Open mike 05/11/2015

34 comments on “Open mike 05/11/2015 ”

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1. ropata 1

   5 November 2015 at 8:59 am

   Remember Parihaka.
   A lovely Māori voice on Radio NZ this morning was advocating the cause of PEACE in memorial of Parihaka. A far better anniversary for Aotearoa than poor old Guy Fawkes.

   Push to replace Guy Fawkes with Parihaka Day https://t.co/zYQWRD16Kh— RNZ News (@rnz_news) November 4, 2015
   • One Anonymous Bloke 1.1

     5 November 2015 at 9:11 am

     Remember remember
     The fifth of November.
     Gunpowder, treason & plot.
     I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

     The illegal attack upon Parihaka Is just one of the reasons not to forget Guido Fawkes. The brutal suppression of citizens by authoritarian forces bent on narrow short term self-interest. Gunpowder treason by any other name.
   • Chooky 1.2

     5 November 2015 at 9:41 am

     well i quite like Guy Fawkes….a lot of happy childhood memories eg . of Grandma being chased through the long grass by a firey Spinning Wheel spitting sparks and moving like a demon, that had jumped off its nail on the fence and had us rolling around with laughter

     to me Guy Fawkes is a celebration representing an anarchistic disrespect for politicians and parliament ….long may it continue!…Guy Fawkes suffered the ultimate fate of revolutionaries and arsonists…worth remembering imo

     That said the Parihaka Movement 1881 is also eminently worth remembering! … it is the other side of the coin…responsible political civil disobedience and passive resistance…later followed by Gandhi and others

     …and Scott Dick’s book ‘ Ask that Mountain -The Story of Parihaka’…should be compulsory reading in all New Zealand schools

     http://www.penguin.co.nz/products/9780143010869/ask-mountain-story-parihaka

     ( But fine as the Taranaki Maori were at Parihaka …lets not also forget that the Taranaki Maori were also responsible for coming down and virtually annihilating the Moriori on the Chathams in 1835…

     …the Moriori were people who lived by a “code of non-violence and passive resistance (see Nunuku-whenua), which made it easier for Taranaki Māori invaders to nearly exterminate them in the 1830s.”

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

     …which all goes to show humans are complex creatures , neither always angels nor always devils and capable of learning

     …..perhaps the Taranaki Maori learned from the Moriori, the code of Nunuku “non-violence and passive resistance”)
     • David H 1.2.1

       5 November 2015 at 6:13 pm

       “Guy Fawkes suffered the ultimate fate of revolutionaries and arsonists…worth remembering imo”

       But in the end he was able to jump from the scaffold and broke his neck. better that than what was to follow.

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes
       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanged,_drawn_and_quartered
   • Rosie 1.3

     5 November 2015 at 11:16 am

     Morena ropata. The local Papa Kainaga here, Nga Hau E Wha O Papararangi are doing just that. They are having an evening acknowledging events at Parihaka in 1881. The land has a great view to the public fireworks that will go off in the harbour at 9pm. The event will start at 7.30 and go to 9.30. This Saturday. All welcome.

     http://www.nhewop.org.nz/

     I’m over Guy Fawkes and the way we go about it. See yesterdays grumpy post about on OM about unnecessary destruction to property, vegetation, injuries and trauma to animals all because we allow the public sale of dangerous explosives. Included link from the Fire Service – the volunteers left to do the damage control and clean up the mess.

     Fully support the call to replace Guy Fawkes day with Parihaka Day. Relevant to our part of the world, and relevant to our story.

     OR………… Have Parihaka Day as commemorative day in it’s own right and shift public fireworks displays to Matariki, a cooler darker time of the year, as reflection and celebration are part of the themes of Matariki
     • ropata 1.3.1

       14 November 2015 at 2:08 pm

       +1 very cool, but I was in CHC last weekend 🙂
2. grumpystilskin 2

   5 November 2015 at 9:17 am

   Fawkes was possibly set up, bit of history here:
   http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-29722437
   I’m with you Ropata and would rather advocate peace in these current times. But then, I enjoy fireworks too.. We could just change the meaning, you know, like the church has changed ancient pagan festivals into religious celebrations?
   http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/kids/paganism_in_festivals.html
3. RedBaronCv 3

   5 November 2015 at 9:45 am

   And the herald editorial supports the warship visits. Trying to frame it as an aging hippie issue rather than what it really is.

