K R Bolton
2000 words
Those who have been associated with anti-Government protests are being pilloried by the Establishment media as dangerous ‘extremists’, often with the designation ‘far right’. For example, see Otago Daily Times and NZ Herald. [1] Although mainly directed at anyone suspected of being associated with Voices for Freedom, alleged Action Zealandia members are prize game, as the media and their ‘extremism experts’ can vent full shock at their favourite boogeyman [2] A frequent source for media smears is Paparoa, described as ‘an Aotearoa extremism research collective’, without any mention of its extremist links.
‘Anti-Mandate’ – ‘Left’ or ‘Right’?
Yet, while the State-subsidised media has sought links between the anti-Government protests in New Zealand and the ‘far Right’, there are those on the ‘far Left’ whose position aligns with Voices for Freedom. For example, the Communist ‘League of Revolutionaries for a New America’, in terms similar to what the news media calls ‘right-wing conspiracy theory’, states that the mandates are a ‘fascist plot’. [3]
Among those who have been singled out for particularly nasty media targeting is a local body candidate whom the media alleges is associated with Action Zealandia. [4]
Despite the barrage of ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ that has been spread by the State and its police, academia, and media, there is no right-wing terrorist group in New Zealand. That remains a Leftist preoccupation, for those who fantasise about an armed proletarian uprising. [5]
Extreme Left
Recently I was at an election meeting where a candidate was pilloried by someone for allegedly having been present at the occupation of Parliament grounds. Whether this candidate was there for anything other than a ten-minute stroll to see what was going on, was not stated. At the same meeting was Asher Wilson-Goldman, standing for Wellington Regional Council. While the media has been preoccupied with its witch-hunt against Government critics running in the local body elections, they mainstream those such as Goldman, presented as an amiable environmentalist, focusing on transport and recycling; [6] [7] who works ‘in communications as a chief communications adviser with the Ministry of Health’s National Immunisation Programme’.[8]
Not for Goldman that journalists seek out his employer, pester him at work, and write of his days as a street anarchist, and as an apologist for the Urewera terrorists. Not for Goldman that he will be pushed out of his job for his political views, and left unemployable. While candidates supporting Voices of Freedom have been condemned for not disclosing their affiliations, not for Goldman that he is questioned on his background with the extreme Left, and his endorsement by the Green Party? [9]
Goldman edited the anarchist news site Indymedia with Urewera defendants Urs Singer and Omar Hamed as co-editors. [10] However, Omar Hamed seems to have departed anarchism for Trotskyism, as a member of the Socialist Workers Organisation, and Socialist Aotearoa, [11] which brings us to the murky and confused world of far Left factionalism. In response to Goldman having been endorsed by community e-zine Waikanae Watch, comments were elicited from someone who claims to have been close to the anarchist scene at the time of Goldman’s involvement, writing that,
Asher Goldman-Wilson ought to come clean about his history working for spying and citizen monitoring organisations that preceded the likes of Paparoa – which I understand he has some involvement with too … He is not adverse to playing dirty, by the way. A friend of mine was one of the Palestinian activists who found themselves subject to a smear campaign – run out of 128 Abel Smith Street, where I was myself once a resident Anarchist – while Mr Goldman was involved with said groups, tasked with protecting his community. … I hope Mr Goldman has put the dark arts aside in respect of your local politics and plays fairer these days.
It was years ago when he smeared the Palestinian activist but it was wrong and cynical. … It was time of the great Workers Party split into Fightback! and Socialist Aotearoa. It was ostensibly a split over the direction of Indymedia, between two of its then editors, including Goldman. … Fightback!… . We should take these apparent ructions without a grain of salt and a heavy dose of cynicism. But the animus in this case was very real.
