“Haw, haw, haw, haw, haw!” The campaign to dismiss Kim Dotcom continues (Jan. 21, 2014)

22 January 2014 at 4:29 pm

“Haw, haw, haw, haw, haw!”
The campaign to dismiss Kim Dotcom continues
The Panel, Radio NZ National, Tuesday 21 January 2014
Jim Mora, Graham Bell, Bernard Hickey

JIM MORA: On the program today, Kim Dotcom’s new album—
GRAHAM BELL: Pshaw! Haw, haw, haw, haw!
BERNARD HICKEY: [wryly] You’ll be looking forward to that, Graham.
GRAHAM BELL: Haw, haw, haw, haw, haw!

That disparaging reaction is interesting. Kim Dotcom is not exactly Kanye West, but he is a skilled and accomplished rapper, as anyone who has heard his powerful indictment of government corruption “Mr President” has to admit. [1] People like Graham Bell cannot abide hearing words like the refrain of that song: “Let’s get together, let’s all unite, or they will do whatever they like.” Bell did not snicker like that simply because he is a crude and tasteless bully who wouldn’t know good music if he stumbled into a performance of the St. Matthew Passion by the Münchener Bach Orchestra & Choir. His expression of scorn for Kim Dotcom was political, though perhaps he is unaware of exactly why.

Significantly, there was none of this scoffing from the establishment when Paul Holmes put out his truly awful vanity project in 2000, an utterly horrendous collection of butchered covers entitled Paul Holmes. [2] That wasn’t the reaction of normal people of course—everyone recognized immediately that Holmes’s album was a vanity project, possible only because he had power and influence, if not the common sense to realize he had no talent. But his colleagues in the media gritted their teeth and praised him, at least in public.

Kim Dotcom, on the other hand, is an official enemy, targeted by the United States government. Not only is he a threat to the establishment, he is eloquent and immensely popular. The only way to deal with him, in the absence of any substantial argument, is to scorn him and snicker whenever his name is mentioned.

Later in the program, after the 4:30 news, the other guest, Bernard Hickey, also took the opportunity to run with the hounds and have a go at Kim Dotcom….

JIM MORA: I mean, how do YOU see Kim Dotcom? He says he’s just like a postmaster….
BERNARD HICKEY: If the postmaster knowingly allowed people to steal things from the mail, then that would be a fair comparison. But having read that Grand Jury indictment [3] against him—
GRAHAM BELL: He’s a convicted fraudster! He’s a big fat attention-seeker! I like the cartoon in the paper [4] which showed him as a big balloon about to explode! ….[drones on dully and interminably]…

So it’s business as usual on The Panel then….
http://sadhillnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/oh-lord-please-make-it-stop-sad-hill-news.jpg

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MokNvbiRqCM
[2] Any of the thousands of complementary copies Holmes gave away for Christmas in 2000, 2001 and 2003 that have not been used as pot-scrapers or sunlight reflectors or for clay-pigeon shooting practice can be sourced from the free-bin in front of some St Vincent de Paul and Salvation Army shops.
[3] Though Bernard Hickey seems to be entirely trusting in the integrity of the U.S. government, that indictment was clearly written by Hollywood industry lawyers. For anyone that—unlike Hickey—is serious about coming to grips with the validity or otherwise of that indictment, here is one of the many rigorous examinations of it….
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/internet/u-s-v-kim-dotcom-et-al
[4] He’s referring to an unfunny cartoon by the Herald‘s unfunny cartoonist Emmerson, who got the job after editor Gavin Ellis was browbeaten and threatened into firing the vastly superior Malcolm Evans in 2002. Not only does Bell have no musical taste, he is no judge of cartooning either.

• Paul25.1

  22 January 2014 at 4:47 pm

  It’s awful today again with Fox Democrat Edwards and Tory Boag on.
  What got me was some employment ‘expert’ on talking about a buoyant jobs market.
  Nothing from Mora.
  Tell that to the 155 000
  Bring back Matinee Idol. I forgot how bad Mora is,
  • bad1225.1.1

    22 January 2014 at 5:45 pm

    Yes this bouyant jobs market bullshit despite earlier in the day the ‘real’ figures being discussed on the same radio station which showed ‘the jobs market’ as being patchy at best,

    There’s Christchurch, a few professions, i forget which are in demand, (Health was one of them), and from there it’s pretty much ‘not so good news’,

    Even that not so good news will pale as the Reserve Bank hikes the cash rate and the Banks follow with interest rate rises…
  • Paul25.1.2

    22 January 2014 at 5:51 pm

    And at about 10 to 5 Boag says NZ is an egalitarian society. In 2013. Not in 1975. In 2013.
    And Mora said nothing.
    Neither did Fox Democrat Edwards.

    Tell that to the 270 000 kids in poverty.
  • Tim25.1.3

    22 January 2014 at 8:28 pm

    Yes to that (Bring back Matinee Idol). 9-5 ‘beltway hacks’, paid for experts, and various other has-beens are going to ensure the better parts of RNZ take a dive.
    Even if a Matinee-Idol attempted some sort of serious analysis of current affairs – it’d be superior to the bilge that occupies 101FM and its environs – especially betweem 1pm and 4pm. (9-12 …. could do better)

    “And Mora said nothing.”
    Does he ever?
    That’s the reason he’s the nicest man on Earth after all. Utterly inoffensive to anyone! If Adolf bloody Hitler was on “The Panel” he’d be attempting to ‘engage’ (in the nicest possible way of course).
  •