   After cooking up a useless 75th anniversary for the navy we are now going to spend lots of money on inviting foreign warships here to appease the Nacts warmongering tendencies and sucking up to the USA. John Key will act naive/ devious /manipulative and arrogant over the anti nuc legislation

   Right up there with the flag as a waste of money
4. Ad 4

   5 November 2015 at 9:49 am

   I’d like to advocate for the cause of irrational annual bonfires on rural properties.

   Awesome huge one last night. Lots of stumps. Lots of teenage Scouts running around. Lots of fireworks (dogs all inside).

   Huge fire lasting well into the night – the kind where you’re just hunting around the place for every close-to-dry branch just to keep it going.

   Then flipping the half-burnt branches further in as it dies down, into slightly smaller and denser heaps. My eyebrows are now uneven.
   • Chooky 4.1

     5 November 2015 at 11:48 am

     +100…lol…long live anarchy and English Guy Fawkes night and Chinese fire crackers and fireworks displays in the night sky …and much joy and laughter from the children and the worried and/or crazy adults

     commiserations with the firemen
5. Penny Bright 5

   5 November 2015 at 10:02 am

   “Government passes anti-corruption bill”

   About time!

   Gee – interesting that this legislation is FINALLY passed, just before the Australian Public Sector Anti-Corruption Conference to be held in Brisbane from 16 – 18 November 2015?

   Now that this legislation has been passed – how long before NZ (‘perceived’ to be the second ‘least corrupt country in the world’ ) FINALLY ratifies the UN Convention Against Corruption?

   “Government passes anti-corruption bill

   Updated at 9:58 pm on 4 November 2015

   A new bill the government says will protect New Zealand from corruption and bribery has been passed by Parliament tonight.

   The Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Legislation Bill seeks to strengthen the laws on illegal activities such as identity theft, money laundering, bribery and drug-related crime.

   Justice Minister Amy Adams says the bill will protect the economy from organised crime.

   She says it will also enable authorities to work more closely with their international counterparts in responding to trans-national crimes.

   One of the controversial aspects of the bill is that it allows New Zealanders to make facilitation payments to foreign officials – something the Labour and Green parties say is akin to bribery.”

   Penny Bright
   • Chooky 5.1

     5 November 2015 at 12:02 pm

     +100 Penny…you have done good work on advocating for this anti-corruption bill
6. Chch_chiquita 6

   5 November 2015 at 10:43 am

   This would be interesting to follow (personally I think we should follow the footsteps of the Nordic countries; they seam to get it right unlike other examples around the world).

   http://inhabitat.com/finland-prepares-universal-basic-income-experiment/
   • Chooky 6.1

     5 November 2015 at 11:51 am

     +100 Finland has a lot to commend it ….eg their world leading state education system

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

     http://www.businessinsider.com.au/finland-education-school-2011-12#finnish-children-dont-start-school-until-they-are-7-1

     NZ should be emulating Finland and NOT neolib USA privatisation and corporate model
7. Ovid 7

   5 November 2015 at 11:19 am

   Phil Goff will stand for the Auckland mayoralty – Stuff.

   I think this is a good move. Len Brown is rather beleaguered and reelection for him would be an uphill battle. Should Goff win, a successful Labour by-election in Mt Roskill would bring in some new blood and positive headlines in the leadup to the general election in 2017.
8. Treetop 8

   5 November 2015 at 11:37 am

   Goff would make a good Auckland City mayor, he would need to make completing the city rail loop a priority and this would work well with the Green party transport policy, which would help the relationship between the Greens and Labour become stronger come election time. A stronger Green and Labour party may not require NZ First to be a coalition partner.

