It’s very fashionable for the middle class to roll their eyes and shake their heads at the lunatic ideas out there about Covid 19 and the local expression of conspiracy theories about the virus through the New Zealand Public Party.
The party leader Bill Te Hakika is gaining a significant following with claims we are being brainwashed to accept totalitarian government through a communist takeover. He seems to believe the end of our freedoms is being planned by power-crazed politicians using a fake virus to create community panic and have us agree to sign over our democracy to billionaires and corrupt politicians. (Inexplicably Deputy National Party leader Gerry Brownlee fuelled the fire with outrageous comments suggesting the government had colluded with health officials to withhold information about the latest outbreak for political advantage. Enough said)
Most of the people drawn into the New Zealand Public Party and its conspiracy theories see little reason to believe in a “team of five million”. Many have spent their lives without being treated with dignity or respect by politicians or government agencies. They have seen their living standards go backwards for decades and are no longer listening when politicians talk about better times ahead under this or that party. Betrayal is their experience of politics. (If you don’t understand those last three sentences, then you haven’t been paying attention and you are part of the problem)
They have been reviled by National-led governments as an irredeemable “underclass” and either ignored or patronised by Labour-led governments. Either way nothing gets better.
These are people who in the UK voted for Brexit and in the US voted for Trump. They don’t respect politicians (why would they?) or health officials because they have experienced the harsh realities of living with poverty and gross inequality in a land of plenty.
I don’t blame them for being angry or susceptible to bullshit ideas and it’s hardly surprising they are prepared to listen to anyone who blames politicians and the political system for the constraints on their freedoms they are told they must accept because of Covid 19. (It could be many of them feel quite keenly that “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”)
So condemn the bullshit ideas but start treating all people with dignity and respect.
There’s no better way to do this than read through the final report of the Alternative Aotearoa seminar and start making demands of our corporate-funded politicians.
thank you.
we need something like the mana party back to represent the deeply marginalised.
The bulk of the population consists of ‘livestock’ -told where to live, what kind of dwelling to purchase, what to wear, what to eat, what to drink, what to drive, which devices to use, what to read, what to listen to, where to go for recreation when active, where to retire to when no longer active, who to vote for when alive, and who to make ‘the arrangements’ when death arrives -by the corporations that set the national agenda of ostentatious and mostly utterly mindless consumption.
All of the mind control, tell-you-how-to-live systems are backed and promoted by the commercial banks, the Reserve Bank of NZ, and the politicians, of course, with the mind control commencing shortly after birth, and ramped enormously up as soon as school age is reached. Indeed, the modern trend is to commence the indoctrination before school age via early childhood centres.
Whilst providing some protection from miscreants, an important role of the police and ‘justice’ system is to act as enforcers of corporate and governmental dysfunction. Want to protest against fossil fuel use or the ravages of corporate mining? Sorry, that’s illegal. Want to draw attention to the corrupt nature of the system by walking along the road with a banner? Sorry, that’s ‘Disorderly Conduct’, a punishable ‘crime’.
To some extent you can choose which part of the ‘farm’ to live on, but you cannot easily escape being ‘farmed’. And when an outrageous act, such as a group of people organising the demolition of a group of problematic buildings and calling it international terrorism is perpetrated, you are expected to believe the utter bullshit of the official narrative about untrained pilots performing impossible feats of flying, and equally impossible-to-believe phenomena of aircraft engines ‘evaporating’ on impact, following low speed collision with grass! (Pentagon attack and the ‘missing plane’)… all of what followed to being to deliver ‘freedom and democracy’, and having nothing whatsoever to do with “How did our oil get under their sand?” Yeah, right!
The crux of this is that we live in a largely scientifically-illiterate society on non-thinkers, deliberately made scientifically illiterate and non-thinking by the underfunded education system and the corporate media, which enact the agendas of the money-lender-industrial-corporate empire.
The really clever aspect of all this was the invention of the term ‘Conspiracy Theory’ by the CIA (epitome of corporate control and ruthless suppression of counter opinion) in the early 1960s to discredit opposition, when young people were beginning to question the motives and tactics of the financial-industrial-military state -which shortly after went on to literally kill young people at Kent State University for disagreeing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings .
“If you disagree you get annihilated” -Midnight Oil
The irony now is that if you agree [with the agenda of money-lender-industrial complex] and abide by its arbitrary rules, you still get annihilated! Well your genetic line. that dates back around 3 billion years, does! round 2 decades from now, it seems.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/co2_800k.png
Excellent article and much more coherent then Chris yesterday – who is now doing back flips over his previous free speech crusades. Having followed UK politics closely in recent years the similarity between the emerging politics here in NZ and the UK’s Leave campaign are frighteningly similar. I recently heard the phrase “take back control” from a prospective NZ politician and nearly fell off my chair in disbelief.
No way. Social media has pulled this entire generation into politics and we can not seed that ground to the like of Billy T.K. unmolested because they’re indoctrinating the social media world into conspiracy theory cult members. That is very, very dangerous. People like Billy T.K must be engaged and embarrassed in front of everyone and that’s that.
Meanwhile the left charges on with BLM, Antifa, race based hospital care, gang operated roadblocks, demonization of anything white and wonders why society is becoming polarized.
let me guess, “all lives matter”?
Yes these conspiracy theorists are mainly on the fringes of society, but it is understandable how some are swayed to take similar views.
In the last week and a half, there was a definite ramping up of Covid-19 advertising and the rhetoric around a second wave being imminent definitely was more pronounced, then suddenly we have another outbreak? Not everyone believes in coincidences.
I agree John, belittle these people at your peril, some conspiracies do turn out to be correct. It is better to listen and reflect on all views. Not scorn these people and then get shocked come election day.
I disagree that they are “mainly on the fringes of society”. Just a look at the uptake tells you an awful lot. And even some national party people are being drawn into it. It makes me wonder, where will Advance Jami-Lee Ross/NZPP take votes from, and will it matter? Thy will definitely take some formerly Labour party or Maori Party voters, but also i suspect quite a few nats. Maybe the switches in voting allegiances will cancel each oher out. Here’s hoping.
Utter crap. So you believe people displaying zero respect to just how deadly the virus is and zero respect for NZ’s response to the point they are ridiculing, mocking and undermining it…yet we should respect them. I have two words and the second word is ‘off’.
No that’s fine, but when it comes time to debate the crowds have to quiet it down so the big dogs can maul these little poodles on stage in a respectful way. Putting people down like that is a special kind of kindness.
“Utter crap.”
That sums up my reaction to this article as well.
I’ll respect everybody’s right to an opinion. That respect does not extend to either the opinion itself nor to the person/s holding the opinion if their viewpoint runs counter to available evidence.
Holding conspiracy theories is the result of flawed thinking processes and/or flawed information sources.
Given the availability of good information available on COVID, asking one to respect the holders of COVID conspiracies is asking one to be both blind to stupidity and to unjustifiably respect stupidity.
If a week is a long time in politics. A day is a long time in a pandemic.
In my opinion when the loved ones and families members and friends of Billy Te Kahika’s followers start getting ill and even dying his conspiracy theory based movement will die a natural death.
Billy Te Kahika. He’s got my vote.
Advance NZ Public Party. They’ve got my vote.
This is a list of policies : https://www.nzpublicparty.org.nz/what-we-stand-for
There’s a point to be made about undermining the current democratic functions while at the same time ensuring that the powerful new democratic state subsidizes Billy T.K and his teeny crowd of online followers.
In Aristotle Theory which is the foundation of democracy, Billy T.K takes for granted full participation aimed at the common good but in order to achieve that you must introduce a new welfare state of which his economic policy prescriptions are thin to non-existant which isn’t surprising for a former SAS action man of the wolrd.
Sam,
I enjoy your input bro.
Chur.
Sam,
Not sure why you believe your comment relevant to what’s happening. Billy Te Kahika was never SAS in this “wolrd” or any other. He says, on the record, what he is on NZPP Facebook. You are living off money borrowed in our names, which we, our children and grandchildren can never hope to repay…which gives over the land of NZ lock, stock and barrell to the creditor, along with your family home. If you’re intent on pruning the tall poppy first watch out for the Military knocking on your door to carry out the mandatory vaccination which is scheduled sooner rather than later on the sole command of the Beehive Queen bee.
Billy T.K is pure cancer. He can’t just acknowledge good policy and have to turn it into a newsworthy controversial potentially dangerous cultural attack on weak snowflake minority females and make the lefties feel guilty for being funny and well informed. Absolutely absurd trash.
And by the way. Listen to the plum English accent. Very obvious Billy is from a very privileged background. These fuckin privileged woke cultural neo-cons trying to create agendas are literally everywhere. Pure cancer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lIz5orkk0Q
haha of course he has! No surprises there.
Why does that not surprise anyone. You should start your own party you could call it the Conspiracy Party .Slogan could be WE ARE WATCHING
If a week is a long time in politics, a day is a long time in a pandemic.
