labellementeuse | (no subject)

Current Mood: enraged

Entry tags:

(no subject)

I was thinking a few days ago, it's been awhile since there's been any really impassioned ranting hereabouts. I was wondering how to fix this; happily, although not really, today's Sunday Star Times front page gave me not one but TWO apoplexies this morning! I have been working up rants on them all day at work.

A two-part rant: one for the article and one for the attitude. Firstly, the "illegal immigrant" in question has been granted permanent NZ residency (so I'm really confused as to how calling her an illegal immigrant is at all enlightening; she was an overstayer from Kiribati, but as an overstayer would have been expected to pay for her own health treatment. It's only since she was granted residency that the fee has been waived). The headline, obviously, is very fucking misleading; but hey, that's the SST for you.

Secondly, the article (I believe deliberately, but hey, I'm suspicious like that) confuses two different problems; a, foreign citizens who don't pay their health bills, and b, immigrants granted residency despite the immigration office being advised that they're, you know, sick, and gonna cost all those taxpayers lots of money, curse them! With regards to a - I'm not really sure what the article's suggesting should be done, but it seems clear to me that the only thing that can be done about this is to refuse to treat people who aren't citizens. Um. Raise your hand if you see a problem with this? Oh, good. (And let's remember, there are probably a lot more citizens who are guilty of this as well, or would be if their treatment wasn't gvt-provided in those cases where it is.) B leaves a sour taste in my mouth because of, well, my attitude problem; but I will mention that once people have been granted residency, they're probably paying taxes. (In fact, they were probably already paying taxes, especially if they're working.) I hope no-one would seriously suggest that we should treat taxpayers differently as a function of where they were born? Also, as the minister quoted said, health waivers are only given rarely, and presumably the immigration office has good reasons for them. Certainly the SST didn't bother to try to find out why this woman was given residency despite her condition; probably because that would have been an interesting article but not sensationalist, and it probably wouldn't have fueled the fires of hate, which the SST apparently set out to do today.

WRT attitude. Okay, people, call me naive, but I don't like to think that our health system should let people die because they can't afford treatment, or because they aren't paying taxes. I don't know if they have facilities for liver transplants on Kiribati or not, but the drift of the article quite clearly suggests to me an attitude that those pesky immigrants should all go back to their own damn countries to die in peace where we can't see them and DEFINITELY don't have to pay to support them. I don't believe that and I'm glad I don't. I'm aware that we simply can't pay to suppor/treat everyone but, on the other hand, neither are we being asked to: the health requirement is waived only for good reason, according to the minister quoted.

The other thing I would like people to be aware of is that probably a lot of people in this position are people who a) couldn't pay for the treatment no matter where they are b) come from the Pacific Isles or Polynesia. This is important because there simply may not be the facilities where they come from. I am intensely proud of NZ's role in the Pacific, especially with regards to aid. There aren't many countries we're bigger than but we're a lot bigger than Kiribati and some of those islands need us, and I believe we are responsible towards them.

column here. Okay, now I can barely see straight (little joke there) having read this article but I do want to say, for people who don't read Rosemary McLeod's writing, that she's a good columnist who sometimes writes things that I very much enjoy... but she is obsessed with homosexuality, particularly preoccupied with "dykes", as in "the dykes taking over Parliament". This article is pervaded by that but I've read articles by her that were a lot more subtle about it. This is just her most flagrant example yet.

I also want to mention, before I start, that I think the Labour party's roots in the working class is crucial and critical and if I had to pick social or economic reform under a Labour government I'd pick economic, purely because I know that, eventually, even National is going to adjust to homosexuality and women's equality. And I was saying to

amarynth just the other day that I am sometimes concerned that that emphasis on welfare and benefits and, basically, socialist unionism is being lost - partly because, actually, it's unhip. Unionism is no longer a good look, sadly. BUT I think it's important to remember that it is possible to have both. an emphasis on civil liberties does not mean that the emphasis on socialist economic policies is lost.

