Open mike 06/04/2024
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- End Game
Related articles belowIntroductionRecently, I’ve been having some delays in putting pen to paper.It’s not because I’m short on words -Verbosity seems to be one of the banes of my life. And it’s not because there isn’t enough content: I just whipped up a long list from the past few days.So, ...6 hours ago - Rowdy scrappers, beautiful birds
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The shadow of Chris Finlayson looms long over New Zealand's coastline.
https://pointofordernz.wordpress.com/2024/04/05/coastal-court-action-flies-under-the-radar/
The hideous right is turning on one of its bright sparks – can't have clarity of thought that threatens privilege!
I thought so too.
One group has quickly sized up the new government.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/04/05/indian-community-disappointed-by-govts-quarterly-action-plan-on-crime/
Kushal always struck me as absurdly ignorant about the causes of crime and what a government can do about it in the short run – other than a curfew, martial law and armed soldiers on the street. As he's such a fool, I have less sympathy for him having been conned by the Nat-ACT neoliberal wide boys. Particularly as the ease with which he and his mates were conned has helped hand control of our society to some of the worst people in it (the said wide-boys), and many other people will have to suffer the consequences. I guess now that the scales have dropped from his eyes and he's critical of the Nats, he won't be popping up every 5 minutes in the NZ Herald as he was before the election – small compensation though.
It is worse than that though. The direction this government is taking is likely to increase poverty and increase crime. He's more likely to get robbed.
Listened to Richard Shaw on RNZ this morning. He talks about the issues covered in his book The Unsettled. He tells his story of unearthing the history of his own forebear's role as a constable in the invasion of Parihaka by colonist forces… with the subsequent family farm land in the 'Naki on confiscated land – even though his Irish Catholic forbears had been displaced by colonial in Ireland.
He also talks about stories of others who have investigated the hidden histories of their proud family farms. A great job of unpacking the wider aspects of coloniser benefits continued in NZ today.
I've seen the seething discontent of the descendants of Māori dispossessed by the Crown who have little more than the paltry reservations allocated to their Tipuna while their neighbours, the by now wealthy descendants of the militia men and soldiers gifted confiscated land, congratulate themselves and enjoy the rewards of stolen land.
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I too, listened. Good discussion.
I wonder too how DNA testing might throw up the connections between the soldiers who raped the Maori women at Parihaka and the offspring that followed.
There might be other reckonings to be had that are even more personal.
Here was his earlier article as well.
https://e-tangata.co.nz/history/uncovering-the-stories-my-family-forgot-about-a-past-still-haunting-aotearoa/
@ twig..
I have similar questions..
On one side I am 5th generation (from early scots settlers).
I haven't investigated..
I think I am uncomfortable with what I might find..
Now it is no free Flu vaccine for all under 12s and Māori/ PI over 65, …every bloody day it’s just more and more nasty shit, fuck them, they’ve had long enough, its time to give them the arse already. Start, if you are able too to give money, even if it’s only 2 dollars a week to your lefty party of choice. Let’s do this.
Yes, pretty much what the nurse giving my flu jab a few days ago said…
Victory for Labour (VFL)
Half goes to the party, half to your electorate.
"Now it is no free Flu vaccine for (…………) Māori/ PI over 65,
Absolute rubbish. The vaccine is free for anyone over 65. From Pharmacs' info notice
"For the 2024 flu season, the vaccine is funded for everyone 65 years old and over"
https://pharmac.govt.nz/medicine-funding-and-supply/what-you-need-to-know-about-medicines/vaccines/flu-season
Adrian – and Alwyn
The free flu vaccines are no longer available to children under 12 years of age as you say, Adrian.
But the change in respect of Maori and Pacific Islanders is that free vaccinations are now no longer available to those aged 55 – 64 years of age – only to those aged 65 and over.
As discussed in the link below to a recent RNZ new article, these two groups now excluded from free vaccinations are considered high risk groups, :
How does that fit with what Shane Reti said when he announced the Maori Health Authority would be disestablished and that this heralds the start of a new vision for Maori health?
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/māori-health-authority-disestablished
Sadly it doesn't fit in any way with what Reti said on 28 February – his speech was just a bunch of weasel words imo. These cutbacks in providing free vaccinations to these two high vulnerable groups certainly do not constitute "identifying need and responding to it."
I haven't the time to trawl through all the material available on the site that Alwyn has linked to, but what I have seen suggests there’s little or nothing there that supports Adrian's contentions.
Re that cathedral restoration that has run out of money:
(apropos of not much)…
When g.b. shaw was here in the 1930's he described it as an ugly pastiche of different styles..
..whereas he said that the catholic cathedral was one of the finest examples of the genre he had seen..(words to that effect..)
(Shaw was from irish Protestant family..)
So I guess the point to take from that..is 'why bother..?'