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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Christina SzalinskiWhen Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with ...
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidates for President and Vice President respectively for the US 2020 Election, may have dispensed with the erstwhile nemesis, Trump the candidate – but there are numerous critical openings through which much, much worse many out there may yet see fit to ...
I don’t know Taupō well. Even though I stop off there from time to time, I’m always on the way to somewhere else. Usually Taupō means making a hot water puddle in the gritty sand followed by a swim in the lake, noticing with bemusement and resignation the traffic, the ...
Frances Williams, King’s College LondonFor most people, infection with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – leads to mild, short-term symptoms, acute respiratory illness, or possibly no symptoms at all. But some people have long-lasting symptoms after their infection – this has been dubbed “long COVID”. Scientists are ...
Last night, a British court ruled that Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the US. Unfortunately, its not because all he is "guilty" of is journalism, or because the offence the US wants to charge him with - espionage - is of an inherently political nature; instead the judge accepted ...
Is the Gender Identity Movement a movement for human liberation, or is it a regressive movement which undermines women’s liberation and promotes sexist stereotypes? Should biological males be allowed to play in women’s sport, use women-only spaces (public toilets, changing rooms, other facilities), be able to have access to everything ...
Ian Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University and Gareth Dorrian, University of BirminghamSpace exploration achieved several notable firsts in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including commercial human spaceflight and returning samples of an asteroid to Earth. The coming year is shaping up to be just as interesting. Here are some of ...
Michael Head, University of SouthamptonThe UK has become the first country to authorise the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for public use, with roll-out to start in the first week of 2021. This vaccine is the second to be authorised in the UK – following the Pfizer vaccine. The British government ...
So, Boris Johnson has been footering about in hospitals again. We should be grateful, perhaps, that on this occasion the Clown-in-Chief is only (probably) getting in the way and causing distractions, rather than taking up a bed, vital equipment and resources and adding more strain and danger to exhausted staff.Look at ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... SkS in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to ZeroThat’s one of several recent ...
The situation in the UK is looking catastrophic.Cases: over *70,000* people who were tested in England on 29th December tested positive. This is *not* because there were more tests on that day. It *is* 4 days after Christmas though, around when people who caught Covid on Christmas Day might start ...
by Don Franks For five days over New Year weekend, sixteen prisoners in the archaic pre WW1 block of Waikeria Prison defied authorities by setting fires and occupying the building’s roof. They eventually agreed to surrender after intervention from Maori party co-leader Rawiri Waititi. A message from the protesting men had stated: ...
Lost Opportunity: The powerful political metaphor of the Maori Party leading the despised and marginalised from danger to safety, is one Labour could have pre-empted by taking the uprising at Waikeria Prison much more seriously. AS WORD OF Rawiri Waititi’s successful intervention in the Waikeria Prison stand-off spreads, the Maori ...
Dear friends, it’s been a covidious year,A testing time for all of us here—Citizens of an island nationIn a state of managed isolation,A team (someone said) five million strong,Making it up as we went along:Somehow in typical Kiwi fashion,Without any wild excess ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Dec 27, 2020 through Sat, Jan 2, 2021Editor's Choice7 Graphics That Show Why the Arctic Is in Trouble Arctic Sea Ice: NSIDC It’s no secret that the Arctic is ...
One of the books I read in 2020 was She, by H. Rider Haggard (1887). I thoroughly enjoyed it, as being an exemplar of a good old-fashioned adventure story. I also noted with amusement ...
Scottish doctor Malcolm Kendrick looks at the pandemic and the responses to it 30th December 2020 I have not written much about COVID19 recently. What can be said? In my opinion the world has simply gone bonkers. The best description can be found in Dante’s Inferno, written many hundreds of ...
I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or the numbers seem very low please check this out. After correcting send me the URL for your ...
The deed is done, the doers undoneHad I been a Brit, I would have voted ‘Remain’ rather than Brexit (or ‘Leave’). Instead, I have been bemused by the comic theatre of British politics, fascinated by what the Brits actual think and professionally interested by the revelations of the complexity of ...
