Richard Neville, Apocalypse Now, weak signals, pornography without sex and a wild amount of blather

(Above: beware the seven headed dragon at the end of time, as shown by Albrecht Durer).

Time being short, we rarely spend much time off in the magazine world, and even more rarely do we glance at the kind of feral loon most at home in Nimbin.

But every so often comes a treat that just demands attention, and so it is with Richard Neville's Apocalypse Porn, which we first read in hard copy, but which The Diplomat has kindly made available for the world to read.

Neville, a curious hippie sort of chap, is a mess of contradictions, neatly set out in his opening para:

When I checked in at Sydney Airport for a flight to Perth, the Qantas operative greeted me with ‘bad news’. Due to a technical hitch, there was – gasp – ‘no audio-visual’. I couldn’t have been happier. Forty winks was in my grasp. ‘Such a long flight,’ she lamented. Passengers were provided with a $30 voucher to buy books.

This might seem a trivial incident, but in futures-speak, it is possibly a ‘weak signal’, an infinitesimal clue of things to come. (Erratic tech, entertainment addiction, the vitality of print…) Such clues are rarely noticed, except in retrospect. The world’s first hand-held, chip-driven calculators flew out the doors in 1970, presaging the future of portability. Yet IBM spent another 10 years flogging its mainframes.

The collapse of Enron produced a feast of portents. Executive hubris, ethical terror, the plunder of staff entitlements… Chairman Ken Lay was a buddy of President George W Bush, pouring $1 million into his campaign coffers and lending him a Lear Jet. The energy giant lavished gold on its top brass – Lay’s 1999 bonus exceeded $42 million. Its deals were dodgy and it was adored by financial journalists.

In short, this was rogue capitalism in full flight that was treated as an aberration rather than a sign of systemic avarice and deception. If the signals had been heeded, Wall Street’s financial malfeasance could have been corrected sooner, without spiralling into the bloodbath of today.

Where to start with this set of 'weak signals'?

Could it have been that Qantas system was simply on the blink, a common enough occurrence as they struggle with their new generation onboard soft and hardware? I mean, it's hardly the same as an Airbus A-330 plunging into the Atlantic, is it? If you're looking for Nostradamus-like signs and portents of a failing present, and an apocalyptic future, that is.

And watching a movie in-flight heralds an entertainment addiction? As opposed to the trivial pursuit of reading fiction about fictional worlds? Which isn't entertainment but somehow noble and worthy? Well it turns out that Neville is himself an entertainment addict:

On the emission-exuding Qantas return flight from Perth to Sydney, the audio-visual was in full swing. The movie was a remake of a ’50s classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still. It got lousy reviews, but after a second Bloody Mary, I was on the edge of my seat and our planet was on the edge of extinction. It was gripping. I felt aroused and helpless at the same time, a defining quality of apocalypse porn. No sex, plenty of death and a wild-ride future.

Ain't it great to be one of the lemmings cheerfully catching an emission-exuding flight, thereby bringing us and the world closer to extinction. 

But what about the world heeding the 'weak signals' from Enron, and thereby finding a quick way to fix rogue capitalism? Not really, because capitalism is doomed, and with it presumably quick junkets to Perth as a way of inspiring chats about futurism.

As we embark on the inescapable transition to sustainability, it is expected that GDP and the money supply will decrease while NGOs will multiply and the pursuit of innovation accelerates. This mind shift will be hotly contested, especially by a traumatised corporate media clinging to the growth/spend/Lear Jet paradigm and playing dirty. Expect incessant calls for war. Expect reports on future wars to be sanitised even more so than today.

And there are many other signs and portents. As you'd expect from our nostrum-peddling Nostradamus, he can intuit them in the wind. Even the humble vegie garden is a sign, which might herald the dawning of group hugs and the age of Aquarius:

In the 21st century, weak signals seem to be intensifying. Michelle Obama has suddenly projected the guerrilla gardening movement into the heart of public awareness by turning the first organic sod in the White House’s vegetable garden. Let a thousand zucchinis bloom – and they will. When Michelle plonked herself on the street with a bunch of raggedy London schoolkids during the recent G20 summit, hugging them, inspiring them, she may have signalled the end of the frigid and forced classroom photo-ops beloved by Australia’s politicians. Mrs Obama’s elevation of the backyard vegie patch is a coded warning of hard times ahead and a call for self-sufficiency.

Well that should reassure anyone in an apartment. Make sure you get plenty of pots for your balcony. Self-sufficiency by creating a thousand zucchinis is the only way to stay safe.

But enough of gardening. It lacks a certain je ne sais quoi when it comes to apocalyptic porn. Let's get back into the day after tomorrow:

In the think tanks, on the blogs, on YouTube and at middle-class dinner parties, the chatter is apocalyptic. Store weapons, horde gold, buy candles. Prepare for peak oil, peak water, peak fish, peak topsoil, peak debt, peak everything. It’s the end of suburbia, the rise of anarchy, the arrival of pre-emptive law enforcement (British cops have ‘identified’ 200 schoolchildren, some as young as 13, as potential terrorists).

Getting depressed yet? No, you shouldn't. Apocalyptic porn is sexually exciting. It's fun, and to be frank an excellent way to get your rocks off:

Today it is the doomsayers who dominate, and to be frank, there is something exciting about listening to the promulgations of catastrophe. A former writer for Rolling Stone, Jim Kunstler, has long depicted a future scenario of The Long Emergency.

Kunstler regards the creation of suburbia as the ‘greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world’, and foretells its tragic destiny: ‘The psychology of previous investment suggests that we will defend our drive-in utopia long after it has become a terrible liability.’ He, like other soothsayers, sees our lives as becoming ‘profoundly and intensely local’, and he believes the future will be far less about mobility and much more about staying where you are. An ‘enormous problem’ will be the production of food.

Wow, no wonder Neville is peddling the wonders of survival sites, and the 3 day responder pack which offers one adult three days of food for a couple of bucks a meal, trumped by the Patriot Pack, which offers a two months emergency supply.

But why not jump beyond this kind of chit chat to that master of the apocalypse, Russian born Dmitry Orlov?

