We are the frogs in the pot.We’re being incrementally desensitized via one small cruelty after the next.This is how countries slide from decency into committing wholesale atrocities against minorities.This is what the period before a genocide looks like.
– The Hoarse Whisperer on twitter.
250 characters summing up such a terrible state of a nation, THW is referring to ICE’s raids on immigrant workers in Mississippi this week.
People have been writing and commenting about rising fascism in the US for a long time, and in particular since the build up to the last US election. Yet it still seems hard to have this conversation. Fascism is a big word with a heavy and complex history, and I agree with the analysis that it shouldn’t be over-used.
But the risk here is that the very nature of rising fascism involves denial and propaganda that prevent the frogs in the pot from realising what is going on. It’s past time we yelled ‘fascism is here!’ into the pot.
We have pressures in our own society that are proto-fascist. Anti-immigration rhetoric and rising Islamophobia, racism, Dirty Politics, the centre-left afraid to do anything meaningful about the class prejudice against beneficiaries, the tenor of talkback radio and social media. Much of it emboldened by the Trump era.
The liberal frog in me says that these pressures are still small, fascism could never happen in New Zealand, we have a chance to turn things around with the centre-left government, the Mosque shootings were a one off, she’ll be right. And it’s true that we are still a much more tolerant country than the US.
But rising fascism in New Zealand wouldn’t look like the US, and we had nine long years of the Key government and the Dirty Politics crew socially engineering society to accept all sorts of things that are agin a society that actively rejects fascism. Sometimes the pot of water slowly coming to a boil is camouflaged by a smile and a wave.
This happened in the United States this week:
https://twitter.com/AlexLoveWJTV/status/1159264049105973248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Where the news coverage is reporting the raids as the atrocity that everyone can see it is, it is also telling people how they can help: by donating to the man organising food and shelter for the night for the kids whose parents were just stolen by the state. Which is right, but holy hell, the response to the government stealing people is to feed their kids for a night?
How about: IF YOU WANT TO HELP YOU HAVE TO TAKE TO THE STREET! NOW! General strike, rolling strikes, occupations, whatever will mobilise the people and grind the economy to a halt. Use the tactics and strategies of all the movements that have been honing their skills for the past decade: Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, Extinction Rebellion, The Arab Spring. Do the other things: vote, lobby, organise marches, build community, but these alone are insufficient.
It’s ok though, because ICE temporarily released some of the arrested immigrants. It’s not so bad. See how we all adjust? The pot of water’s just that bit warmer now, but not so hot as to make the frogs jump.
In 2009 r0b wrote a post about the five steps of fascism: The F Word, based on a three part essay series by US writer Sara Robinson about the rise of fascism in the US. The first essay is worth reading to see how far they have come.
Thinking it can’t happen here? R0b links to a short post by Irish Bill in early 2009 about the insanity of the 2008 NZ General Election and what the right were up to: Now with a little perspective.
As Robinson said in 2009 about the US situation,
Our choice now is stark: knock them back while they’re still new, small and not yet entrenched; or deal with them later, when they’ve got some real power to fight back with, and the cost to all of us will be so much higher.
We can’t say we weren’t warned.
If that’s a bit too bleak (and it is), Robinson’s follow up was 7 Ways We Can Fight Back Against the Rising Fascist Threat. We should be translating that into the NZ political context.
Post script: to cheer myself up I read this piece at RNZ about the NZ train conductor who literally stopped a Wellington train on Thursday and had an abusively racist passenger removed. See also Lynn’s post yesterday about how Whale Oil was finally taken down. Sometimes we really get it right.
Horrific.
I don't know about fascism – I think the terminology has been usurped. Where I work we have lots of diagnosis and terms for people – we look at the behaviours and deal with them. The behaviours – the inhumanity, the cruelty, the pretend ignorance – I agree we become desensitised to cruelty – that has been one of my themes for vegetarianism – to move away from the utter cruelty of the current industrial farming area.
My solution is simple – we fight it. We fight it directly and indirectly. We don't allow space for their erosion of our values via micro-meanings for words, or lets hear the other side, or hey they have a right to a view, or they had a hard life. We concentrate on the victims of fascism – the poor, the vulnerable and we stand with them.
We help the victims, the poor, the vulnerable and look after their kids for a night… and then we find a way to give them better conditions that will help them get on their feet, and then we are there for them to call on as help when they start off to make their own way. And we encourage them to turn round and give a hand to others in turn.
Do we do this by becoming authoritarian and rigid, black is black and white is white. Do we adopt PC terms with the first rule that using the words black and white are to be constantly contested. Is this the way we behave? Forgetting that a little bit of us is in every event and sentence that everyone says?
What we should do is to think about ourselves first and then society and assist a better way, and encourage people who are trying to get a better society but not by being dogmatic in their beliefs – the Ring to Rule Them All as in Oranga Tamariki and Dept of reducing social welfare for instance.
Jobs with decent hours, standards and wages and a place to live would be a great help and forget the employment figures used by the Stats to fudge the real situation on the hard ground.
History, huh.
– Anne Frank.
https://twitter.com/DanKaszeta/status/1159362885610549248
Undocumented migrants will have tax and social security deducted ftom their payroll and paid to the Federal government via fictional SSNs
Nobody will file a return asking for refunds
Ask Trump how and when the US Treasury is going to refund the money defrauded from workers for social security benefits they can never collect
The US government trousers the money
Trump understands this scam. His businesses likely did it.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1159362885610549248.html?
That Anne Frank quote is giving me chills.
The raids this week look to me like staging. Maximum disruption without freaking out the general populatin too much. They won't be going after employers, but they're ok if some businesses or local economies fail. I didn't keep it but yesterday I came across a quote of Trump's from early on (maybe pre-election), about how he sees economic collapse and chaos as a means to rebuilding America as the great nation it once was (white and feudal I guess). That they plan to make shitloads of money along the way seems a given.
