Posts by Craig Ranapia
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I wasn't doing that, just observing that it wasn't a great look. Especially compared to the last big hikoi, which did win public sympathy.
No you weren't. Just making the point, and I think it's a fair one, that you can frame any protest - hell, any mass gathering - to make the whole look like a pack of loons. OTOH, I am paying attention to folks here who were on the ground, and even though sympathetic where not impressed.
And I'm serious about the Tainui thing. Tame Iti has already ruffled a few feathers with his letter to the Tuwharetoa Maori King, and reducing Sir Robert Mahuta's daughter to tears won't go down too well with another powerful iwi. Ithink the Tuhoe leadership might get uncomfortable with this.
Sure - and I don't really give a shit about who Nanaia Mauta's father is, or her connections with the Kingitanga. She is genuinely a bloody nice woman, a thoughtful and effective MP (as opposed to a grandstanding windbag with an engorged sense of entitlement a la Shane Jones), and about the only member of Labour's Maori caucus I have any time whatsoever for. In short, the kind of ally you actually want to have inside the tent.
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PS no need to retort, I'm just talking more shit.
Ah, bring it on - shit makes the flowers grow. :) I frequently sing 'Bread and Roses' in the shower, despite not being a striking Massachusetts textile worker c. 1912. And don't forget, Sophie, I pass most of my day thoroughly bewitched, bothered and bewildered by the human race and all its works.
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It's pretty precious to blame the media for the coverage of the Hikoi
Well, who do you 'blame'? It's not as if there's no editorial judgment involved, and I'd respectfully suggest if you smuggled a camera into the Press Gallery Christmas party you could paint a vastly entertaining, but ever so slightly misleading, picture of the media as a pack of drunken, bitchy priapic lunatics. Whether or not that's a bad thing, I'm not so sure. :)
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As portrayed in the TV pictures, the hikoi participants looked like a rabble. If they were looking to win public support for their grievances, it backfired pretty badly.
Well, sure. Just as I think it was perfectly legitimate to document every anti-Semitic, hate-mongering (but highly photogenic) fucktard who attached themselves to anti-Iraq War protests. All the same, I don't think it would be fair to tar everyone who opposed the War with the same toxic brush, do you?
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As for the Haka thing... I think it's a matter of context. If you're on a sports field where confrontation, psychological warfare and opposition is essentially part of the fun then it seems like an excellent expression of all of that. But if you're standing a foot away from the face of a policeman who's just standing still doing their job then it's going to come across as deliberately intimidating, rather than admirable.
Personally, Finn, anyone screeching in my face is going to be (more or less) politely but firmly told to step the fuck off. And perhaps its just me, but I find a football match a very strange "context" for any haka - especially if you know a bit about the historical context and meaning of Ka Mate.
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What about talk of merely vanquishing her?
I'm all for giving Helen - and the rest of the incumbent Gummint - a right royal smiting at the ballot box, but even there I'd like the rhetorical temperature turned down a bit on all sides this time around. Well, a boy can dream...
Anyway, big ups to folks who've been passionate in all directions but still managed to keep their shit together. It really isn't that hard, is it?
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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!)
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I'd wholeheartedly agree except for this one little conundrum. You've neatly divided the world into the extreme and the moderate.
Hum... A vanity Google turns up in fractions of a second all sorts of things I'm not notably 'moderate' about - and in one of those rather bitter ironies, when it came to the Springbok Tour my ten year old self was much closer to Minto than my (Maori) father. 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. But that's another argument for another place.
And while I'm still passionate and vocal about politics, I just hope I've also grown up a wee bit. I can't be the only person out there who'd like to jump in a time machine and kick the arse of my irritatingly self-righteous know-it-all teen self.
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.
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I've found the vicious lashing out at Bomber and anyone who wasn't 100% down with the cause pretty unappealing too. That kind of thing is one of the reasons I've always been wary about indentifying with some concept called "The Left".
Yeah, I feel much the same about "The Right" - and really do have to sit down one day, and write that essay about politics as secular religion, and why its a very, very bad idea. Seriously, there's something disturbingly cultic about people who let ideology act as a substitute for thought; who neatly divide the world into True Believers, Infidels and Heretics; and feel a deep and abiding contempt for the world most of us just try and muddle through, in all it's daunting complexity and frustrations.
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Is it reasonable to be angry with everyone at this point? With people who want to shoot their fellow citizens, with clumsy police and dastardly leakers, with the arrogant bugger-your-fair-trial Dompost, and with people who do their own causes no good?
At least you're angry - I'm just feeling the same out weary misanthropic comtempt for the naked ape this story has been inspiring for quite a while.
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