Happy New Year BFDers. What a year it has been for us all. The government’s handling of Covid has ensured that our writers have been spoiled for choice when it comes to topics this past year. The action or lack of action of the parties in opposition has also given us plenty to sink our teeth into.
When I launched The BFD three years ago it was always my intention that our niche would be covering the stories that the MSM refused to cover. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that would end up being such a significant slice of the pie as it has proved to be since Covid-19 came to town and the Media Party were bought and paid for by the PM.
This shutting down of the other side of the Covid-19 story, this silencing of medical professionals and anyone else who questioned the government narrative has been ongoing and chilling. The mainstream media’s willingness to not ask the important questions and to cheerlead for a leader regardless of the impact of her decisions on the population has illustrated how history can and is repeating itself.
I watched a video of a Holocaust survivor describing how, little by little, step by step, the German people were turned against the German Jews by Hitler’s government. They started with language referring to them as vermin, cockroaches, and unclean and then moved on to taking things away from them. Small things at first such as not allowing them to sit on park benches before gradually taking away more and more.
This is how evil begins. Not with an obvious big event but with lots of small insidious things and propaganda to condition the majority to do evil things.
Since the pandemic began the New Zealand population has been subjected to “Sustained Propaganda.” It appears on the TV, on the radio, on our phones and on our computers. It is on the windows of all our shops. It appears inside our workplaces, and outside our supermarkets. We cannot escape it.
Once we were conditioned to be fearful and to obey and once the vaccines became available the government’s language and the language used by the government’s handmaiden, the mainstream media, changed. I am sure you have noticed how everything you read is designed to make the population resent and be angry at the unvaccinated. They are portrayed as unclean and as lepers. They are blamed for lockdowns. They are scapegoated for freedoms that were taken away by the government not being returned.
The language used to describe them is invariably negative. They are “selfish”, they are “idiots”, they are “anti-vaxxers”, they are “far-right extremists”. They are not welcome at Christmas dinner. They deserve to be punished by not having access to hairdressers, cafes, gyms and so much more. They should be snitched on and fined. They should be intimidated by visits from the police for questioning or disagreeing with the government narrative. They have a choice and if their choice costs them their livelihood then too bad. It is their own fault. They should comply, they should not complain. They are the reason why the rest of us cannot have nice things.
People’s anger, hurt and frustration have been skillfully turned away from the government that caused them and directed at the unvaccinated.
Already the level of hate directed towards the unvaccinated has reached dangerous levels: people (even well-known media commentators) are wishing serious harm or death on other people for the crime of having a different opinion. How long will it be before this anger explodes into violence against the unvaccinated? The media are pouring petrol on the fire. They are publishing articles demonising businesses and individuals who are refusing to discriminate against others. They are pointing the finger and directing the pitchforks of the vigilante crowd.
The government, with the assistance of the media, has divided the country. We are not only divided along racial lines, Maori and non-Maori, but we are also divided into vaccinated and unvaccinated. This is not by accident. While we are divided it is easy for the government to rule us.
The last Auckland lockdown was a turning point for The BFD. It turbocharged our audience and month after month more and more people discovered us and became members. I expected the audience to drop away when the lockdown ended but they stayed. I received many e-mails from readers telling me how grateful they were for The BFD’s existence. Again and again, I was told how they would have gone mad if they hadn’t been able to access our oasis in the middle of the NZ media desert. I have been told repeatedly that we are important because we are a safe place where people can read about and discuss topics that Jacinda Ardern’s regime forbids people to talk about.
We have members who are vaxxed and unvaxxed and they all co-exist quite happily, discussing the issues respectfully and intelligently in our comment section. We are a much-needed platform for many excellent writers who could not get published anywhere else. Most importantly we are a safety valve for those who are going through some incredibly difficult times because we are also a community that help and support each other.
Our private platform MyBFD has grown this year and allowed members to make new friends and meet up in the real world. Some who were unable to meet up with families due to border closures were able to instead share Christmas with their new friends that they met through The BFD.
I could have given this editorial the standard format, going through all our most popular articles and summarising the big stories of 2021, but The BFD does everything differently. We are building a new kind of media organisation. One that is wholly funded by its readers and wholly independent of political influence, and one that is as much a community as it is an online magazine/newspaper.
Thank you for being part of our community and for supporting our growth. It has been my pleasure to work with our dedicated staff to inform and entertain you while providing a moderated, respectful and friendly forum for all your voices to be heard.
PS
Cam Slater’s article The Good the Bad and the Ugly has been viewed 227,268 times so far and it is continuing to be shared far and wide.