Major Magoo declares war on Australia
And here you thought he was declaring war on terrorism.
Au contraire, étreintres d'arbres, he's jeopardised every man woman and child in this country by refusing to consult or at least advise any country in our region about sending troops to Afghanistan. Never mind consulting our own Parliament or the people of Australia. Not only that, but the United States doesn't even care!
He is setting us up, as he has done during all of his five and a half years in power by turning his back on our region, to be despised by thousands of South-east Asians, who just happen to be very bloody close!
And not only is pinché Juanito promising us that our children will be killed and maimed (but not his children) and that he wants Usama bin Laden to be executed at Kirribilli House, but Corporal Costello is baying for our blood too. See Gort Slypesunder
Ken Davidson says: "It may be perfectly clear in the West that this is a war against terrorism and not a war against Islam ... but this is not necessarily the way the exercise of Western military might will appear to many citizens of Islamic countries ...
" ... even if the US succeeds in rooting out the terrorists who attacked America, the military intervention will have provided an additional sense of grievance for a new generation of terrorists.
"It is reasonable to expect that if Australia is militarily engaged in a war against terrorism, that the terrorists will take the view that they are engaged in a terrorist war against Australia as well as the US.
"As in the past, Australia is rushing into conflict with its eyes shut. At the very least, the government should be exhibiting some sign that it is looking after the home front."
But it is not. This move is motivated as much to shore up the illusion of John Howard's leadership as it is by a patriotic duty to help America: "See? I'm being a leader. 1550 corpses and a bunch of floating and flying contraptions is a small price to pay for three more years of me."
Looking like a corpse in its early stage of decay, John Howard announced the deployment of troops to the nation with a 20 second media sound bite. His shifting eyes perhaps betrayed a glimmer of awareness that he was upping Hickoryhead Wantwit's request merely to get re-elected. There was no real sense of national urgency to protect Australia against terrorism, but merely the motions of a man who is out of his depth and tired of being so. As Bob Brown says, the forces in Afghanistan should be deployed by the United Nations. Either that, or the attack on America should be treated as a criminal prosecution instead of carpet bombing an entire nation. That Australian blood could be spilled in a war that should not be happening and cannot be won is obscene.
A letter from Paul Drakeford to The Age (18/10/01) sums up the men who historically sign death warrants for their citizens:
"So Howard and Beazley will stand right behind our armed forces, but neither will stand in front. This is called rear echelon leadership. Unless, of course, they all need to beat a hasty retreat, in which case our leaders will lead by example."
John Howard's eye for international affairs has always been blind. He is a domestic Prime Minister, interested only in domestic issues. While the asylum seekers and the terrorist attacks in America will likely see him through to a third term, these opportunities have exhausted his reserves of energy. There is a very real sense that John Howard is running on empty, that everything he does is by rote, that he would very much like to just stay in bed. How ironic it is that the events which will push him over the line come November 10 are events which he is manifestly incompetent to deal with.
Finally, can we have no more of the "leadership" word as applied to John Howard? He's a follower, full stop. He follows the polls, Pauline Hanson, anything America does and whatever Janette tells him. He's run away from further debates (his worn out power-gold tie failed him in the first and only). When he does exhibit something approaching leadership he uses it to silence people with a conscience in his own party.
Another civilisation to bite the dust?
As the fear of Anthrax-in-the-letter-box and worse threatens to soften the larval psyches of that majority of the population the world over which refuses to participate in the governing of their countries and are thus at the mercy of the gangsters who take power, it is worth noting the following from Bio-War: the ultimate terror, by Tony Mangold and Jeff Goldberg (co-authors of Plague Wars, published by Macmillan) in The Age Agenda, 14 October 2001 (gasp!):
At the first shred of evidence that a credible bio-terrorism attempt has taken place, the public infrastructure will begin to collapse. Even a small terrorist attack would probably be followed by a small epidemic. People would start appearing in emergency rooms and doctor's offices with strange and inexplicable maladies. Depending on the biological agent and its incubation period, it could be days or even weeks after the deliberate release of the organism before a clearly defined illness emerged. Very few physicians are trained to diagnose illnesses caused by the pathogens most likely to be used in biological attack. As the word spread, panic would develop, movements would have to be restricted, very few antibiotics or treatments would be available, and the concept of Judeo-Christian burial would disappear. The first lime pits might emerge since the Middle Ages. Law and order could only survive under a vicious martial law system.