But Will She Keep Smiling? Kindness is as kindness does. And the one thing kindness cannot do is force people to be kind. Understanding that was the single most important factor in the Prime Minister’s success at stamping out the Coronavirus. She took New Zealanders with her; she encouraged them ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has added her warm congratulations to the New Zealanders recognised for their contributions to their communities and the country in the New Year 2021 Honours List. “The past year has been one that few of us could have imagined. In spite of all the things that ...
Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment David Parker has congratulated two retired judges who have had their contributions to the country and their communities recognised in the New Year 2021 Honours list. The Hon Tony Randerson QC has been appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the New Year’s Honours List 2021 highlights again the outstanding contribution made by Pacific people across Aotearoa. “We are acknowledging the work of 13 Pacific leaders in the New Year’s Honours, representing a number of sectors including health, education, community, sports, the ...
The Government’s investment in digital literacy training for seniors has led to more than 250 people participating so far, helping them stay connected. “COVID-19 has meant older New Zealanders are showing more interest in learning how to use technology like Zoom and Skype so they can to keep in touch ...
New virus variants and ongoing high rates of diseases in some countries prompt additional border protections Extra (day zero or day one) test to be in place this week New ways of reducing risk before people embark on travel being investigated, including pre-departure testing for people leaving the United Kingdom ...
Our kindly PM registered her return to work as leader of the nation with yet another statement on the Beehive website, the second in two days (following her appointment of Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council on Wednesday). It’s great to know we don’t have to check with ...
A Pūhoi pub is refusing to remove a piece of memorabilia bearing the n-word from its walls. Dr Lachy Paterson looks at the history of the word here, and New Zealand’s complicity in Britain’s shameful slave trading past.Content warning: This article contains racist language and images.On a pub wall in ...
Supermarket shoppers looking for citrus are seeing a sour trend at the moment – some stores are entirely tapped out of lemons. But why? Batches of homemade lemonade will be taking a hit this summer, with life not giving New Zealand shoppers lemons. Prices are high at supermarkets and grocers that ...
You’re born either a cheery soul or a gloomy one, reckons Linda Burgess – but what happens when gene pools from opposite ends of the spectrum collide?In our shoeboxes of photos that we have to sort out before we die or get demented – because who IS that kid on ...
Summer reissue: Prisoner voting rights are something that few in government seem particularly motivated to do anything about. Could a catchy charity single help draw attention to the issue?First published September 1, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Hundreds more Cook Islanders are expected to begin criss-crossing the Pacific, Air NZ will triple the number of flights to Rarotonga next week, and about 300 managed isolation places will be freed up for Kiwis returning from other parts of the world. When Thomas Tarurongo Wynne took a job in Wellington at ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Ena Manuireva in Auckland It seems a long time ago – some 124 days – since Mā’ohi Nui deplored its first covid-19 related deaths of an elderly woman on 11 September 2020 followed by her husband just hours later, both over the age of 80. The local ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Turnbull, Postdoctoral research associate, UNSW A global coalition of more than 50 countries have this week pledged to protect over 30% of the planet’s lands and seas by the end of this decade. Their reasoning is clear: we need greater protection ...
The Reserve Bank Governor’s apology and claim he will ‘own the issue’ is laughable given the lack of answers and timing of its release. Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union said: “It’s been five days since they came clean, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olga Kokshagina, Researcher – Innovation & Entrepreneurship, RMIT University Are too many online meetings and notifications getting you down? Online communication tools – from email to virtual chat and video-conferencing – have transformed the way we work. In many respects they’ve made ...
The Reserve Bank acknowledges information about some of its stakeholders may have been breached in a malicious data hack. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has commissioned an independent inquiry into how stakeholders' information was compromised when hackers breached a file sharing service used by the bank. “We ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Syme, PhD in Vertebrate Palaeontology, The University of Queensland This story contains spoilers for Ammonite Palaeontologist Mary Anning is known for discovering a multitude of Jurassic fossils from Lyme Regis on England’s Dorset Coast from the age of ten in 1809. ...
