Is Barnaby auditioning for a new band?
On Friday, Barnaby Joyce posted the following on his Facebook page:
The fastest growing sector of our economy is agriculture where farmers are doing the heavy lifting to keep the standard of living we take for granted. At the same time in South Africa, farmers are under attack, being murdered, raped and assaulted on their own property – something we would never accept in Australia. You are three to four times more likely to be murdered as a South African farmer than the average South African, with an average of two farm murders a week. After representations to my electorate office and at the Local Land Services farming seminar in Tamworth yesterday, I support Minister Peter Dutton’s push to give these people refuge in our nation because not only can we help them, they can also help us by moving into regional areas and helping grow our agricultural economy.
Dear oh dear, where to begin.
Let’s start with Barnaby’s claims about the agriculture industry’s contribution to the economy.
In 2015-16, output from the services industry was $1,051.1 billion which represented a 61.1% share of GDP and 79.2% of all industry, employing 9.4 million people. Agriculture’s output was $36.7 billion, which was a 2.2% share of GDP and 2.7% of all industry, employing about 300,000 people.
Whilst minerals and fuels still dominate exports, in FY2017, services exports were worth about A$81.6 billion. That was much larger than the value of exports of manufactures (about A$44 billion) or of exports of food (about A$43 billion).
As far as being the fastest growing industry is concerned, according to the March 2018 update from the Australian Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, in 2017-18, the gross value of farm production is forecast to decline by 5 per cent, the gross value of livestock production to increase by 2 per cent, and the gross value of crop production to decline by 11 per cent.
Barnaby’s ode to agriculture then somehow morphs into support for Peter Dutton’s shout out to persecuted white South African farmers.
I am sure there are problems in South Africa. It was kind of inevitable when 95% of the country’s wealth is held by 10% of the population, when 73% of farmland is owned by white people even though less than 9% of the population is white, when the wage for a farm worker is less than $15 for a 9-hour day.
But the point is, they didn’t ask for our help, they don’t want to abandon their farms and, far more importantly, there are genuine refugees who desperately need help. What happened to the concern for the people who have been languishing in camps for years? Do two farm murders a week outweigh the deaths in Myanmar, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan? Do they outweigh the millions facing famine?
There is something odd about this sudden, and unwanted, focus on white South African farmers. It seems to have been a clarion call for the far right. A predictable lineup of suspects have been quick to express their support for Peter Dutton – Steve Ciobo, Barnaby Joyce, Andrew Hastie, Ian Goodenough, Andrew Laming, George Christensen, with David Leyonhjelm joining in as well.
Is the band considering a new line up? Is that Peter humming in the wings? Is anyone game to tell him that he’s tone deaf?
As Arte Johnson on Laugh In would say … very interesting.
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Miriam English -
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Zathras
Return to home pageI guess this might be the new big propaganda lie.
It will be interesting to see how hard they try to sell it.
Will Murdoch do his part?
To badly paraphrase a line from, I think, Lethal Weapon 2, “But…but…they’re not bleck.”
Miriam,
Murdoch is very much on board already.
Miranda Devine is championing the cause “WHITE CHRISTIANS APPARENTLY UNWORTHY OF PROTECTION”
Carolyn Marcus “REVERSE RACISM REAL AND DEADLY IN SOUTH AFRICA”
Andrew Bolt “WHY THIS SILENCE OVER SOUTH AFRICA’S LETHAL RACISM?”
Ray Hadley has also hopped on board
The outreached humane hand of the Neo Conservatives for other Neo conservative white South African farmers is beyond contempt. There are over 600,000 homeless in Australia who battle the exact same murders, rapes, assaults and robberies here in Australia on a daily basis. Would they donate to the L/NP or even vote for the L/NP. The answer is NO. This is blatant social engineering and Peter Dutton playing to the large South African community in his own electorate.
On average, one woman is killed every week by a current or former partner in this “civilised country”.
During 2016, the number of Sexual assault victims recorded by police in Australia increased for the fifth consecutive year, up from 21,948 victims in 2015 to 23,052 victims, to reach their highest levels in seven years.
And they want to talk about South African farmers?
Yesterday I was searching for an image in Google – the search terms being “Peter Dutton” + “white South African farmers” – and I was surprised (no, I wasn’t really) at the number of images that came up from the Murdoch media of stills from videos of blacks committing a crime in South Africa. All of a sudden they’re interested in crimes in South Africa. Black crimes.
Hmm, I wonder what sparked their interest. 🙄
Just on the agriculture thing – among the many hazards to farming these days, I would posit climate change, along with bog-standard floods, droughts & fires, as well as fracking, open cut mining, water theft… as paramount and valid reasons for concern.
