Massive victory for environmental protest!
The only thing faster than a National Party U-turn on mining is the NZ Police backpedaling going from justifying their shooting of a person in West Auckland because of a 'gunfight', to 'a couple of shots' to 'we're not sure the person we shot even fired at us anymore as they seem to have had nothing more dangerous than an air rifle on them'.
National have to U-turn on mining because they lied about the valuation, they insinuated Billions when we would barely get a fraction of that and they were going to damage our global clean green brand for a couple of magic beans from the corporate mining industry.
Let's look for where the fishooks in this announcement will be, National will remove any mining near the electorally damaging Auckland region and focus on ripping up land no one sees much, but it is a day where protest forced Gerry and his magical mystery mining money machine to back down, so that when a young Nat sneers that protest never works, we can all point to this political victory and tell them where to stick their anti=protest nihilism.
It's a great day for environmental protest, we can force a Government to change!
posted by Bomber @ 6:05 am
13 comments
13 Comments:
Bomber, for such a cynic you can be surprisingly naive.
Of all people you should know that "we the people" have never changed anything with a simple demonstration. And I mean never.
The only thing that gives us a temporary respite from the greedy bastards is if we rise up and get violent and that is something people are loath to do and rightfully so.
The bastards know as you should know that you don't reign in temperament with brutality. You just ride it out and present it it with a difficult choice a bit further down the line.
Trust me, next year after the elections the total financial collapse is announced and this collapse can only be averted with, you guessed it, Mining,Privatisation and the devastation of whatever social support system was in place in favour of draconian punishments and privatised money spinning prisons.
Mission accomplished, temperament tamed and "we the people" safely harnessed in neo-feudal servitude.
Game over.
"It's a great day for environmental protest, we can force a Government to change!"
Sucka
But you're not going to force a change in govnt.
Giving up mining is simply one of dead rats the nats will have to swallow if they're to keep their polls numbers up (over 55%) and win the next election.
If you were smart about it you would want mining to be allowed thereby erroding the nats massive lead in the polls causing them to lose the election and since it takes years to start a mine no mining would actually occur.
The left can win small minor battles but the right will win the war.
Isn't it weird how the Herald article you link to refers to the "Key Administration". Do they get interns from the US to write their articles?
Yeah, great win, not, mining plans go full steam ahead everywhere but GBI, Coro and Paparoa.
Sorry, I think you are being ridiculously naive. The inclusion of GBI and Coromandel in the initial proposal was just an opening gambit by the Govt that they were always prepared to give away to secure their core agenda, mining on the West Coast, Malborough etc. The lack of any real intention to ever pursue GBI and Coro was illustrated by the fact that the Govt never mentioned anything of such plans to local iwi with whom they were directly negotiating with at the time.
I think the Government has very skilfully foreseen and manipulated the plan to extend mining to secure its agenda. I think Gerry Brownlee will be ROTFL to read this. A Machiavellian masterstroke by the Minister of Latent Energy.
Hold on, hold on, hold on. I've always said that National would take down any of the mining near Auckland when they were focused elsewhere (I will post on that tomorrow) the fight doesn't stop, but it shows us that we can force them back with massive protest.
This is the first victory, we haven't won the war, but today is one to feel empowered by.
Tomorrow we start to rip them apart on Mining as quickly as the 90 day right to sack is coming apart, in fact isn't this U-Turn another example of a National Party idea that's fallen over despite all the spin?
Given that a Police officer was killed in the last year with "nothing more danagerous" than an air rilfe are you being deliberately offensive or just wilfully ignorant?
And would you bet your life on being able to distinguish between a real rifle and an air rifle when one gets waved at you at night?
I have to say Bomber blogged repeatedly that the Mining in high profile sites was a distraction, but the back down does send a signal of a willingness to negotiate when confronted with such public opinion. So although I have no doubt it was a manipulation, is it a mastermind stroke or an invitation to continue to take to the streets?
'The left can win small minor battles but the right will win the war'
The Americans are bankrupting themselves in the 'Graveyard of Empires', their banks are fucked as is Western Europe, while the Chinese buy Greece and Ireland and Africa and.... Turkey increasingly holds the balance of power in the Middle East and looks set to hold a stronger hand with the Americans than Israel, South America is awash with Socialism. Which war exactly have the Right won Anon?
Now their Plutocracy is slipping through their fingers they increasingly resort to Totalitarianism, and there's nothing like that to rally the peasants. And are you really part of the Plutocracy Anon or do you just believe in the American dream?
Don't believe the hype!
Congratulations bomber on being part of a decision to help bankrupt nz
this will end universal superannuations, student loans, social welfare.
You did it bomber, you ruined NZ.
You made my grandchildren poor. Well done.
umm..someone points a gun at the cops. its irrelevant if he shoots or not. anyone that does that deserves to get shot and rightly so! ofcourse you would wait till they shot you wouldn't you bomber. dreamer.
LOL and in other news
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10659955
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10660065
Martyn. Being abroad I haven't followed this closely, but I think everyone knew the Tories had no real intention of mining the Barrier and the 'mandel. They were testing the waters and once they realised they were tepid, were always going to back down. Cos 'they're a government that listens'.
And then, as Anonymous 3.15pm says, they can get down to business.
"You made my grandchildren poor. Well done."
It's the low wage economy established by National last time round, combined with corporate greed and the lack of vision that has seen everyone I know now working for an Australian company- for wages that haven't moved in twenty five years- which are driving us into third world status. And all of that ideology sits at the feet of the Right!
Our problem in this country is that our imagination only extends to milk and primary industry, we're a little like BP, still milking 100 year old thinking. Sure, as long as we all own computer screens and mobile phones we can't expect New Zealand to be free of Mining, but in prized conservation land? When The Economist and The Guardian are already trashing us for our environmental record! Perhaps your head is buried firmly up your arse and so you're unaware of the current state of environmental degradation which thanks to you Anon isn't leaving much hope for my children let alone grandchildren, but surely you can see the disadvantages to our global image for the short term gain of allowing Australian and American mining companies to profit from our resources.
So thank you Anon 5.53, for I believe it's actually your ideology which has put us in the shit! And I believe it won't be too long now before the collapse of your neo-liberal experiment will prove me right.
Congratulations bomber on being part of a decision to help bankrupt nz
this will end universal superannuations, student loans, social welfare.
You did it bomber, you ruined NZ.
You made my grandchildren poor. Well done.
GRIN - Yep it was all me Anon, it had nothing to do with National lying about the mineral valuations, it had nothing to do with National lying about the actual return on those mineral valuations and it had nothing to do with National lying about the amount of land that would get used with a failed Eden Park analogy.
The utter denial from some within the National Party is astounding, thank you for the laugh Anon.
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