Posts by Rich of Observationz
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I have a wider question for the lefty- left - why do people who profess such anarchistic and revolutionary views make such a knee jerk alliance with a bunch of reactionary, patriarchal tribalists with a fixation on the 19th century?
I think Winston Churchill gave one answer to this after the German invasion of Russia:
If Hitler invaded hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil -
Maia said recently on her blog that she wanted the the police abolished altogether
Well the UK went for over a thousand years (up to about 1840) with no organised police force. (Not sure whether NZ had some form of cops from day 1?).
I do think our police force needs substantial reform. The fact that they reelected the lamentable Greg O'Connor to head their association says something. As does Ross Meurant's analysis last week in the SST.
With my anarchist beret firmly off, could I suggest a much more rigorous training and selection process (which would of necessity reduce numbers - there are not enough suitable people to sustain the current size of force), localised police services supervised by independent police committees, a more rigorous independent complaints procedure and a higher requirement for officers to act professionally and with integrity.
-
home detention, which seems a reasonable compromise.
Hang on, if Tama Iti's really a cross between Osama Bin Laden and Martin McGuinness, is an electronic tag really going to stop him heading off on a terrorist rampage? The fact of his being granted home detention suggests that they don't really believe he's up to anything worse than a bit more political theatre.
-
The Urewera activists will apparently have to wait at least two years before there is a trial. Really, denying bail in this case amounts to internment. If the police case collapses completely in court they'll still have kept people in jail for two years - and they can then throw them back in jail on some alternate charges.
They haven't even been charged with anything more substantial than Arms Act violations. You'll note that there has never been any question of not granting bail when "mainstream" gun nuts get charged with such offences.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=240&objectid=10120194It's also interesting that none of the accused have been charged with offences such as conspiracy to murder, which doesn't require the consent of the Attorney General. Surely if they is actually evidence that they were planning to blow up buildings or shoot Bush that would be an appropriate charge?
-
I think the "sensible" Left have fallen into the same trap that the UK judge, Lord Denning lept into over the Birmingham Six in 1980 (the six wrongly accused IRA bombers were attempting to prosecute a number of prison officers who beat confessions out of them).
Denning refused to consider even the possibility that the beatings had occurred, saying:
... consider the course of events if their [the Six's] action were to proceed to trial... If they won, it would mean that the police were guilty of perjury; that they were guilty of violence and threats; that the confessions were involuntary and improperly admitted in evidence; and that the convictions were erroneous. That would mean that the Home Secretary would have either to recommend that they be pardoned or to remit the case to the Court of Appeal. That was such an appalling vista that every sensible person would say, 'It cannot be right that these actions should go any further...
In the same way, I think that people are refusing to believe that activists are being arrested for their beliefs in NZ and clinging to the idea that those in power have secret information that Tame Iti was going to nuke Auckland, or whatever.
-
Me neither. I have a seven year old child that attends a state school just for starters.
You don't need a state to run schools. They can be collectively run by the community. I believe that in Barcelona during the Civil War the anarchist CNT ran schools.
A school run by an anarchist collective would provide better education than one run by the state. It wouldn't be aimed at turning out docile call-centre fodder, for one thing.
-
I feel the following is the all-time best video to be put on utube and nothing will ever supplant it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe-er9FqhYAHowever the "wanking" scene from Big Train is pretty good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn6Z9djh8eA -
I'm fairly sure that the 1689 Bill Of Rights proscribes the filtering of MPs web access.
If they must run a content filter (most sites consider this unnecessary) they should really look specifically for exploits, not blacklist domains. Plus, they should really passthough a text only (and hence secure) version of blocked sites. I think WebMarshal can do this.
Blogspot *does* have a bit of a security loophole, generally. When you are asked to enter your Google creds, how do you know that someone hasn't hijacked you to a phishing page? It wouldn't be hard - and Google credentials are quite valuable as they potentially give access to password reset capabilities.
-
Well Kurdistan is the only vaguely stable part of Iraq so maybe the yanks don't want that fucked up as well.
Also, the PKK are pretty justified. A good chunk of Turkey (along with Iran and Iraq) is basically Kurdish and occupied by Turkey through oppression and torture. It's illegal in Turkey to voice support for an independent Kurdistan, even by entirely peaceful means.
-
looking back at our time of Empire I suppose our "away game" was the fighting on the Somme and at Passchendaele
Except that those places are in France and Belgium, which the Germans had invaded and we were helping the French/Belgians try and repulse them.
I guess a better comparison was Gallipoli, where we were invading someone elses country.