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In 1975 the US Senate conducted a major investigation into the activities of the CIA; it was known as the Church Committee after its chairman Frank Church. During the course of this investigation a great deal of concerning stuff came to light which shocked America and led to greater oversight of the CIA which has continued through to the present day. Until 1975 the CIA had operated without having to really answer to anybody; they could do what they wanted, when they wanted, and nobody ever really knew. Occasionally a leak would appear in the media (such as using Cosa Nostra mobsters in a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro) but the agency would simply lie about it.
At one point Senator Church wrote to the then CIA Director asking “Is there anything else I ought to know?”; a move which was greeted with enormous hilarity for its naïvety – like a policeman asking a career criminal to list all the crimes they’d committed – but then something strange occurred. The CIA threw in the towel; decided to come clean; they turned over a warehouse full of documents to the Church Committee – containing details of a large number of activities nobody had been aware of – and, most importantly, a list of assassinations carried out, and also a list of assassinations which had been planned (but either were not carried out or were botched).
Occasionally miracles do occur!
It is this sort of thing which has always made me suspicious of and mistrusting of the NZ public service. Only a fool would think any government department or agency was a force for good, or undertook any activity beyond employing its own staff, and advancing careers and the influence of its senior people. Whenever they’re caught out they have a Minister to take the blame, and will simply lie anyway. Nobody knows what questions to ask, and nobody knows whether they’re lying, and most people in politics and elsewhere take the foolish attitude of “if there is no evidence then they should get the benefit of the doubt”. My view is that no evidence means it has been deliberately destroyed and is a confession of guilt; fire everyone.
A current example of what I am saying is the treatment of both Melissa Lee and Penny Simmonds. Both have been stitched up by officials whispering in the ear of the Prime Minister, who naïvely assumes these people are telling him the truth (they’re not) and, knowing (ahem) certain people and their tricks (ahem) as well as I do, I would bet the ranch Mr Luxon was given an opinion poll showing (ahem) 99.7% of people wanted them both fired. An opinion poll which is totally accurate by the way; not made up to reflect the opinions of the “Smartypants Set” or anything.
And so we have two Ministers relieved of their portfolios. One was, admittedly, a non-job (Minister of Broadcasting) which doesn’t even need to exist and the other portfolio involves lots of work-shy lazy slobs wanting welfare handouts for life by pretending the sore finger from 1995 is a lifelong disability; (hint: lots of fellows machine-gunned at Gallipoli came home and got a bloody job!). But still, it sends the wrong message that if you don’t kneel down to parasites and commies then you’re going to be removed.
Muldoon, Holyoake, and even Bolger never acted in such a fashion and between them they governed New Zealand for all but around 15 minutes between 1957 and 1997. Luxon needs to stop being a fool and wake up.
