Australia: Caught in a poverty trap

ONE of the delights of watching a superhero movie, be it of the bat or spider variety, is when the grotesque machinery developed and demonstrated by the hero's foes is turned back on them with typically devastating results.

So it is with the snowballing ACTU campaign ads against the Howard Government's industrial relations agenda.

For some years the Government has used our money to finance powerful advertising aimed at keeping us in lockstep with its agenda. Now Coalition MPs and senators quiver when the ACTU's emotive but effective ads infect their television screens each night. If I have a complaint about these ads, it is that they do not tell the full story of the Government's fourth-term plans.

Industrial relations reform is only half of what it is up to. The other part of the equation, which presumably the Senate will rubber-stamp without inquiry or pause, is draconian welfare [social services] changes that aim to create a desperate class of mothers, injured and disabled all willing to take up work on the low-wage, insecure jobs that will come about from the IR changes.

Well, that's the plan, anyway. Many will probably remain on the welfare scrapheap for less money than before because employers will favour the able-bodied and unencumbered. These employers will reason it is better to offer their existing workforce less as a first step. In this new Gotham, the twin forces of lowered wages and a meaner safety net will conspire to enlarge our population of working poor and further impoverish those below them.

The Australian Council of Social Service calculates the initial damage at 150,000 adults and an equal number of children from the Government's welfare proposals. But the toll among working folk is likely to be considerably higher. There are a million Australians including 350,000 children who are living in working-poor families. That is, they have some work but not enough to live decently. Up another rung again there are millions more workers who will be put under further pressure from the Howard Government, which is going to rattle the cages of the comfortable class.

The 300,000 people who will be forced on to activity-tested unemployment payments in the next three years are really fodder to help force down the wages and conditions of the working poor and of those on modest wages.

So the sequel to the ACTU ads, which depict a single mum being called in to work or face the sack, would show a Job Network or Centrelink official pressuring another young single mum to step into the breach and take her job. Who can save the working poor, the mums and the disabled from all of this?

In all likelihood, it will be those with some power but who have the most to lose from the twin effects of industrial and welfare changes.

And those people are Mark Vaile, Ian Causley, Warren Truss, Bob Baldwin, Luke Hartsuyker and Gary Nairn. These are the Coalition politicians whose communities will be hit hardest. They represent the new welfare-rich regions with large concentrations of single parents, disability pensioners and unemployed, and their economies are increasingly built on insecure or casual employment. Many in their constituencies survive on seasonal tourism for their livelihoods.

Wage and salary earnings figures reinforce their vulnerability. In 1999-2000 national average wage and salary earnings were $33,350. By comparison, in most of the electorates held by the aforementioned politicians, average wages and salaries were less than $28,500. McMillan (Russell Broadbent, Liberal) and Eden-Monaro (Nairn) did slightly better with averages of $30,687 and $31,148 respectively, but still well short of the national average and miles behind Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews's electorate of Menzies, where the average was $36,719. Remember that's a full $10,000 higher than Hartsuyker's seat of Cowper, the lowest placed electorate in the country.

While previous welfare changes have failed to create a large enough electoral backlash against the incumbents, the ripple effect of the combined welfare and industrial reforms will wash over a great many more voters in these communities and so are likely to cause real difficulties for the members in question.

National Party MPs among this band know only too well that in the last federal election Larry Anthony lost his seat of Richmond because of its rapid demographic transformation from rural stronghold to sunbelt welfare capital.

The Government's latest plans will accelerate the conversion of the remaining Coalition electorates sitting along the coasts of NSW and Queensland, undermining the voter base John Howard has so carefully cultivated.

It will be fascinating to see whether those most at political risk from the Government's proposals act like lemmings or take a stand. I can't see them wearing their underpants on the outside but then maybe they are the new X Men. They certainly have a large piece of evil machinery to turn around.

By Ross Fitzgerald 1 September 05

Tell your local MP that you care in 3 quick steps

ACOSS responded today to calls for cuts in the top tax rate.

Poor families face lower payments while nation debates lower taxes for high earners

“While the Government debates cutting the top tax rate for those on over $125,000 a year, it is preparing a Bill to cut future income support for sole parents struggling to survive on one fifth of this amount. The Parenting Payment and Family Tax Benefit for a sole parent with two children is around $415 per week.

“Recent research by NATSEM shows that, if the Government’s welfare to work proposals are implemented, sole parents whose youngest child is 6 years or over who apply for income support from 2006 will be worse off by:

* $29 per week if they remain jobless;
* up to $98 per week if they work for 15 hours a week at the minimum wage.”

