The 2024 US Election: A No-Win Scenario
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- Date published:
7:18 pm, November 4th, 2024 - 50 comments
Categories: climate change, Donald Trump, gaza, International, Kamala Harris, us politics -
Tags: benjamin netanyahu, billionaires, fascism, MAGA, project2025
Tuesday (Wednesday in NZ) is election day in the United States of America, the land of democracy — where billionaires buy elections, where the President is not elected by popular vote, and where the nominee of the Republican Party attempted to overturn the results after he was voted out of office four years ago. Somehow, despite every crime Donald Trump has been tried and convicted for, the former President is a coin-toss away from taking back the White House.
Polls across the seven swing states indicate that there is virtually nothing separating the two candidates, making this the closest election since 2000. The future of the world may well be decided by a few hundred votes in Pennsylvania, where Trump currently holds an agonisingly thin polling lead of just 0.1%.
Two main perspectives dominate progressive discourse on the 2024 presidential race, dividing the left in America and around the world. On the one hand, there is fury and disgust at Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party for their complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. To many, this is a single-issue election, and no candidate complicit in genocide deserves a shred of support. On the other hand, there is huge fear of what the consequences of a second Trump presidency would look like. Many warn that however despicable the actions of the Biden-Harris administration have been over the past year, things can always get worse.
Both perspectives are entirely correct. The Democrats have blood on their hands, and will have nobody to blame but themselves if they lose this election. By rights, President Biden should be imprisoned at the Hague, standing trial for war crimes alongside Benjamin Netanyahu as we speak. Even so, the world will be in even deeper trouble if Trump is elected.
One camp advocates boycotting the election or protest-voting for Cornel West or Jill Stein, left-wing third party candidates whose chances of victory are zero. The other camp will vote Democrat to stop Trump no matter what. Most of this debate is hypothetical — left-wing activists around the world act as if we have a say in America’s election when we do not. Perhaps the rest of us deserve a vote, given the outcome of elections in the heart of the US empire affects everybody on the planet, including in Aotearoa.
In the US itself, heated debates between these two camps come from a place of anger, frustration and powerlessness. Anger at the gross inadequacies of the Democratic Party existed before Israel’s genocidal war began last year; this feeling has only intensified since. Frustration is reaching boiling point. And the feeling of powerlessness is very real.
Since the defeat of the Bernie Sanders campaign in early 2020, the momentum of the burgeoning democratic socialist movement in America has been frustrated at every turn. There was never a chance during this election cycle for a left-wing candidate to emerge who would put a stop to the genocide and take real action on climate change and inequality. What looked to be a rematch of Biden vs. Trump took a surprise turn when Biden was replaced with Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket; and still, nothing changed. From the start, the only options on the table were the continuation of the neoliberal Biden-Harris administration, or a return to Trump and the increasingly fascistic Republican Party. Both sides are committed to upholding US imperialism and Israeli impunity; ending the genocide is not on the ballot. Yet again, it is a contest of the lesser evil against the cartoonish villain.
The feeling of powerlessness on the left may be real; but those who wish to see a better world have never been powerless. The people have always held the power to change the world — in America, around the world, and here in Aotearoa. People know the system is rigged in the favour of the wealthy few — anger about this is what led to the rise of Trump in the first place. Faith in the existing system to deliver real change is at an all-time low.
The obstacle is not inadequate levels of anger and discontent; it is that people do not know what to do about it. Only when ordinary people are organised and ready to fight for an alternative can real change come. Feelings of powerlessness must be overcome, and replaced with hope and determination. Then, and only then, can the rotten system and its insulting offering of corporate Democrats vs. fascist Republicans come crashing down.
The Most Dangerous Organisation in Human History?
Noam Chomsky has labelled the modern-day Republican Party “the most dangerous organisation in human history.” He asked in 2017: “Has there ever been an organisation in human history that is dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organised human life on Earth?” Professor Chomsky is referring, of course, to the Republicans’ outright denial of the scientific consensus that the climate is changing as a result of human activity.
With every passing year, the existential threat that the climate crisis poses to human civilisation grows in severity. Neoliberal governments across the world, including the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations, have failed utterly to act with urgency to bring down carbon emissions in the US, and to set an example as the most powerful country in the world for others to follow. The Harris campaign in turn has failed to issue a bold plan to tackle the greatest crisis our species has ever faced within the necessary timeframe, in spite of the horrific storms ravaging the country with increasing frequency. A vote for the Democrats is a vote for further inaction when everyone should be panicking.
Yet the Republican Party is committed to radically increasing emissions. Backed by an unrepentant fossil fuel industry, the Republicans want to “drill, baby, drill!” Trump’s first term was a climate disaster, and his second term will be worse — the former president’s underlings plan to completely defund the Environmental Protection Agency. Not only that, but Trump’s team wants civil servants at the EPA to be “traumatically affected” by their policies, and viewed as “the villains” by the public and the state.
The Democrats’ climate policies may be dangerously inadequate, but every tonne of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere matters, and every fraction of a degree of global warming adds up — 4 degrees of warming is orders of magnitude worse than 3 degrees. The complete withdrawal of the US from international efforts to combat climate change could be the final nail in the coffin for our species.
Netanyahu Backs Trump
One imagines Joe Biden must view Benjamin Netanyahu and the state of Israel as tremendously ungrateful. Israel has spent the last year committing the worst genocide of the 21st Century, and is now attempting to provoke a wider war by invading Lebanon and attacking Iran. Every step of the way, the Biden administration has unconditionally provided weapons, funding, political and diplomatic support, despite colossal backlash among Democratic voters — backlash which contributed to Biden’s decision to step aside in July, and which may still cost Harris the White House. And even still, Netanyahu and an overwhelming majority of the Israeli public want Trump to win.
There will be no reprieve for the people of Gaza and Lebanon if Trump wins. Trump’s first-term legacy means he is celebrated by Zionists as “the most pro-Israel president in history” — a label Biden is surely envious of. Trump may have a history of antisemitic comments, and his supporter base may include prominent neo-Nazis, but that doesn’t matter to Zionists — he hates the Palestinians more. Trump has on many occasions used the word “Palestinian” as a slur.
Trump’s ultra-Zionist donors will urge him towards the most extreme pro-Israeli position possible, as they did last time. In 2019, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson successfully lobbied for the Trump administration to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and to recognise Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights.
At the beginning of 2020, Trump assassinated Major General Qasem Soleimani, the second most powerful person in Iran, in a major provocation which could have led to war. Whilst Biden has at times called for Netanyahu to show “restraint” in his bloodthirsty rampage — empty rhetoric given he has declined to withdraw US support — Trump never favours restraint. Trump is unpredictable, and may even be inclined to give the green light to an all-out war with Iran this time around.
Is Donald Trump a Fascist?
Trump and his MAGA movement have always had far-right undertones. During Trump’s first term, activist Heather Heyer was killed and 35 people were injured in Charlottesville when a neo-Nazi deliberately drove his car into a crowd which was counter-protesting the fascist ‘Unite the Right’ rally, during which white supremacists marched through the streets with tiki torches chanting “Jews will not replace us.” Trump famously drew a false equivalence between the fascists and the counter-protesters, condemning the actions of both, and stating that there were “very fine people on both sides.”
Trump and the MAGA movement have only grown more extreme since the last election. Last Sunday’s rally in Madison Square Garden — which echoed the 1939 America First Nazi rally in a potentially deliberate parallel — was chilling proof. Trump’s allies are spending the last week of the campaign insisting that he is not a Nazi after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe warmed up rally attendees by mocking Latinos, black people, Jews and Palestinians, and calling Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.” Trump has denied claims by his former chief of staff and a retired Marine General that he privately made admiring comments about Hitler.
Trump did not originally expect to win in 2016. His inner circle at the time did not enter office with a coherent plan of action. Likewise, all attempts to invalidate the results of the 2020 election were botched, and the attempted coup on January 6th 2021 failed. The Trump team does not intend to fail the second time around.
Project 2025 is a 900-page document outlining the right’s ominous plan for the next four years if Trump wins. The extremists who will take over the US government if the Republicans reclaim the White House plan to dismantle the administrative state and mount a full-scale attack on the country’s democratic structures. Trump has claimed he will govern “like a dictator,” told Christian supporters that this is “the last election” they need to vote in, and stated intent to use the military against his political opponents, whom he has labelled “the enemy within.” The former President had to be dragged out of office kicking and screaming last time; Trump himself may be 78-years old, but the MAGA movement does not plan to give away power again.
