, as opposed to being at all inwardly supportive of such.
Perhaps the name Lois Dear means something to you. Her brutal, utterly unprovoked murder - back in 2006 I believe - changed everything for me. Indeed if it weren't for my lack of organization though certainly not motivation, I'd have long since - indeed I did once personally contact Norm Withers in Christchurch thereabouts - helped create a citizens-initiated petition in preparation for a citizens-initiated referendum on the matter.
For one 'simple' reason, and one alone. Lois Dear could well have been my own beloved Mum, brutally disposed of by some callous individual, whether stoked up on drugs or otherwise. By simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, despite likewise being someone who has spent her own life going about doing good and helping one and all as she ever has.
Yes, Mrs Dear was the means I believe the One Above used to unseal the springs of heartfelt sympathy, nay empathy, sealed up deep within me, for all those others like Mrs Dear whose lives have been wretchedly and miserably and mercilessly cut short - in Aotearoa-New Zealand, for starters. For, trite and well-worn as the saying may well be, there but for the grace of God could well have been my own dear Mum. And she too shares the name Lois - or rather Louise - the name also of my first childhood sweetheart (at the tender age of eight to nine, just after my parents split up).
*Gladly/willingly, for those unfamiliar with 'Olden' English.
**Certainly no pun remotely intended.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Winston Peters Definitely On the Money this time, make no bones about it
Let me begin by stating up front any potential conflicts of interest I may - conceivably - be accused of. Yes, I was supremely hopeful, during my one and only bid for ((i)extra-curricular) political office back in the 2008 General Election, that New Zealand First might possibly have 'come to the party' - or in this instance to me, myself & I - and endorsed my candidacy in Dunedin South. Especially seeing as I'd been on good and friendly - and yes, distinctly non-pecuniary - terms with the Maori couple (wo)manning its South Dunedin electorate office; besides which they weren't even standing a candidate themselves on that occasion. Though I'd freely admit, and openly avowed then - if not to these folk personally - that my basic, essential political philosophy was far closer to the Democrats for Social Credit - at one time the major player and force in Aotearoa's electoral landscape known as the Social Credit Political League - than to any other significant party, that was for sure.
Indeed 'Socred' as we used to call it is the one and only political party I've ever been - if involuntarily, against my then knowledge and wish - a member (if rather briefly) of, essentially feeling unable to subsume my rather eclectic judgments on this, that and especially the other to any one political party, however much I resonated with its essential philosophy or however many of its individual policies I subscribed to. And of recent times I've agreed with the likes of the Mana Party's John Minto that Winston and his parliamentary colleagues have denied ex-NZ Firster Brendan Horan the natural justice owed each and every citizen of our great nation. And moreover I hardly took Mr Peters' side in the pre-2008 election events concerning Owen Glenn and the donations scandal as I believe it came to be known, seeing his behaviour as rather dodgy at best, and certainly extremely ungrateful - like Helen Clark and her Labour Government colleagues - for all the largesse Mr Owen had once lavished in their particular direction.
In addition I cannot but admit to feeling deep-seated revulsion for the politics of race Mr Peters was widely perceived as bringing to Parliament and New Zealand politics in the lead-up to the 1996 election in particular, and so I've had serious concerns about related immigration policies he and his party have often advocated since - above everything else how NZ First and especially Mr Peters have oftentimes chosen to couch the rhetoric they employed thereabouts. But having said all of that I nevertheless have found myself - on one occasion, 2002, (ii)despite the aforesaid being especially noticeable then, supporting them electorally (it should have included 2011, and almost was as I had a sudden 'inspiration' to do so at the very last moment in the polling booth) - and have generally found myself closer to their positions than to any other truly viable political force on the scene. And especially so on so-called 'moral issues', such as prostitution 'reform', civil unions and '(iii)gay' marriage, not to mention smacking: though admittedly upon the latter their stance was much more muted than might have been expected. However on matters economic I've also ever been in broad agreement, their sensible centre-left approach fitting me well, though of course both National and Labour at one time (as recently as the late seventies, even early eighties in fact) were essentially socially conservative and economically left-of-centre as the (iv)Winston First Party is today.
Having stated all the foregoing let me confess to actually being impressed today, during Parliament's notorious Question Time, with Winston Peters' exceedingly cautious and extremely measured (v)approach and presentation of his primary question, as well as each follow-up 'supplementary' he was allowed. Yes, he did fail to 'rark things up', as they say, and didn't engage in any of the petty grandstanding that he's usually (perhaps oftentimes justly) accused of, and definitely not the (vi)rather childish smirking and 'for the cameras' cheap ridicule that Mr Key and certain of his colleagues employed in response. And moreover he stuck to his guns, responding involuntarily under his breath about what an 'outrage' it was for the Speaker, David Carter, to - rather immediately, even seemingly automatically - assign his basic charge 'out of order' as if he'd been imputing actual corruption to the Minister in question, Judith Collins, which was clearly not the case. At least Peters could have hardly been accused of explicitly doing so, the most that could've been laid to his charge being that he had called into question the Minister's probity or rather lack thereof in lodging her expected returns to Parliament's Pecuniary Interests' Register - which I suppose, it might well be assumed, and seemingly was here by Speaker Carter, he thus implied was a deliberate, hence corrupt, action or rather inaction on her part. And so consequently he certainly did, and once again, get thrown out on his ear by the Speaker - ostensibly for failing to follow usual parliamentary protocol; or persisting therein after being duly cautioned.
Though methinks - and for a regular listener to Parliament like myself I feel entitled to speak with a modicum of 'authority' - the much more likely reason for Mr Peters' ejection from the Chamber was, as happens on a rather regular basis with Mr Carter as Speaker - wholly unlike with his well- (and even internationally-) esteemed predecessor, Lockwood Smith - Mr Peters had not only dared to challenge his ruling, and moreover his (moral) authority in the situation, but thus seemingly affronted David Carter, the man, himself. Though it could easily be argued that such ridiculous rulings, seemingly on an exponentially rising basis of recent times, are ipso facto opening themselves up to the very sort of ridicule and disorder the Speaker then accuses such as Mr Peters as causing. And may I even go so far as to assert that in this if in no other single instance, Mr Speaker appeared to actually pre-empt - not very hard with Mr Peters' well-signposted intention to raise his much-anticipated question today - the gist of what Mr Peters was intending to get at, and thus prematurely ruled all such questions' 'inferences and implications' out of order before they were even raised. Giving himself as Speaker a rather easy own goal (in his determination to maintain his own beloved mini-fiefdom, such as it is.)
Though, later on, reviewing the much-anticipated 'showdown at the parliamentary corral' on the two major TV news bulletins and accordingly feeling less convinced than before of my own understanding of what had transpired, I'm actually glad I initially listened on radio, as I'm convinced I was able to follow proceedings in a far less biased manner, appraising the words themselves and the manner in which they were spoken, presented and responded to, without any considerations of the usual visual nonsense that can so easily impede one's better judgment. And so let me say in no uncertain terms that Winston Peters' primary question and related line of questioning was not only couched, in both tone and content, in most reasonable, moderate terms, but, what's more to the point - (vii)however much propaganda to the contrary promoted by John Key and his ready array of sycophantic media acolytes (such as Larry Williams) and even National Radio reporters in this instance - the farthest thing from "incoherent" that one could claim. If anything the question was boringly simple and straightforward, and moreover as clear as daylight - but nevertheless, indeed perhaps for that very reason, thus unerringly zeroed in on its target and hit the bullseye. And I also suspect that the P.M.'s own immediate devaluing of Peters' 'bombshell' was rather more feigned, carefully-orchestrated and scripted for public consumption and the hordes of kiwis for whom he can never seemingly do any wrong than to any actual consideration of the concerns Winston expressed. Key's response was just too automatic knee-jerk reflexive and inconsistent with Peters' actual questions.
But finally, and by no means least, to pretend or make out, as Mr Key and his parliamentary colleagues so effectively have, that what is contained on the MPs' register of pecuniary interests is of relatively minimal consequence in the overall scheme of things, is, one cannot but admit, a brilliant political hat trick on the Government's part. Only problem is that the same standard is never applied to the likes of relative political newbies like David Shearer (when in New York) or other less popular MPs and/or ministers. But hey, Ms Collins is, after all, only the Minister of Justice, and, dearies, "leave 'er alone - she's gone through enough of late, what with all these nasty accusations and the like", and moreover the PM understanding her predicament by sending her home on sick leave for 5 days. Yeah, right: tell that to Maurice Williamson. Oh and while you're at it, pass the sentiment along to Pansy Wong, I'm sure she'll be equally sympathetic -not.
Afterthought: Sadly, for those of us who hope for and expect better from him, Winston has once again let himself and his side down - for all those who followed Wednesday's Question Time or rather General Debate. Imagining he'd been cunningly, strategically thinking outside the square and had actually decided to use the GD format for launching his main argument to reveal all upon Justice Minister Judith Collins - thus seemingly giving the Government false, cold comfort that things would go better in Parliament that day - that wish was rapidly deflated by Mr Peters' subsequent mini-tirade, it moreover soon becoming apparent things were about to spectacularly backfire in his very face. How so? Well, by simply - apparently - practising the usual sort of double standards here Peters so readily accuses his various (multitude of) opponents of - something, in fact which, on the floors of Parliament, has been known more than once to give rise to accusations of the dreaded (viii)'h' word - a definite political no-no in those unhallowed chambers.
(i) I did stand twice - and was elected overwhelmingly, possibly even unanimously, on both occasions (should have 'quit while I was ahead', eh) - but admittedly none of my classmates (in the 4th and 6th forms) happened to covet being on our high school's (rather activist) student council.
(ii) Why? Essentially because genetic modification/engineering was the one decisive issue that, upon P.M. Helen Clark's calling of a snap election, catapulted me down ipso pronto to the local Registrar of Electors to sign up for the coming poll. To say that I - I suspect like many other kiwis - was somewhat underwhelmed with the Greens', at least as indicated by then co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, rather hastily and needlessly backtracking from their - momentarily - courageous and decisive stance thereabouts, rather understates matters. Anyhow, the upshot is that I found, of the various parties also opposing a relaxing of the moratorium - including the likes of the (erstwhile) Alliance and (suddenly also) Jim Anderton's Progressives, United NZ and NZ First - only the latter was truly 'my cup of [strictly herbal, non-caffeinated and tannined] tea'. (For all the aforementioned reasons.) And did indeed deliver upon their pledge/policy, supporting - with a sizeable 13 of the 22 or so total - the wholly unsuccessful (as it transpired) attempt to get the moratorium extended.
(iii) No, the deliberate hijacking of the English language and, moreover, a perfectly good word with a bit of a pedigree to match, doesn't and has never met my approval.
(iv) Forgive me, Winston, I couldn't resist the obvious - if media and politically inspired - dig.
(v) Actually quite characteristic of Mr Peters since making his typically colourful and flamboyant return to Parliament in 2011 - however much and frequent the monotonous and predictably unthinking standard media commentary to the contrary. As is often said, repeating an untruth frequently doesn't thereby automatically transform it into a fact.
(vi) I somehow suspect they're just following their Textor & Crosby admen and women, who've instructed them: 'it's the baffle 'em with bullshit approach, stupid!'
(vii) Perhaps understandably few media folk readily forgo a ready-made opportunity to take Winston down a peg or two, but methinks they do so based upon a sporting-possessed nation's obsession to always find and pick winners and losers, and certainly not from any noble or even basic journalistic desire to glean what actually may be the real facts of the matter. Thus essentially falling into the very trap they would themselves often accuse Winston Peters of manufacturing, missing the run-of-the-mill wood of the forest for all the multi-coloured and resplendent trees contained therein. But no, that Mr Peters was soon thereafter sent out of the House on a rather spurious (and arguably undemocratic) technicality was all that ultimately mattered evidently - whether justifiably or not in this instance didn't bother such commentators a single whit.
(viii) For good 'ole hypocrisy, no less.
Indeed 'Socred' as we used to call it is the one and only political party I've ever been - if involuntarily, against my then knowledge and wish - a member (if rather briefly) of, essentially feeling unable to subsume my rather eclectic judgments on this, that and especially the other to any one political party, however much I resonated with its essential philosophy or however many of its individual policies I subscribed to. And of recent times I've agreed with the likes of the Mana Party's John Minto that Winston and his parliamentary colleagues have denied ex-NZ Firster Brendan Horan the natural justice owed each and every citizen of our great nation. And moreover I hardly took Mr Peters' side in the pre-2008 election events concerning Owen Glenn and the donations scandal as I believe it came to be known, seeing his behaviour as rather dodgy at best, and certainly extremely ungrateful - like Helen Clark and her Labour Government colleagues - for all the largesse Mr Owen had once lavished in their particular direction.
In addition I cannot but admit to feeling deep-seated revulsion for the politics of race Mr Peters was widely perceived as bringing to Parliament and New Zealand politics in the lead-up to the 1996 election in particular, and so I've had serious concerns about related immigration policies he and his party have often advocated since - above everything else how NZ First and especially Mr Peters have oftentimes chosen to couch the rhetoric they employed thereabouts. But having said all of that I nevertheless have found myself - on one occasion, 2002, (ii)despite the aforesaid being especially noticeable then, supporting them electorally (it should have included 2011, and almost was as I had a sudden 'inspiration' to do so at the very last moment in the polling booth) - and have generally found myself closer to their positions than to any other truly viable political force on the scene. And especially so on so-called 'moral issues', such as prostitution 'reform', civil unions and '(iii)gay' marriage, not to mention smacking: though admittedly upon the latter their stance was much more muted than might have been expected. However on matters economic I've also ever been in broad agreement, their sensible centre-left approach fitting me well, though of course both National and Labour at one time (as recently as the late seventies, even early eighties in fact) were essentially socially conservative and economically left-of-centre as the (iv)Winston First Party is today.
Having stated all the foregoing let me confess to actually being impressed today, during Parliament's notorious Question Time, with Winston Peters' exceedingly cautious and extremely measured (v)approach and presentation of his primary question, as well as each follow-up 'supplementary' he was allowed. Yes, he did fail to 'rark things up', as they say, and didn't engage in any of the petty grandstanding that he's usually (perhaps oftentimes justly) accused of, and definitely not the (vi)rather childish smirking and 'for the cameras' cheap ridicule that Mr Key and certain of his colleagues employed in response. And moreover he stuck to his guns, responding involuntarily under his breath about what an 'outrage' it was for the Speaker, David Carter, to - rather immediately, even seemingly automatically - assign his basic charge 'out of order' as if he'd been imputing actual corruption to the Minister in question, Judith Collins, which was clearly not the case. At least Peters could have hardly been accused of explicitly doing so, the most that could've been laid to his charge being that he had called into question the Minister's probity or rather lack thereof in lodging her expected returns to Parliament's Pecuniary Interests' Register - which I suppose, it might well be assumed, and seemingly was here by Speaker Carter, he thus implied was a deliberate, hence corrupt, action or rather inaction on her part. And so consequently he certainly did, and once again, get thrown out on his ear by the Speaker - ostensibly for failing to follow usual parliamentary protocol; or persisting therein after being duly cautioned.
