Oil and money collide again as Tony Abbott carries Australia back into the Middle East conflict for the third time in three decades. Rodney E. Lever reports.

IT IS DIFFICULT TO BELIEVE that Tony Abbott knows what he is doing in committing Australia to a third war in Iraq. How does one read into the mind of a man who has been aserial liar all his life?

Joan Abbott (no relation as far as I know) tweeted this comment to me:

‘A war without definition pursued by a man who defies definition. Welcome to Australia, land of the Great (un)Defined.’

Prime Minister Abbott has pegged his place in history to a leaking vessel and it raises many questions and many doubts.

read more; http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/abbotts-war-and-the-world-of-oil-and-money,6915

 

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has delivered a unifying, reassuring speech that should remind all Australians – in particular Muslims and those who seeking to scapegoat them – that action against Islamic State is aimed solely at stopping criminal terrorism.

Mr Abbott's focus on basic human values deftly shifted the debate away from religion to a far stronger footing.

"Killing in the name of God is never right," he told Parliament on Monday. "Mistreating others in the name of God is never right."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/abbott-strikes-right-balance-in-counterterrorism-speech-20140922-10k7p4.html#ixzz3E5F5e2sM
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One has to admire the CON-artistry of the man who does every impression possible of a saintly righteous turd. Turdy Tony has no sense of anything except bashing something with measure. He does it with the incremental delicacy of a Chinese water torturer rather than with the average crude genital-twisting of a Guano sadist. What is amazing is that the Herald editorial team is blinded by the not-so brilliant bullshit. I would expect this from The Australian and the Shitograph, but not from the SMH or the Guardian which to say the least was a bit more reserved about the song and dance "in darkening times". What a turdy idiot. What idiots write these editorials?

 

Meanwhile: Your former prime minister John Howard didn't make any mistakes while in power, we're assured by no less an authority than former prime minister John Howard.

But as we learned last night there is one small, niggling faux pas that he feels a little funny about - although to be fair, it was ages ago.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/john-howard-was-right-says-john-howard-20140922-10kgng.html#ixzz3E5ag3bI2

It's time we kicked some pollies's arse...

 

Back in July, Australian Opposition Leader Bill Shorten delivered a speech at the Australian American Leadership Dialogue at the New York academy of sciences. It was full of motherhood statements – “We are bonded, we are blood cousins” – praise for Israel’s “innovation” (no mention of the Palestinians) and clichéd rhetoric about a pioneering American “legacy” that inspires Australians.

The assembled journalists would have clapped with appreciation, though the vast bulk of the event went unreported. It’s extremely rare for any journalist to criticise the meeting. If they do, their invitations from the US lobby tend to get lost in the mail.

Shorten’s kowtowing to Washington made it unsurprising that he offered his support for Tony Abbott involvement in Obama’s new Middle East conflict, but then again, this is how we’re expected to behave in a US client state.

Our politicians and journalists are duchessed with countless conferences and overseas trips. They’re the willing subjects of endless lobbying, “insider access” and so on. Then there’s the dinners, lunches, breakfasts and off-the-record chats with the cream of the US establishment.

The drip-feed is addictive and consequently the public often receiveslittle more than press releases dressed up with a byline. Even questioning last week’s Australian anti-terror raids brings condemnation. Get with the program, repeat the word “terror”, ask questions never.

So many editors, journalists, politicians and advisors have attended the conferences and forums at the heart of the US-Australia relationship that it’s almost better to ask who hasn’t been, and to thank them. The Australia-Israel Leadership Forum, modelled on the Australian American Leadership Dialogue, has attracted huge numbers of politicians in recent years.

The same month that Shorten was extolling the virtues of the US in New York, Christopher Pyne, the education minister, visited Jerusalem for another leadership forum, which also included the UK. He praised Israel like an excited school-boy and used the word “freedom” 20 times in a very short speech.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/23/of-course-australia-is-going-back-to-iraq-thats-how-a-us-client-is-expected-to-behave

 

 

• AstheticTheory

  29 September 2014 2:57am

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  Liberals, Labor and the Murdoch Press in yet another 'unholy alliance'.

  • Report
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• MikeBB2

  29 September 2014 2:58am

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  Ironic that Australia was once populated by prisoners sent there from outside. Now it will be filled with prisoners

   who chose "National Security" to make them so.

