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The ASIO Astrologers: Terror Threats And Radicalisation Down Under
Wednesday, 7 August 2024, 1:22 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The director general of ASIO, Australia’s domestic intelligence service, is very much of the belief that drumming up threats is indispensable. To that end, Mike Burgess is proving to be one of the most garrulous chiefs of what is otherwise a secretive ... More >>
On Making Profits By Trashing Consumer Protections
Wednesday, 7 August 2024, 12:21 pm | Gordon Campbell
The government has once again chosen to put the profits of business ahead of what the public health research is telling us. Under pressure from the giant Danone multinational, New Zealand has backed out of signing a proposed Trans-Tasman labelling standard ... More >>
Political Crisis In Bangladesh: Lessons For Aotearoa New Zealand
Tuesday, 6 August 2024, 4:48 pm | Keith Rankin
History is history, warts and all; that dictum applies to all identity groups. More >>
Political Pretence: The Democrats And The Palestinians
Tuesday, 6 August 2024, 11:08 am | Binoy Kampmark
The fact that the Democrats currently occupy the White House has done little to ruffle the equation of blood and gore in the Middle East, notably regarding the fate of the Palestinians. More >>
Negation Is The Essence Of Meditation
Tuesday, 6 August 2024, 10:57 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Other than two wild turkeys calling to each other nearby, and a few swallows skimming over the surface of the water, I saw or heard no animals until the end of the sitting. But after thought fell still and a meditative state had begun, there was a rustling ... More >>
On Who’s Making Gold From The Olympics
Monday, 5 August 2024, 2:28 pm | Gordon Campbell
No-one (apart from advertisers perhaps) seems to make much money out of doing business with the IOC. France will have spent $8.2 billion to stage the Olympics, making it the sixth costliest Games of all time. More >>
Kamala Harris: Papier-mâché Coronation
Saturday, 3 August 2024, 7:05 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The idea of a valid contest within the party has well withered on the vine, adding even more succour to the authoritarian varnish Harris’ critics identify as critical. The sycophantic celebration of her presumptive nominee status adds even more of a ... More >>
A Quiet Health New Zealand Resignation That Speaks Volumes
Saturday, 3 August 2024, 7:01 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses the significance of a resignation from the Board of Health New Zealand. More >>
Mr Speaker's Lonely Role
Friday, 2 August 2024, 9:32 am | Peter Dunne
The Speaker’s role is a combination of Parliamentary, ceremonial, and administrative functions. The Parliamentary function is to preside over the business of the House, including Question Time and significant debates. More >>
When ‘Prophets’ Become Memes: Rise And Fall Of Benjamin Netanyahu
Friday, 2 August 2024, 8:37 am | Ramzy Baroud
The Israeli leader had hoped to press the reset button and return to his silly theories about the irrelevance of Palestine to the Middle East, and the world. He was proven wrong, again, making him a false prophet or, at best, a failed leader. More >>
What’s Behind Cruelty To Animals
Thursday, 1 August 2024, 3:57 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses first protection for companion farm pets in New Zealand and then elephant exploitation and sanctuaries in Thailand, all in the context of what drives capitalism. More >>
Assange, CIA Surveillance And Spain’s Audencia Nacional
Thursday, 1 August 2024, 12:24 pm | Binoy Kampmark
US officials have persisted in their reticent attitude, refusing to cooperate with Spain’s national high court, the Audiencia Nacional, regarding its investigation into the Agency’s espionage operations against the publisher, spearheaded by the ... More >>
On The Government Crusade To Degrade The Public Health System
Thursday, 1 August 2024, 11:28 am | Gordon Campbell
If anything finally convinces voters that the Luxon government is a deadly risk to life and limb, it will be the damage it is doing to the public health system. There is no sign the government recognises the realities we face, let alone has a response ... More >>
The Beijing Declaration: How Chinese Diplomacy United Palestinian Groups
Thursday, 1 August 2024, 7:58 am | Ramzy Baroud
For years, China has attempted to play a role in Middle East politics, particularly in the region's most enduring crisis, the Israeli occupation of Palestine. More >>
Tax Cuts: 1982 And 2024
Wednesday, 31 July 2024, 4:12 pm | Keith Rankin
The official context here is that the income tax scale has been subject to 'bracket creep', meaning that average tax rates have increased because of rising price levels; bracket creep benefits the government's coffers at the expense of wage workers. More >>