Expect lots more in the run up to the election. Clearly the ice raids are the demonising equivalent of our nat bennie bashing.
Whole industries profit from illegal workers, but the employers are the last ones targeted by the US government.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-nationwide-crisis-hiding-in-plain-sight/
It's all smoke and mirrors whereby capital exploits and the white race nation votes GOP because of their hardline on strong borders and deporting illegals.
It's a bit like the war on drugs and various parts of the Deep State taking profits.
Some employers will never be targeted.
https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold/status/1159832520071901187
https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold/status/1159861553887350785
‘
If you are good enough to work here you are good enough to stay here. That is, unless you ask for workers rights.
It is a way of keeping a workforce without any legal rights that can be exploited and abused mercilessly. The slightest show of resistance results in deportation.
<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/9/mississippi_ice_raids_poultry_plant_arrests?utm_source=Democracy+Now%21&utm_campaign=2ab76601fa-Daily_Digest_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-2ab76601fa-192291029" rel="nofollow">https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/9/mississippi_ice_raids_poultry_plant_arrests?utm_source=Democracy+Now%21&utm_campaign=2ab76601fa-Daily_Digest_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-2ab76601fa-192291029</a>
This is how immigration controls are applied all around the world, including in this country.
In my opinion if people are good enough to work here then they are good enough to stay here. Full Stop!
Miniluv or Minitrue?
The White House is contemplating issuing an executive order that would widen its attack on the operations of social media companies.
The White House has prepared an executive order called “Protecting Americans from Online Censorship” that would give the Federal Communications Commission oversight of how Facebook, Twitter and other tech companies monitor and manage their social networks, according to a CNN report.
Under the order, which has not yet been announced and could be revised, the FCC would be tasked with developing new regulations that would determine when and how social media companies filter posts, videos or articles on their platforms.
The draft order also calls for the Federal Trade Commission to take those new policies into account when investigating or filing lawsuits against technology companies, according to the CNN report.
Social media censorship has been a perennial talking point for President Donald Trump and his administration. In May, the White House set up a tip line for people to provide evidence of social media censorship and a systemic bias against conservative media.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/09/reports-say-white-house-has-drafted-an-order-putting-the-fcc-in-charge-of-monitoring-social-media/
Good people being picked out of society because their nose is wrongly shaped etc etc Their religion or something else is not accepted. They don't look right, they just don't fit, with a stroke of the pen they can be banished. This is Hitler's group early on in the 1930's upping their determination and rhetoric (then aggression), and then the authorities caved in to his rhetoric and made him Chancellor. Similar to Britain today? Coming to Kiwis in Oz tomorrow? The climate for Oz to invade NZ has been created for the acceptance of Oz citizens. Disturbing stories about perceptions of ordinary Oz citizens about Kiwis continue to arise. The pattern is there in front of our eyes.
The fascist state
The state determining who is a good media oligarch and who is not. Check.
"The cruelty is the point." The conscious deliberate evil is an electoral strategy to keep the deplorables ever more firmly onside.
https://www.salon.com/2019/08/09/the-truth-about-trumps-ice-raids-botched-mississippi-operation-was-good-optics/
Tick off all the points of similarity:
Mocking the disabled. Check
Lying press. Check
Inciting speeches interrupted by chants, to kill the targets of his speech. Check
Pulling out of international agreements. Check.
Suggesting that politicians from other parties were hopelessly corrupt and should be locked up. Check
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-ways-to-destroy-democracy/
The big question for us, is will our country go along with this?
Will we bend to US pressure to supply cannon fodder to the next aggressive war of choice, as we have done for all past US military adventures?
A lot of Trump's success stems from an opposition unprepared for his demagogic excesses. It's not been an easy thing to oppose historically, and violent resistance embeds the conflict even if, as very rarely happens, it succeeds.
What's needed is a quiet dedication to the restoration of the rule of law. Documenting as well as protesting Trump's ICE gulags, and especially those responsible and collaborating. Securing commitment from aspiring political representatives to go after the human rights abusers and take class actions against the for-profit imprisonment companies.
The soft treatment of serial systematic law breakers like Semenoff shows we had the same problems developing here under the feckless administration of the Key Kleptocracy, and there is still much wrongdoing from that era to wind up.
Can I draw readers' attention to the 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis: It Can't Happen Here.
In it he mirrors the rise of fascism in Germany with an own-grown fascist in 'the land of the free' United States.
Would it be too far to suggest that another two or three terms of 'Key' type National Government, with Key's disregard for the truth, with dirty politics the norm, with demonising of various groups in society etc and – oh la la, we would be heading down the same right-wing path.
Trump's approval rating has been on a gradual climb trajectory since the low a couple of years back, check out the graph for that & see him marginally ahead of Obama – and how they've been on a par with each other since late 2017.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/prez_track_aug09
So it's a divided country scenario, as one would expect in a nation conditioned by binary thinking. Zoroaster has a lot to answer for.
Rasmussen is widely considered biased to the right in their polling.
Fivethirtyeight's polling average gives you a lot more stuff to look at, more presidents to compare against, approval, disapproval and net approval charts etc. 538 have Il Douche at 41.4% approval/53.2% disapproval a year after taking office, and neither of those has varied by much more than a percent either way since. Even the shutdown just barely blipped out of that range.
I interpret that as a few Repugs starting to disapprove of King Con when it looked like he couldn't even deliver on their core priority of tax cuts for the rich. When he finally signed that off in December 2017, they drifted back to him. Since then he's nominated enough reactionary judges that committed Repugs can choke down his offensiveness, and he's been sufficiently offensive to keep the middle finger voters locked on.
Just saw this on TYT about the ICE raids in the US.
Rotten to the core.
https://twitter.com/howroute/status/1159736425132285952
The Trump administration has known since at least April that alleged white supremacists were responsible for every single act of race-based domestic terrorism in the U.S. in 2018, yet not only took no action to combat the growing right wing violent extremism, but actually substantially reduced or even eliminated funding and programs that combat white supremacist extremism, violence, and terrorism – and then blocked the data from reaching the hands of Congress.