  
  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/29/t

 

 

October 2014 will go down as the month in which the federal Parliament made some of its greatest ever inroads into freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Ironically, this occurred only weeks after our politicians extolled the virtues of these freedoms in the debate over section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

It is disturbing that our political leaders have moved so quickly from this to anti-terror measures that impose lengthy jail terms for journalists and others who speak about matters of public importance. It reveals a shallow adherence to freedom of speech, and an unwelcome, authoritarian streak on behalf of the government and the opposition when it comes to restricting democratic freedoms.

Most of the attention has focused on section 35P of the first anti-terrorism bill passed on October 1.  This provision says: "A person commits an offence if the person discloses information and the information relates to a special intelligence operation." The penalty is jail of up to five years, or 10 years if, for example, the disclosure prejudices a special intelligence operation.

As Attorney General George Brandis has said, section 35P "applies generally to all citizens". It does not discriminate between people who seek to harm our security by revealing secret information, and journalists and whistleblowers who shine a spotlight on government wrongdoing, incompetence or even the death of an Australian citizen at the hands of an intelligence officer.

It is not easy for journalists to know whether they are complying with this law. Special intelligence operations are by their nature covert, and the information that cannot be disclosed covers these operations and anything that "relates to" them. This means that the ban extends to other, connected operations by ASIO and agencies such as the Australian Federal Police.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/antiterror-laws-undermine-democracy-20141102-11fmui.html#ixzz3Hxuc1bPk

 

 

See toon at top...

 

This is what happens now when the subject of “politicians” is brought up in a focus group. It’s described here by the public affairs researcher Scott Steel (aka blogger Possum Comitatus), but it could have come from almost any focus group held in the past few years:

“Let’s talk about politicians.”

Groans, chuckles and guffaws are the response every single time, regardless of age, gender or more complicated demography.]

More laughter.]

Give me a few words that you reckon most accurately describes politicians today.”

Just in it for themselves.”

Lying [expletives].”

“The two most popular expletives,” says Steel, “are ‘bastards’ and ‘dickheads’. Except for old ladies over 70 – they particularly like the word ‘mongrels’.”

This is our version of what the Canadian professor of politics Neil Nevitte calls “the decline of deference”. You can still catch some of that vestigial deference when elderly people call politicians “Mr”. But now those same senior citizens are also calling them mongrels.

read more: http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/june/1401544800/richard-cooke/people-versus-political-class

The major wrong note in this article is the author telling us:

The smaller parties may be confused, ropey and occasionally crazy, but that doesn’t sound much different from the rest of us. They’re also robustly democratic in a way the major parties aren’t. Clive Palmer’s influence is less predictable, but in many ways his views are closer to those of the general public than his business interests might suggest. As the political commentator Tad Tietze put it, “Palmer’s electoral support comes from the fact he treats the other politicians with the same derision most people have for them.” And the same derision most politicians have for us.

 

To me this is wrongly reading Palmer... Palmer is using the derision of political parties to secretly (see double-cross in the Australian political system) help the views of Tony Abbott come along, while appearing to be one of us... He is NOT ONE OF US. It's the fat side-kick TRICK in the Aboot and Clivey show (or the Toony and Palmy show) — like a well rehearsed Laurel and Hardy routine...

 

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott says there has been a "heightened level of terror chatter" since the siege at a Sydney cafe last week.

Mr Abbott said the National Security Committee had met to discuss the development on Tuesday.

However, the terrorist threat level would remain at "high" and not be raised to "extreme", he added.

Earlier, memorial services were held for the two hostages killed by a gunman in the siege.

Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson were shot by Man Haron Monis at the end of the 16-hour stand-off at the Lindt cafe in Martin Place. The gunman was shot dead by commandos.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-30585548

Actually so far there has not been any confirmation of who shot whom... So far there has been no published reports, no coronial enquiries and no results published. The BBC cannot and should not assume.

On the "chatter" issue, it is quite unlikely that would-be terrorists would be "chatting" on the phone-lines or cell-phones about doing terror acts, obviously knowing they are being listen to by the authorities. The chatter is likely to come from ordinary people discussing issues related to terrorism, whatever that is.

 

See toon at top....