Open mike 04/03/2021

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 4th, 2021 - 68 comments
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68 comments on “Open mike 04/03/2021 ”

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    • Sanctuary 1.1
      4 March 2021 at 8:47 am

      Interesting article.

      Politik has a story on the grim outlook for tourism as well here – https://www.politik.co.nz/2021/03/04/what-do-we-do-if-the-tourists-dont-come-bacl/

      Way back when the first lockdown happened and the government unveiled it's emergency packages – including the free apprentice schemes – I noted that if you wanted to know what the government thought of the future of tourism and international education you just had to look at what new job schemes it was funding. So really, the writing has been on the wall for tourism and the international student sectors for a year now. Normal for them just isn't coming back soon, perhaps never.

      Tourism has been exposed as an extremely fragile sector, subject to the whim of global forces well beyond our control. It also has an extremely high environmental cost and carbon footprint. It is however extremely vocal and well connected in the media – let's face it, international tourism is a middle class addiction, an addiction reflected in the middle class dominated MSM obsession with when the borders will re-open so they can flit off to Bali or Bangkok again. I suspect politicians everywhere though see opportunity to meet carbon emission targets by imposing regulations while the tourism and airline industry is currently hors de combat. So chances are good that we'll finally get our country back from hordes of package tourists and our forest edges will become free of the excreta and detritus of freedom campers.

      The lack of support for international students is interesting. Again, I think it tells us exactly what government thinking is on the relative economic benefit of that sector, especially vs. the political fallout of basically unchecked immigration from developing countries via student visas.

      It might have been convenient to blame NZ First to deflect the outraged screams of “racism!!!” from the twitterati and self-interested business elites, but it looks like Labour agreed with their synopsis of the value of cheap immigration all along. Above all, I think – regardless of all the moaners on twitter who want moar Marxism now – at last the government has broken the shackles of worshipping at the altar of neoliberal global labour mobility and sees an opportunity to choke of a major weapon of NZ capitalism to depress wages. Already, controls on immigration and the importation of cheap foreign labour are having an effect on wages – https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/300-a-day-for-fruit-picking-potential-goldmine-for-hawkes-bay-workers-as-growers-up-wages/DIP4OYJWPE563T4DOQVMMQFH6I/

      • Pat 1.1.1
        4 March 2021 at 8:55 am

        Think it would be wise to focus on the act rather than the rhetoric. We have too many examples of the Gov. acting contrary to message and it would not surprise at all to see an (unheralded) attempt to restart the migrant conveyor once the vaccination programme is complete.

        It has been the strategy for the past couple of decades and theres no indication of an alternative.

        • Sanctuary 1.1.1.1
          4 March 2021 at 9:04 am

          I think they political view might be that on the balance, it is currently politically less risky upsetting industries dependent on migrants than it is to keep upsetting people who can't afford houses or have seen wage stagnation due to eight of the last ten new entry level professionals employed by their boss being foreigners fresh off the boat or who can’t get a decent wage picking fruit.

          It wasn't just student visa that were being abused. Every corporate knows how to play the visa game to get a cheap technician. First, restructure. Then advertise the new role at 10-20% less than the current going rate. When no one wants the job because the pay is to low, go to MBIE or whoever and plead shortage, demonstrating your vain efforts to find someone. Then its a piece of cake to get permission from supine and compliant bureaucrats to recruit from Manila or Bangalore or somewhere like that. Hey presto, you’ve got an eager, compliant, skilled worker for less than you’d have to pay a Kiwi – a Kiwi who might also have an opinion and likes his/her time off.

          • Pat 1.1.1.1.1
            4 March 2021 at 9:10 am

            Indeed….it would be easier to accept the rhetoric if they outlined a detailed alternative ….which is strangely missing.

            • Sabine 1.1.1.1.1.1
              4 March 2021 at 10:15 am

              If you don't have an outlined strategy then you can never be held accountable. You can always just say 'we work with the best data we have today' never mind foresight, hindsight, paid consultants, paid courtiers, paid handmaids, that are all there to help create a strategy.

