One of the most alarming aspects of the Cannabis referendum was how much dark money from far right Christian donors in America was secretly funnelled in to fund the No campaign.
What is becoming rapidly apparent with the Qanon lunatic anti Vaxxer fringe movement in NZ is that the same dark money from the American Christian Right is being used to support it.
If you think Jacinda is the anti-Christ, or the beginnings of Nazi Germany or raping Gaia, or is committing genocide, then any action is acceptable to stop that. The radicalization of the unvaccinated will reach fever pitch as the economic ramifications of being sacked from a job for refusing the vaccine starts to bite deeply.
This leads us to the following question. With America pivoting to the Pacific, are we seeing the same CIA dirty tricks they played in South America in the 70s to destabilize and prop up authoritarian regimes or is this dark money a cultural mutation from Steve Bannon’s America?
There needs to be as much attention on America’s influence in our politics as there is on China’s influence.
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Toxic right wing idiotical propaganda, shared by Antivaxxers on social media, has convinced people that the governments are trying to poison them and the children with vaccine.
Of course the more deluded deranged people are acting accordingly, online and in public.
https://twitter.com/NZHumanRights/status/1483152568377384960
The vitriolic replies from the right wing and Anti-vaccination brigade to the quoted tweet from NZ HRC, sadly show
http://dialitdown.co.nz
to be a noble but hopeless cause.
https://twitter.com/NZheretic/with_replies
I admit to being the worst of the other side, but until their unreality bubble is burst, Antivaxxers will continue to incite violence.
Just as Luxon has already spoken out against the “Freedom” protests, we need the leaders from all parties to come out and publicly denounce this toxic group of morons.
Since most antivaxxers are effectively being led by small power seeking right wing cabals in NZ, if Luxon were to publicly state that National would rather go into a grand coalition with Labour than any individuals or parties connected with the anti-vaccine movements, it would take a lot the impetus from the right wing propaganda machine in NZ.
Christian Nationalists and extreme right wing media are probably the most likely source of fundamentalist extremism. And who are they funded by? Our capitalist Oligarchs.
These guys much better at destabilizing regimes than the CIA ever were. Hooray for unfettered capitalism!
“There needs to be as much attention on America’s influence in our politics as there is on China’s influence.”
Agree.
” With America pivoting to the Pacific, are we seeing the same CIA dirty tricks “…. and many in Oz say it was the CIA that engineered the sacking of Gough Whitlam. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/23/gough-whitlam-1975-coup-ended-australian-independence
Don’t worry your pretty little head @Martyn (soon to be #Martyn). It’s all under control.
If you’re not careful, you’ll have a heart attack, and then where would we be
It is a disgrace the way we treat the unvaccinated. Its their choice and they are the ones at risk, not the rest of us. Is it really that hard to respect someones choice?
We reap what we sow.
Via
https://twitter.com/NZheretic/status/1455703084236095488
Thanks to @mycaptainplush ‘s M “served this one up to his anti-vax sister with zero prompting from me and gosh he writes nicely.”
It’s an interesting debate going on at the moment. Most of the propaganda from overseas (and this is not locally sourced, as any research of this meme will show) narrows it down to one simple ethical question: is it acceptable for the government to place limitations on your freedom of choice?
Stop for a second. Back it up. Is that truly the ethical conundrum they’ve set it up to be? They make it purely a personal choice question, as if the choice has no effect on anyone else. The problem is that the mandate is focused on those whose choices do affect other people. An unvaccinated doctor, nurse or teacher has a duty of care to those they’re in charge of. A personal choice for you can kill a person who trusts you’re acting in their best interests.
Suddenly, it’s not the ethical conundrum it first seemed to be. It’s a personal decision but it can kill other people. People have the right to drink. They are then prohibited from driving – their personal choice now has consequences for innocent people on the road. That’s what the vaccine mandate is. You can choose not to be vaccinated, but if you make that choice, you cannot work in a position where that choice endangers those around you. Cancer medication suppresses immune systems. Babies in NICU have weakened immune systems. Patients in hospital generally have immune systems already working overtime, and have no capacity to defend against another attack. Children in school cannot be vaccinated (yet). All of these people rely on doctors, nurses and teachers to be vaccinated – to protect them. That is why the vaccine mandate applies to those jobs.
Now the mandate can also apply to border workers (potentially exposed to COVID), hospitality workers (who prepare your food), hairdressers (who’re touching you and you really don’t want to be carrying a deadly disease that can pass by contact), retail workers, massage therapists, sex workers (who already have to comply with health checks for obvious reasons)…
What the vaccine mandate means is trust. I can trust that my daughter’s teachers are doing everything they can to avoid exposing her to a disease that could kill her (and the Delta variant is hitting kids a lot harder than the Alpha one did). I know someone who has had serious reactions to vaccines in the past. She will be getting vaccinated in hospital (with doctors and a crash cart on standby) because she values her clients’ safety that highly. And that’s what the memes from overseas get so wrong. It’s a personal choice for the individual, but a health issue for the public
And from myself, David
If we were living in pre-pandemic times then such requirements put upon people could be left to personal choice. However just as nations can already require you have had certain vaccines before entering their borders, so they should require their own citizens to be vaccinated.
