THAT THE INSPIRATION for this posting came from a man who spent his life studying grizzly bears is entirely fitting. The free speech debate of the past fortnight has seen more than a few angry grizzlies come galloping out of the woods. The question in most need of an urgent answer is – why? What is it that leads the Right to defend the principle of free speech so vigorously? And why has the contemporary Left departed so dramatically from Noam Chomsky’s free-speech absolutism?
Having watched the grizzly bear population of Yellowstone National Park dwindle under the impact of climate change and observed the blank unwillingness of state and federal wildlife protection agencies to intervene, or even acknowledge the need for intervention, David Mattson went in search of some answers.
His explanation for the Right’s ingrained antagonism towards climate change, published in Counterpunch under the headline “The Sinister Underbelly of Climate Change Denial” is unequivocal:
“Educated but mostly-white conservative businessmen and political servants/allies recognize a threat to their current near strangle-hold on power and wealth arising from calls to address rampant climate warming. They see those who promote alternative climate-cooling lifestyles and technologies as enemies to their existing entitlements, certainly profits and power. They are, moreover, inclined to be bigots. Being clever, they mobilize their equally bigoted but less educated, less cognitively capable, and exceedingly fearful base comprised largely of increasingly disadvantaged white males by appealing to their interest in maintaining the status quo and inflaming their fear of an alien intrusive world, manifest as ‘immigration’ and ‘immigrants’.”
From the oil-giant Exxon, to the coal companies currently driving US environmental policy, the historical footprints linking the fossil fuel industry to climate change denialism have long since been forensically tracked and identified. Mattson is right: denialism is a manifestation of reactionary capitalist fear.
The Right’s need to mobilise people’s fear lies at the heart of its determination to defend free speech. If the environmental agencies of the state were to be captured by political forces determined to, in Mattson’s words, “promote alternative climate-cooling lifestyles and technologies”, then denialist propagandists would very soon find themselves being countered by the full force of the scientific community. Hence the need of the most reactionary forces within capitalist society to retain full control of the state apparatus – a goal that can only be achieved by mobilizing their “equally bigoted but less educated” fellow citizens against an “alien and intrusive world” peddling fake news about everything from immigration to anthropogenic global warming.
The proposed visit to New Zealand of Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux should be viewed in the light of the Right’s on-going mobilisation of Mattson’s “increasingly disadvantaged white males”. An important element of this mobilisation process involves persuading its target audience that “the powers that be” are determined to suppress information which they have a right to know, but which the “liberal elites” don’t want them to hear. In this respect, the Mayor of Auckland’s decision to deny Southern and Molyneux access to Council-owned meeting-halls, played directly into their hands.
Obviously, the most effective strategy for defeating the Right’s strategy of mobilising fear is by countering its lies with the truth. This may not be as difficult as many opponents of the Right would have us believe. As Mattson notes in his article:
“[E]verything else aside, self-identified political conservatives cum Republicans are the most committed disbelievers [in climate change] and, among those, the best educated (paradoxically) the most strident of all. In other words, conservative elites of a Republican persuasion are the standard bearers of skepticism. Surprisingly, they are expressly less amenable to persuasion by evidence than their more poorly educated political base.”
It is in relation to this group of voters that the Left comes to grief over free speech. Climate change denialism and free speech denialism both being born of fear.
The Right is terrified of ordinary people learning the truth about capitalism and its causal relationship with environmental devastation – hence its determination to destroy their faith in science and social progress.
The Left, or at least a distressingly large part of it, is equally terrified that ordinary people are either incapable of absorbing, or unwilling to accept, the implications of the scientific research into climate change. Worse still, many leftists believe that ordinary people (white working-class males in particular) are equally unwilling to absorb and accept the Left’s arguments in favour of equality and diversity. That, in Hillary Clinton’s catastrophic characterisation, they are “a basket of deplorables”. Ignorant rubes who must, at all costs, be kept away from the influence of the Right’s agitators – even if that involves reducing freedom of expression to the status of “collateral damage” in the culture wars.
Nothing could be more helpful to the cause of the Right than a Left which has lost its faith in the people. What, after all, is more likely to cause the people to lose faith in the Left than a nagging suspicion that their self-appointed liberators regard them as being either too vicious or too stupid to grasp the arguments in favour of individual freedom and social justice without instruction from above?
Perhaps the most terrifying perspective of what can happen in times like these is that we have not learnt from history:
Reichstag’s November 1932 election results:
Nazi 33%
Social Democrats 20%
Communists 17%
On orders from Moscow the Communists allied with Nazis to defeat moderate socialism.
It was this pseudo-parliamentary body – with wide-enough popular voter support – that Legally installed Hitler.
Not quite what happened in November 1932, John.
Your summary of the election leaves out the Catholic Centre Party (12%) and the two right-wing nationalist parties the DNVP and the BVP which together attracted about 11% support.
Had the Communists thrown in their lot with the SPD and the Centre Party the coalition would have been just shy of holding 50% of the Reichstag seats. (The right-wing parties would have commanded about 45%.)
But, as you rightly point out, the Communists derided the Weimar Republic and refused to support the parties committed to its survival. They did not, however, support the Nazis in any positive sense – certainly not by joining with them to “defeat moderate socialism”.
It is, however, indisputable that had the socialists and communists united against the common Nazi threat, then modern history would have taken a very different turn.