              And one can easily forgive them for the stuff that happened when Covid came barreling in, but we are a year in, and yes, a bit more strategy would be needed.

              i.e. whats gonna happen to the tutors of the teaching institutes, and that would involve our universities as they too depend on overseas students – who btw pay their service in full.

              b. whats gonna happen to the buildings of these learning institutes, will they be repurposed into schools? Or sold of to the highest bidder with no value to the local communties?

              the tourist trade is dead for the next 10 – 15 years as Covid is slowly but surely eating away on what ever savings/wealth people have the planet over. And without disposable income no one travels even without covid.

              So what is going to replace these industries? What is going to happen to people that will not find a replacement job? And so on and so forth.

              And i would like to remind people that literally all the money that is made in comes from either people coming here to spend, or us sending dairy/fruit/wine etc overseas. How long until Europe etc remember that they have their own dairy/fruit/wine industries and that they should be prioritized?

              What then. Really, how many industries can a country lose in a year or two before it starts hurting, or is this something that we should not care about now – kind and gentle please – and then we leave this to the next government?

              But so as long as the government outlines nothing, they can't be blamed for not achieving nothing. Maybe that is the only thing they learned from their first term, that not having plans means you can't fail.

              • Nic the NZer …
                4 March 2021 at 2:33 pm

                You should not "remind people that literally all the money that is made in comes from either people coming here to spend, or us sending dairy/fruit/wine etc overseas." because it is completely untrue. New Zealand produces the accounting unit it transacts in itself and is not going to run short on the basis of the balance of trade.

                The New Zealand economy is capable of carrying on for itself at least for all goods and services it can produce domestically. For goods and services only available overseas there are two approaches available to the country, either remain dependent on international trade as a source, or develop these same industries in New Zealand.

          • woodart 1.1.1.1.2
            4 March 2021 at 10:56 am

            couple of good posts sanctuary

          • aj 1.1.1.1.3
            4 March 2021 at 11:01 am

            Every corporate knows how to play the visa game to get a cheap technician.

            Eg the UFB roll-out by Chorus with a large number of immigrant contractors, most of whom were subsequently reaveled to be on about the minimum wage

      • Ad 1.1.2
        4 March 2021 at 8:59 am

        Yes this does begin to look like the government doing a 'structural adjustment by stealth' – similar in impact on specific parts of the economy as the Lange-Douglas government.

        Except this time they are just letting the crisis do the economic adjustment for it and just allowing the burn away of those less productive parts of the economy .

        • Sabine 1.1.2.1
          4 March 2021 at 10:21 am

          Structural re-arraignment courtesy of Covid. Cause i bet you a dollar that without covid, nothing would have changed. We still would import people on flimsy pretend student visas to be exploited by various Kiwi businesses. We still would import people to freedom camp with abandon.

          Labour has so far shown that it has no guts when it comes to structurally re-organising anything, see housing, see poverty of the adults, see poverty of the children, see no investment in rural areas, etc. etc. etc.

          So yeah, the collapse of the tourism industry is not thanks to Labour its thanks to Covid. And anyone in their right mind who believes that Toursim is going to have a fast comeback has not followed the news (yeah, the news!) and / or is telling outright lies so as to not have to do anything.

          And btw, Ad, define 'less productive' parts of the economy? At the end of the day, all these industries made good GST revenue for the Government, hired a lot of people paying PAYE and then GST, and then the taxes from the businesses themselves. IS your industry productive enough to be saved?

          • Ad 1.1.2.1.1
            4 March 2021 at 12:37 pm

            You won't find me giving "thanks to Covid". For anything.

            It's not that hard to define productivity.

            We have a whole Productivity Commission that's been going on about it for a while. Go find it if you're interested.

            And yes, my industry is well and truly more productive than most. It is also one of the most state funded: infrastructure.

          • Craig H 1.1.2.1.2
            4 March 2021 at 2:50 pm

            Agree about tourism, although I think the impact of international climate change agreements would eventually have caused a rethink, but no doubt Covid has accelerated that process dramatically.