A tribute to the sitcoms of old? In the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yup. Sam Brooks reviews the audacious WandaVision.Nothing sends a chill up my spine like the phrase “Marvel Cinematic Universe”. Since launching in 2008 with Iron Man, the MCU has become a shambling behemoth, with over 23 films (not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University The alt-right, QAnon, paramilitary and Donald Trump-supporting mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6 claimed they were only doing what the so-called “founding fathers” of the US had done in ...
The Point of Order Ministerial Workload Watchdog and our ever-vigilant Trough Monitor were both triggered yesterday by an item of news from the office of Conservation Minister Kititapu Allan. The minister was drawing attention to new opportunities to dip into the Jobs for Nature programme (and her statement was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Kupz, Senior Research Fellow, James Cook University In July 1921, a French infant became the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), after the mother had died from the disease. The vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is ...
The first Friday Poem for 2021 is by Wellington poet Rebecca Hawkes.While you were partying I studied the bladeI your ever-loving edgelord God-emperorof the bot army & bitcoin mine subsistingon an IV drip of gamer girl bathwaterfinally my lonelinessis your responsibility………. you seeI need a girlfriend assigned to me by the ...
The arming of police officers in Canterbury was inevitable with the growing numbers and brazenness of the gangs across the country – this should be a permanent step, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is unfortunate that we have come to the point ...
Celebrations in Aotearoa New Zealand to mark the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will begin on Thursday 21 January with ICAN Aotearoa New Zealand’s Wellington and online event, and continue on Friday ...
Hardly anyone is using their Covid Tracer app. Something needs to change.As the mercury approaches 30°C in Aotearoa, there is a good deal of slipping and slopping, but, let’s face it, piss-all scanning. As few as around 500,000 QR codes are being scanned by users of the NZ Covid Tracer ...
On the East Coast, a group of Māori-owned enterprises is innovating to create new revenue streams while doing what they love.New Zealand’s remote and sparsely populated regions are typically not the best places to create thriving brick-and-mortar businesses. In small communities miles away from any major centres, there are so ...
As we reach the height of summer, it’s not too late to do a safety check on your gas bottle. The Environmental Protection Authority’s Safer Homes programme has some tips and tricks to keep in mind before you fire up the grill. "If you’ve ...
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.AUCKLAND1Troy: The Siege of Troy Retold by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37)If you’re in any way unsure about ...
“We may as well knock on the gang headquarters around this country and tell them we all give up," says Darroch Ball co-leader of Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is simply outrageous that violent offender, James Tuwhangai, has been released from ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Ireland, Israel, and Lebanon. Chart by Keith Rankin. The countries with the most recent large outbreaks of Covid19 are those with large numbers of recent recorded cases, but yet to record the deaths that most likely will result. In this camp, this time, are Ireland, Israel ...
RuPaul is in Aotearoa, kicking back in managed isolation to await the filming of an Australasian version of her hugely popular reality show Drag Race. But not everyone is happy about, explains Eli Matthewson. The world’s most famous drag queen, RuPaul, is in New Zealand, the government confirmed earlier this week ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Melleuish, Professor, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong What can we make of Clive Palmer? This week, he announced his United Australia Party (UAP) would not contest the upcoming West Australian state election on March 13. After a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gisela Kaplan, Emeritus Professor in Animal Behaviour, University of New England Have you ever seenmagpies play-fighting with one another, or rolling around in high spirits? Or an apostlebird running at full speed with a stick in its beak, chased by a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Jackson, Program Director, Centre for Policy Development, and Associate Professor of Education, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University Childcare centres across Australia are suffering staff shortages, which have been exacerbated by the COVID crisis. Many childcare workers across Australia left when parents started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Barrett, Senior Lecturer in Taxation, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Rhetoric plays an important role in tax debate and therefore tax policy. If your side manages to gain traction in the public imagination with labels such as “death ...
*This article was first published on The Conversation and is republished with permission* Whoever leads the Republican Party post-Trump will need to consider how they will maintain the rabid support of his “base”, while working to regain more moderate voters who defected from the party in the 2020 election. In a historic ...