The evidence for the smear campaign can still be discovered, although it was put to bed on the open net. It was exceedingly nasty, with Goldman claiming that the victim was a rapist in coordinated, sequential blog posts by members of Goldman’s circle, like the Handmirror. The online gaslighting was complimented by harassment through “safe space” meetings at 128 Abel Smith. The victim was sent in paroxysms of rage, which was presumably the whole point, with him coming off as a psycho and Goldman coming off as the cool, calm, collected “feminist” one. I was a little in awe of how well it played out. The consequence was that the pro-Palestinian faction of Indymedia and the radical left was sidelined and co-opted.
… Goldman and his cohort have institutionalised their tactics, which now play out across mainstream media and in politics. [12]
The ‘spying and citizen monitoring organisation’ referred to is presumably the Community Security Group, based on overseas groups, feeding information to the police [13] and, according to Goldman, organised by the ‘NZ Jewish Community,’ [14] as what appears to be a Zionist intelligence apparatus. [15]
There are remnants of this intra–Left nastiness, giving credence to these issues, albeit from a contrary position. [16] If nothing else, they give an insight into the subterranean world of the psycholeft that the Establishment news media and academic ‘experts’ (themselves often involved with this psycholeft world) keep obscured, while focusing on ‘far Right’ will-‘o-the-wisps. The writer of the following is a feminist who assumed the allegations were accurate.
‘Fightback’, mentioned above, is a Trotskyite faction linked with Paparoa. The Workers Party was the predecessor of ‘Fightback’. Byron C. Clark was Christchurch mayoral candidate for the Workers Party in 2007. [17] Clark is involved with Fightback, and with Paparoa. [18] As one might expect, Clark is touted by the Establishment news media as a ‘disinformation and extremism expert’. [19]
Kapiti Kouncil Kapers
Perhaps Mr Goldman has changed since his days as a street anarchist? My experience suggests that he has not. During the middle of last year, there was tumult at the Kapiti Council chamber caused by the Mayor stacking the public area with a large contingent from the ‘three mandated iwi’, plus an entire haka party of burly youths. The latter alleged they were subjected to ‘racial abuse’ from the public, when the haka proceeded to scare and to injure middle aged women crammed among them. These women had written complaints to the Council, from whom they received apologies. As one would expect, the media misrepresented the situation. [20] Mr Goldman, although not present, wrote to a Facebook page run by an Otaki Maori artist, Hohepa Thompson, claiming that an elderly invalid, along with myself, organised the ‘abuse of Maori children’ by a ‘far right group’ (sic). A torrent of gutless threats proceeded, from those outraged that we had ‘abused tamariki’ (sic), or as one local radio station put it, ‘abused little children doing a poi dance’. [21]
There seems to be a continuity between then and now in regard to how Goldman targets people, where truth means little. In 2005 Mr Goldman referred on an anarchist blogsite to one of his targets as ‘the son of a Vichy collaborator’. The individual responded with a levity that the Left tends to lack, that ‘To the best of my knowledge, my father has never set foot in France, rather he was born in that exotic Gallic location of Whangarei’.
Goldman qwuipped: ‘Apologies, I got my long time New Zealand Nazi activists mixed up with each other’. Tuesday, May 24, 2005 6:47:00 pm. [22]
As the Roman legal dictum goes: ‘Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus’.
Endorsement by ‘Far Right’ (?) Community Journal
What is one to make of Goldman’s endorsement by a community e-zine that would by Leftist criteria qualify as ‘far right’, ‘conspiracist’, and ‘white supremacist’? The previously cited Waikanae Watch. [23] ticks many of the boxes for these designations as defined by the far-Left: White supremacy in its often-stated opposition to what it sees as ‘Maori privileges’, promoting the ‘one law, one New Zealand’ doctrine of such ‘white supremacists’ as the Hobson’s Pledge organisation, and recently the One NZ Foundation; Climate change denial; Anti-vax, anti-mandate; favourable review of books from Tross Publishing, which is described by media pundits and academics as ‘white supremacist’ for its attempts to rescue NZ history from Europhobic and Leftist agendas; and perhaps worst of all, WW editor Geoffrey Churchman’s article castigating Stuff Media for its hounding of the alleged Action Zealandia member contesting the elections. [24]
Trail of Smears
As in 2021 with the Kapiti council fiasco, in November 2005 Goldman sought to hold me responsible for influencing the action of two youngsters in shooting at an Auckland Mosque with air rifles. He wrote that so long as individuals such as myself were ‘left alone, we’ll be seeing plenty more where this came from’. [25] Never mind that I have never been anything other than pro-Muslim. Had Brenton Tarrant read my book Zionism, Islam and the West (2014) translated by a Muslim scholar into Arabic, perhaps he would have reconsidered the shooting spree that did so much to aid the globalists.
