Introducing...Greens Watch-watch!

Ever heard of Greens Watch? Try to imagine the lowest, most contemptible (and quite often just plain bizarre) smear campaign in world history. Every possible dirty tactic against the Greens is used here-jumping to comically implausible alternate futures if Greens policies were implemented (and transforming hyperbole into an art form while they're at it), selectively using news sources to paint the Greens as being Satan incarnate, highly emotional imagery with no relation to the Greens, providing their own captions to photos (and, unsurprisingly, linking said photos to the Greens) and of course, outright lying when it suits them.

Every example I've mentioned will have its own dissection, and exposure for the slimy BS it is.

Their page on Greens' animal policies is a fine example:

One of the more bizarre Greens' Policies is their Animal Policy.

The policy is so extreme, Greenswatch is very suspicious that the Terrorist Funding PETA Extremists ^{^} are involved in its formulation and will be investigating further for possible links.

The link goes to the PETA website. I entered into the search bar "Greens" and "Bob Brown". "Greens" hits were entirely about green vegetables, whilst "Bob Brown" referred to people with "Bob" or "Brown" in their names. So, predictably enough, the "Greens secretly sympathise with terrorists" smear fell apart*

Moving on:

Banning Leather and Wool

3.1.4. Ending the captivity and killing of animals for the cosmetic and fashion industries, including the use of fur and skin. ^{^}

Leather (skin) and Wool (fur) are products used by almost everyone and banning them is extreme.

I followed the link to the Greens site, and found this:

When I said that GW wasn't above lying, I, well...wasn't lying. BUT: even IF that policy statement was an official Greens policy, it still wouldn't change the fact that

• there's a difference between wool and fur (one that GW clearly doesn't understand)
• synthetic fur is available
• leather and wool isn't being 'banned'. It's simply that in Australia it can't be produced, and instead be imported.
  

And when I referred to GW's dystopian futures...

If this policy was to be implemented an underground leather and wool blackmarket would develop as people secretly buy and sell their leather and wool. A special police force would have to be developed to enforce the Greens' crazy Wool and Leather prohibition. The Greens are opposed to prohibition of Drugs, but support prohibition of Leather and Wool ?

Except, of course, for the fact that that legal imports and synthetic furs would kill off any chance of an 'underground black market.' Which would in turn negate the need for a specialised police force. Nice try, guys.

Banning Pets

3.3.2. Discouraging impulse buying, by restricting the sale of live companion animals to authorized and regulated breeders. ^{^}

So only breeders can buy animals ? What about the elderly who value the companionship of animals to cure loneliness ?
What about people whose existing pets get pregnant ? Since they can't sell them to anyone they'd have to do it secretly, or dump them. Again there would be pet smuggling rings and a pet blackmarket, with forged breeder licences being sold on the streets. The Greens are opposed to prohibition of Drugs, but support prohibition of Pets?

I checked that link, and to no surprise came with the same result: a policy that doesn't exist.
And by the way, just in case the policy did exist:

1. The elderly can still buy animals. The policy doesn't mention anything about oldies.
   
2. If people's pets did get pregnant, I'd bet my internal organs that legislation would exist that these pets could be sold to professional breeders
3. "Pet blackmarket"??!!1! What are these guys smoking?

The lunacy becomes even more hysterical in point 3 as GW drops any facade of legitimacy, literally making up a series of random policies without any links or quotes:

• Ending live animal exports - Why ? It's the same as a farm pen but on a ship

Not what from I'm reading:

Animal charities say that thousands of animals die en route from disease, heat exhaustion, thirst, suffocation, and crush injuries.^[1] The National Hog Farmer reports that 420,000 pigs are crippled and 170,000 die each year in the U.S. on the way to the slaughterhouse.^[2]

^{To quote Captain Jeremy (from another context but still accurate nonetheless): They're shameless.
Their final point is equally ludicrous:}

This one is interesting:

3.6.1 Ensuring that cruel acts and practices against animals by corporate and private offenders are treated as serious crimes. ^{^}

The Greens think crimes against animals are serious, yet crimes against humans, such as drug crimes, aren't serious at all. Good to see the Greens have their priorities in the right order.

