What's a few dead folk when there's a story to get out?

Another reason to hate the goddamn, motherfucking Australian newspaper. In short, the AFP were about to undertake a counter-terrorist raid. The Australian were going to leak the story. The AFP asked them not to as it might risk people's lives.

Then. The. Australian. Asked. How. Many. Might. FUCKING. DIE! to see if it was worth risking it to run the story. So The Australian basically says 'Fuck all of you, a couple of dead citizens is worth us fucking up a major operation to stop people killing large numbers of civilians, just so we can get a fucking juicy story.'

Stop reading The Australian, you're 'little people' to them and they don't give a flying fuck if you live or die. Link.

OWS comes to town

Hey officer Friendly, where's ya damned badge?

A standard tactic, used in many Melbourne protests. Some officers choose to remove their name tags. If they are photographed or taped bashing in some unarmed protestor's head, the Vic Police can later say that they cannot identify the officer and thus take punitive action. Often they say it is ripped off during the protest. Does this look like the officer is in the middle of a wild free-for-all?

The OWS solidarity protest in Melbourne has been lingering for just shy of a week (since last Saturday to be precise). Today Lord Mayor Robert Doyle (Liberal Party) and Premier Ted Baillieu (Liberal Party) sent the police in to bust up the protest. As per usual, mounted police have also been used to shove protestors out of the way. Why else would you have a police officer on horseback in the middle of a group of protestors? Police have long used the bulk and size of the horse to shove civilians around.

So, OWS has come to town. Our two arch-conservatives - the Lord Mayor and our state Premier have laid down the law. The police have been sent in to bust heads. If the S11 (not to be confused with the 1 year later 9/11 tragedy) protests, or the Richmond High School protests even earlier than that are anything to go by, we will be seeing a lot of bloodied and battered kids and old people today.

Just not on the news.

To people who don't like to be 'inconvenienced' by protest - grow up. Justice and democracy is worth a lot more than your convenience. After all, that's why the cops are out there cracking skulls - so you can go shopping in peace. Lucky you. 


(Melbourne Greens MP Adam Bandt has issued a statement here)
Alan Kohler on the OWS protests broadly here
Current ABC coverage here

More Links;
John Faine (ABC radio) gives his views here
Youtube footage of protestors being dragged away here
Jeff Sparrow's views here

Some Twitter comments I've seen;
"I was punched in the stomach by a riot cop and dragged out of City Square with others. We're occupying the intersection now"
 "Strangled by the cops and ejected now they're riding into us."
"Protesters on floor screaming, "get off me" "help me". Riot scenes in full now. Bloody protesters spotted"
"When you send in riot police against unarmed citizens, it doesn't matter what their agenda is. I know which side I'm on."
"Good point on radio by East Melb Fertility Dr abt double standard on eviction of #occupymelb people but tolerence of picketers @ clinic"
"all the world is watching. Just what Australia needs: we're racist, polluting and undemocratic."
" Melbourne supports protest - as long as it's confined to the internet, and no-one's listening"

What's happening?

Turn on a TV, read a paper or fire up a browser these days, you're going to see the same tale told across the world. Violent, incendiary protests against austerity in Greece, Occupy Wall Street in the States, French austerity protests, revolution in Libya, uprising in Syria, activists jailed in China, pampered family deriding the Kim Jong Il dictatorship in North Korea. Baha'i people are airing their grievances with the Iranian theocracy to the world. Bolivians march against their own government to protect the Amazon. Just yesterday, news broke of Indon forces opening fire at a West Papuan congress, another subjugated people the victim of brutal repression.

The world is changing, and everywhere the apparatus of a lazy state fights back. Against its own people. Wars seem passé now. The big trend for Presidents and Prime Ministers and Generals and dictators of all stripes seems to be the sometimes brutal control of your own people. In smaller or poorer countries, brute squads of savage soldiers are assembled to shoot, burn, beat, rape and torture people to keep them in line. In the west, we're a bit more slick. We hastily change laws to suit ourselves, and pass internet monitoring laws - ostensibly for the prevention of crime, but who really believes that these days? Most internet monitoring or censorship laws have proven empirically to target political blogs and activists, not hate groups, not fringe religious groups. No, crime is a pretext to shut the hell up anyone who disagrees with you.

Where will this lead? The uprisings and protests and dissatisfactions aren't going to just vanish. The revolution in Libya might be over, with the recent capture of Moammar Gadaffi, but they're a long road from putting their house in order. Syria meanwhile is just now coming to a boil. Greeks aren't going to just lie down and accept austerity. Unless something else gives, Greece is likely to burn down to the ground before that happens.

