Beyond The Fringe

This film is a powerful exposes of the way vulnerable countries are ruthlessly farmed by empire and its mercantilist consorts, assisted by the World Bank and IMF, to the detriment of local people and environment.

Don’t just sit stunned after watching, get out there and challenge the corporations and countries who enslave people for venal gain. Spread the word, make this film viral!

This is the original text of a letter to the editor published in the New York Times in 1948 signed by prominent Jewish intellectuals, including Albert Einstein.

Letters to The Times New York Times December 4, 1948

New Palestine Party Visit of Menachem Begin and Aims of Political Movement Discussed

TO THE EDITORS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.

The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.

Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin’s behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement.

The public avowals of Begin’s party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.

Attack on Arab Village

A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants—240 men, women, and children—and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community
was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin.

The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party.

Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model.

During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the
terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.

The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots.

Discrepancies Seen

The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a “Leader State” is the goal.

In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin’s efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin.

The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.

ISIDORE ABRAMOWITZ, HANNAH ARENDT, ABRAHAM BRICK, RABBI JESSURUN CARDOZO, ALBERT EINSTEIN, HERMAN EISEN, M.D., HAYIM FINEMAN, M. GALLEN, M.D., H.H. HARRIS, ZELIG S. HARRIS, SIDNEY HOOK, FRED KARUSH, BRURIA KAUFMAN, IRMA L. LINDHEIM, NACHMAN MAISEL, SEYMOUR MELMAN, MYER D. MENDELSON, M.D., HARRY M. OSLINSKY, SAMUEL PITLICK, FRITZ ROHRLICH, LOUIS P. ROCKER, RUTH SAGIS, ITZHAK SANKOWSKY, I.J. SHOENBERG, SAMUEL SHUMAN, M. SINGER, IRMA WOLFE, STEFAN WOLFE.

New York, Dec. 2, 1948

Source notes: Laura Nader gave a copy of the microfilmed NYT to Anne Lipow in April. (Nader has been using it in her class at UC). The copy was illegible in parts and the first column was cut off; Laura’s original was the same. Anne and UC Anthropology Librarian Suzanne Calpestri then tried to retrieve an electronic version of the letter. It
appears nowhere in its entirety on the Internet, and is not in any NYT electronic archive accessible to UC Librarians (i.e., it doesn’t exist). Suzanne made another copy from a different microfilm; it solved the mystery of the missing first column but this copy was also “dirty” in other areas. Neither copy was scannable using OCR,so I typed it in by hand exactly the way it appeared in the original, and have proofed it carefully. However, the spelling of some of the signatories was unclear in the microfilmed originals, so there may be a few errors in this rendition. It would be nice if someone were to annotate the list of signatories, so that those less-familiar names could be placed in
context. At any rate, this clearly belongs IN FULL TEXT on the web for distribution to as many people as possible. Please circulate this among anyone you think may be interested; I think it especially belongs in the hands of those friends and family members who are still reluctant to criticize the Israeli government.

source info: Jenny Lipow Berkeley, CA 22 May
2002

It’s instructive to contrast the above honest appraisal and abhorrence of Zionist ideology and its atrocious acts of terrorism against the indigenous people of Palestine with this letter by Barenboim et al to the New York Review of Books, which the Angry Arab rightly identifies as ‘a piece of trash’.

This is like asking a family that has been conquered and beaten and shot at and whose house has been occupied by a merciless killer to sign a statement to foreswear force once and for all.

…

And then they call on me to transcend the past? How cute is that? If the realities on the ground favor one side (the killers, the conquerers, the usurpers, the colonizers) then any call for transcending the past is a mere call for legitimizing and accepting not only occupation, but all t

Fires are an everpresent threat in Australia – many catastrophic blazes are lit by firebugs. With soaring temperatures in Victoria and New South Wales, dozens of people have died in the latest bush fires.

Fierce winds were fanning the fires and pushing them in unpredictable directions in Victoria on Sunday, after temperatures reached a state record of 47 degrees Celsius.

Forecasters said hot and uncertain weather conditions would continue through the day on Sunday.

Blair Trewin, a climatologist with the National Climate Centre in Melbourne, told Al Jazeera: “They are the most extreme conditions that we have ever seen in historic record in parts of southeastern Australia.

“We are seeing an upward trend in temperatures in Australia as elsewhere in the world.”

More than 600 houses have been destroyed by the fires.

The worst wildfires in recent memory killed 75 people and razed 2,500 homes in Victoria in 1983.

