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CHANCE MISSED

The SMH’s Adele Horin:

I suppose all of us wonder at some point what stuff we are made of. If really tested, how brave would we be, how principled, how selfless? Would we do the right thing or the easy thing? Would we have been collaborators in Nazi Europe, or resisters, for example; righteous gentiles who hid Jews, or part of the silent majority who turned their backs?

In recent times we have had the chance to put ourselves to the test.

How did that work out, Adele?

Posted by Tim B. on 06/01/2007 at 09:51 PM
  1. You should have pasted the rest of the article Tim. She is equating those sympathising with illegal immigrants and visa transgressors with those who stood up to the Nazis and protected Jews?

    Cripes, that’s a long bow and no doubt another leftist fantasy. Adele really has her little rubber friend cranked up to ‘11’ today it would seem.

    Posted by Nic on 2007 06 01 at 10:05 PM • permalink

  2. I find what she writes hard to credit.  Where are these detainees now?  Did the children really “fail to grow”?  Is it all a kind of leftist fairy tale, much like the one told about poor, starved, mistreated wretch David Hicks?

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 06 01 at 10:16 PM • permalink

  3. When I started as a D/O at Port Hedland detention centre the place was surrounded by a double chain link fence. About the same height and style as a tennis court fence.
    The compounds were open and the only overt security was headcounts every day.
    Most of our detainees were Afghan, Sri Lankan, and a handful of Chinese.
    Then we began to get Syrians, Palestinians, Iraqis and Iranians.
    They began to get knock backs from the system and THATS when the trouble started. AFTER we had riots, escapes, and violence against officers the place changed to a much more prison like environment. That’s when the big fencing went up, internal fencing was installed and an attempt was made to control peoples activities after hours.
    Millions in damage was done at Port Hedland and to my knowledge only a handful of prosecutions attempted.
    Thugs ended up running the centre, much the same as they do in the countries they fled from, stand-over tactics, assaults and theft on other detainees was common.

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 06 01 at 10:16 PM • permalink

  4. Yeah, Adele, where was the “rage bubbling inside” of you, when the the SMH and other Aussie media were too frightened to publish the Danish cartoons. Seems that then the only one with “iron in his soul” was Tim, who took a stand and published them. Adele, at the testing time, you turned your back, so to use your analogy, what makes you any different from the Germans who pretended the Nazi concentration camps didn’t exist?

    Posted by Big Arnie on 2007 06 01 at 10:32 PM • permalink

  5. Adele, where is your rage at the Muslim extremists that machine gun school children and blow up markets?
    You justify it all that they are outraged at the American presence in Iraq. You turn a blind eye to the fact that they are cold-blooded killers, not of American soldiers, but of Iraqi civilians.

    Where is your rage at the violent, separatist subculture growing in Sydney ethnic ghettos, a subculture that has had numerous attempts to mobilize a terrorist cell (ie a cell of mass murderers) thwarted.

    Where is your rage against the loss of young Australian lives in a Bali nightclub in support of fighting the “American Fascist agression?”

    Where is your rage against the death penalty in countries for women who “commit adultery”, when in fact they were merely raped by relatives or neighbours?

    That rage doesn’t exist. These things aren’t what polite society rages about. If you want to rage, it’s about kids in detention camps, or the decision to invade Iraq. Nothing else.

    Selective rage.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 01 at 11:16 PM • permalink

  6. I could add: rage against the assassination of film-makers that dare to address taboo topics (Theo Van Gogh); Fatwahs against authors (Salman Rushdie); beheading of journalists (Daniel Perl);
    no rage there… nothing but cowardice.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 01 at 11:19 PM • permalink

  7. Adele Horin could do with a history lesson.

    Posted by lingus4 on 2007 06 01 at 11:34 PM • permalink

  8. Would we have been collaborators in Nazi Europe, or resisters, for example; righteous gentiles who hid Jews, or part of the silent majority who turned their backs?

    I’d bet Adele and her friends would have gleefully joined up here.

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 06 01 at 11:45 PM • permalink

  9. “In recent times we have had the chance to put ourselves to the test.”

    Christ, what a drama queen.

    Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 06 02 at 12:08 AM • permalink

  10. “In recent times we have had the chance to put ourselves to the test.”

    And you’ve failed miserably, Adele.

    Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2007 06 02 at 12:37 AM • permalink

  11. Hey, it’s easy to step up to the plate if you are very carefully selective about what you choose to be principled and brave about.  That answers the question about taking the easy way, I guess.

