Inga (right with Scott Balson) arrived with her camera
and sound crew at about 11am.
Tuesday 27th April 1999 (all commentary on this page in green)
The interview is to be based around the following - as per the letter SBS sent me.
This is what they wrote:
The story will seek to examine particular sites that are perceived as racist and/or vilifying particularly in light of the case currently before the Human rights and equal Opportunities Commission regarding a complaint about Dr Frederick Toben's Adelaide Institute site.
In researching the story, Insight is speaking to the people running these sites, assessing freedom of speech and the freedom of individuals to post or access information they seek. We have approached Global Web Builders because of the controversy surrounding Pauline Hanson's One Nation and the very strong popularity of the party and its site has enjoyed, and also to look at the information posted on the National Daily News Site. To date there has been no informed discussion as to people's rights to access information of this type freely.
This freedom is challenged further by the proposed Internet Content Laws, and what will and won't constitute offensive or racist material under these laws. We will be speaking to Communications Minister Richard Alston about these laws, also to speaking also to (sic) Internet Service Providers, Mass Communication specialists, and to the Adelaide Institute.
The story will be about thirty minutes long, and at this stage scheduled to go to air on May 20th.
I hope this detail is helpful. Please call me to discuss further.
Yours sincerely,
Anna Cooper
Researcher, Insight
Inga (right with Scott Balson) arrived with her camera
and sound crew at about 11am.
My research set out to achieve the following clear objectives... which were backed up by my comments and Internet links during the interview:
Australian National News of the Day (moving it off shore):
The interview started with Inga asking me to get my news of the day on-line. Here are the issues we covered (transcripts from the news that day):
Some readers have asked what good will be gained from moving the daily @notd offshore.
A perfectly legitimate question. The simple answer is that overseas it will not be subject to an "R" rating after politically correct interest groups like B'nai B'rith and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission object to its current status. These organisations would demand the "R" rating after the government's new net censorship laws - simply because we dare challenge political correctness.
Here lies the difference in how material will be handled:
We then looked at some other reports carried in the news that day, which included:
Sixty-four year old Geoff Harvey, the controversial music supremo, has been given his marching orders after 38 years with the Channel 9 network. his last performance will be on May 6th.
A Sydney based colleague said yesterday, "He'd given them years of loyal service but was very upset at some of the things that were said (when told of his axing)".
Harvey will get no golden handshake or big farewell party - he will leave through the backdoor like many other Channel 9 staff as they wait, in fear, for their names to be called out.
Two hundred staff will be axed in the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane offices - creating the biggest upheaval in its forty year history.
Seems like new boss James Packer is in the mould of daddy.
Australian Press Council clear Balson of all fabricated claims by media that he is anti-Semitic
Report from Connie Fogal
On April 25, about 2500 people rallied to oppose the war in Yugoslavia and in particular Canada's participation in the war. The rally was organized by the Vancouver Anti War Coalition.
On May 1,1999, Saturday, a Peace March will take place in Vancouver BC. It is organized under the umbrella of the End the Arms Race Coalition which is a coalition of the former End the Arms Race Organization and a number of new participant organizations. We are united on the goal of stopping the war .
The march will start at the Peace Flame on the South side of the Burrard Bridge . Meet there at 10:30 a.m. The march will proceed at 11:00 to the Art gallery where we rally at 12:00 noon.
It is important to continue to build a strong citizen expression of opposition to the war. The only way we as citizens will have a say in this war is by rallies, demonstrations, AND by bombarding our Members of Parliament with letters and telephone calls. On March 22, 1999 ONLY by party statement of party position NOT BY DEBATE OR VOTE, our Parliament agreed to participate in the bombing. On March 24 the bombing started. Not one MP broke rank or caucus and spoke out against its party position on March 22. Some now are beginning to feel the heat from their constituents and /or are learning something about the issue and are beginning to oppose.But it is far short of what we need to stop Canada's participation in the war.
We must start a campaign to fax, write and e mail MPs . There was circulated in the MAI fight the Fax your MP list. I will locate it and send later. If any one has it handy please resend it to me for broadcast. In the meantime I forward the MP e mail numbers that I have. If it bounces , you will have to try the fax route. Some MP e mail never go through for me, but they may be blocked from receiving my messages.
The Defence of Canadian Liberty Committee urges every other country to do the same re their Members of Parliament or Congress etc.
