Via Sydney Indymedia, news of a plane crashing with 3-6 tonnes of cocaine. Several people seem to believe that this plane “belonged” to the CIA; and also that the same plane had been frequently used to transport enemy combatants to Guantanamera Bay.

(Whole story was reported in ‘daily Kos’)

Can you imagine what the CIA would be doing with that much coke? When you follow the discussion, you find that a number of people are taken by the idea that the US govt is actually in charge of the illegal drug market. And that major banks are laundering cash from the whole thing.

Bizarre! i’m aghast and flobbergosted. Who would believe such things. Does this mean we can’t trust our governments here in the West? But i thought we lived in a civil society, a democracy. Surely this is just paranoid ranting?

The government, that runs a war on drugs, supports a covert drug smuggling operation? But wouldn’t that be hippo-critical ..?

Stating its reasons as public safety, the Japanese government is passing legislation to enforce fingerprinting for all foreigners. Vegetable Japan posts a strong protest, noting that all of the anti-civilian violence in Japan has been carried out by the locals rather than Gaijin.

She believes that the government is using widespread fear to crack down on individual liberties, and refers to an article by John Mueller. Writing from the US, for Foreign Affairs, Mueller wonders whether the threat of the T-word is now used primarily to curtail civilian freedoms, rather than to maintain public safety.

(image of delicious food taken without permission from Vegetable Japan)

Jon Faine asked me if Cairns was competing to be the most ignorant, rednecked place in Australia. i said it was in the running, but that this was just one pub. Let’s not go overboard with the generalisation, i tried to imply.
(But respectfully. Faine is one superhero.
(Link to interview below 🙂

Before i state that abusing people (and their cities) because of their behaviour isn’t always helpful, i’d like to add that Sydney is still in the lead for that competition, after the Cronulla riots of 2005.

A couple of people getting kicked out of a pub really doesn’t compete with that.

When you add in all the dog whistling coming out of another NSW town .. Canberra, then Cairns isn’t in the running at all. Did i say Canberra? Maybe the messages of fear and suspicion, of hatred and social division, have been emerging from Kiribilli all along.

So lets leave Cairns out of it. Cairns is a beautiful city full of wonderful people. So is Sydney. Wonderful people that deserve all the safety and first-rate public education we can muster.

Still, by crikey, i know what Jon meant: don’t you wish we’d all just get over it.
Calm right down. Get mentally healthier, and see things in perspective.

Don’t shoot Brasilians because we think they look Middle Eastern and carry a backpack on the Tube. Stop blaming minorities for our global imbalances.

Elect governments that are far less committed to spreading social division and fear like honey on toast (just to conceal their out-of-balance economics).

Fund public education properly, so that people have a clue about how to live in this world.

(Link to radio: chalk on faine, abc melbourne, mornings (thursday – nope you’ve missed it now)

.. but i might have a copy if you missed out. Okay, here’s a listening device:

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Thanks for reading.

(thanks kalandrakas at flickr for “how to pray the japanese way“; abc images used without permission)