A left leaning look at the world with Media and Political commentator, Paul… The Other One Barlow.

Privilege, from the latin Privilgium - meaning Private Law. And a change to our legal system which will see funding withdrawn from Section 27 Cultural Reporting will once again confirm that in Aotearoa, there is privilgium happening for some, because the reports will only be accessible to those with the resources to get them, not everybody - and to claim it’s about focusing on the victims is disingenuous until the government makes them available to all or to none.

A left leaning look at the world with Media and Political commentator, Paul… The Other One Barlow.

The Overton Window - it’s a simple explanation of how a topic goes from being unthinkable to being accepted and having policy created around it. It’s what David Seymour wants to see shift to get his Treaty Principles Bill across the line - so how does it work? Let me show you by looking at how it worked for Marriage Equality in Aotearoa.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/further-information-homosexual-law-reform

A left leaning look at the world with Media and Political commentator, Paul… The Other One Barlow.

Rage Farming, it's a technique used by bad faith actors to spread their content far and wide, by causing enough outrage that people with opposing views do the work for them.

A left leaning look at the world with Media and Political commentator, Paul… The Other One Barlow.

A 1988 Ministerial advisory group called it the most insidious and destructive form of racism in the country - 36 years later there’s political parties and outside influences arguing to maintain it - showing that racism isn’t just direct slurs and attacks, in some hands it’s about keeping things the way they are by victim blaming and denying responsibility.

References: 

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2022/05/denial-structural-racism-antiblack-prejudice

https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/handle/10289/6397

https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/archive/1988-puaoteatatu.pdf

A left leaning look at the world with Media and Political commentator, Paul… The Other One Barlow.

Rage Farming - a tool used to spread anger online by using those angered by various comments and perspectives to reach a wider audience than their original content would usually reach - it's almost like a trojan horse of hate.

A left leaning look at the world with Media and Political commentator, Paul… The Other One Barlow.

At the last local body elections in 2022, Voice for Freedom tried to circumvent the democratic process by encouaging and supporting members to run for election without disclosing their affiliations to voters.

Now Liz Gunn, notable conspiracy theorist and leader of NZ Loyal, a Sovereign Citizen aligned fringe party, is working with Hamilton City Councillor Andrew Bydder to to build a network of their supporters to run en masse in 2025 and take over local councils.

A left leaning look at the world with Media and Political commentator, Paul… The Other One Barlow.

This week 500’000 households got copies of Sir Apirana Ngata’s 1922 translation of The Treaty of Waitangi. As a document, the alt-right love it, because it says exactly what they want to hear from someone Julian Batchelor considers a “Good Māori” - someone who worked within the systems of the dominant group in society. But the thing about Ngata, he was only considered “good” when he kept his head down and didn’t upset the Waka - but the racists pushing his translation only want you to know him as the guy on the $50 note.

https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3n5/ngata-apirana-turupa

https://paulbarlow.substack.com/p/the-curious-case-of-democracy-in

A left leaning look at the world with Media and Political commentator, Paul… The Other One Barlow.

Does Prime Minister Christopher Luxon have CEOs Disease?

It’s not a real disease, more a term coined by organisational psychologists to explain how the further up the food chain someone gets in the corporate word, how much less they are self aware of the reality around them. And Former Air NZ CEO Luxon does seem to exhibit the traits of a victim of this…

A left leaning look at the world with Media and Political commentator, Paul… The Other One Barlow.

The alt-right commentators that fill MSM and X/Twitter these days have loved using a specific phrase since the October election - "Finally the adults are in the room". But the past few days has shown just how adult the adults actually are, it's more like they're actually three kids in a trench coat pretending to be a government.

A left leaning look at the world with Media and Political commentator, Paul… The Other One Barlow

It’s starting to feel like our new Finance Minister is past keeping her head above water, she now needs a longer straw to keep breathing from under the surface. Since before the election there were claims and promises that she has now reneged on, she still hasn’t shown us their detailed plan she assured us would work no matter the state Labour left the books in (which was a lot better than she was telling us) and now she’s putting at risk cornerstones of our democratic systems and judiciary. 

To give landlords and the mega wealthy tax cuts.