Trump is headlining his campaign with the promise to pursue the largest deportation campaign in US history. In the case of the Haitian migrants living in Ohio who he scapegoated in his debate with Harris, he is promising to deport legal migrants, not just undocumented migrants. Not that documented status should matter — this is a campaign based on xenophobic hatred.
One of the most undemocratic features of the US government is the vast powers granted to the unelected Supreme Court. The Court has become an increasingly partisan institution, dropping all pretence of being “above politics.” Its nine members, once nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate — itself an undemocratic institution, where each state, regardless of vast differences in population, is granted two Senators — serve for life. This means that if the right people die at the right time — as happened during the first Trump presidency — it can entrench power in the hands of partisan judges for decades, resulting in rulings that override democratic institutions with wanton disregard for the wishes of the people. The Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections, and have won the unrepresentative electoral college in five of the last eight; yet there is a 6-3 right-wing majority on today’s Supreme Court.
The most infamous consequence of the current 6-3 Court was the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, which ended 49 years of federally-protected reproductive rights for American women. Republican-controlled states across the country moved swiftly to ban abortion; and if the Republicans control the White House, Congress and the Senate next year, then a federal abortion ban will likely be imposed across all 50 states.
Another sinister recent decision was the Court’s ruling earlier this year that granted sweeping immunity to the president in all “official acts.” This decree serves both to protect Trump from prosecution for his past crimes, and to enable him to go off the rails even further if he is reelected. This is another indication that a second Trump presidency will not be like the first — Trump’s coalition, from the base to the courts to the inner circle, is actively laying the groundwork for a right-wing dictatorship.
A Billionaire Dictatorship
Extreme inequality has been tearing America apart at the seams for decades, fuelling the anger and discontent which led to the rise of Trump a decade ago. The former president, a billionaire faux-populist who poses as a man of the people, worsened already-obscene levels of inequality with his 2018 tax cuts. If he is not dissuaded from his unhinged plan to abolish income tax and replace it entirely with tariffs on foreign goods, America will truly return to the Gilded Age — though it is likely on this issue that cooler heads will prevail and prevent him from implementing this policy, given it would cause a global economic meltdown.
Billionaires buying elections is the norm in the US. Trump’s rise in 2016 represented billionaires taking centre stage in presidential politics. Even in that context, this election season has been unusually dominated by billionaires throwing around money and influence. The Washington Post has lost a staggering number of subscribers since Jeff Bezos vetoed the publication’s planned endorsement of Harris. Elon Musk, currently the second-richest man in the world, has spent the past few years flirting with the online far-right; since buying Twitter, his extremist views have been amplified further. Musk has given $130 million to the Trump campaign this year, and is now breaking federal election laws in an attempt to bribe voters in swing states. He is now a regular speaker at rallies, and has been promised a role in a victorious Trump administration.
Peter Thiel, meanwhile, has been a leading figure on the American right for decades. He has bankrolled extremist writers and pseudointellectuals such as self-described “neo-monarchist” Curtis Yarvin, a man who believes that democracy is a “failed experiment.” One man who used to work directly for Thiel is none other than JD Vance — the former venture capitalist who is now Trump’s running mate. The Republican Vice Presidential nomination is literally up for sale — and if 78-year-old Trump wins, Thiel’s protegee will be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Vance has attracted criticism for his views on childless women; in advancing the “pro-natalism” championed by the likes of Thiel and Musk, Vance has revealed himself to be similarly misogynistic. The idea that the “white race” needs to reverse declining birth rates is taken directly from neo-Nazi conspiracy theories about the “Great Replacement.”
The reality is simple: the first Trump presidency had disastrous consequences for the American working class and for the climate. A second Trump presidency will be so much worse. The authors of Project 2025 are poised, ready to unleash their anti-democratic, white supremacist, theocratic fantasies like never before.
If taken at his word, Trump intends to govern as a far-right dictator. The movement behind him includes strong fascist elements. Many of them, including Trump, would deny that label; but if their agenda is successfully implemented, it will amount to a fascist takeover of the US government.
There is no doubt that the global far-right will be emboldened by a Trump victory, including here in Aotearoa. Netanyahu and the far-right Israeli government will grin ear-to-ear. The fossil fuel industry will crack open the champagne. The rest of the world will tremble.
The Pathetic Alternative
Even the most furious critics of the Democratic Party must surely breathe a sigh of relief if Kamala Harris is elected the first female President of the United States on Tuesday. But amidst the constant bombardment of Gaza, with tens of thousands of children dead or missing under the rubble, there can be no celebration. This contest is a no-win scenario for Palestine, for the left, and for all those who care about peace and justice. Yet a Harris win will represent a much less devastating blow to humanity than a Trump victory.
It is hard to pin down exactly where Harris stands politically. She was the first candidate to drop out of the 2020 Democratic primary, after a weak campaign in which she vacillated between moving slightly left in an attempt to win over Sanders supporters, then moving back to the neoliberal centre again under instructions from corporate lobbyists. Her flip-flopping on the policy of Medicare for All, a key demand of Sanders and his movement, was a prime example of this.
After Biden withdrew from the race in July, Harris enjoyed a honeymoon period in which each wing of the Democratic base projected their competing hopes and expectations onto the empty vessel her campaign represented. Hopes on the liberal-left were encouraged early on when she rejected neoliberal Zionist Josh Shapiro as her prospective running mate, and instead picked Tim Walz, the most progressive of the contenders to be her Vice Presidential nominee. Walz is part of the centre-left, relatively pro-labour wing of the Democratic Party; his proudest achievement as Governor of his home state was granting free school meals to the children of Minnesota.
Since the Democratic Convention however, Harris has dashed all hopes that she might run a progressive campaign, one which might appeal to left-behind working class voters in the Rust Belt swing states with a concrete agenda to improve their lives and rein in corporate greed. Harris has instead made a big deal out of being “tough on the border,” caving in to the xenophobic Republican narrative about the so-called border crisis, and has proclaimed that the main difference between her hypothetical presidency and the Biden administration is that she will have a Republican in her Cabinet. Remarkably light on policy detail, the Harris campaign’s initial momentum has faltered; the polling leads she enjoyed in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in September have been largely squandered.
Harris has welcomed the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney and toured the country with his daughter, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, in an attempt to sway “moderate Republican” voters. The Cheney family has broken with their party to support Harris, apparently because of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results — the rich irony being that Dick Cheney and George W. Bush succeeded where Trump later failed when they stole the 2000 election from Al Gore. It is sickening to see Harris brag that she has the support of the chief architect of the Iraq War. But working with war criminals must be all-too-familiar for her, given the Biden-Harris administration’s complicity in the Gaza genocide.
Harris could have emulated the actions of 1968 Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey was Vice President to Lyndon B. Johnson, who prior to Biden was the last President to unwillingly drop out of a reelection campaign. A month before the 1968 election, Humphrey broke ranks from the Johnson administration, and gave a speech calling for a ceasefire in Vietnam. He promised to end the US bombing campaign if elected. In contrast, Harris has remained in lockstep with the administration she is part of, echoing Biden’s empty rhetoric about a Gaza ceasefire, all the while refusing to acknowledge that the President could end the genocide in a single phone call if he wanted to. She has continued to uphold Israel’s narrative as the Zionist regime drowns itself in yet more Palestinian and Lebanese blood.
Harris was a weak candidate who ran a weak campaign in 2020, and is proving to be the same in 2024. For many Americans, the shine wore off Trump years ago, especially in the wake of January 6th; the Democrats should have been able to ride a wave of anger about Roe v. Wade towards a landslide victory this year. If they lose, Biden and Harris will only have themselves to blame.
The Democrats deserve to lose. This is a deeply held sentiment for many on the left. It is a fair assessment, through and through. At the same time, the world does not deserve to experience the terrifying consequences of a Trump victory. Therefore it will be a relief, and nothing more, if Trump loses; there can be no celebration about the prospect of a Harris presidency.
Lesser Evilism and the Junior Partner
Socialists have long decried “lesser evilism” — the logic which compels the left to vote for liberal candidates in elections, no matter how awful their policies are, due to fear of an even worse alternative. This election is the ultimate test of that logic on both sides. One side asks: are liberals still the lesser evil when they are complicit in genocide? The other replies: how evil does the right-wing threat have to be for this logic to no longer apply? Is Trump’s fascist agenda not evil enough for you?