“Domestic Terrorism in 2018,” a document (embedded below) prepared by the State of New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security Preparedness, “shows 25 of the 46 individuals allegedly involved in 32 different domestic terrorism incidents were identified as white supremacists,” Yahoo News’ Jana Winter and Hunter Walker report.
That document finds there were “32 domestic terrorist attacks, disrupted plots, threats of violence, and weapons stockpiling by individuals with a radical political or social agenda who lack direction or influence from foreign terrorist organizations in 2018.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/revealed-doj-blocked-report-showing-white-supremacists-responsible-for-all-race-based-domestic-terrorism-incidents-in-2018/
And right on cue, an actual domestic terrorist.
https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/1159966920658976768
https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/1159970075861929984
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fbi-arrests-las-vegas-man-who-allegedly-wanted-shoot-jews-n1041031
Indefensible indeed. But so too is the attempt to brand this as simply "fascist". The coverage of China's oppression of minorities, particularly in regions on the periphery are as bad but simply receive less coverage in NZ.
Not sure what you are getting at.. We thought Germany a highly 'civilised' country, where the Weimar Republic might have endured without the effects of the Great Depression. It is of great concern to us that Germany could have turned so fascist, and we still agonise over the causes. The Anglo-Saxon dominance of the world (British empire + USA) has always prided itself (if hypocritically) on its democratic style of rule.
I don't China has ever done so: it has a tradition of being ruled by strong Emperors, or weak ones. Most were fairly despotic to our minds. When the empire was strong, countries like Tibet were subjugated provinces. When China was weak, Tibet etc were independent. Not a great deal has changed in that pattern.
When a country like USA looks to be at risk of becoming fascist, it is of far greater relevance and importance to us, and merits far more publicity.
Both left and right have been rejecting globalization in the form of the free movement of labour for years, and this is the natural conclusion.
Australia's borders are stronger now, as they are in Europe, the US, and in the UK, and most of Scandinavia, and Russia. And Japan, and most others in the OECD. And China.
The borders are up, so globalization of labour retreats to its own and slows, nations strengthen their identities and definitions, and it all helps to slow the entire global economy.
Hard Brexit is about to occur and seal more borders off.
Sure it's painful. Our ethics need to adjust to what most of the world is saying over successive elections again and again and again. They say this:
This is a border: You have no assumed right to enter: Stop.
The "free movement of labour" is only a good to employers who mean to depress wages and conditions. It is inconsistent with any party that pretends to be Left, though it is a neoliberal wet dream complete with the usual effects of reducing overall wealth and productivity.
Of course borders are in principle hard – the nation state is the unit of political accountability – large scale changes in the population produce undesirable effects for which voters must necessarily punish the scoundrels who enable them.
The free movement of labour has been utterly awesome for New Zealanders particularly to Australia We've had it good for a very very long time: sport, law, tourism, construction, mining, housing, etc etc.
Global borders are hardening in both principle and in the more important fact. The state is reasserting its power against such flows like it hasn't ever done before.
Stiglitz' Globalisation and its Discontents shows that such limitation is attractive to left and to right parties. In the last year on the left, only Denmark has figured out how to work with this.
New Zealand and others open their doors to poor countries to drag in cheap international labour at harvest times – but soon even that will decrease.
Corbyn believes in Brexit and hard borders – far harder than they have been for a century. He shares that with Trump, and with so many other leaders whether left or right.
UK Labor is just an example. The left will pretty much be eradicated if it doesn't agree to the same anti-immigration theme as Trump. Not as extreme, but same policy continuum.
And right there that what authoritarian shit fuckery looks like – well said Ad.
Right on the money.
Neo-liberlism and it's supporters have created an environment of fear, distrust, and ultimately hate.
In doing so, they not only killed the left, they have embed fascism as the saviour of capitalism.
Good luck surviving this shit fuckery folks.
I hope your white, male and armed.
Isn't Ad saying that we need hard borders to save the left?
The free movement of workers to Oz merely saved the neoliberals from the comeuppance that naturally attends wrecking the lives of a third of the population. Far be it from our erstwhile leaders to take the consequences of their brutal incompetence – consequences are clearly for other people.
Look past the rhetoric and you will see that although the likes of Trump et al talk a big game on immigration and present a hard man attitude to those being stopped/removed the numbers of migrant labour continues unabated….just as does the free movement of capital.
Smoke and mirrors
And yet in America the very people they are now herding up and shipping out (a large number of them who have been living in the country from childhood – the so called "dreamers") are the very ones they really need right now to work in the low skill jobs processing their food, working in their bars and hotels, caring for their golf courses (Trump infamously employs many) and working on construction sites and buildings.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/8/8/20791508/mississippi-ice-immigration-raids
I think the worst factor in this latest episode – and apparently Trump and his gang are planning more of these raids, is that the people who are being targeted are not recent arrivals. Many of these people have been in the US for years brought in by their parents as toddlers and young children. They have grown up in the US and had all their schooling there and are to all intents and purposes US citizens apart from the fact that they do no hold the requisite piece of paper that says they are. Their children are US citizens by right of birth, They may even have a spouse/partner who is a US citizen. No matter! They are alien and have no right to be there even though they are productive, law abiding, and needed. 🙄 So sick pricks like Trump and co. have no compunction about splitting up a family or leaving children homeless with nowhere to go. They are simply evil. And anyone who supports or "rationalises" such an evil policy is as much to blame and bears as much fault as Trump himself.
Last night I watched the movie "When Hands Touch" which graphically depicts many times the callousness of Germans in WW2 to their citizens who were different, including the separation of children from their parents. One scene in particular reminded me in particular of the atrocity in Mississippi.
The shock value of televised raids doesn't change a thing. Dead bodies floating by the bushel in the Mediterranean, and Italy turns them back.
