What happened in New Zealand is beyond words. All of a sudden politicians are scrambling to try and take back some of the notion that free speech is one of our most cherished democratic rights. The availability of the killer’s video is now suddenly seen as over the top, and agents are desperately trying to take it down. Face-book, Google and a host of other websites are now being deleted of that video. Our own Prime Minister is full of indignation and now suddenly changing his rhetoric on Muslims and Refugees. It was only a couple of weeks ago, he called out that the Muslim refugees on Manus and Nauru held rapist and murderers.
The insincerity of Morrison was dripping down my TV screen. I felt like chucking an egg. Let’s not forget that Dutton’s demonising of refugees and Muslims could not have been honed any better either. He has been a bit quiet since the massacre! This terrorist, one of the world’s worst, is a dinky dye Aussie, as is the world’s most notorious paedophile, Mr Pell. It must be a bitter pill to swallow.
It’s been rather depressing that all of a sudden, free speech is getting a new look. When it comes to inciting hate and murder, I believe free speech should not be used as a vehicle urging others to violence. The racial prejudice, racial abuse and the covert urging of violence by the extreme right has been allowed to flourish as never before, all championed by our Politicians under the guise of ‘free speech.’ Australia is taking an example out of the US and to a lesser extend some European countries. Does Trump not call the Porte Ricans, Venezuelans, Mexicans scrambling over their borders, murders and drug pushers, killers. All bad people?
We are going to see Stan and Ollie. It is supposed to be a good movie. We have had a good run of seeing good movies. First is was ‘The Green Book’, excellent film. Then ‘The Favourite’, which was a spiel on the lesbian antics of queen Anne. Good movie too. Last but not least, The Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen.) A fantastic movie as well.
“Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see
I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I’m easy come, easy go
A little high, little low”
Anyway the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me, to me
Tags: Aussie, Dutton, Green Book, Lesbian, Mexicans, Morrison, Porte Ricans, Queen, Stan and Ollie, The Favourite
Oosterman Treats Blog 
March 17, 2019 at 3:12 am |
The great tragedy of our times now is that so many people are not aware that we are living in a time of great tragedy…there being no deep knowledge of historical precedence, no depth of “corporate memory” and even less interest in the lineal unfolding of events that inevitably lead to tragic conclusions..
The shallowness of the LNP leadership on so many levels over so many leaders of the party in recent times, locked in with the seemingly uncensored, uncriticised commentary in the main-stream media in both hard copy and television has become endemic of our consumerist society.
It seems like some greater tragedy is inevitable and unstopable and those of us who lived through such times or have studied with intense interest such times throughout history can only look on with what must be the wincing eye of a modern-day Cassandra.
( Cassandra or Kassandra, also known as Alexandra, was a daughter of King Priam and of Queen Hecuba of Troy in Greek mythology. Cassandra was cursed to utter prophecies that were true but that no one believed. Wikipedia)
LikeLiked by 4 people
March 17, 2019 at 8:29 am |
Extreme right wing language through the years has become the norm and it is hard to distinguish from our everyday political discourse. Our own PM and many of his cohorts have only been too happy to allow the demonization of Muslims and Islamic believers.
Now, of a sudden they want to appear benign. I am almost expecting Mr Morrison to wear a burka next time he enters a mosque.
What happened in NZ is a horror of unimaginable proportions, carried out by a fitness junkie who came from Grafton whose citizens now claim, as always, to be a ‘close knitted community.’
I am not so sure.
Even in my own bowling community one doesn’t have to dig that deep to uncover xenophobic views. It is wide spread and it makes me furious.
Good Post, Jo. Thank you
LikeLiked by 4 people
March 17, 2019 at 4:37 am |
Thank you for your post. While you may not be too happy with your politicians, here in New Zealand we have appreciated seeing all the support being offered by the general public in Australia. Thank you again.
LikeLiked by 5 people
March 17, 2019 at 8:34 am |
I am glad that Australia has extended a helping hand to NZ.
I remember on several instances of NZ wanting to take on refugees from Nauru and Manus. Our PM, Scott Morrison refused point blanc on each occasion. Now, there was just one example of the difference between both leaders.
Another example on how our Australian PM is fostering and using anti refugee sentiment in scalping voters.
LikeLiked by 3 people
March 17, 2019 at 8:48 am
Very true
LikeLiked by 2 people
March 17, 2019 at 7:02 am |
So many horrifying, sad things happening in our world. 😦 I guess the world will never get as-better-as-we-want-it-to-get because of a small # of people who continually perpetuate hate, ignorance, fear, etc., and they will never change. 😦 That makes me so sad.
But, I’m so so so grateful for the large # of good, kind, compassionate, etc., people who just want to love, understand, live, and laugh. 🙂
It is nice to “escape” for a couple of hours and get lost in a good movie. All of those you listed are wonderful!!! 🙂
I always adored Freddie Mercury. I remember he once said, “I’m a human being. I’d like people to recognize the fact I’m a human being.”
Isn’t that what we all want?
(((HUGS)))
LikeLiked by 2 people
March 17, 2019 at 8:46 am |
Yes, it is sad, Carolyn.
Most people, as you point out are kind and compassionate. It is of great joy to see how this event is now turning around against extremism.
I am sure that if the perpetrator wrote his manifesto under a name such as Abdul Rahmed, he would have been looked at a lot closer but this government and perhaps also in NZ, we still seem to believe that terrorism is somehow owned by foreign countries and not ever home grown.
The US is the same. It are the Mexicans and others from south that are the killers, drug peddlers to be demonised and pillared by Trump, yet 40 000 US citizens are killed yearly by their local terrorists carrying guns.
