Locked Down

For discourse to penetrate the social and political currents of society, we have to get beyond preaching to the converted and complaining in our in-house forums about the failure of wider forums to take up our hammers. Influence is not conferred on all discourse as if it is an equal opportunity exercise. We therefore have the problem of skewing in indigenous policy in Australia. There is no effective rights leadership and advocacy. This is not to say there is no competent intellectual analysis of the rights agenda, but there needs to be more than compelling analysis.
Noel Pearson.


Sydney is locked down; and cheap cliches, we are locked down inside ourselves. Fed propaganda and lies; cult addicts of sterility; the city we loved washed away by money, by ignorance, by the ethos of the times: what do I get out of it? George Bush has made a surprise visit to Iraq; ahead of his visit to Sydney. All to "frame", that is "rig", surely, the latest report on the so-called "surge" in Iraq to suit his cause in what the papers describe as an "increasingly unpopular war". Our own Prime Minister cosied all the way up to Bush, and took our nation to war against its will; and now we're stuck with a God forsaken mess. No one believes these people anymore; their propaganda, their lies.

We are safe in a sense. Although the authorities have hoovered almost every last cent off the populace; we are left with just enough to survive. To pay the ever spiralling rents, the ever spiralling costs of gas, electricity, communications. Running a car in this city costs a fortune. Everything costs a fortune. You work all your life thinking it is the right thing to do; and in the end get nowhere. A flick of the switch and we could be gone. Tossed aside; dismissively; the anger, frustration, futility, attaching itself to us; not them. Everything is the inverse of the way it should be. "I can see your head rattling from here," Joyce said. We wanted to watch the roses grow, we wanted a little group of friends to be happy with. "Happy making", as Tom used to say, before he died; of things that made us cosier, which made everything seem more normal.

The dark, indulgent erosion needed to be fixed. A spoilt child shouting in the wind: don't take my gifts; don't take the words. Let the stream always flow. Let everything be "happy making". Tell that to the kids blown to bits on the streets of Iraq. Tell that, closer to home, to the harassed victims of our Stalinesque Child Support Agency; now blocking fathers from flying overseas if they are deemed to owe money; another abuse of human dignity; and human rights; in this country. The left bleat about allowing economic refugees to settle in this country; but separated dads are blocked at the airport as they try to flee to a better life elsewhere; somewhere they won't be constantly hunted down. The sheer bastardy of these people defies belief. I have to do radio this morning; and I have to give a speech at the old Humanist Society building down the road tomorrow. It all accumulates; and everyone in the street looks a thousand years younger. The world belongs to someone else.

THE BIGGER STORY:

Times Online:

President Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq today, where he paid tribute to the successes of the US military in the former heartland of the Sunni insurgency and hinted that some troops could soon be heading home.

The six-hour visit to a dusty airbase in Anbar province was designed to shore up support for the President’s controversial war strategy before next week’s showdown with Congress in which Democrats and some Republicans are demanding a rapid withdrawal of US combat troops.

The President held a “war council” with leading US and Iraqi officials including General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US Ambassador to Iraq, who will give Congress their verdicts next week on the success of Mr Bush’s “surge" strategy, which has resulted in an additional 30,000 troops deployed to Iraq this year.

Afterwards, standing in front of two Humvees in the desert outpost 120 miles (195km) west of Baghdad, Mr Bush insisted that real progress had been made in Iraq and that if the current strategy continued it would be “possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer forces”.
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He then delivered a speech to about 600 cheering Marines, saying the date when they could come home would be determined by “a calm assessment of our commanders on the ground, not a nervous reaction from politicians in Washington to poll results”. Such decisions, added Mr Bush, must be made on the basis of “strength and success, not fear and failure”.

Stuff.co.nz

The security fence is in place. The warning systems are installed. The water cannon is loaded.

Sydney is braced for Apec, for better or worse.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard extolled the benefits of Apec week with his now-customary address via the internet, on YouTube, as 20 world leaders prepare to descend on a city that is expected to grind to halt to traffic by Friday, a public holiday for lucky workers.

The 5km perimeter fence around the inner city, standing an imposing 2.8m high, caused intrigue as much as anything as Sydneysiders went about their business.

Police gathered in groups on street corners and at the entrance to train stations, helicopters buzzed overhead, while police cars were dotted around but hardly forced into action.

A bemused German tourist had the distinction of being the first to press police into action when he was detained briefly for taking a cellphone photo of the security fence. He sat on the pavement, released with a warning after being told to delete the offending photos. Anyone who even looks like a potential protester or organiser, possibly looking for "weak points" in the fence, is apparently not to be encouraged.

It starts to get interesting, or nightmarish, today when US President George Bush rumbles into town.

An 83km flight exclusion zone will be in place over Sydney's skyline as Air Force One touches down, with widespread road closures for his motorcade as it wends its way to his luxury city hotel.

Mr Bush's lodgings for the four nights he spends in the city: a $A4345-per-night ($NZ5138), seven room suite with a jacuzzi and breathtaking harbour views.

His motorcade will number more than 20 vehicles, with his presidential limousine specifically built to withstand a anti-tank grenade launchers thanks to 12cm of ballistic armour.

Outside the confines of the president's security cocoon, the protests will heat up.

The Stop Bush Coalition, including left-leaning political groups and university students, plans to mark his arrival with march at Town Hall.