“Dismiss anything else. We will continue to be your single source of truth.“
– Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand
When I first clicked on the video of Jacinda Ardern saying those words that is embedded in this tweet from “Darren of Plymouth” via Not the Bee, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. All of us sometimes say things that “come out wrong”. By “single source of truth” I thought she might have meant no more than “convenient one-stop place you can go to get truthful information”. Apparently there is a concept in information systems design that goes by the name “Single Source of Truth (SSoT)”; perhaps she had picked up this piece of jargon somewhere.
However I only had to wait until 1:02 in the video to see Ms Ardern demonstrate that she meant it exactly the way it sounded:
“When you see those messages, remember that unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth.“
Edit: I assume the “Not the Bee” link got Darren’s tweet enough engagement to alert Twitter’s censorship team. When I first made this post two and a half hours ago the link to the tweet worked, but commenter ‘Dyspeptic Curmudgeon’ has pointed out that it has now disappeared. Here is a YouTube clip of the same speech filmed from a different angle and here is another YouTube clip that seems to be the same one I saw.
A couple of points to note:
– The speech is older than I thought, from May 2020.
– The silence of the press. This all takes place at a press conference. The room is full of cameras and microphones wielded by journalists, news providers. Yet not one of them protests when the prime minister of their country says that they should not be trusted as a source of news. Have they no pride in their profession?
Pm Ardern: I tell you that this is 3 fingers.
Now, Winston, HOW MANY FINGERS AM I HOLDING OUT?
And Twitter has ALREADY disappeared the original tweet with the video!!!
[…] This is one of the classic signs of a cult — Samizdata […]
Since Twitter wiped it already, source:
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/document/HansS_20200902_050580000/1-question-no-1-prime-minister
Emphasis mine.
Archived:
https://archive.is/Kwiu7
Since Twitter wiped it already, source:
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/document/HansS_20200902_050580000/1-question-no-1-prime-minister
Archived:
https://archive.is/Kwiu7
Thank you for letting me know the tweet has gone, Dyspeptic Curmudgeon. I have added an update. While I was hunting out alternative clips of the same scene you made your comment, Shlomo Maistre.
‘Have they no pride in their profession?’
It would be very strange if they did, given their ignominious role in lying to support the globalist narrative
Do these ‘journalists’ not understand that they have publicly and blatantly chosen her side? That by doing so they will go down with her in flames when Reality proves her unscientific tyranny? Truly a cult.
Jacinda is unfortunately my Prime Minister.I can report that the shine is rapidly wearing off,and it would be no surprise to see her popularity sink much further. The government have in effect painted themselves into a corner with the lockdown fixes all problems solution.They have no plan “B” and are unable to think of a way out.The probable reason the media are so quiet is that they received a rather large handout recently without which most of them would be cluttering up the dole queue.Don’t bite the hand that feeds you applies here.
Saint Jacinda of Ardern is a full blown communist so her version of Pravda fits in with her methodology.
Look up her Wikipedia entry (and note that Wikipedia is extremely biased to the left) and be underwhelmed by her lack of real world experience. Also note that she was elected President of International Union of Socialist Youth … Click that link and read all about that organisation. Note that it was formed as the youth wing of the Second International. Which if you follow that link and look at the people that shaped and influenced it, you’ll find as comprehensive a list of Communists as you could wish for (under “People” in the RHS side bar).
Now, you do NOT get elected to head a communist organisation unless you are a communist. It would be like me writing to that nice Mr. Hitler some time between 1933 and 1945 asking to be Reichsfuhrer Hitler Jungend without being a Nazi and an extremely high up Nazi too.
Of course, chameleon like, the Communists shift the meaning of words and change their terminology so she is a “socialist” (just like the United Soviet SOCIALIST Republic) until that term becomes discredited and morphs into “Progressive” – progress from what to what?
Looked at through that lens, everything she has done from banning firearms, abortion to the Police State lockdowns becomes clear.
Another sure sign of a modern day cult leader is the fawning adulation from worldwide media and bien pensants based entirely on her personality (plus of course her sex) while barely mentioning her actions and completely ignoring their eminently predictable consequences.
Her name also crops up here
SSoT is indeed IT jargon. In a distributed system where you might have copies of the same bit of data floating around, like someone’s login details say when you have single sign on across multiple applications, or with any distributed data really, you sometimes despite the distribution aspect have to have in the final analysis one source which is considered always up to date and accurate and not stale, somewhere you can refresh your copy from.
