MENG FOON, currently serving as the Human Rights Commission’s Race Relations Commissioner, epitomises New Zealand’s emerging ethnic crisis. His repeated refusals to view New Zealand society through anything other than the lens of entrenched ethnic privilege is exacerbating this crisis, not ameliorating it. That he receives no reproof from his fellow Human Rights Commissioners confirms that these are not considered personal lapses. The exacerbation of ethnic animosities in New Zealand should now be seen as both deliberate and systemic.
For the Labour Government of Jacinda Ardern the situation could hardly be more precarious. Over the next 5 years, as the Maori nationalist agenda is steadily advanced by its supporters both in and out of Parliament, more and more New Zealanders will demand an answer to the question: “Are these policies – and the radical changes their acceptance requires – understood and endorsed by Jacinda Ardern and her Labour colleagues; or, is she and her Government being played for fools?”
If the Prime Minister affirms her understanding and endorsement of the Maori nationalist agenda, then the ethnic crisis will become a straightforwardly partisan issue. With varying degrees of enthusiasm, the Left will support it. With steadily rising levels of vehemence, the Right will oppose it.
From some perspectives, this could be seen as the best option. By submitting the issue to the collective judgement of the voters, the strength of the contending forces will be exposed. The raw political calculus of the ballot box will clarify once and for all which of the two contenders’ assessment of the New Zealand electorate is correct.
The Left’s optimistic view of this country’s future will be put to the test. We shall discover whether most voters under the age of 55 really are uninfected by the racist colonialist prejudices of their parents and grandparents: really are so undaunted by the prospect of living in “Aotearoa”: a nation attuned fundamentally to the needs of te ao Maori; that they are willing to see the colonial legacy of Pakeha “New Zealand” fade away like a nineteenth century sepia print?
If that is the judgement of the electorate, then the Right will have to accept that its understanding of what it means to be a New Zealander no longer enjoys majority support. The proposition that New Zealand is a nation founded upon the philosophical and scientific precepts of the European Enlightenment, and governed according to its core principles of Liberty, Equality and Social Solidarity, will have been rejected. It would be a remarkable judgement, occasioning prolonged and impassioned remonstration, but the relentless passage of time would thin the ranks of the remonstrators, rendering it permanent.
It is, of course, highly unlikely that Jacinda or her party will ever openly endorse the Maori nationalist agenda. Principally, this is because neither the Prime Minister, nor her Pakeha colleagues, fully grasp its significance. The reason for this is set forth with brutal honesty and simplicity by the author of “Maori Sovereignty”, Donna Awatere. When challenged to explain why Pakeha would simply sit back and let the tangata whenua re-establish their hegemony over Aotearoa, Awatere responded:
“The strength of white opposition will be allayed by the fact that Maori sovereignty will not be taken seriously. Absolute conviction in the superiority of white culture will not allow most white people to even consider the possibility.”
In this regard, “Maori Sovereignty” belongs in the same category as “Climate Change” and “Housing Affordability”. People support the notion because, stated theoretically, it is difficult to identify a good reason for opposing it. Until, that is, they begin to get some idea of how much their lives will have to change if these propositions are ever taken seriously by government.
As Bernard Hickey pointed out in a recent (and excellent) posting on his website “The Kaka”:
“New Zealand is currently in the strategizing phase of dealing with its enormous housing affordability and climate change issues and politicians of all shades and sizes are doing plenty of swinging and falutin’. They are set to get eaten for lunch by an entrenched culture and love of suburban houses, double-cab utes, SUVs, low taxes and ‘small target’ political strategies.”
The moment the Prime Minister and her Cabinet colleagues register that their Maori caucus, the Greens, and Te Paati Maori are serious about carrying through a revolution in New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements – and what endorsing such revolutionary proposals is likely to do for Labour’s poll-ratings – they will execute a policy handbrake-turn of Tokyo Drift proportions.
Jacinda, herself, could profitably ponder the reasons behind Helen Clark’s description of the Maori nationalist movement as “haters and wreckers”. Even a moderate centre-leftist like Clark, could not avoid the painful impact of the first great wave of identity politics that swept through progressive politics in the late-1970s and early 1980s. To know the founding zealots of the Maori Sovereignty movement was not necessarily to love them – or their programme!
Jacinda’s easy acceptance of the new ethnic orthodoxy – so perfectly embodied in the outpourings of Meng Foon – points not to her wholesale conversion to the Maori nationalist cause, but to its impressive institutional advance. The successful implementation of a succession of superficially harmless measures (e.g. the substitution of ‘Aotearoa’ for ‘New Zealand’) will, should it ever achieve “critical mass”, precipitate a nationalist victory. The relentless accumulation of these “minor” reforms confirms the essential truth of the “slowly boiled frog” fable.
That said, those people on the Left who put their faith in a “generational fix” to the problems “caused” by ethnic privilege should, perhaps, ask themselves the following questions:
“Will the tens-of-thousands of middle-class teenagers who poured out onto the streets in support of Greta Thunberg’s call for action on Climate Change, really be willing, as young adults, to give away all hope of living as their parents lived?
“Do they really see their fathers, brothers, cousins and boyfriends giving up their cars, their double-cab utes, their SUVs?
“Are they willing to abandon the dream of one day attaining the blissful suburban security they grew up in?”
There’s a scene in the movie Dr Zhivago where the hero and his family return to Moscow to discover their elegant bourgeois mansion occupied by dozens of poor families. The local Communist Party representative primly announces that the building which once housed a few privileged individuals now provides shelter to many working-class families. She fixes him with a basilisk glare, daring him to disagree. Zhivago looks around at the squalid, over-crowded and unsanitary sink of poverty that his family home has become, and summons up a smile: “Yes”, he says, “this new arrangement is much better – much fairer.”
Those who unthinkingly endorse the formulaic imprecations against systemic racism pouring from Meng Foon’s mouth, should remember that scene. Revolutions do not always fail, but they do not always improve matters, either. In the name of social justice, the poor and the marginalised may seize the big houses of the rich, but they cannot live in them as the rich lived in them. Nor will they be taken without a fight.
Aotearoa was seized from the Maori at gunpoint by the Pakeha. History suggests that New Zealand will only be reclaimed from the “colonisers” by the application of similar force. But those eagerly anticipating such an ethnic revolution should understand that the country which emerges from it will be neither Aotearoa nor New Zealand, but something else. And the new arrangement won’t necessarily be better – or fairer.
Very pertinent, Chris:
“Will the tens-of-thousands of middle-class teenagers who poured out onto the streets in support of Greta Thunberg’s call for action on Climate Change, really be willing, as young adults, to give away all hope of living as their parents lived?
“Do they really see their fathers, brothers, cousins and boyfriends giving up their cars, their double-cab utes, their SUVs?
