DEFINING JOHN HOWARD’S NEW FASCIST AUSTRALIA.

Howard’s New Fascist Australia is seeking to become a ‘new’ kind of fascism. In pursuit of this ‘new’ fascism Howard cleverly transcends the stereotyped images of the ‘old’ discredited fascism of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.

The ‘new’ fascism denies emphatically that it is ‘fascist’, an association which would immediately discredit it. The right-wing Howard-supporting media therefore, attempt to deflect fascist name-calling from the Left by belittling the notion using various countering techniques, including pointing out that fascism had its roots in the ideology of the Left, an argument that the commentator Andrew Bolt of the Herald Sun in November 2005 used to counter the increasing observation that, indeed, Howard was becoming ‘fascist’. He wrote: “Calling Prime Minister John Howard a fascist has become quite chic…” and then went on to demean Bob Brown, Gough Whitlam, and Paul Keating, accusing them of all having ‘fascist’-like tendencies after having pointed out that Hitler’s and Mussolini’s beginnings were, as Bolt asserts, ‘socialist’.[1] Other right-wing Howard-supporting commentators use other forms of rhetorical countering techniques.

Gerard Henderson, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, uses the simple device of comparison, whereby he infers that Australia is not becoming ‘fascist’ because, “Real fascist societies, as in Italy under Mussolini and Germany under Hitler, had authoritarian regimes which possessed a state ideology enforced by terror or the threat of terror.”[2]

In a similar article over a year earlier, Henderson attacked the notion of Australia becoming a fascist state from a slightly different perspective which included the patronising invocation of the memory of those that suffered under fascism. In his August 2004 article ‘Fascist Australia’ he writes, “To suggest Australia… today [is] fascist is just, well, nuts. The use of such a label in a modern context indicates a total misunderstanding of both democracy and fascism – and has the unintended consequence of diminishing the memory of fascism’s many victims.”[3]

Keith Windschuttle, the rightwing historian, attacks the accusations that Australia is heading toward fascism from yet another perspective – comparison to that of the overt kind of fascism often seen in Europe. In the 2005 Earle Page Memorial Oration, delivered at Parliament House, Sydney, on 22 June 2005, he told his audience:

"Australia in recent dec­ades has never experienced skinheads or any other right- wing hoodlums intimidating political opponents with violence. In­deed, the only political meetings broken up have been those of the populist nationalist Pauline Hanson, where the perpetrators were not skinheads but long-haired, left-wing university stu­dents. To portray Howard as a neo-fascist is not only factually inaccurate but literally absurd."[4]

Windschuttle’s reluctance to mention that Pauline Hanson’s ‘populist nationalism’ was in itself a form of fascism merely exposes Windschuttle’s own polemics.

Since it denies actually being fascist is also the reason why it does not have the trappings, at least not overtly, of what one might usually associate with fascism. For example, there are no massed parades of black uniformed soldiers, no grossly oversized flags hanging vertically in neat rows from government buildings, there are no brown leather-coated men at every railway station, bus depot and airport asking to see ‘your papers please’ – or at least not yet there isn’t.

Howard’s New Fascism doesn’t revolve around himself; he has no desire to be a ‘dictator’ per se. He does, however, wish to establish on a permanent basis, a political structure coexisting in and hybridising our existing system, within which the vision of his New Fascist Australia can be perpetuated. As commentator Tony Kevin observes: “His [Howard’s] rule is steadily degrading the values of our society and corrupting its political institutions. The longer he stays in power, the more the checks and balances of our society will crumble. We will continue our slow slide towards an Australian model of fascism”.[5]

Howard’s vision is for a regionally strong and influential antipodean, essentially white-European Christian dominated nation that predominately is corporatist in economic structure and where its inhabitants are strongly encouraged to participate in the machinations of that corporatist economic structure. A nation where those that, for whatever reason, are unable or unwilling to participate are both marginalised from the system and demonised as being somehow inadequate and of little worth and therefore only worthy of being kept at barely subsistence levels.

Part of the process of creating the New Fascist Australia involves projecting the notion of a primarily white-European Christian dominant society where non-Christian values, particularly and especially those of Islam, are demonised in order to create a climate of fear within which a compliant population is nurtured and polarised toward a pro-Christian value that sees other religious and/or cultural values as being abhorrent or, at least, marginalised.

As the process evolves toward his New Fascist Australia, Howard seeks to strengthen Australia’s armed forces not just in order to defend Australia’s shores but also with weapons and equipment that will allow him to project Australia’s power and assert hegemony well beyond Australia’s shores and into, when deemed necessary, other nations within Australia’s region.

Part of this process also includes the mythologising of Australia’s military heritage and the cultivation of a militarist attitude among Australia’s youth via the promise of a career in its armed forces which could follow on from an armed forces cadetship.

Howard’s close relationship with President Bush in the light of the events of and after 9/11 has served Howard’s purpose well in terms of providing closer ties in trade and defence with a nation that has a similar predominantly European heritage and political outlook.

Australians and our neighbours, quite rightly, should be aware of Howard’s drive toward fascism and recognise it for what it is before it is too late to reverse the process. Howard’s march toward a New Fascist Australia is slow but insidious. Only last week new laws were introduced to allow ASIO and the police unfettered powers to tap innocent Australians’ phones, email and text messages.[6] Following this is the push to have an ID card issued to Australians, ostensibly for the purposes of Medicare and welfare, but clearly a back-door attempt, yet again, to introduce a form of universal Aussiecard designed to keep tabs on the Australian people. The treasurer, Peter Costello, has put his support behind the push arguing, quite blatantly, “…that anti-terrorism security measures had made people more tolerant of intrusions into their privacy,”[7] demonstrating clearly how the New Fascism’s creation of fear via the so-called ‘War against Terrorism’ then, in turn, allows them to dismantle even more of our rights, in this case, to privacy.

It is this insidiousness that is the most illusory aspect of Howard’s New Fascist Australia. It is foisted on us a piece at a time and we are lied to about the reasons or necessity for the new law or changes. Sometimes it is so insidious that even those that profess to be leftish are unable to see what is going on before their eyes. There are even some elements within the Labor party that now support many of the steps that Howard has taken having been deluded into believing that these measures are, indeed, ‘for your protection’.[8]



END NOTES
[1] Andrew Bolt, ‘Fascism puts Left foot forward’, Herald Sun, 25 November 2005. Available online: http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/printpage/0,5481,17360614,00.html Accessed 15 February 2006.
[2] Gerard Henderson, ‘The Rise of Fascism as an Easy Insult’, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 December 2005. Available online: http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/the-rise-of-fascism-as-an-easy-insult/2005/12/05/1133631200859.html Accessed 15 February 2006.
[3] Gerard Henderson, ‘Fascist Australia’, The Age, 24 August 2004. Available online: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/23/1093246439313.html?oneclick=true Accessed 15 February 2006.
[4] Keith Windschuttle, ‘Vilifying Australia: The perverse ideology of our adversary culture’, 2005 Earle Page Memorial Oration, delivered at Parliament House, Sydney, on 22 June 2005. Available online: http://www.sydneyline.com/Vilifying%20Australia.htm Accessed 15 February 2006.
[5] Tony Kevin, ‘Howard’s 10 years – An alternative political analysis’, 2 March 2006. Available online:
http://www.tonykevin.com/Howards10Years.html Accessed 21 March 2006.
[6] ‘New phone tap powers passed’, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 March 2006. Available online:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/new-phonetap-powers-passed/2006/03/30/1143441264268.html Accessed 3 April 2006.
[7] Mark Metherell, ‘ID cards an issue of tolerance: Costello’, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 March 2006. Available online: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/id-cards-an-issue-of-tolerance-costello/2006/03/29/1143441215877.html Accessed 3 April 2006.
[8] ‘For your protection’ is a slogan that can be seen on the back of a police van in the recently released film “V for Vendetta” depicting life in a futuristic fascist Britain.

‘THE AUSTRALIAN’ ACTUALLY EXPECTS YOU TO BELIEVE THIS RUBBISH!

More garbage from the garbage providers today. The Australian newspaper reckons bin Laden will ‘never be caught alive’. There is a reason for this. It’s because he is already dead and has been for some considerable time. The reality is Osama bin Laden was a very ill man suffering from renal failure. Without treatment on a very regular basis, including dialysis, he would have soon died anyway.

The Australian’s story about bin Laden having a ‘special gun’ with which he is to be shot in the event of pending capture is pure nonsense designed to perpetuate his myth for the consumption by the dumb and gullible, who, I might add, are becoming fewer and fewer as time goes on and the people start to wake up to the fact that they’ve been conned.

Bin Laden is now a myth. The ‘War on Terrorism’ is a myth. The ‘War for Democracy’ is a myth. These myths are designed to cower and subdue a dumb and gullible people while powerful people create more power and wealth for themselves.

Wake up Australia! The road to Fascism is not that long!

AUSTRALIA TAKES YET ANOTHER STEP DOWN THE ROAD TO HOWARD’S FASCIST STATE.

Australian spy agencies and the police will now be able to tap the phones, email and text messages of any innocent Australian civilian without that person knowing that their phone/internet is being tapped.

Howard continues to whittle away at our basic freedoms and privacy as he steadfastly continues his drive to create a New Fascist Australia. The slow insidious erosion of our rights and freedoms are going barely noticed by the vast majority of Australians as they blissfully accept the myriad of laws that have fundamentally enslaved us to the will of the government and its big business corporatist sponsors.

As yet Howard has not had reason to use his new found powers. This has led to the Australian people being lulled in to a false sense of exclusion from the laws. No one yet has been locked up, for example, for contravening the sedition laws. Nor has anyone I know been whisked off the streets and disappeared into the bowels of ASIO headquarters. While this has not happened yet – and the right-wing commentators have pointedly already gone into ‘we told you so mode’ – the point remains that all of these options are now in place ready to be used whenever Howard and his fascist thugs choose to act against dissidents if and when they become a threat to him and his regime.

