Hard News: Five further thoughts
446 Responses
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mark taslov, in reply to
You’re damn right Marc. I had to switch off Maori TV election coverage because one of the commentators insisted on referring to him only as “The German”. That’s a piss poor effort. I agree with everything you have said. It’s disgraceful. New Zealand is a nation of immigrants who usurped the indigenous people (who were also immigrants). 20th century bigotry has had it's time in the sun and it's time New Zealand grew the fuck up.
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Not The Messiah, in reply to
I agree Katharine with your viewpoint and there are dirty tricks being used against him. The revelations of the moment of truth guests highlighted this.
I loved the Eminem law suit irony – hope that works out the way it should.
I am not deriding Dotcom at all but I think there are too many out there that do hate him just because of who he seems to be portrayed as by those who would like to rid the country of him.
I too was an expat and agree again with your comment. I lived in the Middle East for 4 years and it was an amazing experience to be surrounded by people NZ’ers may find difficult. I made some wonderful friends from perceived as possibly undesirables here. Most often they were from the low paid exploited labourers.
I still like to think ( naively perhaps ) that we are accepting people and I was welcomed as being a person in a management role who made time to talk, eat with, befriend and visit the labour camps ( where I was invited – extremely unusual ).
I must say on return a few years back things have changed somewhat in our welcoming ways.
Getting back to Kim, it served the purpose for those who found him an easy target to divert attention to/at him. -
Katharine Moody, in reply to
Thanks. A very fair summary and your conclusions are spot on.
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
Wow - another thanks. Gee, I'm glad some people could see what I saw too!
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Katharine Moody, in reply to
And another!!!! Thanks!
I feel so much better now :-).
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
I must say that Dotcom did not play such a positive role in it all. He may not have intended harm, but his stage shows, encouraging youth to keep chanting "F*** John Key", his prominence here and there, and his failure to keep his promise to prove Key knew about him before the Mansion raid in January 2012, did not help Internet Mana. Also his calling on on talk back radio to his media enemy Sean Plunket raised more questions than any answers. He has realised he did not contribute well, so that is accepted by me, who has been critical of that deal between Mana, Hone and the new Internet Party financed by Dotcom.
Dotcom promised us an Italian 5 Star Movement by pitching for the Johnny Rotten vote. What we got instead was the Exclusive Brethren effect.
And before we start calling for Labour to disband and start over, a charismatic leader who knows his stuff can apparently make a difference. Such as Justin Trudeau, who seems to offer hope for the Liberals after they bottomed out in the last Canadian elections. At the same time, the Canadian Tories have been shaken by some senior expenses scandals - with any luck David Parker's police charges against the Dirty Politics guilty parties could have the same legs.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
And as I am also a migrant from a country that was once not liked by New Zealanders, I know full well the power of labeling undesired migrants, for whatever reasons.
Let me guess. Was it the country that produced the Rainbow Warrior bombers, or the country that produced Uwe Boll?
As a matter of fact, New Zealanders can be very, very nasty, in their own ways, and the tall poppy syndrome is part of that.
We seem to have a 'Howard battler' or 'Waitakere Man' duality of both tall-poppy syndrome and stealing the ladder of opportunity. One example of that duality believes those with both money and Left-leaning views are 'chardonnay socialists'.
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mark taslov, in reply to
I’ve often heard British people refer to New Zealanders as hillbillies, no one fits this description better than the PM. There are still millions of cool people in New Zealand but wouldn’t you know it, they’re invariably the quiet ones, and the passive ones. on the fringes. Also as Steve mentioned on the other thread, there’s the old joke about the word gullible not being in the New Zealand dictionary.
