I Don't Get It

Can anyone tell me what the point is to the bizarre refugee exchange program we have struck with the U.S? I mean if refugees are fleeing persecution and wish to find sanctuary in the west what difference will it make whether that sanctuary is here or in the States? The whole thing is just confusing!!

After seventy-two Sri Lankans were deemed to be genuine refugees:

...the men will not be allowed to come to Australia and could instead be sent to the US under a controversial exchange arrangement that would involve Cuban refugees from Guantanamo Bay being resettled here in return.'

Great, how incredible spiteful Australia has become. If conservatives need any more proof of the long argued nastiness of the Howard Government here it is. I've long found our treatment of genuine refugees (because most of those who've arrived on boat have been found to be so including the vast majority of those on the Tampa) to be the most embarrassing aspect of current day Australia. The deliberate attempts to demonise them since 2001 have been transparent and appalling, they've been called everything from "que jumpers"and "illegals" to potential terrorists. But now things are just getting pathetic.

"The reduction in the number of people seeking to enter Australia unlawfully has been a direct result of the Howard Government's clear policy that persons who seek to enter Australia illegally will not be settled in Australia," Mr Andrews said.

They have no idea whether asylum seeker levels have dropped because of their "clear policy". The fact is that world asylum seeker levels declined immediately after the U.S invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, so in announcing their policy as victorious they've deliberately ignored large and important parts of the equation knowing full well that the vast majority of Australians won't bother to look up the whole truth. (I was hoping to show a graph here but I can't seem to get it working, see the above link) Nor am I certain that refugees entering Australia are actually "illegal".

The government's continuing line on asylum seekers is an echo from its 2001 election shame where it pitted Australians against desperate refugees using misinformation and smear, and it's just ridiculous that they continue to carry on in this fashion.

Does The Palestinian Israeli Conflict Even Shock Anymore?

While reading of yet another Palestinian attack on Israel, and the subsequent Israeli response, I noticed how tired I am of the whole thing. Most of us have spent our whole lives knowing of nothing else but conflict between the two camps, which makes you realise how utterly hopeless the situation is. Worsening the problem is the relatively new division between Gaza and the West Bank, with Hamas is control of Gaza and Fatah the West Bank. And when the rockets into Israel just keep on a coming what hope is there?

'At least 57 soldiers sleeping in tents were wounded when the homemade rocket landed smack in the middle of the Zikim base in southern Israel not far from the border with Gaza, an army spokesman and medics said. It was the bloodiest rocket strike from Gaza in months and came days before the start of the Jewish new year, increasing the pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet to take action to stop the fire. Many of the troops were conscripts due to complete their basic training the following day. Thirty-nine of the soldiers suffered only light wounds, with those suffering more serious injuries evacuated to nearby hospitals by ambulance and helicopters, officials said. In Gaza, the military wing of the radical Islamic Jihad group - which launches the majority of rockets from the territory into Israel - claimed the attack.'

Well they're getting better you might say as the victims were nearly soldiers this time, but geeez, what do they think this will achieve!? Their lot will never improve as long as they continue these attacks. The constant attempts to kill civilians (or whoever they can) merely highlights them for what they are, murderous, and it'll never win them any concessions from Israel. The only path to their own viable state is through dialogue as violence has given them nothing but violence in return.

And has anyone noticed that Israel just can't seem to hit the right targets:

'Hours later, a Palestinian man and three of his children were wounded when an Israeli tank shell landed on their house in the northern Gaza city of Beit Hanun, medics said. The army said it had struck an area in northern Gaza from where the rocket that hit Zikim was allegedly fired, but it was not immediately clear whether this was a separate incident.'

Either the Palestinians have an impressive propaganda machine or the IDF is bloody hopeless!!

When Someone Is A Little TOO Pro-American

I lament the fact that so many these days express a knee jerk anti-American opinion, although I do believe that conservatives have successfully exaggerated this phenomenon and have applied "anti-American" to anyone who disagrees with them. But I also think some Australians lean a tad too far the other way, take "Aussies For ANZUS".

