Posts by Joe Wylie

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  • Hard News: Right This Time?,

    Telling fantastic stories about such times is fairly natural.

    Maybe. Perhaps misappropriating the culture of others for such dark motives as a sense of guilt about one's own race-based privilege, or to build a self-deluding false reputation, might be described as unfairly natural.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Right This Time?,

    I sort of ignore all the political machinations, so you're probably right about their 'feudal' structure, but I would like to note that my whole family is enrolled in their retirement savings account, Whai Rawa, which matches savings up to a certain amount and gives regular payouts to those over 50, as well as helping young people go to university or put a deposit on a house. I mean, that doesn't totally suck for the wider iwi...

    Thanks Danielle.

    if you ever sit at caste hill you do feel something infinitely older and more powerful than petty ngai tahu boardroom squabbles.
    there really is something about that place

    There's an excellent comic, The Kaiapoi Kid, in Officer Pup #2, by the supremely talented N. Wright and Jared Lane, that features an interesting take on Castle Hill. For me, it's proof that great art always trumps any amount of new agery

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Right This Time?,

    if 'people' were straight up and called a spade a spade:) there'd be a lot less pussy footing round the issue.

    Which, for me, is what Eddie Clark did earlier in this thread when he described Labour's Foreshore and Seabed debacle as "vile, racist, legally illiterate populism." Amen to that.

    There are a few New Age (pakeha) claiming a cosmic consciousness as Wai Taha a pre-maori people.

    If they're not fools they're scoundrels. quite likely a bit of both. Much like the squatter in North-Western Australia's Kimberley, who advances a crackpot theory of a vanished race having produced the distinctive indigenous rock art of that area, and benefits from running spurious 'art' tours of his leasehold, while denying access to the living descendants of those who created the work.

    In appropriating a bastardisation of indigenous culture, such lowlives steal every last shred of value from the dispossessed under the guise of mystical cod-science.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Right This Time?,

    Where, pray tell, would members of the "Crown" without the appropriate whakapapa go? Would there be an exemption for pakeha family members?

    As someone noted back in the era of Donna Awatere's Maori Sovereignty polemic, it'd get pretty crowded between the Tigris and Euphrates if some of her fantasies came to pass.

    Ngai Tahu is not beyond criticism.

    They certainly appear to have a rather feudal way of doing things, in that little tangible benefit seems to reach the wider Iwi. It's an approach that seems to integrate a little too well with the existing establishment. And the site of the old King Edward barracks is still a dismal carpark.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Southerly: Still a Scientist at Heart,

    Surprisingly, the lawnmower was actually a blessing. Most of the bees tried to attack it instead of me.

    You could take that as a compliment. It's said that bees have a sense of smell, and once they're on the warpath they'll go for the smelliest item. Something to do with an ancient antipathy towards bears. Beekeepers tend to shower regularly and have a thing for clean underwear.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Right This Time?,

    (Isn't it odd that the idea that the Treaty might be outdated tends to come up when Maori assert their rights under it? I say, do you think there's something happening there?)

    Damn those drums, Carruthers.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Right This Time?,

    There is coming a day when the idea of Maori (whatever THAT will mean in 2140, or even 2040) being seen as the only indigenous people will be regarded as a joke, a simple rejection of common sense and common fact. And that day, if it hasn't already arrived, is a lot closer than you seem to believe.

    Mr. Angry waxes prophetic. Must be full moon.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Right This Time?,

    Seriously, who *are* you people? You are freaking my historian ass the hell out. :)

    The sort who consider the past to be somewhere between boring, irrelevant, and inconvenient.

    And, rather curiously, appear to hanker for a perpetual NZ circa 1950.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Right This Time?,

    James K. Baxter once said that if Pakeha were to use their weight of numbers and throw all Maori into jail to rot, the resulting stench would kill us all. Even Don Brash, bless his changeable heart, now appears to realise that this is so.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Hard News: Right This Time?,

    From Labour's point of view the temptation to play race politics over this must be overwhelming. They owe National nothing on this issue, given the rank racism and hypocricy of National when in opposition. Given how she takes things so personally, goading Tariana Turia would be easy to do, and pushing her into a hardline position would play straight into a Pakeha backlash that Labour would benefit electorally from.

    Labour 'goaded Tariana into a hardline position' years ago. But hey, you may be right, they might just be dumb enough to try it again.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

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