Sympathy for the Donald in the age of Trumpery

Sympathy for the Donald in the age of Trumpery

by Ranting Panda, 10 October 2020

When Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19, his gullible and deluded supporters expected the world to have sympathy for him. They were surprised and upset that few people cared about the health of their feckless leader.

Perhaps there would have been more sympathy for Trump if he wasn't a fascist pig who corrupted American democracy, the rule of law and is directly responsible for the deaths of more than 210,000 Americans from COVID-19. The biggest damage of Trump's lack of leadership has been his failure to act on COVID-19, claiming it was a hoax, understating its severity, and promoting quack cures for it. A Cornell University study found Trump to be the single biggest driver of misinformation about the pandemic (Stolberg & Weiland 2020). More than 210,000 people are dead as a result. This pathetic excuse for a human, played partisan politics as people died by refusing to distribute personal protective equipment or increase testing in Democrat-led states, which enabled Trump to blame Democratic Governors for the virus (Sykes 2020). The Whitehouse blockaded PPE from states unless they swore allegiance to Trump. Trump even refused to increase testing for the virus because of his childish logic that 'When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people' (Sykes 2020).

He constantly calls Covid the 'China Virus', but for Americans, it is the Trump Virus'. 

Time Magazine cover - 19 October 2020 edition

The United States accounts for 4% of the world's population, but more than 20% of COVID-19 cases and 20% of deaths globally. 

In 2018 Trump scrapped the pandemic response team that Obama had established. Obama had previously stated that it was just a matter of time before America faced a pandemic, which would be its greatest threat. Trump, in his typical ignorant stupidity and hatred of Obama, axed the program. A program that could have greatly reduced the death toll from COVID-19. 210,000 people dead and we're supposed to feel sympathy because Trump has contracted the very virus that he claimed was a Democratic Party election hoax.

Trump ridiculed a reporter's disability and mocked Hilary Clinton when she suffered pneumonia in 2016, so it's a bit lame that Trump's supporters are demanding sympathy for this narcissistic buffoon (Fisher 2020). Just a few days before being diagnosed with COVID-19, Trump was mocking Joe Biden for wearing masks. Is it any wonder that people have little sympathy for Trump. He is a victim of his own stupidity ... he might recover, but sadly it's too late for the more than 210,000 Americans who died from COVID-19, even as Trump continued mocking the disease and its victims.

Time.com - 9 October 2020

When it came to immigrant families crossing the border into the US, Trump had children torn from the arms of their parents and held in cages. His pathetic, gold-digging wife, Melania, has repeatedly stated that she doesn't care about the children. This much is obvious from them both. In typical Trump fashion, he blamed Obama for the policy of family separations, however, it was yet one more Trumpian lie (Valverde 2019). The only time that children were separated from their families under Obama, was if the child was in danger. Obama's policy was to keep families together. 

Melania, a gold-digging migrant from Slovenia, was caught on tape mocking the very children her husband tore from their families because they dared to want a better life free from poverty and violence. One would think that Melania, being a migrant who wanted a better, would be more sympathetic. Her narcissism is on par with her husband's, so when reporters dared to ask her about the children rather than herself, she cracked with the retort: 'They said, "Oh, what about the children that were separated?" Give me a fucking break' (Pappenfuss 2020). 

Many of Trump's supporters claim that they are pro-life and pro-family, while Trump destroys families and is incompetent on a genocidal scale. (Did I mention more than 210,000 dead). Don the Con's incompetence & corruption are on a genocidal scale, so how about sympathy for his victims, and let's stop this narcissistic conman from killing any more. 

Then there's the little matter of the treatment that Trump received for COVID-19. The experimental drug had been tested using cells from an abortion (Regalado 2020). Abortions don't mean anything to Trump when it comes to his own health ... they're just collateral damage.

 

Trump destroys everything he touches. He inherited billions from his father and yet is more than $300 million in debt (Weber 2020). He refused to release his tax returns when elected, unlike every other president in the modern era. When the New York Times exposed his tax returns, we could see why. It revealed a history of business failure and tax avoidance. He payed no tax in 10 of the 15 years between 2000 and 2015, and just $750 in tax in 2016 (ABC News 2020). He is currently being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service over his tax, with an estimate that he could be responsible for a tax bill exceeding $100 million. This is a man who boasts that he doesn't draw a salary as president. Why would he? He has been fleecing the American tax system for years. Then there's the costs of his golf trips. These are estimated to have cost the American people over $130 million (Date 2020). So Trump not claiming the $400,000 per year presidential salary means nothing when his golf trips alone have cost more than 325 years of presidential salary. He criticised Obama's golf trips and swore he wouldn't spend a day on the golf course. At the same point in their presidency, Obama had spent 96 days golfing, whereas Trump had spent 266 (Dale & Lybrand 2020). Given the number of days he's absent from the job, Trump isn't the Commander in Chief, he is the Thief in Chief.

Trump has destroyed democracy in the US by subverting democratic processes, such as appointing Ruth Bader Ginsburg's replacement to the Supreme Court weeks before the election. He has falsely claimed that the mail voting process is corrupt and is already casting doubt on the validity of the election outcome. He has hinted that if he loses the election, he won't leave office.

Trump is responsible for empowering and emboldening violence from racists and bigots. Trump has consistently called on violence against Democrats and the left-wing. He retweeted that 'The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat' and 'When the looting starts the shooting starts' (Blake 2020). He denies being a white supremacist, but why is that all white supremacists gravitate to Trump's message. It says a lot about his supporters.

Trump is blatantly racist and many of his tweets and rambling speeches dog-whistle to his racist voter base. He has refused to condemn white supremacy. He has described Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis as 'good people'. He told the white supremacist incels, Proud Boys', to 'stand back and stand by', which the Proud Boys immediately adopted as their slogan, while they were encouraged by the President to commit violence against those they hate, such as leftists, black lives matter advocates, or other anti-fascist and anti-racist elements (Palmer 2020). 

In August violence erupted in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after police shot a black man, Jacob Blake, leaving him paralysed. A 17 year old boy named Kyle Rittenhouse, illegally armed himself and travelled from the neighbouring state of Illinois, to shoot the protesters. Rittenhouse shot three people, two of whom died. This gutless act of violence was not condemned by Trump, who went on to defend Rittenhouse's actions ... as did most Trump supporters. Department of Homeland Security officials were directed to defend Rittenhouse's heinous crimes (Brewster 2020).

These fascist are no different to the white supremacists who unleashed Kristallnacht in 1930s Germany, empowered and emboldened by Hitler. Trump is paving the way for another dictatorship, another Kristallnacht, another war between fascists and anti-fascists. 

When it was revealed that Russia had placed bounties on the lives of US soldiers in Afghanistan, the ever-tweeting Trump was strangely silent (Savage, Schmitt & Schwirtz 2020). He failed to raise the issue or to condemn Putin over it. He took no action. This is no great surprise. Trump has no respect for the military and has been caught stating that soldiers killed in battle defending the United States are 'suckers and losers' (Hirsh 2020). 

Former Trump aide, retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster states that Trump is aiding and abetting Russian president, Vladimir Putin, by failing to acknowledge Russia's misinformation campaign being waged in the United States (Sanger 2020).

So why do his followers continue defending him? They state that they are patriots, yet grovel at the feet of Traitor Trump as he destroys the nation they claim to love. 

To quote Forest Gump, 'stupid is as stupid does'. Trump is clearly a traitor to his own people. As millions of people were contracting COVID-19 and hundreds of thousands dying from it, he treated it as a joke and mocked those who tried to control it. In mid-September 2020, Trump stated that there would be a COVID-19 vaccine within three to four weeks (Marsh 2020). Three weeks later there was no vaccine in sight ... and Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19. 

In 1977, Pink Floyd released an album called Animals. The lyrics from the song Pigs are extremely apt to Trump, so much so that Roger Waters used it in his 2017/18 world tour: 'Big man, pig man, ha ha charade you are'. Trump is a pig, gorging himself at the trough while America degenerates. Trump is a charade. There was another song on that album, called Dogs, whose lyrics are very descriptive of Trump: 'You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to, So that when they turn their backs on you, You'll get the chance to put the knife in ... And when you lose control, you'll reap the harvest you have sown'.

Trump is reaping what he has sown. He is the victim of his own stupidity, which tragically has killed more than 210,000 people and will likely kill many thousands more.

Trump is such a liar that many people doubted he had actually contracted COVID-19. He had been hospitalised and on oxygen according to his doctors, but within a few days of the diagnosis, he was back at work saying that COVID-19 was nothing to worry about. 210,000 dead people and their families would likely disagree with this cretin. It's easy for a simpleton such as Trump to tell people, 'Do not be afraid', when he has the best medical treatment that money can buy.

Trump by name, Trumpery by nature. 

Even with his pathological lying, hate-speech, snout-in-the-trough corruption, Don the Con's racist, sexist, misogynistic, white-supremacist snowflake supporters expect people to have sympathy for Trump and his racist wife, Melania, as they are treated for COVID-19.

That isn't going to happen. 

Sympathy for the Trumps?

How about sympathy for their victims.

References

ABC News 2020, 'US President Donald Trump paid no income tax for 10 years, says New York Times report', 28 September, viewed 5 October 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-28/trump-paid-just-24750-in-us-income-taxes-in-20162c-2017/12709418.

Blake, A 2020, '‘The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.' ‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts.’ Twice in 25 hours, Trump tweets conspicuous allusions to violence', The Washington Post, 30 May, viewed 5 October 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/28/trump-retweets-video-saying-only-good-democrat-is-dead-democrat/.

Brewster, J 2020, 'Report: Trump Officials Were Directed To Defend Kyle Rittenhouse Publicly, Documents Show', Forbes, 1 October, viewed 5 October 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/10/01/report-trump-officials-were-directed-to-defend-kyle-rittenhouse-publicly-documents-show.

