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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, July 16th, 2016 - 52 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Independence, Freedom, Democracy
It is my opinion that the desire for less remote and more accountable governance, and a rejection of uncountable central authority, is what drives both the desire for Brexit in Britain and the desire for independence in Scotland.
In an attempt to play one off against the other, Theresa May uses Scottish desire for independence from Britain, as an excuse to drag her heels over the Brexit.
At the very least this vacillation and back tracking by the Tories, shows bad faith with the British electorate, and will weaken Britain’s hand in getting a good deal for the British people in the Brexit negotiations. And by becoming the gate keepers in defiance of the popular will, the Tory leader puts power back into the hands of the elite
The British Labour Party needs to step up.
Instead of being silent on all these developments, Labour need to release a statement promising to allow the Scots to have their second referendum. And demanding that the tories also honour the wish of the British people Article 50 be triggered immediately.
By showing respect for the desire for more independence and local democracy by both the British and Scottish people is where the British Labour could out flank the Tories.
(Under the rules of the first referendum, a second referendum was supposed to be triggered if there was any major change in the Scottish/British political relationship.)
In the wake of the Brexit vote, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon calls for second referendum on Scottish Independence.
Sturgeon states that it is “inconceivable” for a British Prime Minister to block the second referendum.
The British PM like her predecessor David Cameron, is a steadfast “Remainer”. No doubt she also intends to as much a possible to deny the democratic will of both the Scottish and British people.
Instead of being used against each other, these two disparate strands need to be brought together.
The Labour Party need to stand with the Scottish people and demand a second referendum and that a date be set for it to be held as soon as possible.
At the same time Labour need to condemn Theresa May’s plan to use the Scots desire for independence as an excuse to thwart the democratic will of the British people, and immediately demand the start of the Brexit negotiations with the E.U.
The British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn can also out flank the Right by demanding that they honour the democratic wish of the British People and that the government must pay the Brexit Dividend into National Health service, as promised by the Right Wing Leavers, but who have since backtracked on this promise.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-result-nigel-farage-nhs-pledge-disowns-350-million-pounds-a7099906.html
Under the TTIP the EU was stealing the British people’s democracy
+1 Jenny – whether true or false about Brexit, people want and demand change from neoliberalism. It has not worked. Instead it has created a climate change, warfare, unaccountability and social crisis around the world that many people want stopped.
“Kennedy said famously, ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable,'”
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/bill-maher-sick-police-brutality-tells-colbert-he-wants-cops-take-psychology-test?src=newsletter1060161
And is this what the Blairite rump are doing by repressing the democratic wishes of the Labour membership in the UK?
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/07/15/explosive-decision-shows-just-desperate-labour-elite-tweets-images/
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/07/14/breaking-labour-trawling-social-media-stop-voting-leadership-election/
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/07/14/breaking-labour-just-announced-devastating-new-way-purge-corbyn-voters/
http://www.thecanary.co/2016/07/13/labour-leadership-contest-delivered-massive-slap-face-working-class-britain/
Totally agree. Unbelievable and pretty much hijacking Labour brand by making members pay an increased fee to nobble the process. That is why people are not voting Labour, why would you, with that toxic mix of Blairite careerists still sucking from the teat.
Legacy of the ‘third way’, ConservLite. No wonder they lost the last election with all the Labour hijacker MP’s worshiping Blair, the guy that started an illegal war and sent British troops to war without a plan or equipment. Like Key, Blair still thinks he was right and it was all worth it.
No wonder the people want Corbyn. He has been consistently right all along. And those Labour MP’s that voted for war should go and join the Conservatives and send their own offspring to Iraq, but it is easier to be a parasite on Labour and try to cling on to their failed legacy than admit they were wrong all along.
a new party that genuinely represents the people who need representing is required.
U.K. Labour seems an establishment centric bunch of comfortably numb careerists…..sound familiar.
Even if Corbyn gets past this they’ve shown the uk public that JC’s agenda isn’t one they buy into so it opens up the field IMO.
like Oz they could see a rise in seats being held by xenophobic interests making the most of the chaos.
Angela Eagle can’t even command the support of her own branch!
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/14/labour-grassroots-rebel-against-nec-restrictions-on-leadership-contest
It seems that all the nitwits in the PLP/NEC have done is hardened support for Corbyn by outraging the waverers and turning it into an us vs them battle even with their own electorate committees.
