Handling Conflict and Division in the Truth-and-Freedom Movement

The enlightened approach of Amy Benjamin

by MIKEBEE

Recently, I watched a video from Amy Benjamin where she was looking back at the troubles of July 2024 in the New Zealand Loyal Party when its leader at the time, Liz Gunn, attempted unconstitutionally to shut it down.

Amy not only describes succinctly in that video the errors Liz Gunn made then but also shows by example the attitude needed when confronting such errors. I wish to draw attention to Amy’s approach because, although it may be too late to remedy some things that have happened, there is much to be learned from past events.

Amy made her video a year ago, on August 11, 2024. She began by paraphrasing Abe Lincoln who stated that we need to revisit past events in order to “memorialize mistakes” so that we do not make them again.

First of all, it is worthy of note that there is no anger from Amy as she looks back at what happened. Though she felt the full weight of things as keenly as anyone, on a personal level she says only that Liz “disrespected her”. She stays above personal animosity.

She certainly calls out what she believes was wrong in Liz’s actions. There are three different kinds of error. Firstly, Amy repudiates Liz’s belief that there is no point in doing politics when things are as degraded as they are in New Zealand. Secondly, she points out the folly of Liz’s statement that in the truth-and-freedom movement we are above the need for rules. And thirdly she condemns the way Liz did what she did, cutting herself off from other party members, including those (like Amy herself) on the NZ Loyal Board, and giving them no right of reply.

There is a lot to be learned from each of these three points, and I recommend everyone who wants to bring clarity to the past to listen to the whole video. But in this article, I want to focus mainly on the way Amy has approached the topic.

I said before that she shows no anger. Most of us, who were and still are loyal to Loyal, went the other way. Our passions were roused. This was such an unthinkable blow, aimed at the very heart of who we were as a community. Liz had founded NZ Loyal with others, and she became its most prominent representative and the public face of what Loyal stood for. However, this was never her personal party. The party had a constitution – a set of rules that she was subject to as much as any other member. Liz Gunn ignored this constitution and made the claim that, as freedom fighters, we should be “beyond rules”. Amy ignored the passions which such a falsity must have stirred in her and – respectfully and objectively – pointed out to Liz where she was wrong.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. It brings an ability to see things clearly that personal feelings obscure at the time. Many of us still have the feelings that we felt then – more than a year later, we feel acutely the great tragedy of what took place and the personal pain it caused to us. Liz had done wonderful work for NZ Loyal, but she was not its owner, it was owned by WE THE PEOPLE who had poured our resources, our time, our money and our love into it. When Liz suddenly, without warning, declared she had closed the party, this resounded in us as something we could not at first believe. Trying to grasp what was behind her action, much anger was released. Some, wounded by what seemed to them a personal betrayal, say they will never again venture into the political arena. They have been burnt once and they will not go near the fire again.

Amy, who had worked closely with Liz and was one of those ghosted by her, had reason to feel wounded as much as anyone, yet she was still able to resist the push to pour acrimony into the situation.

Do you have to be a law lecturer to show such Zen-like coolness, clarity and restraint? Amy has given us an example that we can all learn from, even if we choose or are not able to behave exactly as she did. Her way of dealing with the situation is a way that leaves the door open to future reconciliation. When one individual does wrong to another and the second individual replies with anger – even if that anger is justified – things very quickly reach a point of no return. But when one individual harms the other and the second is able to reply to what was done with truth and dignity, then the first is forced to begin – even if very unwillingly – a journey of self-knowledge about what they have done.

I know that this goes against what many believe – that this is a war against the deep state and that we should be in fighting mode the whole time. But the war we fight is a spiritual war, and spiritual warriors need to fight with a particular kind of weaponry. Amy speaks beautifully of this at around the seven-minute mark:

You can take the fight to the cabal and fight them on their own terms ... but it is very important not to feed the very malign energies that support the cabal. You don’t feed those energies by sinking to very low vibrational emotions such as rage, despair, uncontrolled anger and fear.

It takes self-mastery to do that. ... As you oppose, you respond to the enemy within their sanctum and on their playing-field, but you don’t react with the enemy ... you don’t imbibe, drink in and then reflect back to them all their deeply distorted energies. You fight like Spock, dispassionately, persistently and with control.

And then you can play against them in their own stadium, ... [while] at the same time, others in the pro-humanity movement can begin to design the new institutions of the New Earth that will replace the cabal structures.

There should have been no closure of the party by Liz. That is just as clear now as it was then; Liz had no legal or moral right to do what she did. She broke the Party’s own constitution to which she was subject and confused her position as leader with being its owner. She was right in needing to get out of the political inferno that she was not suited for and which had treated her so harshly. But if she had quietly done that, she could have worked in the way she is working now from within the party, while others, who did see the need for political action, worked side by side with her, united in fighting against the evil that is destroying our country.

Everyone has their talents and their tasks. Not everyone wants to be a political fighter. Yet some must do this difficult grunt-work, or we shall have no voice and no rights. There needs to be two wings in our party, with people gravitating to the work they feel called upon to do. This would have made us a complete organism, and we would have had great strength. Can that lost strength ever be regained?

Liz is doing some very fine work today. She is a gifted journalist and interviewer and approaches with great empathy those whom she interviews. Today she is allowing some of the most important voices of our time to be heard – people overseas such as Andrew Bridgen, Steve Kirsch Craig Kelly, Jim Ferguson, Sasha Latypova, James Roguski, Michael Gray Griffith, Christine Anderson, Rod Culleton and many more, as well as key New Zealand individuals such as Guy Hatchard and Barry Young. I listen to her whenever I can (not often enough – there are simply not enough hours in the day) and am always impressed. And I always feel that the activity she is doing should never have been separated off from NZ Loyal. It could have become its cultural wing while others, working harmoniously but separately from Liz, carried their struggle for human rights into the political arena.

We are now beginning to prepare for a new political struggle ahead. We have a strong, no-bullshit leader in Kelvyn Alp, who is going to take the fight to the incumbent politicians. But the leader is only a part of the party. There are members and former members who are holding back today because they sense there is something lacking. Others have already given up or say they have, feeling (rather like disappointed lovers) that they gave everything last time round and do not want to run the risk of experiencing such betrayal ever again. Will we ever be able to make good what has been done to us and regain our lost potential?

The enemy that we fight is a master of division. Yet the fundamental thing we should have learned by now is that we need unity in order to fight and win as WE THE PEOPLE. There is no room in a spiritual war for personal animosities, yet we in the truth-and-freedom movement have been played off masterfully against each other. Will we ever overcome this tendency?

With Liz and Kelvyn, things have surely gone too far for there ever to be reconciliation. Yet this does not change the fact that those fighting totalitarianism in New Zealand need to rise beyond our personal feelings and be united if we are ever to defeat the tyranny of the Wasps’ Nest. If it is impossible for these individuals to approach each other with an olive branch, can others work to heal the fundamental rift between them?

Very possibly, the answer to that is ‘no’, but that leaves us in a fractured, incomplete state which is something that affects every member of the truth-and-freedom community. To my mind, Amy has given us an inspired example of how future conflicts can be handled.

When dealing with controversy within our overall movement, do not reflect back to your opponent the bad energy that he or she may be giving to you. Speak your truth, calling out foolishness and error, but do not do anything in a way that will close the door to future reconciliation.

That, anyway, is the enlightened approach of Amy Benjamin.