The Great Australian Firewall - who's really behind the censorship push?

Following the ABC Radio National debate between Mark Newton and Jim Wallace, there’s been a lively discussion on RN’s Life Matters Guestbook.

I was gratified to see the Guestbook published my comment unedited (scroll down).

Another comment posted soon afterwards is intriguing. As the author was anonymous (initials GW), I trust he/she won’t mind me repeating it here. The whole comment is interesting, but there’s a punchline at the end (emphasis added):

Personally I find I can’t support censorship and certainly not the secret censorship of the proposal because open access to information is the best insurance for democracy and democratic discussion. Unfortunately to defend free speech and freedom of access to information, one has to defend the right of adults to access pornography.

Venus de Milo: topless in a Christian country

Nothing about censorship will do anything to stop the very real issue of abuse of real children in the real world. All government areas, state and federal, involved the care of abused children are starved of funding and personnel. The budget of $44 million would go a long way to doing something about those children and improving law enforcement where children are involved in any sort of abuse. To ignore these real problems and claim that censorship will help abused children is insulting to real abused children.

I am puzzled by something quite serious though. Why did Jim Wallace say “we” when talking about what the government are planning to do?

Here are Wallace’s words, according to this transcript of the interview:

“… the point is that we’re not about to stop the AFP doing its work in trying to get hold of these people on the peer to peer networks. What we’re doing is we’re making — as is the government’s intention with this trial and ISP filtering — we are making the Internet a safer environment for children.”

Innocent turn of phrase? Slip of the tongue? Or a sinister hint of collusive forces at work?

We report. You decide.

Remembering that Jim Wallace has a famous Scottish namesake, who rightly or wrongly was deemed guilty of treason by the English Monarch of the day, I consulted Wikipedia and discovered how William Wallace met his maker. It wasn’t nice:

Yesterday's terrorist, tomorrow's hero?

Following the trial, on 23 August 1305, Wallace was taken from the hall, stripped naked and dragged through the city at the heels of a horse to the Elms at Smithfield. He was hanged, drawn and quartered — strangled by hanging but released while still alive, emasculated, eviscerated and his bowels burnt before him, beheaded, then cut into four parts. His preserved head was placed on a pike atop London Bridge. It was later joined by the heads of the brothers, John and Simon Fraser. His limbs were displayed, separately, in Newcastle upon Tyne, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Stirling, and Aberdeen.

This, I think, is over the top for the post-Bush era.

If ever Jim develops a guilty conscience, perhaps  he could come to a voluntary arrangement with God instead? How about spending the next decade or two clearing landmines in Afghanistan – and decontaminating Iraq from residues of depleted uranium left by Australia’s valiant ‘allies’?

‘CAMERA’ is the acronym for ‘Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America‘.

CAMERA: War is Peace

In Orwellian fashion, this notorious cog in the Zionist machine is the polar opposite of what those words mean in plain English. Substitute ‘inaccuracy and bias’ for ‘accuracy’ and you get the idea. To check out the latest one-sided pro-Israel spin, as the Zionist beast rampages through the world insulting former supposed friends, telling world leaders what to think and killing ever more neighbours, check out CAMERA’s website. It also has a blog.

The Jewish American author Phil Weiss, whose blog Mondoweiss is a superb soure of up-to-date new and analysis on matters Zionist, carries a story today: Democracy lesson: As soon as you agree with me that Hamas is your enemy, we will stop bombing you

It really is worth a read. I scanned it quickly and my first reaction was it must be a hoax. Surely this is anti-Israeli propaganda, I thought? Then I realized the source: CAMERA’s own blog.

Get this! The Israel Lobby is promoting a letter – Soldier’s Letter to Gazans – allegedly typed by an Israeli reservist while occupying a house in Gaza. CAMERA explains:

This “Open Letter to a Citizen of Gaza: I am the Soldier Who Slept In Your Home“, originally published in Hebrew in the Maariv newspaper, shows the compassion and humanity of Israeli soldiers and also points the way to a solution to the conflict. Please consider copying and pasting this soldier’s letter into a new message and forwarding it to government leaders, clergy, editors, friends and family. It is very powerful.

