1) The Therapeutic Products Bill 2) Moderna 3) Raoul (Sunday) island 4) Golden Bay Noticeboard, Takaka Noticeboard 5) 51 (a Special Edition was published in August 2022) 1) Which controversial bill affecting a major Golden Bay employer passed its third reading last week? 2) In addition to Pfizer, US Courts recently forced the release of COVID 'vaccine' trial data by what pharmaceutical company? 3) The annexation of what island by the NZ government in 1887 was later found to have been unlawful? 4) What are the names of the two FB noticeboards that emerged to facilitate free speech as a result of the original one's aversion to it? 5) Including this one, how many issues of The GB Thinker have been published? The GB Thinker “ C E N S O R S H I P R E F L E C T S A S O C I E T Y ’ S L A C K O F C O N F I D E N C E I N I T S E L F . I T I S A H A L L M A R K O F A N A U T H O R I T A R I A N R E G I M E . " ~ S U P R E M E C O U R T J U S T I C E P O T T E R S T E W A R T , 1 9 6 6 F o o d f o r t h o u g h t . S h a r e i t a r o u n d . I S S U E 5 0 , 2 6 J U L Y , 2 0 2 3 The trickle-down effect: Golden Bay not exempt from censorship The Village Theatre has refused to screen an acclaimed locally-made documentary, to the surprise of one of its founders. Attempts to have Silenced screened at the Village Theatre have been shut down by the committee. Ironically, the hour long film is about national streams of censorship in media, medicine and academia. The intention was to have more than a screening; inviting discussion with a Q&A session afterwards, in an attempt to bridge some of the divide caused by the Government's pandemic response, augmented by censorship. The Village Theatre decided the documentary “fell outside their policy of not screening movies of a political nature”. Further inquiry as to what policy they’re adhering to and their thoughts on censoring a documentary about censorship were ignored. Village Theatre founder Gerard Hindmarsh says "'I must admit I was surprised that the Village Theatre did not want to screen Silenced made by Samantha Blanchard. Her film brought up valid points about how information and so called news is steered in our society, a subject worthy of debate in our current climate. One of our aims setting up the theatre back in 1988 was to not only be a venue for commercial movies, but as a forum for local film makers, and Samantha's offering was a valid and thoughtful contribution to this. Why not let filmgoers be the judge, not a committee attributing themselves as arbiters of public opinion..?" State Cinemas in Nelson also declined because of “inferences to misinformation”. When pressed for specifics, no examples were provided. Speech was again scratched by the editor of the GB Weekly when discussion about Silenced took place in the letters to the editor after its release. The film-maker’s nuanced rebuttal (to an Aaron Marshall's second letter, claiming to represent the scientific community) was declined without explanation. The editor’s right... but is the editor right ? J The GB Weekly's letters to the editor have been questionably refused more than once. In February of this year, local GP Bruce Dooley would beat the New York Times in his effort to bring public attention to a major new study, sending a letter to the editor of our local rag. Along with highlighting new findings on Vitamin D deficiency worsening the experience of Covid-19, Dr Dooley wrote about a conclusive review from the Cochrane report showing masks make little to no difference in the spread of respiratory illnesses. Editor Jo Richards decided the study “suffered a number of flaws”, and without citing any particular study in response, he replied “research overwhelmingly shows they are effective when worn as recommended.” In remarkable contrast, two weeks later, Pulitzer-prize winning commentator Bret Stephens published the same study’s results in the New York Times, calling it “the most rigorous and comprehensive analysis” so far on mask efficacy for respiratory viruses. The headline in the left-leaning paper was conclusive: Keep an eye out for NZ Loyal leader Liz Gunn, visiting Golden Bay this week. Check out her heartfelt policies for the upcoming election at nzloyal.org.nz The Thinker Quiz propaganda. Along with media outlets across New Zealand, the GB Weekly was an eager receiver of Government advertising dollars - (amounting to over $125 million total for the Unite Against Covid-19 campaign and subsequent vaccine advertising campaigns through to the end of 2022.) The Weekly was given over $12,000 in a grant for small publications from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage after the first lockdown, and then took cash for Covid and vaccination related advertisements that would dominate any page they occupied - hauling over $40,000 in advertising revenue, at rate card value, up to the end of last year. Payments came from the Government, Te Whatu Ora Nelson/Marlborough, OMD - a PR firm contracted by the Government, TDC and others. A $50,000 pandemic cash bonus. The Weekly isn’t the only obstacle for free-flowing discourse in our local community. Historically the town hall, plaza or village green would be a location for the exchange of ideas and discourse - today, like it or not, we’ve gone online. The Golden Bay Community Noticeboard on Facebook is your best bet for engaging with your community at large, with over 16,000 followers - and it’s great if you want to notify everyone of a lost dog or your upcoming garage sale... but efforts to discuss anything controversial are quickly silenced by moderators. Most recent was conversation about Julian Batchelor’s Stop Co-Governance roadshow, where comments were closed before members had the chance to exercise discourse within the group’s rules of being kind and courteous. “ The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned? ” Dr Dooley says he was shocked at his letter being cancelled. “That a lay person would question this gold standard of Science, the Cochrane Review, caused me to oscillate emotionally between amusement and alarm,” says Dr Dooley. Richards also debunked Dr Dooley’s studies referring to Vitamin D’s merits without any citations of studies he deemed better - overriding the local doctor’s Masters in Immunology, and likely ignorant of the GP’s long-term experience with Vitamin D... leaving the letter unpublished when Dr Dooley would not edit it according to Richards’ numerous suggestions. Richards ignored our requests for any comment. Opposition to other mainstream-accepted issues has also been censored by the GB Weekly. One reader, who prefers not to be named, penned a letter pointing out climate change theories are hypotheses only and not definitives... “However, alternative hypotheses and significant debate on climate change is being blocked. Why? We, the people, have little knowledge of competing hypotheses and research, why is this? Nor do we have anything near a sufficient understanding to conclude that one hypothesis has more merit than another. This is for scientists to freely discuss and debate and for us to have free access to (we don’t) ... Think for yourselves and understand globalist and govt funding (and thus influence) extends to all corners of science, media and beyond." The writer says the refusal to publish her letter followed the editor twice changing titles of previous letters she’d sent - which she felt were inappropriate and mischievous. “I can't trust him to make honest, appropriate and suitable editorial changes to my letters anymore, so can't send any more in,” she says. (The work of NZ investigative journalist Ian Wishart, including his book ‘Air-Con’ written in 2010, is a good starting point for anyone questioning the climate change narrative, and Reality Check Radio’s programme Greenwashed is also largely devoted to exploring why climate action might be unfounded climate alarmism.) Lessons are not learned from censorship. Writer Laurie Halse-Anderson famously said ‘Censorship is a child of fear, and the father of ignorance.’ But the microcosm of Golden Bay is representative of a culture leached across New Zealand and the globe. Sociologist Jodie Bruning says the public need to take it upon themselves to overcome those barriers. “It is incumbent upon us to be curious and open-minded. Since ancient times, oligarchs have always wanted to know more than the people. Nothing has changed. However, in the meantime, power (in particular, the global oligarchic system) has consolidated.” That’s evident from the recent admission from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, recalling the social media giant’s approach to censoring Covid misinformation, he said in June this year the “establishment,” asked “for a bunch of things to be censored that, in retrospect, ended up being more debatable or true.” That culture has evidently trickled all the way down, to our local information sources. As with historical censorship regimes, the blocking of information has gone hand-in-hand with an increase in Perhaps needless to say, our post for publicisation of the GB community noticeboard's policy on cancelling conversation went unposted. How are we able to discuss issues as a community if moderators of such a group decide for us that we’re not allowed to? Sociologist Jodie Bruning says access to all the information, including via those that are daring enough to share it, is ‘of the essence’ for a healthy society. “Information is intelligence. How intelligent we are, how much we might 'judge' a situation, is dependent on the breadth of information. If it's fine grained, more detailed, we will have greater knowledge of a problem.” Bruning says - otherwise, we’re vulnerable to the abuse of power. “That’s partly because of the absence of critical voices in public media and the commercialised priorities of NZ public media.” Much like the burgeoning of independent media to elevate critical voices, there are now two other local Facebook 'Noticeboards' which have sprung up because of the original group's aversion to free speech. Admin for Golden Bay Noticeboard (omitting the word 'community'), Andrew Kelsall says he started the new group 'so the people of the Bay could say what they like. Topics like the use of 1080 were getting blocked on other local groups." The word ‘misinformation’, a catch-phrase for cancel culture, is getting a fresh run on RNZ's latest contribution 'Undercurrent'. The Free Speech Union have pointed out disagreement is not violence. During Silenced, world-leading cardiologist and prolific speaker to the pandemic science, Dr Peter McCullough calls misinformation a propaganda term. “There’s no such thing as misinformation. There’s simply data, and two or more points of view. Disagreement is how we make scientific progress.” One could argue: societal progress as well. ~Samantha Blanchard Another way to censor - shoot the messenger with ad hominem , Siouxie styles. Siouxie Wiles, Stuff, 17 July "...debating people like Kennedy is like playing chess with a pigeon. The