PDubyah: current-events

Showing posts with label current-events. Show all posts

Friday, March 22, 2013

A Letter to Murray McCully - he replies

The reply to my original letter is posted here as a PDF MurraryMcCully or as a picture below,

This is a response to a letter I wrote to my MP, who had changed his mind about supporting the "same sex marriage" bill, one of ony 4 MP's to do so in the negative way.

I'm not convinced it's a form reply.

I've let his secretary know by way of a reply what I think .

Erica

Thank you for your reply.

Please, if you would be so kind, and should the Minister care to know, tell him that, should he be standing at the next election, he will not be receiving my vote, as he has enjoyed in the past.

Of course there are more pressing matters of Economy, Welfare, Education, Health and Security but he had it in his grasp to be someone who actually did something for everyone, and not because he has a fear and loathing of the real meaning of equality, and was cowered by sanctimonious religious bigotry.

You'll recall I've been married 25 years, I've no axe to grind, no flag to fly, but to take a stance that it's all equal except for some is morally bankrupt, and frankly he's disappointed one time to many.

It might only be one vote, but it might make a difference.

A Letter to Murray McCully (pdubyah.com)

Thursday, March 14, 2013

A Letter to Murray McCully

I expect a form letter asnwer.

Mr.McCully,

I understand that you're voted in for your opinions and preferences, but I can't let it pass without comment that you changed your vote to change your support of Marriage Equality to be opposed to it.

As the National MP in the ECB you've secured my vote for the previous elections. Mostly because you're inoffensive and are in a party that by and large suits my own thinking. By and large.

Being the intelligent, well travelled, and well rounded man that you are I can't begin to understand how you can vote against something that I've enjoyed for coming up to 25 years this year, that of being married.

I can't begin to understand how you could support it one day and be against it the next. You're now one of only 4 people who've been swayed, cajoled, or harangued into taking a contrary position to one which you came to on your own.

I'd lay Dollars to Cents that you've been lobbied by the religious element in this. Modern marriage is a construct of religion, religion that does all it can to deny minorities the status that they themselves confer upon themselves.

The world will not end, churches will not crumble, men will not start eyeing me up lustily in the streets, people will go about their lives. Traditional marriage, and denial of it to all people, is about religious dogma. Traditional Marriage isn't for life, as the number of divorces will attest. Marriage isn't for everyone, else everyone would be married.

At a time when Atheism or non-religion becomes more prevalent and religious dogma and teaching become less relevant you find yourself in a position where you are in danger of becoming a dinosaur of a past age.

Mr. MCully I ask you, if you could travel back in time would you yourself would have voted for women's suffrage? And whilst not comparable in moving society forward, I ask you why you would vote against Marriage Equality, something that clearly brings equity to everyone?

I'd ask that you do me the service of not sending me a stock/form reply, because that's just avoidance, and my one vote might not make a difference, but then again it might.

Philip Walter

Sunday, April 22, 2012

The one with and anger monkeys #1

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="New Zealand 2007 (Photo credit: Szymon Stoma)"]

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There are a couple of "things" that seems to be lighting up my twitter timeline, newspaper opinion pages, and left and right-wing bloggers.

Mostly its anti-government sentiment, anything that the current National government do seems to be not well received. Mostly by people who voted Labour in the election and had their politicians fail to gain enough votes to make it into government, such is life. So their angst is one of a poor loser, calling foul and crying wolf over pretty much everything, sometimes with justification, mostly it's just whingeing about how their lot would do it better or not at all.

But there are a couple of things that are very raw and sore points, this is one;

#1 Crafar Farms. Shock Horror and Xenophobia we've sold some farms to some Chinese corporation.

It's not a problem to sell farms to James Cameron on the proviso he comes here for 10 days every other year, of to allow Shanaia Twain to buy a chunk of land. Or various other sales to countries of other nationalities

But a few clicks on the interwebtubes brings forth this;

Currently, it is our forest plantations where much of the foreign ownership is found.However, the only comprehensive statistics I have found are from the FAO document database and relate to 1999. At that stage about 72% of our pine forests were foreign owned, with United States companies owning about 35% and Asian companies about 12%. More recent data is incomplete but foreign ownership appears to have further increased.

Our wine industry is also predominantly foreign owned. Montana is owned by French giant Pernod Ricard. Nobilo, Selaks, Kim Crawford and Monkey Bay are owned by American company Constellation. Well known brands such as Cloudy Bay, Matua and Wither Hills are all foreign owned. Although many other wine companies are still Kiwi, they tend to be the small companies, and on a volume basis about 70% is foreign owned. The foreign owned companies have their own estates and then purchase additional grapes from Kiwi contract farmers

Or this

In 2005, the OIC approved the sale of 149,473 hectares of rural land to foreigners, of which about 100,000 hectares was from one foreign investor to another. Foreign owned land covers more than one million hectares or about 7% of our commercially productive land area

However, this current outrage and angst comes down to two reasons and It's because

They're Chinese,

and

The National party have indicated that they are going to partially sell some of the few remaining assets we have - such as power generation.

The furore in this is the almost laughable outrage that this has generated as if it's a first time thing, and that no one has every done this ever. Fact is that NZ has sold off almost everything it has to private ownership and frankly there are only a few things left worth anything to anyone. Fait play to the 'opposition' on this who've stirred up wild fears and a catch-cry of "tenants in our own land" hysteria.

Also laughably Sir Michael Fay has come out swinging about how poor this is, which to most people is the pot calling the kettle black, Fay-Ritchwhite having done nicely out of New Zealand in the past. It's obvious that the aim of Sir Fay is to force the public sentiment into a position where he can take advantage of a purchase of some assets, and then chop and shop them around making a tidy profit on the way through. Anyone who thinks he's being altruistic is being naïve in the extreme. Ok so past history does not predict future behavior and I could be wrong. I won't be.

There is such polarization over this issue that's it's difficult to get to a sensible conclusion. All the arguments have inherent truth, however it's a special point-in-time truth that ignores the past, and comes for an instant position taking that only the outraged have. It's not a yes/no question.

And from those that seem to think they're being disadvantaged I wonder where they were when the rest of the silverware was being spirited away by the bad guys?