Friday 5 January 2018

Surely Television One viewers deserve better than Mark Crysell. (Dec. 6, 2013)

Mark Crysell’s commentary on TV One today
Friday 6 December 2013
As you’d expect, the airwaves are full of Nelson Mandela retrospectives. Television One midday news covered the rugby connection, and of course, other than the 1995 RWC final, one event above all else had to be mentioned….
MARK CRYSELL: The 1981 tour divided the nation….
[VIDEO montage of protests, and clashes with police]
MARK CRYSELL: And the protests against the tour were not confined to New Zealand. But the South African police had an entirely DIFFERENT way of dealing with protestors….
[VIDEO of police flailing protestors with sjamboks]
We expect, as a matter of course, for our “news” services to mislead and deceive us, or more commonly to deliberately omit crucial aspects of an issue; all of that is largely for ideological reasons. But it’s still unusual to see anything as unprofessional, as plain incompetent, as Crysell’s commentary.
Colin Craig, John Banks, Simon Bridges, Jamie Whyte—this has been a remarkable week for moronic statements fouling this country’s public discourse. But Crysell’s commentary rivals all of those others for sheer breathtaking inanity. If Crysell thinks that the South African police brutality was worse or more extreme (“an entirely DIFFERENT way of dealing with protestors”) than the ferociousness and brutality of the New Zealand Police Red Squad in 1981, then he has the memory—or more accurately, the integrity—of John Key.
Whether it’s a bad memory or simply a lack of honesty, Crysell’s incredibly stupid commentary surely renders him unfit for his job.
Surely Television One viewers deserve better than Mark Crysell.
  • Te Reo Putake28.1
    You really are an ar5e, moz. The obvious point Crysell was making* was that the SA police force regularly killed protesters. Was that too subtle for you?
    *assuming you are quoting him correctly, which, on form, is unlikely
    • Morrissey28.1.1
      You really are a fool. Anybody that experienced or read about—you should try that some time—what the police did to protestors on that tour would have been as shocked as I was when Crysell tried to imply that the South African police whipping—not killing, and not, as the NZ police did, smashing them in the face with steel batons—were more violent.
      The violence of the New Zealand police shamed our country in 1981—but one “journalist” never noticed. And neither, it seems, did you.
      But carry on with your rancid abuse; it’s all you’ve got, obviously.
      • McFlock28.1.1.1
        When the NZ police deliberately massacre a minimum of 69 people in one event, you might have a point.
        Until then, you still make Don Quixote look like he has a handle on reality.
        • Morrissey28.1.1.1.1
          When the NZ police deliberately massacre a minimum of 69 people in one event, you might have a point.
          I did not suggest the New Zealand police were as bad all the time—just in 1981. Crysell was speaking over a clip of the S.A. police using SJAMBOKS. He seemed to be unaware of the fact that the New Zealand police had perpetrated far worse violence than that.
          • McFlock28.1.1.1.1.1
            look up the SA death in custody rate for about that time, you tool
            I have a huge amount of respect for the tour protestors in 1981, and I’m disgusted that a PM who can’t remember how he felt about the tour is uttering platitudes to mourn Mandela, but you’re a fucking moron if you think that the Red Squad were as bad as routine police work in SA at the time.
          • Zorr28.1.1.1.1.2
            As a younger child being driven around in South Africa in 1995, I remember pulling up in a town where the day before us arriving, a crowd of high school aged students had been shot with buckshot for daring to march peacefully to occupy an abandoned white school.
            NZ police ain’t got shit on that.
      • Te Reo Putake28.1.1.2
        Moz, I was a protester in 81 and I still have the helmet I was wearing at athletic park, complete with baton shaped dent. You know nothing about the tour and, obviously, less than zero about day to day life in RSA at the time.
        But, on the up side, if you work real hard and aim high, one day you could be average.
        • lprent28.1.1.2.1
          ..complete with baton shaped dent.
          Nice scar in my upper lip where a baton pushed my teeth through it. Had to have one of those ghastly 80’s moustaches to conceal the puckered scarred result for most of the 80’s until it disappeared into a fine white line.
          Bloody irritating thing was that it wasn’t from when I did anything remotely illegal. It was from when the police went nuts at the 3rd test “clearing” the street. Bloody police riot as they completely lost discipline was my view.
          • Anne28.1.1.2.1.1
            Reminds me of the final test match at Eden Park. As my ‘squad’ walked towards the park we passed a senior police officer (or somebody very important) dressed in a black uniform with whopping great epaulettes, and sitting in a smart highly polished red sportscar. I gave him a friendly smile. What I was given in return was the facial equivalent of a bullet through my skull. That was the mindset of the NZ Police hierarchy during that tour – ugly and sinister. Yet any reasonably sane person could see that the vast bulk of those protestors (many thousands of them) were ordinary, decent and kindly New Zealanders ranging in age from very young to very old…
            • Chooky
              Anne you were brave!…there is no way I would have gone there !…it looked like war, felt like war, with the police now facing the Maori gangs who really meant business!…and we were cheering for the gangs
              ….after Molesworth Street (my sister and I , one row from getting a batoning…where we screamed “Resign!”…and apparently some of the police did resign after Molesworth St…some of them looked as shocked as we felt);……and Palmerston North ( where we put on helmets and chest protectors, shin protectors and teeth guards)….where I was absolutely terrified with the army, and helicopters and the barbed wire):….and then Wellington’s Rintoul / Riddiford Street intersection… where the police shoved protesters into a glass shop front …leaving us the yellowest in the middle of Yellow Squad in the front row (squawk !)…..( however luckily for us we were facing Blue Squad, not Red( who were real mean bastards!), and the Blue Officer in charge was determined we werent going to get hurt and kept urging us to leave…we said we couldnt leave because the people behind would cop it…..and my Mother, a school teacher who had come to protect her daughters, offered Blue Squad lollies and told them off…(smirk!)I think the Blue Officer took a lolly or two rather bemused and put them in his pocket ….Blue Squad then set about softly pummeling us with their batons….. when this didn’t dislodge us they pulled my helmet off and cracked my friends ribs and threw my sister in the gutter, shoved around my mother…but thanks to the Blue officer who was watching out for us …we weren’t hurt..and eventually got out when we had had enough …only to watch police run kicking over sitting protesters):…. and then Christchurch where I saw innocent new novice protesters ….middle class, middle aged, well dressed good citizens getting a batoning…..there was no way in hell I was going to Auckland!!!!!!!!!!!
              For us it was both scary and serious, foolhardy and fun, part- time action on a matter of principle… The bravest NZers were the cold- headed public face organizers/strategists/ spokespeople like Trevor Richards and his partner Patty and Tom Newnam….who had to face the ire of rugby hooligans month after month…But of course the courage, year after year … of the activists in South Africa and Nelson Mandala …is almost unimaginable!…… and on a different plane altogether!
          • phillip ure28.1.1.2.1.2
            watched it all from a bar in new york..
            ..it was hell..
            ..phillip ure..
        • Morrissey28.1.1.2.2
          Moz, I was a protester in 81 and I still have the helmet I was wearing at athletic park, complete with baton shaped dent.
          And yet you have the hide to back up Crysell’s foolish suggestiion that police using sjamboks is as bad or worse than the brutal thuggery of the Red Squad.
  • tc28.2
    ‘Surely Television One viewers deserve better than Mark Crysell’ ahh no Mark Crysell is exactly what you deserve expecting quality from TVNZ.
    It could be alot worse like Jack Tame who would wax lyrically about a time before he was probably born.

No comments:

Post a Comment