In south Queensland we continue to enjoy pleasant summer weather, while in the north of the state, there’s flooding. Australia – a land of climatic extremes.

UPDATE FEB 9

107 people are now known to have perished in the fires, which are still raging through Victoria and New South Wales.

Authorities suspect arsonists are responsible for some fires and police are treating some razed towns as crime scenes.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, says deliberately starting the fires is mass murder.

…

The fire that is of most concern is burning out of control in Victoria’s north-east, threatening the townships of Stanley and Eskdale.

…

The other major fire of concern, the Murrindini Mill fire, is moving north-east and is now about 93,000 hectares in size.

Fire authorities are also warning it will take several more days to control a large blaze burning near Victoria’s biggest electricity generator, the Loy Yang power station.

There are 50 fires raging across New South Wales. A 31 year old Gosford man has been arrested for arson.

UPDATE FEB 10

At last, something that captures the imagination of Australia’s vampire media more than the global economic situation and counting ever-dwindling loot.

173 people have now died, and blame is being thrown here, there and everywhere. Beyond the predictable media frenzy, I see this as a tangible expression of denial, the first stage of grief. 911 had the same effect on folks – blame everyone except the culture which through its practices, contributed to the calamity.

There’ll be plenty of time to look for answers, if there are any which can really be addressed, given our frustrating 200 years of braindead whitey farming practices, 40,000 of pre-colonial firing techniques which preceded these and folks’ unwillingness to learn from science and successful models of integrating human habitation with the environment on which it depends.

How many people know that most eucalypts are weeds in Australia, which create the conditions they need to colonise, whose seeds only germinate when fired? It is more popular to romanticise about the noble Australian aboriginal living in ‘harmony’ with ‘nature’ than look with a scientific eye at the result of their nomadic farming experience.

Once the large slow moving forest dwelling herbivorous marsupials were hunted to extinction, it became traditional for our traditional owners to use fire to promote grassland for kangaroos – which conveniently breed like – kangaroos.

Always a joey in the pouch, one out grazing, always another on the way.

And eucalypts, with their need for fire, thrived at the expense of hardwood wet forest timber.

Clearing and much, much more firing by whiteys have increased the problem – along with the urban sprawl into Victoria’s bushland. You’d think we’d have learnt the lesson by now – this land can’t support the people it has – not enough water or arable farmland to depend upon. Yet our stupid government ignores the very real environmental impacts and limitations whilst mouthing rubbish about a sustainable economy needing more people. This bleating has been going on since whitey arrived here – the first settlers saw an empty land which needed wave on wave of migrants, with Australia’s rivers and forests bearing the brunt.

The choices are stark – either live with the forests – which make rain and oxygen on which we depend, revegetate with non-fire dependent species as much as possible, and take sensible precautions against bushfire catastrophes; or chop down even more of our precious bushland, till most of our land becomes as dry as the Simpson Desert.

From Al Jazeera’s Creative Commons Repository.

Al Jazeera’s Creative Commons Repository contains a large amount of video footage from Israel’s war on Gaza which can be used freely.

Bombs are raining down on Gaza. In that tiny, densely populated strip of land on the Mediterranean, under merciless siege for the past 18 months, there is nowhere to hide, no sophisticated air raid shelters or safe zones. When the chilling phone call comes from the Israeli psyops that one’s home is near a target, there is nowhere safe to go. The initial Israeli attack however was reportedly a surprise.

It is well worth considering that 55% of the 1.5 million Gazan population are under the age of 18. Israel has killed 31 children and wounded 140 thus far in the past 4 days of its pogrom from a total 360 375 people killed and counting.

Israeli politicians and their complicit foreign muppets coldly bleat about how Hamas must stop its barrage of homemade rockets which have killed 4 people during Operation Cast Lead.

Seamus Milne observes:

During the last seven years, 14 Israelis have been killed by mostly homemade rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, while more than 5,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel with some of the most advanced US-supplied armaments in the world. And while no rockets are fired from the West Bank, 45 Palestinians have died there at Israel’s hands this year alone.

Yet Israel refuses to seek a truce – they have more killing in mind and a powerful military funded gratuitously with yankee dollars with which to accomplish their goals.

Are they are enjoying this slaughter, this reenactment of the Shoah which was visited upon them long ago and with which they have threatened the people of Gaza this year? Will they stretch out their criminal collective punishment of the Gazan people until that mindless fool Bush is out of office?