“The changes would also raise effective marginal tax rates for many sole parents to much more than the 49% paid by high income earners (including Medicare Levy). NATSEM estimates that the proposed changes will increase the effective tax rates for sole parents earning $100 to $150 per week from 40% to 65%.

“Under the Government’s welfare changes, many of Australia’s poorest families will have to get by on less and will face a higher rate of tax.”

“Already over 40% of sole parents with school aged children on benefit are employed. It is only those sole parents who work full time and earn more than $700 a week who will be better off under the welfare changes. Even the Government acknowledges that it’s hard for a sole parent to do this and look after children alone.”

Ed: The Howard government stated that all 700,000 odd disability support pensioners would not be affected by the changes but all disability pensioners have been called to front a board and prove why they need to have any support at all.

So it's not just their doctor they have to satisfy now it is the hand picked kangaroo caught set up by the Howard Government that will make the decision to send those disabled people back to NewStart allowance and lose any pension concessions they may have been otherwise entitled to have like electricity, phone, and travel.

Sux if you have to pay $500 to see a specialist to prove that you've been disabled for ten years. Oh, Centrelink say they will accept your local GPs report but will it lesson your validity before the court?

Once these people are kicked off into NewStart they'll never be able to make the same claim again, ever and are less likely to be employed. So the end result is they'll lose the difference between their pension and NewStart including benefits and are thrust from certainty into an uncertain world.

If they are then held back from getting or being able to comply with work conditions then they can't rely on a living wage to support them whether they can work or not. And all the while Peter Costello wants to give the rich a pat on the back with more tax cuts.

This is the draconian, ruthless, sick and immoral behavior by the powers that be while they spend our welfare dollar on war and anti-terrorism to defend their stupidity from the very same war they started? There goes your social support wasted on death and destruction. Shame Howard Shame!

Related:

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Happy mothers day: Single mums forced to work!
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HoWARd Gov't could be slued, community warns
Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) members will join a rally in Victoria Square today, protesting against the anticipated changes to workplace relations.

Work for the dole and prison industry slavery
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'Social Services cheats' may face election next time around
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Single parents deserve a living wage and not persecution
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Labor sees problems in welfare proposals
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The HoWARd Government is simply robbing the disabled blind
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Encouragement is the key to social-services-to-work programs
Corporate Welfare! I think we should start with Ingeus Company. Telling us what we already know for $$$$!

Peter Saunders shake-up is long overdue: Welfare Not Warfare
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Welfare Reform for Warfare Expenditure?
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Govt plots post-July strategy?
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HoWARd 'determined' to make the disabled woRK?
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Opposition pension claims valid
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Thousands march for disability protest
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Costello, Howard's Disciple
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Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel?
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Corporate Welfare

Corporate welfare or how to steal social services?
Ever wondered why there are so many homeless, why we need a 10 pc GST, lack of services for mental disability, still paying off the Olympics, poor public transport planning etc etc etc?

Unemployed:

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FIGHT UNEMPLOYMENT!
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Work for the dole failure for two thirds
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Work for the dole? $10.00?
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Indigenous Social Justice Association Djadi Dugarang
INDIGENOUS EMPLOYMENT. Part 1

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Military Spending

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Hill primed for war!
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Troop deployment not a deepening of effort: Hill
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Auditor Generals damning defence report
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Lying and bullshitting the same thing

The Un-Australian: Bullshitting is worse than lying?

Australia: The Un-Australian Newspaper: "AS well as all the bullshit in politics, there's even more in our metaphoric and colloquial language. Bullshit is the subject of serious philosophical inquiry in a little book called On Bullshit, published by the 'highly respected' Princeton University Press. To the surprise and delight of the author, it's stampeding out of bookshops all over the world."

And I can't wait to bowl someone over to get a copy myself, can you? Plenty of interest by the Un-Australian as well considering all the bullshit that comes out of the Murdoch press these days.

The Un-Australian: "The words of 'wisdom' on this improbable subject come from a 76-year-old moral philosopher, Harry G. Frankfurt. Professor Emeritus in Philosophy at Princeton University in the US, he has been studying bullshit for more than 20 years and has come to the conclusion that bullshitting is at least as bad, and probably worse, than lying."

So now I suppose that takes liars off the hook. Or does it? I wonder how he managed to separate the two? Did he get a knife and cut a turd in half? Then paint one half a different colour and call it something else? Oh! He's not bullshitting he's just lying. Thank God for that!

Will liars now think that it's okay to lie and they can get off lightly - just like they have a new moral code but still lie and normalise the whole process so they don't feel guilty about lying to you? At least not morally because they were not bullshitting they were only lying, right? Wrong!

