| Australia's Journal of Political Character Assassination | Melbourne, Australia |
SCUM AT THE TOP | Next Issue: 29 Apr 2000 |
| Editor: Harold Hark | Volume 4 Number 8 |
If you still support John Howard,
Outraged citizens used to taunt the Great Helmsman, Jeff Kennett, with shouts of "Heil Jeff," but he had much more in common with old Joe Stalin. For, like Joe, Jeff appreciated the arts and especially the propagandist arts. Malcolm Kennedy has applied his own "penetrating intellect" to compiling some 90,000 words for an up front payment of $100,000 to write the vanity book Jeff always wanted. Like similar works about Stalin, it portrays Comrade Jeff as all the things he wasn't. Kennedy obligingly ensconced himself down the hall from Jeff's office, and duly noted the opposite of what he saw. Thus, Jeff Kennett did not "carry grudges, and never tried to control or silence the media." Chairman Jeff was an "outstanding leader", possessed a "penetrating intellect", and governed with "electrifying enthusiasm". On Kennett's 1992 election victory, Kennedy writes: "He was humble, generous and self-effacing in victory but subtly strong and resolute." What's that? You're going to puke because you remember how, on the night, Jeff referred to Victorians as victims? OK, I'll wait til you get back. Better now? Let's continue. Of Treasurer Alan Stockdale, Kennedy wrote that he was a man who "radiated energy and relieves his serious demeanour with impish flashes of humour". Enough to gag a maggot, eh? Listen to this. Don Hayward--you remember him, the man with the psycho eyes who started the slaughter of state education--is described as "dapper Don" whose "high-domed head suggests intelligence"...... ...... Sorry, I had to make a run to the loo too. Dr Kennedy, a former army instructor at an officer training course that Mr Kennett attended some 30 years ago, is now an academic (albeit disgraced) working out of Monash and Melbourne Universities. (Which makes sense. Both unis are pod laboratories for sociopathic right wingers. La Trobe University, perhaps the last true university in Australia, would have shown the dismal man the door.) He defends his work as a "critical study of the first four years of the Kennett Government". Kennett himself feels "no shame at all that in responding to many people's requests we have tried to have an academic assessment of what was perhaps since the Second World War, the most important four years in Victoria's history". To make sure we know this, Kennett added a proviso to Kennedy's payout (the cheque having been signed on Kennett's last day in office). If the book is not published, Kennedy gets an extra $20,000. Finance Minister John Brumby, who took much abuse from the former Premier, has offered to sell the book to the Liberal Party. One of their born yesterday MP's, Wayne Phillips, has vowed to pass the hat. Short of that, the manuscript will go out to tender. Who will step forward? It will be fascinating to find out. Whew! You wonder how long this Orwellian era is going to last. Sadly, it will be with us until the Liberal Party is finally routed from power. Until then, God help our well being. We were going to add, and God help their souls, but of course, they came off the assembly line without them. (Reference: Ewin Hannan, Adrian Rollins, The Age; Misha Schubert, The Australian 14 Feb 00.) Late Breaking: Wanker Wayne Phillips has indeed secured the Great Tome, and for a bargain basement price: $70,000 only! Smooth move, Wanker Wayne. Don't forget to dial 000 before your heart fails as you clutch the world's only copy to your beating breast. Happy wanking! David Irving: Scum at the Bottom David Irving is "an active Holocaust denier who is anti-Semitic and...associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism," said Judge Charles Gray as he dismissed Irving's libel suit against Professor Deborah Lipstadt for calling him a "dangerous spokesman for Holocaust denial." (Jamie Walker, The Australian 12/4/00.) Justice Gray went on to say: "The charges which I have found to be substantially true include the charges that Irving has for his own ideological purposes persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of Jews." Irving, allegedly funded by several Neo-Nazi groups in his many attempts to legitimise racism, is looking at £2 million ($A5 million) in court costs and legal costs for Professor Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books. It couldn't have happened to a nastier ratbag. Shaming Australia 1: Kosovar Death Sentence is in the Mail Emigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, fresh from a round of shaming his country at the UN, has ordered some 200 Kosovars to return home by Saturday 8 April. Despite their pleas to stay the Minister appears unrelenting. Never mind that many of the refugees are of mixed marriage (Serb and Kosovar Albanian) and that they would be returning to a no man's land, despised by either side, and be almost surely in mortal danger. The rigidity permeating every department of this government means that as usual, cost overrides morality. The Kosovars, who were saved by this government as a last resort, will now leave with a very bad taste in their mouths. But wait, is there hope after all? Ruddock's spokesman says