There are no satisfying answers to any of these questions. Voting or hoping for the victory of a candidate complicit in genocide is galling; the consequences of a second Trump term for migrants, women, the climate, et cetera are unimaginable. Israel wins regardless.
All of this avoids the real question: what is the American left going to do about it?
These tiresome “lesser evil” debates are a distraction. The answer to the two-party duopoly is neither to “vote blue no matter who,” nor to recklessly allow Trump to win reelection in a context where the Democrats are the only alternative. The only way forward is to build a socialist movement that can overcome both the greater and lesser forms of evil.
The US left has been in a state of depression since Sanders was defeated in 2020. This depression is valid, the defeat was devastating — but a sense of perspective is needed. The huge support for the Sanders campaigns in both 2016 and 2020 represented an historic resurgence of democratic socialism in America.
Left-wing UK Labour MP Tony Benn had a reminder for activists: “Every generation must fight the same battles again and again. There is no final victory, and there is no final defeat. So toughen up, bloody toughen up.”
Sanders himself is partially to blame for the widespread despondency in the wake of his defeat. Instead of leading the movement he inspired towards building a lasting alternative to neoliberal politics, he has instead pursued the “junior partner” strategy. The Vermont Senator has thrown his support behind Biden and Harris in exchange for piecemeal progressive policies and appointments.
It is true that by some metrics the Biden administration has been the most left-wing, pro-labour administration in decades — not difficult given that the standard is for US presidents to be viciously anti-worker. It is true that some limited progress has been made on infrastructure spending, green investment, and checking the power of corporate monopolies. It is true that Sanders’ horse-trading has played a role in this mild progress.
Yet all of this pales in comparison to the main legacy of the Biden-Harris administration, which is aiding and abetting genocide. The excuses Sanders has made for his “good friend Joe,” coupled with his mealy-mouthed rhetoric on Gaza — refusing to use the word ceasefire for weeks, and refusing even now to call this a genocide — represents a betrayal of the movement he spearheaded.
Even the progress Sanders was able to negotiate on economic policy is under threat. The billionaires backing Harris are aggressively lobbying for her to abandon the centre-left elements of Biden’s agenda, calling on her to sack the trust-busting Federal Trade Commissioner Lina Khan.
Cause for Hope
The Democratic Party was always going to use every trick in the book to stop a self-identified democratic socialist from becoming its presidential nominee in 2016 and 2020. Had Sanders won either primary, his campaign would have faced the ferocious opposition of the entire US political, business and media establishment. It was always going to be an uphill battle — and the left should take hope from what happened, not despair.
For the first time in generations, millions of Americans voted for a candidate who sought to rein in the greed of the billionaire class and tackle extreme inequality. The surprise isn’t that Sanders lost; the surprise is that his agenda was enormously popular. The surprise is that he could have won.
Growing support for socialism in the US is not the only cause for some level of optimism. Further hope can be drawn from the Palestine movement, in America and around the world. Millions have marched on a weekly basis, fighting for a ceasefire and demanding lasting freedom for Palestine. More than 700,000 people voted Uncommitted in protest against President Biden during the barely-contested 2024 primary. Protesters haunted Biden’s every step until he was forced to withdraw from the race; Harris continues to face demonstrations across the country. Campuses have been occupied as students openly revolt against the genocide. Polls show that a majority of Americans support a ceasefire, and believe that Israel is committing war crimes. This, despite the relentless Zionist propaganda in the US media, and despite the almost-total lack of opposition to Israel within the political system.
The anti-war movement represents hope. The huge Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 represented hope. The return of socialist politics in America of all places represents hope. There is a rising tide of opposition to inequality, racism, war and climate catastrophe in the heart of the US empire, the belly of the beast.
This movement needs to grow. The Democratic Party is not a workers’ party — to its core, it is a party representing capitalist interests. A new socialist party must be created in the US. All signs indicate that with popular demands and the right leadership, such a party could build and grow to become a real force in American politics, unlike anything the country has seen in generations. If Sanders and his fellow progressive Democrats are unwilling to take a lead, and are committed to their role as junior partners to neoliberal imperialism, so be it.
There are parallels between the situation in the US and the situation here in Aotearoa. The same crises — climate change, inequality, racism and imperialism — exist here too, if mostly in less extreme forms at this point in time. The current Coalition is the most right-wing government we have had in a generation, with the ACT Party a dangerously prominent element. ACT’s plans to roll back the state, slash workers’ rights, indigenous rights and environmental protections and relax our gun laws, would well and truly make our country look like the 51st American state. David Seymour and others in the Coalition would be at home inside the US Republican Party; and even John Key, who led a significantly more moderate centre-right government than Luxon does, has endorsed Donald Trump.
Kiwis have long prided ourselves on having an independent foreign policy — but that policy is under threat. We are already part of the US-led Five Eyes surveillance network; and now the Coalition is taking steps towards bringing us into the AUKUS agreement, a “defence” pact between the US, UK and Australia which exists to rally the Pacific against China. Any war between the US and China would likely turn into a nuclear conflict that could end life on earth; the US and its imperialist antagonisation in the region must be resisted at all costs.
Our government is complicit in the Gaza genocide, as is any government which refuses to place diplomatic and economic sanctions on the state of Israel. But here too, a majority of people do not believe the propaganda, and want to see a ceasefire and the recognition of the state of Palestine. The anti-war movement will continue fighting until the genocide is ended and Palestine is free.
We too face a situation where each election is a contest of lesser evils — though the crisis of democracy is not quite as acute here. The Labour Party, despite all its flaws, continues to retain institutional ties to the workers’ movement, and our political institutions are significantly more representative than the grossly undemocratic US electoral system, which was designed by slave-owners to facilitate minority rule. Aotearoa has a multi-party democracy — this represents an opening. The barriers to entry for a socialist party here are far less extreme.
In this country as in America, the left desperately needs to build support for an alternative to the ailing system. We too need to organise against capitalism and imperialism, understanding the scale of the challenge we face, and acknowledging the speed with which this challenge must be confronted.
So we should stop tearing each other apart over questions of lesser evil vs. greater evil — questions which leave us feeling powerless and despairing. Instead, we must organise against evil in all its forms, and fight for a better world. We are not powerless. To echo the strongest message of the Bernie Sanders campaign: “when we stand together, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.”
Elliot Crossan is an ecosocialist writer and activist from Auckland. He is the Chair of System Change Aotearoa.
