Posts by Kyle Matthews
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What Would Kyle Say?
World famous in NZ. Feel the love.
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Heh. And the prize for best blog title of the year...
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Take another breath Craig. You were doing well until then.
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y'know, I really can't see how "Maori explain their view of the Treaty to Maori, and Pakeha explain their view to Pakeha" is going to help solve anything.
Well I'm not involved with Network Waitangi, though I certainly appreciated their work when I did some of their workshops. They could explain their work better than I could.
But I don't believe they've created a line and said 'Pakeha on this side', 'Maori on that side'. They've just created an alternative space for treaty education to which everyone is welcome.
The philosophy is, "it's not the job of Maori to educate every Pakeha about this, it's the role of all New Zealanders to take a role in treaty education".
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US payphones are remarkably difficult and confusing to use, relative to most other countries, and I think it revolves around weird things relating to area codes. Or something. Anyway, turns out its much easier to convince someone to lend you their cellphone.
I don't know if it's changed, but when I tried to use one in the States in the mid-90s it wasn't simple enough to put some money in and dial numbers, there had to be competition between providers and would you like this meaningless acronym, in which case you have to dial these 12 numbers first, or would you like this one, in which case please enter your card number and pin, or would you like to BASH THE PHONE RECEIVER AND YELL INTO IT "I JUST WANT TO MAKE A PHONE CALL!"
Seriously, I think it would have been easier to phone Telecom NZ, and ask them to make the call for me.
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The concern for Tuhoe in this respect, I think, is that they're surrounded by people who for some reason are disposed to think of them as they apparently do, and it's incomprehensible, sad and infuriating.
And my point, again, was about if they wanted to change that. If, as you hint at, they're not looking to change that, then my point has no relevance, so why are you ragging on it? Just my opinion, if the Maori world wants to ignore it, up to them.
I went through my activism with the belief that Maori and Pakeha both have things to offer each other in partnership. Maori sovereignty activists that I had involvement with often appreciated that education was a two way street. However you view it and want to do it, up to you.
Though I'm tired and this was never an important discussion and I think I'm done with arguing for the week. So whatever.
Close your eyes, Kyle, and imagine that you find upon opening them that your home has become my-little-pony-land, and you're tongue has just been surgically removed by a five year old child, and however long you stay there you are expected to play horsie all day, and, while you may procreate, your offspring are equally born without tongues, and your five year old captors never grow up. And then imagine the ways in which you might find yourself expressing your intelligence and humanity.
And if you respond by picking pedantic holes in my deliberately ridiculous analogy
I would, but I'm not on whatever drugs that came from. Though I have a daughter, and when she's five, I bet she'd love it if the world was like that for a while.
Though, if the five year olds are 'Pakeha', then your analogy is pretty simplistic. Lots of people have been actively engaging with the Treaty, sovereignty, partnership, and putting that into place in practical ways. I've spent a bunch of time on this forum arguing that stereotypical views of police are completely inaccurate, and the same goes for stereotypical views of Pakeha, and Maori for that matter.
As an example, and a possibly useful piece of information.
Sara there's a community group whose name escapes me right now (no wait I've got it, Project Waitangi, now called Network Waitangi), but who you might already know about. They do treaty education and decolonisation workshops for Pakeha. Their philosophy is that Maori need to take care of their own, it is Pakeha's responsibility to educate Pakeha about the treaty and its history. Here's the Otautahi one: http://www.nwo.org.nz/.
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Sorry, no personal attack here: but that seems to some bloodcurdlingly arrogant.
"Yes, white New Zealand, we realise that you think we're basically ungrateful savages because we cling absurdly to our barbaric culture, but we're here to assure you that we too can wear suits on Sunday and debate policy in a reasonable, restrained manner, just as you do in your parliament house. Afterwards, maybe we can take tea together and then Sara can explain poststructuralism to us so we may enter your fine university system and drop French names and feel ever so clever. Thank you for listening, and have a nice day."
