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When German Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin accused George W Bush "of adopting Hitler's tactic of using foreign aggression to hide domestic political problems" just before the recent German election, she was first tarred and feathered by candidates from all sides and then forced to resign.

Jacques Chirac, considered by some to be the stupidest leader in recent history until Dubbya stole the title, kicked off the latest UN Security Council meeting by boldly and rather profoundly stating: "Our house is burning". What he didn't go on to say was that the merchandiser elite who rule the world don't care.

Al Gore came out of the cold and gave the lie to politicians' inability to know right from wrong. Speaking in San Francisco (What if Al Gore had won?), he gave a blistering denunciation of Dubbya's war doctrine. "After September 11, we had enormous sympathy, goodwill and support around the world. We've squandered that and in one year we've replaced that with fear, anxiety and uncertainty, not at what the terrorists are going to do, but at what we're going to do."

According to Ray Eccleston (The Australian, 25/9/02), most US Democrats are shaking in their boots at such unequivocal truthspeak for fear of losing votes in the November election. Once upon a time people ran for office out of the desire to serve a community that demanded the truth. Or is that a myth? Of course it is.

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You've got to love that John Faulkner. Without him, the Labor Party might well be nothing more than an opposition going through the motions. He has consistently asked deadly simple, plain text questions of the government and its lackeys (those permitted to give evidence, that is) with the subtlety of a terminator. In the case of SIEV-X, Faulkner has shown himself to be one of the great prosecutors of all time, hampered only by his own party's failure of will to proceed with the subpoena of arch-crim Peter Reith.

Faulkner now wants to know (Cameron Stewart, The Australian, 26.9.02) "whether the Government's attempts to disrupt asylum-seeker boats had included the direct sabotage of vessels, including the ill-fated SIEV-X."

SCATT used to headline articles about this subject thusly: "Is the Howard Government responsible for the deaths of 353 boat people on the ill-fated SIEV-X?" We should never have dropped it.

Here is the rest of Stewart's article:

In a speech to parliament, Senator Faulkner raised a series of explosive questions about possible links between the Siev X tragedy and Australia's program to disrupt people-smuggling in Indonesia.

It is the first time any such link has been raised in parliament by a federal politician.

"At no stage do I want to break, or will I break, the protocols in relation to operational matters involving the Australian Secret Intelligence Service or the Australian Federal Police," Senator Faulkner said.

"But these protocols were not meant as a direct or indirect licence to kill."

Siev X capsized and sank, killing 353 asylum-seekers, after its engine cut out less than 24 hours into its journey from Indonesia to Christmas Island in October last year.

The Australian embassy in Jakarta runs a program to disrupt people-smuggling, but the Government has repeatedly refused to divulge details of these activities.

Earlier this year, a former AFP informant in Indonesia, Kevin Enniss, told the Nine Network's Sunday program he had paid Indonesian locals to scuttle people-smuggling boats with passengers aboard.

Senator Faulkner asked the Government to reveal if boats had been sabotaged as part of the Australian Government's disruption program. He called for an independent judicial inquiry into the issue.

All the usual suspects have screamed outrage as expected. Let's see what happens.

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It suddenly occurred to me, watching Alexander Downer condescend and sneer in parliament the other day, that he alone of Howard's henchmen is capable of being a dangerous future villain.

Abbott (and Reith before him), is mostly concerned with his consuming hatred of unions; Costello's brother will never allow him to be a monster; the others are small time political gangsters who can't get their heads out of their arses long enough to formulate a truly Machiavellian plan for eternal power. Their congenital ineptness would have already consigned them to the wilderness had Labor not been hijacked by neo-Liberalism.

But Downer is a different story. His plutocratic arrogance surveys a world of plebeians far below his lofty stature as Minister by Electoral Fraud. His self-confidence is born of this status, the malleable knack of having no core beliefs and virtually no centre, and the fact that he is still there long after he should have been jeered off stage. He is a blank slate upon which the current divisionary (and diversionary) policy is writ until deleted to make way for the next. His modus operandi is whatever-it-takes. Like Howard he is an opportunist, but his opportunism extends far beyond Howard's limited fixation with economics. Downer will in fact adopt any line expedient to filling in his essential hollowness.

Howard is the facilitator, perhaps a modern day Hindenburg. Through his narcotisation of the majority of Australians into a relaxed and comfortable blob, he has paved the way for a potential führer. If this sounds ludicrous and/or preposterous to you, then you are living in Australia, 2002.

