Spectators at the end of the feast

Right-wing vigilantes on patrol in Christchurch
A "white pride" group, Right Wing Resistance (RWR), claims to be patrolling New Brighton streets that "the police and the system has all but given up on".

The group, linked to North Island-based white power activist Kyle Chapman, says Christchurch is the centre of a "white pride" revival.

Films of their initiation ceremonies were listed on an internet site for "white nationalists" called WNTube.

A message board used by the group, Stormfront.org, said the group was performing "crimewatch patrols" aimed at "cutting down on homie [American rap-style] vandalism and muggings that have become common on the east side of CHCH".

"The police and the system in general has all but given up on the poor areas and it is left to us to sort this out now," it said.

A member of the group, who spoke anonymously to The Press, said "sporadic" patrols had started in New Brighton about five months ago.

"Locals were getting very upset with youths, particularly Polynesian youths, standing over people and vandalising."

The groups of between five and 15 members did not carry weapons.

"No doubt people will want to label us skinheads, but that's just a way for society to put a label on us, put us in a bracket.

"I know ... that vigilantism is illegal and it's frowned upon, but we're living in modern times, police resources are stretched, and they're not being able to cover the ground as effectively as they would like."

The group was a white pride group as opposed to white power, he said. "We're not about going around bashing up Polynesians or Asians."

If a European youth was found vandalising property: "We'd probably say `Hey, what are you doing? That's not really the white way'."

The W in recession will cause a massive global retraction and possible repeat of the kind of social malaise the Great Depression caused. When those intense economic conditions kill off people’s belief in democratic capitalism, they turn to other forms of legitimiacy. We saw the rise of facism and communism in the 30s due in part to the crushing impact of crippling economic conditions.

At 1pm on October 24th 1929, the vice president of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Whitney marched onto the stock exchange floor after a morning of devastating losses and purchased well over the sale price in front of everyone $20million dollars worth of US. Steel stock. He then went on to purchase General Electric, AT&T and other blue chip stocks spending $130million. His move funded by the wealthiest elites at the time was an attempt to insert confidence into a financial system on the verge of collapse. It worked. Until Monday 28th of October, four days later.

Ben Bernanke is a modern day Richard Whitney, the second the stimulus money dries up, the economy will crash again, or the economy will crash due to the immense stress from printing all that cash, the writing is on the wall and everyone seems to be in some type of delusion about it. What interests me is where the pressure will blow inside communities. Globalization protestors and environmental protestors will be one pressure point that will get increasingly radical as their middle class knowledge base gets angrier and angrier, but that’s the educated. Those not so bright will rush to the old scars, look at the rise of the BNP and the NZ connections on the BNP politician list, a couple of quiet unassuming NZers living here in NZ are fascist racists (that’s my polite term for the BNP).

Three Kiwis on far-right party's list
A detailed membership list for the far-right British National Party has been leaked, revealing that the white supremacist party's influence reaches as far as New Zealand. The list, which contains 16,000 names, many with contact details, was published on the website Wikileaks. Three New Zealanders appeared on the list.

We can see how the Government is preparing for the social malaise from economic collapse: vast new surveillance powers not just for the Police BUT MOST STATE DEPARTMENTS, the ability to take your DNA on mere arrest, the increasing prison population, the need to privatize it to keep feeding people into prison, the streamlining of the Court system so that you are judged and sentenced via remote, the broadening of what can de defined as ‘a gang’ (it’s 3 people) which then triggers surveillance powers and the ability to seize and freeze your assets.

The challenge for liberal progressives will be to fight these events on all fronts to protect the civil rights and freedoms we have fought so long and hard for. That fight gets harder and harder as economic uncertainty caused by unregulated casino shock capitalism decimates communities. This period of pause is merely the time delay between the earthquake and the tsunami about to hit us.