Posts by Russell Brown
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to rjal,
I can’t sleep so I thought I’d make my first comment on Public Address:
It was a good one! Do come back, now.
And, er, nek minnit we're in danger of being back on topic ...
David Parker is expected to receive a high place and possibly the finance spokesmanship previously held by Mr Cunliffe. That leaves five spots on the eight-strong front bench to be filled from a field which is likely to include Mr Cunliffe, his running mate Nanaia Mahuta, Jacinda Ardern, Shane Jones, Maryan Street, Sue Moroney and Clayton Cosgrove.
If they have created that anti-Joyce role for Cunliffe that I've been banging on about, I shall be expecting a chocolate fish.
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Hard News: It was a munted year, in reply to Richard Grevers,
I believe the correct word was “trunk”
Which I knew, which is why I didn't see my own typo.
Gah. Thanks guys.
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Hard News: It was a munted year, in reply to Tony Kennedy,
You well and truly munted that embargo
Yep. It's buggered.
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The results are in.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Really I don’t think I was being that offensive.
Neither did I. But after I made one mild comment to you, you flew off the handle and described that as "bordering on the obscene"
And maybe the discussion was so uncomfortable for reasons that weren’t entirely down to me.
It certainly wasn't. Damian can be a bit snarky, I might have handled it differently in places and I'm sorry for that -- but you seemed to be taking some pride in what you were doing. I'm glad you finally got from "I'm entitled to be difficult" to "I’m sorry if I appeared difficult".
As a veteran of usenet, I know only too well how gut-wrenchingly unpleasant it is to raise these sort of meta-issues, but in my defence every time I try to leave the conversation somebody addresses me directly and so I feel like I would make matters worse by not responding.
You ventured upthread that this was a lounge with occasional pretensions to be being a public square, and that that placed additional obligations on me as its moderator. I don't know, really. I do what I can to make it good and that's quite taxing when I'm here all the time.
But Usenet's a public square. The Trade Me forums are a public square. Yahoo.co.nz is a public square. They're frequently horrible. I began discussing on Usenet in 1993, but withdrew, like a lot of the the people here, because I got sick of it. Not-turning-into-Usenet is a motivation.
If I recall rightly (don't make me go and look) I said that while it might not have been your intention, the appearance was that you were picking fights. (Emma did put that more strongly than me.) I honestly think the same conversation could have been had differently.
I think I'll blame Keith.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Jeremy Eade,
Why would I want to do that?
It would play havoc with my lifestyle.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Kumara Republic,
It's weird, is what it is.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Deborah,
It's not just governance. It's the extent to which the community allows dissent. "Don't be a dick" is very coercive.
Perhaps "show good grace to each other" works better for you. It means the same thing to me.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to giovanni tiso,
I also want to respond briefly on the Grant Robertson thing because I think it’s pertinent: I don’t have much of a problem with the guy, I thought he was weak on special needs in education but liked a couple of his campaigns in Parliament (particularly on the vote to prisoners).
I am however enormously frustrated by the tendency on the part of almost all of our politicians – and certainly not just Robertson – to empty their speeches of political content, leaving us to try to divine what they’re about from Hansard or their voting record or inside knowledge of party debates.
I did feel completely frustrated by trying to discuss it with you. I thought that he did state an admirable political purpose in his maiden speech, and others pointed out his longstanding and sincere engagement with disability issues. You just kept moving the goalposts, until we ended up with your problem with him being one common to all other MPs. Which did raise the question of why we were discussing him in particular at all.
When Robertson appeared to be supporting Parker, who’s on the far right of the party, it came, if not as a surprise, as a confirmation that I was at a complete loss to work out who he was. And so I asked PAS because here he is well liked, and I figured somebody could enlighten me
Which I did actually try and do. I stopped what I was doing to look up his speech and quote it.
But it might be more productive to look at other elements of his record than to speculate on a leadership contest that none of us really knows much about. Is Parker really to the “far right” of his party? Is he really further right than Cunliffe, a wealthy former business analyst who lives in Herne Bay? I’m sure someone could build the same narrative around Cunliffe using those two facts – it wouldn’t make it true. You just seemed determined to be pissy about it.
I have had people privately ask me if you were all right while this thread’s been running. I’ll try and monitor my own judgement better in these matters, but I can only do my best.
Edit: I guess it didn’t help that after I took issue, in a very gentle way, with about how you were addressing Damian, you bragged on Twitter that you didn’t care about upsetting “liberal sensibilities”. Taking delight in it wasn’t really helpful. I’d handle this differently if I had to do it again, but I would also hope the same of you.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to George Darroch,
I’ll also rescind my above edit. Discussion about class has been policed here, because (consistent) rejoinders to swerves away from acknowledging its structural conditions have been characterised as aggressive and ‘dickish’, because they are consistently directed towards the person making the claims. Giovanni is a sharp writer, but not a malicious one.
Look, I’m sorry. Perhaps I got it wrong. I simply checked in and saw the same bickering going on. Damian’s a friend and a blogger here. He may have been over-sensitive in this case, but he also got jumped on again. I honestly think his intent was not as alleged. And I’m at a loss as to what “claims” he was making.
I am not trying to police the discussion of class. I’d be delighted if someone wrote a post about it and other people discussed the post, or if this discussion continued.