“The basic assumption of the hegemonic model is that the ruling classes are able to rule by ideas and cultural influence rather than force. Hegemony is the ability of the ruling classes to rule by consent, by evolving a consensus for the ruling sentiments through everyday cultural life, including media representation of the world” (“Introducing Media Studies”, Ziauddin Sardar & Borin Van Loon, Totem Books, 2000, p72).

“Capitalism works best when elites make most fundamental decisions and the bulk of the population is depoliticised. For a variety of reasons, the media have come to be expert at generating the type of fare that suits and perpetuates the status quo” (“Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics In Dubious Times”, Robert McChesney, The New Press, 1999/2015, p3).  

“This divergence between the state of the science (on climate) and how it was presented in the major media helped make it easy for our (American) government to do nothing about global warming” (“Merchants Of Doubt: How A Handful Of Scientists Obscured The Truth On Issues From Tobacco Smoke To Global Warming”, Naomi Oreskes & Erik M Conway, Bloomsbury, 2010, p215).

“Climate is an angry beast, and we are poking at it with sticks” (New Scientist environmental journalist Fred Pearce); “Climate change is very scary” (NZ Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Jan Wright, TV1, One News at 6pm, 29/6/16).

Under the cultural hegemony of neo-liberalism in Aotearoa/NZ, the central political game over several decades (ever since Rogernomics in the 1980s) has been one of corporate social engineering in order to mainstream the dominant ideology as much as possible. The foreign-owned or controlled media have been integral to this project. They set the framework for discussion and debate in a whole plethora of ways; and they shape its substance and contours in corresponding style (see e.g. “Neo-Liberalism, Media, And The Political”, Sean Phelan, Palgrave MacMillan, 2014; “The 10 Great Neo-Liberal Myths Of NZ”, The Daily Blog, www.thedailyblog.co.nz, 16/01/16).

They even involve themselves directly in socio-economic projects to foster elitist social control, e.g. Fairfax Media's sponsorship of the absurd NZ Business Hall of Fame, fostering entrepreneurial greed, exploitation, and inequality in narcissistic, self-congratulatory style. In line with this hardline capitalist regime, critics of the reigning doctrine have been further systematically sidelined and marginalised. At the core of the neo-liberal political game is the ploy of activating mandates for free market policies; and of portraying the marked shift to the Right in the terms of a standard political spectrum of Right versus Left, with a seemingly neutral, middle-of-the-road Centre.

There has also been in recent years a deeper, sinister undercurrent, or calculatedly covert side, to the neo-liberal agenda. During the 2014 general election, the veil screening this secret dimension - the dark side of  “Establishment” politics - was dramatically ripped aside by investigative journalist Nicky Hager in his blockbusting book “Dirty Politics: How Attack Politics Is Poisoning New Zealand's Political Environment” (Craig Potton Publishing, 2014; reviewed by Jeremy Agar in Watchdog 137, December 2014, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/37/13.html).

Stunning Revelations

There were some stunning revelations about the “dirty politics” of the National government and its covertly orchestrated programme. So much of this had actually been directed from the Beehive executive itself with PM John Key's “black ops” man Jason Ede pulling many of the strings in tandem with attack bloggers like Cameron Slater (Whale Oil) and David Farrar (Kiwiblog). These revelations almost delivered the Government a king hit. But a lot of the mainstream media were deeply implicated in all of this and after a brief period of turmoil this same media have worked hard ever since to protect their Dear Leader, PM Key, and his Party from anything that would really hurt their image and re-election chances (“Special Report: Dirty Politics One Year On – What's Changed?”: www.thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/08/01).

Even at the peak of the dirty politics drama in 2014, much of this media worked so closely hand in glove with the National Party that they were able to smear Labour and the Opposition parties with the very same charge of dirty politics, and thus further confuse public perceptions and understanding in the run-up to the election. Given the excoriating substance of the revelations, the cursory and often misleading, or very superficial, media treatment (with a few exceptions) stands as testimony both to this media's very marked Rightwing bias and its actual involvement in political manipulation.

That nothing, astoundingly enough, of dirty politics has apparently stuck to PM John Key thanks to this same media is damning. If it had been a Labour PM at the centre of all this then he or she would have been pilloried out of office pronto, or persistently undermined by its legacy, with the curse of a murdered albatross around his/her neck peddled as the justified fallout from a failed “commie-type” plot!  Yet, in actuality, there is relatively little difference between National and Labour on many matters due to the dominant neo-liberal consensus, which again demonstrates how virulently Rightwing the mainstream media in general has become. The current hegemony is heavily perverse on both the domestic and foreign policy fronts.  

The mainstream media will certainly want to play a key role again in the country's general election due in late 2017. Some crony media public relations (PR) functionaries have already been suggesting that PM John Key and the presiding National government look set for a fourth term in office, and are doing their best to try and ensure this outcome (e.g., “Why Key May Pull Off A Fourth Term”, Press, 13/2/16, Tracy Watkins: Watkins is Fairfax Media Political Editor/Parliamentary Bureau Chief and Rightwing cheerleader).

My current article follows the line of two previous articles on the theme of the Rightwing political bias of the NZ mainstream media, especially its dirty politics and cronyism “(Media Manipulation” in Watchdog 136, September 2014, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/36/07.html; & “Subverting Democracy” in Watchdog 137, December 2014, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/37/04.html; also check out other relevant online material, e.g., “Tapping The Media: Subverting Democracy”, The Standard, www.thestandard.org.nz, 25/8/14). It further develops the theme of how the media frame issues of debate and discussion. It also elaborates on the theme of the crony media manipulation of public perceptions. As usual, I have had to be very selective in the material used given the abundance so readily available. For this particular article, there is an especial emphasis on the media treatment of the environment and climate change.

Exposing The Neo-Liberal Framework

Sometimes journalists themselves can make explicit the corporate framework in which they have to operate.  A very enlightening example was provided by an interview with veteran activist John Minto (“Southern Man: Stirring It In A New City” (Press, 23/4/16, http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/79097853/southern-man-stirring-it-in-a-new-city) This particular interview by John McCrone, who is a very good journalist, did a fair-minded  portrayal – certainly a rare piece indeed today about the views of someone like John Minto, who is very critical of neo-liberalism. McCrone, incidentally, in his freer early days at the Press exhibited an unusually deep grasp of various global environmental issues.

What I want to register here in McCrone's presentation of his interview with John is the presiding neo-liberal hegemony in terms of which this particular interview was conducted. McCrone observed: “There has been a shift to the Centre. The Labour Party is struggling to be seen as unthreateningly middle-of-the-road as possible” (ibid.). He went on to ask: “Isn't Minto's particular brand of progressive radicalism simply an irrelevance in this day and age?” (ibid.). John had his own astute answers to this particular question (ibid.). Again, for my purposes the focus is on the assumptions and principles defining the neo-liberal framework. A lot of this has already been explicated in my Watchdog articles cited above (“Media Manipulation”, etc., op. cit.).

But McCrone's operative assumptions are revealing given his conception of “the Centre” (“Southern Man”, op. cit.). He says of the current political situation: “However, now it comes down to economics. And Kiwis have voted consistently to maintain the neo-liberal reforms of the late 1980s, so long as the basics of a Welfare State – like health, education, pensions and benefits – are not dismantled. There is a consensus wanting to resist his (i.e. Minto's) change” (ibid.).

