nah Siobahn i’m home now, I replaced the phone, I got myt old number back with the kind help from 2degree’s and feel sad more, that I made so much effort over 2 days to find this.. lady of the night.. and nothing was done, sad our police seem to not want to add to their stats?
Picked up a hitchhicker in Glenfeild on a road trip 3 day’s ago..approaches me filling up with petrol and kindly asks if i’m heading towards the city centre(Auckland) being the mug I am I was kind and said yes..stole my phone and money and scammed me doing that like a pro. Ended up hunting her for 2 day’s on K’rd. I have just spent 2 day’s in the biggest shit hole I ever had to endure chasing [deleted] it turns out to get my phone back..here’s the crux. I tracked [deleted] to a corner on a K’rd. twice I phoned the police to say here she is.. right here.. SHe’s on video at the mobil on K’rd.. and still they did nothing.. NOTHING.. it took 20 minutes for them to turn up and there advise was it was only a phone go home and forget it.. They wouldn’t look at the video of all angles and previous day. Told me the video was too grainy? bullshit there, they also have multiple camera’s at garages.. he says he can only see her back..bullshit.. It was a total disgrace by the police in solving this crime., after doing all the leg work for them I get told if I touch her..I go to jail [deleted] took the piss and stood there laughing at me with my phone in her hand never changed the number either..
The police in this country are lazy, useless, uninterested in solving crime and happy to just give you a piece of paper. [deleted] will still be there, doing it to people and on K’rd it seems the police are not interested in upholding the Law. Or are they getting back handers? Next cop asks me anything can fuck right off.
In the end I had to go to Auckland central and plead fopr them to allow me to use there phone to call 2 degree’s as when your travelling and loose your phone how the hell do you phone anyone?
use a phone box..i thought that..tried the phone at Northcross takes a card.. went to dairy’s at least 12 no one had cards for the phone.. frustrated..i could have literally murdered someone by the end of this..,Bullshit.
I got so angry at the police attitude and rudeness and lack of actually helping me I nearly took the law into my own hands and smashed the living crap out of her. Problem was i’m 50 she was young and I suddenly found out if they run from me I can’t catch them anymore.
The police in this country have turned into a joke..any cop reads this, woe behold you next time you pull me over for something..
[So sure, you’re angry. But a couple of things. 1. This is a political blog, not some bloody facebook feed. 2. Sexist epithets have no place here.] – Bill
politicians have a responsibility to uphold our services, the angle I was making was our police have become useless with example. and a ho’s a ho..u think I should talk about her after what she did with manners. I’m not labelling women in general, so get off your PC soapbox and don’t be so bloody women rights and distracting from the points. I thought after reading your comment back.
The police seem to have a big lack of wanting to do anything these days.. what’s with that? Never used to be like this.
What I was expecting back on OPEN FORUM 14/1/2017 was comments about the sad state of our police after my long example.
I find this a lot here..you mods, mod in a way that stifles freedom of expression and stops talking points. You accuse people of having agenda’s they never intended and at times I think you go on like old knitting ladies tut tutting everything you can.. get a grip on IRL mate.
I’m not angry.. it’s just the way I write and you read it..and thought so, why would I be angry on the standard for something she did to me, or what the nz police seem unable to do , when you do the work for them and they still make no effort to arrest her.. that’s a talking point on politics IMHO. and not a anger outburst.
Hey Richard, good to see you back. Can you please not have a go at the mods, you will just get another ban and I like your presence on TS.
Btw, TS apparently used to be a free for all in its first few years and the place got overrun with trolls. There are good reasons for having moderation, one of which is to make the place more inclusive. We have a lot of leeway here all things considered but there are limits if we want people to enjoy the place.
Fair enough, and thanks wek a for the welcome back.. the mods, think I have anger issues from past behaviours I certainly understand that, but right there was a case of painting with brushes mate, I was not angry here, I just made a comment on what happened, to explain why I was not impressed with the service I got from the police under this National leadership. I thought it was a good talking point, however the mods went straight to the word Ho, and started acusing me of being angry. If I keep posting here I won’t tolerate unreasonable calls of me being angry as much as it’s my responsibility to remain calm after coming back from a ban.. or there is no point being here if they are running on me being angry in everything I say.
I see I put in some anger about how I felt at that time, when it was going on, it was not meant to come across as angry now.. as you could I was hoping read it and also get a glimpse of how frustrated one can get when dealing with the police who left me feeling so mad I wanted to take the law into my own hands. I see reading it back how it looks like anger, perhaps i’d ask the mods to not read comments once, but re-read them a couple of times and ask themselves, is there any other reason he could of wrote that, that way without it being unjustified anger.
Stephen Kings a great writer IMHO, and he can make you FEEL how it was when something happened, IMHO I think that is great story telling and comes across as passionate and with feelings.
So when someone writes something you have to read things a few timnes to understand all the nuances in what is written and not rush to hastey conclusions. Also feedback is good, and my comment back is good feedback they should not take it to heart but for what it is.
Perhap’s I should start voting National, if labour people can’t PC past the word HO.. then you have lost all common sense, are more interested in.. god knows what.. deleteing the word HO.. whore, prostitute? do those words offend you? They are in the bloody dictionary mate.. that is some case of overmodding right there..good day.
Violence is never the answer. Or vigilante actions.
You seem to threaten or infer physical actions when you are stressed. Not good man – try taking to someone about that – because the police are right – you take that step – you will be the one in jail.
PS she’s on video at the Wairau rd service station in Glenfeild where she approached me, and at the mobil on K’ rd where I dropped her off, and the next day as well when I caught her. The lazy bastards do nothing.. it’s all too much effort for our once glorious police.
If I write to the police complaints i’ll just get back a standard load of pre prepared excuses..Busy priorities bla bla..
Well this has turned me off people now, I used to be a nice person who would give someone a lift, no one gets anything from me anymore..
Hello from Glenfield… dunno if you’ve been following the news but the fuzz are seriously underfunded but still get some great results like the big drug bust yesterday
Well, well. Who’ da thunk it. Ex rugby player and current hockey player (female) are now our Very Own NZ Royalty. Royal Wedding MIGHT be today. News according to Herald or Stuff. Can’t remember which. Good Grief!
Looks pretty much like what the Wikipedia article says: left wingers critical of Clinton are claimed to promote Trump directly or inadvertently.
eg the stuff on Greenwald being pro Trump & pro Putin
First, I’ve seen it claimed a number of times that the headline usually doesn’t get written by the author of a piece, it’s usually an editor that chooses it. So to base a criticism of an author on the grounds that the headline is much more sensational than the actual contents is unfair.
The actual writing is much more nuanced, for instance passages such as “Unlike the aforementioned wannabe revolutionaries, most of these progressives haven’t endorsed Trump. But they nonetheless embrace the radical departure in American foreign policy that his presidency promises.”
I would also note that when someone writes a piece, in the context of an election, highlighting flaws in candidate A, without at least mentioning candidate B’s serious flaws in the same area (or worse, cherry-picking something positive about candidate B to highlight a contrast), it’s reasonable to infer support for candidate B.
Greenwald is just one that comes to mind as one who has written harsh anti-Clinton pieces, but also writes mildly positive approving passages about Trump such as “Questioning… whether it has this ongoing value and whether the U.S. should be expending the resources it is expending on NATO when we have massive income inequality and our working class is being deprived in ways previously unimaginable, those are perfectly legitimate questions to ask. NATO is not a religion,”. I can’t bring to mind any balancing pieces exposing Trump that he’s written. So if he writes a lot of anti-Clinton and includes stuff that’s pro-Trump, what’s the reasonable conclusion to draw? If his writing leaves a misleading impression of his views, whose fault is it?
OK. I’m with you on many of those points: e.g. headlines, political biases, etc.
However, the “Useful idiots” article, like the other Daily Beast one you linked to, clearly is pro-Clinton, and pro-US-exceptionalism and imperialism:
In “Useful Idiots”:
But it is the second group of progressive Trump fans, subtler in their sympathies, who warrant the most concern. These are the so-called anti-imperialists who harbor deep revulsion at the idea of American power being used for good in the world. America, they believe, is more often than not a source of evil and disorder—a jaundiced view of our global role that they share with the Republican nominee. Unlike the aforementioned wannabe revolutionaries, most of these progressives haven’t endorsed Trump. But they nonetheless embrace the radical departure in American foreign policy that his presidency promises.
…
For centuries, Americans have broadly accepted the idea that their country serves a unique world role as both a political leader and moral exemplar. This notion of American exceptionalism traces itself to the nation’s founding upon universal ideals of liberty and individual rights, garnered real sustenance through the part America played defeating fascist and then communist totalitarianism, and endures today as America remains a beacon for people living under tyranny overseas. Except, that is, on the isolationist right and anti-imperialist left, two groups the Trump campaign has united in rejection of American global leadership.
My bold. So, basically the article is selectively quoting from critics of Clinton (and other right leaning democrats – I don’t see Clinton or the views in the quotes above as left wing), to suggests any critics are in bed with the autocratic forces of evil.
The other article, “How Putin played the left”, does the same with noted critics to the left of Clinton (&Obama), including Jill Stein and Sanders.
I do agree that Greenwald does tend to be stronger in his condemnation of Clinton than Trump. However, other authors at the Intercept have been stronger critics of Trump.
Ultimately, though, the Daily Beast does seem to be a strong supporter of the US status quo (pre-Trump as POTUS), and seems to be out to discredit the left, and critiques of their imperialism and foreign policy., by aligning them with autocrats like Putin.
The author describes himself as a “conservative polemicist:”
Over the past eight years, a bevy of Republican politicians and conservative polemicists (including yours truly) have assailed Obama for disavowing American exceptionalism.
So it’s unsurprising he endorses American exceptionalism and considers the USA a force for good in the world. But he certainly won’t be a Hillary Clinton supporter…
I don’t think the piece is portraying the far left as “in bed with”, it’s saying that there are those on the far left that can be manipulated into words and actions that damage the centre-left. Thereby inadvertantly enabling the alt-right and others that strongly oppose the goals of the far-left.
Personally, my politics are very close to Stein’s on most issues. If the US had some kind if STV or proportional representation, my voting choice would have been dead easy: Stein. But in the system the US has, voting for Stein would be like buying a lottery ticket for the daydreams. Except the lottery ticket is much more likely to actually deliver the dreams. So I swallowed hard, and took a good look at the realistic choices.
Frankly, it looked to me like the main effect of the one-sided criticisms, single-issue shouting, and false equivalences put out by by the far-lefties obscured that 1) Sanders really had dragged the Dems close to his positions, 2) for everything “good” that Trump said (that got highlighted by the far-lefties) he said several things that should be horrifying to lefties 3) while a Clinton would do a lot of things lefties would disagree with, on average she would move things in the right direction, while Trump would be mostly a fukn disaster.
So to the extent that the noisy anti-Clinton far-lefties had an effect on switching some Dems to vote Stein, and turning other Dems off Clinton so they stayed home, yes the noisy far-lefties helped Trump win and were thereby “useful idiots” for Putin and Trump. And I think the Daily Beast is doing a good thing by calling it out.
So I’m super-grateful we’ve got MMP here so I can vote for someone a bit closer to my views here than I can in the US. And why I’m hot on reducing thresholds for representation so a wider range of views get represented.
Mostly agree – though there was so many different views, as far as I can see – and then the noisy interference from various journalists invested in one position or another, and the manipulations of the US & Kremlin intelligence agencies – I really am concerned that expressions of true left wing politics get plastered with the mud being thrown around.
Yes, prefer MMP. But also, the power structure is so entrenched in the US, that the least powerful are always the losers.
I suspect there’s a lot going on behind the scenes – manipulations, strong arming, strategic leaks, etc – that we truly don’t know the extent of the propaganda and surveillance warfare that is on-going.
Ok, now that’s just dishonest bullshit from Greenwald. There are plenty of people and organisations questioning the sufficiency of evidence that aren’t being accused of “loving Putin”.
The war against intelligence is only in its initial phase Carolyn_nth. Many foot-soldiers and noble banner bearers will work tirelessly to make society like a glorious formation lock-stepping confidently into the future.
And of course, the line, the direction – the arguments or perspectives that inform the unfolding of this great harmonious order…well, it’s unthinkable that any “right thinking” person would question it.
So to question is to be wrong. To be critical is to betray or willingly or unwittingly be in the service of all that the glorious formation seeks to overcome and set right.
You can already see it happening across numerous threads in the comments sections here.
Can anyone cite a single left-wing figure of any prominence who has ever expressed “solidarity” with Putin? I know of literally none.
Expressed “solidarity?” Sure, can’t say I’ve seen any myself. But “expressed solidarity” is a fairly precise criterion – comment 5 linked to an article that lays out fairly convincingly how the far left, including at least one prominent figure (Jill Stein) have put themselves in the position of endorsing or supporting Putin.
So your running with the raw news story then Psycho Milt?
Seems you are running with a very similar attack vector you used with Syria, in effect to shut people down people on a issue.
That not going to induce debate and the free exchange of ideas. But then again, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you promote debate or the free exchange of ideas.
Uh, Psycho Milt is responding to how Greenwald is presenting a distorted picture of what his critics are saying which is a kind of strawman argument. Greenwald is using a very similar technique to the Nats inquiring into misconduct by one of their own: set the terms of inquiry very narrowly in order to exclude the problem behaviour from examination.
As for trying to shut down the debate, get a mirror handy and take a good look at your reply to PM. Did you actually address the points he made?
No analysis or interpretations of events, nor perspectives on issues are to be taken on board unless an approved level of opprobrium for the commissars chosen enemies, or fealty to the commissars chosen masters is in clear evidence.
That’s how it is right now. And it goes way beyond PM, Andre and some others in the comments and way beyond some mutterings from a few authors…
…this is what liberalism looks like – lashing out as it dies.
