Petrol desal ‘racist’ – National – www.theage.com.au: “A NSW Aboriginal group today condemned as racist a federal government proposal to give remote indigenous communities petrol bowsers if they improved their hygiene.”

It just keeps getting worse. The attitude seems to be that if you are the most disadvantaged demographic in Australia and one of the world’s most desperate situations in the world, we won’t provide you with the basic services that we provide to the rest of the country if you don’t wash your kid’s face twice a day.

I don’t wash my face twice a day!

Whether it is intended to be or not it is racist. It will only make the situation worse.

Parliament builds bomber barrier – National – www.theage.com.au

It is a sad day when you have to build a concrete wall around parliament house. The very architecture of the building was designed to be open to the people – accountable.

Not anymore. Everyone’s a terrorist.

Tony Abbott‘s speech to the Canberra parliamentary press gallery dinner at the weekend is an interesting contribution to the debate around media bias. He also seems to become a little less reserved about his personal beliefs with regards to issues that are generally considered ‘private’ – ie religion.

That aside his argument is that the media are largely left-leaning which has lead to a distortion in their analysis and the general prediction that the election just gone would be narrowly won by the Libs as an example considering they romped it in.

Firstly the examples he uses are hardly rabid Marxists, they are centre-left at best. In this day and age it is hard to expect much more. Secondly, I don’t think that anyone – Abbott included – expected to be returned with such a majority.

Moreover he ignores the fact that those considered ‘left wing’ tend to write for the broad sheets which don’t have anywhere near the coverage that the tabloids do and we all know that the right like to hide away in these tabloids which tend to be more concerned with what Delta is up to rather than actual issues.

Perhaps the slightly more alarming is the research that he sights undertaken by RMIT which says that 55% of journalists consider themselves as “left”. I can’t help but feel that with something this subjective that to ask journos to fill out a survey is problematic (I’d expect an analysis of their work to be more accurate, particularly with fairly objective ideas about what defines left or right). However that said I can’t help but feel that this is much more a case of society moving to the right and miss interpreting what it means to be left (which in itself is a slippery thing). I can’t help but feel it is problematic that people are identifying Latham with the left. I also wonder who the people that are filling out these surveys are, if they were voluntary (which I assume they were). Why did only 9% identify as “right” and what did the other 36% identify as. Moreover “left” was also defined as “small-L liberal”. The most Capital L Liberal I’ve ever met (actually ran for pre-selection etc) identified as a ‘libertarian’ or, a small-L liberal.

I’d also add that while some journos will identify as left that the economics of the media means that a) a dog up a tree gets a lot more air (this is useful for the right I believe but that’s another post) and b) because what is deliver as “news” is tainted by a right-leaning society that considers this “unbiased”.

Moreover his argument overlooks the issue of media ownership. It is also noteworthy that Murdoch owns most tabloids and the conservative broadsheet – The Australia.

Both the left and the right complain about the media being overrun by the other side. Obviously I am of the opinion that the media is right-leaning, particularly the non-print media (excluding the Internet). However the two key points here are that society has moved right, I still maintain that left is just as left as it has always been but it would appear that society disagrees with me. Secondly the reach and influence of the right is considerably larger.

PM vows to aid Aboriginal cause – National – www.theage.com.au: “Prime Minister John Howard yesterday said he was prepared to go more than halfway to meet indigenous leaders to fix Aboriginal problems.

This follows the offer by Aboriginal leaders Pat Dodson and Noel Pearson to work with Mr Howard on the Government’s agenda of ‘mutual obligation’ – where indigenous people accept responsibility in exchange for benefits.”

I remain skeptical as I’d imagine these indigenous leaders do to. However there is some hope here and with Pat Dodson and Noel Pearson on side things may well work out.

My concern remains that top-down approaches tend to have short term benefits but lack the long term changes required to make them sustainable. Still, maybe things just need kick start.

A great bit of activism

I got this email today:

December 3, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“DOW” STATEMENT A HOAX
“Historic aid package for Bhopal victims” a lie

Contact: Marina Ashanin, Corp. Media Relations, +41-1-728-2347
Related information: http://dowethics.com/bhopal/

Today on BBC World Television, a fake Dow spokesperson announced fake
plans to take full responsibility for the very real Bhopal tragedy of
December 3, 1984. (1) Dow Chemical emphatically denies this
announcement. Although seemingly humanistic in nature, the fake plans
were invented by irresponsible hucksters with no regard for the
truth.

