Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Not doing justice, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Jesus, what world do you live in? Reality check time: not everyone is a high falutin’ dinner party intellectual like the PA crew.
Double down reality check, Tommo – there’s nothing hoity-toity about at least knowing what the insults you pick up on Facebook actually mean. But hey, good to know you think giving a shit about Jew-baiting and plain old ignorance is a pretentious urban liberal affectation.
You are assuming he was knowingly anti-semitic, which he says he is not. On what grounds do you challenge his word?
Oh, FFS... you're just being silly now. So, Gibson ignorantly picked up a racial slur off Facebook and threw it in the Prime Minister's direction. Well, that's a relief. Accidental bigots are so much easier to tolerate than the deliberate kind.
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I was also severely underwhelmed by Gibson on Morning Report doing the usual "I'm sorry people were offended" passive-aggressive voice b.s. rather than just saying "I'm sorry I was offensive. Full stop. Period. Will stop talking now."
When are political types going to understand that using your weasel words is never a good look?
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Hard News: The silence of the public square, in reply to Richard Aston,
I despair of my friends who don’t vote because this party or that candidate is not quite up to scratch on this policy or that aspirational value. Its a cop out, clever, safe, impressive even, but really ineffective.
To be honest, I do a bit too but can really see how that can come across as enormously patronizing and more than a little bit privileged. Remember, what's just an "aspirational value" to you, could actually have a real impact on other people's lives. It's all very nice to say "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good", but if (say) you're a woman in the United States where both the Republican and Democratic candidates on the ballot paper are anti-choice and that's a really big fucking deal to you that has a hollow ring.
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Hard News: The silence of the public square, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
His sanctioning of the collateral death of a New Zealand citizen at the hands of an American ‘terrorist prosecution’ by missile, shows he has no interest in the Mosaic Laws that underpin the Jewish faith, let alone humanity in general…
Least we forget... a hundred years ago Peter Fraser opposed conscription (and New Zealand's participation in an "imperialist war"), was imprisoned for sedition in 1916 and yet did a complete turn around as Prime Minister in 1939 -- a move that was *cough* not uncontroversial within the Labour Party.
You can draw whatever conclusions you like about Fraser's view that WW2 was a "just war" in ways the First was not, but what that says about his "interest in the Mosaic Laws that underpin the Jewish faith, let alone humanity in general" escape me.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Grey Fucking Area, in reply to Russell Brown,
There’s no place in our society for the disaffected to feel angry. Right. Fuck Stuart Nash.
There’s plenty of room for that, Russell. But I'd like to think there's legitimate questions to be asked about how politicians use that in campaigns. I know this seriously risks getting Godwin-ish, but you think the Tea Party GOP hasn't coldly and cynically used (rightly or wrongly) disaffected people? Whatever else you say about New Zealand politics, it's progress that Jamie Whyte's attempt at tea-bag race-baiting doesn't appear to be working.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Grey Fucking Area, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Especially since when you talk to people who have actual contact with him he is apparently smart and hard working, he apparently actually reads and comments on some of the grant applications and they are not light reading.
Exactly - and there's the more general point that he's a Minister of the Crown. Fronting up to the media (and showing at least a smidgeon of good grace and baseline civility while you're about it) is your damn job. One, need I add, you're actually generously compensated for.
Politicians whine a lot about how they don't get no respect, but there's not an awful lot of honest self-reflection on how much of that is of their own making. I'm not calling for group hugs and community sings at all times, but you can disagree -- and disagree strongly -- without being a wretched jerk about it. We seem to pull it off around here a lot more often than not.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Grey Fucking Area, in reply to Russell Brown,
Their policy page is actually quite good – not least because it’s a small miracle of good political copywriting. Other parties could take a lesson there.
Well, point take and well made. So, you know... play to your real strengths not distasteful twatcockery. I don't actually care that much about the chant itself, but as I said perfectly legitimate questions to ask about posting it that don't have to resort to foolish (and frankly distasteful) Hitler analogies.
oh, puhleese. Internet Party policy forum. Mana policy statements. Yep, nothing to see there..
I'm sorry, but who in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy forced IM to post that damn video? I'm sure there's plenty to see, but don't expect me to make a mix tape for a self-inflicted wound.
This story has been another successful distraction engineered by the usual cabal of Ede, Hooten, Farrar and associates. How many times do these clowns need to wail ‘look over there’ before credulous churnalists stop doing their bidding? Where’s the pride?
Eye-roll right back at you, Sacha.
Unlike for example the right honourable Mr Joyce in full “I see nothing mode”
Bart: With all due and perfectly sincere respect, if we're using him as our baseline we're in serious trouble. Let's just say I don't find his surly bovver boy shtick endearing either, let alone the kind of tone I expect from a senior Minister of the Crown at any time.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Grey Fucking Area, in reply to Stephen Judd,
I also suspect that this brouhaha is quite helpful to IMP, in that no one they are likely courting is going to be offended or upset, and some people will go Wow, a party that comes out and says Fuck John Key is for me.
Well, that's an interesting assumption. And I guess you're right -- I suspect the Tea Party don't actually give a damn about the people who find their warp ten rhetoric toxic and dishonest and, to some extent, it works at the only polls that really count. Ditto for Tony Abbott -- whose agenda beyond "ditch the bitch" is a trumped up budget crisis not even right-wing economists believe.
The question is what happens next. Because I'm very far from convinced the Internet Mana party really has anything going on beyond "fuck John Key," and it's perfectly legitimate to expect more.
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Mandy of Nazareth says everything I'm thinking as far as Kim Dotcom is concerned:
As for this, Russell --
Is it rude and unsophisticated to chant “Fuck John Key!”? Of course it is. It also quite within the bounds of the kind of protest marches long attended by the kind of students at the Party Party. That a crowd would spontaneously begin such a chant is not as unlikely as it might seem – because it is not new. Tom Scott of @Peace and Home Brew has been leading hip hop crowds in the same chant for about three years.
Fair enough, but that doesn't mean the Internet Mana party gets to wash their hands of the decision to post the damn thing. Right? Argumentum ad Hiterium is utterly ridiculous, as usual, but there are legitimate eyebrows to be raised at the judgement being shown by a supposedly serious political party.
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Hard News: The silence of the public square, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
If Key thinks Harre is a prostitute, he can get fucked as far as I’m concerned. He has set the bar on the campaign trail. The “sugar daddy” comment was as low as you can go so Fuck John key ,have to be you,not me!
Key’s “sugar daddy” shade was weird (and offensive), because last time I looked no election campaign is self-financing. If you want to call me a National sugar daddy, Sofie, go to – I’ve been called a lot worse, and with less cause.
That said, “but they did it first!” is an excuse I don’t tolerate from children. Lilla Harre is not a child. Would anyone be praising a video of a room full of Young Nats chanting “FUCK LILLA HARRE!” as (as I quote) “a true representation of youth expression”? (Sidebar: And isn’t it just a little insulting to “youth”, plenty of who are passionate and engaged in politics without cussing like Malcolm Tucker on steroids.) I’d be embarrassed and angry, and I’d certainly expect anyone in National who posted such a thing to pull it after issuing a grovelling apology.
NOBODY is beyond criticism, or even the occasional naughty word, but EVERYBODY gets to be responsible for their choices and actions. That simple.