Posts by Russell Brown
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Speaker: Let's talk about class, in reply to Tinakori,
What government was in power for most of the decade prior to Pike River? Who were the founders of the main party in that government and where was that party founded?
I’ll ignore your attempt to troll.
The big change to mining regulation came with the 1992 Health and Safety in Employment Act, which repealed existing mining laws and introduced the concepts of self-regulation and “practicable steps” with respect to safety. Labour made no meaningful change in government. Both governments were warned there was a problem.
Pike River itself operated entirely on the present government’s watch. It was opened by Gerry Brownlee in 2008, although didn’t manage to deliver an export coal shipment until 2010, the year of the disaster.
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Speaker: Let's talk about class, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
Seriously needs discussion Russell.
Another post, perhaps????
Yes. It would be a good one for Access.
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Speaker: Let's talk about class, in reply to richard,
Or the slow motion disaster that is unfolding in our forests.
Absolutely.
Helen Kelly's speech to the Labour Party conference last year.
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With Pike River, I keep coming back to what my brother-in-law, a miner in Australia told me about several of his mates who took up contracts at Pike River. They arrived on site, saw what was going on and walked off and went home.
If they could see it, then so could Whittall and others. They knew.
But have I done much about it here? Apart from venturing at the time that Whittall might not turn out be the great man everyone seemed to think, no. There's a lot of work involved in understanding that story. Christchurch was easier: I grew up there and have friends there who can write. But although I strongly suspect I went to school in Greymouth with some of those families, Pike River soon started to seem distant.
By contrast, sexism-racism-ableism-homophobia-transphobia play out on Twitter as set pieces. Everyone already knows the lines. That doesn't mean they're not important, they're just easier to get aboard. (Although, as someone with a close interest in disability issues, I feel slightly allergic to the word "ableism".)
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Hard News: Softly, softly, in reply to Steve Curtis,
I would have thought if you are violently demonstrating against an elected President AND parliament , thats a putsch in anybodys language.
Oh, come on.
Here's the annotated Euromaidan timeline.
The protests began when the the government performed about-face on the European association agreement (and lied about it).
There were clearly some violent clashes, but by November 30 there was this:
On the night of 30 November 2013 at 04:00, armed with batons, stun grenades, and tear gas, Berkut special police units attacked and dispersed all protesters from Maidan Nezalezhnosti while suppressing mobile phone communications.[31][32] The police attacked not only the protesters (most of whom didn't or failed to put up resistance) but also other civilians in the vicinity of Maidan Nezalezhnosti, when the Berkut forces chased unarmed people several hundreds of meters and continued to beat them with batons and feet.[33] Initially, 35 people were injured as a result of the militia raid, including a Reuters cameraman and a photographer.[34][35] Other protesters were detained.[32] Most of protesters were students.[35] At 09:20 Berkut besieged the St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery where approximately 50 Euromaidan activists, including the injured, found sanctuary.[32][36] Police spokeswoman Olha Bilyk justified the police raid by saying that protesters were interfering with preparations to decorate the square for the Christmas and New Year's holidays, and accused them of throwing stones and burning logs.[37] Minister of Internal Affairs Vitaliy Zakharchenko later apologized and claimed "riot police abused their power" and promised a thorough investigation.[38] Via state television he added "if there are calls for mass disturbances, then we will react to this harshly".[38]
There was violence both ways, certainly, but mainly this was a story of peaceful mass protest and crowds of up to a million people.
Some of the protest leaders paid pretty dearly:
Later on the 30th, AutoMaidan leader Dmytro Bulatov was found alive after being missing for 8 days, his body dumped in Boryspil to freeze; journalists who did communicate with him showed pictures showing his face scarred and badly beaten, and clothed in blood-soiled attire.[328] His ear was cut off and he had piercings in his hands by nails; which showed signs that he was crucified while being tortured.[329] According to Bulatov, the men who abducted him spoke with Russian accents.[329][330][331]
There also appeared to be a pattern of state forces targeting journalists.
And then, of course, there was Yanukovych himself, and the account of a former Georgian leader to The Guardian:
"He would talk very loudly about how he had corrupted senior officials, in the supreme court and the constitutional court," Saakashvili said during an interview in the Ukrainian capital, where he is meeting with opposition leaders after Yanukovych's downfall. "He didn't care who he was talking to; the guy did not have any idea about morality."
