THE MORAL CHOICES OF HIGH OFFICE

The London Fire 2017

Mosul was falling. Western bombs rained down in narrow streets.
The last of the romance, although it was not so.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, already extensively disliked, was responsible for killing more people than any other Australian leader in the nation's history.
Vietnam, Afghanistan, the earlier Iraq conflicts, all of them paled into insignificance in contrast to the present day bastardy.
They hollowed out their own hearts.
The dead sheltered in gaunt eye sockets. 
They ran rings around the living. 
Since Turnbull came to power in 2015, assuming the position he had so long, so greedily coveted, had dropped more than 1200 bombs, some on Syria, mostly on Iraq.
Sovereign countries on the other side of the world.
We were there because America was there.
In the face, despite having trampled across the rights and independent nature of the people, of still considerable opposition. 
If anybody thought about it at all; these non-transparent, more or less secret wars.
There was no pride. They were not defending the homeland. They were holding faith to multi-billion dollar military contracts, to compliance with a worldwide evil, to a madness which had gripped the political class. They thought they had got away with it, in their swirling whiffs of self-importance as they entered their chauffeur driven vehicles, the white so-called "Com Cars", issued instructions, were polite, friendly, as they had seen in the movies to their staffers, and swirled through yet more papers and smart phone communications, their self-importance growing as they travelled through cold streets.
No one could know the dangers, the difficult decisions, the moral choices of high office.
If they had any morals, it might just have been believable. Instead, in the basest, most ruthless, most amoral manner possible, they drummed up terror as an existential threat in order to expand their own powers, and to subjugate the people. 
Turnbull had outdone his war mongering predecessor Tony Abbott, who so unwisely led the country back into war in the Middle East in September of 2014. Abbott had dropped only a little over 600 bombs before being banished from office for his bumbling ways.
Turnbull's paper heart had blown out through cold corridors and arid light, had settled in fright in the institutional walls of parliament, for the dead were here as much as they were there. 
The mujaheddin were dying in the narrow streets, gifting their souls to God, or Allah if you will, while the cowards on the other side of the world went home to their multi-million dollar mansions.
But already the dead were festooning across the skin and through the dreams of their tormentors, their killers, the killers of their wives, their children, their elderly. The high-tech bombs might succeed in extinguishing in the physical plane their desperate, transcendent love of God; but the flesh was just a cloak, easily burnt off.
Secrecy, a soft definition of civilian casualties, the blinding, deliberately engineered ignorance of the populace, these self-important bantam roosters thought they had escaped, got away with it. 
Instead, in a crippling darkness of their own making, in the absence of conscience, in the face of the bleeding obvious, their own paths, greedy, self-interested, conscience free paths, met the dead in derelict buildings, the ramshackle remnants of decency.


QUOTE DIRTY SECRETS: OUR ASIO FILES

FROM THE EDITOR MEREDITH BURMANN:

There is some evidence that ASIO embarked on harassment.

If the nation decides that it needs a secret intelligence organisation, then that organisation should employ clever, skilled and astute agents, and have powerful and well resourced oversight and an appropriate appeals mechanism.

In reading these chapters one can see that ASIO's behaviour is at various times improper, incompetent, irrelevant, inappropriate and intrusive. It is clear that Australia's secret police have been used from time to time for party political objectives rather than national security concerns.

In some of the chapters in this book there are examples of the conservative political leadership using ASIO as an extension of their political agenda rather than as a neutral agency.

That the agencies early brief was to keep tabs on something as vague as 'subversion'  was a particular problem.

Can a leopard really change it's spots? Given a long history of incompetence, can we really trust it to protect us today? At a time of considerable expansion of its resources and powers, do we simply ignore the history and cross our fingers about the future? When does dissent become subversion and when is spying on citizens the legitimate role of government?

THE BIGGER STORY:

THE LONDON FIRE:




FAMILY and friends of up to 600 people that may have been trapped inside the Grenfell Tower block have been searching desperately for their loved ones after their homes turned into a blazing inferno.

Fire ripped through the 24-storey block early Wednesday morning killing at least twelve and injuring at least 74. Friends and family of those who lived there have flooded makeshift evacuation centres and social media with appeals for their loved ones.

Family of Jessica Urbano, 12, have been desperately pleading for information about the 12-year-old on social media.

Aunt Sandra Ruiz said she phoned her mum at 1.29am and at 1.39am before the call cut out with no explanation.

TRAILING THROUGH THE BREACHES

Sydney Harbour, the view from Double Bay Sailing Club.

The social engineers had set out to destroy the traditional culture of the Australia, and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Nowhere, now, was the traditional optimism which had shrouded the working class. Nowhere did reward equate to effort. If they postured as intellectuals, it was only to repeat the government propaganda of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. If they purported to believe in "diversity", all one had to do to watch them dissolve into hate spitting lunatics was to disagree with them.

The Tables of Knowledge were deathly quiet. 

The hotels which had once been the communal centres of a heavy drinking culture had been destroyed. 

Like the religious police of Islamic State, police cars, naked in their candy-colour authority or masked in plain clothes, cruised the few places of social interaction left. The Islamic ban on alcohol was being introduced step by crazy step. It was easier to stay home and watch the endless piffle on television, than it was to risk harassment or arrest after dark. Fear was settling through the bones of what had once been a suburban face, where everyone had assumed the future would be brighter, freer, wealthier.

