Four Rhymes Inspired By “Hit & Run”
Four Rhymes Inspired By “Hit & Run”
Setting the Agenda
Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
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Letter to the editor – Commission of Inquiry, NOW!
Journalists Hager and Stephenson have presented considerable evidence to back up their investigation findings, including death certificates for those killed in the SAS-led raid.
Bill English has refused to undertake a commission of inquiry for reasons that remain unclear.
Until an Inquiry is held, there exists a cloud of suspicion hanging over the NZDF, and the SAS. This is not good enough, especially as there is ample evidence innocent people may have been killed.
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A tale of two countries: While Canada legalises cannabis, NZ Police charge more people
The latest figures obtained by NORML show they are not charging fewer people for cannabis, but more. Ignoring the wishes of the community, they are spending more time and more money on it, and filling our courts and jails with even more canna-folk. In the 8 months to August 2016, police laid 3387 charges for possession of cannabis (around fourteen people every day). This compares to 3891 in all of 2015.
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Us and Them: The Fatal Divisions of Exploitative Culture
OURS IS NOT JUST A RAPE CULTURE: it’s a Kill Culture, a Rip-off Culture and a Lie Culture as well. But, rather than attempting to reconcile ourselves to living in a multiplicity of malign cultures, it is probably more helpful to think of ourselves as inhabiting a single Exploitative Culture. One in which human-beings are consistently treated as means to another’s end – not as ends in themselves.
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Labour and the Greens prostrate themselves to corporate capitalism
I think pitiful is the best single word to sum up this deal.
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Labour/Green Economics – these fiscal rules aren’t the beginning of the end
The breakfast launch of the joint Labour/Greens fiscal rules policy last week was pleasantly surprising. They actually haven’t boxed themselves into a rigid set of rules. At the outset they downplayed the use of mechanical orthodox indicators like surpluses and net debt to judge success:
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Dirty laundry
There’s a pattern. The government lets companies regulate themselves until they get exposed for causing damage to the public interest. Deny, fudge, delay, until there is enough of an outcry that it starts to be politically damaging. At that stage, the government does just enough to make the public think that the problem is sorted. But not enough to stop the companies from making big profits.
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On NZ First’s Anti-Smacking Referendum
I’m therefore going to break ranks somewhat with many of the other voices on the liberal left and respectfully suggest that maybe Winston IS on to something here, and that there is, in fact, a case to be made for getting rid of the present section 59.
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Nothing To Them. Tim Keating hits back at “Hit & Run”
In the words of Jon Stephenson: “Is [NZDF Chief] Tim Keating really saying there were two raids using identical aircraft, in identical places with identical commandos, that left behind identical munitions in that one village, then [in] a village two kilometres south? Seriously?”
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In defence of Gareth Morgan’s TOP – a response to Chris Trotter
I think TOP is worth paying attention to and here are my main reasons: