Groupthink

Archive for category Immigration

We are all Bill Murray now

Sep 8

Posted by Ross Sharp in Immigration, Media, Politics, Society | No Comments

5.30 on Channel 9′s “Today” show this morning opens with the headline story, “They’re here! More boats headed for our shores carrying potentially hundreds of asylum seekers and they could be here as soon as today!”, it’s Groundhog Day, I punch the mute button on the remote and wait for it to go away.

Lordy, lordy, won’t you help me please, for I was about 41 or 42 when this conversation about refugees became the Australia’s Cup of political footballs, and I am almost 53 today, and this conversation continues, and it surely does exhaust my tired ol’ mind sumfin’ awful and wearies my chalky ol’ bones to the marrow, yes’m, indeed it do, amen to that and praise this day.

For I have worn out my last pair of rubber underpants and peed my last panicked puddle of despair over the dire straits of it all, I can pee and squeal no more, I’m plum all peed and squealed out, looks like they’re here and they’re here to stay and they’re coming, more of them, every day, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of whacked-out dingbats in bomb-laden dinghies to blow us all to that great brick shithouse in the sky, fuck our sheep and fill our pies with felafel.

By God in the almighty heavens above our tender heads, it is a sad truth today that the fabric of our society is indeed a torn and ragged rag of a thing now.

Yes, Sweet Jesus, it is but a pair of ol’, piss-streaked y-fronts on the spindly and spotted frame of an 80 year old digger with its arse all hangin’ out to buggery, and the people of this fair land ain’t havin’ none of it no mo’, they’s a souffle of social unrest a-risin’ in the heartland, all angry cheese and righteous dustings of outraged flour over the changing state of this nation and these seemingly endless series of vile upheavals that have seen our shores swarm with murderin’ beards and their murderin’ ways, smokin’ hookahs and bakin’ flatbreads and those little jelly sweets that are dusted with sugary shit, I quite like those and I don’t really have much of a sweet tooth.

…

…

Sorry, where was I?

Oh.

Yes …

5.30 on Channel 9′s “Today” show this morning opens with the headline story, “They’re here! More boats headed for our shores carrying potentially hundreds of asylum seekers and they could be here as soon as today!”, it’s Groundhog Day, I punch the mute button on the remote and wait for it to go away.

Lordy, lordy, won’t you help me please, for I was about 41 or 42 when this conversation about refugees became the Australia’s Cup of political footballs, and I am almost 53 today, and this conversation continues, and it surely does exhaust my tired ol’ mind sumfin’ awful and wearies my chalky ol’ bones to the marrow, yes’m, indeed it do, amen to that and praise this day …

Tags: , , , ,

Night of the long brooms

Aug 15

Posted by cosmicjester in Corporations, Crime, Foreign matter, Immigration | 1 Comment

It seems that with any disaster that comes as a shock the pseudo-intellectuals and various hacks almost instantly try use the disaster to push their own agenda. The massacre in Norway was all the fault of Muslims! Oh wait, it was a white racist Christian? Well maybe multiculturalism is still to blame. Thanks Andrew Bolt! Last weeks riots in England have been much the same. Whilst the violence was still ongoing the usual suspects immediately tried to distil an incredibly complex issue as either the fault of the right because of austerity cuts or the fault of the left because of a culture of welfare dependency. Once the violence ended and regular Londoners wanted to return to a sense of normality a collective clean up was organised over social media. Fair enough right? Well no, apparently these cleanups are the real threat and represent “the sweepers appear to enact the closest thing to popular fascism that we have seen on the streets of certain ‘leafy’ bits of London for years.”

 

Yes, she compared people volunteering to clean their neighbourhoods to fascism. I. Dont. Even.

The author somehow links community inspired gentrification in urban neighbourhoods to fascism, so somehow sweeping the streets is also fascist. How dare people try to actively improve ones community!

I don’t think fascism means what you think it means. Hitler had more in store for Europe than an elaborate street cleaning and gentrification operation.

It continues to then romanticise the rioters as fighting against the big bad corporate greed.

