And your friends, baby, they treat you like a guest

When the truth is found to be lies

And all the joy within you dies

Don't you want somebody to love

Don't you need somebody to love

Wouldn't you love somebody to love

You better find somebody to love

-- Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane

In the West, we describe something as Machiavellian when it is full of intrigue. Machiavelli was as devious as Mr. Rogers compared to the masters of court of the Middle East.

The following must be read with that in mind, and at face value. And for entertainment, not prescient or insightful political science. More inciteful than insightful, perhaps. Time will tell.

I have taken the piece apart (and extracted) and rearranged it so as to put its own caveats upfront.

The ‘top secret’ Muslim Brotherhood

Proof of this is yet to come, I cannot predict in what form, but come, eventually, it will.

(P.S. – The above article, according to some reports, was is sarcasm. If you do not believe it was is, the author would like to sell the Pyramids to you – at a discount, seeing as it is Ramadan.)

Over the past few weeks, since the ouster of former Egyptian president Mohammed Mursi, there has been something of a sea change in the identification of political actors and public figures.

To begin with, the binary choice in public discourse was clear: pro-Mursi and anti-Mursi. Due to research completed by the most distinguished journalists in the Egyptian media, it appears that there is a separate, previously unheard of group. Now, it seems that there is a growing third option in the public arena: pro-Mursi, anti-Mursi and secretly pro-Muslim Brotherhood.

Their cover story is something we never quite imagined: liberalism. This “top secret" Muslim Brotherhood is an interesting outfit.

One of the members of this ultra-secret group is none other than the famous Google executive that was part of the uprising in 2011 that led to the resignation of then president Hosni Mubarak.

Amr Hamzawy, the founder of the ‘Free Egypt’ party, and prominent member of the National Salvation Front, is another one of these conniving individuals. His cover was blown when he insisted that the complete exclusion of the Brotherhood from Egyptian politics was unjustifiable. His audacity in promoting this idea, which ostensibly is in line with a rational, liberal, and legal approach, only proves his deftness in abusing liberalism to justify the continued existence of the Muslim Brotherhood. That, in itself, shows how truly loyal he is to the top-secret core of the Muslim Brotherhood.

It pains me to say this but Bassem Youssef, the noted political satirist who is highly popular in Egypt, is also a member of the secret-secret Muslim Brotherhood. No one could be left in any doubt, after he called for an independent investigation into the killings of unarmed pro-Mursi protesters at the Republican Guard sit-in.

Alas, my friends, we have one more person that has now been outed. Ladies and gentlemen: Vice President Mohammed el-Baradei is not only a member of this cell. He is, in reality, the true General Guide of the “secret-secret" Muslim Brotherhood.

Be forewarned, friends. Do not be fooled. All of these voices are not supporters of a genuinely pluralistic and progressive Egypt – they are its worst enemies.

With one exception, the author – as a Brit, is in fact an undercover imperialist spy.

Guambat wants very much to roar with laughter, so clever is this piece. But he's shivering too much to do so. Western humor is too slapstick, too Vaudevillian rather than Machiavellian, to appreciate -- or understand -- the seven veils of Middle Eastern humor. Guambat worries it is maybe meant to be unsettling as a substitute for humor.

Cockroaches out of the shadows

You know they're there, but when they come out into the light, you know you have so many that they can't any longer stay in the shadows. You have an undeniable problem that will not go away on its own. Cockroaches.

You start by cleaning up your own mess that they feed on.

Greek New Dawn's Ilias Kasidiaris sues women over TV row

The spokesman for Greece's far-right Golden Dawn, who slapped a left-wing politician and threw water over another on a TV debate, is suing his victims.

Ilias Kasidiaris went to an Athens court to announce he would sue the women for defamation.

Mr Kasidiaris is also suing the TV station, Antenna, for illegal detention after staff tried to stop him leaving following the incident last Thursday.

Golden Dawn will be contesting a critical Greek election this Sunday.

Mr Kasidiaris avoided an arrest warrant for the attack, lying low until it expired.

Under Greek law, the arrest warrant for a minor crime must be carried out by midnight the day after the incident took place for an immediate trial - otherwise it goes to judicial procedure and a much later trial date is set.

"I did what millions of Greeks would have done - when you get hit in the face you have to defend yourself," he said.

His Golden Dawn party garnered 7% of the vote in Greece's inconclusive May election, campaigning on an anti-immigrant platform.

Among other policies, it has proposed planting mines along Greek borders to prevent the entry of migrants.

The party has been accused of violent attacks against immigrants in Athens, but denies the claims.

Greek neo-Nazi MP presses charges against his victims

He further laid charges against a journalist present at the time, who called up a prosecutor asking for action to be taken against him.

The prosecutor had ordered Kasidiaris' arrest on the grounds of attempted grievous bodily harm. But a 48-hour deadline for his arrest on sight expired on Saturday, meaning he is entitled to walk free until his trial.

The latest polls indicate Golden Dawn will remain in parliament after the June 17 elections, despite a slight drop.

Greeks seek better terms after Spanish rescue

With days to go before the June 17 election which could decide Greece's future in the euro zone, the Spanish accord has been dragged into a campaign being fought largely over the harsh conditions imposed under Greece's own 130 billion euro bailout.

The radical leftwing SYRIZA party, which has campaigned on a pledge to scrap the Greek bailout altogether and demand better terms, said the Spanish deal proved that the austerity imposed by international lenders had failed.

"Developments in Spain fully vindicate us in our reading of the crisis: this is a deep structural crisis of the eurozone itself," SYRIZA spokesman Panos Skourletis said on Monday. "The discussions in Europe open new perspectives for Greece and the euro zone."

SYRIZA is running neck and neck with the conservative New Democracy party which helped pass the bailout in parliament and says it can improve the terms without ditching it. Conservative leader Antonis Samaras said the Spanish deal was proof that Greece had more to gain by negotiating with its European partners than by falling out with them.

"Just think about it, at a time when a country like Spain negotiates, some argue that we have to clash with Europe," he said.

The overwhelming majority of Greeks want to keep the euro currency but want to be freed from the harsh austerity measures imposed as part of the bailout that rescued Athens from bankruptcy in March.

With Greece now in its fifth year of deep recession, unemployment running at almost 22 percent and a growing threat of social breakdown, there is pressure from all parties to ease the tough conditions of the March bailout.

"I'm not afraid we will be forced to leave the euro zone. I'm tired of being afraid. I only hope that we will have jobs, a way to make ends meet after June 17", said Eleni Karakoussi, 31, a saleswoman, who said she intended to vote for SYRIZA.

