2/3/2022 has been a terrible day for NZ Democracy – the rough Beast of Bethlehem burns

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This has been a terrible day for NZ democracy.

The Rough Beast of Bethlehem that now burns on Parliament’s lawns should have been avoided and de-escalated, instead Mallard provoked them and the Government ignored them.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

1913 – 1951 – 2022

This protest didn’t happen in a vacuum.

Last month the Salvation Army released its report on dire poverty while house affordability rose to another obscene level while Covid assistance has mostly gone to the rich…

Wealthy nearly $1 trillion richer since Covid began – Hickey

An economic and political commentator says since the Covid-19 pandemic reached Aotearoa, the rich have become richer and the poor have become poorer – in part due to the Government’s policies.

…this protest may not be working class politics, but it is working class misery that is being manipulated by the far right on the lawns of Parliament!

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

This is the Left’s fault!

Imagine if Labour and the Greens had done something meaningful over the last 4 years for the lumpenproletariat so that there wasn’t this rage to exploit by the far right in the first place?

What did Labour do? Pour billions into the pockets of property speculators and is now trying to pour billions more into an unemployment insurance scam that empowers white collar union workers the most!

The Middle Class Marxists want a revolution that knows its pronouns! It doesn’t want the smelly lumpenproletariat spoiling the aesthetics of their dinner party activism.

We have allowed Jacinda and Labour and the Greens off the hook for transformative change for too long, and yet act surprised when those most punished by the mandates rebel.

Let me be as clear as I can be – I support Jacinda and Labour for their magnificent Covid response! I salute the courage and skill to have navigated us through this most horrific of tempests and believe the mandates are the best way forward.

I believe NZ having some of the lowest death and hospitalisation rates is a public health victory of extraordinary magnitude.

Yes as a post-marxist anarchist environmental socialist I detest the State up in my grills as much as the next free individual, but I agree with this curtailing of my civil liberties for the public good.

B-U-T we on the Left have failed to challenge the neoliberal economic hegemony that continues to devour so many lonely lives and fills them with such hopelessness that they are bait for Facebook hate algorithms.

I have zero truck with these feral lunatic’s arguments, hell I was attempting to goad them into voting me in their Nuremberg hanging list a fortnight ago, but they have a right to protest and their rage has been manufactured by the Left’s lack of transformative change.

I have yet to see one interview with a protestor that after a terrible & painful personal mandate experience – that truly pulls at your heart strings – that then doesn’t veer off into some crazy demented conspiracy theory – there is no doubt this misery is being manipulated by far right propagandists with malicious intent.

If we don’t want so many angry, frightened and hurt working class people turning to the Nazi’s, maybe do something meaningful about their anger, hurt and fear first?

Instead of de-escalate this, the Speaker of the House and the Government provoked it.

This will stain us.

The woke have had their vengeance, Trevor Mallard has fiddled while Parliament’s lawns burned and the Government have shown the lumpenproletariat their pain will never be acknowledged.

At any other time, the violence police used today against protestors would be rightfully decried up and down this country by the old left – todays middle class marxists however cheer State force because we hate the protestors.

We have lost our moral compass on the Left.

I passionately disagree with these protestors on every argument, but I defend their right to protest in a liberal progressive democracy.

Using State violence to crush this when Omicron & end of mandates would have de-escalated it is a political choice.

We lost something today.

All Parliament have succeeded in doing is recruit for the far right.

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79 COMMENTS

  1. As night falls the Police have drawn their guns and are shooting people with Rubber Bullets!

    This mismanaged manufactured Crisis by Herr Ardern is another failure of her leadership!

    By nighttime, Wellington could be engulfed by flames because of her ineptness and incompetence.

    This is further proof that she is no good in a ‘Crisis!”

    It’s time for her to go! We don’t need an autocratic bully and terrorist as the PM of NZ.

    • Adern is not a male German, so the “Herr” is not really appropriate.

      I guess the German reference is to link Adern to the leader of Nazis, Hitler.

      In doing do you are making light on the evil that Hiller and his Nazis represent.

    • Dennis Power (Tene Paoa) are you a friend of Hone Kata. Jacinda hasn’t made a mistake or raised the white flag in her 4 years in government. She has saved me and about 15000 other old grumpy men (and women) citizens lives from Covid in that time – surely the best measurement of Govt success.

