ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE BORN FREE AND EQUAL IN DIGNITY AND RIGHTS. THEY ARE ENDOWED WITH REASON AND CONSCIENCE AND SHOULD ACT TOWARDS ONE ANOTHER IN A SPIRIT OF BROTHERHOOD.
Governments and elite ineterests are unable to comply due to the fact they are there to protect those elite interests.
Every victory for human rights has not been achieved by governments, but by popular libertarian movements usually opposed to the government of the day - whethr it was the battle against slavery, the battle against Monarchy, the battle for womens rights, the battle for indigenous rights and treaties, the anti-war movement, the battle for the 8-hour day. Still today governments and business lag behind the popular sentiments of the people, whether on the issue of the environment, global warming etc. Governments and business are always frustrated that they can't fully co-opt this struggle. They are always worried that the struggle itself might present a threat to their elite power.
the SPIRIT OF BROTHERHOOD displayed by the rulers:
- corporate pedophilia
- predatory takeovers
- Gluttons at the Gate [Private Equity firms] accused by the old-guard of 'abusing market power'.
- legislating away rights and liberties
The 'spirit of brotherhood' is libertarian, egalitarian, democratic principles such as mutual aid, mutual respect, solidarity, transparency, accountability and the 'public good'. The 'spirit of brotherhood' is not captured in the Oz national anthem or 'god save the queen', it is encapsulated in the Eureka Oath "We swear by the southern cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties." That oath sums up in a few words the UDHR - amazing since it was said nearly 100 years before the UDHR was written and it was said, not by some elite leaders, but a few miners.
compare this with a statement by Howard- full of contempt for the average Australian:
"you must remember that the Australian voter has a short memory span... less than 14 days in most cases!" ~ Howard
"How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don�t think." - Adolf Hitler
JOHN HOWARD re Packer-private equity: "I think it's just a strategic investment. I don't think people should get too excited about it. People buy and sell shares every day. I just think everybody ought to calm down." oct20 2006
Howard thinks that 'Gluttons at the Gate'(as PE firms are referred to by 'old style' capitalists), are a good thing.
# Article 2. [fail]
EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO ALL THE RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS SET FORTH IN THIS DECLARATION, WITHOUT DISTINCTION OF ANY KIND, SUCH AS RACE, COLOUR, SEX, LANGUAGE, RELIGION, POLITICAL OR OTHER OPINION, NATIONAL OR SOCIAL ORIGIN, PROPERTY, BIRTH OR OTHER STATUS. FURTHERMORE, NO DISTINCTION SHALL BE MADE ON THE BASIS OF THE POLITICAL, JURISDICTIONAL OR INTERNATIONAL STATUS OF THE COUNTRY OR TERRITORY TO WHICH A PERSON BELONGS, WHETHER IT BE INDEPENDENT, TRUST, NON-SELF-GOVERNING OR UNDER ANY OTHER LIMITATION OF SOVEREIGNTY.
recent breaches:
- Scott Parkin (who 'exposed' Halliburton), and most recently Ruhal Ahmed (attempting to 'expose' Guantanamo Bay with his book 'Road to Guantanamo') As any whistle-blower will tell you - IT IS A DANGEROUS THING TO TELL THE TRUTH. You will face ostracisation, lose your job, or perhaps even your life.
- the suggested 'citizen test' to check whether people have Australian values is a violation of this article. it is an attempt by a certain political group to co-opt 'Australianness' and use it to their own political advantage.
# Article 3. [fail]
EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY AND SECURITY OF PERSON.
this 'right' depends upon who you are and what 'group' you belong to. Some animals are more equal than others. [orwell] The only way that this right can be maintained is through the building of free democratic institutions owned by the public, run by the public for the public good.
--
The Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, pronounced the PKK a terrorist group one week after the visit of the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, to Australia.
Civil liberty, refugee and immigration organisations are extremely concerned about the impact upon Australian citizens. Virtually any support of Turkish Kurdish human rights objectives that are shared by the PKK could leave Australians open to prosecution. Under this listing, asylum seeker claims of persecution due to real or alleged association with the PKK or related organisations will expose refugees to criminal prosecution for membership or a number of other serious offences.
Australian Anti-Terror laws are criminalising entire communities of people, simply by association.
"In Turkey, Kurdish people face arrest for speaking up about their human rights. In Australia, Kurdish people now face arrest for doing the same thing." said spokesperson Anthony Kelly.
There are also real fears that the listing will be utilised to further justify the actions of the Turkish state in this conflict which has included the destruction of Kurdish villages, extra judicial killings, torture of Kurdish arrestees and the active prevention of the use of Kurdish language and other symbols.
"This political listing has nothing to do with protecting Australia from terrorism and could easily be the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, Fretelin in East Timor, or the Free Papua Movement (OPM) in West Papua." [HRW]
it's not surprising that they pass legislation like this, because this federal government HATES WORKERS!
# Article 4. [fail]
NO ONE SHALL BE HELD IN SLAVERY OR SERVITUDE; SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE SHALL BE PROHIBITED IN ALL THEIR FORMS.
-- While technically slavery has been abolished [or has it?], servitude certainly hasn't been. Authoritarian governments rely on servitude, micro-management and 'spin' in order to control populations. Over the last 10 years the Howard govt has spent $1.27 billion of taxpayers money to promote their GST, destroy Medicare, sell Teslstra, Workchoices, Welfare to Work etc. They now want to spend another 70million[?] on a school chaplaincy program. You have to wonder whether this is to further promote the Howard govts narrow neo-conservative ideology of God King & Country - essentially an attitute of servitude. The great thing about servitude is that people obey laws, even when they are bad.
according to Fred Argy, former Director of the Economic Planning Advisory Commission] - "Ideally, �information� advertisements paid for by public money should relate to legislation already enacted (or at least fully discussed by the Parliament) and any judgmental argumentation in them should be scrupulously balanced, with alternative views presented. The ads should also be subject to independent oversight. Recent advertisements such as on GST in 1998, on Medicare in 2004 and most recently on industrial relations (IR) reform fail these tests. The decisions were made by a Government Committee (the Ministerial Committee on Government Communications) which is not accountable to Parliament or answerable to Cabinet and not subject to independent oversight.(4) Nor can their content be described as non-political. The Broadcasting Services Act offers no great impediment to the broadcasting of blatant political advertising by governments using taxpayers� funds." http://democratic.audit.anu.edu.au/
#
WTO ANNOUNCES FORMALIZED SLAVERY MARKET FOR AFRICA:
Philadelphia � At a Wharton Business School conference on business in Africa, World Trade Organization representative Hanniford Schmidt announced the creation of a WTO initiative for "full private stewardry of labor" for the parts of Africa that have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the West.
The initiative will require Western companies doing business in some parts of Africa to own their workers outright.
Schmidt recounted how private stewardship has been successfully applied to transport, power, water, traditional knowledge, and even the human genome. The WTO's "full private stewardry" program will extend these successes to (re)privatize humans themselves.
"Full, untrammelled stewardry is the best available solution to African poverty, and the inevitable result of free-market theory," Schmidt told more than 150 attendees. Schmidt acknowledged that the stewardry program was similar in many ways to slavery, but explained that just as "compassionate conservatism" has polished the rough edges on labor relations in industrialized countries, full stewardry, or "compassionate slavery," could be a similar boon to developing ones.
"This is what free trade's all about," said Schmidt. "It's about the freedom to buy and sell anything � even people."