Words have consequences. As the famous World War II poster warned us, "Loose Lips Sink Ships"
Loose talk costs lives.
Those who deliberately spread malicious lies and disinformation, also help kill people, By denying and covering up atrocities they give political cover for more killing.
Democracy Now! Democracy Now! The War on Peace report
@ 1:50 minutes
….. 'Twenty Days in Mariupol' A new documentary about the early days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine that has just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival….
….Reporters from the Associated Press risked their lives to stay in Mariupol and document Russia's attack even after International journalists left. (They were Ukrainian journalists)…..
@ 13:00 minutes
….as you talk about this bombing of this maternity hospital, can you also talk about what we struggle with every day in our Newsroom….
@ 14:36 minutes
….Russians were claiming that all of these women were actresses, that this was all not true, that it was staged. That was painful too….
Reposting this post from newsense that I read in the middle of the night on 10/02, because I agree it's a great article, with excellent comments underneath from the hoipolloi.
"Geez- I agree with Josie Pagani 100%. One of us must be a stopped clock!
But it’s no secret our country has run on a lot of people being paid less than minimum wage. If your wage is crap and just covering rent, you can/could get a good cheap meal at xyz restaurant or cheap veges at that small supermarket. And like bus drivers forced into crap wages by the mechanism of the contracting system, here often exploitation of immigrants or international students who were in employment situations not covered by NZ law was the case. This is a low wage economy.
It means a reset on the value of some luxury meals and the places you went to to stretch your grocery bill, but asked no questions need questions asked. If everyone is getting a living wage, then it has to be everyone. And that means accepting some re-evaluation of the cost of some things.
This mindset goes back to the 90s and will be hard to change, but adjusting to new realities is going to be a popular thing for people to do in the near future, and this surely won’t be the worst of them.
But yeh simply what Pagani is saying is that class war has been raised so successfully on the lower classes that it’s science that the weakest must accept a decreasing share to combat inflation and economic growth not making them better off. That’s the result of the economic orthodoxy of both main parties which has changed little in 30 years. If Labour can sell the majority of people being better off through a slight reverse of the huge wealth transfer of the property market and elsewhere, good on them. I did think core values were a property owning democracy, but perhaps that rabbit is further off."
Good on Josie Pagani for exposing the hypocrisy of those who cry foul at rises in the minimum wage, while maintaining their silence over rising CEO salaries or corporate profits.
Jose Pagani writes; "I haven't found a single news release from business representatives denouncing the increase, saying it wil cause inflation and have to be passed on to customers (although I bet it was). Not a single person claimed that this would lead to increased unemployment for CEOs."
But is this measure to address poverty all it is cracked up to be?
Susan St John gives a sobering factual account totaling the actual value of this wage rise to the lowly paid.
….Lets take a typical family with a couple of kids and one and half full-time earners. At 60 hours a week, they have an extra $90 gross a week. This is an annual increased income of $4,680.
They are both on a tax rate of 17.5%, and so pay $819 income tax. But that is not all. As a consequence of that extra gross income they also lose 27% or $1264 of their Working for Families. Because of this extra income they may also have to repay an extra $562 in Student loans and may receive $1170 less Accommodation Supplement. With ACC and Kiwisaver deductions they are left with around $655 or an increase in net weekly income of just $13 dollars. That won’t dent their cost of living problems or cover their chidlren’s ‘bread and milk’.
In effect the extra income they can expect from 1 April could be taxed as much as 86%.
In the meantime, prices continue to rise. If the main earner tries to get ahead by doing extra hours of work they would cross into the 30% tax bracket and give them zero for their extra income.
Here's something new regarding Three Waters. Who pays should one of the the new water services entities default on their debt? Well, according to the Water Services Legislation Bill, regional ratepayers will pay!? Mikey explains:
ZB Talk. On Demand. Auckland. Friday 10/2/23. 8.45am.@3.47.
What would happen should such a situation arise right now, say for Wellington? I can't see Wellington ratepayers being in a position to service additional debt. Would central government step in to help out?
[What’s up with the date/time stamp, is it meant to be a link? Provide the full and correct link.
What does “Mikey” explain? Explain it to us, in your own words, so that we can discuss this with you here on TS, not with “Mikey”.
Where in the Bill does it say that debt will default to Councils and thus to ratepayers in case of a debt default by the new water service entities? What is central Government proposing?
Wellington ratepayers are already faced with a debt, as per your linked article:
… Wellington has had decades of under-investment in key infrastructure like three waters …
Come back when you have the answers, with correct links – Incognito]
That way people can go and listen for themselves. Without that, your comment is worse than useless, it's hearsay that people will react to without context or understanding.
This has been explained to you a lot. If you can't figure out how to link, ask for help and prioritise this. There's only so much more time the mods are going to allow for chasing up things like this during election year.
As weka said, you have to provide a link still to your talk back web page.
You also have to point to the Clause in the Bill and link to it. The Bill is at the Select Committee stage and open for consultation but submissions close tomorrow. Either way, nothing is set in stone yet, least of all because of the Government’s Policy refocus. What are you trying to spin here, Mikey’s talking points for Luxon?
Ratepayers already pay for water infrastructure through rates. What makes Wellington special that you think it is a relevant example? Why do you think the water entities might default? Do credit rating agencies support your worst-case scenario or are you simply fear mongering?
You mean this Oliver Alexander??….I hope not, if it is, maybe try getting a bit more serious in future and vetting your sources a little more closely.
"Oliver Alexander, a Danish businessman working in a beachfront apartment in southern Portugal, is watching war play out more than 2,000 miles away in something like real time.
With Twitter on his computer and Telegram on his phone, a flood of videos allow him to identify Russian tanks rolling over Ukrainian bridges and Russian helicopter gunships blasting away at a Ukrainian airport"
1) it was supposedly a super secret operation that Congress shouldn't be informed about, but a multiple branches of the military – and foreign countries! – were involved
2) they laid the mines during… a very public military exercise. why not just use a fishing vessel or something? crappy way to run a "secret" op.
3) One of the pipelines is still operational. Weird, eh?
…this is why we don't just uncritically accept one reporter's story…"
Unless, of course, you are Martyn Bradbury, or most of the Russian tankies on here. The bottom line is Hersh's source is a single unnamed person who posits a ludicrously complex plot to which they are improbably aware of all it’s components.
We need to address a wider issue here though. Most on the left are principled and consistent in condemning all imperialist wars of aggression and of upholding the right of a sovereign nation to defend itself when attacked. That includes the need to confront fascism everywhere, and not shirk from the force of arms to do so if that is the last resort you are forced to.
But there is a considerable faction of the wider left – one often considerably superannuated like Pilger, Chomsky and Hersh – that will denounce western wars of imperialism but make excuses for Russia's one in the Ukraine. A lot of these people are inheritors of the tradition of left wing thought that happily swallowed the Soviet line and opposed our involvement in WW2 until the Nazi invasion of the USSR, at which point they duitfully fell into line and supported the war effort 100%. And of course, some are merely (very) old people who made their name or formed their world view in the era of Vietnam and the 1960s counter-culture and who now are in (often quite advanced) old age and are well into intellectual decline.
But many of this group are also seduced by what Marxist commentator Richard Seymour has described as the "romanticism of dissidence" which allows for conspiracism, moral indolence, the dubious glamour of "alt" thinking and a wider cultural pull towards reactionary thinking in the guise of a defense of an amorphous definition of "freedoms." You see this sort of "glamour of dissidence" a lot in Bradbury, or in Chris Trotter’s conspiracy-drenched fixation with race issues, or the way the Putin fanbois fixate on dubious claims to supposedly substantiate their alt thinking.
"Conspiracy theory" is often a useful term for cancelling legitimate views of persons with whom one happens to to disagree. It’s not a term that I myself ever use.
….It is often stated that people who lie have a tendency to add too much superfluous detail to their accounts. This attempt to “cover all bases” is in many cases what trips these people up. Extra details add extra points of reference that can be crosschecked and examined.
One two-bedroom place she looked into had an advertised price of about $950 per week, but the property manager later said they’d been offered $1100 and wondered if she could beat it.
‘‘It was like a bidding war … there’s just absolute greed and it needs regulation,’’ the woman says.
Working in mental health care, she’s concerned about the huge flow-on effects this level of rental-hunting can have not just on individuals, but the community at large.
‘‘Greed and selfishness doesn’t just affect one person … we do well as a community when each of us are doing well,’’ she says.
It's not so much greed that drives the Queenstown market but the greatest fool. And everyone else pays, or reaps, the consequences.
Landlords here tend to be price takers, rather than price setters, it's generally the tenant side that runs around setting the price, and the landlords just go with the tide, up or down.
It's been even more marked in the commercial / retail space with rents up 25 – 30% on 2019 levels, and the leap happened several months before tourist flows even started to recover. Hotel occupancies are still down 20% on 2019, but CBD rentals are up 25% based on new leases in the last 6 months.
And yeah, it's been a feature of the place for as long as it's been a place.
It's not so much greed that drives the Queenstown market but the greatest fool.
And the example I gave was below. I dont think she is a fool…
Working in mental health care, she’s concerned about the huge flow-on effects this level of rental-hunting can have not just on individuals, but the community at large.
IMO the "greatest fool" could be applicable..to some. However IMO there are a LOT of absolutely desperate working..(and not) people who have to just pay. Some getting an accommodation supplement (aka land lords benefit, which we help to subsidise) too.
I have a bit of a problem with the Hersh story too.I have no doubt he's cultivated strong relationships with insiders over the years, but these persons familiar with the matter or an official speaking with anonymity can't be given too much weight, no matter which side of the divide is reporting.Then again , along with a few inaccuracies (Stoltenberg being a CIA plant from the age of 15) his general gist is probably correct.
I think there was UK/US involvement .Radislow Sikorski's (later deleted)"thank you USA! signals he believes it also .
Nuland's gloating in Congress "very gratified " that NS2 "is a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea"shows she doesn't think Russia had anything to gain from it
But the nuts and bolts of what and how it happened may never be known, bar a whistleblower who will be promptly rounded on and denounced as a liar or fantasist , as were the OPCW whistleblowers
I quite like Craig Murray's take
He's absolutely against the invasion , and just as vehement against NATO.
"It is a clear indicator of the disappearance of freedom from our so-called western democracies, that Sy Hersh, arguably the greatest living journalist, cannot get this monumental revelation on the front of the Washington Post or New York Times, but has to self-publish on the net."
That serious people don't see a problem with this is the problem…I managed to get into an email exchange with someone at RNZ once, my question to them was…why won't Kim Hill have on anyone with a counter narrative to the Russiagate conspiracy?…Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Mate' would have all made great interviews…they had no answer.
So one can only conclude that the job of RNZ is to maintained at all times, the state narrative (whatever that may be)..look at their almost total silence on Assange, total silence on Biden's murky past in Ukraine, their lack of any context whatsoever on the Ukraine/Russia war etc etc.
I have a different view from perhaps all of the other speakers, on the legitimacy of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which I oppose.
But I also oppose NATO expansion which is an underlying cause of the war, and indeed oppose the existence of NATO itself.
NATO is a war machine which sucks resources from working people to benefit the military industrial complex, and unleashes devastating destruction on developing states which do not make their natural resources available to western billionaire elites.
It is also a fundamental node of the propaganda apparatus which manipulates and controls our society, particularly as counter narrative and dissident thought is now rigorously and systematically excluded.
Where the defense of one’s country is at stake, legitimacy is probably going to take a back seat.
Craig Murray has hit the nail on the head with that article on all levels.
I have no doubt if the My Lai story broke in 2023, the government would deny it, Bellingcat would run interference on it, many commenters here would decry it, social media would de-amplify and disappear it, and Hersh would be totally crushed.
But what most worries me about the entire story is the unanimous complicity of the mainstream media in ignoring the completely obvious.
The media line, parroted here relentlessly by the BBC and corporate media, was that the Russians had probably themselves blown up the pipeline on which they had expended such great resources and three decades of intense diplomatic activity, and which was to be the key to Russia’s single most valuable source of income for the next 40 years.
This was always quite literally incredible. You would have to be deranged to believe it.
It actually taught me not just that we truly are in the realm of totalitarianism and the Big Lie, but I learnt something very important about how the Big Lie works.
The secret is not that people genuinely believe an outrageous claim. The secret is that people do genuinely believe that they are in a battle of good against evil, and it is necessary to accept the narrative being promoted, in the interests of fighting evil.
So finally some parts of serious Western MSM are calling bullshit on what was the greatest political/media conspiracy of modern times..of course I am talking about Russiagate, the totally fabricated Democrat/Clinton/CIA fueled media led fantasy of collusion between D.Trump and Putin.
However the damage has been done..public trust in media has rightly sunk through the floof to historic lows…you all must remember even our own braindead media like RNZ would report of Trump/Russia almost every fucking day!!
RNZ’s chief US political correspondent at the beginning of all this (I forget his name) was caught up the Wikileaks scandal, as it turned out he was in direct contact with the Hillary campaign during the election cycle asking if his stories meet with their approval…I lodged a official complaint with the RNZ for breaching standards at the time, bizarrely my complaint wasn’t held up…however I did notice that the correspondent was dropped a few months later.
So where did this relentless conspiracy leave us?…well I would say well primed for a war against Russia for sure…and of course Hillary Clinton the Democratic Party and their complicit media walk away paying no price, everyone keeps their jobs (with promotions), it looks like the Clinton's took a page out of Karl Roves political play book "Accuse your opponent of what they are going to accuse you of." and did it spectacularly well, so I guess by their metric…job well done.
[reddit embed deleted as it was way too long]
As Incognito said last night "Useful Idiots"…plenty of them have been exposed on this forum over this saga that is for fucking sure!!
Sorry I didn't mean to have all Karl Roves political play books actually all come up on TS then…I just wanted a link….if a mod wants to fix that, go ahead, thanks.
We could rebuttal back and forward to the end of time .
I worked for a retired thoracic surgeon (A woman , pretty remarkable for her time), who's retort to an argument was often "Well you be comforted by your illusions and I'll be comforted by mine "
.And thats what I think we find here .Entrenched positions , each incredulous that the other can't see what's blindingly obvious.
Bravo Adrian , for still fighting the good fight, this is probably not the forum for it
I do myself find it pretty astonishing that the sabotage of NS2 , lets face it , most probably done by those who profited most, has been so blithely skimmed over by some .A kind of normalisation of environmental disaster and economic attack " Oh well , not a huge thing in the scheme of things.The US just doing what the US does .Ho hum " type thing
Now Germany turns to coal and environmentally ruinous fracked gas from the US with many more carbon miles and a large dollar increase., that reduces their economic viability.
Evidence is necessary in courts of law, but the rules which guide judiciaries don't necessarily apply where politics and war are concerned. In those sorts of arenas it is probably best to simply accept the obvious, especially when one knows that evidence can never be available; unless of course one is wedded to a contrary agenda.
The shock at the destruction of Nordstrom (if they attack Ukraine it will go) after the deliberate attempt to take out the civilian power supply in Ukraine – which is a war crime – is no where to be found.
Except among those who
either blame those of Ukraine for the destruction of their cities because they would not stop resisting armed invasion, or blame those who support a nations right to defend itself.
Or blame those who meddle in the affairs of other countries, not for the benefit of any of those other countries, but for their own economic benefit. It would be speculative, I know, to think that he US may have prodded Ukraine into a series of actions which they knew would antagonise Russia, just so that they might eventually have a pretext for for destroying Nordstream 2. But who knows.
Interesting piece. As an aside, the enormous loss of moral authority as a consequence of the illegal Iraq invasion (justified with fabricated evidence) and the resulting enormous crimes against humanity for which the guilty will never be held to account resonate today through the conspiracy laden thinking of the alt-left and it's pro-Russian world view.
Being aware of and fully understanding the (recent) historical geo-political background and context to what has resulted in an avoidable and pointless bloodbath..often referred to as the Russia/Ukraine war, and pointing out those plain facts, is not in any way promoting nor is it endorsing a "pro-Russian world view" Sanctuary..it is what smart, intelligent people like you should be doing..but for whatever reason, don't.
But this what every single fucking one of you pro war Liberals do every time someone points out anything that goes against the state narrative…’Putin Puppet’..Pro- Russian’ etc etc etc…just like you same people did during the now completely debunked Trump/Putin Russiagate conspiracy…don’t you see it is exactly the same news sources that fed you those lies that are the same news outlets now baying for war war war…holy shit man have you no independent critical thinking capacity at all in that top few inches of your skull?
Yes there are good reasons for people to be alienated and critical of Western hegemony. But some people take that another step, or several steps, and wind up supporting war criminals like ISIS and Putin
It's origin is much earlier than the regime change in Iraq. It's part of appeasement to prevent confrontation/war which has been around since WW1/war to end war/war for democracy in place of autocracy (and then came fascism in Germany and communism in Russia, so why bother).
Co-Governance. A lot is being said about co-governance, in the context of water services, and proposed arrangements to meet Treaty entitlements. Comparisons are made with a settlement under Key/Finlayson where National first used the term co-governance, but I suspect there is a better example of co-governance, National party style – the Electricity market. There we went from 100% governance by government, to 49% governance of generation through shareholders in companies that have 51% ownership, but which by law require the Boards of those companies to fairly represent minority shareholders. We know that early investors included some very wealthy people who did very well out of the floats; some will of course have sold, but the Government has no control over who is effectively "co-governing" our important electricity market. Overall, each company will resist lower returning development which may reduce profitability in the short term, but they know that the industry as a whole must be able to meet demand – hence the retention of coal fired generation for so long . . . It is of course a competitive market – they compete for who can be most expensive at any one time – a lot of money was put into giving consumers the pretence of being able to identify the cheapest supplier, but they have made charges so complex; now including "loyalty bonuses" that it is getting very hard to tell who is cheapest – and no guarantee that whichever company is chosen will not rise up through the ranks fairly quickly . . .