Though methinks - and for a regular listener to Parliament like myself I feel entitled to speak with a modicum of 'authority' - the much more likely reason for Mr Peters' ejection from the Chamber was, as happens on a rather regular basis with Mr Carter as Speaker - wholly unlike with his well- (and even internationally-) esteemed predecessor, Lockwood Smith - Mr Peters had not only dared to challenge his ruling, and moreover his (moral) authority in the situation, but thus seemingly affronted David Carter, the man, himself. Though it could easily be argued that such ridiculous rulings, seemingly on an exponentially rising basis of recent times, are ipso facto opening themselves up to the very sort of ridicule and disorder the Speaker then accuses such as Mr Peters as causing. And may I even go so far as to assert that in this if in no other single instance, Mr Speaker appeared to actually pre-empt - not very hard with Mr Peters' well-signposted intention to raise his much-anticipated question today - the gist of what Mr Peters was intending to get at, and thus prematurely ruled all such questions' 'inferences and implications' out of order before they were even raised. Giving himself as Speaker a rather easy own goal (in his determination to maintain his own beloved mini-fiefdom, such as it is.)
Though, later on, reviewing the much-anticipated 'showdown at the parliamentary corral' on the two major TV news bulletins and accordingly feeling less convinced than before of my own understanding of what had transpired, I'm actually glad I initially listened on radio, as I'm convinced I was able to follow proceedings in a far less biased manner, appraising the words themselves and the manner in which they were spoken, presented and responded to, without any considerations of the usual visual nonsense that can so easily impede one's better judgment. And so let me say in no uncertain terms that Winston Peters' primary question and related line of questioning was not only couched, in both tone and content, in most reasonable, moderate terms, but, what's more to the point - (vii)however much propaganda to the contrary promoted by John Key and his ready array of sycophantic media acolytes (such as Larry Williams) and even National Radio reporters in this instance - the farthest thing from "incoherent" that one could claim. If anything the question was boringly simple and straightforward, and moreover as clear as daylight - but nevertheless, indeed perhaps for that very reason, thus unerringly zeroed in on its target and hit the bullseye. And I also suspect that the P.M.'s own immediate devaluing of Peters' 'bombshell' was rather more feigned, carefully-orchestrated and scripted for public consumption and the hordes of kiwis for whom he can never seemingly do any wrong than to any actual consideration of the concerns Winston expressed. Key's response was just too automatic knee-jerk reflexive and inconsistent with Peters' actual questions.
But finally, and by no means least, to pretend or make out, as Mr Key and his parliamentary colleagues so effectively have, that what is contained on the MPs' register of pecuniary interests is of relatively minimal consequence in the overall scheme of things, is, one cannot but admit, a brilliant political hat trick on the Government's part. Only problem is that the same standard is never applied to the likes of relative political newbies like David Shearer (when in New York) or other less popular MPs and/or ministers. But hey, Ms Collins is, after all, only the Minister of Justice, and, dearies, "leave 'er alone - she's gone through enough of late, what with all these nasty accusations and the like", and moreover the PM understanding her predicament by sending her home on sick leave for 5 days. Yeah, right: tell that to Maurice Williamson. Oh and while you're at it, pass the sentiment along to Pansy Wong, I'm sure she'll be equally sympathetic -not.
Afterthought: Sadly, for those of us who hope for and expect better from him, Winston has once again let himself and his side down - for all those who followed Wednesday's Question Time or rather General Debate. Imagining he'd been cunningly, strategically thinking outside the square and had actually decided to use the GD format for launching his main argument to reveal all upon Justice Minister Judith Collins - thus seemingly giving the Government false, cold comfort that things would go better in Parliament that day - that wish was rapidly deflated by Mr Peters' subsequent mini-tirade, it moreover soon becoming apparent things were about to spectacularly backfire in his very face. How so? Well, by simply - apparently - practising the usual sort of double standards here Peters so readily accuses his various (multitude of) opponents of - something, in fact which, on the floors of Parliament, has been known more than once to give rise to accusations of the dreaded (viii)'h' word - a definite political no-no in those unhallowed chambers.
(i) I did stand twice - and was elected overwhelmingly, possibly even unanimously, on both occasions (should have 'quit while I was ahead', eh) - but admittedly none of my classmates (in the 4th and 6th forms) happened to covet being on our high school's (rather activist) student council.
(ii) Why? Essentially because genetic modification/engineering was the one decisive issue that, upon P.M. Helen Clark's calling of a snap election, catapulted me down ipso pronto to the local Registrar of Electors to sign up for the coming poll. To say that I - I suspect like many other kiwis - was somewhat underwhelmed with the Greens', at least as indicated by then co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, rather hastily and needlessly backtracking from their - momentarily - courageous and decisive stance thereabouts, rather understates matters. Anyhow, the upshot is that I found, of the various parties also opposing a relaxing of the moratorium - including the likes of the (erstwhile) Alliance and (suddenly also) Jim Anderton's Progressives, United NZ and NZ First - only the latter was truly 'my cup of [strictly herbal, non-caffeinated and tannined] tea'. (For all the aforementioned reasons.) And did indeed deliver upon their pledge/policy, supporting - with a sizeable 13 of the 22 or so total - the wholly unsuccessful (as it transpired) attempt to get the moratorium extended.
(iii) No, the deliberate hijacking of the English language and, moreover, a perfectly good word with a bit of a pedigree to match, doesn't and has never met my approval.
(iv) Forgive me, Winston, I couldn't resist the obvious - if media and politically inspired - dig.
(v) Actually quite characteristic of Mr Peters since making his typically colourful and flamboyant return to Parliament in 2011 - however much and frequent the monotonous and predictably unthinking standard media commentary to the contrary. As is often said, repeating an untruth frequently doesn't thereby automatically transform it into a fact.
(vi) I somehow suspect they're just following their Textor & Crosby admen and women, who've instructed them: 'it's the baffle 'em with bullshit approach, stupid!'
(vii) Perhaps understandably few media folk readily forgo a ready-made opportunity to take Winston down a peg or two, but methinks they do so based upon a sporting-possessed nation's obsession to always find and pick winners and losers, and certainly not from any noble or even basic journalistic desire to glean what actually may be the real facts of the matter. Thus essentially falling into the very trap they would themselves often accuse Winston Peters of manufacturing, missing the run-of-the-mill wood of the forest for all the multi-coloured and resplendent trees contained therein. But no, that Mr Peters was soon thereafter sent out of the House on a rather spurious (and arguably undemocratic) technicality was all that ultimately mattered evidently - whether justifiably or not in this instance didn't bother such commentators a single whit.
(viii) For good 'ole hypocrisy, no less.
(ix) One other potential conflict of interest has just occurred to me: a well-taken photo of Winston Peters in the mid-90s with my politically active Dad and his wife might well seem to imply such (at least among my wider family). But seeing as my Dad was only ever (far as I'm aware, anyhow) a member of the New Labour Party (and so probably later the Alliance as well), then perhaps that's not a hanging offence (on my part) after all. I'm hoping, anyhow!
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Maurice Williamson, M.P. for Pakuranga: Ready-made Fall Guy for an Interest-laden Government
For once, to my shock and horror, a national media mogul 'took the words right out of my mouth' (to adopt the phraseology in Meat Loaf's old hit): that is, when TV3's The Nation host Lisa Owen cited Maurice Williamson as the Government's 'fall guy' in the present political landscape. Indeed that rather understates my reaction to Ms Owen this Sunday morning in regards to her (justifiably) lengthy interview with the former National Minister. For she gave him not only a far better 'interrogation' than did longtime presenter Susan Wood on TV1's equivalent 'Q & A' the previous hour, but I would argue a much fairer and more balanced, justifiably sympathetic 'grilling'; for she still spoke a mile a minute and took no prisoners in terms of getting every last ounce of response out of the obviously physically (and emotionally) exhausted but nevertheless quite coherent and persuasive Mr Williamson. Irrespective the long-serving Pakuranga M.P. certainly acquitted himself well and admirably in both instances, and especially so in view of his evidently having gone without shuteye and food ever since his personal misfortune broke on all and sundry last Thursday.
All too predictably, within a lickety-split Maurice Williamson was seized upon by P.M. John Key as the all-atoning fall guy or scapegoat for a Government long since under (often just) fire for two issues in particular, those of 'the Chinese connection' - i.e. of power, money and influence in New Zealand politics; and the National Administration's arguably lax response to domestic violence in God's Own (see for example the ACC's problematic non-dealing with sexual violence claimants in recent years, and, against the backdrop of the apparent marked decrease in crime 'across the board' throughout the land since National took office, seemingly only ever-increasing instances of sexual assault and domestic violence under the Government's watch.)
Hearing well-known political commentators - the Edwards Brothers I'll term them (the blogger Bryce Edwards of the University of Otago's Political Studies Department on Newstalk ZB's Friday evening 'Panel' discussion and Brent Edwards, Radio National's parliamentary correspondent on the public broadcaster's parallel programme at about the same time) - sound off on the matter, I found myself agreeing with Bryce to a point, insofar as he suggested Labour had been responding appropriately thus far - if in an understandably more measured way than usual in view of their own closeted skeletons from yesteryear. But no doubt that was only because I hadn't happened to hear any news reports of their response full stop. For to his suggestion that they were still a little late in getting off the starting blocks upon the matter I couldn't disagree more.
As far as I'm concerned, their one and only useful response thus far has been their complete silence, though all too typically this was soon cancelled out by their rather predictable reversion to good 'ole partisan politics - fully 'accepting' said ex-minister's guilt thus pre-empting the chance of his being proven innocent. Much as they've readily devoured each and every scandal engulfing their political opponents ever since they grabbed Tuku Morgan's undies firmly between both teeth back in early 1997 (or late 1996) and ran with them for all they were worth (or weren't!). Though it could well be argued that National has likewise done as much, and every bit as unscrupulously, when itself in Opposition.
Did it - (apparently) not - ever occur to them that instead of adopting el usual approach of playing up and unduly magnifying each and every inference gleaned from all such instances of indiscretion and alleged corruption then circulating all applicable innuendoes thereupon often and long enough, that there existed a ready if much less politically partisan alternative? That a much slower and more thoughtful, nuanced and considered approach might well have earned them much more credit with the general public? Even - God forbid - the very chance that Maurice might well be, as National Radio's Catherine Ryan commented to her comedian duo before Friday's midday news, actually telling it just as it in fact was - i.e. the full quid.
For 'as we all know' truth is indeed often a lot stranger than fiction, Mr Williamson's story being all the more believable for having certain elements which to a superficial critic might well initially have stood him in an unfavourable light. The very implausibility of his story, or rather the various strands and threads of it - just as a number of witnesses at a crime scene appear to superficial observers to have somewhat contradictory accounts, which, being perfectly human, they do, but that's hardly the point - thus ever so counterintuitively lending the very ring of truth to it (just as Pakuranga's own cheesy but unforgettable Colgate toothpaste smile was declared as doing on the TV ads in olden days!)
But no, like all 'good' political operators - with the slight exception of Grant Robertson, who made the apt if obvious comment that Judith Collins ought to have (long since) done the same, i.e. resigned - they soon swung into routine partisan denunciation and (sheeting home of due) opprobrium. Moreover they chose to characterize Williamson's apparent connection with, and moreover alleged advocacy on behalf of, someone involved in domestic violence in the darkest possible light, as such a thing readily suggested a red flag to a much-cherished constituency of theirs: naturally, as ever, assuming as most such middle-class 'intelligentsia' and identity politics' individuals ever do, that each and every instance of such crime is perpetrated by a man against a woman, when *well-conducted surveys by the likes of the arguably lefter than left University of Otago have long since shown that not to be the case. Indeed in a study they did female against male domestic violence was (at least quantitatively) 'greater' or more frequent than the converse.
In other words, for Maurice Williamson's involvement with any individual implicated in such a crime - convicted as yet or otherwise, which seems to be debatable seeing as Parliament's Speaker once again enforced the sub judice rule upon the parliamentary discussions thereof, though some have alleged said immigrant has already been indicted, only not yet sentenced - one and only one possible interpretation is possible: the MP must have one motive and one only in contacting the police, i.e. to be attempting an intervention on said individual's behalf to get him off said charges. The implication of course is clear: domestic violence is presumably of no great concern to a National M.P. or Minister, though of course no possible rationale for making such a general inference or rather slur upon said politicians as a group is really feasible.
Except of course good old left-wing prejudice against any and every 'Tory' politico, assuming the very worst in terms of male chauvinism, sexism etcetera. Because if you spread such innuendoes and inferences long enough, no doubt some of your mud will eventually stick. (Though I'd readily grant that much the same could be said vis-a-vis the typical line of slurs which right-of-centre politicoes themselves, and their media fellow-travellers, often make about their left-wing opponents. Yes, politics is ever politics, whatever the source thereof!)
Perhaps if they'd rather adopted the following approach they'd have - quite justly and justifiably - earned kudos from one and all, including Yours Truly: praised Maurice Williamson's rapid acceptance of responsibility for making a wrong call and accordingly deciding to quit his ministerial posts without delay, just as Labour's much-esteemed David Parker did himself during Labour's last tenure, to a virtual standing ovation from one and all in Parliament, including the National Party; made the obvious and logical comparison with Justice Minister Judith Collins' own predicament, calling upon her - as Mr Robertson did - to follow suit, and questioning (as they also have) why the Prime Minister seems to be adopting a different and inconsistent approach in the two instances; and perhaps then add that the charge of deliberate interference by Mr Williamson seemed completely out of character for someone well-known and noted for being a very able constituency advocate.
That though the matter certainly 'appeared' to put Mr Williamson in a rather unfavourable light, there could well be a quite innocent explanation for his behaviour which would actually give the lie to the only too obvious insinuation - admittedly pleasing for a Labour Party only too eager for fresh scandals to use against the Government of the day - thus elicited by said situation. Showing a refreshing and admittedly wholly unexpected impartiality and even-handedness which could take the public completely off guard and even, wonder of wonders, thus make them more inclined to vote for them. But doubtless such noble and lofty considerations rarely enter the minds - much less the hearts - of today's politicians. But dreams are ever free.