the minister will see the refugees after all. "He will be meeting people face to face and doing them the courtesy of saying farewell." Nope, guess not. Shaming Australia 2: John Howard, Nation Wrecker We don't usually buy the Melbourne Herald Sun. Not because there aren't good journos working there, including one of Australia's best cartoonists, Mark Knight, but because of the redneck bias of the editorial department and the dumb shit readership. Letters to the editor by people whose knuckles are still scraping the ground and Voteline results are just plain scary. Nevertheless, we had to buy the 10 April morning edition. The photo of sobbing eleven year old Kosovar refugee Merinda Fejzul'ahu under the headline "Forced Out" was a tragic example of the effects of Howard Government policies. Here is what the almost evil editorial, "No reason to stay," had to say [our comments in brackets]: "Images of people weeping and others threatening hunger strikes will not help the cause of the stay-put Kosovar refugees. [In other words, the front-page photo is meaningless.] "Anyone with a heart feels sympathy for these people, but no amount of spent emotion can ever be allowed to circumvent our immigration law. [As if such a law were written in commandment-like stone.] "The reason no longer exists to keep these last 100-plus men, women and children in Australia. [UN workers on the ground say otherwise.] "The Democrats accused the Federal Government of a lack of compassion, but the fact is the refugees' cases have been examined thoroughly and the authorities decided it was time for them to go home. [The UNHCR bureaucracy, that is.] "As Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock said: 'I am satisfied they have no claim that would single them out over and above other Kosovo Albanians for persecution.' [That's right. All Kosovo Albanians are likely to be persecuted.] "After all, the refugees' security and care will be supervised by the United Nations and Kosovo awaits the return of its men and women to begin rebuilding after the recent civil war. [It is clear that the UN cannot guarantee security.] "Despite this, Transport Workers' Union organisers talked of trying to block any forced departure of the refugees. The Union should butt out. [Like the Howard Government, the Herald Sun editorship hates anyone, especially the unions, who represent "the rabble," and will use any excuse to attack them.] "The refugees always knew they would be repatriated. Their pleas are no more deserving than those made by thousands of illegal boat people, many of whom have fled cruel and totalitarian regimes. [All refugees should be made comfortable in Australia until their countries are safe. The H-S realises, however, that the Howard Government itself is totalitarian.] "Like the stay-put Kosovars, they failed to qualify for a resident's permit. The Kosovars must accept their fate and go graciously. [On the side of the Masters, the H-S dislikes serfs who complain at the guillotine.]" Here is a typical letter to this newspaper on the Your say page of the same edition: "To Charles Perkins, why are you disrupting the Olympics? What did we do to you?" Two days later the Herald-Sun's notorious Voteline published results to the question: Should the Federal Government deport the remaining Kosovar refugees? Yes: 2399; No: 678. We're sure the newspaper would have no qualms asking readers if they approve of public stoning. You know the answer would be in the affirmative. Contrast the H-S editorial with these excerpts from The Australian newspaper's editorial of the same day... "Immigration authorities are again demonstrating a rule-by-the-book approach in their treatment of Kosovar refugees. As of midnight hundreds of people lost their status as safe-haven refugees and are likely to be detained as illegal immigrants. This was a possibility readily acknowledged when Australia opened its doors--if not its hearts--to victims of the Australian government supported NATO bombing campaign against...Serbia. It is cynical in the extreme now to suggest that because of troubles at this time Australia will not undertake such humanitarian aid in future. "Security conditions in Kosovo, notwithstanding assurances from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, inspire little confidence about a return to a normal life. "Mr Ruddock should have acted earlier to ensure that families who genuinely believed they would be subject to violence and retribution if they went home received the most sympathetic treatment. They are not a threat to Australia. Mr Ruddock's department could have established a mechanism with the help of the UNHCR to determine whether there was any real threat of retribution. As it is, it is hard to determine whether most, if not all, those wishing to remain in Australia are doing so purely because they have decided the grass is greener on this side of the ocean. But does that justify automatic detention? "The question now is one of process versus compassion. It is a dichotomy which frequently emerges as Immigration authorities go about their work. It is clear that conditions in Kosovo are by no means stable: it has not even returned to the state of unease that prevailed before Milosevic's ethnic cleansing began. So it is not unreasonable