“Are they willing to abandon the dream of one day attaining the blissful suburban security they grew up in?”
because, having squandered all the easy-to-extract oil and messed up the global climate system [via emissions], present-day adults are now leading the charge off the cliff of financial ruin. And there is NO POSSIBILITY of young people having ANY of the luxuries their parents enjoyed for several decades.
‘“New Zealand is currently in the strategizing phase of dealing with its enormous housing affordability and climate change issues and politicians of all shades and sizes are doing plenty of swinging and falutin’. They are set to get eaten for lunch by an entrenched culture and love of suburban houses, double-cab utes, SUVs, low taxes and ‘small target’ political strategies.”
I don’t think there is much strategising going on -other than pretending that unsustanable arrangements can be sustained.
Just when the reality of the Ponzi nature of finance and the terminal nature of energy arrangements will cause the system to fall over is still open to debate. Money-printing is still holding things together in the short term, even as all the fundamental factors get made worse by the day by governments. CHS describes it as cannibals eating zombies:
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar21/cannibalization3-21.html
Infinite growth on a finite planet never was a good basis for an economic-cultural system. But that’s what we’ve got. And the ‘idiots’ we have for economists and government and government advisors still believe in it.
A large proportion of Maori are renters and are been eviscerated by Labours rising rents. If they get a chance they will leave to the Gold Coast as soon as possible. Jacinda will be in a country full of Pakeha and Asians (with no Maori) and have the country speaking Te Reo. Can she not see that poverty is the big issue that needs addressing first? She is using a fire blanket to try and put out a volcano. All lip service and no real caring
Too late our people migrated in big numbers under John keys regime and many ended up in detention centers under John. And to make matters worse him and his party really didn’t give a toss. So when Judeath says we should stand up to the Morrison government when John didn’t nor any of the National party it sounds like a joke.
Sure, poverty is a much bigger issue. It would be nice to have a proper name for our country though and not some second-hand one, but ok, we can wait till Mr Trotter’s generation has died off.
Anticolonialism VS reactionary Pakeha attitudes as a political issue is not going away any time soon, but Mr Chris’s insinuation that giving in to reasonable demands by Maori will help them to foist unreasonable demands on us is total bulls. Maori are not a monolithic block, any more than Pakeha are, and Maori are not suddenly going to become all powerful. They continue to have less representation per capita than other groups, especially in local government, because they vote in lower numbers. They are not starting an insurrection, they are just struggling a bit more than the rest of us to get on with their lives. Give them a break.
Can you explain to me how Maori have less representation anywhere?
The New Zealand population has about 13.7% Maori yet 21% Maori in parliament and 13.5% in local government?
Facts don’t lie
Meng Foon is doing his job and if that means he has to call out racism then so be it. As for changing our name we don’t have to we can use both.
As long as saying “New Zealand” isn’t treated like a verbal Confederate Flag.
Well said, Mr Trotter.
Try this https://www.nzcpr.com/a-step-too-far-bi-cultural-partnership/
Thank you Ross This captures the sentiment of my community- Croatia
Well said, Ross and wise Chris Trotter.
There is one Brit import commentator here who continually persists in referring to this country only as Aotearoa, and this is perplexing, as well as downright irritating.
The scene from Dr Zhivago is one of the two from that film which has long haunted me. It may be what the sociopathic Greens have in mind with their onslaught upon “millionaire” property owners, when the reality is not nearly as simple as they suggest, but they seem too ignorant and too exclusive to realise this. Meng Foon, I have thought just an eager beaver politically correct fool, but nevertheless, there is a separatist agenda operating both here and globally, and buying into it is of course, ugly, and very socially reckless.
…’ Meng Foon, I have thought just an eager beaver politically correct fool ‘…
————
CAPTURED.
And you deserve a song, maybe not one that you’d like, but awarded nonetheless. All I can do is ‘write about it in this song’. That’s the sentiment. The Lord bless New Zealand.
Lynyrd Skynyrd-All i can do is write about it
https://youtu.be/oGQvKU8Iaz4?t=37
I listened thank you, Wild Katipo. Coincidentally, I’ve just got back from the mall, and there’s a busker playing the classical guitar, the first I’ve heard live since 2005. He’s dark and slight, with dirty clothes, and I thought playing Andalusian or Mexican, and a young guy nearby said that he was very good technically, so I got money out on my credit card to give to him, because these are the people who enrich the the lives of others so much that I would be happy to see them become rich. I doubt they do, but that’s a man with talent, and with a story, which may just be a tough story to hear, but his music has so much beauty and pathos, that it cannot be the sound of one of life’s surface skaters like those Oprah clowns who have nothing, absolutely nothing of their own of any value whatsoever, but are still determined to be “ influencers”. Their – or her – scenario defies rational explanation – apart, of course from their monetarising of the monarchy, and doing exactly what the woke accuse the colonialists of, but they are too totally stupid to see that.
No need to be such a scaredy cat Chris. Have some faith in the successor generations–X, Millenial and Z who will potentially be out voting the sizeable Boomer remnants from 2023 onwards. Sure the “Double cab brigade” will be grumpy, and have to make a decision on many things sooner rather than later, but some changes just get made for you. Those Ford Raptors will be EVs very soon.
Boomer White privilege is almost on the outward tide, how will gen. Student Loan and gen.Exploited Renter view the housing market when they are in charge?. New boss same as the old boss? or will they have a greener new take on it–more social housing maybe–Papakainga for Pākehā?
If there is a serious Māori Nationalist surge, the NZ ruling class and non Māori working class, both need to look in the mirror. The Assimilation strategy did not succeed as the post WWII economy faded, so it was replaced with the hang ’em out to dry strategy of wilful neglect and deprivation under Rogernomics and Ruthanasia.
Time for a rebalancing.
@Tiger Mountain, time to read Animal Farm.
The Neoliberals cunning plan is to ensure NZ’s youth can’t read that well anymore, replace university lecturers with managers and make freedom of speech in NZ, a hate crime.
Have read all of Orwell apart from “A Clergyman”s Daughter”. His work is of its time and not necessarily applicable to all situations in the 21st Century. Animal Farm is largely allegory about Stalinism by a writer with vacillating Trotskyite sympathies.
Neo Liberalism had hardly been thought of in the 1930s and 40s. And the Ardern Labour Govt. whatever its many deficiencies is hardly authoritarian!
Tiger Mountain:- Shame you haven’t read “A clergymans daughter” Its a delightful read and shows, surprizingly, that Orwell had a good sense of humour. Perhaps its hard to come by.
Chris, you’re right to be concerned about the way this country is heading into racial division: It is totally toxic for our all our futures and has zero basis in historical fact. The Balkans seem far away but if we continue down this path we will finish up with the same result.
Both National and Labour have sat on their hands from the ’80’s onwards while separatist radicals slowly infested academia and took control of the narrative in education, the ministries and now the schools. So that today’s students and children are spoon fed a diet of lies, and those questioning the radical orthodoxy quickly find their careers are terminal. We cannot go on like this.