Dale, D & Lybrand, H 2020, 'Fact check: Trump has spent far more time at golf clubs than Obama had at same point', CNN, 25 May, viewed 5 October 2020, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/25/politics/fact-check-trump-obama-golf/index.html.

Date, S 2020, 'Trump’s 29th Trip To Mar-a-Lago Brings Golf Tab To 334 Years Of Presidential Salary', Huffington Post, 15 February, viewed 5 October 2020, https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/trump-golf-mar-a-lago-taxpayers_n_5e4712b9c5b64d860fcab86c.

Fisher, A 2020, 'Trumpworld delighted in cruelty. Now that Trump has COVID, it demands empathy', Business Insider, 3 October, viewed 5 October 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com.au/trumpworld-delighted-cruelty-trump-positive-covid-test-demands-empathy-coronavirus-2020-10.

Hirsh, M 2020, 'Trump Has Mocked the U.S. Military His Whole Life', Foreign Policy, 8 September, viewed 5 October 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/08/trump-mocked-us-military-troops-losers-whole-life/.

Marsh, P 2020, 'Donald Trump says a coronavirus vaccine could be 'three weeks, four weeks' away in ABC town hall interview', ABC News, 16 September, viewed 5 October 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-16/coronavirus-vaccine-weeks-away-according-to-donald-trump/12669136. 

Palmer, E 2020, 'Video of Proud Boys Founder Encouraging Violence Resurfaces Following Trump's 'Stand By' Comment, Newsweek, 1 October, viewed 5 October 2020, https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-gavin-mcinnes-trump-video-1535594.

Pappenfuss, M 2020, ''This Is Not Who We Are': Twitter Rages Over Melania's Taped Remarks On Migrant Children', Huffington Post, 3 October, viewed 5 October 2020, https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/melania-trump-kids-in-cages-christmas_n_5f76903ac5b66377b27fca5e.

Regalado, A 2020, 'Trump’s antibody treatment was tested using cells originally derived from an abortion', MIT Technology Review, 7 October, viewed 10 October 2020, https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/07/1009664/trumps-antibody-treatment-was-tested-using-cells-from-an-abortion/.

Savage, C, Schmitt, E, & Schwirtz, M 2020, 'Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says', New York Times, 26 June, viewed 5 October 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html.

Sanger, DE 2020, 'McMaster, Mostly Silent Until Now, Says Trump Is ‘Aiding and Abetting Putin’s Efforts’', New York Times, 1 October, viewed 5 October 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/01/us/politics/mcmaster-trump-russia-election.html.

Stolberg, SG, & Weiland, N 2020, 'Study Finds ‘Single Largest Driver’ of Coronavirus Misinformation: Trump', New York Times, 30 September, viewed 5 October 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-misinformation.html.

Sykes, C 2020, 'Did Trump and Kushner ignore blue state COVID-19 testing as deaths spiked?', NBC News, 4 August, viewed 9 October 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/did-trump-kushner-ignore-blue-state-covid-19-testing-deaths-ncna1235707.

Valverde, M 2019, 'Fact-check: Did Obama have a family separation policy before Trump?', Statesman, 25 June, viewed 5 October 2020, https://www.statesman.com/news/20190625/fact-check-did-obama-have-family-separation-policy-before-trump.

Weber, P 2020, 'Trump literally can't afford to lose the election', The Week, 28 September, viewed 10 October 2020, https://theweek.com/articles/940021/trump-literally-cant-afford-lose-election. 

Boats, blame and bluster - Morrison's deadly ineptitude

Boats, blame and bluster - Morrison's deadly ineptitude 

By Ranting Panda, 13 September 2020

Right-wing commentators and pundits roundly criticised former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for his $51 billion GFC stimulus program as being fiscally irresponsible socialism, yet are now praising Prime Minister Scott Morrison's $200 billion COVID-19 stimulus program as being the epitome of good economic management. Perhaps someone should explain that both stimulus programs are straight out of the same Keynsian economics playbook ... you know, the bit where the government shares the wealth, which is an essential element of Socialism. 

Socialism saves the day. Yet again. It saved Australia during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and it is needed to save Australia during 2020's COVID-19 pandemic. 

Let's explore the two stimulus programs in a tad more detail. The Rudd stimulus saved around 200,000 jobs according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (ABC 2009). The Rudd and Gillard Labor governments were criticised ad nauseum by the media and conservative voters who didn't understand the economics of stimulus: that is, in an economic downturn, when businesses stop spending and people have no money to spend, the government must inject funds into the economy so that businesses and consumers have money to spend ... to stimulate the economy. If businesses, consumers and government stop spending, the economy grinds to a halt. Australia was the only developed country to avoid recession during the GFC (Dobbie 2009). Prime Ministers Rudd and Gillard were criticised for creating a debt and deficit disaster that would haunt future generations for decades. 

As an aside, in the 10 years since the GFC, Australia squandered its comparative advantage. Tony Abbott became Prime Minister in 2013, and since then Australia has been governed by the conservative Liberal and National Parties. Since 2014, Australia's living standards have flat-lined, while other nations saw household incomes improve dramatically. By contrast, real disposable income in Australia outgrew the OECD average from 2007 to 2013 under successive Labor  governments during and following the GFC, while in 2019 following six years of successive conservative government, Australia experienced its worst annual growth for a decade  (Jericho 2019). 

Former World Bank chief economist, Joseph Steiglitz, described the Rudd stimulus as 'one of the best-designed Keynesian stimulus packages of any country in the world' (Rudd 2020). Rudd's stimulus avoided recession. Morrison's stimulus has plunged Australia into a recession and will take decades for Australia to pay back. And just like that, conservative anti-Marxist pundits no longer care about debt, deficit and future generations, and are raving about how wonderful Morrison's (socialist) stimulus is. 

While Morrison certainly needed to implement a stimulus program, it remains to be seen how effective it will be. The Rudd stimulus was immediate, it injected cash into the economy through instantly paying $900 grants to everyone and immediately establishing building projects, while Morrison's stimulus took months to be implemented and still managed to miss around two million people. Had it been rolled out instantly and more comprehensively, it would likely have saved many more businesses and jobs (Mannheim 2020). 

Part of the Rudd stimulus involved a 'pink batts' scheme, to install insulation into roofs. Unfortunately, some unscrupulous businesses took advantage of this scheme and employed people with little to no training. Four young men died after being electrocuted in the roof spaces of the buildings they were working on. It was a tragedy caused by a lack of compliance with Australian Standards. The four employers were prosecuted under their respective state's health and safety legislation. Critics blamed the Rudd government for not managing it properly. Certainly, greater precautions could have been taken to ensure the companies were experienced, licensed under the scheme and complied with Australian Standards. 

Meanwhile, when more than 2,000 people suicided as a direct result of the Morrison's government's Robodebt debacle (Medhora 2019), the conservative media and critics were nowhere to be seen. Tumbleweeds. They gave Morrison a free pass, even though his program callously and erroneously targeted Australia's poorest people, issuing demands for large sums of money that people could not repay and often did not owe, resulting in more than 2,000 suicides, and destroying the lives of many others. 

With thousands of people dead from Robodebt, Morrison refused to accept responsibility for the fatal failings of his callous program. Even now, with hundreds more people dead from coronavirus, Morrison continues attacking Labor premiers, by playing politics with the pandemic and blaming others (Bongiorno 2020). He has failed to take responsibility for the deadly ineptitude of himself and his government, choosing instead to defend his abysmal record. He is the Prime Minister. He should show true leadership and actually lead the nation by example through taking responsibility, keeping people informed, responding appropriately to the crisis and uniting the nation rather than dividing it.

His ineptitude is continuing to cost lives as the world is ravaged by COVID-19. 

Posted by Anthony Albanese, Facebook, 26 August 2020

Much of the COVID-19 death toll has been in aged care homes. Aged care is a federal government responsibility, something Morrison is intimately familiar with. As Treasurer in 2015 and 2016, Morrison slashed almost $2 billion from the aged care budget - what could go wrong, right? Currently, the COVID-19 death toll in Australia is more than 800, with at least 500 deaths in aged care facilities (Murphy 2020). The first aged care cluster was in Sydney's Newmarch House, where 19 residents died (Gilbert & Lilley 2020). Instead of learning from this, Morrison's government failed to take adequate precautions in other aged care facilities. There is now a Royal Commission into the extremely high ratio of deaths in aged care facilities. Peter Rozen QC, counsel assisting the royal commission, stated, 'This is what we mean when we say the aged-care sector is still not properly prepared for COVID-19 ... It is unacceptable that such arrangements were not in place in February. It’s unforgivable that they are not in place in August' (SBS 2020). Privately run aged care facilities are solely the responsibility of the federal government. Morrison has blood on his hands. Instead of facing the public, he has run away and hidden, releasing only a pre-recorded video about the matter. The Royal Commission has stated that these issues were entirely foreseeable. (Butler 2020). 

In fact, Morrison received a federal report in April 2020, but kept it confidential (Crowe 2020). The government failed to act, even though the report warned of inadequate staffing to address the pandemic and providing lessons learned from the first wave. This ineptitude has cost hundreds of lives, the bulk of which are in Victoria and directly attributable to the negligence of the Morrison government. In late August 2020, the federal Aged Care Minister announced a further $563 million injection into aged care and a requirement for residential providers to appoint a designated infection control officer (Lucas 2020). Eight months after Covid first hit Australia, and hundreds of preventable deaths later, the government decides to act on aged care.  