Here’s how it begins:

An Open Letter to A citizen Of Gaza:
I Am the Soldier Who Slept In Your Home:
By: Yishai G (reserve soldier)
ygoldflam@gmail.com
[Originally published in Hebrew in Maariv]Hello,

The letter is packed with sound advice to the occupied – and ends by hinting at a solution to the ‘Palestinian Question’ that Israel might find acceptable:

The only person who could make that dream a reality is you. Take responsibility for yourself, your family, your people, and start to take control of your destiny. How? I do not know. Maybe there is something to be learned from the Jewish people who rose up from the most destructive human tragedy of the 20th century, and instead of sinking into self-pity, built a flourishing and prospering country. It is possible, and it is in your hands. I am ready to be there to provide a shoulder of support and help to you.

So, if the Palestinians want to solve their statehood problem by invading some other hapless people, Israeli forces might be there to give them a hand?

I have a suggestion. As a quid pro quo for the Balfour Declaration, why not give the Palestinians bits of England?

Cornwall: A Land with 'Not Too Many' People for a People pushed out their Land?

Cornwall, for example, is grossly under-exploited at present. A Rothschild-sponsored Israeli Protectorate for Palestinians, based in Bodmin, might be just the thing to get the whole of Britain’s economy going again.

Resistance could be expected from local Cornish folk, but the IDF is experienced in dealing with ‘little problems’ like that. Any of the Cornish who complain could be disarmed, assigned a walled-off sliver of territory near Land’s End – and given a pep-talk, including useful advice such as: “Don’t sink into self-pity!”

Dick Armey: "Politics is Silly!"

Salon.com’s Glen Greenwald points out in Dick Armey and post-partisan harmony that ex-Congressman Armey:

“…isn’t some obscure, aberrational Republican. He was one of the key leaders of the so-called “Gingrich Revolution” of the 1990s, when the modern incarnation of the Republican Party fully degenerated into the crazed, primitive, regional mess that it is today. He wasn’t a back-bencher. He was the Republicans’ House Majority Leader for eight years — from 1995 to 2003 (when he left Congress, failed to have his son elected to his seat, and was replaced as the GOP’s House Majority Leader by Tom DeLay).

So what Mr Armey says on American national TV gives insight into the heart of the contemporary Republican Party in the USA. It’s not a pretty sight.

This is the tape of MSNBC’s Hardball interview featuring Mr Armey locked in debate with Salon.com’s Joan Walsh, who unlike her sparring partner happens to be female, intelligent and personable. It’s called Dick Armey To Joan Walsh: I Am So Glad That You Can Never Be My Wife. Enjoy!

If women feel singled out for special treatment as an inferior subspecies by the antediluvian from Texas, there’s no need.

In a Hardball appearance back in 2002, according to Greenwald, Armey “advocated that Palestinians should “leave” the West Bank and Gaza (which Armey believes is part of Israel) and go somewhere else. His state party’s Platform also wants the U.S. to “immediately rescind our membership in, as well as financial and military contributions to, the United Nations” ”

Today’s Wikipedia entry on Dick Armey contains some intriguing tidbits. It seems he feels dudded over the Iraq War:

According to Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Barton Gellman, Vice President Dick Cheney told Armey that Saddam Hussein’s family had direct ties to Al-Qaeda and that Saddam was developing miniature nuclear weapons. Dick Armey, believing this to be true, then voted for the Iraq War and then, after it became clear this was not true, stated that he “deserves better than to be bullshitted by the Vice President.”

So there we have it. Armey is not just a misogynistic bigot and advocate of forced population transfer.

He’s gullible too.

Donald Rumsfeld with George Bush - criminals together

In a bye-gone era, back in 1963, the man who would later mature into a multiple (as yet unindicted) war criminal was just finding his feet as a newly-elected Congressman for the 13th congressional district in Illinois.

Donald Rumsfeld wrote the odd letter at the time which provide insights into what was of concern to the ambitious rising political star – a few months before President J.F. Kennedy was murdered.

This is what Congressman Rumsfeld wrote to the Attorney General of the day, whose name was Robert Kennedy. (Thanks to the Israel Lobby Archive where I spotted this letter – copy below):

Donal Rumsfeld's July 1963 Letter to US Attorney General Robert Kennedy

How did RFK reply?

Perhaps we’ll find out at Rumsfeld’s forthcoming trial?____________________________________

See also Dennis Ross hits Foreign Agent Roadblock?