So what does Joyce do? Confirms he is not only a sexual predator, but also a racist jerk.
Apologies to all generous and compassionate Queenslanders, but I think there is something in the water there… you might consider getting filters or something.
Those Murdoch people are such rat-bastards.
It looks like they’re intending to set fire to racist hatred in Australia.
Oh, won’t this be fun. 🙁 Jeez.
Perhaps they figure the only way they can win an election is if they manage to inflame hatred sufficiently that we’ll forget their incompetence. Maybe that’s what they intended with the whole gay marriage thing, but it backfired on them.
Or maybe they want the controversy to cover for either recent gaffes or something they’re hoping to sneak under the radar very soon. I really, really distrust them.
Michael, you should see Murdoch hacks twitter feeds
Miranda Devine “Outrageous that white South Africans are not considered refugees. How many times do you have to be gang raped and tortured on your own land before you qualify as persecuted?”
Caroline Marcus “White farmers are being slaughtered in their homes in South Africa. Reverse racism is real and deadly. But there’ll be no global outcry, no viral hashtags, Hollywood pins or city marches.”
But twitter does fight back…
Lady Walter Slurrie
“Dear South Africa.
We will take your white farmers, but only if you take Peter Dutton. And we’ll give you Andrew Hastie for free. And the Sunrise program too.
Regards
Australia”
diannaart, a lot of the people out here where I live, beyond the city and suburbia are racist jerks — they are genuinely nice people, so long as you’re white and don’t let on to being gay. They look on Joyce and those like him as one of them. I think QLD is still really badly gerrymandered from the old Bjelke-Petersen days, so these people have outsize influence on elections here. Hope for the future is in the younger generation who are growing up exposed to the internet and learning tolerance instead of what their parents inculcate in them.
you beat me to it, Kaye Lee…. domestic violence in our country has gone unremarked for too long, and this government has cut funding to refuges, counselors, help lines and police liaison officers… no compassion there;
and how is this government’s response to the human rights issue ? such hypocrisy and not an eyebrow raised? Sad.
There were a total of 17,250 reported murder and non-negligent manslaughter cases in the U.S. in 2016. That’s over 330 a week. Someone should let Peter know.
Miriam
I have Bjelke-Petersen (and Malcolm Fraser) to thank for my finally blooming politicisation.
Way back when, my first ‘letter to the editor’ I ever wrote was printed in the Age, concerned old Joh’s stance on abortion where he tried to prevent rape victims from safe pregnancy terminations. Such is the respect and concern for women.
One doesn’t have to be racist to be misogynistic, but apparently, it helps.
Also the term “reverse racism” really sticks in my craw, which is being heard more and more frequently. There is no such thing, a person is racist if they hate others with a different skin colour, or nationality. That’s it. No reverse – FFS!
I can’t even pull together a coherent sentence, I am so angry with these nasty sacks of human detritus.
About 6,700 Rohingya murdered in a single month late last year, at least 730 of which were children. Of course Dutton and his vampire friends at Murdoch’s swamp don’t think they matter. Their skin is the wrong color.
diannaart, it annoys me so much when religious people spout their crap about being against abortion. The Bible doesn’t actually say anything against abortion, but it does instruct that abortions should be done in the case of rape (and infidelity) [Numbers 5:11-31] so those anti-abortion nasties don’t even know their own Bibles. But then it’s always been perfectly obvious to everyone that they don’t actually have any concern for the lives of the mother or the baby. They’re happy for the mother to risk her life in an unnecessary birth (still a dangerous event: 5.1 women die in Australia per 100,000 live births). When the child is born, they wash their hands of it, perfectly happy for it to die or be stunted in any number of ways with health services intentionally sabotaged and welfare made more difficult, especially for single mothers, who these holy nasties tend to hold in utter contempt.
Yeah, it really bugs me when people pull this “reverse racism” crap too. It generally appears to be code for “the most powerful, group of people shouldn’t be criticised”. When white people are maligned because of their skin color then that is just racism, exactly as it would be if red, or brown, or yellow, or black, or green skinned people were hated for their skin color. Dutton seems to think it’s special or worse if the victims are white.
diannaart,
I agree about climate change. I cannot for the life of me understand why it is not uppermost in all farmers’ minds and the first priority for the Nationals. Rainfall patterns are changing. Planting and harvesting times are changing. Seasons are different. All of which have implications for what crop to plant when. Not to mention natural disasters intensifying.
But hey, Barnaby says it’s just normal cyclical weather and the CSIRO, BoM and, presumably all the climate scientists in the world are just involved in a scam for the money.
“Look….I just – I’m always sceptical of the idea that the way that anybody’s going to change the climate – and I’m driving in this morning and we’re driving through a frost – is with bureaucrats and taxes.
