NZs sudden radicalisation + who poses a bigger threat to Democracy? AntiVaxxers or The Spinoff & their woke commentariat?

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
105
3426

I’m not being facetious with the title.

I’m being serious.

The sudden radicalization within NZ politics that TDB has been pointing out for some time has exploded across the spectrum and is now a mainstream talking point.

The fact that a hard right Party like ACT are currently on 17% is the 10000 pound albino gorilla in the room which the woke won’t mention for fear of alienating an overweight pigment challenged mammal.

ACTs policies are so fucking far right that they endlessly fly in circles.

Let’s remind ourselves of ACTs more crazy shit…

  • Cut and freeze the Minimum wage
  • Interest back on all student loans
  • No Kiwsaver subsidy
  • Cancel winter energy payment
  • Dump all climate crisis legislation
  • no more best start payments for families with new borns
  • cut welfare payments
  • no tax credits for research and development
  • cuts to working for families
  • $7b a year cut in public services
  • Abolish Maori seats
  • Abolish Human Rights Commission

…THAT is getting 17%!

Sweet Zombie Jesus.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

ACTs stratospheric rise in the polls started – LIKE I FUCKING WARNED IT WOULD – when the bloody woke identity politics activists went on their deplatforming rampage and tried to strangle free speech off.

In the end, David invited a feminist conference onto Parliament grounds because Masey Uni in Wellington deplatformed it!

The woke ended up making David a free speech hero FFS!

I warned the woke at the time that all they were doing was giving ACT the ammunition ACT would later use against us, and that picking a free speech fight with Seymour could awaken a dormant electoral fault line that will bite us in the arse.

Once ACT started registering 2MPs, it became a viable political vehicle for the Gun festishists and David’s ongoing performance has made him the de facto Leader of the Opposition.

As National have floundered, ACT have looked stronger and people’s gut political values have done the rest.

Thanks to social media algorithms of hate we are locked into echo chambers that are endlessly radicalizing.

Almost every single splinter group has become radicalized by the 90% double vaccination threshold.

The Vaccinated:

  • Angry Double vaxxed Good Citizens in Auckland & Good Buggers in South Island –  They have done what they were asked, they have sacrificed and now they want their lives back. Being told they can’t because morons don’t want to be vaccinated is going down about as well as a cup of cold sick. You can’t get angry at these people and painting their frustration out as racist will hurt the Left at the election. The unfairness of continuing to lose your liberty under de facto house arrest because Liz Gunn thinks vaccinations are raping Gaia makes this group ripe for radicalisation.
  • Small Business – These are people who for the first time in their lives feel economically vulnerable. They have haemorrhaged cash because of the lockdown and are on the verge of collapse. Economic hardship will see many blame Jacinda while seeing her only helping gangs. They are also ripe for radicalisation.
  • The Woke – If you honestly think like the Maori Party that this is modern genocide, all violence is justified.

The Unvaccinated:

  • Qanon Anti-vaxx lunatics – Will see the vaccination passports as a vast erosion of their civil rights and that measure will dangerously radicalize this fringe. If you honestly believe Jacinda is the same as Nazi Germany, any violence becomes permissible.
  • Crystal Karens – These are the middle class new age conspiracy clique who will become culturally ostracised by the vaccine passports. If you believe like Liz Gunn does, that the vaccine is raping Gaia to the point that the Earth Mother Goddess is starting earthquakes then any violence is justified.
  • Jesus is my vaccine fanatics – They will see Bishop Brian Tamaki’s prosecution as persecution and see end of days symbolism at every turn. The passport will be framed as the number of the beast. If Jacinda is the antiChrist then any violence is acceptable.

The speed of the radicalization has been driven by the desperation of Covid mixed with fear and rage.

This radicalisation has created an alternate reality on the right and we saw that in Wellington this week, but this alternate reality has also been a feature of the Left.

Post me too we had to believe anything anyone said on social media. We had to BELIEVE women. There was no longer objective truth, there was only subjective truth because due process is a heteronormative white cis male privilege and if someone questioned that they were a rapist.

The bewildering venom of the Trans debate and the demand that everyone else be forced to accept an identity subjectively defined by the individual and must never be challenged or you were canceled.

The demand for protection from micro aggressions and trigger free safe spaces.

The identity politics left is as radicalized and operating in their own dimension of reality as much as the feral right.

This deplatforming woke cancel culture is touched on in Bryce Edwards latest blog detailing the wokes attempt to cancel him!

TDB has been warning about this for sometime, that a culture backlash has been building against woke social engineering and that because Identity Politics and not class is the dominant philosophical schism within the Left, we are intellectually too weak to challenge the economic hegemony of neoliberalism and instead pick the low hanging fruit of identity.

This loss of class solidarity is causing the political spectrum to rapidly collapse.

I’m here to tell you that the radicalization in NZ politics is only going to get more extreme.

Who poses a bigger threat to Democracy? AntiVaxxers or The Spinoff & their woke commentariat?

If you look at Toby Manhire’s latest sermon at Spinoff or anything written on Stuff, you immediately see where the woke are now moving in response to the feral protest in Wellington.

While they all acknowledge that there was no actual violence at Parliament (at one point when the protestors knocked over the fence they politely put it back up again), they all focus on the language and hate speech that they believe is an immediate indicator of violence.

Now while I certainly believe there is a growing danger of a political assassination attempt against Jacinda and I have blogged about this, I see that as a lone lunatic from the ever growing number of radicalized individuals going troppo.

The woke will use this feral language as their prime justification for the hate speech law debate next year and argue the only way to stop this feral radicalization is to criminalize the speech.

The woke will re-enter the debate next year empowered with the self belief that if they just criminalize the speech of the right we can all be safe.

Their zeal and cult like identity politics dogma will enrage the right and the debate next year will become violent.

The solution of course is to penalize the social media networks themselves, not criminalize the toxic rantings of sad fuckwits.

Unfortunately there are no more adults left on the left to drive that as the solution.