Even before the Ruby Princess docked in Sydney on 19 March 2020, there were reports that it was carrying passengers infected with COVID-19. The Ruby Princess carried 1000 infections, which were attributable to at least 30 deaths (Bongiorno 2020). This was an even worse scenario than the 14 deaths experienced on the Diamond Princess. And Morrison knew! Instead of quarantining the passengers, he allowed them to disembark and fly across the nation. Qantas and Virgin Airlines attempted to stop passengers boarding. They attempted to get hold of passenger manifests, however, the government had not put in place measures to contain the infected passengers (Probyn 2020).   Then there was the matter of the Ruby Princess cruise ship which docked at the Sydney Overseas Passenger Terminal, with confirmed cases of COVID-19 aboard. The federal government is responsible for international borders. In fact, Morrison was formerly the Minister for Immigration. For years he boasted that his government's strict international border security policies had 'stopped the boats'. Morrison failed to stop the Ruby Princess, even though there had already been a disastrous and much-publicised case of a cruise ship contaminated with COVID-19, the Diamond Princess, which was not allowed to berth in Japan.

Morrison and his ministry have been attacking Dan Andrews over Victoria's stage 4 lockdown, and Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, over the strict closure of the Queensland border. Apparently Morrison knows more than the medical professionals who have recommended these steps. Palaszczuk has been criticised for 'politicising' the situation to score votes in the upcoming state election. The only party politicising this is the federal Liberal Party who are using this to distract from the Royal Commission into their shocking and negligent treatment of aged care that has resulted in hundreds of deaths. Why in the world, would anyone listen to Morrison and his murderous ministry that has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of elderly people?

When Victoria's Premier Dan Andrews locked the state down to combat a resurgence of COVID-19 in July 2020, people were quick to criticise him. In fact, they criticised him when he locked the state down in the first wave of the pandemic. When the second wave hit, these critics accused him of not being strict enough, while criticising him for being too strict. They blamed him for the high number of cases and the tragic loss of life. They blamed him for the more than 100 suicides that occurred following the second lockdown. What these critics seem to have ignored, is that had the Morrison stimulus package actually been implemented immediately and more effectively, then it would have helped protect many more businesses and jobs affected during the lockdown, avoiding many of the suicides that resulted from business closures. Rather than blame Morrison for an expensive, and largely ineffective stimulus, critics blamed Dan Andrews for trying to limit the impact of COVID-19. Meanwhile, Andrews' stage 4 measures have been successful, reducing the infection numbers from more than 500 a day to a couple of dozen, and deaths in the dozens, to now being in single digits (McMillan 2020).

Andrews was blamed for employing untrained security guards at a hotel that was used to quarantine travellers arriving from overseas. Allegedly, at least one guard had sex with one of the travellers. Other guards failed to enforce the quarantine measures. Much was made of the guards holding down three jobs, working as Uber drivers and so on. Yet, the security companies Andrews used, were the same that Morrison uses to protect federal establishments. It is well-known that the security industry is rife with exploitation, in which the contracted company outsources to another firm, who then outsources to someone else and so on. There can be multiple layers of sub-contracting. The guards at the end of this chain, are often underpaid, under-trained and exploited. Yes, Andrews should have ensured that there were measures in place to verify the qualifications of the guards, that they were being paid correctly and that they had the skills and qualifications necessary for a job with this much risk. But has Morrison been held to account for using the same firms? Has he been asked to verify that the guards used to protect Commonwealth properties are trained and not being exploited?

While the second wave in Victoria was blamed on one of these security guards, it has since emerged that patient zero was not a security guard at all, but a night duty manager at the Rydges hotel (Baker 2020).

Without a doubt, there were failings by the Andrews government in its handling of hotel quarantine. An inquiry has been told that quarantined guests were allowed to leave the hotels unsupervised for compassionate reasons, such as attending funerals or visiting terminally ill relatives. The same people who criticise Andrews for this, also criticise Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, for not allowing people into the state for compassionate reasons, such as visiting terminally ill relatives or attending funerals. Queensland is the model for exceptionally low infections and an exemplary management of the pandemic. What do these critics want? They are confused. They want Andrews to be tough on quarantine, but then criticise Palaszczuk for being tough on quarantine.

Morrison has accused Andrews of failing to have adequate contact tracing in place, yet it was Morrison who spruiked about the federal government's multi-million dollar CovidSafe app, which was a contact tracing application for mobile phones. To great fanfare, Morrison said that he could lift restrictions if more than 40% of people installed the app (Taylor 2020). CovidSafe was a dismal failure. It was untested, and incompatible with iPhones. Of those who did install it, it detected nothing (Patton 2020). Does Morrison take responsibility for this expensive failure? Of course not. Furthermore, by July, Victoria was the only state to have used the data from the app to contact trace infected people and were unable to (Patton 2020). The second Victorian wave may have been minimised had Morrison's CovidSafe contact tracing app actually worked.  

The differences between Andrews and Morrison are stark. Andrews accepts responsibility for his mistakes, he gets in front of the cameras every day to keep Victorians informed of the situation and what he is doing. He acknowledges people's pain and empathises with them. He doesn't blame others. Morrison on the other hand, refuses to take responsibility for his numerous failings in aged care, the Ruby Princess, the CovidSafe app, and the two million people not covered by his stimulus package. Morrison is rarely in front of the cameras to brief the nation on the state of the coronavirus, he shows little empathy or sympathy for people's suffering, and he constantly scapegoats others. He is all bluster and no acumen.

Morrison is portrayed as a strong leader by his supporters. This perception exists solely because he attacks the weak. He is a bully. Strong leaders build up the weak, they do not beat them up. Morrison targets the unemployed, refugees and asylum seekers. When was the last time Morrison took on big business for exploiting workers and the environment?

Morrison's 'strong' leadership in confronting the worst pandemic in a century, is to bully Andrews and Palaszczuk, rather than being productive and collaborative. Not that this tribalism is just the fault of Morrison: it's the culture of the federal Liberal Party. 'If you can’t fix a practical problem, polarise the country. This has been the working maxim of the Liberal party since the Howard era' (Murphy 2020).

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton attacked Queensland for allowing Tom Hanks into the state, while denying entry to other people. However, as Immigration Minister, it was Dutton's own department that issued Hanks with the visa to enter Australia (Remeikis & Karp 2020). Just further evidence that the Liberal Party is playing political games, while the pandemic continues costing lives.

Morrison did need to act to protect the economy given the job losses and numbers of businesses that were forced to close during this time. However, he failed to protect lives or do anything substantial to combat the virus. A good leader would have been able to do both at the same time: protect lives and protect the economy. Yet, Morrison is criticising those Premiers who are doing their best to protect lives. Rather than playing partisan politics which dog-whistle to populism, he should be supporting the life-saving measures of the Premiers. The economy will never be strong while there are significant infection rates and large losses of life, with data showing that there there is a direct link between high deaths and low economic growth (Jericho 2020). Economists in Queensland agree that the economic costs border closures is the better option and far less costly economically, than a resurgent coronavirus outbreak (Dennien 2020). Firstly, people won't go to shops if they fear being infected ... and secondly, dead people do not make good customers. 

Then there's the little matter of Morrison commencing the winding down of the JobSeeker and JobKeeper stimulus at a time when it is most needed. There will likely be more suicides from people losing their businesses and jobs, which the federal government could help prevent. An analysis by Deloitte Access Economics in September 2020, has predicted that if Morrison ends the JobSeeker welfare payments by the end of 2020, it will result in a further 145,000 job losses (Haydar 2020). Morrison has clearly not understood the importance or efficacy of a well-implemented stimulus program. Perhaps, he should consult Kevin Rudd. In the meantime, Morrison should be working with the premiers, providing the economic lifelines necessary for businesses and workers, while the States work with their health professionals to reduce infections and deaths. 

Suppose that Victoria and Queensland capitulate to Morrison and the anti-lockdown critics. Say they lift their restrictions and within a few weeks there is another wave of infections, with hundreds more dying. Will Morrison take responsibility for it as it the lifting of restrictions would be directly in response to his demands? Would the anti-lockdown critics admit that Andrews and Palaszczuk were correct in locking down their states? Of course not. They are only interested in scoring political points against Labor, not in stopping the virus or protecting people from the pandemic. Thank God, that Andrews and Palaszczuk are listening to medical professionals and not to Scott Morrison.

References

ABC 2009, 'Stimulus saved 200,000 Australian jobs: oeCD', ABC News, 16 September 2009, viewed 30 August 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-09-16/stimulus-saved-200000-australian-jobs-oecd/1432016. 

Baker, R 2020, 'Patient zero for Victoria's second wave was not a security guard', The Age, 13 August, viewed 15 August 2020, https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/patient-zero-for-victoria-s-second-wave-was-not-a-security-guard-20200813-p55li3.html.

Bongiorno, P 2020, 'Outsourcing blame can’t keep working for Scott Morrison', New Daily, 11 August, viewed 30 August 2020, https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/08/11/paul-bongiorno-outsourcing-blame-cant-keep-working-for-scott-morrison/.

Butler, R 2020, '‘Unforgivable’: Aged care still ‘not properly prepared’ for COVID, royal commission hears', The New Daily, 13 August, viewed 15 August 2020, https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2020/08/13/royal-commission-aged-care-still-not-properly-for-covid.

Crowe, D 2020, 'Government received aged care workforce warning months ago', Sydney Morning Herald, 19 August, viewed 30 August 2020, https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/government-received-aged-care-workforce-warning-months-ago-20200819-p55nb0.html.

Dennien, M 2020, 'Economists warn against early border move, as hopes of Christmas opening rise', Brisbane Times, 6 September, viewed 7 September 2020, https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/economists-warn-against-early-border-move-as-hopes-of-christmas-opening-rise-20200906-p55sv8.html.

Dobbie, P 2009, 'How Australia Ducked the Crisis', CBS News, 26 October 2009, viewed 30 August 2020, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-australia-ducked-the-crisis/.