Well that wasn't what I said at all.
I said that if Tuhoe want to change Pakeha perceptions, they have to start with where Pakeha are at. That's just plain logic. That applies to all activism, a good analysis of where people - activists, 'opposition', the general public, will indicate where the pressure points are.
If how Pakeha view you, is a concern, and I suspect for a lot of Tuhoe right now, it actually is, then image is something to think about.
If that doesn't concern them, well fine. They can do what they want.
Clearly Tuhoe did think about it, because they said so. Their spokesperson with in the media giving reasons why they had people lwearing bandanas, and it had exactly to do with public perception of terrorism.
I just think they got it wrong, their message got lost and a different impression was conveyed.
But continue to talk for them if you want.
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For more on William of Ockham and his thoughts, see Ockham and Political Discourse in the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series), Takashi Shogimen, University of Otago, 2007.
Cause you gotta sell the locals.
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As far as I'm aware, occam's razor is on my side; in the absence of any actual planning, the simplest explanation for a statement that the prime minister should be killed is that it's no more of a genuine threat than all the other similar statements being made in private conversations between ordinary people all the time.
Actually, I don't think William of Ockham was of the "it doesn't count if you have your fingers crossed behind your back" theory of occam's razor. The simplest explanation for someone saying 'X', is that they mean 'X'. A more complex explanation would be that they mean '!X'. You have added an unnecessary assumption, which is "the person was not being truthful when they said that". The simpler assumption is that they are telling the truth.
Who's making that argument? I've only said the majority of these 17 should have been bailed straight away, based on what I know of the people involved and the evidence reported to date, and that bail shouldn't be denied without very good reason.
I quote:
I <b>can</b> claim that they shouldn't have been locked up for a month before the trial, though. People should not be punished for unknowns.
Anyone who is denied bail, and remains in custody, is being punished for unknowns.
Yes, New Zealand is a better place than most - but that's the way I like it, and the way I intend to keep it. I'm very happy that if I get arrested I have a right to see a lawyer promptly, and discuss my case. I assume most commenters here like the set of liberties we have. Taking them for granted, and challenging those who stand up for them is a great way to see them go.
Which is not what Finn, Russell, or I were doing. Just pointing out that while things weren't great here, to say that they're like Guantanamo, is stretching things just a tad far.
Okay, so perhaps all this distaste about the anger expressed on the Hikoi is just a little ethnocentric, not to mention some of the interpretations of other responses such as Nanaia Mahuta’s.
I agree with what you've said here Sara. But the fact that Pakeha reactions are ethnocentric, doesn't change the fact, that if Tuhoe are looking to change Pakeha perceptions of themselves, that's something they have to deal with. Any good campaign does analysis of the targets of the campaign, and where they're at. If Tuhoe want to change Pakeha perceptions of Maori, then they have to start with where Pakeha are at, not where they wish Pakeha were on the issues/perceptions.
My position is that the law should stay (if at all) very, very tight, because the idea of Terrorism is very, very serious.
I agree with the second half of this. Personally I'd much rather the terrorism law was scrapped, and any crimes that are in it that don't exist elsewhere wrapped into the Crimes Act. The one on financing terrorism is the only one that I can think of off the top of my head.
In general (and stepping away from the current issue), I don't like the idea that people could get away with committing crimes, because of administrative matters like wrong act on a warrant etc. If we simplify law, that would seem less likely.
But I don't agree that laws should be very very tight. What's the purpose of a law if it's almost impossible to convict someone with it? Would we want murder, robbery, rape to be tight laws?
Personally I'm in favour of just having the laws well written to start with, rather than badly written but impossible to apply.
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Which also worked out for me because I don't eat burger king anyway.
No that'll never work, your boycott is completely ineffective.
Start eating it, briefly. Then stop. And write letters to them telling them so. They'll feel the cut in their profits and link it to your letter and wham. They'll be demanding Duchovney receive oral sex from a nun _while_ eating a whopper burger.