Disclaimer: 1) Having had my own words and meanings and intentions wrested and misrepresented by media and others, including political opponents and especially officious bureaucrats, over the decades, I concede I can rather easily and readily relate to, and empathize with, anyone else going through the ringer re the same. 2) I'm surprised to find myself thus going out of my way to argue the case for someone who I've oftentimes been critical of over the years, everything from Maurice Williamson's radical laissez-faire free market views to his botched re-introduction of five-ten year driver licences in the late 1990s, through to his recent acclamation by the international 'rainbow coalition' of homosexual activists for his strong stance and memorable speech in support of the Marriage Amendment Act - i.e. Gay Marriage Equality legislation.
As for the usually sensible 'the Two's' (i.e. Pam Corkery and Tim Roxborough) panning Mr Williamson as per his future employment prospects - "no-one'd employ him"; and disparagingly comparing his physical-emotional state on TV today with those of well-composed flood victims in Christchurch, let me say this. Though their comparison with and contrast between those ever markedly-composed sufferers from Christchurch's dreadful ongoing trials and tribulations and the ex-Minister seem rather salient, methinks they'd also be among those only all too ready to criticize the male of the species - especially public leadership thereof - for failing to show such emotions in the circumstances.
Interestingly the very term 'fall guy' immediately sprang to mind upon the announcement of Mr Williamson's resignation last week, as had the song 'Candle in the Wind' soon after the death of Princess Diana 17 years ago - who doesn't remember exactly where they were? - which indeed was itself 'prescient' of a sort, for Elton John almost immediately thereafter reworked his much-celebrated hit into 'England's Rose' for Princess Di's funeral service.
And one thing I hadn't realized and now celebrate, was not only Mr Williamson's good 'ole oh-so-kiwi (generally) common sense approach to this, that and the next thing, but moreover his (apparently relatively uncommon) understanding, appreciation - and that in a practical way - of the real role required of a local, constituency member of Parliament, an electorate M.P.. Which I'd argue is not only streaks - indeed light years I suspect - ahead of most of his own party compatriots and parliamentary colleagues more generally, but perhaps unequalled - anecdotally anyhow - by any other MP save the likes of Te Tai Tokerau's Hone Harewira.
*Indeed in the course of Yours Truly's 'mousebitten' approach to research and gleaning from eclectic sources of all sorts, I just so happened to uncover a similar bit of research info - from a late 70s'/early 80s' issue of none other than that red rag of extreme feminism, Ms Magazine - that is specifically cited and noted by its founding editor, Gloria Steinem. However, as might be expected in the circumstances, Ms Steinem automatically downplayed and attempted to discredit the implications of said research - conducted by herself among others - assuming, as such ideologues ever do, extenuating circumstances (I suppose of ye 'ole provocation variety) for those (women) upon the other (dishing out) end of such abuse. In other words women are never actually responsible for such domestic violence even when they are most assuredly so!
As a lifetime hoarder, various magazines of me and my siblings still inhabit the lower recesses of our abode - everything from Ms Magazine to my beloved Gram's Modern Maturitys and Let's Live (and Thursdays and Mushrooms) through to the ever-perennial NZ Listeners, Times and Newsweeks, not to mention our beloved childhood mags such as Look and Learn and World of Wonders.
All too predictably, within a lickety-split Maurice Williamson was seized upon by P.M. John Key as the all-atoning fall guy or scapegoat for a Government long since under (often just) fire for two issues in particular, those of 'the Chinese connection' - i.e. of power, money and influence in New Zealand politics; and the National Administration's arguably lax response to domestic violence in God's Own (see for example the ACC's problematic non-dealing with sexual violence claimants in recent years, and, against the backdrop of the apparent marked decrease in crime 'across the board' throughout the land since National took office, seemingly only ever-increasing instances of sexual assault and domestic violence under the Government's watch.)
Hearing well-known political commentators - the Edwards Brothers I'll term them (the blogger Bryce Edwards of the University of Otago's Political Studies Department on Newstalk ZB's Friday evening 'Panel' discussion and Brent Edwards, Radio National's parliamentary correspondent on the public broadcaster's parallel programme at about the same time) - sound off on the matter, I found myself agreeing with Bryce to a point, insofar as he suggested Labour had been responding appropriately thus far - if in an understandably more measured way than usual in view of their own closeted skeletons from yesteryear. But no doubt that was only because I hadn't happened to hear any news reports of their response full stop. For to his suggestion that they were still a little late in getting off the starting blocks upon the matter I couldn't disagree more.
As far as I'm concerned, their one and only useful response thus far has been their complete silence, though all too typically this was soon cancelled out by their rather predictable reversion to good 'ole partisan politics - fully 'accepting' said ex-minister's guilt thus pre-empting the chance of his being proven innocent. Much as they've readily devoured each and every scandal engulfing their political opponents ever since they grabbed Tuku Morgan's undies firmly between both teeth back in early 1997 (or late 1996) and ran with them for all they were worth (or weren't!). Though it could well be argued that National has likewise done as much, and every bit as unscrupulously, when itself in Opposition.
Did it - (apparently) not - ever occur to them that instead of adopting el usual approach of playing up and unduly magnifying each and every inference gleaned from all such instances of indiscretion and alleged corruption then circulating all applicable innuendoes thereupon often and long enough, that there existed a ready if much less politically partisan alternative? That a much slower and more thoughtful, nuanced and considered approach might well have earned them much more credit with the general public? Even - God forbid - the very chance that Maurice might well be, as National Radio's Catherine Ryan commented to her comedian duo before Friday's midday news, actually telling it just as it in fact was - i.e. the full quid.
For 'as we all know' truth is indeed often a lot stranger than fiction, Mr Williamson's story being all the more believable for having certain elements which to a superficial critic might well initially have stood him in an unfavourable light. The very implausibility of his story, or rather the various strands and threads of it - just as a number of witnesses at a crime scene appear to superficial observers to have somewhat contradictory accounts, which, being perfectly human, they do, but that's hardly the point - thus ever so counterintuitively lending the very ring of truth to it (just as Pakuranga's own cheesy but unforgettable Colgate toothpaste smile was declared as doing on the TV ads in olden days!)
But no, like all 'good' political operators - with the slight exception of Grant Robertson, who made the apt if obvious comment that Judith Collins ought to have (long since) done the same, i.e. resigned - they soon swung into routine partisan denunciation and (sheeting home of due) opprobrium. Moreover they chose to characterize Williamson's apparent connection with, and moreover alleged advocacy on behalf of, someone involved in domestic violence in the darkest possible light, as such a thing readily suggested a red flag to a much-cherished constituency of theirs: naturally, as ever, assuming as most such middle-class 'intelligentsia' and identity politics' individuals ever do, that each and every instance of such crime is perpetrated by a man against a woman, when *well-conducted surveys by the likes of the arguably lefter than left University of Otago have long since shown that not to be the case. Indeed in a study they did female against male domestic violence was (at least quantitatively) 'greater' or more frequent than the converse.
In other words, for Maurice Williamson's involvement with any individual implicated in such a crime - convicted as yet or otherwise, which seems to be debatable seeing as Parliament's Speaker once again enforced the sub judice rule upon the parliamentary discussions thereof, though some have alleged said immigrant has already been indicted, only not yet sentenced - one and only one possible interpretation is possible: the MP must have one motive and one only in contacting the police, i.e. to be attempting an intervention on said individual's behalf to get him off said charges. The implication of course is clear: domestic violence is presumably of no great concern to a National M.P. or Minister, though of course no possible rationale for making such a general inference or rather slur upon said politicians as a group is really feasible.
Except of course good old left-wing prejudice against any and every 'Tory' politico, assuming the very worst in terms of male chauvinism, sexism etcetera. Because if you spread such innuendoes and inferences long enough, no doubt some of your mud will eventually stick. (Though I'd readily grant that much the same could be said vis-a-vis the typical line of slurs which right-of-centre politicoes themselves, and their media fellow-travellers, often make about their left-wing opponents. Yes, politics is ever politics, whatever the source thereof!)
Perhaps if they'd rather adopted the following approach they'd have - quite justly and justifiably - earned kudos from one and all, including Yours Truly: praised Maurice Williamson's rapid acceptance of responsibility for making a wrong call and accordingly deciding to quit his ministerial posts without delay, just as Labour's much-esteemed David Parker did himself during Labour's last tenure, to a virtual standing ovation from one and all in Parliament, including the National Party; made the obvious and logical comparison with Justice Minister Judith Collins' own predicament, calling upon her - as Mr Robertson did - to follow suit, and questioning (as they also have) why the Prime Minister seems to be adopting a different and inconsistent approach in the two instances; and perhaps then add that the charge of deliberate interference by Mr Williamson seemed completely out of character for someone well-known and noted for being a very able constituency advocate.
That though the matter certainly 'appeared' to put Mr Williamson in a rather unfavourable light, there could well be a quite innocent explanation for his behaviour which would actually give the lie to the only too obvious insinuation - admittedly pleasing for a Labour Party only too eager for fresh scandals to use against the Government of the day - thus elicited by said situation. Showing a refreshing and admittedly wholly unexpected impartiality and even-handedness which could take the public completely off guard and even, wonder of wonders, thus make them more inclined to vote for them. But doubtless such noble and lofty considerations rarely enter the minds - much less the hearts - of today's politicians. But dreams are ever free.
Disclaimer: 1) Having had my own words and meanings and intentions wrested and misrepresented by media and others, including political opponents and especially officious bureaucrats, over the decades, I concede I can rather easily and readily relate to, and empathize with, anyone else going through the ringer re the same. 2) I'm surprised to find myself thus going out of my way to argue the case for someone who I've oftentimes been critical of over the years, everything from Maurice Williamson's radical laissez-faire free market views to his botched re-introduction of five-ten year driver licences in the late 1990s, through to his recent acclamation by the international 'rainbow coalition' of homosexual activists for his strong stance and memorable speech in support of the Marriage Amendment Act - i.e. Gay Marriage Equality legislation.
As for the usually sensible 'the Two's' (i.e. Pam Corkery and Tim Roxborough) panning Mr Williamson as per his future employment prospects - "no-one'd employ him"; and disparagingly comparing his physical-emotional state on TV today with those of well-composed flood victims in Christchurch, let me say this. Though their comparison with and contrast between those ever markedly-composed sufferers from Christchurch's dreadful ongoing trials and tribulations and the ex-Minister seem rather salient, methinks they'd also be among those only all too ready to criticize the male of the species - especially public leadership thereof - for failing to show such emotions in the circumstances.
Interestingly the very term 'fall guy' immediately sprang to mind upon the announcement of Mr Williamson's resignation last week, as had the song 'Candle in the Wind' soon after the death of Princess Diana 17 years ago - who doesn't remember exactly where they were? - which indeed was itself 'prescient' of a sort, for Elton John almost immediately thereafter reworked his much-celebrated hit into 'England's Rose' for Princess Di's funeral service.
And one thing I hadn't realized and now celebrate, was not only Mr Williamson's good 'ole oh-so-kiwi (generally) common sense approach to this, that and the next thing, but moreover his (apparently relatively uncommon) understanding, appreciation - and that in a practical way - of the real role required of a local, constituency member of Parliament, an electorate M.P.. Which I'd argue is not only streaks - indeed light years I suspect - ahead of most of his own party compatriots and parliamentary colleagues more generally, but perhaps unequalled - anecdotally anyhow - by any other MP save the likes of Te Tai Tokerau's Hone Harewira.
*Indeed in the course of Yours Truly's 'mousebitten' approach to research and gleaning from eclectic sources of all sorts, I just so happened to uncover a similar bit of research info - from a late 70s'/early 80s' issue of none other than that red rag of extreme feminism, Ms Magazine - that is specifically cited and noted by its founding editor, Gloria Steinem. However, as might be expected in the circumstances, Ms Steinem automatically downplayed and attempted to discredit the implications of said research - conducted by herself among others - assuming, as such ideologues ever do, extenuating circumstances (I suppose of ye 'ole provocation variety) for those (women) upon the other (dishing out) end of such abuse. In other words women are never actually responsible for such domestic violence even when they are most assuredly so!
As a lifetime hoarder, various magazines of me and my siblings still inhabit the lower recesses of our abode - everything from Ms Magazine to my beloved Gram's Modern Maturitys and Let's Live (and Thursdays and Mushrooms) through to the ever-perennial NZ Listeners, Times and Newsweeks, not to mention our beloved childhood mags such as Look and Learn and World of Wonders.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Postscript vis-a-vis Tony Benn: Not Alone in Letting his personal political bent get in the way of the cold, hard political realities
For those who maintain that we all see only those things, those 'facts' that we want to see, I believe this was true in the life of that socialist standard-bearer Tony Benn, equal longest-serving M.P., apparently, in Great Britain's House of Commons, and accordingly granted a privilege the Queen of England and the British Commonwealth has evidently accorded to only one other, ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher herself. Yes, like that esteemed lady Benn was allowed to lie in state (if for but a night) in (I believe) Winchester Cathedral.
But onto less symbolically significant and yet more essentially important matters. Confession time being upon me, I am forced to admit I suspect I've been way too generous towards Mr Benn. For it greatly stretches credulity, indeed it literally beggars belief, to believe that TB didn't, like so very many of his left-wing fellow-travellers - indeed as with my own parents, I strongly (and have every good reason) to suspect - realize that much worse things were actually 'going down' in at least the Chinese segment of the communist 'world' that he personally, publicly visited than were then being admitted by his political compatriots back home. To wit, how can I possibly, as I attested in my previous rather glowing eulogy to Wedgwood Benn's life and times, maintain that his publicly-expressed views upon Mao Tse-Tung and Marxism represent some merely minor, marginal, inconsequential blind spot upon his part to realities he sought vainly to hide from his own eyes?
For indeed that Tony Benn, in this regard, not only harboured a major - and arguably fatal - blind spot, nay, even paraded this quite openly as if he had absolute blinkers on, is hard to get away from. Quite apart from his ardent defence of the very theory of Marxism 'to the bitter end', far more tellingly, in my view, upon a visit to China while serving in the Government of Harold Wilson's Labour Party, he was said to have proclaimed Mao Tse-Tung "the greatest man of the 20th Century". And yet it is more than well-established these days that under Mao Zedung's bloodthirsty rule between 40 to 50 million people were killed, even more than Josef Stalin's 30-40 million victims and way more than those (six-some million) long since attributed to that justifiably-execrated mass murderer Adolf Hitler. And surely even 'way back then', i.e. in the 50s, 60s and 70s especially (let alone the 80s and 90s), sufficient of these facts had well and truly more than trickled out to give 'politicians incorporated' enough of an inkling that something foul and festering was indeed afoot in these 'marxist' lands.
