activism

Categories under activism

The Golfball and Sickle

Written By: - Date published: 12:38 pm, April 30th, 2008 - 56 comments

Personally, I think it’s hilarious. A brilliant piece of activism that got the public’s attention and raised the issue of why we have American spy equipment on our soil. All without any real harm done and no violence. The wannabe semiotician in me loves that you’ve got a rag-tag bunch of ordinary people attacking a huge, […]

Join the smackathon

Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, April 15th, 2008 - 56 comments

Just what you may have been waiting for: www.righttosmack.co.nz While we want the government to interfere with people’s private activities to some small degree; (outlawing homosexuality, stopping abortions, abolishing civil unions, abolishing legalised prostitution, etc.) – we will not tolerate being told we cannot use force and violence as part of loving correction and discipline! […]

Labour Congress EFA protest

Written By: - Date published: 3:22 pm, April 14th, 2008 - 21 comments

Jordan Carter’s just posted a photo of what looks like nine EFA protesters having their say outside the Labour Party Congress on the weekend. Looks like there are two journalists and a cameraman in the shot too so if my maths is right that’s a grand total of six genuine protesters. Nice work John.

Hiding from the hakapiks

Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, April 3rd, 2008 - 6 comments

There is a Novotel hotel beside the Canadian High Commission on The Terrace in Wellington. Check out this billboard on the wall of the hotel nearest the High Commission, you can see the Canadian flag in the bottom left corner. So, that’s where the baby seals are hanging out during the hunt. Good on the […]

Ng on fact-free politics

Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, April 2nd, 2008 - 17 comments

Keith Ng of Public Address has a long-standing commitment to improving the quality of journalism in this country. Now, he is proposing a non-partisan wiki-style forum for fact-checking politicians’ statements. It seems like a great idea. We constantly see politicians making statements that are not backed by the facts but have time to only cover […]

Al Gore’s new climate change campaign

Written By: - Date published: 11:44 am, April 1st, 2008 - 2 comments

Al Gore has just launched a $300 million, bipartisan campaign to try to push climate change higher on the nation’s political agenda. The website is www.wecansolveit.org – you can see the debut ad, “Anthem,” here. The campaign plans to bring together “unlikely bedfellows” of differing political stripes and use shows like American Idol to promote […]

The parties’ climate change policies

Written By: - Date published: 4:44 pm, March 31st, 2008 - 11 comments

‘Tis the season for surveys of the parties. Greenpeace sent a questionnaire to each of the parliamentary parties asking for their polices on 20 climate change issues. They’ve published the answers and rated the policies for effectiveness tackling climate change. The results are summarised below. Parties could score up to two ticks per answer if […]

Interview the leaders

Written By: - Date published: 11:12 am, March 28th, 2008 - 51 comments

We’re going to interview the leader of each party but we’d like to give you the chance to ask the questions. Starting next week we’ll submit two questions to a leader each Monday, one of which will be the same for each of them to allow you to compare those answers; the second question will […]

Canada’s shame

Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, March 27th, 2008 - 23 comments

For those of you who saw the title and thought this post was about Celine Dion, sorry, it’s about the seal cull.  Every year Canada kills and skins hundreds of thousands of baby harp seals, leaving their bodies to rot. The seal cullers’ favoured tool is the vicious hakapik a long pole with a sharp […]

Calling coal to account

Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, March 26th, 2008 - 18 comments

New Zealand’s coal industry is a mess of contradictions. We worry about carbon emissions and Kyoto while State-owned Solid Energy exports coal to dirty Chinese factories. Rather than being energy-efficiently shipped out of Greymouth, coal from the West Coast is taken by rail over the Southern Alps because taxpayer-subsidised Toll gives SOE Solid Energy and Pike River a cut-price deal to haul […]

Free Osanloo

Written By: - Date published: 3:51 pm, March 5th, 2008 - Comments Off on Free Osanloo