Orlov believes the ‘game will soon be over’, and that economists haven’t a clue what to do next. He says people should ‘forget growth, forget jobs, forget financial stability’ and concentrate on ‘realistic’ new objectives: food, shelter, transportation and security. The immediate task of government is to deliver necessities on an emergency basis, in the absence of a functioning economy, with commerce at a standstill, with little or no access to imports, and to provide for a population that will be largely penniless.

Orlov is hopeful that society could remain intact and will be able to resume a ‘slow and painful process of cultural transition, and eventually develop a new economy, a gradually de-industrialising economy, at a much lower level of resource expenditure, characterised by quite a lot of austerity, but in conditions that are safe, decent, and dignified’. Still, it might be wise to stock up on Patriot Packs.

Dearie me, so what's the solution, apart from the packs and a year's supply of rice, and knocking down the wooden fence to boil the water for the rice? Or power up with the floor boards? 

Well we all have to head back home to Nimbin, on bicycles mind you:

Herman Daly and other eco-economists have long stressed the urgency of leapfrogging ‘beyond growth’, evoking a carbon-neutral lifestyle that nourishes self-reliance, human rights and all the bright ideas that keep civilisation rolling along. What other choice do we have? Humanity’s consumption already exceeds the capacity of Earth to regenerate its resources by 30 per cent.

Well it surely must lead to wars? Between starvation and killing our neighbours for a bite to eat, there's a lot to be said for killing your neighbours. Oh that's right, Neville ruled out the incessant calls for war, and the sanitizing of wars. So how do we get to a sane society, given that we're all competitive self-interested individuals all trying to get as rich as possible? 

I'm afraid the answer's simple. Three or four billion y'all are going to have to die. Likely it'll be messy and unpleasant, and personally y'all might take it hard. Unless of course you're willing to go out into the fields and grow your own food and participate in Richard Neville's very own version of Pol Pot's Cambodian re-education camps. And then paradise will be yours:

Although ‘being green’ has gone mainstream, the environment continues to decline, largely because of economic activity. This decline is linked with the wealth gap and a scarcity of resources. The stately shift to post-growth economics will not be end of the world – it will be the re-birth of the world.

Stately shift to a post-growth world? After all the blather about food packs and starting vegie gardens and joining survivalist clubs and expecting the end of capitalism and incessant calls for war and experts calling for emergency government for a largely penniless population?

Stately as in slow, dignified, deliberate, imposing and majestic?

A man so out of control in his language shouldn't be allowed to write, but I do thank The Diplomat for giving me an insight into a world view that sets the right wing commentariat's teeth on edge - for its lack of understanding, for its blithe disregard for the generality of people, and for a parade of witnesses that show all around us there are loons, but few with any sensible solutions, proposals or ways forward. Beyond chooks and vegie gardens. 

Unless of course you like looking forward to a world where there's plenty of death. Slobber at the mouth at the prospect. Flick spittle at your enemies as you contemplate their righteous death and salutary punishment.

Why am I reminded of apocalyptic fundamentalist Christians when reading Neville? It's just a secular re-branding of Noah's Flood, Armageddon, the rapture, and the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.

By the way, speaking of weak signals, are you aware that Microsoft is the real harbinger of doom?

Warning! Bill Gates (president of Microsoft) may be the next Antichrist. Revelation 13:18 says, "Let anyone who has intelligence work out the number of the beast, for the number represents a man's name, and the numerical value of its letters is six hundred and sixty-six. Bill Gates' full name is William Henry Gates III. Nowadays he is known as Bill Gates (III). By converting the letters of his current name to their ASCII values, you get the following:

Billgates3

66+73+76+76+71+65 +84+69+83+3=666

Daniel 7:23 says, The explanation he gave was this: 'The fourth beast signifies a fourth kingdom which will appear on earth. It will differ from the other kingdoms; it will devour the whole earth, treading it down and crushing it.' Current history knows three Antichrists: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and the Pope. Is the fourth beast the Microsoft Corporation, which represents the power of money?

ASCII values! Yep, it was going around the intertubes way back in 1995. And still as rational an explanation as anything Neville has to offer ...

(Below: Richard Neville, long before he started picking up weak signals as a futurist).

Gerard Henderson, Street Crime in Melbourne, Shipping Uranium to India and a cornucopia of conflationary thinking

Conflation is an essential skill if you want to become a full time paid up member of the college of commentariat columnists.

Apart from being able to prove that you have no more than one university degree (and none is infinitely better), you need a common touch in your dialectical argumentation skills. And conflation allows you to join together all kinds of subjects under the one umbrella, proving both the depth and breadth of your knowledge, and your mastery of the subject matter at hand.

Thus in A bruised relationship with India, Gerard Henderson manages to have it both ways in a tasty exercise in bringing together sundry issues under the subject heading 'India', though strangely he fails to mention the IPL or the tragedy of it being forced to locate itself in South Africa.

First a mea culpa maxima from Henderson for straying into sensitive territory:

In Australia, the word "racist" is invariably overused. However, at times, some ethnic groups are treated with a degree of insensitivity or indifference. This is the case with the disturbing number of attacks in Melbourne on young men of Indian descent.

Yes, well I find the word "humbug" invariably underemployed. Especially at times when some ethnic groups are treated with a degree of insensitivity or indifference. Like you know when they have a screwdriver shoved in their chest. Or are killed. Or have the shit bashed out of them. I suppose you'd call that a degree of insensitivity, indeed even a little indifference to their physical well being.

Henderson then proceeds to gently dress down the Victorian police, and even thinks the cops might at some time want to acknowledge that race is an issue in the current rash of assaults in Victoria. Even if the word "racist" is invariably underused - by them. But not by us. We use it all the time.

Ah now you're getting it. The coming and the going all at once. Invariably over used, except when invariably under used by the Victorian police.

It seems that the media has missed all this to-ing and fro-ing on the subject of race tinged violence in Melbourne. It's only been covered by The Age and the Herald Sun. The ABC has, according to Henderson, ignored the issue, unlike the Cronulla riots and revenge attacks, yet the number of Indian victims of assault in Melbourne in the past six months has exceeded the Cronulla casualties.