Billy TK’s brand of Covid-19 denialism can only survive while the virus is being held at bay, once it is rampant in the community and the friends and family members of Billy TK’s followers start sickening and going to hospital. His movement will die a natural death.
Cancer cures smoking.
Billy TK’s success is a mirror image of the government’s, while there is no virus in the community. Billy can easily say ‘look there’s no threat everything is fine, it’s all a big conspiracy.
Yesterday the government abandoned their previous policy of ‘elimination’ of the virus for one of ‘suppression’ of the virus.
Prime Minister announced that failure to eliminate community transmission of the virus, will no longer be a reason not to drop to level 2. This is a departure from her previous policy of elimination.
From TVNZ
6.13pm: Ms Ardern says we do not have to see zero cases of Covid-19 in order to move levels, but to instead identify the “perimeter” of the cluster.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/live-prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-announce-decision-covid-19-lockdown-5-30pm
Now that the government has abandoned their policy of ‘elimination’ for one of ‘suppression’ community transmission becomes a real possibility.
Billy TK’s movement will wither under the enslaught.
Thankyou for this John. I keep on saying that these are people who know well that forces are always moving against them – something that readers of this blog actually agree with. The only difference is who we believe is reponsible.
It’s a pity that class analysis has disapeared from the working class population because then they would know that Billy’s theories are far too simplistic to account for reality. One thing this blog can do though is welcome them into the fold rather than writing the off because if we just write them off we fulfill our role in the class system and ensure that they have no where to go except for Billy.
Sam,
Not sure why you believe your comment relevant to what’s happening. Billy Te Kahika was never SAS in this “wolrd” or any other. He says, on the record, what he is on NZPP Facebook. You are living off money borrowed in our names, which we, our children and grandchildren can never hope to repay…which gives over the land of NZ lock, stock and barrell to the creditor, along with your family home. If you’re intent on pruning the tall poppy first watch out for the Military knocking on your door to carry out the mandatory vaccination which is scheduled sooner rather than later on the sole command of the Beehive Queen bee.
Re-post:
https://gis.blog.ryerson.ca/2020/06/11/book-review-corona-false-alarm/
Book Review: Corona False Alarm?
The facts in this book have absolutely nothing to do with conspiracy theory.
A most important lesson learned from Covid19 is that we have to be very careful with drawing quick solutions.
It is by no means intellectually serious, linking the Covid19 saga to specific party politics to such an extend, as it is done by many of the TDB contributors.
As often, it is the context that actually determines the situation.
The context is, NZ/AO was and is hardly better prepared to manage the different facets of the outbreak, as it is the case in any other country.
Nothing to be ashamed about. Such acknowledgment is a main step to factual improvement.
Exorcising people like the leader of the NZPP does not help.
Neither does health praying through the Labour Party Execs.
Instead:
Let’s talk about a) Early Warning Systems and b) Community-based Disaster Risk Reduction.
System Change. Now.
Best commentator ever.
Love you John.
Keep it up, the world needs you.
Anyone who believes any of the covid conspiricy theories / misinformation is a dip shit and seriouly needs to seek psychiatric help, PERIOD!
Anyone spreading conspiricy theories is a criminal of the worst kind and should be executed, PERIOD! Please come and see me, I have a body bag just waiting for me to shove your soryy miserable sick ass in it, which I will do with great pleasure!
These views are based on blind ignorance and prejudice a lot like racism. So hate racism and ignorance of the facts about covid. Both are intolerable and dangerous and need stamping out. Personally I have no sympathy or respect for people who are racist or conspiracy theorists around covid
Whatever the background of these people (and is there any evidence that the people who support these conspiracy theories come from disadvantaged backgrounds? ). It’s a reasonable theory, but evidence? On the other hand many who are disadvantaged to not go with the covid conspiracy stuff. Bloomfield said today that maoriand PI communities have been fantastic at getting tested in big numbers both in the first and second outbreak.
Whoever these conspiracy theory people are, firstly completely debunk what they are saying then give them no oxygen. I am tempted to add that if they are unprepared to cooperate with public health directives (ie levels) get them to sign something to say they waiver their right treatment if they get covid. After all every covid person puts a number of health professionals at risk. I know this suggestion is wrong, but it would be interesting to see what would happen if this occurred. Of course our poor old medical professionals have to treat everyone. They deserve our support and compassion.
