Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Kyle, I have a boiled-down, semi-serious answer to your larger academic question: there is always a significant proportion of true-believer revolutionaries who are either douchebags or assholes, and although these tendencies may initially be latent, the douchebaggery or assholery comes to the fore eventually, thereby undermining the movement's original goals.
It's a lot more complex than that. Some were douchebags, but not many, most of the douchebags were Trotskyists who were part of the reason SDS split.
In terms of the WU, the people that formed it were intelligent, talented, committed people who felt driven to do things because they came to the conclusion that it was better than the alternative - the ongoing murder in Vietnam. The movie that Rich linked to has one bit where a woman who split early from the WU says (I'll paraphrase) "what is the answer if you believe that something is going on that is so horrific that it must be stopped, and every reasonable legal and illegal means for stopping it has been tried? What do you do?"
It's a clash of 1. people who care too much to not try every method to change the world for the better; vs 2. a state that lost its way and didn't adapt to incorporate their (quite valid) concerns about the what was going on. The two things squeezed together and one of the things that popped out was a violent revolutionary domestic group.
They were also completely fucking bonkers. What they were trying ("Bringing the war home") was never going to work. They took a large chunk of a powerful movement and tossed it in the trash and possibly delayed the end of the war.
Fascinates me though.
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It's pretty good. First half is a cracker, but it sags a fair bit in the second half (when the main bunch are in jail). The ending seemed a bit weird and abrupt.
That's not a bad description of how the actual historical events around them went as well. A very strange group.
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What is it you do? You've piqued my curiosity.
I don't do anything closely related to my area of academic interest. I want to do a PhD on the New Left, most likely in New Zealand history (it hasn't been well done to date). Sadly no great wads of cash have yet fallen from the sky to allow this.
My particular academic interest is why political movements go from non-violent protest methods, to embracing violence and the (often delusional) reasonings for adopting violence. Particularly Students for a Democratic Society and the move to break away into the Weather Underground, but Baader-Meinhof is obviously of interest. What leads to people who have previously been strong advocates of non-violence adopting violence as a method of change?
(Book also awaiting afore-mentioned great wads of cash. Send all donations now...)
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Does everybody suspect that Worth was sacked for being an adulterer? I didn't.
My impression, and I didn't follow it too closely, was that Key said he was sacked because he was asked about X, denied it, and then subsequently admitted X was true and that he had lied.
And that Key had fired him because his Minister had lied to him, and that's not something you want your minister to do. At which point the exact nature of X becomes of less importance (though probably not completely irrelevant).
It's the Bill Clinton Lewinsky thing. There's doing it, and then there's lying about it to someone that possibly you shouldn't lie about it to (in his case a court).
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Personally I bought (despite it possibly making more sense to keep on renting, and invest in a property in studentville) because I wanted a home. I wanted some place that my kids could grow up in and that I could guarantee that to them for as long as we wanted. I wanted a dog, and a swing and art installations. I wanted to be able to invest in the garden and the house and have it feel like that was worthwhile. I wanted to rip up carpet and paint it funny colours and plant stupid trees and build fences and let the lawn go crazy when I felt like it.
For a lot of us, financial considerations are important, but they're not the most important. No matter how many time Michael Cullen and economists tell us otherwise, they won't change that.
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If the analogy was the same you'd have to ban all alcohol consumption by everyone to stop pregnant women drinking.
I think the analogy has a mid-point. When my partner was pregnant I stopped drinking (and we stopped doing some drinking type activities) in part to support her and make that easier for her.
I don't mind having B9 in my bread if it's good for future kids, families, and doesn't cause me any harm.
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In my very humble experience there's a species of abuser with a fine-honed predator's instinct for exploiting insecurity. Combine this with the cynical use of a little psychology, and intellectual sophistication will offer little defence.
I think there's both. I just don't think we should label every domestic abuser as cunning and conscious about their plan to abuse someone.
A fair number are just lost and out of control, and using violence to try and deal with that. Those seem to be the easier ones to help.
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TVNZ is finally apologising for their coverage of the case.
:(
As long as there's no swearing, displaying someone dragging the life and death of a human being over the coals as 'news' is OK. :P
I should say, he can have whatever defense he wants. He's facing a murder charge and if his defense is he was driven to it, obviously he has to say a bunch of bad things about her to prove that.
I just don't see why we need it serialised from 6.00 to 6.05 every night. If I want to see gruesome details I can watch CSI.
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So, as the public are the emplyers of Government, we own Orange Guy. Yes?.
Yes the government (or their subsidiary, the electoral office) own Orange Guy.
No we're not the employers of the government, no we don't own Orange Guy. We're taxpayers and citizens.
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But in a decade of pron-surfing and writing and commenting, I've never run across any child pornography, not once.
And even if you did run across it, and quickly backed out, then suddenly got searched by the police and had a couple of images in your cache, the police are quickly going to realise that you're not the person they're looking for.
Hundreds of images in folders, different story.