Hard News: Long will be the lunches
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I'll reply in due course, but I'll just add for the moment that you have a fairly flawed understanding of race and class in Australia, Tom.
We are all painting with pretty broad brushes, but my comment is in relation to the idea Australia is more textured, with alternate centres of social and political power and the apparent contradiction to many New Zealand eyes of deep social conservatism combined with "socialist" collectivism.
I am pretty sure that with you being a Green our views on what constitutes effective political leadership will just be different.
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Tom Semmens - couth?
Not.I love the way your stupidity is multiplying -
you very obviously do not understand what is understood by 'working class' here & now - in Aotearoa-NZ.
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Alongside of farm workers, fishers, coal-miners & timber workers, several of my mates are tourist-industry workers.
I work, self-employed, with words.
I am a worker in the honest sense of the word.
Tom Semmens, I think you are not- -
. . . the flint hard and honed politicians and union leaders of Australia.
Heh! Whatever rocks your boat, but waxing homoerotic over the likes of Richo is rather pushing the envelope on kinkiness.
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Tom
Much of the social conservatism and public racism in Australia is simply evidence of a vigorous and thriving working class, who don't give a flying fuck for middle class sensibilities. It only seems weird to New Zealanders because in this country the working class have been destroyed as a political force and the only voice heard in public discourse is that of our (largely) neo-liberal middle classThe irony, Tom, is that you regurgitate precisely the same derogatory assumptions about the working class (red-neck social conservatives, openly racist) as those frequently made by middle class commentators (Neo-Liberal or otherwise).
As someone who grew up in a blue-collar family with a strong liberal-Left tradition, I really resent the broad caricatures of working people (deeply conservative, conformist, simple-minded "little battlers") so often presented by smug middle class journalists (and always grounded in little or no evidence).
My experience is of a significant degree of diversity among lower and lower-middle socio-economic groups when it comes to major 'moral' / social issues. There's more liberalism on some issues than you might expect ( not to mention more conservatism among middle class groups). And that's backed-up by the demographic analysis of opinion polls on these issues (which I've been working on over the last few years - although, admittedly, only for the 1965-1995 period).
I think you'll find that when there is a clear conservative majority on any particular issue, it's as much a middle class as a working class majority.
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Queensland is a deeply abnormal and corrupt state. It loathes the Greens because it's backward, rural and religious. Granted, though, New South Wales is hardly any better. Sometimes I wonder why Victoria remains part of Oz, though. It seems far too civilised, compared to the rest of that continent.
And yeah, I'd back up the comments about social attitudes and class background. My working class folks have gotten a hell of a lot more liberal and quite like the Aussie Greens. They're quite dismayed about the ALP, although my mum and sister had some choice things to say about backward Aussie blokes when it came to the anti-Gillard brigade.
Craig Y
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Wearing my elected representative hat...
Speaking of elections, am I the only one confused by our own TLA election? I see hoardings approximately everywhere, and assume they're roughly geo-specific. But nobody (Electoral Commission?) has told me exactly what the new entities are that I'll be voting for, or exactly what their jurisdiction or territory is.
Several others have responded, but I completely understand your confusion, as many other voters (when I have talked to them) express the same thing. The speed of the process has somewhat precluded any general educational efforts that I would expect central government to undertake. But then again, central governments of whatever stripe are notorious for ruling by fiat and letting the masses figure it out.
The hoardings are roughly geo-specific with the exception of the Mayoral hoardings, and the district health board hoardings (as they cover a much larger area - and there are 3 board elections from memory - Auckland, Waitemata, and Manukau).
Probably stupid to ask, but is there a guide somewhere as to what these new entities will be doing / looking after? What I'd like on the elections2010 site is if you get to vote for a Ward, Local Board, this is what those people voted in will be looking after, what they will be responsible for etc. This is what they will be doing. If there isn't one already...
Not stupid to ask and perfectly reasonable. It would help to know who does what in the new system. The Auckland Transition Authority has provided limted information - and it can only be limited given that this is a somewhat brave new world we are stepping into. Alot depends on personalities and force of argument. You can safely say that the big elephants in the room (Transport CCO) will get alot of power, the Auckland Council some power and Local Boards - well, sweet FA comparatively speaking. But I could be proven wrong, if for example, the Transport CCO decides to buddy up with a coterie of Local Boards and leave the Council out of the loop. But the Council has the powers of oversight. Which is well, oversight.
At a minimum, expect Local Boards to look after the operation of facilities / services in your area (like parks, pools, libraries), and the Council to look after the building / development of new facilities / services. And the Transport CCO to do things like footpath renewals, road renewals, bus/train/rail/ferry related stuff, and region-wide transport planning.
Doffing said hat.
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To my comment above:
Racism in Australia, both low level and covert, and high level and overt, has a strong class dimension. Australia was founded on a prisoner colony which rested on the backs of lower class English, and Irish. Throughout the 19th Century this remained true, with elite aristocracy asserting themselves over this group, and against Aboriginal Australians. In order for European Australians to claim legitimacy when stealing Aboriginal land they had to state that Aboriginal Australians were first dumb brutes and savages in need of civilisation and salvation (19thC), then people unable to care for themselves (20thC), and again people unable to care for themselves (the Howard/Rudd-Gillard intervention 21stC). In every case, an economic motive pervades, enabling the rich to ride on the backs of the poor other.