“All that does is….it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. I make you feel guilty so I can get your money and put it in my pocket and send reports backwards and forth to one another,” he said.
Asked whether the drought being experienced in parts of Queensland were linked to climate, the agriculture minister had this to say:
“No. This just – this is part and parcel of it … since Dorothea Mackellar talked about, you know, droughts and flooding rains … It will rain. It will rain again and those people will be back in production.”
So there ya go. Rest easy. It will rain sometime.
Don’t you worry about that, you people. Just you wait and see…..pumpkin scones anyone?
Barnaby Joyce’s vague and uninformed opinion sadly carries much more weight with this government and their dim-witted supporters than the warnings by 20,000 scientists.
World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/67/12/1026/4605229
A quick overview:
http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/20000-scientists-have-now-signed-a-paper-warning-about-the-future-of-humanity/
Looks like Apartheid has slipped beyond the gestalt memory. Sort of people who threw Steve Biko out of a window after torturing him for days?
The Murdoch media in this country, and in the US with Fox News, are pure scum. Lying, miserable, treasonous bastards. They have no shame.
As I’ve said many times, if Labor get into power again I think they will have one chance to destroy Murdoch’s hold on Australian media. If they drop that ball it will likely be decades before they see office again.
They need to change media ownership rules back to what they were before Hawke screwed it up. Most of Murdoch’s media should be either sold off or nationalised. He has proven he is a menace to democratic society and can’t be trusted. He’s way too dangerous. He needs to lose his influence. I think the treasonous bastard should be banned from holding any interests in Australia ever again.
Of course the ABC will also need to be cleansed of its LNP appointees and made truly independent from government with laws in place to prevent the kind of tampering the LNP have done.
The use of the old Reverse Racism gambit also offends me.
Anthony Morgan, a Toronto-based civil and human rights lawyer says –
“When you’re so deeply invested in your privilege, and in this case white privilege, racial equality feels like oppression.
Reverse racism doesn’t exist and a person who claims otherwise is “outing themselves as someone who has little to no experience or knowledge of what racism is.”
Racism is based on a couple of things—historical, systemic oppression and power and as far as history goes, white people have never been persecuted for the colour of their skin—so there’s no point comparing their experiences to those of black, brown, and Indigenous folks.
It’s slavery, colonialism, theft all kinds of violations on systemic proportions… versus feelings being hurt.
There’s a difference when white people who are in a position of power espouse a hatred of minorities than when it’s done the other way around”.
The government can really affect your life if you’re a targetted group but all the victims can do in response is call the government names and then they are accused of “reverse racism”.
It seems the Conservatives are trying to play The Race Card yet again, to divide the community and have it fight among itself rather than question the Government itself.
Remember the recent accusations of Sudanese gangs terrorising Victoria?
Media Watch did an expose on how the media was distorting the truth – using misleading video to “prove” bogus facts.
Now watch this for a reminder of what they tried 11 years ago –
There’s definitely an agenda at work here and not just a slip of the tongue.
Zathras, thanks for the link to the Media Watch analysis. This makes it really clear there’s a dishonest campaign going on. If one TV station did the beat-up, it could be considered just standard corrupt commercial TV sensationalism, but the big three channels all coincidentally delivering such deliberately and dishonestly slanted stories at the same time? And doing it exactly when this crooked government is trying to inflame racism? That really stinks.
Government is supposed to calm people and get them to work together as a nation for the betterment of all. It is profoundly obscene to see an Australian government working to magnify racist divisions in Australian society and pit people against one another. This government has lost any legitimacy. Not only does it act as a dead weight, doing nothing to improve our society, it actively works to damage Australia.
We’d better hope Australians can see past the bullshit and vote this dangerous government out at the next election, though with the LNP hallucinatory win in South Australia sending shivers down my spine I’m no longer so confident of that.
Miriam,
The African gang strategy was very deliberate and prepared much earlier. I read a SMH article from a journalist who said she was talking to a Turnbull Minister more than a year earlier when, as a total non-sequiter, they brought up African gangs in Melbourne. She was confused at the time but it all became clear when Dutton unleashed his stupid comments about being too scared to go out to dinner about a year later. Dutton is despicable. he will say and do anything to foment division. Remember his accusations about asylum seekers luring a young boy away in PNG? They were giving the child fruit with the permission of the guard.
The article is now paywalled for me but google shows this much…..
Canberra’s sudden interest in African crime in Victoria smacks of …
https://www.smh.com.au › National › Opinion
Jan 5, 2018 – I know this for a fact because more than a year ago I was in Canberra and found myself in a private conversation with a senior minister in the Turnbull … A police officer once told me that members of the public tend to think of young Africans spending time together in public as “gangs” in a way that they …
The python squeeze of the Hard Right has a new helper…. and they are all coiling around Turnbull’s neck….
