Bob Brown, the founder and first leader of the notorious Greens party, chose the right time to leave the party. The party currently is at its best look: record numbers of senators and MP, unique position on holding balance of power in both houses and in government. A really unique position that obviously will not last for long time.
The media, politicians and other entities were today busy talking nice about this politician, as part of normal farewell speeches and praises.
But what was the real, ugly and devastating legacy of this cunning opportunist highly regressive politician?
Bob Brown, in his own resignation media conference which was full of lies, could not mention any achievement for him or his party but the introduction of Carbon Tax. And of course a lot of talk about “his” struggle as openly gay activist and politician. Though, he failed to inform us how he struggled being openly gay, apart from some verbal abuses....
Let us go deep and examine the real legacy of Bob Brown (and his Greens party).
Bob Brown was no more than a liar who was very good in making lies, selling them and then believing them himself.
Bob Brown and his Greens party claimed that Bob and his Greens politicians were always taking political stance based on principles and not on its popularity. Let us dissect some of these stances.
Bob Brown launched the biggest lie in his life when he claimed that he was the only politician in Australian parliament that stood up during Tampa standoff.
Going back to senate Hansard, we can easily discover that Bob Brown never talked about refugees and asylum seekers, immigration, racism or Islamophobia. The first time he talked about these issues was during Tampa farce. He understood that the timing was right to talk about this issue in this way.
During Tampa, the Democrats (which was the main party that was standing up for refugees and asylum seekers for years) was embroiled in deep infighting and was losing its popularity in the wake of its deal with John Howard’s government to introduce GST. The Labor party chose to follow the Howard’s government’s handling of the case. Bob Brown knew that more than one third of Australians were looking for strong leadership to stop Howard’s attack on refugees and asylum seekers. At that time the Greens had only 2.5% of the vote. So 30% of voters were very popular, and not as the Greens claim that they always stand on principles and not popularity.
But why the Greens never talked about the immigration, refugees and asylum seekers rights and multiculturalism in general?
The answer is very easy: because the Greens is the only pure white party that stands stiffly against any increase of population, on ecological- balance grounds. The Liberals, on pragmatic grounds, moved away from the racist policy of decreasing immigration and allowed substantial increase in immigration intake. The Greens is still insisting on the need to reduce migration to keep the ecological balance right!!!
The Greens was and still lying by saying that Bob Brown was the first and the only politician that talked against harsh treatment of boat people. The democrats, for example, have long history to talk about these issues and to oppose the government’s policies.
For the Greens, lying is constant “principled” policy. I did not meet any Greens politicians that did not lie. In the next few weeks, I will write extensively about many greens politicians and their apparently “genetic” inclination to lie.
The Greens recently opposed the Gillard’s government decision to close down Tasmanian detention centre. The Greens alleges that they took this decision because they are concerned about the few jobs created by this inhumane “hell-hole”. The Greens is concerned that few security guards, cleaners, psychologists, psychiatrists and funeral services workers could lose their jobs if the detention centre closed down.
But the Greens do not care about hundred of thousands of jobs will be lost because of their policy to introduce Carbon Tax, end forest logging and other environmental policies. This does not mean that we support forest clearing or attack on environment. But it is just to give example of Greens political prostitution.
Bob Brown proud to be “human rights” activist. He is only active against Chinese rule of Tibet. He does not care about Israeli occupation of Palestine, parts of Syria and Lebanon. He was, and still, concerned about the human rights violations in Syria. But he does not care about the gross human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other countries ruled by regimes controlled by CIA.
Bob Brown concerned about refuges and asylum seekers, but only before elections. After elections, who cares? He participates in government that has the worst violation to human rights of asylum seekers beyond White Australia policy era. He also participates in a government that introduced the worst racist immigration policies in recent decades. Yet, he has the courage to appear on media and claim to be “left” and “human rights activist”. Frankly, I did not see Bob Brown on any rally against human rights abuses of boat people.
On economy: Bob claimed that he was responsible for saving Australia from the worst economic slowdown. In 2008, and in the face of turbulence in global markets, Kevin Rudd’s government introduced the worst economic stimulus package in any nation. What the Rudd government with complete support of Bob and his Greens party did was no more than the worst economic vandalism in this nation’s history. They wasted more than $60 Billion which created no single job. Yes, it was popular policy to give people cash in their hands, but such policy achieved nothing.
The slowdown was averted because China was able to create jobs and recover from the slow down, momentarily. So it was not Bob and his Greens party that saved Australian economy. It was Chinese economic stimulus in China that saved Australian jobs.
But the Greens and Bob are still having the courage to appear on National Press club and claim that they saved Australian economy from collapse.
The right legacy of Bob Brown (and his Greens): the best liar-politicians in Australia, ever.
The Greens leader was right to leave politics now. Now he can safely claim that he achieved the best result for the Greens. We deeply believe that in the next election, all these wins will evaporate as voters are discovering day after day the crystal clear fact about the Greens: The Greens is a party about nothing.... except power thirst. No ideology.. No comittments ... No achievments...
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Saturday, April 07, 2012
The Greens motion on Bahrain: Greens play sectarian bloody politics now....
The Greens have done it again, after again and again. The same tactics, the same timing for the same reasons.
Just before 4 months of NSW Local governments’ election, the Greens are waging huge deception campaign, this time using the Bahraini and Syrian blood.
Last year, before 4 months of NSW state election, the Greens waged huge deception campaign, that time on Palestinian blood. Do you remember when the Greens initiated motion in Marrickville council to boycott Israeli companies??? Then and immediately after the election, the same Greens councillors that initiated the motion sat down in the council chamber and voted against the same motion they initiated few months ago. The Palestinian blood was already sucked by the Greens in the NSW 2011 election campaign, and it was the time to move on....
Now it is the turn of Bahraini and Syrian blood.
First, the Greens moved a motion to condemn Syrian president, demand his resignation, trial in Hague, close Syrian embassy in Canberra and call on NATO to destroy the country. The motion was designed to win support of Muslim Sunni voters, including the very conservative extreme elements that usually do not vote for any political party.
But the Greens were not ready to lose the Shiia voters usually vote for the Greens in the last few elections because they swallowed the party’s huge deception campaigns about opposing Israeli occupation. So the Greens election machine came up with this idea: why not deceiving the Shiia voters the same way we deceived the Sunnis!!!
The Greens put the motion in NSW Legislative Council to “condemn the acts of the Government of Bahrain which stifle its people’s right to freely protest…”. Only to condemn Bahraini government, and not the king…. And only in NSW parliament…. Not in Federal parliament where foreign policy is made and updated…
The tactics is very simple.
The Greens want to deceive Sunni Muslims in NSW to vote for the party. But they do not want to upset the Shiia, who largely support the Syrian president and oppose any military action on Syria. So the Greens decided to create huge campaign to confuse Shiia Muslims and deceive them to prompt them to vote for the Greens, despite the Greens stance to encourage foreign military intervention in Syria to topple President Bashar Al Assad, in addition to the Greens support of sanctions on Iran.
Dirty tactics that play with people blood.
And the Greens have no intention to stop such bloody tactics, politics and campaigns.
To prove that the Greens motion on Bahrain was no more than a cheap bloody tactic to deceive mainly Shiia voters, let us ask few questions here:
1- Why did the Greens choose only NSW parliament to move this motion? Taking into account that the Greens have politicians in Federal parliament and parliaments of WA, Victoria, Tasmania, SA and ACT parliaments. Was this related to the fact that NSW will have election in September???!!
2- Why did the Greens move only this month on Bahraini issue and moved this motion, despite the fact that the revolution in Bahrain started February last year? Was this also related to the timing of NSW local government election?
3- Why the Greens put such a weak motion that only condemns the Bahraini government, with no demand to cut ties or sack the king and his government? Is this because the Greens do not want to upset USA, Saudi Arabia and its powerful lobby in Australia and extreme elements of Sunni communities?
The Greens motive behind this motion is very simple and very clear. The Greens want to deceive the Shiia Muslim voters.
The Shiia Muslim voters and all voters who oppose imperialist wars and American hegemonic bids to crush any opponent to its bloody politics should have been angry from the Greens stances on these issues.
The Greens support for NATO intervention in Syria and support for sanctions on Iran are something that could not be tolerated by any progressive voter. The Greens support for NATO intervention in both Syria and Iran exposes the real face of the Greens. The Greens is not a political party as such that have ambition to achieve socio-economic progressive reforms in the society (as they allege). The Greens is no more than an election machine to achieve better voting result for the sake of accumulating power only.
And this election machine has no morals or standards to adhere to. Now the Greens election machine decided to play on sectarian division in the society, after they played on suffering and blood of many people, including Palestinian and Lebanese blood and suffering.
The Greens should be urged thousand times before next election: please stop your Dracula-like bloody politics of sucking blood of fallen innocent people into your election machine….
On this instance we want to stress that we would not be very upset form the Greens if they have consistency in their politics. But we cannot understand how party supports peace, but urges NATO to destroy countries… How party supports multiculturalism, but does not tolerate any Non-English speaking elements in its hierarchy…. How party supports independence of nations, but at the same time supports listing of national resistance forces on terrorist lists (Greens supported listing of Hezbollah as terrorist organization).
And the Greens party is still claim to be “Left”…. Do not these actions qualify the Greens to be “Left-Over” instead…?
Just before 4 months of NSW Local governments’ election, the Greens are waging huge deception campaign, this time using the Bahraini and Syrian blood.
Last year, before 4 months of NSW state election, the Greens waged huge deception campaign, that time on Palestinian blood. Do you remember when the Greens initiated motion in Marrickville council to boycott Israeli companies??? Then and immediately after the election, the same Greens councillors that initiated the motion sat down in the council chamber and voted against the same motion they initiated few months ago. The Palestinian blood was already sucked by the Greens in the NSW 2011 election campaign, and it was the time to move on....
Now it is the turn of Bahraini and Syrian blood.
First, the Greens moved a motion to condemn Syrian president, demand his resignation, trial in Hague, close Syrian embassy in Canberra and call on NATO to destroy the country. The motion was designed to win support of Muslim Sunni voters, including the very conservative extreme elements that usually do not vote for any political party.
But the Greens were not ready to lose the Shiia voters usually vote for the Greens in the last few elections because they swallowed the party’s huge deception campaigns about opposing Israeli occupation. So the Greens election machine came up with this idea: why not deceiving the Shiia voters the same way we deceived the Sunnis!!!
The Greens put the motion in NSW Legislative Council to “condemn the acts of the Government of Bahrain which stifle its people’s right to freely protest…”. Only to condemn Bahraini government, and not the king…. And only in NSW parliament…. Not in Federal parliament where foreign policy is made and updated…
The tactics is very simple.
The Greens want to deceive Sunni Muslims in NSW to vote for the party. But they do not want to upset the Shiia, who largely support the Syrian president and oppose any military action on Syria. So the Greens decided to create huge campaign to confuse Shiia Muslims and deceive them to prompt them to vote for the Greens, despite the Greens stance to encourage foreign military intervention in Syria to topple President Bashar Al Assad, in addition to the Greens support of sanctions on Iran.
Dirty tactics that play with people blood.
And the Greens have no intention to stop such bloody tactics, politics and campaigns.
To prove that the Greens motion on Bahrain was no more than a cheap bloody tactic to deceive mainly Shiia voters, let us ask few questions here:
1- Why did the Greens choose only NSW parliament to move this motion? Taking into account that the Greens have politicians in Federal parliament and parliaments of WA, Victoria, Tasmania, SA and ACT parliaments. Was this related to the fact that NSW will have election in September???!!
2- Why did the Greens move only this month on Bahraini issue and moved this motion, despite the fact that the revolution in Bahrain started February last year? Was this also related to the timing of NSW local government election?
3- Why the Greens put such a weak motion that only condemns the Bahraini government, with no demand to cut ties or sack the king and his government? Is this because the Greens do not want to upset USA, Saudi Arabia and its powerful lobby in Australia and extreme elements of Sunni communities?
The Greens motive behind this motion is very simple and very clear. The Greens want to deceive the Shiia Muslim voters.
The Shiia Muslim voters and all voters who oppose imperialist wars and American hegemonic bids to crush any opponent to its bloody politics should have been angry from the Greens stances on these issues.
The Greens support for NATO intervention in Syria and support for sanctions on Iran are something that could not be tolerated by any progressive voter. The Greens support for NATO intervention in both Syria and Iran exposes the real face of the Greens. The Greens is not a political party as such that have ambition to achieve socio-economic progressive reforms in the society (as they allege). The Greens is no more than an election machine to achieve better voting result for the sake of accumulating power only.
And this election machine has no morals or standards to adhere to. Now the Greens election machine decided to play on sectarian division in the society, after they played on suffering and blood of many people, including Palestinian and Lebanese blood and suffering.
The Greens should be urged thousand times before next election: please stop your Dracula-like bloody politics of sucking blood of fallen innocent people into your election machine….
On this instance we want to stress that we would not be very upset form the Greens if they have consistency in their politics. But we cannot understand how party supports peace, but urges NATO to destroy countries… How party supports multiculturalism, but does not tolerate any Non-English speaking elements in its hierarchy…. How party supports independence of nations, but at the same time supports listing of national resistance forces on terrorist lists (Greens supported listing of Hezbollah as terrorist organization).
And the Greens party is still claim to be “Left”…. Do not these actions qualify the Greens to be “Left-Over” instead…?
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Queensland election: analysis of results and its causes...
Despite the fact that most of the political analysts and observers have considered the result of QLD election last weekend to be historical. But they failed to highlight the other interesting trends and results. They focussed only on the devastating loss of Labor and its failure to win more than 7 seats, so far.
We do not blame these analysts and observers for their focus on the Labor’s bloodbath and landslide loss of losing all seats but 7. They were shocked to wake up to a result where the Labor lost its party status, a rare scenario in Australian politics.
These analysts did not deeply investigate the holistic scenes and the real reasons for this Labor political catastrophe. Consequently, they failed to mention the other big losers and winners, apart from the LNP.
Any deep detailed investigation of what happened last weekend in QLD would definitely note the role of the Federal Labor and its failures on Federal level on the results of QLD election. For weeks, the Labor QLD premier, Anna Bligh, was asking both Gillard and Rudd to end their camps’ infighting on leadership. The indecisive Gillard victory did not put the infighting to rest for good.
Even after the failure of Rudd to unseat Gillard from the prime ministership, Julia is still the worst prime minister of this nation in recent decades. The consecutive opinion polls indicate very clearly that Ms Gillard is one of the most unpopular PM in Australian history. While Labor powerbrokers are very convinced that Gillard should go before the next federal election if it hopes to keep power or even to avoid total wipe-out, but Rudd’s arrogant and unpleasant character in working with his colleagues urged all of them to stick with Gillard, for the moment at least. The current circumstances of unstable minority government, enforced Labor powerbroker to stick with Gillard momentarily. This caused growing anger and dissatisfaction of Labor. The voters did not have opportunity to vend such anger, frustration and dissatisfaction of federal Labor, but on QLD Labor.
What makes things worse for QLD Labor is the impression among voters that the Labor became arrogant does not listen and have no flexibility to accommodate better political pragmatic solution for issues facing Australia. The voters saw the Labor fail to find any solution for any challenges Australia faces, even by retreating from solutions rejected by voters and their representatives.
There is no doubt that the Labor devastating defeat in QLD election was a devastating defeat for Labor at all levels, especially the Federal level. The government which was actually defeated last weekend was the Gillard paralysed and failed government, and not only Ana Bligh’s. This does not mean that Bligh’s government is good government that does not bear any responsibility, but it should take the whole blame and responsibility.
This fact was clear within some comments by Bligh and other Labor officials, when she resigned not only from the parliament but from all responsibilities within the party. She was quoted saying “we failed and we need fresh approach” in a clear indication that the current Labor loss of its direction was the real reason for failure.
The comments by some of previous Labor PMs added to this fact, when Peter Bettie and Paul Keating said very clearly that the Labor had lost its way and abandoned its traditions. And they are right. The Labor continued creeping to the right saw more and more Labor faithful departing for other alternatives.
In addition to the above issues, the political analysts and commentators have ignored many other emerging facts and results. They did not talk much about the Greens big defeat and crumbling voting.
The Greens did not only fail to win any seat in the state, but they failed to keep the votes they attracted in the last election.
In the last federal election conducted August 2010, the Greens secured the support of 260,000 of QLD’ers (11% of QLD voters). In the last weekend’s election, the QLD Greens secured the support of only 145,000 of QLD voters (7% of QLD voters). This means that the Greens faced big defeat by losing more than 40% of the votes they win in 2010 election. In less than 18 months, the Greens lost more than 110,000 voters.
This humiliating result came as confirmation to what we have been claiming for the last decade that the vote for the Greens is no more than a protest vote against Labor and Liberals, and not for Greens platform or policies.
The emerging of Bob Katter Australian party in QLD (won 2 seats for the first election they contest) as strong defender of ordinary people that stands up for poor against unemployment and against transfer of jobs overseas, against deteriorating life-style and against the powerful lobby of homosexuals, did affect greatly the voting for the Greens. This is another evidence of what we have said about the Greens vote as a protest vote against major parties that could be increased or decreased if alternative forces will emerge to defend the marginalised rights. Especially if the Greens achievement list within three decades of political representation is no more than serious talks about same-sex marriage and introducing Carbon Tax, which is highly unpopular among voters.
The result of the last weekend’s QLD election is a real warning message for this government (of 2 partners: Labor & Green). QLD voters sent clear message that we need effective government to find solutions for our problems, otherwise who cares of earthquake....
