Social issues

Categories under Social issues

Paora Goldsmith, Māori history and identity politics

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, February 4th, 2021 - 73 comments

Paora Goldsmith thinks that learning about Māori history is engaging in identity politics.

Covid19 Vaccine Rollout and Global Inequality

Written By: - Date published: 7:46 am, February 2nd, 2021 - 24 comments

2023-2024 for a global rollout 0f the Covid vaccine will put stark lines of demarcation between which populations can trade and travel easily, and those who can’t. 

Twelve months of living with Covid

Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, February 1st, 2021 - 21 comments

One year on from the declaration by the WTO that Covid was a public health emergency and with the benefit of hindsight it is interesting to see who heeded the scientific advice and how it worked out.

Trifold Politics and Boundaries

Written By: - Date published: 8:47 am, January 30th, 2021 - 34 comments

Over the past year I’ve outlined in the comments an alternative triplet political model to the standard left/right description that’s the usual default. It’s the default for a reason, it’s simple and most of the time it’s a ‘good enough’ approximation to reality, and nothing I’m going to suggest below is intended or expected to […]

The fascinating story about when some redditors took on Wall Street

Written By: - Date published: 7:26 pm, January 29th, 2021 - 22 comments

The world has been watching, mostly with amusement, as some redditors have brought a Wall Street merchant bank to its knees, by buying stocks in a company, GameStop who has seen better days and whose business model is antiquated.

Who says cancel culture is a bad thing?

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, January 28th, 2021 - 84 comments

It may be that we have heard publicly from John Banks for the last time.  If so this will be a good thing.

Queue jumping the Covid vaccine rollout

Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, January 27th, 2021 - 96 comments

National and ACT are concerned that New Zealand is not at the front of the queue obtaining Covid vaccine supplies.  Even though our Covid status is still outstanding with no community transmission having happened for months, and even though to realistically open our borders every country in the world will have had to achieve herd immunity.

Is New Zealand’s The Best Little Economy In The World?

Written By: - Date published: 7:23 am, January 26th, 2021 - 53 comments

New Zealand is the best-managed country in the world. And currently has one of the best economies.

Scan, wash your hands and wear a freakin mask

Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, January 25th, 2021 - 85 comments

Another case of Covid has appeared in the community. A 54 year old woman who lives south of Whangarei who returned overseas and went through quarantine has developed Covid after being released from quarantine.

Both sides reporting in the time of Trump

Written By: - Date published: 10:08 am, January 24th, 2021 - 85 comments

You would think that after the Trump years the media would be turning away from the reporting of “both sides” of an issue and in many cases they are.  But there is a recent example of a hold out urging that extremist views should be given media attention.

PM Ardern and President Biden as a comparison

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, January 23rd, 2021 - 34 comments

On his first day in office Joe Biden executed 17 executive orders making wide scale change to the Trump Administration’s policies.

Are Revolutions A Good Idea?

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, January 23rd, 2021 - 24 comments

Revolt? Revolution? Pain in the ass? Depends, like comedy, on timing. And which side of history you end up on.

Is Ted Cruz the dumbest politician ever?

Written By: - Date published: 7:59 am, January 22nd, 2021 - 33 comments

Now that Donald Trump has more time to play golf and attend court there will be jockeying for leadership of the Republican Party, or what will be left of it once Trump’s new Patriot Party emerges. One early contender is Ted Cruz.  There is a problem with him however, he is an imbecile.

Everybody gets a pardon

Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, January 20th, 2021 - 32 comments

Donald Trump’s final decision as President may be to pardon a number of people.  There is speculation that the exercise of the Presidential prerogative of mercy may have a price attached …

Brash Bassett and Hide take up blogging

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, January 19th, 2021 - 100 comments

A new political blog has appeared.  But rather than involving a fresh presentation of new ideas in an attempt to engender debate this blog has three tired old has beens who are well past their use by date engage in some climate change denial and race baiting.

Regulate big tech now

Written By: - Date published: 7:54 am, January 18th, 2021 - 63 comments

If we had seen our Prime Minister fall from power because three companies decided that their dominance in society should be used to bring her down, we would be outraged. Yet that pretty much just happened in the United States.

The twitter purge

Written By: - Date published: 8:19 am, January 14th, 2021 - 109 comments

Over the past few days Twitter has suspended not only Donald Trump’s twitter account but 70,000 accounts world wide many associated with the propagation of Qanon conspiracies.

