Hey Joe. I didn't realise you were Joe from the blogworld when I met you. I have visited your blog quite a bit. Maybe it wasn't quite a speech but I thought it was worthy of being mentioned in my report. I think the Pharmac issue is one opponents of a NZ-US FTA should really push because it would get us a lot of public sympathy.

Cheers for the feedback anon. I had read that good Mickey Z article a couple of years ago. I probably should have made that line about fascism a bit clearer (think I'll do an edit). I agree completely that the war was for the Allied states and elites mainly a war for resources and control. I was referring to rank and file soldiers, many of whom were motivated to join the fight to fight fascism (including a good number of radicals such as the NZ communist Gordon Watson who was killed during the war).

If the Allied states had really cared about fascism they would have done something to stop it in Spain and stopped big capitalists, such as the anti-Semite Henry Ford, from bankrolling the Nazis. In fact US State Department reports were full of praise for Hitler and Mussolini in their early years in power.