Flags And Other Threatening Things…
One thing you have to admire about Greg Sheridan is that – like Donald Trump – he sticks to his ideas and doesn’t allow them to be influenced by reality.
Of course the whole reality thing is subjective… so much so that people can hold one view on a topic while holding a totally contradictory view on a different topic.
Take the concern about people waving Hezbollah flags at a recent demonstration. They shouldn’t be doing this because Hezbollah is a banned, terrorist group. What determines who and isn’t a terrorist group? Well, there are many different views on this and some people would tell you that the United States is one, but such people have no official status and it’s government’s who have the power to determine which ones are worth banning and which ones are able to bomb people with impunity.
I don’t have a problem with this because we can’t let groups who are aiming to cause mayhem and who are spreading propaganda trying to radicalize people just have a free hand. And I was all for banning swastikas and other Nazi symbols.
However, it seems that some people who are calling for Albanese to be tougher and insist that the police prosecute these people are also the same ones who have a serious problem with any sort of misinformation laws.
Now, I’m not asking you to agree to letting terrorist flags fly or to agree to a totalitarian government shutting down all dissent as misinformation. I’m just pointing out that there IS a bit of a different reality going on when you warn of the dangers of too much government power while insisting that the government prosecute certain people for waving a flag.
Take Peter Dutton. Please. I certainly don’t want him and I’m pretty sure Australia doesn’t need him as PM when he doesn’t understand the basic principle of the separation of powers which means that while the government may make the laws, they’re not the ones who are in charge of enforcing the laws. When you don’t have a separation of power the path to corruption is pretty obvious: “Yes, it’s true that the Minister misappropriated several million dollars but we’re not prosecuting because he’s in our party and anyway he’s the brother-in-law of one of our biggest donors. Besides it’s not like the recent prosecution of the Leader of the Opposition who fraudently removed a pen from Parliament House without permission!”
Given he was once a policeman, it’s probable that Dutton does understand the separation of powers and he just that he finds them an unnecessary impediment to the administration of “justice”. Of course it’s also likely that any criticism of Albanese is just to make a political point and not because he actually thinks that government should be telling the police who to charge… And, as I wrote the other day, that’s the trouble with politics today: too much focus on making the other guys look bad and not enough focus on trying to find solutions.
I mean I recently saw a post from Dutton which said that we needed a STRONG leader in these troubled times. That seems self-evident because I can’t think of a time when anyone needs a weak leader, but there was no extra information about what this strong leader needs to do. I seem to remember that when Tory Tony was Opposition Leader, we had a lot of similar rhetoric about needing a strong leader because Julia was PM and, obviously a woman, so we needed someone who could strip down to their speedos and fight a fire but Dutton is a little less clear on the need for strength…Exactly what is required for this strong leader to do? Apart from be strong, of course. Do they have to lift weights or arm wrestle? Or is he talking about mental strength and suggesting that he’s exactly the sort of leader that we don’t need.
Whatever, that’s the problem lately. Even when the Greens say we need to make changes to negative gearing, they’re not suggesting a specific change, so it means that Labor doesn’t want to negotiate because they’re afraid that, if they agree to any change, the Greens will say either that it’s good and it’s all thanks to us OR it doesn’t go far enough and we’re going to vote against it… leaving the door open for Dutton to say that if we had a strong leader like him, there’d be no agreeing to anything and he’d stand firm and insist that he was right and everyone should just agree… which, according to some, is what Albanese is doing, except in his case, he’s just being stubborn.
It would be nice to think that politicians of all sides could get together and admit that nobody has any simple ideas about how to solve particular problems and we should be thrashing out possibilities until we come up with something worth trying.
And yes, I am ignoring Matt Canavan in saying that. He has lots of simple ideas!
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Return to home pageI think it’s time Israel and its major enabler, the US were added to our list of terrorist organisations, perhaps then we could take off Hamas and Hezbollah which seem to me to be freedom fighters rather than terrorists. Which organisation. For instance used booby trapped pagers and mobile phones as weapons? Those are the actions of terrorists. IED’s against invaders are legitimate weapons.
