Is it just dumb college kids...or the youth of today

Is this something we can just palm off as kids being kids or is this just the type of kid that is being brought up in todays world. Granted we are imperfect beings being brought up in an imperfect world, but sometimes things that happen with the youth of today are just sadly plain dumbass ignorant and at times not just kids.

Prince Harry, dresses up in Nazi regalia to go to a party. Lincoln University students in Christchurch do it down there. Now, Auckland Grammar boys do it. Are they all completely ignorant of what the whole meaning behind those symbols are? Forget the innocent origins of the Swastika, its what the symbol has become to mean. The Nazi regime, the holocaust, the extermination of millions of minorities in Europe...a symbol of hate, oppression and indignity.

Those five school boys from Auckland Grammar got a very small dose of something they truely deserve. You know...someone should have put them into a container done up to be something like an extermination chamber and shut in there for some real education.

Some real questions have to be asked. One I saw on a Stuff article comment was "where were the teachers?" Good question! But then again...what have they not learned over the years of being at school? Are any of them history students...and is this not a part of the history curriculum? Have we become so politically correct that we dare not confront our rising generations with the worlds dirty past?

I think we lose the memory of things which should never be forgotten...in this sense to make sure as much as possible that they do not happen again. It is truly to bad that so smaller but no less terrible degrees it has happened again, and in some ways continues to happen. Seem's some of humanity are slower to learn than others (like our African cousin Mugabe or Kosovo leader Slobodan Milošević).

But the WW2 atrocities engaged in by the German army on the Jewish and minorities was "systematic", it was planned and premeditated. It just didn't happen. This was a thought out, planned and programmed occurrence. Ethnic Polish, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, Romani, disabled and homosexual victims bring the total death toll to somewhere around 17 million.

When those fools at Auckland Grammar bowed down to that Nazi symbol, they acknowledged a symbol that had all that imagery behind it including this one. When those idiots at Lincoln brandished Nazi uniforms and some went as the oppressed, THIS picture symbolises what they were glorifying.

I heard once someone refer to the confiscation of land from Maori and such as its own form of holocaust. I'm sorry...I cannot agree. 17 million people were not systematically hunted out to be killed. Yeah, we lost some land...we're still alive.

This is a sensitive subject. I hope one day to be able to visit Auschwitz and other places like it, as a sacred place of reverence. To remember the tragedy that happened...and hope that it never happens again.

Way to go Phil

I was reading in todays NZ Herald that Labour Leader Phil Goff is saying that National's gloss will wear off. You see...now thats forward thinking. That to me means that Phil Goff is banking on people becoming so bored with National and John Key that they will have no other real option than voting for him...not because he is the better option.

I still think Mr Goff represents everything that is dull, boring and to be more blunt, the reason why Labour got it's ass whipped at the last election. The out of touch, the plastic fantastics, the I think I know better than the general public mentality. 3 News reported last night that of a 1000 voters only 26% or so thought he had something remotely resembling a personality. Tell you what, I thought that was a bit high but hey...I'm 1 voter.

Mr Goff was a part of the social engineering party but I also believe that Labour stuffed us up. Reporting for years, surpluses where really none existed. Explain the state of ACC. Explain the state of the economy. I don't think Labour created the recession, but they didn't help matters. Reporting books in black when really they were in the red.

It's all good for Mr Goff to say that "This is a new government, it's in its first year of government, they still have the appearance of being fresh, of being people-friendly. We know from experience that the gloss wears off," but thats no surprise in politics. The problem is that in reality, an election is about 2 years away and you as leader of the opposition are polling 3.5% less than someone who can't even run for PM right now.

While it may be immediately true that there are no leadership ambitions amongst the party faithful but there has to be people thinking about it. There is no way in hell that Labour will take anything from National in the 2011 election. In fact, I think its going to be reminiscent of the Bill English thrashing of 2002 where Labour wiped National 52-27.

Yes, I'm sure the gloss will wear off. It always does with politics. Problem is, National is making the hard calls and sticking by them. That alone for me gets my vote.