   Labour’s housing policy would slot in well with Goff being the Auckland mayor.
9. arkie 9

   5 November 2015 at 12:01 pm

   People mocked the Greens commitment to a gender diverse government, meanwhile in Canada, Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet is 50% women. When asked why he said “Because it is 2015”
   • marty mars 9.1

     5 November 2015 at 11:38 pm

     Good point.
10. Penny Bright 10

    5 November 2015 at 12:06 pm

    Where does (apparently to be announced on 22 November 2015) 2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate Phil Goff stand on ‘rolling back Rogernomic$’?

    (Given he was a Cabinet Minister in the 1984-87 Labour Government – that helped force these neo-liberal ‘Rogernomic$’ reforms upon unsuspecting New Zealanders?)

    Does Phil Goff oppose Auckland Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs)?

    (If so – what’s he DONE about them?)

    Does Phil Goff support the books and cutting out the consultants and contractors?

    (If so – what’s he done about it?)

    Does Phil Goff support implementing and enforcing the ‘Rule of Law’ so that citizens and ratepayers LAWFUL rights to ‘open, transparent and democratically accountable’ local government are upheld?

    (I’ve put my freehold home on the line – what’s Phil Goff done?)

    What did Phil Goff do to oppose the Wellington, Northland and Hawkes Bay proposed ‘Supercities’?

    I look forward to the 2016 Auckland Mayoral campaign ……

    Penny Bright

    2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
    • proud poppy wearer 10.1

      5 November 2015 at 12:12 pm

      What does Auckland Council need to do for you to pay your rates ?
11. Stephen 11

    5 November 2015 at 12:20 pm

    Brian Gould on the money again.
    http://www.bryangould.com/whose-interests-are-served-by-unemployment/
    • Nic the NZer 11.1

      5 November 2015 at 4:29 pm

      Brilliant Brian Gould, simple, clear, correct and lucid. Also his piece about the budget surplus very good.
      • greywarshark 11.1.1

        5 November 2015 at 11:09 pm

        I like this bit from Bryan Gould.

        An economy with a permanent pool of unemployed and with no real growth in wage rates is also an economy with less purchasing power and demand than it ideally needs. We are all worse off as a consequence. Most of us can soldier on without too much inconvenience. It is the unemployed who are the sacrificial lambs on the altar of neo-classical orthodoxy.
12. greywarshark 12

    5 November 2015 at 2:41 pm

    Confucius says:
    The Orchids grow in the woods and they let out their fragrance even if there is no one around to appreciate it.
    Likewise men of noble character will not let poverty deter their will to be guided by high principles and morals . A noble spirit indeed.

    Maggie Barry used that in an old Listener gardening column. I guess it means that poverty brings out the best in people who are of the right stuff, but when affluence hits you can forget about being good, just get stuck in and don’t bother to say grace!
13. savenz 13

    5 November 2015 at 3:35 pm

    Just been reading a very interesting book by Rhode Scholar, Andrew Dean.

    “Ruth, Roger and Me.” iBooks. https://itun.es/nz/m5th8.l

    The ebook is only $4.99

    “My generation of New Zealanders has been told that being uncomfortable will make us work harder and strive further. We have been brought up on what Ruth Richardson calls the ‘stiff medicine’ of her reforms, and now we must be healthier for it.1 There is no gain without pain. By leaving welfare, trade unions, state houses, and state monopolies behind, we have become self-sufficient and free. If we are poor then that will simply make us work harder; if it is more difficult to find a job, and if that job pays very little, then we will be encouraged to be more productive and to make better choices. Student loans will make us select our courses more wisely; paying for healthcare will ensure that we visit doctors only when we really need to. We are the generation of shirkers who have been turned into workers, more competitive and productive than ever. In this section I explore ‘discomfort’, and how it has become one of the defining experiences of our age.”

    Recommend to everyone especially Labour members and those interested in politics!

    Very nicely written and has some really nice links back to Janet Frame and other NZ writers and his own experiences as well as interviews with Ruth Richardson and Rod Carr.

