Obviously there’s a lot of coverage of the Wellington Anti-mandate protests on Social Media site like Facebook/Twitter, but I should have been checking out Lindsay Mitchell’s blog as she’s had quite a few posts with personal observations and links to social media.
From the parliamentary occupation site this morning, a row of caricatures. I guess to the protestors the parties are indistinguishable. Their response is uniform. ‘We want you to go away.’ By my first-hand observation and conversations with protestors, be assured. They will not.
To be amongst the protestors is both calming and exhilarating. There’s a strong sense of trust in one another which has been long denied by lockdown separations, physical distancing and masking. People are working together to overcome adversities thrown at them by nature or the state. They know here, they can talk freely. For the first time in ages they actually feel safe in a physical community beyond the internet.
But MPs – all of them – want you believe the protestors are ‘unsafe.’ That the city streets are being made unsafe by their presence. Now the protest site is ‘unhygienic’ and ‘contamination’ lurks. Faeces has been spotted (so have many well-cared for dogs attached to the protestors.)
Those who long ago lost trust in government can recognise alarmist media reporting and political propaganda when they see it.
I’d choose to sit with these people any day over a parliamentary select committee.
Or Protest Day 8: Answer me this:
Where is the Maori Party when so many of the protestors are their whanau?
Where is the ACT Party when so many of the protestors are pleading for our legislated freedoms?
Where are the Greens, the very party of protest?
Where is Labour with a list ranking full of so-called activists?
Any ideas?
Oh I’ve got at least a couple of ideas about all this:
Crystallization, Madness and Tyranny
It is a fascinating moment when this sort of crystallization happens in a mass culture like America’s, because seemingly overnight even the definition of legitimate speech (or thought or action) also changes. Tocqueville observed that quite abruptly a person can no longer express opinions or raise questions that only days before were acceptable, even though no facts of the matter have changed. At an individual level, people who were within the bounds can be surprised to find themselves “tormented by the slights and persecutions of daily obloquy.” Once this occurs, he wrote, “your fellow-creatures will shun you like an impure being, and those who are most persuaded of your innocence will abandon you too, lest they should be shunned in their turn.”
Freedom and other anti-government slogans
No Minister 
Good on Lindsay for going down there!
Thanks Tom. It has been a real eye-opener for me to try and reconcile what I hear in the media from the ‘establishment’ with what I see first-hand. Yes, there may be other more malign forces about but they are simply not evident. Labour have obviously decided on a course of disparagement (and more fear) to keep the public with them.
Really? Sounds like you still had some faith in the MSM?
Meantime I had to laugh at this comment here on another post at NM.
It’s backfiring on Labour badly, they are looking the state bullies and blusterers they are. History will affirm the neglected and frustrated protestors, and condemn this govt as draconian. There are many in NZ that support the protestors, especially as overseas the Covid narrative is crumbling fast. Most divisive govt ever, how did we get to this.
Tanya
Meantime, Chris Trotter goes full fascist – while calling his opponents fascist of course:
This dropping of masks is happening across the Western world. The “Left” never actually did represent the Working Class, they were just supposed to follow the vanguards like Trotter, and when they don’t – it’s time for a bit of state power to make sure they do follow.
Irony is that Trotter likely sees himself as a Good Person.