Disruptions in Wellington
February 10, 2022
By NZB3
Glad to see ex-politician and Anarchist Rodney Hide supporting the pro-freedom protests at Parliament. “I support the protest 100 percent,” he says, on his blog BASSETT, BRASH & HIDE.
I support it 100% too within the context it exists in. The proviso is that I would prefer people be Anarchists and not Statists. Watching the live stream of the police vs protesters today I heard lots of comments wishing the politicians would come out. Give an audience. Back down. Change policy. In other words, the protesters are engaged in a form of Slave Culture. They are begging or preying for someone else, someone with power, who is not themselves, to set them free. It’s a bit much to expect an Anarchist revolution in thinking toward government out of the Great Convoy that has now arrived and encamped at parliament.
That’s why I say 100% and not less. It’s the same way I am an Athiest but have realised for some years now that, for example, Christianity is 100% better for many people than their other alternatives. People can’t, and don’t, make a great leap from being tribal or Statist to being fully Libertarian or fully Anarchist. There are steps along the way. A polytheist has made incredible generation-spanning change when he has become a monotheist. He is turning against thousands of years of conditioning in doing just this so who are any of us to demand he has not gone far enough and must keep pushing? It’s that mad expectation we put upon our dead ancestors who, say, in the 1860s did not anticipate and profess the values of the 2020s. For this we topple their statues and un-name their monuments.
For a country that is Statist the protesters are already operating at 100%. Some of them will learn from this experience that they will not meet any politician who intends to be electable. They’re all busy playing the Yes, And Game. As for the mainstream media, they’re doing their best to spin the protest as being horrible people in any way they can. The best they can do for now is to say that they are disruptive to businesses and transport routes near parliament!
Innocent people’s freedom and innocence and business cost? That sort of condemnation can go to the protesters but only if you first extend it 1000-fold to the Molesworth Street Gang for what they’re doing to the entire nation.
Many of these poor suffering ‘businesses’ (eg National Library, Bellamys) who are being inconvenienced are support industries that provide goods and services to The State and all its greasy wheels. They do pretty damn well and owe their existence to the ‘beltway’ 99% of the time. The cost of doing business to our ‘dear leaders’ at the heart of the capital involves a bit of protest disruption once in a while. Sorry about that chief. Maybe pick another location if you don’t like trying to sell coffee in an active war zone when things get hot once in a long while.
Imagine setting up a pub near an army camp to make massive profits from the servicemen at a Napoleonic War or the Vietnam War or the like; This has been going on longer than recorded history. Then, imagine such a vendor being upset when the war gets in the way of their business! They take the risk and usually it pays off but sometimes the front line moves or there is some collateral damage. That’s what happens when you choose to set up shop in a risky spot rather than somewhere safe and secure. I recently watched Goodmorning Vietnam and there was a subplot about a Vietnamise serviceman’s restaurant being blown up in just such a way.
Parliament is and will always be a sort of war zone under armistice. Most of the time the firms that choose to set up shop there benefit greatly from the (artificial) market of government which is why they seek out that location opportunistically. It’s hypocritical to get upset when that same epicenter of power stops handing out risk and reward in the ratio an opportunist would like. We pretend to forget that when we (ie the media) go after the protesters for being disruptive!
Besides which, as I say, it misses the main point. This is a small local disruptive protest against a huge national long-standing disruption! If you’re against disruption there’s only one side to be on.
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Image ref. Parliament, AHNZ Archives (5 Feb 2022)
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