Everything is to be feared even as everything is to be cleaved to. So everything that would seek to question or understand or shed light is to be destroyed under the commissar’s crushing boot of conformity and unity.
Just look at our supposedly pluralistic media that has become no more than what might have been expected from PRAVDA taking on some biological characteristic and dividing and multiplying into a thousand or a hundred thousand clones of itself.
Where are the alternative analyses or the critical analyses? (There are none). Where is the mainstream news outlet that expresses doubt or asks a question or two? (They don’t exist).
There’s definitely a dark foreboding emanating from ‘our’ political institutions these days and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything like it. For them, it can’t but end badly. For us, it depends.
So there are some sources, such as Greenwald, that are totally exempt from scrutiny and criticism? May we have an approved list of all those sources whose pronouncements must be accepted without question? Please?
So there are some sources, such as Greenwald, that are totally exempt from scrutiny and criticism?
Nope
May we have an approved list of all those sources whose pronouncements must be accepted without question?
According to a number of flailing liberals, the BBC (and others) can, more or less, be taken at face value. They are, according to flailing liberals, pretty damned objective. In fact, to question the BBC is to be an apologist, a shill for (insert designated official enemy).
I read that piece, and it got me thinking about the difference between me and a lot of the wishy washy believe anything fringe merchants of the Green movement/anti-Clinton crowd. I think it might be that I have actually seen the old Warsaw Pact. I visited East Germany for a couple of weeks back in the 1980s. It was railway sidings of tanks, uniformed soldiers, grey food served in cold grey restaurants, scared locals and being followed everywhere you go. It was depressing, many buildings in East Berlin were frozen in time, unrepaired and scarred from the battles of 1945. I found it a scary and an awful place. After my little taste of totalitarianism, I couldn’t wait to get back to West Germany and freedom. When you realise the slighly on edge West German border police with their submachine guns were there to protect you from the hyper-aggresssive East German border guards should it all turn to custard on the border you also realise what the cost of freedom might be. After those two weeks, I had no problem identifying between “us” and “them”.
To many on the left today have no idea how awful totalitarianism is or how scary it is to suddenly realise you are not protected by the rule of law and have no human rights. Putin and his kleptocrat thugs in his gangster state are horrible people who wish us all harm. Xi Jinping and the rest of his murderous butchers of the Chinese communist party would brutally torture and kill anyone of us who stood up them, if they could get their hands on us. People like Jill Stein and the flaky occupy movement media and the rest of crackpot conspiracy theory left need to grow up. Maybe they need to spend a fortnight in North Korea, to see what life looks like in a totalitarian state.
This blog’s comments sections are currently plagued by the worst kind of false moral equivalence troll, a person so monumentally stupid, vindictive and egotisitical that he wishes to do nothing but sneer at the ideals of freedom and seek to act as the useful idiot of our enemies. I’ve seen with my own eyes what sort of place Putin and Xi Jinping want to create for us, and I have no time for people who act as traitors by supporting them.
“The term “russophobia” (the hatred and/or fear of things Russian) has become rather popular in the recent years, courtesy of the anti-Russian hysteria of the AngloZionist Empire, ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Russia
\Russia is a multi-national state with over 185 ethnic groups designated as nationalities; the populations of these groups vary enormously, from millions (e.g., Russians and Tatars) to under 10,000 (e.g., Samis and Kets).[1]
But the article above is more about discrediting people who are strongly left wing, by falsely smearing them as either Trump & Putin supporters or enablers.= are supporters of Putin or Trump.
And the people being criticised don’t actually support Trump or Putin.
…has cultivated dupes, fellow travelers, and purblind fools among plenty of American progressives…
Now in general, I agree with that about the Kremlin and Putin. But I also think that is true of the CIA, US intelligence community, and the US defenders of US imperialism and foreign policy.
There is a propaganda and surveillance/intelligence war going on between the Kremlin and the US agencies. Trump has inserted himself into it one way or another.
Meanwhile the US powers that be also use the whole situation to discredit any strong expression of left wing values, policies, campaigns and critiques.
You do not have to be the biggest fan of either Putin or Xi Jinping to think that (a) war is to be avoided, especially war with such destructive potential, and/or (b) that a multipolar world is a better thing than a world dominated by a single power. “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” as the saying goes.
Further down, at comment 12, you approvingly quoted, Bill Clinton’s generation, however, believed that concentration of financial power could be virtuous, as long as that power was in the hands of experts. They largely dismissed the white working class as a bastion of reactionary racism.
Do you not think that this hubris would increase rather than abate in a world dominated by such people, with no need to negotiate or make concessions? Owen Jones thinks it increased greatly after the Berlin wall fell, and neoliberal capitalists felt they could from then on reign supreme. I do not have a link, but the claim is from his book “The Establishment & how they get away with it.”
i once spend the better part of the night at the german/german boarder with people pointing guns at us and taking the car apart.
why?
the old man driving the car, Adi – short for Adolf, was pointing to his rather long arms and large fists when the Volkspolizist asked if we had weapons in the car.
oh dear oh dear oh dear.
Also fun in Berlin, no matter how drunk one got, you could never get lost, the wall was there to guide you home. Always.
Yes, a lot of people don’t have much of an idea what it looked like, what it felt like and those that did know – family members that did make it out of East Germany after years of ‘re-education’ never much spoke about it.
Perhaps you could submit a proposal to deal with the problem direct to Merkal. The board is set for the dismantling of the left, there entire economic thesis has been discredit along with the right. Nows a great time to submit a proposal to deal with the problems you’ve out lined. Because the system can’t deal with all the refuges flowing from the Middle East. But first there’d have to be admission there’s no solution.
“…plagued by the worst kind of false moral equivalence…”
Projection and hypocrisy appear to be your ‘stock and trade’
Comments from you , Sanctuary, are some of the lowest level on this site
It is self evident that you have not a single shred of understanding about what you write. The words do tell a story about the personality behind them…
I spent 4 months in 1982 working for Topdeck Travel on their USSR/Eastern Europe camping tours. Each trip was for a month and visited East Germany, Poland, USSR, Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Absolutely fascinating but very oppressive. We were among the first tourists to be allowed in Poland after the Solidarity uprising and I’ll never forget the sight of Russian soldiers goosestepping through Warsaw. I found Romania and Czechoslovakia the most oppressive. It would take 6 hours to get into and out of the USSR because they searched everything and even read peoples diaries. I wonder if it is still like that.
You mean, the “badly constructed front for the political meddling of evangelical Christians” Maxim Institute? The one of whom Bruce Logan was a former director? I’m sure they’ve nothing but our best interests at heart, more so if you happen to be homosexual.
well its all good then, they will loose their Health Care and have to go back to bankruptcy in order to receive surgery or simply just die.
In the mean time, America will be Great again! Woot Woot.
A long but worthwhile look back at the fake news in the US election. Given how successful it was and how much of it was sprayed around here on The Standard, we’ll all need to be very wary of it for our own elections coming up.
Along woth the best two paragraph summation of how and why third way, middle class identity politics has crippled the political left in the west since the 1970s – an own goal if there ever was one:
“…There’s history here: In the 1970s, a wave of young liberals, Bill Clinton among them, destroyed the populist Democratic Party they had inherited from the New Dealers of the 1930s. The contours of this ideological fight were complex, but the gist was: Before the ’70s, Democrats were suspicious of big business. They used anti-monopoly policies to fight oligarchy and financial manipulation. Creating competition in open markets, breaking up concentrations of private power, and protecting labor and farmer rights were understood as the essence of ensuring that our commercial society was democratic and protected from big money.
Bill Clinton’s generation, however, believed that concentration of financial power could be virtuous, as long as that power was in the hands of experts. They largely dismissed the white working class as a bastion of reactionary racism. Fred Dutton, who served on the McGovern-Fraser Commission in 1970 , saw the white working class as “a major redoubt of traditional Americanism and of the antinegro, antiyouth vote.” This paved the way for the creation of the modern Democratic coalition. Obama is simply the latest in a long line of party leaders who have bought into the ideology of these “new” Democrats, and he has governed likewise, with commercial policies that ravaged the heartland…”
i am sure our double dipper from Dipton, the beancounter in Chief is studying this and wonders if there is a way to apply it here 🙂
Quote: “But wait, it gets worse. Another feature of this bizarre GOP scheme gives exporters a gargantuan tax break by, in effect, not taxing their export revenues. Let’s say a corporation sells a piece of machinery to Iran for $5 million, which cost only $4 million to produce. That means $1 million in taxable profit. Under the new Republican scheme, however, that $5 million received from the mullahs wouldn’t be taxable. Instead of a $1 million profit, the corporation, for tax purposes, would have a $4 million loss. Loophole doesn’t begin to describe this “tax break.”Quote End
quote” As the tax reform debate heats up in Congress, the obscure border adjustment tax (BAT) is causing friction within the GOP.
What is the BAT? Well, Steve Forbes calls it “a nasty political and economic trap for Donald Trump” — a trap he says is being set by Republicans rather than Democrats.”
can someone explain to my why rural white is ‘heartland’ and urban brown is not?
why can we tell people that live in cities to ‘move out if they can’t afford it’, to get of benefits and ‘move to where the jobs are’, to ‘get an education if they want to earn more money’ to not ‘have children they can’t afford’ but then we turn around and don’t expect the same of white people living in the heart land?
And why do we give people like those in the US heartland a pass on voting for the same fuckwits that have been fucking(looking at Kansas, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana and so on and so on, heck even Texas) it up for them and tell the democrats that they should give up their voter base of women, people of colour, people who do not identify as heterosexual white male, low income workers, etc etc to make way for the’ white male worker’ who wants to go back to a time where women were barefeet pregnant fixing sandwiches, people of colour being segregated back into obscurity, and anyone not being a heterosexual white male going to the closet?
Please someone explain the heartland to me. I don’t get it. I honestly don’t.
Not sure what your second paragraph means, but your initial question is within the formation of New Zealand identity, economy and society through the development of extensive then intensive agriculture.
i am talking about the US. white heartland is evangelic fundamentalist. YOu know the once who think abstinence only is a good way to prevent pregnancy – even when married i would guess, that think that homosexuality etc is an abomination, and that ‘these people’ you know brown people should learn their place again. Essentially the current Republican lot led by fundamentalists that would like to become a ‘christian’ Nation again by ending the persecution of the Christians by the non Christians that live in Cities. 🙂
So what you are saying then is that a few hundred people – old NZ Farming Stock are ‘heartland’ ‘real NZ’lers’ and all the others are not?
Or are you saying that a few hundred people – old NZ white large scale Landowners are heartland and all others are not?
+1 although I would say concepts of the Heartland predate the neoliberal revolution by a long way. Sabine’s second paragraph is about the bastardisation of NZ culture that has happened since.
Sabine, was there something specific that prompted the question?
it is these articles that basically say that if Clinton would have abandoned all other democratic voter blocks in favour of the ‘disgruntled white male voter’ in the heartland she would have won. (and we often hear the same here in NZ – where Labour = urban / brown / low income / female/ non land owning etc, National = white / male / upper income/ rural / land owning
My point is why are we calling people / areas heartland – in it self a loaded term as the heart is the engine of the body – implying that all other areas of a country are of lesser importance.
combine this with things that we have heard often over the last years
if people in the city can’t afford to live there they should move.
we could equally say that if people on the country side don’t have jobs they should just move.
why are women with large families in the urban areas a drain on socity, while the white women on countrysides having large families are not?
the double standard that is applied Heartland = white , Urban = Brown.
Fwiw, the heartland in the US voted to have the Afordable Care Act gutted, they voted to have the remains of their public schools gutted, they voted to have Birth Control and Family planning replaced with abstinence only (even in marriage) as only form of Family planning, they voted to have environmental degradation be made standard operational procedures, and for what its worth non of the jobs they lost 40 years ago is gonna come back.
I don’t recall rural and urban in Germany or France or Holland to be adressed that way. I grew up on the deep bavarian country side and then went to he City as a young women. It was always just Germany. Non of that these are better then those bs.
In settler/colonial societies, like Aussie, NZ, the US, national identity has often been tied to the (freedom of the) open countryside. It features a lot in novels and movies – cowboys in the US and the man alone in rugged country in NZ.
100% pure and all that.
They’re kind of origin myths, in (implicit) opposition to the (implicitly class-based) corruption of the (much more urbanised) UK/Europe.
The “heartland” or countryside-identification is not usually the rural marae, the Aboriginal township, or the native American reservation.
No, it’s not fake, it’s real. NZ really does have a love historically for the countryside. That’s different than the politics you describe which I address below.
what are the oldest ‘urban’ centres in NZ , the oldest ports? If we apply the creation myth to ‘heartland’ one would have to include the old Port Towns at least?
i get the heartland in an emotional sense of love of the country side, especially what is left over of old NZ in Doc Parks and the like.
but heartland in the political sense i find hard to digest. It seems divisive, not only based on race, gender but also location.
so the question that i put to you then is the North Island less Heartland then the South Island?
I am not trying to be divisive, i am really trying to understand this emotional separation of a country.
example, Bavaria is a beautiful place with the Alps, the lakes, the cows and such, but it is not the heartland of Germany. It is often descriped as an industrial powerhouse as due to some quirky german legislation it is a free state within the federation of Germany and can use that to its advantage in incentivising businesses to settle there. But neither is Schleswig Holstein or Sachsen or Friesland the Heartland.
Mmmhmmm. You seem desperate with all this talk of German boarder crack downs. Can I suggest you have a sleep before going out again and pointing fingers and words at men with guns
3 days in Auckland left me, seriously, wondering how they can put up with the place. The roads were a nightmare, the people I found rude, and when they heard my please’s and thank you’s they all smiled and looked at me like I was a weirdo. I have left Auckland flummoxed as to why oh why would you put up with the place. To many cars, people riding your bumper, cutting lanes, crowds at beaches like I had not seen since Greece..i left Auckland shocked at it’s transformation since 2000 when I left there it was nothing like that, and Asians.., OMG not dissing Asians just commenting..it was like being in Asia. I felt the minority for the first time in my life, in my own country of birth, I felt we had been overrun. just a feeling I got and I cannot get over the fact it did that to me.