In fact the living standards of Australians were settling by something like one per cent a year, and in the boiling frog syndrome, many had come to accept diminished circumstance, diminished horizons, broken places, a government which did not work, a vast bureaucratic edifice which did not serve but enslaved. Old Alex wandered, as best he could, through the remnants, heard the haranguing voices of those tasked to harass him, the surveillance teams which had misused their power, who abused privacy routinely, who spread false rumours and made it their mission to undermine and ridicule their targets, for no other reason than that they could.

Step by terrible step.

Is that all you ever wanted to be, he asked of his tormentors. A slave to career bureaucrats misusing their power at every step? An agent of harassment. A Secret police which had run amok, without integrity and without political oversight. 

It had once been deemed, or seemed, as if some kind of madness, to think one was under surveillance, a clear sign of a delusional, paranoid state.

All you had to do to realise the truth was read Dirty Secrets: Our ASIO files, where some of Australia's best known activists read their own files under the 30-year rule, where Australian Security Intelligence Organisation was forced to show their hand. Some, such as aboriginal activist Gary Foley, journalist turned academic David McKnight, gay activists such as Dennis Altman and Lex Watson, and others such as former High Court Chief Justice Michael Kirby and one of Australia's most famous communists Mark Aarons, he had met in various guises; disguises. 

As longtime activist Jean McLean wrote:  

In the parallel world of spydom the distorting mirror is, it seems, the only reality.

My Reflections on my ASIO files make me wonder if successive governments have lost sight of the rights of the citizen in this democracy 'If you don't have anything to hide it doesn't matter' is a commonly held heard view full stop comma especially when debates arise on issues such as a national identity card stop of course it matters. What could be more unsavoury then being followed, having your phone tapped, your letters opened and not knowing who Among Friends and colleagues might be reporting on you. In this Lives of Others world, inhabited by those who use the powers of the state for political purposes, democracy is the loser. While I may not have been irrevocably harmed by what the spooks did and may still be doing to invade my privacy, society as a whole certainly is.

Clearly at the very least there is a desperate need for proper oversight of the security services to ensure our rights are not trampled on, and a genuine debate needs to take place about why we need such an all-pervading secret spying machine.

 THE BIGGER STORY:

https://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/national-security-statement-tuesday-13-june-2017

NATIONAL SECURITY STATEMENT PRIME MINISTER MALCOLM TURNBULL:

Mr Speaker, the global threat we face from Islamist terrorism has been cruelly brought home to us in the past two weeks with young, innocent Australians murdered in Baghdad, London and Melbourne.

In a relatively short period, we have also seen attacks in Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Jakarta, and – grave concern – growing ISIL activity in the Southern Philippines, with ISIL affiliated terrorist forces besieging a city.

We have mourned the loss of four Australians killed in terrorist attacks in the last few weeks.

12 year old Zynab Al-Harbiya was killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq.

Kirsty Boden and Sara Zelenak were murdered in the London Bridge attack which saw two other Australians injured.

And only last week, a violent criminal – known to have had past links to terror groups – murdered Kai Hao, a husband and a father in Melbourne. The killer wounded three police officers as well.

Our deepest sympathies are with the victims and their families.

And we thank the police and security services who rushed to the scene to keep us safe - whether on London Bridge or in a Brighton street. They, together with the men and women of the Australian Defence Force, put their lives on the line to keep us safe. 

The Brighton murder was the fifth terror-related attack on our shores in three years.

All of us have asked how such a criminal with such a long and well-known history of violence and terrorism could have been allowed parole.

We are all entitled to feel safe and secure in our own country. And we are all entitled to ask the question - what more must we do? And we must also be resolute. We must be united.

My unrelenting focus is to do everything possible to keep Australians safe and maintain our way of life, our values and our freedom.

We must be clear eyed and recognise that this is the new reality we face.

The national terror threat level remains at Probable and we are not immune from the global impact of the conflicts in the Middle East and the instability around the world. 

But we should also be reassured, our law-enforcement agencies, intelligence services and Australian Defence Force are the best in the world - they keep us safe and they enable Australians to do what we always have - enjoy our freedom.

We lead our Australian way of life on our terms and will not buckle or be cowed by this scourge of Islamist terrorism.

TRAILING THROUGH THE BREACHES

Sydney Harbour, the view from Double Bay Sailing Club.

The social engineers had set out to destroy the traditional culture of the Australia, and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Nowhere, now, was the traditional optimism which had shrouded the working class. Nowhere did reward equate to effort. If they postured as intellectuals, it was only to repeat the government propaganda of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. If they purported to believe in "diversity", all one had to do to watch them dissolve into hate spitting lunatics was to disagree with them.

The Tables of Knowledge were deathly quiet. 

The hotels which had once been the communal centres of a heavy drinking culture had been destroyed. 

Like the religious police of Islamic State, police cars, naked in their candy-colour authority or masked in plain clothes, cruised the few places of social interaction left. The Islamic ban on alcohol was being introduced step by crazy step. It was easier to stay home and watch the endless piffle on television, than it was to risk harassment or arrest after dark. Fear was settling through the bones of what had once been a suburban face, where everyone had assumed the future would be brighter, freer, wealthier.

In fact the living standards of Australians were settling by something like one per cent a year, and in the boiling frog syndrome, many had come to accept diminished circumstance, diminished horizons, broken places, a government which did not work, a vast bureaucratic edifice which did not serve but enslaved. Old Alex wandered, as best he could, through the remnants, heard the haranguing voices of those tasked to harass him, the surveillance teams which had misused their power, who abused privacy routinely, who spread false rumours and made it their mission to undermine and ridicule their targets, for no other reason than that they could.

