"The Terrorism Files"

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  • Craig Ranapia,

    BTW, a new nominee for the Hall of Shame. Don't know if the Ron Mark/Pita Sharples segment from tonight's Close Up is on line, but why did anyone bother? Ten out of ten to both men for sticking to their talking points like white on rice, but I'll be buggered if I came away any the wiser.... (Sidebar: Does Paul Henry get a performance bonus if someone has a stroke due to his unrelenting imbecility? FFS, someone wave a very large bag of charter funds in front of Sean Plunket or anyone who actually knows how to conduct a relatively fluff-free interview. PLEASE!)

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Creon Upton,

    If nothing else, the "terrorism raids" have, amazingly, raised my respect for Plunket hugely. He's been really good.

    Don't know if he's quite got the tv look though, has he? Bring back Anita McNaught I say.

    Christchurch • Since Aug 2007 • 68 posts Report Reply

  • Idiot Savant,

    I'm probably on the flaming fringes now in my belief that New Zealand - and every other nation with any pretensions towards regard for civil and political human rights, regard for the environment, or international labour standards -- should be boycotting the Beijing Olympics.

    I'll happily be on the fringes with you on that.

    Maybe we should print some T-shirts?

    Palmerston North • Since Nov 2006 • 1717 posts Report Reply

  • Sophie Wilson,

    a lot are cynical about how their stories end up being packaged in the media, no matter what they have to say.

    Yes, that's exactly the vibe I got from the meeting, Kracklite. It was a strangely defeatist attitude for anarchist activists, to be honest.

    Media strategy does not seem to be their strong point - having seen the interplay between 20 odd core people of the activist movement in Wellington (and 20 other supporters). After the media was dismissed by one woman as a shit storm that you don't want to be caught up in, the room gravitated towards giving the stiff upper lip to mainstream media, and this is very much the culture I had observed from both this meeting and indymedia.

    There are so many reasons for this. Overall, the mainstream media are part of the evil overbearing hegemonic power structure and should not be associated with, end of story.

    They didn't seem to have confidence in their ability to provide bulletproof statements to the media. There were a lot of requests to source activist friendly lawyers or people with knowledge of law to handle anything to do with The Man aka The Media or The Courts.

    They did not even attempt, or even prioritise to attempt to create a unified mission statement, which they had the oppurtunity to present to the media who were literally waiting on their doorstep. Not only was the oppurtunity there (and for the following two weeks at the Wellington court dates), but they also had a responsibility to use it for the sake of covering their arses...

    Does arses count as swearing, Russell?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2007 • 13 posts Report Reply

  • Sara Noble,

    <But I do agree with you, Jimmy, that I really hope the DomPost has fairly represented a 100 page + document, and not cherry picked the really scary shit.>

    Of course thats what they do. This is the popular media remember. Remember Y2K, the meteor that was going to hit earth, bird flu etc etc etc. Fear increases circulation, increased circulation brings in advertising revenue.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2007 • 127 posts Report Reply

  • dubmugga,

    . Can anyone genuinely say they think this sort of stuff will benefit Tuhoe aspirations in the long run? I very much doubt it myself.

    Do you know what Tuhoe aspirations are ???

    but my answer to your question would be yes...

    ...it will force them to deal with the Tame factor. Either get in behind him and rark up more shit or hang him out to dry. If anything this will unite them even more.

    This is Tuhoe we're talking about here. Those fuckers are staunch as. They can wait another 150 yrs to get even if thats what it takes cos they aint going nowhere...

    ...and fuck that little ron mark weasel prick suckholing to the police in an election year. Dudes a ballhead with brown skin and needs to be chased outta town...

    the back of your mind • Since Nov 2006 • 257 posts Report Reply

  • Sara Noble,

    I've been thinking about tee-shirts/ badges too:

    Wigger Lover

    I'm Not Afraid of the Dark (maybe with Maori sovereignty flag)

    The serious one is:
    Nga Pakeha o Aotearoa support
    Rangatiratanga
    Kaitiakitanga
    Kotahitanga

    or on the other hand:

    Post-Cool

    Auckland • Since Nov 2007 • 127 posts Report Reply

  • Shep Cheyenne,

    Dumb Broad (with wig)
    White Out (Paint on black tee)

    Since Oct 2007 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • Creon Upton,

    what about

    fuck that little ron mark weasel prick suckholing to the police in an election year. Dudes a ballhead with brown skin and needs to be chased outta town...?

    I'd buy it.

    Christchurch • Since Aug 2007 • 68 posts Report Reply

  • Sara Noble,

    C/U: "just as most people have all along agreed that crazies with guns should probably be restrained, you'd have to be crazy yourself not to concede that the police handled this like, well, crazies with guns. (And then you'd only have to be a little bit left of not-crazy to note a few things about power, history, willful ignorance, appalling arrogance, manipulation of public prejudice....)"