Most people stay here for the work. And some people don’t like being too far removed from family — and if all their family lives in Auckland…
I went to Putaruru a couple of years back for a birthday. The air was fresh, the grass was green and everyone was so laid back. But there was bugger all to do. If you took a bunch of kids from Auckland and plopped them down in a place like Putaruru, they’d be climbing the walls within a week.
“Can we go to Westfield, Dad?”
“This is Putaruru, sweetpea. There is no Westfield.”
Can’t say I missed the clogged roads, awful driving and generally shitty attitudes of Auckland, though.
Well, there’s the swing bridge at Arapuni, the sanctuary at Maungatautari, complete with tuatara, the toy museum in the castle at Tirau, and the lovely little shops and cafes in that village, the lovely carvings all up and down the streets of Tokoroa, the gorgeous hot springs at Okoroire, and Rotorua and Taupo are an hour or less away. Westfield – very boring by comparison! 🙂
I think what your are describing isn’t about concepts of the heartland though, at least not in NZ. Those dynamics strike me as ftom the neoliberal decades. And it’s not like we have farmers coming on to TS running alt-right or anti-identity politics 😉 One of the classic example she of what you describe comes from Chris Trotter and his Waitakere Man myth. Haven’t heard it for a while so hopefully it was discredited but what we have now is another version.
From what I cannot tell it’s the politics of dudes who don’t actually care about racism, sexism etc, or who in facts oppose advances in those areas and are now feeling encouraged to be bolder about that post-Obama.
There are some valid politics around working class and poor people and what has been done to them while others thrived but I also don’t understand the need to roll back advances for women, Māori, gay people etc in order to address that. The identity politics I’ve been involved in my whole adult life has been inclusive. What we are seeing now is the disintegration of society and a whole bunch of nasty coming out. Some of that is latent until now.
Also, the whole thing about stop whining and move where capitalism want and you has a modern bent to it, but several generations ago Māori were pressured to move from country to city. It’s a big part on NZ’s history, look it up I think you will find it interesting.Since the 80s it’s been the norm for Pakeha in rural areas to also move to town. This is the neoliberal agenda in the economy and is different from the racist, sexist politics you describe.
it always seemed to me that ‘heartland’ applied by journos/politicians is more a code for a livestyle long gone, nuclear family and such. And in that sense one could argue that the live on the country side is more ‘traditional’ then in an urban centre where people can to some extend hide and live in anonymity.
but i find it interesting as this notion is applied in politics and how in some publications it is argued that the vote of the heartland is morally superior to the vote of the non heartland.
thanks for answering, this was quite interesting to me.
I think you’d have to give some examples of those usages Sabine. To me you are mixing a number of complex phenomena up, they’re not all about the Heartland.
weka, I agree that there are complex things in the mix. But the term “heartland” does get used in reports on NZ politics, and it does traditionally relate to more rural areas associated with conservative values..
As I’ve tried to indicate, there’s old origin myths that have long been incorporated in NZ identity. They do keep getting revived in various forms, from Speight’s Southern Man in the 1990s, to the #8 wire metaphor of NZ identity in the 21st century, and Trotter’s re-working of the Southern man stereotype in his Waitakere Man.
That old rural NZ identity is one where resourceful white men dominated, and were usually located in rural areas – once considered to be the backbone of the country. I think it still gets revisited to reclaim a time when white men dominated.
Despite the fact that the country was now largely urban, New Zealand’s rural mythology remained alive and well. Although New Zealand’s traditional farm exports had some difficulties from the mid-1960s, governments continued to provide subsidies and tax relief to encourage farm production. There was growing investment in education, but it was still assumed that farming was the backbone of the nation. In politics the long-serving prime ministers in these years, Sid Holland and Keith Holyoake, were both claimed to be farmers.
National identity
The farming life remained central to the nation’s identity. When in 1953 Queen Elizabeth II visited New Zealand her guidebook told her that ‘the dominion is essentially a farming country’. The pioneers had transformed ‘a waste of fern, bush and swamp’ into ‘the rich productive area it is today’.
They then go on to say urban culture took over post 1975.
“But the myth of NZ identity being based in rural locations has long been commented on.”
Not sure what you are meaning there Carolyn. There is no single NZ identity, but the connection between NZers and the land isn’t a myth. It still exists despite the problems that neoliberalism has created.
Well, there are dominant NZ identities and the association between NZ’s countryside and NZ national identity has long been represented in ads and various cultural forms.
the connection between NZers and the land isn’t a myth
hmmm… but you’ve been saying most Kiwis these days live in urban contexts. The rural myth of NZ identity continued long after urbanisation. The Te Ara link that I included in an earlier comment talks about that. There is some reality about connection with land, but it’s been raised to a mythical level in various cultural representations.
And the connection between land and NZ identity has been more commonly associated with white (male) Kiwis… ie not being located in the long history of tangata whenua association with the land.
Are you using the word myth to mean cultural story of fake construct?
Kind of – a cultural story, maybe based in some kind of reality, but very skewed to misrepresent reality/realities. And raised to some high status within a culture – mainly to represent to interest of the dominant group/s.
So for instance, the rural myth of NZ identity is one of hard working pioneers who created farms and built the country. It ignores the earlier presence of tangata whenua, and hides the brutal processes of colonisation – let alone the actiivities in towns and the growth of cities.
New Zealand national identity is usually shown in terms of the great outdoors, ignoring the diverse activities around the country. I searched on google images for “New Zealand”. I largely got images of NZ’s great outdoors, with a small number of more urban images thrown in.
7 minutes of images accompanying the singing of the NZ National anthem – must have been for the 2011 RWC. I hadn’t seen the vid before. But most of the 7 minutes is images of pristine, glorious outdoor vistas. there’s a few shots of Auckland/Waitemata harbour, a bit of barbed wire, a cross, a building (maybe a church, sports stadia.
But note what is not there in this representation of NZ to ourselves and internationally – nothing of the diverse multi-cultural Asia-Pacific country we now are; nothing of the diverse fauna; nothing of Te Tiriti; no urban and/or rural marae; none of our diverse cultural and work/business activities . Certainly no polluted rivers; no homeless people; no women who have been victims of violence; no beggars; no Wellington cafes or Otago history… etc.
It’s pretty much open, breath-taking, majestic landscape without people. NZ is very often represented like this – sometimes they include farms.
I think of the man alone means rural masculine NZ national identity myth as something like in the Speight’s Southern Man” ads.
To me, Trotter’s “Waitakere man” echoed the Southern Man stereotype – and Trotter is a man from the south. It’s like he was re-locating the rural identity to somewhere on the fringes of a major urban centre.
Waitakere, while being partly blue-collar urban, also includes hilly bush country.
”Yep NZ is a racist country.”
I agree i got told once i wasn’t bad for a balhead,
have been randomly assaulted twice by brown people,
joined a softball team once but gave up after 3 weeks of being ignored and not touching the ball.
some lefties need to get over them selves , there are horrible bastards in all races.
I will try to help you Sabine, you see the world the way you want it not the way it really is, and you class every one into and identity and then assume they all think the same way if they are that identify, rather than individuals, hope this helps 😀
Because often people in the cities or their parents etc migrated from these heartland towns, its where the family connection are, not sure why you are so exercised over it
hmmm, how much money is made in the Cities? And the people that come from the heartland to live and work in the Cities, are they still heartland?
I can understand the regional thinking i.e. the beauty of the contry, the mountains and that, but then you also have stunning coastlines and such and Fishery is a good business in NZ, and Tourism is a good income in NZ. etc etc.
I don’t try to diminish the value of farmers or their work, don’t get me wrong,
I am trying to understand the political importance of Heartland, when in fact ‘Heartland’ does not even cover 50% of he population.
The moment the crown seized Tainui land, commerce in New Zealand started flowing from Waikato, to Auckland in around the 1860-1880s, and then onto the rest of the world, people started betting on those future prices. So the three enterprises are one and the same.
Great I live in the Heartland.. you will obey my wishes then… Sabines point is.. what make Heartland so special they should get preferential treatment I agree with her totally, it’s supposed to be about ALL kiwi’s not one group and to put any justification for it, even if they are critical to industry whatever, is her point made. They shouldn’t, they should be valued, not preferentially treated over others, that nuance is the crux of it IMHO.
Material units are being forward deployed so soldiers and tankers can fall on them. Meaning instead of taking 2 months to deploy brigade sized elements and begin operations it takes 2 weeks. This information was glimed from the dragon trails which tested how long it takes a stricter brigade to travel across European held NATO territory
Happy to see myself as aligned with outstanding journalists such as Pilger and Greenwald.
Guess you connect more with the propagandists at CNN and the Washington Post.
Didn’t you learn anything frm the lies about WMD and Iraq?
You really should learn your political history, it was the west who shafted Russia at the end of the second world war and caused the great cold war, not the Russians. I’m not going into it, but merely to say Russia got shafted by the US, as soon as they had the bomb. They used it to get their way in almost everything and Russia at that stage was on our team. It caused a cold war that went on for years, and the west’s propaganda machine I see still claims a few victims who haven’t watched any good doco’s on the second WW.
They stole all the scientists, V2 project, and reneged on many deals they had agreed too once they had the bomb and no one else did, in fact they even shafted the English they were so cocky..
Albania was meant to be western they dropped it and let it fall to Enver Hoxha’s communists. My country folk will never forget it.
Paul, this has been in the making since the annexation of Crimea by the Russia and it appears that the Poles invited the US to come and hang out.
One should remember that the ‘eastern’ countries after the second world war got their fare share of Russian interference and occupation and might not be so happy about Russia going around flexing muscle. They might even fear, that they will be ‘annexed’ and again get disappeared behind the great iron curtain.
” The US and Poland are discussing the deployment of American heavy weapons in eastern Europe in response to Russian expansionism and sabre-rattling in the region in what represents a radical break with post-cold war military planning.”
“Poland and the countries that border Russia are becoming increasingly concerned with Russia’s aggression in the region as it continues to provoke Ukraine and occupy Crimea. Many Baltic countries fear Russia’s provocative behavior will spread to inside their own borders.
Macierewicz added that the Polish military would “especially” like to evaluate cooperation in the context of hybrid warfare on land and sea and with special forces.
Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine have been characterized as hybrid warfare.”
http://english.almanar.com.lb/94576
” Poland’s president urged US President-elect Donald Trump to keep Washington’s promise to deploy troops on NATO’s eastern flank amid tensions with Russia.
“Polish-American relations have become an important pillar of the European and transatlantic stability,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said in a letter of congratulations.
“We are particularly pleased that during this year’s NATO Summit in Warsaw the US decided to increase its military presence in Poland, thereby strengthening the Alliance’s Eastern flank.
“We sincerely hope that your leadership will open new opportunities for our cooperation based on mutual commitment.””
“Atlantic Resolve was launched in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which sparked fears in the Baltic nations that Vladimir Putin was planning a similar land-grab there.
Under that banner, the US Army in Europe has been conducting training operations since May 2014.”
Despite the Polish celebrations, clouds hung over the historic moment. As the AP puts it, “there are anxieties that the enhanced security could eventually be undermined by the pro-Kremlin views of President-elect Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Russia appears provoked by the deployment of American troops on its doorstep.”
“We perceive it as a threat,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “These actions threaten our interests, our security. Especially as it concerns a third party building up its military presence near our borders,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters. “It’s not even a European state.”
Poles still feel betrayed by Obama’s “reset” with Russia early on in his administration, which involved abandoning plans for a major U.S. missile defense system in Poland and replacing it with plans for a less ambitious system, still not in place.
“All recent U.S. presidents have thought there can be a grand bargain with Russia,” said Marcin Zaborowski, a senior associate at Visegrad Insight, an analytic journal on Central Europe. “Trump has a proclivity to make deals, and Central and Eastern Europe have reason to worry about that.”
Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski expressed hope this week that any new effort at reconciliation with Russia “does not happen at our expense.”
Anyone who’s “preparing for war with Russia” had better send a hell of a lot more than 4000 soldiers into Poland – a couple of orders of magnitude more. This is about making Poland and the Baltic Republics feel a bit better, nothing more than that (because physically incapable of anything more than that). I guess it does come in handy for lackwit pro-Putin propagandists to squawk about “preparing for WW3” though…
What, you’re posting stuff about “preparing for war with Russia” and “preparing for WW3” but me pointing out it’s bullshit is “McCarthyism” and “paranoia?” Try googling “arse about face.”
Rising temperatures and crop farming mean birds are disappearing from parts of England, says study, while butterflies and dragonflies are faring better
Two things you don’t want happening to your environment. There’s a reason why people fear swarming locusts and excess insects will have the same effect although over a longer period of time.
Wonder how much damage NZs farming community is doing to our bird species.
Have a look at the large dairy conversions in the waikato and count the birds.
there are not many left, cause there are no trees, no shrubs, nothing but baked soil with a few strands of grass.
you will find flies. lots and lots of flies.
I recall as a child being told how good it was to see the farms. To see the cleared fields.
But I’ve also been reading Scifi and fantasy for my entire life and in all of them they describe lush green forests as the epitome of a healthy environment. Green fields aren’t and neither are cities.
IMO, we know in our heart of hearts that farming is destructive.
This land of ours used to be covered in birds. It’s entire fertility was based upon sea birds flying and shitting from the coast all the way inland carrying the minerals that the sea provided.
There are load carrying capacities of land but not all land is commodified, just the land that is valuable to cities and complex cities, the rest is not mentioned so there are limits to how many immigrants New Zealand can accept. Once the load carrying capacity has been reached, conflict increases in warfare and politics proceeded by depopulation.
