The 2016 election season continues to be quite the wild ride. No matter whether one is following events through the regular media and traditional outlets, or braving the wilds of social media feeds, each new day brings some shocking “revelation”which would have seemed utterly inconceivable the day before … yet there it is in print.
There are many reasons why states may be said to go to war with one another.
Something odd I’ve noticed: After an act of terrorism (or other highly publicized egregious act of politically motivated violence), we customarily have a hashtag or a display-pic filter showing solidarity with the victim – indeed, often going so semi-ludicrously far as to claim that we “ARE” the Victim. (I’m sure we all remember #JeSuisCharlie etc.)
A year ago, the force that is Judith Collins was looming upon us like the sort of saw-toothed smile with a fin on top you might see in a crashing wave just before it breaks. She’d come howling back from the political wilderness to find herself once again promoted back to Cabinet. Two weeks ago, she was in (upset) contention for the National Party’s top job – and the leadership of the nation.
The Left are a pretty optimistic bunch. And with good cause – after eight successive years of grueling hard-neoliberal governance, and having to watch National’s number of seats only grow regardless, you pretty much have to be. It’s either that, or give up in despair.
Understandably, most of the New Zealand Left is giddily euphoric as the result of yesterday’s bolt-from-the-blue-brigade news. Some of us have spent virtually the entirety of our adult lives awaiting this moment – so a certain level of enthusiasm is to be anticipated.
Probably the most important revelation to be had from National’s drubbing is that the “Ethnic Strategy” which the Blue party has pursued for quite some time now … is rapidly reaching its limits.
I’m really not quite sure what to say about Fidel Castro’s death.
I nearly fell out of my chair yesterday evening when Newshub opened an item with a declaration that the Prime Minister was finally talking about multinationals dodging their fair share of Kiwi tax.
In 1973, NZ PM Norman Kirk sent our frigate, the HMNZS Otago, to the French nuclear testing site of Mururoa Atoll. On board was the Kiwi Cabinet Minister Fraser Coleman. The stated – and, indeed, officially mandated – purpose of those two hundred and forty three men was to put themselves in the path of foreign military activity, on a ship, as a protest action.