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April 9, 2016 7:00am by David Farrar

Blunt on media

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EAD

Bahahahaha,

That’s my initial response when I see cartoons like this that try and convince us ordinary folk that there is some huge ideological “left vs. right” battle going on politics and that various outlets of the MSM are aligned on either side.

The real divide these days is between “the establishment” media and alternative media such as Zerohedge, Breitbart or Takimag. The establishment media and ruling class of course being pro 3rd world immigration, anti-Russia, pro Central Banking, anti Donald Trump (yes even Faux is anti Trump), pro Government and anti Liberty (i.e. watch the below video)

https://youtu.be/_QT8Q-Hcll0

The other element at play in the media seldom mentioned is the below the line commentators. These commenters are frequently better than the articles themselves and spending a little time among them is one of the more didactic experiences one can encounter on the internet.

When reading or engaging in debate with some of the better commentators, even when I am put in my place by one of them, I encounter a logical progression of thoughts, usually buttressed with enough information to investigate what they have expressed.

Far more insightful then the tired, worn, hollow “left vs. right” narrative we’re told to follow.
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April 9, 2016 7:25am
kowtow

The agenda driven MSM. Remember how they used the photo of the Kurd child to smash Europe’s borders.

Here’s one from the ODT , buttering up gullible southerners. All is well with Muslim immigration.

“Ahead of the arrival of 45 Syrian refugees to Dunedin, reporter Vaughan Elder and videographer Craig Baxter visited the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre in Auckland to hear some of their stories. ”

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/379097/we-feel-peace
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April 9, 2016 7:28am
EAD

For those who haven’t go the time to watch the video of the “What if” speech that got Andrew Napolitano fired from Fox, here is the 1st half of the transcript:

“What if Democrats and Republicans were two wings of the same bird of prey?

What if elections were actually useful tools of social control?

What if they just provided the populace with meaningless participation in a process that validates an establishment that never meaningfully changes?

What if that establishment doesn’t want and doesn’t have the consent of the governed?

What if the two-party system were actually a mechanism used to limit so-called public opinion?

What if there were more than two sides to every issue, but the two parties wanted to box you in to one of their corners?

What if there’s no such thing as public opinion, because every thinking person has opinions that are uniquely his own?

What if public opinion were just a manufactured narrative that makes it easier to convince people that if their views are different, there’s something wrong with them?

What if the whole purpose of the Democratic and Republican parties was not to expand voters’ choices, but to limit them?

What if the widely perceived differences between the two parties were just an illusion?

What if the heart of government policy remains the same, no matter who’s in the White House?

What if the heart of government policy remains the same, no matter what the people want?

What if those vaunted differences between Democrat and Republican were actually just minor disagreements?

What if both parties just want power and are willing to have young people fight meaningless wars to enhance that power?

What if both parties continue to fight the war on drugs just to give bureaucrats and cops bigger budgets and more jobs?

What if government policies didn’t change when government’s leaders did? What if no matter who won an election, government stayed the same?

What if government were really a revolving door of political hacks, bent on exploiting the people while they’re in charge?

What if both parties supported welfare, war, debt, bailouts and big government?

What if the rhetoric candidates displayed on the campaign trail was dumped after electoral victory?

What if Barack Obama campaigned as an antiwar, pro-civil liberties candidate, then waged senseless wars while assaulting your rights that the Constitution is supposed to protect?

What if George W. Bush campaigned on a platform of nonintervention and small government, then waged a foreign policy of muscular military intervention and a domestic policy of vast government borrowing and growth?
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April 9, 2016 7:49am
Simon

How old is this?

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum….”

Noam Chomsky.

Not sure if Brunt has fluked Noam Chomsky but seeing this is Kiwi Blog a 24/7 propaganda channel for National headed by Helen Key in their tribal fight against Labo, a party 95% the same as National gonna say Brunt is clueless.
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April 9, 2016 7:55am
stephieboy

We have every right to query two posters who represent a highly distorted and deluded view of the world .One EAD who has consistently failed to successfully prophecy an imminent world economic collapse that he had got down to ,I belive ,15 September, 2015 or thereabouts Not to speak of his self professed Moonbat nearly to the right of Adolf Hitler National Socilaist ideology ..

Then we have of course Kowtow paranoid as ever that 45 Syrian refugees will irrevocably pollute Dunedin’s Celtic /tartan racial purity . .Two who like many others who post on KB make the NYT and Fox ( certain query about the later , though ) look the paragons of sane and objective reporting .Especilly when put up against Zero Hedge , Info Wars ,Russia Today ( Kremlin controlled and directed ) ,Global Research , Daily Stormer ,Veterans Today and other related Conspiracy laced nut job blogs and websites.
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April 9, 2016 7:55am
flipper

EAD….

