On Apr 25, 4:25=A0pm, fasgnadh <fasgn...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Fran wrote:
> > On Apr 25, 11:56 am, fasgnadh <fasgn...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >> "We 'saved' torch relay: AOC"
>
> > All the same a basic concern remains -- should public moneys have been
> > expended on this event?
>
> Which event: The torch run? The Beijing Olympics? =A0Law and order?
> Public moneys are routinely spent on all three.
>
In context, the torch relay in Canberra. That was the topic you
specified.
I also wouldn't favour spending public moneys on the Beijing Olympics
(see for example my other topic about separating elite s****t from the
state) or any Olympics, or any elite s****t, including elite s****ts I
actually like (such as cricket). I wasn't directly talking about that
though.
"Law and order" is not an event, although, given that this is being
posted to aus.tv, perhaps you mean one of the TV shows? If so, put me
down as opposed to spending public moneys on producing the Law and
Order TV series even though the money would probably create more good
than it did as spent the other day.
I'd like you to specify the measurable benefits those who ultimately
bore the cost of this have either already received or are likely to
receive and to explain whether this is more, less or about the same as
the best other thing on which 2 million dollars might have been spent.
> (Human rights in Tibet at issue and you are concerned about the
> cost of public safety for Australian athletes? =A0I'm surprised! =A08^o)
>
Actually, the two questions are related other than as you imply. Had
the torch relay been cancelled, the public safety of Australian
athletes would have been undiminished as compared with what happened
at the torch relay, and possibly improved (because nobody could really
know what was going to happen).
Had the torch relay been cancelled, a new round of discussion would
have been provoked on the 'true meaning' of the Beijing Olympics
brand, and there would have been yet more pressure on Beijing to do
damage control over Tibet.
> As I understand it a non-terrorist organisation
> calling itself the Australian Olympic Commission
> wanted a number of Australian Athletes to carry the
> Olympic torch from point A to point B as part
> of a 50 year old Olympic 'tradition' (see comments
> on Hitlers role in the previous post)
>
This is not strictly accurate. Hitler's torch relay took place only in
Germany. The international relay, IIRC, dates from Sydney 2000. The
question arises, what does it mean when it p***** into any other
jurisdiction? In this context, isn't it a tacit endorsement of the
idea that Beijing is doing the right thing on human rights?
> Incidents overseas showed there was a strong possibility
> that anti-Chinese protests by Tibetans would target
> those athletes to impede the relay, in order to capture,
> extinguish or impede the flame.
>
> It is the Olympic flame, not the Chinese,
You overlook context, Peter. During the Cronulla riots, Australian
flags were carried by some of those responsible for outrageous,
violent and bigoted criminal conduct. It remains an Australian flag,
but what was its meaning *at that time* and *in that place*? It was
carried, inter alia, by neo-nazis, and others who hated the idea of
'lebs' on 'our beaches', and the poles which bore up the cloth were
used as weapons of intimidation. *At that time* and *in that place* it
was a symbol of violent parochial and xenophobic animus.
Whatever the merits of Pierre de Coubertin's vision of the Olympics,
that has been entirely subsumed in the succeeding years by jingoism
and commercial exploitation. *At best*, the Olympics are a huge,
environmentally unfriendly exercise in pointless consumption and mass
political distraction overlaid with jingoism and commerical avarice.
On this occasion, it's also an exercise in China's elite asserting its
place in the sun, over the bodies, figuratively and literally, of
those within their jurisdiction who lack enthusiasm for the project..
> and carried by Australians
> on this leg, not Chinese and the Australian police had removed the
> 'Flame Protectors' (sic) who were Chinese from any 'protective' role.
>
> So the increased cost born by the community was simply for
> increased security in response to reasonable perceptions of
> threat.
>
But why run the event at all?
> We do as much for visiting war criminals, such as George Bush,
Actually 'we' did much more, but as with APEC, I ask 'why run the
event at all'?
>
> in fact all of Sydney was disrupted.. so why not for some
> aging aths legends?
>
> =A0> Stanhope said that he'd have been happy to
>
> > spend "ten times" as much to secure the result he got yesterday, which
> > would have put the bill for the repression at $20 million.
>
> Cheaper than Howard hostng APEC,
As with APEC, I ask 'why run the event at all'?
> and instead of the
> national humiliation heaped on that security effort
> by the Chaser intrusion, this time we have shown the
> world how to move a torch from A to B without a riot. B^D
>
That's about as low a bar as anyone could want.
> Not a bad effort,
No -- it was a bad effort. A pointless and politically offensive
exercise was carried out by mobilising m***** of coercive thugs at
great public expense. Scenes in which large numbers of Chinese can be
seen as on a par, at least in terms of intent, with those Cronulla
rioters were produced.
I'd call that a terrible result.
> considering how some countries manage
> conflict (USSA controlled Iraq, Cyprus, Zimbabwe, Israel,
> China in Tibet, USSA controlled USSA, etc...)