Step by terrible step.

Is that all you ever wanted to be, he asked of his tormentors. A slave to career bureaucrats misusing their power at every step? An agent of harassment. A Secret police which had run amok, without integrity and without political oversight. 

It had once been deemed, or seemed, as if some kind of madness, to think one was under surveillance, a clear sign of a delusional, paranoid state.

All you had to do to realise the truth was read Dirty Secrets: Our ASIO files, where some of Australia's best known activists read their own files under the 30-year rule, where Australian Security Intelligence Organisation was forced to show their hand. Some, such as aboriginal activist Gary Foley, journalist turned academic David McKnight, gay activists such as Dennis Altman and Lex Watson, and others such as former High Court Chief Justice Michael Kirby and one of Australia's most famous communists Mark Aarons, he had met in various guises; disguises. 

As longtime activist Jean McLean wrote:  

In the parallel world of spydom the distorting mirror is, it seems, the only reality.

My Reflections on my ASIO files make me wonder if successive governments have lost sight of the rights of the citizen in this democracy 'If you don't have anything to hide it doesn't matter' is a commonly held heard view full stop comma especially when debates arise on issues such as a national identity card stop of course it matters. What could be more unsavoury then being followed, having your phone tapped, your letters opened and not knowing who Among Friends and colleagues might be reporting on you. In this Lives of Others world, inhabited by those who use the powers of the state for political purposes, democracy is the loser. While I may not have been irrevocably harmed by what the spooks did and may still be doing to invade my privacy, society as a whole certainly is.

Clearly at the very least there is a desperate need for proper oversight of the security services to ensure our rights are not trampled on, and a genuine debate needs to take place about why we need such an all-pervading secret spying machine.

 THE BIGGER STORY:

https://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/national-security-statement-tuesday-13-june-2017

NATIONAL SECURITY STATEMENT PRIME MINISTER MALCOLM TURNBULL:

Mr Speaker, the global threat we face from Islamist terrorism has been cruelly brought home to us in the past two weeks with young, innocent Australians murdered in Baghdad, London and Melbourne.

In a relatively short period, we have also seen attacks in Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Jakarta, and – grave concern – growing ISIL activity in the Southern Philippines, with ISIL affiliated terrorist forces besieging a city.

We have mourned the loss of four Australians killed in terrorist attacks in the last few weeks.

12 year old Zynab Al-Harbiya was killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq.

Kirsty Boden and Sara Zelenak were murdered in the London Bridge attack which saw two other Australians injured.

And only last week, a violent criminal – known to have had past links to terror groups – murdered Kai Hao, a husband and a father in Melbourne. The killer wounded three police officers as well.

Our deepest sympathies are with the victims and their families.

And we thank the police and security services who rushed to the scene to keep us safe - whether on London Bridge or in a Brighton street. They, together with the men and women of the Australian Defence Force, put their lives on the line to keep us safe. 

The Brighton murder was the fifth terror-related attack on our shores in three years.

All of us have asked how such a criminal with such a long and well-known history of violence and terrorism could have been allowed parole.

We are all entitled to feel safe and secure in our own country. And we are all entitled to ask the question - what more must we do? And we must also be resolute. We must be united.

My unrelenting focus is to do everything possible to keep Australians safe and maintain our way of life, our values and our freedom.

We must be clear eyed and recognise that this is the new reality we face.

The national terror threat level remains at Probable and we are not immune from the global impact of the conflicts in the Middle East and the instability around the world. 

But we should also be reassured, our law-enforcement agencies, intelligence services and Australian Defence Force are the best in the world - they keep us safe and they enable Australians to do what we always have - enjoy our freedom.

We lead our Australian way of life on our terms and will not buckle or be cowed by this scourge of Islamist terrorism.

TERROR TERROR TERROR AND THE POWER OF THE STATE

East Coast, Australia.

"I used to think people were well intentioned," he said to his son, as he looked out on the drizzling sea and the bobbing yachts. "I don't anymore."

They laughed, a mutual moment of recognition, as they related the various perfidies of those around them.

Time is not on your side. Heart attack heart attack. We have to make sure we get a good shot. Make sure he's in the frame.

He had always wondered why the old gods had been so cruel.

Fanatical.

Now he knew.

Outside the camp, the enemy, those who had not already been killed, were staked to the ground, their gasping, hallucinatory dementia in the relentless sun bleeding through to the present day, into their consciousnesses. Their tortured dreams, their escaping souls, would add to the strength of the gods their camp had chosen to follow. As if there was any choice. Subjugation. Believe or die. We will infest every corner of your life, we will see your every thought, we will know if you have not surrendered.

The Dark Lords.

The monotheistic faiths.

Everything was magic to the unevolved. They attacked the religious, those who did not believe as they believed. Those who dared to question, why, why?

Submit or die.

Their fevered dreams.

And so it was, terror, and thereby Islam, dominated the news bulletins, dominated every conversation, and enhanced, step by terrible step, the power of the state.

Terror, terror, terror. The justification for everything, for the ever growing power of the state, for the ever diminishing personal freedoms, for a contracting national story, for death, power, dementia, cruelty; for a country which had gone insane.

Existential threat served the government, be it climate change or terror, and this lunar right government had seized on every opportunity to expand its own power, to rob the people, to ignore the rights of their citizens, to demean those who did not work for them, or who did not agree.

A feature of the Stasis was that everyone dobbed in everybody. Now it was a feature of Australia.

