River of freedom, which documents last year’s protest, from the first truck to the last rubber bullet, captures the outrage that brought thousands to Wellington.
They sang “stick your mandates up your arse, we won’t get off the grass”, in front of a long line of posters that recorded the names and details of those killed or maimed by the Pfizer vaccine.
Police were shown attacking protesters during the day on February 10, at 3am on February 21, and from 5.45am on March 2.
Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern framed it as "an attack on our front-line police, it was an attack on our parliament, it was an attack on our values, and it was wrong."
But footage showed that it was an attack by police on sleeping protesters who, on March 2, endured 10 hours of being pushed around and having their belongings smashed before some started throwing cobblestones. Someone lit a fire.
Injuries to police were alleged. Largely unreported were the injuries to protesters.
For instance, a woman heard her sternum crack when she was crushed to the ground. Footage showed her screaming in agony as two officers arresting her yanked her by both arms out of the line.
Ironically, the March 2 attack by police occurred just five days after victory in a High Court challenge allowed 164 mandated officers to return to work.
“We did this for you”, one protester shouted at the line of police with riot shields pushing at her.
One mandated officer who had been with protesters said he returned to work but only lasted six hours, deciding that he no longer wanted to work for “that organisation”.
Unforeseen circumstances kept me from the protest. I remain unvaccinated. My younger sister spent three days in ICU after getting her shot.
“We don’t really know what caused it (a grand mal seizure)”, hospital staff said of her. “Just one of those things”. No further diagnosis has been forthcoming.
At one stage had a positive RAT test. I only took the test because I had a sniffle and was to be in the company of those iffy about the unvaccinated. The only other RAT test was to gain entrance to the local court.
I remain healthy while the vaccinated around me get Covid again and again.
I was only barred from hairdressers, bars, and cafes, but I felt the exclusion of Ardern’s two-tier New Zealand.
My outrage had started two years earlier, when on March 26, 2020, Ardern abruptly curtailed civil liberties after her government forgot to look at the rulebook for pandemics and panicked.
That rulebook was the Epidemic Preparedness Act 2006 used during the swine flu pandemic in 2009 which we all got through while hardly noticing it.
Lockdowns, silly rules, and around-the-clock propaganda is not us.
Unlike the “far-right white supremacist” identifier used by Ardern and the former Speaker of the House, Trevor Mallard, around 27 percent of the protesters were Maori, and 30 percent voted for the Labour Party at the last election, according to a survey commissioned by The Platform.
The peace, love, and gentleness that emanates from those who were there is like what I saw among hippies at Nambassa in 1979.
The couple who followed me in and out of that screening at a Hastings cinema had that emanation.
River of freedom showed the very best of New Zealand society – citizens both born here and from elsewhere peacefully and happily working on a common cause.
It also showed strands of Maori society, from the He Whakaputanga-Declaration of Independence crowd under the white-background New Zealand flag with the red cross on it, through non-aligned individuals, to a few in the elders’ tent stunned that the Maori king had sided with Ardern.
How did stupidity and pride turn deadly?
The death toll and injuries caused in the arrests are alluded to above.
Stupidity appeared in the nonsensical and contradictory petty rules, such as wearing a mask, standing two metres apart, and talking through plexiglass screens, while sharing the pen tied to a contact tracing sheet at the door, and having the cashier handle you groceries before giving them back to you.
Was the decision to place the entire population on home detention, in March 2020, when, officially, there were just 150 people infected with Covid-19, gross stupidity?
There are currently around 430 new cases every week while the population has no restrictions. What has changed to mean that the same contagion has lower risk?
But Jacinda saved the lives of tens of thousands of people. Did she?
One question never asked is whether tens of thousands of people were ever at risk since the modelling used to predict a scary death toll was based on assumptions that turned out to be unrealistic.
Another question never asked is whether, had Ardern and co followed the Epidemic Preparedness Act, would the health outcome have been the same and we would have avoided the horrendous financial toll.
Pride, the feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements, was on display when Ardern, Mallard, and co, bloody-mindedly refused to talk to protesters.
Perhaps the presence of 1000 healthy, happy, unmasked, and un-jabbed, protesters living on Parliament’s front lawn in the summer sun and rain was too much evidence that the Covid-19 brainwashing was nonsense.
Ardern has gone, as has Mallard, but many are still there. Michael Wood, the Minister who called protesters a “river of filth”, is seeking votes for another three-year well-paid contract, as are almost every other MP from that time.
Even the opposition toed the line, although some later showed signs of a prickling conscience.
An honest inquiry into New Zealand’s response to Covid-19 was sorely needed before the current election. That did not happen.
Instead, we have a Royal Commission, with carefully doctored terms of reference and a reporting date pushed out to the middle of next year.
River of freedom is a far cry from Stuff’s over-produced Fire and Fury that parroted the government narrative.
Candid interviews and footage gathered from smart phones and drones convey Freedom’s heart-rending story without overt editorialising.
All credit to film maker Gaylene Barnes and cinematographer Mark Lapwood for stepping over to the other side of New Zealand’s Covid-19 story. They captured the essence of the succession of events in some of the finest reporting I have ever seen.
Barnes, Lapwood, and the extensive list of contributors, combined to show that Ardern forgot that they, the protesters, are also us.
River of freedom may be viewed at a cinema near you.
Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern framed it as "an attack on our front-line police, it was an attack on our parliament, it was an attack on our values, and it was wrong."
