Muse: Hey Greg O'Connor, Krup You!
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My predictions about Greg O’s comments were proven right. Funny how the self-appointed Anti-PC Brigade tries to have it both ways when their own blowtorch is used on them. And I wonder if Darth McVicar will hold public bonfires of Straight Outta Compton and its ilk? Besides, Tiki probably wouldn’t hurt a fly.
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Will the fear of rap ever end? Fuck tha Police is over 22 years old. That's old enough for an entire generation to grow up with it and - surprise - not turn into civilly disobedient, popo-hating scallywags.
Like Gwyneth Paltrow, I can recite Fuck tha Police, but also like Gwyneth, that just means I'm a dorky white girl who discovered some electrifying new music in the early '90s and listened to it too much.
A young nigga on the warpath
And when I'm finished
There's gonna be a bloodbath
Of cops dying in LA
Yo, Dre, I got something to say
Fuck the police.Have I started a riot yet?
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3410,
Craig,
please tell me you considered calling this post:"Fuck Tha Police Association President".
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Hi Craig,
Never mind convincing Greg he's wrong - which we'll term here, "the impossible" - what do you think we should we be doing to find allies in this key battle, your having blown such a wonderful clarion call?
I'm a musician, a free speech activist - as you will know from our previous conversation on twitter - and a librarian.
I've started my part of the journey by emailing Keith Locke, but can we leverage this discussion so that other musical freaks like me don't have to carefully check our setlist before we get up? I remember The Auntie's song "Why Don't People Like Policemen" - why *do* they call them Piggy Wiggy Wigs?
Do I talk to my two personal friends who are policemen? The policemen in my community? Is it all their paranoia, or "ours" too?
Inquiringly yours,
seanfish -
I remember the "Team Policing Unit" that used to go around pubs looking for trouble. They turned up at a bar in Ponsonby that I was at with my partner, she looks Maori but is, in fact, Mexican. We weren't sitting together, a female officer approached me and had a polite chat and then went over to my partner and asked her to "step outside" and proceeded to tip her bag on to the floor, when she objected she was shoved against the wall with a forearm against her throat and told "we could always take this downtown"
I stepped outside to try and diffuse the situation and was told to go back inside, I said "That is my partner, what's going on" and was them approached by a senior officer who calmed things down and we both went back into the bar.
So. When it comes to "disorderly behaviour likely to cause violence" it tends to be the ones "Looking for Trouble" that should take the blame. -
artig, in reply to
And please tell me you were looking to prove a causal relationship, not a casual relationship.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
please tell me you considered calling this post:
"Fuck Tha Police Association President".
Yes -- but I'm trying to be a little sensitive to PA readers who should be working right now, and don't need the strife of a "please explain" note from IT. :)
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
And please tell me you were looking to prove a causal relationship, not a casual relationship.
Damn, and I was doing so well… Typo fixed, and I'd like it on the record that a casual relationship with Greg O’Connor is nothing more than a non-Freudian slip. :)
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I think it sounds like Tiki was being a bit of a dick, to be honest. Unless he usually sings 'Fuck tha police' as part of his set, it seems unnecessary - unlike all the examples you've cited, Craig, which were integral to the plots of the pieces. But being a dick doesn't warrant being arrested. Usually, anyway.
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Cops are being attacked all over New Zealand and nothing happens in isolation...
Sure doesn't, when a cop is acquitted for kneeing a prisoner so hard in the balls that one of them resembled "mashed potatoes" to the doctor who saw him immediately afterward.
I very much doubt that the public will be behind O'Connor on this. It's like something out of the bad old days to go arresting musicians for their songs. Also, it goes directly to the point of the song. Police seizing the power to censor political views expressed by artists can get fucked.
I doubt it's something police generally would agree with, even. They might not like someone getting bitter on them, but they're smart enough to see that people get bitter when they're muzzled anyway. It was a very foolish thing to do, and I expect it will bring a lot more interest in such expressions.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
But being a dick doesn’t warrant being arrested.
No it doesn’t. While I find the casual misogyny and homophobia of too much hip-hop beneath contempt, I wouldn’t use O’Connor’s rather slippery definition of incitement to deem dreck a hate crime.
O’Connor better be right that there’s a lot more to come out on Friday (a recording of Taane chanting "hey, fuck up that policeman over there" would be a good start), because as things stand it really looks like the Police don’t need a lyrical assist to fuck their own mana.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I think it sounds like Tiki was being a bit of a dick, to be honest. Unless he usually sings ‘Fuck tha police’ as part of his set …
I don’t know about “usually”, but loads of times in the past 10 years apparently.
So maybe he was trying it on a bit. But coming back more than an hour later and arresting him, the promoter and DJ Dick Johnson? Just bullying.
