Hard News: The March for Democracy
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I don't know the Chief Censor nets after tax, but I hope it includes serious danger money for the inevitable slagging off as a degenerate pervert.
When we had Hasting on the Media7 show about swearing -- where the idea was to issue fair warning and then do without euphemisms -- I couldn't get him to actually say even the mildest bad word.
He explained afterwards that he is constantly monitored by the likes of SPCS, and if he uttered the wrong word, it would immediately be the subject of press releases and demands for his dismissal. It looked to me like quite a chilling effect.
Hastings' critics are almost invariably obsessed with the fact that he's homosexual. I can't think of any other job where his personal sexuality would be the subject of such personal vilification.
There is, of course, a grim irony in that one of those who has chipped at Hastings in this way is ... Graham Capill.
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Hastings' critics are almost invariably obsessed with the fact that he's homosexual. I can't think of any other job where his personal sexuality would be the subject of such personal vilification.
But it's not only Hastings is personally that powerful a crazy magnet; a lot of it just seems to come with the job.
Arthur Everard (who as far as I'm aware is a rampant heterosexualist), got it in the neck from both the left and the right for being a man, and therefore "desensitised" to filth. He does, however, have the dubious distinction of being the only Chief Censor effectively fired by Act of Parliament.
Even Kathryn Paterson got it in the neck on her appointment in 1994 for the unspeakable sin of being Australian -- which caused Labour MP Liz Tennant to fret about a tidal wave of "macho cultural imperialism" riding in on the new chief censor's skirts. (Forget about the decade she'd spent in senior roles at the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, Australian Film Censorship Board and manager of the information unit of the Australia Office of Film and Literature Classification.)
As I said, you couldn't pay me enough to swallow that much gratuitous and unpleasantly personal bullshit. Plate jobs don't turn me on.
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Russell, in which country and socio-economic class do you reside. Obviously not in the real NZ alongside the poor and dysfunctional. Craig is a wealthy man insensed by the lack of democracy in New Zealand and the way the average man was being made a criminal for smacking his own child. He was right to put money into this cause.
He has a right. I have my right to a view on it too.
I'm also more inclined to trust the people who have to clean up the mess of hurt children -- Barnados, Plunket, Women's Refuge -- than I am a North Shore property manager.
It's just a shame Section 59 wasn't repealed sooner. It was precisely its presence in the Crimes Act that allowed the "Timaru Lady" to not only escape consequences for beating her disturbed child with a riding crop and a stick, but to go on and assault two others, one quite grievously.
I'm sorry you've had what sounds like a bad time with the system. But do you really want, in your words, "dysfunctional" people to be the judges of how hard to hit children?
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But it's not only Hastings who is a powerful crazy magnet. Arthur Everard (who as far as I'm aware is a rampant heterosexualist)
I believe the term you're looking for is "heterosexual activist".
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I believe the term you're looking for is "heterosexual activist".
You know I've got nothing against you people, but why do you have to shove you lifestyle down my throat? It burns. I gag. Puppies cry.
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It didn't work then and it doesn't work now; the law applies to kings as well as peasants.
...especially Irish peasants.
English dictators though, not so much.
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Some of those banners - especially this one remind me of my very favourite Facebook group - An Arbitrary Number of People Demanding That Some Sort Of Action Be Taken.
Heh.
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"heterosexual activist".
maybe we need a heterodox
but not a doxological hetero
or a para doxy...
or any other harsh mistress...surely a censor should be a sensualist
not seriously censorious
and have the sense not to censure -
surely a censor should be a sensualist
not seriously censorious
and have the sense not to censureThat would seem sensible.
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Slogan about finance company used to sell more pizza - picture.
The cheeky billboard has even parked outside Hotchin's $30m house being built on Auckland's plush Paritai Drive.
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Have just checked "The Website":
We also demand that the wishes of citizens expressed in poor referendums by a clear majority be honoured
Its fascinating. This is what I "read" when I first got through the Marchers Statements.
I think I will stick to what I thought it said.
Umm...apostrophe anyone?
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That sensible sentences crowd need better subeditors.
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You can trust them to sentence sensibly.
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the way the average man was being made a criminal for smacking his own child.
What 'average man"? In New Zealand, it is illegal to inflict violence on animals. So are children a lower form of life, sort of 'homo whack'ems'?