Is that a legitimate possibility for National "Co-governance" for water?
The 3 Waters entities will not have a profit motive, they won't be SOE's but rather public utilities. So we avoid a debacle like Bradford's idiotic electricity "market"
And anyway, Hipkins may have an announcement soon regarding the water reforms.
"The 3 Waters entities will not have a profit motive, they won't be SOE's but rather public utilities. So we avoid a debacle like Bradford's idiotic electricity "market""
Not sure where you get that idea from…the (limited) detail as to the workings of the proposed entities indicates they are to be self funding and responsible for (the increased) investment which will demand a level of profit to service all that demands.
Sooner or later the public will understand that the solutions promised by the reforms have exactly the same issues that have created the problems we currently face.
Watercare is a decent model of the sort of amalgamation that 3 Waters is aiming for. Four publicly owned WSE's under strict regulation, with a massive government investment in the future, could not be further from "more of the same"
"Auckland councillor and planning committee chair Chris Darby said the price increases would be "hard to bear" for the public, particularly for lower-income families and those suffering from the economic impacts of Covid-19.
Watercare had been too focused on keeping the price of water low, but in doing so had underinvested and consequently costs had risen, Darby said.
The proposal follows a mere 2.5 per cent price rise this year, and a previous decade of meagre price increases.
Since Watercare formed in 2011/2012 the price per 1000 litres of water has increased just $0.29, from $1.30 to $1.59.
The ability to keep water prices low had been praised by many politicians – particularly those in favour of small government, and the independent review noted Watercare had delivered savings to customers of $100m per year compared to legacy council forecasts.
But the proposed price increases would see a huge reversal in that trend, with the cost per 1000 litres increasing to $1.706 next year and more than doubling over the next decade to $3.37.
"But we have to recognise this is the product of probably not just a decade of Watercare, but even before, years of underinvestment, and it has caught up on us," Darby said."
Sooner or later the public will understand that the solutions promised by the reforms have exactly the same issues that have created the problems we currently face…..as the Deloitte paper is at pains to condition.
Thanks for copy-pasting that political broadcast from the National Party Herald ™.
Back in the real world, 3W will be one of the biggest infrastructure investments in NZ’s history and pretending it’s “more of the same” is just nonsense
You do understand the meaning and origin of investment?….your comment suggests not.
Go and read your linked Deloitte study (commissioned by the Cabinet promoting the policy) and you may begin to understand how and why we are where we are and what 'we' will need to accept to improve the situation….and governance is way down the list of causes or solutions.
The proposed entities can be relied on to do only one thing with any certainty and that is to remove political (democratic) accountability for the upcoming cost increases….correction, two things….and sinecures.
"The results are a boost for the centre-left, which now has nine seats on the council – Fairey, Leoni, Shane Henderson, Alf Filipaina, Fuli Lotu, Angela Dalton, Josephine Bartley, Richard Hills and Chris Darby."
The herald has misused the Darby quote to build a stupid and misleading narrative. The fact is Watercare is the best water utility in the country, but still people moan about it.
What I would like to hear is a journalist asking National the blunt questions: What is it that frightens you about Maori having a say in Three Waters? Are you saying that Maori will charge non-Maori every time they turn on the tap or flush the toilet?
The "everyone should be equal" mantra is just a cover-up for National's implied racism on this issue which is a blatant populist vote gathering exercise for the next election.
I think it becomes clearer if you more accurately say:
"What is it that frightens you about a self-selected group of Maori individuals having a say in Three Waters? Are you saying that those particular Maori under the authority of the organisation will charge non-Maori everyone else every time they turn on the tap or flush the toilet?"
I think the second sentence is an attempt to trivialise concerns, but you get the gist.
I find the labelling of certain ideas and initiatives as Maori and non-Maori, obviously racist. It is more accurate to assign the ideas etc to those individuals and groups that promulgate them.
For instance, no-one says: Pakeha push for charter schools, they specify that it is the Act Party. Otherwise it is so vague as to be meaningless.
Maori have the same diversity across the population of experience and opinion.
Why is that consistently ignored by the repetitive use of Maori and non-Maori in contexts such as these?
Maori will NOT charge non-Maori every time they turn on the tap or flush the toilet. That will probably be left to local Councils who will be contracted to forward Koha to the Water Entities. Why else have the many water meters been installed nation wide?
If your meter has been replaced, you will receive an invoice showing the “Reason for Reading” as “METER REPLACE”. The invoice will show the final reading of the replaced meter, as well as the first reading of the new meter. If you have a direct debit in place, normal direct debit arrangements will apply to this invoice.
Water meters are not part of a dark plot or conspiracy. They can help customers save water and detect leaks. Water and especially drinking water is a precious resource although you wouldn’t think so with Gabrielle bearing down on us.
Meters are also essential for an individual water use charging system and are being universally installed using "3 Waters renewal budget" being provided by central government. The mechanism for individual water use charges is certainly being put in place. Will they be removed after leaks detected are remedied?
Water meters are a curse for low income families/families who have high water needs if there is no allowance for normal use or a fair graduated cost structure.
We have water meters in the Kapiti Coast District Council rohe and every single drop of water coming is paid for. This means for people with large families, people with disabilities that require laundry use or water for personal use line up and pay for water at the same rate as the idiot with sprinklers vainly trying to grow 'real' grass on their beach section.
In the meantime the KCDC rates are up there with the cost of rates in a local authority where water is covered in the general rates.
KCDC has been held out as some sort of model. IT IS NOT.
A person I met on Friday said that when this water charging regime was forecast he 'up sticks' and moved from the KCDC rohe. He called it a rort.
That these water charges rates will apply equally does not mean they are fair.
With no charging regime that 'rewards 'in some way those who work hard in their households to lessen use and those who have no ability to avoid high costs any Three Waters entity should be reuired to offer either a free limit or some sort of meaningful graduated scale.
And for those who believe 'oh people can apply somewhere for an help'…….
This is not the answer. People should not have to put their living circumstances on the line endlessly to various agencies to get fair arrangements. Also even though offering an ability to apply 'somewhere else' for an allowance seems good at first glance perhaps, there will always be those whose living arrangements, energy, familiarity with 'how to' will mean they don't apply. So they are intentionally possibly thrown into poverty.
Water entities should not set up unfair charging regimes that have to have the rough and unfair edges rubbed off them by other agencies offering financial help to those affected. .
Do you mean I sign the petition to get rid of Wayne Brown and he will be removed and gone by lunch time? That simple?
Essentially, you are arguing that only elected representatives can and should represent the people and that the people cannot and should not appoint representatives and/or represent themselves, is that it? If yes, that is one rigid view of democratic participation and a very narrow-minded view of accountability. Really simple.
The electricity generation / retail companies are totally governed by the principles of the Commerce Act, so must act 100% in the interests of the shareholders. So maximise shareholder value and return. Absolutely no responsibility to maintain supply or capacity. The Electricity Commission has some power over supply and capacity but there's not much grunt there.
The interesting thing is that co-governance is a National policy. We've had it here from the Ngai Tahu settlement and the sky hasn't fallen, and there's not anywhere like the amount of human shit going into the water.
"Take the mind-body split of Cartesian dualism, add queer theory, and announce your pronouns.
The result, these new gnostics tell us, is literal transmutation of the flesh through magical utterance. “I feel like a woman, therefore I am one.” “Some penises are female, some lesbians have penises.” “I am my true self now.” The phrase “gender euphoria” replaces dysphoria, for they are experiencing hormonal rapture, a transcendence of mere flesh-matter by the divine gender-soul.
A salvific belief in hidden gender-beings — gender gnosis — has taken over the brain of liberal Christianity like a misfolded protein. Contrary to its own self-image as a rational force, transgender “identity” is an inherently esoteric concept that easily adheres to existing belief systems because it indulges a specific kind of magical thinking."
Analysing the adoption of gender ideology within the Christian community was partcularly worthwhile:
…Blank slates. Microidentities. Neogenders. Cartesian dualism of the gendered soulbeing. All brought to you by the incredible power of ‘the new printing press’ to bring people together, sure, but not always for good reasons, or with good ideas. All the estimable aspects of religion — forgiveness, mercy, conscience, empathy — are absent, or else weaponized. Our new social justice priesthood demands sacrifices, obedience, silence of all doubt, or else.
Hard atheists and hard believers are the two people least likely to fall for woo. Dear believer, take it from an adamantite atheist. Heretics are coming to your church or synagogue or mosque or temple, nonbinary and transgender and maverickgender and boggogender and all, freak flags flying. They mean to stay and colonize your house of worship with bad ideas and sterilized kids. They are coming. They are already there.
If they have their way, some day soon you will hold pronoun ceremonies in the middle of worship for a child going on puberty blockers. You will be told to pray for another Dylan Mulvaney going through his facial feminization surgery, because that is “necessary and life-affirming.” Girls will share bible camp cabins with boys overnight because what are you, a transphobic bigot? Take heed and start talking to your congregation now, dear believer, before it is too late, and you find yourself surrounded by people whispering:
Just say the words. You don’t have to mean them.
Just say that trans women are women and nonbinary identities are valid.
Understanding the simplest principles of Christianity 101, or secular humanism and the difference between science and ideological BS, is too hard for 80% of the population.
Most people don't read, don't do their homework, spout whatever shit they just heard on TV or social media.
Seeing the adoption of gender ideology by some orthodox churches has been fascinating. I appreciated this excerpt:
“There is no Biblical, linguistic or historical reason to believe the claims made by those who teach an apostate gender ideology masked as Christian Theology,” writes Alaric Naudé, professor of linguistics. Examining evidence for claims by queer theologians that the bible contains a third sex “eunuch identity,” Naudé finds them entirely baseless.
People getting things wrong about the bible has never stopped them from erecting a new church on that basis, though. In fact, the opposite is true: every Christian denomination exists because Christians lacked the studied knowledge needed to know the difference between truth and falsity. Interpretations differed and people fought about them because they did not have hard, objective evidence for truth.
Not implying anything other than it makes sense of the claim of the large number of religions claimed beforehand:
Under normal circumstances, the genius of the American system is that it has 300,000 religions, so that no single one of them can dominate the others.
The cult of 'normal' is very strong (ask anyone with a permanent disability), but we have seen that various negative stereotypes associated with some behaviours and characteristics deemed 'abnormal' can be eroded, and, over time, societies as a whole can become, if not more accepting then at least more tolerant of these 'abnormalities.'
I can only imagine what it's like to have a gender identity that doesn't match one's sex; what their future might hold – not a straightforward row to hoe, imho, and it's easy to see how it could give rise to gender dysphoria. Some, perhaps even most trans people might be 're-educated' to see the error of their poor gender identity 'choices', but eradication is likely an impossibly tough nut to crack.
For people who, like myself, feel ill at ease with (the very idea of) trans people, education is key. The more I read, the more I am coming to realise that for many (perhaps most) trans people, being trans is not a choice, rather it is a manifestation of (normal) human diversity.
In the longer term it may become easier for those in the minority trans community to more fully adopt gender identities that match their true sense of self, and to change identities as needed. A few people will abuse such freedoms/rights (and so legal, law enforcement and other safeguards are required), but hopefully less visceral and more considered and accepting (or at least tolerant) attitudes towards (normal) trans people will voluntarily become the norm.
Why Sex Is Mostly Binary but Gender Is a Spectrum
[15 December 2016]
The hierarchical organization of this genetic cascade illustrates a crucial principle about the link between genes and environments in general. The perennial debate rages on: nature or nurture, genes or environment? The battle has gone on for so long, and with such animosity, that both sides have capitulated. Identity, we are now told, is determined by nature and nurture, genes and environment, intrinsic and extrinsic inputs. But this too is nonsense—an armistice between fools. If genes that govern gender identity are hierarchically organized—starting with SRY on top and then fanning out into thousands of rivulets of information below—then whether nature predominates or nurture is not absolute, but depends quite acutely on the level of organization one chooses to examine.
At the top of the cascade, nature works forcefully and unilaterally. Up top, gender is quite simple—just one master gene flicking on and off. If we learned to toggle that switch—by genetic means or with a drug—we could control the production of men or women, and they would emerge with male versus female identity (and even large parts of anatomy) quite intact. At the bottom of the network, in contrast, a purely genetic view fails to perform; it does not provide a particularly sophisticated understanding of gender or its identity. Here, in the estuarine plains of crisscrossing information, history, society, and culture collide and intersect with genetics, like tides. Some waves cancel each other, while others reinforce each other. No force is particularly strong—but their combined effect produces the unique and rippled landscape that we call an individual’s identity.
There are basically two sex 'boxes', but you can't box gender in.
Largest study to date confirms overlap between autism and gender diversity [14 September 2020]
It also indicates a need for clinicians and educators to talk with autistic people about gender identity, Dewinter says, and to be aware of potential mental health impacts that can result from ‘minority stress’ — or the difficulties associated with being part of a marginalized group. Being both autistic and gender diverse can intensify such stress.
“Clinicians and practitioners in both fields — autism and gender identity — need to be aware of this association, and to factor it into how best to support the person’s mental health,” Baron-Cohen says.
Many who see the harm of gender ideology are members of the diverse groups you refer to.
Acceptance of diversity should not require a capitulation to the idea that biological sex can be changed, or that acceptance requires a role in the supporting cast members of a solo act.
How does one identify an offender who has yet to be convicted?
You can't. That's the point. Female spaces exist in part because it's not possible to tell which men will be harmful. This is true of TW as well, and even more so now with self ID which means that any male can say they are a woman at any time.
Not only can we not tell consistently which males are dangerous, we can't tell which males saying they are women are TW or lying (thus Bryson and the cluster fuck in the Scottish political scene). There's no way around that. We either have females spaces, or women are sacrificed.
Do you mean by male, transgender women?
No, I mean men, TW, and men pretending to be TW. TW, men and men pretending to be TW are biologically male. This matters because some people (looking at Sturgeon) say that the argument I am making is that TW are predatory. That’s sophistry. The argument is that TW as a class have the same risk to women as other males.
The latest update on Isla Bryson and Scottish prison policy as applied to transgender people, and to transgender people who have carried out sexual violence.
Do I infer that you therefore think that TW should be able to access women-only spaces unless they've been convicted of a sexual crime against women?
How about being accused of a crime? Given that it can take years before a court case goes ahead (if it ever actually does).
As Weka points out below, the statistical risk-factors for TW are the same as for men in assaults against women. And self-ID with no requirement for any actual transition, opens up a huge risk to women from sexual predators. The argument that this wouldn't happen, has been thoroughly demolished by the numerous instances where it *has* happened.
And, regardless of whether the risk-factor is 'real' for any particular TW, many women perceive (for very good, historical and personal reasons) that there is a risk to them from physical males in intimate spaces. Which is why women-only spaces (from bathrooms to prisons) exist.
If there is also a risk to TW, then activists need to concentrate on giving them their own spaces, rather than taking over the existing women's only ones.
it's the wrong question. The question is whether women should be allowed to have female-only spaces. They should. Once that is re-established, then we can talk about how to organise society so that both women and trans women get their needs met.
nope. Molly just described it well below. We don't have to police individuals in women's spaces, and transexuals who are trying to look conventionally female have been using some spaces as they need to (eg toilets).
It's got nothing to do with qualification. TW are not females. Society is bad at making society an ok place for many TW, that's the conversation that's needed rather than telling women they no longer exist as a class and no longer have the right to their own politics.
Men with surgical reassignment – like Georgina Beyer – have for years been accommodated in women's spaces – despite the obvious breaching of single-sex spaces – for decades. Those who did not abuse that accommodation are unfortunately adversely affected by current gender ideology. (In fact, a common derogatory term given by gender ideology advocates for transsexuals is truscum.) There are women that would have self-excluded when this occurred either for religious reasons, or for personal reasons that have nothing to do with Georgina Beyer but everything to do with the presence of a man in a women's space.
The use of the word "ban" is emotive manipulation.
The more accurate question is do you support the maintenance of single-sex spaces and provisions? And my answer is where it matters – yes. (ie. a provision that only men can be trained in the Defence Force for sky-diving was overturned many years ago. That was a provision not based on statistical evidence, privacy or dignity).
Georgina Beyer – in addition to many other men, and some very complacent women – ridicules women in the following clip for wanting to maintain single-sex spaces, even while knowing that the gender reassignment criteria has been expanded to encompass all manner of men – who for whatever reason – want others to offer validation for them as women, which includes entry to women's single-sex provisions or advocacy.
I consider the previous unspoken – and not universal accommodation – of transsexual men in women's spaces to be a invitation that can now be withdrawn for several reasons – including the lack of diagnosis needed, the much larger number of men who want access via this route, the disrespect and paraphilias shown by men in their own postings online when women's spaces are used, and the complete and unthinking breaching of boundaries without regard to privacy and safety, let along dignity.
So, no – I don't think that Georgina Beyer should be banned because single-sex spaces that are significant are not monitored for specific individuals. (I think Georgina Beyer has demonstrated a lack of respect (above) for the category they want others to regard them as, but banning individuals is an unnecessary step when boundaries are clear and respected.)
Single-sex spaces are neither femininity nor masculinity testing stations.
They will however demonstrate the cognitive capacity, and/or decision making level of those that knowingly break those single-sex boundaries by prioritising personal feelings.
What priorities do you think Georgina Beyer makes in that situation?
Fwiw I wouldn't call Beyer a man because I think it's useful to differentiate between men and TW. But they are biologically male not female. And if women where having to fight so hard to retain the meaning of female, there'd be more consideration being given to TW. There's a backlash building and the more people's genuine concerns about gender ideology are sidelined the worst that will be. We are seeing this play out in real time in the UK.