Good morning, Kaye,
Rowan and martin lasted 5 years and your story could fit the words of Arte’s character.
ps
Miriam if Labor get in the Murdoch press will have been ‘destroyed’.
My labor dream is a royal commission into the stock market preventing the woolworth/anchorage ripping cash out of Dick Smith’s name
Thanks, Kaye. I found it. It’s not behind a paywall for me. They must allow people to view only a certain number of articles before blocking readers — a most unsatisfactory way to attempt to extract money from people.( I much prefer the Guardian’s gentle pleas for donations. I’ve donated to the Guardian and will continue to do so.)
The address of the article is:
https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/malcolm-turnbulls-sudden-interest-in-african-crime-smacks-of-opportunism-20180104-h0dd9x.html
If anybody has difficulty accessing the page, try deleting cookies for “www.smh.com.au” in your web browser’s preferences (usually under security settings). It can be found on the Internet Archive, but some code in the page forces it to reload after a few seconds as an error. If you select all in the page (Ctrl-A) then copy (Ctrl-C) in the few seconds before it reloads you can then paste the text (Ctrl-V) into a text editor, wordprocessor, or HTML editor like Kompozer. If you still have difficulty let me know and I’ll send you the text.
What Misha Ketchell, the author of the article, says is quite important — essentially, that the LNP government is happy to hurt people and divide the community by exploiting racist fears in order to “win”, and that this is a sickeningly deliberate, premeditated strategy developed months or even years ahead.
I now believe the LNP has become a dangerously sociopathic entity that acts without regard for the well-being of Australians. Previously I thought they were merely deluded, and they believed that aiding the market’s most wealthy would benefit Australia. Now I see that it’s all about “winning”. They don’t give a damn about Australia or wider humanity. In this environment you can imagine the kind of personality that would best flourish: the psychopath. So I see now why Dutton is on his way to the top.
Let’s hope Labor hasn’t succumbed to this kind of thinking too… though their support for Adani’s mine and oil drilling in the Bight are seriously worrying.
wam, sadly, I think if Labor get in they will try to negotiate with Murdoch, and allow him to continue his destructive activities. Labor never had the guts to stop him before. Why should it be any different now? And don’t forget it was Labor who gave him all that power in the first place when Bob Hawke did a deal with the devil.
A funny and brilliant take by Louis CK on white people and racism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luaxIylnuGA
Demoralising isnt it, in the light of Tasmania and SA.
My dilemma to this miserable state of affairs is do I laugh or cry or maybe just grin and bear. Australia is so hoodwinked. Saw a show on sugar last night (sbs). Such a scam big business is, yet consumers buy the stuff. A 17 year old lad in kentuckey had all teeth pulled out from drinking pop loaded with sugar. The boy said he would keep drinking same. Climate change, consumers buy fossil fuels. There is no big business without consumers. We must stop consuming.
Oh dear, indeed. As a thought, it seems more likely to me that Bananas is auditioning for ‘Farmer wants a wife’, given his current woes. You know, good breeding stock that will occupy the kitchen and rattle them pots and pans, leaving only on Sunday mornings to pay homage to a God that insists on her subservience.
As to Bananas and Pezzullo’s appendage, Dutton, seeking to assimilate white brethren from the God fearing South Afrikaner’s into our humble church, you cannot ignore our historical similarities. Both countries were ‘civilized’ by missionaries with guns. If the heathen natives wouldn’t swap their land for the word of God, shoot them and take the land anyway.
In breaking news, the other contender for ‘Farmer wants a wife’, or is that ‘Australia’s most eligible Batchelor’?, is outraged, I tell ya’s, outraged. Them womenfolk think they should think for themselves. Where will this sort of nonsense take us. It’s the end of civilisation, I tell ya’s.
“Christensen said he was filled with shame when he learned the federal Coalition gave $9.5m to an international planned parenthood agency that he claimed made money from terminations.
“I’ve got to say that was a disgraceful act,” he said. “It was a very low point I think for our nation.”
Christensen said he would write to the treasurer, Scott Morrison, this week to urge him to divert funding from an international planned parenthood agency to pregnancy, crisis and counselling services for young Australian mothers.
The rogue MP also mobilised the crowd to take action against the state Labor government, which will reintroduce legislation to decriminalise abortion once it receives recommendations from the Law Reform Commission.”
The sky will fall tonight, for sure. At least some women agree with these two spunks, these paragons of white male supremacy, these two eminently available examples of ‘eye candy’ for the blind.
“[Amanda] Stoker, who is due to be sworn in as former attorney general George Brandis’s replacement next week, told the crowd the true measure of a society was how it treated people who could not speak for themselves.
