To Nelson Mandela
Dear Madiba, I know this letter will reach you too late. Even as I write you might be passing away from us – to Jesus or your Xhosa tupuna or simply back to the warm earth of Africa, from which we all came. In some ways, like saints in the old days, dying brings you […]
Book Review: Alison McCulloch, Fighting to Choose: The Abortion Rights Struggle in New Zealand
When an abortion service started in Invercargill last year, anti-abortionists quickly mobilized against it. An anonymous e-mail was to sent to the Abortion Law Reform Association NZ threatening ALRANZ and clinic staff: “People who work at the clinic are legitimate targets and so are you. You’ll be hearing from me again, that is if your […]
Interrogating capitalist democracy
BOOK REVIEW: Brian S. Roper, The History of Democracy: a Marxist Interpretation (Pluto Press, 2012) British historian Geoffrey Ste Croix described the struggle for political control over the state as “class struggle on the political plane”. It is a neat formulation that Brian S. Roper effectively deploys to explain the history of Western democracy. In […]
Hezbollah and the Syrian Revolution
Hezbollah fought on the front lines against Israeli aggression against Lebanon in 2006, winning respect from Sunni and Shia in Lebanon and all opponents of Zionism. But Hezbollah fighters have now turned their fire on the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad’s regime in Syria, raising the risk of the Arab Spring becoming a sectarian war […]
Tui, Tuia: Gathering the threads of working-class history
BOOK REVIEW: Jared Davidson, Sewing Freedom: Philip Josephs, Transnationalism and Early New Zealand Anarchism (AK Press, 2013) We first encounter Philip Josephs, subject of Jared Davidson’s engrossing, lovingly-written, richly detailed and passionately political new book Sewing Freedom, as he addresses Wellington’s 1906 May Day demonstration: “This meeting sends its fraternal greetings to our comrades engaged […]
Making Sense of Budget 2013
John Key, Bill English, and the bulk of the media have presented Budget 2013 as providing responsible economic management that will benefit all New Zealanders. There are sound reasons to reject this depiction. Media Coverage of the Budget Reading through the lengthy compilation of media commentary on the budget by Bryce Edwards and his research […]
The Legacy of Hugo Chavez: Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution
Hugo Chavez was a figure that had the neoliberals of the world worried. He led a democratic sweep of changes across his country, appropriating businesses, nationalizing oil wealth and providing services for the people and the poor, something that, according to the logic of the market’s apologists, cannot work. For all that Time magazine called […]
Bill’s Budget is a Castle Made of Sand
On Radio Live last night, Duncan Garner was chortling with satisfaction at Bill English’s stewardship. His business guests were even more delighted. Andrew Patterson praised Bill English’s wisdom and prudence that had finally undone all the damage of the Clark Labour Government. In a pretty disgusting metaphor, Garner said Cameron Bagrie, the ANZ chief economist, […]
The Second Chinese Revolution 1925-27
The Second Chinese Revolution of 1925-27 was a turning point in world history. Consider the world situation around 1924-1925. In Europe the revolutionary wave that accompanied the end of the First World War had exhausted itself to leave the Russian Revolution isolated. In Germany the revolutionary process from 1918 to 1923 had been halted and […]
Socialism and the Campaign Against Asset Sales
Why do socialists oppose asset sales? The answer seems obvious: socialists want state ownership because it provides popular control of the economy. People on both the right and the left generally agree socialists stand for ‘big government’ and ‘state intervention’. But being a revolutionary means questioning accepted wisdom and although reformists in Labour and the […]