Covid-19 fears accelerated banks’ moves towards cashless transactions. But the Reserve Bank is fighting to protect cash, and those who still use it. ...
Good morning and welcome to this one-off edition of The Bulletin, covering major stories from the last few weeks.A quick preamble to this: Today’s special edition of The Bulletin is all about filling you in on some of the stories you might have missed over the summer period. Perhaps you had ...
Summer reissue: In this episode of Bad News, Alice Snedden is forced to confront her own mortality before hosting a very special dinner party to get to grips with the euthanasia debate.First published August 27, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
The contrast between the words of John F Kennedy and today’s anti-democratic demagogue is inescapable, writes Dolores Janiewski I still remember three eloquent speeches by an American president. One happened in January 1961 and spoke about a “torch being passed to a new generation”. Two years later and one day apart, ...
The debate over cutting down a large macrocarpa to make way for a new residential development has highlighted a wider agreement between developers and protesters: that we also need to be planting far more trees. At the corner of Great North Road and Ash Street in Avondale, a 150-year-old macrocarpa stands its ground ...
More infectious variants of Covid-19 are increasingly being intercepted at the country’s borders, but the minister running New Zealand’s response is resisting pressure to accelerate vaccination plans despite demands from health experts as well as political friends and foes, Justin Giovannetti reports.New Zealand’s first Covid-19 jabs will be administered in ...
As CEO of her iwi rūnanga, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was on the frontline protecting her community during the first outbreak of Covid-19. Now that more virulent strains threaten to breach our borders, the Māori Party co-leader calls on the government to introduce much stricter measures.As we enter the New Year I ...
The Prada Cup challenger series starts today. Suzanne McFadden goes behind the scenes of the world's only live yachting regatta to see what's in store for the next five weeks. At 6am on race days, Iain Murray wakes up and immediately checks the weather outside his Auckland window. “It’s all ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raquel Peel, Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland This story contains spoilers for Bridgerton The first season of Bridgerton, Netflix’s new hit show based on Julia Quinn’s novels, premiered on December 25 last year. The show is set in London, during the ...
The New Zealand government believes its own negotiations with Rio Tinto will be resolved "fairly quickly" now there is certainty about the future of the Tiwai Point smelter. ...
Amanda Thompson and her family are attempting to cut back on the meat, so they gave all the vego sausies the local supermarket had to offer a hoon on the barbie. Here are the results.I was a vegetarian once. Even the best of us take a well-meaning wrong turn on ...
The Taxpayers’ Union welcomes the call by Wellington City Councillor Fleur Fitzsimons for a shift to land value based rates charges. Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, "Local government leaders across the country should join in Fitzsimons’s call ...
It’s been described as ‘pointless revenge’, but impeaching the president has a firm moral purpose, argues Michael Blake – setting a limit to what sorts of action a society will accept.A House majority, including 10 Republicans, voted today to impeach President Trump for “incitement of insurrection”. The vote will initiate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bryan Cranston, Lead Academic Teacher – Politics & Social Science (Swinburne Online), Swinburne University of Technology In a historic vote today, Donald Trump became the only US president to be impeached twice. By a margin of 232–197, the Democrat-controlled US House of ...
Hurrah. The PM is back to posting her announcements on the government’s official website, her deputy is back in the business of self-congratulation, Rio Tinto is back in the business of sucking up cheap electricity to produce aluminium at Tiwai Point, near Bluff. And overseas students (some, anyway) can come ...
The electricity sector, Government and people of Southland are rejoicing after Tiwai Point aluminium smelter owner Rio Tinto announced the major industrial would be open until the end of 2024, Marc Daalder reports Stakeholders in the electricity sector and across Southland are celebrating the extension of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter's ...
If you’ve been on social media this week, you may well have come across a surge in interest in sea shanties. We asked a veteran of the style why. In case you missed it, soon may the Wellerman come, to bring us sugar and tea and rum. If that sentence is even ...
“It is basic human decency to speak up and protect any vulnerable child from harm, so withholding information in child abuse cases and allowing the abuse to happen by not speaking up is, put simply, a cowardly move,” says Jess McVicar Co-Leader ...