The US should copy New Zealand's Seasonal Employment Scheme.
We already prop up many Pacific states with remittances.
The US already has the H-2A visa category for temporary or seasonal agricultural work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-2A_visa
Yes that is true Andre – but the allocation of available visas per year (75,000) is no where near enough to cover the work requirements. And nothing available for those in year long employment like food processing.
From the vox link above:
But workers coming in on some kind of legal visa will cost employers a lot more, and be nowhere near as compliant, exploitable, and easily dispensable as undocumented ones.
And that is very true! The Raid on the Koch Chicken Processing plants may have been in retaliation vis Talley's vindictiveness towards their own workers here.
eg ICE Raids Miss. Plant After $3.75 Million Sexual Harassment Settlement
http://paydayreport.com/ice-raids-miss-plant-after-3-5-million-sexual-harassment-settlement/?fbclid=IwAR187J6CJW33u1kOJCCXBIcpjObleGPRc-U6V-y8_u_sKJPh7nq4PQiB83Y
Here's some relevant historical context. Memorial Day army veterans parade, New York, 30 May 1927. “Around 8am, a group of Italian immigrants living in the Bronx set out for the elevated train on their way to Manhattan to join the parade… Like all his fellow Fascists intending to march that day, Joseph Carisi was wearing the blackshirt uniform, sporting leather boots, jodhpurs, a black cap, and carrying a steel-tipped riding crop. When he stopped to buy a newspaper, Carisi was jumped by two men, stabbed in the neck and left to die on the sidewalk.”
Another Fascist “was shot four times, once right through the heart. One of the two murdered men had served in the American army during the Great War, the other with the Italian army, papers reported’.
“The biggest outbreak of violence that Memorial Day, however, occurred in Queens… By 1927, the Ku Klux Klan had spread across the United States since its rebirth in Georgia twelve years earlier… The Klan had an active presence in New York City and Long Island in 1927, with favourite slogans, which they even attempted to copyright at various points. That year the Klan was `call[ing] attention to the fact that it first announced the program of 100% “Americanism” and of “America first”. They were not, in fact, the first to adopt these mottos, as this book will show: both phrases had been around for a decade or more.”
“But as far as the Klan… was concerned, `America first’ belonged to them, and on Memorial Day in Queens a thousand or so of them had gathered to march… accompanied by 400 women from the so-called `Klavana’ (the feminine branch of the Klan). Some of the reported 20,000 spectators in Queens that day objected to the Klan’s presence, as others defended their right to march; scuffles broke out and it turned into a riot”
“Within a week, New York had banned any public appearance by either `the white-robed Ku Klux Klan’ or `the black-shirted Fascisti’… The Klan, meanwhile, blamed the police for being Catholic… As far as the Second Klan was concerned, Catholics couldn’t be loyal Americans because their higher allegiance was to the Pope.”
“In the days after the riot, the New York Times revealed the names of the total of seven men who had been arrested in Queens. Five of them were identified as `avowed Klansmen’… A sixth was a mistake… The seventh, a 20-year old German-American was not identified in the press as a Klansman. The reports only stated that he was arrested, arraigned and discharged. No one knows why he was there, but it appears that he wouldn’t leave. His name was Fred Trump.”
Like father, like son? Conservatives do replicate, but Trump has to be judged on his track record rather than his ancestry. Watch carefully to see if jodhpurs are becoming a fashion trend amongst millennials, and if you notice them accompanied by a steel-tipped riding crop, ring the alarm bell. [Source: prologue of Behold America – A History of America First and the American Dream, S. Churchwell 2018]
And we should keep an eye out for phalanxes of goose-stepping cheerleaders brandishing golden pompoms at the 2020 4th July march past.
Trump's childhood years would be strong in forming his behaviour also his parents behaviour towards him. Here are some quotes from a link about this time.
http://www.lifedaily.com/story/42-little-known-facts-about-donald-trumps-childhood/
His family home was large and in a good neighbourhood. The family cars both Cadillacs were unusual for the neighbourhood.
Meanwhile in Aotearoa… it seems our very own Incel Horde has shapeshifted again, this time into 'Action Zealandia.'
https://action-zealandia.com/ideals/faq
Not for these wee petals the sting of rejection; women are excluded from membership.
So the no-girls-allowed club has day trips to the park and beach? Behold the superman.
Just as long as they don't have access to firearms.
Or tech to manipulate social media.
Who is the woman in the graphic? By the look of her face she knows exactly what is going on.
Queen Mary, being offered the crown about a hundred years before James Cook set sail.
I'm sure it has some relevance in the minds of insecure little incels who think going to the gym makes them better people.
what is she so unhappy about? William doesn't look too flash either.
PR job.
James 2 was a bit of a dick, and the combo of Catholic monarch wanting absolutist powers over a largely Protestant English parliament and James suddenly having a male heir (=Catholic dynasty) meant things were looking like another civil war was going to happen. So the nearest pretender was his daughter Mary, who was a Protestant married to William of Orange (Netherlands). William and Mary sailed to England with a massive army, most of James' army deserted, so he skipped to France and William wanted to be king – but that would look like a Dutch invasion and boost James' popularity. So they went through this entire thing of parliament offering William and Mary a co-monarchy and them going "oh if you insist".
Or the woodcutter who made the print was a bit shit at smiles – that's always a possibility 🙂
He came ashore in Brixham, a fishing village in Torbay, South Devon, a place I lived in for eight years or so. There's a statue, of course, and a landing stone said to be the place of his first footstep on English soil.
Every Friday and Saturday night it's covered in the puke of cheap lager and fish and chip suppers. How history really remembers. lol
Heh.
The precursor to Shelley's Ozymandias
Makes our place in time seem even less irrelevant than it already is.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Like the explanation McFlock When I look closely at it there seems to be a lot of eyeing up others, except for William who is feeling 'uncomfortable'. Mary and the carrier of the crown on the left might be doing reconnaissance.