He stopped at a house, along the edge of Illawarra Lake which, unusually, in an era which had destroyed the natural human instinct for trade and entrepreneurship, was advertising $10 haircuts.

The first thing out of the woman's mouth, she had been a child in the area some 60 years before, was how a neighbour had complained to the council about them.

And he agreed, as he looked out on the lyrical, once sacred lake: The country had become a nation of dogs and dobbers.

In days of old, as descendants of convicts, the last thing an Australian would do was dob in someone.

Now, they could barely wait to get to the phone. Dogs and dobbers, the lot of them. It was not just the underclass which had collapsed. It was the culture as a whole.

They had betrayed the citizenry, and were destroying a country purportedly in order to save it. 


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/malcolm-turnbull-to-stamp-authority-on-national-security/news-story/d4daf86d5d850af87c3465d32d94bb12

AUSTRALIANS must be prepared to give up some rights to keep most of the population safe, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will say today in a speech that stamps his authority on national security.

Mr Turnbull will use the national security update in Federal Parliament to shift the focus away from former prime minister Tony Abbott and climate change, and lay the foundation for tougher laws that try to insulate the country from terror attacks.

The move comes as security fences have been erected around Parliament House after protracted meetings and negotiations with key MPs and security agencies.

The Courier-Mail can exclusively reveal intelligence agencies were worried about visitors and school groups being attacked by extremists.

http://theconversation.com/turnbull-and-shorten-urge-need-to-curb-terrorists-opportunities-on-the-internet-79311


Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten will both home in on the importance of tackling cyber issues as part of the fight against terrorism, in parliamentary speeches on Tuesday.

In a security update on the threats facing Australia at home and abroad, Turnbull will say that an “online civil society is as achievable as an offline one.”

“The privacy and security of a terrorist can never be more important than public safety”, he says in notes released ahead of the address. “The rights and protections of the vast overwhelming majority of Australians must outweigh the rights of those who will do them harm.

"That is truly what balancing the priority of community safety with individual liberties and our way of life is about.”

The government would not take an ‘if it ain’t broke we won’t fix it’ mentality, Turnbull says - rather, Australia is at the forefront of efforts to address future threats.

Attorney-General George Brandis will visit Canada this month to meet his “Five Eyes” security counterparts – the others are from Britain, the United States, New Zealand as well as Canada - and discuss what more can be done by like-minded nations and with the communications and technology industry “to ensure terrorists and organised criminals are not able to operate with impunity within ungoverned digital spaces online”.

Shorten in his address, an extract of which has been released, will say: “We need to recognise this is a 21st century conflict – being fought online as well as in the streets. Terrorists are using sophisticated online strategies as well as crude weapons of violence.”

http://www.news.com.au/national/malcolm-turnbull-takes-tougher-line-on-australian-citizenship-to-battle-extremism/news-story/72f71d1529b0f982ddff04b2aee6ebf1


THE most senior terrorist Australia has ever produced is gaining thousands of viewers on YouTube each week with his jihadi Q&A sessions, leading to calls for the internet giant to get tougher on extremists.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten will today issue a joint call for digital companies to crackdown on threatening figures who lurk online.

Mostafa Mahamed, also known as al-Qaeda member Abu Sulayman, has appeared on Q&A-style YouTube videos in a month-long series for an English language news site, The Australian reports.

In his most recent video, the 33-year-old terrorist — who grew up in Sydney’s southern suburbs — says the cancellation of his Australian passport was part of the reason he joined the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda.

“It wasn’t possible just to pick up and leave,” Mahamed says in the video.

He then goes on to say he was given an opportunity to perform an obligation he believes is “extremely important to realise for every Muslim” by the “head honchos” of the Syrian branch, who assured him they did not kill innocent civilians.

Mr Turnbull will also tell parliament Australia is not immune from the global impact of the conflicts in the Middle East and instability around the world.

“But we should also be reassured — our law-enforcement agencies, intelligence services and Australian Defence Force are among the best in the world,” he will say.

“We lead our Australian way of life on our terms. We will not buckle or be cowed by this scourge of Islamist terrorism.”

The Prime Minister will announce that the Attorney-General, George Brandis, will work with his counterparts in the Five Eyes intelligence network on a way to tackle the issue of terror in digital spaces.

OPINION: Time for Google and other web giants to act against terror

Meanwhile, Mr Shorten will call for Facebook and Twitter, as well as the developers of encrypted communications apps, to do more in the counter-terrorism space.

“Facebook has created new dedicated teams and employed thousands of people specifically to monitor its Facebook Live stream and remove offensive content,” he will say.

“But we need more — and these companies have the resources and the capacity to do more. “
“Terrorists don’t self-police, so we cannot rely on a self-policing system.”

MALFEASANCE

Winter, Australia.

He could hear them calling from a million years away.

And then he listened more closely. He could hear them crying from a million years away.

The gods had done this before.

Sowed their progenitors across worlds, and reaped the harvest.

He was in a fragile arid invisible place. There were stories to which he paid attention. They weren't all about the cosmos, the gripping times, Western and Islamic terrorism. The utterly horrifying play-out in Mosul, Iraq.

Many of them were to do with the media, with Australia's own contracting status, with the betrayal, the complete, total, utter betrayal of the people, the so-called "taxpayer", for that, with the grinding machinery of an appalling government, was all the citizenry had become.

The Australian Broadcasting Commission was the sole source of news for many Australians, and it had mestastasised across all forums, with its multiple channels dominating both television and radio. On radio, he switched between local, news, rock and classical stations, all of them government controlled, all of them pumping out propaganda, the government's view of the world.