In 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei explores the dangers of cultural dogma…

Under the pressure to conform, everyone sank into an ideological swamp of “criticism” and “self-­criticism.” My father repeatedly wrote self-­critiques, and when controls on thought and expression rose to the level of threatening his very survival, he, like others, wrote an essay denouncing Wang Shiwei, the author of “Wild Lilies,” taking a public stand that went against his inner convictions.

Situations such as this occurred in Yan’an in the 1940s, occurred in China after 1949, and still occur in the present day. Ideological cleansing, I would note, exists not only under totalitarian regimes—­it is also present, in a different form, in liberal Western democracies. Under the influence of politically correct extremism, individual thought and expression are too often curbed and too often replaced by empty political slogans.

…and Edward Snowden warns…

From the time I began studying China’s quest to intermediate the information space of its domestic internet, as part of my classified work at the NSA, I’d experience an unpleasant spinal tingle whenever I came across a new report indicating that the United States government, was, piece by piece, building out a similar technological and political infrastructure, using similar the justifications of countering terrorism, misinformation, sedition, and subjective “social harms.” I don’t want to be misunderstood as saying “East” and “West” were, or are, the same; rather, it is my belief that market forces, democratic decline, and a toxic obsession with “national security”—a euphemism for state supremacy—are drawing the US and China to meet in the middle: a common extreme. A consensus-challenging internet is perceived by both governments as a threat to central authority, and the pervasive surveillance and speech restrictions they’ve begun to mutually embrace will produce an authoritarian center of gravity that over time will compress every aspect of individual and national political differences until little distance remains. 

If you thought getting people to take a vaccination was hard, wait till you tell them you will take away their free speech.

We ain’t seen nuthin yet.

Brace for impact.

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105 COMMENTS

  1. Wait till the cost of milk, bread and butter increase 15%; petrol is $3.50 a litre and you need a loan to buy a new pair of shoes by the second quarter. Then Beetroot panics as his legacy is on life support and raises interest rates by 0.25% month-on-month.

      • The next motherload that Robo delivers! The second $100b bazooka! It’s Locked and Loaded.

        At $2.55/lt in Auckland and rising by the day! 2019 it was around $2.07 then the local Council Road tax kicked in! Another 10 cents per litre. About a 25% increase in 2ish years.

    • All those increases and under ACT you”ll have less money in your hand to pay for them. Go figure. No wonder Seymour wanted a euthanasia bill!

      • Good heavens.
        No disrespect Bert but did you ever got to school?
        I know you probably mean well but gosh every time you post you reveal a lack of simple English a complete lack of ever wanting to hear contrary views.
        Lighten up and respect we are in my view all entitled to our opinions.
        You sound to me like a law clerk who knows more about the law than a Queens Counsel or a nurse who knows more than a Surgeon.
        Anyway you are entitled to your opinion.

        • Goodness gracious me, a 3 year old retort as usual.
          Gosh John are you not intelligent enough to see the absolute irony in your”opinion” and in fact mine was also an “opinion”. Gosh John you really are just a silly little boy. Now run along before mummy calls you in for dinner.
          Just so grateful to have a government that allows your mummy to put food on the table.

        • “No disrespect Bert but did you ever got to school?
          I know you probably mean well but gosh John, every time you post you reveal a lack of simple English.

          Good heavens. What does “did you ever GOT to school” mean John?
          I gather you required remedial English training at your private school John. You sound like the type who tries hard to sound intelligent but your simple grasp of the English language tells us all on this site otherwise.

          The hypocrisy(as always) John, is in fact I offer a contrary view. I’m not a patsy like yourself who runs around making comments like “I agree and well said” however I guess that’s the level you’re at and all that you have to offer. Anyway, you are entitled to your small input.

            • Yes, me too, you are illiterate.

              “No disrespect Bert but did you ever got to school?”

              Got to school, hilarious!

                • John. Ignore Bert. I do. He, like the labour party just can’t admit that they’re wrong, when they’re wrong.

                  What ever you do, don’t ever mention Roger Douglas and Rogernomics is one of their own creations.

                  I hope this helps. Peace and good will to all.

                  • Breaking News!
                    The Greens Cheif of Staff Tory Whanau, has left to work at a Capitalist Lobby Group!

                    And labours Campaign Strategist too has left for a lobby company. He also ran Labour’s 2020 election campaign Sinking Ship! Rats off first!

                  • Yes Denny it’s easy to ignore people like Bert who are well intentioned but haven’t picked up on the Ardern agenda.
                    On her own admission she wants to divide New Zealanders into two camps which is astonishing and goes against most left wing advocates who vehemently oppose segregation.
                    Look at protests unprecedented since the Springbok tour.
                    Jacinda Ardern has split our country and that’s sad.

                    • “it’s easy to ignore people like Bert who are well intentioned but haven’t picked up on the Ardern agenda.”

                      Completely ignorant comment(as usual) and completely false statement(as usual with John’s “statements”)But many here have picked up on John’s agenda.

                    • John You need to deal with your fear of women.
                      I think it’s called “fear of engulfment. “

                      Don’t bother thanking me – get a hobby. That could also help with your B issue.

    • they should have ended cheap loans for housing 5 years ago..but didn’t go figure and no stopping specifically cheap mortgages doesn’t affect the money supply or ‘money circulating in the economy’ money tied up in debt is dead money and purely notional which is why it should not be part of GDP it’s not a ‘product’ domestic or otherwise until the asset is sold

  2. I am one of those people who are rejecting labour and the Greens due to their adoption of gender ideology. I have lost my respect for people who uncritically accept a relatively new ideology and stretch scientific truth and material reality to an extent it defies belief.

    The behaviour of the women MPs at the Select committee on BDMRR and conversion practices was unprofessional and downright rude. I will never forget one MP being both rude and patronising to a 17 year old school boy who had shown great courage in presenting. It was a great presentation, but either way, the way she treated him was shameful. We should be encouraging youth to participate in democracy.

    I am politically homeless now and my vote is up for grabs. One policy of Acts I do spport is cutting gst to 10%.