Hi Chris, good points,
“The Right is terrified of ordinary people learning the truth about capitalism and its causal relationship with environmental devastation – hence its determination to destroy their faith in science and social progress.”
Yes we are now in the grip of these “Right” party’s owning and controlling the total media networks in NZ.
This is also incuding RNZ/TVNZ, owned by the taxpayer so; –
THE GOVERNMENT LABOUR COALITION – MUST NOW TAKE THEM BACK AS THEY ARE ALL PUBLICALLY OWNED ASSETS.
THE RIGHT MUST NOT USE THEM FOR THEIR OWN USE FOR THEIR PROPAGANDA PURPOSES.
The main points seem to be:
1. Removing freedoms of association
2. Shepherding carbon and methane emissions
3. Expand mining leases on Stewardship Land
4. Change the “social cost of carbon” to ones side
Remember subsidising the oil industry is good while subsidizing the green energy industry is stealing. Plus it seems Iwi groups forget when trading settlement putea for land management rights it lowers the cost of externalities and discounts resource extraction. And we all know the “Make Americans White Again Camp” is shit at writing counter arguments to these things. And if there’s justice, they’ll at least partially succeed in Waitangi Tribunals – given how much that very same process held up and stopped the implementation of land confiscations and transfers.
National MPs don’t care about those realities. While minister for Treaty Negotiations Finlayson did his job. You’re looking at a mixture of lies and deliberate ignorance.
The National Party and its supporters, as part of their ongoing strategy of convincing regional voters to vote to fuck themselves over have spun big lies about how the reason the oil industry is dying is environmental and safety regulations and how rolling those back will fix them. A simple way to bring back the good old days with a clear enemy goes over much better than reality-based democratic plans, with the oh-so-slight catch that those regional voters will never see any real results.
How exactly would take back an organisation that is already 100 percent contolled by the State and how would you ensure it would not be used by Right leaning governments in future?
Google tax, Google tax,mgoogle tax.
Just got to raise the cost of fraud. And if you want to change the world while you’re doing it then change the world.
Yes it was Trotsky fighting to form a united front between the Socialists and Communists that Stalin rebuffed. For Trotsky the vote for the fascists was the last straw. He then declared the Stalin-led Comintern dead as part of the counter-revolution against the cause of communism. Stalin’s action was directed at the SPD as ‘social fascist’ in a ultra-left zig to deflect from the crisis caused by his forced collectivization in Russia. He said the fascists time had come, after them would be the turn of communism! This zig was shortly followed by a zag that threw him into bed with the so-called ‘social fascists’ to find bourgeois allies to defend “socialism in one country”. All of this is well documented by Trotsky in his works on fascism in Germany. A useful annotated timeline is here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/pdf/germany.pdf
Thanks Chris – good to see someone set the record straight that Hitler came to power entirely due to the refusal of the Communists to support a social democratic government in coalition with liberals and centrists – a genuine antifascist front.
History has a strange way of being rewritten in a way that offers a way for survivors and their offspring to restart their lives. And that is good. I lived in post-war Vienna in my early childhood and spent many of my formative years at university debating and experiencing first-hand, the politics of denial and ‘character recovery’ of many a Nazi family. I also learnt details that were already being buried by the partisan historians of the time, who – quite rightly – sought to provide closure for the traumatised victims of those times.
I have vague memories of one of my grandmother’s very vocal altercations (Olga was a ‘White Russian’) with Frau Doni, who’s husband had been a Sturmbannfuehrer with the SA, the Nazi Party’s original paramilitary police. Frau Doni’s husband had been, she said, not only a Nazi but in his younger years, even a member of the German KPD and she was proud of it. I think her line was that her husband had been a really, really bad guy. I do not know which of the two political affiliations enraged my grandmother more.
Although the many details of very complex student day dialog and reading escape me these days, there is no doubt in my mind that a degree of collusion occurred between the NSDAP and the KPD both inside and outside the Reichstag, as they were united in their fight to destroy the Weimar Republic.
The KPD had a large group of intellectuals in their midst who set the tone of their parliamentary performance. The KPD paramilitary groups were of a completely different ilk and there was not always that much cohesion between the various factions.
There is also no doubt in my mind that the KPD was very much directed by various Communist Party committees in Russia. The real power play of the early 1930’s was driven by paramilitary groups, essentially bands of thugs, legitimised by party affiliation, who traveled across Germany to help ‘persuade’ groups of people and individuals to act or vote one way or another. The notion that parliamentary democracy operated around a cup of tea, is plain and simply bollocks.
The NSDAP and KPD voted together on a majority of parliamentary issues, while officially claiming to be sworn enemies in the Reichstag. In fact the Nazis built much of their political rhetoric on Communists as the bad guys. The fact that a large number of KPD paramilitary group members ended up in the SA after the collapse of the KPD, would however suggest at least some common history on the streets that allowed for such transition.
There is a book I read some years ago, Timothy Brown’s Weimar Radicals: Nazis and Communists between Authenticity and Performance that sheds light on some of these issues.
‘The Left, or at least a distressingly large part of it, is equally terrified that ordinary people are either incapable of absorbing, or unwilling to accept, the implications of the scientific research into climate change.’
The division of society into so-called Left and so-called Right is a divide-and-conquer strategy which the controllers have used for decades. In practice there are just humans, all trapped on the ‘sinking Titanic’ together.
