John, You sound like a barrister.
The law is an ass because it is disconnecetd to justice.
We have laws to give justice to society.
Without laws there is no justice in society.
Now with laws there still is no justice in society, but lawyers are doing alright.
The law is seen as as ass. It looks like a donkey. There are another five senses.
The law is heard as an ass. He Haw!
The laws is felt as an ass, Oh!
The law tastes like an ass. Urhh!
The law smells like an ass. Urrr!.

In a funny way the Schapelle Corby case has been the straw that broke the camel's back for me. It's been a while coming, but my belief in the potential efficacy of liberalish democracy and it's methods has
just about crumbled.

So, take the Corby case. It's obvious to anyone with half a brain combined with a concern for justice that the media tsunami around Corby arises not from any honest assessment of news values, but from the media corporations' permanent and obsessive drive to market themselves. So far so good.

But then again, given how obvious this really is, and how depressingly widespread and fast-accelerating are the attacks on our civil liberties in the so-called liberal democracies of the 'West', why is the population lapping the Corby coverage up (it is, by the way, and if you think so, you're social circle is too narrow)? It's pretty obvious: our Australian population doesn't give a toss for justice, as long as it is personally comfortable and can afford the next season's wave of consumer upgrades.

Too cynical? Well, I don't know if the ABC has it's finger on the pulse of public opinion, but it agrees with me. In response to a complaint from me about their obsessive and bloated coverage of this comparatively minor affair, I was told their news editor "took the view that it was the story of most interest to the greatest number of people". That is, they rightly calculated that Australians will be most interested, not in torture or desert concentration camps or the removal of any reasonable employment rights from the majority of our population, but in the fate of a winsome and white victim of nasty dark foreigners' dirty habits. News as voyeurism.

It's not just the corporate-trained masses who lack interest and concern for matters of justice either. Yesterday a rally was to be held in Brisbane to protest about the government's oppressive tertiary education 'reforms'. About 300 turned up. We're in the midst of the most vicious attack on university independence and standards that has been seen in any major developed country for many years, and the vast majority our putative intellectual class doesn't give a shit. They'll express outrage over coffee, no doubt, but they won't give up an hour of their time. I wonder if they're also too busy for house renovation and playing with upgraded consumer gadgetry?

I realise now that the rot set in for me after the anti-Iraq war marches. It all felt good. Warm waves of like minds lapped our city streets. But when afterwards, this huge protest was so entirely ignored (not even derisively! the largest mass protests in world history weren't even worthy of the energy required for derision from our masters!), when the lapping waves gently receded, I felt I realised how utterly self-deceiving the whole business is. You can't beat these bastards in power through gentle protest and mild liberal democratic dialogue. Ten thousand people setting the inner city streets of Brisbane alight would have had more impact than the 100,000 we had here. The middle classes briefly made themselves feel warm for one day in 2003 (after which they returned to house renovation and consumer upgrades), but the St.Pauls riots (involving a few thousand disorganised youths) of 1980 achieved far more.

We are now in such a state of peril on so many fronts, and have rulers and populations who hold liberal democratic values of justice, fairness, rule of law, etc either in contempt or with complete indifference, that only protests dwarfing the scale of America's grand civil rights struggle would have any hope of any achievement beyond salving the consciences of the participants. Is such a struggle going to happen in Australia? Hardly.

Our citizens have the laws and lawmakers they (we) deserve. I'm not going to kill cops on the streets of Brisbane either. But neither will I continue trying to persuade myself that benign liberal democratic chat is up to the task required of it, here, now, in the dire condition we find ourselves in, when it oh so plainly is just not.

Richard Ackland agrees with John: Before a state of Schapelle exhaustion sets in, I'm eager to get a few things off my chest, including the fervent belief that this prisoner is "convincingly" innocent, to use a word employed by the Chief Judge, Linton Sirai Indonesian legal system doesn't inspire trust

Jozef

Seems straight & true noisyjazzman.

Why should any of us care? Why not just join the mob & take what you can get? Everyone for themselves. Driven by fear & greed, screw your neighbours & colleagues before they screw you: just the sort of culture that little johnnie craves.

