Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: These things we must now change, in reply to Sacha,
Jeez dude, read the room.
Quite. There’s an element of basic human decency in the wake of an atrocity that seems to have escaped Dennis. Accordingly, he can fuck off.
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Hard News: These things we must now change, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Well duh! What would expect the a leading member of extremist and terrorist group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to say?
Quite.
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Hard News: These things we must now change, in reply to Dennis Frank,
Ask yourself: did they issue a condemnation of those who did the Charlie Hebdo massacre? I didn’t notice any such. If there was none, why let them off the moral hook?
The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand and various local leaders strongly and explicitly condemned the Charlie Hebdo attack, yes. Maybe you could stop posting these idle reckons and go and read something. I’m not going to provide a platform for this.
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Hard News: These things we must now change, in reply to Hilton Wells,
Your assumption re: my empathy for those affected in your reply Russell is actually a great exemplar of you lacking empathy, by inexplicably levelling this at me for questioning you (and you alone) on your comments.
Hard to see how you felt like it was ok to assume I had no empathy towards schoolmates of victims affected by the attacks just because I thought you were inaccurate and loose with your choice of words.
I didn't say that. I pointed out that the hurt from this spreads wide.
But I honestly don't see why you needed to write a lengthy comment reiterating how hurt you are.
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Hard News: These things we must now change, in reply to Alfie,
That “vile, anti-Islamic rants” were posted on Whale Oil doesn’t surprise me. The fact that some of them came from a “senior doctor” does.
I recall the guy from right-wing blog comments years ago. He seemed one of the more rational ones at the time.
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Hard News: These things we must now change, in reply to Hilton Wells,
Let’s not be defensive about it, Christchurch does not ‘have these issues to itself’, I agree, but that sounds a bit like what-aboutism, rather than addressing how it is in Christchurch.
No, it is not. It’s saying we all have some shit to attend to.
Also, clearly it was not Christchurch that was attacked Russell. Muslims were attacked and bystanders that didn’t fit the target profile of the killer were not targeted.
On this, can I suggest you go back upthread and read what Emma has to say about this. There were people posting “fucking Christchurch” comments on social media with an hour of the attack and I don’t believe that was okay.
And finally, there were non-Muslim kids whose friends weren't at school on Monday. Because they'd been murdered. Show some empathy, for goodness sake.
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Oh, wow. So when Duncan did his roundup he got a "nothing to see here" from the National Party, which said its petition about the UN Global Migration Compact was removed weeks ago.
Turns out that's not the case – people got and tweeted screenshots in the hours after the attack. Duncan is currently seeking an explanation for what he was told and I'm sure there'll be some fudge about an "error", but it seems evident they've lied about it.
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Hard News: These things we must now change, in reply to Emma Hart,
Watching people dancing on pinheads debating whether grieving people are using quite the right words to express their grief is a whole pile of not-helping.
Ugh, there was so much of that on Friday. People yelling about how Lianne Dalziel hadn't said exactly what they thought she should say, less than two hours after the attack.
I get that emotions are heightened and I've struggled with my own online composure at times, but some people need to learn when to put their scold away.
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A good story by Duncan Greive on The Spinoff, looking at what's been quietly deleted since the atrocity.
But this is the part that really jumped out for me. It shows that David Farrar knows exactly what kind of place he's been running, and for what kind of people.
While there has been significant purging of content, much remains live, and many of those who have been or hosted prominent critics of Islam have yet to issue repudiations of their past statements. Whale Oil is still running “This is how New Zealand will turn into a muslim state”. Kiwiblog still hosts “A case for immediate cessation of all Muslim immigration”.
When I asked that site’s editor David Farrar whether he had contemplated deleting the post, he said that he had, but decided against it. “I think you do more harm when you don’t allow it to be debated,” he said. “Then you drive it to 4Chan [an extremist site Spark blocked on Friday] where people will see far worse.”
Both the comments on that story and the general debate immediately after the shooting were rife with abhorrent statements about Muslims. Farrar says this did give him pause, and he made the decision to temporarily turn on manual comment moderation. When asked why the slaughter of Muslims would drive his commenters toward Islamophobia, he replied “I think the problem is that people see [the massacre] as part of a global political battle, and they [commenters] haven’t shown enough empathy.”
So ... he tolerates racists, because if he didn't they'd just go to even more racist websites and that would be terrible. He's such a piece of shit, he really is.
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Hard News: These things we must now change, in reply to Craig Young,
Denying that there is a problem is no substitute for what needs to be done now- which is to stamp out these tinpot mussolinis.
I'm not for a moment denying there's a problem. And as you say, it goes way back – and the connections with the Act Party, via the likes of Trevor Loudon and ZAP, are interesting.
But talking to people there, people like Gerard Smyth, it does seem things have changed a bit – apart from anything else, it's a far more diverse place than the one I grew up in, especially since the earthquakes. And it clearly does not have these issues to itself. But I saw too many people on social media blaming Christchurch and apparently forgetting in their rage that it was Christchurch that was attacked.