Pretty good article.

But it all makes sense because nothing much happened - none of the globalisation warrior violence witnessed in Melbourne several months ago and no bombs going off.

What of the argument that the army of black clad police and Stalinesque streetscape acted as a deterrent to hardcore ski-mask protesters and (conned) jihadists alike? So it was costly but then again it could have worse... goes the argument.

Anyway one good thing is that Howard's big expensive international security show hasn't won him any votes (in the polls). He failed to create a violent wedge in the community and then herd those in fear in his electoral direction.

Rudd's moderation won out and Rudd proved he could talk to China and Howard's boss.

Pete

Interesting comment Plantagenet about talking to China. This means tugging of forelocks and general bowing and scraping from Mr Rudd while a few million Chinese do forced labour for their sins and several million Tibetans wonder if these leeches will ever get off their backs. Talk about a well-thought out suck-up! As has been pointed out endlessly, Cantonese is the language of commerce while Mandarin is that of beurocracy; Mr Rudd is proficient in.... Yep.

Anyhow,this aside, I am in a tourism busness in Qld and had quite a weekend dealing with Sydneysiders who'd bolted away for the 3-Day break due to APEC. At the Saturday market, with our local Federal MP (Nationals) having a one-off information stand, there was ample (more than) for anyone to whinge about anything they wished, or even to say "shove it up your date, fascist oppressor of the working class". Funnily enough, a number of people (even some in Bulldogs Jerseys! For non-NRL followers, the team representing Bankstown, Paul Ks old seat; centre of Australian Islam) took, and read her "propaganda" about stuff like workchoices, super-changes, generous pension arrangements such as the $20,000 tax free thresh-hold and bonuses for working past pension age etc. Several specifically mentioned how happy they were about APEC.

The paltry turnout to protest against APEC shows that there was no will to protest. The security measures were to stop violence; the protests could have easily been 100,000 strong and 2 Kilometres up the road, with a phalanx of fawning press in attendance, AND NO COPS OR FENCES. They were not, and this because no one gave a f**k, about protesting if they couldn't run riot as well. Cheers.

punter, you got one thing right: no use protesting if your not on the evening news.

fair is fair, though- the traveling apec show could have been done on a resort island where security was a doddle. putting it in sydney is part of the softening up process meant to turn ozzies into proles.

When 'nothing' happens... IT'S POLICE OVERKILL....

When Cronulla happpens.. "Where are the police"?

When the mayor of Brussells disapproves of a 'Stop Islamization' rally, because he cannot guarantee public safety.. but in the weeks beforehand can allow a "9/11 was a US conspiracy" RALLY.....

When 9/11 is 'seriously' claimed to be a "conspiracy by Jews and CIA"

You have to start asking SERIOUS questions about the Leftoids in our community and check the mental assylums for mentally unbalanced escapees.

Perhaps it's about time most of us grew some testicles and stood.. up... and were counted.

“Essentially, it was a PSYCHO-SEXUAL FANTASY OF DISCIPLINARY POWER that dispensed with the usual restraints of valid reasons for an arrest, presumption of innocence and access to legal representation for those detained.”

Oh yeah this was a balanced, reasoned opinion piece. NOT. The soft left really are deteriorating.

Posted by Paul.L: "Oh yeah this was a balanced, reasoned opinion piece. NOT. The soft left really are deteriorating."

Gosh, after such a deep, detailed, and referenced argument, they're probably quaking in their bottom of their lattes in fear of RightThinks intellectual might.

You know, the RightThink that brought us deregulated capital and credit markets.. and Bear Sterns, Amaranth, LTCM, BCCI, Enron, HIH...

That allowed AWB to fund terrorism (Iraq is about terrorism, right?) & weapons that are now being used against aussie troops.

That brought us the US Free Trade Agreement, worsening balance of trade by many millions of $/yr.

And the same RightThink brainiacs that insist on buying fighters from Uncle Sam, despite Uncle Sam not having actually made any of the fighters in question nor being able to say how much they might eventually cost. Or when they'll be ready. Thank god for old pal Andrew Peacock (once Liberal Leader, until recently armaments salesman to our Liberal government). Need i go on about RightThinks genius?
ps. Leftists can be just as dumb, but theres so few of them left they're not relevant).