This site is just great. Take this:

'Why is it that Australians who are old enough to remember the 1940s are almost always staunchly pro-American? Its because in early 1942 Imperial Japan had conquered ALL of Asia and Australia was next.'

It goes on to tell of the Battle of the Coral Sea yet they've already, in my opinion, made a serious error. I've never met one old Australian soldier who is "staunchly pro-American". In fact I've found the opposite to be true. I've suffered tale after tale about how crap the Americans were compared to the Aussies and how those Yankee bastards stole their women. Whether or not these tales are true is beside the point, what matters here is that they never appeared to be "staunchly pro-American". In fact, my grandfather was involved in a famous incident on a train in Australia where Australian and U.S troops began shooting at each other for a short period!! Such love.

The site goes on and on twisting and twisting the truth, from the Vietnam War to the Australian Labor Party:

'The Australian Labor Party has been, is and probably always will be home to many who despise America. They will turn a blind eye to the world’s most brutal and corrupt dictators yet leap out of bed to attack the United States.'

I'd say, as I've just recently said, that this is a tendency of the Australian far-Left (including the Greens) but I'd hardly put the ALP in this category. In fact the ALP have always been strong supporters of America but these guys seem to believe that when a party disagrees with it's ally it "despises" it. So far Australia has come from thinking independently, to towing the U.S line, that any deviation is now perceived as hatred for the U.S. But when looking at this photo do you think these people could ever think otherwise.

Demonstration Fun

What an interesting spectacle the APEC demonstration appears to have been. Containing all sorts of bizarre groups from both sides of the spectrum as well as a weird group of men and women called "Billionaires For Bush":

'But just nearby a small group of young men and women calling themselves “Billionaires for Bush” and dressed in black tie and mock fur jackets chanted, “One, two, three four, we don't care about the poor. Five six seven eight, give us tax cuts, we can't wait."They also chanted: “The Billionaires, united, will never be defeated.”'

It's gotta be a piss take, and quite an amusing one at that!!

There also appeared a far-right group called the "National Anarchists" (sounds like an oxymoron) who it seems were just plain morons:

'The National Anarchists, who described themselves as the New Right, were all dressed in black hooded jackets. Some of the group wore dark sunglasses and all had bandanas around their faces.Inside the National Anarchists' lines was retired Macquarie University constitutional historian Andrew Fraser. He said he was a supporter of the National Anarchists because "globalisation is destroying my people, the Anglo-Saxons who are the core ethno-cultural identity".'

Because us Anglo-Saxons are just so damn oppressed. Predictably this created some problems for the socialists within the "Stop Bush" brigade:

'The National Anarchists were confronted by left-wing groups who called them neo-fascists and chanted "Anti-racists, call police” and “You are not a part of this", pointing at the black-hooded demonstrators. A group composed mainly of women marched in front of the National Anarchists, chanting, "No race, no war, that is what we're fighting for."'

What fun!

What was conspicuously missing was a demonstration against the Chinese delegation and all the grotesque human rights violations within China. Or the Vietnamese delegation and all the horrible political discrimination continued by the corrupt government in Vietnam still to this day. It remains an exploitable fact that the Left seem to only demonstrate in any sizable numbers against America lately, how is this at all right? I don't mean to imply that they shouldn't protest against American foreign policy where they disagree, but why are these notorious human rights violators given such an easy ride in comparison?

The Chaser At APEC

How angry many conservatives and ministers are. How eager Today Tonight was to attack The Chaser once again merely because they excel at exposing the show as the pathetic beat-up vehicle it is. How outraged is the NSW Police Minister David Campbell:

'He said the prank was inappropriate and he "did not see the funny side at all''.'

In fact, they could have been SHOT!!! But at least it:

'showed the security system worked.'

And black is white. The fake motorcade passed through at least one police checkpoint where the crew showed their fake security passes, which clearly stated so, and contained their real names. Furthermore, the only reason they were found out is because Chas got out looking like Osama bin Laden alerting the police that something was up.

