To all those who have followed this blog in 2021, Happy Christmas and thanks for your support.
New Zealand at the end of the year is a radically different country than it was at the start. I think many of us are slightly stunned by the sheer speed of the transformation.
It has been a year of division and polarisation. I’m not referring to the social tensions brought to the surface by Covid-19, although that hasn’t helped. I’m talking about the relentless promotion of identity politics, by both politicians and the mainstream media, and the deliberate fostering of a sense that New Zealand is no longer a society of diverse people with common interests but one in which aggrieved minorities seek to overturn a supposedly privileged and callously indifferent ruling class.
The year has been an object lesson in how a determined and ideologically driven government, supported by allies in academia, the bureaucracy and the media, can deconstruct one of the world’s most tolerant, liberal democracies. Many of us – perhaps most of us – don’t recognise the new country that’s being created and were never asked whether we wanted it.
Indoctrination of the young and impressionable in schools and universities is a crucial part of the transformation process. Unencumbered by knowledge of their own history, they are ripe for the picking. Karl Marx never saw his revolution of the proletariat realised, but I’m sure he would heartily approve of the disruption generated by 21st century activists who share his view of Western democratic society as rotten and irrevocably divided between oppressed and oppressors.
We are witnessing nothing less than a cultural revolution. It’s not one in which supposed enemies of the people and capitalist running dogs are being dragged from their homes and sent to re-education camps, as in Mao’s China, but there is a similar underlying tone of authoritarianism and denunciation of dissenters. We saw it in the savage reaction to the Listener Seven, who were howled down for their heretical attempt to uphold scientific values.
Jacinda Ardern has cleverly contrived to remain aloof from all the ugly stuff, but as prime minister she has given her implied consent. While smilingly uttering pious bromides about social cohesion, she presides over a government that is busily undermining that same sense of solidarity. The country will have a chance to assess her record in 2023, but by that time, even if a new government engages reverse gear, the damage will be deep and possibly irremediable.
In the circumstances it seems a bit incongruous to be wishing everyone the compliments of the season – but hey, Christmas is one institution they haven’t hijacked. Not yet, anyway.
22 comments:
I am fascinated by the fact that the first advertisement I see in your blog post is for ad-blocking software.
Nevermind, I understand the need.
Karl, waiting for 2023 to throw up an actual Government is foolish.
By late 2023 the voting system of New Zealand will be so corruptible, including but certainly not limited to, the votes of children being counted, old women being scared even sillier over this Covid thing etc.that no honest vote will be recorded.
I suspect that only by use of force (General strike type of thing) will New Zealand have a chance of returning to the democracy it once was.
Thankyou for your efforts to preserve some semblence of reason in a world gone increasingly crazy.
I sheet this negative transformation home to ardern and the puppet masters that obviously control her as I seriously doubt she has the intellect to envisage and enact this radical change.
People l;ike yourself are vital in providing an avenue for the serious discussions that need to be had aboput our country so please do not lose heart.
Cheers
Gary
Thank you Karl. I greatly appreciate the work you've done to draw attention to the cultural catastrophe New Zealand has been hurtling towards. I hope that the Christmas season brings respite from worrying about all of that and solace to all, with its underlying message of universal love and hope. May 2022 be a better year for us all.
If the National party under Luxon doesn’t find some principles - and so far he’s pussyfooted around every issue - “not my lived experience” ??? - so the portents are not favorable, then we’re close to doomed. We’ll just mark time until the next Labour/Maori government for the next steps to Zimbabwe. Let’s hope Luxon (or his colleagues) wake up.
Merry Christmas Karl & family...thanks for more essential reading in 2021! Brace position for 2022...
Disagree with what Marx might have made of it but in agreement with you about the present climate of smug intolerance. Intellectual pollution is threatening civilised behaviour. Freedom of speech is being denied in academic institutions. Basic biology is denied in health and education departments to suit the shrill demands of transactivist cultists. Critics of present political fashions now run the risk of losing their jobs. New unhealthy political trends poison exchange of ideas while old injustices still remain.
Brilliant as usual Karl. Keep disseminating the brutal truth. God knows no one else in the MSM seems to be bothered anymore
`'Respect to you Karl,
150 years of a soft slow cooking melting pot , 2 World Wars plus minor squirmishs to create a reasonably harmonious and World respected Nation ….STOLEN by Corbynista Marxist agenderists and shrill attention seeking tribalists……down the long drop in a year!
Time for connection back to reality and pull New Zealand back to majority representation taking on these coves of self entitlement, corrupting Democracy and the Fourth Estate in 2022.
