Mallard/Pagani: Soft headed lefties

33 comments on “Mallard/Pagani: Soft headed lefties ”

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1. IrishBill 1

   7 May 2011 at 9:23 am

   Heh, I’ll have to show that “revolutionary table-thumper” comment on red alert to my leftie mates – they consider me to be a social democrat sell-out.

   And for the record I quite like Trev. I just didn’t think it was strategically sensible for him to pile into the Harawira witch trial.
   • lprent 1.1

     7 May 2011 at 11:10 am

     Face it you’re a centrist. It is just that the rest of the world hasn’t caught up yet. By that standard I am the RWNJ of red baiter standard, and red baiter has long been confined for societies protection.

     I do like this press release. It is refreshing to read a press release that reads like a better post here. In fact I went looking for the satire tag first.

     I’m still not going to vote for them. But it is refreshing..

     BTW: You realize that I am the only Grey Lynn ‘liberal’ that authors here? You know, the person who volunteered for the army, spent qute a lotof time working in farms, has an MBA and a background in management, has always worked in the private sector, never been in a union or on wages or unemployed for more than a few weeks, and who takes a certain savage pleasure in chewing trolls for fun? I’d hate to think what those nasty unionists are like by comparison.
   • Fat Uncle 1.2

     7 May 2011 at 4:33 pm

     What are the reasons for quite liking Trev?

     He’s a bovver boy for the left? I don’t know much about him beyond opinions of people in the education sector, his biffo with Tau and his use in the Clark government to handle things the leadership wouldn’t. Oh and he fronted the student loan interest write off policy.

     What worries is the Mike Moore (ie not really left at all) feel about some in the line up and you have to look at them and think though they’d be a marginal improvement on National’s tired white middle aged blokes, they don’t feel they sit comfortably in a dynamic, multicultural New Zealand that happily accommodates people of many different lifestyles without feeling threatened.

     This is a major difference between this government and the last for me. We could celebrate our diversity then, unconsciously and automatically as something good about NZ.

     We could feel included in what different communities brought to our national culture as a whole. Now it often feels like diversity is a sign of unacceptable dissent.
2. PeteG 2

   7 May 2011 at 9:43 am

   This from Pagani doesn’t sound semi-hysterical to me:

   Well I think the bin Laden quote is a pretty clear example. It’s pretty hard to see what values expressed by bin Laden would appeal to any left-wing voter. It will be interesting to see whether the rest of Hone’s party are on board with his assessment.

   I suspect some of the rest of Hone’s party were the driving force behind his belated apology.
   • QoT 2.1

     7 May 2011 at 12:23 pm

     Maybe not “semi-hysterical” but it sure tells you a lot when a former Labour communications director just takes media reports at face value without bothering to check the primary sources.

     Or it’s all part of something I’ve had a sneaking suspicion about for a while … bashing Hone is reeeeeeally convenient for Labour. He can be the Ralph Nader to Goff’s Al Gore, the “reason” everyone can blame for Labour losing.
     • the sprout 2.1.1

       7 May 2011 at 4:54 pm

       I have every confidence Mallard, Pagani and many other fellow travellers on their wagon knew full-well it was a misrepresentation, but propagating the lies suited their purposes.
       In some ways that pisses me off even more.
3. deemac 3

   7 May 2011 at 10:11 am

   I’m still waiting for an apology for the Hitler comparison – am I semi-hysterical?
4. ianmac 4

   7 May 2011 at 10:39 am

   The more I see and read of Hone the more I like him.
   Consider this. Most MPs and especially the current PM seldom give straight answers to any question. Always there is the spin and the safe position to hold, and the mealy mouths.

   The along comes Hone. He says what he thinks. And I suspect that he believes what he says but without the guile of the others. He knows that the Petes and the Burts and the demacs will pick away at some detail yet they will ignore the frankness and the big picture he is aiming for.
   What a great post from Hone. Thanks for finding it Sprout.
   • IrishBill 4.1

     7 May 2011 at 12:07 pm

     The other day I was speaking to an old mate of mine from down in the deep south who is leftish but holds, shall we say, less than liberal views on Maori and he told me he’s voting for Mana this year. I was a bit shocked but he explained that he liked Hone for exactly the attributes you’ve described – he says what he means and he’s not “PC”.
   • PeteG 4.2

     7 May 2011 at 12:22 pm

     I like that Hone says what he thinks, and yes, I wish more MPs were prepared to do that, but I don’t agree with and don’t like some of what he says, and basically he doesn’t represent me or at what I want very well (and doesn’t try to).

