Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Not doing justice, in reply to HORansome,
Is it me, or does there seem to be much more noticeable anti-semiticism this election? I remarked on the radio an election ago how pleasing it was that we didn’t make much (or anything at all) about John Key’s mother being Jewish and his banking background. Was I just being optimistic or have things actually got worse this time around?
It's not just you. I would hate to think even a section of the Left has jagged this way, but it seems that might be the case.
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Hard News: Not doing justice, in reply to Hilary Stace,
David Shearer was a great raconteur speaking on this topic he know a great deal about and without notes.
This is doing my head in. I lost faith in Shearer's ability to lead his party when I went to a local meeting and ended up feeling that if he apparently didn't know why he was there, how was I supposed to?
And now he's commanding crowds? Crazy.
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David Shearer's Facebook post:
I've been shocked and disappointed at the anti-Semitic comment and defacing of billboards over the past few days, including in my electorate of Mt Albert. I don't want John Key to win the election because I believe NZ can do much better with a different, fairer government, not because of whether he's Jewish or not.
NZ is a tolerant society. We pride ourselves on it. Most of what I've seen shows the utter ignorance of the writers. I've taken the worst off my page here when it crops up. I don't want to see it.
I've had Jewish people get in touch worried about where the discourse is going. They too have views on what is happening, many of them very opposed to Israeli military actions.
I've made my views very clear about the war in Gaza. I worked there over four years. My job was to stand up for those who couldn't: Palestinians who were occupied and marginalised - in Gaza, sometimes under bombardment - and the West Bank.
I also lived in a Jewish area of Jerusalem, beside the Old City. My neighbours were fine people.
Let's focus on the issues, I'm happy to debate them, but not the abuse.
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Hard News: Not doing justice, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Sitting at one’s keyboard can also be quite useful in and of itself. Activism can be carried out effectively from one’s chair, in the right circumstances.
Show-off.
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Hard News: Media Take and Godwin's Election, in reply to Bart Janssen,
And it seems now political satire is under attack
Darren Watson’s video Planet Key apparently cannot be played by the media.I don't really have a problem with this. There are rules around broadcast media during the campaign period and they're being applied. The video can be played on the news and the only real loss is the couple of radio stations that had actually been playing the song itself. It's online media and no one's getting in the way of that.
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Hard News: Not doing justice, in reply to Sacha,
Projection much? Many people here contribute to political processes other than by sitting at their keyboards.
Yes. As I indicated in the post, quite a few valued commenters here are actively and usefully involved in the political process.
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Hard News: The silence of the public square, in reply to blindjackdog,
Isn’t that democracy in action? Hasn’t collective non-voting in that respect therefore inspired a political response?
That's actually a pretty interesting argument. But not every election will be like this one, where the centre-left's search for voters is being aided by a pissed-off millionaire is donating money and charisma to a party/coalition avowedly targeting non-voters of more than one sort.
And Labour's recent outreach is going pretty much to people who do vote -- free GP visits for children whose parents vote, and for older people, who definitely vote. The Greens have long endured a situation where they have the nominal support of young people, only to have the buggers not turn up on the day.
You need a certain confluence of events for non-voting to look like a strategy.
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Hard News: Not doing justice, in reply to Tom Semmens,
The guy is at least having a go, which is more than anyone here has achieved so give him a break.
Oh, please. The "Vote Positive" message had long since gone out and the guy was still spewing stupid stuff all over Facebook(I gather he's quite prolific). At the very, very least he simply wasn't disciplined enough to function as a major party candidate.
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Hard News: Not doing justice, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Also, if Labour candidates could stop blaming their constituents for putting bad thoughts in their ears – see Shearer after the “man on the roof” debacle – it would be dandy. What are they, children?
That was exactly my thought when I heard it. It was kind of pathetic.
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Hard News: Media Take and Godwin's Election, in reply to ChrisW,
Wasn’t meaning to needle Russell.
Oh, I know. No problem.