JCCV AND BEYOND BLUE - HOMOPHOBIA IS THE COMMON THREAD!

I do not waste my time reading Galus Australis - the people involved are either zionists or right-wing religious homophobic bigots - or both! - and the few times I have visited the site were because I was directed there by postings from a blog on whose mailing list I happen to be.

What continues to be disturbing is the innate homophobia which continues to be expressed by so many who post there - either articles or contributors.

What does it mean to be gay and Jewish - and why does it matter if one is a gay Jew or a Jewish gay? They are expressions of one's identity and one is not the one without the other.

In Australia there are Jewish communities and there are gay communities and some people belong and others don't. Some people are activists and others aren't. We aren't all the same and that is something to be thankful for.

We had a visitor from Sydney during the week and one of the things he said which I found very interesting was that he doesn't watch a particular television channel's news (one of the commercial channels!) because it is political and he hates anything political!

Everything we do is political and our friend, being a gay man - not Jewish - should actually understand that the mere fact that he is a gay man living in a relationship openly with another gay man is a statement of politics!

Back to Melbourne and its homophobic groups and organisations.

In recent times, due to attacks on them from the gay communities, the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (sic) and beyondblue - Jeff Kennett's organisation dealing with depression and ideation of suicide - have stated that they are including gay issues or people to become part of "reference" groups - whatever that signifies.

As a gay Jew I wouldn't want to be part of either of these organisations because they contain so many homophobic bigots and they are not in any hurry to change.

As a gay Jew I demand equality, not some crumbs from the tables of those being patronising, condescending or hypocritically pretending to offer support.

I certainly wouldn't become part of a discussion on a blog such as Galus Australis where bigotry falls out of every other posting.

Homophobia has been on the increase recently, not just in Australia but around the world. Religious bigotry is to blame for most of it, but the results have been some tragic suicides of very young people, too young to have started living and getting beyond the bullying, isolation, desperation and despair that must enter their very beings and make them feel that they have nothing to live for.

Those who, like me, were born in an era when coming out as a gay person was very difficult, when it was illegal, when it was looked upon as a mental illness and "curing" was done by frying the brain and other means of torture, found that it was difficult to understand those feelings and how to deal with being "different"
and having to live a life of secrecy and concealment.

Although it has become somewhat easier over the last 30 years due to activism and fights for gay liberation, religious bigotry, supported in the main by politicians around the world, continues to be the major problem and the fight for equality will continue until we can put an end to this bigotry.

ZIONIST RELIGIOUS JEWISH HYPOCRITES - HOMOPHOBIC BIGOTS!

Sent to me by a fellow blogger on 17 October 2010 concerning a homophobic rant found in another blog page:

( The first section is what the homophobic bigot wrote, and the second section is my parody of the bigot's ghastly views about "homosexuals")

While I do not, and I m very clear on this, advocate causing harm to any person who is homosexual or otherwise different, I do not regard their behaviour as ‘normal’. That is my opinion. I base it on a number of facts including the idea that it is not normal sexual behaviour, even in the animal world.

I have sympathy for those born homosexual because I believe that it must be a difficult burden to deal with but by the same token, I think there are many therapies available and even if they cannot be cured they are able to come to terms with the fact that they need to address some issues in their lives.

Younger people with emotional problems can be taken advantage of in this very sensitive stage of their life by older more experienced homosexuals who may be just looking for a bit of fresh meat so to speak, and are apt to convince a younger impressionable person that they are gay because they (the older person) desires it to be so.

I will not be bullied or forced into accepting homosexuality as a normal sexual behaviour.



While I do not, and I m very clear on this, advocate causing harm to any person who is a Zionist religious Jewish hypocrite or otherwise different, I do not regard their behaviour as ‘normal’. That is my opinion. I base it on a number of facts including the idea that it is not normal human rights behaviour, even in the so-called democratic world.

I have sympathy for those born Zionist religious Jewish hypocrites because I believe that it must be a difficult burden to deal with but by the same token, I think there are many therapies available and even if they cannot be cured they are able to come to terms with the fact that they need to address some issues in their lives.

Younger people with emotional problems can be taken advantage of in this very sensitive stage of their life by older more experienced Zionist religious Jewish hypocrites who may be just looking for a bit of fresh meat so to speak, and are apt to convince a younger impressionable person that they are Zionist religious Jewish hypocrites because they (the older person) desires it to be so.

I will not be bullied or forced into accepting Zionist religious Jewish hypocrisy as a normal human rights behaviour.