There’s not many ways to spin it. The Labour party suffered its worst defeat for eons and not only that but while voting red MPs the electorates were voting for National on the party vote. So comprehensive was this rout that rather than even hesitantly suggest something may not be right and call “recount!”, the party faithful spent the day examining pie charts and talking about an event 3 years ahead. In a week that was dominated by the Prime Minister being forced to deny pretty much conclusive evidence that we, a small, allegedly democratic nation, is engaged in mass surveillance, following weeks of serious allegations culminating in the resignation of a cabinet post, and most recently the PM absolutely losing his shit on nationwide broadcasts for a couple of days, issuing all manner of xenophobic barbs, echoed and repeated by a chorus of bent media. punctuated by the issuance of legal proceedings against the National party by the biggest whitest misogynist rapper in world history, and all occurring against a backdrop of revelations that 88 New Zealanders were spied on, which only came to light following an overcooked assault by 70 operatives who came in helicopters to arrest someone for copyright infringement at the behest of some folk 12,000km away.
Random.
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mark taslov, in reply to
Let me guess. Was it the country that produced the Rainbow Warrior bombers, or the country that produced Uwe Boll?
That may not help Sir.
Dotcom promised us an Italian 5 Star Movement by pitching for the Johnny Rotten vote. What we got instead was the Exclusive Brethren effect.
Dotcom was spied on, arrested with an illegal warrant, refused bail, refused the opportunity to sue for being spied on, assisted in ensuring an elected representative was convicted for election fraud, watched those who spied on him escape without conviction, took countless weeks, months, years of abuse, debasing and discrimination by the nation’s media and the Prime Minister of New Zealand. And our democracy failed him again and again at every stretch…is what happened. and you’re right up there with Johnny, second mate paddling that waka heaven knows where with a big grin pointing fingers at the immigrants.
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mark taslov, in reply to
It’s not that I doubt your best intentions DeepRed, it’s just that, you know better.
Do we have something like the Race Relations commissioner in New Zealand to stand up for our caucasian immigrants? Any oversight for any of these issues?
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This nation, that time and time again back-slaps itself for protesting apartheid, for fighting injustice, for standing up to the indefensible, in the name of righteousness and equality for all people no matter their colour or creed or religion or country of origin has fallen right off the planet
USD. -
5. Patsies.
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brin murray, in reply to
I'd agree. Still doesn't change the fact that the IES is not backed by any credible evidence that it works, though. $359 million dollars thrown away on brown-nosers (if they're out there) who'll back National Standards.
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brin murray, in reply to
I agree you can simplify, and three main planks isn't bad at all, but that's not the fundamental problem. There's little point in breast-beating about policy because their policies were relatively clear and far better than National's. National didn't even push policy: working for New Zealand is all they needed - because of John Key. It's a personality cult pure and simple. The vast majority of people wanted him as Prime Minister, while Cunliffe who was down in the nine percents or whatever. Cunliffe's only chance was to break down that perception of Key as the Kiwi bloke next door, and expose him as the cynical media manipulator he in reality is. Cunliffe was handed the opportunity on a plate, through dirty politics and even the GCSB revelations - but funked it. He has been afraid to tackle Key when it counted and go in hard; he never even properly stuck it to him over policy failures, like education, national debt and asset sales, which should have been easy. And he backed National against Internet Mana - so minimizing the relevance of the Moment of Truth. What is he afraid of? Too late now.
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brin murray, in reply to
The alternative green economy in the US last year was worth a trillion dollars. The majority of California's energy is already provided for by solar power stations; solar cars race across Australia each year. Oil, coal and gas fuel archaic technologies and will eventually run out if we don't have the common sense to stop using them first, but the alternative is not poverty and decline. A progressive government would see the change that is coming as an opportunity. This should be our chance to be at the cutting edge of innovation, but instead National are focused on an age which is already nearly past.
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brin murray, in reply to
I agree, except about Dotcom's promise to prove Key knew him well before the mansion raid. I think he probably did exactly that, with the email from the Hollywood mogul, but time will tell.
I will say this: Paul Henry calling Dotcom 'the fat German criminal' on mainstream TV on election night, shows a comfort with contemptuous and near hate-filled xenophobia which can only come from a culture embedded deep within his organisation.