Cinco de Mayem

It's a gringo thing, that Cinco de Mayo stuff. Mainly celebrated by Norte Americanos who need an excuse to drink and eat beans. As if.

History.com explains its, well, history, and we can only hope this is not a deja vue all over again.

In 1861 the liberal Mexican Benito Juárez (1806-1872) became president of a country in financial ruin, and he was forced to default on his debts to European governments. In response, France, Britain and Spain sent naval forces to Veracruz to demand reimbursement. Britain and Spain negotiated with Mexico and withdrew, but France, ruled by Napoleon III (1808-1873), decided to use the opportunity to carve a dependent empire out of Mexican territory. Late in 1861, a well-armed French fleet stormed Veracruz, landing a large French force and driving President Juárez and his government into retreat.

Certain that success would come swiftly, 6,000 French troops under General Charles Latrille de Lorencez (1814-1892) set out to attack Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in east-central Mexico. From his new headquarters in the north, Juárez rounded up a rag-tag force of 2,000 loyal men—many of them either indigenous Mexicans or of mixed ancestry—and sent them to Puebla. Led by Texas-born General Ignacio Zaragoza (1829-1862), the vastly outnumbered and poorly supplied Mexicans fortified the town and prepared for the French assault. On May 5, 1862, Lorencez drew his army, well provisioned and supported by heavy artillery, before the city of Puebla and led an assault from the north. The battle lasted from daybreak to early evening, and when the French finally retreated they had lost nearly 500 soldiers. Fewer than 100 Mexicans had been killed in the clash.

Although not a major strategic win in the overall war against the French, Zaragoza's success at Puebla represented a great symbolic victory for the Mexican government and bolstered the resistance movement. Six years later—thanks in part to military support and political pressure from the United States, which was finally in a position to aid its besieged neighbor after the end of the Civil War—France withdrew. The same year, Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, who had been installed as emperor of Mexico by Napoleon in 1864, was captured and executed by Juárez's forces.

Read more at the link above.

Mexonline.com adds local flavour.

It is primarily a regional holiday celebrated in the Mexican state capital city of Puebla and throughout the state of Puebla, with some limited recognition in other parts of Mexico, and especially in U.S. cities with a significant Mexican population. It is not, as many people think, Mexico's Independence Day, which is actually September 16.

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo has become increasingly popular along the U.S.-Mexico border and in parts of the U.S. that have a high population of people with a Mexican heritage. In these areas the holiday is a celebration of Mexican culture, of food, music, beverage and customs unique to Mexico.

Commercial interests in the United States and Mexico have also had a hand in promoting the holiday, with products and services focused on Mexican food, beverages and festivities, with music playing a more visible role as well. Several cities throughout the U.S. hold parades and concerts during the week following up to May 5th, so that Cinco de Mayo has become a bigger holiday north of the border than it is to the south, and being adopted into the holiday calendar of more and more people every year.

What's to celebrate?


23 dead, 9 found hanging from bridge, in Nuevo Laredo

The bodies of nine people were found hanging from a bridge just south of Laredo, Texas in the Mexican town of Nuevo Laredo early Friday morning. Five men and four women were among those dead.

Bodies of 23 found dumped near U.S. border in Mexico drug war

found hanging from a bridge or dismembered in ice boxes and garbage bags

Police could not confirm who was responsible for the murders but a message seen with the bodies indicated it may have been an attack by the Zetas cartel against the rival Gulf cartel. The Zeta cartel was founded by deserters from the Mexican special forces who became Gulf cartel enforcers and later split from their employers.

The two gangs are now fighting for control of local drug trafficking routes.

In Nuevo Laredo, 23 corpses found on grisly day in Mexican drug-cartel war

A Web site devoted to news about narco-violence published photographs of the nine victims — five men and four women — swinging from the bridge, the corpses bloody and bearing marks of torture. Some had their pants pulled down to their ankles.

There was a banner hung beside the bodies on the bridge, and its profanity-laden message boasted that “in this way I am finishing you all off.” It also said that one victim “cried like a woman giving birth.”

Feel like celebrating now? With terrorists right on our doorstep?

Yarrrr, them's be terrorists, I'm sure, me hearty

"THE coast where a cruise liner was attacked by pirates should be declared a war zone, a British maritime union said yesterday. The demand came after passengers on a ship off the coast of Somalia awoke to the sounds of gunfire as heavily armed pirates tried to get on board.

"Numast, the merchant navy officer's union, described the situation as "anarchy on the sea waves", while Kenyan maritime authorities warned pirates were getting more ambitious in their plans to loot and hijack boats. Andrew Linnington, of Numast, said: "There have been so many attacks off Somalia we are urging the war-zone declaration, and we are also urging the UK government to do something.

"We believe there should be a naval task force, particularly off Somalia, to try to stop the attacks. In ten years, hundreds of seamen have been killed and thousands injured in pirate attacks across the world." There have been 23 attacks in the area since March, including two on UN relief ships, compared with only two in 2004. According to Andrew Mwangura, the head of the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers' Assistance Program, the pirates may be the same group that hijacked a UN-chartered vessel in June and held its crew and food aid hostage for 100 days."
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=2205022005

While on a different planet, far, far away......

"A cruise ship with 22 Australians and an unexploded missile on board was more likely to have been attacked by terrorists than pirates, says [Australian] Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. "It's quite possible they would just have been pirates,'' Mr Downer told ABC Radio. "But they were pretty well armed, they had not just small-arms but rocket-propelled grenades. We assume they had come from Somalia and they could be terrorists,'' Mr Downer said."

"The whole thing is an extraordinary story, that it would be attacked by, we're not quite sure who at this stage, but it's possible the people who attacked the ship were terrorists," he said.

Hear lies democracy

Democracies come in many varieties, which is good because we can see how some perform better or worse than others in different circumstances. Some are more structurally robust and some more fragile. I've discussed before my view that the Australian democratic structures are quite fragile. (Unrepresentative swill Part One and Unrepresentative swill Part Two).

But no matter how they are structured, the rule of law underpins all democracies, plays an essential part in their continued viability. The rule of law can be seen as the bricks from which democracies are built. They form the bulwark. But in the governance of democracies, the rule of law is not sufficient in and of itself. The thing that holds the bricks together is trust. It is the old notion of having the confidence of the people. Trust is the mortar that holds the bricks together.

That is why, in some governments, a vote of non-confidence in the government requires a new election. That is why, in the ideal Westminster system, Ministers are held to a high level of responsibility, higher than we would expect of civil servants, departmental staff and other parliamentarians.

No matter how popular a government was at the last election, it can lose the confidence of the people and the government becomes ungovernable. Distrust of our leaders is as poisonous to democracy as hemlock was to Socrates.

