APEC satire - "not funny"

APEC's surprise guest - Mr bin Laden of Canada - National - smh.com.au

Good on the Chaser crew. They managed to breach the APEC "rabble-proof fence" yesterday, but now 11 of them are facing charges to do with eluding the security operation.

The charges against them are just more ammunition for satire. This just makes the whole exercise in locking down Sydney appear that the disturbingly real and sad joke that it is.

If a couple of clowns in hire cars can breach the security wall because they don't look like feral hippies, imagine what a clever hitman like the legendary "Jackal" could do.

The goon squads are obviously not looking for terrorists, their role is to monster a few anti-globalisation and anti-war protestors into cowering submission.

Those brave bastards.

The Chaser team have a proud record of embarrassing politicians and the police. They have a worldwide fan club as you can see from this photograph. the billboard is an ad for the Chaser TV show on ABC.

More APEC commentary on YouTube

There's plenty of stuff going on with YouTubers about the APEC summit in Sydney.
Here's a selection. I guess there's no way (yet) to put a rabble-proof fence around the Internet.

NSW Police organise APEC riots

The Stop Bush Coalition protest march planned for Saturday has been put under a "prohibition order" by the NSW Supreme Court.
This is a legally strange decision - the march is not actually banned, but according to the ruling it will lose any "protections" that it might have had under the law. Go figure!

The police commissioner was pleased with the result, he told the ABC that:

it means if the protesters follows their original route, people could be arrested for obstructing traffic.

"They will be charged and put before a court, they could find themselves in a cell for many days," he said.

According to the ABC the police tendered evidence that if the route of the march was not changed: "a riot with an unprecedented level of violence would occur".

Yep, with the police already geared up and psyched for a rumble, there will be a riot. The police will riot with the full protection of the law.

The marchers are planning a sit down in the centre of the city, but the cops said that this is not acceptable either. At least if everyone's sitting down they're easier to punch, kick and club.

There's no doubt that the boys and girls in blue are ready to bring it on. The "riot squad" - how well monickered - is up for a bit of biff, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald:

The commander of the NSW Police Public Order and Riot Squad, Chief Superintendent Stephen Cullen, told the Supreme Court yesterday that Sydney would face unprecedented violence during APEC and "full-scale riots" if the protest were allowed down George Street.

In a well-drilled display of scare-mongering, Sup. Cullen told the court that he expected trouble:

"Well-drilled and disciplined" members of violent splinter groups would agitate during the protests, stirring up usually peaceful marchers.

"Based upon my research, experience, current intelligence and evidence from internationally similar events - more recently G20 in Melbourne - I have absolutely no doubt that minority groups will engage in a level of violence not previously experienced in Sydney.

"Never in my career have I held such serious concerns for public safety as I do during the conduct of APEC, or more specifically this particular march".

These cops are nutters and shameless provocateurs. The irony is that there's no irony. The "minority groups" who are "well-drilled and disciplined" will all be easy to spot on Saturday. They won't be a ragtag bunch of anarchists, it will be those in the uniform of state power. Brainless thugs who will happily follow the orders of their political masters to create a specatacle worthy of the Roman colossuem.

It is, as many have pointed out, an election stunt of the most gross dimensions. Howard and Iemma should be totally ashamed of themselves.

Weapons of mass distraction - the funny side of APEC

Who says cops have a sense of humour? It seems that in Sydney they don't. At least not when it comes to satirical attempts to cross the rabble-proof fence.
This story from the ABC Online. No doubt we'll hear more in the next few days:

Two stars of The Chaser's War on Everything have been detained after conducting a fake motorcade through Sydney.

Chaser co-star Chris Taylor has told ABC News Online that police have detained Chas Licciardello and the show's executive producer Julian Morrow.

Taylor says the motorcade was made up of three cars.

"A lot of people were involved [in this stunt]," he said.

"Some have been detained and some haven't."

Taylor says the crew members have been detained in their cars, while police wait for special units to arrive.

Lawyers for the ABC are also on their way to the scene.

The Chaser convoy had been dressed up to look like an official Canadian motorcade.

"No particular reason why we chose Canada," Taylor said.

