When I warned Woke Identity Politics activists in 2018 to stop attacking Free Speech by cancelling Don Brash, gender critical feminists and Crypto-fascists Southern/Molyneux, I was doing so from a perspective that the woke identity politics activists had no comprehension of the political backlash they could inspire by waking the dormant political fault line of ACT.
In early 2018 ACT polled .7%.
After the woke identity politics activists attacked free speech, ACT soared in popularity and are now polling 12.5%!
From .7% in the space of 4 years to 12.5% represents the greatest polarisation of NZ Politics ever!
Fucking woke identity politics activists!
Their special blend of snowflake triggers, alienating middle class smugness and cancel culture twitter Lynch mobs have done more to turn voters away from us than any single thing.
The Holy Trinity of Woke Dogma is the following:
ALL white people are irredeemable cross burning racists.
B-E-L-I-E-V-E EVERY woman that ALL men are rapists.
Anyone supporting free speech is a uniform wearing Nazi who hates the trans Community.
REMEMBER – there is NO wriggle room in that above Holy Trinity of Woke Dogma, and if you do joke about that Holy Trinity or question its tenants of faith, you are immediately cancelled and sacked from any employment you have!
Don’t get me wrong, identity politics is an important personal journey in understanding your relationship with power, but if all you come to the table with is a tribal loyalty to your gender, skin colour, genitalia or identity, then you have nothing to add to the solidarity required to make progressive change to get to 51% democratic majority.
The true danger of identity politics is when poor white males see themselves as the victim and start playing the same identity politics games.
The truth is that in a capitalist democracy, the true demarcation of power is between the 1% richest plus their 9% enablers vs the 90% rest of us!
The Middle Class woke focus on identity virtue signalling because most of them have benefitted from the neoliberal economic system and so will never challenge the vested economic interests that empower them.
Post Me Too, we are now in the age of subjective rage, where there is no objective truth, the new evidential threshold is whatever someone says on social media, cancellation by woke Lynch mob is a weekly event and incel 4chan disinformation feral QAnon white supremacist death threats are a daily occurrence.
We are all now unforgivable.
When both extremes are so polarised, it’s almost impossible to stop what happens next, that’s why it was so essential to de-escalate the Dumb Lives Matters protest on Parliament Lawns.
We chose not to de-escalate that, and now we have to live with fractured dimensions of reality.
The Left is no longer a Broadchurch, it is a pure temple that has driven everyone out who doesn’t believe in woke dogma.
This is driving voters into the arms of the right because there is no shared ground or common values between Left wing activists.
Yvonne van Dongen’s blistering appraisal of free speech in NZ in the latest North & South magazine is worth the price. She lays out the battle lines incredibly well and highlights many of the themes driving the debate.
She covers the entire landscape of the argument from the madness of cancelling the Listener 7, to the emergence of the Platform to the total denial by Morgan Godfrey that there is even such a thing as cancel culture.
Siouxsie Wiles does not come out of it looking good.
What is almost as remarkable as the journalism Dongen has produced here was the behind the scenes editorial battle she had when younger millennial staff at North & South tried to have the story changed or cancelled because she spoke to Sean Plunkett!
The irony of a story about free speech being bullied because millennial staff were triggered by an advocate of Free Speech is as delicious as the Free Speech Union’s own Dr Cumin using the very same type of anti-free speech tactics they claim to be against by attempting to have me cancelled from MagicTalk by claiming I was antisemitic…
…we saw Cumin’s tactics used against Corbyn in the UK and the constructed lies that were required to manufacture that antisemitism smear.
It’s Free Speech at the FSU right up until you criticise Israel for their brutal and illegal occupation of Palestinian land.
Free Speech censorship cuts both ways in this country, it’s just the FSU never admits it.
The FSU hypocrisy aside, my fear is that as the Polls drop for the Left, our activists will get crazier and crazier with the woke stuff and keep cancelling until there are no more voters left to try and win over.
By banning free speech and demanding trigger free safe spaces, the Left have lost the skill of arguing our side and winning.
By focusing on virtue signals for middle class social justice, we have forgotten about economic justice for beneficiaries, the working classes and renters.
That’s why we on the Left aren’t attracting voters and that’s what the Left misunderstand about the free speech debate and that’s why they shouldn’t have awoken the dormant political fault line of ACT back in 2018, just like I warned.
