The Nation That Hangs Together

Jan 4, 2007 | Australian Values, Capital Punishment, Cultural Values, Democracy, OzPol Values, USPol, Values, War

The Nation That Hangs Together

The Nation that Hangs Together Hangs Together

 

The glorious lynching of Saddam was not meant to be “unprofessional”, and “disgusting”.

No, no!

According to Iraq’s National Security Adviser, the noted humanitarian, Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie:

“This was supposed to be a uniting event between Shia and Sunni.”

Oops!

What a wonderful opportunity this human sacrifice would have been for fellowship and reconciliation between the warring sects! How tragic that it was missed!

Sociologists and anthropologists are at a loss as to why the intended outcome was not realised, unless it was the Shia officials who were present with their cell-phones. If only the mobile-phone-toting hangmen hadn’t shouted and argued with Saddam, and taken video of his plummeting and dangling body and shared it with the world on YouTube.

A Shia-Sunni love-in would have been inevitable, the civil war would have been over and the Americans and their allies could have gone home.

A free Iraq and the future of a fragile democracy would have been assured.

An Iraqi official assured the world that despite the debacle of the execution – carried out at an American camp in Baghdad called “Camp Justice” – the execution itself had been carried out in accordance with Islamic law.

Just so.

Meanwhile the debate over the death penalty rages around the world.

The American public, unmoved by public opinion in civilised countries – which sees them as amongst the last of the barbarians – now proudly keeps righteous company alongside the dwindling number of nations practising ‘judicial murder’ (as Prime Minister Howard calls it):

Botswana, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Lesotho, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Somaliland, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, North Korea, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Syria, Yemen, Tajikistan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Belarus, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Guatemala, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana.

And the United States.

And they are a proud member of the enlightened club of nations (mostly Islamic ) which approve the execution of juveniles:

Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, China, and the “Democratic” Republic of the Congo.

And the United States.

The US has staunchly refused to sign and ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids capital punishment for juveniles. In this it stands proudly with Somalia as the last two nations of true principle.

The US is merciful, however, and will not execute the insane. Instead they administer antipsychotic drugs to ensure that the person is sane before administering additional, lethal drugs, which kill them.

While the United States has a proud record, executing 60 people in 2005, of which 19 were killed in Texas, and 53 people in 2006, of which 24 were killed in Texas, they have a long way to go to catch up to World Execution League Champions, China, in the number of annual executions.

In China execution is a huge and lucrative industry, providing fresh organs to western transplant patients at a bargain price. Western human rights monitors believe the Chinese kill about 15,000 a year, more than the rest of the world’s government-sponsored murders combined.

China is leading the way in efficiency, also, by equipping its courts with mobile execution vans as it shifts away from the communist system’s traditional bullet in the back of the head, towards the more “civilised” lethal injection. China expects that this will improve its international image and show it as a more modern and civilised society.

The United States could also learn a lot about commerce and cost recovery from China where families who want to reclaim the body of their dead relatives killed by a bullet to the head are charged for the bullet. It makes sense, don’t it? A triumph of “user pays”!

But let it not be said that there is no debate in the USA about the death penalty.
For example, in the measured, carefully considered words of one American citizen, chiding another who is opposed to the death penalty:

“Listen sperm breath: Take your withered prick, renew your Viagra prescription and go fuck that 6-year-old boy you’ve had the glow for. You get your facts the same place you get your man-love: from your wart-ridden syphilitic bung hole.”

Nevertheless, there seems to be growing legislative opposition in the U.S. to such opinions, despite their obvious literary qualities:

A legislative commission recommended on Tuesday that New Jersey become the first state to abolish the death penalty since states began reinstating their capital punishment laws 35 years ago. Its report found “no compelling evidence” that capital punishment serves a legitimate purpose, and increasing evidence that it “is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.”

The report [came] amid growing unease among politicians and the public about capital punishment.

Will this be “cut and run” from the death penalty, or “a phased withdrawal”?

 

Update:

Al Jazeera has claimed that Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army replaced all the security officials responsible for executing Saddam. Sunni pro-Baathist website Iraqi Rabita has claimed that one of the masked men who put the noose around Saddam’s neck was in fact Muqtada al Sadr and this is why there were chants of “Muqtada! Muqtada!”

Ordinary Australians Lose Automatic Citizenship

Dec 26, 2006 | Australian Values, Cultural Values, Immigration, OzPol Values, Racism, Values

Ordinary Australians Lose Automatic Citizenship

 Shocking News Just “Friendly Encouragement” – PM

Ordinary Australians are terrified by a new test the Australian Government is planning to introduce.

The National Continuing Citizenship Assessment will strip even Australian-born Australians of their Citizenship if they fail to demonstrate a reasonably comprehensive understanding of Australian political and cultural history.

