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.
God only knows how you manage to come to this conclusion.
Looking at the cross section of people at the anti protests, the majority look absolutely nothing like any right wingers I know.
He only says that “antivaxxers are effectively being led by small power seeking right wing cabals”…. I agree that when you see the protestors, they don’t all look right wing, but that wasn’t his argument. the point is, where is the money and messaging coming from?
Yes Mick I agree.
That’s because they aren’t. Most of them are from the left and old school hippy types. Yes, there are many from the militant right as well, but let’s not kid ourselves that this is solely a right wing issue. Antivaxxers or pro vaccine, antimandate types, cross the entire political spectrum.
I keep an eye of facebook messaging of a couple of NZ anti vaxxer lunatics and their crap includes a substantial amount of Trump worship and US political messaging – including the alternate reality of QAnon. Some even dig into David Icke.
In my experience today’s freedumb anti vaxxers are not the hippies.
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.
Orbital Panda.
“We reap what we sow.”
What…? Are you fucking serious? I should know better I guess. I liked to think those around me are sane, reasonable, and essentially ‘good’ people.
You sow the virus on me or my loved ones and you will reap a kick up the arse hole, so I guess you’re right.
If we treat one grouping of people poorly then we open ourselves up to all of us being treated poorly. That is the point, that really is reaping what we sow. Especially pertinent when we consider who is leading this charge…..
funny how rightards don’t extend this tolerence to–gender identification, maori, beneficiaries, the disabled etc etc but reserve their pleas for tolerence for their ‘in group’
juzzz sayin……
If they were the only ones at risk I might agree, but they are not, quite obviously, because of the way that viral infections work, in particular this respiratory virus that has a significant threat to the elderly and immunocompromised.
Why don’t people understand that being vaccinated protects others?
I suppose it suits their anti-vax “narrative” : )
Everyone has been urged to get vaccinated, especially the elderly and immunocompromised. There is no ‘other’ to protect, these things are not masks….
I really hate to break it you Cb, but the majority of people spreading CoVid are the fully vaccinated.
that’s because more are vaxed than ain’t and no one has ever denied the vaxxed can pass it on, they just tend to get a mild case, so the anti-vaxxers should get jabbed to protect themselves from those nasty evil nazi vaxxed people..but if anti vaxxers are into mass suicide who am I to deny them their ‘freedumbs’
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 might be a conundrum for ‘small state’ americans but for the 1st world it’s not a moral issue, we have restrictions imposed by govts we may not like certain ones and campaign against them or not…but in developed countries it’s not a moral issue.
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.
Well, there hasn’t been much attention to China’s influence given that “we” have had PRC agents as sitting MPs…
But that was the national party – so nothing to see there.
Jusat the National Party? Google Raymond Huo on Twitter espousing his Jinping Pooh Xi thought at a meeting of lebensraum-seeking colonists 😉
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…
WE ARE A 3rd WORLD AGRARIAN ECONOMY and are to be exploited like any in africa or south america…we think being ‘western’ makes us different, well it doesn’t.
it’s interesting what the contradiction of being americas puppet state but being economically dependent on china will bring, the aussies are in the same bind but seem to have gone full on yankee vassal state…something they may live to regret.
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.
no orbital they (the unvaxxed) will spread it
a) because of biology and
b)because of their stupid and selfish unmasked antics.
strangely the current subversion of NZ I don’t think be laid at the CIAs door (their society is more under threat even than NZ) which pains me cos’ we all like a good CIA story, but rather deep dark right wing evangelical(untaxed) money..which all pollies including the nats should be worried about, it’s the very system that sustains all current pollies they want to destroy..pollies should be fighting this purely out of self interest as it’s a bigger threat to the ‘administrative class’ than the left ever could be.
Here’s a 2015 Australia-NZ led Randomized Controlled Trial of Cloth masks.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/
Yep, probably better to rely on a common and cheap medical mask than a homemade cloth job.
But either are orders of magnitude more effective at reducing particulate intake than no mask at all.
Martyn I think you are overreacting. Only very few are not vaxxed. Of those many are not radical anti vax so that even fewer nutters. What you are seeing or hearing is like the lone streaker at Eden Park…1 in 50,000. Don’t panic. The vaxxed majority will sort this.
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.
I would like to no to possible violence spreading due to political decision, however, in parts of Auckland there is unhappy vibe/buzz,. They, parts of Auckland, are simply over it — the Lockdown Queen, telling us everything will be alright, and NZ is heading in the right direction…while for those places cannot cope with the increasing cost of living, and the uncertainty caused by Government decisions.
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.
The NED (National Endowment for Democracy) is a CIA soft-power destabilization of nations govt. Whether the Yanks want to destabilize a 5-EYE partner because of our stance on friendly trading relationships with China? I hardly doubt it, but you can never trust the USA as its current-past history is my witness. Allies are not forever power is.
https://thegrayzone.com/
https://newatlas.report/
Two organizations I’d watch very carefully:
1/ Destiny Church
2/ Action Zealandia.
Yeh Nah,
AZ are like 5 guys who put up the occasional poster. So what?
Destiny Church : what have they done?
meanwhile organised criminal gangs get an easy time
Two organizations I’d watch very carefully:
1/ Destiny Church
2/ Action Zealandia.
Are you playing with us Martyn. I don’t disbelieve there are a number of groups out there who have found money and the use of social media to influence policy and even undermine governments, but we need to be careful when putting labels on them that we don’t start sounding like the conspiratorial nut jobs that we’re commenting on. Several commenting here are happy to include right wing, and antivax in the same sentence. So what is being insinuated here. Are the right wing mostly unvaccinated and trying to influence the left wing vaccinated. Are the left wing mostly vaccinated as compared to the right wing that aren’t. Are there more likely to be right wing antivax groups than left wing. Are those from the right more likely to be influenced by antivax conspiracy theories. Is our left wing government being undermined by right wing antivax groups. The more you think about it the more nonsensical it becomes. The irrational thoughts people have are mostly to support there own misguided beliefs. A good example is the recent article in “the hub” describing the Czech folk singer who deliberately contracted Covid from her own family so she would qualify for a health pass that would allow her to sing at various venues. Her husband and son lived but she is dead. There is no logic or common sense in her decision with her seemingly being an intelligent woman. People are people and we don’t have to pigeon hole them into convenient groups to suit our own beliefs and arguments.
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……
I think you’re on the money here Frank, though the US funding you’re alluding to will be going to NGOs that are woke rather than traditionally left-wing.
I thought the right was the natural home of paranoia, but there’s a fair bit of it on the left too.
Paranoia I think is more at home on the left.
Read the Daily Blog.
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.
Political radicalisation and ergo Political violence can be directly linked to big tech’s social media algorithms
and thats for all sides of the political divide
yup, that’s about the size of it….
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