Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: No Surprises

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  • Carol Stewart,

    Yeah, I like to think we'll have 'Bad Moon Rising' echoing around our rest homes.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 830 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    When i'm in grey power I'm gonna be pushing for Sonic Youth to rewrite the national anthem.

    Rubbish. You're going to be telling Kim Gordon to put on some clothes and stop it with that God-awful noise. :)

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

  • Christopher Dempsey,

    Seriously -- the relentless, obnoxious, engorged sense of entitlement is a wonder to behold.

    Quite. Hate to see what happens when the Baby Boomers really get going in their dotage.

    I'm going to raise their marginal tax rates something special; they never paid for their university education in the way their sprogs do now.

    But that's another thread - apologies for threadjack.

    Parnell / Tamaki-Auckland… • Since Sep 2008 • 659 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Around here, there seems no such thing as a jack.

    Please do describe how to make em pay.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • 81stcolumn,

    Mygraduation to the ranks of grey power is consistently haunted by the following nightmare:

    My grandparents and my parents enjoying their dotage with the odd tea dance:

    Will I really have to duplicate this ?

    Or something else perhaps...

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report Reply

  • Rachel Prosser,

    Diverting a bit (well back to Russell's revised post)

    I was in the BNZ Central Christchurch branch today (waiting a bit for the computer to unfreeze so I could put the pin on my credit card) and looked around.

    I was trying to put my finger on what wasn't quite working. You had to wait for the tellers in an avenue of shiny brochures - lots of marketing paraphernalia with pretty cartoon pigs, and the new comic sans-ish logo. Then there was the old fashioned bank/office block decor and ceiling tiles.

    And then I realised that all the material was, like the pig, cartoonish artwork. It would look the same in Second Life as it did IRL. And there wasn't a photo of a real person (or anything real or natural) at all - bar one poster for a charity event.

    Then I crossed the road and ANZ's material is full of pictures of the people it serves (or actors like them)

    I wonder who BNZ is targeting? Kids?

    (*I realised I couldn't spell paraphernalia - looked it up and discovered it was a term of art in law referring to the separate property of married women - clothing and jewellery appropriate for her station, but not part of her dower, or heirloom jewellery - the property of the heirs. Fascinating)

    Christchurch • Since Mar 2008 • 228 posts Report Reply

  • JackElder,

    Around here, there seems no such thing as a jack.

    Ahem.

    Will I really have to duplicate this ?

    Remember: big fish, little fish, cardboard box.

    Wellington • Since Mar 2008 • 709 posts Report Reply

  • andin,

    "Seriously -- the relentless, obnoxious, engorged sense of entitlement is a wonder to behold."

    "Hate to see what happens when the Baby Boomers really get going in their dotage."

    Don't go tarring every one with the same brush.

    raglan • Since Mar 2007 • 1891 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Don't go tarring every one with the same brush.

    Oh, I don't Andin. I'm just tired of people who think "I didn't fight in World War Two" is some kind of trump card in public policy debates. And, all too often, that's exactly the level Grey Power operates on, and I'm bloody sick of it.

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

  • Craig Ranapia,

    And the next time someone trots out the "I didn't pay taxes all those years...", I'm going to slap the fucker over the knuckles with my rolled up student loan statements.

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

  • Tim Hannah,

    Come now, at least you got to be a student, whereas they spent those years fighting World War Two.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 228 posts Report Reply

  • ChrisW,

    Craig, two days ago on p.4 -

    But given Cabinet's rejection of the Commission's plan A, perhaps it would be for others such as yourself Craig to outline what good Maori representation might mean and how it might be achieved in super-Auckland. I'm just providing some data to indicate that a lot more would be necessary than a dismissive "Maori should get organised, stand for election and get elected on merit".

    Fair challenge, Chris, but one I don't really want to attack superficially. I'm just unconvinced that reserved Maori seats are more than a sledgehammer taken to an egg. But I'll give your serious question some serious consideration.

    That your serious consideration hasn't yet come up with a better way to crack that egg (in order to make an omelette for super-Auckland?) perhaps means plan A was a good idea. Doesn't seem like a sledgehammer to me.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Come now, at least you got to be a student, whereas they spent those years fighting World War Two.

    You know something, even if the Second World War hasn't happened the odds of my father heading off to uni were rather long -- having left school at elevenand all... And regardless of his age or military service, Dad was much the same mix of wise and foolish as the rest of us.

