tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post8253829838307337017..comments2024-03-29T17:12:19.648+13:00Comments on Bowalley Road: 0-800-STASIChris Trotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09081613281183460899noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-4115071803746948922022-11-16T15:43:13.637+13:002022-11-16T15:43:13.637+13:00"In his book, The Demon in Democracy, Legutko..."In his book, The Demon in Democracy, Legutko explores the shared objectives between two political systems, the Soviet and Liberal Democracies, and explains how liberal democracy has over time lurched towards the same goals as communism, albeit without Soviet style brutality."<br /><br />Did they also explain how liberal democracy has at times lurched over into Fascism and continues to do so today? Without Nazi style brutality – yet.<br /><br />Funny how you seem to be able to ignore the danger of modern fascist states and yet seem to fear a mythical future of a communist New Zealand Brendan. Perhaps you approve of it? They certainly seem to use religion as one of their props. Soviet communism is dead Brendan – I wish I could say the same for fascism.<br />Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-90300321953449932812022-11-11T11:50:32.651+13:002022-11-11T11:50:32.651+13:00Liberal democracies only remain so when our ruling...Liberal democracies only remain so when our ruling elites embrace a generous attitude towards their detractors. Once that disappears we end up with State funded propaganda in our media designed to discredit, marginalise and ‘other’ their opponents. Think “Fire and Fury” and the more recent “Web of Chaos”. <br /><br />This is followed by actual marginalisation, think of the two societies our PM was delighted to create in an attempt to coerce an otherwise free people into taking a medical procedure they preferred to avoid. The fall out from that decision continues, and will likely be one of the reasons Robinson suggested Labour MP's may not be able to ‘walk about’ freely in the lead up to the election next year.<br /><br />In his book, The Demon in Democracy, Legutko explores the shared objectives between two political systems, the Soviet and Liberal Democracies, and explains how liberal democracy has over time lurched towards the same goals as communism, albeit without Soviet style brutality. (yet)<br /><br />https://www.bookdepository.com/Demon-Democracy-Ryszard-Legutko/9781594039911?ref=grid-view&qid=1668119531357&sr=1-1<br /><br />Aside from the ideology driving our present slide into totalitarianism, when people cease to be self-governing the State is forced to increase surveillance and policing to maintain civil order. Liberal Democracies were built on the foundation of a prevailing Judeo / Christian worldview. They cannot be sustained in its absence.Brendan McNeillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02741263914308842497noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-61974708742303481132022-11-11T06:12:07.268+13:002022-11-11T06:12:07.268+13:00"It is unprecedented to have activists recrui..."It is unprecedented to have activists recruited and trained by a foreign-funded organisation in the way they have been over the past decade."<br /><br />No it isn't – people have been going to the US for political training for years. Usually admittedly in order to subvert democracies in their own countries, in favour of right-wing dictatorships but even so. This is complete Bullshit. Take off the tinfoil hat – it's not as if there is any secrecy about it it's all up there on the Internet.<br />Perhaps you'd like to explain how they are a danger to democracy?Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-79071458562657493982022-11-10T11:21:06.901+13:002022-11-10T11:21:06.901+13:00Nice demonstration of whataboutism, Guerilla Surge...Nice demonstration of whataboutism, Guerilla Surgeon!<br /><br />Many New Zealand activists have been sent to train in Australia with an offshoot of John Podesta's Center For American Progress, for about 10 years, now. Some of those activists have received grants to work with MoveOn and related organisations and political PACs in the USA. Quite a few. Many of the activist talking heads in the media.<br /><br />https://www.australianprogress.org.au/alumni<br /><br />It is unprecedented to have activists recruited and trained by a foreign-funded organisation in the way they have been over the past decade. This is liberal imperialism, and you will find if you do your research that these organisations are sponsored by banks and tech companies advancing a mid to long-term business and investment agenda, as well.