I think I am too liberal for my family nowadays.
We were all such happy true blue conservatives back in New Zealand, where I was brought up on the threat of trade unions, dancing cossacks and filled with embarrassment about spurning Anzus and the Americans. Even when I had a leftist history teacher, and managed to see the Muldoon price and wage freeze as Stalinist, although not quite falling for the drunken 1984 snap election decision story, I have remained right of centre in my homeland politics. Something to do with the current Labour party leadership - and yes, I am jealous that they have been in power for three terms, I admit it LOL.
On this side of the Tasman, I didn't really notice a difference between the left and right in politics, or really care to be quite honest, until the Tampa incident in 2001. Oh, those happy happy pre-9/11 days, where the Australian navy kept a Norwegian freighter outside of territorial waters after it saved refugees from a sinking ship. And then shipped any 'illegal immigrants' off to Papua New Guinea, Nauru or umm New Zealand rather than accept them - such an efficient use of taxpayer's money.
It just exposed the rather xenophobic streak in this country, which the Coalition used to such great effect in flatfooting the Labor Party in the 2001 election. And then it turned out that the 'children overboard' thing was as much a fabrication as the African uranium to Iraq story affecting Washington currently.
And now, with the terrorism laws being fast tracked here, and the arrests of eighteen men in Sydney and Melbourne - overshadowing the far more ambivalently supported industrial relations bill going through Parliament just as fast - the huge press conference by Howard and Ruddock last week, saying there was an imminent threat that needed a couple of pages of the proposed new laws fast tracked - no, surely not the big story just to overshadow WorkChoices, not even the possibility of sneaking it through Parliament without the big song and dance.
And now all the critics of the terrorism laws have to shut up, as my mother said, because some arrests have been made. Liberty takes eternal vigilance, or so one of my quotes of the day on my desk calendar says, and for some reason I don't think civil liberties have been getting the vigilance they deserve lately. And Attorney General Phillip Ruddock basically slapped some judicial criticism down because the critic was an ex-head of the Family Court, and what would they have to do with terror cases - grr, it's called fucking freedom of speech, mate.
And the worst thing, the WORST thing that has happened with these arrests so far isn't so much the fact that we may indeed have Islamic militants in the country, but the fact that the Prime Minister, the Victorian Premier, the New South Wales Premier, assorted federal and state police officials have basically already tainted the jury pool by their comments. Yes, Iemma, just because you say presumption of innocence a day later doesn't mean the landslide of pre-trial comment on the national news is suddenly alright.
And grr, if I have this right, and I admit I may have it wrong, I don't obsess over federal Hansard, but the change that went through on the anti-terror laws last week was changing from making it a crime to talk about a SPECIFIC terrorist act, to a more generalist maybe talking about terrorism or terrorist acts in general. If that made the difference between arresting these guys last week versus arresting them now, hmm - and I think I heard a report saying that one of the judges down in Melbourne saying the prosecution case seemed very vague and a work in progress at this stage.
No doubt said judge will be shamed into retirement in the next month or so.
Going back to the being more liberal than my family motif I started off with, I see erosion of civil rights and the difference between what London police said on the day about the Stockwell tube killing in July versus what came out about the Brazilian handyman running late for work the weeks afterwards - my parents see a shootout outside a mosque and wonder whether the whole Sydney Muslim community are wandering in and out of the mosque with handcannons, and the alleged terrorists should be deported tomorrow.
And I'm not even getting into the idea of stripping citizenship from unAustralian people - even when the government is trying to reassure Muslims they are not second class citizens already - my parents reaction to that is what are they whinging about. Not even going to mention my parents reaction to the riots in France at the moment - deport them all back to Algeria - oops, I wasn't going to mention that - even the French born ones?
Frustrating. Where can I find some like minded liberals LOL. I blame Clinton myself, before he came along, I never even thought of flirting with the left :)
Hmm, that's the term I was trying to think of before - McCarthyist. Those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it indeed. Grrr.
V said the other day that my blog writing is good, apart from when I get into politics - if I didn't write about it, the quality of my overall blog would be better I think she was meaning. And writing about it doesn't affect Canberra or Washington so why do I do it? I think it is kind of cathartic, if I kept it all inside my head or heart I think I would explode :)
And those supporters of the suspects who beat up the media in Melbourne yesterday - hmm, just thinking how much of a crush the media was at the Schapelle Corby verdict in Bali. No, I'm not going to say anything, I am sure there is a paragraph in the new laws about sedition on blogs LOL :)
Vent vent vent...