Gilbert AO, L, Lilley, A 2020, Newmarch House COVID-19 Outbreak [April to June 2020] - Independent Review - Final Report, Department of Health, 20 August, viewed 30 August 2020, https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020/08/newmarch-house-covid-19-outbreak-independent-review-newmarch-house-covid-19-outbreak-independent-review-final-report.pdf. 

Haydar, N 2020, 'Return to pre-coronavirus JobSeeker rate could cost 145,000 jobs', ABC News, 15 September, viewed 15 September 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-15/jobseeker-coronavirus-payment-cut-may-cost-145000-jobs/12663060.

Hayne, J 2020, 'Prime Minister and Aged Care Minister apologise in Parliament over coronavirus response', ABC News, 24 August, viewed 30 August 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-24/government-faces-question-time-pressure-aged-care-coronavirus/12589404.

Jericho, G 2019, 'Australia managed to survive the global recession – but all that good work has been wasted', The Guardian, 29 August 2019, viewed 30 August 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/aug/29/australia-managed-to-survive-the-global-recession-but-all-that-good-work-has-been-wasted.

Jericho, G 2020, 'Regardless of Covid restrictions, if people are dying in large numbers your economy is stuffed', The Guardian, 13 September, viewed 13 September 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2020/sep/13/regardless-of-covid-restrictions-if-people-are-dying-in-large-numbers-your-economy-is-stuffed.

Lucas, C 2020, 'Federal aged care watchdog approved homes with worst COVID-19 outbreaks', The Age, 8 September, viewed 13 September 2020, https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/federal-aged-care-watchdog-approved-homes-with-worst-covid-19-outbreaks-20200907-p55t9k.html.

Mannheim, M 2020, 'Australia's coronavirus spending to protect economy dwarfs the GFC stimulus package', ABC News, 5 April 2020, viewed 15 August 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-05/coronavirus-data-stimulus-spending-dwarfs-gfc-chart/12115518.

McMillan, A 2020, 'Sutton confident Victorian infections will hit lockdown easing target', The Age, 13 September, viewed 13 September 2020, https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/forty-one-cases-seven-covid-19-deaths-in-victoria-as-buddy-bubble-day-looms-20200913-p55v2k.html.

Medhora, S 2019, 'Over 2000 people died after receiving Centrelink robo-debt notice, figures reveal', ABC News, 18 February, viewed 15 August 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/2030-people-have-died-after-receiving-centrelink-robodebt-notice/10821272.

Murphy, K 2020, 'Pandemic bipartisanship is crumbling as Scott Morrison ramps up the politicking', The Guardian, 12 September, viewed 13 September 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/12/the-peaceful-days-of-pandemic-bi-partisanship-are-crumbling-as-morrison-ramps-up-the-politicking.

Patton, L 2020, 'COVIDfail – the Australian coronavirus tracing app that can’t find anyone', The New Daily, 8 July, viewed 8 September 2020, https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/07/08/covidfail-app/. 

Probyn, A 2020, 'Qantas and Virgin knew the Ruby Princess was a coronavirus time bomb but were powerless to stop it', ABC News, 14 August, viewed 30 August 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-14/border-force-ruby-princess-qantas-virgin-manifest-coronavirus/12550558.

Remeikis, A & Karp, P 2020, 'Peter Dutton's border force approved Tom Hanks' return to Australia', The Guardian, 11 September, viewed 13 September 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/11/tom-hanks-return-to-australia-was-approved-by-peter-duttons-border-force.

Rudd, K 2020, '13 Myths about the Rudd Government’s GFC stimulus', Kevin Rudd, 18 March, viewed 30 August 2020, https://kevinrudd.com/2020/03/18/13-myths-about-the-rudd-governments-gfc-stimulus/.

SBS 2020, 'Months into the coronavirus pandemic, Australia's aged care sector is 'still not properly prepared'', SBS News, 13 August, viewed 30 August 2020, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/months-into-the-coronavirus-pandemic-australia-s-aged-care-sector-is-still-not-properly-prepared.

Taylor, J 2020, 'Covidsafe app: how Australia’s coronavirus contact tracing app works, what it does, downloads and problems', The Guardian, 15 May, viewed 13 September 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/15/covid-safe-app-australia-how-download-does-it-work-australian-government-covidsafe-covid19-tracking-downloads.

Updated 15 September 2020

Cancel culture & the Snowflake War: Do-gooders, No-gooders & Do-nothings

Cancel culture & the Snowflake War: Do-gooders, No-gooders & Do-nothings

By Ranting Panda, 8 August 2020

If one listens to conservatives, it would seem that lefties, or progressives at least, are waging a war on freedom and free-speech. Conservatives frame this non-existent war as a product of 'political correctness', or 'virtue-signalling', because of left-wing do-gooders, who are supposedly being overly sensitive snowflakes who manufacture offence and then meltdown in the face of this 'contrived' offence.

There is some truth in conservatives claims. There are times that progressives 'cancel' those who are perceived as having some moral failing, such as being racist or sexist. 

Many conservatives see themselves as thick-skinned heroes defending freedom ... they see themselves as victims of the Snowflake War. 

Anyone would think that conservatives are resilient people who would never indulge in 'cancel culture' or 'political correctness'. However, they have been guilty of these very issues themselves. The difference is that when progressives do it, it is because of abuse perpetrated by systemic discrimination or in response to someone harming others. When conservatives do it, it is usually because they are upset that someone thinks, acts or looks different to them.

Yes, believe it or not ... Conservatives are epic snowflakes, waging war on freedoms using their own brand of self-centred political correctness and virtue-signalling that dog-whistles to other conservative snowflakes.

'Conservative political correctness?', I hear you ask! Yep. Conservative political correctness usually revolves around respecting flags and statues, rather than people. For instance, patriotism is sacrosanct. 

One such example occurred in Australia in 2017, when a Muslim feminist writer named Yassmin Abdel-Magied, posted a tweet on Anzac Day which stated: 'LEST. WE. FORGET. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine...)'. Conservatives were so affronted by this innocuous tweet, that Yassmin was hounded out of the country. She received rape and death threats because of it and ended up leaving Australia to live in England. Many of the threats targeted Yassmin's religion and gender. I mean, being a Muslim and a feminist was never going to sit well with conservative snowflakes. Conservative commentator, Prue McSween, called Abdel-Magied a flea and stated that it was acceptable for her to feel unsafe in Australia, then compounded this disgusting tirade by stating that if she saw her, she would be tempted to run her over (BBC 2017). Ironically, many of the people who were offended by her tweet, claimed that Anzac Day commemorates those who fought and died for Australia's freedoms. Apparently, those freedoms don't include freedom of speech for young, feminist Muslim women, even though these same conservatives will claim that it's Muslims who hate Australia's freedoms ... 

In 2017, not long after the disgustingly racist and sexist abuse of Yassmin Abdel-Magied, the Australian Human Rights Commission made a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into multiculturalism, regarding the lack of non-Anglo-Celtic people represented in the public sphere. This may seem innocuous enough, however it triggered Rowan Dean, editor of The Spectator Australia, into racially attacking the federal Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane. This racist abuse was given a platform on Sky News, were Dean defiantly declared that Mr Soutphommasane should 'hop on a plane and go back to Laos'. It should be noted that Mr Soutphommasane isn't from Laos; he was born in France to Laotian parents. (BBC 2017).

Then there was Scott McIntyre, a former SBS journalist, who tired of the drunken nationalism that has taken over Anzac Day. McIntyre believed that Anzac Day had taken on a cult-like following, in which people glorified war and dehumanised the 'enemy'. McIntyre decided to remind Australia that some of our diggers were involved in horrendous crimes in the fog of war, such as rape and murder (Davidson 2016). These snippets of truth went down like a lead-balloon with conservatives, leading to McIntyre being sacked by SBS in response to howls of conservative rage.

The problem with this unquestioning nationalism is that it condones and perpetuates war crimes and other criminal behaviour by defence force personnel. For instance, when the ABC reported on the abuse of asylum seekers by Australian military personnel (Roberts 2014), then Prime Minister Tony Abbott accused it of being unpatriotic (Bourke 2014). Apparently waving the Aussie flag was more important that stopping the abuse of innocent people by the military. When the ABC reported on alleged war crimes by the SAS in Afghanistan (Willacy 2020), conservatives were angry with the ABC for reporting it, not because there may have been war crimes committed by Australian troops. 

Still don't believe that conservatives can be snowflakes? Tell them that their food is Halal. In their apoplectic rage, they will boycott the product, write angry letters to the company, to their local politicians, to the newspaper, and fire off incoherent tweets and social media posts. Yep, cancel culture, right there!

More fun can be had if one dares say 'Happy Holidays' at Christmas time. They will become proudly indignant and declare that it is 'Merry CHRISTMAS'! Even though many of these conservatives only look forward to Christmas for the presents, food, decorations and holidays. Most of them couldn't care less about it being the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Most of them have never set foot in a church. And those who have? Clearly, they love their dogma more than they love people. I mean, seriously, if someone wishes you well, then be thankful. It takes a special kind of spitefulness to complain that a season's greeting didn't meet the expected standard. As Benjamin Franklin astutely observed, 'How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, his precepts! O! ’tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments'.

There was a call to boycott Starbucks because their coffee cups were deemed 'anti-Christmas'. How can a coffee cup be anti-Christmas? When it is red. Well, when it is red only and does not feature Christmas trees, grimacing Santa Claus faces or (most appropriately) snowflakes ... because nothing screams 'Jesus is the reason for the Season' than a coffee cup covered in European winter symbols (Dvorak 2015). 

