We marked number 100 (way back in August 2002) by inviting members' and readers' comments, and published 2-3 pages of them in that issue. You can read them here; (it's rather poignant to realise that some of those who wrote are no longer with us). It has taken us 17 years to get from number 100 to number 150 (at three issues per year) and we can't guarantee that Watchdog or CAFCA will last another 17 years to make it to number 200 (not to mention me. If I do, I'll be 85).

We've never opened up Watchdog's pages to letters - at three issues per year it's not practical, and frankly there's not room, what with all the other stuff we have to fit into it (the digital equivalent of letters to the editor is CAFCA's Facebook address. But we think that turning 150 is a good enough reason to make an exception. So, we invited members' and readers' comments. And here they are. Ed.

Murray, Herewith some comments. Mid-1993 was when I first heard of CAFCA. I was a wwoofer* at a market garden in Alexandra, and caught the tail-end minute or two of an interview with Murray on a Radio New Zealand broadcast. It immediately resonated with me and I thought that's a bloody good and much needed movement (*Wwoofer - willing workers on organic farms. Ed.).

I forget how I found the address, but I penned a letter asking how to join and never received a reply. I concluded that was because of my posh/toff's surname, but after some months I sent off another missive and did get a reply. So, I joined CAFCA, ABC and PSNA** and received their journals, which I read avidly (**PSNA = Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa. It used to publish a newsletter, Kapatiran [Solidarity] but that ceased in 2009. Ed.).

Watchdog and Peace Researcher remain among my favourite sources of information, despite needing to psyche myself to tackle Dennis Small's regular, weighty and intense heavy-hitters. Like Murray, I may be pushing up daisies before #200 comes around, but if I'm still around and not non compos(t) mentis, I'll be pushing 90, so I'll bring my zimmer frame to the celebrations. Paul Elwell-Sutton, Haast.

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What a delight to read incisive, insightful analysis. Perhaps it's my English "shoulder chip" but I love the image of the canine crapping on the lawns of the rich and powerful! Go to it folks. Terry Sumner, Westport.

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This is great news ... and I trust 85 should be easy enough to make, Murray, remember Wolfie Rosenberg kept going as a practicing lawyer and radical well into his 90s*. something about the Christchurch air or water that keeps people on their toes, jitters and all. Best, Tom Appleton, Wellington. *Although Wolfgang Rosenberg did, indeed live "well into his 90s", his final decade was spent incapacitated, blind and, finally, in a retirement home. However, he was still Christchurch's oldest practising lawyer into his early 80s. Murray Horton's obituary of Wolf is in Watchdog 114, May 2007. Ed.

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CAFCA and its publication deserve congratulations on its 150th issue, for a splendid, public spirited job it has done. The one obstacle is public apathy. As Plato observed: "The price of apathy is to be ruled by evil men". So, let's get out there and tell those pathetic indifferent souls about CAFCA and Watchdog. Theodore Roosevelt (one of the few honest politicians?) admirably put it when he wrote along these lines:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly - unlike those pathetic, timid souls who live in a drab, grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat".

So, let the critics moan while we get busy in:

• Telling people about CAFCA and Watchdog
• Speaking out and thinking e.g. letters to editor, Facebook, etc.

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Congratulations for Watchdog turns 150. Nga mihi. Kelly Te Heuheu, Maori Land Investigation and Research NZ.

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Well done Murray and CAFCA I think you and your team's biggest contribution to NZ over the last (is it nearly 50 years now?) has been to help keep our politicians honest, whichever political strip they operate under. They will always need watching. What is that truism? "Power is an aphrodisiac". David Chilvers, Christchurch

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Foreign Control Watchdog is the best media in New Zealand. It is even more essential with most people relying on Facebook for their news. Yours in solidarity. Neil Riethmuller, Toowoomba, Australia.

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Congratulations Murray & the Watchdog team. YOU ARE LEGENDS!! Without you we would be wallowing in the abyss of fake news & corporate bullshit.! Keep up the fantastic work. Warm regards, Wendy Drummond, Collingwood.

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First off, Watchdog is a real asset to this country and ought to be around for another 150 issues. That said, there is huge room for improvement in the design, layout, and overall editing of contributions to Watchdog, to boost the publication's reader appeal. Some articles go on forever, others could be simplified and made more accessible by graphs, tables and illustrations. In other words, a thorough makeover of Watchdog is long overdue.

There are people all over NZ who believe in the CAFCA cause - many of them Watchdog subscribers - who could contribute to this process gratis, pro bono publico (i.e. free of charge, for the public good). There may even be some who would volunteer their expertise to set up a sister operation online by designing and engineering a state-of-the-art Website. Murray Horton podcasts anyone? CAFCA's clout would be beefed-up considerably. An outcome which the collective who run the organisation would surely welcome. After all, we relics of the 60s and 70s aren't getting any younger! Cheers, Chris Trotter, Auckland.