As for defending Marx's own special theorem of social-political-economic life in post-feudal, capitalist societies, i.e. Marxism, one perceptive novelist, whose olden tome, Marjorie Morningstar, I happened to open at random just the other day (to clear our garage of a decades-long accumulated barracks of literary hoardings), reckoned, among other profundities therein (at least as represented by one of her protagonist's utterances), the theory would've and should've been known as Engelism. The reason? According to this account anyway, Friedrich Engels himself contributed as much of the 'quality' (if not sheer quantity) of the theory popularly known as Marxism today - but the title simply wouldn't have sounded as good and caught on. Anyhow, a varsity (that's kiwi, i.e. New Zealand, idiom for a university, 'higher centre of learning' or tertiary education provider) I myself attended - both in the early-to-mid 1980s and then again in the early-to-mid 2000s - had one particular Political Studies (Science) professor who had a quite different view from that normally associated with such modern-day bastions of liberality and 'leftism'.
This Jindra Tichy - not all that long ago voted in an international poll of her fellow ex-Czechoslovakians (the former Eastern Bloc nation now of course commonly known as the two nations of Slovakia and the Czech Republic) as among its (ten) most renowned former citizens - herself taught a university paper upon this selfsame subject entitled 'Marx and Nietzsche'. In this course she postulated her belief, nay heartfelt conviction, that the so-called 'Marxism' that was put into effect in the former U.S.S.R (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), or Soviet Union, across the former Eastern Bloc nations of Europe (also) comprising Albania (effectively if not in strict actuality), Bulgaria, (the then) Eastern Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the then Yugoslavia 'et al'(!), and later circulating throughout South-east Asia from China, through North Korea and Vietnam, Cambodia (now Kampuchea), Laos 'et al'(!), was indeed exactly what it (i.e. its self-anointed leadership) declared itself to be: i.e. Marxism, Marxist-Leninism, Communism. And not some bastardized, distorted, hand-me-down version of the same - as so many of Tichy's erstwhile colleagues so persistently seemed to assert and affirm. No ifs, buts or even maybes.
And to say that she was amazed at finding this 'logical' 'illogic' when she arrived in the West is quite an understatement. Leaving her native land of Czechoslovakia in fear for her life and that of her family, the then Communist leader of the land having evidently made it clear that they, or at least she, was under suspicion and accordingly might soon be up for some rather significant repercussions if she/they remained, after arrival in God's Own, i.e. Aotearoa-New Zealand, Ms Tichy was dumbfounded in what she discovered. It was that many of her (at least Political Studies and/or Humanities) professional colleagues were not only subscribers to that (barbarous) political ethic, in order to justify this they even maintained - incomprehensibly to her, and understandably so, for obvious reasons - that the actual sort of communism, or Marxism, practiced 'back home' (and throughout the Eastern Bloc etc) was simply not the genuine version: it was a sad parody of it. And therefore was not even fit to be classed alongside it much less cited in the selfsame breath.
And though Yours Truly on one or two occasions recalls - in some typical sort of grandstanding, self-righteous, self-important, student know-it-all expertise upon the matter - challenging Ms Tichy in relation to her own hearty and bona fide defence of capitalism (I imagine not far removed from the Act Party version thereof), while I somehow defended on some grounds some much-watered down version of 'socialism', it was probably more based upon personal pique at my inability to effectively critique her own arguments. If I'm honest enough to engage in some real self-reflection.
Which is perhaps the most important point of this entire discussion vis-a-vis Tony Benn's most conspicuous blind spot. Which is simply this - and I'd argue it applies to most if not all of us (at some time or other in our political life journey), if we're truly honest: what we end up eventually 'seeing' (whether literally or metaphorically) is often, yea usually (if not always) precisely what we want to see - or what serves or caters to our own deep-seated - if often subconscious - personal biases and leanings and even prejudices. Much like that fabled elephant whose blindfolded human 'inspectors' imagined or presumed they were touching just what their own impressions suggested - and yet incredibly, in some perverse realization of the maxim that impressions are the reality, they were each and every one - in their own way - right. What they saw was indeed precisely what they 'got', or a reflection of their view (however limited and obscured).
And - will wonders never cease? - the oft-berated field of modern sociological-psychological research now backs up this idea. As was revealed on yesterday's (Tuesday the 8th of April's) 'What the World Thinks' pre-Panel discussion upon New Zealand National's 'Afternoons with Jim Mora', with guest Michael Moynihan, politicians, in trying to convince 'unbelievers' of their own especial take upon the political landscape, so often waste the precious time of most of us (and themselves). For, as was expressed in much better, more articulate fashion upon selfsame show, "no matter how good [i.e. persuasive and ultimately correct] the information politicians give us, we [the great majority if not indeed all of us] don't really listen to it unless it [already] agrees with our own [pre-existing/ predetermined] views". However much we might seek to convince ourselves otherwise.
So - I'll readily and freely concede - Tony Benn wore major blinkers when and where it suited him...and indeed in an area where he really had little if any excuse. For Benn throughout his political career championed liberty, democracy and equality - for everyone - and so it was no small failing on his part to have overlooked/glossed over/disregarded/looked the other way - much like the infamous priest and levite in the famous parable of the Good Samaritan - when it came to Mao and his bloody butchery. Especially for someone who, among his famous witticisms, once remarked that he had only contempt for anyone who publicly expressed [political etc] views he didn't really personally subscribe to. And it seems unlikely (if also understandable as a consequence) that questions of personal safety didn't have a major influence upon what he said upon meeting China's renowned, infamous leader Mao, and yet it seems utterly inconceivable that he could've been uninformed upon the real state of play on what was going down under his despotic rule.
But then, perhaps one cannot help but add: there, but for the grace of God, go all of us essentially. Or to use the words of a truly great moral revolutionary who wielded no actual political power as such but tonnes, nay tons (it sounds so much better) of world-transforming spiritual influence and authority: let him who is without [such] sin [or moral blindness, in this case] cast the first stone. And as happened then, one would hope we all have enough personal honesty to take up our own collection of stones and wander away without further comment. For however much decried by one and all (at least among church folk) the Pharisees in His day invariably are, at least those religious hypocrites in Jesus Christ's own time had sufficient honesty to do as much.
Likewise I would suggest that those who today set themselves up as some sort of 'moral guardians', especially the likes of talkback hosts whose pronouncements upon 'each and every' issue of our own day carry all the gravity and seeming authority of those societal leaders of yesteryear, would do well, as that selfsame 'Leader of Men' suggested at the end of his aforementioned famous parable, to themselves henceforth 'go and do likewise'.Unless that is they actually happen to see themselves as modern-day popes, as those whose every utterance serves their fellows as some sort of inerrant, infallible moral compass and guide. That is, if they do actually see themselves as verily mini-gods and goddesses. If so, God help us all.
But onto less symbolically significant and yet more essentially important matters. Confession time being upon me, I am forced to admit I suspect I've been way too generous towards Mr Benn. For it greatly stretches credulity, indeed it literally beggars belief, to believe that TB didn't, like so very many of his left-wing fellow-travellers - indeed as with my own parents, I strongly (and have every good reason) to suspect - realize that much worse things were actually 'going down' in at least the Chinese segment of the communist 'world' that he personally, publicly visited than were then being admitted by his political compatriots back home. To wit, how can I possibly, as I attested in my previous rather glowing eulogy to Wedgwood Benn's life and times, maintain that his publicly-expressed views upon Mao Tse-Tung and Marxism represent some merely minor, marginal, inconsequential blind spot upon his part to realities he sought vainly to hide from his own eyes?
For indeed that Tony Benn, in this regard, not only harboured a major - and arguably fatal - blind spot, nay, even paraded this quite openly as if he had absolute blinkers on, is hard to get away from. Quite apart from his ardent defence of the very theory of Marxism 'to the bitter end', far more tellingly, in my view, upon a visit to China while serving in the Government of Harold Wilson's Labour Party, he was said to have proclaimed Mao Tse-Tung "the greatest man of the 20th Century". And yet it is more than well-established these days that under Mao Zedung's bloodthirsty rule between 40 to 50 million people were killed, even more than Josef Stalin's 30-40 million victims and way more than those (six-some million) long since attributed to that justifiably-execrated mass murderer Adolf Hitler. And surely even 'way back then', i.e. in the 50s, 60s and 70s especially (let alone the 80s and 90s), sufficient of these facts had well and truly more than trickled out to give 'politicians incorporated' enough of an inkling that something foul and festering was indeed afoot in these 'marxist' lands.
As for defending Marx's own special theorem of social-political-economic life in post-feudal, capitalist societies, i.e. Marxism, one perceptive novelist, whose olden tome, Marjorie Morningstar, I happened to open at random just the other day (to clear our garage of a decades-long accumulated barracks of literary hoardings), reckoned, among other profundities therein (at least as represented by one of her protagonist's utterances), the theory would've and should've been known as Engelism. The reason? According to this account anyway, Friedrich Engels himself contributed as much of the 'quality' (if not sheer quantity) of the theory popularly known as Marxism today - but the title simply wouldn't have sounded as good and caught on. Anyhow, a varsity (that's kiwi, i.e. New Zealand, idiom for a university, 'higher centre of learning' or tertiary education provider) I myself attended - both in the early-to-mid 1980s and then again in the early-to-mid 2000s - had one particular Political Studies (Science) professor who had a quite different view from that normally associated with such modern-day bastions of liberality and 'leftism'.
This Jindra Tichy - not all that long ago voted in an international poll of her fellow ex-Czechoslovakians (the former Eastern Bloc nation now of course commonly known as the two nations of Slovakia and the Czech Republic) as among its (ten) most renowned former citizens - herself taught a university paper upon this selfsame subject entitled 'Marx and Nietzsche'. In this course she postulated her belief, nay heartfelt conviction, that the so-called 'Marxism' that was put into effect in the former U.S.S.R (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), or Soviet Union, across the former Eastern Bloc nations of Europe (also) comprising Albania (effectively if not in strict actuality), Bulgaria, (the then) Eastern Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the then Yugoslavia 'et al'(!), and later circulating throughout South-east Asia from China, through North Korea and Vietnam, Cambodia (now Kampuchea), Laos 'et al'(!), was indeed exactly what it (i.e. its self-anointed leadership) declared itself to be: i.e. Marxism, Marxist-Leninism, Communism. And not some bastardized, distorted, hand-me-down version of the same - as so many of Tichy's erstwhile colleagues so persistently seemed to assert and affirm. No ifs, buts or even maybes.
And to say that she was amazed at finding this 'logical' 'illogic' when she arrived in the West is quite an understatement. Leaving her native land of Czechoslovakia in fear for her life and that of her family, the then Communist leader of the land having evidently made it clear that they, or at least she, was under suspicion and accordingly might soon be up for some rather significant repercussions if she/they remained, after arrival in God's Own, i.e. Aotearoa-New Zealand, Ms Tichy was dumbfounded in what she discovered. It was that many of her (at least Political Studies and/or Humanities) professional colleagues were not only subscribers to that (barbarous) political ethic, in order to justify this they even maintained - incomprehensibly to her, and understandably so, for obvious reasons - that the actual sort of communism, or Marxism, practiced 'back home' (and throughout the Eastern Bloc etc) was simply not the genuine version: it was a sad parody of it. And therefore was not even fit to be classed alongside it much less cited in the selfsame breath.
And though Yours Truly on one or two occasions recalls - in some typical sort of grandstanding, self-righteous, self-important, student know-it-all expertise upon the matter - challenging Ms Tichy in relation to her own hearty and bona fide defence of capitalism (I imagine not far removed from the Act Party version thereof), while I somehow defended on some grounds some much-watered down version of 'socialism', it was probably more based upon personal pique at my inability to effectively critique her own arguments. If I'm honest enough to engage in some real self-reflection.
Which is perhaps the most important point of this entire discussion vis-a-vis Tony Benn's most conspicuous blind spot. Which is simply this - and I'd argue it applies to most if not all of us (at some time or other in our political life journey), if we're truly honest: what we end up eventually 'seeing' (whether literally or metaphorically) is often, yea usually (if not always) precisely what we want to see - or what serves or caters to our own deep-seated - if often subconscious - personal biases and leanings and even prejudices. Much like that fabled elephant whose blindfolded human 'inspectors' imagined or presumed they were touching just what their own impressions suggested - and yet incredibly, in some perverse realization of the maxim that impressions are the reality, they were each and every one - in their own way - right. What they saw was indeed precisely what they 'got', or a reflection of their view (however limited and obscured).
And - will wonders never cease? - the oft-berated field of modern sociological-psychological research now backs up this idea. As was revealed on yesterday's (Tuesday the 8th of April's) 'What the World Thinks' pre-Panel discussion upon New Zealand National's 'Afternoons with Jim Mora', with guest Michael Moynihan, politicians, in trying to convince 'unbelievers' of their own especial take upon the political landscape, so often waste the precious time of most of us (and themselves). For, as was expressed in much better, more articulate fashion upon selfsame show, "no matter how good [i.e. persuasive and ultimately correct] the information politicians give us, we [the great majority if not indeed all of us] don't really listen to it unless it [already] agrees with our own [pre-existing/ predetermined] views". However much we might seek to convince ourselves otherwise.
So - I'll readily and freely concede - Tony Benn wore major blinkers when and where it suited him...and indeed in an area where he really had little if any excuse. For Benn throughout his political career championed liberty, democracy and equality - for everyone - and so it was no small failing on his part to have overlooked/glossed over/disregarded/looked the other way - much like the infamous priest and levite in the famous parable of the Good Samaritan - when it came to Mao and his bloody butchery. Especially for someone who, among his famous witticisms, once remarked that he had only contempt for anyone who publicly expressed [political etc] views he didn't really personally subscribe to. And it seems unlikely (if also understandable as a consequence) that questions of personal safety didn't have a major influence upon what he said upon meeting China's renowned, infamous leader Mao, and yet it seems utterly inconceivable that he could've been uninformed upon the real state of play on what was going down under his despotic rule.
