A Ballad for the Grabbit – Tony Silvertongue

George the Goanna

TONY SILVERTONGUE

Do not denigrate our P M
He leads this fair and precious land
And speaks his mind into the ether
Maybe sometimes he leaves his teeth there!

Do not denigrate or call him names
Like Phoney Tony, Flash or James
For princely ears deserve respect
Yet growing debt is what we get.

Chorus
O Tony who art thou that leads us
Can we trust thy tongue to please us
Can we trust thy silver tongue
Oft times the laird, oft times the merde!

In shiny lycra, dashing knight
Keeping fit in skinny tights
You are our hero of the day
Please make the bad things go away!

Do not denigrate our Prime Minister
Or rhyme Abbott with Grabbit – it’s too sinister
Ruling the unruly mob
He may be the best man for the job …..
Tony Abbott may be God!

Chorus
O Tony who art thou that leads us
Can we trust thy tongue to please us
Can we trust thy silver tongue
Now the journey has begun.

Copyright Gabrielle Shootingstar 2013

Everything Old is New Again

With Abbott’s opportunist, imperialist kowtowing march to war in the Middle East, legislative attacks on civil liberties to “balance” security needs, governmental hate-preaching racism, fear and McCarthyist terror-baiting the garrulous tenor of the day in Australia, Redgum’s classics resonate. Have you ever been a member of “Team Australia”? answer, quick, no obfuscations or context.

Aamer Rahman satirises Danny Nalliah and Australian bigotry against Muslim women:

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Tony Abbott apologises to Alan Jones for not acting on ‘hate preachers’ – Under this Grabbit Law, would the dogwhistling settler Grabbit himself have been admitted to Australia?

‘“By all means let Australians who want to say stupid things to say stupid things but there’s no point importing troublemakers from overseas to stir people up.”

Grabbit is also being disingenuous as under one part of his proposed new police state laws currrently before Parliament:

‘As well, a person would only have to be ‘reckless’ as to whether words could cause a person to engage in terrorism, which is far less than the requirement of ‘intends’ under the existing incitement law.

For example, statements supporting armed resistance to the Assad regime could be caught by the proposed law.’

Terrorists under the bed? TAB has the answer

JDL Australia & NZed #JSIL stalkers & promoters of violence now active again on FB

Orientalism and the ISIS spectacle.

‘The ISIS-led insurgency currently gripping the western and northern regions of Iraq is but a continuation of the imperialist-sponsored insurgency in neighboring Syria. The state actors responsible for arming and funding said insurgency hold the same principal objectives in Iraq as those pursued in Syria for the last three years, namely: the destruction of state sovereignty; weakening the allies of an independent Iran; the permanent division of Iraq and Syria along sectarian lines establishing antagonistic “mini-states” incapable of forming a unified front against US/Israeli imperial domination.’

ISIS: An expression of imperialism in Iraq

A War for Power

”How much death and destruction would American terror warriors have to cause before their ostensible opponents rejected their claims of noble intent? During the thirteen years of the “war on terror,” actions of the United States government have consistently and predictably strengthened anti-American terrorist groups. To chalk this all up to stupidity — rather than unstated imperial imperatives — is to choose ignorance.”

The Role of Proxy Terror

What is needed is a language to address this dilemma, that of the respective imperial uses of Islamophobia and religious ideologies, and in that sense takfiris, although sometimes derided as a sensationalistic term, is very much an exact term. What is not needed, what is downright pernicious, is a frightened language. A direct language must be fully prepared to address the awesome magnitude of the violence and cruelty and, it must be said, terrorism of this latest phase of imperialist repositioning in the region. A failure to do so will result in the victory of the Internet spectacle.

Always worth a reread at these times is Seymour Hersh’s Redirection article from 2007.

There are No Moderate Syrian Rebels

‘The Obama administration’s new plan hinges on Saudi Arabia’s support for the training effort, including an offer to host training camps on Saudi soil. The Saudis are in no way a reliable partner for the U.S. in the Syrian conflict. Even discounting the fact that Saudi-purchased anti-tank rockets somehow found their way into ISIS’s hands, the Saudis have a notorious history of supporting unsavory groups in the Syrian conflict, including Salafists in the Islamic Front. The greater Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the training program is, the greater pressure there will be for Islamic Front fighters to receive U.S. arms and training. After Congress balked at the Obama Administration’s request for $500 million, the Saudis offered to fund the training and arming of the Syrian rebels. This means that there is a large chance the U.S. will directly support groups who work closely with Jabhat al-Nusra.’

