Howard ‘Fundamentally Evil’~MP

Howard ‘Fundamentally Evil’~MP

 

Throwing people into the abyss

 

Aspat” occurred this week when the Groveller General broke with longstanding international convention to meddle in the domestic politics of another country, saying that if he ran Al Qaeda, he would “put a circle around March next year and pray”1 for US Democrat and Presidential Candidate, Senator Barack Obama, to win.

His comments have raised a storm both in Australia and the US.

US Senator Ron Wyden said,

“The most charitable thing you can say about Mr Howard’s comment is it’s bizarre. You know, we’ll make our own judgements in this country with respect to elections”

The Groveller General, the paint flaking off him as he visibly crumbled and deflated, appeared nonplussed by this remark, being unused to the concept of making judgments without directions from the Americans or the Indonesians.

However, a Liberal colleague unfortunately came to what he thought was his rescue.
Queensland Liberal backbencher Cameron Thompson [Member for Tony Blair2] says he is proud of Mr Howard’s statement and pulling out of Iraq would herald

“the greatest disaster since the Rwandan genocide.”

“To throw people into that kind of abyss is, I think, amoral and I think John Howard is absolutely correct when he says that Barrack Obama’s policy is not just wrong, it is I think fundamentally evil.“

Values Australia was moved by the MP’s remarks and determined to learn just how bad things would have to get in Iraq to be as bad as the Rwandan genocide, because anyone who could help to create or to support such horror and calamity must indeed be evil. Values Australia’s research produced some alarming comparative figures.

 

  RWANDA
1994
IRAQ
2006
Violent deaths 800,000 654,965
(392,979 – 942,636     95% CI)
Refugees 2,000,000 2,000,000
Internally displaced 1,000,000 1,700,000

 

Rwanda
In the Rwanda genocide it is estimated that:

up to 800,000 had been murdered, another 2 million or so had fled, and another million or so were displaced internally

Iraq
…whereas in Iraq a study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published in the prestigious and influential Lancet medical journal estimated that in 2006

655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred. Or more accurately:
654,965 excess deaths related to the war, or 2.5% of the population, through the end of June 2006 [with] a 95% confidence interval of 392,979 to 942,636 excess Iraqi deaths.

In addition
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimated in a report last month that there were as many as 2 million Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries, primarily in Syria and Jordan. An additional 1.7 million people are displaced within Iraq, the agency said.

So it would seem that the situation in Iraq is already at least as bad as Rwanda was during the genocide.

And, as Cameron Thompson MP’s remark suggests, anyone who aids, abets, supports, urges, fails to speak out against, but especially anyone who contributes to and participates in “throwing people into that kind of abyss” is “fundamentally evil”.

Values Australia, which has always been a staunch sycophant of whoever is in government, does not know where to look or which way to turn.

Meanwhile, the increasingly hysterical, but sadly increasingly irrelevant, Minister for overseas affairs and getting really stroppy with the Pacific blackfellas, Robin Boywonder, has done a predictable “me-too ditto”. Nothing more can be expected. In parliamentary, media and particularly international circles he is becoming known as “The Pilotless Drone”.
____________________________
1 Unnamed Liberal Party sources claimed that that wouldn’t matter because everyone knows their prayers would not be answered because they pray to the wrong imaginary friend in the sky.
2Blair encompasses Kingaroy, ex-Qld Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s old home town (not to mention Pauline Hanson territory) where – not to put too fine a point on it – they have ‘a certain turn of mind’. It’s a bit like Tamworth, only nuttier.
In his maiden speech the MP shared the unwritten code of the Australian values we all respect: “mateship, a fair go, a helping hand and a fair day’s work”. Mr Thompson surely knew enough about his government’s industrial relations agenda when he left off the now redundant words “for a fair day’s pay”.
Mr Thompson can be contacted on (02) 6277 4412 at Parliament House, (07) 3813 0088 in his electorate office or send him an electronic message.

 

 

Government Gets ‘F’ on Values

Government Gets ‘F’ on Values

‘F’ is for Effed

 

We are devastated to have to report that the Government – which instituted the Australian Values campaign – has failed its own test.

A Government website, Values Education, has provided a list of the nine most important Australian values which should be taught to Australian kiddies.

Values Australia has assessed the Government, and the Groveller General, Lord Water Cunntiham, against these benchmarks and to our great embarrassment and shame they have failed comprehensively, by not a whisker but, really, entirely.

