New Zealand's support of the US

Greetings...

I think you forgot to mention that right at the time when the CIA was plotting the downfall of the Whitlam government in Australia, they also assassinated our Prime Minister, Norman Kirk, who was about to change allegiances to the USSR...

Oh, and how about how the CIA, having rigged the New Zealand ballot and got the National Party elected in 1975, continued to punish New Zealanders by imposing that covert mole, Rob Muldoon, on us for nine years?

But the conspiracy doesn't end there. In Michael Wall's excellent documentary text, Museum Street, he states that the CIA secretly planned the downfall fo Erebus, that New Zealand-CIA agents killed Pope John Paul I, and that they trained the Man on the Grassy Knoll to take out Kennedy somewhere north of Auckland.

Oh, and the greatest conspiracy of all? That CIA stands for "Central Intelligence Agency". Just between you, me and the fencepost, mate, it really stands for "Conspiracy Is Alive"...

Hmmm...

It seems to me that even the glitterati journalists from the Spectator can sometimes fall guilty of believing everything they read...

It goes to show that just because a remote publication on the other world says that something is true, it doesn't necessarily make it so.

Classic example yesterday. Press reports were coming in that the Taliban had shot down a pilotless US spy-plane. No retraction, however, when the subsequent report a few hours later stated that a Taliban officer had claimed that they had shot down an opposition helicopter...

Information travels so quickly now that there simply is no longer time to verify all the facts. In this climate, we should continue to take a skeptical view of everything we see and hear...

After all, wasn't it the US President, Bill Clinton, who said "I did not have sexual relations with that wooooman"? Subsequent information proved that claim to be incorrect...

Kind regards,

Hamish

Only one nation doesn't, and it owes plenty.

To an obtuse (or anti-American) bookkeeper, perhaps. But if the USA were to bill the UN for an appropriate share of what it spends (and is spending today as our ships steam toward the Middle East) protecting other nations from mortal threats the UN would be in debt to my country.

I won't even mention the costs incurred by my home city of New York in providing services to the arrogant UN diplomats and staffs in the form of police protection and other costly services. The UN did decide to cancel its annual Fall ego-fest this year so we Americans should, I suppose, be grateful for their thoughtfulness.

Damian 5: The Roaring Twenties' economy was unsustainable (hence the Crash of 29) and was punctuated by severe recessions. More importantly, many and perhaps most Americans did not benefit from it - the old, children in poor families, the working class. From what I've read, things improved gradually under FDR, the economy got better until 1938, when it tumbled; it really took off after 1941 due to war spending. Nevertheless, the lives of most unemployed really improved under FDR due to the WPA and CCC; Social Security stopped the impoverished elderly from starving; the 40 hour week was introduced; the TVA was introduced; the Coulee Dam was built, etc, etc. The lives of average Americans were transformed for the better under FDR and it is no wonder that the majority viewed him as "Gods Gift to the USA." FDR made mistakes, some serious (packing the Supreme Court for example), but historians rightly call him one of the three great presidents. (Washington, Lincoln and FDR)

Damian 5: If you want a link to a website that covers a variety of New Zealand newspapers, go to www.stuff.co.nz On the right of the home page, you will see a link to the coverage of the current crisis. Has articles about the NZ government's response; the Kiwis who lost their lives in the WTC; the Auckland Firefighters who have started a fund for the NY fire fighters; the 1,000 people who crowded into St. Pauls Church in Wellington for a memorial service to the dead Americans; the US embassy in Wellington being bombarded with messages of support and flowers, among other things. You'll probably find some stuff that you won't like as well, but remember that New Zealand is a free country and will support the US with troops, ships, planes, medical personnel, and intelligence, just as we did in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf.

It's interesting how the thoughts of conservatives and marxists loop around and eventually meet one another. Of course Marx held that the capitalism is unsustainable. But, in terms of economics, today we know how to manage the economy much better than we did in the twenties and thirties. What first sunk the economy in the twenties was rank speculation, the worst excesses of which were not tempered by state intervention. Then the Federal Reserve really screwed things up in its response to the share market crash by reducing the money supply instead of expanding it. And of course Hoover refused to increase government spending to avoid a deficit. I think that we now know enough to avoid making those mistakes today. It seems to me that the Roosevelt Administration made some necessary economic reforms(stock trading controls, federal banking insurance, deficit spending, social security spending, among other things) that made the economy more stable, recessions shorter and less severe, and addressed the worst excesses of poverty in the country. My understanding is that the WPA and CCC benefits at least over 100,000 (I forgotten the precise figure). Roosevelt worried about social security and welfarism reducing the work ethnic, and if his thinking of the time is anything to go by, would have disapproved of the Great Society legislation. Thus I think that its unfair to blame the worst excesses of the welfare state on him. Although, after the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, criticizing people on welfare is a moot point. Are there any American Presidents or leaders that you do admire?

I did go to the web site you gave the link to and before going to far into that here is a link to something that should prove of interest to all on this. It is an item pertaining to the fact that a Kiwi on United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania may have led the attack on the terrorists. ( http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,943397a4800,FF.html )

Firstly, whats your point? It seems to me that a grieving widow is trying to find some light at the end of a very dark and miserable tunnel.

I did find opinion gravitated overwhelmly to sympathy and support for the US. More so in the immediate aftermath, less so at present

Thats to be expected, once the shock of events begin to dwindle, the analysis begins; You can see it in various American publications also. Its called 'reflexivity' and its very important.

I did not find any retraction of Ms Clarks original proclamation

Read my lips:SHE.DOES.NOT.HAVE.ANYTHING.TO.RETRACT. As soon as she was back in the country she pledged her (and our) support; In these circumstances, ANZUS is a non-issue. Love your use of the term 'proclamation' btw, immiediately makes her sound like some totalitarian authority or dictatorial Queen; you can spin with the best of them, buddy.

when I researched 15 NZ regional newspapers for 09/23/01 I found almost neither pro or con in the news or opinions. In fact I found almost nothing, nada, but what seemed to be indifference.

In this regard, your ignorance can be forgiven. Do you know what a regional newspaper is in New Zealand, a country (as all must know by now) of 3.8 million people, 45 million sheep and 8 million cows? There is a reason a regional newspaper in New Zealand are commonly known to all as "the local rag'. They are typically put together by bored housewives, people just out of technical school journalism courses and those journos who couldnt get jobs in the big dailys. They typically report on Country Womens Institute bake sales, local crime, high school drama producations, stock sales and the price of milk solids. Speaking for the rag I am most familiar with (The Rodney Times), I cannot recall them ever running international news (These places dont have wire subsciptions) and their op/ed pages hardly ever stray from local matters. Mention of the recent tragedy might have been made the day after, but now all will be back to complaining about local hoons drag-racing on main street etc. These papers are not the Houston Chronicle, the Boston Globe or the LA Times, but rather parochial little rags concerned overwhelmingly with farming matters and local events. They have neither the editorial/journalistic experience, facilities and cash to follow the big international stories which are typically left to the NZ Herald, The Dominion, The Sunday Star-Times, The Evening Post and so on.

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