Damien Grant, a well known and notoriously flagrant White Cis Male, has written a must read column today in Stuff on the importance of Free Speech in New Zealand.
If you read one thing from him this year, make it this.
Damien Grant: We’re having a free speech moment. It isn’t going well
We no longer engage in debate but in a tit-for-tat escalation of tactical moves to deny those we disagree with the opportunity to be heard or to punish them if they speak out of turn.
…the woke’s reliance on cancel culture and deplatforming has generated a movement incapable of persuasion and instead now justifies street violence as a means to an end.
When respected commentators are actively defending street politics that lead to the mob violence we saw at the Posie Parker protest, we are already on a slippery slope.
The moment street politics endorse violence, we are in deep trouble as a democracy, the West saw what violent street protests led to in the Weimar Republic…
Even in the relatively stable years of 1924–9, it was claimed that 29 Nazi activists had been killed by Communists, while the Communists themselves reported that 92 “workers” had been killed in clashes with “fascists” [Nazis] from 1924 to 1930. Twenty-six members of the Steel Helmets [conservative paramilitary group] were said to have fallen in the fight against Communism and 18 members of the Reichsbanner [Social Democrats] in various incidents of political violence from 1924 to 1928. These were only the most serious consequences of the continual fighting between rival paramilitary groups; the same sources counted injuries sustained in the battles in the thousands, many of them more serious than mere bruises or broken bones.
…defenders of the woke counter-protest will argue they are wanting the type of street politics that galvanised the Civil Rights movement in America, while conveniently ignoring those movements were non violent.
Attempting to even have this debate now though is fraught with threats of cancellation, threats of woke retaliation, threats of Qanon nutty madness.
The Nazi theme continued with Tova O’Brien at the recently-departed Today FM, who wrote: “She’s had just about the best publicity she could have hoped for, for her hate-fuelled, anti-trans, neo-Nazi-supported campaign.”
The drawing of an analogy between Parker and Nazis, by referencing the Holocaust and claims Parker was a danger to the trans community, contributed to a feeling of panic, hysteria and tribalism that played out on the lawn of Albert Park.
…we have collectively lost our minds and are now advocating and defending the violence meted out on Saturday while RNZ desperately attempts to pretend this wasn’t violent at all…
…RNZ, Mediawatch et all will tell you the images you see with your own eyes above were not a mob violently attacking Posie Parker.
I’m no fan of Parker, as far as I am concerned she is a fear grifter who loves this reaction and attention. I think she is inflammatory and grotesquely offensive, however she is a manifestation of a cancel culture where these issues can’t be debated without woke social media lynchings.
The balancing act here was to protest and disrupt without becoming a mob, BECAUSE the footage of her being attacked is now a propaganda tool for her anger grifting.
I think the entire community need to actually step back and consider how the militant cancel culture element of the debate has alienated everyone else and created the environment where Posie Parker can thrive.
I have many self declaring feminist women who privately tell me they have real misgivings with some of the Trans woke dogma but are terrified of saying anything because the Fourth Wave Feminists, non-binary activists and trans ally vegan mommy bloggers rip them to pieces on social media.
Posie Parker is what happens when we censor debate.
We have graduated to a cultural landscape where commercial intimidation and even physical violence is permissible against people if their views are deemed unacceptable by the cultural, political and media leadership.
…isn’t it weird that Damien is doing more to protect free speech in this country than the entire Green Party put together?
We on the Left are going to lose this election if the woke activists drag us into a culture war we can not win.
Political violence is a fucking dangerous game to play. I hope those who are endorsing it on the Identity Politics Left understand where they are taking this country.
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GOD, what idiot smokes…must be super rich
Leave him alone @pleb
He’ll have his private medical insurance, an ambulance paid for by the private corporate sector, and will be treated in a private hospital. And what taxes he’s forced to pay, that he will no doubt object to, will enable that ambulance to travel on public thoroughfares to get him to the private hospital.
Besides, it’s his right!!!! He’s paid His dues and could simply be seriously addicted to nicotine.
Cancel the dirty smoker – draw and quarter him, put him on the wheel.
Regarding free speech, ACT and Natzos wanted whistleblower Chelsea Manning banned from NZ–the same old story–free speech tends to be most vigorously supported for those various factions agree with.
Natzos used to call freedom fighter Nelson Mandela a terrorist. After Apartheid ended they were all queuing up to meet him. So public self pleasurers like Damien cut little ice with anyone that takes this issue seriously.
Freedom of speech is undergoing a massive technological change influenced by the American way of Steve Bannon, Amazon, Meta and now AI. All bets are increasingly off–so while we may not be able to defeat capital just yet we do not have to join the bastards!
I think that most people agree with free speech, especially if they agree with what is being said.
The real challenge is accepting someone telling you what you don’t want to hear.
Spoken like a gentleman that would support gulags but not concentration camps because his side did it and their motives were pure.
You neglect to mention that you will probably need to own a firearm if ACT gets in to survive the resulting social carnage.
The greens and labour have already lost and the mob violence on Saturday and Maramas ridiculous comments sealed their fate.