If the centre-left Labor-Greens government failed to stand up for multiculturalism, human rights (including rights of refugees and asylum seekers) and against Islamophobia. And if this government failed to stop the attacks on our welfare system and the attack on poor and unemployed. And if the government failed to find any solution for accommodation crisis. And if it failed to find any solution for crowded public health and public education. And if the government failed to improve working conditions, employment security and restore workers rights. And if the Labor-Greens government became a true copy of conservative Liberals one, but in a paralysed and subtly racist one, who will shed one tear if it loses power in the next election!!!!
QLD voters sent clear message. And according to all opinion polls conducted in the last few months, it represents the majority of Australians in other states.
Our message to Gillard government “learn from QLD election lessons, before you send Australia into Liberal-National-Katter tsunami”.
In our opinion, the first step for Labor powerbroker is to get rid of the crew that lead them in 2010 to the worst electoral defeat in Australian history. If Labor will not do this, it will not find one Australian sheds one tear when saying good-bye to them in the next election...
We do not blame these analysts and observers for their focus on the Labor’s bloodbath and landslide loss of losing all seats but 7. They were shocked to wake up to a result where the Labor lost its party status, a rare scenario in Australian politics.
These analysts did not deeply investigate the holistic scenes and the real reasons for this Labor political catastrophe. Consequently, they failed to mention the other big losers and winners, apart from the LNP.
Any deep detailed investigation of what happened last weekend in QLD would definitely note the role of the Federal Labor and its failures on Federal level on the results of QLD election. For weeks, the Labor QLD premier, Anna Bligh, was asking both Gillard and Rudd to end their camps’ infighting on leadership. The indecisive Gillard victory did not put the infighting to rest for good.
Even after the failure of Rudd to unseat Gillard from the prime ministership, Julia is still the worst prime minister of this nation in recent decades. The consecutive opinion polls indicate very clearly that Ms Gillard is one of the most unpopular PM in Australian history. While Labor powerbrokers are very convinced that Gillard should go before the next federal election if it hopes to keep power or even to avoid total wipe-out, but Rudd’s arrogant and unpleasant character in working with his colleagues urged all of them to stick with Gillard, for the moment at least. The current circumstances of unstable minority government, enforced Labor powerbroker to stick with Gillard momentarily. This caused growing anger and dissatisfaction of Labor. The voters did not have opportunity to vend such anger, frustration and dissatisfaction of federal Labor, but on QLD Labor.
What makes things worse for QLD Labor is the impression among voters that the Labor became arrogant does not listen and have no flexibility to accommodate better political pragmatic solution for issues facing Australia. The voters saw the Labor fail to find any solution for any challenges Australia faces, even by retreating from solutions rejected by voters and their representatives.
There is no doubt that the Labor devastating defeat in QLD election was a devastating defeat for Labor at all levels, especially the Federal level. The government which was actually defeated last weekend was the Gillard paralysed and failed government, and not only Ana Bligh’s. This does not mean that Bligh’s government is good government that does not bear any responsibility, but it should take the whole blame and responsibility.
This fact was clear within some comments by Bligh and other Labor officials, when she resigned not only from the parliament but from all responsibilities within the party. She was quoted saying “we failed and we need fresh approach” in a clear indication that the current Labor loss of its direction was the real reason for failure.
The comments by some of previous Labor PMs added to this fact, when Peter Bettie and Paul Keating said very clearly that the Labor had lost its way and abandoned its traditions. And they are right. The Labor continued creeping to the right saw more and more Labor faithful departing for other alternatives.
In addition to the above issues, the political analysts and commentators have ignored many other emerging facts and results. They did not talk much about the Greens big defeat and crumbling voting.
The Greens did not only fail to win any seat in the state, but they failed to keep the votes they attracted in the last election.
In the last federal election conducted August 2010, the Greens secured the support of 260,000 of QLD’ers (11% of QLD voters). In the last weekend’s election, the QLD Greens secured the support of only 145,000 of QLD voters (7% of QLD voters). This means that the Greens faced big defeat by losing more than 40% of the votes they win in 2010 election. In less than 18 months, the Greens lost more than 110,000 voters.
This humiliating result came as confirmation to what we have been claiming for the last decade that the vote for the Greens is no more than a protest vote against Labor and Liberals, and not for Greens platform or policies.
The emerging of Bob Katter Australian party in QLD (won 2 seats for the first election they contest) as strong defender of ordinary people that stands up for poor against unemployment and against transfer of jobs overseas, against deteriorating life-style and against the powerful lobby of homosexuals, did affect greatly the voting for the Greens. This is another evidence of what we have said about the Greens vote as a protest vote against major parties that could be increased or decreased if alternative forces will emerge to defend the marginalised rights. Especially if the Greens achievement list within three decades of political representation is no more than serious talks about same-sex marriage and introducing Carbon Tax, which is highly unpopular among voters.
The result of the last weekend’s QLD election is a real warning message for this government (of 2 partners: Labor & Green). QLD voters sent clear message that we need effective government to find solutions for our problems, otherwise who cares of earthquake....
If the centre-left Labor-Greens government failed to stand up for multiculturalism, human rights (including rights of refugees and asylum seekers) and against Islamophobia. And if this government failed to stop the attacks on our welfare system and the attack on poor and unemployed. And if the government failed to find any solution for accommodation crisis. And if it failed to find any solution for crowded public health and public education. And if the government failed to improve working conditions, employment security and restore workers rights. And if the Labor-Greens government became a true copy of conservative Liberals one, but in a paralysed and subtly racist one, who will shed one tear if it loses power in the next election!!!!
QLD voters sent clear message. And according to all opinion polls conducted in the last few months, it represents the majority of Australians in other states.
Our message to Gillard government “learn from QLD election lessons, before you send Australia into Liberal-National-Katter tsunami”.
In our opinion, the first step for Labor powerbroker is to get rid of the crew that lead them in 2010 to the worst electoral defeat in Australian history. If Labor will not do this, it will not find one Australian sheds one tear when saying good-bye to them in the next election...
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Open letter to Kevin Rudd on his comments about Iran and Syria
Dear Hon Kevin Rudd, Minister for Foreign Affairs
What prompted me to write this letter to you are your irresponsible comments in the last few days about issues important for the whole world.
In the last few days you were quoted first supporting the USA measures to isolate Iran and enforce more draconian measures of economical blockade and ban on oil exports.
Then yesterday you were quoted supporting USA and its allies in demanding international intervention in Syria and demanding President Assad to resign.
We would like to condemn your stances on both issues which are designed to initiate new military conflicts in the Middle East.
Let me explain to you the reasons behind our condemnation of your stance.
In the question of Iran, you think that such harsh embargo and sanctions are acceptable because of claims of Iranian military nuclear program. You and your government did not give us any explanation why you and your Western allies are very silent on the Israeli aggressive military nuclear program.
Where Iranian program is so far peaceful according to the latest report by IAEA, the Israeli military nuclear program is alive and running for the last few decades. We, as Australians, need to hear the reasons behind your clear hypocrisy on this issue. And we know that you will tell us that Iran is so different from Israel. And we believe so, too.
Iran so far did not invade, occupy and ethnically cleanse any of its neighboring countries and nations. Israel did all these. It occupies Palestine, parts of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. It ethnically cleansed the indigenous people of Palestine, where the majority now are living as refugees, inside their country or in other countries. I and all my family were among those ethnically cleansed during the 1948 war.
On the question of Syria, we are sure that your comments came as you did not read the latest report of Arab observers sent to Syria a month ago. The observers noticed very clearly that the majority of crimes were conducted by armed militia financed and supported by foreign powers. You chose to follow blindly the stance of USA government, which is one of the foreign powers that are financing and supporting the armed militia’s activities against the Syrian civilians and armed forces.
You were quoted calling on president Assad of Syria to step down and give power to the opposition. We do not know if you are aware about the extreme risk of such move.
But we are very sure that President Assad will not listen to failed politician like you. If you cannot convince your failed leader to step down and hand the power back to you after she failed to manage this country, how would you convince president of independent foreign power to do so?
In this letter we want to convey to you a simple message: not in our name. Your participation of beating the war drums against Syria and Iran would not be supported by the majority of Australians. We also believe that the Australian participation in any future war in the Middle East will be major mistake that will destabilize the whole region, if not the whole world. We watched with deep concern the tensed debate in the UN Security Council meeting about the proposed military intervention in Syria. And we believe that invading Syria or Iran will not be without a lot of blood and very wide destruction.
We thought that Australian government under Labor-Greens should have been totally different (and less regressive) than a government under extreme Liberal-Nationals. Your comments in the last few days gave us deep suspicions about this.
The next election is not too far and we believe that peace-loving Australians will send your government a decisive tough message.
Thanks and I hope that you can find time to give us some convincing answers to our arguments and suspicions.
Yours
Jamal Daoud
Spokesperson, Social Justice Network
What prompted me to write this letter to you are your irresponsible comments in the last few days about issues important for the whole world.
In the last few days you were quoted first supporting the USA measures to isolate Iran and enforce more draconian measures of economical blockade and ban on oil exports.
Then yesterday you were quoted supporting USA and its allies in demanding international intervention in Syria and demanding President Assad to resign.
We would like to condemn your stances on both issues which are designed to initiate new military conflicts in the Middle East.
Let me explain to you the reasons behind our condemnation of your stance.
In the question of Iran, you think that such harsh embargo and sanctions are acceptable because of claims of Iranian military nuclear program. You and your government did not give us any explanation why you and your Western allies are very silent on the Israeli aggressive military nuclear program.
Where Iranian program is so far peaceful according to the latest report by IAEA, the Israeli military nuclear program is alive and running for the last few decades. We, as Australians, need to hear the reasons behind your clear hypocrisy on this issue. And we know that you will tell us that Iran is so different from Israel. And we believe so, too.
Iran so far did not invade, occupy and ethnically cleanse any of its neighboring countries and nations. Israel did all these. It occupies Palestine, parts of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. It ethnically cleansed the indigenous people of Palestine, where the majority now are living as refugees, inside their country or in other countries. I and all my family were among those ethnically cleansed during the 1948 war.
On the question of Syria, we are sure that your comments came as you did not read the latest report of Arab observers sent to Syria a month ago. The observers noticed very clearly that the majority of crimes were conducted by armed militia financed and supported by foreign powers. You chose to follow blindly the stance of USA government, which is one of the foreign powers that are financing and supporting the armed militia’s activities against the Syrian civilians and armed forces.
You were quoted calling on president Assad of Syria to step down and give power to the opposition. We do not know if you are aware about the extreme risk of such move.
But we are very sure that President Assad will not listen to failed politician like you. If you cannot convince your failed leader to step down and hand the power back to you after she failed to manage this country, how would you convince president of independent foreign power to do so?
In this letter we want to convey to you a simple message: not in our name. Your participation of beating the war drums against Syria and Iran would not be supported by the majority of Australians. We also believe that the Australian participation in any future war in the Middle East will be major mistake that will destabilize the whole region, if not the whole world. We watched with deep concern the tensed debate in the UN Security Council meeting about the proposed military intervention in Syria. And we believe that invading Syria or Iran will not be without a lot of blood and very wide destruction.
We thought that Australian government under Labor-Greens should have been totally different (and less regressive) than a government under extreme Liberal-Nationals. Your comments in the last few days gave us deep suspicions about this.
The next election is not too far and we believe that peace-loving Australians will send your government a decisive tough message.
Thanks and I hope that you can find time to give us some convincing answers to our arguments and suspicions.
Yours
Jamal Daoud
Spokesperson, Social Justice Network
Monday, January 02, 2012
BDS campaign in Australia: one step forward ten backwards!!!
The Greens party’s latest decision to officially reject and abandon the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanction) campaign against Israel has exposed the naked truth that we were talking about for the last year. The decision by the Greens, while had great negative impact on the campaign for Palestinians rights in Australia, is a clear prove that the BDS campaign in Australia had started in the wrong way by the wrong people.
From the first day the Greens announced that they will push a motion in the Marrickville council to boycott Israel and Israeli companies, we announced that all circumstances are very suspicious. The timing was suspicious, just 3 months before NSW state election. The wording of the motion was highly suspicious. And the source of the motion was also highly suspicious. Since when was the Greens a credible “left” party that have any ideology or left agenda?
We put all our suspicions into few words and declared that the project would be a big failure (see our article on http://jamaldaoud.blogspot.com/2010/12/marrickville-council-motion-on.html) for all above mentioned suspicious circumstances (and facts).
Then we were attacked by individuals and organisations that backed the move enthusiastically (the majority are Greens members assembled in pro-Palestinian “organisations” like the CJPP (Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine) to try to use the Palestinian blood and suffering for Greens electoral gains). The events in the following few months proved that we were right.
The Greens initiator of the motion and candidate for Marrickville seat in last year’s state election and after the first article in the Australian attacking her stance on the issue held a press conference and declared (and in written media release also) that she does not support BDS. She mentioned that she will not take the issue to the state parliament, if she wins the seat, contrary to the Greens careful wording of the original motion of the necessity to take the issue to the Federal and State levels of government.
And during the campaign the Greens leader, highly regressive Bob Brown who was never quoted talking about the Israeli brutal occupation of Palestine during his 30 years career in politics, appeared on TV screens and announced that BDS is not supported officially by his party.
The last month’s decision by the Greens to officially abandon support for BDS should have sent wake call for all individuals and organisation that still putting all their bids on the Greens horse. These individuals and organisations (mainly either naive or Greens members) should wake up to the grim reality. The Greens is no more than a populist political prostitute that you never can count on for such important issue. The Greens record on acting on this issue is very poor, even poorer than Liberals record. Let us remember that the Greens proactively supported the banning of Palestinian national resistance forces, 2003. The Greens refused to participate in any solidarity missions to Palestine after Jenin massacres (2002), war on Lebanon (2006), war on Gaza (2008-2009),...
So what is next for BDS campaign?
In our opinion, the campaign was designed and started upside-down, and this is why it failed.
The campaign started from the top, trying to initiate the debate and campaign from councils and parliament. You do this only if you have strong lobby that is very well organised, have tremendous resources and plenty of political connections and influences.
The Zionist movement does depend on such campaigns. They have strong well organised lobby groups. They have plenty of resources, including plenty of powerful mainstream media outlets and strong political connections and influences, including Zionist MPs and ministers.
But for the pro-Palestinian camp, this is not the case. There is no strong organised lobby groups. There is no powerful resources. No support in media. And consequently no strong political connections and influences.
So the alternative would have been the grass-root campaigns among citizens. By doing this, the campaign would gather momentum to convince the politicians to support such camping for their electoral sake.
The BDS campaign should start by convincing Australians to embrace BDS principles on personal level. If we can convince Australians to start shopping away from Zionist products and stop using services provided by Zionist companies, then we could have strong start.
But we first need to start such campaign. Currently, even the Australians concerned about the Palestine issue do not have any clue about the importance and ways for BDS. How many times we have visited Palestinian, Muslim or pro-Palestinian friends and they offered Coca Cola or Nescafe for beverages? How many times we have seen them go to McDonalds or KFC for dinner? How many Israeli dates and products are sold in Muslim and Arabic shops?
This should be the first step. Not by helping the Greens trading the Palestinian blood and sufferings for cheap electoral gains.
The CJPP and other organisations should either declare that they are Greens-propaganda arms. Or they should maintain independence from the Greens and act in the interest of Palestinian people, as they declare in their declared objectives.
There is a lot of work to be done. And there is a long journey to walk to achieve any goals. But the direction is very important. If we start walking in the wrong direction, we will be lost with no achievement at all. We even would discover that we help the enemies, instead. And this is what we have discovered now after the Greens declaration of their real agenda, intents and belonging.
From the first day the Greens announced that they will push a motion in the Marrickville council to boycott Israel and Israeli companies, we announced that all circumstances are very suspicious. The timing was suspicious, just 3 months before NSW state election. The wording of the motion was highly suspicious. And the source of the motion was also highly suspicious. Since when was the Greens a credible “left” party that have any ideology or left agenda?
We put all our suspicions into few words and declared that the project would be a big failure (see our article on http://jamaldaoud.blogspot.com/2010/12/marrickville-council-motion-on.html) for all above mentioned suspicious circumstances (and facts).
Then we were attacked by individuals and organisations that backed the move enthusiastically (the majority are Greens members assembled in pro-Palestinian “organisations” like the CJPP (Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine) to try to use the Palestinian blood and suffering for Greens electoral gains). The events in the following few months proved that we were right.
The Greens initiator of the motion and candidate for Marrickville seat in last year’s state election and after the first article in the Australian attacking her stance on the issue held a press conference and declared (and in written media release also) that she does not support BDS. She mentioned that she will not take the issue to the state parliament, if she wins the seat, contrary to the Greens careful wording of the original motion of the necessity to take the issue to the Federal and State levels of government.
And during the campaign the Greens leader, highly regressive Bob Brown who was never quoted talking about the Israeli brutal occupation of Palestine during his 30 years career in politics, appeared on TV screens and announced that BDS is not supported officially by his party.
The last month’s decision by the Greens to officially abandon support for BDS should have sent wake call for all individuals and organisation that still putting all their bids on the Greens horse. These individuals and organisations (mainly either naive or Greens members) should wake up to the grim reality. The Greens is no more than a populist political prostitute that you never can count on for such important issue. The Greens record on acting on this issue is very poor, even poorer than Liberals record. Let us remember that the Greens proactively supported the banning of Palestinian national resistance forces, 2003. The Greens refused to participate in any solidarity missions to Palestine after Jenin massacres (2002), war on Lebanon (2006), war on Gaza (2008-2009),...
So what is next for BDS campaign?
In our opinion, the campaign was designed and started upside-down, and this is why it failed.