            The government took some steps in the international student market when it reduced work rights on student visas and eligibility for post-study work visas and for visas for partners and dependent children of students. That got forgotten about because of Covid, but it was a step in the right direction.

    • Anne 1.2
      4 March 2021 at 10:09 am

      The truth, as Paul Simon said long ago, is that people routinely hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest. In my experience people have quite a high “tune out, drop out” rate whenever government starts telling them to do anything.

      And that's what I said on DR about Case L:

      “In other words Case L only took notice of what she wanted to hear/read and ignored the plethora of other advice… ”

      https://thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-03-03-2021/#comment-1781685

      Excellent analysis from Campbell as always. Good journos are a rare commodity these days.

  2. Sanctuary 2
    4 March 2021 at 9:15 am

    One more comment – the lack of a plan for a vaccine rollout is either grand incompetence from the MOH or the government simply not willing to commit to a timeline because it is not being able to guarantee it can secure the supplies it needs to commit to anything in what are brutal displays of global real politik going on over vaccine nationalism. I prefer the second option of the above, because it seems to me that if they could have guaranteed supplies, the government would have had a plan out last month and us all vaccinated by October. Instead, they will only commit to vaccinate who they can once the stuff arrives in Auckland.

    Given the febrile, nit picking gotcha myopia of our MSM politically that sort of cautious approach is always going to be the best one.

    • Adrian 2.1
      4 March 2021 at 10:26 am

      There is no” lack of plan “ to my mind. Rather the opposite evidenced by early realism that was signaled by giving almost 40 million dollars to a number of possible vaccine producers, knowing full well the inevitability of the political and greedy shitfight that has since broken out in Europe would lead to the infighting and hoarding by national interests and that those without “ skin in the game “ would really be demoted to the hindmost tit and be lucky to get that. It was a given that any US version wouldn’t leave its shores until everybody who would take it got it.
      So please stop bagging the Government for making the very best job of tiptoeing through a an international minefield laid by the the most egregious arseholes in the known universe.

  3. Adrian 3
    4 March 2021 at 10:12 am

    It must be perplexing for the official Covid response that the B.1.1.1 variant that it does not seem to be as virulent as it is in Britain. I presume the quick and hard lockdown was because of its reputation. But maybe it isn’t as advertised, is it because after a dry sunny summer Aucklanders have in general very good stores of Vitamin D on tap and this is giving them the protective effect that research has presumed. It may well be more virulent in Britain but only because it raised its unwelcome spike at the start of a cold, wet and miserable winter and at a time the dithering BFJ let people out to prematurely party and go Christmas shopping because business, you know , demanded it at a time when apparently only 4% of Brits had sufficient VitD levels.

    once more, shit we are lucky.

    • Sabine 3.1
      4 March 2021 at 10:28 am

      England also has the Brazilian variant now on the Island, so i guess we are going to be able to see some more new variants coming up. California also has detected a new strain.

      It is however a bit concerning that the source of this infection is not known.

      But yes, so far we have been so so lucky. Fingers and toes crossed.

    • Sanctuary 3.2
      4 March 2021 at 10:38 am

      A British lockdown is nothing like one of our lockdowns, they seem to be a bit like level 3 minus. Also, in the UK there is a lot of flouting of the rules, more over-crowded cities and housing, and a general cultural & climate driven aversion to fresh air, apart from the fact they seem to have a national alcohol problem.

    • aj 3.3
      4 March 2021 at 11:05 am

      does not seem to be as virulent as it is in Britain.

      Or is it because we have adopted as standard practise in level 1 better social distancing and hand sanitising protocols in this country. This alone may have prevented rapid spread.

    • Craig H 3.4
      4 March 2021 at 2:52 pm

      I think the key is that we don't have Covid here generally, and infectiousness is primarily a function of viral load, which is low because of the lack of Covid in the community, so even people are getting infected, it's by a single person rather than 10-20 people over a few days, so the load is low, so the super spreader events are much less likely.

