Free Republic

Manipulation of teenagers is very different to manipulation of adults. Teenagers are scared of being the odd one out, of being picked on for not fitting in. They are actually desperate to be like everyone else. The whole cool marketing is aimed at their fear of being different and uncool and not fitting in. Cool culture needs to say what or who isn't cool and make fun of the uncool and that can be very damaging to young adults and can scar their self esteem well into adulthood. Because teenagers want to be like each other rather than stand out they are effected by this culture on mass rather than individually. We have a teen culture that feeds on the fear of teens and tells them they have to be something they can't be and the marketers say they can be cool by paying a fortune for the right shoes or whatever. Whats worse is that the teen culture is based on rebellion and basically tells teens that everything bad is cool. Coolness ends up glorifying evil. It is hard being a teenager, and it is even harder with a world culture trying to use you to make money as they ruin your innocence and morality.

I should have mentioned that the USA is owed a great deal of thanks these days for protecting the world. The UN doesn't have any real power because they can only talk, but the USA has the power militarily and they do a lot for the world. I know every small country in the world would expect the USA to do something if they got invaded by another country, including NZ. That is a high price to pay for the USA, who has to go to war all over the world for other countries. It is a high price to pay for the people living in the USA who know that their sons may have to go and fight in a war somewhere and maybe give their lives to save some other country and make the world a safer place. They pay the price also by becoming a target for terrorism and hatred from anyone who disagrees with them on how they go about protecting the world. They spend a fortune in Foreign aid to keep bad countries on side and giving them incentives to keep the peace. No other country does this, and we owe the USA a huge debt of gratitude. That is why I am glad NZ is pro American, and supports the USA in their efforts. Without the USA where would the world be?

I doubt NZ and Australia would have held off the Japanese for very long at all even with their armies back at home. The Japanese were much stronger and had already defeated greater countries defenses. I think we do owe a lot to the Americans who did save us, though you could say the Americans only did so because they were at war with Japan because Japan attacked them. The Americans wouldn't have come to our aid otherwise any more than they did France who was an historic Ally of the USA who had given them the statue of Liberty etc. Perhaps we just owe a lot to the Japanese leader who decided to attack the USA and so bring them into the war to save us all.

As for this quote "Cept for the SAS, New Zealand's army can go home and get back on the dole", I don't think the USA,or Australia for that matter should find it funny that the NZ defense forces have become so depleated since the USA broke it's defense pact with NZ. Considering that NZ fights in every war America leads, it was in the USA's interest to keep NZ's military strong. If you think about it, the USA always seeks Allys for its actions because it doesn't want to go it alone morally. The USA doesn't need help militarily but prefers to have it to add to the strength of their moral argument, and so keeping NZ strong would enable an Ally to always be able to help. The USA should really have given free planes etc to NZ and Australia, and then there wouldn't be only Britain and the USA flying over Iraq at the moment. The USA gives military aid to Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Israel. It would be in their own interests to give it to Australia and NZ too who can't afford to buy high tech miliary hardware themselves, but would pay the price of training a pilot and sending him to war alongside the USA. Apart from US led wars, the NZ armed forces have only ever been part of UN peace keeping. Their only purpose for existing is to support the USA and UN. They couldn't defend us against attack.

Mr Preble is being a bit hypocritical in this letter considering he was a cabinet minister in the government of the 1980's that implimented the no nukes ban that ended Anzus. I also think the USA should know who it's alies are - NZ has been supportive and contributed to every American led war without any payoff or benefit to it. New Zealand doesn't need billions in foreign aid to be an Ali of the USA because it an ali based on idiological and cultural similarity as are Britain and Australia. Punishing NZ by giving Australia a free trade agreement and excluding NZ for a relatively small idiological difference of wanting to keep itself nuclear free seems very harsh to me. Rightly or wrongly, NZ believes it shouldn't allow nukes into it's teritories and that was not an anti-american stance as proved by NZ's continued support of the USA in the gulf war etc since then. NZ stands with the USA on everything else. In my opinion NZ should have done everything it could to remain in Anzus as it was a benefit it had from being alied to the USA so strongly.

If A free trade agreement with Australia goes ahead without NZ, who knows how bad that could be for the NZ economy which is so strongly tied up with Australias. It would almost be like the USA having free trade between all of it's states but leaving one state out.

As for Richard Prebble, he is a politician and the only reason he would be revealing what the government of NZ was thinking about doing privately, would be to embarrass the government which will possibly change their mind about doing it. I am sure sending a NZ ship to the gulf or being supportive of America once again has nothing to do with trying to get a free trade agreement from the USA, as historically NZ has and always will be on Americas side and will contribute to a war on Iraq.