Fisk …: “So I have a prediction. If the Trump regime collapses – for regime it is – I suspect it will not be his frolics with the Russians which destroy it. Nor his corruption, nor his domestic lies. Nor his misogyny. Nor his anti-immigrant racism. Nor his obvious mental instability, though this clearly connects him to his friends in the Arab world. The Middle East has already got its coils into the White House. Trump is a friend of a highly dangerous state called Saudi Arabia.
He has adopted Israeli foreign policy as his own, including the ownership of Jerusalem and wholehearted support for Israel’s illegal colonisation of Palestinian Arab land.
He has torn up a solemn treaty with Iran. He has joined the Sunni side in its sectarian war with the Shias of the Middle East, in Iran, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Bahrain and, of course, in Saudi Arabia itself.
Many countries have gone to war on behalf of other nations. Britain drew the sword for Poland in 1939, albeit a little late in the day. But to actively seek participation in someone else’s sectarian war for no other reason than to continue to sell weapons to a wealthy and unstable autocracy, to amalgamate your own country’s foreign policy with that of the most militarily powerful state in the Middle East — to the point of depriving an entire people of a share in its capital city –
– and to wilfully ignore the long and lucrative support that our Gulf “allies” have given to the most frightful of our cult enemies – those who have indeed struck in the streets of London and New York – is beyond the usual lexicon. It is beyond shameful. Beyond wicked. Were it not for the insanity of the man responsible, the word “depravity” comes to mind.”
One; the generation that Philip Neal here complains about has been raised by his own generation, being the parents.
Two; the generation that Philip Neal here complains about has been raised under his own politics – voting as they did the for the Nats and Bill English through the nineties which this generation was born into and raised under.
If there is a “useless” generation (and I no way accept there is), then it is the result of Philip Neal and his own generation… what a frikkin’ dipstick.
Frankly that is made up bullshit to ‘create a divide’ that can be used by the likes of useless double dipping welfare benefit abusing men like bill english.
NZ is a very small country with a really small population. Literally everyone other then a really new migrant is related to someone somewhere by marriage etc.
Rural useless children end up going to Uni in the big urban centers and some might even end up in towns, like useless Bill English whose only link to rural existence is his father who was a farmer.
Urban useless children end up working on farms or moving rural and create businesses there.
These guys don’t live in isolation, they live for divide and conquer and they do a real good job there.
Mr Neal got a serve from Jill Hawkey, Methodist Missin director, in the same article. She said that the comments were “really, really unhelpful” because they fed stigma around people receiving social supports. “The majority are only on there for a short period of time and the benefit just helps them through a difficult period.”
“The sign of a healthy society is how we treat our most vulnerable,” she said.
Jill Hawkey has a better handle on the situation, She runs Blenheim’s only emergency housing provider.
Mr Neal said, “we do need benefits but there’s lots of people who abuse the system”.
Well, he’s right there. In all the tax debate I’ve not heard much from the wealthy about tax evasion necessitating tax reform, in other words about “lots of people who abuse the system.”
we pay for superannuation
we pay for unemployment benefits
we pay for ACC
we pay for social welfare for those who can’t finance their own lifes fully
we pay for the accommodation benefit
we pay for the state houses
we pay for the roads
we pay for the hospitals
we pay for the schools
we pay for street lightning, for parks, for public buildings
we pay for the infrastructure that is used by the public, businesses and farmers
we pay for all of it via our income taxes, GST, business taxes.
Non of the things we pay for is ‘welfare’, it is a prepaid service.
Maybe its time to list up again on our pay slips just what hte percentage of each of hte tickets on our wage is .
Superannuation 5 %, Unemployment 5 % , ACC 5% …..until we understand that we don’t get Hand Outs from government (which is also financed by us – urban and rural useless people) we get to claim back a service we paid for.
And then maybe men like the useless pencil pusher from the federated farmers would learn to think before sprouting hate.
Farmers need workers, but workers get paid better in oz, why. Well farmers here have a extra incentive to push down wages, capital gains. Nz has a skill shortage, as it’s obvious easier to get ahead in oz when the owners aren’t farming the capital gains at 0% tax. So farmer whinning about the need for those lazy bennies to get a job, turns out its just greed as they have a worker shortage.
Mr Neal is simplistic in his statements and very generalising. He says that some government members “would like to see farming put down altogether.” Such a view is very exaggerated.
He talks about sponging beneficiaries.
Here is a question for him. What is the amount stolen by beneficiaries convicted of beneficiary fraud as opposed to the amount stolen by tax evasion?
“New research reveals tax dodgers are ripping off the country at up to 150 times the rate of welfare fraudsters, but are being jailed much less often. Last year, tax evaders cheated the country of between $1 and $6 billion, while welfare fraud cost $39 million.” Excerpted from a post on The Standard July 18 2017 titled “Benefit fraud vs white collar crime.”
In 2018 IRD reported that it was owed $3 billion in unpaid taxes, with $1.7 billion owed for more than three years.
The letters to the Editor might get a tad more interesting, too, ianmac.
“so the Government can then redistribute money to those they perceive as the helpless and needy, but in my opinion, useless.”
That will be a statement that will return to haunt Mr Neal. He mentions recent events in Christchurch as having distracted him from his opining on taxation.
What he doesn’t seem to get is the distance between what that man did in ChCh and where most Kiwis are. He uses the same language of divisiveness, of ‘the other” by calling our people on benefits ‘useless’. I should hope that most Kiwis will also regard his opining as a form of hate speech. To call someone useless is to deny their humanity. Every human being has value.
I wonder how much direct and indirect, taxpayer or ratepayer funded support Mr Neal, his family and his business receive. He might go strangely quiet at the answer.
Two bail outs for the farming (mostly) sector in recent years come to mind.
Mycoplasma bovis
South Canty Finance
AND
What about the agricultural worker being ripped off by the sector as well.
Maybe if a living wage was paid, then there would be fewer seeing benefits.
I would actually go far to say that beneficiaries and working people have been used as ATMs for the countries landlords, banks and power companies for a very long time.
“USELESS” beneficiaries how very Hitleresque of Mr. Neal someone should educate him on the Nazis extermination of the mentally ill and disabled described by Hitler as “USELESS MOUTHS”
Bit of a joke from the most featherbedded, by tax dollars, community in New Zealand.
Not to mention the almost total destruction of non commodity manufacturing and service sector of our economy, and the resultant billions in costs, unemployment and poverty, to obtain “free trade” agreements to benefit farmers.
I am not necessarily against State subsidies, but some acknowledgement of the real “hard working Kiwi’s” who pay the taxes, instead of moaning about the little they, farmers, pay, would be nice.
Muslims do not hate us for our freedoms and values …. its our actions and history in the middle east that creates extremist ‘blowback’. …. and refugees fleeing violence and extremism
“From Washington’s perspective, peace in Syria is the horror scenario. Peace would mean what the United States sees as a ‘win’ for our enemies: Russia, Iran, and the Assad government. We are determined to prevent that, regardless of the human cost.”
“Just consider for a moment the UK’s support for, and involvement in, the horrifying Saudi war against Yemen, or US politicians’ blanket silence on Israel’s massacre of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza. Our leaders have no moral high ground to stand on. Their foreign policy decisions are about oil, defence contracts and geo-strategic interests, not about protecting civilians or fighting just wars.
However bad Assad is, and he is a dictator, he is responsible for far fewer deaths and much less suffering in the Middle East than either George W Bush or Tony Blair.
Former New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer sets out a very plausible reason why the US, UK and France keep intervening in Syria. It is not about children or chemical weapons. It is to prevent the Syrian government and Russia triumphing over the jihadists, as they have been close to doing for some time.
These western states are adamantly opposed to allowing a peaceful resolution in Syria, Kinzer observes, because it:
“might allow stability to spread to nearby countries. Today, for the first time in modern history, the governments of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon are on good terms. A partnership among them could lay the foundation for a new Middle East.”
“That new Middle East, however, would not be submissive to the United States-Israel-Saudi Arabia coalition. For that reason, we are determined to prevent it from emerging. Better to keep these countries in misery and conflict, some reason, than to allow them to thrive while they defy the United States. “…
“From Washington’s perspective, peace in Syria is the horror scenario. Peace would mean what the United States sees as a ‘win’ for our enemies: Russia, Iran, and the Assad government. We are determined to prevent that, regardless of the human cost.”
“However bad Assad is, and he is a dictator, ”
That’s not correct. Elections were held in Syria in 2014 attended by numerous UN observers. Bashar al Assad won by a considerable majority.
The UN observers report is here:
“reporters representing Time magazine and the New York Times referred to the government as having broad support, of critics conceding that Assad was popular, and of Syrians exhibiting little interest in protest. At the same time, they described the unrest as a series of riots involving hundreds, and not thousands or tens of thousands of people, guided by a largely Islamist agenda and exhibiting a violent character.”
“Bashar al-Assad’s refusal to renounce Arab nationalist ideology dismayed Washington, which complained about his socialism,”
“Time’s correspondent Rania Abouzeid attributed the failure of the protest organizers to draw significant support to the fact that most Syrians were not opposed to their government. Assad had a favorable reputation, especially among the two-thirds of the population under 30 years of age, and his government’s policies were widely supported. “Even critics concede that Assad is popular and considered close to the country’s huge youth cohort, both emotionally, ideologically and, of course, chronologically,”
“That the government commanded popular support was affirmed when the British survey firm YouGov published a poll in late 2011 showing that 55 percent of Syrians wanted Assad to stay. The poll received almost no mention in the Western media, prompting the British journalist Jonathan Steele to ask: “Suppose a respectable opinion poll found that most Syrians are in favor of Bashar al-Assad remaining as president, would that not be major news?”
Steele described the poll findings as “inconvenient facts” which were” suppressed “because Western media coverage of the events in Syria had ceased “to be fair” and had turned into “a propaganda weapon.”[66
Well, I watched the chief censor on the AM show rationalising his decision to ban the shooter’s manifesto & agreed that propaganda from violent groups ought not to be given a platform in the msm.
Then I saw the rep from the FSM explaining that we need to understand what motivates such groups and suppressing the manifesto stops folks learning, and agreed with that.
So there’s merit on both sides of this divide. I suspect a medial line will have to be taken, in which people are free to selectively examine the group’s advocacy on a point-by-point basis. Why bother? Consider the weakness of the censor’s position: public policy ought to be evidence-based, and he failed to cite a single piece of evidence to validate his stance.
I’ve noticed the same failing in those here who stridently demonise the alt-right. None have provided a single example of incitement to violence in the manifesto. I’m not saying none exists – just that laziness isn’t good enough.
The censor’s stance is to treat the public with contempt by assuming they don’t need to know. Maybe tacit rather than conscious (like Trump) but still evident. Paternalism. Unlikely to fly well in the new millennium.
For those of us who have been fighting racism and injustice, bigotry and hate over the years we don’t have to read the specific cut and paste jobbie from this murderer because we already know what they think – it’s all over the internet, it’s all over their low impact support sites from those with like mind. It is good others want to join the fight – may I suggest – read and follow those fighting these people and you will learn a lot. Reading their rambling tomes you’ll learn not so much just how to hate more.
Shradrach is all over the internet …. spreading victim blaming shit like this ….
Special Report: The Ladder Down to Hell : “The ( NZ ) killings also coincided with a surge of anti-Muslim hate crimes in other regions of the world, including the United Kingdom and Canada, while in the U.S., such crimes have spiked to all-time highs. ”
Shradrach s response : “If that is true, it is hardly surprising given the hatred being preached across the US by Islamic leaders, particularly anti-Semitic diatribes.”
This is the truth versus Shradrachs angry fear-mongering arguments.
These Muslim New Zealanders …. and the restraint and love shown by the bereaved …… show Shadgag to be a very very ugly member … of us
Mucad Ibrahim was 3 years old when the white supremacist in the #ChristchurchTerrorAttack took his life. Too young to know to play dead like his father, or run fast enough to escape like his brother, young Mucad will never play soccer, struggle with homework, or marry.#50livespic.twitter.com/nFR4OWtezH
I often find that when someone quotes another without providing links, they are being dishonest. Like you were here /open-mike-21-03-2019/#comment-1600348.
Yes your deliberately shortened the quote from’ the ladder to hell “….to leave out christchurch …. we can all see that.
Why did you shorten it ????
So you could push your “: “If that is true, it is hardly surprising given the hatred being preached across the US by Islamic leaders, particularly anti-Semitic diatribes.” ….. without making us all vomit at your sentiments.
How about your bullshit statement when you conflate extremist fundamentalist Muslims …… with normal peaceful Muslims ….
“Islam as an ideology, as practised in Islamic nations and as taught in many western countries, is fundamentally incompatible with a modern liberal democracy. There are many Muslims who are calling for an Islamic reformation, unfortunately their voices are, as yet, not being heard.”
So according to Shradich a good portion of our Muslims murdered in Christchurch were incompatible with New Zealand life.
Could you identify the ones we are better off without shradarch
Here they are ….. strangely they seem like better New Zealanders than you
Here are the profiles of the #50lives lost in the #NewZealandMosqueAttacks: Read about them. Remember them. Say a prayer for them and their families. And then take action to help fight anti-Muslim racism. https://t.co/coyueBsOOh 50/End.
“So according to Shradich a good portion of our Muslims murdered in Christchurch were incompatible with New Zealand life.”
No, never said that.
Take a deep breath and contemplate for a moment the notion that it is possible to critique an ideology (in this case Islam) without wishing it’s followers ill. Are you suggesting that criticising Nazi ideology should not be allowed because it is attacking German people?
Nice sentiments, but critiquing an ideology is not ‘violence’. Nor is it ‘racism’, ‘bigotry’, ‘islamophobia’ or any other word you may choose to try to shut down debate.
The censor’s stance is to treat the public with contempt by assuming they don’t need to know.
No different from the OIA. Openness, transparency, and trust are just buzzwords to pacify the great unwashed. They know best, Dennis, and they don’t even have to justify it because it is their job and it comes with fancy titles (and pay packages) that tells them they’re above us. This is the natural order and the so-called chain of command. No respect for the underlings.
This is the problem I have with hierarchical structures and institutions; it breeds a climate of non-communicative so-called managers and leaders who can’t (be bothered) to properly explain anything. And no, appearing on a morning show is not the same as actually properly communicating and explaining.
This is even more of a problem with complex sensitive and controversial matter. The harder it gets, the less communication and explanation will be forthcoming. IMO, it should be the exact opposite.
Marty. Would you have wanted the Urewera raids, censored by the Government?
Incognito is right about the authoritarian arrogance.
I admit to struggling with this. For example I want child porn, and other similarly objectionable stuff on the internet, totally gone.
Political speech. Where do you draw the line? To me Bennett’s welfare bashing is “Hate speech” which is used to justify the level of cruelty inflicted on people by the right wing, and WINZ. Violence which hurts 100,s of thousands of people. Refusing her a platform however, will not stop the hate.
To a large extent if you give these people enough rope, they eventually discredit themselves, to all but a few.
Brash, for example is unelectable, as is Seymour anywhere but a National electorate, which will vote for a blue gumboot, if they are told to.
I read about half of the terrorist’s wee missive and did not see it as instructional….a ‘how to’ manual. He assumed he would be killed or caught and anticipated being isolated. The manifesto…or the first 40 pages or so consists of this arsehole interviewing himself. Asking himself the questions he thinks he should be asked so he can explain/justify the horror he has wrought.
Most of it was copy and paste. I doubt an original thought or idea has ever escaped from his brain. The couple of references to his own personal experience give insight into just how faulty his thinking is.
The bulk of the content is ubiquitous…banning this particular manifestation of this ideology serves only to raise what is in actuality crap to mythical heights. Create a legend Censor. Good work. /sarc, btw
Child pornography…most definitely ban…and ffs increase the penalties for making and disseminating 100 fold, as at the moment the courts are being too soft.
I too have real issues with being told by my ‘betters’ what is appropriate for me to know/see/read/hear. All government business should be totally open and transparent, and so far this lot have fallen way short on that.
This is the problem I have with hierarchical structures and institutions; it breeds a climate of non-communicative so-called managers and leaders who can’t (be bothered) to properly explain anything.
A subject dear to my heart Incognito but I won’t start on it because I would still be going this time tomorrow. Suffice to say, times are a’changing and these upstarts who have goose-stepped around the corridors of the Public Service and other halls of power for the past umpteen decades are gradually becoming extinct.
That’s my impression too @Anne. I’d go a little further in one or two cases – and that is that a couple who’ve ‘goose-stepped around the corridors’ (anxious to preserve their status, career options and perceptions of their own might), and who’ve been pushing back since the change in government might well be shitting themselves about now. (And if they aren’t, they’re a little bit ficker than I originally thought they were)
“Well, I watched the chief censor on the AM show….”
Well that’s your problem right there Dennis.
For goodness’ sake, watching telly is hazardous at any time….first thing in the morning though? The producers rightly assume the audience is barely awake so they don’t have to bother with quality content.
Give it up…take your coffee outside and watch the sunrise.
It’s not a woolly line at all if a speech act directly incites violence. I am happy for the citations provided by the Chief Censor to be enough evidence for me.
So no, there is no merit in continuing then able that kind of speech.
I have no problem at all censoring death threats, and as far as I can tell I’m one of the most permissive free speech advocates here.
So where’s your proof, Ad? Where did you see him provide a citation? If you refuse to front up with evidence, you can’t complain if folks remain unconvinced.
We? Some of us believe officials are accountable to the public. Not just in theory, but in practice too. Shifting democracy in the direction of accountability is wise. That’s why many people are helping to do it…
Yes we. I thought youd been involved in politics – this line you’re pushing seems very juvenile to me. Note I am not saying YOU are juvenile just what you are SAYING is imo. What accountability are you actually talking about. He went on the idiotbox didn’t he? He answered the inane questions didn’t he? Do you want to interview him yourself? Trust Dennis is actually what makes democracy work. Distrust destroys it.
Evasion of accountability by mainstream politicians and public servant was one of the concerns that motivated my joining the Greens 29 years ago. Similar evasion by capitalists motivated me even more.
Dunno why you regard such widespread concerns as juvenile. Zillions of adults share them. Many contributors here keep proving that.
I agree that trust is crucial. I’m actually reading a very good about it at the moment: Who Can You Trust? I bought Fukuyama’s book Trust in the nineties and one with the same title by a different author a couple of years later.
Re the current book, this is what the publisher’s section About the Author says: “Rachel Botsman is a world renowned expert on trust, whose three TED talks on the topic have been viewed over 3.5 million times.” Named “a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. She writes for the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Review, Wired, and more.”
Her chapter on how the dark web operates to build trust on a verified and validated basis is fascinating (she gives examples to illuminate that). She’s an academic with the University of Oxford’s business school.
Trust Dennis is actually what makes democracy work. Distrust destroys it.
So true. And in my view, accountability is a necessary ingredient to build trust. Accountability is more than telling you do your job well and follow instructions nicely. It is about providing some (…) justification and explanation as to why you doing things and with what intentions and outcomes.
It’s a grey area but instead of a whiter shade of pale they choose a blacker shade of beige 😉
yay we agree. Trust is built on accountability. No accountability no trust. In regards to the mechanisms of government I am okay with the level of accountability – to a point – I’d certainly like heads to resign after mistakes that hurt people or break the law or are racist or sexist or ageist or ableist and so on. I haven’t seen anything like that or even remotely like that. I’ve seen a banned manifesto after the darkest day of murder against innocent Kiwis this country has seen. White supremacist garbage should be consigned to the rubbish bin. There are ZERO redeeming qualities for it to be available imo.
Sure they get it wrong – if anyone thinks someone should be perfect well sadly people aren’t like that because that’s impossible. There are checks and balances as there should be. They seem to work mostly and the alternative is not a society that cares for the vulnerable imo.
Well the obvious would also suggest that the censor,who spends his days watching,(at the taxpayers expense )reading and listening to porn and violent games should be required to undertake psychological evaluation.
Always the trouble. Accepting enforced ignorance.
Pornography is outlawed.
So obtaining some to view what is being talked about makes you an
outlaw.
If a teacher has it then that is the finish to their good reputation, no matter if it is just a small amount – not tons of files.
But police will have evenings when they watch it, so they know about it,
can recognise it when they see it. Yet teachers have not the standing to also be shown it. (This is what I understand has been the case and probably still is.)
Therefore if their students have it and watch it, then they know more about this important mind and attitude-bender than the teacher and might feel rather superior. It puts teachers at a disadvantage.
I raise some points. It isn’t an all-encompassing idea. Just a pint that some people who are supposed to be knowledgable and capable of moral behaviour know some things and other, similarly important people, are prevented from even viewing them.
I can see why cops might need to know precisely what sort of things might be deemed objectionable in practise. It goes to grounds for making an arrest or giving the censors appropriate items to rule on.
Teachers probably don’t need to know that much. How does a teacher discovering a kid is watching r18 differ from discovering the kid is watching something a bit closer to R20 or even objectionable? Surely it goes to parents and maybe school counsellor. They might call in the cops depending on age and content. But is there any functional difference at the teacher end?
Wonderful, Gabby! I understand what you are saying even if some others don’t. Always appreciate your ability to get right to the crux of the issue in a very few words. It’s a skill many of us don’t have.
Recall that I made the same point myself re not wanting to have the manifesto on my computer. I mentioned that there is a contaminating effect on the psyche.
Today I’m making a different point. Public policy must be evidence-based nowadays, to seem credible, lot’s of folk are claiming. I agree that is desirable. Citation of evidence has been missing in the hate-speech debate. I’ve pointed that out several times. This morning I caught Ad pretending that the censor cited evidence – did you notice how he ducked for cover when I called his bluff?
Now you may wish to claim that nobody comes here to make a positive contribution to public policy. I’m inclined to disagree. I know I do. Why would anyone seek to participate in politics from an impotent position?
Sorry, just to clarify, theoretically-like, you want evidence that the 74-page manifesto released by a mass-murderer immediately prior to his rampage contains objectionable material?
I think most people would safely assume it’s not a recipe for cinnamon swirls.
To see if it is a feasible candidate for prosecution under our hate-speech law. Proof of incitement to commit violence. I note how many folk are happy to assume it does without proof. I just think it unwise to form public policy on the basis of unvalidated assumptions.
Like the unvalidated assumption that a document written in relation to committing 50 murders might contain some nasty-ass shit?
Do you need to see every image someone downloaded to agree whether they were watching child porn, or are you happy with the existence of a conviction on the basis that the defendant was found to be in possession of images classified as objectionable?
You could try applying to the censors for permission to read the manifesto on the grounds that you wish to verify for yourself that it does indeed contain objectionable content that justifies its banning.
Let us know how you get on.
Or if you’re sufficiently distrustful of the quality of the censors’ decisions, I’m sure you could find it online, read and print it before the cops got to your door. The absence of truly objectionable material should then be a pretty good defence at trial.
Go on, set yourself up to be a free-speech martyr. If teenage me could play my illegal copy of Marianne Faithfull’s Why’d Ya Do It, you can strike a blow for free speech today.
i don’t want to see the manifesto discussed to see evidence for mass murder – the evidence of mass murder was provided before the manifesto. So that point is moot.
i would like to see the manifest discussed to learn where we – our spy agencies, our police services, our gun shop owner, us the community, and all other that interacted with this fellow- have missed that he is so incited to hate the other that he would become a mass murderer.
And as state before, i don’t forcibly want to read it, but i would like to see certain people read it, Hoskins, Richardson, Bill English, the federated farmer dude, and all those that regularly diminish people as useless, as others, as undeserving, as not fit, as bludgers, etc etc etc.
And i would like them to be asked, publicly is there anything in your rhetoric over the past few years that you would take back.
As i firmly believe that the incitement to hate not only comes from radicalized people, but more importantly comes from our so called polite society that shapes the daily discourse of our public.
i.e. Donald Trump : all mexican are rapists and murderers. All muslims must be banned. All african nations are shit holes.
Is this any less hate speech? And should we ban Donald Trump?
Should we ban that federated farmer dude that declares that some people are ‘useless’? And if they are useless, what should then be done about them?
And again, i understand that to look at us and our own discourse – and i include myself – might not be fun, might not be easy, might actually be hurtful. But we can not ever change hate, and hateful behavior by banning manifestos and screeds and pretend it did not happen here and it was not one of us – one of us fellow white people. Because we would not have any gumption of demanding accountability from every Muslim we see if the perpetrator of the crime were a Muslim.
The thing is that we know that for at least the next while not only will it not be easy, we know that other fuckwits will draw solace and encouragement from that document. Because that’s what they do: cut and paste from previous fuckwits.
If you can demonstrate a genuine need and ability to process that material, apply for an exemption.
i don’t need to read it. I just want to see where we as a society failed.
So i list up whom i think needs to read it.
The man from the federated farmers who a week after a mass murder sprouts nonsense about ‘useless people’. He needs to read it.
Mike Hoskins who has been on record now for years sprouting nonsense about dole bludgers, people who have children who can’t afford it, and generally ‘useless people’.
Bill English who has been on record calling our young people ‘useless and pretty damned hopeless.
Sky News that showed the video.
The police that surveilled others and not white supremasits.
Our polititians that have hyped in one way or another our fear of the Muslim while the terror came from a non muslim.
And they should answer to us the public, as many of htese guys are paid for by us. And they should tell us if they think that they too might be part of the problem.
And unless you have read the thing you would not know what they copy and pasted or wrote themselves. Don’t you want to know : WHY and HOW did this happen. and WHY and HOW did we miss it? and WHAT can we do to prevent it from happening again.
As for the fuckwits drawing solace, they already have the video and the manifesto downloaded and your little attempt at censor ship is something that they are laughing about.
@McFlock – “we know that other fuckwits will draw solace and encouragement from that document. Because that’s what they do: cut and paste from previous fuckwits.”
We also know that they will find opportunities for recruitment and ‘righteous’ outrage from the restriction or deletion of said document.
So, either way, the hard part is dealing with the recognition of the presence of a supportive community and individuals with this mindset and perspective, and then, making efforts to counteract or engage with them so that they are not destructive.
Sabine’s comments so far have been straightforward and well reasoned, and despite the harm caused, what little I have seen of the manifesto shows it to be an embarrassment to the author. I think her reasons are more convincing so far, than any others put forward regarding the classification of the material.
What makes you think Hosking or whomever won’t agree with it?
In ten years, I might read a book by a forensic psychologist or someone else who talks about why this specific insecure little fucker did what he did. It might have some revelation (e.g. apparently Whitman had a brain tumour that might have accounted for his actions to some degree). Most likely it will be a similar story to most of the other sad, pathetic, weak, insecure, scared little fuckers who do shit like this.
The how is being rapidly addressed.
The why is something we will never truly going to understand. We missed it because we thought we were better, we thought we had gun control, we thought the problem came from people we didn’t realise we thought of as “other”.
But why he did it? How does any normal person comprehend why some insecure little fuck needs to murder defenceless people to feel good about himself?