Of course, we have been researching and writing about this stuff in detail for many years, as well as campaigning on the relevant issues. As stressed, only on a very rare occasion as demonstrated by McCrone's interview, do the mainstream media actually engage with political viewpoints contrary to neo-liberal doctrine and its’ implications. Yet, on the other hand, sometimes alternative viewpoints on both current and future trends can be mentioned even if these trends absolutely contradict neo-liberalism.  The dominant media trick is to completely ignore the implications.

Global Warming: What’s That?

Global warming and its projected impact constitute one obvious such illustration of this trick in action. Even the mainstream media feel obliged to occasionally report on some of the dire warnings. But so many of the immediate implications for the global economic growth model are either ignored, or played down. Industrialism as a way of life for human society is totally out of kilter for long-term sustainability anyway. Again, future environmental catastrophe and collapsing societies, or resource wars, or some such combination of factors can easily be predicted but there is no explicit recognition of the consequent need to tackle capitalism as such head-on.

For example, a Press supplementary paper had an interview conducted by Matt Suddain with world-famous naturalist and TV presenter Sir David Attenborough (Your Weekend, 30/4/16). In emphasising the value of TV natural history documentaries for a better public understanding of nature, Attenborough commented: “'And it's never been more important because we are dependent on the natural world, and we are wrecking the natural world' (my emphasis; ibid, p9)…' But what we're really doing is wrecking ourselves' (again, my emphasis), I (i.e. Matt Suddain) venture'” (ibid.). Similar relevant observations by both expert commentators and journalists could be recorded from the mainstream media. My point here, however, is that the overwhelmingly main message of the media is that we can have our cake and eat it too, i.e., we might be seriously affecting the environment for the worse but somehow we can continue to grow production and consumption. 

From time to time, we can get an ominous warning about some global challenge, including climate change. But the need to substantially, even radically, change capitalism itself is hardly ever seriously discussed. The overwhelming message is that we can tinker round at the edges of the industrial and entrepreneurial growth model that the West has foisted on the rest of the world and essentially carry on with business-as-usual.  Even so-called Green Parties have found it impossible to resist the pressures of conforming to conventional and mainstream values and attitudes for the most part; or at least to a very large degree.

Indeed, conventional credibility depends on this very conformity and so promoting the prospect of endless prosperity whatever the problems ahead. Neo-liberal hegemony, however much founded in suicidal stupidity, has so far prevailed. The only way, of course, that humans can possibly justify this approach is in thinking that somehow their species is an exception to the processes of the natural world - whether by divine dispensation, by a miraculous innate genius for technological innovation that can somehow always ultimately and positively manage environmental fallout, or by some other “deus ex machina”, e.g., billionaire-funded space travel for the lucky few escaping to another “goldilocks” planet to plunder!   

Neo-liberal capitalism must deny any limits to economic growth and the exploitation of the planet's resources. Consequently, it must continuously strive to suppress, or perversely spin, any challenging “bad news” stories about its activities and operations. An egregious example within Aotearoa/NZ is again the case of global warming where Big Business has worked closely with the National Party (both before and during control of Government) to suppress public knowledge and concern (Scoop, “Climate Change Doco ‘Hot Air’ Launched Free On YouTube”, 12/5/15 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1505/S00138/climate-change-documentary-hot-air-now-free-on-youtube.htm).

Purveyors Of Coded Messaging

Mainstream media columnists, commentators, and pundits often purvey the coded messaging of neo-liberalism with the most superficial pap going. A Press columnist who exemplifies this particular style and gross lack of substance is Dr. Bob Brockie, a very technocratic and Rightwing science commentator. He regularly peddles an anti-Green corporate optimism founded on “the human powers of concerted invention and adaptation” (Press, 9/5/16, “Looking On the Sunny Side").

Brockie may be a zoologist (with a specialty in the study of hedgehogs and road kill!) but he has - thankfully unlike many of his fellow zoologists and biologists - a quite out of this world conception of human life and how it relates to the environment. He has no conception of evolutionary overshoot. In making his case for endless human prosperity and capitalist progress, he cites “The Rational Optimist” by Matt Ridley, a similarly minded colleague and an internationally prominent commentator (ibid.). So Brockie, a long-time cartoonist for the National Business Review (NBR), appeals to the assessments and judgement of another far Right free marketeer.

Dr Matt Ridley is a British science commentator whose reputation on climate science and the environment now lies in tatters (see, e.g., “Matt Ridley Returns With Error-Riddled Articles, As Wall Street Journal Discredits Itself”, ThinkProgress http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/09/10/3565758/matt-ridley-error-riddled-wall-street-journal/; & Matt Ridley,  DeSmogBlog,  http://www.desmogblog.com/matt-ridley). His musings and pontifications on global warming have been comprehensively debunked by a whole host of climate scientists.  It is yet well worth expounding on Matt Ridley's position because Brockie's article and his reliance on Ridley aptly illustrates both the very tawdry nature of Brockie's own anti-environmentalism, and more broadly the typical propaganda promulgated by such columnists in the media.

The Media Game Of Screwing Science For The Market

Matt Ridley is a journalist, businessman, and a Conservative Member of the House of Lords.  He is indeed a member of the traditional, hereditary, landed aristocracy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Ridley). Like Bob Brockie he has a doctorate in zoology. From 1984 to 87 he was Science Editor of the Economist, the leading British Establishment media advocate of free trade and neo-liberalism. In 1987, Ridley also went on to become the Economist's American correspondent, and later its American Editor until 1992. He writes regularly today for various Rightwing publications like Murdoch's Times (“Who Is Behind The New Zealand Initiative?” [The Standard, www.thestandard.org.nz, 22/4/16], includes relevant comment on Ridley, the media, and global warming). Indeed, he is widely published by the capitalist press in general, including NZ newspapers.

Significantly enough, however, Matt Ridley's own business dealings have come in for some heavy condemnation and criticism. His record clearly demonstrates his narrowly self-interested bias. For instance, he was “Chairman of the UK bank Northern Rock from 2004 to 07, during which period Northern Rock experienced the first run on a British bank in 150 years. Ridley chose to resign and the bank was bailed out by the UK government, leading to the nationalisation of Northern Rock” (Matt Ridley, Wikipedia, op. cit.). The fervent free marketeer had to fall on his own sword!  So much then for his own capitalist management and the creed that he espouses, especially as the Northern Rock debacle and other market failures went on to further unravel into the so-called Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Moreover, the GFC and its ramifications are far from over yet, despite the hopes of many capitalist pundits.

Matt Ridley himself is obviously one who has learnt nothing from it all, despite the fact that a Parliamentary committee even “criticised him for not recognising the risks of of the bank's financial strategy and thereby 'harming the reputation of the British banking industry'” (ibid.). As a de facto climate change semi-sceptic, whatever his sly rhetoric, it is most significant that he even earns an income from a coal mine on his estate. He is thus naturally also a keen proponent of fracking which has proved highly controversial in Britain. However, he was “found to have breached the Parliamentary Code of Conduct by the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards for failing to disclose in debates on the subject personal interests worth at least ₤50,000 in Weir Group, which has been described as 'the world's largest provider of special equipment used in the process' of fracking” (ibid.).

