Where to now for Left Wing Blogs?

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Phillip Matthews has written an article for the Dominion Post on the future of left wing blogging.

Unsurprisingly, Matthews’ insinuates that it was the Left wing blogs who were to blame for the left wing loss. It wasn’t 6 years of mainstream media bias towards Key and their tainted involvement to empower Slater, oh no, it was all us left wing bloggers who are to blame.

It seems convenient for a member of the very industry that has given the right the power to weave their Dirty Politics to suggest that it’s the Left wing blogs fault for the Left’s loss at the ballot box.

With Slater about to launch next year a new weaponised news media ‘Freed.co.nz’ complete with a drone operator, he will bend and push the boundaries of attack blogs into a whole new realm of horror. How will the left blogosphere compete with a $600 000 right wing attack blog is yet to be seen.

 

17 COMMENTS

  1. The Left will find a way…and Left Blogs are extremely important ! I hardly ever read the newspaper these days and we are thinking of cancelling it…so take note Phillip Matthews, you may be out of a job if there are others who are increasingly turning to Left blogs instead of newspapers for their reading and doco visual links

    But clearly we need a Left wing media with Left radio stations and tv and newspapers . How to get them is another story

    ….In the meantime rt is very good . It leaves most of the information and debate relevant to NZ in the NZ msm for dead. Here from rt is :

    An honest look at the absolute horrors of FRACKING for human health and the environment ! ‘Frack Us!’ should be seen by EVERY New Zealander!…This is what John Key and the Nacts have in store for us! This is NOT democracy for New Zealanders . This is Corporate control. In France , Germany , Bulgaria and other European countries fracking has been banned!

    (You wont get this on New Zealand television …especially since they have dismantled Maori TV)

    http://rt.com/shows/documentary/194476-us-fracking-harm-environment/

    “Is fracking safe? The industry claims every precaution is taken to ensure that no harm is done to the environment by the gas extraction process. However, many US citizens who live near newly-built sites are convinced that their water and air has been contaminated, and is now radioactive and poisonous. Fish in the rivers are dying and garden trees are shrivelling and the people themselves are complaining of inexplicable rashes and respiratory illness. They aim to prove that fracking is the cause, but who’s listening?”

  2. I read about half of Matthew’s article, and got bored. Same old right-wing BS. I think the left lost because John Key (the man, not his party) simply appeals to the majority of NZers. National was right to go with the “Team-Key” branding, because they know it’s all about Key at this stage. Once Key goes (hopefully sooner, rather than later), NZ politics could well undergo a seismic shift to the left or whatever the flavour of the day is, or stay just where it’s at. It all depends on how the MAJORITY of people perceive their CURRENT lives (most people don’t give one whit about the FUTURE), and if a change in government might somehow improve it.

  3. Martyn, see my comment following the Dominion Post article on Stuff, which I posted today.

    I am one of ( as it seems) the majority who really don’t care about GSBC (or whatever are the letters) and who are unconcerned about being surveilled. This is, rather, a concern only for the left wing commentariat, which, as the election showed, is woefully out of touch with the main stream of NZers.

    I don’t think your blog caused Labour’s failure, any more than Whale Oil was responsible for it. You, and Whale Oil, are talking only to your mates/his mates, and the rest of us take no notice. Fun for the media to obsess about, but of irrelevance to the average chap and chapesse.

    Since this is the first time I’ve looked at your website (following the link in the Dom Post article), you should feel free to regard this msg with reservation. But you do need to engage with the real world, I would suggest, rather than the L wing echo chamber.

    • Yes – not many people could see the connection between the mass surveillance state and their own life, so lost in the wilderness of ‘if-you-have-nothing-to-hide-you-have-nothing-to-lose’ denial are the casual laid back NZers of the South Pacific Shire.

      Slater on the other hand had his dirty politics contaminating the mainstream media for 6 years. If you want to shrug that 6 year interaction with news story after news story seeded and spread on Slater’s blog as having nothing to do with the narratives that shape peoples opinions, well, I see how limited your perceptions are.

      Thank you for reminding me how low the threshold of the average NZer is.

    • I am one of ( as it seems) the majority who really don’t care about GSBC (or whatever are the letters) and who are unconcerned about being surveilled. This is, rather, a concern only for the left wing commentariat, which, as the election showed, is woefully out of touch with the main stream of NZers.

      Tom, I find your comments naive, in the extreme.

      Are you really telling us you have so little regard for your privacy? That you don’t care you are being monitored? That government(s) are collecting data on you?

      Does that mean you’d have no curtains in your home? That you disclose your financial details to all and sundry? That you’d let us trawl through your mail?

      Funny thing… Last century, so many people (my parents included) escaped from societies where State surveillance was commonplace.