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The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with: on the Israel vs Gaza/Iran/Lebanon, Ukraine/Nato vs Russia/North Korea and whether NZ joins AUKUS;Special guest Community Housing Aotearoa CEO Paul Gilberd talking about the Community ...3 days ago
- Report questions Labour’s big Covid spendup
Over 2020 and 2021, the Ardern Government spent a staggering 22 per cent of one year of the country’s GDP on Covid financial relief. All up, over those two years, they spent $70 billion. The money was borrowed, and the Treasury told the Government not to worry about the huge ...3 days ago - Gordon Campbell on the Royal Commission’s fine-tuning of vaccine mandates and lockdowns
Let’s hope politicians of all stripes can agree to limit their urge to politicise the Royal Commission of Inquiry findings about the Covid response. Since ensuring we get properly equipped next time around – having enough PEP gear, hiring sufficient trained medical staff etc – will involve political decisions, some ...3 days ago - Skeptical Science New Research for Week #48 2024
Open access notables Progression of ocean interior acidification over the industrial era, Müller & Gruber Gruber, Science Advances: Ocean acidification driven by the uptake of anthropogenic CO2 represents a major threat to ocean ecosystems, yet little is known about its progression beneath the surface. Here, we reconstruct the history of ocean ...3 days ago
- Under his eye
The only thing can I remember of the few christenings I went to as a child is the spectacle of proud parents with their best friends standing alongside them - the ones who, God forbid a horrible car or plane crash, might become New Mum and New Dad.I don't believe ...3 days ago - The law means something
Former Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson has been convicted of violating his duty to run a safe workplace over the death of one of his workers: In a judgement released today, Judge Steve Bonnar found Gibson was guilty of one charge raised under the Health and Safety at ...3 days ago
- How to make a submission on the Treaty Principles Bill
The Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti sent a clear and resounding message to the coalition Government. There’s deep kotahitanga for Te Tiriti, and major opposition to the Treaty Principles Bill across Aotearoa and the union movement. It’s an important opportunity for our Affiliate Unions to submit to Select Committee submissions. The CTU ...4 days ago
- Economy Nose Dives
The economy is spluttering:4.8% unemployment - a near four year record high - even as NZ keeps breaking new records for citizen departuresEmployment confidence declined to the lowest level since the first Covid lockdownsThe Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion reported firms are more pessimistic about their current trading conditions than ...4 days ago
- Smoke gets in your eyes
They said, "Someday, you'll find all who love are blindOh-oh-oh-oh-oh, when your heart's on fireYou must realise smoke gets in your eyes."Songwriters: Jerome Kern / Otto A. HarbachToday in Nick’s Kōrero:Smoke gets in your eyes and into more people’s lungsDoing more with less in the health sectorIt’s the economy stupid, ...4 days ago - Love your Berm
In today’s guest post, former Auckland Councillor Pippa Coom highlights the value of berms in Auckland – and encourages everyone to submit on ongoing consultation! Greater Auckland is brought to you by a largely volunteer crew and made possible by generous donations from our readers and fans. If you’d like ...4 days ago
- RBNZ loosening as Govt tightening
Orr delivered a Christmas present for landlords and homeowners with mortgages, but there is little other seasonal cheer as it is becoming clearer how much the Government’s austerity programme is dragging on consumer spending and employment. File photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKakaKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note ...4 days ago
- Look out Nicola, your surplus is slipping
With the Reserve Bank’s move to cut the Official Cash Rate yesterday all eyes are now on next year’s Budget. And the question will be whether the blowout in health expenditure and the drop in tax revenue means the return to surplus will have to be delayed again until 2028-29. ...4 days ago
- Recorded webinar about climate change misinformation and disinformation
On November 6, 2024 the Consortium for Climate Risks in the Urban Northeast (CCRUN) hosted a webinar within the Green Infrastructure, Climate, and Cities Seminar Series about climate change misinformation and disinformation. CCRUN is a NOAA-funded initiative that has been studying the impact of climate change on the Northeast since 2010. ...4 days ago
- The Fascism of David Seymour: Censorship
Fascism is a strong word. Powerful. Dangerous.Wield it carefully, the right say, as they defend their politicians from nazi-like behaviour and participate in the dismantling of their own constitutional protections. If you throw it around at just anyone, they say, it weakens it. Fascism doesn’t mean anything when you use ...4 days ago - Let me through I’m here to make money
What kind of government is this, really? What moves it? What is its guiding light? Pretty simple, really. It is a dumb waiter delivering what its paymasters have ordered.And what moves these paymasters? What is their guiding light?Also pretty simple:Get out of my way I want to make moneyGet out ...4 days ago - Secrecy destroys trust: the case of the nuclear waste dump
Something I was not expecting to learn this morning: the government has built a secret nuclear waste dump in rural Manawatu: A facility for storing all of New Zealand’s radioactive waste has been secretly built near Palmerston North, in a decision neighbouring farmers have called “horrifying” and “deceptive”. The ...4 days ago
- RBNZ data highlights weak economy and labour market
“Unemployment is forecast to remain elevated until the end of 2025 and isn’t expected to fall back to its pre-recession lows within the forecast period. Without a plan to reduce it, we are choosing a permanently higher unemployment rate in New Zealand. It’s no wonder so many Kiwis are emigrating ...4 days ago
- Malcolm McKinnon: Māori and other nationalisms
Māori sovereignty, tino rangatiratanga, mana motuhake, a declaration of independence, partnership under Te Tiriti: these are all staples of Māori political mobilization. A succession of political parties – Ratana, Mana Motuhake, the Māori Party, Te Pati Māori – have upheld the cause, with erratic political success but enduring moral, social ...4 days ago - Wednesday 27 November 2024
The Reserve Bank will be announcing a change to the Official Cash Rate this afternoon, with most economists expecting a cut of around 50 basis points. The Government is reallocating $30,000 towards more senior doctors and specialist nurses, but some including the NZNO say that this is a “sticking plaster” ...4 days ago
- NZTA pushing for PT fare hikes and service cuts
How does an up to 70 percent hike in public transport fares sound, or maybe a lower increase but a big cut to services? That could be the reality of a new policy from Waka Kotahi outlined in a discussion document last week to public transport authorities (PTAs) like Auckland Transport. ...5 days ago
- Bishop cautious on guaranteeing social housing bonds
Chris Bishop has disappointed Community Housing Providers (CHiPs) by pouring cold water on the idea of Government guarantees for CHiPs’ borrowing from KiwiSaver managers, and by proposing more leasing of social homes. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKakaKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around ...5 days ago
- These Days
Soon enough it comesHere it is againThe slowly creeping handOf time and its commandSoon enough it comesAnd settles in its placeIt's shadow in my faceUndignified and lameSongwriters: Jon Coghill, John Collins, Bernard Fanning, Ian Haug, Darren Middleton.This morning, I woke to incessant, high-pitched whining, as if someone had turned on ...5 days ago - What Nicky Kaye’s death means for National
The former Auckland Central National MP Nicky Kaye, 43, who died on Saturday was a critical figure in the recent history of her party. An outpouring of tributes to her from both present and past MPs and leaders of her party and from her political opponents testified to her crucial ...5 days ago
- Government by google
In this year's Budget, cancer Minister Casey Costello gave Philip Morris a $216 million tax cut for their heated tobacco products, on the basis of "independent advice" which contradicted that produced by the Ministry of health. When she finally produced this "independent advice", it did not support her case at ...5 days ago
- Will Luxon let ACT privatise the health system?
The racist piece of shit government is a year old this week, so there's a bunch of retorspectives and looking forwards and so on. Today it was Rimmer's turn - and in addition to gloating about how he's setting the policy agenda and making all the decisions, and about his ...5 days ago
- Our Surgical Waiting List: A Story In Screenshots
...5 days ago - Luxon’s Breakfast
Cover me with kisses, babyCover me with loveRoll me in designer sheetsI'll never get enoughEmotions come, I don't know whyCover up love's alibiSongwriters: Giorgio Moroder / Deborah HarryThis morning, TVNZ realised that they couldn’t credibly put forward Jenny May to interview the Prime Minister again as the possum in the ...6 days ago - Seymour rides high – realising the dreams of Don Brash and Sean Wright – While The Wreck...
1. Seymour rides high David Seymour told RNZ that it wields “disproportionate’ influence in government, claiming credit for “half the ideas” of government, and for helping to lower inflation. "ACT is always there; putting the pressure on.”Seymour also continues to claim "massive support" for the government's Treaty Principles Bill, citing ...6 days ago - ‘Guarantee us and we’ll build thousands of social homes’
Social housing in central Wellington, next to the site of the now-abandoned Arlington redevelopment. To get the building of social housing back on track, a new funding agency has been launched. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / TheKakaKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy ...6 days ago
- What to do about Auckland Transport?
Greater Auckland is brought to you by a largely volunteer crew and made possible by generous donations from our readers and fans. If you’d like to support our work, you can join our circle of supporters here, or support us on Substack! Last week Mayor Wayne Brown proposed a major shakeup ...6 days ago
- Human-caused ocean warming intensified recent hurricanes, including all 11 Atlantic hurricanes in 20...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters Hurricane Milton approaching landfall in Florida on October 9, 2024. (Image credit: NOAA/CIRA/Colorado State University) Human-caused climate change boosted the wind speeds of recent Atlantic hurricanes, making them more damaging and costly, according to a pair of scientific ...6 days ago
- Gordon Campbell on what’s wrong with the Treaty Principles Bill
It has taken until 2024, but even the All Blacks now recognise that Māori are the tangata whenua of this country. There is no consensus however, about what that unique status means in terms of the rights it confers on Māori, and the responsibilities it imposes on the Crown. David ...6 days ago
- It’s Time to End Gender-Based Violence at Work
Everyone Deserves Safety and Respect at Work November 25 marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. This day reminds us of the urgent need to take action against gender-based violence in workplaces across Aotearoa and the globe. C190 is the Path to Safer Workplaces ILO Convention ...6 days ago
- PM Luxon is house proud as David Seymour continues to push the edges of social division
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Luxon Is That Job Interviewee That’s All Sunshine And RainbowsCraig McCulloch (RNZ) has an unbeatable report this morning on Luxon’s reflections of his first year as PM.Allow me to replicate:On ...6 days ago - Monday 25 November 2024
Maritime workers are joining opposition to the government’s plans for resuming live animal exports on the basis that the country “would benefit from being seen as a kind of modern and progressive exporter”. The TEU is slamming a proposal that would end an invaluable timber machining apprenticeship programme, while the ...6 days ago
- PM ‘constructively dissatisfied’ with himself
“Look, I don’t really live with regrets,” Luxon said in one of the interviews marking his first year as PM. File photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKakaKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Monday, November 25: The news: COP29 ...7 days ago - Team of One
Oh, it's a mystery to me We have a greed, with which we have agreed And you think you have to want more than you need Until you have it all, you won't be freeSongwriter: Eddie VedderToday is the last day to subscribe to Nick’s Kōrero at the original price ...7 days ago - A Bad Day
7 days ago - A visitor from the Hawkes Bay rides AT’s buses & trains.
