National Ltd™ Battling Truth On Two Fronts

Thanks to the heroic Edward Snowden, top New Zealand investigative journalist Nicky Hager launched his slow-reveal of yet more stunning examples of John Key’s simpering compliance with Barrack Obama’s instructions. And what good timing.

Currently, the MSM is dripping with soft-sell encouragement for New Zealanders to find something, nay, anything to agree with about sending our troops to assist in the slaughter of innocents on behalf of US corporate imperial interests. All the usual media plants, plus a few surprise cameos, have been busily pumping out all the usual focus-group approved appeals to emotion. Its the classic distraction technique; if we’ve got no choice about this, we might as well try and generate some warm fuzzies rather than writhe in the cognitive discomfort an evidence-based discussion would produce.

A rare, pleasant and welcome surprise to see John Armstrong telling it like it is. Nice one. Bit of a disappointment to see David Rutherford’s enthusiastic joining in the chorus of war-mongers with his rather particularly mushy appeal to emotion. As New Zealand’s Chief Human Right’s Commissioner, Mr Rutherford should know better than anyone that, despite our history in the area, the National Ltd™ Cult of John Key has been systematically rolling back human rights in New Zealand since 2008. John Key even personally threatened the on-going funding of the Human Rights Commission in 2013 when, in a very rare move, it dared to tell the public that the GCSB and TICS laws restricted New Zealanders rights to freedom of expression, non-discrimination, unreasonable search and seizure, and natural justice. Playing the human rights angle is also partially why John Key got a bollocking at Te Tii Marae last month when his (apparently) unscripted justification for going to war was to defend human rights. Now, where have I heard that before . . . oh, yeah. It was one of the Dubbya Bush / Bambi Blair “second tier” justifications for invading Iraq in the first place. The lies and media pap being distributed for public consumption by the boys down at “The Club” are old and worn out now. Politicians, public commentators, and media heads who really think they can get away with this “rinse and repeat” justification of the indefensible are treated us with contempt.  One more time: politicians, public commentators, and media heads who really think they can get away with this flimsy “rinse and repeat” justification of the indefensible are treated us with contempt. 

its just like John Key’s point blank refusal to properly address what appears to be yet more rogue actions by the GCSB is treating New Zealand with contempt. Rather than speak truth or, God forbid, do some explaining, John Key sulkily retreats into his bad habit of chanting insults hoping that attacking the messenger will kill the message. Not very grown up, although, it sort of worked last time when endless insults like “henchman” obscured the fact that the GCSB (probably) does not wholesale spy in New Zealanders. It just leaves the pipes open and looks the other way while the United States does it.

Dunno if John Key is going to escape quite so unscathed this time. No doubt his Dirty Politics Machine will fire up again now there’s some his preferred character assassination work to be done. No doubt the media plants will be running the old fashioned “nothing to hide nothing to fear” and “who really cares” lullabies on repeat. We’ve seen the roll out of what appears to be the new explanation of why this latest GCSB spying on New Zealander citizens is not unlawful. John Key would like us to believe its because those Kiwis who’s human rights are being suspended for as long the GCSB chooses are not being specifically targeted. It makes perfect sense to John Key: yes, it is illegal for the GCSB to spy on New Zealand citizens when it wants to but its not illegal to spy on New Zealand citizens when it doesn’t want to, but does anyway.

I’m not sure if that’s Orwellian or Kafkaesque but it is certainly typical of the results achieved when ever Team Key has been Working For New Zealand.