Is it too late for our political leaders to stand up for our collective future? Or must we continue down this path until a reactionary leader appears and sorts it out in short order, with possibly brutal consequences?
Would you like to be more specific about this diet of lies?
Sure! Let’s start right at the beginning:
1. There was never any intention that the Treaty was a ‘partnership’. Maori ceded sovereignty to the Crown. Full Stop. And for very good reasons! – Primarily to stop them killing each other in more of the unbelievably brutal ‘musket wars’. Secondly to prevent land claims by the French who at that time were still slaving.
2. The chiefs fully understood what the Treaty meant. We know this from their correspondence between each other discussing it, from their speeches at the time of signing and from the records of the Kohimarama Conference in 1860 where they reported their pleasure at how much progress had been made. (I recommend all should read the contemporary accounts of the musket wars in order to understand the setting in which the Treaty was signed.)
3. Maori benefitted enormously by signing it. In the period after the signing about 10,000 Maori slaves were released. All Maori became citizens with equal rights under the most liberal and fair law in the world at the time. No longer did they have to live in perpetual fear of cannibalistic attack and enslavement. Maori gained title to their lands, although this took some time to sort out in the Native Land Courts.
4. At the time of signing the Treaty, ‘taonga’ meant goods & chattels and nothing more. Subsequently this has been reinterpreted by Maori radicals to meant all manner of things – from the Koru right up to the microwave wavelengths for cell phone operation. It’s all just a fraudulent money & power grab.
Excellent.
Total Nonsense. You clearly have not read the te reo Maori version of the treaty (the only one recognised under international law).
A very good summary of some of the realities that are being ignored and expunged by the likes of Meng Foon, the Maori Party and its dupes and the overwhelming majority of our so-called education institutions.
“diet of lies?” WTF do you think Neo-Liberalism is? You and Trotter are sounding like racist old whities.
Anyway, the old boomers are soon to be overtaken as “the middle” very soon. I’m picking a lot of current prejudice will evaporate with them. And good riddance.
And the old boss leaves, welcome to the new boss?
Revisionism is such a wonderful tool, right? Covers a multitude of sins, right?
I’d rather ( begrudgingly) put up with the truth than suffer a pack of lies any day. But then again,… each to their own. Well said, ANDREW. Keep posting.
+1 hit the nail on the head with
“MENG FOON, currently serving as the Human Rights Commission’s Race Relations Commissioner, epitomises New Zealand’s emerging ethnic crisis. His repeated refusals to view New Zealand society through anything other than the lens of entrenched ethnic privilege is exacerbating this crisis, not ameliorating it.”
I can not think of a more woke, stupid decision that to give someone who is not Maori but can speak Maori as being the same status as Maori while diverting money and more power to the most privileged and rich migrants groups in NZ, currently buying up many assets like water against Maori interests!
NZ human rights was gutted under the Natz and never improved under Labour!
GUEST BLOG: Hone Harawira – The useless Race Relations Office
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/03/06/guest-blog-hone-harawira-the-useless-race-relations-office/
The proof of the pudding is that MENG FOON, never publicly criticises human rights and race relations in China.
ROFL !
Why would he do that? Firstly human rights are good in China, as good as they can be for a developing country, and he is born in New Zealand. Secondly her is the race relations conciliator for new zealand, not China. Not sure why you are drawing a link between him and recent migrants. Any more than between you and British or South African migrants
LOL Mark aka “human rights are good in China.”
China is in the midst of its darkest period for human rights since the Tiananmen Square massacre, Human Rights Watch has said in its annual report.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/13/china-in-darkest-period-for-human-rights-since-tiananmen-says-rights-group
MENG FOON like many other 1st and 2nd generation migrants in NZ, does not seem to be able to identify with his country of residence. “His repeated refusals to view New Zealand society through anything other than the lens of entrenched ethnic privilege is exacerbating this crisis, not ameliorating it.”
We see with migrants like ‘Mark’ that they seem to be actively against their country of residence, dislike Kiwis who already live here and identify and celebrate their country of origin or ethnic background instead. The question is, why are so many Chinese in NZ actively posting pro PRC propaganda? There is nothing wrong with being proud of ethnic culture, but there is something wrong with encouraging hatred and intolerance against your host country’s people who you believe deserve to be replaced.
This ethnic privilege/split identity can be dangerous both from an societal, economic and defence point of view,… https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/24/opinions/homegrown-terrorism-opinion-bergen/index.html
There seems to be an extreme level of privilege and entitlement of migrant children growing up in NZ or living in NZ, turning into criminal activity while not being able to show any compassion or remorse for victims here. This growing trend is brushed under the carpet by the woke who are not understanding the escalation. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/dunedin-doctor-murder-trial-amber-rose-rush-dies-within-minutes-of-stabbing/ZHJQ5JOAWJ5Q6A76BXDGZSEYU4/
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/12/rouxle-le-roux-social-media-posts-claim-privilege-at-play-in-sentencing.html
We are now seeing a terrorist who came to NZ and felt entitled to kill people here and many questions also remain unanswered in how Tarrant got radicalised and who was behind it. His strange list of countries to visit, while on his OE, should be a red flag.
NZ’s extreme ‘woke’ views are creating a climate of terrorism and crime for the future. Instead of getting migrants of good character carefully vetted into NZ we are trying to attract the criminals and the mentally fragile who we enable to think of themselves as victims, not emphasis with their victims they are destroy. NZ does not tell migrants to integrate and accept others, the prevailing ethnic propaganda in NZ is that Pakeha and Maori and Pacific Islanders are bad and must change and the natural course of things, is to give NZ’s natural and economic assets and jobs, away to the ‘right’ foreigners because NZer’s are too lazy and not competitive enough to go to do hard work, go to university and achieve success . This has now changed to be more threatening, aka ‘if you don’t do what foreign powers want, then foreign powers, will punish you economically like they are punishing OZ, Hong Kong, Tibet, Taiwan, etc etc and now taking over the Pacific. By 2021 it seems to have moved to hard threats, aka will take over countries territories or international waters via force (India/Tibet border, South China Sea) and you can’t stop us… we are already planning our next moves in the Pacific.
Buying politicians is easy in NZ and cheaper in NZ, than actually taking NZ by force. The only reason Labour got in, was because Covid closed the borders off and foreign powers were disrupted to influence NZ’s elections. Billboards all around Auckand, were full of Vote for China, on the Natz billboards. It might have taken 10 years and Covid, but people are finally clicking.
Chinese businessman Yikun Zhang’s donations go beyond Simon Bridges
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/107902444/auckland-and-southland-mayors-receive-handouts-from-chinese-businessman-yikun-zhang
Southland mayor in China with ‘$100k donor’
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/southland/southland-mayor-china-100k-donor
Good shit right there.