    “Janet Frame in her first volume of autobiography, To the Is-Land (1982), writes that the election of that First Labour Government in “1935, ‘with its promise of Social Security, free medical treatment, free hospital treatment for all […] was almost like a Second Coming, so great was the joy in our household’. The passage of the Social Security Act was an even greater cause for celebration: ‘Dad, in a spontaneous dance of delight in which the family joined, removed the [medical] bills from behind the clock and, taking the poker from its hook by the stove, lifted the cover and thrust all the bills into the fire.’1 She quotes from a song to describe the feeling: ‘There’s a new day in view,/there is gold in the blue/there is hope in the hearts of men.’2 Perhaps we could call what is captured on the boy’s face, and what Janet Frame describes, the politics of utopia, in which a dining room table, a new house, and free doctor’s visits, herald the end of want, and the founding of what Savage called in his 1935 victory speech, ‘a prosperous nation, a free nation, a nation of free people in the southern seas’.3”

    And he also comments on the Labour campaign.

    “Yet something has changed in our lifetimes. We now have a well-developed scepticism of utopian visions, a justified one, perhaps, but one that has led to a political imagination that is insular, technocratic, and in the end, moribund. Our political discourse now sounds more like an advertising campaign for an insurance company – ‘Vote Positive!’ – than it does like anything that would run the risk of changing the way we think and act.
    • Chooky 13.1

      5 November 2015 at 7:01 pm

      +100…interesting…Janet Frame, from a working class railway family, very evocative of an era where there were problems and poverty but there was also care and sensitivity for your fellow human beings….state social welfare…a spiritual sensibility or empathy

      … something which neolib Ruth Richardson ( “Ruthless Ruth the baby Snatcher”) always seemed to lack

      …little did we know then that she was the harbinger of a new ruthless era of international greedy corporate neoliberalism taking over from the old democratic social welfare state…where people would be treated as pawns to be manipulated and objects to be exploited
    • RedBaronCV 13.2

      5 November 2015 at 7:47 pm

      I’ve read it too and also another volume in the series “Generation Rent”.
      I was struck by how much chaos/uncertainty( the accurate word eludes me) that he remembers right back to childhood, and the large burden of worry and stress that rogernomics put on both his parents and himself over many years. Nothing from Rogernomics improved his life from childhood onwards.
      The second theme was his interviews with Ruth Richardson and Rod Carr. Ruth seemed to absolutely certain even now that she had done the right thing and if anything should have even caused more pain. Carr on the other hand could see that there had been gains and losses but was still stuck in the neolib mindset that loans had enbled more people to got to university. As if there was only a imited pool of funds for tertiary education.
      Higher marginal rates on large incomes recoup the excess earnings generated by higher education – front loading the costs onto individuals is the neo lib attitude.

      Generation rent was more disturbing – basically it proposed that younger people should be encouraged into lifetime renting with stricter rental rules. It also attacked as myths issues such as decreasing migratin would lessen housiong demand but the arguments were not so convincing.
      • savenz 13.2.1

        5 November 2015 at 8:46 pm

        Shamubeel Eaqub (author of Generation Rent) to me seems to be one of these neoliberal ideological rent a consultants, a MSM darling while his conflict of interest as touting the benefits of shares vs owning a home while having strong ties to Goldman , Sachs & Co. as their Director of Investment Research and Principal economist.

        After telling Kiwis for years property would fall and share are a better investment he then decides after having a baby that yep home ownership is more than an investment… doh!

        My god, profit does not solve everything???

        No wonder you didn’t find his arguments convincing.

        You can’t compare the two books!
        • Adele 13.2.1.1

          5 November 2015 at 9:28 pm

          Teenaa koe, savenz

          Shamubeel is the antithesis of a neoliberal consultant. His views on housing can be found here:

          http://www.communityhousing.org.nz/news/23-october-new-zealand-turning-point/

          As an Economist he certainly sits outside the square.
14. Chooky 14

    5 November 2015 at 7:03 pm

    ‘2015 Million Mask March: Anonymous readies for global day of action in over 650 cities’

    https://www.rt.com/news/320798-million-mask-march-anonymous/

    “Tens of thousands of activists disguised as Guy Fawkes are expected to the flood streets of over 671 cities as the Anonymous-led Million Mask March sweeps the globe. The hacktivist group and its followers will protest censorship, corruption, war and poverty.