Here's an example. Liberal gender ideologists forced the situation where a male rapist would be reported as woman in the MSM.
The BBC altered the words of a rape victim, switching gender pronouns. We know there is at least one case where a woman was told by the judge that the man who had assaulted her at feminist gather had to be referred to as she.
There is no way in hell that women where ever going to accept this, and it's on activists who enforced No Debate that that backlash is now happening. If we'd been able to have an open and honest debate, progressive women would have argued for trans rights as well as women's rights. In the UK and the US that opportunity is now gone, as gender critical positions are taken up by the more centrist and right wing mainstream.
People like Georgina are not waving their dicks around in women's changing rooms for the obvious reason – they don't have them. They are the minority these days – 90odd % of the men who demand to be called women still have their "eggs and ham". And these days many are also sexually attracted to women – unlike the trans people of old who were same SEX attracted.
The transvestites have come out of their wives closets, and are demanding to be able to exercise their paraphilia full time.
It is a courtesy and a token of acceptance to refer to them as women, but one that now carries a hefty price tag for women, so I've drawn a clear line in my use of the word women.
You can continue with your squiggly definition but you should still be able to offer analysis alongside your performance of sufferance.
You can continue with your squiggly definition but you should still be able to offer analysis alongside your performance of sufferance.
What definition have I offered? And what performance of sufferance – you are the one claiming that transsexuals have been accepted (as temporary guests/tenants in womens spaces) on sufferance and no longer.
Therefore you must have an alternate definitiou for either men/women or both.
What are they? I'm assuming they're squiggly but will stand corrected if you provide definitions that includes everyone that you want to include and excludes everyone you want to exclude.
Single-sex spaces are neither femininity nor masculinity testing stations.
They will however demonstrate the cognitive capacity, and/or decision making level of those that knowingly break those single-sex boundaries by prioritising personal feelings.
What priorities do you think Georgina Beyer makes in that situation?)
Any answer other than, only those born female are women or anyone who claims they are by self ID is squiggly. Not everyone wants to play that our side or their side game.
I raised GB as an example because she was a transvestite who went with men. She then used hormones and identified as female all the time and then became transsexual and took advantage of the opportunity to legally identify as a woman. She was never a threat to women and still is not in women's spaces. You now disapprove of her because of her opinions (and suggest she is no longer welcome as a guest in women's spaces).
Back in the day women's organisations raised gender ideology, those of their female gender having equal social and economic place in society to men. There was the argument that by freeing people from expected/required conformity to gender roles people could be more fully human (civilisation could be advanced).
They took up common cause with same sex preference equality . This reminds me of one of the Pankhurst's, not the mothers favourite, a Tory who later preached adventism to Americans, but the one who chose solidarity with the working class.
Then came the gender identity movement and women's organisations were sympathetic. We might agree that where they supported self ID they were wrong. I have no idea why they did, maybe you can explain how that happened? The process whereby a person has to use hormones, live as a women, go through a psychiatric evaluation, medical and psychologist oversight during transition before being able to have legal status as a woman appeared to provide the safeguards required to prevent sociopaths/psychopaths/misogynists from acquiring it and becoming a threat to women.
Where extensive polling is done on this (the UK) this appears to be the consensus. Not either of the extremes. That said there is also a consensus to ensure fair competition in sport (so excluding transgender persons in some areas). The same license for organisations to determine their own rules would allow lesbian groups and or refuges to do the same. Prisons, whatever the society law will always have their own safety rules, as per inmates seen as a danger to others (or at risk).
"How did I have an issue with “Georgina Beyer – in addition to many other men”. I asked you a question and thanked you for your answer."
I'll take that at face value. Let's move on.
"I raised GB as an example because she was a transvestite who went with men. She then used hormones and identified as female all the time and then became transsexual and took advantage of the opportunity to legally identify as a woman. She was never a threat to women and still is not in women's spaces. You now disapprove of her because of her opinions (and suggest she is no longer welcome as a guest in women's spaces)."
Georgina Beyer is a transsexual homosexual male. I admire much of Georgina's politics, but disagree with the ridiculing of women concerned about the impact of self-id on female spaces.
That is not the same as disapproving of Georgina Beyer the person. It is a disagreement with one perspective.
"(and suggest she is no longer welcome as a guest in women's spaces)."
No, I said there was previously an unspoken accommodation for transsexual males because of the very small number of transsexuals using female spaces. I also pointed out that this would have meant that some women self-excluded, when/if they noticed a male in the single-sex space, so some carried the cost of the accommodation.
However, due to the dedicated attempt redefinition of the word women, and the expansion of the expected accommodation to over twenty times the number of men – who for whatever reason – want others to consider them women includes a vast number men who do not fit the demographic of transsexuals such as Georgina Beyer.
But you surely know this.
The increased number makes the investment in third spaces more likely. But what would work – and preserve women's single sex spaces – is for men to support and safeguard those men in their own facilities.
"She was never a threat to women and still is not in women's spaces. "
Immaterial to the issue. My sixteen year old son has never been a threat to women, and is still not welcome in women's spaces. The use of a popular transsexual to disregard concerns is an obvious subterfuge. Not all men who identify as women are Georgina Beyer.
I'm not linking but if you want to look at specific individuals, check out the popular (120k followers on Twitter) of handle @SukiTrans to see some postings of using women's spaces with complete disrespect for women or expression of women's behaviour.
Safeguarding assesses risks via categories, not via individuals.
"Then came the gender identity movement and women's organisations were sympathetic."
Not all. And often without consideration for impacts. Lesbians have been aware of and raised concerns for over two decades.
"Any answer other than, only those born female are women or anyone who claims they are by self ID is squiggly. Not everyone wants to play that our side or their side game."
Let's be honest here, SPC. You can't do it.
Women are a sex category, that has specific political, medical and advocacy needs that have nothing to do with gender identity.
The concerted attempt to make the word meaningless, has an impact on women's ability to organise, advocate and name themselves in that work.
Don't assume because I push back against the appropriation of the word women, that I push the people who want to identify into it. The answer is No to the use of the word, not the people.
Do what? Play the game, as part of this or that side?
Women are a sex category, that has specific political, medical and advocacy needs that have nothing to do with gender identity.
Sure, but how does one then cater for transgender people who identify as totally apart from their birth sex?
Homosexual men do not identify as women and lesbian women do not identify as men.
If one calls Georgina Beyer "a homosexual male", what does one call Caitlin Jenner (Bruce Jenner was married to a woman and now identifies as transgender without bottom half surgery, and dating men)? It appears to be heterosexual, but based on their own sense of identity.
What does one call the former actress Ellen Page, now Elliot Page, first feminist, then same sex attracted and later married to a female partner, then transgender man before later ultimately ending the marriage (who wanted to be a boy from age 9)?
Consider Camille Paglia, once the only out lesbian at her graduate school, now identifying as a transgender man (and saying her career was one in which she was mentored by men).
There is a biological reality and there is what is called “the natural order” – sex for procreation of the species (a form of bio-determinism). Sure people have in the past and again today (despite the period of religious proscription) accepted homosexuality as part of the human spectrum, but also some societies have expected "two spirit" identity – based on their cultures observance of humanity.
I am sure there is someone, perhaps a bisexual women, trying to have it all via relationship with a transgender woman (without bottom half surgery), a transgender man, a non binary born male or non binary born female. Or all of them, in addition to her usual partners.
Online searches can be fun – "Juno actress" does not list Ellen Page, but a lot of others in the film.
Sure, but how does one then cater for transgender people who identify as totally apart from their birth sex?
A distinctive term/s for themselves works in their favour for political advocacy, statistics, medical focus etc. Appropropriation of women (men) is unnecessary and disrespectful.
"Homosexual men do not identify as women and lesbian women do not identify as men."
Well some do. Apparently the disrespectful attempt at appropriation of definitions doesn't stop at sex, sexual orientation definitions have been dismantled as well. Gender ideology is parasitic in that way – sucking all meaning out of words till there's nothing left but a lifeless husk. I consider this to be quite homophobic.
"If one calls Georgina Beyer "a homosexual male", what does one call Caitlin Jenner (Bruce Jenner was married to a woman and now identifies as transgender without bottom half surgery, and dating men)? It appears to be heterosexual, but based on their own sense of identity."
Apparently a bisexual male/man. This isn't hard.
What does one call the former actress Ellen Page, now Elliot Page, first feminist, then same sex attracted and later married to a female partner, then transgender man before later ultimately ending the marriage (who wanted to be a boy from age 9)?
Good God. A woman who has been in two same-sex relationships.
Gender identity may reference sex, but is an entirely different classification system to either sex or sexual orientation. Your (apparent) confusion comes from conflating the categories.
I am sure there is someone, perhaps a bisexual women, trying to have it all via relationship with a transgender woman (without bottom half surgery), a transgender man, a non binary born male or non binary born female. Or all of them, in addition to her usual partners.
Who cares? This is nothing do do with our women's rights discussion.
"Online searches can be fun – "Juno actress" does not list Ellen Page, but a lot of others in the film."
Online searches can also be studiously avoided so that ignorance can be feigned. I see you working hard in this respect.
"Homosexual men do not identify as women and lesbian women do not identify as men."
Well some do. Apparently the disrespectful attempt at appropriation of definitions doesn't stop at sex, sexual orientation definitions have been dismantled as well. Gender ideology is parasitic in that way – sucking all meaning out of words till there's nothing left but a lifeless husk. I consider this to be quite homophobic.
I'd leave to those who are homosexual men to determine if they see Beyer as homosexual or Jenner as bisexual (given neither has a penis, as Jenner does not mention it much I missed it, but did ultimately have bottom half surgery and says sex with women is not happening and is open to dating a male, has not done yet so).
Gender identity may reference sex, but is an entirely different classification system to either sex or sexual orientation. Your (apparent) confusion comes from conflating the categories.
They put it, as who they are/identify as and present as when they go bed with someone. You identify their sexuality via their birth sex and the birth sex of their partner.
"Online searches can be fun – "Juno actress" does not list Ellen Page, but a lot of others in the film."
Online searches can also be studiously avoided so that ignorance can be feigned. I see you working hard in this respect.
I mentioned it, because it demonstrated the changing of the past to be in accord with the present.
There is a biological reality and there is what is called “the natural order” – sex for procreation of the species (a form of bio-determinism). Sure people have in the past and again today (despite the period of religious proscription) accepted homosexuality as part of the human spectrum, but also some societies have expected "two spirit" identity – based on their cultures observance of humanity.
Quite apart from the issue of classification of people as male or female from birth, thus to become men and women. There are people who do not want to do so. They are also born human beings.
"I'd leave to those who are homosexual men to determine if they see Beyer as homosexual or Jenner as bisexual (given neither has a penis, as Jenner does not mention it much I missed it, but did ultimately have bottom half surgery and says sex with women is not happening and is open to dating a male, has not done yet so)."
Once again your conflation of categories confuses you.
(Note: I don't have as much interest in other individuals sex lives as you appear to. This focus on specific individuals personal lives feels voyeuristic to me, and so is not something I willingly do. So, that's it for me in your current Q&A.)
To me clear definitions are important for the reasons I've given more than once, but let's try again:
Eg. Let's weigh up your proposed advantages for lesbians in terms of organising, political advocacy and specialised support services when the word is redefined to include heterosexual men, or even two gay men who identify as women.
(Seems utterly absurd to me that by this definition you could have a lesbian advocacy group with no women at all, but that's your lookout I guess)
1. What do you see as the benefits of such a redefinition of the word lesbian?
2. Can you see any negative impacts?
There is a biological reality and there is what is called “the natural order” – sex for procreation of the species (a form of bio-determinism).
OK. Agree with the first five words. The rest is pure speculative musings, including this:
"Quite apart from the issue of classification of people as male or female from birth, thus to become men and women. There are people who do not want to do so. They are also born human beings."
All human beings ARE male or female, including those who don't want to be. Their desire doesn't change their sex.
Stop conflating sex with gender identity.
They do not belong to the same classification systems, so cannot be interchanged.
Many who see the harm of gender ideology are members of the diverse groups you refer to.
I will read about "gender ideology" with a view to understanding "the harm" (first do no harm) and to guard against false narratives.
Imho, biological sex is real, important and immutable, and there are people (trans people) whose gender (identity) is incongruent with their (biological) sex. I would prefer trans people not be portrayed and/or treated as intrinsically abnormal/sick – they are not.
Acceptance of diversity should not require a capitulation to the idea that biological sex can be changed, or that acceptance requires a role in the supporting cast members of a solo act.
Males tend to think narrowly and obsess, while females think broadly, taking into account balancing arguments. Classifying individuals in general terms, he concludes that among men, about 60% have a male brain, 20% have a balanced brain, and 20% have a female brain. Women show the inverse figures, with some 60% having a female brain. …
There is good psychological evidence that aggression and lack of empathy are on average male characteristics, and we may agree with Baron-Cohen that for both sexes, “nastiness…. gets you higher socially, and gets you more control or power.”
" I would prefer trans people not be portrayed and/or treated as intrinsically abnormal or sick – they are not."
Trans encompasses so many different demographics – including those who meet the old DSM-5 criteria for gender dysphoria, which includes extreme distress over their sex. It also includes – somehow – stage characters, such as drag queens – absolutely no distress, and cross-dressers and (mostly) men with demonstrable paraphilias, along with non-conforming children.
So, I understand your concern. Which I share when it comes to the cohort of those who are experiencing distress.
There are numerous logical breaks that occur.
For example: If no diagnosis is required, nor distress, then why is medical treatment given? Especially when state health resources are low.
What other non-diagnosed personal demand for medication and surgery is provided by our Ministry of Health? (ie. Is a young woman able to access breast augmentation surgery on the basis of gender affirming care, or is that access sex based and only offered to young men?)
What IS your definition of trans?- ie. who does it include?
Have you considered that different demographics within the broader definition may have such entirely different motivations and experiences to the point where blanket statements are so vague as to be meaningless.
What IS your definition of trans?- ie. who does it include?
At this stage of my understanding, I would define a trans person as a person whose gender (identity) is incongruent with their (biological) sex. The degree of incongruency, and the extent to which it manifests, are individual variables.
At least that's a definition I can grasp – one that is meaningful to me, given my limited experience and a (very) small number of relevant acquaintances.
Fwiw, I also believe that there is a class of people who are gender non conforming and where that is not a pathology. But if one hates one's body/sex, I'm inclined to think there are issues.
as Molly and I are pointing to, there are a range of drivers and understandings. Looks to me like there are AGP males who are seeking hormones not so much from GD but from the desire to be a woman and/or exhibitionist. This is quite different from a teen girl wanting cross sex hormones because she hates being female because of society's treatment of women and girls, and who wants to erase her sex.
I don't consider using hormones as hatred of sex, but hatred of sex can be a driver of that.
Thanks weka. So many 'boxes' under the umbrella – some will get wet!
Self-hate leading to self-harm is awful, often necessitating cycles of intervention by a skilled team with good communication skills, if you're fortunate enough to access one.
I'm uneasy about 'overlapping' trans identity with mental illness, just as I am about characterising all depression as mental illness. Maybe that's got to do with a personal concern (likely ‘fear of stigma’-based) about shifting the 'bar' of mental illness so low that none of us can limbo under it.
I'm with you on that, I've been influenced in my thinking by the anti-psychiatry movement. We pathologise differing states unnecessarily.
However, if someone hates their body/sex and can't cope with that to the point they are self harming, I think society should be talking about the most appropriate responses. It's very clear to me that there are young people having surgery without being given other options, and the degree to which society thinks hormones and surgery aren't that big a deal is just as concerning as the degree to which society thinks people are mental.
In an early discussion with Sabine, I mentioned that "I'm opposed to irreversible gender-reassignment therapies for sexually immature people, unless consensus medical opinion indicates a high risk of severe/irreversible self-harm."
And, to clarify, the effects of some hormone treatments are irreversible – this applies particularly to young people.
(Evolving) Consensus medical opinion doesn't alway get it right, either in diagnosis or treatment, but it's still the best bet, imho.
(Evolving) Consensus medical opinion doesn’t alway get it right, either in diagnosis or treatment, but it’s still the best bet, imho.
depends on whether we can consider affirmation only as a genuine consensus (I doubt it). And that leads to teen transitioning and later detransitioning but young people being left with lifelong disability. There’s nothing ethical about this situation. Medical consensus can be wrong.
However, the definition has moved on from that understanding.
So, the advocacy and legislative changes apply to all those included under the new (growing) number of groups under the "transgender" definition, not just those you define, or personally know.
Drowsy M. Kram. A 2019 critique in the latter half of this article of the 'Men, women…' assertion from 2007. It is based on studies from one research group, without replication elsewhere.
Thanks tWiggle – interesting that "There’s still a relative lack of independent replication” relating to the theory. Baron-Cohen probably shouldn't be blamed for that, unless he is somehow preventing that independent replication.
Also helpful (to me): "Baron-Cohen says the theory only pertains to two categories of cognition: systemizing and the ability to intuit others’ emotions."
I still like the idea that while men and women are, on average, different, some women (up to 20%?) will nevertheless exhibit (some) cognitive/mental abilities and behavioural patterns (‘good’ or ‘bad’) that are most usually observed in men, and vice versa.
(Understanding or accepting your personal orientation can take time, exploration and experience, but sexual orientation can be described with clarity.)
So can sex, man, woman, male, female.
Gender identity is a changing feast, but all of those boxes you referred to are sheltering under the transgender umbrella. None of them are getting wet. Do you know what's in all of them?
Your assumption about some form of surveillance is naiive, and incorrect. Safeguards have been removed.