How does Israel benefit from its vile acts of genocide? As Johann Hari accurately comments (the whole story is essential background to the current disaster):

Before it falls down the memory hole, we should remember that last week, Hamas offered a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises. Don’t take my word for it. According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, “told the Israeli cabinet [on 23 December] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms.” Diskin explained that Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet – high with election fever and eager to appear tough – rejected these terms.

The core of the situation has been starkly laid out by Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad. He says that while Hamas militants – like much of the Israeli right-wing – dream of driving their opponents away, “they have recognised this ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future.” Instead, “they are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967.” They are aware that this means they “will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals” – and towards a long-term peace based on compromise.

The rejectionists on both sides – from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Bibi Netanyahu of Israel – would then be marginalised. It is the only path that could yet end in peace but it is the Israeli government that refuses to choose it. Halevy explains: “Israel, for reasons of its own, did not want to turn the ceasefire into the start of a diplomatic process with Hamas.”

Why would Israel act this way? The Israeli government wants peace, but only one imposed on its own terms, based on the acceptance of defeat by the Palestinians. It means the Israelis can keep the slabs of the West Bank on “their” side of the wall. It means they keep the largest settlements and control the water supply. And it means a divided Palestine, with responsibility for Gaza hived off to Egypt, and the broken-up West Bank standing alone. Negotiations threaten this vision: they would require Israel to give up more than it wants to. But an imposed peace will be no peace at all: it will not stop the rockets or the rage. For real safety, Israel will have to talk to the people it is blockading and bombing today, and compromise with them.

The sound of Gaza burning should be drowned out by the words of the Israeli writer Larry Derfner. He says: “Israel’s war with Gaza has to be the most one-sided on earth… If the point is to end it, or at least begin to end it, the ball is not in Hamas’s court – it is in ours.”

The last thing Israel has ever wanted in its blighted, ugly existence is peace – it has proved this time and time again. Until it has expropriated all it wants from the Palestinians, it is in the interests of the Zionist enterprise to divide and conquer using Hamas and Fatah as pawns, manipulate international opinion, run a concentration camp in Gaza and get away as it usually does with endless bloody murder.

Muso extraordinaire Darren Hanlon, bringing in 2009 on the Fringe!

Imagine there’s no heaven, I wonder if you can …

“A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.” – Nelson Mandela

Ghazza bombed again … military might against the occupied and oppressed in a blockaded prison camp, Israel getting away with murder for the past 60 years. As Shalom Rav says:

How on earth will squeezing the life out of Gaza, not to mention bombing the living hell out of it, ensure the safety of Israeli citizens?

We good liberal Jews are ready to protest oppression and human-rights abuse anywhere in the world, but are all too willing to give Israel a pass. It’s a fascinating double-standard, and one I understand all too well. I understand it because I’ve been just as responsible as anyone else for perpetrating it.

So no more rationalizations. What Israel has been doing to the people of Gaza is an outrage. It has has brought neither safety nor security to the people of Israel and it has wrought nothing but misery and tragedy upon the people of Gaza.

Jewish Voice for Peace pleads for an end to the insanity:

Jewish Voice for Peace joins millions around the world, including the 1,000 Israelis who protested in the streets of Tel Aviv this weekend, in condemning ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza. We call for an immediate end to attacks on all civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli.

Israel’s slow strangulation of Gaza through blockade has caused widespread suffering to the 1.5 million people of Gaza due to lack of food, electricity, water treatment supplies and medical equipment. It is a violation of humanitarian law and has been widely condemned around the world.

In resisting these humiliations, Hamas resumed launching rockets and mortars from Gaza into southern Israel, directly targeting civilians, which is also a war crime. Over the years, these poorly made rockets have been responsible for the deaths of 15 Israelis since 2004.

Every country, Israel included, has the right and obligation to protect its citizens. The recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza shows that diplomatic agreements are the best protection for civilian life.

Moreover, massive Israeli air strikes have proven an indiscriminate and brutal weapon. In just two days, the known death toll is close to 300, and the attacks are continuing. By targeting the infrastructure of a poor and densely populated area, Israel has ensured widespread civilian casualties among this already suffering and vulnerable population.

This massive destruction of Palestinian life will not protect the citizens of Israel. It is illegal and immoral and should be condemned in the strongest possible terms. And it threatens to ignite the West Bank and add flames to the other fires burning in the Middle East and beyond for years to come.

