Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Jackie Clark,
Re people not voting. Was anyone else aware that Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t vote?
Yes.
We’ve been talking alot of election politics this last couple of weeks at work, and today I asked one of our teaching students if she was going to vote (she’s 18), and she told me that this little fact about JW’s. “We don’t get involved in politics” she says. I was so angry, I had to go outside and have a cigarette.
I go backwards and forwards on this. Yes, a large part of me snarls "Don't vote, don't complain the other eleven hundred odd days between elections." But I've got to admit some sympathy with the counter-argument: I don't have to agree with your colleague's reasons, but I do have to respect them. She may be exercising her democratic right negatively, but she's still using it.
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Muse: Friday Fluff: Shelf Life, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
It’s time to stop being angry at Twilight
Oh, I'm perfectly well aware that Stephanie Meyer isn't speaking to a middle-aged gay man like me, but it just bemuses and creeps me out a little. It's still useful to, now and then, try and figure out why stuff that leave you cold affects others who can't all be idiots. :)
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Muse: Indecision '11: Fighting the Grey, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Des Dunlop is 71. He’d have started school at around the end of WW2. Compared to, say, former Whitlam Government Minister Tom Uren, or my own late uncle, both of whom were systematically mistreated as prisoners of the Japanese, but who lived to more than welcome their own Japanese grandchildren-in-law, there’s no generational excuse for his bigotry.
Yes. One of the most awesome-ghastly racist slap downs I ever heard was an acquaintance of mine who replied to a nasty, obscenity-flecked anti-Japanese tirade by pointing out that 1) he was Malay Chinese and 2) The Sook Ching Massacre didn't exactly engender much pro-Japanese sentiment among Singapore's Chinese community.
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Muse: Indecision '11: Fighting the Grey, in reply to Islander,
Well, enlighten me. I'm perfectly happy to accept I don't enjoy expertise I never pretended to in the first place.
But with all due and sincere respect to Stewart, I'm not going to give ill-informed bigots indulgence use they're old; especially when they're operating under the banner of an inexplicably influential lobby group. Not least because it's pretty insulting to people of any age who manage think through, and out of, bigotry. Grey Power deserves to be mocked, and if they want my respect they can earn it by not being hateful trolls.
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Hard News: Grokking things by being places, in reply to Matthew Poole,
The down-side was that I got to discover just how rude some rabid Nats supporters can be
Really? I find politics makes some otherwise agreeable Labour supporters vile every three years or so. I spend a lot of time pretending to be deaf and having the most fascinating shoes ever made. It's disagreeable, but more or less works. And once your father refused to speak to you for six months, and someone else called you "morally equivalent to a Jewish Nazi", because of your politics it's amazing how little truly hurts anymore.
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Craig – you are Northern & while I appreciate some of what you are writing, you just dont have any fucking idea about how matters are in the far South-
I don’t know where that came from. I’d just rather people like Dunlop shove their “I’m fifth generation so my ignorant racist twatcockery should be taken seriously” nonsense. Well, no – an ignoramus with pedigree is still an ignoramus. And folks who like to hide their bigotry in a family tree, need a reality check. But I guess history is as inconvenient to the bigot as any other fact-based form of knowledge.
And when it comes to contributing shit to this country, I’ll put Peter Chin or Meng Foon well above Des Dunlop or Grey Power any day of the week.
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Muse: Indecision '11: Fighting the Grey, in reply to Stewart,
Sure, some of their fears and concerns seem silly and maybe racist to our generation, but they shouldn’t be discounted or ridiculed like that.
With all due respect, Stewart, when do we stop giving elder xenophobia a pass? One of the more shameful landmarks in our electoral history was the day in 1952 Chinese - some of whom had been in this country for almost a century - were no longer classed as "race aliens" and allowed to become citizens and vote. The explicitly racist poll tax was not abolished until 1944, eight years after Chinese were deigned fit to receive old age pensions.
Think about that on Saturday, will you?
And you know what, if people like Mr. Dunlop are so fucking threatened by people speaking Mandarin and shop signs in Hangul, perhaps they're they ones who need to "assimilate" and take a night class. And when Grey Power is an influential enough lobby group politicians feel obliged to ritually kiss arse every three years, I'm not willing to be so indulgent of ill-informed racism.
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Sacha,
I believe your attack on Hone's character is what brought comment.
Oh, and big fucking widdums to his "I don't want my children dating white people" arse too. If you don't get why I find that absolutely contemptible, I'll show you my parents wedding photo some time. And no, Sacha, I don't recall any leader of the National Party expressing his squick around inter-racial dating so don't even try calling me a hypocrite on this.
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Sacha,
respect is not a zero sum game.
That's exactly what I'd call Winston Peters - zero sum. And after twenty five years of unmitigated contempt for the man, martinb might want to pull up his fainting couch because I've said a lot worse about the man and don't intend to retract a syllable of it
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That leaves 26 seats to decide the government and, according to Horizon, Winston Peters’ New Zealand First is on track to take up to 13 of them.
And when NZ First's party secretary is one of the people behind Grey Power's vile spew on "Asian" immigrants, I really hope some of the nice white media folks cooing over Winston feel suitably ashamed of themselves. Won't hold my breath waiting though.
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