Conservatives can continue the rage and wallow in their victimhood straight after Christmas, when Easter Eggs appear on the shelves. Well, there will be rage if said egg dares not mention the word 'Easter'. God forbid selling a chocolate egg that doesn't say Easter. I mean seriously, What Would Jesus Do? We all know how that Jesus smashed down a big helping of Easter Eggs during the Last Supper. Over the years, conservatives have boycotted Nestle and Cadbury for both daring to produce Easter Eggs that don't meet the high moral standard set by privileged conservatives who clearly have nothing better to be offended at. Ironically, these symbols of Easter that they lose their collective minds over, have nothing to do with Jesus, but are pagan symbols of fertility. Easter has links to several pagan fertility religions, including Ishtar, the Mesopotamian 'Queen of Heaven' and goddess of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. Although Easter was likely named after the German 'Eostre', it was a northern hemisphere celebration of fertility, that Christians appropriated to make their message more palatable to the locals (D'Costa 2013). Compromise, anyone? It seems that the early Christians weren't quite the snowflakes that today's conservative Christians are. 

Speaking of drugs, sex and rock'n'roll, how can we forget when conservatives waged all-out war on rock music: the 'Devil's Music'! This reached peak silliness when John Lennon made the astute observation that The Beatles were 'more popular than Jesus now'. People melted down, believing that The Beatles thought they were greater than God. Lennon clarified later that he was referring to how their fans saw them, not that he was anti-God or anti-Jesus. In response to this perceived insult, Christians bought Beatles albums and then burned them (think about that, take all the time you need ... cancelling a band by buying their stuff ... riiiiight). Tragically, this attempt to cancel The Beatles culminated in Mark David Chapman shooting and killing John Lennon in 1980. Chapman was a 'born-again' Christian, who stated that part of the reason he did it was because of Lennon's comment about The Beatles being more popular than Jesus (Jones 1992, pp 117-118). Chapman had also been upset with the songs 'God' and 'Imagine'. Chapman believed that Imagine was a Communist song, and subsequently wrote his own lyrics to it, which included 'Imagine John Lennon dead' (Jones 1992, pp 117, 189). 

Chapman's hatred of Communism wasn't his own invention. The last time Christians got so upset about Communism, they unleashed they sang the praises of Adolf Hitler ... and we know how that ended.

Conservatives are currently melting down over cheese. Yep, believe it or not, they are more interested in cheese than in ending racism. In fact, many of them don't believe in either systemic racism or casual racism. Systemic racism is evidenced by significantly higher incarceration rates of indigenous people or people of colour, higher suicide rates, poorer educational and health outcomes, and increased poverty. Casual racism is much more insidious, but just as harmful. It may include jokes or snide comments based on racial stereotypes, but it presupposes white superiority and the subjugation of people of colour. 

So, cheese. Australia's Coon Cheese was named after the man who invented the ripening process for cheese, Edward William Coon. The ripening process is also named after him and is known as cooning. Unfortunately, Edward Coon's surname is also a racial slur. For decades there were requests to change the name of the cheese. Keep in mind, that Edward Coon did not found or own Australia's Coon Cheese; it was merely named after him. It was created by the Warrnambool Cheese and Butter company, and launched by Fred Walker. In July 2020, it was under the ownership of Canadian company, Saputo Inc, who decided to change the name based on its association with the racial slur. 

And didn't the conservatives cut their collective cheeses over it! Now, the cheese could just as easily have been called Walker Cheese, WCB Cheese, or any other variant of its original or current owners. It's just a name. Saputo recognised that while Coon was the surname of the man who invented the maturation process, it can cause significant offence, so they changed the name. They didn't shoot Bambi. But conservatives carried on as if their first-born was being torn from their arms, and promised to boycott the cheese. Not that the boycott will do much, because some had already boycotted the cheese when it became Halal certified. Yep, conservative cancel culture: cancel cheese. Conservatives tackling the big issues. After all, cheese is more important than addressing racism. 

The man who drove the name-change is Dr Stephen Hagan. In retaliation for Dr Hagan daring to challenge the name of a cheese, One Nation member, Mark Latham, mocked him and suggested that 'evil snowflakes' would start targeting products that included the word 'white'. He included a photo of Paul's 'Smarter White Milk' product. Not surprisingly, several media outlets ran this as a factual story. So incensed were the racists who actually believed this puerile drivel, that Hagan received more than 30,000 abusive comments, hate mail and several death threats (Roe 2020). Yeah ... death threats over a fake story about the name of a milk product. Latham is leader of One Nation in New South Wales and a member of the NSW Legislative Council, the Upper House in the NSW Parliament. This is the standard of politics and media in Australia. It also shows just how sensitive racist snowflakes are in Australia: they will cry over milk and cheese. 

Speaking of racism, there was the matter of an NFL player, Colin Kaepernick, who kneeled during the national anthem prior to a football match in 2016. He was protesting against police brutality. Small-minded conservatives took this as a affront to US sovereignty. Yeah, I know ... how freaking sensitive does one have to be to interpret an anti-racism protest as an attack on US sovereignty? But such is the depths of nationalism that permeates right-wing media and group-think. In protest, many conservatives burned their own NFL jerseys and Nike shoes. Again ... take all the time you need to think about this ... protesting by burning something they've already bought. That's really going to hit the NFL or Nike's bottom line. The sad thing, when asked, many of these people had no idea what Kaepernick was protesting. Many thought he was opposing the flag, the anthem, or US troops, because of bigoted group-think manipulated by racist politicians and media. 

The anti-Kaepernick brigade were already so emboldened with nationalistic fervour and racism, that it didn't take much to push them over the edge ... and we ask how Germans could be so duped by Hitler? Indeed.

Speaking of football players, in Australia many indigenous people played in the rugby league and Australian Rules football codes. Throughout the years, many reported receiving racist abuse, including former Brisbane Broncos player, Steve Renouf (Pengilly 2020), and former St Kilda player, Nicky Winmar (NMA 2020). Adam Goodes had a stellar AFL career, playing more games than any other indigenous player, twice winning the coveted Brownlow Medal for being the best and fairest player in the competition, and in 2014, he won Australian of the Year. Despite his achievements, Goodes was subject to years of racist abuse. During the Indigenous Round in 2013, Goodes was racially vilified by a spectator. Goodes called her out for it during the game (McRae 2020). It transpired the spectator was 13 years old. The conservative response? Well, rather than agreeing that Goodes had every right to challenge racist abuse from a 13 year old brat, they attacked him, doubled down on the vilification and drove him from the game. 

Conservatives have a track record of prioritising racism over respect. Although, they also have a track record of claiming that 'kids of today have no respect for their elders'. Well, why should they, when their elders glorify such disrespectful behaviour.

Don't get conservatives started on statues. During the Black Lives Matter protests, there were calls to tear down statues of confederate soldiers because they had defended slavery. Conservatives, in their rather simplistic rationale, equated this to changing or erasing history. Hello ... there are things called books! These books actually record history. Ditching a statue of some slave-owning racist white supremacist is not erasing history, it is acknowledging history and raising awareness of the person's vile behaviour. Interestingly, many of the confederate statues were not erected during or immediately following the American Civil War, but were erected specifically in defence of racism (Robinson 2020). Many were put up during the early 1900s to defend the Jim Crow laws which legalised the disenfranchisement and segregation of black people. In the 1960s, many of these statues were erected in response to the Civil Rights movement which was calling for the dismantling of the racist systems established by the Jim Crow laws, and the attitudes and systems that had existed in America before, during and since slavery (Williams, Armitage & Stein 2020; Gunter & Kizzir n.d., p 11).  

Speaking of Black Lives Matter ... not surprisingly, many conservatives piously claimed 'ALL lives matter', not just black ones. This little act of defiance represented an incredible level of hypocrisy because these same ALM advocates have actively campaigned against, or voted for politicians who oppose, refugees and asylum seekers, LGBTIQ+ rights, same sex marriage, Islam, migrants, and the list goes on. Perhaps, the ALM brigade should look up the meaning of 'All' in the dictionary. Just to be clear, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines 'all' as meaning, 'every member or individual component'. Everyone! Not everyone except for black people or gay people or Muslims or refugees! Funnily enough, those marching for BLM are also most likely to also march in defence of the rights of other persecuted groups; its BLM activists who actually believe that all lives matter, rather than the pious ALM proponents.

Nothing triggers some conservatives like suggesting that others have equal rights. Recent campaigns for same sex marriage resulted in conservatives boycotting numerous companies who expressed solidarity with the cause, such as Qantas, Virgin and Hallmark. 

Sadly, many conservatives see social justice and human rights as being an affront to their own rights. This is typical of the selfishnessness of conservatives who only sympathise with issues that impact them specifically. They couldn't care less about issues that impact others. This is why they oppose anti-racism campaigns, they oppose same sex marriage, they oppose other religions. Meanwhile, they will hurl insults at those who dare to stand up for these rights, labelling them 'do-gooders', 'social justice warriors', 'bleeding hearts', or accusing them of 'virtue-signalling', just because they want to help others. If you're not a do-gooder, then what are you? A no-gooder? A do-nothing? Seriously, if you're not wanting everyone to have the same rights as you, then you can't say 'ALL lives matter'. At best, you're a do-nothing ... at worst, well you're doing no good and maybe those words like bigot, racist, white-supremacist, may appropriately describe you. 

These conservatives label human rights and social justice as 'cultural Marxism'. Conservatives have been responsible for a lot of fear-mongering: fear of black people, fear of Islam, fear of a gay agenda, fear of communism. During the 1940s and 1950s, the 'reds under the bed' paranoia was cancel culture writ large. It culminated with witch-hunts led by Senator Joe McCarthy and a Congressional committee known as the House Un-American Activities Commission (HUAC). These witch-hunts resulted in the destruction of many people's lives and careers. Dozens of singers and actors suffered through this paranoia, including Charlie Chaplin, Harry Belafonte, Pete Seeger and Orson Welles. There were some who managed to rebuild their careers, others disappeared into obscurity, reputations destroyed by anti-Communist paranoia.