Well there's a knock down argument, proof of precisely what I'm not exactly sure. Unless it's to suggest that the ABC is Sydney-centric, or loves race based riots in Cronulla, but can't get excited about Melbourne and Indians?

Whatever. In the end, all this is just window dressing for another opportunity for Henderson to have a go at the federal government and its current uranium policy in relation to India.

During my visit to India last September, it was evident that widespread resentment existed among the political and business classes about the Rudd Government's refusal to sell uranium to India. This extended to senior politicians in the Congress Party. Prior to its defeat in November 2007, the Howard government was examining ways to provide India with uranium, despite its refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. However, the Rudd Government has ruled out any such option due to the Labor Party's policy in this area.

Not making the leap between Indian students being racially abused and bashed in Melbourne and Australia's support of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty?

Never mind, we'll stick at it. Perhaps it's because poor India is subject to international bullying, and so needs an array of nukes to hand so it can let off the odd double bunger if things get too tense. As a nation, it's just like an Indian student on a train in Melbourne heading off into the wilds of Sunshine. It needs a larger kind of flick blade:

Interviewed on Lateline on July 28 last year, the influential Indian commentator - and one-time United Nations player - Shashi Tharoor criticised Australia's policy on uranium exports. He made the important point that, unlike Australia, India does not enjoy the protection of the US nuclear umbrella. He also pointed out that, in living memory, India has fought wars with what are now two nuclear powers -- China and Pakistan.

Elsewhere, Tharoor has depicted Australia's policy in this area as a vestige of what he terms "apartheid".

Yes, but is he a twit to so deploy such a loaded racial term, when in fact - whether or not he was a one time United Nations player - the idea is to support a universally recognized, if not universally signed, treaty on Nuclear Non-proliferation, which results in Australia refusing to ship uranium to a number of countries. Apartheid has got zip, zilch, zero to do with it, and Howard's contemplation of shipping off uranium as a bit of greedy policy making on the run, encouraged by the shrub's real politiks.

But okay let's get down to painting the PM as a pedant, in the grip of the left wing:

It appears many influential Indians do not fully appreciate that the Rudd Government's position on uranium exports is determined in part by the Prime Minister's focus on observing United Nations treaties to the letter, and in part on upholding Labor policy and, in the process, keeping Labor's left-wing quiet.

Ah, UN treaties to the letter. So much better if you ignore them at your convenience. Like the Geneva convention. Who thought that tripe up when it comes to a ticking clock, 24 hours before the world blows up, and a little water boarding. And the lefties, never forget the lefties. And the UN's black helicopters.

Thank the lord Australia's attitude to its uranium has nothing to do with seeing nuclear weapons spread around the sub-continent like confetti, so that if things get tough in say Pakistan there'll be plenty around to make sure MAD is a wonderful way forward for the world.

Yep, talk about world peace, and the need to cut back on nuclear madness, then slip a little of what they need off to the sub-continent to make sure things keep bubbling apace.

But never mind that, now for the capper to the piece. The ultimate payoff, the cobbling together of conflationary matters:

... the (nuclear) policy has annoyed the highest level of the Indian Government. And now many Indians are rightly concerned about ethnic-motivated crime in Australia.

And what conclusion might you draw from this? That Chairman Rudd is just a common street mugger on an international level, for denying the Indian government their right to Australian uranium while merrily stockpiling nuclear weapons in the event of a stoush with China or Pakistan?

Buggered if I know, and so it seems is Henderson buggered:

It's time to focus on improving the relationship between Australia and India. A greater concentration by the Victorian authorities on crime, and more restrained policing, would help for starters.

Fine, worthy, pious sentiments, noble thane. But exactly how? By shipping off uranium to India, so that the fine memory of John Howard can be kept alive? By encouraging nations not to bother with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty so we can keep reviving Dr Strangelove as a relevant movie, while marveling at the lunacy of Iran and North Korea's nuclear delusions? As if nuclear weapons in the hands of Hindu fundamentalists floats the world's boat any more than nuclear weapons in the hands of Islamic fundies and Taliban loons?

Well no, it seems we should just keep the streets safe in Melbourne. Well they should get rid of all those lane ways filled with coffee shops for a start ...

Why do I just feel like I've been in a conflationary blather bath?

But if conflation is all the go and the rage, please explain why Henderson fail to mention Australia shipping off our cricketers to the IPL? Sure a lot of them are retirees, getting paid squillions to beat up on Indian cricketers, but isn't offering them Brett Lee just as good as offering them uranium? What would John Howard say? Tweak it how you will ...

Piers Akerman, Barack Obama, the Uighur, Gitmo and blind optimism

(Above: Piers Akerman trying to remember George Bush).

Well Piers Akerman has spoken, in a way that the Janus-faced Janet Albrechtsen couldn't quite manage.

She, you might recall, was haunted by the notion that the US alliance was somehow vital to Australia's security, and lashed out at everyone for their hypocrisy about Gitmo, but couldn't in the final yards of her column find the strength to suggest we should tell Barack Obama to bugger off (you can catch up with her standing by, awaiting the PM's decision, here in Wanted: A home for Gitmo detainees. No takers?).

No such delicacy, or should we say side-stepping, haunts Akerman. Obama's stuck with his Gitmo promises, he gloats, as he tells Obama and 17 Uighur Gitmo prisoners who won't face court action, and who haven't got a home, to bugger off. Not in our backyard, no way.

Yes, it's nothing to do with us, the whole sorry mess:

What is clear here is that Guantanamo, and the fall-out from Obama’s domestic policies, is not a matter for Australia.

When he led the triumphal chant, “Yes, we can,” Obama should have realised there were a few things that blind optimism could not achieve.

He didn’t think things through and we should not be there now to save his political goals. If he thinks he can convince Australians and Australian politicians that the Uighur pose no threat, he can convince his own electors of the same thing.

Yep, all bets are off with the American alliance now that they've elected a dumb socialist given to mindless, blind optimistic chanting like a flock of Buddhists at a love-in.

