Written By: - Date published: 2:17 pm, December 29th, 2011 - 36 comments
Even smart conservatives in my experience generally think far too short term, fail to look at history and in the final analysis view everything from their own narrow interests rather than those of society as whole. They prefer historical mythmaking and moralizing about others rather than thinking. The Economist throws up another telling example by David Brooks.
Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, October 24th, 2011 - 16 comments
On this Labour Day it is good to see that the Labour Party is staying true to its roots, and is out there working for a labour policy to lift the wages and conditions of the workers of New Zealand.
Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, October 17th, 2011 - 135 comments
Part of a worldwide phenomenon, the Occupation has reached Aotearoa New Zealand. Anyone who thinks that they know where all this will end is fooling themselves.
Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, April 25th, 2011 - 43 comments
Today is the day that we remember our old soldiers. But perhaps it should also be a day when we consider our current soldiers, and how they are being used.
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, April 17th, 2011 - 36 comments
Ratana elders are unhappy with Labour over its list rankings, and have called on supporters to abandon the Party. Phil Goff needs to work on the relationship with the Church immediately. For Labour the only silver lining in this cloud, and the focus on its list in general, is the fact that it illustrates what a large and diverse group of people the Party has to represent.
Written By: - Date published: 9:19 pm, March 7th, 2011 - 52 comments
ChrisH submitted this incredibly knowledgeable and well-researched post on the rebuilding of Christchurch a few days ago. The announcement that large parts now lower-lying eastern suburbs will be abandoned lends more strength to his call for a visionary urban plan for the new, more resilient Christchurch. And Phil Goff has the history to present it.
Written By: - Date published: 3:36 pm, February 11th, 2011 - 33 comments
Archiving websites is a bloody good idea because the public debate and emerging history of NZ society is shifting more and more into these electronic media. So I asked NatLib about one of those political blogs that disappeared from the blogosphere – KiwiBlogBlog. It still exists…
Written By: - Date published: 9:36 pm, November 10th, 2010 - 3 comments
It’s diplomacy time in the Asia-Pacific region. While Secretary Clinton came to New Zealand and Australia and President Obama to India and Indonesia, Prime Minister Cameron has gone to Beijing with a large delegation hoping to drum up business for Britain. Cameron’s pre-visit publicity was all about how he was going to lecture the Chinese …
Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, September 8th, 2010 - 8 comments
As our msm persist with their increasingly banal fixation on Christchurch’s troubles, I’m reminded of a story that appeared in 2001 not long after the horror of 9/11. It was about a political advisor in the Blair administration who was caught-out doing her job. On the day of the attacks Jo Moore sent an email …
Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, August 13th, 2010 - 30 comments
In Morning Report yesterday there was a clear question and statement on the difference between weather events and climate. This is a question that always seems to confuse our CCD’s (climate change deniers and skeptics). So it is worth examining it a bit in the view of some of the unusual weather that has been happening recently. A increased frequency of such events is going to be the main effect of climate change over time, leading eventually to famines.
Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, July 7th, 2010 - 18 comments
For some time now National has been quietly making plans to subsume Archives New Zealand and the National Library within the Department of Internal Affairs. That’s a dangerous plan for all sorts of constitutional and accountability reasons that can’t be justified by any imaginary, vague and as yet uncosted “synergies and efficiencies”. But let’s face it, …
Written By: - Date published: 9:47 pm, July 5th, 2010 - 155 comments
Been a bit disappointed that there hasn’t been a post up here yet on the news out on Saturday that Steve Chadwick is seeking support for a Member’s Bill to make abortion truly on demand in NZ, to 24 weeks. Then I remembered that I still have posting rights from doing the 2008 General Election …
Written By: - Date published: 6:10 am, May 10th, 2010 - 45 comments
Congratulations John on your latest speech. We especially like the line “Let me be clear: there is no room for separatism in New Zealand.” Very masterly, clear and unequivocal. I know you meant what you said and weren’t just dog-whistling to the racist red-necks in the audience who’re feeling spooked by us signing up to …
Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, February 1st, 2010 - 3 comments
Dancr linked to Colin James’ piece in the Press the other day, in which he writes: Here’s Labour’s record for the five decades years since the end of 1959: in government 19 years, out of government 31 years. Its best five decades were 1929-79, when it had 20 years in government, its worst just 12 …
Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, December 1st, 2009 - 22 comments
Pascal’s Bookie dug up this classic in the comments: Congratulations…. You always knew that politics would be exciting, but I guess that neither of us thought that it would get quite this exciting quite so soon. Don, I wish you all the very best I am confident of your capacity to lead National and ultimately …
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, November 30th, 2009 - 8 comments
