Auckland Mayor Len Brown confirmed on October 15 2013 that he had an extra-marital affair of some two years duration
Public opinion is of course divided on account of the range of moral and ethical positions held amongst people of various beliefs, cultures, education
The Personal
Mayor Brown had presented himself as the archetypal family man as befits a high profile politician and the obligatory photo shoots.
The Mayor acknowledges the affair but maintains -having just been re-elected to a second term to lead New Zealand's largest city - that it is business as usual and that this is a private and family matter he needs to resolve with them alone.
Hong Kong born Bevan Chuang has been identified as the woman involved with Brown, allegedly up until July 2013 - on account of the online publication of a sworn affidavit filed on October 15 which provides salacious details of the conduct of both parties from her perspective.
Public opinoin on the morning of October 16, despite the Mayor's mea culpa on Campbell Live TV3 the prior evening - is in favour more of him resigning than staying - and Chuang herself is making this call. Left opponent John Minto also agrees a resignation is appropriate.
The Politics
The politics of it are
- Len Brown is regarded as a Left or Centre Left politician
- The blogger site running the affidavit is run by an extreme right wing muckraker
- the blogger's father was campaign manager for the right wing candidate Palino in the Mayoralty election
- Chuang is described as a right wing political aspirant who unsuccessfully stood as a candidate in the Auckland local body elections as a member of the Communities and Residents group, aligned with the National Party.
These factors have led many to see a conspiracy to undermine Len Brown for political gain.
The Power Equation
This stands out as the crux of the issue
Len Brown is alleged to have pursued Bevan Chang with texts and invitations to meet and eventually he is said to have touched her arm and hand. Eventually this became allegedly a kiss he planted on her unexpectedly and eventually ongoing sexual relations.
Though not employed by the Council itself, Chuang was on an advisory board related to council functioning
She is a political novice
Ms Chuang is 32 years of age and Len Brown is 57
Mayor Brown is in a position of considerable power.
This is a classic case of power abuse in term's of Len Brown's behaviour
His position of authority is unquestionably of major significance in dealing with a much younger female, who also happens to be from an immigrant culture and who had political aspirations.
Chuang herself likens her situation to the Clinton-Lewinsky case.
The Bigger Picture
The purpose of this blog is to put news stories into a broader social context by means of astro-analysis of energies in play.
As noted in many prior posts, the current period 2012-2016 is one of major political, economic, social and environmental transformations as identified by the 90 degree pairing of Uranus and Pluto. October 2013 sees the close approach of these planets to their eventual fourth exact square on the 31st.
This brings to the fore the energies of significant transformational events and in the process of this societal change, many high profile men have fallen from grace on account of abusing their power.
[Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Berlusconi, Jimmy Saville, the sex allegations against Rolf Harris, William Roche to name a few]
[Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Berlusconi, Jimmy Saville, the sex allegations against Rolf Harris, William Roche to name a few]
The influences prevailing mean this is the time for the secrets to come out of the woodwork and for those who abuse power to be held to account because human relations are in need of a makeover.
On account of these prevailing energies, the Brown affair having been disclosed in October 2013 means the situation becomes an archetypal example of the rot in the system that needs to be cured. This will not be swept under the carpet by people in the way the Mayor is pleading for
He has learnt nothing from his behaviour and is showing the sort of arrogant blindness that will only trip him up again. His main statement in terms of retaining the Mayoralty is: I love this job. I want to continue my agenda. Me. Me. Me.
Born October 1 1956
Len Brown is a Libran -the sign of partnership
Len Brown is a Libran -the sign of partnership
He has Moon and Venus in Leo -the performer, entertainer, and attention-loving qualities
Mars in Pisces - the achilles heel re sexual indiscretions, predisposed to sexual fantasy
Juptiter opposite Mars enhances the sex drive
5 factors connected at 29 degrees [ Saturn-Node, Neptune, Mercury, Pluto - give him great drive, energy and ambition - but this combination adds even more to the tendency to have a downfall on account of a sex scandal - Saturn is in the sex sign Scorpio and is exact in contact with the destiny indicator the lunar north node.
Neptune adds to the secrecy, fantasy and deceit, Pluto is the obsessive element - all impacting the mental functioning of someone meant to be making billion-dollar decisions and interacting with a broad range of people.