A Secret Betrayal — Kurdish Refugees in Iran

After Iran and Iraq signed a border agreement, Iranian support to Barzani stopped and the revolt collapsed. Barzani told the CIA that, “Complete destruction [is] hanging over our head…We appeal [to] you…[to] intervene according to your promises.” Despite this, “the U.S. refused to extend humanitarian assistance to the thousands of refugees created by the abrupt termination of military aid.” Kurds then fled en masse to Iran, where many applied for refugee status in the U.S.

However, few people at Embassy Tehran were aware that the U.S. government had made a commitment to the Kurdish people.

From Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Australian Friends of Palestine

Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
“Dear Friends of Palestine in Australia

The people of the world have been shocked and horrified at the recent brutal and disproportionate assault on the people of Gaza. Over 2000 people have died, hundreds of them children. The infrastructure of Gaza, already greatly damaged in previous similar attacks, is now completely degraded, with basics such as water and electricity denied to the vast majority of the population. Thousands are without shelter and medicines and 80% of the population are dependent on UN assistance.

The world waits while representatives of Israel and the Palestinians negotiate a ceasefire and we hope that there will be peace. But peace will not come until the illegal occupation of the Palestinians ends. It will not come to Gaza until Israel and Egypt lift the 8 year siege that has crippled the Gazan economy and squeezed the population, creating enormous hardships for the people there.

Decades of reliance on diplomacy to deliver a just outcome in Palestine have come to nothing. But a new hope lies in the ordinary citizens of the world. This is the worldwide non-violent movement known as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or “BDS”. This movement carries the hope of millions of ordinary people who are turning the tide through economic pressure to force Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinians and participate in a just resolution to the conflict between these two peoples who deserve peace.

Many of you in Australia are part of the BDS movement. You are seen every week in different cities and towns talking to other Australians about BDS and informing them about the injustices suffered by the Palestinians. Many others of you participate individually by choosing not to buy Israeli products or the products of companies that support Israel in its illegal occupation of Palestine. Others of you refuse to buy tickets to the Israeli Film Festival, or boycott Israeli academics who come from Israeli Universities that support Israel’s policies of occupation.

Protest outside the Israeli Film Festival, Brisbane
Protest outside the Israeli Film Festival, at the Palace Centro Cinema Brisbane, August 22, 2014. Riot police stood 1 metre in front of demonstrators.

This is the power of BDS.

We in South Africa, who know about oppression and occupation and who know about the power of BDS, salute the Australian BDS movement and we join with you in calling for Israel to end the Occupation; to end the siege of Gaza. We join with you in calling on the Australian Government to demand that the occupation of the West Bank ends; for Israel to stop the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank; for the siege of Gaza to be permanently lifted.

We in South Africa join with you and we shout “Free Free Palestine!”

God bless you.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu (Cape Town – South Africa)”

Through a Cage Lightly … Icke is proved wrong

Sulphur crested cockatooFrom their burgeoning colonies in the outer solar system, the Zenoids inflicted a complete blockade on Earth. A fleet of these ancient feathered beings had arrived without warning six centuries ago searching for a vulnerable region to establish their arboreal colonies. With their leaders refusing on the grounds of self-defence to set clear borders, the Zenoid colonies moved closer and closer to Earth, establishing permanent lofty fortresses as they advanced. The Zenoids promised the Earthians a planet of their own only if they would renounce resistance and accept Zenoid needs for numerical superiority and security. The colonists laid claim to one planet after another.

In vain, the Earthians struggled to confront the Zenoid occupation and gain freedom to travel the universe. Whenever the Zenoids commenced their regular assaults on Earth’s meagre defences, the Earthians fired rockets toward the gravitic force field which imprisoned them and at the invading Zenoid colonies themselves. The Earth rockets’ guidance systems and payloads were primitive and pitiful compared to the powerful Zenoid arsenal which scorched the Earth in catastrophic reprisals when the Earthian rockets retaliated against Zenoid attacks. Ingeniously, the Earthians developed communication wormholes to breach the force field and now and then pleas for assistance sped across the spacenet. As soon as they were detected, the wormholes were imploded by the Zenoids with great loss of life at the tunnel entrances on Earth.

The Zenoids shook their feathers and shrugged.

Our security is sacred and Zenoid colonies have a right to defend themselves!” their leaders trumpeted, “Did not the Supreme Feathered Being promise us a solar system? we can only be safe in a solar system of our own! it is ours and we have a right to it all, this space without beings for beings without space. We shall kill and kill and kill until the Earthians submit to our domination. With our superior technology, we will acquire these savages’ planet. Their rockets are sent to kill us. It is us or them.

