Foreign Affairs Minister fails geography

October 19th, 2004

John Martinkus, a veteran freelance journalist, was released unharmed late yesterday, a day after he was taken hostage by four Sunni militants and ex-Iraqi army officers.

Mr Martinkus was filming a report for SBS’s Dateline program and was preparing to leave Iraq when he was detained about 5pm AEST on Saturday outside a hotel popular with foreign correspondents.

According to the Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer:

"In this particular case, the journalist went out to investigate a story, I understand, and went to a part of Baghdad that he was advised not to go to, but he went there anyway."

John Martinkus responds to Downer by saying:

"Well, that’s ridiculous, because I was in the street outside the only hotel in Baghdad occupied by journalists which is directly across the road from the Australian Embassy. I was nowhere dangerous, I was doing nothing dangerous, I was not putting myself at risk. I was grabbed by insurgents, who are very well organised and know exactly what they’re doing."

Downer, he only has the one response theme.
Victim-blaming and victim-discrediting.

He gets everything he needs from a book called :
"101 ways to blame the victim, negate responsibility and wait for Australia’s majority to lose interest."

Pavlov’s dog

October 10th, 2004

I (and many others) saw through you John Winston Howard!

Starting on 12 September 2001, you (assisted by Blair and Bush) capitalised on the fear and shock of the events of the day before and through Classical Conditioning attempted to create a high level of anxiety for every Australian.
By October 2004, all you had to do was mention any of the diverse, radical, ‘other’ words such as:
Muslim, Asylum Seeker, Refugee, people who question why children are kept behind razorwire, Habib, Hicks, Hicks’ family, Brian Deegan, WMD’s, the UN, Human shields in Iraq, Australian Hostages in Iraq, Iraqi civilian casualties, Greenie, Leftie, Media Watch, ABC, SMH, Lesbian mother, Michael Moore, Phillip Adams, Mark Latham, Global warming, higher interest rates, young drivers, learner drivers, custodial parent, organic farmer, disabled person, ‘freelance’ anything, internet, adult pornography, Brazilian wax, mobile telephones with cameras, Terriers (it sounds like Terrorism when you are hyper-anxious)
and there was mass quivering on farms, in mortgage belts, in offices, in worksites, in the Public Service and in the homes around this country.

In the course of your training of the Australian public, the Conditioned Stimulus (CS), e.g. the words-old growth forest, were repeatedly presented together with the Unconditioned Stimulus (US), e.g. fear; eventually the voters form an association between the US and the CS.

Congratulations you bastard, you turned most of Australia into quivering, fearful lapdogs who were trained to react to you as their Protector.

You set it up, fed it well and exploited it for your own gain.

Read the Bloggisphere you insufferable manipulator…We are the future and we are all getting active…

Starting the deprogramming now….

NEXT patient please.

HoWARd Lied and people Died

October 8th, 2004

Perhaps if there was less wind…

October 5th, 2004

On Saturday, a very creative protest in Sydney would not have blown away.

Will the Truth matter?

October 4th, 2004

Howard is comfortable to divide truth into ‘core’ and ‘non-core’ promises.

Abbott is such a compulsive liar that he operates on a ‘prove it’ theory, which is easily done.

Let’s care about truth…

Truth about why we are in Iraq.
Truth about the mental health of people in detention centres.
Truth about Medicare from the perspective of health care providers.
Truth about the dangerous stupidity of Ministers.
Truth about renewable energy projects.