Australians, beware. Don’t disregard yet another step down the road to Howard’s New Fascist Australia.

IS BEING A ‘NEOCONSERVATIVE’ REALLY SOMETHING TO BE PROUD OF?

There was a time in the 1930s that Fascists and Nazis were proud to call themselves ‘Fascists’ and ‘Nazis’. Today, however, if someone calls you a ‘Fascist’ or ‘Nazi’ they are insulting you. There will come a time, if, indeed, it hasn’t already come, when being called a ‘neoconservative’ will be just as insulting.

Today’s neoconservatism will forever be linked with the West’s war against the Iraqi, Palestinian and Afghan people and Islam generally. The folly of this war will one day be seen for what it really is – a blatant attempt by neoconservatism to brutally force American style ‘democracy’ on to a world, the Islamic world, that does not want it.

Neoconservatism’s opportunity came on 11 September 2001. The events of what has since become known the world over as ‘9/11’ became the signal for neoconservatives to launch their attack on the world of Islam. For the American neoconservatives, most of whom are Jewish-Americans with extremely strong ties to right-wing Israeli politics, the enemy was, and is, most of the Middle East nations that are around them, particularly Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lebanon.

For American neoconservatives a war against Iraq would serve many purposes. It would finish something that they considered was never completed during the First Gulf War – the removal of their arch-enemy Saddam Hussein, an evil dictator for sure but not in any way a threat, particularly by the end of the Gulf War, to the US or to any one else. It would also secure the world’s second largest reserves of oil under American control, and, finally, it would remove the monkey of Saddam’s support for the Palestinian cause from Israel’s back.

At first most of the world sympathised with America’s loss on 9/11. The graphic footage of the aircraft slamming into the Twin Towers and their subsequent collapse will likely remain the most potent images of the Twenty-First Century. The finger of blame was quickly pointed at Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda movement and the world just as quickly joined the US in condemning him and his movement for what had happened. Within a few weeks the US attacked him and the Taliban regime that supported him in Afghanistan. The Taliban government was overwhelmed by the US and a puppet government soon put in place with its leader quickly endorsed by a sham of an election which was portrayed as real ‘democracy’ at work. But no sign of Osama bin Laden.

Even before the final defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan the world was beginning to hear about the evils of Saddam Hussein and how he had been involved in the events of 9/11. (One would have thought, after all the allegations by the neoconservatives and the Bush administration, that once Saddam had been caught the first thing they would do is whip him off to the US to face charges relating to 9/11 rather than have him stand trial in Iraq for crimes committed there.)

Some leaders of the Western world, including the UK’s Tony Blair, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi and Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar in Europe and John Howard in Australia, who happened to be in the US on 11 September 2001, were all quick to jump on Bush’s bandwagon of ‘regime change’ in Iraq. The propaganda machine began to churn out the most lurid stories imaginable of life under the Saddam regime. The world was told of Saddam’s desire to produce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons all of which, we were told, he’d gladly hand over to al Qaeda ‘terrorists’ for use against the US, the UK, Italy, Spain and, oddly enough via their branch office in Indonesia, Australia.

We now know, of course, that all of this was lies designed to garner support for their attack on an otherwise innocent nation that happened to be led by just another of the world’s dime a dozen tin-pot dictators. So, why Iraq? As I’ve said many times in the past it was for three reasons; hegemony, oil and Israel – and not necessarily in that order.

Iraq today is now in complete and utter chaos and in the first stages of what could easily become, and is showing all the signs of becoming, a very bloody civil war that could engulf the entire region.

The neoconservatives’agenda has failed miserably both in Afghanistan and Iraq. ‘Democracy’ has failed completely in both countries. In a show of pure irony the Iraqi people turned out in their millions using their first taste of democratic freedom to tell the world they are not interested in the West’s secular American-style of governmental ‘democracy’. In Iran the Iranian people also showed the West what they thought of Western-style secular ‘democracy’ and, just to demonstrate how arrogant the neoconservatives really are, they actually expressed genuine shock when the Palestinian people voted for the religious Hamas organisation in yet another show of rejection of American-style ‘democracy’.

Throughout all of this the neoconservatives have continued with their rhetoric of the ‘war on global terrorism’ and their futile quest to bring ‘democracy’ to the Middle East. Those main leaders that jumped on to the neoconservative bandwagon of attacking Iraq are still with us. Bush, Blair and Howard, whose lies have brought nothing but misery and death to hundreds of thousands of innocent people, are still lying to justify their crimes. Blair and Howard still insist that neoconservatism and an alliance with America is the answer to the world’s woes. They do not realise that, far from being the answer to the world’s woes, they are indeed, the cause of them.

Whereas neoconservatism started life as a peculiarly American phenomenon it has, like Fascism and Nazism, spread its influence and tentacles elsewhere. Neoconservatism has, as we now know, nothing to offer the world except war, death, destruction, lies, hypocrisy and an arrogant self-righteousness that is filled with hatred and an Islamaphobia that borders on paranoia. Yet those that have become neoconservatives are unable and unwilling to see the evil that neoconservatism has become – just as the Fascists and Nazis of yesteryear failed to see the evil they were perpetrating on the world – until it was too late.

In The Australian today Greg Sheridan, Howard’s chief apologist and propagandist, is almost swooning with platitudes for Tony Blair but one wonders if he would ever thank Greg Sheridan for calling him a ‘neoconservative’.

BLAIR CONTINUES HIS LIES ABOUT THE WAR ON IRAQ!

Tony Blair, visiting Australia this week, is still hanging on to the illusions that allowed him to cast in his lot with President Bush in the criminal invasion, occupation and plundering of Iraq. He continues, like John Howard, to see, even after three years of worsening bloodshed, the failures of what the peoples of the world were told were the aims of the war.

According to The Australian today Blair still says “…the struggle in Iraq is pivotal to the defeat of global terrorism.” The reality is that the ‘struggle in Iraq’ has absolutely nothing to do with ‘global terrorism’. The war that is raging in Iraq today was caused by the Coalition of the Killing. The vast majority of deaths that have occurred in Iraq thus far have been caused by the Coalition of the Killing. It started as they launched their illegal invasion and continued during the subsequent occupation of Iraq.

Blair says: “Whatever people thought about the original decision to go to war, for the last 2 1/2 to three years we have been there with a United Nations resolution and with the consent of an elected government.” What complete rubbish! The UN never passed any resolution sanctioning the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the Coalition of the Killing. Nor has there been any ‘democratically elected’ government in Iraq that has given them consent to continue to kill and plunder in Iraq. There have been plenty of US appointed Iraqi lackeys that have ‘asked’ the Coalition of the Killing to stay on in Iraq in order to murder their enemies but there has never been any ‘democratically elected’ government that has given consent to stay on and continue the killing of innocents and destroying the homes of those that would prefer that the Coalition of the Killing leave Iraq. Iraq is in the mess it is in today because of the invasion. The only ‘terrorists’ in Iraq are the US and their Coalition of the Killing allies.

Blair goes on to say: “…if democracy takes root in Iraq and Afghanistan then I think, after that, global terrorism is on a downward path because their key weapon of propaganda - namely, that it is the desire of America and its allies to punish Muslim countries - will be shown to be false.” Blair actually believes that a couple of chaotic elections of US-endorsed candidates constitutes ‘democracy’ in Afghanistan and a resounding vote for the religious parties, as against the secular parties the Coalition of the Killing in Iraq had hoped for in Iraq and the subsequent civil war, are all part of the ‘success story’ of post-Saddam Iraq. Tony Blair is totally delusional!

Elsewhere in The Australian Blair asks: “Do you think the Middle East would be safer if Saddam Hussein was still there today?” Frankly, the way things are going at the moment, the answer has to be a resounding ‘Yes’! The old ‘Well, at least we got rid of Saddam’ rhetoric just doesn’t cut it anymore. The world knows the Coalition of the Killing went to Iraq based on a lie. The world knows that the Coalition of the Killing is continuing to stay in Iraq based on a lie. There is no ‘global war against terrorism’. There is no ‘terrorist threat’. There is only the terror that the US and its Coalition of the Killing allies has brought to the world of Islam that is a threat to world peace. The rest are lies told in pursuit of oil, hegemony and power for consumption by a diminishing number of dumb and gullible Western peoples.

History will be the judge of the lies and crimes of Bush, Blair and Howard – and the sooner the better!

DENNIS SHANAHAN HAS FINALLY WOKEN UP!

It seems Dennis Shanahan at The Australian has finally woken up. He asks: “Why is it that the drama over the AWB does not seem to interest the Australian public?” That’s easy Dennis. It’s the same reason that the Australian public aren’t interested in the fact that Howard lied about the reasons we went to war against Iraq. It’s the same reason that the Australian public aren’t interested in the lie about kid’s overboard. It’s the same reason that the Australian public couldn’t give a toss about Howard’s refugee policies

It’s because the only thing the Australian public are interested in is their hip pocket!

As far as the Australian public are concerned Howard can do whatever he likes, including start wars and lie through his teeth, as long as he’s not perceived to have put up interest rates or caused house prices to drop – or worse, both!

COULD GREG SHERIDAN BE A WAR-CRIMINAL TOGETHER WITH BUSH, BLAIR AND HOWARD?

Just about everyone that was in favour of going to war against Iraq three years ago from Bush down to Blair down to Howard and even down to Greg Sheridan at the Australian are still (with a few notable exceptions) denying they were wrong and saying that everything will come out in the wash very soon, and they are still coming out with the pathetic ‘but isn’t it great that we got rid of Saddam’ rhetoric.

Greg Sheridan seems to think that: “George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard deserve praise for their courage,” then adds, “The coalition soldiers, overall, have performed magnificently.” That is, of course, if one chooses to ignore such trifling matters such as the deaths of tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children killed by those ‘coalition soldiers’, and if one chooses to ignore the deaths and torture of those in custody at the hands of those ‘coalition soldiers’, and if one chooses to ignore the criminal executions of entire Iraqi families by those ‘coalition soldiers’.

