Posts by Kracklite
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Addendum:
... because otherwise, they're letting Judith Collins of all people dictate their policy and timing de facto ("Who defines the terms wins the argument" as the supposed Chinese proverb has it). This is not an opposition.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
Did you want him to run down to Canterbury and drag a couple of cops before parliament for a special hearing?
What the fuck, yeah. I’d like someone in the Labour Party to grow a fucking backbone and risk losing to show that they have one single principle that isn’t determined by focus groups and market research. I’d like Phil effing Goff to commit seppuku on parliament steps for that matter instead of quaffing pints of Brut 33 and trying to grow chest hair.
Yes, I’m angry.
Look, to make myself perfectly clear, the presumption of innocence and the right for people presumed to be innocent not to be beaten up by police or by persons unknown whilst in their custody is not some fringe issue to be delicately minced about. It is fucking central to democracy. It is not negotiable.
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What’s he doing, trying to hoover up the voters who have no home now David Garrett’s gone?
In a nutshell, my problem with Goff’s Labour Party. If we’re supposed to be throwing minorities under the bus, perhaps it’s time that Phil realised that Waitakere Man is a minority too and throws him under the bus?
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Rex Widerstrom,
Rex, I’m very glad to see you here. You’ve made consistently* level-headed and detailed contributions at The Standard springing from some real political experience and I’m looking forward to more writing from you.
*Churlishly, I might say exceptionally in an all too pointed manner.
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Hard News: The Thread, It Is Open, in reply to 81stcolumn,
I should add that my life’s confusion begins with:
Colleague: How Are you ?
Wanna know how an aspie deals with that (in oblique reference to another thread)?
Badly.
Hmm, let's see, I know that is simply a social nicety, and I should just say "Fine, thank you, and how are you?" But really, I have this twinge in my knee and the weather is pretty dreary, but on the other hand, I've just had some fairly good news from my mother about how her second husband is dealing with his latest blood transfusion that is part of the palliative therapy for his leukaemia, which, sadly is untreatable, but he's taking it stoically, at least for now and his death within a couple of years in inevitable, but he's given her a good life and I have to say, she's created a lovely garden at their place and my brother has announced the date of his remarriage, which is nice, and his fiance is wonderful and I have to admit that her daughter is hot, but I really shouldn't say that...
Several internal struggles and grimaces later, I manage to blurt out, "Uh, fine. And you?"
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Hard News: The Thread, It Is Open, in reply to Russell Brown,
depressing reading a post about the de-funding of TVNZ 7 and seeing sneering comments about how I'd be too much of a lackey of the boss class
Forgive me if I'm saying something rendered obsolete by later contributions - I haven't read the whole of the thread yet - but...
There's a great film by Neil jordan, Angel, in which... well blah blah... it allegorises the Irish Troubles anyway, there's a bit where a man who's been pursuing violent vengeance is apprehended by a sympathetic detective who tries to work out his motives and dissuade him from further violence:
[Detective] Mr Bloom: By the way, I'm Jewish.
[Suspect] Danny: Are you a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?That to me sums up T' Standard. Absolutely everything has to be filtered through their idiotic "class war" mythology. Sometimes it's simply amusing because of its sheer comedic dissonance, but other times, they decide that anything is allowable - racism, homophobia, rape apology, is secondary if it's all in the service of a good cause. Yes, now and again they turn up something good, but I've long since decided that the signal to noise ratio is too low to for me to bother taking anything there seriously.
And when they shout "Solidarity!", I hear "Whadarya?!" That I find downright sinister.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to giovanni tiso,
He was in fact hosting it, yes :-)
Can't get away myself, either, but I'd be most interested in what he has to say, if anyone cares to report...
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Well, I won't take the counterfactual bait for one.
Grant Robertson's job is to represent my interests and it is up to him with knowledge and connections in parliament and the Labour Party to do so.
I do not have that specific knowledge or set of connections, so to suggest that I can easily be slotted into his position and to imply that if I cannot specify what would be done, I should not complain is... not very helpful.
There may indeed be other, more effective strategies than pointed questions in the debating chamber. I do not need to know what they are, but I do demand to see their effects. Admittedly, there has been no time for that to happen and I look forward to him and his colleagues pursuing this matter by whatever means are ultimately effective.
Yes, I am being cynical, but I reserve the right to be unimpressed with MPs who will claim to care about something, wring their hands, do, as you say, consider all the impediments that they face and consequently hand-wring themselves into impotence.
I'm sure that it was repeatedly pointed out to Fran Wilde that the Homosexual Law Reform Bill would cost political capital, could be misrepresented by a fickle media, would cost the votes of conservative working-class supporters, would provide fodder for talkback bigots and so on. Nonetheless, she and her party stood up for principle.
Yes, there might well be negative consequences - certainly in fact, but paths of least resistance always lead down.
The last Labour-led government did not, it seemed to me, have too strong a concern for the rights of people in detention and this should be an issue on which people do speak out, not just those insiders with detailed political strategy plans neatly presented along with sketches for the billboards and storyboards for the TV ads.
Anyway, I look forward to Robertson doing something, as he's identified this as something he claims to care deeply about, but I'm not going to risk anoxia.
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Yeah, true... I'm just feeling frustrated with a woefully uninspired and underperforming opposition with a leader who can only think to say "Uh... wait... Me too!" when Key makes one of his egregious lapses of taste. There may be other ways to pursue matters of principle than direct parliamentary attack, but I'm not convinced that principles motivate them all that much to act.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Hilary Stace,
I think Grant has worded it carefully
And I'm afraid that that is the problem I have with this so-called opposition. Too bloody careful, averse to risk and therefore averse to principle.
"This is unacceptable!"
"OK, so what are you going to do about it if it's unacceptable?"
"I can assure that at this very moment we are thinking of forming a focus group that will define the terms of reference in consultation with lawyers, a polling agency and public relations consultants for a strongly-worded but inoffensive press release that will be issued in due course at a more propitious time!"
For Hastur's sake (Cthulhu's sleeping in today), there's parliamentary privilege if big bad Collins is so scary.