    Posted by saltydog on 2007 06 02 at 12:53 AM • permalink

  12. If really tested, how brave would we be, how principled, how selfless? Would we do the right thing or the easy thing? Would we have been collaborators in Nazi Europe, or resisters, for example; righteous gentiles who hid Jews, or part of the silent majority who turned their backs?

    Yes Adele, the comparison between those who hid the the Nazi’s prey, the French resistance, and the wankers who protest outside Woomera and other repositories for illegal immigrants*, are alike in every way. I mean, the inherent risk in wearing silly clothes and holding a placard outside a desert dentention camp and risking your life in Nazi Germany (or France) are just… identical!

    * illegal immigrants. NOT assylum seekers.

    Posted by kae on 2007 06 02 at 01:01 AM • permalink

  13. Adele aurait été un collaborateur de Vichy pendant la deuxième guerre mondiale. L’ilk de cet idiot vont toujours au chemin de la résistance la plus facile.

    Chienne déloyale.

    Posted by CB on 2007 06 02 at 01:01 AM • permalink

  14. #12

    And that’s totally aside from the principle.

    Posted by kae on 2007 06 02 at 01:02 AM • permalink

  15. #3 frollicking

    Yes, but did you ever SHOOT any of the protesters?

    Posted by kae on 2007 06 02 at 01:04 AM • permalink

  16. Actually Adele, its your chance to be like an Australian. you know, the people who declared war on Nazi Germany on day one, and then went over there and started fighting them, so we wouldn’t have to do it here.

    But that might force you to draw some parallels with todays Australians, you know, the ones who have gone over there to fight todays fascists, so we won’t have to do it here?

    Moral cowardice thy name is Adele…

    Posted by Harry Buttle on 2007 06 02 at 01:09 AM • permalink

  17. If Germans who lacked moral courage and stayed silent are called Nazi sympathisers then Adele who lacks the same moral courage against modern day Nazis, should share the same fate as them?

    Let her bury the dead that result from the same hateful ideology.

    Posted by gubbaboy on 2007 06 02 at 01:45 AM • permalink

  18. . not ? Doh!

    Posted by gubbaboy on 2007 06 02 at 01:47 AM • permalink

  19. Why doesn’t she just change her name to Quisling and make it plain how she met the challenge?

    Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 06 02 at 02:40 AM • permalink

  20. Why doesn’t she just change her name to Quisling and make it plain how she met the challenge?

    Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 06 02 at 02:42 AM • permalink

  21. It annoys the hell out of me the way the left try to usurp the victim hood of WWII Jews. This then distorts and minimises what Jews went through in real concentration camps. Further, by likening a Liberal democratic government with the Nazis we become alienated from the true horror of what the real Nazis did.

    These self-absorbed sanctimonious self-appointed saviors have all but abandoned the real refugees, such as from Northern Africa, because their utility as weapons against the government diminished as soon as refugee status was conferred.

    The truth is for the vast majority of these grand-standers, they used detainees for political purposes and then dumped them. The activists encouraged disobedience, violence and hunger strike, all with devastating consequences to the detainees themselves. But who cares about the vulnerable when you can deal a body blow to the government.

    Further I can say from having visited detention centres in an official capacity that not one detainee complained of mistreatment by the staff and I only observed highly professional and caring attitudes from the very courageous men and women who were discharging their duty against a back drop of odious and unfounded accusations.

    Posted by captain on 2007 06 02 at 02:49 AM • permalink

  22. What she saw convinced her a great injustice was being perpetrated against a small group who had fled Saddam Hussein and the Taliban

    .
    This is where the left gets totally in a knot. It is adamant that Saddam and the Taliban were not as bad at Bush and Co claimed. So if Saddam and the Taliban weren’t so bad, then logically, the people in the detention centres can’t be refugees from them. They must be illegal immigrants and dishonest ones at that because they are telling lies about Saddam and the Taliban.

    But, the left will say gleefully, if John Howard says Saddam and the Taliban were real bad bastards then, ipso facto, these people must be legitimate refugees and should be freed. Fair point, but it has been established several times that people claiming to Iraqis and Afghans have been fibbing.

    As for Horin’s test of principles, she fails miserably. She wants the US and its allies to leave Iraqis to fend for themselves against well-funded extremists. That makes her no different to a Nazi collaborator.