The only people the likes of Bush, Blair, Howard and Greg Sheridan are kidding nowadays are themselves! When their terms in office are over, Bush especially, together with Blair and Howard should be dragged before the ICC to face war-crime charges. And if Greg Sheridan has ever accepted one blood-sodden dollar from the government to write what he writes then he too should be hauled before the ICC as an accomplice to Howard’s war-crimes. Sounds a bit drastic? Look at it this way; had Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief, survived the war, would he not have found himself in the dock at Nuremburg with the rest of the war-criminals?

SO NOW THE COALITION OF THE KILLING ARE EXECUTING IRAQI CIVILIANS?!

After reading this report in yesterdays Guardian one really has to wonder who is doing the execution style killings in Iraq. Whole families, it seems, are being wiped out in revenge attacks by coalition, mainly American, forces.

I wonder now who did the killings the aftermath of which was so graphically shown around the world last week where the only survivor seems to have been a five year-old boy. Sunnis and Shiites are undoubtedly at each others throats but one wonders who would have been blamed for the execution of the 11 Iraqis mentioned in the Guardian report had the evidence indicating that US soldiers were responsible not come to light. One then needs to ask how many other executions that have been blamed on either Sunnis or Shiites, depending on which group the victims belonged to, were actually the work of US death squads.

In another incident on 19 November last year 15 civilians belonging to two families were massacred by US troops in their homes in what was clearly a revenge killing for a roadside blast that killed a US marine at Haditha in the country’s west. Initially the authorities issued a statement saying the civilians had also been the victims of the blasts says this article in the Adelaide Advertiser. We now know differently. In the light of these revelations questions need to be asked about all of killings of civilians that have occurred since the Coalition of the Killing first invaded Iraq. Is what has been revealed thus far simply the tip of the iceberg? How many execution style civilian deaths have the Coalition really been responsible for?

MORE LIES AND DISINFORMATION RELEASED IN EFFORT TO PROVE LINKS BETWEEN SADDAM AND AL QAEDA

It’s taken over three years but it seems the US has now completed the production of the elaborate forgeries that will be used to attempt to prove to the world once and for all that Saddam Hussein really did have links to al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Murdoch correspondent Sarah Baxter of Britain’s Sunday Times reports in today’s The Australian that the US Director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, has been directed by President George W. Bush to release “…the contents of 48,000 boxes of untranslated papers and tapes relating to the workings of Saddam Hussein's regime.” Among the documents, so we are told, are “…tantalising clues to possible Iraqi contacts with al-Qa'ida.” Baxter goes on to report that among the documents is an “…Iraqi intelligence report dated September 15, 2001 -- four days after the attacks on the US – [that] says Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were in contact with Iraq, and al-Qa'ida members had visited the country.” Baxter, however, does go on to mention that much of the sources for these documents are “questionable”.

Desperate stuff from a desperate President and, of course, there will be the Liar Lovers and Bush, Blair and Howard Huggers around the world that will seize on the documents to justify their arguments about the invasion, occupation and plundering of Iraq despite their dwindling numbers. It’ll be interesting to see how the neoconservative commentators react to the news of the documents release; they’ll be looking for anything at the moment that is likely to save them a bit of face – especially since Francis Fukuyama, one of their high profile intellectual leaders, has defected from their cause.

Personally, I don’t think this story has anything going for it. It’s too little and too late as far as Bush and his cronies are concerned – the world simply doesn’t believe the administration anymore no matter what they come up with. They’ve simply cried ‘Wolf’ far too many times already.

DOES SS-RANTENFUEHRER JANET ALBRECHTSEN THINK JULIA GILLARD MAY MAKE IT TO PRIME MINISTERSHIP?

It seems SS-Rantenfuehrer Janet Albrechtsen thinks Julia Gillard may have something going for her in the Labor leadership and future Prime Minister stakes after all. Why else would Albrechtsen so enthusiastically denounce such a possibility?

Gillard, according to Albrechtsen, is not fit to be leader of the Labor Party and is unlikely to become Prime Minister because she is “…a woman with none of the usual aspirations such as settling down, getting married, having children.” Albrechtsen, in her somewhat narrowed mind, is unable to accept that Gillard, rather than aspire to being a wife and mother, instead aspires to be a party leader and possibly a Prime Minister. Furthermore, according to Albrechtsen, Gillard lacks other attributes that in Albrechtsen’s view would also preclude Gillard from being a Prime Minister; Gillard’s kitchen is apparently bare and – and this is the real clincher – she struggles with tongs at the barbie.

Albrechtsen also seems to think that ten years (with a few more to come, so she hopes) of a Liar-Loving Howard-Hugging Australia will be enough to put off Middle Australia from ever voting for Gillard to be Prime Minister.

It may well be true that Middle Australia has never had it so good but the fact that it has happened while Howard has been at the helm is purely coincidental. Just wait until interest rates start creeping up, as they inevitably will, and house values start to fall, as they already have begun to, and banks start calling in loans that are too tightly levered. Just watch how quickly then Middle Australia points its collective finger at Howard and his government. Watch how quickly, while Middle Australia begins to blame Howard for the mess that they are beginning to find themselves in, they start to take an interest in, and no longer ignore, the countless lies he’s told.

While Middle Australia has been prepared to ignore Howard’s lies while the road for them has been smooth they will soon remind him of them as their financial dream world unravels into reality.

Does Albrechtsen really think that Condoleeza Rice’s rise to leadership in the Bush administration is governed by her ability to wield tongs at the barbie? Is Albrechtsen in reality frightened that Gillard may just well be a Prime Minister one day?

BOTH WEBDIARY AND RIGHT-WING BLOGS HAVE NO TASTE FOR THE TRUTH OF HISTORY.

The on-again-off-again blog of the compulsive and obsessively disturbed David Davis, (aka Harry Heidelberg, a blogger who seems to have a somewhat irrational and rather unhealthy love/hate relationship with Webdiary and its management) together with his foul-mouthed Liar-loving Howard-hugging fascist supporters, Geoff Pahoff and Jay White, et al, has resurrected itself (just as ‘Harry’ was on a bit of a downer over some pathetic argument he’s having with one of the Webdiary management and about to close down his own blog because of it) just in time to have a stoush with the indomitable Sid Walker.

Sid has taken up the challenge of debating with these lunatics the minutiae of historic reality for which they, in turn, have no argument other than to resort to foul language and hints that they too, like Webdiary, simply will not publish any more of Sid’s posts!

For what it’s worth Sid, you can post your thoughts here – as, indeed, you already have – anytime.

HAS WEBDIARY BEEN THREATENED BY ZIONISTS OR NOT?

by Sid Walker


On Jan 16th 2006, Hamish Alcorn, Editor of Webdiary, a popular independent Australian weblog posted a clarification on the site in response to a direct challenge from Geoff Pahoff, one of the regular posters on Webdiary - a contributor with a strong commitment to the Zionist cause. Geoff’s first sentence was a direct quotation from an earlier post I had made on Webdiary.
(See http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/1134 for all the relevant exchanges.)

The form of Hamish’s reply was to quote Geoff Pahoff’s post, then reply in bold text. It ran as follows:


Those Bloody Zionist Threats Again
Submitted by Geoff Pahoff on January 16, 2006 - 8:41pm.
Then threats by Zionists against WD might subside -
Hamish, has WD received what in any way could be described as threats and that could be said to be from "Zionists”? Even if we used the, shall we say, very broad definition of the term Zionists obviously intended by the author [Sid Walker] of this charming little allegation?
Hamish: no.
Is your editorial policy on Holocaust denial the result of threats or pressure from Zionists?
Hamish: no.
If so, could you please provide details of this? If not could you say so please? Otherwise this allegation is left hanging in the air unanswered. Perhaps we should consider the pernicious consequences of allowing these things to pass by in silence.


So, Hamish 'clarified' the matter for Webdiary readers. No Zionist threats. No intimidation. My allegation must have its origins in my fetid imagination and had no basis in fact. Nothing to see here, folks! Move along!

And yet.... here's an extract from an email I received from Hamish, dated 12th September 2005:

"Particularly on holocaust / Zionist stuff, Webdiary has gone there before, and for her trouble Margo received death-threats and extraordinary harassment. Note that no other media will touch it. It certainly does say something about our society."

Here's another extract from an email I received from Hamish on 29th September 2005:

"Yes, we’re in a fucked up society and can’t say whatever we want. Do you want us to lose any voice we have? My sister is being accused of bullshit NOW for what is already said by VERY POWERFUL PEOPLE. Some would say an indication she’s doing something right..."

One doesn't need an IQ of 200 to figure out there's 100% inconsistency between Hamish's personal emails to me and the 'clarification' he posted on Webdiary. Both cannot be true. At least one of his statements must be untrue. There is a three-letter word for this: Hamish has been caught out telling a... fib.

If, as I suspect, Hamish was truthful when he described the ugly pressure brought to bear against Margo and Webdiary, then he is foolish to deny it so publicly.

Death threats should be reported to the police (don't we have an 'anti-terror' squad these days?). The last thing one should do, in the face of death threats, is to deny they ever happened. It encourages this thuggish, illegal type of behaviour.

Of course, my suspicion might be wrong. Hamish may be telling Webdiary readers the unvarnished truth, while amusing himself by occasionally spinning entirely fallacious horror stories in private emails.

Either way, it's not behaviour one expects from the Editor of a publication whose motto is "Webdiary - Independent, Ethical, Accountable and Transparent"

Margo Kingston, Hamish's sister who founded Webdiary but has since retired, was more laconic and not so unsubtle when applying WD's bizarre censorship rules.

Here are Webdiary's 'no-go' topics again:
http://webdiary.com.au/cms/?q=node/4
1. Denial of the existence of the Holocaust.
2. Allegations that a Western power or powers were behind at the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001
3. "False flag" theories.