Neptune adds to the secrecy, fantasy and deceit, Pluto is the obsessive element - all impacting the mental functioning of someone meant to be making billion-dollar decisions and interacting with a broad range of people.
A fatal impoverishment in his judgement is not just a private matter.
Len Brown should resign.
[disclosure: my politics are Left as you can get -and I'm glad I didn't vote for Brown]
addendum October 16
I am advised that some blokes on social media had a collective apoplexy the morning this was posted due to their overly hasty mis-reading of the section about high-profile figures falling from grace in the period 2012-2016.
This italicised aspect of the commentary did not equate Len Brown's behaviour with that of Berlusconi or Jimmy Saville etc per se, but that, like them, he is a high profile figure falling from grace in the context of what seems clearly an abuse of power situation.
For example: today you can also add ex Auckland Mayor John Banks to the list of those falling from grace: he faces a humiliating court trial over allegations of fraud related to electoral donations -and as a consequence within a short time resigned his portfolios.
update October 20
People who have read my post on the Mighty River Power sharemarket float will know that I forewarned that this was a turkey due to the prevailing energies which were in play when the government chose to offer shares.
The same issue arises in the Len Brown case:
what were the prevailing energies when the news broke on October 15?
The paired eclipses - October 18 [annular lunar] and November 3 [total solar] give the biggest clues in terms of their impact on Len Brown.
[Space-time differs from standard time on earth: related events can arise before, around or after a strong activation like an eclipse if that activation point i.e. zodiac degree is triggered by the passage of another planetary energy across that activation point]
Not only do the eclipse patterns include the over-riding Uranus-Pluto signifier of deep-seated collective change being top of the current global agenda -as detailed above - but Len Brown himself - a symbol of relating conduct that needs to change - has significant enough links to both eclipses to anticipate that the issues arising from his actions will not disappear quickly.
Indicators in November point to more intense heat being applied to him and a long-unfolding aftermath of self-confrontation and soul-searching stretches even beyond 2015. A man at a moral crossroads with a rather large audience.
update October 21
When a single individual is in the public eye on account of behaviour people find unacceptable, that person serves as a collective learning experience: many will have transgressed in a similar fashion or will be currently & some may just be planning to.
The public response serves as a gauge of what is and what is not acceptable in society in any era.
Lying, cheating, stealing, violence and murder have attracted penalties since forever, but when these actions are highlighted within a political context many other complexities enter the arena.
Len Brown being so recently re-elected to the Mayoralty & with Councillors about to also start a new term, political expediency muddies the morality issue significantly.
Len Brown, above all things, wants to pursue his political agenda.
Councillors who support that agenda have to choose between personal/political loyalty and their own stance on morality issues.
The alternative of a by-election and new vote is totally unpalatable when political ambition is to the fore.
The rationalisation of Brown & supporters that a personal & family relationship crisis has no bearing on the Mayor's administrative capacity is completely fatuous, self-deluding and an attempt to delude others.
The textbook mea culpa on Campbell Live was simply an exercise in politically expedient PR 101 damage control.
Then the advice on page 2 of the handbook is Lay Low for Several Days
Page 3 itemises the Recovery Phase
What a sorry state when naked ambition is accepted as more important than honesty, integrity, fidelity and how others are treated.
update October 24 2013
In the wake of what most would consider a week from hell, Len Brown has maintained a pro-active defense strategy to the point of publicly requesting that politicians private lives ought to be protected. This comes in light of a now publicly revealed hear no evil-see no evil-report no evil pact that has existed between New Zealand media and politicians since whenever.
???
Yes this coterie of almost exclusively men, until recent times, seems to have more in common with Freemasonry or some secretive Lodge - even the Catholic Church with its containment of sexual abuse is a parallel.
Keeping secrets in order to provide protection to a supposed privileged sector is totally unacceptable.
Politicians are the employees of the people.
They are in positions of power over the lives of others.
They ought to be open to full scrutiny.
The fact that Len Brown is asking for this entitlement further reinforces his lack of perspective and faulty judgement.
The Mayor in the wake of his public shaming has made no effort to resign from his honorary role as President of the Home & Family Counselling organisation
Len Brown is continuing to behave like a man who has lived for 57 years and never truly faced accountability, like he is therefore beyond accountability.
He is tempting fate in the most dangerous of ways.