It includes such questions as:

47.  What were Ned Kelly’s famous last words?

48.  Who wrote a book with those words as its title?

50.  What was the Petrov Affair?

65. What was the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act? What happened to it?

85.  What was Kylie’s first movie role?

100.  What were:  a) The Statute of Westminster?   b) The Australia Act?

Many of those who have heard of the new Citizenship Test are expressing some concerns. They say that to know some of these answers they would have had to listen at school and that would be un-Australian, so we want to reassure all loyal and fair dinkum Australians that they have nothing to fear.

It is true that the proposed legislation means that current Australian citizens may lose their citizenship if they fail to pass random citizenship tests.

Citizens born in Australia who fail the test could have their status reduced to Permanent Resident. Those not born in Australia would have their status reduced to Resident Alien and, if they failed a second test, would be exported to their country of origin; or, if their country of origin no longer exists (by virtue, for example, of its having been bombed back into the stone age) then to a country less freedom-loving and tolerant of cultural differences than Australia.

The reason for the test is that already several people who are expected to know important Australian history, values, legal and constitutional facts have shown shortcomings in these areas. Indeed, most state and federal politicians are frighteningly ignorant and under a cloud for not knowing, for example, what Australia Day actually celebrates. 


Anonymous Source 

“You see,” claimed anonymous source Philippe leCrud (above):

“it’s clearly unfair of us to demand that New Australians do all this study and pass a test on all these facts when people who are Citizens merely because they had the good fortune to be born here mostly know bugger-all about Australian history, values and especially the Constitution (and what’s more couldn’t give a flying fuck*) get to enjoy all the privileges of being an Australian. It’s clearly unfair and the only alternatives are to make the test easier – but that wouldn’t keep out the terrorists – or to test everyone. So that’s the way we’ve gone.”

In any case, the Government wants to reassure anyone who is anxious that they should understand that the purpose of the test is simply to provide some friendly encouragement to everyone to achieve the required level of knowledge.

And anyone who is a good Australian Citizen already has nothing to fear.

We have obtained an early draft of the Test to get a sense of the areas of knowledge and the depth of understanding that is expected of all Australians. There are 100 questions.

The questions are not really too hard. Here is a sample:

What sort of creatures populate the island off Perth, WA?

What is the name of the island?

What is the constitutional status of the Northern Territory?

Who was the first female Justice of the High Court Australia?

When did Papua New Guinea become independent from Australia?

Who was its first Prime Minister?

Who called Australia ‘The Lucky Country’?

What did he mean? (no, that’s not correct)

Whom did Elton John marry in Australia?

On what date?

What was she doing in Australia?

Which Australian singer was present at the wedding?

Whom did Graham Kennedy marry in Australia? 
Why on earth?

What American TV comedy show did she star in?

How many Twelve Apostles are there?

 

* There is no indication of concern that “not giving a flying fuck” breaches any “core” Aussie values but rather that not giving a fuck may automatically entitle anyone to Australian Citizenship.

We have a sneaking suspicion that the Continuing Citizenship Assessment is a trap and that the only way to pass the test is to fail it.

Anyone who cares enough to study and do well is obviously un-Australian and a terrorist.

Disembowel the Leader

Dec 2, 2006 | Australian Values, Democracy, OzPol Values, Values

Disembowel the Leader

Lord Water Cunntiham in High Spirits!

 

We have received news from our Dear Leader, Lord Water Cunntiham, that he is in high spirits today.

Very high spirits indeed!

There is a definite spring in his trackie-suited step today!

Yes, girls and boys, the Labor Party is indulging itself in the annual orgy of self-immolation: the remnants of the ancient ritual of the “works picnic” – all that is left of the union movement in Australia – in the favourite game of Disembowel the Leader. The game goes like this:

  1. first you play a game of Chinese Whispers about the leader,
  2. then you tie him up and kneecap him,
  3. and then you cut off his head.

It is all very jolly and only the Labor Party can play it at the level of expertise that makes it such a fun spectator sport.

If leader survive this process, they are permitted to contest the next election, but they will not win because their vocal chords have been cut in the beheading process and they cannot walk because they are crippled by the kneecapping.

When they lose the election they are vilified and ostracised.

Should they fail to survive the process – which preferably occurs shortly before an election – the youngest picnicker is chosen to represent the party and given a new nappy.

When they lose the following election they are vilified and ostracised and their career is over, but in the meantime, like a Nepalese goddess, they have had a most remarkable experience.

So all in all, the Prime Monitor is very happy because, whatever happens, he knows that he is not going to need to worry about losing the next election. He is not going to have to locate Iraqi refugees or fake-up pictures of children in the water. And those of us in the ministries are heaving a deep sigh of relief because we know that we are not going to have to modify our heartless and corrupt practices in the short term.

