Beware of Maxim bearing gifts

Maxim Institute, that high-minded "think tank" that claims to stand for democracy and justice, showed last night in Tauranga (and obviously other meetings around the country) that they are a narrow-focused, arrogant group of stupid white men who carefully do not claim to be Christians. Yeah, right, just as well, because they give real Christians a bad name. Their website is full of weasel words and patronising articles, but just wade through the schlock and you get nothing more than a power base aimed at advancing the cause of intolerance, bigotry and the economic status quo.

So last night at Baycourt, the Maxim moderator banged on about democracy, gave the audience a patronising lecture about MMP and then proceeded to run a "debate" that was a sham. There were eight of the eleven or twelve parties represented on the top table, seven of them already in Parliament. The eighth was Maxim darling Larry Baldock. Two other candidates present (I was one, representing Democrats for social credit) were graciously allowed to speak at the beginning for two minutes, but were not included in the "debate".

When I challenged this ruling and asked for their reasoning, I was told: "This is a meeting about the party vote." Well, I was certainly seeking the party vote, but that was too bad for me. I just had to try and satisfy myself with interjections.
I sat through the meeting, managing a heckle or two, and was appalled. The questions were loaded, the candidates had no more than a minute each to answer, and what was worse, we were treated to a little "entertainment". Questions like "McCain or Obama?" "Sarah Palin - hot or not?"

Excuse me? Am I the only one who thought that was a pathetic waste of time? Questions like that were sexist, irrelevant and distracting the audience away from some really serious issues facing this country and the world. I know the women candidates were not impressed.

In the audience were groups of people who had come to support their candidates, which is fair enough. However, many of them were rude and noisy to other candidates, booing and catcalling throughout an answer - and the moderator made no attempt to control them in order for candidates to be heard. I was close to walking out at several points, and I could have made it a distracting one, as I was seated down in front and would have had to walk up the aisle in view of the entire audience. I wouldn't have left quietly, either.

However, I didn't walk out, I stayed to the bitter end. When it was over, I went up on stage and spoke directly to the Maxim muppet. I asked him to explain again why I, and indeed other bona fide candidates from registered parties, were not included in this debate. He said, "With respect, your party is not likely to get into Parliament."

Is your jaw dropping? Mine did. I said, "That's not your call. You don't know for sure that Larry Baldock will get in either." He gave me the most disdainful grin, but I carried on.

"You have done a disservice to all the people who came tonight," I said, shaking my finger in his face and waving my arm towards the auditorium. "Don't they have a right hear from all the candidates?"

"But then," he whined, "we would have twelve people on the stage."

"So?" I snapped. "Isn't that the democracy you went on about tonight? Maybe you couldn't be bothered. Maybe you're too busy trying to get through the eye of a needle."

He murmured that we would have to agree to disagree (same thing the Nats guy said - funny how they retire into cliches when they don't have a reasonable answer).

But I was stomping off by then - smiling!

All the way up the aisle and out through the foyer, I was stopped by people who wanted to congratulate me and say "Good on ya!" I wasn't the only one who thought the whole thing was a jack-up, believe me. And if it was meant to push Larry Baldock, it didn't do him any favours.

If it was me, I would have been embarrassed.

New Zealand is a colony

As most of us know, New Zealand was once a colony.

A powerful force from the other side of the world claimed ownership of these islands, and sent soldiers, settlers and fortune hunters to take possession. The indigenous people were robbed of their lands and livelihoods by overwhelming numbers of foreigners. They became impoverished second-class citizens in their own country. Their populations were decimated by war and disease, and at one time it was assumed that they would die out - conveniently for some.

You might think this is just history. But it has happened all over again. New Zealand has been colonised by powerful forces - big overseas banks and their cohorts, the multinational corporations.

Think about it. Kiwis work harder, longer and smarter than just about anyone, but we are only running to stay in place - if we're lucky. Too many of us are slipping further into poverty, along with a quarter of our nation's children.

Land ownership has passed more and more into foreign hands. Mortgages on family homes are mostly held by overseas banks. Every day, small business are forced into bankruptcy by larger, overseas-owned chains, and more successful Kiwi companies get sold off to become merely branch offices of huge multinationals. Those companies not sold are forced off shore, looking for cheaper labour and cheaper finance. Even our largest daily newspaper is the flagship of a media fleet owned and controlled by overseas interests. 

And what do these overseas interests care about? They care about milking the cash cow that is New Zealand.

We, the multi-coloured peoples of New Zealand, are being milked of everything we have. We  are slipping into debt slavery. We are being conquered, robbed and enslaved - without a shot being fired.

It doesn't have to be this way. 

We, the electors of New Zealand, still have the power to decide who will run our government. We can turn away from Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber, the two major parties who are the political lackeys of the economic powers that be. Neither one has any intention of changing our economic system and releasing the people from slavery.

In fact, no party in Parliament has such an intention. The smaller parties campaign on narrow agendas, refusing to accept that what they want to achieve is impossible without a major change to the monetary system.

ACT's call for individual responsibility would leave most individuals even more vulnerable to the rapacious economic colonists, allowing only a few to strike it rich through speculation. The Greens will never save Hector's Dolphin or the native snail while we have to borrow from commercial banks at compounding interest to fund those projects.

United Future bangs on about families, with no financial policy to help more than the middle class. The worthy Maori Party will continue to see it's constituency struggling in the current economic system. Too many Maori still endure the double whammy of colonisation - then and now.

Most reprehensible are NZ First and Progressive. Both leaders understand the need for monetary reform, and both have skirted close to advocating aspects of that reform. However, neither have found it politically expedient to adopt the needful measures that will not only pull this country out of the world recession (as was done in the 1930s) but will benefit Kiwis for generations to come. Both leaders take the specious attitude that staying in power (with weak, timid policies) is better than campaigning for what is right. Shame.

Outside of Parliament, again the focus is so narrow as to ignore the glaringly obvious. Certainly Direct Democracy's BCIR policy is a good one - Democrats for social credit had it first! But without public control of the nation's money supply, we can vote on any number of binding referenda and it will make very little difference. 

The Libertarianz and their ilk advocate a dog-eat-dog principle, but the big dogs are already feasting. "You own your own life!" they cry. Sorry guys, right now the banks own your life. And so it goes on.

Only one political party, Democrats for social credit, has the intention, the policies and the financial mechanism to establish a new economic paradigm in this country. To secure our independence from colonising powers, we will take public control of the money supply. 

DSC says: stop borrowing from commercial banks - step away from the evil that is usury. Instead make use of a cheap, efficient source of money from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. Only then will this country return to a free and just society, an equitable distribution of wealth that all work for, and a land that is really clean and green.

New Zealand has a history of leading the world. Here's another chance: to show other countries a viable way out of that debt trap that grips us all. 

Vote Democrats for social credit this election.

BTW, this was authorised by Mark Atkin, 5 Tarras Grove, Lower Hutt.