@molly and Sabine
Fair call, there are good arguments both ways, I should be clear. But the other key thing about banning it is that anyone who gets caught possessing it immediately brings themselves to the close and public attention of the courts. So people have to be keen to read it, and it becomes a self-outing mechanism. And in the search for answers, most of the reviews indicate there is nothing particularly interesting compared to other right-wing terrorists.
What makes you think Hosking or whomever won’t agree with it?
i actually believe that he does agree with some of the shit the white supremacists peddle – oh surely not openly, cleverly disguised as ‘opinion’, a bit of not political correct fun you see, wink wink, nudge nudge.
But so long as they don’t have to affront their own biases and the results of their words they will not change.
Currently the main danger that i see is that the white supremacists laugh at us and our hurt feelings. Going to prison? Heck why not. They be heroes for their fellow white supremacists. Or do we believe we don’t have the Aryan Nation, Identity Europe and the likes here in NZ and in our prisons? so unless the guy is send to a prison full of maori he will have white supremacists in the public population with him and support. think of it.
That is why i think we need to have a open public discussion about what happened. So that people that would not think twice about dehumanizing someone for being brown, poor, unemployed, pregnant, handicapped, or of a different religion think twice about some political incorrect commentary and ‘wink wink nudge nudge’
. Lest they be held accountable if some fuckwit takes their words and goes on a killing spree.
cause at the end of the day, teh question really is: Why is a average white guy, average everything, good finances, good family support going to a different country to buy guns and slaughter people? Why? And how come our vast surveillance state that knows every pot smoker and grower, could not see this guy and realize that he is up to something. And What should we do different from now onward.
so to do nothing and just simply ‘who could imagine that this happens, well we don’t have to imagine it, in certain parts of the world this shit happens every day. do we want this to happen here every day and offer thoughts and prayers and nothing can be done, next?
I think the main danger is that we don’t know who they are.
I’m not saying that we should do nothing. This little fucker should be a lab rat for the rest of his life. But that’s different from distributing his rants.
Do you need to see every image someone downloaded to agree whether they were watching child porn, or are you happy with the existence of a conviction on the basis that the defendant was found to be in possession of images classified as objectionable?
Interesting analogy but flawed IMO. The defendant knows the images, the prosecution knows it too, as do the jury and the judge. In fact, the defense team can provide a counter-argument regarding the images if they choose to.
None of that applies to the Chief Censor and his office’s decision to declare something objectionable and unfit for public consumption, meat or vegetable. It is an asymmetric or unilateral decision rather based on authority.
My understanding is that the jury etc don’t actually judge the images. The censor classifies the images, and if they’re objectionable then the legal question is possession, not the nature of the images themselves.
But more to the point, everyone whose role in the trial requires it might see the images, but the public does not. And nor should we. It would defeat the purpose.
I think the criteria in the act itself are a bit prescriptive in places – most of them are clearly consent and public welfare issues (e.g. minors and animals), but damned if I can see that justification for urine. It’s not my scene, but crazier stuff has been done consensually.
I suspect the evaluation itself errs on the side of conservative when it comes to judging the public standard, but I’m hard-pressed to think of a better system to judge all publications etc. Because if we don’t have such a system, it all goes to the lowest denominator.
I find this discussion bizarre. Librarians and other groups have been disputing unhelpful OFLC decisions for a long time, eg this egregious example, but for some people it’s apparently all good until the OFLC bans a fucking white supremacist manifesto advocating the murder of their fellow citizens. Seriously, what the fuck? That’s the point at which the OFLC’s gone too far? Maybe the people whinging about the Chief Censor’s decision should take a break and think about their priorities.
Ok, but many of us are not librarians and would never have heard of this particular case and the reason being it did not attract as much attention. Duh! I find this bordering on false equivalence.
Looms like the Victoria University Council is going to go to the high court to try and get the name change it wants – see the post “A LETTER FROM HUGH RENNIE QC TO FRIENDS OF VUW” on this FB page:
Bugger That!
All power to Hugh, and hope that the VUW council take on board the huge opposition to this stupid proposed name change which will, actually harm, not enhance my alma mater
Auckland University
Canterbury University
Otago University
Eastern Institute of Technology is in the east, Hawkes Bay.
Victoria University. Where is Victoria in NZ?
(Perhaps it should establish itself as a separate entity from
Wellington, or get the area named a suburb so it has
connection with its place.)
VUW stands for Victoria University Wellington
and it’s actually not about where it’s physically located. It’s far more nuanced than that – but you need to read the scoop article to understand why.
I may think the name is a colonial hangover, but the majority of the people involved, such as alumni, staff and students appear to want to keep the name.
Democracy!
The mania for management driven, re-naming every thing, for no good reason is a characteristic of Neo- liberal managerialism. They like to call it “Re branding”.
Something new broom managers like to do, to give the appearance of doing something.
Now. If the impetus for change had come from the grass roots, gaining everyone’s support, that would be a different story.
KJT
The reason for changing the name is good, or so it seems. The argument is that Wellington as the university’s name will stand out and its mana and that of the research that comes from it will be noticed and not just disappear in the mix of Victoria Universities around the world.
If past students and others look at things in an academic manner with a statistical bent about whether being connected with other Wellingtons is going to give them a leg-up compared to being swamped by other Victorias then there might be light on this.
It is a bit like the Christchurch Cathedral, apparently we are clinging on to the 1800s, and while we aren’t looking the powers that be are taking away the chunks of the 2000s till we have a few sun-bleached rocks.
If I was there I may have argued for changing the name. Trying for consensus on the change. . For post colonial reasons.
I don’t know how many Wellingtons and Victoria’s there are around the world, but a cursory google finds rather a lot.
However it doesn’t seem to be what the VUW community want.
The reasoning appears to me more from the “marketing” angle.
Driven by the “bums on seats” crowd.
Well that’s more disturbing that the fake “live video” of the NZ attack that I saw. It will be an awkward moment if they are allowed to show it in the trial.
[Corodale. This is your third comment in recent hours hinting at a false flag event in Christchurch. It’s also going to be your last word on the matter. This site is not infowars and you are not Alex Jones. Show some respect or you’ll be moved on. TRP]
There’s a mod note on Corodale’s comment already WTB and any further attempts to go down this path will be dealt with in the usual manner. Generally speaking, false flag claims are fodder for the intellectually weak; people who can’t deal with the world as it is. Pity is probably the correct response.
False narratives are the life-blood of terrorism. 1 part truth, 10 parts hysteria. This particular narrative is just trolling. Not feeble minded, deliberate provocation.
well the ‘fake attack’ line is out there and will not be put to rest.
As i said before, i am happy to repeat it again.
We can set the tone of the discussion, or we can ban everything related to the mass murder in christchurch and pretend -it did not happen- once the guy is locked up in Prison.
in the meant time others will not have such qualms.
This country needs to discuss these events. Publicly, openly, ideally televised (as that is the means of information for most), PM, Police, First Emergency Responders, clerics etc etc etc so that people like Corodale are literally just laughed out of the room as the cowards that don’t want to acknowledge the truth.
But here we are discussing how we applaud the banning of the manifest (cause it does not teach us anything !), we don’t publicly discuss the failings of our security apparatus (cause Spies!), we don’t discuss how we are incited to hate and dislike of others – muslims, single mothers, disabled people, useless people (Bill English), old people, young people, brown people, white people, urban people, rural people – by those who make a pay cheque out of ‘talk back shock radio and politics (Hoskins, Bill English, Paula Bennet etc) and the dividing of our country in to ‘us’ vs ‘them’.
So either we want to and realise even we MUST freely discuss the events of March 15th, or we are bound to repeat them again and again until we find the courage to look at us and our society openly and freely.
1 minute in and it’s just a lot of loud mouths talking over each other. Is this supposed to be something worthwhile? Do you have to be smoking something to appreciate it?
‘Islamist Attack Plot’ Foiled By German Police; 11 Arrested For Planning “To Kill As Many Infidels As Possible” https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-23/islamist-attack-plot-foiled-german-police-11-arrested-planning-kill-many-infidels As nice as my Muslim friends are, its still easy from me to see where Islamophobia comes from. They aren’t all nice, for example: Muhammad of Mecca was a war-lord who took slave-wives from the Jewish/Pagan tribes he _______. And Allah is historically the god of the Moon, as opposed to Christ, which is historically a god of the Sun. Sorry, just trying to keep things balanced and honest here in this little echo chamber. Yeah, truth. It hurts, I know.
Are you alleging this story is a complete fabrication on the part of the news site or the German police? Or alternatively that we discount the plot because the target was just presumably white ‘infidels’? No need to waste any good outrage?
You might reasonably argue that a foiled plot in Europe has little relevance to NZ, and some decades ago this would have been reasonable. But given the ChCh terrorist was clearly radicalised in Europe, and given that many have pointed to the internet as having eliminated distance when it comes to psychological connections and threat … then evidence pointing out that the radical Islamic threat is as alive as ever is pertinent.
Of course this would be nothing more than a tiresome ‘whattaboutism’ if I was attempting to justify ChCh because say Bali. Quite the contrary, all extremists start as a tiny pathological minority, their core strategy, their only hope for victory entirely rests on escalating the atrocities, forcing more and more people to ‘choose sides’ and participate in the conflagration they so deeply desire … and that I openly condemn.
I am very happy that the police did manage to take this group out before they could do any harm.
and did you see, names were named, locations were named, and everyone gets to read about it. Transparency is needed if we want to prevent this from happening. The public is needed to help prevent these types of terrorist attacks.
the only difference between this plot and the attack on March 15th is that we in NZ we kind of expected an attack by Muslims, or basically had been conditioned to expect a terror attack by Muslims, and much to our surprise it was a white average guy with average looks, average heights, average intelligence and a bit more then average access to funds.
Cold-hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colours from our sight
Red is grey and yellow, white
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion
Is it ironic …. that in the usa it takes a black Somali refugee to stick up for the people of Venezuela … and call out the death squad activity s of the people Trump has appointed to ‘deal with’ Venezuela ???
Is it coincidence … when she talks of the biggest buyers of influence over us democracy …. and their Govts foreign policy …. she gets attacked as anti-Semite ???
“Congressional Democrats are attempting to discipline Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar for speaking critically about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) — and more generally in defense of Palestinian rights — after smearing her as “anti-Semitic.” This comes at the same time that Omar, one of the only Muslim representatives in Congress, has been targeted for death threats and Islamophobic propaganda likening her to those who carried out the 9/11 attacks.” https://socialistworker.org/2019/03/06/jews-stand-against-the-smearing-of-ilhan-omar
“An Islamophobic sign made by the Republican Party of West Virginia and falsely linking the congresswoman to the 9/11 attacks was posted at the Capitol. The same party accusing Omar of perpetuating anti-Semitic myths felt it was completely appropriate to do the same to Muslims.”
See the usa heartland hate directed against her on twitter
“BDS is a non-violent movement calling on governments and corporations to exert financial pressure on Israel in an effort to recognize the rights of Palestinians. The campaign draws parallels to the South African anti-apartheid movement.
McCarthy has decried Omar and Tlaib’s support for BDS as anti-Semitic, attributing their opposition to the nation-state of Israel to anti-Jewish bigotry.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, has defended BDS as constitutionally protected free speech. ”
Ilhan Omar seems like a a nice human …..the same as those murdered in christchurch ….. who you smear and fear-monger against.
People can read Ilhan Omars words …. and compare them to yours shradlophobe …. once more you will look very very ugly.
Your argument appears to be dishonest hate …. do you have a gun license ?
Your usa comrades of dishonest Islamophobia hate speach pollute her twitter .
“We all know what your doing. The same thing that has been done in NZ, UK, SWITZERLAND, BRUSSELS and Germany. Remember this: Land of the Free and Home of the Brave Sharia Law will NOT happen in the USA! ”
Which Palestinians? Jewish Palestinians? Samaritan Palestinians? Arab Palestinians? And since when? Since the Arab invasion of modern Israel hours after it was formed? Or for the thousands of years of Jewish rule back to the twin kingdoms?
So. If in New Zealand we drove Maori into Northland, walled them off, and bombed them at intervals, that would be fine.
Because “God told us we owned the land”. FFS.
In the aftermath of a world incident massacre in New Zealand, the shill media is peddling some good ole eugenics connotative ”news”, isn’t that strange.
Hey, are you still supporting NZF? I noticed Garner & Richardson this morning opining that Winston was past it & ought to retire due to wimping out of presenting our nation strongly to the Turkish leader & people. What do you think of that?
A jet-lagged Winson Peters was caught not only napping, but back-pedalling during an urgent trip to Istanbul, which was supposed to sort Erdogan out over his use of the graphic footage of the Christchurch terrorist attacks.
Instead of confronting Erdogan, Peters admitted he hadn’t questioned the president over the footage because he didn’t think it was going to be shown again. But only a few hours after his bilateral meeting with Erdogan, the video was rescreened at an Erdogan political rally.
Peters defended his conciliatory tone by implying that, in the early days following the terrorist attacks, some “misinterpretation” may have occurred. Peters was referring to Erdogan’s allegations that Anzac soldiers were anti-Muslim, and the Turkish president’s threat, that anyone attacking Turkey would be sent home in coffins, like their grandfathers.
Now that the Mueller report has found not enough evidence for a conspiracy between Donald Trump and the Russian government, we can get on with sifting through the best candidate to beat him on his performance, and on Democratic policies.
“The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” the special counsel wrote in his findings.
As expected by me. Leftist hallucinations will need to focus on the Maduro justification program now. Falsifications of history just don’t seem to be working.
Was that a two for one post dennis ? …. you should have stuck to just Trump …. then you wouldn’t be bullshitting with your left stereotypes.
So Ilhan Omar was spouting ” Leftist hallucinations ” about war criminal Eliot Abrams ….. who while in the Reagan Govt played a crucial role in propping up murderous south American dictators …. as well as the Contra death squads in Nicaragua…..
Abrams also helped perpetrate the cover up of the El Mozote massacre … where even the children were killed and raped
Evil History you dennis never refer to …. when spouting Trump /Abrams made in the usa bullshit about ” Leftist ” Venezuela ………
Tell us all Dennis …… is Maduro as evil as Trump /Abrams…….. and past usa south American policy ….since forever
Or is that fantasy crap … spouted by a anti Semite back Muslim Somalian refugee woman not fit to live in the usa.
Your always rooting for the good guys …. eh dennis ??????
“USAID had trained over 100,000 of Brazil’s police in the dark arts of rule-by-terror; another 600 Brazilian police were brought to the US for special USAID training in explosives and interrogation techniques.
Brazil’s military dictatorship murdered or disappeared hundreds of dissidents, and tortured and jailed thousands more. Among those tortured: a Marxist student named Dilma Rousseff, arrested in 1970 and subjected to beatings to her face that distorted her dental ridge, and electrical shocks from car batteries, resulting in the hemorrhaging of her uterus. Today, Rousseff is Brazil’s president — and she’s not too happy about the NSA tapping her phones.”
Mitrione taught local police specialized forms of electroshock torture, introducing wires so thin they could fit between the teeth and gums. He also demonstrated drugs that induced violent vomiting fits, and advised on psychological tortures, such as playing tapes of a woman and child screaming in a room next to the interrogation room, and telling the detainee those are his wife and child. And it was all done under the aegis of USAID.”
“According to Victoria Sanford’s “Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala,” USAID programs supported the death squads as they carried out the genocide:”
etc etc
See if you can be more honest than Gosman Dennis …..
What would happen to the NZ economy if we were labeled a hostile state to the usa …and received the sanctions / cut of from international finance treatment …. that the usa has been giving Venezuela …. since Chavez kept winning all those elections …. after the failed usa backed coup to remove him.
Are you denying such actions against us ……would 100% make our economy shit itself and die ???
Try and be more honest than Gosman or wayne mapp now ……………….
Is whataboutism really such a thrilling experience? You think blog commentators don’t routinely ignore straw men? Wise up. Some of us were alienated from supporting US foreign policy long before you were in nappies – exactly for those reasons you listed.
If nobody was warning us about the stuff you compiled, I’d be doing it. I’ve moved on. Now I prefer to focus on leftist evil-doers because many leftists are in denial of that. Someone has to blow the whistle. I agree the Trump regime is bad news. Hilary would have been worse – most politically aware commentators know that now.
My personal stance on the prospect of yank invasion of Venezuela is that it has no moral basis, therefore I oppose it. However, there’s a tipping point that applies: if the other countries in the region agree to support it, the notion acquires some validity. Not enough for me to support it, but enough to get me neutral. If the targeted killing of the Venezuelan people by the Maduro regime escalates to the tipping point, I will join others in support of the victims.
My personal stance on the prospect of yank invasion of Venezuela is that it has no moral basis, therefore I oppose it. However, there’s a tipping point that applies:
“However”… is a fancy way of saying ….’ but’ … dennis
But is the word you use when you are being insincere
I apologize BUT
I didn’t mean to hit you honey … But
And from me …. I would believe you dennis … But you keep repeating usa propaganda….. ie” the victims of Maduro”
Instead of talking about coup justifying tipping points …. why didn’t you just admit you thought Abrams may not be as evil as Maduro.
As part of your ongoing coup justification and leftist slandering program.
No ifs or buts about it … imo your a bullshitting weasel dennis ….no better than gosman or wayne mapp.
“If nobody was warning us about the stuff you compiled, I’d be doing it. I’ve moved on. Now I prefer to focus on leftist evil-doers”
The first bits bullshit ….” I’d be doing it” ….
And you admit to being one eyed in your ” focus on leftist evil-doers”
To which I’d add unbalanced, biased, spreader of Trump / Abrams dishonest rhetoric …. have you ever mentioned the Venezuelan victims of the usa actions in Venezuela ??? … or just those of Maduro.
I seem to recall you as an Islamophobe in the Wayne mapp mold …. could you direct me to anything positive you have ever said about Muslims / Afghanistan people / Libya etc.
If he was really a ruthless dictator, do you think Guido, and the right wing thugs behind him, who have already attempted an armed coup, would still be alive.
Hell, most of them haven’t even been arrested.
Even the accusation of blowing up food trucks turned out to be fake news. Though I wouldn’t have blamed his supporters, given the US history of aid, with guns in it.
frankly i prefer a range of people running – knowing that many will peter out soon enough, compared to the RNC who literally is advocating for no one to run but the orange colored vulgarian.
Mr. Pete Buttigieg is a long shot, but if he can change the discourse – as a vet, a mid westerner, white working class male, as a man living in a same sex marriage etc then i can’t see the issue with that.
The more people – all of us – see men like Pete Buttigieg, the more it becomes normal. The same can be said of women running for president. Or men and women of color.
i think it is good, and i can’t see how a dog can do more damage then the orange colored vulgarian. I mean some carpets might suffer, some furniture might suffer, but people?
My preference is premature to be honest there’s a lot of people I’ve only looked at a few and even then I don’t really know anything. but I got a feeling about Pete, he seems like the real deal.
“We will continue to fight for this, for the safety of our children, for the safety of our lands, for the safety of our Muslim whānau, and all communities of colour.”
One of the things that can help bring us all together is appreciating each others’ culture and that may start with the music – perhaps Womad is a good example.
Here is a link from a Japanese man brought up in NZ and he learned the Maori song E Papa which he finds soothing for his baby. His wife asked him to write down the words and he has in Japanese Katakana. Singing E Papa has made him think of certain similarities in the languages. http://www.hikosaemon.com/2010/02/new-zealand-maori-folk-songs-as.html
Here is a link about E Papa and shows how it would be performed for a public display, clever and everyone enjoying themselves. http://folksong.org.nz/epapa/
Thanks grey was lovely to listen to that waiata again, been ages since I heard or sang it. Womad is awesome and yes a great model. Haven’t been myself but lots of friends go.
I’m pleased that you like it. Now I have had another thought. I have just seen Alan Duff’s book 50 Maori Heroes. Have you seen this? It was one of Duffs Books in Homes series. Would it be helpful for work you are doing to have this to show young people but particularly Maori, what others have done with their natural talents and skills as a reminder that they have their own abilities?
Shame that you had to tack that on to my comment which was meant to be in the positive patch. We don’t need to have something negative tacked on to everything we discuss. There are more negative things in the present than positive. Let’s try to build on positive steps to a better
future.
Reading this, I wondered why I had never heard of Rangiaowhia – then thought, maybe I have, and dismissed it as not true as it destroys the illusion of our ‘civil society.’
The bubble is convenient to live in, it has moonbeams and lambs (for export).
“Rangiaowhia for example, where u the crown attacked an unarmed village full of women, children & elderly – the men were away (& the crown knew this)… you burned their homes so they fled to shelter in Saint Paul’s, a church of a religion u taught us. As we/they huddled in the church – no doubt praying, u the crown nailed the door shut and set the building on fire. While it burned full of people, u the crown stood outside & shot any1 who tried to evacuate, some of them were on fire – don’t fucking say “it’s unprecedented”. For our combined benefit please learn our/your history so we feel included.”
For obvious reasons the discourse around hate in NZ society is focused on racism, and to a degree religion. But let’s also not forget about the other forms of hate that have been actively encouraged in our country over the last 30 years (note the timing) as part of the great divide and conquer campaign mostly by political interests, and with the full support of mainstream media.
*Beneficiary bashing. Especially popular with right ring politicians when they need to distract the populus from some scandal. The rest of the time, any means possible to turn anyone working against anyone who needs benefit assistance for whatever reason. Thankfully we haven’t quite reached the extreme situation as in the UK where the tabloid press created an atmosphere of disability related hate crimes based on the idea that “all disabled are bludgers”. Readesr here are well aware of the consequences of bashing in the NZ context, and it has contributed to suicides.
* Hate landlords/hate tenants. This has been one the medias been having fun with for the last few years since the housing crisis really took hold. Lets keep finding examples of extreme situations and publishing them, then open the comments sections. Improve standards for rentals? Play the property investors off against struggling tenants. Play the struggling tenants off against the slumlords. be unable to report the actual situation without resorting to hyperbole. Scare a lot of people in the meantime.
*Class warfare. Encourage each tax/wage bracket to resent the next one either above or below them because they either get more money that they do, or pay less tax. And in the case of minimum wage workers, get them to hate beneficiaries for getting well paid to live a cushy life while you’re slugging your guts out and still can’t pay the bills.
All of the above is hate. We’re probably all guilty of one of these at some point, and probably because of a reaction to something we read online, or heard in the media. Are people likely to get physically hurt over it? Well they have, as I’ve said in example one. Words can be lethal when you’re exposed to them often enough.
We’ve let ourselves become victims of this political divide and rule game, probably without realising. So now that at least some of us have clicked on, while we can do our best not to participate in the game, how do we stop it altogether? Politicians here are going to be bloody careful from now on talking about topics like immigration. But it’s only a matter of time before they start reverting to type with encouraging this type of hate.
and we need to start talking about us and how we get manipulated in ‘hating’ the other.
I am less worried abut the politicians (we view them through the lens of Party Manifesto which generally are public) then i am about talk radio, certain opinion writers that seem to be given a rather large mega phone when bashing certain groups and then go silent when shit hits the fan (how many editorial did Hoskins write last week?) , and the training of our police and security forces that seem also to be a one way street only myopic look upon the world.
thank you for saying so much better what i would like to say.
‘Manipulated’- that’s the word I was after, thank you Sabine 🙂 And I totally agree about the media opinion- or should that be ‘clickbait’- writers. It may have been politicians who initially lit the flame but the media can take the blame for the spreading.
I’ve just noticed something interesting on Stuff on my laptop- the up/down votes have been removed in the comments section. Cant see on my phone because an update won’t let me open comments at all (probably not a bad thing!). Anyone else notice this? If so, maybe this is a very small silver lining from recent events, Stuff finally getting the message on that particular issue.
Most NZers do not bear witness to what is happening to our society…. and our media generally misinforms us.
Bearing pressure to reverse the wrongs and injustices is the next challenge.
It would be a great tribute to those murdered in christchurch if they were the lightning rod for a surge of inspiration …. giving traction and momentum …. in our quest to regain our humanity ….
A kind of reverse shock doctrine …. where our terrorist mass murders disaster, is used for good……
Putting us firmly on the path to roll back the wrongs legislated for by our bad politicians. …. who pandered to and encouraged hate, racism, greed, war, exploitation and other injustices in our society.
The alternative is we continue our race to the bottom.
Kay
Your comment has a lot of stuff in to deeply think about. Really good points. Has anyone noticed that the negativism/divide between different POV has deepened in the last week or so? I am feeling sad about that, as well as the shooting tragedy.
It’s a double tragedy when people start carping at each other and reaching for the sneering and deriding lever as an automatic reaction.
Grey, can’t say I’ve noticed that sort of thing, but very sad if you’ve experienced it. If anything, in my area I’ve noticed more people smiling at strangers in the street and in the supermarkets than usual. What have you noticed in particular?
I’m referring to what I have noticed on this blog and on another as well.
In the street I think people generally are wanting to create a friendly and connected-community approach.
Me using bad language and having zero tolerance for proliferation of terrorist materials and ideas.
Also, me using bad language after politely asking people not to micromanage me and others.
Also. Me.
I am proud to have stood up to these mealy mouthed types, (GWS is not a creep is a good person who only means well). I hate fighting but I will not lie down and play doormat. I am also quite open to apologizing for MY part.
I feel I owe you an apology as your intentions are good, despite your annoying the hell out of me constantly picking at my and others language. This detracts from their messages and makes it about your feelings. That’s what angers me, trying to discuss terrorism and you are upset I said f***.
Recall that I also asked politely before that for you to leave me alone. I am not the names you’ve called me.
GWS I’m sorry I cussed you out. If you can refrain from being pedantic about my language I will refrain from directing it at you.
Sorry WtB I wasn’t even thinking of you. You try to think your way through the problems as so many do here.
There are many though with nothing but short, nasty little jabs to the body and mind and who seem to have nothing but negativity and hostility whatever is suggested towards finding an answer. The suggestion of a better approach, reaching for a positive path even if it involves seeing some fault that then needs thought-work. Instead they would have us wallow in unhappiness and fix blame on somebody, and focus on that. Positivity as to ways we can do better is needed, the trolls way means we won’t find a way out to higher ground.
It’s hard to take other’s aggressive jabs without feeling insulted when you’ve campaigned for calm, reason and peace this whole time huh. I hear you, I’m sorry you’ve been exposed to too much crap, and my part must be owned if I am to improve.
There are certainly many trolls and I struggle not to rise to them. It is my estimate, judging by how most of them argue online (regurgitate foul memes and exit) that most are kids directed by nasty adults.
Kids sense of humor can be largely ‘unrefined’, to put it mildly. But do they learn it from their elders? It carries on to adulthood e.g.
When you go to raw (wannabe comics) nights in comedy clubs there’s lots of really dumb stuff adult people (on stage, and a small part of adult audiences) think is funny. Racism, sexism, etc. The new comic often thinks a joke is a punching down as practised at school. Some people come out of the gates ready for stardom (nuanced idiocy), but that is rare – See Rhys Matthewson.
The comedian trolls their audience, but (one would hope) not with spite.