Updated
December Friday 13 2013
Report released into the Mayor's conduct & where Council protocols or Code of Conduct may have been breached
Primarily failure to declare free hotel rooms and upgrades in hotel accommodation were highlighted - initial report
The Full EY Report of 19 pages is here
December 17
Where is the Moral/Ethical Leadership?
More apologies from Len Brown but this is starting to sound like a man who feels he is untouchable, he can do anything - so long as he apologises. This is a trick children can learn very early in the game when they have overly indulgent parenting.
Andrew Dickens on the ZB site sums up many reasons for the widespread ongoing disquiet -including former supporters within Council calling for an official censure.
Conflict of interest arises re complementary & upgrade hotel rooms provided by Sky City to Len Brown since Sky City is involved in a controversial pokies for convention centre deal with the government
Net closes in aimed to set tight boundaries around Loosehead Len
All credit - save the updates - to 1970's artist Darryl Kirby
December 18 2013
On this day the websites of Radio NZ and the NZ Herald gave top priority to the call for Len Brown to resign.
RNZ pic also showed the print Herald front page:
Despite wide public disapproval, media consensus & public placard-waving Brown continues to stick to his position: I have apologised and I want to move on
December 19 2013
At the meeting of the Council where the issue of censure against Mayor Brown was addressed Auckland Council preferred to stick with the status quo rather than upturn the applecart. This was the wrong decision as time will tell
Only 5 of the 20 wanted to push for a No Confidence vote.
This era -2012-2016 has a theme of bedrock change being required to remove rotten practices & their perpetrators -whether that be in politics, finance, the priesthood, business or amongst the ranks of "celebrities" - to name just some contexts where change - by virtue of exposure - is already being observed.
Surprisingly though it was Councillors on the Right who wanted the more extreme censure: paradoxically they are the voices of the sort of change required and voiced by citizens on the true Left whereas the moderate Left on the council & some right leaning councillors have followed the path of political expediency, in the name of political stability.
This unconscious attempt to go against the flow of change is pointless. Change will happen. People of the type exemplified by Len Brown no longer have a valid place as leaders in our communities, nations or globally
The tide is against them & by choosing to dig in, Len Brown will be struggling offshore against a very strong current
I am advised that some blokes on social media had a collective apoplexy the morning this was posted due to their overly hasty mis-reading of the section about high-profile figures falling from grace in the period 2012-2016.
This italicised aspect of the commentary did not equate Len Brown's behaviour with that of Berlusconi or Jimmy Saville etc per se, but that, like them, he is a high profile figure falling from grace in the context of what seems clearly an abuse of power situation.
For example: today you can also add ex Auckland Mayor John Banks to the list of those falling from grace: he faces a humiliating court trial over allegations of fraud related to electoral donations -and as a consequence within a short time resigned his portfolios.
update October 20
People who have read my post on the Mighty River Power sharemarket float will know that I forewarned that this was a turkey due to the prevailing energies which were in play when the government chose to offer shares.
The same issue arises in the Len Brown case:
what were the prevailing energies when the news broke on October 15?
The paired eclipses - October 18 [annular lunar] and November 3 [total solar] give the biggest clues in terms of their impact on Len Brown.
[Space-time differs from standard time on earth: related events can arise before, around or after a strong activation like an eclipse if that activation point i.e. zodiac degree is triggered by the passage of another planetary energy across that activation point]
Not only do the eclipse patterns include the over-riding Uranus-Pluto signifier of deep-seated collective change being top of the current global agenda -as detailed above - but Len Brown himself - a symbol of relating conduct that needs to change - has significant enough links to both eclipses to anticipate that the issues arising from his actions will not disappear quickly.
Indicators in November point to more intense heat being applied to him and a long-unfolding aftermath of self-confrontation and soul-searching stretches even beyond 2015. A man at a moral crossroads with a rather large audience.
update October 21
When a single individual is in the public eye on account of behaviour people find unacceptable, that person serves as a collective learning experience: many will have transgressed in a similar fashion or will be currently & some may just be planning to.
The public response serves as a gauge of what is and what is not acceptable in society in any era.
Lying, cheating, stealing, violence and murder have attracted penalties since forever, but when these actions are highlighted within a political context many other complexities enter the arena.
Len Brown being so recently re-elected to the Mayoralty & with Councillors about to also start a new term, political expediency muddies the morality issue significantly.
Len Brown, above all things, wants to pursue his political agenda.