The timing of this attack, during the waning days of a US administration that has undertaken a catastrophic policy toward the Middle East and during the run-up to an Israeli election, suggests an opportunistic agenda for short-term political gain at an immense cost in Palestinian lives. In the long run this policy will benefit no-one except those who always profit from war and exploitation. Only a just and lasting peace, achieved through a negotiated agreement, can provide both Palestinians and Israelis the security they want and deserve.

While the eve of destruction incorporating stock market crashes exhaled in the last panicky gasps of the print media is ever-present, over in the corner governments are getting busy with plans clamp down on our internet access as if our connections weren’t slow enough already. And now there’s shallow pontifications from UK “Culture” Secretaries … the pestilent, sanctimonious drive for control spreads fast.

The only thing worse than filthy web sites, are the filthy politicians who assure you that they are not launching their campaign to restrict free speech as a campaign to restrict free speech.

The Fringe is preparing a list of the best of the lists of whatever it was about 2008 that got you going. Meanwhile, we’re listening to our collection of live-streaming Darren Hanlon gems.

In an earlier comment on this blog, Observer wrote:

Sorry mate, but many of the blog entries clearly show that a majority of the public are actually mis-informed on these filtering initiatives. I have seldom seen so many mis-quotes and inaccurate statements passed on and reprinted en masse, then appears a day later reprinted in scores of blogs as fact.

Observer doesn’t actually bother to list any mis-quotes or inaccurate statements. Apparently merely asserting that there are some is enough to convince the uninterested reader that this is so.

And that is the danger with blogs. No evidence, no references, no accurate quotes, and often a mish-mash of what was actually said and was proposed.

Again, no evidence, no references, no accurate quotes. And, often, a mish-mash of what the arguments against the filter are. Touche, sir.

The scope of the filtering is an excellent example. Many people are outraged that there **would** be “”mandatory filtering”” of anything the gov deems inappropriate. What a load of bull, this has never been proposed.

There are many sources of outrage – I shall list a few:

• that critics of the filter keep getting accused by a Minister of the Crown as being supporters of child pornography
• that people keep asserting the filter will be equivalent in all respects to the operation of the National Classification Board
• that the only material that will be targeted by the filter is material that would be illegal to possess offline (false: the ACMA blacklist can even include MA15+ material under some circumstances)

Observer continues:

Many bloggers are outraged that we now have censorship piled upon us. Fact? Australia has had censorship for over a 100 years for other mediums and media formats, this is now being applied to the Internet as a communications medium as well.

I think you will find that most opponents of the filter are outraged that the Government is attempting to censor a medium like the Internet as if it were a medium like TV, radio or books. The Internet is different – not because it licenses immoral behaviour – but because effective and unobtrusive censorship of it is almost impossible to achieve. Society needs to recognise that fact and use other mechanisms to deal with the problems it causes. We should maintain the classification system and we should retain controls over TV, radio, films and books, but we should also recognize that the Internet makes such controls somewhat pointless – a banned book can in principle be obtained in PDF form over a p2p network, even if it is Refused Classification here. It is fine for the Government to make pronouncements about standards, yet trying to enforce them with technically ineffective mechanisms is futile. Trying to enforce them with effective mechanisms would be totalitarian and definitely a bridge too far.

Many statements claiming the gov will be able to blacklist and control the content of the Internet. What a load of rubbish. The Censorship Board does this as with all other media formats, inc films, mags, books, TV etc. Give me a break.

Observer appears to be claiming that the mechanism being proposed to censor the Internet is in some way similar to the existing processes of the National Classification Board. It cannot be, for the following reasons:

• a listing in the ACMA blacklist does not require review by the National Classification Board
• the identity of content blocked by the ACMA blacklist is not published and is not subject to public review
• the processes of the National Classification Board cannot be scaled up to deal with the volume of material that potentially falls within the scope of “prohibited online content”

Many claim the gov can secretly deny us access to content they do not approve of. Another load of old rubbish. You could only claim that if you have no idea how the Internet works… I can cross-check the contents of a blocked page within minutes, without accessing it, and these facilities are available to all Australians, and will be more available in the future. (Just get someone outside of Oz to check the page – hohumm how easy…)

On this point I agree – the Government will never be able to completely suppress information that it doesn’t want people to read. However, even the Great Firewall of China doesn’t work that way. Its main aim is to constantly remind the population that the Government is observing the media they consume. It is aimed at the middle 90% of the population, not the dissident 5%. They have different ways to deal with the dissident 5%.

