Woke Twitter in NZ
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The Daily Blog Open Mic – Wednesday – 27th October 2021
Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.
Moderation rules are more lenient for this section, but try and play nicely.
EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist language, homophobic language, racist language, anti-muslim hate, transphobic language, Chemtrails, 9/11 truthers, Qanon lunacy, climate deniers, anti-fluoride fanatics, anti-vaxxer lunatics, 5G conspiracy theories, the virus is a bioweapon, some weird bullshit about the UN taking over the world and ANYONE that links to fucking infowar.
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NZ Politics Daily – 23 October 2021
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90% Double Vax: Political Winners & Losers
I’m excited that we have collectively gone from being experts on pandemics and virus to gun handling protocols on film sets in just one weekend but before we start legal defenses for Alec Baldwin, there’s the small matter of Jacinda staring down the camera and telling Auckland without telling Auckland that we are likely to be locked down until December.
For a city that has been under home detention for 3 months, this has gone down as well as Donald Trump dating Liz Gunn.
Suddenly everyone from primary school in your social media feed are calling Labour Nazis and that this is the death of democracy which suggests those people have no working definition of the words ‘Nazi’, ‘democracy’, ‘death’, or ‘Labour’.
Meanwhile the Maori Party & ultra woke claim Labour have built a Homicide Disneyland to commit a genocide against Maori which makes Liz Gunn seem rational.
The true losers of course are the double vaxxed who have done all they have been asked and yet are still being deprived their liberty and are being told they can’t get out of home detention because of people like Liz Gunn.
Oh and any impatience is racist.
Y-e-a-h.
This is shaping up to be as rational a chat amongst citizens as a your average Trans book club reviewing Harry Potter.
There are many, many, many, many losers from 90% double vaxxed and only 3 winners.
Losers:
The Woke – for them, one single death by Covid of a Maori, Pacifica or disabled person is a State sanctioned genocide. Their fury at Jacinda giving a stressed out Auckland picnics has been met by the perpetually outraged woke online as an atrocity on par with Dave Chappelle hosting a Pride parade. Those who had piously embraced every restrictive standard as if it were holy writ snarlingly turned on Jacinda once she pivoted with Wellington Twitteratti claiming her speech amounted to nothing more than a long rambling suicide note.
Death Cult Capitalists – They demanded Freedom Day while ignoring the collateral death that would cost. 1000 deaths has been divined as enough of a sacrifice at the altar of Milton Friedman and their continued frustration at Jacinda’s refusal to kill for capitalism will drive their criticism. They will endlessly scream for open borders no matter how large the mass graves.
Angry Double vaxxed Good Citizens in Auckland & Good Buggers in South Island – They have done what they were asked, they have sacrificed and now they want their lives back. Being told they can’t because morons don’t want to be vaccinated is going down about as well as a cup of cold sick. These people are not bad people, they’ve done what they were asked and they want their lives back. You can’t get angry at these people and painting their frustration out as racist will hurt the Left at the election.
Qanon Anti-vaxx lunatics – Will see the vaccination passports as a vast erosion of their civil rights and that measure will dangerously radicalize this fringe. Expect some type of political violence from this cult.
Crystal Karens – These are the middle class new age conspiracy clique who will become culturally ostracised by the vaccine passports. Let’s see if the witchy spirituality magic of fatherless daughters from the first wave of feminism divorce in the 1970s is more powerful a value than their ability to fly to Thailand for a chakra cleanse next year.
Liz Gunn – Just needs a big hug from Dad.
Principled Objectors – They will quit jobs on principle and quickly find out there is no where else to go. They will become radicalized.
Jesus is my vaccine fanatics – They will see Bishop Brian Tamaki’s prosecution as persecution and see end of days symbolism at every turn. The passport will be framed as the number of the beast. Expect religious radicalization.
ZB Troll Farm – They won’t believe their luck. They will hold up the claims of Maori vaccine hesitancy as the reason the rest of us can’t get our lives back. They will manipulate the frustrations of the double vaxxed and weaponize it. Expect radicalization.