BUILDING SOLIDARITY, COMBATING OCCUPATION AND APARTHEID

Phone: 0439 454 375
Email:
ausbds@gmail.com
Web site: http://australianbdscampaign.wordpress.com

INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIAN JEWISH VOICES STATEMENT

Independent Australian Jewish Voices

הלוא אב אחד לכלנו הלוא אל אחד בראנו
IAJV advertisement
Submitted by IAJV on Wed, 10/06/2010 - 16:10

[We would be pleased to continue to receive signatures endorsing our advertised statement and we will continue to add these to the list already posted below. Just send a word or two to iajv99@gmail.com]

The advertisement appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and Australian newspapers on 9 October 2010 and Australian Jewish News on 8 October 2010.

JEWS SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

“The attitude we adopt towards the Arab minority will provide the real test of our moral standards as a people.” - Albert Einstein, in a letter to the New York Times, 1948.

Not all Australian Jews condone Israel’s actions. As a growing group of concerned Jews, we share the widespread outrage at the Israeli Government’s unjust treatment of the Palestinian people.

We condemn Israel’s constant violations of international law which include:

• the invasion of Gaza in 2008 that caused around 1400 mainly civilian deaths.

• the ongoing blockade of Gaza in contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

• the military assault in May against a civilian flotilla in international waters trying to break the blockade on Gaza.

• the separation wall running through the West Bank which was ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004

• the 43 year military occupation of the West Bank and the illegal settlements.

We believe that uncritical support of the Jewish State is not the way to memorialise the Holocaust. We have a moral obligation to speak out.

Join us in urging the Australian Government to exert pressure on Israel to conform to International Law and humanitarian standards.

Published by Independent Australian Jewish Voices on behalf of:

Total 132

1. Andelman, Larissa
2. Asoulin, Eran
3. Balint, Tony
4. Bartels, Ditta
5. Beauchamp, Alice
6. Benjamin, Andrew
7. Bersten Robyn
8. Bilander, Berish
9. Binder, Geoffrey
10. Bishops, Naomi
11. Bloch, Barbara
12. Blooman, Geoffrey
13. Bloomberg, Karen
14. Boniface, Harry A
15. Braun, Leo
16. Brull, Michael
17. Buckstein, Ron
18. Burke, Carolyn
19. Bush, Jenny
20. Carleton, Jenny
21. Cebon, Benjamin
22. Christoff, Peter
23. Clemens, Ruth
24. Cohen, Ian, MLC
25. Cox, Eva AO
26. Curthoys, Ned
27. Dahlstrom, Bronwyn
28. De Saxe, Mannie
29. Dean, Tamara
30. di Suvero, Henry
31. Docker, John
32. Dowse, Sara
33. Emerman, Marsha
34. Epstein, Sarah
35. Erlich, Nicole
36. Fink, Michelle
37. Flax, Gabrielle
38. Freadman, Anne
39. Frenkel, Steve
40. Fried, Nadia
41. Ginges, Hal
42. Ginges, Heather
43. Glasbeek, Harry,
44. Glasbeek, Sandra
45. Goldbloom Zurbo, Sandra
46. Goldman, Arnold
47. Goodman, David
48. Grant, Matthew
49. Heilpern, David
50. Horsburgh, Jennifer
51. Hunt, David
52. Israel, Janine
53. Jacobs, Keith
54. Jacobs, Margaret
55. Jaivin, Linda
56. Jordan, Helen
57. Kamerman, Sol
58. Kaplin, Angela
59. Kaye, Margaret
60. Kitchener, Theo
61. Kitching, Gavin
62. Koval, Peter
63. Kozlowski, Michael
64. Krantz, Kt
65. Leber, Sylvie
66. Legge, Bill
67. Leser, David
68. Leveson, Ruth
69. Levey, Geoffrey
70. Levy, James
71. Levy, Valerie
72. Lindell, Geoff
73. Loewenstein, Antony
74. Loewenstein, Jeff
75. Loewenstein, Violet
76. Marin, Paul
77. Markiewicz, Anne
78. Martin-Iverson, Victoria
79. Midalia, Dan
80. Midalia, Leon
81. Moore, Stefan
82. Morris, Alan
83. Munz, Martin
84. Musry, Haskell
85. Neering, Ian
86. Nimni, Ephraim
87. Nissen, Alex
88. Oaten, Rod
89. Pataki, Tamas
90. Pogos, Abe
91. Porzsolt, Vivienne
92. Prestel, Claudia
93. Raber, Richard
94. Reed, Karl
95. Rich, Joe
96. Riemer, Andrew
97. Romer, Marta
98. Ross, Edna
99. Roszycki, Jack
100. Rothfield, Andrew
101. Rothfield, Pamela
102. Rubinstein, Keren T
103. Rubner, Paul
104. Rutovitz, Jay
105. Saks, Daniel
106. Sarkadi, Andrew
107. Schetzer, Louis
108. Shapiro-Liu, Rosemary
109. Siddle, Genevieve
110. Silverstein, Jordy
111. Slezak, Peter
112. Slezak, Vera
113. Stratton, Jonathan
114. Tambour, Anna
115. Topliss, Helen
116. Vance, Bernard
117. Varga, Susan
118. Vorsay, Avril
119. Wetherell, David
120. White, Michael
121. Winston, George AM
122. Witton, Nic
123. Witton, Ron
124. Zagor, Matthew
125. Zion, Deborah
126. Zion, Lawrie