I have argued that the Government’s plan only makes sense if it is viewed as a means of moderating the porn consumption habits of the middle 80% of the population. It has nothing to do with combatting actual perverts at all. It is all about moderating the (non-illegal) porn consumption habits of the middle 80%. Many may agree that this is a reasonable objective to aim for but setting the boundaries of acceptable porn usage is very definitely a political act in itself. Groups opposed to pornography will be fighting hard to get their least favourite fetishes included on the ACMA blacklist.

Myriad claims of probable false positives on the mandatory filters: Again a load of rubbish and again if the *experts* actually know anything about the Internet and content filtering, then they know that you cannot have false positives on a blacklist entry…. You can only have false positives on automated categorisation systems, that can incorrectly analyse the page. Complaints based entries into a blacklist, via review from the censorship board, are a manual and legally required process preceding blacklist entry for the madatory filtering. If you have a problem with a blocked page, complain to the Censorship Board, not the messengers…

You are assuming that the process which admits things to the blacklist is perfect and never makes a mistake. How could this be? the blacklist isn’t public and is not subject to review. It is simply false that an entry on the blacklist requires review by the National Classification Board. It does not, and if the blacklist is to be effective, it could not since the National Classification Board cannot scale its processes to the volume of material that is potentially blocked by the definition of “prohibited online content”.

Even if we restrict ourselves to the operation of the opt-out filter that will presumably use dynamic filtering (it has to if it is to be anyway effective), the concerns about overblocking and underblocking are very real. Then we have the unintended consequences such as the recent Wikipedia incident. And, remember, the Government’s plan is to subject everyone to opt-out filtering by default. The bulk of the population will have to deal with the consequences of inaccurate filtering unless they choose to opt-out; something they may well do if the filtering comes anywhere near its stated aims of making the Internet a “safe” place for children because such a filter will, almost by definition, be quite obtrusive in nature.

Another falacy? ISPs become the “Censors” and must decide on content. What drivel. Again, and for those not listening, the Censorship Board makes the DECISIONS on what is refused classification and thus illegal. No decisions by the ISP. The ISP is the gateway to the public and business sectors, and it is in their distribution networks that the technology needs to be applied. Nothing else. They carry no censorship responsibilities, but will be required to have the ability to implement the devices and software that can execute on the gov policy. Simple legal requirement, just like customs agents on the wharves and at airports…

Feel free to provide a quote where someone says that the ISPs will be making classification decisions in the case of the mandatory filter. The complaints I have read are that ISPs will be forced to carry the costs of running the censorwalls. The Government simply hasn’t specified how the opt-out filters are meant to work. There has been talk of dynamic filters run by unspecified commercial entities. Such filters don’t refer HTTP requests to the National Classification Board for real-time classification decisions. They involve applying rules to URLs and content. Will ACMA specify this rule-set too? Or will the decisions be delegated, by ISPs, to 3rd party filtering agencies? I would suggest that the latter is highly likely.

The ISP would be breaking the law if he interferes and makes censorship decisions. Anything clearer than that??

That’s a very big call to make when legislation hasn’t been drafted yet. Or perhaps you know something we don’t. Pray tell ..

FRallacy again folks? “We will have censorship like China” : More drivel. What an incredible insult to the Chinese who truly suffer under a repressive dictatorship and endure circumstances of deprivation, while we bask in sunshine, vote out governments we do not like, can openly protest, can insult the Minister every 5 minutes online in hundreds of blogs and can burn his effigy if we want.

In a very real sense, it will be like censorship in China. Perhaps not as extreme, but certainly it will be about making people think twice if they stray too far from the media consumption habits of the middle 80%. X-rated material is currently prohibited online content and presently can be listed on the ACMA blacklist. Until the Government states otherwise, such material is potentially subject to filtering by the mandatory filter. If an adult attempts to view such material and is blocked, they will wonder about whether they have done something illegal and they will moderate their future consumption of media material. It’s not totalitarian social control, but it is still control. And it is the only sort of control that the filter has any chance of delivering.

I would like my government to treat me as a responsible adult who can be trusted not to look at child pornography just because it is there. I haven’t had trainer wheels for 33 years, I don’t want them now.

What a mob of whingers… China does not have blogs like this, no open protests, no insulting Ministers, no Electronic Frontiers. But they have censorship way beyond anything proposed here. Get off your high horses folks and stick to reality, and stop insulting my associates in China who risk jail by just communicating across the Internet with the West.