“they seem to be actively against their country of residence, dislike Kiwis who already live here”
Where on earth do you get that idea? Any quotes or comments you can draw on to prove your case.
Holding to the idea that the rise of China is good for the world, particularly as a counter-balance against US imperialism (the most genocidal rapacious form of imperialism in human history), does not in any way equate to an “active dislike” of other New Zealanders etc
A big part of the Maori nationalist push is to rewrite NZ history — or at least to ensure any version of NZ history does not include facts that would show Maori as having contributed to their own disadvantage and diminution.
I have always been astonished that the Musket Wars are virtually never canvassed in appraisals of our shared past. Yet, iwi-on-iwi slaughter over the 30 years preceding the Treaty killed 20-25 per cent of their population, with all the obvious implications for disruption and poverty and population decline.
Michael Bassett was banned from writing for NZME last week in part because he returns time and again to the question of why the Musket Wars appear to have been omitted from the new compulsory school history curriculum.
https://democracyproject.nz/2021/03/11/graham-adams-dont-mention-the-musket-wars/
The reason that the Musket Wars are being ignored is that this doesn’t marry up with the ever-increasing mantra to blame Pakeha for anything and everything.
To take this further, the woke view is that everyone with white skin is responsible for eveything bad that has happened to Maori. This is extended to recent white skinned arrivals who have no ancestors in NZ politics, and have no gentic link to anyone involved in those days.
By contrast, the musket wars period killed 20-30% of our Maori population. It is likely therefore that everybody in NZ with any Maori DNA is descended from the perpetrators of this injustice, being the victors and survivors of this genocide. If every white skinned NZ citizen is personally responsible for the deaths of the several thousand Maori casualties of the NZ wars, then every single Maori should be personally responsible for the tens of thousands of Maori killed in the musket war genocide.
Or, we could act like grown ups and say no one is responsible for the crimes of their parents, let alone the crimes of their ancestors miltiple generations ago!
Identity politics is killing NZ.
And God the Father grieves for everyone whose lives were cut short, of every one of those family’s whereby God the FATHER WAS ROBBED BY yetzer hara, the criminal, the LIAR, the fraudster and the TRICKSTER.
Aka SATAN.
A diminutive rebellious spirit who
When woman and men, were supposed to unite against that negative unseen fucker, they were blindsided by the ignorance they had by the likes of the Quantum physicists and Albert Einstein, they did not understand what they were saying.
The Einstein hypotheses of the ‘ the relative field theory’ and the Quantum physicists combined, proved by mathematics and which cannot be disproven,… proves that we are involved in 11 to 12 dimensions,…
And that YOU, ….cringing brow beaten Christian, …who prays to God the FATHER, are woefully ill adapted to even understand the most basic mechanics of spiritual warfare.
You do not even understand that your prayers must cross the threshold of the 4th dimension in order for God the father to receive praise. AND THAT THERE IS SPIRITUAL OPPOSITION TO THAT.
You fools.
You do not even understand why your churches are dead. You wonder why your young people have left.
I’m telling you why,… you bullshit pastors.
I am a heavy metal playing , grog drinking, long sword teaching adventurous middle aged slob, and I’ve done more for the Christian church on these blogs than most of you.
Your silence is deafening.
There is no back up because you are too gutless to speak.
You have all the tools but are too damn cowardly to speak. You are disgusting. Right when we need people to speak up?
Your silence is deafening.
Don’t imagine you are the Apostle Paul in your local church when you have proven yourselves so cowardly.
You disgust me.
I prefer the Vikings, at least they have integrity.
Epic viking battle music – To Valhalla!
https://youtu.be/kLTbBnBS3gE?t=64
You want to cringe , church goesr’s? WHERES MY BACK UP ??
DO I HAVE TO DO THIS ALL ALONE?
WELL FUCK YOU.
My lot on me mothers side were Salvation Army in the Hawkes Bay, but me Dads side were the Viking Clann Gunn from Scotland….
One side wanted to raise Highland cattle and get pissed, the other lot wanted to save them from their excesses…
I have a wonderful heritage, I can trace my Hildreth side back to the 8th century in YORKSHIRE, the name Hildreth is German and originally ‘ HILDRESYCTHE’,… meaning ‘ battle fought on a hill’. Found as an Iononic cross as workers in the 19th century were working on a church gravesite,….
Me Dads side is Norse, from Norway. Clann Guun, is who they were. Warriors, plunderers and takers by force aka the same time period.
Now it is a wonderful thing, – that Gods humour meant that former enemies, – the Viking Gunns and the Anglo Saxon Hildresycthe’s met and married in the 20th century, …
I would not trade my parents or my childhood for anything,…even though I at times thought my Dad to be a complete and utter bastard…
Retrospectively, and contemporarily,…
I bless my ancestors and my current extended family, wherever they may find themselves.
And that just shows,… how intermarriage and forgiveness works. Gods forgiveness.
PEACE.
Yep. Save NZ has made a valid point about immigrants refusing to identify with what is now their country of residence, while others jump on “ ethnic” bandwagons, including Brit immigrants, who can carelessly generalise about New Zealand, with little experience, and even less knowledge of the history
to which previous generations of our ancestors contributed positively and constructively, by dint of very hard work, skill, talent, and brain power.
This, is the McCarthyism of 1950’s, where appearing to be Caucasian in New Zealand, is to be a baddie, but it is worse when pale skin tones are immediately evident, whereas McCarthy and his dreadful henchmen had to dig and delve for dirt, in the way in which our disparaged pioneers dug and delved to build houses and hospitals and schools and churches and roads and tunnels and railways and towns and crop fields where nothing existed.
Someone commented yesterday about India’s eye being upon New Zealand. This could explain why I am bullied by an Indian neighbour, half my age with the big black SUV, throwing his weight around. He told me one lie I can disprove. The Indian man says the Chinese are dirty people, but the Chinese, 2x, are the most civil of my local neighbours. The bloke’s equally loud wife has complained to me about a quiet Chinese lady living alone, not clearing her guttering. Mean.
It’s hard to handle when I am older and non-confrontational, and think the Indian fellow brash, overbearing, and sexist, and if this is a racist statement then I really couldn’t give a damn.
( I would prefer we enticed less excitable Scandinavians here – the Danes are lovely people – but there are some complicated ongoing dynamics, globally, with the exploitation of people whose only life choice may be to be used and exploited.)
Yes indeed the Musket Wars are the elephant in the room that many are conspicuously avoiding.
For example:
When Hongi Hiki’s party returned from England in 1821 he began training for war. On the 5th of September 2,000 Ngapuhi armed with a 1,000 muskets laid siege to the Mauinaina Pa in Auckland. In the ensuing slaughter 2,000 male defenders plus many women and children were killed and many more enslaved. According to contemporary reports “the victorious remained on the battlefield to consume the vanquished until they were driven off by the smell of rotting flesh”
Ideal material for Primary School don’t you think? LOL
We need to move on from Rousseau’s fictional trope of the “Myth of the Noble Savage”
And that ‘noble savage’ trope caused the deaths of millions.