     Until now he hasn’t been important to me as his electorate is at the opposite end of the country to where I am, but if he is after the party vote then he becomes someone to consider. I’ll look and listen but I doubt Mana will represent much of what I prefer, and he doesn’t seem to care about anyone who isn’t on his side.
     • Colonial Viper 4.2.1

       7 May 2011 at 12:34 pm

       and he doesn’t seem to care about anyone who isn’t on his side.

       Given that ~75% of all New Zealanders earn less than $40,000 p.a. I think that Hone’s focus on the underclasses and the working classes leaves him plenty to work with.

       The wealthy can look after themselves, after all.
   • the pink postman 4.3

     7 May 2011 at 3:30 pm

     I do not dislike Hone ,in fact I often agree with what he says. I have no doubt he would support Labour on most issues.However it’s the shadow of his mother that scares me.
     • Colonial Viper 4.3.1

       7 May 2011 at 3:39 pm

       However it’s the shadow of his mother that scares me.

       Probably still scares Hone as well.
     • Sam 4.3.2

       8 May 2011 at 7:48 am

       And like Don Brash she is not in parliament and will continue to pull the strings anyway.
5. Colonial Viper 5

   7 May 2011 at 11:20 am

   Yeah you don’t back Hone because he is a politician who comes out with carefully weighted, well qualified, focus grouped lines which clearly hide what he really thinks.

   You back him because he doesn’t.
   • the sprout 5.1

     7 May 2011 at 11:34 am

     exactly
   • swordfish 5.2

     8 May 2011 at 4:25 pm

     Same goes for Matt McCarten.
6. Steve Withers 6

   7 May 2011 at 11:21 am

   This (generally) isn’t the Hone Harawira the public will see through TV and newspapers. Some of the people out there are so confused they are using Hone as a reason to not vote for MMP…apparently unaware he was elected by First Past the Post in a local electorate and MMP is completely irrelevant.

   There is so much plain…..dumbness….abroad in NZ today it’s hard to see how this country has any future.
7. RedLogix 7

   7 May 2011 at 11:48 am

   Absolutely excellent Sprout.

   As much as I could easily wallow in the delicious, manifold ironies of Hide’s demise.. revenge is an ugly motive. It’s even uglier when it’s whipped up by mass hysteria.

   Or to put it another way, there was justice in it… but the process was all wrong.
8. ak 8

   7 May 2011 at 12:24 pm

   Excellent Sprout. And Hone. It’s a dangerous age of mass knee-jerk hatred and naked political opportunism. That dancing on the streets and Obama’s barely-concealed glee is a tipping-point that will resonate globally. Economic dominance is slipping away, and now moral authority has gone down the drain to the tune of U-S-A! U-S-A!
   Ominously, within a few short years only military dominance will remain.

   Ironically in all this, it seems only yesterday that Hone was almost canonised by the Right for attacking Clark with a speech compiled from the sewerblog over the electoral finance teacup-storm. Looks like the charm offensive failed sometime between then and now: like Winston in 08, it’s now scorched earth for Hone. And anyone else noticed the deafening silence from Key on One Law for All? Various responses awaiting the polls I suspect, but the eventual dancing should be spectacular.
9. Colonial Viper 9

   7 May 2011 at 12:43 pm

   And re: John Pagani:

   He’s fallen to the US meme (also picked up on by Tau Henare) that Osama Bin Laden was somehow OUR collective great enemy.

   And Maori don’t honour their great enemies, according to Tau, you feast upon their bones.

   What a bunch of ass based upon a bunch of ass.
10. dave brown 10

    7 May 2011 at 1:43 pm

    Revealing is right. Obomber has no clothes. The self-styled liberal left that hysterically tries to dress him up in their minds as defender of civilisation, democracy etc are no more than lynch mobs. They are on the wrong side of history.
    Hone has the nous to know that the vast majority of the world’s population doesnt trust, believe in, or expect anything good to come out of the US Empire. So the fight against the Empire is of those masses, historically represented by those most conscious of the history of oppression – the indigenous peoples. He has yet to realise that once underway winning means there is no stopping short of socialist revolution. There is no magical halfway house of peace and freedom on this earth anymore than there is a paradise for the martyrs in the next. The halfway house is Gitmo and Iraq.
    Fortunately, the leadership of this global struggle is now rising up as the disenfranchised young workers in North Africa and the Middle East. As they fight for even the most basic democratic freedoms the resistance of the the Empire and its local lackeys dispels illusions in bourgeois democracy and propels them along the road to armed struggle and international revolution. Te Mana barely signals a move in this direction in Aotearoa, its program no more radical than the first Labour Government, but expect the liberal left to defend every filthy attack on it.
11. Andrew Kensington 11