Off the bus Jack, and don't you come around here no more. Gitmo's just your domestic politics at work and nothing to do with Australia.

And what makes the difference between Bush's request for help and Obama's?

This is the third request the US has made to Australia to accept Uighur detainees, the first two being made by the Bush administration.

This request differs, however, from those made by the Bushies, as former president Bush made no pledge to close Guantanamo and the approach to Australia was a resettlement issue, rather than the domestic US political problem it has now become.

Suddenly it's not a resettlement issue,  it's a US domestic problem? And Bush made no pledge to close Gitmo? WTF? 

Well yes and hair splitting isn't the just the prerogative of Jesuits, at least if you're a commentariat columnist of the old school, where Democrats are just as bad - perhaps even worse - than the Labor party.

For genuine caring and sharing, you just can't go past Akerman. How should we interact with the world? Why by imitating the alleged behavior of the ostrich. Which does involve just a few contortions:

According to Mamtimin Ala, the general secretary of the Australian Uighur Association and member of the executive committee of the World Uighur Congress, the Uighur have been found not to be enemy combatants by the US courts and the US now has a moral responsibility to offer them homes in the US.

“It is primarily a US problem,” Ala told me. “But the American government fears creating outrage and unexpected repercussions if they permitted those Uighur to resettle in the US.”

Ala, a human rights activist who was granted an Australian protection visa last year and now has permanent residency here, previously lived in Brussels where he studied at a Belgian university for his masters in philosophy.

He argues that because Australia was a partner in the war on terror, it should accept a degree of responsibility for the Guantanamo inmates, if the US will not resettle them.

That argument is a little weak.

Absolutely. Nothing to do with us. And did I mention that George Bush and Iraq is nothing to do with us either. Who? Some kind of shrub? You'll  have to speak up, never heard of the man or his Gitmo policies. 

Anyhoo, while listening to the weak minded arguments of Mamtimin Ala, I'm reminded of the kind of migrants we actually want. Not pesky, difficult, damn forrinurs. Good British stock.

Australia needs migrants who want to be Australians, not migrants who see their future as hyphenated-Australians, owing a shared allegiance to another nation, and supporting foreign militants.

We already have difficulty dealing with groups who refuse to embrace the clearly recognisable Australian identity, preferring to fight ethnic and religious wars either by proxy though fund-raising exercises or through violence at sporting events and other opportunistic moments.

This is a difficult call as we have about 5000 Uighur living here now, and according to all accounts, quite peaceably, just as we have a small number of Tibetans.

There is no doubt that China would not like America or Australia to accept the Guantanamo Uighur.

China is a bully and China requires its diplomats to organise its expatriate communities to intervene in our domestic politics and make its views felt but that should not be a concern.

Clearly recognisable Australian identity? Yep, me and Akkers are like two peas in a pod. So dinkum. Such lovers of footie and Holdens and meat pies. Damn you furriners, with your clever soups, and sophisticated foods and your Russian conductors coming here like they've got something to offer.

A difficult call? Oh bring me a bowl of water and a towel so I can wash my hands of the matter. I feel so tortured by the issue.

But come to think of it, it's not so difficult. Not really, not when you can get up the nose of all those Obama lovers. That sure beats getting up the nose of the Chinese, always adept at bullying and fiendishly planting reds under our beds as we speak.

Because you see Obama is little better than a domestic terrorist:

But Obama wasn’t thinking about the Uighur when he vowed to close the Guantanamo. He was playing domestic politics, appealing to people like his married friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, a pair of America’s worst urban terrorists, in whose living room he is said to have decided on a political career.

Ayers and Dohrn were members of the Weathermen, a group of terrorists who blew up government buildings around the US in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, fortunately killing no-one but three of their own members.

Obama has learnt that the views of Ayers and Dohrn are not representative of many other Americans, most of whom realise that Gitmo houses some very bad people. No matter how small-L liberal Obama’s supporters are, they are not liberal enough to want Gitmo-quality people living in their neighbourhood.

Well, well, well, splosh. Bigotry central at your service. How could we forget it's all the fault of the latte sipping, chardonnay sloshing crowd, always ready to drop their coffee and pick up a bomb or three.

Maybe it's better that the Uighur didn't settle here, because if this is Akerman at work at the moment, imagine if he went in to hyperdrive to traduce their reputations, track them down and make sure every minor infraction represented a worst case example of 'there are evil Sudanese amongst us.'

And as for the Americans, whether Bush or Obama, nota bene the fair weather friendship of the Akermans of this world. At one with you until things get a bit sticky or a bit tricky. And don't give us any nonsense about having five thousand Uighurs already living here, according to all accounts quite peaceably.

We know that Gitmo residents revert to terrorism 1 in 7 times, we know Obama is just a blind optimist, we can't remember Bush, and we don't care about American political jams or domestic politics. You've made your bed America and now you can lie in it ...

Eer, late breaking reports of an Indonesian incursion in the Northern Territory. Ah Barack old buddy just having a spot of difficulty here down under, I say old chap, would you mind terribly ... Oh yes that beastly business about the Uighurs ... well no need to take it personally. What, you'll send down a couple of terrorists ... Bill Ayers? ... to help us out ... Well that's damn unsporting. 

What's that you say? You don't want to intervene in our domestic politics? It's not a matter for Americans? The Indonesians pose no threat? We showed a blind optimism about the US alliance? 

Ah yes, it'd be so much better if America kept Gitmo open, even if the worst of the worst in this particular case haven't been shown to have done anything, except spend six years in cages while Bush and Obama worked out what to do with them. That'll teach them starry eyed optimists. After all, we can't be allies of librul loving socialists, can we? Even if we've spent years cheering on the Americans and Gitmo ...

(Below: Akerman fearing liberals might be in the vicinity).

Mike Rann, defending the right of bikers to bash, kill, steal and deal, and punch drunk already

You have to hope that Penberthy's new rag The Punch is going to find better material than the dingbat offering of South Australian Premier Mike Rann's initial outing Defending the right of bikers to bash, kill, steal, deal.

