Category: Politics

Call me cynical

…but I agree with those who feel that John Howard’s sudden interest in Aboriginal reconciliation is pretty cynical.

He’s had plenty of time to do this, but to suddenly decide to finally stop ignoring the sentiment of the majority of the country on this issue in the immediate lead up to an election just seems pathetic and fumblingly manipulative (especially when you’ve just annexed and arguably disenfranchised many of the Aboriginals in the northern territory).

I understand the concern that a poorly articulated apology might be interpreted by some as an admission of government guilt or complicity, and may lead to greater activity in the areas of aboriginal land rights and compensation litigation, but it is possible to (a) grow a set and accept that perhaps that wouldn’t be the worst thing, and (b) have taken some peremptory steps in that direction before trying to use it to leverage an election.

“I’m (personally) sorry that these injustices have happened to your people” neither implies guilt or responsibility, nor obliges any action, but does show that you appreciate that certain unfairnesses occurred, and that you may be agreeable to looking at ways of rectifying things. And if John had said something like that when Peter Garret and Midnight Oil wore their “Sorry” suit at the 2000 Olympics (as most of the younger generation of Australians apparently feel he should have) then perhaps I wouldn’t think that talk of recognising Aboriginals in a constitutional amendment so suspect.

Quotable

Barak Obama has been quoted as saying “I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest”, in relation to the shallow habit of American politicians wearing little American flag lapel pins. He says he doesn’t wear an American flag on his lapel because it has become a substitute for “true patriotism” since Sept. 11.

Now that’s an admirable show of honesty and rationality from a politician. Everyone knows you’re an american, and the fact that you’re vying to serve your country by running for congress or president should be proof enough of your patriotism (if you know anything about how harsh those political races and the subsequent jobs can be), so why wear a badge to emphasise what should already be apparent to all but the dimmest of observers.

Kudos to him (although I’d still vote for Hillary).

You can say it

The case of Dr Hanif continues to show how nasty and stubborn and pig headed the current government is, and continues it’s so far predictable course. I love it.

First one court says there were no charges to answer despite the government’s assurances of “just trust us” (yeah, as if)…

Now another court said that (as I initially asserted would be the case) immigration minister Kevin Andrews made a mistake and should not have cancelled Dr Hanif’s visa.

And yet Kevin Andrews continues to stubbornly insist that he was right and everyone else was wrong, and his mates John howard and Phil Downer (foreign minister) keep on doggedly insisting that Kevin is right, and that we should just trust them because they have “classified” information that we don’t need to know about but which support their side of things.

It seems that they can’t admit that they were wrong, and that the historical treatment of aboriginals is not the only thing they are not man enough to say they’re sorry about.

There goes credibility

Details remain scarce, but it seems that the Indian doctor from the gold coast who has been being questioned by the Australian Federal Police in relation to the recent failed London bombings has been charged with Terrorism related offences, seemingly solely on the basis of having lived with one of the UK suspects previously, and having left his mobile phone sim card with that person when he moved to Australia. So far there seem to be no suggestion that he even knew his ex-house mate had an extremist agenda.

If that’s all they’ve got on him then the AFP is looking pretty stupid, and I look forward to a judge telling them to get the f**k out of his/her court and stop wasting the nation’s time.

I am also quietly looking forward to the other doctor who was questioned but was (by the AFP’s public statements) never even a suspect, and who had his name leaked to the press by the police, suing the arse off the Queensland police for loss of income, defamation, anguish, and breach of privacy.

We seem to live in an increasingly depressingly moronic society whenever anything related to domestic terrorism comes up.

Here’s an interesting statistic

According to a new poll, 45 percent of Americans are in favor of Congress impeaching George Bush. I don’t think they specified what he should be impeached over (let’s face it, Congress has several good options they could choose from), but that’s a lot of people who think that just getting him out of the white house isn’t enough, and that he should face charges.

And they went after Clinton for much less. As the common saying goes, when Clinton lied, no-one died.