The root of our collective predicament -whether we are talking about climate change, resource depletion, overconsumption, overpopulation, the misleading of the masses by politicians and the media, or the need to control public narrative- is the money system, which requires continuous expansion (forever) on a finite planet, a mathematically impossible ‘scam’ which has almost reached the point of collapsing, both as a consequence of its inherent mathematical unsustainability, and as a consequence of the damage it does to people and the Earth.
In addition to the ‘problem’ of the faux monetary system, there is the notion that change equates with progress. In reality, the more we ‘progress’ the worse everything that matters becomes. The conversion of natural (sustainable) landscapes into (unsustainable) urban sprawl or (unsustainable) motorways is seen as progress when it is actually extremely retrograde. Yet still there is widely believed (almost universally believed) notion that ‘Only an idiot would oppose progress’.
The concepts of working for money and progress are so deeply ingrained in the psyche of the masses (and even contributors to TDB) they cannot be successfully challenged.
Thus, we [collectively] continue on the path of planetary omnicide and self-destruction, whoever is allowed or not allowed to speak publicly. We [collectively] continue on the path of planetary omnicide and self-destruction whether we recycle plastics and cardboard or not, whether we drive internal combustion vehicles or electric ones, whether we vote Labour or National or don’t vote at all, whether we go to meetings or stay at home.
Next year the atmospheric CO2 level will be higher than this year, there will be more heatwaves and droughts and inundations, there will be less ice, less wildlife, fewer trees and more people. Politicians will continue to ignore all the fundamental issues, and the media will keep the masses distracted and entertained…….until it is no longer possible to do so.
It’s the system.
I agree 100% that the problem is division of society, a divide-and-conquer strategy indeed,is the real problem.
“When someone trys to tell me sumthin i play a little game, i ask whats the worst reason this fuker has for bullshizing me?” to quote littlefinger.
As a country we need to focus on the real problems and find real solutions for us.
ie. wealth does not trickle down, it flows up. Global free trade does not exist nor did it ever. Cheep Labour does not equal full employment it breeds poverty. NZMMP is first past the post with more partys..corrupt policy’s buy corrupt politicians is not the answer, in fact the desire to be a politician should automatically disqualify you from ever being able to become one.
They certainly should not be able to pass laws, we should all vote on new laws, period.
We should wind back all laws passed the the last 3 governments.
We should start treason trails for you all know who;. ban plastic, start cleaning the ocean, legalize weed and farm it mass scale, immediately swtich to lpg made in this country and non taxed to promote its use, 30% C02 reduction rite there, mandate diesel exhaust filters and have no petrol days, plus use electric trains for freight and passenger travel.
Not popular policy and hard medicine for everyone, no one who lives in this world can deny climate change, so we all gotta change our ways or we all get to suffer the consequences. Wake the fuk up and open your own eyes, the system is broken, rigged and corrupt, so tear it down an make a new one.
It is truly refreshing to read this comment because it resonates with all my life experience and knowledge.
It truly inspires me to see someone who has such a consciousness and astuteness, compassion that delivers truth with clarity and understanding of the reality we are all deeply part of and courage to acknowledge and share with enlightening hope, that at least gives some of us likeminded and like- hearted people hope and thank you for the encouragement to forge forward in truth of this.
Sorry Rickshay;
I just had no say thanks for the agreement that AFEWKNOWTHETRUTH has proposed that it is a ‘divide & rule’ policy that the estabishment are using for years.
Yes and thanks for seeing AFEWKNOWTHETRUTH back again; – as we all have missed his/hers highly intellegent posts on our failing global atmospheric system that will snuff us all out before too much longer.
While the media (who is being run by global corporates) and scum like George Soros try to deny climate change we are watching the oxygen disapating from our air we are breathing as CO2 levels edge up slowly, and increasing every day.
One day nobody will be able to breathe sufficient oxygen in the air to survive, as the concentration of oxygen in our air has slipped from 38% in 1946 to 18% now.
Then someday we will all perish, so perhaps this is the big plan they have for us all to slowly kill us as they build there own climate controlled cities under mountains and the ocean as we will not be able to save our own lives when the climate change excellerates as AFEWKNOWTHETRUTH points our so correctly.
We are on a slipery slope to disaster I am afraid.
http://scrippso2.ucsd.edu/
Atmospheric Oxygen Levels are Decreasing
Oxygen levels are decreasing globally due to fossil-fuel burning. The changes are too small to have an impact on human health, but are of interest to the study of climate change and carbon dioxide. These plots show the atmospheric O2 concentration relative to the level around 1985. The observed downward trend amounts to 19 ‘per meg’ per year. This corresponds to losing 19 O2 molecules out of every 1 million O2 molecules in the atmosphere each year.
If we are losing 19 O2 molecules out of every 1 million O2 molecules in the atmosphere each year, we cannot go from 38% O2 in 1946 to 18% now. There won’t even have been a change of 1%.
As far as I can see, the fires and explosions in WW2 films are the same as fires and explosions today, which would not be the case if 02 had altered to any important extent. In fact, we supposedly have increased wildfires due to global warming, something that would not happen if oxygen was being restricted.
Your blaming George Soros for the state of the world doesn’t make me want to join your alternative to Left vs Right politics, just sayin’, that’s a red flag, or black flag as the case may be.
I still haven’t seen any evidence that the speakers are Fascists
how are you on hitler..?..
accept he was a fascist..?
can we work back from there..?