But then, perhaps one cannot help but add: there, but for the grace of God, go all of us essentially. Or to use the words of a truly great moral revolutionary who wielded no actual political power as such but tonnes, nay tons (it sounds so much better) of world-transforming spiritual influence and authority: let him who is without [such] sin [or moral blindness, in this case] cast the first stone. And as happened then, one would hope we all have enough personal honesty to take up our own collection of stones and wander away without further comment. For however much decried by one and all (at least among church folk) the Pharisees in His day invariably are, at least those religious hypocrites in Jesus Christ's own time had sufficient honesty to do as much.
Likewise I would suggest that those who today set themselves up as some sort of 'moral guardians', especially the likes of talkback hosts whose pronouncements upon 'each and every' issue of our own day carry all the gravity and seeming authority of those societal leaders of yesteryear, would do well, as that selfsame 'Leader of Men' suggested at the end of his aforementioned famous parable, to themselves henceforth 'go and do likewise'.Unless that is they actually happen to see themselves as modern-day popes, as those whose every utterance serves their fellows as some sort of inerrant, infallible moral compass and guide. That is, if they do actually see themselves as verily mini-gods and goddesses. If so, God help us all.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
All Out for 88: Good-bye to an UnYellow-bellied Trail-Blazer who most certainly was not just 'another Brick in the [political] wall' of his day and age
A Tribute to Tony Benn, M.P. and 'man of the people': Apostle of the British Left, bent but unbowed with age, who departed us without all the usual fanfare, glare and blare of publicity, hoop-la and hullabaloo. A man moreover, unlike the (original) scarecrow, tinman, and lion of the land of *Oz, possessed with acuity of mind, a noble and generous heart of concern, and the undaunted courage and indomitableness of the king of the animal kingdom.
As the classic (late 70s'/early 80s') British sitcom, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin - now available on dvd for all those like-hearted enthusiasts - terms him in making its endearingly affectionate, backhandedly complimentary and infamously hilarious reference, when one of its cast, Reggie's son-in-law I think, arrives with a placard calling upon him to be appointed and installed as Pope, Wedgwood Benn left his mark on the British/U.K. political scene in no uncertain, equivocal fashion; bestriding the political stage with his quixotic, unorthodox personality and value system as few of his ideological bent did or ever could have.
A man of the masses, apparently passed over as deputy leader of his party in the early 80s, and who would've, surely, proven a much more formidable, even if ultimately vanquishable opponent, to his lifetime bete noire 'Maggie' Thatcher - certainly than his left-wing fellow (Labour Party) traveller - the academic and thus understandably far less streetwise and politically savvy Michael Foot(e). A would-be leader truly 'of, by and for the people' unlike so many of his apparently elitist colleagues both in his heyday and ever since.
But like all great spiritual leaders without due recognition and public credentials, Mr Benn needed no such external honours to make him any more the natural leader of men he indisputably was. Someone with a natural charisma who didn't need or employ fancy gimmicks to attract or garner support (either among his political colleagues or the general public-at-large). No, spin doctors, political consultants and public relations firms and 'makeovers', and of course those ever bungling, oh-so-officious bureaucrats - as so wonderfully spoofed in that other classic British comedy 'Yes Minister' - were not in his vocabulary, excepting in his undisguised scorn thereof.
Yes, none of these were his 'deal'. Benn neither desired much less needed such vanities in pursuing his political objectives, which were simply, as in the immortal slogan of the French Republic: liberty, fraternity and equality. In equal portions and simultaneously.
Some would say that actually 'walking the walk', not just 'talking the talk', or of being more occupied in practical 'do-ey' than mere hui, as New Zealand's one-time maverick M.P. and likewise much-touted potential (first Maori) prime minister John Tamihere has been known to put things; practising what one preaches, in other words: is rather a superfluous adjunct, an unnecessary extra, in today's soundbitten, media-driven, -dominated and -determined Western political landscape. Hey, why bother, when just winging it on the proverbial song and a (secular) prayer will - apparently - do the job well enough?
Thankfully, a few politicians, such as Tony Benn, thought, and, more's to the point, acted and lived differently. And that, as they say, made all the difference.
Methinks like New Zealand's popular, beloved and now immortalized early 1970s' Prime Minister Norman Kirk - who shared, by phone, a word or more of heartfelt congratulations to the Studio One musical grouping, The September All-Time Bulldog Band, as they sang (what would prove Mr Kirk's earthly send-off) the memorable lyrics of their tuneful classic hit, Big Norm, on the very eve of his death in a hospital bed - Tony Wedgwood Benn likewise caught the very spirit of Tom's placard and himself shared a wry smile thereabouts, perhaps realizing that for many of his own party (and public) faithful (followers) his own pronouncements carried a deeper sense of significance than many actual popes.
Indeed, apparently, besides being someone with an unashamedly Christian ethic and a deep spirituality marked by thoughtful reflection and a consistent lifestyle, and quite surprisingly in this day and age of undercover and rather shamefaced Christianity, to his enduring credit and perfectly in line with his unpolitically correct disposition, Benn made a number of unambiguously positive references to the 10 Commandments (of Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism).
Among other things, Tony Benn declared the superiority - for those seeking guidance and happiness - of those (what many such as the writer regard as actual God-given) declarations over the Dow Jones [Industrial Average]. He also suggested 'there are values, which, if you like, are laid down loosely in the Ten Commandments', shared by other religions, undergirding the universality of the fraternity of all humanity. Moreover he was 'true to the fourth Socialist Sunday School commandment: 'Honour good people, be courteous to all, bow down to none.' ' And last but certainly not least, he declared his relief that 'they haven't moderni[z]ed the Ten Commandments', adding: 'I can imagine what they [would] be like [if they were] - thou shall not kill unless [ex-U.S. President George W] Bush tells you to; thou shalt not commit adultery unless she's very attractive; and thou shalt not steal unless you need the money.'
Yes, Tony Benn was ever the supreme master of the understatement. And as regards his views upon the immutability of what a few of us still regard as God's holy, unchanging, good, perfect and spiritual Law - written by the very finger of God, even, upon tables or tablets of stone - in his own shy, inimitable and self-deprecating fashion he, quite inadvertently of course but nevertheless, in his own entirely naive but simultaneously ever perceptive, deeply insightful way, pointed out - again, I'll freely concede, entirely by chance - something that popes themselves and the so-called 'Holy See' of Rome, throughout the centuries and indeed millennia, have been conspicuous in treating somewhat differently.
Indeed it could well be argued that the modern-day movement to re-jig said 'eternal' commandments began long ago, when said papal leaders felt sufficient in themselves to 'upgrade' and improvise upon selfsame 10 divine Laws by reworking (if apparently on a small scale) commandments two, four, nine and ten, thus effectively placing a seal of contempt thereupon, something the large body of evangelical as well as mainstream Protestants have rather unquestioningly simply gone along with over recent centuries. But enough of my propaganda, such religious 'diatribes' being something Mr Benn would himself, no doubt, have heartily disapproved of - especially in defence of his own person - in light of his having been known to have declared, among his numerous recorded memorable, profound and simple sayings: 'A faith is something you die for; a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world' (emphasis entirely my own).
So, in the words of the 70s' kiwi chart-topper Big Norm, just as Aotearoa-New Zealand's 'man of big Labour was our big Norm[an Kirk]', and England's man of New Labour was Tony Blair, Great Britain's, indeed the United Kingdom's man of old (and real deal) Labour was Tony Benn. End of story.
But did 'the better man' [i.e. Tony] win? That is, the 'heroic failure' that was Tony Benn as opposed to the ever-charismatic, smile-a-while-and-give-your-face-a-lift (as the silly latter-day church ditty goes) Tony Blair. Maybe not in the short-term, but I've a sneaking feeling the never-lying pages of history may well one day tell a different story. Quite a different tale, in fact. Unembellished by any spin, empty media hype or propaganda, let alone PR-driven focus groups and opinion polling.
So adieu Tony, British politician extraordinaire - though no Churchill, you were truly in a class of your own, beyond mere 'class' (as in the system thereof), the great Prime Minister who was not to be. Yes, your understanding was certainly not perfect - as one somewhat critical but nonetheless fair-minded and balanced journalist, a Tom Doran whose blogpost 'Tony Benn: Heroic Failure', recently appeared on the British Independent's online edition, as regards China's bloodthirsty dictator Mao Zedong (and his communist ideology, and indeed Marxism per se) you definitely seemed to have major blinkers on. But ultimately you stood unflinchingly in defence of fairness, decency and goodwill toward each and every one of your fellow earth-travellers, and much more than merely preached or advocated such, you lived what you believed...no matter how unpopular or spurned by the masses in their own temporary capture by the media elites and conventional standard-bearers of society.
*Yet like the writer, methinks Mr Benn also immediately recollected and so shared another wry smile at the spontaneous public remembrance and instantaneous bursting forth of that classic Wizard of Oz song of celebration (at the recent passing of his lifelong political adversary and bete noire, long-serving British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher): 'Ding dong, the witch is dead, the wic-ked witch, the wic-ked witch; ding dong, the wic-ked witch is dead' (without being in any way spiteful or mean-spirited thereabouts, you understand!) But hey, I'm sure he simply enjoyed the fact he outlasted even she - if not quite, as it eventually transpired, by a country mile.
And I'm personally intrigued that one of the few issues I ever saw eye to eye with Maggie upon was one that Tony Benn himself might well have done, at least insofar as the sentiments he expressed back in December 1974 held through the following decades. He is recorded as then saying: 'Britain's continuing membership of the [European Economic] Community would mean the end of Britain as a completely self-governing nation.' Something that the present incumbent British Prime Minister, David Cameron, apparently himself schooled in democracy in his youth by one of Tony Benn's books, is perhaps now, if rather late in the piece, coming to realize himself. Yes, Mr Benn's legacy has and looks set to continue to cast a rather long shadow over succeeding generations of public and politicians alike. Which speaks for itself, doesn't it. No I mean really.
As the classic (late 70s'/early 80s') British sitcom, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin - now available on dvd for all those like-hearted enthusiasts - terms him in making its endearingly affectionate, backhandedly complimentary and infamously hilarious reference, when one of its cast, Reggie's son-in-law I think, arrives with a placard calling upon him to be appointed and installed as Pope, Wedgwood Benn left his mark on the British/U.K. political scene in no uncertain, equivocal fashion; bestriding the political stage with his quixotic, unorthodox personality and value system as few of his ideological bent did or ever could have.
A man of the masses, apparently passed over as deputy leader of his party in the early 80s, and who would've, surely, proven a much more formidable, even if ultimately vanquishable opponent, to his lifetime bete noire 'Maggie' Thatcher - certainly than his left-wing fellow (Labour Party) traveller - the academic and thus understandably far less streetwise and politically savvy Michael Foot(e). A would-be leader truly 'of, by and for the people' unlike so many of his apparently elitist colleagues both in his heyday and ever since.
But like all great spiritual leaders without due recognition and public credentials, Mr Benn needed no such external honours to make him any more the natural leader of men he indisputably was. Someone with a natural charisma who didn't need or employ fancy gimmicks to attract or garner support (either among his political colleagues or the general public-at-large). No, spin doctors, political consultants and public relations firms and 'makeovers', and of course those ever bungling, oh-so-officious bureaucrats - as so wonderfully spoofed in that other classic British comedy 'Yes Minister' - were not in his vocabulary, excepting in his undisguised scorn thereof.
Yes, none of these were his 'deal'. Benn neither desired much less needed such vanities in pursuing his political objectives, which were simply, as in the immortal slogan of the French Republic: liberty, fraternity and equality. In equal portions and simultaneously.
Some would say that actually 'walking the walk', not just 'talking the talk', or of being more occupied in practical 'do-ey' than mere hui, as New Zealand's one-time maverick M.P. and likewise much-touted potential (first Maori) prime minister John Tamihere has been known to put things; practising what one preaches, in other words: is rather a superfluous adjunct, an unnecessary extra, in today's soundbitten, media-driven, -dominated and -determined Western political landscape. Hey, why bother, when just winging it on the proverbial song and a (secular) prayer will - apparently - do the job well enough?
Thankfully, a few politicians, such as Tony Benn, thought, and, more's to the point, acted and lived differently. And that, as they say, made all the difference.
Methinks like New Zealand's popular, beloved and now immortalized early 1970s' Prime Minister Norman Kirk - who shared, by phone, a word or more of heartfelt congratulations to the Studio One musical grouping, The September All-Time Bulldog Band, as they sang (what would prove Mr Kirk's earthly send-off) the memorable lyrics of their tuneful classic hit, Big Norm, on the very eve of his death in a hospital bed - Tony Wedgwood Benn likewise caught the very spirit of Tom's placard and himself shared a wry smile thereabouts, perhaps realizing that for many of his own party (and public) faithful (followers) his own pronouncements carried a deeper sense of significance than many actual popes.
Indeed, apparently, besides being someone with an unashamedly Christian ethic and a deep spirituality marked by thoughtful reflection and a consistent lifestyle, and quite surprisingly in this day and age of undercover and rather shamefaced Christianity, to his enduring credit and perfectly in line with his unpolitically correct disposition, Benn made a number of unambiguously positive references to the 10 Commandments (of Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism).
Among other things, Tony Benn declared the superiority - for those seeking guidance and happiness - of those (what many such as the writer regard as actual God-given) declarations over the Dow Jones [Industrial Average]. He also suggested 'there are values, which, if you like, are laid down loosely in the Ten Commandments', shared by other religions, undergirding the universality of the fraternity of all humanity. Moreover he was 'true to the fourth Socialist Sunday School commandment: 'Honour good people, be courteous to all, bow down to none.' ' And last but certainly not least, he declared his relief that 'they haven't moderni[z]ed the Ten Commandments', adding: 'I can imagine what they [would] be like [if they were] - thou shall not kill unless [ex-U.S. President George W] Bush tells you to; thou shalt not commit adultery unless she's very attractive; and thou shalt not steal unless you need the money.'
Yes, Tony Benn was ever the supreme master of the understatement. And as regards his views upon the immutability of what a few of us still regard as God's holy, unchanging, good, perfect and spiritual Law - written by the very finger of God, even, upon tables or tablets of stone - in his own shy, inimitable and self-deprecating fashion he, quite inadvertently of course but nevertheless, in his own entirely naive but simultaneously ever perceptive, deeply insightful way, pointed out - again, I'll freely concede, entirely by chance - something that popes themselves and the so-called 'Holy See' of Rome, throughout the centuries and indeed millennia, have been conspicuous in treating somewhat differently.