And the easiest way to lose the confidence is to lie to the people. Especially if you get caught. The letters to the editor in the Herald today were full of citizens saying they no longer trust the leadership, they no longer have confidence in the government. The editorial reads, "The Government's counter-terrorism legislation asks Australians to take a lot on trust.... The community is entitled to be sceptical."

Peter Hartcher, in his Herald column today, in reference to the new terror laws, said:

"It is a reasonable proposition that an extraordinary danger should require an extraordinary response. The Government has produced the extraordinary response; it has not told us in any serious way of the extraordinary danger. It's not that the Government has said nothing at all. It's just that its explanations have been thoroughly inadequate....

"We are left with these facts. First, there has been no serious new threat assessment issued. Second, there has been no new discovery of the possibility of home-grown terrorism because Roche was jailed the year before the London bombings. Third, ASIO has not argued in public for any more powers. Fourth, the national threat alert level has remained unchanged. And fifth, to deal with the threat Howard announced on Wednesday, he has asked for the urgent passage of a single, technical amendment.

"So to justify the rest of the bill we are left with nothing more than the Prime Minister's statement that the London bombings "had quite an effect on me". This is the equivalent of saying: "Trust me." Unfortunately, we cannot trust the Government on intelligence matters - see the file marked Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. We cannot trust Ruddock's record on the protection of citizens' rights - it was his Immigration Department that deported Australians. And we cannot trust ASIO to ensure that it will not act against the innocent - witness the Bilal Daye case, in which agents raided the wrong house."

In a similar vein, Richard Ackland, in his Herald column , said:

"After the kiddies went overboard and the weapons of mass distraction were brandished in our face can we ever be forgiven for being a mite disdainful of claims of the further imminent horror?...

"In the United States, similar strategies have been paraded. In June, President George Bush and his Attorney-General, Alberto Gonzales, stood together to claim "federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects". They added that more than half have been convicted, that is, more than 200. The Washington Post followed up the claim and discovered that of those 200-plus convictions, only 39 related to terrorism or national security. Many others fell in the category of immigration violations.

"Frank Rich in The New York Times pointed out five days ago that the hyping (marketing) of threats after September 11, 2001, "reflects the same DNA as the hyping of Saddam's uranium - in both cases national security scares are trumpeted to advance the White House's political goals". Rich pointed to an MSNBC media investigation of 13 "coincidences" where political news adverse to the Administration had been followed by the announcement of a/the "terror event".

"We're in familiar territory. The widely unpopular industrial relations laws and a specific terrorist threat have been itching for a while to leap into bed together.

"By now the pattern of behaviour is clear. It has grown from the initial deceit used to market the invasion of Iraq. Linked to the selling of the war is the discrediting of any of its critics who might be taken seriously.

"Remember David Kelly, the British defence scientist who leaked his concerns about the intelligence report used to justify the invasion? Kelly talked to several reporters about how the intelligence report had been transformed into a more alarmist document at the insistence of Tony Blair's marketing man, Alastair Campbell.

"Subsequently Blair's office decided in a quite calculated way to deflect the story by fingering a defence "official" who had spoken to the national broadcaster. Following his exposure Kelly committed suicide."

It is perhaps interesting to note that, in contrast to Australia, Ministerial Responsibility is seemingly taken seriously. The Education Minister, David Blunkett, first stepped down from his Cabinet position, then from his Ministerial role for indescretions that the Howard ministers would dismiss with a wave of the hand. (See:
http://smh.com.au/news/world/essence-of-life-is-key-to-a-political-death/2005/11/03/1130823343442.html)

It's agreed, then

It seems that the SMH's political cartoonist, Alan Moir, also thinks John Howard is a terrorist.
D'ya reckon he was reading my blog? http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/10/as-i-see-it-john-howard-is-terrorist.html Naw, me neither.

SSedition

This story is a bit stale, admittedly, but given the rush to the gates with the Howard terror laws, it is worth telling for those who may have missed it. It's a text book civics lesson in how the SS works, and how nothing and no one is innocent when every one is alert and alarmed. And how privacy concerns go out the window when you take your pictures to be processed. And how, when you hire lots of folks and agitate all the good citizens to be looking over every other citizen's shoulder, you get simbian-challenged bizzybodies straight through the community to the sheriff to the President's own Secret Service with the good judgment of the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution judging your every move.

"Selina Jarvis is the chair of the social studies department at Currituck County High School in North Carolina.... Jarvis had assigned her senior civics and economics class "to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights," she says. One student "had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb's-down sign with his own hand next to the President's picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster."

"According to Jarvis, the student, who remains anonymous, was just doing his assignment, illustrating the right to dissent. But over at the Kitty Hawk Wal-Mart, where the student took his film to be developed, this right is evidently suspect.

"An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called the Kitty Hawk police on the student. And the Kitty Hawk police turned the matter over to the Secret Service. On Tuesday, September 20, the Secret Service came to Currituck High.

"They asked me, didn't I think that it was suspicious," [Jarvis] recalls. "I said no, it was a Bill of Rights project!"At the end of the meeting, they told her the incident "would be interpreted by the U.S. attorney, who would decide whether the student could be indicted," she says."

Read about it here and notice the student (or someone purporting to be him?) has added further comments to the post under the titles "The Secret Serive=My New Best Friends", parts 1 and 2, posted Oct 7th, just after 9pm.

And so say all of us ??

"According to the latest Herald Poll, about three-quarters of voters think it is OK to lock up suspected terrorists without charge, put them under house arrest or shackle them with tracking devices. Of six specific policies tested with voters, only the "shoot to kill" plan got the thumbs down, with women showing the strongest opposition. Other elements of the terrorism crackdown have strong support: two-thirds of voters back life imprisonment for funding a terrorist organisation, a fortnight's detention without charge for suspected terrorists and seven years' jail for supporting insurgencies where Australian troops are deployed. Three-quarters support putting suspects under house arrest or fitting them with tracking devices and 57 per cent believe in restrictions on who suspects can meet and where they can work." http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/voters-say-yes-to-terror-australis/2005/10/24/1130006061361.html

That's frightening. It's the kind of support Mussolini got. I don't expect Howard will be handing out brown shirts at the next election, but he is enacting some of the same kinds of laws that got Mussolini elected and kept him in office long past his use-by date.

I do wonder, though, how the poll was framed. For instance, if the question was something like "do you support the police secretly detaining and locking up a terrorist without charge?", there will be a lot of undiscerning and busy folk saying "sure". But if the question was "do you support the police secretly detaining and locking up an innocent person who has not commited any crime without charge?", I would hope if not expect that the results would be entirely different, even though the laws could be used in either case. You can influence the answer by how you frame the question, as has been discussed here before: http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/but-what-is-question.html. And you can be reporting and leading public opinion and debate with wholly deceptive statistics in the process.

