AUSTRALIAN POLITICIANS AND THEIR BOATPEOPLE OBSESSION

The politicians of the two mainstream parties in Australia, Liberal and Labor, have worked themselves up into a frenzy as they battle each other to see who can make life the most miserable for boatpeople in order to attract a vote from the Australian people as they head to the polling booths in three weeks time. To listen to the debate during this campaign one could be forgiven for thinking that the upcoming election is more of a referendum about boatpeople than the political future of Australia. It seems almost as though Australians are being asked to decide how best we can make life as difficult as possible for people who come to Australia by boat – and all this on the pretext of ‘stopping the drownings’.

The ‘stopping the drownings’ argument is a furphy, however; the drownings can be stopped instantly by the simple expediency of either flying asylum seekers to Australia or providing seaworthy boats.

Politicians are also exaggerating the boatpeople impact on Australia’s immigration policy. Labor’s Foreign Minister, Senator Bob Carr, has stated that boatpeople could account for some 20% of immigration to Australia. This is just fearmongering nonsense. The figures suggest something different. At worst, if boatpeople arrivals continued at the same rate as the first six months of this year with some 13,000 boatpeople arrivals, then boatpeople over the year would account for less than 13% of Australia’s nominated intake of 210,000 for the year – a number that can easily be absorbed into the Australian community across the nation.

Despite the impression Australian politicians want to give about boatpeople, the reality is somewhat different. According to the Australian ABC’s Vote Compass project, which at last look had attracted some 780,000 respondents, Australian’s biggest concerns by far is the economy – not the boatpeople issue.

So, who are driving the politicians over the boatpeople issue if it’s not the Australian people?

The answer is simple: it is the extreme right-wing commentariat, particularly those within the Murdoch empire such as Andrew Bolt, Tim Blair, Piers Akerman, Janet Albrechtsen, Gerard Henderson, et al, who dominate Australia’s media. By writing opinion pieces that are anti-boatpeople and then running public opinion polls that reflect their views they give the impression to politicians that the boatpeople issue is the main concern for Australians and that they don’t want boatpeople in Australia. Because to say so outright gives the impression that this reflects a racist attitude, all sorts of excuses are used to deflect the accusation. These include: stopping the drownings, (a current favourite in the light of recent tragedies); that boatpeople are queue-jumpers, that boatpeople are really economic migrants, and so on. The real reason, of course, that the noisy minority don’t want boatpeople in Australia is because they are not white European people as will be the vast majority of the 210,000 migrants who would otherwise make up the quota for the year.

It’s as simple as that. Why the non-Murdoch media can’t face up to this reality and call it as it is – racism – is beyond me. What’s to be scared of?

Australian politicians are making political mountains out of boatpeople molehills.

ANDREW BOLT: QUINTESSENTIAL PAID MURDOCH MINION

Ever wondered why Bolt is so anti-renewable energy? Have you wondered why he’s so anti-Carbon tax and why he’s a climate change denialist? We all know why he’s anti-boatpeople and against respecting the rights and heritage of Aboriginal people and demeaning of African and Islamic people – it’s because he’s a racist, but do you know why he’s so anti-green energy and generally such an avid anti-environmentalist?

The problem with non-renewable energy resources – apart from polluting our atmosphere as it gets used and being… well, non-renewable, as in; once its gone, its gone; that’s it, there’s no more – is the fact that the non-renewable resources industry is dominated by big money, and I mean really big money. In fact, the amounts of money we’re talking about are so huge that those who benefit from it are prepared to do anything to protect their interests in it. In fact, they are so intent on protecting their interests in it they are prepared to go to war for it.

However, they also have other ways of protecting their interests.

Going to war is not too much of a problem for those at the very top end of the non-renewable resources business, afterall, they don’t actually have to pay for the war; the blood and treasure that pays for war comes from ordinary people. But then, how do you get ordinary people to do that?

Well, that’s where people like Bolt come into it. They’re propagandists. Their job is to persuade you to support their interests. Their job is to influence public opinion to the point that the public will support their interests and support actions that protect their interest.

War, though, is not always an option. People won’t accept the idea of simply paying for and dying for a war that only makes the rich richer. There has to be an ulterior motive that the propagandists can work on in order to persuade the people to support such a war – retaliation for an attack against your country or a tyrant to topple. The propagandist’s art is to make it seem as though war and the reasons for war are spontaneous when in fact they are well planned prior to the events. For example, did you know that the US planned to attack the Taliban government of Afghanistan well before 9/11? And did you know that the neoconservatives backed by big oil interests had been looking for an excuse to get into Iraq ever since the first Gulf War?

Propagandists like Bolt were there to support the lies and distortions then and today is no different –he’s still there writing lies and distortions for the man that pays him.