“Whoever these conspiracy theory people are, firstly completely debunk what they are saying then give them no oxygen. I am tempted to add that if they are unprepared to cooperate with public health directives (ie levels) get them to sign something to say they waiver their right treatment if they get covid. After all every covid person puts a number of health professionals at risk. I know this suggestion is wrong, but it would be interesting to see what would happen if this occurred. Of course our poor old medical professionals have to treat everyone. They deserve our support and compassion.”
these “conspiracy theorist ” people are individual citizens from all over the world entitled to an opinion about matters that they feel threaten them & those people and things they treasure. Given the potential, at best decimating and at worst catastrophic impact, the current situation has in store for humanity as we know it – i say thank you for your contribution to democracy. i point out again the term conspiracy theorist is a part of a decades old american devised & implemented strategy to discredit /neutralize the damaging information reaching citizens. sadly, more recently it was disclosed – they were surprised at how successful it had been – so the powers that shouldn’t be salute the sams, gregs & curtain wranglers of this world for your help.
as for debunk and give them no oxygen – that is already happening and now they wanting to prebunk or do you really think that there is only 30 mins of news every single day – actually 15 if u take out ads – oh and there’s always a long “good news” story at the end ! The media r the problem – they choose what we know and lets face it 15 mins ain’t long specially when that consists of john campbell taking 3 mins to state it as he sees it and finish with “right ?” the talking head basically agrees then it’s news with so and so who quotes the talking head and bugger me the often then show the TH saying it !!!! from this scratch of the surface jo public believes he is fully informed and when exposed …… trump ’em with …”conspiracy theorist ..
the privately owned media has an agenda and our state run, just not so obvious. take Trump for example – weeks ago he announced as a result of pressure, he had secured a major reduction to drug pricing for amongst others, the Epipen and insulin, surely worth a minute or so in our news given it’s a major concern here also and people die daily because our govt decides sorry too expensive. but nothing but regurgitation from the wire.
Another example on the AM show while ago – guy emails in mentions building 7 world trade centre – amanda & dunc lambast him & label him blah blah theorist. These people set the daily agenda – fuck look at ventilators – early on it was a measure of covid preparedness and big beatup how we had none we maybe even ordered some at $$$$ turns out ventilators the kiss of death for covid patients – gee i hope we cancelled the orders ! another thing since i have made the effort – for the record – the people who govern this country have no money they take ours and spend it – it should be “the people will spend $$$$ on this or that”
we live in a time the NZ govt can tell a citizen to do something and tell them if u tell anyone u can be jailed.
– a time epstein can hang himself in jail & cameras not working
– a time assange forced to live in embassy room for 10 then betrayed by english justice
– a time a man with some type of obvious dementia and a phony are offered as serious candidates
– a time NZ army/govt shamefully colluded to hide the Afghanistan raid
– a time cia funded coups in foreign countries with cocaine they trafficked and sold in low income areas , filling private prisons ( pioneering modern slavery by contracting prisoners out to corps for peanuts) and destroying families
– simon bridges can be heard saying a chinese worth 2 indians not to mention our recently retired CCP politician in residence
– a time in which the mother of all conspiracy theories was hatched – the world trade centre goes unquestioned by every govt around the world
– a time our police lie & our judicial system is compromised
– a time kim.com, a citizen was betrayed, robbed and abused in collusion with foreign govt
– a time compliance is our biggest growth industry
zero interest rates, ban on informing public of suicide rates, and that’s just recent.
unfortunately Billy TK jun has prob made a mistake in not following the “never go full retard” advice and as a result actually damages his chances of traction despite the validity of his claims.
yes the virus is real, it is killing people but it is being used to usher in radical change we would not accept unless misinformed and scared shitless.
can’t blame people they confined and subjected to bombardment of different models, all sorts of emotional blackmail and dramatic video grabs – a virtual pandemic. a whole lot of people making out like bandits on masks, sanitizer , big spend of our $ on an ad campaign to tell us b kind , $1000 a day salaries to manage the response – call me old fashioned but i expect if we facing annihilation we roll up our sleeves and do it for NZ not to mention paying all the managers and local stars to do the cute “we’ve got this NZ” .
So many of these theories have become conspiracy proven so if u r not at least willing to admit, based on countless proven examples thru history, it’s possible our govt is not bound by truth and if they have nothing to hide they should have no need to fear free speech.
so in conclusion users of this term are actually a threat to themselves & me and my familly because by time we wait for them to stop slagging off people who often pay the ultimate price for speaking out., and actually educate themselves it will be over. please look at Corbett Report .com
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