Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
Anyone who is surprised by the result of the recent US presidential election should take a close look at WrestleMania, an annual sport entertainment event created by the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). The show’s content and its format explain a lot about Trump’s triumph in the US presidential election.
This Presidential outcome is so singularly sui-generis in sadness and in suicidality that some radical actions are more called for now than they were previously
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.