No Right Turn: One way of fixing the housing crisis

Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, January 14th, 2021 - 63 comments

Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation

 

The Parler purge

Written By: - Date published: 9:04 am, January 12th, 2021 - 87 comments

Parler, which attracted right wing extremists because of its refusal to apply any rules to what people said, has had its application banned by Google and Apple and Amazon has now refused to host its data.  But it has also had all of user’s data downloaded and archived and made available to everyone, including law enforcement authorities.  Think Dirty Politics but on industrial scale.

Covid-19 lessons from a plagued flight

Written By: - Date published: 10:43 pm, January 11th, 2021 - 22 comments

In September there was a 18 hour flight Dubai that ended in Auckland. A relatively close group on that plane showed infection after arrival, and a genetically similar version. The evidence of in-flight infection is very strong and points to the on-going issues with shipping virus hosts around the world. This has some pretty strong implications for long-haul flights in particular. But also to the risks of having travel ‘bubbles’ without enforced quarantine.

The ugly finale of the Trump Presidency

Written By: - Date published: 1:02 am, January 9th, 2021 - 150 comments

Wednesday’s insurrection further tarnishes America’s reputation as a credible democratic nation. Significant changes will be needed before this reputation can be restored and it is hard to be optimistic that the US political system is capable of reforming itself in the way it needs to.

US democracy is under threat

Written By: - Date published: 11:44 am, January 7th, 2021 - 43 comments

Short post to update on developments in Washington.

Trump’s next 48 hours

Written By: - Date published: 11:18 am, January 6th, 2021 - 66 comments

With crucial Senate run off races in Georgia and Congress meeting to receive the declared results of the US election and with Republicans determined to oppose the results at every turn the next couple of days will be very significant for America’s future. Update (lprent): The democratic senators from Georgia are called as victors. A riot pushed by an irresponsible President Trump happened at the Capitol building with people dead. Congress subsequently made a determined proclamation that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are confirmed a the newly elected president and vice-president. As for Donald Trump – goodbye to unstable rubbish..

The UK is now the world’s Covid cot case

Written By: - Date published: 9:09 am, January 6th, 2021 - 25 comments

Well after the emergence of a mutated Covid virus that is much easier to spread and faced with surging infection rates Boris Johnson has put England into a lockdown similar but not as strong as New Zealand’s original lockdown.  But the question is, has he done too little too late?

No extradition for Assange

Written By: - Date published: 12:27 am, January 5th, 2021 - 104 comments

Great news. While unexpected, Nicky Hager who was an expert witness for Assange at the trial, thought this might be a possibility when he spoke to the Fabian Society in November. More details tomorrow.

Update: Bail application to be heard on Wednesday London time.

Prison conditions

Written By: - Date published: 12:56 pm, January 4th, 2021 - 27 comments

Statements by the Minister for Corrections and Corrections themselves asserting that there had been no complaints about prison conditions at Waikeria, in the face of the Ombudsman’s report, just look to me to be pure sophistry and bullshit. The report on conditions in the high security make grim reading. Even ignoring the inmates protest – I want to protest about the waste of my taxes in providing such a unproductive, inhumane and outright evil environment.

Waikeria Prison

Written By: - Date published: 10:16 am, January 3rd, 2021 - 95 comments

The stand off at Waikeria Prison between inmates and Corrections staff has attracted two responses from opposition parties, one being constructive and helpful and the other being complete and utter grandstanding.

The Tinkers

Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, January 3rd, 2021 - Comments Off on The Tinkers

My all time favourite sci-fi author Vernor Vinge depicted in his Peace War Trilogy a counter culture that had adapted to unique set of circumstances to produce a high tech/low energy society. The back story involves the discovery of a new weapon. Vinge being a computer scientist himself (he taught in the field at San […]

How low will Bridges go?

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, January 2nd, 2021 - 24 comments

Simon Bridges has spent the last week casting aspersions on people who have tragically died at Music Festivals in an attempt to score culture war inspired political points and undermine the Government’s new pill testing law.

Without the handbrake what should this Government do?

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, January 1st, 2021 - 112 comments

Welcome to 2021.  This is the year for the Labour Government to be brave.  What should it seek to achieve this year?

Is Progress Real?

Written By: - Date published: 2:41 pm, December 31st, 2020 - 65 comments

It’s hard to overstate the extraordinary merging of events in Europe that led to the Industrial Revolution exploding in the mid-1800’s. There was of course at least 200 years of prior scene setting, across the sciences, philosophy and political arena’s. In say the year 1600 the so-called Renaissance was really the project of barely a […]