Hitler was a National Socialist. The differences between Fascism and National Socialism are too subtle for me, but that is the difference.
Anyway, as I said above, I se no evidence that the speakers are fascists, Nazis or whatever you want to call them
I haven’t actually seen a proposed programme for the apparently offensive talk, so how can anyone comment on it?
I guess you are familiar with Hitler’s friendship with the Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis and Islam’s mutual loathing of Jews?
After all, if the gloves are off and everyone is a Nazi now, let’s actually call out the real Nazis out there.
Oh, but Herr Hitler was just “misunderstood”… (note sarc)
Andy has a weird fascination for Nazis, by his own admission. He’s not sure if he is one or not.
I am not a Nazi. If I use ambiguous language then I am just toying with the ridiculous assertion that there are all these Nazis out there.
Andy, your comments make you out to be a right-winger, with certain prejudices against Maori, welfare beneficiaries, and others – that much is certain.
But I’ve not seen anything (yet) to put you into the “fascist” category.
A small distinction, perhaps, but one I believe to be appropriate.
“With certain prejudices against Maori, welfare beneficiaries, and others – that much is certain.”
Ok thanks for the pigeonholing
Maybe you could find some evidence for these assertions
I would describe myself as on the classical liberal / conservative spectrum somewhere. Not predudiced knowingly against any parts of society
What would you call nationalist identitarians who want to take action against an ethnic minority they blame for the ills of their society? Because I usually call those guys fascists, what with the fascist beliefs and agenda an’ all.
If you’re waiting for them to put on fancy uniforms and goosestep about flinging their arms in the air before you figure it out, you need to do some more study.
1500 girls were sexually assaulted or raped in Rotherham England by so called “asian grooming gangs”
it would appear to be the tip of the iceberg.
In Sweden and Germany, incidents of sexual assault on women is becoming widespread.
Yet, we are all supposed to nod our heads and ignore it all.
It would be “racist” to infer any connection between these gangs and their religious affiliation
If you report a rape, you are a Nazi
1500 girls were sexually assaulted or raped in Rotherham England by so called “asian grooming gangs”
Yep. Goebbels found it very useful to dwell on the activities of Jewish criminal gangs in Berlin, too. That’s because, being a fascist, he was very keen to “infer a connection between those gangs and their religious affiliation.” Southern and Molyneux are pretty small-time compared to Goebbels, but the principle’s the same.
If you report a rape, you are a Nazi
Not even slightly. If, on the other hand, you publicise only the crimes of a particular religious or ethnic group because you want to stir up hatred of that particular group, you’re at minimum a racist and quite possibly a fascist.
Psycho, it is to the eternal shame of British socialism that these incidents of grooming and rape against working-class girls, white Asian and black occurred and still occur. Labour as a party has failed to address that these crimes are peculiar to a section of British society, Islamics of Pakistani origin. To say so is deemed racist, meanwhile vulnerable girls are raped. Shame, I’m totally sickened. It’s foul and criminal, and I don’t care who commits it, they have to face e the music.
What “action” do they want to take? Enforcing the law?
How Nazi of them!
Irrelevant. What “action” did Goebbels want to take? He never stated it explicitly. We have a pretty good idea of why he put so much effort into demonising Jews, though, and it wasn’t because of his deep and abiding commitment to enlightenment values.
Again, nailed it, Milt.
Of Southern’s more controversial undertakings, the one of the boat intercepting illegal migrants being smuggled into Sicily is described by her here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WppMC8jgFE
The narrative that she tried to drown refugees is in full swing in NZ
Nailed it, Milt.
If people that want governments to enforce border controls are fascists, then NZ is a fascist state since we have some of the strictest border controls in the western world
Andy, you won’t see any evidence, you won’t be provided with any as it doesn’t exist. You’ll find lots of baseless comments from people echoing mainstream media rhetoric, and the irony will be completely lost on them. Arguing is pointless, minds have been made up.
can we touch on yr environmental denialism mr trotter –
– are you still eating animals..?
not seen/heard those (quite sound) arguments/the case against doing that..?
if you haven’t perhaps you need to read a bit wider..?
and if you have – and are still doing your animal-eating part to destroy the planet –
– how can that not be denialism/hypocrisy writ large..?
and i hope you have been for a medical check-up –
– after being in bed/cohabiting with all those tommy robinson supporters..eh..?
whoar..!!
– are you still eating animals..?
Are you still beating your wife? Some questions are not asked in good faith.
– after being in bed/cohabiting with all those tommy robinson supporters..eh..?
Today’s logical fallacy is guilt by association. It’s a particularly low form of logical fallacy, usually used with malicious intent by people who know very well what they’re doing.
that question is totally asked ‘in good faith’…and it is an entirely valid question to ask anyone..especially someone who tends to preach/dictate…
or do you also need to widen yr reading…?
and logical fallacy..?..more piss-take..
and f.w.i.w. my previous comments have been in support of letting these douchebags speak..(in the name of free speech..)
and why i support that principle is in part from self-interests..
‘cos the spooks/gummint view the likes of me and the message i am giving on eating animals fucking the planet – and we have to stop..
they view this as economic-terrorism…
so i and others are prime candidates for being banned on those grounds..should the selective barring of free speech be allowed/should this precedent be set..
so..shall we give you a jumping to false conclusions award..?..hmmm..?
and while we are here – are you still eating animals…?
those still eating animals are on the wrong side of history..
you are the ‘let’s play rugby with sth africa’ players in this one…
how does that feel..?
