However the Brexit vote turns out, one thing is certain: public anger with the status quo is taking Britain to within a few % of bolting from the EU, weakening a key global institution and continuing a trend towards political “weirdness” worldwide.
Marg Jones never seemed old. Well in to her 90s she could be seen on all the big protests, or running a street or festival stall for the Soil and Health Association. She was always chirpy, her mood matched by bright and often rather outrageous outfits using the best op-shop materials.
‘Tough on Crime’ Politicians and headline screaming crime porn news media have turned our anger at the pain crime causes into something dark and damaged.
Right now we are in a desperate situation, where we read stories of newborns spending the first precious days of their lives in cars. Where cancer stricken teenagers try to recuperate in homes sheltering up to fifteen people. Where decent, hard working people still struggle to get by. Where the government ignorantly spouts bullshit about how there have always been homeless people, and what we are in is not a housing crisis.
Social democracy and egalitarianism are joined at the hip, and the longer they persist the easier it gets for working-class people to say “Fuck you!” – and walk away. Capitalism can survive many things: riots, strikes, economic depressions, even wars: but it cannot survive that.
You heard it here on TDB first.
Can we expect our children to be better if that is the example we set?
The solution to Auckland’s grotesque infrastructure underfunding is to allow new bonds or fresh funding from central Government. Auckland’s growth has traditionally been suffocated by Wellington and it continues today.
If you ask a NZer to put their lives in danger for our ‘National Interest’, it better be for honourable and just reasons, not as the price we pay for being inside the 5 eyes club. We have obligations as a global citizen, but do those obligations extend to cleaning up America’s latest failed adventure?
With the Greens’ long and deliberate shift from the fringes, which has now resulted in an official Memorandum of Understanding with Labour, there is a renewed need for the outspoken, radical flank.