John Bishop: It’s no dream; it is over

So we didn’t get the America’s Cup back. What’s your reaction? Mine was the usual mixture of denial – it wasn’t that big a deal anyway; defiance, well it was really about which bunch of Kiwis won the cup; defeatism - well it’s hard to beat the really big money; desperation – there’s nothing wrong with second; and diversion – yachting is all very well, but rugby is the real stuff and we’ll triumph there, won’t we. Won’t we?

The most impressive feature of the whole event was the way in which New Zealanders came to the party. We were looking for something to be proud about and we found it in Valencia, where without hype and without much fanfare (in contrast to the events in San Diego and Auckland) a bunch of sailors went about their business.

People who had not previously taken much interest came to own the boat in their minds. We seemed to like the quiet dignity of these sailors and their campaign in contrast to way the All Blacks and their organisers conduct themselves. We followed the races and talked passionately about each one as we counted off the clashes in the Louis Vuitton and in the Cup proper. Then the dramatic saga of human emotion ended early last Wednesday morning. The naysayers, doubters and skeptics were quick to condemn the $10 million of taxpayers’ money given to keep the syndicate together, but somewhat against my own opinion in January this year, I think having one more crack is worth considering seriously.

Whom do we treat?

There’s been some hubbub in the past week about a prisoner called Jason Reihana, a convicted double murderer who has now got leukemia. His treatment will cost the taxpayer about a million dollars. Should he get it, the talkback hosts asked, expecting the answer no. They got the answer, or more specifically the controversy they were after. (Talkback is about filling air time not finding answers). I got involved because it was a topic of the day on Jim Mora’s Panel on RNZ National on Monday afternoon, and the argument was put that Reihana didn’t deserve any treatment because he had taken the lives of others, which made him “sub human”, and therefore undeserving of treatment.

I disagree completely. Universality has to apply. All citizens are entitled to a reasonable standard of treatment based on need, not status. The danger is that a majority can use its power to impose selective treatment on a despised minority. Let then do that once and it’s an easy path to Auschwitz. It is always easy to take away someone else’s rights on the grounds that their own behaviour means they have ‘sacrificed’ them. It is always easy to imbue some group with “sub human” characteristics based on their appearance or actions. And it’s always easy to elevate some other “good” group’s entitlements over those of the “bad” group. Without wanting to sound like a hopelessly sloppy liberal, the temptation to exploit public passions and to pander to their prejudices should be resisted. And that means that sometimes you have to defend the rights of people whose actions (like Reihana’s) you don’t like, because there are bigger issues at stake.

The radicals’ icon

Angela Davis was once one of the symbols of the revolution in the United States: Afro-hair, young, black, angry, Marxist, intellectual, Trotskyite Communist, articulate and attractive, in a revolutionary kind of way.

At the end of June she was in New Zealand, escorted around by Maori Party MP Hone Harawira, talking about the evils of capitalism, but now focusing on the American penal system and what she calls the Prison Industrial Complex.

“The Prison Industrial Complex is a set of relations that links punishment to corporations, politicians and media and to all who have a stake in expanding the prison population. It’s an industry. Up to two million prisoners need to be fed, clothed, get medical treatment, make phone calls. The global economy is directly implicated in the expansion of the prison system. Lots of people, from architects to contractors are involved. Prisoners are the basis of profitability for many companies – regardless of what the people in the prisons have done,” she says although she did not name any companies – not one.

To reduce the number of people in prisons, she proposes to reduce the number of offences, “particularly drug offences”, and to “deincarcerate” which means to let people out.

She’s always had appeal to black liberationists due to her own iconic status as a revolutionary, a student of Marcuse, an activist associated with the Black Panther party who became a fugitive after a judge was murdered during an attempted prison break. She was eventually arrested and later acquitted. She is respected, admired and loved by some elements of the radical left and Maori/PI groups in New Zealand – the names of Tariana Turia and Syd Jackson were mentioned in the Wellington meeting as indigenous radicals inspired by her teaching and her example. “When a lot of people come up to me, they are encountering their youth, she said.