Jacinda Ardern is one of these great mysteries. I’m told how amazing she is by almost everybody and yet whenever I see her myself I am absolutely horrified. I’m not sure she’s done a single thing of which I could approve of and quite a lot of frankly cringeworthy things. Is that really what the average New Zealander wants? I find it so hard to believe.
Ms Arden was the main focus of numerous cringeworthy “If women ruled the world” memes in recent years. I imagine they are less widely shared nowadays.
The appeal is strong. Many otherwise sensible female friends and relatives were particularly enthusiastic about her.
I moved to NZ from Russia. Even before COVID led to the full government takeover of the press, coverage of Jacinda made me miss the fair, balanced and free reporting in Russia. And while my Facebook feed every morning is full of anti-Putin rants, saying any thing bad about Jacinda was until very recently an invitation to a pile on.
“The probable reason the media are so quiet is that they received a rather large handout recently without which most of them would be cluttering up the dole queue.Don’t bite the hand that feeds you applies here.”
Why people still think journalism is a profession? Journalism is politics. Arden is only there because most journalists agree with her.
Not sure if this is something she’d want but Natalie has become my fave blogger.
To answer Natalie’s question – it is not a matter of “pride” among journalists exactly, it is a matter of what they think their FUNCTION is.
To most ordinary people the role of a journalist is to uncover the truth – to penetrate the endless lies of governments and other such. But that is NOT how the “mainstream media” see their role. The “mainstream media” (the products of the “Schools of Journalism” which started as far back as the very late 19th century) see their role as furthering the Progressive cause – the cause of “Social Justice”, “Social Reform”, ever bigger and more interventionist government.
To do this the “mainstream media” will, if necessary, tell lies – but more often they distort the truth, or just COVER UP the truth. If the truth is not going to help the Progressive cause of ever bigger and more controlling government – the cause of “Social Justice”. This tendency has got worse and worse in the mainstream media, but it goes back a long way. For example, the adultery, drug abuse (many different drugs) and terminal illness of President Kennedy were all covered up by the “mainstream media” in order to serve the Progressive cause – to get such things as Food Stamps (1961 – government must-help-the-poor and if it does, such things as corruption, for example Joseph Biden’s corruption, should be COVERED UP), and FCC regulations to hand entertainment television to a Progressive cartel of ABC, CBS and NBC (the Orwellian language used was that the regulations would protect “creative freedom” from outside interference – i.e. different opinions).
This was 60 years ago – so the bias of the “mainstream media” (the School of Journalism types) is hardly recent.
Of course the Prime Minister of New Zealand supports censorship (control of information and opinion) she is a Progressive, and the “mainstream media” also support Progressive censorship (control of information and opinion) because they are also Progressives. There is no mystery here – and nor is it anything really to do with Covid 19, as it started long before.
These days control of cultural matters (including what people see and hear from the media) is understood to be an international goal – hence this aspect of Agenda 2030, “Sustainable Development”. Reactionary opinions are to be destroyed – the education system supports this goal, and (increasingly) do does the criminal law in many countries.
As George Orwell put it – to understand the future think of a boot stamping down on a human face, for ever. That is the Progressive objective – supported not only by the Prime Minister of New Zealand, but also by the education system and the “mainstream media”, as well as the Social Media companies.
If anyone doubts what I say above – then observe how the “mainstream media”, and the Social Media corporations, treat real journalists, people who actually try and uncover the truth – such as “Project Veritas” (people who risk a lot, including their lives, to undercover the truth).
People such as “Project Veritas” are not admired by the mainstream media, and if they were imprisoned or killed the mainstream media would (at least privately) celebrate what had befallen these “Reactionaries”. Indeed the mainstream media (and the Social Media companies and the “educated” people who control Wikipedia) constantly seek to SMEAR Project Veritas and anyone else who really does seek to uncover the truth.
Journalists who seek to uncover the corruption of governments in Russia and the Philippines are honoured (even get the Nobel Peace Prize) – but try and do that against “Progressive” “Liberal” regimes in the West, and you will be hated and smeared.
Paul Marks’s answer to this has merit — but there is at least another, compatible answer.
If and when (most) Kiwis come to believe that Saint Jacinta (canonized by Phil B above) is the sole source of Truth, then the job of journalists becomes much easier: they just have to repeat the Revealed Truth, and lynch the dissenters.