The new focus on 'cultural Marxism', or neo-Marxism, is just rebranding of McCarthyism, playing on the fears of gullible conservatives. Their fears are unfounded. President Donald Trump exploits these fears by accusing the far-left and Antifa of inciting violence during BLM protests. However, in the last 25 years, no-one has been killed by the far-left in the USA. Contrast this to the 329 people who have so far been killed by right-wing extremists in the United States (Pasley 2020). This indicates the danger of fear-mongering and demonisation is that people will focus on the wrong things. Racism continues and hate-crimes escalate, while conservatives wring their hands claiming 'All lives matter'. Some claim that they oppose racism, but will then boycott a business that supports Black Lives Matter ... nothing says anti-racism like boycotting a business that is actively anti-racist ... 

Conservatives love to play the victim, even though they are often the perpetrator. Their claim of 'Cultural Marxism' is ingrained in them by opinionated conservative commentators dog-whistling to their xenophobia and bigotry, which reinforces their feelings of victimhood (Wilson 2015). They will claim that free speech is under attack because of left-wing do-gooders. What they don't seem to understand is that free speech means that everyone is entitled to speak their mind. Just because a conservative is called out for their racist, bigoted or false claims, doesn't mean that their freedom of speech is being threatened; it means that someone else is exercising their freedom of speech in retort. 

I saw a statement recently, which said, 'Racism asks for your silence. Anti-racism asks for your voice'.

It is important to speak up and challenge racism. Speaking up is not the silencing of others. 

While there are some examples of left-wing cancel culture, it is blown well and truly out of proportion by conservatives who struggle with changing social norms, so react by manufacturing their inability to adapt into a national crisis (Hobbes 2020). 

We share the world with billions of people, which means that there will be billions of disparate views and values. Rather than trying to ban everyone or everything that we disagree with or don't understand, we would be much better off trying to understand others and learning to disagree without taking offence. Having said that, there are times when behaviours and systems need to be addressed. Racism, sexism and bigotry are harmful and should not be tolerated. This is not just a matter of agreeing to disagree. We need to reach a point where these behaviours and values are not acceptable. 

Why do conservatives feel led to defend racism, sexism and bigotry? Why do conservatives defend exploitative labour conditions and environmental degradation? Why do conservatives feel it is acceptable to condone violence against black people, women, Muslims, refugees, leftists and anyone else they don't understand? Why do conservatives deny science, but take the word of uneducated, unqualified shock jocks as gospel? They claim they are the victims, when they have no idea what being a victim of racism, sexism and bigotry means. 

Most conservative protests are to enforce their views on others, rather than defending the rights of  others. They think their opinions and values are superior to the rights of others.

Many conservatives value symbols over humanity. Their idea of morality is symbolic. Their idea of equality is that everyone should think, look and act the same as them; they do not value diversity, whether it be in culture, art or ideas. 

Until conservatives empathise with those who suffer discrimination, they won't change their behaviours. As the old adage says, 'Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are'.

References

BBC News 2017, 'The Anzac post, outrage and a debate about race', 10 August, viewed 31 July 2020,

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-40712832.

Bourke, L 2014, 'Prime Minister Tony Abbott says ABC not on Australia's side in interview with 2GB', ABC News, 4 February, viewed 1 August 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-29/tony-abbott-steps-up-criticism-of-abc/5224676.

Davidson, H 2016, 'Former SBS reporter Scott McIntyre repeats Anzac Day accusations on Twitter', The Guardian, 25 April, viewed 1 August 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/25/former-sbs-reporter-scott-mcintyre-repeats-anzac-day-accusations-on-twitter.

D'Costa, K 2013, 'Beyond Ishtar: The Tradition of Eggs at Easter', Scientific American, 31 March, viewed 8 August 2020, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/beyond-ishtar-the-tradition-of-eggs-at-easter.

Dvorak, P 2015, 'The phony ‘War on Christmas’ is back, fueled by those alleged Jesus haters at Starbucks', 10 November, viewed 31 July 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-phony-war-on-christmas-is-back-fueled-by-those-alleged-jesus-haters-at-starbucks/2015/11/09/ed8471de-86f7-11e5-9a07-453018f9a0ec_story.html.

Gunter, B & Kizzir, J n.d., Whose heritage? Public symbols of the confederacy, Southern Poverty Law Centre, https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/com_whose_heritage.pdf.

Hobbes, M 2020, 'Don’t Fall For The 'Cancel Culture' Scam', The Huffington Post, 11 July, viewed 1 August 2020, https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/cancel-culture-harpers-jk-rowling-scam_n_5f0887b4c5b67a80bc06c95e.

Jones, J 1992, I'm going to take you down: Inside the mind of Mark David Chapman, Villard Books.

McRae, D 2020, 'Adam Goodes: 'Instead of masking racism, we need to deal with it day-to-day'', The Guardian, 3 March, viewed 1 August 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/mar/02/adam-goodes-interview-racism-walk-away-afl. 

NMA 2020, Nicky Winmar’s stand, National Museum of Australia, 13 March, viewed 1 August 2020, https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/nicky-winmars-stand.

Pasley, J 2020, 'Trump frequently accuses the far-left of inciting violence, yet right-wing extremists have killed 329 victims in the last 25 years, while antifa members haven't killed any, according to a new study', Business Insider, 31 July, viewed 1 August 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/right-wing-extremists-kill-329-since-1994-antifa-killed-none-2020-7.

Pengilly, A 2020, ''It was crushing': Broncos apologise to Renouf for racist slurs during career', The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 July 2020, viewed 1 August 2020, https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/it-was-crushing-broncos-apologise-to-renouf-for-racist-slurs-during-career-20200731-p55hf2.html.

Roberts, G 2014, 'Acting Prime Minister Warren Truss defends Navy amid claims asylum seekers beaten and burned', ABC News, 18 February, viewed 1 August 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-22/australian-navy-accused-of-beating-burning-asylum-seekers/5211996.

Robinson, J 2020, 'Myths About Confederate Monuments - ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jeffrey Robinson exposed Confederate monuments for what they really are', Now This News, 19 June, viewed 1 August 2020, https://youtu.be/55ehKPUm7dc. 

Roe, C 2020, 'Anti-racism campaigner cops death threats over fake story', SBS News, 18 August, viewed 15 August 2020, https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2020/08/15/anti-racism-campaigner-cops-death-threats-over-fake-story.

Willacy, M 2020, 'Culture of Cover-up', ABC, 17 March, viewed 1 August 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/four-corners-sas-allegations-war-crimes/12028522.

Williams, P, Armitage, R,  & Stein, L 2020, 'As America grapples with its history of racism, relics of the past are being toppled by a new generation', 11 June, viewed 1 August 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-11/why-people-are-pulling-down-statues-in-the-us-in-protest/12343766. 

Wilson, J 2015, ''Cultural Marxism': a uniting theory for rightwingers who love to play the victim', The Guardian, 19 January, viewed 1 August 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/19/cultural-marxism-a-uniting-theory-for-rightwingers-who-love-to-play-the-victim.

Updated 19 August 2020

All Lives Matter ... except for lives of black people, Asians, Muslims, homeless, refugees, LGBTIQ+, socialists ...

All Lives Matter ... except for lives of black people, Asians, Muslims, homeless, refugees, LGBTIQ+, socialists ...

By Ranting Panda, 11 July 2020

Picture this: you're walking down the street and hear someone screaming for help. What do you do?

(a) Ignore them
(b) Run the other way
(c) Help them

This is pretty easy, right? Most people would offer help.

Yet, this simple act of compassion and concern seems just a little difficult for some people to comprehend. The Black Lives Matter movement started because people of colour were screaming for help as they suffered under systemic racism manifesting itself through police brutality, deaths in custody, and disparities in health, education, employment, and wealth.

A lot of people who oppose Black Lives Matter protests are trying to change the narrative from justice for people of colour to being an anti-white movement. Instead of black lives matter, they are trying to make it about white lives and white guilt. Apparently, white privilege and white guilt are worse than the systemic racism that black people experience. What privilege to be able to do this. There was even a claim that white people who side with BLM are the real racists, because somehow this means they feel superior to black people. White people who support BLM acknowledge that white privilege was built on white supremacy, they are not saying that white people are superior. Yet, anti-BLM people somehow think that solidarity equals superiority ... perhaps they are just projecting their own white supremacy.

People committing crimes should be arrested, but black people are often arrested for crimes that white people are never arrested for, and they are treated worse when being arrested. The over-representation of black deaths in custody is testimony to this. On average, Indigenous Australians account for around 20% of deaths in custody, yet are only 2% of the Australian population, so have a one in 10 chance of dying in custody (Doherty & Bricknell 2020). Non-indigenous people account for 98% of the population, but 80% of the deaths, so have less than one in 100 chance of dying in custody. Can you imagine the outrage, the anger, the demands for justice, if non-indigenous people were dying in custody at such a rate? In the United States, black people are twice as likely as white people to die in police custody (Tucker 2020).

Even though Aboriginal people are only 3% of the population of New South Wales, they account for 12% strip-searches conducted by New South Wales police (Wellington 2020). However, legal experts believe these figures are greatly understated, as Police often don't record strip-searches. Even more disturbing, is whether the strip-searches are being conducted lawfully. For instance, there have been strip-searches conducted on children as young as 10 years old (Wellington 2020). In response to this information, the Redfern Legal Centre and the legal firm, Slater and Gordon, have commenced a class action lawsuit against the NSW Police.

