Keeping Obama and Chavez on the same side

Honduras Agonistes: The best way of restoring democracy to the Honduran people is to do everything humanly possible to keep the Obama Administration on side with the left-wing governments of Central and South America. So long as Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez stand together, the Honduran Right's plans for establishing a dictatorship cannot succeed.

THE MILITARY COUP D’ETAT in Honduras has brought about the "pinch-me-I’m-dreaming" sight of revolutionary Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez, ranged alongside reformist US President, Barack Obama.

That is a pairing worth preserving.

Not only because the cementing-in of US opposition to the Honduran elites’ attack on democracy is clearly the most effective means of restoring that country’s ousted President, Manuel "Mel" Zelaya, to power, but also because it would represent a massive advance towards the Holy Grail of left-wing Latin American diplomacy – a United States Government willing to stand behind the right of the region’s peoples to determine their own futures without the overt or covert interference of American capitalists.

Unfortunately, the first response of the New Zealand Left has been to more-or-less ignore Obama’s (and Hilary Clinton’s) condemnation of the Coup, and insist, instead, that the Honduran military are simply carrying out the wishes of their American advisers. It is inconceivable, they say, that such a controversial political intervention by the armed forces of a Latin American state (the first since 1993) could have been initiated without first receiving the green light from Washington.

Accordingly, a number of New Zealand leftists are planning to picket the US Consulate in Auckland. Their demands will include the closing of the notorious School of the Americas – training-ground for every military dictator and death-squad commander since the early 1950s, along with the withdrawal of all US intelligence agents from Central and South America.

Both strategically and tactically, I believe this is precisely the wrong course of action to follow.

Of course US intelligence officers and military personnel would have been aware that the Honduran Right was planning to head-off a Venezuelan-style revision of the country’s constitution, and many – perhaps most – of these individuals would have been strong supporters of such a plan. But the facts – as far as we know them to date – all point to the Obama Administration refusing to back the proposed coup.

To ignore this fact is to, objectively, play into the hands of the most right-wing elements within the US Government, Intelligence Community and Armed Forces. They don’t care if Obama is castigated by the International Left as an imperialist – in fact they’d rather welcome it. What terrifies them is the prospect of Obama and Clinton, by publicly repudiating the actions of the Honduran military, along with its right-wing civilian backers in the judiciary, congress and the news media, forcing the Americans on the ground in Tegucigalpa to break-off their relationships with the plotters and, by standing back, allow the popular resistance to gather strength.

Keeping the USA aligned with Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua and El Salvador on this issue should, therefore, be the prime progressive objective world-wide. The New Zealand Left – along with their comrades across the world – should be heaping praise upon Obama and Clinton. Instead of angry demonstrations outside the US Consulate, we should be organising expressions of support for the Obama Administration’s stance.

Only if Washington abandons Honduran democracy - thereby signalling a return to business-as-usual in Latin America - should the anti-imperialist slogans be dusted off, and Old Glory resume its time-honoured relationship with paraffin and matches.　

Seventies Pessimism (Poem from 1978)

Winter Sonnet

Dressed all in burgundy, so roughly swathed,
What does she seek, this pilgrim of the night?
Who startles winter revelers neon-bathed,
And meeting Victory, will call him Flight.

I meet her constantly in places drunk with lies,
Our speaking purged of all uncertainty.
As doubtful lust our faith and purpose tries
We laughingly salute each other’s frailty.

What blasts my soul that I do call it love,
And ache with every vacant hour I live?
No answers do I find in Powers above,
Nor Powers below do any answers give.

She is a dream that plagues my hours so.
Yet if I could to her each night I’d go.

Chris Trotter

More in Sorrow than in Anger: To Lew at Kiwipolitico

The Freedom of Speech: Norman Rockwell's famous illustration reminds us that it is the speech itself, and not the speaker, that we are obligated to contend with. Argument ad hominem (against the man) does not belong in the genuinely progressive person's rhetorical armoury.

