Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
We will have a better idea next week when the political leaders of the TPPA countries meet on the side of the APEC leaders’ summit in Peru, one of Obama’s last appearances as president on the global stage. There will be lots of brave rhetoric, so we will have to decipher the noise from behind the scenes.
Donald Trump is, unquestionably, the most morbid symptom of the current political crisis gripping the capitalist West – but he is not the only one. Of almost equal concern is the toxic combination of ignorance and viciousness on display in the commentary threads of political blogs and websites.
Make no mistake, housing has become a crisis in New Zealand as this May poll for a TV3/Reid Research Poll highlighted;
It’s been interesting watching the shift in discourse about Bernie Sanders from some of the local #ImWithHer crowd (and, presumably, those further afield/closer to the action).
How do we counter the right-wing populist currents emerging in several Western countries? The Trump victory shows that backing a liberal establishment alternative, like Hillary Clinton, is not a successful strategy.
On Friday, word reached us that the world’s foremost obstreperous atheist, Richard Dawkins, appears to be advocating we open our borders to the world’s “creative intellectuals” in a bid to make New Zealand a ‘new Athens’ for the ‘Trump era’.
7.5 quake strikes at 12.02am not far from Hanmer Springs in North Canterbury in the South Island – country still being hit, with more than 100 aftershocks so far
MIDNIGHT IN WASHINGTON. A chill autumn wind, laced with rain, sweeps across the reflecting pool at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. The water is agitated: the reflection of the Washington Monument’s towering obelisk fluid and fragmentary. The National Mall has wrapped the darkness of this bleak November night tightly around itself like a comforter.
From 29 May 29 to 1 June 2016, more than 50 New Zealand business people, led by Spark CEO Simon Moutter, were guests at a trade mission in Israel, organised by the Israel Trade Commission and Trans-Tasman Business Circle. Described as the ‘innovation mission’, the purpose was to encourage collaboration between the governments of Israel and New Zealand and their respective business interests.
We are told there is no alternative. The so-called “progressives” in social democratic parties then appeal to the centre by adopting the rhetoric of the right wing opposition by being “tough” on law and order and “tough” on welfare cheats, and “tough” on immigrants. They assume that because working people have no where else to go they can abuse us as much as they like.