I also argued recently that the arrest of the Counterspin duo was poorly conceived and a knee jerk reaction by Humpty Dumpty cops spooked into ‘doing something’ by Stuff’s middle class propaganda Fire and Fury docudrama.
For arguing this was counterproductive, the Wellington Woke Twitteratti piled on and claimed I was supporting fascists.
The dangerous CounterSpin Duo have now opted for a Jury trial which they will successfully turn into a publicity stunt and recruit more to these ill conceived charges, just like I said would happen…
Founders of far right media platform Counterspin opt for trial by jury
The co-founders of a far right disinformation group charged with distributing objectionable material have elected to have a trial by jury.
Kelvyn Alp, 51, and Hannah Spierer, 37, were expected to make their second appearance in the Christchurch District Court on Wednesday to enter a plea on charges of distributing an objectionable publication.
Instead, the couple addressed waiting supporters on the court steps, with Alp saying they had “filed papers which would allow them to have a trial by jury”. The courts confirmed an election of jury trial.
…wow, the exact fucking thing I warned would happen is happening!
AGAIN!
We are feeding this extremism now!
The immediate threat of political violence comes from the far right. The QAnon movement in NZ is disconnected from this dimension of reality, they believe in Sovereign Citizen Sherifs who are ’empowered’ to hang enemies of free people. They are fucking lunatics who are capable and philosophically compelled to commit an act of political violence. Add to them far right white supremacist bad faith actors and Alt-Right extremists and you have radicalisation combining with fear grifters to generate a febrile landscape of existential fears that can only be combated by justified political violence.
Out of this cauldron of self loathing and projected cultural hate is the possibility of a lone wolf actor or small cell group committing an attack on a Politician…
A Bay of Plenty conspiracy theorist who allegedly threatened to kill Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern remains on the run six months after being arrested by armed police.
Richard Trevor Sivell, now 40, was arrested during a raid of a Te Puke address on March 29.
The police operation was filmed by a nearby associate of Sivell’s, showing a row of police cars outside the property where Sivell was living, including multiple officers armed with rifles.
He was charged with threatening to kill, related to an alleged threat made against Ardern online, with the details of the threat currently subject to a suppression order. The charge carries a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment.
…ultimately the only winner here is the domestic state intelligence apparatus. The sudden need to police and use mass surveillance to control and monitor internal political dissent in the wake of an attack on a politician from far right protagonists will be immense and we already see the woke demanding new hate speech laws.
The inclusion of the deeply problematic woke academic Professor Joanne Kidman to inform the National Centre of Research Excellence for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism highlights the risks of allowing someone with such easily triggered woke thresholds to be directing the intelligence apparatus of who to turn their Eye of Mordor on!
We haven’t seen radicalisation like this on a mass basis before and with economic conditions set to only get far worse, the triggers for political violence extremism are already smouldering.
By trying to strangle off free speech, we are actually feeding the backlash.
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Yep. You stupid buggers have left me no alternative but to vote ACT. I can’t vote for the right, it’s against my DNA. I shall probably not vote or spoil my vote. Middle class wankers will NOT be getting my vote.
It’s curious to see the ranting about Qanon as representative of the right. I think they are fringe nutters. However with all our security organisations sneaking around in cyberspace and real space, shouldn’t we know exactly what is the real strength/threat of such groups?
Even if the Powers-That-Be know, and probably they do, they are using them as bogey men to instil fear and cancel them.
It’s not the right we need to be immediately concerned about. The public are on to it with the LB election results showing the intelligence of crowds.
The team of 5 million wants to stick together and if they need to move right to do it that’s what will happen.
The Qanon threat is a fiction, dreamed up by the radical left to justify their excesses.
True. I knew it was shite because the only people using the term was the Left.
typical when a rightard gets busted deny deny deny….your squirming amuses me.
Say Qanon again. Loudly. QANON. You might win an election. 🙂
No, this is yet another ruling class concoction designed to divide us (working a treat as we can see) and divert attention away from their money grabbing, people controlling actions. All of this palarva is ruling class manipulation….again, working a treat as we can see.
Easy solution. Stop or don’t buy into any of it, keep your eyes on the players – the ruling class and their political minions – pressure the weak link here, the political class, through protest and non compliance.
School time for you.
Trump truthers and Barack Obama without American Presidency legitimacy because he did not have a real birth certificate.
