Follow The White Rabbbit: Why @CensoredNewsNow Is Worth A Look Below The Surface

“Hey – I don’t understand a lot of your tweets…” I said to @CensoredNewsNow (who his friends affectionately and ironically refer to as CNN) on Twitter, back in May of 2012.

Having talked to him pretty consistently since Occupy, and having intellectually benefited as a result, it is nostalgic to see the bemusement of others that I once felt, when they happen upon his work for the first time – or unwittingly have it thrust upon them!

For I soon learned by looking at CNN’s ‘Occupy The Banks‘ website (a patchwork quilt with over 3.8 million views) that truth in the independent media sphere doesn’t often come in a pretty package – isn’t usually related in an easily digestible fashion – can even appear batshit crazy at first – but is often shared under tenuous and even desperate circumstances, by those who have an irrepressible urge to share with the wider public what they have witnessed or discovered, by whatever means available or necessary.

But the veracity of the content is self-evident by its sourcing and CNN has produced results time and time again.

Throughout the 2 1/2 years I have followed his work, issues he has acted to bring to light have consistently ended up in the mainstream, albeit well after the fact.

From his early publishing of the Joris Demmink video and document disclosures, which started out with a few lone protesting voices in the independent media and ended up becoming a social media movement, and acknowledged by members of the US Congress, who asked the State Department to hold the Netherlands accountable for the inadequate investigation into Demmink’s alleged crimes…. to his campaigning to bring the multi-trillion-dollar LIBOR scandal to light, long before MSM… to his work surrounding the celebrity and Vatican implications of what is now known as the #CSAInquiry (another cause on which he was an early campaigner that has now penetrated the mainstream media and sparked official inquiries) and him giving a heads up about the resignation of the Pope many months before it became widely known…. to breaking the news of the Snowden Nobel Peace Prize nomination… CNN has been ahead of the status quo at every step.

Unfortunately, if you’re unfamiliar with his work, style, situation and circumstances and are abruptly confronted by him, CNN has an intimidating habit of spewing out back-to-back tweets that are packed full of probably every law enforcement-triggering keyword known to mankind (often in caps), some of which then copy governmental agencies official accounts for good measure.

Something which appears to have aggravated the powers that be sufficiently to apparently have inflicted retaliation on him for his insolence and as per the hashtag #FreeCNN on at least one occasion in 2014, detained him as well.

But there is a lot more to CNN than his propensity for violating every established social media best practice. So I have scanned back over the last few years to pull together a few of his information superhighway victories, to illustrate this, and to reminisce.

Hopefully, like me, others will learn to filter his messages for what does and doesn’t suit their interests and their situation; to try to place themselves in CNN’s shoes before judging on appearances; to discern the valuable insights that are so often lurking beneath the surface.

And as usual, it is all best summed up by a complete stranger:

[This post is now complete. Thank you for watching]

Written by Suzie Dawson

Twitter: @Suzi3D

Official Website: Suzi3d.com

Journalists who write truth pay a high price to do so. If you respect and value this work, please consider supporting Suzie’s efforts via credit card or Bitcoin donation at this link. Thank you!

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You Be The Judge: 3 Different Versions of NZ’s “Moment of Truth”

[This post was blogged live and is now complete. Thank you for watching]

The recent “Moment of Truth” (#MOT) event in New Zealand featuring Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Glenn Greenwald, Kim Dotcom, Robert Amsterdam and Laila Harre is best understood when viewed from multiple perspectives.

There is of course, the perspective of the beleaguered and scandalised NZ mainstream media, with which most are by now familiar.

There is the perspective of new media activists like myself and others, well-schooled in #GCSB-related issues from a first person context, present at the Auckland Town Hall event to eye-witness and document this slice of political history, of social evolution.

Most importantly, there is the seldom-aired and oft-forgotten perspective of the non-politically-aware average Joe and Jane Bloggs Kiwis, who knew little or nothing about the GCSB prior to the Moment of Truth but for whom the massive media maelstrom that surrounds everything Kim Dotcom had penetrated enough to pique their interest and lead them to the livestream on the night.

The Housewife

In conversation with a couple that fits just that description, valuable feedback is gleaned that had not been anticipated.

“You know me, I never get into politics”, said Jane Kiwi (name changed to protect identity). “But I actually watched the livestream last Monday night”.

To say Jane doesn’t “get into politics” is an understatement. She frequently hushes others when they attempt to discuss it. Too controversial, and as the old adage goes, not a topic for polite company. A primary school teacher and mother of infants, Jane is a classic case of not having the time or inclination to invest herself in matters beyond her immediate surroundings and concerns.

But watching the stream, Jane soon found herself confused. To paraphrase; “Not understanding much of what Greenwald said made it feel like he spoke for too long. We knew John Key had called him a loser and how embarrassing that was, but I didn’t understand most of what was said that night, so the parts I did understand being about John Key made it come off as self-aggrandizing”.

She greatly enjoyed seeing Snowden and Assange on the big screens but confesses to have comprehended little if any of what was discussed. “We just don’t know why we have the GCSB. It makes no sense” she says.

Another complaint was Kim Dotcom’s mic volume on the stream. While not at all a noticeable issue from within the Hall, Jane says it was too loud in the mix, leading to a perception Dotcom was cackling throughout. Indeed at the close of event, the guest mics were all left open – allowing those departing the Hall to hear the backstage conversations of Dotcom, Greenwald and Harre.

Tellingly, the conversation overheard was the aforementioned noting to one another how wonderful the audience response had been, and how great they felt the event had gone, which was also my experience on the night.

However the rash of open-mic-incidents in recent times does raise question as to whether the open mics were malicious or purely accidental.

So what would have helped Jane to understand? If a group of the most intelligent men on the planet proving, at a highly technical level, how our government intelligence apparatus has been turned on us, couldn’t?

For although Jane has occasionally heard about the plight of Edward Snowden on TV, she has been too busy changing nappies to read Greenwald’s “No Place To Hide“. She will probably never read The Intercept’s articles on the New Zealand revelations.

She has no idea how to explain what is happening to school children.

But she has this nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach that something is not quite right. Larger forces are at play in her country and to undesirable effect. Although she has little grasp on who or what that is, she innately knows that somehow, she is a tiny part of the antidote. If only she knew how to take the first step.

Jane is looking for answers. Answers that, truth be told, take countless hours of research to be able to get near. But that is just not within the reach of much of the population. So Jane needs to have it explained to her in much simpler terms.

While not specifically about mass surveillance, Edward Snowden, Assange or Dotcom, this short animated video about the basic elements of liberty instantly springs to mind as a type of teaching tool that is accessible to most members of the public.

Jane is not a terrorist. She is a middle class white female from the suburbs who has, through mainstream coverage of Snowden’s revelations, discovered that for her entire adult life she has been routinely driving past an NSA station in the middle of Takapuna, an upmarket beach-side suburb of Auckland’s North Shore.

Largely dismayed by recent political events, she is among the last demographic of Kiwi consumers to realise that the mainstream media might not cover events with her best interest in mind, but their own instead.

Having been taught her entire life to view politics as a left-right spectrum, it has never occurred to Jane that there might be alternatives to the current paradigm other than to swing between voting red and voting blue.

She is further disillusioned by #DirtyPolitics: a book full of despicable people and despicable acts and too few characters with whom she can relate to, in order to identify and empathise with them.

The barrier that raises prevents her from seeing herself as a victim of privacy intrusion; a concept which remains stubbornly foreign, despite concerted assertions to the contrary from those she speaks with.

To even begin to think outside the box Jane has been brought up in, she needs not only seeds of inspiration and the time to contemplate and form new ideas, but also holistic support at her level of understanding.