EUTHANASIA BACK ON THE POLITICAL AGENDA

On Sunday 19 September 2010 ABC news bulletins broadcast Greens senator Bob Brown stating that he was going to re-introduce euthanasia bills into federal parliament because the Howard government had overturned the rights of the Northern Territory and the ACT territory to have certain bills passed by their parliaments allowed.

The item below comes from the ABC's PM programme and relates to South Australian parliamentarians from 4 sides of politics preparing to introduce a euthanasia bill into their upper and lower houses of parliament.





Here is the interview and the ABC's web site for this PM broadcast:

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s3012861.htm

PM with Mark Colvin

SA: MPs launch new push for voluntary euthanasia

Paula Kruger reported this story on Wednesday, September 15, 2010

MARK COLVIN: Political forces that usually compete have united in South Australia's parliament to try to legalise voluntary euthanasia.

Four MP's including a Labor member, a Green, a Liberal and an independent are publicly supporting the new push which would see two identical bills introduced in both houses of Parliament.

The MP's say there is broad public support for responsible voluntary euthanasia laws, but it is still a very sensitive issue.

The latest attempt to change the law comes just days after a television advertisement supporting voluntary euthanasia was banned on the grounds that it promoted suicide.

Paula Kruger reports.

PAULA KRUGER: Despite many attempts to legalise it in different jurisdictions around Australia, euthanasia is still unlawful.

For those who oppose it, it comes down to the basic principle of no one has the right to take the life of another.

But it appears many Australians are comfortable with balancing the right to die with the right to life, with polls showing that more than 80 per cent support voluntary euthanasia.

And that is a figure that brought four South Australian MP's together to give a collective push to the state's effort to legalise euthanasia.

Greens Leader Mark Parnell.

MARK PARNELL: We have always known that voluntary euthanasia has overwhelming support in the community but it hasn't had overwhelming support in the Parliament. What we're doing now is we are introducing on a cross-party if you like, or even a multi-party basis, a new bill into both the Lower House and that will be introduced tomorrow, and in the Upper House, which will be introduced in a fortnight. Bills to provide for dying with dignity.

PAULA KRUGER: It's not the first time the Green's leader has tried to introduced voluntary euthanasia legislation in South Australia.

Last year his bill was narrowly defeated in the Upper House. The new legislation is similar but with added safeguards.

Labor MP Steph Key will introduce one of the bills in the Upper House tomorrow.

STEPH KEY: When you have a public opinion and also a need for this as an option, I think we're all dedicated to keep campaigning.

PAULA KRUGER: Reflecting the unusual unity that comes with a conscience vote was Liberal MP Duncan McFetridge.

DUNCAN McFETRIDGE: I just hope that my colleagues who have concerns about this go back to their constituencies and ask them; what do they want them to do? Because as a representative of my electorate in Morphett, I know that over 80 per cent of my electors are behind me in supporting this motion.

PAULA KRUGER: Also standing up to support today's announcement was Geoff Brock, independent member for Frome.

GEOFF BROCK: I don't think people realise until they've been through it themselves with their own family, the trauma and the heartache and it's a very, very traumatic experience to see somebody who you know is going to die and they can't do anything about it.

PAULA KRUGER: But despite figures showing strong support for responsible voluntary euthanasia legislation, it is still proving to be a highly sensitive issue.

On Friday afternoon permission to air an ad supporting voluntary euthanasia was withdrawn after the regulatory body responsible for approving ads ruled it promoted suicide.

That has stirred a separate legal fight, this time involving Australia's freedom of speech laws.

Greg Barns is a barrister and Director of the Australian Lawyers Alliance and has also done pro-bono work for Exit International, the organisation that made and paid for the ad.

