What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the propaganda

When it comes to the words of politicians it pays to look at context, especially when they are addressing us on matters of ‘national security’. Sadly as a nation, or in fact as a species, we are too ready to accept the notion that politicians have our best interests at heart, when in fact in most cases nothing could be further from the truth.

Fear is a powerful force and a very effective one when it comes to manipulating the hearts and minds of the population. Every one of us wants to feel safe in our community. When our attention is drawn to something that appears to threaten that peace of mind, we become vulnerable to the first person who says they want to protect us from that threat.

It is therefore very easy to garner support for legislation that promises to make us safe from terrorism. Every sane person fears terrorism because by its very nature it is a known unknown. It takes many forms and the only thing that links all terrorist acts is that they are designed to unsettle the population and cause mayhem. Many causes are pushed along this route and it would be a mistake to think all terrorist acts spring from the same source. Those who wish to manipulate by physical force see terrorism as a very effective way to achieve their goals.

However governments have agenda and nations have alliances with other nations. Some of these alliances are for reasons that are transparent, but many are for much darker reasons. For example if our government wants to support the USA in its military activities in the Middle East and it knows most of the population here would not want that, they need to find a way to do this that the people will find acceptable. This is where fear becomes a very useful tool.

If you can convince enough people that there is an external threat to their peace of mind and their way of life, they will agree to all sorts of things they would not otherwise agree to. Of course you need to put a face to those shadowy figures you are claiming will upset their apple-cart and that is made so much easier when the objects of your disaffection wear highly identifiable marks of their identity such as hijabs.

For the last few months the governments of Australia and New Zealand have been trying their best to get themselves into bed with the USA and in return the USA has been frantically courting them. The attraction for the Kiwis and Aussies is that Uncle Sam will look after them when the hordes descend upon our not so green and pleasant lands, rape all our women and behead all our men folk. But the attraction for the Americans is that they will have two more columns of naïve fools who will serve as cannon fodder for the good ole USA in a war that will bring a plague upon all of their houses and in the meantime they will be able to place a whole lot more spy stations and other establishments that are likely to draw unfriendly fire in times of strife, in OUR backyards.

To simply round up our forces and go crashing into the Middle East all gung-ho would not go down well with either of the Pacific populations so the governments had to find a way that would take the populations with them and what better way could there be than the imminent threat of terror?

Of course a mere threat will only be that and there is a danger some cynics might not believe the threat and this is where it gets interesting. You need that threat to materialise and then EVERYONE will believe it exists.

Go back three months and you will remember both Tony Abbott and John Key warning their respective voters that an emerging terrorist threat was in their midst and that something was about to go down very soon. Key began to quickly cobble together some draconian legislation to restrict the freedom of all New Zealanders under the guise of ‘protecting’ us from an imminent terrorist threat. He was rubbished at the time by many and then as it seemed he might have a battle getting the bill through Parliament, the funny people raised our terrorist threat index or whatever the hell they call it and the Australians suddenly ‘found’ a cell of alleged Muslim activists who they claim were planning to behead white people in Australia. Thank heavens for coincidence thought the John Key Government, who were then able to say, “See we told you so.”

Whether these people were actually planning to behead anyone, I guess we’ll never know, but it is a powerful image and one that is guaranteed to give the populations cause to change their undies. But the trouble with this kind of thing is that the average Joe Shmuck has a very simplistic view of life. To him a terrorist is a person of Middle Eastern appearance and fundamentalist principles who wants to kill all white folks who don’t prostrate themselves five times a day while facing Mecca. They seem to have forgotten that the IRA looked exactly like them and did not pray to Allah.

This leads to racist attitudes, slurs and in some cases, attacks on people who are basically no different to everyone else and in many cases more pious. The mainstream media as usual is working as a tool (very good word here) of the government and is ready willing and able to perpetuate these myths.

A perfect case in point is the hostage situation in Sydney this week. The situation was barely an hour old when the press started hinting that it was a Muslim terrorist that had taken the hostages.

People immediately believed it and redneck outpourings erupted all over social media sites in both New Zealand and Australia. But was it right? Was this bloke really a Muslim terrorist or simply a nutcase, albeit one with Middle Eastern background?

I guess time will tell (or not as the case may very well be), but my guess is that this was a case of an isolated and deluded individual who lashed out and undertook a very poorly planned act that was doomed from the moment he locked that door.

My logic runs like this:

1. Why would a bona fide terrorist try to do something like this on his own? Terrorists act in packs unless they are on a suicide mission in which case they simply walk into wherever and blow up themselves and as many others as possible.
2. Why did he not make some very obvious demands such as the freeing of imprisoned terrorists and why did he not begin executing people when that did not happen. Terrorists do not hang about for 10 hours without taking some action.
3. What actual evidence do we have this guy was associated with any terrorist groups? None have come forth and claimed responsibility and let’s face it; they always do.
4. He allegedly asked for an ISIS flag and the one he had was not the genuine article. What bona fide terrorist would not already have such a thing?

The bottom line is that this guy was already known to the police and it is apparent he was a troubled individual – and that’s all he was. So forget all the bollox about this being the first in a long line of Muslim extremist acts about to be unleashed on Australia and possibly in time, New Zealand. This was the actions of a single nutcase who didn’t even have an agenda that HE could understand. It was obviously terrible for those caught up in it and any that might have been killed or injured, but it was NOT a terrorist act; it was simply a case of a lone nutter with a gun wanting his 15 minutes of fame. His use of the flag was simply a way of frightening his victims and making them think he had the backing of a large unseen force. Chuck him in the funny farm and move on

The most unsettling thing about this was the way the gullible New Zealand media allowed coverage of this to take over our television and radio stations to such an extent that it actually replaced entertaining and otherwise informative programmes. Presumably this was so we could all enjoy up to the minute breathless reports and maybe get lucky and see something really ghastly. Did it never occur to them they were helping Key and his Government to enact even more repressive legislation based upon fear and lies, or did they know exactly what they were doing?