2004-07-26

de-TENSION CENTRES

There is a scandal happening as we read, and listen, in the Migrant and Refugee detention centre's issue.

It is well-known that Australia is well behind in Humanitarian treatment of refugees, be they political, economic, religious or racial, &c., and the arguments for private prisons are to my mind highly questionable, if not blatantly dubious?

Very diplomatic of me.

It's interesting to compare the refugee detention centre phenomenon with the high detention rate of Australian Aborigines in our prisons- "very white Australian of us!

And markedly similar to rates of black Americans incarcerated in US prisons.
Indeed this is a blatant white supremacist phenomenon, which begs us to ask "How far to the fascist right are our Liberal and perhaps Labor State governments?" If Labor Australia is following the Tony Blair model, we best be wary!

It's well known many far-right, white supremacist Afrikaners migrated from South Africa to Western Australia since the more equitable democracy was heralded in South Africa, with Nelson Mandela's elevation to President. I've no doubt the Northern Territory has it's share also.

These detention centres are under the auspice of the Federal Liberal Government, who recently formed what I dare to call "a war cabinet" with new portfolios given to Ananda Vanstone (Welfare), Tony Abbott (Industrial Relations) and Peter Reith (still in "floral arrangements"? No, he's been given the Defence portfolio!). All three have "harsh" character traits, even ruthless. Is this an election ploy? Of course, to a degree. However it may be seen to be an opportunity to quietly push policy further to the racist-(nay-fascist) right.

Something I maintain, is the Liberal's constant underlying agenda. With the likes of Pauline Hanson and her splinter-kindt, Howard looks quite moderate to the electorate, so he (and his media allies) keep the focus on her redneck clan's travails. Then there's the electoral rorts, further distraction from the big stuff.

Big stuff, it seems I need to say, which we, a small, dedicated..... whatever, through sending the fresh economic wave of Knowledge across the media of internet and Community film and TV etc., might very well happily improve!

So where are the questions about how much the oil, minerals, tobacco, pharmaceutical, weapons, supermarket(!) and prison corporations sponsor the main political parties? These are the issues, tied directly to our national attitudes to; immigrants who we actually need more of, non-whites (enough said), and the dysfunctional thinking and behaviour of all who support such corporations, in share holdings, employment, product consumption and political acceptance of the corruption endemic to this current form of Capitalism. By pinpointing the source of far-right political agenda, we can aim to have people withdraw their support on, in these cases mainly racist, political and ethical grounds, by protest.

These are the issues. Nevertheless...........

All the seemy sides of the Human lust for power and riches seem to be incorporated in the likes of "Wackenhut" prisons corporation of the USA, and operating here, "Australian Correctional Management" (ACM), who have their ethic-less profit motive driving the industry of incarceration of the world's most vulnerable people's, by way of boatie's and refugee detention centres in Woomera and Port Headland etc. I bet the management of ACM hide their smiles each time another "people smuggling" boat arrives at Ashmore Reef or along the north west Australian coastline.

The analytical CT (Conspiracy Theorist) would go perhaps so far as to suggest private prison's operators preferring, manipulating society to be crime-ridden to keep their prisons in business? If such things are possible, it is obtuse logic at best, and at worst totally psychotic? But believe me, it is possible down that end of town, for in their free market, they can legislate into law (?) such bizarre yet immensely profitable operations.

The high rate of drug offenders in prison here and the USA, many if not all serving totally immoral therefore unjust sentences, smacks to this old CFF (?) of a sinister scenario of connections between the two; drug lawyers and private prisons. Or should that just be lawyers and private prisons.

And what about the judiciary?

We know morally corrupt judges are out there in judicial Disneyland, supporting the most heinous crimes against Humanity. We also know there are many doing their level best to rid that potentially fine institution of Law of it's deadly disease. Knowing the skill of lawyers to evade, avoid, erase, distort and destroy the Truth, for these are the essential skills of their trade today, the many incorruptible lawyers and judges still hanging in there, really need all the support the public can give them, for their's is a Mighty task. And that support is to back the government that introduces democratic socialist judicial and legal reform policies, as we've seen in Victoria and across the ex-Commonwealth (including Britain) of recent years.

Every big-money event or project that goes wrong now-days, is before you can blink infested with lawyers. We hear of $1000s..., $10s of 1000's a day to each.

There is no question, a profitable connection between chaos and the lawyer exists today, especially in the USA. Unfortunately, in that Land of the Exploded Ego and here in it's would-be clone, Australia, it's a disease inherent in our severely unjust economic system, which relies enormously on a profession of facts-twisting to fiction, and lie-twisting to perceived truth.

But who is the disease doing most harm to? When the injustice becomes so widespread, and effects the greater majority, encapsulating all the personal pains into the hands of the private corporations running the illness industry, the Community of course is effected, which through federal, state and local government tries to absorb the cost, cannot, and so breaks down into street wars and civil disintegration! A la England, Europe, Middle-East, United States. La-dee-dah-dee-plop!

Am I in Nimbin or Nimby (Not In My Back Yard) when I extrapolate the response to my projections of where our own society is headed, while it refuses to address the BIG issues?

So who should we be watching, when civil or international disputes erupt? (See the following articles on East Timor)

It brings up the issue of punishment, corporal and capital. In places with no welfare network, a cell, a few meals a day, and a tough society, but a society, might look and might be pretty good. Some people really are down that far in their luck, at that heart-breaking level, and it's a tragedy!

While Humanity was still scratching around fighting and dying to survive, or fighting and dying to improve the chances of the clan's survival, unable to pinpoint and put the lid on the cause of their problems, corporal and capital punishment, were the best that could be expected.

Now, further advanced than ever in understanding the Human Psyche, we have no substantial evidence supporting the need for even the existence of our universities of crime; the prisons, let alone the parasitic private prison industry which sponsors ludicrous laws to keep prisons full and profitable.
But since when has profit been compatible with Ethics?

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