      JACINDA/COSTAR 100 Tene Paoa 0/100

  2. Here here Martyn.

    Many people on both sides of the line stained us today. A lot of trust broken.

    And to DP(T/M/M, n F/W): “Good in a crisis” was never accurate enough. It really ought to have been “good in a crisis that is universally agreed upon to be tragic”. Eg 50+ innocent worshippers under attack by a gunman; 30+ people getting blown up by a volcano; or a even a nation taking precautionary steps against the first worldwide pandemic in a century. But a crisis where we need to disparate points to come together in some way – eg Ihumatao; three waters; omicron; widening socio-economic divisions – de nada.

    If the PM is a decent woman, she would resign this evening. Lest we get some douchebag take us for a ride down the road of a truly far-right backlash.

    • As long as the right is not today’s liberal free market right, or born again fundamentalist right then it sounds good to me. The longer the self serving, globalist establishment pricks remain the worse it’ll get. They’ve gotta go, one way or another.

    • Brenty – I used to think Ardern was good in a crisis but you delineate it extremely well “good in a crisis that is universally agreed upon to be tragic” vs “a crisis where we need disparate points to come together in some way”

      I thought she had a statesman like quality, but she does not have the ability to build broad consensus.
      She’s looking increasingly like a product of the Blairite PR machine. I’m double vaxxed and boosted, didn’t support the protest (not that it should matter) but some of her rhetoric today was concerning. It was the kind of thing governments say before they incrementally erode civil liberties permanently for ‘safety’ rather than temporarily for public health.

      All the people on the left cheering today, give it 5-10 years this will come back to bite us in the ass.

      • It sounded more like a rallying cry to her base than any across the barricades appeal for unity or togetherness. Almost designed to be provocative, even decisive.

      • Tui
        Jacinda saved your, my and 15000 other grumpy old men and womens’ and Aotearoa citizens’ lives is surely the ultimate in the measurement of success of a leader of any government around the world. All other world leaders raised the white flag and surrendered to the enemy Covid 19 which got out of control 2 years ago – Trump probably the most ridiculed and incompetent of all time. Only now is omicron raging in NZ but still very few deaths. We should all rejoice and be thankful for Jacinda’s leadership not the right wing Hate jacinda dirty politics influenced commentators.

    • Brenty – Dream on. But a crisis where we need – disparate points to come together in some way

  3. Again Martyn totally agree. Where too from here?
    A fire was lit today, not just under the Mallard slide but across the country a sector of society have been shown today they are irrelevant, their concerns will not be heard. Rather they will be crushed. They are rightly aggrieved. will they go home sit and sulk? I think not, they may well stand and fight. This may well have been a defining day in our history.

  4. Yay! Friends have just finished their hotel cleaning job shifts and we are celebrating! We’re the Working Class Martyn – not those who spat at us getting the bus to work.

  5. The only thing the Left has failed in, and really its everyone, not just the Left, the only thing that we have all failed at is in recognizing that government no longer works for us. The existence of neoliberal policy proves this point. And yet, in this time of crisis, our belief in government has never been stronger. Martyn’s own take on this points to a crisis riddled future because nothing pacifies the populace like a good ole crisis, while at the same time, all manner of yummy policy can be implemented under the guise of serving/protecting the public good but in actuality, said policy is set to serve the powerful. Canada and the Trudeau government, and how they have handled their protestors, gives us clear insight into where this is all heading — control, control, control — greater control over us minions.

  6. Since when has standing up to a bunch of angry anarchists been a bad day for democracy? As witnessed in Ukraine sometimes you need to stand and fight.

    • syl – the one group conspicuous by their absence has been anarchists..unless like many you just use the word as an all purpose bogey man to scare the kids.

      ANARCHY IS NOT CHAOS

      • Gagarin: “ANARCHY IS NOT CHAOS”

        Exactly. We have seen chaos, and it’s Labour and the Greens, with an unwelcome side order of ethno-nationalism.

    • Sylvain: “As witnessed in Ukraine sometimes you need to stand and fight.”

