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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 >>
On The Elections In France, Iran And Britain
Monday, 8 July 2024, 2:47 pm | Gordon Campbell
Despite hysterical prior media calls that the far right might win an absolute majority in France’s National Assembly, the outcome has been a victory for the left wing coalition, but also for Macron, the left’s unlikely second round ally. More >>
In Westminster At Last: The Threat Of Nigel Farage
Monday, 8 July 2024, 1:02 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Farage is already promising rapacious raids into enemy territory. “We are coming for Labour … be in no doubt about that.” While eschewing notions of working with the Conservatives, he offered an olive branch by way of invitation: Tory members ... More >>
Better-Paying Jobs In Israel's "Safe Areas"
Monday, 8 July 2024, 12:50 pm | Richard S. Ehrlich
During the past 20 years, Thais have competed for the difficult jobs in Israel despite the instability and fighting. More >>
Massacre At The Ballot: The Punishing Of The Tories
Sunday, 7 July 2024, 3:24 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Given that Labour proved the largest beneficiary of a voting system that should only ever apply in a two-way contest and given the prospect of Reform and the Greens posing ever greater threats from either wing of politics, appetite for electoral reform ... More >>
Corporate General Practice Ownership Highlights Unintended Perverse Outcome
Sunday, 7 July 2024, 1:06 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses how corporate ownership of general practices can, by abusing the capitation funding system, have detrimental consequences for primary healthcare in New Zealand. More >>
A Day Of Contrasts Between Darkness And Light
Friday, 5 July 2024, 12:24 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
We have to look a lot deeper than “the battle between those who want to fix what is broken and those who want to keep breaking.” More >>
Sharon Revisited: Netanyahu’s Ultimate Aim In Gaza And Why It Will Fail
Friday, 5 July 2024, 9:05 am | Ramzy Baroud
Israel never learns from its mistakes. More >>
On Saving Journalists, Not An Industry That Routinely Exploits Them
Thursday, 4 July 2024, 12:01 pm | Gordon Campbell
Labour is saying it needs to listen. Apparently, Labour is going to spend 2024 listening, and 2025 thinking about its options. It could be 2026 before Labour finally reveals what it has in mind. Really? Currently, National and ACT are burning down the house, ... More >>
Dunne's Weekly: Never A Good Time To Be In Opposition
Thursday, 4 July 2024, 9:55 am | Peter Dunne
There are likely to be slim pickings for Opposition parties over most of the next three months for reasons that have little to do with politics. And there may not be all that much they can do about it because the reasons are beyond their control. More >>
The US Supreme Court Outs The Imperial Presidency
Wednesday, 3 July 2024, 1:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The US Supreme Court has much to answer for. In the genius of republican government, it operates as overseer and balancer to the executive and legislature. Of late, the judges have seemingly confused that role. More >>
On Macron’s Gamble, And Biden’s Last Stand
Tuesday, 2 July 2024, 10:55 am | Gordon Campbell
On Emmanuel Macron’s risky, rope-a-dope plan B strategy of deliberately opening a corridor to power for the far right, in the belief it will blunt Le Pen's appeal by the next presidential election in 2027. On Trump's new immunity from prosecution ... More >>
On Aid And War - How Israel Has Used Starvation To Subdue The Palestinians
Tuesday, 2 July 2024, 7:15 am | Ramzy Baroud
Humanitarian aid should never be politicized though, quite often, the very survival of nations is used as political bargaining chips. More >>
Muzzling The Dogs Of War
Monday, 1 July 2024, 4:34 pm | Eugene Doyle
Listen to what the leaders in the West are saying. The time to stop the madness is now, not once the elites drive us into the abyss and civilians are stripped of all rights to oppose. More >>
Assange’s Return To Australia: The Resentment Of The Hacks
Monday, 1 July 2024, 1:05 pm | Binoy Kampmark
His return to Australia after striking a plea deal with the US Department of Justice sees him in a state with some of the most onerous secrecy provisions of any in the Western world. More >>
Can A New Foundation Be Poured Before The Complete Collapse Of The International Order?
Monday, 1 July 2024, 11:21 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
In short, the spiritual, philosophical and political foundation has to be poured before a collapse occurs to change course when it does. More >>
Hunted Biden: The First Presidential Debate Disaster
Sunday, 30 June 2024, 12:01 pm | Binoy Kampmark
While Donald Trump was always going to relish the chance to be not only economical with the truth but simply inventive about it, Joe Biden seemed a vanishing shadow, longing for soft slippers and the fireplace with cocoa, a case of comfort rather ... More >>
Keith Locke: Hard On Issues; Soft On People
Sunday, 30 June 2024, 11:57 am | Ian Powell
This is a tribute to the recently deceased Keith Locke who was much more than an influential Green MP in New Zealand. His whole life was around political and social justice advocacy. More >>
Won’t You Please Come To Chicago? Cheri Honkala On The Democratic National Convention
Sunday, 30 June 2024, 11:42 am | Ann Garrison - BAR Contributing Editor
The City of Chicago has inadvertently granted the Poor People’s Army a permit to march to the steps of the United Center during the Democratic National Convention. More >>
Gavin Newsom: Zionist In Waiting
Saturday, 29 June 2024, 1:17 pm | Ann Garrison - BAR Contributing Editor
The Democrats' rising star Gavin Newsom offers more of the same: Zionism and militarism. More >>
Assange’s Release: Exposing The Craven Media Stable
Friday, 28 June 2024, 3:08 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The WikiLeaks project was always going to put various noses out of joint in the journalistic profession. Soaked and blighted by sloth, easily bought, perennially envious, a good number of the Fourth Estate have always preferred to remain uncritical of power and ... More >>
The Altalena Affair: Is Israel Heading Towards A Civil War?
Friday, 28 June 2024, 1:18 pm | Ramzy Baroud
The story of the potential Israeli civil war is as old as the Israeli state itself, and recent comments by Netanyahu, suggesting otherwise, are yet another false claim by the prime minister. More >>
Man Is Dead; What Is The Way Ahead?
Friday, 28 June 2024, 10:22 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Is Buddhism as far removed from what Siddhartha lived and taught as Christianity has become from what Jesus lived and taught? Buddhism is a godless religion with which I have much sympathy, but little simpatico. I’m not using the word godless ... More >>
Justice Mander And Three Strikes
Friday, 28 June 2024, 8:52 am | Peter Dunne
Justice Mander effectively bypassed the jury’s decision that Dickason was guilty of the murder of her three infant daughters, with his comment that ““I am satisfied that your actions were the product of your mental disorder. I consider your severe ... More >>
