Mood:  accident prone

Picture: In flight free magazine Sydney to Avalon 30th Oct 07. PM Howard is on Insiders beating up the notion that Garrett (who was always a bolt on to the 100 year old ALP party), is somehow now the engine and steering wheel. Only dupes or the incredulous could be fooled by such self interested rhetoric. Sure Garrett (like all pollies, let alone ex rock star front man) is egotistical but the real test of his postures is whether he could deliver a radical change to the conservative, vandalistic ALP policy platform. And the resounding answer is NO, just as Bob Brown has cautioned the ALP will change PG, not vice versa. Unlike Howard who as leader does indeed deliver eg deception of the voters in 2004 by introducing unprecedented disruption to IR. Deception of voters again in 1996 to bring in the GST. Conclusion: Howard is projecting his own abuse of power onto Garrett. No wonder Howard is beating as much as he can.

 * Carpetbagger

Author’s general introductory note (skip this if you know this regular weekly column):

This is not a well packaged story. It’s a contemporaneous traverse of the Sunday television free to air political talkies indicating the agenda of Establishment interests: Better to know ones rivals and allies  in Big Politics and Big Media.

Indeed it’s the tv version monitoring task similar to what Nelson Mandela refers to here in his book Long Walk to Freedom (1994, Abacus) written in Robben Island prison (where he was meant to die like other African resister chiefs of history in the 19C), at page 208

“..newspapers are only a shadow of reality; their information is important to a freedom fighter not because it reveals the truth, but because it discloses the biases and perceptions of both those who produce the paper and those who read it.”

Just substitute ‘Sunday tv political talkie shows’ for "newspapers" in the quote above.

For actual transcripts go to web sites quoted below except with Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Media backgrounder

- Another howler in the so called Garrett-gate affair. But not by PG in fact. Rather John Howard as quoted in today's Sunday press:

"You don't joke about what your intentions are in government three weeks out from the election."

Nod head sagely, oh yes such serious matters for serious men.

Unless of course you are Peter Costello and joking about your own leadership profile and 'in govt' intentions four weeks out from an election as running mate for same John Howard?! Was it the Treasurers debate in the Q&A session where Costello was asked why should the Liberal Party hand over leadership to Costello in 18 months if he agrees with everything John Howard does? To which of course Costello smirked and parried with a joke about wondering the same about Rudd being the same as Howard and so why vote for the ALP leader?

Here is the ABC transcript of the jokey exchange:

News Limited's Sue Dunlevy raised the leadership question that hangs ever-present around the Coalition: "In two years time, if the Prime Minister honours his promise to stand aside and allow a leadership change in the Liberal Party, you could be the Prime Minister of this country.

"Could you please tell voters, who are going to the polls in just over three weeks, what the three main differences will be between a Costello government and a Howard government, and if there are no differences, is there any point in a leadership change?"

Mr Costello answered: "Well, it's a question I often think when I listen to Kevin Rudd tell us how there'd be no changes between him and John Howard.

"Sometimes I wonder why Kevin wants to be elected when he wants to be so like John Howard."

But no, he did not answer the question.

But it got a good laugh while cutely avoidingCostello's 'intentions when in the govt/leadership succession'. So is Howard condemning Costello as well as Garrett now for flippant lack of gravitas or even maturity or indeed honesty? I don't think so. More's the pity.

- Warrnambool Standard tries to wake up dozy voters if not candidates in the otherwise safe seat of Wannon held by David Hawker (The Speaker) and also this Sydney based writer's home district.

One voter is in such despair she tries to drive off the Hopkins River boat ramp, and then the breakwater 6 weeks later (last Thursday). She is rescued both times, 2nd time unconscious floating face up frothing from her mouth with local fishers watching on agape. They go back to fishing. 

10 Meet the Press 

Press roundup Pakistan dictatorship with Purves Musharif. McKew looking strong in Bennelong ahead of Howard still.  