This is not something readily available via the mainstream, nor within the esteemed circles of academics, researchers and talking heads on the speaking circuit. If only Jane had a button on her browser that translated geek speak to colloquial Kiwi lingo; political engagement would inch that must closer to her realm of possibilities.

The Dinosaurs

The performance of the proverbial Fourth Estate at #MoT was entirely predictable however is on another level when witnessed first hand.

It was patently obvious from seeing NewstalkZB political editor Barry Soper camped out at the very rear of the hall that the media pack were there to relay sensation, not to pay attention. But to listen to establishment journalists openly colluding over angles at the end of the event was next level. “I’m going to say it was a fizzer”, declared one extremely well-known New Zealand journalist. “Yeah, me too” said another equally recognisable stalwart.

This, after an event where the public had stomped the floor in appreciation so loudly and vigorously that we thought the floorboards would break under our feet. Where standing ovation after standing ovation took place, where poor Edward Snowden had to interrupt the audience’s protracted applause for him, in order to be able to speak. An event at a venue filled to capacity, with another capacity crowd regrettably turned away. An event where 200,000 people watched the livestream in the first 24 hours.

A fizzer, indeed.

Even more embarrassingly, these journalists, many of whom consider themselves to be “new media” and expert at media analysis, made their boasts and backslaps while standing right beside a REAL journalist – one who they didn’t even vaguely recognise.

With global reach and ten times the followers of the “fizzer” conspirators, Tim Pool is the quintessential new media journalist and innovator – a fearless firebrand far beyond the imagining of the establishment New Zealand media. Not only was Tim one of the first Occupy Wall Street livestreamers, broadcasting epic live footage to the world in up to 21-hour stints during the evictions, but he has spent the years since continuing to relentlessly cover, worldwide, what the mainstream media don’t.

From New York to Istanbul, Chicago to Los Angeles to Ferguson, Missouri, Tim has been shot at with rubber bullets, tear-gassed, arrested, and followed in the pursuit of real journalism.

To see him in New Zealand was exhilarating.

Tim didn’t think the Moment of Truth was a fizzer. When I asked him for comment, he said: “this is the biggest story in the world right now.”

Indeed it is. After weeks of #DirtyPolitics lead-up, the “Moment of Truth” broke into the international media in a huge way. Despite this, the New Zealand mainstream media continued to target Kim Dotcom in precisely the same way warned about in Nicky Hager’s book.

At the press conference backstage after the event, they appeared to spontaneously and collectively obsess over an email related to Kim Dotcom’s case, conveniently forgetting to ask questions about the Snowden revelations or Greenwald’s reporting. Finding himself in the uncalled-for situation of being grilled about Dotcom’s business rather than actual journalism, Greenwald remained polite under fire.

In this unedited video shot live, the tail-end of the media frenzy can be seen. After Greenwald politely deflects their irrelevant and inflammatory questions by explaining what he is there to talk about and why, the media continue to yell questions unrelated to Snowden at the panel, prompting Dotcom to call them out on their relentless bias, to their faces, and end the press conference.

Apparently Russell Brown from the often-friendly sometimes-fence-sitting NZ blog PublicAddress was apparently not at the same press conference. For he wrote of the incident, “no one else could be such a dumbass as to undermine the event in the way Kim Dotcom did”.

That the entire mainstream media had Glenn Greenwald sitting in front of them, waiting to answer any question they had about mass surveillance, New Zealand’s role in it and Snowden’s revelations, and instead chose to attempt to saddle him with baggage from the ongoing Dirty Politics anti-Dotcom vendetta, is a travesty.

In contrast and no doubt to Russell’s chagrin, the over 500 reader comments on his article are by-in-large from wide-awake citizens openly discussing the media’s position with a deep level of understanding and no shortage of very-Kiwi sardonic humour.

(The following three images are screengrabs from the comments section of the PublicAddress article)

Damn good question.

The Activist

There was nothing more torturous (other than initial confusion over whether I could get a media pass to cover the event?!!) than having a thousand questions to ask Glenn Greenwald and not getting to ask any of them. Which is why I was overwhelmed with joy to see Russell Brown soon redeem himself with this interview with Greenwald.

While still dragging Kim Dotcom into it, Brown actually does manage some good questions and this is reflected in the comments section, which is far less vitriolic and even congratulatory of him.

“At the end of the day” (inside joke for Kiwis) people recognise truth when they see and hear it. They understand the difference between the real and the manufactured. While they can be lulled into sloth they are not so easily lulled into disbelief when confronted with experiences and conversations that they inherently understand are rooted in fact. Whether or not they can grasp the intricacies or know how to place themselves in the picture yet.

Having living legends like Snowden, Assange and Greenwald appearing in Auckland will have begun that process of change for many people, as the issues become more real to them and less whimsical figures of their imagination. The scale of the awakening is now such that there is no longer any single person, even Kim Dotcom, on whom the future of this country is reliant or can be swayed. The people want and are demanding answers. All of us will equally carry the responsibility for the security of our future generations on our shoulders and it is only a spirit of unity that will overcome any challenge.

Update: Post-Election Result

Last night the General Election results were posted and updated live at the official New Zealand Government Elections website.

Defying statistical probability, the standard of deviation in the party votes was ~1% for the vast majority of the count, after a fall of a few percentage points at the very beginning.

A lack of exit polls deprives us of any meaningful way to measure the veracity of the result.

While the mainstream media made much of the efficacy and safety of using “paper ballots” in the lead up to election night, the data being updated on the Government website clearly had a point of entry and left some Kiwis wondering what we have really just witnessed.

Kim Dotcom, however, has been gracious in defeat; extending a gentlemanly congratulations to Prime Minister John Key and taking responsibility for the loss.

While admirable of him to do so, the #DirtyPolitics script was very clear about who was responsible for the anti-Dotcom smear campaigns and which members of the mainstream media participated in them.

All of the mainstream journalists implicated in the scandal closed ranks and remain employed and operational to this day, and indeed are bragging and victim-blaming on social media as I write this.

Let New Zealand never again be called the least corrupt country in the world. For we are not. Our government is an international embarrassment, newly empowered to run amock for another three years.

Written by Suzie Dawson

Twitter: @Suzi3D

Official Website: Suzi3d.com

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NZ’s Watergate: Situation Normal – All F(h)ooked Up

The struggle for control of the mainstream media narrative in New Zealand is always fascinating to observe and, thanks to the explosive pre-election whistle-blowing of Nicky Hager’s book Dirty Politics, increasingly so.

Arguably the largest political scandal in the history of our small country, Dirty Politics is more about the media than they care to admit.

While framed by them as a debate about bloggers, the implications for, and insights into the machinations of establishment journalists are of far greater consequence to the New Zealand public.

Unfortunately, investigating the corruption of the mainstream media and examining their own part in the subversion of democracy does not suit the strategic goals of profit-driven corporations. Which is seemingly why the rash of mainstream confessions published on major New Zealand news sites soon after the release of Dirty Politics, included this one that featured an addendum by the very editors of the publication – a post-script that publicly ratified, supported and forgave their wayward employees, on the spot.

In P.R. circles, it was a tactic known as front-footing. In other words, answering questions before they are asked, but better yet, from their perspective, framing the subject while addressing only the angles for which they have prepared their defense then hoping the facade of solidarity appears strong enough to deter any further probing.

Indeed the blending of the disciplines of journalism and P.R./lobbying are exactly what has got the New Zealand media into this mess. Any journalist who deals with a political-payroll blogger is one degree of separation away from liquid spin.

NZ Herald editor Shayne Currie and editor-in-chief Tim Murphy leaping to such quick defense of their erstwhile staff members makes them seem hypocritical.