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

  • Craig Ranapia,

    That your serious consideration hasn't yet come up with a better way to crack that egg (in order to make an omelette for super-Auckland?) perhaps means plan A was a good idea.

    Or that I'm still coming to a response that isn't going to end up in a blizzard of flying troll poo.

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

  • ChrisW,

    The Listener may again provide inspiration, in that its Editorial for next week ingeniously combines the subjects of your two last posts. Slipped in among ruminations on the ethics, morality and ambitions of WWII is this gem -

    In any moral dilemma, the question to be asked is simple: what is the right thing to do? ...
    Is it right, for example, to reserve on the Auckland super-council two seats to which only candidates of Maori ethnicity may be elected, because without that guarantee there is every possibility there will be no Maori representation at all? Or is it right to preserve the basic democratic tenet that race does not determine a person's eligibility for election? It is the latter claim that can make the stronger moral case.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    It amazes me how firmly those who should be smarter cling to the idea that democracy means nothing more than mob rule - "one person, one vote". Or that Maori seats are about ethnic represenatation, not honouring Treaty obligations.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Carol Stewart,

    Well put, Sacha.
    I really despair of The Listener. Any shred of a social conscience seems to have long gone.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 830 posts Report Reply

  • Sam F,

    Looks like someone has been mucking around with Garth George's circuitry...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1611 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Thanks, Sam. That piece is downright remarkable - perfectly reasonable, not righteously foaming - in short, almost unrecognisable. Love this bit:

    It seems to me that those who espouse the "one nation, one people" concept are invariably white, and stand to the right of the political spectrum. That, in itself, is a cause for suspicion.

    Their understanding of one nation, one people seems to be that all the people who make up this nation have become, or will soon become, integrated - that is just like them - so there is no need to give any other people any special consideration.

    That is nonsense.

    and this one:

    Maori and Pakeha are much more different than I ever realised until after I had spent more than a year delving into Maori language, culture and spirituality. And long may those differences remain.

    Socially, the differences are marked, for nowhere in Pakeha society will you find the whanau, hapu, iwi, tribe construct upon which Maori society is built.

    Nor will you find among other races the innate spirituality which connects Maori with their natural environment and possessions.

    And, probably because most Pakeha have never bothered even to try to understand any of those things, Maori have been double-crossed, exploited and otherwise screwed ever since the Treaty of Waitangi was signed.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Nor will you find among other races the innate spirituality which connects Maori with their natural environment and possessions..

    Oh, I'm sorry but on what level am I supposed to find that praiseworthy as opposed to mind-bendingly offensive noble savage bullshit?

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

  • Sacha,

    Heh. I left that in for balance. Rotorua may be doing some good things for the man, but it can't erase his entire character.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • ChrisW,

    Just a minor detail Craig, suggest focus on the main argument and allow GG one slip-up (that the spiritual connection to land may be more commonly expressed in Maori than in many other peoples in no way implies it is absent in all other peoples).

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Just a minor detail Craig, suggest focus on the main argument

    Sorry, ChrisW, but a drooling fundie's promotion of the idea that Maori deserve respect because we have a 'spirituality' that the white people he's previously condemned as Godless moral degenerates lack isn't a 'minor detail'. It's racist, condescending white paternalism -- and this Maori doesn't need friends like that, thank you very much.

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

  • Sam F,

    You have to wonder where these abrupt ideological changes of tack come from with Garth. The comment about innate spirituality proves that it's still him - that ignorant condescension, as Craig says - but the rest of it's a mystery.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1611 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    You have to wonder where these abrupt ideological changes of tack come from with Garth. The comment about innate spirituality proves that it's still him - that ignorant condescension, as Craig says - but the rest of it's a mystery.

    In a weird way, Sam, the more I look at that column the more consistent with George's fundamentalist world-view it is. Remember, in Garth's world it's those Godless, God-damned liberal-gay-feminist-hoodie-coddling-tree-hugging-Marxist-devil-worshipping-moral-relativist secular humanists who are tipping the world over the edge of the abyss. Garth's also prone to waxing nostalgic about a golden agrarian past that never really existed outside his imagination -- men were men, women were women, everyone went to church on Sunday morning, etc. And I guess the Maaris knew their place -- up-country communing with their spirits.

    Here's one final thing to consider: For true believers the heretic and the backslider are always treated with more contempt than the infidel. For the wannabe theo-cons in New Zealand, I'm sure John Key and his Government have been a sore disappointment. Too bad.

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

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