The campaign started from the top, trying to initiate the debate and campaign from councils and parliament. You do this only if you have strong lobby that is very well organised, have tremendous resources and plenty of political connections and influences.
The Zionist movement does depend on such campaigns. They have strong well organised lobby groups. They have plenty of resources, including plenty of powerful mainstream media outlets and strong political connections and influences, including Zionist MPs and ministers.
But for the pro-Palestinian camp, this is not the case. There is no strong organised lobby groups. There is no powerful resources. No support in media. And consequently no strong political connections and influences.
So the alternative would have been the grass-root campaigns among citizens. By doing this, the campaign would gather momentum to convince the politicians to support such camping for their electoral sake.
The BDS campaign should start by convincing Australians to embrace BDS principles on personal level. If we can convince Australians to start shopping away from Zionist products and stop using services provided by Zionist companies, then we could have strong start.
But we first need to start such campaign. Currently, even the Australians concerned about the Palestine issue do not have any clue about the importance and ways for BDS. How many times we have visited Palestinian, Muslim or pro-Palestinian friends and they offered Coca Cola or Nescafe for beverages? How many times we have seen them go to McDonalds or KFC for dinner? How many Israeli dates and products are sold in Muslim and Arabic shops?
This should be the first step. Not by helping the Greens trading the Palestinian blood and sufferings for cheap electoral gains.
The CJPP and other organisations should either declare that they are Greens-propaganda arms. Or they should maintain independence from the Greens and act in the interest of Palestinian people, as they declare in their declared objectives.
There is a lot of work to be done. And there is a long journey to walk to achieve any goals. But the direction is very important. If we start walking in the wrong direction, we will be lost with no achievement at all. We even would discover that we help the enemies, instead. And this is what we have discovered now after the Greens declaration of their real agenda, intents and belonging.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Opinion on London riots: Would Australia be next?!
I was refraining from writing about London riots for the last week. But the issue is very hot and attractive. And there are tons of questions to be asked about how “democracies” fail so miserably to the point of citizens looting public and private buildings.
My personal experiences for the last few months are clear example of reasons to reach the point of “let us take law on our hands”.
Today was the climax. I received a letter from the State Debt Recovery Office (the most hated state department in NSW) informing me that my drivers licence will be suspended sometime at the end of the month. The reasons were that I did not appear in the court, where I sought court review of parking fine. Then I failed to pay the money determined by the court. When I contacted the SDRO, I informed them that I never received notice to attend the court. I also did not receive any letter of the court decision. Not only this. I never received notice from the SDRO asking me to pay the money, ways to pay the money and how much I should pay.
It is not about the fine, anymore. It is about the system. The system where punch of politicians are using the might of the state (including many security agencies) to oppress the majority of population. All by laws they agreed to adopt and within “democratic” context.
The whole fine issue was about someone with authority has put a bus stop sign on telephone post, where not many people can notice it (as money trap to collect as much as possible for the council). Then the same authority sent rangers to issue fines. Then the same authority sent another office to punish the black goat that refused to put its head with other heads and give up. And if you do not accept the punishment, the same authority sends police to further punish the black goat and threaten with jail if it insists to stay rebellious.
Would this minor issue prompt me to accept the logic of rioters in London?
Let us go back few days in the week. Me and My friend Hussein went to obtain him a licence. Ordinary worker there who had prejudice against his ethnicity and against the unauthorised legal way that drove him to this country, told him that she will not do her job and facilitate achieving this mission. He can go and bang his head against any wall in the street, but no licence will be issued or tests organised. But he still has the right to shout, argue and get upset. But he cannot shout louder, as this would result into fines for “disturbing public peace”.
Is that all???
Of course not. I also remembered how I was treated like criminal when the minister for immigration lost control of his department when detainees in many detention centres decided that enough is enough. The minister so naively accused me of all these troubles and verbally asked the authorities to ban me from entering any detention centre. And racist police officers were leashed with full authority to humiliate me and oppress me to the point that I thought that I am living in Zimbabwe. And to date, I was unable to obtain written ban. And all my complaints against the racist police officers went unnoticed. And I also can bang my head against any wall. This is democracy: you have the right to bang your head against any wall, but not to the point of destroying this wall. That would be “damaging public or private properties”. And we are still in democracy.
And before that I was subjected to some of worst racist and degrading treatment at work. And because there are not enough evidences, the racism and Islamophobia went unnoticed but some very small amount of money to prove that it is still democracy, somehow.
All this in addition to the difficulty finding suitable accommodation, bad experience in public hospitals, expensive food, skyrocketing electricity and gas bills, block of access to decision making bodies, ....
But it is democracy: you have the right to ask, complain and criticise, but them they have the right to ignore you.
And now today at this moment, I wonder if I, as one of the highest law abiding citizen in this country who is doing all within his capacity (and even beyond that capacity sometimes) to help others and help building better society, is subjected to such humiliating treatment, what is about the rest of the society who are more marginalised than me (they are in millions)?
Was this the major reason behind London riots?
You feel humiliated, robbed by different organisations (including your own “democratic” government), cannot have decent life, expensive life style, high taxes, fines in violating laws or not violating any law, ailing health system where you can be humiliated by nurse or doctors for asking why you have waited for long time to see any professional, no decent accommodation .... All these while you can see that the common wealth is robbed by few people, including the politicians that punish you by either more taxes or fines for every move in your life.
And justice is very slow when you want something from them, they humiliated you, they denied your rights or when you need any vital service. They have the right to refuse your request. Then you have the right to appeal. This would take years. And the system is designed for your appeal to fail. Then you can go to higher legal system level. After all these accessed, you will be already lost more than what you will gain.
But the justice is very quick and decisive when they want something from you, when you make any small mistake or they discover that you have accessed more than is allowed for you. The justice fist at that time is very strong, even if they will destroy your life.
So in both scenarios, your life is destroyed. But in the first scenario, if you can prove that they hurt you or caused you any damage, they also do not care. Because they will compensate you from the tax you had paid during your life. Or maybe they compensate you from the taxes paid by your brother, sister, wife or neighbour. They do not lose anything.
Does this give grim picture? Can you imagine that 1 in every 4 Australians has mental health problems.
But all in democratic context. So we should be happy.
But why British were not happy within this democratic context. They are not happy with exercising their democratic rights to be humiliated, robbed and oppressed in democratic way.
Do you think that this is the reasons (or part of the reasons) that thousands of “hooligans” roamed London, Manchester, Liverpool .... in the last few days?
When people lose hope of being respected, listened to, cared for and participated in decision making, they will do this. And it is clearly that British had reached this point.
So the question here: is Australia too far from this stage?
I can declare very clearly here that I am not very far at all from this stage. But apart from me, are there many Australians feel the same?
The result of the last election where the informal vote was very high and people deliberately declared that “all politicians are the same, all are crooks”, is clear evidence that Australians (or large section of them) have reached close to the British state.
It is not British only. Few months ago, Greek, Italians, Spanish and Portuguese did similar things.
We lost the hope. Yes we did, where the laws became very blind, heavy handed and violate basic rights.
Would I participate in any riots if happened in Australia?
I am not sure if I have the courage.
But who cares about me: what about homeless (after the department of housing is telling them that there are cheap accommodation that they can rent, when the market is very dry), unemployed (who are tortured by Centrelink and authorities), marginalised in the suburbs (where laws turned them into criminals because they speed at some stage or they lost nerve at public department), former detainees who need to put up with prejudice and feel of guilt for the rest of their lives, sick people who are treated like trash in hospitals, students who needs big fortune to complete simple study, ....
Would they refuse to stand up for their rights, indefinitely?
After the uprising in most of Western countries, Australians will think about standing for their rights, their future and the future of their children. They are coming into terms with the bitter reality: The democracy will not stop politicians (who act mainly on behalf of big corporations) from taking away their rights and privileges.
Democracy needs power to protect democratic rights, especially after many of these democratic rights were already taken away in the last decades.
My personal experiences for the last few months are clear example of reasons to reach the point of “let us take law on our hands”.
Today was the climax. I received a letter from the State Debt Recovery Office (the most hated state department in NSW) informing me that my drivers licence will be suspended sometime at the end of the month. The reasons were that I did not appear in the court, where I sought court review of parking fine. Then I failed to pay the money determined by the court. When I contacted the SDRO, I informed them that I never received notice to attend the court. I also did not receive any letter of the court decision. Not only this. I never received notice from the SDRO asking me to pay the money, ways to pay the money and how much I should pay.
It is not about the fine, anymore. It is about the system. The system where punch of politicians are using the might of the state (including many security agencies) to oppress the majority of population. All by laws they agreed to adopt and within “democratic” context.
The whole fine issue was about someone with authority has put a bus stop sign on telephone post, where not many people can notice it (as money trap to collect as much as possible for the council). Then the same authority sent rangers to issue fines. Then the same authority sent another office to punish the black goat that refused to put its head with other heads and give up. And if you do not accept the punishment, the same authority sends police to further punish the black goat and threaten with jail if it insists to stay rebellious.
Would this minor issue prompt me to accept the logic of rioters in London?
Let us go back few days in the week. Me and My friend Hussein went to obtain him a licence. Ordinary worker there who had prejudice against his ethnicity and against the unauthorised legal way that drove him to this country, told him that she will not do her job and facilitate achieving this mission. He can go and bang his head against any wall in the street, but no licence will be issued or tests organised. But he still has the right to shout, argue and get upset. But he cannot shout louder, as this would result into fines for “disturbing public peace”.
Is that all???
Of course not. I also remembered how I was treated like criminal when the minister for immigration lost control of his department when detainees in many detention centres decided that enough is enough. The minister so naively accused me of all these troubles and verbally asked the authorities to ban me from entering any detention centre. And racist police officers were leashed with full authority to humiliate me and oppress me to the point that I thought that I am living in Zimbabwe. And to date, I was unable to obtain written ban. And all my complaints against the racist police officers went unnoticed. And I also can bang my head against any wall. This is democracy: you have the right to bang your head against any wall, but not to the point of destroying this wall. That would be “damaging public or private properties”. And we are still in democracy.
And before that I was subjected to some of worst racist and degrading treatment at work. And because there are not enough evidences, the racism and Islamophobia went unnoticed but some very small amount of money to prove that it is still democracy, somehow.
All this in addition to the difficulty finding suitable accommodation, bad experience in public hospitals, expensive food, skyrocketing electricity and gas bills, block of access to decision making bodies, ....
But it is democracy: you have the right to ask, complain and criticise, but them they have the right to ignore you.
And now today at this moment, I wonder if I, as one of the highest law abiding citizen in this country who is doing all within his capacity (and even beyond that capacity sometimes) to help others and help building better society, is subjected to such humiliating treatment, what is about the rest of the society who are more marginalised than me (they are in millions)?
Was this the major reason behind London riots?
You feel humiliated, robbed by different organisations (including your own “democratic” government), cannot have decent life, expensive life style, high taxes, fines in violating laws or not violating any law, ailing health system where you can be humiliated by nurse or doctors for asking why you have waited for long time to see any professional, no decent accommodation .... All these while you can see that the common wealth is robbed by few people, including the politicians that punish you by either more taxes or fines for every move in your life.
And justice is very slow when you want something from them, they humiliated you, they denied your rights or when you need any vital service. They have the right to refuse your request. Then you have the right to appeal. This would take years. And the system is designed for your appeal to fail. Then you can go to higher legal system level. After all these accessed, you will be already lost more than what you will gain.
But the justice is very quick and decisive when they want something from you, when you make any small mistake or they discover that you have accessed more than is allowed for you. The justice fist at that time is very strong, even if they will destroy your life.
So in both scenarios, your life is destroyed. But in the first scenario, if you can prove that they hurt you or caused you any damage, they also do not care. Because they will compensate you from the tax you had paid during your life. Or maybe they compensate you from the taxes paid by your brother, sister, wife or neighbour. They do not lose anything.
Does this give grim picture? Can you imagine that 1 in every 4 Australians has mental health problems.
But all in democratic context. So we should be happy.
But why British were not happy within this democratic context. They are not happy with exercising their democratic rights to be humiliated, robbed and oppressed in democratic way.
Do you think that this is the reasons (or part of the reasons) that thousands of “hooligans” roamed London, Manchester, Liverpool .... in the last few days?
When people lose hope of being respected, listened to, cared for and participated in decision making, they will do this. And it is clearly that British had reached this point.
So the question here: is Australia too far from this stage?
I can declare very clearly here that I am not very far at all from this stage. But apart from me, are there many Australians feel the same?
The result of the last election where the informal vote was very high and people deliberately declared that “all politicians are the same, all are crooks”, is clear evidence that Australians (or large section of them) have reached close to the British state.
It is not British only. Few months ago, Greek, Italians, Spanish and Portuguese did similar things.
We lost the hope. Yes we did, where the laws became very blind, heavy handed and violate basic rights.
Would I participate in any riots if happened in Australia?
I am not sure if I have the courage.
But who cares about me: what about homeless (after the department of housing is telling them that there are cheap accommodation that they can rent, when the market is very dry), unemployed (who are tortured by Centrelink and authorities), marginalised in the suburbs (where laws turned them into criminals because they speed at some stage or they lost nerve at public department), former detainees who need to put up with prejudice and feel of guilt for the rest of their lives, sick people who are treated like trash in hospitals, students who needs big fortune to complete simple study, ....
Would they refuse to stand up for their rights, indefinitely?
After the uprising in most of Western countries, Australians will think about standing for their rights, their future and the future of their children. They are coming into terms with the bitter reality: The democracy will not stop politicians (who act mainly on behalf of big corporations) from taking away their rights and privileges.
Democracy needs power to protect democratic rights, especially after many of these democratic rights were already taken away in the last decades.
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
Letter to NSW Premier about the draconian undemocratic and impractical political donations' reporting laws
2 August 2011
Dear Hon Barry O’Farrell, NSW Premier
In this letter we explain to you our deep concerns about the NSW unique political donations reporting system. We can easily argue that this unique system is impractical, complicated, undemocratic and designed to serve no good reason.
We cannot deny that there is some good will in the system, by disallowing donations from tobacco, liquor and gambling industries. But still we believe that such good will is not practical to be achieved and enforced.
Our biggest problem is with the complicated nature of the system, including:
1- The requirement of disclosing expenditures: The Electoral Expenditure to be reported is defined in the system as “expenditure on promoting or opposing, directly or indirectly, a political party, or the election of a candidate or candidates. It is also expenditure on influencing the voting at an election”
2- The complicated nature of reporting Electoral Expenditures. This includes the need to have “Official Agent” (with certain requirements of this agent) and the need to hire company auditor.
3- The discriminatory nature of prohibited donors.
We have major concern with the first item, mainly. We believe that this system is designed to limit political participation of mainly marginalised groups. Currently, the citizens’ participation in political system is very low, and such system will further decrease this participation.
But let us look at the practical aspect of this requirement.
The system as currently stands will require anyone who wants to send a message during election period, to go through very complicated and exhausting system.
Let me give you examples, to show how this system is both impractical and indeed an attack on the basic rights of citizens to voice their concerns. Indeed it aims to gagg people and limit freedom of speech of ordinary or active unorganised individuals.
Let us assume that I have only $200 and I want to use them to send message of dissatisfaction to my local member. I can use this $200 by:
1- Printing home-designed poster against the member and stick them on posts or on walls of local businesses or outside homes.
2- Print hundreds of leaflets and distribute them to letter-boxes of local residents.
In doing this, I will be obliged to:
1- Register with the NSW EFA.
2- Appoint Official Agent.
3- Fill forms to report expenditures every year.
4- Hire company auditor to go through these forms and approve them.
Would not this be called “crack down on freedom of speech and opinions”? Would not this create many obstacles for political participation and could lead either to marginalisation of citizens or resorting to under-ground activities?
Then the biggest question here is who will watch the millions of NSW voters during election period? Does not this look like that we are living in police state, now.
Also, will the NSW EFA hire enough people to go through streets to catch people who hang stickers or posters on posts and walls? Does the NSW EFA has the capacity to go through internet of people to follow people’s postings that will affect the election, attack candidate or advocate for a candidate? Do not we describe this to be “censorship of ideas and thoughts”?
We believe that these laws and this system are gross abuse of citizens’ rights to express opinions and thoughts. Now, the NSW EFA will be appointed as a guardian on our brains, pins and computers.
And here let me ask few questions:
1- The Friends of Auburn Library organised a “candidates’ debate” during the election period: are they require to report for “Electoral Expenditures”?
2- Some Falung Gong families organised small gathering to “meet the local candidates”: Did they register with NSW EFA for reporting?
3- My friend shouted on local member and demanded that people vote against her: Is he required to appoint “Official Agent” and provide the EFA about his “Electoral Expenditures”?
4- What is the status of journalists who criticised this candidate or that one? What about “casual” journalists or active community members who send “letter to editor” that could affect the outcome of the election?
5- What about private conversation between me and my GP about the election? Does not my GP require to register for reporting?
After these plain examples, do not you think that this system is very ridiculous, naive, and undemocratic and was introduced by government that lost its mandate and was very desperate to appease the Greens before the last election? Do not you think that it is the time to expose the naivety of this system, its impracticability and the draconian side of its requirements?
We, as a small group that campaigned for the last 2 state elections in different seats with high marginalised communities, we believe that this system was introduced to stop small groups like our to participate in the political system. It has nothing to do with making political system more efficient, more transparent or more progressive. On the opposite. It limits the participation of marginalised people in the political system and pushes them to shut their ideas and minds.
Now, why the prohibited donors were limited to groups that the Greens are enemies with? Why only developers? Do not the drug manufacturers make donations to influence the political decisions of law-makers?
