Posts by Jack Harrison
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: The sole party of government, in reply to Tom Semmens,
The debating chamber should be fun though, with a lot National P "right honorables" having to face up to the honorable part. Collins, Bridges, Williamson and Key and others should be constantly reminded that we know they slander, we have a book full of examples , we know they are dodgy.
-
Hard News: The sole party of government, in reply to TracyMac,
Labour are politically dirty to half the voters in the country, when pushed for an answer for this perception , the same voters point to "media beat up" political crimes such as big socialism under Helen Clark, having gay candidates and stopping the smacking of tiny children.
-
National had a big business re-election budget, a friendly biased media and up to a month ago a secret slandering machine.
It’s not a fair contest and has never been. The strange media story tellers we have love the easy story of pinko socialists versus bizness savy normal nu zilders.
Hopefully when this result settles we can start the process of unraveling our dirty political environment with a look into the elephant in the room, the systematic and cynical organisation of right wing political influence .
-
Hard News: Interview: Glenn Greenwald, in reply to Ross Mason,
Answer to the law. We have to.
-
I hope he finds water.
-
Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to st ephen,
Who are the people we are spying on? Or is that too much information? Maybe, just
why are we spying on them? -
The real deal I got from Greenwald is that trader John is trading our information gathering potential, something which he isn't allowed to trade without our consent.
Big brother style watching was a major part of the east/west political divide in the rhetoric of the cold war, freedom from government spying was our thing right up to the demise of the old Soviet Union, yet here it is, all freshly re-packaged by the west as "the war on terra." The Nanny state can read your personal letters but only if "you is bad.This is nannying at its most oppressive level.
-
Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to CJM,
Sorry .
-
Hey Jake. You’ve got to work these threads.Your not working out your audience.
Also Fran OS is not a great political journalist, come on, as this 2008 piece of absolute rubbish will attest to.
” What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?One is a well-turned-out babe, a spunk and, let’s be frank, a pretty sexy piece of eye candy.The other kills her own food.After all the sanctimonious, highly chauvinistic and patronising columns slating the qualifications of the Alaskan Governor to be the Republican’s vice-presidential nominee candidate, the above gag had lethal cut-through, deflating the pomposity of US pundits and editorialists who had written the 44-year-old mom-of-five off well before she electrified the Republican convention with a speech that hit all the conservative touchstones.Palin’s forthright address to the Republican convention was a glorious respite after weeks of watching the Obama presidential machine wallow in a welter of visionary cliches that boil down to little more than a return to Big Government and hugging US enemies close. Big mistake.In Palin, the Republicans have their own smiling assassin who adds authenticity to the view that, as a result of the surge, US troops in Iraq have now brought victory in sight.While Obama indulges in breast-beating about the international opprobrium President George W. Bush courted by authorising the Iraq invasion in the first place, Palin prepares to farewell her own son to join the troops.This telling family story underlines, in a way that Obama cannot, that Palin is a heartland American, one of the many small-town parents who have farewelled loved ones to fight our wars, following in the tracks of her running mate John McCain in Vietnam.
New Zealand elites tend to scoff at this syndrome.
Palin’s messages are refracted through a liberal but horrendously politically correct lens that views the US as a war criminal for invading Iraq and would rather the next administration packs its tents ASAP and dog tails it back to Washington.
The reality is New Zealand does not have a viable defence force that is equipped to meet “higher threat situations” as was brought home this week in a cringe-making official report.
This country will be reliant on the US superpower to come to our aid if the notion that we live in a benign strategic environment is ever seriously challenged.
The Palin doctrine that America must be strong in a dangerous world is one of realism. New Zealand is in no position to take a higher moral ground when we so shamefully neglect our own interests.
Her underlying messages were stealthy. She’s proud of America in good times and bad (Obama isn’t). She’s an average hockey mom (Obama is an intellectual elitist).
She’s putting government on the side of the people (Obama isn’t).
If this is dog whistle politics, it’s something that we could do with hearing a lot more of here.
But unfortunately New Zealand’s conservative leader John Key would rather indulge his crush on Obama, than directly mix it by contesting Helen Clark with a clear agenda of his own.
Palin is pushing an energy independent future for the US – no longer at the mercy of foreign suppliers, producing more oil and gas at home.
Laying pipelines, building more nuclear plants, creating jobs with clean coals and investing in a raft of newer energy alternatives which will be brought by American ingenuity and produced by American workers.
Key’s spokespeople deny New Zealanders that same clear choice by shrouding policies in global warming cant. Who says Kiwis would rather save the world by opting for policies that drive our emitting businesses offshore rather than put our economic future first?
Key has yet so say so, yet the gap is there.
In his bones, the National leader is more aligned with the McCain/Palin world view, but he lacks the courage to make the case for policy clarity.
Take government spending. Key has “reduced headcount” during his days as a top Merrill Lynch manager.
But he shies away from extrapolating those experiences to the manner in which he will tackle government spending by advocating a sinking-lid policy rather than cutting non-productive departments and jobs.
Unlike Palin, he has not made the case for why National is really on the taxpayer’s side.”
-
Hard News: Interview: Glenn Greenwald, in reply to Idiot Savant,
Key needs to hammered with the law. Law and order.