Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Started on broadband today - opens up a whole host of possibilities, particularly as our two computers are now networked.
All the nastiness propagated by the Howard government on industrial relations "reform" and possible private members bills on abortion - the one on the concentration camps and asylum seekers by a Liberal Party backbencher and 4 others is supported by ONE member of the Alternative Liberal Party (ALP), so THAT won't get too far.
Bleak years ahead until such time - if ever - that there is a viable opposition in this country. In France, despite support by all major parties, the French people voted NON to the EU constitutional changes proposals, this being a shot in the eye for the French government! But nothing like that could happen here - the Asutralian two-legged sheep just say BAA and go on with their selfish ways - such as calling for a boycott of things Indonesian and Balinese, as if the poor devastated people in that benighted country are responsible for the Corby situation!!! So Australians advise not travelling to Bali, stopping aid to Indonesian tsunami victims - the mind just boggles!!!
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All the nastiness propagated by the Howard government on industrial relations "reform" and possible private members bills on abortion - the one on the concentration camps and asylum seekers by a Liberal Party backbencher and 4 others is supported by ONE member of the Alternative Liberal Party (ALP), so THAT won't get too far.
Bleak years ahead until such time - if ever - that there is a viable opposition in this country. In France, despite support by all major parties, the French people voted NON to the EU constitutional changes proposals, this being a shot in the eye for the French government! But nothing like that could happen here - the Asutralian two-legged sheep just say BAA and go on with their selfish ways - such as calling for a boycott of things Indonesian and Balinese, as if the poor devastated people in that benighted country are responsible for the Corby situation!!! So Australians advise not travelling to Bali, stopping aid to Indonesian tsunami victims - the mind just boggles!!!
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
CLOSE CONCENTRATION CAMPS
It doesn't seem to make any difference to the Australian government and its loyal opposition, the Alternative Liberal Party (ALP) who, as we know, started the system in 1992, that abuses, torture, degradation and dehumanisation are institutionalised in the camps! This is what they set out to do, and they do it very well - it's just that because people can't get into them easily on an everyday basis, they are unable to report the condition of the people locked in them. But it doesn't really matter, does it?? After all, they are not human beings - they come from those places which are exotic and strange, with strange customs and strange religions! Australians apparently consider themselves, by and large, to be part of a cristian country, but all their actions in regard to the concentration camps are contrary to what their religion preaches.
So, on and on we go, and those of us living here who come from countries where human rights abuses were appalling for about 50 or more years, are horrified to see that the situation is now built into the Australian landscape and psyche!
As Alan Paton said all those years ago about South Africa, but could now apply to Australia and so many other countries calling themselves western democracies, "CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY".
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It doesn't seem to make any difference to the Australian government and its loyal opposition, the Alternative Liberal Party (ALP) who, as we know, started the system in 1992, that abuses, torture, degradation and dehumanisation are institutionalised in the camps! This is what they set out to do, and they do it very well - it's just that because people can't get into them easily on an everyday basis, they are unable to report the condition of the people locked in them. But it doesn't really matter, does it?? After all, they are not human beings - they come from those places which are exotic and strange, with strange customs and strange religions! Australians apparently consider themselves, by and large, to be part of a cristian country, but all their actions in regard to the concentration camps are contrary to what their religion preaches.
So, on and on we go, and those of us living here who come from countries where human rights abuses were appalling for about 50 or more years, are horrified to see that the situation is now built into the Australian landscape and psyche!
As Alan Paton said all those years ago about South Africa, but could now apply to Australia and so many other countries calling themselves western democracies, "CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY".
Monday, May 23, 2005
It has been a long time between blogs - so much happens so quickly, and the truth is that the older one gets, the faster the time goes! And one seems to do less and less!
Well, two of the issues dominating the media of immediate concern are the ongoing mistreatment of asylum seekers in the Australian government's concentration camps, including those of its own citizens, and the latest discussion about torture and its use and the legitimacy thereof.
This latest issue is so appalling after all the twentieth century - and ongoing into the twenty first century - produced in the way of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco, Salazar, Pinochet, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, and our very own "allies" with Guantanamo Bay, Woomera - now Baxter instead, Port Hedland, Nauru and so many others in the UK, USA and elsewhere around the world - almost leaving out South Africa of Verwoerd, Vorster, PW Botha and others. One of the worst aspects of the latest debate is that it comes from a law academic in a Victorian university and is supported by another academic from the same institution.
I suppose it is silly to say that one wonders what the debate would hinge on if those advocating it had been subjected to some of the methods they suggest should be used. The debate rages on!
As for the concentration camps, this issue of man's inhumanity to man is not dissimilar to the torture debate. One has to wonder at the mentality of the citizens of Australia, that they voted back a government and loyal opposition, whose idea the concentration camps were in the first place, with the selfishness and thoughtlessness of the "me" generation who have never had it so good and demand that they should continue having it so good.
But can it go on forever? We have lived through some torrid times in the past, and it looks like we will continue to do so in the immediate future, with little hope of resolution.
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Well, two of the issues dominating the media of immediate concern are the ongoing mistreatment of asylum seekers in the Australian government's concentration camps, including those of its own citizens, and the latest discussion about torture and its use and the legitimacy thereof.
This latest issue is so appalling after all the twentieth century - and ongoing into the twenty first century - produced in the way of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco, Salazar, Pinochet, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, and our very own "allies" with Guantanamo Bay, Woomera - now Baxter instead, Port Hedland, Nauru and so many others in the UK, USA and elsewhere around the world - almost leaving out South Africa of Verwoerd, Vorster, PW Botha and others. One of the worst aspects of the latest debate is that it comes from a law academic in a Victorian university and is supported by another academic from the same institution.
I suppose it is silly to say that one wonders what the debate would hinge on if those advocating it had been subjected to some of the methods they suggest should be used. The debate rages on!
As for the concentration camps, this issue of man's inhumanity to man is not dissimilar to the torture debate. One has to wonder at the mentality of the citizens of Australia, that they voted back a government and loyal opposition, whose idea the concentration camps were in the first place, with the selfishness and thoughtlessness of the "me" generation who have never had it so good and demand that they should continue having it so good.
But can it go on forever? We have lived through some torrid times in the past, and it looks like we will continue to do so in the immediate future, with little hope of resolution.
