Hypocrisy or just blatant stupidity?

Listening to 4ZZZ is a bit like intercepting enemy transmissions that happen to be broadcast in clear. The latest cause is the upcoming Land Warfare Conference in Brisbane 27-31 Oct 08. They plan to try and stop the event taking place, much like they managed to achieve in Adelaide. If they can’t achieve that, they’ll be protesting outside the Brisbane Convention Centre for the duration of the conference. You’ve really got to admire their idealism naiveté stupidity. Do they really think that by protesting at a conference, they will deny the ADF the opportunity to discuss the future of Land Warfare, and by default, stop war from happening? Do they really think that by protesting at a conference they will stop DSTO and DMO from trialling and procuring new weapon systems for the ADF? Do they think that by denying the ADF the best in modern weaponry that they will prevent the ADF from doing the job that the government (currently a flavour they are so very fond of) dictates to it?

The next activity on the calendar is a workshop (I detest that term; words have meanings, a workshop is not a place where hippies gather to talk shit) that will deal with plans to make Qld nuclear free, and to discuss plans for disrupting Exercise Talisman Sabre 09, the biennial exercise between the ADF and the US.

I must confess to being a little conflicted about that one. If they have their way and get the exercise cancelled, it will save me months of work and several weeks living in the dirt at Shoalwater Bay. On the other hand, the exercise will provide the ADF and our US allies to exercise in a relatively benign environment before teaming up to do the real thing in far less accommodating environs. I also just can’t bring myself to put my own comfort and laziness over the dual prospect of seeing the ADF denied the biggest training activity for the next two years, and seeing reality starved hippies get their way.

The twisted logic of these people has managed to determine that a conference held by the sworn servants of their elected officials to improve the capability of the taxpayer funded ADF is something that should be shut down, but a workshop (aaarrgh!) to plan subversive activities to disrupt an exercise endorsed by the elected officials of the people of Australia, held the very next weekend, is fine and attendance should be encouraged. Power to the people, man!

In the interest of fairness, I propose that people in Brisbane opposed to the plans of the appeasers at Peace Convergence form their own protest group. I’m thinking the People Against Convergence Organisation. We could stage our own rally at the convention centre demanding the right of our elected officials and their legitimate employees and business partners to discuss better options for the employment of the ADF. We could also demand that they cancel their workshop smoke-in because it plans to hinder the operational capability of the ADF, impact on the capability of the ADF to operate in conjunction with our major ally, and deny Queenslanders the option of a cheaper and cleaner source of energy.

On second thoughts, I have better things to be doing on my weekend than trying to thwart the plans of an irrelevant and impotent fringe group.