National – So self mutilated at this stage they have chewed off their nose, one eyeball and half a cheek to spite their face. Wants to open at levels that would see thousands more dead than 90% double vaxxed. So they are like Labour but with much bigger graves implemented with grotesque incompetence.
Maori Party – So this is a modern genocide on par with a purpose built murder Disneyland? Did Rawiri think Squid Games was a documentary? The hyperbole they are terrifying their supporters with seems like a cross between Liz Gunn & Bishop Brian Tamaki but with more violence.
Small Business – These are people who for the first time in their lives feel economically vulnerable. They have haemorrhaged cash because of the lockdown and are on the verge of collapse. They are ripe for radicalization.
The Unvaccinated – About to get very very very sick. The wider community will not give a fuck about their feelings and they will feel persecuted. Will radicalize out of desperation.
Children – They will become the new hosts of Covid as adult vaccination rates leave the virus with few options. They will pay the price in sickness so adults can go back to work. Isn’t capitalism fun?
The Poor – Food banks have spiked 500%, the horror of poverty in lockdown has been hidden to date, but the truly dispossessed will always turn that anger and fury upon themselves and their Whānau. Their radicalization will be a never ending self harm event that implodes communities that the middle classes drive by on their way to the airport.
Dave Dobbyn – David, David, David! It’s fashionable WOKE neo-Marxism! Come on mate, get it right!
“Are we fighting Covid or Humanity”?
Comrades I’m fighting both!
Winners:
ACT – About to be flooded by the radicalized and desperate. ACT are mutating into the paramilitary death squad they were always destined to be once Seymour can be replaced as leader.
Labour Māori Caucus – Have been under immense fire from Maori Party, Academics and the woke for a Squid Game mass death event by not vaccinating all Maori first. Could you imagine what would happen if the Maori Caucus demanded all Maori get vaccinated first? Can you imagine the nuclear explosion from pakeha being told their family members dying from Covid is acceptable because we have to vaccinate Maori first? The NZ Herald would print maps of Labour MPs homes with recipes for Molotov Cocktails alongside while Mike Hosking would actually orgasm live on air.
If the Maori Labour Caucus had implemented the demands of the Maori Party, the Academics and the woke, they would have sparked an insurrection from the Right that would have triggered race riots.
The Maori Labour Caucus saved NZ.
Jacinda – I think she has done an incredible job navigating us through this nightmare and the lack of gratitude and hate and crazy conspiracy madness vomited on her is an indictment on us as a fractured social media crazed culture of resentment, not on her.
Covid deaths per population:
US 1 in 451
Italy 1 in 457
UK 1 in 479
Spain 1 in 540
France 1 in 566
Austria 1 in 789
Germany 1 in 874
Turkey 1 in 1, 211
Canada 1 in 1, 305
India 1 in 3, 008
Australia 1 in 15, 494
New Zealand 1 in 175, 607
But sure let’s shit on Jacinda’s response!
Conclusion:
This is the most important moment in Jacinda’s leadership and I don’t envy the position she must take now.
The next few months are going to be frightening and many people will get sick. Get off Facebook and spend time with friends and family.
Every which way she will have highly partisan emotionally manipulative criticism thrown at her as a frightened and desperate team of 6 million starts to turn on itself.
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.
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GUEST BLOG: Ian Powell – Is Delta Plus coming (the Boris variant)?
On 20 October the BBC published the kind of news that no-one would have wanted to know about: The heading alone was scary: Covid-19: New mutation of Delta variant under close watch in UK.
This possible new more deadly Covid-19 variant than Delta is being referred to by some as ‘Delta Plus’. However, caution is required. This is investigative work with testing currently in progress. No conclusions have yet been made. Although unlikely, depending on how things unfold, there is potential risk to New Zealand.
Nevertheless, given how much effort the United Kingdom government misled by Boris Johnson has put into assisting the further mutation of Delta, if the worst happens then I would argue the new variant should be called ‘Boris’.
A new descendant
What the BBC reveals is that in the UK a close watch on a new descendant of the Delta variant of Covid that is causing a growing number of infections. While Delta is the dominant variant it now appears that 6% of infections that have been genetically sequenced are of a new type. This ‘Delta Plus’ (officially AY.4.2) contains mutations that might give the virus survival advantages.