>
> > One has to ask, was having a one day torch relay really worth $20
> > million, or even $2 million? If it could not have been held without
> > APEC-style intimidation and repression, would it not have been
> > preferable to have abandoned it?
>
> Who was intimidated and repressed, Fran?
>
Everybody who attended, and everybody who didn't because they thought
they might wind up on the wrong end of some jackbooted police
officer's boot or truncheon or can of capsi*** spray. The Major Events
legsilation saw one person arrested, apparently, just on spec, well
before the event started..
> The handful of Chinese and Tibetans arrested?
>
Throw them in too.
> The Torch protector politely told to **** off?
>
Possibly
> =A0 =A0That alone was worth the cost! =A0We may never again
> =A0 =A0get another chance to tell the Chinese to do anything,
> =A0 =A0treasure it!
>
> Of course you may be right, whenever any tiny group of
> under a 1000 threaten to disrupt anything we should let
> them decide what public events proceed.
>
As with all things, one should weigh costs, risks and benefits. There
was no tangible public benefit to be had staging this event, and there
were huge costs and risks. The government could not afford to be
publicly humiliated and so it had to take a sledgehammer to the event
to ensure it got something like the result it wanted. In Nagano, the
lines of assembled riot police today have largely rendered the torch
from public view, unwittingly redefining it more accurately in its
context.
> I beleive the Tibetans have a case regarding Chinese
> control of Tibet, just as the Papuans have a case against
> the Indonesians, and the Iraqis against the Americans and
> Australians, and the Aboriginals against the British and us..
>
> However, if it creates a debate on why the Olympics are a
> positive force for peace,
That wouldn't be a debate -- that would be propaganda. What about
'whether the Olympics are a force for peace?'
> bringing peoples of all nations
> together for GAMES, not war, and as such, qualitatively
> different from say, hosting the Springboks during the
> Apartheid era, or inviting the PLA to a surfing comp,
> then it may be money well spent.
>
But if people just conclude the whole thing stinks from the head like
the proverbial rotten fish ... money well spent?
Not even then, IMO, even if such an event never takes place again.
> > Can anyone think of some better way to have spent the money/resources
> > that the ACT/Canberra spent on yesterday's fandango? I'm going to say
> > yes, and call what Stanhope says nonsense.
>
> Yes I can think of many better ways to spend the money,
> unfortunately rabid nutters force us to spend it to secure the
> public safety.
>
Those 'rabid nutters' being those who decided this event should
proceed ...
> And if only people wouldn't steal we could save BILLIONS on
> locks, keys alarm systems and prisons.
>
Don't change the subject Peter.
> In the Howard era it would have been seen as cheap
> at twice the price, as a means of sucking up to
> a powerful trading partner.
>
Yes, but we've moved on from the Howard era, no? I suspect not. One
doesn't move on from eras as quickly as that, and said as much a while
back.
> We get world images of holding a trouble free relay while
> allowing peaceful democratic demonstrations by both Chinese
> and Tibetans.. non-violent Tibetan protest gets a world audience,
> and China gets TV images of a sea of welcoming Red Flags for this
> leg of the relay.. =A0We will be their best buddies.. I would
immediately
> ask for at least $2m in complimentary seats at Beijing! =A0B^D
>
Well that's the spin, but frankly, I'd have preferred 2 million extra
into primary health care or education or refuges in remote indigenous
communities,.or any remote communities, or in delivering potable water
to some place in the developing world that needs it. If, my opinion to
the contrary, there really are no better ways of spending 2 million
(or 20 million as Stanhope suggested) then the money should be handed
back to those who need it most so they can work it out.
> Seriously ...what's to be done about Tibet?
>
The same thing that's to be done about human rights in China in
general. Keep up trade and political engagement, by all means, but the
NILF (nothing in life is free) principle applies. There was no reason
to run this event, so it was a freevie to Beijing's PR.
> Before after or while freeing Papua, the Palestinians,
> Iraq, the entire Zimbabwe nation....
>
One can walk and talk and chew gum, and if one is used to do all
three, then it's easier.
> I believe it is as firmly under Chinese control as
> the 500 aboriginal nations are under ours, and the goal must
> be human rights, possibly autonomy, but that independence is
> unlikely.
>
I agree, and I'm far from sure that even the Tibetans want
independence. I do believe they'd like a bit more say in the pattern
of development in their region and a better slice of the benefits, and
of course, the kinds of freedoms that we here take as our starting
point. I suspect one could say that about the bulk of the populace in
China.
> Even the Dalia Llama says the Games should be sup****ted,
[Dalai Lama] He's not a camel.
Well he *has* to say that, doesn't he, but in any case, so what?
> at least he and I see the need to deal intelligently with
> an opponent, not emotionally... especially when they are
> a 2000lb Panda with our economic nuts in their hand. =A0;-)
>
You and the DL eh? ;-)
What his opinion is or is not, is not decisive in what should be done
here.
Fran
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