Update : Following the publication of the article by SBS about his desire to assault gays, John has now protected his tweets. D’oh!
OK. So. Like… just as nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition, so nobody — in their right mind — expects political subtlety, or nuanced economic or social analysis, from the remnants of the One Nation Party. So I wasn’t terribly surprised when, in response to Family First Queensland Senate candidate Wendy Francis’ recent homophobic outburst, John Groves, president of One Nation in Victoria, expressed his support. As in, his preparedness — “love” even — for “Phoofter Bashing”. Looking at some of his other, earlier tweets, however, revealed some other, rather disturbing sentiment:
Stormfront, eat your heart out!
Bonus ONE NATION TAX POLICY!
“Only by reforming the Nation[‘]s finances & taxation can we save Australia from the control of the CFR. [Council on Foreign Relations] moneymen… One Nation is ashamed of our Government Ministers who travel around the world with begging bowls, cringing at the feet of the CFR (Zionist Bankers) for their cut from the IMF slush funds, & borrowing money to pay for our imports, foreign aid & fund their economic mis-management of our economy, defying the Australian Constitution & abrogating their elected responsibility to the Australian people.”
If any one lie with a man as with a woman, both have committed an abomination: let them be put to death. Their blood be upon them.
Leaving aside the fact that the passage has been subject to quite different interpretations, the most accepted appears to be encapsulated in the title of a song the Queensland-based neo-Nazi band ‘Open Season’ will be performing in Melbourne on September 25: ‘Kill the Poofs’.
One indication of the general shift in social attitudes towards homosexuality in Australia is the fact that such invocations to (deadly) violence, discipline and punishment are no longer enshrined in law; in fact — or rather, in theory — they actually run counter to anti-vilification legislation. Beyond this, such views are repudiated by a large majority, receive no (or very little) support in major social institutions, and are typically regarded as simply barbaric (as well as er, crackpot). On the other hand, full equality before the law remains somewhat elusive, and recent attempts to bring about legislative change have met with considerable opposition.
See also : Coming Forward – The underreporting of heterosexist violence and same sex partner abuse in Victoria, William Leonard, Anne Mitchell, Sunil Patel, Christopher Fox, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS), 2008 (PDF).
In this context, the decision by the Liberal National Party in Queensland to preference Family First ahead of every other candidate for the Australian Senate is remarkable. The lead candidate for Family First is Wendy Francis. Wendy has stated that “Children in homosexual relationships are subject to emotional abuse and legitimising gay marriage is like legalising child abuse” (on Twitter), and later compared a so-called “parentless” generation with the “stolen generations” — a highly questionable framework in which to place such family arrangements (to put it mildly).
In 2004, Victorian ALP preferences ensured Family First Senator Steve Fielding was elected to Parliament. In 2010, it may be that the public has the Queensland LNP to thank for the election of another Christian fundamentalist to high office.
See also : Lib holds on to his candidacy, Dan Oakes, The Age, August 10, 2010 (“A COALITION candidate for an ultra-marginal seat has retained his preselection despite being accused of anti-Semitism, homophobia and misogyny.”) | One Nation in gay vilification complaint, AAP, August 9, 2010 (“Gay rights activist Gary Burns has lodged an anti-discrimination complaint against a One Nation candidate in the federal election.”) | One Nation member ‘promoting gay bashing’, SBS, August 9, 2010 (“The incident began when 30-year old computer programmer Nicholas Perkins criticised Ms Francis’ comments on homosexuality via [Twitter]”).