The International Transport Workers’ Federation is holding an international day of action tomorrow calling for the release of Mansour Osanloo, an Iranian trade unionist and bus driver imprisoned by the state for engaging in independent trade unionism. Osanloo earned the ire of the Iranian authorities after he led protests that increased bus workers’ pay by […]

Every cloud

Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, February 13th, 2008 - 14 comments

The latest in a long line of failed protests on the Electoral Finance Act has ended badly with Steven Franks taking legal action against 3M, the maker of Packfast packing tape. The Dominion Post reports today that: “Aspiring Wellington Central MP Stephen Franks was one of six demonstrators protesting against the Electoral Finance Act who […]

Counter-protester slaps down right-wing nutjobs

Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, November 26th, 2007 - 92 comments

Just came across this video on YouTube from last week’s rally in Wellington against the Electoral Finance Bill. This clip has one of the counter-protesters giving an impressive off-the-cuff speech on why the Bill is needed. Given the anti-EFB crowd’s only line of attack was “you’re from Young Labour” and “reveal your identity” they were […]

Ramshackle PR fiasco

Written By: - Date published: 6:02 pm, November 22nd, 2007 - 175 comments

It’s a bit late, but a reader who was at yesterday’s anti-EFB march has mailed us through some pics from the rally. As David Farrar has noted, the protest march was joined by a small group of activists in John Key and Mr Burns masks chanting things like “What is it that we support? John […]

Family fist

Written By: - Date published: 7:11 am, November 22nd, 2007 - 25 comments

The Dom reports that “A father who spanked his eight-year-old son… for misbehaving… is one of the first to be convicted of assault under the law against smacking”. As expected, all the usual suspects are up in arms, including Family First national director Bob McCroskrie, who thinks it’s ok to hit kids and doesn’t seem […]

No it doesn’t, John

Written By: - Date published: 10:41 am, October 10th, 2007 - 9 comments

Looks like another batch of the infamous John Key posters has gone up all over central Wellington overnight, this time tackling John on privatisation. My spies tell me Wayne Mapp was spotted this morning shaking his head and looking rather unimpressed. Hate to break it to you Wayne, but as one of John Key’s advisers […]

Burma protests

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, October 5th, 2007 - Comments Off on Burma protests

With the Burmese junta continuing its crackdown on democracy protesters, Amnesty International has organised a Global Day of Action for Burma this Saturday (that’s tomorrow), including protests in Christchurch, Wellington, Dunedin and Palmerston North. Details are: Christchurch: 12:00 – 15:00, Saturday 6 October, Victoria Square (cnr Colombo and Armagh Sts). Wellington: 12:00 – 14:00, Saturday […]

Burma rally pics

Written By: - Date published: 10:51 am, October 1st, 2007 - Comments Off on Burma rally pics

Some pics from Saturday’s rally for Burmese democracy: More at Auckland’s Burning and Indymedia.

Support the Burmese uprising

Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, September 28th, 2007 - 1 comment

If you’re in Auckland make sure you get along to tomorrow’s rally supporting the Burmese people in their courageous struggle for democracy. These people are standing unarmed against a vicious dictatorship that has a history of massacring its own people – the least we can do is stand with them to show our support. When: […]

Double Standards

Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, September 26th, 2007 - 1 comment

We’ve had a few emails from readers this week asking whether this website has anything to with the NZ Standard posters that having been turning up around Wellington. Just to set the record straight, while the The Standard shares the anti-Rickards sentiment, the posters are nothing to do with us. In any case, we’d like […]

A raw nerve?

Written By: - Date published: 6:22 pm, September 11th, 2007 - 4 comments

Did anyone else see the anti-John Key posters in Wellington yesterday morning? It was every National Party spin doctor’s worst nightmare: a picture of John Key looking rattled and wrinkled, placed on a black background next to the words that will no doubt come to haunt him during the election campaign: “Climate change is a […]

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