Tests are under way to understand how much of a threat it may pose although, at this stage, it not yet considered a ‘variant of concern’ or a ‘variant under investigation’ (these are categories assigned to variants and the level of risk associated with them).
Delta was classified as a variant of concern in the UK in May 2021 surpassing the Alpha variant to become the dominant type of Covid in circulation. Delta Plus was identified in July. To date, it appears that it is not considerably more transmissible than Delta but it is still being investigated.
There have been thousands of mutations (changes in the internal composition of the virus) of the original Covid-19. Many are inconsequential but some variants emerging out of them are worrying and keeping scientists busy with testing. It is difficult spotting, tracking and managing the ones that could matter.
Detection steps
The first step is to pick up new mutants worth watching such as Delta Plus. Second, if there is a strong suggestion that the genetic changes might make the virus more contagious, it is classified as a ‘variant under investigation’ and more checks are done.
The third step occurs should it become clearer that investigated variant might be more transmissible and escape some of the built up immunity from past infections or vaccines, or potentially cause more serious disease. If so, it is categorised as a ‘variant of concern’ which is Delta’s categorisation.
The current stage of scientific investigation into Delta Plus is that it is unlikely to take off or escape vaccines despite being up to 10% more transmissible. Instead it is more likely to burn out and drop off the watch list. At this stage scientists are advising, while still investigating, ‘wait and see’.
Boris ignores scientists advice – again
When Boris Johnson’s government brought the UK out of lockdown on 19 July he was ending a protracted and debilitating process. This unfortunate process was due to incompetent leadership causing failure to follow and act quickly on scientific advice.
Had his government followed New Zealand’s successful ‘fast and hard’ zero tolerance approach the UK would have been much better positioned to exit lockdown.
Nevertheless, coming out of lockdown was understandable. But Johnson again chose to ignore the advice of scientists. They had recommended that several restrictions and other public health measures (including improved ventilation standards in hotels and schools for example) be put in place.
According to the scientists, preliminary modelling data suggested that the government’s approach would provide fertile ground for the emergence of vaccine-resistant variants. This would place everyone at risk, including those already vaccinated, within the UK and globally. While vaccines could be updated, this requires time and resources, leaving many exposed in the interim.
Virus variant school graduation
One description of Johnson’s decision to disregard this advice was that it was like opening a school for virus variants to learn how to get around vaccines. The experience of Delta Plus confirms this warning. The fact that Delta Plus may not graduate in his ‘education system’ does not diminish the risk.
If it does graduate to a ‘variant of concern’ then far away New Zealand will have reason to be worried. In this case Delta Plus should be renamed the ‘Boris variant’. Perhaps it should earn a graduate diploma!
Ian Powell was Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, the professional union representing senior doctors and dentists in New Zealand, for over 30 years, until December 2019. He is now a health systems, labour market, and political commentator living in the small river estuary community of Otaihanga (the place by the tide). First published at Otaihanga Second Opinion
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Israel declares war on 6 human rights organisations
On 22 October, the Israeli Defence Ministry declared that the human rights organisations Addameer, al-Haq, Defence for Children International–Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Bisan Centre for Research and Development and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees to be “terrorist organisations”. The Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, described the declaration as “an act characteristic of totalitarian regimes, with the clear purpose of shutting down these organisations”. It is certain that they now face the threat of possible closure, seizure of assets and the arrest of staff members. Expressions of support for the condemned groups could also now be criminalised.
One of the targeted organisations, Defence for Children International–Palestine (DCI–P) is the national section of the Geneva-based Defence for Children International, an NGO having consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, UNICEF, UNESCO, and the Council of Europe. B’Tselem says that it “stands in solidarity with our Palestinian colleagues, is proud of our joint work over the years and is steadfast to continue so.” Human Rights Watch and Amnesty, have released a joint statement deploring the failure of the international community to “challenge grave Israeli human rights abuses” which had led to the Israeli declaration. They have also condemned the move as an attack by the Israeli Government on the international human rights movement.
