Posts by Russell Brown
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That being said, I watched TV3s footage and thought the police were generally restrained, although towards the end of the footage they started pushing people around for no apparent reason.
The guy trying to put his shoe on? Yeah, they could have let him put his shoe on, but even that got a bit farcical when the other guy leaned over him and started falling on him: it was a sort of like a game of protester Twister. He could equally have walked 5 metres and put his shoe on there though ...
But like I said, I don't think I'd have been that calm if I'd had people screaming and swearing at me and calling me fascist scum for the past two hours ...
I'm reminded of something I wrote on another thread about some activists' tendency to dehumanise people they disagree with, to see them solely as symbols of the state or the Labour Party or whatever.
There was one post on the Indymedia thread where the poster was on the verge of sympathising with the Maori cop who had that stupid kid spit in his face -- but then said something like "it's just a shame he didn't put down his helmet and join the protest". It's just not realistic ...
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Quite. This is begging the question. Speculation about why the anarcho-hippies and Tuhoe are allied only make sense if we already believe there is some sort of plot.
A virtual chocolate fish for a correct use of the phrase "begging the question"!
You're right: "alliance" has a shade of meaning that isn't supported by available facts.
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Jared Phillips won't lay charges, but won't accept an apology:
Mr Phillips today said he was disappointed Mr Richards and his wife, Service and Food Workers Union delegate Jill Ovens, had not boycotted Labour's conference over the police raids issue.
"While I won't lay charges, I won't let Len absolve himself by accepting his apology," he said in a statement.
He said the pair - former Alliance supporters - had moved to the right after the collapse of the party and accused them of abandoning wider left-wing causes.
Gawd. Spare me from Left-wing infighting. Really.
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I'd guess mid- to late- next year for any trials to occur for these.
It's going to be an interesting election campaign ...
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Woo! Serious derailment!
Carry on folks -- I have to go and talk to some students about Teh Internets.
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Just a slight aside, but I was a bit surprised to see Chris Knox pop up doing Labour's new theme song. Obviously he's always been more sympathetic to the left than the right, but I thought it wouldn't be his cup-of-tea having such direct involvement with Labour.
I presume it's alright to say this: Chris's partner, Barbara Ward (a very organised and involved person) was Labour candidate Phil Twyford's campaign manager at the last election and I presume will be again. So that would have been the connection. I further presume it was a commissioned work.
The Labour-Flying Nun connection isn't new though. Last time the TV election advertising song was The Clean's 'Anything Could Happen'. Everybody just conveniently forgot that the song is actually about going to the doctor and trying to score drugs ...
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Their solidarity is in reaction to a joint police action. The various groups don't link themselves together but rather the imagination of the police to tie the various groups as one.
I think at least some of the activists have acknowledged attending the Urewera camps, so I don't think a relationship between the groups is purely the invention of the police.
It would be nice to hear someone from the activists' side criticise Tame Iti's supportive relationship with the thugs running Fiji -- where the police beat a New Zealander nearly to death over the weekend.
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There seem to be a few Labour people dropping in on the Indymedia thread.
I know it's mean to make fun of Indymedia (and the NZ one's pretty good really - at least you don't get the creepy anti-semitism that infects some of the others), but I thought the following exchange was a classic:
Post:
I walked into the Labour Party conference as a worker and a union delegate. I've been a union member for the last 16 years and while I don't always agree with Labour I think we need to use every avenue we have to make people's lives better. National would not have raised the minimum wage by more than 60%. National would not have extended annual leave to four weeks. National would not worked to halve unemployment to 3.4%. It's not perfect, but when you're a working person you realise spitting at union delegates and calling them scabs is not going to improve anything.
I walked into the conference having 'shame' and 'scab' yelled at me, and then went straight into a meeting where we discussed what mechanisms to implement to help improve the lot of low paid workers like myself and my workmates.
But I suppose that isn't important when you're a middle class university student waiting for the revolution. '
Response:
fuck off state apologist!
Chortle.
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I am particularly struck that many of them have been staunch supporters of Louise Nicholas, and I seriously do think that the background of that situation cannot be ignored when looking at the current problems between police and activists. Let's not forget that the police raided the Maori Women's Refuge in Taupo recently, on a spurious and unlikely tip-off that it was a P lab.
Whilst not denying that there are still nasty racist, sexist bad cops in the force (I once had the misfortune to spend a "social" evening with some), it's also true that Louise Nicholas paid tribute to the police who brought her case to court, and I think the vast majority of cops hate what happened.
But Maia said recently on her blog that she wanted the the police abolished altogether. It's this sort of monolithic thinking I find a bit hard to grasp.
Ok, I have to learn some discipline about writing shorter comments!
S'alright. Long, thoughtful comments are our brand!
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Russell Brown talks to New Zealand Drug Foundation director Ross Bell about the Foundation's new Let's Talk About Pot project, which aims to stimulate public discussion around cannabis policy.
As part of the project, the foundation has published a series of essays on the topic on its website, and is inviting comment from the public.
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