Bolt is being paid by Murdoch to spin lies about climate change and the associated policies designed to protect our environment. You see, Murdoch’s interests are not just in the media and entertainment business; Murdoch also has interests in the resources business. He is a substantial shareholder in a shale oil company called Genie Energy. And, have you ever wondered why Murdoch is so pro-Zionist despite not actually being Jewish? It’s not because he’s a Christian Zionist; it’s because he has a substantial interest in a company called Israeli Energy Initiatives, Ltd.

Today, Bolt has bent over backwards to protect Murdoch’s non-renewable energy resources by endorsing Murdoch’s tweets about Carbon Tax which, of course, goes hand in hand with their denial of climate change and the stance against sustainable energy technologies and just about anything that smacks of ‘green’. But what Bolt fails to mention is Murdoch’s interests in the oil and gas industries.

The bottom line is; Andrew Bolt is paid directly to write propaganda that protects the non-renewable resources interests of his boss Rupert Murdoch and Murdoch’s associates. It’s as simple as that no matter what way Bolt cares to spin it.

THE BOATPEOPLE OBSESSION

The right-wing of both sides of politics has now moved to make the boatpeople issue the centrepiece of the upcoming election. Both Liberal and Labor racists are now scrambling to outdo each other in the chase for the racist voter within Labor’s ranks.

Liberal voters are already committed to voting for Abbott. However, there are many voters out there who would traditionally vote Labor but may reconsider who they give their vote to if the Liberals come up with a ‘better’ final solution to the boatpeople problem to that of Labor’s. By ‘better’ I mean less expensive because the knee-jerk Labor solution that flies everyone that arrives here by boat out to PNG with no chance of ever settling in Australia is going to be massively expensive. And, while it may slow the boats down, it will not stop them.

Now the Liberals have come up with a new plan; they want to use the Australian military to somehow stop the boats though they haven’t revealed exactly how they’re going to do this. They’re going to call it Operation Sovereign Borders. With a name like that, anyone would think we were at war defending our shores against a foreign invader – but that, of course, is exactly what they want people to think.

Both parties are now pandering exclusively to Australia’s racists in order to grab power. The boatpeople have become a political football with each side telling the voter that they are going to be tougher on boatpeople than the other side. The issue has become an obsession. The Labor excuse is that it will stop the drownings while the Liberals use every other excuse under the sun as to why boatpeople shouldn’t be allowed to come to Australia ranging from ‘terrorists sneaking in among them’, to ‘queue jumping’, to ‘economic refugees’, etc.

But we all know the real reasons they don’t want them here; it’s because they are racists. Pure and simple.

UPDATE

Details of Abbott’s ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ can be found here.

 

THE SICKEST RACISTS ARE THOSE THAT USE DEATHS AT SEA TO KEEP BOATPEOPLE OUT OF AUSTRALIA

There are several kinds of racists in Australia. There are those that make no bones about their racism and simply tell you that they don’t want non-white or Islamic immigrants in Australia no matter how they arrive. These people are the die-hard rednecked white supremacists in our midst.

Then there are those that tell us ‘I’m not a racist, but…’ These are the racists that believe there is a place in the world for other peoples… but not here in Australia. These are the monoculturalists who believe that multiculturalism is upsetting the status quo of the society they believe they should dominate. These people are intolerant of the changes in Australian culture that result from the influx of migrants who have different cultures.

Then there are the most disgusting type of racists of all; those that deny they are racists and pretend to be sympathetic and even caring of those they actually prefer not to have in Australia living among them. These are the people who would deny boatpeople access to Australia on the pretext that they care about the potential of lives being lost at sea as they try to reach Australia. Instead they would prefer to have those that do arrive in Australia flown out to places they don’t want to be and into camps that operate in appalling conditions and for unknown durations. These are the sickest of racists who have jumped on the patronising bandwagon of pretending to be ‘tough to be kind’. These sick racists are prepared to lock up innocent and often traumatised men, women and children in places they don’t want to be, in camps that offer no hope of certain freedom and for unknown periods of time. And all this, they are quite happy to admit, is just to deter others from trying to reach Australia.

Make no mistake; these people are as racist as all the others. The only difference is they try to worm their way into the hearts and minds of those of us that truly do care about refugees that want to come here and know that there are other ways of getting asylum seekers safely to Australia without getting on leaky boats.

Beware the caring pretenders; they are the sickest of racists.

RUDD CAVES IN TO RACISTS FOR THE SAKE OF POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY

With an election looming, Kevin Rudd has caved in to Australia’s Labor voters who, like their Liberal counterparts, dream up every conceivable excuse as to why boatpeople shouldn’t be allowed access to Australia while trying desperately to avoid being labelled ‘racists’, a characterisation which they emphatically deny.