This is a guest post from longtime supporter Mr Plod, whose previous contributions include a proposal that Hamilton become New Zealand’s capital city, an examination on cruise control and speed limits, and that we should switch which side of the road we drive on. Greater Auckland is brought to you by a ...7 days ago
- Bridges challenges Luxon’s foreign policy
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon last Friday appeared to be starting to moderate his pivot to the United States under the foreign policy reset. Back in August he had told Australia’s Lowy Institute last August that New Zealand’s independent foreign policy was a “nonsense”. But in his latest foreign policy speech, ...7 days ago
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #47
A listing of 25 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, November 17, 2024 thru Sat, November 23, 2024. Story of the week This week, we again asked Gemini to create a topical summary of the articles we shared during ...1 week ago
- End Game
Related articles belowIntroductionRecently, I’ve been having some delays in putting pen to paper.It’s not because I’m short on words -Verbosity seems to be one of the banes of my life. And it’s not because there isn’t enough content: I just whipped up a long list from the past few days.So, ...1 week ago - Rowdy scrappers, beautiful birds
Who doesn't love to watch Tūī? Who doesn't love those colours, almost too good to be true - the deepest, glossiest, most lustrous of deep blue, the iridescent turquoise, the crisp-as-a-vicar's-collar white tuft?Who doesn't love the way they move, swooping as swift as a jet or occasionally bashing the hell ...1 week ago - Fact brief – Has human-caused climate change increased extreme weather?
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Has human-caused climate ...1 week ago
- What’s Been Happening? Political Roundup
For paid subscribersI’m currently writing an article in response to a promise to Bill about where everything is heading - and I included a ‘quick’ snapshot of political updates.However, as that list of updates got longer, I thought it made sense to send out as a separate article.So here it ...1 week ago - Bitch
I'm a bitch, I'm a loverI'm a child, I'm a motherI'm a sinner, I'm a saintI do not feel ashamedI'm your Hell, I'm your dreamI'm nothing in betweenYou know you wouldn't want it any other wayWriters: Shelly Peiken, Meredith BrooksGood morning, all you lovely people. 🙂 A newsletter this morning ...1 week ago - Property Rights and the Treaty Principles Bill
Property rights – which enable decisions over tangible and intangible assets – are critical to an economy as Why Nations Fail pointed out. Not just private property rights for, as we shall see, they are more complicated than that. Neoliberals argue that private property rights lead to the maximum economic ...1 week ago - The Hoon around the week to November 22
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with: on the US Presidential elections, Israel vs Gaza/Iran/Lebanon, Ukraine/Nato vs Russia/North Korea and whether NZ now joins AUKUS;Special guest Helen Clark on the issues above, ...1 week ago
- Justice in Brazil
Following the 2022 Brazilian general election, election loser Jair Bolsonaro tried to do a Trump, attempting a coup to overturn the election. It failed. But unlike his American friend, he hasn't been allowed to get away with it: The former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and some of his closest ...1 week ago
- Treasury warns deeper recession worsening Budget deficit
The gift that keeps giving: David Seymour has now opened a split in the coalition over the future of National’s promise to build a new medical school. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / TheKakaKia ora. Long stories short, here’s my top things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and ...1 week ago
- Weekly Roundup 22-November-2024
It’s another Friday and we’re inching closer to the end of the year. Here’s some of the stories that have caught our attention this week. This post, like all our work, is brought to you by a largely volunteer crew and made possible by generous donations from our readers and ...1 week ago
- Beyond Question?
Record Numbers: The Hīkoi mō te Tiriti, which began at the tip of the North, and the tail of the South, on 11 November, culminated outside Parliament on Tuesday, 19 November 2024, in one of the largest demonstrations in New Zealand’s political history.ACCORDING TO TE ARA, the Ministry of Culture ...1 week ago
- The Rush To Blame “The Activists”
Activists are such easy scapegoats. The right and center have been conditioned for decades to roll their eyes at all protests. The left are easily aggravated over students leading movements they see as belonging to grownups, who have more important concerns like the economy and whether the trains come on ...1 week ago - Cutting Through An Inundation of Dipshit Racists
Hi,Watching New Zealand from afar offers a strange perspective. It can be a good thing — distance from Aotearoa helped keep me sane while I reported on abuse at New Zealand’s biggest megachurch over the course of a year. It helps fuel my silly podcast. But it can also be ...1 week ago
- Release: A Labour Government will not join AUKUS
New Zealand will not sign up to the nuclear-powered pillar one, or the pillar two of AUKUS under a Labour Government. ...3 hours ago - Release: Labour will build Dunedin Hospital
Labour will build Dunedin Hospital as it was committed to prior to election 2023. ...3 hours ago
- Chris Hipkins: Speech to Labour Party Conference 2024
E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e rau rangatira ma Tena koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa ...3 hours ago
- Luxon Folds on ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill
Te Pāti Māori Co-Leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, is calling Luxon’s leadership a joke after it was revealed this morning on Q+A that ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill was not a bottom line. "New Zealand officially has a laughing-stock Prime Minister whose leadership folded as he trades away the rights of tangata whenua ...7 hours ago
- Prime Minister shirks responsibility on global climate commitment
In an interview with Q&A this morning, the Prime Minister refused to say whether he would commit to meeting the Paris Agreement, the international climate agreement which commits all countries to act locally to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees. ...12 hours ago - Release: All workers deserve fair treatment
The Government’s latest change to the Employment Relations Act has no justification apart from making it easier to sack employees without having to follow due process. ...2 days ago
- Covid Inquiry report underlines need to invest in Health
The Green Party says the report from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Covid-19 Response underlines the need for proper investment in our health system so we are prepared for future pandemics. ...3 days ago
- Waititi Orders Police Withdraw from Matapihi
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki is demanding that the Police Minister immediately remove the heavy Police presence in the Matapihi community, as hundreds of officers saturate the Western Bay of Plenty area. “Minister Mitchell must intervene immediately and order the removal of the armed Police presence in ...3 days ago
- Release: Opposition parties unite on way forward to protect ECE
Early childhood education needs to be treated as a public good, say Labour, the Green Party, and Te Pāti Māori in their newly released report of findings from public hearings they held into the Government’s ECE Regulatory Review. ...4 days ago
- Government’s First Year a ‘Catastrophe for Māori’
Te Pāti Māori is calling the Government’s first year a catastrophe for Māori, following a year of policies that have done nothing but marginalise tangata-whenua. Today marks one year since the coalition was sworn into power. “This year has been an absolute catastrophe for Māori. This Government has fast-tracked us back ...4 days ago
- Release: 1500 Te Whatu Ora cuts will hurt New Zealanders’ health
Massive cuts across Health New Zealand/Te Whatu Ora demonstrate National’s willingness to risk the health of New Zealanders. ...4 days ago
- Release: Government to make public transport more expensive… again
The Government’s decision to push for significant fare increases on buses and trains over the next few years is a huge blow to communities across the country. ...4 days ago
- Release: National has given up on climate action
Climate action is missing from the list of things National is patting themselves on the back for one year on from becoming government. ...4 days ago
- Public transport fare hikes a disaster
The Government’s directive to councils to increase bus and train fares substantially over the next few years is a bitter pill to swallow for communities across the country. ...5 days ago
- Release: Minister leaves Community Housing Providers out in the cold
Housing Minister Chris Bishop’s speech to Community Housing Providers today should have been titled ‘we want you to build houses, but we refuse to spend money so you’re on your own’. ...5 days ago
- Green Party appalled by woeful Government offer to school support staff
Support staff across Aotearoa have been dealt yet another devastating blow with the release of the latest collective agreement offer from the Government. ...5 days ago
- Release: Chris Hipkins sad to hear about Nikki Kaye
"The news today that Nikki Kaye has passed away after her long battle with cancer is incredibly sad," Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...6 days ago
- Release: Government should be transparent on live exports
Targeted consultation on reinstating live cattle exports by sea won’t allow the New Zealand public to have their say. ...1 week ago
- NZ’s global climate rankings plummet as Govt removes agriculture from ETS
The Government has passed legislation to remove agriculture from the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) while Aotearoa’s reputation on climate action plummets. ...1 week ago
- Failed boot camp experiment must end
As legislation to set up boot camps passed its first reading, the Green Party urged the Government to abandon this failed policy experiment for the good of our rangatahi. ...1 week ago
- Gender-affirming care must centre evidence and health needs, not political posturing
The Ministry of Health has today released an evidence brief regarding the use of puberty blockers in gender-affirming healthcare, amid moves by the government to limit access. ...1 week ago
- Release: National doesn’t care about manufacturing
The National Government is walking away from our manufacturing sector with constant reports of closures and job losses. ...1 week ago
- Release: David Parker speech – Piketty, Inequality and Climate Change