It’s possible to find atomised groups of people in all sectors. Such cases do not quarrel with neighbours to conquer or subjugate, only at state level does that become a dominant type of conflict.
The natural fertility cycle dictates the carrying capacity and the lush forests that used to be here were part of that cycle. By cutting them down and replacing them with farms we’ve actually decreased our carrying capacity as the land can no longer handle the pollutants that we’re putting into it.
The first President to enter the White House under Senate investigation?.
Intelligence Committee will investigate possible Russia-Trump links
The Senate panel will use ‘subpoenas if necessary’ to secure testimony from Obama administration officials as well as Trump’s team, Richard Burr and Mark Warner said.
Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said late Friday that his committee would investigate possible contacts between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, reversing himself one day after telling reporters that the issue would be outside of his panel’s ongoing probe into Moscow’s election-disruption efforts.
I have already been sought out and approached by senior Grey Power members, who are deeply concerned about the lack of transparency and the proven bribery and corruption associated with the vast spending of public rates and taxes at local and central government on private consultants and contractors.
My long-standing policy and proven track record on transparency in public spending and ‘whistle-blowing’ against corruption, goes back TEN years.
Politically, support for transparency (and accountability) in public spending cuts across the entire political spectrum.
I’ve also been in Kingsland for the last 26 years.
In my view – anyone who thinks Jacinda Adern is going to sleep walk into becoming the MP for Mt Albert, needs to think again?
Why would people in Mt Albert waste their vote, voting for someone to become their MP – who is already an MP?
I’m not an MP.
(Yet 🙂
What have Labour / Green members/ supporters got to lose, by strategically voting for proven anti-privatisation / anti-corruption campaigner Penny Bright as the (fiercely) Independent MP for Mt Albert?
Jacinda and Julie Anne will still be MPs, and the House will have a fiery new Independent MP, who will be able to rattle the Parliamentary cage from the inside, asking the stinking hard questions about corruption that others will not – under Parliamentary privilege.
……”
In my view, this National Government is very vulnerable on this growing issue of corruption.
If corruption were to become a major election issue in 2017, in my opinion,
it would be far easier to achieve a change of Government.
What better way to help achieve that outcome than for a strategic vote in the Mt Albert by-election for a proven anti-corruption campaigner, in order to make a huge fuss INSIDE the House?
In my view, this is bigger than what will be best for the Labour and Green parties – it’s what will be best for New Zealand and the New Zealand 99%?
Penny Bright
2017 Independent candidate for the Mt Albert by-election.
I actually think it would be worth voting for you. At this point in the electoral cycle it won’t change much but it would send the message that we’re really pissed off with the corruption and lack of transparency that we’re seeing in both local and national politics.
National Geographic’s Genographic Project, launched in 2005, uses science to bring people together where politics have failed.
Through DNA analysis, the project is answering people’s questions regarding ethnicity, race, and the overall origins of the human population and how we came to populate the Earth.
The Genographic Project lists a group of reference populations, where the typical national of each country is described according to genetic makeup. These are based on hundreds of DNA samples and advanced DNA analysis. Four Arab countries were part of the reference population list.
Here are some surprising discoveries on the genetic makeup of these four Arab nationalities.
The video at the end is a must watch.
And, no, I don’t like that headline or the focus on Arabia.
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Trump being Trump, it won’t come as a shock to find that he regards a strong US currency (bolstered by high tariffs on everything made by foreigners) as a sign of America’s virility, and its ability to kick sand in the face of the world. Reality is a tad more ...
A listing of 24 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 26, 2025 thru Sat, February 1, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
What seems to be the common theme in the US, NZ, Argentina and places like Italy under their respective rightwing governments is what I think of as “the politics of cruelty.” Hate-mongering, callous indifference in social policy-making, corporate toadying, political bullying, intimidation and punching down on the most vulnerable with ...
If you are confused, check with the sunCarry a compass to help you alongYour feet are going to be on the groundYour head is there to move you aroundSo, stand in the place where you liveSongwriters: Bill Berry / Michael Mills / Michael Stipe / Peter Buck.Hot in the CityYesterday, ...
Shane Jones announced today he would be contracting out his thinking to a smarter younger person.Reclining on his chaise longue with a mouth full of oysters and Kina he told reporters:Clearly I have become a has-been, a palimpsest, an epigone, a bloviating fossil. I find myself saying such things as: ...
Warning: This post contains references to sexual assaultOn Saturday, I spent far too long editing a video on Tim Jago, the ACT Party President and criminal, who has given up his fight for name suppression after 2 years. He voluntarily gave up just in time for what will be a ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is global warming ...
Our low-investment, low-wage, migration-led and housing-market-driven political economy has delivered poorer productivity growth than the rest of the OECD, and our performance since Covid has been particularly poor. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty this ...
..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 ...
One of those blasts from the past. Peter Dunne – originally neoliberal Labour, then leader of various parties that sought to work with both big parties (generally National) – has taken to calling ...
Completed reads for January: I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson The Black Spider, by Jeremias Gotthelf The Spider and the Fly (poem), by Mary Howitt A Noiseless Patient Spider (poem), by Walt Whitman August Heat, by W.F. Harvey Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White The Shrinking Man, by Richard Matheson ...
Do its Property Right Provisions Make Sense?Last week I pointed out that it is uninformed to argue that the New Zealand’s apparently poor economic performance can be traced only to poor regulations. Even were there evidence they had some impact, there are other factors. Of course, we should seek to ...
Richard Wagstaff It was incredibly jarring to hear the hubris from the Prime Minister during his recent state of the nation address. I had just spent close to a week working though the stories and thoughts shared with us by nearly 2000 working people as part of our annual Mood ...
Odd fact about the Broadcasting Standards Authority: for the last few years, they’ve only been upholding about 5% of complaints. Why? I think there’s a range of reasons. Generally responsible broadcasters. Dumb complaints. Complaints brought under the wrong standard. Greater adherence to broadcasters’ rights to freedom of expression in the ...
And I said, "Mama, mama, mama, why am I so alone"'Cause I can't go outside, I'm scared I might not make it homeWell I'm alive, I'm alive, but I'm sinking inIf there's anyone at home at your place, darlingWhy don't you invite me in?Don't try to feed me'Cause I've been ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ star is on the rise, having just added the Energy, Local Government and Revenue portfolios to his responsibilities - but there is nothing ambitious about the Government’s new climate targets. Photo: SuppliedLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate ...
It may have been a short week but there’s been no shortage of things that caught our attention. Here is some of the most interesting. This week in Greater Auckland On Tuesday Matt took a look at public transport ridership in 2024 On Thursday Connor asked some questions ...
The East Is Red: Journalists and commentators are referring to the sudden and disruptive arrival of DeepSeek as a second “Sputnik moment”. (Sputnik being the name given by the godless communists of the Soviet Union to the world’s first artificial satellite which, to the consternation and dismay of the Americans, ...
Hi,Back on inauguration day we launched a ridiculous RFK Jr. “brain worms” tee on the Webworm store, and I told you I’d be throwing my profits over to Mutual Aid LA and Rainbow Youth New Zealand. Just to show I am not full of shit, here are the receipts. I ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump over Gaza and Ukraine.Health expert and author David Galler ...
In an uncompromising paper Treasury has basically told the Government that its plan for a third medical school at Waikato University is a waste of money. Furthermore, the country cannot afford it. That advice was released this week by the Treasury under the Official Information Act. And it comes as ...
Back in November, He Pou a Rangi provided the government with formal advice on the domestic contribution to our next Paris target. Not what the target should be, but what we could realistically achieve, by domestic action alone, without resorting to offshore mitigation. Their answer was startling: depending on exactly ...
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 ...
I don't like to spend all my time complaining about our government, so let me complain about the media first.Senior journalistic Herald person Thomas Coughlan reported that Treasury replied yeah nah, wrong bro to Luxon's claim that our benighted little country has been in recession for three years.His excitement rose ...
Back in 2022, when the government was consulting internally about proactive release of cabinet papers, the SIS opposed it. The basis of their opposition was the "mosaic effect" - people being able to piece together individual pieces of innocuous public information in a way which supposedly harms "national security" (effectively: ...
With The Stroke Of A Pen:Populism, especially right-wing populism, invests all the power of an electoral/parliamentary majority in a single political leader because it no longer trusts the bona fides of the sprawling political class among whom power is traditionally dispersed. Populism eschews traditional politics, because, among populists, traditional politics ...
I’ve spent the last week writing a fairly substantial review of a recent book (“Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism: How we crushed the curve but lost the race”) by a couple of Australian academic economists on Australia’s pandemic policies and experiences. For all its limitations, there isn’t anything similar in New Zealand. ...
Mr Mojo Rising: Economic growth is possible, Christopher Luxon reassures us, but only under a government that is willing to get out of the way and let those with drive and ambition get on with it.ABOUT TWELVE KILOMETRES from the farm on the North Otago coast where I grew up stands ...
You're nearly a good laughAlmost a jokerWith your head down in the pig binSaying, 'Keep on digging.'Pig stain on your fat chinWhat do you hope to findDown in the pig mine?You're nearly a laughYou're nearly a laughBut you're really a crySongwriter: Roger Waters.NZ First - Kiwi Battlers.Say what you like ...
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. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
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 ...
A long time ago, Brian Turner wrote a poem in which, among the mountains, as he slept on a river flat … My speechless ancestors played like mice among my dreamsand he woke to the river running over my bed of stone. I have come to know that where a ...
Pacific Media Watch President Donald Trump has frozen billions of dollars around the world in aid projects, including more than $268 million allocated by Congress to support independent media and the free flow of information. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has denounced this decision, which has plunged NGOs, media outlets, and ...
Otago University professor of international relations Robert Patman says New Zealand should provide a robust response to Donald Trump's Gaza plan, and also "should stop tip-toeing" around Trump. ...
The new minister of transport has opened the door for public consultation on at least some of the speed limit changes the government said would be automatic. ...
Officially, they’re called ‘memecoins,’ but Kōura Wealth founder Rupert Carlyon says the crypto world has another name for them: ‘shitcoins’.In digital finance, that phrase is used for tokens that have no true value – in essence, a money-grab.A few days before his inauguration, US President Donald Trump launched his own ...
Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was. Guy Williams has made a whole show off the joke that he is a “volunteer” journalist. So getting publicly owned by David Seymour while trying to act as a journalist is a good and timely reminder not to underestimate the nuance and ...
Many of Sāmoa’s beloved dishes are the result of cultural collaboration, writes Madeleine Chapman. All photos by Jin FelletIf you ever find yourself at a barbecue in a Sāmoan home, there’s 99% chance that sapasui (chop suey) will be on the table. For the past century, sapasui has ...
The funnyman takes us through his life in television, including Jono and Ben mayhem, live Telethon flubs, and funnelling all those experiences into his new comedy Vince. There’s an inciting incident in Three’s new comedy Vince where morning television presenter Vince Walters (Jono Pryor) is visiting sick kids in hospital ...
People often claim they just want Waitangi Day to be a celebration. At Waitangi, away from the headlined political acrimony and the marae ātea, celebrating is what most people are doing. The Spinoff Essay showcases the best essayists in Aotearoa, on topics big and small. Made possible by the generous ...
Is there anything more fashionable than a Māori get together? One of the best things about Northland is that nobody cares what they look like — probably because they’re all naturally more stylish than the rest of us, famously. Māori from the Far North, especially. In 27 degree heat, wearing ...
I’ve been in love with him since last July, but it’s only now in this tepid hotel room that I find myself wondering why. The first thing he does when we arrive is smoke a cone in the bathroom – he emerges, hacking up a lung, fists thrust into his ...
MONDAY“Name,” barked a representative of the lower orders.I regarded him with a look of stern disapproval, and told him from up high, “May I remind you that I have name suppression. I shall also thank you to ask with more respect as befits a former president of the Act Party, ...
Books of Mana: 180 Māori-Authored Books of Significance, edited by Jacinta Ruru, Angela Wanhalla and Jeanette Wikaira has just been released by Otago University Press. In this essay, Books are Taonga, Jeanette Wikaira explores her personal relationship to books and their value.For me, books are taonga. The knowledge ...
Get to know Tara, our latest Dog of the Month. This feature was offered as a reward during our What’s Eating Aotearoa PledgeMe campaign. Thank you to Tara’s human for their support! Dog name: Tara Age: Two Breed: Mostly Border Collie and a little bit Catahoula Leopard dog If dog ...
Health NZ's CEO has resigned, but frontline healthworkers are sceptical that installing new leadership will make any difference to a system grappling with problems. ...
Health NZ's CEO has resigned, but frontline healthworkers are sceptical that installing new leadership will make any difference to a system grappling with problems. ...
Gail Duncan, Chairperson of the St Peter’s on Willis Social Justice Group, one of the organisations invited to submit on the Bill, says the Government’s actions are unprecedented. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amani Kasherwa, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, The University of Queensland In late January, a rebel group that has long caused mayhem in the sprawling African nation of Democratic Republic of Congo took control of Goma, a major city of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yee-Fui Ng, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University An ad falsely depicting independent candidate Alex Dyson as a Greens member.ABC News/Supplied The highly pertinent case of a little-known independent candidate in the Victorian seat of Wannon has exposed a gaping ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Ball, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, The University of Queensland Nik/Unsplash You might have heard that eating too many eggs will cause high cholesterol levels, leading to poor health. Researchers have examined the science behind this myth again, and ...