Wombat otherwise known as Mark Vaile blathering on as guest with compere Paul Bongiorno. Claims credit for $10 billion road package. 

Sleaze about climate change no big problem (hiding his big mining donation interests for the Nats). First adbreak is Get Up spoof on Govt advertising. Well worn but still effective. 

Out take with Nicholson animation is strong re ‘double talk’ theme with Howard backflips constantly on climate, reconciliation, other? 

Panel is looker Cath Hart from The Australian, and Steven Spencer of 2GB. CH goes for interest rates asap. Spencer on climate with pandering question (?). 

2^nd guest is Galaxy pollster sees Howard replaced by same younger Rudd as long as he gets there without looking risky. Notices big contrast general to marginals, says Lindsay and mortgage belt seats gone, but rural regionals different again (which way?).  

Transcript in due course www.ten.com.au/meetthepress ,   

Myspace web address: www.myspace.com/meetthepeople  

7 Weekend Sunrise, 8.35-40 am Riley Diary 

-  Very amusing parallel of Howard and Forest Gump. Great soundtrack. One of the best satires this year?  All a bit silly and ragged. Good focus on Abbott stuff ups with sorry music everywhere and ouch comparison with macho Mark Latham ie doesn’t play well at all. Pugilist Abbott pretty much revealed for what he is – a slugger.  

http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/weekend

Insiders 2

Home page is http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/

Sunday 9    

http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/default.asp

Posted by editor at 5:19 PM EADT

Updated: Monday, 5 November 2007 3:14 PM EADT

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Mood:  sharp

Saffron Howden of the Daily Telegraph yesterday, with the help of the dizzy folks at The Wilderness Society, and the Fairfax Sydney Magazine give Bob Carr (always the thespian) some great PR profile recently.

Picture: At left Bob Carr whose govt during his watch waved through the James Hardie legal trickery to offshore their assets to avoid asbestos liabilities of $4B or more, next to Nick Griener who is now a company director for Big Tobacco, also in the legalised business of killing people.

But the truth is oh so different from the Great Spinner trying to rehabilitate his public reputation after being forced out as premier after a respectable 10 years anniversary. (This is also the Bob Carr who also said the internet was irrelevant to electioneering in one of those typical hubristic interviews alongside Gore Vidal, which gives you the clue to the skinny mans patchy credibility as opposed to manipulative acting skills.)

Carr created 350 national parks some of them big, some of them postage stamps but he also condemned the other 50% to destruction with 20 year logging resource security when climate change was bearing down on us. Here are some of our eye witness field trips sometimes at personal risk:

We were careful to keep a web record of Carr's real legacy:

Carr alp dodges 1999-2003

Carr dodges 95-99

and in particular this big logging list in over 100 precious forests on his watch 1995-2005:

1. Click here for 'Final update on NSW public forests logged 1996-2003 pre 2003 election' posted on www.sydney.indymedia.org.au on 19th March 2003.

Ex Premier Bob Carr's breach of an election promise to end woodchipping of native forest by 2000 in NSW - not just any promise that actually got him over the line in marginals like Coogee in 1995 - had drastic consequences over the border in Victoria's once grand East Gippsland forests in places like Goolengook which were firebombed after devastating clearfells sent to the Eden chipper Carr promised to close.

Indeed there was such alarm at Carr's failure here is the very same The Wilderness Society election leaflet 2003 condemning the guy they just went on a bushwalk with as reported in the Daily Telegraph above ...

Posted by editor at 11:00 AM NZT

Updated: Wednesday, 31 October 2007 11:45 AM NZT

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Mood:  on fire

But this is narrow 'rodent' half truth rhetoric from the Coalition. The Opposition leader Rudd and Garrett have got it right on Kyoto as a framework for leveraging China and India irrespective of unilateral initial targets by the West. For instance consider the other crucial tool not mentioned much in the discussion of treaties - the ability in the local jurisdiction to shut out unwanted products (eg GHG intense Chinese/Indian imports) from lucrative domestic western markets. This is the sovereign power of every Western country just like the ban on kids toys with lead paint, or toxic food, import of endangered animals, or CFCs (see below). Similarly the terms of Kyoto are only the tip of the diplomatic iceberg when it comes geo politik of enforcement of such global environmental reform. Most of the power is not in the treaty, it's in the black list 'here' leveraging our buying power if our Govt is serious about action.

