Open mike 05/07/2020

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 5th, 2020 - 190 comments
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Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

190 comments on “Open mike 05/07/2020 ”

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  1. Dennis Frank 1
    5 July 2020 at 6:41 am

    Slate offers seven reasons why Trump seems doomed: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/trump-biden-2020-polling-demographics-voters-enthusiasm.html?via=features

    1. The white-collar realignment

    2. The senior vote

    3. The overrated Trump enthusiasm edge

    4. Trump’s edge on the economy

    5. Honesty

    6. The white evangelical vote

    7. White working-class women

    Why is Trump losing so badly? Because no one likes him, duh. Uh, we mean, it’s very complex …

    The writer explains each of the seven quite well in a concise paragraph, and produces a persuasive view via his synthesis.

    • Instauration 1.1
      5 July 2020 at 7:16 pm

      But if Neil Young was "Canadian" – he was already "American" – just like my Colombian whanau – of the "America's"

      America is not a country.

  2. Dennis Frank 2
    5 July 2020 at 6:45 am

    Canadian rock veteran Neil Young has acquired American citizenship, and is using it to have a go at one of his fans: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/neil-young-letter-trump-954835/

    Neil Young has never hidden his contempt for Donald Trump, but now that he’s officially an American citizen, he’s raising his voice even louder. “You are a disgrace to my country,” Young writes in a long, scathing open letter to Trump on his Neil Young Archives website. “Your mindless destruction of our shared natural resources, our environment, and our relationships with friends around the world is unforgivable.

    Somewhat ironically, Trump is a big fan of Young’s music. In 2008, Rolling Stone phoned up Trump after noticing him at three of Young’s concerts over the past couple of years. At one of them, a CSNY show at the Theater at Madison Square Garden, he sat next to Patti Smith and Salman Rushdie, and stayed for the entire show.

    “He’s got something very special,” Trump told us. “I’ve listened to his music for years and I’ve seen him before that, but I went to the concert where they were honoring Bob Dylan years ago at Madison Square Garden [Bob Fest 10/16/92], and Neil got up and totally brought the house down. There was nobody close. He’s performed for me at my casinos over the years, and he just brings it down. I’ve met him on occasions and he’s a terrific guy.”

    • Instauration 2.1
      5 July 2020 at 6:52 pm

      "Canadian rock veteran Neil Young has acquired American citizenship"

      Wrong – "American citizenship" does not exist. It is not something that anyone has or can aquire.

      America is not a country.

      [Fixed typo in e-mail address]

  3. Ad 3
    5 July 2020 at 6:49 am

    It's worth going through the full script of President Trump's speech at Mt Rushmore yesterday:

    https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-mount-rushmore-independence-day-july-3-2020

    Here's some bits that need attention:

    "Make no mistake: this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing, they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress."

    …

    "Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but that were villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies — all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted, and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition."

    …

    "Those who seek to erase our heritage want Americans to forget our pride and our great dignity, so that we can no longer understand ourselves or America's destiny. In toppling the heroes of 1776, they seek to dissolve the bonds of love and loyalty that we feel for our country, and that we feel for each other. Their goal is not a better America, their goal is the end of America."

    …

    "Americans are the people who pursued our Manifest Destiny across the ocean, into the uncharted wilderness, over the tallest mountains, and then into the skies and even into the stars."

    …

    "Uplifted by the titans of Mount Rushmore, we will find unity that no one expected; we will make strides that no one thought possible. This country will be everything that our citizens have hoped for, for so many years, and that our enemies fear — because we will never forget that American freedom exists for American greatness. And that's what we have: American greatness."

    (yep, that's what he said. ahem)

    Trump and his propagandists want to convert disorder to his advantage.

    That's obvious enough. But the true nature of it is often shrouded in euphemisms. But it gets much clearer in this speech.

    Trump and his propagandists are actively trying to engineer violent civil conflict, by signaling to white Americans that they are under siege in a race war that they're losing.

    The rub is that this signaling requires actually saying this in one form or another. Defending monolithic white patriarchy like he has done is making official his actual intended meanings when he does things like tweet out supporters yelling "white power."

    Trump and his propagandists want a lot of white Americans to think they need to take sides in a race war. So in this context, these set of signals yesterday make the speech pretty important.

    • Dennis Frank 3.1
      5 July 2020 at 9:28 am

      Easily disposed of. Just point to the "heroic assumptions". Works real good. 😉

      • Ad 3.1.1
        5 July 2020 at 9:33 am

        I watched the whole speech this morning.

        It was like a re-run of The Man In The High Castle.

        After al who needs Speer's Cathedral of light when the USA has had massive fascist rallies before:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq9yst4W-6c

        • aj 3.1.1.1
          5 July 2020 at 10:52 am

          I find that short clip terrifying. The following clip looks very interesting and I intend to save it for a rainy afternoon. (could be today here in the south..!)

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOPGpE-sXh0

          • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.1.1
            5 July 2020 at 4:11 pm

            I'm ten minutes in and its looking interesting so far. He's starting to address how leaders and politicians lie so as to control the narrative.

        • Dennis Frank 3.1.1.2
          5 July 2020 at 11:21 am

          I watched the whole speech this morning

          Tendencies toward masochism are alarming! Or is it just `know your enemy'? Forewarned is fore-armed? I just see a narcissist desperately trying to rally his deserting troops: much ado about nothing. He failed the character test and also failed the intelligence test, so he's on a slide into the dustbin of history.

          It was clever to become president on his anti-establishment rebel stance, but holding it this long is too much of a gamble, I reckon. I'm anti-establishment, but there's a time to be careful and go with the flow. He ought to moderate fast!

          • Patricia Bremner 3.1.1.2.1
            5 July 2020 at 3:34 pm

            IMO Trump can not moderate his behaviour or views. He has lived a life of excess and thinks that is normal.

            • Dennis Frank 3.1.1.2.1.1
              5 July 2020 at 4:19 pm

              Yes, I agree, but I think his re-election prospects depend on him getting himself under control and presenting as not a clown, and not so partisan.

    • Anne 3.2
      5 July 2020 at 10:43 am

      It has long been my contention that should Trump lose the presidential election, there will be violence across America the like of what has never been seen before. And it will be the ethnic races who will bear the brunt.

      I hope and pray he loses despite the consequences.

      • Treetop 3.2.1
        5 July 2020 at 12:16 pm

        In Washington on 28 August there is going to be a march in Washington led by Rev Sharpton. This will be another moment in history which will be on par with Martin Luther King's speech "I have a dream." I am looking forward to hearing what Rev Sharpton's message is, I know it will be about injustice.

        King knew that using violence was not the answer to change racism. African American's have the right to not have lethal violence used against them by law inforcement.

        • RedLogix 3.2.1.1
          5 July 2020 at 12:38 pm

          African American's have the right to not have lethal violence used against them by law inforcement.

          In 2019 just 54 unarmed Americans were killed by the police. 19 of them were black. In a nation of 350m people a black man is more likely to be killed by lightening than by a policeman in egregious circumstances.

          What's more the media has made certain you know many names of the black men killed … but absolute silence on the white men.

          You have fallen for a moral panic.

          • Treetop 3.2.1.1.1
            5 July 2020 at 12:56 pm

            All lives matter. One unarmed person being killed is one to many.

            As for your stats of unarmed murders no one knows the actual tally.

            • I Feel Love 3.2.1.1.1.1
              5 July 2020 at 1:03 pm

              oh for sure, this happens to us white guys all the time, (in all my 46 years of being alive, I haven't even had a cop look at me sideways) … https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/04/police-smash-car-window-ryan-colaco-tv-interview-racism

              • RedLogix …
                5 July 2020 at 1:15 pm

                Without googling on it you cannot name one single white or hispanic man killed by the US police in the past decade. It's not because there are none; there are at least three times as many of them as black men.

                Why do you think this is?

              • Treetop …
                5 July 2020 at 1:38 pm

                The quote in the link "Justice starts with uncovering the truth."

            • RedLogix 3.2.1.1.1.2
              5 July 2020 at 1:10 pm

              All lives matter. One unarmed person being killed is one to many.

              The general crime trend has been in the right direction for several decades, and the overall numbers of bad faith police killings has been reducing. This is good news BLM and the media will not tell you.

              But demanding that the number of these tragic events be reduced to zero, and setting in motion demands for a totalitarian cultural revolution and massive disruption in response is utterly misdirected.

              It's called the Perfection Fallacy, demanding all suffering must be eliminated, and then throwing a destructive tantrum because the world doesn't deliver.