Within the context of capitalist globalisation, debate about the nature of future prospects is becoming increasingly surreal. We have already noted some indications of this above. I shall keep the focus on how the media and the neo-liberalist creed treat issues with regard to Aotearoa/NZ. But we have to sketch the big picture first. Taking up Bob Brockie's viewpoint once more, let him set the scene as he sees it: “We are daily bombarded with alarming stories about global warming” (see examples listed below; Press, 9/5/16, op. cit.). 

He cites “influential English conservationist James Lovelock (who) believes an orgy of reckless consumption is destroying the foundations of life on Earth – [and] that we have already passed vital tipping-points and are heading towards social and global collapse “(ibid.). Brockie instead sets out to counter what he calls “universal pessimism” by drawing for the rest of his article on Matt Ridley's book “The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves” (2010). This book emphasises the benefits and potential of trade and condemns the principles of self-sufficiency.

Matt Ridley extols the cooperative dimension of trade and capitalist competition.  Symbolically enough, Ridley's book won the (Friedrich) Hayek Prize in 2011. He also received the Julian Simon Award in 2012 and the Free Enterprise Award from the Institute of Economic Affairs. Julian Simon was an American  technocratic free marketeer, a Business Administration Professor notorious for his quite unearthly cornucopian projections about human progress and population growth, and his dismissal of the analyses of biologists and environmentalists like Professor Paul Ehrlich (see, e.g., the critical analysis by Herman Daly, a leading ecological economist: “The Social Contract – Ultimate Confusion The Economics of Julian Simon” http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1303/article_1144.shtml).

Simon was blithely ignorant and uncaring about ecosystems, wildlife, and all the other creatures on Earth other than humans (whatever the actual living conditions for so many of these humans and the role of American imperialism in this!). In multiple ways, Simon's extremism is yet essentially expressive of Western mainstream capitalism, and all the accompanying media propaganda; and, hence, of corporate globalisation in general. Ironically, some of his own historical analysis on the low and even declining prices for various resource commodities actually reflected the long-term Western militarist market at work in the “Third World”, as well as factors like increasing manufacturing efficiency.

Gearing Up For the Greater Capitalist Good!?

So, Bob Brockie takes this kind of stuff to heart in endorsing the message of Matt Ridley's optimism about capitalist development for humankind. He wholeheartedly joins Ridley in dismissing the potential threats of  “coming famines”; “expanding deserts”; “imminent plagues”; “impending water wars”; “oil exhaustion”; “mineral shortages”; “nuclear winters”; and “ocean acidification” (Press, 9/5/16, op. cit.).  According to Ridley, as quoted by Brockie, such things have “all [been] solemnly espoused by serious elites and hysterically echoed by the media” (ibid.). Yet none of these threats have eventuated, “or they have been averted by concerted human action” [how about that for pre-emptive action then!] (ibid.). And the same will happen again with global warming! We have the capitalist faith to prove it all too!

Ridley casually cites examples of technology like the “family car”, “nuclear power stations”, and “oil tankers”, as heralding the wonderful powers we shall have some time “at our disposal 50 or 100 years” ahead (ibid.). The environmental costs to date of so much technological innovation are just then conveniently ignored. Note, too, that some of the threats airily rejected by Matt Ridley and Bob Brockie actually refer to existing and accumulating processes of ecological damage, as well as those triggered and/or aggravated by global warming.

Nevertheless, according to Ridley, there is indeed very good news in that, overall, global warming will be benign, e.g. increased CO2 means greater plant growth and more greenery across the planet. Brockie is quite enthusiastic about NZ too, concluding that we shall “have 50 years to develop new irrigation systems and drought-proof crops and farm stock, and we could sell our excess West Coast water on the thirsty world market” (ibid.). There is always a silver lining somewhere for opportunistic capitalists in the exploitation of human misery, however grim the situation!  And foreign big business is already ripping off our fresh water!!

I have already drawn attention to Ridley's bogus and well pilloried expertise in climate science commentary. His very simplistic emphasis on the allegedly benign results of greater plant growth and growing greenery still requires specific refutation. It concerns some most important issues about the future. While Bob Brockie recognises the trends in our own region to “more droughts in eastern NZ and heavier rain on our west coasts”, he eagerly accepts the humbug interpretations of Matt Ridley and other such climate change semi-sceptics about the overall good outcomes from global warming like more greenery in various areas (ibid).

Boston University Professor Ranga Myneni, and 32 other scholars across the world, have “analysed the impact of  CO2 (carbon dioxide) by going through decades of satellite images provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)” (“’Greener’ Earth Shows Long-Term Ecological Implications”, Daily Free Press, 29/4/16, http://dailyfreepress.com/2016/04/29/greener-earth-shows-long-term-ecological-implications/). “Myneni said that many people looked at the study and left with the conclusion that CO2 is good for the Earth, which is not true”. 

“Although CO2 does have a positive effect on vegetation, it is unclear how long the effect will last, and the positive effect is not even close to the damage that global warming does to the ecosystems” [my emphasis] (ibid.; see also “CO2 Is Making Earth Greener – For Now”, 27/4/15: “Climate Change: Vital Signs Of The Planet”: News – NASA: http://climate.nasa.gov/). Matt Ridley is a keen advocate for doing as little as possible about global warming, e.g., he is even opposed to greater reliance on renewable sources of energy. Far from being a “rational optimist”, Ridley is an eminently irrational idiot. 

Both Bob Brockie and Ridley have a grossly distorted perspective due to the twisted perversities of their political ideology. Remarkably both men have doctorates in zoology but are clearly uncaring about the fact that the planet is now suffering its Sixth Great Extinction of animal species. This one, the Holocene Extinction, is the result of human activities, with humans eventually on the block too. Dr. Brockie actually saw fit to publish his rubbishy column on Matt Ridley's version of climate science and its implications (Press, 9/5/16, op. cit.) hard on the heels of the release of the NZ Royal Society's landmark report “Transition To A Low Carbon Economy for NZ”.

That report makes the case as strongly as it can for “immediate action”, proposing a wide range of “low-carbon technologies and measures” (“Goodbye Cool World”, Rebecca Macfie, Listener, 7-13/5/16, quote on p15). Brockie is thus far out of line with so many of his fellow scientists given his cranky notions and his laid-back attitude of us all having “50” years to comfortably act and adapt. Although narrowly focused on Aotearoa/NZ, the Listener article just cited admirably sets what can be done. Urgent action is paramount.

Take just one issue – rising sea levels. As Professor James Renwick says: “Unless we do something drastic soon, we're in for a big redrawing of coastal boundaries” (Press, 30/5/16). We can note in passing that while the Listener can occasionally have such a very good article on environmental issues like the one cited above, the editorial stance of the magazine - revealingly enough - does not see the environment as a matter for regular reportage and commentary. Under the section headed “This Life” on the Listener contents page, the vital topics are: Health; Nutrition; Science; Psychology; Food; Wine; Sport; and Travel. The foundations of life itself, and for the future of our very existence, are simply overlooked. Overall, the stance of the Listener is neo-liberal with Rightwing contributors like Karl du Fresne and Pattrick Smellie, and regular columnists like Bill Ralston and Jane Clifton.