But footage showed that it was an attack by police on sleeping protesters who, on March 2, endured 10 hours of being pushed around and having their belongings smashed before some started throwing cobblestones. Someone lit a fire.
Injuries to police were alleged. Largely unreported were the injuries to protesters.
For instance, a woman heard her sternum crack when she was crushed to the ground. Footage showed her screaming in agony as two officers arresting her yanked her by both arms out of the line.
Ironically, the March 2 attack by police occurred just five days after victory in a High Court challenge allowed 164 mandated officers to return to work.
“We did this for you”, one protester shouted at the line of police with riot shields pushing at her.
One mandated officer who had been with protesters said he returned to work but only lasted six hours, deciding that he no longer wanted to work for “that organisation”.
Unforeseen circumstances kept me from the protest. I remain unvaccinated. My younger sister spent three days in ICU after getting her shot.
“We don’t really know what caused it (a grand mal seizure)”, hospital staff said of her. “Just one of those things”. No further diagnosis has been forthcoming.
At one stage had a positive RAT test. I only took the test because I had a sniffle and was to be in the company of those iffy about the unvaccinated. The only other RAT test was to gain entrance to the local court.
I remain healthy while the vaccinated around me get Covid again and again.
I was only barred from hairdressers, bars, and cafes, but I felt the exclusion of Ardern’s two-tier New Zealand.
My outrage had started two years earlier, when on March 26, 2020, Ardern abruptly curtailed civil liberties after her government forgot to look at the rulebook for pandemics and panicked.
That rulebook was the Epidemic Preparedness Act 2006 used during the swine flu pandemic in 2009 which we all got through while hardly noticing it.
Lockdowns, silly rules, and around-the-clock propaganda is not us.
Unlike the “far-right white supremacist” identifier used by Ardern and the former Speaker of the House, Trevor Mallard, around 27 percent of the protesters were Maori, and 30 percent voted for the Labour Party at the last election, according to a survey commissioned by The Platform.
The peace, love, and gentleness that emanates from those who were there is like what I saw among hippies at Nambassa in 1979.
The couple who followed me in and out of that screening at a Hastings cinema had that emanation.
River of freedom showed the very best of New Zealand society – citizens both born here and from elsewhere peacefully and happily working on a common cause.
It also showed strands of Maori society, from the He Whakaputanga-Declaration of Independence crowd under the white-background New Zealand flag with the red cross on it, through non-aligned individuals, to a few in the elders’ tent stunned that the Maori king had sided with Ardern.
How did stupidity and pride turn deadly?
The death toll and injuries caused in the arrests are alluded to above.
Stupidity appeared in the nonsensical and contradictory petty rules, such as wearing a mask, standing two metres apart, and talking through plexiglass screens, while sharing the pen tied to a contact tracing sheet at the door, and having the cashier handle you groceries before giving them back to you.
Was the decision to place the entire population on home detention, in March 2020, when, officially, there were just 150 people infected with Covid-19, gross stupidity?
There are currently around 430 new cases every week while the population has no restrictions. What has changed to mean that the same contagion has lower risk?
But Jacinda saved the lives of tens of thousands of people. Did she?
One question never asked is whether tens of thousands of people were ever at risk since the modelling used to predict a scary death toll was based on assumptions that turned out to be unrealistic.
Another question never asked is whether, had Ardern and co followed the Epidemic Preparedness Act, would the health outcome have been the same and we would have avoided the horrendous financial toll.
Pride, the feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements, was on display when Ardern, Mallard, and co, bloody-mindedly refused to talk to protesters.
Perhaps the presence of 1000 healthy, happy, unmasked, and un-jabbed, protesters living on Parliament’s front lawn in the summer sun and rain was too much evidence that the Covid-19 brainwashing was nonsense.
Ardern has gone, as has Mallard, but many are still there. Michael Wood, the Minister who called protesters a “river of filth”, is seeking votes for another three-year well-paid contract, as are almost every other MP from that time.
Even the opposition toed the line, although some later showed signs of a prickling conscience.
An honest inquiry into New Zealand’s response to Covid-19 was sorely needed before the current election. That did not happen.
Instead, we have a Royal Commission, with carefully doctored terms of reference and a reporting date pushed out to the middle of next year.
River of freedom is a far cry from Stuff’s over-produced Fire and Fury that parroted the government narrative.
Candid interviews and footage gathered from smart phones and drones convey Freedom’s heart-rending story without overt editorialising.
All credit to film maker Gaylene Barnes and cinematographer Mark Lapwood for stepping over to the other side of New Zealand’s Covid-19 story. They captured the essence of the succession of events in some of the finest reporting I have ever seen.
Barnes, Lapwood, and the extensive list of contributors, combined to show that Ardern forgot that they, the protesters, are also us.
River of freedom may be viewed at a cinema near you.
3 comments:
Very good comment. Thank you for echoing what many NZer's have been and are still thinking.
NZ needs to pick the scab off the never healing wound and have a full Commission of Inquiry.
Halth issues with the jab were well known late 2020.
Calling politicians with integrity.... anyone there?
Incoming politicians welcome. Do it, properly.
This film will become classic historical document of one of NZs most shameful events. A western democracy turning into a totalitarian government complying with global bio-pharmaceutical powers and associates with sociopathic tendencies including lying, blackmail, guile and manipulation. These companies have made multi billions of dollars while our economy is wrecked. The truth must come out and we all hopefully will be determined this must never happen again.
Wherever you stand on the mandate front, I think we are entitled to an unfettered inquiry, and all credit to you in your closing comment, Mike.
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