An excellent precedent case of this geo politik dynamic is the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) (see more background here) which covered China and India as developing countries, but only after many years, dragged kicking and screaming to binding ODS targets on products with chemicals like CFCs and HCFCs. The effect of an import barrier on Chinese and Indian ODS intense products into Europe/USA markets focused the thinking of China and India: The West was serious in fixing the ozone hole to save our future. And it worked.

Thus it is the West's overt willingness to go for economic sanctions, or not, that is crucial to China and India accepting binding targets that can also make the Kyoto Protocol work - not  binding targets up front per se.

This is why unity of purpose amongst the rich Western markets is critical more so than between rich and poor countries. The latter will follow in due course, as the Howard and Bush cynics well know: The music stops for China and India on GHG intense production when the USA and Europe decides that from a certain time it will not buy. No doubt it does take commitment and courage for the West to pull the developing countries into Kyoto (or similar) Protocol because it causes pain for both the West/USA and China/India

- in economic restructure (we like those cheap goods, they like making them),

- in diplomacy (China and India will be pissed at the upheaval and extra work to make the changes, the West are going to have to subsidise the cost),

-  in security (any cheating will cause serious frictions, and enforcement within and across national boundaries of targets won't be fun either) and

- confusion generally (how to regulate let alone educate globally).

In this sense Kyoto to be next considered in Bali, Super Kyoto, or Post Kyoto, are just labels for when in a timing sense the unified West rich markets are really, finally, ready to put real economic pressure on the developing countries: For instance declining all those cheap products in K-mart mostly made in China which may be produced in unacceptable ways.  Howard is deceptive to stereoptype the foreign developing countries as holding us back. Rather, go looking for developing country GHG emitters and likely you will find they include us - indirectly as buyers.

The great irony is that the Chinese govt already knows Kyoto or similar must happen, just as the implementation of the Montreal Protocol on ODS was a global training run. The Chinese want the Planet and the human species to survive as much as anyone. The logic of the combined effort on the ozone hole and common sense tells us so. Thus China is developing renewable energy in huge measure - to be ready for the big shift.

All the USA/Australia sabotage of Western unity in the Kyoto Protocol amounts to is pure cynicism  - yes make us 'Kyoto energy reform' virtuous, but not yet.Yet the longer we wait the worse it gets like a bad tooth leading to blood poisoning and even death.

Very significantly China and India said it was impossible to reform ODS under the Montreal Protocol in the 1990ies yet they retooled in 5 years after they realised their market was really at risk. It's true GHG is a much much bigger (though partly related reform) compared with phase out of the aggravating ODS but it is even more unavoidable. Cie la vie.

Howard and Downer are playing with words and for time. In fact with Australia such a huge exporter of coal and with Howard's value system about revenue above all else, our PM is talking like he is actually in the shoes of China and India who want as much dirty energy development as possible before the world takes the cure. Howard talks more like a Chinese dictator when it comes to saving the environment, than a western leader. Which is a worrying omen given the very poor environmental situation in China. That's not leadership by Howard, that's intellectual and moral cowardice in the face of scientific reality.

But then Australia under Howard is just proxy for the Bush regime in the USA saying we aren't ready for Kyoto yet. The Bush-Howard regimes are literally playing chicken with science and the future of the Planet and the survival of all species including humanity.