<sup>If you thought that the link would go to a non-existent Greens policy, congratulations! What GW is actually doing here is a type of logical fallacy-if no contrary information presents itself (in this context, the information that crimes against humans aren't OK), then hurting humans is definitely fine, because the quote doesn't say that hurting people isn't fine. Hope that made sense.

Almost there, and this has to be broken down almost sentence by sentence:</sup>

Humans are Animals are Humans

3.6.2. Replacing the status of non-human animals as “property” within current legislation to one of “beings” with recognizable legal rights. ^{^}

Why? At least give me an insanely stupid reason why you think it's "embarrassingly bad."

The sentence itself is self evidently bizarre. “beings” with recognizable legal rights ?

Policy like this is embarrassingly bad.

Why? At least give me an insanely stupid reason why you think it's "embarrassingly bad."

However there's more - analyse the following sentence closely:

Replacing the status of non-human animals as “property”

'non-human animals' ? Think about it. If they'd left 'non-human' out of the sentence, it would have still made sense ie "Replacing the status of animals.."

So why'd they put it in there ?

Probably because it's accurate: humans are animals.

Because the Greens believe humans are animals, equal with chickens, cockroaches, grasshoppers and sheep.

The first part is fine...the second part veers off track harder then Alan Stang.

The 'human-animals' here at Greenswatch disagree.

<sup>Brown, Nettle, Milne and Siewert would also disagree.

It took forever...but it's done. A half-decent examination to what the Greens half to put up with. Don't worry, boys and girls. There is, sadly enough, plenty more where those smears came from and I intend on blowing their digital brains out soon enough.</sup>

*A smear that could have been done far better if GW had tried the "the Greens oppose those counter-terrorism measures that give the police to raid your home without you even knowing! Clearly, they support the terrorists" smear. Man, I could do this better then GW.

"A woman having the right to control her own body organs? You cannibalistic baby-eating murderer!!!"

That time of the month is almost upon us. That time where we head to the Fertility Control Clinic...and show HOGPI that bullying women for killing a small clump of cells isn't on. Last time, the GrodsMilitary provided backup to the RWM battalion, AKA the Radical Woman's Movement. We stared daggers at each other, until one plucky young private decided to cross no man's land...

Same deal this Saturday. To my legion of fellow soldiers (OK, maybe just Maddy and Steph), come to the ideological battle. If you can't, see if you can nag a few others into going.

Where: Fertility Control Clinic, 118 Wellington Parade, East Melbourne

When: final Saturday of every month, in this case the 28th of June.

Time: 10am-12pm

The political compass and where I am on it.

Ever heard of the political compass? It's a very cool graph that shows you where you stand on economics (Left or Right) and on social issues (authoritarian and libertarian). In doing so it dispels with the archaic idea of 'Left vs. Right = Commies vs. Fascists' because the idea that social authoritarianism and economic neo-liberalism inherently go together is, frankly, a load of bull (ever seen the LDP?). Because of the way the political compass is designed, we can see that communism and fascism aren't opposites, as communism is an economic model and fascism is a social model. Hence, the classic 'Left vs. Right' graph is fundamentally flawed.

The compass changes this so that the opposite of communism is neo-liberalism, and the opposite of authoritarianism is libertarianism.This is where I stand. Unsurprising, really. The classic 'leftist' of politics (the one that would be the moderate left on the older political scale) and where most other member of the GrodsMilitary would stand. Funnily enough, when I first took the test in yr11, I was either 1 square or 2 squares, on both scales, from being as far-left and far-libertarian as possible. How I've mellowed in my slightly less old age.

With this I could obtain a degree in neuropsychology.

I stumbled on this when I spontaneously image-googled 'liberal brain.' (It's an American picture, for the uninformed. Hence, 'liberal' instead of 'leftist.')

