deliberately difficult

The left in this country (and around the world) have a real problem and that is the game has changed and the right aren't playing by the 'rules' anymore. The right have learned the lessons (get the power) and now use many tactics that are not only anathema to the left but they literally cannot be countered by normal means.

We have seen the dirty politics with the use of nasty right bloggers to do the character assassinations of those who counter the political right's agenda - but that is almost old news now - it still goes on but it has all become a lot more subtle.

We have fake news. We have repeated repetition of lies and misinformation (any Open Mike should do the trick - even when PROVEN to be lies the right just keep chucking it back up, day in day out - this confuses the gullible and makes left sites unreadable as any left counter just gets ignored and a new lie or an old one is reposted). We have poisoning the well (any cv comment - this shuts down any meaningful discussion from the left). The left really struggle to combat these techniques. It isn't that we aren't nasty enough, or don't recognise them, or we pretend it will all work out - no!

It is simply because those techniques are designed to be very, very hard to combat. Deliberately.

And the left is not the right and to lower to the depths needed to combat the right with the right tactics destroys the ethos of being left. 

What is the point of winning if you become like those you have beaten? 

What is the point of letting those you oppose win because you cannot fight them the way they need to be fought?

There are no easy answers or solutions - but the left must analyse this, the left must know what the problem actually is before solutions are used. Understanding the problem = 90%, solution = 10%.

This is a 2017 issue just like it was last year. And if it isn't sorted we will get more trumps and more slaters and more colonial vipers.

The left and its suite of ideals and morals and ethos has everything to lose, the people who need a strong left have everything to lose, those disadvantaged in society and those affected by bigotry and inequality have everything to lose.

We must not lose.

not broken just reflective

The Standard is broken says the voice of reason (trp).

I've had my issues with some authors on The Standard - namely voice himself and I have visited a lot less over the last 3 months because of those issues. I have had time to reflect on The Standard and myself as a commenter, a contributer, an activist and a person.

I've come to some conclusions. These are 2 to consider.

time online is just a little bit better than watching tv - the map is not the territory

the world continues to spin even when we don't contribute - a painful realisation for sure

So to voice's assertion - No The Standard is not broken in the sense that that means because it actually does reflect a wider society - slanting left and progressive. The Standard is not broken, our society is broken, our values are broken, our communities are broken. Yes The Standard is not safe for women, neither is society - ffs women still get blamed for being abused, women still earn less for the same role - the Patriarchy is alive and well - in society and at The Standard.

voice says

My suggestion is that we need to look again at the structures of the Standard, from the ‘owners’, through the moderators and onto the authors. The undemocratic, male dominated and authoritarian ownership structure of the Standard is fundamentally wrong for a left blog. There are moderators who do little or no blog writing, don’t contribute much in the comments, but hang on grimly to their tools of power and control. There are authors who are bigots, authors who hate the left, authors who hate women. One author is all of the above. Why are they here on a left wing blog?

I think voice needs to be more honest here - this is a power play by him to take over The Standard and wrestle it towards his vision of what he thinks it should or maybe could be. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing but dressing it up as some sort of defense of women is disingenuous and insulting imo.

Please understand I cannot stand and in fact oppose the gender politics and sad defenses offered by the likes of cv or redlogix and over the years I've commented many times about what I, as a man, think about other men who have these ideas.

So what to do?

nothing

What?

Yep - do nothing, change nothing, get rid of no one - anything that is done is just hiding the issues and not dealing with them.

But what about offensive and horrible comments?

delete and ban them

But what about making The Standard safer for women?

It won't be, not without changing attitudes and that won't happen anytime soon - especially with fundamentalist views and attitudes.

But The Standard might whither and die?

So does everything. If you want to change that then contribute, be an author, be a commenter, be involved.

a terrible story, retold

The voice of reason is still struggling, so to help out

imo saying one set of atrocities against an indigenous population is better or worse than another set of atrocities against another indigenous population is not the way indigenous communities think about or remember or frame these things. This is a construct designed by colonisers and their descendants to miminise and justify their actions or maybe just to mitigate guilt. Totally understandable and almost subtle because as people do, they can use this to go to a better/worse dichotomy and this leads to the "what are you moaning about" lines. There are many other reasons too, such as the intensely personal side of the lived knowledge of the past.

To then say stuff like, 'tell that to the victims of genocide' shows an extreme defensive mode where attack is the only alternative. The point I make in the first paragraph is pretty basic but only if you listen.

And please don't think for a second that I am unaware of 'intent', 'the end of empire', 'genocide' and 'atrocities'. I am, and each of them was a blot on us all. The suffering that has occurred is immeasurable , almost unknowable, and it is known.  Indigenous communities around the world, even today, face each and every one of the destructive forces aligned against them. That s why indigenous communities should stick together and work together and build new /old ways of thinking for this troubled world.