In the Garden of Eden, there was but one forbidden fruit.

These days we have a bunch of three :-)

WEBDIARY’S PRO-ZIONIST LUNATICS WILL HOWARD AND GEOFF PAHOFF ATTEMPT FURTHER DECEITS.

I notice over at Webdiary that the arch-deceiver and liar Will Howard is up to his usual conniving tricks trying to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. He writes, “…the attribution of some sort of "cosmic evil" to Jews”, then adds in parentheses; “(or "Zionists" in the modern ‘non-racist’ version of this form of hatred).” He seems to think that all Jews are Zionists. He exposes himself when he writes, for example: “The ideas that a small number or Jews (or Zionists) run the media, world banking, have introduced AIDS, are the "real" power pulling the strings…” and so on. His not so subtle effort to create the illusion that ‘Jews’ and ‘Zionists’ are one and the same is quite transparent. Here Will Howard attempts to cynically decry the non-racist aspect of the description ‘Zionist’.

The much less subtle right-wing frothing-at-the-mouth pro-Zionist Geoff Pahoff also chimes into the debate by equating anti-right wing Israeli rhetoric as being anti-Semitic. Pahoff seems to think that it’s OK to invade and occupy other people’s real estate. He justifies this by saying that Israel was being ‘threatened’ by its neighbours and was, therefore, justified in conquering and occupying Palestinian lands. Never mind that this was nearly forty years ago and that they are still there extra-judicially murdering those that strike back to defend themselves against Zionist atrocities. Never mind that the Israeli’s are still killing innocent women and children. Never mind that thousands have been made homeless by Zionist policies of illegal collective punishment.

Several Jews and Israelis that I keep in touch with seem to think that Israel and the Jewish Diaspora generally would be far better off without the sort of garbage that these two raving lunatics carry on with.

HAS RUMSFELD ANY IDEA AT ALL? DOES ISRAEL REALLY CARE ABOUT PEACE?

There seems to be a total lack of understanding between what the US and Israel wants for the Middle East and what the people of the Middle East need to have.

The US has little or no understanding at all of how to cope with the situation that currently exists in Iraq. They also seem hell bent on going to war with Iran, and they blindly support Israel’s demands in matters relating to Palestine and Hamas.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld displays both his arrogance and ignorance by telling
the Senate Appropriations Committee that he would “…count on Iraqi security forces to quell an all-out civil war in their country.” He added, almost as an afterthought, a habit that has become something of a Rumsfeld trait, “…that America's paramount goal is to prevent such a conflict in the first place.”

First, the civil war is already underway and talk of ‘prevention’ is at the very least a year and a half too late. The US government, however, refuse to see the situation as a civil war because it concedes failure. Secondly, it is the Iraqi security forces themselves that are often the main protagonists in the existing civil war using their uniforms, intelligence and command structure for their covert and often deadly participation in the civil war that Rumsfeld is hoping to stop by using them. Rumsfeld actually wants Congress to give him more money to give to the Iraqi security forces so that they can continue to do what they are doing. Utter stupidity.

And the Israeli government are showing their complete contempt of the Palestinian people and the elected Hamas government by declaring that if they retain power at the forthcoming Israeli elections they will be setting their borders unilaterally by 2010 following roughly along the current barrier line, which takes in huge chunks of Palestinian land, much of which will end up in Israeli settlers hands, and will include east Jerusalem. Hamas are unlikely to be impressed, to put it mildly, which prompts one to ask whether or not the Israeli’s are deliberately trying to provoke Hamas in order to make even more permanent gains into Palestinian territory by way of retaliatory strikes against Hamas strongholds in the event of Hamas actions against Israeli unilateral border setting, including the Gaza Strip which Israel may see fit to reinvade and even permanently occupy. The Israeli’s fail entirely to recognise the fact that neither side in this conflict will recognise each other while Israel occupies any of the pre-1967 Palestinian lands resulting in complete stalemate. This can only lead to the cycle of violence that has plagued Israeli-Palestinian relations since Israel was created.

When will these people ever learn?

ARE AUSTRALIANS AS CORRUPT AND DISHONEST AS THEIR GOVERNMENT?

One has to wonder sometimes about the Australian people. I mean, why do a people who know that their government is blatantly dishonest, and even corrupt, continue to support it both in public opinion polls and the Big Poll that comes around every few years?

The answer lies within many of the comments from the Howard supporters. Almost all of them have commented about how well off we are now under Howard. The ‘we’ve never had it so good’ cry that is often heard from Howard huggers reflects a typical modern Australian ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude. No matter that Howard has lied and schemed his way into ten years of government, no matter that tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of innocent people have died as a result of his lies, no matter that thousands who have wanted to seek refuge here in our country have had to spend years locked up just so that Howard could demonstrate to other like-minded refugees that they shouldn’t really be trying to come here, no matter that our rights have been slowly eroded away in exchange for protection from an all but non-existent threat to our security, no matter that the rights of ordinary workers to collectively negotiate work agreements have nigh on disappeared; all this matters not an iota provided, it seems, our hip pocket continues to be full and the value of our homes continues to increase so that we can continue to be able afford to indebt ourselves beyond anything most Australians have in the past been able to indebt themselves.

Is this what Australians have become? Being ‘laid back’, which seems to have evolved into complacency, is one thing but supporting a blatantly dishonest, lying and corrupt government in order to pursue personal wealth and to turn a blind eye to the suffering of other peoples who seem alien to us while Howard pursues his own agenda of creating his New Fascist Australia is verging on criminal!

Time to do something?!!

ELEVEN YEARS LATER AND IRAN STILL WANTS ‘NUCLEAR CAPACITY’ ACCORDING TO THE U.S.

While delving deep into the New York Times archives doing a little research for my PhD project I stumbled across this rather interesting article. (Unfortunately, you’ll need to be a subscriber to access it fully but I’ve cut and pasted the relevant bit.)

As I read it I thought to myself ‘this all looks so familiar’. At first I thought there had been a glitch because I had been looking through a specific date range. Then I looked at the date of this particular article and, sure enough, the date was within the period I was looking at and it contained some of the keywords I was searching for. The relevant lines that caught my attention were these:

“…the airport, which because of its size operates largely beyond the scrutiny of the customs authorities, is believed to be one of dozens of transit points used by the Iranian Government to smuggle, from Europe to Iran, weapons parts and advanced technology used to develop nuclear weapons, Western intelligence officials say.
Some intelligence officials say they believe that despite an embargo imposed by the West, Iran may have a nuclear capacity in as little as five years.”

The lines, as well as the headline which ran; ‘Nuclear Trail – A special report; A Vast Smuggling Network Feeds Iran's Arms Program’, could have come right out of yesterday’s New York Times. They did not, however. They were from an article dated 15 March 1995.

Of course, what is really sad is the fact that the dumb and gullible continue to fall for this line of garbage even today. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that, as a result of this garbage, many, many people are likely to die with even the possibility of a catastrophic war resulting as the US and Israel continue to press for an attack against the Iranians.

A United World must resist the warmongering Lying Tyrants.

HAVE HOWARD AND THE AFP DELIBERATELY SENTENCED AUSTRALIAN’S TO DEATH BY PROXY?

It seems fairly clear that it has been the intention all along of both the AFP and the Howard government to deliberately allow the Bali Nine to be arrested, tried and sentenced harshly (including being sentenced to death), for the express purpose of deterring Australian drug smugglers from going to Indonesia in order to bring drugs into Australia.

Now Howard is preparing Australia for what is in all likelihood the inevitable – and that is that at least one of the two that have been sentenced to death will actually be executed. (The other will possibly have his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment). Howard is now saying that even his personal friendship with Indonesia’s President may not be enough to save those that have been condemned to death.

This entire affair now stinks of collusion. Howard’s double standards with regards to the death penalty are already transparent what with his remarks regarding the death sentence of the Bali Bombers and the possibility of Saddam Hussein being sentenced to death on the one hand and his stance against the death penalty of Australians in foreign lands on the other. Howard’s hypocrisy is very well known but now, it seems, he may well be directly responsible for the death of an Australian by firing squad if he is found to have been aware that the AFP deliberately set the Bali Nine up for arrest and possible execution in Indonesia.

WEBDIARY AND THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

Webdiary’s ludicrous decision to invoke their ‘editorial rules’ with regard to comment content has forced me to decline from using this forum in any further debate.

The rules are these:
1. Denial of the existence of the holocaust.
2. Allegations that a Western power or powers were behind at the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001
3. "False flag" theories.

To a certain extent I go along with rule number one and I’ll explain why. But first I should point out here and now that I am not a Holocaust denier. I have personally known over the years far too many Holocaust survivors to even begin to doubt it. I have also over the years personally met far too many anti-Semitic Germans (and not just Germans) who supported the extermination of European Jewry and even some that were actually involved in it.

Since Webdiary is an open forum that invites anyone to comment there can be little control over the quality of argument. Argument on such a sensitive issue as Holocaust denial therefore can be very emotive and detracting from the proper search for truth in history as emotions can run high. Rigorous debate within an academic environment is the best place for this particular matter to be argued. There are too many people in open forums who can be easily be misled, misguided or negatively influenced by the polemics of commentators from both sides to make the subject ‘safe’ for open debate.

Not only do I personally believe that debate on this subject should be confined to academia I also believe that, rather than the subject being brushed under the carpet, it should be bought fully out into the open under academic control and, furthermore, done so immediately while it is still within living memory. This way the argument can be resolved for good. If it is not, then in years to come, after it has passed from living memory, there will always be those that will continue to deny. The quicker it is ‘resolved’ once and for all by demonstrating irrefutably to the deniers that they are wrong, the better for all concerned, and it should be Israel itself that leads the debate with academics taking care to remain apolitical and to ensure that the debate and collection of the evidence also remains apolitical. Right-wing Zionists should simply butt out and let the academics get on with it.