The owl-loving Rann, who lives in his own alternate universe, opens with this sentence:

Civil libertarians around the country have condemned my new anti-crime gang laws aimed at outlaw bikie gangs. Defence lawyers and pseudo-academics have lined up to tell the public that the bikie gangs are a harmless sub-culture comprised of grandparents who simply like a ride on big bikes.

Well there in one go is the end of Penberthy's plea for civil discourse, though he set the tone by disbarring people with three degrees from his site, as well as yahoos and yobos. So how did Rann get a guernsey, with lines like pseudo-academics and straw man arguments of the most profoundly irritating kind? All you could expect from a pseudo-politician peddling pseudo-arguments with pseudo-exuberance.

Gee, this pseudo thing could replace Michael Costa's 'neo' brand, except it's tired and out of date by about thirty years.

But that's just the beginning of the Rann rant.

... for outlaw motorcycle gangs, it’s a different kind of freedom.

It’s the freedom to use illegal firearms. It’s the freedom to assault and intimidate. It’s the freedom to murder and rape, as well as manufacture and peddle drugs around Australia.

Err, did I miss something here? Did I miss the revoking of laws banning the use of illegal firearms? Did I miss the laws promoting the freedom to murder and rape? Did I fail to note in the daily press the brand new, well publicized in South Australia freedom to manufacture and peddle drugs?

What follows then is a gratuitously smug and self-serving justification of Rann's new laws about the right to freedom of assembly, that would be worthy of either Peter Costello or a Chinese government politician.

But then Rann is never short on rhetoric, always short on substance. 

We have not taken this action lightly, nor are we recklessly indifferent to civil liberties.

Indeed, we will appoint a retired judicial officer to review the use of powers under the Act. His or her report will be tabled in Parliament.

Oh jerk my chain. It's exactly the same argument as Stephen Conroy saying that he's only censoring the intertubes to stop the pedophiles, and if you don't like it, you must be a pedophile.

So if  you don't like Rann's laws then you have to be in favor of "terrorists within" or part of some hardened criminal group set up for the purpose of serious crime.

Well no one with an IQ over 40 would trust either the cops or the government not to abuse the powers the Rann government has set in motion, thereafter to be aped around the country as politicians seek the easy Russian or Chinese way out in terms of regulating the lumpenproletariat.

Well I did a count of the 25 comments at time of writing in response to Rann, and it's good to report for the sake of peace loving Penberthy, they were pretty restrained when confronted by this kind of provocative, in your face insolence.

Sure one accused Ramm of Rovian message control, and others got themselves into a lather about bikies, but my count saw some 20 against, and four in favor, with one eccentric discounted for somehow managing to relate the topic to thugby league and sexual assault.

In short, an inglorious outing for an intemperate post, surely written in hast, and with an abundance of arrogance and a shortage of either insight or understanding.

The real question of course is how the police - given powers to and laws to control crime, drug dealing and bikie clans - have singularly failed to send them down, even though Rann assures us that the Finks Motorcycle Club have racked up an enormous number of convictions.

I guess it's too hard for Rann to actually think about the role that government plays - in the war on drugs - in empowering bikies and giving them an industry well worth their time, money, and the occasional criminal conviction.

Instead he peddles the usual nonsense about terrorists in our midst, and spruiks his war on terror like a brain dead political junkie wanting us all to know he's tough on crime - remembering of course that bikies aren't just harmless grandparents who like to ride on bikes. Does he go the full Rudi and dress in frocks as part of his tough on crime zero tolerance law and order routine?

If I was in South Australia at the moment, I'd cringe at the thought that this meglomaniac represents the best of state Labor. Sure John Bannon might have bankrupted the state, but at least he didn't indulge in this kind of mindless rhetoric.

Well Rann might huff, and he might puff, but his rhetoric gives the game away:

The stakes are too high to raise the white flag to dangerous criminals who believe they have a right to get away with using violence to support the most serious crimes.

The right to get away with using violence to support the most serious crimes? Did we suddenly enact this right? How did this come about? Why did I miss it? Goody gumdrops, I'm off to the 7-Eleven with my water pistol for a bit of thieving. Mike Rann says there's a white flag flying in the breeze.

Golly, it's such a temptation to break Godwin's Law, so let me settle instead for quoting a couple of the commenters:

On the matter of civil liberties: you and your party widely criticised the former Federal Liberal Party (and it’s bureaucracy, which now works for Federal Labor and our Dear Leader Kevin Rudd) for the Dr Haneef mishandling, yet expect that to debate a fundamental human right is somehow “defending the right of bikers to bash, kill, steal, deal”. This is unjustifiable.

Being a lawmaker, you should understand the doctrine of precedent. You would then understand the impact of such a law on bikies being applied to other organisations, however loosely associated or not. The implications of this need to be taken seriously, and not treated for short term political gain.

Even if a group of society has a much higher probability of committing certain patterns of crime does not mean we should generalize them all as likely to do so. Imagine I am not talking about bikies, but about crimes by indigenous Australians. Notice how we think about this differently when we switch the interest group? No matter how ugly or popular a minority group we should still extend these basic rights to all. This is one of the founding principles of our society.

Now I must confess that my train of thought has been a bit all over the place. Who can blame me? On a Sunday night I am innocently browsing the internets and I am confronted with this nonsense and try my best to respond with the aid of a half-baked Rove-melted brain.

Who'd have thought I'd have something in common with a libertarian Liberal voter (well at least I suspect so)? I guess all we can say is that when confronted with Rann's logic, the fuzzy cheese logic of  talking about "enhanced interrogation techniques" isn't a ringing endorsement of torture so much as an advertisement for a special kind of beauty treatment. But at least we're not the only dissidents:

I dont think anyone without a vested interest would argue that the criminal element amongst biker society has gone too far of late and need to be reeled in.

