Stop the Maniacs

Reading grrlock's call for people to oust the Republicans, "by vote or by bloody revolution", i was reminded of this - a rewording of the Stray Cats song 'Storm the Embassy' i was tooling around with a while ago, which i'd abandoned because i was well over the sort of knee-jerk anti-American jingoism of the "storm the American embassy" catch phrase it started from. Still, i like the way some of the concerns-of-the-day fit into it.

Maybe it works better as "Purge the Capitol" (though that probably needs some more thought too).

EDIT - Maybe "Stop the Maniacs" is best..


Foreign nationals taken captive
In a distant combat zone
Loaded hooded and shackled
Into air force planes and flown
To a limbo out of reach
Of civil jurisdiction
Said to be guilty of crimes
That haven't yet been written

Did someone mention
Geneva Convention?

It's new world and a hard fight
When the going's tough
Cancel your rights

Stop the maniacs in control
Before they manage to bury us all!

Corporations in control
Of political process
The inner circle bends the world
To their own vested interest
United Nations won't agree
To support Junior's jihad
Still he laughs and send his troops
To invade downtown Baghdad.

Orders from Rumsfeld:
Secure the oilfields

There's no weapons and no programme
Never mind that - we got Saddam

Stop the maniacs in control
Before they manage to bury us all!

Shocking photos in the papers
Of degradation and abuse
White-trash soldiers take the fall
Amid denial and excuse
Brutal killers vow revenge
Promise an eye for an eye
Parading pictures of the hostage
Who is next in line to die

Too late to back down
While in the background
A mother's crying
Is my son dying ?

There's no good guys and no right side
For their power games
How many have died?

Stop the maniacs in control
Before they manage to bury us all!

(would have LJ-cut it, but rich text mode hates me)

"look what the madman is doing.."

Okay, if you're sick of reading me whine about asylum seeker issue, look away now, 'cause i've given up on LJ-cuts because the formatting always screws up for me.

(fairly warned be thee, says i).

Now, our esteemed government, who were busy locking up people for running away from Saddam Hussein's Iraq at the same time as they were telling us that regime was so evil we had to go to war against it, has for some time been focussing on detainees from Iran (y'know, 'Axis of Evil', repressive extremist state, sponsor of Terrorist Evildoers International) and threatening to deport them if they don't go voluntarily, under the terms of a secret 'Memorandum of Understanding' with the Iranian government that no-one is allowed to read.  Their latest threat, according to refugee advocates, explicitly states their intention to furnish the Iranian embassy with all the personal details of detainees before arranging their deportation.  Now, this may be something that's normally done in a deportation situation, i don't know, but using it as a threat against people who are so scared if the Iranian regime that they would rather rot for years in a prison camp (or, in many cases, attempt suicide) than risk going back is an ugly new addition the campaign of harrassment Australia has used to bully these people into returning 'voluntarily'.

i don't know what there is to do about it (the government seems to take pleasure in telling you it's going to ignore you when you write letters - "We notice that you have written to the Minister on such matters before [..and we didn't give a shit then so what makes you think we care now?]" - and it doesn't even help to say 'vote the fuckers out' because it was Labor that started these prison camps in the first place) but i just wanted to vent my disgust again.

Press release received via a mailing list:

( okay, i'll try this LJ-cut malarky one more time )