Accidental news exposure

By quite some coincidence,

just don't give it any relevance,

I watched the TV news today,

which lead my mind astray.

I heard the prime minister rant

we in Canberra can do what we want,

within in the law, within the law,

clinging to a desperate straw.

Parliament makes law, nothing else,

yet fascism puts on its hipster belts,

with a leader turned into a dictator,

obvious to the attentive narrator.

Yet I wonder if anyone will care,

or wait for yet another nightmare.

Incidentally funny

Looking at the global state of affairs, facing the truth about what's really going on on this planet, can be quite depressing. After I chalked an Orwell quote in front of the State Library, 'In times of universal deceit, speaking the truth becomes a revolutionary act', I got into a chat with someone trying to sponsor an NGO, taking care of children in Africa or so.

Before she could give me her spiel, I used the opportunity to give her mine. I updated her about the latest sit-in in the US consulate, Bradley Manning and Wikileaks and the enemy of the state role, war crimes and drone wars. Basically, lots of stuff the main stream media doesn't bother to tell, still information available to anyone who knows what to look for.

Although I tried my very best to convince her that humans are basically harmless, and hinted a lot that government is the real problem, I received probably a typical reaction to handing out a red pill in what I considered a mild verbal dosis. "I feel a little depressed now." came back, after I mentioned that Obama signs the kill orders for the drone war. Oops.

Silly me. I guess I thought the nice girl was maybe interested in me, as a person, and not just as a potential name on the email list for the charity she was working for. When I noticed that her approach to make this world a better place differed a bit from mine, I stepped back to listen to the NGO story she tried to sell.

Who can resist an appeal to one's purse when images of hungry black toddlers are shown? Well, I could easily. When I came across a map of the world in the material she presented to me, I was mildly amused that Australia wasn't even on the map. 'You know, it shows all the countries we're involved in helping children', as if nothing is wrong in this country.

Would somebody, please, think about the children? In retrospect, it seems like a clash of civilisation happened. I happily assume that someone working for an NGO has this weird idea of making the world a better place, which motivates me to expose myself as 'enemy of the state US' by protesting in front of their embassy, to show the hypocrisy of Australian politics that send in the police to end this kind of protest, to chalk messages in public places. Basically, making a dick of myself in public, for no other returns than the experiences I gain.

So there we are, two human beings in front of the library, united in our good intentions, yet worlds apart. Me, appealing to the community I live in, pointing out what's happening in front of our doorstep, for the sake of it, she, wanting to help poor kids in some distant countries, and getting paid for it.

Yet in a way, we used a similar strategy - using information to appeal to our hearts to do something, pointing out some 'bad stuff' on this planet. While I'm happy with planting seeds, without offering any specific solution besides probably daring a bit more a walk your talk, her solution comes easier.

I admit, unless people that walk their talk become more numerous, quietening one's conscience with a donation to starving kids in Africa has more appeal. It takes at least the Hegelian triangle to prevent people from feeling overly depressed when confronted with some unpleasant truth. Or a good dosis of humour.

Diary of despair

While nature demonstrates her unpredictable powers in Australia, politicians show their fondness of Orwellian Newspeak. Australia's government didn't hesitate to speak up for convicted drug smugglers facing the death penalty, yet leaves Julian Assange in the cold.

Human rights apply only to fair-skinned Australians, only as long as they're not suspected to be terrorists. The native population is still treated like cattle under the 'intervention' policy, a mad move from Howard to reinstate Herrenmensch ideals into Australian politics. Countless asylum seekers died while approaching Australian shores, while others live in privately run detention centres that remind me of concentration camps.

In a democracy, laws should apply to everyone equally, anything else reeks of disguised despotism. Gillard insists that Assange's charges "got to be worked through proper process". The process that happens in Europe is unheard of, laws have been bend to hold Assange hostage like it never happened before. In dictatorships, people can be held indefinitely without any evidence. Being friendly, even submissive towards a regime that practices such deliberate ignorance of human rights in several illegal wars and torture camps like Baghram and Guantanamo Bay, Gillard's stance doesn't surprise me.

Wikileaks attempts to hold governments and companies accountable for their actions. I can be arrested and/or fined just for being drunk where I live, yet Mr Brumby gave away public transport, and multiplied the costs for the tax payer to subsidise multinational companies, who basically can't cope with the demand. Several people spend the rest of their lives in high-security prisons (privately run) because ASIO had to produce terror suspects. Australia doesn't have laws for everyone, but special laws for industrial criminals like Pratt, sport stars, politicians, indigenous people, temporary workers, pensioners, etc.

If representants of governments don't want to be held accountable, they cannot call themselves 'public servants'. Germans were obliged to call their chancellor Führer (leader), and Hitler acted as one. Prime Minister is just a role within the political game. This game makes only sense to keep with more transparency and accountability than ever before in history. Nations have lost their prime position in economic terms long ago, nowadays there's hundreds of companies with a higher budget than even some of the most developed nations.

If politicians want to justify their privileges, they need to leave the murky shade of secrecy, and take responsibility. Gillard sides with the international crime network of governments, no fair go given for one of her fellow citizens.  

A lot of people, the kind of people that get provided with free air time in the mass media, outed their attitude towards democracy lately. They insist to continue to work in secrecy, like Count Dracula fearing the light of day shining on their actions. Be grateful, earthling, to witness history in the making.