Embracing And Exporting Key Elements Of Evolutionary Overshoot

The sort of stuff paraded by Brockie & co. has long been a staple of the media. By far the bulk of it derives from the US. If the US has harboured in the past the cutting edge of environmental concerns, research, and activism, it has also, lamentably enough, been the home to the most strident and reactionary anti-environmentalists on a wide range of fronts. The aggressive core of Western capitalism with its ever expanding frontier has spawned the most virulent Rightwing ideologies.

Today, we are seeing this unfold before our eyes with the rise and rise of Donald Trump, a sinister soap opera so very reminiscent of the brilliant political satire film “The Rise And Rise Of Michael Rimmer” (1970) starring Peter Cook, who also co-wrote it. The negative influences of dirty politics and the dangerously undemocratic potential of PR, polling, and the media were all brilliantly foreshadowed in this film. Under the neo-liberalist regime, the notion of the “free market” has reigned supreme with the ideas of constant, beneficial innovation and consequent unequal entitlement generated by competitive enterprise.

To elaborate further: “The belief that technology can solve society's problems is central to the school of thought known as Cornucopianism promoted by the economist Julian Simon” (“Merchants Of Doubt”, op. cit., p256). Belief in endless economic growth, material progress, “trickle-down” benefits, and free trade/investment are the ruling principles. The foremost Cornucopian writer in recent times, certainly as promoted by the mainstream media, has been Bjorn Lomborg of “The Sceptical Environmentalist” infamy (ibid., p258).

Over the years, Lomborg, like Ridley, has been a particular favourite columnist of the Press. Lomborg is another climate change semi-sceptic as well as a proponent of unlimited human growth. He claimed to have been inspired by Julian Simon (ibid.). Indeed, he began “The Sceptical Environmentalist” with a quote from Simon: “The material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely. Within a century or two, all nations, and most of humanity will be at or above today's Western living standards” (ibid.). 

Irrationality has become entrenched on the capitalist Right, not just the fringe far Right, but also with those who routinely articulate and extend conventional assumptions and ideas. For sure, conventional capitalism itself cannot bear too close a scrutiny. Ideologues like Simon, Ridley, and Lomborg might be extreme exponents of this outlook, i.e., that we can grow for ever - exemplified in Aotearoa/NZ by the likes of Brockie & co., yet it is the tacit, operative creed of capitalism itself.

However, it is certainly not that of the Western military and those politicians most closely associated with them, and the formulation of their resource war strategies. They have no such illusions about limitless resources. Such contradictions are rife throughout global capitalism but these have been largely ignored or screened from public scrutiny. One has only to watch and listen to Parliament regularly to appreciate the emotive depth of the ruling economic assumptions for the NZ political Establishment (watch Parliament TV).

According to this viewpoint, we can, and must, keep growing prosperity by greater production and consumption (come hell or high water!); and this is pretty well much the same across the Parliamentary political spectrum, whatever alternative policies the Greens might have. Similar sentiments are shared throughout global capitalism. Increasing trade is fundamental to growing the economy and the Greens have even criticised National for failing to increase the tradable sector of our economy (“National Failing To Build Strong, Export-Focused Economy”, Greens’ press release, 20/7/15, https://www.greens.org.nz/news/press-releases/national-failing-build-strong-export-focused-economy).

So much of what Ridley, Simon, Lomborg, and Brockie have to say actually comprises the essence of capitalist doctrine, as expressed worldwide by politicians, economists, bureaucrats, and the media. This outlook was clearly demonstrated by the neo-liberal framework as outlined by Press journalist John McCrone in his interview with John Minto quoted above (“Southern Man”, op. cit.). Within this prevailing neo-liberal framework of debate and discourse, differences are so often those of style rather than substance.

Smear Greens As “Far Left”

This is why we have to continuously challenge the ruling assumptions of capitalist doctrine, some of which reflect even deeper notions about progress, industrialism, and civilisation, and make the case for alternative development paths. Further, within the neo-liberal framework, the media freely indulge the Rightwing extremism of ACT & co. while closely following the lead of the National Party in painting eminently rational, practical, and positive policies, given the global crisis, as symptomatic of the extreme Left. 

For example, interviewer Jessica Mutch on TV1's Q & A commented in an exchange with Green Party Co-Leader James Shaw that his wish to broaden the party's appeal indicates a move away from its “far-Left supporters” (3/4/16). This echoes National Party propaganda. Some National MPs certainly stand out for their reactionary posture. For example, accountant and dairy farm owner David Bennett, who may be aptly labelled “the screaming skull” of Parliament, even regularly denounces the mildly progressive Greens for “far Left Communism” (e.g., Parliament TV, 18/8/15 & 28/6/16).

This sort of absurd and extreme rhetoric is not only helping demean the conduct of our Parliamentary democracy but smacks of dirty politics, and even the worst kind of neo-fascist diatribe. Within the neo-liberal framework, the mildly progressive Greens are potentially dangerous in voicing concerns about social justice and so adding extra weight for traditional Leftist issues, which are anathema to the presiding hegemony. Thus the media have long been trying to crush any such concerns as much as possible.

Moreover, with the advent of James Shaw to the Greens' Co-Leadership they spy an opportunity to prod this party more to the Right. Shaw has a business background and so here surely is an opening to encourage mainstream views and a conventional capitalist outlook. Let the Greens stick to their knitting, i.e., look after the sphere of the environment within the parameters set by the economy. According to Tracy Watkins: “… Shaw may steer the Greens closer to their core Green 'brand' after the party lost its focus on that message in previous elections by concentrating on its economic and social platform” (“Smokers Weren't The Only Ones Left Fuming”, describing Opposition party responses to the Budget,  Press, 28/5/16). 

Disturbingly enough, James Shaw, who has performed reasonably well on a variety of matters, dropped the ball badly on defence. His very affirmative response to the Government's new White Paper, which proposes a huge militarist spending splurge of $20 billion over 15 years as mandated by the US, demonstrates a stunning lack of awareness or unconcern about our reintegration into the American doomsday machine and wider geopolitics (“Defence White Paper: Government Unveils $20b Defence Plan For New Planes, Boats And Cyber Security”, 8/6/16,  http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/80835677/defence-white-paper-20b-defence-upgrades-for-new-planes-boats-and-cyber-security; & Peace Action Wellington press release, “Defence Spending Obscene Opening For More Wars”, 9/6/16, http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1606/S00084/defence-spending-obscene-opening-for-more-wars.htm).

Apparently, the Greens want to make sure we contribute our bit to World War III like the rest of the NZ Parliament, whatever the empty, self-serving rhetoric of all the various parties (on the increasing dangers see my Peace Researcher articles: “The Challenge Of Climate Wars”, in PR 46, December 2013, http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr/46/pr46-007.html; “Capitalist Militarism” in PR 48, November 2014, http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr/48/pr48-009.html  & “Tackling Technocratic Militarism”, in PR 51, June 2016, http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr/51/pr51-006.html).

