So no bounce for the new Government and that is pretty grim, why is it so grim? This new Poll was taken using 50-50 cellphone and landline methodology . This is the best ever polling landscape for the Left yet all they’ve done is stay static in the final MMP numbers.
New Zealand has a long history of active anti-nuclear NGOs, several of whom are involved in ICAN via their international parent bodies. These include the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Pax Christi – all of whom are represented on the ICAN international steering committee.
The grim picture painted in the BIMs is the consequence of National’s class-driven programme of austerity. Labour’s seeming helplessness in the face of the multiple crises they reveal, is the direct consequence of its refusal to accept that the wounds of austerity can only be healed by applying the sovereign remedy of substantial increases in state spending – facilitated by a radical expansion of the tax base.
The new Government and our Intelligence Agencies are painfully aware of what National’s ‘put all our cows in one Beijing paddock’ has done to us and will go to great lengths in not antagonising China publicly while frantically working behind the scenes to minimise the threat China poses to our economy.
The obviousness of this hollowing out of public services and the social damage their property speculation, draconian welfare reforms and mass migration has created are no longer hidden but the contemptuous denial by 44% of the voting electorate means none of this will be acknowledged.
We need to reject this attempt to differentiate the poor from the utterly destitute because it’s a mere political illusion that pretends to be doing something when in reality it is only allowing the problem to get more damaged.
Some noddy at stuff wrote a column this year criticising my use of the term ‘Sleepy Hobbits’.
For me the term sums us up perfectly as a nation.
Marxist economist Michael Roberts takes on Noah Smith’s claims that neo-liberalism is making a comeback and is actually increasing GDPs and reducing inequality. But to make that claim Smith has to use China and India as examples of successful neo-liberal economies. Roberts says that growth in these two countries comes not from market reforms but from heavy state intervention.
It is almost incomprehensible that a meeting about the TPPA is being held in a tiny room like Europe House at AUT.
What’s up with all these angry old white rich men suddenly denouncing Maoridom and how best should people who believe in progressive change and true Treaty partnership best respond to such naked ignorance?