    For the fourth year in a row the “Anonymous army,” as the group likes to call its activists, will rise up and take part in rallies and protests from Sydney to Los Angeles and Johannesburg to London…
15. Morrissey 15

    5 November 2015 at 7:54 pm

    “I just see an ex-KGB agent, y’know what I’m sayin’?”
    RNZ National’s intellectual heavies take it to Vladimir Putin.
    Thursday 5 November 2015

    vacuous /ˈvakjʊəs/ adj. 1. having or showing a lack of thought or intelligence; mindless. 2. empty.

    In the nineteenth century, the editor of the Nelson Colonist took it upon himself to issue the following proclamation: “We warn the Tsar of Russia.” [1] That little broadside is now part of our popular mythology, but aficionados of the wretchedly jumped-up will be happy to know the spirit of defiance lives on: Russian bear-baiting is alive and well in this country. One of the most dedicated outlets for verbally confronting these outrageous bad guys is RNZ National….

    Morning Report, RNZ National, Thursday 5 November 2015, 8:10 a.m. 

    Susie Ferguson interviews one David Ewalt (deputy editor of special projects at Forbes) re the Forbes list of the World’s Most Powerful People. For the second year running, No. 1 is Vladimir Putin. Cue the entirely predictable, politically correct, right-on “analysis” that might as well have been written for Ewalt and Ferguson by some hapless ideological slave in the State Department….

    DAVID EWALT: He annexed the Crimea and destabilized Ukraine. Yet he just keeps getting away with it! He’s immune!

    SUSIE FERGUSON: He’s certainly Teflon…

    Eight hours or so later, during the light chat show The Panel, the sneering denunciation of the evil Russian bear continues, with Jesse Mulligan and Ella Henry making some almost unbelievably partisan, hypocritical and ill-informed remarks. All very depressing for anyone naïve enough to believe that broadcasters should actually know something before they comment; however, there is one genuinely funny moment, when Simon Pound, in an act of supreme projection, expresses his sympathy for what poor old Prince Charles has to endure every day: “Small talk. Endless, endless small talk.” …..

    The Panel, RNZ National, Thursday 5 November 2015
    Jim Mora, Ella Henry, Simon Pound, Zara Potts, Jesse Mulligan

    JIM MORA: Good afternoon Jesse, how are you?
    JESSE MULLIGAN: I’m great thanks.
    JIM MORA: And, ah, moi aussi. Ella Henry, hello.
    ELLA HENRY: Kia ora, Jim.

    …….

    JIM MORA: Eleven minutes to four. Zara Potts.
    JESSE MULLIGAN: Hello. Now, we’re going to start with, umm, Forbes magazine, which has just published its annual Most Powerful Person list. And for the second year running, Russian president Vladimir Putin has taken out the number one spot. Two years in a row! Ah, now Forbes says it makes its decision based on how much money the person controls, the number of people that they [sic] impact, the total sphere of the influence, and how actively they wield their power. So I s’pose he ticks all the boxes on those, on those, ahh, criteria.
    JIM MORA: Do you think these power lists really mean a lot? It’s interesting when you read biographies, that the powerful often don’t feel that powerful, because there’s so much happening around them and so many compromises and mitigations all the time.
    ELLA HENRY: I have a feeling that Putin knows EXACTLY—
    ZARA POTTS: Ha ha ha ha!
    ELLA HENRY: —-how powerful HE is.
    ZARA POTTS: [snorting in assent] I think he feels his power, doesn’t he! Ha ha ha ha! Snort.
    JESSE MULLIGAN: And he seems to very shamelessly go after that power as well, right?
    ZARA POTTS: [nervous, suddenly uncertain] Heh, heh.
    JESSE MULLIGAN: This latest thing in the Middle East seems to be just a blatant attempt to, uh, show some muscle.
    JIM MORA: Which makes, which is why he’s, which is why he’s top of the Forbes List, yeah?
    ZARA POTTS: Yeah, it’s definitely part of it, because he’s basically changing the course of history, they’re saying, by his interventions or his actions in the Ukraine and in Syria.
    JIM MORA: Who was number two, I wonder?
    ZARA POTTS: I didn’t SEE number two, but there was, the rest of the list was quite interesting. There’s 73 people on it and 28 of them are billionaires, and thirty of them are American, and only nine of them are women.
    JIM MORA: Ahhh.
    ELLA HENRY: Ohhhh, that is such a metaphor for humanity, isn’t it!
    JIM MORA: Hur hur hur hur!
    ZARA POTTS: Ha ha ha ha! It is! …[pause]… Now here’s something that you don’t hear very much of any more: spontaneous human combustion….