The key indicators include such core Australian values as a fair go, compassion, honesty and respect.

The assessor remarked that the Government failed largely on account of its policies regarding the Iraq War and David Hicks but also on account of its Industrial Relations legislation and its amendments to the Crimes Act.

For example, the Integrity test requires the applicant to

“Act in accordance with principles of moral and ethical conduct, ensure consistency between words and deeds.”

The Government was unable to provide any evidence to satisfy this requirement.

The full marking sheet is shown here.

John Howard: Strong or Weak?

John Howard: Strong or Weak?

Choose Your Favourite War Criminal

 

What extraordinary influence our Groveller General enjoys with US President Bush. 
Mr Howard said he will raise the Hicks issue when he meets the US President George W Bush on Tuesday…Mr Howard says he will urge the US Government to hear the case as soon as possible.

That was as recently as 2005 – 16 July – only a year and a half ago!

Mr Howard has been “relaxed and comfortable” that the Military Commissions process is appropriate, legal and being handled justly and sensitively. Because the Americans have assured him so.

“George, I am concerned.”
“Wha, don’t be concerned, little buddy.”
“George, do you torture people?”
“John, Ah am shocked! How could you aks such a thang?”
“Do you?”
“Little Johnnie buddy, I assure you we do not.”
“Then George, (mmm, I like it there, yes just there…) you will have a perfectly acceptable explanation for these photographs taken at Abu Ghraib?”
“John (would you mind just reaching around there for a moment? Aaaah! That is goood!) These were bad apples who should never have obeyed ma orders or revealed our secret and systematic interrogation techniques which we do not and never have used or sent people to secret prisons in Syria, Pakistan, Egypt and Poland and such, to render them speechful.”
“Really?”
“I promise! Would I tell a lie? Oh! Oh! Oh my God!”
“Oh! Oh! Oh George! Oh! I love you George!”
“Have you got a cigarette, darling?”

Guantánamo chief, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, has told the ABC’s PM program that Hicks poses a real security threat and there are no innocent detainees.

Greens leader Bob Brown says he is “outraged” that the head of the Guantánamo Bay detention centre has described David Hicks as a dangerous terrorist, prejudging him guilty without any legal process and

“the rights of Hicks have been removed, he’s had no legal rights – he’s been judged guilty by Admiral Harris himself.”

He should not be outraged. This is old news. Brown is so behind the times.

Said Hicks’s lawyer, David McLeod,

“This suggestion, that because detainees are there, that that is in itself evidence of terrorism, or their being a terrorist, simply puts the lie to any attempt to deal with them in a fair and open manner.

“To suggest that a prisoner in the Australian criminal courts is guilty would in itself amount to a mistrial or an inability to proceed appropriately and fairly before a court.”

They should not be outraged. It has all been said before. Charles Stimson, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence in charge of detainee policy at Guantánamo Bay said as much in an interview in January:

Jane Norris: Is there a possibility that there are some folks on Guantanamo that don’t belong there?
Stimson: Not now.

He claimed in the interview that the roughly 400 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay are

“the very terrorists who hit [American corporations’] bottom line back in 2001”.

This came as quite shock. The Australian Government had not realised that there were an additional 400 evil dudes plotting 9/11 and that the US had rounded up every last one of them and these ones are the very ones who slammed the planes into the buildings. But they said nothing at the time. Americans are so modest!

(Stimson says in this interview that

“something like 340 others have previously been released to their home countries”.

Countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Britain. But John Howard has stood strong and insisted that a citizen of his own country should be made an example of to the recalcitrant …um…Saudis and Pakistanis…?)

In a previous interview, June 2006, Stimson said Guantánamo prisoners are

“not entitled to anything more than determining whether they’re enemy combatants or not, which we’ve done”.

See, what Brown doesn’t seem to get is that guilt or innocence has already been determined. There was no need for a trial. Hicks is guilty and that’s that. And we’ve known it for years. We decided it years ago. Even John Howard has been saying so for years.

Oddly enough, elsewhere the US is reported to be having trouble releasing detainees because of “the refusal of other nations to accept Guantanamo prisoners“. Strange that John could claim to be finding it so hard to have Hicks return home to Australia to be dealt with.

How Long Would Jesus Keep Hicks in Guantánamo?

How Long Would Jesus Keep Hicks in Guantánamo?

Love your enemies and be good to them” –

Direct Orders From the Mouth of God:

“Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,

Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.”

