Houstonian stirs a ruckus in Australia

[lovuian]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3357623

War protests get him 5 days in jail, a revoked visa and a bill for $8,000
By EDWARD HEGSTROM
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

In Houston, Scott Parkin lived a mostly inconspicuous life as a part-time history teacher and peace activist.



But in Australia, he has become a media sensation, a symbol of dissent and a topic of fervent Australian senate debate. When he was arrested this month after participating in a Sydney protest against the Houston-based company Halliburton, some Australians started describing him as the country's first "political prisoner."

"It's crazy," Parkin, 36, said in an interview Friday, hours after his return to Houston. He said he was not accustomed to being the subject of a "media frenzy."

And though he has vowed to put the experience behind him now that he is back in Houston, it might not be that simple. The Australian government has announced that it will try to bill him for more than $8,000, which includes the cost of his two government escorts to the United States and his time in jail.

more...
What a story!!!

[Trillo]

1. Is this the wave of the future?

Dissent politically and be punished, as in guilty before conviction, by huge fees due and payable to the political oppressor?

That's a game that only corporations should play with each other.

[Kailassa]

2. don't knock Hallibuton, or else ...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/big-brother-keeps-an-active-watch/2005/09/16/1126750134103.html

Parkin says he has been a political activist for 15 years. In his most recent incarnation, he is a community organiser for a group called Houston Global Awareness, whose self-appointed role is to act as a burr under the well-upholstered saddle of Halliburton, the multi-tasked oil services and nation-building conglomerate, also based in Houston.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/rough-justice/2005/09/16/1126750134100.html

Parkin was shaken. The 36-year-old community college instructor, who says he espouses the path of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, had been travelling around Australia for months, giving workshops on non-violent political activism. In Sydney late last month he joined hundreds of anti-globalisation demonstrators outside the Opera House, denouncing 300 of the world's top executives at the Forbes Global CEO Conference. Among the protesters were the Greens senator Kerry Nettle and one of her staffers, Max Phillips. There were clashes, arrests and a trampled fence.

The demonstrations made few front-page headlines, although Parkin did appear on TV news. He also helped out with a bit of street theatre, "The Coalition of the Billing", outside the Sydney headquarters of Halliburton, a giant US contractor in Iraq.


Autralia's prime minister would deport his own grandmother, if Bush asked him to. And Jesus, Ghandhi or Mother Theresa would be cavity searched and locked in one of the desert prison camps for illegal immigrants that even legal Australians have been locked in and deported from.

However the story here is not just about Australia. This is the result of our "Patriot Act" that was rushed through out parliament after the twin tower bombings. The right to free speech is disappearing in your country and mine, and people bullied into corners from which they can be made to look unpatriotic and stupid if they object.

"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down." : Frederick Douglass

[marions ghost]

3. Australian prime minister John Howard

has created a repressive government in the mold of the Neo-cons in America, whom he is in bed with. Many Aussies are unhappy about this.

[Kailassa]

4. chili at the Bush's

It was a laugh when Johnny Howard was invited to dinner at Bush's Ranch, and was so proud of the honour. It made all his ass-licking and sending Australian troops to Iraq worth while. And Bush, who thought our PM was Jonn Major when he visited Australia, fed Johnny a "family favourite", of green chili grits which he must have known would be anathema to a traditional Australian like Howard.

Several times since then our government has labelled things in Australia, which it would previously have called anti-Australian, as anti-American. (puke) It doesn't occur to Howard and co that there might be more to America than Bush's circle of minders, yes-men and zip-uppers.

[Violet_Crumble]

5. John Howard's blog...

http://johnhoward.blogspot.com/

[lostnfound]

6. Indymedia story with links to Australian articles found here:

http://houston.indymedia.org/

[lovuian]

7. Kick

:kick: Wonder what will happen if Cindy Sheehan would go to Australia???