Posts by linger
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... with the last of the three groups possibly including some police informants. (Who would have also been "questioned" etc: if the police were to take the available evidence seriously, informants could be presumed to be at risk if not treated any differently from other suspects.)
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It's even possible that we have a mixture of all three cases among the 17:
a few activists engaged in a long-term plan of "deliberately arousing suspicion" for the purposes of getting (first) an obvious overreaction by the police, and (then) sympathetic media attention for their cause;some genuinely scary individuals not in on this plan, who were taking it at face value;
and some (possibly the majority) who didn't know what was going on and were absolutely freaking.
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Stephen: snap!
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Suppose for a moment that (some of) the 17 were aware that they were under surveillance.
Suppose also that they are intent on getting public attention on Tuhoe grievances.
What would be the most effective way of doing that?
a) actually carry out violent acts?
Counterproductive, hardens public opinion against your cause.b) carry out visible training exercises that stop short of terrorism under the law, in the hope of forcing a police (over)reaction that then gives you public sympathy and a media platform?
Certainly risky ...**WH:** those "training camps" must have come close to flipping the "planning" switches of the TSA
... but if the starting point is that you think you have nothing to lose, then hey, it might just work.
Of course, the plausibility of that interpretation depends on their perceived credibility (ability to plan, media awareness). If the public think they lack that, then the more likely analysis is
c) talk shit and play around with guns in the bush as displacement activity rather than doing anything productive.
Your call :-)
Graeme:
[from definition of treason) ﾒEvery one owing allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen in right of New Zealand commits treason who...ﾓ
-- of course, for (some, radical) Tuhoe, that is precisely the issue at stake: under what basis do they owe allegiance to the Queen? Hence a treason trial would provide an entirely suitable media platform.
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Apologies if this ends up appearing twice -- it vanished into the ether on my first attempt...
Changing countries is always a disorientating experience.
One of the few instances in which the American variant ("disorienting") might be more appropriate :-)
Actually, Keith, you got out of Japan just in time: as of next week, they introduce new "security" measures whereby all foreigners (and only foreigners) entering Japan will have to queue for hours to be photographed and fingerprinted. Every time they re-enter (except through Narita, where an express lane will eventually allow re-entry without re-fingerprinting). Even if they've already been living and working there for 10 years.
This is particularly galling because
(i) all instances of terrorism in Japan to date have been carried out by Japanese nationals, not foreigners -- so this policy cannot be justified on grounds of any "anti-terrorism" measure;
(ii) it was only in 1999 that foreign residents of Japan successfully lobbied against including fingerprints on our alien registration cards;
(iii) Japan is otherwise supposedly trying to attract tourists, and qualified foreign workers ... unless they are foreign, this measure seems to imply.This is not merely a matter of Japan parroting the American "anti-terror" line (though that is a convenient excuse); rather it reflects a disturbing tendency, which has been worsening over the past few years, for right-wing nationalist politicians (and much of the mainstream media) here to paint foreigners as criminals (in an interesting parallel to media portrayal of Chinese in NZ). In the Japanese version of this fantasy, Japanese can never commit crime because that would be anti-Japanese, while foreigners (whatever country they come from: regulations don't distinguish by nationality because that would be illegal!) can never be trusted to behave properly. In fact, the only type of crime for which foreigners have a higher per capita offending rate than Japanese nationals is a crime which Japanese nationals by definition cannot commit: overstaying, which accounts for a third of all "foreign crime".
Debito Arudou has covered these trends in a series of Japan Times articles which will seem disturbingly familiar (and familiarly disturbing) after the Metro case: "Time to come clean on foreign crime wave" (07 Oct 2003),
"Visa villains" (29 June 2004),
"Downloadable discrimination" (30 Mar 2004), and
"Upping the fear factor" (20 Feb 2007).(Caveat: I am not sure whether unregistered users of the online JT will be able to view these articles from the links provided.)
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So. Photos of Rodney Hide attract trolls. Wow.
Who'd have guessed? -
Impressive. Actual shit-stirring.
... Have they been in contact yet with that known perpetrator of high-reaching fecal matter and urine, Little Rodney? -
I have more than a little sympathy for Ben's argument that we should be tolerant of other people's vices (on the grounds that otherwise, our own behaviour should then be subject to disapproval by others). However, there is a hidden assumption in that argument that doesn't really stand up to close inspection: that all behaviours labelled "vices" are morally equivalent.
What does calling some behaviour a "vice" actually signify?
* some section of society disapproves of it,
* indulgence to excess is harmful to the individual concerned (and possibly, but not necessarily, to others).Note that legal status is not a defining criterion. It should go without saying that the legal status of a behaviour does not necessarily indicate its moral standing (although in general, law should be about harm reduction more than anything else).
However, we still are left with a valid moral criterion for ranking "vices", in terms of the potential for harm to others. As such, it would still be possible to take a consistent moral position in which some vices are treated differently from others.
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You know, I can't quite see how his acting like a male appendage, and not entirely coincidentally helping the protesters to wipe the actual issues at stake off the media, helped to uphold Jill's honour in any way.
Certainly not in any way that would cut any ice with HC!
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To take up the definition of "mana": I'm broadly in agreement with Craig, though for slightly different reasons.
The primary definition of "mana" is "respect owed".
Of course, that immediately raises the question of how one gets respect -- answers to which are culturally specific and lead to a fair amount of disagreement (depending on whether we place higher priority on physical strength, intelligence, knowledge, charisma, social role fulfilled, or group represented -- all of which have varying contributions to make). But in fact we don't need to answer that question in order to measure "mana", because we can instead define or quantify "mana" operationally, as the probability that, when you ask someone to do something, they will actually do it (instead of e.g. suggesting you do something biologically impossible). And yes, that does mean that no-one can simply assert that they have mana; it resides instead in how others respond to them.