NEVER has my conviction that engaging in personal debates on the Internet constitutes a truly fruitless enterprise been more painfully vindicated than in the posting I’m reluctantly responding to here.

Lew at Kiwipolitico disagrees with my stance on the Maori Party – fair enough. One of the truly great aspects of the Internet is that through websites and blogs such as these it really is possible to let a "thousand schools of thought contend". And if Lew had been willing to leave it at that I’d have had no problem with his posting.

But, he wasn’t.

Repeatedly, in his postings on Kiwipolitico, Lew has responded to articles and/or postings I have displayed here at Bowalley Road not by honestly confronting the arguments I have put forward, but with personal abuse and gross misrepresentation.

His latest posting, here, is the worst instance so far. In it he accuses me of "repeated denial and denigration of indigenous rights" and "denying that women should be free of sexual predation as of right".

Let me first state that I deny these charges absolutely, and defy any reasonable person, having read the postings on this blog, to draw such outrageous conclusions from them. Anyone who knows me, or has followed my writings over the years, will affirm that while I may have strong (and perfectly legitimate) disagreements with the followers of identity politics, I have never argued against the rights of women or indigenous peoples – nor denigrated any person for doing so.

It is ironic that Lew’s article should be headed up "Brogressives and Fauxgressives" because his own conduct casts serious doubt over whether he is now entitled to any sort of claim to the title of "progressive".

The essence of progressivism is its insistence on rationality – as the only tested method of fully comprehending reality; and its insistence on speaking the truth – as a counter to the lies and misrepresentations of those who seek to obscure reality for their own self-interested purposes.

But this is precisely what Lew is guilty of doing. Rather than attempt to test the truth of the statements I have made on this blog (statements made in good faith, I might add, and with the intention of helping both myself and my readers to more closely approach the truth) Lew has told lies about me. Moreover, he has told those lies with the aim of discrediting me – a fellow human-being – not the arguments I have put forward.

By resorting to these arguments ad hominem; and by conceiving and executing them in bad faith and with what appears to be malicious intent, Lew has effectively cast himself beyond the pale of the entire progressive community – perverting what is clearly a very fine intellect in the process.

I write this more in sorrow than in anger, fully acknowledging that I am as capable as anyone of becoming enraged, and of indulging in behaviour which, upon more sober reflection, was clearly insupportable. I must confess to responding in this way more than once to Lew’s postings. I guess the big difference between myself and Lew, though, is that on the one occasion when I foolishly gave vent to my anger, and posted the result on this blog, I quickly regretted my actions and deleted the offending material as grossly unfair to Lew – a person I had not met, and who certainly did not deserve the ad hominem attack I had leveled against him.

I just wish Lew possessed the decency to have done the same.

Minority Opinion

"They've got the guns, but we've got the numbers", or so sang 60s icon Jim Morrison of The Doors. But, for the first time since the progressive majority of the Baby Boom Generation became old enough to influence social and political trends, "the numbers" now lie with conservative social movements like the anti-anti-smackers, Family First .

FINALLY, the die-hards have got the numbers. For years now, on the issues that divide New Zealanders into progressives and conservatives, the progressives have been in the ascendant.

Whether it be issues as old as the death penalty and a woman’s right to choose, or as relatively recent as New Zealand’s nuclear-free status, genetic engineering, or the Iraq War, a solid majority of New Zealanders have held up their hands for compassion, justice, peace and rationality.

This progressive ascendancy has lasted a long time. From the late-1980s until about 2005 – nearly twenty years.

Historically, it coincided with the rise of the NewLabour, Green, and Alliance parties, and the election of the Helen Clark-led Labour Government – all of them elevated by the public’s deep mistrust of the New Right revolution of 1984-96.

