Sunday Reading

Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, January 27th, 2013 - 13 comments
Categories: poverty - Tags: , , ,

My regular Sunday piece of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. Those stimulating links you wanted to share, but just didn’t fit in anywhere (no linkwhoring).  This week: girls dying in recession, forgotten wars, and the spin of the Right.

Awfully quickly as I’m meant to be off to the beach with my kids…

What links the left in the US and Russia?  The Right are managing to portray those whose job it is to defend the people, as elitist.  This looks like what the Right here are trying as well…   Intriguingly I looked I noticed a glimpse of what National see as important in themselves when I looked at their history this week: it’s all about how they got power and their important personalities, with about 3 lines of what they did for the country (as opposed to what the country did for them by electing them…).

Further Right spin is trying to create the divide between what they call the shirkers and the workers.  Monbiot says he stands with Churchill as see the real shirkers as wealthy landowners who accept the increased roads and utilities and value of their land without doing anything or paying their share.

Girls rate of death has been pushed up at 5 times the speed of boys in the global recession.  With women also suffering from lack of nutrition as they starve themselves to feed the breadwinner and the kids…

As Burma comes back into the international fold, it continues its ethnic wars.

Something to think about: our food system causes one-third of our greenhouse gas emissions globally (much more locally) – do we need to think of something more efficient?  This as charities in the UK combine to push for an end to hunger worldwide forever.

Also in the UK there are calls for an investigation into the scandal that is blacklisting.  Many workers unable to get a job and unaware why, but they’re on a corporate list over their union activities or some perceived slight against some former employer.

Locally Mai Chen called for us to focus on more than GDP, with other societal measures (happiness, trust etc) more important.

Of course the National point of view is very much The Lorax’s Once-ler‘s – How bad can I be? I’m just growing the economy! (although they seem to struggle to even do that…)

 

 

 

13 comments on “Sunday Reading ”

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  1. rosy 1
    27 January 2013 at 11:55 am

    Pretty hard for a righty not to think a bit, if only to scramble for a reason not to listen, when the lefties can quote Churchill to support their view…

    “Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains – and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labour and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived … the unearned increment on the land is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion, not to the service, but to the disservice done.”

  2. Beanie 2
    27 January 2013 at 12:55 pm

    Wow, I can’t berleive I have not come across this site before!

    It is awesome – got directed to it from a great article in the NBR

    http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/labour-heading-another-meltdown-set-go-weekend-review-lf-134941#comments

    I have added to my RSS feed as I was getting a bit bored with The Onion and needed another satirical online tabloid.

    Neoliberal agenda rants, hilarious housing policies thought up by a character from The Young Ones and comments by people that take it all seriously (plenty of time i guess).

    Classic, I am going to send snippets to all my friends who actually work for a living and rely on them selves!

    Of course I will have to read it at weekends and in bed as my job demands my attention 7am to 7pm each day so I can look after myself and my family.

    Keep up the good work, whoever the writers actually are!!

    Hopefully you will get your own programme on Comedy Central along side The Office soon!

    • IrishBill 2.1
      27 January 2013 at 1:13 pm

      You have to work 12 hours a day to feed your family? It looks like you’re being taken for a ride. You should join a union and get that sorted.

      • CV - Real Labour 2.1.1
        27 January 2013 at 1:18 pm

        The slaves who fancy themselves as masters

        • Beanie 2.1.1.1
          27 January 2013 at 3:12 pm

          Nice quote but we are all beholden to someone.

          I will ensure my kids never go without or are not embarrassed to go to school , that my wife does not have to work and can self actualize, and we can retire comfortably.

          If that means i have to work my guts out I will – I am not going to apologize for doing well and i object to funding professional agitators or organisations that don’t understand wealth creation but only wealth redistribution.

          • Mike 2.1.1.1.1
            29 January 2013 at 3:59 am

            Sad. If your kids are young, they no doubt will barely get to see you for a large portion of their young lives if you’re working 7am to 7pm each day. Again, if they are young or your work pattern was the same when they were young as it is now then I’m guessing you’ve gone to work before they wake up in the morning and they are possibly in bed by the time you get home at night.

            You may “ensure that your kids never go without” material things, but that doesn’t mean you are ensuring your kids never go without. In fact, it’s ensuring they go without one of the most important things in their lives that has huge impact on their happiness and their future lives.

            If you asked your kids if they would love to spend more time with dad / mum each day, what would they say? If you think about it then spending an extra three or four hours a day with your kids is more likely to ensure their happiness than anything you can buy.

      • Beanie 2.1.2
        27 January 2013 at 3:08 pm

        Well to be fair, i am doing a bit better than just “feeding my family” , and with out me doing my best 25 other people can’t feed their families…

        I would wax lyrical on the pressures on being an employer and the importance of self reliance but suspect i am on the wrong site here…

        Happy that unions are necessary for some elements of society but always remind me of

        “we are all equal but some are more equal than others..”

        I do object to being vilified for doing well and i insist on self responsibility from my employees.

        I was poor as a kid, i now am doing ok and that’s why i support state paid education and health but i despair at the comments on this site that do not understand NZ is part of the wide world and regardless of our socialist leanings, we have to be realistic.

        • CV - Real Labour 2.1.2.1
          27 January 2013 at 3:12 pm

          and regardless of our socialist leanings, we have to be realistic.

          Time to kowtow to the bankers and the multinationals

          • Beanie 2.1.2.1.1
            27 January 2013 at 3:18 pm

            that the bit of my post you focus on???

            hmmm

            Well i better keep my view on mining in New Zealand to myself..

            “We need bread to have democracy”

            • CV - Real Labour 2.1.2.1.1.1
              27 January 2013 at 3:36 pm

              Theres already $50K in GDP for every man woman and child in NZ. Plenty enough to feed everyone.

    • mike 2.2
      28 January 2013 at 5:54 pm

      “Wow, I can’t berleive I have not come across this site before!”

      I can’t berleive it either. Nope.

      “It is awesome – got directed to it from a great article in the NBR”

      Nice one. It’s like a Damien Grant joke, or a drunk Matthew Hooten perhaps.

      “…actually work for a living and rely on them selves…”

      Wicked, the youz should get a job jibe. Never heard that one before.

      “I do object to being vilified for doing well.”

      Sweet, the self-righteous martyr railing against the unjustified vilification for doing well he just suffered. I’ll paste the vicious attack he is referring to here: your search query returned no results

      Really boring.
      Troll grade: D

  3. joe90 3
    27 January 2013 at 1:41 pm

    Small wars, disturbing and misleading, the money pit and thieving bankers.

  4. millsy 4
    27 January 2013 at 4:33 pm

    Beanie, most of us arent anti mining. They just dont want it done on DOC land thats all.