Al Haq has been exposing Israel’s Occupation and apartheid since 1979, Addameer supports political prisoners, seized under Israeli military Occupation, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees supports farmers resisting land-grabs and agricultural sabotage, the Bisan Centre for Research and Development advocates on behalf of civil and human rights and the progressive Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC) works to achieve real equity between men and women, as well all social classes.
Israel’s extreme, self-isolating measure illustrates the Zionist regime’s ideological blindness to human rights to a degree that has alarmed even its greatest ally. Reacting to the declaration, the US State Department Spokesperson, Ned Price, complained that “the Israeli government did not give us advance warning.” He said “we’ll be engaging our Israeli partners for more information regarding the basis for these designations”. Price took care to emphasise that: “We believe respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and a strong civil society are critically important to responsible and responsive governance.” He also declared that the US believes human rights organisations and civil society are also of critical importance for good governance.
No way to treat a child
Defence for Children International–Palestine‘s No Way to Treat a Child campaign believes the world should hold Israel accountable for its violations of Palestinian children’s rights. Children and adults in the West Bank of Palestine have been forced to live under Israeli military rule since 1967. The racist regime that controls their lives favours Israeli-only residents in illegally imposed (under international law) West Bank settlements. They live in accordance with Israeli civilian law but outside the settlements, separatist, foreign military rule dominates the Palestinian population. They have no say. Having consultative status with the United Nations, the DCI–P informs the world that Israel is “the only country in the world that automatically and systematically prosecutes children in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections. Israel prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children in military courts each year.”
The inhumanity of this is clear when “children typically arrive to interrogation bound, blindfolded, frightened and sleep deprived.” And it gets worse. On 18 October, Israeli police prevented a captive Palestinian woman, Najia Bisharat, from breastfeeding her three-month-old daughter for approximately four hours. Accused of throwing stones at an Israeli motor vehicle, which she emphatically denied, Najia was forced to wait, with her feet shackled, for an interpreter to attend her interrogation. Her baby was crying and a human rights supporter, who had arrived to give Najia support, begged the police to let the woman feed her baby. They refused, telling the activist he was being provocative.
We will not be silenced
Opposition in Israel to the dystopian military Occupation of Palestine is growing. Shahar Perets, a conscientious objector, who spent her nineteenth birthday in prison, has already served two prison sentences for refusing to enlist in the Israeli Army. In prison, Shahar experiences the sharp end of Israel’s determination to hide its crimes with the denial of writing material. Outside of prison, she writes: “In prison, writing is in itself a form of activism. We can use it to share our message about our choice to refuse as a form of resistance to the occupation. By depriving me of the option to write in prison, the prison authorities hindered my ability to document what goes on behind bars, write articles and develop ideas and plan on how to share my experiences once I am released for a few days. The military does not want me to write, speak or share my thoughts. They are trying to silence me.”
Shahar tells the world that it is “this silencing, this attempt to erase, hide and deny what is really happening, that makes me stand proud and declare my refusal publicly.” Israel is going to find that its attempt to silence world human rights organisations will meet with a similar response. In New Zealand, the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) Chair, John Minto has reminded our government that it “must speak up and hold Israel to account for this savage attack on legitimate human rights organisations” and urged the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nanaia Mahuta, to “speak out and condemn outright Israel’s declaration of six Palestinian Human Rights organisations as “terrorist organisations”.
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Political Caption Competition
According to the Maori Party and Liz Gun, this is actually Ashley Bloomfield
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The Daily Blog Open Mic – Tuesday – 26th October 2021
Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.
Moderation rules are more lenient for this section, but try and play nicely.
EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist language, homophobic language, racist language, anti-muslim hate, transphobic language, Chemtrails, 9/11 truthers, Qanon lunacy, climate deniers, anti-fluoride fanatics, anti-vaxxer lunatics, 5G conspiracy theories, the virus is a bioweapon, some weird bullshit about the UN taking over the world and ANYONE that links to fucking infowar.
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TWITTERWATCH: The cancellation of Dave Dobbyn by the Woke Twitterati & other dreary tales
The latest woke lynch mob cancellation is our very own Dave Dobbyn!