Progressive dominance was also reinforced by the advent of proportional representation. Instead of a hide-bound club, comprised overwhelmingly of white, middle-aged men, MMP forced the House of Representatives to live up to its name. Nandor Tanczos’s dreadlocks, hemp suit and skateboard were only the most colourful proof that the times were a-changing.

Underlying all of this, however, was the relentless demographic pressure of the Baby-Boom Generation (1946-66).

The first of the Boomers were in their late-30s when Rob Muldoon’s conservative government finally fell in July 1984. Over the next 20 years, they and their younger brothers and sisters would steadily occupy all of the strategic decision-making points of New Zealand society – and progressively transform it.

From the moment they entered primary school in the 1950s, the Boomers had been absorbing New Zealand’s nominally progressive "official" ideology. And, as they entered high-school and university in the 1960s and 70s, these youngsters were naturally impatient to test its authenticity.

There was genuine reason for doubt.

Apart from a handful of progressive enclaves in the universities, civil service, arts and trade unions, the New Zealand of the 1960s and 70s was a profoundly conservative society. There were overwhelming popular majorities in favour of restoring the death penalty, keeping abortion and homosexuality illegal, maintaining sporting contacts with South Africa, and preserving the ANZUS alliance with Australia and the United States.

When it came to challenging the "official" values of their parent’s generation, the Baby-Boomers (as in so many other aspects of their lives) were spoiled for choice.

New Zealand had signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – but was willing to play Rugby with representatives of Apartheid. We had endorsed the UN Charter – but backed the United States’ rape of Vietnam. We solemnly affirmed that in our democratic society all citizens were equal – but we paid women less for doing the same work as men, and refused to protect te reo Maori, their lands and other treasures.

The Boomers’ great mission became matching their nation’s deeds with its words. And, to a truly remarkable degree, they were successful.

Or, perhaps it’s more truthful to say that the Baby Boomers who genuinely believed in the progressive ideals they’d been encouraged to actualise were remarkably successful. Because not all of the generation born between 1946 and 1966 ended up falling under the progressive spell.

For conservative Baby Boomers, these past 20 years have been a torment. While New Zealand’s officially progressive ideals remained little more than window-dressing, behind which the majority’s die-hard conservatism continued to hold sway, all was well. But when the official credo found official backing, and theory became practice, things turned decidedly sour.

Railing against the "political correctness" of the Boomer generation’s progressive majority, its conservative minority could only wait for the same demographic forces which had unseated their parents’ regime to come to their rescue.

And come they did, in the form of Generations X and Y. Innocent of the old conservatism’s crimes, but only-too-aware of their Boomer parents’ glaring hypocrisies (who was it who took everything the Welfare State had to offer, and then decided it was all too expensive for their children to enjoy?) the New Zealanders born after 1967 proved easy prey for the "political correctness" calumnies of the conservative Boomers.

And so the period of progressive ascendancy has ended, and the conservative Baby Boomers – backed by their privileged generation’s alienated offspring – are eagerly anticipating an historic victory for the anti-anti-smacking referendum.

Which leaves the progressives exactly where they’ve always done their best work: carrying the flickering flames of our vulnerable virtues into the cankered heart of the conservative darkness.

A version of this essay was originally published in The Dominion Post, The Timaru Herald, The Taranaki Daily News, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Evening Star of Friday, 26 June 2009.

My Enemy's Friends

My Enemy's Friends: Until the Maori Party ceases to support the neoliberal agenda of the National Party and its allies, it must remain the un-natural enemy of all progressive New Zealanders.

SOMETIMES important political questions just have to be answered – no matter how much we might prefer to avoid them.

A few weeks ago, I encountered a posting by "Lew" at the Kiwipolitico blog entitled "Memo to the Left: The Maori Party is not your enemy."

I was sorely tempted to respond: "Memo to Lew: Yes it is." But blogosphere debates with well-meaning but misguided political naïfs like Lew are never-ending, and I had better things to do with my time.