Well said.
“Are these policies – and the radical changes their acceptance requires – understood and endorsed by Jacinda Ardern and her Labour colleagues; or, is she and her Government being played for fools?”
I can’t find a reason to accept that they are being played for fools. Jacinda didn’t sleepwalk into the job, and national level politics doesn’t allow people who aren’t ruthlessly motivated. Was the question rhetorical?
It’s pretty clear to me what certain groups are, but at present there is time to not oppose them openly and where possible support/encourage them to fix problems that benefit everyone. Pakeha politicians seem to want to stand by and hold their breath, as if the status quo will magically turn into an imagined glorious future. I have no interest in maori being beleagered by old issues. The social fallout is too great to ignore. From a national political level it shouldn’t be a case of maori and pakeha, but people and people. If at a later stage maori choose to self rule powered by free trade then what difference does it make? We’ve already come close to that before. Interference from the Empire scuppered what should have been a natural and constructive progression. The problem now is that the development of the original intent has been arrested, distorted, and supercharged by modern economics. I think we can be optimistic about that old battle playing out, though. Te ao Māori and modern economic thinking are mutually exclusive, and one will slowly subsume the other. It seems that maori organisations are oriented away from pakeha ideas in conception, so the battle is half won for them.
As for a farewell to colonial values and culture… ooof. What were those values? The old elite trying to recreate Scotland in the South Island, gold miners, sealers, soliders, adventurers, and white collar criminals, mixed in with families and church groups from central Europe, forming violent, unhealthy and choatic townships? I guess how we start we continue. I’d be against ditching the symbolic image of a Monarch above us because I can’t see any of our current “leaders” who are interested in anything other than money, their own careers, and their determination to project their psychosis onto the general population. A monarch’s shadow should remind us to lift our game and become mature adults, not rebellious teenagers for the sake of fashion. Even in a two-state nation, the question of how to acknowledge our ancestry without dysfunction is as serious as asking maori to do the same. A corrupt and idiotic post colonial culture, or a corrupt and idiotic Republic, which is better?
Are we looking for a way out of the obvious options? As long as we are ready to let go of them (and there is little evidence of that), it’s reasonably straight forward to begin. Will the kids follow? Probably not for a hundred years, because teaching people how to think so that it becomes “common knowledge”, while fending off relentless political interference, is a time consuming job. A noisy portion are oppressed by the idea that they’ve discovered everything in the world, starting at the point they bought an iphone. Will the oldies follow? Not in large numbers freely, not before they die of old age. There aren’t many idealists and visionaries in that bunch.
This is my version of best case scenario in a stable environment. Whatever happens in my lifetime, “fear of maori nationalism” is not a useful perspective when there are so many other ways to approach cultural change constructively. Surely the timeline of possible events is longer than a few years.
Andrew by 1840 the Musket Wars had finished. Hongi Hika was dead, Te Waharoa was dead, Tamati Waka Nene had given up warfare and was concentrating on selling kauri timber, Te Rauparaha was old and uninterested in warfare, he was doing well out trading with whaling ships. His trusted war leader Te Puoho, my tipuna,was dead killed by Ngai Tahu at Matarua
A new generation of Maori leaders like Wiremu Tamahana and Matene Te Whiwhi were organising Maori into a political force that was to become the King Movement. Maori had given up inter tribal warfare in favour of trade.
Warfare works best when you have guns and the other side does not. It is not a good idea to attack people who can shoot back. By 1840 everybody could shoot back and it was more profitable to sell pork,potatoes, firewood, timber, flax, sealskins and sex to Europeans.
Andrew you may not be a racist but you continue to push the racist agenda that Maori were silly savages who had to be saved from themselves. This was a popular point of view with 19th century missionaries who saw themselves as the saviours.
Now the civilising mission of Europeans;
‘When Hongi Hiki’s party returned from England in 1821 he began training for war. On the 5th of September 2,000 Ngapuhi armed with a 1,000 muskets laid siege to the Mauinaina Pa in Auckland. In the ensuing slaughter 2,000 male defenders plus many women and children were killed and many more enslaved. According to contemporary reports “the victorious remained on the battlefield to consume the vanquished until they were driven off by the smell of rotting flesh”
As with ‘Covid is Pa”s stuff about Te Rauparaha. This is not written by an eyewitness. It is a report given by someone who was never there and relying on what they were told by people who may, or may not, have been there.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN IT MUST BE UNTRUE! But it does not mean that we cannot know how much of it is true. Body counts are notoriously hard to verify. People exaggerate distort or downright lie to suit their agendas. In this case to show what bloodthirsty savages Maori are.
A few years after the Musket Wars ended British troops fought the Indian Mutineers who when captured as prisoners were fastened to the muzzle of a cannon and blasted into little pieces to ensure that Hindu funeral rites could not be carried out over their remains. Then came the Opium Wars where British and Franch troops found inventive ways to use the long braids of Chinese men to put them to various forms of agonising death.
Of course these men were not ‘Noble Savages’ but representatives of European civilisation.
In the 1860s there was war between Maori rebels and the crown. At Pukehinahina(Gate Pa) British troops were defeated leaving their wounded and dying in the care of their ‘savage’ enemies.
Every New Zealander should know what happened then. How Maori cared and gave water to their enemy wounded.
The Crown rewarded them with land confiscations. (‘No longer did they have to live in perpetual fear of cannibalistic attack and enslavement.’ Well only from Queen Victoria and her minions.)
A nice thing to teach primary students Andrew.
Well, that is a good comment and one James Bellich would be proud of.
True nonetheless.
And thank you for that.
Well said.
It was the British, of course, who invented concentration camps in modern times (though I’m sure others had the same in earlier times) -places to imprison civilian women and children and starve them and mistreat them, as per the South African ‘adventures’ to steal land from Dutch settlers and create an extension of the already extensive empire predicated looting resources and driving previous occupiers off the land or actually enslaving them. The idea was that if the Boer men found out their women and children were being starved and dying from treatable disease etc. they would stop fighting back.
I don’t have the link handy but do recall seeing film of ACTUAL SLAVERY in an African colony ‘owned by Britain’ still operating in the early 1940s! (1942 from memory, the poor sods practically naked and digging through mud for mineral deposits).
Never forget that it was the ‘noble’ British who came up with the idea of firebombing Dresden, a cultural centre of no military importance, to ‘show the Russians what we’re capable of’, thereby murdering an unknown number of women and children and old folks 100,000, 200,000, not sure because refugees had been flooding into the city. Not content with that, the RAF went back a couple of days later to disrupt the emergency service and strafe anyone they saw attempting to flee the city.
The Belgians were notorious for their abuse of ‘savages’ with the death toll running into millions in what virtually became King Leopold’s private source of income.