      That's just my amateur reckons though.

    • McFlock 3.5
      4 March 2021 at 3:49 pm

      VitD theories aside, b111 is demonstrably more infectious because it becomes the dominant strain. But that doesn't mean it's so infectious that it's changed the game.

      It's like armour on a vehicle. The UK has driven around in jeeps with canvas sides. That armour is easily defeated.

      NZ is like an APC. Bullets bounce off it, but a big gun would blow it up.

      B111 is like a bigger bullet. It hurts the people in the jeep more, but it just causes a bigger dent in the APC.

      The planB dickheads try to tell us that we have put so much armour on the vehicle that it's huge and heavy and only goes at 2kph and 10L/100k.

    • Treetop 3.6
      4 March 2021 at 7:26 pm

      Possibly the B.1.1.7 strain has a long tail and will show up at day 12. It has shown that a close contact case and a casual plus contact case have become a positive case in NZ.

      Great if our luck was to hold out. Luck cannot be relied on. Following the rules is the luck.

      As for stores of vitamin D, at some point this could be confirmed as being more helpful than realised at the time.

  4. Adrian Thornton 4
    4 March 2021 at 10:58 am

    Some truths about post war Russia that for some reason seem to get overlooked, but are vital to contextualize any conversation about Russia today, and why we are spending so much time debating Russia at this moment I am not sure?…anyway a bit of historical objectivity never hurts.

    I don't agree with all of the conclusions here, but you don't have to agree with everything, right?, it is from Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) after all.
    Four Myths about Russian Grand Strategy
    https://www.csis.org/blogs/post-soviet-post/four-myths-about-russian-grand-strategy

    From The Guardian no less…
    The Soviet threat was a myth
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/19/russia.comment

    "The cold war began because of Russia's reluctance to allow independence to Poland. Stalin was held to have reneged on promises at Yalta. Roosevelt and Churchill had demanded that Poland be allowed a government that would be "free" and also "friendly to Russia". It was a dishonest formula. As recently as 1920, the two countries had been at war. No freely elected Polish government would be friendly to the USSR. Furthermore, as Stalin pointed out at Yalta, Russia had been twice invaded through Poland by Germany in 26 years, with devastating consequences. The invasion of 1941 had led to the deaths of 20 million Russians. Any postwar Russian government – communist, tsarist or social democratic – would have insisted on effective control at least of Poland, if not of larger areas of eastern Europe, as a buffer zone against future attacks."

    • Ad 4.1
      4 March 2021 at 12:33 pm

      Go on then, stretch your legs and do an actual post on Russia in the Next 5 Years if you're so obsessed. Spell out your Russia truths.

      You've got to do better than just recycling context-free quotes.

    • RedLogix 4.2
      4 March 2021 at 12:56 pm

      Adrian,

      Yup that CSIS link is a good one. Yes politics and ideology play their role in these matters – but in the long run it's geography and demography that more than anything else determine the fate of nations:

      Russia simultaneously abutted Europe, the Near East, and the Far East. Such a circumstance should have argued for caution in foreign policy. But Russia had tended to be expansionist precisely in the name of vulnerability: even as forces loyal to the tsar had seized territory, they imagined they were preempting attacks [by other great powers]. And once Russia had forcibly acquired a region, its officials invariably insisted they had to acquire the next one over, too, in order to be able to defend their original gains. A sense of destiny and insecurity combined in a heady mix.

      …

      If this argument is correct—that Russia’s strategic worldview is driven by a deep sense of insecurity and a threat of encirclement rather than the ideology of its current leaders—we must acknowledge an uncomfortable reality about the future. One day, Russia’s current leaders—Putin included—will no longer rule the country. But Russia’s geography and geopolitical realities will remain unchanged …

      Historically the Russian people have occupied a peculiarly vulnerable territory, lacking defined hard borders, they have been invaded repeatedly over the centuries. Arguably the only reason their culture has survived this long has been their oldest enemy and best ally at the same time – their ferocious winter. A winter that has repeatedly repelled outsiders ill-prepared for it.