Then why there is need for company auditor to audit the forms? This is a political process that should involve people active in politics. Does not this requirement constitute extra obstacle for independent people to run for election to voice their concerns? How would a poor protestor who shouted on local member find enough money to hire company auditor to audit the required forms?
We believe that this system does not serve any democratic system that allows grass root democratic campaigns. The irony here is that the system was proposed and enforced by the Greens, the party that pride themselves to be “progressive” party believes in grass-root campaigns.
We hope that you can take this letter into consideration in a bid to scrap this undemocratic unrealistic system. We believe that you (unlike Labor in its last term) have the mandate and the power to do so.
While we did not agree with Liberals before on any issue, but you will have our full support on this issue.
Thanks and if you need to discuss these issues further, I can be contacted on 0404 447 272
Yours sincerely
Jamal Daoud
Dear Hon Barry O’Farrell, NSW Premier
In this letter we explain to you our deep concerns about the NSW unique political donations reporting system. We can easily argue that this unique system is impractical, complicated, undemocratic and designed to serve no good reason.
We cannot deny that there is some good will in the system, by disallowing donations from tobacco, liquor and gambling industries. But still we believe that such good will is not practical to be achieved and enforced.
Our biggest problem is with the complicated nature of the system, including:
1- The requirement of disclosing expenditures: The Electoral Expenditure to be reported is defined in the system as “expenditure on promoting or opposing, directly or indirectly, a political party, or the election of a candidate or candidates. It is also expenditure on influencing the voting at an election”
2- The complicated nature of reporting Electoral Expenditures. This includes the need to have “Official Agent” (with certain requirements of this agent) and the need to hire company auditor.
3- The discriminatory nature of prohibited donors.
We have major concern with the first item, mainly. We believe that this system is designed to limit political participation of mainly marginalised groups. Currently, the citizens’ participation in political system is very low, and such system will further decrease this participation.
But let us look at the practical aspect of this requirement.
The system as currently stands will require anyone who wants to send a message during election period, to go through very complicated and exhausting system.
Let me give you examples, to show how this system is both impractical and indeed an attack on the basic rights of citizens to voice their concerns. Indeed it aims to gagg people and limit freedom of speech of ordinary or active unorganised individuals.
Let us assume that I have only $200 and I want to use them to send message of dissatisfaction to my local member. I can use this $200 by:
1- Printing home-designed poster against the member and stick them on posts or on walls of local businesses or outside homes.
2- Print hundreds of leaflets and distribute them to letter-boxes of local residents.
In doing this, I will be obliged to:
1- Register with the NSW EFA.
2- Appoint Official Agent.
3- Fill forms to report expenditures every year.
4- Hire company auditor to go through these forms and approve them.
Would not this be called “crack down on freedom of speech and opinions”? Would not this create many obstacles for political participation and could lead either to marginalisation of citizens or resorting to under-ground activities?
Then the biggest question here is who will watch the millions of NSW voters during election period? Does not this look like that we are living in police state, now.
Also, will the NSW EFA hire enough people to go through streets to catch people who hang stickers or posters on posts and walls? Does the NSW EFA has the capacity to go through internet of people to follow people’s postings that will affect the election, attack candidate or advocate for a candidate? Do not we describe this to be “censorship of ideas and thoughts”?
We believe that these laws and this system are gross abuse of citizens’ rights to express opinions and thoughts. Now, the NSW EFA will be appointed as a guardian on our brains, pins and computers.
And here let me ask few questions:
1- The Friends of Auburn Library organised a “candidates’ debate” during the election period: are they require to report for “Electoral Expenditures”?
2- Some Falung Gong families organised small gathering to “meet the local candidates”: Did they register with NSW EFA for reporting?
3- My friend shouted on local member and demanded that people vote against her: Is he required to appoint “Official Agent” and provide the EFA about his “Electoral Expenditures”?
4- What is the status of journalists who criticised this candidate or that one? What about “casual” journalists or active community members who send “letter to editor” that could affect the outcome of the election?
5- What about private conversation between me and my GP about the election? Does not my GP require to register for reporting?
After these plain examples, do not you think that this system is very ridiculous, naive, and undemocratic and was introduced by government that lost its mandate and was very desperate to appease the Greens before the last election? Do not you think that it is the time to expose the naivety of this system, its impracticability and the draconian side of its requirements?
We, as a small group that campaigned for the last 2 state elections in different seats with high marginalised communities, we believe that this system was introduced to stop small groups like our to participate in the political system. It has nothing to do with making political system more efficient, more transparent or more progressive. On the opposite. It limits the participation of marginalised people in the political system and pushes them to shut their ideas and minds.
Now, why the prohibited donors were limited to groups that the Greens are enemies with? Why only developers? Do not the drug manufacturers make donations to influence the political decisions of law-makers?
Then why there is need for company auditor to audit the forms? This is a political process that should involve people active in politics. Does not this requirement constitute extra obstacle for independent people to run for election to voice their concerns? How would a poor protestor who shouted on local member find enough money to hire company auditor to audit the required forms?
We believe that this system does not serve any democratic system that allows grass root democratic campaigns. The irony here is that the system was proposed and enforced by the Greens, the party that pride themselves to be “progressive” party believes in grass-root campaigns.
We hope that you can take this letter into consideration in a bid to scrap this undemocratic unrealistic system. We believe that you (unlike Labor in its last term) have the mandate and the power to do so.
While we did not agree with Liberals before on any issue, but you will have our full support on this issue.
Thanks and if you need to discuss these issues further, I can be contacted on 0404 447 272
Yours sincerely
Jamal Daoud
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The Greens thirst for Palestinian blood: never ending game to gain some votes!!!
Tomorrow is the time for harvest of the latest Palestinian blood auction. NSW Greens senator is appearing to vend more lies about her party’s political prostitution on the continued Palestinian blood spells. And we know the cliché “The lies” about the Greens continued support for ... who ... Nobody knows. But she will open the auction: how much Palestinian blood in return for each vote to the Greens!!!
The Greens line is very clear: follow the safe line to win votes from all sides.
Let us concentrate on Palestinian issue.
The Greens refused to officially participate in Australian fact-finding mission to West Bank in the aftermath of Jenin and Ramallah massacres, 2002. The mission organised by Australian unions, who sent official invitation to the Greens to lead the mission. The Greens refused the invitation utterly because the Greens do not want to be seen in the media as “Pro-Palestinian” party (as I was personally told by Kerry Nettle, the Greens senator then). But the Greens would not miss this opportunity for political prostitution to win some Palestinian and pro-Palestine votes. They convinced someone from the Greens to participate in the mission, on individual basis.
As the mission visited West Bank, the Greens member presence gave indication that the Greens are a progressive party. When the mission returned back to Australia, the Greens member appeared in media and hence won the Greens a lot of votes among progressive voters. But at the same time, when the media contacted the Greens hierarchy, they were told that the Greens member went as individual, and not representative of the Greens.
The Greens killed too many birds with one stone.
The same is happening now.
The Greens never participated in Palestinian solidarity missions. This year, they wanted to kill too many birds with one stone, again. They convinced retired Greens MP to participate in the Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza. The Greens want the media to mention the Greens name on media outlets, so that many progressive voters could be deceived by this mentioning. But at the same time, the Greens official stance is that “this is individual participation from former MP”.
Otherwise, why the Greens:
1- Did not send one of its sitting MPs?
2- Why the Greens did not promote the flotilla and its mission on the Greens official sites?
3- Why the Greens did not announce its endorsement of the flotilla mission?
Bob Brown was very clear few months ago “I am the Greens leader, and I am the one who speak on foreign affairs”. The media knows this. The other politicians know this. But the public, especially desperate progressive public who is struggling to find any progressive politician to trust, do not know this.
It is our mission to let them know.
If the Greens support the mission of Ms Hale, former Greens MP, let Mr Brown tell us this. Not only this. Let them publish endorsement and progress of the mission on the Greens sites and in public papers and literature.
We know that the Greens cannot do this. We challenge them to do this.
We say now that it is enough playing with Palestinian blood. As one of the Palestinians whose blood on sale, please stop.
So fellow Greens politicians, please keep
The Greens line is very clear: follow the safe line to win votes from all sides.
Let us concentrate on Palestinian issue.
The Greens refused to officially participate in Australian fact-finding mission to West Bank in the aftermath of Jenin and Ramallah massacres, 2002. The mission organised by Australian unions, who sent official invitation to the Greens to lead the mission. The Greens refused the invitation utterly because the Greens do not want to be seen in the media as “Pro-Palestinian” party (as I was personally told by Kerry Nettle, the Greens senator then). But the Greens would not miss this opportunity for political prostitution to win some Palestinian and pro-Palestine votes. They convinced someone from the Greens to participate in the mission, on individual basis.
As the mission visited West Bank, the Greens member presence gave indication that the Greens are a progressive party. When the mission returned back to Australia, the Greens member appeared in media and hence won the Greens a lot of votes among progressive voters. But at the same time, when the media contacted the Greens hierarchy, they were told that the Greens member went as individual, and not representative of the Greens.
The Greens killed too many birds with one stone.
The same is happening now.
The Greens never participated in Palestinian solidarity missions. This year, they wanted to kill too many birds with one stone, again. They convinced retired Greens MP to participate in the Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza. The Greens want the media to mention the Greens name on media outlets, so that many progressive voters could be deceived by this mentioning. But at the same time, the Greens official stance is that “this is individual participation from former MP”.
Otherwise, why the Greens:
1- Did not send one of its sitting MPs?
2- Why the Greens did not promote the flotilla and its mission on the Greens official sites?
3- Why the Greens did not announce its endorsement of the flotilla mission?
Bob Brown was very clear few months ago “I am the Greens leader, and I am the one who speak on foreign affairs”. The media knows this. The other politicians know this. But the public, especially desperate progressive public who is struggling to find any progressive politician to trust, do not know this.
It is our mission to let them know.
If the Greens support the mission of Ms Hale, former Greens MP, let Mr Brown tell us this. Not only this. Let them publish endorsement and progress of the mission on the Greens sites and in public papers and literature.
We know that the Greens cannot do this. We challenge them to do this.
We say now that it is enough playing with Palestinian blood. As one of the Palestinians whose blood on sale, please stop.
So fellow Greens politicians, please keep
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Why the Greens are not rushing on boat people issue!!!
It will be so naive and unrealistic for anyone to deny the unique situation in Australian politics at the moment. It will also equally unrealistic to deny the Greens influence on the the current government, when they wish to use such influence.
The political influence is very clear on achievements on many fronts. Such achievements would not happen in normal situation, even if the Greens will continue to hold the balance of power in the senate.
The Greens political luck is double, at the moment:
1- The Greens are lucky to have the most naive unexperienced and inflexible government Australia had in recent decades.
2- The Greens are holding the balance of power with Labor government, and not Liberal-National.
The unique situation is that we are having minority government for the first time in the last few decades. This situation enables the Greens to be crucial in both houses. And this is why they could have crucial power if they wish.
The political power is displayed in the Greens successful in enforcing the minority government to introduce legislations or move Labor to change its stance on issues, that would not be possible in normal circumstances.
Some examples on this:
1- The Greens enforced Labor to introduce Carbon Tax, against clear commitments before the last election made by Julia Gillard’s government of “never ever under my government”.
2- The Labor change of heart on re-opening of the debate within the party on the same-sex marriage. This is against all commitments by Rudd’s government on the basis of religious commitment and Gillard’s refusal on the basis of anti-marriage stance she personally took.
3- The immediate ban of live cattle export to Indonesia.
While we think that the Greens luck would be short lived, as all indications suggest conservative tsunami in the next election. Such tsunami which would put the Greens face to face with their reality. Not only this. We would love to see the Greens continue to hold balance of power in the senate under conservative government, with their philosophy of being “cooperative opposition” that uses its control of balance of power “sensibly” as Bob Brown loves to put it.
We will explain such scenarios in next article.
But here, and after explaining the great influence of the Greens on Australian weak minority government, we need to ask a question: Why the Greens was successful on many issues, but stands impotent on stopping the Labor gross inhumane treatment of asylum seekers?
Before we answer this simple question, let us follow the Greens success story recently.
The Greens party started its political activism early 70s of the last century. Then a political party was formed in the mid of 70s of the last century. But since then, the Greens had no real political success or influence, apart from success in Tasmanian state election in late 80s. In all states, the Greens influence never exceeded one or two members of state parliaments in NSW and WA, only.
It was not until Tampa, that the Greens star started to shine. Again, the Greens were very lucky politically. At that time, the Democrats were losing its popularity because they held balance of power during very conservative government. Howard’s far right government could squeeze the Democrats on many issues, including especially the introduction of GST. So the only opposition voice the voters could hear during Tampa was the voice of the Greens.
So the rise of the Greens political success was on the back of the suffering of boat people. The Greens could double their popularity in 2001 election, from 2.5% to 4.96%. Such achievement that they could not achieve within more than 25 years of political existence. All this was because of Tampa.
The following election, 2004, the debate on boat people treatment was still raging. The Howard’s government was still campaigning on racism and Islamophobia. The Labor was not giving any real alternative. And the Democrats were already on boiling point with deep divisions and infightings. Again, the only alternative on issues of racism, Islamophobia and refugees (which were the main issue for the election) was the Greens. The Greens could again increase its voting by more than third (from 5% to 7.2%).
The issues of boat people, refugees and migration were negligible issues during the 2007 election. The only election item in that election was Work Choices. Surprisingly, The Greens voting stalled on 7.7%.
But when the boat people, refugees and migration became central issue for the last 2010 election, the Greens popularity jumped to historically high record of 11.76%. During the election, the only pressing issue was the boat people, border protection and fighting against people smugglers.
After this analysis, can anyone be doubt about the importance of raging racism, Islamophobia and boat people bashing in the Greens success story?
The Greens leadership and politicians know very well that without the debate on refugees and asylum seekers, their popularity will sink again.
This is why they keep talking on the issue, but no decisive actions or ultimatum to the minority government.
How ironic that the Greens did not include demands on asylum seekers to find humane solution to boat people bashing in the memorandum to form the minority government?
The Greens put 8 demands on Labor to support Julia Gillard to form minority government. No item was on boat people.
We deeply believe that the Greens wish the boat people continue to suffer, to keep this issue alive for the next election. Without this deafening racist debate, the Greens will have not much to be distinct from the Labor. Especially the Labor had agreed to introduce Carbon Tax scheme.
The only other issue where Labor has different stance from the Greens is on same-sex marriage. But we are sure that this issue will not make many Australians change their pattern of vote.
So the only hope for the Greens to keep this historic record voting is for the boat people’s issue to continue raging, regardless of blood spelt because of this.
Again and before anyone accuses us of Anti-Greens hysteria, we are open for the Greens to answer our questions. On the top of these questions is: Why the Greens is impotent to make changes in government’s policies only on boat people’s?
The political influence is very clear on achievements on many fronts. Such achievements would not happen in normal situation, even if the Greens will continue to hold the balance of power in the senate.
The Greens political luck is double, at the moment:
1- The Greens are lucky to have the most naive unexperienced and inflexible government Australia had in recent decades.
2- The Greens are holding the balance of power with Labor government, and not Liberal-National.
The unique situation is that we are having minority government for the first time in the last few decades. This situation enables the Greens to be crucial in both houses. And this is why they could have crucial power if they wish.
The political power is displayed in the Greens successful in enforcing the minority government to introduce legislations or move Labor to change its stance on issues, that would not be possible in normal circumstances.
Some examples on this:
1- The Greens enforced Labor to introduce Carbon Tax, against clear commitments before the last election made by Julia Gillard’s government of “never ever under my government”.
2- The Labor change of heart on re-opening of the debate within the party on the same-sex marriage. This is against all commitments by Rudd’s government on the basis of religious commitment and Gillard’s refusal on the basis of anti-marriage stance she personally took.
3- The immediate ban of live cattle export to Indonesia.
While we think that the Greens luck would be short lived, as all indications suggest conservative tsunami in the next election. Such tsunami which would put the Greens face to face with their reality. Not only this. We would love to see the Greens continue to hold balance of power in the senate under conservative government, with their philosophy of being “cooperative opposition” that uses its control of balance of power “sensibly” as Bob Brown loves to put it.
We will explain such scenarios in next article.
But here, and after explaining the great influence of the Greens on Australian weak minority government, we need to ask a question: Why the Greens was successful on many issues, but stands impotent on stopping the Labor gross inhumane treatment of asylum seekers?
Before we answer this simple question, let us follow the Greens success story recently.
The Greens party started its political activism early 70s of the last century. Then a political party was formed in the mid of 70s of the last century. But since then, the Greens had no real political success or influence, apart from success in Tasmanian state election in late 80s. In all states, the Greens influence never exceeded one or two members of state parliaments in NSW and WA, only.
It was not until Tampa, that the Greens star started to shine. Again, the Greens were very lucky politically. At that time, the Democrats were losing its popularity because they held balance of power during very conservative government. Howard’s far right government could squeeze the Democrats on many issues, including especially the introduction of GST. So the only opposition voice the voters could hear during Tampa was the voice of the Greens.
So the rise of the Greens political success was on the back of the suffering of boat people. The Greens could double their popularity in 2001 election, from 2.5% to 4.96%. Such achievement that they could not achieve within more than 25 years of political existence. All this was because of Tampa.
The following election, 2004, the debate on boat people treatment was still raging. The Howard’s government was still campaigning on racism and Islamophobia. The Labor was not giving any real alternative. And the Democrats were already on boiling point with deep divisions and infightings. Again, the only alternative on issues of racism, Islamophobia and refugees (which were the main issue for the election) was the Greens. The Greens could again increase its voting by more than third (from 5% to 7.2%).
