From: "Rich Gauszka" 


"Gary Britt"  wrote in message
news:43a0a74e{at}w3.nls.net...
>I agree with you about both sides being despicable, and I'm not
>pre-occupied
> with churches.  The stuff about churches was because Adam was trying to
> criticize me for calling the Paris riots Muslim riots, and then Adam said
> the Australian rights were Christian riots and I replied I didn't think so
> because they weren't burning churches and mosques down there.  Then you
> jumped in....
>
> Gary
>
> "Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
> news:43a09aa4{at}w3.nls.net...
>> I don't understand your preoccupation with the churches. It appears that
>> there are a small group of fanatics on either side that have to be dealt
>> with by the authorities. Whether it be Moslem fanatics attacking a church
> or
>> right wing racists attacking a group of people on the street either
>> action
>> is despicable.  Hopefully cooler heads will prevail
>>
>>

On the contrary - Adam started this thread about an Australian citizen
incarcerated by the Bushies. I responded with a remark about the Aussies
having more problems - the riots. You responded to Adams's response to my
response. Which I responded to .

There was a good article in the Sidney Morning Herald on the blame game -
take your pick

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/rampaging-through-the-usual-suspects/2005/12
/14/1134500911933.html

WE LIVE in an era in which someone else is always to blame for what ails
us. So the search is on for a scapegoat for the riots and gang rampages in
Sydney this week.

Who you blame will depend largely on your personal prejudices, life
experiences and the effectiveness of your grasp on reality.

These are the prime candidates:

1. John Howard. The Prime Minister let the "racism genie" out of
the bottle with his Tampa proclamation: "We will decide who comes to
this country and the circumstances in which they come" being
extrapolated in Cronulla to, "We will decide who comes to this
beach". This particular root-cause theory, promoted by academics such
as Amanda Wise, from Macquarie University's Centre for Research on Social
Inclusion, holds that Lebanese Australians have been "demonised"
by Howard "dog-whistling on immigration" and former Premier Bob
Carr "singling out the ethnicity of rapists".

Howard, the devil's spawn, jumped on the Pauline Hanson bandwagon by
creating an atmosphere in which racist attitudes are allowed to flourish.
He "alienated" Australian Muslims by joining with the United
States in the war on terror, especially in the invasion of Iraq. He whipped
up fear of Muslims in the rest of the community with his "emphasis on
terrorism, [on] home-grown terrorism in Australia [which] has made people
more worried about certain sections of society" as one reporter put it
at a press conference this week.

2. The media. Radio 2GB talk-back host Alan Jones stands accused of
condoning vigilante barbarism and tacitly urging antagonism to young men of
Middle Eastern descent last week before Sunday's conflagration in Cronulla.
"Alan Jones's week of ranting wog-baiting which preceded the Sydney
riots was ... vulgar, vicious and racist, and an unmistakable incitement to
violence," is how Jones's 2UE rival Mike Carlton described it in a
letter to the Crikey website yesterday. "Daily he cautioned his
listeners not to take the law into their own hands, but he warmed to those
who had exactly that on their minds," wrote former Media Watch
presenter David Marr in this newspaper.

The rest of the media is to blame for beating up the story in salivating
anticipation of a "summer of riots". In particular, television
cameras incited large congregations of young Big Brother wannabes who crave
fame and understand the need for props - hence the dinky-di cricket pads
and Australian flags so evident on Sunday.

3. Inadequate law enforcement. Criminals and thugs have been emboldened by
years of timid, "community-based", statistics-driven policing
while ever-more draconian laws have made NSW like a police state for
law-abiding citizens.

Lenient, left-leaning, anti-police magistrates appointed by the Carr
government have led to a revolving-door justice system that frustrates
police .

As one serving police officer of 17 years wrote in an open letter to the
Cronulla community: "I am scared to do my job ... I totally understand
why young men feel they have to take the law into their own hands. I don't
trust, and have very little loyalty in, the police service and the court
system."

Political correctness has suppressed reporting of the growing problems
between Lebanese Muslim youths and Cronulla locals, while allowing the
problems to fester. Locals have long complained of a lack of response from
police and too few officers in the area, which allowed the attack on two
surf lifesavers two weeks ago.

Ineffectual policing has led to the farcical press conference in which the
Bra Boys gang of Maroubra reassured the community that they will keep them
safe. What an indictment on the government's law and order strategies.

Similar efforts by left-leaning academics, lawyers and journalists to
suppress debate about the ethnically motivated gang rapes that plagued
Sydney from 2000 have helped fuel the "us v them" siege mentality
of whitebread Sydney. It is an inevitable consequence of ignoring and
trivialising community tensions, just as Hansonism was.

Vigilante justice, ranging from Sunday's violent mob attacks in Cronulla on
random people suspected of being of "Middle Eastern" descent, to
an unspoken "No Leb" rule at a number of pubs, has led to a very
real sense of grievance and victimhood among young Arabic-background men.

4. Multiculturalism. This line holds that there is an essential
incompatibility of large unassimilated communities of Muslims with
Australia's ostensibly Judeo-Christian culture and secular society. Against
the backdrop of Australia's alliance with the US in the war against
terrorism, which has been interpreted as a war against Islam, the
grievances of Australian Muslims and the fear and resentment from
non-Muslims has become toxic.

5. Testosterone. Young men will continue to behave in violent ways, despite
more than a generation of attempts by education authorities to stamp out
these tendencies. Gang violence is a male rite of passage, from Sydney's
razor gangs of the 1920s, through bodgies, widgies, mods, rockers, bikies,
westies and surfies.Talk of a "clash of civilisations" is
hysterical fear-mongering.

Take your pick. There are probably elements of truth in all the arguments.
But like a festering boil that needs to be lanced before healing can begin,
it may have taken the ugly scenes and soul-searching of the past week to
challenge people to finally reassess their own private fears and
prejudices.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5