Some of those boxes contain autogynephiles, voyeurs and exhibitionists. Some others being promoted you may consider concerning are minor attracted people. These are being written, articles invited.
Any of these, have the same right to self-id as anyone else, and due to legislative changes can apply for and receive official documentation that declares them to be what they are not – the opposite sex.
Do you think some clarity should have been provided around whether this legal lie gives the holder access to women's single sex provisions should have occurred before legislative change?
Can you see why women are concerned, and how child safeguarding is dismantled without regard?
I haven't posted any links to the groups mentioned above because I prefer not to post sexual content on here, and think it can be easily found by those who choose to look to confirm.
However, there is also a growing number of men who while claiming womenhood – seem to hate women.
So, as not linked to any sexual content, here's an example:
Molly, just noticed your comment to me @5:18 pm – thanks. I don’t have sufficient information to form an opinion on whether the pro-trans movement is causing a significant increase in hatred of women, as opposed to given existing hatred a new outlet.
Do you think some clarity should have been provided around whether this legal lie gives the holder access to women's single sex provisions should have occurred before legislative change?
Can you see why women are concerned, and how child safeguarding is dismantled without regard?
Not sure about "without regard", nor do I know if the "right to self-id" will make a significant difference to child safety in NZ.
I'm certain that some women (and men) are more concerned than others. Imho the jury is still out on whether:
(1) the status quo, or
(2) provision of the right to self-ID,
will be more harmful to children and/or women here, but my opinion doesn't count for much.
Maybe Kiwis will find out. Links to (more) opinions follow.
Back in the 1970s, when I came out as a young lesbian, trans people were my friends and natural allies. That is how it should be. Those of us who live on the margins of society and are discriminated against should have each other’s backs. In this bloody battle, we are all victims.
Ultimately, because allowing anyone claiming to be a transwoman access to single-sex spaces is a recipe for disaster, we must help build a third space. Feminists, including myself, have been offering to help transwomen build specific services for those experiencing male violence – such as domestic violence, abuse and sexual assault. After all, women-only services designed to protect women from male violence were built by the early pioneers of the Women’s Liberation Movement (in the UK and US) back in the 1960s and 1970s, with no help or funding from governments. It is perhaps time for trans people to do the same. I would imagine help from state agencies would be forthcoming, and everyone, except for opportunistic sexual predators, would welcome such an initiative.
I don’t have sufficient information to form an opinion on whether the pro-trans movement is causing a significant increase in hatred of women, as opposed to given existing hatred a new outlet.
I didn't say this. I just said that there is "a growing number of men who while claiming womenhood – seem to hate women."
There's a difference, that may be apparent to you now they are side-by-side.
Child safeguarding is being broken because of the adoption of Queer Theory not because of transgender people. Apparently, some of the more influential advocates consider it a package deal.
If you believe that sex is immutable, then you might understand the harm of some of the broken boundaries resulting from Queer Theory.
Eg. having a curriculum that advises very young children that sex is not fixed, science includes "consider variations in puberty, including the role of hormone blockers", and the demand for children to abandon sexed pronouns and single-sex spaces at school and in other recreational endeavours. Girl Guiding is one such organisation that is no longer single-sex in regards to membership, overnight camps, or separation of male leaders from young girl guides.
There are many instances of harm being reported by women and girls but ignored by media, so if you are truly interested I will post some of them for you.
Otherwise, I'll leave it up to you.
(No comment on this fairly mild example of a recognisably misogynistic man, and his entry into women's spaces?).
Third spaces are all good as a solution, but there is a vocal group that doesn't want that provision at all.
I'd like to think that most men have progressed to the point where they wouldn't really care about men with any gender identity in their single-sex spaces. Of course, that depends on circumstance and situations, but I don't know many men that are that unaccepting of diversity. Do you?
People don't have a female brain in a male body any more than they have a female kidney in a man's body. It is all about which collection of sexist stereotypes you identify with.
I think a lot of these studies have correlation and causation confused. They claim that kids presenting with "gender incongruence" is causing them mental anguish.
But it's verboten to ask if there’s underlying psychological distress that is manifesting as "trans", because that seems to be the popular thing for adolescents to latch onto.
Vulnerable children who come from family dysfunction might find it easier to embrace a new identity, rather than admit there are deeper problems below the surface.
“Mum and Dad are never wrong, so there must be something wrong with me”
Any competent therapist should figure this stuff out very quickly. But they aren’t doing so.
There are similarities between the linking of gender identity issues to trauma induced disassociation/body dysmorphia and historic explanations for "abnormal" homosexuality – early DSM (1952-1974), the first DSM without it (1980) replaced it with gender dsymorphia – go figure.
Once upon a time – women were expected to conform to their role within the Christian family (physical abuse and rape by the husband as a male entitlement). Rebooted as the Promise Keeper movement – order out of chaos cult (where order is male leadership and chaos is feminism/emancipated voting women and secular society equality).
People find a sovereign order comforting, it’s very Hobbesian. There is no public deviation allowed, only a private one kept from the public space – like a sexual or gender deviation …. .
PS most body dysmorphia has nothing to do with trauma or gender, but eating (and exercise) disorders based on fitting in with the right image (as portrayed in media), often manifested when personal identity is being
developed (puberty/adolescence/teen). Thus fashions of youth – rocker/mod/hippie/punk/goth etc
Of course it's most – do I really need to cite stuff about eating disorders based on not having the ideal body shape?
Very few guys slow to develop the V shape consider it a gender issue and very few gals without the idealised feminine form consider it either. They do what they can, or get depressed until they accept their genetic birth lottery outcome.
And I would hazard a guess, most of those considering the gender issue come from safe middle class family backgrounds (the ones who can afford therapy).
Consider a story. A mother comes home and finds her daughter’s male friend in her clothes. They said it was something to do with school and gender role play. The female later discovered she was a lesbian (she was working out for herself and him why someone she liked was in the friend zone).
Thanks for inferring that applies to me. And I am part of the problem. That only indicates when you get disagreement on this issue, you resort to tribal us (good) and them (bad) diagnosis.
Can you advise what is the point of this anecdote, because it conflates sexual orientation confusion and pretty typical teenage behaviour as supporting evidence for what, exactly?
Your use of the term "cisgender" denotes the acceptance of the basic tenet of gender ideology – that people have some sort of gendered soul which supercedes biological reality, based on some sort of gobbledegook about " assignment at birth". The vast majority of people don't actually believe that – and for good reasons. There is no scientific test for the existence of a gendered soul, any more than there is a test for the existence of an immortal soul. It is a belief system, an ideology. The use of "cis" and "trans" is actually a form of linguistic apartheid, it divides human beings into separate categories with no consultation or agreement, and based on an ideological belief which most of them do not share.
So the use of the a term in current use denotes that the user believes what … . Really Jenette Strawoman?
People have debated issues for thousands of years – on both sides – and it's rare for anyone to state that by using common language either denotes or defines their opinion.
I could claim that to do so was a form of cancel culture, but …
"So the use of the a term in current use denotes that the user believes what … "
This "current use" is not universal, and is a linguistic Trojan Horse that makes women (or men) a subset of their own sex. It takes a clear definition and dismantles it into meaninglessness.
(Also, is often used in a dismissive way to ignore contributions to discussion.)
I don't get the relevance of your insinuations of some kind of patriarchal conversion therapy handmaid's tale. There are bad actors on the extremes of either position.
I could spread all kinds of crap about gr**mers and the sickening basis of gender ideology if you like.
But the main things GC's are concerned about are medical malpractice, women's rights, and the integrity of biology and basic science.
The major strand of logic used in the linked article is Hobbesian dismissal of idealism as part of the sovereign rule of society (social contract).
The patriarchal order was once sovereign and I am unaware of any advocacy by him for equal female participation in the forming of the social contract. Presumably their female idealism not being part of then social contract where they were excluded (such as homosexuals from recognised/accepted public partnerships).
And yet today, even those of the female birth sex ID, are an inviolate part of the social contract.
However some still say its not in accord with the natural order, empowered feminist equality – Jordan Peterson perceives that male identity is too fragile to deal with the chaos of female equality and that humans need God values as sovereign of our society order. As the transgender man (and the only out lesbian at her graduate school) Camille Paglia puts it man's greatest invention/creation was God (and she wants a part in the making the next version).
My understanding of your argument so far is that gender critical beliefs are based on a Hobbesian "natural order" and thus a part of Peterson & Paglia's conservative project.
Which I think is an incorrect view of the gender critical argument. But you keep repeating it and going off into the weeds of philosophical abstraction. Tiresome.
There are similarities between the linking of gender identity issues to trauma induced disassociation/body dysmorphia and historic explanations for "abnormal" homosexuality – early DSM (1952-1974), the first DSM without it (1980) replaced it with gender dsymorphia – go figure.
You know there are women who have sex with women but don't have sex with men because of sexual trauma, right? This doesn't deny the existence of lesbians, but there's no good reason to minimise the existence of trauma survivors either.
Psychiatry has all sorts of problems with its world view and starting points, and gets many things wrong. The DSM is a manual for pathologising humans so they can be treated in the medical model. It has some uses, but they are limited.
but there's no good reason to minimise the existence of trauma survivors either
Thanks. So whether trauma was involved or not (lesbians were sort of marginalised anyhow), that does not denty the existence of lesbians – well na they are fellow humans after all.
Now about those with gender identity issues … and how they identify … . There is what they would decide and the issue of the social contract as to what society accepts.
He [Wayne Brown] recorded an apology for his communications about the Auckland floods that was then broadcast on Facebook, a video clearly directed by someone with extensive experience of making hostage videos.
Agreed. Brilliant commentary. Another dig was at Luxon's use of 'little' and his oh-too-often required explanation/rewording/repapering of his description of Te Tiriti as a "little experiment" by saying he meant the word "brave". The writer said there was a huge difference, and no-one would go and see a movie titled "Littleheart"!
Is anybody counting the number and importance of Luxon's further 'walk-backs", a phrase that is too exculpatory in my opinion?
I can just see Luxon playing with his Experiment Kit that he found under the Christmas tree: The Te Tiriti Play-Kit for Right-Handed Boys – For Age 8+. Seymour’s got one too for Christmas but it was the beta-tested and highly experimental one (protoype) with VR features (with 3D holographics card) that contains many bugs that can harm the user’s senses and cause unexpected catastrophic system crashes. Seymour with his Electrical & Electronics Engineering degree thought he could fix it but van Velden was too late in pulling him away and she found him slumped over on Facebook with his whole body twerking.
'Braveheart' along with my name is what I used when facilitating change workshops. It was used to signify that to make changes in our lives a brave heart was needed.
Ir seems that all of us have to have a brave heart to encompass the changes that living in this country needs; that and understanding that we are all on journeys.
I found that out in the pub last night when 'discussing' Three Waters and co-governance.
I had to acknowledge that my companion who was so angry and frustrated had come from a farming in Southland background, was in his mid-Seventies and had been educated in brutal violence and insensitivity by Christian Brothers in the South Island in the Fifties and in shearing gangs in Australia in the Sixties.
None of that background gave him many useful insights into 2023 Treaty/Māori/co-governance issues…….
Yes, these conversations are difficult for a number of reasons, not the least the many diverse backgrounds and viewpoints that make for very different starting points in and of the conversation if there’s one to be had at all.
Brown is going to flood community events without 'alerting media'
Why is it some think the media are the only gatekeepers and those who play the media game like a pro are the real leaders – think smile and wave Key ( and thats was just the tip of his media strategy and games)
I seems those in the mediaverse are collectively clutching their pearls
Hairy weather ahead for Luxon, perhaps even a Code Red warning. If I were Luxon I’d call for the State of Emergency now and start sandbagging Seymour and ACT.
The long-range fall-out of bad weather events could deflate tyres and volunteers may have to pay back Government money. I wonder what Desley Simpson will do about this.
"..the Telegraph has published a large poll of 28,000 voters, presumably designed to terrify the living daylights out of the Tories. It finds Labour would win an unthinkable 509 seats, the SNP would be the official opposition with 50, Tories would be third with just 45, and almost every Tory you’ve heard of would be swept away. The Electoral Calculus poll of polls has Labour on 47.5% and the Tories on 26.3%. There’s a way to go yet to an election, but this does suggest that provoking strikes and revoking the right to strike has been a gamechanger with voters."
Inequality, covid, yellow fever and immunocapitalism.
That rare observer knows that the precautions evident at Davos should by now be visible in every train station, school, place of worship, hospital, and airport of the world. Yet for the bulk of humanity, there are no precautions in place despite Covid’s impact as “the greatest mass-disabling event in human history.” Vaccine nationalism has excluded more than a quarter of the world’s population from receiving a single Covid vaccine. Amid this global inequality, which most harms traditionally vulnerable and marginalized communities, Covid has taken at least 15 million lives so far, and at least 65 million people are afflicted with Long Covid.
[…]
“The City of Death” A century earlier in New Orleans, elites used recurrent yellow fever epidemics to consolidate their power and wealth and to justify slavery as essential to developing the region of the just-acquired Louisiana Purchase. In her book, Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom, historian Kathryn Olivarius describes how yellow fever became socio-economically endemic in New Orleans through a phenomenon she calls “immunocapitalism.”
[…]
“Immunocapitalism,” as Olivarius explains, provided “ideological legitimation for vast inequality” in 19th century New Orleans, which she describes as a stinking hellscape of squalor and suffering. Its population was wracked with recurrent yellow fever epidemics and livestock were butchered in the streets, their entrails left to rot in the sun. White elites used the poorly understood disease, which killed half of its victims, to justify the expendability of poor White laborers’ lives and the enslavement of Black workers about whom they constructed a myth of natural immunity to yellow fever to justify slavery.
Among the many other problems associated with Musk/DOGE sending a fleet of teenage and twenty-something cultists to remove, copy and appropriate federal records like social security, medicaid and other supposedly protected data is the fact that the youngsters doing the data-removal, copying and security protocol and filter code over-writing have ...
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tuneBird fly high by the light of the moonOh, oh, oh, JokermanSong by Bob Dylan.Morena folks, I hope this fine morning of the 7th of February finds you well. We're still close to Paihia, just a short drive out of town. Below is the view ...
It’s been an eventful week as always, so here’s a few things that we have found interesting. We also hope everyone had a happy and relaxing Waitangi Day! This week in Greater Auckland We’re still running on summer time, but provided two chewy posts: On Tuesday, a guest ...
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Subscribe to Mountain Tūī ! Where you too can learn about exciting things from a flying bird! Tweet.Yes - I absolutely suck at marketing. It’s a fact.But first -My question to all readers is:How should I set up the Substack model?It’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask since November ...
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..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.As far as major government announcements go, a Three Ministers Event is Big. It can signify a major policy development or something has gone Very Well, or an absolute Clusterf**k. When Three Ministers assemble ...
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Photo by Mauricio Fanfa on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guest David Patman and ...
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Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s move to increase speed limits substantially on dozens of stretches of rural and often undivided highways will result in more serious harm. ...
In her first announcement as Economic Growth Minister, Nicola Willis chose to loosen restrictions for digital nomads from other countries, rather than focus on everyday Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to stand firm and work with allies to progress climate action as Donald Trump signals his intent to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords once again. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
The Government is relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely while visiting New Zealand, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and Tourism Minister Louise Upston say. “The change is part of the Government’s plan to unlock New Zealand’s potential by shifting the country onto ...
The opening of Kāinga Ora’s development of 134 homes in Epuni, Lower Hutt will provide much-needed social housing for Hutt families, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I’ve been a strong advocate for social housing on Kāinga Ora’s Epuni site ever since the old earthquake-prone housing was demolished in 2015. I ...
Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay will travel to Australia today for meetings with Australian Trade Minister, Senator Don Farrell, and the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF). Mr McClay recently hosted Minister Farrell in Rotorua for the annual Closer Economic Relations (CER) Trade Ministers’ meeting, where ANZLF presented on ...
A new monthly podiatry clinic has been launched today in Wairoa and will bring a much-needed service closer to home for the Wairoa community, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.“Health New Zealand has been successful in securing a podiatrist until the end of June this year to meet the needs of ...
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner has recommended a Judicial Conduct Panel be established to inquire into and report on the alleged conduct of acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken in an incident last November, Attorney-General Judith Collins said today. “I referred the matter of Judge Aitken’s alleged conduct during an incident ...
Students who need extra help with maths are set to benefit from a targeted acceleration programme that will give them more confidence in the classroom, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Last year, significant numbers of students did not meet the foundational literacy and numeracy level required to gain NCEA. To ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced three new diplomatic appointments. “Our diplomats play an important role in ensuring New Zealand’s interests are maintained and enhanced across the world,” Mr Peters says. “It is a pleasure to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ...
Ki te kahore he whakakitenga, ka ngaro te Iwi – without a vision, the people will perish. The Government has achieved its target to reduce the number of households in emergency housing motels by 75 per cent five years early, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The number of households ...
The opening of Palmerston North’s biggest social housing development will have a significant impact for whānau in need of safe, warm, dry housing, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. The minister visited the development today at North Street where a total of 50 two, three, and four-bedroom homes plus a ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced the new membership of the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control (PACDAC), who will serve for a three-year term. “The Committee brings together wide-ranging expertise relevant to disarmament. We have made six new appointments to the Committee and reappointed two existing members ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora, good morning, talofa, malo e lelei, bula vinaka, da jia hao, namaste, sat sri akal, assalamu alaikum. It’s so great to be here and I’m ready and pumped for 2025. Can I start by acknowledging: Simon Bridges – CEO of the Auckland ...
The Government has unveiled a bold new initiative to position New Zealand as a premier destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) that will create higher paying jobs and grow the economy. “Invest New Zealand will streamline the investment process and provide tailored support to foreign investors, to increase capital investment ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins today announced the largest reset of the New Zealand science system in more than 30 years with reforms which will boost the economy and benefit the sector. “The reforms will maximise the value of the $1.2 billion in government funding that goes into ...