Chinese and Indian settlers were inevitably pushed to the bottom of the pile by white Australians, and then throughout the 20th Century immigrants with varying degrees of 'whiteness' were imported to provide labour, and each in turn attracted the opprobium of whites who were up the ladder, or attempting to climb there. The Wog, anyone not "anglo" was the major object of racism during the mid-late 20th century, and still is.
Now you also get Middle Eastern groups assuming this mantle as "wogs" and "Lebs", and satirising themselves publicly in the same way that Pacific New Zealanders played up stereotypes in recent decades as 'dumb PIs'. It's shocking, but everytime I get off the plane in Mangere and see brown faces doing the cleaning I remember that New Zealand is no racial paradise, even after 100 years of declaring it to be true. In New Zealand, as often as not, poverty has a brown face.
Do I mean to imply that all Australians are racist, or even that Australia is more racist than New Zealand? No, since these are attitudes of the heart, and I can't peer into there anymore than you can. But these things are certainly much more publicly acceptable than in New Zealand.
Are working class white males immune from racism? No, certainly not. You only need watch an Australian election or pick up a Murdoch tabloid (it's better disguised in the broadsheets) to disprove this. But a large part of this is the way in which racism is used against them, to turn them against the men who will steal their jobs and women.
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lovelyly written George.
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George D:
Chinese and Indian settlers were inevitably pushed to the bottom of the pile by white Australians, and then throughout the 20th Century immigrants with varying degrees of 'whiteness' were imported to provide labour, and each in turn attracted the opprobium of whites who were up the ladder, or attempting to climb there. The Wog, anyone not "anglo" was the major object of racism during the mid-late 20th century, and still is.
On the flip side, 'model minoritarianism' can be just as counter-productive as traditional racism, as it refuses to acknowledge the plight or even existence of 'involuntary minorities'. It wasn't just shops and cars that went up in smoke in Los Angeles in 1992, but also the very notion of model minority itself.
But a large part of this is the way in which racism is used against them, to turn them against the men who will steal their jobs and women.
A classic case of "hiring half the working class to kill the other half. The Lindsey Oil Refinery dispute nearly came to that.
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Australia needs a class act, like...
Where have you gone, Nicholas Cave?
A nation - with a hung parliament - turns
its lonely eyes to you. -
Now this is an excellent, relatively concise explanation of ALP factionalism:
Andrew Leigh: "Factions and Fractions: A Case Study of Power Politics in the Australian Labor Party" Australian Journal of Political Science: 35:3: November 2000: 427-448
...and here's my take on the Land of Confusion itself...
http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/31/printer_9255.php
Craig Y
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Jesus, I sounded like I had one hell of a chip on my shoulder in my last comment.
Let me assure you I really do love the middle class. Of all the classes, it's one of my very favourites.
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Let me assure you I really do love the middle class. Of all the classes, it's one of my very favourites.
Are they the ones with the tattoos, or do only the ruling classes tend to not have those these days?
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Let me assure you I really do love the middle class. Of all the classes, it's one of my very favourites.
In fact, some of your best friends are middle class? :)
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Let me assure you I really do love the middle class. Of all the classes, it's one of my very favourites.
In fact, some of your best friends are middle class? :)Well they were when we meet in high school.
Now tho'.....they seem upper middle class, but are always complaining about not enough money. Or is that guarding the nest egg.
They like to think working class now I suspect. -
there ya go... he said cryptically
I really do love the middle class.
speaking of middle class...
whatever happened to The Las?I've put the middle of classes behind me, though...
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The gentry have landed...
Not only ... but also.
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On the subject of long lunches and parties an' stuff...
We got a flier through the mail the other day entitled "The Inside Great Party Guide" We struggled to fathom what kind of advertising this was that mentioned no products or services, then we got a clue.Keep an eye on how much people are drinking. The best time to do something to make sure your guests have a great time and don't go too far with alcohol is early on and before they get too drunk rather that waiting until they have had too much.
Have some activities planned so people don't resort to knocking back heaps of alcohol to escape the boredom.Thanks ALAC, if you think my parties are boring I won't ask you to the next one.
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Not only ... but also.
one of my treasured possessions
(sadly, soon to go on TradeMe)
is/was an autographed copy of
The Dagenham Dialogues
by Peter Cook & Dudley Moore -
Thanks ALAC, if you think my parties are boring I won't ask you to the next one.
Indeed -- anyway, if you're running a good party, you don't need to plan activities. Someone will be screwing on top of the coats in the spare bedroom as a fist fight breaks out in the kitchen. Social Darwinism at work!
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Someone will be screwing on top of the coats in the spare bedroom
You'll always find me hiding under the coats at parties.
;-$ -
Like a human hipflask
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More like a HippyFlask.
;-) -
speaking of middle class...
whatever happened to The Las?Didn't the split after the mixing of this bloody fantastic debut album pissed them off... I thought they all joined other britpop bands.
Thanks for this though, it's been years...
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