The question, however, refused to go away – resurfacing at a PPTA field officers’conference in Auckland.

As I was the guest speaker, I could hardly avoid answering, and I’m afraid my reply was rather brutal.

"Yes, the Maori Party did make a huge mistake by throwing in its lot with National. No, I do not think the Maori leadership had a very clear view of their long-term political interests. Yes, the National Party did trick them. And no, I do not believe – even after six months – they realise how very wickedly they’ve been deceived, nor how much damage their relationship with National is about to inflict on both Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders."

To properly understand the Maori Party/National Party relationship, it is first necessary to comprehend the scale of the betrayal represented by the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

For Maori, the Fifth Labour Government’s decision to nullify the Court of Appeal’s judgement on Maori customary rights was every bit as egregious – and just as devastating – as the Fourth Labour Government’s betrayal of the broader labour movement under Rogernomics.

The Maori Party was born out of the same sort of deep political anguish that saw an embittered working-class battler scrawl on the wall of the Christchurch Trades Hall: "You were supposed to help." The same sort of anger that led to the formation of the NewLabour Party in 1989, and the Alliance in 1991.

It took nearly ten years for the rage of the people who walked out of the Labour Party to subside sufficiently for Helen Clark to be invited to the 1998 Alliance Conference, and for the delegates to vote unanimously in favour of a coalition with her despised party. For most of that decade the emotional intensity of the Alliance’s attacks on Labour had always been much greater than its criticisms of National. How could it be otherwise? Pain inflicted by someone you love is always more hurtful than the blows of an enemy.

With feelings running so high, the old proverb, "my enemy’s enemy is my friend", takes on a grim logic.

But, of course, your enemy’s enemy can just as easily be your enemy too – and in the case of the foreshore and seabed debacle this was especially true. Labour’s erstwhile deputy-leader, Michael Cullen, was telling no more than the truth when he pointed out that his government had no room to manoeuvre over the Foreshore & Seabed Bill.

From the moment the Court of Appeal’s decision was announced, Labour’s pollsters began to register a rising level of anti-Maori feeling in the Pakeha population. Clearly, it would require a strong, bi-partisan effort to withstand such political pressure. Of course, National’s pollsters were picking up the same racist vibes as Labour, but, rather than stand against them, the strategists surrounding National’s new leader, Don Brash, opted to exploit them.

The Orewa Speech delivered by Brash in January 2004, and the extraordinary shift in political allegiance from Labour to National that it accomplished, destroyed any hope of a bi-partisan approach to resolving the issues raised by the Court of Appeal.

Labour was left with just two choices: It could either take a principled stand against National’s racism – and watch its electoral support evaporate; or, it could bend before the racist gale, pass the most generous legislation it could get away with, and wait for better weather.

Labour’s Maori MPs – with the obvious exception of Tariana Turia – knew enough about te riri pakeha (the white man’s anger) to grasp that, in the long term, their constituents would be better off under Labour’s reluctant racists, than they would be under a National Party eagerly exploiting anti-Maori feeling to stay ahead in the polls.

It’s the failure of the Maori Party leadership to make the same differentiation that is setting up their people for disaster.

Driven by its nationalist ideology, the Maori Party refuses to draw a distinction between the Pakeha Right and the Pakeha Left. Both the National Party and the Business Roundtable have exploited this ideological colour-blindness with consummate political skill. John Key has deployed his considerable personal charm to engage with and befriend the Maori Party MPs. (Something Labour, unaccountably, refused to do.) Meanwhile, the Business Roundtable, in an astonishing display of ideological legerdemain, somehow persuaded Turia and her co-leader, Pita Sharples, that tino rangatiratanga and laissez-faire capitalism amounted to the same thing.

On the strength of this (false) identification, both National and the Business Roundtable have been quietly transforming the Maori Party into a stalking-horse for a new round of neo-liberal "reforms". Maori Party MPs are already supporting the privatisation of prisons, and their endorsement of education vouchers and private-public-partnerships in healthcare delivery is widely anticipated.