This laugh of the century could only come out of the Murdoch press because of the daily lies they seek to purport. They'd have you believe they were lying for a noble cause and certainly not as bad as bullshitting in anycase.

Just telling a few lies for the HoWARd Government in return for some advertising revenue but nowhere near the very same thing as bullshitting to everyone especially when it's bullshitting we should be more worried about? Right? Wrong!

Makes me want give up my day job and study moral philosophy!

Of course you could understand why liars require an ambiguous meaning to the world lying when that's what they do, because being a liar is okay now or at least not as bad as bullshitting. So I suppose if you follow this wise man's argument that bullshitting is actually worse than lying then if you have to lie at least you were not bullshitting right? Wrong again!

The Un-Australian: "When the Professor Emeritus in Philosophy at Princeton University chewed the cud about it, Frankfurt pointed out that a liar has some respect for the truth. Otherwise he wouldn't feel the need to lie about it. Whereas a bullshit artist doesn't care about the truth. What he cares about is what you think about him."

Well I'm not a rocket scientist but generally I cannot separate the two, can you? If you follow this new moral code – when John HoWARd lies he has some respect for the truth? - Opposed to bullshitting according to the professor - that is not linked------- at all------ with the----- truth and therefore------- much worse than------ lying generally?

The Un-Australian: "To demonstrate, Frankfurt cited the example of a humbugging politician giving a Fourth of July address. (You may like to transpose what follows to Australia Day, Anzac Day or any other national celebration.) He drones on about "our great and blessed country" and how the founding fathers enjoyed God's guidance in providing the world with "a new beginning for mankind". But he doesn't really care what the audience feels about founding fatherhood or God or manifest destiny. First and foremost, he wants to make the right impression, to be seen as a patriot."

The plot thickens

The Un-Australian: "Frankfurt agreed that echoes of such humbuggery could be found in almost every speech given by an incumbent or would-be president. It's only when the humbugger starts making claims for, say, WMDs that we move from bullshit into lying."

In other words they weren't bullshitting, which is a capital offence they were just lying so that's okay?

But I'd love to be one of the judges at the Hague War Crimes Tribunal they'd never get out of jail for having no remorse for their illegal and degrading war on Iraq.

How do you plead for the killing, maiming, and torturing of over 100,000 innocent men, women and children and for failing to count the dead?

Can you imagine the Coalition of the Killing telling the judge's that they just lied about WMD's, but at least they weren't bullshitting?

They'd have to give them life for being a smart arse let alone committing the crime itself! At least that is the way a court of law would treat anyone else!

The Un-Australian: "But bullshit is bad enough.

The bullshitter does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does. "He pays no attention to it at all," says Frankfurt. "By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."

"It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth," says the professor. Thus the liar and the honest man are linked by a common, if not identical, regard for it - for both, the truth is a real concern. But not for the bullshitter."

Bullshit!

I wish I was born yesterday then I could cop that? But if the honest man lied about his killing and really knew the truth that he did kill then clearly he was having no insight into his offending behaviour and further from the ---- truth of the--bullshitter who didn't know the truth or at least ignored it which in my opinion is the very same thing!

So how is lying more linked to the truth than that of the brain dead idiot who was bullshitting? Don't you just love it when liars don't bullshit they just lie knowing the real truth? Ha, ha, ha, that's got to be a joke son?

The Un-Australian: "Yet while the liar is disapproved of, even despised, the bullshitter is effectively forgiven. He gets away with it. And profits from it. The professor agrees that it's because the bullshitted are often complicit. Though people insist they can pick it a mile off, they hunger for it. The audience for a political stump speech knows it's bullshit but claps all the louder; the audience for some ranting buffoon of a televangelist sends him donations; and women viewing nonsensical cosmetics commercials run straight from the telly to the chemist's shop.

While bullshit is hardly a new ingredient in personal and social lives, it seems to be growing in magnitude and stench with our communication technologies, and the public can't get enough."

Can't stop it they mean! But I must admit I actually wake up every morning myself and the very first thing that enters my mind is where is the lies in the corporate media today and I don't discriminate between lies and bullshit either because I wouldn't wast my time. In my respectful view even though I'm not a Professor Emeritus in Philosophy I cannot be bought or sold by this bullshit here!

The Un-Australian: "We probably take it lightly because we know the bullshitter knows he's talking bullshit and he probably knows we think it's bullshit. So what's the harm?

Trouble is, says Frankfurt, that it gets harder and harder to "know how things truly are". Matters of substance become impoverished and tawdry. At least lying has its standards".

Right! What fu__ing standards are those?