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IMO, there is a connection between this kind of march and the Nanny State meme that National ran for years during the Labour government.
The problem being that anyone ill-informed enough to buy into the meme is typically unable to tell the difference between "Labour Government" and "Government". It all meshes into some kind of Over-reaching Authority, I suppose, so they end up being angry at whoever is the Government. Factor in the all-things-to-all-people PM, and there is some cause to feel let down if you expected your pet peeve to be put to rights.
I had a bottle of Bombay Sapphire riding on the outcome of the 2008 election. I rang my wife's uncle to concede the bet, and he said "Right, now that National is in the next thing they'll do is get rid of that bloody smacking law."
He was quite surprised when I pointed out that National voted for it.
I wonder if it is too much to hope that the marchers, having vented their spleens, will find something else to angst about while the actual issue goes the same way as Homosexual Law Reform, Civil Unions etc i.e. the slow dawning that the sky is, in fact, not actually falling ?
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I wonder if it is too much to hope that the marchers, having vented their spleens, will find something else to angst about while the actual issue goes the same way as Homosexual Law Reform, Civil Unions etc i.e. the slow dawning that the sky is, in fact, not actually falling ?
Trouble is, they can't see the sky from their fallout bunkers.
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The problem being that anyone ill-informed enough to buy into the meme is typically unable to tell the difference between "Labour Government" and "Government". It all meshes into some kind of Over-reaching Authority, I suppose, so they end up being angry at whoever is the Government.
For the US Republican Party, a similar thing is manifesting in an anger at anything perceived as the establishment -- including, increasingly, the party's own institutions and leadership.
The teabaggers lost the party NY-23, a district it had held for decades, when they drove out the Republican candidate in favour of the helicoptered in wingnut candidate, Hoffman. And it only seems to encourage them.
He was quite surprised when I pointed out that National voted for it.
I've had the same experience. But it's striking that the marketing of the march has been strongly focused on Key personally, as if he has gone back on a solemn undertaking -- when he has given campaigners not a crumb of comfort on the matter.
And that's not surprising. He didn't just vote for the child discipline legislation, he offered the compromise that let it become law.
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people who made the mocking signs and turned up. They're no doubt over-represented in the photos but a good sense of humour is often the best way to deal with these sorts of things
I think it was more that the majority of us alleged anti-democratists all had signs, whereas quite a large proportion of the marchers didn't.
I had a reminder that people don't like to be made to feel stupid, when I had quite an aggressive man insisting strongly that I answered his question about what my sign meant.
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Yours was the one that said "?", right. :)
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. . . I had quite an aggressive man insisting strongly that I answered his question about what my sign meant.
Like, I wish somebody would tell me what "diddy-wah-diddy" means?
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Some of those banners - especially this one remind me of my very favourite Facebook group - An Arbitrary Number of People Demanding That Some Sort Of Action Be Taken.
Heh indeed, joined.
That march was surely worth it for Carly Binding Referendum, Advice Dog, Careful Now and my all time favourite sign, Down With This Sort of Thing.
Editing the Herald really did a magnificent job making that happen... -
my very favourite Facebook group - An Arbitrary Number of People Demanding That Some Sort Of Action Be Taken.
Heh indeed, joined.
Also my fave, along with Become a Fan.
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I suspect part of the personalisation of rhetoric on Key is that presidential style politics leads to a conflation of government with Prime Minister. I suspect another part is that among those of a fundamentalist mind the ability to compromise can be seen as a weakness, which means that if strength is shown the compromiser will roll-over.
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JR Murphy, thanks for writing that, I can strongly identify with your case ad situation, although I'd rather not go into details. You have unfortunately found yourself in a society with a slightly over- zealous approach to punishment and a general lack of concern for 'the victims'. But things are improving, and New Zealand is much better than other parts of the world.
As I'm sure you've found, there comes a time when you realise the system is not going to do much of anything to help you, you've just gotta wear that and make the best of getting on with your life, insurmountable as that may seem.
It's by no stretch of whatever a perfect system, there are many cracks to fall between, and often it seems any sign of true egalitarian justice for all is still furlongs off.
But things could be much much worse.I don't feel the marchers represented anything much at all other than expressing their freedom to protest, an inherently democratic privilege.
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"Bring back Dancing with the Stars" :)))
"My arms are tired" was good also.
I think this march has shown us the best thing John Key has done since entering Parliament and becoming PM. Nothing.
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