that some people will be fearful about returning. Yet the official response is to tell the Kosovars their concerns are unwarranted and, because the UN agreed at the time they became refugees that they would return home, we insist that they do so. This is mean-spirited because it confirms Australia's supposed generosity at the time of the bombing crisis was heavily qualified. It underlines that handling of the Kosovar refugee issue has been niggardly and over-cautious. "Little has been learned in the succeeding year that promotes compassion in dealing with those displaced. Australia is a rich country with a publicly promoted policy of generosity. Putting people in the position of going on hunger strikes to avoid compulsory return does little for our reputation. It reinforces the view that the Immigration Department (if not its minister) is short on human feelings as well as clear thinking. Mr Ruddock must now reconsider detention for the remaining Kosovar refugees. Compassion demands it." ...and that of The Age, "Kosovar stand-off shames Australia," on 11 April: "While immigration officers were scouring Sydney and Hobart for absconding Kosovar refugees yesterday, KFOR peacekeeping troops were clashing with about 100 angry Serbs in the divided Kosovo town of Mitrovica. The peacekeepers were protecting three ethnic Albanian Kosovar employees of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe who had unwisely strayed into the Serb-dominated north of the town. The clash was typical of the daily violence and intimidation that have occurred since international forces began arriving in the province last June. "The Age has often criticised Australia's propensity to imprison people who are not criminals and who came here to escape oppression in their home countries. A case might at least be argued for the practice as a discouragement to people who are simply seeking to flout immigration law, but the Kosovars are hardly in that category. In many cases they literally have no homes or jobs to return to, and even those who do surely have good reason to fear a revival of ethnic conflict that forced them out of Kosovo in the first place. The government has given no explanation of why it cannot exercise discretion on humanitarian grounds to allow the remaining Kosovars to stay. At the very least they should be allowed the same right as any other foreigner on Australian soil to apply for residence here. Australia's international reputation for generosity is on the line." These editorials pretty well sum up the Australia we are standing in today, thanks to John Howard. The polarisation is nearly complete. Families, neighbourhoods and the community in general find themselves facing off between those who hate against those who don't hate. The tragedy is that there are so many of us who don't think we hate but who deep down hold those superior, self-serving seeds of revulsion against colour, nationality and religion, without comprehending the reasons why those who are detested are in fact so detestable. What is the difference between a drunken Aborigine and a drunken white? In a word, opportunity. The trashiest white person has had more potential opportunities than Aboriginals have ever dreamed of. Yet, the hateful among us refuse to see this. They start from a position of superiority in dealing with any culture foreign to their own. They sneer at the bulging obesity of Aboriginals, as their own white children grow more obese from McDiets and soft drink. They snarl at the lack of initiative or motivation to be found in Aboriginal settlements, as if these people could move freely among whites. They can't. They never have, and this government is going to make sure they never do. The quantum leap that requires compassion to raise this level of human evolution is as far off as ever. At least half of us are self-serving racists (while the other half is trying to curb such tendencies). These people know nothing of the world outside the white picket fence of their dreams, and they have no desire to know. Because they think their patch of earth on this planet is God's own, they automatically think that people from other countries will do anything to inhabit that patch. It is beyond the scope of their intelligence to understand that foreigners love their countries just as much, but because of despotic governments, much like the Howard Government only several degrees worse, are forced to flee for their lives. These hatemongers are the wilfully ignorant who live in an intellectual flatland, where a second dimension is as unheard of as the concept of "opportunity" is to Aborigines. They are afraid of the knowledge that is out there. They don't want it to be known and they hate the people who have it. It is indeed physically depressing to view Australia today. Not because John Howard's small-brained view will forever hold sway, but because it has happened so often in the past. It is a constant struggle to fight the lowest common denominator within each of us, to maintain a civilised society in which all people at all levels have the opportunity to contribute either a great deal or just a little according to their abilities. With sickening regularity these small successes are reversed. The latest round of berserk racism was at the