Posts by Craig Ranapia
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See it's very easy to point fingers when someone or a company is doing a little bit of good, becuase oh gosh it's not doing everything everything perfect so it must be evil.
Um, it might help if everyone stopped throwing around the E-word. But having said that, Sue, it's fair enough to say 'don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.' But it's also equally fair to hold Trade Aid to the same standards as any other corporate - is this real change or marketing 'greenwash', does the rhetoric line up with reality?
And as a consumer,I do try to be well-informed (and healthily sceptical) about the reality behind the marketing. Surely that applies to appeals to my 'social consciousness', every bit as much as advertising campaigns trying to manipulate my sexual vanity. :)
It doesn't matter how many kilos of coffee you buy from Trade Aid if you're going to keep voting for politicians who preach open markets abroad and protectionism at home. I'm probably more of a 'globalisation' fan that you're average PA reader, but that doesn't mean I don't recognise there's a global market in political hypocrisy (from both the left and the right) where trade is concerned.
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Weston:
I thought we were agreeing on some things, and respectfully disagreeing on others - which, blessedly, is the norm around here rather than the depressing exception.
Anyhow, time to go torture some lamb chops into something approximately in the vicinity of an edible evening mealr...
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Damn... that's not right. Holyoake resigned as PM and National leader in February 1972, and it was Jack Marshall in the hot seat when the Nats were turfed out later that year. So, National won four out of five elections contested under his leadership.
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True, but the common usage is to say that the PM was 'elected' if they were the leader of the party at the time of the election. So it's not really snide - it's a distinction that's not less important because it is less formal.
Well, it is snide - unless it's now going to become PA house style to refer to both Geoffrey Palmer and Jenny Shipley as "a former Prime Minister, however brief and unelected". Now, if anyone wants to put up a serious argument for 1) electing our executive separately from the legislature, and/or 2) changing the law so the resignation of a sitting PM automatically leads to a general election, I'm paying attention. But Moore was a lawful and legitimate Prime Minister, and I don't see how the length of his residency atop the greasy poll, or the way he got there, bears any relationship to the quality (or otherwise) of his piece in Wednesday's Herald. Surely it would have been badly written, tendentious nonsense even if it had been penned by the shade of Kiwi Keith (Nation winning four our of six general elections contested under his leadership, and serving a little under twelve years as PM).
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Stephen:
Fine, you're not going to change my mind, and I'm not going to change yours so it's time to agree to disagree and move on. But I don't see any reason to change my view that Peters is a shameless, habitual and pathological liar who has built a (disgracefully long and successful) career out of pandering to bigots and xenophobic fucktards. The guy doesn't only 'speak in code' (though often it's not very hard to crack), he's applauded for it and enabled by people who just should know better.
And for the record, that wasn't an 'insinuation' that anyone is anti-Semitic. That's an explicit and in your face statement of opinion that Peters is a opportunistic racist and a liar, and the media and politicians who enable him are despicable.
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I don't have an opinion one way or the other on this approach but it does foreground the fact that we have choices to make and that those choices may entail trade-offs.
Not being a dismal scientist (and questioning whether economics is a 'science' at all, in any meaningful sense of the word), I thought it was a fundamental that all economic activity involves 'trade-offs'. If I take a bolt of cloth and make pants, then I'm trading off the opportunity to make trousers. I spend $20 on a DVD, then I obviously can't spend it on anything else (or save it, or invest it).
To be honest, I really think the (for lack of a better term) the evangelical fundamentalists on both sides of climate change policy debate aren't doing their own causes any good, let alone adding much to quality policy debate that might just result in some worthwhile outcomes.
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Stephen:
First, let me make it crystal clear that I'm no way implying that your reading is offered in bad faith. I just didn't interpret it the same way. Moore is, for want to a better way to put it, pro-globalisation. And while I think there are any number of intellectually honest and reasonable arguments to the contrary, I think it's fair comment to say Peters doesn't make them. Like it or not (and a certainly don't), there's always going to be a political constituency - both on the rabid right and loony left - for racists and xenophobes to use immigration and economics as a 'wedge' to scratch racist itches. And Winston Peters is a master of that particular game. Do I think Winston Peters is a Jew-hater? No. I don't even think he's really a racist. He's something worse, IMO - he's a pure opportunist who's willing to pander to bigots if there's a poll point in it, and he keeps getting away with it. Which is a pretty nasty indictment on the media and the rest of us, isn't it?
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It's Moore who's making the insinuation here.
Sorry, Stephen, still not seeing it I think there's plenty to criticise in Moore's piece - and, to be honest, a lot of the reaction just goes to show Moore isn't the only one who has a little problem with re-writing history to suit present needs.
When anti-semitism became unfashionable in the Social Credit movement they switched to saying "international bankers", but it does not follow that every reference to international bankers (or money lenders) is secret code for Jews.
You're right. But, to play devil's advocate for a moment, I don't exactly fine Peters essays in facile economic nationalism and anti-immigrant racism all that endearing either. There's always going to be a constituency for blaming everything wrong in the world on 'dirty forreigners' - from the traffic to interest rates. Guess I just don't find xenophobia any more attractive.
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"Code word"? Is he accusing Peters of anti-semitism? Is there the slightest bit of evidence of this?
Steven: Can't speak for Mike Moore, but I wouldn't call Peters an anti-Semite. I don't even think he really believes half the immigrant-bashing, 'Fortress New Zealand' economic nationalism that comes out of his mouth, He just panders to bigots for votes - which makes him worse than the likes of Kyle Chapman, in my book.
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Grr... should be 'This HOUR Has Seven Days' - which is still clunky, but not quite so Dada.
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