But of course it won't work, as I suspect you know. We are who we are: shaped & hewn by a lifetime of experience. Good, bad, caring or uncaring, we can't shake-off our disposition that easily.

I think that more & more people everyday are coming to understand that our society is not functioning as it should, nor as they'd like it to, but until the majority come to believe that government (any government) & the economy should truly serve the people (society), rather than the other way round, then it won't change.

In the meantime, surely it's better to be the last man standing & true to yourself, rather than compromised, cowed & bereft of purpose?

There's really only one option.

The whole media frenzy surrounding the Corby case has been, to say the very least, distasteful.

Whether she is innocent or guilty doesn't really matter to the media moguls and the news hungry journalists they employ.

To them bad news is good news.

The behaviour of the Australian media involved in covering the Corby case has reminded me of the ghouls who rush to gawk at the dead and injured at the scene of a car crash.

Or those who chase after fire engines to feed on the grief of some family who has lost everything.

Of course we "the consumer" of the tripe we are spoon fed by the media are just as guilty.

We lap up their sloppy offerings and beg for more.

John, the question for me isn't so much "why care" -- as you say, you either do or don't, rightly or wrongly -- but rather "what to do?". And for that question to have genuine meaning for me, it just has to incorporate the question of efficacy. There's very little about political activism of any form that I enjoy for its own sake, just as a way of spending my time, so anything I might involve myself in just has to pass the efficacy test. And when I look around me, I'm just in deep doubt at the moment that anything realistic can pass that test. On most of the big political/democratic questions that move me, the forces leagued against any position I might take include the combined forces of the corporatocracy and the average Aussie, so what purpose in political action?

I've thought a lot about this kind of thing over the last few years, and can't say I've really reached a conclusion yet. On the one hand, I would like to howl into the wind, but on the other, it seems that I might as well, not so much "join the mob" and take what I can get, as opt for quietism. I've noted that most books from the activist community on political subjects have chapter after chapter detailing the atrocious state of our international and/or local polity, and then end with the upbeat or optimistic bit. And the latter's usually such a sadly-hopeful, thin affair! (I'm thinking, for example of Kalle Lasn's Culture Jamming or Naomi Klein's No Logo; but could say the same of more mainstream, less explicitly-political works like Jared Diamond's Collapse). The activists don't sound like they really believe they are going to get anywhere (notwithstanding Lasn's bombast). Margo suggests in a recent WebDiary piece that we don't get depressed over our powerlessness, yet the tiny crumb of hope she offers up only seems to me to display why we might as well just do so.

Anyway, this is supposed to be debate not confessional, so enough.

John, I couldn't have said it better myself. You have defined just what "News" is. The definition of 'news' is:

"Something, someone at sometime does not want published, all the rest is advertising."

All news for the past 200 or more years has been evil, bad, distasteful, horrible, disgusting, perverted, obnoxious, gross, vile, corrupt and rotten. That is news. The trouble is that advertising is replacing it.

Some companies have written "good news" stories but they are unsustainable. Although they seem a very good idea, people get bored. The only thing that sustains interest is the horrible. Car accidents and death and maining in car accidents have been part of news ever since the car was invented and wars are fantastic where bodies are blown apart and everwhere is injustice such as the Corby case.

For good news stories read a magazine full of ads and advertising. You will be asleep before you know it.

Mike Carlton's caress from today's SMH.

All Quiet On The Western Gulag

Power consists in one's capacity to link his will with the purpose of others, to lead by reason & a gift of co-operation.

Woodrow Wilson

Call to close Guantanamo Bay - New York Times editorial.

Who We Are - New York Times

The Editor

Sydney Morning Herald                                                  June 23, 2005

So, David Hicks can’t understand why the Australian government doesn’t ask the US to send him home (‘US rejects Hicks health complaints’, Herald, June 23)?

The simple truth is that Hick’s legal & human rights have been cynically sacrificed in the interests of our government’s slavish pro-US foreign policy, its complete contempt for human rights & the rule of law & the absence of strong public pressure for his release & repatriation. 