      Even jokes at the expense of their governments were told cautiously fearful that any pair of ears listening could (and most likely was) a secret police informant.

      Those surveillance States collapsed, through lack of support by their populace.

      And now you’re telling us that you’re ok with being surveilled?

      Oh my, this chillingly illustrates the childlike naivete of my fellow New Zealanders.

      You have no idea – none – as to what you are opening the door to.

  4. Good fucking grief .

    It just gets better and better .

    I still think the last ‘ election ‘ was a hoax . A scam . It’s a great pity there’s no way of knowing .

    Oh , wait . I’ve just figured it out . That fact that there is no way of knowing whether the last election was a fraud or not suggests , by the very numbers , that the last election was in fact a fraud and if Nicky Hagers book is anything to go by , not withstanding testimonies by Assange , Snowden and Greenwald , then National and its cronies boldly defrauded the NZ public and are now using the results of their handiwork to further cement their lies into the hearts and minds of us all ….. because ? Because-there’s-no-way-of-knowing-one-way-or-the-other . OMG !

    The last election was undeniably rigged . I am now 100% certain of that . Now , to prove it . ( What’s that red dot I see ! ?? )

    The other possibility of course is that 48% of NZ’ers are dumb scumbags with a penchant for cruelty and the other one million who didn’t vote at all just don’t give one fuck either way .

    Now , call me old fashioned if you must but I find that freaky . I find everything freaky . Freaky , freaky , freaky !

    And check this out . I mean ? Really ?

    Secret recording of corporate lobbyist is a dirty-tricks playbook

    http://boingboing.net/2014/10/31/secret-recording-of-corporate.html

    Oops . Just remembered I’d posted this link on Latifa Daud’s Post this AM . Ah . I’m going to leave it here anyway .

  5. We are now incessantly presented with something like “Stockholm Syndrom” messages, by the intimidators and political “dominators”, to basically “shut up” and sign up to the “ruling ideology”, that is what is going on. Sadly I see a lot of resigned people that used to have lots of passion about positive changes, about debate and political activism. It is shocking what goes on.

    For heaven’s sake, for human’s sake, do NOT give up, do not sign off, do not surrender, as what happened was not an honest, fair and reasonable election campaign. It was manipulated again by known forces, last not least a powerful media sector, that does now hardly ever mention politics. Remember the time the first Labour leadership campaign was run, there was a fair bit of reporting, of interviewing, of so much more, good and bad, but at least we were getting some discussing and information.

    Now we hear NOTHING mentioned by the MSM, they are gearing up for Xmas, and we get instead endless feeding of commercial advertising, and even that horrible “talk back” has gone almost totally off politics. Key and Nats were with their mercenary allies sadly successful to turn the bulk of potential voters and society OFF politics, so it is now an even “dirtier” word, so most do not even want to hear about it.

    This is the next stage, of the “dirty politics” campaign. It seems the MSM have adopted Key’s stand, that Hager was himself nothing but a “conspiring leftist”, that what he wrote in his book was mostly “made up”, without proof, Ede and associates were allowed to quietly go into the background, get well paid jobs in private business, and even Slater was perhaps “chastised” a bit on the superficial side, but in essence he is still allowed to carry on, despite some court issues, and even Key does not deny still contacting him under the hat of Nat Party leader.

    I see and meet endless brainwashed people, who do not even know what went on, what goes on, and they all seem to wait now, for the marching order of the SAS to go into Iraq, to assist our “allies”. Watch the TV news, I have never seen so much coverage on the “ANZAC alliance”, the history of wars, what we did, what we “owe”our forefathers and so, we are being prepared for WAR, dear friends.

    What I wish for “left’ or “progressive” blogs to do, is to improve their own networking, their research, to work with more well resourced and informed people, and there are some volunteers, to prepare for a major challenge to this corrupt, highly manipulative, but powerful government, and to bring all together, I mean together, and not divide an fight on side shows, to the present a formidable force, with some sound debate though.

    It is possible, at least the internet offers a forum, that can be affordable, but it is important to work together, for the cause, but sadly hearing some of Labour’s MPs, we need to move on from some of them, they are still traitors, such as Goff, going on about “needing to find out why people did not party vote Labour”, when it was blatantly obvious that he and a few others were only campaigning for their own survival, and NOT the party.

    Cut out the traitors, if need be work on forming a new, larger, more dedicated, honest political movement, and look at the future, there is NO alterantive, or we may as well call it all quits and join the National (Natzie) Party.

    Kia kaha, kia kaha, and nothing less, please!

  6. Martyn,

    “The left should just shut up?”

    So the left should have no voice well here is what the left must do to get a proper media representation where they control the spin not the right wing media currently do.

