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Taxing Times, Timor Truth, Don't Debate Zionism, Red Friday and CCNA
This Thursday I'm honoured to be the speaker at the Prosper Australia annual dinner. If you're interested in a little rant on why there is one good tax and one good expenditure in this world please RSVP and come along. Tax is, of course, quite an issue at the moment with both the right-wing of the Labor Party and the left wing of the Liberal Party tinkering at the problem. Meanwhile New Zealanders show great stupidity by supporting tax cuts so large that it will require government debt.
Regular readers may remember that on numerous occassions I've called into question the rather dubious series of intelligence events surrounding Australia and East Timor which led to hundreds of people being killed and the dislocation of a quarter of a million human beings. At long last, the first level of admission. The Australian government has admitted that Lt-Col Lance Collins was right after all. Australia admits information to troops cut off during East Timor crisis.
Melbourne Ports MP Michael Danby is so annoyed that a fellow Jew may have a dissenting opinion on the Zionist state that he's called for Melbourne University to pull publication before the book even has a title let alone contents. Crikey of course couldn't miss out on an opportunity to publish this fact. One thing can be sure about the Zionist Right, they sure can't stand any debate, discussion or investigation of the religious state. Danby's behaviour can only be described as intellectual cowardice. But that happens when one has a religious approach to politics; sometimes one's "holy beliefs" get challenged.
Managed to get a Red Friday out last Friday week on community development and IT. A second one is due next Friday. I was hoping to have some CCNA semester 1 notes for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
v3nu5, but that will have to wait until tomorrow night - I have my semester 1 theory exam on Wednesday night having completed the practical last week. All good.
Metcurufea from Canberra on Saturday, discussed game design over coffee. RuneQuest IV playtest group met on Sunday (seven players!), much fun even if the current playtest pack requires some serious tweaking. Labor for Refugees inspired Tampa remembrance rally was well attended in Melbourne; over 1,000 people. Other events interstate, but I have heard no news.
Regular readers may remember that on numerous occassions I've called into question the rather dubious series of intelligence events surrounding Australia and East Timor which led to hundreds of people being killed and the dislocation of a quarter of a million human beings. At long last, the first level of admission. The Australian government has admitted that Lt-Col Lance Collins was right after all. Australia admits information to troops cut off during East Timor crisis.
Melbourne Ports MP Michael Danby is so annoyed that a fellow Jew may have a dissenting opinion on the Zionist state that he's called for Melbourne University to pull publication before the book even has a title let alone contents. Crikey of course couldn't miss out on an opportunity to publish this fact. One thing can be sure about the Zionist Right, they sure can't stand any debate, discussion or investigation of the religious state. Danby's behaviour can only be described as intellectual cowardice. But that happens when one has a religious approach to politics; sometimes one's "holy beliefs" get challenged.
Managed to get a Red Friday out last Friday week on community development and IT. A second one is due next Friday. I was hoping to have some CCNA semester 1 notes for
v3nu5, but that will have to wait until tomorrow night - I have my semester 1 theory exam on Wednesday night having completed the practical last week. All good. Met
curufea from Canberra on Saturday, discussed game design over coffee. RuneQuest IV playtest group met on Sunday (seven players!), much fun even if the current playtest pack requires some serious tweaking. Labor for Refugees inspired Tampa remembrance rally was well attended in Melbourne; over 1,000 people. Other events interstate, but I have heard no news.
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Obviously, he doesn't give a bugger about inflation anymore. Either that, or his economic beliefs have gone out the window.
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He senses power within his reach. He'll promise anything to achieve it.
I was trying to be non-partisan about all this election, but now I'm convinced only a complete moron would vote for National now.
You simple do not put your government in debt when the economy is in a period of growth. The long term damage is enormous.
Just lie on that couch over there, Dr Catsidhe is in session.
The Israel thing is not religious, as I understand the phenomenon. Yes, religion can get involved very easily, but that doesn't explain why so many Australian Jews of a certain age are so predominantly Right, even if non-observant.
It is more a cultural thing: these are people who have been raised their whole lives on stories of haShoah, whose families were decimated or annihilated in places like Dachau and Auschwitz, whose parents or parents' friends had tattoos on their wrists ... and who had spent their entire lives being told that Israel as a country was the only protection for Jews as a religion, as a race, and as individuals.
After that amount of lifelong and intense investment in the idea of Israel As Saviour, these people (including my MIL) simply refuse to hear any talk about the mistreatment of Palestinians, or endemic racism against Israeli Arabs, or that many of the formative wars could have been avoided if Israel had wanted, or...
