This country is sleepwalking into tyranny and few people seem to care…. In Orwell's 1984, the population of Oceania believed itself to be free, with only Winston Smith and a few others realising this to be an illusion. We must now question more than ever if the freedom Australians believe themselves to enjoy is in fact becoming singularly illusory. Chris Gaynor, letter to The Age
I can see why Harold Hark fled to Europe. With the deportation of Scott Parkin, the mockery of Parliament as the sale of Telstra was rammed through, and a hundred and one other contemptuous and corrupt incompetencies practised daily by the Howard Government, it could hardly be worse there. Nicer buildings to look at, anyway.
So I stepped into the breach, hoping mostly to write of other things, with an occasional side-eye at politics. And yet, there seems to be nothing but politics to write about. It's all around us, the kind of ideological insanity that crushes democracy in its name.
The Government deported Parkin because he was an unspecified threat to national security. That's all they have to say any more. What they don't realise is that his despotic deportation will cause a rise in dissent. But then, maybe that's what they want.
Every tiny incident gives John Howard another chance to jab the sleepwalkers with his cattle prod of fear. He must be loving it. A nation of sheep in thrall to a rodent.
But this is the country, alone in the history of nations, that voted for a goods and services tax. No other population has ever been so stupid. Howard realised, deep within his desiccated viscera, that controlling such gits would in the future be a piece of cake.
He now leads as a neurasthenic tyrant. As well as turning Australians into submissive and cowardly xenophobes, he has eaten the souls of dozens of his fellow parliamentarians. Philip Ruddock used to be a decent fellow. But under Howard's influence, he has been shown the darkest of paths and, ten years later, looks and acts like a ghoul. The same with every one of Howard's Henchmen. Where once were potentially decent human beings, there is now but a rabble of demons. They speak only for the dark side of human nature.
If I were a Catholic, I would summon an exorcist. For that, or something like it, is what this country needs.
I find the letters page of the Age a source of great reassurance that not everyone in this country has become insane or apathetic.
The rise in the volume of dissent exhibited daily in this forum, token though it is, is heartening.
The only question that keeps popping up in my head is, who the hell voted him in???
Posted by Chris Watson on September 16, 2005
Perhaps it's time for Australians to emmigrate to New Zealand. That country is not over legislated the way we are.
Before too long we will be celebrating Thanks Giving and Independence Day (Jul 4). The Yanks successfully thrusted Halloween on our kids using Kmart as the vehicle to dump their old Halloween stock onto Australian children.
Posted by Trevor on September 19, 2005
Deported peace activist blameless
November 1, 2005
AN AMERICAN peace activist deported from Australia on the grounds he was a threat to national security was not involved in any dangerous or violent protests in Australia, ASIO revealed yesterday.
Scott Parkin, 36, from Houston, Texas, returned to the US in September after his visitor's visa was cancelled on the grounds he posed a national security risk. He was kept in solitary confinement by Australian Federal Police in Melbourne following an adverse security assessment by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.
ASIO chief Paul O'Sullivan denied his agency was pressured by the US into making the adverse assessment. Asked if Mr Parkin had been violent in Australia, Mr O'Sullivan said he had not.
AAP
www.theage.com.au
Posted by Iain Murray on November 3, 2005