Hard News: Vision and dumbassery
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Assuming that the Tsujihara email is the fake it appears to be, the two options as to its source are equally unappealing: either KDC got played and no one in his circle had the pull to talk him out of it, or he was in on the fake from the beginning and went ahead anyway.
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Can't help but chalk this up as a win for Key. Most New Zealanders would cheerfully hang Dotcom out to dry for hobbits (that email is far too good to be true) and I'm prepared to bet the GSCB stuff gets no traction with a fatigued and cynical populace. Now if he'd done something serious like sign the back of a picture HE DIDN'T PAINT, well, that would be another matter.
We have to acknowledge though, some of the glitter has finally fallen off the turd.
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My understanding about Assange is that he's not keen to go to Sweden as the expectation is that they'll render him to the USA. Maybe the change of government underway there will result in a guarantee that this won't happen, then the whole sex thing can be dealt with without being undermined by the Wikileaks issue.
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And what is it with National Radio spending so much time to ex GCSB players who patently say that they either know nothing or won't talk? Such a waste of airtime. The arrival of Greenwald et al is certainly highlighting the general abysmal level of interviewing capabilities in NZ.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
nudge nudge winky win Key...
like sign the back of a picture HE DIDN'T PAINT
Isn't that pretty much what he did over the allegedly
leaked Donghua Liu / Cunliffe letter imbroglio...
...akshully he did do some overpainting on that
it was pentimento as anything!</intentionally misreading between the lines>
:- ) -
crowd saucing…
We know who was there…
…this will go down on your permanent record!yrs Big Bro
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I attended as a lay internet user curious about what these giants of the form might teach me about it.
No question that Snowden was the highlight from that POV. 2 things I learned:
1. How easy it is for an operative like he was to see whatever they like on whoever they like.
2. That meta-data are not only very revealing (even I knew that), but that from an intel analyst’s POV, _even more_ useful than content. Why? As he said “for one thing, meta data doesn’t lie.”
He said in fact that other things being equal, he'd always go for meta data _over_ content.
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Too angry at the weak two bob each way commentary to post what I really think.
Instead of continually reporting everything from the way NZ's tiny cabal of self appointed journos see everything and overlaying it with acres of subjectivity, why don't you have a crack at the facts.
The issues are easy to hide if they get buried in media goss about the press conference, but that is the way NZ's 'journalists' have reported everything about Mana Internet since the election campaign began.
This is why NZ's weak, never ask the big boys a tough question, 'don't push too hard or he won't buy me a drink afterwards' media never manage to uncover anything that wasn't dished up to em all plated and ready to eat.
And that's why many of us consider them to be parasites. -
A part of me died during that performance, when most of my tweet stream spent the whole time telling KDC to shut up, stop giggling, where's-the-moment-of-truth, isn't-Assange-an-alleged-rapist, etc. I've never felt Russell's point about the Meth Election so poignantly. Basically every complaint is about something that I really don't actually give a shit about. There was some really serious discussion by some massive heavyweights about some really scary stuff that's happened in NZ, and it was brought to us by someone politically naive because, well, he's not actually a politician. Of course I expected a plug for the Internet Party, was a tiny bit surprised to get the Mega-plug, but really I kept thinking it was like a bunch of kids complaining about a dinner they just got given because they don't like veges. I've never experienced anything like that on NZ "TV" (probably because it wasn't TV, it was the Internet) before. Fucking hell, just don't eat the veges then. The main course was awesome. So now we're going to spend the next 4 days talking about the veges.
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Moments of wonder, a feeling of disappointment, awe at the streaming - and I now know how not to pronounce John Roughan's name.
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Hebe,
The Snowdon-Greenwald-Assange link-up and the case they were putting forward was astounding. So many layers there to dissect.
The two topics of mass surveillance and Kim DotCom's case never hung together easily. They may have done so if a bridge could have been built between the two. I gained the impression from Greenwald's pre-interviews that he was still working on the reporting after arriving here: maybe he was trying to tie the packages into a coherent whole?
The presentation was flawed and full of holes. I had expected little apart from puffs of smoke and good times.
What I heard was a coherent explanation of how democracy in New Zealand has been systemically undermined by a world-wide intelligence network answerable to no-one but the intelligence and political elites and which abets global corporations in their quest for dominance.
I salute all of them: Greenwald, Snowden, Assange, Amsterdam and especially Kim Dotcom for bringing all this to national -- and international -- prominence.
If not them, who else would have? We owe Kim Dotcom -- in a good way -- for staging the reveal. Yeah he's excitable, and complex, and in some ways dodgy.
