It is in times like these pundits usually roll out George Orwell to explain our seemingly unending loss of liberty. But the latest news on David Hicks, if correct, is pure Joseph Heller.
“Okay David, we’re going to give you a fair trial, just like the President said, but first you have to plead guilty,”
“Plead guilty?”
“Yes. That’s if you want a fair trial.”
“So to get a fair trial I have to plead guilty first.”
“Yes, but it’s your choice, David. No pressure.”
“What happens if I don’t plead guilty?”
“Why wouldn’t you want to do that, David? If you don’t plead guilty you obviously don’t want a fair trial.”
Of course, it is now impossible for Hicks to have any form of "fair" trial. He has been detained without legal aid for two years. Without charge. His persecutors have a two-year head start over his defence team. The rules of evidence at these “fair trials” allow the admission of all sorts of hear-say evidence. And it goes on and on.
And his government refuses to take a stand, not for the liberties of Hicks but for those of all Australians.
And these guys, the coalition of the corrupt, is the vanguard of freedom and democracy? What a sad state this world is in.
A major contributor to that situation is the PR industry, the Sultans of Spin. Web Diary names the spin doctor its most memorable person of 2003:
“We can all rejoice at the sight of Saddam in chains, and congratulate the soldiers who caught him. But we should also congratulate their Spin Doctors. In January they sold the line that toppling Saddam did not alone justify invasion, but disarming him of WMD did. In December they sold the line that Saddam turning out to be disarmed of his WMD already didn’t make the invasion unjustified, because Saddam had now been toppled. Spin Doctoring at its finest, where what was said yesterday no longer exists. Oh, except that they do keep reminding us anti-invasion types that we’re all still appeasers. You figure it out.”
The Girlie appears to have taken up jogging. I’ll keep you posted on that one. Yesterday she asked for $85 for her year 12 school jersey then “forgot” to buy it and came home with a ticket to the Big Day Out.
Revenge will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine. And it will be sweet: if I go too!