Posts by Deborah
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With every additional intrusion, the police are raising the stakes for themselves. It seems clear that they have a great deal of evidence in hand, but some of their actions this week either that they're getting a bit desperate to find some key additional evidence, or that police command has overcooked this week's operation to a damaging extent.
Chris Trotter expresses confidence in Howard Borad's judgement in his column this morning.
It's an interesting piece (though probably I'm only saying that because it's consistent with something I wrote myself back on Tuesday).
Ours is a nation so small and politically intimate that its leaders can walk freely among their fellow citizens without fear of physical attack or assassination. We enjoy a political environment in which citizens' rights are so zealously guarded that full democratic participation in national affairs is straightforward, simple and effective.
Which is why all those who declare that the resort to armed force has become inevitable are first obliged to demonstrate that all other peaceful and democratic options have been foreclosed.
This is an incredibly high stakes game, and I don't think there will be any winners out of it.
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Colic and reflux and cow's milk protein allergy, poor chap. He's really had a tough start.
And so have his parents...
It's not so much the philosophy, as the nutter* I live with, who reads classics just for fun, and is inclined to sit and watch swords and sandals films and point out the anachronisms in the weaponry, and so on. He has his "interpretations" about the decline of the Roman empire too.
*He's not really a nutter, but that's the word that's bring used in this thread.
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That child has a very, very, impressive squalling howl, with a terribly distressing top note of anguish. You should mark it NSFW. You should also market it, for car alarms.
Colic? Reflux?
The piece on the decline and fall of the Roman empire is also impressive.
Didn't one of the emperors (Hadrian?) draw a line around the empire, build walls, and say, "No more expansion", thus limiting the supply of slaves?
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Me either. There's some not very nice stuff in there. I hold no brief for gun-toting activists, but I'm astonished by the implicit trust in the police that some of the commentators have.
Derek Fox made an intersting point on National Radio this morning, that somehow in Tuhoe country the cops thought it was okay to have the AOS there in full kit, but that they didn't make the same display of force in the nice white communities.
I'm not sure about the veracity of this statement (as in, I just genuinely don't know what the facts are), but if Mr Fax has the facts correct, then it does seem odd that it was the Maori activists who were treated to the greatest display of force.
But this is where we so need more concrete evidence. Any word on when we will get to know more?
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Sitting in my home in suburban Wellington, I just heard a pïpïwharauroa (shining cuckoo) - the riroriro better look out!
Thank you, Karori Sanctuary.
My family always listens for the pïpïwharauroa as spring arrives, and you get bragging rights when you hear the first one.
So, spring must be here, despite the biting cold wind and the HAIL that has also been around my home in suburban Wellington today.
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I have written myself abut the climate of, well, maybe not fear, but at least concern that this should be causing all New Zealanders. And that the police had bloody well better be right about their claims, because frankly, I don't trust them anymore.
But we have incredibly strong institutions to effect change in this country, without having to resort to running around with guns. So if the police are right, and that's still very much up in the air, then what we have is a group of people who have rejected any attempt to keep on talking, to find peaceable ways of making changes, and who think that using violence to achieve their ends is acceptable.
I agree that the fact that these people are seriously pissed off is an indicator that somehow, something needs to change, but... lots of peopel get seriously pissed off about lots of things. People who live near Eden Park get seriously pissed off about the heavy traffic there. People who try to get from Wellington to Levin get seriously pissed off about the poor condition of the road. Women with Her2 breast cancer get seriously pissed off about the lack of funding for Herceptin. Rugby fans get seriously pissed off by incompetent referees. Just being seriously pissed off doesn't justify violence.
And it's not as though Tame Iti is excluded from the national conversation. DPF has a rather nice photo of Tame Iti sitting and chatting to Don Brash. I know, he's gone now, but most ordianry citizens don't get chances to directly influence political thinking that way.
And above all, the police had better be right. I am waiting somewhat anxiously for Friday, but I think that no matter what we hear, it's a lose / lose situation.
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informing interpretations about the “real” when nobody actually knows anything much real.
What nonsense. We know a lot about what is real, and what is not. This is a fatuous, postmodernist atttempt to claim that everyone's "truths" are somehow equal. They are not. We know that the ground beneath us is solid, that water boils at 100 centigrade at sea level, that William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, that Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed in 1840.
I will certainly buy the idea that we don't know all that much about what is going on at the moment, and as I have said before, the police had better be damned sure that they are right, but it is ludicrous to dress up a reasonable scepticism about what is going on with scepticism that we can know anything whatsoever.
So, excuse me, but, well, yes, hurt and killing is what happens when people get violent.
And it's wrong. Full stop.
The thing is, we have many, many channels available for protest and change in this society. Notably, the Waitangi Tribunal, the possibility of election to parliament, appeals through the courts, protests, submissions to select committees, an educated and informed citizenry, an educated and informed public service, an independent media. None of these channels have been exhausted.
And that makes resorting to violence even more wrong.
I'm going to buy your line that many, many people are seriously pissed off. But given the institutions through which power can be contested in this country, playing around with guns and paramilitary training is just bizarre.
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Also, you can run a book on the Booker - it's an added value literary competition.