WTF!

It’s now Friday 28 February, 2025. Kia ora!

I haven’t written lately, as the changes in the US are too overwhelming.  Where does one start?  Elon Musk’s trail of destruction is being well documented. While the new cabinet is distressing, it’s hard to believe that medical research has been halted and that vaccines have been discredited, and food inspection eliminated. It’s all very depressing, as is Trump’s vision for Gaza and ham-fisted attempts to end the war in Ukraine.  His allying with Putin rather than the US’s traditional allies is also very upsetting; then there’s the fact that in recent German elections the far-right AFD got 20% of the vote, mainly in East Germany. Even here in New Zealand some science research initiatives are no  longer being funded by the coalition government. Now they propose introducing a bill to enable four-year terms in future. This will probably pass, although I don’t know when it is expected to begin.

People are asking about Trump’s policies. I think that is giving him far too much credit. He is, and continues to be, unpredictable. There is little in the way of policy apart from what seems like deliberate cruelty.

Meanwhile, what a sad place Wellington is. JD was recently looking at a video of Chinese towns being in a sad state; I wondered aloud if he was looking at a photo of Johnsonville.  In the city and surrounding suburbs, bike lanes predominate, and I always say, with deep irony, “Just look at all the bikes!” I’ve yet to see a bike on a single bike lane.  Meanwhile, car parks have been removed. It’s proposed to make Courtenay Place, as well as Lambton Quay, free of vehicles. Why would you even go there? Meanwhile, Minister of Finance Nicola Willis calls for growth. In Indian restaurants, perhaps? For wealthy individuals to emigrate here.

It’s a sad and sorry situation, where there have been very few movies worth seeing.  The bus information has been lying recently, as buses either haven’t conformed with the information given, or the information is very different from what one remembers from the timetable. Sometimes buses just don’t arrive. The #25 bus from Khandallah is a good service, going through the CBD, but sometimes that doesn’t turn up, thus wrecking one’s personal timetable for whatever one planned to do.

We’ve been watching a British series called The Spoils on War on YouTube. It’s set mainly in England in 1945 after VE Day, when the war in Europe was over, and people faced decisions about their futures. The series centres on two families, one perhaps lower middle class and one high born, whose futures are entwined through marriage and politics. There are interesting wishes and political values, while people come to terms with being de-mobbed, seeing loved ones again, and the current state their in, and the ramifications of it all. Then there’s the war in the Pacific and use of the atom bomb, and great hopes are cut down to size. I found the early episodes very interesting.

Last week I managed to see the movie I’m Still Here at Brooklyn’s Penthouse. I caught a bus from Khandallah after hymn singing, and got there far too early for the 1 pm screening. Still, the Penthouse wasn’t busy, and I had lunch before resting on one of their very comfortable sofas.

The movie was in the Vogue suite, with a handful of viewers, but one lady’s phone went off reading the RNZ 1 pm news very loudly! That was upsetting. It took her ages to realise it was her phone, and then she didn’t seem to know how to turn the sound down.

Still, the movie was amazing and well worth seeing. It’s centered around a family in Rio de Janeiro who live close to the famous Copacabana beach during the 1970’s.  There is martial law, and a military dictatorship. They know this is a dangerous time, and send their eldest daughter to London with family friends. Some plain clothes heavies turn up, and take the husband/father away to make a deposition. He doesn’t return, and then the mother and next eldest daughter are taken away.  The mother and daughter are blindfolded and taken to a prison where they are held in separate cells. The sound effects are terrifying – we hear people screaming as they are being tortured, although we don’t see it. The daughter is held for one night, the mother for several nights, and then she is returned home. The house is watched.  The bank cannot release funds without the husband’s signature, so they have to let the cook go.  Eventually the mother and her children leave their family home to move to their grandparents’ apartment in Sao Paulo, a far cry from the family home. Meanwhile, Eunice is fighting for some acknowledgment that her husband has been arrested. This eventually arrives; years later she receives a death certificate, with no knowledge of how her husband died, or handing over of his body. There are several poignant moments in the film: the song Je t’aime played at the eldest daughter’s farewell party (with someone saying it’s just as well the children don’t understand the French lyrics); Eunice and her husband play backgammon before he is taken away; and they have five children. We were married in the 1970’s so it’s very real. The family leaving their home is desperately sad, as is the dawning realization that Eunice’s husband will not return. They don’t even know what happened to him.