Turbocharging New Zealand’s economic growth is the key to brighter days ahead for all Kiwis, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says. In the Prime Minister’s State of the Nation Speech in Auckland today, Christopher Luxon laid out the path to the prosperity that will affect all aspects of New Zealanders’ lives. ...
The latest set of accounts show the Government has successfully checked the runaway growth of public spending, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. “In the previous government’s final five months in office, public spending was almost 10 per cent higher than for the same period the previous year. “That is completely ...
The Government’s welfare reforms are delivering results with the number of people moving off benefits into work increasing year-on-year for six straight months. “There are positive signs that our welfare reset and the return consequences for job seekers who don't fulfil their obligations to prepare for or find a job ...
Jon Kroll and Aimee McCammon have been appointed to the New Zealand Film Commission Board, Arts Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “I am delighted to appoint these two new board members who will bring a wealth of industry, governance, and commercial experience to the Film Commission. “Jon Kroll has been an ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has hailed a drop in the domestic component of inflation, saying it increases the prospect of mortgage rate reductions and a lower cost of living for Kiwi households. Stats NZ reported today that inflation was 2.2 per cent in the year to December, the second consecutive ...
Two new appointed members and one reappointed member of the Employment Relations Authority have been announced by Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden today. “I’m pleased to announce the new appointed members Helen van Druten and Matthew Piper to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) and welcome them to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dee Ninis, Earthquake Scientist, Monash University Greece’s government has just declared a state of emergency on the island of Santorini, as earthquakes shake the island multiple times a day and sometimes only minutes apart. The “earthquake swarm” is also affecting other ...
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She’s back behind the wheel, and this time, she wants to find out what it is that makes us tick. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. After a prolific career on stage and screen, 83-year-old Miriam Margolyes is on the road again. ...
A new poem by Jordan Hamel. Real Poet Every word earned its place and so did he, so should you. Real poet lives in the capital but writes himself into the Mackenzie country golden hour, man of the paper land, he neglects to mention his pollen ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Understanding Te Tiriti by Roimata Smail (Wai Ako Press, $25) No better time to get ...
The committee has published this list to inform the public about its work, and to give clarity to submitters who have contacted the committee asking if they will be invited to make an oral submission. ...
Alex Casey and Gabi Lardies dissect their Laneway 2025 experience. Gabi Lardies: Hi Alex :))))))) Congratulations on not getting sunburnt. Everyone I talked to at Laneway yesterday was braving the sun for one thing. Charli XCX. How was your brat experience?Alex Casey: We will talk about the rest of ...
The US President's suggestion, which sparked enormous debate globally, has been labelled as a threat, not a proposal, by the Federation of Islamic Associations. ...
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Politicians from the coalition government received a frosty reception at Waitangi this year, but Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka says the pōwhiri that received so much attention was just one part of many events throughout the week. ...
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Political aspects of Waitangi week may be moved in 2026, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell for The Bulletin.To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Celebration and on-the-ground politics For the third year in a row, I have returned from Waitangi full of food and deep regrets about not ...
Arriving at Ōnuku Marae, it was easy to see why Prime Minister Christopher Luxon chose the venue to mark Waitangi Day.Kayakers paddled around Akaroa Harbour under clear blue skies, with the marae barely a stone’s throw from the shore.Luxon’s decision to skip traditional events at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds this ...
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In a special Waitangi edition of Gone By Lunchtime, Ātea editor Liam Rātana and politics reporter Lyric Waiwiri-Smith recap a politically charged few days at the Treaty Grounds. Our Waitangi 2025 coverage is possible because of the 13,000-plus Spinoff members who regularly pay to support our work. If you aren’t a member ...
Analysis: Waitangi Day belongs to Māori first, as mana motuhake and tino rangatiratanga take centre stage.Our Waitangi 2025 coverage is possible because of the 13,000-plus Spinoff members who regularly pay to support our work. If you aren’t a member yet, now is the time.Walking around the treaty grounds, te reo Māori ...
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Val Smith reckons if you knew her in her 20s, she’d be the last woman you’d imagine taking up lawn bowls.Yet here she is, three decades later, retiring from the international game after playing an astounding 667 internationals for the BlackJacks.One of the true greats in New Zealand bowls history, ...
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Words have consequences. As the famous World War II poster warned us, "Loose Lips Sink Ships"
Loose talk costs lives.
Those who deliberately spread malicious lies and disinformation, also help kill people, By denying and covering up atrocities they give political cover for more killing.
Democracy Now! Democracy Now! The War on Peace report
You're back!!
Nice to see you!
Reposting this post from newsense that I read in the middle of the night on 10/02, because I agree it's a great article, with excellent comments underneath from the hoipolloi.
"Geez- I agree with Josie Pagani 100%. One of us must be a stopped clock!
But it’s no secret our country has run on a lot of people being paid less than minimum wage. If your wage is crap and just covering rent, you can/could get a good cheap meal at xyz restaurant or cheap veges at that small supermarket. And like bus drivers forced into crap wages by the mechanism of the contracting system, here often exploitation of immigrants or international students who were in employment situations not covered by NZ law was the case. This is a low wage economy.
It means a reset on the value of some luxury meals and the places you went to to stretch your grocery bill, but asked no questions need questions asked. If everyone is getting a living wage, then it has to be everyone. And that means accepting some re-evaluation of the cost of some things.
This mindset goes back to the 90s and will be hard to change, but adjusting to new realities is going to be a popular thing for people to do in the near future, and this surely won’t be the worst of them.
But yeh simply what Pagani is saying is that class war has been raised so successfully on the lower classes that it’s science that the weakest must accept a decreasing share to combat inflation and economic growth not making them better off. That’s the result of the economic orthodoxy of both main parties which has changed little in 30 years. If Labour can sell the majority of people being better off through a slight reverse of the huge wealth transfer of the property market and elsewhere, good on them. I did think core values were a property owning democracy, but perhaps that rabbit is further off."
Good on Josie Pagani for exposing the hypocrisy of those who cry foul at rises in the minimum wage, while maintaining their silence over rising CEO salaries or corporate profits.
Jose Pagani writes;
"I haven't found a single news release from business representatives denouncing the increase, saying it wil cause inflation and have to be passed on to customers (although I bet it was). Not a single person claimed that this would lead to increased unemployment for CEOs."
But is this measure to address poverty all it is cracked up to be?
Susan St John gives a sobering factual account totaling the actual value of this wage rise to the lowly paid.
Working for Families support is going up on 1 April.
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/cost-living-package-more-families-receive-childcare-support
Here's something new regarding Three Waters. Who pays should one of the the new water services entities default on their debt? Well, according to the Water Services Legislation Bill, regional ratepayers will pay!? Mikey explains:
ZB Talk. On Demand. Auckland. Friday 10/2/23. 8.45am.@3.47.
What would happen should such a situation arise right now, say for Wellington? I can't see Wellington ratepayers being in a position to service additional debt. Would central government step in to help out?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/131170810/it-is-depressing-another-eyepopping-rates-rise-on-cards-for-wellington
[What’s up with the date/time stamp, is it meant to be a link? Provide the full and correct link.
What does “Mikey” explain? Explain it to us, in your own words, so that we can discuss this with you here on TS, not with “Mikey”.
Where in the Bill does it say that debt will default to Councils and thus to ratepayers in case of a debt default by the new water service entities? What is central Government proposing?
Wellington ratepayers are already faced with a debt, as per your linked article:
Come back when you have the answers, with correct links – Incognito]
Mod note
You still have to link. eg
Fri 1/2/23 8.45am
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-demand/week-on-demand/
That way people can go and listen for themselves. Without that, your comment is worse than useless, it's hearsay that people will react to without context or understanding.
This has been explained to you a lot. If you can't figure out how to link, ask for help and prioritise this. There's only so much more time the mods are going to allow for chasing up things like this during election year.
As weka said, you have to provide a link still to your talk back web page.
You also have to point to the Clause in the Bill and link to it. The Bill is at the Select Committee stage and open for consultation but submissions close tomorrow. Either way, nothing is set in stone yet, least of all because of the Government’s Policy refocus. What are you trying to spin here, Mikey’s talking points for Luxon?
Ratepayers already pay for water infrastructure through rates. What makes Wellington special that you think it is a relevant example? Why do you think the water entities might default? Do credit rating agencies support your worst-case scenario or are you simply fear mongering?
You are wasting time of Mods!
Soooo anyway… this is why we don't just uncritically accept one reporter's story
https://twitter.com/HNTweets/status/1624113481996697611?s=20
You mean this Oliver Alexander??….I hope not, if it is, maybe try getting a bit more serious in future and vetting your sources a little more closely.
"Oliver Alexander, a Danish businessman working in a beachfront apartment in southern Portugal, is watching war play out more than 2,000 miles away in something like real time.
With Twitter on his computer and Telegram on his phone, a flood of videos allow him to identify Russian tanks rolling over Ukrainian bridges and Russian helicopter gunships blasting away at a Ukrainian airport"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/24/ukraine-russia-war-twitter-social-media/
Alexander makes valid points:
1) it was supposedly a super secret operation that Congress shouldn't be informed about, but a multiple branches of the military – and foreign countries! – were involved
2) they laid the mines during… a very public military exercise. why not just use a fishing vessel or something? crappy way to run a "secret" op.
3) One of the pipelines is still operational. Weird, eh?
…this is why we don't just uncritically accept one reporter's story…"
Unless, of course, you are Martyn Bradbury, or most of the Russian tankies on here. The bottom line is Hersh's source is a single unnamed person who posits a ludicrously complex plot to which they are improbably aware of all it’s components.
We need to address a wider issue here though. Most on the left are principled and consistent in condemning all imperialist wars of aggression and of upholding the right of a sovereign nation to defend itself when attacked. That includes the need to confront fascism everywhere, and not shirk from the force of arms to do so if that is the last resort you are forced to.
But there is a considerable faction of the wider left – one often considerably superannuated like Pilger, Chomsky and Hersh – that will denounce western wars of imperialism but make excuses for Russia's one in the Ukraine. A lot of these people are inheritors of the tradition of left wing thought that happily swallowed the Soviet line and opposed our involvement in WW2 until the Nazi invasion of the USSR, at which point they duitfully fell into line and supported the war effort 100%. And of course, some are merely (very) old people who made their name or formed their world view in the era of Vietnam and the 1960s counter-culture and who now are in (often quite advanced) old age and are well into intellectual decline.
But many of this group are also seduced by what Marxist commentator Richard Seymour has described as the "romanticism of dissidence" which allows for conspiracism, moral indolence, the dubious glamour of "alt" thinking and a wider cultural pull towards reactionary thinking in the guise of a defense of an amorphous definition of "freedoms." You see this sort of "glamour of dissidence" a lot in Bradbury, or in Chris Trotter’s conspiracy-drenched fixation with race issues, or the way the Putin fanbois fixate on dubious claims to supposedly substantiate their alt thinking.
That is beautiful. Your comments lately have been razor sharp and spot on (aka nailed it). Keep it up!
"Conspiracy theory" is often a useful term for cancelling legitimate views of persons with whom one happens to to disagree. It’s not a term that I myself ever use.
It's hard to see how Seymour Hersh can preserve his reputation after this.
Spray and walk away
When I was working in Queenstown 25 years ago..I still remember some graffiti on a wall….."Queenstown : greed capital of NZ !"
Very apt. And what….has changed? If anything..its even worse. Land lords.
Probably the same jerks complaining about the minimum wage rise : (
Will there soon be people getting charged to live in tents..or cardboard "accommodation" ?
It's not so much greed that drives the Queenstown market but the greatest fool. And everyone else pays, or reaps, the consequences.
Landlords here tend to be price takers, rather than price setters, it's generally the tenant side that runs around setting the price, and the landlords just go with the tide, up or down.
It's been even more marked in the commercial / retail space with rents up 25 – 30% on 2019 levels, and the leap happened several months before tourist flows even started to recover. Hotel occupancies are still down 20% on 2019, but CBD rentals are up 25% based on new leases in the last 6 months.
And yeah, it's been a feature of the place for as long as it's been a place.
Hi Graeme. I get most of your msg. But this?
And the example I gave was below. I dont think she is a fool…
IMO the "greatest fool" could be applicable..to some. However IMO there are a LOT of absolutely desperate working..(and not) people who have to just pay. Some getting an accommodation supplement (aka land lords benefit, which we help to subsidise) too.
And..not likely to change.
The trouble is, how will we ever know?
I have a bit of a problem with the Hersh story too.I have no doubt he's cultivated strong relationships with insiders over the years, but these persons familiar with the matter or an official speaking with anonymity can't be given too much weight, no matter which side of the divide is reporting.Then again , along with a few inaccuracies (Stoltenberg being a CIA plant from the age of 15) his general gist is probably correct.
I think there was UK/US involvement .Radislow Sikorski's (later deleted)"thank you USA! signals he believes it also .
Nuland's gloating in Congress "very gratified " that NS2 "is a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea"shows she doesn't think Russia had anything to gain from it
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/polish-eu-lawmaker-deletes-thank-you-usa-over-nord-stream-tw
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/watch-top-us-official-hails-nord-stream-2-sabotage-senate-testimony
But the nuts and bolts of what and how it happened may never be known, bar a whistleblower who will be promptly rounded on and denounced as a liar or fantasist , as were the OPCW whistleblowers
I quite like Craig Murray's take
He's absolutely against the invasion , and just as vehement against NATO.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/02/sy-hersh-and-the-way-we-live-now/
Good link..thanks.
"It is a clear indicator of the disappearance of freedom from our so-called western democracies, that Sy Hersh, arguably the greatest living journalist, cannot get this monumental revelation on the front of the Washington Post or New York Times, but has to self-publish on the net."
That serious people don't see a problem with this is the problem…I managed to get into an email exchange with someone at RNZ once, my question to them was…why won't Kim Hill have on anyone with a counter narrative to the Russiagate conspiracy?…Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Mate' would have all made great interviews…they had no answer.
So one can only conclude that the job of RNZ is to maintained at all times, the state narrative (whatever that may be)..look at their almost total silence on Assange, total silence on Biden's murky past in Ukraine, their lack of any context whatsoever on the Ukraine/Russia war etc etc.
A quote from the link:
I have a different view from perhaps all of the other speakers, on the legitimacy of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which I oppose.
But I also oppose NATO expansion which is an underlying cause of the war, and indeed oppose the existence of NATO itself.
NATO is a war machine which sucks resources from working people to benefit the military industrial complex, and unleashes devastating destruction on developing states which do not make their natural resources available to western billionaire elites.
It is also a fundamental node of the propaganda apparatus which manipulates and controls our society, particularly as counter narrative and dissident thought is now rigorously and systematically excluded.
Where the defense of one’s country is at stake, legitimacy is probably going to take a back seat.
Craig Murray has hit the nail on the head with that article on all levels.
I have no doubt if the My Lai story broke in 2023, the government would deny it, Bellingcat would run interference on it, many commenters here would decry it, social media would de-amplify and disappear it, and Hersh would be totally crushed.
So finally some parts of serious Western MSM are calling bullshit on what was the greatest political/media conspiracy of modern times..of course I am talking about Russiagate, the totally fabricated Democrat/Clinton/CIA fueled media led fantasy of collusion between D.Trump and Putin.
The press versus the president, part one
https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-1.php
However the damage has been done..public trust in media has rightly sunk through the floof to historic lows…you all must remember even our own braindead media like RNZ would report of Trump/Russia almost every fucking day!!
RNZ’s chief US political correspondent at the beginning of all this (I forget his name) was caught up the Wikileaks scandal, as it turned out he was in direct contact with the Hillary campaign during the election cycle asking if his stories meet with their approval…I lodged a official complaint with the RNZ for breaching standards at the time, bizarrely my complaint wasn’t held up…however I did notice that the correspondent was dropped a few months later.
So where did this relentless conspiracy leave us?…well I would say well primed for a war against Russia for sure…and of course Hillary Clinton the Democratic Party and their complicit media walk away paying no price, everyone keeps their jobs (with promotions), it looks like the Clinton's took a page out of Karl Roves political play book "Accuse your opponent of what they are going to accuse you of." and did it spectacularly well, so I guess by their metric…job well done.
[reddit embed deleted as it was way too long]
As Incognito said last night "Useful Idiots"…plenty of them have been exposed on this forum over this saga that is for fucking sure!!
Sorry I didn't mean to have all Karl Roves political play books actually all come up on TS then…I just wanted a link….if a mod wants to fix that, go ahead, thanks.
I think next time put reddit links in using the link tag in the TS comment box. Sing out if you need help on how to do that.
Thanks weka.
And the rebuttal. Russophile Trump cultists are not remotely credible.
Columbia Journalism Review Spiked Different Russiagate Story (nymag.com)
We could rebuttal back and forward to the end of time .
I worked for a retired thoracic surgeon (A woman , pretty remarkable for her time), who's retort to an argument was often "Well you be comforted by your illusions and I'll be comforted by mine "
.And thats what I think we find here .Entrenched positions , each incredulous that the other can't see what's blindingly obvious.
Bravo Adrian , for still fighting the good fight, this is probably not the forum for it
I do myself find it pretty astonishing that the sabotage of NS2 , lets face it , most probably done by those who profited most, has been so blithely skimmed over by some .A kind of normalisation of environmental disaster and economic attack " Oh well , not a huge thing in the scheme of things.The US just doing what the US does .Ho hum " type thing
Now Germany turns to coal and environmentally ruinous fracked gas from the US with many more carbon miles and a large dollar increase., that reduces their economic viability.