To put it bluntly weka, William of Orange was a boring old fart with a brain the size of a pea. I doubt Mary was much better.
Oh well, he would have been easy to keep under control I suppose.
Edit: you may be wishing you’d never asked. 😉
I’d admit that they do read like they are huddling together for self-protection. But it reads far more like a group of simple traditionalists from a background that still has sexual segregation than the more angry and bitter incel material that I’ve looked at.
Who knows, and really, who cares if they don’t interfere or coerce in the lives of others. There is room in our society for people with many different silly beliefs.
Hard to tell from the photos, but they look like young to young-ish guys to me. Lots of daft ideas there, but some red flags too (reading the Newsroom article below). Excluding women isn't that surprising, but women, non-whites and disabled people is pretty blatant (haven't seen what NR mean by disabled). If they're on places like 4chan recruiting, someone should be keeping an eye on them.
The sheer novelty of the idea that the extreme right might possibly be …umm dangerous! should keep these guys in the sights of our security services for a few more months perhaps, before normal service resumes and it’s back to focusing on Maori and environmental and animal rights activists.
One hopes the security services have caught up by now :-/
It is unlikely. As far as I can tell the sigint is looking at american targets. The SIS is doing much the same along with their traditional observations of left organisations. The police used to collect some human intel of the right nutbars – but kind of stopped in the last decades because issue protesters were easier.
I thought they were reviewing their practice after the Chch mosque shootings.
not to mention the phrase "sexual deviancy" thrown in there.
But they can't do a website properly – the faq in the link upthread doesn't seem to be accessible within the actual site menues lol
Basic out of the box CMS with no real tweaks.
I missed the sexual deviancy bit but tbh I'm not scanning not reading.
The FAQ works for me from the menu bar.
In their "ideals" section: "Any individuals that partake in self-destructive behaviours such as drug use and sexual deviancy will never be allowed to partake in the movement."
Partake that however you want to partake it 🙂
Figured out the web thing – their responsive menu isn't quite suited to my screen resolution, so unless I zoom my bropwser out I get the dropdown style rather than lines on the top. FAQ isn't in the dropdown as far as I can see.
I tend to keep the occasional eye on many of the local sites, simply because I hate being blindsided during moderation.
To me this feels like yet another small group or person with weird ideas. Sort of wannabe exclusive brethren – which is what the ideas read like. Or someone recently watched fight club.
If the site appears to be actually active in a few months, I may get interested enough to dig around.
Hmm, a values-based ‘community’ organisation that requires members to have a "body in a decent shape", and doesn't admit women. Hope it doesn't go pear-shaped!
Mission – Building a Community for European New Zealanders.
Why can’t women join?
Action Zealandia is a fraternity and membership isn’t open to women. Women can partake in some social events if their boyfriend or husband is a member, however they can’t be members on their own accord.
We are open to potential networking and support in the future if the need arises. Contact us and we’ll let you know if there’s any way we can help or if anything comes up that you may be interested in.
'Action Zealandia' featured at Newsroom:
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@pro/2019/08/10/747406/white-supremacists-still-active-in-new-zealand
Not to worry, Paddy Gower is on to them.
/sarc
nice the losers are into the celtic NZ bullshit – shows how thick they are – very
No , and if you are referring to Martin Doutiers sites, it well worth checking out.
Where , oh where ,… is the harm in perusing truth and honesty ?, – if such is the case ???
Why does it matter?
Those generations are long gone.
Why cant we hold open discussion that challenges the status quo???
Why the fear?
Why the cynical writing off of archeological finds?
Why does that send us into fits of political dis truths?
Who cares?… 21rst century liturgists?, – who stand to lose salary's ?, – who cares about them?
What does it matter if we learn the truth?
The truth.
Judging by the way many carry on,… its worth more than silver and gold. As for me?… you can keep your silver and gold.
Celtic NZ is racist anti-Maori bullshit with zero credibility among actual historians.. http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2008/11/why-paranoid-racists-make-bad.html
http://books.scoop.co.nz/2008/11/18/no-to-nazi-pseudo-history-an-open-letter/#comment-34628
https://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2009/05/celtic-boulders-and-unbalanced.html
Is it?
Is it really?
And…. who gave those academics credence you quote as being legitimate?
Who pays their salary's?
Has the evidence been proven by an outside/external source?
Really ?
So who governs them?
Have you been to those sites?
Are you yourself 'credentialed'?
Or just taking cherry picked arguments to serve your narrative???
Are you a racist ???
That's conspiracy thinking, they have more legit credentials than the Celtic crackpot, that's for sure
Oh yes … the conspiracy theory write off…
OK then… here's one from the Clann Gunn,… the alleged clann who were at the forefront of the Celtic imaginings, of Norse Viking origins …. so… are you qualified to refute them?… were you actually there to say who was and who wasn't?
The records go back to the 12th century… in Edinburgh. Before the 14th century.
As do my mothers on the Hildrescythe side of Anglo Saxon origins… ( Anglicized Hildreth ) of the 8th century , – Anglo Saxons , a tombstone dug up in the 19th century in a churchyard by English navies… which name meant ' battle fought on a hill'… ie: fighting the Vikings of that time… me mothers lot fighting me fathers lot…in Northern England….
You want to challenge that?
Be my guest.
The CLAN GUNN – YouTube
Confirmation bias
First year Uni student in anthropology and political studies?
Sure seems like it.
If you do your deep research , you will find Clann Gunn were the people exiled to these lands,… whereby they traveled the coast of the South Island and up til the North. They were given nothing but stone tools to survive on… so perhaps sympathizers and the remnants of the Clan who fought against the Sinclairs , the Keiths and others … were the ones found as the six foot tall 'giants' with red hair in the caves of the Waikato, and along the West Coast…
Dont think for a minute that people could not travel in those times.
They were more than capable after the Viking era.
