Alison Croggon wrote:
>
>
>
> At 8:44 AM +1100 22/1/2002, Printmaker wrote:
> >In the meantime they are being fed and housed and protected
> >from harm all at the expense of the Australian public purse.
>
> "Protected from harm" - ?  There are at least two documented cases of
> suspected child sexual abuse in these detention centres.  The social
> workers who are allowed in are constantly saying that the conditions
> under which asylum seekers are kept are damaging to mental health.

No worse than the way we treat our own mentally ill or
children in protective custody - I just see here another
opportunity cost, we could be remedying that instead.

> These are presumably the same inhuman people who throw their children
> into the sea to blackmail the Australian people (I don't know if
> you've followed the scandal on that one, Josephine, but it seems that
> Ruddock is - rather smugly, alas - facing an inquiry on that bit of
> spin).

Yes I have been following, I saw through it at the time
Alison, one reason why I refused to vote at all last
election, I'm disgusted with both sides on this one.

If the only means of manipulation these people have is to
sew
> their lips together, or to starve themselves to death, then it bears
> a slightly more careful examination than the one you offer, which is
> straight off talkback radio.

I wouldnt know, I don't listen to radio or TV, and I have
the ability to make my own opinions.  I did say I was being
Devil's advocate these are not necessarily my personal
views. Take another look at
http://www.acay.com.au/~severn/wound/wounded.htm
and ask yourself why I might have no sympathy for a self
inflicted injury.

I mentioned much earlier on in this debate that we are all
subjected to the bias in the media coupled with the govt's
ability to withhold information, we don't, and probably
never will, know the full story. Its one of the things I
warned about, and why I am surprised that you should allow
yourself to be manipulated on an emotional level.
>
> I'm sorry, I'm too angry to respond properly.  It's the anger I feel
> when I read these same "queuejumper" arguments in the Herald Sun.
> The black front pages with the one word headline TREACHERY to
> announce the Woomera riots (how dare they wreck government property!)

See my comments re lawbreakers. Do we apply the same screens
to refugees that we do to migrants?  I don't read the papers
either.
>
> No question of how much it is costing the Australian Government to
> con us all by patrolling the coasts with naval ships (did you read
> the Naval psychologist's letter, most unusually released to the press
> because of the depth of his concern, on the demoralising effect this
> is having on naval personnel, who see the misery of these people
> first hand and are under orders to drive them out into the open sea?)
> and bribing poor Pacific nations to take "our" refugees.  It costs
> millions of dollars a day, far more than it would cost to process
> these people under standard UN practice, and the price (I am only
> talking money here, there are other costs) keeps ballooning out.
> That money could, yes, be better used.

I like you am disgusted at the handling of this Alison.