Now 63, and seemingly more restrained, she’s teaching the history of consciousness at the University of California, “Everyone here has read Marx – right – a least the first volume of Capital”, to embarrassed laughter from the audience. “The greatest barrier (to progress and peace) is the possessive individualism associated with capitalism. For some to be affluent, it is necessary for others to be poor, and this is achieved through accumulation and exploitation.”

And as if to prove that there is nothing that cannot be trivialised in order to sell product, Pepsi have produced an advertisement showing a young boy entering a monastery to learn kung fu. It is one of a series on the kung fu theme. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWnRmlXSy4o

Green, green, my job is green

Green stuff is both the saviour of the planet and the “new black” for companies. While sustainability is sound economics (it reduces costs) it is also good for the reputation and is even commercially necessary as customers factor a company’s environmental record into their purchase decisions.

The new green mood is now reflected in corporate structures, reports the New York Times (3 July) with environmental vice presidents and chief sustainability officers joining the CEO, COO, CIO, CFO and chief marketing officer at the top table.

“These are not simply environmental watchdogs, there to keep operations safe and regulators at bay. The new environmental chiefs are helping companies profit from the push to go green. Environmental vice presidents usually spend company money, but this new breed is helping companies make money,” said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. The upshot, said Geoffrey Heal, a business professor at the Columbia Business School, is that “what started out as a compliance job has evolved into one that guards the value of the brand.”

And these people seem to have power. The NYT report cited three examples:

• Since he became Dow Chemical’s first chief sustainability officer in March, David E. Kepler has been talking to Dow’s technology, manufacturing and finance people about alternative fuels and green products. “We usually agree,” Mr. Kepler said. “But if a critical environmental issue is in dispute, I’ll prevail.”


• Linda J. Fisher, the chief sustainability officer at DuPont, scuttled the purchase of a company that was not in a “sustainable” business. “We’re building sustainability into the acquisition criteria,” she said.


• And when two business chiefs at General Electric blanched at the cost of developing green products, Jeffrey R. Immelt, G.E.’s chairman, gave Lorraine Bolsinger, vice president of G.E.’s Ecomagination business, the research money. “I have an open door to get projects funded,” she said.

That’s demonstrating more clout than I think most “green” officers in New Zealand companies would be able to do. Or is it? Comments?

Our fair lady

The Paris Hilton phenomenon has had millions of words written about it already, and I am reluctant to add to the pile of piffle about the world’s most worthless person. I offer three perspectives (with which I happen to agree).

Miles Woolf – the media commentator for Vanity Fair. She is “a moment of relaxation where you don’t have to think about anything. She’s absolutely meaningless.”

Nora Ephron, the American writer and film maker “Paris is a boon. I don't think anyone understands this. For those of us who are parents, she provides an opportunity for judgment that is almost unparalleled in modern times.”

And then there was Mika Brzezinski, a newsreader on MSNBC who tried to burn his news script on air saying that the Paris is out of jail story was not a proper lead story.

Finally, Paris’s claim on Larry King that she didn’t do drugs flushed out the bloggers who found and posted footage of Paris doing exactly that. Try this http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0628071parishilton1.html. The fourth item of Paris lighting up a bong pipe in an Amsterdam hash joint is the most damning.

Celebrity Zone

Anyone who thinks that the media don’t have power needs to sit up and take notice of TMZ.com, a media outlet (owned by Time-Warner) which operates in the thirty mile zone (TMZ) of Hollywood. Under the headline, The web site celebrities fear, the New York Times (25 June) reports “TMZ.com has become the celebrity handler’s worst nightmare. The site has had a series of damaging celebrity scoops, including the police report detailing Mel Gibson’s drunken anti-Semitic tirade, Michael Richards’s racist rant in a comedy club, an audiotape of the angry phone message Alec Baldwin left for his daughter and a photograph of Anna Nicole Smith’s refrigerator filled with methadone and Slim-Fast.

The website has about nine million visitors a month, and it has become a reliable source for the mainstream media. “We’ve become like The Associated Press in the world we cover,” says Harvey Levin, TMZ’s producer. TMZ.com has been ranked the No. 1 Hollywood news site for nine months against well-known brands like Entertainment Weekly’s EW.com, People.com and E! Online.

Sicko attacked by spin

Michael Moore’s film Sicko is under attack from the health insurance industry which is using video news releases to counter the message that universal (and public) health care can work.