People oppose Black Lives Matter claim that they aren't racist because they believe 'All' lives matter ... yeah ... about that ... these same people who claim that All Lives Matter, also oppose rights for people of colour, Asians, refugees, LGBTIQ+, Muslims, women, the poor, the homeless, Palestinians, the unemployed, the drug users ... you know, basically everyone who isn't a white Christian. In fact, ALM advocates tend to hate everyone who white Christians have attacked and subjugated for centuries.

Some of the racism from ALM advocates is demonstrated in their histrionic claims that black communities have significant social problems and that black people only want hand-outs. There are social issues in many black communities, but is that the fault of the residents or the policies, actions and inactions of government ... e.g. Stolen Generations, Stolen Wages, White Australia Policy ... you know ... the systemic racism that Black Lives Matter is drawing attention to. And hand-outs? What hand-outs? The 'hand-outs' that black people get, are no more than the same welfare that anyone is able to claim if they are out of work. They do not get free university, or free home loans, or free cars, or any other benefit that non-indigenous people don't get (Carlson 2016).

The media and certain politicians often inflame these racist stereotypes and enforce the concept of white victimhood. After all, if a white person is called out for racist behaviour, then the white person is the victim ... according to anti-BLM people. ALM logic is that the victims of racism are not the people who continue to be oppressed by the systems that were instituted by white settlement, but that white people are the victims because black people want equality and justice. This helps serve the myth that black people are living in the past and the world is now some racist-free utopia ... even though racism continues to oppress people to this very day.

What was the purpose of right-wing sites claiming that no media outlet reported a group of men of African appearance assaulting a 16 year old girl at Southern Cross Railway Station? The purpose was to demonise black people, inflame white victimhood and make it appear as though black people get away with serious crimes ... even though black people are over-represented in the justice systems, often arrested for things that white people are never arrested for. But back to this dreadful attack at Southern Cross Railway Station. The claim that it wasn't reported is garbage. It was reported in the Herald Sun, The Age, and even in British papers, the Daily Mail and the Independent.

Have a look at the track record of the Herald Sun. It has been voracious in its reporting of 'African' gangs, to the point where the police issued a statement saying that the reporting was misleading and over-represented the amount of crime being perpetrated by 'African' gangs, as well as ascribed some of those crimes to African gangs when they were committed by white people and often, not even by gangs (Dinham & Baker 2018). The purpose? Racist fear-mongering and dog-whistling.

Ironically, it is this very vilification of people of African appearance that is actually making the situation worse. By exaggerating the problem, the media has caused an entire community to be ostracised and rejected. Many businesses are refusing to employ people with African names. People who thought they were Australian, are isolated, demonised, and unemployed, making some of them vulnerable to recruitment by organised crime gangs which, by the way, are not necessarily African (Chiengkou & Dexter 2019). Want to reduce crime? Be more welcoming and inclusive.

Racialising crime creates in people's minds that there is a link between race and crime, which ignores the actual causes of crime, such as socio-economic factors (Budarick 2018). This indicates that either people are naively ignoring the real causes of crime, or they don't care about the real causes because they want an excuse to hate black people, to hate migrants, to hate refugees ... they want to justify their racism. While people are demonising 'African' gangs, people of African appearance have experienced an increase in racism and violent attacks against them (Budarick 2018; Diversity Council Australia 2018).

Interestingly, the media portrays Victoria as being in the grip of a crime wave, yet statistics show that youth crime has fallen by 40% over the last 10 years, with total crime experiencing its biggest decline in 12 years, with a 6% fall (Day 2018).

All Lives Matter advocates often share incidents of crimes committed by people of colour and then belligerently ask, 'where are the protests now?' Well, cabrón, the reason there are no protests is because these are isolated, individual incidents; they are not part of the systemic racism that people of colour experience every single day.

Hand-wringing ALM advocates will attempt sincerity in the claim that all lives matter, but it doesn't take much to expose their thinly veiled racism and bigotry. They'll try to hide it by saying that they have black friends or gay friends, or whatever. ALM advocates often roll out a person of colour who disagrees with the movement or who claims that they don't experience racism. This is typical of conservatives though: if it doesn't affect them, then it doesn't matter if it affects someone else. Instead, BLM is not about one individual's personal experience, but the systemic abuses, discrimination and subjugation that most people of colour do experience. Having said that, based on the conservative logic that a black person denying racism invalidates BLM, then white people acknowledging racism must validate BLM. Hmm ...

Some ALM advocates have complained that if they claim 'white power' or 'white pride', they are accused of being racist, whereas black people can have 'black power' and 'black pride', and it isn't considered racist. The difference is that black power and black pride are not about subjugating other ethnicities, but in claiming the same rights that white people have. White power on the other hand, is often used as an excuse to subjugate other ethnicities. Black power, black pride is not about black supremacy; white power, white pride is often about white supremacy.

Pauline Hanson's billboard in Rockhampton (Stunzner & Colliver 2020) 

Take Australia's perennial racist politician, Pauline Hanson, who funded a billboard in Rockhampton, Australia, with the words, 'All lives matter or bugger off' (Stunzner & Colliver 2020). Hanson founded a political party called 'One Nation'. However, her 'achievements' in parliament have indicated that she isn't interested in Australia being one nation, but that it should be a white nation. She has attacked indigenous people, Muslims, refugees, LGBTIQ+, migrants, socialists ... basically anyone who doesn't look, speak or sound like her. She is the epitome of a bigot. When she put up this billboard she clearly showed that all lives don't matter. She is a waste of political space, only interested in division, race-baiting, fear-mongering and dog-whistling.

All lives matter ... but some matter more than others ... to paraphrase Orwell. For BLM, it's not that black lives matter more than anyone else's, they just want to matter as much as everyone else. For ALM advocates, white lives matter more than black: they try to look like they care by claiming ALL lives matter to them, when clearly they don't.

Howtofightantisemitism.com (2020)

In the United States, President Donald Trump had the opportunity to unite his nation during the Black Lives Matter protests which followed the police killing of George Floyd. Instead, Trump created division, stoked the flames of fear and racism, and threatened to shoot protesters. But what can one expect from such a racist president. This is a man who labelled Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan as 'good people' after one of them murdered a woman who was protesting against their racism and hate. Trump's election campaign utilised Nazi imagery in attacking anti-fascists, by overlaying the Nazi symbol for political prisoners with the words Antifa.

During Trump's election campaign in 2016, he espoused 'America First'. Seems innocuous enough, right? He isn't the first American leader to claim that. In fact, the saying goes back at least 120 years, to President McKinley in 1896. However, the saying was also appropriated by the Ku Klux Klan. Surely any decent politician would avoid being associated with a hate group ... but not Trump, after all, he thinks the Klan are fine people. The Anti-Defamation League even advised Trump that he shouldn't use it because during World War II, the slogan was appropriated by an isolationist political party with pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic tendencies (Emery 2018). Trump obviously did not desist from using it, so clearly doesn't mind the connection with Nazism, anti-Semitism, racism or fascism ... which could explain his unjustified attacks on anti-fascist activists.

(Emery 2018)

Following on from this, the Trump campaign sold shirts that utilised Nazi imagery, by displaying an eagle with talons wrapped around a US flag in a circle. This bears remarkable similarity to the Nazi symbol that featured an eagle with its talons wrapped around a swastika in a circle.

Trump continues with his fascist, racist, white supremacist attacks on Black Lives Matter. Trump used his fourth of July 2020 speech at the foot of Mt Rushmore, to perpetuate divisions and social discord, to demonise his opponents, and to vilify Black Lives Matter. He even compared BLM to totalitarianism by portraying activists as violent mobs out to 'destroy justice and society' by unleashing a 'wave of violent crime' in order to dominate their political opponents (Nakamura et al 2020). Yeah, nothing like taking a leaf out of the Hitler playbook to stoke the fires of fear and animosity against minorities. What next? Will Trump start his own version of Hitler Youth by indoctrinating young people with his hate-speech and lies, simply because any school teaching facts is too left-wing for him. He is already setting the stage for this by declaring in that same speech, that 'children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe the men and women who built it were not heroes but villains'. This statement is blatantly false and dog-whistles to his racist supporters, cementing their fear of BLM and turning them against teachers, education, and historical facts.

Just like the rise of Hitler, many Christians support Trump, his lies and his hate-speech. God knows what bible they read, but clearly not the one that says to do the following (just for clarity, the typical Trump-supporter response is in italics):

Yeah, it seems that Christians who stand with Trump, actually stand against Jesus!

There is nothing Christian in opposing Black Lives Matter.

There is nothing Christian in demonising BLM activists.

There is nothing Christian in defending systemic racism or denying that it exists.

There is nothing Christian in opposing anti-racism, because openly opposing anti-racism means you are blatantly racist ... so why do church leaders feel they need to oppose BLM? Why do church leaders share racist information that denies racism exists, or frame it as white victimhood? 

This is not Christianity and those church leaders and pew-warmers who do this, clearly have no concept of Christianity.  

To paraphrase John Heywood: 'There are none so blind as those who will not see'. Church leaders who vilify Black Lives Matter are clearly not Christian. Which begs the question about why they are leading churches and influencing people's faith. The character, Kristian Schaefer, in episode 2 of the TV show, Warrior Nun, nails it: 'You've built a career using faith as a stepping stone to personal power'. Church leaders who support Trump, who defend or deny racism, who facilitate fear-mongering and bigotry, are obviously not serving Christ or serving 'the least of these', but instead are serving themselves, their own power and wealth, and racist systems of black oppression.