For while they now explain: “reporters will have conversations with contacts from all sides of the political spectrum every day” in the wake of Dirty Politics, backtrack six months and we find;

“the APN Editorial Code of Ethics was that: ‘Journalists must not participate in community or political activities that compromise their work or their publisher’s credibility or objectivity'”.
– John Drinnan quoting NZ Herald Editor-in-chief Tim Murphy in the NZ Herald

At face value, the Devil’s advocate would say; journalists receiving information from sources across the full political spectrum does not violate that code. We would be inclined to agree. But what about journalists supplying information to sources they know might use it to engage in paid political activities?

The NZ Herald “investigations editor” describes himself having done just this, writing:

“I cut and pasted the content of some of those emails, to remove any possible identifying features, and forwarded them on to Slater. So information was shared, there was a bit of “horse trading”…
– Jared Savage in the NZ Herald

Later in the piece Jared acknowledges to having “…the knowledge that he comes with a right-wing agenda.”

In light of these events and particularly the speed with which Jared Savage’s editors exonerated him, I find it impossible to imagine that the public can retain confidence in our mainstream media going forward.

OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) & corporate sanitisation

August 30 was a very interesting night on Twitter. For the first time ever I saw Kiwis engaging en masse in OSINT – in laymans terms, putting their heads together to pool scraps of publicly available information and analyse it.

Such analysis is usually the realm of media organisations and intelligence agencies, but where the aforementioned fail in the pursuit of truth and democracy, the public are now filling the gaps.

The end result was this stunning visual representation of the insidious implications of the #DirtyPolitics scandal, involving no less than FOUR NZ Herald journalists. (Be sure to examine the arrows that flow to and from these journalists; making it clear that in at least Savage’s case, the information was going both ways).

@hebehu @pipkeane @adikohler @endarken @BarristerNZ @GrubbyPigeon @SelwynPellett @matthewdcrawley @Scooby_NZ Updated. pic.twitter.com/EldKWAPuNj

— Debs (@DebsHancock) August 31, 2014

The effort was lauded by a number of media figures including a producer of popular mainstream current affairs show Campbell Live. Shortly thereafter, The Daily Blog republished the following graphic that had appeared in the NZ Herald:

While it was very clever of them to use pictures and text in their diagram, it was missing one major piece. Four, actually!

The NZ Media Revolution: Installation 85% complete

It doesn’t seem so long ago that Occupy NZ was telling the mainstream media “You Need Not Fear Becoming Julian Assange“. Now even political parties are learning to call out the media.

The Internet Mana Party, which has run an extremely innovative and current digital media campaign in the face of constant mainstream media smears. “dirty ops” and black-outs, is now circumventing the 6’o’clock news sabotage of their campaign by releasing its own news program. In the aptly titled “Not The 6’o’clock News”, Internet Party leader Laila Harre turns the cameras on the press pack, calling out their “casual media bias” and enjoying a platform to push policy and campaign updates that is free of corporate ambush or malicious editing.

Who can blame them when it is so clear that Dirty Politics is still in operation.

Leaked Emails and Shoes On Other Feet

The most recent anti-Internet Mana Party mainstream fluff (and that’s putting it kindly) is by one of NZ’s most lauded commercial journalists, TV3 Political Editor Patrick Gower. His opinion piece addressed to indigenous political leader Hone Harawira, “Dear Hone, Harden Up” is extremely ill-conceived and adds weight to the allegations of insiders that the press gallery do indeed all chase the same political “story” – whether or not it is a story.

To demand of all people, that Hone “harden up” is extremely audacious.

“I know Hone Harawira well” claims Gower. Well then, Patrick would have had the scoop of the year when Hone’s office was recently shot at by persons unknown, yes? No. TV3 reported the incident six days after it occurred, and gave it comparatively little news time.

Astonishingly, the TV3 article about it has 0 social media shares and 0 comments on it. Even Willie Jackson called out the obvious bias in the media. The Daily Blog described the mainstream media as being “indifferent” over it.

Less than two months later – this 85-word 3News report (with 9 shares on it) that Hone Harawira has been in a near-fatal car accident in Northland.

Two weeks later Stuff.co.nz want to know “Where is Hone Harawira?”

Adding in the context of Cameron WhaleOil Slater’s court battle to prevent his own emails from being published, despite having spent years profiting off the leaking of the private information of countless other people (including many instances of facilitating the leaking of emails and other content), this week’s press gallery furore over – you guessed it – leaked emails (this time Hone Harawira’s), is even more ridiculous.

Just as Hager’s book Dirty Politics showed us – the media has (again) focused in on a triviality fed to them (whether Harawira did or did not approve of/disagree with a campaign marketing idea) while completely ignoring the bigger picture of his office being shot at, car running off the road, and the real reasons behind his recent low profile – all of which clearly have nothing to do with marketing at all.

Not to mention the issue of who leaked the Harawira emails and why?

Tellingly, Harawira didn’t go running off to the High Court to seek an injunction against the media, ala Slater. Is that why the media feel they have free reign to nakedly resume their anti-Internet Mana agenda? Have they been sufficiently cowed by WhaleOil’s threats and court actions to once again run his lines, and target his opponents? Apparently so.

This – you guessed it (again) – TV3 article by Tova O’Brien is so full of conjecture and misnomer it deserves an entire counter-response all of its own. The first line proclaims a “major breakdown in the Internet Mana Party” and from the 146 shares already on it, suggests the article has enjoyed a much better placement, promotion or site referencing than Hone Harawira’s office having been shot at or his car running off the road.

Indeed a quick Google search shows as of today;

“Hone Harawira car accident” – 18k results
“Hone Harawira office shot at” – 26k results
“Hone Harawira cannabis policy” – 32.7k results

…making it abundantly clear where the mainstream media’s interest lies, where the Internet Mana Party is concerned.

TV3 – Getting Personal

In a foolhardy attempt to corroborate TV3’s accusations of a “major breakdown”, O’Brien references Internet Party Press Secretary Pam Corkery calling Brook Sabin “a “puffed-up little s**t” for trying to interview Dotcom at the Internet Mana election launch last month”. Yet again the truth falls victim to an obvious omission, clear to anyone who has viewed the footage.

We, the public, have no idea what Brook Sabin said to Pam Corkery that led to her “puffed-up little s**t” comment as TV3 helpfully edited out the context and led their 6’o’clock news coverage with those precise words. But what Pam is shown saying to Sabin and his fellow corporate news talking head Michael Parkin of TVNZ afterwards gives a hint at the truth behind the sensation.

“He (Dotcom) said three times ‘I don’t want to give you an interview’. He’s not a candidate, he doesn’t owe you anything. When will you glove puppets of Cameron (WhaleOil) Slater just piss off?”

This means that the footage TV3 broadcast to the nation was the result of at least the fourth time that Sabin, Parkin et al had demanded to interview the Internet Mana Party patron, in an attempt to focus on Dotcom’s legal history in lieu of interviewing party candidates about the launch.

So where is the footage of them asking the first three times? Is that not newsworthy? Would their badgering not provide context as to the real source of Corkery’s exasperation? A Google search for Pam Corkery’s outburst leads straight to Cameron ‘WhaleOil’ Slater’s You Tube account. The video is posted the same day as the TV3 coverage – 24th August 2014.

Is it a coincidence that it is posted on his channel?

Or is there a connection between TV3 and WhaleOil, as with so many other mainstream New Zealand journalists and publications?

Is it coincidental that TV3’s relentless anti-Internet Mana Party coverage aligns with WhaleOil’s stated aim of destroying Kim Dotcom, as outed by Nicky Hager’s Dirty Politics?

Or does the nefarious continuation of WhaleOil’s Dirty Media Ops penetration of mainstream sources prove that the WhaleOil pro-National cabal is not only in full swing but full steam ahead, just as he himself suggested?