Internet trolling is schoolyard level wit with evil adult supervision. Those who know what they’re doing, and their gullible cling-ons.
There’s also a lot of pain that has simmered beneath the surface for a long time for a lot of people. And it is coming out sideways. I’ve barely kept it together. The voluntary work and assistance of others the past few days has brought me back to Earth – that place I love. It is difficult to describe how being minimised or the brunt of ‘jokes’ your whole life feels, much easier to throw a finger in the air, and stamp feet loudly.
Absolutely justified and understood. Uncomfortable, yes.
I’m very relieved we’re able to extend olive branches here, it weighed heavily on me that we’d fallen out.
With you there WTB. This one still amazes me, given the well known statistic of 1 in 5 (or is it 4) NZers live with some type of disability. Everyone in this country knows someone with something and they’d be lying if they said otherwise. One would think on this occasion our village size would offer more compassion- it’s not like the bad old days where anyone with an obvious disability was locked away out of sight; mainstreaming is commonplace at most schools so children now grow up knowing that there is variety to the human spectrum, although their parents didn’t so much- there was a tiny bit of mainstreaming just starting at my high school mid-1980s.
Yet, there are those in our society who for whatever warped ideological idea think that we’re a drain on society (sound familiar?) just because a little extra help/adjustment is needed to participate in society, or a benefit is needed because working is impossible. And they’ve somehow learned to ‘hate’ the fact their hard earned taxes are propping up non-economic units. Not that those words will ever be used specifically, but they’re there when you read between the lines.
Governments fall over themselves to say there will always be some people who do need benefits (ie severely ill/disabled) and they they have no problem with that, so their supporters think they’re only going to attack solo mums and those feckless unemployed, not realising welfare ‘reforms’ have made life even worse for disabled. But the supporters have been so well trained to hate on beneficiaries it makes no difference to them. As I mentioned in my original post, I’m just extremely relieved that disabled here haven’t been experiencing the vicious physical and other abuse (now classed as hate crimes) as is happening in the UK. One hopes we are better than that, but also have to call out anyone on this .
You missed the hate towards all farmers from vegans and segments of the left.
Go back to the standard archives for 6 months leading up to the last election if you doubt me.
Valid point. I prefer to attack their (destructive) methods unless they arrive here and get personal then I’ll have at em. Sometimes I go over the top and say stuff that isn’t fair.
I’m also an avid cheerleader when they get it right. I want to help Farmers in the inevitable transition coming.
Some do love to hate em for the sole reason they’re ‘Dairy’ though. 😀
A world without cheese, would it be worth living in?
If it’s a choice between frying the planet and me giving up cheese, well, sorry planet. It’s not even close.
But I’d be quite happy for the cheese to be made from from an engineered mix of proteins, fats, sugars etc produced in vats by engineered microbes, rather than what’s squeezed from cows immediately downhill from their sewage outfalls.
bwaghorn
Do you think that farmers are that vulnerable that they feel they are helpless and disabled? It doesn’t seem an equivalence comparing farmers problems, most brought about by themselves, to those who have congenital problems, or drug problems – there could be some farmers disabled from alcohol I suppose.
I know it causes deterioration and booze and rural males have gone together for a long while.
You been down south ? They pretty inbred down there. !!!
But seriously you seem to be fine with hating on people as long as they are fortunate enough to be wealthy . ?
It took about 5 minutes, before unthinking stereotyping of the mentally Ill started.
With those doing it seemingly blissfully unaware of their repetition of bias.
“Othering” is used to hide or justify cruelty all the time. It is habitual with Politicians, and their useful idiot mouthpieces, normalising policies which harm many people.
The repeated falsehoods about those on welfare, for one.
I bet this guy would the first to complain about not getting a handout when something goes wrong within his industry aka M Boivs or a outbreak of foot and mouth when farmers haven’t or couldn’t comply with the law or complain about reduced public funding services like education, health, MPI, Trade or the lack of Police action over cattle/ sheep rustling etc.
How much profit does NZ actually get from tourism, when we have so many tourists that actually spoil the attractive aspects of the country, damage it and move on while we have to restore it, cause congestion and difficulties in remote parts of the country (man died after vehicle fell to the left while trying to make way for a large van on narrow rough road). Now quad bike riders needing aid. People have to turn their lives inside out to rescue these people. https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/385481/quad-bike-deaths-tour-group-did-not-have-permission-to-be-on-land-owner
And this is on top of a heavy cost rescuing sports and outdoor enthusiasts who fail
to cope with the conditions; have accidents in remote places and find that they aren’t the all purpose supermen they thought they were. And then they need medical care. https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/111503965/nelson-marlborough-rescue-helicopter-crew-has-busy-morning
(Four callouts kept the Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter in the air on Saturday. A 45 year old man on a motorbike, another up a mountain had a
medical event, two more motorbike riders from the same area as the first.)
Perhaps user pays needs to be brought in for such situations. Those that can afford to bikes and play in the backblocks can pay for the facilities from the Nanny State, when it shows how necessary it is for them to have a Nanny State that cares and serves the people. New slogan for tax – Play and pay. Then we might have more money for providing better standards for the low income, and maintain the services we need for all such as hospitals.
And we need to respond with intelligence to the obvious – we have too many tourists. The people of this country need to take it back into their own hands again and not keep voting in a government that doesn’t care about anything except high house prices. No wonder Labour Coalition is struggling to get stuff done.
For so long previous governments have bent over backwards to advance some, and diminish others, and the people who convince themselves we are doing well haven’t looked at the immoral way that appearance has been achieved , and the economically dangerous cost yet to present its final bill. But blame Labour, don’t think about details. Easy-peasy go-for of the fashionable scapegoat from people who believe in magic, with the mindset of Carroll’s mad White Queen who could believe in six impossible things before breakfast and who also is in a time-warp – ‘The White Queen lives backwards in time’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Queen_(Through_the_Looking-Glass)
I guess it would another impossible thing for responsible people around government to understand arithmetic when it comes to tax and our complete economy; The different branches of Arithmetic — Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. Alice in Wonderland.
Wellington Bus services – oh dear. Rates City and Regional – oh dear, dearer, dearest?
Scoop – http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=117243 It’s been a bad week for the Regional Council. (The one that refers to itself as “Greater Wellington.”) It had to deal with scores of unplanned bus cancellations, and there was derision at its request to be told what’s wrong with its bus services. Then came its announcement that it was increasing the rates by 6.5 per cent, which was quickly followed by the discovery of something it had chosen not to mention: for Wellington city the increase was to be much more than that.
Much much more. If you had the time and the patience to read the 144 page agenda for this week’s meeting, you discovered a table which revealed that the rates increases in Wellington were planned to be more than 16 per cent.
Hard to reconcile that proposal with the later statement from chair Chris Laidlaw who said “It’s been our consistent position that we must minimise the impact of rates on regional ratepayers.” Perhaps he overlooked the 16 per cent in the 144 pages of information.
From the people who brought you the Wgtn bus fiasco… we have the latest Wellington thrill ride! Bus routes 31 and 36.
Personally I can’t wait to shit myself as we hurtle through the Haitaitai tunnel in a Double Decker within centimeters of the tunnel wall. We can amuse ourselves further by making bets about whether or not we come out the other end unscathed.
Testing had been going on since before Christmas. He confirmed a double-decker “grazed” the tunnel side in testing.
A range of safety features such as red cat’s eye and bollards had been installed to help the drivers stay on the correct line through the tunnel.
“There’s definitely margin for error. We wouldn’t be employing buses that weren’t safe,” he said.
That margin of error was 37cm at the tightest point but it opened out to 41cm he said.
But Tramways Union secretary Kevin O’Sullivan said that, from the top corners of the bus to the edge of the tunnel, there was just 30cm of clearance.
Nick Focas, who lives in Pirie St, near the Mount Victoria end of the tunnel, had seen one of the trial double-deckers going through.
Feasibility Study concludes Sustainable Agriculture can feed Europe.
Why is this good news – climate change. We don’t want to stop the planet overheating us just to starve… Diets will move to more plant based consumption, but not wholly vegetarian.
It’s a large document so here’s a few sound bites.
“The idea of an entirely agroecological Europe is often considered unrealistic in terms of food security because agroecology sometimes means lower yields. But this new research shows that by refocusing diets around plant-based proteins and pasture-fed livestock, a fully agroecological Europe is possible.”
“Pesticide-hungry intensive production is not the only way to feed a growing population. This study shows that agroecological and organic farming can feed Europe a healthy diet, while responding to climate change, phasing out pesticides, and maintaining vital biodiversity.”
“This is the first component of a foresight exercise that will successively deal with the socioeconomic challenges and the policy levers for an agro-ecological transition.”
Europe is around 500 million people, so this is a big deal. Here’s hoping they take notice.
I’m getting this strong feeling that you are trying your hardest to duck that debate I challenge you to the other day, was looking forward to it. Any time you want to get off these low tier assumptions and challenge your self I would be more than willing to accomodate your needs. Just say my name and I’ll sharpen my pencil while you chit chat.
I don’t see the purpose of this blog as a playground for the bored or hungry intellect…As times get harder and quality input becomes more valuable the jaunty jester will be a disadvantage,
Well I think gobbys attitude is questionable and your one word answer is laughable. Do you even realize European farmers receive 40c-60c in the dollar from the government, mess with that and European agriculture stops being a thing. I’d love to see you try and get that past Brussels mr funny man.
Funny you’d ask. I’d assumed the more hetro normative guys would have turned and run at the thought of packing me with all the meat, nice of you to inquire though. You’d be surprised how much meat I can handle, more than willing to come back for more.
Really? You were surprised to be asked? It was a pretty obvious question, begging to be asked, I thought. And it remains unanswered, at least so far as I can discern. Why the demeaning name-calling, I ask a second time?
Yeah well, no homo of course. Gobby interested me when she started leaving these strange comments underneath mine so I inquired a bit to see if there was some logic or reason behind her little quibbles and she didn’t want to give it up so I challenged her to a debate and she hasn’t replied back since. Been ducking me ever since and Iv lost all respect for the thing and I’m not about to second guess myself.
Handle all the meat you like sambimbo and if you do it in private nobody will bother. But if you go round in public waving your floppy meat in people’s faces I’m saying OI! SAMBIMBO! NAO! That might pass muster in the gents at the young nats xmas disco, but it won’t fly around here.
I’m more of a pay a teppanyaki chef to cook it up for me kind of guy. What I was implying is that I’m unafraid to debate controversial topics. That you could make that about young nays and Christmas disco proves how ideologically driven you are.
I can say more with one word than you can with lots of puff. If you have a point about European farmers and subsidies or whatever say so.
Instead you have to wrap it up in a mud pie to throw at someone. Kids have kinder toys that they break open to get at the contents. We grown ups shouldn’t have to search yours to get the gist, not your attempt at tantalisation. That’s your weakness. Mine is fitting the situation to a song which you can listen to if you choose.
Apparently people like you and gobby misunderstand what I say or mean and here you are again advancing more retarded arguments after getting stomped last time.
So you want to @me about a topic you feel strong on, pfft, that’s fine, nig I was born hungry. I’ll come to your place, I’ll slap you, it ain’t nothing.
So I’m going to start at just after WW1 so 1919-1939 the price of food droped to all most nothing, because during the war farmers, farmed as much land as possable.
This made the price of food go down to nothing, force the farmers to farm even more land, starting a vitious cycle. Many farms could not keep up and went under, this contined until they’d farmed the land so completly that not even grass would grow. So eventally their were great areas of Europe covered with dead dirt fields.
So now the European Union has to burn approx. 25 – 40% of its surplus agricultural produce a year (differing between different areas). That is because they have nothing to do it with. The burning of surplus is part of the plan to keep the prices high as to prevent another Dust Bowl cyle of price fall, heavy farming and then great amounts of dead over farmed land, wich would fuel another Dust Bowl.
So, would you like another slap or are you fine with this one. I have to do it like this by putting the nuts and bolts in the middle because the regulars around here and especially authors and super moderators are especially insecure and emotional when ever I point out well hey look, this this and this is wrong for this this and this reason, perhaps you might want to correct yourself and then it all comes out, it’s all but what about muh feelings and reasons. So if you want another slap then @me I’d be happy to explain more to you.
“Losing encourages children to reflect on their actions and attitudes.”
I’d be too embarrassed/cowardly to simply demand/suggest that another commenter here “concede” – not on a blog. And certainly not in real life. But I concede that might just be me.
“Concede and we can keep discussing.”
thestandard.org.nz/bad-the-michael-jackson-hysteria/#comment-1591948
“Was debating towards tolerance and peace. You toke the opposing side. Concede.”
thestandard.org.nz/the-trouble-with-hate-speech/#comment-1596194
“Prove it. Edit: Prove that I’m doing a good job or concede.”
thestandard.org.nz/the-trouble-with-hate-speech/#comment-1595692
“Don’t have to question me about who you decide is friend or foe. Concede.”
thestandard.org.nz/the-trouble-with-hate-speech/#comment-1595993
“Do you concede?”
thestandard.org.nz/daily-review-05-03-2019/#comment-1590935
“Do you want that form or do you concede?”
thestandard.org.nz/mafs-national-style/#comment-1589934
“You ducking or did you concede earlier?”
thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-25-02-2019/#comment-1587728
“Fine. If you want to change the subject then you concede.”
thestandard.org.nz/kim-hill-eviscerates-chris-christie-on-national-radio/#comment-1589906
So you’d like to start a little deviation to prove how virtuous and reserved you are. I mean fine, what ever floats your boat. That you start out by repeating what I said before and listed it nicely and all is really nice, I guess. All though deviating from my point that Brussels is so large and slow to react is like death to utopian dreamers imagining some European permaculture utopia. I mean no one has to try that hard to show how stupid that is so I guess it’s understandable why you’re starting out the way you did.
Yeah, I take conssesions. Normies who can’t handle an argument directly is no way to objectively access whether one argument is stronger than another. That’s why I take conssesions when people try and weasel there way out of making false claims or statements or are just being ideologicalay driven. If you want to lose to that well that’s just a stupid strategy. The sign of a true master is when the student surpasses the master, that’s not losing at all, being magnanimous in defeat is great mentoring, not losing. If you want a right of reply to promote the virtues of losing by all means, fill ya boats.
Been waiting for you to pick a topic and starting point for days but you keep on acting dumb about it. I just want to take you on at your overwhelming best but you seem to be a bit shy it. Like I said. So choose your strongest subject. I don’t want any excuses like oh, I didn’t research enough. I just want to debate really strong talkers.
Why you being so evasive sambimbo? Come ON. Research is for high school babies. You forgotten that explaining is losing? Put your money where your meat is.
Fine. So you want to replace the language of explaining with the language of training for different principles and for different goals and you began that by asking me to acknowledge your presence and you’d talk about a kind of soft vigilance that’s conducive to a particular insight that you discuss. This kind of involvement is indicative to and being deeply interested in the structural functional organisation of something and not that that’s taking you into paying attention. And all the while remembering to get the correct tuning and optimization, for awhile now I’v been talking about attention and my argument is attention is not very well served by your spotlight metaphors. While attention to your spotlight metaphors does give attention to alternate salience your metaphors misses a lot of what attention is doing.
So I began by investigating what attentions you are missing with the idea that attention isn’t a direct action you do to being physically alert to threats, it’s something you do to modify something else. That’s why you can successfully pay attention to something else by saying many desperate and different kinds of things, you can pay attention by optimising words into different meanings, and by optimising your hearing into listening, and by optimising your seeing and listening into a coordinated tracking of what some one is saying like what you are doing right now.
All those are different ways of paying attention so what is needed is a different understanding of paying attention that can captures an optimisation strategy and aligns and tunes your ideas about how something might be linked to a response to existential model confusion and the elevation of the suffering there in.
So now that I’v put what in think you’re doing into words I’ll predict that you’re about to restart your premiss, do you agree?
honestly if Europe could produce organically, humanly all the food to feed its own population it would be great.
and in saying that, it would probably help food poor regions as they rather then export what little they grow for cash can actually keep their food for themselves.
a bit like here in NZ where many people actually can’t afford milk, butter, cream, cheese and yet we are a high yield producing dairy country with all the mess that comes with industrial dairy production.
We would need to preserve a trade in food though if only so that poor countries could sell so they could buy needed goods from more developed countries.
i.e. south of europe has a different growing season then mainland Europe and northern Europe.
so the exchange of goods or the trade of goods would manifest naturally as it did all throughout history.
surplus would always get either stored or traded. And if one is clever enough to change raw materials in a finished product……there is ample opportunity for trade.
Gabby. You can’t make that comment without reading the report. And if you read the report you would not be making that comment.
On the whole we’ve produced excess all through my lifetime. It’s not production that’s the problem, it’s (fair) distribution. Many countries grow lots of food while their people go hungry. The food goes on a world cruise, then winds up in a skip bin.
Thanks. I miss his thundering comments full of explanations of capitalistic faults. Which I have thought about and agree with but can’t see how it would be changed. It seemed that some of the peeps here might have been ambushing him.
but then, do we really want to have this conversation?
This is the REAL conversation we need to have as a country.
As horrific as this president is, he is a symptom of much deeper problems.
Even foreign influence plays on nat’l wounds that we refuse to address: income inequality, racism, corruption,a willingness to excuse bigotry. https://t.co/wtebX4Tfld
Dear Folk, my apologies for challenging ye all in these challenging times, may I express my respect and empathy for your perspectives.
Here is my concrete point: What the fake video means, is that this wasn’t a lone-wolf attack. That is all I’m saying.
Officially its a “terror attack”, so guess the police etc are obliged to conceal facts in the name of national security. Like, don’t alarm the people by saying, “attackers where networked with who-knows-what…” Or have I got that wrong?
What I find concerning is global media coverage that has nothing to go on other than that fake video eg. NYTimes. Which all dribbles into either blind assumptions, or at best that BS manifesto.
Guess we will never know the truth regarding who did it and why, I’m sure the censorship etc has been world-class. But the public will be happy to hear that that patsy with the buzz-word manifesto was alone responsable, and most of us will get back to our busy lives, full of austerity, in a highly destabilised world, well over-due for a complete financial collapse.
(Hey, the Allah moon-god isn’t bad, but can be a bit “tricky” as they say themselves, from the Quran. Note that the Hindu worship the moon god too, but just as one of many gods. Muhammad didn’t much like the Pagan hindu-type (or Jews, same-stuff). Ya see the moon goes in cycles, more of a passive-creative governance, which does have limits regarding access to spiritual freedoms and full comprehension of spritial-beauty. The Christian sun-god is more of a constant alignment, connecting purely and positively to The Way, The Light and The Truth. Naturally the Christian churches are far from pure, and not automatically more positively creative than the Islamic groups, but that’s the game we live in. Hey, I welcome folk to correct me on detail here, I’m a farmer not a scholar, but the truth is approximately as above (so-below) 🙂
One of the themes that runs through all fascist ideologies is one of ‘victimhood’.
Sometimes this ‘victimhood’ is based on some real perceived grievance. Sometimes it is based on pure myth. Most times it is a mix of both.
The German nazis played up on the so called ‘Stab in the back’ – the allies taking advantage of the mass democratic anti-war revolt that overthrew the Kaiser, and ended the First World War, to take advantage of the weakened German state to extract crippling reparations, while painting Germany as the main aggressor in that international imperial conflict. Mixed with mythology of a so called suppressed Aryan culture and race.
Some real go-no-where half-truths there Jenny. It would be not less true for me to say “Rhodes and King George where instrumental in getting WW1 rolling”, “WW1 never ended, it just deadlocked and took a 20year timeout for another generation of children to reach fighting age.” I’ve also no real message to my story above, expect perhaps to hint that the only real truth is empathy. Empathy is the Truth.
“WW1 never ended, it just deadlocked and took a 20year timeout for another generation of children to reach fighting age.”
corodale
Indeed.
Not just the German nazis were unhappy with the Armistice, the ruling elites of the other warring powers were also unhappy with Armistice, and would have preferred to continue the slaughter to achieve a definitive victory. What stopped the other warring powers continuing the slaughter, and which forced them to the negotiating table, were the mass mutinies and fraternisation among front line troops, admittedly beginning on the German side, but not exclusively. The greatest fear of the allied powers was that if they continued to prosecute the war, the mass soldier and sailor revolts could spread to the allied forces.
What was needed to continue the war, was an ultra-nationalist movement, that could engender and then exploit a feeling of victimhood.
ar·mi·stice
[ ahr-m uh-stis]
NOUN
1. a temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement of the warring parties; truce: World War I ended with the armistice of 1918.
Related Question: What are the synonyms for armistice?
Which takes me back to my original point; that what is common to all fascists is their exaggerated and mostly false claims of victimhood, by some hated minority, who usually have nothing at all to do with the claimed victimhood of the fascists.
….Members of the secretive ‘Dominion Movement’, who hide their identities online, have deleted posts and Facebook accounts touting their message.
The group has previously claimed to be growing across the country, “bound by blood” and unwilling to surrender New Zealand to “immigrant masses”…..
…..”They profess to be standing up for victims, they see themselves as victims of a grand conspiracy … but of course you then have off-shoots going off and doing violent things….
….A common thread in the group’s material, still visible on a cached version of the website, is a shared sense of victimhood and sought “rebirth of traditional Kiwi society” – or what amounts to a white nationalist state.
Here is the speech that Maya Forstater gave at the Woman’s Place UK Women’s Liberation 2020 conference at UCL on February 1st In a recent newsletter she wrote: it was an amazing day (and brilliant to meet so many people in real life). I talked about what makes people and ...
NZ First portrays itself as an anti-establishment party, standing up for "the little guy" (always a guy) against Big Auckland Money and its tool-parties. But it turns out that its secret slush fund is funded by the very people it claims to oppose:Stuff can reveal a longer list of donors ...
Peter TalleyI really don’t envy Jacinda Ardern’s position as Prime Minister of New Zealand. She’s probably got the hardest job in the country. Not only does she have to ensure her own MPs are behaving properly, she has to negotiate with Winston Peters and other NZ First MPs who seem ...
Will She, Or Won't She? Jacinda’s white vestments may look impressive on the cover of the international edition of TIME magazine, but every day Labour’s relationship with Winston Peters and NZ First continues, her ability to go on wearing them back home in New Zealand – without exciting derision – diminishes.IT WAS ...
BAMS survey of 2018 extreme weather The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has published a collection of articles examining unusually extreme weather events of 2018 and connections of those to climate change. These investigations are listed separately below but thanks to the generosity of AMS appear free for ...
Less than two months after China told the WHO there was a problem, a lot has happened. Sadly, deaths, confirmed cases and countries affected are increasing every day. However, on a scientific and medical level, what is going on to contain, cure and prevent this new disease is truly inspirational. ...
From 2015 to 2019 the NSA ran a program of mass surveillance of Americans' domestic communications. It was intrusive, totalitarian, and a collosal waste of money:A National Security Agency system that analyzed logs of Americans’ domestic phone calls and text messages cost $100 million from 2015 to 2019, but yielded ...
I must say that it’s at loggerheads with the inclusive and free society we want to create in New Zealand that one of our largest media outlets, MediaWorks, would allow Hannah Tamaki to perform on their show, Dancing With The Stars.Hannah Tamaki and her husband Brian are after all well-known ...
The media is reporting that an Auckland man has been charged with terrorism. Unfortunately, that's all we know, because all details have been suppressed. Who are they? What are they alleged to have done? Its all secret. There may be good reason for some of this (e.g. protection of the ...
Dr David ChagnéNew Zealand is involved in a US$12.8 million USDA grant to improve the quality of blueberry and cranberry. The four-year project, led by North Carolina State University, is part of the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture Specialty Crop Research Initiative, which funds multi-year, multi-institutional collaborative ...
The Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change book is now available! The book uses cartoons, humor, and critical thinking to expose how and why some people reject climate science. It's now available for sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other book outlets. If you're near the DC area, you're very welcome to ...
by the Council of Disobedient Women When Moana Maniapoto recently lamented that Rachel Stewart was no longer writing for the Herald, political commentator Morgan Godfery was quick to brag on Twitter, like a schoolyard bully, how proud he was of “driving Rachel Stewart from the Herald”. What a contrast Morgan ...
You’re probably aware that the Achievement Standards used to assess senior school students’ learning are being reviewed. Science is one of the ‘pilot’ subjects in this process, where a ‘Subject Expert Group’ has developed 4 draft Science standards¹ (a significant step away from the current 30+, and a response to ...
John MacCormickTo succeed in an unpredictable and changing world, adaptability is the key. Let’s be chameleons. Technology continues to change people’s jobs and work environments. But change so far is not as fast and extensive as some pundits claim. Nor is it as fast and extensive as it needs ...
It seems we can’t even get through a week these days without the National Party's leader, Simon Bridges, making some sort of silly announcement about a policy that doesn’t actually exist.Usually concerning Bridges’ gut instinct and the undoing of whatever the Government has recently announced, National’s reactionary opinions and uncosted ...
Oh look! NZ First's secret slush fund was laundering donations from Talley's:One of the country's biggest fishing companies, Talley's, and its managing director donated nearly $27,000 to the New Zealand First Foundation, which has been bankrolling the New Zealand First Party. The foundation received $26,950 from seafood giant Talley's and ...
Janet Hoek, Richard Edwards, Andrew Waa, Nick Wilson, George ThomsonMinister Jenny Salesa announced the Government’s long-awaited Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Bill on Sunday 23 February. The Bill contains some important provisions as it works to strike a balance between ensuring regulated products are available to ...
Surprisingly enough, one could argue (as I often do) that the day inserted into a leap year is not that we label 29th February, but actually the 24th of February. Here I explain why, briefly. Almost everyone assumes that the day added into February in a leap year is the ...
If you haven’t watched Newsroom’s video showing Oranga Tamariki staff attempting to uplift a newborn baby yet you should do so. Although it's not the worst case as far as interventions go, it’s certainly not a good look for the Government. Because of this controversy there’s been a plethora of ...
Genesis Energy is planning to build the country's biggest PV solar farm:Power generator and retailer Genesis Energy says it is in advanced discussions to build New Zealand's biggest solar farm in northern Waikato. The company, which earlier reported a 15 per cent decline in operating earnings to $167.2 million, said ...
Transport is our second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Any credible effort to reduce emissions to net-zero has to target it. So what is the government doing? Subsidising some of the dirtiest, most inefficient vehicles on the roads:New Zealand's favourite cars - double cab utes - are largely exempt ...
You’ve really got to wonder what the NZ First Party was thinking and drinking last Friday? Not only did they hamstring the Greens by halting one of their main environmental policies, the electric vehicle fee-bate scheme, a policy that the public was led to believe was a done deal…but they ...
High Risk Call: Insensitive though it may seem to even pose the question: how will the electorate respond to what the Prime Minister’s opponents will undoubtedly characterise as an attack on New Zealanders’ freedom of speech? At more than twelve month’s remove from the terrible events of 15 March 2019, ...