David Parker's speech from the University of Auckland's forum on Piketty, Inequality and Climate Change in September 2024. ...1 week ago
- Release: Youth mental wellbeing no longer a priority for Child Poverty Minister
Louise Upston has revealed her diminished vision for vulnerable youth against a backdrop of snubbed advice, scrapped priorities, shifted goal posts and thousands more children projected to fall into poverty. ...1 week ago
- Release: National’s lack of climate action taking NZ backwards
National Government’s backward-looking climate policy has seen New Zealand fall seven places on the Climate Change Performance Index to 41 out of 63 countries measured. ...1 week ago
- Release: Simple reason for drop in emergency housing
When the Government says it has reduced the number of people in emergency housing, what it means is it is stopping people from accessing it in the first place. ...2 weeks ago
- Govt’s child wellbeing strategy ‘shallow and shameful’
The Government is turning its back on children by not only weakening child poverty reduction targets, but also removing child mental wellbeing as a priority focus in their Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: A historic win for Samoan communities
Labour warmly welcomes the Restoring Samoan Citizenship Bill as it passes its third reading, before becoming law. ...2 weeks ago
- Government plan to reinstate live animal exports a “national disgrace”
The Government has taken a giant step backwards by reinstating live animal exports. ...2 weeks ago
- Pasifika justice as Member’s Bill passes final reading
Teanau Tuiono’s Member’s Bill, the Citizenship (Western Samoa Restoration) Amendment Bill, has passed its third reading and will become law. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Minister of Education thinks New Zealand ends at the Bombay Hills
The Minister of Education has shown complete disregard for rural communities and their school bus routes in Question Time today. ...2 weeks ago
- Economists sound alarm on Government’s slash-and-burn approach
A group of prominent economists has released an open letter to the Government, raising grave concerns about the far-reaching consequences of its fiscal policy. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Smoking numbers up under Costello’s watch
National’s repeal of Labour’s smokefree legislation has taken New Zealand further away from achieving a Smokefree 2025 and a smokefree generation. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Call for Palestine recognition by NZ, Australian and Canadian MPs
Parliamentarians from Australia, Canada and New Zealand have written an open letter to their respective Prime Ministers calling on them to recognise Palestine. ...2 weeks ago
- Justice Select Committee opens floor for Treaty Principles submissions
Today, the Justice Select Committee has decided to officially open submissions for the controversial Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
- Power of the people on full display as hīkoi approaches Parliament
Today, Hīkoi mō te Tiriti arrived in Wellington, with thousands gathering to march in unity against the divisive Treaty Principles Bill. ...2 weeks ago
- Hypocrisy as Te Whatu Ora contractor bill balloons
Te Whatu Ora’s bill for contracting and consulting staff has ballooned by nearly 20 percent under the National Government, breaking a promise they made during the election campaign to cut contractors. ...2 weeks ago
- Release: Growing pressure to scrap Section 7AA Repeal Bill
The newly released Section 7AA Repeal Bill's select committee report is further evidence that the Government should scrap it. ...2 weeks ago
- Government’s move to monetise access to nature a slippery slope
The Green Party is voicing serious concerns over the Government’s proposal to charge for access to public conservation land, released today. ...2 weeks ago
- Green Party condemns the passage of Treaty Principles Bill
The Green Party condemns the passing of the Treaty Principles Bill at first reading, and is clear that the fight is not over. ...2 weeks ago
- Mautohe Cathedral Cove reopens to walkers
The Government has delivered on its promise to restore public walking access to the popular Mautohe Cathedral Cove in time for Summer 2024-2025. The walking track to the famous Coromandel beach - renowned for its natural rock arch feature and idyllic waters – was severely damaged by extreme weather events ...9 hours ago - Increased medicines access continues following budget boost
Associate Health Minister with responsibility for Pharmac David Seymour is pleased to see further increased availability of medicines for Kiwis following the Government’s increased investment in Pharmac. “Pharmac operates independently, but it must work within the budget constraints set by the Government,” says Mr Seymour. “When this Government assumed office, ...14 hours ago
- NZ and United Kingdom strengthen partnership
New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters and United Kingdom Foreign Secretary David Lammy held the inaugural annual New Zealand-United Kingdom Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue today in London. “The United Kingdom is our oldest, and one of our closest and most trusted partners,” Mr Peters says. “While we are separated ...2 days ago
- Minister reminds public health officials of priorities
Minister of Health Dr Shane Reti says the National Public Health Service should concentrate its focus on prioritising serious public health issues facing New Zealanders. “Earlier this week I was informed about an 8-page submission by the southern arm of the NPHS regarding a proposed fast food outlet in Wanaka,” ...2 days ago
- World class visitor centre for Punakaiki
Sightseers to the iconic Punakaiki (Pancake Rocks and Blowholes Track) will enjoy a richer experience thanks to a world class visitor experience centre run by local Iwi, Conservation Minister Tama Potaka says. This state-of-the-art facility provides visitors to the West Coast with a high-quality experience and helps boost the region’s ...2 days ago
- Healthy Homes Initiative improves health of more than 200,000 people
A five-year evaluation of the Healthy Homes Initiative has demonstrated the positive impact of warm, dry homes on the health and wellbeing of more than 200,000 people. The Healthy Homes Initiative, led by Health New Zealand, helps families living in cold, damp homes, providing support like education, beds and bedding, ...2 days ago
- A year of concrete progress for infrastructure and transport
In a busy year of delivery, the Government has made concrete progress toward improving the foundations of the infrastructure system and addressing New Zealand’s infrastructure deficit, and is streets ahead when it comes to getting transport back on track, Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown say. “It ...2 days ago
- Mining stats show a sector delivering for NZ
New figures on mining activity across New Zealand show the Crown collected nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue in the 2023/24 financial year, bolstered by royalties collected from petroleum and gold, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The statistics, released this morning by the Ministry of Business, Innovation ...3 days ago
- Safer ports – approved code of practice for loading and unloading cargo takes effect today
Today marks a significant milestone for the port and maritime sector, with the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon Brooke van Velden, and the Associate Minister of Transport celebrating the Approved Code of Practice for Loading and Unloading Cargo at Ports and on Ships (ACOP) coming into effect. “The ...3 days ago
- Red Tape tipline gets over 300 reports in first week
In just its first week, over 300 people have reported red tape issues to the new Red Tape tipline, Regulation Minister David Seymour says. “Red tape wastes valuable time, money and sanity. I am not surprised to see an outpouring of discontent from Kiwis who are sick of the tangle ...3 days ago
- More flexible dismissal process for high-income employees
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says an upcoming change to the Employment Relations Act will enable employers to ensure they have the right fit for their high impact leadership and specialist roles. This policy delivers on the ACT-National coalition to set an income threshold above which personal ...3 days ago
- NZ and Germany deepen cooperation
New Zealand and Germany are committed to enhancing their partnership, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Our discussions in Berlin over the last few days have underlined the broad range of interests that New Zealand and Germany share,” says Mr Peters, following his meeting with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. ...3 days ago
- Chemical weapons and Iranian missiles targeted in new Russia sanctions
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced new sanctions in response to Russia’s ongoing illegal invasion of Ukraine – and joined partners in a Call to Action on sanctions-evading ‘shadow fleet’ activities. “These new sanctions respond to recent findings by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons that illegal ...3 days ago
- Exporters benefit from new trade system
The modernisation of New Zealand’s trade certification system, which supports $33 billion of exports, is making selling top Kiwi products overseas more reliable and adaptable for the future, Food Safety Minister Andrew Hoggard says.“New Zealand food and wine is admired around the world and brings jobs, money, and opportunities into ...3 days ago
- Whanganui to benefit from the latest health technologies
Today’s opening of a new MRI facility at Whanganui Hospital is the latest in a number of health infrastructure projects designed to improve healthcare services for the people of Whanganui and surrounding districts, says Minister of Health Dr Shane Reti. “I’m really pleased to have been able to deliver on ...3 days ago
- Strengthening timber trade with new assurance system
The Government is delivering on its commitment to combat trade in illegally harvested timber, with consultation starting today on operational details to implement New Zealand’s legal harvest assurance system, Forestry Minister Todd McClay announced today. “The system will limit the risk of importing illegally harvested timber and provide the international ...3 days ago
- Royal Commission into COVID-19 phase 1 report received
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden has today received the report from phase 1 of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19. “The delivery of the phase 1 report marks the conclusion of phase 1 of the Inquiry. Phase 1 Commissioners Professor Tony Blakely and John Whitehead have now ...3 days ago
- More support in reading and maths for Kiwi kids
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"The anti-war movement will continue until the genocide is ended and Palestine is free."
