Posts by Kracklite
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Hard News: Why we thought what we thought, in reply to stephen clover,
Wow, Hooton neck deep in a sewage pond splashing about frantically trying to drive away the floating turds. Sorry, has everyone eaten already?
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Hard News: Didn't see that coming, in reply to Grant McDougall,
Any IDEAS why Matthew Hooton has been so open in his calls to sack Collins ?
Brand management. Hooton is a brand and this is business for him. He sells himself to his clients as a having broad credibility and needs desperately to be seen to be above all the dirty work, even though he was neck-deep in it - or to put it more bluntly, this rat won't be nailed to the deck.
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Hard News: Never mind the quality ..., in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Thank you, Craig.
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Topical Long Now Foundation seminar on intelligence agencies and public trust.
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Hard News: We can do better than this, in reply to stephen clover,
"Geeky and awkwardly beautiful, girls with brains always spin my fan. There is something vulnerable and helpless about her,"
Oh God Stephen, warnings please! For everyone else, it links directly to Whaleoil.
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Hard News: We can do better than this, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Hmmm, I can see why John le Carre refuses all awards and honours.
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Hard News: We can do better than this, in reply to Russell Brown,
Whatever denial Farrar now finds it expedient to issue (and he doesn't have a good record for honesty), my point remains is that these parties are explicitly seen as hunting grounds by Roast Busters style sexual predators and a certain correspondent is so morally myopic that he honestly thinks that plotting these acts and warning of them are the same or that pointing out the difference is petty and personal (i.e., all about him).
Anyway, beyond that reply and moving on to general statement, this fustercluck of revelations touches unfortunately on a very ugly seam in New Zealand "manhood".
As Nicky Hager has pointed out, there's a weird, sick obsession, a mixture of compulsion and revulsion towards sex that may be to some degree consensual (temporarily disregarding for the sake of this argument the power relationships of adultery and prostitution) versus the valorisation by these beasts of premeditated rape.
It is not incidental, but integral to the corrupt exercise of power and dominance (and that's where the realities of prostitution and adultery between unequally empowered people re-enter the equation). This scandal is very indicative of primitive sexual instincts, attested to by Jordan William's admission to getting "high", everything said by Slater and by Farrar's boyish giggling and choice of party dress.
It's not just a sick display of older men competing for younger women, it's those "men" competing for dominance using those women as currency.
It's not not new, sadly, that this has been going on for a long time, but too long it has been hidden behind prurient ideas of good taste and gentility fit for the bowling club. If I'm going to try to rip away that mildewed curtain to the hurt of the older generation that hung it there in the first place, then so be it. I don't think that's "petty"; I think it's necessary.
You cannot do away with the ugliness that is rape culture without confronting it head on and showing how deeply it is rooted in power.
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Hard News: We can do better than this, in reply to Pete George,
"We can do better than this". Can you try?
Actually, no, I can't in this case. Certainly according to the statistics, I can't claim any special knowledge, but I can say that at least I've been informed by the effect of rape that I have seen on close friends that I've known for decades after the events. Unfortunately I become angry, outraged and I even use rude words in reference to rapists.
If some narcissistic fool genuinely cannot tell the difference between the real evil of plotting a rape and the indiscretion of warning of persons plotting that, between blackmail and outrage at blackmail, then I don't think that they're the sort of person qualified to give moral instruction to me.
I prefer my scarlet outrage to your grey sanctimony.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Alfie,
Or Xeno's paradox of the arrow. She's on the last half of her last chance, and after that, the last half of that half...
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Hard News: We can do better than this, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
At least David Farrar has, to his credit, finally got out of utter denial mode but I'll believe it when I see it.
Likewise, I'll believe it when I see it and in the meantime take this 'moral awakening' with a pinch of salt, the Red Sea and a large chunk of Siberia. A lot of people have discovered their moral compasses now that the light of publicity has been shone directly on them, but that only begs the question about where they were earlier when Nicky Hager acknowledges that there were real principled conservatives who voiced their disgust long before it was cool.