YOU CAN'T TRIPLE-STAMP A DOUBLE STAMP!

Jesus christ Labor party, how did you fucking implode like this? This shit is B A N A N A S.

I CAME

Also: hee!

Ganked from lastrega:

That homelessness is a social issue at all is an absolute travesty and a constant shame on our society. This won't fix it but it looks like it might help a bit: Houses for the Homeless, where you click on a link and someone donates money for you to Mission Australia. They're only halfway there so give it a go.

Therefore we must also be the bearers of their burdens.

This morning I went to Elder Park with my family and about 2000 other people to watch PM Rudd deliver his momentous apology to the stolen generations. The feelings of joy, sadness and relief were palpable in the crowd. It was a long-awaited day and I feel privileged to have been there.

Rudd's speech was a triumph in statesmanship, honestly: eloquent, poetic, moving, measured, occasionally wittily scathing, and often simple, practical, bare-bones truth. Powerful stuff powerfully delivered, especially when he related the story of a Nanna Fejo, indigenous elder of his acquaintance. I was surprised and pleased by the length of his speech, its import and the amount of practical goal-setting he included, and the inclusion of a rebuttal of arguments against an apology. It was very inspiring, perhaps the best Australian political speech since Keating's Redfern Address. You can see it in its entirety here or read it here. Everyone in the park stood up and gave him a standing ovation at the end, and we were cheering and clapping intermittently throughout. There was a wonderful feeling of unity and strength and happiness.

And then Brendan bloody Nelson had to give his reply and for the first couple of minutes it seemed promising, but then it descended into inappropriate, offensive bullshit. A lot of people in the park left; others booed when he made particularly large gaffes. Such as likening the "good intentions" of those who forcibly removed children from their parents in order to breed away the "aboriginal problem" to the current intervention in the Northern Territory. Where Rudd related the story of Nanna Frejo, Nelson chose to list some of the more horrific and tragic rapes and deaths of recent times. Where Rudd was speaking to the nation in an attempt to unite and overcome, Nelson was speaking to his conflicted, fractured party in an attempt to whitewash the apology to fit in with the racist, divisive policies of the Howard government. It was jaw-droppingly awful.

Bumface and I also went to the South Australian parliament to hear the Premier deliver a similar speech of rather lesser stature and import, although Rann's history as former minister of Indigenous Affairs provided some moving and appropriate anecdotes, and the reply by the leader of the opposition finished really powerfully. But the gallery was full -- priority seating given to members of the stolen generations and elders, of course -- so we sat in a posh room upstairs and just listened. Nice biscuits!

( An excerpt from Rudd's speech. )

Jesus Christ, FUCKING FINALLY. I heard on the radio that even the Libs are turning around and realising that their previous policy has been completely inadequate. The shadow for indigenous affairs even wants it to be a joint apology!

Nice timing, considering the frustrating debate going on over at Andrew G's blog (oh, shut up. You'd go him).

Check this out. It will blow your mind. It's just as insane and disgusting as the whole Ashcroft/Gonzales thing.

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A week of LJ Drama is exhausting, not to mention the DDOS shit. However, in all of this, I would hate for people to miss that users are apparently being censored ACCORDING TO WORDS THEY USE. It seems the subcontractor LJ uses to handle the Russian side of things (yeah, I am au fait wit all dis) is stifling discussion of Russian politics. I would like to be able to discuss retarded parties like the d_p_n_i without having to code the bloody acronym.

Does anyone have more information on this?

ETA: Ok, apparently it is related to the DDOS stuff; those are the words used in the attacks so they are being temporarily blocked.

Lauren and I watched Jesus Camp last night. It's a fairly well-made documentary about fundamentalist Evangelical Christians trying to create a generation of kids who will change the US according to God's law. This process includes giant, intense revivalist churches, bible study, denouncing Harry Potter, homeschooling, and "Jesus Camp," a week-long summer camp for kids between about five and thirteen.

Apparently most people involved, including the leading pastor Becky Fischer,* feel that they were portrayed fairly, but it creeped me out down to my soul. There were tons of images of kids en masse weeping, screaming, speaking in tongues, prostrate on the ground sobbing or spasming, reaching out their hands to touch a preacher or beg forgiveness or bless a cardboard cut-out of George Bush.

The makers did a good job of showing the interesting intersection between politics and these churches and kids, using the nomination and confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court to show the passage of time. Despite Fischer saying that she had no political agenda--and she probably doesn't have an explicit one--the current government is held up as a giant step forward for Christianity, the children are actively involved in anti-abortion campaigns (their mouths are taped up, and "life" is written on the tape--super creepy!), and creationism in schools is discussed several times. Most significantly, these kids are purposefully being trained to be the generation that leads America to Jesus.

Equally absorbing was one of the three kids focussed on, a boy of ten called Levi, who wants to become a preacher. He's the spitting image of a young River Pheonix (albeit with a world-beating mullet) and just as articulate, self-possessed, and intelligent as you might expect, quite an extraordinary kid. There was also a blond boy who talked about his difficulty believing in God (the only real hint of trouble we see the kids have with the whole thing, which is a pity) and who threw himself down in repentance, and you just know he's going to be a fucked-up closeted teen. I would really like to see a 7-up version of this, to see what happens with these kids as they grow older.

EDIT: c+p from my response to electromoon below, because I forgot to include this aspect of the movie.

I suppose one of the things that really struck me in the film was the emphasis on Americanism, being an American; how complexly intertwined identities of being a Christian and being an American were. Arguments about the fundamental principle of separation of church and state could be forgotten in favour of trying to get Those Damn Liberals out of power, because they threaten everything we believe in--as if the founding fathers weren't liberals! Fischer would go, I love America, I love being an American, and in the same breath talk about how screwed up society was, as if the "True (Christian) Americans," once they'd dominated the false Americans, would save the world. Crazy.

I think that Australian identity isn't as rigid and pervasive as all that; but if Australia fundamentalist/megachurches are explicitly taking their cues from American ones, I can see how things would definitely start to head in that direction. And I guess the other thing is is that we don't have the culture of summer camps here, but you're right in that that could be easily imported!

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* who comes out with stuff like:
- It's no wonder, with that kind of intense training and discipling, that those young people are ready to kill themselves for the cause of Islam. I wanna see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam. I wanna see them as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places, you know, because we have... excuse me, but we have the truth!
and:
- I can go into a playground of kids that don't know anything about Christianity, lead them to the Lord in a matter of, just no time at all, and just moments later they can be seeing visions and hearing the voice of God, because they're so open. They are so usable in Christianity.