Daily Review 05/07/2017

48 comments on “Daily Review 05/07/2017 ”

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1. Pat 1

   5 July 2017 at 6:22 pm

   that photo made me think of this…..
   “The American political writer, Thomas Frank, asked the same question of the US Democratic Party, and the answer he came up with was brutally simple. Today’s social-democratic politicians are middle-class professionals who are, by-and-large, as disdainful of the electorate as they are uninterested in its inner emotional life. Not only have they forgotten how to dream dreams and see visions – they don’t see the point.”

   http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/94293673/chris-trotter-hard-to-imagine-andrew-little-inspiring-corbynlike-passion
   • Jenny Kirk 1.1

     6 July 2017 at 8:52 am

     To coin a cliche – with friends like Chris Trotter, Labour doesn’t need enemies.

     And he is wrong on the water issue for farmers – Andrew Little says Labour will put a charge on irrigation. (There was apparently a media misinterpretation of something else he had talked about, and AL issued a correcting statement).
   • left_forward 1.2

     6 July 2017 at 12:22 pm

     Most political commentators found it hard to imagine Corbyn inspiring Corbynlike passion!
2. Draco T Bastard 2

   5 July 2017 at 6:24 pm

   Labour productivity and real wages (wages after taking account of inflation) appear to have been closely in sync only during the period 1947 to 1974 when New Zealand’s industrial conciliation and arbitration system of collective bargaining extended by awards was working relatively well. From about 1990, under the deregulated employment conditions resulting from the Employment Contracts Act 1991, real wage growth fell behind productivity growth.

   Bold mine.

   Puts the lie to the RWNJ assertion that productivity needs to rise before wages go up.
3. marty mars 3

   5 July 2017 at 6:43 pm

   Norm Kirk died in 1974

   that is 43 years ago

   that is 516 months ago

   I was 12 and can remember him a little bit.

   I wonder who else can remember him or met him or voted for him.
   • ScottGN 3.1

     5 July 2017 at 7:01 pm

     I was 10 marty mars and I remember my mum crying at the sink as the news came through. When Muldoon got in at the 1975 election she moved the whole family to Australia.
     • Anne 3.1.1

       5 July 2017 at 7:31 pm

       I was in my 20s and still mourn his premature passing before he had reached his prime. He was the reason I first joined the Labour Party and he was the reason Helen Clark, among many others who went on to bigger things, joined the Party.

       What a different NZ we would have now if he had lived to fulfill his dreams for new Zealand – a wealthier, safer egalitarian society where everyone looked after everyone else. And:

       there might not have been any Muldoon government or what followed in the 1980s…
       • JanM 3.1.1.1

         5 July 2017 at 8:41 pm

         I was 29 and I had met him as my partner at the time was a parliamentary journalist. He was my hero and his passing was tragic for most of us. I have a copy of his biography signed by him and when my partner took it to him to sign it he commented that ‘at least his girlfriend had some sense’ as even back then the MSM tended towards right-wing sympathies
         • Dan 3.1.1.1.1

           6 July 2017 at 7:27 pm

           I was a lift boy on the RAL lifts at Ruapehu at the time and arrived home to the RAL lodge after our dinner at the servants quarters of the Chateau! The majority of the guys were Aussies or Swiss or Americans or Canadians. A few Kiwis were not particularly politically oriented but two or three of us sat around, quite stunned and then down. Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells played a bit that night.
           I have always felt he was poisoned, but I guess conspiracy theorists don’t have a lot of credibility!
     • North 3.1.2

       6 July 2017 at 4:21 pm

       How vividly I still recall……9.00 pm on Saturday 31/8/74……an ashen Bill Toft on a small black and white TV on an apple box in a student flat in Tory Street, Wellington, Newtown end. “The Prime Minister Norman Kirk passed away……”

       Straight to the phone to call home in Tokoroa…….my mother, sobbingly demanding…….”Oh what are we going to do ?” 15 months on…….election night ’75. “Where’s Mum?”, as dejectedly we make a cuppa having left early the meant-to-be Labour Party victory celebration at Tokoroa Rugby Club rooms. Go looking. There she is, downstairs. Hasn’t made it out of the car. Sobbing. RIP dear Mum (and Dad) and thanks for the values you never stopped imparting.