Seduced by the Right’s uninhibited "love-bombing" (not to mention the "mana enhancement" of ministerial salaries and prestige) Turia and Sharples seem oblivious to National’s and Act’s continuing promotion of anti-Maori prejudice among their conservative base.

While "that nice Mr Key" has been playing volleyball at Ratana Pa, paying court to the "underclass" of McGeehan Close, and hongi-ing furiously with every Maori leader he can find, the National and Act parties have been indulging in "dog-whistle politics" like there is no tomorrow.

In place of the "Maori privilege" of Brash’s Orewa speech, the two right-wing parties have substituted the over-heated rhetoric of "law and order". Why? Because whenever terms like "child abuse", "violent crime" and "dysfunctional families" appear in the news headlines, the stereotype conjured up in the mind of the "right"-thinking Pakeha voter is black – not white.

Not content with becoming a stalking-horse for neo-liberalism, the Maori Party has also allowed itself to be cast in the role of the Judas-sheep: bleating dutifully about Maori "empowerment", even as it leads its trusting followers into the slaughter-houses of poverty, ill-health, educational failure and incarceration.

Although they dearly wish it were otherwise, until the Maori Party stops advancing the Right’s extremist agenda, it must remain the un-natural enemy of all progressive New Zealanders.

This is a slightly amended version of an essay originally published in The Independent of Thursday, 28 May 2009.

New National Party not a patch on the old.

Chief Conductor of the "Years of Lightning": George Chapman (above) working closely with Rob Muldoon, fashioned the National Party into a formidable (and, for a while, unbeatable) political machine.

WHAT has the Mt Albert by-election taught us about the 2009 National Party?

Well, for a start, it has taught us that the National Party of today isn’t a patch on the National Party of yesterday.

It is simply inconceivable that the "years of lightning" (1974-84) National Party, presided over by the redoubtable Sir George Chapman, could have overseen the political travesty that was Melissa Lee’s candidacy.

For a start, the Chapman-led National Party of the 1970s, boasted a nominal membership of 250,000 New Zealanders – a considerably larger pool of political talent than the 25,000-strong party of today.

Initially, they would have been looking for a local candidate – someone who’d spent the best part of their life in the electorate and was well-known to its citizens. A local GP, perhaps, or the headmaster of a local school, with a friendly, familiar face and reassuringly moderate views. A candidate broadly acceptable to Mt Albert’s tories, and even, properly presented, to some habitually Labour-voting liberals.

In the absence of this ideal candidate, however, they would probably have opted for a young up-and-comer from the regional party organisation. Someone like the ambitious young accountant chosen to fly National’s flag in Mt Albert during the General Election of 1954.

The then 33-year-old Robert David Muldoon had grown up in the electorate, attended Mt Albert Grammar School, and his maternal grandmother, Jerusha, had been a celebrated local socialist. He won a very creditable 35.7 percent of the votes cast.

With National riding as high in public esteem as it is at present, however, the old-school campaigners would have looked at the 43.8 percent of the vote won by F. Ryan, National’s candidate in the General Election of 1975 (when Labour was equally unpopular) and established that result as the benchmark for 2009.

An organisation as independent of its parliamentarians, and as internally vigorous as the National Party was in the mid- to late-70s, would have had little difficulty in locating a candidate ready, willing and able to take the fight to the beaten and demoralised socialists.

Active party organisations, especially those in which policies are still robustly debated on the conference floor, are constantly testing the strategic thinking, organisational skill and rhetorical ability of their most ambitious rank-and-filers. The leaders of such parties cannot help but notice those with the charisma to muster a following and, most importantly, the force of intellect and persuasive power to sway an audience.

The president of such a party would no more have dreamed of absenting herself from National’s campaign headquarters on election night, than she would of flying to the moon. Getting candidates elected is what political parties are for – it’s what they do!