The measurement of atrocities is more than numbers although the numbers do tell a terrible story, just not the full story. The comparison of what has happened to indigenous communities through colonisation, compares suffering to suffering, not numbers to numbers imo.

change your name or lift your game buddy - updated

Sadly, rude and offensive behavior continues from the inappropriately named te reo putake - of course the macron is not used - why should it be - after all this name is just a type of brownwash - where stuff gets 'used' to further an agenda which is not aligned with tangata whenua. So voice of reason can change his name to te reo pukake to piss off the right wingers. Now why would they be pissed off? because someone with a Māori sounding name is getting into them? Yeah I suppose that would wind you up. But has there been any consideration for Māori in any of that - no there hasn't. Why not? Same reason the macron isn't used - it is not the point and that is why it is brownwash. This is part of the reason why my voice is not heard on The Standard anymore.

The Standard is a good essential, left wing mostly, blog and I do recommend visiting it, as I do.

Just to confirm I have agreed a few times with voice of reason's comments over the years and I am quite happy with robust debate, even abuse and swearwords where appropriate. But if you are going to appropriate a Māori sounding name then that bestows obligations to Māori whether you like it or not - live up to that and everyone will be better off.

Footnote. Poor voice still doesn't understand the issues as he explains here - this is typical from him and I notice he's having a go at another moderator too. Just to help him I'll repost the last-ish comment i made to him that he deleted and see if he can understand that.

"You, voice have belittled me with your “real genocide” line and that I, by trying to explain things to you, have diminished those who have suffered “real genocide”. DO YOU GET THAT? Now you can say I shouldn’t feel belittled but I have given you concrete example of why I do feel that. DO YOU GET THAT? Now you say you haven’t even been able to make sense of the discussion – ” Seriously, this discussion has made little sense from the get go”. That shows me you have been arguing in BAD faith for NO good reason. That shows me you are a self righteous prick of the first order."

choices made

I feel a zeal to begin blogging again but we'll see how we go lol.

Firstly congratulations to Winston Peters and NZF for the Northland win over the forces of the National Party. This really gives fantastic momentum to NZF and bodes well for them for future parliaments. I didn't like the labour campaign from day one - the slight of hand and whispering didn't really do it for me - but it did do it for labour supporters who moved their vote to Winston instead of the Labour candidate. Is this strategic voting? I'd say yes but for NZF not Labour and not the left. I remain unconvinced that Winston Peters and NZF will advance the left, especially the far left where I sit, and if any further convincing of that is needed the rumour mills are touting Shane Jones as a possible successor to Winston. Oh deary me - that would be diabolical if that happened although the 'middle' would probably love it - I'd rather have Ron Mark but time will tell.

The reason I think Labour will come to regret the decisions they made around this by-election are because as NZF ascends, I think Labour will descend. NZF are not going to get Green Party votes. They may get National Party votes but those votes are 'centre' votes - they wobble, they move. NZF are going to muscle into the 'middle' and they will take votes from both Labour and National but more from Labour I think, notwithstanding the relatively good start by Andrew Little - Labour's leader. The problem for him is that perception is reality. No more moral high ground over deals - even though this wasn't a deal, National have successfully spun it as one, the media have agreed. Another reason that Labour will descend is that it still is hanging on to so much deadwood that unless those people leave the Party is tainted - not just by Rogernomics but also the Clark years - those 9 years seem a long time ago now.

Anyway that is what I think about all that.

I've also taken a 2 week break from The Standard as a silent protest against Stephanie's ban on Murray. I like Murray and I like Stephanie's posts and I just feel that the ban was unnecessary. I do not feel it was a gender issue - it was just a bad call - although I can understand why Stephanie thinks it was. I respect The Standard authors and I didn't want to protest to them - that is inappropriate - but I did want to make a point and I did want to choose. In the past I have defended Stephanie because I have felt that she has received gender bias comments. I just don't think this was the situation in this case although I have to say some subsequent comments there have been offensive to me and sexist. So kia kaha Stephanie and see you in 2 weeks The Standard.

dim distraction

Racists are generally not very bright. They hide their dimness sometimes in flowery language like 1law4all and at other times they let it all hang out like the recently launched Pakeha Party. It is funny to watch them and these types don't bother me too much because they are so dim they don't realise how dim they are.

So I'm not worried about The Pakeha Party - much mirth has been made about them using te reo Māori and not being able to spell and  their silly slogans, such as Toby Manhire outlines

“If the Maori get it, we want it to!” Yeah! But want it to what? The missing word, almost certainly, is “thrive”.