Just shoot off their mouths

"The Prime Minister, John Howard, is considering a compromise in the counter-terrorism legislation to allow shoot-to-kill police powers only when a suspect resists arrest. Mr Howard has argued that the powers are not new, because police have always been able to shoot to defend themselves. He needs the agreement of the states for the legislation because the constitution forbids many of the provisions." (http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/howard-seeks-compromise-on-shoottokill/2005/10/23/1130006005902.html)

So, let's get this straight. Howard want to pass shoot-to-kill laws. But he doesn't really need them because the powers are not new. Why don't re start re-passing tax laws, immigration and other laws, too: we already have them, but it's just so much more fun, and headline grabbing, if we go ahead and pass them again.

Besides which, they're unconstitutional.

Say what??

Intelligence design

David Marr, in his SMH comment today, hits the nail on the head. (http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/the-agenda-lurking-in-the-shadows/2005/10/23/1130006000096.html) Excerpts follow, with added emphasis, comment, etc.:

"I can't say I know every corner of every James Bond movie, but I'm sure I've never seen him in court swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth [let alone get a warrant or show a badge]. With its budget already tripled since September 11, 2001, ASIO is now to have its staff doubled again. It will have all the resources it needs, said John Howard. "It remains the very strong view of the Government - it's a view I believe that is very strongly supported in the community - that the best weapon in the fight against terrorism is good intelligence."

"He's absolutely right. And the 900 fresh staff ASIO recruits over the next five years will be trained to gather that intelligence. Note: intelligence not evidence. The two aren't the same. They have different disciplines, different weight and different purposes.

"Intelligence lives in the shadows. It's used to warn. Evidence must survive court scrutiny in the ordinary light of day - because it is used to punish. Howard's Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005 is designed to blur the distinction between the two and sidestep the old and embarrassing problem that even highly touted intelligence so often turns out to be useless when it's brought into court. [And so often wrong when it's brought to scrutiny; think weapons of mass destruction, babies thrown overboard.]

"The faults of Howard's bill have been fiercely condemned, yet there's been little focus on its underlying purpose. It has nothing to do with gathering good intelligence. It's essentially about punishment - not on evidence tested before a court, but on intelligence in the hands of police and ASIO officers.

"Howard is selling his bill as if it were designed just to keep an eye on troublemakers. But a fortnight's "preventive" detention in the slammer is punishment in anyone's language. And the control orders Howard has in mind have a precedent in NSW where home detention and electronic shackles exist as an alternative punishment to prison - but only after trial and conviction.

"Howard's anti-terrorism laws provide no such old-fashioned formalities. Home detention - perhaps indefinitely - will be imposed without any trial at all. And because they will never necessarily know why their lives have been turned upside down, the detainees will never be able to contest their punishment effectively. Everything [from the first decsion to surveil to the decision to detain] will be decided behind their backs [and the backs of the courts and press and the parliament].

"The subterranean argument here is that in this changed, post-September 11, 2001 world, the courts should step aside [more like be shoved aside] and let the intelligence services get on with their work [which would have the expanded role from being collectors of information to being arbitors of it and judge, jury and hangman]. But the question has to be asked: how much protection do we really get from intelligence that doesn't come up to scratch in court?

"Take Faheem Lodhi's case. He faces a number of serious terrorist [that word "terrorist" again; why not charges of conspiracy to commit murder, arson, etc.?] charges after being caught downloading maps of the electricity grid, collecting aerial photographs of military installations in Sydney, inquiring after chemicals and hoarding a huge quantity of toilet paper which the prosecution claims is capable of producing nitrocellulose. To prove terrorism was afoot, the prosecution produced four overseas witnesses linking Lodhi to the training camps of Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan. One of the witnesses giving evidence by video link from the United States revealed under cross-examination that he had only confessed [?] his own involvement with Lashkar-e-Toiba after being held without charge for four weeks in solitary confinement in Saudi Arabia, where he was regularly interrogated before being handed over to the FBI, who stripped him, photographed his genitals, put him in irons and dark goggles and flew him to Washington. He confessed [sic] on the flight.

"Lodhi still faces a power of trouble when his trial opens in the NSW Supreme Court in February. But the witnesses provided by foreign intelligence services have not lived up to expectations. One of them, being held without charge in Singapore under the island's draconian national security legislation, has been dropped entirely by the prosecution after Boulten savaged his credibility. Is the problem here, the finicky and old-fashioned requirements of our courts or the low standards of intelligence services, especially foreign intelligence services, in our region?

"Our courts won't use evidence extracted by torture [in more technical parlance, the fruit of torture is not evidentiary at all -- it is simply not reliable, otherwise it would be "evidence"]. Hearsay is the lifeblood of intelligence services all over the world, but that sort of second- or third-hand testimony is almost useless in court.

"None of these rules prevent intelligence - foreign and local - being used to protect Australia from terrorism. But they do protect Australians from unjust punishment. The parallel punishment regime in Howard's Anti-Terrorism Bill is designed to lower the bar. No one who has read a little history can happily face the prospect of the dictator's favourite - house arrest - becoming part of life here."

"We may think all lawyers are venal old windbags but it says something that the only lawyers defending Howard's plans are those employed by the Government. And where are Labor's lawyers? Pathetically silent, left quibbling over 007's licence to kill."

And it is the idea that we can dispense with judgment and move straight and secretively to punishment that turns our democractic ideal of presumption of innocence, our ancient right of habeas corpus, on its head. At the very least, any such fundamental reversal of long held beliefs should be tested by transparent, open and fair debate, and a specific vote of the entire electorate.





As an aside, I note Moir's opinion cartoon today puts John Howard atop a guard tower, on alert for signs of terrorists, not unlike my analogy in my last post. (http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/10/as-i-see-it-john-howard-is-terrorist.html). I have used for the watchtower imagery above a picture of the tower at Port Arthur, in Tasmania. Port Arthur was where a deranged man slaughtered over 30 people just a few years back. More than all the Australian's killed in the last Bali bombing. In the aftermath of that shooting, a hue and cry arose, but John Howared enacted no serious gun control or other new laws to deal with such an outrage. Instead, they got the gunman and locked him up. And we moved on.