So I guess if this is the definition of our security system working then, yeah, it worked. Why don't they just admit that they're embarrassed that The Chaser exposed such flaws. Funnily enough The Chaser has had some fun with this glaringly obvious fact:

'Yesterday, three members of the Chaser team, Craig Reucassel, Chris Taylor and Dominic Knight, were taken away by police after they "drove" through a police line at the APEC forum wearing black cardboard cars bearing Canadian flags and wheels made of paper plates.'

What a pisser!

Is Australia Racist?

I know, it's a far too general question. But even though it's a question that can't be answered with a simple yes or no without generalising, it's a question commonly asked and answered definitively. You get your garden variety conservatives drawing on their evidence of choice to prove it's not, then you get some on the Left doing the same to claim it is. But it's not that easy. Furthermore, are we supposed to compare it to other countries to formulate our opinions or judge ourselves what would make it deserving of the title?

A new study has shown that racism against kids of Islamic or Arabic parents has been common in our schools:

'Research by Deakin University's associate dean of research, Fethi Mansouri, found that since the 2001 terrorist attacks, students of Muslim or Arabic background had increasingly become associated with such negative things as terrorism and war.

This had had a detrimental effect, with students not only feeling more ostracised at school, but experiencing higher absenteeism and lower academic achievement.

He said racist behaviour had increased since 2001,and included verbal taunts, humiliation, exclusion and physical aggression.'

This is terrible news, and surely if most Australians can agree that it is then we are on the right course. The horrible thing is that I'm not so sure it would be universally agreed upon. These days so much rubbish is circulating about Islam, and Muslims (what they believe) that some Australians have been radicalised against them. Who would actually think that those behind blogs like Crusader Rabbit or A Western Heart would lament this poor treatment and it's detrimental effects? I'm not jumping to the conclusion that Australia is an especially racist place, but to ensure it doesn't head that way attitudes like those at the above mentioned blogs should be ridiculed as the simple minded rubbish they are. Take this:

'Speaking at Kanal D TV’s Arena program, PM Erdogan commented on the term “moderate Islam”, often used in the West to describe AKP and said, ‘These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”

Crusader has used this quote to denigrate all Muslims as somehow extreme. In doing this they have demonstrated a terrible lack of understanding. As Waleed Aly has explained in People Like Us "Moderate" and "fundamentalist" are Christian terms that don't apply effectively to Islam. Erdogan is insulted by "moderate" because it implies that he is somehow half a Muslim, not because he is a "fundamentalist" or that Muslims are an homogeneous group of extreme fanatics who all follow the same course. This example is typical of where many seem to be going wrong.

More understanding is needed and less outright hate.

$2 Billion On Telling Ourselves How Great Howard Is

The Howard Government has nearly reached the $2 billion mark in spending on taxpayer funded propaganda:

PRIME Minister John Howard has spent nearly $2 billion on government advertising and information campaigns since coming to power 11 years ago.

A Sunday Age investigation has found that just weeks from calling an election, the Government has 18 advertising campaigns on the air, with a $23 million climate change campaign to air after this week's APEC conference.

The Sunday Age investigation has also shown that since the last election in 2004, Mr Howard has spent a record $850 million of taxpayers' money on government advertising. The Government disputes this figure. "It's probably closer to $400 million," said Peter Phelps, chief of staff to Special Minister of State Gary Nairn.

Spending this year is expected to peak at $200 million before Mr Howard calls the election.'

But don't you feel better for it? Doesn't it reassure you that we have the greatest government in the world? And surely if they feel like telling us this with our own money then who are we to argue, right?

Even though Howard railed against such abuses of taxpayer funding in 95:

In 1995, Mr Howard promised that if elected he would instruct the Commonwealth Auditor-General to draw up guidelines on appropriate use of taxpayers' money for advertising. "There is clearly a massive difference between necessary government information for the community and blatant government electoral propaganda," Mr Howard said at the time. "Propaganda should be paid for by political parties."

Here, here!!!

And conservatives still act so outraged at suggestions that Howard is somehow dishonest.