He says they thought it was feasible Canada would only have three cars in its motorcade.

ABC spokesman Peter Ritchie has confirmed Licciardello and Morrow have been detained, but not arrested.

A shameless steal from Crikey

I couldn't resist republishing this short editorial from today's Crikey newsletter. If you have any interest at all in Australian politics, business and media you should subscribe. As a small way of atoning for my plucking this item, here's the link to the Crikey website.

Dear Sole Subscriber,

Another sole subscriber, Crikey reader Ben Pearson, has been musing on APEC.

The ongoing campaign by police and pollies warning against ‘violent’ protests at APEC -- dutifully reported by the fourth estate -– masks the fact that all three of these actors actually benefit from a bit of public argy bargy and thus exaggerate both the threat and occasional occurrence of it.

Premier Iemma rails against ‘vandals’ and ‘violence’ to show that he is tough on law n order. Prime Minister John Howard, on the other hand, is hoping that a couple of university proto-anarchists will distract attention from the fact that APEC is nothing more than the mother of all inconveniences for Sydneyites. As for the media, they are hoping for the kind of dramatic stories and photos that sell papers. As the industry says – "if it bleeds, it leads”.

For the cops, APEC is a vision of the world as it should be. Expanded powers, new equipment, media support, and maybe a chance to try out new toys like the water cannon.

The warnings and hype about ‘violent’ protests mask another agenda in which politicians and certain elements in the media stigmatise the very notion of protest, and by creating and reinforcing an association between mass protests and violence, they seek to de-legitimise the former. Public protest is the right of all Australians. Pollies may not like it, and it may not sell many papers, but it’s part of what democracy is all about.

And we think Ben has a point.

Follow APEC from the Stuff website

Tracy Watkins, political editor of the Dominion Post is in Sydney for the APEC summit and she's blogging away at Stuff.co.nz
It might be interesting to get a close-up view from "behind" the "ring of steel". Her second entry is here.

Don't fence me in - APEC security out of control

From today's Sydney Morning Herald:

The Department of Education says it does not yet know how many students have skipped school to join APEC protests.

Police will be roaming trains, buses and the central business district as part of a crackdown on students who truant to join protests, the Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, has warned.

Mr Scipione again urged students to stay away from today's protest for their own safety and warned that if they were playing truant there was a good chance the police would find them and report them to their school or parents.

The NSW police have also applied to have Saturday's protest march declared "illegal". This is a sure indication that they want to up the ante. As several leaders of the "Stop Bush Coalition" have been saying in radio interviews all week, this is about trying to intimidate people from joining the peaceful protests.

But it's also worse than that, it's part of a public relations "softening up" exercise. In my long experience it's the cops who start the "violence" at protest marches. This forces those present to defend themselves or risk getting clubbed and doused with "pepper spray". All this week the cops have been stopping people, including tourists, from taking photographs of the "rabble-proof fence".

The NSW police seem to be spoiling for a fight on Saturday. By denouncing alleged "secret plots" to cause damage etc, they are preparing the general public to accept that "fact" that the cops will have a justification for thumping the bejeezus out of protestors.

The PR campaign is helped along by reports such as this one from Brisbane's Courier-Mail outlining the expensive "security" blanket that's been thrown around Dubya. Here's a sample:

On board the planes were 50 White House political aides, 150 national security advisers, 200 specialists from other government departments and more than 250 Secret Service agents.

The president's men were even believed to be bringing their own sniffer dogs.

Surely this is overkill. There's been no public announcement of any threat to Bush, but his security detail will be heavily armed. There's enough fire power here to topple a government..."hhhmmm".

And, finally, a little bit more on who to blame for the disruption in Sydney. Do you need to ask? Well, the Prime Minister knows who's responsible, and it ain't him (again)

Mr Howard blamed the fencing through the central business district on protesters threatening violence.

"It's not the fault of the guests in our country," he said.

The fence stretches from King Street to Circular Quay and from George to Macquarie streets and will keep any protesters a long way from dignitaries.

He refused to say whether there was any intelligence warning of a major incident.

Backlinks to previous posts:

dignitary protection exercise
banning orders ozzie style
another brick in the wall