Allowing 1,000 returning international students back to New Zealand is the right move by the Government, and hopefully we will be able to welcome more, says ExportNZ Executive Director Catherine Beard. "International education has contributed ...
A majority of the House of Representatives have voted to make Donald Trump the first US president ever to be impeached twice, formally charging him in his waning days in power with inciting an insurrection just a week after a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol. Follow the ...
The Youth of NZ will be standing up for climate action once again on January 26th outside of Parliament for School Strike 4 Climate NZ’s 100 Days 4 Action campaign rally. “We believe it is vital to hold our new Labour-led government to account ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on Rotorua Lakes District Council to urgently release the engineering report on the public safety and structural integrity of the visible foundation-misalignment and lean of the City’s Hemo Gorge monument to government ...
Changes in income and movement in and out of poverty over time are only weakly associated with higher rates of child hospitalisation in New Zealand, according to a new University of Auckland study. Published today in PLOS ONE, the collaborative study led by Dr ...
With a long, hot summer upon us, pet owners are urged to be extra mindful of their pet’s health and safety. Unusually warm weather can quickly take its toll on furry family members, who aren’t well equipped for dealing with blazing heat. The National ...
The Council for Civil Liberties is challenging a claim by former National Party leader Simon Bridges that people should have total freedom of expression on Twitter. ...
A century of sexual abuse of women in New Zealand is analysed in a University of Auckland study. The newly-published research looks back as far as 1922 by analysing interviews with thousands of women about their lifetime experiences. The study indicates ...
62,686 more native trees will be planted in New Zealand in 2021 thanks to generous Kiwis who chose to go green for Christmas gifting. <img src="https://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/2101/cf409712f141732a8543.jpeg" width="720" height="540"> Trees That Count, a programme ...
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage By Arturo López-LevyOakland, CaliforniaUnfortunately, the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, encouraged by the Inciter-in-Chief, will not be the last act of mischief. Trump is insisting on causing as much damage as possible to the interests and values ...
The threatened Tiwai Point aluminium smelter will keep operating through to the end of December 2024, in a new deal just announced to the New Zealand stock exchange. Mining conglomerate Rio Tinto announced last year it was closing Tiwai due to high energy and transmission costs. Meridian Energy said that ...
The lack of Māori language or symbolism on the SuperGold Card isn’t just a design issue – it’s emblematic of the overwhelming whiteness of Aotearoa’s superannuant population, writes former race relations commissioner Joris de Bres.I’ve enjoyed the SuperGold Card since I retired eight years ago. I appreciate the free public ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Brumm, Professor, Griffith University The dating of an exceptionally old cave painting of animals that was found recently on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi is reported in our paper out today. The painting portrays images of the Sulawesi warty pig (Sus ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Garrick, University Fellow in Law, Charles Darwin University Just over a year has gone by since the novel coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan and the world still has many questions about where and how it originated. The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Young, Lecturer, Deakin University Medievalist references littered the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th. Rudy Giuliani called for a “trial by combat”; the “Q Shaman”, Jacob Chansley (also known as Jake Angeli), was covered in Norse tattoos; rioters brandished ...
A Whakatāne therapist says the Whakaari eruption and Christchurch mosque shooting reveal a health system unable to deal with mass casualty events. Whakaari after its eruption in 2019. Photo: Supplied/Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust This comes amid calls for millions of dollars of promised mental health funding to be urgently re-routed to Canterbury ...
Summer reissue: Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Stacy Gregg, author of Pony Club Secrets and The Princess and ...
Summer reissue: The latest episode of Bad News follows Alice Snedden on a quest to expose the double standards around nudity, and break down the barriers by getting the first-ever topless scene on Shortland Street.First published August 25, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The ...
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
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)
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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDBIlurfSLM&ebc=ANyPxKpxaUxrIZTLOgX5Rf-Rmrl4ZMsqUHZAbWBgSP7TBwBBupAfisG_Rusd-IRXjiE8tNxJtrfdz_LyHYuKjSpZkEbsWe1N8A
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.
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.