Indeed it could well be argued that the modern-day movement to re-jig said 'eternal' commandments began long ago, when said papal leaders felt sufficient in themselves to 'upgrade' and improvise upon selfsame 10 divine Laws by reworking (if apparently on a small scale) commandments two, four, nine and ten, thus effectively placing a seal of contempt thereupon, something the large body of evangelical as well as mainstream Protestants have rather unquestioningly simply gone along with over recent centuries. But enough of my propaganda, such religious 'diatribes' being something Mr Benn would himself, no doubt, have heartily disapproved of - especially in defence of his own person - in light of his having been known to have declared, among his numerous recorded memorable, profound and simple sayings: 'A faith is something you die for; a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world' (emphasis entirely my own).
So, in the words of the 70s' kiwi chart-topper Big Norm, just as Aotearoa-New Zealand's 'man of big Labour was our big Norm[an Kirk]', and England's man of New Labour was Tony Blair, Great Britain's, indeed the United Kingdom's man of old (and real deal) Labour was Tony Benn. End of story.
But did 'the better man' [i.e. Tony] win? That is, the 'heroic failure' that was Tony Benn as opposed to the ever-charismatic, smile-a-while-and-give-your-face-a-lift (as the silly latter-day church ditty goes) Tony Blair. Maybe not in the short-term, but I've a sneaking feeling the never-lying pages of history may well one day tell a different story. Quite a different tale, in fact. Unembellished by any spin, empty media hype or propaganda, let alone PR-driven focus groups and opinion polling.
So adieu Tony, British politician extraordinaire - though no Churchill, you were truly in a class of your own, beyond mere 'class' (as in the system thereof), the great Prime Minister who was not to be. Yes, your understanding was certainly not perfect - as one somewhat critical but nonetheless fair-minded and balanced journalist, a Tom Doran whose blogpost 'Tony Benn: Heroic Failure', recently appeared on the British Independent's online edition, as regards China's bloodthirsty dictator Mao Zedong (and his communist ideology, and indeed Marxism per se) you definitely seemed to have major blinkers on. But ultimately you stood unflinchingly in defence of fairness, decency and goodwill toward each and every one of your fellow earth-travellers, and much more than merely preached or advocated such, you lived what you believed...no matter how unpopular or spurned by the masses in their own temporary capture by the media elites and conventional standard-bearers of society.
*Yet like the writer, methinks Mr Benn also immediately recollected and so shared another wry smile at the spontaneous public remembrance and instantaneous bursting forth of that classic Wizard of Oz song of celebration (at the recent passing of his lifelong political adversary and bete noire, long-serving British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher): 'Ding dong, the witch is dead, the wic-ked witch, the wic-ked witch; ding dong, the wic-ked witch is dead' (without being in any way spiteful or mean-spirited thereabouts, you understand!) But hey, I'm sure he simply enjoyed the fact he outlasted even she - if not quite, as it eventually transpired, by a country mile.
And I'm personally intrigued that one of the few issues I ever saw eye to eye with Maggie upon was one that Tony Benn himself might well have done, at least insofar as the sentiments he expressed back in December 1974 held through the following decades. He is recorded as then saying: 'Britain's continuing membership of the [European Economic] Community would mean the end of Britain as a completely self-governing nation.' Something that the present incumbent British Prime Minister, David Cameron, apparently himself schooled in democracy in his youth by one of Tony Benn's books, is perhaps now, if rather late in the piece, coming to realize himself. Yes, Mr Benn's legacy has and looks set to continue to cast a rather long shadow over succeeding generations of public and politicians alike. Which speaks for itself, doesn't it. No I mean really.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
The (PJ version) Hobbit film #2: Part 3: But It's Not All Bad, Though Much Is Indeed Decidedly Below Par; or Damning PJ Et Al's Second Hobbit Film With Faint Praise, Admittedly
(Written underneath an oldish oak tree in the grounds of St Paul's Cathedral, Dunedin, New Zealand.) Bullet-point reflections after my second viewing of The Desolation of Smaug.
On the positive side, the film from start to finish is power-packed, verily brimming over with energy. Noteworthy are such new characterizations as Bard, who is well rendered, and his Lake-town fellow travellers - especially his own family and the local officialdom; although Beorn, if satisfactorily depicted - a Gandalf of (and for) the common people, as it were - somehow lacks his sense of gravitas (and irritability). As if he'd have tolerated his own home being gatecrashed/effectively wrested off him (however temporarily). And a great opportunity is thus missed of showcasing his (cf Radagast's) intimate relationship with the (i)bee swarms in (what should be) his huge, lovely garden; though the other animals, i.e. the livestock under his jurisdiction, are, as far as they go, well enough enacted. While Tauriel is portrayed more than adequately, the much underrated Thranduil is superbly cast, displaying all that aforementioned gravitas yet also finely-tuned sensitivity befitting a (Woodland) Elvenking of (equally) querulous temper. His elegance, graceful majesty and self-conscious dignity are effectively juxtaposed alongside and perfectly complement his self-assured sense of superiority, leaving a sense of thinly-disguised condescension (and despotic high-handedness) towards all he deems beneath him in the hierarchical order of things.
Smaug is quite up to the humongous expectations elicited by the glimpse given in An Unexpected Journey, with a couple significant reservations (see earlier blogposts). Bolg comes across every bit as nasty 'a piece of goods' as Azog, but still a foe of considerably less stature, conscious authority and might: Azog wrought smallish, so to speak, but certainly well up to the coming challenge, however discrepant with the original script, of heading the dwarf company off at the pass. Sauron for that matter is showcased well before his time, yet seems unable - despite the immense display of his firepower - to permanently eliminate Gandalf from the scene. Really? Likewise, if on a far more minor scale, note the Master of the Lake-town Esgaroth ramming Bard's chest, yet somehow failing to kill him instantly. C'mon now, at the least he'd have suffered cracked ribs!
Bard's 'pre-loading' of the dwarf-filled barrels with fish is a nice variation upon Tolkien, especially their coming up out of Bard's toilets! However the dwarfs' own fatigue (even partway through their bodily ordeal between Thranduil's palace and Lake-town) is not (remotely) evidenced, yet carries some significance in the book. Nevertheless the cascading river and roaring cataracts as the dwarfs exit the woodland elvenkingdom give appropriate 'oomph' and impetus to the action, helping set the story's fast and furious pace at this early juncture in 'the second leg' of the dwarfs' journey to Erebor. Something helping me to now fully understand the job (ii)requirements for being a good swimmer (for those, unlike myself, accepted onto the set for work as a human in (iii)Lake-town).
Bard's kids (girls and son, evidently Sigrid, Tilda and Bain) are beautifully and effectively cast, reminiscent of the Rohanite kids in PJ Et Al's The Two Towers. The Master of Lake-town is right on the mark, nay 'done to perfection', while his steward puts in an equally fine performance. As has been remarked elsewhere (in radio commentary, the only kind I get since our good 'ole TV went on the blink during an equinoctial wind gust), Esgaroth's Master (read: Mayor - in modern lingo) is an oily, unctuous (read: (iv) 'offensively suave and smug [self-complacent)' character/'gentleman' reeking of pomposity and grandiosity - in which 'performance' he is singularly unmatched by any save his Chief Bodyguard/Spokesman. The two take bureaucratization/'officialeze' (and sleaze) to a new low - probably unequalled since Billy Connolly's not-to-be-missed 'The Man Who Sued God' or Dave Henderson's 'Be Very Afraid'. Their discussion of the establishment of a committee of inquiry and the very possibility of an election and thus 'the dreaded scourge' (horror, horrors!) of democracy is a masterstroke (pun or not). Indeed (v)the two are arguably the deftest stroke in a movie elsewise lacking in gripping characterizations or cameos.
Greatly assisted by being every bit 'as ugly as sin' (as my beloved Grandma might have said), the orc deputy head honcho, Bolg, discharges his role well. But otherwise, apart from the Star Villain/ Attraction of this particular Show - i.e. the Inimitable, Incomparable Smaug the Terrible, the Calamity of Calamities - this second movie's evildoers are neither noteworthy nor especially memorable (unlike the three trolls or the Goblin-King Under The Mountain (let alone Smeagol/Gollum) of Part One. Certainly Azog reappears in all of his sheer malice and evil persona as well as intimidating physicality, but otherwise, all one can really say is that Desolation's (non-dragon) villainry is pretty well 'up to the job'. Yes, they adequately meet job specifications, functioning as they were intended, but aside from that they are largely expendable (as indeed so transpires on an ongoing basis above the River Running's Mirkwood Forest inflow) and so prove largely forgettable.
The scenery itself certainly doesn't let one down - but how could it? - approximating to all one now has come to expect from PJ & Co. But before we give Sir Peter too much credit for that (aside from his team's expert photography, that is), Aotearoa-New Zealand's picture postcard scenery tends to speak for itself, doesn't it, and can hardly fail, if simply left to itself, to unveil its rich and abundant (vi)charms and treasures for all to marvel at. That is, whether one is referring to the craggy hillsides and scattered waterfalls bedecking the various scenescapes, the mountains afar, or the forested hilltops - but not Mirkwood. This was an unexpected bonus, an oasis in a desert of dearth, incidentally a wonderful instance of manufactured landscapes, especially the unnerving and effectively wrought trees twisting every which way but in perfect unison as the company enters and quickly comes unstuck: a writhing mass of warped trunks and hefty branches with a life of their own pulsating and throbbing through them, only too aware of the potentially worrisome company wending and winding its increasingly confused and labyrinthine, extremely roundabout route through their naturally suspicious (anthropomorphic) foliage and undergrowth.
The spiders, for that matter, while much smaller than The Return's Shelob 'mother of all (vii)arachnids' - though evidently related in both nature and motive, and only lacking Shelob's girth and strength in the pursuit of their nefarious designs - did their jobs well and expeditiously enough. But, and its a pregnant but, without the brilliant 'bits 'n bobs' of primarily speech with which JRR invests them, such as Bilbo's teasing them to the point of distraction and beyond with poetic ditties playing upon their names, or his own rendition thereof. Note for a prime example Tolkien's summing up of their (collective) wrath, nay fury, as a consequence: 'They were frightfully angry. Quite apart from the stones [Bilbo had been chucking at or around them] no spider has ever liked being called Attercop, and Tomnoddy of course is insulting to anybody.' In thus effectively expunging from the newfangled Jacksonesque interpretation these characteristic and Tolkienesque touches, such delightful vignettes and insights into the spiders' modus operandi and personalities were completely sidestepped; not to mention the very contexts giving rise to such hilarious banter, i.e. the ingenious (and unintentionally quite entertaining) way in which Bilbo goes about seeking to rescue his helpless friends from the sticky cobwebs within which they are seemingly inextricably enveloped. Well-deserving, as in the book, of much greater attention and elaboration indeed.
The Elvenkingdom is effectively if none too plushly done, though not inappropriately so in light of the frugal lifestyle that these not unwealthy tree-dwellers implicitly subscribe to. Beorn's living quarters are equally well executed, as are the homes of Bard et al in Lake-town. Throughout the extended takes involving Bard I found myself being constantly reminded of some other (seemingly LOTR) personage though I still can't for the life of me identify him. Various scenic shots, e.g. the sky view as we arrived over Esgaroth towards sunset, Dol Guldur and its immediate surrounds, and the lower recesses of the Lonely Mountain, were strikingly well-enacted, almost surrealistically 'realistic', compelling and even occasionally awe-evoking.
But again - and sadly the buts in this second film seem to fly out at you from each and every direction - way too many scenes and subscenes and (mini-)speeches even are uncannily or rather boringly (and frankly I'm rather disheartened - with myself - that I'd use such terms in regards to any Jackson interpretation of Tolkien) reminiscent of Lord of the Rings (that is, the film trilogy version thereof). At times even as if they'd been literally copied and pasted - the similarities are so blatant and flagrant, I kid you not one whit - directly from that earlier (though chronologically later) set of films. Sure, I'll admit they worked - and did they ever - exceptionally well the first occasion, but the second time they just came over as rather tawdry and cliche-ridden, and, more's the point, evincing sheer, unadulterated laziness on the part of PJ & Co. Or, to be very charitable, sheer forgetfulness.
Well, despite myself, here I'll choose charity, or mercy (over judgment) as the theologians (and Tolkien himself for that matter) would put it, (as so memorably restated by Gandalf to Frodo in the Mines of Moria in the Fellowship film). Could PJ, in recent times, have simply been spending a little too much time with a certain prime minister, whose charming and oh so convenient 'brain fades' just happen to have a rather bewitching, mesmerizing effect upon anyone who comes within cooee of them (and him)? It isn't completely inconceivable, after all, when you've been working so closely with something for as long as PJ Et Al have - even if the two (movie trilogy) 'stints' have been removed by around a decade from each other - to have become so deeply involved and engrossed with the material you've been working with and constantly alongside as to simply not realize where your various bits and pieces have ultimately originated from. But surely PJ & Co had much more than sufficient time (and opportunity) to find or create some new lines? Certainly the exorbitant cinema fees now generally being levied for these films in particular suggest so.
But to briefly restate my main bones of contention with the Desolation of Smaug, beginning with a seemingly minor one, but one nonetheless quite illustrative of the others. Sir Peter's own rather predictable cameo appearance (cf the Return of the King movie) at the film's start (in Bree) is more than gratuitous, given the utter gratuitousness of the very inclusion of that (Fellowship of the Ring) town at all. If nothing else revealing The Hobbit's hijacking from an innocent kids' adventure by Tolkien to a vanity project by Sir Peter Jackson. Moreover the Lake-town scenario, its various personages and all their comings and goings (especially their 'goings') is far too long, not just as regards this section's relative proportion of the book itself, but moreover in terms of the story (supposedly) being told: i.e. the company's quest for the Lonely Mountain, specifically their attempt to reclaim the literal dragon horde of treasure therein.
Why is this so? Essentially due to PJ Et Al's attempt to conflate this, as with much else, with events going on behind the scenes generally...i.e. the growing spectre and menace of the forces of darkness reasserting their long-maintained claims for hegemony upon Middle Earth. And so the two wholly different and distinct story lines once again appear to get needlessly - and what's more, quite distractingly - confounded, leading to a sense (for this soul, anyhow) of being bogged down in lots of unnecessary clutter (not to mention chitter chatter). Take it from a lifelong clutterer and compulsive hoarder - my sister believes that, like her, I suffer from OCD, i.e. obsessive compulsive disorder - to paraphrase C.J. on the all-time brilliant 70s and 80s British sitcom, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, I didn't get to where I [ain't] today without knowing clutter whenever I encounter it!