    How incredible this is that this Phillip Mathews (whoever he is) would be allowed to devote that much press space in the press, when we can’t get the focus same levelled at the right wing bloggers sites and all the players eh!

    We can’t even get a single line mentioned, so I guess we that are recent new bloggers in the middle are obviously the wrong right wing elements they are so keen to feature with such large scale articles.

    Reading the article was almost like the CIA had dropped the file in his lap to expose those names, are the CIA behind the destabilising of the left wing politics in this country using five eyes to achieve their political goals?

    From outside the tent it looks very much like intelligence is involved here of the undercover type and as a sovereign country just who is pulling the intelligence information strings here now?

    Anyway he was wide from the truth behind the loss of the left during the election as the left had no independent voice on which to get their side of the story out to the electorate.

    Between the MSM and the inpudent TVNZ/RNZ TOOTHLESS LACKING public media, Labour was once again violated with the constant right wing bias we all saw far to often that it became worrisome to watch.

    SOLUTION.
    As I have said again and again,

    The left wing and centre parties must come together now, AND MEET IN A STRATEGY MEDIA FORUM, to first discuss the lack of a level media playing field of public service representation, and the take Government to court on grounds of violation of their rights to have the same public media access to their own media service.

    Then as a Human right & representing half the public voice, force a separation of half of the public media both TVNZ & RNZ be given to the left centre opposition Parties to mount an effective left centre voice block of response to issues of public interest and to break the total Government control of the media.

    This is to ensure the public’s human rights are not violated as taxpayers of a service they expect a balanced service from, and to give the public the choice to hear both sides rather than the only side of National spin we are all subjected to constantly today.

  7. Adopting Slater’s tactics will only drive your supporters away. Hypocrisy runs deep on the right, the trick IMO is recognize that despite that, there still some conservative values which are worth keeping.

  8. So who is funding Blubberman’s new blog? Let me guess! Hmmm, wouldn’t be the National Party would it? of course not, they don’t do dirty politics do they? Would be very interesting to see a list of financial contributors to this new blog. Would be a veritable who’s who of New Zealand’s spinmeisters and scumbags.

  9. There were many reasons for the failure, the blogs weren’t one of them, IMO.

    That’s not to say they can’t play a far more comprehensive role in the future.
    I do believe that Labour failed with it’s media across the board, and it particularly failed to utilise social media.

    In the meantime, as politics isn’t just parliament, parties and elections, the blogs are going to be a crucial element of the opposition. The MSM work on a cycle as we know, so it is going to be up to the independants & bloggers to keep driving the stories that MSM drop.

    Housing is a great example. The growing problem of housing in Auckland & the increase in homelessness needs to stay in the public consciousness. As does the plight of beneficiaries. The effects of the changes to the ERA is another area where the blogs need to act as the platform for people to tell their stories.

    Martyn, you have done a great job of building a platform with a large audiance. What a huge accomplishment. Focus forward. There is work to be done and people’s stories to be told.

  10. I agree with Kate Davis, and yes there’s much to do. On my part I’ve put up a petition on fb, calling for public vote of no confidence against our PM John Key himself. Key isn’t the god he wants to portray himself as, because PMs themselves can be rolled and sacked. Look at Jenny Shipley, need I say more.
    I’m tired of how Key is throwing his abuse of powers around, and the powers of the Speaker of the House isn’t reprimanding Key as should be dealt with like it’s being dealt out to other politicians, who’ve said what’s had to be said and been thrown out of the House for speaking up.
    The smoko bill is an unacceptable sample of Key abusing his powers and denying the right and freedoms of the people, to say what needs to be said. This is why I’m making a stand for the public with the petition I’ve put up, so let’s do this for our democracy, our rights, our freedom and our Sovereignty. Sign my petition and stop Key from abusing our legal standings, just so he can have control over us through his tyrannical behaviours, which is what’s happening.

  11. Oh so LEFT wing bloggers should shut up? Wow, talk about shutting down democracy! The truths being put out by Dirty Politics should have affected the election results but because of the influence that those same elements ALREADY HAD in the MSM how was this ever possible to give a Labour win? I mean was Philip Matthew’s in a coma over the last few months? People generally don’t go buzzing into blog watching through internet osmosis, they find a site they like, that resonates, and follow it. Cameron Slater was FEEDING STORIES to the MSM! He was playing with the News my dear little old lady watches at 6pm to manipulate an election! David Farrar was on every political mainstream media platform, spouting his spin, as were Matthew Hooton, Jordon William, and Cameron Slater – even after the revelations of their complisitness in dirty politics! I’ve seen NO leftwing comentator proved to be engaged in this disgusting behaviour – but yes, get rid of the last outlet of contrary socialist opinion by all means.

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