Eating our relations.
We have not evolved to live on animals flesh or products.
Those still eating animals may be on the wrong side of history – as Marx said, history sucks, is full of Nazis, and will do you in.
But those not eating animals are more likely to FEEL that they are on the wrong side of history.
There are 6 studies cited in this paper that agree with iits finding, that meat avoidance is strongly associated with depression, and only 1 that disagrees (and that’s from people waiting for the Second Coming of Christ, no less). There are perfectly good nutritional reasons for this association being causal.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28777971
We have a mental health crisis in NZ, while meat avoidance is the fashion – sort this shit out before you go around trying to stop people being nourished.
Chris, how about addressing the free speech issue with trying to marginalise those you disagree with. Calling people “free speech deniers” attacks those you’re debating with on a personalised level rather than the issue itself.
“a nagging suspicion that their self-appointed liberators regard them as being either too vicious or too stupid to grasp the arguments in favour of individual freedom and social justice without instruction from above”
one problem is that they don;t generally have access to information beyond what they see in the mainstream media. they dont get to see evidence or informed debate in the six oçlock news. only sound bites that let them know what the issues are.
I’m pretty sure that the left’s self appointed liberators don’t just think the people they’re trying to help are stupid, I think they actively dislike them. I say this from long experience of talking to and being one of those people.
The liberal managerial class is now the problem – focused exclusively on identity politics and dismissive of uneducated people we’ve bought into the establishment order and too pleased with our status to do anything real about the problems of the world.
*To be fair I see myself as a recovering member of the liberal managerial class
Yes, you are bloody well right!
I have lost faith in the people, because the people have become sheeple.
God, that’s fascinating. Divergent political orientations result in inevitable and formulaic outcomes. Those power freak narcissists must love the inevitabilities of that. No wonder we’re fucked. The re-rise of fascism, the spectre of the domination of the $-alpha riche. All that, is entirely predicable, entirely foreseen and easily foisted upon the unsuspecting Great Unwashed who really have no idea they’re being herded like sheep to the slaughter.
What we must do then, is behave in a manner that’s unlike anything seen before.
Soldiers must put down their guns, Jesus freaks must come clean about that particular swindle, we must all stop using banks and use cash instead, we must learn to repair rather than throw away and buy new, we must move amongst our fellow wee beasties with respect and nobility, like they do with us, we must stop eating flesh, we must start growing our own as much as practicable then trade, barter, do cash-only buy and sell.
Yeah. I know. Impossible. That will never happen.
All we can really do is get drunk and hang on while lunatics and maniacs take us on a Hell ride.
If you guys want to see some real nasty stuff go and check out the Daily Stormer. I’m not going to post a link – it is easily found with Google
It is anti-Semitic and racist bile at its worst.
Southern and Molyneux are not associated with this kind of garbage at all.
So, please be more selective in your outrage, thanks
so where do you stand then?
What are you colours?
“What are my colours”?
How about we discuss the issues at hand rather than try to pigeonhole people into tribal affiliations?
One does wonder what Bruce Mason would have thought of it all, given the hall in question is named after him.
Would he have wanted hate speech propagated at his memorial hall?
Well I don’t know about Bruce Mason ,… but perhaps we need Perry Mason on the case…
Perry Mason – YouTube
Video▶ 5:54
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFl–6IjzMU
Well I dunno about all this hoo – ha , but my son qualified as a barber after staying with me in Auckland for a year then went down to do some share – milking on his cousins farm… and being a Waikato lad ,…I thought that was that and he’d be staying down there .
Then at around 18:30 hours there’s a ‘ knock, knock , knock ‘ at the door , – and in he walks. Job interview on the North Shore. And an older codger couldn’t have been happier.
I’m still having a laugh about it.
Anyhow’s,… I reckon that we have just spent 9 years trying to get rid of a destructive far right wing govt ourselves , – and conversely the people around the world have had a gutsful of failed neo liberalism as well .
Hence why the reaction to even more of the same trying to stir up their right wing shit here.
Now you wouldn’t let a criminal bikie gang member to speak at a meeting and rally people to their cause here , – as certain Hells Angels members from the USA have already been denied, – and you wouldn’t encourage Nazism or any subtle versions thereof as well… esp from overseas. We have enough NZ ‘ers carrying on to introduce even more.
Maybe our free speech is to say NO to those who want to upset us.
The hell with those shit stirrers.
Yeah sure , you can carry on an academic exercise with the silly idiots but whats that going to achieve ? Gratification that we have engaged the ‘ enemy’ ? Done our wee bit ? Neville Chamberlain springs to mind.
It would be interesting for sure , – but giving grounds for them to peddle their garbage all for the sake of academia isn’t always the best way.
Contain , isolate or remove the hazard.
Phil Goff chose the latter.
And I’ve never liked Phil Goff . To me he is an urban liberal , – and worse , – an exponent of neo liberalism. But he made the right choice. Good on him. We dont take kindly to those types around here… and lest any of you fail to see that the far right wing is indeed ‘fascist’ in origins …
READ THIS :
New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html
Then tell me what you see.
Wild Katipo;
“… and lest any of you fail to see that the far right wing is indeed ‘fascist’ in origins …”
Same as the Left. Controlled by the very same group people at the top.
https://fabiansociety.wordpress.com/
We should all stop thinking in terms of Left and Right.
