Hamish is from Central Otago (my guess is Roxburgh or Alexandra) so he’s pretty local to me albeit he seems to have relocated to North America (California I guess). He has written a couple of Substacks where he basically disses (lightly but still disses) those of us who won’t ever believe again in vaccinations (if we ever did).
He also homes in on the Trans agenda, one of tyranny of course to any of those of us who have meandered onto this topic, and talks up one of its agents of deception a certain Roxanne Gay. And he speaks of Substack’s left wing origins and dismisses those of us who are not left wing or those of us who are not “that” sort of left wing (which is where I sit).
and
So I’ve written a few responses to him.
By the way, Central Otago, even in the tourist towns of Wanaka & Queenstown, is not known for its left wing agitation (rather the opposite in fact).
Hamish I'm sure that you know that for the last several years of overwraught Covid drama (I'm being kind) that the NZ government has been subsidizing NZ media so much that it almost feels like we're in the Soviet Union circa 1974 and the only media that we're allowed to read is Pravda, the truth. And basically the NZ Government has not only claimed to be the one source of truth (source Ardern) but actually have been the one source of truth (in Pravda style of course).
Did they not send any of this funding your way?
I ended up on Substack for your commitment to free speech btw although I do feel that this might be the right to free speech but maybe not the right to be heard. And yes I did follow Glinner here as I figured if he was here then this must be one of the few places that values that free speech. I did that in a few days after a Floridian free speech advocate who ran blog software that I was using (write.as) got in my ear about something that he would not name but that maybe I should stop writing anything about (I'm pretty sure that Cate Spice had been in his ear).
On the topic of making this work for a writer without a name that drags readers here. Typically paid subscribers, if you don't manipulate them with paywalls, run around 4% or so in my experience. You therefore need about 30k subscribers in my estimation to make money here. I can't see myself ever getting to that level and I figure most of the writers that I follow and chat with won't ever get there either. I guess at some stage we'll leave and Substack will head back down the leftie (this was my political side until recently and I still cannot bring myself to vote for Nats or ACT) route where men can be women, Roxanne Gay speaks truth instead of the trans propaganda that she's paid to write and actual left wing dissidents (rather than astro-turf ones) are being rounded up to be put in camps or worse (along with their right wing bretheren) as suggested by no less than Noam Chomsky.
I hope instead that the world takes a turn towards sanity and that derogatory terms such as TERF & anti-vaxxer get consigned to the trash where they belong being manipulations of language by the forces of State even if getting enthusiastic traction with the mindless middle classes of the world. And I hope that Substack continues to make guys like Luke run to Ghost as that would prove that commitment to free speech.
Joints aren't good for hashish anyway. Better a water pipe.
The "Pick a side" is a key part of the narrative dialog (divide and conquer ). Yeah substack is no different in nature than twitter, front guys , fake numbers of subscribers for dosh, designed to get controlled opposition( inc bots) highlighted and in others that are popular and not dancing the lemming jig AI bot learning commentators
I think everyone's not noticed that "left" use to be liberal and for the people and the media have flipped the meaning of it. Orwellian.