The issues of boat people, refugees and migration were negligible issues during the 2007 election. The only election item in that election was Work Choices. Surprisingly, The Greens voting stalled on 7.7%.
But when the boat people, refugees and migration became central issue for the last 2010 election, the Greens popularity jumped to historically high record of 11.76%. During the election, the only pressing issue was the boat people, border protection and fighting against people smugglers.
After this analysis, can anyone be doubt about the importance of raging racism, Islamophobia and boat people bashing in the Greens success story?
The Greens leadership and politicians know very well that without the debate on refugees and asylum seekers, their popularity will sink again.
This is why they keep talking on the issue, but no decisive actions or ultimatum to the minority government.
How ironic that the Greens did not include demands on asylum seekers to find humane solution to boat people bashing in the memorandum to form the minority government?
The Greens put 8 demands on Labor to support Julia Gillard to form minority government. No item was on boat people.
We deeply believe that the Greens wish the boat people continue to suffer, to keep this issue alive for the next election. Without this deafening racist debate, the Greens will have not much to be distinct from the Labor. Especially the Labor had agreed to introduce Carbon Tax scheme.
The only other issue where Labor has different stance from the Greens is on same-sex marriage. But we are sure that this issue will not make many Australians change their pattern of vote.
So the only hope for the Greens to keep this historic record voting is for the boat people’s issue to continue raging, regardless of blood spelt because of this.
Again and before anyone accuses us of Anti-Greens hysteria, we are open for the Greens to answer our questions. On the top of these questions is: Why the Greens is impotent to make changes in government’s policies only on boat people’s?
Sunday, July 03, 2011
Lee Rhiannon in the senate: the best chance to destabilise the Greens!!!
Before we go in depth with the issue of Greens control of balance of power in the senate, we should mention few issues here.
We campaigned in the last election against the election of Lee Rhiannon as Greens candidate in NSW, and we were very close to deny her a seat in the senate. Against the odds and all expectations, Lee Rhiannon got the least votes amongst Greens candidates in all states and territories. The Greens candidates in all states got between 12.76 – 14.7% in all states (except Tasmania), except Lee Rhiannon who got around 10.5%.
Now and against all our campaigns, we are more than happy that Lee was elected. We will argue the details of the reasons of this joy later, but we should summarise all these reasons in one sentence: Lee is the best chance of all Greens’ opponents to see this party destabilised as a first step to send them back to political wilderness.
The public tension between Bob Brown, the historical founding figure of the Greens, and Ms Rhiannon began very early even in the lead to the election campaign, 2010. Ms Lee was caught in a scandal of misusing parliamentary privileges, against all her rhetoric during her political career. Bob Brown publicly demanded that she resigns from the state parliament, and focus on federal campaign, to kill these allegations and avoid negative impact. Her response was swift of refusing to budge to her leader’s call and demand. We feel that she was feeling that her chances to win a seat are slim, so she wanted to keep her political career alive. Bob wanted to gamble of ending her political career before she starts to give him leadership headaches at Federal level. Such headache that was expected by Ian Cohen as early as 2005 when we met privately in his office to discuss many relevant issues.
The tension was very clear recently when Bob Brown appeared on several national media outlets condemning Lee’s political opportunist move to use Marrickville council as a tool to increase her popularity among progressive voters on the back of Palestinian people’s suffering. Mr Brown was very clear in indicating that “I am the leader of the Greens party, and not Lee Rhiannon”.
Before we go to the possible impact of the high tension between Lee and Bob on the stability and hence the future of the Greens, we should mention few observations.
Ms Lee wants to put the tension with Bob in the context of ideological differences, while in fact it is only about power thirst. Ms Lee is very notorious to be very thirsty to grab power regardless of any consequencies, including betraying principles or ideological setbacks.
Ms Lee campaigned for long time to destabilise Bob Brown environmental faction’s control of the Greens. She did not hesitate to use all clean and dirty tricks to achieve this goal.
In NSW, she was active to target Bob Brown’s strong ally, Ian Cohen and his faction. She did not hesitate to use all possible tricks to end Mr Cohen’s strong presence inside NSW Greens.
First trick was to conduct vicious campaign to limit the time in parliament to 8 years to end Mr Cohen’s bid for re-election in 2003 state election. Her campaign to enforce limited tenure failed miserably and Mr Cohen emerged victorious. And he did campaign to discredit her when she decided to run again for office in 2007 state election (in clear defiance of her demands and teachings that politicians should not stay in office for long time to prevent political corruption and power abuse).
Then, and after she failed to convince her party to implement limited tenure principle, she resorted to campaigns of political assassination nature, to stop Cohen’s re-election.
Even during last election, Ms Lee used these tactics of ideological differences to distance herself from Brown’s leadership and faction. One of Ms Lee’s supporter posted public email to blame Brown and his environmental faction for the limited campaigns during the election on Multiculturalism and against racism and Islamophobia.
There are many clear evidences that Ms Lee’s fight with Bob Brown and his influential environmental faction is only about power grab and control of the Greens.
If we assume that Lee wants to destabilise Bob’s leadership as an ideological struggle between “Socialist-Left” of Lee and “no-ideology” of Brown and his environmentalists, but how can we understand Lee’s attack on Lefties inside the party.
Ms Lee (and her long-time partner) systematically cleansed any potential threat to their absolute control of NSW Greens, using very dirty tricks most of the times.
This is what happened to Inner-West Greens. When respected active member could garner enough support to defeat Lee and her faction (2005) to impose their candidate for local government election, 2004. Lee did not hesitate to do all in her power to plot against the local group’s leadership even if this could have resulted in dissolving the group.
If Lee is really progressive and “lefties”, can she and her supporters explain to us why:
- She (and her “Greens Terrigal” faction) blocked any change to Greens constitution and procedure to see more people from marginalised groups (Indigenous, non-English, people with disabilities,..) elected to parliament to improve the very low representation of these marginalised groups in decision making bodies. She was quoted saying that “lack of English and ethnic background do not constitute barrier to participation in political leadership”.
- She (and her faction of opportunists) did not take any practical steps on social justice issues (like treatment of boat people, growing racism and Islamophobia, wars on developing nations like Iraq and Afghanistan,...). Apart from media releases and speeches at rallies, no practical steps were taken. Lee refused to participate in any solidarity missions to Palestine or Lebanon in the aftermath of Israeli aggressions. Lee participated in organising forums spreading Islamophobia. Lee blocked appointing Non-English speaking persons in the Greens hierarchy. Lee blocked preselecting Non-English speaking persons as candidates in safe seats.
- Lee did not oppose draconian “Anti-Terrorism laws” and the attacks on Muslim communities. On the contrary. She was active on participating in these attacks, as we mentioned above.
We can give tens of stories to prove that Lee was only interested in power grab, and not any ideological difference with Bob.
Now, Lee will do all in her best to destabilise Bob’s leadership in a bid to replace him. Lee, who has some allies of few other senators who used to spread similar lies about their progressive believes, will work almost immediately to undermine Bob’s position. From her track history in NSW Greens, she will not hesitate to use all tricks under her hat to do this.
We are certain that in the next few years, we will hear a lot about the dirty washings of the Greens on public ropes. As we heard a lot about allegations against Ian Cohen, including sexual harassment claims, we will start to hear a lot about Bob.
Combined efforts with Sarah Hanson-Young, both will do all in their best to destabilise the leadership of Tasmanian and environmentalists’ faction.
The worst mistake of the Greens environmentalist faction was that they did not match Lee and her faction in their dirty campaigns to undermine them. We expect that Bob and his faction will be enforced to resort to hanging the dirty washings of Lee and her opportunist faction, on the basis of “the attack is the best line of defence”.
The next few years will be very interesting in Australian politics. While there are a lot of scenarios in this regard, the best would be either of:
1- Lee and Bob engaging in public fight on leadership that would end them on the same track as the Democrats.
2- The conservative tide will swap Federal politics, as happened in NSW. Then the Greens presence in parliament becomes irrelevant.
Whatever scenario to prevail, we should continue exposing the opportunist nature of the Greens (both factions). Such opportunist nature that is clear in the Greens inability (or more accurately lack of desire) to neutralise the racist “boat people” debate. Such debate that could have been ended very easily if the Greens have the will to do so, the same way the Greens enforced the government to adopt Carbon Tax, against Labor committments.
Unlike the Greens misleading claims, we do not believe that their rise in popularity was due to increased understanding of Greens environmental or social policies. We deeply believe that the increase in Greens popularity is only because the unhappy voters had no other option. And when the real lefties create real alternative, the Greens popularity will return to its original level: 2.5%.
We campaigned in the last election against the election of Lee Rhiannon as Greens candidate in NSW, and we were very close to deny her a seat in the senate. Against the odds and all expectations, Lee Rhiannon got the least votes amongst Greens candidates in all states and territories. The Greens candidates in all states got between 12.76 – 14.7% in all states (except Tasmania), except Lee Rhiannon who got around 10.5%.
Now and against all our campaigns, we are more than happy that Lee was elected. We will argue the details of the reasons of this joy later, but we should summarise all these reasons in one sentence: Lee is the best chance of all Greens’ opponents to see this party destabilised as a first step to send them back to political wilderness.
The public tension between Bob Brown, the historical founding figure of the Greens, and Ms Rhiannon began very early even in the lead to the election campaign, 2010. Ms Lee was caught in a scandal of misusing parliamentary privileges, against all her rhetoric during her political career. Bob Brown publicly demanded that she resigns from the state parliament, and focus on federal campaign, to kill these allegations and avoid negative impact. Her response was swift of refusing to budge to her leader’s call and demand. We feel that she was feeling that her chances to win a seat are slim, so she wanted to keep her political career alive. Bob wanted to gamble of ending her political career before she starts to give him leadership headaches at Federal level. Such headache that was expected by Ian Cohen as early as 2005 when we met privately in his office to discuss many relevant issues.
The tension was very clear recently when Bob Brown appeared on several national media outlets condemning Lee’s political opportunist move to use Marrickville council as a tool to increase her popularity among progressive voters on the back of Palestinian people’s suffering. Mr Brown was very clear in indicating that “I am the leader of the Greens party, and not Lee Rhiannon”.
Before we go to the possible impact of the high tension between Lee and Bob on the stability and hence the future of the Greens, we should mention few observations.
Ms Lee wants to put the tension with Bob in the context of ideological differences, while in fact it is only about power thirst. Ms Lee is very notorious to be very thirsty to grab power regardless of any consequencies, including betraying principles or ideological setbacks.
Ms Lee campaigned for long time to destabilise Bob Brown environmental faction’s control of the Greens. She did not hesitate to use all clean and dirty tricks to achieve this goal.
In NSW, she was active to target Bob Brown’s strong ally, Ian Cohen and his faction. She did not hesitate to use all possible tricks to end Mr Cohen’s strong presence inside NSW Greens.
First trick was to conduct vicious campaign to limit the time in parliament to 8 years to end Mr Cohen’s bid for re-election in 2003 state election. Her campaign to enforce limited tenure failed miserably and Mr Cohen emerged victorious. And he did campaign to discredit her when she decided to run again for office in 2007 state election (in clear defiance of her demands and teachings that politicians should not stay in office for long time to prevent political corruption and power abuse).
Then, and after she failed to convince her party to implement limited tenure principle, she resorted to campaigns of political assassination nature, to stop Cohen’s re-election.
Even during last election, Ms Lee used these tactics of ideological differences to distance herself from Brown’s leadership and faction. One of Ms Lee’s supporter posted public email to blame Brown and his environmental faction for the limited campaigns during the election on Multiculturalism and against racism and Islamophobia.
There are many clear evidences that Ms Lee’s fight with Bob Brown and his influential environmental faction is only about power grab and control of the Greens.
If we assume that Lee wants to destabilise Bob’s leadership as an ideological struggle between “Socialist-Left” of Lee and “no-ideology” of Brown and his environmentalists, but how can we understand Lee’s attack on Lefties inside the party.
Ms Lee (and her long-time partner) systematically cleansed any potential threat to their absolute control of NSW Greens, using very dirty tricks most of the times.
This is what happened to Inner-West Greens. When respected active member could garner enough support to defeat Lee and her faction (2005) to impose their candidate for local government election, 2004. Lee did not hesitate to do all in her power to plot against the local group’s leadership even if this could have resulted in dissolving the group.
If Lee is really progressive and “lefties”, can she and her supporters explain to us why:
- She (and her “Greens Terrigal” faction) blocked any change to Greens constitution and procedure to see more people from marginalised groups (Indigenous, non-English, people with disabilities,..) elected to parliament to improve the very low representation of these marginalised groups in decision making bodies. She was quoted saying that “lack of English and ethnic background do not constitute barrier to participation in political leadership”.
- She (and her faction of opportunists) did not take any practical steps on social justice issues (like treatment of boat people, growing racism and Islamophobia, wars on developing nations like Iraq and Afghanistan,...). Apart from media releases and speeches at rallies, no practical steps were taken. Lee refused to participate in any solidarity missions to Palestine or Lebanon in the aftermath of Israeli aggressions. Lee participated in organising forums spreading Islamophobia. Lee blocked appointing Non-English speaking persons in the Greens hierarchy. Lee blocked preselecting Non-English speaking persons as candidates in safe seats.
- Lee did not oppose draconian “Anti-Terrorism laws” and the attacks on Muslim communities. On the contrary. She was active on participating in these attacks, as we mentioned above.
We can give tens of stories to prove that Lee was only interested in power grab, and not any ideological difference with Bob.
Now, Lee will do all in her best to destabilise Bob’s leadership in a bid to replace him. Lee, who has some allies of few other senators who used to spread similar lies about their progressive believes, will work almost immediately to undermine Bob’s position. From her track history in NSW Greens, she will not hesitate to use all tricks under her hat to do this.
We are certain that in the next few years, we will hear a lot about the dirty washings of the Greens on public ropes. As we heard a lot about allegations against Ian Cohen, including sexual harassment claims, we will start to hear a lot about Bob.
Combined efforts with Sarah Hanson-Young, both will do all in their best to destabilise the leadership of Tasmanian and environmentalists’ faction.
The worst mistake of the Greens environmentalist faction was that they did not match Lee and her faction in their dirty campaigns to undermine them. We expect that Bob and his faction will be enforced to resort to hanging the dirty washings of Lee and her opportunist faction, on the basis of “the attack is the best line of defence”.
The next few years will be very interesting in Australian politics. While there are a lot of scenarios in this regard, the best would be either of:
1- Lee and Bob engaging in public fight on leadership that would end them on the same track as the Democrats.
2- The conservative tide will swap Federal politics, as happened in NSW. Then the Greens presence in parliament becomes irrelevant.
Whatever scenario to prevail, we should continue exposing the opportunist nature of the Greens (both factions). Such opportunist nature that is clear in the Greens inability (or more accurately lack of desire) to neutralise the racist “boat people” debate. Such debate that could have been ended very easily if the Greens have the will to do so, the same way the Greens enforced the government to adopt Carbon Tax, against Labor committments.
Unlike the Greens misleading claims, we do not believe that their rise in popularity was due to increased understanding of Greens environmental or social policies. We deeply believe that the increase in Greens popularity is only because the unhappy voters had no other option. And when the real lefties create real alternative, the Greens popularity will return to its original level: 2.5%.
Friday, July 01, 2011
Debate over quotas in Parliament: English speaking women should not be the prime target!
First of all we should stress here that we strongly support the idea of quotas for all sections of society that are marginalised and low represented in decision making bodies. We were advocating for this in the last decade. The so-called progressive forces in the society, namely Left-Labor, Greens and Socialists, wrongly translated these fair campaigns into campaigns to advocate for better representation of groups which are equally represented in the decision making bodies. These forces were focussing on quotas for women (in general terms, as if all women are equally marginalised) and homosexuals.
In the issue of quota, we should be very careful, for two reasons:
1- The perception of marginalisation does not necessarily reflect actual marginalisation.
2- The issue of marginalisation is complex and is not uniformed within the same gender, religious belief or sexual orientation.
3- The quota issue, if there would be consensus on it, should be discussed by experts and not by lobby groups, as some lobby groups are more influential than others.
Let us discuss the above in more details.
There is perception in the society that the women and homosexuals are the only (or at least the most) marginalised groups in the society. This is because the mainstream women (or more frank, the Anglo-Saxon women) and the homosexual lobby groups are very powerful and can make the whole society hear their demands.
Let us take the women representation in Federal Parliament as clear example about the misleading claims (or at least naive claims by these groups) that women (in general) are the only (or at least the worst) marginalised group in the society. On this regard, let us examine the facts (from the official website of FP, as currently states):
- There are 67 women in both houses of the FP, which constitutes around 30% of overall numbers of MPs.
- Out of these, 6 women MPs were born in Non-English speaking countries (around 2.5% of overall MPs numbers).
- There is no woman in parliament from indigenous background.
- There is no woman with disabilities.
- There is no woman whose faith is not Judeo-Christian.
- There are 11 MPs (both male and female) who were born in Non-English speaking courtiers (mainly from Europe).
Taking into account that:
- Women constitute 50% of the society.
- 25% of these women were born in Non-English speaking countries (which means that 12.5% of Australians are women born in Non English speaking countries)
- 3% of society is Indigenous people (half of these are women).
- 25% of Australians were born in Non-English speaking countries.
Based on the above mentioned facts, we can see that:
- English speaking women (around 37% of population) have strong representation in FP with around 28% of MPs are English speaking women.
- Non English speaking women’s representation in the parliament is less than 2.5% (to represent around 12.5% of population)
- Indigenous women (around 1.5% of population) are totally unrepresented in parliament.