It is no coincidence that the primary target of rioters, despite a media-narrative keen to play up the social impact of these events on small retailers, was large retail warehouse stores that cling parasitically to neighbourhoods at the periphery of inner cities. These are stores that far from being the ‘heart of the community’, largely suck wealth out of it into overseas tax havens.

 

The reason that the larger chain stores were targeted was not some sign of class solidarity or some such bullshit but because the larger shops are more likely to have the high end electrical goods that people are after. If you want to steal an lcd tv or an iphone a big electrical chain would be a better bet than the corner store. And its not like the supposedly socially conscious rioters exclusively attacked multinational shops. The family owned Reeves furniture store may not have been looted but it was burnt to the ground. Not to mention the numerous independent, migrant owned shops that were simply trashed even if they had little of value to steal. I dont think many of these rioters did it in the name of social justice.

Further lunacy in the comments.

August 10, 2011 9:54 pm

This is really very good. Thanks for writing this. Everyone who reads it: disseminate by all means necessary!

The Left needs to defend the riots; not to valourise the burning of grannies’ cars, but to make clear that we reject the whole bourgeois construction of events, that we stand in solidarity with the oppressed and that, when it comes to it, we will, without hesitation, join the “rioters” to overthrow the legitimised exploitation, state-sanctioned violence and sham “democracy” that oppress us all.

Username is “Wit”. At least they are half right.

It’s not democracy when I don’t get the government that I like. So set fire to stuff.

Somehow I dont see how murder the destruction of businesses is really going to help the lot of the urban poor in London. But maybe that’s just me.

 

ALSO: Although the author of the post has since changed the photo back she was caught by commenters sneakily photoshopping black people out of the photo of the riot clean up, so it would better fit the narrative of it somehow being a white power fascist demonstration.

Tags: , ,

Brown people: expensive

May 9

Posted by Spock... in Immigration, Society | 2 Comments

The Herald Sun is being outraged at brown people again:

Taxpayers to shoulder Julia Gillard’s ‘Malaysian Solution’

Taxpayers will fork out more than $50,000 for every refugee the Federal Government plans to bring to Australia from Malaysia under its new plan to stop illegal boat arrivals.

But they will have to pay more than $90,000 for every asylum seeker the Government now rejects.

I’m already have one cost cutting suggestion…

Sue Bolton from the Refugee Action Collective has another,

The costs of processing asylum seekers could be reduced, Ms Bolton said, by allowing some low-risk applicants to live within the community while they are assessed rather than mandatory detention.

So let’s say 5000 asylum seekers arrive by boat, 90% are accepted so 500 are found not to be refugees. Using the Herald Sun numbers if we just let to 500 found not to be refugees stay in Australia anyway, I just saved the Australian government $20,000,000. I imagine another several million could be saved by allowing asylum seekers to live in the community while being processed too.

Economic management!

Of course Scott Morrison was available for comment,

“Labor’s open borders and rolling detention crisis is consuming staff and resources at an insatiable rate, with taxpayers forced to write a blank cheque to underwrite the Government’s failure,” said Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison.

This was, and never will be, about money, Scott. I don’t believe in hell, but if I did I am sure the deepest, darkest circle of it would be reserved for you.

And Gillard is spending money to stop Asylum Seekers coming to Australia! (Outrage, etc…)

Australia is using Prime Minister Julia Gillard to spearhead an international advertising blitz with the slogan “don’t do it”, telling people smugglers and passengers in Indonesia, Afghanistan and Pakistan about its new plan to send asylum seekers to Malaysia, where there are 93,000 people already in the queue.

The PM’s warning – “the truth is if you spend your money, you get on a boat, you risk your life, you don’t get to stay, you go to Malaysia, and you go to the back of the queue” – has been translated into Farsi, Dari, Pashto, Arabic and Bahasa Indonesian, and already broadcast.

As fellow Groupthink-er, Brides said on Twitter this morning,

s_bridges
Looked for the back of the immigration queue down the back of the couch. Found 20 cents and a crust of toast.
9/05/11 11:01 AM

And don’t forget the poll:

YES/NO

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN ILLEGAL REFUGEE, YOU FUCKING IGNORANT AND/OR DISINGENUOUS ARSEHATS!

