Recently, upon arriving in Eugene, Oregon a taxi driver told me a story which sums up America`s incivility today. A prospective customer, with avowed pro-Trump sentiments was about to enter the vehicle. When the driver, part Hispanic but Caucasian looking, gave an opposite view the customer walked away. Avoiding the company of an anti-Trump liberal was well worth the inconvenience of a delayed journey.
May the fifth marks the 200th birthday of Karl Marx – philosopher, political economist and revolutionary. A few days before the celebrations begin he granted this extraordinary interview at an unnamed ale house in Auckland.
Under MMP our small voting public effectively constitutes a single manipulable seat. The psychographic dispositions of swing voters could be identified , targeted and manipulated without difficulty. Certain offshore and resident billionaires could easily meet campaign research expenses and hide their contributions behind blind trusts. In place of Cambridge Analytica would be another similar organisation with a friendlier sounding name. Election campaigns centred around the issues of tax, national sovereignty and/or oil, gas and coal exploration would certainly draw the attention of the one-percenters .
This is a state of emergency. If only piecemeal measures are contemplated and if the structural underpinnings of wealth polarisation are not recognised, our county`s future is bleak . Slums on the edges of our major cities, prison riots, civil unrest and a secluded one per cent contributing to charities but secretly blaming the poor for their plight.
This year’s New Zealand Media Ownership report written by Merja Myllylahti and published by the Journalism, Media and Democracy research…
The general results have been catastrophic for those committed to public sphere principles. Newsrooms contracted, news content thinned out, and current affairs journalism disappeared from prime time television. We have here an over bearing convergence of finance, political and media culture which obscures the issues of media ownership.
Research by Associate Professor Lisa Marriot from Victoria University reveals that 5 per cent of welfare recipients are investigated compared to .01 per cent of taxpayers. Welfare fraud attracts 800-1000 criminal prosecutions a year compared to 60-80 for tax fraud. Of tax dodgers whose offending reaches about $270,000, 18 per cent will be jailed. Of those welfare fraudsters who have obtained around $70,000, 67 per cent can expect jail time
Tony Blair`s dismissal of Labour`s election chances was entirely misplaced. Jeremy Corbyn increased Labour`s vote share by more than any leader since 1945. Labour received more votes in England than in Tony Blair`s landslide win of 1997. The success of Labour`s campaign slogan `For the many not the few` retrospectively exposed the vacuity of Tony Blair`s `third way` ideology.
Predictably, opposition to the Commerce Commission`s decision came from Fairfax and NZME; their own submissions had argued strenuously for a merger go-ahead. Accordingly, the New Zealand Herald`s May 5 editorial was entitled `Blocking this merger is a big mistake.`
Less predictably, Duncan Greive on `Spin-Off` was even more virulently opposed to the Commerce Commission`s decision.
I expected a more considered argument from an on-line magazine which is said to employ `some of New Zealand`s best non-fiction writers to create smart, shareable content`.
The construction of this book was a painstaking and dangerous enterprise. John Stephenson risked life and limb by returning to the villages and interviewing survivors, and assembling the family trees of the dead and wounded. Empty shell casings from Apache helicopter cannon rounds were collected and photographed. A series of locally sourced stories from the Pajhwok News Agency, pointing to civilian deaths and casualties were filed. And, as mentioned earlier, a locally documented list of the dead and wounded was obtained and photocopied. By triangulating this material with the admissions of anonymous sources throughout the SAS and NZDF, Hager and Stephenson have built a powerful case.