Sixteen years later Goldman maintains a tactic of attempting to incite violence with baseless, inflammatory allegations. What other way should his statements be interpreted? Under the same entry on his blogsite Left & Lefter Goldman stated that it is ‘unfortunate’ that the far Left in ‘Aotearoa and Australia’ must rely on the ‘mainstream media and the police’ to ‘shut down’ the Right, because ‘we are (generally speaking, although there are exceptions) not in a position where physically smashing them on the streets would be a productive method’… [26]
Honouring the War Dead a ‘Black Farce’
Just a few months prior to Goldman’s blog entry, Anarchist Class Struggle held a meeting to discuss how protesting against the ceremony for the return of the Unknown Soldier might be organised. An email referred derisively to the ‘full on patriotism’ that required ‘a careful response as activists in Wellington against this praise of imperialism militarism’. Leafleting was considered the best option, given the lack of time to organise ‘direct confrontation’ (sic).[27] This was followed by the anarchist Snap! Collective stating that the return for burial of the ‘Unknown Soldier’ from France was ‘downright ghoulish’, and ‘a black farce’. [28]
The ironically named Peace Action Wellington referred to distributing leaflets, but added ‘if you would like to do something more radical, we could discuss at the Class Straggle meeting at 7:00 pm at 128 Abel Smith Street. Anarchists welcome’. The primary organiser of Peace Action, the embarrassingly histrionic Valerie Morse, was one of the initial Urewera defendants whose firearms charges were dropped for reasons that were kept confidential.
Armed Revolt
Three years later Goldman was involved in the formation of the anarcho-communist Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement. While Goldman has waxed indignant about the elusive threats posed by ‘right-wing terrorists’, AWSM unequivocally advocated a violent uprising:
It is not possible to abolish Capitalism without a revolution, which will arise out of class conflict. The ruling class must be completely overthrown to achieve anarchist communism. Because the ruling class will not relinquish power without their use of armed force, this revolution will be a time of violence as well as liberation. [29]
Goldman confirmed his involvement with AWSM, while objecting to being described as its ‘leader’, writing on the site of libertarian anti-Communist crusader Trevor Loudon:
… Just because Trevor [Loudon] seems to think I’m in charge, doesn’t make it true – AWSM is an anarchist-communist group, we all have an equal say (as you could no doubt easily find out by reading our constitution). [30]
Goldman will likely get elected, given the other choice is Labour’s Penny Gaylor. …
[1] ‘Ungovernable Candidates Linked to Voices for Freedom in Local Elections’, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/ungovernable-candidates-linked-to-voices-for-freedom-in-local-elections/3XLS525TXYUPTDGN7MSQNNWNLI/
[2] It was enough for an alleged Action Zealandia member to be on a building site in the vicinity of the Parliament grounds occupation, to elicit a paranoid reaction from the media. ‘How far Right activist filmed the protest from a parliament construction site’, The Spinoff, https://thespinoff.co.nz/live-updates/17-02-2022/how-a-far-right-activist-filmed-the-protest-from-parliament-construction-site
[3] Rally, Comrades! https://rallycomrades-org.translate.goog/2021/08/la-respuesta-a-la-pandemia-y-la-lucha-contra-el-fascismo/?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