In a recent Twitter exchange, Slater directly tweeted at me that he was “more robust” than I think. I would love to embed the tweets for your viewing pleasure but they appear to have been unceremoniously deleted. Just like some of his blogposts. It appears it is not only the mainstream media practicing sanitising content to shore their personal positions.

Breaking Developments

In the course of writing this article two new twists have unfolded. Firstly, WhaleOil has partially succeeded in exerting legal pressure to gag the very mainstream news organisations that are supposed to report in the public interest. Bearing in mind that the organisation reporting in this article about it, is yet again, TV3.

Who you would think, with their parent company listed as one of the defendants in WhaleOil’s suit, would be diametrically opposed to his position.Yet when analysed at a meta-level, the revelations of media complicity in Dirty Politics and the political angles routinely asserted by the organisations in question may point to them having a covert stake in the suppression of any further coverage of the WhaleDump leaks – perhaps as much so as WhaleOil himself.

Indicating that perhaps it is not Hone Harawira, but mainstream media stalwarts, that need to “harden up”.

Angry Protesters on the Steps of Parliament

The second major development that is unfoldiing is a protest of 100+ people on the steps of Parliament. Funnily enough we didn’t hear about this on the news, but sure enough, we did on Twitter.

About 100 people at #dirtypolitics protest at Parliament #nzpol pic.twitter.com/fdSZ1DBrT5 — Aimee Gulliver (@aimeegulliver) September 10, 2014

The New Zealand public are the unknown quantity in the Dirty Politics charade. If actions like these continue, the mainstream media will be forced to fall into line. Because if there is one thing they dislike more than being sued – it is being scooped by citizen journalists.

The fact that little-known accounts of random members of the public are now livetweeting and livestreaming seemingly-spontaneous actions at Parliament, without the support of any central organisation, supports the theory that the Awakening is spreading, and that regardless of state interference, the truth on the ground shall prevail.

One way or another, the revolution WILL be televised.

Written by Suzie Dawson

Twitter: @Suzi3D

Official Website: Suzi3d.com

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Erroneous Hit Counters, Disappearing Shares and Distracted Bloggers

So, it’s been a while, but I’m back and the technical anomalies of this blog site are sadly still here. Having got 3295 visits in 5 minutes flat back when, the hit counter on this site promptly and permanently froze, leaving me with no idea what the true visitor stats were/are.

No matter how many times you visit this website or from where, it will still claim you are the 3295th visitor. Despite the counter being non-functioning, I’m going to leave it up as a relic of the sabotage activism websites encounter.

It is now standard for activism websites share counters to reset themselves. For hit counters to freeze or wind themselves backwards (!!) and for the authors of the websites to become beleaguered by IRL interferences that have a collective aim of covertly persuading them to discontinue their blogging escapades.

For while there is money in #DirtyPolitics, there is little to none in whistleblowing. Which is apparently just as the system prefers it.

While the realities of the sabotage are foreign, “conspiracy theories” to the MSM, recent events in the political and media sphere in New Zealand are almost guaranteed to have increasingly exposed some of those previously insulated, protected journalists to the uncomfortable realm of state and profit-driven tinkering in their work and in their lives.

For those my words will ring true.

Democracy is a full-time job, I have been told. Thus I have, temporarily at least, prised myself away from the grip of commercial employment and returned to the blogosphere.

I have no idea what the coming weeks will bring to Aotearoa, New Zealand, other than that it will be unprecedented. #DirtyPolitics has been that, for sure, and Kim Dotcom, Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange being at “The Big Reveal” on September 15th at the Auckland Town Hall promises a big finish to the roller-coaster ride of the last 3 years.

Even though the hit counter and share buttons may not show whether you’re with us; I know you are.

This is just a short note but you can expect more soon.

Written by Suzie Dawson

Twitter: @Suzi3D

Official Website: Suzi3d.com

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Critical Thinking About Anonymous, Neo-Nazis & The KKK.

I recently said on Twitter – “I am capable of being a total bitch but when the shit goes down, I’ve got your backs. All of you.” This is a really good analogy for Anonymous. As individuals, Anons can be total assholes, if you catch them in the wrong mood. But when it counts, they will sacrifice their own time, resources and lives, to selflessly serve a deserving cause.

The hypocrisy of the mainstream media and their inability to meaningfully question their own narrative prior to publishing, knows no bounds.

The penetration of Occupy & Anonymous-related content into both the 24-hour-news-cycle and pop culture has mutated a number of well-meaning but misguided commercial news “contributors” into self-styled pseudo-experts on activism.

Their inability to truly bridge the divide between observer and participant results in them frequently being manipulated into regurgitating a tainted, covertly implanted narrative or worse; being provoked into reporting a reflection of their own deep-seated fears, rather than on reality.

Key to understanding either Occupy or Anonymous is understanding the difference between the collectives and the individuals.

Both Occupy and Anonymous are autonomous at a collective level which encompasses those who freely agree and participate in any given venture. The collectives are sovereign unto themselves, separate from the State; they are their own State.

The individual is also autonomous and sovereign. An individual can at any time act with equal authority to the collective. But if they act in a way that does not inspire others in agreement to engage, they will find they act alone.

Individual action and collective action are of equal importance but the collective is not responsible for an individual action; nor is an individual responsible for a collective action.

The mutual respect of the rights of the individual and of the collective leave it wide open to malicious actions undertaken by those with intent to defile, defame, shame or entrap the Occupy & Anonymous collectives.

This targeted sabotage is wide-spread and applied within related social justice organisations, at planning meetings, at physical actions, and it is most prevalent of all in the realm of social media.

It is funded by both tax-payer dollars and private enterprise.

The only way to meaningfully combat it at a collective level is to expose the methodology. Personnel can be replaced; but nimble adaptation of widespread practices is much more difficult.

The only way to meaningfully combat it at an individual level; is to know better. To know Occupy better. To know Anonymous better. Then you’ll be less likely to believe whatever nonsense you see planted to discredit them.

For a long time a major smear tool of the State has been to associate democratic movements with Neo-Nazism or even to manufacture a Neo-Nazi reemergence to openly combat public groundswells of discontent.

From the 11th hour Wikileaks Party Neo-Nazi distraction plot to the rise of Golden Dawn, against the background of a true Greek revolution-in-progress, to even our own Occupy Auckland and Occupy NZ admins who were sent pro-fascist propaganda dressed up as 99% rhetoric to trick us into publishing it, only to then “out” us for having done so, the intention is the same; to damage popular support for the movements by associating them with socially distasteful historical abominations.

Which brings us full circle to why this post is being written.

In The Guardian, Emer O’Toole wrote of Anonymous;

“Meh – misogyny in activist movements. What else is new? Many people think of Anonymous as a whole new kind of beast, an unprecedented cyber child of our times. But, actually, the movement fits quite neatly into a history of leaderless resistance, which has been used in the service of sweet causes, such as environmentalism and animal rights, and less than savoury ones, such as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-nazism. If we think of Anonymous like leaderless resistance – as a mode of activism as opposed to a unified ideological entity – then it’s easier to make sense of cells that hack epilepsy forums with flashing animations (lulz!) operating under the same umbrella as cells instrumental to Occupy or the Arab spring.”

That is the full paragraph, for context. A mainstream publication wouldn’t want to expend that many “words” on a quote and would have cut it down to only the sentence that contained the inflammatory words of “Ku Klux Klan” and “neo-nazism”. However in the wondrous blogspace there are no such limitations or premiums on space and we have the opportunity to outperform the mainstream in all respects, via this medium.

