Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2: Chewing over the News

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  • Craig Ranapia, in reply to Russell Brown,

    Eh? I can’t see trolling or inappropriate attribution to me, or divine any offence in Simon’s comment. Please don’t get riled on my account.

    Fair enough – I meant that the linked story was NOT written by Murdoch, but appeared in a tabloid not exactly known for taste and understatement that happens to be owned by his company. Even the anti-Christ deserves accurate attribution.

    I suspect you may have found the coffee jar empty this morning, Craig?

    Yeah yeah, I get it – Murdoch Anti-Christ Superstar. Meanwhile, can I start quoting the most stupid and vile comments on PAS and start attributing them to Russell? No I can’t because that’s not accurate, and I’d like to think this place rolls on a higher road than Kiwibog or the Sub-Standard.

    Interesting to see prime minister Kevin Taylor’s spokesman John Key refusing to front the media over the decision to seal the Pike River mine. If anyone had any doubts John Key is a lazy, polls driven coward this must surely remove them once and for all.

    FFS, Tom. Really. For Fucks. Sake. If it was my son or BH's corpse in that mine, I'd really not give a twopenny toss who delivered that gut-punch. You'll get plenty of chances to down-trou and unload on Key this year - try choosing your targets with more care.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    Simon, I don't think the 50s were that long ago. (That may be because I heard "niggers" used seriously in casual conversation by white people a mere few weeks ago, of course.)

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Kumara Republic, in reply to Simon Grigg,

    As someone said up-thread, I think a lot of this is flailing at uncertainty. The USA is about to become a very big country that used to be the sole superpower. The base is in decline and the country is still working out why it's not as the mythology tells them it should be anymore.

    League of Empire Loyalists, anybody?

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

  • Kumara Republic, in reply to Tom Semmens,

    Kevin Taylor = Captain Panic Pants, John Key’s chief PR flack.

    If anyone's wondering where the nickname originated from...

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

  • Matthew Poole, in reply to Simon Grigg,

    It was a very long time ago though. As were the 1950s/60s and Mississippi & Alabama. And as central as some of those people were in those states, they had no national platform that espoused hate in the way that Fox and many of its talking heads do.

    This, I think, gets to the crux of the difference. The civil rights era was nasty, with plenty of authority (literally) figures batting for the KKK. When it becomes necessary to send in the feds just to ensure that the local boys don't cover up their own civil rights violations, or to escort people to their chosen institution of education, you have problems.

    However, there was no Faux News to stir things up. No national broadcasting network would've dared allow the talent to blithely suggest that targeted violence against specific individuals was acceptable as a way of resolving political disagreements. As ugly as the discourse got locally, it didn't have open support on a national platform. There was also no national unity on the enfranchisement of blacks, because in the North it just wasn't an issue by the 60s. Blacks could vote, the world hadn't ended, why couldn't the South just get with the programme? That's counter to the radical right currently, which has open support on nationwide broadcast and is represented vocally coast-to-coast, top-to-bottom.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg, in reply to Craig Ranapia,

    Yeah yeah, I get it – Murdoch Anti-Christ Superstar.

    With the NYP you get what was given to you by Rupert. In that city Murdoch was long infamous for taking a respected tabloid and pushing firmly downwards. That direction, once again, infamously, was not done by some editor down the tree but by Murdoch personally.

    Too, the paper looses money and is kept afloat by Fox in the US. It may be drawing a string but the station most under the microscope of recent was Fox and its voices.

    As said, they ran it. It was /is garbage but somebody made the call. It was a conscious decision to sink lower into the swamp by someone empowered and handpicked by Murdoch.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • nzlemming, in reply to ,

    At home he’s the husband of the Listener’s renovator-in-chief, Joanne Black.

    I think you'll find that's Grant Johnston, Key's Chief Policy Advisor.

    Waikanae • Since Nov 2006 • 2937 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle, in reply to Matthew Poole,

    in the North it just wasn’t an issue by the 60s

    I know this isn't quite germane to your point, but I don't think that's entirely true either.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown, in reply to Craig Ranapia,

    Yeah yeah, I get it – Murdoch Anti-Christ Superstar. Meanwhile, can I start quoting the most stupid and vile comments on PAS and start attributing them to Russell?

    Still didn't see that, but let's please drop it.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Caleb D'Anvers,

    The US has an awful history of political violence - I read last year an incredible 1400 page history of NYC up to 1898 (the union of the boroughs) which simply turned my mind in places with the blood ....

    Oooh, Gotham! That's a fantastic read. And, yeah: some of the rioting and general massacre that took place as recently as the late 19th century is just staggering.

    London SE16 • Since Mar 2008 • 482 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia, in reply to Matthew Poole,

    However, there was no Faux News to stir things up. No national broadcasting network would’ve dared allow the talent to blithely suggest that targeted violence against specific individuals was acceptable as a way of resolving political disagreements.

    Also, let’s compare and contrast the 1960 Presidential race JFK won by a cat’s whisker.

