Posts by A C Young
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So just to get this straight, if you're attempting to bully an 18 year old girl on air...that's speech that should not be protested (or at least not protested loudly enough that it might concern an advertiser).
But if you ask an advertiser their opinion of that speech then you're shutting down free speech.
The fact that the 18 year old's speech (and any other young woman who might have thought about commenting on the issue) was in reality pretty severely curtailed as a result of this interview doesn't factor into this at all.
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Hard News: Some Lines for Labour, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
And you've accidentally put your finger on another serious credibility problem for Labour in general, and Goff in particular. (And one National has as well, in a slightly different way.) "It was totally different when we did it" and "we voted for it, but it's still evil" is political slight of hand that's difficult to pull off, and only works for so long before people figure out the trick.
Actually this makes me kind of sad because some of the nuance does seem useful.
"We voted for this because if we didn't a worse thing was going to be voted in" is a crappy message to try to sell people but the alternative (standing by while even crappier things go into law) is awful too (it's a vote winning option but it results in worse laws...some horrible perverse incentive thing going on there).
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Come to think of it, I also can't believe that Labour supports the free trade agreement with the US as it stands, surely there would be a lot to be made of the fact that Pharmac, Employment law,intellectual property, Dairy farmers and numerous other things are under threat.
I can't believe that they aren't trying to tap into the same part of the kiwi psyche that feels smug about opposing the US on nukes...especially since National seems so secretive about it.
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In some ways it almost seems like Labour wants to lose the next election.
In terms of clear and consistent messaging and voting on principles, the Greens have earned any extra votes they pick up.
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Hard News: Again: Is everyone okay?, in reply to Hilary Stace,
I just wanted to chime in and say that I feel exactly the same way and am doing pretty much everything that you are (bar the Ken Ring thing). I'm also suddenly, desperately, wanting to learn first aid because I can no longer pretend that I will never be in the position to use it.
Also, all of the trite sentiments like "how the hell do people keep starting wars when nature alone can do *this* to us" suddenly seem terribly relevant and meaningful.
With the understanding that none of this compares even slightly to what Christchurch just went through:
We were at the end of our lunch-break when someone came running over to say that there was a report of a massive quake and that our entire Christchurch office was off the communication network completely and that was the point where normal stopped (wonderfully everyone in the Christchurch office was fine but one of the two buildings is trashed).
The TVs on each floor were tuned to this for the next 3 days and we just kept clumping around them in silent horror. The sirens were a background to everything we did on Tuesday afternoon. I can't walk through Wellington now without superimposing images of crumpled buildings and running people over streets and buildings I love.
I was so grateful for PAS (despite not signing up before now), you guys were a voice of sanity even when you were bitching about Coddingtonswallop (maybe especially then, it was something so very normal).