Submissions
February 17, 2025
By NZB3
I’ve had an interesting back-and-forth with Reality Check Radio’s Facebook page admin about the merits of making submissions to government Select Committees. It applies to participating in State Democracy Theatre in all respects too and in that I certainly include elections.
On Friday they posted; “LAST CHANCE: Gene Technology Bill feedback closes MONDAY! Maree just submitted her feedback in 5 minutes—have you?
” Ref. Facebook
Now why would you want to “submit” to anyone in the first place let alone to a government suggestion box?
I’ve never done it but I know that even Libertarian associates have sometimes personally gone to Wellington to submit their protests or objections to our political rulers even as the wheels of the State roll on.
There are several functions for the Select Committee process. One is to employ a lot of staff at great expense (what are all those extra parliamentary protocol droids going to do for a job when ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill has run its course?) Another is a form of crowd control because instead of activism or even terrorism or any useful activity a petitioner is turned into a submissive character. The clue is in the name “submission.” Showing up, belting out some wisdom, eyeballing the foe, and being seen by one’s peers can exhaust one’s civic energy. Well done, you. Now you have an honorable exit story you can tell about giving up; At least you tried. Another function is that now They know your name, where you live, who your friends are, and what your threat level is. Do you enjoy them having that on you?
Yet another function of the Committee is to give useless politicians a diversion for their energy. Some busy work to keep them from getting involved with the real work that Ministers are doing or from plotting to take their portfolios and climb the greasy pole. The really important politicians aren’t slumming it with backbenchers and constituents on marathon panels; They’re off working on schemes and scams. Nicola Willis opens the 2025 New Zealand Economics Forum with assembled elites, Nichola gives her speech, Nichola leaves! I think they figured out a while ago now to stop saying “I’ve come to listen” before they go because that was too on the nose.
The Rulers are going to Rule. Your submissions and begging is Democracy Theatre designed to keep everyone else distracted and out of the way of what’s really going on.
But, “Anarchist History of New Zealand Giving feedback en masse has the effect of letting those in power know how many people/voters they might lose come the next election. It’s all in the way you look at it.” said RCR Reality Check Radio NZ.
See how already the Submission Schema has instilled a narrative voice here of being powerless. RCR refers to “those in power” and means someone other than themself.
And does anyone really think these Rulers need submitters when they have scientific polling data? They’re not going to stop buying that from David Farrar, Ipsos, etc. or trusting it above all else. Submissions are a waste of time and energy. Deliberately so. Off to see the Wizard to make an application! But he can’t give you anything you don’t already have. Wasn’t there a movie about that?
Antony DeGreat says, “Anarchist History of New Zealand do you remember what happened when the government tabled taxing kiwisaver?”
Oh good grief! This guy thinks ‘we the people’ turned Labour 6.0 around from imposing a new tax because we apologised and submitted our way out of it!?
That was just the David Parker side-show. As was his ‘Tax Principles Bill’. Never ever going to fly. You could unpick why he did it. Or why Parker said a bunch of the other Socially Signalling junk he said and did. Or why Key had a flag debate or Seymour has a Treaty debate etc etc. At the end of the day it’s just a spectacle. A mass Trolling event. These submissions are a farce. The clue is in the name.
Friend, if you have strength to praise
The lion-headed incubus
That grips your life and mine within
Its strict Egyptian maze,
Expect no lessening of pain,
Easy bed among the lies
And coffeehouse adulteries,
Only that your words will live. – JK Baxter, AHNZ
RCR tries one more time to defend the Kafkaesque labyrinth they’re gummed up in…
“Anarchist History of New Zealand call it feedback, then. Creating a tsunami of feedback/opposition does more than send a message to the government; it signals to the public that many people are concerned about an issue they may not know about. This has the potential to spark curiosity, investigation, and further growth of the movement.
“When you participate in the process, you at least give those outcomes a chance. One thing is certain: if you sit it out on the sidelines, saying it’s all a farce, you have zero opportunity to influencing change.”
AHNZ, one more time, role plays as the guy trying to jailbreak people from Plato’s Cave…(actually that’s not role playing that’s my actual self-image…)
Is that what RCR is doing with Mainstream Media too? Participate in its process and give those outcomes a chance? The Anarkiwi way is to create one’s own platform rather than begging at someone else’s corrupt table. It’s what I like about you.
RCR have not integrated their own principles.
The sorts of outcomes or ideas or values that RCR and their audience want to champion are not welcome in the mainstream. Politicians cast them out, the media priesthood frame them to look like cranks and zealots no matter how rational or benevolent they really were. Many tried to participate on The State’s terms because they believed they had a social license too, a democratic franchise. Hell, some people even promoted something called Plan B during the COVID Crisis in the naive misunderstanding that they were entitled to think and speak for themselves when it was inconvenient to The State that they would. Turns out you don’t have rights in Their system, you have some privileges that can be revoked at the drop of a hat. Or, the discharge of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s deadly melt-stick.
The RCR people are a group who have suffered and still not processed their trauma and grief. They’re still going back to The State in the vain hope they can “send a message” and “signal to the public” and “spark curiosity,” “raise awareness,” “give those outcomes a chance,” “influence change.” Lots of the people in this movement lost family, jobs, health, etc. and some still don’t have those things back. Some don’t go to shops or even entire franchises because they remember all too well what side those firms were on. They have constructed an entire alternative media platform for themselves. And yet…
See how powerful The State is? Those wielding its powers know how strong the grip is and that they can Milgram Experiment the inmates of this tax farm to death and they’ll still go along with it. Like a dog that has been beaten by its master but comes crawling back anyway. Goes to show that suffering is not the path to enlightenment. What is?
Pride. Self-esteem. That’s the path to breaking out of The Statrix. And this is exactly why we have such a thing as Democracy Theatre.
Prepare an important speech, dress up for the cameras (and boy the politicians sure do- check out the expensive hairstyle on Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and those fancy teeth, tattoo, jewels,..) You get to speak in the King’s Court. You get to go on the record. Unless it’s one of the discount bargain bin Zoom versions then you get a parliamentary sticker pass and to tread upon the carpet of state in the hallowed halls…in other words you get sucked in. Drugged up on false self-esteem, the applicant forgets they are a slave. For a tiny slice of participation in The State they forget that their real power is within. And, they sell themselves out along with everyone depending upon them.
The Anarkiwi position is that your pride, and your civic pride with it, is given away whenever you vote or submit or petition. Pooled up together, this the lifeblood of The State. But keep it to yourself and nurture it and it grows. The alternative is not that you do nothing and are a zero, the “farce” they infect you with thinking you are. You put your energy into other things that you formerly could not imagine. Keep your power to yourself. Instead of banging your heart on some mad bugger’s Select Committee submissions polished table.
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