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.
Sis, a smoking cis male doing harm onto others.
Jesus I’d love a cigarette. I used to smoke but I decided to try and extend my life span in this boring shit hole and quit. What a mistake that was. I found, rather disturbingly, that not smoking is as an addictive a thing as smoking. I’m obsessed by my addiction to not having addictions. I’m a self righteous cunt like the cunts above who cock their cunty snoots at the brave and the doomed.
Remember cunts? We’re all doomed. Even you, you who are flagrantly irradiated by your own self righteous snootery, you cunts. The really funny thing is, is I don’t know who Damien Grant is. But what’s better, I don’t care. He smokes? Good on him. Not our business and you’re going to die of boredom before his fag smoke gets to you so relax, chill out, enjoy being a dull fart on the bus as you tut-tut you’re way home to your wife who just so happens to look just like your mommy. ( How’s that for CIS bitches?)
Have you not noticed? We’re becoming, or rather have become, like that ominous threat of the gripes you know will lead to diarrhoea. We’ve become plaid and beige. We’ve tut-tutted ourselves into a saltless stew. A sugarless lolly but has electrolytes. We’ve become the glue on envelopes, all it does is stick, we’re the dust even the vacuum cleaner’s too uninspired to suck. We’re the boring mail in the box, the plain cardboard in the packaging, we’re the dull flea that can’t suck. In short, we’re fucked, so we may as well smoke. Anyone got any Smack, a lighter, a spoon and a needle?
well top posters is that the best you can do to counter his position the piss poor argument ‘he’s a smoker’ (therefore the spawn of the devil) do at least try to grow up
Cancel the dirty smoker – draw and quarter him, put him on the wheel.
GOD, how righteous art thou – must be typical ex-smoker.
it’s interesting how the tactics used to demonise smokers are now being turned against other groups.
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!
By definition he, Nelson Mandela, was a terrorist but he was also a freedom of speech freedom fighter and fought for human rights.
Nelson Mandela was a convicted terrorist.
he also led his country without resorting to massacreing the boer and anglo agents repression ted old son
No, manning was a convicted criminal. Try getting a visa to head to the US with a similar conviction.
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.
+ 1
Ah Tiger, we all just how much Marxists care about free speech, don’t we.
The liberal left has championed free speech in the past, but recent events in this country and elsewhere in the Anglosphere show the contemporary left takes a very different view. As Karl du Fresne put it yesterday “Paul Hunt doesn’t just pass up the opportunity to emphatically defend free speech; he effectively aligns himself with its enemies.”
Totally agree Tiger Mountain Damien only likes the sound of his own voice the right are also ardent supporters of apartheid Israel funny that!
Don’t worry, ACT will sort it all out after the election. Your free speech & right to own firearms will be protected.
Yeah right !!!!!
buhahahaha keep the jokes coming lol
I hope so.
Posie Parker is what happens when free speech and thinking is censored and silenced.
One can support trans rights and women’s rights at the same time.
Kindness does not equal acceptance when what you tolerate is incompatible with the human rights of other groups.
This holds true to even when the group that you are restricting is the majority – others may say – especially not when that what you tolerate infringes on the rights of individuals in a biological grouping)
I don’t think it is the right of biological males to have access to female change rooms.
If I was a woman I would not be comfortable to share a changing room with a biological male.
There are many amateur sports where males and females compete, but contact sport and elite level sports should create an alternative category for trans women and men.
I am a man and was humbled by craftier tennis and squash players of the opposite sex who were allowed to take part in men’s competitions. Trans people are more than welcome to compete there.
Free speech and New Zealand is a contradiction in terms.
Free speech is banned by Labour and the Greens.
That’s not what the statistics say Bob. Statistically speaking the right are against free speech, tge evidence is clear.
Ok MHK, show us some of this evidence.
The Labour Government supports minority groups over the majority,just look at the latest shambles with Posie Parker.
Mobs have right of way in New Zealand,the peaceful majority no rights.
This is life under the Labour Government.
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.
so that must go x10 for the beehive lawn mob…yes jack?
“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.
so basically a religion. Full of nutters.
‘Woke’ isn’t an insult. For some, it’s a badge of honour.
It’s to say one has woken up and had the scales fallen from their eyes. No longer buying into the consumerist dream or content to maintain the status quo in favour of the powers that be.