          • francesca 3.2.1.1.2
            5 July 2020 at 3:16 pm

            What do you mean lightening

            Bleach gone wrong?

          • Drowsy M. Kram 3.2.1.1.3
            5 July 2020 at 3:58 pm

            “In 2019 just 54 unarmed Americans were killed by the police.” – RL

            And, in 2020, "For African Americans, the [Covid-19] mortality rate is at least 2-fold higher than any other racial group in the United States, and notably, mortality rates are lowest among Caucasian Americans."
            https://www.targetedonc.com/view/covid-19-death-toll-in-nyc-calls-attention-to-racial-disparities

            Not suggesting Covid-19's racist, but something is going on. Systemic racism has a long 'tail'. The ripples of sickening acts of racial violence (such as the Tulsa race massacre), and systemic racism (such as the Jim Crow laws), are still spreading, even if some can't or won’t see them.

    • weka 3.3
      5 July 2020 at 10:54 am

      do you know who would have written that speech? One mighty dogwhistle.

      I agree, shit is on the verge of getting seriously ugly in the US. Your comment would make a good post.

      • weka 3.3.1
        5 July 2020 at 10:55 am

        what are the implications for NZ if this goes much further?

        • Ad 3.3.1.1
          5 July 2020 at 11:22 am

          I would be pushing Ardern to get up on to the global podims (podia?) and remind the world of the strengths and virtues of tolerance, global co-operation, and effective public policy. The virtue card is hers to play if she wants to amplify our strengths to the world.

          Meantime, if Trump is re-elected and a much stronger trade war occurs between the USA and China, my advice would be Janus-faced:

          – Secure and expand your trade links with Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan and China. Accelerate RCEP real fast.

          – Negotiate a much deeper defence agreement with Australia. For example basing more of our Navy and Army in Darwin.

          Just an intensification of what we're doing already.

          • SPC 3.3.1.1.1
            5 July 2020 at 11:31 am

            Re RCEP, China has recently changed tack and wants to join TPP.

            The question there is the position of Canada, Japan and Oz to this.

            • Sacha 3.3.1.1.1.1
              5 July 2020 at 11:34 am

              Any problem with NZ belonging to both TPP and RCEP?

              • SPC …
                5 July 2020 at 11:37 am

                No. China wants RCEP but has issues with India, so TPP may now be easier – if Canada, Oz and Japan overlook their issues with China.

                • Sacha …
                  5 July 2020 at 11:38 am

                  I wonder if China will be using TPP mainly as a forum to have a go at the US.

                  • SPC …
                    5 July 2020 at 11:46 am

                    It would be more a case of securing its trade interests, given its disputes with the USA.

                    But politically there is America removing itself from the international stage. China with its one belt and road planning to be its replacement.

                    Which raises the issue, for how much longer will the USA maintain carrier groups to secure freedom for trade across the seas. Their global internet companies do not need it. They have oil companies, but are self-sufficient in oil.

                    It’s only the EU dependence and NATO’s continuance and possibly their evangelicals love of the prophecy of Israel that is keeping them active.

                    Without either, would there be a carrier group and defence offered to Oz/Japan? China plans on reducing the USA to the eastern half of the Pacifi – just the Americas. Russia wants the USA out of Europe and the end of NATO.

                    • RedLogix …
                      5 July 2020 at 12:50 pm

                      That's it. The mistake most people make when thinking about the USA is they fail to look at things from their point of view.

                      The US never really wanted an empire, it was founded in act of rebellion from one. It never really needed an empire, it's trade with the wider world outside of North America was always modest compared to it's GDP. It really only created the post-WW2 order to build a coalition against Stalin and the Soviets and once that was over, they never really considered deeply what might come next.

                      Well the answer, that should bring joy to all of you who're so reflexively anti-US, is that eventually they lost interest and are going home. And in that all of the essential geopolitical pre-conditions that have made the modern world we know possible go with them.

                      China with its one belt and road planning to be its replacement.

                      The intention behind the effort is understandable, and if the rhetoric promoting it is to be taken at face value it's a praiseworthy goal. But the hard realities are that China is never going to be in a position to replace the US.

              • KJT …
                5 July 2020 at 3:50 pm

                Apart from the general issues with "Free trade agreements" and the extension of global corporate power. ..

      • JO 3.3.2
        5 July 2020 at 1:05 pm

        Stephen Miller & his team at the Presidential Ministry of Truth, also known to many, without the faintest shred of irony, as the White House.

        https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/us/politics/trump-mt-rushmore.html

        Sticking closely to the remarks on his teleprompter for both sets of remarks, with none of the joking and sarcastic asides that pepper his rally remarks, Mr. Trump delivered his speeches in a grim monotone that he often employs when reading from a script. His address had little of the celebration and joyfulness that presidents typically try to convey on the Fourth of July,

        The speeches were drafted for Mr. Trump by his regular team of writers in the West Wing, who are led by Stephen Miller. Campaign officials said Saturday that they thought the speeches struck the right note for the moment

        The last comment in this article, “you just keep trying things and hope something sticks” could also be said of some people in our own little land.

    • SPC 3.4
      5 July 2020 at 11:23 am

      I’ve already made my response over there.

      The Great White Hopes – Donald Trump and Pieta Botha.

      Botha Quotes On Leading South Africa

      The free world wants to feed South Africa to the Red Crocodile [communism] to appease its hunger."

      "The idea of an Afrikaner people as a cultural entity and religious group with a special language will be retained in South Africa as long as civilization stands."

      "The white people who came here lived at a very much higher standard than the indigenous peoples and with a very rich tradition, which they brought with them from Europe."

      "The security and happiness of all minority groups in South Africa depends on the Afrikaner."

      "Most blacks are happy, except those who have had other ideas pushed into their ears."

      "I am one of those who believe that there is no permanent home for even a section of the Bantu in the white area of South Africa, and the destiny of South Africa depends on this essential point. If the principle of permanent residence for the black man in the area of the white is accepted, then it is the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it in this country."

      "The people who are opposing the policy of apartheid have not the courage of their convictions. They do not marry non-Europeans."

      I've said many times that the word 'apartheid' means good neighborliness."

      "I never have the nagging doubt of wondering whether perhaps I am wrong."

      Trump's Mount Rushmore speech quotes

      "Make no mistake: this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing, they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress."

      "Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but that were villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies — all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted, and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition."

      "Those who seek to erase our heritage want Americans to forget our pride and our great dignity, so that we can no longer understand ourselves or America's destiny. In toppling the heroes of 1776, they seek to dissolve the bonds of love and loyalty that we feel for our country, and that we feel for each other. Their goal is not a better America, their goal is the end of America."

      "Americans are the people who pursued our Manifest Destiny across the ocean, into the uncharted wilderness, over the tallest mountains, and then into the skies and even into the stars."

      "Uplifted by the titans of Mount Rushmore, we will find unity that no one expected; we will make strides that no one thought possible. This country will be everything that our citizens have hoped for, for so many years, and that our enemies fear — because we will never forget that American freedom exists for American greatness. And that's what we have: American greatness."

      Non whites and the left are posed as a threat to the order of white man's rule, the natural order of their civilisation – apartheid and the American Revolutionary Republic.

      Once upon a time the Russian serf was great because the Tsar's Russia was great (or today Putin). Today white men without college degrees are being asked to serve their nation by preserving the civilisation that led to the statues of such as Jefferson Davis, to cater to the vainglory of that strongman poseur Donald John Drumpf.

      The true greatness of a revolutionary republic is that it allows the freedom enabling a democracy where all of its citizens have equal civil liberties to emerge and grow. And in its capacity to remove all tyrants and their tyranny.

    • millsy 3.5
      5 July 2020 at 11:49 am

      It is the duty of every US-ian who opposes Trump to vote for Biden in November. Even if he is not the candidate they want or doesnt have the manifesto they wish for.

      A better world can wait. Having another 4 years of Trump will pretty much lead to the USA reverting to what it was before the Civil War.

    • RedLogix 3.6
      5 July 2020 at 12:17 pm

      Trump and his propagandists are actively trying to engineer violent civil conflict, by signaling to white Americans that they are under siege in a race war that they're losing.

      It was BLM who started this race war your are ranting about, and made skin colour all important. Now the consequences of this neo-Maoist uprising are coming home, you whine about the inevitable backlash.

      This revolution demands everything changes and positions itself firmly in race.