    But Martyn you are right there will be an almighty backlash against wokedom…it’s coming

    • Good on you Anker. Adults dumping on adolescents at Select Committee is appalling behaviour, and unacceptable in polite society at any level. Rude bastards.The Chair should not have allowed it. Who was the Chair ?

      The child bullying starts young in New Zealand. Preschooler came home last week quoting, “ Don’t argue with me “. Good teachers are delighted when children can or do voice their own opinions, and wee pre-schoolers doing so can be quite lovely, and should at least be listened to. All these put-downs disadvantage our young folk, who have always been less articulate than their counterparts elsewhere.

      I agree with you about the Greens and gender – very generalising, often plain wrong, damaging, playing the victim game and probably obsessive. I quit the Greens though, because I think they’re socially divisive, and I think that Marama Davidson is the most racist politician I can recall, worse than-you- know-who who negates good policies with his racism – and the less that I say about her/ it/him/them the better – but I also think that she’s a bit thick too, and not the best on New Zealand history either.

      • It was the Chair person who was rude and patronising, Ginny Anderson.

        I heard that the young man, a student of New Plymouth Boys High, went way doubting himself after her response. Fortunately he got quite a lot of support I hear.

        • Anker. Thanks. Ginny Anderson ? The actual Chair ? Her name barely registers with me, but I assume that she’s a Labour MP emulating little Bill English in sticking it to our young guys, which I will never forgive him for either – I believe that he also treats the supermarket check-outers with a complete lack of grace. Shame on the tawdry pair of them.

        • Anker. Second reply. I just went to research Andersen, and I see that she has four children. English has six. Dunno what’s happening here, but something’s very wrong when parents dump on other people’s youngsters, especially so
          publicly.

          • English is (Catholic?) Christian. “Go forth and multiply”. Dunno if GA is the same. Either way, poor performance re the student

            • So is Julian Assange, apparently, so what’s your beef? Far-right “christians” eg inclusive bretheren, detest catholic ‘worldies’ and consider all ‘worldies’ fair game, so maybe you could do some research.

              • Religion may have nothing to do with it. Having lots of kids might though, but that’s still no excuse for trashing other people’s offspring who may be perfectly ok.

    • I agree, Anker. It is very dispiriting to see female politicians actively and aggressively participating in the dismantling of women’s hard won legal rights, protections and services.

      I also have stopped voting Green, and won’t be voting Labour either in future because although they have managed the pandemic pretty well til now, the increasing issues are based in long-standing inequalities, and the dire state of NZ’s public health system. The current government have done nothing to improve this system, just rearranged the deck chairs with the centralisation of the system.

      I am considering voting Social Credit in future, as a protest vote and because, at least they strongly support public services e.g. the improvement in our health system.

      A lot of the left (especially many men) talk of ‘class’ as though economic class inequalities are the only class issues the left should attend to. But sex is also a material (biological) class and women have been oppressed for thousands of years based on their sex class- as Engels said, women were the first exploited class. Humans are a sex-dimorphic species. People are male or female in utero (apart from a very minuscule minority who do not have an identifiable reproductive system) – sex cannot be changed, only some of the external characteristics, while there are diverse ways of being males or females

      Women and girls have obtained some rights, protections and services through rule of law – though they have always fallen short of truly changing the system to enable full equality. #metoo was always a useful, though inadequate way of flagging up the abuse and humiliation large numbers of women experience. But it was always an individualistic movement, led by some women with a bit more status/power than most. The backlash from genderists is now in full swing, to dismantle the legal gains females have achieved.

      And the women and girls who will suffer most will be those with least power: low income women, homeless women, single mothers, the too many vulnerable women in prison, Māori and Pasifika women, lesbians, disabled women…etc.

      Meanwhile, many of the women with most power and status are actively supporting male-created genderism over women as a sex-class – women who have benefited most from the hard won legal gains for females.

      • karolyn gender based analysis is just another ‘woke’ if an older one…yes working class women had it worse in MANY respects…tell your middle class white feminists who co-opted feminism for ‘careers for women’ well if they went to the right school that is.

        NO characteristic race, gender, sexuality ETC… automatically confides sainthood

    • Both myself and my wife are also politically homeless and NZ looks to be ripe for a new centrist anti-woke political party (feel free to start one Martyn).

    • yea but how do you make up the lost tax take? increase other taxes or cut services…gotta be one or the other…if I thought they might revisit CGT but they won’t, so the question remains.

  3. Yes, but the Greens are on 5 – 10% and they want to imprison anyone for getting their pronouns wrong, pushing religious vouchers or complaining about government and any other ‘group’.

    Don’t forget Greens also support filling up the DHB’s with free foreign gender realignment surgeries.

    And support giving pensioners who don’t live in NZ a free NZ pension. (voted against NZ pensions going to 20 years of NZ residency to qualify).

    I also am also concerned about the hypocrisy of Greens supporting period poverty, but failing to worry about period poverty for men who don’t menstruate.

    Both ACT and GREENS are now bonkers – they are pretty much the anti vaxxers of politics. While Natz and Labour get on with supporting globalism and predatory capitalism – and since Labour has a kinder face, then they are slightly more popular than Natz who entertain selling off list MP seats for $100k – 2 Chinese are so much more valuable than 2 Indians and Pakeha are fucking useless at sucking the donations in, so all have to go.

    An orangataun ashtray paw with every palm kernel shipment import in exchange for a Kauri swamp log exported, could be an even better marketing message?

    • “An orangataun ashtray paw with every palm kernel shipment import in exchange for a Kauri swamp log exported, could be an even better marketing message?”
      Love it. Spot on.

    • “Don’t forget Greens also support filling up the DHB’s with free foreign gender realignment surgeries. ”

      I really hope that isn’t true, SNZ. Can you provide a relevant link? I had a quick search, but couldn’t find anything.

      • From Dr. Elizabeth Kerekere – encouraging people to write in and support (for teenagers included aka over the age of 16)…

        “We want pathways for New Zealand citizens who were born overseas, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers to obtain certificates or other documents of identity issued by Internal Affairs to be in their self-identified gender. And we want “gender expression” included in the legislation.”