Having done that last post, bye the way, I mentioned to my wonderfully apolitical wife what I had said. She lives sublimely in her world of art, beauty, home, pets, family and magic. She was honestly shocked and concerned I would say such a thing. She asked me, in all innocence, "can you say such a thing. Do they let you have such thoughts?" In her world it has already sunk in that the government does not want us to go there and it is dangerous for us to even contemplate doing so. Now that's very scary. Holey moley!

As I see it, John Howard is a terrorist

Folks, things are getting terribly out of hand. The terrorists are winning and we have to fight back.

Let's start with taking control of our language; it's being stolen from us. Let's refer to terrorists as those people who want to wreck our accepted freedoms and way of life and spread fear. Some terrorists do that with bombs, some with laws.

We have to make sure we understand that the means of spreading terror is not the defining feature of a terrorist. Those men who flew planes into the twin towers and bombed the nightclubs in Bali and those women who carry bombs into cafes are murderers. First and foremost they are murderers. They intend to kill with malice aforethought.

We have laws against murder. In many part of the US and the rest of the world, the punishment for murder is death itself. We value life and we fear death and those who would take it from us are criminals, guilty of one of the oldest "crimes" (a legal concept after all) mankind has described. It has developed that it is a crime nearly as bad as murder itself to even attempt to murder. Beyond that, it is a crime of conspiracy for people to act in concert to even discuss and plan a murder even if no act is done in furtherance of the plan.

Why, then, don't we speak of this rabble who do the bombing as such as murderers or conspirators? Surely that is as reprehensible a judgment as mankind needs, has ever needed, to brand their anti-social behaviour.

Because politicians know that we are pretty much inured to the idea of murder. We don't accept it as a practice but are consigned to accept it as part of what we are. It doesn't really provide any kind of rally point, even though Fox news can take any old murder and turn it into a "theme" or "topic" of "news" and run with it for a year or two. It may sell papers or news time, but it doesn't really rally the voters.

Fear on the other hand is something that we are all hard-wired for, just like deer and prairie dogs and doves. As a social beast, we have leaders and poppas constantly heads up while others are heads down, to be on the look out, and to squawk at the first sight of danger. Any squawk rallies us together like a troop of baboons to fend of the real or imagined threat. When the threat passes, we harumph and beat our feet and scratch and settle back down to the business of heads down. It is a satisfying, socializing behaviour that helps define who and what we are. We are as hard-wired for it as chimpanzees.

So playing the fear thing is a means of leaders reminding us of who the leaders are. Really, they are just guards along the watchtowers, but they have come to believe that, since we all jump and dance and howl about whenever they bark, that they can control us. This has given them an overblown sense of self-importance.

This control business is really important to them, and has served us well in times long gone. It is the essence of the pecking order concept. It has been essential in our social evolution. In the deep past, when self selection was the go, it assured we had the strongest and smartest leaders so the troop survived.

The thing that we should remember, though, is that it is the troop that does it all together. Any watchtower guard who goes off in the face of danger alone without the support of the troop meets with disaster. The troop as a whole has no real interest in such adventure. In fact, if any watchtower guard (a description I prefer to "leader" since it really better describes the function) keeps the troop on too constant a state of alarm, the "heads down" business does not get done and the survival of the troop is put at risk by its very own organisation. Survival of the troop requires that both the heads up and the heads down business get done.

We no longer live in troops and we no longer organise ourselves around self-selecting leadership models. But the hard-wired fear response is still engrained in us and still forms part of our social reflexes. Just like horses, which have been domesticated from before the times when mankind first learned to paint and record their histories, we will react to fear spontaneously. Horses react by flight, we react by fight. Our adrenalin shoots up, we bare our teeth, our hair stands on end, we circle the wagons, we whoop, stomp our feet, agitate and fight back.

For the watchtower guards, this reaction is quite satisfying. It validates their position. It defines them individually from the rest. It keeps potential competitors for their job off balance. But for the rest, all the hoopla is tiring and distracting from the heads down business which is what their lives are all about. Still, time and again they will tend to respond to the squawk of the guard: they are hard-wired to do so, notwithstanding an intelligence system that learns from iteration that not all squawks are legitimate.

Which is where I'll stop this little story telling and get back to my point. As I see it, John Howard is a terrorist. The bombers are terrorists, too, but they are murderers first and foremost. They spread fear, and intend to do so, by killing innocent victims.

So maybe there is some enhanced and distinguishable "crime" they are commiting beyond "mere" murder that independently defines them. That can be the only intent of characterising them as "terrorists" rather than the murderers that they are. It must be the intent to spread fear and disrupt our accepted freedoms that is be meant by the term terrorist. If a rose is a rose is a rose, then a murderer is a murderer is a murderer, and a terrorist must be someone who is something distinguishable from a someone who simply kills with malice.

John Howard is a watchtower guard, and certainly no murderer, but by putting us in a constant state of fear (he did, after all, send us refrigerator signs reminding us to stay alert) and by disrupting our established sense of freedoms, he is, as near as I can tell, IMHO, a terrorist. And so it George Bush. They are not content to leave us to go about our heads down business, but seem compelled to raise the alarm needlessly and disrupt our heads down order. They are neglecting the murderers (http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/10/it-was-never-ists-it-was-always-ism.html) and are consumed by the alarm and the sense of power that gives them.

Which makes each of them very bad watchtower guards. John Howard has been too long at the watchtower. His absolute power is tending to absolutely corrupt him and he must be replaced.

The last straw is actually not the new terror laws he's trying to bring in. The new terror laws are what is spreading terrror and destroying our established sense of freedoms. Those are what paint him as a terrorist.

The last straw is his utter disregard for the whole notion and process of democracy. It is the hamfisted, tyrannical, spoiled bratish way he is foisting the new terror laws on us, like an enima. He has the power to bring them about in a democratic fashion, through a transparent and thoughtful debate. He has the power because he has total control of his party (http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/unrepresentative-swill-part-one.html) and total control of the senate (http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/unrepresentative-swill-part-2.html).

But that doesn't content him. He must prove to himself that there are no challengers to the watchtower. He must RAM the laws through. He has adopted a process and a mindset that will brook no dissenting (though eventually powerless) viewpoint. It is bravado and machismo of the worst political order and odour.

He is adopting a process that is non-transparent (http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/10/mushies.html). When the ACT Premier released the proposed draft of the laws, Howard had some slight changes made and passed the revised drafts out to all the Premiers EXCEPT the ACT Premier (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1487986.htm).

He is adopting laws that are completely alien to democracy (http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/10/seven-bullets-to-head-should-be-enough.html) and family (http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/mums-the-word-in-terrorist-purge/2005/10/21/1129775959888.html). It's almost treasonous, at least in spirit if not in law.