Christianity is one of the “revealed” religions, meaning that adherents believe the “truth” has been revealed through their sacred texts. Oddly enough, Jews, Muslims and Christians all share the same belief in the revealed truths of the same texts – the old testament.

There are those who believe that the bible is the inspired word of their god. Among these are some who believe that the bible is a guide to morals; others believe that every single word in it is literally true.

President Bush and his evangelical supporters are amongst this group.

Happily, the following passage works for both those seeking a guide and those obedient to specific instruction, all the more so because these words are the literal words spoken by Jesus Christ.

We offer this passage as a service to christians who are considering what their responses ought to be in relation to Iraq, the war on terror, and the incarceration of fellow human beings – even possibly terrorists – in Guantánamo Bay.

We offer this reading because it has come to our attention that there are very many christians whose hearts have been hardened against the heathen; christians who lack compassion and humility; devout christians who seem preoccupied with their own salvation at the expense of the lives of others, little realising that their selfishness and lack of compassion will see the gates to heaven slammed shut against them and cost them eternal life…

So here are the orders from the highest. It could not be more clear. These are the strict and literal instructions of Jesus.

Christians who disobey these direct orders without repentance will go to hell.

Luke 6: 27-38

27   But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,
28   Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.
29   And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.
30   Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.
31   And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
32   For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
33   And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.
34   And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
35   But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
36   Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.
37   Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:
38   Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

Thomas Paine on David Hicks

Thomas Paine on David Hicks

Thomas Paine, Criminal Subversive

The “Nazgûl” is believed to be seeking legal opinion on whether the following statement is seditious if it can be interpreted as relating to the Government’s (lack of) handling of David Hicks’ detention on Guantánamo, and the Coalition’s subversion of the justice system and the rule of law in Australia:

“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.”

~ Thomas Paine

If a case can be proved, the Nazgûl is preparing to posthumously imprison Paine’s bones without trial, or to request an anonymous, unquestionable, unfavourable ASIO assessment of Paine so that his bones may be indefinitely detained on Nauru without prospect of release.

Paine, the Nazgûl has learned, was a revolutionary who fought in the American War of Independence and the French Revolution and wrote several subversive books including The Age of Reason, Common Sense, and The Rights of Man.

Sorry

Sorry

 

 

It is a pop-psych fallacy, particularly perpetrated by John Howard, to insist on “putting the past behind us”. The past that is not dealt with eats away at us in our (collective) subconscious and paralyses us for action. The past that is put behind us bites us in the bum.

What in the past is not acknowledged, and is not completed, waits for us in the future. The refusal of the non-aboriginal people of Australia to acknowledge the past has waited for us for a long time and has been draining our energy. It has stopped us from creating a different future, and not just in the area of indigenous affairs.

When the past is completed it is taken out of the future. The most powerful means of doing that is acknowledgement and apology.

What is left is a blank slate on which we can create anything we choose. Great adventures, great achievements, great excitement.

The removal of aboriginal children from their families is a past that today is to be completed with the simple word, “Sorry”, and that simple action will be the beginning of a future we are only beginning to imagine.

The removal policy was part of a eugenic strategy to fade out the aboriginal race – slowburn genocide, if you like. It was never “for their own good” but was targeted at particular types of children. Only aboriginal children were removed – specifically, only part-aboriginal children. “Full-bloods” were not removed but were left, in their racial degeneracy, to die out.

Absorption and Merger

 

“ Governments subsequently turned to alternative policies to protect Aborigines. In developing these policies, it appeared clear to all that the Aboriginal race was marching towards extinction.

 

John Forrest, Chair of the 1883 Commission established to inquire into the Aboriginal situation, reported that the Aborigines were “fast disappearing” and that “this was inevitable and usual among similar ethnic minorities in other parts of the world, and that Aborigines were a “vagrant race”, unresponsive to measures for amelioration of their conditions.”

 

Commentators of the England cricket tour of 1867-68 expressed regret that the “smart cricketers” (Aborigines who had learnt to play cricket) were members of “dying race” because it had been possible to raise some “above [their] natural level as “savage[s]”.

 

The social-Darwinist absorption or merger policies awaited the extinction of “full-blood” Indigenous persons. Social-Darwinists saw Aborigines as either the “missing link” or the subjects of degeneration, namely they were “man in a state of barbarism…inevitably and invariably [to go] downward towards extinction”. Social Darwinism predicted that the Aborigines would die out because of the laws of nature; namely, survival of the fittest. Biological determinism advocated an activist approach to this process calling for the pro-active breeding out of Aboriginal blood. This breeding out approach was based on the science of eugenics.

