This is from the always worth reading Kaye Lee at The Australian Independent Media – I hope she will forgive me for reblogging without her express permission (and I note that several Pubkateers have commented already).
(Image Credit: Daily Fumes)
An excerpt from They Thought They Were Free – The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer:
What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.
What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. I do not speak of your ‘little men,’ your baker and so on; I speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?
To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.
How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.
Your ‘little men,’ your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better. Pastor Niemöller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late.
You see, one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.
Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, ‘everyone’ is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’
And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.
Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to—to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait.
But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
You have gone almost all the way yourself. Life is a continuing process, a flow, not a succession of acts and events at all. It has flowed to a new level, carrying you with it, without any effort on your part. On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.
Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.
Note: Thanks to mars08 for this chilling reminder
THE PUB 
I guess there’s a certain irony that asylum seekers learn the truth before ordinary Australians.
This may be true – but who’s going to believe anything that comes out of Morrison’s department now?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-26/asylum-baby-not-kept-from-mother-immigration-review-finds/5284226
Good grief:
“I carry weight, I am actually fat. It’s not the Government that makes me fat, I make me fat,” Mr Jones told the ABC.
“I don’t need a government to come and tell me that what I’m eating is wrong.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-26/ewen-jones-says-food-star-ratings-wont-work/5283940
Good morning all.
I was listening to a farmer bloke being interviewed this morning re the abbott’s drought relief package that is apparently about to be released, and was plunged into despair. This man ‘thinks’ the govt is actually doing something about rural woes and used the rhetoric of the abbott about “cutting red tape” etc to illustrate the reason he thinks the way he does. Bananaby is this man’s hero, and for the first time I am able to see why farmers give this incompetent clown their confidence. It is simply because Bananaby talks like them, is a wee bit more educated which gives him the means to blind them with simplistic solutions to every problem… i.e. cutting red tape,..and therefore he understands them and would never ever lie to them.
It would be an interesting exercise if someone, anyone, would take the time to question what is really meant by the cutting of this red tape the coalition are so fond of putting up a solution to everything. On the other hand, it would probably be even more interesting if people such as the farmer bloke interviewed this morning was questioned about his perception of the red tape Barnanaby and his mob are cutting, and how it will solve his drought problems and low farm gate prices.
100% right, Stephen:
So, I’ll be going guarantor for Alan Joyce. It’s not a matter of if, only when, I’ll have to fork out. The man is seriously incompetent.
The Idiot doesn’t like picking winners, only losers.
For those not familiar with Colonel Jessup (I wasn’t):
“There is nothing on this earth sexier, believe me, gentlemen, than a woman you have to salute in the morning. Promote ’em all, I say, because this is true – if you haven’t gotten a blow-job from a superior officer, well, you’re just letting the best in life pass you by. ‘Course, my problem is, I’m a colonel, so I guess I’ll just have to keep taking cold showers until they elect some gal president.”
I don’t have time to watch it this morning but I reckon it’ll be pretty good:
“Andrew Leigh has posted a new item, ‘Sky AM Agenda – 24 February 2014’
On 24 February, I joined host David Lipson and Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham
to discuss the G20 growth target, and why Joe Hockey’s growth aspiration lacks a
plan to back it up.
You may view the latest post at
http://www.andrewleigh.com/blog/?p=5786“
Believe this or not…There are workshops being conducted to coach NGO’s and researching staff on how to talk to farmers without getting into a confrontation or coming under a paranoid supicion of “prying”.
Now keep in mind the favourite claim of these people…”Farmers supply the food you eat”…
Be afraid…be very afraid!
I saw the Three Star in his nice pressed uniform…a proud tradition, a damn fine tradition and uniform…I want to know if the Three Star is serving proudly IN it or is he just cringing BEHIND it?
Space Kidette – from last night
No – don’t jump to conclusions. Just because 12 lifeboats were bought does not mean they have all been used already. The Indonesians are doing a good job of making sure the world knows every time an orange lifeboat is found. So far there have been three. The other incursions were involved in towing back boats that were not too decrepit to survive that treatment. The procedure is to tow them back into Indonesian waters then let them go. If those on board are lucky the boat makes it to shore, if not they drown.
Yeah, and he says only Labor can cure the disease… by being noble and true, re-establishing conventions and sticking to them.
In other words, the usual “Labor must be holy, while we tut-tut about the Coalition’s wicked ways.”
He doesn’t point out either that conservative politicians always claim, by definition, to be custodians of conventions, institutions and customs, until it suits them to ditch them for a quick advantage. They are the underarm bowlers of politics.