The Un-Australian: "So Frankfurt believes that the bullshit artist can be, already is, a threat to democracy."

But certainly not the liars right? Wrong again!

The Un-Australian: "We talked of pre-war speeches by Bush and Blair, how bullshit crossed the line into lies but was bad enough without them. Frankfurt factors in contemporary views - postmodernism comes to mind - where truth and falsity dissolve, where nothing can be claimed as a certainty. Is this an environment that encourages, or at least tolerates, bullshit? What was it that Marx said about everything solid melting into air?"

[Farts….]

The Un-Australian: "On one level, Frankfurt's book is a great entertainment. But that doesn't entirely explain the way it's selling. Readers, it seems, share the good professor's anxieties about the problem."

Sure they do the reader who wants to get away with lying and who's up someone's arse no doubt!

The Un-Australian: "Writing without resorting to jargon, Frankfurt has a reputation for trying to get "to the bottom of things" and has struck a chord by examining something that we've taken for granted, something short of a sin and outside the Commandments, that nonetheless undermines our public lives. "Even the most basic questions about bullshit," he says, "are not only unanswered but unasked."

Yeah... how could we have taken for granted the difference between bullshitting and lying? Was it because we just imagined that bullshitting is slang for lying? And this Professor is up George W Bushit's arse no doubt about that. But we all know George W Bushit and the Coalition of the Killing don't bullshit they just lie so how could everyone be so wrong by not asking whether bullshitting and not lying is a sin outside the 10 Commandments?

The Un-Australian: "He's right. And bullshit is getting thicker and thicker in our public and political lives. Before we get bogged in it, let's fight fire with fire. There's only one antidote. Whenever and wherever you hear it, call out . . . "BULLSHIT!" -"

But I would argue that BULLSHIT COMES OUT OF A BULLS ARSE AND LIES COME OUT OF A HUMAN BEING'S MOUTH. SO I GUESS WE CAN ALL SEE THE FUNNY SIDE TO THAT IF WE NOW HAVE TO REFER TO JOHN HOWARDS MOUTH AS A BULLS ARSE!

CALL OUT LIAR! AND TELL THE TRUTH AND SHAME THE DEVIL. YOU LIAR HOWARD YOU'RE A WAR CRIMINAL NOW OFF TO THE HAGUE WITH YOU!

By An Australian 11 June 05

Related:

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The organisation says the country has simply become too dangerous and its decision to leave was made before the apparent murder of Care Australia's Iraq director Margaret Hassan.

US Senator slams !!! 'dysfunctional, rogue' CIA
Influential US Republican Senator John McCain blasted the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a "dysfunctional" and "rogue" organisation that needs to be reformed.

Civilian death toll to rise in Fallujah
The attack on the Iraqi city of Fallujah has taken its toll on Iraqi civilians no doubt including children and young babies. Iraqi's have witnessed civilian casualties. Yesterday during the assault on the main hospital nurses and patients were blindfolded after the US/Iraq militia stormed the main hospital and took control.

Illusionary demons blamed for US led Attack Iraq, Fallujah
In the name of an illusionary figure thought up by US militants suggests that Al Qaeda's? ally "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" has called on Muslims to take up arms against their US enemy as American militia attacked the Iraqi city of Fallujah? Just a coincidence or just good timing?

Full-scale attack on Fallujah begins
Correspondents say radio traffic heard at a US militant's staging post just outside Fallujah indicates US/Iraqi militia have moved at least four blocks into Fallujah, and are still advancing.

US/Iraqi militants storm Fallujah hospital
United States troops and US/Iraqi militia have seized the main hospital in the Iraqi city of Fallujah without a fight, according to a pool reporter travelling [in-bed] with the troops. Those in hospital beds did not resist they were too sick and the doctor kept on operating regardless.

US warplanes and artillery attack Fallujah!
Journalists [in-bed] with the US military say warplanes fired at suspected resistance targets around Fallujah as night fell on Sunday, while artillery shells pounded a nearby town.

State of emergency: Allawi 'killer of saints'
The US puppet, Iyad Allawi otherwise known as "Sock" killer of saints has declared a state of emergency for 60 days to quell violent resistance gripping the country ahead of January's shoe sale.

US Empire Votes For Pre-Emptive War!!!
United States President George Dubya Bushit has been re-elected, winning four more years to press his war on liberty after a bitter campaign against Democrat John Kerry that focused on the US empire's role as - imperialists - initiating pre-emptive war - on the sovereign nation of Iraq - without the United Nations approval and in direct contravention of International law.

