Open Mike 25/12/2016

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, December 25th, 2016 - 23 comments
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23 comments on “Open Mike 25/12/2016 ”

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  1. millsy 1
    25 December 2016 at 8:33 am

    Merry Christmas posters. I don’t think I need to add anything else.

    • Jenny Kirk 1.1
      25 December 2016 at 8:40 am

      Same to you millsy – and everyone – and enjoy a relaxing time over the holiday season.

      • Blue Eye 1.1.1
        25 December 2016 at 9:08 am

        Saul, if you want Israel you can have it, but you are not going to get it without me, Nicky, and Hillary.

        You have to KILL david, in order to have Israel.

        You have to “flip the election” within this month, otherwise it is over.

  2. mauī 2
    25 December 2016 at 9:24 am

    Christmas song:

  3. Carolyn_nth 3
    25 December 2016 at 9:33 am

    May 2017 be a better year for the homeless, sleepers in cars, tents, and out doors; survivors in war zones; survivors of violence, sexual assault/rape, and abuse; people on inadequate unemployment and disability pensions; people working too hard to earn too little; carers struggling with little financial and/or social support; children and young people experiencing a sub-standard public education system.

    And condolences for the people close to the Tongan people who were on the bus that crashed in Gisborne.

  5. Carolyn_nth 5
    25 December 2016 at 10:38 am

    An interesting article from Aussie, reprinted in the NZ Herald – by Charles Firth.

    Is America about to collapse? Here are some reasons it’s a genuine tragedy

    It starts off pondering on what will happen to the US under Trump. Generally, the line of argument is that the US will become less democratic than now.

    But then it goes on to put the shift to trump within an international context – the end of the era ushered in by the likes of Thatcher and Regan – an era of “globalisation” and “free trade”, which began to collapse, with a whole load of people not benefiting from that era.

    Basically saying it’s worrying times. the Trump presidency is not going to usher any welfare-style New Deal.

    the Trump presidency is to become more like that of Putin in Russia:

    But the entire Republican Party around him has been aching for the opportunity to destroy the remaining vestiges of the New Deal for years. And it seems increasingly unlikely he’ll want to disappoint them.

    My bet is he’ll learn quickly from Putin’s early years. Every time he needs to sell out part of his base, a minority group will suffer. Trump has already learnt how to suck the oxygen out of any debate with a simple attack on a Muslim or a Mexican. The roll back of personal freedoms is the grease that will allow the roll back of economic redistribution. It’s a genuine tragedy.

    So if you think that the United States becoming more like Russia or China is a bad thing, and represents the collapse of the American project, then, well, yes. Perhaps it is time to start worrying.

    This could be an opportunity for the left to rise again, if they/we proceed wisely…. or maybe not.

    • Draco T Bastard 5.1
      25 December 2016 at 11:46 am

      Since the Global Financial Crisis, global capitalism has all but run out of ideas about how to keep itself going.

      Capitalism has never known how to maintain itself and relies upon socialism to do so. The systematic removal of socialism over the last few decades is what’s leading it’s collapse.

      What people in England and the US have voted to do (like it or not) is to fundamentally change the way global capitalism will operate for the next generation.

      Actually, what they’ve done is vote against capitalism. Just that it the US they’ve voted for the most extreme capitalist to do so.

      In fact, the whole reason globalisation spluttered to a halt in 2008 is because of that. Thatcher and Reagan hit upon a way for businesses to make vast mounds of money. But the people who made that money neglected to share that resulting wealth with anyone else.

      The whole point of the 1980s reforms was so that the money wouldn’t have to be shared with the people who actually made the wealth. The rich simply slurped up all the wealth as the parasites that they are. The economy is dying because of their actions and the policies of free-trade and capitalism.

      Last time the US decided to put nation’s interest ahead of the freedom of business, was in the 1930s and 1940s, under the Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt. He called it the New Deal, and it was an agreement between business, workers and the government to all pitch in to build America’s prosperity.

      Crucially, under the deal, everyone was supposed to benefit: it was underpinned by the establishment of a welfare state that taxed the rich, with the explicit intention of making sure that nobody got absurdly rich, and nobody became absurdly poor.

      And it worked for awhile but capitalism simply doesn’t and so the huge boost that the New Deal brought about finally collapsed.

      But there is no hint that Trump’s intending a similar broad pact between workers, business and government. Trump’s not about to start doing deals with unionists to make sure workers get a bigger slice of the pie.

      Trump may put tariffs and other trade barriers in place but he’s also going to channel more of the nations wealth to the very rich.

      The simple fact of the matter is that the US started collapsing decades ago. Trump is about to accelerate that collapse but like all empires throughout history it’s going to take awhile even then.

      • garibaldi 5.1.1
        25 December 2016 at 3:50 pm

        Remember the meme– Trump will destroy America , Clinton will destroy the world.

