Posts by chris
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Hard News: To have a home, in reply to David Hood,
You could ask the question of “if someone needs first aid, should you do what you can, or avoid helping because you are not a doctor”
That would really depend on your knowledge, for anyone swayed by that, if you suspect someone may have spinal injuries please don’t move them. As such I’m not entirely convinced by that analogy, in fact I would go so far as to propose another, If someone is homeless and in desperate need, should you offer them accommodation when you know that your place might actually be a death trap? It’s a tough question, I’ve always been of the thinking that New Zealand’s low population is a negative and that we should be welcoming those who wish to make this their home, dampness and lack of insulation aside, when the sun comes out and the temperatures climb over 10° this is a fine place to live as long as you can speak the language and find a job and be able to afford to heat your house. We are nothing if not enthusiastic hosts, just BYO.
Bryce Edwards’ Political roundup: NZ is part of the refugee problem has some great links, I also thought his Political roundup: Solving the housing crisis six weeks ago was great. I just hope the TPPA doesn’t hoist the price of Ritalin up any further in this country.
We are a simple people, easily distracted from one moment to the next, earnest crusaders for justice when the need for justice hits the headlines.
and for a month or so after.
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Hard News: Not yet standing upright, in reply to Katharine Moody,
he just wants
to keep the proles occupied with trivialities while TPPAing it and selling off the homestead, we are putty.
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Hard News: To have a home, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
As for old matter of fact Magic "fait accompli" Mike:
Not even close.
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Hard News: Everybody has one, in reply to chris,
With only 13.1% unbelievers, I don’t see the credibility of the messengers being the issue here. This propaganda touting the need for such surveillance had already established itself as the standard authoritarian line around the globe, it was being pushed hard by Key well before Greenwald arrived. 86.8% of those polled are not disputing Greenwald's claims, the contention here revolves around the ethics.
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Hard News: Everybody has one, in reply to Steve Parks,
Yeah. I mean, who would have imagined that directly aligning yourself with someone that even some on the left were wary of, or outright critical of, and who has a personal gripe with PM, might undermine your message? Definitely hindsight required.
In the context of this thread, my question is whether you see this undermining as some kind of natural occurrence like a sinkhole or whether it was actively undermined by a pliant media? Getting right to the heart of the issue for me, I'd like to know whether you personally don't believe Greenwald's revelations because he associated with Dotcom or whether this is based on you speaking to others who don't believe Greenwald specifically because of his association with Dotcom? If the latter is the case I'd like to hear more about their thoughts. Hager associated with a criminal, it undermined his message but without the association there would have been no message, did the greater visibility conferred by the unholy alliance of a trio facing charges of rape, treason, money laundering, copyright infringement garner lesser or greater visibility for the message? Is there a widespread perception that the message itself was untrue or simply lacking concrete proof? How do you propose things would be any different now if The Moment of Truth had not taken place?
I would say loosely that I am of the left, and I have always been wary of Dotcom, I never seriously considered voting for the guy's party and I have no difficulty understanding why he has a personal gripe against John Key.
If Dotcom were to bring a journalist over to hold an event more closely related to his own personal circumstances then I'd probably not even bother tuning in, but Snowden, Greenwald, Assange, their reputations preceded them, they didn't just pop onto the global radar for the event, their revelations and crimes and stories and movies had been dinner table conversation for quite some time, as had the topic of mass surveillance of New Zealanders. If you were even going to give credence to any of those three names it's highly likely that you already had well before Moment of Truth was announced. What did Kim Dotcom gain from hosting that expensive spectacle besides being blamed by Labour and the Greens for losing the election? Would mass surveillance have been hotly contested in the leader's debate or even discussed if he'd not held the event?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t put myself in Greenwald’s shoes before considering who I’m going to vote for.
I don't either, but the standards of honesty and integrity I seek in a minister or a Government are not dissimilar to the standards I expect of journalists.
Also, someone purportedly changing their position from a year ago isn’t “revisionist”
It's not so much the length of time that I was getting at, it's that at that time, despite "Fuck John Key!" posted on August 12th you were still considering voting IMP, and for all appearances it wasn't so much Dotcom's as much as Assange's association with Moment of Truth that turned you off IMP.
Even more to the point:
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Lest we forget
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Hard News: Everybody has one, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
I just think it’s a fairly revisionist point to be making:
To be fair, Greenwald did bring that result on himself, to some degree. His close alignment with Dotcom wasn’t the best judgment call of his career.
To be fair, put yourself in their shoes and see if you would come up with the same conclusions.
I wouldn’t have.
When Steve is on record as of August 25th 2014:
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Hard News: Everybody has one, in reply to Steve Parks,
I don’t know, who’d have imagined that collaboration with an individual who’d had his house raided by 76 officers using subsequently invalidated warrants, (that the Crown knew were the wrong order while the raid was in progress and that Dotcom should have been given the chance to challenge the seizure) who seized $17m worth of assets including hard drives which were then sent to the FBI in breach of extradition legislation, (the FBI’s cloning of the hard-drives was also invalid) based on information the GCSB gathered illegally while helping police to locate him and monitor his communications in the weeks prior to the raid, in order to bring charges that for the most part hinge on something not unlike this (that is the full Leon the Professional (1994) Full Movie HD available to view freely on Youtube at time of writing uploaded by salomon sea in September 28 2013 - also see the user's uploads of Lady Mobster and The Beastmaster), that Kim would somehow have emerged as the bad guy?
Who’d have guessed that the general public of any democratic country would totally lap up the taint of a pliant media painting him as the villain, and that this whitewash would be so successful that despite the greater visibility this association necessitated in the local MSM compared to this, that perceptions of Greenwald’s journalistic independence would be lost on otherwise intelligent people?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
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Why publicly present a shortlist of 40 if only presenting 4 for the vote?
Until recently on a stroll around New Zealand suburbs you were generally likely to encounter three flags flying; the current National flag, Tino Rangatiratanga, and the All Black Flag, A very real outcome of this mess is that we will soon if we haven’t already become the country of many flags. The National Flag, whatever it may end up being, will not enjoy the same resonance until such time as this kerfuffle is forgotten and the flag changing process can be reset and approached in a pragmatic manner
Possible upshot, the flagpole industry is on the up and up.
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Up Front: Stand for... Something, in reply to Russell Brown,
He’s one of my heroes, I was turned onto him by Jonathan Mane-Wheoki. As a flag it would probably only work with the beige brigade but it came to mind watching the principles of flag design video. There’s a bit about it, including something of an explanation by McCahon, here.