It’s a disgrace the way we treat those out to get vaccinated.
The possibility of political violence in NZ? When you get the likes of that loopy old cow in the video harassing someone taking their kid to get vaccinated yesterday anything is possible.
The mantra seems to be ‘If you don’t get your way through the ballot box and lawful means, you get violent and disruptive.” As shown by the former US president and his cult followers.
Brian Tamaki is getting his shots in before the election and firing discontent.
It’s a disgrace the way we treat cannabis users
Individualism comes to mind when you talk about choice and people having a choice to do what they choose irrespective if it may harm or endanger others.
At this time, I consider that the biggest threat to our continued existence are the Americans… If one was to look at the history of China’s activities in the last decade, a strong case could be made to show that it is a reaction to American belligerence right around the globe, but primarily in south east asia, South/north Korea, and in the pacific theater… The Key government successfully put NZ into an economic bind that has left it almost totally dependent on China, and a political bind that has us reduced to American vassals… I’m starting to wonder if the inaction on the pressing societal issues that the key govt left NZ with is a result of self governance in NZ being held hostage by those American interests… Certainly, a case could be made that reducing a high producing country to being dependent on imports for nearly everything it uses was deliberate sabotage…
Stefan I notice that there is much USA news often of the trivial sort in stuff compared to the amount of global interest that we should take in these global days. I wonder if there are USA finances behind stuff. The moneyed people in NZ did they come forward with the financial backing to keep it strong or was it from abroad? I have the feeling that there is a conservative zeitgeist there.
A Chinese tutor of an economics and business class I took said in I think 1995 that NZ is an agricultural economy and no such economies ever became wealthy because of food being a commodity. Therefore we were not a fully developed economy, and proceeding as we were never would be, and needed to realise that fact. I was gobsmacked, it was a New Idea for me.
Thoughtful questions Martyn. The influence of the sick USA is spreading like deadly pondweed. This is part of what Labour has signed us up to with globalisation and open slather trade agreements. The unwanted bugs on our plants, and unwanted cultural influences will take us down their path and not to our overall advantage.. The police may train themselves to follow their methods and so on.
Greywarbler – I assumed it was USA influence that had the New Zealand government offering a home to Sarwar Danish, former Vice President of the corrupt Afghanistan government, more so when Danish and the extended family which he brings with him were already safely ensconced elsewhere, and when there are Afghanis who helped the Kiwi military, who are still stuck there, and whose lives and well-being are at risk. And so it goes.
The thing is 50% of New Zealanders were convinced to vote against cannabis legalisation in the 2020 referendum. Is that an indictment on the nope campaigners and their American Christian funders, or an illustration of how stupid half of New Zealand is.
Two organizations I’d watch very carefully:
1/ Destiny Church
2/ Action Zealandia.
Two organizations I’d watch very carefully:
1/ Destiny Church
2/ Action Zealandia.
Good points raised by Martyn. There is money coming from somewhere to fund anti vaccination propaganda activities.
A number of us that frequent TDB have problems with Russell Brown of Public Address following his infamous support for Lord Jackson over the union members in the Hobbit dispute 10 years back (Helen Kelly produced a magnificent response that msm managed to largely ignore).
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1104/S00081/helen-kelly-the-hobbit-dispute.htm
But…Russell did a very good job in exposing the US money injected into the “Nope” campaign leading into the Reeferendum. Basically the spending limits were exceeded by the NO advocates on technicalities
https://publicaddress.net/hardnews/cannabis-who-owns-say-nope-to-dope-anyway/
COVID helped deflate the attention to the campaign, and the pro advocates did not help themselves with a mixed message strategy from Make it legal and the Drug Foundation and NORML etc.–but essentially we wuz robbed! Not helped by Andrew Little’s belligerence and Jacinda’s lack of bottle.
At the moment the majority of US money is supporting a position very close to NZ. There seems to be a paranoia regarding US money however if you look at the majority of US funding into NGOs these go towards leftwing as opposed to rightwing ideology. Corporate US has swing very pro China and very left in the last decade.
There are those on the left salivating for political violence so they can perform a “told you so” justification for hate speech and other anti-democratic laws and it’s obvious political ‘bounce’ in support that the current government would get.
Personally I still believe it’s a long shot as we just don’t have the same type of zealots you see in other countries. WHAT IT WILL DO is encourage all these type of people to get out and vote in 2 years time. The result of such could see some interesting election results……
The only influence that matters is the influence directed towards our government, and whom influences our government (and world governance at that) the most – none other than the subservient to money US government. Those other pep squeaks throwing money around aren’t much of a concern, compared.
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