John Howard is our duly elected watchtower guard. But he is spreading fear and interrupting our cherished freedoms and way of life, and in that respect he is not qualitatively different from those murderers who are trying to accomplish the same thing.

If he is not acting like a terrorist, then I need someone to give me a better explanation of what a terrorist is, different from what I've described above. Elsewise I will have to stick to my description and opinion: John Howard is a terrorist.

Mushies

Even the Establishment Editors of the SMH are now accusing the Howard government of treating us like mushrooms: keeping us in the dark and feeding us manure. Its editorial today (http://www.smh.com.au/editorial/index.html) is entitled, "Doing it in the dark", excerpts following:

"Australians ought to know better than to exaggerate ASIO's powers under the Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005, the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, believes. Why ought they? Instead of scolding the electorate for its legitimate concerns, Mr Ruddock would do better to explain why the bill's draconian and oppressive powers are suddenly so necessary. He will have to do better than the combination of scaremongering and vague reassurance that he and the Prime Minister have offered hitherto.

"The laws that we are seeking to enact do not deal with curtailing vigorous free speech in Australia," Mr Ruddock says. Oh yes they do. The bill published by Mr Stanhope provides that outsiders may not even speak about whether, or why or how detainees suspected of terrorist offences are being held, or what they think of it. The penalty: five years' jail. That is a savage curb on free speech. If it is necessary, the Government has not told us why.

"[T]he state Labor governments have been terrified of looking soft on terrorism. They may regret the loss of liberties, but they fear being blamed for a terrorist incident far more.

"None of that is to deny that terrorism endangers us. Like much of the Western world, Australia has been, and will remain, under threat for some time to come. The Government is well justified in beefing up ASIO with more resources and a doubling of its personnel in five years to counter the threat. It has also wisely decided to make an effort to recruit more Australians of non-Anglo-Celtic background, specifically Muslims. There is no question that the extra resources and skills are needed in the current political and security climate to warn of terrorist threats.

"The question is whether basic democratic rights must be thrown away at the first hint of danger. If basic rights must be abrogated, the Government has to explain why, provide for a more stringent review of the legislation, and ensure its life is limited. Most importantly, Parliament must be allowed to devote as much time as it needs to consider and refine these radical changes to our democratic rights."

They're reading my blog:
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/10/tongue-in-check.html
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/10/fathers-know-best.html
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/10/motherless-child.html
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/10/when-voicing-opposition-is-crime.html
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/how-do-you-boil-frog.html
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/in-praise-of-ceasar.html
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/feeling-threatened.html
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/but-what-is-question.html
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/unrepresentative-swill-part-2.html
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/unrepresentative-swill-part-one.html
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/beazley-supports-individual-liberties.html
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/search-me.html
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/theyve-lost-their-marbles.html
http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/sticks-stones-may-break-my-bones-but.html
You get the picture.

Tongue in check

Back in the olden days when Saddam ran Iraq, a lot of Iraqis ran away to Australia, and now call Australia home. It is not inconceivable that some of them may still consider Iraq a home, too. And whilst they may not have had fond feelings for Saddam, it may be that they do not have fond feelings for the occupation forces now controlling the country, either.

And in no way need they be considered Al-qaeda sympathisers or terrorists merely because they support a free, un-occupied Iraq.

But if they were to say anything that supported an indigenous "insurgent" effort to expel foreign occupiers, they can easily find themselves up against the "terror" laws of John Howard.

It could play out like this: One guy says to his workmate, "you know, I have to admit that I hope those guys kick those American's out of Iraq because, you know, mate, it ain't right that they invaded Iraq the way they did. I don't like bin Laden, didn't like Saddam, but I don't like George Bush, either. I think I'm going to send my cousin in Iraq a couple of hundred dollars; he says he's thinking about helping those guys get the Americans out."

His "mate" is alert and alarmed and notifies authorities. The authorities consider this a case of, in John Howard's words, "very dangerous and difficult and threatening circumstances". They want to find out more, so they take the guy into custody and detain him, without charge, without warrant.

The following quoted items, and Howard's words above, are from http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/terrorist-laws-to-lock-up-objectors/2005/10/14/1128796712300.html:

"Last month the states agreed to allow extensions of up to 14 days for detentions when a terrorist act is believed imminent." [A terrorist act includes financing insurgent forces, so his statement he might send funds to a cousin who might support the insurgents is at least arguably an imminent terrorist act.] "The suspect must then be released if no terrorist act occurs." [When; how would you know? What's to stop the authorities from picking him right back up since he was prevented from performing the act while in custody and now that he's free the imminent act could occur?]

"Detentions are secret but suspects are allowed to contact a family member or employers to say they are safe but, "not able to be contacted for the time being". [So, let's say this guy disappears and no one from work or anywhere else knows where he is. His wife and family is distraught. He is allowed his call and tells his wife, "I'm in detention and you will not be able to contact me for the time being."]

Bingo; he's done the crime. "If they disclose the detention they can be jailed for up to five years [for the simple act of disclosing they're in detention, regardless of whether the things they're being detained for are "legitimate"]."

"Under the bill, the Government can apply to a court for control orders on terrorist suspects who have not been charged. These orders include house arrest, preventing them using the telephone or internet and restricting their social contacts and work opportunities. Suspects can also be fitted with tracking devices. The suspect's lawyer can be shown the control order but not necessarily the evidence or reasons behind it. The orders can last up to 12 months and can then be renewed any number of times."

The SMH separately reported: "The Law Society of NSW said the federal government's rush to pass the draft laws through parliament is a misuse of power. "It's of grave concern that such important legislation which intrudes on individual rights is not given adequate time for public consultation and parliamentary debate," Law Society of NSW president John McIntyre said.
"The government's lip-service to basic parliamentary procedure means that potential flaws in the proposed counter-terrorism legislation are likely to go undetected and could be an unnecessary erosion of the fundamental principles of the rule of law." http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Antiterror-proposals-revealed/2005/10/14/1128796701861.html

Actually, it is a bit generous to even say the government paid any "lip-serve to basic parliamentary procedure." As Alan Ramsay explained, "What the Government is doing is killing any meaningful scrutiny of its proposed anti-terrorism measures, in alliance with state police forces .... The Government has not released the legislation. Parliament has adjourned for a fortnight. It resumes sitting on Monday, October 31. The new anti-terrorism bill will go before the House that week. What Hill was signalling on Thursday was a Senate inquiry - including a written report - restricted to, at most, eight days or, effectively, three days only. Hill made a three-minute speech in support of his announcement, offered his "regret" that there had been "very little consultation", then quickly left the chamber ...." http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/snide-sidestep-on-the-fast-way-home/2005/10/14/1128796703813.html

This is a government which is becoming corrupted by its absolute power. As my wife was saying last night, "I like John Howard. I've liked him. He seemed like such a nice guy. But this is very scary."