Olympian Ordure: Swimming And Shitting In The Seine
Wednesday, 31 July 2024, 2:23 pm | Binoy Kampmark
With the award of the Olympics came the intention to feature the Seine in various sporting events. No less than €1.4 billion was spent on cleaning the river, a project underway since 2015. More >>
Journalists, Please Stop Writing “Paradox” When You Mean Contradiction
Wednesday, 31 July 2024, 11:23 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The knotty contradiction of Norway encompasses both the evolutionary contradiction between man and nature, and the Gordian knot of the climate crisis in the present world. More >>
Greasing Palms: The Thales Blueprint For Corruption
Tuesday, 30 July 2024, 6:44 pm | Binoy Kampmark
As Bernard Keane of the Australian publication Crikey observes, “bribery might be a tool in Thales’ arsenal for dealing with defence officials around the world, along with stringing out negotiations for its own ends and refusing to comply with ... More >>
Gordon Campbell On The Greens’ Darleen Tana Dilemma, And The Weirdness Of J.D. Vance
Monday, 29 July 2024, 4:24 pm | Gordon Campbell
List MPs are on shakier ground than electorate MPs if they resign (or get expelled) from the party under whose banner they entered Parliament. An electorate MP can lay some claim to having a personal mandate from voters, in addition to their party affiliation. More >>
It’s Being Called An “Angry Fire”
Monday, 29 July 2024, 11:58 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
For the earth, that man’s blight will not be halted, that even the wilderness burning north toward the Oregon border provides no sanctuary for animals or human beings, and this is the future. More >>
‘Watering Down’ Genocide: No More Moral Compromises On Palestine, Please
Monday, 29 July 2024, 8:53 am | Ramzy Baroud
In this alternative space, Israel is, at best, equally culpable for the ‘war’ in Palestine as the Palestinians themselves; and, at worst, the Israeli army is merely engaging in a state of self-defense. More >>
The Olympic Games: Perennially Costly And Always Over Budget
Sunday, 28 July 2024, 5:09 pm | Binoy Kampmark
For the budget-minded types, the Olympics, and analogous monumental sporting events, continue to lose their appeal – along with the finances. The extortionate strain on the public wallet, the bleeding of funds from budgets, has made them most unattractive ... More >>
Rwanda Elections' Foregone Conclusions: Paul Kagame Retains Power
Saturday, 27 July 2024, 2:21 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Whatever the broader stated goals of Kagame for his country, he remains motivated by a desire to preserve the position of the Tutsis, keeping the rival Hutus in check. Ethnicity, far from vanishing as a consideration, retains an aggressively beating ... More >>
The Pervasiveness Of Inward Deadness Is Not The Result Of “The Deadening Effect Of The Super-Rich”
Friday, 26 July 2024, 1:22 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
We, those who still care about the viability of the earth and the future of humanity, have to look deeper than boilerplate thinking on the left. More >>
On The Royal Commission Inquiry Into Abuse In Care
Friday, 26 July 2024, 11:45 am | Gordon Campbell
Chris Hipkins was applauded for saying that the response to the final report of the Inquiry into Abuse in Care had to be “bigger than politics.” True, but the apologies will soon ring pretty hollow if the state doesn’t treat its response as an overriding ... More >>
Peter Turchin's "End Times"; Some Comments
Friday, 26 July 2024, 10:42 am | Keith Rankin
The essence of the structural-dynamic model is the alternation of integrative and disintegrative long-phases of nation's histories. And, from his earlier work, there's a strong sense that civilisations go through three of four of these alternations ... More >>
‘Terrorist Organization’? What’s Behind The Israeli War On UNRWA
Friday, 26 July 2024, 10:18 am | Ramzy Baroud
Targeting a school during a war could be justified or, at least, argued to have been a mistake. But striking over 120 schools, killing and wounding thousands of civilians sheltered inside, can only be intentional and horrific war crimes. More >>
Removing An Incapacitated Leader
Friday, 26 July 2024, 9:21 am | Peter Dunne
The Cabinet Manual merely notes that “A change of Prime Minister may occur because the incumbent Prime Minister resigns, or as a result of the retirement, incapacity, or death of the incumbent Prime Minister”. However, it contains no provisions, ... More >>
Dear West: Your ‘Age Of Monsters’ Has Begun
Thursday, 25 July 2024, 7:16 am | Ramzy Baroud
Antonio Gramsci was not a professional philosopher. His intellect was refreshingly situated within an inherent bias towards the common people, the 'subaltern' classes, particularly the working class. More >>
Whose Values Do You Mean, Winston And Judith?