Saddam's family dismiss lawyer
The family of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has dismissed the head of his defence team. Other team members had accused the lawyer, Mohammad Rashdan, of acting without consulting them.

Who's counting the dead in Fallujah? CARE?
In distress: CARE says it is deeply concerned about the wellbeing of Mrs Hassan. But who's counting the dead in Fallujah?

Iraqi civilian deaths put at 100,000
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in violence since the US-led invasion last year, according to public health experts who estimate there were 100,000 "excess deaths" in 18 months.

Unknown News Update - 2009
More than 103 times as many people have been killed in these wars and occupations than in all terrorist attacks in the world from 1993-2004. About 241 times as many people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq than in the ghastly attacks of September 11, 2001.

Bushite group threatens civil liberties in Iraq
Allegedly a group led by George W Bushite has forced freedom fighters to threaten to behead a Japanese hostage it said worked with Japanese forces in Iraq if Tokyo does not withdraw its forces from the country within 48 hours.

US secretly moved prisoners out of Iraq for questioning: report
The CIA has secretly transferred detainees out of Iraq for interrogation after asking the US Justice Department to write a memo justifying the practice, which violates the Geneva Conventions.

Weapons inspectors missed WMD in Iraq
An Iraqi minister has said United Nations nuclear inspectors are welcome to return in response to concerns of an "apparent systematic dismantlement" of Saddam Hussein's once-vigorous nuclear program.

US accused of breaching international law
The United States is violating international law by holding prisoners in its war on terror incommunicado and in secret hiding places, Human Rights Watch said in a report to be published on Tuesday calling for an end to such practices.

Allies 'planned' Iraq war despite denials
The United States, Australia and Britain started to plan the invasion of Iraq months before the conflict, according to a report Wednesday quoting a leaked Pentagon document.

UN warns of Iraqi malnutrition
One in four Iraqis are dependent on food rations to survive and many of them have to sell what little food they have for basic necessities like medicine and clothes, the UN World Food Program (WFP) said.

Jordan's king doubts Iraqi elections possible
Iraq is far too unsafe to hold elections as scheduled in January and extremists would do well in the poll if Baghdad tried to hold it, Jordan's King Abdullah said in an interview. Excluding troubled areas from the nationwide poll would only isolate Iraq's Sunnis and create deeper divisions in the country, he said.

Annan tells world leaders to respect law
United Nations (UN) secretary-general Kofi Annan has made an impassioned plea to bring about the rule of law across the globe today. Mr Annan told world leaders to respect international law at home and abroad.

CO-OFFENDERS DO NOT REBUFF UN ON 'ILLEGAL WAR'
The 'coalition of the killing's' complicities - the US, Britain and Australia - have insisted that their countries' military action in Iraq was legal after they have committed war crimes against humanity.

Iraq war illegal, says Annan
United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan says the United States decision to invade Iraq in March 2003 was "illegal". Australia was a key supporter of the war on Iraq and sent troops to join the United States-led invasion last year.

Bush team 'knew of abuse' at Guantanamo
Evidence of prisoner abuse and possible war crimes at Guantanamo Bay reached the highest levels of the Bush administration as early as autumn 2002, but Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, chose to do nothing about it, according to a new investigation.

Journalists ordered to leave Najaf as fighting continues
Journalists have been kicked out of Najaf as clashes flared in the Iraqi city, prompting speculation that a major United States-led assault on enemy Shiite fighters was imminent.

Enemy Mortars attack opening of Iraqi summit
US Enemies have fired mortars at a meeting where Iraqi puppet government leaders met to pick an interim national assembly, killing at least two people.

Iraqi Women in the Occupation Prisons As Material and Means of Violations It is important to say at the beginning that there are many psychological, social and cultural obstacles for Iraqi women to talk openly about what they actually went through inside the occupation prisons.

Ancient Babylon ruined by foreign troops: Iraqi minister
Iraq: Foreign forces in Iraq have caused severe damage to the site of ancient Babylon, one of the world's most renowned archaeological treasures, and need to leave the area as soon as possible, Iraq's Culture Minister Mofeed al-Jazaeri said.

Whatcha Gonna Do, When They Come For You? Bad boy!
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was a threat and sought to possess weapons of mass destruction, United States President George W Bush reaffirmed when asked why no such weapons had been discovered in Iraq.

Saddam trial US propaganda
Saddam Hussein's trial will play an important part in the US election no doubt and for that to work at its potential just put a "women" behind it "She called the trials". Then add some "cleansing" like she's just doing the dishes and then some "reconciliation" by slaying Hussein during a US election. Now you can go and tell everyone you're reversing the trauma but really you're killing two birds with one Saddam.