Greg Sheridan's Bizarre Pro-APEC Anti-Democracy Propaganda

From the Sunday Telegraph :

ALL this week and next weekend, Sydney will host the biggest and most important international meeting in the history of Australia.

The Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation forum will attract cabinet ministers and government leaders from 21 economies around the Asia Pacific.

There will inevitably be some traffic disruption in and around central Sydney, but it is truly in a noble cause.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, was right when he said that if there is any real disturbance, the people to blame for this are not the APEC delegates, but the violent demonstrators themselves.

It is a tragedy of modern democracies that violent extremists exploit their freedoms to try to shut down free discussion.

It is a bitter fruit of the anti-democratic, totalitarian, fascist, street-fighting qualities of modern demonstrators that, for international delegates, it can be easier to have a free discussion in Beijing than Sydney.

It would, of course, be madness for a proud, democratic nation like Australia to give in to the anti-democratic forces by not holding meetings such as APEC.

APEC provides an opportunity for leaders to hold private meetings, without all the pre-meeting negotiation involved in one leader visiting another's country.

At difficult times between the US and China, their presidents have been able to meet at APEC and often defuse the tensions between their nations.

APEC is wholly a good thing.

The demonstrators trying to wreck it are nuts.

95% of the commenters who responded to Sheridan's 'story' recognized it for the blatant anti-democratic, pro-fascist propaganda that it is. Most could scarcely believe such crap would be printed in an Australian newspaper.