Hurting the delicate feelings of nazis and racists

A lot of people are upset that notorious racist Pauline Hanson has won a senate seat in the recent Australian election (and some additional members of her “team” might win seats too). For those who haven’t heard of her, she’s an ignorant fool who has tried to push her vile bigotry in Australian politics with varying degrees of success for the last 20 or so years.

She’s also one of those cute bigots who have an obsession with saying they aren’t racist (but famously too stupid to know what “xenophobic” means) even though their actual words explicitly target minorities all the time. Originally it was Asians, now it’s Muslims. So she’s not just a vile racist, she’s a gutless equivocating coward who thinks “I’m not racist” is a magic incantation. Like every one of her worthless garbage supporters.

While the existence and periodic success of people like Hanson does make me angry, I’ll tell you want makes me really angry: the ridiculous idea being floated repeatedly in the media that we should be “nice” to these people. That we should “understand” them instead of ridiculing them.

How about FUCK NO!

To be clear, I will happily talk to individuals who have been taken in by this hateful rhetoric in the hope that when some objective facts are presented to them, they can be brought around. But the leaders of these movements who promote outright fascism need to be hit hard and repeatedly. And to anyone who wants to write of “fascism” as hyperbole, Hanson explicitly wants to use the power of the government to enforce her belief that only religions she approves of should be allowed and only clothing she approves can be worn. Pretty much the dictionary definition of fascism.

I’m sure these bleating voices in the media will bring out historical examples of when being nice to fascists have worked in the past because that sure isn’t any history I’m aware of. Unless I’m wrong and World War 2 was a mistake and all everyone had to do was “understand” Hitler and everything would have been OK.

It’s also grating that Hanson blends her disgusting racism with incredible stupidity. She thinks that vaccines not only cause autism (completely disproved) but that they also cause cancer (utterly stupid). She’s also a climate change denier and one of her key advisors thinks schoolkids should be taught to reject the science that proves climate change. She is an utter menace and the idea of treating her with any dignity is fucking offensive.

Beyond Hanson, we’ve had an increasing number of rallies from overtly racist group run by people with explicit Nazi sympathies. These rallies are almost always met by counter rallies of larger groups standing up to their fuckery. To me it seems a no-brainer to counter-protest these scumbags but there is a growing chorus (and not only from conservative voices) that if you come into conflict with self-professed Nazis you’re somehow as bad as them.

To be honest, I think a lot of guys in antifa are there just because they like hitting people and it’s nice to have an ideological shield to justify your predilection for going the biff. But really, when did hitting Nazis become a negative thing? And spare me tripe like “you’re playing into their narrative where they’re the victim”. These pieces of shit get all the validation they need from people like Hanson being given a public platform.

I’ve seen repeated references to “anti-nazi thugs” in media reports and I think it’s worth letting that sink in for a while. That’s the modern media landscape – people engaged in fighting Nazis are thugs. The idea that you’re at the same level as a nazi because you’re aggressively responding to bigots who are actively advocating for the violent suppression and/or expulsion of anyone they don’t like is staggering. History does not have any examples of fascists quietly going home after being allowed to have their rallies unchallenged because they were satisfied their voices had been heard.

Every time hate is allowed to go unchallenged it moves further into the mainstream. How do you think Donald Trump has done so well? He isn’t some inexplicable mutation of the Republican Party, he’s the natural progression of the hate and fear filled rhetoric they’ve been pushing for years. The rise of demagogues around the world has a clear message – when extremism goes unopposed it grows.

So to those tut-tutting from a comfortable distance and saying Hanson and her ilk should be listened to and not mocked, I say hell to the fuck no!

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Mugabe demands vote recount in Zimbabwe

Did you hear the one about how Robert Mugabe is going to peacefully hand over power after losing an election?  No, neither did I…

Some reading for those who are interested:

Mugabe Party demands vote recount
A brief history of Robert Mugabe

An important message about the US presidential elections

Sometimes really strange ideas come into my head.  I’ve read so many stories about how the US electoral system has very little to do with actual democracy that it’s getting scary.  The system of delegates and the electoral college creates a situation where you can be forgiven for thinking that the way individual citizens vote is all but meaningless.

I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories but when a system is so deeply flawed it gets easier to believe some of the more outlandish claims that float around.  Which may be where the idea for this video originated.

I was planning to do something completely different but this idea got into my head and wouldn’t go away.  So, as I usually do when I get weird voices in my head, I let them out and this video was the result:

The biggest trouble I had with this video was my hair.  I wanted to have a “slick” look so I put about a bucket of “product” into my hair.  And my damn hair still wouldn’t stay flat!  The only real result of the mountain of crap I used was my hair feeling like crap until I washed it a few times.

Anti-Muslim race baiting in the Australian elections

Well, the Australian federal elections are on Saturday and the incumbent Liberal government has been staring down the barrel of a crushing defeat for a while now.  I always feel compelled to point out to overseas readers that the Liberal party are the dominant conservative party in Australia (given the generally understood meaning of “liberal” in political terms).  Anyway, they’ve been trying every trick in the book but they’ve been unable to dent the popularity of the opposition Labor Leader, Kevin Rudd.

It seems desperation has set in and some really dirty tricks are coming out.  The seat of Lindsay is in outer western Sydney and could easily change hands from the Liberals (who currently hold it) to Labor.  So in desperation, the Liberal Campaign team decided to play to the lowest common denominator and inflame anti-Muslim sentiments.

They falsified and distributed a flyer that purported to come from a non-existent radical Muslim group.  The flyer proclaimed the group unswerving support for the Labor party including quite despicable (and untrue) references to Labor supporting forgiveness for the Bali bombers.  Here’s a link to a news story including a copy of the flyer.

To his credit, Liberal leader John Howard has unequivocally condemned the tactic.  This is in stark contrast to, say, the conduct of GW Bush when Republican operatives have used blatant lies to slander his opponents.  But this is still going to hurt him.  It just reeks of desperation and for a man who’s always staked his reputation on honesty… well, this doesn’t look very honest.

Australian Federal Election – Arrogance and Lies

Consider this my application for a job with the Australian Labor Party. I love doing something this partisan because someone always blows a blood vessel because they can’t tolerate the idea that you’d take a position that contradicts theirs. It’ll be fun to see a few people humiliate themselves with idiotic comments.

For those who don’t know Australian politics, here’s the background to this video. The first one pictured is John Howard, current Australian Prime Minister. The second one is his deputy, Peter Costello. Howard has been PM for more than 10 years and he made a deal with his deputy to retire and hand over power. Then he broke that deal.

In their public spat, Howard was called a liar for not keeping his word and Costello was called arrogant for not waiting. The rest kind of wrote itself.

I did it in the stereotype election campaign ad style – slow zoom on photos with dramatic music. So what do you think – do I have a future as a political lobbyist?

And I LOVE the way the thumbnail came out.