John Pagani
I've filed a longer piece elsewhere on this, but it's worth a mention because of the deafening silence among other left blogs today:
Members of the "Urewera 18" group threw Molotov cocktail fire bombs and fired semi-automatic weapons at training camps in the bush, court documents show.
This news demolishes the comfortable, smug analysis of Urewera that said the cops over-reacted and that the local cop could have just wandered up the hill and told them all to calm down.
No wonder they didn't want the evidence to come out.
There is a twisted far-left narrative that goes: The cops needed to confect a conspiracy because they were so excited about a war on terror! Having a Terrorism Act they had to find some terrorists! They made it up!.
Anyone repeating this claim now discredits themselves.
Molotov cocktails and semi-automatic weapons require lengthy and detailed explanations from the accused (and now acquitted) long before they require explanations from the police.
Yes, there is a right to silence in criminal law. But we are talking not about criminal sanction.
These people have demanded the moral high ground, and demanded the support of the left. Far too many gifted it too cheaply.
Valerie Morse said on radio today she doesn't have to comment on the evidence because it was gathered illegally and it's up to the police to prove her guilt, which they will never be able to do.
But she does have some explaining to do if she hopes to influence public opinion, or cast herself as a victim.
So does every other apology seeker: Were you part of the molotov throwing, semiautomatic firing group, or not? You cannot purport to be an anti war activist when you are throwing molotov cocktails.
But we now have a new perspective on her statement in the Listener that, "It was not enough to say, 'We are opposed to war or the state, so let’s burn the flag'." Apparently it was nowhere near enough.
What I loathe about this conduct is the way it discredits the wider peace movement. I've been around quite a bit of anti-war activity over the years and I have never come across someone who thought the best way to press the case for, say, nuclear disarmament, is to throw molotov cocktails and fire semi-automatic weapons. Call of Duty behaviour seems, well, inauthentic.
The only way to maintain credibility among genuinely peace-loving folk is to speak out against conduct we know to be unacceptable, and that we would be furious about if we saw in a far right activist cult.
And so consider this my bit for the anti-war cause.
*[Minor update to correct spelling mistake and badly worded final pars.]