    Posted by Contrail on 2007 06 02 at 03:03 AM • permalink

  23. Godwin’s Law strikes again.

    Posted by chrisgo on 2007 06 02 at 04:35 AM • permalink

  24. It was the children that drove her, “the poor little darlings” so frightened and bewildered, and who never seemed to grow. She took them treats and wondered if she was trying to buy forgiveness for the “sins of my country”.
    Children are innocent little creatures, a joy to us all, but those who use them as a battering ram, whether through encouraging them to become suicide bombers, or simply as pawns in the game of “undermine Australia’s sovereignty”, are anything but innocent. They are manipulative, misguided ideologues who deserve no concession.

    Posted by blogstrop on 2007 06 02 at 04:40 AM • permalink

  25. #23
    I don’t think you can invoke Godwin’s Law here. Adele was the one who made the comparison.

    Posted by kae on 2007 06 02 at 04:45 AM • permalink

  26. make that “her ridiculous comparison”.

    Posted by kae on 2007 06 02 at 04:46 AM • permalink

  27. #25, that’s what I meant.
    It was barrister Julian Burnside QC who initiated this absurd comparison of the Howard Government’s treatment of illegal immigrants with victims of nazism, a comparison which I regard as a grave insult to those victims.

    Posted by chrisgo on 2007 06 02 at 04:58 AM • permalink

  28. I’m having a little trouble picturing compassionate head-tilts and giant paper mache heads routing Hitler’s Brownshirts.

    And who’s name would they have appended onto Hitler’s to insult him—Adolf Chimpy McHitlerockefeller?

    Posted by ambisinsitral on 2007 06 02 at 05:58 AM • permalink

  29. I’m having a little trouble picturing compassionate head-tilts and giant paper mache heads routing Hitler’s Brownshirts.

    Ah, for those days in the 1920s when Nazi stooges, communists and government loyalists were engaged in free-for-all street warfare in Germany. Shame it’s not possible to send today’s poseur leftists into that era; that would provide quite an education, I imagine.

    Posted by PW on 2007 06 02 at 06:08 AM • permalink

  30. What does Adele have to say about these children?

    Posted by blogstrop on 2007 06 02 at 06:59 AM • permalink

  31. Would we have been collaborators in Nazi Europe, or resisters, for example; righteous gentiles who hid Jews, or part of the silent majority who turned their backs?

    Well, I don’t know about her but many people have had the chance to find out and they are certainly supporting the demonisation and brutalising of Jews and Israel, but these days it’s a noisy majority turning their backs on them and simultaneously attacking them.

    Pretty neat if vicious trick.

    Posted by carpefraise on 2007 06 02 at 07:04 AM • permalink

  32. #21 It annoys the hell out of me the way the left try to usurp the victim hood of WWII Jews.

    Doesn’t stop them attacking these same Jews and their descendants today and cheering on the violence against them. Next generation, same hatreds

    Posted by carpefraise on 2007 06 02 at 07:14 AM • permalink

  33. My parents made me promise I’d never go Horin. Later, my uncle spoke to me on the side and told me to think critically.

    Posted by Penguin on 2007 06 02 at 07:31 AM • permalink

  34. The Left these days is made up of people congratulating themselves that in 1939, they’d have had the guts to stand up… to Churchill.

    Posted by Mike G on 2007 06 02 at 08:01 AM • permalink

  35. #29

    Ah, for those days in the 1920s when Nazi stooges, communists and government loyalists were engaged in free-for-all street warfare in Germany. Shame it’s not possible to send today’s poseur leftists into that era; that would provide quite an education, I imagine.

    That sort of time experiment is always fraught with danger: in their haste to beat a cowardly retreat, the lefties could trip over and kill someone important to later history!

    Posted by AlburyShifton on 2007 06 02 at 08:09 AM • permalink

  36. ... and kill someone important to later history!

    Yes, themselves, as they would surely remind you.

    Posted by PW on 2007 06 02 at 08:37 AM • permalink

  37. So where is her compassion for the little ones in Saddam’s children’s prisons?  Where is her outrage at the actual atrocities perpetrated daily by terrorists, which are proudly videoed and sold for profit round the world and/or shown on the internet?  Where is her fear for those who speak out against terror and must then live 24/7 with security guards to protect them?  Where the hell is her loud grating voice when it really matters?  When will she go the hard way, instead of the easiest way possible to flap her lips and get undeserved attention.

    Posted by saltydog on 2007 06 02 at 10:09 AM • permalink

  38. I suppose all of us wonder at some point what stuff we are made of.

    Carbon, water, nitrogen and assorted rare earths and trace elements.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 06 02 at 05:02 PM • permalink

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