Doubleplusungood

I must confess to being more than somewhat slightly bemused by this Cornelia Rau thing. Not so much by the fact that our government apparently has the power to detain pretty much anybody they like for whatever reason they like (O.K., so this time it was a mistake).
Nor is it the fact that a bunch of reffos could tell that she was loony tunes but the highly trained staff at the government facilities couldn't.
Nor is it the fact that our glorious Leader - hallowed be thy name - is apparently physically incapable of uttering the word "sorry" (kudos to Peter Costello, BTW, I wish he were PM), or indeed to admitting to an error of any sort. It isn't even the fact that Howard and his one-eyed supporters - they're all one-eyed in my experience - can't tell the difference between obstinacy and strength.
No, it's the fact that nobody gives a rat's arse. Our government here in the Lucky Country detains people without even taking basic steps to identify them, keeps them in custody for months, in a mental state so degraded that they are eating dirt, then doesn't even have the common decency to apologise for the error and... nobody cares. I find that very scary.
What else will they allow to pass unremarked? In such a way are totalitarian states born (see Russia, Soviet, 1920's). I put this apathy down to two things; first, the increasingly material society we live in: unless an issue directly affects people, especially financially, they ignore it, with notable exceptions like the media driven Tsunami frenzy. Secondly and probably more importantly, since September 2001 most western governments have been deliberately generating a climate of fear in their respective constituencies.
Let me state this as simply as I can - September 11 DID NOT CHANGE THE WORLD. Two buildings getting knocked down, a third getting damaged and three thousand people dying is not, in the wider scheme of things, an earth-shattering event. Nor has it ushered in a flood of terrorist attacks. I don't do statistics, but I would be very surprised if any non - right wing researcher would come up with any figures that show the order of magnitude leap of intensity that our leaders would have us believe was imminent, if not already here.
Which is not to say that the world has not changed because obviously it has. The main agent of change has been George jnr., ably assisted by people like Blair and Howard. All of them would have you believe that without sweeping new powers and invasions of various places, life as we know it would come to an end. Guess what fellas, life as we know it has already come to an end, ask Cornelia Rau.
It has got to the point where people don't recall anything. Remember WMD's? Heard anything about them lately? Didn't think so. How about Howard stating specifically that he could not justify invading Iraq on the basis of regime change. What are they justifying invading Iraq for again? That's right, regime change. I don't have anything against regime change, it came twelve years late as far as I'm concerned. They should have done it at the end of the Oil War of 1991, instead they pushed sanctions through the UN, and then enforced them as rigorously as they could, including a 'no - fly' zone which I believe went beyond the purview of the sanctions (I could be wrong, but if I am I won't admit it - does that make me PM material?) So for twelve years the country was starved to death - hardly a good humanitarian outcome.
Is democracy in Iraq a good thing? Of course. Is it 1500 dead Americans and 50,000 to 100,000 dead Iraqis good? Depends. You see, it isn't an organic democracy, created by its own constituency. It is riddled with coalitions of small, ethnic-based parties, so that there is unlikely to ever be a strong leader, which is a good thing if you are a superpower looking to cement its position at the top of the dung-heap. It is both a good and bad thing if you are an Iraqi, sure, there'll be no more Saddams in the near future, but there'll be no FDR's, Curtins or even Kemal Attaturks either.
I would like to add here that any of those chest-beating, we showed Saddam, now we're going to show Iran/Syria/Other country(but not North Korea, too many people,i.e.,non-Koreans, will get killed) types who are of age to serve in the military, have no physical or mental condition preventing military service, but aren't actually in the military can only be one of four things; an idiot, a hypocrite, a coward or a combination of the four. It's really easy to be tough from here guys (and girls), how about putting your life where your mouth is?
In other news, this week Miniplenty announced that the chocolate ration has been increased to three ounces.