Wednesday, 24 July 2024, 5:34 pm | Alison Forrest
These values place commerce and money as well as US strategic military interests over the wellbeing, and the very existence, of ordinary, and especially foreign, people. More >>
It’s Bigger Than NATO And It’s Heading Our Way
Wednesday, 24 July 2024, 5:26 pm | Eugene Doyle
New Zealand is about to sacrifice what it cannot afford to lose for something it doesn’t need: gambling we can keep the strength and security of our trading relationship with China whilst leaping into the US anti-China military alliance. More >>
On A Textbook Case Of Spending Waste By The Luxon Government
Wednesday, 24 July 2024, 10:31 am | Gordon Campbell
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to ... More >>
Puppet Realisations: Biden Stands Aside
Wednesday, 24 July 2024, 9:16 am | Binoy Kampmark
Having been endorsed as the only viable candidate to battle Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential elections, Joe Biden was subsequently browbeaten and harried into leaving the way open for another candidate. It involved some movement of political furniture, ... More >>
Is Inflation Really Too High?
Tuesday, 23 July 2024, 2:19 pm | Keith Rankin
What New Zealand was experiencing earlier this decade was a spike in cost increases resulting from the Covid19 pandemic and from the Russia-Ukraine war. That's not inflation. It was just costs incurred which humanity had to absorb. More >>
Patriotism Vs. Nationalism Is A Distinction Without A Difference
Tuesday, 23 July 2024, 12:22 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Is there a difference between patriotism and nationalism? Can you love your country without identifying with it? When does love of one’s country become hatred of humanity? More >>
Conventional Wisdom: The ICJ Ruling On Israeli Settlements
Monday, 22 July 2024, 2:07 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Given the avalanche of international opinions, deliberation and understanding on the status of the settlements that arose after 1967, the ICJ was merely revising homework and reiterating home truths of international law. More >>
On The Biden Withdrawal
Monday, 22 July 2024, 1:00 pm | Gordon Campbell
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded ... More >>
Information Technology And New Zealand's Health System: 0 Steps Forward, 2 Back
Monday, 22 July 2024, 8:52 am | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses in a wider context the cutting of Health New Zealand’s IT budget. More >>
NATO: 75 And Still Threatening
Saturday, 20 July 2024, 6:17 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In Washington’s absence, the NATO family might retreat into fractious insignificance. The ensuing anarchy, rather than stimulating war, may well do the opposite. More >>
The Sovereignty Of The Earth And Humanity
Friday, 19 July 2024, 11:09 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
When even a small minority of human beings ignites insight through self-knowing, there will be a revolution in human consciousness as a whole that changes the disastrous course of man. More >>
When Supporting Israel Is A Liability: Is Gaza Changing The West?
Friday, 19 July 2024, 9:15 am | Ramzy Baroud
The Israeli war of ‘extermination’ in Gaza, per the words of International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan, has made the cause of Palestinian freedom a global one. No amount of media disinformation, or lobby money can help Israel redeem its tarnished ... More >>
Dutton’s Quixotic Proposal: Nuclear Lunacy Down Under
Thursday, 18 July 2024, 2:51 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Politics and facts are not necessarily good dinner companions. Both often stray from the same table, taking up with other, more suitable company. The Australian opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has never been discomforted by facts, preferring ... More >>
Dunne's Weekly: National Drifting On Health
Thursday, 18 July 2024, 8:05 am | Peter Dunne
When it established Health New Zealand, or Te Whatu Ora as it was then known, in July 2022 the previous government took an enormous risk that ultimately failed. More >>
On Why Right Wingers Think All Governments (including Their Own) Are Incompetent
Wednesday, 17 July 2024, 4:08 pm | Gordon Campbell
It isn’t all that surprising that the Luxon government should see no leading role for itself in the response to climate change. As an item of quasi-religious faith, centre-right governments hold that governments – including themselves, presumably ... More >>
New Zealand's Joe (Biden/Ward) Moment
Tuesday, 16 July 2024, 5:34 pm | Keith Rankin
Joseph Ward's 'Biden moment' bisected 1925 to 1933 period, enabling 1929 and most of 1930 to be relatively good years for New Zealand in the midst of a disastrous run of circumstance compounded by unbending economic liberalism of William Downie ... More >>
Tony Blair: Profiteer And Emissary Of Artificial Intelligence