I find Ms O’Toole’s paragraph inflammatory for several reasons. Firstly, in my two years of association with Occupy & other movements I have not witnessed any consistent misogyny in the movement. I have, however, witnessed misogyny all around me in every other respect of the entire rest of my life. From school, to work, to being out in the general public.

To target activist movements as being ‘mysoginist’ when they are often bodily in the front-line of the War on Women is disturbing, unjust and ironic.

Secondly, and what led to this post, is her reference of “a history of leaderless resistance, which has been used in the service of sweet causes, such as environmentalism and animal rights, and less than savoury ones, such as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-nazism.”

It is completely irresponsible to namedrop the KKK and Neo-Nazis in relation to Anonymous.

When I pointed this out to Ms O’Toole, and also that the KKK was not in fact leaderless or a horizontal hierarchy, she claimed that she had merely been referencing the nature of leaderless movements that happened to include the aforementioned. But that assertion was then obliterated by her supply of a link in a follow-up tweet, that led to a Storify that purports to contain evidence that “Anonymous has been pushing racist material”.

@endarken 1) While I disagree that it would be inappropriate to associate Anon with Neo-Nazism in any circumstance > http://t.co/A3MUN104uL

— Emer O’Toole (@Emer_OToole) December 9, 2013

The Storify pools a handful of tweets across a period of some three years from one individual Anonymous account, then proclaims: “Anonymous must deal with Holocaust denial and the presence of neofascist ideas in its midst” and then then adds two tweets from another Anonymous account as corroboration, describing “a flair for even more lurid racism”.

To anyone who scans the page and sees words like Hitler, Jews, Zionists, you might on the surface, assume the complaints are legitimate.

But to anyone who examines further, the real picture becomes more clear.

The first tweet referenced is a tasteless joke about Jews, Germans and gas, which I don’t care to republish here and which proves nothing other than that one individual made an immature quip. Not even vaguely proof that Anonymous is “neofacist” or “racist”.

The second tweet referenced is a picture of Time Magazine’s 1938 “Person of the Year” Adolf Hitler cover. The tweet states exactly that; that Time made Hitler Man of the Year. This is a proven fact and it is not an indictment on Anonymous. It is in fact an indictment on Time Magazine and the hypocrisy of the mainstream media whose presentation of political figures constantly swings between saviour and demon.

The third tweet is a link to a You Tube video about 1915-1938. It contains no commentary or suppositions, merely links the video.

The fourth tweet collated states “They claimed it was a deliberate genocide by Nazis. The allegations included Nazi death ray guns, gas chambers and turning jews in to soap”. Again, this is a recounting of the official mainstream media narrative and is not “racist” or “neofascist” in nature.

The fifth tweet is quite telling; as it clearly states the obvious. “Once again, stating the fact that 6 million jews didn’t die in holocaust is not denying holocaust and it is not antisemitic.”

Those five tweets are the sum total evidence supplied that Anonymous is “racist” and “neofascist”.

Whether an individual believes 2 million, 4 million, 6 million or 100 million Jews died in the Holocaust, does not mean the Anonymous collective is racist or neofascist. What it means is that one individual doubts the mainstream media narrative which was clearly the construction of the victors of World War II (as goes the old adage “history is written by the victors”.)

Occupy and Anonymous have witnessed media manipulation and suppression of events on an epic scale. You only have to You Tube: “One Police Plaza” and realise we watched that live then turned on our TV’s & read our newspapers only to discover NO acknowledgment of it.

We witnessed the 20-day global mainstream media blackout of the Occupy movement. We witnessed the NYPD doctoring of the Brooklyn Bridge footage; the astroturf media events set up by saboteurs, the endemic press corruption and complicity with law enforcement, council and government P.R. reps.

Experience has taught us to question everything and for an Anon to consider counters to conventional historical narrative and to circulate that counter-narrative is not unusual – it is a natural result of exposure to widespread corporate media and governmental corruption and manipulation of information.

Using myself as an example – were someone to cherry pick my own Twitter account you would probably find links to a dozen different videos claiming various different parties were responsible for 9/11. This does not mean I believe any or all of those versions of events. It means I believe in watching and considering all options and that the spread of ALL information better empowers people to inform themselves and come to their own conclusions.

I am suspicious of any and all organisations who claim people must ascribe to a fixed doctrine or rhetoric in order to participate. The full-spectrum nature of both Occupy and Anonymous means you can actively participate whether you consider yourself “left-wing”, or “right-wing”, or whether you think both left and right are nuts and refuse to proscribe to either.

All are welcome. All contribute. All have autonomy and sovereignty, regardless of individual political ideology.

Therefore cherry-picking the words of an individual (or two) and using them to draw broad generalisations and conclusions about a global collective, is counter-intellectual.

Especially the tweets displayed in the Storify supplied by O’Toole – tweets which repeatedly state they are not anti-semitic; tweets which do not include the types of violent hate speech espoused by true Neo-Nazis, who as part of their very doctrine proudly and openly pronounce their anti-semitism.

Now. Let’s do what these authors should have done – some due diligence to get to the bottom of what Anonymous really thinks about the KKK and Neo-Nazis.

To do so, I used a really advanced journalistic technique. I googled (yes, guilty as charged) “Anonymous Neo Nazi” & “Anonymous KKK”.

Here’s what I found, without having to look beyond the first page of results.

And RT’s report: “Anonymous hacks ‘Aryan Front’ Neo-Nazi website”

And how does Anonymous feel about the KKK?

The Examiner: “Anonymous hits KKK website: Operation Blitzkrieg continues”

Web Pro News: “Anonymous Takes Down KKK Websites In Operation Blitzkrieg”

Well well well.

While some mainstream journalists have been (fooled into?) depicting Anonymous as racist and neofascist – Anonymous has in fact been involved in substantial anti-KKK & anti-Neo Nazi actions, across a significant period of time.

So how is it that entire Anonymous operations can go unnoted while random tweets of one or two individuals get referenced?

Let’s look a little further into the author of the Storify collation.

The Storify account has 1 follower. Yet this link was supplied to me by a presumably high-profile Guardian contributor.

How does an account with 1 follower get picked up by a Guardian author?

Let’s look at the other work of the same Storify account. Their last three Storify’s were titled:

1. “Nazism on Twitter goes mostly unnoticed”
2. “Anonymous and lazy racism”
3. “Antisemitism at Anonymous Continues Unchecked”.

The 3 Storify’s were all posted within the last 7 days. A prolific anti-Anonymous effort.

Glancing down at the comments section, there are other statements that stick out like a sore thumb.

“Anonymous could not give a damn about Palestinians” claims the Storify author. “Many people that hate Jews pretend to like the Palestinians but in reality they don’t. Such is the nature of Jew haters“.

That is a huge black-or-white blanket statement and an impossible supposition.

Even more interestingly, a commenter that calls themselves an “Investigative journalist” and says “they seem to be pro Palestine. (I couldn’t care less about the Israel – Palestine conflict)”

I’ll give Ms O’Toole the benefit of the doubt and assume that she is not the journalist in question who posted that comment after discovering (or being supplied with) this Storify link, 7 days ago.

The third (but chronologically first) comment really sums everything up and is a fitting conclusion for this story.

It appears to be from someone who knows better. Someone who knows Anonymous.

Says Huitzilopochtli: “We should always keep this in mind. http://intellihub.com/2013/08/09/us-military-caught-manipulating-social-media-running-mass-propaganda-accounts/”

Yes, we should. And we should always remember that it is not just the U.S. military doing it. Far evolved from the ever-reaching military industrial complex, there is now an international network of for-profit social media companies whose very livelihoods depend on tainting the information available on the internet, to their clients benefits, and the vulnerable opinions of the unwitting general public are their perennial target.

Which is why we must be smarter.