Councillors who support that agenda have to choose between personal/political loyalty and their own stance on morality issues.
The alternative of a by-election and new vote is totally unpalatable when political ambition is to the fore.
The rationalisation of Brown & supporters that a personal & family relationship crisis has no bearing on the Mayor's administrative capacity is completely fatuous, self-deluding and an attempt to delude others.
The textbook mea culpa on Campbell Live was simply an exercise in politically expedient PR 101 damage control.
Then the advice on page 2 of the handbook is Lay Low for Several Days
Page 3 itemises the Recovery Phase
- Proceed As Normal
- Maintain a Confident Air
- Smile
- Make Light of The Issue
- Keep Minimising The Issue when pressed for comment
A highly stage-managed whilst simultaneously highly transparent procedure designed to fool most of the people most of the time.
Abe Lincoln is said to have encountered this phenomenon and observed similarly:
You can fool some of the people all of the time
and all of the people some of the time
but you can not fool all of the people all of the time
What a sorry state when naked ambition is accepted as more important than honesty, integrity, fidelity and how others are treated.
update October 24 2013
In the wake of what most would consider a week from hell, Len Brown has maintained a pro-active defense strategy to the point of publicly requesting that politicians private lives ought to be protected. This comes in light of a now publicly revealed hear no evil-see no evil-report no evil pact that has existed between New Zealand media and politicians since whenever.
???
Yes this coterie of almost exclusively men, until recent times, seems to have more in common with Freemasonry or some secretive Lodge - even the Catholic Church with its containment of sexual abuse is a parallel.
Keeping secrets in order to provide protection to a supposed privileged sector is totally unacceptable.
Politicians are the employees of the people.
They are in positions of power over the lives of others.
They ought to be open to full scrutiny.
The fact that Len Brown is asking for this entitlement further reinforces his lack of perspective and faulty judgement.
The Mayor in the wake of his public shaming has made no effort to resign from his honorary role as President of the Home & Family Counselling organisation
Len Brown is continuing to behave like a man who has lived for 57 years and never truly faced accountability, like he is therefore beyond accountability.
He is tempting fate in the most dangerous of ways.
Updated
December Friday 13 2013
Report released into the Mayor's conduct & where Council protocols or Code of Conduct may have been breached
Primarily failure to declare free hotel rooms and upgrades in hotel accommodation were highlighted - initial report
The Full EY Report of 19 pages is here
December 17
Where is the Moral/Ethical Leadership?
More apologies from Len Brown but this is starting to sound like a man who feels he is untouchable, he can do anything - so long as he apologises. This is a trick children can learn very early in the game when they have overly indulgent parenting.
Andrew Dickens on the ZB site sums up many reasons for the widespread ongoing disquiet -including former supporters within Council calling for an official censure.
Conflict of interest arises re complementary & upgrade hotel rooms provided by Sky City to Len Brown since Sky City is involved in a controversial pokies for convention centre deal with the government
Net closes in aimed to set tight boundaries around Loosehead Len
December 18 2013
On this day the websites of Radio NZ and the NZ Herald gave top priority to the call for Len Brown to resign.
RNZ pic also showed the print Herald front page:
December 19 2013
At the meeting of the Council where the issue of censure against Mayor Brown was addressed Auckland Council preferred to stick with the status quo rather than upturn the applecart. This was the wrong decision as time will tell
Only 5 of the 20 wanted to push for a No Confidence vote.
This era -2012-2016 has a theme of bedrock change being required to remove rotten practices & their perpetrators -whether that be in politics, finance, the priesthood, business or amongst the ranks of "celebrities" - to name just some contexts where change - by virtue of exposure - is already being observed.
Surprisingly though it was Councillors on the Right who wanted the more extreme censure: paradoxically they are the voices of the sort of change required and voiced by citizens on the true Left whereas the moderate Left on the council & some right leaning councillors have followed the path of political expediency, in the name of political stability.
This unconscious attempt to go against the flow of change is pointless. Change will happen. People of the type exemplified by Len Brown no longer have a valid place as leaders in our communities, nations or globally
The tide is against them & by choosing to dig in, Len Brown will be struggling offshore against a very strong current
Further Reading:
2015 report on the highlights and lowlights of the Brown mayoralty
Len Brown's family values role
2015 report on the highlights and lowlights of the Brown mayoralty
Len Brown's family values role