I would not be surprised if the NEC simply suspended the Labour constitution and declared Eagle the winner without a vote…
I did have to laugh over the fact Eagle claimed she had to cancel a meeting because of threatening phone calls. This was reported in The Guardian. However, it turns out that the hotel pulled the plug because they were unaware of the nature of the meeting.
Breaking news.
Attempted coup in Turkey.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/turkey-coup-live-updates-explosion-8431256
This is big – if Turkey fragments Europe’s problems get another 2.5 million refugees added to them before any local displacement.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-15/jill-stein-just-promised-pardon-snowden-appoint-him-cabinet-if-elected
+1000 AsleepWhileWalking
Bernie should go Green. The biggest coup in history if they somehow managed to pull it off.
His endorsement of Hillary Clinton is already banked.
He’s staying with the Democrats.
Yes he is.
Roughly 40% of his supporters will not be, however.
Yep how to screw over more ethical people, tell them go with someone bad to stop someone worse getting in. What a choice!
Cornel West endorses Green Party’s Jill Stein, calls Trump “neo-fascist catastrophe,” Clinton “neoliberal disaster”
http://www.salon.com/2016/07/15/cornel_west_endorses_green_partys_jill_stein_calls_trump_neo_fascist_catastrophe_and_clinton_a_neoliberal_disaster/
“All shall love me
And despair.”
Anyone remember which Queen said that?
I’ve a nasty feeling that I heard that only in the “Lord of the Rings” when Galadriel speculated on what might happen should she accept Frodo’s offer of the ring.
But others may have said it before then! How about Miss Piggy?
If Rider Haggard’s Ayesha (She who must be obeyed) didn’t say it she should have.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11675391
At some stage our Govt will have to accept that there is a housing issue, especially when the likes of this is being reported
“But it takes bottle to confront Key’s “kitchen Cabinet” – Bill English, Steven Joyce, Gerry Brownlee and Paula Bennett – and tell them that when it comes to the housing crisis, many in business are coming to the view that their emperor has no clothes.”
Quite telling !!!
oh lookit, are they shopping for a different Prime Minister.
I really would enjoy if the stenographers at the Herald would finally come away from the “John Key is in denial” to “John Key does not give a fucking fuck about you , me and or our children and the same counts for his “kitchen cabinet”. In “John Keys ownership society you are on your own”.
Interesting article, if you read it like a Soviet citizen would have read a dispatch from a party insider published in Pravda.
For example, while the article is about the fall in tractor production a Soviet citizen would not have failed to notice the absense of Judith Collins from the “kitchen cabinet” of the central committee or the fact that clearly Key’s successor will be either Bennett or Joyce. A Soviet citizen would also note the emphasis on post-Key National, surely a crime if the head of the politburo was in full command. Finally, our comrade perusing Pravda would mull on the emphasis on the credentials of another candidate, similar to the current leader in being a leader of the militant business army, and conclude that no one on the favoured list is held in high regard by said army…
Bennett or Joyce. That’s like being asked to choose between lung cancer or colon cancer.
Swallow your coffee and put your cup down before checking out the new Trump-Pence logo…
https://twitter.com/darth/status/753983871880790016
As bad as our tea towel flag designs…. but at least the public rejected our eyesores.
Surely that can’t be serious…can it?
Seems to be for real. But wait, there’s more…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-logo-criticized_us_57891d63e4b0867123e115a0?section=
and you really have to scroll down to Samantha Bee’s version
http://adage.com/article/campaign-trail/responses-possibly-nsfw-trump-pence-logo/304984/
Yes, it’s serious CV. As serious as your ‘tactical’ embrace of Trump. To teach Clinton ‘a lesson’. Fuck everything else. Just teach Clinton a lesson. Because it’d make CV feel good and vindicated.
I’m expecting that your 40% of Sanders’ people going to Trump in high dudgeon is better than just pulled out of your arse……..Key/Smith/Bennett like CV. Is there a a poll or something ? Let’s be having it CV.
Hmmmm North, you full of shit.
I believe Trump will be a better POTUS because he will shitcan the TPP, he will spend more money on US infrastructure and less on bailing out its banks and military industrial complex, and he will be less likely to start a shooting war in the Pacific against China and/or Russia.
I believe that Killary will be a shit POTUS for NZ because she is bought and paid for by the big US investment banks and corporates, she is a neocon, and her decisions were partly responsible for the horrific implosion of and loss of civilian life in Libya and Syria.