Story of the Week... Opinion of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Climate change leads to more violence against women, girlsRape, domestic violence, forced marriages: A new ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 16, 2020 through Sat, Feb 22, 2020 Editor's Pick JP Morgan economists warn climate crisis is threat to human raceLeaked report for world’s major fossil fuel financier says ...
Last week the Wall Street Journal published an article ‘The Dangerous Denial of Sex by two scientists Colin Wright and Emma Hilton. Write is an evolutionary biologist at Penn State and Hilton is a developmental biologist at the University of Manchester. It is well worth reading the article in full. Here ...
I am about to mail my overseas ballot to Florida so that it can be counted in the Democratic primary on March 17. In Florida you have closed as opposed to open primaries, which means that one must declare a party preference in order to vote in a party primary. ...
Winston Peters - Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the NZ First PartyWe all know that politics can be pretty messy at times. Just look at the Dirty Politics saga in New Zealand, the misgovernment of the Australian bushfires or the recent Trump impeachment debacle in the US. In a ...
Last Monday SpaceX launched another clutch of Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit, bringing up to 300 the number of these units intended to bring 5G internet to the whole globe. In this post I present a movie showing how all 300 such satellites will be zipping around our planet over ...
The recent floods in Southland have highlighted the issue of Rio Tinto's illegal toxic waste dump in Mataura. But according to Newsroom, there's an even worse mess in Ruakaka near Whangarei:A Northland property stockpiled one million litres of flammable and toxic chemicals. Almost two years since the situation came to ...
It’s amazing just how many attack ads $100,000 buys you these days. The National Party has really been going to town lately, with their latest Twitter campaign making a number of questionable and blatantly false assertions, one being that poverty has worsened under the Labour led Government.The National Party's claim ...
OMV's exploratory drilling in the Great South Basin has failed to find oil. Good. Firstly, because we can't afford to burn the oil and gas we've already found, so there's just no point looking for more. And secondly, because offshore, deep-water drilling poses a risk of an environmental catastrophe, which ...
The government has announced it will strengthen whistleblower protections. The major change is "allowing people to report serious wrongdoing direct to an external authority if they wish", which fixes one of the big flaws in the Act. At present, whistleblowers must generally make their disclosure direct to the body they ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bruce Lieberman CARLSBAD, CA. – When it comes to paying the electric bill, most people don’t give it a second thought – it’s something that in effect is “baked in.” But across California and several other states, local governments increasingly are ...
Excerpts from Being and Being Bought, by Kajsa Ekis Ekman, Spinifex Press, 2013. Part 4 Ekman, a Swedish journalist and critic, brings together a Marxist and feminist analysis of prostitution and surrogacy in this groundbreaking book. This is the fourth part of a synopsis and brief commentary of the book by Daphna ...
The Democracy Virus: China’s authoritarian political system enables a level of social surveillance and control that liberal democratic societies cannot match. The Chinese Government makes full use of the latest digital technology to both punish – and reward – its citizens. The plans it formulates cannot be challenged, or hindered. Where ...
Another day, another IPCA report on criminal conduct by policy. This time they kicked a child in the head when he was handcuffed:Police chased him and yelled out for him to stop. When he turned to face the police, he threatened them with a hammer. That's when the officers tasered ...
The investigation of two of the five parties in Parliament for fraud around their election donations has pushed the issue of party funding back into the spotlight. And while there are obvious things we can do to tighten up the donations regime - a much lower declaration threshold, realtime disclosure ...
While the south of New Zealand has been struggling with too much rain in recent days, here in the north we are so very short of it (though Saturday’s forecast looks promising). Basically, we have had almost none since Christmas.As someone who relies on rain to wash the car, ...
Former National Party MP Jami-Lee RossIt comes as no surprise that Jami-Lee Ross has been named as one of the defendants in the X2 $100,000 National Party donations case currently before the courts. Click bait journalists who were chaffing at the bit to discredit the former senior whip had already ...
Stand Clear! Winston Peters is encouraging voters to think of RNZ as belonging to “The Media Party”. He wants them to see it as a politically partisan institution with its own, vicious attack-dogs in the electoral fight. If he succeeds, it will be, and probably should be, the end of ...
"You're going to need a longer runway" Gratton et al explore the ongoing effects of upward-creeping temperatures on aviation in Greece in the period since 1955 at a range of airports in that country. For longer runways impacts are measurable but with little impact on operations. For airports with shorter runways, ...
In mid-December the Israeli secret police, the Shin Beit, revealed it had arrested dozens of Palestinian left-wing activists, including members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in the previous few months. Among those arrested was one of the central leaders of the PFLP, Khalida Jarrar. As ...
Former National Party chief whip Jami-Lee Ross is one of the four people charged over National's multiple fraudulent donations. How unsurprising. Meanwhile, just days ago National leader Simon Bridges was trying to pretend the charges were nothing to do with his party. Yeah, right. When your chief whip effectively publicly ...
If you've been watching FYI for a while, you'll have noticed that the police have a bad habit of demanding ID from requesters. They have apparently been repeatedly told to stop doing this by the Ombudsman, but we all know what law enforcement thinks of the law, so thye keep ...
Collateral Damage: For the Green Phoenix to be reborn, the funeral pyre so patiently assembled by its identity politicians over the course of many fractious years – but with growing intensity over the past three – first has to be ignited. The terrible probability, of course, is that, in setting ...
If you follow politics in New Zealand you've likely noticed that the right wing have been going on and on about the Coalition Government failing to reduce poverty. In fact they’ve been incessantly claiming, in the absence of any conclusive data, that poverty has been getting worse.Yesterday, NewstalkZB reported:Mike Hosking: ...
The Herald reported over the weekend that an Auckland business owner is being targeted with asset forfeiture laws over a workplace death:A workplace fatality has seen police use a law usually associated with drugs and organised crime to seize millions of dollars in assets from a business owner because of ...
Just days after talking about how people feel "squeezed" and promising tax and service cuts as a "solution", National is talking about cancelling a rise in the minimum wage if elected: National is considering scrapping the Government's planned minimum wage increase if it wins this year's election, the party's finance ...
Nobody thinks about the next century anymore. That at least is Sci-Fi writer William Gibson’s observation (in this BBC 4 short interview, starting at 1:43:50 ). He calls it “Futures Fatigue”, but isn’t judgemental about it. Gibson notes that in the 20th century speculation about the 21st (and beyond) was common. Now ...
A Labour government desperate for the numbers crawls into bed with Winston Peters. Winston ignores the law and secretly takes money under the table from someone. When it is exposed just months out from an election, he is investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. That's what happened back in 2008. ...
So the Serious Fraud Office has another secret $100,050 National Party donation before the Courts in a major scandal that looks set to quash any chances Simon Bridges had of winning the 2020 election.Yesterday, Newsroom reported:The Serious Fraud Office prosecution of four people over donations to the National Party involves ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Iceberg twice the size of Washington, D.C., breaks off Pine Island glacier in Antarctica Story Highlights: The Pine Island ...
Prof Philippa Howden-ChapmanHousing policy is building up to be the key election issue again. In this blog I reflect on the importance of the role of the New Zealand Government in improving access to affordable housing. I look at what the Government has been doing to increase quality public housing ...
Writing on The Spinoff, Danyl Mclauchlan argues that we have a vacuum in our political system, in that there is no longer an anti-establishment party anymore:I think there’s a vacuum in our political system. There are obvious problems with the status quo but no real critics offering reform. It’s a ...
Stuff today has a piece about the government discovering it has been oversubsidising polluters for a decade under the Emissions Trading scheme:The Government is pledging to urgently fix an issue within the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), after it emerged some polluters are likely being over-compensated with taxpayer-funded carbon credits. [...] ...
The Marlborough District Council, tired of public scrutiny, wants to increase the amount it charges for LGOIMA requests:The cost of requesting official information from Marlborough's government agency could almost double after a jump in "fishing expeditions". Charges could be raised from $60 to $100 an hour for information supplied by ...
When Winston Peters was caught money laundering donations and stalking journalists, the Greens were conspicuous by their silence. It was another example of how getting along with their government partners was eroding their values and their own reputation. It was obviously unsustainable, and so now James Shaw has finally spoken ...
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...
With over 69,000 confirmed cases and 1,600 deaths, here’s your round-up of the latest coronavirus news. New disease and virus have now officially been named On the 11th February, the WHO Director General announced a new name for the disease: COVID-19 which is short for coronavirus disease 2019. The naming ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week, i.e., Sun, Feb 9, 2020 through Sat, Feb 15, 2020 Editor's Pick ANALYSIS-Climate change opens up 'frontier' farmland, but at what cost to the planet?Climate change could expand farmland globally by ...
After cross-examination Jones knew he would lose the defamation case he took against film maker Renae Maihi. That’s why he threw in the towel. The weight of evidence was clearly against the old tycoon with the defense presenting fifty articles to confirm Jones’ racist views.Being unable to harass somebody into ...
Sprung! Former NZ First president, Lester Gray, chats with RNZ's Guyon Espiner in the carpark of a Tauranga shopping centre.(Photo supplied anonymously to NZ First and The BFD.)IT’S CLEAR THAT an important aspect of Jacinda Ardern’s political success is her willingness to seek – and take – advice. This ...
Ruth Cunningham, Charlotte Paul, Andrew MoorePublic health responses to infectious diseases such as COVID-19 require us to draw on our common humanity and be explicit about our values. Recognising this will help us make good decisions in difficult situations so that, for example, the need to impose restrictive measures ...
The Helen Clark Foundation has released its report on the housing crisis, and found that house-hoarders are to blame for it:Property investors are to blame for New Zealand's high house prices, a new research paper published by the Helen Clark Foundation says. [...] McArthur said previous attempts to address housing ...
The Abortion Legislation Committee has reported back on the Abortion Legislation Bill and recommended that it be passed with some amendments. Unfortunately, the latter include even more hoops to jump through for those seeking abortions after 20 weeks, including a time-wasting requirement to consult a second doctor. No-one casually seeks ...
Brexit is likely to be a disaster for the UK (how sad, never mind). But now that they're out of the EU, the latter has finaly taken the opportunity to blacklist one of their key tax havens:The Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory, is to be put on an EU ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, New Zealand First Deputy Leader A total delivery of 2,000 new Police Officers has been achieved. New Zealand First Deputy Leader, Fletcher Tabuteau attended the latest police graduation of Recruit Wing 335 in Porirua today. Mr Tabuteau said, “Increasing police numbers and boosting their resources was one of ...
Taupō District mayor David Trewavas has welcomed today’s announcement from regional economic development minister Shane Jones outlining $5.87m of funding for the re-development of the Taupō Airport. The bulk of the investment ($5 million) will come from the Provincial Growth Fund, while the rest will be from the New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has defended multi-million dollar provincial growth fund money for Northland water storage. The New Zealand First leader, along with Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones, were recently in Dargaville to announce up to $12.745 million PGF funding top-up for water storage initiatives in the ...
One of our most immediate priorities upon forming Government was to get people out of sleeping in cars, garages, or on the street and into safe and warm housing. Since then, we've made major progress towards breaking the cycle of homelessness, including expanding Housing First, building more state houses, and ...
Kids learn better with a full stomach. That's why we launched our Lunches in Schools programme, which is already providing free and healthy school lunches to thousands of children so they can focus on what's important - learning. ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP based in Clutha-Southland This afternoon to a crowd of over 100 people in Mataura -- Mark Patterson, New Zealand First List MP based in Clutha-Southland launched a parliamentary petition regarding the aluminium dross issue in Mataura, Southland. The petition asks that the ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development New Zealand First Deputy Leader and Spokesperson for Finance, Fletcher Tabuteau has welcomed Statistics New Zealand’s latest report as a timely reminder of the value that this Coalition Government brings to every day New Zealanders: “This Coalition Government has meant a ...
Today New Zealand First made a pledge to campaign at the election to fund St John Ambulance the 90 per cent it has asked for. Government funding would allow St. John’s to achieve fully funded status. Leader of New Zealand First, Rt Hon Winston Peters publicly declared his determination to deliver ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order Newly released Police data shows once again the number of fleeing drivers have continued to skyrocket with a record 512 incidents occurring in December – almost tripling the number of incidents occurring just ten years ago, says New Zealand First Law and ...
While the Provincial Growth Fund has provided $2 million to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia, Regional Economic Minister Shane Jones said he is greatly concerned that there are “issues” in implementing the projects. The Minister said the immediate solution was to pipe water from a bore ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland NZ First is calling on Rio Tinto to accept its responsibilities to the Southland community and enable the immediate removal of the toxic Aluminium Dross from the Mataura Paper Mill site. New Zealand First List MP for Clutha-Southland, Mark Patterson ...
The Coalition Government has announced that a further $500,000 will be given to help residents in Southland and Otago to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. It follows prior government assistance of $200,000 earlier this month where the Southland Mayoral Relief Fund received $100,000 to support communities impacted by ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones was on RNZ’s Morning Report talking about the recent droughts in the Northland region and what the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is doing to alleviate its impact. The PGF recently announced a funding of $2 million for temporary water supplies to Kaikohe and Kaitaia, ...
Speaking to The Country’s Jamie Mackay, New Zealand First MP and Cabinet Minister Shane Jones talks water storage, plant-based meat imitation, and superstar Hollywood director James Cameron. While water storage may have its critics, Minister Jones defended the scheme by saying: “unless we invest and continue to invest” in this ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones is accusing northern iwi leaders of selling out Māori by voting for ideologically-driven court cases rather than practical steps to increase water supply. “I just think that iwi leaders who think that water issues are going to be solved by perpetually fighting in the ...
A dairy owner in St Kilda, Dunedin was delighted to hear that an attempted robbery of his establishment was foiled by a government-funded security system. Sean Lee was delighted at how well the anti-theft smoke system worked. When a knife-wielding man entered the store, the shop assistant immediately pressed a ...
Customs says it stopped more than three tonnes of illegal drugs coming into New Zealand last year. This includes 1,180kg of methamphetamine, 329kg of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine precursors, which could have been converted into 246kg of methamphetamine, 739kg and 6469 pills of MDMA or Ecstasy and 60kg of cocaine. Offshore, ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Up to $2 million will be allocated from the Provincial Growth Fund to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia where drought is biting hard, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Drought conditions in Northland have led to ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Law and Order New Zealand First welcomes the deployment of an Eagle Police helicopter in Christchurch in what is a step towards fulfilling its long-standing goal to increase the use of police helicopters for the front line, particularly in addressing the scourge of fleeing drivers. Christchurch leads ...
It may have been the first sitting week of 2020, but our Government is already in full-swing - managing a strong economy, investing in infrastructure, and working to break the cycle of homelessness. Read below for all that, and more... ...
In a heated debate in Parliament, National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett claimed that “nearly 1600 patched gang members have been added” since the Coalition Government took power. To illustrate her point, she altered a chart used by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to show her government’s progress in housing to instead ...
Speech by the Rt Hon Winston Peters at Parliament’s Opening 2020 "We all need insurance" This year New Zealanders are going to have a clear choice to make That choice is between: Optimism versus pessimism; More progress versus back to the future; Investment versus divestment; Unity versus division. New Zealand ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has slammed the Board of Auckland Airport following the airport's runway closing twice within two weeks due to maintenance. Around 2,000 passengers were affected by last week’s runway closures, according to 1NEWS. Another maintenance closure on January 24 saw two international flights and three domestic flights ...
A milestone has been reached with the graduation of more than 2,000 new Police officers since the Coalition Government took office in October 2017. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the graduation today of Wing 335 marks a surge of 2,023 new officers, and coincides with some significant breakthroughs against organised ...
Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Minister, Kris Faafoi, and the Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins, have welcomed a new cyber security qualification as a step towards countering cyber threats and keeping New Zealanders safe. Attending the launch of the new Level 6 Diploma of Cyber Security at Auckland’s Unitec Institute ...
Government Ministers today celebrated 20 years of the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park/ Ko te Pataka kai o Tikapa Moana/ Te Moananui a Toi, and recognise there is much to celebrate and so much more to do to give nature a helping hand. Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage said “New Zealanders care deeply about nature.I want to ...
Prepared remarks on coronavirus by Finance Minister Grant Robertson to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and Massey University. Good morning ladies and gentlemen, The topic of this speech is the Budget 2020 priorities. But, given the considerable interest that I imagine is in the room about COVID-19 coronavirus, I do ...
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e ngā rau rangatira ma. Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. Ni sa bula vinaka. Namaste Thank you Shamima, Hon. Minister Vuniwaqa, community leaders and Women’s Crisis Centre staff for your warm welcome. It’s an honour and privilege to officially ...
The Government has released a comprehensive response to ensuring New Zealanders get a fairer deal at the petrol pump. This follows the Commerce Commission fuel market study which found motorists were paying more than they should for petrol and includes: Fuel Market Bill drafting, to pass mid-year Industry consultation in ...
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e ngā rau rangatira ma Tēnā koutou katoa Ni sa bula vinaka As-salaam alaikum It is a privilege to be here today. Thank you for welcoming us to your house of prayer. Thank you for your warmth. Thank you for greeting ...
Taupō Airport is to be upgraded and expanded through a $5.9 million Government funding boost, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. “Taupō Airport is the gateway to the Central North Island. It is essential for both keeping local people and businesses connected, but also to bring more people ...
The Minister of Housing Megan Woods has confirmed the Government is working with Rotorua Lakes District Council and Te Arawa for the second place-based assessment to better understand the housing and urban issues affecting the city. “Every New Zealander has a right to a warm, safe and secure place to ...
19 new community homes (in addition to 14 opened in December) delivered in Takanini, Auckland 500 people housed by CORT Housing Trust by end of March 2,290 new public housing homes delivered in Auckland (November 2017 – December 2019). Another nineteen new public housing homes are being delivered in Auckland, ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Minister for Trade and Export Growth David Parker met today with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to discuss ways to strengthen ties between New Zealand and India. “India is a priority relationship for New Zealand. We share common democratic traditions, growing two-way trade, extensive people-to-people links, ...
Speech to the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) Delhi, India Wednesday 26 February 2020 [CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY] The Indo-Pacific: from principles to partnerships Distinguished guests, good afternoon and thank you for your invitation. It is good to be here at a time where New Zealand needs less of an introduction than ...
Tihei mauri ora Te Whare e tu nei Te Papa e takoto Tēnā korua No reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa Ni sa bula Vinaka It is a real pleasure to be here today, and to have the honour of addressing you all. If you’ll indulge me I’m ...
Improved air quality to support better health and environmental wellbeing is the focus of proposed amendments to air quality regulations, says the Associate Minister for the Environment, Hon Nanaia Mahuta. “Although our air quality is good in most places, during winter certain places have spikes in air pollution, mainly from ...
The remote eastern Bay of Plenty community of Raukokere will receive a Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment of $10.6 million for a water storage facility, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “This is great news for the rural community. The landowner, Te Whānau a Maruhaeremuri Hapū Trust, will use ...
The Lake Ōkaro lakebed has transferred to Te Arawa Lakes Trust, Minister for Māori Crown Relations: Te Arawhiti Kelvin Davis announced today. Kelvin Davis joined Te Arawa at Te Papaiōuru Marae in Rotorua to celebrate the reinstatement of Te Arawa Lakes Trust as a key decision maker over the bed ...
New legislation is being proposed which aims to reduce the stress and financial hardship caused by late payments to small businesses. The Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash is considering stricter rules around payment practices between businesses. “Late payments from large organisations to smaller suppliers can be crippling for these ...
A new partnership programme between the New Zealand Police and Fiji Police will focus on combatting transnational organised crime and enhancing investigative skills, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on the first day of her visit to Fiji. The programme will see: · New Zealand Institute of Environmental Science and Research ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama met today in Suva, and renewed their commitment to continue to strengthen Fiji-New Zealand relations on a foundation of shared values and equal partnership. The Prime Ministers acknowledged the kinship between Fijians and New Zealanders, one that has endured over ...
A $19.9 million investment from the Provincial Growth Fund will help develop essential infrastructure for an industrial hub in the Bay of Plenty town of Kawerau, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “The funding will go to three projects to further develop the Putauaki Trust Industrial Hub, an industrial ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing $8.3 million on a roading package for Mahia that will lead to greater and wider economic benefits for the region and beyond, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced at an event in Mahia today. The $8.3 million announced consists of: $7 ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed new reporting showing the Coalition Government is on track to meet its child poverty targets, with 18,400 children lifted out of poverty as a result of the Families Package. Stats NZ has released the first set of comprehensive child poverty statistics since the Government ...
Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter today announced that Bikes in Schools facilities have been rolled out to 20,000 more kiwi kids under this Government. She made the announcement at the opening of a new bike track at Henderson North School in Auckland. “Bikes in Schools facilities give kids ...
Benefit settings rise in line with wages as of 1 April Main benefits will increase by over 3 percent, instead of 1.66 percent, on 1 April with the Government’s decision to annually adjust benefit rates to increases in the average wage. The Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni, said ...
Strengthening New Zealand’s political and business ties with India will be the focus of Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters’ and Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker’s visit to India this week. The Ministers are co-leading a high level business delegation to India to support increased people and economic engagement ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio continues to champion for greater Pacific participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers with the announcement of the Toloa Awards, with 8 recipients of the Toloa Community Fund and 13 Toloa Tertiary Scholarships. “The Toloa Programme encourages more Pacific peoples ...
Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has extended the date for people to have their say on proposed changes to improve management of whitebait across New Zealand. Submissions were due to close on 2 March 2020 but will now remain open until 9am on Monday 16 March 2020. “I have ...
The endangered toroa/Antipodean albatross has new international protection for its 100,000km annual migration, thanks to collaborative efforts led by New Zealand, Australia and Chile. Today, 130 countries agreed to strictly protect Antipodean albatross at the Conference of Parties on the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild ...
No sales to under-18-year-olds No advertising and sponsorship of vaping products and e-cigarettes No vaping or smokeless tobacco in smokefree areas Regulates vaping product safety comprehensively, - including devices, flavours and ingredients Ensure vaping products are available for those who want to quit smoking Vaping regulation that balances ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little will travel to Berlin tomorrow to represent New Zealand at a high-level summit on nuclear disarmament. This year, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) celebrates 50 years since it entered into force. “New Zealand’s proud record and leadership on nuclear disarmament is unwavering, so it’s important we are present ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will visit two of New Zealand’s most important Pacific partners, Fiji and Australia, next week. The visit to Fiji will be the first by a New Zealand Prime Minister in four years and comes during the 50th anniversary of Fijian independence and diplomatic relations between our ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little and New Zealand First MP Darroch Ball, have today announced the appointment of the Chief Commissioner of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the location, and the membership of the Establishment Advisory Group. Colin Carruthers QC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of the CCRC for an ...
Māori Development Minister Hon Nanaia Mahuta and Agriculture Minister Hon Damien O’Connor co-announced the first horticultural finalists for the Ahuwhenua Trophy celebrating excellence in the Māori agricultural sector. The three finalists are Ngai Tukairangi Trust from Mt Maunganui, Otama Marere Trust from Tauranga, and Hineora Orchard Te Kaha 15B Ahuwhenua ...
A new kete of resources to strengthen support for students with dyslexia will provide extra tools for the new Learning Support Coordinators (LSCs) as they start in schools, Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The Minister launched the kete in Wellington this morning, at the first of three induction ...
The Government continues to make progress on a fairer and more secure rental market for renters and landlords with the First Reading of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill and its referral to the Social Services and Community Select Committee. “Now is the opportunity for landlords, tenants and others who want ...
Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Hon James Marape will visit New Zealand from 21-25 February, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “New Zealand and Papua New Guinea have a warm and friendly relationship. I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Marape here and strengthening the relationship between our two countries,” ...
Thousands of children have begun receiving a free lunch on every day of the school week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. The Government’s free and healthy school lunch programme is under way for 7,000 students at 31 schools in Hawke’s Bay / Tairāwhiti and Bay of Plenty / Waiariki, extending ...
The Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni today announced a new approach that continues to broaden the Government’s social sector focus from a narrow, investment approach to one centred on people and wellbeing. Minister Sepuloni said redefining the previous approach to social investment by combining science, data and lived experience ...
The Government is strengthening the Protected Disclosures Act to provide better protection for whistle blowers, Minister of State Services Chris Hipkins said today. “The Protected Disclosures Act is meant to encourage people to speak up about serious wrongdoing in the workplace and protect them from losing their jobs or being ...
Nǐn hǎo (Hello in Mandarin). Xīn Nián Kuài Lè (Happy New Year in Mandarin) Néi Hóu (Hello in Cantonese). Sun Nin Fai Lok (Happy New Year in Cantonese) Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Thank you for your invitation to attend this celebration today. I would like to acknowledge ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The federal government has activated its emergency response plan to deal with a spread of the coronavirus locally, in anticipation of it becoming a “pandemic”. It is also considering limited assistance for those hardest hit ...
In an apparent change of tune, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expects to raise the topic of climate change with Australian counterpart Scott Morrison tomorrow. ...
The Government says it wants to protect small businesses from getting shafted by big companies who don’t or won’t pay their bills on time. The move can’t come too soon. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Muecke, Clinical senior lecturer in Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Adelaide Humans are physiologically hardwired to love and seek out sweet things. It’s an ancient survival mechanism that evolved to prepare our bodies for periods of fasting when food supplies ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marilyn McMahon, Deputy Dean, School of Law, Deakin University The NSW government has just introduced a bill that will, among other significant reforms, make it easier for a jury to be informed about the prior convictions of a person on trial for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marilyn McMahon, Deputy Dean, School of Law, Deakin University The NSW government has just introduced a bill that will, among other significant reforms, make it easier for a jury to be informed about the prior convictions of a person on trial for ...
By RNZ Pacific Jacinda Ardern has paid tribute to the three Fijians who died in last year’s Christchurch mosque shootings. Ardern spoke today at Lautoka Mosque as part of her trip to Fiji to remember Imam Hafiz Musa Patel, Ashraf Ali Razak and Ashraf Ali, who died almost a ...
The Real Pod reassembles to dissect the cultured fourth week of The Bachelorette NZ with special thanks to Nando’s.This week on The Bachelorette NZ, a burrito bust-up ends in anaphylaxis, Steve chows down on some one-ply, and the Buenos Aires hostel goes full Lord of the Flies. It’s become abundantly ...
Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand, the Catholic Bishops' agency for justice, peace and development, is concerned that the latestchild poverty numbers show that there has been anincrease in material hardship,with 4100 more children living in ...
Dr Bryce Edwards.Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni described this year’s annual benefit increases of 3 per cent as “significant”, and “a way of sharing the wealth”. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also heralded them as the biggest increase to benefits in nine years, if National’s 2015 one-off adjustments are excluded. ...
Is it the kind of headline that will win votes at the general election? “Rock-star reception in Fijian village” followed by a sub-head “Rapturous greeting for Ardern during visit to launch $3m sanitation project”. The reporter (veteran Barry Soper, Newstalk ZB’s political editor) poses the rhetorical question: “Is there any ...
The New Zealand First Foundation received $100,000 in just one week from two rich-listers, whose donations remained secret because the individual payments fell below the disclosure threshold. ...