        Maybe the reason why nobody in the Greens bothers about the environment anymore is that they are too busy with their evengelical identity pursuits such as their big campaign for….

        write in support of takatāpui and LGBTQIA+

        This is a significant opportunity to support takatāpui, trans, intersex, and non-binary people to be able to self-identify their gender through processes that are mana-enhancing, accessible, and affordable. We want to affirm the rights of anyone 16 and over to amend the gender marker on their birth certificate. We want pathways for New Zealand citizens who were born overseas, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers to obtain certificates or other documents of identity issued by Internal Affairs to be in their self-identified gender. And we want “gender expression” included in the legislation.

        As we all know all this is free on the NZ health system and they are specifically mentioning New Zealand citizens who were born overseas, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.

        Anybody coming to NZ who transitions can probably claim some sort of asylum as homosexuality is still illegal in 71 countries such as Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka… you know some of NZ’s favourite countries to get our international students from….

        start transitioning at 16 and you never need go back (or become a terrorist such as Samsudeen who came to NZ at 18, and then NZ won’t let you leave), https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-mall-attack-terrorist-tried-to-revoke-nz-residence-but-his-request-was-not-progressed/JNA7ARJPCH3M5ZYS6QBVVYTEGU/).

        • saveNZ. Oh what lemoncello words about Elizabeth K still suffering from mean “genetic pain” ( or however Prince Harry puts it) because her forebears had their gender diversifications ( the mind boggles ) curtailed by colonisation, and now looks keen to compensate for this colonial curtailment by extending invites to far flung corners of the globe (Do globes have corners ? Yep, to flat-earthearthers, ) to do unto them what the colonists, allegedly, do not do unto the tangata whenua a couple of hundred years ago and wrecked the future of the pronoun.

          I do wish that they’d heed Zack Brando and focus homes for the contemporary homeless as well as, or instead of, shades of long-gone gender thwartings.

        • They have high quality cocaine in South America, so no doubt can help diversify the Meth precursor from China. Chinese are Natz voters thou so need to diversify into South American and Middle Eastern recruits to help take over the Green Party.

          A 10 month operation targeting the importation, sale and supply of cocaine and associated money laundering activities has seen 50 kilograms of cocaine seized in New Zealand and overseas.

          “Five of the Christchurch-based Colombian nationals arrested were working as contractors on farms in Canterbury”.

          Also a quick snort of coke and you can work all day on the farms not like the lazy Kiwis.

          Afganistan has good poppies for opium, so another good country to target.

          Soon NZ can be the drugs empire of the world. When you go to jail or get deported, nobody in NZ government allows you to go. There is political votes in crims and druggies and it’s easy immigration, because no other country wants them. Even if high needs idiots try to leave NZ, they somehow get deported back here to vote or the migrant protection tribunal allows them to stay.

    • You can also sue the government if your love interest can’t get into NZ during Covid, even though sounds like the sponsor spent most of their working life outside of NZ and now just comes to NZ, and uses this to apply for their love interest to also come to NZ during Covid. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/07/immigration-minister-kris-faafoi-sued-by-auckland-university-professor-separated-from-his-husband-in-china-for-a-year.html

      Note even if the love interest breaks up shortly afterwards as in this case, the love interest gets to stay in NZ.

      “A New Zealand man does not have to pay a $212,000 dowry to his ex-wife after the High Court ruled United Arab Emirates marriage laws did not apply here.

      United Arab Emirates woman Rahla Almarzooqi had her appeal to enforce a $212,095 Islamic Sharia Law marriage dowry her husband signed in 2013 thrown out in the New Zealand High Court on March 18.

      Both Almarzooqi and her ex-husband Rafid Salih first met on an online Islamic dating site in 2010 when Almarzooqi was living in Australia and Salih was living in New Zealand.

      In 2013, Almarzooqi visited Salih in New Zealand and the pair embarked on a relationship.

      In December that year they were married in Dubai in accordance with Islamic/Sharia law.

      Their contract of marriage, the Nikah, dictated by an order of the Dubai court, that Salih would pay Almarzooqi a “prompt dowry” of about NZ$12,725 at the commencement of the marriage and a “deferred dowry” [the Mahr] of about NZ$212,095 on the earlier of their divorce or his death.

      Yet by May 2014, Almarzooqi and Salih had separated after living together in New Zealand for a period.Almarzooqi returned to Dubai in December 2015 to apply for a divorce which was “properly served” to Salih in New Zealand, according to the High Court judgment.

      Almarzooqi and Salih both currently live in New Zealand. Almarzooqi is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates and has residency status in New Zealand. Salih is an Iranian and New Zealand citizen.”

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/high-court-rules-nz-man-doesnt-have-to-pay-212000-dowry-to-ex-wife/LAYMR4OGA66NW2K7KWYA64WO5Q/?&ref=recommended

      Quick we need more lawyers, judges, justice time and translators into NZ…there is a skill shortage and peoples rights are not being met to understand all the quick marriages and divorces in NZ between people who are meeting online, money exchanging hands, but we all know that whatever happens, everyone can stay in NZ forever!

      Immigration marriage and dowry scams on the rise, says charity
      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12123831

      You can also now sponsor in other aged people you marry at 79 (after being NZ residency yourself under our laws) under our ‘relaxed’ marriage laws for residency and the government seems hopeless to do anything about it.
      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/376220/10k-11-days-and-one-failed-deportation

      In spite of 75,000 migrant pensioners getting NZ residency, the strain on our aged care and health system and pensions – they reopened the category.
      https://croakingcassandra.com/2019/10/14/reopening-parent-visas/

      The Greens talk a big talk about Maori and Pacific Islanders, but actually seem to be trying to make them more of a minority in NZ.

      The amount of senior Asian NZer’s is expected to be more than the number of aged Maori and Pacific Islander’s combined within a decade and this seems to be government policy via easy immigration avenues and major perks for migrant pensioners coming to NZ.