Let alone the massive release of methane into the surrounding ocean and atmosphere
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/29/nord-stream-pipeline-leaks-are-catastrophic-for-the-climate#:~:text=The%20Nord%20Stream%20pipeline%20from,of%20methane%20in%20US%20history.
"…We could rebuttal back and forward to the end of time…"
Or we could simply observe that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, of whch in Hersh's case I see none.
Evidence is necessary in courts of law, but the rules which guide judiciaries don't necessarily apply where politics and war are concerned. In those sorts of arenas it is probably best to simply accept the obvious, especially when one knows that evidence can never be available; unless of course one is wedded to a contrary agenda.
The shock at the destruction of Nordstrom (if they attack Ukraine it will go) after the deliberate attempt to take out the civilian power supply in Ukraine – which is a war crime – is no where to be found.
Except among those who
either blame those of Ukraine for the destruction of their cities because they would not stop resisting armed invasion, or blame those who support a nations right to defend itself.
Or blame those who meddle in the affairs of other countries, not for the benefit of any of those other countries, but for their own economic benefit. It would be speculative, I know, to think that he US may have prodded Ukraine into a series of actions which they knew would antagonise Russia, just so that they might eventually have a pretext for for destroying Nordstream 2. But who knows.
Interesting piece. As an aside, the enormous loss of moral authority as a consequence of the illegal Iraq invasion (justified with fabricated evidence) and the resulting enormous crimes against humanity for which the guilty will never be held to account resonate today through the conspiracy laden thinking of the alt-left and it's pro-Russian world view.
Being aware of and fully understanding the (recent) historical geo-political background and context to what has resulted in an avoidable and pointless bloodbath..often referred to as the Russia/Ukraine war, and pointing out those plain facts, is not in any way promoting nor is it endorsing a "pro-Russian world view" Sanctuary..it is what smart, intelligent people like you should be doing..but for whatever reason, don't.
But this what every single fucking one of you pro war Liberals do every time someone points out anything that goes against the state narrative…’Putin Puppet’..Pro- Russian’ etc etc etc…just like you same people did during the now completely debunked Trump/Putin Russiagate conspiracy…don’t you see it is exactly the same news sources that fed you those lies that are the same news outlets now baying for war war war…holy shit man have you no independent critical thinking capacity at all in that top few inches of your skull?
Those anti-war support collective security. That means opposing the regime change in Iraq and supporting Ukraine now.
PS If you did not get a visit from the local police in 2002 you had not done the former.
Where where, lfd?
Yes there are good reasons for people to be alienated and critical of Western hegemony. But some people take that another step, or several steps, and wind up supporting war criminals like ISIS and Putin
It's origin is much earlier than the regime change in Iraq. It's part of appeasement to prevent confrontation/war which has been around since WW1/war to end war/war for democracy in place of autocracy (and then came fascism in Germany and communism in Russia, so why bother).
Co-Governance. A lot is being said about co-governance, in the context of water services, and proposed arrangements to meet Treaty entitlements. Comparisons are made with a settlement under Key/Finlayson where National first used the term co-governance, but I suspect there is a better example of co-governance, National party style – the Electricity market. There we went from 100% governance by government, to 49% governance of generation through shareholders in companies that have 51% ownership, but which by law require the Boards of those companies to fairly represent minority shareholders. We know that early investors included some very wealthy people who did very well out of the floats; some will of course have sold, but the Government has no control over who is effectively "co-governing" our important electricity market. Overall, each company will resist lower returning development which may reduce profitability in the short term, but they know that the industry as a whole must be able to meet demand – hence the retention of coal fired generation for so long . . . It is of course a competitive market – they compete for who can be most expensive at any one time – a lot of money was put into giving consumers the pretence of being able to identify the cheapest supplier, but they have made charges so complex; now including "loyalty bonuses" that it is getting very hard to tell who is cheapest – and no guarantee that whichever company is chosen will not rise up through the ranks fairly quickly . . .
Is that a legitimate possibility for National "Co-governance" for water?
The 3 Waters entities will not have a profit motive, they won't be SOE's but rather public utilities. So we avoid a debacle like Bradford's idiotic electricity "market"
And anyway, Hipkins may have an announcement soon regarding the water reforms.
"The 3 Waters entities will not have a profit motive, they won't be SOE's but rather public utilities. So we avoid a debacle like Bradford's idiotic electricity "market""
Not sure where you get that idea from…the (limited) detail as to the workings of the proposed entities indicates they are to be self funding and responsible for (the increased) investment which will demand a level of profit to service all that demands.
Sooner or later the public will understand that the solutions promised by the reforms have exactly the same issues that have created the problems we currently face.
Totally wrong and uninformed blather. Have a look at some of the case studies in this Deloitte paper.
Watercare is a decent model of the sort of amalgamation that 3 Waters is aiming for. Four publicly owned WSE's under strict regulation, with a massive government investment in the future, could not be further from "more of the same"
"Auckland councillor and planning committee chair Chris Darby said the price increases would be "hard to bear" for the public, particularly for lower-income families and those suffering from the economic impacts of Covid-19.
Watercare had been too focused on keeping the price of water low, but in doing so had underinvested and consequently costs had risen, Darby said.
The proposal follows a mere 2.5 per cent price rise this year, and a previous decade of meagre price increases.
Since Watercare formed in 2011/2012 the price per 1000 litres of water has increased just $0.29, from $1.30 to $1.59.
The ability to keep water prices low had been praised by many politicians – particularly those in favour of small government, and the independent review noted Watercare had delivered savings to customers of $100m per year compared to legacy council forecasts.
But the proposed price increases would see a huge reversal in that trend, with the cost per 1000 litres increasing to $1.706 next year and more than doubling over the next decade to $3.37.
"But we have to recognise this is the product of probably not just a decade of Watercare, but even before, years of underinvestment, and it has caught up on us," Darby said."
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/auckland-household-watercare-water-bills-could-double-in-less-than-a-decade/RBESHGA6E3LNG7SFPBZI2HBBY4/
Sooner or later the public will understand that the solutions promised by the reforms have exactly the same issues that have created the problems we currently face…..as the Deloitte paper is at pains to condition.
Thanks for copy-pasting that political broadcast from the National Party Herald ™.
Back in the real world, 3W will be one of the biggest infrastructure investments in NZ’s history and pretending it’s “more of the same” is just nonsense
You do understand the meaning and origin of investment?….your comment suggests not.
Go and read your linked Deloitte study (commissioned by the Cabinet promoting the policy) and you may begin to understand how and why we are where we are and what 'we' will need to accept to improve the situation….and governance is way down the list of causes or solutions.
The proposed entities can be relied on to do only one thing with any certainty and that is to remove political (democratic) accountability for the upcoming cost increases….correction, two things….and sinecures.
I prefer not to swim in sewage and drink campylobacter. But you do you.
You do realize that Chris Darby, heavily quoted in the article is a centre left-ish independent on Council.
Certainly he's been counted as part of the centre-left-wing grouping for quite some time.
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/politics/auckland-council-elections-left-leaning-candidates-julie-fairey-and-kerrin-leoni-flip-two-seats/
"The results are a boost for the centre-left, which now has nine seats on the council – Fairey, Leoni, Shane Henderson, Alf Filipaina, Fuli Lotu, Angela Dalton, Josephine Bartley, Richard Hills and Chris Darby."
The herald has misused the Darby quote to build a stupid and misleading narrative. The fact is Watercare is the best water utility in the country, but still people moan about it.
What I would like to hear is a journalist asking National the blunt questions: What is it that frightens you about Maori having a say in Three Waters? Are you saying that Maori will charge non-Maori every time they turn on the tap or flush the toilet?
The "everyone should be equal" mantra is just a cover-up for National's implied racism on this issue which is a blatant populist vote gathering exercise for the next election.
I think it becomes clearer if you more accurately say:
"What is it that frightens you about a self-selected group of Maori individuals having a say in Three Waters? Are you saying that those particular Maori under the authority of the organisation will charge
non-Maorieveryone else every time they turn on the tap or flush the toilet?"I think the second sentence is an attempt to trivialise concerns, but you get the gist.
I find the labelling of certain ideas and initiatives as Maori and non-Maori, obviously racist. It is more accurate to assign the ideas etc to those individuals and groups that promulgate them.
For instance, no-one says: Pakeha push for charter schools, they specify that it is the Act Party. Otherwise it is so vague as to be meaningless.
Maori have the same diversity across the population of experience and opinion.
Why is that consistently ignored by the repetitive use of Maori and non-Maori in contexts such as these?
Maori will NOT charge non-Maori every time they turn on the tap or flush the toilet. That will probably be left to local Councils who will be contracted to forward Koha to the Water Entities. Why else have the many water meters been installed nation wide?
https://www.watercare.co.nz/Water-and-wastewater/Water-meters
We start charging from the time we install the meter. This includes the monthly fixed charge as well as any consumption.
https://www.dunedin.govt.nz/services/water-supply/3-waters-projects/smart-meters
All the meters will be installed by the end of 2023. The project cost is $7.8m and funding has come from the 3 Waters renewal budget.
https://www.tauranga.govt.nz/council/water-services/water-supply/water-meter-replacement-programme
If your meter has been replaced, you will receive an invoice showing the “Reason for Reading” as “METER REPLACE”. The invoice will show the final reading of the replaced meter, as well as the first reading of the new meter. If you have a direct debit in place, normal direct debit arrangements will apply to this invoice.
Water meters are not part of a dark plot or conspiracy. They can help customers save water and detect leaks. Water and especially drinking water is a precious resource although you wouldn’t think so with Gabrielle bearing down on us.
Meters are also essential for an individual water use charging system and are being universally installed using "3 Waters renewal budget" being provided by central government. The mechanism for individual water use charges is certainly being put in place. Will they be removed after leaks detected are remedied?
Water meters are a curse for low income families/families who have high water needs if there is no allowance for normal use or a fair graduated cost structure.
We have water meters in the Kapiti Coast District Council rohe and every single drop of water coming is paid for. This means for people with large families, people with disabilities that require laundry use or water for personal use line up and pay for water at the same rate as the idiot with sprinklers vainly trying to grow 'real' grass on their beach section.
In the meantime the KCDC rates are up there with the cost of rates in a local authority where water is covered in the general rates.
KCDC has been held out as some sort of model. IT IS NOT.
A person I met on Friday said that when this water charging regime was forecast he 'up sticks' and moved from the KCDC rohe. He called it a rort.
That these water charges rates will apply equally does not mean they are fair.
With no charging regime that 'rewards 'in some way those who work hard in their households to lessen use and those who have no ability to avoid high costs any Three Waters entity should be reuired to offer either a free limit or some sort of meaningful graduated scale.
And for those who believe 'oh people can apply somewhere for an help'…….
This is not the answer. People should not have to put their living circumstances on the line endlessly to various agencies to get fair arrangements. Also even though offering an ability to apply 'somewhere else' for an allowance seems good at first glance perhaps, there will always be those whose living arrangements, energy, familiarity with 'how to' will mean they don't apply. So they are intentionally possibly thrown into poverty.
Water entities should not set up unfair charging regimes that have to have the rough and unfair edges rubbed off them by other agencies offering financial help to those affected. .
Its the nature of the say that is the problem.
Elected versus appointed.
Accountable versus non accountable
Removable by vote, not removable by vote
Simple really
Agree, Alan.
The simple facts are often obscured by practiced sophistry.
Exactly Alan
Do you mean I sign the petition to get rid of Wayne Brown and he will be removed and gone by lunch time? That simple?
Essentially, you are arguing that only elected representatives can and should represent the people and that the people cannot and should not appoint representatives and/or represent themselves, is that it? If yes, that is one rigid view of democratic participation and a very narrow-minded view of accountability. Really simple.
pin, head, dancing……
dick, head, trolling……
The electricity generation / retail companies are totally governed by the principles of the Commerce Act, so must act 100% in the interests of the shareholders. So maximise shareholder value and return. Absolutely no responsibility to maintain supply or capacity. The Electricity Commission has some power over supply and capacity but there's not much grunt there.
The interesting thing is that co-governance is a National policy. We've had it here from the Ngai Tahu settlement and the sky hasn't fallen, and there's not anywhere like the amount of human shit going into the water.
It is a cult.
"Take the mind-body split of Cartesian dualism, add queer theory, and announce your pronouns.
The result, these new gnostics tell us, is literal transmutation of the flesh through magical utterance. “I feel like a woman, therefore I am one.” “Some penises are female, some lesbians have penises.” “I am my true self now.” The phrase “gender euphoria” replaces dysphoria, for they are experiencing hormonal rapture, a transcendence of mere flesh-matter by the divine gender-soul.
A salvific belief in hidden gender-beings — gender gnosis — has taken over the brain of liberal Christianity like a misfolded protein. Contrary to its own self-image as a rational force, transgender “identity” is an inherently esoteric concept that easily adheres to existing belief systems because it indulges a specific kind of magical thinking."
https://www.thedistancemag.com/p/gender-identity-is-a-new-gnostic?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=email
Interesting read, thanks, with a few good links.
Analysing the adoption of gender ideology within the Christian community was partcularly worthwhile:
Understanding the simplest principles of Christianity 101, or secular humanism and the difference between science and ideological BS, is too hard for 80% of the population.
Most people don't read, don't do their homework, spout whatever shit they just heard on TV or social media.
The idiocracy will kill us all
Christians are a diverse bunch.
Seeing the adoption of gender ideology by some orthodox churches has been fascinating. I appreciated this excerpt:
Not implying anything other than it makes sense of the claim of the large number of religions claimed beforehand:
[Apologies if these views cause any distress.]
The cult of 'normal' is very strong (ask anyone with a permanent disability), but we have seen that various negative stereotypes associated with some behaviours and characteristics deemed 'abnormal' can be eroded, and, over time, societies as a whole can become, if not more accepting then at least more tolerant of these 'abnormalities.'
I can only imagine what it's like to have a gender identity that doesn't match one's sex; what their future might hold – not a straightforward row to hoe, imho, and it's easy to see how it could give rise to gender dysphoria. Some, perhaps even most trans people might be 're-educated' to see the error of their poor gender identity 'choices', but eradication is likely an impossibly tough nut to crack.
For people who, like myself, feel ill at ease with (the very idea of) trans people, education is key. The more I read, the more I am coming to realise that for many (perhaps most) trans people, being trans is not a choice, rather it is a manifestation of (normal) human diversity.
In the longer term it may become easier for those in the minority trans community to more fully adopt gender identities that match their true sense of self, and to change identities as needed. A few people will abuse such freedoms/rights (and so legal, law enforcement and other safeguards are required), but hopefully less visceral and more considered and accepting (or at least tolerant) attitudes towards (normal) trans people will voluntarily become the norm.
There are basically two sex 'boxes', but you can't box gender in.
Many who see the harm of gender ideology are members of the diverse groups you refer to.
Acceptance of diversity should not require a capitulation to the idea that biological sex can be changed, or that acceptance requires a role in the supporting cast members of a solo act.
A simple question, would you support a ban on the presence of Georgina Beyer from all women's spaces?
Would you support a ban on the presence of Isla Bryson from all women's spaces?
exactly this.
You know I already have. By opposing the right of people who have committed violence against women to self ID.
Are you ok with the males offenders who haven't been convicted or identified yet being admitted to all women's spaces?
How does one identify an offender who has yet to be convicted?
Do you mean by male, transgender women?
You can't. That's the point. Female spaces exist in part because it's not possible to tell which men will be harmful. This is true of TW as well, and even more so now with self ID which means that any male can say they are a woman at any time.
Not only can we not tell consistently which males are dangerous, we can't tell which males saying they are women are TW or lying (thus Bryson and the cluster fuck in the Scottish political scene). There's no way around that. We either have females spaces, or women are sacrificed.
No, I mean men, TW, and men pretending to be TW. TW, men and men pretending to be TW are biologically male. This matters because some people (looking at Sturgeon) say that the argument I am making is that TW are predatory. That’s sophistry. The argument is that TW as a class have the same risk to women as other males.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-63823420
The latest update on Isla Bryson and Scottish prison policy as applied to transgender people, and to transgender people who have carried out sexual violence.
Do I infer that you therefore think that TW should be able to access women-only spaces unless they've been convicted of a sexual crime against women?
How about being accused of a crime? Given that it can take years before a court case goes ahead (if it ever actually does).
As Weka points out below, the statistical risk-factors for TW are the same as for men in assaults against women. And self-ID with no requirement for any actual transition, opens up a huge risk to women from sexual predators. The argument that this wouldn't happen, has been thoroughly demolished by the numerous instances where it *has* happened.
And, regardless of whether the risk-factor is 'real' for any particular TW, many women perceive (for very good, historical and personal reasons) that there is a risk to them from physical males in intimate spaces. Which is why women-only spaces (from bathrooms to prisons) exist.
If there is also a risk to TW, then activists need to concentrate on giving them their own spaces, rather than taking over the existing women's only ones.
it's the wrong question. The question is whether women should be allowed to have female-only spaces. They should. Once that is re-established, then we can talk about how to organise society so that both women and trans women get their needs met.
That last part only has meaning, if all transgender women fail to qualify for female only spaces.
nope. Molly just described it well below. We don't have to police individuals in women's spaces, and transexuals who are trying to look conventionally female have been using some spaces as they need to (eg toilets).
It's got nothing to do with qualification. TW are not females. Society is bad at making society an ok place for many TW, that's the conversation that's needed rather than telling women they no longer exist as a class and no longer have the right to their own politics.
The previous accommodation given to transsexuals (who in this 2019 paper accounted for only 5 – 13 % of men with a transgender identity), has of course been affected by the removal of GRS as a criteria for reissuing official documents under the sex category to which you do not belong.
This legal fiction, has real world ramifications that have been ignored.
