“They (Australians of the year) point the way to a creative, confident future for our nation. If there is any quality common to all our Australians of the Year, it is courage…The courage to imagine a better nation and to face the future without fear…Because it’s not in our nature to be afraid – it never has been and I know it never will be. So let’s celebrate the great nation we are, and the even greater nation we can become together.

Happy Australia Day!”

And the interpretOr wishes to congratulate Geoffrey Rush.

We hope that Indigenous Australians can share in a “future without fear” too. Any WA visitors, please see our recent posts with details of the Survival Concert, ‘Celebrating Resilience’ @ Supreme Court Gardens, starting @ 12.30pm Thurs.

Survival Perth 2012

This year, the 26 January, marks 40 years since the start of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, the champions of which will be acknowledged at the Survival Perth 2012 Concert.

The Survival Concerts are celebrated nationally to acknowledge the resilience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples since the arrival of the First Fleet, which Australia Day commemorates. The Survival Concerts have been held in Perth since 2000 and are historically linked to NAIDOC.

This alcohol and drug free event will have free admission and will showcase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music and dance and along with food, kid’s activities, an Elder’s tent and a large array of community stalls. Survival Perth will feature a talented line-up of Western Australian artists performing music and dance across a diverse range of musical styles including country rock, hip-hop, soul and mainstream contemporary.

more info @ www.naidocperth.org

Why is it that cold blooded murder becomes invisible when it has been carried out by our allies? Why is a cloak of silence drawn over US and Israeli war crimes, extra-judicial murders, land theft, rendition and torture? When these crimes committed by Israel and the USA are raised in the UN why are there no sanctions or action taken against them agreed to by our representatives?

In 2010, Israeli agents travelled to Dubai using stolen falsified passports of Australian and European citizens, and murdered Hamas agent Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his hotel room. All of the countries who had issued the passports complained about the stealing of their passports but none complained about the murder of al-Mabhouh. Neither did our media.

More recently Israeli agents planted a limpet bomb on a mobile Iranian vehicle in traffic murdering an Iranian nuclear scientist and his driver. He was the fourth scientist murdered by Mossad in this way in the last eighteen months. As usual, there has been no outrage expressed by world leaders or Western media. Obviously Western governments have no respect for international law. These murders are excused as necessary as Iran may be developing a secret atomic bomb which is a strange excuse coming from a nation which has secretly developed hundreds of atomic bombs but is never inspected by the UN.

Will we ever read that Western democracies are calling for the Israeli Government or at least Mossad to be classified as a terrorist organisation? The truth is not in this lifetime. This failure of morality, fairness and justice is confirmation that the West is only interested in complying with international law when terrorist acts are carried out by those considered as our enemies.

Our media is totally accepting of this glaring double standard and steer away from dealing with our regular use of murder, terror and bullying to control the resources of many parts of the world. This acquiescence reveals that in most Western democracies the Orwellian mantra that “some pigs are more equal than others” is still adhered to by our media. They probably do this in the belief that revealing our tribe’s faults would make them appear to be unpatriotic even when our faults are glaring and appalling on many occasions.  In fact our Governments meek acceptance of Western terrorism betrays the noble idea that we want to build a viable world community based upon fairness and justice for all. They media cowardice betrays each of us and the ideals we strive for.

The perpetrators of all violence and terror, and not just their minions, need to be prosecuted and punished, especially for violent breaches of international law otherwise we stand exposed as hypocritical frauds and lose belief in the worthiness of ourselves and our society.

When our societies lose their higher ideals and their belief in principles of universal rights we not only lose our self-respect but also become at risk from our own governments. If our governments accede to murder and torture of external enemies we may one day find the same tactics used against us.

The level of atrocities and human rights breaches committed by our allies has increased dramatically since the presidency of George Bush aided by the compliant leaders of his allies. Most Western countries have also made laws degrading the rights of their citizens. There has been no let up under the Obama presidency. In short, our democratic system is already in deep trouble with patriot/security laws undermining domestic freedoms and privacy.  All of us need to protect our freedom. Not just from enemies abroad but from our own Governments.

“Attention shoppers…Tony, Julie, Scott M, Leni, Sir Cliff and Norb Fones are now also available behind the MeinPantz button immediately above this headline. Thank you for your cooperation…”

The ominous herd of American Bison thunder across the plains

Their pounding hooves drumming the ground into submission

The roar of their passing brought fear to the throats of all in their way

On and on they thundered remorselessly consuming all in their path

Crushing the weak and the slow until all species were endangered

There was no leader and no plan only a mindless momentum

On and on they raced until everything that lived was destroyed

On and on they continued across borders across seas to new pastures

Still they carried on until they were as exhausted as the earth.

Finally they stood and surveyed the shattered and desolate plains

We have won, they thought, everything we can see is ours.