Then to perpetuate this story and many others such as reptilian liberals in the leviathon swamp, snorting adenochrome while eating pizza and looking at the teen images on Weiner’s laptop the 4 chan/8chan father and son team (originally disaffected post high school basement incels maturing into a political force without gathering in streets as white race pride groups).
At the wider level Q Anon and the red MAGA cap smiths (team red pill).
Trump truthers and the stolen election – the majority of GOP candidates in 2022 believe this lie too.
Its only a stolen election if a Republican wins
Just like “crime is out of control” is the semi fiction of the right. Stats don’t support an explosion of crime overall, it’s just the ram raids and a few shot houses made for awesome media coverage.
I also dont believe that the true threat is the alt right.
I think the threats are as follows:
1. Our own government spreading misinformation, sometimes to gain control (Many examples of this in the last 3 years)
2. The MSM – Balance is passe. Be woke or be cancelled.
3. Foreign Powers – other countries targeting liberal democracy in a worldwide grey war
4. Alt Right and Far Right
5. Alt Left or alt Identarians -eg: Who were the 50 violent protestors drafted in on the last day of the parliamentary protests?
6. Nz losing its sense of identity and individuals and groups fighting amongst themselves and its starting to happen everywhere (Examples lately of police having to let perpetrators go because they are surrounded by a Mob) at many levels. A likely shift in voting intentions, to identify focused candidates on one side and a drift in other votes to parties offering a more traditionalist set of beliefs.
Sad, when we had been making incremental progress in our tolerance and mutual understanding. Bomber is right to be worried about the food and economic shocks coming. Things could get worse.
i kinda agree. Its a bit like when McCarthyism ruled throughout America and innocent people were tried and executed. “https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/19/rosenbergs-executed-for-spying-1953-can-sons-reveal-truth”
The Left/Right divide only has some meaning when government serves one side or the other, but that age is long gone. Government serves their paymasters, the bankers and the corporate crowd only, manages,and manipulates, everybody else. Identity politics is the paymaster’s way of undermining one side of us while extremism, whatever that is, is their way of undermining the other side of us.
Time we woke up, we are being manipulated into oblivion, while they implement their get richer schemes and greater control mechanisms over we, the people. Time we woke the f up. A bought and paid for government is problem #1, their paymasters problem #2.
Agree with you also. Above all the obvious concerns is the corruption of global capitalism.
Perhaps “ultimately the only winner here” is the broad majority of NZ who are sick of this woke bullshit and yesterday’s elections are a sign of what’s to come?
it might just be that we could do with a bit of boring, pragmatic and fiscally prudent leadership for a while as the soaring aspirational yet incapable of delivering style so well performed by our current PM isn’t doing anything for those at the bottom of the heap other than make their lives worse
I agree Yeti, but do you really believe the other parties can or will do better for those of us “at the bottom of the heap”.
The whole bloody lot of them have been slushing at the trough for generations. Do they care – of course not, they have one goal and one goal only – TO GET RE-ELECTED, so they not only jump when the Lobbyists dangle the $’s, but they ask “HOW HIGH’.
I believe they are all tarred by the same brush.
Strangely each election I still go out and vote, and I ask myself “WHAT FOR” – I’m just supporting more BS.
WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO!!!!!!!!!!!
In the absence of options, a no vote is a vote. Otherwise, do what you always do when bs comes your way, either call it out or ignore it (don’t comply) or both and when the opportunity arises, protest against it.
Thanks AO, Good advice, I hope I’m still above the grass when the next election takes place. Probably pushing my luck, I’m almost 82 and Maori. Coffin all sorted though, thanks to Rotorua Coffin Club.
There are many things you can do, voting alone is the lowest level of participation in a representative democracy. I’m not going to name them or their methods, but throughout history, single individuals have changed the course of their nations & the world, through their actions, not merely by casting their single vote.
The Left have just become synonym of Woke and will only be fixed when the Left lose the next election. The woke are living in their la la land/echo chamber, busy cancelling all alternate views. In the meantime, all stats are becoming worse…housing, education, health, crime, inflation. No wonder NZ tuned into the Queens funeral, it was a welcome relief from the wokeness.