    THANK YOU

    b/m: "these 16 people have no way through the legal process to respond to the accusations against them. If they make public statements to the media they can be used against them in court. If they say nothing the public will probably assume their guilt.

    "while these 16 named people have been held up as terrorists in the court of public opinion , the Solicitor General - highest legal prosecutor in the country - has concluded - after reading a great deal more than the single affidavit upon which the Dominion bases its report - decided that the evidence collected against these 16 at a cost of over $8 million (according to the police) is insufficient for them to face anything more than illegal possession of firearms charges *."

    THANK YOU TOO

    Auckland • Since Nov 2007 • 127 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    And I'm pretty sure, Ben, we're on the same page that whatever I think of the Demoness Helen Clark even talking about murdering her doesn't crosss the line, it totally obliterates it.

    What about talk of merely vanquishing her?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Barnes,

    Sorry, I've been working, how crass of me. Now I can play.

    Police = StormTroopers
    Helen = Emperor
    Iti = Ewok rebel
    Emily = Princess Leia
    John minto = Luke Skywalker?
    Roger Kerr = Darth vader (well he's tall enough and big money MUST be pulling the strings somewhere, surely?)
    Pita Sharples = Han Solo

    How about
    Rodney Hide = Obewan Kanobi ?
    Keith Locke = CP30
    Murray Mc Cully = Chewbacca

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Oh, and for the record, I love Helen Clark almost as much as I loved my Vic20 back in 1988. It had served me well for 8 years.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • tussock,

    RB wrote:

    If a group of off-duty policemen were shown to have discussed killing people for practice (let alone having secretly acquired and trained with weapons) I would expect them at the very least to be thrown out of the force.

    Secretly? Please, the word is privately.

    But dude, senior police officers just recently participated in sending around an email suggesting officers should "just shoot the bastard" (or similar), in the case of people observed to be carrying knives and the like.

    A couple days later an officer, who had acquired and trained with weapons with his buddies in secret (by which I mean out of public view), killed a man who was breaking windows with a hammer.

    But it's all cool. 'Cause they're cops, so it was all innocent coincidence you see, no one was really suggesting murdering people who were carrying a hammer, and the shooter was only protecting innocent civilians (except for the one he shot).

    I mean, it's not exactly like they held a man down and shot him seven times in the head because they'd spent all week talking about killing terrorists, except that it may as well be. Similar outcome and all. "Oops, sorry, but it was all his fault, really."


    And the whole idea of killing people to practice for the upcoming surprise killing of people is obviously ludicrous. It's verge of sleep rambling from boys playing "I'm a hard man" in the bush.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report Reply

  • Sara Noble,

    Hells bells I've missed a lot today.

    Belatedly, my take on why this was boldly leaked by mainstream media, and not the rape case evidence, is that these leaks favour the police while the other did not. The risk of costs or reprisals are therefore far lower in this instance. It also plays to the MOR readership. Even more importantly I think it represents the widespread but largely unconscious belief in the status quo and its authority structures as "right" and "normal," and anything that challenges it as inherently dangerous. Hence, despite countless incidents of the Police reverse engineering cases, so many of you still trust their judgement on this, one of the most divisive, incendiary, politicised cases for - I don't know how long.


    Who knows what Rangatiratanga is and what it means that "we" guaranteed "they" could keep it? Who doesn't know but wants to? This is really the elephant in the room.


    Once upon a time I was bowled up by a cub reporter in Borders on an Easter Monday and asked what I thought about the ban on holiday trading and that by being in the shop I was doing something illegal. Kindly ignoring the extraordinary bollocks of the last part of the statement, I told her that I thought it was important to guarantee the rights of workers to holidays but because we are a multi-cultural society I thought (and still think) that we should allow people to nominate the sacred or important days they could get leave for. I suggested that for that reason, and because the exceptions seemed capricious that the law was nonsense. On Tuesday (it must have been a VERY slow weekend) the lead article on the front page of the Herald started with: Borders customer, Sara Noble, says "The law is nonsense." (That was it). Yet another day my lawyer-husband thanked the goddess that I didn't take his surname.

    PS re tee shirts, yes please!

    Auckland • Since Nov 2007 • 127 posts Report Reply

  • Sara Noble,

    Hey! That's a total insult to Chewy! (It would be far more consistent for him to be Iti anyway but thats a bit, oh, probably racist).

    C - 3 - P - O Arggggghhhh!

    Auckland • Since Nov 2007 • 127 posts Report Reply

  • Sara Noble,

    Shhh... I think they've all gone to bed! Now we can plan the revolution...

