Conspiracy theorists and the US election
There has been and will continue to be speculation, debate and analysis around the reasons president-elect Trump was returned to the White House and why the Democrats failed.
Alarmingly the political impact and outcomes of both misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories have not been centre stage of this debate.
Circa 25% of Americans believe in conspiracy theories ranging from moon landings, 9/11, Covid and global climate change. The American far right political movement, QAnon, sits ominously in the background as a cheer leader of weird and bizarre conspiracies.
In the run up to polling day in the United States there were two extraordinary events that captured the attention of the American people — the attempted Trump assassination and the two massively destructive and deadly hurricanes that slammed into Florida and the battleground states of Georgia and South Carolina. Disinformation and conspiracy theories spread like wildfire in the aftermath.
An outspoken QAnon supporter and conspiracy theorist, Marjorie Taylor Greene, was re-elected to the US House of Representatives with a majority of 64% in Georgia. Her outrageous comments relating, in particular, to the weather events defy belief yet she was re-elected by a wide margin. There must be a salient message here that cannot be ignored.
Aided and abetted by social media and certain mainstream media, disinformation and widely spread conspiracy theories are sadly having a major impact on democracy and political outcomes.
Bruce Eliott
Arrowtown
Don Quixote
The quixotic rise of Donald Trump has shown New Zealand that the Pacific Ocean is not big enough to spare us the danger of cosying up to the US. New Zealand should take its chances with the Brics countries in a spirit of strengthening our spines and standing up for our own sovereignty, economic interests, values and strengths at the same time respecting the national journeys of other countries.
New Zealand can follow international humanitarian law in a way that the US has not been able to or we can follow the US down its present path of disintegration. We must go where our interests and values lie and not follow in meek subservience the dying American empire.
It must be resolute in employing the iron hand in the velvet glove in the face of this transactional capricious individual. Make America Great Again is the cry of a dying empire and New Zealand must ensure it doesn’t go down with them.
Ann Mackay
Oamaru
A kind offer
I consider William Lindqvist (Letters ODT 9.11.24) a denier of anthropogenic climate change because he chooses to ignore the supporting research of hundreds of climate scientists in thousands of peer-reviewed publications in favour of a handful that reject it.
The forecasts of global temperature increase, sea-level rise, and ocean pH decrease reported in those papers have proven to be accurate in light of subsequent measurements.
He is correct that climate has changed throughout Earth history, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. As a geologist, I am familiar with the evidence for the magnitudes and rates of those changes.
What he apparently fails to realise is that these geologic records inform the current understanding of the climate system that has allowed the accurate predictions to be made.
I would be happy to discuss these matters further with him face to face.
Mike Palin
Belleknowes
No alarms and no surprises please re hospital
When contracting projects, clients do not like surprises. The government from the start of this project has not been faced with surprises.
The likes of exclusion of demolition and reinstatement, carparking and state highway redesign were surprises. When a project sum is being negotiated and then extras are added, the client’s financiers start to panic.
This is when the fiasco starts and consultant costs go through the roof, adding no value to the project. Consultants and committee members are making a financial killing at the cost of the hospital.
I concede that the parliamentary parties have not helped but I understand why they are nervous about the process to date.
A project contract that does not start well generally ends badly with high costs and poor quality.
Have we not learnt from the stadium project where critical elements of the building were left out of the initial quote to make starting the contract more attractive? An old trick.
When you have a new home built, you want to know the final design, inclusions and exclusions and the all-up costs prior to commencing and try to avoid changes and variations during construction adding to these costs.
Steve Tilleyshort
Mosgiel
Crying poor
The government is fully funding the extra $200 million to complete the City Rail Link in Auckland, despite this being a 50-50 cost-sharing project. The city council there should honour the 50-50 agreement and contribute half,: after all, this is not Auckland ratepayers money, but taxpayers money. Currently, we are awaiting funding cutback decisions in such vital areas as the Dunedin hospital rebuild and replacement Cook Strait ferries. Yet, once again, Auckland cries poor and Cabinet changes the rules. .
Paul Hayward
Oamaru
Colonisation, colonisers and the current war
Carl Dozell’s letter (ODT 5.11.24) offers a reason for the tragedy in Gaza describing it as Israeli occupation and colonisation. His logic is that it’s all about land and resources. Israel is a coloniser and colonisers want land and resources: colonisers certainly did in Aotearoa-New Zealand.
Following this ideology, the Palestinians are fighting for their land and resources. This is a framework familiar to our context and elsewhere in the colonised world.
However, I wonder if the writer has stepped back from his ideological moorings to consider what the various Arab and Palestinian players say for themselves about what the core issue is? Has he read the Hamas Charter or what Yassar Arafat said?
The leading aspiration is not merely land. If it were that simple Yassar Arafat would have accepted 95% of the West Bank and East Jerusalem for peace when offered that by Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton in 2000. Just as Egypt agreed to a lasting peace when the Sinai was returned. If the conflict had been about land and resources then the 2006 full return of Gaza to local Palestinian control would have been constructive to peace.
The aspirations of Hamas and Arafat need to be heard as they present them in their own voices. Similarly now with Iran. The aspirations voiced are for the end of Jewish sovereignty in that part of the world.
It is what the Arab world fought for until 1973 and other players now support the elimination of Israel and all Jewish presence.
Let us listen as people speak for themselves without imposing an ideological template on the situation.
Francis Noordanus
Dunedin
Reunion
The Kubala family will be celebrating 150 years on February 8-9 2025 in Gore. Contact barbneil@xtra.co.nz.
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
