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Bigger than your lunch box

Like many, I get a daily chuckle out of the news story that keeps on giving – the school lunches disaster. This was supposed to be an easy win for the free-market coalition: an opportunity to showcase how much better National and Act are at financial management, how wasteful Labour was and generally how everyone wins when you let competition and the free market rule. Except they picked the wrong target group. School kids. Had this been about meals delivered to rest homes, we would have never heard about the problems. The residents would have complained to the staff, some staff may have complained to management and management may have written a strongly worded letter to the food company. But the rest of us would never know and the government could have claimed the money savings as a success. But kids are different, in particular teenagers, who are very good at two things: complaining about how tough they have it and posting things on social media, especially pictures of food. Amplified ...
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Could we give this new arms race a miss? By Sam Buchanan

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The presence of Chinese warships in the Tasman Sea has been a great boost to cheerleaders for the new arms race. Globally and locally, there have been calls for increased military spending from the whole range of the commentariat spectrum, from academics to Donald Trump. The British Labour government just slashed its overseas aid budget in order to have money to buy more guns.    Locally we are being told to increase our defence spending to two percent of GDP. We are told we’ve ‘underinvested’ in defence, and that a response is needed to the worsening ‘security situation’.   Defence minister Judith Collins recently said we have to “make up for the 35 years of feeling that we’re living in this wonderful world where nothing bad could happen”.   Contrary to the minister’s suggestion that we’ve been sitting on our hands, in the last 35 years we have splurged on new military gear including, but not limited to, two ANZAC frigates, a new amphibious and mi...
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Cancelation of Film Screening - attend instead the Right to Protest mtg

We have decided to cancel the film screening on Tuesday 25th as there is a much more urgent meeting to attend - Peace Action Wellington have called a public meeting in response to the call by the Independent Police Conduct Authority for new standalone legislation directed at pre-emptively policing protest.   The IPCA want a law that people should have to apply to the government for permission before protesting, and they also recommend that it should be a criminal offence to protest without permission. This is apparently to make the job of the NZ Police easier. We need to fight back against this! So please come along to the public meeting: 6.30pm Tuesday 25/2 Two/Fiftyseven -  level 2  57 Willis St in the city. Further information here:  https://peaceactionwellington.wordpress.com/ (And apologies for the cancellation of 'The Coconut Revolution' - we shall show it at a future date.)
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'The Coconut Revolution' - Film & Chat at Whatever Palace

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CANCELLED CANCELLED Attend instead the 'Right to Protest' meeting same day - 6pm at Two/Fiftyseven   115 Taranaki St, Te Aro, Wellington 6011, New Zealand  7pm Tuesday 25th February  There's a lot of talk about mining at the moment, so the Freedom Shop thought it's time to show 'The Coconut Revolution' again. This is the story of an eco-revolution: the struggle and win against mining and victory over Western colonial power. When multi-national mining first went to Bougainville in the 1960s, locals were told that the mine would bring development. They soon realised that this was not true. In 1988 people of Bougainville rose up in arms against giant mining corporation Rio Tinto Zinc - and forcibly closed down the mine. The Papua New Guinea Army were mobilized to put down the rebellion and the newly formed Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) fought back - at first with bows & arrows and sticks & stones, and managed to retain control of most of their islan...
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Toitū Te Tiriti

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  Terrific tangle of 'Toitū Te Tiriti'  shi rts and totes at the shop, along with stickers and badges.
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