I think too many of you have been watching too many Jason Bourne movies…

Perhaps we just don’t like the idea of handing the Government opaque mechanisms of social control on a silver platter. Perhaps you are firmly wedged in the middle of the middle 80% and never have reason to raise a voice in dissent. Perhaps your definition of the pornographic includes everything saucier than lingerie catalogues. That’s fine. This filter is made for you. In fact, you can buy it now. However, I am not sure why you insist that everyone else needs to be subjected to it.

BTW: Thanks for running the blog. I actually do appreciate being able to let off some of my own steam, and although it may look otherwise, it is not directed personally at any person… I want all the freedom I can on the Internet, but to be able to walk the streets in freedom the police must keep the crap off them as well…

And thank you for providing an opponent with whom to debate this issue. There are so few about. I am sure that if you start your own blog you will get lots of comments to help you “vent steam”.

Essential viewing – Senator Conroy makes an ass of himself … again! When will our Kevvie realise that Conroy is a painful embarrassment to the Labor Party and a witless obstruction to Australia’s economic and social future? Why won’t Conroy listen to the experts in the internet industry? It makes one wonder if he accepts the advices of his personal GP!

If only the government would switch its enthusiasms to resourcing spam hunters. Spam, which incidentally often contains ever-changing pron urls which can be inadvertently or deliberately clicked on by minors, costs business many $$$$. Conroy might like to use Google’s new Return on Investment Calculator to work out what spam costs him personally then extrapolate.

Then there’s the scumbag phone spammers who keep ringing several times daily despite one being registered on the Government do not call list for years. Or is that how they get the Fringe’s number?

UPDATE Dec 6

Bayes’ Theorem 1 result – filters will be inaccurate.

Conroy filters to be another prototype test, not a live filter pilot.

Conroy filters to bring electoral backlash to Rudd.

Clive Hamilton stirred an orchestra of disdain this week at Crikey with an amazing flakey rant, bragging about his fathering of Conroy’s proposed net censorship bastard. Such a polyphony of fallacious sour notes is peculiar from a Professor of Ethics with University maths training who regrets not studying philosophy, as Jon Seymour reveals in the foot of his superb dissection of Clive’s fuzzy thinking – and it shows.

Again in contrast, many of the comments following Clive’s disastrous diatribe, Colin Jacob from the EFA’s excellent article and Stilgherrian’s wittily scathing remonstrations, display cogent, honest reasoning.

For a very readable overview of the Australian net censorship issue, Raena Lea-Shannon’s piece “Conroy’s Web” is highly recommended. In the UK, Conroy is shamed as well, with the Guardian publishing a feature on Australia’s past and present antipodean obsessions with censorship.

And last but by no means least, Matthew Thompson over at ABC Unleashed makes the Fringe’s annoyance with the shallow populist prudery and technological blinkerdom of Rudd and team seem positively milquetoast.

Is debate between moral absolutism and moral relativism a red herring when the primary criticism of Conroy’s scheming is its technical unfeasibility? or should we watch carefully regardless, since as Oz moves toward a republic, tussles between cognitivists, noncognitivists and other philosophical camps will be germane to the formation (or not) of an Australian Bill of Rights.

NB To follow up – current HREOC Discussion paper and Louis Brandeis’ famous judgment.

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. . . . Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present, unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.

TWITFLASH!

@michaelmeloni
Clive Hamilton responds ( http://is.gd/8Drp ) to Jon Seymour’s article on STotC ( http://is.gd/8xz8 ) #nocleanfeed

MORE NEWS

Glenn Milne weighs into the debate, examining some of the unintended consequences of existing net filters.

Jon Seymour has now rejoindered to Hamilton’s response to him, aptly pointing out the false dichotomy presented in Clive’s ‘argument’ and maintaining “unless Clive admits he made a mistake and that his dichotomy was actually false, the charge of intellectual dishonesty still stands”.

Mark Newton comments on the impact of filters on net speeds.

Somebody Think of the Children notes that Logipik, a php image filter, interprets pictures of Conroy as porn.

More comment on the unworkability and undesirability of Conroy’s net filters from internet security expert, James Turner.

NEWS UPDATE

Senator Nick Minchin encapsulates the current debate on net censorship (Fringe can’t believe she’s commending a Lib for principled common sense – are they returning to their ‘liberal’ origins?):

“The Opposition firmly believes that adult supervision, supported by optional user-end filters, effective law enforcement and education should be front and centre of any efforts to keep children safe online,” he said.

“In relation to criminal conduct online, our nation’s law enforcement bodies must be adequately resourced to monitor and investigate unlawful activity.

