Garth’s posterous

Bent in a kinda straight way 
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October 1, 2009

Not only a liar, but a bad liar who doesn’t understand YouTube

This illustrates, I think, how much the White House has realized that attacking Obama’s critics as racists is counterproductive.

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Filed under  //   Jimmy Carter   racism  

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July 21, 2009

If Eddie McGuire says so, it must be so eh?

Though, if Eddie McGuire is a proponent of the idea that Australians are unusually racist, what could be wrong with the idea?
 
Interesting that both of the examples he gives involve a white guy getting bashed up by...well read on.
 
And yet the entire narrative of these and other recent assaults and murders has been cast as a simplistic "evil white Australians doing beastly things to oppressed but saintly non-Anglos" morality play by those keen to prove their own moral superiority over ordinary people.
 
Interesting though that one of the people charged with the bashing of Indian student Sourabh Sharma is himself of Indian descent.
 
But, as a member of a minority that has had its own share of trouble from parts of the wider society myself, I still reckon Australian society is overwhelmingly characterised by its openness and tolerance.
 
I live in an area with high numbers of recently arrived and still establishing immigrants, especially from the Middle East and Africa. Arab and African Muslim women veiled in half a dozen different ways rub shoulders with Christians from the Sudan.
 
There's an African church that meets every Sunday in the community centre, and I heard the choir practising outside one morning. Singing in English, but with that unmistakable African sound. And what a wonderful sound it was too.
 
The men's hairdressing shop was bought by some Iraqi Shi'ites several years ago and they have turned it into a thriving business. Everybody, including Africans and Anglos, goes there.
 
It's not perfect where I live. What or where is? But most people seem to get along quite nicely and I think that is what is normal in this country, despite what those who make a living from trying to sell fear, (at either end of the spectrum), say.
 

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Filed under  //   Australia   Eddie McGuire   Indian students   racism  

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June 29, 2009

Football lays bare Australian racism

 
The latest sensation for the West Coast Eagles and favourite of the crowd - Nicholas Naitanui
 

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Filed under  //   Aussie Rules   Football   Nicholas Naitanui   racism   sport   West Coast Eagles  

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May 29, 2009

Moderate Muslims Drive Out Al-Muhajiroun Supporters in Luton

In the British town of Luton today, members of the Muslim community confronted extremists and drove them from the streets.
Muslim extremists behind a protest against soldiers on a homecoming parade have been driven off the streets today by members of their own community.
 
Fights broke out and traffic ground to a halt when moderate Muslims confronted a group of about 12 men who regularly preach from a stall in Bury Park - the heart of Luton’s Muslim community. After Friday prayers, more than 200 members of local mosques turned on the group who sparked outrage in March when they disrupted a parade by the Royal Anglian Regiment through the town centre.
 
The extremists shouted ‘baby killers’ and ‘butchers of Basra’ at the returning soldiers as well as brandishing placards against the Iraq war. But today they were surrounded by a crowd as they began to set up their stall, shouting ‘We don’t want you here’ and ‘move on, move on’.
 
Angry words were exchanged and scuffles broke out between members of both groups, with the extremists shouting ‘Shame on you’ and ‘Get back to your synagogue’.
 
One police officer and two community support officers struggled to hold them apart until more officers arrived. Buses and cars were unable to move as the crowd spilled into the road.
 
Farasat Latif, of the Islamic Centre in Luton, which was firebombed after the protest against the soldiers, said moderate members of his community took action because police had failed to move the group on.
 
He said the extremists, who follow the militant group led by Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammed, had fuelled feelings against the Muslim community which led to a march last Sunday in Luton which was disrupted by white, right-wing extremists.
 
Mr Latif said: ‘We have been fighting these Muslim extremists for you. They represent nobody but themselves. The community decided to move them on because the police won’t. We have asked them, but they did nothing.’
 
‘I don’t know if they will be back. We have been the victims twice over - from the stupidity of Muslim extremists who metaphorically pour petrol and fan the flames of the right wing extremists.’
 
‘This was a peaceful demonstration and we hope they get the message that the law-abiding community is sick and tired of them.’
It's funny I suppose that Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (where this report was taken from) was regularly attacked as some kind of far-Right extremist when Mr Bush was president, especially because he was highly critical of Islamist extemism, (and quite properly so in my view), but is now taking flak from the Right because he doesn't want Mr Obama to fail, arguing (again quite properly) that it isn't in America's interests for Obama to fail, and calling attention to how some on the Right, in their rush to oppose Islamism, have jumped into bed with the racist neofascist far-Right in Europe, such as Vlaams Belang.
 
 

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Filed under  //   fascism   Islam   Islamism   racism   Vlaams Belang  

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