Stuff vs River of Freedom

Author: Mysteron.

A contributor to ‘Stuff to Watch’ has braved sitting among the ‘River of Filth’ in order to review River of Freedom film.

When members of the mainstream media write about the parliament protest or the freedom movement, one generally ends up wondering whether one was at the same events as them.  So it’s unsurprising that Graeme Tuckett’s piece is not really an exception.

Having no doubt been a cog in the clobbering machine that resulted in the subsequent protest on parliament lawn, people such as Tuckett cannot, and can never afford to waver in their views…

“I will never agree with most of what the protesters believe. And I’ll never have anything but contempt for the wannabe-politicians and conmen who saw the crowd as a congregation to be fleeced.”

So… he was ok with mandates? Mandates were why most of the people were at parliament, and what everyone interviewed throughout the documentary was at pains to emphasise. Would Tuckett be keen on being mandated to receive a treatment of this Resistance Kiwi’s choosing, one wonders? Might he protest that it’s unfair and that he should have a choice? As for the comment about, “wannabe politicians and conmen”, this Resistance Kiwi is left scratching his head trying to work out who he’s referring to.

Most individuals among that crowd had withstood an onslaught of government propaganda as well as pressure from friends, family and workmates to submit to vaccination.

The tone of the review is condescending. We were there “to be fleeced”. We had also evidently been “excluded and belittled for a generation or more”, which is news to this Resistance Kiwi and likely many others. He continues, “For a few weeks, that camp gave a group of vulnerable people a place to belong and a voice that couldn’t be ignored”. Weird. Because the MSM – including Tuckett in his current review – most definitely ignored the mandate message and chose instead to focus on schoolgirls supposedly being hassled and rubbish around the grounds. And of course every politician in parliament ignored us, too.

About those vulnerable people (cough). Most individuals among that crowd (around 80% according to a poll initiated by Sean Plunket), had withstood an onslaught of government propaganda as well as pressure from friends, family and workmates to submit to vaccination. This Resistance Kiwi lost his job and gave away 50:50 shared care of his daughter to ensure she remained unvaccinated. Others lost homes and businesses. If we were at all vulnerable, it was almost solely because of the government’s actions together with the unwillingness of the many “Tucketts” of New Zealand to speak up and say that mandates and vax passes were manifestly unjust and lacking humanity. Not only that, but they were ineffective – as the government well knew.

One wonders whether if he was kicked in the nuts repeatedly, he’d thank his attacker and apologise for getting in their way.

In reality, it was the Tucketts of the world who were vulnerable. They fearfully followed every emanation from our “leaders” and “experts”. They trusted liars and imbeciles. They believed the “safe and effective” mantra. Their health – both mental and physical, was at risk at nearly every turn, and may still be. But again, it’s easier to keep believing than to acknowledge that one was conned; that the politicians had only their poll ratings in mind, and the “experts”,  their status and 15 minutes of fame.

Because Tuckett wandered around the protest taking photos, he knows “what River of Freedom is not showing us”:

“In the two-and-a-half hours of River Of Freedom, you won’t glimpse the hatred and threats that featured in some of the graffiti and placards, nor will you see the protesters abusing and intimidating the local workers and passers-by, all of which I saw for myself.”

This Resistance Kiwi doesn’t try to deny that there may have been a tiny handful of placards with aggressive messaging towards politicians. I mean, it was a “protest” after all, not a ticker-tape parade for the return of some pioneering explorer. But what kind of percentage are we talking? 1%? Less?

Having visited the main grounds almost daily over the entire period, I saw ONE placard that I considered off – relating to Mallard being a pedophile. I considered it potentially defamatory and a distraction from what we were trying to achieve, but didn’t consider it my position or right to remove it.

Further, if a few people wrote angry messages on placards – having possibly lost their livelihoods and definitely their dignity because of vax passes and mandates, their anger should hardly be surprising to Tuckett. One wonders whether if he was kicked in the nuts repeatedly, he’d thank his attacker and apologise for getting in their way. This Resistance Kiwi can only think of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Perhaps Tuckett expected everyone mandated out of work to whistle “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”, whilst being tormented by the MSM and government.

Similarly, for the accusation of harassing and intimidating passers-by. One Resistance Kiwi donned a mask and spent several hours wandering the length of Molesworth Street. In that time he received ONE gentle comment along the lines of, “That’s not going to do anything for you.” Others filmed groups of schoolgirls walking confidently and unchallenged along the same stretch.

It’s not to say there wasn’t poor behaviour – but it’s pretty clear that it was the exception not the rule. So why would the movie include it after months of egregious amplification by MSM? Unfortunately even one instance of poor behaviour was and is still used by Tucketts everywhere to smear the protesters and justify the police brutality towards them.

Tuckett writes, “River Of Freedom is not an attempt to make a balanced film of the events. It’s not pretending to be. The filmmakers have simply set out to make a response – a counter-balance – to the media coverage…”

This Resistance Kiwi disagrees. It’s hard to see where the film isn’t balanced. Apart from the events which we’ve already determined were a minuscule part of the story, what does he believe to be biased? Does he think that protesters were more violent towards police than the film shows? Because there are clear scenes of protesters starting fires and pelting police with objects. Does he believe that the crowd turned from peace-loving, smiling people, into violent malcontents at night? We don’t know, because he doesn’t really say. Saying the film is deliberately biased seems to be the only somewhat weak defence against the real and raw footage showing that on the whole – we weren’t and aren’t the ferals portrayed by the MSM. That we were there primarily for one reason, and one alone. That we weren’t easily led, gullible fools or Nazis or anti-Semites or “conspiracy theorists” or any of the other tired, nonsensical claptrap.

The sad thing about Tuckett viewing the doco, is that I don’t believe he really “gets it”. Even Sean Plunket, who, having seen River of Freedom, appears to have taken at least a tiny step away from his “anti-vax nutter” viewpoint:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=QtUyYrjXZuM

Tuckett writes:

“When you ignore the conspiratorial nonsense, there is still an important point being made here.”

Wow! He thinks there was an important point made? What was it? He doesn’t say. Was there only one?

How about:

• the government should never have “othered” citizens
• the government should never have forced people to choose between feeding their kids and having a medical treatment they didn’t want
• the protesters were rational in believing that life shouldn’t stop because of Covid
• the government and general public response was borderline hysterical
• most, if not all of the protesters held a deep conviction that they were on the right side of history

At least Tuckett suggests that people should see the film. Perhaps he could suggest the New Zealand Film Festival organisers include the documentary in their programme too, rather than wilfully ignoring it!