“There is no technical substitute for appropriate adult supervision when it comes to keeping our children safe online and most parents and teachers take that responsibility very seriously and any suggestions to the contrary are patronising and offensive,” Senator Minchin said.

“Labor’s plan to implement a mandatory Internet filter at ISP level has been roundly attacked with valid concerns raised about its likely effectiveness, the adverse impact it would have on Internet speeds and performance and also the precise nature of the content the Government plans to filter.

“The Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has further fuelled concerns with his talk of filtering not only illegal content, but also unwanted and inappropriate content. This policy proposal is also causing Australia embarrassment internationally, with comparisons to the world’s most repressive regimes,” Senator Minchin said.

“The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” – John Gilmore

UPDATE 30 Nov

Chris Berg from the Institute of Public Affairs points out the obvious:

There is a certain element of Australian political culture that sees censorship and banning as the panacea to almost every social and policy question. But wowserism dressed up in concerned rhetoric about the sanctity of childhood is still wowserism.

UPDATE 1 Dec

Even children’s welfare groups see the filter is deeply flawed.

Our Kevvie’s recent incoming and associated twitbites make for fun reading … here’s some favs to date – the characteristic laconic, down-to-earth verging on shameless Aussie lingo is alive and twittering.

rogers: @KevinRuddPM Frosty handshake? Why didn’t you sock that arsehole in the guts…?

hortovanyi: @fang mate, I’m always well behaved on here .. the only person I’m not sure about is @KevinRuddPM

grodscorp: @KevinRuddPM Would’ve thought you wouldn’t need to do dishes at White House dinner, Kevvie.

ninjamoeba: I love @KevinRuddPM ’s bio: “PM.” Surprisingly succinct.

After Kev’s first, very muted, ‘vpod’ offering:

jimbiosis: @KevinRuddPM Sir, “growing the cake” is a mixed metaphor.

owenhodda: What is this vpod @KevinRuddPM speaks of? I am not down with the cool kid lingo

jamesfehon: @KevinRuddPM you mean a vlog?

lenier: @KevinRuddPM Re: “vpod”. You may have developed a term where many already exist. Welcome to Web 2.0! You’re fitting right in.

chrissylvester: just watched @KevinRuddPM’s vpod about the G20 and wanted to let you know he wished we’d sent @TurnbullMalcolm instead – chrissylvester team

Several commentators express concern about correct twitgrammar:

calvinccc: @KevinRuddPM My first thought was: wow the PM’s twittering in the 3rd person

danupoyner: Shock! @KevinRuddPM has changed from 1st to 3rd person. I like to think that it is actually still Kevin, just talking in 3rd person

iusebiro: am pretty disappointed that @kevinruddpm isn’t even pretending that it’s my beloved KevOhSev tweeting

cinema_monster: do you think @KevinRuddPM is actually the one updating his twitter? i’m kind of getting the image of my dad trying to work the dvd remote…

Digs at Conroy’s profoundly idiotic attempts to censor the Australian internet:

alexrzem: @KevinRuddPM That’s nice that you recorded a message for us. But how do you know that in the future it wouldn’t be blocked by your Firewall?

SilkCharm: @KevinRuddPm Hi Kev, thanks for your video G20 email http://twurl.nl/hon8lp – Please enjoy our #nocleanfeed video http://twurl.nl/06dsl3

Other tweets are disappointed with Kev’s autistic twitter demeanour, particularly in comparison to the more experienced twitterer @TurnbullMalcolm:

Mediamum: Gee, @KevinRuddPM has over 2000 followers and hasn’t had a conversation with anyone yet! FAIL

perkler: @KevinRuddPM just emailed me to say he looked forward to ‘our continuing dialogue’. I didn’t know we were having one. I got the email tho

jedwhite: @TurnbullMalcolm Great to see your genuine engagement through twitter. Very positive contrast to @KevinRuddPM. Hope u r finding useful.

@KevinRuddPM is now Number 8 on the Aussietwit list, yet it seems some followers are dissillusioned.

a_lil_spaz: The novelty has worn off now. Defollowing @KevinRuddPM & others people of political note. Sick of big shots not using Twitter appropriately.

caitabee: @KevinRuddPM I just unfollowed you. Fuck yes.

TWITFLASH!

We have liftoff! @KevinRuddPM is responding – and the cat is cool

Two more tweets have appeared on the newly founded @KevinRuddPM informing us patient followers that he has respectively arrived in Washington and had briefings with the Treasurer and Embassy Staff in preparation for tomorrow’s meeting, and met with Madeline Albright, she of the blithe gaffe that the deaths of half a million Iraqi children through the hideous sanctions over Iraq were “worth it”.