It seems delusional that such attacks will not eventuate. We are in uncharted waters here, and the lack of leaders with wisdom is not helping. The carpet bombing of Afghanistan is merely the product of Bush the Smaller regressing to the actions of Bush the Somewhat Bigger. All of the latter's advisers are still pushing the buttons.
Were the majority as interested in electing people with their best interests in mind as they are in their regional sporting events, much of the current horror in the world would have remained in the genre of fictional potboilers.
Alas, we are a species barely upright. The brotherhood of man is still the fiction it always was. In it's place: greed, envy, intolerance, wilful ignorance.
Co-incidentally, the very foundations of John Howard's rule.
Squire Shier to expire on pyre of ire
Only the Howard Government, committed as it is to dumbing down the country in the interests of philistine elitism, could have permitted a fool like Jonathan Shier to remain in power so long.
Here, we thought a comparison with Zippy the Pinhead's favourite malevolent force, Mr. Toad (left), would be in order.
"Mr. Toad ... enjoys seeing other people squirm as a result of his words and deeds. His motto is, 'Screw them before they can screw you'. He's a big, green sociopath with a permanent chip on his shoulder, full of bully vengeance. He hates show biz and celebrities -- but he loves to hate them. He wears his alienation proudly, aware that it's the source of not just his anger, but his power. He's cynical, abusive and very large. 'Don't goad the Toad'".
Of course Mr. Toad is a class act compared to Jonathan Shier, that quintessential Illiberal - cunning, dumb, with an inflated self-worth. For 19 months he has shamed himself as the ABC's hangman, carrying out the national broadcaster's garrotting at the behest of the Howard Government. Now he finds himself without the backing of chairman Donald McDonald and, reportedly, eight of the 12 members of the board.
To which Shier has responded: "In terms of the executive, I am absolutely satisfied they are thrilled with what we are doing, they feel very upbeat about what we are achieving and I have absolutely no doubt we are moving forward in a positive way."
Thrilled?
Graeme Thomson of the Community and Public Sector Union is one of millions who would be "thrilled" if Shier resigned immediately. "He has overseen the wide-spread destruction of Australia's most important institution," said Thomson, who also believes that McDonald's withdrawal of support has the blessing of the Prime Minister. "There's a growing realisation that Shier is an electoral liability -- and that's the view that's been taken by a very political board."
However, Peter The Jerk, Michael Kroger and Two-cans-and-a-string Minister Richard Alston see it much like Shier does. Alston: "I think he (Shier) has embarked upon a reform agenda which is very important for the long-term future of one of Australia's great cultural institutions."
'Nuff to make ya puke.
But wait, there's more. In his 15 second press conference on the subject Shier said, "I know I have the support of the executive, I believe I have the support of the board and the only call for my resignation has been from the union. Graeme Thomson does not have any influence here at the ABC." Upon which he jumped up and fled in all haste, his hired goon knocking to one side heroic reporter Amanda Meade.
Will the board follow through and sack him? Unfortunately, they are mostly Illiberals and we know how much spine Illiberals have from the way they cower when John Howard shouts them down.
Imagine being made to cower by John Howard!
For the consummate summation on Shier, see Errol Simper's "Shier Straits".
When meeting a known Howard Government supporter, quickly place the extended middle finger of one hand midway and perpendicular to the extended middle finger of the other hand, thus forming a cross. Verbalise the incantation against evil of your choice.
A Howard supporter writes:
FROM: i_hate_commies@Rightwing.com.au
I came across your web site: SCUM AT THE TOP, and I found it 2 be nothing but tree hugging socialist scum sucking shit.
You must one of those damn labour loving blood sucking socialist slims that can only dribble about poor Islamic terrorist boat people that throw their disgust kids in the sea in an attempt to seek a better life without having to work for it in Australia under the Great our great nation leader ship of JOHN HOWARD!!!
unsigned
Where's Me Tablets!
by Gort Slypesunder
• Corporal Costello begs terrorists to hit Oz: " ... we speak English, we are an ally of the United States, we have been strong in supporting the Western alliance around the world, we were involved in the Gulf War." Thus spake Peter the Jerk. Ergo we are high up on the terrorist's hit list: "Number one, the United States, probably number two Britain, and then sort of Canada and us."