      And in this it's functionally indistinguishable from the infamous Maoist attack on the 'Four Olds"

      The term "Four Old" first appeared on June 1, 1966, in Chen Boda's People's Daily editorial, "Sweep Away All Monsters and Demons", where the Old Things were described as anti-proletarian, "fostered by the exploiting classes, [and to] have poisoned the minds of the people for thousands of years". However, which customs, cultures, habits, and ideas specifically constituted the "Four Olds" were initially not clearly defined.

      On August 8, the Central Committee used the term at its 8th National Congress. The term was endorsed on August 18 by Lin Biao at a mass rally, and from there it spread to Red Flag magazine, as well as to Red Guard publications.

      Calls to destroy the "Four Olds" usually did not appear in isolation, but were contrasted with the hope of building the "Four News" (new customs, new culture, new habits, new ideas). The idea that Chinese culture was responsible for China's economic backwardness and needed to be reformed had some precedent in the May Fourth Movement

      The Four Old's were held to be:

      Old Ideas … tell people that everything they believe in and they way they do things is wrong, that the accumulated wisdom of the ancestors is oppressive

      Old Customs …. pull apart the social fabric, the celebrations, the social glue and isolate people

      Old Culture … remove the icons, the monuments, humiliate people for what they looked up to

      Old Values … eradicate the religious and ethical foundations of society

      The end result was of course a catastrophe; you should have a long conversation with someone Chinese who lived through it sometime.

      • millsy 3.6.1
        5 July 2020 at 12:34 pm

        I would say that Trump and his supporters are guilty of their own Cultural Revolution, in reverse, in that they wish to reimpose a patriarchial, puritan, racially homogenous, free market USA that was in existence before Civil Rights movement, the Sexual Revolution and the New Deal. Trump is a anti-Mao, and his supporters are the Red Gaurds.

        Anyway, isnt it Trump's Christian Taliban who are trying to erase evolution from the high school curriculum.

        Personally, I actually agree with China's Cultural Revolution. I think we need an equivalent in the west, and the churches need to be targets first.

      • I Feel Love 3.6.2
        5 July 2020 at 1:07 pm

        BLM did not start this race war, what a cretinous thing to say. For blacks, this has been going on since they were forcibly removed from Africa, the Civil War, the Tulsa massacre, Jim Crow, Civil Rights, etc, just because white people have suddenly became aware and are supporting the movement doesn't mean this has started now.

        • RedLogix 3.6.2.1
          5 July 2020 at 1:23 pm

          For blacks, this has been going on since they were forcibly removed from Africa, the Civil War, the Tulsa massacre, Jim Crow, Civil Rights,

          Not one single person alive participated in any of the these events. Arguably the USA is now one of the least racist places on earth, certainly large numbers of people of colour want to migrate there, and when they do, they often do very well.

          The two migrant groups most interesting from this perspective are black Jamaican's and Nigerians. Both groups have completely different social outcomes from Black Americans, yet from an appearance point of view they are completely indistinguishable. If the US was irredeemably racist this would be an impossible outcome.

          And your mention of the Civil War is ironic. The US is the only nation in history to have fought a war to end slavery.

          • millsy 3.6.2.1.1
            5 July 2020 at 1:39 pm

            I would say that Nigerians and Jamaicans are harrased by police also.

            Anyway, those two groups are very patriarchial and reactionary.

            LGBT and women in those communities fare a lot worse than then do in white communities, due to their strong puritan Christian beliefs.

            • RedLogix 3.6.2.1.1.1
              5 July 2020 at 2:13 pm

              Anyway, those two groups are very patriarchial and reactionary.

              The secret is simple, they form stable families, they make sacrifices to gain an education, and they have the personal discipline to build careers and incomes.

              In the Nigerian community the story goes that a teenager finishing high school is given a choice "Doctor, lawyer or engineer?"

              Yes there is good reason to think that from time to time they experience forms of race based discrimination, but it's at the margins. It doesn't hold them back. It doesn't become the defining feature of their lives.

              • maggieinnz …
                10 July 2020 at 6:00 pm

                The secret is simple, they form stable families, they make sacrifices to gain an education, and they have the personal discipline to build careers and incomes.

                In the Nigerian community the story goes that a teenager finishing high school is given a choice "Doctor, lawyer or engineer?"

                Yes there is good reason to think that from time to time they experience forms of race based discrimination, but it's at the margins. It doesn't hold them back. It doesn't become the defining feature of their lives.

                It's interesting that you bring up Nigerian-Americans and even more interesting that you assume their "success" is due to a "simple" secret sauce of stable families, sacrifices to gain education and personal discipline.

                Nigerian family culture is one built on shame and authoritarian control where status is everything. Young Nigerians don't have choices beyond the three career options and what's more, if you don't succeed in gaining a Masters or Doctorate you're considered a disgrace to your family.

                These young people aren't choosing to make sacrifices, they aren't exhibiting good self-control, they're in a continual state of fear where their connection to their community hangs by an academic thread. Their compliance is gained through violence (60% of all Nigerians experienced familial violence, domestic violence stands at around 43%, sexual abuse 36%) and shaming. Is this what you mean by "stable families"?

                It's naive to suggest they are simply happy campers making the most of American opportunities. This pattern of status seeking via education is the very same as is seen in their native homeland. What's more, 3/4 of the Nigerian-American population are first generation immigrants which means they've not suffered the generational effects of systemic racism in a predominantly white country.

                Given they foster a culture of silence where grievances are never air publicly it's not surprising that you won't hear them complain of abuse – either familial, social or institutional but that doesn't mean they aren't harmed by it. The consequences of life-long stress are felt later in life where health can no longer ameliorate the costs. Diabetes, heart disease, depression etc are well-document outcomes for highly stressed immigrants whose lives are framed by fear.

                Consider this article and its counter perspective where driving success in kids is said to be best achieved by enforcing the ideas of superiority, insecurity, and impulse-control in the most extreme ways. Things such as threatening to burn your kids toys if they fail a test, banning frivolous activities such as sleepovers and play-dates whilst reminding your kids every day that your parental affection is earned, not freely given are considered necessary to induce sufficient fear of failure.

                But you're right. It works. It works just like dread-gaming works on the wives of red-pilled men who want more sex in their relationships even if it means inducing PTSD in their partners.

          • The Al1en 3.6.2.1.2
            5 July 2020 at 1:40 pm

            You're cracked if you think the usa is one of the least racist places on earth, that no living people remember segregation or the Tulsa atrocities, and institutional racism doesn't occur on a daily basis by the state to black people and other minorities.

            To me, this is like a climate change denier spreading falsehoods all over the standard, like a massive group troll. In that instance I think moderators would step in and at least order an end of that line of posting when they see it for what it is.

            So, any chance this loony toons type of baiting can be reigned in?

            • RedLogix 3.6.2.1.2.1
              5 July 2020 at 2:00 pm

              I carefully did not say there is no racism … there is of course. But using events from many decades in the past to justify claims in the present is fundamentally flawed. From a race perspective the USA has changed dramatically in the past 40 odd years. The mere fact of Obama's Presidency, something unthinkable even in the 1960's is evidence of this.

              and institutional racism doesn't occur on a daily basis by the state to black people and other minorities.

              Please point to any current state legislation or policy that explicitly discriminates on the basis of race. (Well there are plenty of affirmative action policies, but for the sake of argument let's set them aside.) There are none of any significance, and if there were it would certain we would be hearing about them in the current climate.

              This doesn't say that personal race bias does not exist; in-group preference is a normal human instinct, but most people realise it's something that can be controlled and minimised. There will of course be some people who are frank supremacists and bigots, but in modern America they are not common, and usually hold little power.

              Again I’m not arguing for any kind of perfection, all nations, all people stand to make progress on racism. But to argue the USA is somehow uniquely, irredeemably sinful on this count and must undergo root and branch revolution does not withstand much rational scrutiny.

              So, any chance this loony toons type of baiting can be reigned in?

              Appealing to the moderator to silence an argument you don't like is a transparent ploy. You'll think it quite smart until the day arrives when someone else tries it on you.

              • The Al1en …
                5 July 2020 at 2:16 pm

                It's not an appeal to prevent discussion to silence an argument I don't like, it's an appeal to act in a similar manner to how climate change deniers and flat earther trolls are dealt with here.

                I'm confident I won't post lies like the usa is one of the least racist countries on the planet or black lives matter started the race war, so until then, I'm resting easy.