 

In other news
We have come across a scurrilous publication which claims that the USA – our very dearest friend and moral mentor (apart from Indonesia, oh, and Malaysia as of yesterday) – misled the world about Iraq, was corrupt and incompetent and generally lied about what it knew.

You should read this wretched book to learn exactly how low the left will stoop to disturb your comfortable ignorance with the truth.

It’s called The Best War Ever. There is a trailer here:

and you can buy it here.  Maybe. If there are any left.

Blameshifting 101

Nov 24, 2006 | Australian Values, OzPol Values, USPol, War

Blameshifting 101

You’ve got to hand it to our Prime Monitor.

He is the absolute guru of blameshifting and that’s something to be proud of.

You know, he has a position to maintain, an aura to protect, an air of infallibility to project. We can’t have him looking weak and fallible. 

He has masterfully avoided saying “Sorry” for Australian authorities stealing generations of Aboriginal children from their families. They had only themselves to blame, for being black.

He has cleverly avoided any responsibility for the AWB Wheat for Weapons scandal and ensured that the blame falls on a few unfortunate individuals and certainly not on him or his ministers or their sirhumphreys.

He did it – it was a joy to watch – he did it by saying that in the terms of reference of the inquiry (which he set up) the Commissioner couldn’t make any findings about him, the government, or government departments.

Brilliant!

And now as the dark days in Iraq seem to slide into an apocalypse, a hell on exploding wheels – which we all thought at the time he had abetted and co-invented with George and Tony – with almost surreal prestidigitation he has ensured that he cannot be held responsible for the (no longer “impending”) disaster:

Howard ‘horrified’ by Iraq car bomb killings: Prime Minister John Howard says he is disturbed by the latest mass killings in Iraq.…

“It’s certainly going through ‘a very bad phase’, I acknowledge that,” Mr Howard said, “and nobody is other than horrified at the continued loss of life. The question arises, what to do? I do think the path ahead lies in a greater assumption of responsibility by the Iraqi military forces themselves.”

Not only is it not total carnage, a completely fucked over disaster but just a “phase” it’s going through (and as you know, phases are predictable and you always recover from them).

And there is light at the end of the tunnel. We are not being sucked into the quicksand of a civil war, stuck in a quagmire of blood, guts and a destroyed culture. No! There is a “path”! And for sure it is pretty as a picture with grass and daisies on either side, a warm sun shining, fluffy little white clouds in the sky and a cooling zephyr wafting!

My god, Howard is the wonderful Wizard of the south if ever there was!

But the Grand Masterstroke is that it’s the Iraqis who must be held responsible for the bloody chaos they are in! No blood on John’s hands! No splattered bits of human offal or brain on his starched, white, stuffed shirt.

Watch as it becomes the ungrateful, incompetent Iraqis’ fault (between now and the next Federal Election).

We are in awe. Absolutely in wide-eyed, jaw-on-the-floor awe at his brilliance.

Watch and weep. True Australian political values. Howard-style.

A Beautiful Thing

Nov 6, 2006 | Australian Values, OzPol Values, USPol, Values, War

A Beautiful Thing

US Policy Adviser redefines “Beauty”

We have noticed a report that Kenneth Adelman has claimed that what the Coalition has done in Iraq is “a beautiful thing”. And we agree whole-heartedly. It’s a pity so few people now are able to see it this way. It just takes a little readjustment of the meaning of “beauty”.

As you know, the Australian Government applauds, approves and supports all things concerned with and initiated by the US Administration. We are desperate to be part of (and it is Australian Government policy to try as hard as we can to keep up with) their Grand Scheme of Things, and although its purpose is a mystery we have faith and trust in their goodness and wisdom. And you know that George has personal audiences with the Almighty, right there in the Oval Office!. God told him that Shock and Awe was what Jesus would have done.

“God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did.”   [New York Times, 24/9/2006]

Iraq; Kyoto; gay marriage; support for hypocritical closet homosexuals; inappropriately blurring the distinction between Church and State; scaremongering about terrorism; rewriting indigenous history, and now capital punishment — we’re with them.

Step for step. Lock step. Every step of the way.

We in the Howard Australian Government are pathetically grateful for any attention that the US may give us from time to time. For example, recently George W. Bush looked down at us and said, “You still here? I’d forgotten all about you! Look, we’re having a picnic. Why don’t you come along? In fact, you have to come along. It’s just over there in Iraq. Don’t forget to bring your sandshoes.” And then he patted us on the head and you should have seen our little governmental tail wagging!

Anyway, although we have faith and belief and trust, we are now confused.

