Labor's Apology, Cronulla, Sorry, and Adam Thompson's flag-burning

Are you offended by this pic? Do I deserve to be arrested as a criminal for publishing it? What if I had merely splattered it with Tomato Sauce? Dipped it in bleach? Used it to wrap fish & chips?

The Flag Conservative brigade lurking among the Australian population is now out of the closet, thanks to Howard (er, Howard who?).

Any democratic country which can suggest that burning a piece of cloth, a mere tribal totem, a symbol, should be a punishable crime, has succumbed to the degenerative disease of Chronic Insecurity. Sucked in by the spin. Yup, Howard’s “Keep-em-at-home-and-keep-em-afraid” nationalism campaign was clearly a winner [interpret: ‘loser’], and Fascism is on the loose in your neighbourhood.

Coming to a small screen near you ... Holocaust II:.. the Sequel.

These Flag-Upholding Conservative Klansmen, imagining themselves as Australia’s self-appointed Moral Protectors, are willing to criminalize burners of cloth but remain incongruously silent while their pure white Australian government sanctions the burning alive of people in Fallujah. Likewise, can they even begin to imagine how Aborigines like Tasmania’s Adam Thompson must feel about Australia Day (aka ‘Invasion Day’) and what burning resentments they must feel about dispossession and institutionalized poverty?

In 1992, the High Court recognized native title, ending the historical fiction that Australia was an ‘empty land’ when the British landed at Botany Bay in the 18th century. However, in 1998 the Howard Government countered this with legislation that effectively took away the common law rights that the court said belonged to Aborigines. Nothing as openly racist has been enacted in a modern, democratic parliament. The United Nations has since distinguished Australia with its first adverse finding on racial discrimination against a western nation. (photos above and below: Penny Tweedie, 1982, 1978)

David Malaugi, standing here in 1978 with his family in front of their shack, was a celebrated artist whose painting appeared on the Australian one-dollar note. Like many Aboriginal artists, whose work is shown all over the world, he received little of the material benefits. He epitomises the dignity, hurt, and enduring poverty of Australia’s Aboriginal people. David died in 1998.

PETITION: Support the Federal Government's Apology (GetUp.org).
Better to have Sorry and a tussle about recompense than no Sorry at all.

But YES, even diehard Flag Conservatives like stupid Pauline Pantsdown can change. Australians must begin the long process of re-inventing the social wheel, of restoring the acceptance of “the Other”. Otherness is OK. Not just Toleration of Otherness, but Acceptance. Willing Acceptance (including refugees), and true multi-cultural pride rather than pernicious and divisive censorship:

If flag-burning becomes a crime under Australian law, I will renounce my citizenship and passport. What if, for instance, I wrote a song with anti-nationalistic words like “I Don’t Call Australia Home” or “Racist Matilda” etc. Could ASIO’s Thought Police arrest me? Another example: Singapore's government is suppressing the performances of a choir which is singing songs of dissent about life in Singapore. And this ain't new - look at what happened in the U.S. back in 1734:

Whereas ill-minded and Disaffected Persons have lately dispersed, in the City of New York, and diverse other Places, Several Scandalous and Seditious Libels, but more particularly two Printed Scandalous Songs or Ballads, highly defaming the Administration of His Majesty’s Government in this Province, tending greatly to inflame the Minds of His Majesty’s good Subjects, and to disturb the Publick Peace. And Whereas the Grand Jury for the City and Country did lately, by their Address to me, complain of these Pernicious Practices, and request me to issue a Proclamation for the Discovery of the Offenders, that they might, by Law, recieve a Punishment adequate to their Guilt and Crime. I Have therefore thought fit, by and with the Advice of His Majesty's Council, to issue this Proclamation, hereby Promising Twenty Pounds as a Reward, to such Person or Persons who shall discover the Author or Authors of the two Scandalous Songs ...[etc]

...and a notice in the Tuol Sleng prison, Cambodia, 1970s

Announcing FunkyPix2's simple
FLAG-BURNING KIT...

Try this in your own home!

1. Invite media
2. Strike match
3. Light flag.

REMEMBER: Red, white & blue are RACIST GANG COLOURS and must be pre-emptively eliminated by any means possible.

Go on, Kev, arrest me :-)

---

...and finally, have a cynical giggle at this flash-animated cartoon Truly Sorry by Nicholson of "The Australian".

The Kangaroo's Tale

The "QUIT SMOKING RIGHT NOW" Photo Gallery

From the friendly folks at FunkyPix2 (the world’s first official Non-Smoking Website) comes this collection of nicotine-free photos. Guaranteed to make you dump the rest of the $10 pack of cancer-sticks you just bought. Enjoy a tar-free, stink-free, oxygen-enhanced life from this very moment on:

FunkyPix2 suggests that all Airport Smoking Rooms place this photo on their ceilings. It’s from the Cancer Patients Aid Association. Here’s the full photo:

And while on the topic of old pictures, ya just gotta see this 1950s TV ad for Camel fags... "What cigarette do you smoke, Doctor?"

The No-Smoking Jacket: Be polite - breathe your deadly fumes into a tube concealed in the collar. The smoke passes through a filter embedded in those transparent lungs in front. Gradually the lungs blacken. But it doesn’t specify where the smoke goes afterwards. Smokers should be shunned and excluded even more than lepers once were – after all, we don’t even have to touch a smoker to catch their nasty disease.

