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[Reudh]

Argh, I heard about those and was thinking about attending, but uni's first thing tomorrow morning.

EDIT:

Australia is asking Cambodia to take some of the refugees we get.

"In the past, there have been Cambodians going out as refugees to different countries.

"Now perhaps it is time for Cambodia to receive refugees back to Cambodia."

[LordSlowpoke]

* LordSlowpoke moonwalks into thread

so what exactly is the alternative to offshore centers, other than the same kind of shit except on the mainland or throwing unholy amounts of dosh which encourages people to travel to aus just to stay in such detention centers

this trend would be more understandable if it wasn't all bashing the current policies but acknowledging the existence of an alternative and working towards its implementation

[Max White]

How about onshore community processing, you know, the exact same thing we do with people who arrive by plane. There is already a very successful onshore process working right now, why not include the boat people?

[Blargityblarg]

we could even treat refugees like people and not hold them in what are essentially prisons for obscene amounts of time

y'know

that might ease up the strain on resources

a little

[Descan]

everytime i see the phrase boat people i imagine actual... boat-people.

japanese animu comes to mind

[Dutchling]

This reminds me of how disappointed I was at seeing the "horse men" from Rohan in the Lord of the Rings :ß

[Max White]

Well the major newspapers pretty much ignored that entire protest thing, but the ABC ran an article.

Also worries that we are going to get official membership to the asshole club and start undermining human rights efforts in Sri Lanka.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Christ, and they say my country has problems.

You guys seem under the mistaken impression that the riots and killings are in Australia. Not correct. They're in a neighboring third-world country. Our problems are purely right-wing governments, not crazed mobs in the streets (America has us beat for street violence by a mile).

Manus Island isn't actually in Australia, it's in Papua New Guinea. The situation is roughly equivalent to, say, having riots in Panama, because the USA dumped illegal immigrants there. Except, the USA has a lot more control in Panama than Australia does in Papua New Guinea.

No, I understand the situation, and yours is a lot worse. For one thing, dumping illegal immigrants into offshore detainment camps for indefinite periods of time would not exactly be accepted in the US (maybe by the ruthless "deport them all" types, but they're a minority). There would be massive protests against it, and the fact that Australia isn't responding in that way kind of disturbs me. Then there's the internet censorship, the restrictive behavioral laws, and the Coalition is definitely in the running with the Republicans for most crazy major political group in a democracy. I think Australia is in risk of facing a very dark future should it not deal with these things.

Edit: In other news, MSH, do NOT read ahead. It will literally melt your brain.
Parents sending their children to primary school are angry that their children have been given religious material saying masturbation, sex before marriage, homosexuality and wearing revealing clothing are all bad.

Very. Dark. Future. Don't let yourselves develop a powerful Religious Right, Australia. It's a problem that takes a long time to reverse.

Ok, so stuff is happening right now. Getup! has organised a protest major rally called 'Light The Dark' against the treatment of asylum seekers in light of the recent death and a few thousand people are blocking the streets of major cities. Still looking for news coverage, but #LightTheDark is currently the strongest twitter trend in Australia, with #Auspol, 'scott' and 'Morrison' also popular, and some photos going up. Not bad for 36 hours notice.
Not exactly what the Abbott government wants walking into the WA senate election.

That's good, if nothing else.

[Max White]

You know sometimes I think Scott Morrison does these things just to fuck with people. He gets off on it. Little asshole can't get enough of those sweet, sweet lefties tears. Apart from childishness, I can think of no reason why he does the things he does.

A former Sri Lankan military officer is now the acting manager of the Manus island camp.

Edit:
And the news keeps coming in. A couple in the Manus island camp chose to get an abortion because they didn't think the baby would survive in camp conditions. Now i'm very much pro choice, but the fact that we would put somebody in that sort of situation were they are essentially coerced into getting an abortion is just sickening.

[Reudh]

Edit: In other news, MSH, do NOT read ahead. It will literally melt your brain.
Parents sending their children to primary school are angry that their children have been given religious material saying masturbation, sex before marriage, homosexuality and wearing revealing clothing are all bad.

Very. Dark. Future. Don't let yourselves develop a powerful Religious Right, Australia. It's a problem that takes a long time to reverse.

Too late, it's beginning to already happen. Danny Nalliah, the Australian Christian Lobby, Catch the Fire Ministries... it's all beginning to happen. Down in Casey, where I am, one of our councillors, one Cr Rosalie Crestani, vehemently opposes non-christian buildings being built in our municipality - a mosque? Shunt it to Greater Dandenong. A buddhist temple purchasing the house next to it? Deny it.

