Posts by James George
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This morning's Q&A was meant to have included an interview with lawyer Bob Amsterdam, who has been looking at the Intellectual Property and net neutrality issues surrounding the Megaupload bust.
But the show filled up with politicians. Same same - some being handed lame Dorothy Dix questions and others unanswerable queries replete with an ad hominem sub text, so by the time the paid talent had their two bob's worth, there wasn't time to hear some really interesting commentary on the stark issues brought about by the current regime's policies interacting with tech changes.Woods told viewers that the Amsterdam stuff was available on the TVNZ site, but somehow it has been buried quite deep, especially if you go to where she suggested www.tvnz.co.nz/qanda.
So in case anyone is interested in this stuff this is a link to the Amsterdam interview -
I've long since stopped buying papers and tuning in to one sided programmes. Consumers do have some clout in that advertisers need numbers- but so many of us seem not to notice the existence of the spin, it's a worry.
I'm sorry but I believe we've got to go further than that. The removal of Paul (the creep) Henry from Breakfast only happened because a few of us serendipitously hit the same buttons at the same time. Anyone who believes there is some great 'leftie' conspiracy should study that instance where a lever moved a mountain almost by accident because for once a lot of people pushed the fulcrum in the same direction totally ignorant & independent of what everyone else was doing. We'd all just had enough.
Its late in the day, not reading the fishwraps or watching the celebrity gossip that passes for news isn't enough do do anything other than feel good. I apologise if that seems harsh because I mean no slight on you or your post, which I'm sure was made with the best intentions, I just mean we have to be better co-ordinated.Well organised and careful targeting of those enterprises that pay for this stuff by advertising on the shows or in the papers is the best method of forcing a halt to the dissemination of lies.
If KeyCorp scrape back in, it will be time to 'maintain the rage' by drawing attention to the enablers of subversion of our democracy.
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The Herald is in fine Tory form this (saturday mornin) John Armstrong has produced one of his more blatant pieces of one-eyed opinionating, claiming Labour are the living dead.
That hasn't gone down well with their readership who are about 10 to 1 saying the Herald poll Armstrong based his piece on has been shown over many elections to overestimate the national vote, usually by more than 5%.
I'm surprised the Herald published comments today. It isn't unusual for comments to be hold off from Fran O'Sullivan and John Armstrong's Saturday pieces until the following Tuesday or Wednesday, by which time of course 99% of those who are going to read it will already have done so.
Maybe the Electoral Commish has noticed I dunno, but one thing is for sure the like button has been left off the comments on Armstrong's piece, maybe he or the big bosses upstairs can't take the vast majority of readers disagreeing with his propaganda.I know this all seems very petty hardly worth commenting on, but it is important for us all to get a handle on how widespread and pervasive the National Party deceive the masses machine is.
This is no back-room conspiracy - it is so out there and obvious one has to assume that the perpetrators have become totally relaxed with their brainwashing, to the point where it is an accepted fact of life. Want to work in the media in New Zealand? Then say what you like as long as you support John Key. -
I appreciate that most of the population round here are likely to judge me far too cynical to be considered, but I have to say most of what surfaced through Hager & Whaledump has been pretty much as I thought was happening.
Not being a big believer in coincidence -the way that things have been taken down or knocked outta play before they even reached public consciousness has long had me convinced that behind the scenes media management favourable to the tories has been going on here for years.
We saw it fine tune in the latter part of the Clark years when #1 whore for the rich pricks, Don Brash played his Tangata Whenua bashing, exclusive brethren ass kissing role and got pipped simply because (A) the machine still needed tuning and (B) the Green Party refused to put up with that shit (RIP Rod Donald).
I am still appalled at the lackadaisical attitude the Labour Party took towards the co-ordinated attack on TVNZ's independence during their last term in office.
This was reflected in doubling down on tory leadership with Ralston & Ellis. Ellis had already been flicked once over his determination to accede to Sky platform dominance and then the dimwits or crooks (I dunno which because the re-appointment made no sense) hired him again.
Friends who worked in the TVNZ newsroom used to whine about executive interference in stories back in the Boag Shipley days, so this stuff cannot have been unknown to labour party ministers, yet they happily appointed TVNZ bosses whose strategies were always going to shift the newsroom further away from objectivity into rightist neo-liberal points of view.Some may remember Wilkinson & Pickett's study of growing inequality in neoliberal economies, "The Spirit Level". It was published early in the first term of the KeyCorp regime and should have served as a wake up call for Kiwis as to the dangers of the direction we were moving. That didn't happen. Long before the book was available here much less studied, there was a concerted push by media to discredit it. TVNZ's Q&A was one of the prime movers in the usual fallacious tabloid style put down of its complex well researched & well documented findings. It was sunk without trace before it came into view, hardly the actions of a disinterested media.
