You can’t drink shit

Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, June 11th, 2010 - 25 comments
Categories: Conservation, farming, Media, tv - Tags: ,

On Wednesday night John Key was in Christchurch. He was met by protesters, angry at the abolition of democracy in Canterbury, and the plans of the newly installed dictatorship to allow over-farming to poison the water and kill the rivers.

Both major TV networks both covered the event with an in depth examination of the ECan Board sacking and the cancellation of scheduled local body elections, quoting expert opinion that this: breaches several principles of law, is “constitutionally repugnant”, contains “elements of subterfuge” and is a “constitutional affront”. One News and 3 News explained National’s conflicts of interest. They explored the environmental issues involved, and the threat to the water supply for Canterbury and the major city of Christchurch. It was brilliant, in-depth coverage of these important issues.

Nahhh! Just kidding! One News and 3 News both did pieces about a protester jumping up and down on Key’s beamer. Cue plenty of right wing faux outrage over the damage to precious property. But as I’ve commented before, the trampled roof is a very minor thing indeed when compared to the trampled democracy, and the trampled environment, in Canterbury.

So, another day, another heaping helping of trivial media. About the only mention of the reasons for the protest, the reasons for the anger, what the whole thing was all about, was to quote the chant that the protesters were shouting. Since TV thinks that’s all that we the sheeple need to know about the issue, why fight it? Join in, and repeat after me:

You can’t drink money, you can’t drink shit, you can’t steal our votes and get away with it!

You can’t drink money, you can’t drink shit, you can’t steal our votes and get away with it!

You can’t drink money, you can’t drink shit, you can’t steal our votes and get away with it!

…

25 comments on “You can’t drink shit ”

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  1. infused 1
    11 June 2010 at 7:37 am

    yawn

    • Sam 1.1
      11 June 2010 at 8:41 am

      Typical tory right there; democracy means nothing.

      Unless of course someone is threatening to make donations more transparent, then that’s the biggest attack on democracy in all of history.

  2. the sprout 2
    11 June 2010 at 7:48 am

    well put R0B

  3. exbrethren 3
    11 June 2010 at 7:53 am

    “you can’t drink shit” – I think Tim Groser might give it a try as long as he could charge it to the ministerial plastic.

    • ghostwhowalksnz 3.1
      11 June 2010 at 9:20 am

      NZ$50 for Grosers tiny bottle of Jim Beam, but hes being smokin ‘shit’ for years

  4. ieuan 4
    11 June 2010 at 9:23 am

    Why wouldn’t TV news cover the actions of one stupid protester? They compress the news down into short little segments to try and hold peoples attention.

    If you want in-depth analysis there has been plenty of coverage of the ECan board sacking in ‘The Press’ newpaper over the last few months.

    And there are plenty of people in Christchurch who are angry about what happened with ECan but have more brains than the idiot who jumped on the PM’s car and those shouting stupid slogans.

    • Bunji 4.1
      11 June 2010 at 10:10 am

      But that one ‘idiot’ just got more coverage than all the well-reasoned legal arguments against the terrible trampling of democracy. If you stifle debate, sometimes you’re going to get more extreme reactions – and sometimes that’s going to work.

      Quite frankly this government seems to hate democracy, with the sacking of ECan, the corporatisation of the SuperShitty, and now their latest Local Government bill to allow privatising water and reduce community consultation about what happens in … their communities.

      All Local Government, all Rodney’s area, but all signed off by Key.

      • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1
        11 June 2010 at 10:15 am

        Of course they hate democracy – they’re a bunch of capitalists.

        • ieuan 4.1.1.1
          11 June 2010 at 2:22 pm

          That’s just plain dumb, all the worlds major and long standing democracies have capitalist economies, USA, India, UK, Germany, France etc etc.

          The capitalist ‘system’ is certainly not perfect but it offers greater freedom and opportunity than any other economic system.

          • Pascal's bookie 4.1.1.1.1
            11 June 2010 at 4:58 pm

            Depends on what you are talking about by ‘capitalism’. You define it broadly enough to include ‘all the worlds major and long standing democracies’, but there are many self described capitalists within many of those democracies that consider themselves to be living under socialism. Many more would say that the post war decades were not capitalist.

            When we last had full blown capitalists dominating the joint, the lack of freedom and opportunity led to all sorts of social unrest. There was spectres haunting Europe, to mangle a phrase, and they weren’t doing it because capitalism produces freedom whiskey sexy.

            Any economy with more than 1 dollar in four of gdp being spent by the state, and where there are strict legal controls around monopolistic behavior (to the extent that you need the state permission for one company to buy another), and various price controls on things like money and labour, and lord knows what all else, can hardly be described as capitalist.

            Unless you just want to translate the word ‘capitalist’ into something approaching, ‘economies that are not leninist’ that is. But why would doing that help any?

            Amirite?

          • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1.1.2
            11 June 2010 at 6:24 pm

            Actually, the capitalists didn’t want democracy at all but all the armed serfs, who’d just fought a revolution against one set of dictators, did. Unfortunately, the capitalists ended up calling most of the shots and so we ended up a couple of centuries behind where we should be in our removal of dictatorships.

