Posts by Tom Semmens
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"...When the Nats start shipping people off in boxcars you'll have my full attention, but until then please just shut the fuck up..."
What is it with right wingers and attempted online bullying? A sniffy potty mouth seem to the the true marker of an online Tory.
HAVE any of these wannabe cabinet ministers drawn a line under the 1990's or not? As far as I am concerned, the analogy is apt in comparison to Helen Clark, who has cclearly distanced herself and her party from the 1990's.
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"...Personally it's important to me because they might be the next government. If the answers are good then perhaps they should be..."
Which brings us back to the point that National is full of potential cabinet ministers who (for want of a better term) haven't yet been "de-Nazified" after the Rogernomics era and therefore have not yet fully repudiated the whole "moral obligation to lie."
The question is can you trust people who still believe in the ethos of Roger Douglas?
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Once, whilst publicly squabbling with a friend, another good friend gave me some priceless advice. Don't, she said, try and drag others into the conflict because regardless of the facts or rights or wrongs, people will usually take sides based on their pre-existing prejudices towards the warring parties.
Thats the risk labour is running with attacks on Key at the moment. If they are going to attack him, they should prepare the groundwork a bit more thoroughly first to ensure the pre-existing inclination is in Labour's favour.
Attacks on the private lives of politicians only resonate with the public (at least in this country) if the personal foible under discussion deepens already existing public suspicions about the persons public life. People didn't really care if Don Brash was parading his wife about whilst possibly having an affair. But the public was already suspicious of a hidden agenda, and a man willing to be dishonest in the bedroom was adjudged to be more likely to believe he had a "moral obligation to lie" to get elected and therefore was not to be trusted.
Thats why it is more important, to me, to start trying to get some answers out of National in general, and Key in particular in regards to policy. Only by fertilising the ground can you then demonstrate a lack of credibility.
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Godwin's law only applies if you are calling someone a Nazi.
I am trying to illustrate that Judith Collin's is merely one of un-reconstructed band of merry Nats like Maurice Williamson (the minister for Telecom), Murray McCully,Tony Ryall and Lockward Smith who fancy themselves as cabinet ministers after the next election.
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Judith Collins? To quote the old saying about the Bourbons:. "They have forgotten nothing and learnt nothing".
If Labour is the Germany of the 1980's new right Axis, National would be the Japan. One de-nazified and the other still likes to try and re-write the history books rather than say sorry and move on.
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Much ado about nothing.
Who cares about the machinations of the ludicrous remnant of the age of kings and its bizarre codes of behaviour? At least Paris has a higher hemline, and I guess Lindsay would be more fun at a party.
Bring on a Republic!
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Its all so extremely frustrating. The C&R block, who should be not just discredited but driven en masse from the council after so completely fucking up Auckland under Les Mills and John Banks might regain power. The Herald seems to regard itself as the standard bearer of of speculators and property sharks who make up C&R and it seems almost impossible to get any serious or contextualised discussion about the candidates and issues that face the city in its flagship newspaper. The left seems a combination of single issue candidates, flakes and ineffectual professional time servers.
And I agree about Richard Simpson - he should rename his "Action Hobson" to "Action Auckland," I'd vote for him.
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The Auckland mayoralty makes me want to cry. A mayoralty with no real power with a title that doesn't fit the common perception of "Auckland" (i.e. the connurbation from Orewa to Bombay) has as it's two highest profile contenders two fundamentalist christians who have absolutely no understanding of how to run a modern city. And who is lurking in the wings? The crackpot crystal waving Christine Rankin. God save us all.
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First stop in the morning is the bookstore!
I've always been convinced the key difference between Labour and National is Labour is a party at least founded upon a progressive principle; National has always been (with perhaps a small interregnum of the post-WW2 consensus under Holyaoke) the party primarily concerned with looking after its backers - farmers and the business elite.
Its cause for pause to consider that Brashite politics is not an aberration, but merely business as usual for our business elites.
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I think the whole debate around NRT/DPF's comments policy illustrates a wider phenomena with blogs, and something I wonder if anyone mentioned during th EPMU thingy in Wellington. Comments can be as much part of a bloggers arsenal as the blogger him or herself. Lots of comments are source of pride and re-assurance and they contribute to a pokie-machine psychology of addiction that hooks so many to compulsively reading forums and blogs (one more refresh and I might get a reply!) Now, as anyone in the liquor or tobacco industry will tell you, where there is addictive behaviour to be had there is a dollar is to be made or an opinion to be changed. So, if comments contribute to hits and controversial comments contribute even more hits, whats the implications of that for online media?