Violence – Futility – Violence – Futility . . .

Fiona Uncategorized

Bushfire Bill gets it:

When I was watching 60s war movies with my Dad as a little’n, I used to ask him why the Germans bothered with armies and stuff, when they could just blow up bombs in London and terrify the populace that way.

He talked to me about “rules”.

Later on, after I grew up a little, I thought that if The State (l’Etat?) guarantees more or less 100% security, then anyone who took even 1% off that, was defying the State’s authority and was thus undermining the other 99% of the State.

In my mature(r) years, I have thought that if WE bomb THEM, then why can’t THEY bomb US?

The product sold to us in the West of highly trained fighter jocks, 30,000 feet above the fray, dropping laser guided bombs on hapless and defenceless targets, who then die terrible deaths with their bloody, eviscerated intestines wrapped around the severed, eyeless, lipless heads of their children, was always false advertising.

We sit in our fighter jets playing win-win video games.

They arm themselves with Kalashnikovs and retaliate against our homeland.

Yet the former is moral and surgical. The latter excites worldwide horror and revulsion.

It’s not win-win anymore. The targets have learned how to be the aggressors.

Can we really blame them for retaliating in the best way they know how?Can we condemn them for bringing home to us, in our supposedly secure cities, just what it is like to have random murder perpetrated on our citizens and loved ones?

I’m as horrified as the next person by what happened today. I’m revolted and disgusted about Paris.

But can I blame “the enemy” for giving back to “us” some of what we have done to “them”?

In my heart of hearts, I can’t.

I hate it, but you can’t say we weren’t warned of the consequences of our actions.

Can someone tell me I’m wrong? And if I am, where I’m wrong?

As does Leone (not to mention every Pubster who has been commenting since earlier today):

You are right, and I agree with everything you say.

Tonight New Matilda gave us this –
(IMAGE: Moyan Brenn, Flickr) Paris Attacks Highlight Western Vulnerability, And Our Selective Grief And Outrage
https://newmatilda.com/2015/11/14/paris-attacks-highlight-western-vulnerability-and-our-selective-grief-and-outrage/

It has attracted quite a bit of ‘how dare you say this right now’ comment. But it is absolutely right, and there is no ‘good’ time to point out how hypocritical we are, weeping over one outrage and ignoring another, just as horrifying, because those killed or injured are not white, or European, or Australian.

And Kaye Lee from AIMM:

Does anyone truly believe that violence can lead the world to a better place?

There can be only one reason for the attacks in Paris and that is to draw the West into increased military action in the Middle East, and from the sounds of it, that has been the call from many people today.

To those whose answer to the bombs and bullets is bigger bombs and more bullets, I would say you are being manipulated in the same way as the ignorant deluded handful of people who carried out these attacks.

How can you claim to be on the side of right when you use the same methods – go to a foreign country and kill innocent people?

How can you speak of national security and protecting your borders as you invade other countries?

How can you claim to be protecting human rights as you bomb hospitals?

How can you claim to be fighting for freedom as you lock up the people fleeing from oppression?

We have removed countless despots and dictators but rarely has it gone well. We install corrupt governments or leave when it becomes politically inconvenient to stay and leave people to cope with the mess we leave behind. We train and arm paramilitary groups and then abandon them and show surprise when they team up with others we don’t care for.

The armaments industry is a huge global business with no ethics. Defence forces are empire builders who demand hundreds of billions to ‘keep us safe’ as they spark aggression around the world.

If you kill people, others will want revenge. Where does it stop?

Is humanity capable of civilisation? Capable of tolerance? Capable of accepting the responsibility of caring for and nurturing all children, educating them, and protecting the environment so they can have a future?

Billy Connelly used to do a skit about his mother belting him for hitting his sister. Are we to respond to violence with violence and see ourselves as saviours?

Until we learn to respect each other and the planet we share, we are doomed to let those who would use us for their own power and profit pull the strings.

VIOLENCE BEGETS ONLY ONE THING – MORE VIOLENCE

Somehow, we – the beneficiaries of the West’s crusading, colonising, exploiting activities for so many centuries – have to resolve this hellish brew. As far as I’m concerned, however, Kaye Lee has nailed it:

Until we learn to respect each other and the planet we share, we are doomed to let those who would use us for their own power and profit pull the strings.

525 thoughts on “Violence – Futility – Violence – Futility . . .”

  5. Leonetwo

    I look forward to the end of the “carbon age” and the decline of the salafist loons in Saudi Arabia.

  6. CTar1

    I should have remembered the financial “interesting times” they are currently in.