<br /><br />Kyle Reesenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-48861969756989468302022-11-09T15:35:37.280+13:002022-11-09T15:35:37.280+13:00"Why have left wing activists, recruited at u..."Why have left wing activists, recruited at university, been wined and dined in Washington for the past decade? Why are "left wing" pressure groups now bankrolled by the funder of the 2014 Maiden Coup, Pierre Omidyar, and funds like NEO Philanthropy, rather than by union dues?"<br /><br />1.I don't know about the left-wing activists, and given that you haven't mentioned any names or given us any context, either you think we are mind readers or you don't either.<br /><br />2.All around the world the right is censoring books, making it more difficult to vote, putting journalists in jail or murdering them. So tell me again how it's the left that is the danger to democracy.<br /> <br />https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/#<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/sep/19/us-school-book-censorship-bans-pen-america<br /><br />https://cpj.org/data/people/jamal-khashoggi/<br /><br />https://www.rferl.org/a/jailed-journalists-belarus-cpj-census/31600849.html<br /><br />https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/block-the-vote-voter-suppression-in-2020<br /><br />https://www.brennancenter.org/about/mission-impactGuerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-28635560334878687272022-11-08T13:15:37.274+13:002022-11-08T13:15:37.274+13:00The difficult thing for people to get their heads ...The difficult thing for people to get their heads around is that it is the liberal West that is taking a totalitarian turn. It's not Russian influence, or Christian conservative.<br /><br />(In fact, as an aside, the West is doing exactly what the anti-fascist - "fascist" if you read the Western press - Eastern chauvinist philosopher Alexander Dugin said it would do.<br /><br />According to Dugin, liberalism is another branch of Western modernity along with Communism and Fascism and taking a totalitarian turn was as inevitable for liberalism as it was for socialism and conservative nationalism.)<br /><br />Many of the prime movers and shakers in this turn have been presented as far left radicals in the media, and were recruited from a pool of existing protesters. But who were they recruited by, exactly? No one in the media has followed that trial back like some outside it have: from organisations claiming to be grassroots in New Zealand to the heart of the US establishment, via their funding - to the US national security state; which, like Colonial Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, seems to have got completely insane up in a river encampment of its own making.<br /><br />Perhaps it all sounded too much for sleepy old New Zealand to those who were prompted or to those who, after a few wines, made it out themselves, shook their heads, and said to themselves: it can't be.<br /><br />How many journalists did make it out for themselves? How many asked the right questions: Who or what is ActionStation? The Workshop? What has been the role of organisations like the Online Progressive Engagement Network? Why have left wing activists, recruited at university, been wined and dined in Washington for the past decade? Why are "left wing" pressure groups now bankrolled by the funder of the 2014 Maiden Coup, Pierre Omidyar, and funds like NEO Philanthropy, rather than by union dues? On that, to what extent have the unions been captured? what has been the role of the rather shady unions like First Union and associated groups like Socialist Aotearoa?<br /><br />There has been zero reporting on these important matters, and now we find the characteristics of a totalitarian national security state, like extreme surveillance and censorship, being applied in the name of traditional left wing values. But not one single journalist has gone looking for the wizard or wizards behind the curtain, accepting every stage device and claim made about them uncritically.<br /><br />Instead, we have had every fart by Peter Thiel reported on by Matt Nippert. A small consolation for those of us aware of the much bigger story. A story that has been in the weeds, or the comments section.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the equivalents of Smith's Dream's Smith has already felt the jackboot of the state. And I'm not taking about the far right rabble rousers, who also have next to no idea about what is really going on.<br /><br />Kyle Reesenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-43546737054080093832022-11-07T12:52:37.263+13:002022-11-07T12:52:37.263+13:00Archduke I don't go with total freedom of spe...Archduke I don't go with total freedom of speech. I don't go with anything being said to be 100% right. The whole point about having grown up in an intelligent species aware of a range of possibilities in just about everything, is that judgment is called for, balance is called for, in achieving a satisfactory life bordering on happy. So keep your bold assertions and choke on them, because we keep coming back to 20th century thinking as being the 'be all and end all' now, when if it had been right then we wouldn't be in the fix we are in now <br /><br />I remember Voltaire and his bold assertion about the right to free speech, which apparently was,<i>I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.