The curtain has fallen on a judicial process that has sentenced a characterless creature to life without parole, and yet still the ghost of Voltaire’s words hang over the stage; “It is forbidden to kill, therefore all murderers are punished, unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
Satisfied that we have delivered justice to the Christchurch Mosque victims and loudly proclaiming “we are one” with them, nobody seems to consider that we may have played a part in setting the stage for this atrocity.
Few victims of the pitiless Christchurch Mosque massacres would have been in New Zealand that day had they not fled here from even more terrible destruction, being rained on their homelands by a world superpower, with whom we are closely allied.
New Zealand has been involved in many wars in its short history, very few of which were ever justified by the reasons we were given at the time, but which were actually fought either in the interests of British imperialism then, or US imperialism now.
And many of our new Muslim refugee brothers and sisters, who now call New Zealand home, are here as a direct consequence of it.
When the pilot of the C-130H Hercules that carried its craven cargo to and from the Christchurch court, filled in the plane’s logbook, he could have leafed back and seen details of earlier flights which, back then, carried NZ troops to the varied homelands of the Muslim diaspora.
They say Covid19 offers us a good opportunity to reset our economy on a course to an even better future, and so too could the tragedy of the Mosque massacres, if we cared to consider what was happening behind the scenes in the prelude, and fix it.
We are who we are as a consequence of our experience and so it follows; we know what we know, as a consequence of what we are told. And so too it must be with the Christchurch Mosque murderer!
With that in mind and considering that which goes to the heart of this matter, our understanding of world geo-political affairs, it’s clear we have been persistently told, in the words of the late Justice Mahon; “a litany of lies!”
From war with the Maori, to the Boer war, WW1, to Fiji and Samoa, to the Korean war, Malaya, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, to our support for Israel’s brutal suppression of the Palestinians, to the so-called “war on terror, and now Venezuela, China and Russia, our attitudes have been meticulously moulded by a particular view presented to us by the media.
Where else has our understanding come from?
World respected peace advocate Professor Noam Chomsky, author of “Manufacturing Consent,” which details how the media invents the many “truths” we hold dear, says we live in a society in which freedom of speech is indeed sacrosanct but, says Chomsky, only within certain clearly defined parameters, outside of which we must not look.
And so we might have continued to travel, smugly self-assured in the belief that our society and culture is the most righteous and that but for a variety of evil foreign forces, which come and go depending on the situation, everyone could live as we do.
The fact is that’s a fairy tale!
A fairy tale that was exposed with the arrival of the Internet which suddenly laid bare the myriad falsehoods that have, to date, underpinned our understanding of the world and kept us, especially the poorest among us, cruelly subjugated.
And, based on meticulously gathered evidence, it’s clear the Mosque murderer was also influenced by the media’s incessant anti-Muslim propaganda, not to mention both the Australian and New Zealand governments’ support for it, implicit in their military involvement
Where else were his views formed from?
None of which should in any way be interpreted as a plea on behalf of a justly convicted murderer, but rather as an attempt to point out that in times of heightened tensions everything rises, including that of men’s most base behaviours.
And none of that will change until we rid ourselves of any alliance with a state whose primary objective is waging war itself, for the purpose of plundering another nation’s assets to secure its global hegemony – proof positive that Voltaire was right.
As long as our Government is guided by a brand of political pragmatism, measured only by the test of what best serves our economic interest, and not by one based on the principle that recognizes we are all one on this little planet, then how can we ever really consider ourselves kind?
But nothing will change as long as our media, owned, either wholly or in part, by those who profit from war, which President Eisenhower called “The Military Industrial Complex,” has anything to do with it – unless we fight.
Kia Kaha
New Zealand has been involved in many wars in its short history, very few of which were ever justified by the reasons we were given at the time, but which were actually fought either in the interests of British imperialism then, or US imperialism now.
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I love the character of Captain Algrin , and his staunch loyal Irish sergeant of the ‘Last Samurai’. Hard men of the time in which there were many. Drunk, blunt and telling it how it is with no sensibilities for civil conversation or concern for preconceived notions ….
Although fictitious, Yet viewed through the eyes of the 21rst century and ignoring the past,…it is all there in a nutshell…
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”My thanks on behalf of those who died,… in the name of better mechanical amusements and commercial opportunity’s”…
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It sums up the truth of capitalism and of every war that has ever been fought.
The Last Samurai – Cpt. Nathan Algren show
https://youtu.be/8UR8z_AMuTs?t=121
When you want to save lives & ban guns, it is those of the military you should take first, as they only exist to kill people, mostly the poor, the downtrodden & brown in foreign lands.