    About 40 minutes later….

    JIM MORA: Ah, sunny skies, Union Jacks, ah, decent sized crowds for Charles and Camilla in Dunedin today. Would you like the Royal life, do you think? You know, bird sanctuaries, and dance academies, and musical recitals and museums.
    SIMON POUND: Small talk. Endless, endless small talk. And, ahh, if you do everything perfect all day, that’s to be expected, and you make the slightest mistake and it will be headline news everywhere.
    ELLA HENRY: Hmmmm.
    SIMON POUND: Real power is NOT having to do anything for anyone and that seems to be the exact opposite of real power. You’re owned, by the whole world, all the time.
    ELLA HENRY: Yeah, and I, we talked about the most powerful person on the planet at the beginning of this, errr, y’know, program, Putin, and I look at him, and I don’t think he’s a king of small talk.
    JIM MORA: Ha ha!
    SIMON POUND: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
    ELLA HENRY: Hur hur! I just see an ex-KGB agent, y’know what I’m sayin’? So I, I’m—phooof!—I think they, they definitely fulfill an important role in Britain. And you get that sense when you are able to experience anything that has a sense of royalty and pageantry and the Royal Family, I mean they’re much, much loved. How relevant they remain to New Zealand is something we as a nation have to have a dialogue, but, y’know, I mean we haven’t even sorted out the FLAG.
    JIM MORA: No. We won’t necessarily—
    ELLA HENRY: [softly] Ha ha ha ha ha!
    JIM MORA: —-get on to that todaaay.
    SIMON POUND: And, and, and they are, like it would be a much more exciting trip if we did get a more exciting Royal as well, because we have got probably the least exciting of the latest crop as well.
    ELLA HENRY: I felt a little sorry for them. On the news last night, there was a piece about the All Blacks and 25,000 people going rah rah rah, and then there were like fourteen people and a puppy cat at, y’know, because it was raining and miserable in Wellington when they did their walkabout, and I almost, ALMOST had a second of sympathy for them.
    JIM MORA: So the excitement of YOUTH is missing, that’s what you’re saying, but we still, we seem to have a great amiability.
    SIMON POUND: Yeah, well Will and Kate are kind of exciting—
    ELLA HENRY: They’re rock stars!
    SIMON POUND: —and big media figures, and Harry would be great to go out on the town with, he seems like a pretty fun guy. [2] Umm, Prince Philip would be likely to say something awful and that would be quite entertaining. I just don’t know that these are really the, we haven’t got the A-team.
    JIM MORA: You get mature advice from Prince Charles and Camilla.
    ELLA HENRY: The point was made, too, that we see a lot more of them. I remember the tours as a child, and I’m talking about the 1950s, literally the country would shut down, and there would be a day off school, and you’d get a little flag, even in rural towns and railway stations, so it was a much bigger deal. Now, it’s like part of their circuit of networking and reaching out and being relevant. So we’re going to see them ALL in a calendar year.

    ad nauseam…

    [1] http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/imageserver/imageserver.pl?oid=TO19071026.1.21&ext=png

    [2] http://perezhilton.com/2012-09-02-prince-harry-naked-make-out-las-vegas-scandal#.Vjr56uD7JFQ
16. Mike the Savage One 16

    5 November 2015 at 10:07 pm

    Left and Right in NZ are ignorant to the extreme and lost in idiocy, to be honest. W e face huge challenges, and they go well beyond of all your horizons:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg604vLbaWg

    That is ISIS one bit of propaganda clip, so what do you deliver to oppose?
    • Mike the Savage One 16.1

      5 November 2015 at 10:09 pm

      New Zealand is governed by idiots for idiots, I know all about it, good luck!
17. Mike the Savage One 17

    5 November 2015 at 10:21 pm

    I am all for peace but we do not get it we have to learn to fight again.

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