“Children and babies may not be able to vote but we must ensure that they are heard and protected by all those who govern,” she said.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/mar/18/george-christensen-attacks-own-government-over-abortion-services-funding
As for Bananas and farmers, well, what can you say. He is to farmers what Carlton United Breweries is to Alcoholics Anonymous, or what British American Tobacco Australia is to asthma, bronchitis and emphysema sufferers. Between his ignorance of healthy water supply systems and his stupidity with the need for quick and effective R & D in relation to agriculture (APVMA), farmers need him like the proverbial hole in the dyke.
Oh Dear, Indeed.
Thank you Ms Lee and commenters. Take care
Gee, you come up with some grim stuff sometimes, Kyran. The day is now reduced to chaos.
The more people from poor countries who immigrate the higher the domestic violence statistics will be. High density developments will end up like the slums of the US. Travelling along the western rail line you can immediately tell that this will occur – grey 1984 blocks are being build in large numbers and clumped together near Flemington. Blacktown is now Black Town.
Non-discriminatory immigration is simply dumb ideology nowadays. The policy has passed its use by date.
“The more people from poor countries who immigrate the higher the domestic violence statistics will be.”
That is a lie based on racism.
“The more people from poor countries who immigrate the higher the domestic violence statistics will be.”
I would like to see some evidence backing up that claim.
Domestic violence is not the sole province of poor immigrants. The attitude of Australian society to women, the elderly, people with a disability or mental illness, needs to do a lot of changing. We should also recognise what damage our dependence on alcohol does.
“Certain groups within the community may be at greater risk of experiencing domestic and family violence, may be more vulnerable to its impacts, and may require different judicial responses to ensure that all individuals are afforded fair and equal access to justice. Some people may belong to multiple groups and, as a consequence, may experience heightened risk or vulnerability. These groups may include but are not limited to:
Women
People with children
Children
Young people
Older people
Pregnant people
People with disability and impairment
People with mental illness
People from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
People living in regional, rural and remote communities
People affected by substance misuse
People who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer
People with poor literacy skills”
Jimhaz
“The more people from poor countries who immigrate the higher the domestic violence statistics will be.”
Just a personal anecdote, my EX-husband migrated to Australia from Germany; even post WW2, his family were quite wealthy. He used to point out to me, when I was lying on the floor, I should be grateful, because he knew how to hit me without leaving a mark on my face.
He was/is not an exception. Many perpetrators of domestic violence appear to be reasonable, upstanding members of the community to the outside observer.
Cannot provide as political correctness would appear to mean such statistics are probably not available, as I couldn’t locate any just now.
The only thing I found was this brief factoid that does infers higher rates to me.
Culturally and Linguistically Diverse women face additional barriers to safety:
language
isolation
strict cultural beliefs
fear of police & courts
immigration risks
financial support
I would add to this that the new form of high density housing where many will end up, will also have an impact.
We hear more about domestic violence in low income families, because they access shelters more than their wealthy counterparts.
Violent people (who are mostly men) exist across ALL strata’s of society.
What I find completely disgusting, Jimhaz, is you using the issue of domestic violence to further your racist agenda.
https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/2017/08/12/harmony-house-director-domestic-violence-happens-wealthy-neighborhoods-too/554204001/
Yes, those things can create additional challenges. So what do we do? Do we say to those women we don’t want you here, go back to your own country? Or do we offer them support? Do we pretend women are respected here or do we work on cultural change…and I mean OUR culture. Do we try to educate all of our children so they learn from our mistakes, so they create a better safer more respectful society, or do we reserve that for rich white kids?
This wiki article gives some other clues. The problem of course is reporting. I’d guess half or less cases are reported in poorer countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_domestic_violence
The rate of immigration is a different issue. Your comment suggested it was the “quality” of immigrants that are causing the problems. I would suggest it is the lack of planning by our governments rather than the actual numbers and their reactive rather than proactive approach to…well….everything
PS I get really annoyed when people point to what is happening in other countries and extrapolate it to here. Perhaps people want to leave places precisely because they are unsafe or “poor” or bound by religious laws with which they disagree.
I can’t see Labor doing much of anything to rein in Rupert (all hail The Murdoch) because they know the old bastard can undermine them in his papers and on his cable network. He will work to white ant Labor on a continuing basis (ably helped with dirt from his puppet party the LNP) until they give him what he wants then he’ll, magically, paint them in a good picture. Until it gets close to the next election then he’ll jump ship and go back to Good Ship LNP.
@ Kaye
[Do we say to those women we don’t want you here, go back to your own country?]
Of course not if they are already here. If they are prospective future immigrants or refugees however we might say no, although it depends on the situation.