Apparently, liberals are closet Marxists (our opposition to the Vietcong was just a cunning plan to support them instead) and we possess no personal responsibility (as compared to Bush and Howard, who've always taken full responsibility for their actions). And of course, what liberal would function without a 'global warming panic meter' (what would 2,500 scientists know anyway?) and a 'moral relativity gray area' (everybody knows that the world is black and white, just ask Michael Savage!)?

In response, I decided to beat these prats at their own game:

And it isn't a f*cking strawman, either. I'll to a CDP/Fred Nile version sometime later. And yes, I do realise that this would have been much better posted before Howard lost.

Beneath the gloss: and they call us “extreme.”

Initially unable to understand what was so ‘fundie’ about Family First, I embarked on a minor quest to see if they were as 14^th century as the rest of the GrodsMilitary thought. I googled them, wikied them, went to their website...

Dear God…they’re all over the place. Hatred of anyone even remotely pro-gays rights, opposed to other cultures alternate to their almighty Judeo-Christian values, these people rival the CDP with their bigotry. They make the CEC look somewhat less like a bunch of tin-foil-hat wearing conspiracy theorists. Brace yourselves, boys and girls…you won’t enjoy this.

This is the article that every FF voter should read: so blatantly homophobic it's a wonder that anyone votes for them. Apparently, this is what Fielding and the FF think:

1. That discrimination is based on sexuality is absolutely fine (given that that's what they're doing).
   
2. That discrimination based on private political beliefs is also fine-it doesn't matter that Warrren it perfectly straight...he still supports the gays. So no preferencing.
3. A 'family' needs both a mum and dad-which would, according to them, disqualify my auntie and cousins from being a family
4. Having an affair whilst your wife is pregnant is more pro-family then having an attraction to someone of the same sex.

This homophobia continues:
Ignoring the stupidity of the smear in general, look at the last two (in particular second last) points they make. No, that isn't a joke-the FF really so seem to think that support groups for gay and transgender adolescents counts as "promoting" homosexuality and is an "extreme value". This is literally the sort of stuff I'd expect from Fred Nile.

And it gets even better:

FORMER Queensland MP Pauline Hanson's hopes of re-entering Parliament at the election have been bolstered after a Senate preference deal between her and the Family First party, a move the Democrats have described as morally bankrupt.

The decision by Family First to put Ms Hanson's United Australia Party ahead of Labor, the Democrats and the Greens on its Queensland Senate card overshadowed the party's campaign launch and left leader Senator Steve Fielding struggling to justify siding with her.

A spokeswoman for Family First told The Age there was no serious indication that Ms Hanson could win a Queensland Senate seat and "on that basis Family First preference decisions were based on keeping the Greens and the Democrats out of Parliament".

Family First have placed Ms Hanson 47th out of 65 on their Senate how-to-vote card. Coalition candidates have been placed from 33 to 38 and Labor, Greens and Democrats make up the last 10 places.

...

Senator Fielding said: "You have to preference every single party, you don't have to have things in common with those parties, but you have to preference every single party."

...

Ms Hanson has said that African immigrants were spreading HIV in Australia and called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration.

...

Senator Fielding launched Family First's campaign from an abandoned petrol station at Lower Templestowe yesterday to emphasise the party's key election policy of a 10-cent cut in petrol taxes.

"It is irresponsible not to cut petrol tax … it helps people make ends meet and … puts downward pressure on inflation."

At the rally, attended by about 80 people, the senator warned against the Greens being given the balance of power in the Senate.

"I think most people know that the Greens are extreme. If they really knew that the Greens would have the balance of power, they'd be really concerned about it," Senator Fielding told reporters.

He said the Greens had extreme policies targeted at the mining and timber industries, as well as a drug policy that would encourage a culture of drugs.

"There is a concern about the issue of drugs, and we see when you have a soft policy on drugs in the AFL what problems it can cause. Now the Greens want to see injecting rooms, the Greens want to see heroin medically prescribed. That is a position soft on drugs and it's irresponsible."

The racist twat can't even defend his preferences without dragging out the drug issue. Apparently, the Green's drug policies are more extreme then supporting a politician who demonises every minority under the sun. These three articles are also excellent.