                Even though you are neither

                25 simple charts to show friends and family who aren't convinced racism is still a problem in America

                https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/08/understanding-racism-inequality-america/?arc404=true

                and
                https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/158-resources-understanding-systemic-racism-america-180975029/

                • RedLogix …
                  5 July 2020 at 2:42 pm

                  A quick scan of those resources show they all make the same methodological error. They start with the assumption that racism is the problem, and then attribute all disparities to this and this cause only.

                  It's the same error made when the left claimed that women were paid a number like 20% less than men, and attributed this solely to sexism.

                  When in fact when you do the multi-factorial analysis, and consider all the different choices men and women make in the workplace, even when they are paid at exactly the same rate for the same work, women will tend to earn somewhat less than men over a lifetime. There are lots of reasons for this. And yes the results also typically show some residual bias due to unjustified sexism … but it's not the whole cause of the discrepancy.

                  Again no-one is saying modern USA is free of racism, that would be an absurd claim. No nation is. But to attribute this entirely to the reason why Black American's continue to lag as a whole group, behind other ethnicities is highly reductionist and unhelpful. And especially dangerous when used as justification for a race based revolution.

                  This is my deep moral objection to the anti-racism brigade. They impose the ideologue's false binary, that you are either anti-racist or you are racist; the old you are 'either you are with us or against us' trope. Martin Luther King's dream of the non-racist brotherhood, the path where your skin colour doesn't matter, that what counts is your character has been taken off the table.

                • Incognito …
                  5 July 2020 at 2:53 pm

                  Just saw this.

                  RL is neither a racism denier nor a troll. RL puts up long considered arguments that are sometimes complex on controversial topics. RL’s opinion is often perceived as controversial and antagonistic. It is not for the faint-hearted debating with RL. As a Moderator I watch those long threads that sometimes get rather heated and sometimes go close to the line but I rarely (have to) interfere or warn rather and can let robust debate take its course.

                  Moderators are not Troll Police; the commentariat is the main line of defence and pushback.

                  • The Al1en …
                    5 July 2020 at 3:00 pm

                    If you're okay (and other mods) with him posting black lives matter started the race war, the usa is one of the least racist countries on the planet, and other 'all lives matter' tropes, then who am I to argue against bollox lies?

                    Gone til you up your game. yes

                    • te reo putake …
                      5 July 2020 at 3:09 pm

                      Hey, bud. Walking away is not the answer.

                      TS has all sorts of authors, including one supposed lefty whose love of brutal dictatorships and whacko conspiracies theories always makes me cringe. And then there was CV, who was on a whole 'nother level.

                      RL is a racist, in my opinion. He just tries to intellectualise his right wing ramblings to make it feel reasonable in his own head. But hey, that's his problem, mostly. The rest of us are better than that.

                      Good on you for calling him out and please keep doing it. Or go to the movies instead (see the White Riot post!)

                    • Incognito …
                      5 July 2020 at 3:22 pm

                      Sad to hear that and I hope you’ll change your mind 🙁

                      For the record, it is not my place to moderate genuine opinions when people go through considerable effort to explain and support them. I try to be an as good a Moderator as I can be and not a Censor.

                      As I said, it us up to other commenters to engage in debate. I fail to see how one commenter can spoil your experience on this site that you feel you have to leave. I think it was a bit uncalled for try make it my problem and tell me that I should up my game surprise

                      Other Moderators may have a different view on RL and may comment on this thread.

                    • RedLogix …
                      5 July 2020 at 3:49 pm

                      RL is a racist, in my opinion.

                      Actually no. What you don't like is that I refuse to be made guilty for history I did not take part in, nor sins I did not commit.

                      This was a lesson sternly taught me by a very remarkable kaumatua in the early 80's. Ephraim Te Paa. There is a picture of him on this page.

                      Otherwise the same false binary, that if you don't agree with a radical anti-racism ideology that makes skin colour central to everything, then I must be a racist.

                    • The Al1en …
                      5 July 2020 at 3:59 pm

                      I appreciate your reply, but to expand upon it, it isn't about engaging in robust debate – which I like, it's about refuting racism and the lies that go with it (as outlined above). It's one thing to have an opinion, two to be able to voice it, but third not to have it shared amongst people who on the whole, reject, oppose and discredit it.

                      Replace racism, BLM and RL, with climate change denial (for example), and the usual response 9/10 times will result in the same consequences. At the very least a member will be warned not to carry on with the same line of bullshit.

                      It's not a them or me situation, and I don't want it viewed that way, so the simplest thing to do if RL isn't deemed to be in need of moderation in this instance, on this topic, rather than carry on a long and futile ream of claim and defensive counter claim posts and more racist justifications and clarifications, is to opt not to engage on a site where it's tolerated.

                    • Incognito []
                      5 July 2020 at 11:32 pm

                      Thank you for your considered reply. To cut to the chase, I see it differently but I am but one Moderator here.

                      … but third not to have it [an opinion] shared amongst people who on the whole, reject, oppose and discredit it [an opinion].

                      Stating a different opinion and disagreeing is not the same as discrediting it although the disagreeing party might think so. Many heated debates here never get truly settled because neither party is looking for common ground let alone consensus (or a synthesis of thesis and anti-thesis). The general approach often seems to be adversarial, opposing & hostile (sometimes aggressively so), and antagonistic. The (sought) outcome is inevitably binary, e.g. right or wrong, racist or not racist (non-racist).

                      CC is a bad example IMO because it deals with complex physics and (mathematical) models. BLM is none of that, AFAIK. CC deniers are usually crap at arguing their point and comment like trolls, which they often are. Some anti-vaxxers can be quite good. Moderators don’t lead or steer the commentary. They only jump in when things tend to get out of control. The less you see of Moderators, the better.

                      You can opt not to engage with RL on this topic or you can opt not to engage with the site at all. The choice is yours and you can always change your mind. You have that luxury. I have made and renewed my commitment to the site, which I tend to do on a regular basis, and I will keep it until I change my mind. Quite recently, I had a gut’s full and almost walked away from TS. We all have to do what we think is the right thing to do under the present circumstances.

                    • te reo putake …
                      5 July 2020 at 4:10 pm

                      Actually, yes, yes you are.

                      Your white privilege stinks. You don't get to delete uncomfortable history, cobber. That kind of colonialist thinking has had its day.

                      And 'my best friend is a maori' isn't the brilliant defence you think it is, you nimrod.

                    • RedLogix []
                      5 July 2020 at 4:37 pm

                      He passed away in 1990. I attended his tangi. He was never a friend, rather someone I admired a great deal.

                      These discussions are not new, and much of what I heard Ephraim say was highly prescient.

                    • te reo putake …
                      5 July 2020 at 4:44 pm

                      God, you're dim. Deep words, shallow thinking.

                    • Morrissey …
                      5 July 2020 at 5:56 pm

                      … including one supposed lefty whose love of brutal dictatorships and whacko conspiracies theories always makes me cringe. —te reo putake at 3:09 p.m.

                      That sounds intriguing. Could you provide us with some detail please?

                    • Incognito []
                      5 July 2020 at 9:36 pm

                      @ TRP 2020/07/05 at 7:58 pm:

                      Thank you!

                    • McFlock …
                      5 July 2020 at 8:54 pm

                      RL reminds me a bit of this one-two from Hidden Figures:

                      Vivian Mitchell : Despite what you may think, I have nothing against y'all.

                      Dorothy Vaughan : I know, I know you probably believe that.

                  • RedLogix …
                    5 July 2020 at 3:09 pm

                    I do understand these discussions are controversial and I try to conduct them respectfully. Much of my argument actually comes from a range of American black voices who are speaking out against the BLM inspired anti-racist ideology.

                    I've made my case for the time being, I'll leave it there for today.

                    • Incognito …
                      5 July 2020 at 3:54 pm

                      Your comments can be a bit much for some at times and they get riled by them. I get riled by other comments especially when I’m stressed and/or tired. When I’m in a better frame of mind they still rile me, because I think they largely are hot air, but at least I can deal with them better.

                    • Foreign waka …
                      5 July 2020 at 4:23 pm

                      Your mistake RL is that you response is too intellectual. Run of the mill "choose a side" frame of minds do not allow for any analysis and reason. But to get it to a one liner: At the core is actually greed, hate and envy. And it does not matter what race or what century.

                    • Gabby …
                      5 July 2020 at 5:26 pm

                      Your case is unconvincing.

                    • Incognito []
                      5 July 2020 at 5:45 pm

                      What do you imagine your commentary added?

                    • Morrissey …
                      5 July 2020 at 6:00 pm

                      Much of my argument actually comes from a range of American black voices…

                      ????

