Isn’t it about time sleepy hobbits asked hard questions about someone as dangerous as Peter Thiel?

ByMartyn Bradbury

Are we sleepy hobbits or stupid muppets?

I can’t work it out anymore.

Surely, we need to start asking hard questions about how and why Peter Thiel, the owner of the largest mass surveillance private corporation in the world gained residency in NZ?

NZ officials should release info on US billionaire ‘without delay’
The Internal Affairs Minister wants his department to release secret information about the US billionaire Peter Thiel as soon as possible.

The Department of Internal Affairs has been told it is wrong to keep information about Mr Thiel’s successful citizenship application hidden.

In a nation that is so easy to distract with billionaire boat matches and touring rugby sides, you can appreciate how an issue like this just gets swept under the carpet, but Thiel’s citizenship here raises incredibly large and dangerous questions over how much influence he and his 5 Eyes processing company has over us as a country.

That’s why the external attention Thiel is about to get from a documentary that is being released is so important. This from Rolling Stone magazine...

In part, the unnerving new documentary Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press, is a story of Gawker Media publishing a video of Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea, the former pro-wrestler, having sex with Heather Clem, the wife of his once best friend, radio shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem. The documentary describes how Bollea sued Gawker for $140 million in Florida for invasion of privacy, legally pursuing the online news website for over four years until their board filed for bankruptcy, sold to Univision, and reached a $31 million settlementlast November.

Director Brian Knappenberger thought the Bollea v. Gawker trial was interesting enough, but he became “earnestly intrigued” once the press revealed that Peter Thiel, a billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist, was bankrolling the lawsuit. Thiel’s involvement implied a more serious match was being fought not in a courtroom in Florida, but across the United States. 

…the simple truth is that we are too fucking stupid, too sport blinded and too middle-class-property-renovating-food-porn-consumers in this country to even ask these questions and true to form, Kiwi’s only sit up and take notice if the rest of the planet is mocking us for our stupidity.

If the revelations in Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press are true, we have allowed an incredibly dangerous individual to become a citizen who just happens to have a remarkably close commercial relationship with our GCSB and SIS.

 

 

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24 Comments

  1. Unfuckenbelievable!

    Nathan Guy’s party line when asked about Theil’s residency … “I can’t recall”

    Sounds familiar?

  2. Twelve days residency broken up and Thiel is given citizenship! NZ citizenship is obviously for sale! But only if you are a billionaire, connected to spy agencies and generally not a very nice person! Oh yes, and getting a very cheap loan from the NZ taxpayer out of it as well!!!!!!!

    Amazingly the minister of internal affairs Nathan Guy at the time of approving and issuing Thiel’s citizenship, couldn’t recall this particular situation when questioned on the deal, despite the unusual circumstances of the case!!!!! WTF!!!!!

    *How much do I need to buy in minister?
    Show us the money and you’re in boy!!!!!*

    This proves this government is saturated in corruption, lies and cesspit tactics! Get them out in September!

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11883554

  3. But, but, but, what about my Auckland property portfolio which now doubles as my retirement fund? How is that going to be affected by a change in government? Will my taxes go up? Best not to rock the boat. Vote National! /s

  4. What next? Saudi Princes or Ukrainian oligarchs dropping some small change and being granted citizenship.

    1. Isn’t there a Russian oligarch who has set up a base/lair somewhere on the coast of NZ?

      1. Otto, you may be thing of this chap, Russian billionaire Alexander Abramov;

        Alexander Abramov, a Russian steel magnate said by Forbes to be worth $5.9 billion, opens his new $50 million lodge at Helena Bay in Northland next month.

        Bookings are now being taken for the luxury retreat, which has come with its share of controversy over the past eight years.

        The Overseas Investment Office (OIO) allowed the billionaire steel magnate to buy his 215-hectare farm, north of Whangarei in January 2009 – on condition he provide public walking access over his land in partnership with the WAC. But instead, he has granted the right of way to local iwi Ngatiwai.

        In March 2015, Stuff reported the OIO had sanctioned Abramov, granting easements to Ngatiwai. The troubled Mokau Marae, about 5km from the estate, will in practice manage access to the land. One large section of the track will be only for the Mokau hapu and “special guests”.

        ref: http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/home-property/84872148/Russian-billionaire-Alexander-Abramovs-Helena-Bay-resort-is-now-taking-bookings

        Not only are we selling off vast tracts of our land, but certain parts of it will be for “special guests” only.

        What was it that our former hypocrite Dear Leader once said about being “tenants in our own country”?!

  5. NO questions, as NZ Inc is for sale, and as normal Kiwis are For Sale, and they love it.

  6. Donald Trump, Peter Thiel and the death of democracy

    “In a 2009 essay called The Education of a Libertarian, Thiel declared that capitalism and democracy had become incompatible. Since 1920, he argued, the creation of the welfare state and “the extension of the franchise to women” had made the American political system more responsive to more people – and therefore more hostile to capitalism. Capitalism is not “popular with the crowd”, Thiel observed, and this means that as democracy expands, the masses demand greater concessions from capitalists in the form of redistribution and regulation.