[Sheb]

Fuck. What is so bad about asylum seekers? If only you'd apply the same conditions to those who come by plane, it'd be cheaper, fairer and you wouldn't pass for the regional asshole. I mean seriously, it's not like Australia is full to the brim you've got room there.

I'm starting to feel like Abbot got some kind of pathological obsession with boat-people for some reason. Maybe his teddy bear was stolen by one when he was a kid or something. Grow up Abbot!

Jesus Christ, if he had been German chancellor, he'd have cooperated with the Stasi to keep the asylum seeker on the other side of the wall.

[Blargityblarg]

It's an invented problem to stir up the bogans and the bumpkins.

The worst bit is that in the (admittedly rarely-sung) second verse of our national anthem, there is the line 'For those who've come across the seas, we've boundless plains to share', I shit you not.

[Max White]

Fuck. What is so bad about asylum seekers? If only you'd apply the same conditions to those who come by plane, it'd be cheaper, fairer and you wouldn't pass for the regional asshole. I mean seriously, it's not like Australia is full to the brim you've got room there.

I'm starting to feel like Abbot got some kind of pathological obsession with boat-people for some reason. Maybe his teddy bear was stolen by one when he was a kid or something. Grow up Abbot!

Jesus Christ, if he had been German chancellor, he'd have cooperated with the Stasi to keep the asylum seeker on the other side of the wall.

Would you believe Abbott himself is a boat person? He was born in London and came here by boat... So thanks UK, you gave us this!

Anyway, there are two main distinctions people use.
The first one that you will never hear a politician bring up is the public perception that all boat people are Muslims, and we should be scared of the dirty, horrible people from a different religion. In reality only about 57% if boat people are Muslim, with Christians being the next biggest group. Interestingly church groups are against offshore processing because they don't like their followers locked up in detention, so the religion right and humanitarian left make for queer bed follows here. "Plane people", however, are all white, heterosexual, university educated middle class workers and therefor socially acceptable to rednecks.

The second is that people died on the trip over by boat, but nobody dies by plane, so we need to stop people coming by boat for their own safety. This totally ignores the fact that many of these people are fleeing genocide, and while yes, some people die by boat and it is a tragedy, many more will die if they can't seek asylum. When one person dies in detention the right gets all up in arms that "Well it is only one person! What about the people that drowned coming over!" but when entire nations are in war we can ignore that...


Essentially misinformation has turned a debate about humanitarian policy into bipartisan moral bankruptcy.

[Blargityblarg]

Fuck. What is so bad about asylum seekers? If only you'd apply the same conditions to those who come by plane, it'd be cheaper, fairer and you wouldn't pass for the regional asshole. I mean seriously, it's not like Australia is full to the brim you've got room there.

I'm starting to feel like Abbot got some kind of pathological obsession with boat-people for some reason. Maybe his teddy bear was stolen by one when he was a kid or something. Grow up Abbot!

Jesus Christ, if he had been German chancellor, he'd have cooperated with the Stasi to keep the asylum seeker on the other side of the wall.

Would you believe Abbott himself is a boat person? He was born in London and came here by boat... So thanks UK, you gave us this!

Anyway, there are two main distinctions people use.
The first one that you will never hear a politician bring up is the public perception that all boat people are Muslims, and we should be scared of the dirty, horrible people from a different religion. In reality only about 57% if boat people are Muslim, with Christians being the next biggest group. Interestingly church groups are against offshore processing because they don't like their followers locked up in detention, so the religion right and humanitarian left make for queer bed follows here. "Plane people", however, are all white, heterosexual, university educated middle class workers and therefor socially acceptable to rednecks.

The second is that people died on the trip over by boat, but nobody dies by plane, so we need to stop people coming by boat for their own safety. This totally ignores the fact that many of these people are fleeing genocide, and while yes, some people die by boat and it is a tragedy, many more will die if they can't seek asylum. When one person dies in detention the right gets all up in arms that "Well it is only one person! What about the people that drowned coming over!" but when entire nations are in war we can ignore that...


Essentially misinformation has turned a debate about humanitarian policy into bipartisan moral bankruptcy.

The allegory to use for people coming by boat despite the dangers is the way people will jump from burning buildings to almost certain death, just because it isn't the absolutely certain death that awaits them in the flames.

[Sheb]

And so the Coalition wants to shut down all the windows to prevent them from dying of falling down.