Now to the other two ‘no go’ areas. One simply needs to ask ‘Why?’ What are the folk at Webdiary frightened of? Are they frightened of loosing their right-wing commentators who can’t cope with a reality that is alien to their tidy little make-believe world where the government never lies?

Or is there something more sinister than that? Could it be perhaps, that the powerful right-wing Israeli and Zionist lobby in Australia put pressure on Margo Kingston and Hamish Alcorn? Could these be the dark and ‘very powerful people’ that Hamish Alcorn told me were putting pressure on Margo? Or did Margo simply cave in to right-wing Webdiarists like the lunatic Craig Warton and the rabid warmongering foaming at the mouth ignoramus Jay White?

Webdiary may find eventually its own level to work at and be successful at that level. But I’m afraid, at the rate things are going at the moment, the right-wing loons are winning out. I don’t have a problem shoving it up to these truth-denying idiots on the right and arguing my stuff but I do have a problem with those that cave in to them and not allow me to argue that stuff. To me they are far more of danger to democracy and free speech than the likes Warton and White.

As Craig R infers, I’ll do my stuff elsewhere – here! Stay tuned!


Comments invited. Email lataan@iprimus.com.au

IS WEBDIARY LOSING THE PLOT AS WELL AS THOSE COMMENTATORS ON THE LEFT?

In a discussion at Webdiary about Janet Albrechtsen and ‘free speech’ Jay White, a well known fascist who likes to peddle his disgusting racism at Webdiary, wrote in response to an earlier posting of mine the following:

Damian Lataan: "SS-Rantenfuehrer Janet Albrechtsen seems to think that the vilification of a religious prophet whose adherents are literally willing to die for is simply a joke that Muslims can’t take!
I would have thought somebody linking to revisionist sites such as the one Sid Walker did with David Irving front and center may be more in keeping with a SS-Rantenfuehrer? Perhaps even somebody who sees a Zionist plot around every corner?
Defending free speech now leads to somebody being called a Nazi? I thought they burnt books? I find it most curious that a person willing to defend Sid Walker would accuse others of Nazi sentiments. I bet others do too.
A very curious connection indeed!

In response to that I wrote:

Jay White, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to be able to see right through SS-Rantenfuehrer Janet Albrechtsen’s ‘defending free speech’ garbage as simply being a front and opportunity to spew her Islamaphobic racism.

As for what Sid Walker says or does, I’m sure Sid can speak for himself. Oops! …apparently he can’t any more, at least not here. Oh well, so much for free speech! (I wonder when the Lying Tyrant and Fascist Howard is going to implement the sedition laws.)

Webdiary, playing right into the Right-wingers hands, actually censored the second paragraph! This monumental stupidity comes from people who believe in the essence of free speech to the point that they feel they should give the right-wing carte blanche to more or less say what they wish but deny the Left freedom to respond.

At first Margo was fearful that the Left would drive the Right away from Webdiary leaving it high and dry as a Left-wing mutual talk fest club. Then when the Left started talking about conspiracy theories and history revisionism Margo got spooked by ‘powerful’ forces and banned un-supported discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories and all discussion on Holocaust denial. Presumably these ‘powerful’ forces were from the extreme right-wing Zionist lobby groups in Australia and/or the government that had put the hard word on her. From the conspiracy theory angle the pressure came from the right-wing commentators at Webdiary who threatened to leave Webdiary just when Webdiary (just gone independent) was getting off the ground. Margo and Hamish then caved in to the right realising that without the right-wing for the left to argue with there would be no Webdiary. The Holocaust denial ban clearly is as a result of pressure from the ‘powerful’ right-wing Zionist lobby groups which Margo and Hamish have also caved in to.

As a result it now seems it is going the other way. The Left are leaving Webdiary, or at least being discouraged by censorship or outright banning, leaving Webdiary to become a very boring talk fest for the slightly Left and the warmongering and liar-supporting Right.

The Right-wing websites, the ones that Hamish chooses to ignore, are going to be rubbing their hands together saying ‘we told you so – Webdiary won’t last’. And the way it’s going at the moment it looks like they may be right, both literally and metaphorically!

And that would be a great pity because Webdiary has the potential to make a difference in Australia. But it must open up and allow complete freedom of speech regardless of how outrageous. People can make up their own minds about what they like or don’t like and those on both the Left and Right who come up with stuff that goes way over the top will soon get told by their peers!


Comments invited. Email them to lataan@iprimus.com.au

DOES WEBDIARY CONTINUE TO ACQUIESCE TO THE RIGHT-WING?

Only a little over a week ago Hamish Alcorn of Webdiary asked me for my blog address in order to link to it from Webdiary. Now, after only a few days of being linked, it has been removed from the Webdiary link list.

Control it seems is everything, and I imagine criticism of Webdiary for criticism of the way I criticise the right-wing at Webdiary will now lead to me being banned from posting at Webdiary! (They would argue I suspect that since I have my own blog I can write what I wish here.) Not content with censoring some of my postings at Webdiary, they wish to censor my blog by virtue of removing it from their link list. Talk about control freaks!! And so transparent!

It’s a pity Webdiary feels the need to bow, yet again, to the right-wing that are regulars at Webdiary. Sid Walker has been banned because the right-wing Zionist lobby, the ‘powerful forces’ that I suspect got up Margo’s nose and are the real ‘control freaks’ behind Webdiary, continue to get up Hamish’s nose as well. How long will it be, I wonder, before Webdiary degenerates to a middle-of-the-road discussion fest between the slightly Left and slightly Right?

In the spirit of creating a world wide web of alternative news and views, no matter how mundane some sites are likely to become, I shall continue to link to Webdiary as always.

MORE ON WEBDIARY’S DECEIVERS

In view of the fact that a post of mine to Webdiary has been unnecessarily censored by the editor ‘David’ (I don’t know the surname) I republish it here in its entirety. I do this in order to reframe it back into its original context that the Webdiary editor decided to change in order to suit his own argument about why he thought the original comments I made about Will Howard and C. Parsons were abusive. Webdiarists and other readers would no doubt be aware already of some of the deceiving practices of the right-wing at Webdiary and the protection they receive from some elements of the editorial team.


Ed. David, I’m sorry that I have to persist in this matter.

My statements of deceitfulness by other Webdiarists are hardly unsupported and are, indeed, self evident if one cares to review the appropriate posts. The fact of the matter is Will Howard offered documents that were written by ex-Israeli generals, ex-Israeli intelligence experts and Israeli nuclear experts of an Israeli think-tank and then offered them as ‘non-partisan’. Had they been offered as ‘non-biased’ then that would not have been a problem as that could easily have been refuted (or not) on purely technical grounds. But to offer them as ‘non-partisan’ – even if they were unbiased – is deceitful.

With regard to C. Parsons, one need look no further than his post entitled ‘Jaw, Jaw, Jaw. War, War, War.’ to see quite clearly that he has attributed to me in a deceitful and deliberate way a quote that was not mine. He says: Damian Lataan: "Gaza pullout justifies terror campaign, Hamas claims." It stares you right in the face, David. Hardly ‘unsupported’ as you contend.

I am aware that Webdiary editors often do a thankless task and do need to maintain standards that have been set by Margo and developed over this last year or so, but I can assure you that while I often push stuff right up to the edge, I also make a conscious effort to refrain from making personally abusive comments on Webdiary. I believe that my comments about Will Howard’s and C. Parsons were made on the basis of facts that are to the best of my knowledge true. Making such comments that I have made about Messrs. Howard and Parsons were not something I did lightly or without consideration.

I have no problem whatsoever about Webdiarists making personally abusive comments about me – as I have stated several times before, I am not in the slightest bit interested in what people say or think about me personally – but I always will react to comments and statements deliberately aimed at misleading, hoodwinking or flat-out lying to Webdiarists.


For the version that appeared at Webdiary click here.

ANOTHER ISLAMAPHOBIC RACIST EXPOSED AT WEBDIARY

In response to the comments made by a Webdiarist at Webdiary.com I responded with this:


Alan Curran reckons: “You can put all the spin on it you like, but Hamas do not want peace. They would not know what to do if they got it.”

First off, I haven’t put any ‘spin’ on this issue at all. I’m a left-winger, Hamas is right-wing. I’ve got about as much time for Hamas as I have for the right-wing lunatics in Israel and the US. I am merely making observations about the current situation. At the moment it’s very simple: immovable object meets irresistible force. If they continue on their present collision course there will be disaster for both sides and, of course, it will be the peoples of Palestine and Israel that will suffer – again.

The ONLY answer, regardless of whether the Israelis, you or any one else like it or not, is for the Israelis to remove themselves from real estate that isn’t theirs, get back to the pre-1967 line, recognise a Palestinian sovereign state and concede that East Jerusalem is the Palestinian capital. THERE IS NO OTHER ANSWER to this problem.

Curran goes on to ask: “…with the Palestinians' past record would you trust them? They are cold blooded murderers.”

This implies all Palestinians are untrustworthy and that they are all cold blooded murderers. Such nonsense exposes Curran’s blatant Islamaphobic racism. I might remind him that the right-wing of Israel are as much ‘cold-blooded murderers’ as the extremists of Hamas what with their so-called ‘targeted killings’ and killing of innocent Palestinian civilians.

As I have indicated before, the next most likely move will be for the IDF to re-occupy the Gaza Strip to limit Hamas’ power base.

The neoconservatives have been pushing ever since the first Gulf War for ‘democracy at any cost’. Now it has backfired on them. The Middle East is not interested in US-style secular ‘democracy’. For them it represents greed, crime, poverty, materialism, lack of welfare, and an ‘every man for himself’ attitude. It represents hypocrisy and false values. Bush, Blair and Howard have gone on and on about ‘they hate our values’. Of course they do. Why wouldn’t they? They have seen US ‘values’ at work in Iraq; aerial bombing, flattening of entire cities, indiscriminate killing, torture, puppet governments led by criminals and murderers, wholesale theft of their resources, blatant corruption, literally billions of dollars meant to rebuild infrastructure (destroyed by the Americans and their allies in the first place) being siphoned off to Allied criminals. The people of the Middle East see all this going on and ask: this is democracy? They want us to be like this? Forget it!! The US is not a good example of real democracy.

