Merlin and his Political Protest (2 Viewers)

[crazyhomo]

Originally posted by katie_tully
And as for the yanks and the poms, tourism is a little different than fleeing a country don't you think? Especially when it is a major source of our economy...And as for the yanks and poms that move here permanently, stop taking everything out of context and changing it around. All people are welcome to join our society, but there are boundries and guildlines in the way this happens. There are reasons we don't just let anybody into our country. Stop and think about these reasons, and then consider why there is such a process in determining a persons reason to come to our country.

so, basically, if you have enough money to buy your way into our society, 'queue jumping' is suddenly ok? 'all people are welcome' yet the boundaries and guidelines only apply to those fleeing from a society that wants them dead? if you have the cash for a nice hotel room, then no one cares if you overstay your visa for a couple of years? or maybe it's only ok to break out immigration laws if you arrive on a plane instead of a boat?

 

[crazyhomo]

Originally posted by katie_tully
I'm a redneck because I feel compassionate about Australians more than other countries?
I love Australia, I love that we are a free country. I know other countries arent as fortunate as us, and I am so happy to be this fortunate.
Call me a redneck, I'd help those in need here in Australia before I ran around and tried to help those who aren't.
HAHAH, and I know you're all now going to say bullshit such as "Oh, so people from other countries aren't worthy of help?"
No you fucking idiots, that isnt my argument at all. They deserve as much aid as anybody, but at this point in time my priorities are focused more on the women in australia who are homeless because of domestic violence, the children under 10 who are homeless, addicted to drugs and who are selling their bodies to survive.
It've never experienced war, I can't emphasise with these people, I sympathise...I've bever been homeless, but I see it often.

i know! we put all the homeless in detention centres! problem solved!

 

[400miles]

Originally posted by Ziff
Here's the stupid quote I was looking for but I couldn't find the one Peter Reith said:

- John Howard (2001)

Oh yes, I love that quote. Political agenda if ever I've seen one. I take it this is when John Howard alluded (or in some cases blatantly said it) that some boat people could be terrorists.

Let's also remember that terrorists could just as likely be Australian and already live here. If we're going to restrict the country's population by taking out those who MAY WELL BE terrorists then we're going to be left with like three people who all in comas.
Anyone could be a terrorist.

 

[katie_tully]

I love how you manage to take my words and twist them to suit your view, well done, I do believe that takes talent.

 

[crazyhomo]

Originally posted by katie_tully
I love how you manage to take my words and twist them to suit your view, well done, I do believe that takes talent.

what are you trying to say then? that we should home our own homeless? i'm wondering how much money is spent housing and feeding refugees for years when that money could be spent on our own people then? why not just let them go? do you think that people in other countries actually know our situation on asylum seekers? i highly doubt it, so how is this a deterent if they don't even know about it?

 

[katie_tully]

What I'm saying is ... Do we have the resources to keep taking in refugees? I don't know the situation with Australia's homeless people because I hear jackshit about it spoken in the media and it's never election agenda. Meanwhile with the Refugees we get two sides thrown at us, the Governments view and then the human rights activists. Surely we're wasting our time protesting against something if we know the Government aren't going to budge anyway? There's not a chance in hell Howard is going to rectify the refugee situation, we all know this. He's best friends with George Bush people, the same man who'd have coast guard sink any boat within 1000 km of his country.
Why waste our time with Howard when there are other people who may listen, who may be swayed to do something about both situations.

 

[400miles]

Originally posted by katie_tully
What I'm saying is ... Do we have the resources to keep taking in refugees? I don't know the situation with Australia's homeless people because I hear jackshit about it spoken in the media and it's never election agenda. Meanwhile with the Refugees we get two sides thrown at us, the Governments view and then the human rights activists. Surely we're wasting our time protesting against something if we know the Government aren't going to budge anyway? There's not a chance in hell Howard is going to rectify the refugee situation, we all know this. He's best friends with George Bush people, the same man who'd have coast guard sink any boat within 1000 km of his country.
Why waste our time with Howard when there are other people who may listen, who may be swayed to do something about both situations.

We'll just have to vote Howard out then won't we.

 

[stamos]

Originally posted by katie_tully
What I'm saying is ... Do we have the resources to keep taking in refugees?

I'm no expert on this issue, but it would seem that funding an extensive detention centre program can have little benefit. It only serves to soak up a lot of money from the public sector. I'd refer to you to what Asquithian was saying about a diverse immigration policy providing economic stimulation.

I'd also like to raise the example of the united states. They have an extremely lax border protection policy with mexico, but this supports industry in california. The expanding workforce in the manufacturing industry helps to sustain it's growth.