hands of Milosevic in Kosovo (whose regime, Australia alone is now supporting with an ambassador), before that Botha in South Africa, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Hitler in Germany, and on and on. These are and were ideologies of superiority which led to despotism and the raising of the few over the many, to a culling of the less fortunate, and in so many cases, to the destruction of the intelligentsia. And now Australia joins this despicable league of traitors to the human race with the smallest of men at the helm, John Howard. Paul Keating needed to go, but did we deserve this? And we wonder how long it will take for people to start leaving this country, as they did in Hitler's Germany. Surely it will not come to that. But of course, that is exactly what the Germans thought. Howard's somnambulant ambiguity over the race issue and all things to do with economic and artistic creativity, is perhaps the worst indicator of a country in crisis. Were he a Hanson, we would know where he stood and act accordingly. But we don't know where Howard stands on anything beyond taxing the poor and destroying unions, because neither does he. That is why he represents the greatest ever threat to the stability of Australia. His indecisiveness is lighting fires on all sides and they are not far from joining in a massive conflagration. We're glad we don't live in Sydney, for the Olympics look like a fire storm in the making. Shaming Australia 3: Our Mate, Slobodan Little Lord Downer, the Minister for Foreign Supplications, says he is unaware of international concerns over Australia sending an ambassador to Yugoslavia. Well, he wouldn't would he? It's Howard Government policy to become the world's new pariah. Who cares that Slobodan Milosevic is an indicted war criminal? "...We recognise states, not governments," says Downer. Malcolm Fraser, who could have been twice the man he is had he chucked in his Liberal Party membership a decade ago, is not fussed. "The Government had already said we were going to keep our embassy open," said he. There's that rigidity again. Most shameful of all, the new ambassador, Charles Stuart, will present his credentials personally to Milosevic. Perhaps he is hoping to see Mira as well, in order to present Janette's respects along with a little gift, perhaps a hand made doily of material gotten for free from the efforts of unpaid textile workers. Shaming Australia 4: We Have a Rogue Government in Canberra The question of whether the Howard Government is terminally out to lunch, simply incompetent, or truly racist has surely been settled. It is all three. Several backbenchers had the chance to go down in history as heroes over mandatory sentencing, but they caved in. Danna Vale, with quavering voice, told Parliament that she would not be crossing the floor to vote against the criminal law because it "would hurt the government." In other words, she might lose her job. As a letter to the Age pointed out, "...is a decent Liberal an oxymoron?" John "The Gentleman Racist" Herron's submission to the Senate inquiry on the stolen generation, which claims that since only an alleged 10 per cent of Aboriginal children were taken from their homes (with "essentially lawful and benign intent") there constitutes no stolen generation whatsoever, is a breathtaking admission of moral ignorance. Peter Yu, in The Australian (3 April), says, "How then does [Herron] explain that in 1958 almost half of all children in the Kimberley were in some kind of mission or institution? This shows how many of our people were affected by government policies relating to child removal. "These were not the actions of well-meaning individuals but the consequence of considered government policy. In 1938, at a meeting of all Aboriginal affairs ministers, a new policy of removing children of mixed descent from their families was adopted. This policy was aimed at the "biological absorption" of people of mixed descent into the broader Australian community, while the remainder would pass away over the successive generations. The thinking was that Aboriginal people would cease to exist." The two-headed John Monster, Herron and Howard, either does not know Australian history or chooses to ignore it. As for Jackie Huggins' comment that Senator Herron's submission is comparable to people who deny the Holocaust ever occurred, we have Senator Jocelyn Newman missing the mark altogether by saying that "it was disgraceful to use the Holocaust as a comparison." The comparison is not with the Holocaust itself but with those who deny it. But this is just another example of a government that twists the truth of the heart into an insult to the intelligence. This is a truly clueless government. In the face of UN condemnation over mandatory sentencing, they run up the heels of that controversy with this blatant attempt to wipe reconciliation off the board. With the Olympics about to draw the attention of the world, they deliberately inflame every Aboriginal and most whites. Having done this, they conclude that it is "un-Australian" to voice objections by drawing worldwide attention at the Olympic Games. If there is racial unrest or blood on the streets, the blame will lie squarely on the shoulders of John Howard, the man who knows what Hitler