"Citizens were challenging big business, holding them accountable, demanding governmental oversight, exercising their democratic rights. To [Lewis] Powell, the corporate lawyer and perennial corporate board member, this was a bridge too far. The chorus must be killed, power returned to the kings.
The future Supreme Court Justice went on to outline in detail how the corporate world must retake control and influence over every aspect of American life."
I just realised why I find interviews with Rimmer so hard to listen to.
If you listen carefully, his main tactic is to waffle generalisations. Then if the interviewer tries to pull him back to Earth with a question about specifics, he wastes time by misdirecting onto tangents and meta-discussion.
His other tactic is this sort of cheeky schoolboy act, which includes acting like he's been ankle-tapped if the interviewer tries to insist on getting a specific answer to a specific question.
"Kia Ora Freyberg High Students, who organised an impromptu protest and haka when they hear of Racist Atlas Network Grifter Racist ACT Weasel David Seymour"
💯%. Can't wait to see what these rangatahi get up to when they leave school, and ACT can't rely on being shielded from their challenges by school teachers.
The Tories who are responsible for privatising England's #3waters have also been advising our #National#Act#NZFirst govt on NZ's 3 waters reform. The one legal collective defense Aotearoa still has against privatising or foreign ownership and control of NZ water is te Tiriti o Waitangi principles. 🤔
Laura Tingle just now claiming Tasmania's #HareClark system is different to all other jurisdictions in the country. What??! She LIVES in a Hare Clark jurisdiction! #ACT
The #DigitalMarketsAct mandates Meta to "enable end users to freely choose to opt-in to [combining or cross-using personal data] by offering a less personalised but equivalent alternative".
When I pointed out to Meta that by offering users to either #consent to #SurveillanceAds or pay € 275 per year for #Instagram & #Facebook isn't "equivalent alternative" they said, Meta has to do that because of #GDPR 😤 Really??
If you needed any more proof that the so-called #AppAssociation#ACT is an #Apple front, their lobbyist just asked #Google whether it wasn't worried that 3rd party app stores are dangerous to users and would put a control process in place (like Apple does). 😠
I'm sitting in the @EU_Commission#DMA compliance workshop for #Apple right now and as much as I appreciate the format, it's frustrating to see that Apple is the only party on the panel and in addition has its proxies like #CCIA and the #AppAssociation#ACT in the audience that are allowed to ask convenient questions and steer the discussion in Apple's interest.
I find it ironic how many defenders of the #AtlasNetwork and its direct involvement with #NZPol political parties, astroturf organisations and undemocratic influencers are crying about conspiracy theories targeting them. After all, if anyone should recognise and appreciate the influential power of a good conspiracy theory then it’s the Atlas Network and their star pundit #ACT leader David Seymour.
"workers confirmed the ship will head to Tacoma, Washington where it's expected to load up with military supplies before heading to Israel.
"We're hoping that when it reaches Tacoma, the workers in Tacoma will not load that military cargo, that people of Tacoma will show up to protest this genocide & that workers around the world will continue to stop ships...We are simply trying to call for an immediate cease-fire & stop the aiding of the genocide of my people"
You can go to https://ceasefiretoday.com to email Congress, find a protest near you, sign the petition, phone bank, and call your Representative and Senators.
Get Out of Your Mind & Into Your Life
The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Self-Help Workbook
ACT is not about fighting your pain; it’s about developing a willingness to embrace every experience life has to offer. It’s not about resisting your emotions; it’s about feeling them completely and yet not turning your choices over to them. ACT offers you a path out of suffering by helping you choose to live your life based on what matters to you most.
Mitchell, Austin. ‘Revenge of the Rich: the neoliberal revolution in Britain and New Zealand’. Canterbury University Press, 2017.
Austin Mitchell was a UK Labour MP for the years 1977-2015 and prior to that lived and lectured in Aotearoa for 8 years, part of the original team that founded the Political Science department at Canterbury University.
‘Revenge of the Rich’ is a readable overview of what neoliberalism (NL) is, how it was introduced and adopted in Britain (Thatcherism) and Aotearoa (Rogernomics) and its consequences. It’s a solid little taster and intro into NL in Aotearoa and by comparing and contrasting it with Britain, it fleshes out the contexts in which NL was instituted here and why, and how it failed in both countries.
If a book about economics can be called “lively”, this one is. It’s not a textbook and doesn’t read like one. It’s piqued my interest in NL, austerity, and related stuff. Aotearoa just had a General Election and both the Nats’ and ACT’s talking points reflected the same failed NL crap Mitchell documents. I suppose a frightened populace will goosestep behind snakeoil salemen touting expired ideas if they’re unaware those ideas have been tried, tested, and failed.
It's just more reason why dual power is so important and why engaging with and building within your communities is really the only way we’ll build resilience against the pendulum swing of politics.
Intriguing to see an up-and-coming ACT MP and a long-serving Nat MP debate each other;
"I don't think we have to have this obsession with wanting to cut New Zealanders' jobs. In fact, people are important. I don't care whether they're in the private, sector, the public sector, or a politician like myself, they're all people, and this obsession to just go and cut 15,000 jobs is not the way forward."
"[Raj Manji is] calling on National to stand aside in Ilam so TOP gets into Parliament with a handful of MPs, meaning Luxon wouldn't have to rely on New Zealand First if that's what's needed to form a government."
"[ACT leader David] Seymour says repeatedly that people (he means Māori, of course) shouldn’t have 'different rights based on ancestry'. This is typically simple, clever and deceptive...
The answer is that there there is a crucial difference between rights, which are universal, and tools to fulfil rights, which are always based on varying circumstances."
"To start, you need a permit to import firearms and any gun retailer needs to keep records of who they've sold gun to. However, if I then buy a gun and sell it to somebody else, I don't need to keep records of that transaction. All I need to say is that they showed me their firearms licence. This is called straw-buying, and it's how lots of firearms have ended up in criminal hands."
The lack of gun registry - until June 2024 this year - was a big part of why people were able to get guns so easily for committing violent crimes. ACT say want to crack down on organised crime. So why do they want to abolish the gun registry?
It annoys me that the news media elevated the leaders of the legacy parties to their own private Chrisfest, instead of having a leaders debate that included these 4. That would have been a much more robust and insightful debate than listening to two sheets of human wallpaper dribble talking points at each other.
David Seymour admitted that having 10,000 people in prison, costs the public $7 per week for every man, woman, and child in the country. That's a lot to spend.
Especially when it's well known that people who spend time in prison are more likely to reoffend, and to commit more serious crimes when they do, than when the criminal justice system responds in other ways (eg restorative justice).
ACT Wildlife is replacing soon-to-be-illegal fruit nets with the legal ones. Take them your old ones and they will replace them.
They have also Failed Their Advertising. The only reason I know about this is that my sister and mother dragged me out there with their carload of old nets a couple of weekends ago.
Putin has his very own Congressperson in the House of Representatives. This is unbelievable: majorie greene is proposing the US withdraw from #NATO and block #F-16’s from going to Ukraine.
green is a traitor to America, asked for a pardon after ONLY THREE DAYS ON THE JOB and supports #TheBigLie and blocked certification of our election.
Chicago becomes latest US city to call for cease-fire in Israel-Hamas war (apnews.com)
Chicago is latest U.S. city to approve such a non-binding resolution, following Atlanta, Detroit and San Francisco in recent months.