Everything you missed from the third day of the Treaty principles bill hearings, when the Justice Committee heard four hours of oral submission. Read our recaps of day one of the hearings here, and day two here. Parliament was quiet on Friday for the third day of hearings on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Jeffries, Senior Lecturer in Microbiology, Western Sydney University Tijana Simic/Shutterstock The news last week that three people in Sydney were hospitalised with botulism after receiving botox injections has raised questions about the regulation of the cosmetic injectables industry. The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jens Blotevogel, Principal Research Scientist and Team Leader for Remediation Technologies, CSIRO Mino Surkala, Shutterstock Lithium-ion batteries are part of everyday life. They power small rechargeable devices such as mobile phones and laptops. They enable electric vehicles. And larger versions store ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edith Jennifer Hill, Associate Lecturer, Learning & Teaching Innovation, Flinders University Netflix Netflix’s new limited series, Apple Cider Vinegar, tells the story of the elaborate cancer con orchestrated by Australian blogger Annabelle (Belle) Gibson. The first episode opens with Gibson’s ...
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 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Western Australian state election will be held on March 8. A Newspoll, conducted January 29 to February 4 from a sample ...
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. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine McCarthy, Senior Lecturer in Interior Architecture, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Interior of Auckland South Men’s Prison.Getty Images Prisons are not colourful places. Typically, they are grey or some variation of a monochrome colour scheme. But increasingly, ...
FICTION1Tree of Nourishment (Kāwai 2) by Monty Soutar (David Bateman, $39.99)Interesting to note that the author of the biggest-selling New Zealand novel in Waitangi Week is Māori (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai, and Ngāti Kahungunu).2 Kāwai: For Such a Time as This (Kāwai 1) by Monty Soutar (David ...
Remembering the renowned New Zealand writer, who died on February 5, 2025. The Stopover When the trout rise like compassion It is worth watching when the hinds come down from the hills with a new message it will be as well to listen. – Brian Turner Poet, environmentalist, sportsman, journalist, ...
Survivors can choose to have former High Court judge Paul Davison assess their individual claims to tailor payments to their personal circumstances. ...
LAUGH. It’s good for you.
I think this post should be moved down one. Rawsharks in some pain . Serious pain…
nah Siobahn i’m home now, I replaced the phone, I got myt old number back with the kind help from 2degree’s and feel sad more, that I made so much effort over 2 days to find this.. lady of the night.. and nothing was done, sad our police seem to not want to add to their stats?
Picked up a hitchhicker in Glenfeild on a road trip 3 day’s ago..approaches me filling up with petrol and kindly asks if i’m heading towards the city centre(Auckland) being the mug I am I was kind and said yes..stole my phone and money and scammed me doing that like a pro. Ended up hunting her for 2 day’s on K’rd. I have just spent 2 day’s in the biggest shit hole I ever had to endure chasing [deleted] it turns out to get my phone back..here’s the crux. I tracked [deleted] to a corner on a K’rd. twice I phoned the police to say here she is.. right here.. SHe’s on video at the mobil on K’rd.. and still they did nothing.. NOTHING.. it took 20 minutes for them to turn up and there advise was it was only a phone go home and forget it.. They wouldn’t look at the video of all angles and previous day. Told me the video was too grainy? bullshit there, they also have multiple camera’s at garages.. he says he can only see her back..bullshit.. It was a total disgrace by the police in solving this crime., after doing all the leg work for them I get told if I touch her..I go to jail [deleted] took the piss and stood there laughing at me with my phone in her hand never changed the number either..
The police in this country are lazy, useless, uninterested in solving crime and happy to just give you a piece of paper. [deleted] will still be there, doing it to people and on K’rd it seems the police are not interested in upholding the Law. Or are they getting back handers? Next cop asks me anything can fuck right off.
In the end I had to go to Auckland central and plead fopr them to allow me to use there phone to call 2 degree’s as when your travelling and loose your phone how the hell do you phone anyone?
use a phone box..i thought that..tried the phone at Northcross takes a card.. went to dairy’s at least 12 no one had cards for the phone.. frustrated..i could have literally murdered someone by the end of this..,Bullshit.
I got so angry at the police attitude and rudeness and lack of actually helping me I nearly took the law into my own hands and smashed the living crap out of her. Problem was i’m 50 she was young and I suddenly found out if they run from me I can’t catch them anymore.
The police in this country have turned into a joke..any cop reads this, woe behold you next time you pull me over for something..
[So sure, you’re angry. But a couple of things. 1. This is a political blog, not some bloody facebook feed. 2. Sexist epithets have no place here.] – Bill
politicians have a responsibility to uphold our services, the angle I was making was our police have become useless with example. and a ho’s a ho..u think I should talk about her after what she did with manners. I’m not labelling women in general, so get off your PC soapbox and don’t be so bloody women rights and distracting from the points. I thought after reading your comment back.
The police seem to have a big lack of wanting to do anything these days.. what’s with that? Never used to be like this.
What I was expecting back on OPEN FORUM 14/1/2017 was comments about the sad state of our police after my long example.
I find this a lot here..you mods, mod in a way that stifles freedom of expression and stops talking points. You accuse people of having agenda’s they never intended and at times I think you go on like old knitting ladies tut tutting everything you can.. get a grip on IRL mate.
I’m not angry.. it’s just the way I write and you read it..and thought so, why would I be angry on the standard for something she did to me, or what the nz police seem unable to do , when you do the work for them and they still make no effort to arrest her.. that’s a talking point on politics IMHO. and not a anger outburst.
Hey Richard, good to see you back. Can you please not have a go at the mods, you will just get another ban and I like your presence on TS.
Btw, TS apparently used to be a free for all in its first few years and the place got overrun with trolls. There are good reasons for having moderation, one of which is to make the place more inclusive. We have a lot of leeway here all things considered but there are limits if we want people to enjoy the place.
Fair enough, and thanks wek a for the welcome back.. the mods, think I have anger issues from past behaviours I certainly understand that, but right there was a case of painting with brushes mate, I was not angry here, I just made a comment on what happened, to explain why I was not impressed with the service I got from the police under this National leadership. I thought it was a good talking point, however the mods went straight to the word Ho, and started acusing me of being angry. If I keep posting here I won’t tolerate unreasonable calls of me being angry as much as it’s my responsibility to remain calm after coming back from a ban.. or there is no point being here if they are running on me being angry in everything I say.
I see I put in some anger about how I felt at that time, when it was going on, it was not meant to come across as angry now.. as you could I was hoping read it and also get a glimpse of how frustrated one can get when dealing with the police who left me feeling so mad I wanted to take the law into my own hands. I see reading it back how it looks like anger, perhaps i’d ask the mods to not read comments once, but re-read them a couple of times and ask themselves, is there any other reason he could of wrote that, that way without it being unjustified anger.
Stephen Kings a great writer IMHO, and he can make you FEEL how it was when something happened, IMHO I think that is great story telling and comes across as passionate and with feelings.
So when someone writes something you have to read things a few timnes to understand all the nuances in what is written and not rush to hastey conclusions. Also feedback is good, and my comment back is good feedback they should not take it to heart but for what it is.
Perhap’s I should start voting National, if labour people can’t PC past the word HO.. then you have lost all common sense, are more interested in.. god knows what.. deleteing the word HO.. whore, prostitute? do those words offend you? They are in the bloody dictionary mate.. that is some case of overmodding right there..good day.
” I nearly took the law into my own hands”
Violence is never the answer. Or vigilante actions.
You seem to threaten or infer physical actions when you are stressed. Not good man – try taking to someone about that – because the police are right – you take that step – you will be the one in jail.
PS she’s on video at the Wairau rd service station in Glenfeild where she approached me, and at the mobil on K’ rd where I dropped her off, and the next day as well when I caught her. The lazy bastards do nothing.. it’s all too much effort for our once glorious police.
If I write to the police complaints i’ll just get back a standard load of pre prepared excuses..Busy priorities bla bla..
Well this has turned me off people now, I used to be a nice person who would give someone a lift, no one gets anything from me anymore..
Hello from Glenfield… dunno if you’ve been following the news but the fuzz are seriously underfunded but still get some great results like the big drug bust yesterday
That’s a really shitty thing to happen RR. Ropata is right, the cops are under resourced big time, as a result their moral is super low, and they can’t be bothered.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/84905273/nelson-police-morale-continues-to-fall
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/69210055/police-morale-in-hawkes-bay-hits-a-new-low
Whole police system needs a shake up. I’d give the hooker a shake up for you but I’m still working on the teleporter.
Well, well. Who’ da thunk it. Ex rugby player and current hockey player (female) are now our Very Own NZ Royalty. Royal Wedding MIGHT be today. News according to Herald or Stuff. Can’t remember which. Good Grief!
+1
The MSM is leading us down the garden path with celebrity worship.
I saw Jamie farrar the tickle film guy come out of the garage when I was chasing Ho’s for phones on K’rd, he looked tall and was blowing on a pie…
OI Farrar ur famous I yelled out, he kept walking..
my claim to meet fame was over…
Looking at how Putin plays the far left as well as the alt-right…
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/13/how-putin-played-the-far-left.html
A bit like the Daily Beast’s “useful idiots” story, then?
That wikipedia article you linked to gives quite a different impression than the actual Daily Beast story.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/15/beware-the-hillary-clinton-loathing-donald-trump-loving-useful-idiots-of-the-left.html
Really? Please explain?
Looks pretty much like what the Wikipedia article says: left wingers critical of Clinton are claimed to promote Trump directly or inadvertently.
eg the stuff on Greenwald being pro Trump & pro Putin
First, I’ve seen it claimed a number of times that the headline usually doesn’t get written by the author of a piece, it’s usually an editor that chooses it. So to base a criticism of an author on the grounds that the headline is much more sensational than the actual contents is unfair.
The actual writing is much more nuanced, for instance passages such as “Unlike the aforementioned wannabe revolutionaries, most of these progressives haven’t endorsed Trump. But they nonetheless embrace the radical departure in American foreign policy that his presidency promises.”
I would also note that when someone writes a piece, in the context of an election, highlighting flaws in candidate A, without at least mentioning candidate B’s serious flaws in the same area (or worse, cherry-picking something positive about candidate B to highlight a contrast), it’s reasonable to infer support for candidate B.
Greenwald is just one that comes to mind as one who has written harsh anti-Clinton pieces, but also writes mildly positive approving passages about Trump such as “Questioning… whether it has this ongoing value and whether the U.S. should be expending the resources it is expending on NATO when we have massive income inequality and our working class is being deprived in ways previously unimaginable, those are perfectly legitimate questions to ask. NATO is not a religion,”. I can’t bring to mind any balancing pieces exposing Trump that he’s written. So if he writes a lot of anti-Clinton and includes stuff that’s pro-Trump, what’s the reasonable conclusion to draw? If his writing leaves a misleading impression of his views, whose fault is it?
OK. I’m with you on many of those points: e.g. headlines, political biases, etc.
However, the “Useful idiots” article, like the other Daily Beast one you linked to, clearly is pro-Clinton, and pro-US-exceptionalism and imperialism:
In “Useful Idiots”:
My bold. So, basically the article is selectively quoting from critics of Clinton (and other right leaning democrats – I don’t see Clinton or the views in the quotes above as left wing), to suggests any critics are in bed with the autocratic forces of evil.
The other article, “How Putin played the left”, does the same with noted critics to the left of Clinton (&Obama), including Jill Stein and Sanders.
I do agree that Greenwald does tend to be stronger in his condemnation of Clinton than Trump. However, other authors at the Intercept have been stronger critics of Trump.
Ultimately, though, the Daily Beast does seem to be a strong supporter of the US status quo (pre-Trump as POTUS), and seems to be out to discredit the left, and critiques of their imperialism and foreign policy., by aligning them with autocrats like Putin.
The author describes himself as a “conservative polemicist:”
Over the past eight years, a bevy of Republican politicians and conservative polemicists (including yours truly) have assailed Obama for disavowing American exceptionalism.
So it’s unsurprising he endorses American exceptionalism and considers the USA a force for good in the world. But he certainly won’t be a Hillary Clinton supporter…
Well, he’s more of a Clinton supporter than one for the likes of Sanders or Stein.
Maybe more of a never-Trumper.
I don’t think the piece is portraying the far left as “in bed with”, it’s saying that there are those on the far left that can be manipulated into words and actions that damage the centre-left. Thereby inadvertantly enabling the alt-right and others that strongly oppose the goals of the far-left.
Personally, my politics are very close to Stein’s on most issues. If the US had some kind if STV or proportional representation, my voting choice would have been dead easy: Stein. But in the system the US has, voting for Stein would be like buying a lottery ticket for the daydreams. Except the lottery ticket is much more likely to actually deliver the dreams. So I swallowed hard, and took a good look at the realistic choices.
Frankly, it looked to me like the main effect of the one-sided criticisms, single-issue shouting, and false equivalences put out by by the far-lefties obscured that 1) Sanders really had dragged the Dems close to his positions, 2) for everything “good” that Trump said (that got highlighted by the far-lefties) he said several things that should be horrifying to lefties 3) while a Clinton would do a lot of things lefties would disagree with, on average she would move things in the right direction, while Trump would be mostly a fukn disaster.
So to the extent that the noisy anti-Clinton far-lefties had an effect on switching some Dems to vote Stein, and turning other Dems off Clinton so they stayed home, yes the noisy far-lefties helped Trump win and were thereby “useful idiots” for Putin and Trump. And I think the Daily Beast is doing a good thing by calling it out.
So I’m super-grateful we’ve got MMP here so I can vote for someone a bit closer to my views here than I can in the US. And why I’m hot on reducing thresholds for representation so a wider range of views get represented.
Mostly agree – though there was so many different views, as far as I can see – and then the noisy interference from various journalists invested in one position or another, and the manipulations of the US & Kremlin intelligence agencies – I really am concerned that expressions of true left wing politics get plastered with the mud being thrown around.
Yes, prefer MMP. But also, the power structure is so entrenched in the US, that the least powerful are always the losers.
I suspect there’s a lot going on behind the scenes – manipulations, strong arming, strategic leaks, etc – that we truly don’t know the extent of the propaganda and surveillance warfare that is on-going.