"If I had to do it all over again, I don't think I would use the Ontario system," said Canadian cancer patient Lindsay McGreith. "I would get my wife to drive me to Buffalo, because I know in Buffalo you'd get looked after, whereas here you'd just sit for seven and a half hours. .. Our system is lousy." McGreith's comments are in a soundbite and B-roll video package (basically, an unassembled video news release) distributed by the PR firm MultiVu and funded by Health Care America, which is funded in part by pharmaceutical and hospital companies. Another MultiVu fake news video, which was funded by America's Health Insurance Plans, promotes a "public-private" health care system and decries Moore's single-payer proposal as an unpopular, "simplistic" and unrealistic "public takeover of the healthcare system." Source: http://www.prwatch.org/spin

And Google also came under attack after one of its sales reps used the company’s blog to urge healthcare companies to take out Google ads attacking the movie. Rep Lauren Turner said "Moore’s film portrays the industry as money and marketing driven, and fails to show healthcare’s interest in patient well-being and care." She suggested that Google ads could help companies "better manage their reputations through 'Get the Facts' or issue management campaigns" After coming under heavy criticism from non-Google bloggers, Turner retreated, saying the statement was just "my personal opinion,” but Forbes said the incident called “attention to Google's ever-cozier relationships with corporate advertisers as it deepens its role as an online advertising agency.”

Microtargeting: A winner for Bush

Applying business and marketing techniques to politics is not new. Learning as much as possible about customers and voters before selling to them is well founded practice. Alex Gage, one of the architects of Bush’s victory in the 2004 Presidential election is now working for Mitt Romney who is seeking the Republican Party nomination in 2008. Gage was a pioneer of super segmentation or microtargeting.

The key is to take a large sample of voters and match their political views to their consumer habits. As the Washington Post reported (5 July 2007), it worked for Bush in two crucial states.

“In Ohio Gage's microtargeting showed that black voters - who had traditionally not been drawn to the GOP - wanted to hear candidates talk about education and health care. As a result, they received a series of contacts - direct mail and phone calls, primarily - emphasizing Bush's accomplishments on just those two issues. It worked. Nationwide, Bush won 11 percent of the black vote, a two-point increase from 2000; in Ohio, he won 16 percent, an improvement of seven percentage points. Bush won Ohio by 118,601 votes or approximately 2 percent of the vote.

In New Mexico, Gage's microtargeting discovered a segment of 19,000 lower- and middle-class, middle-aged Hispanic women whose children attended public schools. That group was strongly resistant to Republican candidates - just one in five said they would back a GOP candidate - but about half said they would back Bush. Why? Because 80 percent of the group were strongly supportive of his No Child Left Behind education legislation.

The Bush campaign made a targeted strike with a message focused on his push for testing and standards in public schools. It focused particularly on the 6,000 women in the group who were all but certain to vote. Again, the goal was not to win Hispanics or even Hispanic women but rather to minimize the Bush campaign's losses in this particular demographic.
On Election Day 2004, Bush carried New Mexico by 5,988 votes. It was the only state that he lost in 2000 and won four years later.”

Hard man Haig swipes Bush

It’s hard to see Gen Alexander Haig, former NATO commander and Secretary of State under President Reagan as a stooge of the Democrats or as some soft ‘surrender monkey’, but in a commentary in the Wall St Journal yesterday he assailed Bush’s policy in Iraq.

“The recent Hamas conquest of Gaza is a signal defeat for the United States that goes well beyond the particulars of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We have sought to deny the Islamic terrorists a territorial base in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and elsewhere. Now they have won one on the Mediterranean.” He goes on to criticize “three bad habits bedeviling the war on terror:
· Electing the anti-democrats. In the Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi elections, we allowed parties (Hamas, Hezbollah, Sadr) with standing armed militias to run, even though their platforms negated the very legitimacy of the democratic vote
· Speak fast, act slow. In January, President Bush announced the "surge" but only in June did sufficient troops arrive for the plan to take full effect. We telegraphed the punch, then took six months to deliver it.
· Too many generals. Donald Rumsfeld's departure and the decision to pursue counterinsurgency in Iraq required fresh commanders.”
·
To see the full piece, which also attacks the general neo-conservative position on exporting democracy, go to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118403572723161796.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Bye Bye Tony

Much has also been written about the departure of Tony Blair. I like the contribution of AA Gill, an English writer for US magazine Vanity Fair.
“After 10 years of economic growth, social ease, gently rising aspiration, cultural exuberance, financial security, dropping unemployment, manageable taxes and record spending on education and health, 10 years in which the biggest disturbances had been over fox hunting, Mr. Blair has managed to get himself roundly, fundamentally, panoramically hated at home.