    • SaveNZ, what does your comment “I also am also concerned about the hypocrisy of Greens supporting period poverty, but failing to worry about period poverty for men who don’t menstruate” actually mean? Can you expand on that please? What period poverty do men who don’t menstruate actually experience? Is it lack of sex on cue? Serious question

      • We have to say pregnant people now, rather than pregnant woman as it is fairer on transgender (men to woman) as even thought they can’t get pregnant (even in woke wonderland and media reporting) we pretend that they can. BUT the argument falls short on period poverty as transgender (men to woman) can’t menstruate, so they are putting in a key policy that is discriminating against the transgender community! Hypocrites!

        Policy people (he/himr/she/her) then wonder why people don’t trust government advisors and the media and why there is a rise of anti science when everyone is arbitrary changing things.

        The majority know that only biologicalwoman get pregnant and thus creates confusion on what the F is going on, to those who don’t have a PHD in pronouns and new woke language.

        I couldn’t care a less if someone is transgender or not, but the woke wonderland around this issue and ability to arbitrary change basic information on a whim such as sex from age 16, is alarming. Also anyone pointing this out gets death threats, so it isn’t really very inclusive at all, the opposite. Crazy, Anti vacs territory, government sanctioned. Of course others take this logic up into different areas like anti vaxx, who can blame them?

        • Thanks SNZ. I had not fully grasped how ridiculous that has all become. Strange days indeed. Hopefully the ravages of the virus will provide some motivation for OA/NZ to rethink a lot of this woke bs enmass *fingers, eyes, arms and legs crossed*

    • saveNZ. Agree 100%, the Greens are totally bonkers, possibly the whole lot of them. They function by being diversionary and divisive, but they need to be sent packing pronto because they serve no useful purpose, paid by we, the long-suffering taxpayers of New Zealand – penniless, homeless, genderless, but not clueless.

      ( Even wiseman Gareth Hughes decamped to an island in the middle of Otago Harbour.)

    • There’s nothing to stop LGBTQ activists from having their own political party, but hijacking the Green Party, which used to be a bona fide environmental party, isn’t just morally shabby, but also deprives New Zealanders of a needed voice in the face of the climate change which is impacting right now. There’ll still be punters who wrongly equate the Green Party with eg Green Peace, and vote accordingly.

  4. “TDB has been warning about this for sometime, that a culture backlash has been building against woke social engineering and that because Identity Politics and not class is the dominant philosophical schism within the Left, we are intellectually too weak to challenge the economic hegemony of neoliberalism and instead pick the low hanging fruit of identity.”

    I too, wish the left would start refocusing on economics but it seems they are blind to seeing what is happening and are really committed to identity politics first and foremost.

    • NZ is obsessed with identity politics because it helps neoliberalism, by allowing those who don’t know anything and are not qualified in anything to have an equal say but still be paid the same and more importantly undermine real qualifications.

      So you can (and they have) employed a huge amount of workers who do nothing but think about these things, taking up a lot of time and resources and forcing the more skilled out of the country and workforces.

      By doing this you undermine real skills and knowledge. For example you don’t need to be a nurse now, as nursing assistants and health workers have ‘pay’ parity but are not qualified to the same standards in hospitals and rest homes.

      This means you can keep pretending you have a working health system, keep pretending you have the staff numbers, but be secretly undermining the system.

      The good news for neoliberalism is when it all goes wrong, you have to hire legions of other people who know nothing to write up copious amounts of reports on the situation, that others can go to meeting and contribute to and waste more time and resources.

      • SNZ I don’t often agree with you but I think you’re pretty close to the mark. We will all be losers, as I feel whoever wins next out of A/N and L/G won’t win by much. The mandate is wasted and gone and I blame JA for that. Unless there’s blood on the streets, and that could easily happen, we will get more of the same, and if we’re having that we may as well have National because they’ll do it faster.

        • Yes I think everyone is a loser in this new world, even those who appear to be winning as doing nothing and having no purpose is bad for mental health or they get their jollies by bullying others and most bullies are not happy either.

          You need to have standards of care, nobody wants to go to a doctor or health professional or have some loved one in care and get some person who is there but can’t do their job or doesn’t feel like doing it or is in a position of power and allows suffering.

          Even what neoliberals consider ‘menial jobs’ with cheap labour to keep profits high, should be fully trained with people who are good at it and compassionate. In this case some poor disabled man, had a preventable, horrible death, while his caregivers watched him suffer but expected someone else to do the basics. https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/115332787/elderly-australian-mans-head-was-stuck-in-a-drawer-when-he-died

          Coroner found.

          “Jamieson said Coles and Portway did not have the “competency, knowledge, skills or critical thinking” to manage Reimers and his care was further compromised by the lack of a registered nurse on site.

          “The circumstances of Fred’s death have highlighted a concerning norm in aged care: staffing to patient ratios administered at minimalistic levels which places the delivery of appropriate care at risk,” Jamieson wrote in her findings.

          “I find clear and cogent evidence that the death of John Frederick Reimers was preventable. He was not removed promptly from the perilous position in the bottom of his bedside drawers by those responsible for his care.”

          Standards of care are lowered under neoliberalism.

          These Covid cases in NZ, and also highlights my other points of how NZ is taking in many migrant pensioners who our health system can’t cope with, have no way of continuing decent care for all in NZ, and it’s a bad outcome.

          They need to start looking after who is already in NZ, before allowing these visas to push more high needs people onto our systems, They already can’t cope with the decades of this approach and standards are dropping.

          Covid 19 Delta outbreak: Blame virus for care home resident’s death, family says
          https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-blame-virus-for-care-home-residents-death-family-says/74OLFISXY6ZKPLCXKBOYAJ4BJU/

          ‘Dad needed hospital’: Family calls for change after Covid home death
          https://www.odt.co.nz/star-news/star-national/dad-needed-hospital-family-calls-change-after-covid-home-death

          They don’t even have the Information Technology systems in place as so old and outdated that they can even record deaths properly in NZ.

