Conspiracy Nutters

VRWC Alive and Well In New Zealand

The Clintons Will Be Impressed

We have just had a powder puff explode onto the political scene.  One of our most virulent conspiracy nutters, Nicky Hagar has released a book just prior to the general election alleging a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ("VRWC") between the Prime Minister and two right-wing, National Party supporter bloggers.  The "vastness" of the conspiracy evidently turns around the influence of Kiwiblog and Whaleoil--both very widely read blogs in the New Zealand landscape.

The NZ Herald provides a summary of the nothing story thus far:

John Key has come under attack in a book that paints his administration as being obsessed with "dirty politics".  It claims elements of the National Party have turned to "attack blogs" to manipulate public opinion and demonise political opponents. . . .The book is claimed to be based on thousands of emails obtained by a hacker from computers operated by Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater. 

Well, knock us down with a feather.  Who would ever have expected such collusion?  The thing about conspiracy nutters is that they filter all of reality through the conspiracy lens, so that everything, yes everything manifests a conspiracy.  In this case, Hagar, being virulently left-wing, sees all of life as one VRWC.  In this mindset, co-incidence always means causation.  Why, we are sure that if this blog were as widely read in New Zealand, as the aforementioned blogs, Hagar would have somehow woven Contra Celsum into his fantasy.


It seems as though the Left have a congenital weakness for this kind of codswallop.  We suspect it stems from the left-wing world view which holds Marxian views about capital as a vast socio-economic conspiracy against the poor, both to exploit them and keep them oppressed.  This mindset can easily translate into seeing all  reality through the conspirator's lens. 

We believe conspiracies exist and are very real.  We also believe that they are universal, and cover just about all human existence.  After all the word "conspire" means, at root, "to breath together", to think, plan, and carry out one's plan.  Every planned activity between two human beings represents a conspiracy.  But, the conspiracy nutters retort, you definitely have a conspiracy in the pejorative sense when ones plans and plots are held secret.  Well, no, secret conspiracies occur all over the place every day.  Take for example, business plans--which are held secret from competitors and the market place in general, until ready to be unfolded.  Every political party, as it plans its electoral strategy, represents a conspiratorial entity.  But it's normal, and unavoidable, and certainly not immoral or unethical.  Wherever people have a community of shared interest and work together you will have such conspiracies.

What, then, is a conspiracy in the pejorative sense of the term?  Chambers Dictionary is helpful:

conspire: verb (conspired, conspiring) intrans 1 to plot secretly together, especially for an unlawful purpose

It is the unlawful purpose of the plot which makes a conspiracy wicked or evil or unethical.  So, what Hagar must show to prove his case is not just that people were planning together on a political enterprise, but that their plan involved an unlawful purpose and unethical activity.

It is at this point that Hagar appears to fail miserably, exposing himself as a bigoted hack, riven with viral conspiracy infections.  He has made plenty of accusations in his book, most of which will be refuted in due time, exposed as products of a febrile imagination well beyond the bounds of sagacity.  We will let those "in the know", so to speak, make their contributions. 

One of the "accused", the author/owner of Kiwiblog had this to say:

Rather bemused to find an entire chapter of Nicky Hager’s book is on me, and also how banal it is. Almost everything in there is in the public domain, as I live a pretty open life. But what Hager has done is wave his normal conspiracy theory through everything and make the fact that bloggers and other talk to each other, some sort of sinister thing.

Basically the chapter is a revelation that I am a member of the National Party! I didn’t realise this was a big secret.

He seems to have no curiousity at all over all the bloggers on the left who don’t blog under their real names, and are rumoured to actually work in Parliament. He also doesn’t worry about one blogger who has been on multiple party payrolls and never declared it, until outed.

What is very interesting is that his source is once again stolen e-mails. In The Hollow Men, he claimed they were leaked to him by an insider. In this book they are obviously hacked from Cameron Slater, which to my mind raises huge disbelief over his claims that the previous set of e-mails were leaked.

I’ve had a quick read through the chapter on me, and a few things I’ll point out.

