Boat people

What is it about migration that causes people to get their knickers in a twist?  The simple act of moving house over the bridge to the other embankment where the grass is greener, rainbows appear routinely every morning and no one wearing military garb or carrying an RPG is trying to shoot you is something evil.  And so are the people that provide the bridge, according to Kevin Rudd.

Yes, more boats of refugee’s have showed up on Australian shores and the whole continent goes up in arms.  Conservatives, nationalists and all sorts of others have speculated this and that, the Liberal party has gone on public record saying that the Labour governments ‘soft’ stance on illegal immigrants is giving incentive for these people to come here and so on.  What is it about boatloads of people fleeing from areas of war, destruction and persecution gets these people up in arms?  The only answer that comes to mind is the obvious; they’re afraid these rag tag boats of asylum seekers are going to pull a tactic used by the British when they used to own the world.  You know, way back in the day when ‘settlers’ arrived at Botany Bay and all that, turned to the native people and said, “You, you and you. Fuck off.  You don’t exist.  This is our land now.” and ‘settled’ the place.

People smuggling, is something universally condemned.  But what about the people choosing to enter a country illegally?  Little attention is ever paid to the circumstances these people are fleeing from in the first place, which ties into the old Anarchist argument that red tape is red precisely because it’s dripping in blood.  The only comment that is properly given is that “they should have waited in line.”  Strictly speaking, getting on a rickety old boat and venturing onto the high seas is a fairly desperate solution, so you can only imagine the intensity of the circumstances these people are running form.  Something in these people tilted the balance away from politely waiting patiently in line while bullets whizzed over head, and tipped the scale in favour of doing something illegal to get out of harms way.  But mention this to a champion of tighter border security and watch the response that follows.  They simply don’t care.

Then we get onto the issue of people smugglers.  The ones providing the bridge to greener pastures.  Kevin Rudd, our fearless leader, even went on record saying, “People smugglers are the vilest form of human life because they trade on the tragedy of others.”  Funnily enough there is no mention to the cause of much of that tragedy, possibly because it can almost, always be traced back to the actions of a government.  And I suppose a portion people smugglers must be of a rather unpleasant character.  If you break it down, tighter regulation on anything tends to introduce an action to the criminal elements of society.  Just look at the drug trade.  There are notorious criminal gangs dealing just as there are small, independent entrepreneurs just looking to make some cash and get stoned.  You can’t fault them for that.

While I will concede that people, especially young women, may not end up in their final destination and that the smugglers themselves may be charging exorbitant prices, they are filling a need that governments don’t.  They provide these people with transportation, albeit not always in the best condition, and the chance to escape their immediate circumstances, while a government bureaucrat would prefer to make them wait.  But how can you wait if you are being persecuted?  I can personally guarantee that if an individual believes there is a significant threat to his or her life and that they are not safe, even if they have gone underground, they are going to find some way to get the hell out.  Legally or not.  It’s a fact of life.

Even still, migration is natural.  For centuries human beings have naturally known that if you are suffering in one place, maybe it would be a good idea to move to another place where you won’t suffer.  For centuries humans have done this freely, until government decide to place a lock and chain on the natural act of human migration and, by consequence, another fundamental aspect of individuality.  It is criminal.

But of course the great defenders of tight border security argue that these people could be terrorists!  Slipping into our borders to attack us at home.  Needless to say that nearly every major terrorist attack performed on the domestic soil of America, Britain and elsewhere were performed by people who entered the country legally.  If you’re looking to perform subversive activities, do you really think you’re going to risk having your operatives captured mid-mission by asking them to board a rickety old boat to sneak into a country illegally.  The risk is too great.  Either you’re going to recruit citizens or you’re going to have them do the paperwork so they appear legit.

Then there’s the argument that these people, speaking in general terms, come to a country, park their ass on a couch somewhere and become a burden on the system.  This neglects two facts.  Most refugees want to get away from terrible circumstances and want to start a new life.  They’re not the lazy or parasitic caricatures of human beings portrayed by conservative types because to build a new life for you and your family you need to work for it.  Yet even then there are always a minority who fit the stereotype, as it has to be born somewhere.  However these people wouldn’t be a problem if the welfare state didn’t exist to enslave people via dependency in the first place.  All too often centrelink cheques come with a catch and because money’s being handed out without any real work, there is an incentive to maintain that state in order to bring in the free money.  The problem lies not with people, as it’s a direct result of human nature (give a man a fish a day and there’s no reason to go out and catch fish).  The problem lies with the system handing out fish.