1. What would a map of "free Palestine" look like?
2. What makes you imagine that the conflict in Gaza is a major issue in the US election? Most Americans will be focused on matters a lot closer to home, like the economy, jobs, abortion, and immigration.
On no. 2, there has been extensive media coverage from swing states like Michigan that shows Gaza is indeed a major issue – possibly crucial. It's not "imagine" at all.
In Michigan, Israel’s expanding war could shape the election results : NPR
All those other issues you mention are prominent in a national election, but we all know the result is likely to depend on a small percentage of voters in a handful of states.
Is NPR a reliable, politically neutral source?
[yes. Stop trolling. And take a week off, the last thing we need this week is this particular combination of stupid and disingenuous. I suggest you up your game because you’re heading for a long ban – weka]
Google dozens of others, take your pick. Did you want me to link to all of them? Don't play dumb, please.
I know I shouldn't feed bad faith trolling, but you'd have to be incredibly ignorant to think that Michigan/Gaza is some kind of leftie take.
Here's Fox (I don't recommend, but that's what Google provides in a few seconds …):
Rashida Tlaib refuses to endorse Kamala Harris as Gaza war takes toll on Dem voter base | Fox News
I always thing the links and explanations are for people reading, and thus useful. But yeah, a troll, now banned.
Why don't you give an example of what you consider a reliable, politically neutral source? I haven't seen a unicorn in a while.
NPR is rated as "Leans left" by allsides.com. It's a non-profit that discloses it's funding. I think that's about as reliable as you can ask for these days.
Questioning someones source without contributing anything to the discussion doesn't sound like good faith argument to me.
Also, in answer to your first question: There is no map of Free Palestine and there never will be. Israel has done it's very best to make sure that the 1947 borders are impossible to go back to, and there's not enough contiguous territory left to carve out a new state. What comes next is guaranteed to be a complete shit show.
The truth leans left.
Are you a seagull or a sealion?
mod note.
“By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.”
Gore Vidal.
True.
I like the comment by Will Rogers: " A fool and his money are soon elected."
The US electoral system needs a big overhaul to bring it out of the 18th century but you'll see feathered frogs before that happens.
Voter turnout for the 2020 election was 66% according to Pew Research Centre; the highest in decades. At least they've cranked up their security for this one,
"An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought." – Simon Cameron.
Ye Gods, do I loathe tankies…
Why are there so many "thinkers" on the Left that get so worked up about the evils of US imperialism, they ignore the inconvenient truth that China's motivations are far from noble or pure?
After all, it's a legitimate autocracy with precisely zero regard for its citizen's rights and freedoms, a terrifying willingness to carry out genocide to erase inconvenient and obstreperous ethnic groups, no respect for the sovereign territory of other states, and a raging hard-on for brinkmanship as a way of asserting their foreign policy objectives.
I guess, at least they have the decency to be open and honest about it.
It is China's ambitions to become a hegemon in the Asia-Pacific region is what is driving the formation of AUKUS, alongside a much more muscular defence posture from South Korea and Japan.
Given our position as small, weak state on the periphery, New Zealand doesn't, and never has had the luxury of a truly independent foreign policy. Our choices are stark and binary: accept a US led rules-based international order, or a Chinese/Russian one that leaves the whole region open to invasion and exploitation.
We might have to live in a US-dominated region, but that doesn't obligate us to lick its boots either.
We are a plaything to the Yanks. Consider the Atlas network and its shenanigans in NZ and Australian elections.
It doesn't inspire much good will. And if MAGA takes over and the light of freedom is extinguished, we might be better off without their "help"
I like Rob logic
Whoa, hold your horses there cowboy,
While I hate tankies as much as the next gal. I don't think we have to throw in holus bolus behind Uncle Sam.
I don't think our choices are stark and binary: accept a US led rules-based international order, or accept Chinese and Russian hegemony. The US and their Israel ally are actively shredding the international rules based order, thumbing their noses at the UN and ICJ rulings as irrelevant and bullying and threatening sanctions against the ICC, which under US pressure is at risk of losing all legitimacy in the Global South, and even ceasing to exist as a functioning body.
Every thing you say, about the Xi regime in China is true. ditto the Putin regime in Russia. That doesn't mean we have to take sides.
While these big powers might think small countries like New Zealand are completely powerless in the face of their combined economic and military might, I think our independent foreign policy is in our best interest and worth pursuing. And sets an example for other small nations to not get bullied into taking sides in the disputes between the superpowers.
Across the Tasman Australia seem to be busying themselves in turning their country into Airstrip 2
This won't save Australia, instead it will turn Australia into a target. We don't want to become a target in a warzone in a dispute between the US and China.
Instead we should become the Switzerland of the South Seas. Friends to all enemy to none.
If small countries like Ireland Switzerland in the heart of Europe can achieve neutrality respected by all powers, it should be doddle for a small state on the periphery.
This doesn't stop us from having trading relationships and friendships with other independent neighbouring countries.
New Zealand has more to offer the world as a neutral peacemaker than
as a partisan combatant.
Thanks for saying that so well Jenny.
As you say, things aren't binary. To imply we must choose one side or another suggests a mindset looking for justification.
You have just described the USA, Russia and several other States as well as China.
Don't see why we should throw in our lot with baby killing murderers, of any stripe! Especially ones that pretend to be "friends", while happily destabilising our Government with monetary and logistacal support for our home grown right wing nut jobs and bombing and murdering all around the world, to keep oil cheap.
"Safety" for New Zealand lies in a genuine "rules based order". Which the USA is the first to cynically ignore when it suits them.
Their are many people in China and the USA and even Russia, where moral suasion may work Which is the only way we can change events.
The alternative, WW 3 is unthinkable. Humans will not survive it!
And. The reason why “Lefties” appear to concentrate on the USA, is we expect them to live up to their own stated principles. Personally I have a lot of US friends. I expect better from my friends!
They have controlled media and internet, one has a one party regime (top down led) and the other limits the organisation of opposition to those in power.
In their case, it is engagement at the government level.
A Chinese workmate who has lived in both countries said.
In the USA you can change the Govetnment not the policies.
In China you can change the policies, but not the Government.
US presidential elections seem to be about everything the Americans point out is wrong with other democratic systems – lying, cheating, false promises, vote rigging, gerrymandering, intimidation of voters, counting "irregularities" and of course, bribery.
When it happens in third world countries the Americans put on a superior haughty look and snigger about "third rate democracies".
When it happens at home, they don't want to address it, or even acknowledge it.
Mike, you're going to get yourself into trouble with the big boys and girls if you keep telling the truth. I know cause it happened to me when I was a public servant. Some of da bosses didn't like it one little bit.. 😈
You gotta laugh.
"left-wing activists around the world act as if we have a say in America’s election when we do not." Elliot Crossan ?
We don't have a say in the American elections, but we do have a say in how we react to them.