And yeah some journalists had a scrap with him at the presser. Get over yourselves, that's part of the job.
What is important is do you follow up all of the issues raised, or do you let Key and his cohort deflect you from helping pull out country out of the cesspit we have slid into?
BTW: Robert Amsterdam's comments about the protections afforded New Zealanders by being part of the Commonwealth (eg Harare) were intriguing. Key has over the last few years increasingly been softening up the electorate with asides about becoming a republic. I will re-examine my ideas on that.
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B Jones, in reply to
it was like a bunch of kids complaining about a dinner they just got given because they don't like veges
I'd have thought filet mignon served covered in Watties tomato sauce with a sparkler stuck in it.
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CJM, in reply to
So now we’re going to spend the next 4 days talking about the veges.
No, arguing about the veges while the car is stolen, in broad daylight, from the driveway just metres away.
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Neil Graham, in reply to
No, arguing about the veges while the car is stolen, in broad daylight, from the driveway just metres away.
OK, now I'm confused. Did we just eat the car?
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There were other problems on the night. Harre repeatedly gave the crowd the impression that Assange is ensconced in the Ecuadorian embassy because a US prosecutor wants to get at him, rather than because he refuses to return to Sweden for questioning over two alleged sex offences.
Thanks for saying that, Russell, because I just didn't have the spoons to deconstruct that framing. Again. But, boy... it's depressing that someone who might just be in Parliament this time next week is that tone deaf given the conversations we keep having about abuse culture right here at home.
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Basically every complaint is about something that I really don't actually give a shit about
Er you don't care that Assange is an alleged rapist? I mean, I think Assange's appearance was a pretty classic example of the flawed genius of the event, and I think that inasmuch as this was a party political event put on by people who want to run the country it's pretty relevant to look at the guest list in political terms.
I mean, this event was a massive pitch for votes. That's what it was. And the critiques you're dismissing are pretty relevant to the question "should I vote for Internet/Mana?" They might not be relevant to "what's the GCSB up to?" but that wasn't the only thing going on in the Auckland Town Hall last night.
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CJM, in reply to
Cars, guitars, Fab Five Freddy told me everybody's fly.
You want seconds? Nikki Kaye has some nice weetbix apparently..
https://twitter.com/nikkikaye/status/511278022729936896. -
Was Snowden live or was it a video, not that alters the substance of what he said
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Today we will get to see which, if any, of the people claiming to be journalists in NZ are able to tell the real story instead of getting mired in the dross on all sides.
Andrea Vance has done well as has Keith Ng (who doesn't claim to be a journalist yet often outshines them all).
It is an opportunity for them to actually serve NZ in the way their profession always claims to serve. The easy story will be the e-mail and the shambles of a news conference. The important story is something different and harder and much more unpleasant to report. They may even have to risk their special relationship as political insiders in order to tell the important stories. I wonder how many will have the moral fiber to do that.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
And yeah some journalists had a scrap with him at the presser. Get over yourselves, that's part of the job.
Big +1 on that.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
Er you don’t care that Assange is an alleged rapist?
Please get your facts sorted before you sling that word around.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Er you don't care that Assange is an alleged rapist? I mean, I think Assange's appearance was a pretty classic example of the flawed genius of the event, and I think that inasmuch as this was a party political event put on by people who want to run the country it's pretty relevant to look at the guest list in political terms.
+1. And we shouldn't forget (or forgive) the way Assange's lawyers and his more extreme apologists haven't missed an opportunity to smear and slut-shame the complainants, not least revealing their identites and exposing them to online harassment and intimidation. Not exactly my idea of a poster boy for civil liberties any political party should be associating with.
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Danielle, in reply to
That's what "alleged" is for, dude.
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
Was Snowden live or was it a video,
By his look of humble embarrassment at his welcome, I would say Live.
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I read a profile on John Campbell some time after the three-year TV3 investigation into the GCSB had aired. He ruefully admitted that they had grossly over-estimated how much the average punter cares about this stuff. The average punter genuinely believes that politics is dirty on all sides, Dotcom is a dick, spies will be spies, and if you're not a pedophile or Al Qaeda you have nothing to fear.
Key supporters might concede that they would have something to fear if a far-left government was in power, which in their view just makes it all the more essential that the government does everything in its power (and a few things that are technically not in its power) to keep the left out.
The only hope is to appeal to self-interest - mass surveillance might be a problem if government Ministers were so corrupt that they accessed information and passed it on to attack blogs and a compliant media in order to harass and smear ordinary citizens for political, business or personal reasons. But that would never happen in NZ, right?
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