Bomber beat me to breaking the Alex Fogerty story. Peter Shirtcliffe’s Anti-MMP Vote For Change group has just 16 members and one of them has turned out to be a neo-Nazi. Is it a case of being so short of mates they’ll accept anyone who turns up, or does this give us a truer picture of who really wants to get rid of MMP? The latter, I think.
First, let’s establish Fogerty’s credentials. The guy runs or ran the neo-Nazi Australian New Nation website. He featured in a Nelson Mail article in 2005 after a DOS attack on an anti-racism group’s website. In that article, Fogerty states:
“I’d love to get rid of all Jews, blacks, gypsies, retards and social degenerates, I would love to have genetic cleansing”
So, a xenophobic white supremacist.
And, quite active in the ‘mainstream’ Right as well. He’s a member of the Young Nats’ Lower North Island branch. Further, according to a commenter on the previous post, he is on National’s Ohariu Electorate executive and used to be employed by Katrina Shanks as out of parliament staff. He’s Facebook friends with Vote for Change frontman Jordan Williams’ boss and failed National candidate Stephen Franks, along with about half of the National caucus.
Since Bomber broke the story, Williams has quickly issued a press release and declared that Fogerty will be kicked out of VfC. I note, though, that the press release doesn’t deny fore knowledge of Fogerty’s racist beliefs. I just don’t find it credible that Williams didn’t know that one of the other 16 members of VfC, who is the same age as him and moves in the same political circles, is a neo-Nazi.
Of course, the deeper question is why VfC would attract a neo-Nazi and welcome him on board. It’s not just an unfortunate coincidence for VfC. The values of anti-MMP campaigners and white supremacists fit hand in glove.
Fundamentally, racists are anti-pluralist: they hate that there are people with different cultures, practices, and beliefs. They fear that allowing these people to live the way they choose, giving legitimacy to their culture, will undermine the racist’s own culture.
MMP is pluralist. It allows more people from more diverse points of view to have a voice in parliament than any other representative electoral system. That scares racists, who want their own kind (white males) in unchallenged command of society and the economy with all diversity suppressed. It also scares the capitalist elite (who are basically a sub-set of white males), because they too want their own kind in unchallenged command of society and, more importantly, the economy so they can leach all the wealth they can from it for themselves.
So, you see, what Peter Shirtcliffe, Jordan Williams, and Alex Fogerty want is ultimately the same thing: a return to the complete dominance of New Zealand politics by a white male elite to the exclusion of all others. And they know that a return to FPP or its bastard cousin SM, would go a long way to achieving that. The only difference between them is that Fogerty has the honesty to acknowledge the racism inherent in that goal.
UPDATE: A reader comments:
The fact that he is facebook friends with a National MP is barely worth a mention. However, the fact that he is on the National Party Ohariu Electorate executive, and that he used to be employed as out of parliament staff by Katrina Shanks may require some explaining..
Interesting if true. If you have any more info on this drop us an email.
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