       1975…….for Crosby Textor and post-truth read (Hanna Barbera) ‘Dancing Cossacks’ and Mccarthyist fervour.
   • rhinocrates 3.2

     5 July 2017 at 8:32 pm

     7 at the time. Family were staying at my grandparents and I heard in the early morning. We were all pretty devastated – I was able to pick up on the feeling anyway.
   • AB 3.3

     5 July 2017 at 9:29 pm

     I was 18 – thought Kirk was wonderful, but didn’t get my first vote till 1975, after he was dead, and Labour were wiped out by Muldoon. Election day Nov ’75 – was playing club cricket against a team of mostly farmers who were in triumphalist mood while I was feeling quietly sick.
   • swordfish 3.4

     5 July 2017 at 11:21 pm

     We’ve been here before … (see thread following TRP’s comment)

     https://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-31082016/#comment-1226449
   • Drum 3.5

     5 July 2017 at 11:27 pm

     I met him, remember the emotional impact he had on me snd the generosity of heart hr brought to political life.
   • North 3.6

     6 July 2017 at 3:32 pm

     Funny thing…….Trotter has much the appearance of the ‘type’ Thomas Frank describes……through my lens.
4. Muttonbird 4

   5 July 2017 at 6:44 pm

   What’s with the sudden explosion of Cannabis discussion? And this bill?

   Like the Euthanasia bill and discussion, I think these are sponsored distractions from the issues plaguing many Kiwis (housing, transport, water, wages, and infrastructure) and a means by which to get the sub 1% support parties some publicity before the election. Suddenly you see the bow tie and the hologram everywhere and they between them didn’t break 1% last election.

   These are side issues and don’t have a place in pre-election discussion.
   • tc 4.1

     5 July 2017 at 6:47 pm

     Distract, diffuse, divert. Waikato times ran a front page on it a few days back like the good media poodle they are.
     • Muttonbird 4.1.1

       5 July 2017 at 6:53 pm

       It’s bullshit. These issues are too important to be thrust in front of parliament and the public at such a time.

       It’s a marketing exercise for National’s support partners: “Bowtie, you take cannabis, and Hologram you have euthanasia.”

       If only that happened…
       • In Vino 4.1.1.1

         5 July 2017 at 7:16 pm

         I suspect that these things are indeed organised. I suspect that the My Lai massacre got publicised only because the deep state US leaders realised that they were being bled dry and would never win in Vietnam. So the first wave of publicity began. This turned public opinion just as they wanted – far more than the valiant protest movement did.
         I fear the same situation still exists – the media carefully feed the public. We should keep our bullshit detectors on full alert. Paranoia can be a virtue!
         • tc 4.1.1.1.1

           5 July 2017 at 7:25 pm

           Media and messaging lessons were learned from Vietnam. Uncle Sam got to grips with it eventually after initially being caught flat footed.
       • tc 4.1.1.2

         5 July 2017 at 7:19 pm

         Yup when they were pulled my first thought was my what a handy diversion and convenient profile boost for the props.
         • James 4.1.1.2.1

           6 July 2017 at 6:57 am

           Are you people seriously inferring that the vote “pull out of a hat” is rigged ?

           Your tin foil hats need an extra layer.
5. RedLogix 5

   5 July 2017 at 8:23 pm

   One from my bookmarks:

   https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/in-no-one-we-trust/
   • Ad 5.1

     5 July 2017 at 8:28 pm

     See in particular the link to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights:

     http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/GuidingPrinciplesBusinessHR_EN.pdf

     I’d never heard of this. Thankfully Stiglitz has.
6. Ad 6

   5 July 2017 at 8:24 pm

   I think we are about to see Saudi Arabia invade Qatar.
   • Ed 6.1

     5 July 2017 at 8:30 pm

     That would be ugly.
     Why are you so sure of this?
   • Muttonbird 6.2

     5 July 2017 at 8:36 pm

     Surely America will defend Qatar’s sovereignty!
     • Ed 6.2.1

       5 July 2017 at 8:40 pm

       Against Saudi?
     • Draco T Bastard 6.2.2

       5 July 2017 at 9:43 pm

       Probably not. Just so long as Saudi doesn’t throw any missiles at the US base there and promises to let it stay I doubt if the US has any problems with Saudi eradicating Qatar.
   • McFlock 6.3

     5 July 2017 at 9:34 pm

     I think they’d like to, but they’re already in the shit in Yemen and have some significant domestic security concerns. And I think Qatar might put up a decent fight. Not win, but not be a walkover. And then there’s the fact that if the US don’t want to help, Iran might.