Greenwald, on his twitter feed today, has been strongly attacking the claims that the anti-imperialist left is supporting Putin.
eg:
Can anyone cite a single left-wing figure of any prominence who has ever expressed “solidarity” with Putin? I know of literally none.
And
Right. If you question sufficiency of evidence for govt claims about Russia, they accuse you of “loving Putin”: as dumb as it is dishonest.
Ok, now that’s just dishonest bullshit from Greenwald. There are plenty of people and organisations questioning the sufficiency of evidence that aren’t being accused of “loving Putin”.
The war against intelligence is only in its initial phase Carolyn_nth. Many foot-soldiers and noble banner bearers will work tirelessly to make society like a glorious formation lock-stepping confidently into the future.
And of course, the line, the direction – the arguments or perspectives that inform the unfolding of this great harmonious order…well, it’s unthinkable that any “right thinking” person would question it.
So to question is to be wrong. To be critical is to betray or willingly or unwittingly be in the service of all that the glorious formation seeks to overcome and set right.
You can already see it happening across numerous threads in the comments sections here.
It’s Red Scare. It’s McCarthyism.
Can anyone cite a single left-wing figure of any prominence who has ever expressed “solidarity” with Putin? I know of literally none.
Expressed “solidarity?” Sure, can’t say I’ve seen any myself. But “expressed solidarity” is a fairly precise criterion – comment 5 linked to an article that lays out fairly convincingly how the far left, including at least one prominent figure (Jill Stein) have put themselves in the position of endorsing or supporting Putin.
So your running with the raw news story then Psycho Milt?
Seems you are running with a very similar attack vector you used with Syria, in effect to shut people down people on a issue.
That not going to induce debate and the free exchange of ideas. But then again, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you promote debate or the free exchange of ideas.
Uh, Psycho Milt is responding to how Greenwald is presenting a distorted picture of what his critics are saying which is a kind of strawman argument. Greenwald is using a very similar technique to the Nats inquiring into misconduct by one of their own: set the terms of inquiry very narrowly in order to exclude the problem behaviour from examination.
As for trying to shut down the debate, get a mirror handy and take a good look at your reply to PM. Did you actually address the points he made?
Raw news to obscure for the likes of you Andre?
And obviously I don’t need a mirror because you joined in. 🙂
No analysis or interpretations of events, nor perspectives on issues are to be taken on board unless an approved level of opprobrium for the commissars chosen enemies, or fealty to the commissars chosen masters is in clear evidence.
That’s how it is right now. And it goes way beyond PM, Andre and some others in the comments and way beyond some mutterings from a few authors…
…this is what liberalism looks like – lashing out as it dies.
Everything is to be feared even as everything is to be cleaved to. So everything that would seek to question or understand or shed light is to be destroyed under the commissar’s crushing boot of conformity and unity.
Just look at our supposedly pluralistic media that has become no more than what might have been expected from PRAVDA taking on some biological characteristic and dividing and multiplying into a thousand or a hundred thousand clones of itself.
Where are the alternative analyses or the critical analyses? (There are none). Where is the mainstream news outlet that expresses doubt or asks a question or two? (They don’t exist).
There’s definitely a dark foreboding emanating from ‘our’ political institutions these days and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything like it. For them, it can’t but end badly. For us, it depends.
So there are some sources, such as Greenwald, that are totally exempt from scrutiny and criticism? May we have an approved list of all those sources whose pronouncements must be accepted without question? Please?
So there are some sources, such as Greenwald, that are totally exempt from scrutiny and criticism?
Nope
May we have an approved list of all those sources whose pronouncements must be accepted without question?
According to a number of flailing liberals, the BBC (and others) can, more or less, be taken at face value. They are, according to flailing liberals, pretty damned objective. In fact, to question the BBC is to be an apologist, a shill for (insert designated official enemy).
I never question my cat’s pronouncements.
I read that piece, and it got me thinking about the difference between me and a lot of the wishy washy believe anything fringe merchants of the Green movement/anti-Clinton crowd. I think it might be that I have actually seen the old Warsaw Pact. I visited East Germany for a couple of weeks back in the 1980s. It was railway sidings of tanks, uniformed soldiers, grey food served in cold grey restaurants, scared locals and being followed everywhere you go. It was depressing, many buildings in East Berlin were frozen in time, unrepaired and scarred from the battles of 1945. I found it a scary and an awful place. After my little taste of totalitarianism, I couldn’t wait to get back to West Germany and freedom. When you realise the slighly on edge West German border police with their submachine guns were there to protect you from the hyper-aggresssive East German border guards should it all turn to custard on the border you also realise what the cost of freedom might be. After those two weeks, I had no problem identifying between “us” and “them”.
To many on the left today have no idea how awful totalitarianism is or how scary it is to suddenly realise you are not protected by the rule of law and have no human rights. Putin and his kleptocrat thugs in his gangster state are horrible people who wish us all harm. Xi Jinping and the rest of his murderous butchers of the Chinese communist party would brutally torture and kill anyone of us who stood up them, if they could get their hands on us. People like Jill Stein and the flaky occupy movement media and the rest of crackpot conspiracy theory left need to grow up. Maybe they need to spend a fortnight in North Korea, to see what life looks like in a totalitarian state.
This blog’s comments sections are currently plagued by the worst kind of false moral equivalence troll, a person so monumentally stupid, vindictive and egotisitical that he wishes to do nothing but sneer at the ideals of freedom and seek to act as the useful idiot of our enemies. I’ve seen with my own eyes what sort of place Putin and Xi Jinping want to create for us, and I have no time for people who act as traitors by supporting them.
Yeah. I visited Czechoslavakia as an invited guest for a sporting event in the early 80s. It was deeply uncomfortable and depressing.
http://thesaker.is/the-ancient-spiritual-roots-of-russophobia/
http://thesaker.is/could-there-be-a-grain-of-truth-in-the-ukrainian-propaganda/
The piece is ridiculous, so i guess it fits you perfectly.
“The term “russophobia” (the hatred and/or fear of things Russian) has become rather popular in the recent years, courtesy of the anti-Russian hysteria of the AngloZionist Empire, ”
Oh the irony….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Russia
\Russia is a multi-national state with over 185 ethnic groups designated as nationalities; the populations of these groups vary enormously, from millions (e.g., Russians and Tatars) to under 10,000 (e.g., Samis and Kets).[1]
please define Russians? Or are you talking Putin?
But the article above is more about discrediting people who are strongly left wing, by falsely smearing them as either Trump & Putin supporters or enablers.= are supporters of Putin or Trump.
And the people being criticised don’t actually support Trump or Putin.
The article says – “…Putin has cultivated dupes, fellow travelers, and purblind fools among plenty of American progressives…”
Accurate, IMHO.
See my response to Andre above at 10.56am.
…has cultivated dupes, fellow travelers, and purblind fools among plenty of American progressives…
Now in general, I agree with that about the Kremlin and Putin. But I also think that is true of the CIA, US intelligence community, and the US defenders of US imperialism and foreign policy.
There is a propaganda and surveillance/intelligence war going on between the Kremlin and the US agencies. Trump has inserted himself into it one way or another.
Meanwhile the US powers that be also use the whole situation to discredit any strong expression of left wing values, policies, campaigns and critiques.
Thank you. My sentiments exactly.
You do not have to be the biggest fan of either Putin or Xi Jinping to think that (a) war is to be avoided, especially war with such destructive potential, and/or (b) that a multipolar world is a better thing than a world dominated by a single power. “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” as the saying goes.
“… (b) that a multipolar world is a better thing than a world dominated by a single power….”
Yet people look back with nostalgia at the Pax Romana, or the Pax Britannica, or the golden age of the Han dynasty.
A multipolar world is a dangerously unstable one, which historically result in large scale wars of alliances.
Further down, at comment 12, you approvingly quoted, Bill Clinton’s generation, however, believed that concentration of financial power could be virtuous, as long as that power was in the hands of experts. They largely dismissed the white working class as a bastion of reactionary racism.
Do you not think that this hubris would increase rather than abate in a world dominated by such people, with no need to negotiate or make concessions? Owen Jones thinks it increased greatly after the Berlin wall fell, and neoliberal capitalists felt they could from then on reign supreme. I do not have a link, but the claim is from his book “The Establishment & how they get away with it.”
i once spend the better part of the night at the german/german boarder with people pointing guns at us and taking the car apart.
why?
the old man driving the car, Adi – short for Adolf, was pointing to his rather long arms and large fists when the Volkspolizist asked if we had weapons in the car.
oh dear oh dear oh dear.
Also fun in Berlin, no matter how drunk one got, you could never get lost, the wall was there to guide you home. Always.
Yes, a lot of people don’t have much of an idea what it looked like, what it felt like and those that did know – family members that did make it out of East Germany after years of ‘re-education’ never much spoke about it.
Perhaps you could submit a proposal to deal with the problem direct to Merkal. The board is set for the dismantling of the left, there entire economic thesis has been discredit along with the right. Nows a great time to submit a proposal to deal with the problems you’ve out lined. Because the system can’t deal with all the refuges flowing from the Middle East. But first there’d have to be admission there’s no solution.
mate, what ever you smoke its good. i give you that.
Yep that dude’s supply is the good shit alright.. did you understand any of it?
nope, i am stone sober.
he ain’t sharing i tell ya.
“…plagued by the worst kind of false moral equivalence…”
Projection and hypocrisy appear to be your ‘stock and trade’
Comments from you , Sanctuary, are some of the lowest level on this site
It is self evident that you have not a single shred of understanding about what you write. The words do tell a story about the personality behind them…
I spent 4 months in 1982 working for Topdeck Travel on their USSR/Eastern Europe camping tours. Each trip was for a month and visited East Germany, Poland, USSR, Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Absolutely fascinating but very oppressive. We were among the first tourists to be allowed in Poland after the Solidarity uprising and I’ll never forget the sight of Russian soldiers goosestepping through Warsaw. I found Romania and Czechoslovakia the most oppressive. It would take 6 hours to get into and out of the USSR because they searched everything and even read peoples diaries. I wonder if it is still like that.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/88399075/like-a-bickering-couple-we-need-to-find-healthy-ways-to-disagree-about-politics
interesting read for your mornng
Written by the CEO of the Maxim Institute, an organisation responsible for some of the most divisive ideas around.
You mean, the “badly constructed front for the political meddling of evangelical Christians” Maxim Institute? The one of whom Bruce Logan was a former director? I’m sure they’ve nothing but our best interests at heart, more so if you happen to be homosexual.
Or you could tell me what’s wrong with what he wrote
I like the irony, don’t you? “Like a bickering couple, we need to find healthy ways to disagree about politics”, lolz.
Do you even read things and make a comment – or do you go “I don’t like the author so I’ll just ignore and keep reading my echo chambers ?”
Way to learn.
What the Democrats are up to. And why a good number of Democrat voters didn’t bother to show up to vote for Hillary.
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/139825/cory-booker-not-friend
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/12/sanders-slams-democrats-who-voted-pharmaceutical-industry/96506340/
Cory Booker may have just given his 2020 chances a big black eye with that one.
well its all good then, they will loose their Health Care and have to go back to bankruptcy in order to receive surgery or simply just die.
In the mean time, America will be Great again! Woot Woot.
A long but worthwhile look back at the fake news in the US election. Given how successful it was and how much of it was sprayed around here on The Standard, we’ll all need to be very wary of it for our own elections coming up.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/tabloid-newspapers-trump-media-propaganda-214627
heh
https://twitter.com/Politics_PR/status/819728516602331136
Yum.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hey-would-you-eat-this-golden-shower-burger-inspired-by-trump_us_5878fd80e4b09281d0ea7aeb?ew2tgmv4nhotro1or
Except Trump liked it.
https://media.giphy.com/media/l4xVGOegQxqe9za4E/giphy.gif
bwahahahahahahahah
someone might be a wee bit touchy…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dons-johns-inauguration-trump_us_58792908e4b0b3c7a7b1291b?mh8q4h827rezmpldi
Bans for TRP and Lanthanide are up today …
Thanks ms.
I hope they both return.
+ 1
All hail dear leader, or else!
/
(1 of 7)
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/819725619193933824
An excellent summation of Obama here –
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/12/democrats-cant-win-until-they-recognize-how-bad-obamas-financial-policies-were/?utm_term=.7a00bfce6274&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Along woth the best two paragraph summation of how and why third way, middle class identity politics has crippled the political left in the west since the 1970s – an own goal if there ever was one:
“…There’s history here: In the 1970s, a wave of young liberals, Bill Clinton among them, destroyed the populist Democratic Party they had inherited from the New Dealers of the 1930s. The contours of this ideological fight were complex, but the gist was: Before the ’70s, Democrats were suspicious of big business. They used anti-monopoly policies to fight oligarchy and financial manipulation. Creating competition in open markets, breaking up concentrations of private power, and protecting labor and farmer rights were understood as the essence of ensuring that our commercial society was democratic and protected from big money.
Bill Clinton’s generation, however, believed that concentration of financial power could be virtuous, as long as that power was in the hands of experts. They largely dismissed the white working class as a bastion of reactionary racism. Fred Dutton, who served on the McGovern-Fraser Commission in 1970 , saw the white working class as “a major redoubt of traditional Americanism and of the antinegro, antiyouth vote.” This paved the way for the creation of the modern Democratic coalition. Obama is simply the latest in a long line of party leaders who have bought into the ideology of these “new” Democrats, and he has governed likewise, with commercial policies that ravaged the heartland…”
i am sure our double dipper from Dipton, the beancounter in Chief is studying this and wonders if there is a way to apply it here 🙂
Quote: “But wait, it gets worse. Another feature of this bizarre GOP scheme gives exporters a gargantuan tax break by, in effect, not taxing their export revenues. Let’s say a corporation sells a piece of machinery to Iran for $5 million, which cost only $4 million to produce. That means $1 million in taxable profit. Under the new Republican scheme, however, that $5 million received from the mullahs wouldn’t be taxable. Instead of a $1 million profit, the corporation, for tax purposes, would have a $4 million loss. Loophole doesn’t begin to describe this “tax break.”Quote End
http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2017/01/11/omg-house-republicans-are-preparing-to-hit-consumers-with-a-horrible-new-tax-that-will-harm-trump-and-hurt-the-economy/#6d2bfc3b641e
hat tip red state,
http://www.redstate.com/california_yankee/2017/01/13/a-nasty-political-and-economic-trap-for-trump/
quote” As the tax reform debate heats up in Congress, the obscure border adjustment tax (BAT) is causing friction within the GOP.
