Adam Bandt, House of Representatives member for Melbourne (and, I’d suggest, an enormous electorate of one and a half million Australians around the country) reminds us just what sort of a government our troops are fighting for – and losing their lives to defend – in Afghanistan:
If we were there to fight for human rights and the rule of law, that would be one thing. But clearly that’s not what we’re doing.
So, to sum up. The Greens are not opposed to the use of military force to achieve human rights objectives, but:
- The Karzai government stands against basic human rights like equality for women;
- There’s every likelihood that we’re encouraging more terrorism than we’re defeating, and radicalising a generation;
- Al Qaeda is mainly in other countries now anyway;
- The US is making noises about pulling out soon themselves.
Funnily enough, the only part of Bandt’s speech I’d seen reported in the news media were his remarks doubting our ability to achieve “victory” in Afghanistan.
Moved On 
Adam Bandt has the luxury of saying just what he pleases, that is, the truth he speaks, falls mostly on deaf ears and matters not a jot.The right of the political spectrum just go along with the obscenity of the crusades in the M.E.because they all fell for the neocon blather hook, line, and sinker . The intellectual left, well! Unlike the right who believe in the cause, and don’t know any better, they’ll sum it all up with a few chosen quotes from the latest philosopher who happens to be in vogue at the time, and then argue in circles about it until they disappear up their own anus’s.They will of course at the next election vote Labor again no risk.As will the wing nuts vote for their own bullshit artists.
The truth be known, most people just don’t give a shit. They are mostly tooo bloody busy trying to pay for the latest extortion on their mortgage, pay off the local power station, and keep the CEO’S of Coles, Woolworth’s, and the other outlets that supply luxuries like food and clothes, in a state of what they have become accustom to LUXURY.
Whilst we debate the carnage and death in these far away places the only thing that matters to Mrs J. Rotten crutch is how much her next can of Tuna is gonna cost.Anyone thinking we are gonna have the Vietnam style of demonstrations to get our troops out of harms way, had better take another drink of Kool Aid.Hey we’ve only lost 21 of our boys so far, we’ve got a long way to go yet.I just hope one of them won’t be my son who is serving in the Army.
“Adam Bandt has the luxury of saying just what he pleases”
So does every MP.
If they choose to sell out and represent interests other than those of their constituents, then it’s hardly something we should applaud.
“If they choose to sell out and represent interests other than those of their constituents, then it’s hardly something we should applaud.”
I never said it was.Unlike most people, I know from the uni of life they’re all lying bastards, even the Greens who I have supported for no other reason that most of them are at least cognizant of the fact the planet as is, is not sustainable.I have given Labor my second preference only because, they still have among their ranks, not many to be sure, some people with a conscience.
Sure they can all say what they like, and will be dis-endorsed for saying it.
Human nature and greed, trumps common sense every time.
I disagree with the “they’re all lying bastards” aspersion.
If you declare anyone who runs for office a liar, then there’s no disincentive for people who run for office to lie. What’re you going to do? Vote for another liar?
Well, no. I’m going to vote for someone who isn’t a liar. If they turn out to be dishonest, I won’t vote for them again.
That said, there’s something fundamentally insincere about running for either of the major parties, since their platforms are so broad and contradictory and you know that you may well be forced to vote against what you believe by party discipline anyway – so it’s disingenuous to pretend to the voters that you’ll stand up for your own personal beliefs when you know you’ll throw them away when ordered to by your colleagues who may be from the opposite wing of the party.
On the other hand, if you want to vote for some recycled communist hack, you know where to go for your watermelon.
Horse crap. The major parties are by definition broader and therefore tend to have a wider spectrum of internal disagreement, but the principle applies to every damn political party in the world. To quote from conversation I was involved in last night about this very issue, “in any room of 4 or more people there are at least three factions.”
To take your favourite example, Jeremy, the federal Green parliamentary caucus has its fair share of policy differences and personality conflict, given its size. Like any functional group of publicly aligned politicans they agree to disagree, behind closed doors as much as possible, on issues that divide them, and focus their public message on the what they have in common.
That’s the nature of politics. If you want to demonize some people or parties who practise it while idealising others, you’re buying into a comforting but distorted worldview.
As for dishonesty in general, I object to politicans lying outright; knowingly and intentionally saying something that’s completely false to mislead the public makes it impossible to evaluate anything else they say.
However to me it always has to be a case-by-case judgement when they are simply bending/dodging/omitting the truth. Humans are very rarely perfectly honest and transparent, and those who argue for a living have a much harder time than most; a politician who compulsively told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth 24/7 would never be elected.
“I disagree with the “they’re all lying bastards” aspersion.”
So your being a bit pedantic what’s new?To assert that a good percentage of our politicians are not 1.Liars 2.Dishonest.Is utter bollocks.How many examples do you want?In W.A. alone we have had at least two Premiers do porridge,incalculable amounts being fiddled, and more kick backs than a Harley Davidson.
At least three Ministers in the Howard government should be inside and others from the back bench who were just lucky, to escape being prosecuted for fraud.It is not just a perception we have a lot of liars in politics it is reality.
We don’t have any bent coppers either, just ask them.
SB, stop it. You can do far better than that cliche-ridden garbage. Stop bludging.
“On the other hand, if you want to vote for some recycled communist hack, you know where to go for your watermelon”
Says the doyen of human rights and thinking mans conservative.
Pray tell where we will go to find such a commie? Cuba mayhaps.There may still be the odd old Prol hanging around the back streets of Moscow with hammer and sickle in hand, singing the forth international.
But of course the old ideology you treat with such disdain died years ago, all those Trotkyists,Stalinists,Leninists and other assorted left wing rat bags you think infest the Greens and Labor party’s, are all gone.
However! listening to old Joe Stalin sorry Hockey on the radio about the banks yesterday, and Randell’s of you talk I’ll listen fame explanation, it just may be making a come back.
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