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New Zealanders dont tend to have much patriotic fight in them...

Guess I'm only thankful I don't share your view.

When I went there in 1978 it was about 20 years behind times and ignorant of what was going on in the world...

New Zealanders are apparently the first or second most-traveled people in the world per capita.

A TV in every lounge.... gives most people a good world view I think- even those in your own country.... or maybe not, as I think many Americans have no perception of the greater world outside their own country, which, to a degree, I think, is understandable, considering the size of the US, and how that most news there would be US-centric. Guess that's why Hollywood movies put "London, England" and "Rome, Italy" etc for titles in films instead of "London" and "Rome" that anyone outside of the US would understand.

Personally I never felt any need or desire to listen to Helen Clark in person when she was PM, even at the 150th year celebrations. Would you listen to Obama in person? Perhaps you would. Sounds to me like your family are all lefties.

BTW In Dec 2000 many people in NZ were pulling for Algore to win...including members of my own family...

Ah, they are.

She said something and I commented..(as an American feels free to do) My sister shushed me and told me that I couldnt give my opinions in public..

I have no restrictions giving my opinion in public. I notice that the Maoris next to you at the time - would giggle and laugh hysterically...She repeated it several times and she had to have heard their response... had no problems giving their views.

The Maori I learnt in school was not the Maori she was speaking.

Were you raised on the East Coast?

My school years would have been contemporary to yours but I do not recall any Maori being offered as a language to learn at that time.

sfUK

It isn’t the country I grew up in and frankly it is lost for good.

Not a chance.

All the world has changed since our childhoods, and, I would surmise, no country for the better- not the US, not the UK. The best good change in NZ, in the political sense in recent times, was Labour being removed from power at the election in 2008. Good also to see that this change was replicated in the UK, but a shame that the Aussies don't appear to have replaced their socialist government.

Three more years of hard Labor for them it seems.

Contrary to your experience, in my workplace, I have not met one person who has expressed any exuberance for Obama. Thinking about it, I have not met anybody anywhere in NZ who has said anything positive about Obama at all. Totally different experience to your own.

Glad to hear you still like to visit your birthplace.

A TV in every lounge....
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Not until about 1980and even then TVs cost too much..

I was 11 before I saw part of a Rugby game at an uncles house in CHCH and then 17 before I had access to continual TV

My parents had TV just before I went down there in 1978

Black and white cost $NZ800 and colored cost $NZ1500 at that time..

There was only 4 TV channels TV1=Wellington TV2=Auckland TV3= Christchurch TV4=Dunedin..

Before that the transmisssion didnt reach..

In my town they had TV earlier because they built their own repeater station on a hill so they could receive the image etc from CHCH..

but before that it was easier to get Australia 2000 miles away than CHCH only 200 ..although only flickering shadows with no sound..

The world view came from CNN only for many years..

Maybe you need to go back and read where we were invited guests to hear the PM because we were descendants of the people being honored, and not because we were politically in tune with the NZ govt of that time, 2000.

My appreciation for my ancestors trip to New Zealand far surpassed any modern day socio-political ideology

Since my familiar experience in New Zealand reaches back 160 years, my world view may not be as clouded by Kumbyah of more recent years as yours appears to be...

Whereas your interactions appear to be confined to your water dispenser, I spoke to people in the street, stores, libraries, museums etc..

Maybe the common people on the street outside New World are not as rosy glassed toffee nosed as their “betters” in your intellectual acquantaince...

And yes, we were taught Maori, and poi and stick dances and canoe dances..

Didnt you have the advantage of learning the culture of your own country where you went to school ???

Amazing kid, I went back and look what I found 2 years ago...

My post #16 in that thread...

To: blam

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Helen clark is a Socialist ijit...

The current NZ flag is too full of history to change it now...

Wished now I had given in to the childish instinct of wanting to push helen Clark into the drink when she spoke at Lyttleton Harbour during the First Four Ships big doings in 2000...

The Maoris snickered every time she mispronounced that word...who told her that f*** was a Maori word anyway?

LOL

16 posted on Sunday, September 30, 2007 10:59:02 PM by Tennessee Nana
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And then in Post #45 you acknowledged my comment and said to me...

“Tennessee Nana

Helen clark is a Socialist ijit...

The US Congress is Socialist controlled. It is quite on the cards that a Socialist/Communist will be the next US President, though of course not for the first time. But, we hope not. This person has publicly stated she will re-appropriate wealth if elected, like a good Communist does..... “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1904644/posts?page=45#45

So there was no way you could not have known that I was not the “leftie” that you accused me of being...

Kid you lost all credibility with me...