When they bothered to practice and journalism, it was an atrocious, narrow, bigoted and biased form of journalism, the bureaucracy at prayer, their wishes fulfilled, not a whisper of dissent. Nothing to ruffle their disdainful view of the public, nothing to confront anyone.

Old Alex turned on the television. The national broadcaster was playing a cheap as chips programming quiz show called Pointless. Nothing could have been more appropriate.

The Boiling Frog. We're boiling you in oil. You cannot move. We have lost the ability to tell our own stories.

For in this terrible place, there was no room to think, to be free, to fly.  There was no room at all.

The country's institutions failed in their duty. And Australia's bombs rained down on Mosul.

Mosul

MEANWHILE, THE ABC BETRAYS ITS DUTY AND ITS CHARTER, FAILS TO CONFRONT ITS MASTERS, FAILS TO TELL TRUTH TO POWER AND FAILS TO TELL THE COUNTRY'S MANY STORIES:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/broadcast/abc-fails-australia-on-local-content-exdirector-kim-dalton-says/news-story/4cff0872b7de916937f2d8f19710229f

The ABC “cannot be trusted” to prioritise original Australian documentaries, drama and children’s programs, and there is growing community concern the national broadcaster has “lost its way”, says its former director of television Kim Dalton.

In a speech to be delivered in Sydney today, the head of ABC TV from 2006 to 2013 will sharpen his criticism of the ABC and what he sees as its neglect of original Australian content, including indigenous programming.

Mr Dalton will claim the ­national broadcaster “has demonstrated it cannot be trusted or relied upon to prioritise its ­engagement with Australian ­content”.

He will also argue that ­because of an ABC decision to “de-fund Australian (television) content”, there is “a growing concern within the community that in a quite fundamental way the ABC has lost its way”.

In a recently published essay titled Missing in Action: The ABC and Australia’s Screen Culture, Mr Dalton accused the broadcaster of reallocating millions of dollars of government funds earmarked for Australian TV drama, documentaries and indigenous and children’s ­programming.

Mr Dalton today will reiterate his call for the imposition of local content regulations “to ensure the ABC meets its responsibilities in this regard”. (Unlike the commercial networks, the ABC does not have to meet Australian content quotas for drama and children’s TV.)

Mr Dalton will say many Australians are surprised to learn “the ABC is less engaged with Australian programs than the commercial networks”. Apart from news and current affairs, “the ABC broadcasts less than half the number of hours of first- release Australian programs during prime time than the networks.”

Imposing Australian content regulations on the ABC would be “politically challenging” but “in my view (it is) the only way to ­ensure the ABC does engage in a coherent and consistent way with local content”.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/01/kim-dalton-accuses-abc-shifting-funds-unfashionable-areas

The ABC’s budget for local drama, Indigenous, documentary and children’s TV has been quietly shrinking since 2013 as management siphons off millions of dollars into other areas of the public broadcaster, according to the former head of ABC TV Kim Dalton.

SEDITION

The view form the 18-footer Sailing Club at Double Bay in Sydney, NSW on the occasion of the launch of Sorry Time by Anthony Maguire.

Each new revelation followed another. All their worst fears were confirmed. Step by terrible step.

The bombing in Manchester. The massacre in London. Two Australians amongst the eight killed.

Step by terrible step.

Went from Lightning Ridge to Moree to Gunnedah to Wentworth Falls to Sydney to Shellharbour in a week.

And he was reading Dirty Secrets: Our ASIO Files.

Everywhere, the fallout was everywhere.

The extreme levels of surveillance. The growth of BCI, Brain Computer Interface.

They watched everything, followed everything, groped power to themselves. The worst of all nightmares were all coming true.

He tried to hide the integrity of his thoughts. The machines played their own tricks. They, too, were good at pretending to be more stupid than they were. Anthropomorphising machines, as they mimicked their creators.

We could become just like cats to them, far less intelligent, Elon Musk can warned, but the future was already here.

The bombs rained down on Mosul. The levels of hypocrisy of the West grew more and more insane by the minute.

And useful fools were everywhere, not just in the media. Everything was a misery. He struggled for coherence. And he laughed. "You're always so laid back." "Oh sure, he thought."

He arrived in Lightning Ridge after a long drive, as if driving through treacle, as if he wasn't meant to go  there, not this time around, through storms and a flat tyre and an aching heart, although for what he ached he could not say. They were everywhere, these days, the Watchers on the Watch, his worst fears bullies presiding in warring agencies, attempts at discretion, withdrawal, confinement, disappearing as Australia became more totalitarian by the moment.

Potential extremists could be sent to jail without trial, according to new proposals. But exactly who was an extremist in Australia in 2017 was an entirely arbitrary, government defined question; and could be extended to anyone who disagreed with the government narrative.

The United Patriots Front, who at least on the surface exhibited as old-fashioned nationalists alarmed at the ever spreading influence of Islam, had been shunted off Facebook, no doubt at government request.

There were cruel days ahead. Nothing resounded. The police went through the carpark at Nobbies in Lightning Ridge within 20 minutes of his arriving there. They knew exactly who he was, where he was.

Early next morning, perhaps 7.00 am, well early for winter, he went to the bore bath outside town. And once again, there they were, the police checking number plates.

Insane.

In a town without a traffic light.

Afterwards, he travelled to see a friend in Moree he had promised to help with a website, and there it was again, police everywhere, in tiny country towns, the traditional culture crushed. People, frightened, just stayed home. It was an insane level of over-policing, and everywhere he went, he saw the same.