    Yes, Kennedy’s Catholicism (and anti-Catholic prejudice) was a real issue, and I’m not naive enough to pretend that it wasn’t exploited to some degree by Kennedy’s opponents in the Democratic primary and the general campaign. But you’d really have to stretch a loooong way to equate it to the “Barack HUSSEIN Obama’s a SECRET MUSLIM” blah-blah that was all the way in your face. And bluntly, it would have been nice if McCain and Palin had been a little more Nixonian (who, for all his faults, was rather more scrupulous about playing the religious card considering Quakers aren't exactly mainline Protestants either).

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia, in reply to Russell Brown,

    Perfectly happy to - I've run out of furniture.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown, in reply to Craig Ranapia,

    But you’d really have to stretch a loooong way to equate it to the “Barack HUSSEIN Obama’s a SECRET MUSLIM” blah-blah that was all the way in your face. And bluntly, it would have been nice if McCain and Palin had been a little more Nixonian (who, for all his faults, was rather more scrupulous about playing the religious card considering Quakers aren’t exactly mainline Protestants either).

    Yup. I’m sticking with “the present rhetorical climate is unprecedented”, if only because it couldn’t have happened even 20 years ago, when one mass medium (the internet) didn’t exist in a popular form, and another (TV) was a very, very different creature than it is now.

    I also meant to observe yesterday that I think the far reaches of Wikileaks support embrace similarly paranoid politics. Regarding government, per se, as a conspiracy is unhelpful. Sorry if that offends anyone, but I think it's true.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Angus Robertson,

    But you'd really have to stretch a loooong way to equate it to the "Barack HUSSEIN Obama's a SECRET MUSLIM" blah-blah.

    Or George W Bush is a WAR CRIMINAL, circa 2004.

    Auckland • Since May 2007 • 984 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to nzlemming,

    I think you'll find that's Grant Johnston, Key's Chief Policy Advisor.

    Just noticed Bryce's excellent article saying that too. Sorry.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    But here’s a parting thought, after watching Obama’s speech a couple more times:

    I often wonder if the rage of the Tea Party, “birther” loons and the Pa-Lim-Beck Axis of Stupid is (to paraphrase Oscar Wilde) “the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.” The delicious irony that’s been obvious for a while is that Obama’s temperament and approach to government is profoundly conservative, and for a secret Muslim he seems to get the ethics of the gospels more clearly and purely than people like Palin for whom God and faith are just another couple of talking points.

    It would be a mistake to dismiss Obama as a slick performer with a good speech-writer. There’s something deeper, and much more interesting, going on and I get why it drives people whose feckless cynicism is boundless absolutely off the scales.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg, in reply to Danielle,

    I know this isn't quite germane to your point, but I don't think that's entirely true either.

    That list is fairly wide ranging and includes events that arguably have parallel roots, albeit still planted in race issues. The Watts Riots, for example, were not about enfranchisement but economic dis-empowerment and discrimination, coupled with buckets of good old fashioned police brutality.

    As were the post-Rodney King riots twenty years on.

    Most of the Northern troubles were likewise. Suffrage had been extended to all races by the 15th Amendment and was mostly not blocked by other barriers like literacy and income level tests in the north as it was in the south. That took the Voting Rights Act in '65.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to Angus Robertson,

    Or George W Bush is a WAR CRIMINAL, circa 2004.

    The difference is that by most standards, he was.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg, in reply to Angus Robertson,

    Or George W Bush is a WAR CRIMINAL, circa 2004.

    Not exactly a parallel though is it Angus? The Bush claims were centred around a fairly hefty war with god knows how many dead, engineered by deceit and a failure to observe the finer points of international law.

    The Obama claim however is based on....

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg, in reply to Sacha,

    that by most standards, he was.

    Snap, Sacha

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia, in reply to Simon Grigg,

    The Obama claim however is based on….

    The charmingly naive idea that the “lamestream” media had such a pash on for Obambi they all suppressed the irrefutable fact that he spent seven years at Hogwart’s School of America-Hating & Islamofascism. Guess Fox News got hit with a serious Polyjuice potion-based confounding charm there...

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Matthew Poole, in reply to Angus Robertson,

    Or George W Bush is a WAR CRIMINAL, circa 2004.

    Circa now, too. And unlike claims that Obama's a closet Muslim, there's actually evidence to support assertions that Bush the Second did, indeed, commit war crimes. Like government officials torturing prisoners-of-war under a policy that originated from the White House. That's a war crime.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report Reply

  • nzlemming,

    Guys, guys. You're bringing logic to a knife fight. Or something...

    Waikanae • Since Nov 2006 • 2937 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    That list is fairly wide ranging and includes events that arguably have parallel roots, albeit still planted in race issues.

    True, but that's the point: voting isn't everything. The north just 'waiting for the south to get with the programme' with enfranchisement doesn't really take into account the glorious fuckedupitude of the whole country.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Matthew Poole, in reply to Danielle,

    It wasn’t just voting, though. Riding on any bus you wanted, going to any hospital you wanted, enrolling in any school you wanted, even using any public water fountain you wanted. Those were not options for many Southern blacks.

    The economic and police-relationship issues facing blacks across the entire US (and the headline cause of most of those riots) haven’t gone away, but having your access to public facilities blocked because of the colour of your skin has. That’s what I meant by “waiting for the South to get with the programme”, because enfranchisement was just the biggest issue of a multitude of segregationist matters that were addressed in that period in the South but which hadn’t been a consideration in the North for quite some time.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2007 • 4097 posts Report Reply

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