Posts by Andrew Paul Wood
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Interesting site that Russell - it's spookily not entirely dissimilar to the US Declaration of Independance
I apologise to all if I occasionally sound a bit cranky, it is the Socratic way to provoke to extremes, and I am a huffy jaded new fogey cynic. -
Though it may surprise you, I actually agree with you kowhai - but sneering is __sooooomuch fun.
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Oh bugger - I can't resist.
Actually, pre-Maori Polynesian settlers would have been very strictly bound up in familial hierarchies, taboos etc - hence Maori society's tribal/aristocratic structure. -
Right, I'm leaving "the thread that would not die" before someone starts quoting Nietzche aphorisms. Auf Wiedersehn - it's been lovely as always.
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Given some of the horrendous press the police have had lately, they will be taking very careful measures not to be home to Mr and Mrs Cock-up. The evidence does seem to be compelling, and much of the hysteria is largely due to the media being very imprecise in how they report routine police proceedure, not helped by activist and media drama queens deliberately inflating relatively innocuous police responses to what they percieved - for whatever reasons - as a serious threat.
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...I think I'm turning into Murry Deaker... help meeee
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Oh god - I'm getting right wing in my old age... I accidentally found myself agreeing with Michael Laws the other day - I need help.
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The great irony is that it is capitalism and democratic government that allow them the luxury of waving their placards (not slaving in the treacle mines) and not being shot (sigh).
I think Larry Niven said about Anarchism something along the lines of that it's a beautiful dream, but unfortunately too fragile to sustain itself. Human societies simply cannot operate that way be cause we are by nature selfish and competative.
I suspect that if the Anarchists ever achieved their goals, they wouldn't find it all that comfy. Anarchy is anarchic - and anyone who can say "smash the state" with a traight face needs to be dragged out of the 1960s and locked up.
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Rather my point is, wasn't Iti doing more damage to his cause by cosying up to an unelected dictator who has comitted some terrible acts on his own people - what does that say about his values. And while, yes Mr Bananarama (yes, I am being facetious) did recieve ovations at the Pacific Forum, he got a bit of a telling off from the Solomon Islands rep.
I find this whole move to 'brown solidarity' regardless of politics to be a very short-sighted move on the part of some activists. And no, I'm not being naive, I thinking in terms of Pacific Realpolitik. -
Neither Tame Iti (for Tuhoe or otherwise) nor the Fiji junta enjoy any sort of official international recognition, so it's a rather pointless gesture. And entirely disingenious of Iti's part:
'Twas an evening in October, I'll confess I wasn't sober,
I was carting home a load with manly pride,
When my feet began to stutter and I fell into the gutter,
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
Then I lay there in the gutter and my heart was all a-flutter,
Till a lady, passing by, did chance to say:
"You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses,"
Then the pig got up and slowly walked away.And as Tuhoe can hardly exist outside the context of the modern New Zealand state, I regard protest to that end as something of a moot point and probably not a position as widely held amond Tuhoe as you might think.