When George asked us on the picnic, two of his top advisors were Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman. They told us George was right. We believed them utterly because George told us to. And they said the nicest things about George and his Grand Scheme of Things.

When George told us that Donald Rumsfeld was the greatest military strategist who ever lived, of course we believed him. And no serving General ever disagreed. Until now.

It’s just that we’re a little confused about how the current situation in Iraq, which the US Military says is sliding swiftly towards chaos, fits into Rummy’s strategy. But then, he’s Rummy and George insists he’s still the greatest. What would little old us know? Probably chaos is part of Rummy’s strategy to confuse the enemy (that is, the Democrats).

But now the Military Times has an editorial calling for him to go. Vanity Fair has quotes from Richard Perle and from Kenneth Adelman saying that the Admninistration is “dysfunctional”. and these are people whose word we have accepted without question until now.

The editorial, “Time for Rumsfeld to Go”, says:

Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised.
…
The time has come, Mr President, to face the hard bruising truth; Donald Rumsfeld must go.

Richard Perle is a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, and an advisor to Mr Bush on the Defense Policy Board, a member of the American Enterprise Institute, the Project for the New American Century and the Hudson Institute. I mean, if you can’t trust these people, who can you trust?

And yet he told Vanity Fair magazine that incompetence in the Administration had turned Iraq policy into a “disaster”. A disaster!

Kenneth Adelman is a member of the Project for the New American Century, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, 1976-1977, member of the Committee on the Present Danger, the RAND Corporation and the Institute for Contemporary Studies.

I mean. that’s high-powered right-wing cred, okay? And he says he is “crushed” by the performance of Rumsfeld and the Administration.

“They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the postwar era,” he said. “Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional.”

So you can understand why we’re a little confused. We bet on these guys and now they’re saying “don’t put your money on Bush”.

Well, We still don’t know. If you don’t remember, Adelman is the guy who said,

“I believe demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk,” 

and

“Measured by any cost-benefit analysis, such an operation would constitute the greatest victory in America’s war on terrorism].

And you know that glorious victory will come, we’re certain of it. Well, we hope desperately for it. It won’t heppen overnight, it may not even heppen this century, but it will heppen.

Kenneth Adelman, who looks like a kindly family doctor, is also the man who said about the war in Iraq:

“It bothers me that people in Britain don’t see it as people in America see it. We did a beautiful thing.”

And you know, we don’t think people are as aware as they should be of just how beautiful the thing we have done in Iraq is.

Should we agree with the US Military, Perle, Adelman, now or stand by George? Is George a dead duck like they say? If we stick with him like a mate, could we get burnt and look as stupid as him?

And then there’s the question of war crimes. People are starting to talk about them. Those civilian casualties are starting to bank up a bit, you now. They’re starting to look a bit untidy.

In 1946 the judges at Nuremberg who tried the Nazi leaders for war crimes left no doubt about what they regarded as the gravest crimes against humanity.

The most serious was unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state that offered no threat to one’s homeland. Then there was the murder of civilians, for which responsibility rested with the “highest authority”. [Pilger]

Now we would like to agree with Laura Rediehs:

“So, although both sides in this Great Cosmic Battle employ similar techniques – violence that includes the killing of innocent civilians – our doing this is justified because we are good; their doing it is unjustified because they are evil.”

… although we think she might have been being ironic. But she’s right. George talks to Jesus. The enemy only think they do.

Cronnultural Promotion

Oct 16, 2006 | Australian Values, Cultural Values, OzPol Values, Racism, Values

Cronnultural Promotion

Sydney Cultural Promotion Takes Off With a Bang

16 October, 2006

 

16 October, 2006 – The Promotional Campaign for this year’s annual Cultural Respect Classes has taken off with a bang in Sydney, beginning at Manly and Maroubra beaches.

13 people were allegedly “attacked” by a group of 20 men at Maroubra last night as they were setting up for a barbie. Their car windows were “smashed” in the promotion.

10 to 15 young people performed a promotional event at Manly Beach, where a teenager demonstrated “brawling”, “intimidating paparazzi”, and being “charged with offensive behaviour”.

The promotional activities were mounted to attract attention, and participants, to the Cultural Respect Classes which are held annually in December and January at Cronulla Beach, a famous sewer near Sydney.

“Respect for other people’s beliefs and cultures is a core Australia value,” said organiser of the Cronulla classes, Uberbarnstormenfeuhrer Adolf Schweitzer. “Australians have a deep respect for a wide diversity of European cultures such as English and American.

“We hope as many people as possible will get along to the classes this year but we do ask that they bring their own slabs, aussie flags and swastikas.”

Anyone interested in participating in the classes can contact their local branch of the Skinhead Alliance or anyone under 30 hanging around Cronulla or Brighton le Sands.