We
woke up this morning to the news that Shane Warne aged 52 had died
unexpectedly of a heart attack. Since he was travelling in Thailand at
the time, no doubt he had had a Covid-19 vaccination. Was this causal?
Possibly. At the very least you can forgive me for asking this question.
Aha, warning—conspiracy theory. An article in Circulation, the official
journal of the American Heart Association, has already warned of an
association between Covid-19 mRNA vaccination and precursors of heart
disease, but never mind.
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.10712
Oh,
and UK cardiologists have warned of an increasing prevalence of heart
disease. And um, pericarditis and myocarditis are known side effects of
Pfizer vaccination and according to the prestigious Mayo Clinic these
diseases often progress to heart disease and strokes within 3-5 years,
but never mind this can’t be true. It must be a conspiracy theory or the
result of unsound science, right? Our government is the only source of
truth, and they say the mRNA Covid-19 vaccination is completely safe. SO
NEVER MIND.
What is a conspiracy theory?
Our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern reassured us this week:
"One
day, it will be our job to try and understand how a group of people
could succumb to such wild and dangerous mis- and disinformation…. There
has been an element of this occupation that has not felt like New
Zealand. And that’s because it is not…. It’s a dangerous place when
citizens are led into spaces where they believe so deeply in conspiracy
theories…”
Ever
willing to support our PM and her noble causes, MSM Stuff came out
fists swinging today in support with a long analysis of the dangerous
places within NZ society.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/127945205/parliament-grounds-have-been-cleared-but-deepseated-issues-remain
Central
to Stuff’s analysis was the opinion of Dr. Sanjana Hattotuwa, a
researcher at the New Zealand think tank Te Pūnaha Matatini who works on
something called The Disinformation Project. We have come across Te Pūnaha Matatini before and commented on their work
https://hatchardreport.com/the-jacinda-papers/
Te
Pūnaha Matatini has advised our government among many other things that
adverse effects of Covid-19 are a conspiracy theory, that concepts of
herd immunity are a misrepresentation of science, and that Gerry
Brownlee is a right wing conspiracy theorist.
In today’s article, Dr. Sanjana Hattotuwa is credited with explaining that ‘it’s
the politicians, like Winston Peters, Matt King, Marama Fox and David
Seymour, who legitimised the protest, but should have known better’.
Who is Dr. Sanjana Hattotuwa and why is he so qualified to tell us about ourselves?
Dr Hattotuwa comes from Sri Lanka. From 2002 to 2020 he was a senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Sri Lanka which is an organisation devoted to promoting liberal democracy in Sri Lanka. Since 2006 Dr Hattotuwa has also worked for the ICT4Peace Foundation to ‘counter violent extremism online’.
To achieve this, ICT4 has worked with, yes you guessed it, among others
the World Economic Forum, the NZ Government, and the United Nations.
Dr. Hattotuwa received his doctorate from the University of Otago in 2021 just last year.
His thesis examined the intersection of social media, political
communication, violence generation and the realisation of Sri Lanka's
democratic potential. In other words his doctoral work examined Sri Lanka.
Yet
suddenly in 2022, a mere few months later, Dr. Hattotuwa has become an
expert on New Zealand and has been able to identify and deride the
failings of NZ opposition politicians such as Winston Peters and David
Seymour who dared to ask protestors at Parliament what they were
concerned about. Dr Hattotuwa's opinions have even been quoted by the UK
Guardian as representative of NZ public opinion. And as a newly minted research fellow at Te Pūnaha Matatini, he enjoys the full support of the Labour Government!!!
Constitutional safeguards in NZ are missing in action
In
2016, the prestigious International Journal of Constitutional Law based
at Oxford University published an article pointing out vulnerabilities
in the governance structure of New Zealand:
“The
governing arrangements.…combine a highly centralized system of
government with formally unlimited legislative authority and strong
executive dominance of the activities of the nation’s Parliament. Public
decision-making power is concentrated in ways that an observer schooled
in the orthodoxies of constitutional design best practice might expect
to cause some significant problems.”
https://academic.oup.com/icon/article/14/1/99/2526776?login=false
The
article went on to explain (in 2016) that so far NZ seemed to have
avoided these problems. I wonder what they would say in 2022?
The hunt for scapegoats
The Stuff article further reports Dr Hattotuwa as warning us all:
“Once
Kiwis start genuinely engaging (on alternative social media platforms),
there is nothing we can do to get them back into a shared reality.”
Dr. Paul Hunt, Chief Human Rights Commissioner for New Zealand, is quoted by Stuff as concurring, reportedly he said “then there’s the beast that is social media”. Dr.
Hunt believes there should be a small, nimble, NZ independent
monitoring organisation which can hold social media companies to
account.
It
is hard to imagine under the current constitutional arrangements in New
Zealand how any organisation formed and funded by the government could
actually be independent of the government.
Is our government guilty of misinformation?
Jacinda
Ardern and Grant Robertson are joining in this week with calls for
accountability and control of social media. If such laws were ever
introduced would the government itself be called to account for policies
such as these:
- Why
did our government publicly describe mRNA vaccination as completely
safe, when they were aware from the beginning of the risk of heart
disease?
- Why
did the Ministry of Health decide to refuse exemptions to those injured
by their first mRNA inoculation, thereby exceeding the safety
recommendations of Pfizer itself?
- Knowing
that mRNA Covid-19 vaccination did little to stop transmission, why did
the government impose harsh mandates which have disenfranchised and
impoverished a large sector of NZ society, and why are they still
continuing with these policies when Omicron is a mild disease adapted to
infect the vaccinated?
The
list of such government disinformation is a long one, and they must
know it. Trying to deflect blame onto others is a classic ploy of the
guilty.
What would a sensible precautionary approach look like?
Should
precautionary warnings have been issued concerning the risks of heart
disease following vaccination right from the start? YES.
But
is our government capable of acknowledging updated findings of Covid-19
journal publishing, rather than clinging to their outdated narratives?
So far NO.
Some
of you may think these are marginal issues which do not affect you.
Just reflect for a moment that our NZ government readily calls out
government disinformation and human rights violations overseas which
sound very similar to those it is promoting here. Ask yourself—is this
what I want for our nation going forward? Am I prepared to have
plurality and expression stifled? Is there only one truth—government
truth? Does that make any sense?
According to Te Pūnaha Matatini, continuing
promotion of disinformation is a right wing agenda which poses
significant threats to social cohesion, freedom of expression,
inclusion, and safety. I wholeheartedly agree. I hope those responsible in our government are brought to account.
Guy
Hatchard PhD was formerly a senior manager at Genetic ID, a global food
safety and certification manager (now known as FoodChain ID).
Website: HatchardReport.com
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