Our Catholic upbringing tells us this dangerous climate change and dithering over solutions is a modern form of Evil that Satan would approve.God's creation deserves better, the fundamental question underpinning this report in the Good Weekend Oct 13 cover story

Posted by editor at 8:57 AM NZT

Updated: Wednesday, 31 October 2007 10:55 AM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

  Will the Green Party under the official leadership nationally of the veteran Senator Bob Brown close the pragmatic preferences deal with the hard nosed pragmatic federal ALP, in defiance of ridicule by such as Senator Fielding of the Assembly of God aka 'Family First' right wing party?

Well time will tell. But the veteran Brown is looking like a Melbourne Cup bolter this last 24 hours. A spring in his step, the rumble of the ocean in his voice, a strong tonic of relevance syndrome like a ring in to a Fantastic 4 movie script on tv last night.

Picture: Images lifted from Fantastic 4 chortler, with Bob Brown in the Ioan Gruffudd role attempting to pursuade a pneumatic potential green voter, hanging in there electorally and very worried about Mr Hot, his friend or fatal super nova?

There he is, not for nothing, on Meet the Press, Insiders couch where Matt Price should be (and is not forgotten Matt in his darkest hours), and ABC tv prime time evening news correctly noting that "for the first time as national leader".

In this way the acutely diplomatic Brown, that this writer has much less time or interest in pursuing as the world crashes around us, is well placed to rein in the ideological left wing in the NSW division, and keep a subliminal ecological theme running strongly. The real green in Green. And thank God (!) for that.

And the ALP are getting it. The green in Greens are not for turning, getting a .5% increment every year on average, and the whole song and dance has to move stage forward to our position because we have the moral trumps on preserving creation and survival of our species including, God's creation as you please. There is no bargaining on such an issue.

Truly dangerous climate change is in fact Satan. 

This morning in Sydney 800 km south of Lismore (in the aftermath of a tornado - let me say that again, a tornado) the temperature at 6 am pre daylight saving, 7 am post daylight correction - was 25 degrees ("inside the truck" says the dead cow delivery guy outside a local butcher next to the local newsagent).

That folks is a subtropical climate shift bearing down on Sydney. A cyclone 800 km away last weekend but actually in Sydney in our lifetime. That's right - a cyclone in Sydney in our lifetime.

Climate Change is Satan. Are you reading this George Pell?

Posted by editor at 9:31 AM NZT

Updated: Monday, 29 October 2007 11:15 AM NZT

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Mood:  not sure

Author’s general introductory note (skip this if you know this regular weekly column):

This is not a well packaged story. It’s a contemporaneous traverse of the Sunday television free to air political talkies indicating the agenda of Establishment interests: Better to know ones rivals and allies  in Big Politics and Big Media.

Indeed it’s the tv version monitoring task similar to what Nelson Mandela refers to here in his book Long Walk to Freedom (1994, Abacus) written in Robben Island prison (where he was meant to die like other African resister chiefs of history in the 19C), at page 208

“..newspapers are only a shadow of reality; their information is important to a freedom fighter not because it reveals the truth, but because it discloses the biases and perceptions of both those who produce the paper and those who read it.”

Just substitute ‘Sunday tv political talkie shows’ for "newspapers" in the quote above.

For actual transcripts go to web sites quoted below except with Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Media backgrounder

Picture: October 7, 2005.

- Overall observation: Coalition aggressively pushing 'the unions are behind Rudd' aspect very hard all week including tv adverts, just as ALP push 'Costello behind any vote for Howard'. Thus the two major parties are in a narrow tit for tat rhetorical dynamic arguably at the cost of much more important issues like lack of State Govt funded services, hopelessly unsustainable society.  

- Joe McDonald a unionist is ejected from the ALP for using fruity language and forgetting to tug his forelock to big business mates of the Labor Party, while Michael OConnor remains on the ALP national executive while effectively supporting this violence to conservationsists:

      

and this

      

      

all raising the question

 'Rudd has been to the funeral of a brave Australian solider complete with national media coverage, but has he ever been to the funeral of a building worker killed on the job?' [we bet Joe McDonald has many times]

- cover story by Paul Kelly  (contrary to take out of jaundiced Piers Akerman on Insiders) is flattering, insightful, blesses Rudd effectively but also notes he is "a work in progress" and we interpret this in the Bob Dylan sense 'always growing, evolving and arguably improving'. In this sense yes Rudd is dynamic, and a sensitive instrument. A thrill for those who believe in upskilling and a life of learning. How many Australians feel like Paul Kelly or this writer remains to be seen but the signs are encouraging too. 

