Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Academics have a duty to be conscience and critic beyond their field, and this is pretty obviously accepted. Einstein, Oppenheimer, etc etc. It’s one of the ways to distinguish academics from other professional, who all also have roles as critics and conscience.
It’s probably useful to know that she was spurred to write the column after hearing a talk by LSE professor (and expat NZer) Robert Wade, who gave a global forecast out to 2030 that apparently put the shits up everyone who heard it.
Wade’s home page URL idiotically includes his email address, which completely messes up any attempt to format a link. See if this works:
[email protected]" target="_blank">http://www2.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/Experts/[email protected]
Sigh ... no. Stupidest URL schema ever. You'll have to Google him ...
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OnPoint: PREFU 2011: "What credit downgrade?", in reply to Angus Robertson,
With a strategy attacking the Nats for not changing existing policy aren’t Labour really implying the policies left over from the last Labour government were inadequate?
More that the situation has changed and an appropriate response is required, one would think. Labour would contend that of course it would have responded to changed conditions.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to HORansome,
As I said, I didn’t take notes so I’m operating from memory. I know that she did talk about “some South Africans” in the talk I attended and I might be mistaking that with the “Close Up” interview (which was, reportedly, edited; apparently it was a much longer discussion than the one that aired).
Yes. Field interviews are almost always edited. In itself, that’s no proof of ill–doing.
The fact is, she said what she said.
So, you’re offended that Prof. Mutu has made a claim you disagree with, so you find it acceptable to then claim that maybe she might make also want to make similar analogies with the Holocaust or with rape?
Really? Do you really want to go there?
For goodness sake, Matthew. She didn’t make “an analogy”. She made a feckless and offensive claim that the New Zealand political system is “similar” to apartheid – and thus South Africans who make their homes here would be “comfortable” with it.
I pointed this out with some vigour. And yes, I’d put feckless comparisons with apartheid on the same shelf as Holocaust and rape analogies. Her airy declaration that South Africans like it here because it’s like apartheid just made it worse.
You haven’t really addressed this at all, beyond taking vicarious and exaggerated offence.
I think you are fixating here on one construal of the analogy: there is research which indicates that some South Africans came to New Zealand because it is a white culture with an indigenous population which is marginalised (and thus suffers from the entrenched effects of institutionalised racism).
Matthew, I’m “fixating” on what she said, verbatim, in a televised interview.
But still, Russell, even suggesting that Prof. Mutu might like to make Holocaust or rape analogies to go with her discussion is a pretty low blow.
I think I’ll bow out from PAS now.
If you must. I honestly think you’ve argued very poorly here. You dismissed her original quote by saying it wasn’t stupid and offensive because she appropriately qualified her statement. I demonstrated that she did nothing of the kind – and yet somehow it’s still my fault.
I understand academic loyalty, but … really.
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OnPoint: PREFU 2011: "What credit downgrade?", in reply to Sacha,
Labour doesn’t follow that line
Respectfully, they and their supporters have many times complained about a ‘do nothing’ government. Alternated with the ‘far right agenda’ line, reflecting what can most charitably be described as strategic confusion.
They're very much on the "do-nothing government" line now. Which I think is not an unfair assessment.
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And meanwhile, eye-popping charts on where income growth in the US has gone in the past couple of decades.
As Bernard Hickey says, it's a wonder they haven't rioted by now.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to HORansome,
Also, she said “some” South Africans. With that qualifier it’s not actually stupid or offensive, because some do (this is supported by research: there is a lot of work going on at Auckland about the views of immigrants to New Zealand).
Is that what she told the meeting she said? Because that would be a barefaced lie.
The video is here. The quote is about 5.46. The word “some” is not uttered.
And even if she had added a qualifier? Might someone else say “some Maoris are lazy”? Because that would, on some technical level, be true.
And furthermore, directly comparing the political system here to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is a gross insult to the suffering of black South Africans under a system that deprived them of their very humanity. Perhaps she could throw in a Holocaust comparison or a rape metaphor next time.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Joe Wylie,
It’s a disappointingly cheap shot on your part to blame the violence entirely on protesters.
Did not do that. I didn't even mention violence.
All the protesters needed to do was express a little sympathy for working people and their families. Instead, there were a number of public quotes (and I'm going on memory here) that were unbelievably arrogant.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to HORansome,
Related to all that: I went to a fascinating talk given by Prof. Margaret Mutu and Dr. Sue Abel on the SST’s reporting of that immigration interview with Mutu. The talk was videoed, so I’ll put up a link for those who are interested when it becomes available.
What was the gist of it?
I'm genuinely interested to see how she walks back what she subsequently said to Close Up, that South African immigrants come to New Zealand and see "a regime that is not hugely different from the old one that they used to have, and that makes them feel comfortable."
That's an offensive and stupid statement on so many levels.
Also, I think someone needs to capitalise “Salmond” in the penultimate paragraph of the post.
That would be me.
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Hard News: The Politics of Absence, in reply to 3410,
Just for laughs...
According to the Herald, quoting a candidate is now a "dirty tricks campaign".
The great irony there is that Banks was the beneficiary of a really dirty leaflet campaign run by his own people (with the rather shameful connivance of the NBR) before he was defeated for the mayoralty by Dick Hubbard.
At least Banks actually said the things in the new leaflet. Even if, as Sacha notes, it's misleading as to when he actually said them.
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Hard News: Occupy: Don't call it a protest, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
I don’t know what it’s been like in other cities, but the growing groundswell of anger at the occupiers “preventing ordinary folk using the octagon/grass” worries me. There’s a lack of awareness that a little bit of inconvenience is worth it for the preservation of opportunities for public protest.
I still think it's incumbent on the occupiers to always bear in mind, though, that they are occupying space that belongs to everyone. I think they've been pretty good on that score so far.
By contrast, I remember (I think) the CHOGM protests in Melbourne a decade ago, which caused huge disruption, separated parents from their children, etc. The publicly expressed attitude (suck it up, basically) from many of the activists was pretty awful.