Anybody catch 4 corners tonight

[David]

[Tannin]

Semantics crap! The Javanese invaded and comquered the surrounding islands, and rule them in much the same way that the Japanese ruled the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere, or the Spanish ruled large parts of Latin America.

When you carelessly mix up "Javanese" with "Indoensian" you do a massive injustice to the comquered peoples of (for example) Bali, Timor, and West Papua - all of these (and many others) have suffered and in most cases continue to suffer under the totalitarian military rule of the Javanese.

I am not "condemning an ethnic group". I am pointing out that this particular practice of unbelievable uncaring cruelty to animals is part of a larger culture of unbeliveable selfish cruelty to all creatures, human and non-human, and until we deal with the root cause, presumably through negotiation and education rather than outrigfht war, though it might still come to that one day if they don't back off, we won;'t get anywhere. It has to stop.

[Tannin]

^ I'm not even going to bother with paranoid fantasy of this nature. I've seen it before from otherwise seemingly normal, rational people.

No. Sorry, "paranoid" is the wrong term. To be "paranoid" is to see terrors that are not there. Denial of the holocaust or the ethnic cleansing mass murders or the Japanese death camps is the opposite condition: to be blind to what is not only there but blindingly obvious. Nothing I can do about it. Sorry.

[Skids]

[Tannin]

Mate, as regards the Bosnian slaughter, I have very little knowledge of who did all the killing, of why they started digging mass graves and buldozing bodies into them. But it most certainly happened. The trials are still going on, and the evidence, enough documents to fill a hundred trucks when it's all written down, is still piling up.

There was a hell of a lot of blood shed in and around Bosnia. Was it the Serbs, the Croats, both? Both presumably - it isn't as if they don't both have a shocking history of bruutality. But I don't particularly care. It happened. It is history. Apparently, it's more-or-less over. Good.

[HAL]

Alright then.

[stui magpie]

If we're going to talk ethnic cleansing, pick a country in Africa. Malawi would be one example, even the shona in Zimbabwe did a number on the Ndeble when they first took power.

But we digress.

Interesting, I read a quote that some of the Australian farmers groups who arrange the live exports were aware of some of the "issues" in how the cattle were killed and had been trying to work with them and educate them for some years now.

So it would seem that education is no more the issue than access to facilities. Whether it is total ambivalence, unconscious cruelty or intentional cruelty I couldn't say.

[Tannin]

Have you seen the footage? It is NOT unconscious! Could not possibly be unconscious.

See for yourself: http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/775504

[stui magpie]

[Tannin]

[stui magpie]

Less acceptable, maybe. Scarier definitely.

At least with people who get their kicks out of torture, you know what you're dealing with, when you get people who casually inflict pain with zero emotion, that's sort of frightening.

[David]

And yet, that's what the reality of abbattoirs is, here in Australia too. You can't tell me that abbattoir workers feel a thing when they slaughter however many hundred cows a day at work. There has to be some sort of desensitisation eventually.

In the holocaust, 6 million people died. Sure, the way it happened to many of them was awful - but in the end, the primary horror is that 6 million people were murdered. The means by which it was done is totally relevant, but secondary. That's how I kind of feel about this. And yes, I've watched the footage now, and yes, it's horrible to see. But it's all in degrees. It's actually kind of absurd that people can talk about killing an animal in cold blood as 'humane'. It only really works as a relative concept - 'humaner' if you like. That's not in any way intended to diminish the suffering of the animals here; but yes, these actions exist on the same scale.

And Tannin, it's semantics mainly because it's a diversion. You could just as easily have replaced every instance of 'Indonesian' with 'Javanese' (and, well, Javanese people are Indonesian, just not necessarily vice versa) in my post and my points would have remained valid. Is it an important distinction to make? Sure, and thanks for the heads up, but let's get to the actual topic at hand: you have condemned an entire culture as 'cruel' and blamed the actions of these animal slaughterers on their cultural background (an accusation which I frankly consider to be pretty tenuous). Even if they're right, these are pretty strong accusations that shouldn't be levelled lightly.

[Tannin]

Rubbish. You yourself have reviewed the damning evidence of terrible animal cruelty by these people. There is also the small matter of more than 50 years of human rights violations by the Javanese regime: murder, torture, imprisonment without trial, invasion, genocide ... they have the complete set.

I can't really imagine what extra evidence you could have. It seems that you are determined to ignore any and all evidence on this matter. What more proof could you possibly want?

[David]

For one thing, an acceptance that regimes and people are different things. Few would implicate the Russian people in the actions of Stalin; yes, there can be complicity, but not necessarily.

[Tannin]

Regime change can change the dominant culture, sure, but where the dominant culture is cruel and brutal, am I supposed to pretend that it isn't? Am I supposed to ignore that filmed evidence? Or the massive death tolls? Or the continuing failure to restrain the army and police in any way that matters? Or the continuing dispossession of other islands by the Javanese?