 

In the context of the Australian Aboriginals, the policy application of eugenic scientific theories was called “merger” or “absorption”. Eugenics propounded that the children with the fairest skin colour would be most likely to lose their Aboriginal identity and, accordingly, most readily absorbed into the non-Indigenous population. In contrast with the racial purification policies of Nazi Germany, it was argued that the White community should accept “half-caste” children once the children were sufficiently White in complexion during which time “full-bloods” would die out.

 

In a process that Smith refers to as “indigenisation”, the humanitarian discourse of protection turned to incorporating the Other into the settler community and thereby displacing the natives. The protectorate policies, it was thought, were doomed to fail because the Aborigines were a dying race. Something more was needed to protect individual members of the protected group.

 

By the 1890s, the NSW Board began to remove Indigenous children of mixed descent from their families and “merge” them into the non-Indigenous population. The term absorption was adopted in Western Australia.

Debate emerged throughout Australia regarding the best age at which the children should be removed so as to promote the efficacy of the merger policies. A 1913 Royal Commission in South Australia failed to determine whether the children should ideally be removed at birth or at the age of two years. The Queensland and Western Australian Chief Protectors deemed the age of four years as the preferred age of removal.

Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law, “Genocide, a Crime of Which No Anglo-Saxon Nation Could be Guilty”, David Markovich BCom(Econ), LLB (Hons)”

Windschuttle¹ disagrees with all this, of course, which makes it pretty certainly correct.

Apologists claim that it was done for the good of the victims, or that in any event that was the result in many cases. The truth is that “the good of the children” was no consideration. Children were taken from their families solely on the basis of the colour of their skin – literally – and their family circumstances were immaterial.

It is impossible to imagine what reaction there would be if white children were systematically removed from their families in the way that aboriginal children were, even rounded up on horseback and torn away from their mothers as they were at one time. No government which carried out such a policy would survive even weeks. There would be rioting in the streets. The Aborigines, however, were powerless and no such redress was available to them.

Nor is it possible for most of us to imagine the anguish of entire families who grew up without their children or their grandchildren or their parents or their siblings; the desperation and despair of parents to find their children; the cultural amputation of children no longer permitted to speak their own language, to “be” aboriginal and yet to suffer the racial discrimination which they encountered, and still encounter. To characterise the deep damage inevitably caused by these outcomes as justified “for the children’s own good” is cultural and, worse, religious arrogance of the most abhorrent kind.

Then there is the excuse that “we” should not take the blame for what was done by others to other people, that this government cannot take the blame for what was done before. Most of those who formulated and carried out the policies of removing aboriginal children from their families are dead. But although they are dead the hurt and the social legacy are very much with us today. Secondly, this is not the government which passed the laws. Nevertheless governments are accountable in the way that individuals are. They have accountability in the way that corporations, as legal ‘persons’, do. A company which incurred a debt ten years ago still has that debt even though every one of the executives and every single employee has changed, and in fact even though none of the original shareholders remains. In an unbroken line that goes back to the beginning of the company, the new management and employees and shareholders still bear the company’s burdens. And so do we now. Not as blame, but we as a nation are accountable.

Ruby Langford Ginibi, author of Don’t Take Your Love to Town, said to me some years ago that as long as ordinary Australians are still reaping the benefits of the actions that were taken, even long ago, against the aboriginal people — including the theft of their land and their children — then if today’s beneficiaries do not acknowledge those wrongs they are as guilty as the original perpetrators. It is easy to see the truth in this.

We bear responsibility as a nation. Denial does not make us strong. It makes us weak. Acknowledging responsibility does not weaken or belittle us. On the contrary, taking responsibility makes us powerful. It gives us the power to take action, to make a difference, to complete the past and to cause a new future.

 

¹Another historian, Irving Candicocque, also disagrees, saying that 

Aborigines have always been well-looked after. They are allowed at least two hours a day in the exercise yard and their accommodation – at our expense! – includes their very own shit pan which is a great deal more than they used to have as savages in the bush!”

Candicocque’s works include

Denying the obvious (Our Grandfathers Could Never Have Did Nothing So Nasty Like What They Say),
The Aboriginal Protection Boards (They Never Stole No Kids and Anyway it Was for Their Own Good)
and The Great Big Massacre Hoax (they weren’t killed; they just ran away and never come back).