Men with surgical reassignment – like Georgina Beyer – have for years been accommodated in women's spaces – despite the obvious breaching of single-sex spaces – for decades. Those who did not abuse that accommodation are unfortunately adversely affected by current gender ideology. (In fact, a common derogatory term given by gender ideology advocates for transsexuals is truscum.) There are women that would have self-excluded when this occurred either for religious reasons, or for personal reasons that have nothing to do with Georgina Beyer but everything to do with the presence of a man in a women's space.
The use of the word "ban" is emotive manipulation.
The more accurate question is do you support the maintenance of single-sex spaces and provisions? And my answer is where it matters – yes. (ie. a provision that only men can be trained in the Defence Force for sky-diving was overturned many years ago. That was a provision not based on statistical evidence, privacy or dignity).
Georgina Beyer – in addition to many other men, and some very complacent women – ridicules women in the following clip for wanting to maintain single-sex spaces, even while knowing that the gender reassignment criteria has been expanded to encompass all manner of men – who for whatever reason – want others to offer validation for them as women, which includes entry to women's single-sex provisions or advocacy.
https://youtu.be/kQ37Nn5q8ec
I consider the previous unspoken – and not universal accommodation – of transsexual men in women's spaces to be a invitation that can now be withdrawn for several reasons – including the lack of diagnosis needed, the much larger number of men who want access via this route, the disrespect and paraphilias shown by men in their own postings online when women's spaces are used, and the complete and unthinking breaching of boundaries without regard to privacy and safety, let along dignity.
So, no – I don't think that Georgina Beyer should be banned because single-sex spaces that are significant are not monitored for specific individuals. (I think Georgina Beyer has demonstrated a lack of respect (above) for the category they want others to regard them as, but banning individuals is an unnecessary step when boundaries are clear and respected.)
Single-sex spaces are neither femininity nor masculinity testing stations.
They will however demonstrate the cognitive capacity, and/or decision making level of those that knowingly break those single-sex boundaries by prioritising personal feelings.
What priorities do you think Georgina Beyer makes in that situation?
Thanks for clarifying.
👍Thank you SPC for trying. Yes, I'm a man, but for people to call Georgina Beyer a man is exactly why she and those like her need protection.
Fwiw I wouldn't call Beyer a man because I think it's useful to differentiate between men and TW. But they are biologically male not female. And if women where having to fight so hard to retain the meaning of female, there'd be more consideration being given to TW. There's a backlash building and the more people's genuine concerns about gender ideology are sidelined the worst that will be. We are seeing this play out in real time in the UK.
Here's an example. Liberal gender ideologists forced the situation where a male rapist would be reported as woman in the MSM.
The BBC altered the words of a rape victim, switching gender pronouns. We know there is at least one case where a woman was told by the judge that the man who had assaulted her at feminist gather had to be referred to as she.
There is no way in hell that women where ever going to accept this, and it's on activists who enforced No Debate that that backlash is now happening. If we'd been able to have an open and honest debate, progressive women would have argued for trans rights as well as women's rights. In the UK and the US that opportunity is now gone, as gender critical positions are taken up by the more centrist and right wing mainstream.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-63823420
https://www.womensforumaustralia.org/bbc_altered_rape_victim_s_testimony_to_avoid_misgendering_her_transgender_attacker
People like Georgina are not waving their dicks around in women's changing rooms for the obvious reason – they don't have them. They are the minority these days – 90odd % of the men who demand to be called women still have their "eggs and ham". And these days many are also sexually attracted to women – unlike the trans people of old who were same SEX attracted.
The transvestites have come out of their wives closets, and are demanding to be able to exercise their paraphilia full time.
yep. I don't understand why so many people fail to get that self ID means any man at any time can say they are a woman. How many examples are needed?
That depends on perspective.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2021/oct/23/judith-butler-gender-ideology-backlash
what depends on perspective? I made a few points in my comment.
Interesting read – thanks. I will chase up more of Butler's opinions.
I have the similar disdain for those who insist on calling some men women
I can explain why. I do, and why this matters.
Can you explain how some men ARE women?
A surgically altered man, is still a man.
It is a courtesy and a token of acceptance to refer to them as women, but one that now carries a hefty price tag for women, so I've drawn a clear line in my use of the word women.
You can continue with your squiggly definition but you should still be able to offer analysis alongside your performance of sufferance.
Is it forthcoming?
What definition have I offered? And what performance of sufferance – you are the one claiming that transsexuals have been accepted (as temporary guests/tenants in womens spaces) on sufferance and no longer.
You had an issue with:
Therefore you must have an alternate definitiou for either men/women or both.
What are they? I'm assuming they're squiggly but will stand corrected if you provide definitions that includes everyone that you want to include and excludes everyone you want to exclude.
Have at it.
(Also, just would like to point out that after taking time to answer your question honestly, you did not return the courtesy, so here it is again:
How did I have an issue with “Georgina Beyer – in addition to many other men”. I asked you a question and thanked you for your answer.
Any answer other than, only those born female are women or anyone who claims they are by self ID is squiggly. Not everyone wants to play that our side or their side game.
I raised GB as an example because she was a transvestite who went with men. She then used hormones and identified as female all the time and then became transsexual and took advantage of the opportunity to legally identify as a woman. She was never a threat to women and still is not in women's spaces. You now disapprove of her because of her opinions (and suggest she is no longer welcome as a guest in women's spaces).
Back in the day women's organisations raised gender ideology, those of their female gender having equal social and economic place in society to men. There was the argument that by freeing people from expected/required conformity to gender roles people could be more fully human (civilisation could be advanced).
They took up common cause with same sex preference equality . This reminds me of one of the Pankhurst's, not the mothers favourite, a Tory who later preached adventism to Americans, but the one who chose solidarity with the working class.
Then came the gender identity movement and women's organisations were sympathetic. We might agree that where they supported self ID they were wrong. I have no idea why they did, maybe you can explain how that happened? The process whereby a person has to use hormones, live as a women, go through a psychiatric evaluation, medical and psychologist oversight during transition before being able to have legal status as a woman appeared to provide the safeguards required to prevent sociopaths/psychopaths/misogynists from acquiring it and becoming a threat to women.
Where extensive polling is done on this (the UK) this appears to be the consensus. Not either of the extremes. That said there is also a consensus to ensure fair competition in sport (so excluding transgender persons in some areas). The same license for organisations to determine their own rules would allow lesbian groups and or refuges to do the same. Prisons, whatever the society law will always have their own safety rules, as per inmates seen as a danger to others (or at risk).
@SPC
"How did I have an issue with “Georgina Beyer – in addition to many other men”. I asked you a question and thanked you for your answer."
I'll take that at face value. Let's move on.
"I raised GB as an example because she was a transvestite who went with men. She then used hormones and identified as female all the time and then became transsexual and took advantage of the opportunity to legally identify as a woman. She was never a threat to women and still is not in women's spaces. You now disapprove of her because of her opinions (and suggest she is no longer welcome as a guest in women's spaces)."
Georgina Beyer is a transsexual homosexual male. I admire much of Georgina's politics, but disagree with the ridiculing of women concerned about the impact of self-id on female spaces.
That is not the same as disapproving of Georgina Beyer the person. It is a disagreement with one perspective.
"(and suggest she is no longer welcome as a guest in women's spaces)."
No, I said there was previously an unspoken accommodation for transsexual males because of the very small number of transsexuals using female spaces. I also pointed out that this would have meant that some women self-excluded, when/if they noticed a male in the single-sex space, so some carried the cost of the accommodation.
However, due to the dedicated attempt redefinition of the word women, and the expansion of the expected accommodation to over twenty times the number of men – who for whatever reason – want others to consider them women includes a vast number men who do not fit the demographic of transsexuals such as Georgina Beyer.
But you surely know this.
The increased number makes the investment in third spaces more likely. But what would work – and preserve women's single sex spaces – is for men to support and safeguard those men in their own facilities.
"She was never a threat to women and still is not in women's spaces. "
Immaterial to the issue. My sixteen year old son has never been a threat to women, and is still not welcome in women's spaces. The use of a popular transsexual to disregard concerns is an obvious subterfuge. Not all men who identify as women are Georgina Beyer.
I'm not linking but if you want to look at specific individuals, check out the popular (120k followers on Twitter) of handle @SukiTrans to see some postings of using women's spaces with complete disrespect for women or expression of women's behaviour.
Safeguarding assesses risks via categories, not via individuals.
"Then came the gender identity movement and women's organisations were sympathetic."
Not all. And often without consideration for impacts. Lesbians have been aware of and raised concerns for over two decades.
"Any answer other than, only those born female are women or anyone who claims they are by self ID is squiggly. Not everyone wants to play that our side or their side game."
Let's be honest here, SPC. You can't do it.
Women are a sex category, that has specific political, medical and advocacy needs that have nothing to do with gender identity.
The concerted attempt to make the word meaningless, has an impact on women's ability to organise, advocate and name themselves in that work.
Don't assume because I push back against the appropriation of the word women, that I push the people who want to identify into it. The answer is No to the use of the word, not the people.
Do what? Play the game, as part of this or that side?
Sure, but how does one then cater for transgender people who identify as totally apart from their birth sex?
Homosexual men do not identify as women and lesbian women do not identify as men.
If one calls Georgina Beyer "a homosexual male", what does one call Caitlin Jenner (Bruce Jenner was married to a woman and now identifies as transgender without bottom half surgery, and dating men)? It appears to be heterosexual, but based on their own sense of identity.
What does one call the former actress Ellen Page, now Elliot Page, first feminist, then same sex attracted and later married to a female partner, then transgender man before later ultimately ending the marriage (who wanted to be a boy from age 9)?
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/a40165765/elliot-page-recalls-dark-juno-years-says-he-finally-feels-at-home-after-transition/
Consider Camille Paglia, once the only out lesbian at her graduate school, now identifying as a transgender man (and saying her career was one in which she was mentored by men).
There is a biological reality and there is what is called “the natural order” – sex for procreation of the species (a form of bio-determinism). Sure people have in the past and again today (despite the period of religious proscription) accepted homosexuality as part of the human spectrum, but also some societies have expected "two spirit" identity – based on their cultures observance of humanity.
I am sure there is someone, perhaps a bisexual women, trying to have it all via relationship with a transgender woman (without bottom half surgery), a transgender man, a non binary born male or non binary born female. Or all of them, in addition to her usual partners.
Online searches can be fun – "Juno actress" does not list Ellen Page, but a lot of others in the film.
@SPC
A distinctive term/s for themselves works in their favour for political advocacy, statistics, medical focus etc. Appropropriation of women (men) is unnecessary and disrespectful.
Well some do. Apparently the disrespectful attempt at appropriation of definitions doesn't stop at sex, sexual orientation definitions have been dismantled as well. Gender ideology is parasitic in that way – sucking all meaning out of words till there's nothing left but a lifeless husk. I consider this to be quite homophobic.
Apparently a bisexual male/man. This isn't hard.
Good God. A woman who has been in two same-sex relationships.
Gender identity may reference sex, but is an entirely different classification system to either sex or sexual orientation. Your (apparent) confusion comes from conflating the categories.
Who cares? This is nothing do do with our women's rights discussion.
Online searches can also be studiously avoided so that ignorance can be feigned. I see you working hard in this respect.
I'd leave to those who are homosexual men to determine if they see Beyer as homosexual or Jenner as bisexual (given neither has a penis, as Jenner does not mention it much I missed it, but did ultimately have bottom half surgery and says sex with women is not happening and is open to dating a male, has not done yet so).
They put it, as who they are/identify as and present as when they go bed with someone. You identify their sexuality via their birth sex and the birth sex of their partner.
I mentioned it, because it demonstrated the changing of the past to be in accord with the present.
There is a biological reality and there is what is called “the natural order” – sex for procreation of the species (a form of bio-determinism). Sure people have in the past and again today (despite the period of religious proscription) accepted homosexuality as part of the human spectrum, but also some societies have expected "two spirit" identity – based on their cultures observance of humanity.
Quite apart from the issue of classification of people as male or female from birth, thus to become men and women. There are people who do not want to do so. They are also born human beings.
@SPC
Once again your conflation of categories confuses you.
(Note: I don't have as much interest in other individuals sex lives as you appear to. This focus on specific individuals personal lives feels voyeuristic to me, and so is not something I willingly do. So, that's it for me in your current Q&A.)
To me clear definitions are important for the reasons I've given more than once, but let's try again:
Eg. Let's weigh up your proposed advantages for lesbians in terms of organising, political advocacy and specialised support services when the word is redefined to include heterosexual men, or even two gay men who identify as women.
(Seems utterly absurd to me that by this definition you could have a lesbian advocacy group with no women at all, but that's your lookout I guess)
1. What do you see as the benefits of such a redefinition of the word lesbian?
2. Can you see any negative impacts?
OK. Agree with the first five words. The rest is pure speculative musings, including this:
All human beings ARE male or female, including those who don't want to be. Their desire doesn't change their sex.
Stop conflating sex with gender identity.
They do not belong to the same classification systems, so cannot be interchanged.
I will read about "gender ideology" with a view to understanding "the harm" (first do no harm) and to guard against false narratives.
Imho, biological sex is real, important and immutable, and there are people (trans people) whose gender (identity) is incongruent with their (biological) sex. I would prefer trans people not be portrayed and/or treated as intrinsically abnormal/sick – they are not.
Drowsy M Kram.
" I would prefer trans people not be portrayed and/or treated as intrinsically abnormal or sick – they are not."
Trans encompasses so many different demographics – including those who meet the old DSM-5 criteria for gender dysphoria, which includes extreme distress over their sex. It also includes – somehow – stage characters, such as drag queens – absolutely no distress, and cross-dressers and (mostly) men with demonstrable paraphilias, along with non-conforming children.
So, I understand your concern. Which I share when it comes to the cohort of those who are experiencing distress.
There are numerous logical breaks that occur.
For example: If no diagnosis is required, nor distress, then why is medical treatment given? Especially when state health resources are low.
What other non-diagnosed personal demand for medication and surgery is provided by our Ministry of Health? (ie. Is a young woman able to access breast augmentation surgery on the basis of gender affirming care, or is that access sex based and only offered to young men?)
What IS your definition of trans?- ie. who does it include?
Have you considered that different demographics within the broader definition may have such entirely different motivations and experiences to the point where blanket statements are so vague as to be meaningless.
At this stage of my understanding, I would define a trans person as a person whose gender (identity) is incongruent with their (biological) sex. The degree of incongruency, and the extent to which it manifests, are individual variables.
At least that's a definition I can grasp – one that is meaningful to me, given my limited experience and a (very) small number of relevant acquaintances.
have you seen the trans umbrella?
Fwiw, I also believe that there is a class of people who are gender non conforming and where that is not a pathology. But if one hates one's body/sex, I'm inclined to think there are issues.
Would you include any use of chemicals to influence gender presentation as hate of birth sex? Or just surgical transition?
Your question is vague as well as leading.
Chemicals could include botox, but that's mostly cosmetic and nothing to do with hatred of birth sex.
And there are many transgender individuals that don't hate their birth sex – ie. comfortable with an unchanged body – so the hatred can't be assumed.
as Molly and I are pointing to, there are a range of drivers and understandings. Looks to me like there are AGP males who are seeking hormones not so much from GD but from the desire to be a woman and/or exhibitionist. This is quite different from a teen girl wanting cross sex hormones because she hates being female because of society's treatment of women and girls, and who wants to erase her sex.
I don't consider using hormones as hatred of sex, but hatred of sex can be a driver of that.
Thanks weka. So many 'boxes' under the umbrella – some will get wet!
Self-hate leading to self-harm is awful, often necessitating cycles of intervention by a skilled team with good communication skills, if you're fortunate enough to access one.
I'm uneasy about 'overlapping' trans identity with mental illness, just as I am about characterising all depression as mental illness. Maybe that's got to do with a personal concern (likely ‘fear of stigma’-based) about shifting the 'bar' of mental illness so low that none of us can limbo under it.
I'm with you on that, I've been influenced in my thinking by the anti-psychiatry movement. We pathologise differing states unnecessarily.
However, if someone hates their body/sex and can't cope with that to the point they are self harming, I think society should be talking about the most appropriate responses. It's very clear to me that there are young people having surgery without being given other options, and the degree to which society thinks hormones and surgery aren't that big a deal is just as concerning as the degree to which society thinks people are mental.
In an early discussion with Sabine, I mentioned that "I'm opposed to irreversible gender-reassignment therapies for sexually immature people, unless consensus medical opinion indicates a high risk of severe/irreversible self-harm."
And, to clarify, the effects of some hormone treatments are irreversible – this applies particularly to young people.
(Evolving) Consensus medical opinion doesn't alway get it right, either in diagnosis or treatment, but it's still the best bet, imho.
what do you mean by consensus medical opinion there? The patient’s medical team? Doctors generally?
Thinking clinical professionals (GPs, nurses, hospital & other health specialists etc.) and biomed researchers (experts) generally/globally.
Was assuming, but not sure, so looked it up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_consensus
depends on whether we can consider affirmation only as a genuine consensus (I doubt it). And that leads to teen transitioning and later detransitioning but young people being left with lifelong disability. There’s nothing ethical about this situation. Medical consensus can be wrong.
We're in agreement about that.
On example (from Australia) springs to mind.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2005/press-release/
Consensus medical opinion (not to mention medical guideline) was updated (corrected) accordingly, and remains subject to further correction.
So consensus medical opinion obviously isn’t set in stone – how can it be when ‘medical research’ never sleeps.
@Drowsy M Kram
Many medical professionals follow authority guidelines, which follow other guidelines in a daisy chain of referrals.
Here in NZ the daisy chain leads back to WPATH.
