Police used sound canons against Dumb Lives Matter protestors – this is why we needed to de-escalate
The propaganda wins for the far right just keep on coming.
I argued at the beginning we needed adults in the room to radically de-escalate this our we would end up awarding the far right bad faith actors a propaganda victory when we least needed it.
- Trevor’s appalling counter productive policing decisions.
- The Wellington Middle Class Marxists who were frightened that the smelly lumpenproletariat they pretend to champion should be so angry at them.
- The Government’s refusal to listen.
- Trevor’s appalling counter productive tactics with water and loud music.
- Trevor trespassing politicians.
Again, I didn’t support these feral lunatics with their insane demands, but I sure as Christ supported their right to protest.
They are wrong about mandates, we were running blind during a pandemic and the Government was acting in real time as best they could, but yes, those broad stroke policy decisions DID impact people negatively economically and that pain needed to be acknowledged!
You can’t negotiate with people who threaten violence, but they have a right to have their concerns heard if not considered. A small team from the Government could have met with these groups. The Police over reaction and resulting 10 hour live streamed recruitment video to radicalise could have been avoided – the entire fiasco should have been handled differently and now it starts a chain reaction of ever increasing gestures.
Also, there wouldn’t be an angry mob of disaffected being actively manipulated by the far right if we on the political Left had done something more meaningful for them in the first place.
All we managed to do by sending in the cops was radicalise 5000 new storm troopers for the unhinged Right and gifted the Intelligence Apparatus a $200million per year windfall for the latest tranche of powers and funding.
Yesterday we had the sympathetic story about Police feeling really stressed out by the Dumb Lives Matter protest, now we know why.
It was to soften up public opinion before they were forced to release OIA info that showed them using rubber bullets, new crowd pepper spray and a fucking sound cannon!
Revealed: Police used sound cannons against Parliament protesters
Police have confirmed sound cannons were deployed against protesters at the recent Parliament occupation.
A document released under the Official Information Act (OIA), revealed two long range acoustic devices (Lrads) were deployed at the Parliament protest on March 2.
Other documents show there was a rush to change rules so pepper spray could be used in crowd control situations, with new products being procured for the purpose.
The anti-mandate protest ended in violence on March 2 when hundreds of police officers, many in riot gear and supported by a helicopter, clashed with crowds of protesters who lit fires and threw cobblestones on Parliament’s forecourt.
Jesus Wept!
How the fuck do we even have this shit in the country and who the hell signed off on using sound weapons at a protest?
This is an extraordinarily bad look by the Police. The rubber bullets and the crowd pepper spray were bad enough, but sound cannons?
That’s another 1000 recruited into radicalism as the economy turns into a recession.
I think the chances of some type of political violence before the 2023 election is 50-50.
We are inadvertently feeding this now.
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.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media
These LRAD things were developed for the US military to use to subdue crowds of angry Iraqi civilians before they fired into them at random to disperse them. No moral nation would employ them.
EXACTLY, WHO signed off on this and WHY haven’t they been publically villified and sacked?
I guess because the Govt is HAPPY and WANTS this sort of violence against dissenter.
the purchasing of the sound cannons started in 2016, i’m pretty sure Coster wasn’t commissioner then. so this is a everybody screwed up purchase frank.
Cuddle s Coster is tougher than we all thought !
Cuddle s Coster is tougher than I thought.
Marco Battler – Hey – you might hurt Trevor’s feelings saying that Cudldles Coster is tough. Don’t forget that Trevor’s the tough one – like he peered hard at the plebs from up on the balcony, after turning the hoses on them. What a man.
He sent out calls for foul music to torture the protestors. Oh what a man. Don’t forget that without Trev this protest mightn’t have escalated and cost taxpayers and ratepayers hundreds of thousands, with whole police teams catching the virus, and families quarantined, and kids home from school with parents simultaneously sick and frazzled, with the girls and boys in blue on the ground out there taking the punches for the effete Parliamentary pronouns watching safely from up on the balcony, thanks to Trev. The power of one. What a man.
The scenario was orchestrated to make police intervention inevitable; the flow-on effects of that intervention are here to stay. The PM’s refusal to have any inquiry into Mallard and others’ bullying of protestors, plus Mallard seemingly being rewarded for bad behaviour and shunted off-shore, suggests that the police were set up right from the start – or that the labour clique involved in the disgraceful debacle are worryingly dim, or both.
When Arden said that the IPCA investigation would involve her Parliamentary mates’ behaviour I think that she was being deliberately misleading and that she shouldn’t have been allowed to get away with it – heaven knows who’s advising her, but they all need to grow up.
This was the most successful protest in recent history.
Protest must stop slavishly seeking approval of authority and of of those whose interests, paranoia, or even hypochondria the protest is challenging. The days of the twin-set-and pearls protests must end. They might result in meeting a desperate need in protestors feeling they are good people, but they certainly don’t achieve anything else.
I say this as a veteran of several such utterly futile protests.
I think you would be wise to lay off the denunciations and protestations about this. The government acted as might be expected. The protesters filled the space erected for them in the minds of cynics about the wisdom of the people. Both gangs – politicians and protesters – were a disgrace. When determined know-alls take charge of anything you get zilch proper discussion.
The debacle just showed how it happens in real life with real people who aren’t totally bloody minded. However. the get together could come to be regarded as a shaky first of a NZ tradition of people gathering at Parliament and having direct korero about problems with the PTB. The PTB are behaving like some bad old royalty, (not our Queen, or Maori Royalty). Labour took the first step, in a misguided and misdirected manner, and the trickle of de-democratising began, became a stream then a river with a set bed enclosed by banks. Hah. Like the analogy or whatever? But it’s beyond a laugh now; getting emotive and soapboxish will get us nowhere.
Time to read Sun Tzu but I think adopting the old feminist idea of ‘owning’ and accepting an idea that goes against your wishes and bending it into a different, more acceptable shape would have unexpectedly good results. That is if Labour and Green have enough nous instead of thinking they are Gods gift to the world and only ideas that come from their fertile heads should be considered (apart from Treasury and their other right-wing manipulators in disguise). National and Act don’t waste time thinking – it’s action they want to take them, riding proudly, into the Charge of the Light-Headed Brigade.
Bomber. I dont understand why you insist on referring to the protesters who campaigned for freedom of choice in regards to the covid vaccine as “Dumb”. Maybe I dont read enough but it seems like you are the only one doing it. If its an attempt to be ironic I think you are missing the mark. It reads like you are nurturing the governments narcissistic narrative. Using this term exacerbates the plight of a persecuted minority.
%10 of New Zealanders did not get vaccinated. Nearly %50 decided that they won’t comply with the government directive and get a booster shot. %10 of health care workers still cannot work!
I thought the ”dumb lives” were the government.
Shameful.
I think that people who wouldn’t get vaccinated because they didn’t like it are equivalent to amoral. Cowards who wouldn’t act to support and keep safe their fellow citizens as well as themselves. They might choose to stay unvaccinated themselves but there was a need to consider that others might be affected. That some of them were teachers and carers and want to keep their jobs at the same time putting the lives of people and children they work with at risk are just beyond belief. Their freedom is all that counts. But we have to bypass our freedoms for them. Some of those people have problems that doesn’t allow them to be vaccinated. But that is very few.
From anti smacking to rubber bullets.What a difference a few years make.
Sue prefers ideas and ideals legislated for rather than spending time wading through practicalities and actions that will come close to the ideal. Just tell everyone to be better people or else.