The Liberal party pollster and campaign strategist Mark Textor has apologised over a series of tweets that added to diplomatic tension between Australia and Indonesia by appearing to insult Indonesian ministers.
Drunken criminal descendant Mark Testor
Textor, who has been referred to as one of the most powerful influencers in Australia, has been a key electoral adviser to the Australian Liberal party since the John Howard years and, with his business partner Lynton Crosby, to London mayor Boris Johnson.
Textor has been accused by Indonesian media of insulting members of the government in a racially-loaded tweet on Wednesday which compared an unnamed individual to “a 1970s Pilipino [sic] porn star” who has “ethics to match''. It was soon deleted.
While it appeared to be referring to Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa or perhaps president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Textor told Guardian Australia by text message the tweet did not refer to Natalegawa. When asked who it did refer to, Textor replied “nobody”.
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At the time of his tweet, Textor said only that he was not referring to Yudhoyono.
Questioned by an ABC reporter in Canberra on Thursday afternoon, Textor denied the tweet had been deleted, saying: “I don’t think I did. I think it’s there for anyone to read.”
Asked if he thought it was causing offence in Indonesia and if he should apologise, Textor said: “I can’t apologise for what people imagine.
“I was not referring to anyone in particular but if you want to imagine someone that’s fine by me.”
Nevertheless, on Thursday afternoon Textor sent another message and tweeted: “apologies to my Indonesian friends – frustrated by media-driven divisions – Twitter is indeed no place for diplomacy.”
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Asked why he had deleted some of the earlier tweets, Textor told Guardian Australia: "Because it's part of the apology process." He said it was "hardly hiding", given the number of times he had been retweeted.
In question time on Thursday, the prime minister, Tony Abbott, said Textor’s tweets were "tacky comments and they have been withdrawn and apologised for" when questioned by the opposition leader, Bill Shorten.
Several of the tweets, primarily the one containing the porn star reference, were reported by Indonesian media, including kompass.com on Wednesday evening. Its story – which wrongly refers to Textor as a Liberal party politician – remained the site’s second most read on Thursday morning.
When criticised by an Indonesian Twitter user on Thursday morning, Textor said he would “continue free speech”.
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Textor’s tweet was among a plethora of comments about the story, broken by Guardian Australia and the ABC, on the 2009 targeting of mobile phones belonging to the Indonesian president, his wife, and key ministers and advisers by Australian spy agencies.
Textor has been a vocal critic of the spying story.
“'Apology demanded from Australia by a bloke who looks like a 1970s Pilipino [sic] porn star and has ethics to match #Fairfax demands appeasement',” he wrote on Wednesday.
The tweet, which was soon deleted, was followed by: “That last tweet was for those who think we should take all this silly, manufactured moral outrage seriously. #spy”
That last tweet was for those who think we should take all this silly, manufactured moral outrage seriously. #spy
— Mark Textor (@markatextor) November 19, 2013
Replying to a tweet from former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser calling for him to be sacked, Textor tweeted a picture of the three Indonesian men sentenced to death for their role in the Bali bombings, with the abbreviation “lol”. The picture was subsequently removed.
In later tweets, Textor took aim at Yudhoyono, asking "what sort of head of state communicates with a neighbouring government by twitter FFS? That's insensitive," AAP reported.
In another, Textor wrote: "Yo! Fidel! BFF? #bayofpigs. #tweetlikeSBY”
In an October 2011 opinion article, Textor wrote: “I have found manners to be the clearest window into the character of people,” in an analysis of courtesy and civility among successful leaders.
“While 'convenient', the online conversation is not 'intimate' – there is no need for the special investment that good manners require. I'm as guilty as anyone here,” he wrote.
“Indeed the 'quick draw' nature of forums like Twitter lend themselves to anger and energy, rarely patience or civility.”
The deputy Labor leader, Tanya Plibersek, said Textor’s comments were “highly inappropriate”.
“This is a person who is in the prime minister’s inner circle. The Indonesians know that he is a longstanding adviser to the Liberal party. And I think these sort of loose comments can do nothing to repair the relations between our two nations,” she told reporters in Canberra.
The Liberal MP Steven Ciobo stressed that Textor had no official position in the party.
“Mark Textor is a private citizen, not a government appointee,” he said.
“The comments that he makes I think are inappropriate but they are comments that are made in a private capacity.”
Asked by Guardian Australia to elaborate further, Textor replied: “It’s a tweet.”
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The real truth on 9/11 slowly continues to bleed out
Technical experts are mounting major challenges to official U.S. government accounts of how three World Trade Center skyscrapers collapsed in near-freefall after the 9/11 attacks 15 years ago.
Many researchers are focusing especially on the little-known collapse of
The Empire and the inevitable fall of the Obama criminal regime
STRATFOR Editor’s Note: This installment on the United States, presented in two parts, is the 16th in a series of STRATFOR monographs on the geopolitics of countries influential in world affairs.
Like nearly all of the peoples of North and South America, most Americans are not originally from the territory that became the United States.
A look back at 2011 predictions for the future in order to put events of today into perspective
We have already discussed in the first part of this analysis how the American geography dooms whoever controls the territory to being a global power, but there are a number of other outcomes that shape what that power will be like. The first and most critical is the impact of that geography on the American mindset.
This e-mail outlines and confirms the acts of espionage against Indonesia and Indonesians by Akiko Makino and the others involved both in Kobe University and in AI Lab at University of Airlangga, Surabaya; Bahasa Indonesia original follows English translation...
UPDATED 01/07/2015 : FOX NEWS CORPORATE PHARMA SHILL MEGAN KELLY AND FOX NEWS QUACK DOCTOR NOW PUSHING TAMIFLU FOR PREGNANT WOMEN AND CHILDREN;
THE 5TH ESTATE UNEQUIVOCALLY WARNS THE PUBLIC NOT TO TAKE OR GIVE THIS PROVEN DANGEROUS, INEFFECTIVE DRUG TO ANYONE
Obama criminals now resulting to biowarfare in quest to destroy Chinese and ASEAN economy; "novel virus substrain" points directly to a Kawaoka / Fouchier / Ernala-Ginting Kobe lab virus weaponized and genetically altered to specifically target and infect the Asian population: Ribavirin...
The 5th Estate has just purchased a library on H5N1 "Novel" virus pandemics, there are dozens of PDF and Exel documents we feel will assist you in saving lives following intentional releases of the H5N1 and now MERS viruses; we will begin by printing those that appear to be extremely relevant here: H5N1 Kobe-Kawaoka-Ernala series continues soon with more "Smoking Gun" e-mails from Teridah Ernala to The 5th Estate . . .
On October 12, 2002 the Indonesian island of Bali experienced a terrorist attack that rocked the world. It was unquestionably well-coordinated and executed, the largest in the country's history.
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Friday, November 22, 2013
Posted in: "Mainstream Media" Lies,AU Spies,Australia Law,Australia Spying,CIA Black Ops,CIA/Obama,Imperialism,Indonesian Economy,NSA Black Ops