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Kia ora, Murray and CAFCA team. It is an amazing feat to have reached this wonderful milestone of 150 editions of Watchdog. I am constantly surprised at the amount of well researched and informative material that so consistently turns up in it. I can only admire your tenacity over all these years in pursuing your vision of a more locally owned and controlled economy, and your ability to shine a light on the nefarious tactics employed by successive Governments and the transnationals to thwart that aim. I have also really appreciated your "obituaries" and the honest appraisal they present of some really fine people who have died.

Knowing some of your writers, I think it was probably wise not to have a "letters" column in the past, as the size of the magazine would probably increase a third with so many passionate people subscribing and I would never get reading it finished. The current (i.e. issue 149, December 2018) edition of 92 pages could well have ended up 150! Please continue to shine a light on all their dealings (especially their dirty ones!) and continue to be a voice for local hopes and more independence. Blessings in abundance, Jim Consedine, Christchurch.

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Watchdog and CAFCA's work in general are an invaluable source of essential information about matters that command too little attention elsewhere. Here's to many more issues! Bryan Gould, Opotiki.

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Kia ora CAFCA. Well done on an impressive body of work and activism over many years. The challenge looking ahead is for CAFCA to find ways to connect with new generations of young New Zealanders for whom the issues on which CAFCA has focused are as relevant as ever but who have no idea of the organisation's existence.

As long-time supporters we think CAFCA needs a major change in emphasis from publications which communicate a lot of information to a small group of like-minded people to much more broadly-based political campaigning to bring CAFCA's messages to public attention and public relevance in new ways.

In the past CAFCA has done a lot more than simply hold political positions - it has actively campaigned for them to be adopted and must do so again. This may be a challenging discussion but one which the organisation must not shy away from. John Minto, Bronwen Summers, Christchurch.

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Murray, Congratulations to you and your other writers and commentators for persistent important work over the years. Even 30+ years ago when I came to Aotearoa/NZ, CAFCA was an established critic of certain aspects of the Establishment. Foreign Control has from the beginning related to colonialism with the Five Eyes network in recent years being the main means. CAFCA has done well to keep that in the public conversation. If the campaigns seem not to have succeeded in ridding the country of foreign control, consider the following points. Foreign control is an extension of colonialism.

But colonialism is broader than the structures of Government and foreign relations carried out by the Government and domination by global corporations which has been the focus of CAFCA. Colonialism is just as firmly established in the extractive, exploitative relationship of our culture, and many others, with the larger ecological world (the term of note now is "ecosphere"). While there is some recognition of this connection, campaigns have not, and are not even now, sufficiently widely constructed where both have been integrated. Until the integration becomes established, seamless, and universal, no great successes can be achieved.

The other problem for CAFCA is that there has become wide and fearful recognition of that connection as a fundamental challenge to the relationship of CAFCA's traditional base and potential base with its means of living within the ecosphere. The implications of the fundamental changes needed to combat global warming and climate change (Naomi Klein, "This Changes Everything" *) unsettle everyone, as seen in global warming denial, not just the powerful. *Reviewed by Jeremy Agar in Watchdog 138, April 2015. Ed.

This is what has created the Post Truth Era. So CAFCA is now facing challenge from all levels of society not just the elite.Both of these points indicate the difficulties CAFCA has met, the first (colonialism) an established power structure, and the other (Post Truth Era) carrying the desperation down the hierarchy straight through CAFCA's base to the land, the ecosphere. So CAFCA needs to realise it has succeeded to a point and would be useful to continue, but also that it will not succeed widely without adopting its language and campaigns to both colonialism and the exploitation of the ecosphere. Sincerely, Richard Keller, Wellington.

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Hi: I'm someone who meticulously reads Watchdog and finds it enlightening but never lets you know this. I'm sure there are many of us. So, I thought I should accept this invitation to comment very briefly. Basically, I just want to thank and congratulate all who bring it to us, researching, writing and producing such an excellent resource. And I hope I am here for the next 17 years (very decrepit by then, I fear) to keep reading it and using it in various ways, attempting with all of us to improve the way New Zealand operates internally and in the world. Yours, Prue Hyman, Paekakariki.

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Thank you so much to everyone involved in CAFCA and Watchdog for your clarity and encouragement to action over many years. The world is full of fads and fashions - free markets and austerity to mention the obvious - but Watchdog marches on regardless, exposing the real life hardships and deception behind all this big-money bamboozlement.

Recently I read that 75% of business economists now expect a US recession by 2021 - so given that debt-fuelled under-invested global corporations are in no shape to get through it without help from the governments they won't pay taxes to, our wake-up call isn't far away. There's a lot of change needed for everyone, progressive movements included. Critical times and anything could happen... Thanks again and best wishes to all. Greg Waite, Whangarei.