Okay. Now. This column is a TOTAL CROCK OF EXCREMENT and I frankly feel sick having read it. Firstly, her argument is shit- or, actually, it's not there. What she purports to do is demonstrate how an emphasis on economic policy in the Labour party has been replaced by an emphasis on gay rights in the Labour party. What she actually does is spend a few paragraphes propagating stereotypic and oldfashioned commentary on the homosexual lifestyle, then spends some time saying that the working-class hates gays and the lifestyle (No, Rosemary: you hate and fear gays and the gay lifestyle. Bad reporter, no projecting!) without bothering to prove this. Then she gives examples of Member's Bills tabled or supported by gay MPS. Okay, one, members' bills are not required to be representative of the feelings of the entire party. Two, what, gay MPs aren't allowed to want civil rights? Of course gay adoption is important for Chris Carter; he has fathered children for a lesbian couple. As for saying that Tim Barnett seems to be focused primarily on "gay issues"... despite being openly gay in the most conservative city in the country, Tim Barnett has been the ELECTORATE MP for Christchurch Central since he first ran in 1995. If he was not a good electorate MP, he wouldn't keep getting elected by, I repeat, a very conservative city.

Anyway, she rounds off with an admittedly sad story about a friend of hers who raised six kids and is sick. How exactly this is related to teh ev0l gheys in Parliament is not clear.

What she doesn't do, at any point in the column, is show that a)there is a lost emphasis on economic policies b) there is increased interest in gay policies of the party as a whole, out of proportion to what is urged by Labour's normal civil liberties stances and the views of their constituents. Yes, Chris Carter and Tim Barnett occasionally table bills suggesting increased rights for gays. They're gay men; this is not surprising, and perhaps voters knew that when they elected them, especially Mr Barnett. This also does not mean that Labour is throwing over its working class supporters for gays.

I could do a line-by-line criticism of the article, but instead I'm going to pick out some true gems.

Are we supposed to pretend now, that there is not a dangerous culture of cruising for sex in the homosexual community, and that some gay men don't knowingly seek sex with men who have an air of danger about them?

This is a bare inch from saying "Are we supposed to pretend that homosexuality is perfectly permissable". But, Rosemary, if you can use rhetorical questions (a hideous device IMO, used only to play on ingrained cultural prejudice and instinct in lieu of providing a solic argument), well, so can I: Are we supposed to pretend that there is not a dangerous culture of crusing for sex in the heterosexual community? Are we supposed to pretend that the only people affected by gay civil rights are wealthy young gay men? Are we supposed to forget the lesbian community, the transexual community? Are we supposed to pretend it's okay to bash other people to death as long as you can convincingly show that you were experiencing homophobia when you did it?

I can't help wondering if the proposed law change [eliminating the "homosexual panic defense"] is another way of bowdlerising gay culture, like the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy TV series which presents them as lovable little munchkins, about as threatening as the contents of your handbag.

I don't know what you keep in your handbag, Rosemary, but in mine I have several items that I consider far more threatening than homosexuality. Like lipstick. Homosexuality is no more intrinsicallt threatening than heterosexuality; and I consider heterosexual culture particularly its indoctrination of young women, to be *way* more dangerous than a small numbver of gay men who like to have a lot of sex in a promiscuous way. Be aware, guys: the subtext of this passage is gays threaten new zealand, gays threaten straights, gays are dangerous. *shudder*

That homosexual sex is nothing to fear, just because it's legal? That men who fear being sodomised should be nicer to menacing male homosexuals?

Um. I'm sorry, Rosemary, it's wrong to suggest that homophobes should be nicer to gay men? Homosexual sex is nothing to fear; lesbianism, for example, features extensively in pornography. Many heterosexual men have a knee-jerk fear of sodomy which should be discouraged because it leads to homophobia. I really don't understand why she has a problem with this.

[Jim Sutton's] replacement on the Labour list will be a gay lawyer who lives in Wellington's pricey Oriental Bay. Although he's lived with his gay partner for 11 years, he has a child who lives with its mother and her partner.

This sounds like an unusual arrangement, but Clark lives in a world in which such arrangements, odd in the eyes of straight New Zealanders, are everyday. Maybe Labour has lost sight of just how unusual these arrangements are.

Or maybe you're out of touch with... everything. For one thing, men who father children who then live with their mother are, um, *fairly* common. You're heterosexual, Rosemary, and so is your former partner - but your children live with you and your new partner, don't they? Unless you can show me that this so-called "unusual" arrangement is actually *bad*, I'm afraid you really fail to make a point. After all, in some parts of the world the number of children in NZ raised by grandparents, particularly in Maori or Polynesian families, would be considered very unusual. NZ recognises this as a perfectly appropriate and normal way to raise children. The same is true of other types of non-nuclear family arrangements, and, Rosemary, if you want to complain about those, well, before you complain about the mote in someone else's eye, check out the beam in your own, right?