I have looked long and hard at the front bench of the labour cult, and then extended that to the complete cabinet.
Starting with Ardern through Robertson, Davis, Hipkins, Little, Wood, Parker, Jackson, Faafoi, Mahuta, Williams, I cannot for the life of me see anybody with the intellect to organise the complete disruption, separatism, racial divide, and general breakdown of democracy that is taking place at the present time.
As has been proved the only thing this government can achieve is failure. Failing to be open and transparent, as promised, failing to tell the whole truth about the vaccination injuries, failing to keep their word on vaccine mandates, failing to build the houses promised, and the list goes on.
What I would like to know is who is pulling their strings. This whole debacle has a very nasty smell.
There must be a semi-retired honest journalist out there somewhere who has the contacts to turn over a few rocks to reveal a snake or two. Maybe a Wishart, Hagar, or even a du Fresne.
In the meantime, thanks for bringing a bit of sanity to an insane world.
Have a good Christmas.
Cheers
Terry
Totally agree with you Karl regarding the slope we are on
We are unfortunately well down it now I do not believe Luxon or anyone in National will even attempt to turn this around To do so would take a lot of commitment principle and courage
and I just dont see it from them Act and David Seymour maybe but noone else and that probably wont be enough
Thanks for your inspirational columns over the past year Karl. They help us understand we are not going mad when we recoil at the divisive, malevolent and destructive course of this appalling government. The female voters of this country have a lot to answer for in unquestioningly giving their support to this regime, without which it would quickly find itself in the dustbin of history. Hysterical, protective anxiety in the face of COVID is no longer a sufficient excuse. Merry Christmas.
All the very Best Wishes for you and your family over the festive season Karl.
Thank you for your perceptive, clear and well written commentaries this past year.
You write as a true Kiwi.
Doug
Eamon: I heard that too. I don't know whether he is being disingenuous or showing his naivete when he asks "why are these people worried about giving the country a Maori name?" I can answer that very shortly: Experience has shown - and I am referring to the compromise over the name of Mt Egmont 35 years ago - that once you allow a dual name, the "New Zealand" bit is doomed. Mt Egmont was renamed "Mt Egmont/Taranaki" - in that order - in the early 1980's Like me, many Taranakians saw Egmont as part of OUR culture, and firmly resisted a name change to just "Taranaki".
Last year the "Egmont" was quietly dropped; no consultation, no publicity...so hardly anyone noticed.
And thanks to Karl for his ongoing good sense. David Garrett
Great to see some sembalnce of common-sense and erudite writing still out there in our blghted little nation. @022 will be the year to 'get real' id we wnt our country back. Keep up the good Work Mr, du Fresne, I enjoy and appreciate your insights.
Haha Hagar, so funny!
Hagar is a political activist dressed in a trust fund masquerading as a writer.
No exposé novella a month out from the general election in 2020 but sure as there will be one in 2023 before the general election denegrating National in some form because the red team is going to be handed the arse card.
"Let them eat Pavlova!" Ever wonder how Ardern maintains the blind loyalty of her crucial female vote while deconstructing our democracy? Here you go: https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/127386582/prime-minister-jacinda-arderns-solution-to-fixing-a-christmas-pavlova-disaster
The Satanists at the UN are in control. There is your answer. I wish I was wrong but I'm not.
Aurelia,
I'm not sure whether you're using the term "Satanists" literally or metaphorically. If it's the former, you're entitled to your opinion, of course. But it's not one I share, and I don't want to see this site become a forum for lurid conspiracy theories.
Karl reckons that we are witnessing a “Western society, rotten and irrevocably divided” – a “Cultural Revolution” - "The undermining of solidarity". Is he right?
What we are experiencing is governments, not only in New Zealand but in many other western societies, passing inane, irrational, tyrannical legislation in many hugely important areas – both economic and cultural : Energy supply, Covid and its mutants, Cancel culture, Racism, etc.. The majority of citizens are uneasy about it all.
This could indeed be the end of our democracy as we know it (if our Supreme Court decides so). Rome had a successful, democratic type of government for several centuries - until Julius Caesar, backed by forces quite comparable to the ones we are now experiencing, crossed the river Rubicon and named himself Emperor, thus opening a way for Rome’s really trail-blazing achievements.
Watch this space. We live in interesting times.
Who knew/realised that the anagram of Delta and Omicron is “Media Control”?
Andy,
Just to make things clear, I didn't say Western society was rotten and irrevocably divided. I said that how it's presented by the activists who want to re-invent it.
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