MEDIAWATCH: God damn it – Damien Grant is right

Let’s be honest.

Ever since Free Speech Champion Damien Grant hypocritically murdered his own creative creation, his columns have been pretty depressed and sad haven’t they?

Which is normal for grief caused by your own hypocrisy I ‘spose, but why should the rest of us be dragged into his public group therapy columns as he meandered across topics with the same killjoy vibe of a serial killer on ThanksGivings?

I’m digressing.

His columns have been shit, but you’ve got to give the Libertarian Devil his due because boyfriend still knows how to make a column hum and proof positive that he’s still one of the best columnists in NZ is his latest massive critiquing the sudden revisionism against Jacinda, Grant and Chippy for not fronting the politicised Kangaroo Court Covid Inquisition.

It is a master class in being a columnist who demands the public reflect on their latest weekly Lynch mob…

Damien Grant: Covid-19 revisionism, how did we get here?

We’re having a moment. New Zealand. Feigning outrage over the unwillingness of Ardern, Robertson and Hipkins to front to phase two of the Royal Commission into the Covid pandemic.

…he’s right.

We all collectively agreed to act in the common interest in NZ during Covid.

Damien sees that as a massive failure in our character, he’s wrong.

It was our redemption.

We collectively agreed using the best information we had, as a novel virus tore through the global population, that we would put our public health above profit margins.

This value terrifies a libertarian, so we’ll forgive Damian for misreading the symptoms, but he is right, it is disingenuous in the extreme for everyone to play Captain Hindsight and see Jacinda, Grant and Chippy pilloried in public by an ungrateful mob who were the first to scream, ‘close the borders’ when Covid was at its height.

He’s right, look at the opinion polls, we all agreed to this and we agreed to the extra spending required to get us through this.

We all agreed (except Damien and every other right winger who took the Covid wage payments) that we would curtail our agency and self isolate for the greater good, that isn’t a character flaw, that is our common sense and basic education knowledge about vaccines stepping in!

China will point to its authoritarian welding of doors closed as evidence they dealt with Covid best, but NZ, a tiny little nation did the best by talking with and winning over our citizens to agree to suspend our liberty for the greater good.

That is something we should be proud of.

Did I enjoy the State up in my grills and curtailing my freedom of movement?

Of course I didn’t!

WE ALL DIDN’T!

But we agreed to do this because we worked together for the benefit of everyone.

Now I appreciate the post-Covid bitterness.

We gave Jacinda an unprecedented MMP majority and she squandered that and only built back to the previous inequality, meaning that many of us who sacrificed felt that our sacrifice had been disrespected by Labour’s incrementalism.

Jacinda won the Covid War but lost the Covid Peace.

Labour broke our hearts.

I get that, but that bitterness can’t eclipse the reality we saved 20 000 lives and came through it far less scarred than other nations, and we should be grateful to Jacinda, Grant and Chippy for that, not parading them on a Kangaroo court.

It takes balls to criticise the mob, and Damien Grant is a courageous columnist who remains a weekly must read.

 

Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.