100% Benny
benny, the left have become a synonym for woke in your fevered imagination because then you don’t have to address real left issues…like oh let’s say renationalising energy.
well i guess the “left” will have to address real issues soon, if they don’t it will be someone else who will win the next big election in 2024.
Are there two elections Sausage? Do you know something we don’t? As for the left addressing real issues…too late.
and the left in NZ is who bratty?
Yuri, whose job is to “address the real left issues”? Benny’s, or Jacinda’s?
you know the answer pope but you also know my post referred to bennys fevered imaginings…not practical steps he could take…but good try.
no benny the woke and SJWs are living rent free in your head..out in the world they aren’t visible because frankly they’re not that important….the so-called culture war is a fund raising tool evangelicals use to fleece their victims…..most people just carry on ‘oh there’s someone with pink hair now what’s for lunch chips or a kebab’
Is it really true that D Cumin of the Free Speech Union (which I have supported) has attacked you, Martyn? If so, that is utterly deplorable. I sometimes agree with you, sometimes find you offensive and obnoxious (why why why must you refer to those who criticised govt Covid policy as “Dumb Lives Matter?) but I strongly support your right to free speech and the right of everyone to free speech. I can, I am sure, rely on you to keep on saying what you think…
Totally agree. I don’t often agree with Martyn, but enjoy his blog because it challenges my opinion, and occasionally I have my opinion swayed, and isn’t that the point?
As Petterson said ‘in order to think you must be risk being offended’. The woke left do not want to be offended, hence university safe spaces FFS, so how can they think? Identity Politics and group think is the last thing we need.
Acts policy’s of disbanding the human rights office and certain ministries cuts into this deeply. Meng Foon had to pushed hard to finally accept what Davis said was racist, when clearly it was, so why? We all know why, because Foon runs in the same cabal of the wellington twitteratti (got to give it to you Martyn, that’s a great one) and its perfectly ok when the left do it. Julie Anne Genter can be sexist, racist and ageist in one line and no one says boo. Now, I wasn’t offended by her revealing her true colors, by the hypocrisy that she gets a free ride is why the human rights tribunal is a waste of money.
Nothing like cheering on the building an Orwellian style surveillance police state.
And what will the soundtrack of the arrival of this be? No doubt loud applause, hymns of praise and the trumpet call of jubilation. Until this very apperatus is used against you and those like you in only a short matter of time.
your use of your current device makes your point moot bushrat.
A very useful article which outlines an important area where the Left went and are going wrong. For decades I was a staunch supporter of Labour and voted for them every election. The strong authoritarian/anti free speech/anti democracy streak prevalent in Labour/Greens in recent years has seen my support withdrawn prior to last election. I’m not sure who I’ll vote for next election but it won’t be Labour. I’ve already communicated this to my long standing Labour electorate MP whom I’ve known for decades. I suspect there are many others like me out there though some will act out there thoughts for the first time next election.
Many others
Its possible despite how bad Luxon is he will win by default in a years time because most sympathetic left leaning people and many on the right are utterly sick to death of how the process has again been hijacked and the price will be Seymour and the nasties implementing severe austerity policies and when they do how will the current left respond ? insist the election result was rigged and cancel the National Act government ?
I support free speech as the law is now and see no reason to change it. As usual its a knee jerk reaction to circumstances or a change in the narrative and that’s when all common-sense and stable heads vanish from the debate and the hysterical rush to change a law that does not need changing imho.
Great post Bomber.
“…ultimately the only winner here is the domestic state intelligence apparatus.”
Plus it’s win, win, whether something happens or not. Laughing all the way to the massively increased powers & budget. Carry on trading your freedoms for the illusion of security, but don’t be surprised at the real result.
Jacinda from announcements infamous UN speech where is stated Governments, and Corporates can determine what is free speech, and what is fake —- unreal..
Hard to believe Nathan.
Then again after 6 years.
Nathan. Yes. Because she wasn’t just talking about curtailing free speech here in New Zealand, she was advocating a global clampdown on free speech. That can be seen as sinister. The dumping of the independent voice of our Commissioner for Children is part of this.
Funny how you really had to go to an international news website to read what she was actually saying. And the reaction. It’s crap.
the Left have lost the skill of arguing our side and winning. Arguing? Lockdown, mask and vax – or Grandma dies.