  8. One for Joe6pack. This would have to be a contender for world’s most stressful job. Saw a piece on a bunch of truckies in Syria that are delivering fruit and vege etc. to market in Syria. Not just any old runs they involve pick up and delivery to food markets in ISIS capital city Raqqa from Damascus and vice versa.

  9. Well, well, well – and about bloody time!

    Police search James Ashby’s home

    FEDERAL police are searching the Queensland home of former political staffer James Ashby.

    Mr Ashby has been in the media spotlight since making sexual harassment allegations in 2012 against his then-boss and former Speaker Peter Slipper, which were thrown out of court.

    Channel 7 News has captured footage of police searching the Beerwah home of Mr Ashby in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland.

    The AFP are reportedly searching for anything relating to the Liberal National Party, Mr Slipper, Mal Brough, Christopher Pyne and Wyatt Roy

    http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/police-search-james-ashbys-home/story-fntuy59x-1227612142501

  10. Germany also stressed that it was continuing to help stabilize Afghanistan and that it was therefore “crucial that Afghans themselves don’t turn their backs on their homeland, but stay and build the future of their country together with us”.

    Alarmed by the high numbers of Afghans who are seeking asylum in Germany, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere had come out in late October to urge young citizens of the South Asian nation to stay home and rebuild their homeland.

    “There is an increasing number of citizens from the middle class, also from Kabul, and we are in agreement with the Afghan government that young Afghans from middle class families should stay in their country and rebuild it,” said De Maiziere.

    http://www.thelocal.de/20151116/germany-to-afghans-think-twice-before-coming

  14. What’s Pauline Hanson doing back on our screens again? These days she can’t even string ONE word together!

  15. Exactly right, Leone. Why would the guys Abbott’s been bunking down with for a couple of years have any interest in investigating a couple of MPs who backed the chap who toppled Abbott? Such a mystery….

  16. leonetwo

    The Dodgy Bunch. If I had any business dealing with that lot I’d want everything in triplicate and signed in blood , cash up front and notes checked for authenticity.

  18. BK
    I keep asking myself the same question.

    We have a new Pauline now, a nasty woman who sounds very much like her. Same whiny voice, same ugly ideas.

    If you watched the latest series of SBS’s Go back to where you came from you will remember the appalling Kim. I stopped watching that series half-way through the second episode because of the ridiculous amount of screen time being given to this woman and her racism. Now she’s back, with her own political party.

    http://www.loveaustraliaorleave.com.au/

    The appalling Kim thinks a new Muslim party will divide the nation. The fool of a woman can’t see that is exactly what her filthy little party is going to do.

    Muslim Party will further divide nation says Love Australia or Leave Party
    http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/muslim-party-will-further-divide-nation-says-love-australia-or-leave-party-20151117-gl0x37.html

    The problem for all these hate parties is there are now so many of them they will just split their own vote. There are five or six of them now, all preaching the same racism. Hanson did not manage to hang on to her own seat and has lost every election she has contested since her first and only win. It doesn’t look good for the clone hate parties. I hope they all lose their deposits.

  19. I’m glad to see Ashby raided, but it’s a bit late, two years too late. Ashby has had plenty of time to get rid of old computers and clean out his records. Or maybe not. i just realised my old PC is still sitting in a corner, waiting to be disposed of, after almost a year, because we all keep forgetting to take it away. It’s just possible Ashby has old relics lying around his home too.

    I hope I’m wrong, but it looks to me as if the AFP will announce they could not find enough evidence to back up any further investigation.

    There is a bit of hope. First, as Aguirre pointed out, Abbott is very, very friendly with the AFP and they just might want to find some dirt on the chaps who booted him out. Second, today’s raid was probably about finding some dirt on Brough related to his perjury. This is the matter Graham Perrett referred to the AFP a year ago.
    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/mal-brough-and-james-ashby-should-be-prosecuted-over-slipper-case-labor-mps-20140909-10e83x.html

    Brough should be feeling just a bit nervous today. Is it just a coincidence the raid took place while Turnbull, is out of the country? Turnbull should have run away from Brough, left him on the backbench. Instead, unbelievably, he made him Special Minister of State. That lack of judgement thing again. It might yet bring both Turnbull and Brough down, and with them Wyatt Roy and Christopher Pyne. Now wouldn’t that be just amazing karma. A plot designed to bring down a government finally destroying the plotters.

  20. The problem for all these hate parties is there are now so many of them they will just split their own vote. There are five or six of them now, all preaching the same racism. Hanson did not manage to hang on to her own seat and has lost every election she has contested since her first and only win. It doesn’t look good for the clone hate parties. I hope they all lose their deposits.