Their stunning, gob-smacking two-facedness regarding Parliamentary standing orders and decorum in the House is a perfect example. Wreckers and gangsters in Opposition, they routinely get up and “advise Madame Speaker” (Old Kero to the rest of us) how grubby and ungentlemanly the riff-raff across the despatch table is. Words – prepositions included – are sanctimoniously and forensically examined by the likes of Pyne for their every nuance. This was a far, far cry from their rowdy and childish behaviour when they occupied the Opposition benches, with bonus points for getting their tame journos to write up House proceedings as “kindergarten children in the sandpit”… all Labor’s fault, because they were in government at the time.
It was around the time of Whitlam’s sacking that I first twigged to the conservatives’ basic premise: “We invent the customs and conventions. We can break them. Labor must, however, always comply.”
And the media always support this line, as Gittins has today. He holds out little hope that Labor won’t retaliate. He claims to be sad about that, in anticipation. To do something once is an aberration (the Coalition is full of aberrations). To repeat it, wilfully, fully intentionally – as he predicts Labor will – is systematic bastardry, in Gittins’ estimation.
Be that as it may, the way the intention to supply the Royal Commission with secret Cabinet documents is being reported reinforces the point that, in the media’s view, when the Coalition do it there must be a good reason. Why else would they report this outrage, this trashing of one of our most established customs in the nonchalant way they do? Straight reporting, that’s all we get, with the occasional mutterings from the likes of Gittins and a few others.
This is where we have come to: the outrageous is no longer outrageous. The childish pranks (and worse) of the Coalition while they were in Opposition were blamed on… Labor! Any childish pranks in this Parliament will be blamed on Labor too. It’s Lose/Lose for Labor in the Tradition Handicap.
Journalists – most of them expense account hungry chancers – will continue to judge politics and politicians by rules set out from the Coalition side, and then ignore the Coalition’s breaking of those rules at best, or figure out a way to make it Labor’s fault, at worst.
They will lecture whole nations on how to best run their economies, when their own business models are defunct and dying. They are too stodgy, too enamoured of themselves and their position in society to make the break, yet hector and badger others on what they are doing wrong and how whole industries, enploying tens of thousands, must adapt or die.
To fill their expiring newspapers and slow down the decline of their wilting circulations, they go for Click Bait. The report on celebrities, and if there aren’t any available that day, they invent one. Thus, Simon Gittany becomes not a murderer who callously threw his lover off a 20th floor balcony to her death, but “Simon”, with his new girlfriend, on the take from the tabloid TV shows, becoming simply “Rachelle”. You’d think the worst thing the pair had ever done was to be voted off So You Think You Can Dance, a lovely young couple who didn’t quite make the grade, this time.
Gittins’ piece is OK, as far as it goes, but he really needs to say what he means – the Coalition are rank hypocrites who’ll do anything, say anything, and destroy anything to get their way – instead of wring his hands over how “inevitably” Labor must follow suit. It’s always an occasion for extra special lamentation when Labor slips its standards. Gittins, in doing just that, follows a predictable line.
Last night Aguirre said ‘I should also say that I underestimated the Coalition pre-election. I thought their policy position on AS was just a bunch of slogans with no thought behind them.’ Aguirre’s thoughts were exactly right. The Coalition had nothing but a bunch of slogans and there had been no thought behind then or anything they promised. It was all just empty words. They had nothing planned at all. All that talk about policies costed and ready to go was just more lies. They had nothing. They still have nothing. They are just flailing around on AS and on everything else, making ad hoc bandaid decisions. As one bandaid falls off they dig up another and slap it in place, telling lies to cover up their total lack of coherent policy.
Need proof? Go to Hansard, take a look at what the Rudd government did in its first six months. Then look at what the Abbott government has done. There’s quite difference. The Rudd government, a party out of office for eleven years, hit the ground running with new legislation to bring in new policies. All this government has done is introduce repeal bills – and not many of those – and tinker with amendments to old legislation. The Abbott government will actually have had a few more sitting days over its first six months than the Rudd government did, but they have achieved absolutely nothing in that time, unless you count amending the standing orders to deny Labor, Green and independent MPs a voice in parliament an ‘achievement’.
This government has no policies beyond removing everything and everyone Labor put in place. The really tragic thing is they have nothing to replace all that demolition. Slogans were supposed to be enough. They would Axe the Tax and Stop the Boats and then sit back and bask in the adulation of the mob. It hasn’t worked out that way. Those pesky Indonesians refused to do as they were told. The senate knocked back all the repeal legislation. The tax has not been axed, the boats have not stopped. Abbott and his crew don’t have a clue what to do next.
Thousands admit to multiple votes in 2013 federal election, AEC tells Senate estimates hearing
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-26/thousands-admit-to-multiple-votes-in-2013-federal-election/528423
So – if the election overall was corrupted, can it be declared void? Can we have a new one?
“Old Kero to the rest of us”……..I’d be more inclined to rename her ; “Old Fitzroy Cocktail” !
Fiona…’Page not found”..
Sorry!!..Leone. “Page not found”.