In contradistinction to relentlessly targeting the Opposition parties, the mainstream media rigorously eschew any negative labelling of ACT and related groups (e.g., NZ Taxpayers' Union), and the various policies and personalities involved as extremist or such-like (other than token light criticism). The main general theme is persistent negativity for the Left and positive achievement for the Right, or at least ongoing appreciation for a firm, steady guiding hand on the helm of the ship of State. Nothing should seriously rock seriously this Rightwing boat! I shall look further at this sort of media technique, among others, later below. These techniques are indeed virtually multitudinous!

Free Trade – The Great Destroyer!

The major vehicle for US-led neo-liberal globalisation has of course been the strategy of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). Ever since the establishment of “free trade zones” around the then “Third World”, and later in China too, Western transnational corporations (TNCs) have been the catalysing agents of global “boom and bust” in the ongoing programme of “wrecking the natural world”, of evolutionary overshoot. For example, the US-generated promotion of capitalism in China has led to the horrific decimation of Africa's wildlife and biodiversity with the pillage of elephant ivory and rhino horn being the most obvious indicator.

This is just one deleterious impact of China's growth on the planet as it emulates the predatory growth of the West and American neo-imperialism. In yet another enormous case of political blowback, tensions are increasing in the South China Sea with the US squaring off against China as the race for resources and geopolitical influence hots up. A Social Darwinist bloodbath beckons. The globalist contradiction between free trade prosperity and resource wars could not be plainer!

The Government's new White Paper on Defence warns of mounting competition for resources in the Antarctic as well as the South China Sea. Former PM David Lange famously said that: “New Zealand is a dagger pointing at the heart of Antarctica” (copying State terrorist and war criminal Henry Kissinger's earlier remark about Chile. Kissinger was trying to cover up his nefarious role in the Central Intelligence Agency coup against President Salvador Allende on 9/11 in 1973).

Ironically, Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee could make it plain that Aotearoa/NZ faced resource wars with a growing world population and food challenges (The Nation, NewsHub, TV3, 12/6/16). And this comes from a rabidly anti-Green National government now wallowing (along with the media) in the contradictions of its own entrepreneurial, free trade bullshit (e.g., “Defence Shopping List Reflects A Resources-Hungry World”, Stacey Kirk, Sunday Star Times, 12/6/16). Brownlee even cynically played up the alleged threat from desperate boatpeople refugees, a threat already peddled by PM John Key with the aid of some of the media (The Nation, op. cit.).

FTAs have been the cutting edge of this dangerously destabilising process and NZ has long been one of its most fervent pundits. Yet there is now gathering resistance to this dimension of the neo-liberal agenda.  During the neo-liberal era, the West has had abysmal political leadership. In yet another great irony, the proto-fascist Donald Trump is now capitalising on the frustration and anger of many white American working class and lower middle class voters, as well as bruised members of the middle class.

These people are bitterly disillusioned with the American “Establishment” and the socio-economic fallout from its free trade and overseas investment programme, given the gutting of much manufacturing, high unemployment, and a staggering 50 million people on food stamp benefits (e.g., “President Trump – Can He Really Win?”, presenter Matt Frei, TV3, 17/5/16). This syndrome is mirrored by the Brexit outcome and its British and European fallout. The trend to genuine neo-fascism in the US is gaining momentum. Hillary Clinton, the Democrat Presidential candidate, has a dark foreign policy record along with her close linkage to Wall Street's agenda.

TPPA

The reactionary populist syndrome, thankfully enough, is not reflected here in Aotearoa/NZ where the influence of neo-liberalism and free trade has also been strong. But it certainly will come in some form or another if we are not sufficiently pre-emptive. In our case, public discourse has instead been mostly focused on the specific issues at stake – from housing, the minimum wage, union rights, and child poverty to the actual content and conditions of FTAs, at least in the case of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).

If scapegoating and simplistic knee-jerk reaction have largely been avoided by the now quite diverse movement of opposition here to intrusive foreign control, the media did have a field day when Labour foolishly linked Chinese-sounding names to overseas-based property speculation in the Auckland housing market. Given the National Party's cynical scaremongering about the supposed threat presented by refugee boatpeople, it will be interesting to see how the media treat Chinese names as conflict deepens in the South China Sea.

NZ First, along with ACT, certainly continues to agitate with a xenophobic edge against the recently increased flows of immigration but the question of corporate control and the loss of our democracy represents an entirely separate issue to this sort of crude populism. Given the widespread nature of the opposition movement and protests against the TPPA, even the corporate-controlled media have had to acknowledge the terms of public, open, and free debate to some degree. While we can readily criticise a lot of the media coverage of the TPPA as very lightweight and superficial, there is now still an ongoing discourse within our own society, as well as overseas.

It is yet significant to note that both some activist critics of the TPPA, along with the more restrained critics from, say, within the Labour Party, can take their stand on the grounds that the TPPA is not a pure free trade pact anyway. They charge that instead, in contrast to previous FTAs, the TPPA involves a raft of new anti-democratic measures. In fact, the undemocratic nature of free trade in so many respects has been evident for centuries! So often the rich and powerful dictate the conditions, whether imperial Britain in the 19th Century or neo-imperial America since WWII.

To be sure, Labour continues to proclaim itself as a party strongly committed to the principles of free trade. If the anti-TPPA movement in Aotearoa/NZ has upset the neo-liberal consensus much to the annoyance of its local acolytes, FTAs are still de rigueur doctrine for the political “Establishment”. Hence, the bitterness shown by National MPs in Parliament regularly lambasting Labour for its alleged betrayal of the neo-liberal mainstream consensus on free trade in regard to the TPPA. 

The official prevailing pro-free trade sentiment was highlighted by a TV1 item on the prospects for a FTA between NZ and India (One News at 6pm, 30/4/16). This was a typically upbeat media presentation. TVNZ is openly promoting this particular FTA as it has done with all the preceding FTAs. Indeed, reporter Paul Hobbs announced in all earnestness that: “A FTA is an obvious step forward” (my emphasis), linking us closely with the world's fastest growing economy (ibid.).

Recently, a number of journalists accompanied John Key on his visit to China. Despite a deepening ecological crisis there, let alone China's impact on the rest of the world, I noticed no mention of environmental issues at all. Asian markets like India, China, Japan, etc., are seen as the golden highway by free trade fantasists like Rightwing journalist Pattrick Smellie and economic commentators like Siah Hwee Ang, the BNZ Chair in Business at Victoria University. They are egregiously ignorant and careless about the environment. Both regularly feature in The Press. 

Fiddling While Earth Burns

The well-funded and travelled Smellie, once the press officer of Labour Finance Minister Roger Douglas and so an agent of the neoliberal “Rogernomics” subversion of Aotearoa/NZ, specialises in this sort of PR work.  In recent years, Smellie has travelled to India with the support of the Asia NZ Foundation, and also to Japan courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade [MFAT] (”Modi's Operandi”, 2/1/15: India Archives, New Zealand Listener, http://www.listener.co.nz/current-affairs/politics/modis-operandi/; “Japan, The Land Forgotten By Exporters?”, Press, 26/5/16). 