Having publicly condemned Hicks for allegedly being a terrorist & a member of al-Qaeda, the last thing our government could stomach is the prospect of his liberty, even though he has committed no crime & his ongoing detention & treatment is in contravention of international law, including the Torture Convention. 

More to the point, as long as the US is prepared to do the dirty work & tolerate the opprobrium attached to its treatment of tens of thousands of 'detainees' in gulags around the world, including David Hicks, why should we care: he’s only Australian.

John, Family First is at work in the USA and Australia and it seems human rights get more screwed up as the more Christian we get. Let us pray to God for Hicks and Corby while both are prey.

An Italian judge on Friday ordered the arrests of 13 CIA officers for secretly transporting a Muslim preacher from Italy to Egypt as part of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts - a rare public objection to the practice by a close American ally.

 

The Egyptian was spirited away in 2003, purportedly as part of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval, subjecting them to possible torture.

 

The Rule Of Law

‘It is now more than a year since the revelations of torture and homicide against prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the showpiece of our efforts to "democratize" Iraq, shocked and outraged the world. Torture and suicide at Guantanamo Bay, the concentration camp aptly described by Amnesty International as the gulag of our times, has been on the record for three years. Foreign nationals, recategorized as enemy combatants by basement bureaucrats, have disappeared down these and other black holes around the globe. 

 

They have been denied legal process, access to counsel, and any contact with the outside world. This has no precedent in the law of nations, or in the practice of any but the most repressive dictatorships. Nor have American citizens themselves been spared this treatment. One, Jose Padilla, remains incarcerated without trial in defiance of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Another, Yaser Hamdi, was summarily deported to Saudi Arabia. Two others, Kashan and Zain Afzal, were imprisoned without charge for eight months in Pakistan, interrogated by the FBI, and threatened with deportation to Guantanamo. 

 

This is how fascism comes. It comes through creating legal non-persons of citizens and non-citizens alike. It comes through violating human rights standards, sanitizing torture, and condoning murder.’ 

 

Robert Zaller, ICH

 

Bush Administration Officials Join Ranks Of Tyranny

The Editor
Sydney Morning Herald

So, a group of US politicians watched a mock interrogation of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay & reported that ‘none of the interrogators touched detainees during the presentation’ (‘Guantanamo improving, say US politicians’, Herald, June 26)?

Holy human rights Batman, seems like US politicians must be even dumber than ours.

Fascism comes through violating human rights standards, sanitizing torture, and condoning murder.   This is why we need to oppose our present government in the strongest possible way, in public forums, at the polls and in every little cracks we can find in the media... No matter how smooth or sweet the politicians in Canberra make the porkie-pill to swallow, we do elect the clowns and ultimately WE are responsible for their bad and devious performance. The murders of so many Iraqis, the torture of so many people, by OUR elected personnel, all using whatever excuses to engage in these unacceptable acts makes us participants whether we are willing or not. This is the way democracy can become fascist without most of its citizens knowing it had. The actions of Bush, Howard and Blair have turned all of us into criminals and accessories to their acts. We need to make anyone around us feel the shame and the responsibility of the murders and torture that have been committed "in our name" by our little fellow who is just one moustache short of being the full fascist. Our concentration camps for refugees is a blight on our soil. Our participation in an illegal war is a tragic travesty of what this country should be. Letting our people rot in overseas prison is an intolerable mountain of dishonesty and hypocrisy... And the little man in Canberra who does it "in our name" keeps abusing morality and fear to bring us to his knees. Enough is enough...

The Australian today offered a report on a visit to Guantanamo Bay by a ‘bipartisan group of US politicians’ The Australian: US Pollies See Guantanamo Sights

The report detailed how the politicians ‘witnessed interrogations’ (breathlessly noting that none of the interrogators ‘touched’ any of the detainees), including one session where an interrogator sought to ‘wear down’ a detainee by reading him a Harry Potter book – aloud, for hours (the detainee allegedly ‘put his hands over his ears’ to escape this mind numbing experience).

Whilst US politicians ‘tripped the light fantastic’ at Guantanamo Bay, mock seriously seeking to reassure the American public that its government is ‘properly treating the detainees’, an altogether more serious & objective analysis of their treatment & status was offered to the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary 10 days ago.