     But with Trump enthralled by Saudi Arabia, they have more freedom to at least make Qatar think they might invade, and thus put a lid on Al Jezeera and a couple of other things that make life difficult for the Saudis.
   • happynz 6.4

     5 July 2017 at 9:58 pm

     On a personal note I hope you’re wrong. I have to go back to work in the Eastern Province of KSA in five more weeks. My wife has to transit through Qatar next month on her way to Thailand.
     • Ad 6.4.1

       5 July 2017 at 10:10 pm

       Avoid.

       I don’t think it will be a war:

       I think the new Saudi Emir will simply have a conversation with President Trump’s WH security people assuring them that their Qatar base and centcom are safe and will remain with the Americans.

       Nice and clean.

       The kicker is that Al Jazeera will go within hours, permanently.
7. Nic181 7

   5 July 2017 at 8:59 pm

   In 1973 I was living in the Sydenham electorate. Norman Kirk was PM and my electorate MP.i had a relative, with 3 small children in gaol in Wellington. The crime was fraud. No violence, no sex offending. I rang Norman Kirk, explained the circumstances and my relative was given Christmas leave. We had to pay the airfares to and from Wellington, pick up from the airport and return soon after Christmas. We had to put up a bond. It all went to plan with a family very happy. Many thanks Norman Kirk for making it happen. I loved him then and now
   • James 7.1

     6 July 2017 at 7:00 am

     Do you think the people who were defrauded by your family member would have thought Kirk was so great giving him Christmas leave?

     I wonder how their Christmas was if their money was all defrauded.

     Always 2 sides to a story.
     • left_forward 7.1.1

       6 July 2017 at 12:32 pm

       Don’t you think that victims can experience forgiveness and compassion James?
       • james 7.1.1.1

         6 July 2017 at 3:15 pm

         Do you know that they did?
         • left_forward 7.1.1.1.1

           6 July 2017 at 3:22 pm

           No, but that was not implied or relevant in the question I asked you.
           • adam 7.1.1.1.1.1

             6 July 2017 at 5:03 pm

             left_forward he’s just trolling you. He can’t help himself, he has identified with his lords and masters – so does all he can to suck up to them. A real problem in NZ. Funnily enough parasites and bacteria act in a similar way.
     • McFlock 7.1.2

       6 July 2017 at 12:39 pm

       Do you think the Christmas leave was more for the relative or for the small kids?
     • Draco T Bastard 7.1.3

       6 July 2017 at 12:43 pm

       I wonder how their Christmas was if their money was all defrauded.

       Do you apply the same empathy to victims of National’s beneficiary bashing?
       • North 7.1.3.1

         6 July 2017 at 4:33 pm

         And what’s your victim-advocate view James @ 7.1 on Teina Pora and 21 years in jail for an innocent man ? With a National Party cabinet refusing to apply it’s own love of ‘interest’ to his compensation…….and that against the advice of a retired High Court judge. Feel free to reply that it’s this National Party cabinet which is the rapist and not Teina Pora.

         Or do you just not fucking care ?
         • james 7.1.3.1.1

           6 July 2017 at 4:35 pm

           Its got nothing to do with what we are talking about.

           But 2 out of 10 for a try at a pointless diversion.
           • North 7.1.3.1.1.1

             6 July 2017 at 4:48 pm

             I see James……you’re entirely selective and hypocritical in your identification of ‘victimhood’. Must be your bias.
     • Robert Guyton 7.1.4

       6 July 2017 at 12:53 pm

       “Do you think the people who were defrauded by your family member would have thought Kirk was so great giving him Christmas leave?”

       They probably did, it being Christmas and all. Not everyone is flint-hearted like you, James.

       “I wonder how their Christmas was if their money was all defrauded.”

       Seems you know nothing at all of the case, James.
       Your mean-spirited “I wonder…” reveals much about your lack of compassion.

       Why, readers might wonder, did you bother to comment.
       • james 7.1.4.1

         6 July 2017 at 3:17 pm

         “They Probably did?”

         Based on zero knowledge – you assign probability based on your own bias.
         • North 7.1.4.1.1

           6 July 2017 at 4:44 pm

           I note you’re always dependable as a reflection of nasty-heartedness James. Must be your shit politics.
8. adam 8

   5 July 2017 at 9:55 pm

   I’m glad the Troy’s have caught up.

   http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/saudi-arabia-uk-extremism-terrorism-funding-clear-link-middle-east-isis-gulf-qatar-report-henry-a7824241.html
9. Dean Reynolods 9

   6 July 2017 at 7:25 am

   Norman Kirk was the last statesman NZ had. He makes Key & English look like the political pygmies that they are.

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