BusinessNZ says legislation requiring more transparent petrol pricing will probably be well-received, but there are concerns about the market study that prompted it. The Government has announced it is drafting a Fuel Market Bill to introduce requirements ...
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 Andrea Watson, Sparrows CEO and founder, and Simon Yarrow, who leads Callaghan Innovation’s ...
LGNZ say a new report from the Deep South National Science Challenge is a reminder for central government policy makers to step up the pace on progressing a national strategy on climate change adaption. LGNZ is the peak body representing New Zealand’s ...
Art schools are seen by many as beacons of liberalism. But is this the reality? Former Māori student Anna McAllister recounts her fraught journey through an Auckland art school.In high school, the only subjects I was remotely good at were the practical arts. I stayed in the art block during ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Madeline Taylor, Academic Fellow, University of Sydney This week’s decision by Norwegian company Equinor to abandon a A$200 million plan to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight surprised both its critics and backers. Equinor says it abandoned the project off ...
Finance Minister sees serious, short-term impact on economy from Covid-19. He says the Government is able to deliver more general fiscal stimulus and sector-specific help if the economic hit is longer and harder. Finance Minister Grant Robertson has given his first comprehensive update on the economic effects expected from the ...
In response to reports that 30,000 New Zealanders earning over $100,000 are taking superannuation, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson Casey Russell says: “It’s clear that many wealthy New Zealanders are collecting superannuation they don’t ...
Fancy a quick trip to Europe without leaving the comfort of your own couch? Tara Ward rounds up the best European drama for your viewing pleasure. Anyone who reckons travel is the only way to expand your mind has never had the pleasure of lying on a couch for three days ...
Child protection social work involves risk. It always will. The right decisions cannot always be made and sometimes it can be a question of choosing between the least damaging alternatives. We have had a long list of child abuse tragedies for over 30 years now – in Aotearoa New Zealand and ...
SFO scrutiny of National and NZ First donations sparked debate about party funding and electoral laws. Now, Transparency International has a warning. ...
Not paying NZ Super out to those on incomes of $100,000 or more would save taxpayers around $608 million. Is it time we shake up who gets paid and what? RNZ‘s Nita Blake-Persen reports.The number of New Zealand retirees getting their superannuation while earning more than $100,000 has topped 30,000, ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentCoronavirus John Gibb (ODT): Otago academic fears ‘massive’ impact Chris Trotter (Daily Blog): Nothing Xenophobic Or Racist About The Chinese ...
Dr Bryce Edwards.Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won power in 2017 on the basis of statements such as “My goal is to eradicate child poverty in New Zealand”. The Government’s progress on child poverty will be under scrutiny at this year’s general election, but progress is slow, and many are claiming ...
New Zealand King Salmon has had a better-than-expected first half, driven by record prices for its fish products. The Marlborough-based salmon farmer's net profit rose nearly 38 percent to $20.8 million in the six months to December, with the average sale price up 6.6 percent. However, revenue of $84.2m was ...
Reform of superannuation is overdue, with new figures showing more than 30,000 superannuitants are earning more than $100,000 per year. This number is growing fast as more people keep working past 65. More than 126,000 superannuitants (17% of the total) are earning ...
Funding to give nature a helping hand and support community conservation projects opens this week, with $5.6m available for community-led projects. “The Department of Conservation (DOC) Community Fund enables us to go further and faster in our conservation ...
Police acknowledge the findings of the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) in relation to decision-making in a sexual assault investigation in Palmerston North. The IPCA found that the decision-making was sound, and there was no conflict of interest ...
Thursday, February 27: Greenpeace has published an open letter calling on the organisers of music festival WOMAD to dump oil industry sponsorship. Todd Energy and Austrian oil giant OMV are on the bill again this year, despite persistent criticism from ...
The clash between urban cyclists and car drivers has been brewing for several years now. But pedestrians have been advocating for their rights for far longer, writesNot so long ago, the journalist Bernard Hickey predicted that cyclists vs motorists will become one of the political issues of our age. “We ...
A2 Milk has delivered a strong financial result, with increased sales in its infant nutrition business and with better than expected profit margins. The specialty milk company's net profit rose 21 percent in the six months to December to $184.9m, with an underlying sales margin of 32.6 percent. Sales rose ...
Air New Zealand's half year profit has taken a larger hit than expected, falling 33 percent amid slowing demand for air travel and increased costs. Its net profit was $101 million in the six months ended December, compared with $150m the year before. Costs rose due to price hikes for ...
You might be trying to reduce your carbon footprint in everyday life, but what about in death? Alex Casey talks to Becs Bartells, founder of Outside the Box about creating the perfect cardboard casket. Becs Bartells often forgets she has an empty coffin sitting in the back of her station wagon, ...
As government services shut their doors in communities and drive people to interact online, the wellbeing of New Zealand's most vulnerable people is being diminished, says the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB). CAB has released the report 'Face to Face ...
New research from justice advocacy group JustSpeak released today shows that structural bias in policing continues to disproportionately harm Māori and demonstrates the urgent need for transformative change across our justice system. Using the Statistics ...
A Spinoff article last year rightly raised concerns that citizens’ assemblies could be yet another imposition of Western ideas on Māori. But assemblies and tino rangatiratanga-based visions in fact share a critique of our current democratic system – and could together transform politics, write Emily Beausoleil and Max Rashbrooke.Nadine Anne ...
More new coronavirus cases have for the first time been reported outside China than inside, World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said. ...
Simon Bridges wouldn't deport mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant if found guilty despite calling for reciprocal policy; and Why climate change should be on the agenda for Jacinda meet Morrison. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David A. Savage, Associate Professor of Behavioural Economics , Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle Recent days have brought reports of shoppers clearing out supermarket shelves from Wuhan and Hong Kong to Singapore and Milan in response to the spread of coronavirus. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato The Christchurch mosque attacks on March 15 last year have prompted a significant rise in tip-offs about people expressing extremist views, according to a report by New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS). During the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Beirman, Senior Lecturer, Tourism, University of Technology Sydney The coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) has now reached more than 80,000 recorded cases, largely concentrated in China, with a death toll over 2,700 and rising. There are few signs the epidemic is abating. In ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tessa Copp, PhD candidate, University of Sydney Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common hormonal condition. When using the definition supported by the international guidelines, it affects just under one in six young Australian women. To meet the diagnostic criteria of PCOS, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul McGorrery, PhD Candidate in Criminal Law, Deakin University The recent killing of Hannah Clarke and her three children by her estranged husband has raised national attention to the types of behaviour that might lead to such a horrific crime, and how ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominique Hes, Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Architecture, University of Melbourne Despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary, some still propagate the myth that the world will need Australian coal for decades to come. Last weekend Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese joined in, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mehmet Ulubasoglu, Professor of Economics, Head of the Department of Economics and Director of the Centre for Energy, the Environment and Natural Disasters, Deakin University My team and I have analysed the incomes of people affected by some of Australia’s worst bushfires, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tiffani J. Howell, Research Fellow, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University Australians are slightly obsessed with our dogs. But are we obsessed enough to watch a reality doggy makeover show? The reality makeover concept has a long history, from ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Saving water becomes crucial amid drought, means testing Super back in the news, and a hard look at a Special Purpose Vehicle.Aucklanders need to get serious about saving water or restrictions will come in. Newshub reports that’s the message from Watercare, who ...
An anonymous international student at the University of Auckland grapples with when and how she might return to NZ amid the coronavirus outbreak, and what challenges she will face if she makes it back. I am a Chinese international student at the University of Auckland. Having completed my language course and ...
When will there be a vaccine? What can we do and how do we stay up to date? Helen Petousis-Harris gives an update on the COVID-19 global health emergency Less than two months after China told the World Health Organisation there was a problem, a lot has happened. Sadly, deaths, confirmed ...
From February 28, Kiwibank will be cheque-free. Mark Jennings looks at how it has been preparing its customers for the big change. It’s raining heavily in Nelson, something it hasn’t done for a while. Local MP and former cabinet minister Nick Smith hurriedly climbs into an old bus parked outside the city’s library. ...
Experts in far-right extremism see a number of similarities between the Christchurch terror attack and last week's mass shooting in Hanau, Germany. Marc Daalder reports. On the evening of February 19, a man shot up two shisha bars frequented by Muslims in Hanau, Germany. It later emerged that he had released ...
ReadingRoom has devoted all week to the biggest-selling book in New Zealand right now, In The Clearing, a brilliant thriller by Ngāpuhi author JP Pomare, based on creepy Australian cult The Family. We conclude the series with a review by Bill Ralston.JP Pomare's second novel In ...
Up-and-coming teenage freeskiier Ruby Andrews has shown she has the boldness and the bravery to become one of the world's top women in not one, but three, different events. There’s no questioning Ruby Andrews’ grit and determination. While most 15-year-olds are spending this summer hanging with friends on the beach, Andrews ...
New Zealand’s travel ban on China has been extended another week. The president of the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations argues for a student exemption.The loss of lives and poor health caused by coronavirus is devastating. We must acknowledge the families, across the globe, who have lost loved ones ...
The first issue of the Otago student magazine for 2020 had barely hit campus before it was making headlines in the wider media. The cover was censored by Facebook, and a furious editorial denounced party politics, promising to give them a miss. Josie Adams speaks to editor Sinead Gill about ...
The global health emergency that is the Coronavirus - or Covid-19 - has become a game-changer for scientists around the world in terms of the speed of the response. But at the same time it's been termed a 'misinfodemic' Covid-19 – or coronavirus – is a game changer for scientists around the ...
President Rodrigo Duterte administers the oath of office to the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) officials in a ceremony at the Rizal Hall in Malacañang Palace on February 26, 2020. Video: RapplerBy Felipe F. Salvosa II in Manila Reporters have finally got the chance to ...
Andy Ayamiseba died a few days ago. While the West Papuan was loved, admired and supported in Vanuatu, he fought tirelessly to win a home he could return to. He died before the dream was achieved.Originally published by the Pacific Institute of Public Policy (PIPP), this 2013 profile ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Merryn McKinnon, Senior lecturer, Australian National University Public representation of science in the media still struggles to reflect the true diversity of those who work in science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM). According to the Women in Leadership Australia’s 2019 Women for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Mathews, Professor of Strategic Management, Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Macquarie University Australia is the world’s third largest fossil fuels exporter – a fact that generates intense debate as climate change intensifies. While the economy is heavily reliant on coal and ...
The Otago Regional Council (ORC) voted today to request that Minister for the Environment Hon. David Parker exercise his authority to ‘call in’ upcoming proposed plan changes to the Regional Plan for Otago: Water and Regional Plan for Otago: Waste ...
This week’s plummeting international stock markets are a sign the ‘best case scenario’ economic outcomes of the coronavirus are increasingly unlikely. And that’s a worry for NZ’s manufacturers. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Mark Butler, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy, is optimistic that Labor is better placed to prosecute its climate policy at the next election, compared to the last. “I think we are better positioned ...
The huge majority of New Zealanders think fishing industry donations to Members of Parliament at the last election have the potential to “strongly influence” decisions the MPs make, according to a poll conducted by Horizon Research. The poll, ...
Open mike 25/03/2019 
Here is the speech that Maya Forstater gave at the Woman’s Place UK Women’s Liberation 2020 conference at UCL on February 1st In a recent newsletter she wrote: it was an amazing day (and brilliant to meet so many people in real life). I talked about what makes people and ...4 hours ago
A New Hope from the National Party leader ...12 hours ago
NZ First portrays itself as an anti-establishment party, standing up for "the little guy" (always a guy) against Big Auckland Money and its tool-parties. But it turns out that its secret slush fund is funded by the very people it claims to oppose:Stuff can reveal a longer list of donors ...13 hours ago
14 hours ago
Will She, Or Won't She? Jacinda’s white vestments may look impressive on the cover of the international edition of TIME magazine, but every day Labour’s relationship with Winston Peters and NZ First continues, her ability to go on wearing them back home in New Zealand – without exciting derision – diminishes.IT WAS ...14 hours ago
BAMS survey of 2018 extreme weather The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has published a collection of articles examining unusually extreme weather events of 2018 and connections of those to climate change. These investigations are listed separately below but thanks to the generosity of AMS appear free for ...21 hours ago
Fans are outraged at the prospect of Destiny Church pastor Hannah Tamaki joining the Black Caps ...1 day ago
Less than two months after China told the WHO there was a problem, a lot has happened. Sadly, deaths, confirmed cases and countries affected are increasing every day. However, on a scientific and medical level, what is going on to contain, cure and prevent this new disease is truly inspirational. ...1 day ago
I am about to mail my overseas ballot to Florida so that it can be counted in the Democratic primary on March 17. In Florida you have closed as opposed to open primaries, which means that one must declare a party preference in order to vote in a party primary. ...5 days ago
In mid-December the Israeli secret police, the Shin Beit, revealed it had arrested dozens of Palestinian left-wing activists, including members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in the previous few months. Among those arrested was one of the central leaders of the PFLP, Khalida Jarrar. As ...1 week ago
I am among the most pro-free speech people I know. I don’t doubt there are others more strident than me, but I’m certainly up there. And my support for freedom of expression isn’t limited to opposition to government-imposed restrictions. It extends to a belief that employers should have limited powers ...2 weeks ago
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, New Zealand First Deputy Leader A total delivery of 2,000 new Police Officers has been achieved. New Zealand First Deputy Leader, Fletcher Tabuteau attended the latest police graduation of Recruit Wing 335 in Porirua today. Mr Tabuteau said, “Increasing police numbers and boosting their resources was one of ...11 hours ago
One of our most immediate priorities upon forming Government was to get people out of sleeping in cars, garages, or on the street and into safe and warm housing. Since then, we've made major progress towards breaking the cycle of homelessness, including expanding Housing First, building more state houses, and ...2 days ago
A milestone has been reached with the graduation of more than 2,000 new Police officers since the Coalition Government took office in October 2017. Police Minister Stuart Nash says the graduation today of Wing 335 marks a surge of 2,023 new officers, and coincides with some significant breakthroughs against organised ...9 hours ago
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The federal government has activated its emergency response plan to deal with a spread of the coronavirus locally, in anticipation of it becoming a “pandemic”. It is also considering limited assistance for those hardest hit ...3 hours ago
In an apparent change of tune, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expects to raise the topic of climate change with Australian counterpart Scott Morrison tomorrow. ...5 hours ago
The Government says it wants to protect small businesses from getting shafted by big companies who don’t or won’t pay their bills on time. The move can’t come too soon. ...6 hours ago
Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand, the Catholic Bishops' agency for justice, peace and development, is concerned that the latestchild poverty numbers show that there has been anincrease in material hardship,with 4100 more children living in ...9 hours ago
Is it the kind of headline that will win votes at the general election? “Rock-star reception in Fijian village” followed by a sub-head “Rapturous greeting for Ardern during visit to launch $3m sanitation project”. The reporter (veteran Barry Soper, Newstalk ZB’s political editor) poses the rhetorical question: “Is there any ...10 hours ago
Art schools are seen by many as beacons of liberalism. But is this the reality? Former Māori student Anna McAllister recounts her fraught journey through an Auckland art school.In high school, the only subjects I was remotely good at were the practical arts. I stayed in the art block during ...11 hours ago
Jacinda Ardern has paid tribute to the three Fijians who died in last year's Christchurch mosque shootings. ...11 hours ago
Finance Minister sees serious, short-term impact on economy from Covid-19. He says the Government is able to deliver more general fiscal stimulus and sector-specific help if the economic hit is longer and harder. Finance Minister Grant Robertson has given his first comprehensive update on the economic effects expected from the ...12 hours ago
Child protection social work involves risk. It always will. The right decisions cannot always be made and sometimes it can be a question of choosing between the least damaging alternatives. We have had a long list of child abuse tragedies for over 30 years now – in Aotearoa New Zealand and ...13 hours ago
New Zealand King Salmon has had a better-than-expected first half, driven by record prices for its fish products. The Marlborough-based salmon farmer's net profit rose nearly 38 percent to $20.8 million in the six months to December, with the average sale price up 6.6 percent. However, revenue of $84.2m was ...14 hours ago
The Government has accepted a majority of the recommendations of the Commerce Commission's retail fuel market study, Marc Daalder reports Energy Minister Megan Woods announced today that the Government will regulate the wholesale fuel market, in line with recommendations from the Commerce Commission. In legislation due to be passed by ...14 hours ago
A2 Milk has delivered a strong financial result, with increased sales in its infant nutrition business and with better than expected profit margins. The specialty milk company's net profit rose 21 percent in the six months to December to $184.9m, with an underlying sales margin of 32.6 percent. Sales rose ...15 hours ago
Air New Zealand's half year profit has taken a larger hit than expected, falling 33 percent amid slowing demand for air travel and increased costs. Its net profit was $101 million in the six months ended December, compared with $150m the year before. Costs rose due to price hikes for ...15 hours ago
More new coronavirus cases have for the first time been reported outside China than inside, World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said. ...16 hours ago
New Zealand is flush with Lotto fever, with a $50 million must-win record jackpot up for grabs this Saturday. ...17 hours ago
Simon Bridges wouldn't deport mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant if found guilty despite calling for reciprocal policy; and Why climate change should be on the agenda for Jacinda meet Morrison. ...17 hours ago
An anonymous international student at the University of Auckland grapples with when and how she might return to NZ amid the coronavirus outbreak, and what challenges she will face if she makes it back. I am a Chinese international student at the University of Auckland. Having completed my language course and ...20 hours ago
When will there be a vaccine? What can we do and how do we stay up to date? Helen Petousis-Harris gives an update on the COVID-19 global health emergency Less than two months after China told the World Health Organisation there was a problem, a lot has happened. Sadly, deaths, confirmed ...20 hours ago
From February 28, Kiwibank will be cheque-free. Mark Jennings looks at how it has been preparing its customers for the big change. It’s raining heavily in Nelson, something it hasn’t done for a while. Local MP and former cabinet minister Nick Smith hurriedly climbs into an old bus parked outside the city’s library. ...20 hours ago
Experts in far-right extremism see a number of similarities between the Christchurch terror attack and last week's mass shooting in Hanau, Germany. Marc Daalder reports. On the evening of February 19, a man shot up two shisha bars frequented by Muslims in Hanau, Germany. It later emerged that he had released ...20 hours ago
ReadingRoom has devoted all week to the biggest-selling book in New Zealand right now, In The Clearing, a brilliant thriller by Ngāpuhi author JP Pomare, based on creepy Australian cult The Family. We conclude the series with a review by Bill Ralston. JP Pomare's second novel In ...20 hours ago
Up-and-coming teenage freeskiier Ruby Andrews has shown she has the boldness and the bravery to become one of the world's top women in not one, but three, different events. There’s no questioning Ruby Andrews’ grit and determination. While most 15-year-olds are spending this summer hanging with friends on the beach, Andrews ...20 hours ago
The global health emergency that is the Coronavirus - or Covid-19 - has become a game-changer for scientists around the world in terms of the speed of the response. But at the same time it's been termed a 'misinfodemic' Covid-19 – or coronavirus – is a game changer for scientists around the ...20 hours ago
Global health officials have declared the world is not ready for coronavirus - but can we be ready for future outbreaks? ...1 day ago
This week’s plummeting international stock markets are a sign the ‘best case scenario’ economic outcomes of the coronavirus are increasingly unlikely. And that’s a worry for NZ’s manufacturers. ...1 day ago
Fisk …: “So I have a prediction. If the Trump regime collapses – for regime it is – I suspect it will not be his frolics with the Russians which destroy it. Nor his corruption, nor his domestic lies. Nor his misogyny. Nor his anti-immigrant racism. Nor his obvious mental instability, though this clearly connects him to his friends in the Arab world. The Middle East has already got its coils into the White House. Trump is a friend of a highly dangerous state called Saudi Arabia.
He has adopted Israeli foreign policy as his own, including the ownership of Jerusalem and wholehearted support for Israel’s illegal colonisation of Palestinian Arab land.
He has torn up a solemn treaty with Iran. He has joined the Sunni side in its sectarian war with the Shias of the Middle East, in Iran, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Bahrain and, of course, in Saudi Arabia itself.
Many countries have gone to war on behalf of other nations. Britain drew the sword for Poland in 1939, albeit a little late in the day. But to actively seek participation in someone else’s sectarian war for no other reason than to continue to sell weapons to a wealthy and unstable autocracy, to amalgamate your own country’s foreign policy with that of the most militarily powerful state in the Middle East — to the point of depriving an entire people of a share in its capital city –
– and to wilfully ignore the long and lucrative support that our Gulf “allies” have given to the most frightful of our cult enemies – those who have indeed struck in the streets of London and New York – is beyond the usual lexicon. It is beyond shameful. Beyond wicked. Were it not for the insanity of the man responsible, the word “depravity” comes to mind.”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/04/how-middle-east-
dictators-bring-their-western-allies-down/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/05/israel-is-playing-a-big-role-in-indias-escalating-conflict-with-pakistan/
It seems most of the farming community, such as this useless one, can’t think for themselves and have to follow the thought patterns of their messiahs, here Bill English in calling the less fortunate “useless” https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/111458974/federated-farmers-marlborough-president-slams-tax-reform-as-funds-for-the-useless
The funny thing about this cry is two-fold;
One; the generation that Philip Neal here complains about has been raised by his own generation, being the parents.
Two; the generation that Philip Neal here complains about has been raised under his own politics – voting as they did the for the Nats and Bill English through the nineties which this generation was born into and raised under.
If there is a “useless” generation (and I no way accept there is), then it is the result of Philip Neal and his own generation… what a frikkin’ dipstick.
It’s the sort of ingrained ignorance I would expect from a group of people who, for the most part, live in isolation.
That isolation is the urban / rural divide in a nutshell.
there is no urban/rural divide.
Frankly that is made up bullshit to ‘create a divide’ that can be used by the likes of useless double dipping welfare benefit abusing men like bill english.
NZ is a very small country with a really small population. Literally everyone other then a really new migrant is related to someone somewhere by marriage etc.
Rural useless children end up going to Uni in the big urban centers and some might even end up in towns, like useless Bill English whose only link to rural existence is his father who was a farmer.
Urban useless children end up working on farms or moving rural and create businesses there.
These guys don’t live in isolation, they live for divide and conquer and they do a real good job there.
+100
Great response Sabine.
Mr Neal got a serve from Jill Hawkey, Methodist Missin director, in the same article. She said that the comments were “really, really unhelpful” because they fed stigma around people receiving social supports. “The majority are only on there for a short period of time and the benefit just helps them through a difficult period.”
“The sign of a healthy society is how we treat our most vulnerable,” she said.
Jill Hawkey has a better handle on the situation, She runs Blenheim’s only emergency housing provider.
Mr Neal said, “we do need benefits but there’s lots of people who abuse the system”.
Well, he’s right there. In all the tax debate I’ve not heard much from the wealthy about tax evasion necessitating tax reform, in other words about “lots of people who abuse the system.”
benefits are prepaid services
we pay for superannuation
we pay for unemployment benefits
we pay for ACC
we pay for social welfare for those who can’t finance their own lifes fully
we pay for the accommodation benefit
we pay for the state houses
we pay for the roads
we pay for the hospitals
we pay for the schools
we pay for street lightning, for parks, for public buildings
we pay for the infrastructure that is used by the public, businesses and farmers
we pay for all of it via our income taxes, GST, business taxes.
Non of the things we pay for is ‘welfare’, it is a prepaid service.
Maybe its time to list up again on our pay slips just what hte percentage of each of hte tickets on our wage is .
Superannuation 5 %, Unemployment 5 % , ACC 5% …..until we understand that we don’t get Hand Outs from government (which is also financed by us – urban and rural useless people) we get to claim back a service we paid for.
And then maybe men like the useless pencil pusher from the federated farmers would learn to think before sprouting hate.
Farmers need workers, but workers get paid better in oz, why. Well farmers here have a extra incentive to push down wages, capital gains. Nz has a skill shortage, as it’s obvious easier to get ahead in oz when the owners aren’t farming the capital gains at 0% tax. So farmer whinning about the need for those lazy bennies to get a job, turns out its just greed as they have a worker shortage.
Mr Neal is simplistic in his statements and very generalising. He says that some government members “would like to see farming put down altogether.” Such a view is very exaggerated.
He talks about sponging beneficiaries.
Here is a question for him. What is the amount stolen by beneficiaries convicted of beneficiary fraud as opposed to the amount stolen by tax evasion?
“New research reveals tax dodgers are ripping off the country at up to 150 times the rate of welfare fraudsters, but are being jailed much less often. Last year, tax evaders cheated the country of between $1 and $6 billion, while welfare fraud cost $39 million.” Excerpted from a post on The Standard July 18 2017 titled “Benefit fraud vs white collar crime.”
In 2018 IRD reported that it was owed $3 billion in unpaid taxes, with $1.7 billion owed for more than three years.
Note that Neal’s “opinion” gets front page treatment on the Marlborough Express. Be interesting to see what his farm is like. Clean and green?
The letters to the Editor might get a tad more interesting, too, ianmac.
“so the Government can then redistribute money to those they perceive as the helpless and needy, but in my opinion, useless.”
That will be a statement that will return to haunt Mr Neal. He mentions recent events in Christchurch as having distracted him from his opining on taxation.
What he doesn’t seem to get is the distance between what that man did in ChCh and where most Kiwis are. He uses the same language of divisiveness, of ‘the other” by calling our people on benefits ‘useless’. I should hope that most Kiwis will also regard his opining as a form of hate speech. To call someone useless is to deny their humanity. Every human being has value.
“Beneficiaries are us”, as Sabine argues above.
I wonder how much direct and indirect, taxpayer or ratepayer funded support Mr Neal, his family and his business receive. He might go strangely quiet at the answer.
Two bail outs for the farming (mostly) sector in recent years come to mind.
Mycoplasma bovis
South Canty Finance
AND
What about the agricultural worker being ripped off by the sector as well.
Maybe if a living wage was paid, then there would be fewer seeing benefits.
irrigation, without it many farms would literally not be farming where they are.
The South Canterbury Farms are not viable without taxpayers funded Irrigation Schemes and Free Water.
The Salmon and Trout fisheries have been wrecked in South Canterbury.
I would actually go far to say that beneficiaries and working people have been used as ATMs for the countries landlords, banks and power companies for a very long time.
Exactly. Has always been the case that the capitalists withdraw to max-OD on the workers of any nation. This is the history, and the evidence.
Further current evidence – migrant workers keeping wages down to below-sustenance level.
It is cheaper to pay minimum wage than it is to keep a slave today.
He probably means useless to him personally. Tax money not spent on him is wasted obv.
“USELESS” beneficiaries how very Hitleresque of Mr. Neal someone should educate him on the Nazis extermination of the mentally ill and disabled described by Hitler as “USELESS MOUTHS”
Bit of a joke from the most featherbedded, by tax dollars, community in New Zealand.
Not to mention the almost total destruction of non commodity manufacturing and service sector of our economy, and the resultant billions in costs, unemployment and poverty, to obtain “free trade” agreements to benefit farmers.