Personally I do not think we have any obligations to not be non-selective for refugees from countries involved in civil war.
[Do we pretend women are respected here or do we work on cultural change…and I mean OUR culture]
We slowly work on the underlying causes yes – alcohol and drugs, gambling, unemployment, house prices driving people to despair, selfish masculinity.
This would have been a hell of a lot easier if immigration had not been so high this century.
@ Dianna
[What I find completely disgusting, Jimhaz, is you using the issue of domestic violence to further your racist agenda]
Boohoo. I raised it because people above had already used it in relation to the article, which made it fair game.
[PS I get really annoyed when people point to what is happening in other countries and extrapolate it to here]
Bad luck then. It depends on how it is extrapolated, generally the extrapolation would need to be weighted down, certainly not one for one.
For domestic violence (and terrorism) of course people will import attitudes that existed in their homelands – we are mostly what we have e experienced. There will also be a different set of frustrations here that they may be unaccustomed to dealing with causing interpersonal issues.
@Jimhaz
I never thought for a moment you actually cared about violence against women. Just a convenient tool in your hate campaign against non-whites.
[Your comment suggested it was the “quality” of immigrants that are causing the problems]
It is both. Quality does not matter as much when numbers are low, but they are not. It depends on the cultural traits of the country of origin. eg I see African people as being more emotional than Asians, or islanders as being more prone to aggression than most cultures.
[I never thought for a moment you actually cared about violence against women. Just a convenient tool in your hate campaign against non-white].
In lowering the number of incidents, it depends on the cost to the male psyche on an overall basis.
I also do not regard women as being special, just by being a woman. I’ve seen enough horrible women, ones that would drive anyone crazy, to know they are not. And then there are stupid women who for some reason are attracted to showy, macho, narcissistic guys whose egos are clearly out of order – and are likely to commit DV when things go rotten.
All I am saying above is that there will always be DV cases.
I acknowledge DV is a really horrible thing. I was not happy about the LNP reduction in shelters – that sucked big time.
[Just a convenient tool in your hate campaign against non-whites]
Campaign is it? It is people like you that drive people way from the left with this utter black and white SJW crap.
jimhaz,
When you attribute broad qualities to groups of people, such as being more emotional or more aggressive on the basis of their culture, that is racism.
I know some white people who are very mild. I also know some white people who are incredibly aggressive. I know some black people who are the mildest, gentlest people I’ve ever met. I’m sure there are some black people who are highly emotional. I know some Asians who are extremely emotional. I also know some Asians who are very mild and polite. I know some islanders who are aggressive and others who are extremely gentle. I’ve known Arabic people who are intelligent, wise, and amiable. I’ve met some other Arabic people who are irritable and hot-tempered.
What I mean is, you can’t make any kind of deductions for individuals based upon race or culture, even if it was possible to make useful generalised statistical statements about entire cultures or races (which is unlikely). Poverty, access to knowledge, individual variability of brains, and many other things are strong determinants of people’s qualities. Not race.
It’s like astrology. Do the planets have effects on every person? Yes, but the effects are so overwhelmed by the planet we live on and the furniture in the room, and the vagaries of weather as to make the influence of the planets a joke. Whether your birthday falls near a major public holiday, or whether your mother experienced stress during pregnancy, or the amount and type of food available, the intelligence and/or education of your parents, and hundreds of other variables — all these far overwhelm any putative effect of culture or race upon your personality.
Racist simplifications obscure far more than they could ever illuminate.
But the worst part? Once people are here they begin to be absorbed into Australian culture… unless racist people project hostility upon them, in which case they naturally band together for mutual support, into ghettos. I see ghettos as the greatest danger. It facilitates the identification of people by racists as “other” and foments fear and hatred. That hatred and fear naturally is reflected back and you set up the circumstances for violence and injustice.
Every step of the way racism moves us toward the worst possible choices.
So, go ahead jimhaz, tell us how it’s in our best interests to pander to it.
Jimhaz
To clarify, according to you I am being “black and white” wanting social
justiceequity. However, discriminating according to race and/or gender is acceptable?As for “All I am saying above is that there will always be DV cases” – so we just accept that do we?
Like when we accepted that women should never, ever have the vote? Or First Nation people not be considered part of Australia, or rape in marriage was OK because of a man’s ‘special needs’, or slavery, or foot binding?
Keep digging Jimhaz, keep on digging.
[When you attribute broad qualities to groups of people, such as being more emotional or more aggressive on the basis of their culture, that is racism]
Total rubbish. Not even part of the definition.