He has a record of experience in corporate communications and is co-founder of Business Desk online news and commentary service, a product of Content Ltd., a journalism wholesaler of which he is a co-owner.  In 2013, he took a majority shareholding in The Hugo Group, which he touts as a news and information service for chief executives (for background on this outfit see my article “Food Crisis, And The Global Economy: Countering NZ's Corporate Bonding”, in Watchdog 127, August 2011, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/27/08.htm ).  Smellie is an active corporate propagandist for free trade, the TPPA and similar TNC initiatives.

He is similarly Rightwing on climate change. He even defends what he admits might sound like “fiddling while Rome burns”! (“When Cheap Oil Is No Good Any More”, Press, 22/10/15). To this end, he quotes Victoria University's Climate Change Research Institute Professor David Frame, who incredibly enough says that climate change is “playing out much as expected”, and that while “abrupt change was always possible”, this sort of change “was unlikely to be irreversible [my emphasis]” (ibid.). While “the more gradual change observable at present is much harder to turn around”, this alleged fact signals “good news because the model gives us roughly 100 years to act to take CO2 out of the global economy and, in a slow-acting way, [my emphasis] turn down the heat” (ibid.). So we have plenty of time to take appropriate action. Yeah right!  

In the conclusion to his 2007 book “The Last Generation: How Nature Will Take Revenge For Climate Change” (Key Porter Books, p310), New Scientist environmental correspondent Fred Pearce summed up his overall message about the corporate “discounting of the future” in these words: “Moreover, the existing estimates of social cost are based on IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) studies that so far have not included many of the irreversible [my emphasis] positive feedbacks [and tipping points] to climate change that this book has concentrated on”. 

“So nobody has yet even asked what price should be attached to a century-long drought in the American West; or an enfeebled Asian monsoon; or a permanent El Nino in the Pacific; or a shut-down of the ocean conveyor; or the acidification of the oceans; or a methane belch from the ocean depths; or a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet; or sea levels rising by half a metre in a decade. Though, on reflection, these are perhaps questions best not answered by accountants” (ibid.). Or for that matter corporate-oriented climate scientists like Professor David Frame, once an NZ Treasury official (for more on Frame's weirdly laid-back views see “Climate Wars”, op. cit.). The idea that “abrupt change” can be reversed by human agency is utterly risible. Frame, who is actually a contributor to the IPCC process, falls in much the same category as Lomborg, Ridley, and Brockie. 

From the rapidly melting Arctic to Australia's fast deteriorating Great Barrier Reef and eroding Sydney beaches, from the drought and raging wildfires of the US southwest to crumbling Antarctica, global warming - in combination with a range of other damaging causes, often aggravated and compounded by climate change - continues to take its toll on the planet's ecology. A host of scientists and research studies indeed confirm that global warming and its detrimental impacts are happening faster, often much faster, than previously expected (e.g. “Global Warming Will Be Faster Than Expected”, ScienceDaily, 26/11/15, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151126104037.htm; “Climate Change Rate May Be Faster Than Expected?”, VOA, 23/3/16, http://www.voanews.com/content/climate-change-rate-may-be-faster-than-expected/3251205.html; “Climate Change: It's Even Worse Than We Thought”. New Scientist, https://www.newscientist.com/round-up/worse-climate/).

With NZ now looking at India as the latest cargo cult cart to which to hitch its free trade fortunes, the outlook in fact is very sobering “(“India's Drought Foretells Of Greater Struggles As Climate Warms”, a link on “Climate Change: It's Even Worse Than We Thought”, 18/5/16, ibid.). Again, the warning signals for AotearoaNZ are significantly portentous. In May 2016 it was reported that: “India is in the grip of a severe drought as a result of two successive weak monsoons and a searing heatwave” (ibid.). Most ominously, “its reservoirs dipped to less than a fifth of their total capacity in May” (ibid.).

This state of affairs with failing crops, eroding soils, and depleting water resources is at stark odds with “the country's image as an emerging economic and technological power” (ibid.). But the Indian government shows no sign of changing away from its “intensive irrigation-driven agriculture system”, despite “rapidly depleting groundwater and declining water tables” (ibid.). Similarly, the National government of Aotearoa/NZ forges on with a dairy-oriented “intensive irrigation-driven agriculture system”, despite declining and polluted waterways, plus increasing groundwater problems. Much of the media still continues to cheer on irrigation development. And so it goes . . .

A Reality Check

It is time too for a reality check on general global environmental trends. Let me quote two Melbourne University academic specialists: “We have shown (in their book – see reference) global environmental degradation was clearly manifest well before the rise of neo-liberal economic globalisation in the 1980s, and that this degradation was predominantly the result of a much longer wave of modernisation that began with European imperial expansion in the early modern period. However, the neo-liberal phase of economic globalisation has dramatically accelerated and intensified environmental degradation to the point where it threatens to undermine both the broader processes of globalisation and the Earth's life support systems.

The global spread of capitalist markets aided by new communication and transport technologies, has radically accentuated the compression of space and time that is the hallmark of the modernisation process” (“Globalisation & The Environment”, Peter Christoff & Robyn Eckersley, Rowman & Littlefield Pubs, 2013, pp161/2). These claims are readily backed up by the best available scientific evidence. “According to the 2005 Environment Sustainability Index, no state in the world is on a sustainable trajectory. Increasingly, we confront a narrative of planetary environmental transformation and crisis that challenges the modern vision of prosperity and human progress linked to continuous economic growth. For example, the “Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report”, commissioned by the United Nations Secretary-General and released in 2005, found that “human activity has changed the Earth's ecosystems more rapidly and extensively over the past 50 years than in any previous time in human history” (ibid., p2). 

And this has just been one of a series of “major global environmental assessments that have warned that human development patterns have become unsustainable, and will increasingly undermine rather than enhance human well-being” (ibid.). As ever, the rich live on the backs of the poor. In 2008, a report calculated that: “Rich countries owe poor a huge environmental debt” (“Millennium Ecosystem Assessment”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Ecosystem_Assessment; Guardian, 20/1/08). The former have “caused environmental damage to developing nations at more than the entire 'Third World' debt of $US1.8 trillion” (ibid.).

And, of course, so much of this debt was enforced by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the Washington Consensus regime of harsh capitalist structural adjustment programmes. While the media may occasionally mention or examine an environmental problem in certain detail, the general trick, as noted earlier in this article, is to avoid any serious scrutiny of how it relates to capitalism as much as possible. The malign and crony purveyors of neo-liberalism are leading humankind into a terrible cul-de-sac.

Crony Media

In the capitalist West today, many of the mainstream media are struggling to keep afloat with the growth of the digital domain and its online information and infotainment flows, along with all the interaction of social media. But the visual images and sound bites of TV in particular can still have enormous resonance on a media scene that has become more globally fragmented, and so nationally fragmented as well.  The concentration of a few big networks, especially the American purveyors like CBS (Summer Redstone, also owner of Viacom), ABC (Disney), NBC (Comcast), CNN (TimeWarner), and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (including Fox News), together comprise a pervasive corporate reach. The British BBC and ITV complement the other arc of Anglo-American “soft power” media influence and manipulation, along with such print media as Murdoch's Times.

On a wider level, we must, of course, also include within the Anglo-American axis the three subordinate “Five Eyes” security/intelligence/covert action members, i.e. Canada, Australia, and little “ole” NZ itself, the last named being very much a fawning, junior statelet. These countries take their cue from Big Brother US. In Aotearoa/NZ, the crony mainstream media for the most part constantly and ritually parrot American foreign policy propaganda. Meanwhile, media concentration is proceeding.