I admire nothnig at all about G Sheridan and A Abbott, two romanist, mediaeval, maggoty misfit moaning morons on matters involving truth, decency, accuracy, scientific investigation. Mere submission to fantasy, fiction, fraud, foolishness and fable is worthless. The world seems to be overloaded with half baked, partly educated knowalls who assert and demand and decry, but too much opposition to science, reason, fact and honesty is injurious to modern political, social and economic life. Clearly, the USA and Israel are the leading terrorists, so they project, fling, lie, stomp and chuck tantrums, like Peter Duckwit-Futton, the dopey dunce. There was a Palestine right up to May 1948 and the rightful inhabitants were deluded, robbed, forsaken, cheated, betrayed. Superstition kills and injures, and religion is now the leading criminality source of evil in this world. It should die out…
My God, how thoroughly deluded and manipulated can the right-wing extremists in America, the UK and Australia get? Sadly, America is a nation that is heavily influenced by extremely wealthy and powerful Jews living in New York, Philadelphia, Hollywood and other areas throughout America. As such their support for the unspeakably evil Netanyahu can NEVER EVER be condoned! The FACT is that Netanyahu is a diabolical, power-obsessed, megalomaniacal killer who’s ferocious, unprovoked cold-blooded murder of defenceless, unarmed non-Jewish Palestinian men, women and innocent little children – Muslims and Christians alike – desperately attempting to flee for their lives from their homes, has been justifiably described by the UN as a hideous WAR CRIME! Up until Netanyahu, Jews and non-Jewish Palestinians used to live together in (relative) peace for thousands of years – that will never happen again!
Indeed, Netanyahu is an unconscionable, totally depraved WAR CRIMINAL every bit as heinous as that OTHER notorious right-wing sociopath, Adolph Hitler, who Netanyahu hypocritically criticises DESPITE the fact that he (Netanyahu) has now expanded his insane murder, attacks and war crimes into Lebanon, a truly irrational act that is likely to involve other middle eastern nations (such as Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey et al) which is then likely to eventually deteriorate into a third world war!
Hamas and Hezbollah may be regarded as terrorists by many members of the wider international community, HOWEVER, right now, it must be said that their vengeful rage, in this instance, is entirely WARRANTED! Hamas and Hezbollah are now understandably REACTING and RESPONDING to Netanyahu’s escalating persecution and criminal, unrestrained slaughter of non-Jewish Palestinians who have been forced out of their homes by this raging lunatic: Netanyahu who, clearly, is a dangerously undemocratic political psychopath and Islamophobic who has given absolutely NO THOUGHT as to the terrifying, horrendous consequences of his actions!
Four hundred years ago, the legendary seer, Nostradamus, predicted that the third world war will commence due to a middle eastern conflict! His frightening forecast is shaping up to be a terrifying reality! If the genocidal WAR CRIMES and slaughter currently conducted by Netanyahu, and his murderous army, do NOT stop and it expands into other Islamic countries in the region, it will – most likely – degenerate into a Third World War and the consequences of such a war will pose an existential threat to us all.
There is a terrifying prediction that describes the “end of the world as we know it” which goes like this:
The Second World War was fought with bombs, tanks, guns and close arm-to-arm conflict;
The Third World War will be fought, mainly from an anonymous distance, with guns and the likelihood of nuclear weapons!
The Fourth World War will be, once more, fought with primitive sticks and stones!
STOP SUPPORTING THE WAR CRIMINAL, NETANYAHU!
NETANYAHU MUST BE STOPPED NOW!
During the week a journalist for the ABC asked Dutton, at a press conference, why Hezbollah was considered a terrorist organisation and its flag banned when the actions of Israel had resulted in 45,000 deaths and its flag was still allowed.
The question reminds me of the small boy who, free of indoctrination, saw clearly that the Emperor had no clothes and was in fact naked.
Dutton responded: “Israel is a democracy. It’s not run by a terrorist organisation. Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation. They’re a listed terrorist organisation. And if people are in favour of a terrorist organisation, they should declare it, and authorities should deal with them.”
The reporter persisted asking why Hezbollah was listed as a terrorist organisation. Dutton asked the reporter which organisation she was from.
The ABC, she replied.
She again asked “If you could just explain what determines something is a terrorist organisation?” This sent Dutton off on a rant about the public broadcaster but the question remains valid.
This reporter clearly has no future in the local media mainly because she saw a political contradiction and wanted to explore the apparent hypocrisy as she was trained to do.
