Posts by Tom Semmens
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See, I don't agree with that. I've seen news articles within the past five years talking about how more than a million people in this country do volunteer work every year.
My definition of an egalitarian society doesn't include voluntarism as a core component.
In fact, one could argue that reliance on (largely) middle class volunteers only delivers services to those considered to be the "deserving" poor, and as such is a symptom that simply reinforces the argument that our egalitarian society is now a historic relic.
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Journos are also letting Key and others give examples of $50k salaries as if that is "average"
Everyone is going on like this is some sort of inexplicable lapse, or out of touch oversight.
But really, when you live in one of the most unequal societies in the world, the invisibility of most people in it shouldn't be a surprise, its a inevitable consequence of the country Roger Douglas set out to create in 1984.
Our middle class would be more comfortable with the mindset of Santiago than Stockholm.
The egalitarian society is dead.
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those guys working on converting sewerage to biodiesel are smart cookies.
Assuming you are talking about that crowd of shysters in Marlborough, their claims are a load of old clarts and their system is very small scale, inefficient and expensive.
Algal fuels will only become a viable alternative to fossil fuels once the the right algae is genetically created or identified, all the problems in using bio-reactors are ironed out, the most efficient extraction methods are identified and all these things are scaled up for mass production.
And for all the myths about Kiwi ingenuity, that can't be done by a bunch of used car salesmen pottering around sewage ponds in Nelson. Like all the most promising energy replacement technologies, it needs lots of men and women in white coats spending lots of money over a long time with no guarantee of a return on inverstment.
Doesn't sound like this country to me.
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there's nothing substantive in this budget to address climate change.
Heh. Our glorious minister for the trucking lobby was on the radio the other day talking about transport policy thirty years from now as if we'll never even run short of oil. If National can't come to terms with peak oil (which WILL have happened by 2040) what chance they'll do anything about climate change?
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The other thing that is utterly depressing? The total invisibility in the MSM debate of anyone who isn't white and on $70K plus.
What will it take for these people to notice the invisible? A Baader-Meinhof Group?
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You know, the most depressing thing about this budget is that it is clear Bill English's thinking hasn't progressed since the Shipley government.
It is the same formula - a magical belief in the power of tax cuts, funded by pretending tomorrow will never come.
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Basically, Bill English is borrowing for tax cuts because he believes in magic.
We are all fucked. -
An openly racist editorial against the French.
Oxymoron IMHO.
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I don't think it hurts to understand that it is an aspiration for some people and to think about why.
If such a precendent is created, where will it end? If the ongoing "passports" farce is anything to go by, the Maori sovereignty movement is even stronger in Northland. Will we have to put up with an independent Nothland Maori Confederation clustered around the Hokianga? Will ambitious and emboldened Maori bully the New Zealand state into limply agreeing to compulsory land re-shuffles to create a contiguous sovereign King Country in the Central North Island/Waikato?
It seems to me any government that cedes sovereign territory loses credibility; dangerously so. One only has to look at the Unionist movement under Carson and the impunity with which the Ulster Volunteers were able to arm themselves to understand what happens when a large section of a settler population loses faith in their government. Further, the whiff of a revanchist Maori sovereignty movement actually achieving its goals would utterly debase our economy, because the most productive and best educated - the white middle class - would basically just up sticks and move to Australia.
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Tom: you seem to be conflating property ownership and sovereignty, dominium and imperium.
I/S, my comments are primarily at Stephen Judd and Russell Brown, who in their little exchange above:
It's good to have sovereignty back in the national conversation without the backdrop of violence.
That's my feeling.
Appear to have convinced themselves that sovereignty is back on the agenda, and that the general population would countenance such an act of treason.