Hard News: The Wogistan form book
123 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 Newer→ Last
-
It’s worth recalling that this whole thing began when he attempted to take a knife onto a commercial flight.
Like it's not the screening he objects to so much as being required to obey the rules.
I can't help noting it would have to be larger than the standard 6cm pocket knife blade, which is exactly the size that have been allowed on domestic flights since 2005.
-
Not news, but Wishart was foaming-at-the-mouth insane on the radio this morning. His argument was, "How can you object to the bigotry of this column when Investigate has published lots of other bigotry in the past that you all conveniently ignored!"
I'm sure he thought he sounded convincing.
-
I'm disappointed that no-one (that I know of) has challenged Prosser's assertion that "most terrorists are Muslim". It's a very myopic, quasi-US-centric, view and ignores goings on in all sorts of places, including Spain, Northern Ireland, the drug-war related terrorism in Mexico etc...etc...etc...
-
'though while we talking about the current round of Muslim-bashing, it's also worth reading what anjum has to say about it.
we go through this once every 6 months or so. if it's not women wearing burqa's banned from buses, it's cartoons, it's various politicians or authors. some little spark and "we" get to have "the debate" all over again as to whether muslims are good or bad, happy or sad. leaders of political parties get to have their faces in the news and posture about inclusiveness and to express OUTRAGE at such terrible remarks. let's see how many political points we can score on the back of this current incident.
frankly, i'm sick of these conversations and i'm sick being used as a political tool. and that is exactly what happened in this case.
-
-
Deborah, in reply to
Kathryn Ryan took Prosser to task on the ‘all terrorists are Muslims’ line on Nine to Noon. It’s worth listening to the whole thing.
Kathryn Ryan interviewing Richard Prosser: MP3, 22 mins
(Edited to fix goof-up where I said it was on Morning Report. Thanks for catching it, Sacha.) -
Sacha, in reply to
It's worth listening to the whole thing
Yes, and it contradicts the tidy language in Prosser's brief 'apology' media release. Guy's only sorry about getting caught out.
-
Sacha, in reply to
on Morning Report
(Nine to Noon)
-
Nathaniel Wilson, in reply to
Ta. Viva National Radio huh?
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
frankly, i’m sick of these conversations and i’m sick being used as a political tool. and that is exactly what happened in this case.
Her point is well made.
-
Listened to Wishart on Morning Report, and I would have smashed up my alarm clock radio, had I not been still half-asleep.
On any other day, he declares open season on women and gays. But when Islam is involved, he suddenly jumps to their defence. Oh, the hypocrisy!
As for Prosser himself, he’s probably our first MP who’s overtly of the Geert Wilders/Pam Geller stripe, which is not the same thing as the Le Pen school of reactionary populism.
-
Prosser apologised to Kathryn Ryan for the style and manner of his delivery, but skirted around the message.
I actually sympathised with him for having his knife confiscated. I had to hand over a nice little Leatherman on my key ring when leaving Sydney last year - though they let me carry on a bottle of Scotch that I could have killed people with!
But the guy's a racist prick, and a carpetbagger too - Winston's quality control is a bit lackadaisical I reckon.
-
He began his career as an MP by calling for the burqa to be banned and taxi drivers to be armed. Toby Manhire collected a few more of his utterances.
If Prosser has his way, he'll end up getting kicked off a flight for his suspiciously Islamic looking beard, only to find a row of armed Muslim taxi drivers waiting at the airport rank.
-
Fairfax carried a story this morning that unnamed NZ First MPs were privately ropeable over Prosser's self-outing. Presumably this is mostly Denis O'Rourke, aka NZ First's intellectual wing, who's unlikely to have anything to say since he went into permanent hissy fit mode back in October.
-
Others have made better comments than I could on the serious issue at hand, so I'll just derail onto a quote from "The (Uncensored) Thoughts of Chairman Frank" (i.e. the late Frank Haden) whose crack about Winston's hair came to mind after reading your line about the headphones: "I don't think Winston Peters' hair is even made of hair. I think it's plastic. It doesn't move in the wind. It's too shiny altogether, it could well be ebony carved in Indonesia."
