National’s disarray – the Emperor has no clothes
This year’s local body elections probably won’t enlighten us as to which direction the public, or more correctly the various social classes, might be heading politically. Certainly, there is nothing so far to suggest that the local elections will herald a Labour Party revival. However, the local elections are not without interest. Themayoral election campaigns […]
The origins of the Labour Party
I might state that the museum up on the hill known as Parliament House has little attraction for me but if that machine can be used to benefit the working man and foster industrial organisation, I am in favour of it. W E Parry, January 1913,President of the Waihi Worker’s Union 1909-1912, Minister of Internal […]
Introducing Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist, active in the 1910s and 20s before his imprisonment by the Italian state under Mussolini. It was while he was imprisoned that Gramsci made his most well-known contributions to Marxist theory, including the key concept of hegemony. Gramsci’s contributions are valuable not only theoretically, but for the many practical lessons that can […]
How do we win the Living Wage?
On July 6th, Living Wage campaigner Deborah Littman spoke to an assembly of faith groups, unionists, students and other activists gathered at Saint Peter’s Church in Wellington. Much of what Littman presented was encouraging. Her experiences as part of successful living wage campaigns within London and Vancouver offer hope to New Zealand activists struggling to […]
Resisting the pro-police backlash after Dallas
THE POLICE KILLING of two Black men–Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, a suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota–last week horrified people around the world and brought protesters into the streets in large numbers across the country to proclaim that Black Lives Matter. Yet just as quickly, in […]
Making history or maintaining the status quo?
THERE’S NO denying that women could use a “historic” breakthrough. We could use quite a few, if anyone is offering. Contrary to those who argue that we live in a post-feminist era, where sexism is a thing of the past, women are still, by almost any measuring stick, unequal to men in U.S. society. Wages, […]
Debating the Brexit
Around the world socialists are digesting the outcome of the UK referendum vote to leave the European Union. British socialists, and their international co-thinkers, were divided on the referendum question both between and within their organisations. The debate continues here. Martin replies to Tom Bramble’s analysis in Red Flag. Tom Bramble’s analysis of the British […]
After the Brexit: Fighting Racism
Kevin Hodder sent these notes from London: I awoke in London to a shock. Travelling from New Zealand and only briefly abroad, I only had a relatively tenuous grasp on the debates going on in the UK around the “Brexit” vote. The details of these debates are not for me to cover. Irrespective of why […]
Should workers in Britain vote to Leave the EU?
The referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the EU takes place on Thursday 23 June. Aotearoa has been touched by the referendum in a couple of ways. Winston Peters has not hesitated to give the British the benefit of his advice. Rightwing, anti-immigrant populist that he is, Peters is for a Brexit. On Saturday 18 […]
Demanding better disability stories
“Rights, not tragedy!” “Assistance to live, not assistance to die!” These were some of the chants of around 30 disability rights protesters outside the Embassy’s preview screening of Me Before You on Wednesday night. The rally was one of many around the world calling for a boycott of the Hollywood romance, a film that plays on the […]
