b r a v e c r e a t u r e s

The Cole Enquiry handed down its report yesterday and it was tabled in Parliament.

The gnashing of teeth from the opposition was audible here in Melbourne as the Government and its Ministers were exonerated of any criminal charges. AWB and it leadership on the other hand have been dealt a stinging rebuke which is (likely) going to result in ugly, painful, personally damaging legal action. 

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of fellows far as I can see.

The report concludes that the employees of AWB knowingly paid money to Saddam Hussein's regime and actively sought ways to get around the UN Sanctions against Iraq and Australian Business and International law. They actively engaged in analysis to find ways to skate as close legal line as possible - and clearly they skated over it.

 As dreadful as this seems, even in with the hindsight provided by being at this end of the WMD-less Iraq war, why is this so surprising?

Does anyone really think that corporations are paragons of virtue? That they don't attempt to manipulate situations, the law and government to their advantage? That business wont do whatever it takes to make a profit?

It seems that the current business climate is more about what you can get away with, rather than what is right or honourable. And that for business the horizon for planning doesn't extend much further than the current financial year, or the next reporting period.

When there is so much money on the table, when senior executives stand to make such enormous personal profit, is it surprising to see corporate misconduct like Enron, Halliburton and Parmalat; and now like AWB?

I don't agree with it, I don't think it's right, but it just doesn't surprise me. The western capitalist system is set up to encourage greed, so lets not fool ourselves that results like this are anything other than expected. Not that I am suggesting that the alternative is any less intrinsically corrupting, that is if there is actually an alternative in play at the moment.

When piles of money are raining at you from on high, I suspect that its hard to resist. Even though, lets face it, there is actually only so much money needed to get you to happy. More money, doesn't make you more happy. Its just more money. Don't get me wrong, I like nice things, and I like to live well, but if two years as a (very) poor student taught me anything, it was that I could live and be happy on very little.

A lesson I suspect the folks from AWB are about to need to learn.

At 5.30 in the morning on September 11th 2001, I climbed down the hill from my place in San Francisco and caught the bus to go to the gym. As we went through the Castro, some old guy got on the bus - dishevelled, unwashed and wild eyed. He was talking about someone flying a plane into a building in New York. I settled back into my public transport nap until we got to 16th St where I got off and walked to the gym.

When I arrived everyone was clustered around the  TV's near the cardio equipment. A plane, probably an Air American flight, had crashed into one of the World Trade Centre towers, I was just getting my head around what I was seeing when the second plane came in.

I watched it live.

Just about everyone has a story about where they were on September 11th. Its a seminal moment in our history and while certainly not the biggest disaster in this new century, its received the most media attention. Now a new movie will give it some more attention and this one will, I think, bring with it a certain amount of catharsis.

The film is shown in nearly real time and chronicles a hypothetical reconstruction of what happened on September 11, 2001. Four planes were hijacked on the day and while three of them reached their targets in New York and Washington, one did not. "United 93" is the story of the fourth which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot.

The film is unsettling from the beginning. You know that everyone on the plane is going to die, and I will admit that there were a few moments in the first 15 minutes when I questioned if I was going to sit through it. I stayed and I am glad I did.

Shot with grainy stock using a handheld, Cinéma vérité /documentary style the film is intimate, gripping and realistic. The actors are normal looking people and behave in normal ways, there are no heroics and no hero's. It took me a while to spot an actor I recognised and more than once I wondered if they had used non actors for the piece - the story itself takes center stage and is the star of the film.

 I found the style of the film to be very non standard. There was no single view point, with story parts being told by all of the players on and off the flight. Sitting there I felt the best way to describe it was as a "tapestry", the international poster really does give an excellent feel for what I mean. The story rest solely in the cabin of United 93, it covers evens in FAA control centres and the NORAD military command to give a very well rounded view of events.

There is some predictable All American RaRa, but surprisingly not as much as I expected. The passengers are hysterical, frightened and very human. The strongest theme of American Heroism is provided as a counterpoint with the German passenger, Christian Adams, being portrayed as weak and trying to appease the hijackers. A not very subtle dig at the "weak" Europeans and their stance on Iraq and the 'War on Terror". Understandably Christian Adams widow, Silke, apparently refused to be involved in the film.

In contrast I am personally very pleased to see that the gay man on the flight, Mark Bingham†, is not only at the centre of the action, but is also played by the totally hot Cheyenne Jackson . While it is a pity they do not make a it known he is gay, he at no point cries like a bitch or offers fashion advice - I am going to call this a marginal win.

Unexpectedly I walked away with a surprising amount of sympathy for the hijacker pilot, Ziad Jarrah. A message that I think was important for the film, making it stronger and more human. It is easy to fall back on demonising the terrorists, to deal with them simply as an evil other, but I suspect that approach is not going to give us a resolution to the escalating conflict that doesn't involve genocide. While not condoning their action, the film does show, particularly Ziad, to have a great deal of humanity.

All up I think this film is a must see. It will bring up things you had put aside, but film making is also about helping us deal with our pain. I think this movie does exactly that. 