FFS how did Belgium, a tiny country in Europe, get to ‘own’ a huge chunk of central Africa, other than by some backroom deal with the British and the French? .
Something that is rarely mentioned is the fact that there was extensive warfare between Africans ‘owned’ by British and Germans throughout 1914 to 1918, and that many of the poor sods were shipped to freezing cold France to keep the British fighting men supplied with food and ammunition and wood to shore up trenches etc.
That’s what ‘good Christians’ in ‘Christian nations do.
you definitely do know a thing or two, Hellstorm by Thomas Goodrich goes into the genocidal firebombing of germany in the later part of the war. Ironically every evil we have been sent to fight has been thought up, pioneered and applied on scale by the british, even now the separate jurisdiction of the city of London is one of perhaps 3 global hubs where all this evil originates, i.e the real owners of the federal reserve and the rest of world finance operate from there. Nothing Christian about any of it chap. 95% of Christians are anything but, merely blind sheep whom consume unthinkingly whatever their church pumps into them, never living what they espouse, and certainly never examining for themselves the foundations and real commandments of their faith. Dont confuse that 95% with the remaining 5% who are involved in none of what you mention, and are just as aware as are you just how hypocritical it is for other so called Christians to participate or support such things
Of course the elephant in the room are the long term plans that either China and India have for New Zealand.
China have recently told Australia that if they continue to criticise them, or try to reduce trading with them, then they will ensure that the term ‘Australian’ and its’ culture will be obliterated and forgotten forever. Charming!!
I doubt very much if either of those countries give a flying f*** for how the Maoris were treated, their culture or any treaty settlements. It means nothing to them. They are only interested in themselves and securing future food and water sources. That is pretty obvious.
Throw in the complete and utter unaffordability of housing for most born and bred New Zealanders, and the population decline as a result of that, (no house , no family nest), and New Zealand ,as we know it, might just end up mirroring Australia’s place in future history books. ie; Non existent.
Beijing has threatened a “counterstrike” against international moves to preserve the democracies of Hong Kong and Taiwan.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/china-delivers-threat-over-five-eyes-hong-kong-joint-statement/2Z7AIOPSC652EJEIPNYU6VN22U/
The escalating row between China and Australia holds important lessons for India and, indeed, for the broader international community. Each incident and utterance, by the Chinese Communist Party spokespersons or by a designated proxy, peels away a fresh layer of the carefully cultivated veneer of the allegedly peaceful rise of China. The mask is off and the naked aggression, in words and actions, is on full display.
https://www.orfonline.org/research/chinas-soft-power-is-failing-in-australia/
Australian universities ‘helping China to spy’ in massive global operation, Four Corners reveals
Aussie universities are now closely tied with Chinese entities linked to the Communist Party’s global espionage and military tech efforts.
https://www.news.com.au/national/australian-universities-helping-china-to-spy-in-massive-global-operation-four-corners-reveals/news-story/0f5354ee03ee93ea268c0c3eb2ba7a8a
A VIP visit, a mystery burglary of five laptops and a tantalising question: Did China’s spies steal the secrets of this British invention?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3833431/A-VIP-visit-mystery-burglary-five-laptops-tantalising-question-Did-China-s-spies-steal-secrets-British-invention.html
‘Surely the timeline of possible events is longer than a few years’
What proportion of the populace in early 1929, or even mid-1929, saw the big sell-off October -The Wall Street Crash- coming? Whatever it was, it was tiny. Most people believed the Roaring 20s (though they were called that at the time) would go on forever, and many took out loans to buy shares.
We are in a similar position now, with hyper-elevated equity markets and a hyper-elevated housing markets, but with far less to back them up than was the case in 1929. Or 1987. Or 2000/2001. Or 2007/8.
Whenever share values or house values go way beyond what is reasonable there is a crash. The further they depart from reasonable the bigger the crash.
What central banks -and most notoriously the Fed- have managed to do is blow the biggest bubbles in all of history by creating money out of thin are at close-to-zero interest rates, and allowing that money (in collusion with government) to be pumped into share markets and housing.
However, NONE of the underling factors that have caused and are causing repeated failures of the system have been addressed. So whereas Bush and Paulson asked for (and got) $760 billion ‘to save the system and prevent economic ruin for America’, Biden has asked for, and go,t $2,000 billion ‘to save the system and prevent economic ruin for America’.
Yeah, right! as the billboards used to proclaim. Because the world has never been in a worse state with regard to energy availability, fresh water availability, good soil availability, good timber, god fish availability….pretty much any resource you like to think of there is less of it today than yesterday and much less than a decade ago. And more people trying to access those resources. And pollution, to the point of generating horrific storms that smash infrastructure and cause accelerating planetary meltdown. The system is fucked. Ans the system has fucked the planet.
There is no doubt in my mind that the ‘idiots’ in charge will persist in telling is that we are on a ‘sustainable path to a better future’ and that once we have beaten Covid-19 (or whatever variants evolve from Covid-19) we will return to ‘normal’ and be back to fucking the planet like there’s no tomorrow, because that is what Jacinda and company are paid to do: promote illusions and delusions. And protect the banking system. Jacinda and her team are clearly utterly deluded (or outright liars), as are the vast majority of the world’s so-called leaders.
What is particularly interesting is the fact that right through 1930, 1931, 1932, and 1933 governments throughout the western world remained firmly in denial of what was to become known as The Great Depression, and insisted that what was being experienced was only a very temporary setback, and that the world would be back to the ‘Roaring 20s’ any moment soon.
The Depression was not properly over until WW2 commenced and suddenly governments had money to do all sorts of things they had previously declared impossible.
I am working as quickly as I can on my personal preparations for the coming financial meltdown. There is little I can do to prepare for the environmental meltdown, though I know I am in a safe place with regard to sea level rise and several other factors. No on can escape drought, except those that live on a high water table -an that brings other negatives.
Just when young people fully recognise the extent they have been lied to [by governments and their agencies] is open to debate. But it won’t be long.
Apologies for typing errors, the most import correction being:
Most people believed the Roaring 20s (though they were NOT called that at the time) would go on forever, and many took out loans to buy shares.
More on the economic mess governments and central banks have created: NZ is a fully paid up member of the international corporate welfare system, and, just like America, has a swag of ‘zombie companies’ -the walking dead, propped up by government bailouts and record-low interest rates- which is increasing as time passes.
‘Struggling companies, artificially propped up by benign lending practices and government support, who cannot pay down the principal on their debt will drain resources from the economy, will slow the recovery and dampen our already sluggish productivity gr
So-called zombie companies have been on the rise since the Global Financial Crisis and there are fears that the pandemic will only aggravate the problem. There are concerns that these firms – neither dead nor fully alive – will drain resources from the economy, slowing the recovery and dampening already sluggish productivity growth across most OECD countries, including New Zealand.