For instance AUKUS under Trump?
Are there any takers for this?
I mean, seriously
Even members of our Security and military community will be leery of going into a military pact with a hyper nationalist, (some say fascist) US administration, that has no interest or even room for what is good for New Zealand’s interests.
Leftists have a job to do, to make sure it never happens
My prediction, for what it's worth (admittedly, not much) – Harris in a landslide.
And both Senate and House will go democrat!
When was the last time that those three institutions were aligned for more than two years? Johnson?
The US voters don't appear to like having an undivided executive and legislative house for more than the period to the next election.
Not quite as far back as that.
The Republicans held all three from 2003-2007 (George W Bush) and before that the Democrats held all three from 1977-1981 with Jimmy Carter. That was four years each time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_States_Congresses
Ive been thinking that for a few weeks now Tony, but not more than 4 to 5% . Something I read on the weekend about so many polls causing confusion and the poll of polls "smoothing "the overall result sounds like somebody using AI to do the interpreting. What could possibly go wrong?
Given that all of the polling results are within the margin of error – polling in the US election is essentially valueless.
Pollsters aren't going to admit this (it's their livelihood) and journalists aren't going to admit this (what would they have to write about).
You should feel free to ignore all of the pre-election hype – and wait for the results to come out.
I've been thinking that way as well lately, though for no rational reason. Not a landslide, but sufficiently decisive to quash any chances of a serious challenge to the outcome. And after it's all over, it will seem in hindsight to have been inevitable. People will look back and ask themselves: why the hell were we so worried?
Alas, I think LP has it right about the Congress. Senate to flip back narrowly to the Repulsiveones; HoR could go either way.
Oh so now we have to suffer a Jill Stein columnist. Relevant like shoes to an Ostrich.
Letter from 16 European Green Party reps asking Stein to withdraw her candidacy and endorse Harris.
https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/31/US-elections_-European-Greens-call-for-Jill-Stein-to-step-down_clean.pdf
Big Hairy News discussing the election threw up the factoid in discussing Key's support for Trump, because "the economy'. At 39 min, "Democrat governments since 1988 (post 1987 crash) have added 50 million jobs to the US economy; Republican governments have added 1 million".
This peddled untruth that rw governments stimulate the economy, and lw don't is an albatross around the neck of Labour here. It is the fundamental lie that lw parties here need to dismantle, hammering the message again and again in opposition.
At 49 min, Pat says that, under a company director analogy for the Coalition, with CEO Luxon, Act is running a hostile takeover of National.
I agree its a no win situation.
If Trump wins we get another 4 years of chaos which nobody can predict, not even Donald himself.
With Kamala we we get a continuation of the Biden administration -which isn't great
Ukrainian president Zelenskyy recently noted that "…for some, victory has become an uncomfortable word…" What I think he meant is that many, especially on the left of Western liberal democracies, no longer believe it is a fundamental intellectual idea central to successfully confronting, and defeating, the powerful forces of techno-oligarchs and authoritarian nations.
Victory requires sacrifice, determination and privation. It may require you to be, in the words of Luthen Rael, "…condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them…" It requires you to grasp that decency is a fundamental component of a free society.
Too many on the left have lost sight of the intellectual and moral reality that victory over authoritarians and oligarchs and fascists is both necessary and a good thing that requires commitment beyond the dismissive safety of declaring a plague on their houses and expressing a vague desire to build an entirely notional movement from thin air. Against the hard requirements of victory the OP is just another hand wringing exercise from the safety of no-cost ideological purity over taking common cause with people you don't like against an even bigger threat.
Left activists will always refuse to accept that those who abjure moral compromise to achieve victory can do so only because others are morally compromising themselves on their behalf. Still, whether they like it or not that is a grossly obvious observation.
Whether or not Trump is yet a full blown fascist is a quibble. AS Brecht recognised Trump’s crude thinking, vulgarity, indecency and cruelty is completely in line with the psycho-political mechanisms, racialised identity and projection that is full blown fascist thinking.
The US election a no-win scenario? Don't be such a fool.
Trump might – just might – not be a fascist himself, but the people using him for distraction/misdirection most certainly are.
Hear hear, Sanctuary!
Yes, America may not be a perfect ally. And yes, Kamala Harris and the democrats may be an imperfect vehicle for radical social and economic change, as necessary as that change may be.
But in the real world, we have to work with the tools we have and the world we live in.
Anything else is just earnest, yet intellectually lazy handwringing from the comfort and safety of am echo chamber.
Why are we worrying about a Chinese invasion?
Very unlikely, as under the Coalition of cockups foreign "investment" policies, they can just buy the place.
The bit they, or the yanks, don't already own.
The NZ countryside and prime real-estate will be buzzing with helicopters and regional airports will have to hire more ground staff to cater for all the private jets owned by the maga-rich mates of the National leadership team. If NZ is to pretend of wanting to become a politically neutral Switzerland in the Pacific, then it will have more holes in this bubble than a Swiss cheese.
It's the oligarchs that we have to worry about rather than the authoritarians. The main problem in the USA is that their oligarchs seem to have the presidents under their thumb. In Russia the "authoritarian" Putin seems to be doing a better job of keeping the oligarchs under control: he has forbidden them from participating in politics, and has apparently arranged for the assassination of one or two who backed political parties. They seem to do politics differently in that part of the world.
I don't think there are very many fascists these days – Pinochet in Chile comes to mind of course, and perhaps one or two south american and middle eastern rulers, but military rule seems to be not as useful these days as it used to be.
Yes what you said.
Here's hoping…
.
@RachelBitecofer
What is exciting about the Selzer poll and its trusty methodology is that it shows two things right before the election: Harris is winning among actual (pure) independents, but also party loyalty for Trump among Republicans is atypically low, coming in at 89% for Republicans.
If that holds and is reflective of swing state voter behavior, its game over for Donald Trump.
https://x.com/RachelBitecofer/status/1853173218443731181
It's going well.
https://archive.li/hlfq9/3ffc22aa1881f2d2146a20fddaad98d33a3b594d.png
https://xcancel.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1853423844888809974
Mosque gutted by fire this morning in New L:ynn, Auckland.
Police called in. Given the timing, bet it was a hate crime inspired by Trump's election rhetoric:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/fire-in-auckland-mosque-firefighters-called-to-blaze-in-new-lynn-by-police/OTA33W7LQ5FXFCPTHP5F6FU47A/
The inspiring words of the Imam of the Auckland mosque as reported in the Herald, cf #12 above from Anne.
“There are those who tried to harm us, to shake the very foundations of our sacred space.
“Let us remember that the walls of a masjid are strong, but they are not our true foundation. Our true foundation is our faith, our love, our patience, and our unity. These are the stones that no fire can burn, no attack can weaken, and no words can shake.”
Inspiring words but seemingly caused by an infamy perpetrated here in Aotearoa New Zealand where the 'bonds of love' were broken by some individual again bringing strife to our nation.
Thanks Elliot. excellent article. Reminds me of one of my favourite music tracks. "Monster. Steppenwolf" All 8 minutes of it ! Cheers Keith
I have only one wish for this election.
Grover Cleveland was both the 22nd and 24th President. He is the only one in this situation as he was the only one to have a gap between his two terms.
Please, please, let him retain this unique situation after the current election.
Trump is a clear and present danger to us all – that's up and down ballot, and the oligarchs behind him like Musk, Thiel etc. I don't know about you, but election anxiety this time around is huge, not least among my kids who live and vote in the USA. I want to see democracy continue in the US (imperfect as it is) where we can continue to protest and push for change and the "others" not rounded up and shot at the border. Yes, we don't like what is happening in Gaza, but has no-one noticed the confiscation of Palestine in the last 70 years? I also don't like what is happening in Ukraine, where a Trump Presidency will surely give Putin the go ahead and the first European War since WW2 will gain traction. I don't like that workers' rights will be curtailed, that Kennedy, an anti vaxxer and proponent of removal of fluoridation in water, could be put in charge of health, I don't like any of it. It is our job on the Left to push for change and that will go on forever, but surely we have learned that authoritarianism and dictatorships haven’t worked out that well? BTW did you see the thousands of women marching in Washington yesterday? Reproductive rights might seem a small thing to many, but some of us remember when abortion and contraception was illegal here, there was no support for solo mums so the only recourse was have your child adopted out, or find the women with knitting needles and gin baths. Can we at least move on from that in the US. Please.