Oh, shut up
Bob Morris @ Oct 14th 2006 12:12 - Category: Unfiled ;
Mel Gibson blames his anti-Semitic tirade on bad reviews for his movie.
Archive for October 14th, 2006
AKA homicide
Bob Morris @ Oct 14th 2006 09:35 - Category: Unfiled ;
Newsman unlawfully killed by US troops, says coroner.
Black deaths in custody reveal Australian racism
Dave Riley @ Oct 14th 2006 08:19 - Category: Unfiled ;
Brisbane:The recent report handed down by the Queensland deputy coroner, Christine Clements, found that Palm Islander, Mulrinji, not only died in police custody on November 19 2004, but also that he died at the hands of the arresting officer.
The coroner’s report is unequivocal on this point: Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley caused Munrunji‘s death. But in Queensland , under the Beattie Labor government, there is one rule for coppers and another for the rest of the population — especially Murris (Queensland Aborigines). Straight after Murrinji’s death on Palm — Hurley was promoted and transferred to a plum posting on the Gold Coast and for the past two years has continued to work as a police officer.
Clement’s report not only accuses Hurley of killing Munjunji but also reveals that members of the Queensland police force conspired to cover up Hurley’s role. The report also found that at the Palm Island watch house there was no attempt to comply to the protocols recommended by the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
While Queensland Murris expect justice and Murunji’s family some closure, Hurley was not relieved of his policing duties at any time during the period since Murunji’s death. Because of the massive outcry over this, even coming from within the Beattie government, Hurley’s lawyers asked that their client be stood down two days before a recent protest march on state parlaiment.
The coroner’s report has now gone before the Director of Public Prosecutions who can recommend any charges that may flow from the its findings.
But the position of Queensland Murris’ is unequivocal: Hurley must be sacked and charged. Any other police officer who played any role in the death of Mulrunjie must also be suspended and charged. The state government must implement all the 40 recommendations handed down by the state coroner
Queensland premier, Peter Beattie, has preached the mantra of due process in this case and the state has stood by its man in blue unconditionally and ignored all demands made over the past two years that the officer should be stood down. This stonewalling and racist approach has also been followed in the Beattie government’s recent decision to dismantle the Department of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Policy and its refusal to entertain further negotiations on Stolen Wages.
As Indigenous Australians approach the fortieth anniversary of the 1967 referendum — which removed constitutional discrimination against Aboriginal people — it should be noted that that referendum saw the highest YES vote ever recorded in a Federal referendum, with 90.77 per cent voting for change. But forty years on, how does the Queensland government mark this pending anniversary?
The demands of Queensland Murris warrants support. There also needs to be a nationally coordinated campaign that aggressively addresses the massive problems facing indigenous communities– such as on Palm Island — in regard to unemployment, housing, health, education and living standards. There also needs to be a national focus on the 40 recommendations that have been handed down by the state coroner in the Mulrunji case. Programs like Brisbane’s MurriWatch –a cell visitor program covering all city watch houses and run by the Indigenous community — needs to be generalised nationally. Otherwise, while Indigenous communities are being ruled and terrorised by racist cops, more Aborigines will continue to die in police custody.
The previously unthinkable
Bob Morris @ Oct 14th 2006 06:16 - Category: Unfiled ;
“Enlarging the problem”
Bob Morris @ Oct 14th 2006 00:15 - Category: Anti-war ;
War secretary Donald Rumsfeld is fond of a saying: “If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.” The theory is not new to U.S. military strategy. It was first voiced by former president Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s.
This ’strategy’ didn’t work in Vietnam, a war the US lost, and now the same is happening in Iran and Afghanistan.
“Insanity is when you do the same thing over and over expecting different results.” That hundreds of thousands of innocents die because of their imperialist lust for power and dominance concerns them not.
That road goes nowhere
Bob Morris @ Oct 14th 2006 00:08 - Category: Unfiled ;
I knew him some years ago, he was a grad student, married with two kids. Smart, personable, he was deeply into Buddhism and meditating. Even though he spent hours a day at it, his wife didn’t mind because it made him so relaxed and calm.
They broke up. He got into heroin and, I just learned, od’ed a few years ago.
What a complete total waste of what looked to be a promising life.
Hey, maybe you smoke a little weed, and that’s probably a victimless ‘crime.’ But this, two teenagers no longer have a father, and that’s not victimless at all. Then there’s what he put them and his ex- through while he was using. And yes, I have been there. Back in the 60’s I was addicted to meth for a while. It was ugly, and so was I.
“I’ve seen the needle
and the damage done
A little part of it in everyone
But every junkie’s
like a settin’ sun.”
– Neil Young, Needle and the Damage Done