    7 May 2011 at 2:19 pm

    I like the point Robert Fisk made about the assassination of Osam bin Laden over at The Guardian:

    “Sure, he never wanted to be taken alive – and there were buckets of blood in the room in which he died.

    But a court would have worried more people than Bin Laden. After all, he might have talked about his contacts with the CIA during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, or about his cosy meetings in Islamabad with Prince Turki, Saudi Arabia’s head of intelligence. Just as Saddam – who was tried for the murder of a mere 153 people rather than thousands of gassed Kurds – was hanged before he had the chance to tell us about the gas components that came from America, his friendship with Donald Rumsfeld, the US military assistance he received when he invaded Iran in 1980. ”

    Full opinion piece here
    • Colonial Viper 11.1

      7 May 2011 at 3:40 pm

      Bin Laden will have left instructions in the event of his untimely demise.

      This game is not over yet.
      • ianmac 11.1.1

        7 May 2011 at 4:32 pm

        The news clip this morning radio, said those sympathisers left behind would release a sound recording soon.
      • Rich 11.1.2

        7 May 2011 at 5:51 pm

        That does imply that his followers had the capability to mount some kind of spectacular atrocity, but were holding off until his death or some other provocation.

        Does that really make sense? If they had the ability to knaw through railway bridge pillars or release plague infected rats into Californian forests, wouldn’t they have done that already?
        • Colonial Viper 11.1.2.1

          8 May 2011 at 5:50 am

          If they had the ability to knaw through railway bridge pillars or release plague infected rats into Californian forests, wouldn’t they have done that already?

          Which leads to the question – how much of a threat have these guys really been in the last 5 years, and does it justify the US$3B-$4B financial spend per week of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

          It would really surprise me if the “bad guys” (wherever they are, who knows) had a budget of more than a few tens of thousands of USD per month.
          • millsy 11.1.2.1.1

            8 May 2011 at 10:28 am

            I too wasant really keen about him being hyped up to being some kind of supervillian like Dr No, or Ernst Stavrp Blofeld, in the Bond series.
12. Jenny 12

    7 May 2011 at 9:50 pm

    ‘
    Al Qaeda: The International Terrorist Organisation. Is there such a thing?
13. Green Left 13

    8 May 2011 at 3:51 am

    Kinda puts it in perspective (also shows what state some of the soft left is in, in Aotearoa)

    We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. – Noam Chomsky

    http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/
    • Sam 13.1

      8 May 2011 at 8:19 am

      Wouldn’t you be dancing in the street?
    • ianmac 13.2

      8 May 2011 at 4:41 pm

      Mr Chomsky says it all really. Strangely enough my contributions bumbled along the lines that extrajudicial killing in a sovereign state is wrong. And that it suited the USA to have a target for blame for 9/11 and fabricate evidence of his atrocities to suit the political needs. Hard to know if bin Laden could be called a freedom fighter unless that is defined. Can a Saudi born be a fighter for Afghanistan causes? Can the USA win the rhetoric about their invincibility? Not everyone outside the USA think so.
      Anyway thanks Green Left.
14. North 14

    8 May 2011 at 10:47 pm

    Whatever Hone said has to be considered in this context: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair, Jack Straw (I think) and numerous others actually have more blood of the innocents on their hands than Bin Laden ever did !

    New Zealanders knew that when they made it very clear they weren’t interested in following the thickest dry alcoholic in Texas into Iraq.

    Some HONEsty here please. Sounds like lots of people (certainly the pathetic NZ media) are simply determined to thrash themselves into a state of outrage using Hone’s (granted) loose mouth as an excuse.

    Bunch of anti-Maori, pakeha perspective burdened idiots in my book. I well recall how they (the media) virtually formally announced that they simply WOULD NOT ACCEPT Winnie being appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs under Helen Clark. Arrogant dogs ! Who do they think they are ?

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