Jaycee,
Try this:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-26/thousands-admit-to-multiple-votes-in-2013-federal-election/5284230
Leone,
I’ve just completed my daily Wordsearch – aptly entitled “Fair Females” – and one of the words was …
LIONESS
Fiona Nash is getting done over a treat in estimates.. Wong has her on the ropes.
Aguirre
And now Senator Faulkner, the silent assassin, comes in behind Wong.
This is a bit roundabout, but it ties in with what BB and Ross Gittins have said. It is an example of the destruction of the democratic parliamentary process by the Abbott government.
Yesterday, in parliament, Christopher Pyne moved his apology motion on Craig Thomson.
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=CHAMBER;id=chamber%2Fhansardr%2F8ab90ee4-4daf-4562-81de-62f4ff657b8d%2F0111;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2F8ab90ee4-4daf-4562-81de-62f4ff657b8d%2F0000%22
This didn’t get much media attention, possibly because Labor refused to do what Pyne expected them to do. They were not outraged by the very idea of such a motion, they actually supported it and voted in favour. Bill Shorten and others condemned Thomson’s behaviour. So Pyne’s big plan fell in a heap. There was no great political wedge for the Labor Party here, nor was there one the day before, when he asked for Thomson to be referred to the Privileges Committee, Labor supported that too. The Hansard reports on all this are very interesting.
However, here’s the bit that deserved attention, and as usual, the media ignored it, missing the real story completely. While speaking to his motion Pyne said this –
I’ve lost count of the deliberate lies Abbott and his ministers have told in the house since the opening of the 44th parliament. Abbott has lied on a daily basis in every QT this year. Morrison and Hockey, and others, have also told a few blatant lies. When will they be forced to resign? The answer, of course, is never. Pyne’s nasty amendments to standing orders mean that Labor cannot move a SSO to allow a motion of censure. Labor is now unable to use the parliamentary process to have such a motion at least recorded in Hansard. Abbott and his ministers are free to lie as much as they like, without any fear of censure or the loss of position.
Can’t get Senate Estimates, I am having trouble with Windows Media Player using the desktop on a Windows 8 laptop.
With respect to Senator Nash’s chief of staff Furnival.
He has been worth every cent Phillip Morris have paid him as a lobbyist, Cadbury’s has $15 million – they still use machinery from the McRobertson’s factory in Port Melbourne that looks like it was made in the 1920s. He has defunded the alcohol advisory board which helps the Phillip Morris subsidiary SAB breweries. Furnival has caused the food star website to be removed – it still isn’t back.
As Furnival and Credlin worked together in the Howard government I bet she knew all about his links to Phillip Morris oops Mondelez and actually thinks it is proper to have some one like him controlling the public health policy
Not enough votes in it to make a difference to the result, unfortunately – but you can bet they’ll be pushing for voter ID laws to fix the next one…
Well spotted Leone, I imagine that all ministers have lied in Question Time at some time in their career. The lies might be of great consequence like Peter Reith on children overboard, or John Howard on weapons of mass destruction or of little consequence like Craig Thomson’s I did not sleep with prostitutes, to the tune $6500
Try this link for the voting thing
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-26/thousands-admit-to-multiple-votes-in-2013-federal-election/5284230
Fiona
Well, of course…
I’m more than happy to say it,
General Campbell is a fucking disgrace to the uniform. He can shove his crocodile tears, he has allowed himself to be used by one side of politics in a most tawdry way and one only has to see the way this prick conducts himself during the weekly press conferences or at senate hearings to know he is a partisan player and therefore deserves no sympathy nor respect.
Today’s big thing in parliament – the Federation Chamber, to be precise – is the resumption of debate begun last November by George Christensen on an extremely important matter – the 50th anniversary of Dr Who. Yes, that’s right. Our politicians will be wasting time chatting about a TV show. I’m a Dr Who fan myself, but I can’t see why parliament needs to waste time on this. Surely there is something a bit more important to discuss. Here’s the original debate –
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=CHAMBER;id=chamber%2Fhansardr%2F585f8e84-c281-4991-9ab8-437f9b9ff0f8%2F0171;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2F585f8e84-c281-4991-9ab8-437f9b9ff0f8%2F0000%22
I don’t always agree with Conroy, but good on him for that blunt statement about Campbell, and good on Shorten for standing by him.
Hi All!
Hello Spacey!!!!!
General Campbell has a habit of sucking up to Coalition governments, first Howard, now Abbott. Without that sucking-up he’d still be an obscure lesser officer. Campbell actually left the army to become deputy national security adviser to Howard. As a reward for services rendered he was sent back to the army with a promotion to Major-General and given command of our troops in the Middle East. Heaven knows how many underlings had to mop up the messes he must have made there.