      This statement indicates that you have no idea what’s been going on in the Ukraine over the past 8 years. There’s no excuse for ignorance, now that the internet is ubiquitous. Do not rely on western MSM for news. About anything much, but especially about the Ukraine. The invasion is both justified and legal under the terms of the UN charter.

  7. The argument here has always been the right to protest. legally. The difference here is the majority of NZRS disagreed with the protesters. The difference here was a mandate that was for the health of the country. The difference here was our parliament grounds had been hijacked for three weeks. I don’t like Jacinda Ardern and never have but today she and her police force acted like leaders for the first time in a long time.

  8. Actually it was a good day for democracy. People got to see the naked reality of the colonial regime in all its brutality. Many of them will turn now their backs on the colonial regime to embrace rangatiratanga and mana motuhake. Kia kaha e hoa ma!

    • colonial geoff? oh do leave off..when are you gonna stop blaming NZ many deficiencies on a long defunct system…the dickheads aren’t in london anymore NZ is run by homegrown dickheads…stop playing the victim card..we are the architects of our own fate…well kinda.

      • Gagarin
        The problems with New Zealand cannot be attributed to “homegrown dickheads” or dickheads of any sort even though those within the regime may indeed be “dickheads” as you describe them.
        The conditions which gave rise to the events in Wellington are systemic and the system is far from being “defunct” yet we are not to be counted among its victims. We have defeated the regime in past battles and we will defeat it in the future.

          • Hear hear my good man Agree with you about Geoff F. Have seen before, he almost makes Heraclitus a liar. Same man. same river.

  9. I saw Jacinda on TV, reminded me a bit of Muldoon. Her team is now 4,975,000. The “untermenschen”, those not of the regular pay cheque email caste need no longer apply. Cant help thinking Norm Kirk would have walked into that crowd and talked. He was after all a true Labour man who had done labouring work. Working class, something excluded from Labour politicians today, something also excluded from the team of 2 or 3 or however small millions it really only ever included.

    • Nobody has been allowed to question government Covid measures, nobody. This is why Jacinda, ditto, politicians all over the world, have ignored worldwide protests. The simple fact of this matter is that when a little light is shown on these Covid measures, they all crumble. The political class knows this all to well, hence their unwillingness to engage. It is that simple.

      • I don’t see anyone being restricted from propagating lies and misinformation from foreign actors…the demo proved the freedom to think any stupid thing you want.

    • Norman Kirk would not have gone and met with antivaxers when in his lifetime numerous diseases were wiped out by vaccines, he’d have done the same thing Ardern and every other politician did in fact he’d probably have made vaccinations mandatory and would have called the cops in on the first evening on day one to crack skulls. I don’t know where this idea of stain on nz comes from, much of what happened yesterday apart from a minority of pearl clutchers noone in NZ would have blinked an eye, his govt after all did have cops storm Samoans houses every morning. Yesterday was watched and cheered on by working class people in factories restraunts pubs across NZ, many cheered many thought it was sad what these people had been driven to but few disagreed with the cops actions. The protesters can spam all they want but they are a fringe minority and all they doing is turning people against their cause.

      • Yes its only Matt King (A natz only 6 months ago), Nobody Seymore, Winston, Tamaki, Waititi, Luxon/Bridges/Pugh/Hipango, and a few other lunatic right wing leaders who visited or supported their kaupapa. I bet the Dirty Politics team were aghast at that show of support by the right – its not in the script. All anti labour hate jacinda ferals chasing the same votes. No left wingers there

    • Dream on Nick J. The pretty protesters just wanted to dance around sort of whooping, but not ethnic. They don’t want reasoned discussion with PM Jacinda; she doesn’t want to make apologies, not about her agenda. The rest of the Labour caucus could slither down the steps and put on a show of offering something natty in wood, a bit like the Brit housing side by side perhaps.

  10. As an aside, I watched the Police today, I was around in 81 and these cops were far more considered. The throwing of rocks at them tested their restraint, they didnt deserve that. The rock throwers really let the protest down.

    When it was obvious that the Police had been ordered to clear the area the protesters best move would have been to leave with heads high and dignity. They deserve our respect for holding government to account for a month, something our Opposition has failed to do miserably.

