[Author’s Note: Due to some confusion derived from people not reading beyond the first few lines, it’s probably necessary to include a disclaimer at this point – I’m NOT defending Trump here. Read the whole thing before angrily writing in to suggest otherwise, please.]
Sure Trump’s foul remarks re Haiti, El Salvador and African countries in general are raising ire around the world. I like the remarks coming from Norway about a ‘shithole’ of a country that does not have a decent publicly funded free health system .
…except for of course that the people we bomb in those countries don’t generally get a text alert that we are about to blow them up.
Let us be clear about this: if you’re going to oppose Donald Trump or anyone else … please let it be for actual, tangible reasons rather than motivated by a media-fostered fear and loathing of the victims of mental illness.
There were many things that happened in 2017, but the most dangerous amongst them was the culture of festering resentment that eclipsed the better angels of our nature.
I’m a citizen of this country, with all the rights and responsibilities that come with this particular social contract. So I am somewhat alarmed that the existence of my particular experience and expression of gender is not recorded. The state uses the information collated by Stats NZ to inform policy decisions. This implies to me that a non-binary identity is not considered in NZ policy.
We here in NZ need to debate our role in the world. There is too much at stake. New Zealand should not be afraid to have an independent foreign policy. Someone must say NO to militarism , NO to war, YES to sanity, YES to humanity.
For this voting block, the Bible is a literal version of events, not a metaphorical one. They believe the Earth is less than 10 000 years old, they believe climate change won’t flood the planet because God showed Noah a rainbow and they believe that the end of times and Armageddon could be upon us and they will all be raptured away to heaven.
US President Trump’s surrender to Israel’s territorial ambitions reveals contempt for international law, in particular the Fourth Geneva Convention. Trump’s announcement contradicts even the most recent Security Council Resolution, UNSCR 2334 of December 2016. Israel’s control of East Jerusalem, including the Old City, is illegal because under international law, an Occupying power does not have sovereignty over foreign territory it militarily occupies.
By announcing the United States recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Trump has sent two very important messages to the extreme Zionist elements in Israeli society. The first message is brutally simple: the so-called “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is dead. The second, to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, is that, as the political logic of the two-state solution’s demise is followed to its inevitable and brutal conclusion, the United States has got Israel’s back. Not just at the UN Security Council, but everywhere Israel needs American support.