          Open the borders and MIQ, already ‘guests” are dying here

          Covid 19 Delta outbreak: Guest dies in Auckland MIQ facility
          https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-guest-dies-in-auckland-miq-facility/6X7LVAYELKLUYXEAKKIN7YVZGI/

          The problem is, our government just can’t say no. They want to let everyone into NZ and make inadvertently make everyone compete hunger games style for health care, jobs, justice time, police time, infrastructure, mental health, realignment surgery etc….

          They they are allowing a system of those who are not good enough at their jobs and not qualified to prosper here, and sort of ‘pretend’ to work with a sort of pretend qualification.

          • Also like to point out according to Terminally Disgruntled (Open mike) the man who died of Covid and whose other family members are in hospital, was not vaccinated. The reporter knew that, and did not report the facts that this family had refused vaccination inspite of reporting how respectful he was of NZ authorities. In NZ the government is asking people to get vaccinated.

            • SaveNZ. Yes, of course the Herald reporter should not have withheld the info that the dead man was not vaccinated. He may not have died had he been vaccinated, or died in a way
              apparently unpleasant enough for his family to then blame the health authorities for not providing care which they consider would have made his death less traumatising, which it may or may not have done- nobody knows, including the Herald.

              • Yes also easy to fall for it, and blame others but and very misleading to lead that very pertinent detail out of a emotional story. Even more concerning is that the Herald talks a big talk about 90% vaccination, but then somehow ‘forgets’ to mention that is family is unvaccinated when apparently it was for the ‘community’. Would it be important for the community to know that this family was unvaccinated and hint, hint, get vaccinated if you were from this ‘community’ instead of blaming authorities for your family members deaths?

  5. And the more ACT is discussed, no matter how in a state of shock ACT leaves most of us, that process of discussion psychologically normalises ACT in all its hideous and sadistic forms.
    We must be very careful to not feed the beast, or if we must, we must choose our words very carefully.
    ACT is a side show to the National Party and The National Party are dirty, we know that. But what’s even more chilling, The National Party are all over our agrarian primary industry where no other political party dares to go…
    Why do you think that is?
    Clue. Follow the money?
    Follow a bale of fine micron wool until it becomes an Italian suit sold in NYC? Or Milan? Or London? Or Paris?
    Go to a High Country shearing shed and watch wool get shorn from the sheep, pressed in the shed, double dumped at the wool store, loaded into containers, shipped off to the scourers, then carded, spun and woven.
    Magic happens.
    A few cents worth of wool to the farmer becomes hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars to fuckers who’ve never stepped in a sheep shit and fuck all if it makes its way back to the farmer while only a few dollars more finds it’s way into yours and mine’s city-living pockets via our state run systems of governance. Aye Boys? You got a nice wee scam going there and you won’t want to let that slip through your soft little fingers.
    ACT is a perfect excuse for middle class schmucks to forget about having to shoulder their responsibilities for making informed decisions about their politics. They just sit back and watch free to air TV and believe what ever they’re told. And the more hysterical, ignorant and completely off in a general sense the better.

    • Rimmer’s a crafty little weasel alright. NZs fucked. Can only hope covid takes out the “right” people. Can only hope now…

  6. Thats it Martyn, get it out.
    You can punch a pillow too if it will make you feel better, maybe some comfort puppies?

    Its just a shell game, the same old pharisees are behind the scenes having a laugh.

    Jah Bless!

  7. While every other political party is still happy to kick law abiding, licenced firearm owners, despite them never having been the problem, ACT will continue to garner support from up to a quarter of a million licenced firearms owners. We are a relatively soft target (because we are bound to obey the law), however there’s only so much kicking that people will put up with and the Police & this Government are definitely pushing that limit.

    When the Government’s solution to a problem is to ignore those responsible for the problem and focus on those obeying the current laws & not causing a problem, then it isn’t surprising the problem gets worse (especially when you add in all the other compounding factors like poverty, drugs, mental health etc) and that is what we are currently seeing on our streets. Too much stuff is just getting out of hand.

    New Zealand is heading for a meltdown & it isn’t going to be pretty. Stay safe out there.

    • Naked Maori women [from the waist down] in the Grey Lynn shops today.

      ‘Bottomless’ I suppose but you could see her bottom so I’m not sure of the nomenclature

      • its called “Donald-Ducking-it”. i’ve been told by a reliable source, all the cool kids are doing it. 😉

      • Maximus. Naked Maori women may be the gender expression which the Greens want, except they want it for immigrants also. Green MP Elizabeth Kerekere has spoken about
        the gender freedom and diversity which Maori enjoyed prior to “colonialism” allegedly putting a stop to it. I only know that males naked from the waist down, can be done for obscene exposure – and rightly so – but it may be different for for other genders.

        Wearing clothes is cultural appropriation anyway, as is riding motor cycles, having smart phones, using electricity, and eating bananas. In Napier, females wear their dressing gowns to the shops – or persons purporting to be females do, but it’s hard to tell.

    • Richard interesting comments on firearms. I’m a Nat that owns several firearms. I’m 70 so the woke would shut me down but that’s another story. I wouldn’t vote Act for their policy. I believe in gun registration for the future not the present. When I got my license 50 years ago registration was talked about but without bigboy computers it was to hard. It was a mistake. A gun register wouldn’t shut down the illegal but would create a far safer environment for the majority of firearm owners to keep track of gun sales purchases and deregistration of guns as is with vehicles. When there is a problem there would be a mine of information for police to use. Owners could bring up their details and easily edit them. As time went by it would become normal like wearing a seatbelt. The problem with labour is anything they do will be a balls up. I don’t believe huge numbers would vote Act for that policy. Maybe the shady might.

      • Gun registration will just be a huge waste of money, won’t solve any crimes or make anyone safer, and will most likely be used as a tool in future gun confiscation events.

        The current firearms register is a mess, with errors & ghost guns not uncommon. The Police have a hard time keeping track of the thousands of restricted & prohibited firearms on record, so it is laughable to think they could handle millions of records. There are currently delays of up to a year with relicencing, administration is definitely not the Police’s strong point and the administration of firearms licensing should be taken out of their hands.