      But otherwise the wide open steppes and flatlands of the motherland were impossible to defend, so in response the Russian strategy has been to reach out to borders they believed they could defend. This meant expanding until they could reach the mountains of Central Asia, the Caucasus's to the south and the Carpathian's to the west. Normally absorbing so much territory would increase the length of the borders to be defended – but in Russia's case it has the perverse incentive of reducing them.

      This is the underlying, irreducible geography that is essential to understanding Russia, a combination of a realistic fear of invasion, combined with a map that demands they expand in order to counter that fear.

      • Adrian Thornton 4.2.1
        4 March 2021 at 4:33 pm

        "This is the underlying, irreducible geography that is essential to understanding Russia, a combination of a realistic fear of invasion, combined with a map that demands they expand in order to counter that fear."

        I agree with your conclusion, except that it seems that the word expansion in the context of todays Russia doesn't really hold up, surely it could be more accurately described as maintaining a buffer to offset a "realistic fear of invasion"?
        Russia hasn't been expansionist out side of the historical and usual contested buffer territories on it's boarders over the past 30-40 years as far as I know…though I could stand to be corrected, I am no expert.

        • RedLogix 4.2.1.1
          4 March 2021 at 4:43 pm

          Think of them as less than "buffer zones" and more like establishing "defendable borders". It's far easier to find the manpower to deal to a relatively short section of flat land between two geographic barriers, than to hold a line thousands of km long in the wide open flatlands.

          The Sulwaki Gap is a good example of this in action.

          • McFlock 4.2.1.1.1
            4 March 2021 at 5:32 pm

            Two points:

            If the objective were to simply find the most convenient defensible border positions for Russia, there was no reason to occupy Poland or East Germany.

            Russia has had the solution to defending the plains for centuries: scorched earth, and retreat slowly enough for their two key generals to get cracking- General Mud and General Winter. But it still doesn't hurt to have a decent buffer.

            • RedLogix 4.2.1.1.1.1
              4 March 2021 at 9:07 pm

              Maybe look at a map with contour lines. I specifically mentioned the Carpathians and the Caucasus mountains as desirable 'defendable borders'. As the Afghanis have demonstrated over and again, difficult terrain plays to the advantage of the home team every time.

              • McFlock …
                4 March 2021 at 10:48 pm

                How far do the Carpathians go into East Germany?

                • RedLogix …
                  4 March 2021 at 11:42 pm

                  It's extremely improbable that Russia would be interested to extend that far into Germany. (The converse is more likely in my view, but that's a whole other thread.)

                  At present the Russian 'western front' is over 5000km long, almost all in in wide open flatland. That's utterly impossible to defend against land based invasions, especially for a nation suffering from a demographic slump in the young adult generation which comprises any army. The old strategy of retreat and scorched earth is a desperately expensive one, a price Russia can not afford to pay again.

                  Of course the mountains I've named do not form a complete barrier, but they do reduce the open front dramatically. And on the Northern European Plain, the Vistula River makes for a feasible boundary.

                  • McFlock …
                    5 March 2021 at 12:17 am

                    No further territorial demands beyond the vistula, huh?

                    It's not theirs, anyway.

                    • RedLogix …
                      5 March 2021 at 1:10 am

                      It should be obvious that I'm addressing the underlying geopolitical drivers. I'll leave it to you to allocate all the correct rights and wrongs to history.

                    • McFlock …
                      5 March 2021 at 2:00 am

                      Meh.

                      Russia at the moment seems to think buffer states are largely the way to go. E.g. belorus, donbas, chechnya. Lucky for the poles.

                  • Stuart Munro …
                    5 March 2021 at 1:03 pm

                    strive to understand is the reasons why they made the decisions they did,

                    The banality of evil, and the dark places of the human heart, need no special consideration.

                    Our concepts of political right and wrong are founded on the consent or assent of individuals making up the state. When those liberties are taken away, the state is necessarily illegitimate, nor has any real world example lent much credibility to the myth of the benign dictator.