So, this is about a bit more than teaching Crooked Clinton a lesson.
+100 CV…lol
The always reliable Andrew Cockburn on Hillary and “Admiral Fabuloso”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/15/admiral-fabuloso-hillary-syria-and-the-destructive-career-of-james-g-stavridis/
And from his brother, Patrick Cockburn …
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/15/how-a-hillary-clinton-presidency-could-let-isis-off-the-hook/
Wouldn’t give trumppence for it.
Goodbye climate.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-s-vp-doubts-climate-change1/
For 90 years, lightbulbs were designed to burn out. Now that’s coming to LED bulbs.
It seems that they’re also putting in light bulbs/sockets services that communicate with the manufacturer as well giving the manufacturer information about how you use the device.
A lot of this should simply be illegal.
Bernie has got the Democrats to make a Kiwibank for America one of their platform pledges
That’s pretty exciting.
Can you cite the clause from the platform?
Very interesting to see how it’s differentiated structurally from Freddie May and Freddie Mac.
People are having fun in the US
The tea party will love it.
the tea party and the republicans are the same.
and yes it is a party of mindfuckery the only sex they approve of. That and screwing over the poor. that too is permitted. Just all the other stuff the sweaty fun kind of fuckery is verboten. Only to make little babies 🙂 white ones of course.
Fran O’Sullivan’s getting a bit hoha with The Weak Man. The bit questioning whether the Weak Man will even let himself hear Stephen Jennings’s unequivocal warning is very telling. Fran in today’s Herald…….
” Rich-lister Stephen Jennings’ warning that “we are facing an iceberg” deserves to shatter business complacency on housing.
It should also shatter the complacency of the Prime Minister – if he allows himself to hear it. Jennings has confronted the business elite with some unpalatable truths: rising house prices and immigration-fuelled economic growth are masking an underlying “iceberg that lies ahead”.
“We are sleepwalking into an economically ugly place,” he warns. How can we look at ourselves in the mirror and say how can we live with having one of the most unequal education systems in the Western world – and even if you are very selfish you better say to yourself that is not sustainable. Those chickens are going to come home to roost.”
With many chickens already here, and many more arriving daily, whom is the Weak Man going to blame ? Sixteen months out from the election the knives must be out. An emperor cannot go so struttingly, so remorselessly, so revoltingly unclothed.
National is a chicken without wings relying on mass Asian immigration and inflated housing prices to prop up an economy wallowing in $120 Billion debt $108 Billion increase since National became the Government in 2008.
Today I am exceedingly glad that we live in such a politically boring country.
+1
Unconfirmed reports that one Turkish MP has been killed.
Saudis working with who on an inside job.?
(…so Travellerev was correct after all?)
‘Congress releases long-secret ’28 pages’ indicating Saudi ties to 9/11′
https://www.rt.com/usa/351327-congress-releases-pages-saudi/
“The long-awaited 28 pages of a 2002 congressional report on the 9/11 attacks have been released. The document indicates that prominent members of the Saudi Arabian were involved in planning and financing the terror attacks.
The declassified documents were released by Congress on Friday and released them the same day, release of the documents confirmed suspicions that the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks – most of whom were Saudi nationals – likely received support from high-ranking Saudi intelligence officers…
“gets upset because he accidentally exposed his ugly side”
Not for the first or the last time one suspects.
“Jackboot Billy” lol
I think there’s a corollary with the coup plotters. If its the cult that was identified earlier behind the coup attempt, then, on the surface, they appear to be religious moderates. However, one of the the first things they intended to do was suspend the secular constitution and replace it with one of their own.
The mask quickly slipped.
A good Stuff article on housing.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/82113498/could-a-massive-public-building-programme-fix-the-housing-crisis
+1
Many New Zealanders have been pondering this question; “Where are the jobs and economic benefits for New Zealanders in the Deep Sea Oil industry?”
The Labour and National Party supporters of this extreme fossil fuel technology have either been silent on the issue of jobs, or admitted that there may be none.
But now at last, thanks to an oil industry environmental impact report, the question about jobs for New Zealanders in this industry has been answered.
No jobs in it, no votes in it.
But oil spills, like earthquakes, are good for the economy.
Who knew?
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/07/15/3798835/oil-spills-good-for-economy-nature-vancouver/
http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/en/campaigns/climate-change/Oil-drilling-not-a-solution/