To be woke is to have been awakened to the insidious culture that has and is contributing to the dumbing down of humanity and destroying the planet.
Unwilling to have their opinions spoon fed to them by disingenuous spin merchants and the complicit mainstream media.
Seeing the world for how it is rather than how they’re told it is and prepared to stand up and defend their right to show others.
The woke have taken the red pill and are intent on exposing the Matrix.
Is that a bad thing ?
No, not a bad thing. A stance to be congratulated in fact. Trouble is, too much virtue signaling, isn’t there.
@BwaV It absolutely is NOT be a bad thing IF that was the characteristics of woke. I suspect most people here would be fully supportive of it.
Your definition, call it ‘Woke-A’, chimes with the original use of ‘woke’ in American black culture (awake to injustice) before it was appropriated by the modern critical theorists. Some might call that cultural appropriation.
This form of modern activism, call it ‘Woke-B’, is cultural conflict theory (neomarxism) that says the correct way to see society is as a series of oppressor/oppressed power dynamics across dimensions of race, sex, gender, sexuality, indigeneity, bodysize, neuro typical/divergent etc. It has even extended to being left or right handed.
Those on the oppressor side of the line have prilidge (white, male, cis, straight etc), Those on the oppressed side have victimhood (black, female, trans, gay etc).
The intersectional model then combines all these dimensions to determine ones total privilege (oppressor points) or victimhood (oppression points). Victimhood (and the ability to claim victimhood) becomes a currency of social status or clout, displacing ‘dignity’ which earlier generations of social activists rallied around.
EVERY interaction from the macro to interpersonal across these imagined dividing line is an oppressive power dynamic. A black man married to white woman oppresses her because of his ‘masculinity’ and she oppresses him because of her ‘whiteness’. They both oppress gay friends because of their ‘hetronormativity’.
A moral layer is often added so privilege equates to original sin, victimhood equates to sanctification. However a white-male who confesses their privilege and fight’s to overthrow oppression (defined by Woke B) has a ‘critical consciousness’ and is acceptable. The most black-trans-woman in the world, if they criticise Woke-B has a ‘false consciousness’ and their ‘lived experience’ can be completely disregarded. Indeed often there is a very high cost for anyone with a ‘sanctified identity’ who is a heretic.
So in reality Woke-B is about ideological self-propogation using minorities as both political battering ram and rhetorical human shield, while discarding anyone who objects.
Woke-B gives rise to a kind of antipolitics where advancing anyone who is not white/male/cis/straight feels highly progressive but does not challenge underlying systems of neoliberal power. Therefore it has been embraced by corporatists with Green washing, Rainbow washing and other kinds virtue theatre. Children in Afghanistan and Pakistan can rest easy knowing Lockheed Martin is a Rainbow friendly company to work at.
Well said!
Woke is the new centre.
The traditional battle between left and right is for the hearts and minds of ‘The Woke’.
To use your definitions, ‘Woke-A’ is centre left leaning. ‘Woke-B’ centre right.
Irrespective of where one sits on the Woke spectrum, striving to change the future for the better, not changing the past to reflect an imagined present that signals virtue but achieves nothing, is counterproductive.
@BwaV
I would agree that Woke-A is centre left leaning. That is a thread the goes back through 2nd wave feminism, civil rights era some would argue back to the enlightenment. I’d describe Woke-B as an insurgent ideology claiming to be a continuation of Woke-A. A cuckoo in the progressive next.
I don’t completely agree that Woke-B is centre right. From a culture-politics perspective it is far-left. The ideology is an offshoot of neomarxism with postmodern tools. However the absence of a socio-economic analysis (that isn’t downstream of identity) means Woke-B is generally despised by marxists. The fixation with grand narratives (conflict theory) means it is not truely postmodern either. So even on the far-left it is niche.
Further it misapplies Critical Theory (a reflective discourse to find fault) because that should be used as ONE tool of many in a socratic dialogue. Old school Critical Theorists understood this, but modern ones use Critical Theory as the ONLY analytical tool and simultaneously claim relativism within their model while asserting that same model (described above) is objectively true. Much of what is corrupted in modern academia and activism lies at their door.