Goff is a Globalist. Remember him voting for the TPPA?
After gaining permission from the Labour Party.
Lest we forget.
Who are you referring to, specifically? Who are these “very same group people at the top” you mention?
Frank;
Rothschilds and Rockefellers, just to name two.
“The Fabian Society was in close touch with the Rothschilds both directly and through go-betweens like Lord Arthur Balfour. The Balfours were among the chief representatives of Britain’s money power and were involved in the creation of organisations advancing the money power’s interests from the Anglo-American League and the Pilgrims Society to the League of Nations.”
“The Fabian Society has also been close to the Rockefellers who are covert Fabian Socialists. David Rockefeller wrote a sympathetic senior thesis on Fabian Socialism at Harvard and studied left-wing economics at the Fabian Society’s London School of Economics. Not surprisingly, the Rockefellers have funded countless Fabian projects (including the LSE) from the early 1920s (Ratiu, 2012).”
“The Fabian Society continues to be funded by subversive entities like the European Commission and the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), an EU-wide operation co-funded by the European Parliament, which works for a Socialist Europe.”
“The Fabian Society, the Labour Party and Fabian control of the working classes”
“Rothschild, Rockefeller and allied interests were the primary moving force behind liberal (i.e., left-wing) initiatives like “free trade,” “world peace,” “universal brotherhood” and “world organisation,” inexorably leading to the abolition of national sovereignty and the imposition of world government. They were also behind Socialism as a device for bribing and controlling the working class through operations like the Fabian Society and the Milner Group.”
“That Britain’s working classes “were not going to rush into Socialism” had long been discovered by the Fabian leadership – as Fabian Society Secretary Edward R. Pease candidly admitted. Therefore the first task of the Society was to capture the working classes for its own ends. A step in this direction was the formation of the Independent Labour Party (ILP).”
“The ILP’s aim of controlling the labour and Socialist movement for its own agenda is evident from Beatrice Webb’s Diary and other Fabian documents (Ratiu, 2012).”
“The Fabian Society has retained complete control over the Labour Party ever since:”
“The Fabian Society and its total control of modern society”
“The Fabians’ drive for total control was not restricted to the working classes. The Society’s declared aim was to capture and control all British citizens “for its profit and their own good” (Fabian News, Sept. 1897). For this purpose and in addition to politics, it set out to control education, culture, economy, the legal system and even medicine and religion.”
“The Fabian Society and World Government”
“Outside Britain, the Fabian Society’s ultimate goal – which it has pursued through the Labour Party and other front organisations like the Socialist International and the United Nations – has been the establishment of a Socialist World Government (Ratiu, 2012).”
““The ultimate objective of the parties of the Socialist International is nothing less than world government. As a first step towards it, they seek to strengthen the United Nations so that it may become more and more effective … Membership of the United Nations must be made universal” (“The World Today: The Socialist Perspective,” Declaration of the Socialist International Oslo Conference, 2-4 June 1962).
This was parroted by Socialist parties (and governments) around the world, the British Labour Party at the forefront:
“Labour remained faithful to its long-term belief in the establishment of east-west co-operation as the basis for a strengthened United Nations developing towards world government … For us world government is the final objective and the United Nations the chosen instrument …” (Labour Party manifesto 1964).”
“It is interesting to note what leading Bilderberg members have had to say about the Group. David Rockefeller writes that “Bilderberg meetings must induce apocalyptic visions of omnipotent international bankers plotting with unscrupulous government officials to impose cunning schemes on an ignorant and unsuspecting world” (Rockefeller, pp. 410-1).”
“In light of the above facts, the identity of the objectives of the Fabian Society represented by the Socialist International and parties like Labour, on one hand, and the objectives of international financial interests represented by the UN and Bilderberg, on the other hand, becomes indisputable (Ratiu, 2012).”
There is much much more, Frank, if only you were to read the link provided.
Happy to have been some help.
The ‘Left’ is not ‘terrified’ as such.
The Left is the purview of intellectuals and middle class. Always has been. (Plebs have riots and uprisings: educated people run revolutions.)
One day the proles will become less, well, oiky and even educated. But until then we Brighter People with patronise and matronise and fraternise and maybe even let the sorority have a word before they make the tea and do the dishes.
As plainly as possible – you are being talked down to. Soothed.
The genie is already out of the bottle and looking for proof that it has been conned, bland-lied to, given sops. And it’s finding those proofs.
Donald Trump doesn’t lie. (Don’t scream.) He is confirming what people already believe. They hear what they want to hear from someone they’ve seen before. A tough guy. ‘You’re fired!’ Sock it to the bosses. Oh bliss.
If the pox of discontent was not already rife in this country; if the soil was unready for the seeds, the alt-right could scatter its seeds anywhere and, mostly, it would fall on barren ground.
‘Didya hear those mongrels?! What a pack of losers!’
But the soil is warm, well-watered with 30+ years of betrayal, and ready for whatever seeds are available to hungry, angry ordinary folk.
That little clump of patronising people (oh, we’re just here for the good of our souls and the perks) has reason to worry. The weeds are starting to grow and they’ve rarely put their hands into the real dirt. It’ll take more than bans to stop this crop of giant hogweed, kudzu grass and japanese knotweed.
“The Left is the purview of intellectuals and middle class. ”
So all those black conservatives like, for example, Thomas Sowell, are just a bunch of oiks?
Does it ever cross ones mind that this elitist attitude is precisely why Brexit and Trump happened?