Indeed, to keep the ideas of Israel As Saviour consistent with, eg., the killing of children by snipers, or taking out a city block from an Apache to kill one man, a large amount of rationalisation occurs. Thus the Gunship must have been the only way to achieve the mission, the sniper missed, or the child got caught in crossfire. The Palestinians as a group are subhuman and undeserving of pity -- they must be, to keep Israel's purity and its behaviour consistent.
It would be, I think, a bit like learning that your dearly loved grandfather is a mass-murdering rapist. It goes against so many foundational tenets that the brain simply shuts off any input. It would take a superhuman psyche to overcome that sort of upbringing.
The trick is not to let, eg., the Anti-Defamation League (aka the "How dare you criticise Israel at all, ever, you Anti-Semite!" League) exercise the sort of censorship powers which they want to.
Being an pro-Israel bigot does not necessarily mean being comparable to Sharon...
Re: Just lie on that couch over there, Dr Catsidhe is in session.
Re: Just lie on that couch over there, Dr Catsidhe is in session.
In other words... They've had a psychic lobotomy..
Re: Just lie on that couch over there, Dr Catsidhe is in session.
Quite correct of course. To many it's more about supporting a pro-US colonial regime in Semitic lands , as much as it is pitched as "the Promised Land" to the anti-modernist religious types.
Just for the record, I consider myself a supporter of left-wing Zionism (like Hannah Arendt, or Noam Chomsky). In other words, I support the idea of homeland for religious Jews. I agree that should be in the historical Palestine. However, it is the idea that there should be an exclusive and discriminatory State for that purpose which I cannot allow to go without criticism.
Re: Just lie on that couch over there, Dr Catsidhe is in session.
Re: Just lie on that couch over there, Dr Catsidhe is in session.
I suspect that it's you and I versus powerful vested intrests :/
Re: Just lie on that couch over there, Dr Catsidhe is in session.
Re: Just lie on that couch over there, Dr Catsidhe is in session.
My country, right or wrong...
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As with so many blog entries that stir controversy, the comments are as interesting (or more so) than the original piece of writing.
What fascinates me in the whole thing is that the honourable Member felt compelled to attach his parliamentary position to his name at the bottom of his letter to AJN. I actually agree with him that Antony Loewenstein's questions imply an interesting bias, but I'm getting really fucking tired of politicians and academics appealing to their current jobs to loan their opinions credibility in public debate. Michael Danby could hve argued that the questions showed a particular agenda all on his very own without trying it ram the fact that he's a politician (and therefore somehow more right than anyone esle) down people's throats. Had anyone, in fact, associated Mr. Danby, Ms. Addler, and Mr. Loewenstein together before, with implications that Loewenstein's own political views were representative of all three?
It looks like a case for Media Watch to me.
As far as religion, culture, politics and the Middle East go, I'm beginning to think that Barry B. Longyear might have been on the right track when he named his second most well known sci-fi story.
If I'm feeling human enough, I might try and make it to the dinner on Thursday.
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*sigh*
Now I'm itching to play and it's ALL YOUR FAULT :)
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Which edition do you have?
We play every third Sunday and always welcome new players.... wanna join in?
Email me at lev_lafayette@yahoo.com.au
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Third Edition. The single-volume Deluxe Edition tome (luckily for me, it would seem:)
wanna join in
Erm. I'd have a significant geographic hurdle to negotiate there :)
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The single-volume Deluxe Edition tome
Ooh, that's a good one. That's when AH actually got it right.
geographic hurdle
Ahh, yes. I remembered that the moment I sent the post. Silly me.
How about pbem?
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As with so many blog entries that stir controversy, the comments are as interesting (or more so) than the original piece of writing.
Yes, I agree. Ranging from the far side of crazy to the thoroughly sane.
Danby is a regular contributor to AJN, afiak. I think - and this is pure speculation - that he likes to think himself as the spokesperson on all affairs relating to the middle-east in the Australian parliament or the Labor Party at the very least.
If I'm feeling human enough, I might try and make it to the dinner on Thursday.
Please do. The Prosper Australia people are good folk and they enjoy seeing new faces.
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(Anonymous) 2005-09-02 05:16 am (UTC)(link)Cheers,
Kyle
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Ahh, now that I cannot do .. yet. I ended up giving the presentation from a handful of notes that had some semblance of order. And it was more about how some stories get in the mainstream media and which one's don't.
If you're more interested in the basics of resource rentals the following presentation I gave to the Melbourne Unitarian Church in January may be of interest;
http://www.melbourneunitarian.org.au/200501lafayette.html