Love those Cows, (but not so much Boat People)

Posted on October 25, 2011by gerard oosterman

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3599232.html

Careful, watch it! Here is another one. A controversial piece, whose words could easily cause dangerous empathy, or for some, irritating disdain or dismissal, no one is obliged to read any further.

The ABC 4 corners have come up with 2 sessions that I found to be somewhat related. A few months ago there was this exposure of the mistreatment of cattle. It resulted in a nation-wide outrage. Who can forget footage of the poor cows being beaten, their sad pleading eyes as they went into their final death throes. Of course, this was all done in a naughty overseas country. Our condemnation went instantly into automatic or overdrive. Within days the export of cattle was halted and reassuring footage was shown of thousands of cattle being put back into holding yards and given rich grains pouring from laden bins. Thousands flocked to the NT and even Queensland and stroked cows. Thank goodness for our humane treatment of all thing living. Tearstained faces on the telly and many cancelled their holidays to Bali or Java. How barbaric. At some stage old footage of sheep being loaded alive in boots of cars by white frocked men, again in an evil overseas country, was again dug up and dusted off, just in case we had forgotten. We all felt a warm glow of empathy. We were not like that. We are caring and full of humanness. We felt good about ourselves.

Now, I find all this love and sweetness for animals somewhat at odds with what we saw last night on the 4 Corner programme on boat-people. There were sad and pleading eyes as well. There were people being beaten, shot at. Some were driven into suicide. There were lip sewing, knife or razor cuts, self-harm percentages, children in jail without parents. Opioids medicated people suffering the torment of indefinite detention without having committed a crime. Those ghastly scenes of boat people running around the dark with tracer bullets lighting up the sky, something reminiscent of a Kristalnacht.

This has been going on for years now. How odd, that we seem to accept that. Where is our indignation and love of humanity? I suspect that much of this lack of empathy can be squarely laid at the feet of the commercial TV and Radio world.  Last night on the ABC’s media watch, Jonathan Holmes pointed out about the way the commercial TV and Radio manipulate and hijack our national conscience and managed to change an entire nation into a kind Joseph Goebbels mentality. (Goebbels was Reich-minister of Propaganda for Hitler) There is a sizable portion of the Australian population who genuinely believe that boatpeople are being treated like royals. They are given red carpet treatment, palatial housing and benefits that other can only dream about. No matter how they are presented with facts or how often the UNHCR or Amnesty International points the finger at Australia, many persist in believing the gospel of Commercial Media.

I don’t know what the answer is. I haven’t got it. I am surprised that the Commercial media is so popular. I would not even know where our channel 9 or 7, 10 are. We haven’t watched those ever. The ads are too distracting. Perhaps, the freedom to corrupt and enslave us into Goebbels is not freedom at all. Should a Government be far stricter on the likes of Bolts, Ackermans, and Jones’ of this world?

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Tags: ABC 4 Corners, Ackerman, Bali, Boat People, Bolt, Cows, Goebels, Javat, Jones, Kristalnacht