- Michael Chaney banker and outgoing chair of the Business Council of Australia, now chair of Woodside is pro Kyoto. Mal Turnbull is. Costello is.

10 Meet the Press

Press roundup, Leads with Turnbull pro Kyoto (tick Christian Kerr)

Paul Bongiorno as compere with Greens Senator Bob Brown.

BB says we are economic conservatives – don’t make $34B tax cuts put into ‘nation building stuff’ (my term).

On Turnbull pro Kyoto but 10M tonnes pa ghg from pulp mill. Preference ALP in Wentworth but not Tasmania.

Addresses Family First smears and poison. Drug policy "very similar harm minimisation to John Howard $200M policy"

Myspace question re leaders debate – BB says left out environment and no real address of CC.

Keating sledge footage with Costello balancer.

…………………..

3^rd advert first break, IR pro union position, real people real stories. Your rights at work advert.

……………………..

Senate unity ticket Lundy ALP, BB Greens, Allison for Aust Democrats. Very good simple clear advert.

Panel Mal Far, Daily Telegraph – people want to vote ALP but Coalition in Senate as offset. BB reality is cross bench should get power back. [clear back lash advert against pro Howard Family First ratbags].

Patricia Karvelas The Aust – Family First attack on Green Party desperate and extreme panic says BB. Refer report in The Australian article in media backgrounder earlier in the week.

MF – Melb Sydney Grayndler best chance. Greens just an inner city party? Strongest vote for senate in the ACT says BB. But lower house? Young intelligent classy candidates in the House of Reps.

Big Ipsos poll big tax packages cancel themselves out for ALP and Coalition.

Dorothy Dixer my space question, vote process. Double value  Nicholson animation of Howard enemies under the bed.

………………

Get Up spoof advert on climate change policies of the Howard Govt.

…………………

2^nd guest:  Afghan ambassador

PK -  re targeting of our soldiers? [refer killer line in SMH report on Saturday re APEC impact on fight with Taliban, reference in due course, damning indulgence]

Didn’t hear answer.

MF – Iraq distraction from fight in Afghan? Waffle answer but the question is the answer.

[moderate English didn’t really work as a tv exercise, sadly]

Transcript in due course www.ten.com.au/meetthepress ,

Myspace web address: www.myspace.com/meetthepeople

7 Weekend Sunrise, 8.35-40 am Riley Diary  -

Lead story news roundup Turnbull pro Kyoto.

Good roundup. Aggressive Liberal voters [balance out visuals of union ‘thugs’ and actually reflect very well on Rudd diplomacy – vote winner].

Ear wax embarrassment video gets a run. Shows desperation of Coalition to attack personal hygiene? Rudd wins week says MR, other side “implodes”.

“empty blatherings” good line re pollies. “When it comes to” counter.

http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/weekend

Posted by editor at 9:40 AM NZT

Updated: Monday, 29 October 2007 10:04 AM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 9:08 PM

Posted by editor at 8:27 AM NZT

Updated: Saturday, 27 October 2007 8:32 AM NZT

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Mood:  lazy

We have read Allen Greer's public stuff for years and think he deserves a medal, or a hemp brocade perhaps.

He provides real courage in a public discourse that is scared of its moral shadow. But it's not just tragic professional science fearful of ecology as an intrinsic value.