Democracy in Palestine has thrown up Hamas. The people of Palestine are fed up with living in poverty and being shoved around by Israel. Hamas is their strength whether we like it or not. The ball is now in Israel’s court. You reap, as they say, what you sow.


I republish my response in its entirety here at my blog because the editor of Webdiary, for some unknown reason, chose to censor a part of my comment that related to Curran’s racism. The response also generally sums up the current situation in the Middle East.

THE DECEITFUL PRACTICES OF WEBDIARY’S RIGHT-WING ISRAELI APOLOGISTS.

I’m compelled to make mention of several commentators that gather at Webdiary that are apologists for extreme right-wing Israeli politics. With varying degrees of intellectual prowess and articulation ability some of these pro-Zionist fanatics, Mike Iyvers for example, delight in accusing those that disagree with Israel’s expansionism and aggression against the Palestinian peoples as anti-Semite. Others, like the deceitful self-proclaimed academic Will Howard, well-practiced in his art of propagating deception, simply try to hoodwink Webdiarists by presenting documents and reports about Iranian so-called nuclear weapons ambitions that he claims are ‘non-partisan’ when in fact they are produced by retired ex-Israeli Defence Force generals-turned-‘academics’, many of whom have ties with Israeli intelligence and with American neoconservative think-tank organisations. Some of these, in turn, were up to there necks in the generation of the lies that were used to invade, occupy and plunder Iraq when, prior to the invasion, they made repeated visits to the Pentagon for meetings with neoconservative staffers of the Office of Special Plans.

There are others but generally they comprise simply of lunatic ignoramuses like the ridiculous warmongering liar C. Parsons and the foul-mouthed fascist Jay White. Jay White is easily dealt with what with his lack of intellectual capacity, general ignorance of history and inability to write coherently which usually sees him being foisted by his own words, much of which can usually be ignored. Jay White enjoys launching himself into any subject on offer and invariably is able to make a complete idiot of himself without any response being required from other Webdiarists.

In the main, Parsons and White are simply harmless and deluded right-wingers that enjoy the sight of their own words and who seem to have nothing better to do than sit at their keyboards all day trying to pick holes in the constructive opinions and commentary that the Left are able to discuss at Webdiary. However, the offerings of the likes of Will Howard should be considered with great care. His fanaticism is subtle and he is clearly practised in the art of deception.

Mike Iyvers is also a pro-Israeli fanatic but he is far less subtle than Howard. He is however, dangerously obsessed with the delusion that all that are anti right-wing Israel are racist anti-Semites.

Webdiarists and Webdiary readers should be aware.

DOES THE HISTORIAN CHARLES BEARD MAKE THE LIES SOUND FAMILIAR?

Charles Beard’s book, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, 1941: A Study in Appearances and Realities, [1] positions Beard both as an historian with an acutely enquiring mind and as a critic of Roosevelt’s war dealings specifically and of America’s role in war generally. However, for a reader to fully appreciate Beard’s white-knuckled mood and firmly grounded perspective one must, at least, be familiar with Beard’s prior works on these and other related issues.
Beard was astute enough to see another great war looming on Europe’s horizon by 1936 and to be moved enough to write The Devil Theory of War: An Inquiry into the Nature of History and the Possibility of Keeping Out of War[2], in which he argued that the prime motivation of America’s involvement in the Great War was for the benefit of capital and big business eager to cash in on the many new opportunities that war provided. He saw the embryonic imperialist dreams of American empire that Theodore Roosevelt, Admiral Mahan, Henry Cabot Lodge, Albert Beverage and others were espousing as simply a “plain capitalist racket” that utterly appalled him.[3] By 1936, Beard could see America heading in exactly the same direction, yet again, having paid no heed whatsoever to the lessons he believed should have been learnt from the First War. It is not until the penultimate paragraph in the Devil Theory of War that Beard offers a meek, almost passing, but nonetheless important insight into the conditions by which America might entangle itself in war, where he suggests that:

"It might so happen that participation by the United States in the next or following war would be desirable “in the national interest” or for some great good. If so, the case could be discussed openly on its merits by the Congress of the United States, as advised by the President and the State Department openly. If we go to war, let us go to war for some grand national and human advantage openly discussed and deliberately arrived at, and not to bail out farmers, bankers and capitalists or to save politicians from the pain of dealing with a domestic crisis."[4]

It is difficult to judge exactly what Beard had in mind with regard to the words “grand national and human advantage” and the offering this paper makes can only be speculative, but it may well be that Beard foresaw some overwhelming catastrophic threat to America’s existence as being the only situation that would require America to entangle itself in war – not just the war to come but, he carefully notes, any future war. That, however, was in 1936.
In President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, 1941, Beard’s reflections on the reasons for FDR taking America into the Second World War, he certainly does not entertain the notion that the attack on Pearl Harbour provided such threat to America’s existence and, indeed, implies that, while America then had no choice but to prosecute the war, its provocation was engineered and could have been avoided.[5] He immerses himself in the task of proving his argument and making his point. The extent of the research alone demonstrates the drive he has found for the purpose and the passionate search for the truth borders on a kind of controllable obsession that seems to fuel that drive. One wonders if Beard senses or is aware of his approaching demise, (he dies in 1948, the year of the book’s publication) and whether this too projects his sense of urgency needed to once and for all resolve and reveal the truth of it. Not just of FDR’s complicity in political manipulation, but also to vindicate what Beard believed and had expressed in 1936 in The Devil Theory of War as an all embracing truth and that the ensuing war was stark proof of it. This paper, apparently, is not the first to discuss the validity of such argument.[6]
But then one arrives at the last chapter of President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War and, after reading it carefully, one wonders if there is not some paradoxical conundrum lurking between all the previous lines. If only Beard were still alive. He could be asked if, in 1948 and with the benefit of hindsight and having full knowledge of the absolute atrociousness of the war, (which he actually would not have had in 1948)[7] whether he would still have been the isolationist that he was before the war. Beard concedes to the obscenity of Hitler’s Nazism and the impossibility of a neutral America being forced to trade with a victorious Hitler throughout Europe and a Japanese empire through Asia. In questioning FDR’s reasoning for doing what he had done, Beard asks if “the means justified the ends”.[8] If, at the end of it all, two monstrous tyrannies were beaten into non-existence at such a terrible price only to be replaced by a huge monolithic tyranny that now swept not just through much of Eastern Europe but across to those regions that were once part of the previous Pacific tyranny, then was it all worth it?[9] If Beard were President, one might ask, what would he have done? The answer, one suspects, is that he would rather have told of what he would not have done. For Beard, the question was not what he would or would not have done; it was the question of political morality that was important. A matter of political honesty and integrity, he may say, and since neither were present according to Beard, there could, he implies, only be left dishonesty, deceit and hypocrisy. For Beard, the hypocrisy of the Atlantic Charter of August 1941, from that meeting between Roosevelt and Churchill where, incidentally, Beard implies, the plans for America’s incursion in to war were hatched,[10] was the betrayal of all that was noble in the Charter. It demonstrated perfectly his contention that the end did not justify the means. The victorious Allied leaders determined a post-war way of life for millions of Europeans who would have no say at all about their future.[11] What now of that ‘noble Charter’, Beard demands to know.
And what of the future? It may well have been Beard’s next question. He does not ask it in Roosevelt and the Coming of the War - the book ends before it is asked. But throughout the entire book one senses that this is really what Beard is leading up to. If the reasons for America’s part in the war are revealed to be wholly for ulterior motives and the outcome of the war so contrary to the rhetoric of great cause and noble righteousness, then how can the people of America and, indeed, the world, ever again trust unrestrained governments to collude with others of the same ilk in the name of the common interest of humanity?[12] As an historian, always trying to find that fine balance between the objectivity of truth and the subjectivity of the righteousness of the true great cause, Beard, in the end, finds himself struggling between calm analysis, frustration at a world unwilling or incapable of ‘seeing’ that which he has laid before them, and an intangible despair that seems to prevent him from asking that question - what of the future?
Beard ensures the reader of Roosevelt and the Coming of the War that it is a sequel to the 1946 publication[13] of his work, American Foreign Policy in the Making, 1932-1940,[14] a work that demonstrates the historians art almost classically, yet, at the same time, gives insight as to what his next book will be. One is struck by Beard’s growing sense of frustration in Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, the seeds of which are sown in the (almost) calm analyses and research that went into American Foreign Policy, to the extent that one needs to ask if it was the emergence of truth, the shedding of light that research exposes, that prompted the need for a sequel. While using the trained historians methods, Beard puts so much feeling into Roosevelt and the Coming of the War as to expose himself as a man who wants to have his life again, or at least a bit more than what is left of this one, so that he can have the ultimate word in his struggle against the hypocrisy of an America going to war without some “grand national and human advantage”. With Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, Beard goes to the edge of scholarly history and pushes right to the boundary of social criticism.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beard, Charles A., The Devil Theory of War: An Inquiry into the Nature of History and the Possibilities of Keeping Out of War, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969 reprint ed.)

Beard, Charles A., American Foreign Policy in the Making, 1932-1940: A Study in Responsibilities, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946.)

Beard, Charles A., President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, 1941: A Study in Appearances and Reality, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948).

Kennedy, Thomas C., Charles A. Beard and American Foreign Policy, (Gainesville, Fl: The University Presses of Florida, 1975).