                      Would that "range of American black voices" include such penetrating thinkers as, oh, Ben Carson and Thomas Sowell and His Dishonor Clarence Thomas, I wonder?

                      sad

                    • Incognito []
                      5 July 2020 at 9:43 pm

                      Not black enough for your liking? Voices not deep enough? Spit it out if you have something constructive to add, on topic, or stay out of it.

                    • Morrissey …
                      6 July 2020 at 1:06 pm

                      Not black enough for your liking?

                      My problem with them has nothing to do with their being black or not. These three are not smart enough and not rigorous enough and not honest enough for my liking.

                      Voices not deep enough? Spit it out if you have something constructive to add, on topic, or stay out of it.

                      My problem with Carson, Sowell, and Thomas is that they are extreme right wing ideologues—little different to white ideologues like Ben Shapiro, Sam Harris, and Sean Hannity.

                  • swordfish …
                    6 July 2020 at 12:00 pm

                    TRP

                    RL is a racist, in my opinion … Actually, yes, yes you are. Your white privilege stinks.

                    Incognito

                    RL is neither a racism denier nor a troll. RL puts up long considered arguments that are sometimes complex on controversial topics.

                    Same old TRP … a bully & a coward … wielding character assassination as a club to beat opponents. No need to deal with the substantive argument … just go straight for the jugular … hardcore reputational destruction … like an out-of-control Narcissist psychologically needing to win at all costs.

                    Tragically, despite the occasional performative soul-searching a few years back (I'll try to be a better Man) & frequent longterm banishment & exile …. he’s clearly never going to change. Always the Drunken Sailor throwing rapid-fire punches with wild abandon. Reminds me so much of Israeli apologists casting "anti-semitism" smears in all directions to take down as much of the opposition as possible.

                    Be interesting to know if he's lobbying against Red out in the back end of the Blog.

          • Drowsy M. Kram 3.6.2.1.3
            5 July 2020 at 2:08 pm

            "The Tulsa massacre, Jim Crow" – "Not one single person alive participated in any of the these events."

            The direct application of 'Jim Crow' laws persisted well into the 1950's.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws#Decline_and_removal

            RL, what reasons do you believe some have to revisit these historical events (and their downstream effects)? Might it be more difficult for some to forgive the instigators; might it actually be important to some to remember?

            I don't know of any serious wrong done to me, or any member of my family alive or dead. Do doubt some (historical) wrong-doing occurred, but my family probably gave at least as good as it got.

            The Burning of Black Wall Street, Revisited
            Nearly a century after the Tulsa Race Massacre, the search for the dead continues.
            "The helpless old black man who was shredded alive behind a fast-moving car would have been well known in Tulsa’s white downtown, where he supported himself by selling pencils and singing for coins. He was blind, had suffered amputations of both legs and wore baseball catcher’s mitts to protect his hands from the pavement as he scooted along on a wheeled wooden platform."
            https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/opinion/tulsa-race-riot-massacre-graves.html

            • RedLogix 3.6.2.1.3.1
              5 July 2020 at 2:24 pm

              There is a difference between learning history, understanding it … and making a fundamentalist catechism of it.

              As appalling as that story from Tulsa is, it's not what the modern nation of 350m diverse people is. George Floyd's story, abominable as it is, is nonetheless an aberration. Yet when the media tells the story over and over, like going to hear the same fire and brimstone sermon every Sunday … it transforms from tragedy to ideology.

              The overlooked fact is that many black people in the USA since roughly the 1970's have been slowly but certainly moving into the middle class. Many of the social indicators like graduate degrees, teenage birth, mental health, imprisonment have been improving. Treating all black Americans as if they all live highly deprived lives in the big city projects is highly misleading.

              • Drowsy M. Kram …
                5 July 2020 at 2:59 pm

                The Tulsa Race Massacre is "not what the modern nation of 350m diverse people is", but it is part of U.S. history, and racial prejudice still plays a significant role in U.S. society if recent BLM events are anything to go by.

                Some of those "350m diverse people" still feel the downstream effects of the Tulsa race massacre, the Jim Crow laws et al. more deeply than others. I have more regard and sympathy for their opinions on matters of racism in the U.S. than I do for the opinions of those less affected.

              • Sacha …
                5 July 2020 at 3:03 pm

                George Floyd's story, abominable as it is, is nonetheless an aberration.

                All those people motivated to protest must be wrong, eh.

              • millsy …
                5 July 2020 at 4:02 pm

                "The overlooked fact is that many black people in the USA since roughly the 1970's have been slowly but certainly moving into the middle class. Many of the social indicators like graduate degrees, teenage birth, mental health, imprisonment have been improving. Treating all black Americans as if they all live highly deprived lives in the big city projects is highly misleading"

                I dont think anyone is denying that, however, successive administrations have made an effort to dismantle the New Deal and Great Society programs that made it possible, not to mention the traditionally unionised sectors that the black workforce is a big part of, ie manufacturing, meat processing, the trades, etc.

          • Cardassian 3.6.2.1.4
            5 July 2020 at 7:05 pm

            So no single person alive participated in the civil rights movement of the 1960s? Bold claim.

  4. ScottGN 4
    5 July 2020 at 8:49 am

    Is it my imagination or does Jim Mora unconsciously (or otherwise) tend to favour Richard Harman over Linda Clark during their Sunday morning wrap up of political events?

    • Dennis Frank 4.1
      5 July 2020 at 9:34 am

      An imagining, I suspect. Broadcasters get that `fair & balanced' training, eh? Mind you, that doesn't explain the hosk et al.

      You could be right about the tacit effect of seniority however. RH was doing political reporting for our state telecaster during the Muldoon era. He's actually improved with age – no longer seems like an establishment stooge.

      I like LC's description of the public service (re response to the pandemic) this morning: `pockets of excellence and pockets of incompetence'.

      • aj 4.1.1
        5 July 2020 at 10:58 am

        `pockets of excellence and pockets of incompetence'.

        She just described not only the public service response, but all organisations public and private and humanity in general. No-one is perfect, no organisation is perfect, nobody ever gets it right all the time. I'll take what we've got though anytime.

      • Drowsy M. Kram 4.1.2
        5 July 2020 at 11:15 am

        Given NZ's comparatively excellent pandemic health outcomes so far, LC's description of the public service (re response to the pandemic) deserves an edit to reflect that reality: "pockets an expanse of excellence and pockets of incompetence".

        • Dennis Frank 4.1.2.1
          5 July 2020 at 11:23 am

          Yeah, fair enough. Hey, I was intrigued to learn that you're a retired scientist. In what specialised field?

          • Drowsy M. Kram 4.1.2.1.1
            5 July 2020 at 11:30 am

            Biochemistry – still a puzzle. Often had cause to mutter "Fooled the bastards for another day!"

            • Dennis Frank 4.1.2.1.1.1
              5 July 2020 at 12:00 pm

              That's interesting. Yeah, I get that about the fine line between truth & opinion. Einstein, wielding the sword of truth, defeated the entire physics establishment from his lowly position in the Swiss patent office as the eventual result of his 1905 "four groundbreaking papers, on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Patent_office

              But of course that's the verdict of history and scepticism prevailed, relegating his theories to opinion, until measurement of the transit of Mercury proved that the effect of relativity on planetary orbits was real.

              I wonder if you find your field of expertise having much political relevance. Sometimes, rarely, or never? We are all organisms, and our interaction with Gaia (as parts to the whole) has a biochemical dimension.

            • Incognito 4.1.2.1.1.2
              5 July 2020 at 12:12 pm

              The further you get with the puzzle, the more pieces you find missing.

      • Morrissey 4.1.3
        5 July 2020 at 2:25 pm

        RH was doing political reporting for our state telecaster during the Muldoon era. He's actually improved with age – no longer seems like an establishment stooge.

        ????

        Harman participated in an Orwellian farce staged with brutal irony on "World Press Freedom Day" by the British High Commission in Wellington last year, just days after the British regime’s shocking and illegal state rendition of Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy. In an unintentionally hilarious bit of black comedy, Harman pompously lectured some human rights protestors: "I think Luke Harding has done quite a lot of work on this question of whether he is a journalist or not and has concluded that he is NOT."

        https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/05/these-people-are-representative-of-new.html

        Harman is the epitome of the establishment stooge. In 2010 he protected a right wing racist, Sean Plunket, from having to defend some ignorant and incendiary comments he had made about British politician George Galloway:

        “I’m stunned that such a collection of inaccuracies and downright lies, larded by overt bias, can be broadcast in New Zealand,” responded Mr Galloway in a Kia Ora Gaza media release two days ago. “Instead of defaming me behind my back Plunket could have put these wild allegations to my face. I invite him to do that now in a TV interview if he has the stomach for it.”