Trump supporters spread false claims that BLM makes white people the enemy, rather than systemic racism, and incredibly, even claim that systemic racism is a hoax (Seitz 2020). These deliberate campaigns of misinformation demonstrate that Trump and many of his supporters do not lack knowledge of racism, but have deliberately chosen to vilify BLM through blatant lies and dog-whistles to the gullible, fear-driven, victimhood of many conservatives who lack the willingness, cognitive skills, critical thinking or emotional intelligence to fact-check these obvious falsehoods. It seems that no matter how obviously untrue these ridiculous claims are, many conservatives will believe them because they serve to confirm their racist biases.

Many opponents of Black Lives Matter claim it is a socialist ploy aimed at overthrowing society as we know it to implement a Marxist agenda ... whatever that may be! Clearly these critics do not understand Marxism, socialism, or racism. They clearly do not understand that it is they who are the biggest threat to the fabric of democratic society, as they embrace fascism ... or perhaps they do understand that, which is even more concerning; perhaps the racists are running a fascist ploy by weaponising hate to implement a Hitlerian agenda of ethnic cleansing and racial 'purity'.

The ALM propaganda is a wolf in sheep's clothing: it claims to value all lives, but clearly only values white lives.

Left-wingers and BLM advocates are often accused of being 'snowflakes' because they supposedly take offence at so many things that are an accepted part of society. Conservatives meltdown because of 'political correctness gone mad' and will accuse politicians or other celebrities of 'virtue signalling' dare they side with minorities, or stand up for human rights or the environment. Derogatory terms such as 'political correctness', 'do-gooder', 'Social Justice Warrior' and 'virtue signalling' are thrown at people who are simply doing the right thing. Apparently, believing in social justice is something to be ashamed of, according to conservatives. This says a lot about the values and lack of morals that characterise many conservatives, because they need to justify their selfishness, racism and bigotry, by tearing down anyone who dares to challenge their degeneracy and self-indulgeness.

Within every conservative is their inner snowflake just waiting to melt. One only has to watch them hit peak apoplexy when someone dares suggest tearing down a monument to some long-dead racist or genocidal maniac. Even more entertaining is watching them completely lose their proverbial shit dare it be suggested that a lolly have a name-change ... or a football team ... or a skin cream. Burn a flag and see how they react. Seriously, anyone would have thought the flag-burner had just barbequed Bambi in front of a pack of pre-schoolers. Can you see the pattern? Conservatives care more for symbols than lives, so clearly they don't believe 'all' lives matter.

One of the defensive points that anti-BLM people will raise, is that black people are more likely to be killed by other black people. This may be the case, however, it is also the case that it is likely the killer will be arrested, charged and convicted. This is not the case in cop killings of black people. The problem with making this claim, is that anti-BLM people are trying to distract from systemic racism, thus perpetuating systemic racism without holding police to account. It also assumes that violence is the only element of systemic racism claims, when it goes much deeper to include poorer health and education outcomes, wealth inequality and employment discrimination. Another defence that anti-BLM types will raise is that some cops who kill black people are themselves people of colour. In these cases, they often get away without being charged. This does not prove that the system is not racist, rather it confirms the racist bias of the system, in that the victim's colour matters when there is a killing by cop, because of the lack of action or concern taken in regard to it, regardless of the ethnicity of the police officers involved.

Conservatives often claim to be 'pro-life' because of their supercilious grandstanding against abortion. However, their contemptuous dismissal of BLM and denial of racism, show that they aren't pro-life at all. Rather than joining in the calls to end systemic racism and the violence and deaths caused by it, some conservatives have racially abused protesters or reacted violently (BBC 2020). There has been at least 50 incidents of cars being deliberately driven into BLM protesters (Democracy Now 2020). These attacks have resulted in at least one death, and multiple injuries (Evelyn 2020). What a way for conservatives to demonstrate being pro-life.

Some BLM protests were accompanied by violence in the form of riots and property damage. Anti-BLM people furrowed their collective brows, wrung their hands, pursed their lemony lips, and stated that the protesters were only hurting the BLM cause; after all, who could take BLM seriously when there's violence.

Indeed.

Why don't they protest peacefully, these anti-BLM hand-wringers helpfully suggested.

Protest peacefully, like Martin Luther King ... oh wait! He was assassinated by a white supremacist.

Protest peacefully, like Colin Kaepernick ... oh wait! President Donald Trump and many of the conservative snowflakes melted down when he took the knee, and declared him a traitor.

While the media focused on riots as a way to delegitimise BLM, a report by nonprofit Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, revealed that 93% of the protests were peaceful (Budryk 2020). 

Fredrick Douglass stated, 'Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe'.

Has BLM achieved anything? Well, yes. Sergio Tupac Uzurin, photographer and organiser, points out that "Confrontation works ... In the past 10 days, we've passed Breonna's law in Louisville. The NFL has expressed remorse for treating Colin Kaepernick like s***. The four police officers that killed George Floyd have been arrested. There was a nine-figure budget cut being proposed for the LAPD. The Confederate statues are being removed from the South. And that is in 10 days, half of those days involving rioting nationwide" (Tucker 2020).

The fake moralising of the 'All Lives Matter' brigade is misplaced. It assumes that BLM is an attack on white people. It assumes that BLM is after extra privileges that others don't have. What 'All Lives Matter' advocates miss is that BLM is not anti-white; it is anti-racism.

References

BBC 2020, 'Black Lives Matter protest disrupted by racist abuse', BBC News, 9 June, viewed 9 July 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-52979267.

Budarick, J 2018, 'Why the media are to blame for racialising Melbourne’s ‘African gang’ problem',, The Conversation, 1 August, viewed 11 July 2020, https://theconversation.com/why-the-media-are-to-blame-for-racialising-melbournes-african-gang-problem-100761.

Budryk, Z 2020, 'Over 90 percent of protests this summer were peaceful, report shows', The Hill, 3 September, viewed 5 September 2020, https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/515082-over-90-percent-of-protests-this-summer-were-peaceful-report-shows.

Carlson, B 2016, 'Here's the truth about the 'free ride' that some Australians think Indigenous peoples get', SBS News, 7 December (updated 27 January 2020), viewed 16 July 2020, https://www.sbs.com.au/topics/voices/culture/article/2016/12/07/heres-truth-about-free-ride-some-australians-think-indigenous-peoples-get.

Chiengkou, AD & Dexter, J 2019, '‘They are preying on these kids’: Victoria Police commander says African youths exploited by organised crime', SBS Dinka, 6 November, viewed 11 July 2020, https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english/they-are-preying-on-these-kids-victoria-police-commander-says-african-youths-exploited-by-organised-crime.

Day, L 2018, 'What statistics can and can't tell us about Melbourne's African crime issue', ABC News, 17 January, viewed 11 July 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-17/what-statistics-tell-us-about-melbournes-african-crime-issue/9336604.

Democracy Now 2020, 'Black Lives Matter protesters struck by motorists in Indiana, New York', Democracy Now, 8 July, viewed 9 July 2020, https://www.democracynow.org/2020/7/8/headlines/black_lives_matter_protesters_struck_by_motorists_in_indiana_new_york.

Dinham, A & Baker, N 2018, 'Police, African community leader warn against 'gang hysteria'', SBS News, 23 July, viewed 11 July 2020, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/police-african-community-leader-warn-against-gang-hysteria.

Diversity Council Australia, 2018, 'The facts on Victorian African crime', 3 September, viewed 11 July 2020, https://www.dca.org.au/position-statements/facts-victorian-african-crime.

Doherty, L & Bricknell, S 2020, 'Deaths in custody: 2017-18', Australian Institute of Criminology, Statistical Report 21, Figure 9: Deaths in police custody and custody-related operations by Indigenous status, 1989–90 to 2017–18 (%), p. 15, https://aic.gov.au/publications/sr/sr21.

Emery, D 2018, 'President Trump's oft-repeated slogan "America First" was also a credo of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan organization', Snopes, 9 February, viewed 4 July 2020, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/america-first-ku-klux-klan-slogan/.

Evelyn, K 2020, 'Drivers target Black Lives Matter protesters in 'horrifying' spate of attacks', The Guardian, 9 July, viewed 9 July 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/09/black-lives-matter-drivers-target-protesters-spate-of-attacks.

HowToFightAntiSemitism.com 2020, 'Trump campaign uses Nazi concentration camp symbols in Facebook ads', 17 June, viewed 27 June 2020, https://www.howtofightantisemitism.com/timeline/trump-campaign-uses-nazi-concentration-camp-symbols-in-facebook-ads.

Nakamura, D, Parker, A, Itkowitz, C & Sacchetti, M 2020, 'At Mount Rushmore, Trump exploits social divisions, warns of ‘left-wing cultural revolution’ in dark speech ahead of Independence Day', The Washington Post, 4 July, viewed 4 July 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-mount-rushmore-fireworks/2020/07/03/af2e84f6-bd25-11ea-bdaf-a129f921026f_story.html.

Seitz, A 2020, 'Facebook groups pivot to attacks on Black Lives Matter', AP Media, 6 July, viewed 7 July 2020, https://apnews.com/ca8c15794c65b1ae8e176deb9be5d718.

Stunzner, I & Culliver, P 2020, ' 'All lives matter' sign depicting Pauline Hanson pulled down after outrage in Rockhampton', ABC News, 3 July, viewed 3 July 2020, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-03/pauline-hanson-sign-pulled-down-community-outrage-rockhampton/12419302.

Tucker, F 2020, 'Black Lives Matter protesters in New York: 'Confrontation works'', Al Jazeera, 8 July, viewed 9 July 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/black-lives-matter-protesters-york-confrontation-works-200629125851257.html.

Wellington, S 2020, 'Data that shows NSW Police target Indigenous people for strip-searches 'could be doubled': Legal experts', SBS News, 17 June, viewed 16 July 2020, https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2020/06/17/data-shows-nsw-police-target-indigenous-people-strip-searches-could-be-doubled.

Updated 13September 2020