…….......… (Jeez, talk about hypocrisy, Mr Mass Murderer Bush!!)

……............…… Fag Hag? (the pic above or below, take your pick)

.... At last – proof that it’s OK for priests to make clouds of smoke at Mass.

.................................. Youse godda match, eh mite?

$20 billion worth of hi-tech weapons to Saudi Arabia? Is the Amerkin Prsdnt NUTS? Or just a blatant Arms profiteer?

Iran might turn the tables on the USA in the Gulf of Hormuz, but Saudi Arabia is equally capable of becoming a turn-coat as America further disgraces itself around the globe. Bush’s weak attempts to please everybody in the Middle-East is being taken as a diplomatic joke in both Washington and in the Bedouin tents of the Arabian desert. You can't run with the foxes and also hunt with the hounds.

* Will this arms sale increase democracy in Saudi Arabia or the wider Middle East? No.

* Will this arms sale increase the opportunity for the advancement of human rights in Saudi Arabia [and] in the broader Middle East? No.

* Will this arms sale increase stability in the Middle East, in the Gulf states? No.

* Will this arms sale increase security for Israel against the threat from Iran, as Bush lamely claims? No.

* Is it correct to assume, as Bush asserts, that his pet Attack Dog (Israel) is the model for Human Rights in the region? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha [choke]

All this, despite the fact Saudi Arabia is, in Bush's terms, exporting more and more terrorism. At least 50 percent of the budget of Hamas comes from Saudi Arabia. I’ll show my hand here too – I don’t obediently swallow Bush's propaganda that Hamas is a terrorist organisation. They have the right and the integrity to be labeled as “Freedom Fighters”. They are the legally elected representatives of Palestinians, after all, even though that democratic decision didn’t suit Bush’s agenda.
If America has learned anything from Iraq and Afghanistan, it is that today’s allies can morph into tomorrow’s enemies all too easily. The CIA funded and armed bin Laden in the 1980s against the Russians in Afghanistan, and he later turned on them. That could easily happen again, this time with Saudi Arabia – despite this latest arms deal appeasement (=bribery?). Yet Bush continues to arm the Saudis to the teeth, despite the fact that they’ve done little to stabalise oil prices, oppose terrorism in the Middle-East, or permit their women to vote or obtain driving licenses.

Senators Robert Wexler and Anthony Weiner are among 51 Democrats (and one courageous Republican!) pointing at Bush’s glaring hypocrisy on the JDAM arms sale (Joint Direct Attack Munitions).

Bush claims steps will be taken to ensure that the weapons for Saudi Arabia would not pose a threat to Israel or weaken Israel's qualitative regional military advantage. (All together now: Ha. Ha.) As usual the media has failed to point out the elephant in the room: this is nothing but another sales campaign in a renewed arms race. It pays Bush to selectively lie in order to secure arms sales to both sides of the conflict.


He’s using the age-old salesman strategy of suggesting to both Israel and the Saudis that they need to “keep up with the Jonses”. [Sound FX of cash register]. And we note that it is in the interests of the world’s biggest arms supplier to start and maintain as many wars as it can possibly manage.
Quote – “Ah’m a warrr prsdnt”.

Ain’t Capitalism grand? And you wonder why I often mock Corporate Globalisation. And as for the Saudis, it also comes down to a basic moral choice between Allah and Moolah. So far, we know which one's winning, but that can all change in a heartbeat if there were to be a change of King (or a change of heart - or an assassination) within the Saudi royal family.

It is now up to the US Congress to decide whether to ratify this latest Saudi arms deal. Congress does have that discretion, but it is up YOU to protest. How loudly can the Amerkin public roar NO?

And to help you roar, here are some of the dubm thangs the Global Village Idiot has actually said:

You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.
...
The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur.
...
[to Brazilian president Fernando Cardoso] Do you have blacks, too?
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I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things.
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I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president.
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First, let me make it very clear -- poor people aren't necessarily killers.
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We had a chance to visit with Teresa Nelson who's a parent, and a mom or dad.
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Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.
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It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way.
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We need to counter the shockwave of the evildoer by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates.
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We need to apply 21st century information technology to the health care field. We need to have our medical records put on the I.T.
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I'm going to spend a lot of time on Social Security. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the issue. I guess, it's the Mother in me.
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Will the highways on the internet become more few? [Shouldn't that be "the internets?"]
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I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his
hand cut off by Saddam Hussein.
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I'm not the expert on how the Iraqi people think, because I live in America, where it's nice and safe and secure.
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The truth of the matter is, if you listen carefully, Saddam would still be in power if he were president of the United States, and the world would be a lot better off.
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We are working hard to convince both the Indians and the Pakis there's a way to deal with their problems without going to war.
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My administration has been calling upon all the leaders in the -- in the Middle East to do everything they can to stop the violence, to tell the different parties involved that peace will never happen.
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First, we would not accept a treaty that would not have been ratified, nor a treaty that I thought made sense for the country.
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I want to thank my friend, Senator Bill Frist, for joining us today....He married a Texas girl, I want you to know. Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me.
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There's no question that the minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead.
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A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it.

.... Amerrka needs a prsdnt whose compitent in at least wun langwidge.