Even the impertinent (snot nose?) Green Party - exemplified by this ambitious candidate in the local press (staffer for cfmeu trained [pdf] Senator Kerry Nettle) - are quick to sneer at "lentil eating hippies" presumably such as Greer above (?), or this 43 year old writer with a commercial law and zoology degree (?):

Don't forget your 'green' origins and betters indeed. Of course when we helped pioneer the NSW Green Party in 1994 we were just twiddling our thumbs when this candidate was .... a happy go lucky 10 year old. And when we lapsed our membership in 2000 it was because the ALP and cfmeu were so green and there was nothing for the Green Party left to do on the environmental side of things ....

Committed environmentalism of 'real greens' is thus a fairly marginal philosophy amongst the IR, minority (gay) rights, refugee, pensioner, health budget, war protest, teacher's union, public ownership, agenda in the official Green Party particularly in NSW, not to mention their fair share of spivs and grifters. We hasten to add these are all worthy concerns per se, yet we can't help thinking perhaps a 5 metre sea rise might resolve all these via the biggest human rights issue ever?

Yes there is the pulp mill in Tas that Senator Nettle has been picketing the Howard Govt over at the Phillip St Sydney CBD offices (when woodchipping of forest has been a taboo in NSW and not just in the Sydney Morning Herald), but it's mostly rival economics and Tamar amenity, with critters and trees an after thought, temporary election populism with a longevity of .... oh say till Nov 24? George Newhouse the ALP Candidate in Wentworth accepts the pulp mill and the seemingly unconditional confused (?) local Green Party preferences a full 2 months out from the vote. If Danielle Ecuyer's independent anti pulp mill candidacy didn't exist it would have been necessary to invent her.

Funny too how the ALP friendly ACF has no problem working with the ALP aligned Climate Institute but have to be at arms length from Ecuyer's political candidacy ...which could just split the ALP vote in Wentworth.

The Australian is instructive and worth extracting for the record here, (oh Don, we do like you but you are so nailed):

No politics, please

THE Australian Conservation Foundation has cut its links with the Women for Change Alliance because of Danielle Ecuyer's dalliance with federal politics. Ecuyer has decided to stand as an independent against her former partner and Labor candidate George Newhouse in Wentworth, the Sydney seat held by Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Ecuyer founded WCA last year. On Monday Strewth reported that the ACF and WCA were to co-host a $60 a head party with organic wines and nibbles next Wednesday to celebrate "stylish and sustainable living". Yesterday, ACF executive director Don Henry said his organisation was a non-partisan charity that was not involved in fundraising activities for any candidate or political party. "Late last week, ACF made the decision to conduct these events without the participation of WCA, as it became clear Ms Ecuyer may stand for election in the seat of Wentworth," Henry said. He said the events were only intended to raise awareness of environmental issues among the citizens of Woollahra.

At least the Greens are colour coded and thus hand cuffed to the environment one way or the other as per Nettle's return to the Green Party's roots outside Howard's offic, chained to it by their name and one of 4 principles in their original mission . All the other parties are grey, and in truth Godless vandals who wouldn't know the beauty of Creation from an Assembly of God/Hillsong Convention including 'earnest offensive Great Leader' aka Halo Kid aka farmer boy.

............

In an eerie coincidence see this parallel story in the Sydney Morning Herald just the latest tombstone in The Cheap Talk Cemetry on the road to ecological destruction (?):

Population pressure takes Earth to its limits - Environment - smh ...

Which reminds us of that great 'champion' of the environment for the local ALP Shadow Minister Anthony Albanese:

ALP local groupie MLC and Marrickville Cr Penny Sharp is in the other local press (The Glebe Letters 25/10/07) referring to the "hypocrisy and ruthlessness" of the Greens in a cute form of projection from MP Sharp by name, sharp by rhetoric.

This is head shaking 'takes one to know one' stuff: The ALP want to build a $5B mega tunnel with smog stacks similar to the M5 East stack nearby to service an expanded Port Botany, and exponentially grow diesel train traffic 24 hours a day, each worth 6,000 trucks in emission pollution .... in Marrickville.