        But Mr Galloway’s request for a right of reply has fallen on deaf ears at The Nation programme.

        The Nation is made for TV3 by Front Page Ltd, whose managing director and executive producer is Richard Harman.

        In an email to Grant Morgan, co-organiser of Kia Ora Gaza, Mr Harman gave this curt dismissal: “Your email to TV3 has been passed to me. My company produces The Nation. I can see no point in interviewing Mr Gallaway [sic].”

        Mr Galloway makes this reply to Mr Harman: “It says much for your journalistic accuracy that you can’t even spell my name correctly. Your presenter wasn’t just ill-informed but mendacious and utterly biased. Your refusal to allow any right of reply will be viewed as a tacit admission that you relish this.”

        https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2020/05/richard-harman-protects-plunket-from.html

        • Dennis Frank 4.1.3.1
          5 July 2020 at 4:28 pm

          My take is that RH knew GG would run rings around anyone and chose to de-platform him (as if RH was woke). Who knows what he had going with Plunket 10 years ago anyway? People do change in a decade. But I agree with you to the extent that it reminds me of his old agenda – he was never much good as a producer of television from the perspective of the common interests of the people.

          • Morrissey 4.1.3.1.1
            5 July 2020 at 5:13 pm

            RH knew GG would run rings around anyone

            In fact, anyone with an I.Q. above room temperature would run rings around Plunket, especially when he is on as tenuous and as indefensible a position as he was on that occasion.

            People do change in a decade.

            I always thought Harman's low point was his humiliation at the hands of Bill Rowling on two separate occasions in the 1970s, when a bumbling and nervous Harman was stripped of all his dignity in front of an audience of Labour Party people—who had zero sympathy for him. But his windy pontificating in favour of the utterly discredited Luke Harding last May has plunged him even deeper into the pit of infamy. He'll need more than a decade to come back from that.

    • Treetop 4.2
      5 July 2020 at 12:41 pm

      I heard them this morning. It is good to hear a discussion and not feel as though there needs to be an argument. I have observed arguing here on the TS to the point that a person will not cease until they agree with one parties point of view. Some people choose not to keep arguing and it can be perceived as not having a response to a person's point of view.

      The other day on TS I was coming across as being uninformed and I had a discussion which did not turn into an argument. I also chose to ignore a different person's comment who then made another comment which was the aha moment for me.

      Boring blog if I cannot give an opinion for fear of being upset.

      • Sacha 4.2.1
        5 July 2020 at 2:27 pm

        Boring blog if I cannot give an opinion for fear of being upset.

        Your entertainment is the priority here.

        • Incognito 4.2.1.1
          5 July 2020 at 2:31 pm

          Inaccurate! Robust entertainment.

        • Treetop 4.2.1.2
          5 July 2020 at 3:53 pm

          Boring blog if I cannot give an opinion for fear of being upset.

          My opinion may differ from yours on a thread and it certainly does with your comment.

          Your entertainment is the priority here.

          I could throw back, do not use my comment for your entertainment.

          The TS is not an entertainment blog to me.

          • Sacha 4.2.1.2.1
            5 July 2020 at 3:57 pm

            Speech has consequences.

          • Incognito 4.2.1.2.2
            5 July 2020 at 4:01 pm

            Sorry, but you’ve lost me. Exactly what is your problem with TS? Do you have a fear of being upset here?

            • Treetop 4.2.1.2.2.1
              5 July 2020 at 4:22 pm

              No were I to become upset I can take myself away from the subject. People need to own their comments and recognise if they are distorting a person's opinion. Usually it is a one line smart arse comment and not looking at the whole comment.

              • Incognito …
                5 July 2020 at 4:47 pm

                Got it, thanks. Sometimes the focus on one part or a single word even is deliberate and sometimes it is accidental. Some try to debate in good faith and some come to make/have fun. I’ve done it all here (i.e. guilty as accused). As long as it doesn’t drive people away and off the site and as long as it doesn’t become pattern behaviour that negatively impacts the flow and contents of comments here it is tolerated. Your approach is sensible.

  5. Adrian 5
    5 July 2020 at 9:59 am

    The KGB and more lately Putin have groomed Trump for decades for exactly this role, the destruction of American civil peace. How else could Trump end up with two Eastern European wives who were able to emigrate to the US when nobody else could even leave their respective countries for a weekend holiday. One a tennis player and the other a model and both were by no means particularly skilled in their field, and they both made a beeline for Trump.

    Even the most toxic hawk John Bolton knows this and has tried to mitigate and then openly attack Trumps complicity.

    • francesca 5.1
      5 July 2020 at 10:57 am

      Well they're getting a very poor return for their efforts

      More sanctions, pullout from arms treaties, lethal weapons for Ukraine, total amnesia for the part Russia played in WW2 ,US/Russia relations worse than they've been since the cold war.

      When will Pootee pull the trigger and get some material payback for the kompromat he has on Trump?

      Time is running out.

      Or have you all been had …again?

      US intelligence can't even agree on the Russian bounty conspiracy theory

      The Pentagon chief says there's no corroborating evidence for it

      https://time.com/5861815/intelligence-agencies-disagree-russia-taliban/

    • Morrissey 5.2
      5 July 2020 at 12:13 pm

      Those dastardly Russian masterminds! And those brilliant North Koreans! They control us, as the Clintonistas have been telling us for the last three and a half years.

      Those darned RUSSIANS. sadangry

      https://i.imgur.com/UoVWnOc.gif

  6. SPC 6
    5 July 2020 at 10:14 am

    Can anyone explain how the Taxpayers Union managed to get wage subsidies while conservation charities and St Johns Ambulance are reduced to laying off staff?

  8. joe90 8
    5 July 2020 at 10:23 am

    Pants down, and all they can do is project.

    https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1279142640055812096

    When President Trump took office in 2017, his team stopped work on new federal regulations that would have forced the health care industry to prepare for an airborne infectious disease pandemic such as COVID-19. That decision is documented in federal records reviewed by NPR.

    "If that rule had gone into effect, then every hospital, every nursing home would essentially have to have a plan where they made sure they had enough respirators and they were prepared for this sort of pandemic," said David Michaels, who was head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration until January 2017.

    https://www.npr.org/2020/05/26/862018484/trump-team-killed-rule-designed-to-protect-health-workers-from-pandemic-like-cov

  9. Dennis Frank 9
    5 July 2020 at 10:23 am

    Gang warfare driven by fast food: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/24/we-live-in-a-cage-residents-hide-as-macaque-gangs-take-over-thai-city

    Residents in Lopburi, Thailand, are hiding behind barricaded indoors as rival monkey gang fights create no-go zones for humans. The ancient Thai city has been overrun by a growing population of monkeys super-charged on junk food… Pointing to the overhead netting covering her terrace, Kuljira Taechawattanawanna said: “We live in a cage but the monkeys live outside.”

    Footage of hundreds of them brawling over food in the streets went viral on social media in March. Their growing numbers – doubling in three years to 6,000 – have made an uneasy coexistence with their human peers almost intolerable.

    Someone ought to call his reference to monkeys as "human peers" racist perhaps – unless anthropologists have agreed that Thai people and Thai monkeys are peers…

  10. Cinny 10
    5 July 2020 at 11:19 am

    The very clever and switched on Chloe Swarbrick is taking to task national's david bennett via the political panel on the wireless.

    Very impressive, here's the link, the panel is on until midday.

    https://www.magic.co.nz/home.player.talk.html

  11. Sacha 11
    5 July 2020 at 11:22 am

    Another sympathetic article where the outgoing Nat MP just cannot quite admit why people hated her. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300049395/actually-i-think-my-timing-might-be-perfect-paula-bennett-talks-politics-and-what-comes-next

    Bennett has her own theories on why that was: “There was that view of me as a traitor to my class….people think ‘you were a 17 year old solo mum that did it hard and you've turned into a heartless tory that's only out for the rich’. So there was that view that I’d turned my back on my past.”

    Gee, maybe it was something she did.

    • UncookedSelachimorpha 11.1
      5 July 2020 at 1:27 pm

      " people think know ‘you were a 17 year old solo mum that did it hard and you've turned into a heartless tory that's only out for the rich’ "

      Unexpected self-awareness from Paula there.