Do not believe everything you read.

Look deep inside and trust your gut.

Seek the truth, and share it.

Written by Suzie Dawson

Twitter: @Suzi3D

Official Website: Suzi3d.com

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How We Know Glenn Greenwald Is Not A Three-Letter-Agency Plant

Unsurprisingly, Glenn Greenwald’s reputation is under attack. The War on Journalism (much like the War on Women) is more than a mere slogan – it is a reality unfolding before us, on an international playing field.

Some brothers and sisters, susceptible to counter-narrative and rightly questioning all media positions, are unwittingly falling victim to disinformation spread about a subset of journalists and publishers, the foremost of which is Greenwald, but also everyone from Jeremy Scahill to Julian Assange.

However with a little research you can easily establish for yourself that Greenwald is legit.

We will take you back 10 months in Twitter history to show you how we know.

Greenwald promptly received at least 9 sources offering sound supporting information, on that one thread alone.

He thoroughly researched Brown’s situation and in March 2013 produced this amazing piece for the Guardian:

His input catapulted the plight of Barrett Brown into the mainstream consciousness. He went from being a local news story to an international news story.

Barrett himself has endured similar smear campaigns of the type Greenwald, Scahill, Assange and countless other real public watchdog journalists and publishers constantly face.

Greenwald’s work encouraged a slew of other journalists to help reverse the trend, creating an ever-growing movement resoundingly calling to @FreeBarrett_

Experience dictates that real activists are often jailed for prolonged periods (funnily enough!), or have their lives dismantled by the State in other ways. Step 1 of that dismantling is the smearing and deliberately circulated misinformation about them, especially via social media.

A standard tactic used in smearing is to claim that the person is on a payroll. The claim that Greenwald is a CIA plant just does not sit right.

A CIA plant would not be bringing Barrett Brown’s case into the public consciousness. They would not risk associating their cover with someone up for 105 years in jail. They would be too busy subverting, to create. Greenwald is a creator. He has that innate desire to build and evolve things. He is a dreamer as well as an achiever.

These are the traits of a revolutionary journalist. He is clearly acting on conscience and deserves us to be aware of the incoming attacks on him and to diflect them with the truth.

Greenwald has spoken for the people against huge powers. He is right to stand alongside Edward Snowden and Daniel Ellsberg in history. His diverse personal history is supporting evidence as people like the aforementioned seldom walk a straight path – it is a crooked and rocky journey that leads them to understand what they don’t want and how to effectively fight against it – that helps them to form the conclusions they need to make, to choose to sacrifice themselves for the betterment of all.

The most important question is “Who benefits?”

Who benefits from us believing Greenwald is a CIA plant? Certainly not We The People. Who benefits from the disillusionment of thinking we cannot trust even those visibly putting their lives on the line to deliver us from tyranny?

Only the tyrants benefit, if we believe it.

All I keep hearing in my head is ‘Redemption Song’.

“How long shall they kill our prophets? While we stand aside and look. Some say it’s just a part of it – we’ve got to fulfill the book.”

We must protect and emulate our prophets. We mustn’t let them defame, jail and kill our prophets. The loss of Michael Hastings was deeply offensive to humanity and the only justice we can achieve in the short term is to make sure 10 Michael Hastings’ spawned as a result.

I have no doubt thousands did.

The explosions of blogs just like this, all over the internet increases my hope. Google search stats, as tampered with as they are, return overwhelming numbers and reduce the ability of suppression mechanisms to administrate them.

There are Anonymous videos into the 10s of millions of views.

The world is changing.

So when you hear “that protester is a cop” or “that person is an FBI agent” or “that journalist is a CIA plant” think twice. It is all too telling that it is our friends and not our enemies, who are being branded that. Question everything; but make common sense decisions after sufficient investigation.

Look into what they have produced in the time in which they are being smeared. You will find the correlation.

Then speak up in solidarity, just as they have for those imprisoned.

Protect real journalists.

Free Barrett Brown.

Free Jeremy Hammond.

Free Julian Assange.

Support those who risk all, for our benefit.

Support @FreeAnons

Written by Suzie Dawson

Twitter: @Suzi3D

Official Website: Suzi3d.com

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#RoastBusters: The Police Minister Is Right. It Is “Very Hard” To Whistleblow On Rape

[Trigger Warning] What Minister of Police Anne Tolley DIDN’T say to the #Roastbusters rape victims, through her many press appearances last week:

“We will protect you. Step forward and we will make this as easy as possible for you. You will have all the support and resources we can muster to care for and protect you and your family throughout this ordeal.”

Instead she wrung her proverbial hands proclaiming “it’s so hard”, while the Commissioner of Police, and others, echoed the sentiment ad nauseum.

It’s so hard, they say, so hard to come forward. So hard to make a complaint. So hard to go through a trial. So hard to face your rapists. So hard to be subjected to intrusive cross-examination. So hard for your friends, family, foes, local dairy owner, to be associated with
the time-old shame of victimisation.

Why are we not really listening to the two top overseers of our Police openly admitting it is hard to report and prosecute rape. They are admitting the very problem we have all been screaming about. Their own denials of culpability are in fact key to accepting the reality.

The hierarchical patriarchal legacy structure and mechanisms of the NZ Police are inherently weighted against successful rape prosecutions.

How do I know this? Because I went through it. I can tell you what happens when victims of gang rape in New Zealand complain.

Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Looking back retrospectively the particular circumstances of my case make the outcome all the more ludicrous. Newly 18 in the late 90s, I was abducted from Queen Street by four men, enduring 8+ hours in terrifying, stupefying and disgusting circumstances, I managed all the cool textbook junior detective work that should have made the job of the police so much easier.

I don’t want to get into the particulars of the ordeal other than to say I was driven to South Auckland to a suburb I had never been to in my life, and raped on the concrete playground of a Primary School by intoxicated men unknown to me. Initially and at several points of the encounter I expected and/or was led to believe I would be killed.

Yet I took in everything about my surroundings and committed to memory details which were invaluable to the case. My ultimate emancipation involved the police actually arresting one of the kidnappers, and jailing him in Auckland Central Police station. An off-duty ambulance officer who aided in my rescue and the arrest, handed me into the care of detectives from Auckland Central. They were all male. I was in shock from my night of hell and made one of the biggest mistakes I could have made. I asked for a female detective.

Ironically the male detectives had treated me with some measure of respect and dignity but the female detective was all business.

I was whisked straight off to the back of Grafton to undergo a rape kit then back to the station to give my statement. It took hours and hours to complete. I was so exhausted and cold and still in shock but the officers were insistent upon constructing it all at an extremely slow pace and refused to allow me to leave or rest until it was done. I was so exhausted I lay on the floor, closed my eyes and recounted everything that had happened.

The rape kit came back and its findings were that I had bruising and contusions consistent with being pulled into the vehicle and other conditions indicating the gang rape. Pubic hair from the attackers was also removed from my body in the bathroom at the Police station prior, and placed in an envelope.

Having been able to give the precise location of the scene to the police, they found a mountain of physical evidence and indications of premeditation; condoms & cans of alcohol at the scene; video footage from the petrol station they stopped and bought the condoms at; the police even had the vehicle I had been abducted and transported in and one of the four already in custody.

Throughout I complied with all procedures and after surrendering all my clothing to the police as further ‘evidence’ I was finally instructed I would need to return to the station at a later date and allowed to go home.

I’m not even going to try to describe the level of mental and physical exhaustion or the complete confusion, dismay and revulsion that follows such an experience.

It is unparalelled.

But a tiny part of me was victorious. I had caught one of the fuckers. After dropping his three mates home he had been planning to take me to continue the horror and had been telling me his plans in detail when he had passed out drunk and I’d flagged down the off-duty ambulance officer and we called the cops, who snatched him.