Of course the Australian, nor any other organ of the Australian media, didn’t report the appearance by Attorney Joseph Margulies, of the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Chicago Law School, before the US Congress on June 15, where he testified on the unlawful nature of the Combat Status Review Tribunals or CSRTS, being used by the Bush Administration to deny detainees fair hearings.

Mr Margulies also spoke about the torture & abuse at Guantanamo & the US government’s continued attempts to defy the Supreme Court ruling a year ago, granting the detainees the right to challenge their detention in US Courts.

Combat Status Review Tribunals are procedures held at Guantanamo where members of the US military confirm whether a detainee continues to be an enemy combatant. The CSRTs are a sham legal process because they do not allow a lawyer to be present to defend the detainee & the detainee does not have access to all the evidence being used against him, some of which may have been acquired through torture. The CSRTs do not meet the most basic definition of a fair trial.

In his written testimony, Mr Margulies said that the CSRTs give, ‘nothing more than the illusion of a lawful process’. He went on to add that, ‘the CSRT mock this nation’s commitment to due process & it is past time for this mockery to end’.

Mr Margulies also made reference in his evidence to Australian detainee, Mr Mamdouh Habib, suggesting that the coincidence of his release earlier this year was related to the fact that his allegations of having been tortured in Egypt were about to be detailed in a US Court.

The US has held more than 600 detainees at Guantanamo Bay at various times over the past 31/2 years. Some 520 detainees from upwards of 40 countries remain in custody, whilst 167 have been released.

Thus far charges have been brought against only 4 detainees, under laws created more than 2 years after 911: in the case of David Hicks, the other Australian held at Guantanamo, more than 2 years after he was detained by Afghan tribesmen in 2001 & subsequently 'sold' to the US after its invasion.

The Australian government is the only government not to request the repatriation of its nationals from US custody at Guantanamo Bay, content to leave the fate of one of its citizens in the hands of its closest ally & untroubled by the fact that he has been tortured & that his legal & human rights under International Law are being denied.

US Senate Committee On The Judiciary

The Guantanamo abuses occurred in front of FBI witnesses at what is considered the showcase of the new worldwide prison system Bush has established to process his captives in the ‘terror war’.

 

But there are a number of ‘secret prisons’ - including a special enclosed facility at Guantanamo itself - where ‘special’ interrogations are carried out by the CIA without any outside witnesses, The Washington Post reports.

 

By presidential order, the CIA does not have to say who these prisoners are, how or why or where they were taken prisoner, or what happens to them behind the impenetrable walls.

 

According to the official documents, FBI agents said that military interrogators and their corporate mercenaries in Guantanamo and Iraq routinely went ‘far beyond the restrictions of the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture’, but were acting under an executive order signed by Bush authorizing the use of dogs and other aggressive physical and psychological techniques on prisoners.

 

Bush Signed Secret Executive Order Approving Torture

The Editor

Sydney Morning Herald                                                                     July 18, 2005 

 

So, John Howard thinks it a ‘cynical suggestion’ that US authorities would reject allegations of abuse made by David Hicks & Mamdouh Habib if they were true (‘US report rejects abuse of Hicks and Habib’, Herald, July 18)?  

I wonder what Heath Twomey of Townsville thinks, given that the US servicemen charged with knifing him were handed back to the US military & subsequently released?

No reason for cynicism in John Howard’s Australia.

The Editor

Sydney Morning Herald                                                              July 19, 2005

 

So, John Howard is satisfied that David Hicks will receive a proper trial before a US Military Commission (‘Hicks trial to press ahead: Rumsfeld’, Herald, July 19)?

 

With evidentiary & procedural standards below the minimum required by judicial proceedings under International, Australian & US Criminal & Military Law, the Military Commission may

 

·                     accept hearsay evidence

·                     rely on evidence obtained through torture

·                     rely on secret evidence

·                     hold hearings ‘in camera’

·                     refuse cross-examination of witnesses

·                     exclude exculpatory evidence &

·                     refuse to release the accused, even if he is found not guilty

 

Given the high ‘standards’ adopted to ensure a ‘proper’ trial & the fact that Commission members are also representatives of the prosecutorial authority, why not just hand Hicks over to DIMIA & be done with it?