  11. And where is Winston, David and Christopher with their leanings of sympathy for the protesters now?

    • Seymour is a gutless wimp, to use a riot for his own political future is a stain on ACT and him as a person. National deserve to drain all his votes.

      • dunno but the numpties were certainly restricting the ‘quite enjoyment’ of wellington public spaces that wellingtonians theoretically own as much as the protesters claim they do…the protesters were the equivalent of the ‘BAD NEIGHBOURS’ in social housing who are regularly and rightfully decried here.

      • Just answering. No, I’m not a lawyer. But try camping on the grass at the Aotea Centre in Auckland CBD. Pretty sure there are bylaws in place, if only for sanitition etc.

    • Illegal?

      since when did valid protests have to concern themselves over what the state considers legal or not?

      • Valid protest – how long did it need before it became invalid?? And when would the invalid or many, start turning up where they would want their free care that we have all paid part of? Perhaps it would have been like WW1 Verdun, slogged on for 10 months, with awful holes in the ground, and stinking trenches, Verdun went for 302 days with approx 1 million casualties in and around.

        We haven’t learned much in the 20th century. Perhaps we should do a rerun in the 21st century just with warmer weather and buckets of rain. And possibly from dinghies.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun : The Germans tried alternating their attacks on either side of the Meuse and in June captured Fort Vaux. … In September and December, French counter-offensives recaptured much ground on the east bank and recovered Fort Douaumont and Fort Vaux. .

  12. “This has been a terrible day for NZ democracy.”
    I agree with you this time Martyn.
    The protest has been a development of a gradual change in the view of a growing proportion of the population’s understanding of the nature of the society they live in.
    When the virus was first identified in China and no one knew how dangerous it was except the dramatic evidence of china building an enormous h dedicated hospital in a week and digging up roads to isolate the effected city. The WHO declared a dangerous pandemic was apon us all. Our government’s reaction was appropriate and widely welcomed and admired. It all worked great until the vaccine became available. By the time it was available here it was evident to anyone with time to read that the virus was not nearly as dangerous as feared, but that systematic and almost universal campaign was being adopted by governments everywhere to distort death reports so that anyone who died anywhere from whatever cause, who could in any way be suspected of having the virus was deemed to have died of the virus. Nothing like this manipulation of cause of death had ever been done before.
    Then it became evident to those paying attention that there were cheap common safe drugs used for other purposes for decades that could help alleviate the effects of the virus. They were universally ridiculed by governments and the MSM even back when a vaccine was not expected to become available for at least 2 years. And confiscated from supplies in some cases.
    Then the vaccines were rushed through testing trials which remain secret, like the significant contents of the vaccine, and the rot set in.
    From there on deception lies and coercion have taken over the interaction between government here as elsewhere as the vaccine turned out to be a failure in terms of both it’s effectiveness and it’s safety. And the more evidence has mounted the more it has been pushed onto the population by all the means the govt has at it’s disposal. And the more comments like this on TDB are censored.
    As more and more people become aware of this, and the natural development of the virus to more infectious and less dangerous, and the more people coerced into taking the vaccine and suffer the various consequences and are told they are suffering from anxiety , the more trust in government is dashed. And there is nothing any opposition party is doing or saying to give any hope that it would have been different under their governance.
    This erosion of trust has been majorly exacerbated by the protesters , who’s initiators are well informed and intelligent people who do not go looking for trouble for the sake of it, not being afforded the respect of a meeting with any government member to have their concerns listened to and seriously considered and answered .
    The reason they have not been listened to is because the people they would talk to already know full well that the protesters concerns are fully justified . They have no answer to the questions they will be asked except act as the protesters are asking them to.And to become open about what has turned out to be the truth about the whole episode.
    There will be a long time pass before we have the society we had two years ago.
    D J S

    • Wonderful conspiracy DJS..

      “It all worked great until the vaccine became available. By the time it was available here it was evident to anyone with time to read that the virus was not nearly as dangerous as feared, but that systematic and almost universal campaign was being adopted by governments everywhere to distort death reports so that anyone who died anywhere from whatever cause, who could in any way be suspected of having the virus was deemed to have died of the virus. “

    • your comment is here david so not censored, can you provide a link to the anti vax website you mentally cut and paste from

      • The information comes from a multitude of sources gagarin, over a two year period. There is no single source but for the medical/scientific info why don’t you google Sucharit Bhakdi , Peter McCulloch, Micheal Yeadon , Robert Malone. By the time you have read what they have to say you will find a multitude more references. Another good one is the lawyer Reiner Fuellmich . He has collected up a huge amount of information.
        D J S

    • Rawiri seems like you have climbed into a rabbit hole with Marty and turned right. The Dirty politics brigade has a strange effect on some right wingers.