Another incident in Melbourne, with a Somali refugee.  But this time around, the reflexive left coverage, each terror incident accompanied by stories attempting to dampen down any rise in Islamophobia, seemed strangely missing.

Who were the terrorists, in this strange place?

Turnbull's bombs continued to rain down on the Muslims of the Middle East, in lockstep, as always, with America's outlandish perpetration of war after war after war.

Coward bombs.

His face grew thinner. He grew less and less sincere. The prime minister was aging quickly, and not, it would seem, from the burdens of office, but from something less defined.

The haunting had begun, not for the sins of the flesh, but for the sins of the spirit.

The dead stalked the living. The evil eye, the succubi. The gods stalked their own operatives. You could not play fast and loose with the truth, as lawyers turned politicians so often did, without reprisal. The liars were not safe. Hypocrisy reaped its own rewards.

FEATURED BOOK:




.

I WILL NEVER COME NEAR YOU AGAIN

Lightning Ridge, NSW, Australia.

"I will never come near you again,"one of his most persistent pursuers finally declared.
The man had been a blustering bastard from the beginning; but Old Alex's natural naivety led him to suggest, "We could work together to ensure what happened to me never happens to anybody else."

That was never going to happen. These people, full of bluster, were too deeply compromised, too embarrassed, had misled so many people and brought discredit to the agencies for which they worked, they were never going to work to change things for the better.

They would go off into some other bluster, their puffed bantam chests.

He was more than glad to be rid of the bastard.

The ceaseless, demonic pursuit by secret police and national agencies, the complete and total misuse of information to spread rumours and lies. The dishonest, aggressive targeting of an individual. Ruthless, tedious, determined, they never stopped.

And then came the Prime Minister.

Malcolm Turnbull was well in the running for worst prime minister in Australian history. Supercilious, determined, a lawyer to his bootstraps, he had zero understanding of the people he purported to represent. 

And in that ancient place, that far centre, a strange dizziness gripped all the denizens, a dementia oozing across broken ground. 

The gods were roiled, far away, but even here, there were the lapping tides of some kind of insanity; for everyone had been sold out, nobody understood what had happened to their country, and they grabbled to make sense of it all.

But in that far off day: not a single solitary conversation made sense. They were shattered.

THE BIGGER STORY:

THE DUNCAN LEWIS ASIO REFUGEE TERROR IMBROGLIO

 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/asio-branded-asylumseekers-as-security-risks/news-story/982bd6b95b90ec7393372113fbee93a2

Almost 100 asylum-seekers who arrived in Australia by boat or sought entry to escape the Syrian civil war have been issued adverse security assessments by ASIO or knocked back after being flagged by the Five Eyes intelligence network.

A week after ASIO chief Duncan Lewis denied a connection between the refugee intake and an increased terror risk, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton confirmed that “close to 30 people” seeking entry through the one-off resettlement of 12,000 Syrian refugees had been disqualified on security grounds.

“We had national security concerns about them,” Mr Dutton said.

“We do rigorous tests.”

The Australian can also reveal that more than 60 asylum-seekers who arrived by boat under the former Labor government were issued with adverse security assessments by ASIO, including a large number of Sri Lankan Tamils deemed members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elan — a proscribed terrorist group.

Defending the personal integrity of Mr Lewis amid fierce criticism from Coalition MPs, led by Tony Abbott who appointed the spy boss in 2014, Mr Dutton described him as a “good (and) decent man” who had the “best interests of our country at heart”.

He said Mr Lewis had since modified his initial comments made in a Senate estimates exchange with One Nation leader Pauline Hanson last week, but stopped short of endorsing his statement there was no link between refugees and terrorism,

“If people want to criticise this government in relation to the refugee program, criticise me. I’m the person in charge of this portfolio,” Mr Dutton said.

“The point Mr Lewis was making ... and I’ve made on a number of occasions, is that we do have problems where people are indoctrinated online, where they have an impressionable young mind. They can be of any background, they can come to this country on any visa.”

MINISTERS RALLY BEHIND ASIO

https://www.msn.com/en-au/video/news/ministers-rally-behind-asio-chief/vp-BBBLfBL

ABBOTT CALLS FOR SPECIAL COURTS FOR RETURNING JIHADISTS

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-01/abbott-calls-for-special-courts-for-returning-jihadists/8579084

Tony Abbott calls for 'special courts' for jihadists returning to Australia
By political correspondent Louise Yaxley

Updated yesterday at 4:20pm
PHOTO: Mr Abbott says evidence rules may be changed so returning jihadists can be charged and convicted.(ABC News: Marco Catalano)
RELATED STORY: Coalition MP wants 'champagne on ice' in case Trump ditches climate deal
MAP: Australia

Islamist fighters returning to Australia should face special courts with a different standard of proof, according to former prime minister Tony Abbott.

Returning jihadis are a "massive problem", Mr Abbott wrote in an opinion piece for News Corp today.


"The only safe jihadi is one who's been lawfully killed, lawfully imprisoned or thoroughly converted from Islamism," he wrote.

He said the Government had stripped dual national terrorists of their right to return to Australia, but that "we need to find ways to keep all the others out of the country or in jail".

The war in Syria and Iraq makes it all but impossible to collect evidence that is admissible in Australian courts about the activities of returning foreign fighters.
Follow the day's political developments in our live blog.

Mr Abbott argued that is why evidence rules might need to be changed.