However (as reported at Control order - Fink's history a secret) last week’s proceedings in South Australia where a control order was applied to a member of an outlaw motorcycle club (which, by it’s very nomenclature begs the attention of law enforcement) without the recipient’s knowledge, during a court hearing held in the recipient’s absence and while the man’s criminal history - or lack of it - has been declared a public secret after a directive by the state’s most senior magistrate surely demand close scrutiny and cannot help but arouse the curiosity of some as to whether these laws are indeed suitable in a 21st century country like Australia which still, as far as I know, considers itself to be “free”.

Rann's just a tinpot dictator in a small state, and let it be understood (and let's say it over and over again so Conroy might also hear) that opposing a law is not supporting a crime, criminals or criminal endeavours. But just as Haneef copped the raw prawn, who knows which innocent soul might cop a raw prawn from Rann as he blathers about caring for caring for civil liberties, which these days sounds like only pseudo academics would give a rat's arse about.

Oh dear, confronted by this humbug and twaddle, and with my most recent sighting of Rann being in the Bollywood movie Love Story 2050 in Rundle mall (wherein he stood around looking like a vainglorious prize rhubarb), I do feel a breach of Godwin's Law coming on:

In South Australia, they came first for the bikies. And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a bikie ....

(Below: when life is full of happiness, or gherkins).

David Penberthy, a pinch of punch, la di dah brainiacs, yobbos, and journalism alive and well

It's always nice to welcome a new site on the intertubes, full to overflowing though they might be, especially one dedicated to free content in a world where there are devious mutterings about charging end users for a bit of what they fancy.

But what's this?

The Punch is a new opinion website aimed at every Australian with a love of ideas, discussion and debate.

It’s not a fancy, la-di-dah site aimed at people with three university degrees, nor is it a site for yobbos who want to engage in mindless abuse.

Lordy, lordy, so I miss out on the basis of having too many university degrees, and I can't participate because of a yobbo taste for a bit of mindless abuse, in the Clockwork Orange style beloved of flamers and serial pests. You mean this is a club I can't be a member of because I disapprove of the membership?

And how is this new site going to work, in the end days when its stern master - good old Rupert - announced that people would have to pay? Why by presenting diverse opinions from its own small team and a rolling roster of almost 100 outside contributors, and by recycling News Ltd content, with 20 links a day to aggregated content.

It's like Crikey without the premium:

It’s a free site - you can sign up for a morning email to receive a free alert to the morning’s content on any weekday. If we ever did decide to charge a subscription, the fee would be reasonable, and would involve offering additional premium content, rather than blocking readers from accessing the existing site.

Dang, there goes the business model again - giving the basic model away for free and only charging for the Trucoat - but I suspect that like junkies, they're trawling for trade, and then like a heroin dealer, once they've got you hooked, you'll be on the needle for life. And as for those evil recyclers like Google, this new outreach arm of the News empire will only recycle with love:

Much of our content will be News Limited content. But it will also come from people at independent news sites, from people who aren’t in journalism but are great writers, from people at rival news organisations whose work on The Punch opens them, and us, up to new audiences. And every morning we will link through to content on sites which we own, but also on sites which we don’t own, to give you the most enjoyable reading experience.

So I guess they'll be linking to Crikey which will be linking to Huffington Post which will be linking to Salon which will be linking to Slate which will be linking to ... dang, does anybody actually generate content when you can link to your rivals for free in the interest of opening them up to new audiences, since old audiences are just too dumb to Google up things that might interest them.

But wait, I spoke too soon. This free distribution of free News Corp content, which will also provide free links to free content provided by others, is sending a message to the world, and especially to embittered academics:

Against this backdrop, our hope for the site is this: at a time when every tenured communications academic on the planet is sending tiny urls via twitter, linking you through to wrist-slashing stories about the apparent death of journalism, we want to demonstrate that journalism is alive and well.

Yep, that's the way you do it, journalism for nothing and your chicks for free. Yeah, that's the way you do it, maybe get a blister on your little finger, a blister on your thumb, you hit your keyboard and it all comes out, money for nothing and your chicks for free.

That's right you dumb academics with three degrees in your sheltered tenured workshop. Journos love to work on the smell of an oily rag - smells like rebellious teen spirit to me - because they just love to explore and write and research and harass and investigate for the sheer joy of changing society. If you pass one in the street, with a sign saying homeless mother of three, drop a few coins in the hat to keep them hard at it.

And there's one other bold, revolutionary approach which it will be interesting to see how long it will last.

One thing we ask - we strongly encourage readers to log on as themselves. We’re more interested in hearing from Ian Smith of Box Hill than Dingbat of Box Hill, as we suspect Ian might have something more interesting to say. We not only want to encourage a civil and illuminating standard of debate, we want to give every reader the opportunity to write for the site, under their own name.

Ah golly, well as a dingbat, I just can't see how I can sign in. And anyhoo, what's wrong with being a dingbat? What's wrong with an uncivil and unilluminating standard of debate? You mean if you publish Piers Akerman no one can call him a dingbat, and he can't call anyone an idiot? But that's the only reason Akerman exists. You wouldn't read him for anything else.

I'm sensing somewhere between tabloid and broadsheet, and let's hope it doesn't end up scones and a cup of tea with your maiden aunt, or eccentric uncle.

Good luck to the moderators in this valiant Star Trek endeavour. But to be fair, on the first outing, which had produced 32 comments at time of writing, there were a sprinkling of what sounded like real names amongst the usual first names, from notables like Caroline Overington, along with the usual eggheads, cabbies, NTBs and stormtroopers. 

But of course it's also hoping for a lot of content generation by mug punters who assemble to air their views, since comments along with clicks are taken as the holy grail of intertubes activity - even if there are now so many spaces in which people can spill a pennyworth of views, a tuppence of bite back, that you could spend all day just commenting on the commentators.

Obviously enough, the site exists for you - the reader. Unless you ask us a question, we will keep our noses out of the limitless space we’ve provided for comments, and let you have your say.

Oh goody goody gumdrops. Another playground with limitless space even if the tubes are full to overflowing.