Zet covers it well on The Standard where he lists the things this Party can get



The whole Party is a joke and the joke is that they meant party as in party not political party. So as I say it is not worth taking seriously even though they have received more than 34,000 likes on facebook - much more serious is 1law4all because they are actively trying to change our constitution to disadvantage Māori - they want to solidify their racism in the very fabric of our country. Both groups are interrelated and recently I found a nice explanation for their idiocy in an explanation of another idiocy

Rationalwiki

Usage of the term heterophobic or heterophobia by anti-gay groups falls into the wider pattern of the persecution complex, in which groups criticized for their tendency to create hate and discrimination react by reframing their discriminatory tendencies as some value-neutral idea, and then suggesting that criticism of this reframed idea constitutes discrimination.

Thus, racism becomes white pride, and the marginalized racist claims that his “heritage” is being sidelined unjustly through “reverse racism”.

You see the people that are racist feel persecuted and through disjointed logic they reframe their problem and make it someone else's. So don't get worked up about this - just enjoy the laughs and also enjoy the very dim joining up on facebook and then keep working for equality and keep fighting the real dirty racists - those like 1law4all and their moneyed mates - that is where the real battle is.

I don't tolerate race baiters

Sometimes an internet exchange can reveal the machinations of deeper issues and show why some issues are difficult to resolve. The example I will detail below (I can't include everything so I suggest you read the threads on the links if you wish to see the full context) gives us an insight into how race baiters introduce their memes into society and the tactics they use to shift the debate when cornered, and how ultimately it is always about them and their disguised views of indigenous people. This is just one example of one person but I think it tells the story. 

It started (although that is not quite correct as I’ll show at the end) with this posting on The Standard by a commenter vto (who you may remember from this post of mine).

A curious thing was heard on te wireless Sunday pm which related to an interest in maoridom and its relations with others that I have. The debate at Vic University about the consttitution etc and in particular whether a republic should be chosen in replacement of the monarchy had four people, I imagine of high calibre in these matters, debating this. One was a professor, another another academic, another a law firm partner and another a can’t remember.

The host, a Simon Price i think, asked a question around how the Treaty fits within such a particular question. Every single one of the guests refused to comment. The audience uttered a nervous giggle.

I found this very telling. Whenever issues are raised around here of this world and its issues the accusation of being racist comes out pretty damn quick. Like a knee-jerk reaction. It is as if we are not permitted to question things in this arena, that it is taboo, that certain people are not qualified or of the correct race or ‘status’ to raise issues that are of concern to them. This claim is made by many people in New Zealand (that they are accused of being racist for simply talking race).

This radio debate seemed to pretty strongly confirm this bias in our society. Nobody would dare utter their view. Every single one of the four people were too scared. It was abundantly clear. It was further reinforced by the nervous laughter in the crowd. They risked being labelled for expressing their view.

New Zealand in this regard is immature and needs to grow up.

As you can imagine this raised some eyebrows because the constitutional debate is designed to ask those questions and debate them – why was this not done, why did they giggle and not answer the question.

Weka, another commenter on The Standard did some digging and she found the actual question and it was asked by known racist john ansell – this was the actual question

Given that polls tell us that 80% of New Zealanders are distressed at seeing their country being slowly surrendered to the part descendants of the minority of Maori who breached the Treaty by rebelling against the Crown in the 1860s, could we use a republican referendum process to entrench racial equality?

Oh dear that question is quite leading isn’t it and it is totally understandable why the panelists wouldn’t answer a racist and derogatory question like that – what do you think vto said about that?

Good on ya. Minor mistake but make no difference.

Yep – the fact that a loaded question raised by a known race hater makes no difference to vto because, as he says,

I was not so much interested in the actual question, more in the interaction of peoples and the allowing of the question followed by the refusal to answer and the wider implications surrounding that.

Now you may want to reread the original post by vto to check the accuracy of that statement because it just is not true, remember vto said in that original post that

It is as if we are not permitted to question things in this arena, that it is taboo, that certain people are not qualified or of the correct race or ‘status’ to raise issues that are of concern to them…  Nobody would dare utter their view. Every single one of the four people were too scared. It was abundantly clear. It was further reinforced by the nervous laughter in the crowd. They risked being labelled for expressing their view.

So this is how they do it – that is a classic example of how memes get put into the public consciousness and disseminated – I’ll break it down

First you make a statement that pushes a certain line – in this case vto said the question about the Treaty wasn’t debated and this showed that people are scared to debate the issue, even though the panel was made up of respected and knowledgeable people.

Second when shown that the question was biased and from a known race hater and that is why it wasn’t answered, you dismiss that as irrelevant and change tack and say that the questioner and question were not the real issue instead there were ‘wider implications’ in their non-answering.

And third you disregard the facts to continue to push the meme that you want to get out there by adjusting your wording slightly whist keeping your original position intact – everything supports your position even if it is made up and shown to be a lie as vto says,

What I heard was the question. The particular person of the question was immaterial to the question, as I was whistling while I worked and missed it. But mine ears perked at it from thence forth listening more closely. The panelists all declined to answer. That was very odd, given the situation, hence my post.