Pauly
We were all such happy true blue conservatives back in New Zealand, where I was brought up on the threat of trade unions, dancing cossacks and filled with embarrassment about spurning Anzus and the Americans. Even when I had a leftist history teacher, and managed to see the Muldoon price and wage freeze as Stalinist, although not quite falling for the drunken 1984 snap election decision story, I have remained right of centre in my homeland politics. Something to do with the current Labour party leadership - and yes, I am jealous that they have been in power for three terms, I admit it LOL.
On this side of the Tasman, I didn't really notice a difference between the left and right in politics, or really care to be quite honest, until the Tampa incident in 2001. Oh, those happy happy pre-9/11 days, where the Australian navy kept a Norwegian freighter outside of territorial waters after it saved refugees from a sinking ship. And then shipped any 'illegal immigrants' off to Papua New Guinea, Nauru or umm New Zealand rather than accept them - such an efficient use of taxpayer's money.
It just exposed the rather xenophobic streak in this country, which the Coalition used to such great effect in flatfooting the Labor Party in the 2001 election. And then it turned out that the 'children overboard' thing was as much a fabrication as the African uranium to Iraq story affecting Washington currently.
And now, with the terrorism laws being fast tracked here, and the arrests of eighteen men in Sydney and Melbourne - overshadowing the far more ambivalently supported industrial relations bill going through Parliament just as fast - the huge press conference by Howard and Ruddock last week, saying there was an imminent threat that needed a couple of pages of the proposed new laws fast tracked - no, surely not the big story just to overshadow WorkChoices, not even the possibility of sneaking it through Parliament without the big song and dance.
And now all the critics of the terrorism laws have to shut up, as my mother said, because some arrests have been made. Liberty takes eternal vigilance, or so one of my quotes of the day on my desk calendar says, and for some reason I don't think civil liberties have been getting the vigilance they deserve lately. And Attorney General Phillip Ruddock basically slapped some judicial criticism down because the critic was an ex-head of the Family Court, and what would they have to do with terror cases - grr, it's called fucking freedom of speech, mate.
And the worst thing, the WORST thing that has happened with these arrests so far isn't so much the fact that we may indeed have Islamic militants in the country, but the fact that the Prime Minister, the Victorian Premier, the New South Wales Premier, assorted federal and state police officials have basically already tainted the jury pool by their comments. Yes, Iemma, just because you say presumption of innocence a day later doesn't mean the landslide of pre-trial comment on the national news is suddenly alright.
And grr, if I have this right, and I admit I may have it wrong, I don't obsess over federal Hansard, but the change that went through on the anti-terror laws last week was changing from making it a crime to talk about a SPECIFIC terrorist act, to a more generalist maybe talking about terrorism or terrorist acts in general. If that made the difference between arresting these guys last week versus arresting them now, hmm - and I think I heard a report saying that one of the judges down in Melbourne saying the prosecution case seemed very vague and a work in progress at this stage.
No doubt said judge will be shamed into retirement in the next month or so.
Going back to the being more liberal than my family motif I started off with, I see erosion of civil rights and the difference between what London police said on the day about the Stockwell tube killing in July versus what came out about the Brazilian handyman running late for work the weeks afterwards - my parents see a shootout outside a mosque and wonder whether the whole Sydney Muslim community are wandering in and out of the mosque with handcannons, and the alleged terrorists should be deported tomorrow.
And I'm not even getting into the idea of stripping citizenship from unAustralian people - even when the government is trying to reassure Muslims they are not second class citizens already - my parents reaction to that is what are they whinging about. Not even going to mention my parents reaction to the riots in France at the moment - deport them all back to Algeria - oops, I wasn't going to mention that - even the French born ones?
Frustrating. Where can I find some like minded liberals LOL. I blame Clinton myself, before he came along, I never even thought of flirting with the left :)
Hmm, that's the term I was trying to think of before - McCarthyist. Those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it indeed. Grrr.
V said the other day that my blog writing is good, apart from when I get into politics - if I didn't write about it, the quality of my overall blog would be better I think she was meaning. And writing about it doesn't affect Canberra or Washington so why do I do it? I think it is kind of cathartic, if I kept it all inside my head or heart I think I would explode :)
And those supporters of the suspects who beat up the media in Melbourne yesterday - hmm, just thinking how much of a crush the media was at the Schapelle Corby verdict in Bali. No, I'm not going to say anything, I am sure there is a paragraph in the new laws about sedition on blogs LOL :)
Vent vent vent...
Pauly
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