The fact that National’s current president, Mrs Judith Kirk, allowed herself to be told, by Dr Jonathan Coleman (an MP!) that her presence in Mt Albert on the evening of the by-election would not be required, speaks volumes about the state of the party organisation.

Clearly, the National Party has become entirely subordinate to its Leader and his Parliamentary Caucus. John Key and his inner circle were permitted to pick Ms Lee and appoint her campaign manager. No matter that Mr Key and his cronies are relatively new to the complex demands of electoral politics. No matter that very few (if any) of them appear to understand that the only rational criterion for selecting an electorate candidate is political skill. Not a pretty face; not the ability to read an autocue; not even a proven talent for making pots of dosh; but the ability to practice politics.

But, from the moment she opened her mouth on TVNZ’s Q&A programme, it was painfully clear that Ms Lee was profoundly politically disabled. Shoulder-tapped by Mr Key, and given a winning Party List position at his insistence, she quickly became an example of the dangers and weaknesses of our MMP electoral system.

So long as she was required to do nothing more than adorn her party’s propaganda, National was safe from Ms Lee. The moment she was allowed anywhere near the hustings, she became a disaster on two legs.

It was her opponent, David Shearer, who practiced politics in Mt Albert. He was very lucky, however, to be up against the National Party of today.

Sir George Chapman would have taught him a thing or two.

This essay was originally published in The Timaru Herald, The Taranaki Daily News, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Evening Star of Friday, 19 June 2009.

More on the Bain Case

Challenging the "official" version: Joe Karam, David Bain, and the Defence Team exposed the the State's failures - a sin not easily forgiven by bourgeois New Zealand.

An anonymous commentator responded to my "David Bain and the class divide" posting by dismissing it – along with my focus on class issues generally – as both nonsensical and overly simplistic. This is my response.

Nonsense Anonymous? Simplistic? I don’t think so.

You claim that the national division of opinion over Bain’s innocence/guilt breaks along intelligence rather than class lines. Well, forgive me, but it is difficult to conceive of a more forthright assertion of class prejudice.

The association of intelligence with class advantage is well established historically. This is because the modern middle-class, until relatively recently, was limited in the degree to which it could transfer the social advantages it enjoyed to its offspring. High progressive taxation and death duties militated against the straightforward transfer of physical capital from one generation to the next, and so most middle-class effort was directed at securing, and passing on, its cultural capital.

Obviously, the key to securing cultural capital, along with all the advantages it brings in terms of access to the professions, and hence higher social status and income, lay in gaining control of the education system. Educational institutions, along with familial example, are the prime conveyor-belts of cultural capital. Making sure that their children had access to the best teachers, the most lavish educational infrastructure, and the most appropriate (i.e. professionally oriented) curriculum has been, and remains, one of the most important "jobs" of the middle-class as a distinct social formation.

Equating the ability to negotiate this complex pedagogical system successfully with "intelligence" has always been crucial to the middle-class’s claim that society operates on "meritocratic" principles. If people "fail", it is vitally important that they are seen to do so simply because they fall on the wrong side of life’s great bell curve. It certainly has nothing to do with a system quite consciously designed to advantage one class over another.

If you’re really interested in this stuff, I strongly recommend the writings of Barbara Ehrenreich and Prof. James Flynn.

Now, let’s return to the "class struggle" aspects of the Bain case.

The case has always been problematic for the middle-class because of the extremely confused and conflicting signals it has transmitted over the past 15 years.

The default position of the middle-class on practically every issue – economic, social, political and legal – is to remain safely within the boundaries of the "official view". In the Bain case that meant trusting the police evidence, the original trial judge’s exclusion of critical evidence, and accepting the first jury’s verdict. The "safety" of this position was further reinforced by the Court of Appeal’s upholding of the original verdict.