    • millsy 11.2
      5 July 2020 at 5:02 pm

      The worst ones are the likes of Paula. Those who have been there, and then turn on the very people who were just like her.

      You think she would have some empathy, but oh no, none of that. Just benefit cuts and sanctions.

  12. Ad 12
    5 July 2020 at 11:28 am

    People I'm taking the rest of the week off for alpine tramping and resort spa care.

    See you Sunday.

  14. Dennis Frank 14
    5 July 2020 at 12:38 pm

    Another academic pundit appraises the BLM/Trump thing: https://www.salon.com/2020/06/26/cornel-west-on-this-moment-of-escalating-consciousness-and-the-need-for-radical-democracy/

    I recently spoke with philosopher, public intellectual, activist, scholar and author Dr. Cornel West, who is professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard and a professor emeritus at Princeton. He is the author of several bestselling books, including "Democracy Matters," "Race Matters" and "Black Prophetic Fire."

    The prof on the squeeze from both sides of the establishment:

    There is Trump's personal desperation because he is a neofascist gangster but there is also an entire political system that knows it cannot reform itself. The American political system and the corporate-ocracy and the neoliberal gangster capitalists know that they cannot meet the people's escalating demands. So there is Trump's backlash to prepare for, but there is also the reaction from the neoliberal milquetoast Democrats, such as Nancy Pelosi and others in the Democratic Party leadership… The neoliberal Democrats have been in power for years while Black brothers and sisters have been getting shot and killed and otherwise abused by the police, but those same Democrats have pushed through crime bills and militarized America's police.

    Interviewer: "Are we seeing a paradigm shift in America, with the George Floyd protests and people's uprising? Being in the middle of what feels like great change often robs one of larger context and perspective."

    No. What we are seeing with the protests and people's uprising is not a paradigm shift. I wish it was. A paradigm shift would have to connect the critique of police murder and brutality with a critique of Wall Street and the Pentagon simultaneously. That's a paradigm shift. Right now, we are seeing an escalating type of consciousness, which is beautiful, about police brutality. But we are not seeing a paradigm shift in this country.

    But the pitch for "radical democracy" remains insubstantial because he doesn't explain what it would mean in practice.

  15. observer 15
    5 July 2020 at 12:51 pm

    I would have thought the headline should be: "Woman doesn't succeed in escaping".

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12345602

    Awaiting response: "shambolic … why wasn't she tasered by hotel staff?" – National.

    • Incognito 15.1
      5 July 2020 at 1:04 pm

      Oh come on, the woman was hungry and dinner was late again; it was meant to be served @ 6:00 PM.

    • Peter ChCh 15.2
      5 July 2020 at 1:19 pm

      I am fast losing sympathy for these cretins coming back to NZ. Proscecute her, imprison her, like the guy in ChCh who was coughing on people during the lockdown.

      What on earth went through her mind? And yes, it is shambolic (on face value). How did she manage to walk out? Although I guess she probably could have just walked out thumbing her nose at the security guards, as they would no doubt be charged with assualt if they tried to detain her.

      We have only to look to Victoria as to how quickly things can be lost control of. Maybe there needs to be a Police person on duty at all times in a quarantine establishment, with the powers of arrest.

      • observer 15.2.1
        5 July 2020 at 1:30 pm

        Not really like Victoria, unless she was having sex with a security guard.

        No, it's not shambolic. She had already returned a negative test and had been in isolation for 8 days. Of course she should not have left the hotel, but people need to think about what that means in practice (hence my "taser" comment).

        This whole process is headlines waiting to happen ("Woman wrestled to the ground, cries in pain, captured on phone, see exclusive footage at six!). Anything can be cast as either too tough (inhumane) or not tough enough (shambolic).

        In reality, with the NZDF and police, it seems to be working very well – if belatedly.

        • Peter Chch 15.2.1.1
          5 July 2020 at 2:19 pm

          Agree Observer, it does seem to be working very well now. But only needs one person to stuff it all up. Hope they do prosecute her to make an example.

          And I know it is the job of the Opposition to highlight the failings of this (or any) government, but increasingly it seems opposition for oppositions sake. Muller squandering his opportunity.

          • Incognito 15.2.1.1.1
            5 July 2020 at 4:05 pm

            People run red lights every day. That’s a failing too but one that’s ‘normalised’ and nobody pays any attention. One woman walks out of a hotel on foot, is arrested a couple of blocks away shortly after, and the Sky is falling.

            • Sacha 15.2.1.1.1.1
              5 July 2020 at 4:09 pm

              No surprise. High stakes for everyone around infection and quarantine. Election campaign with chosen focus on 'shambles' = every mistake publicised..

            • Peter ChCh 15.2.1.1.1.2
              5 July 2020 at 4:32 pm

              Run a red light Incognito, might succeed in wiping out 2 or 3 people in a worse case scenario. Jump quarantine and you place the health and the freedom of 5 million people at risk, not to mention the economy and the career and economic future of those same 5 million.

              So yes, the 'sky is falling' when scum like this women (who we now know jumped two fences to get out (one 6 feet high)), think that their freedom is more important than that of 5 million others. Prosceute the scum.

              • observer …
                5 July 2020 at 4:40 pm

                It's good that Megan Woods is so quickly onto it (with the detail about climbing the fence). Stories like this will always make the news, as will opposition claims, and if we have to wait 24 hours for a fuller picture, it's too late. Headlines shape opinion, facts added afterwards are way down the page.

                I'm glad she's been given the job. It's the standard all Ministers should be meeting.

              • Incognito …
                5 July 2020 at 4:40 pm

                Immediate deportation to her home country! We don’t need scum in our 100% pure country.

              • Naki man …
                5 July 2020 at 6:58 pm

                Totally agree, there should be a $10,000 fine.

                Why should we pay for the scum to be in prison.

                This time it was not a government fuck up.

        • AB 15.2.1.2
          5 July 2020 at 6:29 pm

          "This whole process is headlines waiting to happen … anything can be cast as either too tough (inhumane) or not tough enough (shambolic)"

          Sums up the last few weeks very nicely thanks.

          Also – if the headline producer is motivated by malice, they'll play the "inhumane" and the "shambolic" cards simultaneously.

      • Just Is 15.2.2
        5 July 2020 at 8:28 pm

        The woman who escaped from quarintine climbed over a 1.8 mtr high containment fence while in the smoking area.

        • Gabby 15.2.2.1
          5 July 2020 at 8:33 pm

          Was she desperate to reach the nearest natsy MP to complain about lax security?

    • RedBaronCV 15.3
      5 July 2020 at 4:07 pm

      Apart from anything else I'd send her the bill and publicise the amount to deter others. . 5 cops off for 2 weeks plus unknown other people. Yep I too am over people who think their own needs are so great that they can do just what they like. If they are stressed out by the quarantine they have nurses and others keeping an eye on them and who must be able to refer to more specialised help. One good reason why towns may be reluctance to be quarantine hosts

  16. OnceWasTim 16
    5 July 2020 at 1:13 pm

    EEEEEEEEEEEE OOP fellow The Standard townsfolk.

    Anyone else been listening/following "The Service"? and if so ….. wotcha opinions and reckons?

    ( I come from a position of having a 2 degrees removed member of whanau who was a spook till he died a decade ago – mainly because he was a complete pisshead – liver cancer et al resulting from his life's experiences )

    My "reckons" are that it is pretty bloody damn good – although it could have been done without the theme music (wonder why they shoved that in it )

  17. observer 17
    5 July 2020 at 1:40 pm

    3 new arrivals from India, test positive for Covid. Quarantined at Chateau on the Park, Christchurch (very nice).

    India … Christchurch … ooh, Hamish, they're getting closer!

    And a reminder that it is still National's policy (yes, it's on their website) to bring in thousands of young students NOW and quarantine them somewhere – though obviously not in Auck Central (because Nat MP) or Rotorua (Nat MP) or Queenstown (Nat MP) or … you get the picture.

    • Morrissey 17.1
      5 July 2020 at 1:46 pm

      If New Zealand had been unlucky enough to have a National government during this pandemic, we'd be looking at a situation as disastrous as the one in Britain.

      • Just Is 17.1.1
        5 July 2020 at 8:31 pm

        Most Kiwis would agree with you, they're not as stupid as Muller thinks they are.

    • Anne 18.1
      5 July 2020 at 2:24 pm

      Clear, concise and very easy to listen to with snippets of humour thrown in.

      I liked her praise for Damian O'Conner's digital education during their level 4 lockdown zoom cabinet meetings. He discovered the unmute button for the first time.