Xenophobia is close kin to racism, pure and simple. I find it deeply disturbing that TV3 apparently finds this acceptable. It is frightening that this orchestrated hate campaign exists at all, and then that it is focused on Dotcom's being foreign as a key element of untrustworthiness/unlikeability. -
mark taslov, in reply to
My vote immunized me from having to suffer the ashamed
With that in mind I oughta vote more often.
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Pete,
While NZers can be as racist and unwelcoming as you guys say, the reason I never liked Kim is he's a shifty bastard who has previous convictions
Ignore what they say, watch what they do.
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People wondering if Labour and the Greens should merge - please explain in what crazy ass world there is any reason for the Greens to destroy what they've built to save the broken Labour party from itself. You've got a Labour problem, not a Green problem.
I am thrilled to see the inevitable calls for Labour to throw the gays, the women, and the children under the bus in order to compete with National.
This campaign and election reminded me that when put to it, we're a nation that loves a bully, hates an intellectual, and always prefers the comfortable lie. A nation where we don't want to know about the abuse of the powerless, but will stand up tall when anyone threatens the mythology of the powerful. In short, a nation of cowards.
And no I don't need you to tell me that akshully we all mean well and it's not everyone and and and. As Pete says in a completely different context, ignore what they say, watch what they do.
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barnaclebarnes, in reply to
...because they will not shift. They have never shifted....
So taken to its logical conclusion Greens will never be in power unless they win a clear majority? They can never work with any other party unless their values align 100%? A coalition has to make compromises no matter what side of the political spectrum it lies on.
What may be better is to work on policies where there is at least some alignment or some willingness to accept a path that aligns.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
What may be better is to work on policies where there is at least some alignment or some willingness to accept a path that aligns.
Taken to its logical conclusion, that argument might suggest the Parliament should behave in a similar fashion.
Is that what we want?
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The media has seized on the 1922 year as being the last time Labour received so few votes . It is getting rather boring unless what they are trying to remind us of is that although Labour were not in power then and would not be until 1935 the 1922 election was followed by the 1929 depression , the demise of the inept right coalition the formation of the National Party, then WWII just 4 years after Labour took over.
Do the media think that they have taken over from the ancient pundits and can predict the future?
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I am thrilled to see the inevitable calls for Labour to throw the gays, the women, and the children under the bus in order to compete with National.
Really? Looks more like Labour trying to figure out why pretty much everyone was lining up at the bus stop to give 'em a short, sharp shove into oncoming traffic.
The media has seized on the 1922 year as being the last time Labour received so few votes . It is getting rather boring unless...
it's a simple statement of fact, Bodmin. Not one anyone in Labour particularly wants to hear, I'm sure, but no less true for that.
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Dylan Reeve, in reply to
I will say this: Paul Henry calling Dotcom ‘the fat German criminal’ on mainstream TV on election night, shows a comfort with contemptuous and near hate-filled xenophobia which can only come from a culture embedded deep within his organisation.
Xenophobia is close kin to racism, pure and simple. I find it deeply disturbing that TV3 apparently finds this acceptable. It is frightening that this orchestrated hate campaign exists at all, and then that it is focused on Dotcom’s being foreign as a key element of untrustworthiness/unlikeability.I'm not convinced the foreignness is a *huge* part of it... I think the bigger part is his questionable moral/criminal history (and present) and how conspicuously he was trying to influence the election.
The fact he isn't a citizen is certainly part of it, however if everything else were the same but Dotcom had been born in Matamata I think the spin, fear and outcomes would be very similar.
National were very successful with their message of "don't let this millionaire criminal hijack our election" - and probably quite predictably so.
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Rob Stowell, in reply to
National have been a catastrophe for education. They fail to engage with professionals, have introduced National Standards which have resulted in a plummet in our OECD outcomes, and as you say push a business model which fails to recognise that the strength of our education system has always stemmed from collegiality and collaboration
The most terrifying thing I heard in the campaign was National's closing complaint they hadn't had a chance to push their key policies of reforming welfare and education.
As if beneficiaries haven't been kicked around enough.
As if they've had a single sound educational policy.
These two areas will be the crossfire for this govt. Worth keeping pressure on the MP and Dunne very specifically in these areas.
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