And guess who is the shadow minister for "Infrastructure" with the job of soft selling this cancer promoting intensification scandal in his own Inner West for the ALP in order to ascend further up his tax payer funded greasy pole? Even as he fans with deadly accuracy the fear of nuclear reactors across Australia?

That 'champion' of the environment ... Anthony Albanese.

Just keep voting Green Party for any real hope of change not "me tooism" but remember they are all politicians. Truly biology is the dismal science and for those who know it's a recipe for clinical depression, bouts of alcoholic anaesthesia or in our case the therapy of blogging.

Posted by editor at 10:01 PM NZT

Updated: Saturday, 27 October 2007 8:20 AM NZT

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Mood:  quizzical

Picture, lifted from SMH via Ch9 dated May 28 2007, captioned as "Second chance ... David Hicks's children, 14-year-old Bonnie and 12-year-old Terry, with their mother, Jodie Sparrow. Photo: Channel Nine"

Yesterday we wrote of the re-inflation of the Hicks 5 year 'incarceration without trial' scandal coincidentally timed just after a gruesome mass murder in Pakistan (and refer gripping SBS Mark Davis report on Dateline last night) well known for Taliban nasty sympathies.

(Perhaps of greatest worry for such as Benazir Bhutto's credentials as a political leader is that she could imagine a 15 hour ride through 2 million supporters over about 20km could in any way be a secure journey. How irresponsible is that? But Bhutto is not the only irresponsible or reckless pollie playing with lives for careers.)

There is a fascinating internal big/new media power game underlying this Hicks echo of the Pakistan atrocity story. Imre Salusinzsky hints at one aspect in his column yesterday in The Australian - Print warriors turning on themselves | The Australian

Imre is a very bright and whimsical fellow. His piece refers to prominent commentators Andrew Bolt, Gerard Henderson, Janet Albrechtsen, Piers Akerman, Dennis Shanahan, Michelle Grattan:

Posted by editor at 7:26 AM NZT

Updated: Friday, 26 October 2007 3:14 PM NZT

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Mood:  irritated

Everywhere we look we see cartoonists with bombs in their graphics. Warren in the Sydney Daily Telegraph today main cartoon.

Nicholson top page 1 of The Australian. All about unrelated matters yet somehow echoing in a subliminal way the suicide bombing last Friday in Pakistan with horrific visuals on our tv screens.

People across Australia could not help be affected by the evil violence surely: 'That's exactly what we don't want for our country' might have been the collective reaction. Certainly it was this writer's.

So if you do a little thought experiment - as we like to do - you get to thinking: If I were a pro Iraq war, national security hard line pollie [or even big media outlet?] getting desperately behind in the polls during this election phase, how might I best .... choose your word ....inform/leverage/spin/exploit this grim mass murder to best advantage with voters, and indeed folks in focus groups?

Well I would be cooking up law and order concerns about potential terrorists that my side were most 'experienced' and 'pro active' in dealing with distinct from those bleeding heart ALP or Green mob. Indeed the admirable ABC political analyst Chris Uhlmann in the recent Leaders Debate asked exactly this related question to John Howard, words to the effect of:

'Is Australia safer today from terrorism than when we invaded Iraq 5 years ago?'

Howard fudged an answer about Bali bombed in 2002 some 6 months before the Iraq invasion in March 2003. Fudged we say because Howard had already effectively decided to go all the way with the USA much earlier in 2002 so it was a limited view of history. We wonder further if the bombers in Bali were doing their brainless ugly best to warn Australia off (?) in the only way they believed in, fully understanding Howard was in lock step with Bush regardless. Or maybe it was always a target as Howard says.

Having travelled through Bali in early July 2002 and a potential victim we did alot of reflecting about this.

The explanations by Howard always assume that terrorists don't play real politik, but every thinking observer knows they do only with no civilised rules, which means they react to Howard's policies on access to oil, soveriegnty and the rest. 