And now, feeling much better, I'm going to do my reading for English tomorrow. Mmm, Wordsworth.

ETA: ALSO. So, all this year I've been telling people that I'm doing a BA/BSc, BA in phil, BSC in maths. However, I'm in the middle of confirming some of my course changes and I checked my majors and apparently my BA major is... English. Phil and maths are my joint BSc majors.

This means two things.
1) At the beginning of the year, in some major spaz fit that I have since totally and completely and utterly forgotten, I changed my majors.
2)Um, I should probably be taking those two English papers, since apparently I don't need the science credits any more. Predictably, as soon as I realise this, I instantly decide Semantics looked much more interesting in the Wednesday lecture. *sigh*

Threaded | Flat

I haven't been reading on the thing to do with the treatment, but from what I've seen it looks like the American style of health care really is contagious. No wallet, no insurance, no spleen. Or whatever. (Never study American welfare, it will depress you like nothing else on Earth.)

But that column is disgusting. She combines homophobia and paranoia with what looks like a communitarianism argument that just makes no sense at all. I love the random throw ins, for example here: "Barnett has previously been active in calling for voluntary euthanasia, and for gay marriage..." What, exactly, does voluntary euthanasia have to do with gay marriage? Michael Laws brought in the Death With Dignity bill while he was in Parliament. He's not married to a man. It seems to be a scare tactic. Look what I can stick next to gay marriage! Gay marriage = people dying. Etc. Etc.

And here she tries to use what looks like some bastardised version of a utilitarianism argument. "Green MP Metiria Turei recently placed a member's bill into a ballot, seeking adoption rights for everyone in civil union and de facto relationships. Backing her, Carter said this was an issue that Labour took seriously. I wonder how many people give a damn."

How about all the people it affects? All the gay and lesbian couples. Their supportive families, the children who will be adopted into loving homes instead of abusive ones. How about the people who want to live in a society accepting of others and allow adoption for couples in civil unions or de facto relationships? And also, to go all political studies on her ass, in utilitarianism which is very much what this argument is based on they try to factor in the fact that people's want for others to not have that freedom is irrational and therefore except from utility calculations.

And no, Labour's not exactly what they were in 1916, because this isn't 1916. Why do we have to keep explaining it's not the 1950s?

That reminds me I must finish my fake history of the National Party. It's fun. After the defeat of staunch lesbian leader Jenny Shipley in the 1999 election the National Party looked to its members list for alternatives and found only rich white farmers and Pansy Wong. They selected the best looking one, a human/android hybrid named Bill English C29000 a.k.a. The Education Bot, to run their platform.

Y'know, while I certainly rolled my eyes at McLeod's column, it really didn't compare to the burning desire to stab Michael Laws to death that surfaced on reading his. My favourite part is, after he complains about the "petty fascism" of making schools safe for even the most vulnerable among New Zealand children, Laws goes off in search of the real deal:

"we are also obliged to suffer dissolute parents. Their kids are completely stuffed the moment that they are conceived. Their genetic stock virtually guarantees failure and, despite that first miracle, they are destined to shuffle from one misery to the next.
Sadly, that misery is also inflicted upon the rest of us. Born to no-hoper mums in ofen dysfunctional whanau, the kids' lives posses an abject inevitability. They're behavioural problems long before any school entertains them. They're also dumb."

Oddly enough, and still on the same page, Tze Ming Mok's column was fairly informative and thoughtful.

The "best" bit, I thought, was about David Mcnee..."a flagrant gay" she called him. Um, what? Anytime some one uses "a...gay," you know it's not positive.

And another thing..."Are we supposed to pretend now, that there is not a dangerous culture of cruising for sex in the homosexual community, and that some gay men don't knowingly seek sex with men who have an air of danger about them?"

Um, Rosemary, dearest?

David Mcnee knew his killer for THREE YEARS. THREE YEARS. If David thought he was dangerous...maybe...just maybe...he would have stopped seeeing him. He may have been "Flagrantly" gay, but that doesn't make him an idiot.