As Dow has repeatedly noted, Dow cannot and will not take
responsibility for the accident. (“What we cannot and will not do…
is accept responsibility for the Bhopal accident.” – CEO Michael
Parker, 2002.) The Dow position has not changed, despite public
pressure.

Dow also notes the great injustice that these pranksters have caused
by giving Bhopalis false hope for a better future assisted by Dow.
The survivors of Bhopal have already suffered 20 years of false hope,
neglect, and abdication of responsibility by all parties. Is that not
enough?

To be perfectly clear:

* The Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) will NOT be liquidated. (The
fake “Dow plan” called for the dissolution and sale of Dow’s fully
owned subsidiary, estimated at US$12 billion, to fund compensation
and remediation in Bhopal.)

* Dow will NOT commit ANY funds to compensate and treat 120,000
Bhopal residents who require lifelong care. The Bhopal victims have
ALREADY been compensated; many received about US$500 several years
ago, which in India can cover a full year of medical care. (2)

* Dow will NOT remediate (clean up) the Bhopal plant site. We do
understand that UCC abandoned thousands of tons of toxic chemicals on
the site, and that these still contaminate the groundwater which area
residents drink. Dow estimates that the Indian government’s recent
proposal to commission a study to consider the possibility of proper
remediation at some point in the future is fully sufficient.

* Dow does NOT urge the US to extradite former Union Carbide CEO
Warren Anderson to India, where he has been wanted for 20 years on
multiple homicide charges. (3)

* Dow will NOT release proprietary information on the leaked gases,
nor the results of studies commissioned by UCC and never released.

* Dow will NOT fund research on the safety of Dow endocrine
disruptors (ECDs) considered to have long-term negative effects.

* Dow DOES agree that “One can’t assign a dollar value to doing
what’s morally right,” as hoaxter Finisterra said. That is why Dow
acknowledged and resolved many of Union Carbide’s liabilities in the
US immediately after acquiring the company in 2001. (4)

Again, most importantly of all:

* Dow shareholders will see NO losses, because Dow’s policy towards
Bhopal HAS NOT CHANGED. Much as we at Dow may care, as human beings,
about the victims of the Bhopal catastrophe, we must reiterate that
Dow’s sole and unique responsibility is to its shareholders, and Dow
CANNOT do anything that goes against its bottom line unless forced to
by law.

For more information please contact Marina Ashanin, Corporate Media
Relations, +41-1-728-2347, or reply to this email.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

(1) On December 3, 1984, Union Carbide – now part of Dow -
accidentally killed thousands of residents of Bhopal, India, when its
pesticide plant leaked a vast cloud of lethal gas over the city.
Since that date, at least 12,000 more people have died from
complications, and 120,000 remain chronically ill. The Dow Chemical
Corporation hereby expresses its condolences to the victims.

(2) Union Carbide was originally forced to pay US$470 million in
compensation to survivors, which amounts to about US$500 per victim.
(Note: Dow hereby wishes to retract the 2002 statement of Dow PR Head
Kathy Hunt as to US$500 being “plenty good for an Indian.” The poor
phrasing of this statement has often come back to haunt us.)

(3) Arrested in India following the accident, Andersen posted
US$2000 bail and successfully escaped India.

(4) Dow settled Union Carbide’s asbestos liabilities in the US, and
paid US$10 million to one family poisoned by a Dow pesticide. This
is a mark of Dow’s corporate responsibility.

Now have a look here: Bhopal hoax haunts BBC- The Times of India

…and then here The Yes Men

The plot against America – Opinion – www.smh.com.au: “at least a part of the Western left – or rather the Western far left – is now so anti-American, or so anti-Bush, that it actually prefers authoritarian or totalitarian leaders to any government that would be friendly to the US….I certainly don’t believe, as President Bush sometimes simplistically says, that everyone who disagrees with American policies in Iraq or elsewhere “hates freedom”. That’s why it’s so shocking to discover that some of them do.”

