Yet another crazed performance by Stephen Franks; Radio New Zealand seems to have no system of quality control The Panel, Radio NZ National, Tuesday 11 February 2014 Jim Mora, Lindsey Dawson, Stephen Franks
What do we think about Schapelle Corby? Well, just before 4 p.m. today we learned what one of the S.S. Trust lawyers thinks of her….
STEPHEN FRANKS: Neither she nor her family look particularly worthy. [1] We just look, errrr, errrrr—-what’s the word?—errrr, frivolous. I mean, is there anyone the Australian government WON’T go into bat for?
……Awkward silence…..
ZARA POTTS:[dismissively, clearly unimpressed] Hmmmmm…. JIM MORA: Okay, onto things that matter: seat widths on airplanes…..
Later, after the 4 o’clock news, the topic for discussion was the government’s canceling of passports for New Zealanders who intend to go to Syria to fight against Assad. Franks’s fertile mind started fertilizing prodigiously….
STEPHEN FRANKS: There’s really no difference between a New Zealand citizen going over to fight against Assad and someone going over to fight for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. LINDSEY DAWSON:[gravely] Mmmmmm, mmmmm. Indeed. MORA: Indeed.
To discuss the matter, the expert talent was Otago University politics professor Robert Patman, [2] who for the first time ever in his many appearances on the Panel, was not mealy-mouthed. Today he actually had the gumption to speak plainly…..
ROBERT PATMAN: I find it curious that the Prime Minister has claimed that this somehow justifies the recent increase in government surveillance of New Zealand citizens. It was established last year that the government’s surveillance of us went beyond the law. STEPHEN FRANKS: No they didn’t really. ROBERT PATMAN: You don’t think they did? STEPHEN FRANKS: It wasn’t a contumelious breach of the law…. [Franks continued in harebrained fashion for several minutes]….
After the 4:30 news, Franks was given more rope….
JIM MORA: Stephen Franks what’s on your mind? STEPHEN FRANKS: I see that iwi are to be consulted on the disposal of the Rena. I can’t believe the credence we give to identity politics, and people who are ignorant. Compare it to Singapore, which is a meritocracy. LINDSEY DAWSON: They had a benign dictator didn’t they? STEPHEN FRANKS: Well no he wasn’t really…. MORA: He didn’t like chewing gum much! STEPHEN FRANKS:[with increasing urgency] No he was NOT a dictator!…
Franks proceeded to rave disconnectedly, very much like a NewstalkZB early morning caller. He damned the “sense of entitlement” of Māori, and praised Singapore several more times. The other two were careful not to provoke him too much; although they seemed to be mildly amused by what he said, gently contradicting him every now and again, they mostly just let him rave. Animals in the wild will steer clear of a creature that is rabid; Jim Mora and Lindsey Dawson wisely treated Stephen Franks with similar trepidation.
Sadly, Stephen Franks will appear on this programme again in the near future. Nothing he says, no matter how mad, no matter how depraved, seems to make any difference. It’s more obvious than ever that The Panel is moribund.
No wonder he employed/cloned the Jordan Williams ass-wipe.
Good point. Jordan Williams is almost a perfect mimic of Stephen Franks. He speaks with the same inflexion, the same halting delivery (to convey complexity of thought) and the same muted tone (to convey gravitas).
And when he’s contradicted, even slightly, Jordan Williams becomes shrill and incoherent, just like his boss….
These armies of bureaucrats serve a corporate system that will quite literally kill us. They are as cold and disconnected as Mengele. They carry out minute tasks. They are docile. Compliant. They obey. They find their self-worth in the prestige and power of the corporation, in the status of their positions and in their career promotions. They assure themselves of their own goodness through their private acts as husbands, wives, mothers and fathers. They sit on school boards. They go to Rotary. They attend church. It is moral schizophrenia. They erect walls to create an isolated consciousness. They make the lethal goals of ExxonMobil or Goldman Sachs or Raytheon or insurance companies possible. They destroy the ecosystem, the economy and the body politic and turn workingmen and -women into impoverished serfs. They feel nothing. Metaphysical naiveté always ends in murder. It fragments the world. Little acts of kindness and charity mask the monstrous evil they abet. And the system rolls forward.
Why do we think that these actions are happening before the TPP? Tobacco v Aussie… US against India…
Is it to “reassure” the good dissenting folks of the world that nothing will really change under the TPP…. and yet it will…. cos if nothing changes why do we need a TPP?
Fancy there being no information through the OIA to this perfectly reasonable request for information concerning John Key being a – shape-shifting reptilian alien ushering humanity towards enslavement E&OE
The person typing this letter in the Prime Minister’s office must have cracked up. What a change from the usual po-faced stuff.
Radio New Zealand seems to have no system of quality control
The Panel, Radio NZ National, Tuesday 11 February 2014
Jim Mora, Lindsey Dawson, Stephen Franks
JIM MORA: Okay, onto things that matter: seat widths on airplanes…..
LINDSEY DAWSON: [gravely] Mmmmmm, mmmmm. Indeed.
MORA: Indeed.
STEPHEN FRANKS: No they didn’t really.
ROBERT PATMAN: You don’t think they did?
STEPHEN FRANKS: It wasn’t a contumelious breach of the law…. [Franks continued in harebrained fashion for several minutes]….
STEPHEN FRANKS: I see that iwi are to be consulted on the disposal of the Rena. I can’t believe the credence we give to identity politics, and people who are ignorant. Compare it to Singapore, which is a meritocracy.
LINDSEY DAWSON: They had a benign dictator didn’t they?
STEPHEN FRANKS: Well no he wasn’t really….
MORA: He didn’t like chewing gum much!
STEPHEN FRANKS: [with increasing urgency] No he was NOT a dictator!…
[2] http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-11092013/#comment-694967
Cheers!