Andrea;
Very, very well said.
Thank you.
“All the times our new Free Speech Coalition really hated free speech”
To this list, I might add the fact that none of these Right Wing supporters of free speech rushed to pour tens of thousands of dollars into supporting the right of Renae Maihi when Bob Jones tried to bludgeon her right to free speech with an expensive court action.
Sir Bob Jones files defamation proceedings against filmmaker accusing him of ‘hate speech’
Going on their record of raising $50,000 to support the right of free speech for fascists like Southern to spout her racist filth, The Free Speech Coalition show that they are more likely to support Bob Jones call, that “Maori should wait on White people unpaid out of gratitude”, as free speech, than Renae Maihi’s right to denounce it as “Hate Speech”.
Im interested in the “racist filth” that you claim Lauren Southern spouts
Are you aware that she has dated black men and gets called a “coal burner” as a result, by the real racists out there?
Surely all you intellectuals and academics have actually done some research into the subject that irks you so much
Lauren Southern is a white woman who has dated black men.
She gets called a “coal burner” by actual racists for this.
So once again, which part of anything she has said is racist?
Sorry about the double up of comments above. Some disappear into the moderation hole for a while
True though, I’ve seen also a lot of the actual alt-right folks in online commentary seem to propagate the conspiracy theory that Lauren Southern is actually Jewish (which, of course, in the minds of these people is why she worked for Rebel Media). I think when you actually look at what the actual Anglin/Spencer crowds think, you realise that the gap between the actual alt-right and groups like the ‘intellectual dark-web’ and the MAGA/’alt-lite’ crowds are actually a pretty massive gulf.
Like the Springboks all those years ago we don’t need those people here.
There ideas are on the web so no free speech has been denied.
I remember the chaos and damage the Springboks unleashed here. We don’t need a repeat of that.
https://www.livescience.com/60220-einstein-letter-goes-on-auction.html
Don Brash says people have a right to air racist views in New Zealand
Stuff.co.nz – July 11 2018
Well he would wouldn’t he, being a founding member and leader of the racist hate group ‘Hobson’s Pledge’, Don Brash has a vested interested in protecting the right to air racist views.
What is most upsetting is that this gang of vile right wingers and racists are claiming, they have support from across the political spectrum, because Chris Trotter is giving his support to their campaign to normalise racist views in public.
Well they don’t have the support of the Mayor, and they don’t have the support of the Left.
https://twitter.com/phil_goff/status/1015056094945611776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1015056094945611776&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stuff.co.nz%2Fauckland%2F105398823%2Fphil-goffs-tweets-may-have-unwisely-brought-ratepayers-a-costly-battle%3Frm%3Dm
Which part of what Lauren Southern or Stefan Molyneux have said is racist? I have yet to see any evidence for this, despite the constant wailing
Hi Andy, In my opinion anyone who sets to sea to with interfere with the rescue of endangered refugees fleeing war or fascist tyranny, and raises funds for neo-nazi groups, is worse than racist. Lauren Southern is a brutal supporter of fascist terror.
So what?
That some of the people in the racist and fascist groups Lauren Southern associates with use epithets like “coal burner” comes as no surprise to me.
This just demonstrates the ignorance and illogic of racism.
In the complicated and often fraught field of human sexual relations, where an imbalance in power often plays a factor, for racists to have sexual partners of another race is not unusual. No more unusual than a misogynist having relationships with women.
The Segregationist’s Daughter
Jelani Cobb – February 7, 2013
For all his rhetoric about preserving racial purity, interracial sex was not contrary to Thurmond’s goals as a segregationist; on some level, it was entirely the point.
She didn’t interfere with the rescue of endangered refugees. She was aboard a boat that interfered with a people trafficking operation run by an NGO. It was illegally importing people from Africa into Sicily. They were not refugees.
The Italian government has since stopped these illegal operations, thereby complying with its own laws
This was covered in the video link I posted upthread.
Unfortunately the media have been peddling this untruth that you also repeat. I can’t blame you since this is what most of the media parrot, without checking out any facts
It appears that she did, Andy;
ref: https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018654471/free-speech-debate-goes-full-noise
Here’s the youtube video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAV0eI6MnrA
As for whether the ship contained refugees or “illegally importing people” or run by an “NGO” – you have no such knowledge of that.
Why is it the right to free speech is almost entirely the demand of people with views that involve ensuring that people who do not agree do not get the right to free speech? The latest manifestation is they want people who pray to a different god to lose their right to leave poverty, and if they are in the countries of plenty to lose any and all of their citizen rights. The rise of fascism happens when good people do nothing so everyone who has lived through fascism says. People have always assumed that when we give people the right to air abhorrent views that is enough to keep freedom – it is not. As long as people can be persuaded that disabled people should die, other humans are less human than you, poverty is the fault of the individual, a specific religion is bad then freedom of speech can not be absolute. The disadvantaged of our society have the right to be protected from speech that blames them and suggests violence against them.
How do you feel about abortion for Down’s Syndrome children, especially with countries like Iceland where almost 100% of Down’s children are killed in the womb?
This seems like a fairly abhorrent worldview to me, i.e that all Down’s people are not worthy of life. Yet many people do not question it.
But how do you feel about right wing dictators like Pinochet and Franco killing unarmed dissidents and…
Oh, wait, that’s a deflection, isn’t it, Andy?