• Hager thinks my setting Kiwiblog up was due to my involvement in the IDU. That’s nuts. I’ve been debating politics online since 1996, originally through Usenet. I set Kiwiblog up because I like debate. It was not encouraged by anyone, and I was surprised it has turned out influential. In fact in the early days quite a few in National put pressure on for me not to blog.
• I get e-mails from numerous people, including Jason Ede, pointing stories out to me, or suggesting things I may want to blog on. I get them from lots of ordinary blog readers, from friends, from some staff, and sometmes even an MP. But I decide what I blog, and they always accord with my political views.
• A tiny proportion of what I blog comes from National sources. Way under 5%. I write Kiwiblog, and people send me ideas – and this is somehow a conspiracy. Very very very occasionally I might proactively ask for some info – maybe every couple of months, if that.
• Most of what I blog is pro-National, as you would expect. But most weeks there is an issue I disagree with them on. . . .
• Nicky seems to think it is a secret I am National’s pollster. A bloody badly kept secret. It’s on my website. It is referred to often.
• He is also excited that my staff do some canvassing work for National candidates or MPs. Yep. It creates extra work for my staff which is great. But we don’t just do it for them. While most of our work is polling, if people want to utilise our call centre, and pay for it, they can. . . .

But there is one allegation Hagar makes which appears to get close to illegality or unethical behaviour. 
Commentator, John Armstrong had this to say:

Hager's allegations are many and varied. They are extremely serious. But one stands out. The allegation that one of John Key's minions hacked into the Labour Party's database is - to put it bluntly - the modern-day equivalent of the 1972 burglary of the Democratic Party's national committee headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington.

We have read the "offending" Kiwiblog and Whaleoil for many years.  The "hacking" that Hagar refers to was publicly discussed at the time on those blog sites.  It was thus a public affair, highlighting the ineptitude of the Labour Party's website.  These weaknesses and holes were thus disclosed to Labour, along with the rest of the public.  If this was a VRWC, it was a pretty inept one.  If this is the equivalent of the Watergate burglary break-in, as Armstrong alleges, we are clearly missing something that Armstrong is seeing.

But there very definitely has been a conspiracy involving illegalities, however.  It is Hagar's theft of private communications.  It turns out that the conspiracy nutter cannot escape the petard upon which he wishes to hoist his political opponents.  David Farrar comments:

Isn’t the most dirty trick exposed in Nicky Hager’s book, the revelation that Hager reveals that he received six years of stolen e-mails, hacked from Cameron Slater’s Gmail and Facebook accounts?  . . . .

The book does expose dirty politics in New Zealand, the dirty politics of those who criminally hack private communications, and publish them. They’ve just had journalists in the UK go to jail for publishing stories that they knew were based on hacked voicemails. Here though, you get to make royalties out of them.

UPDATE:John Armstrong has got very excited and said:

Hager’s allegations are many and varied. They are extremely serious. But one stands out. The allegation that one of John Key’s minions hacked into the Labour Party’s database is – to put it bluntly – the modern-day equivalent of the 1972 burglary of the Democratic Party’s national committee headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington.

This is factually wrong, and somewhat hysterical. There was absolutely no hacking of the Labour Party. The only person who has been hacked is Cameron Slater.

The Labour Party had the technical competence of a five year old and had their credit card database lying openly on their webserver for the world to see. No hacking needed, no passwords needed. They placed the data openly on the world wide web. [Emphasis, Farrar's]  Someone noticed this and e-mailed Cameron Slater. He of course delighted in their incompetence and prepared to blog on it. He mentioned it to a few people, who had a look around, including Jason. That’s not hacking, that is not burglary. It is curiosity. Again – this was information they had accidentally made publicly available.

The question arises of course as to how Cameron’s communications were hacked. . . .

The end conclusion is this: conspiracy paranoia appears to be a perpetual weakness of the hard Left, although not their exclusive preserve.  In order to conduct their exposals of a VRWC they employ the very same illegalities they falsely accuse others of using.  Most often their allegations are false.  Nicky Hagar is running true to the type.