What is the BAT? Well, Steve Forbes calls it “a nasty political and economic trap for Donald Trump” — a trap he says is being set by Republicans rather than Democrats.”
lol. lol. lol.
can someone explain to my why rural white is ‘heartland’ and urban brown is not?
why can we tell people that live in cities to ‘move out if they can’t afford it’, to get of benefits and ‘move to where the jobs are’, to ‘get an education if they want to earn more money’ to not ‘have children they can’t afford’ but then we turn around and don’t expect the same of white people living in the heart land?
And why do we give people like those in the US heartland a pass on voting for the same fuckwits that have been fucking(looking at Kansas, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana and so on and so on, heck even Texas) it up for them and tell the democrats that they should give up their voter base of women, people of colour, people who do not identify as heterosexual white male, low income workers, etc etc to make way for the’ white male worker’ who wants to go back to a time where women were barefeet pregnant fixing sandwiches, people of colour being segregated back into obscurity, and anyone not being a heterosexual white male going to the closet?
Please someone explain the heartland to me. I don’t get it. I honestly don’t.
Not sure what your second paragraph means, but your initial question is within the formation of New Zealand identity, economy and society through the development of extensive then intensive agriculture.
i am talking about the US. white heartland is evangelic fundamentalist. YOu know the once who think abstinence only is a good way to prevent pregnancy – even when married i would guess, that think that homosexuality etc is an abomination, and that ‘these people’ you know brown people should learn their place again. Essentially the current Republican lot led by fundamentalists that would like to become a ‘christian’ Nation again by ending the persecution of the Christians by the non Christians that live in Cities. 🙂
So what you are saying then is that a few hundred people – old NZ Farming Stock are ‘heartland’ ‘real NZ’lers’ and all the others are not?
Or are you saying that a few hundred people – old NZ white large scale Landowners are heartland and all others are not?
+1 although I would say concepts of the Heartland predate the neoliberal revolution by a long way. Sabine’s second paragraph is about the bastardisation of NZ culture that has happened since.
Sabine, was there something specific that prompted the question?
it is these articles that basically say that if Clinton would have abandoned all other democratic voter blocks in favour of the ‘disgruntled white male voter’ in the heartland she would have won. (and we often hear the same here in NZ – where Labour = urban / brown / low income / female/ non land owning etc, National = white / male / upper income/ rural / land owning
My point is why are we calling people / areas heartland – in it self a loaded term as the heart is the engine of the body – implying that all other areas of a country are of lesser importance.
combine this with things that we have heard often over the last years
if people in the city can’t afford to live there they should move.
we could equally say that if people on the country side don’t have jobs they should just move.
why are women with large families in the urban areas a drain on socity, while the white women on countrysides having large families are not?
the double standard that is applied Heartland = white , Urban = Brown.
Fwiw, the heartland in the US voted to have the Afordable Care Act gutted, they voted to have the remains of their public schools gutted, they voted to have Birth Control and Family planning replaced with abstinence only (even in marriage) as only form of Family planning, they voted to have environmental degradation be made standard operational procedures, and for what its worth non of the jobs they lost 40 years ago is gonna come back.
I don’t recall rural and urban in Germany or France or Holland to be adressed that way. I grew up on the deep bavarian country side and then went to he City as a young women. It was always just Germany. Non of that these are better then those bs.
In settler/colonial societies, like Aussie, NZ, the US, national identity has often been tied to the (freedom of the) open countryside. It features a lot in novels and movies – cowboys in the US and the man alone in rugged country in NZ.
100% pure and all that.
They’re kind of origin myths, in (implicit) opposition to the (implicitly class-based) corruption of the (much more urbanised) UK/Europe.
The “heartland” or countryside-identification is not usually the rural marae, the Aboriginal township, or the native American reservation.
thanks.
that makes sense to me.
a fake creations myth to hold up stereotypes that never existed.
No, it’s not fake, it’s real. NZ really does have a love historically for the countryside. That’s different than the politics you describe which I address below.
sorry not being clear enough.
what are the oldest ‘urban’ centres in NZ , the oldest ports? If we apply the creation myth to ‘heartland’ one would have to include the old Port Towns at least?
i get the heartland in an emotional sense of love of the country side, especially what is left over of old NZ in Doc Parks and the like.
but heartland in the political sense i find hard to digest. It seems divisive, not only based on race, gender but also location.
so the question that i put to you then is the North Island less Heartland then the South Island?
I am not trying to be divisive, i am really trying to understand this emotional separation of a country.
example, Bavaria is a beautiful place with the Alps, the lakes, the cows and such, but it is not the heartland of Germany. It is often descriped as an industrial powerhouse as due to some quirky german legislation it is a free state within the federation of Germany and can use that to its advantage in incentivising businesses to settle there. But neither is Schleswig Holstein or Sachsen or Friesland the Heartland.
Lol. If you had followed my comments over the last few weeks you would know all that
i am not stoned enough to understand what you say.
this was probably the most ‘english’ phrase you typed all week.
and my english is limited i tell ya.
Mmmhmmm. You seem desperate with all this talk of German boarder crack downs. Can I suggest you have a sleep before going out again and pointing fingers and words at men with guns
Oldest European port? kororareka? Bay of islands?
oldest urban centre? Dunedin/Otago was a very dominant centre in the late 19th and early 20th century.
suspect the term is just a synonym for rural areas that has been adopted, often for marketing that has been pinched by the politicians.
as to north v south being more heartland than the other that would simply be an extension of the North South parochialism
3 days in Auckland left me, seriously, wondering how they can put up with the place. The roads were a nightmare, the people I found rude, and when they heard my please’s and thank you’s they all smiled and looked at me like I was a weirdo. I have left Auckland flummoxed as to why oh why would you put up with the place. To many cars, people riding your bumper, cutting lanes, crowds at beaches like I had not seen since Greece..i left Auckland shocked at it’s transformation since 2000 when I left there it was nothing like that, and Asians.., OMG not dissing Asians just commenting..it was like being in Asia. I felt the minority for the first time in my life, in my own country of birth, I felt we had been overrun. just a feeling I got and I cannot get over the fact it did that to me.
On Auckland buses, passengers usually say thank-you to the driver when they get off.
OMG thank you, thank you, for a minute I thought they had completely lost the meaning of manners up there. There is a glimmer of hope.
Well, rr, there probably is a lot of rudeness in Auckland. But there is also politeness about, too.
i don’t think us Aucklanders are ruder then people on the country side. 🙂 We might just be a bit more stressed but that can be blamed on the traffic.
Most people stay here for the work. And some people don’t like being too far removed from family — and if all their family lives in Auckland…
I went to Putaruru a couple of years back for a birthday. The air was fresh, the grass was green and everyone was so laid back. But there was bugger all to do. If you took a bunch of kids from Auckland and plopped them down in a place like Putaruru, they’d be climbing the walls within a week.
“Can we go to Westfield, Dad?”
“This is Putaruru, sweetpea. There is no Westfield.”
Can’t say I missed the clogged roads, awful driving and generally shitty attitudes of Auckland, though.
Well, there’s the swing bridge at Arapuni, the sanctuary at Maungatautari, complete with tuatara, the toy museum in the castle at Tirau, and the lovely little shops and cafes in that village, the lovely carvings all up and down the streets of Tokoroa, the gorgeous hot springs at Okoroire, and Rotorua and Taupo are an hour or less away. Westfield – very boring by comparison! 🙂
Yep NZ is a racist country.
I think what your are describing isn’t about concepts of the heartland though, at least not in NZ. Those dynamics strike me as ftom the neoliberal decades. And it’s not like we have farmers coming on to TS running alt-right or anti-identity politics 😉 One of the classic example she of what you describe comes from Chris Trotter and his Waitakere Man myth. Haven’t heard it for a while so hopefully it was discredited but what we have now is another version.
From what I cannot tell it’s the politics of dudes who don’t actually care about racism, sexism etc, or who in facts oppose advances in those areas and are now feeling encouraged to be bolder about that post-Obama.
There are some valid politics around working class and poor people and what has been done to them while others thrived but I also don’t understand the need to roll back advances for women, Māori, gay people etc in order to address that. The identity politics I’ve been involved in my whole adult life has been inclusive. What we are seeing now is the disintegration of society and a whole bunch of nasty coming out. Some of that is latent until now.
Also, the whole thing about stop whining and move where capitalism want and you has a modern bent to it, but several generations ago Māori were pressured to move from country to city. It’s a big part on NZ’s history, look it up I think you will find it interesting.Since the 80s it’s been the norm for Pakeha in rural areas to also move to town. This is the neoliberal agenda in the economy and is different from the racist, sexist politics you describe.
hence my question.
it always seemed to me that ‘heartland’ applied by journos/politicians is more a code for a livestyle long gone, nuclear family and such. And in that sense one could argue that the live on the country side is more ‘traditional’ then in an urban centre where people can to some extend hide and live in anonymity.
but i find it interesting as this notion is applied in politics and how in some publications it is argued that the vote of the heartland is morally superior to the vote of the non heartland.
thanks for answering, this was quite interesting to me.
I think you’d have to give some examples of those usages Sabine. To me you are mixing a number of complex phenomena up, they’re not all about the Heartland.
weka, I agree that there are complex things in the mix. But the term “heartland” does get used in reports on NZ politics, and it does traditionally relate to more rural areas associated with conservative values..
As I’ve tried to indicate, there’s old origin myths that have long been incorporated in NZ identity. They do keep getting revived in various forms, from Speight’s Southern Man in the 1990s, to the #8 wire metaphor of NZ identity in the 21st century, and Trotter’s re-working of the Southern man stereotype in his Waitakere Man.
That old rural NZ identity is one where resourceful white men dominated, and were usually located in rural areas – once considered to be the backbone of the country. I think it still gets revisited to reclaim a time when white men dominated.
Here a report is of John Key “at ease” in the Southland “heartland” in 2010.
Todd Barclay in Gore “heartland” in 2016, where his commitment to rural people is being questioned.
Q@A questions people in the “Wairarapa heartland” about our next PM Dec 11, 2016.
Though, in this 2014 article, South Auckland is referred to as “Labour heartland”. – which contradicts what I’ve been saying.
And in this Jan 2016 article it says Auckland has become National “heartland”.
So… hmmm.
Always found the Speights add rather funny.
Drink Speights and you, a young male, will prefer a hoary old sheep herder to a pretty young barmaid.
Not the message they wanted to get across! LOL.
Well to some extent, I think they were a bit tongue in cheek – but, at the same time, affirming a certain kind of NZ masculinity.
I agree that there’s a whole lot changed since the “neoliberal” revolution in the 1980s. I agreee with your final paragraph, weka.
But the myth of NZ identity being based in rural locations has long been commented on.
TeAra (NZ Encyclopedia has seveal pages on it.
They claim the myth of NZ rural identity persisted into the 1970s.
They then go on to say urban culture took over post 1975.
I do think there is some connection between the rural mythology of NZ identity, and the man alone myths associated with settler societies like NZ.
“But the myth of NZ identity being based in rural locations has long been commented on.”
Not sure what you are meaning there Carolyn. There is no single NZ identity, but the connection between NZers and the land isn’t a myth. It still exists despite the problems that neoliberalism has created.
Well, there are dominant NZ identities and the association between NZ’s countryside and NZ national identity has long been represented in ads and various cultural forms.
the connection between NZers and the land isn’t a myth
hmmm… but you’ve been saying most Kiwis these days live in urban contexts. The rural myth of NZ identity continued long after urbanisation. The Te Ara link that I included in an earlier comment talks about that. There is some reality about connection with land, but it’s been raised to a mythical level in various cultural representations.
And the connection between land and NZ identity has been more commonly associated with white (male) Kiwis… ie not being located in the long history of tangata whenua association with the land.
Are you using the word myth to mean cultural story of fake construct?
Are you using the word myth to mean cultural story of fake construct?
Kind of – a cultural story, maybe based in some kind of reality, but very skewed to misrepresent reality/realities. And raised to some high status within a culture – mainly to represent to interest of the dominant group/s.
So for instance, the rural myth of NZ identity is one of hard working pioneers who created farms and built the country. It ignores the earlier presence of tangata whenua, and hides the brutal processes of colonisation – let alone the actiivities in towns and the growth of cities.
New Zealand national identity is usually shown in terms of the great outdoors, ignoring the diverse activities around the country. I searched on google images for “New Zealand”. I largely got images of NZ’s great outdoors, with a small number of more urban images thrown in.
I picked a nice outdoor image randomly, and it took me to this site, and this youtube video.
7 minutes of images accompanying the singing of the NZ National anthem – must have been for the 2011 RWC. I hadn’t seen the vid before. But most of the 7 minutes is images of pristine, glorious outdoor vistas. there’s a few shots of Auckland/Waitemata harbour, a bit of barbed wire, a cross, a building (maybe a church, sports stadia.
But note what is not there in this representation of NZ to ourselves and internationally – nothing of the diverse multi-cultural Asia-Pacific country we now are; nothing of the diverse fauna; nothing of Te Tiriti; no urban and/or rural marae; none of our diverse cultural and work/business activities . Certainly no polluted rivers; no homeless people; no women who have been victims of violence; no beggars; no Wellington cafes or Otago history… etc.