        The Buyback was able to confiscate over 99% of E cat firearms because they were all registered (though one still managed to sneak out & murder Constable Hunt, despite theoretically being banned & confiscated).

        On the other hand, over 100000 banned firearms “disappeared” as a result of the buyback. These firearms will never be registered as they are now black or grey market firearms, and can not be sold or used legally. They are all in the possession of criminals now, even if only paper criminals.

        If registration is brought in, some people won’t register their guns (especially if there are “user” pays fees attached), fearing the inevitable confiscation. There will be resistance. This will add even more guns to the black & grey markets. New Zealand will certainly not become safer.

        Criminals currently have no problems importing firearms. Many of the firearms used in our now weekly shootings (safer communities?) are pistols or banned semi-automatic rifles, which are currently required by law, to be registered. So if registration worked, these firearms could be tracked & then returned to their lawful owners. Of course, that’s if they still have serial numbers. However you’d probably find there is no record of them ever being legally imported, and they most likely came in with the literal tons of meth being brought in to the country every year, by criminals who need guns to protect & expand their businesses, and don’t care about obeying the law.

        Currently with all the increasing costs, intrusions, delays & hassles for licenced firearms owners, it is almost less risky to buy a lifetime supply of ammo, keep your guns & surrender your firearms licence, because it seems that criminals with illegal guns get lighter sentences & seem to have more rights than those trying to do the right thing & obey the law.

        Gun control is never about guns, it is only about control.

        ACT may not make sense to everyone, but their stance on firearms is one of the reasons they are polling around 16%. No one votes for gun control as a single issue, but plenty of people will vote to protect their rights.

        • you can stop now Richard

          if at all you do have a firearms licence – don’t renew it

          do something else , find another hobby .

          • Rest assured I do have a firearms licence, I’ve had one since I was 20 I think. I had one of the little red book licences, and then one of the plastic “paper” lifetime licences and now one of the 10 year plastic card ones. Over the years, I’ve had B,C & E endorsements and owned & shot a wide variety of firearms. I currently have a wide range of hobbies (too many for the time I have available) and most of those don’t involve firearms.

            I speak up for licenced firearms owners, because any strong democracy is underpinned by relatively free private firearm ownership. It is a sign that the State trusts its’ citizens, by literally allowing the power of the State in the hands of private citizens (all State power is ultimately backed up by men with guns). Lose that right or trade it for the illusion of security, and you will find you have lost your democracy & your freedom along the way.

            We already live in a sham democracy, where everyday people have little or no power to change outcomes, so be careful when you trade more of your rights for the illusion of safety.

            • And news just to hand Richard Slade, that the independent firearms administration body mandated after Chch to take admin from police who were too busy/unable to function properly is to be administered by… police.
              I am not joking.
              We are all less safe and more so when the register debacle is enacted.

              • Yep, a sneaky Friday afternoon press release, and it will just carry on getting worse as the screws get tightened. Not sure what the end goal is, but it sure doesn’t look like “safer communities together”.

          • Do you have a firearms licence?

            Sometimes other shooters are their own worst enemies, trying Chamberlains’ appeasement strategy, not realising or understanding that those pushing gun control want to remove all privately owned firearms, believing only the lackeys of those who rule over them should have guns. Those & criminals.

            United we are strong, divided we are easily overcome one by one.

            • Richard you have your opinion on how firearms should be managed but don’t dare tell me I’m my own worst enemy. Firearms should be strictly managed in my opinion. I’ve never thought registering the owner was the way to go. Each gun should be individually registered with a licensed owner. To start the process and encourage users to participate an app with your own details that can be edited, would over time get good participation by the majority. If you would choose not to participate because of some problem with your rights to bare arms that’s your option. Let the majority of reasonable people get on with it. You can carry on with your tantrum from the outside.

              • A number of my firearms are already registered and if they force registration, I will comply (probably as late as possible), but thousands won’t. That was the lesson of the gun buyback with it’s 20% compliance and over 100000 semi-autos disappeared. You can push people so far with bad laws, but if you push them too far, compliance drops off & crime increases.

                Usually Governments put registration in place before bringing in confiscation. However by doing the failed gun buyback before forcing registration, the Government tipped their hand, meaning that compliance with the proposed registration system will be low, causing even more disappeared guns. These will be guns that weren’t causing a problem, but will now only be available to criminals.

                Trust in the Police & the Government, by licenced firearms owners, is at an all time low and it is just getting worse. If the aim is to make a safe firearms management system that worked for all the stakeholders, that trust has to be regained and the Government needs to work constructively with firearms owners to make legislation that works for everyone, society & shooters alike.

                We are currently heading is a future where criminals are free to gun down police officers & innocents with illegal weapons, shootings by criminals become even more frequent than their current record highs and New Zealand is awash with black & gray market guns. This is not a future I want to see. Changes need to be made, the real problems addressed.

                You are also wrong in your postulation that I’m throwing a tantrum (I am very calm & mild mannered even in the face of threats & abuse) about my rights to bare arms. I like having bare arms, especially when it is hot. As to bearing arms, my guns are all snoozing in a safe, and I hope I never live in a country where I feel it necessary to carry a gun for anything other than sporting or recreational reasons.

          • So do I, I am bound to obey the law, but that doesn’t involve bending over whilst my rights are trampled on for some fictional community safety reason.

            Here’s a question for you Hemi, I’m guessing you’re a Maori, correct me if I’m wrong, but why is it that you are part of a generally underprivileged minority in what was your own country? Why do you no longer have access to many of the lands & resources that used to sustain your ancestors? Why is the nominal ruler of your country, a foreign national? Why is this? And why were some of the first gun control laws passed in New Zealand specifically put in place to prevent Maori obtaining military grade muskets? Are any of these things related?

            Gun control is never about guns, it is always about control.