Media norms in the West would have us believe that Israel invaded Gaza as part of a war on Hamas, a declared terrorist organisation, yet it is the Palestinian people who have suffered the death and destruction wrought by this invasion.
We are now being told that Israel is justified in invading the sovereign nation of Lebanon in pursuit of their war against the declared terrorist organisation known as Hezbollah. Yet it is the people of Lebanon who are being killed, their homes being razed and these same civilians being evacuated to safer countries.
I applaud the reporter for posing a question that surely we are all asking.
If I may be allowed some anarchist pedantry:
Actually, it’s not the government that makes the laws. That’s the legislative – the two chambers of parliament.
The government – the executive – applies the law – which is where Sports Rorts fell foul of acting within the constitution, for example.
The judiciary interprets the law. In theory, anyway.
It is a recognised fact that in Australia, and in many other jurisdictions, the demarcation between legislative and executive is not as clear-cut as it could be: whilst, technically speaking, the government is chosen by and accountable to the legislative, in practice, the top-down power relations within political parties tend to override the supposedly bottom-up accountability processes within our institutions.
The fact that Dutton, and Morrison and Robert and Debnam, are unclear about some of the basics of constitutional governance, doesn’t mean the rest of us should affect such carelessness also.
As to law enforcement vs terrorism, that, too, should be a fairly straightforward distinction to make: law enforcement, to qualify as such, must itself be conducted along duly enacted, communicated and enforceable legal provisions and restrictions. Absent such restrictions, and all you have is state-sanctioned terrorism.
Of course, “Dirty Ops” and similar cloak-and-dagger permutations of “the end sanctifies the means” are accepted as unavoidable part of “state craft”. But should they be?
Flags are such threatening things to have waved at you. LOL!!
I find this so amusing. Actually, I find the Divided States horrid ‘stars and stripes’ flag pretty offensive. Or is it just the people who wave it? If you’ve ever been to the Land of the Freaks and the Home of the Brainless almost every home has one ‘proudly’ displayed for all to see. Pretty strange to me since everyone in the country knows what it is already and has one of their own on display. Flags in a America are like guns, everybody’s got one that they want to show it off. It is the most sickening display of over patriotism I have witnessed in any country in the world I have travelled to.
Sadly I see back home in Oz that it seems to be a spreading trend too, especially among the bogan crowd who proudly sport ugly southern cross tattoos and mullet hairdos. The same ones that get all violent and aggressive towards others who wave other flags in protests. Strange how a coloured piece of cloth on a stick brings out the very worst in certain people..
Flags are overrated.
It is strangely appropriate that the study of flags is called vexillology.
A new week and another episode in the interminably ghastly shit show that is The SMH Liberal Party Resolve Political Monitor.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/albanese-in-voters-sights-over-cost-of-living-20241007-p5kgaw.html
Lest we forget.
Brave young Australians lost their lives and youth fighting in far-off lands to protect those that the inhuman German Nazi holocaust was directed at.
How has Zionist Israel shown its eternal gratitude?
Zionist Israel, with contemptuous disrespect and callous disregard for those young Australians who made the ultimate sacrifice, bulldozed their sacred Australian war graves in Gaza nurtured and respected by Palestinians. Not a word of profound condemnation or outrage from Australia’s spineless politicians or the complicit mainstream legacy media. Disrespecting our Diggers will have consequences for our grovelling craven politicians.
Like Australia’s Labor government, it’s opposition the Netanyahu government and the IDF have no honour. Cowards one and all.
If the Albanese Labor government and Opposition think they will not be held accountable, they should think again.
The pathetic leadership of Albanese and Dutton that is impacting on and jeopardising Australians’ national security, sovereignty, economic well-being, international reputation that is corrupting Australia’s values and moral standards must, without doubt, question and challenge the validity and viability of the two party policical system. Albanese is weak, timid, and trashed many Labor and Australian values, while Dutton is strong on racism, negativity, and anything that lines fossil fuel industries pockets.
What a patheticly sick authoritarian society Australia has become where someone waving a flag or holding a sign is more egregious to the establishment political class and legacy media than the horrendous systemic slaughter of women and children. It has become essential for citizens to hold these politicians, their parties and legacy media accountable and to choose representatives and media who are more worthy and keen to protect and preserve international law, human rights, Australia’s moral values and its national interests.