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Sep. 14th, 2005 10:55 amOkay, now that the, ahem, "riot" at the Canty rally has been mentioned all over the place including TVOne last night, Hard News and That Waste of Time occasionally known as David Farrar (I went through it to get to some photos where, in fact, if you're very clever you will be able to see myself and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sixth_light although only if you know exactly what we were wearing. :P) Anyway, I feel that since it's been mentioned by all these people who, you know, weren't actually there, I am maybe more qualified to actually say something about it.
Firstly: I am among the crowds who feel kind of annoyed that Helen didn't stay very long and there was no opportunity to ask questions and so forth. On the other hand, I am a heck of a lot more sympathetic than most seem to be and I will add: I was actually there. Also, all that "aggression" and supposed near-rioting there... it was only really in the front metre or two; I mean, it was there, but I don't think anyone- even Helen- was in any physical danger at any point, and the further you were back in the crowd- like three metres like me andsixth_light and thinkaholic were- the more peaceful (and pro-Helen) the crowd was. I really do think that it was a smaller group of Nats who were just more noisy and aggro than a mostly red crowd.
We were quite close to the front and did manage to see a couple of glimpses of Helen- but the view was mostly obscured by a small group of rowdies with signs. This pissed me off and will continue to do so because I actually saw this group arrive: they'd come in a group, they'd got signs and they were clearly planning on doing exactly what they did do- be generally threatening and aggressive, along with causing the speech to be cut short (Fuck you very much, retards.) But beyond their attitude, and their being a pain in the ass for those of us who were there to actually listen to the speech- which we couldn't do. Ultimately, actually, if she'd left at 1.15 or two minutes after she'd begun, I- about five metres away- would have heard basically the same amount, which was zip, because of the losers who set themselves up to be pains. Beyond them being a pain for everyone else- I am quite frankly disgusted at the nature of the signs they were carrying. There were some perfectly peacable blue "Vote National" signs- no problem with them although they did meanI couldn't see. Even "I acheeved wif NCEA" was okay- although it was fucking rude to dyslexics (a lot of the letters were back to front) and simply served to demonstrate that, forget NCEA, whoever wrote that sign seemed to have failed out of primary school. But "Y R U so ugly"? I could have hit the guy carrying that without compunction.
I'm sorry, I think it's below the belt. Would anyone with any sense of human decency go up to someone in the street, to a stranger, a loved one, who-the-fuck-ever, and say "Why are you so ugly"? Why is Helen up for insult in this way? No-one tells Rodney Hide he's a fat, ugly bastard (or I don't, and I would not be impressed with Labour supporters who did) As Lucy said at the time, it's representative of the idea that men can be ugly but women in the workplace must be pretty and that whole archaic attitude. Someone's probably going to tell me it's all PC crap, but in my not very fucking humble at all opinion: insulting someone on the basis of their looks is about as barbaric and acceptable as insulting someone because of their skin colour or sexuality, and it is not okay. Interestingly it's the voters for those parties who want us all to stop being so "nancy" (sorry, consideration for others' feelings is a bad thing now?) and PC and whatever who are the ones holding these signs.
Assholes.
Anyway, this is just me registering my contempt and anger with them. Yeah.
Also? She was born that way. They don't have that excuse for their asshattery.
sixth_light although only if you know exactly what we were wearing. :P) Anyway, I feel that since it's been mentioned by all these people who, you know, weren't actually there, I am maybe more qualified to actually say something about it.Firstly: I am among the crowds who feel kind of annoyed that Helen didn't stay very long and there was no opportunity to ask questions and so forth. On the other hand, I am a heck of a lot more sympathetic than most seem to be and I will add: I was actually there. Also, all that "aggression" and supposed near-rioting there... it was only really in the front metre or two; I mean, it was there, but I don't think anyone- even Helen- was in any physical danger at any point, and the further you were back in the crowd- like three metres like me and
sixth_light and thinkaholic were- the more peaceful (and pro-Helen) the crowd was. I really do think that it was a smaller group of Nats who were just more noisy and aggro than a mostly red crowd.We were quite close to the front and did manage to see a couple of glimpses of Helen- but the view was mostly obscured by a small group of rowdies with signs. This pissed me off and will continue to do so because I actually saw this group arrive: they'd come in a group, they'd got signs and they were clearly planning on doing exactly what they did do- be generally threatening and aggressive, along with causing the speech to be cut short (Fuck you very much, retards.) But beyond their attitude, and their being a pain in the ass for those of us who were there to actually listen to the speech- which we couldn't do. Ultimately, actually, if she'd left at 1.15 or two minutes after she'd begun, I- about five metres away- would have heard basically the same amount, which was zip, because of the losers who set themselves up to be pains. Beyond them being a pain for everyone else- I am quite frankly disgusted at the nature of the signs they were carrying. There were some perfectly peacable blue "Vote National" signs- no problem with them although they did meanI couldn't see. Even "I acheeved wif NCEA" was okay- although it was fucking rude to dyslexics (a lot of the letters were back to front) and simply served to demonstrate that, forget NCEA, whoever wrote that sign seemed to have failed out of primary school. But "Y R U so ugly"? I could have hit the guy carrying that without compunction.
I'm sorry, I think it's below the belt. Would anyone with any sense of human decency go up to someone in the street, to a stranger, a loved one, who-the-fuck-ever, and say "Why are you so ugly"? Why is Helen up for insult in this way? No-one tells Rodney Hide he's a fat, ugly bastard (or I don't, and I would not be impressed with Labour supporters who did) As Lucy said at the time, it's representative of the idea that men can be ugly but women in the workplace must be pretty and that whole archaic attitude. Someone's probably going to tell me it's all PC crap, but in my not very fucking humble at all opinion: insulting someone on the basis of their looks is about as barbaric and acceptable as insulting someone because of their skin colour or sexuality, and it is not okay. Interestingly it's the voters for those parties who want us all to stop being so "nancy" (sorry, consideration for others' feelings is a bad thing now?) and PC and whatever who are the ones holding these signs.
Assholes.
Anyway, this is just me registering my contempt and anger with them. Yeah.
Also? She was born that way. They don't have that excuse for their asshattery.