Sure enough in the wake of the chilling outrage in Pakistan last week we suddenly hear more about David Hicks a stereotypical ostensible trainee terrorist:

Look carefully at the sourcing of the story. A prosecutor in the USA says he fears political interference in the release of David Hicks back to a gaol in Australia as published in Harpers. Well derr. That's exactly what the political activists in Australia were seeking. Then the Coalition are reported as outraged at being criticised for making political overtures outside the US legal process.

Wait a minute - no one is complaining about the Howard/Downer political lobbying anyway. Are the Govt arguing with themselves? Is Howard PM arguing with a prosecutor in the USA in the middle of an election? Why bother? Why is Downer complaining about criticism that doesn't exist here, excepting from some angsty prosecutor pursuing an off again, on again Military Commssion quasi star chamber in the W Bush regime? Is it another stupid Rovian frolic?

It smells very much like either The Oz or Downer/Howard et al want to raise Hicks back up into the public's mind after the broad visual coverage of the Pakistan outrage tragetting that nice Benazir Bhutto, and manufacture confected outrage at the Left for their 'support' for 'highly suspect' Hicks.

Very cynical timing that, just as Trioli quite accurately pointed out on abc radio earlier today - the Howard Govt were all on a callously brutal script up until about mid 2006 ie  that Hicks could rot in Gitmo forever for all they cared. But the tide was turning. At sometime late 2006/early 2007 Howard's rhetoric turned on a 20c piece. Suddenly the Coalition Ministers, not least PM Howard, were concerned about "the delay".

Was it the Abu Grahib scandal? Was it Rudd increased polling? Was it the AWB scandal? Was it the demonstrable failures in Iraq of endless duration and cost in blood and money? Was it the demonstrable falsity of WMD. Was it focus groups getting the sh*ts with Hicks' five year sojourn in chokey without trial? Was it 'unAustralian'? All of the above?

Whatever it was, the political shift was stark after endless support for getting a USA military commission process up and running (with Supreme Court challenges and restarts taking years). Then suddenly the tune reversed in the govt here. Howard wanted Hicks back. Hicks was an embarrassment in Gitmo. Perhaps in the wake of the Pakistan bombing we are seeing that the feds, who were careful to keep some legal hooks in Hicks,  and/or The Australian who always condemned Hicks,  can now see him as useful in the national security scaremongering stakes again? If Hicks didn't exist it would be necessary to invent him for a Coalition national security scare monger grandstanding PR strategy.

And a control order on hapless Hicks is probably just the ticket with Commissioner Mick Keelty playing coy, neither confirming or denying.

How cynical it would be to use the miserable slaughter in Pakistan and indeed in Iraq for opportunistic domestic political adavantage. Also to use the miserable and fairly pitiful David Hicks in another PR choreography. As if tackling terrorism was some silly shallow media game. Au contraire it's a deadly serious matter of carefully calibratred foreign and domestic policy based on real evidence and factual intelligence, not ham fisted ideology. In short national security should not be the plaything of desperate politicians losing in the polls. But is it just the flailing pollies?

......................

We detect yet another angle on the reprise of the great 'Give Hicks a public kicking' story. It was network 9 that broke from the fairly unified  discipline of the conservative media in condemning Hicks by giving the Hicks family his media oxygen on 60 Minutes earlier this year. Yet again it was 9 via Laurie Oakes this week who embarrassed Glenn Milne of The Oz and their Press Council who had the most to lose over the embarrassing Leaders Debate worm affair with Oakes referring to "log rollers and real estate agents" suppressing media freedom. Those are cutting words. Are we seeing a bit of referred Big Media internal biffo going on here at the expense of Hicks, soon after the battle of the worm, in an emerging power struggle between News Ltd and PBL, respective owners of the Oz and channel 9? Mmmm. That's interesting. My money is on Oakes over Milne but it could get very rough indeed.

Elections are dangerous affairs often and not just for the pollie careers.

Posted by editor at 2:24 PM NZT

Updated: Wednesday, 24 October 2007 7:14 PM NZT

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