Juli-aaaaaahhhhh

By Darryl Mason

Liberal Party activists Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt get started on their campaign to seed division in the federal Labor Party vote, by pushing deputy prime minister Julia Gillard as the person who should leading Labor into the next election.

After all, Kevin Rudd is a one term prime minister, or so goes the new chant, even though polls show nothing like the anger and outrage against Rudd that professional Liberal Party activist-columnists, including Miranda Devine, claim is running wild across the land.

You know what's coming next, don't you? A full-blown campaign from the Friends Of The Liberal Party in the opinion pages of, mostly, the Murdoch media claiming that Gillard "has almost got the numbers" and "is set to challenge for the leadership of the Labor Party."

It's early March now, the election is likely to arrive before late November, so they'll need at least four months to really get those Gillard Vs Rudd rumours flaming up, after they light the first fires of course.

So expect rumours along the lines of "Senior Labor Party officials believe Rudd is dooming the government to one term" and "Gillard knows she can win where Rudd cannot" to start flooding the gruesomely predictable opinion pages of the Herald Sun, the Daily Telegraph and The Australian in a month or so. Paul Sheehan from the Sydney Morning Herald can be relied on to join in the chanting, too.

Murdoch-funded Liberal Party activists like Andrew Bolt want to get started now, he's champing at the bit, but he knows it's still a bit too soon.

First, Glenn Milne has to fill a Sunday Telegraph page with "leaks" from "senior government figures", and then it's on.

Not the federal Labor government leadership challenge, just the column filler that will breed more columns and heated talkback debate. Anything, anything, to avoid devoting all but the most hostile attention to The Greens, who are shaping up to gain control of the Senate.

The 20th century newspapers have to at least try and give the impression that they can still influence the outcome of elections, even if they no longer really believe it themselves.

And it surely must be only a matter of weeks now before some Liberal Party politician embarrasses himself by claiming Kevin Rudd is an "Epic Fail."

Or maybe they're saving that for some of their 'hip' new campaign ads?

March 10 update : And so it begins, earlier than I predicted :

"Jones and I aren't alone among conservatives for falling for a politician whose choice of books now suggests she's readying to take over from the increasingly friendless Kevin Rudd."

"Watch your back Kevin."

"So while we love challenger Gillard now...."

She's already challenging Kevin Rudd for leadership of the Labor Party? Scoop!

And this note of warning :

"I fear this love for La Gillard may well end in tears, like Act 5 of Romeo and Juliet itself."

Julia Gillard will appear one day to be dead, and Australian conservative journalists will commit suicide and then Gillard will wake up from her sleep to find them all dead and then kill herself out of intolerable grief and loss?

And, man, and I thought I had some weird fantasies :

Has (Julia Gillard) bent global warmist Tim Flannery over the dispatch box in the middle of Question Time and administered a richly deserved spanking with a dead penguin....?

Weirdo.

APEC Protesters Should Be Alert For Agent Provocateurs In Their Midsts

Alan Jones Wants Police To Drive Trucks Into Protest Rallies, Demands Marches Be Made Illegal

NSW police have made clear that they anticipate violence during protests at the APEC summit in early September. So much so that 500 places will be cleared in prisons to house protesters, who can be held without bail for up to 11 days, merely on the suspicion that they may be planning violent acts.

But a stunning admission by police in Canada should act as a clear warning to those planning to march and protest. Be on the lookout for masked, hooded 'protesters' who will attempt to cause violence so police can break up marches and detain hundreds of people.

During a protest in Quebec earlier this week, protest organisers surrounded and singled out three men, wearing ski-masks and bandannas to disguise their identities, who were were trying to provoke the police blocking a street. The three men were acting aggressively and at least one was armed with a large rock and was ready to throw it at police before he was stopped by the protesters.

The three masked men then tried to seek shelter with the police, and were supposedly arrested when they pushed through the police line.

The twist to this tale is that Quebec police have now admitted that the masked men were undercover officers.

The police were only forced to admit all this because the entire incident was captured on a remarkable piece of video footage now setting fire to the internet, and Canadian media locked onto the story and forced the police to answer questions raised by the video.

Australian media must now ask the NSW and federal police if they also intend to use masked, undercover officers and agents to infiltrate crowds of peaceful protesters during the APEC marches and rallies.

And all protesters must be on the lookout for masked people trying to provoke police or cause damage to shops and vehicles.

Thanks to this remarkable admission by the Quebec police, Sydney protesters cannot simply assume that there will not be those amongst their ranks who are there to cause trouble, so police have a justification for arrests and canceling other marches.

Watch the video and read the rest of this incredible story over at Your New Reality.


One of prime minister John Howard's best friends, radio shock jock Alan Jones, is playing along with the 'Stop The Violent Protesters' script, and is loudly attempting to prepare the public to oppose the democratic right of Sydneysiders to voice their opinions and march through the streets of their own city.

Jones is also hyping the proposition that APEC protests will turn violent. He states it as a fact, two weeks out from the first public march or rally.

Incredibly, Jones is now urging police to use violence against any and all protesters, before the first march has even been held and wants the police to use trucks as battering rams.

So much for free speech. So much for democracy. Jones wants any and all opposition and dissent crushed, violently if need be. He's also wondering if the Army should be called in to deal with protesters. Ignorant idiot that he is, Jones doesn't even know that armed soldiers are already scheduled to patrol the streets of Sydney. But to deal with, and react, to possible acts of terrorism, not peaceful protesters

Why should the protesters be given approval to march or assemble just because they want to?

...we've got the spectacle of what happened last year at the G20 summit in Melbourne. rightening. Barricades burnt, police pelted with bottles and garbage. We've only got 14,000 police.

Do we need the Army?

There is no reason why these people should be allowed to march.

Except for the whole democracy thing, you remember that, don't you Alan? Democracy? What our troops are supposedly fighting for in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Tell them they can't be trusted to behave in APEC week.

Tell them that our police and security services are not going to be made frontline fodder for their violence.

Make an application to the Supreme Court to argue that case. And if there's a 600,000 dollar water cannon which we've purchased, use it. If it can knock protesters off their feet, if they defy the law in numbers, use it.

Not only does Jones think the mini-police state that is about to engulf Sydney is a good thing, he doesn't think the security zones and vast new police powers go far enough.

Of course, when talking about riots and how such footage aired on international television will embarrass and shame all Australians, Jones doesn't mention the riot at Cronulla Beach, where thousands of white Australians chanted racists slogans and dozens brutally beat, punched, kicked and assaulted innocent people, and even women who happened to get in their way.

Why didn't Jones make reference to the Cronulla Beach riot when he talks about how a protest can get out of control and turn violent?

Surely it wouldn't be because he helped to rally, organise and inflame the violence and hatred on show at Cronulla Beach in December 2005 by reading out e-mails and text messages on his radio show for the full week proceeding the riot? Even when police told him to shut the hell up?

There is no reason why these people should be allowed to march.

The fact that Jones has a radio show where he can voice such opinions is exactly the reason why people should be allowed to march.

It's called Freedom of Speech. It's all a part of the excellence of living in a free democracy.

Scroll down for more stories related to the coming APEC summit.

Video Of Undercover Police Trying To Stir Up Violence During Peaceful Protest

Sydney Airport, Bondi Beach, North Shore Suburb, Major Hotels, To Fall Under APEC 'Security Zone'