Posts by Tom Semmens
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I am going to get a pot ofstrong, hot tea and a nice digestive biscuit before settling in and re-reading that correspondence.
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nic - I didn't say I thought any the less of Matt Bowden, I admire a man who can combine doing the good work of the Lord and make money out of it,hell if he was a beer baron he'd be in charge of an SOE by now. And unlike most beer barons Mr. Bowden is a jolly good chap to have a drink with as well.
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nic.wise - Ease was obstensibly meant to be a MDMA substitute, BZP was/is supposed to save us from the scourge of the P pipe, if you believe the words of Mr. Bowden. My view was that Mr. Bowden has nicely combined the works of God and Mamon to not co-incidentially handsomely reward his own back account. Ease should never have been released in N.Z. - Stargate got a (fig leaf?) letter from some minnion in the dept of health giving them the go ahead and then proceded with an under the radar "trial" (actually a sort of Amway for pill heads) that kept the sale discrete. Eventually the cops wised up and it was all over red rover. Mr. Bowden was not prosecuted for selling a class B drug not because the police didn't think they couldn't get a conviction, but because the N.Z. government would have had to be charged as a co-conspirator.
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So if an officer stops Terry Techno for a dodgy lane change on his way home from a dance party at 7.00am can he then decide Terry's silver pants and yellow singlet are enough reason to take him down to the station for a blood test? I would have thought that would constitute discrimination based on cultural preference...
As for Party Pills, my views are mixed. People like to get high. Trying to stop people getting what they like will always be a miserable failure. Prohibtion is a complete waste of time and such a proven failure I weep that its still considered an option. OTOH, I think the stuff is WORSE than MDMA in its comedown, and as for the supposed long term effects of MDMA ( like depression) I nowadays invoke the Fermi paradox - where are they? BZP has not been subjected to the hundreds of millions spent to prove that MDMA is harmful (here is a thought - what if they spent that research money on developing an MDMA like substance that was totally non-harmful?), yet its 100% legal in Godzone.
Iif BZP had come along as a recreational drug in Muldoon's time like MDMA did it would be a class B at least now. Conversely, if MDMA suddenly turned up this year as "safe" alternative to BZP I doubt it would be made illegal.
I suppose more than anything, BZP's status - legal and over 20 million doses taken and rising with not a single death - exposes the inconsistancy and stupidity of prohibitionist policies. It seems to me much of the drive to ban party pills is based not on their toxicity but rather an ideological desire to hold back the tide of human nature.
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"...A feature of the wider story in The Hollow Men is the way the same characters turn up over and again, often in different guises and almost invariably not being honest about their motives or their funding..."
People have a right to their opinion, and a right to express it. The fundamental difference in the current political environment though is the left(ish) is unfront and honest about where its coming from and who is paying the bills. The (hard) right seems not to have the same strength of its convictions and instead tries to manipulate opinion in basically dishonest ways. The fact that they get away with it is to the lasting shame of our media, after all Bruce Jesson showed basically the same group doing basically the same things 15-20 years ago.
Michael Bassett has an article in todays Herald, I spy. I didn't bother to read it. The man's been exposed as a duplicitous liar. One more right wing Bolshevik exposed to the daylight
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You know, Bassett, Prebble, Douglas, De Cleene et. al. wrecked the Labour party and it took 12 ears to put it back together again. Now they've wrecked National as well. We are well rid of Brash, the last of that generation hard-right ideologues left in N.Z. politics.
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Clearly, when Brash talked of those who are not "mainstream" New Zealanders, when he says Labour colludes with Communists, when he calls Labour corrupt, clearly this is what he BELIEVES. Its not the gaffes of a kindly old gent. Its the gaffes of a hard right economic Pinochista whose mask slips when under pressure.
Brash was so convinced of his own righteousness that he allowed himself - and more seriously his party -to be actively drawn into a conspiracy with a secret organisation to circumvent the electoral laws of New Zealand. Then he lied about this to the people of New Zealand and further, when the election was lost to the right, he had the hypocritical hubris to try the big lie and accuse the Labour party of doing what he had done. I can see now why so many in National worked to undermine Brash and the political culture he brought with him.
What arrogance. What hubris. What contempt for our democracy. What cynical, morally hollow realpolitik. He does indeed stand tall in the company of De Cleene, Douglas, and Prebble.
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The big lie just exploded in the National Parties face.
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I assume no one is questioning the authenticity of the "smoking gun" email? If its confirmed 100% genuine then the National Party has now got a huge problem.
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As span would say,
"toasty toasty toasty, toast toasty toast toast toast."