Boring. Who wants to waste time debunking racist lies.
yep waste of time – idiots will be idiots and racists will be arseholes
I agree.
piss off idiot
And this is what you are really referring to…
So I'll leave you to chaff at the bit….
Martin Doutré – Ancient Celtic New Zealand
http://www.celticnz.co.nz/author.html
And I'll leave you to have a listen to this song, its a good song about the reconstruction era. And if you have a problem with that , then I suggest you look at the conquest of the Chatham Islands. Not a lot of difference.
If you were to be honest about human nature.
And accept the forgiveness that is available to you.
Sittin' Up Drinkin' With Robert E Lee – YouTube
piss off idiot
There also seems to be an element of eco-fascism.
<a href="https://action-zealandia.com/ideals ">See the sustainability section at the bottom of their Ideals page
<a href="https://action-zealandia.com/actions/july-2019-action-summary ">And their July actions summary
<a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/08/05/el-paso-shooting-eco-fascism-migration/ ">Rise of eco-fascism in this Intercept article
Don’t know why the link codes aren’t working.
[Made minor adjustments to make links readable and work– Incognito]
re: link codes – the new comment editor doesn't seem to like people doing it themselves first time around. But the linking tool (the one that looks like chain links or a messed-up infinity) works fine. But if you want to put in an link like that in an edit, you'll need to do it the old-skool way like you've just done.
Also, if you want to link to a comment on The Standard, use the linking tool or at least put the copy'n'pasted url on the end of a sentence. If you just put the url as a standalone paragraph, it strips off the #commentnumber and just goes to the OP.
A country as big as the USA , China or Russia or India is always going to have regions of entrenched prejudice. Long forgotten wars, economic rivalry's , fear of another's believes etc… in fact country's as small as NZ as well.
As an aside, remember the film, 'The Eagles have Landed?'… it was about German crack troops landing in rural England during WW2,… amongst the mayhem and the gunfire,… an old chap slurps on his beer and says… 'bloody foreigners'… we all laughed in the cinema because it was recognized old school 'Empire ' thinking… classic 'English snobbery '.
As for Trump ,… I don't think he's the worst U.S Pres in history ,… there were many who were openly racist before him ,- and actively encouraged it. Yes, some incidents , not directly caused by him but by popular policy's which he and his party endorse ,…may offend our modern sensitivity's,… but we dont live in the USA and really,…not many are aware of historic presidents by which to measure him against.
A case in point is the 'Manifold Destiny' ideal that so many Presidents of former era's used to sway the masses into accepting genocide of the Native Americans and to do so to steal their lands.
Now to some, Trump is a fascist ,… but often that is with the benefit of hindsight of historic cases during the 1930's and 1940's… it was a term that was given at that time and after…but extrapolating on that… was William the Conqueror a fascist? Was Charlemagne? Was King Henry VIII ?… you see where this is going… its all in context of the era of those leaders. And all of those leaders had blood on their hands.
We like to think times have changed and we have advanced. The truth is we haven't. We are still the same species subject to the same depravities as our ancestors. But you say ''but we have the United Nations and other bodies born of horrific tradgedy's and put in place to prevent that ever happening again'' …
Not so.
Yet they have done some good,… but that was mainly through using the old Geneva Convention and 'humane' ways of conducting war and the banning of horrific weapons, especially when western powers were involved. It doesn't look good or inspire the populace to fight for the cause when they see thousands come back in body bags or with horrific injuries,… at least ,… politically….
But primarily ,… their job was to maintain global order and trade. But you say ,- ''what about the U. N Human Bill of Rights Charters?''
Well ,… just think of Bosnia , Angola, Congo , Tibet , Argentina , Peru , Columbia Paraguay … dozens and dozens of places where the U.N was less than impotent,… they were an impediment. And only concerned with western interests first, and human rights second.
Now NZ.
Yes we have had our genocides ,.. and the indigenous peoples of these lands are still suffering the effects of that. It was labelled 'Colonialism'. But was not England the prime mover and shaker to beat the Spanish, the Dutch and the Americans to claim these lands?
And do we call that Fascism? , or Colonialism ?, … simply because it did not have one centrist leader advocating the theft and thus genocides of the peoples there before them?
In that it was a collective of vested interest groups and political bodies who had the same mindset and endorsed the same policy's?, – that being the use of bogus alibi's to foment a war for theft of land , – and genocide merely being the by- product of that process ? Do not all fascists broadly do such as that regards expansionism?
Franco , Mussolini, Hitler,.. and from the Left?, – Stalin. And Pol Pot.
Donald J Trump pales into insignificance compared to the ' Big Four'. Or possibly Five. Or Six.
( Do we count Pol Pot or Mao Zedong because they were not westerners or not ? )
Are we, in NZ,… really on the formal early road to Fascism ?
Is Jacinda Adern a dupe for the U.N or Americanization ( how do we reconcile that with the powerful NRA opposing the very thing Australia and NZ have done regards limiting military style firearms to the civilian populace? ) or 'western interests'?
I do not think we have done nearly enough to put right the wrongs of colonialism as a country. But that is a complex issue regarding the tribal versus the individuals rights… and be not mistaken… the Maoris were avid capitalist's when they had their lands. Make no mistake of that. They were also conquerors , Te Ruaparaha comes to mind.
Was he a ' Fascist'?
Personally ?… I do think we need to limit immigration.
A quota system from each country, A background check of sound characters. Do they contribute skills needed for this country ? Vetting, in other words. Yet with mitigating circumstances for immediate family members. For humanity's sake. Family's should always be together if possible and so desired . Refugees are another thing entirely. Let them in. They've gone through hell. Give them a nurturing environment for their offspring. The least we can do. And yet vetted for any violent ideology's.
Is this Fascism?
To ensure our own nationals are safe?
Does this go against the liberal left thinking in using recent immigrants as political footballs?
I think ,… that the reclamation of class is the great leveler.