ENDNOTES

[1] Charles Beard, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, 1941: A Study in Appearances and Reality, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948).
[2] Charles Beard, The Devil Theory of War: An Inquiry into the Nature of History and the Possibilities of Keeping Out of War, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969 reprint ed.)
[3] Beard, The Devil Theory of War. pp. 119-121.
[4] Beard, The Devil Theory of War. p. 124.
[5] Beard devotes an entire chapter entitled ‘Manoeuvring the Japanese into Firing the first Shot’ in his effort to prove that America went to great effort to manipulate a situation that would bring it into war with Japan and thence Germany. Beard, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War. Chapter XVII.
[6] Thomas C. Kennedy, Charles A. Beard and American Foreign Policy, (Gainesville, Fl: The University Presses of Florida, 1975). p. 151.
[7] Much of what we know today about the history of the Second World War has been derived from resources made available since 1948 though Beard would have been aware of the criminal extent of the war from the revelations of the Nuremberg trials of the major war criminals and the trials of the Japanese war criminals.
[8] Beard, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War. p. 575.
[9] Beard, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War. p. 577.
[10] Beard, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War. Ch. XV generally and p. 457 specifically.
[11] Beard, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War. pp. 576-577.
[12] Beard, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War. pp. 582-583.
[13] Beard, President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War. Prefatory Note.
[14] Charles Beard, American Foreign Policy in the Making, 1932-1940: A Study in Responsibilities, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946.

PEACE ON OUR PLANET FOR 2006?

May the entire planet, with all its myriad of deities, begin to learn by the mistakes of history that a better world may be had for all that exist upon it.

Peace.
Shalom.
Salaam.

THE ILLUSION OF IRAQI DEMOCRACY

As some early numbers come in from last Thursday’s poll in Iraq, it seems that the Iraqi people have shown exactly what they think of the man that the US initially tried to foist on their nation as their new leader – the same man that the neoconservatives in the Bush administration used to reinforce the lies that got the war started in the first place – the secular Ahmed Chalabi, looks like he now won’t even be getting a seat in the new Iraqi parliament after getting less than half of one percent of the vote in Baghdad.

It also seems that that other Iraqi criminal and accused murderer of captured insurgents and ex-prime minister, Ayad Allawi, has not fared much better. His coalition party, the Iraqi List, has so far shown only about 14% of the poll.

The US, however, will no doubt be delighted to learn that the religious parties, particularly the Shiite groups, are doing very well in early counting. And, of course, in the appropriate regions, the Sunnis aren’t doing too badly either. Problem is, though, the Shiites are going to be reluctant to let the Sunnis in on the new government, especially if it’s the religious Shiites that get up. This means more insurgency, which means the US will be in no rush to drawdown too many troops thus maintaining their hold on the region.

Democracy running rampant through the region? I think not! The only thing running rampant through the region are American troops.

IRAQ HAS ITS ONE DAY OF DEMOCRACY!

The election in Iraq yesterday is being hailed a success. That is the actual election, at least in terms of turnout – apparently around 70% – may well have been a success as elections go, but so far that’s all there has been. So far the only thing that as been successful is the management of the actual election. The results, however, will be the real telling of whether or not the election was a success.

All parties involved in this election have encouraged their respective voter blocs to turn out for the election – which, of course, is why the turnout has been high. However a closer look at the leaders of the various factions contending for power soon reveals that ‘democracy’ per se is of little or no interest to any of them.

The two secular Shiite contenders, ex-Ba’ath Party activist, hard-man and accused murderer of resistance fighters, Ayad Allawi, and convicted fraudster and proven liar who fed the lies to the Pentagon neoconservatives in order to start the war in the first place, Ahmad Chalabi, are both men who in the past have shown no respect whatsoever for ‘democracy’. The two Shiite religious contenders, Moktada al-Sadr and Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, apart from being fierce rivals of each other, also have shown little interest in ‘democracy’. Al-Sadr’s main interests are ridding the nation of the invaders and creating a ‘strong’ central government, while al-Hakim would prefer a theocratic Islamic government with close ties to Iran; not very much interest here in ‘democracy’.

The Sunnis are represented by Tarik al-Hashemi, who heads up a Sunni alliance that believes that Iraq should stay as one and, again, has little or no interest in democracy.

Finally the Kurds are represented by Jalal Talabani, the current Iraqi President, and Massoud Barzani, an avid Kurdish nationalist. Both are more interested in Kurdish independence than Iraqi democracy.

The election is merely a tool for all of the contenders to get their respective feet under the table in order to jockey for political power and leverage. The new government, if and when it is able to sort itself out, will not last its allotted four years. The factions alone within each grouping will not allow any form of Western style ‘democracy’ to prevail, and that’s before we start talking about any parliamentary groupings or coalition. Without strong alliances, alliances built without US assistance which will otherwise be seen as serving America’s self interest, there cannot even be any sustainable government, let alone ‘democracy’.

The bottom line is: there may be a period of relative quiet while the sides sort themselves out but it will soon descend into a chaotic free-for-all battle again as temporary coalitions break down and each side demands more of what they consider is their share of power.

In the end there will simply be more of what there is now; insurgents wanting to get rid of the occupiers and plunderers, militias and warlords with their death squads wanting their piece of the corruption action, and the US getting exactly what they wanted in the first place, a nation in turmoil that they can use as an excuse to stay there while they control the region, the oil and protect Israel.

Democracy? Election day is about the only day the Iraqi people will get to see ‘democracy’. They’ve had their day. Now it’s back to more of the same

THE BLOGSITES OF HOWARD’S NEW FASCISTS GO INTO DENIAL MODE.

The blogsites of John Howard’s New Fascists, eg., Tim Blair and David Davis (aka Harry Heidelberg) have gone into complete denial and, quite predictably, refuse to accept that John Howard’s policies have caused the current outbursts of blatant racism in Sydney.

It may have escaped their attention but virtually all of the participants in the demonstrations and rioting are aged around seventeen to twenty-five – in other words they were between seven and fifteen years old, their most impressionable years, when Howard first became Prime Minister and began taking Australia down the road to his new fascist Australia. Those intervening ten years have been all it has taken to bring Australia to this.

Of course Howard will deny responsibility; to do otherwise would be an admission to the failure of his refugee, Iraqi War, anti-terrorism and other policies. The racists and fascists that have been running wild in Sydney’s streets have for the last ten years been brought up on a diet of fear of Middle Eastern and Central Asian immigrants and a loathing of Islam and Muslims. They have listened to and taken up his call of ‘We shall decide who comes to Australia’. This coupled with ten years of Howard pushing Australia’s nationalistic barrow and non-stop evocation of Australia’s past military glories and Gallipoli heritage and his frequent visits to the troops on ANZAC days have all served to bolster his image of a Greater Australia and has served to propel that image to the hearts and minds of the young ‘White Aussies’ that now terrorise Sydney.

Howard’s Fascist Australia is a step closer. His supporters, the New Fascists with their blogsites that deny the reality of racism, are the real enemies of peace-loving egalitarian Australians.

HOWARD’S FASCIST MEDIA ALLIES FUELLING RACIST TENSIONS.

John Howard, as Prime Minister of Australia, must take full responsibility for the current racial tensions which have come to a head recently in Sydney. Howard’s deliberate policy of creating fear and distrust in the community has resulted in hatreds bubbling to the surface of Australia’s social structures.

Much of the violence in Sydney over last weekend was helped along by Howard’s friend and radio talkback host, the racist and fascist Alan Jones who proudly concedes that it was he “…who led this charge here.” Howard himself, while condemning the violence and the actions of all the participants, has pulled up short of condemning it as racism
saying “…but I'm not going to put a general tag of racism on the Australian community”.

Gerard Henderson, Howard’s knee jerk apologist, tries desperately to endorse the Prime Minister’s denials by downplaying the obvious racism by saying: “This is not so much a clash of civilisations but, rather, a series of disputes between some aggressive Australians of Lebanese Muslim background and a group of aggressive (and drunk) Australians of Anglo-Celtic background,” as if the fact that the belligerents are polarised by their racial background is just incidental and that too much should not be construed by this fact.

Howard supporter Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper, The Australian, filled its editorial pages with opinion and commentary that tried to shift the blame for the troubles away from the racism Howard has promoted by his stance against home-grown ‘terrorism’ and his refugee policies. Tim Priest, for example, blames the police for neglecting to control the crowds while Paul Comrie-Thomson blames the Lebanese gangs for causing the trouble in the first place and the police for not nipping the problem in the bud. Meanwhile, the cartoon on the Opinion page depicts that 90% of the crowd on the ‘Aussies’ side are just ‘piss-heads’ and only 10% are ‘Aussie racists’ sums up the extent to which Murdoch’s media wish to lie and mislead.

The reality is Howard and his fascist supporters in the media have succeeded in polarising a nation. One more step down the road to a Fascist Australia.

THE ROAD TO HOWARD’S FASCIST AUSTRALIA.

Howard supporters are desperately trying to fend off accusations that he is insidiously remaking Australia into a fascist state. For most, including right-wing blogsites whose posters are simply a frothing-at-the-mouth assortment of racists, Islamaphobics and warmongering Arab-hating Howard supporters, this involves simple outright denials without any attempt or even ability to attempt to justify or qualify their denial. Those other supporters that do attempt to qualify their denial, mainly right-wing commentators in the mainstream press, do so by attempting to show that there are no parallels with Howard’s government and policies with the fascism of the 1920s and 1930s. Such denials are usually accompanied by scoffing and mocking of the accusers by pointing to the obvious lack of parallels.

However, the only parallels made are the obvious ones; the visual images of 1920s and 1930s fascism naturally do not bear any resemblance to the Australia of today, nor indeed, does Howard himself fit the conjured-up image of a ‘fascist dictator’. Such images truly would be laughable. But there is more to fascism than the mere imagery that Howard’s supporters wish to distract the Australian people with in their attempt to belittle the notion of Howard’s new fascism. Typical of this distractive nonsense is this piece of not-so-subtle muddleheaded rubbish from Gerard Henderson at ‘The Age’:

“In Australia in recent years it has become almost a fashion to make reference to Fascism/Nazism and/or communism to score political points. In his book The Right Road, historian Andrew Moore wrote that "it is not so very far from the truth" to "suggest that in 1951 Australian Fascism's headquarters were in the Lodge, Canberra". In other words, Moore maintains that the long-serving prime minister of Australia, Robert Menzies, was really a Fascist. This despite the fact that he declared war on Nazi Germany in 1939.”

