Gerry Brownlee rants at earthquake survivor for ruining Bill English’s photo op
Ranting at earthquake survivors is an odd way to connect with voters.
politics
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Why Auckland Airport chaos is the symbol for National’s New Zealand
To be honest, I find the news that there is traffic chaos getting in and out of Auckland airport as hilarious as the bullshit solutions brainfarted out by Auckland Transport and Auckland Airport.
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2016 – the year we beat TPPA and neoliberal globalism
The failure of the TPPA was just one of many signs that this limb of the neoliberal paradigm is in crisis. 2016 saw the paralysis of the US-EU negotiation known as TTIP, well before Trump’s election. The Belgian regional parliament of Wallonia vetoed the ratification of the lesser-known Canada-EU deal (CETA), setting conditions for their approval, leading European activists to embrace the slogan: ‘we are all Wallonians’.
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Why I’m saying thank you for the Music
While communities are being torn asunder as I write by human-caused violence, such as we’re witnessing in Aleppo, Turkey and Egypt, I want to devote this post to honouring a snapshot of three communities that are being built around music in New Zealand.
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GUEST BLOG: Kieran Robert Kelly – Trump’s Straw Nazis: A Horror Story
People have been digesting the appointment of Stephen Bannon as Trump’s chief strategist and the sudden rise in overt racism and Nazi symbology. There are people saying “Heil Trump”, giving Nazi salutes, and spray-painting swastikas in alarming numbers. The US is a large, populous, diverse country, but there is clearly something of significance here beyond just a few ignorant teenagers with spraycans and emotional issues.
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Why Pike River Mine matters and why we owe the families
What Winston, the Greens and Labour all understand and appreciate about the Pike River Mine is how utterly responsible we all are as a civil society for the deaths there.
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Did Russia hack the American election and how far are liberals prepared to go for a civil war?
Did Russia hack the Democrats and drip feed that information to wikileaks to impact the US election?
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TDB SPECIAL: 1 year out from 2017 election – Issues
With less than 10 months until the election, what will be the political issues and what will be the wild cards in 2017?
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GUEST BLOG: Damon Rusden – The psychology of Trump’s victory
Psychology tells us we have huge, indomitable confirmation bias. We find rational arguments to justify our intuitive position. Is it so hard to believe, when a candidate like triggers ALL of the modules in our morality matrix, that he won? That in a polarised election the one who ticks all the morale boxes was going to lose?
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The Dangers of Political Adrenalin
I’VE ONLY EVER MET ONE serving agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. As far as most of us lefties knew he was a liberal American academic; friendly, generous, with a fund of interesting stories to tell. Outwardly, at least, the man seemed harmless.