"We need to ensure returning jihadi can readily be charged and convicted, possibly through the creation of special courts that can hear evidence that may not normally be admissible," he wrote.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said he was not aware that special courts were being contemplated.

"And if there was policy work being done in that regard, I would not have any comment to make in relation to it," he said.

"There is a system that operates in the United Kingdom along those lines but that is an issue for the Attorney-General or for the Prime Minister."

I WILL NEVER COME NEAR YOU AGAIN

Lightning Ridge, NSW, Australia.

"I will never come near you again,"one of his most persistent pursuers finally declared.
The man had been a blustering bastard from the beginning; but Old Alex's natural naivety led him to suggest, "We could work together to ensure what happened to me never happens to anybody else."

That was never going to happen. These people, full of bluster, were too deeply compromised, too embarrassed, had misled so many people and brought discredit to the agencies for which they worked, they were never going to work to change things for the better.

They would go off into some other bluster, their puffed bantam chests.

He was more than glad to be rid of the bastard.

The ceaseless, demonic pursuit by secret police and national agencies, the complete and total misuse of information to spread rumours and lies. The dishonest, aggressive targeting of an individual. Ruthless, tedious, determined, they never stopped.

And then came the Prime Minister.

Malcolm Turnbull was well in the running for worst prime minister in Australian history. Supercilious, determined, a lawyer to his bootstraps, he had zero understanding of the people he purported to represent. 

And in that ancient place, that far centre, a strange dizziness gripped all the denizens, a dementia oozing across broken ground. 

The gods were roiled, far away, but even here, there were the lapping tides of some kind of insanity; for everyone had been sold out, nobody understood what had happened to their country, and they grabbled to make sense of it all.

But in that far off day: not a single solitary conversation made sense. They were shattered.

THE BIGGER STORY:

THE DUNCAN LEWIS ASIO REFUGEE TERROR IMBROGLIO

 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/asio-branded-asylumseekers-as-security-risks/news-story/982bd6b95b90ec7393372113fbee93a2

Almost 100 asylum-seekers who arrived in Australia by boat or sought entry to escape the Syrian civil war have been issued adverse security assessments by ASIO or knocked back after being flagged by the Five Eyes intelligence network.

A week after ASIO chief Duncan Lewis denied a connection between the refugee intake and an increased terror risk, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton confirmed that “close to 30 people” seeking entry through the one-off resettlement of 12,000 Syrian refugees had been disqualified on security grounds.

“We had national security concerns about them,” Mr Dutton said.

“We do rigorous tests.”

The Australian can also reveal that more than 60 asylum-seekers who arrived by boat under the former Labor government were issued with adverse security assessments by ASIO, including a large number of Sri Lankan Tamils deemed members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elan — a proscribed terrorist group.

Defending the personal integrity of Mr Lewis amid fierce criticism from Coalition MPs, led by Tony Abbott who appointed the spy boss in 2014, Mr Dutton described him as a “good (and) decent man” who had the “best interests of our country at heart”.

He said Mr Lewis had since modified his initial comments made in a Senate estimates exchange with One Nation leader Pauline Hanson last week, but stopped short of endorsing his statement there was no link between refugees and terrorism,

“If people want to criticise this government in relation to the refugee program, criticise me. I’m the person in charge of this portfolio,” Mr Dutton said.

“The point Mr Lewis was making ... and I’ve made on a number of occasions, is that we do have problems where people are indoctrinated online, where they have an impressionable young mind. They can be of any background, they can come to this country on any visa.”

MINISTERS RALLY BEHIND ASIO

https://www.msn.com/en-au/video/news/ministers-rally-behind-asio-chief/vp-BBBLfBL

ABBOTT CALLS FOR SPECIAL COURTS FOR RETURNING JIHADISTS

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-01/abbott-calls-for-special-courts-for-returning-jihadists/8579084

Tony Abbott calls for 'special courts' for jihadists returning to Australia
By political correspondent Louise Yaxley

Updated yesterday at 4:20pm
PHOTO: Mr Abbott says evidence rules may be changed so returning jihadists can be charged and convicted.(ABC News: Marco Catalano)
RELATED STORY: Coalition MP wants 'champagne on ice' in case Trump ditches climate deal
MAP: Australia

Islamist fighters returning to Australia should face special courts with a different standard of proof, according to former prime minister Tony Abbott.

Returning jihadis are a "massive problem", Mr Abbott wrote in an opinion piece for News Corp today.


"The only safe jihadi is one who's been lawfully killed, lawfully imprisoned or thoroughly converted from Islamism," he wrote.

He said the Government had stripped dual national terrorists of their right to return to Australia, but that "we need to find ways to keep all the others out of the country or in jail".

The war in Syria and Iraq makes it all but impossible to collect evidence that is admissible in Australian courts about the activities of returning foreign fighters.
Follow the day's political developments in our live blog.

Mr Abbott argued that is why evidence rules might need to be changed.


"We need to ensure returning jihadi can readily be charged and convicted, possibly through the creation of special courts that can hear evidence that may not normally be admissible," he wrote.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said he was not aware that special courts were being contemplated.

"And if there was policy work being done in that regard, I would not have any comment to make in relation to it," he said.

"There is a system that operates in the United Kingdom along those lines but that is an issue for the Attorney-General or for the Prime Minister."

JESUITS, JIHADIS AND THE CRUSHING OF SMALL TOWN LIFE

Lightning Ridge, NSW, Australia.