[4] Justin Wong, ‘Council candidate accused of neo-nazi links quite Civil Aviation Authority’, Stuff, 23 September 2022, https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/local-body-elections/129972971/council-candidate-accused-of-neonazi-links-quits-civil-aviation-authority
[5]‘The strategic objective of the CPA is socialist revolution in Aotearoa. This can only be achieved when the masses, led by their Party, wage armed struggle to overthrow the capitalist’s state power in order to establish a peoples socialist republic in Aotearoa’. ‘Constitution of the Communist Party of Aotearoa: Preamble’, https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/new-zealand/cpa-constitution.pdf
[6] Asher Wilson-Goldman, https://www.asherwilsongoldman.nz/
[7] ‘Local body elections: Asher Wilson-Goldman is running for Greater Wellington’, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kapiti-news/news/local-body-elections-asher-wilson-goldman-is-running-for-greater-wellington/SFENINA7TU4YQNISEH2YDDU6LY/
[9] ‘Our local government candidates’, Green Party, https://www.greens.org.nz/local_government_candidates_list
[10] ‘Asher Goldman’, Key Wiki, http://keywiki.org/Asher_Goldman
[11] ‘Omar Hamed’, Key wiki, http://keywiki.org/Omar_Hamed
[12] ‘Pushing back against the Stuffers’, Waikanae Watch, Comments, https://waikanaewatch.org/2022/09/26/pushing-back-against-the-stuffers-5/#comments
[13] Community Security Trust, https://cst.org.uk/
[14] Asher Goldman, 16 March 2019, https://twitter.com/ashergoldman/status/1106866982974939136
[15] Community Security Group, https://csg.org.nz/
[16] The Left must own its shit and stop defending abusers, Ideologically Impure, 3 October 2013, https://ideologicallyimpure.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/the-left-must-own-its-shit-and-stop-defending-abusers/
[17] ‘Byron Clark for Christchurch Mayor,’ Workers Party press release, Scoop, 20 August 2007, https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK0708/S00224.htm
[18] Byron Clark, ‘How the far-sighted found a home in the NZ Conservative Party’, Fightback, 12 June 2020, https://fightback.org.nz/?s=Paparoa
[19] ‘Extremist protesters beyond reasoning – disinformation expert’, Radio NZ, 3 March 2022, https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018832739/extremist-protesters-beyond-reasoning-disinformation-expert
[20] K R Bolton, ‘Complaint to the Human Rights Commission’, Waikanae Watch, 27 December 2021, https://waikanaewatch.org/2021/12/27/complaint-to-the-human-rights-commission-in-regard-to-the-race-relations-commissioner-mr-meng-foon-correspondence/#comments
[21] The Hori, https://ne-np.facebook.com/thehori/posts/4056584404363740
[22] Spanblather, 17 April 2005, http://spanblather.blogspot.com/2005/04/dont-look-now-its-national-front.html
[23] ‘Candidate Asher Wilson-Goldman for Kapiti seat’, Waikanae Watch, https://waikanaewatch.org//?s=Asher+wilson+goldman&search=Go
[24] Pushing back against the Stuffers, Waikanae Watch, https://waikanaewatch.org/2022/09/26/pushing-back-against-the-stuffers-5/#comments
[25] Asher Goldman, Left & Lefter, 30 November 2005.
[27] Subject [Anarchism Wellington] Opposition to the use of the Unknown Warrior, 8 November 2004.
[28] Snap Collective, Anarchism Wellington, 9 November 2004.
[29] AWSM, ‘Aims and Principles’, point 8, Indymedia,8 December 2008, cited at: ‘Anarchist Asher announced AWSM’, https://www.trevorloudon.com/2008/12/anarchist-asher-announces-awsm/
[30] Asher Goldman, https://www.trevorloudon.com/2008/12/anarchist-asher-announces-awsm/#comments (This is still functioning See: AWSM, https://awsm.nz/)
The European New Zealander 