pigeon just knocks over the pieces, craps on the board, and struts around like it won." Trust Siouxie, or trust yourself? > "Congenial, respectful debate is water and sunlight for our democracy." - RFK Jr, Presidential candidate https://youtu.be/g1npE- oRMQo "There is an absence of critical voices in a public media with commercialised priorities. There is an uncritical acceptance in legacy media of the reports of news agencies, which have ownership structures that build into their structure and function extensive, pervasive conflicts of interest. This is one of the biggest censorship problems. Institutions are multiscalar (ie local institutions are owned by companies that are eventually found to be a component of eg. Blackrock's share portfolio, and horizontally with ownership porfolios across different business categories, including media. Then they are tied across companies when industry sectors have representative lobby groups, such as pesticides, pharma or in FMCGs.). Our large legacy media outlets are often offshore owned. There has been three decades of reducing funding and academic space for the humanities, arts and social sciences studies (HASS), disciplines of history, philosophy, politics, sociology and ethics, to name a few. Informational railways in our government, such as StatsNZ and regulatory agencies, have limited funding and are inevitably 'corrupted' by a requirement to conform to central government priorities and agendas, and their chief industry stakeholders. It is almost impossible for these organisations to clearly and transparently release information that contradicts state/industry priorities. Our system for science funding and projects is ridiculously opaque and unaccountable. It's highly speculative rather than focussed on on-the-ground problems. There is no ROI reporting system for speculative applied research, while public good research is dismissed because it is innovative. Global guidance mechanisms (such as the International Monetary Fund) and other powerful global institutions have stronger relationships with officials than the public. Judges in our court system are (in the absence of contradictory information) politically appointed. Cabinet can produce secondary legislation in secret. Government can fund media. Censorship makes us vulnerable to abuse of power. Why are we vulnerable to abuse of power in NZ? These reasons, from sociologist Jodie Bruning. It is incumbent upon us to be curious and open-minded. Jodie Bruning is a prolific critic of Government policy on her Substack, Talking Risk. Her primary focus is the regulation of science and technology. She appears in 'Silenced'. There's censorship - and then there's spin It passed its third reading but that's not stopping a Coalition of Natural Health retailers (including Healthpost) petitioning against the Therapeutic Products Bill - sign here: https://petitions.parliament. nz/4011ca16-08e5-458e- 6fea-08db7e84cb09/sign MARK HUME SUPPORTS FREEDOM OF CHOICE Open Tuesday to Sunday 8am -2pm and 5pm- 8pm Hi, I'm Aroha at Being Presence Centre -Possibilities 30 Commercial St, Takaka, the only upstairs shop in town, follow the signs and rainbows! I'm keen to let you know that I do Custom Fashion Design pieces made to fit each individual. You can order yourself garments for special events, weddings or everyday wear, purchase from a range of designer wear in-store or acquire one of my one off Sculptural Fashion Art Creations. Please see some of my Fashion work on my website: www.ybe.co.nz. Look especially at my Conceptual Designs and Custom design work. I also make hats, gloves, scarves, bags, you name it - I can probably make it for you! I can also help with mending or revamping items. My second passion is doing Life Path Guidance sessions with Oracle cards. These help people to clear blocks, focus on steps to take and align their energy with positive forward movement to bring about their best future. Book a session with me: message me on 0272317447, beingpresencecentre@gmail.com. or pop in to the shop to arrange it. Also, I help people with health and well being with doTERRA range of essential oils and other remedies and sprays. I stock a variety of health, spiritual and healing books, incense, crystals, jewellery and a multitude of other products and gifts. Come to visit soon! Blessings. Tuesdays by appointment, Weds to Sat 10.30am - 4.30pm. Being Presence Centre -Possibilities. Maintenance / Handy Man Shaun 0278803535 The United States has joined twelve other nations from around the world in an agreement to crack down on the agriculture industry to fight “global warming.” International governments have agreed to sign a pact pledging to target food production by shutting down farms to reduce “methane emissions.” The thirteen nations signing the Global Methane Pledge are: Argentina,Australia,Brazil,Burkina Faso,Chile, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Germany, Panama, Peru, Spain, The United States, Uruguay The move seeks to drastically cut meat and dairy supply around the world to allegedly “save the planet” from “climate change.” The U.S., Australia, Brazil, and Argentina, nations that are signing the pact, are among the world’s largest producers of meat. Food shortages explained Find Aroha at the Upstairs Shop above Dragonfly and Soma 30 Commercial St, Takaka. We are grateful for all the supporters who made The GB Thinker possible. Our email, bank account and online platforms will remain active. gbthinker@protonmail.com 03-1354-0620658-00