Where I do agree with you is from an economic-politics perceptive. The neoliberal embrace of Woke-B is what has caused it to go mainstream and become so influential rather than remain in fringe academia. Corporatists can now claim to change the world for the better without personal cost or sacrifice while accruing all the social status and clout of virtue theatre. In cultural and social terms it is the equivalent of privatising the profits and socialising the debts. The perfect diversion of activist energy and politics post-occupy Wall Street.
As you say “an imagined present that signals virtue but achieves nothing, is counterproductive.”
And one of the fundamental principles of the Western enlightenment tradition, that the individual can change and improve themselves, no longer applies – you have the attributes that woke B assign to your group and anything you may have done or said, regardless of context, can and will be used against you at any time.
@Daniel, agreed in that sense Woke-B is like a religion where the the emphasis is on sin and punishment but without forgiveness.
It has the additional characteristic of the conservation of psychic guilt or pain where an individual shares the collective sin or pain of individuals with the same identity markers who committed crimes or suffered the consequences within a selectively curated account of history.
You find this even if it makes no sense, such as with Irish and most Eastern Europeans who as a people were on the receiving end of Empire for much of their history.
@BwaV
I think you’ve got your wires crossed old chappy/girl, along with everything else.
Politics of distraction you know.
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.
well in the states the proud boys have folded like a cheap suit when confronted
Didn’t we used to call it heckling, didn’t Muldoon call out people for heckling. Do public speakers like certain bad people in history deserve to be heard in silence , because what they had to say was so important this particular audience were only allowed to speak with their arms when they were allowed to comment and look how that turned out. So forgive me for being a tad naive but don’t both sides deserve to be heard or is it only the divisive public speaker and we listen in silence even though every syllable is hatred just like the certain person in history.
And you heard what Posie said at the Rotanda. Please share.
What divisive things were said? males should not be locked up in cells with women in a prison?
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
well said!
8th rule of misogyny: Men are whatever men say they are and women are whatever men say they are.
9th rule of misogyny: Men always know the “real reasons” for everything women do and say.
Nah, they will sit there and say that if that Kuia, who got bashed by a 20+ bearded sentient ballbag, would have not ran straight into the head butt and fist three times her skull would not have been cracked.
“…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.
Whatever happened to “ peak oil “……that was the big issue a few years ago and we had timelines given to us and predictions about how the world was going to come to a grinding halt in 30 years or less…..some folk now seem to be more concerned about men’s tackle on a lady and where the men , or ladies , put their tackle in the privacy of their own rented bedroom…..To quote the great philosopher “ Neil “….” Flare’s are coming back in… I read it in my horoscope “ ….the trans fashion phase will pass and the new fashion could be beastiality and how society discriminates against these animal lovers , or global cooling , and don’t forget the ozone layer …that was flavour of the month for awhile …..I certainly will not miss the trans phase and look forward to getting back to the nuclear war threat, pollution, acid rain , roadside litter , and the northern drivers union and cooks and stewards union going on strike…..real stuff to complain about….
@Te Rob’s Mob
The ‘Cycles of Heaven’ never cease, neither does the condition of the human animal change.
Galaxy song (Monty Python)
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
(sung)
And you feel that you’ve had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough,
Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour.
It’s orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it’s reckoned,
The sun that is the source of all our power.
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars;
It’s a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it’s just three thousand light-years wide.
We’re thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go ’round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
(waltz)
Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that’s the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space,
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth!
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/
Transgender won’t be an issue at the next election.
Yes, you’re right sumsuch. But freedom of speech might get a shout out. More broadly, the battle line between conservatives, liberals and progressives, notwithstanding comments by Tui. But the social spaces, important as they often are, are increasingly becoming subject to noise. There are bigger concerns.
‘Free speech’ only requires a non-focus group Leftist to see it off. But such don’t exist. Even then, free speech will be a small matter. Shite straight from Trump’s pluto-proto-fascist America. Maybe the election after when we’ve entirely lost our bearings. And the Rogernomes are still in charge for the rich.
lol, yes it will. people may not say a thing, but it will be for sure a thing at the next election.
Yep agree. People will express their true feelings in the safety of the voting booth – where you can’t get attacked by aggressive wokesters.
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
well mr irving was a proven thief and liar…sooo not quite the same david
It’s no longer a Green Party it’s an amusement for Chloe.
and again more anti science propaganda from the MSM:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/300843658/mtauranga-mori-is-no-threat-to-science-it-is-complementary