Fathers know best

Gerard Henderson today took former Labor heavyweight and international diplomat Garth Evans to task over Evans' recent remarks to the effect that "He warned about the tendency to see a potential terrorist on every street corner in some of our suburbs, maintained that we have to be careful about getting overexcited, and concluded that we should not abandon every basic precept of democratic limited government because of excessive fears." (http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/underplaying-the-threat-of-terrorism-could-be-a-fatal-mistake/2005/10/03/1128191653991.html)

Henderson particularly lashed him for saying, " that Jemaah Islamiah's regional division that covered Australia had been smashed, and that Jemaah Islamiah as such no longer constituted the serious threat to Australia and Australian interests that it previously did. That was Tuesday evening. On Saturday three suicide/homicide bombers, thought to be associated with what is best termed a Jemaah Islamiah franchise...."

Henderson's critique is that it was awfully damned loose of Evans to say the JI elements that cover Australia had been smashed because only a few days later the JI elements in Indonesia committed suicide murders. I'd have thought it might have been intellectually rigorous to criticise Evans if he had said the Indonesian elements had been smashed, but he didn't. And to criticise him for something he didn't say seems pretty silly to me, not to mention intellectually disingenuous. (I told you not to mention it.)

But Henderson really got into his nana-nana-nanas when he chastised Evans for having a say when he was no longer a politician. You see, only politicians can know the terror of having to make a decision, particularly one which could affect his career. Here was silly old Evans going on about the harm to society that might befall a jettisoning of ancient democratic principles, and all the while the unquestioned justification for such action was blindingly obvious and beyond reproach: these new laws were not about society at all; rather they were entirely about saving the skins of the pollies.

This is how he put it: "Agree with them or not, John Howard, premiers Morris Iemma, Steve Bracks, Peter Beattie, Geoff Gallop, Mike Rann and Paul Lennon and chief ministers Jon Stanhope and Clare Martin seem considered politicians who are most unlikely to believe that terrorists hide under falafels on suburban street corners. They decided to support a toughening of Australia's counter-terrorism legislation on the basis of advice tendered by the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation and the Office of National Assessments.

"When Evans was a member of the previous federal Labor government, he was required to make decisions and expected to be responsible for the consequences of his actions or inactions.... democratic leaders are responsible for the consequences of their decisions and have to anticipate worst possible outcomes.... if an Australian political leader had made a similar remark, at the same time, his or her career would have been tarnished."

This isn't the first time Hendo has been more concerned about the lives of the pollies than the lives of the citizenry: http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/but-what-is-question.html

A motherless child

Peter Hartcher looked at the panic of the pollies to introduce the new terrorism legislation and has seen it for what it is: a huge political posturing exercise with dubious justification and significant downside to our democratic heritage. Using a parental analogy, he says all the pollies want to be Daddy and none of them is willing to be Mummy. (http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/battle-to-be-the-daddy-of-them-all/2005/09/30/1127804659627.html.) As a loving and caring Daddy, I take a bit of umbrage at this depiction, but it does make for an interesting description of what is happening here.

He says, "A Mummy party is most interested in caring for people. It is empathetic, inclusive and concerned with fairness. In short, it wants to give you a cuddle. A Mummy party is seen to be best at providing services - especially health, education and welfare. A Daddy party, on the other hand, is strict. It is big on self-discipline and self-reliance. It is frugal and interested in obedience. In sum, it will stand you on your feet but keep you on your toes. A Daddy party is trusted to look after the fundamentals of keeping the family secure - with good economic management and competent national security."

Australia, according to this analogy is not red and blue; it is Mummy and Daddy. "Labor is our Mummy party. For as long as pollsters have been asking the question, Australian voters consistently say that Labor is the best party to handle health, education, welfare and social issues. The Coalition is the Daddy. It is the party that Australia believes is best to handle national security and the economy. And in Australia, there is a division of responsibilities between the state and federal levels that follows these lines of responsibility, these political gender roles. The states are responsible for delivering services - health and education, for instance - while the national government has unique responsibilities for national security and management of the economy. This helps explain why Labor has monopolised power at the state level across Australia, while the Coalition has entrenched itself at the federal...."

According to Hartcher and his analogy, the Labor leader Kim Beazely is now out to have a bit of a gender change. He wants to be seen as a compassionate Daddy. And so he will take a more aggressive role in national security matters.

Hartcher continues and shows his true grit:

"Knowing this, the extraordinary events of this week become immediately comprehensible.
The Howard Government proposed a set of sharp curtailments of Australians' rights in the cause of counter-terrorism. One of these curtailments is so extreme it is an affront to the Australian constitution, which, as interpreted by the High Court, forbids the Commonwealth conducting preventive detention for more than 48 hours. The Government sidestepped this by asking the states to do it, jailing people for up to 14 days without charge and based on nothing more than a suspicion.
The suite of measures is drastic; they begin to erode the presumption of innocence, the bedrock of our criminal justice system.
As Howard said on Tuesday: "We have agreed today on unusual laws for Australia. We've done that because we live in unusual circumstances. In other circumstances I would never have sought these additional powers, I would never have asked the premiers of the Australian states to support me in enacting these laws. But we do live in very dangerous and different and threatening circumstances and a strong and comprehensive response is needed. I think all of these powers are needed."
This is a reasonable proposition - extraordinary danger may require an extraordinary response. So, beyond the heightened state of terrorist hostility that has emerged so starkly and publicly since September 11, 2001, what has changed?
Howard again: "I think the chilling reality that home-grown terrorists exist - a lot of Australians, I guess all of us, found that a bit hard to accept [though, of course, there are plenty of other home-grown murderers and non-murderous killers]. We tended, because of the experience of [September 11], to see a possible terrorist threat being executed by people flying into the country covertly and attacking us in a devastating way and then trying to escape.
"As you all know, the London bombings were carried out by people who, in the main, grew up in the north of England, spoke English with a north-country accent and played cricket. And it was all quite atmospherically changing, it really was. And I think that … had quite an effect on me. And the reality is that we are worried there are people in our community who might just do this."
The states and territories hesitantly agreed, reluctant to take any blame for perceived weakness or for future acts of terrorism. Their only conditions were a five-year review and a sunset clause that would repeal the laws after 10 years.
But the striking fact is that the Federal and state governments provided no further justification for this revolution in Australian civil liberties. The briefings from the security agencies were given in secret. No further information or explanation was supplied to the Australian Parliament, media or public.
Our governments have taken extraordinary action to curtail our rights without, in any serious way, explaining the extraordinary danger. We are provided with no threat assessment other than the Prime Minister's expressed fears and hunches. Perhaps a rigorous and persuasive case exists - we cannot know.
In essence, the authorities are saying to the public: "Trust us." We have seen this movie before. It was called Iraq and the Weapons of Mass Destruction. In the absence of information, we can have no confidence that the gravity of the security threat has so deepened that it demands the surrender of fundamental rights. In the absence of information, we cannot be confident that our intelligence agencies are acting apolitically or that our governments are acting reasonably.
And what has the Federal Opposition done in response? Kim Beazley urged the Howard Government to give police the power to lock down entire suburbs."