  13. Fkn good day for NZ democracy. Clearing know-nothings away from our parliament. The whole 2 years of the pandemic have been a triumph for democracy and reason (science).

  14. ” Clearing know-nothings away from our parliament ”

    Great can we now start on the ones inside parliament and the we know what’s good for you bureaucracy.

  15. Talk about deluded! Yes they had the right to PEACEFUL PROTEST….the protesters stuffed that up on day 1…peaceful my arse! Thugs and loons who deserved everything they got.

    • Yes the cowardly right wing protesters had babies and children in the front line as human shields to ensure the cops couldn’t act offensively.

  16. A lot of you scoffed when I said the lasting legacy of this government was the destruction of consensus politics and the creation of partisan politics in line with what we see in the States therefore we need to look forward to:

    1). Realignment of the right to the workers/blue collar party. This will take longer in NZ as the 2 main right parties are still dominated by neo-liberal policies and persons
    2). Labour/Greens will move further towards the new left. Watch for the “Maorification’ of all policy and otherwise adoption of Woke mantra.
    3). Ethnic minorities gravitating towards right wing parties
    4). Trump-like anti establishment figures emerging out of the woodwork

    Ironically it might be Ardern that actually kills the Labour Party long term……

  17. Imagine for a moment a legalise cannabis or workers rights march that stopped and raided the portaloos and started flinging shite and spiting disease at the cops. Look if you have to throw something a bottle is the traditional choice, but its not going to help your cause. Shite is just disgusting and a tactic of a feral underclass.

    I agree that Mallard caused this. He was the first one to start destroying the grounds with flooding which lead to trenches and the grass dying. But I think the vision of them all sitting in a circle and having a peaceful chat is a utopian pipe-dream, especially post the Mallard incident.

    Too many factions and an assortment of mentally ill rambling different things with puppet masters that just want to cause confusion, manipulate chaos and work against any solution. Giving the likes of the National Front a slice of prime-time TV to get their propaganda across is not going to resolve things. Brain Tamaki? The lads with the foil their heads?

    We urgently need to teach the next generation how to think properly:
    http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-amount-of-detail

    • Jimmy – you have been captured by the natz dirty politics team elevating Mallards sprinkler watering of his parliament garden to the cause of the protest. Its strange how the dirty politics team influences right wingers.

      • Eh? I’m a green lefty and Nicky Hager fan. Can,t stand Slater or the Nats. Not sure where your coming from there…

        Mallard acted like a childish dickhead whatever side of the political spectrum one is viewing things from. I’m criticizing his tactics, not his politics.

        Once he flooded the grounds it was inevitable they would turn into a pig sty. The horrible music was like pouring gasoline on a simmering fire of mental illness and hate.

        If he,d just left them well alone they would have fizzled out and Covid would have then swept out the remaining few.

  18. What utter balderdash! The ‘occupiers/seditionists’ don’t have the wherewithal to think up something like this without the influence of Americans like Steve Bannon and assorted QAnon Crud. Society is interdependent and NZ’s response to COVID has been exceptiomal Spend awhile where COVID has raged and sustains a current fatality rate of 388.7/100,000 then you may realize how ill-conceived all the antivaxx/antimandate/antigovt nonsense is. The list of those who ‘drove’ this horror grows longer with every hour. I am ashamed and embarrassed by my countrymen and women who condoned this superspreader event. Wake up Martyn, this was never going to be a ‘peaceful protest’.

    • it wasn’t intended to be, at the minimum those behind it will coin it with ‘clicks’ from the poor put upon martyrs…and maybe subvert our democracy as a side order.

  19. Nope, police/government let them protest for too long (and believe they had every right to protest, but then GO HOME). They were endangering the lives of others who lived and worked nearby and needed to be moved on.

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