- Women with disabilities (Australian with physical disabilities are around 10% - so the women with disabilities in the society constitutes around 5% of the population) are totally unrepresented in FP.
- Not only this, non-English speaking men (more than 13% of population) is represented by less than 2.5% of MPs.
In this regard, we can safely conclude that English speaking women are approximately equally represented in the Federal Parliament.
Not only this.
We have now English speaking woman Governor General.
We also have English speaking woman PM.
We also have 2 premiers (out of 6) which mean 30% of premiers are English speaking women.
We also have English speaking woman as Chief Minister (out of 2) which means that 50% of Chief Ministers are English speaking women.
All this and we do not have any: Non-English speaking, Indigenous or People with disabilities in one of these powerful positions. Even Marie Bashir, the NSW governor, was born in NSW.
Now for the next issue: the marginalisation is not uniformed across the same gender, religion ...
We can see very clear that English speaking women are not deeply marginalised (as they have enough or near-enough representation on all decision making bodies) while women who speaks English as second language or from other ethnicity (rather than Anglo-Saxon) are deeply marginalised.
So we can conclude safely (even if the information on the federal parliament website is not recently updated) that women are not evenly marginalised. Place of birth, ethnicity, language spoken at home and religious believes are playing more significant role in deciding the marginalisation of women rather than merely gender. We even can safely claim that English speaking women are nearly equally represented in the parliament and in other decision making bodies.
We should note here that in addressing marginalisation and fight to end such marginalisation, sections of society cannot fully understand the issues cause this marginalisation. And the whole debate of enforcing quota is to recognise that marginalised groups are the only groups that can fight for their own rights.
The English speaking women cannot claim that by increasing their representation in parliament, is a positive step to end the marginalisation of Non-English speaking women or women of indigenous background.
The English speaking women was marginalised when the society was homogenously White and Christian. Few decades ago, more than 90% of Australians were white English speaking Christians. At that time, the power struggle was based on gender. White Christian men wanted to grab the whole power.
Now when more than 25% of Australians were born in Non-English speaking countries and around 1/3 of population declared that they are not following Judeo-Christian religions, the situation is different. The oppression has shifted from gender based, to be race-religion based. And we should act accordingly.
If the English speaking women think that men cannot fight for their rights, they should recognise that the same principle applies to the Non-English and Non-Anglo women.
We do not believe that English speaking women born in Australia or speak English as first language can understand the marginalisation of migrant and refugee women.
Not only this. We can safely claim that migrant men, indigenous men and men with disabilities are more marginalised than English speaking women. And definitely these women cannot fight for these men’s rights.
We support the principle of quota. But it should not be naively based on gender quota. It should be assessed by experts and the representatives of these highly marginalised communities. We also should look at the experience of other nations and take good lessons from them. NZ successfully enforced quota, but on indigenous base and not on gender one. The experience of Jordan, a semi-democratic society is different. There are quotas on gender base, on ethnic base and on religious base. There are quotas for Christians because they are religious minority. There are quotas for Chechen and charkas as ethnic minorities. And there is quota for women based on the fact that Jordan is a male dominated society.
Can we learn the lessons? I doubt. As the whites are fiercely fighting against any change in power balance. The facts that the so-called progressive forces like the Greens are fiercely fight against any representation of ethnic and religious minorities in the parliament give us grim picture. The Greens inside reports are proud that they presented high proportion of homosexuals to parliament, as the prime marginalised group. There is no report that supports this claim.
These white and English speaking politicians wants to confuse us by claiming that they are ready to fight for women rights, when the most dividing issues of the society these days are the racisms and Islamophobia.
But if the “left” of the political system has such regressive understanding of marginalisation, do we have strong excuses to be pessimistic?
Related story: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/women-quota-debate-to-fire-up-in-canberra/story-e6frfku0-1226085089521
In the issue of quota, we should be very careful, for two reasons:
1- The perception of marginalisation does not necessarily reflect actual marginalisation.
2- The issue of marginalisation is complex and is not uniformed within the same gender, religious belief or sexual orientation.
3- The quota issue, if there would be consensus on it, should be discussed by experts and not by lobby groups, as some lobby groups are more influential than others.
Let us discuss the above in more details.
There is perception in the society that the women and homosexuals are the only (or at least the most) marginalised groups in the society. This is because the mainstream women (or more frank, the Anglo-Saxon women) and the homosexual lobby groups are very powerful and can make the whole society hear their demands.
Let us take the women representation in Federal Parliament as clear example about the misleading claims (or at least naive claims by these groups) that women (in general) are the only (or at least the worst) marginalised group in the society. On this regard, let us examine the facts (from the official website of FP, as currently states):
- There are 67 women in both houses of the FP, which constitutes around 30% of overall numbers of MPs.
- Out of these, 6 women MPs were born in Non-English speaking countries (around 2.5% of overall MPs numbers).
- There is no woman in parliament from indigenous background.
- There is no woman with disabilities.
- There is no woman whose faith is not Judeo-Christian.
- There are 11 MPs (both male and female) who were born in Non-English speaking courtiers (mainly from Europe).
Taking into account that:
- Women constitute 50% of the society.
- 25% of these women were born in Non-English speaking countries (which means that 12.5% of Australians are women born in Non English speaking countries)
- 3% of society is Indigenous people (half of these are women).
- 25% of Australians were born in Non-English speaking countries.
Based on the above mentioned facts, we can see that:
- English speaking women (around 37% of population) have strong representation in FP with around 28% of MPs are English speaking women.
- Non English speaking women’s representation in the parliament is less than 2.5% (to represent around 12.5% of population)
- Indigenous women (around 1.5% of population) are totally unrepresented in parliament.
- Women with disabilities (Australian with physical disabilities are around 10% - so the women with disabilities in the society constitutes around 5% of the population) are totally unrepresented in FP.
- Not only this, non-English speaking men (more than 13% of population) is represented by less than 2.5% of MPs.
In this regard, we can safely conclude that English speaking women are approximately equally represented in the Federal Parliament.
Not only this.
We have now English speaking woman Governor General.
We also have English speaking woman PM.
We also have 2 premiers (out of 6) which mean 30% of premiers are English speaking women.
We also have English speaking woman as Chief Minister (out of 2) which means that 50% of Chief Ministers are English speaking women.
All this and we do not have any: Non-English speaking, Indigenous or People with disabilities in one of these powerful positions. Even Marie Bashir, the NSW governor, was born in NSW.
Now for the next issue: the marginalisation is not uniformed across the same gender, religion ...
We can see very clear that English speaking women are not deeply marginalised (as they have enough or near-enough representation on all decision making bodies) while women who speaks English as second language or from other ethnicity (rather than Anglo-Saxon) are deeply marginalised.
So we can conclude safely (even if the information on the federal parliament website is not recently updated) that women are not evenly marginalised. Place of birth, ethnicity, language spoken at home and religious believes are playing more significant role in deciding the marginalisation of women rather than merely gender. We even can safely claim that English speaking women are nearly equally represented in the parliament and in other decision making bodies.
We should note here that in addressing marginalisation and fight to end such marginalisation, sections of society cannot fully understand the issues cause this marginalisation. And the whole debate of enforcing quota is to recognise that marginalised groups are the only groups that can fight for their own rights.
The English speaking women cannot claim that by increasing their representation in parliament, is a positive step to end the marginalisation of Non-English speaking women or women of indigenous background.
The English speaking women was marginalised when the society was homogenously White and Christian. Few decades ago, more than 90% of Australians were white English speaking Christians. At that time, the power struggle was based on gender. White Christian men wanted to grab the whole power.
Now when more than 25% of Australians were born in Non-English speaking countries and around 1/3 of population declared that they are not following Judeo-Christian religions, the situation is different. The oppression has shifted from gender based, to be race-religion based. And we should act accordingly.
If the English speaking women think that men cannot fight for their rights, they should recognise that the same principle applies to the Non-English and Non-Anglo women.
We do not believe that English speaking women born in Australia or speak English as first language can understand the marginalisation of migrant and refugee women.
Not only this. We can safely claim that migrant men, indigenous men and men with disabilities are more marginalised than English speaking women. And definitely these women cannot fight for these men’s rights.
We support the principle of quota. But it should not be naively based on gender quota. It should be assessed by experts and the representatives of these highly marginalised communities. We also should look at the experience of other nations and take good lessons from them. NZ successfully enforced quota, but on indigenous base and not on gender one. The experience of Jordan, a semi-democratic society is different. There are quotas on gender base, on ethnic base and on religious base. There are quotas for Christians because they are religious minority. There are quotas for Chechen and charkas as ethnic minorities. And there is quota for women based on the fact that Jordan is a male dominated society.
Can we learn the lessons? I doubt. As the whites are fiercely fighting against any change in power balance. The facts that the so-called progressive forces like the Greens are fiercely fight against any representation of ethnic and religious minorities in the parliament give us grim picture. The Greens inside reports are proud that they presented high proportion of homosexuals to parliament, as the prime marginalised group. There is no report that supports this claim.
These white and English speaking politicians wants to confuse us by claiming that they are ready to fight for women rights, when the most dividing issues of the society these days are the racisms and Islamophobia.
But if the “left” of the political system has such regressive understanding of marginalisation, do we have strong excuses to be pessimistic?
Related story: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/women-quota-debate-to-fire-up-in-canberra/story-e6frfku0-1226085089521
Thursday, June 02, 2011
Open letter to the Greens: Actions are louder than inquiries!!!
I was jumping up and down from this morning until now. I did not feel tired or that I need any rest. My joy is limitless.
At the end, the Greens pushed the government to accept an inquiry about the mandatory detention system. At last we will know the problems of the system and we will have time to explore alternatives.
My God.
As if the wide spread riots since 1999 until now (including burning of Charismas Island detention centre and Villawood DC) is not clear indications.
As if 5 deaths – suicides in the last 8 months is not clear evidence of the brutality of this system.
As if tones of reports from different human rights organisations are not enough to expose the systematic problems in the system.
As if the Greens does not have the balance of power in the cabinet to enforce the government to retreat from the current inhumane practices.
And The Greens still have the courage to claim victory.
As if we do not know that the results of previous inquiries and committees ended in the government’s rubbish bin, with no one recommendations implemented.
We say to the Greens very loudly: please give us BREAK.
Enough prostitution and it is the time to either do something or go to hell.
Let me be very simplistic in asking the following question: why Mr Andrew Willkie was successful in enforcing the government to accept all his demands and implement them, but your suggestions were largely ignored or laughed at?
I do not want to be very deep in my analysis at the moment. But the simple answer is because Andrew Willkie was very clear: accept my demands or let us go to early election that you will definitely lose.
Well. We are not impressed by your poor performance, on all level including leading Australia to a very possible recession soon.
And we are not expecting much from your inquiry, which was originally a Liberals suggestion. We know that after all, its recommendations will end up in the rubbish bin.
The racist brutal immigration system needs more than inquiry to be fixed. It needs commitment and courage. And we know that you do not have it. The white colour of your party gives very clear indication of your party’s lack of any commitment to real multiculturalism. And at the end of the day, it is all about attacks on Multiculturalism in a bid to increase racism and Islamophobia.
We deeply believe that the Labor-Greens racist government should go: to the history dust bin. And we will do all in our best to make sure that this will happen in the next election.
And do not scare us form Tony Abbot and his openly racist coalition. In Arabic we say: The racist we know is better than the racist we do not know.
At the end, the Greens pushed the government to accept an inquiry about the mandatory detention system. At last we will know the problems of the system and we will have time to explore alternatives.
My God.
As if the wide spread riots since 1999 until now (including burning of Charismas Island detention centre and Villawood DC) is not clear indications.
As if 5 deaths – suicides in the last 8 months is not clear evidence of the brutality of this system.
As if tones of reports from different human rights organisations are not enough to expose the systematic problems in the system.
As if the Greens does not have the balance of power in the cabinet to enforce the government to retreat from the current inhumane practices.
And The Greens still have the courage to claim victory.
As if we do not know that the results of previous inquiries and committees ended in the government’s rubbish bin, with no one recommendations implemented.
We say to the Greens very loudly: please give us BREAK.
Enough prostitution and it is the time to either do something or go to hell.
Let me be very simplistic in asking the following question: why Mr Andrew Willkie was successful in enforcing the government to accept all his demands and implement them, but your suggestions were largely ignored or laughed at?
I do not want to be very deep in my analysis at the moment. But the simple answer is because Andrew Willkie was very clear: accept my demands or let us go to early election that you will definitely lose.
Well. We are not impressed by your poor performance, on all level including leading Australia to a very possible recession soon.
And we are not expecting much from your inquiry, which was originally a Liberals suggestion. We know that after all, its recommendations will end up in the rubbish bin.
The racist brutal immigration system needs more than inquiry to be fixed. It needs commitment and courage. And we know that you do not have it. The white colour of your party gives very clear indication of your party’s lack of any commitment to real multiculturalism. And at the end of the day, it is all about attacks on Multiculturalism in a bid to increase racism and Islamophobia.
We deeply believe that the Labor-Greens racist government should go: to the history dust bin. And we will do all in our best to make sure that this will happen in the next election.
And do not scare us form Tony Abbot and his openly racist coalition. In Arabic we say: The racist we know is better than the racist we do not know.
Friday, May 13, 2011
The Greens politicians to be replaced by CD players: documents revealed
Parliamentary commentator
Serious Fun Herald online
The Australian Prime Minister, Ms Julia Gillard, had agreed at the last meeting of the cabinet to accept her party’s motion to invite the Greens parliament members to be granted permanent leave from the parliament sessions. The suggestion includes replacing the Greens politicians with CD players recorded on them the infamous clichés usually used by the Greens politicians.
The CDs would include recording of messages like “we condemn Labor and Liberals race to the bottom on this issue”, “The Greens is the only progressive voice on this issue”, “The Greens would oppose these legislations and will look for minor amendments on them” and “The Greens will use its numbers in parliaments very responsibly”.
The suggestion that will be sent to the Greens leader for consideration later in the week, will include alternative measures to insure the parliament hear the empty rhetoric the Greens often use in the parliament. One of the alternatives is to use highly trained parrots to imitate the Greens clichés. The parrots will be the perfect solution for anyone who will miss the voices of the Greens politicians.
The idea behind the suggestion came after the Greens failed to take any action to interpret its empty rhetoric vended by its candidates before the last election. The Labor minority government expected a lot of trouble from the Greens politicians after the party held the balance of power in both houses. But the minority government was having more trouble from independents who vowed to topple the government on several occasions if it does not take actions to honour its commitments to form minority government.
We understand from the leaked document that the Labor party is not taking the Greens’ loud voice at rallies and community forums serious enough to bow to their demands. We understand that the Labor and the Liberals know very well that the Greens is no more than a loud sound system that will continue to play the inserted CD regardless if the songs or lectures are not impressing the audience.
To support this assumption, we note that the Greens did not insist on any demand they made. The Greens repeated clichés of demands which landed on Labor’s deaf ears, did not result in any positive (or even negative) change to Australian politics.
The Greens, for example, vowed before the last election to stop the “race to the bottom” on the boat people issue. After repeated Greens loud demands on rallies, forums, media comments and parliamentary speeches, the race to the bottom get lower and lower. Now, with the Greens presence in both houses and with the Greens loud threats, the race to the bottom has landed on Australia’s total departure from international convention on this issue. The Labor minority government vowed recently to deport genuine refugees to their possible deaths or torture. It vows also to trade refugees and asylum seekers with other countries, as if they are trading goods and services.
The Greens loud speeches on climate change have resulted in more taxes and hence deteriorating of Australian life-style (especially of marginalised communities) but no real actions to stop attack on environment.
The Greens suggestion to widen the Medicare and to include free dental care resulted in no actions so far on these issues. On the contrary. The latest budget after the historical Greens win in both houses saw the minority government slashing funding for many health programs and no mentioning of free or semi free dental care.
The net achievements of the Greens are in the negative territory, where human rights and fair go for Australians have deteriorated rapidly.
The suggestion to replace the Greens politicians with CD players or trained parrots has become sensible and logical solution. Such solution will save a lot of people confusion on where the Greens are standing on issues. It will also prevent people from suffering from hearing problems in listening to Greens loud speeches.
The motion, which was never made nor sent to our imagined media service, is a suggestion worth discussing by Australian politicians. Many Australians are becoming disturbed by the high level of lying by Greens politicians. At least they can go on with their lives without any delusion on what the Greens can achieve or ready to do.
If you have more suggestions to address the issue of Greens impotence to make any difference in Australian politics, please do not hesitate to contact us on our online services.
Serious Fun Herald online
The Australian Prime Minister, Ms Julia Gillard, had agreed at the last meeting of the cabinet to accept her party’s motion to invite the Greens parliament members to be granted permanent leave from the parliament sessions. The suggestion includes replacing the Greens politicians with CD players recorded on them the infamous clichés usually used by the Greens politicians.
The CDs would include recording of messages like “we condemn Labor and Liberals race to the bottom on this issue”, “The Greens is the only progressive voice on this issue”, “The Greens would oppose these legislations and will look for minor amendments on them” and “The Greens will use its numbers in parliaments very responsibly”.
The suggestion that will be sent to the Greens leader for consideration later in the week, will include alternative measures to insure the parliament hear the empty rhetoric the Greens often use in the parliament. One of the alternatives is to use highly trained parrots to imitate the Greens clichés. The parrots will be the perfect solution for anyone who will miss the voices of the Greens politicians.
The idea behind the suggestion came after the Greens failed to take any action to interpret its empty rhetoric vended by its candidates before the last election. The Labor minority government expected a lot of trouble from the Greens politicians after the party held the balance of power in both houses. But the minority government was having more trouble from independents who vowed to topple the government on several occasions if it does not take actions to honour its commitments to form minority government.