        • Sweden would be your ideal for relatively free firearm ownership – so then the problem’s not with registration

          but instead about new laws pushed through that you felt had no consultation process .

          • New Zealand had relatively free firearms laws and you can still own anything from heavy machine guns to pistols. The new laws have significantly worsened the situation & bringing in registration will only add to that. The Police administration of firearms legislation is appalling and they should be stripped of any involvement except enforcement. After Tarrant himself, the Police cop most of the blame for the mosque attacks but have taken none of the responsibility.

            Laws that only target law abiding citizens, while leaving violent criminals free to gun down Police officers & innocents, do not make for safer communities.

            Most “consultation” on the recent firearms law was merely going through the motions and was generally ignored. The result is bad laws that don’t work or aren’t followed, and that keeps no one safe.

        • so , it’s not it’s ‘ shooters are their own worst enemies and it’s not it’s ‘ a generally underprivileged minority

          that was 6 questions they did however trade muskets .

      • Somehow the balsl up, is that they decided to be clever and put in, if you have a guns license and registered guns, then police can come without a warrant and search the place outside of NZ law. This has caused a rise in people now using unregistered guns.

        It would be better to encourage even the criminals to have registered guns and getting a warrant to search is not that hard…..

  8. Polls show housing is a bigger concern than covid to us Kiwis. Though given the news coverage you wouldn’t think so – many are dying due to poor housing.

    TVNZ and NewsHub have fallen. Their ratings have peaked.. it’s all downhill for them now.

    There is very little credibility left in NZ Politics and our MSM is now less informative than Americas.

    Why is Trevor Mallard even still speaker of the house? Give as a break.. ACT is the ‘change-of-direction’ vote, doesn’t matter what their policies are at this point.

  9. Martyn,

    With Kris Faafoi repealing Three Strikes, do you think Sensible Sentencing should be added to the list of groups that could become radicalised?

  10. The trend in the USA/Europe/UK are for voters to vote for candidates on SPECIFIC POLICY ONLY — i.e. vote for me, and I will pass a law to get Cannabis legal within 3 years…if not, do not vote for me next election.
    Voters are rejecting broad political parties as vehicles to get various policies sorted… too much corruption in those broad political parties.

  11. Perhaps the govt is the biggest risk to our democracy.

    Writing off the views of almost half the population re cannabis.

    Ramming through Three Waters.

    Advocating for mass state surveillance.

    Openly creating a seperate class of people via vaccine mandates.

    Looking to tightly control the movements of the class by bringing in internal border arrangements.

    Looking to criminalize speech.

    Seems the govt is where the danger lies not those that seek to oppose it.

    • Cricklewood
      To get a proper appreciation of the threat of the government, leading to the threat of some future government no better informed or practically intelligent, we must be aware of nuances and not just plaster negative posters over everything.
      ‘Openly creating a seperate class of people via vaccine mandates.
      Looking to tightly control the movements of the class by bringing in internal border arrangements.’

      You are just helping to create a mass of disaffection. It is easy to be brassed off with the direction of governments – over centuries. Use your brain and work out how to differentiate with what is necessary and what is unreasonable.

  12. Fabulous Cricklewood love your post particularly “ Seems the govt is where the danger lies not those that seek to oppose it.”
    This Government is red alert danger.

  13. It will all be fine. The authoritarian left and the authoritarian right will meet in the middle and create a new centre ground for New Zealand politics.

    You won’t like it much. . .

    • After reading your brief dissertation on our political future I went looking for something to smile at.
      I’m Henery the 8th I am. Hermans Hermits all dressed up as per 1960s. Fashions have changed. Maybe today’s approach will change in a few years. Let’s keep hoping.

  14. Who pose a big threat to democracry?
    Well perhaps it is people who are political mercenaries, working for whoever takes their fancy and pads their pocket-book perhaps. There could be a taint of self-interest there, perhaps ‘conflict of interest?
    From Bryce Edwards latest communication. Political Roundup (or is it roundabout) – such fun’ at the park, push, run and choose your moment to jump.)
    Political Roundup: The Government-Lobbying revolving door just keeps on turning
    On Thursday it was announced that the recently departed Green Party Chief of Staff in Parliament, Tory Whanau, has become a lobbyist. She has joined the corporate lobbying group Capital Government Relations, which is headed up by chief lobbyist and political commentator Neale Jones. This latest shift from someone in a top Government role to corporate gun-for-hire indicates that the “revolving door” of vested interests keeps on spinning under the Labour-Green coalition.     (Tory Whanau, interesting name.)

  16. Glad at your increased comments. Progressives in America and social democrats in NZ are the only way. V. The Standard and the MSM ‘left’ in Yankland.

    Will Labour go down to the death as Roger Douglas neoliberals?

    Their talker on the Nat Rad Monday morning segment pissed on Corbyn recently. It’s so ridiculous as to lose your guts laughing. Yes, increased capitalism WAS the way. All these 40 years of Labour say is the way of power.

    But in the light of the death of F.W. de Klerk I’m happy for these pricks to receive maximum garlands for doing the right thing at the last minute, that’s … politics!

  17. Donald Trump, Peter Thiel and the death of democracy

    In a 2009 essay called The Education of a Libertarian, Thiel declared that capitalism and democracy had become incompatible. Since 1920, he argued, the creation of the welfare state and “the extension of the franchise to women” had made the American political system more responsive to more people – and therefore more hostile to capitalism. Capitalism is not “popular with the crowd”, Thiel observed, and this means that as democracy expands, the masses demand greater concessions from capitalists in the form of redistribution and regulation.

    The solution was obvious: less democracy. But in 2009, Thiel despaired of achieving this goal within the realm of politics. How could you possibly build a successful political movement for less democracy?

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/21/peter-thiel-republican-convention-speech

    • Entirely unsurprising. And these fools with money are here in NZ.

      God, give us a strong government for the people and reality.

      I insert God in there cos of the difficulty otherwise, but via the slight business of covid eternally cautious students of realpolitik Labour has pushed along. No one doubted they had ideals, just we knew it didn’t really matter.

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