Post # 157 Heil Big Brother!

There they are, all wearing black shirts, all raising their right arms in stiff salute, all shouting ‘Sieg Heil’, all praising Adolf Hitler and his commitment to ethnic purity. Where are we exactly – in the back streets of Munich or Berlin, or any other place in the west where unregenerate extremism continues to exercise its baleful fascination? No, as a matter of fact this is Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia.

Yes, indeed, there is a Nazi movement in Mongolia, including a group which goes by the name of Tsagaan Khass – White Swastika -, led by a man who calls himself, wait for it, Big Brother. Please stop laughing; it’s all true! Big Brother has a rather confused view when it comes to Hitler, which involves some bizarre cherry-picking;

We don’t agree with his extremism and starting the Second World War. We are against all those killings, but we support his ideology. We support nationalism rather than fascism.

What Big Brother fails to mention is that in Hitler’s racial pyramid the Mongolians came close to the bottom. It’s such a bizarre irony that Nazism is now embraced by at least some among the ‘degenerate horde’ as a positive ideology.

There is really no great surprise in this. Racist nationalism is often adopted by people with a deep sense of personal grievance or inferiority, people who excuse their own failings by scapegoating some minority or other. In Germany it was the Jews. I confess I don’t know an awful lot about Mongolia but I’m guessing that Jewish people are something of a rarity. No, it’s not the Jews that Big Brother and his kind are getting upset about – it’s the Chinese, or the Chinks, their term, not mine.

China is imperialistic and evil, the message goes out; the Chinese are a danger to the ‘pure blood’ of Mongolia. Just how is this danger manifested, you may wonder? Well, you see, the Chinese have a lot of money, allowing them to come and ‘take’ Mongolian women.

This fear of deracination is not simply the fantasy of a fringe; it feeds on wider prejudices among the nation. One of the most popular urban myths in Ulan Bator is that the Chinese government has a secret policy of encouraging its male citizens to come and have sex with Mongolian women. A popular hip-hop track regularly played the capital’s bars and clubs is called Don’t Go Too Far, You Chinks, with a chorus of “shoot, shoot them all.”

There have been attacks on some foreigners, something that the US State Department has warned potential visitors about, though those in most immediate risk from this xenophobia seem to be Mongolian women themselves, threatened with head shaving if they sleep with foreigners. Tsgaaan Khass takes an altogether moderate approach here, insisting that its role is simply one of “law enforcement.” Their policy is to carry out targeted checks, going to hotels and restaurants to make sure that Mongolian girls are not involved in prostitution and foreigners are not breaking the law.

We don’t go through and beat the shit out of everyone. We check our information and make sure its right.

Now that’s a reassurance, I feel sure you will agree.

Post#156 A Guide to Australian Election Terminology (Part 2)

Here's a few more terms. These are more in the colloquial strain.

1. Stooge: Natural person or other entity secretly acting on behalf of another candidate.

2. Stooge Party: Usually has a misleading name and is intended to draw votes away from a rival and funnel those votes via preference distribution to its masters in the main party. An example would be a party with a name such as "Forest Defence Party" which is actually owned by the lumber industry. It would pull votes from the genuine Green Party and transfer them via preferences to the Liberal or National Party. A "Small Business Advance Party" could, conversely, stooge for the Labor Party, drawing votes from the Liberals.

3. Stooge Candidate: represents the stooge party or runs as a bogus independent. Usually has their candidate's deposit paid by the sponsoring party.

Stooging has been subjected to various attempts at curtailment. The requirement for parties to have 500 members to qualify for putting their name on the ballot paper has made the practice less common. The other trick of having a stooge candidate change their name by deed poll to something sloganish (E.g. Mr John Savetheforests) has been thwarted by requiring natal names or chosen names used for a significant period to be shown on the candidate's application. Stooges now try to raise their profiles by false-friending real candidates and slipstreaming their publicity.

Post#155 Is Stephen Smith in Trouble in Perth?

I think Steve Smith is in trouble. Steve ran for the federal district of Perth for the first time in 1993 in the famous "GST referendum" campaign. The Coalition tried to smear him with being a "mate of Paul Keating" but it didn't strike any sparks for them. In the subsequent polls of 1996, 1998, 2001, 2004 and 2007 the Coalition didn't run dead against Steve - they didn't make that much effort. As an elector in the District of Perth I only discovered the name of the Liberal candidate in each of these polls when I read it on the ballot paper at the polling station - just before putting them last. This time I know their candidate's name and face; Joe Ferrante has been given enough support to develop more recognition than any of his predecessors. His resume indicates that he has a broad repertoire which may appeal to the small business operators in the district and to those involved in community activities.

Steve has a problem which is receiving little airplay at the moment. He was unfortunate in holding the portfolio of Foreign Affairs when Israel did its Dubai stunt. He was required to stick up for the national honour in response to the faking of Australian passports and stealing of our citizens' identities to provide cover for a covert operation to commit murder in a third country. This act was perpetrated by Mossad despite a guarantee being given that such actions would not be carried out using Australian documents. This doesn't seem to make much difference to the Zionists in his district. When I was browsing the bagels at the local kosher supermarket I struck up a conversation with the staff about the coming poll and discovered that Steve is apparently on the nose with the local Jewish community.

I'd suspected the possibility but it's pretty harsh; the government's response was the bare minimum of diplomatic gesturing. Essentially, the Mossad were obliged to swap their local chief with one from another country. That's what expelling the guy boils down to. He could shake hands with his replacement at the airport on the way out. This quote from The Australian is also significant:

"The Australian government has described Israel's action as deplorable and called for a full investigation. Although this is commendable, the Australian people should demand Australia reassess its close ties with Israel. On the day the government sent ASIO officers to Israel to investigate the passport forging affair, Australia signed a $250 million arms deal with Israel. This speaks volumes on the real relationship with Israel."

Steve's constituency contains the largest community of practising Jews outside Melbourne. Most of them are uncompromising Zionists and the supermarket crew are not a minority. My subsequent enquiries to over a dozen acquaintances in the Jewish community indicate that even the feebleness of the government's response won't placate their resentment of any slight to Israel. Everyone had stories of the impact on the opinions of their family and friends of this issue. The general tone is that they're going to send Steve a message. It will also be a message to all MP's on this topic. If Steve wants to save his - salt beef - he needs to start pleading his case hard in this group...there are enough votes there to tip him out.