Karam’s refusal to accept the "official" verdict against Bain marked him out as a threat to all "right-thinking" and "intelligent" citizens. The growing body of evidence that Bain had been the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice – much of it from professionals like themselves – could, therefore, be swept under their mental carpet and ignored. The emotional energy required to repress the logical consequences of Karam’s new evidence was, however, bound to multiply the irrational elements in the bourgeois mindset.

The mentally dislocating effect of the Privy Council’s rejection of the "official" result must, therefore, have been devastating. Karam’s new evidence was deemed to be compelling, and that meant that there was now a new, much more "pro-Bain" official position on the case. However, because this new official position came from outside the ambit of the New Zealand bourgeoisie, it could be dismissed as in some way illegitimate. In a very important sense, the Law Lords – by challenging the competence of the local ruling class – had "let the side down".

Which is why it was so important to secure a second conviction of Bain. Only by persuading the new jury to reaffirm his guilt could the legitimacy of the original official judgment (and hence the competence of the ruling-class and its middle-class backers) be reinstated.

The dissonant effect of seeing so many expert witnesses confront and contradict the Crown’s (i.e. the Police’s) evidence must have grown increasingly pronounced in middle-class minds as the trial progressed. The official narrative of the Bain family murders was unraveling before their eyes, and that part of their being not bound up with the "politics" of the trial, would, almost certainly, have been warning them that the Crown’s case could not possibly pass the test of "beyond reasonable doubt".

And so it proved. In just 5.5 hours the Jury acquitted Bain on all five murder charges.

The middle-class’s subsequent and quite astonishingly vicious response to Bain’s acquittal has nothing whatsoever to do with "intelligence" and everything to do with its profound resentment toward, first and foremost, the Jury, and secondly, towards Bain, Karam and the Defence team, for overturning the original official view in such a public and final fashion.

Bain has moved beyond their reach – at least in a legal sense – and it rankles.

He has not, however, moved beyond their ability to cause him grief and harm. The bourgeoisie’s control of the news media allows it to harass Bain with impunity, and prevent him from leading the quiet and unmolested existence he now has the right to expect.

And, it is here that the irrational and atavistic impulses which lie so very close to the surface in the bourgeoisie make their most frightening appearances.

In their fury at being gainsaid, middle-class opinion-formers are openly calling for the abolition of trial by jury, and promoting Europe’s inquisitorial justice system. Also under attack is the right of accused persons to remain silent, along with their entitlement to proper protection against the admission of evidence highly prejudicial to receiving a fair trial.

That the New Zealand middle-class is willing to sacrifice the protections of the common law for the inquisitorial methods of the absolutist state, testifies to the highly tenuous nature of its commitment to the democratic state.

"If juries cannot be relied upon to deliver the right verdict, then we should do away with them altogether, and leave the adjudication of guilt and innocence to middle-class professionals – like ourselves. After all, people like us don’t have the time to sit on juries, and – clearly – justice can no longer be left to the sort of dummies who do."

For the bourgeoisie, retaining control is everything.

But why?

Because, in the middle-class mind Bain represents much more than a convicted murderer. As the sole survivor of the Bain family, he has always been expected to carry the guilt – and bear the punishment – for its terrible failure to uphold core bourgeois values.

The dilapidated, squalid, stinking family dwelling: a fine (and valuable) old house allowed to go to wrack and ruin. The parent’s failed marriage: followed by their mental and moral disintegration. The waywardness of the children: with one of the daughters regularly prostituting herself. The dark hints of rape and incest. The whole, tragic picture of an attractive and talented middle-class family descending into a pit of self-neglect and social demotion. It is this, the truly terrifying spectacle of family failure and downward social mobility, that gnaws away at the middle-class psyche whenever the Bain case is contemplated.

That is the real, unspoken crime for which the entire Bain family stands condemned in the court of bourgeois opinion. For acting out the middle-class’s most fearful nightmares, it was psychologically vital that nobody emerged from 65 Every Street – "not guilty".