The 21st century started nightmarish with American imperial ambitions, justified by the myth of all-mighty terrorism. Men wearing suits recklessly demolished human rights, erected invisible walls for the meeting of the global suit wearing elite in Sydney, ordered a continuation of the outrageous injustice thrown unto David Hicks, sold the public transport systems in Victoria to multi-national companies, and still treat the indigenous population of Australia as second class citizens, savages to be taken by the hand.

Men in suits bossed the governments of this planet into paying a ransom to bail them out of their losses, produced by irresponsible and reckless gambling with fantasy products. Men in suits want your vote to legitimate action they don't want to tell you. Men in suit now threaten Julian Assange, someone who helped taxpayers finding out how their money is spend behind their backs.

SBS jumps on the Anti-Human-Rights bandwagon

SBS secured the exclusive interview rights to an alleged people smuggler who used to live in Indonesia. Insight and SBS World News quote this 'expert' with statements Mr. Howard would happily comment with 'I told you so'.

According to the alleged trafficker, Australia is seen as a 'soft target', with processing done within 3 to 4 months, a road straight to citizenship and freebies galore. As Australia seems to keep the image of a Human Right respecting nation, although they got told off for the intervention, the permanent chase of the Australian Navy to intervene boat people, denying refugees from war zones with direct involvement of the ADF asylum, this is nothing than sales talk.

Trafficker make their money of the misery of refugees, a fate increased by the growing unwillingness of the 'western', 'civilized' world to grant asylum. The idea to remove misery of a population by starting a war on their territory has failed most of the time, it has failed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. If a government 'cares' enough about people in distant countries, they might as well spend their money to invite them than to send their troops to destroy their lifelyhoods, and prevent them from escaping the war zone.

It's disappointing to see how the quality of SBS deteriorates. State TV in a corporatist state. Feeding the fear of others in the least densely populated industrialised nation on this planet is a shocking turn from journalism as control instance for the current powers towards a propaganda platform.

Information seems to be the biggest enemy of the current government. That's why it's based purely on trust, but not on accountability. Just ask the Black Saturday survivors how many promises this government kept. Ask anyone about the promises for Intervention, Offshore processing, health reform, education reform, tax reform, internet censorship, privatisation of public goods and services, improvement of infrastructure, child care or public transport reliability since privatization.

If a trafficker claims it's Australias open door policy that makes people leave their home we can easily forget about those killed when they were sent home, drowned on the way here, or live in an active warzone. I would vote to give Australia to the Australians, but hardly anyone would suspect that I mean the about 400 Aboriginal people that called their home before the declaration of 'Terra nullis' started an ongoing genocide.

GFC

The 21st century repeats most stupidities in history, just with more modern methods. The ability to torture, kill, blackmail and abuse regular people has increased, which throws human rights back to an all time low (or at least since the 'civilised world' came up with the meme 'human rights').

While the meme of hope still awaits desperately to become a tangible reality, another fear meme infects the planet. The Geriatric Freak Club came up with GFC as synonym for Global Financial Crisis in a desperate attempt to produce more smoke to hide the arsonists responsible for the slowdown in economy.

Capitalism ostensibly gives everyone the chance the succeed, but this word does not in any way describe the functionality of global economic systems. Lack of accountability in politics and corporations inevitably leads to fascism, or how Mussolini called it, corporatism.

'Bailing out' failed commercial enterprises with taxpayers money just redistributes wealth from the bottom to the top, society as a whole loses. No one bails out house owners who suffer from the tight grip around the neck, exerted by the global banking system.

After abusing their powers to print money to setting up absurd, risky and pyramid-scheme like 'financial products', the banks now sulk over their self-produced failures. But being outside any governmental, or even democratic control, the banks use their remaining financial and propaganda power to distract from a system that cannot work in favour of all participants.

The Australian government granted Pacific Brands $17 million, out of which $7 million increased the pay of the executive staff (yeah right, those people who fucked up their business in first place). The amount of unjustified assumptions that shines through the commentary made me laugh a lot, and sad at the same time.

One head parasite of the GFC said:

I think the workers are right to be absolutely furious with their management, and certainly their management has got a lot of explaining to do.

What a consolation, Mr. Swan. 1800 workers lost their jobs, after the government doubled the executive's pay with taxpayers money. Now, jobless and with some drastic consequences for their livelyhood, allowing their anger might distract them from the corrupt government preposterously claiming to work for them as well.

Now, after the damage has happened, the GFC will 'look into all options' to prevent that unconditionally handed over tax payers money ends up in a few pockets. What about confessing that the bailout idea simply cannot work? What about a simple sorry?

'Looking into all options' takes time, so probably nobody notices how much money the government pumps into the criminal Connex connection, or the feudalistic banking industry. 'Looking into all options' means having a club of 'experts' jabbering for week and months, and coming back with results only if the problem still has some public attention.

The result is highly predictable: If Australia wants to be competitive on the global market place, the government really can't do too much. The 'golden parachute', another meme on the rise in the 21st century, cannot be taken away from those poor creatures that feel only born to command, but not to work. Err, sorry, we really deeply looked into this, but there's nothing to be done. Thanks for the fish.

Our global monetary system lacks sustainability, it needs collapses to remain 'stable' for short periods of time. As long as the basic structure of this system remains untouched, it will continue to work as designed: Concentrating this planets wealth in the hand of a few.