When It Comes to Covid, the “Little People” Cast a Big Shadow.
The moment kindness stops working, the world will be amazed at how cruel ordinary New Zealanders can be.
Chris Trotter
-
-
The Long March From The Bottom To The Top.
Real left-wingers, today, emulating the real left-wingers of the 1980s, would require those advocating top-down revolution to first obtain a bottom-up mandate.
-
Suffer The Little Children: Neoliberalism’s Attack On Local Democracy Intensifies.
In the ears of the neoliberals, passionate policy debates register as little more than the whooping and chest-beating of Chimpanzees: mindless status displays; idiotic battles for recognition and dominance. Uncontrolled democracy drowns out the signals of the marketplace, making it impossible for the advice of those with the expertise needed to decode its messages to be heard.
-
How Powerful Is Labour’s Maori Caucus?
THAT LABOUR’S MAORI CAUCUS is potentially powerful cannot be doubted. It is large, has a strong leader in Willie Jackson, and is surrounded by well-meaning Pakeha progressives who struggle to say “No” to its demands. For Maori, it is difficult to imagine a more encouraging political environment.
-
The Strange (And Sad) Demise Of Radio New Zealand
How to explain such wilful cultural vandalism? What drives RNZ’s Generation X bosses to tear down the public broadcaster’s proud tower with such venomous spite?
-
In The Know: Making Sense Of Labour’s Inaction.
ACCORDING TO PEOPLE “in the know”, Labour is awash with more cash than its seen in a very long time. Apparently, Jacinda Ardern’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis didn’t just net her party an unprecedented number of votes, it brought in tons of funds. While this happy situation endures, Labour is said to be polling and focus-grouping like there’s no tomorrow. The PM doesn’t just have her finger on the pulse of the nation, she’s reading its ECGs.
-
The Words Of The Prophets
And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls And tenement halls” ─ Paul…
-
The Woke Supremacy
Only when the drum-beat of right-wing populism starts to shake New Zealand’s windows and rattle its walls, will wokeism’s fondness for silencing its enemies finally begin to make a kind of desperate sense.
-
2021 Will Be About Brown Poverty And White Guilt.
IN THE COMING YEAR New Zealand politics will be driven by two inter-related forces: brown poverty and white guilt. Jacinda…
-
Signs and Portents: Is Middle New Zealand Really Less Racist Than It Used To be?
THERE ARE SIGNS and there are portents – if you know how to read them. Fifteen years ago it was…