Society and environment

Noam Chomsky. Source: DiEM25 (2020).   Is Noam Chomsky a raving anarchist, or does he just care for society? At the age of 91, Professor Noam Chomsky, author, linguist, historian, philosopher and political dissident currently lives with his second wife Valeria in Tucson Arizona. He grew up in Philadelphia during the Great Depression of the 1930s and has documented and written about the Spanish Civil War, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, Cambodian dictatorship, the Watergate scandal, the Reagan and Thatcher era, the Iraq War, the global financial crisis of 2008 and recently, the reign of Donald Trump. Not only has Chomsky taught linguistics and social science for almost 50 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , he’s written over 100 influential political books. According to Democracy Now , Chomsky’s recent books include  Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy ,  Who Rules the World? ...

From where we stand, it seems that central government is being strongly influenced by private interests to push for the development of Port Tarakohe. TDC looks to be the messenger in this Provincial Growth Funding process , however, council seems to be avoiding proper community consultation on the proposed development. Council is being compelled by higher forces and it needs to act fast to access funding. Offices of central government appear to be captured by industry, and ministers from respective parties seem eager to be perceived as delivering growth to provinces. ‘More jobs’ and ‘economic growth’ being their unchallenged mantra . Not surprisingly, this ‘growth mindset’ dictates our path going forward, whether we want it or not, whether it’s good for the environment or not, or whether it’s sustainable or not. The proposed business case for Port Tarakohe has become a political point scoring event. An event where certain ministers puff out their chests when claiming growth ...

The mussel farming industry in Golden Bay has recently increased their efforts to control a larger area of Port Tarakohe. When there’s money to be made, there seems to be strong support from local and central government. With the Provincial Growth Fund looking to put money into the Port, it may raise questions for some. Who is driving the growth? Why do we need such growth? And who benefits most from it? It seems TDC  is right behind the growth agenda and keen to promote the need for growth. Should the council as a ‘neutral’ governing body really be pushing an industry’s growth? Furthermore, how can such an industry be truly sustainable when taking infrastructure resources, energy consumption for farming, processing and exporting into account? These are all questions which get us to look deeper and bring further awareness of a growing local issue. And yes, there are reduced Co2 targets to add to the mix. With Climate Reality becoming more more accepted, how do...

Let’s face it; we’ve all been fooled at some time. The question is, how do we know we’ve been fooled? Famous illusionist - David Copperfield once said, “The real secret of magic lies in the performance”. It’s important to remember, that David Copperfield uses a stage crew, is a meticulous planner and performs to entertain people. David Copperfield. Source: Las Vegas Review Journal . This blog is about modern speech making – impressive presentations and how smoke and mirrors are used to present a particular image to fool an audience’s perception.   But firstly, what is a speech?   Is it an announcement, is it a media release?   To me, it encompasses situations where the presentation has been prepared prior to its delivery. Obviously when watching an illusionist, we’re expecting to be wowed or deceived.... conversely, could the same be said when watching politicians giving a speech?   We probably expect politicians to be fairly boring...