It’s pretty much open, breath-taking, majestic landscape without people. NZ is very often represented like this – sometimes they include farms.
Some parts promote it shit(s) and all.
Nice one, Poission!
I think of the man alone means rural masculine NZ national identity myth as something like in the Speight’s Southern Man” ads.
To me, Trotter’s “Waitakere man” echoed the Southern Man stereotype – and Trotter is a man from the south. It’s like he was re-locating the rural identity to somewhere on the fringes of a major urban centre.
Waitakere, while being partly blue-collar urban, also includes hilly bush country.
”Yep NZ is a racist country.”
I agree i got told once i wasn’t bad for a balhead,
have been randomly assaulted twice by brown people,
joined a softball team once but gave up after 3 weeks of being ignored and not touching the ball.
some lefties need to get over them selves , there are horrible bastards in all races.
that’s not what I meant by racism.
What’s a balhead?
It’s baldhead – Rasta man for someone who’s not a Rasta man.
edit: what bwaghorn said about horrible bastards in all races, too.
According to Bob Marley a balhead is a con man with crazy ideas of prisons and schools and education that teaches crazy ideas of his false idols. He goes on to say we should chase them out of town https://genius.com/Bob-marley-and-the-wailers-crazy-baldheads-lyrics
I will try to help you Sabine, you see the world the way you want it not the way it really is, and you class every one into and identity and then assume they all think the same way if they are that identify, rather than individuals, hope this helps 😀
bullshit.
this really is something i don’t get.
What is heartland. Why is Dipton more heartland then say Auckland or Tauranga?
Because often people in the cities or their parents etc migrated from these heartland towns, its where the family connection are, not sure why you are so exercised over it
when we are elevating one group over another it becomes an abusive statement.
simple as that.
and we are hearing over and over again, how the majority that lives and large/medium/smaller centres should yield to the few that live in heartland.
and i ask why and based on what. not exersised just intrigued. 🙂
Heartland
A central region, especially one that is politically, economically, or militarily vital to a nation, region, or culture.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/heartland
Dairy and other primary goods are what makes NZ most of its money, therefore the country is the heartland.
hmmm, how much money is made in the Cities? And the people that come from the heartland to live and work in the Cities, are they still heartland?
I can understand the regional thinking i.e. the beauty of the contry, the mountains and that, but then you also have stunning coastlines and such and Fishery is a good business in NZ, and Tourism is a good income in NZ. etc etc.
I don’t try to diminish the value of farmers or their work, don’t get me wrong,
I am trying to understand the political importance of Heartland, when in fact ‘Heartland’ does not even cover 50% of he population.
The moment the crown seized Tainui land, commerce in New Zealand started flowing from Waikato, to Auckland in around the 1860-1880s, and then onto the rest of the world, people started betting on those future prices. So the three enterprises are one and the same.
Great I live in the Heartland.. you will obey my wishes then… Sabines point is.. what make Heartland so special they should get preferential treatment I agree with her totally, it’s supposed to be about ALL kiwi’s not one group and to put any justification for it, even if they are critical to industry whatever, is her point made. They shouldn’t, they should be valued, not preferentially treated over others, that nuance is the crux of it IMHO.
thank you for saying it so much better then me.
And here was me thinking it was tourism!
Actually, most of the value added exports come from Auckland.
But. I don’t want to burst your bubble.
What are you talking about? Who is saying this?
also i would guess that Auckland, Dunedin are very old towns by NZ standards.
So if old rural towns are Heartland, should the same not be applied to old Urban tows.
‘heartland’ means ‘flyover’. An area to pay lip service to that can otherwise be safely ignored.
still makes no sense, as the people in the city are equally only getting lip service and are otherwise safely ignored.
The US and NATO preparing for war with Russia
http://robinwestenra.blogspot.co.nz/2017/01/us-and-nato-preparing-for-ww3-with.html?m=1
Officially reported from Paulsky NZ RT correspondent and pilger greenwald sock puppet
Material units are being forward deployed so soldiers and tankers can fall on them. Meaning instead of taking 2 months to deploy brigade sized elements and begin operations it takes 2 weeks. This information was glimed from the dragon trails which tested how long it takes a stricter brigade to travel across European held NATO territory
Happy to see myself as aligned with outstanding journalists such as Pilger and Greenwald.
Guess you connect more with the propagandists at CNN and the Washington Post.
Didn’t you learn anything frm the lies about WMD and Iraq?
Nyet Comrad Paulsky, but I d agree history has shown the west has not been able to trust the Russians for oh about 80 years
You really should learn your political history, it was the west who shafted Russia at the end of the second world war and caused the great cold war, not the Russians. I’m not going into it, but merely to say Russia got shafted by the US, as soon as they had the bomb. They used it to get their way in almost everything and Russia at that stage was on our team. It caused a cold war that went on for years, and the west’s propaganda machine I see still claims a few victims who haven’t watched any good doco’s on the second WW.
They stole all the scientists, V2 project, and reneged on many deals they had agreed too once they had the bomb and no one else did, in fact they even shafted the English they were so cocky..
Albania was meant to be western they dropped it and let it fall to Enver Hoxha’s communists. My country folk will never forget it.
Twenty five years ago this week.
Paul, this has been in the making since the annexation of Crimea by the Russia and it appears that the Poles invited the US to come and hang out.
One should remember that the ‘eastern’ countries after the second world war got their fare share of Russian interference and occupation and might not be so happy about Russia going around flexing muscle. They might even fear, that they will be ‘annexed’ and again get disappeared behind the great iron curtain.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/14/us-poland-weapons-deployment-eastern-europe-russia
” The US and Poland are discussing the deployment of American heavy weapons in eastern Europe in response to Russian expansionism and sabre-rattling in the region in what represents a radical break with post-cold war military planning.”
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense-news/2016/06/07/anakonda-kicks-off-poland-major-us-army-involvement/85541328/
“Poland and the countries that border Russia are becoming increasingly concerned with Russia’s aggression in the region as it continues to provoke Ukraine and occupy Crimea. Many Baltic countries fear Russia’s provocative behavior will spread to inside their own borders.
Macierewicz added that the Polish military would “especially” like to evaluate cooperation in the context of hybrid warfare on land and sea and with special forces.
Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine have been characterized as hybrid warfare.”
http://english.almanar.com.lb/94576
” Poland’s president urged US President-elect Donald Trump to keep Washington’s promise to deploy troops on NATO’s eastern flank amid tensions with Russia.
“Polish-American relations have become an important pillar of the European and transatlantic stability,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said in a letter of congratulations.
“We are particularly pleased that during this year’s NATO Summit in Warsaw the US decided to increase its military presence in Poland, thereby strengthening the Alliance’s Eastern flank.
“We sincerely hope that your leadership will open new opportunities for our cooperation based on mutual commitment.””
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-us-troops-nato-mission-poland-message-obama-putin-a7517281.html
“Atlantic Resolve was launched in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which sparked fears in the Baltic nations that Vladimir Putin was planning a similar land-grab there.
Under that banner, the US Army in Europe has been conducting training operations since May 2014.”
Despite the Polish celebrations, clouds hung over the historic moment. As the AP puts it, “there are anxieties that the enhanced security could eventually be undermined by the pro-Kremlin views of President-elect Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Russia appears provoked by the deployment of American troops on its doorstep.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-12/american-troops-roll-poland-largest-deployment-cold-war
“We perceive it as a threat,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “These actions threaten our interests, our security. Especially as it concerns a third party building up its military presence near our borders,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters. “It’s not even a European state.”
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-troops-enter-poland-1st-deployment-russias-doorstep-44728112
Worries about the permanence of the new U.S. security commitments are rooted in a tragic national history in which Poland has often lost out in deals made by the great powers.
Poles still feel betrayed by Obama’s “reset” with Russia early on in his administration, which involved abandoning plans for a major U.S. missile defense system in Poland and replacing it with plans for a less ambitious system, still not in place.
“All recent U.S. presidents have thought there can be a grand bargain with Russia,” said Marcin Zaborowski, a senior associate at Visegrad Insight, an analytic journal on Central Europe. “Trump has a proclivity to make deals, and Central and Eastern Europe have reason to worry about that.”
Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski expressed hope this week that any new effort at reconciliation with Russia “does not happen at our expense.”
Anyone who’s “preparing for war with Russia” had better send a hell of a lot more than 4000 soldiers into Poland – a couple of orders of magnitude more. This is about making Poland and the Baltic Republics feel a bit better, nothing more than that (because physically incapable of anything more than that). I guess it does come in handy for lackwit pro-Putin propagandists to squawk about “preparing for WW3” though…
Your arguments sound like McCarthyism of the post WW2 era.
Rods under the beds!
Paranoia.
Time to get out of basement Paul reality and sun light awaits
What, you’re posting stuff about “preparing for war with Russia” and “preparing for WW3” but me pointing out it’s bullshit is “McCarthyism” and “paranoia?” Try googling “arse about face.”
Mr Trump –
I am the only one. Trust me. I can build a wall around your homes that nothing can penetrate.
Bird species vanish from UK due to climate change and habitat loss
Two things you don’t want happening to your environment. There’s a reason why people fear swarming locusts and excess insects will have the same effect although over a longer period of time.
Wonder how much damage NZs farming community is doing to our bird species.
Have a look at the large dairy conversions in the waikato and count the birds.
there are not many left, cause there are no trees, no shrubs, nothing but baked soil with a few strands of grass.
you will find flies. lots and lots of flies.
I recall as a child being told how good it was to see the farms. To see the cleared fields.
But I’ve also been reading Scifi and fantasy for my entire life and in all of them they describe lush green forests as the epitome of a healthy environment. Green fields aren’t and neither are cities.
IMO, we know in our heart of hearts that farming is destructive.
This land of ours used to be covered in birds. It’s entire fertility was based upon sea birds flying and shitting from the coast all the way inland carrying the minerals that the sea provided.
There are load carrying capacities of land but not all land is commodified, just the land that is valuable to cities and complex cities, the rest is not mentioned so there are limits to how many immigrants New Zealand can accept. Once the load carrying capacity has been reached, conflict increases in warfare and politics proceeded by depopulation.
It’s possible to find atomised groups of people in all sectors. Such cases do not quarrel with neighbours to conquer or subjugate, only at state level does that become a dominant type of conflict.
The natural fertility cycle dictates the carrying capacity and the lush forests that used to be here were part of that cycle. By cutting them down and replacing them with farms we’ve actually decreased our carrying capacity as the land can no longer handle the pollutants that we’re putting into it.
This war on nature or crimes against humanity, call it what ever, does have to do with building a proper land rights system.
The first President to enter the White House under Senate investigation?.
Intelligence Committee will investigate possible Russia-Trump links
The Senate panel will use ‘subpoenas if necessary’ to secure testimony from Obama administration officials as well as Trump’s team, Richard Burr and Mark Warner said.
Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said late Friday that his committee would investigate possible contacts between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, reversing himself one day after telling reporters that the issue would be outside of his panel’s ongoing probe into Moscow’s election-disruption efforts.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/burr-says-intel-panel-will-investigate-possible-russia-trump-links-233621
Dont you love the US checks and measures , unfortunatel we don’t see the same in Paul’s Russia
oh good grief, please don’t give Mrs. Bennett ideas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPVCTLPNUzo
guy lives for two month in a storage unit.
Good to see that Martyn Bradbury published my following comment on The Daily Blog.
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2017/01/14/for-everyone-claiming-gareth-morgan-couldnt-win-the-mt-albert-by-election/
PENNY BRIGHT says:
JANUARY 14, 2017 AT 2:46 PM
I have already been sought out and approached by senior Grey Power members, who are deeply concerned about the lack of transparency and the proven bribery and corruption associated with the vast spending of public rates and taxes at local and central government on private consultants and contractors.
My long-standing policy and proven track record on transparency in public spending and ‘whistle-blowing’ against corruption, goes back TEN years.
Politically, support for transparency (and accountability) in public spending cuts across the entire political spectrum.
I’ve also been in Kingsland for the last 26 years.
In my view – anyone who thinks Jacinda Adern is going to sleep walk into becoming the MP for Mt Albert, needs to think again?
Why would people in Mt Albert waste their vote, voting for someone to become their MP – who is already an MP?
I’m not an MP.
(Yet 🙂
What have Labour / Green members/ supporters got to lose, by strategically voting for proven anti-privatisation / anti-corruption campaigner Penny Bright as the (fiercely) Independent MP for Mt Albert?
Jacinda and Julie Anne will still be MPs, and the House will have a fiery new Independent MP, who will be able to rattle the Parliamentary cage from the inside, asking the stinking hard questions about corruption that others will not – under Parliamentary privilege.
……”
In my view, this National Government is very vulnerable on this growing issue of corruption.
If corruption were to become a major election issue in 2017, in my opinion,
it would be far easier to achieve a change of Government.
What better way to help achieve that outcome than for a strategic vote in the Mt Albert by-election for a proven anti-corruption campaigner, in order to make a huge fuss INSIDE the House?
In my view, this is bigger than what will be best for the Labour and Green parties – it’s what will be best for New Zealand and the New Zealand 99%?
Penny Bright
2017 Independent candidate for the Mt Albert by-election.
I actually think it would be worth voting for you. At this point in the electoral cycle it won’t change much but it would send the message that we’re really pissed off with the corruption and lack of transparency that we’re seeing in both local and national politics.
Great!
Are you in the Mt Albert electorate?
Would you like a sign on your fence?
If so – send me a personal
message on Facebook?
Cheers!
Penny Bright 🙂
No, I’m not in the Mt Albert electorate.
McCarthyism alive and well in the USA
http://professorwatchlist.org/
http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html
DNA analysis proves Arabs aren’t entirely Arab
The video at the end is a must watch.
And, no, I don’t like that headline or the focus on Arabia.