You can ‘justify’ anything by pointing to another irrelevent extreme act.
Crusaders in 12th Century middle east, slaughtering thousands of unarmed m uslim civilians?
Clan of the Burning Log killing children from Clan of the Pointy Stick, 50,000 years ago?
Two amoeba trying to engulf each other in the Tethys Sea, 3.8 billion years ago?
Yeah, ridiculous, ain’t it.
https://www.denverpost.com/2017/11/27/grizzly-bears-population-rebound/
Quote:
“Yellowstone’s grizzly bear population rebounds, creating challenges, fears”
They were nearly exterminated a century ago but now the population is growing rapidly. It’s a real worry for local farmers.
Local farmer wouldn’t be using land that was previously the domain of wild life would they.
That is before the Euro “settlers” killed of the native human that lived along side the wild life.
A piece of paper called a title becomes a license to kill.
How entertaining to see the old ‘leftist’ guard, apparently rather disconnected with the present sentiment of most capitalist type younger generation members, and apologists of the status quo, argue amongst themselves about the ‘inconvenient truth’ about so called ‘free speech denialism’.
I fear the right wingers do not give a damn about all this semantic kind of stuff and discussion, they are pragmatists and move on with it, robustly, well funded and supported, while the ‘left’ discusses, grieves and tries to find itself.
That is the major problem we have, besides of ‘the left’ being virtually wiped off the political map of NZ Inc these days, only remnants bother discussing bits here, or live in time capsules that spring open occasionally, so a dozen or a few turn up on Aotea Square with a few placards and old style megaphones, trying to attract attention by mostly indifferent, selfish minded, materialistic, consumerist idiots going about their worldly business.
This country is a graveyard of souls, a graveyard where the worthy souls are all but a few DEAD, the rest are walking Zombies and cyberspace warriors struggling to find orientation and purpose.
This isn’t going to work out well
No one at all has addressed any of the points I raised
NZ Inc is going to get burned by this
About time, I say
This topic is generating a lot of exposure for CT. I don’t think anyone else has pointed out the obvious in CT’s thinking. He thinks “the Left” is self-destructing because they are not expounding the same argument. Obviously there is only one argument to follow and that is CTs. He dismisses the possibility that independent thinkers might discuss/debate a range of viewpoints. No, he takes a monolithic position.
Despite Dave explaining that Stalin prevailed over Trotsky’s attempt to form a united front between the Socialists and the Communists: it was Stalin who was responsible for the Soviet Union supporting the fascists. Yet you ignore this and blame ‘Communists’ for allowing fascism to flourish in Germany. Do you really think all communists think & do the same thing?
Great for John Minto to enter this debate. Great blog. The example of his principled activism in various groups over many years points to a person of real leadership.
There is a corollary to free speech; the freedom to choose what you listen to and how much of it you believe. The Washington Post has a very useful feature in its comments section: the ability to ignore specific users. I have developed a habit of ‘ignoring’ commenters who appear to be consistently just venting frustration. But I do try to listen to people with a differing ideology who have access to information that has eluded me.
“There is no such thing as free speech” Te Reo Putake, (No, especially if you are black or Muslim)
Will the Free Speech Coalition be raising $50 thousand on a legal case for the right of Humanists to come and address us, like they have for white supremacists?
Hi Chris, Will your new Free Speech coalition be raising money to fund a legal challenge for the right of Humanists to come to this country to address us?
Or is your group only interested in protecting free speech for white supremacists and fascists?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/105660382/humanists-conference-organisers-shocked-at-immigration-nz-denials-for-hero-members
Your group of wealthy old white men of privilege have not got much else to do. You have the resources you have got the time. You have publicly expressed your interest in free speech issues.
Will you stay silent on this?
Let me know your reply.
(or not).
An undeniable truth about the Free Speech Coalition.
The Free Speech Coalition was set up in response to the right of fascists to use public venues to spread their message being curtailed.
Hi Chris, I see your Free Speech Coalition group was able to raise $50 thousand in less than 24 hours to protect the rights of fascists to be able to use public venues.
At the next planning meeting of your Free Speech Coalition, you will bring up the case of the Humanists who were not even allowed visas to come here and address us, won’t you?
Maybe you could ask the other members of the new lobby group that you are a member of to extend your brief (so far) of only championing the rights of white supremacists and fascists to free speech, to others also denied the right to free speech?
Maybe you could let us know their reply?
I mean its not like the members of your group of older privileged white men haven’t got the time or resources. And after all, your new organisation has expressed a public interest in protecting free speech. (well so far for some at least). will your be extending your concern to black people and Muslims denied the right to address us, or is your group’s concern only for white racists?
Will your group raise funds for a legal challenge to allow these people to address us?
“Humanists conference organisers shocked at Immigration NZ denials for “hero” members”
KAROLINE TUCKEY
Last updated 05:00, July 22 2018
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/105660382/humanists-conference-organisers-shocked-at-immigration-nz-denials-for-hero-members
Let us know your reply.
Of course your silence, or censorship of this comment, will be a reply in itself.
It appears that Chris’s vision of a rational town hall-style debating of issues may be a forelorn hope;
ref: https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018654471/free-speech-debate-goes-full-noise
perhaps the free speech coalition could help these people who seem to be being denied entry. cards stacked in favour of the hateful speakers
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/105660382/humanists-conference-organisers-shocked-at-immigration-nz-denials-for-hero-members
Comments are closed.