†Mark Bingham is my only one degree of seperation with 911. I didn't know him well, just chatting pals at the gym, but I knew him and his presence was missed in San Francisco. That he was gay is almost a non issue - almost. His bravery has been documented from the phone calls from United 93 and verified by the people who knew him. He did what he had to for the people on the plane with him and the people on the ground, even knowing that he was unlikely to survive. And all this for a country who does not recognise his orientation enough to allow brave men like him to be public about their sexuality and serve the military.

Another example of a gay man turning the other cheek and just getting on with life in a way that the moral scolds simply cannot match.

Mark was a good man, and the world is a lesser place with out him in it. 

I had a thought the other day, about the nature of our world governments. And I am wondering if we haven't ended up back in some kind of monarchy.

I know that here in Australia, like many other countries† such as the US, the UK, Canada and Germany are nominally democracies of one stripe or another, but looking at how we talk about our government it feels like or heads of state are starting to regain the roles traditional place as all powerful monarch. We talk about the Bush Administration, or the Howard government as if the head of state is all powerful.

Meh!

The other day I heard that Director of Reconciliation Australia, Mick Dodson, has refused to deal with the Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Mal Brough, rather he will only deal with Mr Howard.

One - J'Ho shouldn't  be a one stop shop for everyones problems, no matter what he or random 16 year old school boys think.

Two - Dude! Can you not like work with someone to get a resolution. Phah. You can't pick your family, so stop getting your panties bunched about Mal Brough and get ON WITH IT. There are enough problems for Indigenous Australians with out you pulling a prissy. 

I am going to circle back to the whole "Head of State as Monarch" thing‡, but not tonight. Tonight we are going to have a little look at what happens when two of these new age Monarchs meet and greet.

No matter how powerful people become, basic school yard behaviour never seems far away. We know that the US is a little miffed at the Krauts about the whole not invading Iraq thing - cause, you know, that went so well. And if the Germans had joined in the blame would be spread a little thinner.

I also think that the US is still a little smug about the whole World War II thing.

At the recent G8 summit George Bush just didn't seem to be able to keep his hands to himself. He just had to step into Chancellor Merkels personal space with a bit of inappropriate behavior that in any other context would have earned any other person a trip to HR and some pretty serious counselling - that is IF the other party didn't press charges. In this case, since he is carrying the nuclear football it seems that we all shrug and look the other way.

Merkel at least clearly didn't appreciate the "gesture" but was able to give George a very clear NO MEANS NO. I must admit that I have an increased appreciation for George Bush's cultural illiteracy and rank stupidity courage. As anyone who has spent any time in Germany will be aware, you DON"T mess with the Hamburg Girls - they will FUCK YOU UP.

Given that Angela Merkel, a good Hamburger Fraulein, wiped the floor with cutely named, long standing incumbent of the role Gerhard Schröder. His good hair and craggy good looks (think Emilio Zegna model past his prime) was never going to save him once she got traction. Sorry dude. Personally I think its been a good transition for him. In my opinion, he was always going to be much happier following his musical career.

Covering the world from the tinyist, not to mention coldest flat in christendom is not an easy charge, but we here at Brave Creatures are deeply committed to boldy pursue the stories, the truth you need, no matter the cost.

Well enough of the truth to give you a general and fairly well slanted picture - or to get a gag out. Given the quality of journalism at the momnent we feel we are running well within the pack.

To improve the serivice to you are unpaying, but deeply devoted audiaqcne we here at Brave Creatures are starting to partner with other new affiliates to bring you more depth and insight on an issue, And in this case we are crossing live to New York City for some of Americas most hard hitting journalism on the Merkel Massage incident.

Thanks Jon .

† I dont include France in this list because they are too busy having sex and Italy because they are pretty much crazy.

‡ Oh and dont you know Betty Windsor is excited

It was is shaping up to be the court even of the decade, the Cole Inquiry into the AWB Kickback scandal is going from strength to strength, and I am hanging on every new development. I had been almost certain that J’Ho’s Teflon coated government was going to continue to side step the shit storm is behaviour has created but perhaps this time something might actually get through.

For those of you not following this antipodean drama Australias’ monopoly wheat exporter AWB , formally known as the Australian Wheat Board, has been caught very red faced with its hand in the pocket of the UN. It appears that they were knowingly inflating their wheat prices when selling to Iraq and used that overrun to pay over $300M in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime. It looks like they were not the only company involved in all of this, but to date no formed stools have clung to any of the other players including BHP , Australias’ landmark oil and gas exploration company.

The most significant thing that has come out to date however is that it appears that a number of senior Ministers in the Howard government had close dealings with AWB at the time this was going on. Those potentially involved include Mark Vale; Deputy PM, Leader of the Nationals and Trade Minister; and J’Ho himself.

Now the Cole enquiry had originally had its terms limited to exclude investigating government involvement, but some clever clogs had engineered things so that its well nigh impossible for J’Ho not to open things up without looking like he is covering something up. The next few weeks should be REALLY interesting.