  5. ianmac 5
    11 June 2010 at 9:56 am

    Rob: Point wellmade. The Press has covered many of the points but the rest of NZ does not show concern that I can see. Why not? Because they do not know about it. Why not? Because porn videoes are much more important. And yet the implications of the ECan sacking are very significant for all of NZ.

  6. Bill 6
    11 June 2010 at 10:51 am

    I suspect that much of the reason the media didn’t cover any substantive aspect of the protest was simply because media stands inert like listing spinning tops simply waiting to be spun.

    And nobody from the protest spun the media.

    So if I can put it this way. The media feeds us the shit it’s fed. And if it ain’t getting fed it grasps at the simple and obvious as long as it makes for good TV footage.

    So, (from their perspective) guy jumping on car. News!

    Analysing and breaking down a protest that hasn’t spoon fed us shit that fits our self imposed ‘2 minute noodle’ at best, time slot…. ( really good for de facto censorship that one…shrinking attention span my arse!…. shortened rugby matches to ten minutes each half have we ’cause punters are wandering off after 5? )…would involve being not an ‘objective’ mirror of society any more…would involve imposing the subjectivity of the analyst….would involve that dirty involvement thing…would require abandoning the easy self contained stroll from fax/email to work station to home

    • ieuan 6.1
      11 June 2010 at 11:39 am

      There is more to ‘the media’ than TV news!

      If you want a 2 minutes version of the news that is as much about entertainment as it is informative then watch TV news. If you want an in-depth analysis of the issues look elsewhere (like newspapers)

      And if you don’t want some idiot to become the centre of attention for there actions then find better idiots for your protests.

      As much as I don’t like the way that the Government sacked the previous ECan board they really were a useless bunch of dysfunctional idiots and the new board has made some good decisions. Really what the Government should have done is sack the board, put in temporary governance and held new elections this October.

      And by the way, I live in Christchurch and ECan decisions have had a direct financial effect on me because of the clean air rules that came in this year – so I care about who is running this organization and how it is elected.

  7. jcuknz 7
    11 June 2010 at 12:10 pm

    There is a side issue to the general subject …. why do we expect and require A quality water to wash our cars, and other things, with. So long as it is not contaminated why don’t we store and drink rain water or bottled water as humans do in many countries. It does seem a mis-direction of resources.

    As for TV coverage … well TV is a visual medium so somebody jumping on a car roof is more interesting that suits discussing things. We know that TVNews is infotainment so you don’t look for sensible reasoned debate there. That was how TV worked decades ago, not in these modern times.
    But back then everybody complained about ‘talking heads’ …. what do we have now? Numerous snippets of people talking to us instead of showing us what is happening. Flog off the sound cameras and bring back the Bolexes and Eymos that shot real news. The modern video camera is a wonderful tool if it is used properly.

    I could sign this off as ‘long retired TV worker” 🙂

    • Ari 7.1
      13 June 2010 at 9:55 am

      In an urban environment, it would make absolute sense to run three water systems- white water, rain water, and grey water. (rain water for watering plants, washing cars, shoes, etc… grey water for growing local or personal food) The reason we don’t do it? Infrastructure costs, and people don’t like paying for it.

      It would certainly save some trouble if at the very least people using incredible amounts of water had to pay for some of this infrastructure to conserve it. 😉

  8. jcuknz 8
    11 June 2010 at 12:17 pm

    The question of water quality is just another side effect of a subject I have raised numerous times now …. that of homo sapien breeding to excess and the resulting contamination of our environment.
    It would be nice to expect to be able to drink any fresh water we see but it is not possible in an over-croded world … even in quite sparsely populated New Zealand.

    • Galeandra 8.1
      11 June 2010 at 2:51 pm

      jcuknz the issue isn’t so much ” homo sapien breeding to excess and the resulting contamination of our environment.” as about 15% of homo sapiens consuming to excess, surely??

      Like, where’s the huge “need” for dairy that demands the capture & contamination of vast amounts of Canterbury water? It’s a concoction created by Western consumerism imo.
      And of course somebody’s blind trust is sure to have a whole fist in that pie.

      • jcuknz 8.1.1
        12 June 2010 at 7:16 am

        I think the world has too many humans on it and the 85% would consume as the 15% if they had the chance as India and China seem to be proving.[ or maybe you will say that part of the 15% are living in those countries and it is not only us in the ‘west’]
        China’s ‘one child’ policy even if we may have questions as to how it is implemented and side effects is the sensible way to go for several generations minimum. But it does mean that capitalism’s pre-occupation with expansion and growth will have to change.
        It seems to me that the socialistic principle of all chipping in to care for the old is the important tool to control population growth. If people have a surity of care in their old age there is no need to breed children to look after you. Add in birth control and you have solution of the problem.

  9. greenfly 9
    11 June 2010 at 12:31 pm

    Ironic, isn’t it, that the only car publically crushed under Judith Collin’s watch has been Key’s!

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