Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: Taking the stage in Mount Albert, in reply to Russell Brown,
being able to speak and present your ideas engagingly is vital.
I do get that, I really do. Despite, perhaps because of, not being good at it myself.
But I'm tired of Labour leaders, particularly the white male parade we've had, having no real policy in which they believe.
Yeah that's unfair on Shearer - Shearer had values and policy for Africa (sorry couldn't resist) but suffered from an inability to believe his "colleagues" would shaft him at every opportunity.
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or perhaps what Simon Wilson described recently as an “Andy Plan” actually exists.
Sigh - clearly the most important thing is how he appears. Not content.
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Hard News: The next four years, in reply to Tom Semmens,
So you think they succeeded because they were really simple-minded?
I'm gonna guess that your reckon isn't going to be received well.
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Hard News: The next four years, in reply to Luke Williamson,
Russia has experienced multiple invasions
You can argue that pretty much everyone in Europe has experienced multiple invasions. Russia on balance has probably been successful repelling invasions than most. But the idea that Russia has reason to feel threatened because of its history really doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
The difference is that for the most part, much of Europe has learned to "get over it" and work together for mutual benefit. This particular iteration of the Russian leadership has chosen, for various reasons, to play up the "we used to own that bit and we want it back" mode of international relations.
As for whether the USA is squeaky clean - it's pretty obvious that they aren't. The US actions in the Middle East have proven ruinous for everyone involved. But saying the US is bad doesn't make Russia good.
The eastern European states are nervous for very good reasons, nothing about Putin's leadership gives them any reason to trust Russia. Moreover the sanctions and changes in oil prices have put Russia in a very shaky economic position - the Russian economy is stuffed, that puts pressure on Putin and nobody is really sure how he will react. Annexing another bit of eastern Europe seems to be a strategy that Putin likes to use to distract from internal problems.
The worry is that Trump is unlikely to have the skills to defuse or moderate any of complex situations in Europe or the middle east. The best we can hope for is that he plays a lot of golf.
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Hard News: The next four years, in reply to Tom Semmens,
the rise of right wing populism
There has been no such rise.
I don't understand why people keep saying stuff like this. People keep promoting arguments to explain why Trump got more votes
But Trump didn't get more votes - he got fewer votes.
There is no rise in the right.
All the voting data show that the right has held steady or declined slightly.
The reason we have right shifts is because the left has stopped voting that's what the data shows.
Now stop saying silly things about the right and start explaining the observations. If you are doing anything else you may as well invoke astrology.
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Hard News: The next four years, in reply to Russell Brown,
But I will happily admit to find the media dimensions of this of compelling interest.
How the US media respond to the next few years really will be interesting.
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Regarding the effect of Trump and his cronies on climate change policy worldwide and even within the USA, the BBC Discovery podcast just did an episode looking at exactly that. It was interesting in that most people interviewed seemed to feel that the momentum towards clean energy and the desire to reduce CO2 emissions is too great for Trump to have much effect.
The optimism somewhat surprised me. I guess the point is that while Trump's donors will make a killing exploiting their power, they won't be able to do much beyond their own business empires. Outside those empires most businesses are now convinced the future is clean energy. And most countries included China and India are making big changes to their energy economy.
Trump and the slime he's dragged into power with him can't do as much harm to the climate as we feared.
On the other hand it's pretty clear that The GOP is going to take this total power and use it to push through some abhorrent changes to the US. The big one is a massive tax grab by the rich - that's what is driving the changes to the ACA.
In many ways the idiot in charge is the least of the concerns, it's the fact that the GOP has no restrictions now and frankly they look like they are going to tear the US social structure apart. It is not going to be fun if you aren't a wealthy white male.
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Up Front: Walk This Way, in reply to Russell Brown,
I keep meaning to do what I usually try and do – write about it in a way that might be useful to other people – but it’s surprisingly difficult.
I wont be marching. I have a prior engagement sorry. Also crowds kinds freak me out now as I get older.
I have a friend whose political views are wildly different to my own and he, rightly I think, keeps reminding me that what is happening in the USA and the UK really won't have much impact for us - we then drink wine and argue about global human rights.
But he's right, for us here in NZ, what is happening has less impact.
EXCEPT
We have an election coming up. And we currently (and for the last 9 years) have a government that really doesn't give a fuck about people unless they are rich donors. A government that sells trickle down economics and the false dream of being rich-like-me.
Everything I've seen about the USA and UK experience says that The Right have not become stronger, their vote has been static (even dropped). Rather The Left (those of us who care more about people) have stopped voting.
Whether that is because the left candidate didn't have a penis (USA) or because of rotating old white guys (NZ Labour) is kind of irrelevant now. The simple fact is if The Left chose not to vote then we hand power to those who have proven they don't care about the people.
So please march and support those who will be harmed in the US by their government but more importantly later this year VOTE to prevent it happening here.
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Hard News: Taxpayers' Union: still…, in reply to Sacha,
I have no issue with journalists using twitter or similar to source stories – I enjoy interacting with them in that space myself.
mmmm twitter is a good fast indicator that there might be a story - but it has zero credibility.
So sure you might use twitter to become aware that it's possible that a news story exists but after that then you need to find real credible sources, preferably multiple independent sources before you decide to disseminate it as news.
But that wasn't the problem here, the problem here was taking a press release from a known unreliable source and publishing it. That's a journalism fail.
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What I really don't understand is:
Given the TPU and Mr Williams have been shown in the past to say things that turned out to be not true;
and in some of those cases it appeared highly likely that they knew they weren't true when they said themWHY then would any media repeat anything from the TPU and Mr Williams?
It seems like something prospective journalists would be told first day at work or even in the first lecture at Uni, "never, ever believe anything from the TPU" ... "yes, this will be in the exam."