Also, I know Dick Johnson and I struggle to imagine him doing anything that would get him legitimately arrested. He's a total sweetie.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Maybe the site should get https. (So that IT can't read what their workers are looking at).
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I remember the “Team Policing Unit” that used to go around pubs looking for trouble.
I missed the worst of that, but I well remember cops turning up near closing time at the Windsor Castle and hassling people until they swore and then throwing them in the van. It was insane, and it went on for years.
Fuck Gideon Tait for that.
Another time, I enlisted the help of officers, also at the Windsor, because a guy I knew had had his leather jacket taken by skinheads.
"I think they're spoiling for a fight," I warned the officer.
"Well that's what we're after too," he snarled as he headed over.
Shit, I thought.
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Sacha, in reply to
I very much doubt that the public will be behind O'Connor on this.
That nice young man they selected as Tauranga's local MP is. And right-thinking talkback legions. I hear that Tiki guy is a Maaari as well as a long-haired muso. Got to learn his place. #righto
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BenWilson, in reply to
Yeah, might even be a majority opinion. But so far as police are concerned that's not good enough. They need to be in the "overwhelming majority" position if they want to take political stands.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Sure doesn’t, when a cop is acquitted for kneeing a prisoner so hard in the balls that one of them resembled “mashed potatoes” to the doctor who saw him immediately afterward.
He wasn't acquitted on that count at all. The charge was dropped before the jury got the case due to some quite conflicting evidence as to when the injury may have occurred. Being kicked in the groin multiple times vs what was never described as more than a single, hefty application of knee? Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be deciding who caused what injuries with that one.
And at least a jury did get to consider the case. Once Power’s wet dream of process “improvement” legislation goes through, common assault will be judge-alone and then we’ll get to hear all about how the system protects its own – even though the public came to a conclusion in this case that will surely grate with many of the popo-hating folk who frequent parts of NZ.
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Jackie Clark, in reply to
I remember those days, Russell. I remember being a young woman working in the varsity cafe, transporting the takings to the admin office. I remember a very good looking young Maori man snatching them off me. I remember giving a statement to the police. I remember being hauled down to the Central Police Station at 1am to identify a possible perpetrator. I remember standing in a dark classroom while a lineup of all PI men stood under a bare lightbulb in the next room. And most of all, I remember saying to the Detective that it was none of those men that had done it. That the guy had been a young Maori man, not an older PI man. His reply to me? They're all criminals. It doesn't matter if you say one of them has done it.
I remember that very very clearly. I know that the police culture has changed a great deal since 1984 - when that happened - and I know that they have a very, very hard job, and that people nowadays seem more likely to abuse them both verbally and physically. It is not a job I would do because I know how horrid people can be to them, and how much bad stuff they see. But I also know that there are some officers for whom the police culture has not changed much at all. -
@Ben:
But even then, being in an overwhelming majority shouldn’t be a reason to take an anti-minority position. -
BenWilson, in reply to
Yeah, I wouldn't want to be deciding who caused what injuries with that one.
For sure, but hitting an injured person right where they are injured (or indeed hitting them at all) is a fucked up idea. Of course I don't know all the details of the case, but it never looks good, even when there's an acquittal.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
That nice young man they selected as Tauranga’s local MP is.
A rather nice young man who should be thankful that what happens at conference (or gets power-chundered into a gutter in the Christchurch CBD and all over your best dress shoes) stays at conference.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
For sure, but hitting an injured person right where they are injured (or indeed hitting them at all) is a fucked up idea
Indeed. Though I was left with the distinct impression that the complainant was so drunk that he didn't know he was injured.
I was surprised at the acquittal on all charges, given that other officers also testified, but I wasn't in the courtroom so I didn't hear all the evidence. So many charges against one officer definitely looks bad, however. The outcomes of the IPCA and internal inquiries will be interesting.
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Robyn Gallagher, in reply to
I think it sounds like Tiki was being a bit of a dick, to be honest.
Ever been on the street and a cop car drives past and some dude quietly chants "fuck the po-lice"? That's what this reminded me of - only problem, Tiki had a mic.
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In Texas, one of my friends was once thrown in jail for the night for saying "I smell pork". Now, that is clearly dickish, but bit-of-a-dickishness is no reason to be arrested.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
That’s what this reminded me of – only problem, Tiki had a mic.
In 1981, at the Gladstone Tavern in Christchurch, the Newmatics were playing at part of the legendary Screaming Blamatics Tour.
The police, as they did in those days, entered, lined up along the back of the room and started eyeballing people.
The Newmatics, meanwhile, halted the song they were playing and launched into 'Riot Squad'. It was a tense little moment in a very tense year.
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