Let’s not forget that Campbell was promoted to Lieutenant-General only when his appointment to Operation Sovereign Ballsup was announced. He was given a promotion so Abbott could say he really did have a three-star military person doing the job. Competence and ability had nothing to do with it, it was pure politics by Abbott. He would have been a laughing stock if he had not found a willing patsy. All the real three stars probably told him politely to get stuffed, he had to settle for a Coalition lackey. So we have Campbell. Should Abbott ever dispense with Campbell’s services he will, no doubt be rewarded with a few more medals and another promotion to General.
Hi SK!
I have a vague memory of reading a piece about Campbell a few weeks/months ago in which he was described as being one of the more intelligent officers in the ADF …
Hi Fiona,
Found five minutes to drop in! Gotta love a lot of work but it does mean not enough time here! lol
When the govt militiarised Operation Sovereign Borders, I felt really uncomfortable with it. As things have evolved my gut is turning at where it is all going. Not a healthy place for any democracy to be in.
Additionally, the apology in parliament for Thomson, was yet another that made me uneasy. Blurring of parliament and judicial matters is another sign a democracy is not healthy. Given the matter with Thomson has not yet been exhuasted I found it wrong on many levels.
Hi Leone,
I’ve loved your comments of late!
Fiona
That’s not much of a compliment. If the man had any brains at all he would have run away from Abbott and Morrison. Associating wth them might get him a promotion but it will also destroy his reputation. If he ever did anything good or useful it will be forgotten, he will go down in history as the man who lied to Australia and aided the committing of atrocities.
SK
Thank you most kindly.
When I heard Abbott had called a presser for 10.30, my first thought was ‘unicorn’. And so it proved to be. The big news according to him is that Conroy has to apologise. He’d like people to talk about that. Re Nash, of course that’s a Craig Thomson issue the way Abbott sees it. He wants people to remember the ‘protection racket’ the ALP put up for Thomson in respect to Nash. I don’t know what he means by that. The LNP want to hold the moral cards over the ALP while acting in exactly the same way as them, is that what he’s saying? Everyone can trash parliament now?
His ‘look over there’ moments are getting a bit shabby.
Leone,
So the harsh reality is that he is a political appointee.
Dole queue at record length; national jobless rate the highest in 15 years
http://www.news.com.au/national/dole-queue-at-record-length-national-jobless-rate-the-highest-in-15-years/story-fncynjr2-1226837687528
Kevin Andrews blames higher unemployment on Labor and single parents. It’s all Labor’s fault for pushing them onto Newstart, it’s all the fault of those loafing mothers who won’t work.
Andrews overlooks one little thing – his own government’s policies. We are going to see increasing unemployment as the closures, sackings, redundancies and small business closures caused by Abbott’s policies reallty ramp up. Abbott has started an unemployment avalanche but he’s too arrogant to understand that. ‘They can all work in uranium mines’ he says. ‘They can start new careers in aged care’ say his advisors. Pie-in-the-sky, airy-fairy garbage, all of it. This government has no plans for the creation of new jobs, nothing at all.
A response to Ross Gittens’ article is worth a wider viewing.
Thanks Kaffee,
I think she articulated everything I’m feeling but unable to put into words.
spacekidette
Good to see you drop in for a visit. She is a very articulate lady who would speak for many people across the country.
Lovely to see you Spacey.
Kaffee,
Ditto what Spacey wrote.
Well, this is still escalating. Apparently the Navy is blowing up boats now.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/02/26/asylum-seekers-say-australia-blew-boat
Next time they might not wait until the asylum seekers are off it. That’d make the bogans happy.
Although I don’t think it was that extreme, they must have simply scuttled it.
Voter ID will not stop what occurred in the last election.
They also did not report, that this matter will be dealt with the police.
One gets their name crossed off. This person must have gone from booth to booth.
Until the rules as they are now becoming digitized, one can still do this, whether one has to have more identification at not.
Palmer is correct. It is time to digatalised the election process.
Senator Carr is having fun with SeanteHewaringds as well. Puling Duttonsd ridiculous comment to pieces.
The department does not appear to be in agreement with their minister. Was is amazing, the department does not seem to be having any contact with their minister. Doing all by what is in MYEFO.
This seems to have gone unnoticed – Antony Loewenstein in The Guardian yesterday.
Could John Howard be citizen-arrested for his role in the Iraq war?
A campaign to hold the former Australian prime minister to account wouldn’t be a stunt. It would remind people there is a price to be paid for going to war against all reason
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/25/could-john-howard-be-citizen-arrested-for-his-role-in-the-iraq-war?CMP=ema_792
And today, this response –
catching rattus …..
http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/27981
Things are not going swimming for Newman. The doctors at the Cairns Base Hospital went on a stop work meeting this morning. There was about 30-50 at the meeting and I believe that there are similar meetings at other at other cities.
Are they going to extend RC to include AMA?