Within Aotearoa/NZ, not only does MediaWork's TV3 channel manage Sky TV NZ's Prime Channel for news content and presentation but Fairfax Media and ME, which is APN's NZ subsidiary, are now looking to merge (Sean Phelan, 'It's Neo-liberalism Stupid”, Counterfutures, http://counterfutures.nz/pdf/phelan.pdf). As well, Sky is merging with Vodafone to form a subsidiary company owned (51%) by Vodafone UK. Most ominously, there have even been indications of a possible merger between TVNZ and MediaWorks, something the Government denies as its privatisation agenda rolls on.

The dissemination of “news” continues to diminish with TV3 having ended its noon bulletin in July 2016. In 2011 an academic report showed how “NZ media companies are increasingly dominated by global and pan-regional media corporations and are vulnerable to commercial and shareholder pressures”, including the process of online digitisation (“Shrinking Local Media A Threat To New Zealand's Democracy - AUT”, NZ Herald, 13/10/11, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/aut-feature/news/article.cfm?c_id=1502963&objectid=10758738). A PwC study has confirmed the power of “the forces that have battered the (media) sector and triggered merger discussions” (“Media Shift In Full Swing - PwC”, Press, 8/6/16). Newspaper circulation continues to drop markedly as digital services increase in a more fragmented market. Paradoxically, conglomerate concentration goes hand in hand with the diversification of audiences and readership.

Crony media has become common fare within the mainstream of Western society. Rupert Murdoch and News Corp, of course, played a central role in shaping all of this, even from within a US already pervaded with a capitalist culture obsessed by money and image. As an American-owned media organ (by Oaktree Capital vulture fund), MediaWork's TV and radio setup is appropriately tuned to corporate themes more than ever before. However, in May 2016, John Key's mate MediaWork's Chief Executive Officer Mark Weldon found himself obliged to resign, hard on the heels of the resignation of Hilary Barry, TV3's very popular news co-presenter. Hilary Barry was the latest high profile staff member to resign under Weldon's disastrous restructuring regime.

But the neo-liberal style and substance of this media outfit continues. NewsHub/TV3's Political Editor Patrick Gower, who was deeply immersed in dirty politics, has got even more hysterically reactionary in his personal attacks, gross language, “tabloid coverage, and personalised rants”, e.g., “Labour Is Rotten To The Core” (“Gower And The 3 News Ratings Slump”, Standard, 20/8/15, http://thestandard.org.nz/gower-and-the-3-news-ratings-slump/). TV3 is generally saturated with American input and modes of presentation. Indeed, Aotearoa/NZ obviously qualifies for NewsHub's (more Yankee jargon!) TV3 as a mini-US internal state with the regular delivery of American-content items having very limited appeal for international audiences. 

And this goes with all the foreign policy propaganda from the likes of CBS and ABC. Of course, TV channels in general are saturated with American drama and entertainment shows. A number are very politically loaded on foreign policy matters, e.g., “Madam Secretary”; “Strike Back”; and “Scorpion”. Given the narrowly focused American viewpoint, supplemented by the British BBC and ITV, etc. as the other dimension of the Anglo-American axis, the NZ public gets an increasingly distorted view of what is actually happening in the wider world. To be sure, American conditioning has long been routine but NZ TV networks now rely more than ever on what a few giant US media corporates are peddling. Like TV3 and Prime, TVNZ is displaying a similar trend to even more American cultural indoctrination.

TV’s Rightwing Mouthpieces

To use a favourite phrase of the British comedienne Catherine Tate, the media manipulators are a pack of “dirty rotten bastards”, promulgating their views under the guise of democracy and the service of the public good. They pose as unbiased neutral arbiters of the political scene while freely disseminating their often deeply prejudiced Rightwing views. A notorious ongoing example is the case of “greed is good” Mike Hosking, who co-hosts along with Toni Street (acting in a fawning “blonde bimbo” role fit to make feminists squirm with justified discomfit) the Seven Sharp programme on TV1. Not only is this a forum for Hosking's neo-liberalism but he indulges in openly politicised pontifications and pro-National government opinions.

The narcissistic Hosking has described himself as “a money person, I'm a capitalist. I'm to the Right of Roger Douglas” (instigator of Rogernomics). It is absolutely outrageous that on State television the viewing public is now regularly subject to such a prejudiced presenter, who even dismisses climate science as so much empty scaremongering. But then this is just par these days for the mainstream media's dirty politics. Hoskings played a prominent part in dismissing Nicky Hager's revelations and shutting down discussion and debate during the 2014 national elections. He has a pivotal role across the media of TV, radio, and print.

As taxpayers and citizens, we have the right indeed to be very angry about such practices, which are now even openly and blatantly aimed at subverting our democracy, let alone helping prime us for self-destruction. Thankfully, there is a gathering movement for the public accountability of Mike Hosking (“Petition To 'Get Rid' Of Mike Hosking Has More Than 14,000 Supporters” [in just a week!], http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/81293594/Petition-to-get-rid-of-Mike-Hosking-has-more-than-12-000-supporters; “Why Petitioner Doesn't Like Mike”, Press, 24/6/16; “Former TVNZ Staff Member Destroys Mike Hosking”, Daily Blog, 19/6/16,  http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2016/06/19/former-tvnz-staff-member-destroys-mike-hosking/). Some similar minded Rightwing media “personalities” (and there are plenty of them!) are being flushed out, e.g., Newstalk ZB's Rachel Smalley defending Hosking and “the wealth of the (world's) super-rich” (Against The Current, www.nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com, 22/6/16; plus Martin van Beynen, “Focus On The Issues Hosking Pontificates On”, Press, 25/6/16).                  

In the wake of National’s election win in 2014, this underlying erosion of our democracy goes on in much the same way (“Special Report: Dirty Politics One Year On”, op. cit.; “Nicky Hager: Dirty Politics And Journalism One Year On”, 19/7/15, http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/201762823/nicky-hager-dirty-politics-and-journalism-one-year-on). The mainstream crony media still protect their corporate leader, John Key, whatever the lies – soft power in action! (“The Great Big List Of John Key's Big Fat Lies (Updated)”, Standard, 27/1/16, http://thestandard.org.nz/the-great-big-list-of-john-keys-big-fat-lies-updated/).

Some Rightwing journalists like Duncan Garner openly exult in this PR role (e.g. “Dirty Politics Players Back In The Frame”, Radio New Zealand, 22/11/15; “Flexible Principles Help Key, While Labour Flounders”, Press, 30/1/16). Fairfax Media/MediaWork's Garner even portrays Key as “Leftwing” and “socialist” (Press, ibid.). There is thus certainly plenty of “cunning” and “shameless” spin for the Dear Leader, foreign control, and crony capitalism (ibid.). Like the hosts of Seven Sharp on TV1, Garner and Heather du Plessis-Allan front the Story soap operaon TV3 in a parallel pairing and time slot, replacing the estimable Campbell Live on our local “Voice of America” media “hub”. Neo-liberal media social engineering is running rampant today!