GREG BARNS: This advertisement was not about telling people how to suicide, as the commercial television stations would have us believe; it was an information ad, it was an advocacy ad and it was a political advocacy ad. And it's very important that as the High Court has said on a number of occasions, that political communication be free.

You'd certainly be able to challenge the decision if you had a charter. One of the problems in Australia is that there are no adequate protections for human rights and so people such as Exit International would be able to challenge this decision if there were a Human Rights Act or a Charter of Rights as exists in the UK or in Europe or in Canada.

PAULA KRUGER: Because Exit International can't legally challenge the ruling they may have to alter the ad if they want it to appear on Australian commercial television.

MARK COLVIN: Paula Kruger.

ASYLUM SEEKERS - DISEASE IN AUSTRALIA'S BODY POLITIC - AND MEDIA!!!!!

The numbers of asylum seekers trying to arrive in Australia is miniscule in relation to what is happening elsewhere in the world, but one could be forgiven for thinking, in view of what goes on in the Australian federal parliament and the Australian media, that Australia was about to be swamped by millions of undesirable people from countries which don't want them any more.

The few thousand people who approach the Australian shoreline come mostly from countries which have been invaded by Australia or which successive Australian governments have aided and abetted in their nefarious wars with military training and/or military equipment.

Australia is a very rich country and its treatment of its indigenous population compares with its treatment of asylum seekers. Australia is a NIMBY country - that is, we are happy to cause people to have to flee their poisonous regimes and seek safety elsewhere, so long as it is not in OUR country.

Compare the few thousand arrivals in Australia with the tens of thousands fleeing Mugabe and other dictatorships in Africa and trying to enter South Africa which has an inept government, one fifth of its population infected with HIV, unemployment at record levels around 40 to 50 per cent and the enormity of Australia's terrible asylum seeker problem falls into perspective.

South Africa, like Australia, is a very rich country, although if one sees how many of the country's estimated 45 million live, one might think otherwise. Yet it has borders which are easier to penetrate than fortress Australia, and so it indeed IS penetrated by desperate people from Zimbabwe and elsewhere. The significance of the refugees fleeing Mugabe is the irony of the fact that ex-president Mbeki continued to prop up Mugabe's murderous regime despite pleas from other countries for him to alter his stance and assist with sanctions to bring Mugabe to justice.

In Australia it has made no difference which political party has been in power, they have all behaved disgustingly, aided and abetted by a media owned by a few reactionary right-wing bigots, some of whom, like Rupert Murdoch, who is not even an Australian citizen, think they have the right to dictate "who comes to this country and the manner in which they come here"!!!

Cry all the beloved countries!

MARXIST LEFT REVIEW - A NEW JOURNAL??

A new magazine has just been published by Socialist Alternative called "Marxist Left Review".

Number 1 - Spring 2010 informs the reader that the contents are about "Rebuilding the left."

The International Socialists (IS) were around in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s and, as is common with many of the socialist groups, internal policy and personality differences lead to expulsions and the formation of new groups.

One such expulsion and split in the 1980s led to the formation of Socialist Action which was much more of an activist group than the IS had been because the IS was so busy "building cadres who understood Marxist theory" that they lost sight of the real world around them.

However, by the early 1990s, Socialist Action admitted that over its period of existence it was not growing and getting new membership and activists, and the decision was made that Socialist Action would disband and re-absorb itself into the IS after lengthy negotiations. The outcome was a group which was now called the International Socialist Organisation (ISO)which continued operating under that name for much of the 1990s.

As happens on a regular basis with these left groups the ISO had some factional differences develop in its "executive" and people were expelled who had expelled members in the earlier incarnation as IS.

The people who were expelled formed a new group called Socialist Alternative and this group has grown sufficiently to have gained members from the ISO which was disintegrating fairly rapidly. In the end the ISO allied itself with another socialist group and the ISO as such no longer exists.

Now back to Socialist Alternative which claims to be the largest left group in the country and growing.

Those of us who have been involved with various incarnations of these groups but are no longer members of any of them watch with fascination as the spin put out by each incarnation mirrors the previous commentaries.

So the new journal is "Rebuilding the Left".

Then one looks at the contents and the articles and the authors and the conclusion has to be that what should be on the outside cover should read "Recycling the left!"

Other than one author of one article, all the other articles have been written by - you guessed it - all those people who were members of the IS - remember them?

Where are the new writers, the new activists, the new leftists? Are they too "young???" to be publishing articles about Marxist politics? Are they still on a learning curve and so no serious student of Marxism can read their writings and learn from them?

Somewhere along the line one can't help having feelings of deja vu - or, as the French expression has it "Plus ca change........."!