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August 14, 2004
campaign nonsense
In the previous post I mentioned that in this election campaign we are now witnessing outrageous misrepresentations that get up people's noses. Here is an example. It is the silly shrills of Alexander Downer.
This is the transcript of the interview with Alan Jones at Radio 2GB:
JONES: "Does anyone know how much nuclear capacity they've [North Korea] got?
DOWNER: Well, we know a bit about it but we don't know the full story, no.
JONES: They are developing long range missiles, they've said that, haven't they?
DOWNER: Exactly. They have developed long range missiles. They probably haven't developed many of them but they have developed long range missiles and we believe they have developed a long range missile that could go all the way from North Korea to the United States …
JONES: Yes. Land on continental America.
DOWNER: … or for that matter …
JONES: Here?
DOWNER: … here.
JONES: Australia.
DOWNER: They could fire a missile from North Korea to Sydney.
JONES: Yes, that's right. I read where North Korea makes between US one million and two billion a year smuggling missiles, weapons of mass destruction, technology and drugs, and indeed, is their main source of money.......
DOWNER: ..... If North Korea develops a substantial nuclear stockpile, the Japanese in particular are likely over time to respond to this with the building of their own nuclear weapons system and that would, of course, cause enormous alarm in China and it would lead to a dramatic deterioration in the security environment in North Asia.
JONES: And here we are, a tiny little country, most of our population centred around a few cities and ill-equipped to survive any nuclear exchange.
DOWNER: We have no capacity to do that."
This is such complete nonsense. North Korea is developing two new classes of long-range missiles, whose furthest reach is judged to be about 4000 kilometres, with limited accuracy. Sydney is around 10,000 kilometres from North Korea. So we have a macabre joke.
The interview about the communists in north Asia highlights the conservative's scaremongering tactics in international affairs; as part of a strategy to create a climate of fear that is designed to rework their 1960s scenario of Australia being under threat Alan Jones, the conservative shockjock, is a willing participant in whipping up public fear by the national security state. Jones is their lapdog publicist.
The strategy can be seen in the interview. Look at how Downer hooks Islamic terrorism onto the old communist threat to create the big bogey Other that is disconnected from Australia's actions in the Middle East.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at August 14, 2004 11:24 AM
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Comments
Radio 2DDDD.
Dorothy Dix grills Dolly Downer within a country mile of his life.
Posted by: Sedgwick at August 14, 2004 12:17 PM