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Issue No. 179 | 23 May 2003 |
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The Game�s Up
Interview: Staying Alive Bad Boss: The Ultimate Piss Off Industrial: Last Drinks National Focus: Around the States Politics: Radical Surgery Education: The Price of Missing Out Legal: If At First You Don't Succeed History: Massive Attack Culture: What's Right Review: If He Should Fall Poetry: If I Were a Rich Man Satire: IMF Ensures Iraq Institutes Market Based Looting
The Soapbox Solidarity The Locker Room Postcard Bosswatch
 Hard CopyBad LanguageModern Management TheoryTom's RevivalOff the Rails
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Tool Shed Phil the Impaler
***** The Goebbels of the Howard Government, Philip Ruddock, made a sad and shameless attempt to defend the indefensible after the ABC's Four Corners program aired allegations of understaffing and incompetent management at the Woomera detention centre. When the Federal Government outsourced management of the concentration camps it also tried to outsource responsibility for what went on there. Four Corners documented harrowing scenes of obviously distressed people being treated like criminals in a manner that can only be viewed as "cruel and unusual". Despite 80% of the Woomera detainees being assessed as genuine refugees Ruddock the Impaler's first response to the program was to claim it was "inaccurate" and then set about with his own grubby little campaign of misinformation and innuendo. "I think this has been generated with, among other things, a clear aim of obtaining a different outcome for people who have been found not to be refugees," said the Minister for Gaoling Women and Children in a statement released after the allegations were aired. The thin lips and flinty eyes of the Detention Minister revealed his heartless attitude when he dismissed the truly shocking allegations as "nothing new". The sheer bastardry of justifying the indefensible because it was "already on the public record" shows what an intellectual sewer this grub inhabits. The allegations by former detainees were invalid because "the people interviewed for the program have had their claims assessed by one of the most thorough protection assessment processes in the world." Yes, and nothing was done! A fact that seems to fly over the head of a man whose ability to be both dumb and cruel are reaching new extremes. He tried to defend what happened at Woomera by giving a detailed explanation of the refugee assessment process - something that is totally irrelevant to the allegations raised in the Four Corners program, but is a masterful device in utilising spin to deflect criticism. It's the old tactic of changing the subject when you're losing the argument. He defended the lack of media access to detention centres by claiming that media had access through "tours" of detention centres, organised in advance of course. Pol Pot also offered media tours of facilities, but it was what went on outside the "organised tours" that proved to be truly alarming. "Four Corners uncritically reported that detainees in Villawood have nothing to do, when in fact they have access to 12 televisions, ten newspaper titles including 15 copies of the Daily Telegraph," said Ruddock. Australian television and the Daily Telegraph are certainly not "something to do" if one has an IQ higher than your average house brick. ACM knew they could cut corners and pocket the difference with the full support of the Federal Government. This became obvious after the allegations were raised when Ruddock made strenuous efforts to both deny culpability for the inhumane treatment of asylum seekers and simultaneously claim that it was the detainees themselves that were responsible, as if the detainees had come up with the policy of incarceration for those seeking freedom. He also defended ACM and painted those whistle blowers as somehow disaffected with ACM management. If they were disaffected its hard not to see why! Many of the Asylum seekers were fleeing a regime so cruel and despotic that Ruddock's government saw it necessary for us to commit troops and join in a massive bombing campaign and military action, at the cost of thousands of lives, in order to save the population. Our Tool of the Week is an irony free zone - proudly displaying his Amnesty International badge while driving human beings to self harm and suicide. This vermin still claims to be compassionate towards the asylum seekers and yet he has blood on his own hands when it comes to their treatment. While its true that we live in an age where Peace is War it's taken our Tool of the Week to show us that Love is Hate and Freedom is Slavery.
Nominate a Tool!
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