I find this argument absurd. Sure, it is a difficult line to walk when you oppose both the tyranny of Saddam and a US invasion but surely no one (short of a fundamentalist) can actually buy this tripe – both are opposed for the same reasons. Surely by preferring Saddam to say in power you don’t actually have to support him. Surely these aren’t the only two choices.

Interestingly it was the left that began a very anti-Taliban campaign which probably reached it’s height just before the attacks on the Twin-Towers. These same people (my self included) then opposed the invasion of Afghanistan.

This isn’t contradictory. If anything, the fact that people are saying it is contradictory, is merely proof of the pervasiveness of US culture and media. And the fact that someone who obviously identifies as on the left of the political spectrum has bought this reinforces this more.

Then again, maybe it is proof of the world shifting right.

I feel like I haven’t written enough on this blog about the plight of our indigenous peoples. Michael Long has just done the long walk and Palm Island is burning and only showing signs of the heat being turned up after one of the sickening displays of racial violence we’ve heard of recently.

Why use a noose? I just don’t get it. Have you ever hear of a white fella having a noose tied around their head? It is so specifically racially based, with obvious KKK influences. I hope justice is served to the perpetrators.

But on the issue of perpetrators, it seems obvious to me that the non-indigenous inhabitants of this land need to start taking responsibility. That is why it is important for the PM to say ‘Sorry’ – something he never will. A lot of people (black and white) argue that we should move away from getting the PM to say sorry because he never will and it is purely symbolic. I argue that, while we can’t forget about other routes to reconciliation, there is a great power is symbolism to which Michael Long’s walk is testament.

This is also a lot of talk from the black community about us meddling middle-class white fellas who have guilt about our treatment of black Australia and so desperately want to do something about that. That’s a really hard thing to accept for many people but I think most indigenous sympathisers can understand it, or perhaps more importantly realise that they can’t understand the issues involved.

I think that what we as white people need to do is two things. Firstly, ensure that indigenous issues are continually brought up. Of late the issue has disappeared off the radar due largely to our Prime Minister being a racist (and yes I think he is, although not consciously). Secondly, we need to advocate for self-determination. The criticism that have come up about meddling white fellas seems to be based largely on a benevolence that is attached to this. That’s one of the things I liked about Whitefella Jump Up, there was a lot of ‘I don’t know the answer’. White Australia needs to stop pretending they understand an take appropriate measures to ensure that those that do understand (indigenous people) can take control.

However I think that it is our obligation as white people to ensure that the opportunity to provide self-determination is given. It is a fine balancing act and requires a lot of just sitting down and talking. Now is the time to act as these issues are on the agenda.

Drug tests for drivers a world first – National – www.theage.com.au: “ By Andrea Petrie
December 1, 2004
“

As of 13th December Police will be conducting random roadside drug testing.

Admittedly half of me is saying ‘fuck it, they finally caught up!’ But the more rational side of me says that if you are under the influence of drugs then you really shouldn’t be driving.

Now firstly the test takes over 5 mins so I don’t think it will be used as frequently as alcohol testing. However I’ve got a feeling that leaving the occasional dance party could be time consuming to say the least and it probably means the end of events like earthcore.

But my biggest concern is that of civil liberties. The FAQ on the Victoria Police web page states that “Police will carry out further investigations for drug offences, which may include searches, only when there is sufficient information to suggest that a serious drug offence is being committed.” Drugs are illegal, and the fact that I don’t think they should be is irrelevant. However surely what is trying to be policed is dangerous driving activities which can be far from a victimless crime if you consider the potential harm done to others in an accident. That said these tests could easily be abused by police bringing us closer to a police state and a life of constant fear by searching the car of anyone who tests positive.

I know a lot of people who regularly drive stoned. To be honest this has never really bothered me. It will be interesting to see if there is a ‘cultural’ shift because of these tests. However I’ve a feeling that the tests will be quickly challenged in court and I am doubtful they will hold up. THC has a half life of 5 days in the human body, that means a fatty that you roasted on Friday night should still be largely present in your body on Monday despite you being far from intoxicated.

The most appropriate way of monitoring this would be a system similar to that of BAC. In other words, how much is in you system and how much is that effecting you? This is the real issue and I’m certain that people who are no longer intoxicated will be vilified by these tests.