Posts by B Jones
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There's overt racism, which is quite rare these days in polite company, and then there's the sort of racism that you have to infer because the only way someone would make a particular statement or argument or advocate a particular policy is if they held basic unspoken negative beliefs about the people concerned. For example, when every piece of evidence points to negative socio-economic outcomes for a group, saying that group has unfair privilege is the sort of thing a covert racist would say. The steps you use to get there, even if you don't say or even consciously think them, require a degree of racism: eg. this guy on the news who thinks he can tell me what to do, who the hell does he think he is, he looks like [insert racist stereotype here], therefore, he must have got that position from unfair privilege. Leaving the person thinking those thoughts free to tell themselves some of their best friends are group X, they're nothing like that [racist stereotype], it's only those [racist stereotypes] that let the side down, we should change our policies to stop letting those [racist stereotypes] flourish. They're often shocked and offended to have their covert racism pointed out to them. See the NZCPR forum on Maori issues for some examples. Many cross the border to overt racism in what they see as a safe place, but some still manage to convince themselves that it's the other side that's racist.
I had a conversation once with a guy who thought something about NZ's Maori policies, I forget what, was akin to apartheid. "Apartheid," I said carefully, "was a system in which 80% of the population didn't have the vote, and were subject to forcible relocation to homelands. People were shot for protesting against it." His outrage meter dialled down a bit after that.
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I was struck by the ALF protests on Hindsight the other week. Not sure whether it was the late 70s or early 80s, but it was a bit boggling to see the Karori butchery's windows all smashed up. Picking random retailers for vandalising is pretty serious. I'm glad that in NZ, what they do these days is mainly scoping out dodgy factory farms with cameras and chaining themselves to things. In the US and UK it sounds like a few have taken to intimidating students and academics.
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Or you could watch the Aussie version, where last week there was an enormous showdown with a very angry woman who was pulled over for smoking in the car with her minor child in there. The father, I think, was let off with a warning, but the mother got a couple of hundred dollars worth of ticket mainly because of her argumentative attitude. Seemed a bit unnecessary to me.
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That was the general consensus. It didn't help that he was an enormous arse as well. I reacted the way I did because I was being protective of the community - he was behaving like a pitbull in a room of kittens, and I wanted him to take his page long rants about his ex-wife and how he got kicked out of college somewhere else. That's not quite the same as trolling, but it was damn annoying.
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I once called someone out for trollish behaviour elsewhere for changing the subject in a heated debate by throwing in two other unrelated subjects likely to be even more heated. Perhaps that's on the border between stirring and trolling, but it didn't feel like a good faith tactic, even though he believed all of those contentious positions. In any case he took extreme offence to it for an unexpected reason: in his particular region of the US, people living below (ie south of) a certain bridge were referred to pejoratively as trolls, and according to him, calling someone a troll was justification for physical assault in recent court decisions. The international participants in that one were a bit boggled by the incident.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to philipmatthews,
The Paul Henry affair was "metaphysical and mystical". Do I want to know what he means?
My guess is "there but for the grace of God go I, and I'm totally mystified as to how I've dodged that bullet." That is, without having read the article in question. I've had my fill of offensive Republicans this week, and don't need the aggravation of the local version.
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to Islander,
Wow, he used to be a professional magician? Also, refers in passing to the "true prehistory of NZ" (read ancient Celtic stone circles). Climate change - check. I think if I could be bothered reading that whole page I'd fill up my woowoo bingo card.
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I don't think it's just being scared. I'd hate to see a survey of Kiwis' beliefs in non-rational but popular delusions. It would probably be no worse than Americans', but then again, it wouldn't be better.
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to Bart Janssen,
My read on it (warning cynic alert) was that he'd been compensated in some way for wearing it in public. Totally unsubstantiated musing on my part of course.
I'd be surprised. For one, there might be rules about what the PM can endorse for pay. I know there are for lower-ranked public servants. And for two, the man's got a few dollars already - it's not like he needs endorsement fees.
My totally unsubstantiated imagining involves a boostery sort of meeting with an up and coming entrepreneur making or selling them, being a great kiwi business and an Example to Us All, maybe a ribbon cutting or factory opening or a fashion show, and "as a token of our esteem, PM, we'd love it if you would accept a sample of our product as a gift - we really reckon it will make you feel stronger and more balanced."
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I dunno. I'd particularly like to see Mr Ring tell Campbell Live viewers at the end of March why there wasn't a huge quake on the 20th, plus or minus three days...