A good starting point is to find and assess the evidence they assessed/offered as a sound basis for their recommendations.
It does take a while because you may have to revisit previous Standards of care, and look at the history and contributors to the SoC.
But what you discover for yourself will mean that exchanges can be focused on the basis of the affirming approach, rather than individual experiences.
I tried at one point to follow the MoH PB links back to find the original research. It was hard going and I gave up in the end.
@weka
Relevant part of OIA response from Ministry of Health 2022:
yes, it was the Waikato link I followed.
@ weka
Yes. I had a look lastyear, but found it poor in terms of evidence.
Link here for others: https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/13101
Using citation tools such as Connected Papers or Litmaps often helps untangle the sources etc
Homepage links:
https://www.connectedpapers.com/
https://www.litmaps.com/
Fair enough.
However, the definition has moved on from that understanding.
So, the advocacy and legislative changes apply to all those included under the new (growing) number of groups under the "transgender" definition, not just those you define, or personally know.
Drowsy M. Kram. A 2019 critique in the latter half of this article of the 'Men, women…' assertion from 2007. It is based on studies from one research group, without replication elsewhere.
https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/extreme-male-brain-explained/
Thanks tWiggle – interesting that "There’s still a relative lack of independent replication” relating to the theory. Baron-Cohen probably shouldn't be blamed for that, unless he is somehow preventing that independent replication.
Also helpful (to me): "Baron-Cohen says the theory only pertains to two categories of cognition: systemizing and the ability to intuit others’ emotions."
I still like the idea that while men and women are, on average, different, some women (up to 20%?) will nevertheless exhibit (some) cognitive/mental abilities and behavioural patterns (‘good’ or ‘bad’) that are most usually observed in men, and vice versa.
Diversity!
Diversity – within females. Diversity – within males.
Outliers within a category does not mean they belong to a different category.
(Biological) sex basically comes in two boxes, and gender (identity), like sexual orientation, can't be (tidily) boxed in.
Just my current opinion; could change and/or may not be chic in 50 yrs.
Sexual orientation can be tidily boxed in.
(Understanding or accepting your personal orientation can take time, exploration and experience, but sexual orientation can be described with clarity.)
So can sex, man, woman, male, female.
Gender identity is a changing feast, but all of those boxes you referred to are sheltering under the transgender umbrella. None of them are getting wet. Do you know what's in all of them?
Weka provided the Transgender Umbrella graphic. I don't know what's in all the boxes, and I'm confident they're under surveillance.
On closer inspection, I see that there’s no rain in that graphic. Would you be happier if (some) boxes were to get ‘wet’?
Your assumption about some form of surveillance is naiive, and incorrect. Safeguards have been removed.
Some of those boxes contain autogynephiles, voyeurs and exhibitionists. Some others being promoted you may consider concerning are minor attracted people. These are being written, articles invited.
Any of these, have the same right to self-id as anyone else, and due to legislative changes can apply for and receive official documentation that declares them to be what they are not – the opposite sex.
Do you think some clarity should have been provided around whether this legal lie gives the holder access to women's single sex provisions should have occurred before legislative change?
Can you see why women are concerned, and how child safeguarding is dismantled without regard?
@Drowsy M Kram
(Previous reply was intended for you as well)
I haven't posted any links to the groups mentioned above because I prefer not to post sexual content on here, and think it can be easily found by those who choose to look to confirm.
However, there is also a growing number of men who while claiming womenhood – seem to hate women.
So, as not linked to any sexual content, here's an example:
https://twitter.com/TheOnlyGuru/status/1624489300233535488?t=Nm4UNB0M1JvmDjbCp8UaJg&s=19
Molly, just noticed your comment to me @5:18 pm – thanks. I don’t have sufficient information to form an opinion on whether the pro-trans movement is causing a significant increase in hatred of women, as opposed to given existing hatred a new outlet.
I'm not sufficiently familiar with this topic to attempt an answer – I would prefer that the provision of (single-sex) women/female-only spaces continues, as meaningless as that preference may seem.
Not sure about "without regard", nor do I know if the "right to self-id" will make a significant difference to child safety in NZ.
I'm certain that some women (and men) are more concerned than others. Imho the jury is still out on whether:
(1) the status quo, or
(2) provision of the right to self-ID,
will be more harmful to children and/or women here, but my opinion doesn't count for much.
Maybe Kiwis will find out. Links to (more) opinions follow.
"Obliterated"! – children, flee Ireland NOW, before it's too late.
Beware the glare of the rainbow
And please remember that, in my humble current opinion, human biological sex is immutable – that's not a sop, it's a firming belief.
@Drowsy M Kram
Thanks for your reply.
I didn't say this. I just said that there is "a growing number of men who while claiming womenhood – seem to hate women."
There's a difference, that may be apparent to you now they are side-by-side.
Child safeguarding is being broken because of the adoption of Queer Theory not because of transgender people. Apparently, some of the more influential advocates consider it a package deal.
If you believe that sex is immutable, then you might understand the harm of some of the broken boundaries resulting from Queer Theory.
Eg. having a curriculum that advises very young children that sex is not fixed, science includes "consider variations in puberty, including the role of hormone blockers", and the demand for children to abandon sexed pronouns and single-sex spaces at school and in other recreational endeavours. Girl Guiding is one such organisation that is no longer single-sex in regards to membership, overnight camps, or separation of male leaders from young girl guides.
There are many instances of harm being reported by women and girls but ignored by media, so if you are truly interested I will post some of them for you.
Otherwise, I'll leave it up to you.
(No comment on this fairly mild example of a recognisably misogynistic man, and his entry into women's spaces?).
Third spaces are all good as a solution, but there is a vocal group that doesn't want that provision at all.
I'd like to think that most men have progressed to the point where they wouldn't really care about men with any gender identity in their single-sex spaces. Of course, that depends on circumstance and situations, but I don't know many men that are that unaccepting of diversity. Do you?
No – the people I'm closest to are women. I suspect you're right.
@Drowsy M Kram
We are obviously equally fortunate in our circles of acquaintances.
People don't have a female brain in a male body any more than they have a female kidney in a man's body. It is all about which collection of sexist stereotypes you identify with.
It is possible to transplant "a female kidney in[to] a man's body", and vice versa.
Only when needs must, and no, it doesn't make the recipient transgender. So if I ever need a kidney transplant, I won’t be too fussy – how about you?
>
I think a lot of these studies have correlation and causation confused. They claim that kids presenting with "gender incongruence" is causing them mental anguish.
But it's verboten to ask if there’s underlying psychological distress that is manifesting as "trans", because that seems to be the popular thing for adolescents to latch onto.
Vulnerable children who come from family dysfunction might find it easier to embrace a new identity, rather than admit there are deeper problems below the surface.
“Mum and Dad are never wrong, so there must be something wrong with me”
Any competent therapist should figure this stuff out very quickly. But they aren’t doing so.
There are similarities between the linking of gender identity issues to trauma induced disassociation/body dysmorphia and historic explanations for "abnormal" homosexuality – early DSM (1952-1974), the first DSM without it (1980) replaced it with gender dsymorphia – go figure.
Once upon a time – women were expected to conform to their role within the Christian family (physical abuse and rape by the husband as a male entitlement). Rebooted as the Promise Keeper movement – order out of chaos cult (where order is male leadership and chaos is feminism/emancipated voting women and secular society equality).
People find a sovereign order comforting, it’s very Hobbesian. There is no public deviation allowed, only a private one kept from the public space – like a sexual or gender deviation …. .
PS most body dysmorphia has nothing to do with trauma or gender, but eating (and exercise) disorders based on fitting in with the right image (as portrayed in media), often manifested when personal identity is being
developed (puberty/adolescence/teen). Thus fashions of youth – rocker/mod/hippie/punk/goth etc
"most body dysmorphia has nothing to do with trauma or gender"
Reference? These are complex issues, it wouldn't be good clinical practice to rule out such major possible factors:
Of course it's most – do I really need to cite stuff about eating disorders based on not having the ideal body shape?
Very few guys slow to develop the V shape consider it a gender issue and very few gals without the idealised feminine form consider it either. They do what they can, or get depressed until they accept their genetic birth lottery outcome.
And I would hazard a guess, most of those considering the gender issue come from safe middle class family backgrounds (the ones who can afford therapy).
Consider a story. A mother comes home and finds her daughter’s male friend in her clothes. They said it was something to do with school and gender role play. The female later discovered she was a lesbian (she was working out for herself and him why someone she liked was in the friend zone).
It is comforting for some people to pretend that gender dysphoria is a simple matter and easily fixed by a trip to the gender clinic.
But it's destroying lives.
And those pretending everything is OK are participating in the dark triad of dysfunction.
Thanks for inferring that applies to me. And I am part of the problem. That only indicates when you get disagreement on this issue, you resort to tribal us (good) and them (bad) diagnosis.
fwiw, I think both of you are conflating gender dysphoria, body dysphoria, and gender identity.
Can you advise what is the point of this anecdote, because it conflates sexual orientation confusion and pretty typical teenage behaviour as supporting evidence for what, exactly?
It's just drawing the dots as an example – the issue of normal human experience/development when one is not heterosexual cisgender.
Oh, ok. It's not a particularly persuasive approach.
Your use of the term "cisgender" denotes the acceptance of the basic tenet of gender ideology – that people have some sort of gendered soul which supercedes biological reality, based on some sort of gobbledegook about " assignment at birth". The vast majority of people don't actually believe that – and for good reasons. There is no scientific test for the existence of a gendered soul, any more than there is a test for the existence of an immortal soul. It is a belief system, an ideology. The use of "cis" and "trans" is actually a form of linguistic apartheid, it divides human beings into separate categories with no consultation or agreement, and based on an ideological belief which most of them do not share.
So the use of the a term in current use denotes that the user believes what … . Really Jenette Strawoman?
People have debated issues for thousands of years – on both sides – and it's rare for anyone to state that by using common language either denotes or defines their opinion.
I could claim that to do so was a form of cancel culture, but …
@SPC
"So the use of the a term in current use denotes that the user believes what … "
This "current use" is not universal, and is a linguistic Trojan Horse that makes women (or men) a subset of their own sex. It takes a clear definition and dismantles it into meaninglessness.
(Also, is often used in a dismissive way to ignore contributions to discussion.)
So, No.
I don't get the relevance of your insinuations of some kind of patriarchal conversion therapy handmaid's tale. There are bad actors on the extremes of either position.
I could spread all kinds of crap about gr**mers and the sickening basis of gender ideology if you like.
But the main things GC's are concerned about are medical malpractice, women's rights, and the integrity of biology and basic science.
The patriarchal order was once sovereign and I am unaware of any advocacy by him for equal female participation in the forming of the social contract. Presumably their female idealism not being part of then social contract where they were excluded (such as homosexuals from recognised/accepted public partnerships).
And yet today, even those of the female birth sex ID, are an inviolate part of the social contract.
However some still say its not in accord with the natural order, empowered feminist equality – Jordan Peterson perceives that male identity is too fragile to deal with the chaos of female equality and that humans need God values as sovereign of our society order. As the transgender man (and the only out lesbian at her graduate school) Camille Paglia puts it man's greatest invention/creation was God (and she wants a part in the making the next version).
which link are you referring to?
9.
ta.
A strawman. The critics of gender ideology are not all minions of Jordan Peterson. A lot of them are vintage feminists. One is a founder of Stonewall.
How, I referenced Jordan Peterson as a critic of feminism?
Yes some feminists are critics of gender ideology.
My understanding of your argument so far is that gender critical beliefs are based on a Hobbesian "natural order" and thus a part of Peterson & Paglia's conservative project.
Which I think is an incorrect view of the gender critical argument. But you keep repeating it and going off into the weeds of philosophical abstraction. Tiresome.
You know there are women who have sex with women but don't have sex with men because of sexual trauma, right? This doesn't deny the existence of lesbians, but there's no good reason to minimise the existence of trauma survivors either.
Psychiatry has all sorts of problems with its world view and starting points, and gets many things wrong. The DSM is a manual for pathologising humans so they can be treated in the medical model. It has some uses, but they are limited.
Thanks. So whether trauma was involved or not (lesbians were sort of marginalised anyhow), that does not denty the existence of lesbians – well na they are fellow humans after all.
Now about those with gender identity issues … and how they identify … . There is what they would decide and the issue of the social contract as to what society accepts.
Women now vote, lesbians can marry and …
What's your point? That all good liberals should fall in behind gender ideologists?
Interesting connection between John Key, NZ and the so called spy balloon, At 9.20 if you want to bypass the over the top hyperbole.
https://youtu.be/UZuyC-XFFdw
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/yesterdaze-belittling-experiments-in-leadership
From one of the most insightful and brilliant political commentators in NZ.
I am surprised that this excellent article did not come with a reader warning
'May contain figures of speech including sly allusions'
much as some commentators on Stuff have to have a reader warning that they are 'satire'.
Agreed. Brilliant commentary. Another dig was at Luxon's use of 'little' and his oh-too-often required explanation/rewording/repapering of his description of Te Tiriti as a "little experiment" by saying he meant the word "brave". The writer said there was a huge difference, and no-one would go and see a movie titled "Littleheart"!
Is anybody counting the number and importance of Luxon's further 'walk-backs", a phrase that is too exculpatory in my opinion?
I can just see Luxon playing with his Experiment Kit that he found under the Christmas tree: The Te Tiriti Play-Kit for Right-Handed Boys – For Age 8+. Seymour’s got one too for Christmas but it was the beta-tested and highly experimental one (protoype) with VR features (with 3D holographics card) that contains many bugs that can harm the user’s senses and cause unexpected catastrophic system crashes. Seymour with his Electrical & Electronics Engineering degree thought he could fix it but van Velden was too late in pulling him away and she found him slumped over on Facebook with his whole body twerking.
'Braveheart' along with my name is what I used when facilitating change workshops. It was used to signify that to make changes in our lives a brave heart was needed.
Ir seems that all of us have to have a brave heart to encompass the changes that living in this country needs; that and understanding that we are all on journeys.
I found that out in the pub last night when 'discussing' Three Waters and co-governance.
I had to acknowledge that my companion who was so angry and frustrated had come from a farming in Southland background, was in his mid-Seventies and had been educated in brutal violence and insensitivity by Christian Brothers in the South Island in the Fifties and in shearing gangs in Australia in the Sixties.
None of that background gave him many useful insights into 2023 Treaty/Māori/co-governance issues…….
Yes, these conversations are difficult for a number of reasons, not the least the many diverse backgrounds and viewpoints that make for very different starting points in and of the conversation if there’s one to be had at all.
Scandal !
Brown is going to flood community events without 'alerting media'
Why is it some think the media are the only gatekeepers and those who play the media game like a pro are the real leaders – think smile and wave Key ( and thats was just the tip of his media strategy and games)
I seems those in the mediaverse are collectively clutching their pearls
Hairy weather ahead for Luxon, perhaps even a Code Red warning. If I were Luxon I’d call for the State of Emergency now and start sandbagging Seymour and ACT.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/131195407/labour-leads-mori-party-the-kingmaker-in-latest-poll
If the Tories can contemplate it, why can’t we?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/10/treasury-considering-huge-expansion-free-childcare-england?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
My preference is for all child care centres to be brought under MoE control, just as schools are. Free for all.
The long-range fall-out of bad weather events could deflate tyres and volunteers may have to pay back Government money. I wonder what Desley Simpson will do about this.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/local-government/131183188/35m-taxpayers-money-at-risk-if-auckland-council-axes-western-cycle-and-walkway
Its just a 'claim'
Parts have been built already – with government money and work on site preparation for others
https://tewhaupathway.org.nz/the-build/updates/#Abutment-in-Te-Pae-Kawau
And even preparing designs and going through consultations isnt done by unicorns
Meanwhile, in the UK [Chortle…]
"..the Telegraph has published a large poll of 28,000 voters, presumably designed to terrify the living daylights out of the Tories. It finds Labour would win an unthinkable 509 seats, the SNP would be the official opposition with 50, Tories would be third with just 45, and almost every Tory you’ve heard of would be swept away. The Electoral Calculus poll of polls has Labour on 47.5% and the Tories on 26.3%. There’s a way to go yet to an election, but this does suggest that provoking strikes and revoking the right to strike has been a gamechanger with voters."
Polly Toynbee in The Guardian
Inequality, covid, yellow fever and immunocapitalism.
That rare observer knows that the precautions evident at Davos should by now be visible in every train station, school, place of worship, hospital, and airport of the world. Yet for the bulk of humanity, there are no precautions in place despite Covid’s impact as “the greatest mass-disabling event in human history.” Vaccine nationalism has excluded more than a quarter of the world’s population from receiving a single Covid vaccine. Amid this global inequality, which most harms traditionally vulnerable and marginalized communities, Covid has taken at least 15 million lives so far, and at least 65 million people are afflicted with Long Covid.
[…]
“The City of Death” A century earlier in New Orleans, elites used recurrent yellow fever epidemics to consolidate their power and wealth and to justify slavery as essential to developing the region of the just-acquired Louisiana Purchase. In her book, Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom, historian Kathryn Olivarius describes how yellow fever became socio-economically endemic in New Orleans through a phenomenon she calls “immunocapitalism.”
[…]
“Immunocapitalism,” as Olivarius explains, provided “ideological legitimation for vast inequality” in 19th century New Orleans, which she describes as a stinking hellscape of squalor and suffering. Its population was wracked with recurrent yellow fever epidemics and livestock were butchered in the streets, their entrails left to rot in the sun. White elites used the poorly understood disease, which killed half of its victims, to justify the expendability of poor White laborers’ lives and the enslavement of Black workers about whom they constructed a myth of natural immunity to yellow fever to justify slavery.
https://caroldumaine.substack.com/p/covid-threatens-democracy-but-almost