                • Adrian Thornton …
                  5 March 2021 at 12:19 am

                  @ McFlock
                  No reason to occupy East Germany?

                  Well I guess just after having over 26 million of it's citizens butchered, it's towns burned to the ground, it's major cities flattened and it's economy destroyed by the most brutal regime in the history of this planet, the Russians people might have felt that they deserved a bit of occupational as well as financial revenge at the very least…pretty hard position to argue with at the time I would assume?

                  Especially hard to argue with considering that the Russians had also just saved nearly the whole of Europe from Hitler's fascism with the blood of their people in quantities unfathomable to any of us today.

                  Now I am not saying I agreed with that occupation, because I don't, but as usual, and for reasons known only to yourself, you can't or won't bring any historical objectivity into your thoughts on Russia.
                  It is because of this inability to contextualize, that your thoughts on this subject remain and have ever only been one dimensional…thereby, sadly, offer nothing really to further the conversation…IMO that is.

                  • arkie …
                    5 March 2021 at 12:30 am

                    Mariya Vasilyevna Oktyabrskaya

                    …

                    After her husband was killed fighting in 1941, Oktyabrskaya sold her possessions to donate a tank for the war effort, and requested that she be allowed to drive it. She received and drove a T-34 medium tank

                    …

                    Oktyabrskaya proved her ability and bravery in battle, and was promoted to the rank of sergeant. After she died of wounds from battle in 1944, she was posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union's highest honor for bravery during combat. She was the first of only two female tank drivers to be awarded the title.

                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariya_Oktyabrskaya

                  • McFlock …
                    5 March 2021 at 12:36 am

                    OK, if we're going to look at “historical objectivity”, what about Poland in 1939?

                  • Stuart Munro …
                    5 March 2021 at 6:20 am

                    26 million of its citizens butchered

                    There was considerable Russian responsibility for the size of those casualty figures, not least of which lies in inflating the results, which does nothing to support your thesis – other sources put the number at 16 825 000.

                    inability to contextualize

                    There's a lot of it about – in your case recognizing that Molotov-Ribbentrop, with its division of Poland, constituted as manifest an assumption of risk as stepping into a boxing ring would for you.

                    • RedLogix …
                      5 March 2021 at 12:05 pm

                      I find myself rarely interested in re-litigating the rights and wrongs of history. After all:

                      "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart."

                      Solzhenitsyn

                      But what we can rightly strive to understand is the reasons why they made the decisions they did, why they acted as they did, and try to see the world through their eyes – in order perhaps to understand our own world better.

    • Stuart Munro 4.3
      4 March 2021 at 2:50 pm

      It is probably inadequate to attribute a complex political stance to a single cause like Polish independence. It was an embarrassment to Britain however, as Polish forces had joined them against Germany much as they had Napoleon a hundred and some years before. To be sure, there were significant anti-communist interests like US industrialists aligned against Russia with the fall of Germany. But Europe had had a taste of totalitarianism and was not persuaded that the Russian version was any more palatable than the German one.

      Britain was an old hand at the imperial game, and knew perfectly well that despotic regimes like Russia's were ripe for replacement. But all countries were exhausted by the war, and their priority was rebuilding. Russian expansionism, in the form of the permanent occupation of East Germany, looked not too dissimilar from the Nazi occupation of other small countries. They tolerated it because there was little public enthusiasm for defending Germany or prolonging the war. But it was an invidious compromise, with a state that routinely oppressed its subjects.