It’s now Sunday 2 March

Yesterday morning the first video I looked at on You Tube was a Bulwark one, reacting to the Oval Office shake-down of President Zelensky by Trump and J.D. Vance. Well, that was just the beginning. I then watched several Times Radio podcasts, which had mainly British commentators, and some on London’s LBC. Then there were several emergency broadcasts: Shield of the Republic, a Bulwark weekly podcast, was especially interesting: Eric Edelman, one of the two anchors, is a very diplomatic person (actually he was a diplomat), but yesterday I heard him swearing using the F word.  It has been interesting listening to him and his co-host, Eliot Cohen, vent over the last few weeks. They used to discuss strategy. I guess that no longer applies.  There was an emergency podcast by The Rest is Politics, by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, and I even listened to The Rest is Politics US with Anthony Scaramucci and Katty Kay. I have avoided this one to date, mainly because I never want to listen to Anthony Scaramucci. I listened to James Carville’s War Room podcast. Today I’ve listened to the Telegraph’s Ukraine The Latest, Lawfare and Battleground emergency podcasts.  Suffice to say that everyone was shocked. The US commentators are mainly embarrassed, the English ones viscerally appalled.   Such a display of rudeness!  Zelensky was criticized for not wearing a suit; several commentators have pointed out that Elon Musk doesn’t wear a suit; he wears black and doesn’t even take his hat off in the Oval Office.

An extra point: the Shield of the Republic podcast spoke about Trump being deified, something I have feared. As JD says, you can’t spell “deified” without DEI!

This interchange reminded me of the first debate between Biden and Trump in 2019 before the presidential election, which Joe Biden won. A similar level of bullying went on there, and everyone was shocked by it.  It felt like a “Me Too” moment for men, as though they’d been attacked or improperly touched at an unexpected moment. How short some memories are.

So this was one of those moments where you look back and remember exactly where you were when you heard the interchange that took place, and just wanted to vomit afterwards.  Then one had to hear it replayed on virtually every program that criticized it. The profundity of these few minutes and their meaning should be clear to anyone: that the post World War Two Order has changed, and not only can the US not be relied on to support Ukraine, or indeed Europe, but its president is actively supporting President Putin of Russia. Of course, there have been many signs pointing to this, but surely it is plainly evident now: to prevent further encroachment by Putin, the European countries must unite to prevent this, and defend Ukraine.  I guess Brexit was a key to this, isolating the UK from Europe in every way, never mind the lies told to sell this decision and the disastrous effects of it. Oh dear, oh dear.  It is just so sad that this war continues, and the brave Ukrainians are amazingly innovative fighters, now in year three; they’re also doing it on our behalf.

Actually we used to speak about “perfidious Albion”, but one remembers some of the despicable acts by the US as it pursued whatever its then foreign policy was, and the dreadful effects of these sometimes covert actions. Still, they have maintained military bases in many places overseas since the second World War, and this has been effective. They can take credit for holding NATO together.  When we first went to Europe in the early 1970’s, the US was greatly loathed, for whatever reasons. We were at pains to point out that we weren’t American.

In many instances the Americans have such a simplistic view of any conflict: there are good guys and bad guys. The situation is usually far more nuanced.

This reminded me of two other key events of 2019: Trump getting Covid, and the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Both sparked emergency podcasts. The death of RBG was particularly significant, leading to the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

It seems that President Macron of France and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the UK had better success with their Oval Office meetings with Trump, flattering him, although both contradicted his lies (which he repeated); but then their nations aren’t at war. By the way, why do the British press give Starmer such a hard time? He does lack charisma, I’ll admit, but he’s intelligent and holds his own on the world stage (such a quaint phrase). And surely he’s a million miles better than Boris Johnson, Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak.  That’s got to be a relief.

On a brighter note, we had beautiful services at the church I go to on Sunday mornings both today and last Sunday morning. Last week we had the story of Joseph, and one from Luke’s Gospel about giving generously, and loving your enemies. This was about forgiveness. Today is Transfiguration Sunday, and we had the story from Exodus about Moses going up Mount Sinai to listen to the Lord God, and of course Luke’s version of the Transfiguration.  The minister spoke about the challenges of coming back to earth after a “shiny moment”, where faces are transformed by the glory of the Lord.  It’s good to have transcendent moments when you go to church. 

It’s now Monday 3 March.

The fallout continues from the disastrous Oval Office meeting with Zelensky, as people around the world contemplate the implications of this.  It seems that the US now sides with the “bad guys” i.e. Putin, and not with personal freedom, freedom of the press, and a proper sort of democracy. Republicans are again coalescing behind Trump. It’s all very sad. Apparently Luxon says that New Zealand stands behind Ukraine. And what of Gaza and Israel? Last week Trump released an AI generated video of his real estate success in Gaza. Poor Gaza!

That’s it for now. Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.