Hear No Evil, Speak Some and Do Nothing
These are three essays / posts from the last weekend that encapsulate my feelings on what are seemingly “unsolvable” problems that our representative governments perenially fail to address and will never resolve. It’s just not in the best interest of the two parties or the corporate state that finances them.
Free Julian Assange or start jailing some of our political leaders, past and present.
Ambassador Kennedy states she wants Julian Assange to “face Justice” for what he’s done.
When did Teddy Kennedy Face Justice after the tragic incident at a bridge?
When did a Kennedy stand to be publicly accountable for their affairs and seductions?
Julian Assange revealed the criminal, illegal and immoral activities of the American Government in the prosecution of an illegitimate war.
He aided a whistleblower to avoid the surveillance and measures put in place by the American Government and its Secret Services to HIDE their criminal activities.
As we can see from the sadistic progress toward prosecution, it is a deadly proposition to go up against the largest military regime in history which, with it’s “allies”, can concoct wars out of the flimsiest of evidence or provocation.
Julian Assange is a hero for, quite literally, sacrificing himself to help reveal the abuses of power the allied forces had unleashed in a war that had no moral framework or justification, where gross criminal acts of violation and murder routinely occurred in invisible detention and torture sites.
Australia, The UK and The US among the consenting nations of the “coalition” laid waste to Iraq, fed the beast of Islamic hatred and resistance with the invasion of Afghanistan.
Millions of good people thrown to the wind into the cruel and inhumane world of the refugee and asylum seeker, desperate to escape the horror and find a place of wealthy security in the arms of the “liberating” nations.
The self same governments that started this war, The Right, the corporate neo-liberal neo-con monsters, enacted “border controls” that made the deterrent effect of Roman crucifixion look merciful. And they are still leveraging this massive human tragedy for points in a political game that sets alight the front page of regional newspapers, radio and TV.
Why are these cynical, lying and deceitful men (and some woman) still at ease to roam the world on the golden carpet rides offered by our very generous publicly funded political superannuation schemes?
This “prosecution” by the US of a case of treason against Julian Assange is terrorism.
It’s aim, pure and simple, is to terrorise the media, all of us, into obedience as to what can be said or done.
It is their assertion of the right to use tyrannical powers in the defence of the Surveillance State and Party, the charge they level at Putin, at Xi Xi Ping, the religious leaders of the many Islamic armies, whoever they choose to target, in the great game of deflection we call Modern Democracy.
If we were a just and fair nation among equals John Howard would have done time for his treachery and the likes of Dutton and Co would be pariahs, permanently barred from any public office, anywhere. With no long tail of obscene privilege and wealth.
But that’s not the government we have.
Pollee.net, choose different. Vote, often.
The $18billion question no one wants to answer
Desperado’s are drinking handwash and Methylated spirits in an attempt to ease their chronic withdrawal symptoms after being added to the BDR (Banned Drinks Register) “The List” The Broome Advertiser (Brad) refers to in it’s headline articles.
Local Health Agencies are not using their powers to add abusive drinkers to the list because they know what we have been telling this State Government for the last 3 years on the Community Safety Working Group.
There are NOT sufficient treatment beds in this region to treat the population of addicted drinkers, and that was before the implementation of wholesale banning, initiated by Police through the new powers given them by legislative reform.
We have, at every one of our 3 monthly meetings, for the last 3 years, called for more treatment facilities, for as long as the BDR trial has been running we have asked time and again, where are the resources to treat the medically endangered when they are banned?
I asked the Minister, in fact every Minister in the State and Federal Governments where the $18 billion per year in excise and GST on alcohol sales goes to. I know, I see, the actual lack of service here to treat the damage coming from an industry that takes millions of dollars out of this community every year. An industry that preys on vulnerability, weakness and misery with prices and “specials” to ensnare.
I asked, Why can’t just a small percentage of what is taken be left here, untouched by Federal or State hands, a local reservoir of cash to pay the overworked staff, to build and refurbish much needed facilities to help whole families heal from this terrible addiction?
The one Minister I met, well, he scoffed at the idea, good luck with that. A few of the others responded, to handball it away from their portfolio, despite the fact that alcohol addiction and abuse impacts negatively across just about every portfolio, other than Police and Prisons who just can’t keep up with the demand.
That last part is a bit glib because, apart from the shiny bums with too much braid and no time on the street, the force is being torn apart by the psychological and physical damage generated by the undeclared border war between Aboriginal people and the Police forces of Australia, a state that has existed since the first day Troopers rode out with rifles drawn and murder in their hearts.
There is NO vision at a State level, at a Federal level, that seeks to disengage from this wretched perennial skirmish, beyond the symbolic. The Voice was a scam in a sham Democracy, no-one in either Party wants to change the dynamic our Governments impose on hostage populations.
They have turned the basic contract of providing welfare into a corporate machine that feeds off crime, drug abuse and chaos underwritten by a payment system that promotes dependency. A machine that is increasingly privately delivered but will forever be publicly funded, regardless the cost to treasury, decency and respect.
For in the end they are good jobs for decent people who vote, pay taxes and believe what Brad says,
in a world where influencers earn millions from Social Media accounts that feature nothing but banality.
Real world, meat space, life changing disaster unfolds around them because the Governments they elect do nothing but maintain the good old boys network delivering the same shit solutions to the same problems that we see on the front page of Brad every week for the last Three Years, at least.