The funny thing is the experts quoted are the first to start woke toxic lynchings…
Covid- 19: Dave Dobbyn social media backlash highlights ‘vaccination polarisation’
Social media’s propensity to polarise has once again been clearly demonstrated in the controversy exploding over a famous Kiwi musician’s tweets, an expert says.
When Sir Dave Dobbyn got into an exchange with high profile Twitter personality Hamish Keith about New Zealand’s Covid-19 vaccination divide, it quickly became the most trending topic on social media.
Social scientist Jess Berenston-Shaw said this example of an exchange of “valid reflections” between two people accelerating into a widespread controversy, showed how social media platforms thrived on such division.
…it’s like ringing Netsafe to make a complaint about online bullying only to find the person you are complaining about is taking the complaint!
Has the Wellington Twitterati cancelled Slice of Heaven yet?
I want to know if I should listen one more time before it’s forbidden.
Dave’s crime was thinking something different to the easily triggered pious woke conclave and the easily triggered pious woke conclave did what the easily triggered pious woke conclave does:
Over react.
Denigrate.
Excommunicate.
Censor.
Do some group therapy self actualization to accept how hard it is to be this superior.
“are we fighting Covid or Humanity”
Comrades I’m fighting both!
…David, David, David! It’s fashionable WOKE neo-Marxism! Come on mate, get it right!
The funniest thing about this is how the Twitterati know now that pile on cancellations play into a far wider negative narrative about woke cancel culture and they are rushing around Twitter now saying they love David.
It’s nice seeing them frightened of their own toxicity.
The naked rage & hate Social media is inspiring will erupt next year during the hate speech legislation – entropy, polarisation and pure malice toward the other will be our wine as the planet burns.
Sartre said ‘hell is other people’.
I say, ‘hell is other peoples social media’.
I wish to remain socially distanced from you all.
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The fall into AntiVaxx cult madness of Liz Gunn is a cautionary tale to us all
Wow.
Just Wow…
A former high-profile New Zealand television and radio presenter has taken aim at the government and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in a controversial and bizarre anti-vaccine rant online over the weekend.
Former Breakfast, Good Morning and RNZ presenter Liz Gunn made an emotional claim, saying Friday’s earthquake that hit the central North Island was Mother Nature’s response to Ardern’s announcement about new vaccination targets, passports and the traffic light system.
In a video online, Gunn relayed a message saying the worst part of the jab and traffic light system is its ability to “separate us” from one another.
The former presenter then hit out at Ardern claiming mandatory vaccinations are “rape” and that Mother Earth is rising up against a “tyrannical” leader.
…on the upside, it’s nice to know that the Gay Community aren’t getting blamed for earthquakes any more, isn’t that progress?
As for Gaia responding to Jacinda’s announcement on 90% vaccination rates by shaking the earth violently, that’s a special kind of Kooky middle class woman healing with crystals phase level crazy isn’t it?
While I am open to a philosophical and scientific debate on how complex life systems can be construed as living organisms because of their interconnectedness, suggesting that amounts to a sentient consciousness is like saying your pet rock can think.
This is the real world, not Harry fucking Potter land ffs!
Now let’s be clear.
I’m old enough to remember Liz Gunn and there was no doubt that in her day she was the mustard. Intelligent, insightful and ruthless, she was the perfect team with Mike Hosking, like an extra pair of jaws for a pack of piranhas.
That she has fallen so deep and so far into the AntiVaxx Rabbit hole is a cautionary tale to us all not to base our understanding of the world from your Facebook feed.
For Liz and the Maori Party, the following is a real representation of what Labour is literally doing this week…
…that’s not a metaphor, for Liz and the Maori Party, Jacinda has literally built a Homicidal Disneyland where Maori and AntiVaxxers are butchered while Grant Robertson bets with Andrew Little on who will win.
According to the Maori Party and Liz Gun, this is actually Ashley Bloomfield…
…yas queen.
Liz is a Crystal Karen, the middle class new age conspiracy clique who will become culturally ostracised by the vaccine passports. Let’s see if the witchy spirituality magic of fatherless daughters from the first wave of feminism divorce in the 1970s is more powerful a value than her ability to fly to Thailand for a chakra cleanse next year.
Like all Crystal Karens, she just needs a big hug from Dad.