Oh and the last argument to always be levelled and this people is the traditional and timeless, ‘they’ll steal our jobs’ by-line of xenophobes.  I need not mention that it’s all too often illegal immigrants that wind up doing the shit-work that no natural-born citizen wants in the first place, allowing them happily to apply themselves to some other occupation that requires more training.

And for what it’s worth, if this is how the country reacts to a couple boatloads of people fleeing adversity, I hate to imagine what the reaction is going to be when Kim Jung-il kicks the bucket.  North Korea will open up and people will flood out into the surrounding regions in the thousands.  I’d like to see the government justify deporting North Koreans.

Australian defence contractor with Neo-Nazi Ties

Go figure. According to an documents provided by wikileaks (gotta love ‘em), a defence contractor linked to the Australian government by what I suppose would be millions upon millions of stolen cash, has been identified as a Neo-Nazi.  I realise I’ve been a bit out of it as of late, but better late than never. So, here’s the article.

One of Australia’s largest Defence Department-linked companies has suspended a contractor over her alleged links to an international neo-Nazi group.

Nicole Hanley, a bid support manager for Thales – which has hundreds of millions of dollars in Department of Defence contracts – is alleged to have been involved as an administrator of the neo-Nazi web forum Blood & Honour.

The claims have been made by whistleblower site Wikileaks, which has published a hacked database containing private messages between the group’s members.

According to the Wikileaks private message trail it is claimed that Hanley has published a detailed online diary of her travels to Europe last year, which included attending several neo-Nazi skinhead gatherings, visiting Adolf Hitler’s birthplace, placing flowers on his parents’ grave and collecting Nazi memorabilia.

“Hearing/joining in with so many hundreds of people chanting Sieg Heil together is something that will stay with me forever,” she allegedly wrote.

The online messages allegedly reveal that Hanley has also hosted international Blood & Honour activists at her house in Canberra and dated several neo-Nazi skinheads.

Blood & Honour, which promotes neo-Nazi music and events, was founded in Britain in 1987 and has been outlawed in Germany and Spain. Its Australian chapter is organising a pro-Hitler gig in Perth for Anzac Day.

In one of her online messages, Hanley is reported as saying that she would like to become “more active in supporting B&H Australia”.

“I think that with my skills and background I would have a lot to offer,” she wrote.

“Nothing would make me happier than to see B&H Australia become stronger and larger. I would also love to see the skinhead scene in Australia return back to the size and strength of the glory days.”

Even though the Department of Defence conducted background checks on all Thales contractors, claims about Hanley’s links with neo-Nazi skinhead groups were unknown to Thales or the department until smh.com.au provided copies of the private messages.

Thales immediately began an investigation and suspended Hanley, who is in her 40s, saying it took security “extremely seriously”.

It said the matter had been referred to “appropriate authorities for further investigation”.

“The person in question was a contractor engaged through an employment agency,” a Thales spokeswoman said.

“The contract has been suspended and all access to Thales IT and equipment removed.”

The Department of Defence said it could not comment on security allegations relating to specific people, but would have concerns about employees known to have links with nationalist extremist or racial organisations. It would not comment on Hanley’s security clearance level.

In another message attributed to her she discussed how she listened to a white supremacist online radio show.

Reached at her home on Friday and this morning, Hanley refused to comment on the allegations and threatened legal action over any future reports based on the material published by Wikileaks.

“I’m under legal advice not to speak to you,” she said, before hanging up.

Thales, which refused to give any further details about the investigations or about Hanley, generates about $1 billion in revenues annually and specialises in high technology defence products such as electronic warfare, munitions and protected mobility vehicles.

Mat Henderson, a volunteer with Australian anti-racism group Fight dem back, said bad economic times were always a fertile recruitment ground for racist groups.

Rudd’s package stimulating your economy?

So the cheques are in the mail, K Rudd has chosen to stimulate thousands of Australians with hard, hard cash.  Which all in all is a pretty typical response by politicians in recession.  I mean his last stimulus package didn’t really do anything, and in the infamous reasoning that has made the politician infamous, and not to mention entirely worth his three hundred thousand dollar salary, K Rudd’s decide that we need to do the same thing again, just on a grander scale.  Coupled with this, Rudd has called for greater regulation in the financial market and so on, supposedly leading the charge.

