Hard News: Dropping the Bomber
389 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 5 6 7 8 9 … 16 Newer→ Last
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
And this is why there's a good argument for building stuff in space rather than mucking up the surface of other worlds.
David, even by the extremely liberal standards of discursiveness that pertain here, you're way off topic.
-
NBH, in reply to
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Key's DPS detail is exactly the same size as Clark's.
You're wrong - at least accordinging to comments from friends and colleagues who have worked in the parliamentary complex under both administrations. My understanding from them is that, with the exception of major public events like Waitangi, Clark was pretty resistant to having a significant DPS presence shadowing her and there was a clear increase in the size of the standard day-to-day detail under Key.
Note that I'm not actually passing judgement on that situation. The DPS might genuinely believe that there's an increased security risk for Key (or any other Prime Minister these days), or Clark may have been too cavalier with her security.
-
DCBCauchi, in reply to
Letting everyone out and hoping that society will sort it all out in the end is, to me, about as credible as leaving the global economy to it;s own devices and going 'well, the market will provide. Things will eventually correct themselves and stabilise'.
Yeah, off-topic, but I think the thread can cope. It's not just 'hoping' though, is it? People have agency. And it's not actually my idea. Anarchists have been saying that people should be free for quite some time, and that we should start by opening the prisons. If you don't feel like reading books, just listen to some punk rock.
Not killing anyone. Not forcing anyone to do anything. Not locking anyone up. The opposite of that in fact.
Vested interests have always tended to make sure that that just comes across as crazy talk, however, usually with dark hints about what else it could be. No, no, can't have people thinking they can sort things out without their 'elected representatives' sitting round wearing silly hats doing whatever it is they do. Nothing to worry about here, but have you seen these shoes you might like to buy?
Vested interests getting antsy's no big deal. It's actually a good thing.
-
Sacha, in reply to
Not forcing anyone to do anything
Except to live among violent criminals when you empty those oppressive jails. You're welcome to your utopia; good luck negotiating democratic acceptance from everyone else.
-
Sacha, in reply to
I doubt any PM presiding during a period of turmoil would escape needing greater levels of protection. No matter how good they are at smiling and waving.
-
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
David, even by the extremely liberal standards of discursiveness that pertain here, you’re way off topic.
So, not being very helpful but, in the words of Deborah Coddington, we could well be on our way to the moon anyway.:)
Should I make a BSA complaint? -
Lilith __, in reply to
we should start by opening the prisons
You want vigilante justice instead?? Lynchings? Throwing known violent criminals to the public could be a lot worse for them than prison. Just sayin.
ETA: I think there are a lot of people in prison who could be better rehabilitated out of it. But that's not an argument for anarchy, just for non-custodial sentences in more cases.
-
Now if I were either of those people she mentions in the first few lines I’d be ringing my defamation lawyer Or planning on moving in next door.......Just to get on her "goat". So Ms Cods……. any other drivel you’d like to drool on the rest of us! (said to no one in Particular) hmmm
-
Ok, sorry. Russell, have you given any thought to how journos might prise answers to their questions out of pollies?
Also, more generally, let's summarise some of the criticisms of Bomber's approach, and suggest ways he could modify that approach to increase his effectiveness.
It seems to me that certain people are saying he puts them off with his 'one-eyed' bombastic, not exactly nuanced approach. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Does every message have to be aimed at as wide an audience as possible? Or is there a place for targeted messages to targeted audiences?
And, no, I don't want vigilante justice. Of course not. Where did I suggest that? Why would I suggest that?
And I strongly object to the depersonalised label 'violent criminals'. They are real individual people with thoughts, feelings, and histories. Just as much a person as you are. Other people labelled them 'criminal'. And who made them violent? And why? What's it a response to?
Really.
-
andin, in reply to
Other people labelled them ‘criminal’.
Your digging a hole deeper that you can get yourself out of bud.
-
Drug addicts, prostitutes, thieves, gang members, the homeless, etc etc.
Do you think that’s what they wanted to do with their lives when they were kids? How they want to spend their lives now? They’ve been pushed out to the margins. Had to choose the best of the options available to them.
Who pushed them? People wanting a comfortable life and wanting to just get along. Not out of malice. It’s just the way it is.
Wah, wah, life isn’t fair, you might say. But that pushing out to the margins is a result of choices that people have made. It’s the way it is for a reason. It doesn’t have to be that way.
-
Lilith __, in reply to
Other people labelled them ‘criminal’
I honestly don't believe violent crime is a matter of semantics.
-
Sacha, in reply to
label
you're giving postmodernism a bad name
-
3410,
for reasons known only to himself, John Howson took the crazily unusual step of notifying the staff of that in a mass email.
Do we have a copy of that? Or is that this (from 3news.co.nz):
“Mr Bradbury’s invitation to take part in The Panel discussion segment was withdrawn because his personal comments about the Prime Minister were deemed to be in breach of Radio New Zealand’s editorial requirements for fairness and balance.One of his comments was regarded as being potentially defamatory.