With nothing to lose and nowhere else to go, the Earthians did not surrender. In desperate resistance, they fired even more rockets at the expanding Zenoid fortresses, signalling to the rest of the galaxy that support was needed urgently. Yet noone came except a few dignitaries from the Full Galactic Spectrum empire who promised sincere dialogue and peace negotiations whilst affirming the empire’s unbreakable primary relationship with the Zenoids. Earth had never been admitted into the Grand Galactic Council. Year after weary year, the Zenoids proclaimed to the Council and its sponsors that any alteration to the status quo would damage their self-evident right to self-defence and security.

With its involvement conveniently blamed on Zenoid machinations or ignored, the opportunistic Spectrum Empire armed and enabled the Zenoid colonisers in return for new weapons pretested on the Earthians and a swag of promising asteroid mining leases. As usual when there were unidollars to be harvested, the Full Galactic Spectrum empire distanced itself and its own genocidal expansionist record from the Zenoid colonists’ gross being rights violations and universal war crimes, exonerating itself and its feathered friends, always insisting on the dominant right of the Zenoids for security. In neighbouring solar systems, the Empire contentedly conducted lucrative brutal interventions and development projects while horrified beings elsewhere were distracted by devastating Zenoid crimes against the Earthians.

Powerful planets with long, dastardly histories of galactic colonisation and veiled schemes of their own supported the Zenoid invaders openly. In the Grand Galactic Council, however, some decolonised members recoiled from the actions of the Zenoids, summoned their legal advisors, ejected Zenoid diplomats and refused to trade with the colonisers. Across the galaxy, while planetary elites plotted advantage and convoluted Zenoid propaganda enveloped the newspacenet, prescient beings with consciences mobilised around the call of the Earthians to boycott the Zenoid colonies, to isolate and pressure the Zenoid rulers into changing their belligerent ways, for this tactic worked before when invaders attempted planetocide and systematic oppression of hapless pre-existing inhabitants.

As pressures mounted upon them, the Zenoids decided to strike – it was time to crush the annoying Earthians completely and conquer the final frontier. A new pretext was devised whereby the Earthians would be blamed for the coming Zenoid attack. Soon the Zenoid droneships were pummelling the bright blue planet, obliterating Earthians and their homes with abandon and impunity. From the rest of the universe, the Zenoids demanded sympathy.

Do not the rockets come from this planet Earth to attack us?” they cried. “These Earthians are using Earth and themselves as a shield! have they not sworn to drive us from the Galaxy?

In the branches of their colonies, indignant Zenoids flapped luminous wings and shrieked to each other, “We must pulverise these ground dwellers, destroy their homes, power supplies, factories, food and water! They teach their children to hate us! Kill them all, or they will breed to outnumber us! did not these Earthians use rockets, tunnels and security as excuses to murder their own colonised beings several centuries ago? Let them taste their own poison.

… TBC, or not

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Sonia Montez – Climbing Fences : The Occupation Song

New York-based singer, songwriter and guitarist, Sonia Montez, expressed her support last year for boycott, divestment and sanctions of apartheid Israel.

Her new song “Climbing Fences : The Occupation Song” is written in solidarity with the Palestinian people and all folks living under occupation, including in Ferguson, Missouri.

Sonia says:

“As a musician/activist, the worlds in which I live are often separated from each other. We are trained in entertainment to not mix in politics because it may alienate a potential audience.

I abhor this idea and always have. From pop culture icons like Roger Waters to John and Yoko, to the great jazz artists of the 40’s and 50’s, politics has been crucial to the evolution of art and culture. It is in this spirit that I release this free demo, rough, faltered, honest, and filled with all of the emotional rage I and many others have felt over the brutalization of our human brothers and sisters.

Download it, share it, cover it, use it, remix it, tweet it, boast it from every speaker in every city. Make these words of solidarity count, we will not close our eyes, we will not be silent, we will witness and the world will know. Let the message ring loud, FROM #FERGUSON TO #PALESTINE: #OCCUPATION IS A CRIME!”

Lyrics:

Sonia MontezClimbing Fences : The Occupation Song

Dead night
Fire in the sky
Stars are running shy
Ground bleeds in streams for you

Early little love child
Bore the burden of the hate squad
Someone watched as innocence left your eye
Climbing fences that tear you apart

How golden is our silence now?

When they come in the middle of dead night
When there’s nothing but fire in the darkened sky
Stars run shy from the bullet fight
How the ground bleeds in streams of pain for you

“Listen pretty sister
I got boys with toys to paint you red
I got silence now”

When they come in the middle of dead night
When there’s nothing but fire in the darkened sky
Stars run shy from the bullet fight
How the ground bleeds in streams of pain for you

You bleed as the world closes blinds
You scream as the pressure holds you tight
In this cage, you can’t breathe
When all you need to be is free

When they come in the middle of dead night
When there’s nothing but fire in the darkened sky
Stars run shy from the bullet fight
How the ground bleeds in streams of pain for you