The next few months are going to be frightening and many people will get sick. Get off Facebook and spend time with friends and family.
Being vaccinated protects you from Covid but it must also inoculate you from hate and stupidity.
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Labour Day & modern unions are a hollow joke we must resuscitate for a post growth NZ capitalism
Labour Day became a national holiday in New Zealand in 1899. It was to commemorate and celebrate the rise of worker powers and how the earliest Pakeha settlers coming to New Zealand fought to create a fair balance of power between the boss and the worker.
Samuel Duncan Parnell came to New Zealand on the ship Duke of Roxburgh in 1839. He was a carpenter who was deeply impacted by the arguments of the day that people should be allowed 8 hours sleep, 8 hours to live their lives and 8 hours to the boss to work. He refused to join his Union in England because they refused to make an 8 hour working day a priority.
Once in New Zealand, Parnell refused to work for anyone who wouldn’t accept his 8 hour working rule and actively went and met new workers coming off the ships arriving in NZ to tell them of the 8 hour working culture he was trying to create.
The bosses tried to resist and tried to force workers to work later, but it became standard working hours in NZ after workers began simply walking off the job if a boss tried to force longer hours.
Fast forward to the NZ working environment of today and we see that Parnell would weep at how workers have been beaten into neo-feudalism. Many workers are over worked and many others are under worked. Many have a precarious working arrangement and have zero job security while health and safety in this country remains one of the worst in the developed would.
Worker deaths are made the workers fault.
Th pandemic has made this all worse.
The Right wings war on Unions in NZ have successfully crushed most into irrelevance and this has happened while worker rights and safety has gone backwards.
When we ‘celebrated’ Labour Day weekend today, there really wasn’t a hell of a lot to praise, and the same can be said of the modern Union movement.
It’s been 5 years since Helen Kelly died & the CTU still looks rudderless.
Helen would aways say to me, “tell their stories”.
Helen was convinced that if the rest of NZ could see the stories of workers and the terrible work conditions they were forced to endure, then NZers innate goodness would generate empathy and demand change.
Helen fought her entire life for the workers of this country, it was immensely angering that she couldn’t get the cannabis medicine she needed in her final months.
5 years since Helen Kelly died and her passing still hangs like a giant black hole over the entire Union movement.
The Wellington Union Conclave today are more focused on woke policing of language and Identity Politics dogma than class struggle. With PSA domination, middle class virtue signalling trumps Revolution every day of the week.
Chris Trotter highlights the CTUs impotence….
WHERE HAVE THE UNIONS BEEN during the Covid-19 Pandemic? That the question can even be posed suggests that something is very wrong with the New Zealand labour movement. After all, the answer should be all around us.
At its high-point, under the late, and sorely missed, Helen Kelly, the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (CTU) liked to present itself as the largest democratic organisation in New Zealand. With upwards of 300,000 affiliated members, that claim was no idle boast. As Kelly proved, the CTU has always possessed the potential to do an enormous amount of good.
So, where has it been? Why hasn’t its current president, Richard Wagstaff, become a household name during the pandemic? Up there with Ashley Bloomfield, Michael Baker, Shaun Hendy and Siouxsie Wiles? Where was the tireless advocacy for essential workers: the people who stood at the check-out counters, drove the trucks and operated the warehouses? When supermarket workers came under attack from the stupid and the selfish, why were they defended with more passion by their bosses, than by the CTU?
…Helen Kelly wouldn’t have put up with the glib asthetics of wokedom, there was too much work to be done at the coal front than arguing over pronoun use.
Luckily for the insipid Union movement, the ghost of Helen returns with the Fair Pay Agreement which she wrote and went far further in building worker power via universal Union membership than anything the CTU was offering.
Helen Kelly is still saving the Union movement!
A post growth capitalism in a climate crisis world requires new thinking that the Unions should be leading instead of their tedious promotion of pro noun use.
Universal Basic Income, 4 day working weeks, not for profit community wrap around service employment, Financial Transaction tax to shift tax burden from workers to Corporations and universal Union membership are necessities to cope with the magnitude of change coming.
Come on Union movement, Helen’s Ghost can’t do all the heavy lifting.