Good grief! This childish summing up from the man who would replace Major Magoo! Do the young sons of Australia really want to get their nuts shot off to enhance the career of this buffoon?
• At last! Melbourne, which is facing water rationing in the near future, has been subjected to the loss of one million litres of drinking water per day because Transurban-Obayashi, builders of the infamous Kennett Tunnel, have been using them to recharge ground-water aquifers around the tunnel to keep the bloody thing from collapsing. The new system is not expected to be up and running until May next year, so we can still look forward to rationing come summer. It would take a team of researchers many years to assess the crimes against Victorians committed by the Kennett Government, but this deal would have to be very high on the list.
• Having lifted sanctions against Fiji just hours before their federal election of October 5 -- in which George Speight was elected to office from his prison cell -- the Howard Government has had it's covers pulled as to why. They tried to keep it secret, but the Fiji government has announced that Australia has approached them to process future asylum seekers! Soon the corrupt government of John Howard will be propping up all the corrupt governments in the Pacific.
• It should have made page one, but Clare Martin's Northern Territory Labor government has repealed the heinous Mandatory Sentencing Act, bringing to a close a dark chapter in Australia's history. Criminals serving mandatory sentences are being urged to apply for release. How ironic it is that the Howard Government has taken the baton by introducing mandatory sentencing laws for people smugglers ... and God knows who else in this era of militarism.
• Cripes, Cheryl, enough is enough! Her Grand Defection to Labor-- remember it? All programming interrupted for the big press conference -- has been a flop. It hasn't helped that the Illiberal Party has made it sub-text policy to go after her like a pack of gang rapists. But Cheryl's unprofessional whinge at the last election about being given a less than safe seat (though true) didn't sit well with voters. Between elections we didn't see much of her (not her fault, probably), but the latest shemozzle over her retaliation for Illiberal stalking -- to wit, why Illiberal candidate Peter Dutton is an ex-policeman -- may have sealed her doom. Illiberal leaders of the pack have filed through Dickson like a parade of wah-wah's bent on taking her scalp. With a swing of 0.2 per cent needed, and with Illiberal party lies being swallowed by the electorate like anthrax encrusted lamingtons, she may well be on her way out. Dear Cheryl ... she's like the dingbat Aunt you always admired for her principled stand on issues, but whose erratic behaviour has consigned her to memory as ... a dingbat.
• Heroic High Court Judge Michael Kirby continues to make the squidgereens feel even smaller. Speaking at Wollongong University, he diced and sliced those who keep promoting the idea that judges should butt out of political discourse.
Referring to recent claims by a media commentator (Paddy, Andrew, Piers?) that his comments amounted to partisan intervention in political debate, he said:
"His was yet another instance of the intolerance that is creeping into public discourse in this country when points of view are expressed with which one does not immediately agree. That is an attitude ... which, unless one is careful, can lead to the Australian intellectual equivalent of Kandahar."
On the US computer games in Afghanistan, he said that law, and not war, was the appropriate answer to events such as the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Criticising the US for opposing the setting up of the International Criminal Court, which would try war criminals, he said, "Ironically, the chief opponent of this instrument of international law is the United States of America. I suppose it is in the nature of things that if you are the greatest power on earth, you resist submitting your power to the controls of law."
(Based on an articles by Benjamin Haslem, The Australian, and Darrin Farrant, The Age.)
• Well, that's how the US operates. Israel isn't much better. Try this:
A Palestinian cameraman, who last year shocked the world with his footage of a Palestinian boy dying in his father's arms after apparently being hit by Israeli bullets, has been prevented from receiving a prize in London by Israeli authorities.
Israeli military officials told Talal Abu Rahma, from the France 2 [that's Antenne 2] channel, that he could not go to London to receive the prize from the Roy Peck foundation, "for security reasons", the cameraman said.
• Another hero who won't say die is solicitor Eric Vadarlis. Lawyers acting for him are lodging papers with the High Court to have the full Federal Court ruling that the asylum seekers had not been illegally detained while on the Tampa overturned. Though with American Supreme Court look-alike and Howard sympathiser Ian David Francis Callinan on board as the seventh man, the otherwise balanced six members will count for nothing. Nevertheless, we salute Vadarlis for his principled stand.
•You want proof of reincarnation? The same people who elected Adolph Hitler have come back to re-elect John Howard.