And it still frickin' continues:

TONY JONES: Well, returning now to the potential control of the balance of power in the Senate by the Family First Party.

...

And joining us tonight from Adelaide, the city that is apparently the power base of Family First, the party's chairman, Peter Harris.

...


TONY JONES: It may only be getting picked up by the newspapers, but there does seem to be quite a lot of a religious nature, for example, do you stand by the material put out by one of your candidates, Pastor Danny Nalliah in Victoria, who called on his followers to pull down Satan's strongholds.

They included, along with brothels and gambling places, mosques and temples.

Most Australians would consider that to be an incitement to religious violence.

PETER HARRIS: Oh, absolutely.

And some people would see it that way but we, you know, we last week totally distanced ourself from that situation.

We received a letter from the Islamic Council of Victoria.

We responded to that letter and our position is simply that we totally promote and believe in the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, the freedom of choice.

And I personally contacted the Islamic Council of Victoria and expressed that view and they reflected a sense of relief that Family First wasn't about that.

TONY JONES: So what has happened here, Peter?

Have some nutters gotten on board your bandwagon?

PETER HARRIS: Oh, look we certainly wasn't aware of the material that was out there at the time.

But, look, any party, I mean, this is a party that didn't exist federally a short time ago, and we fielded 125 candidates.

And we're going to have a situation --

We're going to have a situation where you've got some people on both the extreme left and the extreme right of situations.

TONY JONES: Alright.

Here's another one.

There are posters put about the seat of McMillan, in the La Trobe Valley, that said, "A vote for Christian Disarray" -- he was the Labor member before he was voted out -- "is a vote for Satan".

PETER HARRIS: Well I'm not aware of that and certainly the party had no involvement in that situation at all.

TONY JONES: So the party doesn't stand by what some of its candidates are doing, that's what you're saying?

PETER HARRIS: Well, I mean, sometimes people say things that are not supportive of the policy of the party, and so in those situation situations, we step in, we deal with those issues and we move forward.

But certainly if you look at the bulk of our campaign throughout the past six weeks, we've run a very balanced, logical, focused campaign and people voted for us because they didn't accept the extreme right or the extremist allegations that were made against us by a range of groups and media.

It should be noted that Danny was also known for calling Muslims "demons" and that they are trying to take over Australia. It's not so much that Danny made such remarks, but more that FF didn't boot him out of their party, ie that Fielding is content to have such extremists within his party. With views like that, I'm surprised Dan and Steve didn't join the openly Islamophobic CDP.

There you have it; hatred of gays, a refusal to remove such blatantly prejudiced candidates, and what is so scary about the FF is how good they are at covering all of this up. Look through their press releases and press statements-all feel-good, populist “families families families” policies, with little else other then cutting the petrol tax. However, unlike his cohorts in Queensland or NSW, Fielding knows precisely how to run a proper campaign. Fred Nile is openly hates Muslims and the less said about Hanson and racial issues the better, so they will never have a hope of becoming a genuine political force . Unlike them, you’d never suspect of Fielding of being anything other then a populist conservative, which is what makes him such a threatening force.

This made the newspaper?!

From today’s Age:

RACIAL harassment of Africans increased following former immigration minister Kevin Andrews' claims they were engaged in crime and failing to integrate, according to a confidential Immigration Department report.

...

The Immigration Department maintained this was because of an improvement in some African countries and the need to help Iraqis displaced by war and Burmese refugees living in camps on the Thai-Burma border.

...Mr Andrews...claimed, after the fatal bashing of Sudanese refugee Liep Gony, that the refugee intake from places such as Sudan had been cut amid fears that "some groups don't seem to be settling and adjusting into the Australian life as quickly as we would hope".

The community update says African community leaders had reacted to the ministerial comments and public debate about the change of intake. "There was widespread unease that public comments encouraged racism."

...

Multicultural Affairs parliamentary secretary Laurie Ferguson said Mr Andrews had caused lasting damage.