I put it to you that your xenophobia is damaging the Australian economy. Traitor.

edit: This is supposed to sound pompus. I was trying to emulate the efforts of tWiStEdD.

 

[400miles]

Originally posted by katie_tully
What I'm saying is ... Do we have the resources to keep taking in refugees?

Like with what stamos said... we'll have more resources if we stop locking refugees up... According to http://www.chilout.org/ the costs of running the detention centres are huge. It's approximately $104 per person per day...

The other alternatives are much cheaper. This is a quote from the Chilout site.

The average cost of community based programs are (per person, per day): Parole:$5.39. Probation:$3.94. Home Detention:$58.83. These options are clearly more economically efficient, and much more humane.

Clearly our resources would be MUCH higher if we let them out.

 

[Ziff]

Wetbacks

 

[lengstar]

okay...you know WHY our economy is so good? its needs poor people to balance out the rich. just think about it. if everyone was rich...who's going to do the manual labour?
the divide of rich and poor is only going to get greater. what makes america such a powerful economy? they have an equally large number of homeless and unemployed. its called the economy, deal with it. i use to think communism would be utopia but it just doesn't work.

 

[Suney_J]

and to think this discussion started because of merlin. the whole point of his protest was to spark debate, and judging by this thread its worked perfectly

 

[TheBirdMustFly]

I'll put my opinion across regardless of whether it's been said or not.
I think what Merlin did was excellent, the tape thing was to cause controversy and raise the issue. But the thing is most ppl won't answer to it because they don't care about any1 but themselves most of the time.
But me on the other hand, it inspired me and I did something I turned up to a protest draggin my friend along, I joined a group and am going to join amnesty international. This is not all thanks to Merlin, I was aware of the issue and already had my opinion I just needed that kick up the bum to do something about it.
In reply to those who think they are not refugees, they are they are Iraqies and Afghans who are fleeing the U.S. who think they own the world. and are attacking their country blowing bits up here and their, forgeting that there are people in the country who arn't terrorists. Sorry post getting to long so I'll stop, lol

 

[smegger_em]

merlin's a gay dick and what he did was cliche

 

[Blackalicious]

Well good on him for exercising his democratic rights. But I’m being bias obviously as I agree with the cause. If it had been some right wing Nazi I would have thought he was a complete prick, quite rightly

 

[smegger_em]

i agree with him aswell...but i think he (sub-consciously) did it more for a gimmick and to acquire or maintain a certain image than anything else. if he was genuine about it, why not go over to fucking rwanda and actually help someone (there's lots of refugees there) instead of being on some stpuid reality tv program. being "left-wing" is "in" these days, and that's the attraction for most people, whether they realise it or not.

sorry for subjecting you to my pessemism.

 

[Blackalicious]

yeah but he's raising awarness in Australia...about the refugee issue which had been losing main stream media focus. And the idiots who watch reality TV are exactly the people who need to be educated.

But i do agree with you left wingism is becomming fashionable. The whole " blood for oil" campaign is one of many examples.

 

[smegger_em]

i started reading that and discarding it at the same time...cause the "raising awarness" sounded cliche...but you do have a good point (and also i like you )...he may be enlightening the ignoramus' that predominantly make up that show's audience. but still, i think with that type of awareness...it's only alerting those idiots to the fact that it's "cool" to be "left-wing" (kinda "yay, lets be all self-righteous like merlin"), and so any of their efforts to do anything productive will probably end up being counter-productive, because they'll just be doing it to acquire a certain image....again, sorry for subjecting you to my pessemism

 

[ezzy85]

Originally posted by Blackalicious

But i do agree with you left wingism is becomming fashionable.

one word: CHE

 

[Ziff]

With the lefties, as with the righties, it's a big competition for them "who can be more extreme!" YAY! They're all wankers.

Righties: No abortion, no rights, no sex, everyone must conform to my morals damn it or I will beat you!

Lefties: Let's sponge money off the government and see how much weed we can score and smoke with it, then sit around in a love circle and connect with our spiritual side whilst we don't exercise any sort of decorum or discipline of our urges at all! YAY!

There's a limit and generally both sides are as bad culprits as each other. It's just that the left is getting more publicity these days for all the "bad" or at least "disobedient" things they're doing from the media and the right are usually more outspoken in a different forum which is slightly more "acceptable".

Then again, would you rather a message that's right (e.g. anti-abortion or anti-sex before marriage) but done in a civil manner in the form of a formal speech or a left message such as "free the refugees" but done in a slightly more controversial forum because they don't have the access to the formal speech medium etc...?