North Korea has reportedly executed a former cabinet minister who was in charge of talks with South Korea…
2004
14th Inter-Korean Ministerial Talks Open
Pyongyang, May 5 (KCNA) — The 14th north-south ministerial talks were opened here today. At the talks Kwon Ho Ung, chief councilor of the DPRK Cabinet, who is the head of the north side’s delegation and Jong Se Hyon, minister of Unification, who is chief delegate of the south side made keynote speeches. Kwon Ho Ung elaborated that the joint military exercises the south side stages with the U.S. are a main factor of straining the overall situation on the Korean peninsula and jeopardizing the inter-Korean relations…
Reiterating the unshakable stand of the north not to compromise with such attitude of the south side, Kwon strongly demanded the south side take a corresponding measure to prevent the recurrence of what happened…
Above : Boneheads gather outside the Virginia Palms Hotel in Brisbane. The meathead on the right reading the newspaper is wearing a ‘Ravenous’ t-shirt — Ravenous is a Melbourne-based neo-Nazi reich ‘n’ roll band: the band’s merch is available for purchase through local neo-Nazi outlet 9%.
Australia First Party members and supporters and various other racist trash — including neo-Nazi skinheads — have this week unexpectedly joined multi-million dollar Christian charity/business ‘Mission Australia’ in Brisbane, ostensibly in order to “TRANSFORM the lives of homeless Australians who don’t have the power to choose where they sleep each night” as part of ‘National Homeless Persons Week’ (August 2–8, 2010). Thus a handful of racist cranks, in response to Mission Australia’s appeal to organise a ‘Winter Sleepout’, organised one to take place outside of the Virginia Palms Hotel in the Brisbane suburb of Boondall. The Hotel briefly came to public attention when in May 2010 homeless advocacy group / private equity firm CVC Capital Partners revealed that approximately 80 asylum seekers had been transferred there from their prison on Christmas Island.
The Australia First Party has come up with its own win-win solution for raising funds for the homeless and awareness about the plight of boat people this National Homeless Persons Week.
Under Mission Australia’s Winter Sleepout banner, a goon squad of AFP members camped outside the Virginia Palms Hotel in the Brisbane suburb of Boondall.
The choice of campsite was influenced by the 80 women and children seeking asylum being put up in the hotel instead of Christmas Island.
Mission Australia become incandescent with outrage when it learnt AFP was subverting its Winter Sleepout. It demanded an immediate end to fund-raising activities as it considered the political party pushed “hateful and divisive views”.
The AFP’s Jane Mengler offered to return funds collected during the sleepout.
Mission Australia has declared that it’s been “Sleeping out since 1988!” — that is, 10 years prior to it becoming one of a handful of similar charities/businesses to take advantage of the privatisation of the government un/employment networks under HoWARd — but the intervening decades don’t appear to have lessened the problem by any significant degree. Presumably, the $20,000+ Mission Australia has raised this year through its stunt activity will help supplement its $220 million annual budget, although I’m guessing that in 12 months time another Winter Sleepout may be scheduled.
It’s a smart move by AF to draw attention to the seeming disparity between the treatment homeless persons in Australia receive and that provided to asylum seekers; certainly, politicians are unlikely to announce that, such is the pressing need for housing, their governments will provide emergency hotel accommodation to the thousands who sleep rough. Of course, governments do provide millions in short-term funding to slumlords, but that’s another story — as is an analysis of the social structures which produce both homes and homelessness.
“Let every dirty, lousy tramp arm himself with a revolver or a knife, and lay in wait on the steps of the palaces of the rich and stab or shoot the owners as they come out. Let us kill them without mercy and let it be a war of extermination without pity.” (Lucy Parsons quoted in Women Building Chicago 2001, p. 671)
Before I saw it, I didn’t know that The Old School of Capitalism (in addition to REAL! LIVE! WORKERS!) *ed Ratibor Trivunac (as well as Tadej Kurepa), but I do now… having seen it screen as part of MIFF. Art imitates life imitates art, and the troubles facing the anarchists on film came to a head IRL in the Serbian state’s botched attempt to frame Trivunac, Kurepa and four others for the crime of international terrorism — a legal predicament which stretched from August 2009 through to June 2010.