Guantanamo Trials Rigged

The Hon Philip Ruddock MP,                                                 

Attorney-General,                                                                     

Parliament House,

CANBERRA.   ACT.   2600.                                                    August 1, 2005.

 

Dear Sir,

 

I refer to your response to allegations that the US Military Commission has been deliberately structured to ensure that individuals tried before it, including our fellow Australian, David Hicks, will not receive a fair trial.

 

In particular you said that: ‘The military commission has always been seen for dealing with unlawful combatants as an appropriate way to deal with issues when you are in a continuing conflict, and that's why the Americans have pursued it - it suits their particular system and the protection of information.’

 

Your suggestion that the Military Commission has been designed to ‘protect information’ when dealing with ‘unlawful combatants’ in a ‘continuing conflict’ is a shameful distortion of the facts & makes a mockery of repeated claims by your government, including those made by you, the Prime Minister & the Minister for Foreign Affairs, that defendants before the Commission will receive a ‘fair’ & ‘proper’ trial.

 

As you are well aware, the evidentiary & procedural standards being followed by the Military Commission are below the minimum standard required for judicial proceedings before International, Australian & US Criminal Courts, as well as US Military Court Martials.

 

In particular, the Commission members are representatives of the prosecuting authority & have no legal credentials or training. In addition, the Military Commission may

 

·                     accept hearsay evidence

·                     rely on evidence obtained through torture

·                     rely on secret evidence

·                     hold hearings ‘in camera’

·                     refuse to allow the cross-examination of witnesses

·                     exclude exculpatory evidence &

·                     refuse to release the accused, even if he is found not guilty

 

Your defence of the Military Commission is as lame as your government’s professed respect for the rule of law.

 

In ignoring your duty to secure & protect the legal & human rights of yet another Australian citizen, you & your government have once again demonstrated that political expediency is the only ‘value’ that you are determined to protect.

The Editor,

Sydney Morning Herald.                                                             August 2, 2005.

 

So, John Howard believes ‘the rights of David Hicks had to be weighed against the liberty of citizens who might be affected by acts of terrorism’ (‘We won’t oppose Hicks trial: Howard’, Herald, August 2).

 

Quite apart from the obvious dishonesty of Howard’s allusion, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Hicks’ right to receive a fair trial.

 

US Military Commission members are representatives of the prosecutorial authority & have no legal training. The Commission may accept hearsay evidence; rely on evidence obtained through torture; rely on secret evidence; hold hearings ‘in camera’; refuse to allow the cross-examination of witnesses; exclude exculpatory evidence & refuse to release the accused, even if he is found not guilty.

 

Injustices perpetrated by the state, under the guise of fighting terrorism, are themselves acts of terrorism.

The Prime Minister,                                                                      

The Hon John Howard MP,                                                   

Parliament House

CANBERRA.   ACT.   2600.                                                    August 2, 2005.

 

Sir,

 

US Military Commission

 

I refer to your statement today that: ‘The Government is satisfied & what we have been told by the American authorities, is that the Military Commission process will be fair.’

 

Could you please advise how the Military Commission process can be ‘fair’ when:

 

·                     the evidentiary & procedural standards being followed by the Military Commission are below the minimum standards required for judicial proceedings before International, Australian & US Criminal Courts, as well as US Military Courts Martials?

 

·                     the Commission members are representatives of the prosecuting authority & have no legal credentials or training?

 

·                     the Commission is able to 

o       accept hearsay evidence

 

o       rely on evidence obtained through torture

 

o       rely on secret evidence

 

o       hold hearings ‘in camera’

 

o       refuse to allow the cross-examination of witnesses

 

o       exclude exculpatory evidence &

 

o       refuse to release the accused, even if he is found not guilty.

 

Could you please explain the basis of your assertion that the Military Commission process is ‘fair’, when eminent jurists have universally condemned it, due to its obvious evidentiary & procedural deficiencies?