Slander Propaganda

Despite the blanketing of much of the country with anti-Green and anti-Labour propaganda leaflets having been revealed today as the responsibility of "a secretive church," rather than the National Party -- as a number on the left would have undoubtedly wanted to believe -- it is fair to say that the damage has already been done. The news media can be expected to go to considerable lengths in order to discredit the source from which the false and radicalised information came, in an attempt to restore the political campaign to relative equilibrium. Unfortunately, a not-insignificant number of people will have read those leaflets and taken them at face value; the church will have already succeeded in swaying some votes with its falsified claims that are largely intended to evoke fear, particularly towards the Greens.

It appears to me that most people recognised before today's news that the leaflets were indeed not distributions of National, which should ensure that the party does not take the popularity hit that the media had somewhat predicted. Today's discovery serves only to reinforce National's position of safety. However, the mere fact that people didn't think the leaflets were from National doesn't necessarily mean that the messages were not taken in. I would pick that both Labour and the Greens stand to lose a fair bit of ground -- probably moreso the latter, given the particularly venomous nature of the leaflet devoted to "dealing with" them. You can read Green Party Co-Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons' rebuttal to the points raised in the leaflet here, as well as view the leaflet itself here if you are one of the few who hasn't received it.

After having been enlightened to the existence of the Exclusive Brethren (the Christian sect now known as responsible for the leaflet drops), I have taken great interest in finding out more about them. This has revealed a number of inconsistencies within their organisation, at least in New Zealand, that may point to the smear campaign as being of a much darker nature. From what I understand, having read the BBC article regarding the Brethren, members of the church are supposed to live their lives according to a "doctrine of separation" that involves keeping themselves away from anybody who is not one of them. The teachings of the Brethren virtually decree that members of the sect are "chosen ones," whilst anyone else is sinful beyond a tolerable level -- including other Christians -- and they are referred to as "worldlies".

What makes me suspicious is that as part of maintaining their separation from the sinful worldlies, the Brethren don't watch television, they don't listen to the radio, they don't read the newspaper, they don't use the Internet, and they don't vote. Combine these factors with the notion that these people are not permitted to associate with anyone outside of their sect and that they basically place themselves in a bubble separate to the rest of society, and a really weird image begins to emerge. Why would they want to have an influence over the rest of us when their belief system prohibits it? Even more strange to wonder about is how do they know so much about our current political situation given their supposed total ignorance of the media? To me at least, it appears that there may be more to this church than meets the eye. At the present moment, I can't help but suspect that in the Exclusive Brethren we could be looking at a highly secretive and subversive underground political organisation in the guise of a group of isolationist Christians.