National's crony ginger group, the NZ Taxpayers' Union, despite being badly contaminated by dirty politics, remains a media favourite. Likewise, David Farrar, one of the two leading National Party attack bloggers featured in Hager's “Dirty Politics” (with even a separate chapter on his various roles and political manipulations) is still a regular commentator on RNZ, as well as elsewhere. Farrar is National's pollster and a long-time political strategist for the party. Farrar's blog attack mode can be quite cynically unethical (“Proof Of David Farrar's Deception: My Own Experience Of Dirty Politics”, Dr Jarrod Gilbert Sociologist, 23/9/14, http://www.jarrodgilbert.com/blog/proof-of-david-farrars-deception-my-own-experience-of-dirty-politics).

Rooting And Rorting For The Far Right

A graphic illustration of how crony media works is the calculatedly cynical game played by Fairfax Media and its cultivation of the hard Right. The tiny, far Right ACT Party (effectively funded by one wealthy individual) has only one MP in Parliament, de facto gerrymandered into his current role with the collaboration of the ruling National Party. But ACT is a vital partner for the Government and so the media assiduously promote its lone representative, David Seymour, who can certainly spit venom in Parliament when he is not acting as the class clown. He is clearly despised by the Opposition parties for his behaviour.

But this is all good fun for the crony media, who give him a protective cover and far more indulgent attention than he deserves. A glaring example of such media favouritism is the instalment of Seymour as a Sunday Star Times (SST) columnist debating with a Labour MP. Seymour replaced National's Judith Collins of rotten dirty politics infamy. So the party of greed is again getting a vital credibility boost from the corporate media and another channel of dissemination for Rightwing extremism, along with various other boosts to his credibility (e.g., “Seeing More Of David Seymour”, Tracy Watkins, Sunday Star Times, 7/2/16). Mainstream TV, radio, and print media give Seymour and his far Right policies far more time and space than he deserves. This carefully calculated discrimination in Seymour's favour contrasts starkly at times with that allocated to the Opposition.

It is also very significant that the SST hadpreviouslyhelped rehabilitate Collins back to Cabinet office – as Minister of Police and Corrections so help us all! Soon after the dirty politics controversy erupted prior to the 2014 election, the John Key-led Government had even found it necessary to drop the badly contaminated Collins, reeking of dirty work and corruption charges, from Cabinet as a critical means of maintaining credibility with the NZ public. Collins represents a hard Rightwing faction of the National Party, as well as having been linked intimately with dirty politics.

She has been the subject of specific corruption allegations swirling round Oravida, her husband's export company which is so well favoured by the Government. Yet Collins has been touted as a future National Party Leader prospect and thus the SST helped put her back on this track again. Collins had been supposedly cleared of anything untoward associated with dirty politics, at least according to yet another Government-contrived whitewash. The usual media PR people have promoted her refurbished image (e.g. “Hey Tracy Watkins - Judith Collins Was Not ‘Cleared’ Of Dirty Politics”, Standard, 8/12/15, http://thestandard.org.nz/hey-tracy-watkins-judith-collins-was-not-cleared-of-dirty-politics/).

A host of other activities insidiously erosive and subversive of democracy, besides the malevolent misalignment of so much of the media, include the following: the degradation of Question Time in Parliament under the auspices of the grossly biased Speaker, David Carter; the appointment of ideologically consonant Government executives; the undemocratic implementation of various new legislation and manipulation of existing legislation; the substantial reduction of citizens’ rights and freedoms as testified by the NZ Law Society to the UN; the obfuscatory handling of requests under the Official Information Act; a string of crony Government appointments to official positions; and the undermining of the independent, critical role of academia by reducing the democratic participation of university councils, as well as commercialising research as much as possible.

From boosting State computerised surveillance and a trend to Police intimidation of peaceful dissent and protest, the Government continues to gear up for greater control by crony capitalist interests. Executive power has concentrated at the expense of Parliament (Media Law Journal, 20/2/16, www.medialawjournal.co.nz/). It has cynically boosted the PR units of Government departments as part of its camouflage cover for more authoritarian control.

There Is Some Good News

The good news is that the higher judiciary still has substantial integrity and independence. The High Court found that the Police raid of investigative journalist Nicky Hager's home was illegal, as was some of the secrecy perpetrated by Trade Minister Tim Groser about the TPPA. Moreover, Cameron Slater, notorious Whale Oil blogger and PM Key's dirty politics mate/agent, was convicted in court for trying to hack a Leftwing website (see also “Drinnan: PM's Squabbles Come At A Cost”, 24/3/16, http://nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11610805). What a bugger for the Government and its media minders! Some health professionals are now suing scumbag Slater and his paymaster Carrick Graham, a PR consultant for the alcohol, tobacco, and junk food industries (“'PC' Targets Hit Back”, SST, 19/6/16,  Adam Dudding).

Hearteningly, there have even been some media positives, especially within our public sphere, most notably exemplified by TVNZ and Radio NZ on the Panama Papers' revelations in a team that included Nicky Hager. There is still some very good journalism. Take TV3, for instance, where there has rather surprisingly been continual, excellent reportage on the housing crisis in Auckland (and elsewhere) and the Government's incompetence in handling it. TV3 reportage, despite its very Rightwing bias, has even been quite incisive on some environmental and other issues. Certain TV1 reporters like Andrea Vance have also been very good and probing on a range of matters.

Similarly, a number of print journalists have demonstrated their independence and integrity, viz. Adam Dudding's excellent SST article quoted above. Even the Press editorials on environmental issues have improved! Both major TV channels (TV1 & TV3) in June 2016 exposed the dirty political manipulations of Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett in attacking a private citizen using confidential information (e.g., “'Unethical And Irresponsible' – Paula Bennett Remains Under Fire Over Leak”, TVNZ, 16/6/16). But the crony media role of both TV1 and TV3 can often prove paramount, e.g. both channels ignored a Parliamentary snap debate on the Government's pernicious role in the Panama Papers affair and its protection of foreign trusts (28/6/16). We get more about American and British politics than our own Parliamentary process!

Looking Ahead

Neo-fascist populism is on the rise in both Europe and the US with the growing crisis of global capitalism. Reactionary politics and virulent opposition to positive change may similarly emerge here in Aotearoa/NZ, given a variety of potential constituencies (see my “Reactionary Pakeha Politics” in Watchdog 135, April 2014, www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/35/11.html). Certainly, elements of this syndrome are reflected in the ruling National Party, and were clearly evident in the Party's dirty politics programme. If the cover for this programme had not been blown apart, it would most certainly be operating more viciously than ever.

As it is, certain key aspects remain operative. Most significantly, the mainstream media, especially the TV channels, were in lockstep for the most part with such National Party propaganda in the lead-up to the 2014 general election. There is an established pattern at work. We have to build up the resistance movement and its articulation of alternative development paths. This must include an effective network within social media. Some on the Left see Labour and the other Parliamentary Opposition parties overly compromised by the hegemony of the neo-liberal agenda. But I think we have to reach out as widely as we can today to people of basic goodwill. The global issues now fast pressing upon us all need creative and cooperative responses across the spectrum of the Left, and even wider afield, for the common good.  We need to build a broad coalition at the same time as we foster more radical approaches.