In Herald Sun, Julia Gillard just can’t win. She spends money to stop Asylum seekers coming and she is criticized. She spends money on allowing them to come, she gets criticized.

This isn’t about money, it was never about money. If it was about money Tony’s plans to drag boats back to wherever they came from would have caused more outrage than anything. This is just the Herald Sun using not-so-subtle racism and xenophobia to play dirty politics.

And all the while the public debate in Australia forgets that there are real people, with real lives and genuine fears for their life fleeing to Australia in the hope of a new life.

This is a fight the ALP can’t win. Torn between their progressive base and the conservative votes they need to win seats in NSW and Queensland. No matter how “tough” they talk on “illegal immigration”, Tony Abbott can (and does) talk tougher. No matter what crazy, expensive and inhuman scheme Gillard concocts to discourage asylum seekers traveling to Australia via boat, the News Ltd tabloids find a negative way to frame it as being too soft on Asylum seekers, or too expensive to the tax payer.

With the terms of the debate being set by Tony Abbott and the News Ltd outrage machine, Gillard doesn’t stand a chance.

But the alternative is to present a vision which cuts through the agenda driven ‘journalism’ of News Ltd, which seeks to inspire and educate. N0t to just cater your policies to the lowest common denominator of Australian society, but to present a compelling and persuasive vision that can win the hearts and minds of voters.

And I gave up on Australian politics providing anything like that a long time ago.

Tags: , , , ,

Let’s Talk About Refs

Feb 21

Posted by Sunili in Immigration, Media | 5 Comments

As the flashy pics in our shiny new Multiculturalism Policy shows, we truly live in a Salt’n'Pepa nation. And I’m talking pepper with all the fancy green, pink, etc corns as seen on Masterchef. Look at all the colours! Pretty!

But with the debacles and nasty verbiage surrounding last week’s funerals for the victims of the asylum seeker boat tragedy off Christmas Island, it seems that in addition to celebrating the good things that may be, there are a lot of bad things about our approach to race, cultural differences, and discussion of ‘the other’ that we really need to address.

And one of the really bad things is major newspapers who take it upon themselves to blow the dog vuvuzela whenever they get the slightest sniff of a story about immigrants. And escaped immigrants who were supposed to be detained at the pleasure of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, at that.

The simmering cultural melting pot is truly on the verge of boiling over, and, gosh, rightly so. The outrage that humans who are detained not for committing a crime but because they are about to get shipped off for not having the proper authorization to be in this country get taxpayer-funded trips to bowling alleys and aquariums is clearly a palable tension in our community that must be addressed at THE HIGHEST LEVELS. And WHAT DOES QUENTIN BRYCE HAVE TO SAY about the all expenses cross-country sight-seeing holiday we gifted that little Iranian kid (who, let’s not forget, arrived here on a pleasure cruise!) who’s parents died or were lost at sea or something. </sarcasm>

As Teh Hon Scott Morrison MP, Member for Cock and Opposition Spokesperson for Anti-Immigration pointed out last week:

…because these people, who tried to get into the country, and were allegedly asylum seekers – allegedly asylum seekers – we‘ve got to pay for that?

Scott Morrison MP, Squire of Teh Shire, allegedly a wanker (allegedly!), would probably get more ‘Whatta Man’ accolades if he started making sure his buddies at the papers (especially the Daily Tele’s Chief Political Reporter, Simon Benson) start using the word ‘allegedly’ a bit more liberally in their work.

I refer specifically to the yarn over the weekend about how many ‘detainees’ have escaped from detention centres, which was unabashedly splashed with the terms ‘refugees’ and ‘asylum seekers’.

The Tele’s editorial that same day on the need to ‘balance strength with compassion‘ on the refugee issue also made mention that DIAC is:

tracking down dozens of asylum seekers who have been strolling around the country for months. One of them had been on a bowling trip.

Luckily, the Benson’s article made the very decent effort to reassure readers that:

There was no evidence that any of those asylum seekers who had escaped had engaged in any criminal activity subsequent to their escape.

Whew. #thanksGetUp.