This war is an ugly expression of the issues we have been fighting via the MAI. Canadian citizens have the right to shape our own rules and make our own decisions and be SOVEREIGN in our own land. Our mechanism to do that is through our parliamentary system represented by our MP's. In fact what has happened here is that no MP spoke for me, or for my country. They all capitulated to the NWO via the NATO as the new military force of the world imposing the will of NATO (read U.S. will). If one NATO country had refused to participate or even expressed opposition to the bombing , it would not have happened . So say retired military people who have worked in NATO roles , including retired military man, Canadian Fred Cooper, who was Chair of a Planning Committee of NATO for over 6 years , and who spoke out at a press conference organized by David Orchard on April 23 in Vancouver BC. So says Roland Keith, Canada's representative to the Verification Committee to Kosovo.
This war is a violation of both the charters of NATO and the UNITED NATIONS. We now have a world order which operates contrary to the Rule of Law. This is a world order of the school yard bully. And Clinton, in his message in response to the tragic hIgh school murders in Denver urges the youth of the U.S. to avoid solving their problems by violence while he perpetrates the new form of genocide as we enter the new millennium. The leaders of NATO are committing war crimes.
All war is an atrocity. Canada must return to its leadership role of activating diplomatic methods of resolution of international conflicts. That does not mean DO WHAT I SAY OR I WILL BOMB YOU.
I made the point that I did not try to censor opinion and that I happily carried letters from known anti-One Nation people like John Pasquarelli. I was simply providing a moderated forum for people to raise and discuss issues of concern. Nothing less, nothing more.
Scott,
your website continues to get choked with boring, interminable burble which bores, not illuminates. It is happening again, this time re the preamble and the constitution. People should save their breath and time and in November simply VOTE NO TO THE POLITICIAN'S REPUBLIC.
John Pasquarelli
Strange voting system
Once again we see very strange results from Australia's preferential voting system of voting. The recent NSW upper house results tell a now familiar story.
One Nation's David Oldfield won a seat with 225,000 primary votes or 6.3 per cent of the almost 4 million votes cast. But with preferences, the anti-One Nation Unity Party also won a seat with only 35,000 primary votes or 1 per cent of the vote. And again with preferences, the Outdoor Recreation Party also won a seat with a mere 7,000 primary votes or 0.2 per cent of the vote.
Despite that huge variation in the primary vote - 7,000 to 225,000 - all three parties won one seat.
That result is unjust, ludicrous, and profoundly anti-democratic. Surely all right-minded people would agree that a voting system which delivers such a result is crying out for reform.
Antonia Feitz
Multiculturalism, Racism and Witchcraft
There is no doubt about it, being accused of racism is the contemporary equivalent of being accused of witchcraft.
It doesn't matter if the accusers are guilty of the very actions of which they accuse others. It doesn't matter how evil these accusers are, or how righteous the accused are. Their fundamentalist, extreme views of the accusers are used to stir up a frenzy, so that all reasoned logic and calm reflection is suppressed. The Spanish inquisition has returned, and proven that modern society is just as susceptible to being deliberately infected with madness as that of our medieval ancestors.
Anybody who is accused of racism is guilty until proven innocent, and the catch-22 is that, if you are a white person, you can't be proven innocent. Where there is smoke, there's fire - some of the mud sticks and leaves a stain.
The current situation is approaching the Monty Pythonesque standard:
She's a witch, she's a witch! No, I'm not! And this isn't my nose or my pointed hat! They dressed me like this. But she has got a wart! And she turned me into a newt! (I got better)
You know the rest.
Anybody who even questions the value of multiculturalism is a racist, and anybody accused of racism must be a witch. It's a standard procedure. Whip up a media frenzy. Sow the seeds of suspicion and fear throughout society. Accuse your neighbours before they accuse you. It worked during the Spanish Inquisition. It worked during the French Revolution. It's working now.
Gweilo
| Parliamentary Library report on Media Ownership
(May 1999): The Internet's main contribution to media diversity has been to increase the possible influence of the print media by improving its household access... a reason for retaining the cross-media rules... |
At this stage I referred SBS to the newsgroups carried by OzEmail, Australia's largest Internet Service Provider, which was owned by Kerry Packer’s Australian Consolidated Press and chaired by Malcolm Turnbull (look up history in bar on left at above link).