We understand from the leaked document that the Labor party is not taking the Greens’ loud voice at rallies and community forums serious enough to bow to their demands. We understand that the Labor and the Liberals know very well that the Greens is no more than a loud sound system that will continue to play the inserted CD regardless if the songs or lectures are not impressing the audience.
To support this assumption, we note that the Greens did not insist on any demand they made. The Greens repeated clichés of demands which landed on Labor’s deaf ears, did not result in any positive (or even negative) change to Australian politics.
The Greens, for example, vowed before the last election to stop the “race to the bottom” on the boat people issue. After repeated Greens loud demands on rallies, forums, media comments and parliamentary speeches, the race to the bottom get lower and lower. Now, with the Greens presence in both houses and with the Greens loud threats, the race to the bottom has landed on Australia’s total departure from international convention on this issue. The Labor minority government vowed recently to deport genuine refugees to their possible deaths or torture. It vows also to trade refugees and asylum seekers with other countries, as if they are trading goods and services.
The Greens loud speeches on climate change have resulted in more taxes and hence deteriorating of Australian life-style (especially of marginalised communities) but no real actions to stop attack on environment.
The Greens suggestion to widen the Medicare and to include free dental care resulted in no actions so far on these issues. On the contrary. The latest budget after the historical Greens win in both houses saw the minority government slashing funding for many health programs and no mentioning of free or semi free dental care.
The net achievements of the Greens are in the negative territory, where human rights and fair go for Australians have deteriorated rapidly.
The suggestion to replace the Greens politicians with CD players or trained parrots has become sensible and logical solution. Such solution will save a lot of people confusion on where the Greens are standing on issues. It will also prevent people from suffering from hearing problems in listening to Greens loud speeches.
The motion, which was never made nor sent to our imagined media service, is a suggestion worth discussing by Australian politicians. Many Australians are becoming disturbed by the high level of lying by Greens politicians. At least they can go on with their lives without any delusion on what the Greens can achieve or ready to do.
If you have more suggestions to address the issue of Greens impotence to make any difference in Australian politics, please do not hesitate to contact us on our online services.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Open letter to Julia Gillard: Going Howard’s path will not save your government
Dear Hon Julia Gillard, our PM (unfortunately)
I decided to write this open letter to you after your government violated many of your Labor party declared policies (are you still Labor member?) and election promises.
Few weeks ago, your minster for immigration vowed to send genuine refugees back to their death (or at least to be tortured or imprisoned) if they commit offence, even if they were committing these offences out of desperation and under deep depression and mental instability. Even notorious Howard-Ruddock did not even dared to announce such regressive draconian measures.
And now we heard that your government is finalising very dodgy deal with Malaysian government to exchange refugees and asylum seekers. And we are also hearing that your government is negotiating with Papua New Guinea to reopen offshore detentions on Manus Island.
We are also hearing that your government is about to take another attack on our indigenous population.
Then, in this week’s budget you decided to target one of the high marginalised sections of the society. You have declared war on unemployed people, in a bid to improve the image about your government failure to deal with economic management. Again, in doing this you are imitating the highly regressive Howard government. Unfortunately, you even went very worse and more regressive than Howard regressive government.
During the last few months, our experience with your government was disastrously disappointing and depressing.
Let us talk about the asylum seeker issue. You have failed to keep any of your election promises, where you:
1- Are trying to send asylum seekers to country that did not sign the Geneva Convention to protect refugees’ rights.
2- You have failed to win support for any regional solution to this very minor issue, because you insisted on East Timor solution.
3- Your announcement on boat asylum seekers is in clear violation to international conventions.
We do not understand the reasons behind your government’s panic announcements. We acknowledge that there is crisis in detention system. But this crisis was made by your government’s mishandling of this issue. You thought for the last few months that slowing down the process of application to the point of total halt will stop the boat people arrival. You should remember that unauthorised boat arrivals to Australia did not stop for the last 2 centuries. But instead of rising up to the challenge, you decided to go Howard’s path. And you will fail miserably.
Before we tell you why you will fail miserably, let us ask few questions about your government “Malaysian solution”:
1- After you will deport 800 boat arrivals to Malaysia, what is your plan for the new arrivals beyond the 800?
2- Instead of taking 4000 UNHCR recognised refugees in Malaysia, why not taking 4000 UNHCR refugees from Indonesia?
3- Why you will accept UNHCR approved refugees from Malaysia, when your government failed to accept UNHCR recognised refugees currently inside detention centres in Australia?
Then the biggest question here is: Why Malaysia?
We proposed to your predecessor a suggestion to solve the issue for ever by introducing the “Indonesian solution”. Why your government is not considering taking these 4000 UNHCR recognised refugees from Indonesia, and not Malaysia?
We understand that your government, and after the steep slump in opinion polls since July last year, is trying to come back in these polls Howard’s style. We acknowledge that John Howard was successful in this mission, but you will not. The reason is so simple. This style was his invention, while you are trying to imitate him. The voters will decide to go with genuine version, rather than fake brand.
Let me explain it to you in more simple way. If a shop owner decided to sell original Adidas shoes and Adidas fake brand at the same price, which shoes customers will buy? They will definitely buy the original Adidas brand. That is why voters will side with Liberals, if you do not present them with alternative plan.
The same can be said about your government’s stance on other issues.
You are trying to follow the Howard’s footstep of deceiving voters on fighting unemployment by tightening legislations and make Centrelink a law and order agency, instead of welfare agency. At the end, the degrading treatment of unemployed people will prompt them to cheat the government one way or other. Or it will cause hundreds of thousands to lose their benefits and then depend on begging money from welfare agencies. Such policies that will have deep negative consequencies. I will write to you detailed study soon about this.
In this letter let us express to you our outrage about the conduct of your government. You have let us down deeply.
At the moment we cannot differentiate your government (and we know that it is a minority government with the support of the Greens and independents) from the Howard’s deeply regressive government.
Not only this. Your government is going even lower on human rights and the rights of marginalised to live in dignity and respect in this society, than Howard’s government.
We believe that your government job is to try to find solutions to problems we are facing, and not creating more. We note here that your government did not find any solution to the critical rental and accommodation crisis. We also note that the situation in the health system did not get better, if not worsened. We also note that the deterioration of life-styles is getting worse. We also note that the situation in our schools is not getting better. And we also definitely know very well that the situation of Multiculturalism is very bad, where racism is on alarming rise and Islamophobia at record high levels.
If you are trying to win some votes by resorting to Howard’s tactics, we can tell you safely that you have failed and will fail.
I can tell you an interesting story we have learnt from grandparents. When a crow liked the way rooster is walking, he tried to walk like him. After few weeks he failed in imitating the rooster. But when he tried to fly again, he failed. He forgot how to fly as a crow. So he continued his life jumping in very ugly way, neither like a rooster nor like a crow.
Do not try to be another Liberals. You will fail to get Liberals voters. And you will definitely lose traditional Labor voters.
I decided to write this open letter to you after your government violated many of your Labor party declared policies (are you still Labor member?) and election promises.
Few weeks ago, your minster for immigration vowed to send genuine refugees back to their death (or at least to be tortured or imprisoned) if they commit offence, even if they were committing these offences out of desperation and under deep depression and mental instability. Even notorious Howard-Ruddock did not even dared to announce such regressive draconian measures.
And now we heard that your government is finalising very dodgy deal with Malaysian government to exchange refugees and asylum seekers. And we are also hearing that your government is negotiating with Papua New Guinea to reopen offshore detentions on Manus Island.
We are also hearing that your government is about to take another attack on our indigenous population.
Then, in this week’s budget you decided to target one of the high marginalised sections of the society. You have declared war on unemployed people, in a bid to improve the image about your government failure to deal with economic management. Again, in doing this you are imitating the highly regressive Howard government. Unfortunately, you even went very worse and more regressive than Howard regressive government.
During the last few months, our experience with your government was disastrously disappointing and depressing.
Let us talk about the asylum seeker issue. You have failed to keep any of your election promises, where you:
1- Are trying to send asylum seekers to country that did not sign the Geneva Convention to protect refugees’ rights.
2- You have failed to win support for any regional solution to this very minor issue, because you insisted on East Timor solution.
3- Your announcement on boat asylum seekers is in clear violation to international conventions.
We do not understand the reasons behind your government’s panic announcements. We acknowledge that there is crisis in detention system. But this crisis was made by your government’s mishandling of this issue. You thought for the last few months that slowing down the process of application to the point of total halt will stop the boat people arrival. You should remember that unauthorised boat arrivals to Australia did not stop for the last 2 centuries. But instead of rising up to the challenge, you decided to go Howard’s path. And you will fail miserably.
Before we tell you why you will fail miserably, let us ask few questions about your government “Malaysian solution”:
1- After you will deport 800 boat arrivals to Malaysia, what is your plan for the new arrivals beyond the 800?
2- Instead of taking 4000 UNHCR recognised refugees in Malaysia, why not taking 4000 UNHCR refugees from Indonesia?
3- Why you will accept UNHCR approved refugees from Malaysia, when your government failed to accept UNHCR recognised refugees currently inside detention centres in Australia?
Then the biggest question here is: Why Malaysia?
We proposed to your predecessor a suggestion to solve the issue for ever by introducing the “Indonesian solution”. Why your government is not considering taking these 4000 UNHCR recognised refugees from Indonesia, and not Malaysia?
We understand that your government, and after the steep slump in opinion polls since July last year, is trying to come back in these polls Howard’s style. We acknowledge that John Howard was successful in this mission, but you will not. The reason is so simple. This style was his invention, while you are trying to imitate him. The voters will decide to go with genuine version, rather than fake brand.
Let me explain it to you in more simple way. If a shop owner decided to sell original Adidas shoes and Adidas fake brand at the same price, which shoes customers will buy? They will definitely buy the original Adidas brand. That is why voters will side with Liberals, if you do not present them with alternative plan.
The same can be said about your government’s stance on other issues.
You are trying to follow the Howard’s footstep of deceiving voters on fighting unemployment by tightening legislations and make Centrelink a law and order agency, instead of welfare agency. At the end, the degrading treatment of unemployed people will prompt them to cheat the government one way or other. Or it will cause hundreds of thousands to lose their benefits and then depend on begging money from welfare agencies. Such policies that will have deep negative consequencies. I will write to you detailed study soon about this.
In this letter let us express to you our outrage about the conduct of your government. You have let us down deeply.
At the moment we cannot differentiate your government (and we know that it is a minority government with the support of the Greens and independents) from the Howard’s deeply regressive government.
Not only this. Your government is going even lower on human rights and the rights of marginalised to live in dignity and respect in this society, than Howard’s government.
We believe that your government job is to try to find solutions to problems we are facing, and not creating more. We note here that your government did not find any solution to the critical rental and accommodation crisis. We also note that the situation in the health system did not get better, if not worsened. We also note that the deterioration of life-styles is getting worse. We also note that the situation in our schools is not getting better. And we also definitely know very well that the situation of Multiculturalism is very bad, where racism is on alarming rise and Islamophobia at record high levels.
If you are trying to win some votes by resorting to Howard’s tactics, we can tell you safely that you have failed and will fail.
I can tell you an interesting story we have learnt from grandparents. When a crow liked the way rooster is walking, he tried to walk like him. After few weeks he failed in imitating the rooster. But when he tried to fly again, he failed. He forgot how to fly as a crow. So he continued his life jumping in very ugly way, neither like a rooster nor like a crow.
Do not try to be another Liberals. You will fail to get Liberals voters. And you will definitely lose traditional Labor voters.
Monday, May 02, 2011
Greens shameful stance on refugees: their real agendas and ways to counteract them.
We are proud that we were the first to warn about the Greens destructive agendas of deceiving masses. And we are happy to start hearing dissatisfaction amongst Greens supporters and other human rights activists of the Greens politics.
We should first mention that the Greens have policies that are totally different than its real politics.
The Greens official policy on health, for example, is that the Greens support abolishing private health rebate. In action, the Greens opposed measures to abolish this rebate when it was introduced by Kevin Rudd’s government.
The Greens also had policy on Israeli occupation of Palestine, including supporting sanctions and boycotting of Israel. Recently, Bob Brown told all of us that this is not the case and the Greens do not support any move to boycott Israeli products or imposing any kind of sanctions.
The Greens official policy on Multiculturalism is that the non-English speaking people should be encouraged to participate in political process by all means, including taking positive-discrimination actions to achieve this. This is even imbedded in the Greens declaration. But in fact, the Greens are totally and exclusively White party with no non- Anglo officials or politicians.
Now, on the issue of the refugees and asylum seekers, the Greens are exercising high political opportunism.
We should mention that the issue of boat people was the real booster of the Greens popularity in the aftermath of Tampa. The issue of boat people is exclusively related (in the minds of people, media and politicians) with the Greens.
But what are the Greens real commitments on these issues?
The Greens is happy to vend fiery speeches and media comments on this issue. The line of these speeches is no more than Cliché of words designed to deceive voters and citizens. But the Greens will do no more on this issue, as they want to convince us that they cannot do more than media comments, speeches on rallies and crocodile tears for the suffering of the detainees.
In the aftermath of the wide spread riots inside Christmas Island DC and then Villawood DC, the Greens rhetoric even slide down to participate in criminalising these desperate detainees. We saw how Ms Hanson-Young, the Greens senator responsible for this portfolio, supported the move to criminalise anyone who participated in the riots.
The Greens, who have policy of the need to inform citizens about political process to enable them to make informed decisions, is in fact hiding the real picture form Australians.
The Greens is not telling the Australians that they in fact can enforce the government to act on this issue in very quick way. The Greens is hiding from the citizens that they are in unique position now of holding the balance of power in both houses. They do not mention that their sole MP, Adam Bandt, can bargain with the government significantly to change the heart of the minister and prime minister. The Greens is not telling us that their sole MP is essential for the stability of this government. He is essential for continuity of the current government too.
The Greens is not telling us how Mr Andrew Willkie was successful in enforcing the government to act on Poker Machines. They did not tell us that Mr Willkie, who is not part of any party and does not control the balance of power in the senate, could achieve almost all his demands. He could do this by threatening to withdraw his support for this government. Such threat that could see the government loses its majority and enforces it to go to early election. Such scenario that the Labor party wants to avoid by any cost, as they would almost definitely lose the government.
The Greens tactics of “keeping everyone happy” is very clear. The Greens is continuing to play politics in very cheap way. The Greens will vote against any extra measures to further punish refugees and asylum seekers. And they know very well that the Labor will have easily the support of all Liberal politicians in both houses for these legislations. Then the Greens will say “hard luck, we tried but the Liberals decided to side with the Labor on this issue. We could not do anything”.
This is the kind of political cheap opportunism the Greens is exercising for the last decade.
If the Greens have the will to change the current gross abuse of human rights inside detention centres, they would seek urgent meeting with the prime minster. The Greens leader could have meeting with the prime minister to tell her in firm words “end this farce now, before we topple the government and enforce you to go for early election that you will lose”. And she will change the policy.
But are the Greens genuinely interested in changing the policy on boat people?
Frankly, we doubt. We should remember that the Greens got the record votes in the last election on the back of deep suffering of boat people. Why should the Greens push very hard to end the circumstances that gave them the balance of power in both houses? Especially the Greens have no record of principled progressive political stances.
In the face of this moral and political crisis that our political system goes through at the moment and for the last decade, we did suggest solution.
The solution is for the progressive forces and individuals to form a political coalition to present real alternative for dissatisfied and marginalised voters.
We were disappointed that many progressive forces (Socialists, Communists, Muslim groups, …) decided to back the Greens in the last elections. This sent the wrong message in the wrong direction. These groups’ close association with the Greens and their calls for voters to vote the Greens, gave the progressive voters impression that the only hope to achieve deep changes is by voting for the Greens and hence giving them more power. This in turn gave the Greens the impression that they have the progressive people’s mandate to keep acting in the opportunist way they acted in the last decade.
We believe that a new coalition is needed to present alternate voice for the marginalised and dissatisfied voters. In Britain, similar coalition under the name of Respect Party could present the British with real alternative of the parties that dominated the British politics for decades. And it worked. It brought many dissatisfied voters from socialists, communists, Muslims, new migrants and anti-war activists together.
We believe that such coalition is the only solution for the political stagnation Australia is suffering form for the last decades.
We should first mention that the Greens have policies that are totally different than its real politics.
The Greens official policy on health, for example, is that the Greens support abolishing private health rebate. In action, the Greens opposed measures to abolish this rebate when it was introduced by Kevin Rudd’s government.
The Greens also had policy on Israeli occupation of Palestine, including supporting sanctions and boycotting of Israel. Recently, Bob Brown told all of us that this is not the case and the Greens do not support any move to boycott Israeli products or imposing any kind of sanctions.
The Greens official policy on Multiculturalism is that the non-English speaking people should be encouraged to participate in political process by all means, including taking positive-discrimination actions to achieve this. This is even imbedded in the Greens declaration. But in fact, the Greens are totally and exclusively White party with no non- Anglo officials or politicians.
Now, on the issue of the refugees and asylum seekers, the Greens are exercising high political opportunism.
We should mention that the issue of boat people was the real booster of the Greens popularity in the aftermath of Tampa. The issue of boat people is exclusively related (in the minds of people, media and politicians) with the Greens.
But what are the Greens real commitments on these issues?
The Greens is happy to vend fiery speeches and media comments on this issue. The line of these speeches is no more than Cliché of words designed to deceive voters and citizens. But the Greens will do no more on this issue, as they want to convince us that they cannot do more than media comments, speeches on rallies and crocodile tears for the suffering of the detainees.
