Blogging on Australia. Racist? Who're you calling a racist?

Some interesting posts on the racist (but not according to John Howard) violence in Australia.

"But it’s the Prime Minister’s denials of racism that are the most affective and therefore perhaps the most effective in squelching any prospect of thought or of politics:

I do not accept that there is underlying racism in this country. I have always taken a more optimistic view of the character of the Australian people. I do not believe Australians are racist.

So, saying that Australia is racist suggests the absence of a sunny disposition, and who would want to be accused of that? This country is so fucking infantile - this resort to charges of being impolite, unsociable, not getting along are standard, and across the political spectrum. A nation of tiny tots in a schoolyard, it’s all about playing nicely." archive s0metim3s

Can we just think of Australia's history? Aborigine's?

And from another psot on s0metim3s: Speaking of “Under the beach, the barbed wire”

The appalling treatment of asylum seekers? From The Guardian" Australia has acquired a reputation over the last few years for having one of the world's toughest immigration policies. Asylum seekers who arrive there without proper papers have been automatically bundled off to remote islands or desert camps behind razor wire, where they are sometimes kept for years. Illegal workers and overstayers get much the same treatment. Australia's determination to keep unwanted migrants out is a message that has gone round the globe." more