John Howard is one of the smoothest political operators to emerge on the scene in the last few decades, and I suspect faster than you can say “plausible deniability” he is going to wiggle his way out of this, so I am not jigging for joy just yet. But it is going to take some political capital to do so and it will leave him injured.

Now if the Labor party just had a spine, or even a recognisable policy framework they might be able to capitalise on this and keep up the momentum. But somehow I doubt it. The days of labor “Maintaining the rage” seem, for the nonce, to have passed. I may just have to settle for watching J’Ho squirm.

Race riots in Australia. I didn’t think I would see that in my life time, but then so much has changed since September 11th 2001. And more seems to be changing all of the time.

In the last month we have seen the passage of new anti-terrorism legislation through the parliament, emergency revisions to existing legislation and the arrest of a number of people on charges of planning a terrorist attack here. Now the New South Wales government has, in an emergency session, passed legislation providing police with broader powers to search, detain and restrict access to people engaged in, or suspected of planning violence.

I can see the reasons for these expanded powers and I agree that as a society we need to protect the peace. But what seems to be missing from all of this is a focus on the causes of the violence, beyond labeling as racially motivated. What is causing these groups to lash out at each other and what can we do to deal with these issues?

I think the Prime Minister has been a little disingenuous in his assertion that Australia is not a racist country, I think we are just as vulnerable to narrow and parochial thinking as any country. What we do have is a history of not (usually) getting too caught up in events so that things tend to get worked out, rather than escalated. This time however, I am worried.

The media has been feeding the fear in Sydney and across the country; and local, state and federal politicians are all grand standing over the issue. This is all occurring against the background of a lot of strife for the Muslim community. The recent arrests of predominantly Muslim Australians on anti-terrorism charges, the debate over the new anti terrorism laws, and the ongoing violence in Iraq, Iran and Israel.

I really feel a great deal of sympathy for Muslims, this is not an easy time. I am hardly surprised that a bunch of young guys, having lived with the mounting pressure on the Islamic community since 2001, finally snapped. I am also not surprised that a bunch of Anglo boys felt that they had some sort of tacit community permission to give the Muslim boys grief.

So now what are we doing about it. Is there a push to reunite the divided communities? Is the government  coming out with pro active plans to improve race relations? Not so much. We have had lots of condemnation and police action with very little on the reconciliation front. But then this is from the government and the Prime Minister who cant say sorry.

The best we have had is Cate Blanchet getting up and give a speech at the beach. Last time I checked, Cate isn’t head of state (except in Lothlórien) and while I am glad she is prepared to come out in support of strengthening the community I don’t think she should be leading the charge.

Right now I am not sure what can be done. I have done the obvious, writing to my state and federal Senators as well as the Victorian Premier, but I suspect the thing that we all can do is a little more subtle. I think that if we want to live in a peaceful country, we need to think about what it means to have other religions and nationalities amongst us; to learn to differentiate between what is part of the problem (terrorists) and of the solution (Muslims SHARING our country); and to try and include new Australians so they can share their culture rather than be simply trying to assimilate.

Australia has enjoyed a number of very peaceful years as wave, upon wave of migrants from a range of cultures has come to our shores. These migrants have shared their culture and expanded our horizons, but they did so against the background of relative global peace. The current global climate is not peaceful so it is making things harder, but I think that Australians can manage to deal with the complexities.

On a random browse of the internet (I was looking for Australia’s territory in the Antarctic) I stumbled on a map with a slightly disturbing caption - "This color map of Australia is courtesy of the CIA Factbook".

THERE IS A CIA FACT BOOK? And its online!!

So of course I had to have a look. Interestingly enough its pretty detailed and, in its own way, factually pretty up to date. The obvious place to start with it was Iraq.

Some of the detail includes:

• A fairly good map, which is actually(better than the Australian one.
• Lots of detail on the geography, including that they don’t have a name for the highest mountain, but they can tell which one it isn’t.
• Population facts
• Economy
• Politics and
• Some history

The details in the fact book are fairly clearly skewed to the US governments current political agenda, but I am not sure anyone could reasonably expect anything else. Apart from that it was concise and pretty interesting.

The question I have is what else can they be telling us? Surely the CIA has better things to talk about than gross national product and the international organizations that country belongs to. You have to wonder if there isn’t SOME sort of juicy gossip they could be letting out that doesn’t a/ endanger the US national interest; and b/ risk starting a war with someone.

Surely there is some fresh kiss and tell type gossip that could serve to distract the global public from the actual events of the day.

Perhaps a daily index of the colour of heads of states underwear. Or maybe what they had for breakfast, or the last time they had sex with their spouse (or others). This last one could give us some real insight into some of their reactions to events. It would make it clear to us that if Tony was a little tetchy, it was a least PARTIALLY because Cherie wasn’t giving him any sugar.

Given the sort of funding the CIA, and the rest of the global intelligence services, receive on a annual basis, surely the least we, the tax paying public can expect is some quality tabloid style entertainment.