Tony, as we call him with curled lips, is a personable man who has worked very, very hard on being liked. He is by his own admission a people person, a straight kind of guy, and he’d done his best. But it counts for naught. He’s left office well and truly loathed. Loathed and mocked. Loathed, mocked and despised.

Tony Blair’s administration was branded and packaged by relentless public relations. Everything was first and last about perception and presentation. His people cajoled, begged, charmed, bribed, flattered and postured to make the electorate love them. And in return, the electorate hated them even more for being so embarrassingly transparent and shamelessly insincere.”

Michael Portillo who was Defence Secretary under Conservative Party Prime Minister John Major, and who now writes as an independent, offered a different verdict.

“Tony Blair was a remarkable prime minister. I’m not blind to his flaws and I disagree with much that he stood for, of course — but I also admit that Britain is in many ways a better place than it was in 1997, for which Mr. Blair deserves some credit.

In posterity, Tony Blair will be remembered for winning three elections with large majorities, a feat that matches Margaret Thatcher’s record and was never achieved by any previous Labour leader. Although Britons now think that they see through his charm, I suspect many still rather like him. Had his party not turned against him he might have stayed on in Downing Street and won office yet again. We may well do worse.”

Only in America

“As we move into the heart of the county and state fair season, America’s deep-fry pioneers are once again pushing the envelope and plundering every aisle at the supermarket in search of fresh items that can be breaded, impaled on a stick and submerged in hot oil.

For a good deep-fried olive, for instance, head to the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona where deep-fried strawberries and avocados can also be sampled. The San Diego County Fair offers squid on a stick and deep-fried alligator. In Florida, deep-fried pickle slices are called Frickles. Or head to the Texas State Fair where a visionary named Abel Gonzales Jr. was able to create deep-fried Coke last year by mixing soda pop into the batter and then covering the result with cola syrup, cinnamon-sugar, whipped cream and a cherry. (Mr. Gonzales had won the fair’s top taste award the year before, as well, for a deep-fried peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwich.)”

This from the culinary section of the New York Times 24 June 2007

MPs, property, green stuff and marketing

Two former ACT MPs are looking to National to revive their careers http://www.johnbishop.co.nz/writer/articles/art060707-2.shtml

A leading accountant and property investor is backing property over shares and KiwiSaver http://www.johnbishop.co.nz/writer/articles/art060707.shtml

In Wellington the city council wins the top award for its annual report http://www.johnbishop.co.nz/writer/articles/art290607.shtml
And the Mayor plays green as the winning card to attract business and migrants.http://www.johnbishop.co.nz/writer/articles/art060707-3.shtml

And a barrister says the government’s ambush marketing bill goes too far
http://www.johnbishop.co.nz/writer/articles/art220607.shtml

Some final brevities

My discourse on the meaning of “true religion and justice” in the prayer used in Parliament brought a response from a reader who wants to keep religion out of politics, and offered the view of Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot in support; "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest".

Another reader reports: I actually heard a ringtone that was a child’s voice squawking ‘Mum! Pick up the phone! ‘Mum! Pick up the phone! ‘Mum! Pick up the phone!

The Angkor Wat Bakery and café in Waiouru (yes it’s true, bizarre but true) is offering award winning pie’s (sic).

Politicians and media criticising each other’s behaviour reminds me of the letter: Dear Kettle, You’re black. Signed Pot.

To which I would add the advice of one Claud Cockburn, a famous (leftwing) journalist of yesteryear, who said “Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.”

John Bishop - Communicator
Professional speaker, commentator, communications consultant, writer, trainer and facilitator
Web www.johnbishop.co.nz
www.johnbishop.co.nz
john@johnbishop.co.nz

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