  5. RedBaronCV 5
    4 March 2021 at 11:43 am

    I found this an interesting story. Permanent employee visa due to expire and the company feels it will not be renewed looks to hire a local. Is the answer for the company to give a lot of notice that it won't support a visa renewal so employment ceases when the visa runs out? Or does it have an obligation to support the visa application up to a point and wait for immigration to turn it down? The recruitment notification was issued in Nov 20 for a Jan 21 search? That does see like reasonable forwarning

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/124406551/restaurant-brands-ordered-to-pay-former-worker-18k-for-unjustifiable-dismissal

    • Craig H 5.1
      4 March 2021 at 3:01 pm

      It's not stated in the article what work visa category it was, but the information suggests it was one of the labour-market tested visa categories, so Restaurant Brands are required to make genuine attempts to recruit a NZ citizen/resident each time one of their potential or current employees applies for a visa. That's a full scale recruitment effort with advertising etc.

      I think the more likely problem is hinted at the end of the article where it says they dismissed him before his visa expired while he was still legally able to work, rather than attempting to support him through application process.

      • RedBaronCV 5.1.1
        5 March 2021 at 1:35 am

        So the take away is that the business

        • must advertise for a local and they do appear to have found one

        -but must also support the visa application extension when they have the local alternative lined up so they can't really support it because it fails the work test ?

        • but they need to let a person work until the actual visa expiry date – which I can understand.

        Still sounds like a mess – can someone be a permanent employee when they are on a time limited visa. My head swims. Still it’s not a firm I have a lot of sympathy for.

  6. Adrian Thornton 6
    4 March 2021 at 1:43 pm

    Interesting piece from Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, worth a few minute to read, especially for a few of the 'lefties' around these parts…

    Humanitarian Imperialism

    How corporate media sell regime change, Intervention and war to progressive audiences

    "Media are experts in using progressives’ empathy and compassion against them, presenting them carefully selected images and stories of suffering around the world, and suggesting that US military power can be used to alleviate it. As such, intervention is sold to the US left less on the basis of fear than of pity."

  7. McFlock 7
    4 March 2021 at 4:11 pm

    can't-sell culture strikes again. NZME editors publish an opinion piece, only to discover that it is "unacceptable" to the degree that the contributor will no longer appear on their platforms.

    I mean, it's difficult being a content editor these days. One can't even publish the innocent opinions of tory racists without risking that what you hoped would be click-baiting dogwhistles turn out to be explicit racism that damages your advertisers' revenue.

    • RedLogix 7.1
      4 March 2021 at 9:50 pm

      It's an easy route to self righteousness to have an enemy – they make a convenient totem on which to place all evil.

      • McFlock 7.1.1
        4 March 2021 at 10:52 pm

        Dunno about all that, but it seems as if advertisers think racism doesn't sell product like it used to.

  8. greywarshark 8
    4 March 2021 at 5:20 pm

    There is an obvious need for women supporting women. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/431299/gassed-in-their-cells-begging-for-food-at-auckland-women-s-prison

    These prisoners need TLC. It's time for some letters to Corrections and the token woman at the top here. Time for Corrections to be corrected themselves. Government looking for cheap bargains in delovering (sic) services get cheap results. To follow that logic, we should put government up for tender every three years. We aren't getting satisfactory action from present pollie system – jam tomorrow, or are we out permanently Mum?

    • dv 8.1
      4 March 2021 at 5:42 pm

      Geez that's a distressing read.

    • Treetop 8.2
      4 March 2021 at 8:14 pm

      It appears as though full force was always applied when it did not need to be applied. Corrections used no tact when it came to choosing a method which would not be the most humiliating. Not asking a person to stand against a wall to deliver food through a hatch compared to lying face down on the ground is an example. The situation has snowballed and the judge is the circuit breaker. Addressing the PTSD will uncover how the world is seen. Regaining trust will take time.

  9. Morrissey 9
    4 March 2021 at 6:03 pm

    About time.

    But how come the equally notorious Mike Hosking is still being published by this discredited outfit?

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018786126/nzme-pulls-racism-article-and-bans-bassett

  10. georgecom 10
    4 March 2021 at 8:09 pm

    On Staying at home, a self of entitlement and the Tamaki's.

    As I have stated before, the bloke who went to the Gym and Polytech on or around the day he also had a covid test strikes me as being fool hardly, irresponsible and seemingly done with a sense of self entitlement. Likewise 2 women going for a walk under level 3 requirements was fool hardy and irresponsible. It might have been naive if they thought they were allowed to, or self entitled if they decided to flout the rules. Stay home when you are required to.