I tend to think one of two things are about to happen. Either all of these many struggles are going to be lost, and the forces of oppression get another round of control for a few years, or we're about to enter a radically different world. Can you imagine a US without the Koch brothers or Bank of America or a marauding Fed Reserve? How about a starving North Korea who rise en masse to violently overthrow the Kim family? What about a secular Iran? A democratic, capitalist China? What about all the world's most corrupt bankers jailed, and the debts erased?

And Australia, perched nervously in the corner like a straight country boy at an inner city gay bar. Trying to pretend everything is fine, everything is normal. Where are we going to fit?

What happens to us if the US implodes? What happens to us if the old communist guard in China die out and are replaced by a generation of democratic young turks? We're not very good at most of the things we do. Our one attempt at internet control fizzled out pretty ordinarily. Our protests are civil enough that no anonymous white-shirted cops are called out to violate our rights, and beat the ever-living crap out of us. Even our corruption is lazy. Whether it's an ALP pollie hiring hookers, or an ombudsman writing his own questions for an inquiry just so he can give our government a serve, our corruption is pretty piss-poor.

The protests and the uprisings and the anger are not going to go away. A lot of these issues have been buried too deep for too long, for people to just give up and forget. While Australia stands in the corner and nurses a warming beer, the rest of the world is changing rapidly before our eyes. We just have to decide what side we want to be on. Do we throw away our Labor and Coalition business as usual cronyism and join in with the sentiment of revolution and change? Do we allow our particular brand of lazy democracy to bubble along, and see how much more craven and self-serving it can get? Or do we do the classically Australian thing of pretending everything is normal, and wait and see what everyone else does?

Everything is not normal. The world is changing. We are living in momentous times. Do we accept change and steer it towards a good result, or do we allow ourselves to get swept along?

To quote a certain fictional Time Lord 'Time will tell, it always does.'

This is what law and order looks like in the US.

After penning people in and macing them without provocation, after trapping people on the Brooklyn Bridge and performing a mass arrest, after trapping people shutting down their bank accounts inside the bank and performing a mass arrest, after punching a woman in the face, after punching an HIV+ man in the face, after all this - can you tell me who the law in the US is supposed to protect?

Because it doesn't seem to protect its citizens, even those practicing their constitutional rights.

The Gray Panthers strike

Okay, so why are all you Carbon Tax protestors old? No, I'm not being ageist, I'm not saying you're less capable of protesting or your concerns are of less worth because you're advanced in years. It's just...

Dude, seriously, why are you all OLD?

I'm not a spring chicken myself. I'm no skinny hipster with ironic 80's facial hair, that's for sure. But... no really why are you all so damned OLD?

I mean you're not even going to be around when the real serious environmental shit starts to happen. Is that it? You don't want to be affected by any measure to prevent catastrophic climate change, because you won't be alive to deal with it. Is that why you're all so damned old?

Okay, so... no wait I can't get my head around this. Half of you are within coo-ee of retirement... and... okay so wait, is this why all those anti-carbon tax ads were on during Harry's Practice and Born and Bred and All Creatures Great and Small and Heartbeat - because they're old folks shows?

Are you guys only protesting because you believed those ads that were on during your stories?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not dissing the shows - I kinda like Heartbeat. The anti-Carbon Tax ads stir me from my dozing during the show, they fire me up and get me mad. Sure beats those denture paste ads, and staircase escalator ads, and weekend away auction trip-thing ads. Those ones send me to sleep.

Yeah, so where were we?

Oh yeah, so why are you all old?

The Australian - Just like Pravda, but with footy.

A small comment on the spat between Robert Manne and the Australian, with a minor linkstorm.

Freedom of (Hate) Speech

Update: Since this was written, at least some of the hate groups involved have been barred from using Paypal.

An article on the campaign to stop hate groups from using PayPal and the questions of freedom of speech it raised.

The sour smell of hypocrisy.

(Note: written originally the day after 9/11)

This short piece is a bit of a musing on what has happened since 9/11.

Community (Non-)Consultation

Community consultation - the new catchphrase for 'do nothing and later say everyone agreed with me.'

A lot of things are being put forward for community consultation these days - wind farms, CSG plants, redevelopments, same sex marriage. Hands up who's ever heard of, been invited to, or been canvassed for community consultation.

Yep, what I thought.