I am not necessarily against State subsidies, but some acknowledgement of the real “hard working Kiwi’s” who pay the taxes, instead of moaning about the little they, farmers, pay, would be nice.
Fortunately, There are a lot of farmers who don’t think like that clown.
A lot don’t like fed farmers because of that sort of BS.
Muslims do not hate us for our freedoms and values …. its our actions and history in the middle east that creates extremist ‘blowback’. …. and refugees fleeing violence and extremism
“From Washington’s perspective, peace in Syria is the horror scenario. Peace would mean what the United States sees as a ‘win’ for our enemies: Russia, Iran, and the Assad government. We are determined to prevent that, regardless of the human cost.”
“Just consider for a moment the UK’s support for, and involvement in, the horrifying Saudi war against Yemen, or US politicians’ blanket silence on Israel’s massacre of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza. Our leaders have no moral high ground to stand on. Their foreign policy decisions are about oil, defence contracts and geo-strategic interests, not about protecting civilians or fighting just wars.
However bad Assad is, and he is a dictator, he is responsible for far fewer deaths and much less suffering in the Middle East than either George W Bush or Tony Blair.
Former New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer sets out a very plausible reason why the US, UK and France keep intervening in Syria. It is not about children or chemical weapons. It is to prevent the Syrian government and Russia triumphing over the jihadists, as they have been close to doing for some time.
These western states are adamantly opposed to allowing a peaceful resolution in Syria, Kinzer observes, because it:
“might allow stability to spread to nearby countries. Today, for the first time in modern history, the governments of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon are on good terms. A partnership among them could lay the foundation for a new Middle East.”
“That new Middle East, however, would not be submissive to the United States-Israel-Saudi Arabia coalition. For that reason, we are determined to prevent it from emerging. Better to keep these countries in misery and conflict, some reason, than to allow them to thrive while they defy the United States. “…
“From Washington’s perspective, peace in Syria is the horror scenario. Peace would mean what the United States sees as a ‘win’ for our enemies: Russia, Iran, and the Assad government. We are determined to prevent that, regardless of the human cost.”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/18/robert-fisks-douma-report-rips-away-excuses-for-air-strike-on-syria/
“However bad Assad is, and he is a dictator, ”
That’s not correct. Elections were held in Syria in 2014 attended by numerous UN observers. Bashar al Assad won by a considerable majority.
The UN observers report is here:
FYI
The Syrian Arab Republic Constitution
https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Syria_2012.pdf
To true Brigid ….. I didn’t want to edit what I had quoted. ..I did quote the main point twice though ….
Elections were indeed held and for more info on the western supported extremist and proxy overthrow of Syria …
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-revolutionary-distemper-in-syria-that-wasnt-us-nato-sponsored-al-qaeda-insurgency-since-the-outset-in-march-2011/5552358
“reporters representing Time magazine and the New York Times referred to the government as having broad support, of critics conceding that Assad was popular, and of Syrians exhibiting little interest in protest. At the same time, they described the unrest as a series of riots involving hundreds, and not thousands or tens of thousands of people, guided by a largely Islamist agenda and exhibiting a violent character.”
“Bashar al-Assad’s refusal to renounce Arab nationalist ideology dismayed Washington, which complained about his socialism,”
“Time’s correspondent Rania Abouzeid attributed the failure of the protest organizers to draw significant support to the fact that most Syrians were not opposed to their government. Assad had a favorable reputation, especially among the two-thirds of the population under 30 years of age, and his government’s policies were widely supported. “Even critics concede that Assad is popular and considered close to the country’s huge youth cohort, both emotionally, ideologically and, of course, chronologically,”
“That the government commanded popular support was affirmed when the British survey firm YouGov published a poll in late 2011 showing that 55 percent of Syrians wanted Assad to stay. The poll received almost no mention in the Western media, prompting the British journalist Jonathan Steele to ask: “Suppose a respectable opinion poll found that most Syrians are in favor of Bashar al-Assad remaining as president, would that not be major news?”
Steele described the poll findings as “inconvenient facts” which were” suppressed “because Western media coverage of the events in Syria had ceased “to be fair” and had turned into “a propaganda weapon.”[66
https://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-regime-continues-supporting-isis/5651020?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles
Well, I watched the chief censor on the AM show rationalising his decision to ban the shooter’s manifesto & agreed that propaganda from violent groups ought not to be given a platform in the msm.
Then I saw the rep from the FSM explaining that we need to understand what motivates such groups and suppressing the manifesto stops folks learning, and agreed with that.
So there’s merit on both sides of this divide. I suspect a medial line will have to be taken, in which people are free to selectively examine the group’s advocacy on a point-by-point basis. Why bother? Consider the weakness of the censor’s position: public policy ought to be evidence-based, and he failed to cite a single piece of evidence to validate his stance.
I’ve noticed the same failing in those here who stridently demonise the alt-right. None have provided a single example of incitement to violence in the manifesto. I’m not saying none exists – just that laziness isn’t good enough.
The censor’s stance is to treat the public with contempt by assuming they don’t need to know. Maybe tacit rather than conscious (like Trump) but still evident. Paternalism. Unlikely to fly well in the new millennium.
For those of us who have been fighting racism and injustice, bigotry and hate over the years we don’t have to read the specific cut and paste jobbie from this murderer because we already know what they think – it’s all over the internet, it’s all over their low impact support sites from those with like mind. It is good others want to join the fight – may I suggest – read and follow those fighting these people and you will learn a lot. Reading their rambling tomes you’ll learn not so much just how to hate more.
If it’s ‘all over the internet’, why are we banning only this one particular example?
Shradrach is all over the internet …. spreading victim blaming shit like this ….
Special Report: The Ladder Down to Hell : “The ( NZ ) killings also coincided with a surge of anti-Muslim hate crimes in other regions of the world, including the United Kingdom and Canada, while in the U.S., such crimes have spiked to all-time highs. ”
Shradrach s response : “If that is true, it is hardly surprising given the hatred being preached across the US by Islamic leaders, particularly anti-Semitic diatribes.”
This is the truth versus Shradrachs angry fear-mongering arguments.
These Muslim New Zealanders …. and the restraint and love shown by the bereaved …… show Shadgag to be a very very ugly member … of us
https://twitter.com/hashtag/50lives?src=hash
I often find that when someone quotes another without providing links, they are being dishonest. Like you were here /open-mike-21-03-2019/#comment-1600348.
Yes your deliberately shortened the quote from’ the ladder to hell “….to leave out christchurch …. we can all see that.
Why did you shorten it ????
So you could push your “: “If that is true, it is hardly surprising given the hatred being preached across the US by Islamic leaders, particularly anti-Semitic diatribes.” ….. without making us all vomit at your sentiments.
How about your bullshit statement when you conflate extremist fundamentalist Muslims …… with normal peaceful Muslims ….
“Islam as an ideology, as practised in Islamic nations and as taught in many western countries, is fundamentally incompatible with a modern liberal democracy. There are many Muslims who are calling for an Islamic reformation, unfortunately their voices are, as yet, not being heard.”
So according to Shradich a good portion of our Muslims murdered in Christchurch were incompatible with New Zealand life.
Could you identify the ones we are better off without shradarch
Here they are ….. strangely they seem like better New Zealanders than you
https://twitter.com/hashtag/50lives?src=hash
“So according to Shradich a good portion of our Muslims murdered in Christchurch were incompatible with New Zealand life.”
No, never said that.
Take a deep breath and contemplate for a moment the notion that it is possible to critique an ideology (in this case Islam) without wishing it’s followers ill. Are you suggesting that criticising Nazi ideology should not be allowed because it is attacking German people?
Never mind the Nazis
Instead ….
Nice sentiments, but critiquing an ideology is not ‘violence’. Nor is it ‘racism’, ‘bigotry’, ‘islamophobia’ or any other word you may choose to try to shut down debate.
No different from the OIA. Openness, transparency, and trust are just buzzwords to pacify the great unwashed. They know best, Dennis, and they don’t even have to justify it because it is their job and it comes with fancy titles (and pay packages) that tells them they’re above us. This is the natural order and the so-called chain of command. No respect for the underlings.
This is the problem I have with hierarchical structures and institutions; it breeds a climate of non-communicative so-called managers and leaders who can’t (be bothered) to properly explain anything. And no, appearing on a morning show is not the same as actually properly communicating and explaining.
This is even more of a problem with complex sensitive and controversial matter. The harder it gets, the less communication and explanation will be forthcoming. IMO, it should be the exact opposite.
“Openness, transparency, and trust are just buzzwords to pacify the great unwashed.”
the great unwashed – wonderful imagery and telling comment.
Good we have the sorting hat on in this country at the moment – and people are sorting themselves nicely.
Marty. Would you have wanted the Urewera raids, censored by the Government?
Incognito is right about the authoritarian arrogance.
I admit to struggling with this. For example I want child porn, and other similarly objectionable stuff on the internet, totally gone.
Political speech. Where do you draw the line? To me Bennett’s welfare bashing is “Hate speech” which is used to justify the level of cruelty inflicted on people by the right wing, and WINZ. Violence which hurts 100,s of thousands of people. Refusing her a platform however, will not stop the hate.
To a large extent if you give these people enough rope, they eventually discredit themselves, to all but a few.
Brash, for example is unelectable, as is Seymour anywhere but a National electorate, which will vote for a blue gumboot, if they are told to.
I admire incognito’s writing and sentiment. I cannot stand authoritarian arrogance either and middle manager incompetence or idiocy.
I don’t agree with the enough rope strategy on this stuff. The Chief Censor has made a call and it will be assessed. I’m cool with that.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018688
I read about half of the terrorist’s wee missive and did not see it as instructional….a ‘how to’ manual. He assumed he would be killed or caught and anticipated being isolated. The manifesto…or the first 40 pages or so consists of this arsehole interviewing himself. Asking himself the questions he thinks he should be asked so he can explain/justify the horror he has wrought.
Most of it was copy and paste. I doubt an original thought or idea has ever escaped from his brain. The couple of references to his own personal experience give insight into just how faulty his thinking is.
The bulk of the content is ubiquitous…banning this particular manifestation of this ideology serves only to raise what is in actuality crap to mythical heights. Create a legend Censor. Good work. /sarc, btw
Child pornography…most definitely ban…and ffs increase the penalties for making and disseminating 100 fold, as at the moment the courts are being too soft.
I too have real issues with being told by my ‘betters’ what is appropriate for me to know/see/read/hear. All government business should be totally open and transparent, and so far this lot have fallen way short on that.
A subject dear to my heart Incognito but I won’t start on it because I would still be going this time tomorrow. Suffice to say, times are a’changing and these upstarts who have goose-stepped around the corridors of the Public Service and other halls of power for the past umpteen decades are gradually becoming extinct.
Long may it continue.
That’s my impression too @Anne. I’d go a little further in one or two cases – and that is that a couple who’ve ‘goose-stepped around the corridors’ (anxious to preserve their status, career options and perceptions of their own might), and who’ve been pushing back since the change in government might well be shitting themselves about now. (And if they aren’t, they’re a little bit ficker than I originally thought they were)
“Well, I watched the chief censor on the AM show….”
Well that’s your problem right there Dennis.
For goodness’ sake, watching telly is hazardous at any time….first thing in the morning though? The producers rightly assume the audience is barely awake so they don’t have to bother with quality content.
Give it up…take your coffee outside and watch the sunrise.
It’s not a woolly line at all if a speech act directly incites violence. I am happy for the citations provided by the Chief Censor to be enough evidence for me.
So no, there is no merit in continuing then able that kind of speech.
I have no problem at all censoring death threats, and as far as I can tell I’m one of the most permissive free speech advocates here.
Right kind of paternalism.
So where’s your proof, Ad? Where did you see him provide a citation? If you refuse to front up with evidence, you can’t complain if folks remain unconvinced.
“Right kind of paternalism.”
Rightio, Dad.
You want the incitements to violence quoted do you franky?
You mean that’s not obvious? Normal in a court of law, just as normal in the court of public opinion… 🙄
No incorrect. We put people into roles and we entrust them to do the role. It is peculiar that you think you need to know the detail.
We? Some of us believe officials are accountable to the public. Not just in theory, but in practice too. Shifting democracy in the direction of accountability is wise. That’s why many people are helping to do it…
Yes we. I thought youd been involved in politics – this line you’re pushing seems very juvenile to me. Note I am not saying YOU are juvenile just what you are SAYING is imo. What accountability are you actually talking about. He went on the idiotbox didn’t he? He answered the inane questions didn’t he? Do you want to interview him yourself? Trust Dennis is actually what makes democracy work. Distrust destroys it.
Evasion of accountability by mainstream politicians and public servant was one of the concerns that motivated my joining the Greens 29 years ago. Similar evasion by capitalists motivated me even more.
Dunno why you regard such widespread concerns as juvenile. Zillions of adults share them. Many contributors here keep proving that.
I agree that trust is crucial. I’m actually reading a very good about it at the moment: Who Can You Trust? I bought Fukuyama’s book Trust in the nineties and one with the same title by a different author a couple of years later.
Re the current book, this is what the publisher’s section About the Author says: “Rachel Botsman is a world renowned expert on trust, whose three TED talks on the topic have been viewed over 3.5 million times.” Named “a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. She writes for the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Review, Wired, and more.”
Her chapter on how the dark web operates to build trust on a verified and validated basis is fascinating (she gives examples to illuminate that). She’s an academic with the University of Oxford’s business school.
Interesting book. Trust is an interesting topic to discuss but i’ll leave it for another day for me
So true. And in my view, accountability is a necessary ingredient to build trust. Accountability is more than telling you do your job well and follow instructions nicely. It is about providing some (…) justification and explanation as to why you doing things and with what intentions and outcomes.
It’s a grey area but instead of a whiter shade of pale they choose a blacker shade of beige 😉
yay we agree. Trust is built on accountability. No accountability no trust. In regards to the mechanisms of government I am okay with the level of accountability – to a point – I’d certainly like heads to resign after mistakes that hurt people or break the law or are racist or sexist or ageist or ableist and so on. I haven’t seen anything like that or even remotely like that. I’ve seen a banned manifesto after the darkest day of murder against innocent Kiwis this country has seen. White supremacist garbage should be consigned to the rubbish bin. There are ZERO redeeming qualities for it to be available imo.
“We put people into roles and we entrust them to do the role.”
Hmm…considering the huge number of examples of government appointees getting it horribly wrong, methinks your faith is misplaced. Just a bit.
Sure they get it wrong – if anyone thinks someone should be perfect well sadly people aren’t like that because that’s impossible. There are checks and balances as there should be. They seem to work mostly and the alternative is not a society that cares for the vulnerable imo.
You want to taste the meat that’s been condemned as not fit for human consumption franky?
Gabby
What does that mean? Anything of value?
If the text is poisonous, reading it (to decide for ourselves whether it is poisonous) involves poisoning ourselves with it.
Seems pretty obvious to me.
Well the obvious would also suggest that the censor,who spends his days watching,(at the taxpayers expense )reading and listening to porn and violent games should be required to undertake psychological evaluation.
I suspect it’s an essential part of the job.
It is an essential part of the job. From what I understand, the stuff that team sees can be pretty harrowing.
Yeah, some of the police forensic IT guys can have a hard time of it, too, ISTR hearing.
Always the trouble. Accepting enforced ignorance.
Pornography is outlawed.
So obtaining some to view what is being talked about makes you an
outlaw.
If a teacher has it then that is the finish to their good reputation, no matter if it is just a small amount – not tons of files.
But police will have evenings when they watch it, so they know about it,
can recognise it when they see it. Yet teachers have not the standing to also be shown it. (This is what I understand has been the case and probably still is.)
Therefore if their students have it and watch it, then they know more about this important mind and attitude-bender than the teacher and might feel rather superior. It puts teachers at a disadvantage.
Do you really want teachers to be able to download child porn?
I suspect the viewings to which you refer aren’t self-directed downloads, either.
I raise some points. It isn’t an all-encompassing idea. Just a pint that some people who are supposed to be knowledgable and capable of moral behaviour know some things and other, similarly important people, are prevented from even viewing them.
I can see why cops might need to know precisely what sort of things might be deemed objectionable in practise. It goes to grounds for making an arrest or giving the censors appropriate items to rule on.
Teachers probably don’t need to know that much. How does a teacher discovering a kid is watching r18 differ from discovering the kid is watching something a bit closer to R20 or even objectionable? Surely it goes to parents and maybe school counsellor. They might call in the cops depending on age and content. But is there any functional difference at the teacher end?
Can’t you work it out grazy?
You can fill me with your meat.
You understate your massiveness sambarse.
Based on the evidence, your staments are questionable.
Wonderful, Gabby! I understand what you are saying even if some others don’t. Always appreciate your ability to get right to the crux of the issue in a very few words. It’s a skill many of us don’t have.
+1 it really is the essence of DF’s demand.
Recall that I made the same point myself re not wanting to have the manifesto on my computer. I mentioned that there is a contaminating effect on the psyche.
Today I’m making a different point. Public policy must be evidence-based nowadays, to seem credible, lot’s of folk are claiming. I agree that is desirable. Citation of evidence has been missing in the hate-speech debate. I’ve pointed that out several times. This morning I caught Ad pretending that the censor cited evidence – did you notice how he ducked for cover when I called his bluff?
Now you may wish to claim that nobody comes here to make a positive contribution to public policy. I’m inclined to disagree. I know I do. Why would anyone seek to participate in politics from an impotent position?
Sorry, just to clarify, theoretically-like, you want evidence that the 74-page manifesto released by a mass-murderer immediately prior to his rampage contains objectionable material?
I think most people would safely assume it’s not a recipe for cinnamon swirls.
To see if it is a feasible candidate for prosecution under our hate-speech law. Proof of incitement to commit violence. I note how many folk are happy to assume it does without proof. I just think it unwise to form public policy on the basis of unvalidated assumptions.
Like the unvalidated assumption that a document written in relation to committing 50 murders might contain some nasty-ass shit?
Do you need to see every image someone downloaded to agree whether they were watching child porn, or are you happy with the existence of a conviction on the basis that the defendant was found to be in possession of images classified as objectionable?
You could try applying to the censors for permission to read the manifesto on the grounds that you wish to verify for yourself that it does indeed contain objectionable content that justifies its banning.
Let us know how you get on.
Or if you’re sufficiently distrustful of the quality of the censors’ decisions, I’m sure you could find it online, read and print it before the cops got to your door. The absence of truly objectionable material should then be a pretty good defence at trial.
Go on, set yourself up to be a free-speech martyr. If teenage me could play my illegal copy of Marianne Faithfull’s Why’d Ya Do It, you can strike a blow for free speech today.
i don’t want to see the manifesto discussed to see evidence for mass murder – the evidence of mass murder was provided before the manifesto. So that point is moot.
i would like to see the manifest discussed to learn where we – our spy agencies, our police services, our gun shop owner, us the community, and all other that interacted with this fellow- have missed that he is so incited to hate the other that he would become a mass murderer.
And as state before, i don’t forcibly want to read it, but i would like to see certain people read it, Hoskins, Richardson, Bill English, the federated farmer dude, and all those that regularly diminish people as useless, as others, as undeserving, as not fit, as bludgers, etc etc etc.
And i would like them to be asked, publicly is there anything in your rhetoric over the past few years that you would take back.
As i firmly believe that the incitement to hate not only comes from radicalized people, but more importantly comes from our so called polite society that shapes the daily discourse of our public.
i.e. Donald Trump : all mexican are rapists and murderers. All muslims must be banned. All african nations are shit holes.
Is this any less hate speech? And should we ban Donald Trump?
Should we ban that federated farmer dude that declares that some people are ‘useless’? And if they are useless, what should then be done about them?
And again, i understand that to look at us and our own discourse – and i include myself – might not be fun, might not be easy, might actually be hurtful. But we can not ever change hate, and hateful behavior by banning manifestos and screeds and pretend it did not happen here and it was not one of us – one of us fellow white people. Because we would not have any gumption of demanding accountability from every Muslim we see if the perpetrator of the crime were a Muslim.
The thing is that we know that for at least the next while not only will it not be easy, we know that other fuckwits will draw solace and encouragement from that document. Because that’s what they do: cut and paste from previous fuckwits.
If you can demonstrate a genuine need and ability to process that material, apply for an exemption.
McFlock 1.55
again, you try hard to not understand what i say.
i don’t need to read it. I just want to see where we as a society failed.
So i list up whom i think needs to read it.
The man from the federated farmers who a week after a mass murder sprouts nonsense about ‘useless people’. He needs to read it.
Mike Hoskins who has been on record now for years sprouting nonsense about dole bludgers, people who have children who can’t afford it, and generally ‘useless people’.
Bill English who has been on record calling our young people ‘useless and pretty damned hopeless.
Sky News that showed the video.
The police that surveilled others and not white supremasits.
Our polititians that have hyped in one way or another our fear of the Muslim while the terror came from a non muslim.
And they should answer to us the public, as many of htese guys are paid for by us. And they should tell us if they think that they too might be part of the problem.
And unless you have read the thing you would not know what they copy and pasted or wrote themselves. Don’t you want to know : WHY and HOW did this happen. and WHY and HOW did we miss it? and WHAT can we do to prevent it from happening again.
As for the fuckwits drawing solace, they already have the video and the manifesto downloaded and your little attempt at censor ship is something that they are laughing about.
@McFlock – “we know that other fuckwits will draw solace and encouragement from that document. Because that’s what they do: cut and paste from previous fuckwits.”
We also know that they will find opportunities for recruitment and ‘righteous’ outrage from the restriction or deletion of said document.
So, either way, the hard part is dealing with the recognition of the presence of a supportive community and individuals with this mindset and perspective, and then, making efforts to counteract or engage with them so that they are not destructive.
Sabine’s comments so far have been straightforward and well reasoned, and despite the harm caused, what little I have seen of the manifesto shows it to be an embarrassment to the author. I think her reasons are more convincing so far, than any others put forward regarding the classification of the material.
What makes you think Hosking or whomever won’t agree with it?
In ten years, I might read a book by a forensic psychologist or someone else who talks about why this specific insecure little fucker did what he did. It might have some revelation (e.g. apparently Whitman had a brain tumour that might have accounted for his actions to some degree). Most likely it will be a similar story to most of the other sad, pathetic, weak, insecure, scared little fuckers who do shit like this.
The how is being rapidly addressed.
The why is something we will never truly going to understand. We missed it because we thought we were better, we thought we had gun control, we thought the problem came from people we didn’t realise we thought of as “other”.
But why he did it? How does any normal person comprehend why some insecure little fuck needs to murder defenceless people to feel good about himself?
@molly and Sabine
Fair call, there are good arguments both ways, I should be clear. But the other key thing about banning it is that anyone who gets caught possessing it immediately brings themselves to the close and public attention of the courts. So people have to be keen to read it, and it becomes a self-outing mechanism. And in the search for answers, most of the reviews indicate there is nothing particularly interesting compared to other right-wing terrorists.
McFlock 2:57 pm
What makes you think Hosking or whomever won’t agree with it?
i actually believe that he does agree with some of the shit the white supremacists peddle – oh surely not openly, cleverly disguised as ‘opinion’, a bit of not political correct fun you see, wink wink, nudge nudge.
But so long as they don’t have to affront their own biases and the results of their words they will not change.
Currently the main danger that i see is that the white supremacists laugh at us and our hurt feelings. Going to prison? Heck why not. They be heroes for their fellow white supremacists. Or do we believe we don’t have the Aryan Nation, Identity Europe and the likes here in NZ and in our prisons? so unless the guy is send to a prison full of maori he will have white supremacists in the public population with him and support. think of it.
That is why i think we need to have a open public discussion about what happened. So that people that would not think twice about dehumanizing someone for being brown, poor, unemployed, pregnant, handicapped, or of a different religion think twice about some political incorrect commentary and ‘wink wink nudge nudge’
. Lest they be held accountable if some fuckwit takes their words and goes on a killing spree.
cause at the end of the day, teh question really is: Why is a average white guy, average everything, good finances, good family support going to a different country to buy guns and slaughter people? Why? And how come our vast surveillance state that knows every pot smoker and grower, could not see this guy and realize that he is up to something. And What should we do different from now onward.
so to do nothing and just simply ‘who could imagine that this happens, well we don’t have to imagine it, in certain parts of the world this shit happens every day. do we want this to happen here every day and offer thoughts and prayers and nothing can be done, next?
I think the main danger is that we don’t know who they are.
I’m not saying that we should do nothing. This little fucker should be a lab rat for the rest of his life. But that’s different from distributing his rants.
Interesting analogy but flawed IMO. The defendant knows the images, the prosecution knows it too, as do the jury and the judge. In fact, the defense team can provide a counter-argument regarding the images if they choose to.
None of that applies to the Chief Censor and his office’s decision to declare something objectionable and unfit for public consumption, meat or vegetable. It is an asymmetric or unilateral decision rather based on authority.
My understanding is that the jury etc don’t actually judge the images. The censor classifies the images, and if they’re objectionable then the legal question is possession, not the nature of the images themselves.
But more to the point, everyone whose role in the trial requires it might see the images, but the public does not. And nor should we. It would defeat the purpose.
I think the criteria in the act itself are a bit prescriptive in places – most of them are clearly consent and public welfare issues (e.g. minors and animals), but damned if I can see that justification for urine. It’s not my scene, but crazier stuff has been done consensually.
I suspect the evaluation itself errs on the side of conservative when it comes to judging the public standard, but I’m hard-pressed to think of a better system to judge all publications etc. Because if we don’t have such a system, it all goes to the lowest denominator.
Yep and he still doesn’t get it I think.
Good to see you back veutoviper.
+ 1 yep been missed
Hello veutoviper, so pleased to see your post.!! Yes Gabby can be concise. That is why his name is a laugh.
Yep good one gabby
I find this discussion bizarre. Librarians and other groups have been disputing unhelpful OFLC decisions for a long time, eg this egregious example, but for some people it’s apparently all good until the OFLC bans a fucking white supremacist manifesto advocating the murder of their fellow citizens. Seriously, what the fuck? That’s the point at which the OFLC’s gone too far? Maybe the people whinging about the Chief Censor’s decision should take a break and think about their priorities.
Ok, but many of us are not librarians and would never have heard of this particular case and the reason being it did not attract as much attention. Duh! I find this bordering on false equivalence.
It would be interesting to think what the reaction would be if Key were PM.
Why?
Looms like the Victoria University Council is going to go to the high court to try and get the name change it wants – see the post “A LETTER FROM HUGH RENNIE QC TO FRIENDS OF VUW” on this FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/stickwithvic/?__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARDj6osCKzXHGaREDMzpSCHnU0_9EqtYadx0i__21GYkVXc63KL2aFYcWK0jSNYgFmnSf4k0xlGFKEsRPk2fAb6ZS5BbbtF69WVtazmOt7xQt4t0q19p6B0mCtZ4twngc5WhJCdpQS6gItj4KL1j8tKNE9iDutk5qAaaT4T2WyA8vSp9C-n-OMNzwkJSwVlxyNH7Hb5ZWz806tCKoKxA6uAohw
This is an utterly reckless waste of money by an arrogant VC and council.