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Dr Liz Gordon: Leadership on the wrong side of history
The government has laid out its plan. It has spoken. The effort over the next month goes into each DHB (I thought they were being abolished, but obviously not yet) getting 90% of people over 12 in its area vaccinated.
Once this is achieved, there is a possibility (infection rates and strain on hospitals allowing) that the country (in three regions) might go to green light status. Go, go, go to once more opening up our society – and living with Covid 19 in our midst. And there’s the rub.
Those who do not get their vaccinations (and, presumably, in the future keep them up to date) will not be able to participate fully in civil society. It is likely they will be excluded from public events. It will be harder for them to send their children to school, eat out and go to church.
As I noted last week, they are likely to catch the disease quite frequently and will get sicker than the vaccinated and some will die. If we manage 90%, then 400,000 over-12s are in this risky category. For a less slippery disease, where vaccination stops people catching and spreading it, those people would be protected by herd immunity. Unfortunately, Covid-19 vaccines do not completely prevent infection and transmission. They may never do so.
It has been very disappointing to see some leaders, by their words and actions, supporting vaccine refusal. The Thames Mayor, Sandra Goudie, who spent nine years in Parliament but is known primarily for her intransigence (according to reporting), is one such.
The latest ‘intellectual’ position, taken by Sandra Goudie and others, is that the RNA-based vaccines are bad, and that treatments for the disease are improving greatly, so we do not need (this) vaccine. I received an (out of the blue) email from Alwyn Poole, he of NZ Charter School fame. As far as I know, his email to me was not personal or privileged, so I feel happy repeating part of it here.
Last Monday I handed in my Teacher Registration. There are genuine health concerns with mRNA vaccines and they are growing and being expressed by very high quality academics.
And that little gem of a statement goes to the heart of it. Mr Poole handed in his teacher registration because he believes in and spreads disinformation that the virus is unsafe. Sandra Goudie said the same thing – she might consider getting the Novavax vaccine but not the Pfizer.
I agree with these people that the vaccine is not as effective as one would like to see. But if it is raining hard, a smaller umbrella is definitely better than none at all.
Also, there is something strange about all this. Billions of doses of the Pfizer vaccine have now been administered all around the world. If there were longer term effects, we would know by now. You can’t say that mRNA-based vaccines are unsafe in themselves (the notion is that they might alter the DNA somehow) because it’s just not true. DNA is the blueprint, RNA the operating system. Not the other way around.
I have also begun to get the feeling that people’s opposition to the vaccine precedes, in most instances, their attempts to explain that opposition. They look for reasons to support their position. Whether the reason is religion (God isn’t vaccinated so that is good enough for me, as someone said in response to one of Mr Poole’s own blogs) or some other ideology.
Mr Poole also raises the question of personal freedom being of concern. People do not have to get the vaccine if they don’t want to, but they will undoubtedly pay the price for it. I would not overplay this hand. The loss of personal freedom is a relatively small one, but the gains in complying are great. It is of the nature of obeying the road rules because they are good for us all, not of sending people to death camps.
Put it another way. The price of not being vaccinated is an annual or more frequent dose of the virus, possibility hospitalisation, ventilation and death, and infecting others on a regular basis. Really, honestly, why would you go through that when you could join the rest of us? Do you want to be one of those people, so common in the media, that blats out their epitaph in their last few breaths: “I wish now I had got the vaccine”?
I expect teachers to take leadership roles in this. Teachers are (or at least used to be) trained to think, research and analyse data. If they have concerns about getting the virus, they need to do a serious exercise of adducing the data and understanding it. If they do that, they – I guarantee – will come out in favour of the notion that vaccination of everyone that can be vaccinated – more than 99% of the over-12s – is the best option for Aotearoa and the world.
As for Mr Poole, Ms Goudie, Mr Tamaki, Mr Te Kahika and all the other ‘leaders’ who remain intransigently opposed to vaccination, you might be delighted that your opposition is expanding your fame. But you must know that you are on the wrong side of history here. You should all know better.
Dr Liz Gordon is a researcher and a barrister, with interests in destroying neo-liberalism in all its forms and moving towards a socially just society. She usually blogs on justice, social welfare and education topics.