Saakashvili said Yanukovych was unique among post-Soviet leaders, even the notoriously ruthless and corrupt central Asian dictators. "The others might be cynical but not to the extent of denouncing themselves. I wasn't that surprised he would do these things, but I was surprised how open he was about it."
He said Yanukovych took great pleasure in talking about his corruption and judicial abuse. "He would tell me at length about criminal cases. He would elaborate on every small detail, and was obsessed and fascinated with the fact that he could really play around with the courts. It's a sign of people who have had problems with the law in the past. It's also a very Soviet mentality; Stalin used to sign the verdict on every serious case."
Is that really what you're standing up for?
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A story by Maia from February:
A crack pipe vending machine for addicts sounds like the punch line of a bad joke—but the same kind of ridicule has been lobbed at many measures to fight drug addiction and related harm that have now proven to save lives. From needle exchange programs for HIV prevention to providing heroin to addicts, and from supervised injecting rooms to “wet houses” where homeless alcoholics are given free booze, approaches that seem to “enable” users are in fact effective in helping them to survive and recover.
Interesting.
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I'm chairing a session with American journalist Maia Szalavitz in Wellington on Thursday.
Maia Szalavitz is an award winning journalist and author whose work has focussed on mental health issues, addictions, drug policy, neuroscience and the media’s portrayal of these issues. Her personal experience as a former user of cocaine and heroin and her extensive knowledge of the scientific literature on addictions and drug policy brings a unique perspective to her work.
Ms Szalavitz is a regular contributor to many major international publications including Time, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and New Scientist. She has also appeared on Oprah, CNN, MSNBC and NPR.
Y'all can come along and/or suggest questions.
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Hard News: The problems inherent in the system, in reply to BenWilson,
You’re even doing it in making your point about what’s good about what happened in Portugal. You talk about the harms that reduced. You don’t or can’t (and not through any fault of your own) point out that one of the biggest goods of that is that Portuguese drug takers are freed to enjoy themselves on drugs.
You clearly don’t understand what Portugal’s drug laws actually are. Portugese are not “free to enjoy themselves on drugs”. Personal drug offences were taken out of the criminal code and made administrative offences. If you get busted there, you’ll probably be fined and you may be ordered into a treatment programme. You might also be prohibited from visiting certain places or associating with certain people – or even forbidden to leave the country.
I think these illiberal elements of the Portugese system are an unnecessary and undesirable imposition on personal freedoms and in some cases a waste of public money. But that’s how their system works. It’s not what you think it is.
I do not want laissez-faire. I want the good from drugs to be at least a part of the discussion.
You’re barking up the wrong tree if you expect public health agencies to do that part for you. The Ministry of Health doesn’t make table wine recommendations either.
But no one’s preventing you from having that discussion. It’s been a part of popular culture for decades.
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And in very timely fashion, a really interesting, well-researched story on America's belated embrace of harm reduction has popped up in my Twitter timeline.
This is the second very good piece of writing I've read on Buzzfeed today, which slightly does my head in.
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Hard News: The problems inherent in the system, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
You didn’t have senior members of either the Fouth Labour or Fifith National Governments publicly musing on whether there was something to putting HIV positive people in quarantine camps. Which did matter.
Certainly. They also didn't ignore the problem like Reagan did as AIDS emerged as a national health crisis in 1981:
Following discovery of the first cases in 1981, it soon became clear a national health crisis was developing. But President Reagan's response was "halting and ineffective," according to his biographer Lou Cannon. Those infected initially with this mysterious disease -- all gay men -- found themselves targeted with an unprecedented level of mean-spirited hostility.
A significant source of Reagan's support came from the newly identified religious right and the Moral Majority, a political-action group founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. AIDS became the tool, and gay men the target, for the politics of fear, hate and discrimination. Falwell said "AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals." Reagan's communications director Pat Buchanan argued that AIDS is "nature's revenge on gay men."
With each passing month, death and suffering increased at a frightening rate. Scientists, researchers and health care professionals at every level expressed the need for funding. The response of the Reagan administration was indifference.
That early indifference cost and continues to cost millions of lives.
There's another interesting example in our politics. Jim Anderton was seen, with some justification, as a hard-nosed drug warrior. But as Associate Health Minister, he was open to evidence, and when presented with evidence changed his view on needle exchanges and championed them as a means of HIV prevention.