I think ,… that reclamation of workers ( and that includes the thousands of people in offices, – not just the 'cloth cap' labourers ) rights is where a country reaches its most proudest moments. Whereby the rights, freedoms and prosperity of a society is judged by those on the lowest rungs of the socio-economic ladder. In other words, – their standard of living.
Disregarding the coercion and Fascism of Nazi Germany in dictating where someone should work and and what type of occupation one should be forced into ( usually in manual semi skilled jobs for a future war effort ) ,…
Are the Scandinavians to be accused of being Fascists? Dictatorial ?
Hardly.
And yet to date, they have … the most advanced welfare state on earth , the highest per capita annual incomes, the highest taxation's,… and yet the highest quality of life / standards of living globally. And that being also the case among those who are regarded as being the ' semi skilled, the labourers'….
So my question is WHY … are we staring at our navels and looking at Trump ( who is a shadow of former Presidents we woild now deem as 'Fascists' ) or even pontificating around with age old colonialism and its failed 19th century Empiric results… and WHY have we not moved on from being succoured to an out of date 19th century frame of reference????
And WHO are the people, – that body of vested interest groups who want to keep it this way?
Perhaps that is the question we should be asking rather than looking at Fascists under every 'George .W. Bush'….
I'll leave you with this to consider genocide.
Traditional Lakota/Dakota Sundance Songs 3/6 – YouTube
Oh , and I'm a white Anglo Saxon type yet of Scots / Norse decent.
I live in a shitty , moldy two bedroomed sleep out and I fill two buckets every time it rains right next to my bed. Half the wiring doesn't work and its a death trap, and I've spent around $1000 to fix a shower that was blocked at no expense to the landlord. The toilet leaks and builds up mold. The curtains have black mold on them and haven't been changed for years. There is no insulation. There is no room to store my personal effects and thus it feels like a tip.
Before that , I owned a half million dollar property in Karapiro , I had done up two property's and sold them for a bomb. Along came the 2007/2008 financial crash caused by suited fuckwits overseas… I lost the property ( Australian banks sold them without my real estate agent or my knowledge from under us ) , my business , my dogs , and lost contact with my remaining son( the first having died from medical 'misadventure ' – FFS = negligence)…
Continuing on the theme of dispossession and this country's following in the wake of big Brother America… my heart has softened , as always I was prone to being,.. as a bush baby , less influenced by material shit and more interested in what matters… therefore I bring you this…
NOW,… see the direct parallels we see in our OWN society.
Stop the lies.
Its there.
Yes this may be for political purposes, it may be 'contrived' , … but for many its reality. In that country and many poorer country's. The model repeats itself. And no amount of Bill Gates ' humanitarianism’ is ever gonna change it.
WHY?
Because 'they ' don't want it changed.
Your job therefore is to find out the 'WHO' and then you'll understand the 'WHY'.
Inside life on the Lakota Sioux reservation l Hidden America – YouTube
If you want to view the vid… click on the youtube link provided in the vid itself.
Worth the drama of a simple click to thank your lucky stars and be thankful for the good things you have as others don’t…
I hear your pain and my own circumstances aren't so great either, plenty of us Pakeha NZers missed out on the National party lolly scramble of the last 10 years, especially the younger ones. But NZ still has a very comfortable middle class and most of the people missing out on the economic gains have been the non voting poorer (brown) segment of society, (who also happen to make up the bulk of the NZ military)… I just don't see any viable alt-right or fascist movement gaining traction in NZ anything like Trumpism in the US
No son.
I was around when you were in nappies, and if its entertainment desired by the cowards I'll give it. When you were in nappies, or a sperm in your fathers ballbag, I was in the workforce. That was 35 years ago at the time of Roger Douglas in 1984 and his Mont Pelerin inspired neo Nazi takeover of the NZ economy.
It was my generation , – not yours , – that bore the brunt of that fascist economic takeover of this country. Not yours.
You are but a newboy , a wet behind the ears post neo liberal commentator of things you know jack shit about. And the same with your interpretation of old history. A stooge. One who has no knowledge of his own history and thus falls victim to the re-writers of history itself.
I forgive you.
But don't you even TRY to comment on things you have less than shits knowledge of. I'll help you out, boy,… and that's an extension I don't offer lightly… now then … if you can bother yourself to read this site,… and even better,… try to understand it… I might just give you some credence.
So here it is.
Read it well and understand it even better.
Because ignorant cusses like you bore me completely stupid, lad.
New Right Fight – Who are the New Right?
http://www.newrightfight.co.nz/pageA.html
It also deserves a Celtic song… it’ll cheer you up.
The Rumjacks – A Fistful O’ Roses (Official Music Video) – YouTube
Thanks, "post neo liberal", I like that. I note that you didn't actually respond to my comment. Must be past your bedtime
You are in your twenties, thirty's at most.
Commenting on the origins of Fascism.
OK , then.
And as for your bothering to 'comment on your comment' as it were,… if you had come up with something of legitimate substance, perhaps there would have been an obligation.
But you haven't.
All we have seen is the same old avante guard/ conservative ( juxtaposition ) viewpoint of 'orthodox' viewpoints that serve current political dogmas. And that's just the problem. It is intended to smother truth that threatens the status quo, – which is my original claim… and protestation.
And why this country cannot move ahead.
I don't understand your ire and insults when I merely expressed skepticism at your earlier, somewhat incoherent, thesis that NZ is ripe for Fascist takeover. I agree that malignant corporate forces want to parcel up NZ for themselves, but that's different from Nazi ideology taking root and a broad section of the community suddenly going nuts like the American alt-right
The issue for me is that fascism in NZ wouldn't look like the US and we'd let it happen in part because of that. I hope we are still culturally strong enough to not let white supremacy and alt right bullshit grow here, but I am more concerned about National and the Dirty Politics crew and their now blatant position of using divisive tactics and Trumpian politics to regain power.
