> A poll for youse wise guys on the PIClist ........
>
> At what point would something that the government in your country 
> did
> trigger you ?  What inevitable (1) action by the government
> (  police, courts, politicians, etc. )
> would be so over the top that you would say " no more" ?  So that 
> you
> would dedicate a substantial
> and continuing amount of your time to stopping the abuse.
>
> (1) Some event that could be extrapolated from the trends that are
> apparent in Australia, NZ, UK,
> Germany, USA, etc.


There have been a few such events here that triggered mass civil 
unrest when too many people felt too pushed.

Hone Heke repeatedly chopped down the flag pole in the government 
house grounds at Russell in the Bay of Islands. That was 'quite some 
while ago'.

Mike congenital idiot protestor thinks he's so smart Smith, damaged 
and caused to subsequently die Auckland City's most loved landmark to 
try and make some point or other which he thought was important enough 
to make.

In 1981 a significant proportion of New Zealanders took to the streets 
and even the most holy and sanctified Rugby pitches of NZ to protest 
at the non-arguably racially selected Springboks Rugby team touring 
the country. Hundreds (count them!) of jumbo bins plus barbed wire 
were erected around the Eden Park Holy of Holies in Auckland to stop 
said people stopping the match as they had managed to do a few days 
before in Hamilton when hundreds / thousands of people leant on the 
chain link fence and then invaded the pitch.

So someone stole an aircraft and flour bombed the players repeatedly 
while pursued by Police Helicopter. (We tend not to shoot planes down 
here without asking permisison of the pilot concerned first).

Some people decided it was a good excuse for a stoush with police and 
hid iron bars in their clothes to make themselves better felt against 
the newly issued for the occasion police long batons and long shields. 
Special police riot squads were formed. Special protestor riot squads 
were formed. Being in "Patu" was not a good idea.

Police christened their new PR76 long batons in honour of John Minto, 
leader of HART (halt all racist tours), on the same manner that 
Molotov Cocktails were named by the Finns in honour of stalins right 
hand man Molotov. Minto should have been proud of the honour.

Some police decided it was a good chance with a stoush with anyone 
they could beat up and took off their id and badges and permanently 
brain damaged some people dressed as clowns and totally unarmed. 
Justice was not well served subsequently.

ALL the STOP signs in the country  suddenly became "STOP The Tours" 
signs, and kept on becoming them as quickly as they were converted 
back.

There are still a few roadside buildings north of here with "Stop the 
81 tour" painted on them.

Out of this time of national madness came a better understanding of 
how we do sport and national confrontation and it probably contributed 
its wee bit to the demise of apartheid in South Africa.

About 60 odd years ago the nation as a whole got steaming mad about 
the excesses of certain continentals doing things far far far away 
from us - enough so to go there in vast numbers rel;atively and 
'complain'. Many went on long mediterranean island and african western 
desert holidays and were rated the top contenders by the most loved 
leader of said continentals. He asked our leader (when he captured 
him) what we were doing there fighting him. He/we said it was the 
decent thing to do against such cads. He then escaped. 6 times. Until 
successful. Go now to every small town in even the farthest reaches of 
the country and you'll find the sad but proud little "Lest we forget" 
memorials to the national indignation and those who thought it 
importamnt enough to die for people they'd never met on the other side 
of the world. My son is a good guy, but he can't understand that there 
is a time when you need to stand up and be counted in quite 
unacceptable ways when the strong are doing unconscionable things to 
the weak anad helpless. Even if you may not be as strong as them. It 
does help to have the US on your side (even if not initially) when 
such principle calls. At least, it did then. It may or may not these 
days depending on various things..

Enough for now.



        Russell




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