Well here's hoping they can generate a new standard in scribbling and in moderation, and that they manage to keep the loons under control. There's even a whiff of the original Punch in the title, which still remains one of my favorite ways to capture the whiff of Victorian England. But then they always had great cartoonists, and Crikey has First Dog on the Moon. I'm afraid if this new pinch of punch wants to attract churls like me they'd better get themselves a top notch trendy cartoonist. Visuals are all the go on the intertubes. Right now the layout's a bit ... flat and white.

I'm not sure that editor David Penberthy is adding anything to Rupert's plan to charge for content - aggregation of this kind is now a standard business model for advertising driven sites - but hey, it'll be fun to see how the big boys play in the world of blogs. And it'll be interesting to see if they can persuade people to stump up cash for what's so abundantly free it's like wandering through a digital overload of 'read this here, listen to me there'. A cornucopia of noise, mayhem, news and opinion on billions of pages.

I just wished Penberthy hadn't discriminated against posh braniacs with a few degrees, and juxtaposed them against mindless yobbos. Why think they're mutually exclusive? Why limit your audience to your maiden aunt?

You can catch a pinch of the punch and the launch prose here.

Christopher Pearson, Abortion, and the ethical killing of abortionists in a holy crusade

(Above: Christopher Pearson, militant Christian with loins girded for battle. And a picture of a very tasty Glock. We love our gun porn).

Well it seems Christopher Pearson's militant Christian warriors have struck again, fighting their epic battle against abortion in that inimitable way that only Americans understand.

With a gun, inside a church.

Pearson, if you recall, on Saturday had a little melt down about abortion being the one of the great pitched battle grounds for Christians,  and why Christianity referred to itself as the church militant on earth, and also why, this side of the apocalypse, Christianity will be engaged in constant combat. (here).

This kind of ersatz, proto military terminology features prominently in Pearson's regular calls to arms to the faithful flock. Crusaders in a modern crusade.

Well while some talk tough, some act tough.

Prominent late-term US abortion provider George Tiller has been shot dead in a church where he was serving as an usher, his lawyer says. The gunman fled but a city official says a suspect is in custody.

The Wichita, Kansas, city official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly about the case. The official did not provide additional details.

Long a focus of US anti-abortion groups, including a summer-long protest in 1991, Tiller was shot on Sunday during morning services at Reformation Lutheran Church while his wife was in the choir, his lawyer Dan Monnat said. Police said the gunman had fled in a car registered in Merriam, a Kansas City suburb nearly 320 km away. (the rest of the story here).

Now I'm sure Pearson would tut tut and talk about the rule of law, and how he didn't mean that, it was all just rhetoric and metaphor, but really if you're engaged in a crusade, or wanting to take down a Hitler, isn't anything permissible for a righteous, thinking Christian?

I can’t help but to follow the logic. “Doctor” Tiller is committing late-term abortions, which by any sane person’s calculation is infanticide. This is murder. Through perversion of the law, this is permitted, despite it flying the face of the history of civilization. This has been tolerated for two decades, and nothing has happened to stop the killing. He would have continued to commit this crime.

I can’t escape the conclusion that killing Tiller was the right thing to do. I am uncomfortable with this conclusion because it’s dangerous. But nevertheless, it was the ethical thing to do. Tiller would have continued to take numerous lives. Nothing was going to stop him. So someone did stop him. And now fewer lives will be taken.

We celebrate the breaking the laws every time the media canonizes Rosa Parks. She broke the law. There is no question of that. The question is whether it was the ethical thing to do (it was.) We celebrate the Nazi resistance, we celebrate the Tiananmen Square uprising. I’m sure those were all illegal actions, yet were unquestionably the moral things to do. So how would killing a killer, when all options are exhausted, not also be the right thing to do?

You have to wonder if the reason why we have a legal system is in order to steal the oxygen from moral vigilantism. You have to wonder if the legal system breaks down whether vigilantism, when all other options fail, becomes a moral imperative. (you can catch the rest of this thread's debate at Red State, here).

Yep, that's right a woman wanting to take a different seat in a bus, against the law, is no different to popping off an abortionist in his church. So how about taking out Hitler? Sure thing, not a problem:

How about the famed Operation Valkryie, where German officers attempted the assassination of Adolf Hitler. These illegal acts are celebrated to this day as a minor bright spot for Germans during those dark days. They are celebrated as the few who stood up while the German people abided genocide.

So I guess any time you're feeling like an ethical Christian concerned about the way the world is heading, pull out a pistol and pop off someone you don't like doing something you don't like. If it's within the law, like abortion, never no mind. And if it's outside the law, even better. The rule of law is just pious leftie talk, and thou shalt not kill rendered void if you happen across a bus seat swapper or a killer.

Pearson of course can feel smugly comfortable in his war of words against abortion, because in an Australia disarmed by the Howard government, the only people with easy access to firearms are criminals, who really don't give a toss about theological principles. 

But in America, talk of pitched battles and militant Christianity can get a mite confused and confusing where there's enough weaponry out in the world to arm every American with decent kill power.

But don't expect Pearson to tone down his rhetoric. He seems to fancy himself as being at the head of a crusade of the faithful ridding the world of sinners. Perhaps even one of the horsemen of the apocalypse.

If only atheists could muster up the same hysterical notion that killing people is good for them, a way of drumming some decent theological principles into them before despatching them to hell ...

Janet Albrechtsen, Kevin Rudd, Barack Obama, Gitmo prisoners and breathtaking hypocrisy

Poor Janet Albrechtsen still suffers from repressed memories of hideous mistreatment, as if she'd been locked in a cage in Gitmo and routinely abused on a 24/7 basis.

Fortunately she wasn't - all that happened was her hero John Howard was abused by arrogant lefties without any regard for the way the world works, never mind if the world actually works that way.

And how do we arrive at this tragedy? All because Obama is again requesting Australia settle 17 (or is it 6?) Gitmo prionsers: Uighurs from China: Wanted: A home for Gitmo detainees No takers?

Whenever John Howard agreed to a request made by George W Bush, the Left went apoplectic, complaining that the then Australian Prime Minister was behaving like a lap dog for the then US President. Remember the cartoons? Remember the protestors depicting Howard as a dog with its nose up the backside of Bush? Recall the accusations of Howard, the deputy sheriff, diminishing Australia’s national interest?