The only other major player in the Illiberal Party who could usurp Downer's place as a potential führer, is Jeff Kennett. Never underestimate Der Jeff. (See Don Hayward: Kennett, champion of the few)

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Tuesday morning's newspapers reported John Howard's given wisdom that Iraq was showing no signs of giving in. By lunch time the world knew of Iraq's decision to allow unconditional freedom to weapon's inspectors.

A little later in the day Johnny let his boy Alex do the talking in Parliament on the Butcher of Bagdad's sudden re-emergence as America's Most Wanted. John claims it is procedure for the Foreign Minister to speak and not himself, but I think he is keeping himself pure for that moment of extreme gravitas when he can rise to announce Australia's participation in yet another of someone else's wars. If only he sounded like Menzies, instead of an irritable, dyspeptic and lethargic old woman.

Meanwhile, members of big business's political wing in Parliament were busy trying to keep their palms from itching as visions of sugar-plum coloured Beamers danced in their heads in anticipation of meeting Li Peng, the notorious Butcher of Beijing. You'll remember him from the massacre of Tiananmen Square: he gave the orders to kill. But hey, it suits Coalition suits to poopoo all that bleeding heart sentiment, for Mr Li is here to do business. And that's all that matters.

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In a chat on double standards with Alexander Downer this morning (10/9/02), 3LO's John Faine posed several scenarios as to why the US was going to war against Iraq. One of them postulated that Dubbya was trying to save face after a year of chasing Osama bin Laden only to come up with nation of cremated Afghans. (OK, Faine didn't exactly put it that way.)

Downer was sorry to inform Faine that as the Foreign Minister he was in the know and that he had never once heard of anything so preposterous.

That's right, credibility huggers, such an idea was news to our Foreign Minister, the toff with a complexion resembling a mashed rutabaga who represents you and I at his seat in the finest salons and dining establishments that globalised taxpayer funds can buy.

Before I leave this little tidbit, here is a letter posted to the same day's Australian by A. Gaffney of Queensland: "Alexander Downer says of Iraq: 'If they have nothing to hide, why won't they allow UN weapons inspectors in?' Alexander Downer says of Australian detention centres: 'We have nothing to hide. Why should we allow UN inspectors in?'"

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US Ambassador Tom Schieffer's prematurely loosening jowls flapped in the wind emanating from his peculiarly American ability to combine laid back calm with hyper-rhetoric as he sought to con Australians into believing America-hating terrorists hate them too.

Speaking to a group of old white Rotarians (who else?), Schieffer said: "Why, hell, folks, a nuclur bomb could go off right over thar in yr Sydney Harbour."

The antidote of course is to back the modern day Bushwhackers as they march off to war.

These and similar remarks from the man whose muscle tones whine against his bones caused Daryl Williams to pop the lid of his casket and renew the full moon howl for passage of the ASIO bill. "There are so many safeguards in it that I find the criticisms that have been offered by quite reputable people to be quite unfounded and quite hollow," he said.

"Not quite," retorted Labor Senate leader John Faulkner, soon to be branded a Saddam-appeaser by the Coalition. "The Government could co-ordinate counter-terror capabilities more effectively through a cabinet-level home affairs department."

I'll be dashed if he isn't quite right.

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On Tuesday, 3 September, the best television channel in the world, the SBS, aired a Cutting Edge documentary called "Seeking Asylum". Those of you who saw it were doubtless moved by the interviews with former detainees now languishing with their TPV's in no man's land, and by the courageous woman who felt it her duty to blow the whistle on the medieval treatment detainees still inside are suffering. And you were no doubt riveted by the apocalyptic crescendo at the end, showing the Woomera protests and breakout.

The Thursday before, Jim Schembri reviewed the show in The Age Green Guide. Here's what he had to say:

"As Australia marks the first anniversary of the Tampa incident and arguments fly back and forth over the boiling issue of asylum seekers, mandatory detention and people smuggling, it is high time for a sober, level-headed, impartial documentary to examine the complex questions involved. Regrettably, this one-eyed, agenda-pushing film does nothing but muddy the waters as it argues the case for tearing down the chicken wire. From asylum seekers and former workers at the media magnet of the Woomera Detention Centre we hear of genuinely appalling conditions inside the camp. Examples of ordeals such as two-year waits without word of progress on visa applications, and the subjection of young girls to the indignity of having to ask male guards for hygiene products offer some understanding of the stresses and frustrations behind the much-publicised acts of protest and self-mutilation. But while a few sensible solutions are briefly touched upon, such as using vacant housing in the township, most arguments presented are as highly emotive as they are watery. Referring to the act of protesters breaking down the fences as a 'groundswell of decency' clearly signals where the film makers are coming from, and when the only person supporting the official case is an official (Philip Ruddock, the Minister for Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs) you know the desire for balance is token. There is nothing wrong with documentarians using emotion, but appealing to the heart isn't the same as getting to the heart of the matter, which the film utterly fails to do."