Monday, 15 July 2024, 3:27 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In May, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) released a report that unabashedly embraced the role of AI in influencing the way states govern. It is the accompanying document to Blair’s own address given at the Future of Britain Conference on July ... More >>
On The Trump Shooting And A Potential Hike In Fees For Visiting The Doctor
Monday, 15 July 2024, 1:27 pm | Gordon Campbell
Having watched Donald Trump systematically exploit social grievances, urge people not to accept his election loss and incite his followers to violent insurrection... it is a bit hard to swallow the media descriptions over the past 24 hours of Trump ... More >>
Health Leadership, Tobacco Control And A Sacred Oath: ‘First Do No Harm’
Sunday, 14 July 2024, 7:37 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses the conflict between the government’s decision to repeal new world-leading tobacco controls and the medical ethics of doctors working in senior Health New Zealand positions. More >>
The Convulsed Republic: The Shooting Of Donald Trump
Sunday, 14 July 2024, 3:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Far from this being incredible, such acts of violence speckle and blood US politics. Candidates have been previously gunned down in cold blood. Presidents, whether going to the theatre or appearing in public motorcades, have been very publicly assassinated. More >>
“We Love You Joe, But…”: Hollywood’s Advice To President Biden
Friday, 12 July 2024, 1:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Given that the US President is now not so much functioning in twilight as in rapidly descending darkness, the recent intervention by Hollywood grandee and Democrat benefactor George Clooney has prompted ever more tittering about the electoral prospects of ... More >>
France's Two-Ballot Voting System, And Its New Zealand Antecedent
Friday, 12 July 2024, 12:40 pm | Keith Rankin
The French two-ballot voting system, used in France's Fifth Republic (1958 constitution) is a variant of the Australian preferential system, and the multi-ballot systems used for electing presidents and leaders of political parties. More >>
Is Cognitive Decline Inevitable?
Friday, 12 July 2024, 12:14 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Cognitive decline is a deeply personal issue, and the only person who can convince Joe Biden to bow out gracefully for the sake of the nation and world is Jill Biden. More >>
Rekindling The Old Love Affair: Can Trump Save Netanyahu?
Thursday, 11 July 2024, 5:36 pm | Ramzy Baroud
If Netanyahu thinks that Trump would offer him a better deal than that of Biden, he is mistaken. Biden has proved to be the greatest American enabler to Israel in its 76-year history. More >>
Terminating Partnerships: The UK Ends The Rwanda Solution
Thursday, 11 July 2024, 5:05 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Yet it was a sadistic policy of beastly proportion, offering no prospect of genuine discouragement or deterrence to new arrivals, stillborn in execution and engineered to indulge a nasty streak in the electorate. More >>
The Time Antony Blinken Went To Bed With Sergey Lavrov
Thursday, 11 July 2024, 4:32 pm | Eugene Doyle
The conflict is unlikely to be won on the battlefield; both sides have too much skin in the game. Peace will require diplomacy; diplomacy means talking. This childish refusal to talk to each other must end; they must grow up and go to bed with each ... More >>
Rwanda's Stillborn Middle-Income Economy
Thursday, 11 July 2024, 3:45 pm | Ann Garrison - BAR Contributing Editor
Rwanda’s economic miracle is a lie. More >>
On Luxon In The NATO Pressure Cooker
Thursday, 11 July 2024, 11:31 am | Gordon Campbell
PM Christopher Luxon will be made aware of the pressure on the 32 NATO member states (a) to increase their Defence spending (b) to become less militarily dependent on the US and (c) to treat NATO as having a global purpose, beyond its customary regional ... More >>
Trendy Appointments: Australia’s Special Antisemitism Envoy
Wednesday, 10 July 2024, 12:46 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When a government is in trouble, new committees are born, officials appointed, and fresh positions created. An essential lesson in governing is to give the impression of governing, however badly, or ineffectually, it might prove to be. More >>
Struggling Toward Consciousness
Wednesday, 10 July 2024, 11:29 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Intelligence is not a function of thought and knowledge at all, human or artificial. Its wellspring is the direct perception of beauty, which flows from undirected attention and effortless stillness. More >>
Structured Literacy – How Rigidity Flows From Ideology
Tuesday, 9 July 2024, 5:09 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses how the ideological use of structural literacy has led to rigidity in the teaching and learning of literacy in New Zealand primary schools. More >>