So despite undoubtedly being at the most turbulent and despairing point of my life, there was still the assumption that the police would surely arrest the other three rapists and that they would never be able to do this to another person again.

I was so naieve.

The call came to come back to the station for follow-up. The female detective walked me up the internal staircase to an office on one of the upper floors of Auckland Central Police Station. Her boss needed to talk to me, she said. Had I been wiser, I would have wondered why her boss
wanted to talk to me, an 18 year old girl, alone with no representation, no support person, no family member beside me. No witness.

The female detective saw me into the office, then excused herself, shut the door and left. It was just me and her boss, whose name I can’t even remember, but whose face I cannot forget.

He spoke to me with a snake’s tongue, smooth as silk at the beginning. Conciliatory. Congratulatory. He asked me some cursory questions and praised me when I got them right. What kind of beer cans were they drinking, he wanted to know. Lion Red. “Good girl”. Where did they do this. Where did they do that. How did this make me feel. He said he needed to pretend that he was the defence lawyer and began to question me harder, making his questions more and more pointed.

He said I needed to be able to take the worst they could give me. He said for me to withstand a court case would be hard.

He said it would be VERY hard.

He said they would tear me apart on the stand. He said they would insinuate I was a slut and malign my character. He asked me questions about my clothing and sex life that he said I would be asked on the stand. He said that after all of that, they probably wouldn’t get a conviction.

I asked him if they had caught the other men yet and he said there was “probably no connection” between the men. I was incredulous as it had been clear they all knew each other and lived in proximity of one another and I had provided details about the address and other vehicles and
information that should have made it easy to catch them. After all, there was the footage from the service station also so they should have known what these guys looked like.

The Inspector fobbed me off claiming that pack rapists often just meet up with each other opportunistically and that this kind of thing happened on a routine basis. He insinuated that the police would not/could not catch them. I was heartbroken.

Despite being extremely distressed and in tears by this point, I was emphatic that I wanted to continue with the prosecution of the one they had caught. Especially given the nature of his intentions as stated to me by him immediately prior to my escape and his capture.

I left the station with that understanding and promises that I would be contacted again.

Approximately a fortnight passed, and then I got a letter. My case had been closed, and the reason given was “lack of co-operation from the victim”.

The words stung like none other.

Lack of co-operation?? I had allowed myself to be borderline re-raped for the rape kit just to prove what had happened. I had doubled my trauma in number of hours kept awake while still in shock; had endured countless hours of questioning, supplied mountains of evidence, CAUGHT one of the damn rapists myself FFS, and they were covering up their non-investigation by claiming that it was some deficiency on my part preventing them from pursuing it further.

I was heartbroken all over again. I rang the female detective who had given me her business card. Why on earth was my case shut, I wanted to know. She stated the official excuse. I told her that was ridiculous and that I didn’t agree with it. She said that the decision had been made, the
case was shut and that I needed to come pick up the clothes I had been raped in as the Police were finished with them now.

I told her I never wanted to see the clothing again, and that I certainly wouldn’t be coming to pick it up. I demanded to know what had happened to the rapist who had been caught.

I could never have imagined her reply and it completely floored me.

“We charged him with drunk driving.”

A man who had snatched and raped a teenager on a primary school yard, and then said he was going to do it again, charged with drunk driving by the NZ Police. Case closed.

I had no idea how to explain any of what happened to my family. I did in later years and they were suitably in disbelief and horror. But the NZ Police knew what happened.

And they left me to suffer the consequences without a second thought.

So yes, Minister of Police Anne Tolley, it IS hard to make a complaint. It is hard to get an investigation. Even if you catch your rapist yourself, it is hard to get the Police to actually prosecute them.

It is hard to get justice. It is hard to free yourself of the stigma of a victim. It is also hard to stand up and demand our rights when they are robbed from us by the very infrastructure and institutions which claim to protect and serve us.

No matter what indignity we endure at the hands of our rapists or at the hands of the Police, the blame is still hung back upon our heads until we rise and refuse to accept the farce anymore.

The New Zealand Public is rising with us. Tomorrow, Saturday 16th November 2013, towns all over the country are marching in protest at the Police inaction regarding the #Roastbusters “rape crew”.

Those rapists targeted girls much younger than 18. Some of their victims were 13. Mainstream media has used terms like “group sex” when the Police know full well that it is impossible for a 13 year old to consent to “group sex”. I remember being a 13 year old girl and “sex” is a word to them, not an actionable concept for them, unless corrupted and/or defiled by a (usually older) man.

Nor are the #Roastbusters children; they are adults.

Until we call a spade a spade, the pervasive and systemic perpetuation and excusing of rape in New Zealand culture will continue unabated.

A 23-year-old who rapes a 13-year old is not a “boy” involved in “group sex” it is a “man” involved in gang rape.

The NZ Police had the audacity to say they were considering offering protection to the #Roastbusters rapists, to protect them from the public.

To the Police I ask – where is the protection for victims?

If you really wanted victims to come forward you would offer them protection, assurances, reassurances, reconciliation, solidarity and support. Instead you tell them it is “hard, very hard” and publicly offer protection to the rapists.

What message are you really sending?

The same message as the forced closure of the ‘Ugly Mugs’ publication by the NZ Prostitute’s Collective. The monthly newsletter featured the descriptions of vehicles and perpetrators involved in assaults, kidnappings, and rapes of sex workers and street people in Auckland.

It existed to warn people of what the Police were not. To educate them and help them to keep an eye out for themselves and for each other.

But after years of an ever-growing list of reports, it was forcibly shut down. Why? To protect the “privacy” of the alleged kidnappers and rapists. Apparently circulating the license plate number of an attacker to warn other potential future victims, is a no-go.

Funnily enough the Police do exactly that when it suits them on a routine basis, yet seem to want a monopoly on the ability.

Therefore, Auckland sex workers and street people now have to live WITHOUT knowing whether the next car or person to approach them has already been known to attack, rob, kidnap and/or rape other Aucklanders.

If our Government and Police force will not protect us and we cannot protect ourselves – what next?

For years the inaction of the Police in my case, haunted me. I have wondered a million times who else did my rapists rape? Did they know how close they came to justice or did they scoff at getting off with it essentially scot-free? Did it embolden them? Who else did they do this to? How long had they done it to others before me? Have they taught others to do it too? Will my daughter one day fall victim to one of their sons? Metaphorically speaking, for this is an epidemic and it could be anyone’s son, anyone’s daughter, it IS someone’s daughter, every single day in this country, and what the hell do we do about it?

How do we stop it? When do we stop it?

I don’t know if it’s possible but I’m certainly going to raise my voice. It’s the only thing I can do to contribute: speak the truth. As loudly and as proudly as possible. Because I survived. It is my duty to warn others. It is my only redemption.

I have no idea how the NZ Police can redeem themselves at this point. Coming clean would be a start. Working out a strategy to PROTECT VICTIMS NOT RAPISTS would be a -very- good start. Addressing the internal culture that allows high-up cops to intimidate teenage girls out of justice would also be a good start.

Whether or not that happens, society has to step up and deal to this problem. The last few weeks has seen the beginnings of that effort emerge. We now must continue the momentum.

Let us never forget.

P.S: I really didn’t want to write this article. Words can’t express how much, or how I have delayed it even though it’s been burning inside me for weeks. I wanted Paula Penfold to write about the Ugly Mugs closure but have been unable to work with her to develop it further. It is a story that deserves more telling than is above. There are many stories that need telling. I know now that I am just one of thousands. All I ask of any reader is that you find a way to amplify the testimonies of the victims and demand protection for them. It should not be hard to whistleblow on rape. It should be greeted with a showering of community support, considerate and legitimate investigation and follow-through by Police, which requires calling rapists to account.