-
Best throw away line of the day was reported at the end of Morning Report:
"Banning young muslim men from airplanes is about the same as banning old white men from contact with money because they might embezzle it"
Which, while cute, is completely inaccurate, old white guys do far more embezzling by several orders of magnitude than anyone does terrorism
-
Islander, in reply to
I actually sympathised with him for having his knife confiscated. I had to hand over a nice little Leatherman on my key ring
This has been a bugbear with me since I first began to travel by air* - I have, since I was 7 years old, ALWAYS carried knives - they are the consummate human tool. I've had complex (& v. expensive) Swiss Army multitool knives confiscated - and I KNOW the blades were under 6 cm...
* I no longer travel by air, so that little rort is history for me-
-
What struck me was that calls to "ban Muslims from (our) planes" - alongside calls to "ban the burqa" and "arm the vulnerable (whether they like it or not)" are all entirely routine talking points for the populist right.
I've probably read hundreds of comments to this effect on blogs (indeed, on Kiwiblog alone) and on news sites that allow comments. I never listen to talkback radio but suspect it might not be much different.
Of course, the difference here is that they're spoken by an MP (albeit a rather inconsequential one), and not by "Anonymous Online Hatemonger #437", but there's probably a decent constituency for it. More than the crucial 5% anyway...
It's got NZ First back in the news, highlighting precisely the "issues" it's always sought to champion, as Russell notes. Mission accomplished?
-
Islander, in reply to
Quite probably.
My - uneasiness- with the whole thing is if an activist pro-Muslim group got entrenchment here.
For me, all fundamentalist sects are nasty & dangerous, but Islamic ones - because of their anti-female skew- are the worst.
-
Hmm...this is right on top of Key's proposal to keep the (muslim?) boaties away from our Fair Isle. Heh. I listened to Prosser make this point this morning about the "timing" of Ferrar's comment.
The problem is that few read the misnamed "investigate" so it probably took that long for a the relegated-to-the-doctor/dentist copy to circulate to David. Check his appointment diary.
As I was listening to the Prosser interview this morning, I think I heard Katherine mentioned what the Human Rights Act can throw at him. What I thought I heard was that you can do him for the wogistan comment ( national origins), his looks (ethnicity/race) but not for his religious comments. Is this right???
Is the Human Rights act that secular??? Discrimination for religious reasons is a no no but "disrespecting" is ok it seems.
-
Islander, in reply to
<q>but “disrespecting” is ok it seems.
If 'disrespecting' means detesting & acting against such groups - I'd say it was a positive human rights activity-
-
B Jones, in reply to
but Islamic ones - because of their anti-female skew- are the worst
Along with all the others. There's plenty of anti-female skew in a wide variety of world religions, some of which we tune out because we're more familiar with it. I mean, there's a perfectly good reason Catholic women can't be priests, right? Or Mormon women aren't supposed to work outside the home?
Prosser didn't lose his knife, he just had to check it into his luggage. Another thing I've seen happen is that you can post knives home from the airport.
The theory behind disrespecting religion being ok is that while race etc isn't a choice, religion is, and is therefore up for free discussion. I'm not sure I buy that, but the alternative can be ugly - the Catholic church wants to arrest a guy in India called Sanal Edamaruku for pointing out that one of their miraculous bleeding statues was the result of a leaking pipe. He's facing blasphemy charges.
-
Andre Alessi, in reply to
aka NZ First’s intellectual wing
There's a bitter joke in there somewhere. And to think, at one point, NZF did have something like policy wonks in its ranks.
-
Islander, in reply to
but the alternative can be ugly - the Catholic church wants to arrest a guy in India called Sanal Edamaruku for pointing out that one of their miraculous bleeding statues was the result of a leaking pipe. He's facing blasphemy charges.
Yep.
Almost all Abrahamic religions are anti-female BUT - Islamic ones are much WORSE in their *physical* control of *all* women (the women dont have to be religious cohorts.) -
Islander, in reply to
rosser didn’t lose his knife, he just had to check it into his luggage. Another thing I’ve seen happen is that you can post knives home from the airport.
Not quite that simple.
Your luggage can be searched and a harmless multi-tool removed.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.