Freddy Mercury was great. I never thought that at my age of almost 80, I would take to his music, but I have.
Hugs,
Gerard
LikeLiked by 2 people
March 17, 2019 at 2:39 pm |
Notice how extreme right wing language is often couched in some form of “spirituality” (ie: religion)? Good for you for pointing out your politician’s hypocrisy.
LikeLiked by 2 people
March 18, 2019 at 5:59 am |
Our Prime Minister rose in the ranks of the liberal party to become our Prime Minister piggybacking on ramping up anti Muslim and Islamic sentiment.
As emigration minister before and now as PM, he has never stopped regaling his success at stopping boats by detaining refugees on Manus and Nauru. His whole career was based on inflating racists sentiment.
His rhetoric over the last few days about the tragic event in NZ shows him up as a hypocrite.
Even a few weeks ago he was still fighting tooth and nail not to provide medical care to children on Nauru by allowing them into Australia.
LikeLike
March 18, 2019 at 2:07 pm
Sounds depressingly familiar.
LikeLike
March 17, 2019 at 8:14 pm |
Letter to a friend…: https://freefall852.wordpress.com/2019/01/10/letter-to-a-friend/
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 18, 2019 at 2:44 am |
Too horrendous for words. White supremacists or what ever they should be called. It is getting worse. Where is the end?
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 18, 2019 at 6:05 am |
And the Liberals (republicans) in Australia are now trying to promote that extremism comes from the left side of politics as well as the extreme right. Which is nonsense. The extreme right promotes hate speech and xenophobia, white supremacists, racism at its worst. The left promotes social ideology, climate care, equality and are generally anti-gun and shooting.
There is a huge difference.
LikeLiked by 2 people
March 18, 2019 at 10:49 pm |
Even when they’re trying to condemn what happened in NZ, their words smack of “fine people on both sides” rhetoric. Just once I’d like to hear a LNP politician call something out for the horror it is rather than twist themselves in knots to intimate ‘the left is just as bad’.
I loved Bohemian Rhapsody. It was hard not to sing along but as I was watching it on an overnight flight, I didn’t think the other passengers would appreciate me belting out “Galileo! Galileo!”
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 19, 2019 at 12:58 am |
Yes, The LNP is now seen as frantically backpedalling from the years of painting refugees as risky and terrorists. Listening to Morrison of late you would swear he is hoping to be ordained for some sort of sainthood legacy. Saint Scomo.
Did he not go to Christmas island a couple of weeks ago, relishing the idea of putting boat people in there again? He was salivating and seemed so cheerful. His stance he proudly proclaimed to be ‘a brick wall.’
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 19, 2019 at 12:32 am |
Yes Gerard, what happened in Christchurch is beyond comprehension. Watching Jacinta Arden you see the difference between Australia and New Zealand, NZ has someone who is truly a leader whilst here we have an interim PM. The hatred of brown skinned Muslims is enshrined as Liberal Government policy dating back to Tampa and children overboard. I watched The Drum last night where there were five Muslim women on, their anger was palpable, they vented for the whole program, Walid Aly’s comments on The Project were heartfelt, but what does our nutless idiot of PM say, now is not the time for politics, WTF! From someone who saw political mileage in exploiting them in Cabinet in 2011.
Sorry I’m ranting, I felt those womens pain last night and the emotion of Walid, and the persecution they felt. Before the Muslims it was the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Southern Europeans. I’m six generations Australian but have a southern European name, my mother was of Anglo-Celtic stock with a Portuguese grandfather, yet school I felt persecuted every day, mostly from the sprogs of 10 pound Poms, but that was nothing compared to what my father, himself Australian born, endured before and during the war.
To our brothers and sisters in New Zealand, peace.
LikeLike
March 19, 2019 at 1:29 am |
There are a lot of good people doing the right thing too. Morrison and especially Dutton with Abbott are racking their brains out trying to find some limp leftovers to neuter their previous anti Muslim positions (and their skins.) Hopefully the tide is turning to a more compassionate stance by Australia. We will know in a few weeks time.
If only we could have a leader like Arden.
There has always been an undercurrent of a suspicion that anyone out and away from being British and Yorkshire pudding is to be looked and if possible, avoided or even banned. The smelly remnants of the White Australian policy is still hanging around certain circles, but has moved from Asians to the Muslim societies.
No matter how much Morrison talks about multi-culturalism and inclusiveness the major plan is to maintain a staunchly British culture with a lovely Queen and her royal family.
We still swear our allegiance to the British throne and our unique independence is as far away as ever.
What a pity we are not braver.
LikeLike
March 19, 2019 at 4:40 am |
I hope you do not think it impertinent of me, Gerard, in posting the link to yet another of my pieces here..I apologise if I am imposing…but I think it is pertinent in the ways and means that the ruling strata of our country is trying to assimilate and blunten the stories of our other cultural histories…trying to absorb all us of another culture and country into a kind of beige, generic nothingness…and I include the Irish, Cornish, Scottish and Welsh in that mix..for they too have a singular culture from the generic, white anglo saxon…yes, even THEY have the right to a singular cultural recognition. I think there is a rising tide of opposition which demands to say WHO we are and WHERE we came from without bias or slander… https://freefall852.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/the-end-of-stories/
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 19, 2019 at 5:54 am |
Anyone and everyone is welcome to say and write what they like but no hate or racism. Remarkably, with over 1200 pieces written so far on Oosterman Treats, it hasn’t been a problem. I rarely trash or bin responses.
So, Jo. Feel free. I am chuffed by all people taking the time to join the conversation.
LikeLiked by 2 people