    Oh never mind

    zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

    Auckland • Since Nov 2007 • 127 posts Report Reply

  • David Cauchi,

    I walked briefly next to the guy on the stuff site with the dog and taiaha today (though he had a patu at the time - it was early on), just after I'd been wondering whether I should join this hikoi thing or not. Maybe I'm weird, but the reason I wondered maybe not was cos of these staunch masked guys standing all around me, but you know they were cool. We laughed and joked about the double lines of cops double-stepping down Bowen St towards us etc. There was a good vibe there.

    Just to be a bore, I'll go on about art again. With art you want to people to have various interpretations of things. You wouldn't believe the wacko ways people have of coming up with meanings for your paintings. Stuff you'd never imagine. Stuff that doesn't fit with what's actually there at all. It's just like this really.

    I hate post-structuralism, but Sara's said some sensible stuff. Think about it people.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2007 • 121 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    the Solicitor General - highest legal prosecutor in the country - has concluded - after reading a great deal more than the single affidavit upon which the Dominion bases its report - decided that the evidence collected against these 16 at a cost of over $8 million (according to the police) is insufficient for them to face anything more than illegal possession of firearms charges

    I'm going to say again, that's not what the solicitor general decided. We have no idea what other charges the solicitor general may have thought the evidence was sufficient for, he was only asked about charges under the TSA, and that's all that he ruled out.

    If people are going to keep quoting him in support of their argument, it would help if they looked at what he said rather than what they wanted him to say.

    PS: Russell, I know that the Te Qaeda thread is still larger than this one, but this must be the fastest growing thread you've ever had? 20 pages in about 16 hours. I've spent a fair portion of my day just reading.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • 81stcolumn,

    Rust Never sleeps.......

    Nawthshaw • Since Nov 2006 • 790 posts Report Reply

  • Shep Cheyenne,

    Sara, Iti is short & I really like the Ewoks as well.

    Hasn't the force been strong with Rodney. So Roger Kerr will take on Rodney then?

    Cullen = Palpatine

    O'Connor = James Woods (I know not in not in Star Wars - but he is a sure sign of a bad movie)


    Nice lead Tussock.
    Rather than compare the media with the past criminal police actions. The Christchurch shooting was totally legal to print and only the Truth did.

    So Fairfax can break the rules here but won't report a cops name because of what?
    An institutional bias.

    Since Oct 2007 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • David Cauchi,

    I'm going to say again, that's not what the solicitor general decided. We have no idea what other charges the solicitor general may have thought the evidence was sufficient for, he was only asked about charges under the TSA, and that's all that he ruled out.

    Ahem, he was only asked about TSA charges for a reason. There were only Arms Act and TSA charges going, and Arms Act charges aren't part of what the Attorney-General (least we forget) delegated to the SG. The SG deciding the accused shouldn't be charged with TSA charges does mean he thinks they should (or perhaps could would be better) be charged under the Arms Act. There is no remit for him to come up with other charges. That's a bright red herring.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2007 • 121 posts Report Reply

  • David Cauchi,

    The horrible thing is we're arguing about bullshit. Meanwhile, the law has been changed, and there's a clear signal there's more to follow. It's the closing down of society that creates terrorists. I'm not saying we're there yet, but that's the road we're on.

    Stop judging what people say cos of the clothes they wear. So they have masks and dogs and taiaha. That doesn't matter. This whole thing is dodgy as fuck. Stop with the herd mentality already. What the delphi oracle said: gnosce teipsum.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2007 • 121 posts Report Reply

  • tussock,

    I/S wrote:

    Ignoring the nasty streak of bigotry there, I can only say that these aren't the sort of role-playing games I or my many gamer friends play.

    Dude, some of my old RPGer buddies were way too much into guns and talking about shooting people for my comfort. One turned to the army (East Timor, Afghanistan, etc.) another to a serious paintball habit, but they got married, had kids, and settled down like everyone else does. Except for Mr Army Ranger, I guess.

    But OMFG the things that would've shown up in logs of my RPGer bullshitting sessions. I totally planned the pancake of the WTC in many easily achievable ways before the real terrorists managed it, and a great many more ways only achievable with super powers; which are totally cool now there's a TV series about them, but totally weren't then.

    <sigh> I also know how to use a gun. Obviously not a real lefty.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report Reply

  • David Cauchi,

    <sigh> I also know how to use a gun. Obviously not a real lefty.

    I was in the third form at Nelson College in the form. As far as I know, we were the last people in NZ to go through compulsory cadet training at school. I found it really difficult firing the rifle cos I'm a lefty, but that's all part of the right-handed conspiracy: guns, can openers, buttons, scissors, doors, etc. Apparently we left handers die seven years earlier than right handers, just cos of the fascist right-handed world we have to live in. But then there are other benefits...

    Wellington • Since Jul 2007 • 121 posts Report Reply

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