Scum like Cumin pretend to be pro-free speech. But they are, themselves, open supporters of the genocide of the Palestinian people, and of any Christian or Muslim more widely who stands up against the fake ‘state’ of ‘israel’. But while redneck Canterbury plumbers get charged over reposting Tarrant’s manifestos, those like Cumin who have done much more to attack Muslims never get charged. Why is that?
Believe me, there’s nothing ‘left’ about the Labour Party. Hasn’t been for over 40 years, and the 20 before that, it was on a slippery slope.
The left is about empowering the workers and the oppressed. We haven’t had a left like that ever really in this country.
It will emerge one day, out of the wreckage of politics, probably only after other countries have led the way, and it will bear no resemblance to the woke monstrosity we see today. I used to think it might happen in my lifetime but my own clock is ticking . . .
He seems to be captive of the ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-semitism’ line that Israel and its hasbara minions are putting forth. It’s seductive to well meaning people who think of the holocaust but even back at the time of the formation of the state of Israel there were Zionists who knew they were doing to Palestinians what had been done to them.
“Siouxsie Wiles does not come out of it looking good.”
I doubt there’s a situation or building left in NZ that would assist that woman to look good.
I would like to read details of what made Siouxie Wies look anything but good. Without them the way is opened for Gary Peters etc to throw mudpies at someone because ….?
Cream pies in the face are so messy, and ordinary pies is wasting food.
Pippa Coom still having a hissy! She’s contemplating a recount! 1200 votes behind Mike Lee!! Bwahaha!
Yes, so sad wasnt it!
Here in Christchurch everybody I’ve spoken to is pleased with our outcome.
Though Christchurch is often touted as a “Red City”, we’re not keen to be mired in the type of wokeness called out above. Christchurch in many ways is the Politically Natural Capital of NZ.
Those whom voted for David Meates are happy with Phil Mauger and are impressed by his humility and genuine desire to do right by Christchurch.
We have a broad selection of new and returning councillors, and by all account they’ll work well together.
We vote here in Christchurch and we vote often, what we DON’T like is central government or the media playing silly games with us. We stick up for each other down here, even when we don’t agree. We congratulate all our candidates, both successful and unsuccessful on their candidacy.
Yes, Rotorua is quite happy with their election.
Its just the Aucklanders that are unhappy. Well those few – from the left – that actually voted in Auckland.
Meates was so dull, waffle waffle waffle.
I believe the result was a good one for the city .We now have a city council willing to fight back at Central control with a strong voice and action. It will not suit everyone but there are now people at the council table that understand business and how to get thinks done. My first hope is that we do not see the cycleway down Harewood Rd in its present form and then some pressure on those with LARGE CBD sites that are not building anything after 10 years and talking of building thinks let’s hope pressure can be brought to build a hospital car park that can accommodate at least 400 cars.
Bullshit. FPP skews results, and despite that the collection of councillors affect the whole city most of us can’t vote out fuckwits like klown and yanininini.
No wonder 60% don’t vote, at the end of the day we don’t get one anyway.
Well you can believe that twaddle or read what a lot of people I have talked to that back up what Chris Trotter had to say about local government.
” The case that democracy is failing – or has already failed – is a strong one. All over the country there is a growing sense that whoever is running their cities, it isn’t the people they elected to office three years ago. Indeed, there is a strong suspicion that any elected representative brave or foolhardy enough to stand up and speak out against the policies and conduct of the council machine is asking for serious trouble.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2022/09/29/they-call-it-democracy-but-theyre-lying/
I will happily eat my hat if Maugher and his hand picked mates ( who decided they won the election before anyone voted ..what refreshing arrogance that is ) actually achieve results without selling the cities assets in the process. The only people who voted in Christchurch were in the struggling wealthy areas where they genuinely believe they are broke everyone else binned or tore up their ballot papers.
Maugher already thinking of putting stadium advancement first!
Perhaps Meates waffle that James found boring was about real needs and real possibilities but kindy-citizens only want to hear about either the swings or the roundabouts they want, and nothing else matters.
mods, PR gives power (kingmaker status) to parties that poll very small numbers (ie-here and israel to name 2)
not saying which system is better just they both have flaws
Free speech except when it comes to any criticism of Israel at which point you will be labelled an anti semite.
alt right woke left – who you gonna call? the circus. permanently in town and in cahoots with the baker, free tickets for the bankers the politicians and the celebrities/gentry. quiet in the cheap seats. smoke your cake and eat it.