The irony of the whole situation is K Rudd doesn’t get it.  Him and all his federal companions, whom I swear are sleeping in their mansions and town houses with a picture of Lenin (or possibly Adolf, depending on who you ask) upon their bedside table, have lead the call, “markets don’t work.”  While I’m certainly no fan of corporate capitalism — and to hell with anyone that dares to tell me that capitalism is a good thing, as I don’t see how CEO’s looking to enrich themselves via enlisting the coercive power of the state can be a good thing — the key element that is being lost in all the media hype is that government bureaucracy created the current problems.  The US started this whole sub-prime mess when the American government enacted legislation with the intention of influencing lenders to give money to people who wouldn’t be able to pay it back, en masse, and according to some of the people I’ve been talking to, the worst is yet to come with a second wave of defaults.  Low and behold, fortunes are created through artificial means and when the people owing started defaulting the whole thing goes up in smoke and those corporate businesses, as per usual, return to government for a little help.  Unfortunately for them, the American government has prevented any scrutiny against itself and instead blamed it on the market.

We are told the market failed.  And now I must repeat what many other writers before me have written, that markets are composed of people and the free, natural transactions between them.  I will, however, depart from the thinking of other writers before me and point out that we had is capitalism.  Something drastically different and in stark contrast to the free market; a series of regulated markets where government and its allies in big business could interfere and twist the economy to suit them.  Capitalism failed, the free market wasn’t free.  It’s like Sado-Masochism gone… worse.  A couple of chains, some handcuffs, a whip, ball gag and K Rudd telling the markets they’ve been very, very bad.  I’m feeling a little stimulated already.  How ’bout you?

Yes, you’re probably thinking a number of things right now, but the only thing you should remember is Kevin Carson’s slogan, “Free-market, Anti-Capitalism.”  Explains it all.

Twisting the brain?  Should be.

But if you’ll allow me to get back on message, as political advisers would say, I have yet to point out the greatest irony of all.  Our supreme leader, Kevin Rudd, in his attempts to dish out money into the economy has made some interesting moves.  Most notably is the increase to the first home buyers’ grant.  Judging from Rudd’s past economic record (if  care to you remember he created a run on financial institutions) I don’t think he understands the significance of encouraging people to buy/build more homes in a time when job security is already potentially dismal to nil.  Something to do with them not paying back the loan — sound familiar?

Better yet, Rudd’s gone into deficit handing out the stimulus package, which is great for the average Australian at the moment, but will undoubtedly be recouped in higher taxes later down the line.  It has to be. After all, it’s the average Australian — those “working families” talked about at the previous election — that this money was originally robbed from.  Yes, robbed.  At gunpoint.

Furthermore, many average Australians aren’t going to be so stupid as to go out and immediately burn their cash on a new TV, stereo system or some other consumer product they probably don’t need.

There’s a recession on people!

We need to save, for a rainy day.  Maybe, pay off some of that debt we’ve built up on those plastic, magnetised cards with the large interest.  Let us not forget that much of the Australian economy is built on debt. This is the fatal flaw in the stimulus package, along with the assumption that a temporary boost to the economy is going to have any effect at all — if you own a business and you know that times are tough, you’re going to know that stimulus package is temporary.  Well, if you’ve got any brains.  You’re not going to suddenly hire new staff, because what happens after the stimulus is gone?  People are going to cut back on spending, which means less income, which means you’re going to have to cut costs, which eventually means workers are going to have to suffer.

And the Australian recession isn’t all that bad, yet.  But it will be after we create our own housing bubble that will eventually pop because the government needed to ‘stimulate’ the construction industry.  The Americans are trillions of dollars in debt and I ain’t going to sugarcoat it.  How the fuck are they going to pay that back?  There are still outstanding debts from WWII that America hasn’t paid back, let alone something like 12 trillion dollars which is almost equivalent to everything they made last year.  When America turns to the printing press, inflation hits and the country turns into something reminiscent of Detroit, then there’s definitely going to be a problem with the Australian economy, especially as America going bust makes China calm down.

So I ask you, is Rudd’s package stimulating your economy?

Emperor Rudd

Oh I love it.  I have always stressed that politicians are bad people and it’s always irked me that K Rudd’s popularity is so massive, simply because K Rudd has been willing to appear on popular talk shows.  But now that it been announced Rudd has a temper, it’s all too sweet from my position.  Aside from causing a women to burst into tears because of complications regarding a meal, Rudd’s sense of grandeur and position has lead him to become unpopular among his staff, who are reported to be leaving in droves.  What the king of Terra Australis demands, the king should recieve and failure is punishable by a severe tongue lashing.