Thursday 11 April 2013

Neo fascist New Zealand

New Zealand with its proud tradition of progressive social politics, environmental concern, low corruption in government and public sector it appears is not immune to the trend of growing fascism seen in many parties of the world.

Kyle Chapman 

Former president of the New Zealand Nation Front(NZNF) unsuccessfully contested the Christchurch mayoral election in 2007. Chapman now leads a group calling itself Right Wing Resistance. As much as these guys are extreme it is easy to write them off as kooks but the New Zealand Democrat Party did win a surprising number of votes.

Colin Craig

An Auckland businessman who used his own money to participate in the 2011 election and gained over 1% of the vote. Craig is what we might call a theo-fascist, his position is the religious law should be enshrined in New Zealand's secular law. His views on women and gays, are abhorrent most New Zealanders. yet he couches his policies secular terms. If were to look for a US equivalent we might pick Rick Santorum who would refuse his daughter and abortion after rape and who said "I don't want to give money to bla.. people ". or Mitt Romney who would deny an abortion even for life threatening medical complications.

He's not the only one church group from around the country made submission in the hope of defeating Louisa Walls Members bill Marriage Act Definition of Marriage Amendment Bill. other religious groups are still fighting to ban abortion even though it remains illegal except on clinical grounds.

National lead government of New Zealand.

So far I've examined the outliers.

Here we see a group of ministers caught in lie after lie, cronyism, and in illegal spying on New Zealanders.
Submissions to the Welfare working were ignored when they were critical of the government policy direction. So much so the community created its own Alternative Welfare Working Group to put forward the compassionate case to the New Zealand public directly. But still slurs against the poor are surprisingly popular.  The problem with this rhetoric is much like flogging a slave for not running fast enough after taking his foot off with a dirty pocket knife.

The Petrobras/Anadarko Supplementary order paper
This provision has been roundly criticised by experts in international, and by Peter Williams QC. It breaches international law. Williams himself uses the word "fascism" in his criticism of this provision that seem to been slipped with out the scrutiny of a select committee.  And an attempt to the SoP put before Select Committee was denied even with the opposition being willing to accept a limit time period for review of the SOP.


GCSB
John Keys suggestion that GCSB should be able to support other law enforcement agencies bring into focus some of the scariest nightmare fantasies of our home grown consiracy theorists who have been saying GCSB has been spying on NZer's for quite some time. The Report that criticises GSCB for survelence of around 80 persons indeed appears confirm some of their claims. Regardless of whether you adhere to conspiracy theories or not these revelation are extreme disturbing for New Zealand civil liberties.

Cyber Bullying Law
Touted as a crack down on cruel taunting behaviour in cyber space, this law is worded in such a way as to be a double edge sword using the language "grossly offensive" could be used to stifle free speech and some satire. the joke about Jesus is God and impregnated his own mother in order that she would give birth to himself might be taken by some as "grossly offensive", Retweeting half of Dave Allen's Material or George Carlin's Religion is Bullshit treatise might also qualify.

Ag-Gag
New legislation to make it a criminal offense to convertly video animal cruelty in our food industrial complex has been suggested here. Similiar laws have been enacted in several US states, effectively preventing campaigners from collecting evidence need for criminal violations of animal welfare laws.

Part of the problem is that the system relies on inspector, around whom the industry keeps on its best behavior, but when their back is turned indulge in sometimes sadistic behaviour. In one case inspectors missed pits full of dead dogs, some of which were cut open.

EQC's Gag Injunction
The problem with this injunction is that it anyone who has connection with EQC rather than specific individual or organizations. The injunctions goal is aimed at preventing those described from diseminating leaked information from a recent privacy breach conserning thousands of EQC claimants. Apparently especially the release of this information to the claimants themselves is of particular concern. It appears the revelation of this information is demonstrating to claimants that they are being short changed.

Data Sharing
the government has expressed interest in data sharing across departments. While  such a move has always been a technical possibility. The main reason for not pursing it had nothing to do with technology. The mere prospect of such a thing create the terrifying nightmare of technofascism a theme explored in Logan Run and through the Borg race of Star Trek. Space 1999 explored two different insane computer systems. This is certain not the time to be suggesting such a bold project, the systems the have now are leaking private information like a pasta strainer.


4 comments:

Warwick Taylor said...

geoffrey.burns@yahoo.co.nz

Ian Anderson said...

@twitter-15242184:disqus Yeah nationalisation isn't necessarily progressive, fascists are into nationalisation. Nationalisation is progressive under direction from the people (not just white people). I have no time for the Conservatives, personally because as a queer guy they want to deny me basic civil rights.

I would say the Nats are more just straight-up Tories. To be fair Tories have a strong historical affinity with fascists, but fascism becomes necessary mainly as a way of suppressing strong left revolutionary movements - through mass imprisonments, brutal repression of the left, and through co-opting people's legitimate concerns into allegiance to the Nation. We're not at that point, more stock-standard Tory hell, but it could happen.

We can't allow Chapman a platform, but this article is right to highlight that he's not the only threat.

Fightback.org.nz will be putting up an article on mainstream racism over the weekend

John Hutcheson said...

Point is not only is Chapman not the only threat, he is by far negligible compared to government in office.

Ian Anderson said...

http://fightback.org.nz/2013/04/13/racism-in-aotearoanz/

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