Posts by mark taslov
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Speaker: Low-quality language on immigration, in reply to Farmer Green,
Cutting immigration would be easier and cheaper than reducing the impact of the present population.
Easier, cheaper - as aspirations seldom - if ever - propagate best outcome.
Should we plan to cease exporting food when our population reaches that number?
We could produce just enough for 5 million and enough extra to be able to bring in a few million more tourists.
We’ve got to sell something as long as we are in debt.I find the talk of food and tourists somewhat distracts from our entrenched racism.
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Speaker: Low-quality language on immigration, in reply to Farmer Green,
A higher population means a greater impact on the environment.
I responded at length to this other night, but I put it on ice, got bored writing it. But in response to this point, we have a relatively minute population dwarfed by our current environmental issues. Scapegoating immigrants for our incapacity to engage in sound environmental management is what it is.
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Speaker: Low-quality language on immigration, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Labour has a longer history
Now that you mention it, so does Donald Trump. It’s amazing what one can get away with when the hairs start falling out. When the next populist revival of racism inevitably rolls around people will no doubt look back on today and say “but that was 2017, people didn’t know any better”.
Chances are that then as now the Greens still won’t have made a habit of weaponizing the names of marginalised groups for political traction, but if per chance we get to then and can look back on a GP political history peppered with the exploitation of words like Asians, Asiatics, Chinese etc and all that comes with that – interspersed with apologies – then I may be inclined to agree on this count.
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Speaker: Low-quality language on immigration, in reply to Chris Waugh,
To be honest I’m not even sure why we’re discussing the Greens given they weren’t represented on stage in the segment this thread is in response to. Historically between the Greens and Labour it’s a no contest. My oversight here has possibly been implying that ‘The Chinese Names’ campaign was a blip rather than a return to stale form by the New Zealand Labour party.
In April 1920 Labour MPs Michael Joseph Savage, Bill Parry and Frederick Bartram telegrammed Reform Party prime minister Massey asking that “steps be immediately taken to deal with (the) menace” of an “alarming influx of Asiatics and other classes of cheap labour. . .” The Labour figures argued that this influx inevitably involved “the lowering of the living standards of our people, as well as the probable deterioration in the physical standard of all races mixing indiscriminately. . .”
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to linger,
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
that time the environment was crashing and burning while you were dancing on the grave of the green party
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Hard News: Metiria's Problem, in reply to linger,
I had words to that effect last night with an offsider, though I’m yet to be convinced that Chlöe has the reach that they need right now.
Whether in opposition or otherwise the coherent ethics that The Greens have brought to Parliament would be a huge loss for our country, another notch in neoliberalism’s belt.
Running partners are du jour, the Greens co-leader thing helped promote this in NZ.
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Speaker: Low-quality language on immigration, in reply to william blake,
Sorry for my slow reply there, I'm still quite busy getting through the works of Sheila Jeffreys whose aggressive transphobia was recommended to me as an antidote to Gloria Steinem's less pronounced transphobia. Steven covered what needed to be said I felt.
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Speaker: Low-quality language on immigration, in reply to ,
Thanks Steven. and if I may also append.
I won’t pretend not to understand why liberal Labour voters might want to distract from the party’s appeal to racists, especially now the white supremacists have been effectively mobilised in the US. Perhaps like Jacinda Ardern they feel “not comfortable” about the racist rhetoric, but that’s the line in the sand the party drew, and as strongly worded or adequate as “not comfortable” might sound to pale ears, it’s a world away from “give nothing to racism”.
Anti-racists condemn racism without a second thought – certainly without need to couch their actions in apologism and distraction, others seem to be more equivocal, highlighting the difficulty some have condemning racism. I’d wager even some of the lowest of Labour’s ‘low quality immigrants’ could explain this to William.
So for now we'll keep pretending that every time a Labour MP blows the dog-whistle that it's them being "careless" and just treat everything else they say as kosher.