Here’s the thing, right: there was also NO EVIDENCE that ANY of those ‘detainees’ who had escaped WERE ACTUALLY ASYLUM SEEKERS.

O_o

And yet, Benson’s article about the Refugees On The Run And Off The Radar (let’s give the subs top marks for alliteration, shall we?) went gung-ho painting the subjects of the story as the very people that everyday Aussies worry have come here to (allegedly) take advantage of us and our respect for humanity and decency.

DIAC’s National Communications Manager Sandi Logan confirmed to me via Teh Twitters that none of the immigration escapees are or were asylum seekers.

The assumptions portrayed by the Tele in choosing to highlight refugees and asylum seekers breaking out of detention and being ‘on the run’ are hateful and vile. In addition to showing poor journalism in jumping to conclusions without bothering to check the facts, the way they took every opportunity to magnify the beat up of such a sensitive issue (and this week, of all weeks!) is just disgusting.

With deliberate trolling like that in the mainstream media, there is little hope that we can move beyond the ignorance and fear that leads to hate and intolerance.

There are some excellent warm & fuzzy ideas in the the People Of Australia policy document. But in addition to also querying the bureaucratic efficacy (sic) of a National Anti-Racism Partnership and Strategy, there it may be very difficult to get people to understand they actually have the wrong idea about this situation while they being fed shit like this down their throats.

Tags: , ,

John Roskam: W-R-O-N-G on Multiculturalism

Feb 19

Posted by thewetmale in Immigration, Politics, Society | 2 Comments

The point about multiculturalism is it emphasises what divides us more than what unites us. It was a term useful when arrivals to Australia were basically from the same culture. Multiculturalism has never encompassed what Australia actually is. Australia is basically one culture. It is a Judeo-Christian liberal democracy.

John Roskam, Exectutive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), on the 7:30 report on Thursday night.

Before I really get started, this statement is self-contradictory to the point of absurdity; John claims that multiculturalism is a term that was useful at a time of mono-cultural immigration, and uses that as an argument against multiculturalism in a time of poly-cultural immigration. This makes less sense than the Chewbacca Defence.

Putting that aside, John is wrong about what Multiculturalism was and is. Multiculturalism as a term was first used in 1973 and as a policy was really kicked into gear by Malcolm Fraser’s government (1975-1983). The cliff notes to Australian immigration policy include that there was a large influx of migrants after world war two from various countries in western Europe and that there was a bipartisan consensus in the seventies, under Malcolm Fraser’s Prime Ministership, to accept higher numbers of immigrants from Asia, and in particular, refugees (including those coming by boat) from Vietnam. So at the time that multiculturalism became official policy, Australia was already accepting new arrivals from a range of cultures.

Indeed, the idea that there was ever a time “when arrivals to Australia were basically from the same culture” is highly questionable. It certainly wasn’t the case with the wave of western European migration after World War Two and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the case when there was an influx of migrants around the gold rush of the 1850s. One may even question if it was the case in the early colonial years when there were tensions between the government and rebel Irish Catholics, but the use of “basically” might get John off the hook here.

Additionally, Roskam’s proposition that “Australia is basically one culture. It is a Judeo-Christian liberal democracy” leaves me to only assume that he doesn’t actually know what culture is. It’s reasonable to make an argument that Australia’s political culture is centred on a broad principal of liberal democracy but “Judeo-Christian liberal democracy” doesn’t go anywhere near to implying, for example, what music, foods, or values are popular or common in Australia, let alone anything about the less tangible aspects of culture. Australia hasn’t contained “basically one culture” for at least tens of thousands of years.

All that said, I do agree with John’s comment at the conclusion of the piece.

We should have this debate and it is good that we are talking about it, but we can’t talk about it without identifying what multiculturalism is, how it worked in the past and how it can work into the future.

This is a good idea. I would invite John Roskam to identify what culture is, what multiculturalism is, how multiculturalism was conceived as a theoretical alternative to assimilation, and how it has evolved from theory to operate in practice. Or at least get one of his research fellows to prepare a paper on the subject for him to read. Once he’s done that, and when he’s willing to base his arguments in facts instead of indulging in fantastical mythologising, I’d be happy for him to appear as the main contrasting interlocutor to Malcolm Fraser in a story about multiculturalism and immigration policy.