    Not necessarily – Glenn Druery (the “preference whisperer”) is bound to be behind all these fringe single issue “parties”.

  24. I’ve stopped posting Essential results, because they just can’t manage to make their figures add up. This week is no exception, the primary votes, again, add up to 101%. You can’t argue that this is due to some esoteric calculation, because some weeks it adds up properly, others it’s 1% out. just carelesssness, I think.

    But it’s worth a mention considering the wild results in that IPSOS thing.

    That ‘dramatic turnaround’ in the polls isn’t so dramatic after all when you look at the latest Essential. It hasn’t moved. Labor has gone up 1 in the primary votes, the government hasn’t moved, ‘other/independents’ are down one and the 2PP is stuck on 52/48 in the government’s favour.

    The responses to the questions aren’t all that great for the government either.
    http://www.essentialvision.com.au/category/essentialreport

    Some analysis from Crikey – free article.
    http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/11/17/essential-can-the-turnbull-magic-cover-the-liberal-partys-flaws/

  25. 2gravel

    Abbott copying Krudd’s tactics almost to the letter. Now who would ever have thought he would do that.

  26. Well, frankly my dear Germaine, I don’t give a damn

    Germaine Greer opened a notebook at Heathrow airport and began to write a letter to her lover. It was 1 March 1976 and Greer was on her way to Boston for the start of a gruelling lecture tour of the US and Canada.

    On the first page of the notebook she wrote a title: “The Long Letter to a Short Love, or … ” Greer never came up with an alternative name, but for the next fortnight she wrote furiously and passionately to the writer Martin Amis, 30,000 words in all.

    http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/17/revealed-germaine-greers-30000-word-love-letter-to-martin-amis-a-lover-who-left-her-helpless-with-desire

  27. IPSOS is generally regarded as erratic – still early days for it and there are apparently some teething problems. It’s been showing a bit of a bias to the right.

    Essential on the other hand is very sluggish. Takes ages to record any movement.

    I’d say it’s probably around 53-47, but it may be as high as 54-46. The electorate seems to go through phases where it’s just not engaged with politics. During those periods all you’ll see reflected in polls are assumptions and predispositions. The electorate is currently stuck in “Turnbull seems a nice guy and that’s enough for me” mode. Won’t be that simple as the election gets closer and people start engaging with the issues. That’s not to say the swing back will be enough for a change of government; there are plenty of factors and issues that could impose on things between now and then. But don’t expect anything like a landslide. There’s just not enough goodwill toward the Liberal Party for that. A qualified endorsement is the best they can expect.

    Just as a side-note – Turnbull would want to bloody hope it’s at least 53-47. These are his best days, when he hasn’t been challenged and hasn’t hit any snags yet. If you can’t get 53-47 under those circumstances, you’re toast.

  28. I’m just catching up after a couple of days away from the screen – partly circumstances, partly designed to insulate myself from much of the hyperbowl about terrorism.
    Fiona, I noticed your comparative photographs of Malcolm Turnbull and a distinguished fictional British political figure.
    – you might think that, I couldn’t possibly comment.

    BK and others lamenting the television commentary on Channel Nein might enjoy this piece (I think that it was original).
    http://www.footyalmanac.com.au/the-waca-bingo-game/

  30. Brilliant bingo game.

    Adelaide is due for one as well, starting with any mention of the Victor Richardson gates – 1 point. Add 2 points if “York” is included.

    (Sorry, BK 😀 )

  33. My excuse? Watching cricket is better than watching terror porn.

    I don’t think I have watched or listened to a news bulletin since the mongrels did their mongrel bit in Paris.

  34. The Oz article is worth a look, copied below.

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/police-raid-james-ashby-home-over-peter-slipper-diary-probe/story-fn59niix-1227612353874

    Police raid James Ashby home over Peter Slipper diary probe
    The Australian November 17, 2015 1:55PM
    Michael McKenna Reporter Brisbane

    Police search warrants have alleged Mal Brough illegally procured copies of the official diaries of then speaker Peter Slipper ahead of a 2012 sexual harassment case brought by political staffer James Ashby.

    Teams of federal police this morning raided the homes of Mr Ashby and his parents, in Beerwah on the Sunshine Coast, armed with search warrants that also names industry minister Christopher Pyne and assistant minister Wyatt Roy.

    The raids are a culmination of an AFP probe into the copying of Mr Slipper’s diaries by Mr Ashby, ahead of the then staffer filing a sexual harassment case against his then boss.