The mistake aorund the questionnaire is immaterial to the point raised. Once you glean out the flotsam and jetsam.

This approach is pretty common especially with those who have extreme views. Other commenters notice of course such as weka again

Your whole argument was that a good question was asked, and that it was strange that the panelists all refused to answer, and your conclusion was that they were afraid to. You were wrong vto, just admit it and then we can move on to more productive discussion.

You want to draw the conclusion that they didn’t want to answer because of fear of talking about racism, but by your own admission you didn’t listen to the thing properly and missed the context and the person asking the question (and don’t pretend now that the identity of the person answering doesn’t matter). There were in fact some other references in the talk to Maori and the implications of constitutional change (not alot but they were there), which belies the idea that people were avoiding talking about race.

That logic doesn’t get through to types such as vto because he is slippery and has a meme to push come hell or high water.

I asked for a list of what issues he wanted to discuss around the Treaty but vto refused to put a list up, so I put a list up for him. This list was composed honestly in an attempt to cut through the lies and disinformation and get to something that could be debated

1 the Treaty is historical and a new one needs to be drafted to take into consideration the multicultural aspect of NZ society.
2 too much emphasis (money) is on tangata whenua and that they have received enough emphasis (money)
3 Māori were the first here and that could be called indigenous but it is irrelevant in today’s world
4 Māori are inherently violent and warlike
5 No one represents the ‘white man’ who gets abuse and derision when they say something that others perceive as racist
6 Non-Māori who talk about race get accused of being racist
7 Māori are racist to ‘white people’
8 Celts were here before Māori and taught them everything of what they know until Māori killed them all
9 The chinese bought slave-wives here to breed with Māori
10 Barry Brailsford doesn’t talk shit

That list of beliefs is common amongst race baiters and incorporates quite a few memes that they wish to push in this country. Vto considered my list to be a personal attack and changed tack to rally against this attack instead of either answering the points I raised or putting his own list up. This is another tactic of those wishing to spread malicious memes around Māori – it is all about them, it is always about them – they have no empathy or sensitivity to oppressed people – they don’t care about them at all, all they care about is themselves and it is beyond selfish.

So now the debate (if it can be called that) has shifted to the unfairness of the list instead of the unfairness of the memes contained on the list which marginalise and degrade Māori. The debate has shifted from the original post of vto which expressed surprise that the issues around the Treaty weren’t debated on RadioNZ, through the misrepresentation of the loaded question from a known racist to

Making it personal again i see. And plain stupid. You can’t help yourself can you.
Don’t bother engaging arsehole. Go stick your head back in the sand.

That sort of abuse is common on blogs and it can get even worse as vto showed when he went down the following lines - I've just put the abuse in

Go fuck yourself… Answer the issue cunt… To date you have had no answer to this issue cunt… Cunt… answer the issue cunt… the dumb cunt has no answer to the issue, just personal… Answer the fucking issue cunt…

Yes vto has issues with women, he also doesn’t like gay marriage and thinks it’s okay to call the gay Queens Counsel a “queer cunt” and so much more. Why bother engaging with this lowlife you may ask – everytime he leaves a comment potentially some person could read it and actually believe that what he is saying has merit. Some people will grab the meme that he is trying to push and use it to denigrate Māori further – that is how race baiters work. If no one opposes them they take that as agreement with their vile views.

Just on the abuse vto shunted at me – this was my response

on another point your excessive use of the word cunt – it reminds me that there are no demeaning terms for ‘woman’ in the Māori language, and that the first human was a woman – Hine-ahu-one, and that as all come from women at birth, at death the same occurs through Hine-nui-te-pō, and that Papa-tū-ā-nuku is our earth mother and sustainer of life and that women are mediators of tapu. Thanks for reminding me of these things vto even though you were trying to insult.

What was the question that he was upset that I didn’t answer? It was another meme designed to degrade Māori and the tiny gains we are making towards equality and he wasn’t even focused on the correct target of central and local government, no it is much easier for vto and his type to attack Māori – usually few argue. And yes, sure I bait him a bit because I believe in giving people plenty of rope and one of the reasons I started blogging was to counter the views of people like him, in fact I remember a post from 2009 from him that actually inspired me to start

Or a bit like the smaller step-brother, the maori party..
“Our new bro likes to get in your face he has no work but comes home pissed but only for some eggs he ignores the bitch, yells at the other bitch and kicks the kids on the way back to the pub to meet his mates still more bevvies and some P most nights he gets to ogle/grope the fat slag behind the bar and then smashes some innocent person walking home, gets picked up by the pigs and ends up with his mates in the klink no gropes of his missus now so has to play with himself, which comes naturally to him being a labour voter”

The vto’s are everywhere spreading their memes like a disease – I am not interested in tolerating them.