I don't think it is going to be close enough but I have a real fear that if the final numbers in this election are so close that a Green/Labour coalition can get up with NZ First and/or Maori party on the cross benches, we may see a repetition of what happened in Qld back in the 80's with Joh Bjelke Peterson.
Some of the 'chooks' (the media -Joh used to call his daily press conferences "feeding the chooks") had enough, the people of Qld certainly had to the point where he couldn't get a majority even with his various gerrymanders. Election night everyone goes to bed quietly confident Joh has gone. They wake up to learn that 3 or 4 Labour party members had crossed the floor. They claimed the Labour Party had become "too commie" for them. It eventually transpired the traitors had been bribed & blackmailed. IIRC one ended up as Minister for Bagmen or something similar. Jo copped a few more terms after that.
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Incidentally it is looking awfully like granny Herald has spat the dummy, tossed in the towel , thrown her hands in the air & walked off in a hissy fit. There have been weeks and weeks of comment threads jampacked with pissed off kiwis expressing their anger at the obvious corruption of the Key mob and the Herald just sorta let them be. I imagine because they have worked out the usual heavy handed censorship they used to engage in and call 'moderation' wouldn't have played well with the electoral commish during campaign season.
Anyway as of yesterday that seems to be no more. Many of the 'opinion' i.e. rightwing claptrap posing as normal columns, disappear from their opinions page several hours after going up with absolutely no trace of the threads that are attached.
Going on precedent they are doubtlessly full of citizens' ire.Mebbe their moderator is having a sickie. I seem to remember that was one of the functions APN relocated to Oz and as we all know the tradition of Monday morning turning into Tuesday, sickies still lives across the ditch.
That of course poses an interesting question about how the hell some Melbourne trainee copyperson knows enough about Kiwi politics to moderate effectively.I kinda prefer the view that the APN execs are tired of copping shit from their National Party cobbers and have pulled the pin on commenting. It will certainly backfire if they have.
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Everyone seems to accept that the Maori Party are firmly tucked into National's back pocket come hell or high water. Is this a solidly based perception or would continuing revelations unglue them from their colonial masters?
Turiana is leaving so there goes the Maori Party share of the Labour/Maori dislike. Helen's been long gone from Labour so altho Flavell has always struck me as a tory at heart, he must have some realpolitik in him.
It strikes me that grabbing undertakings from Cunliffe re whanau-ora would be a handy way of providing a bridge from a collapsing tent into the next big thing.I have no doubt that should the correct opportunity present the natz will jump at the chance of blaming as much as they can on 'corrupt Maori culture' or whatever, rather than take a hit themselves so it makes sense for Flavell to jump before he gets shit on.
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If the Law Society has a minimum age for membership, that is what they should use to get rid of these fleas.
I have just been reading the Hotchin file and the one thing which comes across is the almost painful immaturity of the protagonists.
Lame homophobia reminiscent of 12 year olds showing off on a vid gaming board. Continual references to to penises and their size or lack of it, seem to be the most recurring themes in a thread totally bereft of either original insights or sound strategic thinking.As for Odgers - that's a woman (or 'chick' as she describes herself) whose issues around sexual relationships are telegraphed to the reader via her continual frequently irrelevant sexual references.
I imagine blokes or blokettes or whatever, shoot through fairly fast once they work out exactly how messed up she is.Odgers insinuates she has Fran O'Sullivan at her beck & call with several references to feeding 'Fran' stuff or 'Fran says' etc. It is difficult to tell whether Odgers actually has O'Sullivan under her thumb or she is just reading the O'Sullivan articles and doing a spot of adolescent 'big-noting'.
Whichever it is APN needs to have a massive clean out after this. O'Sullivan's seeming inability to maintain objectivity on issues where readers need unvarnished facts should be reason enough to put her and a swarm of other 'senior' journos out to pasture.
Right wing corporate cowboys like O'Sullivan may have been fair enough on the NBR back in the Coleman days but they have no place in a fishwrap striving to be considered a serious member of the Fourth Estate. -
It is moderately interesting to speculate on Peters' role in this. He sent a very clear message last week that Key had to choose between a government with him in it or one with Collins in it.
That was the public position anyhow, who knows what else has gone down out of voters' gaze.
If Peters & Key have jacked something up so NZ First minimise NZ First voter disaffection at joining KeyCorp by kicking off without Collins, that doesn't mean Collins is gone for good.
Once the coalition deal has been done NZ First won't have much leverage. Peters learned the hard way during the Bolger/Shipley coalition that walking out the door will cost him defectors who are nice and comfy in the government 'paddock'.
The Ron Mark renewal indicates that Peters is aware of this as Mark stood by Peters right through that lesson on the corruption of power.