</i>His own name was François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778). But Quote Investigator finds it was said by someone else (S.G. Tallentyre, the pseudonym of historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall in 1906)in a particular context. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/01/defend-say/<br /><br />Arouet did apply himself to bringing more freedom and tolerance in France, against the horrible religious schism that had washed over France, and the wrongs done to Huguenots. http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/about-voltaire/<br />This was a major success in his efforts for a better philosophical structure enabling freedom of speech and choice of religion in society. What turbulent and brutally draconian times.<br /><br /><i>The Calas affair was a defining moment in this crusade for tolerance. The Huguenot Jean Calas was tortured and broken on the wheel in 1762 after being found guilty, on the basis of dubious evidence, of murdering his son. Voltaire successfully led a determined campaign to clear Calas’s name, writing many letters and publishing a number of works, including Traité sur la tolérance (1763). Other campaigns followed – a successful one to obtain the rehabilitation of another Huguenot family, the Sirvens, accused of having murdered a daughter recently converted to Catholicism, and an unsuccessful one to achieve a pardon for a nineteen-year-old man, La Barre, condemned to be burned at the stake for having committed certain trivial acts of sacrilege (and for having in his possession a copy of Voltaire’s Dictionnaire philosophique). These struggles brought Voltaire to even greater public prominence, and it in no way diminishes his undoubted determination and courage to say that he obviously relished his new role: in a letter of 1766, he wrote to a friend ‘Oh how I love this philosophy of action and goodwill’.</i><br /><br />Could our new repressive measures take us towards these 1700's behaviours? The human mind can justify anything, given a chance and a following wind. Voltaire's supposed words are often quoted to erect a banner of freedom. But bold words do not solve the problems arising every day, attention to concerns raised; managing to utilise the excess energies of the proponents could deflect their obsession and reroute it to bring about the improvements they wish. Anger is energy, we need to learn to use it. Hah I have it. For a start seat them on a bicycle contraption for a few hours pedalling and driving electricity into the local grid. What a good solution; a virtuous circle, not the usual vicious one.<br />greywarblernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-68993708199919368562022-11-07T04:11:05.459+13:002022-11-07T04:11:05.459+13:00A pity that the public couldn't view the count...A pity that the public couldn't view the counter terrorism hui, so many gems at the last one.<br />Instead we get a MSM sanitised version from journalists who would have been quite at home with Kate Hanna and cried along with Tracy Macintosh, or the Ngai tahu Lindsay (?) "settler terror state".<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-86574300837718796312022-11-04T15:47:11.472+13:002022-11-04T15:47:11.472+13:00Oh dear, this is when satire sniffs reality.Oh dear, this is when satire sniffs reality.Gary Petersnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-295842982233344832022-11-04T15:37:15.944+13:002022-11-04T15:37:15.944+13:00Presumably this article has been written in respon...Presumably this article has been written in response to the recently released “Web of Chaos” and what is set to be the anti-counter-terrorism hui that Ardern spoke at. Members of the Disinformation Project were attendant at both.<br /><br /> was very interested to note who Sanjana Hattotuwa of the Disinformation Project has been funded by for the past decade.<br /><br />Mr Hattotuwa’s source of income has hired to come via his online magazine. Groundviews has largely been funded by grants from the US State Department and associated groups, including the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a well-known and openly<br />acknowledged front at this point for CIA funding.