The film itself is long (perhaps overly-so — several walked out before it ended) and overly-didactic… although maybe not, as I found the scenes in which there was intense discussion kinda interesting, as well as unusual. Nonetheless, at over two hours, the lessons being taught became repetitive, and the drama could easily have been compressed into a shorter time-frame…
A quasi-documentary, the film’s depiction of the “deteriorating socio-economic landscape” of Serbia sits somewhat uneasily alongside the film’s narrative. On the one hand, the general dynamic governing this decline — privatisation (corporatisation) of state (public) assets, and the general marketisation of social relations — is dramatised fairly well, and often humourously, but whatever is distinctive about the Serbian experience of these changes is unclear. That is, I didn’t feel like I gained any particular insight into how these general processes applied in the particular case of Serbia. Thus, while the film utilises footage from a small number of recent public protests, I never really got a sense of these having developed in any particular manner, or understood how they related to previous decades of struggle.
I dunno: maybe I need a little more time to reflect.
Hi, we’re Obvious™. Our goal is to create interesting things that matter to the world—and a great place for creative, smart people to work.
LOL.
HERALD Sun columnist and blogger Andrew Bolt has hit out at the person behind a Twitter account impersonating him.
Fake Andrew Bolt is threatening to sue Real Andrew Bolt. Note that the fake UK trollumnist who writes for The Daily Mail using the pen name ‘Melanie Phillips’ was similarly irked by The Real Melanie Phillips http://twitter.com/mphillips51 on Twitter. Several days ago she successfully had the account pulled.
Twitter is not a great place for creative, smart parodists to work… Obviously™.
1. Building Australia Party : These blokes wanna build stuff. But government red tape stops them. If you wanna help build a BETTER Australia, Vote 1 BAP in Bennelong, Greenway, Macarthur in NSW and in the NSW, SA and VIC Senates.
2. Ecological Social Justice, Aboriginal Party (WA) / First Nations Original Peoples Party (NT) : Apparently, the two have amalgamated, and “[t]he united party has swelled its membership to over 2,000 members and intends to attain 5,000 members by the year’s end.” The ESJAP is standing Gerry Georgatos, Bill Hayward, Marianne Mackay and Lara Menkens for the WA Senate. Dot Henry is standing for the party in Hasluck and Geoffrey Stokes in O’Connor. In the NT, Maurie Japarta Ryan and Ian Lee want a seat in the Senate, while Kenny Lechleitner is looking to the Lower House seat of Lingiari.
3. Republican Democrats : Michael (Ghillar) Anderson was a Greens candidate in 2004; he’s standing (as Michael Eckford) alongside Criselee Stevens for the Republican Democrats in the NSW Senate in 2010.
4. Stable Population Party of Australia : “Our candidates are now standing as a group of Senate independents in column T on the ballot paper. We are: William Bourke – Businessman and Stable Population Party convenor; and Mark O’Connor – Writer and Co-author of Overloading Australia.”
5. WA First : NOBODY expects WA First… to er, win. Their chief weapon is Scott Cowans… Scott Cowans and John Goodlad… John Goodlad and Scott Cowans… Their two weapons are John Goodlad and Scott Cowans… and James Versteegen… Their three weapons are John Goodlad, Scott Cowans, and James Versteegen… and an almost fanatical devotion to WA… Their four… no… Amongst their… Amongst their weaponry… are such elements as John Goodlad, Scott Cowans… I’ll come in again.
6. Bryan Pape : Vote [1] Pape to Uphold the Constitution and to Fix the Federation : Vote [1] Pape to Uphold the Constitution and to Fix the Federation. If you’re into it.
7. In Tasmania, Dino Ottavi is again aspiring to become a Senator. If he succeeds, it will be third time lucky for Ottavi (having failed at previous attempts in 2007 and 2004).
8. In the battle for a seat in the NSW Senate, Christian men and women can thank God they have Nicholas (Hunter) Folkes (Australian Protectionist Party) on their side. Folkes is probably the only thing that stands between them and Islamic rule, global warmingists, Muslims, Fabians within the Labor Party, someone whose religion is Islam, anarchist Greens, Islamists, Communist teachers, Moslems, rampant homosexuality, followers of Muhammad, the Education Department, and numerous other dangers.
Also : 4Change / Australian Shooters Party / Climate Change Coalition / Conservatives for Climate and Environment (Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy Australia) / Hear Our Voices / Nuclear Disarmament Party / Pauline’s United Australia / The Fishing Party.
