Apocalypse
A quick summary of recent activity, reporting from the frontlines*.
*By frontlines, I mean having the privilege of being far enough away to observe, not reporting from the mouth of the shark.
I mean frontlines, as in drowning in headlines that are relentless, in news that only ever seems to get worse. I mean frontlines as in actively responding to threat - is it offence or defence to wonder if the headlines are by design:
“Today’s rightwing leaders and their rich allies are not just taking advantage of catastrophes, shock-doctrine and disaster-capitalism style, but simultaneously provoking and planning for them.”
First up in the news is the end game of obtaining all the world’s wealth for the exclusive use of the wealthy:
“… ruthless in their willingness to violently claim the land and resources (water, energy, critical minerals) they deem necessary to weather the coming shocks.”
Given the summons NZ’s Foreign Minister received last week to urgently discuss “cooperation on critical minerals supply chains” there is a definite game to play called “what resources will we be forced to agree to supply to the US”?
Minerals and military are the key focuses for incoming US ambassador Jared Novelly. The agenda for the conversation with Rubio, then, feels pretty clear.
If minerals aren’t a key instruction focus, then it’s probably just coincidence this little gem (no pun intended) came out from the NZ Initiative in the last fortnight, following a Westport speech by Peters:
“New Zealand sits on extraordinary mineral wealth, yet it develops remarkably little of it.”
A good question might be, develops with who in mind to receive?
“If policing the boundaries of the bunkered nation is end times fascism’s job one, equally important is job two: for the US government to lay claim to whatever resources its protected citizens might need to get through the tough times ahead.”
In related news about how we direct our wealth and in service of whom, I read a story about a woman this week whose dearest wish in the world is to be able to afford cheese.
Those focusing on the usual winter media series featuring people struggling, generating clicks but not change, may want to include mortgage, rent, food (including basics like cheese), power, dental, GP visits, petrol, public transport to the list of things we can’t afford yet can absolutely fix yet deliberately choose not to out of our abiding disdain for the vulnerable.
Instead, we choose to deny people a life to thrive in again and again and I don’t know how anyone can live with that, but the ones making those decisions are probably living with it across several houses.
In other news, the headlines continue to confirm that sexual assault is culturally acceptable, systemic and normalised in a way that ensures ongoing pervasive harm is a given. Talking about symptoms without talking about disease feels like a bad way to do things if you’re looking to sort the disease but a very good approach you’re looking to enable the system.
From the last fortnight:
We’ve just spent a week watching an astronaut who called a bright spot on the moon Carroll after his late wife - it appears that kind of reverence only exists in space.
The Artemis II mission reflected our fragile world back to us but it’s a funhouse mirror, twisted and vile with Trump’s desire to annihilate and the sickest thing of all was that it happened to be Tuesday when he posted it.
Accountability is dead but cronyism is alive and well, and so is health privatisation but the public is getting sicker and sicker.
Ongoing: those weather related states of emergency that somehow come once in 100 years, but also on average 66.6 days annually, so you tell me, are we sinking or swimming?
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
- T.S. Eliot
“We will explore. We will build ships. We will visit again. We will construct science outposts. We will inspire - but ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other.”
- Christina Koch
“Integrity from Earth, our single system, fragile and interconnected, we copy. Those that can are looking back.”
- NASA Mission Control