    Any Aucklander madly rushing to exit the city to go to their beach house prior to level 3 restrictions is also irresponsible, reckless and seemingly done with a sense of self entitlement. Stay in Auckland when you are required to.

    I see in the news the Tamaki's fled Auckland to be with a congregation in Rotorua. Again, fool hardy, irresponsible and done with a sense of self entitlement. Stay in Auckland.

    The justifications for doing such were apparently their ministry demanded they must be in Rotorua. I assume they have a Pastor in that city. I assume they are a perfectly competent and genuine pastor who can lead that congregation. I assume the Tamaki's are not in Rotorua every weekend. Hence why the need to rush out of Auckland when someone competent is available to minister to that congregation.

    It's better for them to be in Rotorua was what they are quoted as saying. Better for the congregation they were in Rotorua, or better for the Tamaki's bank balance? There was it seems an "alter call for cash". If you 'give, give, give' God will give you a blessing, a "Jubilee". Maybe a brand new Tesla car like Hannah Tamaki bought herself.

    My following comments are not about the Tamaki's fleeing Auckland. It is pretty apparent what they should have done, stayed in Auckland, done the right thing. These are comments about this notion of chasing cash. I term it games show christianity. A flash slick games show host and the prize that maybe someone could win a car. Wheel of Fortune, Who wants to be a Millionaire, The Chase, The X Factor, Destiny Alter Call For Cash.

    If you go back to the bible you find some interesting things. John the Baptist lived in the wilderness and ate locusts and wild honey. He baptised Jesus. He didn't have a big house. The greatest Apostle, Paul, was an itinerant tent maker who I suspect didn't die a rich man. He didn't drive a Tesla or ride a Harley Davidson. Paul, formerly a Roman commander who presumably could have lived a comfortable life, he forsook that for ministry. Biblical leaders were not wealthy nor blessed with physical riches.

    • georgecom 10.1
      4 March 2021 at 8:21 pm

      correction. Paul not a roman commander but rather a Jew whose status and connections could have presumably provided a comfortable living, forsook that for the ministry with no promises of riches or abundance

      • arkie 10.1.1
        4 March 2021 at 8:29 pm

        The Rich and the Kingdom of God

        A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

        “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”

        “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.

        When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

        When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

        https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+18%3A18-18%3A25

    • Treetop 10.2
      4 March 2021 at 8:26 pm

      It sounds like a good idea to do targeting Covid-19 testing in every region.

      I would look at the following, bus drivers, taxi drivers, bar workers, domestic air crew and shops in malls.

      • RosieLee 10.2.1
        4 March 2021 at 8:39 pm

        And what about teachers? Cooped up in a confined space with around 30 kids?

        Or – the "modern learning environment" where there may be over 100.

        • Treetop 10.2.1.1
          4 March 2021 at 9:50 pm

          I intended to include teachers, thanks for mentioning them. Hair stylists and dentists as well.

      • georgecom 10.2.2
        4 March 2021 at 11:12 pm

        bus drivers, taxi drivers, bar workers…….self annointed Apostles

        • Treetop 10.2.2.1
          5 March 2021 at 9:02 am

          Back then it would have been those leading the donkey with the passenger and calling into the inn for a mead.

    • gsays 10.3
      4 March 2021 at 8:59 pm

      I heard Bishop Tamaki on Checkpoint this evening.

      He spoke more of Mammon than God.

      'Being in the people changing business'.

      'The strain on the economy'.

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018786152/brian-tamaki-responds-to-criticism-after-leaving-auckland-on-eve-of-lockdown

  11. peter sim 11
    4 March 2021 at 8:38 pm

    pandemics can have a cleansing effect on wooly thinking.

    global warming is very emetic.

    we live in "interesting times", allegedly an ancient chinese curse wished upon those they disliked.

    economists beware

    hubris is fatal

    [TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]

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