Most of those who were dead-set against allowing boatpeople into Australia seem to now applaud Rudds latest plan – at least from the point of view of no more boatpeople coming to Australia. But now, one has to ask, where are the excuses that the racists used to argue their point? Now that they’re to be shuffled off to PNG, it seems that the ‘queue-jumping’ label has gone out the window. Suddenly the racists couldn’t care less about the ‘queue’. Has the ‘queue’ disappeared? And will the racists who pretended to care about the safety of boatpeople during the crossing to Australia by boat still be as vocal about ‘stopping the boats’ coming to Australia now that they’ll be moved on to PNG – if they survive the crossing?

And what of the cost? Will Australians be prepared to pay PNG the huge amounts of money that this undertaking is likely to cost? If there’s any arguments from the Liberals about the cost of all this, it will only be because there’s an election looming and they didn’t come up with the idea first. But then, how could they? They needed to be in government in order to have negotiated the deal with the PNG government.

The reality is that the cost of the deal is far more than it would cost to simply allow boatpeople to stay in Australia and get them working to pay their own way. As a result, one can almost see a formula developing whereby the acceptance of the excessive cost of the deal over and above having them in Australia is directly proportional to the extent of racism in Australia. In other words, the real measure of the extent of Australia’s racism will be how much they are prepared to pay in order to keep boatpeople out of Australia – and it’s shaping up to be a lot.

What Australian’s need to do is face up to is its global responsibilities. When a country goes off and invades another – for whatever reason – then the invader needs to be responsible for the repercussions. And the same applies when one country applies sanctions against another. Australia has been a part of both types of actions against nations. We were part of the invasion of Afghanistan even though Afghanistan was not a threat to Australia, and Australia was a part of the immoral, if not illegal, invasion of Iraq despite Iraq also not being a threat to Australia. It is now a part of a sanctions program aimed at Iran over its nuclear weapons ambitions, despite not a skerrick of evidence suggesting Iran even has a nuclear weapons program. And we are wondering why Iranians are fleeing Iran?

If the West left these places alone to find their own way in the world, we’d all be a lot better off. Instead we make up lies and find excuses to continue to do what the West has always done; invade, dominate and loot the wealth of countries with different cultures to ours and then deny them the right to share their culture with ours. The racist haters of multiculturalism seem to be winning. Are we really going to let that happen?

BOLT DISPLAYS BOTH HIS HOMOPHOBIA AND HIS RACISM

In his column today Bolt writes about last night’s Q&A program complaining that the Left was over represented because only two of the six on the panel were right-wing. In complaining, however, Bolt exposed both his homophobia and his racism in just one sentence. One of the panellists was newsreader Narelda Jacobs who Bolt described as “lesbian Aboriginal newsreader Narelda Jacobs”.

For some reason Bolt failed to describe Defence Minister Stephen Smith, another of the panellists, as “heterosexual white European politician Stephen Smith”.

I can’t think why Bolt would be so remiss!

BOLT, BLAIR, AKERMAN, ET AL: THE FACES OF AUSTRALIA’S MAINSTREAM MEDIA RACISTS

Within Australia’s mainstream media there exists a core of ‘journalists’ who between them are responsible for Australia’s current spate of xenophobic racism; a racism that has been inspired by their hatred of boatpeople, Islam and multiculturalism.

Leading the pack at the gutter end of hate-mongering journalism are the likes of tabloid propagandists Andrew Bolt, Tim Blair and Piers Akerman who relentlessly offer their coterie of regular bloggies a never-ending stream of hate-filled posts which their salivating followers are invited to comment on. Meanwhile, pretending to be a little more up-market by passing themselves off as serious political and social commentators yet who peddle exactly the same message of hate and fear, are the likes of Janet Albrechtsen, Greg Sheridan, Gerard Henderson and Miranda Devine.

These are the hard core propagandists within the mainstream media who are largely responsible for Australia’s growing reputation – yet again – of being a racist, xenophobic and intolerant nation.

Their modus operandi is simple. They follow an age-old formula that propagandists have used for years. They cherry-pick a fault of an individual or group who happen to be from a culture/race/religion that is the propagandists target de jour and then, either implicitly or explicitly, say that the fault – and it could be anything – is because of their culture/race/religion. This is then extended to all people of the same culture/race/religion inferring that they have the same fault when invariably the fact that a person is of any culture/race/religion is purely incidental or that the individual or group has abused their culture/race/religion and misrepresented it. The misrepresentation in that case would be ignored by Murdoch’s propaganda crew. And, yes, all of the above mentioned propagandists work for Murdoch either directly or indirectly.

As has been mentioned in the past, if these people were merely wing-nut conspiracy theorists on the edge of the blogosphere pushing the fear-mongering nonsense that Muslims want to rule the world then they could easily and effectively be ignored. Trouble is though, they’re not. These people are wing-nut conspiracy theorists that have centre stage and a huge audience and are able to reach the gullible with ease who readily accepts the hate-filled garbage of Murdoch’s propagandists.

They need to be challenged, not ignored.