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How to sell a massacre: NRA's playbook revealed. Three-year undercover sting reveals how US' National Rifle Association handles public opinion after deadly gun attacks.
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- Title
- How to sell a massacre: NRA's playbook, revealed
- Authors
- Peter Charley
- Published
- Mar 25 2019
- Word count
- 870 words
As context for non-Australian readers: One Nation is a fringe right-wing political party.
They've never been very successful. At the most recent federal election, they managed to get 4 people elected to the Senate (out of 76 Senators), which is the most success they've ever had in a federal election (their previous high was 1 Senator). However, two of those winning candidates were later ruled ineligible to be members of Parliament based on previously ignored clauses in our constitution, so they were replaced with two other One Nation members... who each promptly defected from the party and now sit in the Senate as independents, leaving only two One Nation members as senators. It has always been a very fractious party.
And they're racist to the core. The party started when our mainstream right-wing party dis-endorsed Pauline Hanson as one of their candidates, after she made some racist statements regarding Aboriginal people during an election campaign - but it was too late to change the ballot papers, so she was still listed as that party's candidate and was elected as such. She was therefore a free agent in the parliament, and created her own political party to promote her views: "Pauline Hanson's One Nation". During her 20 years in the public eye, she has spoken against Aboriginal people, Asian people, and Muslims.
You might have heard of Senator Fraser Anning, who said some controversial things after the Christchurch shooting...? He was one of the replacements for the ineligible One Nation candidates, who then promptly defected. And, Pauline Hanson is just about the only Australian politician who refuses to criticise him for what he said, and she has said she will not vote on a proposed Senate motion to censure him.
That's One Nation. :)
Thanks for adding this context for people. In my UK-centric way of looking at the world I've thought "aahh, Australia's UKIP" whenever they crop up in the news.
That's pretty accurate.
There's more information in this article by the ABC, which will be broadcasting Al Jazeera's documentary this week.
And One Nation, the political party which is the subject of this documentary, has characterised the investigation as an act of foreign interference months out from a federal election, and referred the matter to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, as well as the Australian Federal Police.
I got 2 minutes into that awful video before I had to stop. If you need to sell you journalism with the same lame tactics like the people you're investigating I'm not listening. They probably have a point but try selling it without the RealityTV-approach.
A lot of modern documentaries have a sensationalist opening like that. Skip the intro and watch the documentary itself. That might be better.
(I haven't seen it yet, but I'm putting it on my "to watch" list.)
P.S. I've watched this documentary now. The introduction doesn't do it justice. Skip the intro.