 
It was cheap symbolism that never even pretended to understand the importance of alliances or the nature of real-politik. To the chagrin of those who prefer to taint everything that Bush did as wrong, Howard understood the importance of the US alliance and no doubt some of his decisions, though unpopular, were taken to secure a longer term pragmatic path that reinforces Australia’s alliance with the US. Had Howard taken detainees from Guantanamo after a request from Bush, we would have heard plenty about Howard, once again, playing deputy sheriff to Bush.

Oh the shame, the indignity, and little John, brave Robin Hood of his times, or man of steel if you will (even if it's a tad defamatory of the real man of steel, which is to say Superman, who mebbe is not real, but at least iconic) was just doing it all for Australians, and for that precious United States alliance.

And seeing as to how it's such an important, vital alliance, then we should fall into line with the current Obama administration request to house Muslim Uighurs from China and help the Americans shut down Gitmo. After all, it's the best way to proceed, keeping the current administration as our friends, and the right won't behave like the craven, cowardly left , and abuse Comrade Rudd for acquiescing like a John Howard lick spittle lackey.

Ah no, actually, at no point does Albrechtsen actually say that these Gitmo prisoners should be accepted into Australia by the Rudd government. For that matter, at no point does she say that they should be turned away. In fact, in the true style of an ideologue wanting a debating point, she doesn't actually put forward any coherent proposal or policy as to what to do with the request, which after all involves a simple yes or no.

No, she keeps her powder dry, and coyly says she awaits the Prime Minister's decision, as breathtaking and hypocritical an avoidance of the real politik issues involved as you could wish for.

But wait a second, what that allows Dame Slap to do is berate and admonish everyone else for hypocrisy, as a kind of payback for the way these heinous chappies maltreated Howard and Bush. She wants to measure the hypocrisy of calculated inconsistency on a scale of one to ten, in which case we will in due course have to rate her.

But first let's rate the lefties - because it seems the US don't want to ship the Uighurs back to China, as they fear they'll be tortured or executed by the Chinese authorities, who regard the men as terrorists. You'd have thought that that'd bring some shrieks from the left about Australia kowtowing to China, a country with little respect for human rights. "Right? Wrong. Only silence."

Err, but these fiendish men have been locked up in Gitmo, where only the worst of the worst have been sent, the most despicable terrorists and enemies of the west. Are these men guilty as hell, or just innocent bystanders caught up in the right wing hysteria of the times? If guilty as hell, then you'd have to think that Albrechtsen would be calling out for them to be sent home to China where they can be punished for their grievous misdeeds. Right? Wrong. Only silence.

And if they were innocent, you'd think that Albrechtsen would be demanding that they be brought to Australia forthwith, so they can be saved from the inhuman Chinese government. Right? Wrong. Only silence. 

And if we don't actually know whether they're guilty or innocent, you might wonder why they spent so long in prison, without ever being brought to trial or their case resolved, as if they were trapped in a Kafka novel. And we wouldn't want them to be trapped in a Kafka novel, like Joseph K. So Albrechtsen would be howling at the injustices done by Gitmo. Right? Wrong. Pass me their files again, so we can reconsider the issue at length.

And of course it wouldn't do when discussing Gitmo not to mention the hypocrisy of US Democrats, who carried on about shutting down the prison, and then don't want to offer up their home states as refuges for the detainees. Thank the lord this has nothing to do with the demonization of towel heads and Gitmo prisoners by Republicans, the worst of the worst, fully responsible for the twin towers, the Oklahoma building bombing, and anything and everything else wrong with America at this moment. 

It would truly be inexplicable and a totally hypocritical act to invite pedophiles to teach in a primary school, given the publicity surrounding their vile deeds, and these people are snowflakes of the heavens compared to the vile Gitmo terrorists. So I guess the Catholic church and Democrats are on a level. 

And then there are the Europeans, the irascible Germans and the cheese eating French, the biggest blowhards about Gitomo. And what do they do? Wash their hands of a solution, just like Janet Albrechtsen.

But how to round out this so that you end up with a first class, "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of gotcha?

Now comes an even trickier question. How do we measure the hypocrisy of those countries, such as Australia, that said no to a request from Republican George W. Bush to take detainees and are now considering how to respond to a similar request from Democrat President Obama. If they say yes to Obama, having said no to Bush, they surely rise to the top of the hypocrisy class. If they say no to Obama, they at least get marks for being consistently hypocritical by demanding Gitmo’s closure but refusing to take any of the inmates. We await the Prime Minister’s decision.

Beauty. A real humdinger of a gotcha.

Well I guess we know what kind of hypocrite Malcolm Turnbull is. He's urging the Rudd government to reject the request for six (not seventeen) Uighurs to be settled in Australia, and be damned to that precious US alliance so assiduously cultivated by John Howard, and celebrated by the likes of Albrechtsen. Yep, there's a decent humanism at work.

And of course back in December the craven Rudd government refused to take the men following a request by Bush, given the certain convenient and hypocritical protests of the Liberal party and even louder shrieks from the loony right that would have followed. So we already know they're hypocrites.

Oh and what have these Uighur detainees been found guilty of, justifying their six long years in Gitmo prison? Apparently absolutely nothing. Yep, six long years in a hellhole, simply for breathing and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

How inconvenient of them. How difficult they make the world.

No doubt Dame Slap will get lots of comments, for being snide, snarky, sarcastic and sour, flailing about at everybody, muddying the waters in fine style, and not once addressing the questions about Gitmo that its erection and maintenance involved.

So she can rabbit on about hypocrisy all she likes, but by avoiding that one basic, salient fact - innocent people locked up without trial or recourse - when discussing Gitmo and the American paranoia that led to it, she can go to top of the hypocrisy class. 

Ten out of ten for Dame Slap, where real politik is actually real snidery, and people are just pawns in the game. And when will she come clean, and endorse Turnbull's devious position? Or propose that the Rudd government should allow them in? Instead of chortling about the difficulty of getting rid of a prison that should never have been built and operated in defiance of her own ostensible regard for law and democracy ...