[What I mean is, you can’t make any kind of deductions for individuals based upon race or culture, even if it was possible to make useful generalised statistical statements about entire cultures or races (which is unlikely). Poverty, access to knowledge, individual variability of brains, and many other things are strong determinants of people’s qualities. Not race.]
Not if intelligence (as it applies to the Australian success environment) levels are sufficiently different, or the propensity to act emotionally or with volatility is much higher – then race becomes important. It is like the difference between aboriginals who move to the city and chinese who immigrate to Aust – you want to place all the blame on racism (to create guilt).
All groups and all human activities exist in multiple layers of bell type situations, and yes you can make probability deductions based on these different bell curves.
This business lately of African gangs (young groups of loiterers) here and of white SA farmers is just an awareness of a trend (not that I support the manner in which the right wingers use the info). Unlike the left I know that boundaries need to be placed on negative social activities to stop or reverse trends.
If I was renting a flat and some big dude with tats all over him wanted to lease it, I would work out ways to make sure that did not occur, no matter how nice he seemed. I would do the same based on race/age/looks/job to some degree. Prejudice based on probabilities is a natural human right.
[…. all these far overwhelm any putative effect of culture or race upon your personality]
Sure, but they do not necessarily “overwhelm” culture or race. Culture and race still form part of the personality. I’ve yet to work with an Indian for example that did not show the effects of indian bureaucracy.
[Racist simplifications obscure far more than they could ever illuminate]
Well they can, yes, but mostly on an individual basis. There are exceptions to any rule.
Once people are here they begin to be absorbed into Australian culture… unless racist people project hostility upon them, in which case they naturally band together for mutual support, into ghettos.
Well yes, but that is why I am complaining about the HIGH level of immigration for such a long period. They are not necessarily becoming absorbed and we will end up with ghettos in Blacktown and Bankstown and Olympic Park or get caught up in imported organised crime.
[That hatred and fear naturally is reflected back and you set up the circumstances for violence and injustice].
Then they can adjust or have a shit life. It is not us that has to adjust to negative aspects of their culture.
[Once people are here they begin to be absorbed into Australian culture… unless racist people project hostility upon them]
You talk as if there is a high percentage of ACTIVE racists.
You talk as if cultural differences do not exist.
You talk as if past experiences have no effect on behaviour.
You talk as if immigrants do no wrong unless it is because of racism.
People may project hostility upon them but that is generally because they are doing things that are seen to be negative within the paradigm of the (dying) Australian culture.
I’m not suggesting blatant or direct racism should be ignored, but I do not class being selective in terms of immigration or refugees as being racist. It isn’t.
Even I got upset when I saw Sam Dastyari being racially targeted by a facebook post that someone in my group liked, but on the other hand I said nothing when a similar thing came about that muslim woman who lost her ABC job. Why – because Sam has been absorbed, whereas the woman was simply a millennial whinger complaining about Australia.
[However, discriminating according to race and/or gender is acceptable?]
That is exactly what you do – you typically make comments that refer to women only, based on statistical differences or as one of your identities is a women affected by DV. Look in the mirror.
“You are three to four times more likely to be murdered as a South African farmer than the average South African”.
Isn’t that an outright lie?
Jimhaz
That domestic violence effects more women than it does men, does not mean I am discriminating against men.
DV is a problem enacted by violent people against vulnerable people.
I have never claimed that ALL men are violent.
I do not generalise in that manner about men, women or Asians, Africans or calathumpians.
You just do not get it.
You do not want to address issues of DV.
You just want use such issues to denigrate people from other nationalities – this is reprehensible.
jimhaz,
“You talk as if there is a high percentage of ACTIVE racists.”
At the 1998 Queensland state election One Nation gained more than 22% of the vote, winning 11 of the 89 seats. One Nation is primarily a party of racism. They’ve dropped to one seat, but that doesn’t mean the number of racists has decreased, just that the LNP has been pandering more effectively to them.
“You talk as if cultural differences do not exist.”
No. I’m saying any possible racial or cultural influences on behavior, particularly on propensity to aggression is likely to be tiny in the greater mix of other contributors to any individual’s personality. Do you have a brother? How similar are you both in tendency to aggression, or irritability, passivity, or enterprise, or daydreaming? You two are not only from the same culture and race, but the same family! I don’t know about you, but my 3 siblings are worlds apart. One is a real go-getter, one is very tenacious and given to mild racism, one is prone to bouts of explosive anger and viciousness, and I’m completely different again from all three of them.
“You talk as if past experiences have no effect on behaviour.”
No. I’m saying the complete opposite. Past experiences are part of a complex mix of influences that are extremely difficult to tease apart. You can’t simply say “Oh, black, likely to be emotional; Islander, likely to be aggressive.” The real world doesn’t work like that. Only the views of racists work that way. People are complex individuals.