When voicing opposition is a crime

"While it has long been a crime under sedition laws to finance or participate in military action against Australian troops, the new laws add another dimension. As the laws were first proposed by Mr Howard on September 8, people face between three and seven years in prison if they "communicate inciting messages directed against other groups within our community, including against Australia's forces overseas and in support of Australia's enemies".

"Mr Howard has said the laws will not stop people criticising the war or calling for the withdrawal of Australia's troops, but actually speaking in favour of the insurgency does appear to fall within the definition of the new offence.

"But hostility to the invasion of Iraq is widespread among Muslims, and some believe the insurgency is a legitimate response, arguing the US-led forces have also caused many thousands of civilian deaths. In remarks that set him on a collision course with the Federal Government's new anti-terrorism laws, the president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ameer Ali, said the laws went too far and it was time to "draw a line through them". "If you speak in support of the resistance in Iraq, that must not be seen as promoting terrorism in this country," he told the Herald yesterday.

"A spokeswoman for Mr Ruddock said the incitement provisions would be drafted carefully and involve consultation with those with concerns about civil liberties."

This and more at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/backing-resistance-no-crime-pms-man/2005/09/30/1127804662697.html

When is a resistance an insurgency? Are all Iraqi forces opposing the invasion of Iraq part and parcel of the same element? Is trying to articulate a distinction between those who fight to oust foreign invaders and those who fight in support of Al-queada an insight to violence or an incite to violence? If the government cannot draft, with sufficient legal certainty, a proscription against comment that gives its citizens clear guidelines as to when they are acting criminally and when they are not, is there any purpose to the legislation other than to simply chill the free exercise of expression? Who is he talking to? Is there no limit to his ???

In praise of Ceasar

For as much as I harp on about John Howard and his policies, I can't deny that he will likely be seen by history as one of the great PMs since Federation. I won't resile one inch (in his language) from my criticism, but he has had the good fortune and/or good administration to be steward of the country during one of its most wealthy decades ever. His social policies could have been better but I don't think he actually did too much to make it impossible for later governments to fix. He certainly has "resonated" with the general electorate.

We compare him to Bush a lot; it makes for cheap and easy hits, sometimes deserved, other times just to make a point by exaggeration. But we should also compare him to Bush from the standpoint of what Bush has done so horribly wrong. Bush has ushered in a era of corporate cronyism in the US that is the most breath taking since Hoover. The perceived alignment of general business interests with the government's policies has been a hallmark of Howard. The perceived alignment of particular business interests with the government's practices has been outstanding in Bush's administration. The former is a form of debatable political philosophy; the latter a form of political corruption. I have never heard or read a word of any corporate crony charges being leveled against Howard. Nor have "jobs for boys" charges been more potent under him than we saw with Labor. (The comments section is open for those who want to post non-libelous and otherwise resepectful dissent or correction.)

His success is acknowledged in this:

"Australia has stolen a place ahead of Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom on the World Economic Forum's leader board of the 10 most competitive global economies. Moving up four places to 10th, Australia received praise in the think-tank's annual survey for its "world-class" public institutions, corruption-free governance and high levels of innovation.
The emerging power-houses of China and India ranked 49th and 50th respectively, with the survey highlighting concerns about their governance systems.
Nordic countries nabbed half the top 10 places despite intrusive tax and welfare regimes. "The Nordics are also challenging the conventional wisdom that high taxes and large safety nets undermine competitiveness, suggesting that what is important is how well government revenues are spent rather than the overall tax burden per se," the survey concluded.
The US would rank top in an index based on technological capacity and innovation alone but this was offset by its shaky macro-economic environment, the forum said." http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/australian-economy-rated-among-top-10/2005/09/28/1127804549054.html

OK, hugs over. Let the slanging (and NON-LIBELOUS comments) begin (again).

The problem with his security at whatever the cost plans and other measures is that we can't know in advance where he or the next person is going with it. So much of his policy has been on a "trust me" basis. And I'm sure we'd rather trust him than not, but can we? If he refuses time and again to build in transparency and accountability and review in his social policies, you simply loose faith. Why did he toss aside a sunset clause for the new terror tactics with a waive of the hand, then finally allow it after much wrangling, acknowleding that it probably was a good idea after all? Maybe he means well, maybe we ought to trust him, but why didn't he insist on the sunset clause in the first case? As letter writer Mike Goodwin asks in today's SMH letters column, "If we were on the road to fascism, how would it differ from this?"

Driven by fear

One of my favourite blogs is the Les MacDonald blog, otherwise known as the SMH letters page. Don't know, never met him, but have read his letters almost daily for years. He seems a ripe, old, crusty comrade type. That he is from Balmain, once union blue collar now trendy top dollar, just adds to the image. Sometimes I want to sit at the bar and share a beer with him. Other times I wouldn't want a bar of him and what he says leaves me needing a beer. Today, it'd be my shout:

"To get an idea of the blind panic into which John Howard has encouraged us you only need examine two statistics.
The first is the number of Australians who have been killed or injured in Australia by terrorism. That number is zero, zilch, naught, nil, zip.
The second statistic is the number of people killed or injured every year in Australia by motor vehicles. That number in 2004 was 1598 deaths and 11 times as many injuries.
An issue which has caused no deaths or injuries in Australia has caused our collective governments to deprive us of basic civil liberties without apparent concern, yet an issue causing thousands of deaths or injuries yearly causes no government to even contemplate any infringement on our civil liberties.
This is an outstanding triumph of the propagandist's art."
Les MacDonald, Balmain

Beazley supports individual liberties

The ALP Opposition leader, Kim Beazley has seen his opposite number's plans to crack down on individual liberties in the pursuit of terrorism, and he is not having a bar of it, no-sir-ee.

He's going to bloody well crack down on the liberty of entire suburbs! By golly, that's being an opposition party with a difference!

I'm just overwhelmed by my choices of available leaders.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/labor-terrorism-laws-give-police-free-hand/2005/09/25/1127586747223.html