Tags: , , ,

Scott Morrison, a petseleh in a shandhoiz

Feb 15

Posted by Ross Sharp in Foreign matter, Immigration, Politics | 12 Comments

He should die of cancer. A shtunk, er zol vaksen vi a tsibeleh, mit dem kop in drerd! …

Seven survivors of the Christmas Island boat tragedy will travel to Sydney today to bury family members. Among them, Madian El Ibrahimy will bury his eight-month-old daughter, Zahra and Hussein al-Husaini will lay to rest his three-month-old son Sam.

Both men’s wives drowned, or are missing.

The opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, yesterday attacked the government for flying 21 detainees from Christmas Island to attend the Muslim and Christian funerals at Rookwood and Rouse Hill for victims of December’s horrific boat crash.

Family members of 12 of the victims live in Sydney and requested they be buried here.

But Mr Morrison said transferring detainees to Sydney raised security issues and showed the government ”doesn’t understand the value of the taxpayer’s money”.

Mr Morrison told radio 2GB: ”If people wanted to attend the funeral service from Sydney, for example, who may have been relatives of those who wanted these funeral services, well, they could have held the service on Christmas Island and like any other Australian who would have wanted to go to the funeral of someone close to them, they would have paid for themselves to get on a plane and go there.”

Scott Morrison, a crusted cum stain on the fabric of the universe, this bloated, block-headed bucket of thrush from out the communal washbasin of a heizel, a kuppe drek, this plyoot karger, this farkakte proster chamoole, it k’vitsh’s “Tzufil!!”, “Too much!! Too costly!!”, the money we spend to bury the children of these “niggers” from across the sea, these invaders, these illegals, their foreign ways they bring to these pristine white shores where pristine white people go about their pristine white ways, and now we, the “taxpayer”, we pay our shekels to bury their rotting dead?

“Gai feifen ahfen yam!” it whines, such a yatebedam it thinks it is, such a man, counting our pennies for us, counting, counting, counting, bed bugs I have seen with more character than this yukel, this shtunk, this fat-faced tamaveter with its crooked beaver teeth, its dead man’s eyes, a feier zol im trefen!! … Such a grober is this boy, this shtik drek, his words are like the loose bowel movements of crazy old grandmothers that carry on the breezes that brush over a field of unburied corpses.

Kish mir en toches, groisser potz!! Me ken brechen!!

…

Feh, fuck him, his testicles are sultanas, his penis is a noodle.

Scott Morrision, zolst zein vi a lomp-am tug sollst di hangen, in der nacht sollst di brennen!!

Gai trenz ich, Morrison, gai trenz ich!!!

…

…

Farshtaist?

Tags: , , , , , ,

Courtesy is a two-way street

Oct 25

Posted by cosmicjester in Immigration, Politics, Society | 14 Comments

Last week the Gillard government announced a plan to expand onshore housing of asylum seekers by using and converting an unused barracks in the Adelaide Hills. It’s a sensible and slightly more humane approach to a policy area that this country hasn’t approached with any sense of maturity for a long time. For a nation of immigrants, we sure seem threatened by….. immigrants.

The reaction within the community was as predictable as it was disappointing. Hundreds outraged residents crammed into the local community centre to “voice their concerns”. The leaders of the opposition to the plan insisted they weren’t racist and that they are simply concerned about the lack of community consultation and a strain on local services.

“I don’t think our anger has anything to do with race,” Ms Pitts said.

She said that even if the new arrivals were born and bred in Melbourne, the town would still protest against the strain on local services.

People at the public protest suggest otherwise.

The meeting on Thursday turned ugly with some in the crowd shouting anti-Muslim slogans as an Immigration Department official fielded questions about plans to transfer the families with their children to Woodside.