Mark only would have come back to NZ First if his data tells him that they have a strong chance of being well over 5% and Peters likely promised him the succession as well.Anyone who believes as I do that Aotearoa will be irretrievably wrecked by another KeyCorp term needs to work a lot harder and lot smarter to have any chance of preventing it.
It doesn't require sinking to the gutter level of Key and his cronies but it does mean that anyone who lives close to the machine and is serious about preventing Key has to forgo all other priorities, especially the ABC mob but also any other factions of any other unTory political movements who have wasted time and resources playing silly games against those they need to be working with.Yeah yeah NZ Labour Party factionalism is all a tory myth lol.
This vote isn't lost - yet - but I don't see any evidence of untory political advisors using creative or critical thinking.The US dems wasted years whining about Karl Rove before a few new guns woke up and realised that not reacting every time he went negative, nasty, nefarious or all three, meant that they stopped looking like losers at every turn, most of all they also ceased telegraphing their punches - making it possible to out-manoeuvre that ugly waste of space.
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Well this is a depressing little thread. So many self appointed cognscenti slandering the voting public for being sheep like and easily led. If that were true why is it political experts of any allegiance claim their job is so demanding and they have such a need to continually pat themselves on the back for a spin well done?
Take todays 'revelations' which have resulted in a minister's 'resignation'. The Slater slug may only have been back in country 48 hours in order to source the most apt email, but you can be sure that the criteria for which email is the right the email were established with much to and fro-ing over the last fortnight or even longer.
Those criteria: that the issue which brought Collins undone be both completely unconnected with any of the revelations in Nicky Hager's book, and that there be no real evidence connecting Collins to the alleged conspiracy she was dismissed for, are so transparently of help to the National Party long term that they would have taken quite some refining. There is the added frisson of embarrassing the NZ Herald whose loyalty seemed to be in question a little more than a week ago. Remember double is the rule. The Herald journo will be feeling that sting for years to come.
The whole thing is ridiculous. Key refused to sack Collins for several acts of corrupt behaviour that had her dabs all over em, but he flicks her for an issue where she is involved 3rd hand & circumspectly?
C'mon give me a break.If the Natz get back in; sometime early in the new year a commission of inquiry is going to find the charge of interfering in Feeley's dismissal unproven and the minister for Oravida will be back in cabinet.
Not because kiwis are stupid but because there is no real separation of object between the political spinners and the commercial media.
All those complicit who hang around sites like this or even worse the incestuous little 'twitterverse' that has evolved around NZ politics, will throw their hands in the air in outrage if and when angry NZers are forced to resort to political violence because all other options have been closed off - entirely as a result of bourgeois complacency. -
Hard News: Didn't see that coming, in reply to Andre Alessi,
Imagine a situation where employers could routinely hire call center workers for below minimum wage on short term contracts to "fulfill a need", for example. It would be sold to the public as " giving new workers experience" even though call center experience is not particularly useful to workers, and the effect would be depressing wages further in what is already a low-paying industry.
See that is a thing conservative governments like the National Party used to try & pull and are probably doing in some states of Australia right now. They don't do it here because the natz regard youth unemployment as a lesser issue than ensuring their petit bourgeois voters can keep clocking a good earner from sitting on their asses in a paid off home. Banks love the current situation too, it gets older types who used to always remain liquid, borrowing against the increased value of their house. Bigger home loans for those who can afford to buy also increases bank profits.
I cannot believe the upsurge in net migration at a time when unemployment particularly youth unemployment is so high, is the oops sorry! accident the KeyCorp mob claim it is.Job creation schemes which aren't about lowering wages, have a chequered history because politicians imagine if a program that put 1000 people into work successfully, is multiplied by 100, then 100 thousand kids will find employment and when that doesn't happen the pols shit themselves blaming everyone/thing but their own stupidity.
I could tell some crazy tales of how really good useful programs got shafted by idiot pols.
Here's one. A really keen & committed woman I used to work with, created an 'Office Practises' course for women who had lived under the hammer coming out of incest, domestic abuse, sex industry exploitative type situations.
It went the bomb for years helping women help themselves to a better life. Until some bloke whose former punching bag did the course, complained to a pol about 'sexual discrimination'.
The pols and the senior bureaucrats behaved in their usual spineless manner and the program was instructed to include males. Yeah right - this was an intense program where women had spent a lot of time dealing with really sensitive issues going back their whole lives, and getting em dealt with.
Throw some blokes into the mix and it doesn't matter how sensitive those guys are alleged to be, many women who are already full of problems about blokes, just shut up or even worse.
The program ended the next year because it wasn't working any more.Any way my point is that IMP haven't indicated that they are about 'cadetships' or any other tory scams to exploit young kiwis. We should give them a chance to explain what they are about & not curse them for having hopeless programs that cannot work.
Properly designed & implemented industry based employment or training programs do work. When they are done properly they make big returns to a society and not just economic either.