Virtually non-existent 30 years ago, by 2019 the number of zombie companies in advanced economies accounted for 13 percent of the total, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch. These companies have enough resources to continue to operate but are not generating sufficient profit to service their debts over an extended period. As CNN describes them “Zombie companies are usually heavily indebted, cannot pay down the principal on their debt, depend on low interest rates to meet loan interest payments, and are unable to restructure to become more profitable because their debt is dragging them down.”
‘What is behind the rise of the zombies?
Research from the Bank of International Settlements identifies two reasons for the increase in zombie firms over the last two decades.
The first is that banks, struggling with their own balance sheets following the GFC, had been less likely to allow firms go bankrupt. Just-profitable zombie firms contributed to Japan’s “lost-decade” in the 1990s when Japanese banks rolled over loans to otherwise insolvent borrowers, with large costs to their productivity.
Secondly, and more importantly, historically low interest rates have enabled firms to continue to pile on more debt and just manage to afford the financing costs. Not only are there more zombie firms today, but zombies are surviving for longer than in the past with less pressure to reduce debt and cut back activity….’
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/109497/struggling-companies-artificially-propped-benign-lending-practices-and-government
For me, the key phrases are:
‘Virtually non-existent 30 years ago, by 2019 the number of zombie companies in advanced economies accounted for 13 percent of the total’
The graphics do not extend to the present-day, but do demonstrate that the problem arose BEFORE COVID, and suggest a substantial rise in ‘zombies’ since Covid hit.
To believe the government has got anything under control, or that this will all end anything other than very badly is to be utterly deluded or terribly uninformed.
The Adern government is fortunate in that the bulk of the population ARE deluded or terribly uninformed/misinformed, and need it to remain that way; without an uninformed/misinformed and deluded populace the Adern government is ‘toast’.
On the other hand, every day this current dysfunctional system keeps running increases the damage it does to both human societies and the natural world. The sooner it collapses, the better off we will ALL be long-term.
That said, the suffering commensurate with the unravelling of present arrangements will be enormous.
Thus, we are faced with an intractable predicament: pain now or much greater pain later.
China’s strategy seems to look at what has happened in the past and emulate it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_occupation_of_Norway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark_in_World_War_II
China’s worst kept secret, seems to be that NZ and the Pacific will be occupied by China, and use the Pacific/Oceania and Africa as strategic locations and resources.
Since China now control many military and economic contracts around the world, aka even the nuclear power in the UK https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/26/chinas-long-game-to-dominate-nuclear-power-relies-on-the-uk, what can five eyes do, – maybe they have left it too late?
The ballad of Curtis Loew
The Ballad Of Curtis Loew
https://youtu.be/35Ipe_0kadM?t=64
Just for shits and giggles. And a quart of wine on a Saturday morning. Its drinkin time.
Coming from a farming background (livestock) I am bemused that other New Zealanders find the “hybrid vigour” apparent now in many New Zealanders, unsettling. We bred for that on the farm. In humans here it seems to be manifesting itself in acquisitiveness, pushing the boundaries and extrapolation. Currently it is very financially beneficial to claim some maori blood line no matter how meagre. The mokos that are manifesting on many faces – from white to black – indicate to me a rising “club” confidence.
Interestingly this week I was told the story of someone’s Grandfather who was the last true maori leader of his Hapu , both ethnically and culturally, and who on his death bed “released” his people from the traditions of their culture to find a new path in New Zealand ( as opposed to Aotearoa)
I hope that we all forge together to a settled future, some give, some take . It does not have to hinge in a name, New Zealand or Aotearoa. If not then, as in Switzerland, a simple public referendum sets future direction.
To understand the New Zealand situation a Human Rights Commissioner should have more “skin in the game” than the one mentioned.
There will NOT be a referendum. NZ adults will be ‘educated’ to accept the future separatist governmental arrangement for NZ, while children will be indoctrinated. It’s all planned for in this document from the Ministry of Maori Development released under the Official Information Act https://www.tpk.govt.nz/docs/undrip/tpk-undrip-he-puapua.pdf
Perhaps Chris Trotter could write his interpretation of what this document means. The new Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum is part of the ‘groundwork’ for this revolution/transformation
Thanks for that !
Total Nonsense. You clearly have not read the te reo Maori version of the treaty (the only one recognised under international law).
Revolution will always produce at least 1 new elememt. Let’s call that the concept of merge.
You can not howbtje concept of merging doesn’t have to be accessible to the work space if it also fails to produce new elements.
Inevitably mergers fail when new emergent properties produce impossible barriers. Its important to understand all extensions of a merger not as a barrier but as properties yet to be explained.
The next bit is why should future generations tolerate resource restrictions and not the population generally?
A plausible answer is that future generationenerations is an organic system that seeks to use the least possible resources.
In some sense our sensory abilities far out strip the brains ability to process. The eye captures light at the photon, the ear captures sound at the level of millimetres and the brain throws out all that mass of information.
If this example is followed then the brain throws out masses of information and so producing new elements of a merger may or may not produce new copies. The 2 differences are copies, the difference being the old one is deleted.
So if it is an internal merger there will be copies. If it is an external merger there will be resource restrictions.
Access to resources don’t care about deletion. So now we have sharpened some of the definitions we can move on to more serious matters and so we should disassociate our selves with cancellation culture (can explain in algebra form).
There’s still no reason why anyone should have any reason to do anything with anyone. Maori and Pakeha may merge into a new property. If it’s the men (for arguments sack) who write the constitution, read it, like it, the resulting deletion operation will produce reduced copies. Same goes for woman and so on and so fourth.
In another sense anything that is not deleted is usually marked as undeletable. That’s fine. As an example the men like a book and so the book is undeletable.
The next thing we want to do is figure out how to delete to major problems, poverty and the housing crises. They are unbound northern exhibiting internal nor external emergent properties by any political system or values. Haven’t been solved with price signals, 8ncreased funding, decreased funding. Don’t know.
Sex is a ubiquitous operation but its not permitted. Any formula of merging is deleted much the same as the housing or poverty crises ( To much information. Can’t handle it. BLAH BLAH BLAH. Don’t judge a book by its cover).
Where there is no way of handling a merger with in the bounds of justice there is no way of limiting deletion because people just don’t like it. Here is the unsolvable mystery and why pakeha will never accept being a minority even if it’s only on paper. The point is things will happen because we have no access to perfect information from the past.
Archaeology, economics, politics and so on will equally give us fuzzy information on how we might live in the future.
We can use structure like a constitution to explain that 2 represents those to objects or how we might live together in the future but melennials and future generations are a biological structure. I guesstje point is that with minuscule changes it will still be New Zealand but on ther other hand trivial changes makes New Zealand not New Zealand any more.
How we live together in the future depends on how well we interact with each other, share, be at peace which are all concepts politicians are incapable of finding.