  19. Morrissey 19
    5 July 2020 at 1:57 pm

    Kneeling is Not Enough, though it probably is for Keir Starmer

    The King of Nothing down on one knee….

    https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/kneeling-is-not-enough/

  20. Fireblade 20
    5 July 2020 at 2:00 pm

    Indian community leader calls MP Hamish Walker's press release racist politicking.

    "New Zealand Indian Central Association president Paul Patel said political leaders needed to hold their MPs accountable. He said it was National Party leader Todd Muller’s inability to condemn Walker’s focus on these Asian countries as racist, or apologise, that bothered him most"

    "Patel said Walker should retract his remarks and apologise. The apology should come from Walker and the National Party.”

    "Former race relations commissioner Gregory Fortuin said targetting certain ethnicities was a disgraceful dog whistle. Fortuin also condemned Muller’s inability to call out racist comments. It’s time that we strongly called out this bigoted behaviour when we have Kiwis returning from all quarters of the world, but he singled out the people not represented on his party's frontbench.”

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/122037288/indian-leader-calls-out-mps-racist-politicking-by-targeting-ethnic-minorities

  21. Treetop 21
    5 July 2020 at 2:10 pm

    In a civilised society, it should not to be to much to expect not to be gunned down when unarmed or have your airway blocked by those whose job it is to prevent crime.

    It is unrealistic to expect all suffering to be eliminated. People in authority can always do better to address how they manage a situation which ignites the callous attitude of past inequality and suffering.&nbsp

    Comment for RL @ 3.1.1.1.2

    • Treetop 21.1
      5 July 2020 at 2:19 pm

      Run out of time to collect the number 3.2.1.1.1.2

      • Incognito 21.1.1
        5 July 2020 at 2:24 pm

        Why didn’t you use the Reply button @ 3.2.1.1.1.2?

        • Treetop 21.1.1.1
          5 July 2020 at 3:59 pm

          First error I thought I did, then I had to find where the comment ended up and time ran out.

          Arthritic fingers and some lost sensation does not help either and I can only reply on my cell phone.

          • Incognito 21.1.1.1.1
            5 July 2020 at 4:09 pm

            Ok, understood. The reason I asked is that some appear to experience technical issues at the mo.

    • millsy 21.2
      5 July 2020 at 4:37 pm

      Exactly.

      Last time I looked, using a fake $20 note to buy a packet of smokes (or whatever) wasn't a crime punishable by summary execution.

      Those that are protesting are sick and tired of having their lives excessively policed and regulated, you have to remember that these young people have gone through zero tolerance schooling, where you could be suspended for so much as yawning in class.

  22. Fireblade 22
    5 July 2020 at 4:14 pm

    Here's a song for headbangers.

    Shepherds Reign is a polynesian metal band from South Auckland. The song "Le Manu" features the Siva Tau war dance and is performed in the Samoan language.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNb1LXXk40

    • Cardassian 22.1
      5 July 2020 at 7:32 pm

      Cheers, I like this song.

    • phantom snowflake 22.2
      5 July 2020 at 9:32 pm

      Thanks, that was great. So much passion. Can't help wondering if they've been listening to Waipu's Alien Weaponry.

  23. Morrissey 23
    5 July 2020 at 5:23 pm

    Poor old Deartho'Wits is more desperate than ever

    One of Jeffrey Epstein's most insalubrious cronies is now setting his loathsome sights on Virginia Giuffre….

    http://normanfinkelstein.com/2020/07/04/such-a-sad-end-to-such-an-undistinguished-career/

  24. ScottGN 24
    5 July 2020 at 5:51 pm

    Love how those right wing dicks at SkyNews Australia have had to do a switcheroo after they prematurely called the Eden-Monaro byelection for their preferred Liberal candidate at about 3am this morning only to have Labor’s Kristy McBain claim the win today after 2nd preference votes flowed her way. And the Newscorp press has spent the day furiously trying to spin McBain’s win as a big loss for Labor leader Albanese.

    • Just Is 24.1
      5 July 2020 at 9:16 pm

      It was a Labor held seat before the election, the previous candidate retired due to ill health, a win is still a win though.

      The Murdoch press is the ONLY reason you see Scotty from marketing on the TV there every day.

  25. observer 25
    5 July 2020 at 7:59 pm

    The woman who climbed the fence at the Auckland Pullman hotel led the news on both TV1 and TV3. So did Muller's knee-jerk response.

    What didn't lead the news was any kind of joining the dots.

    She arrived from Brisbane. Yes, it's in Queensland. Not virus-hit Victoria. And she had already returned a negative test, in Auckland.

    So – and this is simply insane, but bear with me here – if you escape from a hotel after a week in isolation it's very bad, but if you arrive at the airport and don't have to be quarantined at all that's just fine. Hop on a bus, hire car, have fun. Spread whatever you want.

    That's what bubble means, and a bubble with Queensland is what National and their cheerleaders think we should already have, and I honestly wonder if anybody in the media has a f***ing functioning brain to point this out.

    • Gabby 25.1
      5 July 2020 at 8:35 pm

      I wouldn't hold my breath.

    • Just Is 25.2
      5 July 2020 at 9:23 pm

      Its up to the Federal Govt to determine when to open up the airways, the states have no control, so even if Queensland wanted a bubble with NZ, the Federal Govt will decide, at the moment, with high numbers of new cases over the last few days will probably dampen that likelihood

  26. greywarshark 26
    5 July 2020 at 8:11 pm

    Is this image of Meghan and the Queen a bit of light-hearted falsity from the main media. Can they resist playing round with images jas they already do with the facts? Can they be trusted to present anything at all in a straight-forward depiction of what is the perceived truth, without a bit of 'roguish' fiddling? Will we eventually not know whether we are Arthur or Martha; a bone of contention already.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2020/07/02/will-queen-ever-see-archie/

  27. sumsuch 27
    6 July 2020 at 12:25 am

    Good to see the increase in comments. I don't know, maybe this happens every election year. They have the virtue of reactionaries over at Kiwiblog I suppose. The Left are all about their best idea of reality, which requires creative thought.

    • Muttonbird 27.1
      6 July 2020 at 7:32 am

      Did you read it? Not much creative thought going on…

      • sumsuch 27.1.1
        7 July 2020 at 10:37 pm

        Read what? Sure , there is a Left reactionism. We are better at talk than the powers and worse at power. And I am as much a silly letter writer as most of us. How does that help? We lack the force of the 35ists. This decade is as imperative as 1939. Well, actually, you/we comfort-loaded fat-fatuous, 1000 times that. Our reaction to comfort prior to the cliff of annhilation is so much inferior to minor discomfort via a gentle slope to the relatively gentle punishment of this flu.

  28. Eco Maori 28
    6 July 2020 at 8:49 am

    Kia Ora

    The Am Show.

    It looks like Aotearoa economy is humming along our exporters need to take advantage of the position Aotearoa has.

    Ka kite Ano.

  29. Eco Maori 29
    6 July 2020 at 6:35 pm

    Kia Ora

    Newshub.

    Its a big problem in the big city's to.

    That's cool the inflator ventilator hood Kiwi ingenuity.

    Ka kite Ano.

  30. Eco Maori 30
    6 July 2020 at 6:59 pm

    Kia Ora

    Te Ao Maori Marama.

    That's good a website educationing tangata on the importants of tangata whenua voting and the political systems.

    I still think more Maori should run for local councils elections.

    Ka kite Ano

  31. Eco Maori 31
    7 July 2020 at 8:48 am

    Kia Ora

    The Am Show.

    The Electric cars are the way of the future.

    Labeling were our food comes from is logical to support local businesses.

    Ka kite Ano.

  32. Eco Maori 32
    7 July 2020 at 6:27 pm

    Kia Ora

    Newshub.

    Spanner.

    That's good that work visa are being extended by 6 months.

    The primary sector is the backbone of Aotearoa.

    They won't even be able to get in the country.

    Ka kite Ano.

  33. Eco Maori 33
    7 July 2020 at 6:54 pm

    Kia Ora

    Te Ao Maori Marama.

    Maori can boost productivity of our whenua to make a big contribution to the 48 billion dollar primary sector plans.

    Rugby Park upgrade will be awesome.

    Ka kite Ano

  34. Eco Maori 34
    8 July 2020 at 8:46 am

    Kia Ora

    The Am Show.

    Its good to see there is strong demand for Aotearoa protein.

    A couple of months ago you were holding them up as handling the virus issues better than Aotearoa any apologies boys.

    Ka kite Ano.

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