"Mr Bradbury’s comments were inconsistent with information he had provided to programme producers before going on air.
"Mr Bradbury later apologised to the programme’s executive producer.It was made clear to him that while his invitation to appear as an occasional guest on The Panel was being withdrawn, it was not a ‘lifelong ban’ and it did not apply to other Radio New Zealand programmes."
One more thing; I don't quite get S&P's position. Did they not effectively say with their "back three years" comment:
1. We don't prefer National, because
2. We don't take sides.
3. And anyway, we prefer Labour.?
-
Rich Lock, in reply to
If you don't feel like reading books, just listen to some punk rock.
I do both. Would you like to borrow some? How about some Fugazi? Some Black Flag? Some Dead Kennedys? How about some Rancid? Misfits? Propaghandi?
Maybe we can listen to it while we discuss the role of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo in the Spanish Civil War, and whether that role has been adequately explored in any one of the various histories I have on my bookshelf which cover the subject?
-
DCBCauchi, in reply to
Maybe we can listen to it while we discuss the role of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo in the Spanish Civil War
And who won that war? And why?
While we listen to punk rock my friends and I make.
-
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
tramping across a bridge too far...
I find them so bizarre that it's only a hop skip and a jump from trolling.
If it gets your goat, then it is more correctly a trip, trap, trip, hop...
;- )Augury, or just being screwed?
...when it seems throwing a bucket of chicken entrails at a freshly scrubbed wall gets roughly the same quality data.
Entrailer trash? Dem's the standard poor folk...
-
Stephen Judd, in reply to
Other people labelled them ‘criminal’
I honestly don’t believe violent crime is a matter of semantics.
The violence is a fact. Whether people should get a mark of Cain thereafter is a different question. I think that's what David is talking about when he says "label".
*POOR IMPULSE CONTROL*
-
DCBCauchi, in reply to
*POOR IMPULSE CONTROL*
Thanks Stephen. Yes, that is what I'm talking about. Mark of Cain indeed.
Incidental historical fun fact: The Maltese are Semites. Christian Semites ever since the Roman Empire (which has never left us) pranged St Paul into the Maltese rocks, but Semites nonetheless. Mostly anyway. A hodgepodge. Like all of us.
-
Rich Lock, in reply to
Thanks Stephen. Yes, that is what I'm talking about. Mark of Cain indeed.
But you appear to be almost wilfully ignoring this:
The violence is a fact.
I suspect we could find much common ground in relation to society's approach to the roots of offending, support for it's citizens, and crime/punishment/rehabilitation.
But if you genuinely can't see that releasing a bunch of people with a proved propensity for violence as a first resport out into the population as a whole might be problematic, then we really have nothing further to talk about.
-
Mick Rose, in reply to
Agreed - The Panel is ghastly. Even the rare sharp-minded panellist (Brian Edwards, Linda Clark…) struggle to get airborne in that smug and cloying atmosphere.
The super-structure of the show is critically holed. Mora provides space and encouragement for panelists to waffle on endlessly (by and large about things they have minimal insight into) while squeezing those with any real expertise - the invited experts/guests - into the dying minutes of the show.
As to John Key's secret sauce - who really knows? He's smiley, warm - like a children's show host for adults. Whatever the essence of his appeal, his pending re-election reflects as badly on NZers as the re-election of Dubya did on our cousins across the pond.
-
I understand that many people who commit violent crimes come from a history of deprivation and abuse. But it sounds like you're suggesting society should just let them do whatever they do with no consequences. Is that what you're suggesting, DCB?
I think our justice system and social services are imperfect, but I'd like to hear what concrete alternatives you're proposing.
-
Sacha, in reply to
You can talk about labels (by all means) without suggesting emptying the jails. Which again has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. Great derail.
-
Sacha, in reply to
we really have nothing further to talk about
good plan
-
HORansome, in reply to
Actually, people do provide a credible and plausible alternative candidate explanation for the material Bomber ruminates on (in a conspiratorial fashion), which is that National (and Labour, just not to same extent[1]) are adherents to a free market hypothesis which doesn't seem to work (i.e. it doesn't provide the results predicted by the theory). This common rival explanation explains the data by saying that it's not a masterplan to give the wealth to the already wealthy but rather the result of dogmatic adherents failing to realise that no matter how many times they assert "The market will sort this out!" it doesn't.
It's a classic case of what Chomsky calls "institutional analysis." We had/have a generation of economists (who are trained our current crop of MPs and Treasury officials) who subscribe to a economic model that doesn't seem to work. Rather than give up on the degenerating research programme they keep making ad hoc modifications to it to try and rescue it, but it always end up with the same result: a widening gap between the rich and the poor.
Folk psychology time: I suspect that the adherence of certain economists to things like Neo-liberalism is analogous to the adherence by some to sophisticated theological doctrines, which also get lots of ad hoc modifications to protect dogma from criticism.
1. Which is one of the many reasons why I will be voting for the Greens, and not voting Labour, with my party vote: Labour are just the more acceptable face of the free market and I don't find that acceptable at all.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.