So, while I wandering about town on Saturday afternoon, I happened to chance upon a (rather thinly populated) anti-vaccine rally in the Square.
By chance, as I moved closer to see quite what was going on the speaker - a very energetic fellow who seemed unsure what nation - or even hemisphere he was in - asked his audience (about 100 people, I reckon) if the wanted "Socialism or freedom"; to which I could not restrain myself from bellowing "socialism" though I don't think anyone noticed.
I didn't linger, because being around large groups of unvaccinated people in a pandemic is Really Stupid (and both Covid and Stupid as easily caught - as Charlie Mitchell described in Stuff the other day) But I did hear more.
After presenting his audience with the false choice between "socialism" on the one hand and "freedom" on the other the speaker then led his enthused listeners (most of whom would have benefited from New Zealand's milquetoast socialism at many points in their lives) in a vigorous chorus of "The Bill of Rights is ours!" which most of them joined in with cheerfully, though perhaps wondering what the Bill of Rights is, and why they were meant to be excited about it.
A few days ago Hone Harawira described the so-called "Sovereignty Hikoi of Truth" (which seemed to fail to live up to any of the of the words in its name, except perhaps the 'of' part) as being taken over by "Pakehā anti-vaxxers" and this claim seems to be borne out by fulminations of the gentleman in the Square. "Socialism" isn't something most New Zealanders get very worked up about, though I suppose if you are the sort of person who considers Jacinda Ardern a "Pretty little communist" and thinks it would be an clever idea to put that thought on a placard, then there are some.
Which suggests a lot of the intellectual apparatus (sic) of the anti-Vaxx movement is being imported from overseas. This makes sense. New Zealanders don't tend to get passionately upset about sensible medical ideas and the link between the anti-Vaxxers and the evangelical churches is pretty well known - and the curious blend of intolerance, conservativism, libertarianism and fleecing of the congregation propagated by some of those sects is a direct import from the fundamentalist churches in the USA.
But I am curious about the people behind the people gathered in the square. Who thinks it would be a splendid idea to import American or Australian anti-Vax lunacy into Aotearoa and encourage people - generally the people who are highly vulnerable to Covid and likely to be worst hit by it as it seethes past the Pretty Little Communist's half-hearted attempts to stop it?
As a childish aside - if only Ardern had been properly Stalinist and actually made us all stay home and watch Netflix instead of vaccilating and worrying about whether people might be starting to listen to the irrelevance formerly known as Judith Collins. Then we might be back to smirking insufferably at the rest of the world and wondering what all the fuss was about, instead of bracing ourselves for Delta's full onslaught.
And not just who, but why? Anti-Vaxxers are big on conspiracies. They love the idea this is planned - though they disagree what 'this' is - it might be the phoney virus, or the not-phoney virus that has been deliberately unleashed, or the not-phoney virus that wasn't deliberately unleashed but whose emergence is being exploited by the Powers That Be to achieve some nefarious end. From Charlie Mitchell's piece, mentioned earlier, we learn of the anti-Vaxxer fixation with the idea there are Dark Forces behind it all, whatever 'all' might be:
An article, published on the group’s website and authored by the “NZDSOS Steering Committee”, claims the pandemic is ushering in a totalitarian society and refers to “undeniable evidence that the Covid pandemic is in fact a planned criminal operation”. It likens unvaccinated people to victims of 20th-century dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot.
“Behind every regime mentioned, investing in the death camps and gulags and perhaps now vaccines, have been sociopathic banking and corporate interests, as immune to the suffering of others as their chosen frontmen and women,” the article says.
In a post responding to the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, the group’s Telegram account implied that US President John F Kennedy was assassinated due to his belief in natural immunity, a conspiracy theory so obscure I can’t find it referenced anywhere else. NZDSOS would set up “dream circles” for those affected by the mandate, it said in a since-deleted remark on its website.''
And:
To get to that point required a lying propagandised media, a currency or other economic or societal collapse then centralised control, a persecuted minority blamed for all society's ills and, particularly in the communist regimes, you eliminate religion, control education and inflict regular doses of terror and persecution to keep the citizens obedient,” Shelton says.
That's grand stuff, particularly the bit about Kennedy. I always KNEW it wasn't a cranky social failure exercising his 2nd Amendment Rights in an extreme fashion, or even a Communist stodge controlled by the microchips implanted in him during his sojourn in Russia (does this sound a bit familiar?) Clearly, it was because Kennedy was an anti-Vaxxer. Probably many other people were as well, all martyred by Big Pharma in its quest to sell us pills and magnetise the population.
I often think there is an element of projection or unconscious self-description going on in the screeds of conspiratorially inclined. Like a sort of self-created Rorschach test, the word salads they post revel what is going on inside or behind. Bigger pictures can be glimpsed in the scribblings.
My pet theory is this is nothing to do with Covid, ultimately. There is always a bigger game afoot. And no, this is not saying Covid is not a Very Big Deal. But when the anti-Vaxxers contend that Covid is being exploited by the murky Powers That Be to further some Sinister Agenda, I wonder if there is not some truth in this; only the Powers That Be are quite different from Jacinda / the Chinese / Hilary Clinton / the Feds or whoever the anti-Vaxxers would posit is behind it all. And the goal isn't to turn us all into human fridge magnets but part of a long term strategy to break democracy by alienating people from the system, spreading paranoid ideas about the interventionist state and regulation.
The protesters are 'useful idiots' - a phrase often ascribed to Lenin and suggesting his scornful and cynical manipulation of gullible Western sympathizers (though it isn't at all clear he coined the phrase, used it in the manner usually described. The whole thing may have been a ruse to make those sympathetic to communism feel they were being gulled by the Reds.)
They are being used in an ongoing process of democratic and social sabotage to people whose interests are completely at odds with their own and who don't really give a damn about the Bill of Rights or the freedoms of people in Palmerston North's square.
And who don't really care if these people live or die, as long as they do the important thing, which is stop voting.
If I was to be rallying the Square, I wouldn't be chanting "The Bill of Rights is ours"; I'd be chanting, "This is a deliberate attempt to convince people to disenfranchise themselves, allowing the further consolidation of rightwing ideology; a deliberate and cynical move top persuade people at the bottom of society - who rightly feel they have been neglected and let down - to opt out of protecting their own interests, resulting in the continuing and accelerating demolition of the state apparatus that could be used to help them, the very people whose acquiescence is allowing the rich and the privileged to further arrogate more power and wealth to themselves; and further permitting them to continue to lower tax rates privatise and deregulate, of environmental protection in pursuit of short term profit."
Or maybe I'd just yell "Socialism" again because it is shorter and easier to understand.