Amusingly, Cheyney (the VP) fares even worse. 54% think he should be impeached…

Acute observation

I read an online comic called Bunny, which is usually pretty esoteric, but in the cartoon from yesterday they make the kind of pointed observations that I love seeing interjected into the generally ludacris public debate on terrorism:

“Bomb” attacks: Deaths:0, Cost: the same amount of council tax as usual.

Current flash flooding in the UK: Deaths: 6, Cost: Estimated to exceed 1 billion pounds.

Which one is seen as the biggest threat to the UK? The one that was foiled by Civilian emergency services, traffic wardens, concrete bollards, and members of the public.

That’s the christmas spirit

In what has to be one of the most bizarre and foolish thing I’ve read recently Catholic Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne last week unexpectedly banned Catholic children from praying with Muslim classmates.

Apparently the basis of this ban was that “The image of God in non-Christian religions is not identical with the God who is Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”.

Surely when we’re talking about (catholic/muslim/jewish) children, the fact that they’re praying AND getting along with people of other faiths in a christian/muslim/jewish manner is enough.

They’re not going to understand the dogmatic distinction between a catholic praying to god versus a protestant praying to god versus a jew praying to god versus a muslim praying to god (which all 4 groups would acknowledge is still the same god, separated by human dogmatic differences (whether you believe Jesus is the son of god vs. not the son of god vs. just another prophet). More importantly they shouldn’t have to, and for the Cardinal to try and impose division on children seems both callous and pathetic.

Thankfully it sounds as though he is pretty much being either ignored or openly criticised for the stance, and once again the chuch as an organisation is being marginalised because it continues to focus on dogmatic minutae and maintaining it’s power, while ignoring the major themes of love, tolerance, understanding and community on which most people base their faith.

Winston Peters = Diplomacy… WTF???

I was watching the news this evening and they were talking about the threatened Coup in Fiji (which is also a concept that seems a bit odd to me. The notion of taking over the country by surprise and seizing power seems to kind of lack something if everyone knows it’s coming weeks ahead of time).

They were talking about the talks run in NZ today to try and avert the crisis, and at the end they showed Winston Peters (subtitled as “New Zealand Foreign Minister”, which is another thing I still haven’t gotten used to) talking about the diplomatic solution that was being worked on. It all seemed incongruous.

Maybe it’s just me but I have a had time associating Winston Peters with the word “Diplomatic”. “Winebox” maybe. “Barfight” certainly, but the idea of Winston as Statesman still seems just a little too much of a stretch for me.

Still, I suppose if he’s getting results I guess we can’t complain. He’s certainly appears to be doing a damn sight more than his Australian counterpart who’s helpful input to date seems to have consisted of alternating between “Australians, don’t go to Fiji” and “Fijians, tut tut tut” (accompanied by the appropriate stern parental finger waggling gestures).

Abortion debate?… Ah crap

It has amazed and irritated me for the last week or so hearing stupid politicians trundle out their “harrowing tales” of wives, partners and girlfriends who have had abortions and how it has affected the politicians lives, without realising that the thing they are debating has absolutely zero to do with the morality of abortion.

Abortion within Australia is legal within tightly defined pre-existing parameters.

This debate had nothing whatsoever to do with the legality or morality of abortion.

It was entirely to do with whether the health minister alone and with no oversight should be allowed to decide whether a safe method of carrying out a legal proceedure should be available, or whether this decision should be entrusted to the organisation that makes these same decisions on all other medications that are available in Australia, and who posess significantly more expertise in the fields of medicine, public health, pharmacology, and medical ethics than the health minister personally does.
If the politicians want to try and change legislation to outlaw abortion then they are perfectly welcome to try to do just that, and they can have their emotional stories, and they can have their fiery debates (and they can also loose the next election because they alienate the majority of the female vote, and they can live with the fact that women will go back to having so called “back yard” abortions, and they can have the many deaths which will result from this on their conscience).