"His comments were not only counterproductive in regards to stirring up racism and hostility. It is also now very hard to convince the African community the intake hasn't been reduced to zero," he said.

...

The chairman of the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria, Sam Afra, said the documents obtained by The Age confirmed the group's worst fears. "Some might consider polarising society to be a clever political tactic in the lead-up to an election, but these alarming findings reveal such ploys do not come without a cost," Mr Afra said.

I can imagine the African-Australian community sighing one great collective “Duh!”

I wonder if the Age realises that the whole point of Andrews’ little stir was to redivide the community along ethnic lines again. Tampa was brilliant at that: “teh terr’izts ar cumin! in terh ebil botes! we muzt stops dem!’ (Ignoring the obvious fact that if anyone with a grudge against us were to come into Oz, coming by boat-generating massive media attention-would be the most unsubtle way of doing it) Tampa turned us against asylum seekers/refugees and won Howard the election. Sudagate (my God that was an awful pun) unsuccessfully tried to turn us against the Sudanese, and by extension the Australian black community, when Howard and co. realised that their only chance of winning wasn't just to tar and feather Labor but to find an easy scapegoat to blame for something.

So they waited for the opportunity to make such a statement-that ‘they' aren’t integrating into ‘our’ culture. Therefore, instead of examining the root causes as to why 'they' aren't integrating (such as lack of education or hostility and bigotry from other Australians), we must block the elusive ‘them’ from entering 'our' country. Of course, they waited and nothing happened. Hilali didn't say anything dramatic that could be blamed on Muslims, there was no Cronulla riots...it was almost mid-October, with a month and a half before the looming election, and there was still no 'other' for the Libs to divide the rednecks against. So, grasping at straws, Andrews used an example of a Sudanese being bashed to death by white racists to justify the Sudanese not 'integrating.'

I just love the fact that we didn’t fall for it this time...if still somewhat annoyed that something so blatantly obvious made the paper.

Teh Baebeez!!1!!!!!11!

Ah...abortion. The social issue in which the Right wingers' brain cells melt in a runny slime and they become a mass of rabid moronic bigots, unable to comprehend anything other then "youleftistsarekillinginnocentbabies*youwillallburninhellnodontshowme
anyinformationaboutillegalabortionsijustwannaprotectthebabies!!!!!" No offence to any moderate Righties, by the way. But sadly, abortion, in Victoria, in the 21st century, is still only legal if the mother's life is in serious danger if she gives birth. Thankfully, this might change as Brumby is willing to decriminalise it in a conscience vote.

With a name like 'Helpers of God's Precious Infants' (from now on known as HOGPI), take a wild stab in the dark as to where these fellows stand on the debate. These Christians are the sort of people who'd make Randall Terry proud, intimidating and bullying women who wish to have an abortion. I'm no Christian, but I recall a certain passage about not being a judgmental asshole.

That's where the GrodsArmy comes in. We, inspired by surviving soldiers of previous battles with HOGPI, have now begun the monthly task of protesting against HOGPI on the last Saturday of every month. A short film (filmed by a hung over FM Editor) as well as a funnier version of this post by Capt Lefty are also available.

During the battle, I decided to see if any common ground could be found between us, as I tried to sell fundraising chocolates to support building a school and hospital in Zimbabwe. Needless to say, they were quite uninterested (although that may have had something to do with a) me not being loud enough and b) being interrupted by the police several seconds into the attempt).

However, despite this minor setback, the rally was very successful. We were able to keep the fundies to the opposite side of the clinic, and it was clear that they weren't willing to use their more bullying tactics (such as waving signs of bloody fetuses in the air), instead praying and holding up a statue of a tall hominid creature that was supposed to be either Mary or Jesus. Lt. Keri thought it was Mary holding Jesus, the Captain thought it was Jesus holding himself in a time paradox, and I say it was both; a transsexual Jesus-turned-Mary that had given birth to himself.

For more information on these protests, email General Bron at general_bron@hotmail.com.

*Babies, of course, being small clumps of cellular matter with more biological relations to an amoeba then to a complex human being.