Schembri's regular gig is reviewing films for The Age's, Friday entertainment supplement, E.G. In this capacity, he routinely skims the surface of quality films before knocking them, while usually praising the latest product from Disney.

Unfortunately, he also writes the odd television review. The above should be an example of a man looking for a new job.

If you read that review on the day, you had to wait five more days to see if he was right. Some would have taken his word for it and given it a bye.

You can draw your own conclusions, but let me state just a few.

Perhaps Jim hasn't been paying attention. Nothing unusual in that. Most Australians have kept their heads in the sand since they voted for John Howard to keep asylum seekers out of sight and out of mind. It's hard to maintain a shameful position over the open-ended incarceration of innocent people without employing the psychological panacea of denial.

Schembri glibly refers to the heinous use of razor wire as mere chicken wire and then claims the waters are being muddied. Perhaps for most people, safe in their smug little homes of hate, the human beings behind the razor wire are no different than the rabbits behind chicken wire in their backyards.

He denounces the doco as emotive and one-eyed (would he have levelled the same charge against a documentary about Auschwitz had it been made during WWII?) when what we really need is a "sober, level-headed, impartial documentary to examine the complex questions involved."

Jim, there is nothing complex about removing democratic freedoms from human beings who have done nothing wrong beyond being deemed inferior. For totalitarian governments, it is as simple as building camps, hiring thugs, and setting up an efficient bureaucracy.

And anyway, just who is going to make a level-headed documentary on this polarising situation? The mother of all one-eyes, the efficient Coalition? There doesn't seem to be anyone in the middle, Jimmy boy. You either support the atrocity or condemn it. John Howard has seen to that.

The fact that someone has tried to bring this crime against humanity to the attention of the public needs praise not condemnation. Unless you're on the one-eyed government's side, that is.

And finally, Schembri complains that the government's position is represented by just one lone voice. Oddly enough that voice is of the man who has engineered the whole thing, Philip Ruddock. Who else should the film makers have spoken to, John Howard? The thing is, Jim, no one else wants to go on record on behalf of this, the darkest episode in Australia's history.

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Strategic opportunist John Howard only does the right thing when forced to. And even then, as with the Children Overboard affair, he weaves and dodges and refuses to come clean.

Now he has admitted that "it is damn near impossible" for families to meet the requirement to predict their income a year in advance under the family and child-care benefits system.

His solution? Families should take less assistance than they are entitled to or wait until the end of the year to receive a "nice chunky cheque".

What a jaunty solution, John!

As we all know, a majority of the 700,000 families effected will be glad to receive less than they are entitled too as long as their little leader keeps those terrorist mums and kids behind razor wire. As for the "chunky cheque," you can bet it would come after Christmas.

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Robert "Jabber" Doyle, newly installed Victorian leader of big business's Illiberal Party, has accepted responsibility for a TV ad based on lies.

Claiming that "violent crime" has risen in the state by 45 per cent in the three years of the Bracksliding Labor Government, Doyle continues the swine tradition of wanton falsifications begun in March 1996 by John Howard. Doyle no doubt took heart from one of the most recent, the "children overboard" episode, where the Coalition's outright lies were eagerly overlooked by a majority of the electorate.

There are no violent crime statistics category kept by the Victorian Police or the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Crime statistics are compiled instead under four broad groups. The Libs lumped these categories together and averaged them out. The real figure is roughly 25 per cent.

Doyle pulled the ad, while accusing the government of "quibbling" about percentages. That's an Illiberal for you.

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John Howard's car was surrounded by students after a function at St Leo's College, Queensland University. They were showing their displeasure at Brendan "My Heart Cries For You" Nelson's latest attempts to reserve tertiary education exclusively for Young Illiberals. 15 were subsequently arrested for obstructing police, disorderly conduct, and breaching the peace. They were ordered to appear in court at a later date.

In the radio news report a Howard supporter was heard to shout, "We love you Johnny, let him go!" It is hard to imagine such a perversion of the lofty concept of love, but there you have it. Presumably this person is also enamoured of Howard's incarceration of children for the sole purpose of remaining in power.

Were Australia France, students would have been scaring John Howard's number one contribution to his nation, his own diarrhea, out of him for years. But since Vietnam, the student population has been in a slumber of complaisance. It is too early to tell (and too much to hope for) if this mini uprising constitutes the beginning of the end for the repugnant weasel.

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