Many many people i know and talk to are boycotting, which is what we used to do before cancel culture, labour, the greens, national, the PSA who appeared on video footage inciting the mob and kiwibank for a start.
This is a watershed change.
“Political violence is a fucking dangerous game to play. I hope those who are endorsing it on the Identity Politics Left understand where they are taking this country.”
I think the error is assuming the class based economic justice Left and the idpol ‘Left’ want the same thing i e to win elections, creating a mass movement to challenge entrenched privilege and power.
Thing is the woke/idpol/socjus ‘Left’ doesn’t actually care about ‘winning’ politically. If they were to be wiped out at the next election, they would simply see this as confirmation of their worldview, that mainstream society is irrevocably cisheteronormative and racist, and will double down on their positions. Their whole ideological outlook is premised on a denial of agency or responsibility, because it is based above all on the idea that power and responsibility are inherently bad things. This movement is made up of people who would prefer to lose and lose again, because it feeds their sense of moral self-righteousness, rather than being effective politically, and god forbid, assuming power and responsibility for actually making positive changes.
To add: true to character, losing Auckland Central is possible. A small margin in 2020, and Cloe Swarbrick the first to do so since 2002, and only the second Green electorate seat ever. Succeeding only in crossing the 5% threshold will simply add fuel to the cause.
We all know this is all just nonsense though Martyn.
While I have no brief for useless cretins like Posie Parker, I’d love to go out and engage in a little mutual combat with some of the weird, disgusting freaks who turned out against her. Those people share the same opinion of my people that Brenton Tarrant did.
But we all know what the New Zealand Police ‘service’ (formerly a ‘force’) will do to those who stand up against these gross weirdos, even in self-defence. Only the stupidest morons on earth, the ‘Proud Boy’ types, will stand up physically for free speech under the tyrannical regime that New Zealand has labored under since the disgusting neoliberalization that occurred under Lange.
Just prosecute those at the rally if it can be proved they broke the law and move on.
Yeah agree, its shocking. We must say No to cancellation.
But what is more shocking, that is resonating hugely among NZ households is the political capturing of the Police. We had seen it before with the Anti Vaxxers and Rachel Stewart and the K Rd preacher but this time the whole country saw it and couldnt shrug it off as being something that just happened to some oddball individual of little consequence.
In my opinion, it’s an excellent opinion piece by Damien Grant where both sides are told to pull their heads in. Not a fan of Posie Parker either but she’s an example of what you get when the moderate and balanced voices are silenced and cancelled.
Yes a good article, thanks Damien.
The trouble is gender critical feminists have been shut down and silenced. You want proof, the meetings they set up in public libraries to discuss the gender id bill were cancelled one by one. Yes that’s right. We had to go to the High Court and pay a lot of money to hold our meetings. A group of women, many lesbian, left wing and feminists were cancelled in this country. Shocking.
There smearing and vilification of women who don’t adopt the mantra trans women are women from the woke authoritarians is something I have never experienced in NZ. I know the playbook well. They say no debate, the vilify you, then they cancel you. And if you refuse to be cancelled like the women in Albert Park, they intimidate you, assault you and mob you.
Then no one in the Greens or the young NZder of the year condemn the violence. They deny it and talk about a joyous celebration and the media go along with it.
What are GC women suppose to do? This govt is not interested in listening to us at they smear us.
Once again I disagree with you Martyn about PP. you say you think she loves this reaction…what loved fearing for her life at the hands of an angry mob? She is one gutsy women. Your feminist friends who are terrified to speak up will tell you that
“…isn’t it weird that Damien is doing more to protect free speech in this country than the entire Green Party put together?”
It’s only weird if one assumes the Green Party believes in the principle of free speech. Free speech as a lefty concern vanished in a puff of ideology years ago.
Rob Thea and Lorraine
its a goody
https://cloudfront-ap-southeast-2.images.arcpublishing.com/nzme/ZREGOYEIF4NB5BQ54B42ARBCL4.jpg
“What happened last weekend in New Zealand isn’t confined to one side of an otherwise principled political debate, in which a few bad actors are spoiling things for everyone else. It’s the latest instance of a post-democratic style of politics now well on its way to being the new normal.
It follows a pattern inseparable from the viral power of social media and its anonymous denizens: a fusion of “high” and “low” politics, in which Farage was a definitive innovator. But if Farage pioneered this populist style, it’s now being wielded far more widely — including to defend the status quo.” Mary Harrington.
https://unherd.com/2023/03/what-posie-parker-learnt-from-brexit/
It was a different Green Party back in 2004:
“Green MP Keith Locke has accused the Immigration Service of not upholding the right of free speech in its refusal to allow David Irving into the country.
The Immigration Service has today confirmed that the controversial historian will be denied entry to New Zealand, on the grounds that he has been deported from another country. Mr Irving was deported from Canada in 1992.
“David Irving’s holocaust denial views are repugnant to most New Zealanders but that is not sufficient reason to bar him from New Zealand,” said Mr Locke, the Green Party Human Rights spokesperson..”
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0408/S00020.htm
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