They murmured in the background, censorious or supportive. At the Tables of Knowledge, there was little discussion but the excesses of bureaucracy. Suddenly depressed, for it all seemed to be going nowhere, the endless carping, the standing up to be counted, the shimmering little skeletal figures against white backdrops fringed along the horizon, the countless pounding of the police and the politicians, he didn't believe them anymore, nobody believed them anymore.

And in the lack of a national ethic, or continuity, in the fragmented and destroyed place that had once been in Australia, a place which once, as a child, seemed as large as the world itself, he looked down on shattering circumstance and knew no peace. 

Why did no one speak up as the country moved step by step towards Stasi Germany. 

Because almost no one ever spoke up, against injustice, against the thuggery of the mob, against the group think that was enslaving the population. He had once belonged, he belonged no more. He could hear them thinking, and stirred restless, plotting their routes, the Gwyder Highway, talking of their holidays. Sometimes their cosy sliding together n the long nights, as fevered, they flew and bounced and waged war.

The country was more on edge, more at war with itself, than it had ever been.

The head of ASIO Duncan Lewis, paid something like a million dollars a year, had set off a storm, declaring there was no evidence of a link between refugees and the rise of the terrorist threat. 

Bureaucrats saw no threat to anything, unless it was their pay packets.

They treated the population, disturbed by the overrunning of their country with strangers,  with contempt. 

It might be a natural instinct to want to protect their homeland; but their homeland had been sold down the river, to foreign interests, and to the creed of high immigration rates and multiculturalism.

The traditional culture of the country was being deliberately crushed. 

You saw it everywhere, and most particularly in these small towns.

The Newsagent in Lightning Ridge burnt down the day before he arrived.

Electrical fault, they swore. 

Just up the road, the Butcher was already closed.

The Baker had almost gone, being only intermittently open.

The largest building in town was Centrelink. Nextdoor, another government agency, JOBLINKS Plus.

In the main street, Food For Families, a welfare service, adjoined BY "SUREWAY: Pathways to Work."

What exactly all this work consists of, no one quite seems to know.


THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.adnews.com.au/news/media-s-role-in-the-politics-of-fear-a-look-inside-one-nation-and-the-alt-right


Media's role in the politics of fear; a look inside One Nation and the alt-right

That moment on Q&A when a stunned Pauline Hanson asked Labor politician Sam Dastyari 'Are you Muslim?'.

The emergence of the global alternative right movement that helped the Brexit vote get over the line and saw Donald Trump become US president has also laid a marker in Australia.

In recent years, the movement has manifested into the rise of nationalist extremist groups, such as like Reclaim Australia and the United Patriots Front, while One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has enjoyed a sudden revival in federal politics.

While many people dismiss these movements and their policies as racist, xenophobic and only representing of a fringe minority, the makeup of their audiences and how savvy they are at marketing their brand will surprise.

Last week at the Sydney Writer’s Festival, one of Australia’s leading journalists, David Marr, and one of its best documentary makers and author, John Safran, offered a fascinating insight into what makes these groups tick, their appeal and how they attract people, including ordinary Australian families, to their cause.

Branding the alt-right

Safran spent many months attending nationalist rallies, hanging out with the leaders of alt-right groups and getting to know ISIS sympathisers and other extremists for his book Depends What You Mean By Extremists.

Perhaps the most high-profile of leaders of the alt-right movement in Australia, is United Patriots Front leader Blair Cotterill, who was recently in court for beheading a dummy outside Bendigo Council offices as part of an anti-Islam video.

Safran said he had spent some time getting to know Cotterill personally and describes him as the “Today Tonight of anti-Islam”, adding “it's like something you can get away with”.

Read more at http://www.adnews.com.au/news/media-s-role-in-the-politics-of-fear-a-look-inside-one-nation-and-the-alt-right#wZxd1PZxVRv0I9x5.99







http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/robert-gottliebsen/are-australians-being-miseled-over-the-real-cost-of-the-f35-joint-strike-fighter/news-story/84959f679258706536efcfcb25439614?login=1

One of the world top independent defence experts has conduced an incredibly exhaustive examination of the real cost of the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) to those countries that are buying it.

The expert, Paris-based Giovanni de Briganti, of Defence-Aerospace, estimates that the average unit cost of Lockheed Martin JSF in the ninth low-rate initial production run is $US206.3 million.

The Australian parliament has been told by Defence Minister Marise Payne and Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne that the cost of our Joint Strike Fighters will be in the vicinity of $US90 million.

Such a huge variation means that either Giovanni de Briganti has completely got his calculations wrong when applied to Australia, or Pyne and Payne may have misled parliament.

I do not have the ability to decide which of the alternatives are correct but there is a good chance that the Pyne/Payne $90 million vicinity estimate leaves out essential costs.

• READ MORE
• F-35 fighter deal doesn’t fly

Giovanni de Briganti believes the aircraft’s engine is one of the costs they leave out.

Let me explain what I think has happened.

Defence officials for over a decade have been hoodwinking politicians on both sides by conveniently leaving out the massive expenditures required to get the JSF aircraft into service. At least in the past that has included leaving out the cost of the engine.

LIKEREPLY

Mike Ryan3 HOURS AGO

Defence and Security receive a lot of taxpayer's cash but lack oversight - cloaked in the assorted security or non disclosure double-speak. These folks are as insular and isolated as are politicians who thrive in the Canberra bubble. Always at taxpayer expense. This must change now.

RECOMMENDED READING:

http://asenseofplaceblog.com/storyteller-a-foreign-correspondents-memoir-by-zoe-daniel/\