The latest in Herr Doktor’s tussles with the Australian Press Council (Adjudication No. 1464, adjudicated July 2010).
Good Weekend and Dr James Saleam The Sydney Morning Herald
August 3, 2010
THE Australian Press Council has considered a complaint by Dr James Saleam about an article, ”The audacity of hate”, in The Sydney Morning Herald‘s Good Weekend magazine on September 26, 2009. The article focused on the life of Dr Saleam, who is a member of the Australia First party that seeks to be registered as a political party for the next federal election. [NB. The party has subsequently been registered and is contesting a handful of seats in NSW, QLD and VIC.]
Dr Saleam said that the article was unbalanced, unfair and suppressed relevant facts. He rejected a large number of claims made in it and the reliability of a number of its sources, some of whom were not named in the article. He said that, although the journalist had interviewed him twice at length, he was not given the opportunity to respond to these claims and the article bore little relationship to the interviews.
Dr Saleam denied the assertions that he had had an association with Nazism and that the National Action organisation was associated with racism and criminality at the time he was a leading member of it. He disputed instances of that type of behaviour that were alleged in the article and also the impression that was conveyed about his childhood in Maryborough. Dr Saleam complained that the article focused excessively and inaccurately on his racial background and included offensive and inaccurate claims about his mother and the end of his parents’ marriage.
The magazine said that the story was a serious and careful portrayal of a person who was well-known for his views but had not previously been the subject of a detailed profile of this kind. The journalist, Greg Bearup, had researched the story at great length and spoken to about 50 people, some named and some anonymous. It stood by the assertion that Dr Saleam had been associated with the Nazi Party and had led National Action when it was a violent and racist organisation that harassed and bullied people who disagreed with him.
The magazine said that the article included these matters because they were true and pertinent. It pointed out that, as stated in the article, Dr Saleam has several criminal convictions for offences related to behaviour of this kind although he alleges that they are part of a conspiracy against him. It said that the material on his ethnic background was accurate and highly relevant in light of his vigorous support for a White Australia policy. It disputed Dr Saleam’s view that the remarks by a named source about his mother were offensive to her and irrelevant to the article.
The Council has considered Dr Saleam’s complaints but, with one exception, dismisses them as not establishing a breach of its principles. The article concerned matters of legitimate public interest to which the assertions in it were relevant and supported by a reasonable degree of evidence, including photographs and judicial decisions. The use of anonymous sources was limited and acceptable in the circumstances.
The exception to this conclusion concerns the final sentence of a source’s quoted assertion about Dr Saleam’s mother. The Council considers that this sentence, which is reasonably capable of being interpreted in a highly offensive manner, was not of such substantial importance to the purpose of the article as to justify its publication, especially as it had not been put explicitly to Dr Saleam or his mother for comment.
A related adjudication concerning Dr Saleam’s former wife, Jane Mengler, will be published soon.
In September, Saleam will be speaking alongside Canadian Holocaust denialist Paul Fromm at the Sydney Forum — an event usually held at one of Sydney’s many RSL clubs (last year’s hosts being Petersham RSL) or ethnic clubs.
Pisschrïst played their first gig @ Irene Warehouse in May 2004, alongside of US performer Wendy-O-Matik (the “Bay Area based freelance writer, poet, performance and spoken word artist, and radical love activist” / “freelance writer, published poet, and certified holistic nutrition consultant who specializes in diet and stress reduction”). Like many subsequent performances, it was a benefit gig, on this occasion for Barricade infoshop. The band‘s last gig was on Sunday in Footscray, along with local boys Pathetic Human and Tear Gas a Scottish rock band originally known as Mustard who recorded two albums in the early 70sa Melbourne heavy metal band which split in 2008 a Brisbane punk rock and/or roll band.
Word on the street is that the band has split due to bass player James’ desire to take the band in a new musical direction; while video footage of the pop concert will soon be posted online, I’ve been given exclusive access to the following extract:
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"