re: human rights us style/dave
Sorry Dave, I can't just leave this alone because your attitude is one that I have difficulty understanding. I cannot understand how decent (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt )Australians have allowed themselves to be perverted by the Howard agenda.
Lets get back to what you have chosen to believe specifically about the two Australians in Guantanamo bay on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. This is akin to what most people believed when the Govt behaved so digracefully with the Tampa asylum seekers. Howard himself said "we don't want those sorts of people here". Why did he do that? Did he really know who they were or was he embarking on the most cynical of exrcises based on the lives of the most miserable group of human beings just to bolster his political future.
We now know of course after world wide condemnation, after Ausralia was made to look mean and petty, after the lies of the children overboard, that at least 100 of these poor individuals were genuine asylum seekers. Did we stop to find out first? No Howard made them into political capital and condemned them to over a year in prison camps.
What was the Australian public's response to that? They thought (with plenty of government and shock jock assistance) that these were "queue jumpers, spies, terrorists anything but what they said they were. They desreved to be thrown back out onto the high seas...
Where am I going with all of this? Simply that Howard has created a climate in which our basic decency, our belief in the basic rights of democratic justice and humanity have been undermined. We believe what we are told or manipulated to believe. Just as most believe that all who are locked up in Guantanamo bay are terrorists, all asylum seekers are queue jumpers or worse. We are prepared to act in a way, I never thought possible in this country. And don't tell me there's a war on. New Zealand has managed to retain its moral compass. Do we seem them rushing for the US skirts? Do we see them selling off their self respect for the warm glow from Uncle Sam? Hardly.
I know this will do nothing to convince all you hard liners out there. All I hope is that you are never a refugee....