knew, that racism is a vote getter. (Reference: Tony Wright, Kerry Taylor, Michael Gordon, The Age 3 April 00.) Elevator Music to Win the War on Drugs In the attempt to drive out hordes of loitering youths and drug dealers from Rundle Mall, Adelaide City Council has invoked the recently passed Auditory Euthanasia law. Henceforth the Muzak system will be playing Richard Clayderman, Kenny G, and other elevator music notables. Matthew Spencer, reporting in The Australian (11 April) says: "There are no studies yet done on what this may do to retailers but the council believes it is having a desirable effect on loitering levels." Unfortunately no one pays attention to music in malls, and the subsequent reduction in untoward youths is due to increased police surveillance. A police spokesman said, "I don't know where they've got the idea music will move people on. Nobody notices it until it is pointed out." Plans to legalise drugs and remove them from the highly desirable "forbidden" zone beloved of rebellious youth the world over remain pigeonholed, as ever, up the nether regions of politicians. In the meantime, retailers are calling for more upbeat music to keep them from falling asleep at the till. Too bad for them: coming up the elevator just now are the blue rinse warblings of Simon Gallagher and the reactionary tunes of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Our Bludging Cousins in the Northern Territory Four Corners recent doco on Mandatory Sentencing showed the post-election party at CLP headquarters, in which a reduced majority had returned the party and its racist law. After Denis Burke's salvo to the Four Corners crew, "a big, beefy Territorian put the mood...even more succinctly. His interjection, 'go home bludgers', aimed directly at the ABC's camera crew for the benefit of the rest of Australia, was greeted with approving laughter by Burke and the rest of the audience." (Ken Davidson, "How to make NT drop its jail laws" The Age, 6/4/00.) And wasn't that laughter reminiscent of businessmen guffawing as Jeff Kennett shovelled sand at camera crews! Davidson goes on to reveal how Northern Territorians are the biggest bludgers in Australia, taking some $6,000 general revenue assistance from the Federal Government per capita, or "seven times the amount of General Revenue Assistance to each person in Victoria and New South Wales. The NT even gets three times the amount of the per capita assistance that goes to Australia's poorest state, Tasmania. "There can be no question that Territorians like mandatory prison sentences. But it costs $150 a day to keep each prisoner in NT prisons. Would Territorians be so keen on the policy if they, rather than the rest of us, were paying the price? Recurrent spending on all corrections in 1999 was $211 per Territorian, compared to $34 per Victorian. "If John Howard can't bring himself to override NT sentencing legislation, he should cut NT funding until the CLP comes to its senses." But we know The Ugly Australian won't, unless backbencher nightmares over what is right and wrong surface again to threaten his job. (See also: Peter Nicholson's cartoon in The Australian of 10 April.) Midnight in the Garden of Dr Evil Susan Davies, Victoria's Independent MP for Gippsland West, has written to the Federal Wealth Minister Dr Evil Wooldridge asking him to revoke Jeff Kennett's promotion as chairman for the National Foundation Researching Depression. She claims that Kennett, a notorious recidivist bully, is the worst man for the job. "I feel he is a very poor role model for young people in particular, because we know that kids who are bullied at school are more prone to depression." She claims that Kennett's original suggestion to found such a body was merely a ploy to gain electoral favour as a caring person. Of course Dr Evil dismissed her pathetic little request. His mate Jeff has been resurrected and whether he's the man for the job or not can surely be of no importance to the riff raff out there who can't keep a chin up. Indeed, it is rumoured that Jeff will be exempted from having to pay the $1400 to $2500 entry fee to Dr Evil's Wine and Dine soirees. Known as a collector of fine wine at taxpayer's expense, the Wealth Minister has for several years been sharing them with paying customers. Seems he needs to pad his electoral fund and what better way than to charge well-heeled medical specialists who need an audience to plea for little favours. Of course the law forbids donations above $1500, so the clever Dr invited supplicants to either fork out $1400 or split larger donations with their partners. Totally above board (in a stinking political sewer). Mollified by this law-abiding behaviour, we are therefore convinced that radiology scans were never the subject of crystal-clinking conversation. Hanson Contributes to Sainthood "A telemovie about the would-be assassination of former One Nation leader Pauline Hanson was no more offensive than the average action film, its director, Bob Short, said. "'The Lone Gunman Theory,'" which screened on Channel 31 in Sydney on Sunday, shows Ms Hanson shot by a gangster in a bid to redeem his soul." (The Age 12 April 00) Now there is a man who knows how to gain redemption! |
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