The Standard

Open Mike 15/03/2026

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 15th, 2026 - 7 comments
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7 comments on “Open Mike 15/03/2026 ”

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  1. Incognito 1
    15 March 2026 at 11:35 am

    It almost feels like we want to forget and are in collective denial because there appears to be SfA in NZ mainstream media.

    https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2026/03/15/survivors-remember-aotearoas-worst-terrorist-attack/

    Since the attacks, I have learnt that survival sometimes means choosing where your attention goes. […]

    People often ask me about resilience. I point them to the people in the Middle East. New Zealanders are proud of the story they tell about that day – of kindness, unity and flowers covering the entrances of the mosques. They should be. Those things were real. But resilience is not the soft word people imagine it to be. Nor is it always a choice.

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/15-03-2026/march-15-taught-me-how-to-read-the-world

    These are wise words forged through a traumatic experience.

    I invite people to consider one thing: that violence rarely appears without warning. It whispers first – in speeches, in comment sections, in policies that quietly divide people into “us” and “them”. When we ignore it long enough, it shouts. The question becomes: what are we allowing to take root on our own soil, long before it grows loud enough to be recognised as violence – and how those same seeds travel beyond our borders. [my italics]

  2. Bearded Git 2
    15 March 2026 at 2:38 pm

    England lose 46-48 to France in France. But playing like that I've changed my mind-Borthwick deserves to stay.

  3. greywarshark 3
    15 March 2026 at 3:27 pm

    Why does violence happen in NZ? Not just because people talk it up. Mainly because people are not taught how to think things through and control themselves. Particularly how to consider other people's learned behaviours, mores and values, contrasting the wealthy class to the person living from hand-to-mouth. Free speech needs to have the sharp bits sanded down with an emery board, like one does with sharp fingernails.

    This in Arrowtown leaves me bemused. A 30 year old mature man knocks down a 19 year old in a bar. He has to be traced and when brought before a magistrate is let off because a conviction would lose him his job as a project manager.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/589627/braden-jane-discharged-without-conviction-after-arrowtown-bar-assault

    And news items about the area to Queenstown refers to lack of respect for the workers need for housing of their workforce etc. creating poor conditions for many of their needed tourist staff.

    Violence comes when the aggrieved and the self-satisfied disagree. And the aggrieved may be one of the self-satisfied, just exercising an angry obsession against a person or group, resulting in psychological release from some worm in his brain, both mad and bad.

  4. Stephen D 4
    15 March 2026 at 4:27 pm

    https://www.kiwipolitico.com/2026/03/counter-force-versus-counter-value-in-conflict/

    Another fascinating essay by Pablo.

    This quote is scary.

    “US and Israeli war-mongering is also a double “wag the dog” scenario. Netanyahu needed to divert attention from his court case and the costs of occupying Gaza and the West Bank, whereas Trump needed to divert attention from the Epstein files and his unpopular domestic policy agenda. For Israel, destruction of Iran as a nation-state is seen as a way to remove a longer-term existential threat to not only Israel but Jews is general (because Iranian proxies have targeted Jews around the world). This is why the possibility of an Israeli first strike use of nuclear weapons on Iran cannot be discounted. Should the US quit the fight and/or the war bog down and become a Ukrainian-style. quagmire, then the resort to nuclear strikes may be put on the table. Given Israel’s record when it comes to international conventions and the Laws of War, that is a worrisome prospect. Given the global community’s record when it comes to stopping aggression and thwarting nuclear weapons first use (even the US refuses to renounce first use strikes and Israel certainly does not), who is going to stop them?”

  6. Hunter Thompson II 6
    16 March 2026 at 10:53 am

    I hope an even larger protest is made against the Santana gold mine proposal in Otago.

    The mine is a classic case of short term gain (jobs and some taxes) in return for long term pain (including a massive tailings dam containing toxic waste that will rupture and flood the landscape should there be an earthquake).

    Thanks to the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024, the government has not just put out a welcome mat for the miners, it has unrolled a red carpet and opened the champagne.