        • McFlock 5.1.1.1
          26 December 2016 at 12:27 am

          lol
          Well he’s managed to piss off China and tried to restart the nuclear arms race, so he’ll probably do both in sequence.

    • millsy 5.2
      25 December 2016 at 12:55 pm

      Who’s to say it hasn’t collapsed already?

  6. mary_a 6
    25 December 2016 at 10:58 am

    Merry Christmas one & all. All the very best for 2017.

    In saying that, special thoughts are with those Kiwis doing it hard through no fault of their own, particularly the children.

  7. joe90 7
    25 December 2016 at 1:48 pm

    Bookmarked for the inevitable howls about how the short fingered vulgarian should be respected once he’s sworn in and it’s wrong to accuse him of fascism and compare him to Hitler or the Antichrist.

    Eight years of insults in just under seven minutes.

    https://www.facebook.com/HuffingtonPost/videos/384300908580729/

  8. Paul 8
    25 December 2016 at 2:52 pm

    Pope Francis: Christmas has been ‘taken hostage’ by materialism.

    At the solemn but joyous service, attended by about 10,000 people as well as dozens of cardinals and bishops, Pope Francis said the many in the wealthy world had to be reminded that the message of Christmas was humility, simplicity and mystery.

    “Jesus was born rejected by some and regarded by many others with indifference,” he said. “Today also the same indifference can exist, when Christmas becomes a feast where the protagonists are ourselves, rather than Jesus; when the lights of commerce cast the light of God into the shadows; when we are concerned for gifts, but cold toward those who are marginalised.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/24/pope-francis-christmas-eve-vatican

    • Wensleydale 8.1
      26 December 2016 at 2:24 am

      Never been a huge fan of the Catholic Church, but Pope Francis seems like a thoroughly decent bloke quite prepared to articulate a few unpalatable truths to his fellow clergymen, as well as his congregation.

  9. Observer Tokoroa 9
    25 December 2016 at 3:13 pm

    .
    To Every Standardista
    .

    Did our Mr McCully get an iron hard undertaking from the Palestinian conglomerate and sympathisers that they would not genocide Israel?

    Or has McCully sold Israel like a flock sheep?

    I suspect the latter.

    Trump would not be so stupid as to expose his pretty female family, or America as a whole, to a McCully faux pas.

    Cheers for Xmas

    • Psycho Milt 9.1
      25 December 2016 at 5:01 pm

      I’m pretty sure that a UN resolution reminding Israel that it’s illegal to build settlements on Palestinian land doesn’t provide a mechanism for anyone, let alone the people least capable of doing it, the Palestinians, to “genocide” Israel. But feel free to wring your hands over the future prospects of Palestine’s colonists as much as you like.

      • Observer Tokoroa 9.1.1
        25 December 2016 at 6:46 pm

        … Hi Psycho Milt

        You will not insist the Palestinians remove their appalling death strategy on the Jews.

        Do you agree with the English killing untold thousands of landowners in many lands in recent times – India, North America, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand to name but a few ?

        • Psycho Milt 9.1.1.1
          26 December 2016 at 8:44 am

          You will not insist the Palestinians remove their appalling death strategy on the Jews.

          “The Palestinians?” “The Jews?” They’re humans, not interchangeable units mass-produced in a factory somewhere. In any case, it’s not up to me to insist people in foreign countries do anything. Nor does the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis have anything to do with this resolution, which is a purely legal question.

          Do you agree with the English killing untold thousands of landowners in many lands in recent times – India, North America, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand to name but a few ?

          I’m not sure what you’re getting at, here. Are you saying that if European colonists could get away with forcible colonisation of other people’s countries in the 19th Century, there’s no reason they shouldn’t get away with it now? Er, actually there is a reason, and we just voted in accordance with it.

        • DoublePlusGood 9.1.1.2
          26 December 2016 at 9:12 am

          So apparently Observer Tokoroa is pro apartheid, pro genocide, pro murder…

          • BM 9.1.1.2.1
            26 December 2016 at 9:26 am

            I’d bet money he’s a Christian, who believes in the rapture.

            For Jeebus to make his grand return certain prophecies need to be fulfilled, one of which is that the Israel has to kick out all the Palestinians and reclaim all its ancient lands.

            That’s why so many Christians side with Israel and want the Palestinians gone, the lord ain’t comin back otherwise.

            • swordfish 9.1.1.2.1.1
              26 December 2016 at 10:15 am

              Yep, I’d say at least half of the “pro” Israeli correspondence to the NZ print media / social media over the last 15 years has emanated from the local Christian Zionist brigade. They were particularly prominent during the various Mossad controversies.

              For these wonderfully deluded “Millennialist” nutters, the road to personal salvation is necessarily paved with the bodies of as many Palestinian men, women and children as possible.

  10. Molly 10
    25 December 2016 at 5:29 pm

    Meri Kirihimete ki a koutou – Merry Christmas to you all.

    Looking forward to the new energy that accompanies a New Year. I’m thinking we will all need it in 2017.