There are SO many alternative solutions to these ”politically intractable” problems but none will rise, none will be implemented, unless we change the very nature of Government, rid ourselves of the impediment to good public service and reduce parliament to an historic relic through us ALL embracing the right and responsibility of a vote in a Democracy.
Everyday, millions of you are forking over cash because you’re bored and easily distracted by stupid things and people. Democracy gives you the chance to spend less in creating real conversations that lead to actual change through the ongoing processes of creation, discussion and of voting, just like parliament, only politician free.
Pollee.net vote. often
Police State:
“that twice a year we’re pushing out new graduates from the Academy” to fill the growing number of vacancies that are coming from a record outflow of Officers from the force, WAPOL.
They’re not running off to better paid jobs, they’re bailing out from a workplace where witnessing and being participant in acts of extreme violence, depravity and inhumanity is a part of the job.
The workplace is a war zone, since the penal beginnings of this country they have been set against the criminals and the aboriginals in the service of “national interests” (which started with the imposition of a tax on alcohol.)
Many come to the service with good hearts and I witness the incredible effort local police, in the station, on the beat, put into Peace Keeping and engagement, they work hard at trying to triage the trauma and divert the consequences of being born aboriginal away from the legal system.
But when the rubber hits the road, the radio is buzzing and the lights flashing, when there’s a very angry man or woman, drunk, and/or worse, methed, brandishing a weapon after letting forth carnage on some unfortunate, the person sent into dealing with it is the one in the hated uniform.
No one walks away from these confrontations without damage or death, officers are leaving, officers are refusing to take up posts in places like Derby or Fitzroy Crossing because they know they are a target. It is a shit situation going to hell in the Premiers manbag.
For years, decades, I have heard stories of Aboriginal Community Patrols that rose up in the places where Law and order are not a phone call away. Community grew sick of the kids, the drunks, the gangstas and paedophiles running amok and got together good sober people to walk in their communities and deal with the problems that end in chaos. They worked with the Police when they needed to deal with people breaking the law in their communities, they deal with anyone else that can help sort out the mess.
In 2015 the very wonderful Dr Harry Blagg and associates published the outcomes from their research into the efficacy of community patrols. They worked, in fact, they are one of the most successful strategy ever implemented in dealing with social issues within remote communities.
Every year, for the last decade or so, I bring this up with the Ministers, this year we had the rare privilege of a live session with the Minister for Police and his Senior Commander for the region who pretty much flatly denied the Police have any issues.
When I put to them the very sound arguments for implementing fully funded, professional patrols in communities, of recruiting from the locality for meaningful jobs with good pay. When we consider the success in community building that has flowed from the professionalisation of the Ranger Programs that look after Country, When I asked; Where is the similar patrol to look after people?
The response was flatly, no, we have plenty of Police Auxiliaries, who kind of fulfil that role but they’re Police…
Now I’m not poo pooing this sector of the force. It’s just insulting given the prospects for something different when every community in this country has asked for the autonomy to live and work on the country they come from, to practice the lore of that land, in the country.
Aboriginal people have, for too long, been denied the opportunity and the resources to truly be Australian Citizens who can offer their children the choice to live under, and respect, both law and lore. Native Title is slowly exploding neutron bomb that’s atomising the last threads of civility and cooperation while poisoning generations with greed that’s breaking the hearts and souls of the last of the real lore people.
EVERY non aboriginal Australian should be made to watch Homeland Story to truly understand what “reconciliation”, or in plain terms, mutual respect, look like. It’s also a devastating essay on how insidiously obstructive Governments, of every persuasion, have been in bulldozing those clearly articulated, often repeated requests into a heap around some “Service Centre” with an airstrip for the FIFO workforce who deliver “wrap around” services that choke the life out a culture that developed one of the very best child nurturing and education systems to have evolved on this planet.
Oh what a bitter irony.
Our governments will not accede that autonomy, they will not relinquish their claim to land and resources, they do not respect these cultures with anything more than trite symbolic gestures which are more often about entertaining the troops and onlookers in Brad’s world than about truly celebrating and supporting what we are rapidly losing.
The parties recruit the leaders and muzzle them with party standing orders, corrupts them with wealth and power, forever interrupting the growth of any real aboriginal representation or power.
I don’t blame them, I feel sorry for the candidates who must stand before some slick smirking marketing invention with the poster slogan “Mr Bullshits Local Candidate”, like they’re some fast food franchisee who hands out product, rather than being the “representative” for the community, their country.
It’s a sick system, but it stays sick while no-one’s contesting the point or pushing the agenda.
At the very least, if nothing else, Aboriginal Australia desperately needs to unite behind a single interest party, the Australian Aboriginal Party, to stand with the Greens, the Shooters and Fishers, the community independents in a cross bench that holds the slick men in their machines to some account.
But this issue, this nation defining issue, is not willingly or inventively being addressed by Parliament, representation is regularly proved a failed experiment, it is a corrupted practice that we need to eliminate.
You have a vote, use that vote to make change by the issue, and let us all move toward a real and responsive Democracy where we can make an economy out of making change and heal a nation through constructive conversations.
Pollee.net – 55c an issue pays for the news and views, carries your vote and decides what will happen to our laws and our Public Services.
(imagine influencers who help you come to the right decision about what to do when there’s something that needs doing. Only better ; )