In the aftermath of the wide spread riots inside Christmas Island DC and then Villawood DC, the Greens rhetoric even slide down to participate in criminalising these desperate detainees. We saw how Ms Hanson-Young, the Greens senator responsible for this portfolio, supported the move to criminalise anyone who participated in the riots.
The Greens, who have policy of the need to inform citizens about political process to enable them to make informed decisions, is in fact hiding the real picture form Australians.
The Greens is not telling the Australians that they in fact can enforce the government to act on this issue in very quick way. The Greens is hiding from the citizens that they are in unique position now of holding the balance of power in both houses. They do not mention that their sole MP, Adam Bandt, can bargain with the government significantly to change the heart of the minister and prime minister. The Greens is not telling us that their sole MP is essential for the stability of this government. He is essential for continuity of the current government too.
The Greens is not telling us how Mr Andrew Willkie was successful in enforcing the government to act on Poker Machines. They did not tell us that Mr Willkie, who is not part of any party and does not control the balance of power in the senate, could achieve almost all his demands. He could do this by threatening to withdraw his support for this government. Such threat that could see the government loses its majority and enforces it to go to early election. Such scenario that the Labor party wants to avoid by any cost, as they would almost definitely lose the government.
The Greens tactics of “keeping everyone happy” is very clear. The Greens is continuing to play politics in very cheap way. The Greens will vote against any extra measures to further punish refugees and asylum seekers. And they know very well that the Labor will have easily the support of all Liberal politicians in both houses for these legislations. Then the Greens will say “hard luck, we tried but the Liberals decided to side with the Labor on this issue. We could not do anything”.
This is the kind of political cheap opportunism the Greens is exercising for the last decade.
If the Greens have the will to change the current gross abuse of human rights inside detention centres, they would seek urgent meeting with the prime minster. The Greens leader could have meeting with the prime minister to tell her in firm words “end this farce now, before we topple the government and enforce you to go for early election that you will lose”. And she will change the policy.
But are the Greens genuinely interested in changing the policy on boat people?
Frankly, we doubt. We should remember that the Greens got the record votes in the last election on the back of deep suffering of boat people. Why should the Greens push very hard to end the circumstances that gave them the balance of power in both houses? Especially the Greens have no record of principled progressive political stances.
In the face of this moral and political crisis that our political system goes through at the moment and for the last decade, we did suggest solution.
The solution is for the progressive forces and individuals to form a political coalition to present real alternative for dissatisfied and marginalised voters.
We were disappointed that many progressive forces (Socialists, Communists, Muslim groups, …) decided to back the Greens in the last elections. This sent the wrong message in the wrong direction. These groups’ close association with the Greens and their calls for voters to vote the Greens, gave the progressive voters impression that the only hope to achieve deep changes is by voting for the Greens and hence giving them more power. This in turn gave the Greens the impression that they have the progressive people’s mandate to keep acting in the opportunist way they acted in the last decade.
We believe that a new coalition is needed to present alternate voice for the marginalised and dissatisfied voters. In Britain, similar coalition under the name of Respect Party could present the British with real alternative of the parties that dominated the British politics for decades. And it worked. It brought many dissatisfied voters from socialists, communists, Muslims, new migrants and anti-war activists together.
We believe that such coalition is the only solution for the political stagnation Australia is suffering form for the last decades.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Bob Brown met Pauline Hanson for coordination as early as 2001: Wiikilinks revealed
The Satirical News
The political analysts had discovered the secrets behind the Pauline Hanson One Nation party’s decision to preference the Greens ahead of all political parties in the 2001 Federal election.
In a document leaked recently to the Wiikilinks site, it was revealed that the leader of the Greens, Sen. Bob Brown, and few advisors have met Ms Hanson and her advisor as early as July 2001. In the meeting, Mr Brown had told Ms Hanson that the Greens are the closest political party to her xenophobic One Nation party.
In the document, which was in fact the minutes of that meeting held in a secret location away from journalists’ eyes, Mr Brown has given Ms Hanson a picture of the politicians and hierarchy of his party. He pointed to her and her advisor that there is no trace to any Non-Anglo politician amongst his party’s politicians and officials.
“It is very clear proof that we share the same ideas and objectives” said Mr Brown according to the minutes. “You are vocally racist, but we are practically the most racist”.
But Ms Hanson demanded something in return for her party’s preference to the Greens. The Greens leader promised to compensate her for this deal later on.
“In this election, we cannot swap preferences with One Nation. This will be detrimental to us. But I promise you to give you a chance to return to politics later on” Sen. Brown promised Ms Hanson, according to document dated 15 July 2001.
The 2001 Federal election saw Greens candidate Ms Kerry Nettle elected to senate, against all odds, Ms Nettle was elected on the 8% preference she got from One Nation xenophobic party. At that election, Ms Hanson was boycotted by all political parties, including racist Liberal party, as she campaigned on openly extreme racist platform.
The leaked document is having more weight recently after the Greens decided not to preference Labor ahead of Liberals or One Nation founder. This odd decision threw life line to Mr Hanson’s bid to re-enter Australian politics through NSW state election.
According to many political analysts, the content of the document finds some interpretation in the Greens surprising decision not to swab preferences with Labor to guarantee that the last legislative council seat does not go to One Nation’s founder.
Ms Hanson was not contactable to comment on the content of the document. The Greens leader denied the content and said that the document and the Wiikilinks site is a hoax created by Labor party to undermine the Greens credibility. The Greens leader did not have convincing explanation why his party has no trace of Non-Anglo officials or politicians.
Ms Hanson is very close to win the 21st LC seat. The Greens will be responsible for the come-back of One Nation founder to politics. All analysists expects that racism and Islamopobia will be the constant issue in NSW politics for the next 4 years. The Greens is responsible for these huge political setbacks.
Other political analysts are expressing their surprise that the Greens is very principled in keeping its deals with xenophobic forces, but highly unprincipled with progressive voters.
To comment on the document that was never received by any imagined website, you can send it to our email and we will publish it promptly. Our email is jamal-daoud@bigpond.com
The political analysts had discovered the secrets behind the Pauline Hanson One Nation party’s decision to preference the Greens ahead of all political parties in the 2001 Federal election.
In a document leaked recently to the Wiikilinks site, it was revealed that the leader of the Greens, Sen. Bob Brown, and few advisors have met Ms Hanson and her advisor as early as July 2001. In the meeting, Mr Brown had told Ms Hanson that the Greens are the closest political party to her xenophobic One Nation party.
In the document, which was in fact the minutes of that meeting held in a secret location away from journalists’ eyes, Mr Brown has given Ms Hanson a picture of the politicians and hierarchy of his party. He pointed to her and her advisor that there is no trace to any Non-Anglo politician amongst his party’s politicians and officials.
“It is very clear proof that we share the same ideas and objectives” said Mr Brown according to the minutes. “You are vocally racist, but we are practically the most racist”.
But Ms Hanson demanded something in return for her party’s preference to the Greens. The Greens leader promised to compensate her for this deal later on.
“In this election, we cannot swap preferences with One Nation. This will be detrimental to us. But I promise you to give you a chance to return to politics later on” Sen. Brown promised Ms Hanson, according to document dated 15 July 2001.
The 2001 Federal election saw Greens candidate Ms Kerry Nettle elected to senate, against all odds, Ms Nettle was elected on the 8% preference she got from One Nation xenophobic party. At that election, Ms Hanson was boycotted by all political parties, including racist Liberal party, as she campaigned on openly extreme racist platform.
The leaked document is having more weight recently after the Greens decided not to preference Labor ahead of Liberals or One Nation founder. This odd decision threw life line to Mr Hanson’s bid to re-enter Australian politics through NSW state election.
According to many political analysts, the content of the document finds some interpretation in the Greens surprising decision not to swab preferences with Labor to guarantee that the last legislative council seat does not go to One Nation’s founder.
Ms Hanson was not contactable to comment on the content of the document. The Greens leader denied the content and said that the document and the Wiikilinks site is a hoax created by Labor party to undermine the Greens credibility. The Greens leader did not have convincing explanation why his party has no trace of Non-Anglo officials or politicians.
Ms Hanson is very close to win the 21st LC seat. The Greens will be responsible for the come-back of One Nation founder to politics. All analysists expects that racism and Islamopobia will be the constant issue in NSW politics for the next 4 years. The Greens is responsible for these huge political setbacks.
Other political analysts are expressing their surprise that the Greens is very principled in keeping its deals with xenophobic forces, but highly unprincipled with progressive voters.
To comment on the document that was never received by any imagined website, you can send it to our email and we will publish it promptly. Our email is jamal-daoud@bigpond.com
Monday, April 04, 2011
Open Letter to Bob Brown: enough lies and deception, please!
Dear Hon Bob Brown, The Greens leader
This letter is designed to ask you to stop lying and making deceptive claims. We have listened to you for long time, and we believe that the time has come to ask you to stop and to get more serious. Please respect our intelligence.
The latest very public lies and deceptive ideas you tried to sell was that the Greens voters support everything your party says, does or fights for. This is the cheapest lie we have ever heard.
You are clever enough to differentiate between party members, faithful voters and incidental voters. You should know very well that even party members do not share the same ideas or believe in the same philosophy (if your party has any philosophy to follow, anyway).
You have vented the cheapest lie ever when you claimed that the 1.5 million voters who voted for the Greens in the last Federal election support your party’s family-destructive agenda. You suggested that all these voters support your policy to promote prostitution, drug abuse, abortion and same-sex marriage. Well you are lying.
Let me tell you that even your party members do not support these destructive policies. Recently, your party candidate for the NSW seat of Auburn indicated very clearly at a public gathering that he does not support your party’s policies on euthanasia, drug abuse and prostitution. This is a party member and frontline activist. I know very well that even some historical figures in the Greens do not support many of these destructive policies. Ian Cohen expressed on different occasions that he does not support the policy on promoting drug abuse and other policies that seek to destroy families.
Let me tell you that most of voters who voted for the Greens in the last Federal election did not even know your party’s policies to destroy families and moral values. They have voted for your party on your party’s stance on totally different issues. Most of them have swallowed your party’s deceptive claims to support refugees’ rights or that your party is opposing Israeli crimes against its neighbours.
For the last few days you have branded the words of our PM, Julia Gillard, with wide range of outrageous descriptions for daring to criticise your party’s policies to destroy families and moral values. You claimed that her comments are “insulting” to the 1.5 million voters who voted for the Greens. You have assumed that all these voters agree with your party’s Anti-moral stance.
You know very well that the 1.5 million voters voted for your party mainly for two reasons. Firstly, they were deceived by your party’s election machine to buy their claims of fighting for refugees’ rights and for other social justice issues in the society, including defending public assets and improving public services. The other reason was that they were deeply disappointed form the Labor for the way the leader was dumped and the inaction on refugees’ rights issue. So nothing was on the anti-family policies that you are defending today.
Well, let me tell you that your outrageously deceptive claims are the one which are very insulting to these 1.5 million voters. They are also insulting to all of us. What you tried to do is no more than undemocratically trying to shut any criticism of your party’s destructive agendas.
In this letter, I would like (as an Australian citizen) to ask you to stop your campaign of lying and making deceptive claims.
So please respect our intelligence and stop insulting it.
Yours
Jamal Daoud
Auburn - NSW
This letter is designed to ask you to stop lying and making deceptive claims. We have listened to you for long time, and we believe that the time has come to ask you to stop and to get more serious. Please respect our intelligence.
The latest very public lies and deceptive ideas you tried to sell was that the Greens voters support everything your party says, does or fights for. This is the cheapest lie we have ever heard.
You are clever enough to differentiate between party members, faithful voters and incidental voters. You should know very well that even party members do not share the same ideas or believe in the same philosophy (if your party has any philosophy to follow, anyway).
You have vented the cheapest lie ever when you claimed that the 1.5 million voters who voted for the Greens in the last Federal election support your party’s family-destructive agenda. You suggested that all these voters support your policy to promote prostitution, drug abuse, abortion and same-sex marriage. Well you are lying.
Let me tell you that even your party members do not support these destructive policies. Recently, your party candidate for the NSW seat of Auburn indicated very clearly at a public gathering that he does not support your party’s policies on euthanasia, drug abuse and prostitution. This is a party member and frontline activist. I know very well that even some historical figures in the Greens do not support many of these destructive policies. Ian Cohen expressed on different occasions that he does not support the policy on promoting drug abuse and other policies that seek to destroy families.
Let me tell you that most of voters who voted for the Greens in the last Federal election did not even know your party’s policies to destroy families and moral values. They have voted for your party on your party’s stance on totally different issues. Most of them have swallowed your party’s deceptive claims to support refugees’ rights or that your party is opposing Israeli crimes against its neighbours.
For the last few days you have branded the words of our PM, Julia Gillard, with wide range of outrageous descriptions for daring to criticise your party’s policies to destroy families and moral values. You claimed that her comments are “insulting” to the 1.5 million voters who voted for the Greens. You have assumed that all these voters agree with your party’s Anti-moral stance.
You know very well that the 1.5 million voters voted for your party mainly for two reasons. Firstly, they were deceived by your party’s election machine to buy their claims of fighting for refugees’ rights and for other social justice issues in the society, including defending public assets and improving public services. The other reason was that they were deeply disappointed form the Labor for the way the leader was dumped and the inaction on refugees’ rights issue. So nothing was on the anti-family policies that you are defending today.
Well, let me tell you that your outrageously deceptive claims are the one which are very insulting to these 1.5 million voters. They are also insulting to all of us. What you tried to do is no more than undemocratically trying to shut any criticism of your party’s destructive agendas.
In this letter, I would like (as an Australian citizen) to ask you to stop your campaign of lying and making deceptive claims.
So please respect our intelligence and stop insulting it.
Yours
Jamal Daoud
Auburn - NSW
Thursday, March 31, 2011
After selling community’s dignity: Muslim community demand rid of corrupt “leadership”
The elections usually are the best time to hold politicians and political parties accountable for their actions or lack of action. And usually lobby groups take the chance of elections to demand actions on issues they believe need attention or changes.
But the actions of some of the Muslim community “leaders”, especially the turbaned religious figures, defy all these trends and norms.
When the Liberal party started promoting racism and Islamophobia, we thought that Muslim community “leadership” will demand strong actions to discipline this out-of-control racist party. We thought that the Muslim community “leaders” will declare open war on this party by all means.
And with the latest Liberal party slurs against Muslim community by demanding banning Muslim migration for ten years. And with the latest media leak about the Liberal party strategic plan to mount attacks on Muslims in Australia in their bid to win the next election. We expected that the Muslim “leadership” will cut all ties with this extreme party.
But we were devastated and shocked to see that few Muslim “leaders” and organisations are advocating Muslims in NSW to vote for the Liberals.
Strategically, this exposes the naked truth that the Muslim community has no leadership. Or maybe the community has either naïve leadership. Or maybe corrupted one that is ready to sell the rights and dignity of the community in return for promises to increase funding.
The conduct of Muslim “leaders”, especially the religious figures, in the last few days of the campaign and on the day of election was in fact a moral shamble. The acts of these religious figures and “leaders” sent simple message that we deserve what we got.
Now after the election is over, every community member has many questions to ask these “leaders”:
1- What are the benefits to community of voting to the Liberals, except making the community a laughable matter in Australian politics?
2- What were the secret deals struck between Liberal party and Muslim “leadership”?
3- How can we stop any future attacks on the Muslims after Muslims sided with the party that created Islamophobia in the country?
We here warn that if the community does not act to correct this moral shamble, Islamophibia will be constant main political agenda in all future elections. We would expect to face waves and waves of Islamophobic attacks, both verbally and physically.
We believe that it is the time for the Muslims in this country to demand rid of the corrupted illegitimate and undemocratic “leadership”. The leadership that sold our dignity and interests for unknown-to-us price. We believe that this community deserves better. And we are taking steps to rid of current one.
But the actions of some of the Muslim community “leaders”, especially the turbaned religious figures, defy all these trends and norms.
When the Liberal party started promoting racism and Islamophobia, we thought that Muslim community “leadership” will demand strong actions to discipline this out-of-control racist party. We thought that the Muslim community “leaders” will declare open war on this party by all means.
And with the latest Liberal party slurs against Muslim community by demanding banning Muslim migration for ten years. And with the latest media leak about the Liberal party strategic plan to mount attacks on Muslims in Australia in their bid to win the next election. We expected that the Muslim “leadership” will cut all ties with this extreme party.
But we were devastated and shocked to see that few Muslim “leaders” and organisations are advocating Muslims in NSW to vote for the Liberals.
Strategically, this exposes the naked truth that the Muslim community has no leadership. Or maybe the community has either naïve leadership. Or maybe corrupted one that is ready to sell the rights and dignity of the community in return for promises to increase funding.
The conduct of Muslim “leaders”, especially the religious figures, in the last few days of the campaign and on the day of election was in fact a moral shamble. The acts of these religious figures and “leaders” sent simple message that we deserve what we got.
Now after the election is over, every community member has many questions to ask these “leaders”:
1- What are the benefits to community of voting to the Liberals, except making the community a laughable matter in Australian politics?
2- What were the secret deals struck between Liberal party and Muslim “leadership”?
3- How can we stop any future attacks on the Muslims after Muslims sided with the party that created Islamophobia in the country?
We here warn that if the community does not act to correct this moral shamble, Islamophibia will be constant main political agenda in all future elections. We would expect to face waves and waves of Islamophobic attacks, both verbally and physically.
We believe that it is the time for the Muslims in this country to demand rid of the corrupted illegitimate and undemocratic “leadership”. The leadership that sold our dignity and interests for unknown-to-us price. We believe that this community deserves better. And we are taking steps to rid of current one.
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