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Political Caption Competition
We are the Wellington Technocrats. You are puny MP, I will eat your brains puny MP!
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The Daily Blog Open Mic – Monday – 25th October 2021
Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.
Moderation rules are more lenient for this section, but try and play nicely.
EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist language, homophobic language, racist language, anti-muslim hate, transphobic language, Chemtrails, 9/11 truthers, Qanon lunacy, climate deniers, anti-fluoride fanatics, anti-vaxxer lunatics, 5G conspiracy theories, the virus is a bioweapon, some weird bullshit about the UN taking over the world and ANYONE that links to fucking infowar.
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MEDIAWATCH: NZ Herald review of the cancellation of Dave Chappelle
Karl Puschmann: Dave Chappelle’s new comedy special The Closer proves he just doesn’t get it
Dave Chappelle’s new comedy special The Closer proves he just doesn’t get it. Which is frustrating because his thinking and his message are usually so on point.
Chappelle is a comedian who can articulate societal issues in a way that’s both profound and profoundly funny. He takes risks with his comedy, provokes and trolls in a way that, at his best, sees you gasping for air while imparting topical wisdom to ruminate on long after he’s dropped the mic and the credits have rolled.
Chappelle doesn’t write comedy just to make you laugh. He crafts his jokes to make you think about the world and society you live in.
Although not without controversy, his run of comedy specials that began in 2017 have been a masterclass in comedy by a comedian who has a stronger claim that most to the title of the GOAT, or Greatest of All Time.
But even the great boxing legend Muhammad Ali took the odd loss. And Chappelle’s final special in his eye-wateringly lucrative deal with Netflix really is a self-inflicted KO.
Dave Chappelle is on the receiving end of a woke cancellation in another feral and eye rolling excercise of censoring art from one of the great comedic social commentators of our generation.
The woke need to ostracise Chappelle because he ridiculed Identity Politics dogma and nothing implodes moral self-righteousness quicker than ridicule.
2020 has been a terrible year for the Left by exposing our aggressive desire to censor or erase any opinion we feel triggered by. NZ celebrated pre-censoring a movie none of us saw because it made Paddy Gower feel guilty while the activist base brag about who they will nark on once hate speech laws are passed.
Dave’s crime is holding the woke to their own snarling standards but in a far more clever and funny manner.
As an artist he has every right to direct his craft where he wants, that’s the power of comedy, but he makes an argument about the feral aggressiveness of the Trans debate that critics refuse to acknowledge.
The irony of the Left attempting to deplatform a black comedian who has spent a career attacking white power structures is beyond the woke.
Dave Chappelle is an artist, he is intelligently insightful and prepared to challenge all power structures, including the current woke schism.
That Netflix staff themselves protested is akin to librarians helping book burners.
Look at the language of catastrophe that justifies cancelling Chappelle’s thought crimes…
“Trans people are in the middle of a holocaust,” Soloway reportedly said during the walkout on Wednesday. “Apartheid, murder, a state of emergency, human rights crisis, there’s a mental health crisis. There’s a suicide crisis, a bullying crisis, an anxiety, depression, self-hatred state of emergency crisis.”
…doesn’t sound emotionally manipulative or hyperbolic at all.
As for the banal NZ Herald review. It’s tepid virtue signal of Chappelle’s stand up reads like a review to pacify woke snowflakes easily triggered by comedy that challenges them.
It’s a watered down cowardice masquerading as a critique, thankfully any opinion this bland and middle of the road gets run over.
And reversed over.
And run over again.
The ease with which the Herald weakly sacrifices artistic freedom for the cultural Revolution cancel crew is like Bishop Brian Tamaki converting to Islam – why would the old fuddy duddy Herald champion woke crusades against Art?
Is it just their love of censoring anything they don’t understand?
Or they just don’t like black comedians?
Chappelle’s art being reviewed by the Herald is like North Shore Influencers running ICU beds in that the idea is as fucking stupid as it sounds.
You may as well get The Edge Breakfast Morning Crew to interview Banksy, Chomsky and Marx all at once on the existential crisis of capitalism between fart jokes and anti fat shaming campaigns.
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