Let’s be very clear here.
TDB told you that NZF+ACT+ National would unleash a romper stomper far right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government.
TDB warned you that allowing your post Covid bitterness at Jacinda for having the temerity to save 20 0000 lives (mostly who were Boomers that then went on to vote NZF so no good deed goes unpunished).
and TDB warned you about the Atla Network, the far right think tank who were influencing NZ Politics…
Atlas Network is funded by petrol oligarchs and climate change polluters who find the social media pressure points the way the old Cambridge Analytics did. They can micro target and mine resentment better than anyone else in the game, and they pass those findings along allowing for local think tanks to plot legislative change welded to the culture war pressure points and allow hate algorithms to do the rest.
…however, according to the Democracy Project, the paywalled corporate intelligence unit run out of Wellington University with taxpayer funds, according to the Democracy Project AND ALL OTHER MAINSTREAM NZ CORPORATE MEDIA, The Atlas Network has no influence over NZ whatsoever…
According to the daily corporate intelligence list from Victoria University, The Democracy Project, the Atlas network is a left wing conspiracy that has no impact on NZ politics.
…ok, so what does The Washington Post, you know, that amazing Newspaper in America, the twinkling fire of Fourth Estate Journalism far greater than the Democracy Project or any other NZ Mainstream media, what does The Washington Post have to say about Atlas Network in NZ?
New Zealand, once a utopia for Trump-weary exiles, turns to the right
The populist National-led government is undoing many of Jacinda Ardern’s progressive initiatives, including gun control and environmental protections.
ACT has boasted that it “punches above its weight” in the coalition, saying that even though it has only 11 lawmakers in the 123-seat Parliament, it is responsible for half of the government’s actions. But Seymour wants more. Asked if ACT has an outsize influence over the government, he said: “We have some but not as many as I would like of our policies being advanced.”
During coalition talks, Seymour won concessions for American-style charter schools; a “three strikes” law extending prison terms for repeat offenders; and a deal to rewrite the country’s Arms Act, revisiting a ban on military-style rifles after the 2019 mass killing. He is pushing for a referendum on New Zealand’s founding document with Indigenous Maori that opponents warn will be divisive.
Some researchers also attribute Seymour’s rise and the recent political shift to aggressive campaigning by right-leaning interest groups with ties to the United States, where think tanks backed by conservative donors have been a brain trust for GOP administrations since the Reagan era.
They point to one neoliberal nonprofit in particular: the Atlas Network.
The Atlas Network has nearly 600 global partners — including the Heritage Foundation, which leads Project 2025, and climate deniers. Its stated goal is helping “freedom-oriented idea entrepreneurs” lobby for lower taxes, smaller government and less regulation. Behind the scenes, neoliberalism scholars say Atlas Network alumni campaign against climate policies around the globe from Argentina to Australia.
“It’s like a permanent soft coup. They’re ready to go at any moment in any country as soon as the opportunity arises,” said Jeremy Walker, a political historian at the University of Technology Sydney who studied the links between neoliberal lobbyists and fossil fuel companies in Australia. Others have charted the activities of Atlas Network partners in South America and Europe.
Atlas Network’s chairperson, Debbi Gibbs, is a New Zealander whose wealthy businessman father helped found ACT. Her mother is one of ACT’s biggest donors. Gibbs says Atlas Network is nonpolitical, and “the idea that there could be a centrally controlled cabal” overseeing hundreds of groups in 120 countries “is just mind-blowing.”
The most prominent Atlas affiliate in New Zealand is Seymour, who will become deputy prime minister next year.
His relationship with Atlas dates back nearly two decades. He was awarded a two-week “Atlas MBA” in 2008. At the time, he worked for the Frontier Center for Public Policy, an Atlas Network partner in Canada that has disparaged climate science.
Upon his return to New Zealand, he went into politics, entering Parliament in 2014 as ACT’s sole representative. But it wasn’t until 2020 that he gained prominence, successfully campaigning for assisted-dying laws. Gibbs, who has been on the Atlas Network board for a decade, got to know Seymour during this end-of life-campaign. She said she wasn’t officially involved but shared research and ideas from her American advocacy with Seymour.
Then when New Zealanders bristled at pandemic-era restrictions, Seymour seized upon the mood and accused Ardern of using the coronavirus to “justify more state control.”
In a speech in February 2021, Seymour cited an Atlas survey to bolster his claim that “our commitment to freedom is being lost.”
Asked about his links with Atlas, Seymour dismissed as “conspiracy” the idea that “somehow the world is organized by the Atlas Network,” saying he has been subject to a lot of theories about secretive influence efforts.
But even commentators on the right are alarmed. “Now he’s got power. We are absolutely seeing the whites of his eyes,” Wilson said. “We’re now seeing the radicalism of some of his policies.”
…how is it that the fucking Washington Post can do a deeper level of journalism than Democracy Project, NZ Herald, ZB, Stuff and RNZ????
Look also at the Atlas Networks connection to Project 2025 that will allow Trump total control over the bureaucracy…
Project 2025 is hosted by the Heritage Foundation, a preeminent Atlas Network thinktank. Heritage has consistentlyfought climate action adhering to the Network’s fossil-fuel donor’s goals. Its new Christian Nationalist president, Kevin Roberts, has made it more extreme. Heritage brought in key actors from Trump’s previous administration to run Project 2025 so that it would look duly MAGA, and not like an establishment body trying to hijack Trump’s victory. As a result, this is the most radical Roadmap in four decades of production. The 800 pages of the 2025 Mandate is the sum of work by 400 contributors with 50 thinktanks from the Atlas Network and the Christian Nationalist Council for National Policy cooperating. It represents the merged thinking of the Trump-complicit Right.
…why are you all such easily led muppets?
TDB was on this from the beginning – stick with The Daily Blog (who have now been shadow banned on all mainstream media, including The Democracy Project for our constant criticism of their wilful ignorance on The Atlas Project and their influence over right wing politics in this country).
It’s a shame Seymour is painted as groomer but it’s kind of a karmic outcome in a way. He’s such a divisive little shit that sometimes bad things ( and being called a groomer is up there) happen to bad people.
Our foreign policy is set by the USA, as is the case for all western nations. Our economic policies are set by the USA, spearheaded by neoliberal economic policy. So, whatever our pollies do on a local level can be overturned by the ‘other side’. Thus, those who are concerned by what the current mob are doing obviously have zero faith in the ‘other side’ reversing these decisions. Here in lies the problem, why is the ‘other side’, in this case Labour n Co doing sweet stuff all to allay the fears of their side. In turn you could ask, why are the followers of this side not protesting/harassing Labour n Co into doing something…clearly, we get what we deserve, rightfully so. As for Atlas, clearly they are being set up to be a fall guy…
Suck on that Chris Trotter.