Divest from the War Machine: World Beyond War, Divest
“Divestment is organizing to remove public and private assets from weapons manufacturers, military contractors, and war profiteers. Grassroots-led war divestment campaigns are springing up all over the world, from students organizing to divest university endowments from weapons manufacturers and war profiteers, to municipalities and states coming together to divest public pension funds from the war machine.” More at this link
TOP WEAPONS DEALERS, from the link above:
Here are the company names and locations of the top 20 weapons dealers in the world
(though they sell their weapons all over the world)
Lockheed Martin, United States
Boeing, United States
BAE Systems, United Kingdom — and subsidiary: BAE Systems Inc., United States
Raytheon, United States
Northrop Grumman, United States
General Dynamics, United States
Airbus Group, Netherlands
United Technologies Corp., United States — and subsidiary: Pratt & Whitney, United States
Leonardo, Italy
L-3 Communications, United States
Almaz-Antey, Russia
Thales, France
Huntington Ingalls Industries, United States
United Aircraft Corp., Russia
United Shipbuilding Corp., Russia
Rolls-Royce, United Kingdom
SAFRAN, France
Honeywell International, United States
Textron, United States
DCNS, France
You may notice that none of these companies is located in the parts of the world afflicted by warfare, while half of them are in the United States, seven in Europe, and three in Russia.
It is strange to have ideals in the midst of profits from force. Empire generates ideals as much as self-interested profit.
Our way through…? I don’t care apart from my old age. People never fight me about this point.
It is strange to have ideals in the midst of profits from force. Empire generates ideals as much as self-interested profit.
Our way through…? I don’t care apart from my old age. People never fight me about this point.
It’s very important to remember that Brenton Tarrant is Australian, not a NZer.
“….in the words of the late Justice Mahon; “a litany of lies!””
At the time, I followed the Mahon inquiry closely; the words he used were actually “an orchestrated litany of lies”. There’s a significant difference in meaning. There’s no doubt that, in my longish life, the local msm has delivered us, the audience, propaganda-as-news at best, lies at worst, regarding international affairs. And it was certainly orchestrated, though offshore, not locally.
“And, based on meticulously gathered evidence, it’s clear the Mosque murderer was also influenced by the media’s incessant anti-Muslim propaganda, not to mention both the Australian and New Zealand governments’ support for it, implicit in their military involvement”
I read a goodish chunk of Tarrant’s so-called manifesto. A link was posted on this site, I believe. I think that Martyn provided it. As I recall, Tarrant was surprisingly articulate, for a man who professed to have had little education. He’s also quite well-informed about the history of the Balkans in particular. Though minimal education isn’t always a marker of low intelligence. If he wrote that stuff (including Balkanisation), he’s certainly not stupid and is at least quite well-read, even if not well-educated.
Anyone who’s read even a part of this fellow’s “manifesto” cannot fail to have noticed the similarities between what he’s written and that coming from Islamist extremism. And that’s scarcely surprising, given that both come from the same wellspring: fear of the other, desire for a return to a mythical past, in which there was no mixing of races and people followed one religion. Islamist extremists desire to establish a world Caliphate, of course, hence the recent turmoil in the ME. Including the persecution of Christians, such that most have fled that part of the world. Christian populations are very low there now, compared with in the past. I can supply links, if you’re sceptical about this.
“Where else were his views formed from?”
I’ve noted above that Tarrant is apparently quite well-informed about the history of the Balkans. He also appears to espouse the “Great Replacement” theory. That has to do with fears about the spread of Islam into eastern and central Europe – into Europe generally. We have family in that part of the world: those are long held fears, with a basis in history. The Austrians most certainly haven’t forgotten the Ottoman invasions of a few centuries ago, which saw Vienna besieged. Those who’ve been to Graz (in Austria) will know about the Armoury – maybe even have visited it, as we have. See this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styrian_Armoury
The Great Replacement is also a concept promoted by Islamists. They’re dedicated to establishing the world Caliphate, which is the same idea, just viewed from the other side.
At this remove, I’m dubious about Tarrant’s characterisation as a “white supremacist”. Our local msm chuck this term around, evidently with bugger-all knowledge as to what it actually means. It seems to me that people can fear the Islamisation of Europe without being white supremacist. And people can hold white supremacist views without having any knowledge at all about what the Great Replacement theory involves.
In the manifesto Tarrant called himself an Ecofascist, and his actions are in accord with the alt-right idea of Accelerationism, i.e. shit-stirring in order to provoke social breakdown and war, in the hope of improving the genetic fitness of the human race and reducing overall population. Basically it’s a bullshit excuse for a nihilistic and hate filled soul
love this place.
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