I was able to demonstrate that practically all the newsgroups reflected as "Hate Sites" by HateWatch are freely available unmoderated from OzEmail. I questioned why the reference by one of my @notd correspondents to "Jew Boys" should attract a front page article in The Courier-Mail with the headline reflecting "racism" when these newsgroups carried by OzEmail were overlooked by Murdoch.
These include (descriptions of posts from HateWatch - newsgroup link above):
We accessed the OzEmail newsgroups listed above and were able to directly access anti-Semitic web sites from this access. These included links promoting Adolf Hitler and decrying the Holocaust. Frederick Toben from the Adelaide Institute now sits in a German gaol for just questioning the extent of the Holocaust.
The question I asked was why was I singled out by the Murdoch media for allowing the words "Jew Boy" to appear on the @notd when Packer's OzEmail is sanitised from being referred to as anti-Semitic not only by Murdoch but also B'nai B'rith.
The implication that I made quite clear in the interview is that there are two sets of reporting standards. One for the media barons and another for those who dare question their ability to provide Australians with a balance in news... this in itself was reason enough not to censor the Internet.
I then showed Inga how the B'nai B'rith Anti Defamation League's Internet "filter" worked. This filter can be downloaded from their site.
The filter not only excludes you from the newsgroups referred to above but also from a number of web sites such as Radio Islam which is the religious antithesis of Judaism on the Internet.
When you try to access Radio Islam with the filter on you are prompted to go to this page....
The point I made to Inga was that if you introduce censorship who will be assessing what to censor? Will we be left with a politically correct outcome where any liberty to question or discuss issues like ATSIC will become no go territory? If so what sort of country will we have become - freedom of speech will have died.
Finally, I demonstrated a link that I had taken from the (now defunct) Australian Anti Defamation League. The B'nai B'rith web site was removed within days of SBS contacting them for an interview on "censorship on the Internet"... an interesting development only matched, perhaps, by the comments being made on the Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS) web pages.
The AJDS web page is practically the only place where you can access the background to the resignation of Australian Jewish News acting editor, David Bernstein, after his editorial was censored by the publishers just before the paper went to print. The censorship of the editorial could not be clearer - a blank space where the article should have been carried.
The article was censored because it carried a balanced report covering the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Israel comparing their fate to those of the Albanians in Kosovo.
Here is an extract:
Historians who note, for example, that while it is true there were well-documented cases of Arab leaders urging the Palestinians to leave in 1947/48 despite the pleas of the Jewish leadership, as in Haifa, there were also equally well-documented cases, where tens of thousands of Arabs were actively "encouraged" by the Israelis to leave captured areas as in Ramle/Lod.
These historians note, too, that rumoured and actual massacres, such as that at Dir Yassin, sowed terror among the Palestinians and caused many to flee their homes - shamefully, never to be allowed to return.
The purpose of demonstrating the AJN coverage of the Bernstein incident was to demonstrate that the Internet allows issues to come into the open. If you start regulating and censoring it as a medium society will be the loser. I showed Inga the AJDS's on-line comments and support for Bernstein.
I then referred Inga to one of the most divisive, extreme organisations in the world today. Despite the front that they are trying to create a world free of "hate" they are doing exactly the opposite.
The organisation is B'nai B'rith Anti Defamation League - a global pariah which labels anyone who disagrees with their cause as racist.
Not even the nations of the UN have escaped this labelling by B'nai B'rith resulting in the Israeli Prime Minister saying,
All the countries in the world -- except Micronesia -- are anti-semitic.
The United Nations Shmoonited Nations, which condemned the netanyahu administration policies, is anti-semitic.
The Lebanese, of which a portion Israel occupies, are anti-semitic.
The Syrians, who want the Golan back, are anti-semitic.
The Palestinians, struggling against the settlements that took their land, are anti-semitic.
Everybody, everyone is anti semitic.
Really? On the contrary. The anti-semites is the one who isolates us in the world, digs a new chasm between us and the Arab world, pushes us toward a new useless war on three fronts, and puts an end to the great hopes that Yitzhak Rabin awoke.
Binyamin Netanyahu
The anti-Semite is B'nai B'rith - according to Netanyahu... and B'nai B'rith are pushing for censorship on the Internet.
UN General Assembly resolution 3379 equating Zionism with "Racism"
Any variation on what you have read above is a distortion of how I presented my case to Inga.
(On-line summary exposing the links between the media barons and the major parties.)