“You talk as if immigrants do no wrong unless it is because of racism.”
Wow. What comment were you reading? I said nothing of the sort. Immigrants are just people. Some are good, some are bad. You can’t use stereotyping shortcuts to say what they are. It just doesn’t work.
“I’m not suggesting blatant or direct racism should be ignored, but I do not class being selective in terms of immigration or refugees as being racist. It isn’t.”
I’m happy to be selective in accepting immigrants (less so regarding refugees). If a potential immigrant expresses extremely strong fundamentalist religious views then I don’t care what their skin color or religion, I don’t think they should be accepted into Australia. If they have a record of violent crimes then I don’t think we should accept them. If they have strongly racist, or homophobic, or misogynist views then they should not be accepted. Selecting them on the basis of their culture or race is stupid. We could reject some wonderful black people and allow in some reprehensible Nazis.
I’d bet 95% of people would discriminate based on race if choosing a new flatmate.
We discriminate across the board – nice v unkempt clothes, nice unmarked fruit v marked fruit, nice subject of personal interest v boring subject, slow old bugger in supermarket line v young person in line, scary looking fellow following me late at night v happy looking fellow.
The real world does work like that and it is not racism. It is preference.
jimhaz, I think I’ve worked out why you so misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m not saying that racism is wrong because of some politically correct reason. I’m saying that it just doesn’t work. Racism is a stupid mistake based on false assumptions.
It would be wonderful if we could group people into broad categories based on people’s external characteristics. We could solve most of the world’s problems in a few days. But we can’t. It doesn’t work.
Movies and TV shows are a large part of the problem in the way they repeatedly cast heavily built people with tatts as thugs, slender, pretty waifs as innocent damsels, skinny guys with glasses as geeks, black guys as baddies, and so on.
When I was a child many of my parents’ best friends were scientists. One of the smartest, most amazing, and gentle of these was an ornithologist (he studied birds). He looked like a caveman, with heavy brows, very sturdy build with excessively wide shoulders, big hands, and stooped, clumsy movements. He looked like he could have bent iron bars, and appeared the very cliché of a Hollywood thuggish moron, but he was brilliant, gentle, with a very sweet disposition.
You can’t tell anything about a person by their appearance.
I bet about 20% of people would choose a flatmate based on racism. That’s probably about the percentage of racists currently in Australian society. You estimate it to be higher because you speak from inside racism, so think your beliefs are reasonable and that most people think the same way. My natural inclination is to underestimate the number (imagining it to be around 10% or 5%), but having looked at the statistics for One Nation I am disappointed in my fellow Australians (well, 20% of them).
Yes, people are prejudiced. The clean-cut guy in an expensive suit looks down his nose at the unkempt person in secondhand clothes, but the unkempt person might be a brilliant computer programmer and the suit could be an embezzler. Just because people are still prejudiced is no reason to accept it as having any accuracy. Prejudice is slowly declining.
Calling such unreasonable prejudices mere “preference” is like calling the ability of churches to use discriminatory hiring practices “religious freedom”. It is a lie that enables bad things.
I want to finish reading the comments, however lack the time right now – this is a fascinating article
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/03/16/australias-trump-thinks-south-africas-white-farmers-need-saving/
“I’d bet 95% of people would discriminate based on race if choosing a new flatmate.”
Wow. Race would be the last thing I cared about when choosing a flatmate.
I also have an employee – a woman who is covered in tattoos and whose hair over the years has changed regularly – bright pink dread locks, really short and bright orange, blonde with rainbow streaks. I had to buy her a pair of workshoes when she started as she only owned sandals and thongs. She has worked for me for approaching 15 years now. Our customers love her.
Judging by appearance (including racial appearance) can cause you to miss out on knowing some really interesting people.
There’s an old saying that “there is a little bit of racism in all of us. However – like money – conservatives usually have a lot more of it than they need”.
I think the rise of One Nation and their apparent power base has changed the money aspect and replaced it with “finding someone to blame for how their own life turned out”.
Australia, with it’s passion for sport, is a very tribal culture and almost everything in our society is divided along some sort of line.
However there’s a significant difference between barracking for your local sporting team just because it happens to represent the area in which you live (!) and actively hating people you will never meet for the same reason.
Also I have found most people with the strongest opinions on racism have never been on the receiving end. Until you’ve been spat at and called a wog just because your name ends in a vowel you really don’t have the credentials to claim racism doesn’t exist in this country.
I’ve lived through the European, Vietnamese, Lebanese, generic “Asian” and now generic “Muslim” vilification eras and was even taught from the book “Little Black Sambo” in Primary School and specifically told that aborigines were a dying race.
Perhaps one day it will be diagnosed as a mental illness and become treatable.