As the same old faces of the Right roll out the same old failed neoliberal ideas in new packaging, it’s a useful time to rewatch Alister Barry’s fantastic documentaries on what happened the last time round. In many cases even the faces haven’t changed. Someone Else’s Country examines the devastating effects of the neoliberal revolution …
Written By: - Date published: 2:28 pm, October 29th, 2009 - 6 comments
With all the noise around Obama you don’t hear much about this guy now. He was politically naive but knowingly and willingly acted as a front for much more machiavellian minds. He came to politics with lots of money and was promoted very quickly, but he wasn’t too good at inspiring confidence by way of …
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, July 10th, 2009 - 12 comments
A Nelson man attempted to buy a gun to shoot Nick Smith. Details are scant. What could have been a nasty situation looks like is has been well-handled by the Police and DPS. It must be one of the gnawing worries of being an MP. You and your family are exposed to people who blame …
Written By: - Date published: 9:51 pm, July 9th, 2009 - 47 comments
I have to confess some confusion about this study that supposedly shows the First Labour Government was tight with Hitler. They were real, deep-red socialists. To get to power they had to overcome the fascist New Zealand Legion that backed National. Fascism was anathema to socialism – the biggest battles of all time were fought out …
Written By: - Date published: 3:36 pm, May 24th, 2009 - 17 comments
The modern blitzkrieg [lightning war] was first tested in the Spanish civil war, refined in the invasions of European states that marked the beginning of WWII, and applied successfully in more recent invasions in the Middle East. A blitzkrieg’s success comes from the speed of its prosecution, from which it gets it name. The speed of a blitzkrieg gives attackers …
Written By: - Date published: 6:55 pm, April 11th, 2009 - 3 comments
It wasn’t so long ago that National’s covert attack organ, the Free Speech Coalition, were squealing about how anti-democratic the last Labour government was, with plenty of snappy billboards like this one. Well now that the tragedy of Fiji’s dictatorship is going from bad to worse, don’t expect to hear any more concern from the …
Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, December 26th, 2008 - 10 comments
At the end of my post a couple of days ago I touched on the notion of a new Zealand identity and a Left nationalism. Since then I’ve been thinking about the value of the last government’s moves to foster national identity and their remarkable success in doing so and concluded that this is quite …
Written By: - Date published: 3:01 pm, November 21st, 2008 - 13 comments
There’s a lot of fuss about at the moment over Ayman al-Zawahri’s labelling of Barack Obama as the kind of “house negro” described by Malcolm X. It’s a rather absurd comparison, and in my view probably more a sign of Al-Qaeda’s increasing irrelevance than anything else. But as it turns out, I was listening to …
Written By: - Date published: 1:24 pm, October 6th, 2008 - 27 comments
Written By: - Date published: 6:18 am, August 28th, 2008 - 18 comments
70 years ago (more or less) and The Standard was correctly predicting a Labour victory as the ‘Nationalists’ ramped up a hollow election campaign. In true Standard-style, there’s even some stats. Click on the image for the full article.
Written By: - Date published: 2:47 pm, June 26th, 2008 - 39 comments
In an attempt to cover for John Key’s ignorance of New Zealand history, National’s Gerry Brownlee has pulled out a quote from Michael Cullen that he asserts says the same thing as the Key quote. You compare: Key: “We’re not a country that’s come about as a result of civil war or where there’s been …
Written By: - Date published: 12:39 pm, June 26th, 2008 - 76 comments
Mr Key on NewstalkZB: “We’re not a country that’s come about as a result of civil war or where there’s been a lot of fighting internally, we’re, we’re a country which peacefully came together”. So, the numerous pre-Treaty battles, the Flagstaff War, the Land Wars, Parihaka. decades or warfare in which many tribes lost their entire territory and …
Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, May 14th, 2008 - 54 comments
Today is the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the National Party. So, it’s an opportune moment to reflect on the founding principles of the National Party and ask that age old question ‘why are they called National anyway?’ The political background to the founding of the National party is the conflict between the three …
Written By: - Date published: 7:04 am, May 14th, 2008 - 7 comments
If only I’d been around in 1969, and hanging out in upstate New York. Hard to believe that the best we can do today is Westlife. Well, that’s not fair. I like these lyrics from ‘Think Twice’ the song put together by a group of New Zealand musicans following recent violence in South Auckland: Creeping …
Written By: - Date published: 4:24 pm, May 11th, 2008 - 50 comments
It has become a media mantra that winning a fourth term of government is nigh on impossible, but is that claim actually based on the record of past governments or just a political myth? The first government formed along party lines in New Zealand was the First Liberal Government, which took office in 1891. Since …
Written By: - Date published: 3:05 pm, May 11th, 2008 - 56 comments
Good to see Ruth Dyson finally admitting we have left beneficiaries behind. I would hope now that there would be a lot more done than simply indexing benefits to wages though. Increasing the benefit to real pre-1991 levels would be a good start. A lot of people know about the benefit cuts but not many …
Comments