No doubt Ms Albright, presently a top advisor to Obama on national security, would have some pertinent insights into the global stock market schmozzle, given her past position on the NYSE Board. Albright resigned in 2005 after the Grasso scandal.

Considering her past opposition toward recognising the Armenian genocide which occurred during the final days of Ottoman rule in World War 1, the importance of Turkey as one of the trusty US land-bound aircraft carrier vassal countries in the Middle East and the concurring predilections of newly appointed Chief Advisor to Obama, Rahm Emmanuel, along with Obama’s grovelling to AIPAC, it would be surprising indeed if the US shifted its current blinkered, slanted position to the Holocaust suffered by the Armenian people.

What choice do we have? civil disobedience – in this case opting out of the electoral process – is seen by some as the last resort for people whose vehement, legitimate wishes been ignored, where democracy has been abandoned in the push for political outcomes which may prove disastrous and which have been imposed through nefarious deception. Others have joined the Noosa Liberation Army who today took responsibility for defacing roadside election posters:

“Noosa will secede or de-amalgamate,” an email read. “It’s just a matter of time! Those who think that this fight can be won without conflict are seriously deluded. This is a war, and we will win, however long it takes.”

Voting in the grandiosely named Sunshine Coast Regional Council Quadrennial Elections is compulsory under the state Local Government Act 1993. We, the governed, might argue we are voting for representatives in an illegitimate body which does not as yet exist, and that this flawed representation was proclaimed without the consent and against the wishes of the electorate.

There is no question that the people of Noosa Shire do not want amalgamation – we have been polled numerous times about this, the last plebiscite being 96% against it.

Yet if the people of Noosa do not vote, we run the terrible risk of having pro-development Joe Natoli for mayor and reduced representation for Noosa. Regardless of the new super council, State ‘iconic’ legislation provides that development decisions will be made in Brisbane, far from those who are affected and live here. Noosa’s say in its own future at present is nobbled … reduced back to vocal community groups, some of which are banding together under the Noosa Biosphere Association.

Local governments are not defined in the Australian Constitution – they are creations of their respective States. Regionalisation and amalgamation are State controlled and designated. Under the Australian Constitution, States and Territories are the only legal representative entities recognised by the Commonwealth. The present Queensland Government was elected by us, and it can thereafter do what it likes till we vote it out.

Naturally we have thought long and hard about the bigger picture when appealing to the Federal government. Although Kevvie has been approached about the undemocratic actions of the Queensland government by disgruntled Noosa residents amongst members of many such alarmed Queensland communities, and though neither he nor Julia personally supported forced amalgamations, we believe Rudd has a definite goal in mind, to form an Australian republic. With some historical vanity, he would like to be the engineer and steward of its formation. At present, for him it may be prudent to avoid a bun fight about the delineation of Federal and State powers under the existing Constitution, and so he is staying out of the fray, to the detriment of both Noosa residents and the upholding of representative democracy on a community level generally in our State.

Once regionalisation is complete throughout Australia, what need will there be for States? The footballers may not like it, but Brisbane can still play Sydney.

Except for alienated, infuriated folks, people will start identifying with their respective regions. The Sunshine Coast will play Brisbane as usual in soccer. Then the stage will be set for further reorganisation of decision-making and responsibilities.

In the interim, what happens if there is a change of government in Queensland or nationally? What power will we in our communities have had usurped from us, and passed into the mitts of an even more despicable, aggrandising mob?

Perhaps Noosa will be protected by iconic legislation for long enough for a republic to emerge, where the rights of individuals might be defined in such a way to protect the environments in which they live as well. Pigs might fly too. Despite Australians being typical disinterested in politics (is politics an acceptable dinner conversation topic yet?), it is essential that we are engaged in the republic debate, otherwise whilst we attend our barbies and down a few beers, we may get the sort of republic we really don’t want.

Grassroots democracy can be an annoyance and sometimes a threat to the feds who like things nice and tidy in Canberra. They’d rather be at lunch or off on a nice junket. Centralised governments who do not respond to vocal communities can be willing to sacrifice happy constituents and healthy environments at the beck and call of the rich and powerful who desire progress at any cost.

Recognised internationally with UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve, Noosa, with its achievements in sustainability and community democracy could serve as a model for communities in the new Republic of Australia. It is up to all Australians to reflect upon the choices before them, and speak out to protect our children’s future and the environment which sustains us all.