RedLogix posted this at The Standard on Sunday night. I’ll quote it here in full, some people seem to think that posting a complete paragraph is “out of context”.

RedLogix 4.1.1
15 July 2012 at 6:17 pm

Maori are in effect via article two of the Treaty of Waitangi the only legitimate source of the granting of any consent to use any water from the rivers and lakes in their possession at the point of the signing of that treaty….

And all other land and resources in this country.

All you filthy colonising white maggot scum can crawl back to the slums you came from now.

(Maybe I should add a tag to this one, but for the life of me I can’t think which one…)

I responded, and that started ‘a bit of discussion’ that resulted in the target of abuse copping another ban on the chin. And in the meantime, RedLogix came back to explain his post:

RedLogix 12.4.1.2.4
16 July 2012 at 9:10 pm

Oh dear … I’ve been too busy with work to keep track of this.

First of all it was not really satire. Not even irony. It was simply meant to provoke a thought experiment.

So far you can tell from the Maori reaction to this whole issue that they find John Key’s position pretty inflammatory and offensive. (As they did when Helen Clark was pushed into making a similar mistake over the Seabed and Foreshore… the difference this time of course is that Key has pretty much dug this hole all by himself.)

Now you find my comment inflammatory and offensive … and yes on face value, this is true. Mea culpa. It was deliberately constructed to push Pakeha buttons. But also you now have some sense of how Maori feel when WE push THEIR buttons.

However I carefully added another sentence which everyone else has understood as a great big fat clue as to my actual intent.

And I should add that stripped of the offensiveness, there remains a core of truth. Like it or not the Treaty more or less reads that the iwi are indeed the legal ‘owners’ of all resources in this land. That’s what we signed up to for better or worse. Of course what Maori meant by ‘ownership’ and what Pakeha mean by the same word have two rather different meanings and connotations.

Up until very recent times Pakeha have been able to exploit their dominant position to interpret this ‘ownership’ word as suited us. Which has consistently turned out pretty much the worse for Maori.

Now the tables are turning and by adopting our own tactics Maori are forcing us to re-examine this cosy, convenient arrangement we have made for ourselves. So far they have been, by and large, pretty patient and generous about the whole deal. So all things considered you may want to think about how they might feel about constantly having their buttons being pushed.

We know you don’t PG.

That should clarify quite a bit, especially for those who jumped to conclusions without thinking. The ensuing shitstorm was full of irony and unintentional satire that  continued in my absence through yesterday from here.

RedLogix, I put it to you that I understand more than you give me credit for, and certainly more than some of the participants. You should at the very least acknowledge the part I played in your experiment.