We are heading forwards next generation poverty, when people can’t afford water which has already happened in the US. https://www.michiganradio.org/post/un-team-says-detroit-water-shutoff-program-violates-human-rights Soon the world’s land, sea and air will be so polluted with so many restrictions to society, (while big business own the rights for decades which they got for nothing, given away by corruption and stupid short sighted politicians) that many activities that we take for granted now, will become elite or not able to undertaken at all. We already see Maori being penalised for fishing with fishing rights given to some not others…. and the other extreme when people are taking too much and it is not sustainable. The sea is now deemed some Chinese majority owned corporations cow toilet https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/oceania-dairy-ltd-granted-consents-for-controversial-wastewater-pipeline/XXZJGIQSZNL5H5FWJMHCG4YWQY/, what many consider as basic rights have been divided up and do not necessary protect the average person’s right in NZ to take enough food to live on and have fresh water and basic amenity of nature, which should have been guaranteed under the treaty.
Yes housing and poverty is important, but many are missing the point of how much worse it can get in NZ because people are not looking at the big picture of neoliberalism and the constant creation of wealth for the most wealthy in the world, out of local public amenity,
The raiding and polluting of the commons by individuals has been going on for centuries -as per the Enclosure Acts in England and the establishment of highly polluting industries in previously pristine landscapes, so greedy people could have more.
However, the law changes in America in the late-1800s that gave the same rights as humans to corporations regarding ownership of property etc. put the whole loot-and-pollute game onto a different footing. And the establishment of the Fed in 1913 under subterfuge increased the opportunity for manipulation of society by bankers. The final nail in the coffin of a livable planet was the introduction of GDP as a measure of economic activity and the elevation of GDP to a godlike status of ‘needing to be worshipped’. GDP encourages and rewards looting and polluting.
Now ‘freedom and democracy’ means giving banks and corporations more-or-less free rein to do as they please, and the election of sycophants who enable banks and corporations to do pretty much as they please.
‘We are heading forwards next generation poverty, when people can’t afford water which has already happened in the US.’
That is undoubtedly the plan: privatise everything, and if you can’t pay you don’t get.
Of course when they tried that [privatising water] in Bolivia and the price of water tripled overnight it led to blockade of the main highway and the fall of the government.
But the bastards are so arrogant and stupid they STILL persist with policies that end up destroying not only the fabric of society but also the habitability if the Earth.
How many more tonnes of toxic waste has been revealed to be sitting in storage down south, following the announcement of closure of the aluminium smelter? Did I hear 106,000 tonnes? Waste nobody knows what to do with, and stored because it costs money to do anything with it.
In the ‘good old days’ corporations could just tip waste off trucks and down a cliff face into the sea. But that has got a bit difficult now that we are trading as a ‘clean and green’ nation.
The really big one ‘nobody’ want to talk about is atmospheric pollution -particulate matter emitted by vehicles (especially diesel vehicles) and carbon dioxide (which will be 420 ppm in May).
The big scam being promoted at the moment is the myth that electric vehicles have no emissions; sure, none at the point of use (other than what cones off the tyres); but what about the emissions generated in the mining of minerals, the emissions generated in the refining process and the emissions generated in production of electricity?
“It’s all bullshit, and it’s bad for you.” -George Carlin.
Yes has been going on for centuries but the difference is that now the world population has reached 7.1 billion and growing each year (with less deaths), a point where it is no longer sustainable. In addition with democracy many hoped that equality would be achieved within each country. Instead in 2021 we are seeing the most greedy going around the world and buying up or getting for nothing public assets which they pay governments to help make it legal and totalitarian governments becoming stronger and more influential. To make even more profits people are being moved between nations to destroy the labour movement and lower the price of labour, thus making it harder for equality to be achieved in countries that used to have better labour conditions 30 years ago.
Well, SaveNZ, I don’t believe we can save NZ: the looting and polluting have gone on for too long. And after enduring many rotten governments, we still have a rotten government, making everything that matters worse.
What individuals CAN DO is prepare for the inevitable. And CHS has some very wise thoughts on that matter, well worth reading and putting into practice:
‘I’m not trying to be difficult, but I can’t help cutting against the grain on topics like surviving the coming bad times when my experience runs counter to the standard received wisdom.
A common thread within most discussions of surviving bad times–especially really bad times–runs more or less like this: stockpile a bunch of canned/dried food and other valuable accoutrements of civilized life (generators, tools, canned goods, firearms, etc.) in a remote area far from urban centers, and then wait out the bad times, all the while protecting your stash with an array of weaponry and technology (night vision binocs, etc.)
Now while I respect and admire the goal, I must respectfully disagree with just about every assumption behind this strategy. Once again, this isn’t because I enjoy being ornery (please don’t check on that with my wife) but because everything in this strategy runs counter to my own experience in rural, remote settings.
You see, when I was a young teen my family lived in the mountains. To the urban sophisticates who came up as tourists, we were “hicks” (or worse), and to us they were “flatlanders” (derisive snort)…..’
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar21/survival-taoism3-21.html
Yes all true. I don’t dispute climate science or any bullshit like that. What we can do is price pollution and come up with some kind of regime that can reduce and recycle all the waste.
Extravagant concerns on a minor matter.
Simply use both.
And write about it:
https://loremipsum.io/generator/
English has long been recognized as the trading and tourist language worldwide why is it now necessary for us to change it. Most of the World knows us as New Zealander not Aotearoa’s, which is not the Maori name for the Stewart or South Island. Is this change because English is not an official language in NZ, amazing, so I have signed a petition last week to have English recognized as an official language.
Maori in place of English for the media, places, country and next government? Pre boomers have very little chance of understanding this Te Reo or remembering these invented place names, towns or country. Do they want us to become foreigners in our country, shore looks that way.
The biggest issue here is not so much the potential for a Trumpian-style backlash against Maori and liberal ideals, which is always in the offing, but much more about Chris Trotter’s own dislike and uncomfortableness with Maori nationalist sentiment in any form. He is frequently seeing ugly spectres on the horizon and doom for liberal democracy with any assertion of Maori self-determination. His fears and phobias appear to be a cover for his own regressive views on the teaching of history in schools, the learning of Te Reo or the latest Waitangi Tribunal decisions. In any contest of ideas there will always be the possibility of a backlash but progressives should fight for progressive policies rather than refuse to fight in the contest of ideas for fear of losing.
Trotter’s own “regressive” views? Do you have any actual arguments Mr. Minto, or just truncheon words? I hope Trotter will correct me if I’m misrepresenting him, but I think the message of his article is that the track record of radical “decolonization” is not a good one. Trotter isn’t saying self-styled “progressives” shouldn’t fight for change – he’s saying they need wiser objectives. Maybe it would be more productive to focus on rolling back neoliberalism and user-pays, rather than pushing for hate speech legislation, Maori wards, or “decolonization” of academia.
Wow I see a lot of these comments as outright racist! I look forward to when we know longer have all the colonial master’s names for our cities and town.
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