So who is Fox’s current Legal Analyst?

None other than the same Judge (using US practice of retaining former titles) Napolitano.
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April 9, 2016 8:06am
RRM

NONE OF YOU GET IT, DO YOU?

I’m the ONLY ONE who sees what’s really going on. FML…
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April 9, 2016 8:24am
stephieboy

simon, interesting isn’t it that Noam Chomsky vilifies MSM media in a country that gives him and upholds his constitutional right to do so. Similar DPF allows the same from you to post and rail against” Kiwi Blog a 24/7 propaganda channel for National headed by Helen Key…”

EAD, you too can’t complain against an MSM kiwiblog that provides you innumerable opportunities to spew out your utter shite .

All rather ironical and comical !
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April 9, 2016 8:26am
cmm

EAD is correct.

Left and Right are a false dichotomy sold to us to believe that all useful information and positions are being discussed.

It’s a bit like that old Dolly Parton line: “I like both kinds of music…. Country and Western.” or, closer to home, Holden vs Ford.

Left and Right is a gross oversimplifcation of the political landscape to (i) give people a tribe to sort themselves into and (ii) give people an enemy. That makes it really easy to put people into the Democrat vs Republican or Labour vs National camps.

It’s great too for lobbyists who fund both parties. They don’t really care which pen the sheep go into, so long as they go into a pen. What they don’t want is any independent or uncontrollable thought.

Political affiliations are multi-dimensional: socialist vs individualist, statist vs libertarian, etc. but they get falsely reduced onto a single line where some socialists are on the left and some are on the right. Bizarrely Nazi (socialists) are branded “extreme right”.

The reason Trump is pissing off BOTH sides of the MSM is because he’s stepping off that left/right line and threatens the lobbyists. That’s where his support base is coming from: people who of tired of choosing pen A or pen B and want some real choice.
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April 9, 2016 8:30am
David Garrett

kowtow: Quite so…No-one will remember our predictions in 20 years, when the son of one of these oh so grateful Syrian Muslims blows up something…Of course by then Muslim terrorism in Godzone will have already happened a couple of times, so it won’t be quite as shocking.

Why do I say this? Very simple: in 20 years time our Muslim population will have doubled or tripled; every western country which has let its Muslim population reach 5% has experienced Islamic terrorism… Why would our experience be any different? God I hope I am wrong…
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April 9, 2016 8:43am
Simon

But that’s the point stephe. Labo and national are 95% the same but that isn’t recognised by msm

In merica Cruz and Clinton are the same but there a supposed great fight between the 2 played out in msm.

Trump is an outsider and is hated by fox and Nyt.

And do you seriously think KB isn’t a national party propaganda channel?
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April 9, 2016 8:48am
EAD

@ Cmm,

Thanks for your kind words and insightful words.

As I noted in my 1st comment, these are the types of “below the line” comments that keeps Kiwiblog as one of the 4-5 sites (and only local one) where I spend much time reading comments.

Nothing, I repeat nothing, is more mind numbing than watching commentators being steered on Kiwiblog into the ~~four legs good, 2 legs baaaad~~ “National = good, Labour = bad” narrative.

The media party have you exactly where they want when it dissolves into that type of debate.
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April 9, 2016 8:52am
stephieboy

simon, the point is that KB provides you with a forum in which he can make your claims no matter how outlandish or untrue or contrary to the DPF consensus .

David Garrett, another one who takes his paranoid world view too seriously . I mean to say 45 Syrian refugees who will inevitably and nefariously infiltrate and topple the tartan order of Dunedin etc

Reach 5% and inevitably experience terrorism etc ??? Hope I’m wrong ?

I think you are !

EAD , not everyone on KB including you and me are ” being steered on KB into …. ” Or are you not sure personally about this ? Why ?
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April 9, 2016 9:03am
Harriet

“….“Ahead of the arrival of 45 Syrian refugees to Dunedin, reporter Vaughan Elder and videographer Craig Baxter visited the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre in Auckland to hear some of their stories. ”…”

Was one of those stories about helping Christians in Syria from being killed?

Were Syrian Christians actually mentioned?

If not ——– trouble has most certainly arrived on the shores of NZ!!!!
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April 9, 2016 9:39am
David Garrett

stephie: I will apologise in advance for Godwinning…but you clearly have little knowledge of 20th century history..in 1923 the Nazis were just one of a plethora of fascist/extreme right wing parties in Germany…the attempted putsch in Munich in that year failed miserably…As the twenties wore on they gatherrf strength…As late as 1931 the “establishment” parties thought they could “fence him in” by bringing him into the cabinet…by 1933 Hitler was Chancellor, and the Nazis had abolished democracy.

Fast forward 85 years…ISIS are a relatively small group (you’d know better than me), and one of a number of similar Islamist terrorist groups…Russia, with all its resources cannot dislodge ISIS from Syria…

The moral of the story? Large malignant ideological cancers all start from a few rogue cells..Better yet, what have we gained by allowing these people into our green and pleasant land? What can they possibly offer our society? Discuss.
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April 9, 2016 10:41am
Kimbo

@ David Garrett

Better yet, what have we gained by allowing these people into our green and pleasant land? What can they possibly offer our society? Discuss.

Um, I usually find discussion with you quickly gets personal, and as per the last time we engaged, you eventually take your bat and ball and sulk, but…ok…I’ll accept your invitation for the moment, although I have a feeling I will regret that very soon:

Every immigrant group that has arrived practically….anywhere and at anytime has been greeted with that same fear and skepticism. New Zealand is no exception: Irish Catholics, Chinese, Dalmatians (actually largely Croatians), Irish Catholics again, European Jews, Dutch, ~~Pasifika~~, oops, ‘scuse me, just for you – Pacific Islanders, Indians, Chinese again, and now Muslims.

Yes, the Muslim community, including their future offspring do present a risk that is statistically greater than others. However,

1. as nothing in life is guaranteed so therefore all immigrants present a risk – and also opportunities (refer to SWOT analysis), and

2. when pressed you have been unable to explain how we could effectively “stop” the potential risk by ending immigration of “Middle Eastern Muslims” – but still leaving the door open to those from nations such as the UK and India, not to mention Australia whose young Muslims are arguably even more amenable to the sophisticated techniques of grooming and radicalisation that recruiters utilise (and that doesn’t even include NZ converts, who have the zeal of an acolyte)

…your suggestions thus far fail when it comes to implementing specifics. As I said, this was the point at which you absented yourself last time I attempted to “discuss” your suggestions, and things were starting to get interesting when it came to kicking the tyres on your ideas. Which leads me to conclude your invitation is nothing more than a rhetorical question designed to add confection to the demagogues usual attempt to avoid scrutiny: “well at least I’m trying to do something!”. .

Don’t like the answer? Don’t ask the question…
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April 9, 2016 12:10pm
kowtow

DG

20 years time?

We already have “Kiwis” travelling to , wanting to travel to , Syria to engage in genocide.

We are importing imams to try and control what’s going on in mosques.

New laws have been passed to curtail freedom of movement and to increae surveillance.

Refugees (carefully screened they tell us) have been involved in a variety of serious crime .

And the same govt is bringing in even more of them?

And the media ask no questions , just plays the “hug a Muslim” game.
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April 9, 2016 12:33pm
Kimbo

@ David Garrett

what have we gained by allowing these people into our green and pleasant land?

…and unlike your proclivity to dodge direct questions, I’ll let this John Roughan op ed piece – written 14 years ago at the time of the Tampa incident, but still relevant and applicable – answer your question.

But in the meantime, can I ask one question back – as a former ACT MP, which presumably makes you a zealous believer in the free flow of capital, trade, resources and ideas…is it not incongruous to then restrict the movement and migration of people on the basis of blanket factors that are not illegal or discriminated against under our laws and customs such as race, ethnicity, beliefs…and religion?:

Ww probably shouldn’t shout this too loudly around the world, but we can afford to be a soft touch for determined migrants. Boat people, “queue jumpers” – we need ’em.

To broadcast the fact would defeat the purpose. We need people who know the path is tough but set out anyway.

It seems to me an opportunity went begging in Bali this week when governments met to relieve the pressure on Australia, and all that our ministers had to offer was to fill more of our miserable refugee quota with certified asylum seekers who have reached Indonesia.

Asylum seekers be damned. The curious thing about this whole subject has been the implication that those who wait in line for their credentials to be checked are the virtuous and those who don’t are villains.

The only reason you would wait in line to see the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is so that you can establish “a well-founded fear of persecution” at home. In other words, the regime back there has a particular reason to regard you as an enemy.

That doesn’t make you a villain, but it probably doesn’t make you a blushing innocent either.

Civil wars are brutalising for all sides and it shouldn’t be assumed the losers are the lesser offenders.

Possibly our Government can ensure its annual quota is filled with painters, poets and pacifists whose work has offended the powerful, but I doubt it.

This is not an argument for refusing asylum to political fugitives. Not in the least. Let ’em come, too. But let’s not treat the rest – “economic refugees” – as an inferior caste.

Economic refugees are ordinary folk, probably not politically aligned and unable to line up with confidence at the UN desk. Those who refuse to wait in the stench and squalor of refugee camps are a bit more than ordinary folk.

They are demonstrably risk-takers, enterprising. And they have amassed sufficient capital to pay handsome sums to unsavoury characters, “people smugglers”, who finally put them to sea and point them at the empty northern coast of Australia.

I can understand Australia’s nervousness, but not ours. If any of those leaky boats ever make it right down here I wouldn’t set Lianne Dalziel’s dogs on them. I’d pay Tuku Morgan to make a film of their voyage and put it in Te Papa right up there with the odysseys of our ancestors.

But they are not going to sail all this way, not in the numbers we need. We ought to give the pick of them a pleasant surprise in Indonesia, preferably before they shell out for a voyage likely to end in an Australian prison.

I don’t suppose this will strike the Prime Minister as a particularly sensible immigration policy but there isn’t much that is sensible about immigration rules at the best of times.

Ms Dalziel was on radio this week explaining why employers are about to be made liable for policing her regulations. One of the reasons, she said, is that employers make it more difficult to expel these people when they give them jobs.

Before you know it, she continued, they have signed on with Inland Revenue and become protected by that department’s privacy code and it just gets very difficult.

I waited for Kim Hill to say, “They have jobs, they pay tax, and you want send them away?” but she let me down.

For a country far from anywhere, populated entirely by migration within the past millennium (a flicker of time by comparison with human occupation of, say, Australia) we are astonishingly reluctant to allow more people in.

Even as we agonise about economic improvement, invoking every quack elixir of public investment, we overlook the obvious: The place is underpopulated.

The population has been practically static for 35 years. So has the economy. It has been that long since we lost the security of colonial trade and had to look for a broader range of exports and markets.

Strict immigration limits might have made sense while the country thought its economic development depended on keeping foreign goods and capital at bay. But for the past 18 years the prescription has been an open door to the world, in every factor of production except the most important, people.

Liberal immigration makes voters nervous and politicians consoled themselves with the idea that when the country is open to world markets, the size of the domestic economy doesn’t matter.

Not long ago, as part of the Government’s “economic transformation” quest, the Treasury issued discussion papers suggesting that size does matter after all. The author, David Skilling, argued that companies in a small, remote economy are less likely to invest in specialised, high-value products and generally lack the scale to sell into foreign markets.

The implications are obvious, but they hardly featured in the Government’s voluminous production a few weeks ago.

This is an age of heavy global migration. The proportion of the world’s population living outside the country of birth is double that of 35 years ago. And the most lively and prosperous places in the world, notably the United States and latterly Britain, have been the most open to migrants looking for a better life.

This country has yet to use its real comparative advantages – good housing, sealed roads, running water, electricity. When you are languishing in a UN refugee camp, what more would you want.

I don’t blame those who jump the queue. I would, too.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=1090370
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April 9, 2016 12:36pm
RRM

I think I need at least 3 whole blunts to appreciate the humour of these cartoons… 🙂
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April 9, 2016 1:08pm
blazeoflight

The trouble with Blunt…

…he is perpetuating the idea that there are always three sides to any story: my side, your side and the truth.

While there is a degree of truth in that, it becomes severely detrimental to functional society when taken to the extremes Blunt is illustrating.

The New York Times is a legendary media outlet, the paper of record for the United States, and while it does display a very US-centric editorial and opinion line, it is many, many times removed from being a mirror image of Fox.

The latter, on the other hand, displays a complete disregard for facts, and exists solely to toe the party line as indicated (via nods and winks and breakfast meetings etc) by Rupert Murdoch – hence it can be somewhat unpredictable, such as with its campaign against Trump.

The most egregious example of this misframing, so prevalent that the media buys into it, is the idea that there are two sides to the climate change ‘debate’, and these two sides deserve equal treatment. Two sides? The scientific community versus the entrenched interests of the greedies and the fringe lunatics that inhabit every society?

So sorry, Blunt, your false dilemma (an example of a fallacy, by the way) leaves me cold.

It’s not inappropriate, given the content of your so called cartoons, that your professional handle rhymes with a well known misogynist obscenity.
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April 9, 2016 1:32pm

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