(i) Incidentally my second viewing of Desolation, with large bees 'coming out at you' on the 3D screen, struck an extremely personal note, coming as it did close on the heels of a recent return from a gardening job working amidst numerous rosebushes, whereupon I found myself suddenly literally surrounded by such. But unlike Jane Clifton, thankfully they avoided crawling up my nasal passages.
(ii) Especially in view of the various major (medical) mishaps/misadventures with which the Rings' film trilogy was plagued, at times bringing some major characters rather a little too close (for comfort) with severe injury, even death.
(iii) Though of course the book places this part of the story way further forward in time, having given the visit with Beorn in his secluded homestead and the journey through Mirkwood Forest a sizeably more significant portion of the overall story. Indeed Yours Truly has carefully computed the relative shares of each section, frequently consulting his special timepiece throughout (at least his first viewing), discovering that, just three-tenths/30 percent (45 minutes) on, film #2 had already traversed six-elevenths/55percent of the book, which wasn't so good for book aficionados, especially those (such as myself) deeply in love with Tolkien's own portrayal of his own story. In this regard chapter 10: 'A Warm Welcome', forming just 1-and-a-half pages (4% of the entire book) is here expanded to 13-and-a-third per cent of the entire film. (Still, the 3D element here (as with Smaug's lair, treasure hordes and home-under-the-mountain) is effectively carried through.)
(iv) See, for example, my trusty Chambers Concise Dictionary.
(v) No (twin) reference (intended or otherwise) to Newstalk ZB's infamous twosome, Tim Roxborogh and Pam Corkery, though it has to be admitted that Corkery and Roxborogh are virtually the best thing to come to New Zealand talkback radio since unsliced bread itself.
(vi) According to the latest studio planning filming Down Under (of 'Z for Zechariah'), a landscape (South Canterbury's in particular) notable for its characteristic 'lushness, vibrancy and diversity'.
(vii) Peter Jackson's especial phobia, as all possessors of the thoroughgoing behind-the-scenes Lord of the Rings' dvds well know. ("Some kind of 'Spawn of Ungoliant' ", to quote Radagast.)
On the positive side, the film from start to finish is power-packed, verily brimming over with energy. Noteworthy are such new characterizations as Bard, who is well rendered, and his Lake-town fellow travellers - especially his own family and the local officialdom; although Beorn, if satisfactorily depicted - a Gandalf of (and for) the common people, as it were - somehow lacks his sense of gravitas (and irritability). As if he'd have tolerated his own home being gatecrashed/effectively wrested off him (however temporarily). And a great opportunity is thus missed of showcasing his (cf Radagast's) intimate relationship with the (i)bee swarms in (what should be) his huge, lovely garden; though the other animals, i.e. the livestock under his jurisdiction, are, as far as they go, well enough enacted. While Tauriel is portrayed more than adequately, the much underrated Thranduil is superbly cast, displaying all that aforementioned gravitas yet also finely-tuned sensitivity befitting a (Woodland) Elvenking of (equally) querulous temper. His elegance, graceful majesty and self-conscious dignity are effectively juxtaposed alongside and perfectly complement his self-assured sense of superiority, leaving a sense of thinly-disguised condescension (and despotic high-handedness) towards all he deems beneath him in the hierarchical order of things.
Smaug is quite up to the humongous expectations elicited by the glimpse given in An Unexpected Journey, with a couple significant reservations (see earlier blogposts). Bolg comes across every bit as nasty 'a piece of goods' as Azog, but still a foe of considerably less stature, conscious authority and might: Azog wrought smallish, so to speak, but certainly well up to the coming challenge, however discrepant with the original script, of heading the dwarf company off at the pass. Sauron for that matter is showcased well before his time, yet seems unable - despite the immense display of his firepower - to permanently eliminate Gandalf from the scene. Really? Likewise, if on a far more minor scale, note the Master of the Lake-town Esgaroth ramming Bard's chest, yet somehow failing to kill him instantly. C'mon now, at the least he'd have suffered cracked ribs!
Bard's 'pre-loading' of the dwarf-filled barrels with fish is a nice variation upon Tolkien, especially their coming up out of Bard's toilets! However the dwarfs' own fatigue (even partway through their bodily ordeal between Thranduil's palace and Lake-town) is not (remotely) evidenced, yet carries some significance in the book. Nevertheless the cascading river and roaring cataracts as the dwarfs exit the woodland elvenkingdom give appropriate 'oomph' and impetus to the action, helping set the story's fast and furious pace at this early juncture in 'the second leg' of the dwarfs' journey to Erebor. Something helping me to now fully understand the job (ii)requirements for being a good swimmer (for those, unlike myself, accepted onto the set for work as a human in (iii)Lake-town).
Bard's kids (girls and son, evidently Sigrid, Tilda and Bain) are beautifully and effectively cast, reminiscent of the Rohanite kids in PJ Et Al's The Two Towers. The Master of Lake-town is right on the mark, nay 'done to perfection', while his steward puts in an equally fine performance. As has been remarked elsewhere (in radio commentary, the only kind I get since our good 'ole TV went on the blink during an equinoctial wind gust), Esgaroth's Master (read: Mayor - in modern lingo) is an oily, unctuous (read: (iv) 'offensively suave and smug [self-complacent)' character/'gentleman' reeking of pomposity and grandiosity - in which 'performance' he is singularly unmatched by any save his Chief Bodyguard/Spokesman. The two take bureaucratization/'officialeze' (and sleaze) to a new low - probably unequalled since Billy Connolly's not-to-be-missed 'The Man Who Sued God' or Dave Henderson's 'Be Very Afraid'. Their discussion of the establishment of a committee of inquiry and the very possibility of an election and thus 'the dreaded scourge' (horror, horrors!) of democracy is a masterstroke (pun or not). Indeed (v)the two are arguably the deftest stroke in a movie elsewise lacking in gripping characterizations or cameos.
Greatly assisted by being every bit 'as ugly as sin' (as my beloved Grandma might have said), the orc deputy head honcho, Bolg, discharges his role well. But otherwise, apart from the Star Villain/ Attraction of this particular Show - i.e. the Inimitable, Incomparable Smaug the Terrible, the Calamity of Calamities - this second movie's evildoers are neither noteworthy nor especially memorable (unlike the three trolls or the Goblin-King Under The Mountain (let alone Smeagol/Gollum) of Part One. Certainly Azog reappears in all of his sheer malice and evil persona as well as intimidating physicality, but otherwise, all one can really say is that Desolation's (non-dragon) villainry is pretty well 'up to the job'. Yes, they adequately meet job specifications, functioning as they were intended, but aside from that they are largely expendable (as indeed so transpires on an ongoing basis above the River Running's Mirkwood Forest inflow) and so prove largely forgettable.
The scenery itself certainly doesn't let one down - but how could it? - approximating to all one now has come to expect from PJ & Co. But before we give Sir Peter too much credit for that (aside from his team's expert photography, that is), Aotearoa-New Zealand's picture postcard scenery tends to speak for itself, doesn't it, and can hardly fail, if simply left to itself, to unveil its rich and abundant (vi)charms and treasures for all to marvel at. That is, whether one is referring to the craggy hillsides and scattered waterfalls bedecking the various scenescapes, the mountains afar, or the forested hilltops - but not Mirkwood. This was an unexpected bonus, an oasis in a desert of dearth, incidentally a wonderful instance of manufactured landscapes, especially the unnerving and effectively wrought trees twisting every which way but in perfect unison as the company enters and quickly comes unstuck: a writhing mass of warped trunks and hefty branches with a life of their own pulsating and throbbing through them, only too aware of the potentially worrisome company wending and winding its increasingly confused and labyrinthine, extremely roundabout route through their naturally suspicious (anthropomorphic) foliage and undergrowth.
The spiders, for that matter, while much smaller than The Return's Shelob 'mother of all (vii)arachnids' - though evidently related in both nature and motive, and only lacking Shelob's girth and strength in the pursuit of their nefarious designs - did their jobs well and expeditiously enough. But, and its a pregnant but, without the brilliant 'bits 'n bobs' of primarily speech with which JRR invests them, such as Bilbo's teasing them to the point of distraction and beyond with poetic ditties playing upon their names, or his own rendition thereof. Note for a prime example Tolkien's summing up of their (collective) wrath, nay fury, as a consequence: 'They were frightfully angry. Quite apart from the stones [Bilbo had been chucking at or around them] no spider has ever liked being called Attercop, and Tomnoddy of course is insulting to anybody.' In thus effectively expunging from the newfangled Jacksonesque interpretation these characteristic and Tolkienesque touches, such delightful vignettes and insights into the spiders' modus operandi and personalities were completely sidestepped; not to mention the very contexts giving rise to such hilarious banter, i.e. the ingenious (and unintentionally quite entertaining) way in which Bilbo goes about seeking to rescue his helpless friends from the sticky cobwebs within which they are seemingly inextricably enveloped. Well-deserving, as in the book, of much greater attention and elaboration indeed.
The Elvenkingdom is effectively if none too plushly done, though not inappropriately so in light of the frugal lifestyle that these not unwealthy tree-dwellers implicitly subscribe to. Beorn's living quarters are equally well executed, as are the homes of Bard et al in Lake-town. Throughout the extended takes involving Bard I found myself being constantly reminded of some other (seemingly LOTR) personage though I still can't for the life of me identify him. Various scenic shots, e.g. the sky view as we arrived over Esgaroth towards sunset, Dol Guldur and its immediate surrounds, and the lower recesses of the Lonely Mountain, were strikingly well-enacted, almost surrealistically 'realistic', compelling and even occasionally awe-evoking.
But again - and sadly the buts in this second film seem to fly out at you from each and every direction - way too many scenes and subscenes and (mini-)speeches even are uncannily or rather boringly (and frankly I'm rather disheartened - with myself - that I'd use such terms in regards to any Jackson interpretation of Tolkien) reminiscent of Lord of the Rings (that is, the film trilogy version thereof). At times even as if they'd been literally copied and pasted - the similarities are so blatant and flagrant, I kid you not one whit - directly from that earlier (though chronologically later) set of films. Sure, I'll admit they worked - and did they ever - exceptionally well the first occasion, but the second time they just came over as rather tawdry and cliche-ridden, and, more's the point, evincing sheer, unadulterated laziness on the part of PJ & Co. Or, to be very charitable, sheer forgetfulness.
Well, despite myself, here I'll choose charity, or mercy (over judgment) as the theologians (and Tolkien himself for that matter) would put it, (as so memorably restated by Gandalf to Frodo in the Mines of Moria in the Fellowship film). Could PJ, in recent times, have simply been spending a little too much time with a certain prime minister, whose charming and oh so convenient 'brain fades' just happen to have a rather bewitching, mesmerizing effect upon anyone who comes within cooee of them (and him)? It isn't completely inconceivable, after all, when you've been working so closely with something for as long as PJ Et Al have - even if the two (movie trilogy) 'stints' have been removed by around a decade from each other - to have become so deeply involved and engrossed with the material you've been working with and constantly alongside as to simply not realize where your various bits and pieces have ultimately originated from. But surely PJ & Co had much more than sufficient time (and opportunity) to find or create some new lines? Certainly the exorbitant cinema fees now generally being levied for these films in particular suggest so.
But to briefly restate my main bones of contention with the Desolation of Smaug, beginning with a seemingly minor one, but one nonetheless quite illustrative of the others. Sir Peter's own rather predictable cameo appearance (cf the Return of the King movie) at the film's start (in Bree) is more than gratuitous, given the utter gratuitousness of the very inclusion of that (Fellowship of the Ring) town at all. If nothing else revealing The Hobbit's hijacking from an innocent kids' adventure by Tolkien to a vanity project by Sir Peter Jackson. Moreover the Lake-town scenario, its various personages and all their comings and goings (especially their 'goings') is far too long, not just as regards this section's relative proportion of the book itself, but moreover in terms of the story (supposedly) being told: i.e. the company's quest for the Lonely Mountain, specifically their attempt to reclaim the literal dragon horde of treasure therein.
Why is this so? Essentially due to PJ Et Al's attempt to conflate this, as with much else, with events going on behind the scenes generally...i.e. the growing spectre and menace of the forces of darkness reasserting their long-maintained claims for hegemony upon Middle Earth. And so the two wholly different and distinct story lines once again appear to get needlessly - and what's more, quite distractingly - confounded, leading to a sense (for this soul, anyhow) of being bogged down in lots of unnecessary clutter (not to mention chitter chatter). Take it from a lifelong clutterer and compulsive hoarder - my sister believes that, like her, I suffer from OCD, i.e. obsessive compulsive disorder - to paraphrase C.J. on the all-time brilliant 70s and 80s British sitcom, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, I didn't get to where I [ain't] today without knowing clutter whenever I encounter it!
(i) Incidentally my second viewing of Desolation, with large bees 'coming out at you' on the 3D screen, struck an extremely personal note, coming as it did close on the heels of a recent return from a gardening job working amidst numerous rosebushes, whereupon I found myself suddenly literally surrounded by such. But unlike Jane Clifton, thankfully they avoided crawling up my nasal passages.
(ii) Especially in view of the various major (medical) mishaps/misadventures with which the Rings' film trilogy was plagued, at times bringing some major characters rather a little too close (for comfort) with severe injury, even death.
(iii) Though of course the book places this part of the story way further forward in time, having given the visit with Beorn in his secluded homestead and the journey through Mirkwood Forest a sizeably more significant portion of the overall story. Indeed Yours Truly has carefully computed the relative shares of each section, frequently consulting his special timepiece throughout (at least his first viewing), discovering that, just three-tenths/30 percent (45 minutes) on, film #2 had already traversed six-elevenths/55percent of the book, which wasn't so good for book aficionados, especially those (such as myself) deeply in love with Tolkien's own portrayal of his own story. In this regard chapter 10: 'A Warm Welcome', forming just 1-and-a-half pages (4% of the entire book) is here expanded to 13-and-a-third per cent of the entire film. (Still, the 3D element here (as with Smaug's lair, treasure hordes and home-under-the-mountain) is effectively carried through.)
(v) No (twin) reference (intended or otherwise) to Newstalk ZB's infamous twosome, Tim Roxborogh and Pam Corkery, though it has to be admitted that Corkery and Roxborogh are virtually the best thing to come to New Zealand talkback radio since unsliced bread itself.
(vi) According to the latest studio planning filming Down Under (of 'Z for Zechariah'), a landscape (South Canterbury's in particular) notable for its characteristic 'lushness, vibrancy and diversity'.