If you read the essay in the post, she is talking about how the Republicans would do anything to regain power after losing to Obama. We shouldn't be complacent here.
Trump is an economic and political nationalist; panders to the darkest fears and tribal instincts of his cult like following; tweets a constant stream of racism, paranoia, and vindictiveness against the press; glories in military power and oaths of fealty; routinely demonises the most vulnerable and exploited people in America; justifies ICE brutality and concentration camps…
but nahh, he's not a fascist, he's just trying to make America white again
/sarc
Sounds like Churchill then , eh mate?
Much to learn we have me young Bonhommie…
So whats your point, exactly ?
In one of your earlier drunken rambles you seemed to claim that Trump wasn't a fascist. Now you equate Trump with Churchill!!! Bonkers stuff.
Getting aggrieved are we now?
You think I'm impressed?
Not at all. And if insulting you to shake you out of your lazy political naiveness is whats needed, I'm more than happy to oblige. You see, there isn't much difference between Trump or Churchill, in fact ,… many world leaders you may hero worship at your age.
What you have to do is discern the motives,…. never mind the soaring speeches, never mind the emotion laden narratives,…Trump as a fascist???… do you even know what fascism really is?
Were you there when the great generation stormed the beaches of Normandy to defeat it?
Did you suffer with having your legs blown off in the act of storming those beaches?
I doubt it.
Were you there when Pol Pot created the Killing Fields and filled those mass graves with tens of thousands of his own countrymen and women.
I doubt that also.
Were you there in 1945 at Yalta when Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt demanded Germany's surrender?
Of course not.
You were not even born.
Do you really know a thing about Fascism and what it really means in real terms in real peoples lives?
Of course you dont. You read it from the safety of your history lecturers notes.
And you don't even know what it was like to challenge neo liberalism in this very own country of yours.
Don't even talk to me if you cannot even have the empathy of understanding. You want to talk as an authority. Yet you were , as I have said, nothing more than a sperm in your fathers ballsack when all this was going on.
You really can teach us nothing.
Is that supposed to convince me that Trump is a great leader on par with Churchill? I don’t get it. You’ve written a nice list of historical events irrelevant to the OP
PS: patronizing verbosity and (inaccurate) age-related insults do nothing to bolster your argument. In fact, I can't really discern a coherent argument, merely a paranoid stream of consciousness. Too much electric puha can do that to a fella.
Y'know sometimes I don't think you woke types give a damn about indigenous issues, or workers condition's and wages… why is that?
Is it because you are the purest of political beasts and only pay attention when it serves your purposes and then discard it when its 'old hat ' ? Passed its use- by date?
Do we really want to build a society based on such fickle political followers such as these?
Or do you find yourselves , like Che Guevara said ,… 'fit into the useful urban communist stooges ' ,.. to be used by those who do the heavy lifting…? while you pontificate about the ideals of your Brutopia, and with your Marxist ideals cower in your urbane residences,,,,, and do nothing?…
FoolsTrolls to the left of me,JokersMorons to the rightThere's a lot of residual racist indoctrination … fanned by devious politicians … and allowed by our biased media.
Why was Nicky Hager the only journalist in New Zealand to call out the bullshit behind Nationals dishonest racist election campaign which almost got Brash / Key into power
https://soundcloud.com/pete-dnanz/this-is-for-the-haters-living-in-fear
C'mon Weka, I support you in many areas, but there comes a time, when certain censorship must desist. It opens it up to honesty and appraisal, without which , it is simply an echo chamber of the willing… like the coalition of the willing,.. like Fascism.
I would appreciate your support in this and other areas in a token of goodwill and fair discussion. At the very least , as a true forum in the Greek tradition. As a true forum of many ideas , many aspects,… not as one of dictatorialism.
And to do this , we must take the good with the bad,… to acknowledge the crimes we have all committed, collectively,… not necessarily individually…down through history. I am on your side…generally.
The issues are complex , – as is Fascism.
There are many different scholars who have weighed in with their opinions to what exactly constitutes Fascism. And as they try to define it in simple terms … ALL of them have struggled with a definitive definition of it. In my view?… it is simply a strong man , who after wielding popular mass opinion, goes on towards expansionism,… and genocide.
That separates it from the 'Empiric' cult.
But still holds the same potential ominous similarity's.
The only differences being, … that the 'Empire' has many vested interests,… whereby the Fascist or the Totalitarian is headed by one individual.
Julie Covington – Don't Cry For Me Argentina – YouTube
Beautiful song.
I think the fundamental difference between the Totalitarianism as opposed to an 'Empire' is that it is headed by one individual. Through fear,.. and that gained by devious means in securing the armed forces,… the death squads,… however,.. that rules true with 'Empire' as well … the Praetorian Guards as an example …
Perhaps the difference is,… that with disposing of the 'strong man'… you divide and water down its influence… such as the Mongolian Empire… such was Hitlers…eventually ,… and even such was Rome when it was weakened…
Yet not so the 'Empire' by definition. It tended to have a longer lifespan.
Look at Rome.
Hundreds of years of dictatorial rule. Held in place by a 'succession' of rulers. That was the difference. Totalitarian it was. Yet not governed by the lifespan of one leader,… but by the vested interests of a multitude of leaders who wished for them and their family's to continue on into perpetuity…
Personally?.. I do not think Donald J Trump approaches anywhere near these sorts of precedents.
Nor either Jacinda Adern.
I think ,… we suffer more from a lack of historical knowledge and context,… on just what totalitarianism and 'Fascism' really means / constitutes in the 21st century.
So ,… how does this fit in with a rainy Auckland night?
From someone who supports those out in South Auckland land protecting in the freezing winter?
ROFL!
Lets mellow somewhat…
Cody Jinks – Alone – YouTube
An interesting and educational video …. it gives good info on the modern euphemisms used by fascists …. and it debunks the right wing false equivalence regarding antifa, some of which I've seen used here at TS ,,,,,14mins