(I am writing this while wearing a black singlet btw. The Xenophobe’s Guide to the Kiwis tells me that’s significant.)
Not even remotely true. I’m not her biggest fan by any stretch, but it is ridiculous to paint her that way.
If communism is to have any meaning other than slur, then it is government control of the means of production. Since she has been in power, and she’s got a pretty free hand at the moment, she hasn’t moved once to nationalise anything. (Her bung to journalists can’t really be called communist, because she’s doing it the way a right wing dictator would.)
The current Labour government have a raft of policies they want to get through, and many of them are mental, but they aren’t communism.
The Left have started to try to use words to twist their meaning. We should not just go round calling everyone to the Left as “communists” and “Marxists”. It leaves us nowhere to go when they actually are them.
The biggest cult on the planet is Apple.
We’ll see. You’d think the shine would have worn off Newsome and Trudeau yet they were re-elected….
On a majority of the minority who bothered to turn out.
One simple rule change, nobody gets elected, the contested seat remains vacant, unless there is a minimum threshold of turnout in the election. Say, perhaps 70%.
Yes Chester Draws – Classical Marxism is about nationalising the means of production, today the Collectivists concentrate on nationalising the RESULTS of production (endless government spend9ing) and using REGULATION to create de facto cartels to control the economy (one reason why Big Business loves Big Government).
Agenda 21 – Agenda 2030. Ideas called “Fascism” in the 1920s and 1930s – but which go all the way back to Saint-Simon two centuries. Socialism not by shooting Big Business – but administered with Big Business (especially the banks).
And Saint-Simon helped inspire Karl Marx – so the circle is complete.
@APL:
“On a majority of the minority who bothered to turn out.”
Not even that in Trudeau’s case. Funny, considering he claims to hate the ‘first past the post’ system.
Just so I don’t sound unnecessarily ignorant in meatspace, is Jasinda or Jakinda?
sonny wayz
As a friend of mine in Canada knows only two well – the right in Canada split their vote.
The leader of the Canadian “Conservatives” was a pathetic “me to” type, so a lot of people voted for more pro liberty alternatives to the Conservatives.
That did not turn out well.
Churnalists?
Trust Churnalists?
Surely, you mus be joking.
Self-declared “opinion-shapers”?
Active and enthusiastic “king-makers ” and “king BREAKERS”.
THOSE Churnalists?
Almost without exception, they are the enemies of humanity.
And that may be their BEST feature.
As an exiled Pom who has lived and worked in various countries, including in Australasia) I am pretty ambivalent about politics – a “floating voter”.
Fair dinkum, when Ardern first made it to PM, she apparently did so because Labour was handed the vote from NZ First (this is under MMP). The previous government had been a National majority I gather, but, as NZ First Winston Peters said, the shift in votes indicated a vote for change.
Ardern’s CV seems to display no proper jobs and little or no real-world work experience, but she’s ambitious, politically inclined, and apparently a good communicator for some, though others can’t abide her nasal strine and unkindly refer to her as “Mrs. Ed”.
Her Labour party policies – especially the ambitious so-called “affordable housing” (is that an oxymoron?) policy seemed to be floundering already when the CV-19 pandemic hit. However, after a belated start she rapidly implemented a containment plan with the (overambitious) object of eradication of the virus – she listened to her heathcare advisors and it proved to be a good outcome. Meanwhile, Labour policies for housing, etc. had apparently been shelved.
When the next election came around, Labour got a good majority, probably because the captain had done a pretty respectable job of navigating around the rocks during the storm and no-one wanted to change the captain in the midst of the response to an emergency, since she was doind a creditable job. Good on ‘er. A good crisis manager. If I were a voter, I would probably have given Labour my vote.
The Labour policies (housing, etc.) are still apparently gathering dust, unactioned. The Labour party has arguably done nothing terribly useful otherwise – e.g., announcing there was a “Climate Crisis” and sending reps off to climate forums leaving a high carbon footprint, etc.
I suspect that the SSoT statement probably seemed “like a good idea at the time” – it helped communicate what she intended – but it may be repented at leisure as a not vey self-aware comment. Maybe she hadn’t read Nineteen Eighty-Four?
I gather that she is a Marxist and has been for years, but as pointed out above, that is now covered/camouflaged by the euohemistic cliché “Progressive”.