Posts by Joe Wylie
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Key’s abhorrent “in honour of…” statement is far, far worse.
Agreed. Holyoake may have been involved in some dodgy dealings, but he never stooped to invoking the war dead as part of a campaign to flog off NZ's sovereignty
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Who did it in the 60s?
While NZ’s military involvement in the Vietnam war was proportionally much smaller than Australia’s, the conflict was still sold to the electorate according to the then conventional wisdom of the domino theory.
Although Holyoake, perhaps shrewdly, appears in retrospect to have done only the minimum to appease American pressure, the public support of the then powerful Returned Services Association assured that any casualties would be given the ANZAC hero treatment. Fortunately there weren’t any,
In practice, NZ was a convenient bolt hole for Australian draftees. While my evidence is entirely anecdotal, I understand that, while the then Department of Labour held files on a number of such people, including a few Americans, a certain high level sympathy to their situation ensured that few if any were dobbed in.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Independence?
There’s been an American military presence
and base occupying space in Chchch since the ’50s…Whatever it was that Brash reputedly would have got rid of by lunchtime.
BTW I believe that the US base at Harewood is the only place in NZ that stocks this.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to BenWilson,
The dead at Gallipoli were mostly brave but the campaign itself is not something to proudly remember at all. Is Key actually telling us he’s planning a disaster?
As Australia introduced conscription in 1916 the 'dead at Gallipoli' would all have been volunteers. Unlike New Zealand, Australia sent conscripts into combat in Vietnam. With the brief exception of the Whitlam era, Harold Holt's proclamation of "All the way with LBJ" has typified Australia's effective outsourcing of its foreign policy, with Bob Hawke being one of the most gung ho. Key's crass invoking of the old death cult aspect of ANZAC is an attempt to subvert what independence we have left.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
But here in NZ we suffer none of that ‘carrion’
This is a Government that, for the first time since the 1960s, is positioning itself to make political capital from the potential deaths of 'ANZAC' troops. As the Australian poet Les Murray once said "Even a crappy old idea like Britannia can start to look pretty good if you pile up enough dead bodies around it".
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas that…, in reply to Simon Grigg,
It’s really hard to deny the historic importance of what Corless, with regional partners (Nesbitt, Wilson, Young etc) did for our fledging industry. In 1977 the live scene was almost dead – in 1983 it was vibrant and as much as we would like to think it was the rise of the indies and post-punk etc, it was primarily because this lot gave people somewhere to play.
All good to know and appreciated. With Audio Culture now conferring something like the final stamp of posterity, poor old Steve Gilpin's entry, under Misex, seems comparatively likewarm. While his brand of punk cabaret might have lacked a certain authenticity for some, surely his pioneering work in taking it to the provinces showed the financially astute that there was a buck to be turned out there.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas that…, in reply to Simon Grigg,
It seems a lot of those supporting the story were actually there and many had long industry careers and maybe get why this was briefly important. Or maybe it’s rose tinted sentimentality – we are all guilty of that I’m sure.
Or a case of the tail pretending it wagged the dog back then. Surely it’s a story that could have been told without needlessly aggrandising an often self-serving system that arguably took as least as much as it gave back.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas that…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I doubt I’m alone in rolling my eyes a bit at Golden Codgers waxing sentimental about the good old days, because in many respects they weren’t that flash.
Left to their own devices they’d have happily perpetuated the kind of entertainment that wouldn’t get in the way of the punters’ drinking. A real pity to see Audio Culture hosting that kind of puff piece.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas that…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
my addled yet bitter memories
Would the gig at the Station Hotel, with Proud Scum supporting, have been part of that? Someone’s social rugby team seemed to have been providing unpleasantly obtrusive amateur ‘security’. When Chris Knox worked a running commentary into an ad libbed version of Iggy Told Me even the meatheads twigged that they were having the piss taken. Must have been the line about having muscles between their ears.
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Hard News: Incomplete, inaccurate and misleading, in reply to Alfie,
Everything is contestable. Meaning is potato.
Yeah right: