[00:00:00] Ladies and gentlemen, start your stopwatches because you're listening to the dispatchers on the clock, and that means we're going to spend the next 15 minutes or less talking about six reasons why the Disinformation project is making things worse in New Zealand.
[00:00:28] So if you're someone who is lucky enough not to have encountered the utterances of the disinformation project, maybe you live in another country and you don't know who they are. Let me read to you from their website the description of their work. The Disinformation project produces high quality research into the seed and spread of misinformation and disinformation. In Aoteroa, New Zealand, they use self invented and some might say Orwellian terminology like misinformation and disinformation ecologies, the infodemic information disorders, and lots more. I would suggest to you that the disinformation project is actually involved in what I would call rabbit hole research. I think they have stopped seeing the forest for the trees because they are obsessed and fixated on a self selected curation of minute details to such a degree that they are missing the bigger picture. They've gone down a darkened rabbit hole and it's now, I think, also a self reinforcing echo chamber that they're in as well. In fact, whenever I think about the Disinformation project, I often think about one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite albums of the 2000s by a band called Block Party, UK alternative band Block Party. And they had a great album that they released in 2007 called A Weekend in the City. And on that album they had, well, they had some really good songs. But one of the really, really good songs I like, and I often think of, when I think about the Disinformation project, is the song hunting for witches. I'm not going to read you all the lyrics, but let me read to you verse two, the chorus and the bridge, because I think it sums up my sentiments, my feelings about what's going on with the Disinformation project. 1990s optimistic as a teen but now it's terror aeroplanes crash into towers the Daily Mail says the enemy is among us taking our woman and taking our jobs all reasonable thought is being drowned out by the nonstop Baying, baying, baying for blood so I go hunting for witches I go hunting for witches Heads are going to roll I go hunting for witches I was an ordinary man with ordinary desire I watched TV it informed me I was an ordinary man with ordinary desire There must be accountability Disparate and misinformed fear will keep us all in place. Now, that song is obviously about the post 911 environment and the extreme social fear that arose as a result of those initial terror attacks. But the reality is it's, I think, also very applicable to the situation that we find ourselves in right now. Because I think that the disinformation project is causing these exact same kind of issues for us now, here in New Zealand. They are, I would suggest you, and this is the first of my six reasons why I think they're making things worse. They are witchfinders, and they get paid, like all witchfinders, to find witches. And they are incentivized, and they are funded for that purpose. And it's only witches that they are incentivized and funded to actually hunt. And so what that means is, if that's your job, then you've really got to justify your funding by continually dragging new witches out of the forest and saying, look, I found another one. Please keep us employed. We're doing a really good job. We're keeping the village safe. We are helpful. We're useful. We need the money to keep doing this work. It's important. And so they're incentivized. It's a self reinforcing thing. They're incentivized to keep finding witches. Which brings me to problem number two and reason number two, why they're making things worse. They are increasing the scope of their witch finding activities. The witch finder General, once he runs out of the first, initial front line of witches that he brings forth before the village, got to keep justifying your job. So what do you do? You tend to expand the scope of works, the scope of your inquiry. The criteria begin to grow for the type of people who will qualify as witches. And we've seen exactly this happening with the misinformation and disinformation narrative. That is very much, I think, also a politically propagandized narrative, too. So, for example, it starts with the whole COVID issue, and particularly the parliamentary protest and stuff that happened around that time. But then it grows into all sorts of other areas as well. And it is not uncommon to hear them talking about Donald Trump. It is not uncommon to hear them talking about the Ukraine War. So it doesn't matter what your position on the Ukraine war is, just in case anybody's wondering. My position, and it's consistently been this, is that I don't buy into simplistic narratives about wars. I think that's a fool's game. I don't think it is good guy versus bad guy here. I think there are problems on both sides. There are big and long standing complexities here. You don't have to be a Putin supporter to understand that this war is not good. And I refuse to cheerlead war. I don't celebrate wars. I'm not going to support a proxy war that's being fought by other nations who are funding and providing arms to keep this thing going. When I think peaceful diplomacy is the more humane and measured way out of this, as I said, faults on both sides, and I think when the full accounting is done, we'll discover that there have been faults on both sides. That doesn't justify what Putin did, but I think it's dangerous to buy into this simplistic goodies versus badies narrative around any war. And in this case, I think especially so there's plenty of evidence, there's plenty of reasons why I think we should have great caution about this. So regardless of what you think about the Ukraine War, if you don't agree with the official narrative, which is, let's throw all of our weight and billions of dollars behind Ukraine, if you don't buy into that narrative, you're now being swept up into the accusations of being part of the misinformation disinformation problem. Pro lifers have now been embroiled and are now caught up in this as well. They're being targeted regularly. I'm not surprised by that, because this is political in nature. This is the Witch Hunter's office. And when the witch hunter runs out of witches to hunt, they've got to find more and more people who qualify as witches so they can keep getting paid. Number three, every problem is linked back to witchcraft. If you're a witch hunter, if you're on a witch hunt, then every problem starts becoming a problem of witchcraft. What do you mean the harvest didn't come in at the right time this year? Witchcraft. What do you mean that we didn't get as much for our goods at the market? Must be witchcraft. What do you mean? We've had unseasonally bad weather. It must be witchcraft. As the old saying goes, if the only tool in your toolkit is a hammer, then every problem becomes a nail. And we start to see more and more of this. This is now the dominant narrative. And we've had a government trying to claim, the Prime Minister included, trying to claim that this is a big concern for New Zealanders. Misinformation and disinformation is one of the biggest problems that plagues us, and lots of Kiwis are concerned about this. But in actual fact, when media organizations do surveys of New Zealanders about what they think the biggest problems are, they don't rate misinformation and disinformation at all as a big problem. This is a politically manufactured thing, which is very typical of witch hunts. Which brings me to point number four and why the disinformation project is making things worse. They are fueling a moral panic. I've been saying this for a while now. They are not helping because they are fueling moral panic in people. They are ironically promoting their own conspiracy theories about a global conspiracy to undermine democracy, to overthrow western liberal governments. They have embroiled Russia in it. They talk about far right groups in the States. They make this big overarching claim that there is somehow a global conspiracy at play here involving misinformation and disinformation. This is moral panic. The irony in the midst of all of this is you might remember the news or you might have seen this. If you're a regular listener to my patrons only podcast each week. If you're not, by the way, $5 or
[email protected]. Left foot media gets you access to that exclusive Patrons only podcast. We're talking a podcast that's about 2 hours minimum every single week. So quite meaty. But if you're a regular listener to that, you're one of my patrons. You will know that a couple of weeks ago, we talked about the fact that New Zealand's SIS, the actual intelligence services in our country, who are experts and who are tasked with the serious job of trying to get to the bottom of actual threats that New Zealand faces, terrorist threats, they lowered our terror threat level. So at the same time, you've got the disinformation project running around and saying, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. The witches are here. They're coming to get us. The SIS is saying, in actual fact, the threat level can be lowered because the threat is not as serious as what it has been previously. Which brings me to point number five for how the disinformation project is making things worse in New Zealand. They are fuelling suspicion and social divisions in New Zealand, and pretty serious social divisions, I would add, because if you're telling people that there is a group of people out there actively trying to destroy their very way of life, to destroy democracy, to instill some sort of authoritarian regime, to overthrow the peaceful liberal order, then is it any wonder that people are going to be panicked about that, who buy into this particular narrative? And that's what they do. You don't have to read much of their stuff or listen long to realize the disinformation project promote a strong us versus them mentality. There are threats here. There are people who are outsiders who threaten our very way of life. And what does that do? It fuels unhealthy, and I would suggest, dangerous social divisions amongst people. It is really not good. They are not turning down the temperature. Every time they speak, they turn up the temperature. They are actually adding more petrol to the fire. And it is not helping at all. Which brings me to point number six. My final reason as to why the disinformation project is making things worse in New Zealand. All of this that they are engaged in is very likely to lead to bad outcomes. This is likely to cause the very thing it is claiming to cure through marginalization by this Us versus them, this social division. You marginalize people off to the fringes. And what happens on the margins, on the fringes, where people are pushed into those darkened places and told that they are a danger and a threat to the rest of us? Guess what happens? People who are marginalized. And we've seen this. We understand this with the whole principle, or the principles around terror, radicalization.
[00:12:27] We've lived through several decades of this. Now we know how this works, that one of the most effective things that you can do if you want to radicalize someone into a terrorist organization is to. And this is why terrorist organizations target marginalized people, because they know that disenfranchised, angry social outcasts make very good recruits. That's the reality of it. And so, ironically, you end up creating the very sickness that you are claiming to be the cure for. None of this is good. I think we need to move away from the mentality of the disinformation project. We need to put them on the back burner. And what we need to do is get back to the basics of community, of friendship, of dialogue, of conversation. Stop falling into the tribalism that they want us to fall into. Don't allow politics to be everything. No, thanks, Karl Marx. You're not welcome at our Christmas dinner table this year. Not everything is about politics, nor should everything be politics. The history of the world is not, again, no, thanks to Karl Marx. The history of the world is not a history of power struggle. It's much more than that. There is goodness, there is truth, and there is beauty. Even though there is also moments of darkness and evil there. Don't allow this politicization, this Marxist politicization of human life to dominate your world. Your thoughts, your interactions with others. Treat them first and foremost as human persons, sacred image bearers made in the image and likeness of God. Respect them, love them, converse with them, even when they're difficult to talk to, regardless of how kooky their ideas are. And guess what? New Zealand will be a better, more cohesive society. But if we go the way of the disinformation project and it's us versus them and we get on the old witch hunt, things will only get worse, right? Let me finish with today in history. December 23, 1986 Soviet dissident and physicist Dr. Andre Sakarov and his wife Yelena Bonner, released on December 19 from the closed city of Gorky, returned to Moscow today. They have been in internal exile in Gorkhi since 1980. Their release comes following a telephone call from the Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, whose policies of glasnost have made their freedom possible. Sakarov, considered to be the father of the Russian Hbomb, is also an outspoken civil rights campaigner. He has openly protested against Soviet nuclear testing. He founded the Soviet Human Rights Committee and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 for his outspoken and dangerous stance on civil rights. He and his wife were exiled to Gaurki after criticism of Soviet action in Afghanistan. It is understood that Dr. Sakarov will resume his position in the Soviet Academy of Science. So there you go. Today in History, 1986, December the 23rd. Sakarov returns to Moscow, and the only thing left to say, folks, is a huge thank you to you, the listeners, for tuning in this year and for allowing me the privilege, the opportunity of opening up my brain and sharing my thoughts with the world. It's been a real privilege and a pleasure and a joy for me. So a huge thank you to you. And thank you for all the correspondence that I've had throughout this year as well. Merry Christmas to you and your family. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And I will see you next time on the dispatchers on the clock is brought to you by Left foot media support our important independent media
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[00:16:37] Left Foot Media Link is in the show Notes Sam.