No matter what the victim was wearing, no matter what their sexual or occupational history, the shame and blame and curse of rape belongs only to the rapist.

P.P.S: Much is made of anecdotal cases where women make false complaints of rape, this is another mechanism of rape culture. To anyone who ever has it disclosed to them that someone has been a victim of sexual assault and puts themselves in the position of judge or jury; know and understand this:

The person informed of rape or sexual assault, has the luxury of choice. They get to choose whether to ‘believe’ or ‘not believe’ the victim.

Rape victims have no choice. We don’t see what happened to us in words. We see it in our head in a twisted live action video, coupled with emotions and flash memories, impressions, personal
grievances. Rape is the violation of all that is sacred and to those who have experienced it, you relive it regardless of whether you are believed or not. You know the truth. You have lived the truth. No other person can define for you that which you have experienced. Don’t let anyone
superimpose an outcome on you. Fight for your own outcome. Continue to speak out for all our sakes.

Written by Suzie Dawson

Twitter: @Suzi3D

Official Website: Suzi3d.com

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How To ACTUALLY Stop The #GCSB Bill (psst it’s not what you’re being told)

We openly bantered with the public about what would be the issue to finally knock #GCSB off the radar. Never did we expect it to come from the very same Left who claim to revile it.

We are left wondering; when will we be free of the dinosaurs of the old paradigm who are now being presented to us as a solution to it? Why are we not scouring the post-Occupy socio-political landscape for Norman Kirk 2.0 while there is still enough time to find a newblood who genuinely carries the interest of the people, rather than the baggage of a previous administration?

After weathering so many blatant narrative-changing distractions such as Snapper, Al-Qaeda & 11th round beneficiary-bashing, the #GCSB tag which was clocking thousands of tweets per day at its crescendo, seemed to be going the distance.

Yet it has now been eclipsed by Robertson vs Jones vs Cunliffe; a who-will-be-the-next-Labour-leader stoush that is bleeding weeks worth of valuable public consciousness. Organisations who embedded themselves in the anti-GCSB actions, now having picked a single candidate to back are throwing the full weight of their media enterprise into declaring the imminent victory of “the People’s candidate” (an ex Minister of a previous Labour government) since virtually prior to the leadership having ever officially been in contention.

The Radiohead song “Electioneering” springs to mind and maybe I’m just naieve but I really didn’t expect to be risking my rear end as a top influencer on #GCSB so that x Labour candidate could be elected next year.

I get the distinct impression that I have just eye-witnessed in practice, what I’d read about in theory.

In my Occupy Media experience, when Occupy media resources connected to a certain location started declaring support for a specific political candidate, that Occupy was considered to have been “co-opted” and were discredited across the rest of the movement from that point. There are countless instances of this internationally.

I never expected to witness that happen here in New Zealand and it may have been unwitting by those ensconced in the centre of it. But it is hard for me to believe it is unwitting, having overheard Chris Trotter and David Cunliffe after Cunliffe’s successful hijacking of David Shearers leaders speech at the first anti-GCSB meeting, in a suburban community hall. (Not the larger Town Hall event that followed).

Cunliffe was enthused that he had pulled off the assumption well; then they mused as to why Shearer hadn’t leapt up after Cunliffe and spoken for Labour regardless.

Trotter and Cunliffe had no idea who I was so were speaking freely mere meters from me, in the foyeur. Which made the combined arrogance all the worse. When Cunliffe said something to the effect of “I just can’t believe (Shearer) didn’t jump up and say something”, I actually could bite my tongue no longer and said “Perhaps because he doesn’t have Chris Trotter for a political advisor.”

Both men laughed, interpreting my comment as a compliment. In reality, all I could think is “what the hell are these guys up to, this is supposed to be about the GCSB not David Shearer…”

The naked display of alternate agenda shocked me. Even moreso when I read congratulatory media write-ups which made much of Cunliffe’s interjection but somehow failed to mention the spirit it was performed in.

Oh yes, I am naive.

At the time it happened it seemed almost a side issue. However, once the side issue overtook to distract from the main issue, I began to speak up.

When a platform that has the opportunity to be broad-based enough to literally unite the country throws it’s lot into one very specific bucket instead, hell yes I’m going to speak up.

I’ve now been overtly threatened to be relegated to “protesting from the sidelines” for speaking up. But that’s where we belong. We won’t be sitting in a studio when the shit goes down, we’ll be in the fray making sure the world knows what ACTUALLY happened, not what it is convenient for some politicians or state officials to say happened.

We don’t risk our asses so that someone can beat a political opponent, we do it for the betterment of the people and the pursuit of justice; neither of which are served by tossing away a chance to TRULY get the GCSB bill revoked IMMEDIATELY rather than betting all our chooks on a General Election a year away.

Today I was censored from posting a comment on a publication that for the better part of a year I have implored hundreds of big and small reach accounts to support.

I am going to end this blog-post with the comment I unsuccessfully posted as I stand by every word of it. It sums up exactly what the problem is, and the fact the comment was suppressed instead of openly addressed, is self-evident.

“What happens in Parliament shouldn’t dictate what happens on the Streets. Even when they pass these Bills, we can force them to revoke them. We don’t need an action: we need a series of them. And the powerbase of the popular support must NOT be divided to suit individual agendas.

We have been clearly taught how to achieve socio-political change via People Power. We need only look to Iceland to see the steps we must take.

We don’t need to announce & confirm action dates & try to re-spread the word everytime if everyone knows it’ll be every Saturday until they reverse the Bill.

Persistent, constant, unrelenting and preferably decentralised action such as occurred during the Springbok Tour are the pathway forward to TRULY defeating these Bills and beginning to create a new legal framework forward for our country – one that protects our rights instead of robbing us of them without our consent.

Those of us pissed off enough about this to put our lives on the line have a far greater vested input than whoever is next Labour leader.

Those who have turned out so far represent a broad based coalition of the willing.

If any one political faction is placed above the others that will become the unwilling and the resentful.

A fact our espionage-obsessed overlords are no doubt fully aware of and already using to their advantage.

Let all the banners meld to become one. Left, right, young, old, rich, poor, all demographics contain members of the Awakened and there are more of us with every passing day.

Let’s make Stop the GCSB Bill more than a name.

Let’s actually stop it.”

It’s been years since I heard this. I didn’t listen to it again until after writing this article. It couldn’t be any more poignant!

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The NZ Media Revolution: Installation 70% Complete

In early June, 2012 Occupy New Zealand called for a sea change from the mainstream media, imploring them “You need not fear becoming Julian Assange”.

To our profound relief and partial astonishment, the work we did on the ground combined with such bold public statements DID result in somewhat of a revolution in the mainstream media, with topics we had been posting about since December 2011 becoming a mainstream narrative crescendo by 2013.

Contradicting the “Julian Assange” reference, the governments of the so-called first world (who increasingly operate as if they are governments of the third-world) have responded to The Awakening by pursuing a “War on Journalism”, of which there have been many notable recent incidents covered extensively elsewhere.

ONZ warned MSM “The cat is out of the bag. You have a unique opportunity right now; to be amongst the first to recognise and embrace it; or to make yourselves defunct.” It appears the media listened, and the fusion of independent media tactics such as livestreaming and livetweeting (both of which require a physical presence at actions) with the pooling of many notable bloggers into hives of information, is serving us well.

What remains to be seen yet is whether individual personalities attempting to steer the boat will realise that placing their own motivations against those of others who are risking their lives, will result in a mutiny and an exodus, unless the higher ideals can be maintained and the common objectives across the entire left-right spectrum can rightfully be paramount, and sacred.

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