    In 2012, The Australian newspaper revealed that Mr Brough had counselled Mr Ashby and even organised lawyers for him as he contemplated whether to take legal action.

    At the time, Mr Brough was out of politics — after losing his nearby federal seats of Longman at the 2007 federal election — but was running for LNP preselection for Mr Slipper’s seat of Fisher, on the Sunshine Coast.

    Mr Slipper was forced to resign as Speaker in October 2012 after the emergence of text messages he wrote to Mr Ashby that, among other things, included vulgar descriptions of female genitalia.

    Mr Ashby’s subsequent sexual harassment lawsuit effectively ended the career of Mr Slipper — who lost his seat in the 2013 federal election and was replaced by Mr Brough.

    Mr Brough last year told the Nine Network that he had directed Mr Slipper’s adviser James Ashby to procure copies of the MP’s diary in 2012 for his use.

    Mr Ashby told The Australian today that he had “nothing to hide’’.

    “I didn’t do anything wrong, I was told to get copies of his diaries as part of the case,’’ he said before agreeing to a formal interview with AFP officers.

    “I had no idea that this was going to happen, I though the whole thing was over.

    “The police have taken apart the house, copied the hard-drives of my computers and I think they are going to take one of my old phones.’’

    According to the search warrant, Mr Ashby is alleged to have “accessed restricted data’’ without authorisation and communicated the material to a third party between March 23 and April, 12, 2012.

    Mr Brough is alleged to have “counselled and procured’’ Mr Ashby to access restricted data and to disclose extracts from Mr Slipper’s “official diary’’ without authority on the same dates.

    The warrants also cover police to search for any material relating to Mr Pyne or Mr Roy.

    Mr Pyne last year has denied offering Mr Ashby inducements to complain about Mr Slipper.

    Mr Ashby alleged Mr Pyne and Mr Roy offered him a lawyer and job security but withdrew the offer before he sued the former Speaker for sexual harassment in April 2012.

    Mr Pyne said he had ‘no specific knowledge” of the allegations prior to the lawsuit, but he knew Mr Ashby was ‘uncomfortable” at work and shared the details of a barrister through Mr Roy.

    Last year, Mr Roy’s office declined to answer whether Mr Ashby was offered legal fees or job security.

    Mr Brough refused to comment and instead referred The Australian to his lawyers.

    Click to access ashby-firstpage.pdf

    Second link is a copy of the search warrant.

  37. OK, so we have a minister of the Crown under criminal investigation by the police (OK, it’s only the AFP, but they’re still the police).

    Another up-and-comer, Wyatt Roy, is also under investigation.

    Where’s the bloody outrage?

  38. Anyone remember the Keith Carmody umbrella field?

    This is the closest I can find to it

    Essentially, he had eight fielders in a half circle between point and and a shortish square leg.

    There is a brilliant photo of it in one of Don Bradman’s books.

    Steve Smith is getting as close to that now as he is allowed (no more than two fielders behind square leg)

  40. I have asked Victoria from Over The Road to come here for the full background story on my upcoming book, James Ashby: My Part In His Downfall. So, if anyone sees her, let me know, eh?

    It involves a journo, full of lunchtime cheer, on a certain Sydney radio station, a few years ago, who just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He said, she said, they then said… and had a bit of a giggle. Then I just sent a link to it all. It was a rare judge who would not take to my evidence seriously.

    The journo’s a bit of a novelist, too (well, half of one), but my story was the full strength Vegemite, not marmalade.

  43. BB

    Tut tut, there’s no outrage, it’s the lnp, they’re allowed to do that sort of thing, nothing to worry about, don’t you worry about that.

    Night all.

  44. So, after five days of cricket, no one wins. Boring?

    Not on your Nellie!

    First, you get the Aussies piling on the runs in fine style. Then, the Kiwis do it even better! The excitement starts after that. Best part of hung about two days left and what will the Aussies, first up, do? They set about, very carefully, to try to bat the Kiwis out of the match. Then, the Kiwis picked up a few wickets and the Aussie tail, as always, and gave Smith enough runs to declare and go for a win. At the end, the rain intervened and the pitch just did not break up enough on the last day for the Aussies.

  48. And, then, Channel whatever goes on to some DIY program.

    And the world has come to this!

    Off to watch an ep of Midsomer.

  50. Would not want to be in the shoes of anyone involved in the plane crash or even their families. Russia’s FSB ( rebadged KGB) confirm traces of a bomb found and estimate about 1.5 kg of tnt. Bad Vlad at the presser went for understated calm delivery of the finding and what Russia’s response will be. I think ruthless and or brutal would be what his words meant .

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