And on the necessity for an abolishment of homosexual panic defense, let's look at it another way.

Lizzy Lesbian meets Harry Hetro at a Bar. After a few drinks, Lizzy and Sam go home together, and Lizzy agrees to have sex with Sam as long as there's no penetration involved.
"Ok," says Harry.
They begin to have sex. But harry tries to penetrate Lizzy with his fingers, so Lizzy bashes him over the head with a brick, punches him 50 times, and leaves him die, choking on his own blood and vomit.Lizzy then steals his car.

Now, I have a question; if Lizzy got a lighter sentance,using "hetrosexual panic defence" would it be
A: A miscarridge of justice?
B: A refelection of the dangerous culture for crusing for lesbians withing male straight culture?

A, anyone? Because not all straight men cruise for lesbians, obviously. AND, because of the facts are this; Lizzy went home with Harry of her own free will. And what did Harry do? Get a bit carried away. Lizzy could have asked him to stop. But she didn't; she didn't even give him a chance to stop.

Recognise these facts? This story is based on David Mcnee's killing. Just changed the gender of the killer; if Rosemary read this, she would be horrified. But because David was a slightly older, "flagrant gay," this situation is all his fault.

Rosemary Mcleoud, aka Mrs. Middle Class Conservitive?

FUCK YOU.

/rant.

Phew, sorry, I needed to expel some serious rage.

On a slightly related note; supporting the Gay Adoption and Homosexual panic bills are my Queer Youth group's next outings.

Fear the rage of School's Out, right wingers.

Applauds your disection of that column. I read the paper at work yesterday (front page and glanced at column ad on top of front page) and just stood there gobsmacked. I couldn't believe there was a paper that would say things like that...

I don't have time to write much in response to this, but OMG this article made me so angry!

"That men who fear being sodomised should be nicer to menacing male homosexuals?"

Perhaps getting a group of lesbians together to go round bashing hetero males is in order? Or maybe a gay male who fears Rosemary's attentions could do something excrutiatingly painful to her? Sounds good to me.

Ooh, and don't you just love how she refers to Auckland as "our major city"?

Rar. If any of my coworkers fuck with me today I will rip their fucking heads off. Metaphorically.

I must admit I was a bit worried that you'd connect what I said in my own post whenever a go with what McLeod's said. I find this whole thing rather laughable because Rosemary McLeod, like so many other commentators on the right who pose the 'rights for gays vs rights for the poor' dilemma actually care about rights for neither. Ditto rights for maori vs rights for the poor, rights for immigrants vs rights for the poor, etc etc. Don Brash's famous "aid on the basis of need, not the basis of race" is a good example - it's a fine formula but the subtext needs to be added that Brash believes no need is sufficient for any significant state support (except, apparently, the need for corporations to post high profits and remain in New Zealand). That being said, I do feel that there is a limited ammount of political capital to be spent, and I do sometimes worry that gay rights are a way for wealthy, educated, healthy individuals to feel like they're somehow at the bottom of the heap, with all the underdog cool that comes with it. But we're talking about private members bills, which only show up in parliament as part of a lottery. Why not examine the motivations of whichever Tory MP sponsored this ninety-day-firing bill and see if s/he's perhaps an employer, or has been one at some stage?

As for the immigrant healthcare, well, that's nationalism for you - the belief that the worth of a human life depends on the passport they hold.

Haha, funny. Seriously. I think the humour column must have slipped into the wrong section.

Anyway, she does kinda have a point when she talks about shows like QE 'bowdlerising gay culture'. There was a storyline about this on Queer as Folk, in which a character became the token 'gay fashion reporter' on a TV show and was then kicked off when he talked about gay sex. The more we present gay guys as 'loveable little munchkins' the more we are portraying them as asexual, thus denying them a great part of their identity - sucking cock and taking it up the ass, if I may be crude.

Perhaps I watch too much QAF. But isn't patronising gay guys as nothing more than pretty little cheery fashion consultants just as bad as other forms of homophobic behaviour?

I guess it's just another way of saying you homos are fine as long as you don't ever talk about your sexuality and assimilate yourselves in every way possible.

I think you can pretty much sum up the sunday star times, as well as most of NZs mainstream media as 'excretement'.

The bias and retarded opinions presented by many of the columnists is often echoed in the letters section which is what really makes me sad.

Threaded | Flat