Monday, 27th of October, 2003

My congratulations to Bob Brown and Kerry Nettle for standing up to the incredibly fascistic behaviour of the Howard Government/White House in parliament this week. For my sake as much as anyone else's, here's a link to Margo's webdiary on Bush in Parliament. Some great stories there. Margo writes:

Nearly half of Australia's citizens voted for Labor in 2001 in preference to the Coalition. Not one Labor MP or Senator – not one – was invited to that barbecue.

And that "I love free speech" quote by Georgie really is too much! This while the Australian people's freedom were being methodically and deliberately curtailed during the two presidents' visits. Margo has a really angry webdiary here from Saturday, describing how invited pro-democracy and Tibetan activists were barred from entering the public gallery. Every effort was made to shield Chinese President Hu from all protestors. Bob Brown's press release, as well as the Falun Gong statement, can be read there.

OK I should clarify: My use of "fascistic" is intended to reflect the tight propagandistic control exercised by those in power in order to shield themselves from (and quash) dissent.

4 Responses to “More on the Bush visit”

1. acb says:
   October 27th, 2003 at 5:38 pm

   Did you see the Murdoch articles about the Greens' utter contempt for the workings of our democracy and how they're unfit to serve in parliament? I wonder to what extent the "Silent Majority" of "suburban battlers" who aren't part of the "latte-sipping inner-city elites" believe that the Greens are just a bunch of naughty kids without a clue, just as the murdochs tell them.

2. Peter says:
   October 27th, 2003 at 6:06 pm

   Didn't read the Murdochs actually… I prefer not to, for reasons of health & safety. Chilling. I do hope enough Australians realise that the Greens are the *only ones* standing up for our democratic rights, not to mention HUMAN rights.

3. Marieke says:
   October 29th, 2003 at 4:20 am

   Chilling indeed. Howard is a rat who kow-tows to GWB. I was readnig Margo's comments and my blood started boiling. Not even Tony Blair is this bad and he is the King of Spin.

4. mjh says:
   November 3rd, 2003 at 1:53 pm

   peter, what's worse than anything else is that australians don't seem to care and have detached from howard's regime and will write '1' beside 'liberal' in the next election. that's what i find the most appalling, bewildering and … retarded :).