(vii) Peter Jackson's especial phobia, as all possessors of the thoroughgoing behind-the-scenes Lord of the Rings' dvds well know. ("Some kind of 'Spawn of Ungoliant' ", to quote Radagast.)
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
The (PJ-Version) Hobbit Film #2: Part 2: Some other ideas and musings...
From my second viewing (3D HFR - i.e. three-dimensional high frame rate (48 frames per minute)) - notes scribbled immediately afterwards, and in the darkness of the film's last quarter-to-half hour.
NB The orc horde beseiging Lake-town (Esgaroth) would really have made mincemeat of Bard's kids (son and daughters) in no time flat, as undoubtedly would 'Smaug the Magnificant' with Bilbo and the dwarfs, i.e. (i)Bilbo's accomplices in crime, his skulking side-kicks in Smaug's own estimation.
Various nice touches: 2 pug dogs (reminiscent of our family's pet Teddy and other pugs of childhood acquaintance); literal (ii)'legions' of pigs - cf the gospel story of Jesus with the Gadarenes - and various other biblical allusions, as has likewise been commonly remarked about The Lord of the Rings (both book and film). For example the ongoing battle between (ethereal, incorporeal, spirit) forces of darkness seeking to displace the light; even an obscure, brief mention of the dragon (Smaug) descending from 'the serpent' from the North(ern regions whence the Witch-King of Angmar, Sauron's eventual right-hand man, proceeded), evoking images of the possession of and 'impersonation' of (iii)'that old serpent' in Eden by the 'Great Dragon Satan' (otherwise known as the devil). (For those, like me, with a biblical penchant, that is.)
So much parallelism abounds between these Hobbit films and their Rings' 'predecessors' that it's hard to know where to begin, but how about this example: (iv)Kili's 'mortal (?Morgul blade) wound' (cf Frodo in Fellowship of the Ring), that sees him (much like Faramir (and Eowyn) in 'the Houses of Healing' in Return of the King) stay on in Lake-town to undergo recuperation. And in each instance (as again with Frodo) that healing coming about through special (medicinal) herbs (such as my Mum's potent (v)feverfew - ever good for a sound headache). Elsewhere Thorin on occasion (at Esgaroth) reminds one awfully much of Boromir in his vainglorious stance and fight-to-the-finish bravado.
Similar scenic parallelism, e.g. the senses-suspending, jaw-dropping portrayal of Gandalf ever so barely outwitting his voracious, mighty antagonists (such as Azog the Defiler and Sauron) and thus miraculously escaping with his very life in (and from) the Necromancer's lair, i.e. Dol Goldur. And in a much less fraught 'parallel', mark well the coveted dwarvish treasure of the Arkenstone in its unstoppable plummeting through Smaug's vast hoardings right before Bilbo's dazed gaze. But does he then snatch it up? It's hard to say/we're not really shown, but doubtless 'all will (soon enough) be revealed' when Hobbit film number three comes out, presumably mid-July. On that score Bilbo and the (in this version anyhow, accompanying) dwarfs' ever-precipitous evasion of Smaug on a similar ongoing basis seems just a little too far-fetched for belief, as this (vi)'Calamity of Calamities' was hardly christened such for no good reason, was he?
Smaug's chitchatty banter with Bilbo, engaging in some mutual back-scratching flattery, is quite 'cutesy', even charming and scintillatingly clever (in places), but even at its filmic best doesn't remotely come close to Tolkien's skill in portraying this subtle art form which Smaug, over aeons and aeons, has perfected to infinity and beyond; as befits any dragon (or 'great worm', as Tolkien styled Smaug's ilk) worth his weight in gold and silver. The dwarfs, having finally lost any remaining hope altogether and abandoned Bilbo atop the Lonely Mountain as Durin's Day seems to slip into legend, then instantaneously, miraculously reappear in a touch that effectively consigns Aladdin's Lamp to the realm of yesterday's slowcoach technologies...
The savage warg-riding orc hordes (all the way along the Forest River) ultimately laying seige to Esgaroth are quite unnecessary, but again perfectly in keeping with Lord of the Ring film trilogy linkages throughout, obliterating any meaningful semblance again to Tolkien's beloved kids' classic and replacing this with a no-holds-barred, fight to the finish, tooth-and-nail struggle 'from woe to go'. In other words, all action and intrigue, with precious little character development and el usual gripping, imaginative, Tolkienesque story line besides. As someone might characterize this Jacksonesque take on The Hobbit: 'It's the blood and guts, stupid!' Though methinks J.R.R himself, if softly from the sidelines, might be heard intoning: 'It's actually supposed to be a magical tale of a hobbit, a wizard, 13 dwarfs, a skin-changer, woodland elves, a sleepy town of cranks and crazies, one very stupendous Dragon and a heckuva lot of hidden treasure...(vii)plus an assortment of ferocious spiders, goblins (both under the mountain and over dale), wargs, eagles, and flora and fauna galore, and the exciting adventures that mark the places where these odd bedfellows cross paths.
So in thus effectively presupposing a definitive interlinkage between the two tales (of the lonely trek to Erebor for dragon gold, with the eventual quest for the one ring to rule Middle Earth), PJ Et Al have backed themselves into a corner. How then can one possibly account for the subsequent decades-long interval between the return of the dwarf company and Bilbo to Hobbiton and the arrival of the Ring-Wraiths there? When, according to this (movie) version - cut to the background events supposedly then taking place in Dol Goldur - Sauron has pretty well resurrected and reformulated himself and is now virtually ready for the sustained onslaught he intends upon all of Middle Earth. Because following said events there'd certainly be (viii)no time to lose - much less 60-odd years or so. One really cannot have it both ways.
I'm unsure Smaug would have participated, even inadvertently, in the elimination of his cherished home. But more importantly, Smaug's broiling lava torrent would have instantly incinerated anything and everything in its path except maybe another dragon, and certainly this relatively (if not literally) lightweight and motley crew, from Thorin down. Indeed I don't even believe Smaug could feasibly - not to mention so easily, like so much paper confetti - have shed his new molten hot golden covering, though I'll concede the image of him so doing as he ascended into the skies on his way toward Lake-town is a nice touch aesthetically.
(i) Drawing this comparison inevitably opens me up to ridicule, but the writer happens to share an unusual 'distinction' with Bilbo Baggins, acting the major part of thief in Owen Martel's video 'Given'.
(ii) As described in detail in the Holy Bible's three synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
(iii) Likewise see especially the Book of Revelation chapter twelve, and Genesis chapter three.
(iv) But need I note such is completely absent both literally and metaphorically from Tolkien's Hobbit?
(v) My Chambers Concise Dictionary denotes feverfew as 'a composite perennial closely allied to camomile, so called from its supposed power as a 'febrifuge', which itself is defined as 'that which drives off fever'. In Lord of the Rings, however, we have athelas or kingsfoil as the curative herb.
(vi) Yes, I well realize that here it's me, myself and I who'll be accused of fabricating things, so may I make the simple disclaimer that such a nickname, wholly my own admittedly (unless I'm inadvertently repeating a name I heard in one of the Hobbit films), itself does perfect justice to that ever so brilliant endearment of Bilbo Baggins: 'Smaug the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities'.
(vii) Though no orcs, much less the new and frightful variety concocted for this Hobbit trilogy.
(viii) And don't you tell me it'd take six-some decades for Sauron the Terrible to track down, interrogate and torture Smeagol-Gollum, then process and act upon the relevant doss. But then - if I'm being perfectly fair - perhaps that's Tolkien's issue, not Sir Peter Jackson & Company's.
NB The orc horde beseiging Lake-town (Esgaroth) would really have made mincemeat of Bard's kids (son and daughters) in no time flat, as undoubtedly would 'Smaug the Magnificant' with Bilbo and the dwarfs, i.e. (i)Bilbo's accomplices in crime, his skulking side-kicks in Smaug's own estimation.
Various nice touches: 2 pug dogs (reminiscent of our family's pet Teddy and other pugs of childhood acquaintance); literal (ii)'legions' of pigs - cf the gospel story of Jesus with the Gadarenes - and various other biblical allusions, as has likewise been commonly remarked about The Lord of the Rings (both book and film). For example the ongoing battle between (ethereal, incorporeal, spirit) forces of darkness seeking to displace the light; even an obscure, brief mention of the dragon (Smaug) descending from 'the serpent' from the North(ern regions whence the Witch-King of Angmar, Sauron's eventual right-hand man, proceeded), evoking images of the possession of and 'impersonation' of (iii)'that old serpent' in Eden by the 'Great Dragon Satan' (otherwise known as the devil). (For those, like me, with a biblical penchant, that is.)
So much parallelism abounds between these Hobbit films and their Rings' 'predecessors' that it's hard to know where to begin, but how about this example: (iv)Kili's 'mortal (?Morgul blade) wound' (cf Frodo in Fellowship of the Ring), that sees him (much like Faramir (and Eowyn) in 'the Houses of Healing' in Return of the King) stay on in Lake-town to undergo recuperation. And in each instance (as again with Frodo) that healing coming about through special (medicinal) herbs (such as my Mum's potent (v)feverfew - ever good for a sound headache). Elsewhere Thorin on occasion (at Esgaroth) reminds one awfully much of Boromir in his vainglorious stance and fight-to-the-finish bravado.
Similar scenic parallelism, e.g. the senses-suspending, jaw-dropping portrayal of Gandalf ever so barely outwitting his voracious, mighty antagonists (such as Azog the Defiler and Sauron) and thus miraculously escaping with his very life in (and from) the Necromancer's lair, i.e. Dol Goldur. And in a much less fraught 'parallel', mark well the coveted dwarvish treasure of the Arkenstone in its unstoppable plummeting through Smaug's vast hoardings right before Bilbo's dazed gaze. But does he then snatch it up? It's hard to say/we're not really shown, but doubtless 'all will (soon enough) be revealed' when Hobbit film number three comes out, presumably mid-July. On that score Bilbo and the (in this version anyhow, accompanying) dwarfs' ever-precipitous evasion of Smaug on a similar ongoing basis seems just a little too far-fetched for belief, as this (vi)'Calamity of Calamities' was hardly christened such for no good reason, was he?
Smaug's chitchatty banter with Bilbo, engaging in some mutual back-scratching flattery, is quite 'cutesy', even charming and scintillatingly clever (in places), but even at its filmic best doesn't remotely come close to Tolkien's skill in portraying this subtle art form which Smaug, over aeons and aeons, has perfected to infinity and beyond; as befits any dragon (or 'great worm', as Tolkien styled Smaug's ilk) worth his weight in gold and silver. The dwarfs, having finally lost any remaining hope altogether and abandoned Bilbo atop the Lonely Mountain as Durin's Day seems to slip into legend, then instantaneously, miraculously reappear in a touch that effectively consigns Aladdin's Lamp to the realm of yesterday's slowcoach technologies...
The savage warg-riding orc hordes (all the way along the Forest River) ultimately laying seige to Esgaroth are quite unnecessary, but again perfectly in keeping with Lord of the Ring film trilogy linkages throughout, obliterating any meaningful semblance again to Tolkien's beloved kids' classic and replacing this with a no-holds-barred, fight to the finish, tooth-and-nail struggle 'from woe to go'. In other words, all action and intrigue, with precious little character development and el usual gripping, imaginative, Tolkienesque story line besides. As someone might characterize this Jacksonesque take on The Hobbit: 'It's the blood and guts, stupid!' Though methinks J.R.R himself, if softly from the sidelines, might be heard intoning: 'It's actually supposed to be a magical tale of a hobbit, a wizard, 13 dwarfs, a skin-changer, woodland elves, a sleepy town of cranks and crazies, one very stupendous Dragon and a heckuva lot of hidden treasure...(vii)plus an assortment of ferocious spiders, goblins (both under the mountain and over dale), wargs, eagles, and flora and fauna galore, and the exciting adventures that mark the places where these odd bedfellows cross paths.
So in thus effectively presupposing a definitive interlinkage between the two tales (of the lonely trek to Erebor for dragon gold, with the eventual quest for the one ring to rule Middle Earth), PJ Et Al have backed themselves into a corner. How then can one possibly account for the subsequent decades-long interval between the return of the dwarf company and Bilbo to Hobbiton and the arrival of the Ring-Wraiths there? When, according to this (movie) version - cut to the background events supposedly then taking place in Dol Goldur - Sauron has pretty well resurrected and reformulated himself and is now virtually ready for the sustained onslaught he intends upon all of Middle Earth. Because following said events there'd certainly be (viii)no time to lose - much less 60-odd years or so. One really cannot have it both ways.
I'm unsure Smaug would have participated, even inadvertently, in the elimination of his cherished home. But more importantly, Smaug's broiling lava torrent would have instantly incinerated anything and everything in its path except maybe another dragon, and certainly this relatively (if not literally) lightweight and motley crew, from Thorin down. Indeed I don't even believe Smaug could feasibly - not to mention so easily, like so much paper confetti - have shed his new molten hot golden covering, though I'll concede the image of him so doing as he ascended into the skies on his way toward Lake-town is a nice touch aesthetically.
(i) Drawing this comparison inevitably opens me up to ridicule, but the writer happens to share an unusual 'distinction' with Bilbo Baggins, acting the major part of thief in Owen Martel's video 'Given'.
(ii) As described in detail in the Holy Bible's three synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
(iii) Likewise see especially the Book of Revelation chapter twelve, and Genesis chapter three.
(iv) But need I note such is completely absent both literally and metaphorically from Tolkien's Hobbit?
(v) My Chambers Concise Dictionary denotes feverfew as 'a composite perennial closely allied to camomile, so called from its supposed power as a 'febrifuge', which itself is defined as 'that which drives off fever'. In Lord of the Rings, however, we have athelas or kingsfoil as the curative herb.
(vi) Yes, I well realize that here it's me, myself and I who'll be accused of fabricating things, so may I make the simple disclaimer that such a nickname, wholly my own admittedly (unless I'm inadvertently repeating a name I heard in one of the Hobbit films), itself does perfect justice to that ever so brilliant endearment of Bilbo Baggins: 'Smaug the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities'.
(vii) Though no orcs, much less the new and frightful variety concocted for this Hobbit trilogy.
(viii) And don't you tell me it'd take six-some decades for Sauron the Terrible to track down, interrogate and torture Smeagol-Gollum, then process and act upon the relevant doss. But then - if I'm being perfectly fair - perhaps that's Tolkien's issue, not Sir Peter Jackson & Company's.
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