    The solution was obvious: less democracy. But in 2009, Thiel despaired of achieving this goal within the realm of politics. How could you possibly build a successful political movement for less democracy?

    Fast forward two years, when the country was still slowly digging its way out of the financial crisis. In 2011, Thiel told George Packer that the mood of emergency made him “weirdly hopeful”. The “failure of the establishment” had become too obvious to ignore, and this created an opportunity for something radically new, “something outside the establishment”, to take root.

    Now, in 2016, Thiel has finally found a politician capable of seizing that opportunity: a disruptor-in-chief who will destroy a dying system and build a better one in its place. Trump isn’t just a flamethrower for torching a rotten establishment, however – he’s the fulfillment of Thiel’s desire to build a successful political movement for less democracy.

    A Trump administration would diminish democracy, lending credibility to white supremacy and ultranationalism
    Trump is openly campaigning on the idea that American democracy should belong to fewer people.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/21/peter-thiel-republican-convention-speech

    http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/donald-trump-steve-bannon-peter-thiel-214490

  7. Peter Thiel is a scary individual who does not believe in government and democracy.

    In his application according to Wiki he never intended to live in NZ, so the question remains why is the National government grovelling to get his citizenship including the commercially inappropriate sweetheart deal’ in which he netted 22 million profit as well as giving away NZ citizenship even though Thiel did not meet the criteria, already has 2 different citizenships with EU and USA and was never going to live here.

    It seems being on the board of directors of Facebook has a lot of electioneering benefits. Social media harvesting helped Trump and Brexit.

    As does the Palantir technologies which is a big data analysis company that is used by the US counter terrorism and financial industries.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/04/nigel-oakes-cambridge-analytica-what-role-brexit-trump

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/big-data-cambridge-analytica-brexit-trump

  8. If the left want to win against the rising right using dubious fear based social media individualised techniques, then the left need to dig a little deeper and get away from piecemeal policy and back to the basics human rights for all.

    Voters around the world are feeling increasingly uneasy about the erosion of democracy and human rights into a new capitalist model fuelled by billionaires like Thiel who have the social media tools to get their unpopular righties into power using individualised propaganda.

    Remember what caused the massive turn of popularity to Corbyn? It was when Theresa started talking about getting rid of human rights and that was followed by an example of that, with a fire in social housing that should never have occurred in a decent society.

    Human rights beat money, economy and capitalism….

    If Labour and Greens want to beat National they need to address the rise of the far right, anti government, anti regulation rhetoric.

    Things are not fair any more in this country and around the world and the Panama papers, Pike River and Canterbury water take over, Supercity are all examples when people’s rights are being railroaded and a two tier society being created.

  9. “But..but…but..Martyn…he invested in Zero Martyn”.
    This seems to be the bottom line for many.
    For reasons that I have yet to understand, the success of Zero seems to be a little gold star for a lot of NZers signaling our glorious pivotal role in the world’s High Tech future.
    We may well end up a bunch of wage slaves living in vans, but hey, we can all bask in the knowledge that some-one in NZ(or not) is making a nice pile of dosh.

  10. It’s official. New Zealand IS for sale. Every bit of it. From million-hectare farm stations, to little bits of paper with “citizen” stamped on it.

    Thank god prostitution was legalised back in 2002.

    1. @ SAMWISE … you say –

      “Thank god prostitution was legalised back in 2002.”

      Yep.

      Roll up, roll up … NZ, the greatest little whorehouse in the south pacific! Citizenship granted to any punter with the right “credentials” … as per one Peter Thiel!

  11. People like Theil have the power they have because we, the people, outsource so much of our online activity to centrally-controlled, corporate-owned platforms like FarceBook, the birdsite, LinkedIn, and NationBuilder. There are replacements, federated platforms where you can run your own server, or join one operated by someone you trust. There is already a functioning federated replacement for Twitter, check out the Fediverse.org (GNU Social, Mastodon, PostActiv, Pleroma). As the start of a replacement for FB (lots more moving parts in there), check out the Federation (Hubzilla, Friendica, and Diaspora). If all of our social and political communication happen on corporate-controlled platforms, guess who gets to decide what gets amplified and what gets dampened down and suppressed?

  12. Thiel will no doubt vote for and bankroll Natzianal. That will be part of the grubby deal amongst others of dubious nature.

  13. Hes a very busy little character , this Thiel chap.

    Meh,… hes also a Bilderberger.

    Scratch that.

    The mans an evil little goblin. Just another fascist One World Government operator.

    Dont need that sort here.

  14. the answer to the question “why did Thiel need to be a NZ citizen” (he obviously had no burning desire to reside here so the benefit must be in some other form) will likely reveal all….perhaps something to do with NZ intelligence services???

  15. I wonder how much I could get on eBay if I put my citizenship up for auction? (Hey, if the Nats can do it…!!!)

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