Now on Scoop:
http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=117277&fbclid=IwAR1L0tflkX1ktEB-6GTFo5SM5rwpl8Dr4mCcr8UrI0aTRiBGuZKnI4SJsPg
Bugger That!
All power to Hugh, and hope that the VUW council take on board the huge opposition to this stupid proposed name change which will, actually harm, not enhance my alma mater
Auckland University
Canterbury University
Otago University
Eastern Institute of Technology is in the east, Hawkes Bay.
Victoria University. Where is Victoria in NZ?
(Perhaps it should establish itself as a separate entity from
Wellington, or get the area named a suburb so it has
connection with its place.)
VUW stands for Victoria University Wellington
and it’s actually not about where it’s physically located. It’s far more nuanced than that – but you need to read the scoop article to understand why.
I may think the name is a colonial hangover, but the majority of the people involved, such as alumni, staff and students appear to want to keep the name.
Democracy!
The mania for management driven, re-naming every thing, for no good reason is a characteristic of Neo- liberal managerialism. They like to call it “Re branding”.
Something new broom managers like to do, to give the appearance of doing something.
Now. If the impetus for change had come from the grass roots, gaining everyone’s support, that would be a different story.
KJT
The reason for changing the name is good, or so it seems. The argument is that Wellington as the university’s name will stand out and its mana and that of the research that comes from it will be noticed and not just disappear in the mix of Victoria Universities around the world.
If past students and others look at things in an academic manner with a statistical bent about whether being connected with other Wellingtons is going to give them a leg-up compared to being swamped by other Victorias then there might be light on this.
It is a bit like the Christchurch Cathedral, apparently we are clinging on to the 1800s, and while we aren’t looking the powers that be are taking away the chunks of the 2000s till we have a few sun-bleached rocks.
BTW GWT are you related to John Key just wondering ?
If I was there I may have argued for changing the name. Trying for consensus on the change. . For post colonial reasons.
I don’t know how many Wellingtons and Victoria’s there are around the world, but a cursory google finds rather a lot.
However it doesn’t seem to be what the VUW community want.
The reasoning appears to me more from the “marketing” angle.
Driven by the “bums on seats” crowd.
GWT = Goat
FFS it’s always been Victoria University, this is another stunt like Pony Boy’s Flag Change which cost the taxpayer $23 million ?
Key would pretend empathy …. be comfortable with nationals watered down inaction over the firearms review under his watch …..
And like Wayne Mapp pretend we should stick with Israel as they are the source of civilization and share our values in the middle east
Well that’s more disturbing that the fake “live video” of the NZ attack that I saw. It will be an awkward moment if they are allowed to show it in the trial.
[Corodale. This is your third comment in recent hours hinting at a false flag event in Christchurch. It’s also going to be your last word on the matter. This site is not infowars and you are not Alex Jones. Show some respect or you’ll be moved on. TRP]
“the fake “live video” of the NZ attack”
Couldn’t we just ban this piece of shit for life. Do we need to have a conversation on the veracity of the video.
I posit: this line is positioning fools to watch the video in detail.
This is hate speech, in case you were wondering. It minimises all the hurt and harm to relay some whackjob trolls opinion.
If you can’t get rid of this shit, I can’t be part of this place.
There’s a mod note on Corodale’s comment already WTB and any further attempts to go down this path will be dealt with in the usual manner. Generally speaking, false flag claims are fodder for the intellectually weak; people who can’t deal with the world as it is. Pity is probably the correct response.
Thanks TRP.
False narratives are the life-blood of terrorism. 1 part truth, 10 parts hysteria. This particular narrative is just trolling. Not feeble minded, deliberate provocation.
And then the feeble echo it.
well the ‘fake attack’ line is out there and will not be put to rest.
As i said before, i am happy to repeat it again.
We can set the tone of the discussion, or we can ban everything related to the mass murder in christchurch and pretend -it did not happen- once the guy is locked up in Prison.
in the meant time others will not have such qualms.
This country needs to discuss these events. Publicly, openly, ideally televised (as that is the means of information for most), PM, Police, First Emergency Responders, clerics etc etc etc so that people like Corodale are literally just laughed out of the room as the cowards that don’t want to acknowledge the truth.
But here we are discussing how we applaud the banning of the manifest (cause it does not teach us anything !), we don’t publicly discuss the failings of our security apparatus (cause Spies!), we don’t discuss how we are incited to hate and dislike of others – muslims, single mothers, disabled people, useless people (Bill English), old people, young people, brown people, white people, urban people, rural people – by those who make a pay cheque out of ‘talk back shock radio and politics (Hoskins, Bill English, Paula Bennet etc) and the dividing of our country in to ‘us’ vs ‘them’.
So either we want to and realise even we MUST freely discuss the events of March 15th, or we are bound to repeat them again and again until we find the courage to look at us and our society openly and freely.
Transparency beings with us.
Alex jones …..
Such a good song too.
More Alex Jones in his own words
1 minute in and it’s just a lot of loud mouths talking over each other. Is this supposed to be something worthwhile? Do you have to be smoking something to appreciate it?
Almost certainly. But I really only wanted to post it for the first 25 seconds.
@ Corodale.
I love a good conspiracy theory as much as anyone, but this is a bad one. Dumping it here is deeply unwelcome.
Hate speech should be banned. You are a hate speaker.
Agree Corriedale’s should not be allowed near computers.
‘Islamist Attack Plot’ Foiled By German Police; 11 Arrested For Planning “To Kill As Many Infidels As Possible” https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-23/islamist-attack-plot-foiled-german-police-11-arrested-planning-kill-many-infidels As nice as my Muslim friends are, its still easy from me to see where Islamophobia comes from. They aren’t all nice, for example: Muhammad of Mecca was a war-lord who took slave-wives from the Jewish/Pagan tribes he _______. And Allah is historically the god of the Moon, as opposed to Christ, which is historically a god of the Sun. Sorry, just trying to keep things balanced and honest here in this little echo chamber. Yeah, truth. It hurts, I know.
This is what happens when you teach a Corriedale how to use the internet.
A) They can’t spell ” Corriedale” and
B) They are, at the end of the day, easily scared sheep.
Just say no when you flock asks for a laptop.
So instead of making weak sheep jokes (the average Aussie is much funnier, don’t try to compete) I went and checked out the German source above:
https://www.thelocal.de/
A brief scan reveals an interesting lead article:
https://www.thelocal.de/20190322/how-the-enabling-act-paved-the-way-for-nazi-dictatorship
So although I’m unfamiliar with the site it’s fair to assume this isn’t some bunch of nasty neo-nazis. Then we get to the details:
https://www.thelocal.de/20190322/police-arrest-11-over-terror-attack-plan
Are you alleging this story is a complete fabrication on the part of the news site or the German police? Or alternatively that we discount the plot because the target was just presumably white ‘infidels’? No need to waste any good outrage?
You might reasonably argue that a foiled plot in Europe has little relevance to NZ, and some decades ago this would have been reasonable. But given the ChCh terrorist was clearly radicalised in Europe, and given that many have pointed to the internet as having eliminated distance when it comes to psychological connections and threat … then evidence pointing out that the radical Islamic threat is as alive as ever is pertinent.
Of course this would be nothing more than a tiresome ‘whattaboutism’ if I was attempting to justify ChCh because say Bali. Quite the contrary, all extremists start as a tiny pathological minority, their core strategy, their only hope for victory entirely rests on escalating the atrocities, forcing more and more people to ‘choose sides’ and participate in the conflagration they so deeply desire … and that I openly condemn.
i would not consider theLocal.de a right wing publication rather a ‘european one’ with a focus on news form germany in english..
this is good reading and i suggest to others as it is a timely reminder that what happened in the past was ‘legal’ and that it can happen again. https://www.thelocal.de/20190322/how-the-enabling-act-paved-the-way-for-nazi-dictatorship
I am very happy that the police did manage to take this group out before they could do any harm.
and did you see, names were named, locations were named, and everyone gets to read about it. Transparency is needed if we want to prevent this from happening. The public is needed to help prevent these types of terrorist attacks.
the only difference between this plot and the attack on March 15th is that we in NZ we kind of expected an attack by Muslims, or basically had been conditioned to expect a terror attack by Muslims, and much to our surprise it was a white average guy with average looks, average heights, average intelligence and a bit more then average access to funds.
Who said they were all nice corodale ???
Which ones out of the 100 odd killed and injured in christchurch had it coming … just for balance ??
Here’s the truth of the matter …. or to some a echo chamber
https://twitter.com/hashtag/50lives?src=hash
You sure that’s not fake corodazed?
“Allah is historically the god of the Moon, as opposed to Christ, which is historically a god of the Sun”
Now I understand why Jesus wants me for a sunbeam. Thank you for your enlightening discourse.
Is the moon evil, do you think?
Cold-hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colours from our sight
Red is grey and yellow, white
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion
Graeme Edge
FO Corodale
If there could ever be a time to put that up, this isn’t it. It isn’t help to us – go and roll in something you dirty dog.
Is it ironic …. that in the usa it takes a black Somali refugee to stick up for the people of Venezuela … and call out the death squad activity s of the people Trump has appointed to ‘deal with’ Venezuela ???
Is it coincidence … when she talks of the biggest buyers of influence over us democracy …. and their Govts foreign policy …. she gets attacked as anti-Semite ???
“Congressional Democrats are attempting to discipline Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar for speaking critically about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) — and more generally in defense of Palestinian rights — after smearing her as “anti-Semitic.” This comes at the same time that Omar, one of the only Muslim representatives in Congress, has been targeted for death threats and Islamophobic propaganda likening her to those who carried out the 9/11 attacks.”
https://socialistworker.org/2019/03/06/jews-stand-against-the-smearing-of-ilhan-omar
“Bad-faith smears of Omar and many others are being used to crush Palestinian rights, undermine social movements and divert attention from real anti-Semitism. http://inthesetimes.com/article/21778/false-accusations-antisemitism-ilhan-omar-israel-palestine-democrats
“An Islamophobic sign made by the Republican Party of West Virginia and falsely linking the congresswoman to the 9/11 attacks was posted at the Capitol. The same party accusing Omar of perpetuating anti-Semitic myths felt it was completely appropriate to do the same to Muslims.”
See the usa heartland hate directed against her on twitter
Tweets by Ilhan
Sorry heres the hate thread against Ilhan Omar … on the subject of climate change
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/we-already-know-ilhan-omar-is-an-anti-semite-the-question-is-do-democrats-care
Are you blaming Ilhan Omar for the christchurch mass murders now Shradcock ??
Or just spreading anti semite smears ,,,, against a Muslim woman …. ?
https://lobelog.com/ilhan-omar-anatomy-of-a-smear/
https://mondoweiss.net/2019/02/ilhan-semitic-canard/
http://inthesetimes.com/article/21778/false-accusations-antisemitism-ilhan-omar-israel-palestine-democrats
https://newrepublic.com/article/153228/shameful-campaign-silence-ilhan-omar
https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/ilhan-omar-called-anti-semitic-for-tweet-criticizing-pro-israel-lobby
“BDS is a non-violent movement calling on governments and corporations to exert financial pressure on Israel in an effort to recognize the rights of Palestinians. The campaign draws parallels to the South African anti-apartheid movement.
McCarthy has decried Omar and Tlaib’s support for BDS as anti-Semitic, attributing their opposition to the nation-state of Israel to anti-Jewish bigotry.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, has defended BDS as constitutionally protected free speech. ”
Ilhan Omar seems like a a nice human …..the same as those murdered in christchurch ….. who you smear and fear-monger against.
People can read Ilhan Omars words …. and compare them to yours shradlophobe …. once more you will look very very ugly.
Your argument appears to be dishonest hate …. do you have a gun license ?
Your usa comrades of dishonest Islamophobia hate speach pollute her twitter .
“We all know what your doing. The same thing that has been done in NZ, UK, SWITZERLAND, BRUSSELS and Germany. Remember this: Land of the Free and Home of the Brave Sharia Law will NOT happen in the USA! ”
https://twitter.com/ilhan?lang=en
“Are you blaming Ilhan Omar for the christchurch mass murders now Shradcock ??”
If you need to ask that question you clearly haven’t been keeping up.
Ilhan Omar is an anti-Semite, who is increasingly offside with even her own fellow democrats.
Anti semitic to oppose Israel murdering Semites in Gaza?
That is screwed up even for you, Shadrack..
If she was simply expressing a concern about Israel responding to Palestinian terrorism, I wouldn’t call her on it. But ‘Benjamins Baby’ type comments are a different league.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/we-already-know-ilhan-omar-is-an-anti-semite-the-question-is-do-democrats-care
You do know that Israel has been terrorizing Palestinians, since Israel’s beginnings.
Which Palestinians? Jewish Palestinians? Samaritan Palestinians? Arab Palestinians? And since when? Since the Arab invasion of modern Israel hours after it was formed? Or for the thousands of years of Jewish rule back to the twin kingdoms?
You mean when the Israeli’s drove out the Palestinian inhabitants at gun point. Those they didn’t bomb or shoot, around the formation of Israel.
Then got all precious, and poor me, when they fought back.
Oh so you’re talking about the legal establishment of modern Israel in 1948? The one immediately followed by an invasion by Israel’s Arab neighbours?
When the Haganah and Stern gang and later the Israeli army engaged in terrorism. Yes.
You must be reading your history back to front.
So. If in New Zealand we drove Maori into Northland, walled them off, and bombed them at intervals, that would be fine.
Because “God told us we owned the land”. FFS.
In the aftermath of a world incident massacre in New Zealand, the shill media is peddling some good ole eugenics connotative ”news”, isn’t that strange.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/111458974/federated-farmers-marlborough-president-slams-tax-reform-as-funds-for-the-useless
Corporate socialism will have you off your farm in due time too, old boy.
Yeah, it is amusing how upset they still seem to be at not being held in higher regard than other forms of life…
… they seem to have not noticed that the agricultural revolution ended some ten thousand years ago….
talk about not moving with the times
Hey, are you still supporting NZF? I noticed Garner & Richardson this morning opining that Winston was past it & ought to retire due to wimping out of presenting our nation strongly to the Turkish leader & people. What do you think of that?
What was Drunken Garner’s reasoning franky?
I googled to discover that. You can too. Found a media report to that effect. Presumed they were bouncing off it.
No citations franky?
It seems that Winston should have said something like at the bilateral.
We were unhappy with the original use of the live stream video, but would like to ask that you not us it again.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-shooting/111512016/while-winston-was-sleeping-jacinda-delivers-a-masterclass
Horeskin stirring up shit again in the MSM Fish & Chup Wrapper NZ Herald again this morning ?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12215871
When are we going to see the end of this irritating little piece of shite ?
When we demand accountability from shit stirrers like him.
Hey are you still coming here and starting fights Frank?
“HE said this about YOU, what do YOU think about THAT?”
Then, challenged, a diatribe about seeking the truth, being the mediative aspect, and then the victim card. Starting with smilies.
I am obviously picking on you for no reason. Aye.
Now that the Mueller report has found not enough evidence for a conspiracy between Donald Trump and the Russian government, we can get on with sifting through the best candidate to beat him on his performance, and on Democratic policies.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/24/breaking-news-barr-to-release-summary-of-mueller-report-1233771
“The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” the special counsel wrote in his findings.
As expected by me. Leftist hallucinations will need to focus on the Maduro justification program now. Falsifications of history just don’t seem to be working.
Plenty of investigating to come franky. Your boy’s not in the clear yet.
Disingenuous, Gabby. I lost count of my criticisms of Trump here long ago. Honesty is the best policy. Give it a go!
If you really believe honesty is the best policy, how can you have any time for Trump?
Was that a two for one post dennis ? …. you should have stuck to just Trump …. then you wouldn’t be bullshitting with your left stereotypes.
So Ilhan Omar was spouting ” Leftist hallucinations ” about war criminal Eliot Abrams ….. who while in the Reagan Govt played a crucial role in propping up murderous south American dictators …. as well as the Contra death squads in Nicaragua…..
Abrams also helped perpetrate the cover up of the El Mozote massacre … where even the children were killed and raped
Evil History you dennis never refer to …. when spouting Trump /Abrams made in the usa bullshit about ” Leftist ” Venezuela ………
Tell us all Dennis …… is Maduro as evil as Trump /Abrams…….. and past usa south American policy ….since forever
Or is that fantasy crap … spouted by a anti Semite back Muslim Somalian refugee woman not fit to live in the usa.
Your always rooting for the good guys …. eh dennis ??????
“USAID had trained over 100,000 of Brazil’s police in the dark arts of rule-by-terror; another 600 Brazilian police were brought to the US for special USAID training in explosives and interrogation techniques.
Brazil’s military dictatorship murdered or disappeared hundreds of dissidents, and tortured and jailed thousands more. Among those tortured: a Marxist student named Dilma Rousseff, arrested in 1970 and subjected to beatings to her face that distorted her dental ridge, and electrical shocks from car batteries, resulting in the hemorrhaging of her uterus. Today, Rousseff is Brazil’s president — and she’s not too happy about the NSA tapping her phones.”
Mitrione taught local police specialized forms of electroshock torture, introducing wires so thin they could fit between the teeth and gums. He also demonstrated drugs that induced violent vomiting fits, and advised on psychological tortures, such as playing tapes of a woman and child screaming in a room next to the interrogation room, and telling the detainee those are his wife and child. And it was all done under the aegis of USAID.”
“According to Victoria Sanford’s “Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala,” USAID programs supported the death squads as they carried out the genocide:”
etc etc
See if you can be more honest than Gosman Dennis …..
What would happen to the NZ economy if we were labeled a hostile state to the usa …and received the sanctions / cut of from international finance treatment …. that the usa has been giving Venezuela …. since Chavez kept winning all those elections …. after the failed usa backed coup to remove him.
Are you denying such actions against us ……would 100% make our economy shit itself and die ???
Try and be more honest than Gosman or wayne mapp now ……………….
Is whataboutism really such a thrilling experience? You think blog commentators don’t routinely ignore straw men? Wise up. Some of us were alienated from supporting US foreign policy long before you were in nappies – exactly for those reasons you listed.
If nobody was warning us about the stuff you compiled, I’d be doing it. I’ve moved on. Now I prefer to focus on leftist evil-doers because many leftists are in denial of that. Someone has to blow the whistle. I agree the Trump regime is bad news. Hilary would have been worse – most politically aware commentators know that now.
My personal stance on the prospect of yank invasion of Venezuela is that it has no moral basis, therefore I oppose it. However, there’s a tipping point that applies: if the other countries in the region agree to support it, the notion acquires some validity. Not enough for me to support it, but enough to get me neutral. If the targeted killing of the Venezuelan people by the Maduro regime escalates to the tipping point, I will join others in support of the victims.
My personal stance on the prospect of yank invasion of Venezuela is that it has no moral basis, therefore I oppose it. However, there’s a tipping point that applies:
“However”… is a fancy way of saying ….’ but’ … dennis
But is the word you use when you are being insincere
I apologize BUT
I didn’t mean to hit you honey … But
And from me …. I would believe you dennis … But you keep repeating usa propaganda….. ie” the victims of Maduro”
Instead of talking about coup justifying tipping points …. why didn’t you just admit you thought Abrams may not be as evil as Maduro.
As part of your ongoing coup justification and leftist slandering program.
No ifs or buts about it … imo your a bullshitting weasel dennis ….no better than gosman or wayne mapp.
whatabout that dennis gosman 🙂
Sticks & stones… Abrams=evil. An equation big in my mind mid-’80s. No you won’t be getting any US propaganda from me, twerp. Make your own.
who believes this apart from you dennis gosman
“If nobody was warning us about the stuff you compiled, I’d be doing it. I’ve moved on. Now I prefer to focus on leftist evil-doers”
The first bits bullshit ….” I’d be doing it” ….
And you admit to being one eyed in your ” focus on leftist evil-doers”
To which I’d add unbalanced, biased, spreader of Trump / Abrams dishonest rhetoric …. have you ever mentioned the Venezuelan victims of the usa actions in Venezuela ??? … or just those of Maduro.
I seem to recall you as an Islamophobe in the Wayne mapp mold …. could you direct me to anything positive you have ever said about Muslims / Afghanistan people / Libya etc.
I’ll apologize if I am wrong …..
otherwise your just a fancy dennis gosman
Who is Maduro killing?
No one.
If he was really a ruthless dictator, do you think Guido, and the right wing thugs behind him, who have already attempted an armed coup, would still be alive.
Hell, most of them haven’t even been arrested.
Even the accusation of blowing up food trucks turned out to be fake news. Though I wouldn’t have blamed his supporters, given the US history of aid, with guns in it.
I like Mayor Pete. I like him a lot. But it seems every democrat and their dog wants to be king. Still, the field will narrow.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/why-some-democrats-say-don-t-sleep-mayor-pete-buttigieg-n985906
frankly i prefer a range of people running – knowing that many will peter out soon enough, compared to the RNC who literally is advocating for no one to run but the orange colored vulgarian.
Mr. Pete Buttigieg is a long shot, but if he can change the discourse – as a vet, a mid westerner, white working class male, as a man living in a same sex marriage etc then i can’t see the issue with that.
The more people – all of us – see men like Pete Buttigieg, the more it becomes normal. The same can be said of women running for president. Or men and women of color.
i think it is good, and i can’t see how a dog can do more damage then the orange colored vulgarian. I mean some carpets might suffer, some furniture might suffer, but people?
My preference is premature to be honest there’s a lot of people I’ve only looked at a few and even then I don’t really know anything. but I got a feeling about Pete, he seems like the real deal.
they have a few running that i ‘like’, but it is way to early to say too much.
personally i am in the camp of ‘there will be no 2020 election’, but that is just my pessimistic inner german.
“there will be no 2020 election”
Yeah I’ve smelt that foul wind too.
we can get on with sifting through the best candidate to beat him on his performance, and on Democratic policies.
That would be nice but what do you reckon are the chances?
Trump’s chances are still not too bad.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
Beating Trump is going to take a white guy with a name starting with B.
Beto? But strictly speaking, that name starts with an R.
Buttigieg? 😀
Nah, not his time yet. Bullock or Bennet or de Blasio? Or maybe Bloomberg or Brown will have a change of heart and jump back in it.
The establishment won’t let a guy like B be the Democratic Candidate ?
Well that’s good, only two years wasted on 2016 was all Russia’s fault lol
Good article
“We will continue to fight for this, for the safety of our children, for the safety of our lands, for the safety of our Muslim whānau, and all communities of colour.”
https://thenonplasticmaori.wordpress.com/2019/03/19/what-does-a-just-safe-aotearoa-look-like/
One of the things that can help bring us all together is appreciating each others’ culture and that may start with the music – perhaps Womad is a good example.
Here is a link from a Japanese man brought up in NZ and he learned the Maori song E Papa which he finds soothing for his baby. His wife asked him to write down the words and he has in Japanese Katakana. Singing E Papa has made him think of certain similarities in the languages.
http://www.hikosaemon.com/2010/02/new-zealand-maori-folk-songs-as.html
Here is a link about E Papa and shows how it would be performed for a public display, clever and everyone enjoying themselves.
http://folksong.org.nz/epapa/
Thanks grey was lovely to listen to that waiata again, been ages since I heard or sang it. Womad is awesome and yes a great model. Haven’t been myself but lots of friends go.
I’m pleased that you like it. Now I have had another thought. I have just seen Alan Duff’s book 50 Maori Heroes. Have you seen this? It was one of Duffs Books in Homes series. Would it be helpful for work you are doing to have this to show young people but particularly Maori, what others have done with their natural talents and skills as a reminder that they have their own abilities?
Shame MSM consistently trash Maori’s ?
Shame that you had to tack that on to my comment which was meant to be in the positive patch. We don’t need to have something negative tacked on to everything we discuss. There are more negative things in the present than positive. Let’s try to build on positive steps to a better
future.
LOL
Reading this, I wondered why I had never heard of Rangiaowhia – then thought, maybe I have, and dismissed it as not true as it destroys the illusion of our ‘civil society.’
The bubble is convenient to live in, it has moonbeams and lambs (for export).
“Rangiaowhia for example, where u the crown attacked an unarmed village full of women, children & elderly – the men were away (& the crown knew this)… you burned their homes so they fled to shelter in Saint Paul’s, a church of a religion u taught us. As we/they huddled in the church – no doubt praying, u the crown nailed the door shut and set the building on fire. While it burned full of people, u the crown stood outside & shot any1 who tried to evacuate, some of them were on fire – don’t fucking say “it’s unprecedented”. For our combined benefit please learn our/your history so we feel included.”
…..and don’t even discuss what the Crown troops did to Tuhoe, Whitmore and Co were barbaric.
To expand on vto’s comment @2 about this prat:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/111458974/federated-farmers-marlborough-president-slams-tax-reform-as-funds-for-the-useless
For obvious reasons the discourse around hate in NZ society is focused on racism, and to a degree religion. But let’s also not forget about the other forms of hate that have been actively encouraged in our country over the last 30 years (note the timing) as part of the great divide and conquer campaign mostly by political interests, and with the full support of mainstream media.
*Beneficiary bashing. Especially popular with right ring politicians when they need to distract the populus from some scandal. The rest of the time, any means possible to turn anyone working against anyone who needs benefit assistance for whatever reason. Thankfully we haven’t quite reached the extreme situation as in the UK where the tabloid press created an atmosphere of disability related hate crimes based on the idea that “all disabled are bludgers”. Readesr here are well aware of the consequences of bashing in the NZ context, and it has contributed to suicides.
* Hate landlords/hate tenants. This has been one the medias been having fun with for the last few years since the housing crisis really took hold. Lets keep finding examples of extreme situations and publishing them, then open the comments sections. Improve standards for rentals? Play the property investors off against struggling tenants. Play the struggling tenants off against the slumlords. be unable to report the actual situation without resorting to hyperbole. Scare a lot of people in the meantime.
*Class warfare. Encourage each tax/wage bracket to resent the next one either above or below them because they either get more money that they do, or pay less tax. And in the case of minimum wage workers, get them to hate beneficiaries for getting well paid to live a cushy life while you’re slugging your guts out and still can’t pay the bills.
All of the above is hate. We’re probably all guilty of one of these at some point, and probably because of a reaction to something we read online, or heard in the media. Are people likely to get physically hurt over it? Well they have, as I’ve said in example one. Words can be lethal when you’re exposed to them often enough.
We’ve let ourselves become victims of this political divide and rule game, probably without realising. So now that at least some of us have clicked on, while we can do our best not to participate in the game, how do we stop it altogether? Politicians here are going to be bloody careful from now on talking about topics like immigration. But it’s only a matter of time before they start reverting to type with encouraging this type of hate.
+1000
and we need to start talking about us and how we get manipulated in ‘hating’ the other.