The obvious distraction attempt here is Henderson’s reference to a piece from a book that is not about Howard at all but of Howard’s hero, Menzies. And the inference, of course, is, if Menzies is not a fascist (on account of having declared war on Nazi Germany) then how can Howard be? For many this may be enough to convince them that Howard is not a fascist. The historical trappings and imagery of fascism do not fit, it would seem, with the image of Howard being a fascist or at least from the way Henderson portrays it.

But, as I have said before, the new fascism bears no physical resemblance at all to the fascism of yesteryear. The ‘old’ fascism is gone. It can never be resurrected. The ‘new’ fascism disowns the ‘old’ fascism. The new fascism has evolved not from nostalgia for the ‘old’ fascism but instead has morphed from the values and ideals of US neoconservatism which has been embraced by US President George W. Bush. The ‘war against terrorism’ and the neoconservatives’ crusade against Islam has given what was ‘White-Australia’ racist conservatism a new impetus that is transforming itself into the new fascism.

Howard’s opportunity came via his lies at the last election and the resultant influence the government has gained in the Senate. With control of both houses Howard has had a relatively easy time of pushing through his welfare reforms, industrial reforms, anti-sedition laws and voluntary student union laws, all of which have been designed to disempower ordinary everyday working Australians and to diminish their right to dissent, protest and industrial action against both the government and employers. The anti-terrorism laws that are associated with the anti-sedition laws have also served to inspire suspicion and hatred among Australians toward the Muslim, Middle Eastern and Central Asian communities within Australia.

As well as punitive legislative changes being a characteristic of Howard’s agenda of taking us down the road to Australia’s new fascism, the more traditional fascist characteristic of national re-armament is also quietly taking place under the auspices of Howard’s servile Minister for Defence, Robert Hill. Passing almost unnoticed has been his recent remarks about Australia being ready in 2012 for possible conflict in SE Asia. Such conflict, needless to say, would be against China over Taiwan in which Australia would be expected to play a part allied to the US.

Next, it seems, Howard will be pushing for tax changes. He says that he believes tax cuts should be across the board; in other words the super-rich will be getting massive cuts while low income earners will receive a relative pittance and will be continuing to contribute to the bulk of personal tax that’s paid into the government’s coffers in order to pay for the wealthy people’s tax cuts.

2006 will be a decisive year for Australians as we continue to witness Howard’s march to an Australian fascist state.

ARE RUMOURS OF WEBDIARY’S DEMISE A LITTLE PREMATURE?

Those that consider themselves ‘mainstream Australia’, all five or six dozen of them that gather daily at Tim Blair’s foul-mouthed fascist blog, have been having a field day over Margo Kingston’s decision to close Webdiary. However, their frothing-at-the-mouth back-slapping seems to be a little premature. Hamish Alcorn, Margo Kingston’s brother, together with some other volunteers, are keen to take up the challenge and keep Webdiary going.

Meanwhile, David Davis and his mob of right-wing hangers-on at the ‘Harry Heidelberg’ blog seem to be a little more subdued. Some of the other self-styled ‘mainstream Australia’ fascists that gather there seemed to have been disappointed that Margo had closed down; mainly because some of them, particularly the obnoxious foul-mouthed and barely literate, Jay White, used Webdiary to peddle their right-wing warmongering nonsense.

Interesting times ahead.

MARGO KINGSTON CALLS IT A DAY AT WEBDIARY.

The big news today in Australian current affairs Blogworld is the demise of Australia’s biggest and best blog, Margo Kingston’s Webdiary.

Its demise is a blow for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that there essentially is now no independent voice left specifically for everyday Australians to vent their feelings. There are a lot of blogs around that individuals have set up but none come anywhere near Margo Kingston’s attempt to bridge that gap between the professional commentator, amateur commentator, political activist and professional journalist.

The news of Webdiary’s demise came all the more of a shock because it was only a few days ago that Webdiary had introduced its plans for advertising and told Webdiarists it was looking forward to moving to its new permanent website. However, in closing Webdiary Margo remarked: “Unfortunately I couldn't get funding in time to stop me going broke, and certain events have proved to me that my skin is not thick enough to survive in this game.”

It would be a shame if those ‘certain events’ were the vile and disgusting remarks that came from the extreme right-winger David Davis and a few of his foul-mouthed hangers-on at his so-called ‘Harry Heidelberg’ blog. As I write I haven’t had a squiz yet at what he has to say about it but I’m willing to bet it’ll be a mixture of gloating and patronising sorrow with a few crocodile tears thrown in.

It can only be hoped that someone has the courage to take up where Margo has left off. Australia desperately needs a voice to counter the coming fascism.

MORE ON THE SMALL WORLD OF AUSTRALIAN FASCIST BLOGS AND THE PEOPLE THAT FREQUENT THEM.

I note that the pathological liar and lunatic fascist Craig Warton, (who has a rather telling and obsessive interest in the history of the SS), has shown his head in the sad and somewhat subdued blog of David Davis (a pathetic fascist loser with an inferiority complex who prefers to use the rather grander and more Germanic sounding name of Harry Heidelberg, a style far more in keeping with his fantasy of being ‘leader’).

This is the same Craig Warton that insisted that he personally witnessed a person successfully fly a light aircraft with no training other than some hours in a flight simulator. At first he implied that this person flew the aircraft by himself. Fortunately, he didn’t actually say that; he merely implied it. After much prompting from me he eventually conceded that there was a qualified pilot with him and in doing so saved what was left of his totally tattered credibility. Nonetheless, Warton became quite pathological about his insistence that the event had occurred prior to me prompting a way out of his pathetic predicament by suggesting that such a feat could never be done without a qualified person being there. He took the hint and conceded.

Warton is another of those warmongering fascist Howard supporters who likes to hide behind the façade of ‘mainstream Australia’.

He’s in good company with the other hapless and ignorant fascists that gather at the so-called “Harry Heidelberg” blog to cheer each other up and let off some steam, mixed with some foul-language abuse, about the left.

I also note that some of the same people are appearing at Tim Blair’s fascist blog. They live in a very small world.

FASCISM OLD, FASCISM NEW – IMAGE AND REALITY

It’s an intriguing phenomenon that, while capitalism can exist without fascism, fascism cannot exist without capitalism. It’s a concept that some, including Howard supporter Harry Heidelberg, a fascist blogger hiding under the cloak of ‘mainstream Australia’, apparently is incapable of understanding.

Fascism comes in all shapes and guises but it never comes without the embrace of capitalism. It also rarely comes without the embrace of any given nation’s upper classes. Old money would not like to be directly associated with fascism but will nonetheless support it. New money, as we see with Gerard, openly supports it.

Of course, these days it’s not called fascism. Very few will openly concede that they actually are fascists, indeed, most will vehemently deny it; they will simply laugh at the notion. They say that they don’t like dictatorships per se but they do like strong leaders that have a firm grip on things and they will ensure that that strong leader will stick around for as long as possible within the bounds of not going the full hog of having a real full-on dictatorship. Today’s fascist, in short, would never actually want to be seen as a fascist.

How things have changed. Between the wars in Europe, including Britain, when fascism was on the rise, most people that were fascists were quite happy to call themselves ‘Fascists’. They joined this or that Fascist Party. In fact it was really quite fashionable to be a ‘Fascist’ in the 1930s. Since they lost the war however, it has never been fashionable again. In fact to be called a fascist was – and still is – something of an insult. But that doesn’t mean that the concept has gone away. Every now and then it raises its head again. Several Latin American nations experienced fascist style governments including Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and, of course, who can forget Chile. Spain went on for decades under Franco and Portugal didn’t fare much better under António Salazar. The Greeks had their juntas in the 1960s and the Croatians had Franjo Tudjman (yet another fascist that came from the left) in the 1990s. All, every one of them, were supported by their nation’s wealthiest people.

All, in the main, also had the support of their respective armed forces and security services whose upper ranks are usually filled with those who, just by the very nature of their chosen profession, have right-wing leanings generally even when the government of the day is left-wing.

When Webdiary’s Margo Kingston drew the analogy between what is happening today in Australia with what Fascism was about in Mussolini’s Italy with regard to fascism and its alliance with corporatism, poor old Harry blew the anger fuse and found it necessary to resort to plain foul language in order to help express his denial of the facts. In his rush to defend his hero Howard he actually thinks that every capitalist country must therefore be heading to fascism if Margo Kingston’s logic, which I share, is used. What nonsense Harry! Let me repeat what I said at the beginning. ‘…while capitalism can exist without fascism, fascism cannot exist without capitalism.’ Because you deny Howard being a fascist you seem to think that corporatist Australia getting into bed with him is just plain old corruption. What rubbish.

Many people’s idea of fascism, including Harry’s, seems to revolve around merely the images of fascism past; endless ranks of black uniforms, jack boots, great symbolic nationalistic banners, mesmerised hordes of cheering admirers – all the populist imaginings of fascism which made it so attractive between the wars. The reality is far more prosaic than that. It’s about control, power, wealth and the new racism of culture and religion. The dumb and gullible of Australia should wake up to this new reality.

THE FASCIST JAY WHITE’S MENTOR THINKS HE’S HIS ‘LEADER’!

When I let loose at Jay White in my last post I said: (See below) “The fascist Jay White… has followed in his hero’s footsteps and come up with what he refers to as the ‘final solution’ to the drug problem,” The vanity-struck Harry Heidelberg, in all his vainglory, actually thought I was talking about him as Jay White’s hero! Now, just how far up ones self can one get?!

Wrong Harry! I don’t think even you are as sick as Jay White’s real hero – the architect of the other ‘Final Solution’ of the ‘40s.

SS-Mistführer White has it all over you Harry!