<br /><br />https://groundviews.org/about/<br /><br />I would also note that units with the same<br />name have seemingly been set up in the USA, UK, and Canada, with input from former and apparently present military intelligence professionals.Kyle Reesenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-48677266143432151532022-11-04T15:00:14.711+13:002022-11-04T15:00:14.711+13:00But Guerilla surgeon, that is exactly what the NZS...But Guerilla surgeon, that is exactly what the NZSIS has just published. A handbook on how to identify extremists, terroristsboudiccahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16305676662683376805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-82850013890034853602022-11-04T14:04:27.065+13:002022-11-04T14:04:27.065+13:00I find it illustrative that now the SIS have – adm...I find it illustrative that now the SIS have – admittedly under pressure – decided to at least admit the existence of danger from the extreme right, conservatives have similarly all of a sudden noticed the existence of the "surveillance state". Anyone who reads widely enough about New Zealand history should be able to name at least half a dozen people whose lives were ruined or whose careers were quietly shelved by the establishment because of the SIS. The Americans have an acronym IOKIYAR – it's okay if you're a Republican. Illustrates the general hypocrisy of the regressive right.Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-3506076761874622842022-11-04T13:30:28.876+13:002022-11-04T13:30:28.876+13:00
Chris
It is true that Dieter would be best posit...<br />Chris<br /><br />It is true that Dieter would be best positioned to tell New Zealanders exactly were we stand on the road to totalitarianism. Typically those who have lived in totalitarian societies in the past are first to see the warning signs in their land of exile.<br /><br />It begins with propaganda and ends with the Stasi. <br /> <br />We are being deeply immersed in the propaganda phase while it appears the Stasi infrastructure is being quickly put in place. This could not have happened in New Zealand, but in Aotearoa it appears anything is possible.Brendan McNeillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02741263914308842497noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-55678611280976761032022-11-04T08:16:08.978+13:002022-11-04T08:16:08.978+13:00Okay, this is getting beyond a joke now. The delu...Okay, this is getting beyond a joke now. The delusional obsession with "extremists" hints at psychosis. "Jacinda - Just Go!"Odysseushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04745489060434244478noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-81882297232119030682022-11-04T07:55:45.545+13:002022-11-04T07:55:45.545+13:00Are we once more entering the age of the nark, the...Are we once more entering the age of the nark, the informer, stool pigeon and the neighbourhood judas? The Thought Police, though not yet a fully constituted body, looks set to become so soon. When people talk of 'hate speech' - meaning, of course, undefined, you find the appellation attaching to fair criticism as much as racism, bigotry and intolerance of 'the other'. <br /><br />I still recall the BCNZ audience participatory programme '1984', fronted by Sharon Crosbie, that was a discussion of how far we had gone down the track to Orwell's dystopia. The thing was broadcast, as you'd expect, in 1984.<br /><br />Late in the show, a proposition was put forward to the audience on the matter of 'free speech'. I don't recall the exact wording, but the proposition went like this "Freedom of speech is essential so long as it does not give offence to anyone." The audience by large went along with this.<br /><br />I'll never forget the startled look - almost of horror - that flashed across Ms Crosbie's face when that audience response was read out. I WISH that that footage - even just that bit of the show - were available on YouTube or some similar platform.<br /><br />Speech as action is one thing. Speech as opinion is something else altogether, and, however offensive to you, me, he, her, them or those, is not for anyone to curtail.<br /><br />Cheers,<br />Ion A. DowmanArchduke Piccolohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15533325665451889661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-88705509500824210102022-11-04T07:22:02.829+13:002022-11-04T07:22:02.829+13:00"she’s been persuaded that we, and all the ot..."she’s been persuaded that we, and all the other national security agencies, are either incompetent, or racist, or both"<br /><br />Hahahahahaha ... The history of the service suggests this is true – spot on Chris.<br /><br />I don't think NZ is quite ready for a handbook on how to tell if your neighbour is a violent extremist quite yet, and if we do get to that stage we could probably borrow one from the US where they tend to elect them.Guerilla Surgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03427876447124021423noreply@blogger.com