I am less worried abut the politicians (we view them through the lens of Party Manifesto which generally are public) then i am about talk radio, certain opinion writers that seem to be given a rather large mega phone when bashing certain groups and then go silent when shit hits the fan (how many editorial did Hoskins write last week?) , and the training of our police and security forces that seem also to be a one way street only myopic look upon the world.
thank you for saying so much better what i would like to say.
‘Manipulated’- that’s the word I was after, thank you Sabine 🙂 And I totally agree about the media opinion- or should that be ‘clickbait’- writers. It may have been politicians who initially lit the flame but the media can take the blame for the spreading.
I’ve just noticed something interesting on Stuff on my laptop- the up/down votes have been removed in the comments section. Cant see on my phone because an update won’t let me open comments at all (probably not a bad thing!). Anyone else notice this? If so, maybe this is a very small silver lining from recent events, Stuff finally getting the message on that particular issue.
Excellent post and observations Kat
Most NZers do not bear witness to what is happening to our society…. and our media generally misinforms us.
Bearing pressure to reverse the wrongs and injustices is the next challenge.
It would be a great tribute to those murdered in christchurch if they were the lightning rod for a surge of inspiration …. giving traction and momentum …. in our quest to regain our humanity ….
A kind of reverse shock doctrine …. where our terrorist mass murders disaster, is used for good……
Putting us firmly on the path to roll back the wrongs legislated for by our bad politicians. …. who pandered to and encouraged hate, racism, greed, war, exploitation and other injustices in our society.
The alternative is we continue our race to the bottom.
Sorry I didn’t pick up on my typo of your name Kay …. my apologies.
I’ve had posting overload today … hopefully my links say things better than me … are half on topic ….. and helpful to some.
Kay
Your comment has a lot of stuff in to deeply think about. Really good points. Has anyone noticed that the negativism/divide between different POV has deepened in the last week or so? I am feeling sad about that, as well as the shooting tragedy.
It’s a double tragedy when people start carping at each other and reaching for the sneering and deriding lever as an automatic reaction.
Grey, can’t say I’ve noticed that sort of thing, but very sad if you’ve experienced it. If anything, in my area I’ve noticed more people smiling at strangers in the street and in the supermarkets than usual. What have you noticed in particular?
I’m referring to what I have noticed on this blog and on another as well.
In the street I think people generally are wanting to create a friendly and connected-community approach.
Me using bad language and having zero tolerance for proliferation of terrorist materials and ideas.
Also, me using bad language after politely asking people not to micromanage me and others.
Also. Me.
I am proud to have stood up to these mealy mouthed types, (GWS is not a creep is a good person who only means well). I hate fighting but I will not lie down and play doormat. I am also quite open to apologizing for MY part.
I feel I owe you an apology as your intentions are good, despite your annoying the hell out of me constantly picking at my and others language. This detracts from their messages and makes it about your feelings. That’s what angers me, trying to discuss terrorism and you are upset I said f***.
Recall that I also asked politely before that for you to leave me alone. I am not the names you’ve called me.
GWS I’m sorry I cussed you out. If you can refrain from being pedantic about my language I will refrain from directing it at you.
Sorry WtB I wasn’t even thinking of you. You try to think your way through the problems as so many do here.
There are many though with nothing but short, nasty little jabs to the body and mind and who seem to have nothing but negativity and hostility whatever is suggested towards finding an answer. The suggestion of a better approach, reaching for a positive path even if it involves seeing some fault that then needs thought-work. Instead they would have us wallow in unhappiness and fix blame on somebody, and focus on that. Positivity as to ways we can do better is needed, the trolls way means we won’t find a way out to higher ground.
It’s hard to take other’s aggressive jabs without feeling insulted when you’ve campaigned for calm, reason and peace this whole time huh. I hear you, I’m sorry you’ve been exposed to too much crap, and my part must be owned if I am to improve.
There are certainly many trolls and I struggle not to rise to them. It is my estimate, judging by how most of them argue online (regurgitate foul memes and exit) that most are kids directed by nasty adults.
Kids sense of humor can be largely ‘unrefined’, to put it mildly. But do they learn it from their elders? It carries on to adulthood e.g.
When you go to raw (wannabe comics) nights in comedy clubs there’s lots of really dumb stuff adult people (on stage, and a small part of adult audiences) think is funny. Racism, sexism, etc. The new comic often thinks a joke is a punching down as practised at school. Some people come out of the gates ready for stardom (nuanced idiocy), but that is rare – See Rhys Matthewson.
The comedian trolls their audience, but (one would hope) not with spite.
Internet trolling is schoolyard level wit with evil adult supervision. Those who know what they’re doing, and their gullible cling-ons.
There’s also a lot of pain that has simmered beneath the surface for a long time for a lot of people. And it is coming out sideways. I’ve barely kept it together. The voluntary work and assistance of others the past few days has brought me back to Earth – that place I love. It is difficult to describe how being minimised or the brunt of ‘jokes’ your whole life feels, much easier to throw a finger in the air, and stamp feet loudly.
Absolutely justified and understood. Uncomfortable, yes.
I’m very relieved we’re able to extend olive branches here, it weighed heavily on me that we’d fallen out.
Peace and love.
Return – Love and Peace.
Excellent post thanks.
I would add to the list of person’s who are consistently minimized or denigrated:
Those with any form of disability be it physical, developmental, neurological or other.
With you there WTB. This one still amazes me, given the well known statistic of 1 in 5 (or is it 4) NZers live with some type of disability. Everyone in this country knows someone with something and they’d be lying if they said otherwise. One would think on this occasion our village size would offer more compassion- it’s not like the bad old days where anyone with an obvious disability was locked away out of sight; mainstreaming is commonplace at most schools so children now grow up knowing that there is variety to the human spectrum, although their parents didn’t so much- there was a tiny bit of mainstreaming just starting at my high school mid-1980s.
Yet, there are those in our society who for whatever warped ideological idea think that we’re a drain on society (sound familiar?) just because a little extra help/adjustment is needed to participate in society, or a benefit is needed because working is impossible. And they’ve somehow learned to ‘hate’ the fact their hard earned taxes are propping up non-economic units. Not that those words will ever be used specifically, but they’re there when you read between the lines.
Governments fall over themselves to say there will always be some people who do need benefits (ie severely ill/disabled) and they they have no problem with that, so their supporters think they’re only going to attack solo mums and those feckless unemployed, not realising welfare ‘reforms’ have made life even worse for disabled. But the supporters have been so well trained to hate on beneficiaries it makes no difference to them. As I mentioned in my original post, I’m just extremely relieved that disabled here haven’t been experiencing the vicious physical and other abuse (now classed as hate crimes) as is happening in the UK. One hopes we are better than that, but also have to call out anyone on this .
You missed the hate towards all farmers from vegans and segments of the left.
Go back to the standard archives for 6 months leading up to the last election if you doubt me.
Valid point. I prefer to attack their (destructive) methods unless they arrive here and get personal then I’ll have at em. Sometimes I go over the top and say stuff that isn’t fair.
I’m also an avid cheerleader when they get it right. I want to help Farmers in the inevitable transition coming.
Some do love to hate em for the sole reason they’re ‘Dairy’ though. 😀
A world without cheese, would it be worth living in?
a world without cheese?….no
If it’s a choice between frying the planet and me giving up cheese, well, sorry planet. It’s not even close.
But I’d be quite happy for the cheese to be made from from an engineered mix of proteins, fats, sugars etc produced in vats by engineered microbes, rather than what’s squeezed from cows immediately downhill from their sewage outfalls.
well youre in luck…you dont need to choose….cheese is not the leading cause of CC
bwaghorn
Do you think that farmers are that vulnerable that they feel they are helpless and disabled? It doesn’t seem an equivalence comparing farmers problems, most brought about by themselves, to those who have congenital problems, or drug problems – there could be some farmers disabled from alcohol I suppose.
I know it causes deterioration and booze and rural males have gone together for a long while.
You been down south ? They pretty inbred down there. !!!
But seriously you seem to be fine with hating on people as long as they are fortunate enough to be wealthy . ?
Even Paula Benefit got on the benefit bashing band wagon ?
It took about 5 minutes, before unthinking stereotyping of the mentally Ill started.
With those doing it seemingly blissfully unaware of their repetition of bias.
“Othering” is used to hide or justify cruelty all the time. It is habitual with Politicians, and their useful idiot mouthpieces, normalising policies which harm many people.
The repeated falsehoods about those on welfare, for one.
Reading the room 😀
Hold my grenade, I’m goin’ in…
I think Catherine Tate is masterful at taking the mickey out of racism
I bet this guy would the first to complain about not getting a handout when something goes wrong within his industry aka M Boivs or a outbreak of foot and mouth when farmers haven’t or couldn’t comply with the law or complain about reduced public funding services like education, health, MPI, Trade or the lack of Police action over cattle/ sheep rustling etc.
Horeskin stirring up shit again in the MSM Fish & Chup Wrapper NZ Herald again this morning ?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12215871
When are we going to see the end of this irritating little piece of shite ?
when we admit that he is a shit stirrer that should be removed from his bullhorn and actually demand it, rather then fight among us.
until then, the divide and conquer strategies works as intended.
I’m waiting for him to walk too close to a naked flame with all that hair product in.
A product of Linwood High School and Christchurch explains it all, no questions asked ?
How much profit does NZ actually get from tourism, when we have so many tourists that actually spoil the attractive aspects of the country, damage it and move on while we have to restore it, cause congestion and difficulties in remote parts of the country (man died after vehicle fell to the left while trying to make way for a large van on narrow rough road). Now quad bike riders needing aid. People have to turn their lives inside out to rescue these people.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/385481/quad-bike-deaths-tour-group-did-not-have-permission-to-be-on-land-owner
And this is on top of a heavy cost rescuing sports and outdoor enthusiasts who fail
to cope with the conditions; have accidents in remote places and find that they aren’t the all purpose supermen they thought they were. And then they need medical care.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/111503965/nelson-marlborough-rescue-helicopter-crew-has-busy-morning
(Four callouts kept the Nelson Marlborough Rescue Helicopter in the air on Saturday. A 45 year old man on a motorbike, another up a mountain had a
medical event, two more motorbike riders from the same area as the first.)
Perhaps user pays needs to be brought in for such situations. Those that can afford to bikes and play in the backblocks can pay for the facilities from the Nanny State, when it shows how necessary it is for them to have a Nanny State that cares and serves the people. New slogan for tax – Play and pay. Then we might have more money for providing better standards for the low income, and maintain the services we need for all such as hospitals.
And we need to respond with intelligence to the obvious – we have too many tourists. The people of this country need to take it back into their own hands again and not keep voting in a government that doesn’t care about anything except high house prices. No wonder Labour Coalition is struggling to get stuff done.
For so long previous governments have bent over backwards to advance some, and diminish others, and the people who convince themselves we are doing well haven’t looked at the immoral way that appearance has been achieved , and the economically dangerous cost yet to present its final bill. But blame Labour, don’t think about details. Easy-peasy go-for of the fashionable scapegoat from people who believe in magic, with the mindset of Carroll’s mad White Queen who could believe in six impossible things before breakfast and who also is in a time-warp – ‘The White Queen lives backwards in time’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Queen_(Through_the_Looking-Glass)
I guess it would another impossible thing for responsible people around government to understand arithmetic when it comes to tax and our complete economy; The different branches of Arithmetic — Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. Alice in Wonderland.
and in other sad news, two kids that survived the Parkland School shootings last year
have committed suicide in the last few days.
just sad. so fucking sad.
https://splinternews.com/another-parkland-survivor-takes-his-own-life-1833526348
“911 happened, and overnight, everything changed. I went from being friends with almost everybody, to friends with almost no one”
Local comedian Pax Assadi, NZ Comedy Gala 2016.
911 served it’s purpose for US & Isreali intentions in the Middle East it was well choreographed ?
This is a nice bright song – Love Will Keep Us Together. Feels positive.
Captain and Tennille
Sickens me where our society has gone here in NZ, we have no empathy for our own people as we are all chasing the almighty $.
Trashing the environment our harbours, our beaches etc
Wellington Bus services – oh dear. Rates City and Regional – oh dear, dearer, dearest?
Scoop – http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=117243
It’s been a bad week for the Regional Council. (The one that refers to itself as “Greater Wellington.”) It had to deal with scores of unplanned bus cancellations, and there was derision at its request to be told what’s wrong with its bus services. Then came its announcement that it was increasing the rates by 6.5 per cent, which was quickly followed by the discovery of something it had chosen not to mention: for Wellington city the increase was to be much more than that.
Much much more. If you had the time and the patience to read the 144 page agenda for this week’s meeting, you discovered a table which revealed that the rates increases in Wellington were planned to be more than 16 per cent.
Hard to reconcile that proposal with the later statement from chair Chris Laidlaw who said “It’s been our consistent position that we must minimise the impact of rates on regional ratepayers.” Perhaps he overlooked the 16 per cent in the 144 pages of information.
Got to cover the CEO’s wages somehow ratepayers are just like cows ready to be milked IMHO ?
From the people who brought you the Wgtn bus fiasco… we have the latest Wellington thrill ride! Bus routes 31 and 36.
Personally I can’t wait to shit myself as we hurtle through the Haitaitai tunnel in a Double Decker within centimeters of the tunnel wall. We can amuse ourselves further by making bets about whether or not we come out the other end unscathed.
Testing had been going on since before Christmas. He confirmed a double-decker “grazed” the tunnel side in testing.
A range of safety features such as red cat’s eye and bollards had been installed to help the drivers stay on the correct line through the tunnel.
“There’s definitely margin for error. We wouldn’t be employing buses that weren’t safe,” he said.
That margin of error was 37cm at the tightest point but it opened out to 41cm he said.
But Tramways Union secretary Kevin O’Sullivan said that, from the top corners of the bus to the edge of the tunnel, there was just 30cm of clearance.
Nick Focas, who lives in Pirie St, near the Mount Victoria end of the tunnel, had seen one of the trial double-deckers going through.
“It looked really tight,” he said.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/111509819/wellington-doubledeckers-to-start-using-hataitai-bus-tunnel
Good News Time
Feasibility Study concludes Sustainable Agriculture can feed Europe.
Why is this good news – climate change. We don’t want to stop the planet overheating us just to starve… Diets will move to more plant based consumption, but not wholly vegetarian.
It’s a large document so here’s a few sound bites.
“The idea of an entirely agroecological Europe is often considered unrealistic in terms of food security because agroecology sometimes means lower yields. But this new research shows that by refocusing diets around plant-based proteins and pasture-fed livestock, a fully agroecological Europe is possible.”
“Pesticide-hungry intensive production is not the only way to feed a growing population. This study shows that agroecological and organic farming can feed Europe a healthy diet, while responding to climate change, phasing out pesticides, and maintaining vital biodiversity.”
“This is the first component of a foresight exercise that will successively deal with the socioeconomic challenges and the policy levers for an agro-ecological transition.”
Europe is around 500 million people, so this is a big deal. Here’s hoping they take notice.
Here’s the report.
https://www.iddri.org/sites/default/files/PDF/Publications/Catalogue%20Iddri/Etude/201809-ST0918EN-tyfa.pdf
Great.
Assuming Europe feels no moral obligation to be producing a surplus for the benefit of food poor regions, I guess it is good news.
I’m getting this strong feeling that you are trying your hardest to duck that debate I challenge you to the other day, was looking forward to it. Any time you want to get off these low tier assumptions and challenge your self I would be more than willing to accomodate your needs. Just say my name and I’ll sharpen my pencil while you chit chat.
I don’t see the purpose of this blog as a playground for the bored or hungry intellect…As times get harder and quality input becomes more valuable the jaunty jester will be a disadvantage,
Well I think gobbys attitude is questionable and your one word answer is laughable. Do you even realize European farmers receive 40c-60c in the dollar from the government, mess with that and European agriculture stops being a thing. I’d love to see you try and get that past Brussels mr funny man.
Hi Sam. Just browsing. Are you challenging someone to a debate and prefacing that by renaming them in a demeaning manner?
Just askin’.
Funny you’d ask. I’d assumed the more hetro normative guys would have turned and run at the thought of packing me with all the meat, nice of you to inquire though. You’d be surprised how much meat I can handle, more than willing to come back for more.
Really? You were surprised to be asked? It was a pretty obvious question, begging to be asked, I thought. And it remains unanswered, at least so far as I can discern. Why the demeaning name-calling, I ask a second time?
Yeah well, no homo of course. Gobby interested me when she started leaving these strange comments underneath mine so I inquired a bit to see if there was some logic or reason behind her little quibbles and she didn’t want to give it up so I challenged her to a debate and she hasn’t replied back since. Been ducking me ever since and Iv lost all respect for the thing and I’m not about to second guess myself.
Handle all the meat you like sambimbo and if you do it in private nobody will bother. But if you go round in public waving your floppy meat in people’s faces I’m saying OI! SAMBIMBO! NAO! That might pass muster in the gents at the young nats xmas disco, but it won’t fly around here.
I’m more of a pay a teppanyaki chef to cook it up for me kind of guy. What I was implying is that I’m unafraid to debate controversial topics. That you could make that about young nays and Christmas disco proves how ideologically driven you are.
I can say more with one word than you can with lots of puff. If you have a point about European farmers and subsidies or whatever say so.
Instead you have to wrap it up in a mud pie to throw at someone. Kids have kinder toys that they break open to get at the contents. We grown ups shouldn’t have to search yours to get the gist, not your attempt at tantalisation. That’s your weakness. Mine is fitting the situation to a song which you can listen to if you choose.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO23WBji_Z0
Apparently people like you and gobby misunderstand what I say or mean and here you are again advancing more retarded arguments after getting stomped last time.
So you want to @me about a topic you feel strong on, pfft, that’s fine, nig I was born hungry. I’ll come to your place, I’ll slap you, it ain’t nothing.
So I’m going to start at just after WW1 so 1919-1939 the price of food droped to all most nothing, because during the war farmers, farmed as much land as possable.
This made the price of food go down to nothing, force the farmers to farm even more land, starting a vitious cycle. Many farms could not keep up and went under, this contined until they’d farmed the land so completly that not even grass would grow. So eventally their were great areas of Europe covered with dead dirt fields.
So now the European Union has to burn approx. 25 – 40% of its surplus agricultural produce a year (differing between different areas). That is because they have nothing to do it with. The burning of surplus is part of the plan to keep the prices high as to prevent another Dust Bowl cyle of price fall, heavy farming and then great amounts of dead over farmed land, wich would fuel another Dust Bowl.
So, would you like another slap or are you fine with this one. I have to do it like this by putting the nuts and bolts in the middle because the regulars around here and especially authors and super moderators are especially insecure and emotional when ever I point out well hey look, this this and this is wrong for this this and this reason, perhaps you might want to correct yourself and then it all comes out, it’s all but what about muh feelings and reasons. So if you want another slap then @me I’d be happy to explain more to you.
I’d be too embarrassed/cowardly to simply demand/suggest that another commenter here “concede” – not on a blog. And certainly not in real life. But I concede that might just be me.
So you’d like to start a little deviation to prove how virtuous and reserved you are. I mean fine, what ever floats your boat. That you start out by repeating what I said before and listed it nicely and all is really nice, I guess. All though deviating from my point that Brussels is so large and slow to react is like death to utopian dreamers imagining some European permaculture utopia. I mean no one has to try that hard to show how stupid that is so I guess it’s understandable why you’re starting out the way you did.
Being ‘nice’, or losing an argument, can indeed be quite rewarding, but I concede it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
Yeah, I take conssesions. Normies who can’t handle an argument directly is no way to objectively access whether one argument is stronger than another. That’s why I take conssesions when people try and weasel there way out of making false claims or statements or are just being ideologicalay driven. If you want to lose to that well that’s just a stupid strategy. The sign of a true master is when the student surpasses the master, that’s not losing at all, being magnanimous in defeat is great mentoring, not losing. If you want a right of reply to promote the virtues of losing by all means, fill ya boats.
Quit stalling sambimbo, jus debate me, watchoo scared of?
Been waiting for you to pick a topic and starting point for days but you keep on acting dumb about it. I just want to take you on at your overwhelming best but you seem to be a bit shy it. Like I said. So choose your strongest subject. I don’t want any excuses like oh, I didn’t research enough. I just want to debate really strong talkers.
Why you being so evasive sambimbo? Come ON. Research is for high school babies. You forgotten that explaining is losing? Put your money where your meat is.
Fine. So you want to replace the language of explaining with the language of training for different principles and for different goals and you began that by asking me to acknowledge your presence and you’d talk about a kind of soft vigilance that’s conducive to a particular insight that you discuss. This kind of involvement is indicative to and being deeply interested in the structural functional organisation of something and not that that’s taking you into paying attention. And all the while remembering to get the correct tuning and optimization, for awhile now I’v been talking about attention and my argument is attention is not very well served by your spotlight metaphors. While attention to your spotlight metaphors does give attention to alternate salience your metaphors misses a lot of what attention is doing.
So I began by investigating what attentions you are missing with the idea that attention isn’t a direct action you do to being physically alert to threats, it’s something you do to modify something else. That’s why you can successfully pay attention to something else by saying many desperate and different kinds of things, you can pay attention by optimising words into different meanings, and by optimising your hearing into listening, and by optimising your seeing and listening into a coordinated tracking of what some one is saying like what you are doing right now.
All those are different ways of paying attention so what is needed is a different understanding of paying attention that can captures an optimisation strategy and aligns and tunes your ideas about how something might be linked to a response to existential model confusion and the elevation of the suffering there in.
So now that I’v put what in think you’re doing into words I’ll predict that you’re about to restart your premiss, do you agree?
honestly if Europe could produce organically, humanly all the food to feed its own population it would be great.
and in saying that, it would probably help food poor regions as they rather then export what little they grow for cash can actually keep their food for themselves.
a bit like here in NZ where many people actually can’t afford milk, butter, cream, cheese and yet we are a high yield producing dairy country with all the mess that comes with industrial dairy production.
We would need to preserve a trade in food though if only so that poor countries could sell so they could buy needed goods from more developed countries.
this would come naturally i would guess.
i.e. south of europe has a different growing season then mainland Europe and northern Europe.
so the exchange of goods or the trade of goods would manifest naturally as it did all throughout history.
surplus would always get either stored or traded. And if one is clever enough to change raw materials in a finished product……there is ample opportunity for trade.
Gabby. You can’t make that comment without reading the report. And if you read the report you would not be making that comment.
On the whole we’ve produced excess all through my lifetime. It’s not production that’s the problem, it’s (fair) distribution. Many countries grow lots of food while their people go hungry. The food goes on a world cruise, then winds up in a skip bin.
Excess?
What’s the true cost though?
Should Europe be fed?
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2019/03/germany-must-investigate-us-drone.html
Yemenis in Germany have forced their hand about supporting the USA through intelligence posts? in drone strikes by the USA on their country.
this is excellent.
And i hope that there are enough people in Germany to assure that this comes to light.
i for one would be happy to see the US move out of Germany, they should have left completely in 91.
I asked the other day about DTB but didn’t see if anyone could tell me if he is okay, still around, where?
Still active on twitter so guessing all’s well.
Thanks. I miss his thundering comments full of explanations of capitalistic faults. Which I have thought about and agree with but can’t see how it would be changed. It seemed that some of the peeps here might have been ambushing him.
but then, do we really want to have this conversation?
is it going to be the banned Mueller manifesto ; )
https://www.nowtolove.co.nz/parenting/family/how-to-talk-to-your-children-about-christchurch-mosque-terror-attacks-40823
Dear Folk, my apologies for challenging ye all in these challenging times, may I express my respect and empathy for your perspectives.
Here is my concrete point: What the fake video means, is that this wasn’t a lone-wolf attack. That is all I’m saying.
Officially its a “terror attack”, so guess the police etc are obliged to conceal facts in the name of national security. Like, don’t alarm the people by saying, “attackers where networked with who-knows-what…” Or have I got that wrong?
What I find concerning is global media coverage that has nothing to go on other than that fake video eg. NYTimes. Which all dribbles into either blind assumptions, or at best that BS manifesto.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/world/asia/christchurch-shooting-new-zealand.html
Guess we will never know the truth regarding who did it and why, I’m sure the censorship etc has been world-class. But the public will be happy to hear that that patsy with the buzz-word manifesto was alone responsable, and most of us will get back to our busy lives, full of austerity, in a highly destabilised world, well over-due for a complete financial collapse.
(Hey, the Allah moon-god isn’t bad, but can be a bit “tricky” as they say themselves, from the Quran. Note that the Hindu worship the moon god too, but just as one of many gods. Muhammad didn’t much like the Pagan hindu-type (or Jews, same-stuff). Ya see the moon goes in cycles, more of a passive-creative governance, which does have limits regarding access to spiritual freedoms and full comprehension of spritial-beauty. The Christian sun-god is more of a constant alignment, connecting purely and positively to The Way, The Light and The Truth. Naturally the Christian churches are far from pure, and not automatically more positively creative than the Islamic groups, but that’s the game we live in. Hey, I welcome folk to correct me on detail here, I’m a farmer not a scholar, but the truth is approximately as above (so-below) 🙂
Blessings to All
One of the themes that runs through all fascist ideologies is one of ‘victimhood’.
Sometimes this ‘victimhood’ is based on some real perceived grievance. Sometimes it is based on pure myth. Most times it is a mix of both.
The German nazis played up on the so called ‘Stab in the back’ – the allies taking advantage of the mass democratic anti-war revolt that overthrew the Kaiser, and ended the First World War, to take advantage of the weakened German state to extract crippling reparations, while painting Germany as the main aggressor in that international imperial conflict. Mixed with mythology of a so called suppressed Aryan culture and race.
The same with today’s fascists
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-shooting/111415544/the-growing-white-nationalist-group-with-a-harmful-and-violent-ideology
When those with privilege and power start posing themselves as the ‘The Victim’, it is time to worry.
And it is not just New Zealand fascists who play up this theme of ‘victimhoo. It is a notable signature of the Donald Trump political brand.
Not since the nazi era has a more privileged and powerful figure cast himself and his supporters as ‘The Victim’
Some real go-no-where half-truths there Jenny. It would be not less true for me to say “Rhodes and King George where instrumental in getting WW1 rolling”, “WW1 never ended, it just deadlocked and took a 20year timeout for another generation of children to reach fighting age.” I’ve also no real message to my story above, expect perhaps to hint that the only real truth is empathy. Empathy is the Truth.
Indeed.
Not just the German nazis were unhappy with the Armistice, the ruling elites of the other warring powers were also unhappy with Armistice, and would have preferred to continue the slaughter to achieve a definitive victory. What stopped the other warring powers continuing the slaughter, and which forced them to the negotiating table, were the mass mutinies and fraternisation among front line troops, admittedly beginning on the German side, but not exclusively. The greatest fear of the allied powers was that if they continued to prosecute the war, the mass soldier and sailor revolts could spread to the allied forces.
What was needed to continue the war, was an ultra-nationalist movement, that could engender and then exploit a feeling of victimhood.
Which takes me back to my original point; that what is common to all fascists is their exaggerated and mostly false claims of victimhood, by some hated minority, who usually have nothing at all to do with the claimed victimhood of the fascists.