Cant we call a spade a spade? It seems that when a protest is clearly racially motivated politicians and commentators do anything to avoid the obvious. The unpleasant truth is that there is a section of our community that is outright hostile to certain races and religion. The “strain on the community” line was a furphy, the asylum seekers will be in low security detention so will not have general access to the community. Health and other basic services will be provided in the centre to prevent the locals being forced to see strange brown looking people in their community. The children will be enrolled in local schools, but the commonwealth will provide extra funds to make up for this.

And do you really think you would see a similar level of opposition if it were announced that the barracks was going to be used to house defence personal of a similar number? Of course not. Even though defence housing would put a greater strain on the community because they wouldnt be locked in a low security prison. This is entirely based on xenophobia.

So no members of Woodside, you don’t get to complain about a lack of courtesy by the government for not consulting when you have shown a complete lack of courtesy on your part. You don’t get to freely abuse and threaten immigration officials, shout racial slogans in public and fear monger about the terrible things a couple of hundred women and children will somehow do to your community and THEN complain that you are the ones that have been treated unfairly.

Tags: , , ,

Friday’s Lovechild #15

Aug 13

Posted by Ant Rogenous in Immigration | 1 Comment

On Wednesday, Football Federation Australia appointed Holger Osieck as head coach of the Socceroos. I, like most Aussie sports fans, don’t know much about this mysterious German — but one thing I do know is I’m not entirely comfortable with our national football team being managed by a bloke who looks like the spawn of intergenerational Ramsay Street Robinsons:

Stefan Dennis + Alan Dale = Holger Osieck

And from one Ramsay to another, here — at the behest of Jonowee — is my crack at heroic chef turned barbarian Gordon’s good mate Tracy Grimshaw:

Noni Hazlehurst + Liz Hayes = Tracy Grimshaw

I could bullshit and say Scott Bridges’ Steve Fielding challenge came in too late for me to bother this week, but the truth is it’s got me stumped for the moment. I’m determined to get him right, so stay tuned.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Wilson’s Lament

Jul 16

Posted by Ross Sharp in Foreign matter, Immigration, Politics | 6 Comments

(With apologies to John Cooper Clarke)

Bloody wogs on bloody boats,
The bloody border’s a bloody joke,
Bloody Rudd was a bloody clown,
The bloody cunts should bloody drown,
Bloody Turnbull was bloody fucked,
No one had the bloody guts,
To bloody do what needs be done,
And bloody shoot the bloody scum.

I’m bloody sick of spicks and wops,
And bloody chinks who eat their dogs,
The bloody coons and bloody gins,
Should have their bloody heads bashed in,
I’m bloody Wilson bloody Tuckey,
The bloody Party’s bloody lucky,
To have a true blue Aussie ’round,
Who’ll grind these bloody bastards down.

The bloody feminists are bloody Nazis,
The bloody greenies are bloody arses,
The bloody weather’s not bloody changing,
It’s bloody hot or it’s bloody raining,
To bloody build a bloody town,
Bloody raze the bloody ground!
This bloody country’s bloody lucky,
To bloody have Ol’ Ironbar Tuckey.

Our bloody miners are bloody legends,
Bloody Gillard should pull her head in,
Her bloody tax is a bloody shocker,
She’s bloody off her bloody rocker,
She’s bloody got no bloody children!
What bloody world do we bloody live in?
The bloody country’s bloody stuffed,
And I’ve bloody had e-bloody-nuff!

These bloody terrorists on bloody boats,
They’re bloody proof shit bloody floats,
I’d bloody bring the bloody Navy,
To blow their bodies to bloody gravy,
It’s bloody them or bloody us,
Never bloody mind the fuss!
The bloody bastards can bloody starve!
Now where’d I put that old iron bar?

Tags: , , , , , ,

Implants Needed

Apr 8

Posted by Trevor McDonald in Crime, Immigration, Society | 6 Comments

Reader, fan and art collector (my brother Wayne) texts:

Oy gruesome it looks like age is catching up with me and I need the ashley and martins implants like greg matthews and I need to liquidate my very recently purchased art quick smart. I will take ANY REASONABLE OFFER for my collection of fine art that you won’t find in most cash converters.

Offers can be left in the comments box function.

haybalesnewsteadballaratrd_thumb

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , ,